Chapter Text
As Edelgard watched Hubert’s car pull away and disappear into the sleepy Faerghan suburb, a strange feeling washed over her. While she was under no illusion he wouldn’t be checking in on her like clockwork before long, or that her family wouldn’t soon be insisting she visit home, there was something final about the moment. For now, at least, she was alone.
She turned around and closed the front door of her new home behind her. Stacks of cardboard boxes dominated the hallway, reminding her of the sheer quantity of unpacking she still had left to do, but that could wait. She could afford to spend a minute or two enjoying the moment. Stepping past the boxes, her fingers danced over the inoffensively beige wallpaper and timeworn bannisters, feet carrying her into the kitchen. It was a tad cramped, but with a bit of work perhaps that could become ‘cosy’ instead.
Digging a mug and box of teabags from one of the scattered boxes, she leant against the counter, waiting for the battered old kettle to boil. The house stood quietly around her, the street outside just as silent. For a moment the only sound in the world was the bubbling of an ancient appliance, and the bustling din of Enbarr seemed a lifetime away.
This was precisely what she needed. She didn’t dislike her family, of course, but Enbarr was simply too loud, too busy… She couldn’t see herself being capable of concentrating there, being pulled every which way at once. She needed to move out, start afresh. And here, in a reasonably-priced one-bedroom cottage in Tailtean, within easy walking distance of a train line leading straight into the heart of Fhirdiad, she was perfectly poised to decide her own destiny in muted comfort.
Such peace of mind can only last so long, however. Her heart wouldn’t let her stand idle. By the time the first sip of tea passed her lips, she was already planning the week ahead of her. Her course started lectures on Tuesday, giving her three days to unpack and get situated. Factoring in shopping trips for food and essentials (as well as a morning excursion to the campus to test her commuting time) that left a whole additional day she could use to get started on her first unit’s key materials.
Perfect, though it did assume she’d waste no more time on sentimentality. Every great ambition starts with hard work, and the time had come to get her own hands dirty for a change. Setting her steaming mug on the side table in the hallway, she grabbed the first box to hand, full of spare bedding, and began her labour.
She’s only gone for a minute, but by the time she returns, the tea is already cold.
When Edelgard returned home late the following Friday, her cheeks were painted pink with blush– And it wasn’t from the brisk Faerghan weather. She wasn’t so short-sighted to think she could work every minute of every day and wilfully neglect her social life, so when the bubbly redhead from her tutor group bounded up and invited her to a “cool, chilled-out evening” at the student union bar, she deemed it prudent to accept her offer.
Somehow, despite the accursed weather, it hadn’t occurred to her that she wasn’t in Adrestia anymore, and she’d wholly failed to anticipate just how much alcohol would be involved in the average Faerghan’s idea of an icebreaker. She’d later seen the same redhead, several cocktails deep in her cups by then, pouring her heart out on the karaoke machine with half of the room cheering her on. It was a miracle she’d managed to brave the whole evening AND keep her dignity intact.
Sighing with exhaustion, she dumped her bag to one side and started pulling off her coat. She couldn’t be sure what time it was without pulling out her phone, but she knew it was late, and she’d have to hurry to bed if she wanted her Saturday to stand a chance at being even remotely productive. Hanging up her coat, she leant down to untie her shoes, blinking back fatigue.
…All things considered, it had been an entertaining evening. Her course was full of colourful characters, to be sure, but she could admit to a few eccentricities herself. They hadn’t made her feel like an outsider, and for that, she was very much thankful. Even that one boy’s blatantly transparent attempt to get into her pants had been entertaining in the end, even if it was at his own expense.
Stowing her shoes and straightening up, she began her slow hobble up the stairs, clutching at the handrail to steady herself. Student life would be the death of her at this rate… In a rare moment of laxity, she kicked her trousers off and left them on the floor, too tired to care. A chill wisp of wind skimmed over her bare skin as she crawled beneath the covers, provoking a shiver. Was there a draft somewhere in the room? She’d have to check… Tomorrow.
Swaddled in the thick duvet she’d brought with her from home, eyelids heavy as lead, she drifted off to sleep within moments. The night closed in. Unbeknownst to her, something shapeless sat at the foot of the bed, watching her. It took in the lines of her face, the pale halo of her hair. It reached back centuries, dredging up fragments of long-lost history and piecing them together, using her as its blueprint.
Something distant, indistinct yet frightening in its intensity, pulled what remained of the presence back together, staring down at the sleeping girl like some spectral bird of prey. Invisibly, it takes form. Hands, arms– The shape of a man, but none of the substance. That part of him had returned to the soil long, long ago. Memories slot into place, and the distant feeling comes into focus. It’s thick and tangled and Goddess, it hurts, but it’s still just as strong as it was the day he died.
By the time morning comes, Edelgard has forgotten all about the draft.
But he has remembered her.
“Edelgard, are you alright? You look…”
Edelgard pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut as if she could yet wring some additional wakefulness out of the soggy mess of her brain.
“I’m just tired, Ashe. The usual, please– Actually, make it a double.” The barista smiled, hiding a tiny trace of a grimace. Too polite to tell her she looks like shit.
“Coming right up.” He busied himself behind the counter, grabbing cups, beans, and various silvery instruments Edelgard couldn’t name. She’d never been too fond of coffee until recently, but the stresses of her first set of assignments were pushing her to unprecedented measures.
“Mind if I ask what the issue is?” He mumbled as he worked. “You know, if it’s lack of sleep, then coffee might not be the solution…” She sighed.
“It is lack of sleep, but not for want of trying. I’ve been having…” The word ‘nightmares’ died on her tongue. “...Issues. Issues staying asleep, that is. I keep waking up in the middle of the night.”
Ashe’s hands moved of their own accord, still busy even as he looked up to shower her with friendly concern. “That’s terrible! Oh, do you think it might be stress? Annie’s one to talk, but even she seems to think you might be overdoing i-”
“ I’m fine. ” She all but hissed. Another sigh escaped her. “I’m sorry. I appreciate your concern, really. They’re just bad dreams. They’ll pass.”
“Bad dreams? As in, reoccurring ones?” He shivered. “That sounds awful. If you don’t mind me asking, um…” He stalled, but she didn’t need to hear the rest. She was tired enough not to give a damn, and who knew? Maybe getting it off her chest would actually help. Resting her arms on the counter, she conjured the scene before her mind’s eye.
Rain and thunder, blood and mud. The cries of the dying mingle with the clash of steel and the braying of horrific beasts. She strides through the mire, limbs aching with fatigue. A lone figure kneels at the centre of the field amid a circle of corpses. A shambling mound of shattered steel and sodden furs; Something that might once have been strong and noble, now broken beyond repair.
She stands before him. She raises an axe. In the instant before her blade bites home in his neck, he looks up, and the cold hatred in his eyes still grips her heart as she bolts upright in bed.
She’d thought Ashe’s face could hardly get any paler than it already was, but he managed to surprise her. She paid for her coffee, sat down and opened her laptop. Dealing with whatever personal issue had her dreaming of some strange ancient battlefield could wait. The deadline for this paper could not.
Edelgard was most definitely not seeing ghosts.
Ghosts did not exist. Despite the staggering number of fantastical phenomena in the world, from magic to crests, all of them had had the veil of occult mystery torn from them, their inner workings laid bare under the unblinking eye of rationality. No empirical proof of the existence of ghosts had ever been presented, and the very idea of an eternal, lingering spirit was nothing more than a vain attempt to deny the fragility of human life.
That’s what every reputable source had told her when she’d searched “are ghosts real??” huddled in a panic behind the locked bathroom door, anyway.
In retrospect, it had been a mistake to jump straight into living alone. Most of her friends lived in student dorms or flat-shares in Fhirdiad itself, not in the outskirts. She could take care of herself physically, but mentally… The situation had clearly taken a toll on her. She wouldn’t be seeing a huge, looming figure in the corner of her vision several times a day if it hadn’t.
She was simply hallucinating, that was the only possible explanation. The lack of sleep (and perhaps the stress, yes) was finally getting to her. All she needed to do was relax a little, decompress, spend a bit more time among people, and soon these ridiculous situations would be nothing but a darkly comedic memory.
She told herself this in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, getting ready to head to the library for a study session with Annette. She had always preferred studying out of the house, but it was a convenient coincidence that she only ever saw the definitely-not-a-ghost when she was alone at home.
She powdered her face to diminish the dark circles under her eyes, shrugged her coat on, shouldered her bag and reached for the door handle, ready to tackle another day. Her eyes flicked up to the door’s frosted glass window, and-
He’s there.
No dark, looming figure, no indistinct shape conjured by her weary mind. It’s him.
He stood at the foot of the stairs, clearly visible in the window’s reflection. Two heads taller than her, clad neck to toe in battered black armour, a wreath of heavy furs across his hunched shoulders. His face was wrought in solid stone, features twisted by an emotion she could not name. From beneath a filthy mane peered two chilling blue eyes, their furious gaze like a dagger to the heart.
The man from her nightmares, as good as real, inside her home.
She whirled around, clutching her bag tight, a sharp remark already forming on her lips– But almost predictably, by the time she’d turned, he was gone. She stood there in the hallway for a moment, the silence stifling. Then she took ahold of the door handle, leaving without another word.
Edelgard is NOT seeing ghosts.
Annette cut their study time short and offered to treat her to a "super-cute cake shop" to unwind. Edelgard declined, having no desire to embarrass herself any further. To her, it seemed reasonable to be a bit off your game after being visited by the man from your recurring nightmares. But she couldn't exactly say that, could she?
Instead, she milled around the library, pulling random books from the shelves and flicking through them, waiting for something to catch her attention. There was no intent, no pattern to her wandering. She was just killing time, she realised after about half an hour. She didn’t want to go home.
She was barely even reading any of it by the time she reached the history section. A tastelessly flashy blue-and-gold spine caught her eye, and without thinking, she reached for it. The title spelt out in bold white letters: “THE HOUSE OF LIONS: PORTRAITS OF THE BLAIDDYD KINGS”. As good a distraction as anything else.
To the book’s credit, the art wasn’t bad. It flitted from high-resolution scans of ancient oil paintings to modern reimaginings, most depicting some variety of fair-haired, grizzled warrior-king. Many of them posed with the relic spear Areadbhar, that ghastly glaive of tortured bone. Edelgard glossed over the captions, letting her eyes glaze over as picture after picture passed her by. She was just about to put it back on the shelf before it fell open on a two-page spread, the obnoxious lettering demanding her attention: “THE WAR OF UNIFICATION”.
The first painting seemed much like the rest. Titled “Rufus, Last of his House”, the man looks appropriately limp and defeated for a man forced to administrate the dissolution of his own dynasty. Already bored, her eyes slid over to the next page, and-
Her heart stopped.
“Dimitri, King of Delusion”
For a moment, she worried that the not-a-ghost had begun infesting her reading material too, but no. It’s unmistakably him, sealed tight in paper and ink, a perfect picture of the spectre stalking her house. Everything from the long, pale hair to the grim expression on an otherwise handsome face– Even the eyes shone with the same manic power as her intangible tormentor’s.
Almost unwilling to let him out of her sight, she devoured the captioned text. The sole survivor of the Tragedy of Duscur, he inherited the throne from his uncle shortly after the outbreak of the war. Known for his affable nature, but also for his episodes of violent madness. Defeated and killed by Flame Emperor Edelgard at the Third Battle of Tailtean.
Realising she’d been holding her breath, Edelgard sucked in a shaky gasp. It seemed increasingly likely that she’d gone mad. The spirit of a centuries-dead king, roused from his ancient slumber by the appearance of a woman with the name of his killer at the site of his death? It sounded like the premise of a contrived horror flick. And yet…
She marched to the front desk and had the sleepy-looking student librarian scan her card. Leaving with the book under her arm, she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. An average person would have asked to stay with a friend for a while, seen a doctor, or maybe even turned to drink. But she was not one to meekly shy away from her problems.
A plan was forming in her head, and she was prepared to see it through. This so-called ghost would prove itself or be left crushed in her wake… Like her namesake before her.
Almost disappointingly, nearly a week passed without incident. It was tempting to write the whole affair off as a bout of temporary insanity, but the portrait remained impossible to deny. She went about her business as normally as she could, but she found herself glancing around while busy with mundane chores. Her eyes lingered on every window and mirror she passed by, constantly watching her back.
So not just delusional, but paranoid as well. Wonderful. As if she wasn’t already exhausted, now she was on edge at every waking moment too.
Her thoughts often drifted to Hubert. He’d been sending her several messages a week since the start, mainly just checking up, asking how she was. She’d been lying to him, of course. If he knew she was seeing things, jumping at shadows and half-convinced she was being haunted by the ghost of the last king of independent Faerghus… Well, he might do something drastic. Perhaps reasonably so, but she’d never claimed not to be stubborn.
Having him drive her all the way up to Tailtean was more than enough help for one year. She refused to impose on him any further, whether his help was freely offered or not. Forcing herself to stand on her own two feet was half the reason she’d moved so far away in the first place, and she refused to stumble at the first hurdle. She’d made a promise, after all.
It was a cold, rainy evening when Dimitri finally reappeared.
Edelgard shut her textbook, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. That was enough for one night. She let a sigh escape her, resting her chin on her hands and taking in the soft patter of rainfall against the cottage roof. It would be winter soon, and then there would be no more rain until the spring, only snow. Best to enjoy it while it lasted.
She might not have noticed his presence at all if she hadn’t been listening so intently. There was no crack of thunder, no chill down her spine, just a strange sensation of distance. The noise of the rain suddenly seemed further away, the world around her just a few inches beyond her reach, as if she were no longer entirely within the waking world.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. Turning with the caution she would afford a wild beast, she met him eye-to-eye once again.
True to memory, he looked almost exactly as he appeared in the book. Almost. She’d become more than familiar with his portrait over the past week, enough to notice a few… Discrepancies. As he was here– Staring down at her from across her kitchen, looming large enough to block the door in its entirety– His hair was longer, and a fresh-looking scar marred his right cheek.
…If he was a hallucination, shouldn’t he look however she expected him to look?
Never breaking eye contact, she stood up, back straight as a pike. Her heart thundered in her chest, but when she spoke her voice rang clear.
“Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, I assume?”
He stood unnaturally still, slouching with his head hanging low, but she could not shake the feeling that he might pounce at any moment. When he replied, it was in a low, rusty whisper that set something rattling in her chest.
“Edelgard.” She clenched a fist, nails biting into her palm. Focus. Remember the plan.
“Yes.” She swallowed. “Assuming you are not a figment of my fevered imagination, I would ask you a question: In what year were you born?”
He barked out a bitter, humourless huff of air. She could feel dust loosening as he moved.
“How very like you, Edelgard.” He blinked, and shadows played strangely around his eyes. Was he missing one? No, just a trick of the light– “Twentieth of the Ethereal Moon. Eleven-sixty-two.”
20/12/1162. Was it true? Only one way to find out.
As if her gaze was the only thing anchoring him to the world, she fumbled sightlessly in her pocket for her phone. It had taken considerable willpower not to research the character of the King of Delusion thoroughly, but it had been necessary. If he truly was nothing but a product of her mind, he could never know anything that she did not. She did not know the year he was born, so neither could he. But his confidence-
Unable to afford even a momentary glance at the screen, she asked aloud: “In what year was Dimitri, the last king of Faerghus, born?”
He meets her stare like a slab of granite as the machine’s tinny voice echoes back the same date. Silence gripped the room, and Edelgard suddenly felt very cold.
“I’m not surprised you forgot.” He said, and then he was gone.
Edelgard found herself in the unenviable position of being forced to choose the lesser of two delusions.
Her first option was that she was in the middle of some kind of psychotic episode. The man appearing in her dreams (and her kitchen) with access to information beyond her knowledge was some kind of construct that she'd made up and accidentally convinced herself was real.
Her second option was that she was completely sane, that ghosts were in fact real, and that the earth-shattering implications of that supernatural discovery were somehow less important to her at that moment than her inability to get a decent night's sleep.
She lay awake in the dark of her room, staring at the ceiling and listening to the muffled ticking of the vintage clock mounted on the wall outside. Since her ‘conversation’ with Dimitri, she’d been turning the problem of him over and over in her head, searching for a neat, painless solution. None was forthcoming. She had two options, and neither was pleasant.
If she accepted the fallibility of her mind and wrote Dimitri’s testimony off as some kind of self-made deception, she would have to get in contact with mental health professionals, start attending regular appointments, perhaps take medication… That would be disruptive to her studies, but ultimately tolerable. What made it a truly bitter pill to swallow was her family.
If they found out– If even just Hubert found out– They would want to take her straight home and smother her in warm blankets for years to come. It would put her degree on hold indefinitely, and completely scupper her future plans. Independence would be a distant memory, and further from her grasp than ever before.
If, on the other hand, she trusted in the ghost’s testimony, there would be no going back. Moving house wasn’t an option, her family would ask questions, and she had no way of knowing if he could simply follow her. And given how badly her health had already declined, simply ignoring him wasn’t an option either. Who knew when he might turn poltergeist and do her actual harm?
She would be forced to engage with him. Talk. Understand his grudge, perhaps even attempt to lay him to rest, as much as she baulked at such a woolly idea. It would mean giving in to uncertainty and accepting a whole new world of unknowns. Frankly speaking, it was a terrifying prospect.
Groaning, she buried her face in her pillow, fingers bunched in her hair. Give up everything she’d been working for… Or cast her sanity to the wind and start talking to a dead man.
The worst part was that she didn’t have a choice at all.
She could not allow her ambition to end here. It would be a betrayal of more than just herself. No matter what, she would cut her own path.
When the darkness finally took her, and she once again found herself standing over the bloodied, defeated shape of the last King of Faerghus, she found she could not stay her hand. The great axe fell once again, sinking into his neck, and the raw hatred in his expression survives even as the last drop of blood joins his comrades’ in the mud.
Actions might speak louder than words, but she had to start somewhere.
“I’m sorry.” She whispers to his corpse. “I can’t change this. But I want to help you, as best I can.”
For the first time in weeks, when Edelgard wakes from that dream, it’s to the sound of morning birdsong and the gentle light of sunrise.