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“Houses Gerth, Essar, Lochin, and Ochs...” Ashe read off the hurriedly scrawled report the scout had just delivered. “I can’t believe we’ll be facing them all at once.”
“What do you expect?” Felix snapped. “Our fool king kicked a hornet’s nest, and now they’re ready to sting.”
“You’re not wrong,” the boar sighed, his miserable self-pity on full display. “From their standpoint, this is an invasion, and they are the ones to repel it.”
He went on to detail how the Empire army would be defending their homes, and not to forget that, and blah blah blah.
Felix’s hand twitched on the hilt of his sword. So much talking... and it was all pointless. All this sympathy was going to make them hesitate in battle, and that’s how people got killed. They might as well let their weapons rust.
“Enough with the pity party, boar,” Felix said sharply. “You know what needs to be done.”
Dimitri gave him a weary nod, the dark bags under his eyes even worse than yesterday. Stupid fool wasn’t sleeping at all.
“We stand here because we believe in you, Your Majesty,” Dedue declared.
It was unnecessarily dramatic, but it seemed to have the intended effect of draining some of the boar’s self-doubt.
“I agree. I like working for someone who considers the consequences of their actions.”
Felix could see Annette and Mercedes cast their gazes around the room in confusion, unsure of who had spoken. Not surprising, since the Ashen Demon— Byleth, he reminded himself, they were supposed to call her Byleth now— rarely spoke during these meetings, and never unprompted.
But Felix knew that voice well. He heard it nearly every day, telling him to yield as she pressed his face into the dirt of the training grounds. A worthy opponent, finally. One that was rapidly improving his skills, a dozen bruises at a time.
“O-oh, well, I’m certainly reassured to know we have the fearsome Jeralt’s Mercenaries at our backs,” the boar stammered, blushing up to his ears. “You have my sincerest thanks, Byleth.”
Felix rolled his eyes so hard they burned. The boar had been comforted by Dedue’s comment, but Byleth’s verbal support made him positively giddy. Felix almost preferred his self-important martyrdom to the pathetic way he melted into a puddle around the Kingdom’s newest recruit.
Ashe and Ingrid made meaningful eye contact— surely envisioning the future ballads to be written about the king of lions and his warrior queen, or some such nonsense. Further down the table, Sylvain wore a wolfish grin, eager to pounce on the king’s crush to distract himself from the constant presence of his father and brother. Even the old man wore an amused look on his face.
Since when was Felix the only responsible one?
“Hmph. Just mind your swords aren’t dulled by these pangs of sympathy,” he said. “Meeting adjourned.”
He didn’t technically have the authority to say that, but he knew from experience the boar would be useless now. Once he was distracted by Byleth, there was no getting his attention back to the matter at hand.
“Felix,” said Byleth as she rose from her chair, speaking unprompted for an unprecedented two times in one day. “Spar with me.”
He relaxed. That was exactly what he needed. “Of course. See you there in fifteen minutes.”
She gave him a curt nod and turned on her heel, marching out of the large meeting tent with the lack of ceremony they’d all come to expect. The second she was gone, Felix felt a heavy, gangly arm flop over his shoulders.
“Careful, Felix. If you keep monopolizing Byleth’s time, His Majesty is gonna get jeeeealoooous...”
“You— I have no idea what you’re talking about!” the boar squealed, the ridiculous blush still covering his face belying his words. “I am happy that she— I mean, that Jeralt’s mercenaries are settling in and getting along with everyone.”
“Riiiiiight,” Sylvain snickered. “Maybe His Majesty and I will come cheer you on, to make sure there’s nothing inappropriate going on...”
Felix saw his escape from this foolishness when a darker head of red hair bobbed just outside the tent.
“Margrave!” Felix called.
“Shit!” Sylvain ducked under the table.
“What is it, Felix?” Margrave Gautier snapped. Despite himself, Felix bristled. He didn’t give a shit about noble titles, but Gautier did, and Felix outranked him. A little respect might be appropriate.
“Sylvain was looking for you.”
With another curse, Sylvain’s head slammed into the underside of the table. He popped up with a disgustingly fake smile plastered on his face. “Ah, Father, so you weren’t under the table after all!”
“Son.” If looks could kill, Sylvain would be dying of exposure on the tundra of Sreng. “Is he bothering you, Your Majesty?”
Oh, of course, the boar got his title...
“No, of course not, Margrave! I— uh, I dropped my quill and Sylvain was kind enough to retrieve it for me.”
Gautier had enough respect for the crown not to point out that the quill in question was leaking ink all over Dimitri’s hand, where it had snapped from his uncontrolled strength. But his dark gaze dripped with undisguised disdain.
While Dimitri and Sylvain stood stunned like two ten-year-olds caught sneaking treats by their governess, Felix used the distraction to slip away to the training grounds.
Ten minutes later, his friend’s foolishness faded away, the cold weight of iron in his hand grounding him. He understood the need for diplomacy— really, he did; too many people he knew had died pointless deaths already— but blades and battle were what he was born for.
If he didn’t know better, he’d say Byleth was fired up for their fight, too. On anyone else, her expression would look almost bored, but her usually blank face was harder, sharper today, her lips a thin line. Instead of warming up, she chose to pace like a caged animal at the other end of the training grounds.
When he approached, her eyes flicked to him with the unnerving stare she was known around camp for.
“A wager.”
Felix’s brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”
“I want to make a wager today,” she clarified.
That was odd. She trained to fight and fought to survive. She didn’t even keep track of who won each bout. Not that it would have been hard; she won almost all of them.
“O...kay...” He shrugged. “What do you want to bet?”
“The loser has to grant a request to the winner.”
He waited for the rest of the information that she clearly thought was unnecessary. “What sort of request? You’re not gonna make me run naked across the camp, are you?”
She recoiled from him. “Why would I do that?”
He sighed. “Sorry, I’ve been hanging around Sylvain too much. A request, sure. But with more on the line, don’t expect me to make victory easy for you.”
“Oh, is that why it’s been so easy to beat you until now?” she asked, head tilted.
She— no. The Ashen Demon didn’t make jokes. But there was definitely something strange about her today. Speaking up in the meeting, this mysterious request...
“Ready?” she asked, almost impatiently. He nodded, and the corner of her mouth quirked up. “Then let the lesson begin.”
She often used magic along with her swordplay, but not today. In this fight, her only backup weapon was her own body, and damn, did it pack a punch. And not in the way Sylvain would mean that.
It took her all of ten seconds to disarm him.
Try as he might to reconstruct what had happened, she’d simply been too fast for him to follow. One minute he was holding his weapon, the next it was sailing across the grounds, hitting the earth with a thud.
She didn’t give him the chance to regroup or even breathe. The wind was knocked from his lungs with a hard punch straight to his chest. She followed it up with a kick to the back of his knee, forcing him to a kneel.
Had she been holding back this whole time? And still beating his ass? That was extremely annoying.
“You’ve been spending too much time with the boar,” he spat.
Something deadly flashed in her eyes, and he immediately regretted taunting her.
She withdrew without claiming victory. She cast around the grounds until she spotted his sword.
He watched with trepidation while she strode over to it, then threw it straight at him. The hilt hit him hard in the chest, where he was already sore from her punch.
“Pick it up,” she said, deadly calm.
“But I—”
“If you’re disarmed on the battlefield, will you simply roll over and concede?” There was finally a change in her stoic face when she raised an eyebrow in challenge. “I guess Jeralt was right when he said that you noble brats are all bark, no bite.”
His pride bristled, compelling him to struggle to his feet. He gave a ragged cough, chest aching, but he took his stance, anyway.
He stayed on his feet longer this time, but it wasn’t because he was fighting any better.
Normally, she was efficiency incarnate, never giving in to anger or cruelty on the battlefield. What she lacked in outward compassion, she made up for with mercy in her actions.
But now she was toying with him. She would get in a good hit, but refused to follow through and finish him. He was aching everywhere from the many blows he’d taken, chest heaving with labored breaths.
Finally, his legs decided the match for them. He took a few staggering steps toward her and fell to the ground, utterly spent.
She watched him for a few seconds, waiting to see if he would get up again, before stalking towards him. The tip of her sword dragged behind her, scoring the earth in her wake.
Shez had built up the terrifying image of the so-called Ashen Demon before Jeralt’s Mercenaries joined the army. She had no soul, Shez said. Eyes like a yawning, empty abyss.
But the Byleth they knew was no cold-hearted killer. She was a skilled healer and avoided violence whenever possible. The Blue Lions had teased Shez endlessly about being so frightened of a person who delighted in tea parties and handed out flowers like candy.
But Felix saw it now. That monster was bearing down upon Felix now, in all its terrifying glory.
“Maybe Shez was right about you,” he spat, unable to contain his temper even while battered and helpless. “I didn’t take you for one to humiliate an ally.”
A short bark of something that resembled laughter burst out of her. “That’s rich. You humiliate an ally every day.” He furrowed his brows in confusion, and she rolled her eyes. “Dimitri, with your words.”
“Oh, the boar? He knows that’s just...” He waved a hand vaguely, unsure himself what his goal was with his constant criticism. “...bark. He’s never complained.”
She pinned him down unnecessarily. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to sit up, let alone wrestle out from under her. The familiar cold, blunt iron of her sword rested against his neck. “He doesn’t complain because he thinks you’re right,” she corrected.
Felix scoffed, but inwardly, an unfamiliar shame crept into his heart. They’d all witnessed the way Dimitri shouldered responsibility for everything out of some misplaced survivor’s guilt. Shez had accompanied him burying a dozen villagers because he felt the entire war was his fault. He’d told Felix about how the ghosts of his loved ones tormented and berated him.
Those weren’t Glenn’s or Lambert’s thoughts; they were Dimitri’s own.
But that didn’t mean he took Felix’s... teasing as a real criticism. The boar wasn’t even that boarish anymore, truth be told. He was more relaxed and genuine than he used to be— a little, at least. Felix had said as much to Shez just the other day.
... Had he ever said it to Dimitri, though?
“Do you yield?” Byleth asked, pulling him out of the uncharacteristic introspection.
“Obviously,” he said, batting at her sword. “Get that out of my face already.”
She pulled the weapon back, but her face stayed inches from his. For one mad moment, he thought she might have snapped, ready to tear his flesh apart with nothing but her teeth.
“Stop calling Dimitri a boar,” she said. “It hurts his feelings.”
“That again? I told you—” It took him a beat to fully process her words. “Wait. That’s your request?”
She nodded once. “You agreed to honor it.”
“You could have just asked like a normal person,” he grumbled. Her arched eyebrow showed exactly how much she believed he would comply with such a request. “Tch. Fine. I’m a man of my word.”
Whatever strange tension had been driving her seemed to dissipate with his agreement.
“Then that is that,” she said and offered him a hand, all anger forgotten. “You fought well.”
“Don’t patronize me. You crushed me.” She gave half a shrug. Unlike anyone else in this army, she wouldn’t coddle his ego. It was why he usually enjoyed sparring with her so much. “I hope that stupid b—“ her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword in warning— “king proves worthy of your regard.”
“He will,” she said. Having accomplished her objective, she marched away without another word.
Felix doubled over and rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath. He stretched his neck one way and then the other, where he locked eyes with the— with the king. He probably thought he was doing a good job pretending to smile, but his expression was more a baring of teeth. Sylvain was wide-eyed next to Dimitri, with no smart comment for once.
Felix ignored them both and limped off in the other direction, towards the infirmary.
Dimitri leaned heavily on the conference table, shoulders scrunched up almost to his ears with tension. He shouldn’t have snapped at Dedue... or Rodrigue... or Annette, he thought with an especially ashamed wince.
Even Felix was walking on eggshells around him, calling him Dimitri for the first time since the disastrous Western Rebellion.
Goddess, his head pounded. He hadn’t slept at all last night, and...
No, in the relative privacy of his own mind, he had to admit that’s not why he was so cross, but the real reason was even more loathsome.
Byleth was his friend. He had no claim on her. That much was certainly clear when she straddled Felix and leaned toward him, almost close enough to kiss.
That was when Dimitri realized that any hint of affection he thought had been brewing between him and Byleth was merely a figment of his own wishful thinking. Well, on her end, at least. He had only recently been able to admit that the fluttering of his heart in her presence was probably a crush.
She was so thoughtful, and kind... and the smile she’d graced him with last week had been so mesmerizing that he found himself consumed with the desire to earn it again. When she smiled, he could almost envision having something worth living for—
Friends, he reminded himself. She liked Felix, not him. Even someone as romantically stunted as Dimitri could see that. It was fine. He’d been miserable and alone this long; what was another rest of his life?
“Dimitri?” Sylvain asked. “Are you listening?”
“No,” he admitted with a sigh, flopping back heavily into his chair. “I apologize, I’m just...”
Felix rolled his eyes. “You’re doing it again, b— Dimitri.”
The last thread of Dimitri’s patience broke.
“There’s no need for you to coddle me, Felix,” he snapped. “I don’t know if it’s a guilty conscience or simple pity making you treat me with kid gloves, but I’ve had enough! Call me what I am. A boar.”
“I’m not allowed to,” Felix said, a slight flush rising to his cheeks.
“You’re not allowed?” Sylvain asked. “Did your mommy visit and set you a bedtime, too? No offense, Rodrigue. The dowager is a lovely lady.”
“None taken, though I’m not sure if I like you thinking my wife is lovely,” Rodrigue answered, bemused. “However, I am quite curious about this development as well. What is the meaning of this, Felix?”
Felix ignored them and spoke only to Dimitri. “You mean your girlfriend didn’t tell you?”
Confusion replaced Dimitri’s rage. “I am at a loss. I’ve no idea what you’re getting at, truly.”
Felix crossed his arms, refusing to make eye contact. “For our last spar, we made a wager. Her boon was for me to stop calling you... that nickname.”
Rodrigue had the good manners to cover his mouth to muffle his chuckle, but Sylvain extended no such courtesy. His fist pounded on the table as he laughed from deep in his belly.
But Dimitri didn’t grasp the punchline. “Who requested this boon of you?”
“Are you serious right now?” Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. “Byleth. Obviously. You watched her beat my ass into the dirt.”
“She... did that for me?” Dimitri asked. “To defend my honor?”
Sylvain slapped him on the shoulder, pulling him out of his awed trance. “You should probably sound a little less excited to be the damsel in distress in this situation, Your Majesty.”
Dimitri shook him off. He couldn’t be bothered with something as mundane as his own masculinity, not with this news. “Don’t you see what this means?”
“It means you need to ask her out already,” Sylvain answered. “If she’s beating people up for teasing you, it’s only a matter of time before my turn comes up, and I would really like to avoid getting caught in the middle of whatever violent sexual tension you two have going on. Not judging, mind you, but just keep it behind closed doors, all right?”
Dimitri puzzled at Sylvain's outburst, unable to make sense of the words.
“No,” he said, his excitement rendering him breathless. “It means she’s not in love with Felix!”
He looked at Sylvain with a hopeful lift of his eyebrows, seeking confirmation for his theory, but Sylvain just stared, his mouth hanging open.
Felix groaned. “You’re making it really hard for me to keep my word, you— you— Hmph.” He slumped into his seat, arms crossed.
Dimitri’s gaze swept across the table, met by identical, blinking stares from Rodrigue, Dedue, and Shez. Annette still wouldn’t meet his eye.
It was Ingrid who finally deigned to explain. “Literally no one but you has ever once thought that, Your Majesty. Byleth clearly favors you.”
He wasn’t sure if he had dismissed the meeting or even bothered to say goodbye before his feet carried him swiftly across the camp. He had to tell Byleth what was on his mind before his anxiety returned and made him a coward. Luckily, he found her easily, talking to one of the other mercenaries outside her tent.
“Byleth!” he blurted out, grabbing her by the shoulders. Perhaps he should have planned something romantic to say, but there was nothing for it now. “Forgive me— it's only been a day of believing you fancied another, and the very thought is driving me mad! Oh, I know I’m a loathsome, jealous fool, but I can no longer deny how much I want you by my side… Please, would you have me, unworthy as I am?”
“Okay.”
Her response brought him up short. He had expected her to need some convincing, so he floundered for what to say next. “Oh... I... So you wouldn't prefer someone else? Like, say... Felix?”
She huffed a laugh. “Why would you think that?”
“Er, it’s just... something I heard...”
“Well, they’re wrong. I like you, Dimitri.”
“I care for you, too, Byleth... A great deal, in fact.”
He couldn’t stop a crooked smile from overtaking his face, and he stood grinning at her like a lovesick fool for who knows how long.
“You can kiss me now,” she prompted.
Like most of her strategies, this was a truly excellent suggestion. His hands slid up her shoulders to either side of her neck— gently, he reminded himself— as he leaned in and tentatively pressed his lips to hers. She, on the other hand, blew right past tentative, yanking him down by the collar and shoving her tongue into his mouth without ceremony.
He moaned, meeting her passion eagerly. When they absolutely had to break for breath, she grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the tent flap.
“Come on.”
“I— I can’t go into your tent!” he stammered. “People will think...” He trailed off, embarrassed at his presumption.
She shrugged. “And they’d be right.”
His brain ceased to function, but years of etiquette kicked in automatically. “I couldn’t possibly...” he protested weakly, his willpower being whittled down as he ducked down for more kisses.
She rose onto her tiptoes, speaking seductively into his ear. “There wouldn’t be any question who I’m interested in then...”
He bent down, scooping her legs up into his arms as if she were his bride, and then he strode headfirst into her tent. She was quite the strategist, after all.