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The dream always starts the same.
The details might blur into one another, colors of garments might change from time to time, but the dream always starts the same.
One might think the consistency would put Dimitri’s mind at ease, but this is far from the truth. In dreams his mind is foggy, and when he finally realizes the nightmare he’s caught in, it’s too late. It’s always too late.
The dream starts in a ballroom.
Couples mingle about the large area, their laughs carrying throughout the room. Sounds of champagne glasses clinking against one another can be heard above the murmurs of conversation discussing politics and frivolities.
It is Dimitri who walks among his subjects. He tries to call out to them, but they never can hear him, for whatever reason. They’re all occupied with one another. His hair is tied up, and he’s sporting a royal blue suit.
His father and his stepmother are the center of attention. They’re radiant under the lights of the crystal chandelier that hangs above. The shining golden crowns that sit upon their heads draw the attention of those who surround them. Dimitri is proud to call the royal couple his parents. He reaches out to take his mother’s arm, but he’s cut off by a surge of people who suddenly walk by.
The attendees of the party feel eerily familiar. He’s never seen them at councils or around the town square. Never has he seen them at dinner parties or galas. He cannot place their faces, but something inside of him is certain he has seen them somewhere. If not in his own kingdom, then where?
He spots a tall young man who stands in the corner of the room. It is Glenn who waves him over. Dimitri is grateful to find at least one friend tonight.
“It’s so good to see you, Glenn!” Dimitri says, clasping a hand to his shoulder.
“The same to you,” he responds, his smile as charming as ever.
Dimitri surveys the room, searching for more of his friends. “Where’s your father? And Felix?” The light of the chandelier catches a golden band that wraps around Glenn’s ring finger. “I don’t see Ingrid here, either.”
“They are not with us,” Glenn states. He glances to the doorway. “But I suppose they will join us one day.”
Before Dimitri can ask more, Glenn is whisked away.
Dimitri tries to make his way through the crowd once more. The people gather even tighter, making it harder to walk throughout the sea of people. It is suffocating, in a sense.
Dimitri has had this dream many times before, but what he sees next is something entirely new. The moon is visible through a glass pane decorating the ceiling of the ballroom. It creates a beacon of light, and standing at the center is Byleth.
Her dress shimmers in the moonlight, and Dimitri can see the stars reflect in her eyes. The light shines against her dark hair, which had always been somewhere between a dark green and an ocean teal. His breath catches at the sight of her, the same way it did every time he walked into Garreg Mach. Byleth sees him now, and she smiles the same smile Dimitri had come to admire more than anything.
In her mercenary days, she had been known as the Ashen Demon. Standing here, she looked more like an angel of Sothis.
Dimitri pushes back people, trying to get closer, trying to reach Byleth. When he finally does, he can do no more than stand like a fool, trying to take her all in.
“Beloved?” Her voice is soft, like the lullabies his mother used to sing him to sleep.
“I’m here,” Dimitri says, still in disbelief that she stood before him.
“Beloved.” She says again, adding a warmth to her voice that melts Dimitri.
He leads her to the dance floor, and together they begin a waltz.
The music soars around them, and their steps create a steady rhythm. It had been a long time since Dimitri had felt this at ease.
And yet, a little voice in the back of his mind tells him this was wrong. Very wrong.
What is there to worry about? he asks himself. Nothing comes to mind, but the questions still nags at the back of his brain.
Just focus on the dance.
Eventually, Byleth pulls him away, her gloved hands taking his.
“Beloved?” she asks, searching his eyes for an answer.
“I am fine,” he says, knowing the words are a lie. Her limited vocabulary is beginning to concern him.
All thoughts leave his mind when his eyes are drawn to her lips.
Byleth gives a small nod, and he kisses her. He had wanted to do this for so long, to cradle her head in his hands, and he can hardly believe he’s finally gotten the chance.
She never kisses back. Her lips are ice cold.
Dimitri immediately pulls away. “Byleth, what’s wrong?”
“Beloved…” she says, her eyes wandering to something nonexistent in the distance.
“You seem to be short on words,” Dimitri remarks, fear crawling into his laughter.
“Beloved.” Her eyes look completely glazed over. “Beloved, beloved, beloved.” Her words, once as smooth as satin, were now beginning to grow into cries of terror. “Beloved, beloved, beloved, beloved!”
Dimitri removes her gloves, trying to hold her hands, but they are just as cold as her lips.
In the center of the room, the chandelier falls from the ceiling, flames beginning to flicker against the smooth oak flooring. Somewhere in the chaos, Byleth lets go of his hands.
Dimitri’s eyes widen with horror.
This is where he begins to remember his nightmare.
The walls around him begin to crumble. On the other side of the room, his parents cling to one another, their spotless white garments now covered in blood. So much blood.
“Kill them, son! Let our deaths not be in vain!” the king cries. There’s a ring of blood circling his father’s neck. Dimitri tears his gaze away as he hears his father’s screams. Having seen this scene play out so many times before, he already knows his father’s fate.
He runs over to Glenn, hoping if he runs fast enough he can save him. By the time he reaches him, a sword has already been plunged through his heart. “You must… avenge me…” Glenn says, choking on his own blood.
Dimitri backs away, searching for an escape. His hair, once tied up, now falls around his face. He tugs at the roots, hoping the pain can distract him from the nightmare that surrounds him.
His suit is replaced with battle armor. He had wondered why the people around him looked so familiar, and now he wishes he didn’t know why.
They are all people he has killed in battle. He can pick out Kostas, Randolph, and even Kronya. They’ve fallen to the ground, and cling at his cape, crying for their lives. Asking him to spare them. There is no more ballroom. Everywhere he looks he is met with pain and destruction.
Just when Dimitri thought it was over, the very ground beneath him begins to split apart. He quickly steps away, losing his balance in the process. Some of the people grasping his cape fall, almost taking him with them.
Dimitri’s eyes meet Byleth’s once more. She whispers a single word, and even though Dimitri can’t hear her, he knows what it is. It’s the same word she’s whispered all night. A sob escapes his throat as he tries to shrug more people off of him, stepping over bodies, hoping to reach her one last time.
By now he knows she isn’t real, he knows she’s a creation from the fragment of his mind that still yearns for love. Her love is but an illusion, but he stills craves a false sense of security, he dreams of holding her in his arms.
He doesn’t care if it’s just a dream, as long as he feels whole again. When was the last time he felt loved?
Her hair has lightened into a familiar spring green, bright as the stars that still reflected in her eyes.
She’s struggling against the crowds, and a shriek escapes Dimitri as she’s knocked back into the abyss of darkness below.
She’s falling, and Dimitri wonders if he’s still dreaming, or reliving one of his worst memories. The roars of his fallen people are deafening, but they are drowned out by his own screams for his beloved.
Dimitri wakes up in a cold sweat. His hair is matted to his head, and his hand reaches for Areadbhar. The feel of cold steel in his hands is both reassuring as well as a reminder of the heavy burden he carries on his shoulders.
His sight darts between the stone walls of Garreg Mach. Waiting for the enemy. When he’s sure there’s none, he uses his lance to lift himself from the barren ground. The polearm of Areadbhar scratches against the tile floors as Dimitri makes his way to the center of the cathedral. Dimitri never thought of himself as someone who often prayed, but recent events had left him drawn towards the chapel.
When he closes his eye (the one he still has left) his visions are filled with the faces he has lost, so he resolves to pray with his eye open.
His prayers are nothing like Mercedes’s beautiful poetry. They are devastated pleas to Sothis, a hope that his pain will soon come to an end. That he’ll one day dream of a beautiful tomorrow, instead of horrific visages of a time long gone.
And perhaps, the most hopelessly desperate wish of them all, that he’ll see his Byleth once more. He’s spent everyday patrolling the grounds searching for her. A body hasn’t been found, and Dimitri grows anxious, wondering if he’ll ever find closure.
What good was it? If his dreams indicate anything, she’s already gone.
And yet…
His loved ones who haunt him at night cry to him for revenge. Byleth alone never sought vengeance. Instead she taunted him with a single word.
Beloved.
The dead may haunt him with their own despair, but Byleth’s whispers haunt him with possibilities of a love in reach.
It is a difference that makes him feel foolish, and a desire for a love he would never deserve, but it is solely this foolishness that gives him hope that she could still be alive.
That she was a voice that hadn’t yet joined the choir of the dead.