Archive of Our Own

[one - eastern blaiddyd, 1175]

“You have to be careful,” his father had told him, “because the water is deeper than it looks, and you can’t know how fast the current moves. And once you do, it’s too late.”

Too late, Dimitri thought as he tumbled toward the water, nothing more than an unlucky slip while trying to lean over and see to the bottom of the riverbed, curious how deep the water looked to begin with.

The crash into the water instantly disoriented Dimitri, and he sucked in a sharp, reflexive breath and sputtered water as a result, breaking the surface of the river before being dragged below again as the current pulled him down and along. 

He tried to stay calm, to activate his crest, or just use his strength to push himself towards the surface, but the river turned sharply and he tumbled in the water. He started to lose his bearing, unsure which direction to push himself toward. He felt like he was being dragged down to the rocky riverbed in each direction.

The rushing water was deafening. His vision was tunneling, growing darker. His chest hurt. And he was scared. 

Then, he heard a loud splash, a distinct noise that cut through the din of moving water all around him.

Dimitri felt himself being yanked in another direction, and he began flailing in earnest, twisting around. He felt his cloak tear as his arms broke free from its heavy wool fabric.

“Hey! Hey, calm down, kid!” More choppy splashing. A voice cut through, insistent and strained, “I’m trying to help you out here! Stop struggling!”

Dimitri couldn’t. He was breathing faster, still flailing, head cutting above the water before sinking back under, and it felt like he had no control over his limbs. They were moving slowly, awkwardly, and he couldn’t understand what was going on, why he felt so weak, heavy.

Dimitri felt another massive haul on the back of his collar, and then he was sputtering, coughing, bent over on the bank of the river, heaving onto the rough sand.

Everything hurt. He sucked in large, gasping inhales, and he felt himself tremble against the ground. He could barely hold himself up, and he felt weighted, drained. He shuddered, then coughed again. It felt like glass in his throat. 

He couldn’t cry. He was too old; he wasn’t supposed to cry. Instead, Dimitri squeezed his eyes shut, taking more deep, heaving breaths that felt like burning ice.

“Hey. Kid. Look at me,” someone said. That same voice as before. “It’s alright. You’re alright. Just breathe. That’s the only way to get through it. Just breathe.” 

Dimitri did as instructed, clutching sand between his fingers as he continued taking long, painful inhales. When he felt more steady, Dimitri opened his eyes. Crouched before him was a man he’d never seen before, with dark brown hair and tan skin, deep green eyes that reminded Dimitri of the pines outside of Fhirdiad. He peered at Dimitri with a tight grimace, concerned. 

Dimitri frowned. He blurted without thinking, “Why are you wearing pillow quilting?”

The man let out a startled laugh, his tense smile loosening. “Ah, so that’s the thanks I get for saving your life?” 

“Oh. I—thank you!” Dimitri hurried to respond. He suddenly recalled that distinctive splash and then that sharp tug. His eyes widened. “You jumped in the water to rescue me! Like a hero! Or a knight!”

“Oh, ah,” the man replied slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know about all that. I saw a kid in a bad way, so I helped. Who wouldn’t, right?”

Dimitri tilted his head.

“Lots of people. Being brave is a choice, and it can be a hard one.” Dimitri turned back to the river. It flowed on without noticing them, but it made him tense. It no longer looked inviting, like an adventure.  “The river is deep, and you can’t see the current,” Dimitri repeated his father’s words. Swallowed—it hurt his throat. “Not until it’s too late.”

The man blinked, giving Dimitri an assessing look.

“Yeah… well, lucky for you I was here,” he replied, before pushing off from his knees to stand. “Though I wouldn’t make a habit of it. Relying on luck.”

Dimitri nodded, unsure what to say. Then decided, “I need to return to my family.”

“Yeah, of course. I’ll take you there, kid.” He frowned at Dimitri, giving him another long look. “You’re gonna be cold like that, though. But,” he paused, picking at his own wet clothes. Matching beige jacket and pants, with black gloves and boots. A long, pretty golden cape, with golden details shooting out from it at the shoulder. It looked like the sun. “Not much I can do for you there.”

“It’s not so bad,” Dimitri disagreed. “Today is rather warm, in fact.”

This made the man laugh again, a bright, clear sound. Dimitri smiled.

“What’s your name?” Dimitri asked, still smiling. He started walking as he did so, expecting the man would know to follow him. 

“I’ve got lots of those. Best not to get into it,” he replied vaguely, giving Dimitri a funny sort of smile. Like he wasn’t actually happy at all. Before Dimitri could object, he continued. “And you, kid? Got a name worth sharing?”

“Dimitri,” he said brightly. He should introduce his full title, but… it was nice. Just being talked to without any of the usual stiff, awkward phrases that strangers often used around him. Especially adults.

The man stilled, just briefly, before he nodded. “That’s a nice one. I… knew a Dimitri, once. Kinda looked like you, too, to be honest.” 

“Oh, yes.” Dimitri nodded. “My father told me about that. I have only had it happen to me once or twice, though.”

“Had… what happen?”

“Met one of my…” Dimitri paused, trying to remember the word. “Namesakes. As I am Prince, many children have been named after me. It can be good luck,” Dimitri shot the man a nervous glance out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t seem to care for luck. He spoke quicker, “Especially soon after I was christened! Lots of other babies were given the same name during that time.” 

The man appeared stunned, stopping completely. Dimitri did as well, waiting politely for him to speak. People frequently needed time to do so, in his presence. They often chose their words very carefully, so he needed to be patient, understanding, as they did so. The thought sounded like his father in his head. 

“Prince… Dimitri…?” He trailed off, voice soft.

Dimitri thought it sounded faraway, like from a dream. Not the usual uncomfortable awe that people sometimes had around Dimitri, nor the detached respect that peaked with the word Prince, tapered out on Dimitri. This was something else; something Dimitri did not recognize.

“Yes.” Dimitri felt a little guilty. He should have just introduced himself properly from the start. He caught the man’s eyes, as he had been instructed by his tutors, and ensured his shoulders were held back, his chin high. “I am Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Crown Prince to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.” He stopped, feeling shy and awkward. But he wasn’t supposed to show that. “I... It’s nice to meet you.”

The man’s face had drained of all color, and he seemed winded, or like he’d taken a blow. Dimitri’s stomach turned. Had he done something wrong?

“Sir?” he asked. “Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down?”

The man only nodded mutely, and Dimitri guided him easily to a patch of grass beneath a tree, settling him down to rest his back against its trunk.

Dimitri wasn’t sure what else to do, so he crouched in front of the man just as he had in front of Dimitri only minutes earlier. He tried giving him a reassuring smile. It didn’t really feel right, but he held it. 

“Sir? Are you alright?” Dimitri repeated when he remained silent.

“I—your father,” the man finally replied, eyes darting to Dimitri’s and holding them. “Who is your father?” 

Dimitri frowned, confused. Everyone knew his father. “My father is the King.”

“King… Lambert?” the man asked unsteadily.

“You do know him! That’s good,” Dimitri reassured quickly, happy when the man nodded in response.

“That’s…” The man sighed, bringing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes, rubbing with his two fingers. 

The gesture was familiar. Rodrigue often did something similar whenever Glenn said something he qualified as “talking back,” though they often found themselves in a position for more “talking back” when the two decided to argue over what responses actually merited that label.

Dimitri hid a smile behind his hand, although the man wouldn’t see it anyway. 

He opened his eyes after a minute, cutting his gaze to Dimitri’s face, his eyes moving rapidly as he continued to stare, as though searching.

“How old are you? Ten? Eleven?”

“I’m twelve,” Dimitri answered with a frown, jerking up from his crouch to stand at his full height.

“Huh,” was all the man said at first. “To be honest, you look kind of young for your age.” He seemed to notice Dimitri’s displeasure with that statement, and he gave Dimitri’s shoulder two heartening pats after standing up himself. “Really, don’t worry about it, Princeling. You’ll grow.”

Dimitri hung his head. “That is what father and Rodrigue both say. But even Felix is taller than me right now!”

For whatever reason, that brought another one of the man’s bright, easy laughs out of him, and Dimitri smiled in response, although he wasn’t sure exactly what was funny.

Sylvain had told him before he wasn’t always great at picking up on jokes. This was probably just related to that.

So, still smiling, he said, “We really should keep moving. It’s warm now, but I don’t know how far down the river I was… carried.” 

He peeked at the river again out of the corner of his eye. Still the same. He shivered regardless, suddenly feeling the cold against his skin.

The man nodded. “I bet your family is worried, too.”

“Maybe,” Dimitri said. “I told them I was going to wander off, and it’s still high in the afternoon. Glenn was supposed to be with me, but I went off alone, and I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

“Ran off, eh? And why is that?”

“Glenn was only babysitting.” Dimitri scrunched up his nose, frowning as he kicked a rock. It sailed above the trees and then out of sight. The man coughed into his hand, a halting sound. “He did not actually want to… play together. If he is too old to play, then I am too old to be nannied like a baby.” 

“Oh? And the river?” the man asked conspiratorially. “How does that factor into this assessment?”

The answer annoyed Dimitri, and he made an unhappy face. But he thought about the question seriously, deciding, “Perhaps I would have fallen in anyway. I wonder if Glenn would have been able to pull me out.”

The man nodded, and then shrugged, performing with it a motion with his hand like he was brushing away the words. 

“No use hanging on to the way things could have happened.” Then, he suddenly appeared more serious, less at ease. His next words were firm, like a lecture from Rodrigue, or a lesson from his father. “Best just to understand the consequences and look forward, instead.” 

Dimitri nodded. It sounded like good advice, but rather simple, too. He couldn’t think of anything to add, and so for a while, they walked in silence. 

Occasionally, Dimitri noticed the man shooting him quick looks out of the corner of his eye, probably when he thought Dimitri wasn’t paying attention. But people were always staring at Dimitri, and he had gotten used to the feeling of different sets of eyes trained on him, even when he couldn’t see them himself. So he remained silent, enjoying it when the man began to hum simple, pleasant tunes, changing from one to the other without apparent rhyme or reason. 

“Oh, we are close! Just beyond that ridge, there, actually.” Dimitri pointed to a gentle slope, the kind that hid what was just beyond it. “We should hurry! Just in case anyone is worried.”

“Ah, wait there, Princeling,” the man stopped Dimitri with a hand on his shoulder. “This is as far as I go, I think.”

“What?” Dimitri asked, upset. He resisted the urge to grab the man’s arm, holding him in place. “But you saved my life!“ And if that wasn’t enough, “You saved the Prince’s life! My father will want to give you his thanks, personally.”

“No can do, sorry. I’m going to have to insist. I’m royalty shy.” He shrugged, as if there was nothing to be done.

Dimitri didn’t know how to disagree without outright dismissing the man’s words, and that would be rude. Finally, he crossed his arms, trying not to pout. He was too old to pout. 

“You don’t seem shy around me,” Dimitri argued, narrowing his eyes. But he wasn’t pouting.

The man just laughed, warm, but almost… dampened, or sad, and Dimitri couldn’t understand why.

“Consider yourself a special exception, Princeling, yeah?” 

He ruffled Dimitri’s hair, a gesture Dimitri didn’t particularly appreciate, before tilting his head toward the ridge in silent command. 

Dimitri considered remaining there, if only because he had the idea that if he was stubborn enough, the man would have to give in and return with him. He opened his mouth to protest. “But—“

However, his words were cut short as he heard a distant, “Your Highness!” called out in an anxious tone.

Glenn. He really did have to hurry, then.

“Well, looks like that’s my cue.” 

“Wait!” Dimitri entreated. He had returned to an earlier thought. “Your name? Please? Since you won’t come? Can’t I at least know that?”

Something of the man’s warm demeanor dropped, though there was actually little change in his expression or posture. Dimitri couldn’t pinpoint what he was noticing, but the change was obvious to him. There was something different, like a wall now between them. 

The man studied Dimitri, weighing up options that appeared far heavier than a name or silence. Dimitri held still, silent, and didn’t push, just waited. 

“Khalid,” he finally allowed, almost grimacing with the word. “You can call me Khalid.”

Dimitri smiled. He replied shyly, “That’s a pretty name.”

Khalid blinked, almost surprised, and then his frigid demeanor softened, and he gave Dimitri a small smile before wagging his finger playfully. “Don’t wear it out, though, you hear? That one’s between you and me, little Prince.” 

Dimitri nodded, willing to bear the weight of secrecy if just in this. Besides… Khalid saved his life, so at very least, didn’t he owe him his request? 

“Of course,” he added with his nod. Then, Dimitri paused in consideration, before he bowed shallowly, and vowed, earnest and stiff, “I will protect your secret as you did my life.”

Khalid frowned unhappily at Dimitri’s words, and Dimitri mirrored the expression, unsure what he had said wrong.

Then, Khalid’s expression broke for a second time, and he sighed, low and melancholy. 

When he spoke, he only replied, “How very chivalrous, Dimitri.” 

The moment felt serious, solemn, and so Dimitri pressed his lips together to keep his pleased smile hidden. It was hard, Dimitri had come to understand, to find those who still used his name when instead given the option of his title. He was glad Khalid was one of them.

Then, Khalid broke the tension of the moment, ruffling the crown of Dimitri’s head again, smirking in a way that said he knew Dimitri didn’t like it.

“Maybe it is time to leave, after all,” Dimitri suggested, not really meaning it, but wanting to defend himself in some way regardless.

“Ha!” Khalid laughed, one high, bright noise before descending into a melody of low chuckling. “That—I didn’t expect that testiness from the little Prince. Perhaps a bit too cheeky for the crown, huh?”

Dimitri sagged his shoulders. Khalid was right.

“Ah, ah, little Prince,” Khalid shook his finger again. “None of that. I found it quite funny, didn’t I? Seems like an overall even result. No hard feelings between us, so no bad feelings required.”

“I—okay,” Dimitri accepted, though he was unsure that he actually agreed. But he liked that he had made Khalid laugh, and then smile, so perhaps it was alright as he suggested. 

“Alright, I really have to head out now,” Khalid said. “But how…”

Dimitri watched as Khalid turned twice in a circle before settling on two trees only a few paces in front of him. The trunks and branches stood oddly parallel, almost like reflections in a mirror. Dimitri blinked, and then couldn’t help staring. Something about the sight held him in place. 

“That’ll probably do it, I think,” he continued, speaking more to himself than Dimitri. He cast one last look toward Dimitri, giving him a playful salute and a wink, “Guess I’ll be seeing you around then, Your Princeliness. And don’t say I never did anything for you, yeah?” 

Then, he turned around and walked between the two trees. Dimitri didn’t understand the point of such a strange show, but when he walked forward to catch sight of Khalid again, to bring the vanishing point into view, he was gone. Just… completely gone.

Dimitri spent several minutes searching the trees and the surrounding area, trying to find him. He only stopped when Glenn happened upon him, furious and distraught. He dragged Dimitri back to their families’ camp, the entire time alternating between fussing over and fussing at Dimitri for having either the ill luck or the poor coordination that led him to fall into the river. 

When they reunited with Dimitri’s father, Rodrigue, and Felix, it was to a similar reception of scolding and worry. When Felix started tearing up at Dimitri’s wool cloak, ripped beyond repair and soaked through, Dimitri had to bite his tongue from speaking—instead merely rubbing Felix’s arm in consolation—holding back his comment about how Dimitri was the one to fall in, and yet he wasn’t crying. 

After everyone calmed down, Dimitri tried to explain the strange man—Khalid, though he left out his name—how he saved Dimitri and then just disappeared, but his father and Rodrigue shared an indulgent look with each other, not commenting on Dimitri’s story directly.

“I didn’t really take your son as one for taking up with the fae, Lambert, but perhaps His Highness has more magic stored in him than his reason lessons have been leading us to consider.”

His father only laughed, draping a warm arm around where his own massive cloak had been placed atop Dimitri’s shoulders. Out of the wet clothes, it really wasn’t that cold, but Dimitri sank into the gesture regardless. 

Still, at Rodrigue’s words, Dimitri frowned, disagreeing with the assessment but unwilling to speak up.

Khalid was… real; he knew it. And he didn’t feel like magic, or act like the fae of the old Faerghan tales. He was too kind, too present. He saved Dimitri and asked for nothing in return; he didn’t even know he was the Prince.

And then he was just gone. 

It didn’t feel like magic, more like… a waking dream. Or a memory from long ago. 

[two - remire, 1180]

When the bandits ambushed them in the early hours of the morning, Dimitri was already awake. This, more than anything, is likely all that saved him from a sword run through him in his sleep, leaving him dead and never the wiser for it. Instead, he tackled the bandit that had entered his tent at the waist, wresting his sword from him easily and then sliding it through his chest, near his shoulder. 

Dimitri glanced at the wound, feeling almost nauseous, and then cut his eyes away as he pulled the sword from the body with a wet motion. He left the tent, but not before dropping the sword in favor of his lance. A little ways off, he found Edelgard and Claude in positions much like his own. Dazed, but awake, and each holding weapons of their own. 

“Finally decided to join us, Your Princeliness?”

Before Dimitri could reply—and to say what, he wasn’t even sure—Edelgard spoke instead. “There are undoubtedly more nearby.”

“Good point, Princess,” Claude remarked, before giving them an irreverent salute. “I’ll see you two on the other side, then,” and he promptly ran into the woods. 

Dimitri resisted the urge to curse. If Claude was going to use himself as some sort of decoy, he would need someone to act as cover, otherwise it simply wouldn’t work—he’d end up cornered, or worse. So Dimitri followed, Edelgard soon behind him, and the bandits not long after her. 

It seemed that they had been in luck—running into a band of mercenaries outside a small village, giving them enough manpower to face off the seemingly endless stream of brigands that came after them, a strangely large and disorganized company. 

They paired off in an attempt to corner the remaining fighters, encircle them or force a retreat. While Edelgard and the mercenary cut right, into the far side of the forest, Dimitri led himself and Claude to the left, using himself as the main draw so they could pick off enemies together. 

Getting further separated was not part of the plan, and as he ran their movements through in his mind, Dimitri failed to pinpoint exactly how it happened. Had Claude been ambushed? Dimitri grimaced at the thought, but he couldn’t imagine him getting lost. 

Dimitri took a step back, jolted from his thoughts, as two bandits circled around him, a third one hanging back, just watching. He swiped his lance, catching one, but that only gave the other an opportune opening to rush forward herself. And then the third joined in. 

“Claude!” Dimitri called, getting no answer. Distantly, he heard a strange grunt, and then the sound of metal clashing. An answer in its own right. 

Dimitri beat the second and third bandit back, using a sweep of his lance to knock them both off their feet. It gave him enough time to run his lance properly through the first, right through the stomach, yanking it back out midair so the body slumped awkwardly to the ground. He grimaced, shifting his gaze away from the dead, ashen face. 

By then, the other two were up, and Dimitri took a step back, trying to give himself enough space to keep them both within an acceptable field of attack. 

But then, Dimitri caught a strange golden blur out of the corner of his eye. It startled him, something about it both captivating and wholly unexpected, grabbing his full attention, if only for a second. But that second was enough, and it was the one moment of distraction needed for the female bandit to send an iron sword right at his neck.

Something flew from the same direction as that golden blur—not an arrow but a dagger. It pierced the bandit’s neck, giving Dimitri just enough time to duck, stumbling backwards, landing ungracefully on his back in the bushes. When he sat up—rubbing his head, a knot already forming—and crawled out of the bush, the other bandit was already dead as well. 

Standing over him was— 

“I—it’s you,” Dimitri stuttered. “Khalid.”

For some reason, his cheeks burned. When they had met last, Dimitri had been a child. Scared, uncertain. Soaked to the bone in river water. 

Now he was in a position to notice details that had escaped him before, either as a consequence of his age or the unpleasant circumstances of the time. Khalid was handsome, strikingly so. And Dimitri knew other things, now, as well. That he was… interested, in the idea of men who he found handsome. The tips of his ears burned hotter.

He tried to temper the feeling as he made to stand, but Khalid shook his head, ducking down and crouching beside Dimitri. 

“Back this way,” he instructed, pointing at the crawl space through the bushes. He was whispering. “There are more.”

Dimitri blinked, uncertain, couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You are… real?” 

The memory of that day was so strange, so coated in bizarre, inexplicable details, Dimitri had almost given up the fight to believe it actually happened, at least how he recalled it, especially in light of his own father and Rodrigue’s easy dismissal. Perhaps he had just been in shock from the fall, or maybe Faerghus truly did house more than the goddess could account for or explain. Regardless, Dimitri had almost all but accepted that Khalid was either a figment of the day or some eerie, inexplicable figure, some phantom of sunlight. 

Instead, he was here, crouched beside Dimitri and grinning. 

“As I live and breathe,” Khalid said with a wink. He then grimaced slightly, shooting Dimitri a strange look. “Honestly not the best turn of phrase, all things considered.”

“I—What?”

“You’ll get it eventually.” Khalid dismissed the question with a wave. He then studied Dimitri more closely, causing Dimitri’s face to heat further. He tapped Dimitri’s cheek, something playful and condescending in the gesture. “Might wanna get this under better control, yeah? Not the best tell in royalty, I’d imagine.” 

Dimitri froze, captivated by the minor contact and yet offended by its context. He was being teased like a child. 

“Don’t trouble yourself with the thought,” Dimitri replied, miffed. 

“Of course not,” Khalid agreed, lips twitching, his entire demeanor telegraphing that he was simply indulging Dimitri. 

“Pardon me,” Dimitri began, changing the subject and trying to sound firm, unbothered. “But who are you, exactly? And what brought you here, to me, again? And why do you appear—?”

“Hey, now. That’s one too many questions at once, your Prince—uh—Dimitri…?” He paused, grimacing strangely. “I guess?” 

“That is my name,” Dimitri replied testily, upset—almost hurt—that Khalid seemed to have forgotten. Or hadn’t bothered to remember. 

“Hey, now, Highness. You’re sounding a bit ungrateful when I just saved your life? Again, need I remind you?” 

“I—yes, of course, you are right. Thank you,” Dimitri replied, bowing his head slightly. “I am in your debt.”

“Nah, no thanks. Not really interested in that.” Khalid shook his head, dismissing the notion. “But how about we go ahead and get a move on, yeah? Can’t imagine my lot if I get caught tumbling with the Prince of Faerghus, eh?”

Dimitri’s eyes widened, his flush peaking at a near feverish hue. “That is— not what is happening here.”

“Of course not,” he replied with another grin, apparently having no shortage of smiles that said he was having fun at Dimitri’s expense. He jerked his head in one direction as he pushed past Dimitri, deeper into the bushes from where they started. “Follow me, yeah?”

“I have to go back,” Dimitri protested. “There are still more enemies. They’ll need help.”

Khalid paused in his crawling to wave a hand, dismissing the issue. 

“They’ve got it covered, don’t worry,” he replied, unbothered. Strangely assured.

Dimitri frowned, but the situation was so strange, so unexpected, he found himself getting carried away with it rather than standing firm as he knew he should have. So he followed. 

Khalid again. And he saved his life. Again.

He stared at his crawling form, leisurely paced so as to be to the left and slightly in front of Dimitri. He wore that same quilted fabric—Dimitri grimaced, what an asinine and embarrassing question for him to have asked—but somewhat dirty, off color, and still deflated.

Dimitri blinked. “You’re still wet.”

A quick cut of his gaze to the back of Khalid’s head confirmed it. His hair looked damp as well.

“I had another run in. Completely different boy prince, completely different river between then and now, if you can believe it.” His tone was even, lacking its usual ironic lilt. And then he paused fully to turn around and smirk at Dimitri, casting his previous words as a joke. At Dimitri’s flat look, his smile only widened. He continued, “And several years, if you recall.”

“Well that hardly seems to matter,” Dimitri pressed on. “You look exactly the same.”

“Some people don’t age much in their twenties.”

“You are wearing the exact same clothes. The same hair. The same…” Dimitri trailed off, frustrated. Unsure how to express what he was noticing—Khalid seemed untouched by time, frozen in a particular state of being. 

You’re not carrying any extra years, Dimitri tried, I don’t see them anywhere on you.

“Why are you here… again?” Dimitri repeated from before, filling the man’s silence with more questions. “Or, who are you really? Surely you did not come into existence five years ago on my account.”

“Hmm,” Khalid hummed the syllable, drawing it out. “Not so sure that’s the best idea, little Prince.”

Dimitri felt his face pinch in protest.

“I am not so… little. Of the two of us, I’m certainly the only one who has grown since we last met.” Dimitri paused, then added, trying to sound as though he hardly considered it. “I think I might even be taller than you, in fact.”

“Ha!” Khalid laughed, “Still as cheeky as ever, eh? I definitely remember that about the little Prince. Definitely more than—“ but he cut himself off, turned slightly to give Dimitri an assessing look, before it melted into something playful, insincere. “Think you’ll get taller still?”

Dimitri frowned lightly. He had thought about it. His father had been… rather tall, while Dimitri lagged behind. 

“I am already seventeen, so it is difficult to say.”

Khalid just nodded, seeming to find Dimitri’s answer amusing, but not making any effort to express why. 

Soon enough they broke free from the bushes, and they stood together in the forest. Khalid seemed to look around a bit, before choosing a direction that appeared completely random, and continuing on. 

They walked in silence for a bit, an inverse of their time together before, as Dimitri caught himself throwing small glances at Khalid from the corner of his eye, almost as though he were checking he was still real, and there, despite the evidence in the sound of his footfalls, his occasional light humming. The continued reality of Dimitri’s head still connected to his body via his neck. 

“Well, I think this is where I make my exit. What do you think, Princeling?”

Dimitri blinked. While he had spaced out, they had found themselves in a small clearing, sunlight breaking softly through the treetops. 

“You’re leaving again?” Dimitri frowned. “Already?”

Khalid huffed something a little too startled to be a proper laugh. 

“Are you saying you want me to stick around?”

Dimitri paused, considering. Licked his lips as he decided what to say. 

“I… you said it yourself, before,” Dimitri hesitated, then pushed on as he felt his face flush. “You are something lucky, yes? Perhaps I could use that. A little luck.” 

I like your smile, Dimitri couldn’t add. I’ve remembered you laugh, just as inexpressible. Unwelcome comments, no doubt, and hardly likely to make his case regardless.

Khalid had been nothing but charming, kind, saving Dimitri’s life twice and then making nothing of it. Placed next to him, Dimitri felt clumsy and awkward, like some bumbling boy, but he enjoyed the warmth of Khalid’s presence regardless. Dimitri gazed at Khalid’s gold cape, its metal detailing, remembering suddenly a thought from years ago: its resemblance to the sun. 

Khalid placed his hand on his hip, and the gold glinted. Dimitri looked up to find Khalid’s face almost carefully blank, as he refrained from any reaction to Dimitri’s words. Dimitri’s stomach churned uncomfortably; he had said too much. 

Then, apropos of nothing, Khalid’s stillness broke, and he gave Dimitri a look that was almost… fond. Or wistful. “Well, I can’t say anyone’s ever described me as lucky before, but who am I to turn down a compliment from the Crown Prince himself? I guess I’ll just have to accept it.”

Dimitri nodded, and then, eager to move on—unsure how to parse Khalid’s teasing words and tone with the sincere fondness of his expression—he changed subjects.

“And you have now saved my life twice. You say you are not interested in debts, but I myself am uninterested in downplaying the significance of your actions, then and now. If nothing else, you have my gratitude.”

Dimitri finished the words with a deep bow, one arm across his lower chest and the other his back.

When he stood straight again, Khalid was staring at Dimitri strangely, not quite frowning, but clearly unhappy.

“Don’t—“ But he cut himself off entirely, and then waved a hand through the air as if to dismiss the thought outright. 

Still, his eyebrows furrowed, like Dimitri was a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. For a moment, Dimitri had the distinct impression they were experiencing two very different conversations, but he couldn’t imagine where the two of them diverged.

Khalid stepped closer to Dimitri, and Dimitri, vaguely, thought back to his earlier remark and realized that he was right. He was taller than Khalid, though not by much.

"You need to be careful,” Khalid instructed, serious. More serious than Dimitri had seen him yet. “I—“ he spoke, and the words seemed to catch on his tongue. “Just…” he grasped Dimitri’s shoulder, locking their eyes together, his gaze hard like green glass. “Take care of yourself,” he finally said, the words less like a directive than an omen. 

He seemed dissatisfied but didn’t continue, making no effort to clarify the ominous advice. Instead, Khalid glanced around. Across the clearing there was a half-fallen tree, creating the impression of a doorway from the space into the forest beyond.There was nothing particularly captivating about the sight, yet it drew the eye regardless. 

“That looks about right, wouldn’t you say?” Khalid asked, though not really speaking to Dimitri. He turned and shot Dimitri a quick grin, though, and the scene played out a familiar repeat of before. “Guess this is my stop?” 

“Wait,” Dimitri said, startling both of them as he grabbed Khalid’s arm. “Will I see you again?” 

The question appeared to make him uneasy, and something cold and bitter settled in Dimitri’s stomach. Had he somehow messed up this, as well? 

“Who can say?” he asked with an air of false nonchalance, unable to completely hide the wary edge to his eyes. “Either way, might be a while, so don’t wait up, you know?” 

He stepped out of Dimitri’s hold, and Dimitri made no effort to stop him. He paused, though, before stepping through the imagined window, pinning Dimitri with another one of those solemn, piercing looks.

“I mean it, Dimitri. Be careful.” He paused, but his eyes didn’t soften, his rigid air didn’t ease. “This is as lucky as you get.”

And then he walked under the branch, into the forest. After a dazed moment, Dimitri stepped up, peering past the trees and into the thicket. He was gone.

Dimitri’s shoulders sagged, and he stood in silence, unsure why he felt so affected. So suddenly lonely. 

Eventually, he was startled out of his melancholy by another voice.

“What could you possibly be doing all the way out here?” 

Dimitri spun around to find Claude standing at the opposite side of the clearing, bow resting on his shoulder.

“I was… pursuing a bandit that escaped,” Dimitri lied, before frowning at himself. What a senseless, half-baked excuse. 

“Wow, okay. I didn’t really take you for one to run off and then lie about it, but maybe that Faerghan chivalry isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”

Dimitri crossed his arms, incensed, but with very little to say in the way of disagreement. He had run off, just not for any reasons Claude would be likely to understand or believe.

“And what are you doing all the way out here, Claude?”

“Looking for you,” Claude countered easily. “I got ambushed by a bandit while you were fighting those other two, and I thought I saw you go down out of the corner of my eye, so…”

He trailed off, the implication of the words hanging awkwardly in the air between them. He had come looking to make sure Dimitri was okay.

Dimitri’s shoulders sagged further, though he resisted the urge to hang his head entirely.

“That is—thank you, Claude,” he said, feeling off kilter, uneasy. Inadequate. “I appreciate the… consideration.” 

“Don’t mention it.” Claude adorned the words with a jerk of his head, back toward the direction he came from. Dimitri only nodded, content to follow along and berate himself in silence.

However, Claude stood firm, waiting for Dimitri to join him before setting off. Once they were nearly shoulder to shoulder, Dimitri quickly glanced his direction out of the corner of his eye, trying to assess Claude’s disposition.

Instead, he startled, nearly jerking back fully in surprise.

Those eyes…

That same rich, earthy green. 

Dimitri’s eyes widened. What… did that mean?

He studied Claude closer. Dimitri had a poor recollection of faces, found it difficult to picture them in his mind. This proved especially challenging, as he had only seen Khalid twice, with several years between the incidents. Already, his features were fading in Dimitri’s mind, and he could only be certain of those bright green eyes, the way they glowed like gemstones when Khalid had stood in the sun.  

“Hey, earth to His Royal Highness,” Dimitri eventually heard, the sound reaching him as though it was coming through water. Then, Dimitri broke from his reverie completely as two fingers snapped twice, right in his face. His focus cut back to Claude, and Claude alone, who looked somewhere between wary and annoyed. “Back with us? Done staring?” 

“My apologies, Claude,” Dimitri replied, almost grimacing. “I got lost in thought.”

“Got something you’d like to say?” He raised both eyebrows ironically, leaning a hand on his hip as he addressed Dimitri. When Dimitri merely shook his head, unsure how to respond, he continued, “You seemed quite intent, Your Princeliness. Might as well get these feelings out in the open now, yeah?”

Dimitri flushed, feeling it in the tips of his ears. “I—no. I’m sorry, Claude. I did not mean to… stare.” Now that the issue had been brought up, however, Dimitri assessed Claude more openly, placing his chin in his hand as he tried to decide which similarities began in reality and ended with his imagination. “I just realized… I suppose you… seem familiar, is all. I was wondering why that is.”

Not exactly the truth, but not exactly a lie either. Regardless, it seemed ineffective for placating Claude’s wariness. Claude’s questioning gaze morphed into something closer to outright disbelief, his eyebrows attempting something like a full union with his hairline.

“Yeah,” he intoned flatly, “I really doubt that, Highness.” However, he seemed to shake away his displeasure instantly, and he gave Dimitri an airy smile and an open-handed pat on his shoulder as he walked past. “Next time, you should probably just fess up and say you think I’m a little cute, yeah?”

“C-Claude!” Dimitri sputtered, protesting, but he was already walking away, hands laced behind his head and laughing. Claude’s laugh had a strange ring to it, Dimitri couldn’t help but notice, almost like a hollow bell. 

They walked back in a stilted silence, not awkward, exactly, but as though they had both taken in a breath, and were waiting for the other to exhale before doing so themselves. Dimitri kept his eyes trained forward, looking at nothing but the trees ahead, hardly comprehending anything around him.

Claude… Khalid… They both caught his attention, startled him, made him feel off-balance, though in different ways. It was hard to make sense of his own feelings, the different way he felt drawn to each of them. He hardly knew where to begin in piecing together the actual evidence of the situation, or how he would even act if he did. 

Sooner than he expected, they reunited with Edelgard and the mercenary, and Dimitri tried to shake the thoughts from his mind completely. He could consider them later. 

Still, as they ran up, Claude caught his gaze, a strange light burning in his eyes. Dimitri held for a moment, but didn’t linger, even though he wanted to. And then they both looked away. 

[three - garreg mach, 1181]

Dimitri shook his head, attempting to clear it of the encroaching horror around him. He needed to focus, to shake off his exhaustion. He needed to find it again—that white, hot surge of energy that would push him forward, give him enough strength to continue onward to her. His shoulder was bleeding, and his inhales felt painful, tight. Both the result of an imperial soldier coming up from behind while he was already making his way through two others. They were all dead now. 

Dimitri’s eyes stung. His nostrils and tongue felt like they were coated in ash. Everything was smoke. Or blood. Vaguely, he picked up the scent of burning viscera, and it was like one horrendous image layered across the next in his mind: Duscar, Remire, and now here. All melting together. The same endless nightmare.

He pushed forward. He stumbled; at some point, he had hurt his knee. Another soldier appeared out of the smoky haze, and Dimitri knocked him back roughly, running him through with his lance and then yanking it out just as quickly. His vision was tunneling from exertion; he needed to keep moving. 

A hand on his arm stopped him. He whipped around, lance already swinging. He only caught himself in time because his eye registered the vague suggestion of a yellow cape. Claude had forgone any real armor, as there wasn’t enough to go around. 

“What are you doing?” Dimitri snapped. He grabbed Claude’s arm with his free hand, and they stood there, locked together in each other’s grasps. “You need to fall back.”

Claude scoffed, his own grip tightening. “And you don’t?”

“The front lines are no place for an archer, Claude. Fall back.” 

“The monastery is—" Claude cut himself off, looking frustrated. Tired. He had blood on his cape, right near the shoulder. Dimitri let go of his arm, reaching out with wide eyes. Claude noticed the gesture, waved it off. “It’s not mine.”

Dimitri dropped his hand. “Good.” He bit the inside of his lip. “I—good.” 

“Dimitri,” Claude didn’t remove his hand, stepping even closer. “We need to start considering exit strategies.”

“Leave, then,” Dimitri replied, relieved. The monastery would be overrun soon, but if Claude left now… he would be safe. Claude knew how to stay safe. “I will push forward alone.”

“And if you need cover?”

“Absolutely not.” Dimitri shook his head. “You can’t follow me. It’s just me and her.” Dimitri felt his lip curl. “I need to go.” 

Claude looked pained. Had he been hurt, after all? Dimitri ran his eyes down Claude’s form, looking for an injury he hadn’t noticed before, but he couldn’t find anything. 

Claude glanced around quickly, then shouldered Dimitri over to a nearby wall as a facsimile of coverage. Dimitri let himself be led, though he couldn’t say why; they were wasting time. 

The wall had been blown to bits at some point, who knew by what side. Claude crouched them by it, regardless, as if it would do them any good if an imperial flier spotted them from above. 

“Don’t do this.” Claude brought both hands up to hold Dimitri’s upper arms, as if he could keep him in place. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Dimitri.” 

“No, Claude.” Dimitri shook his head. “I will… I must see this through. Not even death can stop me, not before I have done what I must…” 

“Yeah?” Claude challenged, shifting his hand slightly to press closer to Dimitri’s injury. Not right at it, not with any force, but close enough to produce evidence of its existence for both of them: Dimitri flinched in pain. “You’re injured. You’re… not thinking straight. So you kill Edelgard. Fine. Then what? You think she’s not the most heavily guarded prize in this fight, Dimitri?”

“Then I kill whoever defends her, too,” Dimitri nearly growled, yanking himself at last from Claude’s hold. “My decision is not a debate, Claude. You will not convince me otherwise.” 

He readied himself to leave, using his house leader cape to clean his lance. He had already done so several times, and it was filthy. Hardly any blue at all remained at its bottom edges. 

Dimitri hesitated, unable to bring himself to depart just yet. He let out a shaky exhale, and he and Claude simply watched each other, stood too far apart now for any other form of connection. 

They had been able to, briefly, for a short while—find each other, take comfort in a halting, tentative bond. Squeezing whatever solace there was to be had out of an increasingly desperate, progressively bleak spiral of events. Dimitri considered, hardly long enough for the thought to register, stepping back closer, pressing fingertips to Claude’s cheek. Saying goodbye in a way that felt less irreversible, less like mutually rendered blows. He held steady, his empty hand curling into a fist at his side.

They… they had been so new, so fragile, and Dimitri had tried to hold it gently, give it the care it deserved. But he was burning up on the inside himself, uneven and unsteady, and he didn’t know how to carry himself forward while carrying anything else along with him. And while Dimitri could do it— would do it—would haul himself forward to his grave and climb in, Claude had always belonged to the future, or the dawn—something wide open and bright, full of possibility.

And that was… irreconcilable with Dimitri. With where his path led. He couldn’t take Claude, or go with him, and he shouldn’t have been selfish—shouldn’t have pretended he ever could, that it was anything other than folly to try. 

He took another step back, and it felt like leaving whatever remained between them shattered on the ground, and Dimitri entertained a strange, nonsensical thought: that perhaps their history could be read in how the different pieces fell, where they lay scattered in the dirt.

He let his eyes catalog Claude. The lines of his face, the set of his shoulders. Following the length of his arm down to his grip on a bloodstained sword, Claude’s curious first choice for the fight, as everyone knew he much preferred the bow. 

And then those strangely captivating green eyes. Bright and attentive, tracing Dimitri just as he did Claude. 

Claude seemed about to speak, but Dimitri cut him off. He scraped the words out of himself, low and final, “Don’t follow me, Claude.” 

And he left, hoping Claude listened, that he could get back to the other Deer without issue. That his escape would be—Dimitri shoved the thought aside; it made him want to turn back around, eyes searching, and ensure Claude had gone in the right direction, that he was already out of sight. 

He trudged forward, forcing his attention to narrow to only the battlefield ahead. 

Thrusting his lance into another imperial soldier, Dimitri sucked in a sharp breath when their axe retained enough momentum to cut a shallow line across his arm. Like Claude, he had handed off his armor to someone more in need of it. It made every glance a wound, a serious liability, and he felt each mistake acutely as he trekked forward: the throbbing pain, the tacky, sluggish blood that stuck to him at his shoulder, over his ribs, down his thigh.  

And he was losing too much blood, he knew. Dimitri began to feel odd, distant, a chill creeping up his spine. That feverish anger just under his skin, there, but he couldn’t really feel it, as though it was hidden under a layer of ice. The battlefield was hazy, unspecific, but Dimitri could no longer discern if it was the smoke or his own vision, unfocused and patchy, that made the scene in front of him appear transient, ephemeral. 

He limped forward, stumbling. He failed to catch himself properly; instead, he felt a hand grasp his arm.

He spun around again, already seething, “Claude, I said lea—“

But it was Khalid, looking the exact same as before. Unchanged, just as every time they met, though Dimitri grew progressively worse. 

“You again?” Dimitri nearly spat the question. He didn’t care; it hardly mattered. If Khalid wanted to follow him down the line of the imperial army to the emperor’s head, then so be it. 

“Me again.” The words were light enough, but Khalid looked serious. Eyes hard, mouth a flat line of displeasure. 

“You should leave,” Dimitri urged immediately, contradicting his previous thought. “Garreg Mach is going to fall, and…” He paused. “I am fine. So leave.”

“Fine?” He huffed a humorless laugh. “Dimitri, you look dead on your feet. We both need to retreat. Now.” 

“No, not until I get to Edelgard. Not until she is made to answer for, for—“ Dimitri cut himself off with a pained choke, his mind a furious, hot slate. “She will—I will—I will find her, and—“

“Find her? And then what?” Khalid cut him off, and Dimitri huffed out an irritated noise in response. Like he needed to hear this again. “Dimitri, the war doesn’t stop here. This is where it starts. You have to be there for it. We need to go.”

“No.” He shook his head. It throbbed unpleasantly, his ever-present headache bleeding into the pain of his injuries, a twice-told reminder of his duty. He needed to keep moving. If he stopped now, he wouldn’t… he needed to keep moving, now. “I have to go. Head back toward the center of the monastery,” Dimitri jerked his head in that direction, had to stop himself from bringing his hand up to clutch it from the pulse of pain from the movement. “You can regroup with some of the others there. They’ll know what to do.”

Khalid seemed to find that almost amusing, but his smile was brittle.

“I can’t leave here without you. I think you understand this song and dance by now.” 

Dimitri just shook his head, made to step away. He stumbled, but when Khalid caught him, he tried to yank his arm free. If he didn’t go now, he wouldn’t be be able to at all. And he had to. He had to. The movement jostled the open cut on his shoulder, and he made a wounded noise, gasping slightly as his whole body seemed to shudder reflexively. 

“Please, I just have to…” Dimitri began, didn’t know how to finish. His head was pounding; his eyes stung. 

He tried staggering forward again, placing his weight poorly on his injured knee and stumbling further, only to be caught by Khalid, holding him up from behind. He clawed uselessly at the arms grasping him, suddenly feeling weak, outside his own body, struggling toward nothing. 

“Dimitri, just stop. Okay?” Khalid bid softly. “It’s okay, Dimitri. You can stop.” 

Dimitri could hardly hear him. His breath was coming faster; he felt the edges of his vision go dark. Mortifyingly, horrifically, he felt the pinprick of tears at the corner of his eyes. “No, I have to. I can’t—they tell me… they need me to—“

Steady arms encircled him from behind, gentling his descent as he crumbled to the ground, no longer able to support his own weight, knees digging into the earth. Dimitri clawed uselessly at the ground before him, grass and mud catching between his gloves and gauntlets, deciding to crawl forward if he could no longer walk.

He bent over fully, head nearly touching his knees, curling inward, as his stinging tears and panicked gasping evolved into full-bodied, shuddering sobs. He gasped some wounded, animal noise, but he couldn’t stop. Like everything else, he was powerless to stop.

“Let me go,” he pleaded, attempting again to crawl forward, only for Khalid to hold him in place. “Just let me go. I can still—I need to—”

He clutched the ground, trying to find some sort of purchase or achor. Stupid, weak, useless little boy, he thought, the insults layering in his mind like a chorus. Get up. Get up if you’re worth anything at all. 

But the jeering didn’t work, and his ugly, heaving tears continued. 

“Dimitri.” His name spoken gently against the back of his head. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You can stop, I’ve got you.”

Dimitri couldn’t respond, trapped in own misery, his useless failures. Stacked up on top of each other like corpses, all staring down at him as he broke down in the dirt. Even this, he couldn’t do. Even after everything, he hadn’t… He brought his hands up, rubbing roughly at his face, smearing mud and tears across his cheeks. Disgusting. A disgrace. 

“It’s okay,” Khalid continued, a soft litany, his voice never rising from its even, soft lilt. “Dimitri, you can stop. You can stop.” 

Dimitri shook his head. 

“I can’t. I can’t.” He repeated, again and again. “I can’t.”

But Khalid didn’t let him go, never slackened his hold, a cage that should’ve been nothing to Dimitri, if he weren't so weak, so inadequate to the task in front of him. 

“You can,” Khalid began again, just as steady. “It’s alright, Dimitri. I've got you. It's alright."

They struggled there together, though Dimitri couldn’t say for how long. Long enough for Dimitri to give up his halting, desperate motions forward. For his stuttering, aching sobs to begin to calm, to hiccup, before drying up completely, ending in long, shuddering breaths, a deafening rhythm surrendered to silence around them.

Khalid enveloped Dimitri tightly, and at some point he shifted, moving his weight from fully behind Dimitri to press into his side, so he could rub slow, careful circles into his back. 

When Dimitri finally quieted, he continued the motion, and they stayed there for several minutes longer, until he asked, “Okay?”

“Okay,” Dimitri replied, voice raw, strained. It wasn’t. He wasn’t. But what else was there to say. He repeated, “Okay.” 

Khalid nodded, and they rose together, standing close. Khalid made a movement as though to help support Dimitri as he walked, but Dimitri shook his, stepped a half pace away. Khalid pursed his lips together, but didn’t argue. He flicked his eyes to the monastery in the distance.  

“Alright, let’s get back. Things are…” Khalid trailed off, eyes watching the sky in anticipation. “They can only get worse, really.”

Dimitri nodded, having nothing worth adding. 

They carefully picked their way through the battlefield, the main thrust of which had long pushed forward and past them. Eyes searching, Dimitri located a silver lance still clutched in some dead cavalier’s grasp, and he took it from his grip, vaguely ashamed when the feel of a weapon in his hand steadied him, calming him further. Khalid found a bow, and then a hand-axe, and he slung the former over his shoulder; the latter he held in one hand, twirling almost mindlessly. 

Dimitri stared at him, his dirty clothes. The fresh grass stains on his knees from crawling across the forest floor together. His pants and boots, now covered in mud. His hair looked dry now, but Dimitri wondered, vaguely, staring at the thick locks, if he’d catch some dampness if he ran his fingers through them.

And the pronounced bags under his eyes, though Dimitri couldn’t remember—wasn’t sure if they had been there the first time they had met. Or even the second. 

Dimitri suddenly thought of Claude, and he swallowed around an ugly, guilty lump in his throat. He had failed there, too. Ripped it to shreds, and for nothing. He forced the thought away, returning back to his assessment of Khalid, biting the inside of his lip as his considered his question. 

“How—how long have you been… How long has it been for you, since we first met?” Dimitri decided, unsure how else to phrase it. His voice sounded wrecked, scratchy and thin, as though he had been coughing up sharp metal.

He winced, his previous distress already morphing into a steady, suffocating self-consciousness. His head felt clearer, though it still throbbed at the temples, and his consuming, blinding anger felt muted—not gone, but distanced. It left plenty of room for Dimitri to consider his behavior. How deplorably he acted—thrashing like an animal in the dirt, choking up ugly, impotent tears—and how deeply exposed he felt in the wake of such a desperate, emotional display.

He hunched his shoulders, and tried to focus only on the way it made his wound sting, a hazy sort of pain that dulled all other sensations.

Beside him, Khalid considered Dimitri’s words, before smirking, small and mirthless. 

“Complicated question, Highness.” He frowned, rubbing the trail of hair down his jaw as he did so. “Years, but I don’t think that’s what you meant. I met that little Prince in the river… very recently, I suppose, by my view of things.” 

Dimitri felt his expression pinch. “How… strange. To keep meeting you like this, then. I wonder…”

Khalid offered an accepting shrug. “I couldn’t tell you.” He smiled sardonically at Dimitri, tossing him a sarcastic wink, seemingly unable or unwilling to feel the awkwardness as Dimitri did. “Perhaps the goddess looks after us, after all?”

Dimitri scoffed. “Doubtful.” 

Khalid shot Dimitri a curious look, before freezing on the spot. He reached out to grab Dimitri’s arm, stopping him as well. 

“I think…”

Dimitri’s chest tightened. He cut his eyes to Khalid’s, reading the words he didn’t say aloud. 

“This is… ‘your stop’?” Dimitri guessed, recalling his phrase from nearly a year ago. “You… have to leave now?”

“Yeah, I… yeah. This is it.”

Before them was a small grove, right before the last push toward the inner monastery walls. It must have been hit by a stray fire spell, as there was a single tree near its edges, burned down to an ugly stump. It was the only damage to the area; everything else remained undisturbed, pristine. It stood out oddly, almost eerie.

Khalid took a step towards it, as though drawn in. Dimitri resisted the urge to replay an early scene, and held himself from making any effort to stop him as he went. 

Instead, he turned to look at Dimitri, his expression bothered. Worried. 

“I don’t know how this works. At all, quite frankly.” He paused. “But…”

“We will be seeing each other again, I presume?” 

“Pretty and smart,” Khalid smirked. But his face fell before Dimitri could work up anything like true embarrassment or indignation. “I—“ He stopped, the words seeming to catch in his throat.

“Be careful?” Dimitri prompted, trying to help. 

His mouth twisted further. Then, he gave Dimitri a hard look.

“Go back to the others. Now,” he instructed, making no room for levity. “And stay with Dedue. Don’t… don’t get any other ideas, alright? Garreg Mach will fall. There’s no reason to go down with it.” 

Dimitri bit his tongue, a whole host of arguments welling up inside him. Instead, he only nodded. 

Khalid simply nodded as well. He hesitated, seeming to consider something. He looked sad, suddenly. Grieved. He spoke quietly. “Bend down, Dimitri.”

Dimitri did as he was asked without thought. Lent his head down, felt his dirty bangs brush across his forehead. Khalid gripped the end of his own cape, raising it as though to bring it up to Dimitri. Dimitri’s eyes widened, realizing his intentions.

“No.” He stopped Khalid’s hand with his own. “Use mine. It is… already soiled.” 

Khalid did as Dimitri suggested, though he didn’t appear happy about it, taking the remaining clean corner of Dimitri’s cape in hand.

He clasped one hand to Dimitri’s shoulder to hold him steady while using the other to gently rub dirt and tear tracks from his cheeks. Dimitri felt the sticky, grimy flecks of mud as they fell away, could tell from the strange stiffness and the odd weight to his face that the efforts were only a partial success. But Dimitri held still, locked in place by Khalid’s gaze and his hands, something heavy and tight lodging itself in his lungs. 

“That’s better,” Khalid murmured, and Dimitri felt a childish whim to argue the point. Surely, he still looked a wreck.

Dimitri made to straighten, but Khalid held him in place, dropping the cape to bring a firm, gentle hand to the back of his neck. Then, to his astonishment, Dimitri felt a pair of lips press into his forehead. Held a beat, then another, and then the pressure was gone. 

When they pulled back, neither spoke. They stared only for a moment, before Khalid nodded and Dimitri echoed the gesture. Then, he turned around, walking past the burnt stump and into the grove. Dimitri cut his gaze away, not watching his retreat. When he looked back, moments later, it was empty. He didn’t check to ensure he was gone. 

He returned to the monastery, edging around the front lines toward the north side, finding Dedue and the other Lions formulating a retreat at their agreed fallback point. Dimitri stood with them, propped up against a wall as he could no longer stand unaided. They were out of vulneraries, and Mercedes sat on the stone ground, skirt covered in blood, exhausted. 

Claude had already left with some of the Deer, he’d been told. He let out a sigh of relief, though not without effort, as the breath caught on that same hard, guilty lump still lodged within his throat. 

[four - nowhere, 1182]

He could have avoided it. If he had been faster, better. If there wasn’t already one open cut on his leg, another half-healed set of criss cross lashes spanning the length of his back, never properly mending following his flight from Fhirdiad. It all came down to the unexpected speed of the flick of a wrist, the half step he stumbled back—a split second chance. Or even just back luck. 

So perhaps he could have avoided it. But he hadn’t, and as he stood over the Dukedom soldier's body, ran through with the soldier’s own sword, Dimitri paid no attention to the blood. Or the smell. Even the pain felt distant, dreamlike. 

He could only focus on the curtain of dim, black nothing that now shrouded half his vision. He stood there, trembling, trying to force the light of sight into something that no longer accepted it. 

But eventually the pain grew from background noise to a dull throb, and then suddenly to a consuming agony, and Dimitri keeled over, unexpectedly collapsing, vomiting bile onto the dead soldier because there was nothing else in his stomach. He groaned, panting, hunched forward on his hands and knees. He began crawling toward the denser forest, trying to put some distance between himself and the body. But he only managed as far as just past the tree line before he had to stop, collapsing in the hollow created by a large oak’s roots. 

He laid there drifting between pain and unconsciousness, watching snow fall in the late day sunlight, passing out, and then repeating the process, the light fading with each cycle. He woke up soon after sunset, nauseous and hot, and he vomited again onto the snow, and then fell back into it, mind drifting into nothing almost instantly. 

Awareness bled back into him slowly, and then in one, final rush as he heard an urgent, pained noise somewhere nearby, like the sound of someone being wounded. 

Dimitri tensed, opening his… eye, darting it around. He tried to sit up, prop himself up on his arm, but he crumbled back down. He took weak, shaky breaths—dizzy, nauseous again. He traced a winding root from the tree with his eye, trying to hold his stomach. Wondered if he was finally going to die here. Wherever. Nowhere. 

He’d rot out here, Dimitri thought vaguely. If they decided to leave the body. Or maybe he’d freeze with the winter frost, held pristine long enough for someone to stumble across him during the first spring thaw. Maybe they’d recognize him, but probably not. Dimitri hoped not. 

He heard another noise, this time distinctly footsteps, located firmly in his blind spot, and he let out a low growl, grabbing his dagger and shifting himself to adjust his field of vision, head lying back against a large root. The angle put pressure on his injury from behind, and he let out a low, startled groan, but he forced himself up further, his gaze coming into focus slowly, unevenly.

“Dimitri.” It was him. Of course. “Dimitri… it’s me. It’s okay.”

Dimitri dropped the dagger beside him, not bothering to replace it in his cloak. He laid back down and shut his eyes. Eye. He didn’t care. 

“Go away.”

He heard footsteps approaching closer. Dimitri briefly entertained picking the weapon back up and throwing it, driving Khalid off, perhaps never to return. And then, if Dimitri died in this hole, then perhaps Khalid could be freed of whatever nightmare chained him to Dimitri, constantly caught in the wake of his failures, his weaknesses. 

“Dimitri…” Khalid spoke softly, ignoring his command. “Dimitri, I need to look at your wounds, alright? Can I do that?”

Dimitri didn’t respond, couldn’t bring himself to open his eye. His urgent, fearful rush of energy had receded, and he felt further drained, unable to work up even indignation at Khalid’s blatant disregard for his words. Caught himself— pathetically, jeered a voice just out of sight—settling into something like relief. 

He felt a hand cup his face, tentatively, opposite the injured side. He let out a low whine, though he couldn’t say if it came from pain or something more primal, less existent in the realm of description. He leant his face into the hand, against his better judgment, his smarter instinct. His recent experiences that evinced the implicit danger hidden in a gentle touch. 

“Dimitri…” Khalid trailed off again. He pulled his hand back, prompting another low noise from Dimitri.

Then, he heard the sound of fabric tearing, and a hand propped itself under his chin, holding it in place with a gentle grip. 

“Stay still, Dimitri.” Khalid’s voice wavered, but only slightly. “This will—hurt. Probably a lot, to be honest. I—I have to get some of the—blood off. I need to see the wound.”

A firm, blunt pressure pushed against the hollow under his injured eye, and a low moan punched out of Dimitri. He jerked his head back reflexively, hitting it against the root and jostling the injury further. 

“Go away,” he moaned. “Please, just go away.”

“I can’t, Dimitri, I can’t. You have to let me—it’s still bleeding—“

“I don’t care,” Dimitri choked out. “Just leave. Go.”

“I’m going to reposition you, okay, Dimitri?” Khalid spoke softly, ignoring Dimitri and his desperate pleading. He used only low, careful questions, not truly asking, not giving Dimitri a choice. Dimitri would crawl into the ground, if he had a choice. “That way you can’t hit your head again. Then… I’ll take another look.”

Dimitri shook his head, breath quickening as he tensed in fear, thinking of that bright, white spike of pain. He was trembling, he realized, but only as Khalid began to rub his back with his open palm in large, careful circles.

“Shh, Dimitri,” Khalid murmured, “I’ve got you, remember? I’ve got you.”

Dimitri didn’t respond, couldn’t, but as Khalid continued the slow, soothing motion, he didn’t protest when asked again, “I’m going to move you around a bit, alright, Dimitri?”

His hand paused, lifting from Dimitri’s back, before Khalid shifted, seeming to sit fully next to Dimitri in the tree’s roots. 

As he moved, he spoke to Dimitri in more soft promptings, telegraphing each action with his words before performing it.

“I’m going to lay you across my legs, alright, Dimitri?” Khalid continued, “This way you can’t hurt your head again, yeah? I can hold you steady.” 

Khalid did as he said, movements quick and steady. Dimitri muttered lowly, pained and incoherent, as even the softest, gentlest ministrations couldn’t completely spare Dimitri the searing awareness of his mangled eye that came with each small bump or slight jolt. 

Repositioned, Dimitri tensed again, dreading that same agonizing pressure on his face. Instead, Dimitri felt as Khalid seemed to tuck his cloak closer around him, trying to spare him from the late winter air, its frigid wind. Dimitri suddenly remembered Khalid’s own clothing, torn and damp and hardly suitable to the Faerghan chill. 

“No…” Dimitri trailed off. “You…”

“It’s alright, Dimitri,” Khalid soothed. “It’s alright.”

Dimitri attempted a more pointed struggle, his arms breaking free as he tried to push the cloak away, off himself completely. He was sweating, he realized, burning from the inside; he felt fire as it pushed itself against his skin. He was burning, being swallowed by the heat.

“It’s hot. You have to—“ He cut off, tossing more urgently. Begged, “Stop, it’s too hot. It’s burning. Please stop—”

“Dimitri,” Khalid said urgently, halting his thrashing, catching his wrists easily. “You have a fever.” He tucked Dimitri back in, shifting him around so he was tilted more fully toward himself across his legs, so Khalid could wrap him more expertly in his cloak. He repeated, “It’s a fever. You’ve got a fever.”

“No, no,” Dimitri continued to mumble, not truly fighting, unsure what he was disagreeing with anymore, losing his energy as soon as it returned to him. “Please, no. I don’t…”

Dimitri calmed in increments, coming down from his panic into another bout of renewed exhaustion and pain. He breathed carefully, slow on the exhales, stiff on the inhales, the more painful of the two. Eventually, he felt the sensation of light pressure against the back of his neck, slowly stroking the hair at its nape in time with his breathing.

“Alright, Dimitri,” Khalid whispered. “I need to finish now. I’m going to hold your head, alright? And then I’ll clean and wrap your wound.”

Dimitri stiffened, but didn’t protest, too exhausted, too resigned. This is nothing new, he thought, there is no pain that’s new. The thought offered no comfort, no balm when Khalid pressed the fabric to his face again.

Khalid narrated his actions to Dimitri as he worked, offering up muted apologies when Dimitri had a particularly strong reaction to a jarring movement or pressure. 

He wiped down Dimitri‘s face with the torn fabric with firm, short strokes, cursing under his breath about water, and infection, and blood, apologizing again, though Dimitri made no sound. Then, Dimitri heard the sound of fabric ripping a second time, a long, discrete tear. 

“Okay, Dimitri. I need you to hold still, alright? We need to wrap your eye.” Khalid paused, took an audible breath. “I’m going to place the cloth across your eye first, and then wrap it as many times as I can. I’ll need to keep your head propped up for this, alright?”

Khalid acted as he spoke, moving Dimitri simultaneously as he adjusted under him, bringing his leg up at a slight angle and propping Dimitri’s neck against it. Dimitri’s eye slipped open, and he watched Khalid with a hazy sort of awareness as he prepared the bandages for Dimitri’s wound.

“Your cape,” Dimitri protested, strangely heartbroken. “I’ve ruined it.”

Khalid stared back down at Dimitri, looking oddly pained himself, but he just shook his head, giving Dimitri a small, wobbly grimace. 

“No, I did, didn’t I? I tore it up.” Khalid’s voice was strained, thin, despite his easy words. “So don’t worry about it.”

Dimitri was too tired to nod or shake his head, unsure which he wanted to do more. He resisted the weary lull that settled over him, determined to remain alert as Khalid worked. Seeing the bandage coming was the only way he’d be able to hold himself in place.

Khalid paused, closing his eyes for a beat, as though to collect himself. Then, he opened them, locking his two to Dimitri’s one.

“I can’t make this less painful,” he said, steady. “And I can’t stop once I start. We’d just have to start over.”

Dimitri nodded. Tense anticipation laced his veins, spreading through him like ice. He felt frozen, small.

“Do you need something to hold onto?”

Dimitri shook his head. Even in his current state, he couldn’t think of anything he’d grip that wouldn’t break. Instead, he shuffled around in his cloak, crossing his arms and curling his hands into fists. He then locked them in place with pressure from his upper arms. He stared at Khalid all the while, nodding his head when he finished.

“Okay.”

Khalid brought the end of the bandage to his eye, hovering it carefully above the wound as he positioned it for wrapping around Dimitri’s head.

Then, Khalid fixed the bandage firmly over the wound as he began wrapping. Dimitri held still, pressing his hands more firmly into his sides and his arms more firmly into his hands, forcing himself to remain like stone. He trembled with the effort, and when Khalid wrapped the bandage around a second time, tightening the cloth tight. Tight. Too tight, Dimitri felt the air leave his lungs altogether, unable to take in another breath, as though he was suffocating on the pain alone.

He bit his tongue to stop a gagged, animal noise from escaping, and then choked when blood began to run down his throat. Khalid grimaced, shifting his efforts at wrapping to just one hand to hold Dimitri in place at the shoulder with the other. “I’m almost done—almost. I’ve just got to—I just—” he stuttered out, though his hands remained steady. “I’ve got to tie the ends.” 

True to his word, Khalid finished shortly after, tying the bandage off in one last spike of intense, hellish pressure, before he let out a quick, harsh breath, pressing one hand to his face, the other remaining on Dimitri’s shoulder. 

“Okay.” Then, he repeated, less solid, more weary, “okay.”

Dimitri couldn’t respond, had nothing to say regardless. He felt his consciousness slip away soon after, into cool nothing.

When awareness came back to him, he was no longer laying horizontal, but was instead resting at an angle, lying back against something soft with warm pressure wrapped around him.

“What…” he slurred out, unsure where the thought was going, what he wanted to ask. 

“Back with the land of the living, Highness?” A voice asked behind him. Khalid.

Don’t call me that, Dimitri thought, was too exhausted to say it. 

“You’re still here…” Dimitri trailed off instead, trying to turn his head to look.

“Hey, now. Hey.” Khalid’s arms—that warm pressure, Dimitri realized—tightened slightly. “Hold still, alright? You need to rest. I’m still here. I’ve got you.”

“You don’t,” Dimitri disagreed, shaking his head dully before hissing in pain, stopping the motion. “You’ll leave. You have to. The only ones that—“ Dimitri cut himself off, agitated, his eye throbbing, his breath coming shorter, more haggard.

“Dimitri, shh Dimitri.” Khalid shifted his hand, moving it from Dimitri’s side until it was resting on his forearm. He began rubbing, slow and deliberate, the same careful pace as before. “Just rest while I’m here. I’ve got you. Just rest.”

Dimitri nodded, but he couldn’t slip back into blackness. Instead, he stared dully out into the forest beyond, watching the snow gleam in the darkness. 

“You can’t keep doing this,” he whispered. “You can’t.”

Khalid’s movements stilled for an instant, before resuming. “And why not?”

Dimitri swallowed. It hurt. An old memory surfaced: swallowing river water, choking it back up.

“This isn’t sustainable, Khalid.” Dimitri’s gaze drifted out of focus, then snapped to attention again. “This is… going nowhere.”

Dimitri felt a hand grab his chin. He groaned, and the hold lightened immediately. His eyeline drifted upwards, and Khalid was staring down at him, apologetically, but his voice was firm. 

“Dimitri.” He looked so tired. So worn. But he held their eyes steady, didn’t allow Dimitri to look away. “You have to get to Fraldarius. Or Gautier. Where even are we?”

“Does it matter? Nowhere.” Dimitri wasn’t entirely sure; he could have wandered into outer Galatea at this point, but last he knew it was Charon. But it didn’t matter. Said anyway, “Maybe Charon.”

“Charon. That’s.” Khalid sighed. He shifted slightly, seeming to settle more firmly against the tree. “Still, you’ll be safer in Eastern Faerghus. They’ve been holding out against the Dukedom for… a while.” 

“No,” Dimitri whispered, trying to shake his head. It hurt, made him dizzy. Nauseous. “No.”

“Why not?” 

Dimitri’s eyes slid shut again, and he thought only of the feel of Khalid’s heartbeat against his back. 

“You say they are holding the line.” Dimitri had no interest in explaining. He suddenly wanted to sleep again. “The Dukedom is spread thin.” His eye slid back open, and he lifted his chin to catch Khalid’s gaze. “A dead Prince would... solidify their priorities.”

Khalid frowned, unhappy with Dimitri’s assessment, but not making an effort to argue. 

“What about the Alliance?” He suddenly asked. “Do you… have allies there?”

Dimitri scoffed, felt something like bile in the back of his throat. “Claude has no use for a beast.”

Khalid tensed, his arms tightening around Dimitri. “You don’t seriously believe that… you—“

“Drop it.” Dimitri cut him off, voice stronger than before. He didn’t want to talk about Claude. Or think about him. He was… nearly pristine, in Dimitri’s mind. Whole, undamaged. Sunlight, caught in the past. He would remain that way, if Dimitri left him alone, preferring the memories to gather dust than cracks. 

“So what, then?” Khalid questioned, beginning to sound frustrated. “What’s your plan?”

“Plan?” Dimitri choked on an ugly laugh, then coughed several times. His eye throbbed when each hacking motion. “They will either kill me out here, or drag back me back to Fhirdiad to finish the spectacle properly.” He paused. “Or I’ll remove Edelgard’s head myself, and that will end it as well. Fraldarius. Charon. The Alliance. That is all nothing. Nowhere.” 

“Dimitri—“

“I’m tired, Khalid.” He cut him off, not lying. Suddenly exhausted again. “Can I rest?”

Dimitri felt Khalid’s breath stutter against his back, felt his own breath hitch in reflexive sympathy. 

“Yeah, Dimitri. Go to sleep. I can… watch over you.”

Dimitri nodded once, jerky and incomplete, felt himself begin to nod off again. He couldn’t really sleep, not fully, the pain too present, leaving him only in a light doze.

Khalid shifted his hold again, moving it over Dimitri’s arms, higher, resting his hands on Dimitri’s outer shoulders. He picked back up that repeated motion again, this time merely rubbing thumbs—lightly, with no pressure—into the outer edges of Dimitri’s shoulders. Dimitri let the sensation lull him, and he was drifting, just on the edge of consciousness when Khalid spoke. Quietly, perhaps he thought Dimitri had already drifted off.

“I don’t know why it’s me, Dimitri,” Khalid whispered, and Dimitri felt the circles against his shoulders stutter, pick up again. “I don’t think it should be me.”

“You saved me,” Dimitri mumbled, too close to sleep to fully rouse himself. Drifting between awareness and its absence even as he spoke. “You keep saving me.”

Khalid scoffed. “Anyone can pull a boy from a river, Dimitri. Kill a bandit. Whatever. You need… right now you need medicine. Real medical attention. A healer. I don’t have any of that.”

Dimitri shook his head, too tired to properly respond. He didn’t want any of that. He just wanted to sleep. He could fall asleep, here and now, in the soft warmth of the moment, lulled under by Khalid’s gentle touch. 

He could not wake up.

He tried to open his mouth to speak again, let Khalid know. Release him of the obligation, the weary unhappiness in his voice.

Maybe this was it, Dimitri wanted to say. Maybe he didn’t save him this time. Maybe he just carried him through to the end.

But his tongue felt heavy, and the words got lost between his thoughts and his mouth, dissolving into nothing. Dimitri’s awareness followed soon after, lulled into darkness.

Sometime later, when he awoke, he was alone.  

[five - gronder, 1186]

The fog haunted Gronder before they even took to the field, and Dimitri thought himself the only one who could read the portent, understood its prognosis as it hung heavy in the air. Voices lurched behind him, phantom agreements, jeers. It was already a grave, they said, the lines etched into stone long ago. It was always like this, everywhere he went—graveyards in the making. Rotting from his touch. 

He cut his eye away from the field, and turned to stand before their small, tense group. He crossed his arms, letting the silence stretch before speaking. 

“I am here for one reason. I have no interest in distractions,” Dimitri stated, glared at anyone who appeared eager to disagree. “But the Alliance has either made themselves enemies, or have been unfortunate enough to be cast into the role regardless. It doesn’t matter. They are not a priority. Kill them if they get in your way, but remember,” he paused, turning slightly and swinging Areadbhar toward Gronder. “Today we hunt crimson, and I take the emperor’s head.” 

They took the dismissal for what it was, heading back toward their battalions to relay orders. The professor, silent as ever, lingered with a concerned look, hesitating behind before following the rest. Dimitri put his back to them, eye turned toward the field once again. The chorus behind him reached a crescendo, calling for death, reaching toward oblivion. And he would give it to them. 

And so the battle began. 

Chaotic, unwieldy—the fog, the three armies, the thick, heavy miasma of dark magic that clung to the air, making everything hazy, disturbed. And behind it all, voices still screaming, still calling out for some sort of end. He thrust Areadbhar through a soldier, only noticing the yellow detailing once it began to stain red. He stared at the sight for a moment, but it left him empty. Not even anger, certainly not pity. He yanked the lance back out, watching the body crumple to the ground, continuing in the same direction, cutting a path toward the central hill, certain that his quarry lay close beyond.

“Claude?” He heard a high, feminine voice call out uncertainly, somewhere behind him, its clear, bright resonance breaking through the cacophony around him. “Are you sure about this?” 

“Have some faith in me, will you, Hilda? Just let me give it a shot, at least. He’ll hear me out.”

Dimitri whipped around at the words. He spoke with the motion, “Stand back, Claude, I have no interest—“

But before him wasn’t Claude.

It was Khalid. He looked—different. Dimitri found it difficult to recall with clarity the majority of their last time together—the exact details of Khalid’s dishevelment. But the image of Khalid’s face hovering above him, strips of his own cape in hand, hands steady as his voice trembled, was one of Dimitri’s few distinct, coherent memories of the last few years.

He had tried to forget it, leave it behind; it was useless at best, a distraction at his weakest—pathetic, when he was somehow even worse than that. They made sure he knew that. But it wouldn’t go away, wouldn’t dissolve into blood, viscera and fire, the painful voices or their ugly taunts, like the rest. So he pushed it aside, buried it down deep until it crawled back to the surface again, haunting him as he wandered across Faerghus, a corpse and its shadow. 

It swam before him now, disorienting, and he staggered back a step, raising his weapon defensively as he moved. 

Khalid looked whole, unblemished. There was blood on his torso and sleeves, but his knees were clear of mud and grass, his cape intact, and a black cloth with the Leicester flag draped itself across his other shoulder, tying into a colorful, multi-patterned scarf at his waist—accessories Dimitri had never before seen. 

“What—“ he broke off. He tried to recover from his shock and pushed a step forward, raising Areadbhar more decisively, then growled lowly, “What is the meaning of this?”

“Calm down, Dimitri!” Khalid? Claude? demanded, holding his bow toward the ground, primed but not aimed. It was dangerous, Dimitri thought. He could throw his lance before he raised it; he’d killed archers like that before, those unaware that distance offered no security against him. Claude? Khalid? continued, “What does it do for us, fighting here like this?”

Paired with the image before him, the voice was unmistakable, and Dimitri couldn’t stop his second step back, losing ground, and then another when the other man deemed his reaction safe enough to warrant his own single stride closer. 

Choked, confused. Angry—always so intensely, agonizingly angry, Dimitri let his eye catalog the man before him. Couldn’t understand.

“What—“ Dimitri broke off again, then choked out, against his will, “Khalid?”

He froze completely, and they stood there, twin statues as the battlefield raged around them.

The moment was broken by that impatient, feminine voice again—Hilda, Claude had called her. Dimitri vaguely recalled a memory of bright pink hair, an axe; he tried to fix it to the woman in front of him. Those days were so hazy, so nondescript; he couldn’t be sure he remembered her at all.

“Claude? What’s going on?” She grabbed his arm, redirecting his attention, pointing to the central hill. It was up in flames. “Claude, we need to go.”

Claude nodded, but his eyes cut back to Dimitri, and he only staggered off with Hilda because she dragged him along.

Dimitri turned, eyes caught in the towering flames lighting up Gronder’s center. He couldn’t muster Hilda’s surprise, nor her fear. His eyes followed billowing smoke up into the sky, and he felt almost… calm. Like receiving some sort of divine confirmation. Everything goes to the flames, and then ends in nothing but ash. This was no different. So he knew better than to get distracted, to let himself waver from the only thing that mattered.

He turned away, caught red in the distance. Maybe a flag, or a uniform; it didn’t matter. He followed it.

The call for imperial retreat shortly thereafter did nothing to slow his pursuit. He followed red until he crushed it, and then did so again, leaving a different trail of crimson in his wake, his only thoughts of her. Her head. Her death. Nothing else, nothing after.

He hunted the straggling members of an imperial battalion as they fled into the trees where Gronder field bled into a forest. Dimitri caught one stumbling, hardly the energy to move at all, and he swung his lance in a clean, easy arc and ended him. He kept going.

It was familiar, these motions. Staggering forward, clawing toward absolution, stumbling and rising again. There was an arrow in his shoulder, though he didn’t remember getting hit. Blood matted his fur, not yet sticky, the stain growing, but he couldn’t place when it happened, how badly he was wounded.  

Black encroached the edges of his vision, crawling in from his blind spot and narrowing his sight further. He stumbled again, caught himself against a tree. Ahead, barely a pinprick, he saw red flutter in the distance. He pushed forward.

A hand on his arm stopped him. He swung his lance with his body, the only thing saving his victim being their own quick reflexes.

Dimitri’s wavering vision focused, and he growled, “ You again. Leave, or I will run you through for certain this time.”

Khalid’s? Claude’s? eyes widened, and he took a step back. His gaze flitted across Dimitri, starting with his shoulder—his face, his torso, his shoulder again, then back to his face.

“You’re hurt.”

“That is of no consequence to you. Leave.”

Claude? Khalid? didn’t move, not even to grab his bow, the same one he pulled off that dead archer five years ago. It startled Dimitri, that detail, how clearly he could recall it. 

Dimitri inspected him more closely. His shredded cape, his dirty clothes. The strangely unadorned right shoulder, the missing scarf—the outfit looking oddly uneven now that he knew it lacked certain elements.

“You…” Dimitri trailed off, uncertain. “You are Khalid.”

Khalid bit his lip. “This is…'' he looked around, taking his eyes off Dimitri. Dangerous. Dimitri could run him through before he even looked back. He’d done that before, with those thinking they were quick enough to make some sort of escape. He had rectified their misgivings. “This is the forest outside Gronder, isn’t it?”

“Who are you?” Dimitri demanded, not a question. He raised Areadbhar as he spoke, a silent threat. 

“He… Claude…” Khalid seemed to struggle with words, his eyes never leaving Dimitri’s face, as though he failed to notice entirely the warning hold of Dimitri’s weapon. “He’s just a little bit behind the two of us, and you’re a bit behind me still.”

“Speak more clearly,” Dimitri ordered. He stepped forward, bracing himself so he wouldn’t stagger. He held Areadbhar steady. “Khalid… Claude… You have both always been quick, clever, so certainly you will choose your next words carefully. They will decide your life.” 

“Are you really going to hurt me, Dimitri? After everything?” Khalid asked as he crept forward toward Dimitri, toward his lance. “And will it be Khalid—Or Claude?—that you plan to skewer? They’re both me. Don’t you get it? I pulled you from that river. But before that, or maybe after, you were my first love, Dimitri. Do you remember that? Or maybe—”

“I don’t care,” Dimitri cut him off. He stepped forward as well. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t it?” he asked, but Dimitri couldn’t decipher his tone. His eyes were hooded, strangely blank, and it was that, more than anything, that merged the two together. Claude used to wear that look all the time, present to the moment in everything save his eyes. But then, the shadows cleared, and what was left was… sad, almost defensive. Some old, well-nursed hurt. “You were my first heartbreak, too. Was it the same for you? Do you remember? Did it hurt the same for you?”

“I said it doesn’t matter,” Dimitri bit out. “Now leave. I have more important matters to attend to.” 

“We’ve hashed this argument before, haven’t we, Dimitri? Why am I here? Think you have it in you to walk away from certain death, or do I have to drag you away again instead?” 

The notion struck Dimitri like a blow, and he lashed out, swinging his lance so it just missed Khalid and instead felled a nearby tree.

To Khalid’s frozen, shocked form, he growled, “I never asked that of you. Of anyone.” Seized by a piercing, painful fury, he took harsh, shuddering breaths. Mortifyingly, he felt his eye sting, as though—“I have never expected salvation. Each time I have accepted my end, I have been pulled from it against my will. You say you are saving me, Khalid, but perhaps you have merely drug me from where I belong. Where I would have chosen to have gone.”

The words stunned Khalid, perhaps more than Dimitri’s lance, and there was a vicious sort of satisfaction in it—Khalid’s mounting frustration transformed into a more lacerated distress. That Dimitri had finally learned how to transfer this… feeling, this infinite, invisible wound. Made someone else crawl in it with him. 

“Don’t—“ Khalid began. Stopped, visibly composing himself. “I didn’t know—Claude, me, I didn’t realize, then. Back at the academy. How… far you were. How little we were reaching each other.” He shrugged, ran a hand through his hair, dropped his hand, in jerky, stiff motions. “I don’t know what I would have done if I did, honestly, but I—I understand better, now. I think. Those gaps. Where we… missed each other. And I… see them well enough to cross them now, maybe.”

Dimitri scoffed, mean, ugly. “That is hardly an answer. Hardly a justification. You act as though I am interested in such things anymore. I am not. I only have one priority now, and it will be your head if not hers.”

Khalid didn’t appear frightened, or wary, but instead almost… melancholy. Thoughtful. 

“And then what, Dimitri? You kill Edelgard, and then what?” The same question, thrice over, more than five years or almost no time at all between each utterance. Claude, and then Khalid, now superimposed one atop the other. 

Then, he stepped in, past Dimitri’s lance. Dimitri’s grip tightened, but he held still. Transfixed, as Khalid moved closer, slowly raising his hands to hold Dimitri’s jaw. He merely held Dimitri’s gaze at first, not speaking at all. 

“I’m still not back, yet, to where I came from. It’s close, but not yet,” he began, an apparent digression. “Perhaps we’ll run into each other again, before I get back there.” He moved his hands up further, bringing his palms to rest against Dimitri’s cheeks, his left hand grazing just under Dimitri’s eyepatch. “I’ll still save you,” Khalid whispered. “Even if you try to hurt me here. I’ll offer it to you. Salvation, you called it? Even if you don’t ask. But it can be your choice to take it. Alright? I won’t make it for you, Dimitri. It’s your choice.”

Dimitri’s eye widened, and he staggered back. He raised his lance, curling his lip.

“Get out of here. Now.” He felt hunted, exposed. “Leave now, or you’re right. I will hurt you.” 

Khalid eyed Dimitri warily, though he remained in place a moment longer. He pursed his lips in thought, and then he nodded. He stepped back, eyes on Dimitri. Cataloging—his shoulder again, then his face. Then, he turned around, and Dimitri dropped his lance, letting it fall beside him. 

Khalid froze, but didn’t look back, and Dimitri stared at his lance on the ground rather than watch him leave. When Dimitri was certain he was gone, he looked up, trying to see if he could… find it. Where Khalid would have left. But he wasn’t sure. 

His eye wandered to the distance, and Dimitri had a notion of a vague red flutter, winking out against the horizon. He dropped his gaze back to his lance, considering. He would have to leave now.

Dimitri collapsed back, catching himself on the trunk of a tree, sliding to the ground below. He closed his eye and was still. 

[plus one - derdriu, 1186]

He found Claude—Khalid? Which did he prefer? From Dimitri? For himself?—out on a balcony, down a side hall on an upper floor of the Riegan estate. It offered a generous view of the courtyard below, as the festivities continued on, though it remained hidden itself, a difficult angle to get a good view of from the ground. A rather strategic choice. Dimitri smiled. 

Hovering at the doorway, Dimitri considered knocking against its frame as a courtesy, but Claude rendered the thought unnecessary, turning his head to catch Dimitri’s eye as he remained leaning against the balcony’s ledge.

“Well, it only took about a decade, but you decided to finally return the favor, eh, Princeling?” 

Dimitri huffed out an amused breath, coming to stand next to Claude. Close, but not touching.

He caught Claude’s gaze with his own, ensuring he saw the honest relief that bled into his features. “I’m glad you brought it up, if only so I didn’t have to navigate an attempt at doing so delicately myself.”

“Mmm,” Claude considered, leaning more fully against the balcony, favoring his left side. “Best to rip off the bandage, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose,” Dimitri sighed, mirroring Claude’s posture, staring at the courtyard below. “I’m not sure there is a precedent for discussing…”

“Weird one-sided life-saving time travel?” 

“Yes.” Dimitri wrinkled his nose in distaste. It sounded like a complete farce aloud, a bad joke. “That.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Claude agreed, and they drifted into silence again.

For a while, they simply watched the activity below, the ebb and flow of mirth that filled the air. Dimitri basked in it, letting his eye unfocus, just noticing colors, sounds, simply soaking up the feeling of naked relief—living and life—that permeated the night.

“I’m glad we reached Derdriu in time,” Dimitri said honestly. “I was afraid we wouldn’t.”

Claude snorted, a reflexive, inelegant sound.

“I don’t think my luck’s that bad.” Claude cut his gaze to Dimitri, smirking. “Thankfully, you proved that right.”

“Claude.” Dimitri pushed off the wall, crossing his arms as he turned to face him. Then he paused, voice dropping, “ Khalid?”

He frowned, turned to lean with his hip against the ledge, arms crossed as well. 

“Ah, let’s stick to Claude for now, yeah?”

Dimitri raised his eyebrows, considering the tense line of Claude’s shoulders, almost hunched. Defensive, wary… about when Dimitri would have usually pulled back entirely, so long ago. Instead, he studied Claude more carefully, reading between the lines, under them. Catching a glimpse of some emotion Dimitri found hard to place. Anticipation almost, or expectation. 

“You don’t appear… happy with that, but… if you say so.”

“I do.”

Dimitri dropped the subject—for now—to return to his original thought.

“We could have easily been too late, Claude. After everything…” He drifted off, his eye unfocusing again, the view in front of him a secondary concern to trying to construct a coherent image of their past. Their strange, doubled history. “After everything,” he repeated, “I don’t know what I would have done had you died. And you placed yourself in a position to have your life in my hands. Even…”

“After everything?” Claude finished for him, “After the last time we saw each other?” He tilted his head back and then forth, a deliberate seesaw. “Which one?”

Dimitri huffed out his own mirthless laughter. 

“Take your pick.” Then he paused, considering. “When exactly—“

“Probably about the same exact time you were putting together your plan for retaking the Kingdom capital.”

Dimitri nodded, putting the timeline together in his head. “And then…?”

“And then, after our last meet-up outside Gronder, I got dropped right back in the woods where I first took my time-tumble.” Claude paused. “And… nothing. No magic sign, no goddess, no… nothing—no idea what really happened, then, or why—and then we got the official news about the Kingdom army heading toward Fhirdiad.” 

“And that is… when you sent your missive? Asking for aid? Or was it before? It would have needed to occur rather early, considering when we received it.” Dimitri shifted his gaze, looking up and past Claude to study the stars. “It is strange, your last words to me about–” He stopped, trying to compose himself, organizing his thoughts. “Reaching out. Taking what’s offered. Had you already—?”

“What?” Claude asked, looking… almost upset. Hurt. “You think I was—what? Priming you to come save me, be at my beck and call?”

Dimitri froze, jerked his eyes back down to stare at Claude. “ No . What? I—the opposite, Claude. I—you reached out in a way I knew I could accept. That is—to save and be saved. To reach out a hand… together. Equally. You needed aid, and I… wanted to think I deserved it. Being believed in and capable of that responsibility. That is what I meant.”

“Oh,” Claude replied, voice small. His expression melted, turning inward. Thoughtful. “I guess I… see what you mean. And you’re right. I had already decided to call on you, even before my fun little romp through time, but…” Claude let his words hang for a moment. He cleared his throat. “I just… meant it as I said it. About it being… your choice.” He shifted, not truly changing his position, but leaning closer. Somehow more open. “I—the second time I saw you. Outside Remire. I put together exactly what was happening, at least the broad strokes, and I–. You were worse off, Dimitri. Every time I found you, you were worse. More wounded, in every way. Less present. Like I was spinning wheels, doing nothing for you, and then…”

Dimitri swallowed, pained. His throat felt tight, as though scraped raw. “And then I all but confirmed it.”

“Yeah.” Claude exhaled, long and drawn out. Repeated, “yeah.”

The word settled awkwardly between them, and they stood in silence. 

Finally, Dimitri spoke. “It was… difficult, to accept it then. That help. It still is now,” he continued honestly, “You saw me at moments I wouldn’t have willingly shown to anyone, Claude. I so often felt exposed, like a wounded nerve. And when I saw you, you were… worse for wear, as well. Like I was sullying you. With my weakness.” Dimitr bowed his head, grieved. “With an unwanted obligation.” 

Claude scoffed, a truly unhappy sound. “You’re joking, right? You think you… what? Coerced me into saving your life?” He stepped closer, “You think I would have chosen otherwise?”

“I don’t know, Claude.” Dimitri studied Claude’s expression. His green eyes shining in the lamplight. “I think you didn’t get a choice, so it is difficult to say what you would have done one way or another.”

“I did make those choices, Dimitri,” Claude argued. “Every time. I…” He lowered his voice, whispering. “My name. Khalid. That was a choice. Do you understand? That had nothing to do with your life, but I gave it to you anyway. I could have said nothing.” He shrugged. “I almost did.”

Dimitri nodded, flicking his gaze down, then back up again. “I have been thinking, recently.” 

“Small mercies?” Claude asked innocently. 

Dimitri shot him an unimpressed look. Claude, if anything, attempted an even more innocuous expression, which, if anything, only made him look more guilty. Dimitri cracked a small smile, and then licked his lips, nervous. He noticed as Claude’s eyes cut down with the movement, and then back up, and it emboldened him.

“And what you said. About gaps.”

“Yeah?” Claude asked. 

“Yeah,” Dimitri echoed, unsure how to proceed, debating between reaching out or speaking first. 

Claude chose for him. He stepped closer, hesitating only slightly before bringing his arms up, resting them on Dimitri’s shoulders. 

“Have any revelations?”

Dimitri brought his hands up, cupping Claude’s jaw in both palms. He had been… hopeful, before coming. Removing his fine, leather gloves he had put on for the festivities. He was now glad for the foresight. Claude’s face was soft, warm beneath his fingertips. 

“You said you missed them, back then. Then… I did, as well. I failed to see you, properly. And I think we both suffered for that failure.” 

“I was making a significant effort at not being seen. Properly.” He tacked the last word on in a mock formal lilt, his gentle teasing meant to steady Dimitri, calm the slight tremble to his hands. It worked, but Dimitri would not let it deter him.

Dimitri shook his head.

“No, I…” He trailed off, considering his words. “I don’t think that excuses it. Regardless, I wish we could have. Seen each other, that is. Learned these things about each other in easier ways.”

“Hmm,” Claude drew out the sound. “If only… perhaps…” He shrugged, the movement traveling up his arms and ending at his hands that still held Dimitri. “We’re here now, right? What’s the expression, ‘right place, wrong time’? Think we finally got it right? Maybe we shoul—“

Dimitri cut him off, pressing their mouths together; he thought they both understood the gist of Claude’s argument well enough. Claude seemed unbothered by the interruption, the delighted upward curve of his lips obvious against Dimitri’s own. He stepped closer to wrap his arms around Dimitri’s neck proper, and then almost seemed to sigh into the kiss, relaxing against Dimitri. And Dimitri felt the tension drain out of himself in kind. 

Dimitri pulled back just a fraction, opening his eye, studying Claude’s own. That same Fhirdiad pine, untouched by the years.

He murmured, “I missed you, when I let myself, when I could stand the thought at all.”

Claude’s eyes were soft, warm. “Claude? Khalid?” 

Dimitri only nodded, a silent answer to an unvoiced question. 

“Yeah,” Claude sighed, understanding. “I missed you, too.” Claude frowned, barely there. “Sometimes, it felt… like following a ghost, Dimitri. Even though the last time I saw you,” he wrinkled his nose, only continuing once Dimitri nodded that he understood. “Even though you were alive, then, I thought… maybe I was just following you to it. The end.”

Dimitri swallowed, throat burning. “I… felt that sometimes, too.”

“But we made it.” Claude paused significantly. “We’re here. Now.”

“We did.” Dimitri leaned down to kiss him again, something quick and grounding, pulled back. “We are.”

Claude seemed satisfied, some tension leaving the lines of his eyes. Then, he bit his lip, as though debating speaking, something teasing, playfully dangerous in the gleam of his eyes. 

“Okay,” he began, “I know I said we should… drop it. For now. And we should, but… I have been thinking. My other name.” His voice dipped lower. “Khalid.”

Dimitri nodded, unsure where Claude was going.

“I was beyond shocked. Completely flabbergasted, you might say—not a common feeling for me, by the way—when you said it to me. And then, when that little Prince would not stop pestering me for a name, it reminded me of that moment, and I decided to... take a chance. And I told you. But…” Claude trailed off, glossing over the confession entirely, pushing forward to ask coyly, “If I only told you because I heard you say it, and you only said it because I told it to you…”

“No. Stop,” Dimitri drew one hand from Claude’s face, holding it up in the air as though to physically impede Claude’s words. “I cannot begin to imagine the headache that following this line of questioning will bring me.”

Claude smirked, as though he expected such an answer. Laughed gently as he tightened his arms around Dimitri’s neck, urging him closer again. 

“A question for another time, then?” he asked, cheeky, speaking double and enjoying it too much. 

Dimitri smiled, regardless, too fond to be anything but amused. He nodded, belatedly, then asked, “And the other questions? The how? The why?”

“The point?” Claude suggested, stroking one finger against the back of Dimitri’s neck.

“The point?” Dimitri mused, a soft, sly question. “Do you often find the things that happen to you have much of a point, Claude?”

“Mmm.” Claude let the sound linger, like a musical note. “You make a fine one yourself, Your Kingliness. Sounds like a question for another time then, too.” 

“Another time,” Dimitri agreed, leaning in again, “another place,” he murmured against Claude’s lips, pressing them together once more. The moment felt singular, weighty, as though suspended outside time itself, or at the least the approximation of the feeling of it. A moment created simply to get lost in, Dimitri thought abstractly, as if such a thing could exist at all.