Chapter Text
Dimitri is not usually in true danger. The Blaiddyd descendant can take care of himself in most situations. But sometimes pure strength, even augmented with hard-earned skill, is not enough.
Felix has seen Dimitri hurt before, almost never in real time, almost always after the fact. He's seen the depth of the scars left in his absence. Felix tells himself he couldn't have stopped the five years of horror if he'd tried. Something like fate. Fate's cruel, and necessary, is what Felix believes. But that staunch belief flags when he has to look in Dimitri's lone blue eye, and some other feeling fills him instead.
He's always treated these kinds of feelings with contempt. Physical pain is fine; anything less corporeal is worse. How could he have such a . . . reaction to a man that stopped being someone he knew years ago? Perhaps it was because the boar inhabited the same body: the appearance fooled Felix's subconscious. The boar looked like Dimitri, even if he wasn't. That's what he'd thought at Garreg Mach. But even after half a decade, the man-turned-beast found tall and ragged and sharp at all his edges, visage wholly transformed into that of a bloodthirsty creature, no longer the princely heir of the Academy days, Felix still -- still felt something for him. Something he could no longer cover completely with contempt, because after all the years of war, his contempt wears down as Dimitri does.
What is it, then? He’d call it pity, but it’s worse than that. The boar has his sights on Enbarr, and there he will go regardless of who follows; though, they do follow, because he’s their uncrowned king. Every fort and outpost they take on their path to the Imperial capital costs lives, and the total will be all-consuming. There is no possible way any will survive, if they should reach Enbarr let alone attempt to take the city, and the boar won’t entertain for a moment the pleas of counsel to return first to Fhirdiad to take up his crown and hopefully an actual army.
More than this, the boar himself is weakening. His ferocious strength in battle is a constant, but off the battlefield, Felix can feel the way he still depends on his crest to sustain daily activities. Felix has been able to sense Dimitri’s crest since they were young -- to his knowledge, not many can, not Sylvain or Ingrid. But what should be clear to any onlooker is the way Dimitri wastes under the hulking guise of armor and cape - perhaps most obvious is the fraying of his questionable hold on reality. The beast scorns the companionship of people and sometimes seems to not even comprehend those around him.
It’s enough to make Felix sick, but here he is, nevertheless. Feeling -- he doesn’t know what.
The last months of the year pass as the snow melts, yet the cold still clings sullenly to the earth. Nothing is right. Felix tries to brush off the heavy cloud of unease that settles over as they arrive at Gronder Field.
But it ends up being here that the boar’s inhuman strength fails him at last, and he would have fallen if not for Felix’s own father.
***
The death of Rodrigue pierces the beast where nothing else has so far. Dimitri seems shaken, in a stupor for the next two days, and everyone else must clean up from the battle while their would-be king stands and sits seemingly lost in dialogue with his thoughts and perhaps ghosts. He attends the short service for Rodrigue, as much as his physical presence counts for attendance. He does not say a word in memoriam, and looks far away for most of it, except when they lower the casket shallowly into the still-hard ground and when Felix says his piece. The boar’s blue eye drills into Felix as he stumbles roughly over his thoughts -- Felix is too dazed to remember exactly what he said, but it is true that Rodrigue was a good man, that he fought as he intended till the end, all other things about him aside.
This is only a temporary burial at the monastery. Something more elaborate will no doubt be held on Fraldarius land if and when the opportunity arises.
Felix finds himself more affected than he’d thought. His old man on the warpath -- the thought that Rodrigue would meet his end in the service of the beast isn’t exactly unfamiliar. Something about fulfilling his duty to the late king, something like the death of a true knight. But Rodrigue is -- was -- a skilled warrior. Of course he was. He would not have passed so soon if not for the boar’s recklessness, if not for Dimitri’s disregard for his own life. And, of course, if not for his own stupidity in throwing his life away to keep his king alive.
Felix hasn’t lost his brain to royal duty, thank the goddess.
He’s unwilling to admit he’s grieving Rodrigue, but the timing of the acid feeling in his throat and frustrated turn of his steps, moreso than usual, tells all. He’s angry, too. Rodrigue’s death has left Felix as the remnant, designated him as the last of the line. Sure, there’s Felix’s uncle, but he’s only part of the Fraldarius family by marriage; Lily Fraldarius passed moons ago. The eyes of tradition would seek out the Blaiddyd king and his Fraldarius, but there is only the sad reality of the still-empty throne and a war whose crimson tides slowly eat away at all of Fodlan.
***
At the next war council, the boar looks surprisingly tired. He’s usually agitated at these meetings, prone to outbursts and ravings, but here he sits, in what looks to be a new furred cloak, quietly lost in his own world.
Rodrigue’s empty seat seems the focal point of the room. Felix watches Ingrid glance tiredly at the chair a couple times as Ashe reports on the wyvern broods. Before the meeting, Byleth had nodded to that chair as Felix entered, but Felix took up his usual seat across the table from that spot. He’s not about to take a seat at the boar’s right hand anytime soon.
The eventual topic of conversation turns, as it inevitably does, towards their next destination on the warpath. After Byleth introduces the subject, there is a collective pause in the room. Felix expects a growling outburst from the thing that wears Dimitri’s face, demanding the march to Enbarr, calling for Edelgard’s head.
But no such outburst comes.
A few chairs down from Felix, Ashe audibly lets out a nervous breath.
Byleth clears her throat and resumes. “We’ll proceed with the roundtable. First, my tactical perspective. We suffered heavy losses at Gronder. I suggest we march north to Fhirdiad. If we can retake the throne from the imposter currently sitting there, we will no doubt bolster our troops and morale. We will certainly gain East Faerghus’ consolidated support, and most likely some West houses as we strike down the Empire’s puppet.”
The scribe’s quill scratches on paper, an entry probably much similar to those of the past few councils. Felix is sure everyone in the room is in agreement except for the boar.
Usually Rodrigue would speak next (if not interrupted by his king). There is an awkward pause. Byleth glances at Felix for a moment, and it seems the room waits with her for the Fraldarius heir to speak.
Even just that ignites a pang of self-awareness, even that makes Felix’s throat constrict like he might cry, and he doesn’t know why. This is why he didn’t sit in that chair. Damn it. Damn this whole war. Not like he wants to say something, but if he doesn’t speak it might become too apparent he’s near tears. And he doesn’t mean to break his years-long streak of Not Crying. “It’s obvious that’s our next move,” Felix manages roughly, ”if the boar had any sense, that is.”
Dimitri jerks up from his stupor at Felix’s challenge. Felix fixes the moody creature across the table from him with a sharp stare. The boar’s mouth opens, then shuts, then opens. “I agree,” he says quietly.
Felix blinks.
“Pardon me, your Highness?” the scribe from the end of the table squeaks.
Dimitri turns towards the scribe. “I agree,” he repeats. Then he gets up, and the movement looks effortful to Felix’s eye, like his armor is weighing him down, the fur of his cape dragging around the edges of his pauldrons and the carved oak chair as he withdraws from the table. “Excuse me,” he says, and leaves.
Eyes follow him as he goes, but he does not look back.
As the doors shut behind him, several of those seated around the table sigh audibly in relief. “Thank the goddess,” Felix hears Mercedes murmur.
“Alright,” Byleth summarizes. “I take that as his Highness’ assent to our plan. Let’s begin then with a timeline. Ashe, any fly-ahead for the wyverns . . .”
***
Felix, whether he likes it or not, immediately goes in search of Dimitri as the council is adjourned. He feels Byleth watching him as he leaves, but doesn’t explain himself. She has a way of knowing what he’s up to at any given time, which is quite annoying considering she was their professor for a year and always knew when he was forsaking his reason homework for sword practice at the training grounds.
“Hey!” Felix slows his hurried path when he hears Sylvain call from behind him. “What was that? You think Dimitri’s coming to his senses?”
“I don’t know,” Felix says curtly as Sylvain catches up to him.
“You’ll be needed for weapons inventory,” Sylvain reminds him as they continue on the unspoken path to the cathedral, the boar’s most frequent haunt at Garreg Mach.
“I know, they can wait,” Felix says. Most of the former Blue Lions class have had to pick up some wartime responsibility, and weapons inventory was Felix’s poison of choice. It involves a lot more math and talking to people than he’d expected.
Sylvain is mostly quiet as they walk along. It’s a sunny day, but the light doesn’t seem to impart much warmth. Since Rodrigue’s death, people have been a little more subdued around Felix. He doesn’t mind.
“Man, you’re hot,” Sylvain says as they reach the low bridge, gates propped open.
That’s Sylvain’s way of saying Felix is letting his crest act up. He slows his pace a bit and tries to rein it in. “You’re worse than the plague,” Felix reminds him. Sylvain only whistles the opening bars of a popular rigadoon.
It’s not Felix’s fault he got a major crest, so it’s easily readable to most people who know him. Another reason to keep his list of friends short. Sylvain, annoyingly enough, has always been able to sense Felix’s crest, but only rarely can Felix return the skill.
The midmorning sun pours through the stained glass of the cathedral, glazed vision of the saints marred by gaps in the glass, and thwarted by the pile of rubble inside left from the battle five years ago. The pews are in disarray, or shattered altogether. Dust, dirt, and debris covers the marble floor, excepting one spot close to the pile of rubble.
But the post is vacant of its usual guard. As Sylvain and Felix enter from the alcove hallway on the west side, they exchange a look; Sylvain shakes his head.
“Do you think he’s actually in his quarters?”
Felix snorts. “Wouldn’t think so.”
“I gotta head that way for some food. I’ll check.”
“Go ahead.”
Sylvain leaves Felix there in the cathedral. Felix wills himself to go as well, but he can’t tear himself from staring at that spot on the cathedral floor, as empty as the place at the king’s right hand.
Perhaps this is a better kind of empty.
Felix about-turns. He has his own stupid, hopeful guess of where the boar would be -- if the boar were a little more like Dimitri, again.
***
Attending the training grounds right after a war council is one of the best times to go, as most of those who frequent the walled arenas are busy working on newly assigned tasks.
As Felix enters, closing the wooden double doors behind him, an initial sweep shows him the space is empty. But as he crosses the grounds to the stand of wooden practice weapons under the sheltered portico, he picks out a figure sitting in the shadow of one of the supporting columns, quite still.
Felix stops a few feet away, close by the rack of training swords. The boar has his head down. He unclasps his cape, and it falls around him like a furry nest. Even in his armor he looks bare. Like this, the Blaiddyd crest emblazoned on the armor plating his upper back is exposed. Felix can feel its aura faintly wavering from the boar.
“So,” Felix says, somewhat wary, as he picks his favorite training sword and gives it a few swings. “Decided to try being human.” This comes out as more of a statement than a question.
The boar remains there, hanging his head. “Is that what the lives lost in my name merit?” he says, in a low tone.
Felix barks a laugh. He unclasps his fur-lined cloak and tosses it on the rack. He starts warming up his shoulders, light maneuvers with the training sword. He has no answer for the boar’s question.
“I am . . . deeply sorry for Rodrigue’s passing,” Dimitri says, tone strained.
“His death was his own foolish choice,” Felix says sharply, in the next moment aware of how barbed this statement is. But Dimitri gives a bare nod. He’s always been so impervious to Felix’s cutting words. Felix always thought this was part of the problem. If only he could get a reaction.
He leaves his back turned to the boar as he goes through his basic forms, but can’t help how attuned he is to the sound of Dimitri’s slow footsteps as he retreats, the soft sound of his cape dragging behind him, the creak and soft bang of the doors as he leaves.
As soon as he’s gone Felix throws his sword down on the packed sandy ground with a frustrated huff. His chest aches with a pain that’s not entirely physical. He’s used to it by now: it’s the anchor that has kept him in the cathedral so many nights, watching Dimitri with something that was not quite pity, but something just beyond definition. It weighs him down now as he drags a training dummy out and attacks with a ferocity the stuffed figure will of course never return.
***
Felix does not run into the boar for the remainder of his busy day. After a frustrated bout at the training grounds, he attends quickly to the melee weapons inventory. Then he has to eat, and Ingrid wants his help with checking flight paths, and then he joins Ashe for bow drills with his battalion.
After supper, he finds himself at the small, grassy cemetery in front of Rodrigue’s temporary resting place, hoping the location will give him a name for everything bottled up and boiling inside of him. It doesn’t. Mercedes joins him after some time. She doesn’t say much; he flinches at her hand on his shoulder.
He sits alone and tears tufts of grass for a while, as the sky turns orange and the air grows colder.
Some minutes later, the boar joins him, on the other side of the gravestone. Neither speaks, but Felix is hyper aware of his presence. He can detect the bare flicker of the Blaiddyd crest. Dimitri is not using the power in his blood so heavily, and maybe that is why he moves more slowly, why he seems weaker and lesser.
The evening is quiet, noises from the courtyard and walkways drifting up from below, but Felix’s heart pounds in his ears. He could say something. He could do something. But he barely knows how to relate to whoever this is sitting in front of him -- he’s more used to talking about the boar than talking to him, and has done so for so long that Dimitri is more of a concept, an idea and a feeling that only exists embedded deep in his bones. Buried much deeper than Rodrigue is here, and Rodrigue’s certainly not rejoining the ranks of the living.
But the look that passes between them when Dimitri finally rises to go gives Felix temporal whiplash, the burning sunset halo around his head backlighting his features into low contrast, lone ocean-blue eye making Felix think of the cold bay at House Fraldarius where they used to swim on the hottest summer days.
In a moment of ugly honesty, a pang goes through Felix’s chest telling him he hasn’t really been alive either, since then.
***
The next morning Byleth summons Felix and the rest of their old class, save Mercedes, for a ‘quick chat’ after breakfast.
“I caught Dimitri in the stables trying to make a getaway last night,” she informs them as she pushes the doors to the Knights’ Hall shut. The fireplace crackles low on a few charred logs.
Everyone reacts with varying degrees of surprise. Felix feels numb for a moment, and then he’s drowning in the flood of harsh reality. Who’s the fool now? Felix should have never gone looking for the boar yesterday. He shouldn’t have stayed up half the night running over and over how human and how sane the boar appeared to be. Hoping. Mouthing Dimitri’s name to the ceiling, the feeling too unfamiliar. He snorts derisively. “And I thought maybe he was on a turn for the better,” he says, a bit too loudly.
“Why would he run off now after agreeing to march to Fhirdiad?” Annette cries.
“Because he’s a bloodthirsty madman ,” Felix says, tone cutting.
“Felix . . .” Sylvain begins warningly.
“He wasn’t just riding ahead?” Ingrid asks, uncertainly.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Felix bursts out at her. Fools! So hopeful for Dimitri to return to them as he was, they can’t see the beast for what it is. “Have you not learned over the past months that all the boar wants is Edelgard’s head?”
“Felix --” Byleth starts, but Felix cuts her off.
“One moment of sanity at the war council and you’ve forgotten how he stalks around like an animal, how he rips Imperial soldiers apart and grins doing it, how he talks to the air like we are dead and his ghosts are alive?! Even if His Majesty--” his tone drips in sarcasm, “-- should sit on the throne this moment we would not have a king. It’s been years, why do we still have all our faith in the boar, why do we throw our lives at his feet for the sake of his personal vendetta--”
“ Felix!” Sylvain shouts, grabbing him bodily, but Felix struggles.
“He’s not changing! Not ever! Why can’t you see that?!” he shouts. Sylvain manages to tug him off to the side but Felix continues to overflow, wrestling his shoulders this way and that in an attempt to free himself. “Tell me I’m wrong! Tell me I’m wrong, tell me he was riding north,” he challenges Byleth, panting.
Byleth glances down and shakes her head. “I’m afraid I can’t.”
Felix elbows Sylvain and with an uncontrolled burst of his crest finally frees himself from Sylvain’s grip, stumbling as he finds his footing. “So the boar is a boar. If that’s all you had to tell us, I’m leaving.”
“I was actually going to ask for your aid in helping with Dimitri,” Byleth says as Felix starts to turn toward the door. “An army needs a leader, and Dimitri is that figure. Unless you feel you can inspire the mobilization of an entire nation--” she pauses, perhaps to give Felix time to reminisce on how he was the only student who failed basic Authority-- “--we need to support him as much as possible.”
“What sort of help does Dimitri need?” Annette jumps in, saving Felix the need to answer.
Felix decides to leave before he can hear Byleth’s reply.
***
As Felix stalks along the familiar path to the training grounds, he gets his crest back in check. He shouldn’t have lost it. He’s good at controlling himself -- he needs to be. He forms a badly justified apology in the form of checking the infirmary. Just to make sure whatever ‘help’ Byleth speaks of isn’t critical.
The infirmary is still full to the brim, healers and assistants going hither and thither with bandages and poultices and things for special sigils. Felix does a lap without invading any patient’s personal space, not noting any mark of an important guest.
A page gets his attention as he steps back outside.
“Excuse me, are you looking for someone?” the page asks.
“Uh, no,” Felix says.
“Mercedes took his Highness to the old classroom, if you were wondering,” the page offers helpfully.
Felix finds his feet leading him that way.
***
The path to the old classrooms is mottled with grass beginning to become green again; the trees along one side show they haven’t been meticulously tended over the wartime years, only some of the twisting branches showing green buds, other branches dead weight.
Felix reaches the Blue Lions’ classroom. Mercedes is talking with some monastery staff just outside the doors, a Faerghus pennant on display here and the entrances to the other two classrooms unmarked.
Suddenly, nothing could stop Felix from getting in that room. He approaches Mercedes and passes her, gripping the familiar handle of the classroom door.
“Felix! If you want to --” Mercedes starts, but Felix has already turned the handle and pushed the door open. He slips inside.
He half expects to see a team of healers holding the boar down, but no. All is quiet and still. In the spacious room there is a bed, headrest set along one of the shelved walls, desks and chairs pushed aside to make room. Light’s provided by the large window behind the teacher’s desk. At first, a figure at the front of the classroom catches Felix’s attention. By the old blackboard, a suit of armor has been placed nicely on display, shining black yet marred with chips and slashes, a deep one on the right side of the breastplate. Dimitri’s furred cloak has been pinned around its hollow pauldrons. But that’s all it is -- hollow.
Felix is at the side of the bed in a few strides.
The boar lies on the plush mattress, finally scraped out of his shell. He seems too small despite his frame, looking to be asleep, a cloth across his forehead. In this light, the prominence of his cheekbones and brow are obvious, and without his armor and his cape, his shoulders and exposed chest are too bony. Various medicinal accoutrements sit on one of the desks pulled close to the bed.
It is not just his apparent weight that worries Felix as he sucks in a breath.
Dimitri’s crest is undetectable.
Sunken.
Cold.
He’s cold.
He’s given up?
There should be an undercurrent. There should be something. Felix reaches out, places a hand on Dimitri’s chest without thinking twice. Through the layer of cotton Felix can feel he’s breathing, there’s a pulse, but Felix squints his eyes shut and tries to sense the Blaiddyd life that should sing through Dimitri’s arteries and veins to sustain him in this condition. Something. Anything.
Mercedes has come in and is saying something to Felix. He doesn’t hear her, senses too busy with an illogical panic. He’s too panicked to focus. He opens his eyes. This is the danger with crests. You get dependent, you go too far, and if you let go . . . But surely not Dimitri. That is, as long as he was a beast with a singular will, for which he needed his crest in strong command.
Felix exhales through his teeth. What’s Mercedes saying?
“ . . . thought he would.”
“Would what?” Felix probes, back in the moment, jumpy.
“He’s not awake by now, and we think he should be, since his attempted escape,” Mercedes says. “It seems that he’s finally bearing the results of everything he’s pushed himself to do over the past while. But we’re worried his crest isn’t kicking in to help us with our healing efforts.” Felix sees Mercedes give his hand a curious look as his fingertips still brush Dimitri’s chest. He withdraws his hand as if burned.
Probably a bad idea because Mercedes looks at him even more curiously. In truth, Mercedes, with her frilly dress and shrill voice, is one of the people Felix thought he would find most bothersome in the context of war, but he could not have been more wrong. It is difficult, and most certainly unwise, to resent a mage of faith magic potent enough to close nearly any stab wound and reason magic enough to burn grown men alive with a single spell.
Felix shifts his weight defensively.
Mercedes finally turns aside and shakes her head. “Even though I trust he is with the goddess, I wish we could have Dedue for a moment.”
Felix bristles. He takes Dimitri’s right hand from under the cover, grasps his hand in his own, skin to skin. Sothis. Sothis, it’s been so long -- but like this, he’s focused enough, close enough. There it is. He closes his eyes briefly in relief. The tiniest hum of the Blaiddyd crest.
“His crest is there. Not much, but there,” Felix says brusquely. He meets Mercedes’ pearly blue gaze for a few moments as he places Dimitri’s limp hand back down and turns to go.
She doesn’t say anything to him as he takes his leave.
***
There is no official diagnosis for what has happened to Dimitri, but it follows that even for a man of his strength there has got to be a breaking point.
Everyone is worried, tense about the plans to march to Fhirdiad -- they can’t with Dimitri in this state, or at least they won’t unless they have to. Although no time period has been set until ‘have to’ becomes a reality, Dimitri doesn’t seem to be getting much better.
Everyone is worried - except Felix.
He visits Dimitri late in the evening, while he’s still breathing hard from sparring with Ingrid and then running a few laps around the grounds. Unfortunately, he passes Byleth on his way. Tch, she probably knew he was going anyway, because she’s just like that. Still, he hurries past her.
The guards at the door let Felix in wordlessly. Inside a servant is tidying the room, sweeping and stacking and putting used things in baskets. Felix gives her space to do her job as he goes to Dimitri’s side.
He’s motionless, and of course still too thin - he hasn’t woken up, goes the report - but when Felix takes Dimitri’s hand, confirming the weak undercurrent of his crest, he simply can’t bring himself to feel the panicked worry hanging over the entire monastery.
What Felix does feel is more like relief. Relief that at long last, the boar has the face of a sleeping man, not of a vengeful beast; relief that he is silent and not muttering to his ghosts; relief, even, that he can be cared for without his crest-given strength at the ready to turn back any aid.
The servant scutters out, baskets in hand. Felix grips Dimitri’s hand between both of his palms. “Come back,” he says quietly. He struggles to keep his crest down as it leaps and bites at his pulse. Can Felix hope? Dare he?
Dimitri still slumbers on.
***
Felix does get the rest of the story of Dimitri’s attempted escape from Byleth. He had been riding to Enbarr. But not in a vengeful fury, according to the Professor’s retelling; apparently he had seemed resigned. Byleth had endeavored to convince him to remain, at least till the morning as a stopgap measure, and succeeded, but Dimitri had simply passed out as he dismounted.
At war councils, there are now two empty chairs side-by-side. Over the next week, with intelligence on the moves Adrestia is making, they determine: if Dimitri does not at least show the ability to walk by next week, they will have to consider alternate leadership. (Byleth slash Sylvain slash someone who ardently refuses to be a candidate for leadership.) This patchwork solution is not the desired course of action; not because of competence, but because of image.
Felix continues to visit Dimitri later at night, while most of his visitors attend during the day. People from the surrounding villages even make a trip to place charms or flowers outside his room. Sometimes there is a lineup of well-wishers. The gifts come with a desperate kind of hope as reports of Imperial advances continue to filter in. Sylvain and Ingrid and Felix all pen letters and send messengers to their houses in East Faerghus. The general instruction: hold out until the king takes his throne.
It is the fourth night Felix visits. He sits at Dimitri’s side for some time. The relief he’d felt initially has crumbled away into uncertainty. After all, Dimitri could still wake up and renege on his assent to take back the capital. He could still wake up and don the mask of the boar again.
Felix is too alone in the dim room. The curtains are drawn. He’s been practicing his reason magic a bit more, and summons a ball of lightning to float and crackle above his open palm. The light dances excitedly, casting Dimitri’s features in sharp contrast.
“Look,” Felix says.
Dimitri remains still, left eye closed, his right eye with a velvet patch secured over it.
“You know you’re putting us in a difficult situation,” Felix says with a frustrated exhale. “If you don’t wake up and start walking around, Byleth and Sylvain are going to lead the army. Though it would have been my old man if he were around. You’d be happy for him to lead anyway, wouldn’t you?”
Felix snuffs out his ball of lightning and instead lights a candle at Dimitri’s bedside. Dimitri, at least the Dimitri he once was, never wanted to be in charge of a nation. Even at the Academy, he wasn’t much of a House Leader. The crown prince was studious, diligent, well-spoken, strong: all fine qualities of a king, and yet he was more than content to let those in his charge determine their own path. “But you did want to change things in Faerghus. You used to have your sights on improving the lives of commonfolk. I remember the first time we passed through that village in Charon, Rodrigue was trying to hurry us up so we didn’t spend too much time in the rougher places, but you wanted to see it all. The living conditions, the people . . .” That had become what Dimitri spoke of when he spoke of becoming king one day. Not the political negotiations, economics, and national pride that other rulers tended to speak of; no, he talked about the people, the people that would be his one day. Worrying for their wellbeing, already sharing with Felix his ideas on what needed to be done, and what he would have to do as king, despite his reluctance to lead.
Felix clenches a fist. “But where’s that dream now?” he asks Dimitri. “We both know, don’t we? Gone and forgotten. Traded for your obsession with Edelgard. Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to take her head from her shoulders as well. But her life’s not worth the price you’re willing to pay.”
Felix grabs a pillow and places it against the edge of the bed, settles back against it so he’s leaning more comfortably at Dimitri’s side. “That you’ve already paid,” he grimaces.
“That we’ve paid,” he adds, getting a little too comfortable in the pleasantly dim room. He tugs his cloak around so it’s a blanket instead of a cape.
He stares up at the wood-panelled ceiling for a few minutes.
“That I’ve paid,” he finally whispers. He turns his head to see Dimitri’s peaceful, static expression. Felix can feel his throat constrict, eyes burn. “You know it hurts,” he tells Dimitri, like a secret, like they used to whisper to each other when Felix slept over in Dimitri’s quarters at Fhirdiad. Except this is really no secret, only something he tries not to dwell on. He hates it. He hates feeling like this. He’s tired. “You know, don’t you . . . Dimitri . . .” He can feel sleep tugging his eyes shut and he decides to give in.
***
Felix wakes up with a start, rising out of a nonsense dream. He gets his bearings fairly quickly, remembering where he fell asleep. The scant light through the drawn curtains tells him it’s morning, probably around the same time he usually wakes up.
He pushes himself up and wriggles his cloak back around, and turns to see Dimitri stir slightly, his eye blinking open.
Felix stares.