Work Text:
The first time the Blue Lions travel to the beach, it isn't for a vacation. They have a given reason for going, they have a martial task to complete: to defend a holy site from would-be defilers. From heathens and heretics blaspheming against the Church of Seiros.
It is a violent mission, and difficult, the sand hindering movement, gritty and grinding and abrasive where it clings in private places. A hundred thousand grains chafe beneath even the prince's well-fitted armour. And the waves crash, crash, never once let up, as diligent as the lions are in their struggle. Of them he is proud, his friends and allies who are like unto a world-carving force of nature.
Once the battle is done, Flayn and her older brother disappear from the battlefield with the professor for some time. Their professor has left instructions, so Dimitri has his lions get to work: gather the corpses, build pyres, restore some sanctity to this sacred place.
By the time the professor rejoins them, pink and orange have bloomed across the sky, diffusing throughout the whole world the sun's soft roseate light. She seems to be glowing, too, though she's tired, and her arms are full of weapons—artefacts?—she has recovered from somewhere.
He goes to meet her, and help her. She greets him with that mesmerising smile, and he offers one back. He has gotten better at keeping himself together in her presence, so he's calm when she explains that every single items in her arms is a gift from their green-haired friends.
His eyes flick quickly to her own green hair, but he does not say anything about this strange, lurid connection. He merely holds out his arms, and she understands his prompt without him needing to verbally offer himself.
She hands him everything.
He hauls it all over his shoulder and escorts her back to where they have set up camp. He tells her all that they have done to clean up the mess they and their enemies made. And—he had been going so good, he had. But he goes tight and warm and feels the rush of blood to his head when she compliments him on his thoughtfulness. She wouldn’t have thought to erase the scars of their skirmishes by having their magic-users coax gently obliterating waves up along the length of the shoreline.
She thanks him, and he wrestles with himself not to look away from her. By not, he risks giving her a glimpse of a glimmer of the hunger within him because of his starvation for praise. A true abyss of longing he spends some of the evening ruminating over.
Later, when everyone else is eating, he does not—cannot—find her.
So, he goes searching for her, and Seteth and Flayn too, who have yet to return. He finds her on the moonlit beach, a pole in her hands he is not entirely sure she brought with them. With a graceful, fluid motion, she casts out her next line.
Then she digs the butt of the rod into the sand, nods with self-directed satisfaction, and looks at him. He cannot remember how long he has been here, watching. Observing. Staring. He does not know what to say. He does not have words for why he is here—not ones that he can actually say to her.
So he looks out at the ocean, watches the waves as they spread out their silvered lace-filigree of foam. He has nothing else to say, so he remarks, “This must be an ocean which never freezes.”
“Ocean water can freeze?”
“Around much of Faerghus, it does. There is enough ice choking the shore that some parts of the Kingdom are inaccessible by port for several moons every year.”
“It must be very quiet.”
“And lonely. Difficult,” he muses.
The silence which falls feels as deep and interminable as the sea. Perhaps it will be as eternal, too. And as furtively turbulent—beneath the most deadend calms, you might never know how fiercely the deep-currents tumble and rage. He stands apart on his shore. And she, on hers.
But, then she turns to him, and she says, as if simply resuming an earlier conversation, “Do you enjoy fishing?”
“I prefer other types of hunting, Professor. Fishing is, for me… Well, I can provide an example which might explain it," he says. And, when all he can see is her interest, because all she has to offer him is her interest to entice him to open himself and let all his ramblings spill out, he continues, "Even if you must remain still for many hours while waiting for your prey, you're still crouched down, with your weapon held at the ready. Your arrow nocked, your fingers poised to draw back and loose….”
“You prefer something more active. That is fair,” she says, easy as that. It isn't that her judgement is reserved, it is that she has none for him. She not only understands him, she accepts him and his insatiable needs, the way he cannot sit still without it being a physical challenge which will leave him drained at the end of it. He loses count of the waves broken against the shore. She then says to him, “I've hunted all my life. Of that I am sure. But hunting for sport… what is that like?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he says. He shakes his head, lowers it, doesn't understand why he's suddenly so warm, as if he has to account for a set of outrageous, shameful actions. He grips the edge of his cloak, grasps it so he struggles with restraint to keep himself from shredding it. He explains, “Whenever I have hunted, it has always been for the purpose of using the game for food, or clothing, or something else. While I am lucky to have never needed to rely upon hunting for subsistence... Faerghus is a poor land. I have told you that, haven’t I? It is difficult not only for people, but for all living creatures. We must be careful to live together with respect. Otherwise, we would all be doomed.” A pause. A breath. “Ah, but forgive me, Professor, you didn't ask for a lecture from me.”
But, she does not rebuke him. After a moment of just gazing, she gestures to him. She invites him close to her. “Come, sit down with me. Keep me company? You can tell me more about hunting in Faerghus, if you’d like. You’re obviously very passionate about it.”
It, among other things, he thinks, as he tries not to move faster than at a respectable gait to her side. They sit down together, they pay attention to each other.
She has been palming something this entire time.
But it isn't until he opines about what poaching laws he'll enshrine as king that he notices what it is she's flicking between her fingers. When she notices it has caught his attention, she holds it up, offers it to him—she presses the smooth, skin-warmed piece of seaglass into his palm.
Skin to skin, palm to palm, the shock of the warmth stuns him. She withdraws, and she says, “I thought it was rather lovely. I think that... I recall, when I was must have been younger, picking shards like those up, and my father would tell me stories of where they might have come from. He would be embarrassed if he knew I was telling you this. That’s… that’s silly, isn’t it?”
“No,” he answers, truthfully, earnestly. He turns to her, he says, “It is a precious memory. A good one. One that you should hold to. That’s—that’s what I think, anyway.”
"I... do you want to keep that one?" She looks at his hand, the sea-tumbled thing he cradles.
"I... how about I hold onto it for you? Until you are done fishing?" He offers, feeling foolish, but gallant too. He may not be a paragon, but that doesn't mean he can't try to be one. "I shall hold onto this token of today's victory for you."
She laughs. Not at him, but—because, truly, he's pleased her. "All right. It could use a bit more smoothing, anyway. And—a story. Tell me, where do you think it came from?"
"I... am not good at this sort of thing, you know."
"What, imagining?"
"Yes. I will not... likely, what I tell you, will not be a happy story."
"That's all right, Dimitri," she says, softly. For one moment, she lays her hand on his shoulder, she says, "It's your story. Yours to share. If you'd rather not, I am happy to just be here with you while I wait for something to bite."
He holds the chip of seaglass up to his one opened eye; the whole dark world is drowning. "Well, long ago, there was a lonely boy who tossed a bottle into the sea. Maybe, he thought, if someone could find it, they might find him...."
. . .