Chapter Text
Winter in Faerghus was inescapable.
The heavy snowfall forced Dimitri to take shelter in the cave, no matter how much he resented it. It had started snowing hours ago, and at first, he had been fine to carry on. His hatred and the burning need for revenge had kept him plenty warm. However, the snowfall had continued to get heavier and heavier and eventually Dimitri had barely been able to see the tip of his own lance. It was almost a miracle that he had stumbled upon the cave. It wasn’t very deep, which was likely the reason it was empty of predators, but it was deep enough to keep him out of the snowfall and shelter him from the biting cold of the wind.
Dimitri felt a measure of relief as soon as he stepped inside. His cheeks prickled now that they were out of the wind and he wrapped himself together in his cloak before settling against the wall. He had no material to make a fire, but that did not bother him too much. Most people would have to worry about freezing to death, but Dimitri was of Faerghus and his crest blessed him with more stamina and strength than most people could dream off. He would be uncomfortable, but he would survive undamaged. He had no need for comfort, survival was enough. The additional blanket that he had scavenged from the camps was put up in front of the entrance to keep out the worst of the cold. Dimitri used his clawed gauntlets to scratch holes into the stone so he would have something to hold it up.
As soon as he settled down Dimitri made sure to inspect his fingers and toes for any sign of frostbite. Missing appendages would hinder him while fighting. Thankfully, he found none.
The ghosts whispered their discontent at the break they were taking, but while Dimitri would not have hesitated to chase down any enemies despite heavy snow he had no idea where his prey was. As such it was more prudent to wait until the worst was over, at least for now. So he settled down for the night.
Some of the chill managed to creep through his cloak, but his current position was both more comfortable and safer than Dimitri was used to. With the whispers of the dead as a lullaby he drifted off to sleep.
--
He found himself in a big cavernous room, the sides lined with torches that flickered ominously. Dimitri knew the room. He was fairly certain he had been here before. When he stepped forward, lance in hand, his footsteps echoed through the hall around him. For a long moment, Dimitri thought he was alone, but then he spotted movement at the end of the room.
There was one—no, there were two figures. And when he saw them, saw where they were, Dimitri knew exactly where he was. The holy mausoleum. His steps more sure, he walked towards the end of the room. Towards the staircase that led up to what Lady Rhea had called the seat of the goddess on earth.
The throne.
A throne that was not empty, but instead occupied by a familiar figure. The professor. Her hair was back to the color she had had when they had first met her in Remire, a dark green that now glimmered in the light of the torches. She had her head tilted slightly to the side, eyes closed as if she was sleeping, but she wasn’t breathing.
This wasn’t how the dead usually haunted him.
However, the professor wasn’t alone, there was someone else, a young girl, lounging on the side of the throne, her bare feet dangling in the air. She was watching Dimitri with otherworldly eyes. She was dressed in strange clothes that did not seem functional at all.
“What do we have here…” the girl murmured as if to herself, then she glanced at the professor. “What an unusual visitor.”
Then the girl hopped from the armrest of the throne. It seemed almost as if she was floating to the ground. Dimitri watched her with weary eyes.
“Who are you?” Dimitri asked her, his voice rough from disuse, and his grip on his lance tightened. “How did I end up here?”
She studied him and started to make her way down the stairs, walking with an eerie grace. “I am the end and the beginning.”
Dimitri shifted his stance and the girl laughed, a clear tinkling sound that should have belonged to an older person. “But my name is Sothis.”
His eyes widening, Dimitri took a step back. Sothis? His eyes flickered around the room. The holy mausoleum. Where the Professor had gotten the sword of the creator. The sword that was now nowhere in sight.
He looked back to the girl, who wasn’t a girl, standing in front of the professor. She was glowing with the same unearthly light that had made the professor’s hair shine in the dark.
“You are here,” Sothis—how could she be Sothis?— told him, in a strangely echoing voice. “Because you are dreaming.” She paused and looked back at the Professor, the sudden softness on her face was startling. And even more startling was seeing that softness vanish in the instance her gaze wandered back to him. “I did not bring you here. So she must have… How curious…”
She trailed off and continued her leisure walk down the stairs.
“What is the professor doing here?” Dimitri retreated another step, his lance held in a ready position. It seemed to amuse her—the Goddess?
“She is dreaming.” The girl told him with a smile. Dimitri watched as she started walking down the staircase slowly, though her gaze remained on the professor. He looked back at her as well. It seemed like she was smiling in her sleep. The memory of the wonder he had felt when she had first done so was barely a distant memory.
“What does she dream of?” he found himself asking.
The girl smiled. “Peace.”
Dimitri’s own laughter took him by surprise. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Peace is a lie.”
The girl remained unmoved, her smile unchanging “Is it?” she asked, and suddenly there was something terrible about her presence. Dimitri’s breath stuttered in his throat.
“This is the Ethereal Moon, you should know what that means.”
Dimitri did not, and... the Goddess—but how could she be the Goddess?—must have been able to read that on his face. She chuckled, and it was the sound that should have come from the throat of a beast. When she spoke again, her voice had taken the sing-song quality of recitation. “The goddess has returned to her home in heaven to sleep and pray for peace.”
Dimitri swallowed. “But you aren’t sleeping.”
She laughed, pleased this time. “Smart boy,” She praised, and actually sounded like she meant it. “But do you know what that means?”
Dimitri looked away from her, towards the professor. He remembered what the ceremony was supposed to be about. What they say had happened in the Sealed Forest.
When he looked back to Sothis—the Goddess—she was smiling enigmatically. “Your Professor, “ she stopped, “but, mhm, she was not really yours was she?”
Dimitri’s hands tightened on his lance and he gnashed his teeth. His blood boiled at the reminder of her. The professor had been the homeroom teacher of the Black Eagles, even if she had also instructed the rest of them and often taken them along on missions. And in the end, she had stood against Edelgard. But under the almost taunting look of the goddess he said nothing, only gnashed his teeth.
“Still, your teacher or not, she would be sad to see what has become of you.” Inhuman eyes assessed his form, the messy hair, the mismatched armor, the dirty cloak, and likely found him wanting. “She so enjoyed your honesty and kindness.”
Honesty. Hah. Dimitri didn’t know if he had been true to himself, or if he had simply been clinging to what he had known of himself before. Felix, at least, had believed it was the latter. Dimitri had not wanted him to be right but given his current circumstances—
Dimitri shook his head and—likely rather foolishly—tore his head away from the descending figure to look at the professor again. Honest or not, he had enjoyed her company. There had been something special in seeing the professor find herself more and more. Not that it mattered now.
He looked back at the Goddess.
“It matters not,” he told her. “The professor is dead.” Dead, but not one of his ghosts. Maybe she would be after this dream.
Whether true or simply playacting, his honesty and kindness no longer mattered. Only one thing mattered to Dimitri now and that was seeing to Edelgard’s demise. Maybe that would be his last kindness to the world, setting the ghosts to rest and freeing the world of her taint.
“Maybe peace never lasts,” and her voice had taken on that strange echoing quality again, “But does it make that useless, worthless, not worth striving for?” Her hair glowed brighter and brighter and her walk towards Dimitri suddenly seemed like the stalk of a predator. “Do you think your own choices have no influence on it? That kindness and genuinity have no meaning? The past is set in stone… but the future...”
Dimitri tried to step back but found he could not move. “I don’t think this is something I can teach you, fool of a boy, but,” and there was no escape from her slitted eyes. ”But you must learn… and the right teacher can be found.”
The goddess smiled standing right in front of him and glowing with awe-inspiring power. Her smile was wonderful; warm, magnanimous, and terrible. “You must go back to the beginning.”
--
And Dimitri woke with a gasp. His heartbeat pounding in his ears and his breathing quick and almost panicked. In his grasp, the hilt of his lance groaned under the pressure, but he could not bring himself to let go of it.
Outside of his cave, the blizzard was still raging on. Dimitri focused on his breezing. He did not know what this strange dream had rattled him so badly. He had had far worse dreams in the past. After wiping the cold sweat from his face with the edge of his cloak, Dimitri settled back against the cold wall again. Around him, the ghosts whispered, calmer than they usually were, and it allowed him a moment to think.
The dream had been strange. Not only had he dreamed of the professor, who had been dead for nearly three years now, but he had also dreamed about the goddess. A goddess that was strangely enough completely different from any image he had ever had of her when he still had had a measure of faith.
Maybe it was because of the Ethereal Moon, the time when scripture claimed the goddess herself prayed for the people, but if that was the case, then it just proved how useless prayers were.
With a sigh, Dimitri pulled his cloak tighter around himself and prepared himself to wait out the snowstorm.