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The days Dimitri spent on his own had started to merge into each other. It felt like eons he spent wandering Faerghus, never letting go of his lance. Just how long had it been since he escaped Fhirdiad? Dimitri couldn't even recall. It must have been a long time since he escaped... since he lost Dedue, his professor... his friends, everything really. His physical body had grown in strength and build, not showing a single sign of being the same prince he was at the academy. That was a good thing, in his mind. The crown prince of Faerghus was dead, now all that remained was a walking and breathing corpse. He had spent the last few months wandering these woods, slaughtering the imperial generals who were camping around the destroyed entrance of Garreg Mach, to prove something, as the dead followed him when he sulked around. their hands, rotting and a translucent grey, reached out to grab onto his cloak, crawling across the floor with screams and moans only for Dimitri to hear and see. The souls demanded attention just so they could wail for vengeance from the sole survivor.
The dead had completely consumed him, their voices being the only thing his brain registered as noise as imperial generals surrounded the entire place. The grip tightened on his lance, it almost surprised him that his weapon of choice didn't snap into two at the pressure. His strength never failed him again.
Two of the generals at the very entrance where the market used to be, noticed him sulking towards them. One, the taller of the two, started yelling into the halls an incomprehensible sentence, not like Dimitri would've cared what he said anyway. A cruel smirk painted upon his face as the shorter of the two ran towards him. In his ears, he could hear the ring of words from his father and Glenn, and all those who perished in the fires of Duscur.
Kill every last one of them!
Their wicked souls don't deserve to live!
Don't waste your time on these pathetic creatures! Turn your attention to the emperor!
With a swing of his lance, he sliced a clean cut through the imperial guard's stomach. Blood spilled out in gushes, a gurgled choke as the sword dropped from his hands. Some of the blood splashed onto Dimitri's hands and armor as the body fell, he didn't spare the man another glance.
It seemed, that this once prestigious academy, had a rat infestation. The empire had troops on the inside and thieves pillaging what they could savor of the academy's previous wealth. It made him sick, the trampling of the people who once lived in these lands, the blasphemy. The cruelty both parties had for those lesser than them. How despicable.
The prince had fought his way through the entrance, stepping over the bodies and wiping the blood from his face. The rats kept coming, expecting to be able to take on a beast such as him. The idea was laughable.
A blood bath is what the monastery had become as he worked his way up towards the goddess tower. There was no particular reason Dimitri must go there, none that he remembered at least. Yet, despite the screams and constant taunting he heard, in the deepest parts of his mind, an inner calming voice was telling him to go there. To wait, to rest.
The voice was correct, of course. Dimitri would die if he kept without rest, and he couldn't perish until he brought his family the head of the emperor.
The cell underneath Faerghus' castle was cold, damp, and filthy. Moss grew on the ceiling, and the quiet chatter from the guards was the only thing keeping the prince from passing out from exhaustion. Dimitri, still in his academy uniform, was sat up against the wall with his eyes closed. His wrists were bound together, the flesh burning and red from the pressure on his skin.
His days were limited it seems.
Cornelia, that damned woman. She must have framed him so she could take power of his country. It stung, having delt with multiple betrayals in the last month. His heart burned, yet he would not allow himself to cry.
There were only a few days left until he would become king. But now, he was nothing. Perhaps he was always nothing.
"Little princeling, I see you haven't moved from that spot,"
Up, Dimitri looked, and there in front of the cell's bars did Cornelia stand. her pink, shoulder length hair framed her face, her choice of attire not changing since his sentence. Although there was darkness, Dimitri could make out the smug smirk on her lips from the light in from the cell doors. It infuriated him.
"I know you killed my uncle and framed me," Dimitri's voice was weak and nasal. He barely sounded like himself, whether that was from the yelling he did earlier or from speaking little since his sentence, he could not recall. Cornelia laughed, a mocking and bitter sound. It shook Dimitri's bones as the voices of the dead screamed at him, they hadn't stopped screaming at him since the monastery fell.
"But I didn't, did I? If I committed such a crime, then I would be there instead of you. Yet look at where we are."
Dimitri wanted to curse her out, break the chains that bound him and strangle her for her crimes against him and his home. Yet his strength failed him, for the first time.
Pathetic.
It seemed the reaction she wanted out of him, she wasn't to get, for she left only a few moments after mocking his failure once again.
He felt empty. He felt alone. And he truly was.
The fight to the goddess tower wasn't a difficult one, most fights never were, a majority of the guards died before they even knew who killed them. It brought a sick satisfaction to Dimitri, glancing at the fear in their eyes right before their hearts stopped beating. It was a mercy, to kill those who sided with the empire. Anybody who even thought Edel- no, that woman, was justified in her actions and crimes against his family and the world, was just as evil as she was. She had a hand in Duscur, had a hand in the death of his family. She deserved nothing, and neither did those who followed her orders.
Despite the hatred that was burning through his veins at the mere thought of that woman, he noted how the tower was just the same as how he remembered it to be when he stepped foot here five years ago, the only difference being the vines and leaves that were overgrowing the windows. It was relatively in good shape compared to the rest of the place that he had seen. Dimitri hadn't even bothered to go look for his old room, the idea of seeing what he was all that time ago almost being too painful to bare. It was pointless and added nothing to his quest.
He lagged towards the corner in the shadows, fresh blood dripping from his lance and onto the floor in a small puddle as he sat. Dimitri let out a shaky breath, ignoring the haunting sounds of Glenn's voice. His head rested against his knee as he hesitantly closed his eye. He could not ignore the exhaustion that haunted his bones any longer. Dying before he killed the emperor would be a fate he could not accept.
Dimitri would rest here, for only a short while.
And as the prince rested, a sleep alluded over his towering figure, his mind dreamed and returned to the time at the academy. In his dreams, the sky was a light baby blue with white clouds covering the sun to muffle the heat of summer. His professor, and his classmates, were all together at the training grounds. Here was a place Dimitri used to spend most of his time at, training, getting his strength together, hoping if he trained hard enough his family wouldn't mock or taunt him.
Byleth, as graceful and beautiful as always, blocked a strike from Felix with minimal effort, pushing up against his sword with her weight. A small elbow to his chest caught the latter off guard, taking the chance to sweep her foot beneath his legs to catch the noble off balance. He fell over, just like she predicted. Byleth put the training sword against his neck as he scowled and put his hands up in defeat. She always won against her students, not a single drop of sweat on her brow or a strand of navy hair out of place.
"You keep losing to that," Their professor had said, small smile grazing her lips. An ungloved hand reached out to help pull Felix up, a small pout to contrast her smile on his face as he stepped to the side, "Remember to watch for openings that could knock your opponent's off of their feet. That can always determine whether you win or lose a battle"
Dimitri, younger and slightly shorter, laughed at Felix's facial expression at the loss. Byleth turned to glance at him, holding the training sword up, "Spar with me next, Dimitri? We still have plenty of time"
He crossed his arms, an amused expression on his face as the rest of the lions watched, and waited for a reply, "It would be an honour"
Sylvain, one of his closer friends of the lions, threw a training lance towards Dimitri, which he caught without even having to look over at his friend. Byleth, true to the merc he met, never lost at that time to any of them. But now, if she was still alive, maybe the story would be different.
"I will not go easy on you, professor"
Byleth smiled and scrunched up her nose in anticipation, "I would expect nothing less"
They trained together, almost every day after that. Whether it was after class, or sometime in the middle of the night during another sleepless night, it mattered not. Byleth always knew where to find him. She would reach her hand out and with that same mesmerizing smile of hers ask to practice with him. Dimitri could never refuse her.
Dimitri's room was freezing. The window was opened, and he felt the chilling bite of winter's cold wind as he laid under his covers. He tossed and turned, head pounding and body shaking as his breath hitched. He was dreaming, yet not a pleasant dream.
Like the usual nights he slept, he was sent back to the tragedy of Duscur in the body of his 13-year-old self. The flames were raging, reaching the skies peak as the fire roared. Dimitri suddenly felt weak again, fear piercing his baby blue eyes as he began crawling out of the carriage and from the buildings and tents to avoid being burned. Only a few feet away, stood the royal guards defending the king, them too outside of their carriages, swords and lances in hands and attempting to swing at their attackers. The attacks missed, men stabbing the royal guards in front of him.
They fell, and Dimitri watched his father, the bravest and best man he ever knew, attempt to fight off the attacks from the men with faces he could not see. He stared more intensely, being met with pure nothingness. Lambert attacked again, from behind getting stabbed in the gut.
Dimitri couldn't even scream, feeling the hand of Glenn touch his shoulder as he whispered intensely to him, "We have to leave!" The words angered the young prince, shaking his head and attempting to run towards the king to prevent the death. He knew it would happen. Oh, Dimitri knew it happened far too well. Yet in the body of a child, there was not much he could do against Glenn, besides fight his grip.
"Father! Watch ou-"
His words fell upon deaf ears as a person, dressed in red and black armor, used their sword to slice a clean cut through Lambert's neck, decapitating him with a rigid swish of the blade. His mouth was opened in an empty scream, and no matter how many times Dimitri had the dream and remembered, the face his father made as a sword who claimed so many lives collided with the flesh of the living, watching the body fall to the floor with an echoing thud. All of it horrified him.
The person who just committed regicide turned to him; sword pointed at his neck as their troops took care of the rest of the royal guards. And again, Dimitri could see how they deliberately didn't stab them in places where they would die instantly. They wanted them to burn in the flames, wanted them to suffer.
A few of the troops came from the flank, attempting to assassinate Dimitri as well. Glenn, strong and selfless Glenn, pushed them off with his sword. His technique was flawless as always, just like Fraldarius technique always was. When Glenn fought, it looked more like a dance than a battlefield, yet dancing was the last thing on the prince's mind.
Glenn held his own against the men who kept ruthlessly attacking, dodging and blocking and retaliating in such a smooth way it looked like he was born to hold a sword. For a moment, a single moment frozen in time, Dimitri thought it would end differently than it did all the other times he dreamt, for Glenn had killed the men who were attempting to reach Dimitri. The flames kept roaring in the background yet hope filled his eyes as he started to run towards the prince in hopes of getting him away.
Dimitri smiled as Glenn was about to reach him, the dreamt perhaps ending... in a more hopeful way this time?
But his hope shattered when the same sword who killed his father cut through Glenn's abdomen, a sharp gasp escaping his lips his sword gifted from lambert himself fell from his fingers. A little drop of blood fell from his lips as the sword was yanked out, his body falling the same way Lambert's did.
Dimitri couldn't even scream, he just watched, tears streaming down his cheeks as he saw.
As he saw their armor, it was imprinted on his memory. And he was frozen in place as they marched towards him too, fresh blood still dripping from their blade and onto the grass below.
"Di.... Dimitri..."
He couldn't move, fear in the eyes of a child reflecting off of the shine of the latter's helmet.
"Dimitri, wake up!"
And he did.
His eyes hesitantly opened. He was back in the body of his 18-year-old self, no longer being forced to relive the tragedy in a nightmare. The window was still open, small gushes of wind blowing into the room with the moonlight reflecting against his bed. His room was the same as when he fell asleep, besides the unnerving fact his door was slightly creaked open, and his professor was leaning by his bed with a very concerned look upon her features.
He swallowed back the headache that was pounding up on him once more and sat up, running his hands through his hair as he looked at her, doing his best job to hide the flustered tint on his cheekbones at how close she was to him.
"P-professor?" He whispered, voice sounding raspier and deeper than usual. A deep exhale, and he was already closing his eyes and turning his head away from her innocent gaze. She didn't even blink or seem concerned at how improper this must look, "How did you get in here?"
Byleth put her hand on his forehead, feeling his temperature. Her lips were pressed in a straight line and her brows were furrowed. Byleth didn't seem to understand how bad this would look to anyone if they passed his room as she spoke, "Your door was unlocked. I was going upstairs to tell Sylvain to be quieter cause it was waking students up, but I heard you mumbling something when walking over. I got worried."
Oh.
Oh.
How embarrassing.
After a few moments of silence Dimitri sighed, shifting his seating position to get more comfortable, "I'm sorry for worrying you, professor. Truly, I am. You are free to leave, if you wish."
Instead of jumping up and rushing out the door like he expected she would, she stayed put. Her arms were now crossed, and her normal armor was nowhere to be seen, instead being exchanged with a more casual replacement. In her big teal eyes, she showed no signs of discomfort and anger with him. It was odd, seeing someone look at him with such kindness. Almost alien to how he usually thought people glanced at him.
"What were you dreaming about?" she asked.
Such an innocent question. Dimitri questioned if he should be honest with her, the truth would possibly drive her away.
The crown prince chuckled lightly, resting his chin on the palm of his hand as he looked at the covers on his bed. What could he even say? Someone checking up to genuinely understand his nightmares was so... rare. Only Dedue knew, really.
"It was a nightmare."
"About?"
"Duscur."
Byleth didn't look surprised at the answer. She sighed, doing the little professor sigh she did when she had a lot to work on during their lessons, and sat on his bed. Dimitri tried not to get nervous at her closeness.
"Do you usually have nightmares?" She didn't look him in the eye, instead stared straight ahead to look at his desk.
"Usually... yes. It makes it difficult to sleep."
She nodded but said nothing. Dimitri took her hesitance to swung his legs off the bed and stand up, walking to his chair to grab the white dress shirt that was hanging because he (embarrassingly) noticed he wasn't wearing one as she spoke. His back was turned to her. Byleth stared.
"I understand the feeling, honestly. I have struggle sleeping at night too."
Dimitri's brows raised as he turned to face her, tilting his head slightly, "Really? You never look tired."
She let out a small chuckle, "Well, I guess I'm good at hiding it."
There was a small burn in his chest at those words. He knew what it was like to hide your problems from the world all too well. The closer they got to unmasking the flame emperor, the more cracks in his mask appeared. His friends, like the good and kind-hearted souls they were, had shown their concerns to him in private. If they saw how bad he was getting, he almost didn't want to know how well Byleth was able to read him.
"Ah... yes." He looked down at the floor, fists clenched. Byleth stood up as well, stepping towards him with her hand extended. A small stillness in the air, and she reached and grabbed his hand with her own. Dimitri was dumbfounded. Her hands were soft compared to his own, warm and gentle. He was almost afraid if he held her hand back, he'd break it from how fragile and gentle it seemed.
"Dimitri, I care about you. If anything is bothering you, you can talk to me. I might not be the best at comforting, but I will try."
"You... care about me?" His heart fluttered at those simple yet meaningful words.
"Of course, I do. I always will."
Maybe those words would still ring true today. But Dimitri lost her shortly after. And now he knew that it would not be long until he saw her face haunting him the same way the others did.
At the very edge of Faerghus' borders, there was a small town filled with people blind to the things happening in the rest of the Kingdom. Whether it was intentional ignorance or the unknowingly blindness to the truth of the problems in their homeland, Dimitri could care less. This could be a safe haven for the time being, and he desperately needed a place to rest. He looked behind him once, a quick check to make sure he wasn't being followed, before wrapping his cloak around him and covering himself with the hood. He prayed nobody here knew what the crown prince looked like, after all, he was still being hunted by Cornelia and his own soldiers. Dying so shortly after escaping would make... Dedue's sacrifice, be for nothing.
Dimitri's hand hesitantly reached forward and twisted the handle open, the creaking of the door causing the lady at the counter to look up. She smiled as she welcomed him, Dimitri taking the hint and closing the door behind him.
"I heard this is the inn here?" Dimitri had said as he stepped closer to the counter. His voice was weak, and he hated how it sounded when he spoke now. The latter smiled and nodded warmly.
"It's been a while since we have gotten anybody here that isn't a mercenary, what brings you to this part of the Kingdom?" She took out some papers as she waited for the reply.
"Just travelling. How much for one night?"
The girl looked at him, a small glint of intrigue in her green eyes, "Since I haven't seen you here before, how about 25?"
Dimitri didn't even know if he had that much. He searched his pockets, pulling out the rest of what he had from his escape. He frowned, "I only have 14, sorry to inconvenience you."
She exhaled, "Well.... that's alright. I can just take the 14, and you can rest up. You look exhausted," She shook her head and took the gold from his hands, grabbing a quill and dipping it in ink, "Name?"
"Alexandre."
"Well, Alexandre. Your room is upstairs, second door on the left. If you need any food or drink you can come down here and tell whoever is at the counter that Astrid served you and said it was okay," Another warm smile.
"Thank you, I will not forget your kindness."
The night came quickly, and Dimitri once again could not sleep. Sleep evaded him always, he could no nothing other than sit on his bed and think. A shrouded emptiness burned inside his throat like a flame that refused to extinguish, unbridled anger and hatred bleeding from the fires.
Distinctly again, he could hear Lambert's voice. A cruel and sharp sound that bounced off the walls.
"Oh, my poor, pathetic son. You sit here wallowing in your own self-pity instead of journeying to gain the vengeance that you swore you'd deliver to us!"
Dimitri opened his eyes, immediately regretting it and gasping at the sight. He turned away, refusing to look his father in the eyes.
"You can't even look at me now? Look at what your failure had turned me into?"
The words were meant to taunt him, Dimitri knew that much. He slowly turned his head, opening his eyes and meeting Lambert's once again. Lifeless, glazed over eyes met baby blue ones. The pale, once vibrant skin was a dull grey. An open, gaping, gash sat pathetically on his neck, dripping with fresh blood. The sight was horrifying for Dimitri to look at, yet he couldn't tear his eyes away.
"I need to rest; I haven't forgotten the vengeance," Dimitri had replied, sounding a little lame when he spoke.
"You do not need rest! You need to kill her! Or are you too weak to even avenge your family?" Such harsh and venomous words released from Lambert's paled and blue lips, yet his face was as stone cold as it was when he died. Lambert had reached up and inserted one of his rotting hands into his wound, giving a clear look to the son in front of him.
"I will do it, father! Please, do not... do not look at me in such a way," The words Dimitri begged had sounded just as pathetic as he felt.
"Are you ashamed of seeing what you made us?" Another man had stepped foot close to Dimitri - Glenn, looking deadly pale just like Lambert. No gash was bleeding in gushes from his throat, instead one unhealed stab wound that pulsed and looked infected from the angle Dimitri saw.
Glenn stepped forward, his hand touching Dimitri's face in such an unfamiliar manner.
"No... I take responsibility for being the survivor. I hate Edelgard, I will kill her for what sh-"
"And yet you're spending your time here instead of hunting her."
"I'm trying!"
I am trying! I am trying, I will kill her I will kill her I will-
Dimitri flinched and let out a choked gasp when he heard the screams from Duscur echo in his eardrums again, a broken record to drown out the words from his previous knight and father. He stood, opening the window only to see his stepmother's lifeless face again smile at him. Yet, the warm smile he had loved from Patricia was replaced with a far more sinister look as she chanted the saying that he kept hearing from the others who perished.
Every corner of his eyesight was covered with the bodies of his friends and family, bleeding out onto the floor in gushes with their hands reaching to grab onto his feet and drag him down into the depths of hell with them. Panic flooded Dimitri's bones as he attempted remove their grips from his body, an inner sanctity preventing him from succumbing to them. He stumbled backwards, his shoulder hitting the mirror on the wall, glass shattering and falling to the floor.
Dimitri barely registered the pain of the glass cutting up his shoulder, sliding down the wall as he covered his face in his hands to muffle his sobs.
Leave me alone! Just go away, Please, please-!
Every time he opened his eyes the corpses of his family would be there, taunting and screaming and groaning at him to leave the room.
He was terrified, and in an act of pure adrenaline and fear he picked up a shard of glass, he barely saw himself before he lifted the shard. It was almost like he wasn't aware of what he was doing, a fair haunting voice in his head reminding him of the remaining sanity to prevent him from doing this. The ghost of Glenn encouraged it.
"If you hate looking at what you did to us so much, maybe you should cut out your own eyes, then you'd only have to hear us-"
And with the voice of Glenn encouraging his actions he barely registered the pain of the glass meeting constant with his eye, slicing through easily with his strength. Vision in his left eye blurred and soon was replaced with nothing but darkness. Blood slipping through his fingers almost immediately, and the bloody mirror shard fell from his fingers. Dimitri swore, multiple times as he covered the empty eye socket, blood seeping through his fingers and down his cheek without any indication of stopping anytime soon.
"Now you truly are what they say. A monster."
A monster. A monster. That's what I am and that's what I've always been.
It hurts, oh goddess it hurts-
Dimitri kept the pressure on the left side of his face as he hissed and stood up, a broken cry escaping his lips.
The bodies of those at Duscur slowly seeped away from his vision as became hazy and foggy, and again Dimitri felt nothing as he used his cloak to try to still the bleeding.
Dimitri didn't know how long he had rested there, one single eye closed as he leaned against his lance for support. The once fresh blood had definitely dried by now, and he could still hear the voices of his family and friends, a distant echo that was being drowned out with the faint footsteps up the stairs.
Another rat thinking they can kill me, perhaps.
The footsteps got louder and closer and Dimitri smirked when he opened his eyes, expecting to see a guard shaking at the sight of him. Yet the sight he saw, was nothing of what he anticipated.
His chest burned as she stood there, looking as beautiful as the day he lost her.
Byleth.
The day would come where she would haunt him, Dimitri knew that too well. Yet the thought becoming a reality never made it easier. His lips quivered as she stepped forward into the light, reaching a hand where he resided in darkness.
"I knew... that you'd come and haunt me one day too."
Her hand remained, and once Dimitri would've taken it for he could never deny her.
"Dimitri?"
Dimitri now stood, reaching his full height and standing a good foot taller than her. His grip on his lanced tightened and Byleth stared at him with the same kindness in her eyes that she did all those years ago.
"Why must you haunt me?" He hissed through the skin of his teeth, still not meeting her gaze, "Can't you just leave me to rot by myself?"
Byleth now frowned, yet the warmth and familiarness remained, "What are you talking about?"
No..
"You... you're alive?!" The shock on his face must've been evident because she took a step forward in hopes he would grab her hand the way he used to, yet the only response Byleth would get now was two steps back and a lifted lance, "You must be one of that woman's spies. Did you come here to kill me like so many others?" The venomous tone seemed to stun the latter, for her mouth gaped open as she searched for a response.
"Of course not."
Despite the conflicting emotions, Dimitri found deep down within his soul he was happy... content that she was alive. That she made it out and had decided to look for him. Yet the dead had consumed him wholly, and he could not allow for any distractions towards his quest to Enbarr.
As he shoved past her, Byleth spoke, another useless lie.
"I missed you. I'm glad you're safe."
Despite himself, a small chuckle escaped Dimitri's lips as he went to step back down the stairs, "Am I?"
And when he walked down the stairs, leaving the woman he used to know alone in the tower, her words resting in his head. I missed you. Underneath the surface, although he'd never admit it now, he missed her too.