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“D-Dimitri?”
It was once so warm. So rhythmic what once breathed in his hands.
He swore it almost felt like a heart.
And he dared to squeeze it tighter, tighter and tighter, until.
“Y-your crest…” His Father is hurrying to his side, opening up his palm, only to reveal that gore.
It’s bones speared out where the spaces of his fingers once were.
“Dimitri, look at me…”
“Oh Goddess,” His Stepmother, the first to utter his name then, is joining the two as well, her own gentle and delicate fist curled up. In it, birdseed.
He gasps out, eyes widening upon the crimson red that dripped so pathetically from his hand. He wanted to be sick, wanted to run inside, cleanse his hand against the front of his breeches until the skin there grew red from the burning friction. Like the very essence of his victim had been embedded into him there.
“D-did I kill it?” He whimpers, shaking and shivering. Faerghus’ winter made it hard for tears to roll down his cheeks.
Besides, who was to know how this child had ever come across the concept of ‘killing’ to know for sure what he had done?
Perhaps it was from that day forth that Dimitri grew to resent the Goddess. Especially when his Stepmother had called upon her.
Why ask her for help when she gave him this?
A curse to kill, a curse to dig his fingers into flesh and render it completely into a pulp.
A pulp that still felt like it’s weight beat against his hand, light feathers brushing against him. A phantom limb in its own right.
…
“F-father-!”
Dimitri was there to witness it all, always there to witness it. The grabbing of his cape, the splaying of his body upon the ground as spears would raise, axes heralded to the sky, as though this king were an offering to above.
And what about his crest? Why couldn't the both of them use it now, use it in these crucial moments that in which someone needed to be saved?
That familiar voice would call out his name, reach out his own hand too. Such a weight thrown upon a child, who was being held down too, pulled along as the next victim to this hellscape before him. Tents burning, their ashen fabrics flutter and shredded to the skies above too, in tandem to that weaponry, to Dimitri’s sights as his eyes would realign.
He didn’t even hear that fall of the axe.
He didn’t even realise that the liquid being dripped upon his head was from where his own flesh and blood originated from.
That bloody prince, crowned with the lifeblood of his king. Dimitri’s gaze falls silent and empty as his eyes widen. A painful prod in his gut, and he felt like the ocean was inside of him, and it needed to pour itself out, until he died from drowning and the overconsumption of salt.
A pike runs itself straight through bone, the top of his spine protruding due to the bluntness of that axe. It’s like his neck was crushed rather than cut. How many strikes did Dimitri miss then?
And not only that, his expression was one of absence. The muscles of his cheeks, deflated, lifeless. Even if his flesh was still fresh, Dimitri could swear there was something already greying and decaying around the edges. And it all screamed a question, of what was happening? Who was doing this? How could they do this?
Why didn’t you save me?
Like mirrors, the both of their eyes would widen. And then blink.
His voice is softer now. The roar of flames overshadowing the sound of it to his own ears.
“F-Father, are you…”
Are you still alive?
Dimitri can’t even recall how he managed to live to even utter the tale. No, Dimitri does not even dare speak of it.
All he can remember is someone tugging him back up to stand.
Impact upon the crown of his head. Falling, as a black-haired man shields him. Blood splattering his eyesight. More impaled bodies. More bodies to haunt him as he falls into the abyss of unconsciousness.
For a severed head above his own blinks, a lifeless bird guts itself, those figures stand and surround. Dimitri tightens his fists, tighter, tighter, tighter until.
...
Felix scorns him for all the right reasons. Dedue's concern only wears him further down. There was no point in defending the temperament he screamed out the second he was released upon the battlefield.
He had made good use of his lance, of course. Cleaving through swarms of those rebels. But the second that weapon was knocked out Dimitri took it upon himself to utilise his hands next.
He grabbed, he ripped to shreds, he ground up skulls, and felt like he could drink up blood, taste its indulgences like he would red wine. This was what it meant to grow lucid upon the battlefield. To feel the dampness and heat of splatters in the air meld one’s movements, like spoons dipped into honey, molasses poured onto the grime below.
Dimitri would grind his boots into spines. He’d condescend the yelps of mercy.
Such a young face would make for such a worthy prince.
Felix would snarl in that face. And when the battle was done, when Dimitri had come to, he felt his vengeance was satiated.
But now, he couldn’t control the fact that friends were leaving him. Some were scared. Others yet, had now grown to hate him. Because this wasn’t Dimitri.
He’d even find himself staring at his own reflection. Down those labyrinths of his bedroom, that he once dearly trusted. He could conjure up images of what he’s seen, and what he’s done like it were magic, but at the end of the day, he is blood soaked, hair covers one eye, and the other is bared completely for him to see.
Perfectly blue, blinking.
He looks too much like his own father, sometimes.
…
The air here is sickly thick with mold and rotting bones. Dimitri stares off, his mouth running off with insistences, cries that he knows what is happening, he knows who was doing this, how they did it.
He declares that he can save his father now.
Even if six feet under, that is where his poor head rested.
Even if six feet before him, there stood that woman, who gritted her teeth as that lance sailed.
He swore for a second that he hit successfully, and he swore for a second that that phantom limb of his twitched, in search of another heart-like thing to crush.
Dimitri sorely wished he could’ve ended it all then and there. Fulfill his duty of vengeance and be done with his life, but once more, the Goddess had other plans it seemed.
That woman would dissipate, and he'd be faced with that empty space, an empty threat he'd spit out.
Barely coherent, he takes time to despise himself.
But battle breaks out too soon. He’s blank as he does what he can to defend what little he cares for, what little he can remember. His head throbs, he throws aside soldiers, now numb to the clink and grind of his nails sinking into bone.
The Professor sinks below the light of day. The Archbishop is nowhere to be found. That Emperor lifts her head high, for victory is hers.
He'll be escorted home with Dedue. Safe and sound in the cold confines of winter. Exiled, in a sense.
...
The verdict proves him guilty. Even if he wasn’t present at the time. But Dimitri’s connections were sinister enough for Cornelia to sneer at him. He resigns his head to hanging before it too would be inevitably removed from his shoulders.
He feels as though he's fought enough. So, he lets them have their way with him. Free him of the burdens cast upon his back by heads that blink, that are held high above him.
But some do not share that belief. And as much as he trusts that the people around him, already despise him enough, someone wishes to pay their debts.
Dedue still calls him Your Highness. Dedue still reaches his hand out from through the bars of his cell. And before he knows it, Dimitri is pulled out.
There’s hope.
There’s an answer that says there’s a second chance, that if only he could reach out in turn to something, someone who was actually alive too.
But something sharp and invasive sends electricity through his eye.
Oh, how he can already taste the iron, like the tip of the arrow had pressed itself against his tongue.
He’s never screamed that loud or high before in his life. And this time the blood spilt from himself.
And when he turns to look with what was left of his sight, upon the whites of snow, that was imprinted with their trailed footsteps, it’s no longer pure.
Dedue has fallen. Soldiers are only getting closer.
He’s told to run. Become a coward.
Live to see your life come true.
But what was true about this? Dimitri refused to let this be the truth.
Even as he ran, as his feet carried him, out of his own volition. Why live when you had led your own friend to the slaughter?
Another head hangs over his shoulder.
…
That pulsating rhythm. It felt like there was a heart back in his hands again.
The royal family’s possession, and it was now being stolen by the one dejected by them.
He should be dead, but no, Dimitri still had a purpose in mind. And he finally found the catalyst to which he could see that purpose come to fruition.
He walks out of that camp, trudging and dredging up guts that’d mix with the snow. The tents are sparse now. Fire dissipates as soon as new layers of cold flakes flutter down, masking the gore.
In his hand is where Areadbhar, weapon of bone, adorned by a heart, resides now.
Dimitri feels like it belongs to him, perfectly. Especially when his fists tighten. The lance does not break.
Are you alive?
And as he’d expect, the answer isn’t as explicit as he thought.
Even so, when he sees its glow, when he feels the connection of crest to weapon, like a beast’s blood coursing through his veins, like energy being drained from a being on high, Dimitri has a thin moment of faith. As much as he can hold onto at least, while he’s like this.
He had something alive he could hold onto now. His hope has become ravenous.
...
He has not eaten in days.
Empire and Faerghus land has melded into one, according to his eyes. One being bloody, the other, barely gripped upon reality.
But he wanders, he conquers. He flails Areadbhar about. Her condescending expression steels his resolve.
Dimitri’s mind is an abattoir. And he feels his very own psyche flopped down upon the chopping block. Processed unto the labyrinth that makes way for his steps. He could choke down upon the blood gathering in his throat, gaze upon the clinical white that wisped around. Like ash. Like those sullen, bone-like trees held upon their pikes heads, heads, heads.
Dimitri had once trusted this land. And now, it only deepened his fears. It made every terrible vision of his come true. He abandoned this place to seek out his answers, his vengeance. It seems all the more reasonable to him that, in turn, it would outwardly reject him too. It was its own form of vengeance against him.
Oh Goddess, if you witness this poor soul, know that it was your fault.
You, who curse, there are those who spite you, and there are those who actively wish to tear you apart, limb from limb from limb.
You gave a man the power to live. You gave a man the power to kill. You gave a man the power to save.
And yet, here he is, pitiful, pitiful, pitiful.
The wind chants it; a cursed, mocking trihagion.
And soon enough, Dimitri mimics, spits out those words in growls too. Intermittent droves of frustration that only make the bile in him stick to the walls of his throat.
His head falls deeper into that abattoir, that basket below that promises to catch him. This beast of burden.
And like his father, he can blink, once, twice.
Like a phantom limb that hangs over this Kingdom.
This winter is cursed. This age of war tastes of bitterness, and blood, like ages before it.
…
This story ends with Prince Dimitri’s untimely demise. Rumoured, at least.
He would die alone, captured in his insanity, a winter wonderland to bid him his farewell.
Not many know how he died.
But some say they can feel his head hang over their shoulders when they pass the white fields just outside the castle walls.
They can feel phantom limbs plunge into their chest, and attempt to grasp at their heart. Some even report seeing their very lives flash in front of their eyes because of it.
Something wanted to kill them.
They could feel it in the coldness of the air, the mistrust they held for the Faerghus landscape. That need for vengeance, for closure.
It felt too real, some were certain that the exiled prince himself was there with them. Chanting. His fist clenched, until it trembled. Hiding something bloody, and bitter.
It’s all because of those rumours now, that the Crest of Blaiddyd is cursed.