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lananiscorner · 2 years

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Summary: Chapter 2 of AGHATL. Following his childhood friends, Dedue and Byleth stopping him from pursuing Edelgard after Gronder, Dimitri retreats to Myrrdin to find out they are not the only ones willing to support him.

Notes: So um... remember how this was originally supposed to be a one shot, but then I had to cut it in pieces because it was ass o' clock in the morning and I was 6k in with no end in sight? Well, chapter 2 is almost 5k, the fic is still not finished and it is almost 5 AM now, so here's chapter 2/3. Sorry.

Full text beneath the cut, for those who prefer to read on tumblr.

The march back to Myrrdin was as long as it was gruesome. Dimitri winced as he took in what remained of the northern end of Gronder Field. Though the rain had doused the burning hill and washed away much of the blood, the stench of burnt wood and flesh still clung to area. Perhaps it was a mercy that they had fought so late in the day. Now, in the cover of night, with only a few torches for guidance, most of the battlefield laid obscured in the dark, yet the broken weapons and bodies that littered the way spoke the words none of them dared to say. Tomorrow, they would have to clean up this battlefield. To bury the dead who had not yet been claimed and salvage whatever was left before moving on.

How many had died here today? How little had they achieved in the end?

As usual, the dead trailed in his wake, yet for once their voices were but whispers, their hands out of reach. With the professor to his left, Sylvain and Felix to his right, Dedue guarding his back and Ingrid striding ahead with a torch firmly in hand, it was all but impossible for any of them to come close.

It made him feel a... lightness... a serenity that he hadn't known in years.

A serenity that a monster like him did not deserve.

Of course, most of that evaporated as they eventually reached the fortress that was the Great Bridge of Myrrdin.

The rest of the army had gone on ahead, though they could not have arrived much sooner than his own group did. Dimitri could tell from the busy bustling of servants running back and forth with pails, some filled with fresh water, even more filled with red. Everywhere he looked, healers were busy talking to injured soldiers, trying to determine who needed their precious spells right away, who could do without them for now... and who would never need them again. He grimaced at the sight of the covered carts heading towards the preserving cold of the cellars. How many—

"Your Highness!" Gustave's voice radiated relief and though fatigue was written all over his face, the dark circles under his eyes lightened just a little at the sight of his prince. "I was starting to fear something terrible might have happened on your way back. When Sylvain informed us the professor was needed—"

"I was mostly referring to their spiritual guidance," Sylvain interrupted quickly. "And perhaps their magical aptitude for talking people down from doing something stupid."

"Then perhaps we should keep them with you from now on," Ingrid said with the faintest hint of a smile, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come. "His Highness is injured—"

"I'm fine."

"Not critically, but nonetheless—"

"You should not waste—"

The pain that suddenly shot through his flank knocked out both his vision and his knees. Dedue was with him in an instant, keeping him from keeling over, while Felix stared down at him in his usual brand of hostility mingled with concern.

"What's the matter? Did I hit the stab wound in your side, boar prince?" Felix took off his gloves, rubbed his knuckles, and scoffed. "Someone find Mercedes, have her look at his jaw, too."

"I swear by the goddess..." Ingrid sighed as Felix marched off into the crowd, an angry blob of blue, swallowed in a sea of grey stone and armor. "I'll go find him and knock some sense into him."

"Wow..." Sylvain watched her run off with a grin on his face. "Sure feels different watching her go off like that when I'm not the one she's angry at."

"I have to agree with Felix." The professor said as if it was the most evident fact in the world. "We sh—"

Unfortunately, whatever they had been planning to say next was smothered by the arrival of a pair of messengers. Their words rushed past Dimitri in a blur of half-coherent phrases, interspersed with moments in which Dimitri had not been entirely sure if he was awake or asleep on his feet. They did nothing to dispel the headache that had started to grip him during the march, nor to appease his feeling of utter worthlessness. Was it not the duty of the army's commander to take care of such matters?

He stepped forward and opened his mouth to speak, only for Sylvain to grip his arm ever so slightly. Could the professor truly have been right? About everyone being willing to extend their hands to him?

"Your Highness... with all due respect, but you look like you're about to collapse. Please stop trying to do everything by yourself. When was the last time you slept? Get some rest."

"I agree." Gustave nodded. "Leave this to us, Your Highness, and we will give you a full report tomorrow."

He wanted to protest, but before he could even make a sound, the professor turned to him once more, steel in their eyes and velvet in their voice. "Remember, Dimitri. The only one denying you the splendors of life... is you."

The professor did not wait for him to object further and neither did Sylvain nor Gustave. He watched in stunned silence as they shepherded the messengers and whatever troubling reports they brought right along with them away from him.

Sadly, their departure had done nothing to remove the specters that stepped from the cold walls of the castle, eyes filled with reproach. He closed his eye and turned to flee back into the night, only to run right into Mercedes.

"Oh goodness!" There was fatigue in her eyes, and tension in her shoulders and the hand that held a pail with sponges, yet her voice carried the same ethereal lightness as ever. "What luck! I was looking for you, Dimitri. I heard you were injured?"

"It is no—" The only one denying you the splendors of life... is you. "I took a dagger to the ribs and some punches to the face. I will be fine."

"Without treatment? I doubt that." Mercedes shook her head and reached for his hand. "You are the strongest person I know, Dimitri, but even you are only human and humans have limits. Let's go and have a look at those injuries, shall we?"

It was a rhetorical question of course. In between Mercedes's quick and determined stride towards the quarters that had been set aside for him, and Dedue's silent, but nonetheless unwavering plea to follow her, there was little to be done.

The only one denying you the splendors of life... is you.

Simply walking into his quarters proved that the professor had been right once more. The sheets on the bed looked fresh enough for him to cringe at the thought of even sitting on them in his filthy armor. Near the bed's foot, a wooden tub had been filled with water so clear, he could see his reflection in it as sharp as in the mirror. Including the bruises that were starting to form on his jaw and the bags under his eyes that had not left in years. Dimitri sank into the chair by the desk, sighed and fumbled with the latch of his cloak, only to bend the metal with a single pinch.

"Damn it..."

"Your Highness," Dedue stepped forward. "Allow me."

He nodded slowly, and suddenly even that simple motion seemed like entirely too much effort as the ordeals of the day and hours of marching through the night came crashing down on him with a vengeance. Dedue seemed to have caught it too and set to work quickly, unclasping his cloak and loosening the latches that held his armor in place. Ever focused on the task, he started with those plates that covered the injury the girl had given him, then moved to Dimitri's other side to let Mercedes inspect the wound.

"Oh goodness..."

She lifted his undershirt carefully, yet even so the pull of its threads where they had dried against the wound stung like a thousand hot needles. What did it say about how he had lived his life those last five years, that the sensation barely made him flinch? Mercedes soaked one of the sponges, squeezed out the excess water, and dabbed it carefully around the edges of the wound. Was it the warmth of her hands or the coolness of his skin that made the spot feel almost painfully tender?

"I does not seem infected..." Mercedes mused. "But with an injury like this, it is better to be safe than sorry."

She cast a Restore spell first, followed by Heal, and Dimitri groaned ever so slightly as he felt the surface of the wound close slowly, just enough to keep him functional. After all, that was the purpose of healing spells on the battlefield, was it not?

Two spells cast. "Two spells wasted."

Certainly there were soldiers more deserving of her talents less than a rock throw down the hall, although whether it was exhaustion or the weariness of a lecture that made him swallow those words, Dimitri could not tell.

"That may be so," Mercedes shook her head, then continued investigating his injuries. "But they are my spells to waste. They belong to me and no one else. I get to decide how to use them, and I've decided to use them on you, whether you like it or not."

They are my spells to waste. They belong to me and no one else. Dimitri felt the words bounce around his increasingly weary mind as Mercedes continued his treatment. He had no spells, just cursed strength. Perhaps if he had been born a commoner...

No. What a silly notion. He would have shaken his head, had it not been in Mercedes's gentle, yet unyielding grip. His strength, his life, belonged to those who had died, and who died most in war if not commoners? Had he not been born a noble, he would have been no less chained to the dead.

By the time she had finished inspecting his jaw, Dedue was done removing the upper half of Dimitri's armor.

"Well..." Mercedes stepped back and put the sponge back into its pail. "The good news is, your jaw does not seem to be broken and you still have all of your teeth. Whoever hit you clearly did not want to kill you. Or if they did, they did an exceptionally bad job of it."

He almost wanted to laugh. That first half sounded like Felix, alright. "And the bad news?"

"The bad news is, there is not much more I can do for you right now." Mercedes stifled a yawn, but the exhaustion was still written all over her. "There is no point in cooling the affected area now. It will bruise and swell, there is no avoiding it. And my spells will do no good for bruises. I will ask the apothecary for some healing herbs tomorrow that will help with the pain."

Another wasted effort. Another resource that would be better put elsewhere. He did not des—

"And before you try to tell me that you don't deserve such basic treatment..." Mercedes sighed, "do remember that those herbs are resources allocated specifically for the treatment of the wounded. Any wounded, at the apothecary's discretion. So unless your jaw has miraculously healed completely by the time the sun rises on this fort, or the apothecary himself decides that you should not have them, I will not hear any objections."

As if you left anything to object to, Mercedes... Dimitri grimaced as the words turned into a growl in his throat. For all her physical clumsiness, Mercedes had never lacked a sharp and precise tongue. She could have used any word for recipients of the apothecary's craft that would have excluded him—hero, knight, ... man...

"I will be on my way then, so you can take a bath and get some rest." She dug a bundle of bandages out of the right-hand pocket of her skirt and laid them out carefully on his desk. "Make sure to apply these tightly to that stab wound after your bath. Good night, Dimitri."

She turned to Dedue and wished him the same, then picked up her reddened pail and left. Dimitri sighed, leaned over carefully, slipped out of his boots, and undid the straps that held the armor plates around his legs. They fell to the floor with a soft clutter that made his eye twitch as he searched the room fruitlessly.

"Your Highness... is something the matter?"

"It's nothing, Dedue." To anybody else in the room, the answer to his statement might have seemed to be a disbelieving silence. To Dimitri, it was the incessant whispers that pointed out his lie, his cowardice, his failure, his—

"Truth be told..." Perhaps Dedue was going to judge him, too. He could not be harsher than the dead. "...I don't remember the last time I removed all my armor."

How laughable that must seem. For him to live like a cornered rat, even in the relative safety of the half-restored monastery and conquered forts. Even when surrounded by his own army. Even in the presence of Dedue...

Dedue merely nodded. "The war has taken its toll on all of us, Your Highness, but I swear no harm will come to you. Not while I am here. Please..." He looked at the wooden tub. "Take your bath. If there are more injuries underneath all the blood and grime of today's battle, then they need to be treated sooner, rather than later. In the meantime, I will clean your armor and repair it, if need be."

It was an exceedingly polite way to say 'take a bath, dirty animal'. Dimitri shook his head as he shrugged out of his undershirt and pants and walked over to the tub. If the Kingdom officials who had protested him making such an 'uncultured beast' his retainer could see Dedue now, he could only hope they would choke in shame.

Dimitri himself nearly choked as he got in the water. For a split second, his skin was on fire with a million little flames. Then, the warmth seeped in, like the first rays of sunlight on a spring day in Fhirdiad. His breath caught in his throat as muscles he hadn't even known to be tense suddenly relaxed for the first time in years, even though the tub was barely big enough for him to sit in comfortably. Had he ever felt this warm, this comfortable before? If he had had, he couldn't remember. The sound that escaped his throat as he tried to breathe was barely more than a pathetic wheeze.

"Your Highness..." Dedue looked up from the laundry basket he had been collecting the cloak and armor in with what could best be described as mild alarm. "Is everything alright, Your Highness?"

Was it? He could no longer tell. Even as the water warmed him to his core, the cold hands of the dead reached for his hair, his hands... Those blood-red hands... He felt them shake as surely as his breath, as their voices crawled back into his ears, reminding him that he did not deserve to live while they were dead, while she still breathed.

"Your Highness!" One of Dedue's hands grabbed his, stopping their shaking as surely as a vice. The other cupped the back of his neck. "Please, Your Highness... what can I do to help you?"

"Don't go."

The words left his mouth before they had even fully formed in his mind, but he knew them to be true as surely as his name was Dimitri. They were the same words he used to speak all those years ago, when the pain of Duscur had been as fresh as the dirt on his father's grave and all the servants and knights in the castle had been replaced by unfamiliar faces who called him a traitor for not wishing every man of Duscur to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

"Don't... leave me... please."

Dedue cast one glance at the basket full of armor, then turned his attention back to his lord. "Of course, Your Highness. I will stay as long as you like."

Dimitri nodded. The words of gratitude he whispered under his breath seemed pitiful recompense, but they were all he had. Unfortunately, they did nothing to drown out the whispers of the dead.

"Dedue?"

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"Please, say something."

Dedue looked at him puzzled. "What would you have me say?"

"Anything... anything at all."

Dedue nodded, his face solemn. Then a sudden inspiration seemed to strike him. "Your Highness... do you recall back in Fhirdiad, when you used to ask me for tales from my people?"

"I... do." It was only half a lie. He remembered vaguely that they had talked. If he focused hard enough, the brought strokes of some of the tales of Duscur even came back, rising from the depths of his mind like snowdrops from the hard soil of Faerghus in early spring, but the cold blanket of snow that was five years of living like an animal still hung over them, obscuring their splendor.

"Did I ever tell you that there is a one-eyed goddess in the legends of Duscur?"

"A one-eyed goddess?" He did not recall that one. "Tell me more."

Dedue nodded and started recounting the tales of Sielad, daughter of the sky god and sister of the sun and stars, of her role in guiding those who wandered lost in darkness. Beyond the soothing rumble of Dedue's voice, the occasional question from Dimitri, and the rush of water as he doused his head to wash off the remaining dirt and blood in his hair, the whispers of the dead finally faded into mere distant chatter, an ignorable noise half-forgotten by the rest of the world, while the water turned from pleasantly warm to not so pleasantly tepid, until eventually he got out of the tub, put his clothes back on and joined Dedue in cleaning up the pieces of his armor.

He was halfway through finishing maintenance on all the plates of his leg armor, when a knock on the door interrupted the latest tale of the one-eyed moon goddess who could transform into an owl. Dedue sighed and answered it with a frown that turned into a smile almost instantly. It took Dimitri but one glance to know why.

"Ashe." He shook his head. "What brings you up here?"

"Dinner?" He gave a sheepish grin as he held up a tray with two bowls and cups, a teapot and a covered cook pot. "The kitchen closed a while ago, but no one had seen either at you at dinner, so I figured I'd prepare you some. I also brewed some tea."

"You should not have wa—"

"That was very kind of you Ashe. Thank you."

Dimitri felt the bruises on his jar scream as it sank. He could not recall the last time Dedue had interrupted him. In fact, he was not sure it had happened ever before. And yet, all he could do was look on dumbfounded as Dedue stashed all the armor in two neat stacks—a bigger, clean one and a smaller one still covered in blood and dirt—to make room on the floor. Ashe did not waste any time either. He set out the bowls and cups for them, poured soup and tea, and then sat down next to the armor stacks and started cleaning the remaining pieces with a cheerfulness that bordered on impropriety.

How could anyone still have so much light in their eyes and so much joy in their soul as to quietly hum a vaguely, distantly familiar melody, while cleaning bloodied armor, after a battle as gruesome as Gronder?

"I hope you don't mind me staying and finishing this," Ashe said almost as an afterthought, without even looking up from his work. "I'll try to be done by the time you are finished eating."

Now there was a good joke. Dimitri wanted to laugh. He glanced down at the bowl in front of him, a visually unappealing soup of brown and green, yet the fragrance coming from the bowl was exquisite. He was certain it tasted great as well, at least to a man who still had taste.

What a waste to serve it to someone like him.

On the other side of the humble dinner spread, Dedue sat quiet and unmoving as a rock.

"Go on, Dedue." Dimitri sighed. "You need to keep your strength."

"As do you, Your Highness." Dedue did not even flinch. "And besides, it would be unbecoming of a vassal to eat before his lord."

The only one denying you the splendors of life... is you.

"Very well."

He supposed he could have argued. Dimitri pondered the possibility as he sank his spoon into the bowl and brought it up to his mouth almost torturously slowly. It wasn't even hesitation or reluctance that slowed his movement anymore, but rather the leaden feeling in every muscle of his arm, in every fiber of his body.

He supposed he could have made it an order. Dimitri wondered if it was still too late to do so as he finally managed to wrangle the food down his throat. Perhaps now that he had eaten even just a bite, he could simply tell Dedue to just finish the food without him.

He realized the option was off the table the moment the soup hit his stomach.

The warmth that spread through him was almost instantaneous, as if someone had just lit a candle in his belly, yet it was hardly an unpleasant sensation. For a moment, he could all but feel the blood as it rushed through his veins, transporting the soft glow to every last inch of his body. Whatever muscles in his body had not yet lost unwelcome tension during his bath suddenly relaxed at the surprisingly welcome heat, and though his fatigue remained, it was joined by another, far more pressing sensation.

Hunger.

No.

Famine.

He was famished. It was a sensation every man or woman of Faerghus was familiar with at least a little, and one that he had known all too well over the last five years, yet for once, it felt less like an omen of imminent death and more like...

... like an omen of life.

Was this how it felt to have been touched by a blessing from the goddess? It was the only apt comparison Dimitri could find as he combed the shadows of his memory for any adequate likeness. It felt the way he had heard Mercedes describe her prayers. It felt the way he had felt, what seemed like ages ago, when he had learned that he had managed to save even one person. When he had learned that it had not been in vain.

"Please tell me... it wasn't in vain..."

He did not taste the additional salt as he started shovelling the soup into his mouth with a desperation as if his life depended on it, nor did he feel the wet cold on his cheeks, nor did he hear the words Dedue and Ashe spoke to each other as the tension in the room finally burst like a bubble. There was only the emptiness in his stomach that filled slowly with each spoon, and the emptiness in his heart that refused to follow. He was vaguely aware of the conflicting look of concern and relief on Dedue's and Ashe's faces as he reached for the pot, filled his bowl up again, and started wolfing down his soup once more, but it hardly mattered.

What mattered was that if he starved here, it would have been in vain, and even if only for a few precious minutes that prospect sounded worse than the eternal flames.

By the time he reached for the tea, the steam had stopped rising from the cup, but it hardly mattered. Dimitri took a deep whiff before downing the beverage in one go. Chamomile. Had the professor told Ashe that this was his favorite, or had he merely been lucky? He doubted it was the latter. Luck had never been on Dimitri's side.

And yet here I am, he thought, not so much glum as utterly defeated, as he set the cup down again. Unreasonably lucky.

Lucky enough to have an ally... no, a friend, strange as the word sounded even in his mind, who cooked him dinner when he had not remembered to feed himself since yesterday morning.

Lucky enough to have another friend who did not mind talking over the voices.

Lucky enough to have yet another friend who had spent her precious spells on mending his wounds.

Lucky enough to have several more friends who had taken the burden of hearing about how just how many people they had lost from his shoulders.

Lucky enough to have a friend who had the audacity—no, the courage—to stop him when he was about to do something truly foolish, by any means necessary.

It was more luck than he knew what to do with.

"Your Highness?" It was Dedue who broke the silence at last. Though his voice carried the same fatigue Dimitri could feel in his own bones, his eyes were as alert as ever. "Would you like another cup of tea?"

Did he? Dimitri glanced at the pot between them. His stomach was full now. His heart was not. He doubted it ever would be again.

"I..." Dimitri sighed. "I am not sure what it is I want."

It was a useless answer of course, but also the most honest one he could give, and trickery had always been tiring to him, even on his best days. He would have more success strangling the ghosts lined up against the wall than trying to lie right now.

"I feel as if no matter what I do... no matter how hard I try... it is always the wrong choice."

"Then maybe it's best if you sleep on it."

"Sleep?" The word felt so strange in his mouth. He hadn't slept in years. Passed out from exhaustion whenever his body demanded it, yes, but sleep?

"Absolutely!" If Ashe was tired as well, his tongue did not know the meaning of 'betrayal'. "Lonato always used to tell me: 'if you feel like there are too many choices before you, it is because your head is too full of too many voices. Sleep to silence them, then follow the first one that comes to you after you have washed your face and brushed your teeth.'"

"How can you be sure the first one is the right one," Dedue asked with a raised eyebrow, taking the words right out of his liege's mouth.

"Beats me." Ashe shook his head. "But that's what Lonato taught me and I have yet to regret living by it."

"I see." Dedue nodded. He drank his own cup of tea, put all the dishes back onto the tray, and gave a quick glance at the now finished pile of cleaned armor. "Is there anything else you need of us tonight, Your Highness?"

"No."

What he needed was a miracle to appease the dead. Or perhaps a good night of sleep, as Ashe had suggested. At this point, Dimitri wasn't quite sure. All he knew for certain was that his eye lids had become lead.

"Go to bed, Dedue. And you as well, Ashe." There it was. He had not been able to hear the exhaustion in Ashe's voice, but he could see it in his face. "I will... try to do as you suggested."

Apparently, that was just enough. He could tell neither Ashe nor Dedue were convinced by the vagueness of his reply, judging from the glances they exchanged, yet they got up all the same. He watched as Ashe picked up the tray and disappeared from the room as swiftly as he had arrived, and Dedue picked up his discarded coat.

"I shall give this a quick cleaning, too, before retiring for tonight," Dedue stated in a tone that left no room for arguments. "Please, do as Ashe said, Your Highness. Your wounds won't heal without rest."

Dimitri sighed as he forced himself back onto his two feet. The floor beneath them felt soft and uneven, as if he was walking on bags of sand. Undoubtedly another sign of his exhaustion.

"I shall try, Dedue, if you promise to do the same. Good night."

"I promise, Your Highness. Good night."

Dedue gave a deep bow and left. The knock of the door as it latched shut echoed like thunder in Dimitri's skull and dislodged the specters from their spots by the walls.

They would join his sleep, too. Dimitri knew that as surely as he knew that the sun rose in the east, and yet for once, he found he could not have cared less. Turning the key was agony. Shrugging out of his undershirt was torture. The thought of hanging it up over the chair crossed his mind for a second and was immediately banished. It was all he could do to take off his eye patch, push aside the blankets, and crawl into bed before his battered body finally surrendered to the cruel punishments of the day.

Dimitri closed his eye and was asleep within a blink.

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