Chapter Text
After passing the same house for the third time Dedue finally had to admit he was lost.
The route had not looked all that complicated when he had meticulously checked it online before leaving his apartment, and yet he could not find the house he was looking for from the sea of perfect houses with their perfect backyards. Discounting the abandoned building on the top of the hill, the neighborhood was picturesque, idyllic, and indeed rich enough for its residents to hire private gardeners, even this early spring when only magical plants bloomed.
Several gardens around him were illuminated by softly glowing magical flowers that required outrageous amounts of money and care to flourish amid the bitter cold and snow. Dedue paused to admire a particularly extravagant specimen by a fence. The flower slowly changed colors, all of them bright and vibrant. It was the sort of thing Dedue had hoped to work on when he had accepted a well-paying job from a foreigner he had never met in person.
That had been enough of a reason for him to move to Fhirdiad of all places, even if everyone, especially his grandmother, had told him the whole country of Faerghus was cursed. Dedue was an expert on magical botany, not on curses, so he did not particularly care. Of course, he did know a bit about cursed plants, but that was it.
Dedue checked his map app again, and the address he was looking for should be right here by all rights. The neighborhood confused Dedue a bit though, as the streets were winding and the houses were spaced unevenly. Old money clearly came with addresses old enough to be from the time before comprehensive city planning. Dedue tucked the unhelpful phone back into his pocket.
He walked away from the house he had been standing in front of, just in case someone had seen him and found him suspicious. If he couldn't find the right place quickly, he’d be late for his very first meeting with his new employer, and Dedue couldn't afford to make a bad first impression. He had moved all the way to Faeghus for this job, so being fired on the first day was unthinkable.
Maybe he should call his boss, he had the number saved on his phone, though they had only conversed via email before. The call would be humiliating, but he had already checked every possible place at least twice.
A shiver ran down his spine as he realized that he had not actually checked every house here, there still was the one up the hill, though it couldn't possibly have been that one. The rest of the expensive neighborhood was immaculate and well-kept, yet the mansion up the hill was run-down and surrounded by a rotting fence.
Dread built up inside Dedue, yet he made his way toward the hill. The gray, sunless afternoon was slowly turning into the evening as he made his ascend. The hill was steep to climb, and the road had not been maintained well. Dedue was almost out of breath when he reached the decaying wooden gate, though that might have been just from the way his worry quickened his pulse.
Next to the gate that was on the verge of collapsing, stood a spotless mailbox. It was clearly only put there recently. Dedue leaned in for a closer look, and sure enough, the name Blaiddyd was written on it in a simple no-nonsense font. This confirmed that he had found the correct house, although that did little to make him feel better.
Dedue had asked his new roommate how to pronounce Blaiddyd and Ashe had been kind enough to teach him. Dedue considered his Fodlanese to be pretty good, especially considering he had never before lived abroad, but he still struggled with certain types of old names with spellings that had long since fallen out of fashion.
He cursed under his breath in his mother tongue as he pushed the rotten gate open. As he did that, his wristband peeked out from under his coat sleeve. His grandmother had woven it for him from strands of turquoise, red and yellow; the colors of the gods. Not all of them, obviously, but the ones his grandmother trusted to keep him safe from the evil of Faerghus.
Dedue had initially found the gesture sweet but overprotective and embarrassing, but now standing in front of the worst garden he had ever had the misfortune to see, he welcomed the help from the Gods.
In his emails, Mr. Blaiddyd told him that he had been away from his estate for some time and that the garden might be a bit overgrown. The "garden" Dedue now found himself in was not merely overgrown or mildly neglected but properly gone wild.
It was still very early spring, but the snow did not touch this plot; instead, it gathered unnaturally around the outside of the fence. The once vibrant flowers and shrubs were now choked by a carpet of dead leaves that refused to compost naturally, and the pathways were littered with broken branches and decaying debris. The air here was cool and damp, and a faint smell of rot lingered in the air.
Dedue shook his head in disbelief. He had been hired to bring the garden back to its former glory, but it was in a terrible state, and he wondered if it was even possible. Everywhere he looked, he saw signs of neglect and decay.
In the center of the front yard stood a tree. It was tall and imposing, with branches reaching up to the sky like it was trying its hardest to grab something, and the bare branches moved unnaturally in a way that was not necessarily caused by the wind. The tree’s bark was so dark that Dedue initially thought someone had tried to burn it. Dedue made sure not to step too close to the tree as he made his way toward the house.
The whole place hummed with energy, but not with the soft buzz of magic Dedue was used to in enchanted gardens and parks, but with something sharp and erratic. Some of the plants, both dead and alive ones, had that telltale magical glow to them, but it was pale and sickly. His new employer had implied the enchantments in his yard were “not what they used to be" and might need “some work”, but It didn't matter how well he was getting paid, this definitely was above Dedue’s pay grade.
Determined to push aside any concerns about the job and anxious to finish his meeting with his employer, Dedue briskly walked up the house and onto the rickety porch. The once fancy building was clearly past its prime and poorly maintained. Dark blue paint was peeling off the walls, and a few windows on the first floor were boarded shut. If it hadn't been for the brand new mailbox, Dedue wouldn't have believed anyone had been here in years.
Not trusting that the doorbell still worked, Dedue hesitantly raised his hand in order to knock. Before his knuckles made contact with the door, it swung open. Dedue stepped back reflexively and narrowly avoided getting hit.
The man inside the house looked just as rattled as Dedue felt, as he clearly had not expected someone to be standing right at his door when he opened it. He recovered from the surprise faster than Dedue, however.
“My apologies,” the man said sincerely, took a proper look at Dedue, and then clarified, “Dedue, was it?”
Dedue nodded, cleared his throat, and said, “I apologize for being late, I’m afraid I got lost on my way here.”
He wasn't terribly late, but a good ten minutes behind the schedule anyway. His shock at the state of the house and the garden had clouded his embarrassment about that, but now the feeling returned in full force.
“I figured it was something like that. I was coming to look for you. Somehow people and mail keep getting lost, even though the way up here is quite straightforward,” Dimitri said.
He seemed genuinely confused about that, so Dedue just nodded again, and politely didn't let him know that it was because his estate seemed both abandoned and cursed.
Dimitri was much younger than Dedue had assumed from his formal way of writing emails and the amount of money he had been willing to drop on a gardener. He was tall for a man of Faerghus, but that still left him quite a bit shorter than Dedue. He was dressed expensively, yet his hair was a mess that covered one of his eyes.
Dedue hadn't meant to stare, but he had done so anyway. Dimitri in his turn, looked Dedue up and down a look of mild disquiet crossed his face, as though he had just come to some sort of realization. It made Dedue nervous, but he pushed that feeling back and was about to extend his arm to shake hands with his new employer. Instead, Dimitri bowed at him. All proper and old-fashioned, with a hand over his heart.
“It is good to meet you,” Dimitri said.
Dedue returned the bow, or at least a stiff imitation of it, as he was not used to such gestures. He was surprised to learn that the bow as a greeting was still in use in Faerghus, though it was familiar to him from their movies. Dedue supposed it made sense for someone old-fashioned to live in an old mansion like this. His roommate Ashe, their landlord, and the nice women next door had all shaken his hand when introduced. In any case, such a gesture seemed far, far too formal from the ransacked old porch they were standing on.
“Likewise,” Dedue said.
Dimitri shut the door behind him and stepped around Dedue and off the porch, gesturing for Dedue to follow him. They walked on what could anymore only generously be described as a path as Dimitri took him to the backyard, which was just as, if not more wild as the front. Roots shrank and twisted to move away from their boots as they walked. Dimitri did not either notice or care about this, since his expression did not change as he showed Dedue around and talked about what he wanted to be done.
The strange buzzing of erratic energy was present here too, though Dedue could not easily pinpoint the cause. He accidentally stepped on a root, and it screamed and tried to grab his ankle. Dimitri moved fast and stomped his heel on the aggressive plant again and again, until it was quiet and still. Dedue freed his shoe.
“Sorry about that,” Dimitri said sheepishly.
Dedue thought the whole garden should be burned to the ground and started over from scratch, but this was Dimitri’s property, and if he wanted to employ him for a whole year to fight things both natural and unnatural in his yard, Dedue was not going to argue with him.
“I moved back only recently, and I do realize that in my absence, the place has gone to, well, shit,” Dimitri said, scratching the back of his head.
Taken aback by his choice of words Dedue let out a short chuckle. Dimitri smiled too.
“I’ll do what I can, but a specialist needs to be called at some point. At least for the tree near the gate,” Dedue told him.
“Specialist?”
“Yes,” Dedue said, the proper word escaped him, so he settled for a literal translation, “for de-cursing.”
“An exorcist, yes,” Dimitri nodded.
Dedue made a mental note of the word because it might become more relevant to his life than he previously thought.
“Yes, that is quite alright. I know a pair of good exorcists. Just let me know when you think that's needed,” Dimitri said.
Dedue agreed to do so, and did not ask why Dimitri had not called them already. How Dimitri had decided to run, or not run, his estate up to this point was not his business, and he did not want to seem judgmental. People usually did not let things get this bad for fun.
At this point, for no apparent reason, Dimitri decided that the tour was over and walked back to his house. Instead of the porch, he led Dedue to a side entrance and unlocked the door. Inside was a surprisingly modern storage room. The room was clean and recently renovated and this was where Dedue was to keep his tools.
An assortment of beat-up cardboard boxes was stacked high in the corner of the room. The boxes were haphazardly balanced atop each other and in danger of toppling over, but other than that, the room was mostly empty save for a counter with a microwave, a chair and a minifridge that Dimitri explained would be for his breaks. Aside from the main entrance, the room had two other doors. One led to the bathroom, while the other went further into the house.
The room was brightly lit, letting Dedue finally see Dimitri properly. It was not quite that his messy hair was covering his right eye, but that there was no eye under his bangs, only a scarred-up eyelid.
Dimitri placed the key he had been holding on top of the counter next to the microwave. Dedue found it odd and somewhat rude that Dimitri didn't just hand it directly to him.
“It does work for the front door too,” Dimitri explained, gesturing toward the key, “but I would appreciate it if you just ring the doorbell if you need me.”
“The doorbell works?” Dedue had to ask.
“Yes, I had it replaced recently,” Dimitri told him.
“I see.”
Dedue picked up the key and tucked it securely in his jacket pocket. The key was new, so it was safe to assume that Dimitri had changed the locks on his houses after moving in. Dimitri didn’t have to worry, Dedue had no desire to snoop around his employer's house, even if the house hadn't struck him as cursed.
“I do have reference pictures of how it was before here somewhere,” Dimitri nodded vaguely toward the boxes in the corner, “but mostly, I just want things to be more presentable.”
Dedue agreed, making a mental note to start with the front yard then. He and Dimitri made stilted small talk for a few more minutes before it felt acceptable for Dedue to leave. They exchanged their polite goodbyes and Dedue left, leaving Dimitri alone in the storage space.
The sun had already set when Dedue left the manor, the days were very short this early in spring. Dedue walked past the softly wailing tree, out of the gate and down the hill. Outside Dimitri’s fences, snow and ice made the road slippery and Dedue had to watch his step, but he still made his way to the bus stop in time.
After learning a new word, it often seemed to appear everywhere you looked, and sure enough, the word exorcist was waiting for Dedue at the bus stop. It was printed on an advertisement glued to the light pole. On the poster, a man with green hair and a bored expression advertised exorcism service, along with a much more energetic-looking woman with purple hair. Dedue didn't pay it too much mind, since Dimitri had told him he already knew good exorcists.
The bus arrived in time, and soon enough, Dedue was home. The apartment did not feel like home yet, but he figured he’d eventually grow fond of it. He let himself inside and hung up his jacket next to the door, where it took as much space as two of Ashe’s jackets.
Ashe was in the kitchen, Dedue could hear him in there. Dedue figured Ashe hadn't heard him return since he hadn't said hello. Dedue knew he should have called out, or at least been louder with the door. Now, he felt awkward.
Ashe had been nothing but nice to him, but the roommate situation stressed Dedue out considerably. He had never been too good with people. Moving in with a stranger was nerve-racking to say the least, but Fhirdiad was an expensive city, and Dedue had moved here to save money, not to use it all to live in some shoe-box-sized studio alone.
Their place had a nice balcony and the women next door grew a whole herb garden in theirs. If working on Dimitri’s terrible yard did not wear Dedue out completely, he wanted to get one or two flower boxes for their balcony as well. If Ashe had nothing against it, of course.
Dedue headed to the kitchen and found Ashe sitting at the table with tea and his laptop. A pleasant male voice from the video repeated simple phrases in Brigid’s language, and Ashe repeated them back at the kitchen he thought was empty.
Ashe’s cat was nowhere to be seen, which was fine by Dedue. The cat was a yellowish ball of fur that had been hit by a car at least once before Ashe had rescued him from a shelter. He liked hissing at strangers, and still very much counted Dedue as one. Eventually Ashe noticed Dedue hovering in the doorway and paused his video mid-sentence.
“Dedue, hi,” Ashe greeted him, “how was it?”
“Fine,” Dedue said, but apparently not very convincingly.
“Really?” Ashe asked.
“I don't know,” Dedue admitted. “The boss seems nice enough, I guess, but the place is a mess. He should have at least warned me about how cursed the garden would be.”
“Ah,” Ashe grimaced into his tea.
“What?”
“Asking for help with magical things here usually means it is bad. Like, if you are hiring someone to take care of it, you are admitting things are pretty bad? Because you, or your family can't do it alone. It's getting better these days, but like, you’ll never hear old people ask for help,” Ashe tried to explain.
“So, you think he assumed I knew it would be bad?” Dedue asked Ashe.
“I think so.”
Dedue sighed. Great. Being cagey about curses was cultural. Just great.
“So, what are you going to do?” Ashe asked.
“My job,” Dedue said. What else was there to do?
“Do you want some tea?” Ashe offered, his hand making a sweeping motion toward the blue teapot on the kitchen table. The tea smelled nice, mint perhaps.
“No, thank you,” Dedue said anyway.
“Suit yourself,” Ashe said.
He was nice like that. He was only a little pushy with his friendship and never made a fuss when Dedue didn’t feel like socializing, which was pretty often. Dedue knew he would eventually have to take Ashe on his offers of friendship.
Ashe resumed his video as Dedue retreated to his room. The room was smaller than what he was used to, and he hadn't bought many personal belongings yet. He should really get some plants. As it was, the simple room felt unfamiliar, like he was just a guest in it, instead of living here for a year.
Dedue ignored the small stack of books in his nightstand he had brought from home in hopes of finally reading them, and opened his laptop. His computer was much older than Ashe’s, and it took a moment for it to open. Dedue smiled at the desktop image of his family. He supposed it was a bit cheesy choice, but no one was here to judge him, and it was not a secret that he missed them.
There was a new email waiting for him. Dedue clicked it open to discover Dimitri had already found the references of how the garden had used to look like. Dedue could have left the message for when his job actually started, but he scrolled through the images anyway.
The images painted a clearer picture of the idyllic garden than Dimitri had been able to describe. He had not explained things too well, and most parts of the garden were too wild for Dedue even to guess how it had been back in the day.
Most pictures were just regular photos, though clearly old enough to be taken with a film camera. Dimitri had also included a slightly blurry picture of an honest to Gods oil painting, which he had clearly taken with his phone just a few minutes ago. Dedue had already figured Dimitri’s family was old money, but this took him by surprise. Who had an oil painting of their own gardens just hanging around? How old even was that thing? It was a beautifully painted scenery of the house in its prime, surrounded by a dark iron fence.
He messaged Dimitri back, letting him know the reference was useful. The sight of his grandma's bracelet on his wrist caught Dedue's eye as he typed his short message. Though the intention was sweet, the bracelet was childish and Dedue decided to take it off. It took him a while to wiggle it free without opening the braided bracelet or dislocating his thumb.
Dedue held the bracelet in his hand. He missed his grandmother too much to store her thoughtful gift in the desk drawer and forget about it. Dedue considered different ways to use it that weren't simply carrying it around in his pocket without a purpose. Eventually, he decided to use it as a keychain and slipped his apartment key and the key from Dimitri’s onto it.
Dedue traced his finger along the intricate braid his grandmother's ancient hands had woven for his safety.