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Dimitri rolls the fruit in his palm. It is dark. Glossy. Worryingly soft. He cannot describe the shape.
“These would be eaten during our Harvest Festival, Your Highness.” Dedue says, placing his pail on the ground. He stands before Dimitri with a glistening brow and clothes stained red from a morning of toil under the high summer sun.
They are alone in the wing of the Royal Gardens that Dimitri gifted Dedue to make his own. Dedue has worked the land for all the years that they have been back at Fhirdiad Castle. The labour is brutal. Every night, Dedue comes to bed with flowering bruises and exhaustion in his eyes.
Dimitri always worries. Stop, he says, Let me take care of you.
But Dedue does not allow it. And, despite everything, Dimitri is glad: glad that Dedue has something to pour his heart into; to pass the time with fulfilment and peace.
And Dedue’s efforts have bore fruit: what was barren earth is now verdant with life. Young apple trees grace the orchard with their virgin crop. Towering trellises bow low with vegetables.
Dimitri examines the berry. “I’m sure it is delicious, if it is something you enjoy,” he says.
“Indeed, Your Highness. Please try it.”
Dimitri eats the berry. He feels the sting of its juice on his tongue. The give of the flesh between his teeth. The seeds wedging into his gums.
He imagines the flavour is nothing short of sumptuous.
"It's good," he tells Dedue.
“I am pleased, Your Highness.” Dedue says with a rare smile. “I have many fond memories of blackberries. When I was young, my mother would bake pastries filled with their jam mix with soft cheese. She would share them with the other families of our village. This marked the end of summer."
Dimitri looks down at the pail. He blinks.
“That was good of her,” he says. “She seems like a kind woman and a good mother.”
“She was.” Dedue says. “For many years I believed I would not taste blackberries again,” He bends low and picks a berry out of the pail, holding it between his thumb and forefinger with a gentleness that others assume he cannot possess. “But you have made it possible, Your Highness,” he says, straightening up and placing the berry in his mouth.
Dimitri looks up at Dedue and takes in the breadth of his shoulders— shoulders that have borne the weight of inconceivable tragedy and Dimitri’s own descent into madness. Dedue dragged him out of the void whilst Dimitri frothed at the mouth—barely human and thrashing with bloodlust—and tended to his wounds with unrelenting patience.
Dimitri watches Dedue eat a second berry. The sun moves fast this time of year. In the short while they have been standing here, the sky has turned an autumnal gold. A breeze whistles through the trees and rustles the leaves of the blackberry bushes, fanning Dimitri’s cheeks and cooling his skin.
Dimitri has lost countless hours of sleep thinking of ways to repay Dedue’s kindness. A title, a position, a castle of his own. But the unpolished truth of it is that there is nothing on earth Dimitri could possibly offer Dedue in requital. Even as a King. Even as a fully realised man.
But as he watches Dedue wipe the back of his mouth with his hand, a thought begins to bubble through the fog of his mind, pushing through the mist and taking form in his consciousness. Rich, warm colours. The smell of melting sugar. The look of awe on a child’s face. The touch of autumn’s chill before the bracing Faerghus winter.
“Dedue,” Dimitri says. “Did your mother teach you the recipe?”
“She did, Your Highness. I am the only person alive with the knowledge.”
Dimitri attempts a smile. It is weak but heartfelt.
“Then let us work to keep the traditions of Duscur alive,” he says, “Call the head chef at once. I will speak to her personally.”
—
Years have passed, but the wounds still smart on Fhirdiad. The progress of reconstruction is slow, and a miasma of quiet desperation hangs in the air as the people eek out meager livings through interminable drudgery.
The signs are visible too: the last standing church house is missing it’s spire, and the mass graves outside the citadel remain untouched. The dead have not yet been exhumed to give them a proper burial, and with each passing day they seep further into the ground.
Still, the people are no longer threatened with starvation. Salt is rationed, meat is a luxury, and sugar is all but a distant memory, but children do not go to bed hungry. No one expects food to be a source of joy, but they are now comfortable in relying on it to keep them alive.
It is just shy of midday when Dimitri and his retinue ride into the city on horseback. It makes it feel less of a spectacle than coming in a carriage. Still, an entourage is expected for both safety and propriety. Dedue’s gelding keeps pace with Dimitri’s mare as they ride side by side. The soldiers that ensconce them carry baskets of freshly baked pastries, each wrapped in a linen cloth Dimitri had commissioned from the local seamstresses.
If you were to ask Dimitri why he keeps his court subdued, he would answer that he does not wish to mock those in his stewardship with displays of opulence. It is half a truth: the other half is that he does not wish to parade that which he possesses but does not deserve. The one concession he makes is for his eyepatch, bejewelled with a single sapphire to give the pretence of an iris whilst distracting from the monstrosity of his past.
An elderly couple are the first to notice the royal procession. The old woman holds her husband’s hand as he lowers himself to kneel before his King. Next is the blacksmith who sees Dimitri from his stall, abandoning his hammer and joining the couple by their side. Soon it feels like an entire city has amassed alongside the road, heads bowed and eyes averted.
The silence that sweeps through the town square where his party stops makes Dimitri’s skin itch, but he straightens his back and grips the reins tighter. Time has made things more familiar but no less comfortable.
“Rise, everyone,” he begins.
The sound of countless people getting to their feet rumbles through the square before crescendoing and sliding back into a hushed, pregnant pause. Dimitri swallows his nervousness.
“There is not a soul here who has forgotten the horrors of life under the savage grip of the Empire. It left your children starving and your crops ravaged. Only through your courage and fortitude have we been able to reclaim our home and live in peace once more.
“I cannot return to you what you have sacrificed, but I hope that today I may bring you a moment of sweetness before we begin preparations for winter’s return.”
Dimitri raises his arm and the soldiers fan out amongst the crowd to hand out the pastries.
Amidst the jubilant cacophony, Dimitri turns to face Dedue. He sees on Dedue’s face a bright and joyous smile he has seen only once before: when Dedue finally found him, by chance and alive, at the Great Bridge of Myrddin. He had cradled Dimitri gently to his chest as if he were a fractured crystal chalice, and carried him all the way back to his makeshift camp a half-day away on foot.
No one is looking at the King and his vassal; they are too busy tucking into their pastries with fervent delight. Dimitri takes a chance and lays his hand on top of Dedue’s own, lacing their fingers together. Dedue squeezes Dimitri’s hand in return and strokes his thumb against the back of Dimitri’s own.
Winter will not be a joyous thing. It will be frigid and brutal and feel interminably long. But Faerghus has its King, and the King has his vassal, and finally there is a future worth living for.