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“... for the Children of Fhirdiad Choir at eleven. The fireworks show will take place at midnight precisely, followed by a late supper and your toast of good health, your Highness. … Your Highness?”
Dimitri stared into the soulful blue eye of the man in the mirror. At the ripe age of twenty-five, His Majesty King Dimitri Blaiddyd looked a great deal like his father: if not in the exact lines of his features, then at least in his calm, mildly benevolent expression. Long gone was the feral beast of the great war against the Empire, the fantastic warrior who had razed his way through the ranks of his enemies, leaving only devastation in his wake. Long dead was the madman of years gone--
“--ighness.”
--the curse, the blight, the scourge of the Emperor. This man stood tall, well made and grand, in royal blue; his cloak and his habit had been sewn with painstaking attention by the kingdom’s best seamstresses, and tailored to his figure. His shoulders broad, his thighs firmly planted--this body well nourished, and mostly well rested. No trace in his face of the dreadful affliction that had haunted him for so long: the voices of the dead whispering in his ear. He looked content, as any monarch should upon the rebirth of a prosperous year.
Dedue sighed, and grasped his shoulder, firm. “Dimitri.”
His Majesty the King blinked his single eye, and Dimitri turned from the mirror, glancing bashfully at his Chief of Staff. “Ah. Forgive me, my friend. I was--only mildly--preoccupied.”
“In truth, you have been often preoccupied of late,” Dedue said, with the wry deference he drew upon when he was compelled to tell Dimitri he was an idiot. He added, pointedly: “My king.”
Dimitri chuckled. “So Felix tells me.”
Dedue looked up--from where he was shaking out Dimitri’s ceremonial cloak--with the most unimpressed expression. “Does Duke Fraldarius often write of his concerns for your well-being?”
Dimitri lowered his gaze, attempting to shield his smile from view. Dedue was not in the least fooled: he looked amused, insofar as Dedue could allow himself to look amused in his king’s presence.
“His arrival to the capital is predicted but a few hours hence.”
Dimitri cast one long look at his reflection. This particular outfit outlined the cinch of his waist in an embarrassingly yet pleasingly flattering manner. It had been seven months since Felix had departed to resolve an outbreak of banditry in the Fraldarius duchy, and since then they had only communicated via letters--seven months! since he had seen Felix, his care, his grace, his unfathomable irritability--
“Have you decided, then?” Dedue asked, picking up the brooches that would gather the cloak around Dimitri’s shoulders. “All but a week ago, you were yet hesitant.”
“I was, perhaps,” Dimitri acknowledged. He accepted the white gloves his friend held out, and applied himself to tugging them on. “I suppose my helpless yearning became a little… obvious.”
“A little,” said Dedue, dryly. He stepped behind Dimitri, holding out the cloak, pinning it to his shoulders--making certain the fabric folded and fell flawlessly to his ankles. “I believe half the castle is aware that you are pining for someone, your Highness. The other half knows precisely who it is.”
Dimitri shut his eye with a smile. “Am I ready?”
“I should think so.”
There was no need to confront the King in the mirror again. There would be reason enough to be him tonight--for a few hours, at the masquerade ball, before the Children of Fhirdiad Choir and the fireworks show and the toast to the New Year, he might allow himself to be Dimitri, plainly. Felix’s friend, and perhaps his--
A cheerful knock at the door. Annette didn’t wait for an invitation: she peeked her head in, grinning as she beheld Dimitri’s masquerade costume. “The assembly is ready for your regal entrance, your Majesty,” she sang.
Dimitri fastened the last button on the wrist of his left glove. “Very well,” he said, stepping down the tailor’s podium. He caught Dedue’s eye, then Annette’s, with a wry look. “I shall expect you both to keep a dance for me.”
The palace staff had outdone themselves this year.
The castle ballroom, which was an open space of marble, gilt, and crystal on any given day, had been transformed tonight into a winter wonderland. The snow looked like real snow, though it melted not; the ice glittered gaily, reflecting myriad pinpricks of light; the air smelled of cut pine, and mulled wine, and the juice of winterberries. Winterberry wine was red and tart on Dimitri’s lips, on Dimitri’s tongue, in Dimitri’s heart, as he and Ingrid beheld the assembly from on high.
“A good year,” Ingrid murmured, her eyes roaming over the crowd. Sweeping around in waves of carmine, emerald, and plum, what looked like half of the capital chatted, laughed, ate, drank, danced. The gentle strains of violin music drifted down from the opposite balcony. A bow, a touch, a kiss, a smile!--the New Year’s ball was to be a success this year.
Ingrid wore a wolf mask, white and furred, which conveniently opened above her mouth: in her hand was a plate piled high with breads, meats, and buttered veg. Even as she ate, though, she cast a mocking glance Dimitri’s way, and said: “Felix is meant to arrive at any moment.”
“Oh?” Dimitri said, affecting nonchalance. Ingrid’s amusement deepened. “Has Duke Fraldarius communicated with you of late?”
“Duke Fraldarius,” Ingrid echoed, “talks of nothing but--you, your Majesty.”
“Such touching loyalty from one of our oldest families.” Dimitri flashed her a smile.
“Loyalty!” She laughed in his face, the way only his dearest friends dared. “Are we calling it that--whatever absurd bond you and Felix share? Are you? Is he?”
“I,” said Dimitri, unwilling to refute or refuse; only at that moment the great double doors to the ballroom opened, to herald the arrival of--
Ah, Dimitri thought, and grinned, without realizing it, without knowing it until Ingrid mirrored the grin and nudged him in the ribs, with her fork. “Well?” she said, “go! go! the stairs are thataway!” And Dimitri laughed, and bowed to her, and swept away in a swoosh of his regal blue cloak.
His steps were light on the staircase, almost flying, almost flight, but at the bottom about half of his people turned towards him as one person and cheered, cheered for the New Year and their beloved young king, who had saved them all, who had given them peace after he had waged war. And Dimitri had been born a prince and reared to be a king, and whatever his later years had turned him into he yet recalled the instruction classes and etiquette lessons, and so he was caught, unable to flee. He was caught in conversation after conversation, trying--surreptitiously--to make his way across the ballroom towards his heart.
Your Highness, your Highness, your Majesty. A new year, a grand new year, a happy new year. A good harvest. Peace and prosperity. The war is over, has been over these three years, and we love you--we love you--we love you!
Dimitri loved, too; he loved hard and he loved fierce, and he loved his people and his land the way a King ought; but he was a man also, who remembered being a boy. Who remembered loving another--losing another--and then, well.
Then he'd been mad with warlust.
Sometimes he thought he was still mad, though this was a sweeter, a gentler madness, the kind that caught at his heart and made him want to find Felix and kiss Felix and laugh with Felix; even, especially, these past seven months, when Felix was halfway across the kingdom, routing bandits from their lairs with his peculiar ruthlessness.
At any rate: he bowed, and laughed, and made polite conversation, and all the time he worked his way subtly across the ballroom. Then finally--
Well, finally: Felix, standing in front of him, in a panther’s mask, of all things.
Dimitri skidded to a stop, took one look at him, and started to laugh. Felix’s mouth twitched, his hand by his ceremonial sword twitched too. “Your Boarness,” he said, casting a caustic look at Dimitri’s own mask, and its tusks.
“Duke Fraldarius,” Dimitri said, between soft chuckles, and bowed; said: “A dance?”
“Ask a proper question, ass.”
“Boar,” Dimitri corrected, taking his hand with purpose. “Well?”
“Oh, very well,” Felix said, scoffing, smiling.
Dimitri swept him onto the dancefloor, and the crowd opened in a starburst around them.
“Well!” Felix sniffed, looking around as Dimitri--with painstaking care--settled into the right and true leading position. “We have money to burn.”
“We have had,” Dimitri said, primly, “a good harvest,” and caught his hand in his with a wicked grin. “How fares the duchy?”
Felix lifted one shoulder. His smile was a sword’s slash. “There is no longer any threat in Fraldarius.”
“Of course,” Dimitri said, with learned gallantry, “you are here now.”
“In Fhirdiad? Yes.”
“Yes--with me.”
Felix’s eyes, behind the dark mask, were golden-brown and so warm, so warm. “Yes.”
They spun in a circle in perfect time. Dimitri had taken lessons, of course, as a child, even though his superior strength had always caused him to overbalance on tiptoes; in Garreg Mach he had forced himself to keep within the limits of his treacherous body. Now there were obligations and events to attend, and he danced often. Never with Felix, because Felix would run.
He had not run tonight.
Have you decided, then? Dedue’s question--Dimitri thought it applied to both of them, really: his hesitation had been Felix’s own, in those fragile few years that had followed the war. Too soon, too risky, too dangerous--for either of them to dare. But now: a good harvest. The year had been fruitful; the kingdom prospered. There were no more bandits in Fraldarius.
Dimitri had decided two nights ago. Perhaps Felix had too, in the privacy of his bedroom, in Fraldarius, two nights ago, after Dimitri’s last letter had reached him, the one that said: I wish to see you, Felix. You do not know how I miss you.
Dimitri pulled him along, and they spun and spun. Of course Felix was graceful. Dancing was just another swordfight--how many times had Dimitri seen him do his duty by lesser nobles, at functions and dances, since the war’s end? He was steely-eyed even then. But he knew his service as the Duke, and he knew that his position was burden and privilege both: he wanted to do right, just as Dimitri did. Sometimes Dimitri did miss the furious boy of yesteryear.
At any rate: Felix’s gloved hand in his gloved hand; Felix’s breath in the thin spaces between their lips; Felix’s low gravity as he allowed Dimitri to lead. His smug little smile and the press of his shoulder and the warmth of his body where Dimitri’s arm wrapped around his waist. Dimitri’s arm wrapped around him, completely, pressing them much closer than etiquette dictated.
“Oh?” Felix said, still smug, and glancing down at Dimitri’s mouth. “Taking liberties, are you?”
“Run me through,” Dimitri suggested. “That sword looks sharp. How ceremonial is it? Do you think we will get attacked--here--tonight, at the King’s ball?”
“Like I’d let anyone touch you.”
“Anyone else?” Dimitri inquired politely.
Felix stomped on his foot. Dimitri retaliated by pulling him so close their hips were pressed flush. A flush on Felix’s cheeks too--felicitous. He started to laugh again, and when Felix scowled at him (it showed in the way his lips pulled down against a helpless smile)--laughed harder. He had so long made Felix grieve. Now he made Felix smile, though Felix swore he did not.
“Any wishes for the new year?” Dimitri inquired, after his laughter had tapered into pure fondness.
“A good harvest.” Felix’s eyes were light. He was teasing him.
Dimitri turned slowly on his wheel, grasping his hand very tightly. Felix turned with him, face upturned; they were in the center of the dancefloor now, and around him the other dancers wheeled and wheeled in a whirlwind of peacock colors, brighter and brighter and faster and faster. There were sparks in Dimitri’s head.
“Nothing more, Felix? That is charitable of you. Generous, one may say. Unselfish--”
“Shut up.” He’d put his hair up; the tips of his ears were pinkening, steadily.
“Nothing more?”
“I.” Felix leaned his head away. Dimitri felt his breath, intimate and soft, against his jaw. “No more bandit attacks. I don’t like being far from the capital for too long.”
“Seven months were--”
Felix cut him a look. “Too long. I know my duty.”
“What else?” Dimitri asked, tightening his grip. Slowing down. Felix’s hand was on his shoulder, curling into the fine fabric of his fine habit.
“What does anyone wish for in Faerghus?” Felix shrugged. “No wolves in our midst. No more death than winter death. Enough food and enough drink. The sun coming up. A way out of the dark.” He paused. Glanced up at Dimitri in the shadow of the mask. “A good king.”
“Am I?” Dimitri’s heart pulsed fast in his throat.
Felix’s smile slanted. “... Dimitri.”
They had stopped moving. The world kept turning. Celebration, festivus, jubilee! A new year, a happy new year; now we burn our grief for joy.
“Felix,” Dimitri said softly, and lifted both hands off his friend’s body so he could ease the panther’s mask away. Felix’s eyes were panther’s eyes, anyway.
Felix looked wary, then chagrined, then fiercely pleased. He knocked Dimitri’s boar-mask away, seized his king with both hands in his hair, and dragged him down to meet his mouth.
Neither of them was temperate in war, but love shot tenderness through Dimitri’s heart like an arrow. He bent Felix backwards with his hands fast ‘round his waist. Felix bit him, licked into his mouth, sucked on his tongue. His body was strong and lithe and hard against Dimitri’s, and when he moaned he moaned loud, without an ounce of shame.
Then separation--it felt like splitting oneself in two. Dimitri returned, once then twice, and then again, again. Finally the noise of the ball grew overloud, and Felix broke off with an angry gasp.
He was incandescent with fury. Dimitri’s mouth had kissed the decorum out of him. If they ended up in bed--they were going to end up in bed--tonight, an hour from now, whenever Dimitri could manage it , unless the stars fell from the sky--he’d have to find out what else he could make Felix forget.
The crowd was whispering behind their masks and painted fans. The kingdom entire would know by dawn.
“Boar,” Felix said, then stopped, because his voice was rough and wrecked. His hands were still in Dimitri’s hair, cupping the back of his head. He looked like he didn’t know whether to draw his very sharp sword or climb Dimitri like a tree.
Dimitri looked at him, gravely, waiting. This was, he knew, a fixed moment: everything they had done in their lives had drawn them to this night, and everything thereafter would unspool from Felix’s decision. Have you decided?
Then Felix said again: “Boar,” but softly, as though it was dragged out of him, as though the arrow of tenderness had stabbed him too, and it hurt him as it had hurt his king. You had to choose to be shot.
He took one hand away, which was a grief; then he removed his white glove with his teeth, which sent sparks right through Dimitri’s brain. Then he laid his fingers on Dimitri’s mouth. They trembled very faintly.
Dimitri kissed his fingertips. Dimitri kissed his palm.
“I want you,” Felix said, in that kiss-ruined voice, the way no one would talk to a king.
“Oh,” Dimitri said. He smiled, and closed his eyes; turned his face against Felix’s palm and kissed it too, and said: “As do I. Stay--Felix. Stay!” And felt joy come up in their bodies like a sunrise.