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Adrestian wintertime did not prepare Edelgard for the bitter cold in Faerghus. The morning the first snow fell made her reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed, but she had already agreed with—well, more like commanded—Dimitri to join her for a dancing lesson that day. And so, despite the discomfort of the cold, she emerged from her cocoon of blankets. Dimitri noticed her condition right away.
"You're shivering, El," he said, dashing up to meet her in the drawing room.
"No, I'm not." She shivered despite herself.
"Here, my hands are warm."
He closed his hands over hers before she could think to protest. El frowned at the unexpected touch. Up until now she’d initiated it, grabbing his hands and pulling them into position when they danced or tying back his long hair for him with one of her ribbons. Dimitri was too shy to match her casual contact. Or at least he was.
He smiled at her, artless. She couldn’t stifle the smile that crept across her lips in turn.
🗡
Dimitri slaughters the small entourage Edelgard brought with her through southern Faerghus territory. Truthfully, she anticipated as much. They served as little more than glorified bait for the beast. The patrols that were found torn to pieces fed rumors, ghost stories, but she knew the truth of who was behind the murders. If Prince Dimitri refused to die at the executioner's block, he would die by her hand. She knows it is beneath her to see to such a matter, effectively playing hunter with a dying animal, but she won't believe he's been killed unless she lands the final blow herself.
A soldier's blood splatters across her face, warm for a mere moment before the frigid air claims its heat. Her visibility in the blizzard is horrendous, but she doesn't need to see to know that the enemy is closing in.
She slams her axe against her shield in challenge, knowing that the sound will carry over the howling wind to him. Then, like a storm cloud, Dimitri's dark shape appears in the white. He tosses aside the corpse of one of her soldiers with all the care of one discarding garbage. His breath steams from his mouth as he bellows her name. Gruesome threats flow steady from him as he approaches. The madness in his eye becomes more apparent the closer he gets.
Edelgard's Crests make moving through the heavy and growing drifts of snow in her armor possible. Dimitri moves to meet her, similarly unhindered by the blizzard. The blows he rains down on her shield and armor reverberate through her body. It makes her teeth ache. With mounting confusion, she realizes that for all his threats, he makes no attempt to directly kill her, simply to hurt her. Rattle her, in a very literal sense. He doesn't seem to notice when her axe connects with him, denting and cutting his armor. His one-eyed glare is icier than the snow buffeting them.
🗡
There was a snowy day the day after that and the next day after that, too. They all started to blur together, but one brief event stood out to Edelgard.
"It's okay, El! It's just a little snow. It's not going to hurt you."
After what she viewed as a comfortable few days in, Dimitri got cabin fever. He wrapped her in many layers of his clothes, smiling at her protests regarding how mismatched everything was.
She still shivered once they were outside, already imagining warming up by the fire. But then she paused, looking at Dimitri as he lifted his chin to look up at the falling snow. It caught on his eyelashes and the muff he had wrapped around the lower half of his face. He lowered his head and caught her looking.
Edelgard, startled at being caught, wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder.
Dimitri made a startled noise but hugged her back. "Are you still cold?"
"No. I just wanted to hug you."
Dimitri laughed. "I know you don't like the snow."
Edelgard turned her head to peer at him. "That's not true. I like it because you like it."
🗡
They have reached an exhausted stalemate. The chill sinks its teeth down to Edelgard's bones. She can no longer feel her extremities. Dimitri's movements are no less powerful but markedly more sluggish. Catching his attacks with her shield or dodging them altogether becomes easier. The snow beneath them has turned to muddy, bloody slush.
"Do you intend to stand here exchanging blows until we both fall dead?” Edelgard shouts to be heard over the wind and the sound of Areadbhar cracking against her shield.
"If that is what it takes," Dimitri snarls back. "I will drag you down to the flames with me. We will burn together."
"Better than freezing like this, I suppose," she murmurs.
Her dry quip is lost on him, of course.
"You think I care a bit for my own life? I only exist to avenge them now, and their wish is for your head on a silver platter." He gesticulates wildly to one side with his lance.
"You can't very well serve it to them if you yourself are a corpse," she replies with a scoff.
Never mind that she doesn't know who "they" are. It is enough to know that whoever Dimitri serves—or thinks he serves—wants her dead.
"Will snuffing out a fire burnt down to the coals really be enough for them?" Edelgard asks, appealing to his own deluded logic. "Slaying an opponent weakened by the elements is hardly a grand revenge."
For the first time since he attacked her, there is a lapse in Dimitri's onslaught. He pants through his mouth with his brow furrowed.
He blinks hard. "It's a trick. A trick! I am not a fool, witch. It doesn't matter how you die."
"Oh? You don't desire the satisfaction of making my death a slow, suffering one?" Edelgard presses, keeping her shield at the ready but lowering Aymr. "As I recall, you had many... colorful... ideas."
Dimitri grinds his teeth together. Again, he hesitates.
"Please, please, stop shouting, I need to think." He clutches at his head.
Frost clings to his hair and the fur he has slung around his shoulders. It's a wonder that the armor he wears hasn't rusted thanks to the constant snowfall he's traveled through. Perhaps Faerghan armor is treated to withstand such things. The distant, analytical thoughts keep Edelgard grounded despite the pain and discomfort arcing through her body.
"You're trying to trick me," Dimitri says in a smaller, softer voice.
She doesn't say what she's thinking, wary of provoking him—is it working?
🗡
Dimitri arrived to visit Edelgard's room out of breath and covered in frost. Snow clung to his forelocks and eyebrows, making them appear an even paler blond. The journey from his lesson in hunting back to the castle had not been kind. Luckily for him, Edelgard had just finished brewing tea and procuring sweets for them. The lion's share of the sweets would go to her, but she knew Dimitri wouldn't mind. He seemed more preoccupied with looking wide-eyed at the teapot. He sank down to his knees beside her.
"You're allowed to use hot water?" He asked. "All by yourself?"
Truthfully, she hadn't even thought to ask permission, but Dimitri would fret over getting in trouble if she said as much.
"Aren't you? They let you use real lances, don't they?" Edelgard made a show of carefully adding the hot water to the pot.
The leaves produced an apple-y, clean scent upon being submerged. Dimitri leaned closer, enjoying the warm steam. The ice crystals in the hair hanging around his face melted. Edelgard flipped over the small hourglass that served as a tea timer and, after letting Dimitri lean over the steam a few seconds longer, replaced the lid on the pot.
"I'm too clumsy to make tea. Everyone says so," Dimitri settled back and balled his fingers in the hem of his coat. "I always break things. Father says I need to be extra careful or I could hurt someone."
It's not an unfair warning. More than once he'd squeezed her too tightly and turned a friendly gesture into a bruising injury. It took Edelgard placing herself in the lead role for some of their dances before he felt comfortable touching her again.
"So just be careful," she groused.
In that moment, he tore his coat with the force of his fidgeting. He looked from the sizeable tear to her, shame-faced.
Edelgard sighed and shook her head with exaggerated chagrin. "I'll help you mend it after we've had our tea."
He brightened. "Really?"
"Of course, Dee." She doesn't have any more talent for needlework than he does, but she'll try her best.
Dimitri's eyes all but sparkle. "Thank you."
"But you have to give me the extra sweet bun," she says, nodding at the desserts.
"You know I was going to give it to you anyway," he laughed.
The snow outside howled as she poured their tea, unaware of the warm peace inside the castle walls.
🗡
After a while longer muttering to himself, Dimitri lowers his weapon.
"You shall live. For now. You deserve a worse fate than one numbed by cold." He says it as though it was his idea.
There's still a trace of conflict in his expression, but Edelgard knows she will have to accept it.
"Excellent. Strip."
Dimitri straightens, chapped lips parting.
"You are from this—" frozen wasteland, she thinks but doesn't say "—region, are you not? I have to imagine sharing body heat for the sake of survival is not a new concept. If we are to survive, we must enact a temporary truce. And then, when you've judged me an opponent worth striking down again—"
"I shall have my revenge," Dimitri finishes.
Edelgard smiles thinly. Fool.
She wonders, actually, which of them would die first in this miserable weather. Whose precious little body fat would provide enough heat? In the end, the answer to that question doesn't matter. Either way, they wind up cuddled together beneath his furs and cape. Edelgard does not allow herself to think about the cooling corpses nearby as she strives to keep herself from suffering the same fate. She knows firsthand how quick Dimitri is to anger, and indeed he only seems calm in part due to exhaustion.
They're facing each other at first, baring the fresh injuries they inflicted with their weapons just minutes before. What Edelgard wouldn’t give to have Linhardt there in that moment. She glances down and then quickly back up again after observing the totality of Dimitri’s nudity. Maybe not. This should be for them and them alone.
Dimitri's remaining eye is so cloudy she wonders whether or not he's going blind in it as well. His arms hang loose and limp around her, entirely missing the point of holding each other in such a way. Edelgard presses herself closer, grazing her nipples against scarring on his chest. Dimitri flinches as if she had inflicted them herself. Perhaps she had. His ribs are like prison bars against her breasts.
"You really don't remember me, do you?" He sighs out.
"I recall our time at the academy, if that's what you mean." What a bizarre question.
Dimitri gives her a wounded look before his expression shutters. He grabs her shoulders and turns her around so that her back is flush with his torso. He tucks her head beneath his chin.
Edelgard shifts to breathe on her hands, then rubs them together.
"Here, my hands are warm." He closes them over hers.
Edelgard's heart jumps. She stares down at his hands—big, scarred, blunt—and wonders at the sudden spark of recognition. She recalls the grasp of small, soft, chubby hands closing over hers. They were nothing like the ones that belong to the brute who holds her now and yet they keep her warm all the same.