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When the ordeal was finally over and Felix was back in Faerghus and free to bury himself in cold Fradlarius soil, never to be seen by the world again, let the chronicles and records show that he did not want to visit Dagda.
Felix did not want to visit Dagda. His father had made him go once before during those surly years after the Tragedy when they barely spoke. Perhaps Rodrigue had hoped that a winter spent with his mother’s family would help him grieve.
In reality, Felix had sat in his grandparents' house, listening to the pounding rain on the roof, and discovered, to his horror, that some places had seasons that came in wet and dry rather than cold and hot.
Of course, Dimitri had been excited by the idea. Negotiations with Dagda had been going well; the local princes and headmen were intrigued by the prospect of a Fòdlan king who had conquered their ancient enemy, Adrestia. And, naturally, he’d assumed that Felix would want to go to visit his mother’s family.
Family mattered to Dimitri. Having none left apparently made him sentimental about such things.
But, in the end, the person who had broken even Felix’s notoriously iron will was Glenn.
Ever since they’d found him, haggard and bewildered and miraculously, irrationally alive, Felix had felt something deep inside of him changing. When they had dragged him out of the collapsed ruins of Shambhala, Felix had wept like a child for hours. If anyone so much as mentioned that, he loosened the sword in his sheath.
But still. It had happened.
And Glenn wanted to go to Dagda to visit their mother’s parents. So here Felix was, in southern Dagda, in the middle of summer, sweating and seasick from the journey, and desperately wishing that Dimitri had not come with them.
His mother’s family was a branch of an influential clan who owned lands up and down the coast of southern Dagda, although you would hardly know it by their house.
In Faerghus, wealthy men built castles, fortifications of stone meant to repel armies and defend against the bitter winter snows. In southern Dagda, people lived in wooden houses, some of which sat on stilts, and some of whom had sliding walls made of paper. Poor for defense, Felix thought with a shake of his head and a glance at the king, although he knew he was being unduly critical.
“Smell that warm summer air, little brother,” Glenn said, stopping to stretch and inhale deeply as the royal procession reached the walls of his grandparents’ house. The pale, sickly look was beginning to leave his face and he was grinning again. “One would never think we were related, you’re sweating so much in this climate. Even the king looks more comfortable, and he’s wearing fur for some reason.”
All of Felix’s tenderness abruptly turned to fury as he swiped at his forehead. His bangs were sticking to his skin. He glanced at Dimitri.
The king was indeed wearing fur-lined boots. He looked completely out of place in Dagda. Despite the boots, he had removed his overcoat and Felix watched his thin white shirt ripple and stick to his broad chest. There were a few beads of sweat on his collarbone, just waiting to drip down and... well, that probably wasn’t important. Dimitri’s face, however, was beaming.
“Felix!” he called out as he saw them turning to look at him. “Look at this flower, I’ve never seen anything like it! Do you think anyone would mind if we took a clipping home for Dedue?”
“It’s poisonous,” Felix shot back resentfully.
“No it isn’t!” Glenn gleefully shouted over him. “Felix has no idea what he’s talking about.”
“I could be poisonous,” Felix grumbled, looking suspiciously at the flowering vine Dimitri was examining. Glenn rolled his eyes. “And you’re getting sunburned. Your nose is going to peel.”
“I lived underground for ten years,” Glenn replied evenly. “I get sunburned everywhere.”
Blessedly, at this point they had reached the gates of the house. Felix had to admit, the place did look nicer in the summer than in the long wet winters. Bamboo grew up around the walls of the house and there was a small pond in the center of the courtyard stocked with what appeared to be enormous goldfish.
The doors of the house slid open as they approached and Felix squared his shoulders and braced himself for the worst.
His grandmother was first out, throwing up her hands and crowing with delight. She was a very small woman with her dark hair shot through with grey. She wore a long silk gown over loose pants, the fabric embroidered at the collar and sleeves.
Glenn immediately caught the old woman in a hug as she reached up to squeeze him with tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
It was at this point that Felix realized he had forgotten most of the Dagdan he had learned as a child. He knew it well enough to read, but hearing it coming out of his grandmother’s mouth rapidfire and faintly accented was a completely different experience. Glenn seemed to comprehend well enough, but he’d grown up speaking it with their mother in the years before Felix was born.
Behind his grandmother, Felix spotted his grandfather following through the door, alongside a gaggle of cousins and aunts and uncles that Felix did not recognize. All of them sported Felix’s straight dark hair and golden brown eyes. Glenn had Rodrigue’s ice blue eyes, but Felix had always been told he’d taken after his mother.
Felix’s grandfather slowly approached Dimitri. He moved slowly, but in a way that appeared stately rather than feeble. Then he bowed and said something that Felix was pretty sure was welcome.
Dimitri stared down at Felix, suddenly looking a bit lost. He seemed not to know what to do with his hands all at once. Felix rolled his eyes.
Dimitri was still holding the flower he had picked on the roadside and Felix quickly took it so that Dimitri could mirror the traditional Dagda bow with his palm against his knuckles.
"Introduce the king," Glenn nudged him. Felix squared his shoulders. He'd spent a few hours with a dictionary during those miserable nights on the boat, ensuring he could at least manage this part.
"I present to you King Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd of the United Realm of Fòdlan," Felix said stiffly in Dagdan, trying to ignore how Glenn winced at his pronunciation. "He is here as an envoy of peace, a representative of his people, and also my... uh..."
Felix trailed off, forgetting the word. Or did he actually know the word he wanted to say? Was it right to call Dimitri his friend? Or should he just say his sovereign? What exactly were they to one another right now?
"My companion," Felix finally said. Or at least, he sincerely hoped that was what he said. His grandfather's eyes had suddenly gone very wide.
“Could you tell him that I am, um, very honored to be a guest of his family?” Dimitri murmured to Felix. Felix bit his lip and nodded, trying to construct something like a sentence in his mind.
How was Glenn just chattering away with his grandmother like that? He made it look easy, like all of those years he’d been imprisoned had been spent practicing conversational Dagdan. Felix’s respect for Petra suddenly grew by tenfold.
“Uh, he says…” Felix haltingly began in Dagda, “he says thank you. For being at the… inside the… family.”
Felix’s grandfather narrowed his eyes and then Felix watched them for some reason flick down to the flower he was still holding for Dimitri. Felix quickly handed it back and Dimitri placed it gently into a buttonhole on his coat. He heard a few of his cousins gasp. He wasn't entirely sure why it was surprising.
Then finally his grandfather smiled. It was a big, bright smile, but Felix heard Dimitri’s sudden intake of breath nevertheless.
“It prevents decay,” Felix growled under his breath as Dimitri took in the shiny black lacquer over the old man’s teeth.
“I see,” Dimitri said with a self-conscious laugh. “I apologize, it just was not what I expected.”
“Felix!” Glenn suddenly demanded. “Come hug your grandmother.”
Felix reluctantly went to give the old woman a quick one armed hug. She pulled him closer with surprising strength and then reached up to prod at his cheeks and belly before shaking her head.
“Too skinny,” she said disapprovingly.
Felix yanked himself back and rearranged his clothes. He glanced over his shoulder to see Dimitri hiding a smile behind his hand. Damn him, Felix thought. Why had he even come? Perhaps he was eager to witness Felix’s humiliation as recompense for all those years of harsh words at the Officers Academy.
Then, before he could stop her, Felix watched with mortification as his grandmother marched over and wrapped Dimitri into a firm embrace as well.
“He’s the king!” Felix snapped at her in Dagdan. “You can’t, uh... grab him!”
His grandmother whirled on him, her sweet face suddenly cold and terrifying. Maybe they looked more related than he had realized.
“I don’t mind,” Dimitri quickly interjected, apparently reading the situation without speaking a word of the language. He had bent nearly double to hug the old woman in return. It was a comical sight.
Felix couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Dimitri fold someone into his arms like that.
And… oh, that sent an odd little pang through his gut.
“Please, Felix, thank her for me. It is wonderful to be treated so warmly,” Dimitri said carefully.
Felix froze as he attempted to put the words together. Glenn finally took pity on him.
“Grandmother, Felix is sorry,” Glenn said, enunciating his Dagdan very clearly. “Without me around, he grew up very mean and foolish.”
Felix clenched his fists, but under the watchful eyes of his family, he didn’t dare swing for Glenn’s head. Instead he just nodded stiffly.
His grandmother finally laughed and said something very fast and difficult to parse to Glenn who immediately cracked up into hysterical laughter.
“What did she say?” Felix demanded. Glenn just kept laughing. “Glenn! You have to tell me, what did she say?”
“She--” Glenn wiped a tear of laughter from his eye. “She said dinner is ready, let’s go in.”
Felix opened his mouth to say something very rude that hopefully none of the Dagdans would understand, but Dimitri interrupted him, still looking happily baffled by everything that was going on.
“Dinner, excellent!” he exclaimed then turned to Felix and Glenn. “Perhaps then I can present them with a gift?”
“Whatever you want,” Felix huffed, trying not to imagine what Dimitri had brought as a hospitality gift. He hoped it wasn’t cheese. Dimitri was probably about to have a rude awakening about Dagdan cuisine given the amount of dairy he usually consumed. “Just remember to take those idiotic fur boots off when you go in the house.”
“Right, of course,” Dimitri nodded quickly. Felix felt sudden regret for his sharp tone.
Inside of the house, a long table was already laid in preparation for dinner.
Cushions were laid on the floor to sit on and as a foriegn monarch, Dimitri had been given the place of honor. A few of Felix’s cousins were bringing in dishes of meat and pots of steaming broth. Felix felt suddenly self-conscious that he couldn’t put names to most of their faces.
“It smells wonderful,” Dimitri murmured as they sat and Felix’s grandmother began serving broth into their bowls. “Perhaps you could recommend something to try?”
“Just avoid anything red,” Felix muttered back grimly. “Dagdan food is hot.”
“What about that sauce Glenn is putting in the soup?” Dimitri asked curiously. “That’s almost black, not red.”
“Definitely do not eat that,” Felix commanded him. “Glenn is just insane.”
Glenn looked up and offered the small bowl of chili paste to Felix with a smirk.
As children, Felix had always pushed himself to take his meat as hot as Glenn preferred it. He’d ended several meals in tears with his father pouring milk into his mouth, but now that he was older, he had trained his body and mind to be able to handle it.
Slowly, Felix accepted the chili paste and spooned some carefully into his soup. He took a sip while staring at Glenn straight in the eye, unblinking even as the heat surged down his throat, into his nose, and nearly made him cough.
“Plain noodles in bone broth,” Felix heard his grandmother telling Dimitri firmly in her limited Fódlanese. “For Faerghus men.”
“Thank you,” Dimitri replied, accepting a bowl of thick round noodles floating in broth with only a few green onions in it for flavoring. “I am sure it will be delicious.”
Felix took another slurp of his own soup. He felt sweat beginning to break out on the back of his neck. He trailed a thin strip of meat into the broth, watching it scald and cook and feeling like his own tongue was probably doing the same thing in his mouth.
Glenn looked unbothered, adding another spoonful of chili paste to his own bowl. Felix gritted his teeth and stuck his hand out until Glenn passed the sauce back to him and he did the same.
“No, no!” Felix heard his grandmother exclaim, but his mouth was burning so badly he could barely concentrate on her.
He only looked up when half of the table uttered an audible gasp and then fell silent.
Turning his head, Felix caught Dimitri lifting the wooden spoon to his lips. On top of his plain noodles was a massive spoonful of chili paste, already staining the broth a dark red.
Slowly, Dimitri lowered the spoon, apparently self-conscious that everyone was staring at him.
“Sorry,” he said with a duck of his head, “is this not how the dish is properly served?”
Felix stared at his face. His lips were stained an orange-red from the concentrated spices. Then Felix heard his grandmother begin to laugh. She patted Dimitri on the arm a few times.
“For a Faerghus man,” she proclaimed in Dagdan, “he eats well.”
More like for a Faerghus man, he has no functional sense of taste, Felix thought with sudden panic.
“Wipe your mouth,” Felix growled to Dimitri, “before you burn your lips off. And don’t touch your eye!”
Glenn was laughing now too.
“Nice one, Dimitri, you’ve got us both beat,” Glenn said, gesturing to his own bowl. “Usually that stuff boils Felix alive and you seem to be doing fine.”
“I’m eating it, aren’t I?” Felix immediately bristled. “It’s not exactly a fair competition.”
“Try this one next, Dimitri,” Glenn said, ignoring Felix and immediately plucking an entire pepper from the top of a dish of thinly sliced beef. Several of the Dagdan cousins made low hums of trepidation as Dimitri accepted the deep red pepper.
“Thank you,” Dimitri said, looking blithely ignorant that anything unusual was happening. The idiot was trying so hard to be polite he didn’t realize he was probably scorching the inside of his mouth off.
As Dimitri bit into the pepper and swallowed with a self-conscious smile, several of Felix’s cousins began to applaud. One of his uncle’s even cheered.
“It’s odd,” Dimitri observed, “I have the strangest feeling that I’m about to sneeze.”
“Seriously,” Felix hissed at him. “Stop it. You don’t have anything to prove to these people and you’re going to regret it.”
But Felix saw his grandmother already piling Dimitri’s plate high with all of her spiciest dishes before he could so much as object. Glenn was howling with laughter as Dimitri kept nibbling at different things with no apparent reaction and then smiling nervously around the table in search of approval.
Felix resisted a strong urge to slam his head down into his bowl of soup and drown. His family was horrible. Dimitri was horrible.
As the meal wore on and Dimitri began to desperately protest that he couldn’t eat another bite, Felix saw one of his younger cousins, a girl who couldn’t be more than fourteen, stealing off to the kitchen’s and returning with a handful of what looked like little peppercorns. Slyly, she approached Dimitri, holding them out with her head bowed to hide the smile on her lips.
“Don’t--” Felix began before Dimitri could accept.
“It’s alright,” Dimitri replied and then lowered his voice. “I am honored that your family has been so generous in sharing their cooking, I couldn’t possibly refuse such a gesture.”
“Please?” the young girl said, addressing Felix in Dagdan with that little grin still playing at her lips. “You may cook for him at home, but allow us to today.”
Felix felt his brows drawing together, momentarily so confused by what must have been a poor translation that he forgot to object before Dimitri had placed one of the little dried seeds into his mouth.
Perhaps the girl was too young to understand what a Duke did in Fódlan and assumed he was some sort of servant to the king?
The question was driven out of his mind by the sudden shift in expression on Dimitri’s face. His eye was wide and he pressed a hand to his mouth.
The table went silent. Then Dimitri opened his mouth, drew a breath, and choked.
Felix leapt to his feet at once. Cold panic abruptly seized his gut as he grabbed Dimitri’s face to turn it towards him and felt clammy sweat breaking out on Dimitri’s forehead.
“Spit it out,” he commanded as Dimitri gasped and coughed. “What the hell did you give him?”
Glenn rephrased the question in a much more polite tone of Dagdan as his cousin scurried away with a smirk of mischief now clear on her face.
“Just another pepper,” she answered sweetly. “The numbing pepper.”
“My mouth, Felix,” Dimitri managed to choke, his words slurring, “something is wrong with my tongue, I can’t feel… do I still have a tongue?
“Yes, you still have a tongue, you idiot!” Felix shouted at him, releasing his chin and folding his arms with disgust. Against his will, relief was flooding through him. “I told you to stop eating the peppers!”
“Oh, poor dear,” Felix heard his grandmother cooing in Dagdan, already hurrying to fetch Dimitri a bowl of sticky rice to cool his mouth. She insisted on feeding it to him herself, guiding the spoon to his lips until he reluctantly ate a few bites.
“He’s the King of Fódlan, you know!” Felix snarled at the rest of his family. “You can’t just… poison him!”
“He doesn’t seem to mind,” Glenn shrugged, ruffling the hair of the girl now quickly pocketing the remaining peppercorns. Felix was prepared to object, but he turned back to see Dimitri profusely thanking his grandmother as she patted him on the back and dabbed at his brow with some cool water. He had that dopey grin on his face again, despite the fact that Felix’s evil little cousins were making his life miserable.
Felix made a repressed noise of frustration in his throat and flung himself back down to the floor.
“It’s always something with you,” he snapped bitterly to Dimitri and then he said no more until the meal was finished.
Dinner lasted quite late, but before they retired for the night, Dimitri presented a number of gifts to Felix’s grandparents in recognition for their hospitality. There was a selection of fine fur pelts, a rare luxury in Dagda, and one of the new telescopes that had been popular in Enbarr since the war.
This was all fine, Felix thought, surveying the handoff carefully. Dimitri had clearly done his research on what might be popular and interesting in Dagda and Felix’s grandparents accepted the gift with appropriate respect.
It took a turn for the worse when Dimitri also produced a small enamel box that he presented to Felix’s grandmother. The box was made of dark wood, decorated with a Dagdan landscape scene and polished until it shone.
Within, Felix saw a thin linen cloth that was clearly embroidered in Dimitri’s shaky stitches. It took Felix a moment to figure out what it was, but when he did, his teeth clenched. Dimitri had embroidered the Crest of Fraldarius entwined with a slightly crooked crane, the symbol of Felix’s mother’s clan.
Dimitri smiled apologetically as Felix’s grandmother examined his work.
“Felix, could you please tell her that the quality is not meant to be a reflection upon how much I value our alliance?” he whispered, clearly having second thoughts as the old woman ran her fingers over his stitches. Felix rolled his eyes.
This was the problem with Dimitri. He tried so hard at everything and felt every failure like it was a knife to his stomach, no matter how many times Felix tried to tell him that he was doing enough, that he was doing more than enough, that he was… well, that wasn’t relevant.
The point was that it wasn’t the worst embroidery Felix had ever seen.
“Grandmother,” Felix began in his halting Dagdan. “The king apologizes for his poor gift.”
Felix saw his grandmother’s eyes narrow to a scowl.
“Do not call the king’s work poor, my wicked grandson,” she scolded him. “He has honored us with beautiful work.”
“She likes it,” Felix grunted back to Dimitri.
“The King of Fódlan has demonstrated great generosity and great attention to our little clan,” Felix’s grandfather announced in Dagdan. “We rejoice in binding him to our family and I am happy to bless this union after witnessing his care for my daughter’s son.”
“What did he say?” Dimitri asked, looking lost but hopeful as the old man smiled at him.
Felix cast a desperate glance at Glenn, kneeling beside them in a pose of quiet respect, who held up his hands and shrugged.
“I have no official position in the king’s court,” Glenn said obnoxiously, “you ought to translate.”
“He said, uh, well, basically I think he was saying that he’s happy to make an alliance with Fódlan,” Felix translated. “I don’t know, there was stuff about unions. Whatever. It’s fine. They’re happy.”
Dimitri beamed and then did a series of bows that seemed to be an awkward combination of the traditional Faerghan one with the Dagdan.
When the ordeal was finally over and the party broke up as everyone headed to their beds, Felix was ready to crawl onto a mattress and sleep for days. When he’d visited his mother’s family before, he had stayed in a small room on the eastern side of the house, but now Glenn seemed to have been allotted that chamber.
“Goodnight little brother,” Glenn said with a salute as Felix’s grandmother tugged him and Dimitri further down the hall. “Hope you sleep nice and cozy.”
Felix felt his face twist into a frown, but then he gave Glenn a begrudging smile and stepped back to quickly pull him into a hug.
“It’s good to be here,” Felix managed to spit out as he pulled back, “with you this time.”
Glenn’s sly smile melted into something slightly more genuine. The bags under his eyes were still so dark. Felix knew he didn’t sleep well anymore. Back in Fraldarius, Felix had heard him getting up often in the night. Felix’s jaw tightened slightly. As much as he hoped that Glenn would rest easier here in Dagda, away from all of his darker memories, there was also a part of him that feared it.
“You like it better here,” Felix murmured. Glenn didn’t meet his gaze as he nodded.
“Yeah,” Glenn finally chuckled, breaking the tension, “the climate suits me. I can handle a bit of heat.”
Felix gritted his teeth and stalked off after his grandmother and Dimitri.
When he caught up, Dimitri had ducked into a much larger room and was fumbling through spreading blankets on a raised platform surrounded by carved wooden screens. Felix’s grandmother beckoned him in even though Felix was content to stand and wait in the hall.
“Where am I staying?” Felix immediately asked in Dagdan when he saw the room clearly prepared for two. “You can’t even give the King of Fódlan his own bed?”
“That nasty mouth of yours!” Felix’s grandmother scolded back in return.
“It’s alright, Felix,” Dimitri said, looking baffled as he gingerly tried to sit on the bed without bumping his enormous head on the screen. “Please stop complaining on my behalf. I would never demand such treatment, even at home.”
“The Goddess of Fódlan has blessed you,” his grandmother said in Dagdan, “be grateful. Now come here.”
Felix looked suspiciously at the old woman. She was small, but deceptively strong and wirey beneath her robes. He approached cautiously.
She pulled him down and kissed him on both cheeks. Felix made a pained grunt of indignation.
“Thank you for visiting us, my daughter’s son,” his grandmother said into his ear, “we have missed you and your brother so much and hoped you would return to visit your family again someday.”
When she released him, Felix could see that her eyes were wet and tears had gathered in the creases of her skin. He felt his own face going scarlet with embarrassment.
This would be bad enough alone, but she had to do this in front of Dimitri? Dimitri, who was sitting right there, struggling to figure out how to silently draw a silken blanket over the bedroll?
“Hmm,” Felix finally replied.
Felix saw his grandmother’s eyes narrow dangerously again.
“Forgot most of my Dagdan,” he hastily added, hoping that his halting pronunciation would sell it. “Don’t know how to say what I… what I should say.”
His grandmother patted his cheek one more time before going to slide the door closed behind her.
And then it was just him and Dimiri, alone, with only one bed to share.
“I don’t know why she couldn’t just give you a room to yourself,” Felix finally muttered, beginning to unfasten the buttons of his overshirt with his back turned to Dimitri.
“I don’t need one,” Dimitri hastily added, “please, Felix, I know you’re trying very hard, but pretend for a moment that I am not a king. Let me be a guest of your family and accept their hospitality without making me feel like I am… due some reverence here.”
“Usually Dagdans prioritize their guests,” Felix huffed back. He needed to undress to sleep, but he lost his nerve at the buttons of his trousers and stood there foolishly doing nothing for a moment. “Sometimes at the expense of the family, even.”
“You are with your family here,” Dimitri reminded him gently, “perhaps you could allow me to pretend, at least briefly, that I am as well.”
Felix came and sat at the edge of the platform with the bed. Dimitri had taken off his sweaty shirt at last and Felix caught a glimpse of his enormous muscular back, laced with scars, some the uneven pits from stray arrows or spears, and others the shallow lashes of a whip from his time in Cornelia’s prison.
“You’re not… you don’t resent me, right?” Felix finally asked, voicing a question that had been growing steadily in the back of his mind for months.
“Resent you?” Dimitri asked, sounding startled. “For what?”
“For getting Glenn back,” Felix muttered, “for having grandparents here and an uncle back at home still alive.”
“Felix,” Dimitri said, his name a word of such pain and reverence. “No. No, of course not. You mustn't ever think that, no.”
“Alright then,” Felix said.
But the question still troubled him. He and Dimitri had been the same, in some sense, before. After his old man had died, Felix and Dimitri were bound once again by shared grief.
When they were younger, Dimitri was the person who understood, who sometimes even embodied, all of the furious sadness and darkness that Felix had felt. And now Felix couldn’t shake the sensation that he was leaving Dimitri behind somehow.
“I like this bed,” Dimitri finally said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “It feels better on my back than the great big overstuffed mattress at home.”
“Good,” Felix said, finally working up the nerve to hastily tug his trousers off, only tripping once as he yanked his foot free.
“And while I truly do not mind…” Dimitri sounded hesitant. “I hope I do not wake you in the night. You know I sleep somewhat… erratically.”
“You won’t,” Felix confirmed, crawling into the bed and trying to claim a thin sliver of the mattress as far as he could from where Dimitri lay sprawled. He blew out the candle and the room faded to darkness.
“Is it common in Dagda to share a bed like this?” Dimitri finally asked a moment later. Felix shifted into an even tighter ball. He could hear Dimitri breathing only a few feet away, feel the heat of his body faintly in the hot room.
“No,” Felix growled in response.
“Ah, well, the bed is so large,” Dimitri mused, “perhaps that is why…”
“Go to sleep, Dimitri,” Felix commanded and Dimitri fell silent.
In all honesty, Felix had no idea how people in Dagda usually slept. All he knew was that when he had visited before, they had given him his own room. And now, for reasons unknown, he was lying in an enormous screened bed in what must be the largest room in the house next to Dimitri who was at least half a foot too tall for the length of the platform and whose legs were awkwardly curled into Felix’s space.
Felix glanced over at him as he heard the other man’s breathing begin to even out. One of his arms was extended invitingly over the pillow, the perfect shape for Felix to curl under. Idiotic, Felix told himself, for bringing Dimitri on this trip in the first place. Dimitri was too big for this place. And it was too hot.
Lying in the dark and watching Dimitri’s chest rise and fall, Felix felt entirely too hot.
Perhaps Glenn hadn’t been entirely wrong about his tolerance for heat.
When Felix woke up the next morning, his hair was stuck to his face and he had managed to drool all over his arm. He jerked upright immediately, hoping that Dimitri would still be asleep and he could get himself somewhat presentable. But when he glanced beside him, Dimitri was already gone.
Cursing under his breath, Felix rolled out of the screened bed platform and went to splash water onto his face and clean up as quickly as he could. Dimitri’s summer apparel was missing so he must have already gotten up and ready for the day.
Hastily, Felix tugged on his own clothes. He wore Faerghan trousers and a shirt despite being in Dagda. As one concession to both heritage and climate, he left his cloak behind.
As he stumbled out into the hall, he nearly ran into Glenn eating breakfast with a few of his cousins. They were all speaking Dagdan. Felix felt a momentary pang of awkwardness as he marched up. Glenn spoke so much more fluently than him, like he belonged here, like this really could be his family.
“Where’s Dimitri?” Felix demanded as soon as Glenn turned and noticed him.
“Felix! Want some congee?” Glenn asked, gesturing to him with the bowl. In his other hand he was drinking from a dish of fresh soymilk that left a white line above his lip and as much as Felix’s mouth salivated at the thought of having some, he had business first.
“I’ll eat later. The king is missing,” Felix said grimly.
“The king is in the garden with your grandfather,” Glenn said with a roll of his eyes. “You make it sound like he’s been kidnapped every time he leaves your sight.”
“Well, he could be,” Felix shot back. “Why did you leave him alone with our grandfather? They can’t speak a word to each other!”
“Ah, they’re fine,” Glenn replied. “Language is overrated. Dimitri doesn’t mind.”
“So much for your knighthood,” Felix scoffed, “you keep abandoning him. I had to sleep beside him all night and he still slipped away.”
“Sounds like you slept pretty well then,” Glenn said evenly.
“I slept fine,” Felix said, folding his arms. “But the bed is too small for two people. I don’t know what our grandmother was thinking. As if I couldn’t just sleep in your room.”
Glenn tilted his head at Felix. He had an odd smile playing around his lips.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” he finally said.
“Get what?” Felix asked. “Get that our family is weird and for some reason we’ve brought the King of Fódlan here to experience it first hand?”
“I’ve really got to teach you better Dagdan,” Glenn laughed. “Ah well, you’ll figure it out soon enough.”
"Figure what out?" Felix said with increasing annoyance.
"Little brother, sometimes I think you're being deliberately obtuse about this," Glenn said, shaking his head. "But trust me, you're going to be the last to know, one way or another. Consider this a favor."
Glenn took another smug sip of soymilk, leaving Felix to stalk off in search of the gardens.
If Dimitri was there with his grandfather, there was no telling what could have happened. The two of them could probably barely speak a word to each other. It would be a disaster of Dimitri’s determined politeness.
However, when Felix finally found them, Dimitri was kneeling out in the garden, his hands covered in dirt, working in companionable silence beside his grandfather.
As Felix watched them for a moment from the doorway, he didn’t hear either of them speaking a word. Occasionally, Felix’s grandfather would hold up one of the gnarled roots he was digging, ginger probably, and Dimitri would smile in admiration.
For a moment, Felix hovered and waited. For some reason he didn’t want to disturb the moment. Dimitri looked so happy. Happy in a way he normally didn’t at the palace in Fhirdiad. Happy in a way he never did with Felix.
Maybe, Felix thought in a brief moment of bitterness, even Dimitri fit in better with his family than he did.
But as soon as he’d thought it, he shook the feeling away. He was being idiotic.
It was good to see Dimitri smiling, to see him so genuinely interested in simple things like a freshly pulled ginger root. It was good to see him unselfconscious at his dirty hands and with a smudge on the tip of his nose. And even if he was quiet and awkward without knowing Dagdan, it was good to hear him robbed of his usual apologies and guilty admonishments of his own behavior.
Felix cleared his throat and the moment broke. Dimitri looked up and Felix’s grandfather turned around and got back to his feet.
“Felix, I didn’t realize you were up. I hope I didn’t wake you,” Dimitri immediately began as Felix stepped out into the garden.
“You didn’t,” Felix confirmed. He switched to Dadgan to address his grandfather. “Why are you picking ginger with the king?”
“Your king is a fine gardener,” his grandfather replied, “although he has a very firm grip.”
His grandfather said something after that in Dagdan which Felix did not catch so he just nodded vaguely in response. The old man’s eyebrows shot up slightly in surprise.
“We haven’t been able to say much to one another, but could you thank your grandfather for showing me all of the plants?” Dimitri asked Felix. “I’d love to know more if he is willing to teach me about them.”
“He isn’t,” Felix snapped, then corrected when he saw Dimitri’s face fall. “I mean-- ugh, I don’t speak enough Dagdan to translate a lecture on plants. You should ask Glenn. I’m not really, um, suitable for this.”
“Felix,” Dimitri stood as he spoke, voice suddenly softer. He was so wretchedly tall and big and that smudge of dirt on his nose… “I did not realize, I am sorry--”
“He wants to know about the plants,” Felix formulated in his broken Dagdan to his grandfather. The old man nodded and smiled.
“Begin with the jujube berry,” his grandfather said. “He awoke before the sun did, just as you once did.”
Felix saw the old man gesture towards a scrubby tree beside one of the garden’s walls. Felix recalled his grandmother giving him some slightly shrivelled red fruits each evening during the winter he’d spent with them after the Tragedy.
His grandfather said something else technical sounding about medicine that Felix only half caught. Something about sickness of the heart. Felix didn’t know enough about traditional Dagdan medicine to understand it.
“Eat those,” Felix said gruffly to Dimitri, “they help you sleep.
Dimitri mimed an awkward and silent bow of thanks to Felix’s grandfather who was now carrying his basket of ginger roots back towards the house.
“I wish I knew enough Dagdan to thank him properly for spending the morning with me,” Dimitri sighed. “I doubt that he intended to awaken so early just to pick roots at sunrise.”
“It’s fine,” Felix said. He reached up and wiped the smudge of dirt from Dimitri’s nose.
Dimitri’s eye widened slightly and Felix realized how odd that had been for him to do a moment too late. Being out of Faerghus for a week was changing him. Why had he just reached up and grabbed the king’s nose like it was the easiest thing in the world?
“We should go into the city,” Felix said abruptly, hoping that perhaps Dimitri would drop it if he distracted him. “There are temples and shops and stuff.”
“Will your family be offended if we leave for the day?” Dimitri asked. “And, don’t take this the wrong way, Felix, but… will you be alright if I am not inside a fortified building surrounded by guards?”
“I’ll be with you,” Felix shrugged, confidant for the first time all day. “No one would dare.”
Dimitri gave him a half-grin at that, the slightly competitive smile from so many spars and bouts at the training grounds.
“I see,” he said with amusement. “Well then, I would love to visit the city. May the Goddess help anyone who tries to stop us.”
---
Somehow, Felix thought with increasing despair, they were lost. How could they be lost? It was a gigantic temple, how was it possible that he had missed it?
The city near his grandparent’s estate was no massive sprawl like Fhirdiad or Enbarr, but it was no rural town either where Felix could get the lay of the whole land from the top of a hill. It was a coastal community, so at least he could partially navigate by keeping the ocean to his left, but their path through the streets kept getting cut off by little canals.
“Felix, is everything alright?” Dimitri asked from behind him as Felix peered down yet another narrow street that seemed to lead nowhere. “Should we perhaps ask for directions?”
“I’m going to find it,” Felix said firmly, trying to turn his face away so that Dimitrti would not notice the flush on his cheeks. “Stop worrying.”
“I’m not worried, I just--” Dimitri said as gently as he could. “You seem stressed.”
“I’m not--” Felix growled and changed tact. “Let’s go back to the riverwalk, at least there I can see where I’m going.”
He turned around and began marching back up the alley they had mistakenly followed. Dimitri trailed behind him. At least he didn’t look utterly miserable. Felix was beginning to feel pretty miserable.
“The streets are kept so clean here,” Dimitri made conversation as they walked, “and the traffic is far less dangerous without nobles riding up and down the boulevards. Perhaps when we return, I will instruct some of the city officials to visit Dagda.”
“Hm,” Felix replied, not particularly in the mood to talk about civil engineering while he was beginning to panic that he had dragged Dimitri out on a long and pointless march around the edges of town.
They stepped back out onto the riverwalk, a wider street punctuated by wooden bridges spanning a wide, slow river that wound down to the harbor. Farmer’s were selling produce by the edge of the river and Felix could smell pork buns being steamed somewhere upwind.
It was late afternoon and the heat beat down on them without relenting. Felix felt hair sticking to the back of his neck as he tried to relocate.
No temple. Nothing even temple-like in either direction.
“I’m going into a shop,” Felix finally declared.
“Okay,” Dimitri said, clearly awaiting further clarification.
“I’m going to ask for directions,” Felix finally relented. “In Dagdan. Don’t… laugh.”
“Felix, I promise you that my own linguistic abilities are far more limited,” Dimitri told him seriously. “I should be the one ashamed of my ignorance.”
Felix looked around for the most likely looking shop and chose one that didn’t seem particularly busy. As he stepped through the open doors, he immediately smelled the distinctive metallic smoke of a forge somewhere behind the shop. It was a smith’s shop, then. Although certainly not just any smith.
It was a swordsmith.
Felix paused for a moment to take in the sight of blades in their scabbards displayed on long wooden benches. As he stood momentarily awe-struck, a man came striding through from the back, his hands slightly blackened from work even as he was wiping them off on a towel.
“Uh greetings,” Felix managed to say in Dagdan. Dimitri had ducked into the shop behind him and was now staring at the swords as well with an expression of wonder.
“Welcome,” the swordsmith said, looking at Dimitri with faint interest. Not often did massive blonde Faerghan men come staggering into his shop, Felix surmised. “Are you here to commission a blade or to buy one?”
“We are…” Felix attempted to remember the word for ‘lost.’ Why had he forgotten the most important word in the sentence? “We are wanting to go to the temple.”
“Felix, wait,” Dimitri whispered urgently. “Look at this!”
Felix turned to see Dimitri bent over and examining one of the sword’s laid out for display. He was peering over his closely, hands hovering and unsure if he was aloud to touch it.
“What?” Felix asked.
“This is a Wo Dao,” Dimitri said, glancing up at him with eyes wide with excitement. “They are incredibly rare in Fodlan. The blade’s are so sharp they can cut through steel, I’ve heard.”
“I know what a-- is it really though?” Felix began irritably, but his heart had jumped into his throat as well.
“You are admiring a fine blade,” the swordsmith said, approaching them and gently removing the steel from its scabbard. It was a long sword, curved and wickedly sharp along one edge.
“Look at the grip,” Dimitri said breathlessly, grabbing Felix’s arm without seeming to mean to.
“The balance is… perfect” Felix began, his eyes scanning the weapon as the swordsmith presented it to them.
“You hold it,” Dimitri immediately said, drawing back. “I’m too afraid that I’ll break it.”
Felix wordlessly accepted the sword, his hand instinctively shifting into a proper grip and his feet moving into a defensive stance. The blade rested perfectly under his fingers.
“I see you are no novice,” the swordsmith said.
“How much?” Felix asked immediately.
The swordsmith named a price that made Felix’s heart sink. Far too luxurious. And unnecessary.
“This blade was forged for the son of the region’s minister as a wedding gift,” the swordsmith explained, offering Dimitri the scabbard to examine, “unfortunately, the bride ran off with a sailor before the wedding.”
“He says it was some nobleman’s wedding gift,” Felix explained to Dimitri with a snort of laughter, “until his bride absconded.”
“Is it common to give swords as bridal gifts in Dagda?” Dimitri asked, looking over the scabbard.
“Why a sword?” Felix asked in Dagdan, unsure of the answer. The swordsmith smiled with a hint of amusement.
“It was perhaps a self-serving gift for a minister’s son,” he replied, “the scabbard is enameled as a bridal box would be and you can see the passion flower here.”
Felix bent down to examine the scabbard.
It was the same glossy dark enamel as the box that Dimitri had given to his grandparents which held the embroidered cloth. And the flower looked familiar as well.
“Passion flower?” Felix said, hoping that his inquisitive tone would make up for his clear lack of vocabulary.
“The flower of the passion vine is often given to brides,” the swordsmith explained, “it represents love, even when it is inscribed on a tool of war.”
Suddenly, Felix realized where he’d seen that odd looking plant before.
It was the flower that Dimitrti had picked from the vine the day before in front of his grandparents’ house. The flower that Felix had to hold for him while Dimitri fumbled through the bows and introductions. The flower that…
A dark realization was beginning to dawn on Felix.
First, the passion flower Dimitri had handed him for safekeeping. Then, the enamel boxes full of gifts. That single bed, probably the finest in the household. And those odd comments, strange remarks Felix had attributed to mistranslation.
What was it that Glenn had told him? That he’d figure it out soon enough?
“We have to leave,” Felix said abruptly, handing the Wo Dao back to the swordsmith as though it had burned his hands. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, but Felix, the sword!” Dimitri protested.
“It’s too expensive,” Felix declared. He was already retreating out of the shop as fast as his legs could carry him.
That damned flower, he thought and cursed himself. And those stupid gifts. And stupid Dimitri being so helpful and agreeable and…
He stormed out onto the street, Dimitri calling out behind him as he began striding back in the direction of his grandparents’ estate. He pushed through the growing crowds on the riverwalk and then cut up a sidestreet to avoid the traffic, keeping his eyes down on his feet.
“Felix, wait!” Dimitri repeated, struggling to thread his way through the narrow streets without knocking over crates of fruit or stacks of brushing his head on the lanterns dangling across windows. “What is the matter?”
“What is the matter?” Felix snapped over his shoulder. “What is the matter is that everyone thinks we’re… ugh!”
He took another street at random, hoping that at least moving in the right direction would get them home before dark.
“I don’t understand,” Dimitri said from behind him, ducking under an archway that nearly grazed the top of his head. “Please, Felix, if I did something wrong, I will try to make it right.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong!” Felix shouted, finally whirling around to face Dimitri, “I did! Okay? I messed up.
He felt his breathing coming very fast. Faster than it should despite the fast pace of their walk.
Dimitri’s face was drawn with worry. His eye had crinkled up into a frown of concern and his mop of blonde hair was falling down over his face. He loomed over the entire street like some huge, nervous statue.
“Felix, I don’t care that we were lost,” Dimitri finally said. “I was having fun."
"Fun?" Felix asked incredulously.
"It was fun to spend time with just you," Dimitri said, which was just an unfairly overwhelming thing for him to say at a time like this.
“I have no idea what I’m doing here,” Felix admitted, his voice coming out as a low growl. “I’m bad at this and I hate being bad at things. And Glenn… Glenn prefers it here. You can see it. He likes Dagda better than Faerghus.”
“He likes Dagda because he isn’t surrounded by reminders of things that happened in Faerghus,” Dimitri said gently. “It isn’t you, Felix.”
“He’s going to stay here,” Felix finally said, managing to say the words he’d been dreading for weeks. “I know it. He wants to stay and I… I can’t. I can’t stay here, but I can’t let him go yet.”
Dimitri went silent. He looked down at his shoes for a moment, biting his lip and breathing quickly through his nose.
Felix ran a hand through his hair, wishing he could have just held it together until they were back in Faerghus, instead of making a scene in some random sidestreet between a rice wine distillery and someone’s drying laundry.
“If you wanted to…” Dimitri said, his voice very quiet, “if you would be happier here, I could… I’d be alright.”
“No!” Felix said, so forcefully that Dimitri actually jumped. “No, I’m not leaving. I don’t really feel like I belong here, anyways. I feel like I should, but then I open my mouth or try to do anything and I just… mess things up.”
Dimitri looked up very suddenly to meet his eyes.
And then he paused. He looked further up. Then he squinted with his single remaining eye.
Wordlessly, he pointed to somewhere above Felix’s head.
Felix turned around, looked up, and saw an enormous stone temple right above them.
“I think your sense of direction is better than you think,” Dimitri said after a long moment of staring. “Should we make our visit?”
The sun was getting low in the sky as they finally made their way up the stone steps of the temple. A few sticks of incense were burning inside. Dimitri stared up at the massive statues and Felix watched as he took in their smiling, stoic faces.
When they had looked up in contemplative silence for several minutes, the sky outside was turning a pinkish gold. Felix stepped out onto the steps again to wait until Dimitri was finished taking in the wonders.
Under his breath, Felix said a short prayer to his ancestors. He wondered if his mother had done the same when she was growing up here.
He wondered if his prayer was actually to her. If he had ever gotten to really know her, he wondered if he would have wanted to stay, live in Dagda with Glenn. But then he saw Dimitri’s outline, far too tall as carefully made his way back out from the interior of the temple.
“Felix?” Dimitri’s voice called out as he wandered back out to the steps as well.
“Ready to leave?” Felix asked. “Dinner will be ready soon and my grandmother will probably try to stuff you to the breaking point again.”
Dimitri grinned a little at that.
“I’m ready, but--” Dimitri took a deep breath. “Can you help me to understand, what was the problem with the sword?”
Felix sighed and folded his arms over his chest.
“It’s stupid,” he finally muttered.
“I’d still like to know,” Dimitri said patiently.
“Like I said, I don’t know enough about Dagda,” Felix added, “I wasn’t aware. I also may have used some... incorrect terminology. To describe you. Because I don't know things about Dagda.”
“You don’t have to know everything about a place to love it,” Dimitri said in his horribly earnest Dimitri-like way.
It made Felix want to throw himself into a canal to escape, but also maybe to hug Dimitri very tightly at the same time.
“Everyone thinks we’re married,” Felix finally confessed.
He took a small amount of smug satisfaction with Dimitri’s expression of pure shock.
“What?” Dimitri finally said.
“That flower you picked from the vine,” Felix explained wearily, “it’s a passion flower. A lover’s gift. And then that enamel box you gave to my grandparents is usually reserved for wedding presents.”
“Oh,” Dimitri said. His face was now very red and he rubbed his hands on his cheeks.
“I didn’t correct them because I didn’t understand what they were saying,” Felix muttered. “Sorry. And Glenn didn’t say anything because he’s an asshole.”
“This is…” Dimitri cleared his throat. “This must be very embarrassing to you. I will try to explain the confusion tonight. Perhaps then you will be more comfortable in your own bed.”
“Right,” Felix nodded.
Dimitri cleared his throat again, suddenly unable to look Felix in the eye.
The sun was setting faster and faster, making the city around them a blur of purple and golden light. Felix licked his lips. He couldn’t seem to make his mouth work, suddenly.
Felix opened his mouth and blurted something out at the same time that Dimitri did the same and both of them had to pause for a moment to sort out what either of them had said.
“What?” Felix asked, heart pounding in his chest.
“I said,” Dimitri repeated, burying his face in his hands so that his voice was muffled, “I’d buy you the sword. If you wanted it. Even if it is meant for a…”
“I said I don’t need another bed tonight,” Felix replied very quickly.
Dimitri raised his head and shot Felix a quick glance. Felix felt like he might combust into flames.
Both of them lunged forward and slammed their mouths together, so hard that Felix recoiled in a momentary daze, his bottom lip throbbing where he’d smacked it against Dimitri’s teeth.
“Sorry,” Dimitri gasped.
But Felix cut him off from saying any more with another kiss.
A few minutes later when they broke apart for air, Dimitri smiled so brightly that Felix felt like he was going to have a heart attack.
“I think I rather like Dagda,” he teased Felix.
“It’s not so bad,” Felix agreed.
“We should visit more often,” Dimitri said, cautiously sliding his fingers into Felix’s until their hands were linked.
“I should learn to speak Dagdan better then,” Felix said.
“I don’t know,” Dimitri laughed. “I’m not sure that words have ever been our strong suit.”
Fair enough, Felix thought.
But even so, he really ought to practice the language. He would need to when they came to visit Glenn. And he wasn’t going to let his older brother beat him at everything.
Besides, Dagda was starting to feel just a little bit like home.