Work Text:
Blood pounded in Dimitri’s ears as he charged through Derdriu’s streets. Screams of desperate rage tore from his throat, drowning out the dying screams of Imperial soldiers as they fell one by one to the glowing blade of his lance. Its aura dimmed as he advanced, but only because it had become thoroughly soaked in the enemy’s blood. Yet the tide of Imperial soldiers never seemed to cease.
And the Alliance troops were nowhere to be seen.
Dimitri swung Areadbhar in an arc in front of him, skewering three soldiers at once. Dedue charged ahead of him, felling two more with a stroke of his axe. Ashe’s arrows struck down the enemy from afar, while Ingrid and her flying battalion swooped in between rooftops and dealt death from above.
“Is there no end to these guys?” Felix yelled. He leaped over the man he had just killed and ran his sword through another. “Where is the Alliance army?”
Dimitri had no answer for him. He and his Kingdom troops had passed the corpses of several Alliance soldiers already, but nothing else. They had yet to rendezvous with the surviving Alliance force.
A whip lined with the fragments of a glowing red blade lashed upward through the air; Byleth had caught up to the vanguard. He yanked back on the Sword of the Creator, retracting it from its whip form – and pulling two snipers down from the roof of the house next to them. Their screams cut short as they fell to the cobblestone with a sickening crunch.
Dimitri lowered Areadbhar. For now, at least, the street was clear.
“Professor—”
Byleth retracted his weapon back into sword form and kept running down the street.
“Hurry.” He did not spare Dimitri so much as a glance when he spoke. “We are almost out of time.”
The words pierced him with dread, like an arrow straight to the heart.
What did Byleth mean by that? They couldn’t be too late…
With both hands gripping Areadbhar, Dimitri followed his professor down the street, running as fast as his legs could carry him. They emerged into the marketplace, where broken market stalls lay abandoned. The rest of the Imperial garrison awaited them there, blocking their way to the bridge leading to the harbor. Looking beyond the bridge, Dimitri could see the stone arches at the harbor’s entrance.
Yet still no sign of their Alliance friends. Dimitri’s heart sank with every step. Judith and Hilda were supposed to be in the city, helping Claude with the defenses. Their battle prowess alone should have held back the Imperial invasion long enough for Dimitri’s forces to arrive.
So where were they?
He and Byleth picked their way past the dead Alliance soldiers strewn across the marketplace grounds, just before slamming against the Imperial onslaught. The air above the Imperial soldiers suddenly exploded with brilliant light – Byleth’s Aura spell. Magical rays bypassed armor, piercing enemies through with the same ease an arrow would tear a wyvern’s wing. Dimitri blocked out their screams with a battle cry and charged. Desperation powered every swing and thrust of his lance, Areadbhar flaring a glow so intense it shone through the coating of blood. Crimson flames seemed to leap from its blade. Burning with the full heat of its wielder’s rage.
“Out of my way!”
They could not be too late. He could not let Claude die.
Dimitri swept soldiers aside half a dozen at a time. Any enemies that evaded his lance met their ends on Byleth’s sword or Dedue’s axe instead as they fought to keep up with him. The rest of the army split up and funneled through the city streets, clearing away any stragglers that still hid inside the buildings.
At the bridge, streams of blood ran between the cobblestones. The Imperial force collapsed, their soldiers falling en masse to Dimitri’s frenzied attacks. Bodies littered the ground, leaving almost no room to safely step. After the last soldier fell, Dimitri stood hunched over in front of the bridge, his lance arm still outstretched. His shoulders and chest rose and fell with his labored breathing. Blood dripped from Areadbhar’s tip. With his head lowered, he turned and surveyed the carnage.
The Imperial dead lay strewn all over, lying among the fallen Alliance soldiers already littering the street. An Alliance battalion had been defending the bridge – but they had been wiped out by the time Dimitri and the others arrived. Some of Leicester’s finest archers and warriors, hand-picked by Claude himself. All of them slain.
Dimitri took half a step forward and stumbled over a sword, and it clattered across the cobblestone. He knelt to pick it up, glancing at the body of its wielder.
She lay on her side, arrows protruding from her chest. It was the rapier lying mere inches out of reach of her hand that Dimitri had stumbled on. Her blue eyes were glassy, empty. Lifeless. The rapier slipped from Dimitri’s hand, falling back onto the blood-soaked cobblestone.
Shouts and the clash of metal against metal drew his attention upward, to the bridge. They had eliminated the Imperial troops blockading the bridge, but now the commander and his personal guard had emerged from beyond the stone arches. A bearded man in Adrestian style noble’s robes rode out astride a black horse, shouting commands to his troops.
Lord Arundel.
Dimitri’s fingers trembled with rage, causing Areadbhar to shake in his grip. If his uncle had already captured the harbor, then—
No. He could not let himself think like that.
The battle was not lost yet. Claude could still be alive, hiding somewhere beyond those arches. But Byleth was right; they needed to hurry.
Dimitri scanned the ground and the skies around the arches, over and over. Desperately searching for a familiar white wyvern and its rider.
Searching for Claude.
“Where is he?” He muttered the words to himself, his voice a desperate, panicked whisper.
Byleth had already run ahead, making it halfway across the bridge before clashing with the enemy. Sparks flew from the Sword of the Creator as he cut his way through. Arundel lifted his hand, magical energy crackling from his fingertips. The next second, the electric blue beam of a Thoron spell shot across the bridge. Dimitri ducked, and the spell zipped over his head, missing him by half an inch.
Lifting his head, Dimitri tried to look beyond the fighting right in front of him. He looked toward the arches again. Arundel flashed in and out of his field of view as the battle on the bridge raged on. He couldn’t make out anything else.
To his left, Byleth dug his heels into the ground, pushing in vain against the force of four enemy soldiers. To his right, Dedue held his ground against similar numbers. Up ahead, more flashes of magical light; Arundel had readied another spell.
Dimitri yelled, charging forward in blind fury. He plunged Areadbhar through the heart of the first soldier he saw, then continued to push through, shoving the man’s corpse back towards his comrades. He swung, punched, and kicked his way across the bridge.
Finally, the last soldier blocking his way fell. Dimitri lifted his gaze, coming face to face with his uncle at last.
“Foolish boy,” Arundel taunted him as the dark flames of a Hades spell began to dance from his fingertips. “You are too late—”
Dimitri hefted Areadbhar over his head, getting ready to strike.
But that strike never landed.
Arundel suddenly lurched, eyes bulged in pain and shock as something struck him in the back. The flames of his spell sputtered, then vanished. When he tried to speak, he choked and gurgled instead. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. His arms fell limp, his head lolled. He fell out of the saddle, collapsing face down in a crumpled heap.
Out of his back protruded a glowing red arrow.
Dimitri stopped in his tracks, feeling as if some magic had stolen the air out of his lungs. He stared in disbelief at the arrow, watching its crimson aura fade.
His gaze lifted upward to the platform nestled in the center of the arches. Tracing the arrow’s path back to where its owner surely stood, waiting for him.
“Claude?” he called.
Finally, there was movement from behind the corner of the arches. Dimitri saw more of the Relics’ characteristic red glow, this time coming from the bow itself. It had emerged partially into view, the shadow behind it wavering dangerously, as though its wielder were badly hurt. Too weak and unsteady on his feet to walk on his own.
Dimitri breathed a sigh of relief. Claude was wounded, but at least he was alive. The battle had not been in vain—
The bow fell to the ground with a dull clang.
A much heavier thud followed it a second later.
“Claude!”
Dimitri darted around Arundel’s body and bolted for the steps, up to the spot where Claude fell. He threw Areadbhar to the ground, letting it clatter down the steps as he ran. Reaching the top of the platform, however, Dimitri froze. His heart stopped at the sight before him.
Blood spilled from multiple wounds across Claude’s body had pooled on the ground beneath him. Claude himself lay spread-eagled on the ground near the corner of the stone arch. His wounds seethed with black embers, the residual energy of a dark magic spell’s blast. Arundel’s magic had torn and burned through armor, clothing, and flesh. Claude’s entire upper body was stained a dark red. More blood spilled out every second.
His eyes were closed. He was not moving.
Dimitri watched as Failnaught’s glow dimmed and faded to nothing. The weapon lay dull and inert, inches away from its owner’s motionless hand.
He could scarcely believe what he was seeing. There was so much blood…
No one could lose that much blood and survive.
A tear ran down Dimitri’s cheek.
“No…” Despair rattled through his voice. “Claude… I’ve failed…”
Arundel was defeated, and Derdriu had been saved. But there had been no victory achieved here today. The Alliance forces had been annihilated. The rescue mission was a failure. Hilda, Judith… and now, Claude…
Someone’s footsteps pounded up the stairs. Byleth’s gray coat swept past Dimitri on his left as the former professor ran past him and knelt next to Claude, his hands already glowing with healing magic. Dimitri turned away. They were too late; healing spells were of no use now. He could not bear to watch Byleth’s efforts to save Claude inevitably turn out to be in vain.
“Dimitri.” Byleth looked up at him, waving to get his attention. “Find Mercedes. I need her help.”
Dimitri turned and gave him a pitiful look.
What good could Mercedes do? Claude was—
“Claude is alive, but he’s barely holding on,” Byleth explained, urgency in his tone. “My magic alone might not be enough to save him; he needs extra help.”
At first, Dimitri was too stunned to move. Those three words echoed in his head; he clung to them like a lifeline.
Claude is alive.
For the first time since the start of the battle, hope flickered in Dimitri’s chest. But it was weak, frail. Like the embers of a dying fire he knew could be extinguished at any moment.
He whirled around and sprinted back down the steps, screaming for Mercedes.
Claude was transported back to the Kingdom army camp, and immediately taken to the medical tent. Ingrid and a handful of others stayed in Derdriu to search for survivors; Dimitri refused to leave Claude’s side. He followed Mercedes and Byleth back to camp, hung back by the tent wall in the medical tent, watching anxiously from a distance while they continued to treat Claude’s wounds.
They stripped his armor and clothing. Byleth dropped the tattered, burnt remnants of Claude’s coat, sash, and cape into a burlap sack and tossed it aside. The rest of Claude’s possessions were kept in a wooden box – except for Failnaught, which they left leaning against the side of it.
Mercedes and Byleth then took turns casting their healing spells on Claude. They stood on either side of the cot, both hunched over him. Their continuous casting kept the medical tent bathed in the gentle glow of faith magic. Other healers cast their magic on more of the battle wounded as they came in, but only a handful were brought in after Claude.
In addition to magic, they treated his wounds with salves. And when the light of their last spell finally flickered out, they wrapped his wounds in bandages. Byleth fetched a linen cloth, throwing it over Claude’s torso like a blanket.
He started to make his way toward the tent entrance. Dimitri left his spot by the wall and intercepted him within three paces.
“How is he?” Dimitri’s voice was low, anxious.
“He’s still unconscious,” Byleth replied. “We’ve done what we can for now, but we’ll keep an eye on him.”
Byleth’s face had turned stony. Expressionless. His voice a flat monotone, like he had regressed back to his cold, emotionless self from five years ago.
Dimitri was not fooled. This was a front; there had to be something Byleth was not telling him. Something he was hiding beneath that stoic façade.
“Professor.” He looked Byleth in the eye. “Is he going to make it?”
Seconds dragged by in agonizing silence. Byleth’s façade began to crack; Dimitri saw the storm of worry and doubt in his eyes. Finally, Byleth gave in.
“I don’t know,” he said with a despairing sigh. “Even the strongest healing spell can’t fully compensate for that much blood loss. Any further healing attempts won’t help much at this point.”
Dimitri found his vision suddenly going blurry.
“What do you mean? Is there nothing else we can do?”
Byleth shook his head.
“Like I said, simply keep an eye on him. If he survives the night, then there is a good chance he will make it. But if his condition worsens…”
The words hung unspoken in the air. Byleth lowered his head, averting Dimitri’s gaze. When Dimitri said nothing in reply, Byleth walked around him and saw himself out of the tent.
Dimitri, on the other hand, stayed rooted to the spot for another minute, staring straight ahead. Claude’s bed was unattended now; Mercedes must have slipped out while he had been talking to Byleth. The other clerics flitted about, still tending to the rest of the wounded, seemingly ignoring Dimitri’s presence. Swallowing bile, he walked over to Claude’s side. He set Failnaught aside and sat on the wooden crate.
The linen draped over Claude’s chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly. Dimitri watched him anxiously, his heart hammering against his ribcage until he noticed Claude’s steady, albeit weak, rhythm of breath. He then reached forward, pulling the linen off Claude’s left arm. He took Claude’s hand in his, shuddering at the cool, clammy touch of his skin.
Movement from three beds further down caught his attention. Dimitri looked up to see two men carrying a stretcher to the bedside, and the clerics lifting their patient’s limp, lifeless form by the shoulders and feet, transferring him onto the stretcher. They then carried him out of the medical tent.
As Dimitri watched the tent flaps fall shut, Byleth’s words clawed at his thoughts.
If he survives the night…
Outside, wheels rolled over the soft dirt ground, coming to a stop by the tent entrance. There was a dull thud, then silence. The two men came back into the medical tent with a now empty stretcher.
But if his condition worsens…
Dimitri tightened his grasp on Claude’s hand.
“Stay with me, Claude…”
No response. Dimitri hung his head and squeezed his eye shut. He knew he should not have expected a response – Claude was still unconscious – but he could not help the pain, the fear, the guilt that seized his heart.
His failures had cost so many lives. The battle at Gronder, and Rodrigue’s final moments were still fresh in his memory. On some nights, he heard Rodrigue’s voice among the rest of his ghosts. And here, little more than two months later, he had answered Claude’s plea for help only to find the Alliance forces already destroyed. Derdriu itself was saved, but at too high a cost.
The thought that Claude might join Rodrigue – and all the others Dimitri had lost – was greater torture even than what he had suffered in Fhirdiad’s prison five years ago. There, Cornelia had mutilated his body. But physical wounds did not compare to the anguish that now wracked his soul.
He had lost too many friends and loved ones already.
It was always others that fell, while he continued to stand. Others that were far more deserving of life. Yet Dimitri lived on, haunted by the faces and lingering regrets of the dead.
At some point, Dimitri’s hand fell open, dropping Claude’s hand back onto the cot. While his eye remained shut, the memory of Claude lying lifeless in a pool of his own blood flashed vividly through his mind. Visions of him being carried away on the same stretcher as the soldier from earlier quickly followed. He heard his voice, calling out to him in despair.
Dimitri… why didn’t you save me?
Dimitri made a choking noise, clawing at the sides of his own head as if to rip the images out.
His eye flew open. Claude still lay on the cot in front of him, still breathing. No one was coming to take him away. That didn’t stop Dimitri from lunging forward, wrapping his arms protectively around him.
What was he supposed to do if he lost Claude as well?
He knew what his friends would say. He knew what Byleth would say. But he would not go through that again, not with Claude.
His eye fluttered shut again, and his lips moved in silent prayer.
Please… let him live… save him…
He repeated the words over and over, as if his relentless begging would persuade the goddess to save Claude’s life.
He kept one arm wrapped around him, embracing him. With his other hand, Dimitri reached for Claude’s hand again. The tears he had been holding back since arriving in the medical tent slowly began to flow.
“I can’t lose you, Claude…” His voice was barely above a whisper. But his next words were slower, softer still.
Words that he should have uttered long ago, before the war tore them apart. He had missed his chance to say it back then, and he would never forgive himself if he missed his final chance now.
“I love you…”
Silence.
Claude did not awaken.
Dimitri rested his head on Claude’s shoulder and wept. He wept until he exhausted himself, unable to cry anymore.
He did not remember how long he sat there, half collapsed over Claude’s sleeping form. When at last he pulled himself upright, every lantern in the medical tent except for the one by Claude’s bed had been extinguished. Its dim light danced across Claude’s face, but darkness shrouded the rest of the tent. It was eerily silent as well, as if the two of them had been left there alone. No hurried footsteps, no hushed conversations between the healers. No groaning of wounded soldiers.
Night had fallen. Everyone else must have gone to bed. But Dimitri dared not leave Claude’s side. No matter what happened, he had to be here with him. Until the moment Claude woke up, or until he…
Dimitri’s throat closed. He could not bear to think of it. Yet the possibility loomed larger with each passing hour, crushing his heart with its weight.
But if Claude was going to die, then Dimitri had to stay with him to the end. He owed him that much.
His chest heaved with silent sobs. He had no tears left to cry; all he managed was a weak whimpering noise that he barely recognized as his own voice. Minutes passed, and he became so exhausted that even his shaking stopped. He hung his head and his arms fell limp at his sides. Breaths came slow and ragged. Aching pains flared throughout his body.
Sleep would not have come even if he wanted it.
Another interminable length of time passed before Dimitri had the strength to lift his arms. He placed his hands atop Claude’s hand again, fixing his gaze on Claude’s face. He gave up searching for signs of him waking up; instead, he watched him with a forlorn look. Heart aching, his desperate prayers to the goddess still echoing in his head.
He had no idea what the hour was. Dimitri could only keep track of time by counting Claude’s breaths. The number of times he breathed in one minute. That minute turned into ten minutes. Ten minutes turned into an hour. And on it went.
He just hoped it would last the night.
Claude didn’t remember passing out. What he did remember was bone-deep, excruciating pain as Arundel’s magic burned and tore him apart. He remembered collapsing under the stone arches, feigning death in a last-ditch effort to stall for time. And it had worked; the moment Arundel turned around, he knew the Kingdom army had finally showed up. While Dimitri had Arundel distracted, Claude had put an arrow in Arundel’s back.
But after that, nothing. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in pitch darkness.
His first thought was that he must have died. Succumbed to his wounds, drowning in a pool of his own blood. But he quickly discarded the idea – this darkness made for a really disappointing afterlife. More important than that, however, he could feel his senses slowly returning to him.
Voices whispered. Footsteps shuffled across soft dirt. A nauseating blend of lavender salve and the smell of blood began to fill his nostrils. The pain returned. Echoes of the searing, infernal agony he had suffered from the flames of Arundel’s magic.
He soon realized he was lying on his back, on a cot. Someone had his left hand clasped in both of their own.
The touch of those hands felt familiar somehow…
Claude tried to move, to open his eyes. A flash of panic struck him when he discovered he could do neither. His upper body felt tight and stiff, like someone had bound his arms and chest. His eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. But so was his entire body. It then occurred to him he had just barely survived a direct hit from one of the deadliest dark magic spells known in Fódlan. No wonder he couldn’t move.
Still, he needed to know where he was, what was happening. He tried again.
This time, his hand twitched. He heard a gasp from somewhere to his left.
“Claude?”
He thought he felt his pulse quicken. That was Dimitri’s voice. Now he knew why that touch felt familiar; those were Dimitri’s hands clasping his. He felt him squeeze his hand, heard him calling his name again.
Something was wrong. Dimitri’s voice was raspy and weak, not at all like the Dimitri he remembered. He had never heard him sound so broken, so defeated.
Claude curled his fingers around Dimitri’s in a feeble attempt to squeeze his hand. Though his eyelids felt heavy as lead, he began to push them open.
“Claude…!”
Dimitri’s voice grew stronger, energized by Claude’s efforts. His feet shifted on the dirt floor; probably him trying to move in closer. Somewhere further away, Claude heard more feet quickly pattering across the floor. A soft, hushed voice calling Dimitri’s name. Another voice muttering nearby.
Someone gasped – probably the same person that had called for Dimitri a second ago.
“He’s waking up…!”
At last, Claude fully opened his eyes.
It was still dark, with only the dim lights of a few scattered lanterns around the room making it possible for him to see at all. It took him a second to realize he was lying flat on his back, staring up at a canvas ceiling. He tilted his head to the left, to where he knew Dimitri was waiting.
Except Dimitri was not alone. He sat right next to Claude’s cot, leaning forward but with his head lowered and his posture slumped, as if he was about to collapse from exhaustion. Behind him, however, Claude saw more familiar faces. Mercedes – the owner of the soft-spoken voice from earlier – smiled at him. Byleth stood behind her, his expression harder to read in the dismal light. Other people moved about in the shadows of the rest of the tent, wrapped up in their own tasks.
But Claude’s attention was focused on Dimitri. Dark circles had formed under Dimitri’s eyes, and his one good eye was puffy and bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept for a week. He was shaking, twitching. But there was unmistakable joy in the smile that pulled at his lips the moment his gaze met Claude’s.
“Hey, Dima…” Claude gasped.
Dimitri heaved a sigh of relief. But in doing so, he leaned too far forward and lost balance, pitching forward and slipping off the crate he had been sitting on. He put his hands out to stop himself, bracing himself on the edge of Claude’s cot while Mercedes and Byleth rushed forward to help him.
Meanwhile, Claude could only watch as Dimitri gingerly rose to his feet. He swayed dangerously before sitting back down on the crate.
“I’m all right,” Dimitri said. “I’m sorry, Claude. I just…”
Claude looked him in the eye, feeling a pang ripping through his heart. Dimitri was in truly terrible condition. If he were to try walking on his own, he would probably fall flat on his face. And Claude was not sure he would get back up again.
“What… happened?” he asked.
While Dimitri struggled to find the words, Byleth spoke up for him.
“After you took out Arundel, you collapsed.” Byleth’s tone was flat, but Claude could tell by the look in his eyes that he was shaken. “You were unconscious and mortally wounded. Mercedes and I had to combine our magic to keep you alive while we brought you back to the Kingdom army camp. It’s a miracle you survived.”
“Heh…” Claude’s feeble attempt to laugh it off came out sounding like a wheeze.
From the sound of things, it was a miracle of timing. If Dimitri had arrived even a minute later than he did, Claude really would have succumbed to his wounds back there under the stone arches.
He would have died right when Dimitri had come to save him.
Another pang struck him like a gauntlet punch in the chest. He strained to breathe, and not because of the tightness of the bandages.
“I thought I had lost you, Claude,” Dimitri said at last. He trembled, like he was trying to hold back tears.
Claude lifted his hand, reaching for Dimitri.
“But you didn’t lose me.” He tried to sound soothing, but it was difficult with his voice still so raspy and weak. “I’m still here; my plan worked after all.”
Dimitri nodded listlessly. But the grief and sorrow remained etched all over his face. Claude stole glances at Byleth and Mercedes, fighting a sinking feeling in his gut.
They could not have lost Derdriu itself. Arundel had no reinforcements, and if he did, they would not be having this conversation. That left few other possible explanations. Claude already knew his army had suffered heavy losses, but seeing Arundel himself ride across the bridge – breaching his last line of defense – had opened a possibility too painful to consider.
No. Claude had ordered her to retreat if the situation looked hopeless. She was probably sleeping comfortably somewhere in the Kingdom army camp right now—
“Claude?” Byleth tilted his head, giving him a curious look.
“Where are the others?” Claude asked. “Are Hilda and Judith alright?”
Dimitri flinched. He hung his head. A long pause followed before he spoke.
“I’m so sorry, Claude… we were too late…”
Claude did not respond; Dimitri’s words sent him reeling with shock. He looked down, unable to meet his gaze.
“I…”
His army, already weakened from the battle at Gronder, was destroyed. His friends had thrown away their lives – against his orders – to protect him. The enormity of the realization threatened to crush him.
Am I the only survivor?
The tent fell deathly quiet. Claude didn’t imagine they had much to say – what was one supposed to say to the sole survivor of such a slaughter?
“Did they at least get proper burials?” he asked finally.
Dimitri’s eye went wide. Byleth, again, answered for him.
“We sent them to their home territories yesterday,” he said. Noting the confusion on Claude’s face, he added, “You’ve been unconscious for almost three days, Claude.”
The words struck another blow. Three days. He’d never had the chance to say goodbye because his own life had still been hanging in the balance. Claude wanted to scream.
Fate was such an unbelievably cruel thing.
He felt Dimitri’s hand caressing his cheek. Claude blinked. He had not realized that he was crying until Dimitri wiped the tear from his face.
Their eyes met. Dimitri said nothing, but words were unnecessary. Claude saw it written all over his face.
He knew. He had felt what Claude was feeling now.
He had lived through this kind of horror before.
Since regaining consciousness, Claude recovered quickly. By the next day, he was already up and walking around the camp on his own. To anyone that asked, he assured them that it was the power of his Crest helping to speed his recovery.
Dimitri had not yet given the order to march – and Claude suspected he wouldn’t until he was sure Claude had fully recovered. But his scars from Gronder hadn’t even fully healed yet. There was no way Dimitri could keep the army stationed here at Derdriu for such a long time. He could not afford to delay his march to Enbarr on Claude’s behalf.
That evening, Claude collected his belongings and slipped out of the Kingdom army camp, headed back into the city. He traveled on foot – calling his wyvern right now would draw too much attention. He would call for her later when he was ready.
He kept walking well past sundown, not stopping until he stood in front of the stone arches again. He fought down a morbid impulse to walk back up to the platform in the center, to the spot where he’d almost died four days ago. Instead, he walked a few paces beyond the arches, standing within a stone’s throw of the docks. Setting Failnaught and the satchel containing the rest of his belongings down, he turned his gaze eastward.
First, it was just a twinge. But it rapidly grew. The guilt twisting his gut, stabbing through his heart.
He heard Dimitri and Byleth’s words again, and even though he knew there was nothing he could have done, it still felt wrong. It felt wrong to not be able to say goodbye. It felt wrong that his friends would lay down their lives for him. It felt wrong that they paid the price for his miscalculation.
It felt wrong that he should still be standing here, when everyone else had fallen.
Claude watched the waters on the eastern horizon. He’d lost everything here in Fódlan. And he had already gained the assent of the rest of the Roundtable about reunifying with the Kingdom…
The clacking of hobnailed boots on cobblestone distracted him. Claude turned around.
He watched Dimitri with tired eyes as he approached.
“Dima… what are you doing out here?” he asked.
“I would ask you the same question.” There was no accusation in Dimitri’s tone; he sounded genuinely concerned. His head tilted downward. “You’re not… leaving, are you?”
“How did you, er… arrive at that conclusion?” It was not hard to feign incredulity at the question. How did Dimitri see through him so easily? “I can’t go anywhere. My wyvern’s back at camp, and I don’t have a ship. And I definitely won’t get far by swimming.”
“Claude.”
He sighed. It seemed Dimitri would not be deterred. Claude realized he knew him well enough that he should have expected this of him by now, but it had at least been worth a try.
“All right, all right.” Claude visibly relaxed, slumping his shoulders somewhat in resignation. “I’m not going anywhere tonight. I just came out here to… gaze up at the stars for a while. Clear my head.”
He turned his gaze skyward, emphasizing the point. He heard Dimitri take another two steps closer. Dimitri’s hand wrapped around his, gently pulling him back. Claude lowered his head. He looked Dimitri in the eye.
“What’s wrong?” Dimitri’s voice dropped nearly to a whisper. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Don’t try to say there’s not; I can tell.”
There was no accusation still. Rather, his voice trembled with anxiety.
“Please, Claude. Talk to me.”
Yet Claude did not answer right away. He stared at Dimitri for a few seconds, searching for the right words.
“My mind’s been in such chaos lately,” he eventually replied. “Everything that’s happened in the past few days… I wasn’t kidding you, Dima. I really do gaze at the stars to clear my head. I’ve done that since I was a kid.”
“…I see.”
There was a pause. Dimitri’s eye darted around, looking from Claude to the stone arches, to the ground, and out toward the water. His free hand fidgeted with his cape.
If Dimitri could see straight through Claude, Claude could just as easily see through him. Something was also bothering Dimitri, but he seemed hesitant to say it.
Gods, they were a mess. Five years ago, they’d only had to worry about their classmates’ friendly teasing about their awkward relationship. This war had made it all so much worse. It had torn them apart. Claimed their friends’ lives. It had nearly cost Claude his own life. And yet here they were, struggling just to talk to each other.
Claude looked up at the sky again. He took a long, deep breath, savoring the cool night air.
“I knew it was dangerous,” he said. “I knew gambling on you was the only card I had left to play, but I keep thinking to myself that maybe there was something I missed, something more I could have done to—”
“Claude.” Dimitri tugged at his hand again, drawing Claude’s attention back to him. “It was nothing you did. I was simply too late; had I only arrived a little sooner…”
Claude opened his mouth to respond, but instead shut it again. He shook his head. Dimitri stared back at him, his eye widened in alarm.
“Well, taking turns blaming ourselves for what happened isn’t going to get us anywhere,” Claude said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “It certainly won’t bring back the dead.”
“No. You are right. I am sorry, Claude…”
Silence hung thickly over them while Claude retreated into his head, wrestling with his own thoughts. Dimitri’s hand fell open, letting Claude’s hand slip free. A similar storm had to be raging in his head as well. But for the next minute, neither of them spoke.
Claude turned to look at the stone arches. He closed his eyes and heaved another sigh.
“I know I shouldn’t blame myself, and yet I can’t shake this horrible feeling, this…”
“Guilt?” Dimitri offered. “I know. It is a lonely hell of its own to be the only one left standing after seeing friends and loved ones die all around you.”
“Dimitri…”
Claude took a step closer to him; they stood so close now he could make out every detail of Dimitri’s face even in the nighttime darkness. He reached up with trembling fingers, feeling the furs draped over Dimitri’s shoulders. How he wanted to bury his face in Dimitri’s chest and let out his grief.
“You feel guilt for not being able to save them? Do you feel like you should have died as well?”
Dimitri stared at his feet for a moment. When he lifted his gaze again, his expression was marred with grief and sorrow.
“I carry the lingering regrets of the dead with me everywhere I go, hear their desperate cries for vengeance every day and night. I fear I may never silence them until the day I die.”
Claude said nothing, merely nodding in acknowledgement. He wasn’t sure what Dimitri meant by those words, but he had a guess.
“I was so terrified that you would join them,” Dimitri continued. His voice started to crack; he was barely holding back tears. “I didn’t want you to become another ghost to haunt me. Not you…”
Dimitri began to reach for him. Claude dropped his own arms from Dimitri’s shoulders, and he clasped their hands together.
“After all that I’ve lost… I can’t lose you, Claude…” Dimitri’s voice took on a pleading tone. “Don’t leave me…”
A flash of confusion crossed Claude’s face. It seemed for a second like Dimitri’s mind had gone back to the Derdriu of four days ago. But as he glanced down at Failnaught and his satchel, lying temporarily forgotten on the ground by his feet, a different meaning to Dimitri’s words came to mind.
He felt a tightness in his chest. Here he was, having just barely survived the battle for Derdriu, now preparing to leave Fódlan – leave Dimitri – and there was one thing he had never been able to tell him.
“I’m sorry, Dima, but I can’t stay.”
Dimitri tightened his grip on Claude’s hands.
“What do you mean?” Dimitri’s tone became anxious. “Won’t you stay and join me in the fight against the Empire?”
Claude gazed up at Dimitri, seeing his one good eye already brimming with sorrow.
He needed to tell him. Now, before he let his last chance slip away.
“I had this planned before you even arrived at Derdriu,” he admitted. “And now after all that I’ve lost… I can’t stay.”
The way Dimitri looked at him, it was as if Claude had just told him he was going to his execution tomorrow, rather than simply leaving Fódlan.
“Claude…” Dimitri said, unable to hold back his tears any longer. His grip on Claude’s hands went slack.
Claude could no longer help himself. He threw his arms around Dimitri, burying his face in his chest. Soon enough, his own tears began to fall.
“I promise you I will return,” he assured him. “In the meantime, hold on to Failnaught for me, ok?”
He heard no discernible response from Dimitri. They simply held each other and wept.
Finally, Claude told him.
“I love you…”
And then, a few seconds later, Dimitri answered him.
“Claude… my shining star… I love you as well.”