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Chapter Text

Dimitri had come to the monastery for revenge and nothing else.

Some part of him fought back. It dared to enjoy student life on his behalf. Dimitri did not crush it and send it to a far corner of his brain, like he wanted. Instead, he utilized it—turning a vulnerability into a strength, like a good king would. That enjoyment became his outward face. It ate meals and frequented the training grounds. It made acquaintance with Annette and Mercedes, fooled Ingrid and Sylvain, and welcomed Ashe with open arms.

Others saw right through it. Felix scowled at the sight of him. Dedue simply carried on.

Edelgard was there, too. The two of them came to an unspoken understanding, an unmeasured distance between them that could not be crossed. If she pretended not to recognize him, fine. He could barely recognize himself.

Dimitri hated every second, but his fate was not for him to decide.

The mercenary who had saved his life was appointed professor of his class. Something stirred in Dimitri. He hadn’t expected to learn much in the first place, but still found it rather concerning that their professor had essentially been plucked off the streets. No matter. At least the mock battle proved that Professor Byleth knew how to fight. She could teach him that, if nothing else.

Academics were another problem. On the first day of class, she awkwardly stood in front of the room until Dimitri had to put on his face and guide her though the structure of their lectures.

It was a rough start, but it had started. His vengeance would follow soon enough.

***

As part of the curriculum, every student at the Officer’s Academy was required to perform a certain number of weekly service hours. The start of every semester saw students bouncing from place to place, searching for a regular chore they could enjoy for the rest of the year, and so the first few weeks of any school year was typically marked with a mild chaos. This held particularly true for the stables. As a fact, the stable area was larger than the cathedral itself. Many new students seemed instantly drawn, and would spend afternoons gushing over the horses, or simply getting in the way, much to the irritation of the workers. Keeping the horses for the entire order of the Knights of Seiros was arguably harder than actually becoming a knight. There was no space for the uncommitted. The regular staff had to be firm with their rejection.

Many of the students were young nobles who had yet to realize that the staff were not their servants. Too often, a bright-eyed teenager would wander into the stables and demand work with the horses. Once handed a shovel and bucket, they would stammer and slink away while complaining of their noble sensibilities.

Maintaining the stables was truly a graceless job. It was dirtier than gardening and more strenuous than cooking. By the end of the Harpstring Moon, only the most serious prospects remained—usually a mix of nobles who had practiced equestrian as children, as well as commoners who didn’t mind dirtying their hands in exchange for learning horsemanship.

This year, a downcast girl who fit neither category had stuck around.

She was apparently a noble, but didn’t carry herself like one. When pulled into conversation, she would mumble one-word responses and quickly excuse herself. When asked to tighten a harness, she hesitated and fumbled with the straps for a minute before the exasperated requester did it himself.

A passing stable hand took more than a second to recognize her voice. He rounded the corner, surprising her.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “It was just...Dorte. I talk to him sometimes, when I’m...um...feeding him.”

“Ah. Alright, then.”

There was silence.

“I’ll, uh, see you around," he said, and walked away, not even attempting to hide his bewilderment.

She was glad to see him go. The less time anyone spent around her, the better. It didn’t matter what they thought of her, so long as it caused them to keep their distance. All she wanted to do was live without being a bother to anyone.

Dorte wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but at least he didn’t pry. And since her Crest didn’t seem to affect animals, she wouldn’t feel guilty about spending so much time around him.

It took a couple of months, but Marianne had made her first friend at Garreg Mach.

***

Dimitri had been hoping for an uneventful school year, but it turned out that that the Officer’s Academy was incapable of such a thing. The school taught the scions of Fódlan’s second estate, who had brought their baggage with them. A surprising amount of the continent’s intimate politics was dictated from the desks of teenagers. It was relatively common for classes to go out and involve themselves in the military affairs of their students’ home territories.

Dimitri had known that the Church of Seiros held great influence among Fódlan’s nobles, but didn’t realize the extent of their methods until he witnessed Ashe pointing an arrow at his adoptive father. The church had a tendency to make conflict personal, ostensibly to discourage it altogether. Really, it served as a warning: clean up your messes, or we’ll clean them up for you using your sons and daughters. Since that incident, the Blue Lions had been ordered to subdue a pack of bandits led by Sylvain’s brother. As an added touch, Annette’s father had been tapped to assist them. It was far too contrived to be a coincidence.

Lady Rhea ordered executions with the same poise she used to lead sermons. Students would graduate with the knowledge that they would always be under her watchful eye. It was a subtle and persuasive way of gripping the whole continent, to control the nobility without lifting a finger, and perhaps as a result of this, the church had no shortage of enemies. The students were asked to supplement the knights during the crises that the monastery seemed to attract on a regular basis. Besides the usual monsters and bandits roving the area, a brazen infiltration by the Western Church had occurred last month, ending when Professor Byleth recovered a long-lost Heroes’ Relic. Professor Hanneman had let slip to his class that her bloodline was supposed to be some kind of genealogical impossibility, and soon rumors were swirling abound. Dimitri could still barely bring himself to care.

There was definitely more to his teacher than met the eye, but what did it matter if she had an unknown Crest? If anything, the added attention was just making it harder to accomplish his own goals. Between classes, missions and training sessions, he barely had time for his own research. Even his free days were interrupted by events that required his attention as house leader. On one such day in the Verdant Rain Moon, he was intending to go to the library after lunch when Ingrid had asked him to attend a strategy meeting for the first House vs. House tournament of the school year.

That was how Dimitri found himself one of three nominated to represent the Blue Lions. So much as he liked to be prepared, holding a strategy meeting for a mere practice tournament seemed a little excessive, but Ingrid had insisted. At least he was being attentive, unlike a certain friend of theirs.

“Let’s go over this one more time,” Ingrid said. “What should you do if you’re matched against Ferdinand?”

“Hit him with a lance,” said Sylvain.

Ingrid’s hands balled into fists.

“What? It’s one-on-one lance fighting. How much strategy could possibly go into it?”

“It’s the principle of the thing!” Ingrid said sternly. “It doesn’t matter if this is practice, you still need to think one step ahead of your opponent. If you don’t strategize, you’re going to lose!”

“We’re going to lose,” Sylvain corrected her. Ingrid’s hands balled into fists again.

“Perhaps this strategy meeting has served its purpose,” Dimitri cut in. “We should go down to the training grounds now and warm up. Does that agree with both of you?

“Of course, Your Highness,” said Ingrid immediately.

“Yeah, yeah. Some practice would be more useful than sitting around in a class and talking about it,” said Sylvain.

Dimitri nodded. Ever since they had learned of their inevitable confrontation with his brother, Sylvain had been deflecting nonstop. It reminded Dimitri of his own frustration. Their missions carried stakes of life and death. There was vengeance to be pursued, and yet here he was, playing at some inconsequential training tournament. Dimitri didn’t want to criticize Sylvain for his attitude when he surely felt the same way. But at the same time, he wouldn’t have wanted to insult Ingrid by calling the meeting a waste of time, because nearly everything at this school was a waste of time anyway.

As predicted, the Blue Lions dominated the lance competition. Dimitri easily won match after match, and Ingrid narrowly missed out on qualifying for the finals, but she still put up a positive record. The two of them retreated to the sidelines to recuperate and watch the semifinal rounds. The outer edges of the training grounds were packed with students sitting or standing in groups. The tournament had drawn quite a large crowd of spectators, and many students who weren’t even practicing with lances had shown up regardless to cheer for their friends.

In the center of the courtyard, Sylvain and Leonie slowly circled each other, neither one willing to drop their guard. Leonie was glaring at him, as she did all her opponents, except none but Sylvain had responded by grinning so obnoxiously. Leonie suddenly flicked her lance to the right and Sylvain, anticipating an attack, turned to block the hit. It was a fake out, and Leonie jabbed her lance at his abdomen. Sylvain spun away from the blow, but she still caught him on the side of his stomach, staggering him and knocking the grin off his face. Her follow-up high slash was barely blocked in time.

“Hey, fellow house leader,” someone said. “I don’t suppose you’re up next, are you?”

“Hello, Claude,” said Dimitri. “This is the second semifinal match, so, yes, I will be fighting next. I say, I must commend the Golden Deer. You had an extremely strong showing today.”

Claude smiled and shrugged with exaggerated modesty. “You flatter us, your princeliness,” he said with a wink. “At least we beat the Black Eagles. You know, I’m surprised you didn’t hold back against Edelgard, considering...”

“Considering...?”

“Well, you know...”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Claude,” Dimitri said.

Talking with Claude always felt like a trap. Claude could seemingly spin a conversation any way he wanted, and in a way that sounded natural until the other person realized they had unwittingly revealed something crucial. On the same day they had met, Dimitri ended up recounting his childhood before he realized that the grinning boy was mentally taking notes. Thankfully, he hadn’t mentioned his relationship with Edelgard, but Claude could definitely sense there was something between them.

Dimitri bit his tongue. Even friendly banter before a friendly competition was simply a cheap tactic meant to rile him up, and so he wouldn’t take the bait. Claude smiled again, too wide this time. “Well, whatever. I just dropped by to let you know Leonie can be a real sore loser. Maybe you should just give her the win.” Another wink.

“Of course, I’m sure she would extend the same courtesy to me,” Dimitri said smoothly.

Claude laughed at his retort, before turning his eyes back to the fight. Sylvain was curled up on the ground while Leonie slashed at him repeatedly.

“Geez, I think he’s dead,” said Claude. Ingrid laughed, then looked guilty for a moment. “Anyway, good luck out there, Dimitri. I mean it.” With that, Claude sauntered off to join the rest of the Golden Deer, who were cheering and whooping as the judge declared Leonie’s victory. A small, inexplicable twinge of jealousy struck Dimitri. The Blue Lions weren’t much for loud cheering and hollering. He couldn’t imagine Dedue screaming above a crowd to support him.

Sylvain slowly padded over to them and leaned a hand against a pillar, panting. Ingrid handed him a cup of water, from which he drank gratefully, before she asked him, “What did you notice about her aggression?”

Sylvain seemed not to have heard her.

“Sylvain?”

“I think she just woke something in me.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes. “You’re completely useless. Your Highness, you saw what I’m talking about, right?”

Dimitri nodded. No further coaching was needed. He grabbed his weapon and walked out onto the field. The end of Leonie’s lance traced a pattern through the air as she hopped from foot to foot, still clearly pumped from her victory. Her forehead and neck shone with sweat.

“Are you up next?” she asked him breathlessly.

“Yes, it would appear that way. Do you require a short break before we begin?”

“No!” she practically yelled. “Come on, let’s go!”

The judge looked to him for confirmation, so Dimitri unsheathed his lance. Leonie touched her fist against his, and the two squared off. Just like with Sylvain, she watched him like a hawk, waiting to strike at the first weak point she could find. Dimitri made his face calm. He had actually practiced his facial expressions prior. They were handier than one might expect.

Leonie was too skilled an opponent to risk opening himself up, so he simply kept his lance up in a defensive stance and waited. She tried throwing out feints, but Dimitri didn’t flinch. After about a minute, Leonie must have realized that he didn’t intend to move. Something about her glare changed. Dimitri readied himself as she gritted her teeth, before she quickly tightened her grip and lunged at him.

He could barely keep up with her fierce flurry of jabs and sweeps. Their lances had blunt wooden spearheads to prevent injury, but Leonie repeatedly aimed for his face, determined to overcome her weapon’s harmlessness, and Dimitri narrowly ducked a thrust that might have put out a tooth had it connected. Expecting another high blow, he kept his lance up to protect himself, only for Leonie to smack at his shin. He sucked air through his teeth, still waiting for an opening. When Leonie went for his face again, throwing out an impatient overextension, he was ready. He lashed upwards with his own lance, knocking her weapon skyward. She managed to hold on to it with her inside hand, but her left side was completely exposed, and Dimitri followed up with a powerful slash to her ribs, causing her to swear in pain. Another slash sent her sprawling backwards to the ground, clutching her bruised side. A look of utter shock adorned her face.

The roar of the audience came alive again in Dimitri’s ears. Leonie scrambled to her feet, indignant, but the judge had already stepped in between them to end the match.

“What kind of person would just stand there and defend?” Leonie shot at him. She was panting, and spoke between labored breaths. “The point of the tournament is to show off your skills. You can’t just stand there and not attack! If we had run the timer, you would have lost! By decision!”

“Agreed. Fortunately for me, you gave me an opening,” Dimitri said.

Leonie sighed, then grabbed his hand and shook it rudely, if such a thing was possible. “And you’ve been practicing since you were a kid, right? So it’s hardly fair to begin with.”

“Regardless, you are extremely talented. If needed, I would be happy to train together,” Dimitri offered.

Leonie seemed cross. “Pass. You know, lances aren’t even meant for infantry. If we were on horses, I definitely would have won.”

“Is that so? Perhaps I should take up riding, in that case.”

Leonie huffed and stormed off just before Ingrid and Sylvain ran up to him. They put their arms around his shoulders and rallied, with Ingrid grinning from ear to ear, and Sylvain blowing kisses to the cheering crowd. Dimitri glanced over to where the rest of the Blue Lions were spectating. Everyone, even Felix, was standing and applauding, not going wild as the Golden Deer would have, but still showing their support. Dedue actually looked happy for once. That was a prize enough in itself. Dimitri smiled. Around them, the crowd began to filter through the doors back to the monastery.

“Hey, what happened to Little Miss Runner-up?” Sylvain said into his ear. “I wanted to ask her to dinner. You know, get some...pointers.”

“She went back to her housemates. Actually, I’m afraid I may have offended her in some way.”

Ingrid turned her head. “Why, what did you say?”

Dimitri disentangled himself from their collective hug. “I’m not sure. I merely complimented her skill.”

Sylvain groaned. “When a girl is mad, you don’t compliment her. Trust me on this one.”

“I was just agreeing with what she said! Well, I suppose I also offered to train with her.”

Now Ingrid was the one who groaned. “Your Highness, you’re so...

“Patronizing,” said Sylvain.

“...Well-meaning,” Ingrid finished.

Sylvain shook his head. “Well, if she’s gone, I guess I gotta ask you to dinner instead. Come on, Your Highness, we can make it a date. I’ll teach you how to lie to women.”

“I’m afraid I cannot partake in something so unsavory. And besides, there is still something I must do before I eat.”

Sylvain look disappointed. “Suit yourself. Hey, Ingrid, you wanna go get dinner?”

“Of course, Sylvain,” she said sarcastically. “I’m so honored to be your third choice of dining companion. By all means, lead the way.”

“Hey, it’s not like that!” he protested.

As the two descended into bickering, Dimitri slipped away and blended into the crowd. Dedue, and the rest of the Blue Lions, would doubtlessly want to congratulate him, but he had no time for such matters. With only a few hours of light left in the day, he fell away from the crowd and headed for the second floor.

***

The library was one of the few places where Dimitri could let down his face and be himself. The endless bookshelves seemed to muffle his noise and his presence, for which he was grateful. He often took time during evenings to continue his endless search for answers. The tournament had not tired him out any more than his usual training, so he was fine dropping by for a few quick hours of research.

After only a couple of months, he had already examined every book regarding Duscur and her people. Unfortunately, all of it turned out to be prejudiced or incorrect garbage. All accounts conformed to the official story, which he already knew was a lie. Still, the library was possibly the most exhaustive resource in all of Fódlan. If answers existed, they would be here. They must be.

It shamed him to think that Ashe’s suffering had given him inspiration. If Lord Lonato’s records had been studied by an outsider, perhaps they could have recognized the signs—troop movements, policy changes, forced conscription, increased quotas, anything within official documents that pointed to the inevitable. Perhaps the rebellion could have been prevented. But while it was too late to help Ashe, he could still use the idea to try to decipher his own mystery. The library held comprehensive legal documents from all over the continent. There was a number of Imperial nobles who Dimitri wanted to investigate, and he was perusing a hefty book of tax records when Professor Byleth wandered in and spotted him sitting at a desk. Dimitri shut the book on reflex.

“I heard the Blue Lions won the lance tournament. Congratulations,” she said dryly. Most everything she said was either blunt or dry.

“Oh, thank you, professor. What brings you to the library?”

“You do. Your friends told me you haven’t eaten yet.”

Dimitri sighed. “True,” he admitted, “although...I don’t suppose by ‘friends,’ you mean Dedue?”

Byleth’s expression revealed nothing. “You’re fortunate to have people like him, Dimitri. I don’t want to have to drag you to eat. I’m sure he doesn’t either.”

Dimitri shoved the heavy tome back into its spot on the shelf, then turned to walk with his professor. The library was nearly empty, but he still waited until they were in the hallway outside before he spoke up. “Of course, I am at fault. I apologize. I did not mean to worry you, or Dedue, as I intended to eat dinner after finishing up here.”

“Do you know what time it is now?”

“Well...” Dimitri trailed off. Whoever designed the library had neglected to include windows. The two descended a flight of stairs to the open-air terrace adjoining the Officer’s Academy, and Dimitri was surprised by the darkness of night. It was far later than he had thought. The students’ designated dinnertime was long over by now.

“I hoped to retrieve you before midnight.” Byleth said, with the barest hint of snark in her voice. “Remember, we have class in the morning.”

“Ah. Thank you, professor. I apologize for causing you such trouble.”

“Enough apologizing,” said Byleth. “This is your day, Dimitri. I’m surprised you didn’t go out and celebrate with your friends after you won.”

Dimitri hesitated. “To be honest,” he said, “I’m not much for extravagant celebrations. It simply seems like a waste of resources, especially in a school setting...and, in this context, I’m wary of appearing boastful.”

“What context?” asked Byleth. Dimitri had to remind himself that she genuinely did not know.

“I have been training with the finest tutors since I was a child, whereas many of my opponents today were mere beginners. For me to effortlessly win a school-level lance tournament, and then parade my victory in front of others, I feel would be a matter of poor sportsmanship.”

Byleth’s expression still didn’t change. “I see,” she said, “but allow me to correct one thing, Dimitri. It was far from effortless. It may seem that way to others, and even yourself, but I’ve seen the amount of training you do. You have a right to feel proud of your hard work.”

“Ah. Thank you,” Dimitri said, unsure if she was complimenting him or not.

The pair had reached the mess hall, still illuminated by candlelight at this hour. The hall was completely devoid of people save for a blue-haired girl standing by a pillar. Her head swiveled to Byleth and Dimitri ahead of the sound of their footsteps. She looked rather lost.

“Good evening, Marianne,” called Byleth. The girl opened her mouth, startled. Her mournful eyes trembled as if she had been caught doing something wrong. Dimitri vaguely recognized her as being of the Golden Deer house, but didn’t recall seeing her at the tournament that day. Up until this point, he hadn’t even known her name.

“Did you miss dinner as well?” Byleth asked her.

“Um....” Marianne began nervously, “I’m not sure how to...get food. I thought the kitchens would be open...”

“They are,” Byleth stated plainly. “There’s just no one at the front of house. You have to ring the bell.” She stepped up to the counter and picked up a plain brass bell Dimitri hadn’t noticed. A single ring and a cook poked her head out from the back room.

“Hello, professor. Working late again?”

“Something like that. Can we get three plates, please? Leftovers are fine.” She turned to explain to the two students, “The kitchens are open all day and all night, and they’ll never turn away a mouth to feed. Of course, students are typically in bed at this hour, so the night shift is mostly meant for guards, as well as overworked professors.”

That was her brand of humor. Initially, Dimitri had believed Professor Byleth to be emotionless and uncaring, but she was far from that—quite the opposite, actually. Her emotions were present, just concealed. Like him, she simply had trouble with facial expressions—they might have been the one thing she was truly terrible at. Her inexperience in the early days had gone, and, at this point in the school year, she was already more respected than Professor Hanneman or Professor Manuela. Even students from other houses turned to her for guidance.

How she had made acquaintance with a recluse like Marianne, Dimitri couldn’t imagine, but at the same time he was wholly unsurprised.

The cook came back with three plates of lukewarm vegetables and broiled meat, in small portions. Byleth handed a plate to Dimitri, then to Marianne, and Dimitri could have been imagining it, but when Marianne accepted her plate she mumbled an apology to Byleth under her breath. The three of them pulled up chairs at the end of one of the grand dining tables with Byleth sitting across from Marianne and Dimitri.

“How are you, Marianne?” asked Byleth.

“I’m doing well.”

“How are things in the stables?”

“They’re...doing well.”

Her voice was quiet, as if she was afraid of being overheard in the empty room. Byleth looked at Dimitri pointedly.

“Marianne, is it?” he jumped in. “I don’t believe we’ve been acquainted. I am Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, leader of the Blue Lion house.”

“Pleased to meet you. My name is Marianne von Edmund,” she said, not meeting his eyes. Her response sounded like it had been rehearsed at some point.

“How have you been settling in at the Officer’s Academy?” Dimitri asked.

“I’m keeping up with all my classes. Oh, um, and I volunteer in the stables.”

“Ah, the volunteering,” Dimitri remarked. “As a house leader, I am exempted from volunteer work, so it’s interesting to hear everyone talk about their experiences. What do the stable hands do, on, say, a regular shift?”

Marianne stared into her plate of stale food. “I’m sorry, but...I don’t know. I don’t actually know how to manage any of the equipment. All I do is help with minor things, like feeding.”

“Really? Well, I wouldn’t consider that minor at all,” said Dimitri. “Providing food is an honorable and dignified occupation.” He forced a laugh. “Why, consider how the professor just dragged us to dinner!”

Any other dining companion would have smiled at the line, out of acknowledgement or politeness. Marianne seemed unconcerned with either.

“And besides, Marianne,” Byleth added, filling the silence, “no one expects a first-year student to do such complicated work. The hours you put in are already more than enough.”

Marianne looked up a little bit. “Really?” she asked, unsure.

“Yes. Professor Hanneman mentioned it to me at some point, that you’re actually leading your class in volunteering,” Byleth said casually.

Marianne’s perpetual frown eased into an almost-smile. She tucked some hair behind an ear before glancing around bashfully, and when her eyes caught Dimitri’s for a fraction of a second he realized he had been staring. He immediately snapped his gaze back to Byleth, out of shame or something else he didn’t know.

“Professor, who leads our class?” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“It’s not a competition,” Byleth reminded him. “But...Mercedes.”

“Ah,” said Dimitri, self-conscious. The answer should have been obvious, had he given it more than a half-second of thought.

Byleth leaned back, rested one of her elbows on the table, and lectured, “As house leader, you should probably be concerned with which student has the least service hours. That would be Felix, by the way. Regardless, I’m proud of all of you...and especially you, Marianne.”

“What? Why me?” Marianne said, surprised. It was like she had expected them to forget she was there after not talking for thirty seconds.

“Many students have trouble adjusting to school life,” Byleth explained. “Of course, it’s an unfamiliar place, full of unfamiliar people, and on top of studying...it can take a while before you find a place to belong. Whenever I see you in the cathedral or stables, Marianne, it’s like you already belong there.”

“Oh...” Marianne trailed off. It dawned on Dimitri that she didn’t know how to react to praise.

Byleth smiled. “No one can adjust perfectly. Believe me, it’s my first year too, so I know this well. Working with horses in the stables...it’s something you can do for the rest of the year, or even the rest of your life. Many students would be envious of your direction.”

“I’m sorry,” Marianne said automatically.

“What for?” said Byleth.

“For...” Marianne shook her head. “I wouldn’t want anyone to be envious of me. And I don’t have direction. Please, don’t use me as a positive example.”

“Don’t downplay your abilities. The professor wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true,” insisted Dimitri. He meant it as a reassurance, but Marianne only looked more fraught.

“I’m not so sure...” Marianne’s voice trailed off again. She poked at the remains of her dinner and let the subject die on her tongue.

Over the course of their meal, Dimitri had noticed that Marianne seemed physically incapable of talking and eating at the same time. As a result, almost half of her food had been left uneaten while Dimitri and the professor had already finished their plates. Despite this, Marianne stood up from the table and bowed her head to each of them. “Thank you, Professor. Thank you, Dimitri. I really must be going now.”

“Of course. Take care, now,” said Dimitri.

“Yes. Good night, Marianne,” said Byleth.

Marianne deposited her plate on the kitchen counter and quickly strode away into the night. Dimitri and Byleth remained at the table, sitting in silence until Byleth slowly gathered their empty plates and utensils. She glanced at Dimitri as she did.

“I like her,” she said.

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed.

“She has adjusted well, that is the truth,” Byleth continued. It didn’t sound like she expected a response.

Dimitri pushed his chair in and walked with Byleth to the kitchen counter. His professor stacked Marianne’s plate on top of the other two, then rang the bell once, summoning someone to bus their dirty dishes. The cook took their tableware with Marianne’s plate still sitting on top, the vegetables swimming in cold, oily liquid. They were the leftovers of leftovers.

“Professor, one last thing,” said Dimitri. “I was considering going into riding...”

Chapter Text

At some point, she became accustomed to a sleep schedule that was broken beyond repair. Several months’ worth of late nights and irregular meals would do that to a person, she supposed, but the ease with which she accepted it still surprised her.

Every single evening was spent praying to a Goddess who wouldn’t listen. Privacy would have been preferred, but the cathedral never truly emptied itself, not even on the occasions when she stayed until sunrise. Her mother used to pray every morning. Marianne couldn’t recall whether it was to wake herself up, start the day in a positive mood, or some other reason—her own shift to nighttime had happened when she recognized that her own prayers were supplanted almost entirely by confessions. Since she spent all day worrying about her sins anyway, it was simply easier to confess them all before going to bed.

Countless hours were lost slipping through her clasped hands. Praying was hardly an ideal way to use her nights, but it was better than lying awake in a bed that still didn’t feel like hers. The consequences came in the mornings, when the cathedral bells sounded for the whole monastery, irrespective of how much sleep one was entitled to.

Marianne groaned as the bells clanged, again. Burying her face in her pillow didn’t help. The first step out of bed was always the hardest, she knew that, but so long as she could take a first step she could take a second, then a third, then the rest of the day would follow. The issue lay in convincing herself that the first step would be worth taking. Her main obstacle in waking up was not her lack of sleep; rather, it was the fact she had nothing quite worth getting out of bed for.

Professor Hanneman’s class was a waste of time, and that was putting it mildly—Hilda had expressed the same sentiment in far more direct terms. In every class, their professor would invariably manage to bring up Crests, then get sidetracked by talking about his own research. Even if Crests weren’t Marianne’s least favorite topic, the lectures still would have been remarkably dull. The Golden Deer openly groaned whenever their professor started a tangent on how some historical so-and-so bore a Minor Crest of Whoever. Once, Hanneman had bragged to the class that his expertise with Crests was such that other academics had trouble understanding him. How he expected teenagers to keep up, Marianne had no idea.

Aside from the monotony of class, however, there was always more work to be done in the stables. Someone would always need an extra pair of hands, so over time Marianne had become accustomed to performing various odd jobs when needed. At some point unremembered, her regular volunteer shift had evolved; she now handled some basic barding and grooming in addition to feeding. And last month...last month, she had learned the basics of foaling, out of pure necessity.

Her contribution was nothing more than holding a basin of warm water for the attending veterinarian, but it was still an eye-opening experience. In particular, she hadn’t expected the miracle of life to look so...painful. It was only after the veterinarian scrubbed the bloody and otherwise indescribable mess from his hands did he assure Marianne that both parent and newborn were fine, and they couldn’t have prayed for a healthier delivery. Rendered speechless, she could only nod and pretend to believe him.

That was last month. This month, another mare—one of Dorte’s friends, at that—was expecting, and while it was technically beyond the scope of her job, Marianne wanted to help ease the pain of pregnancy in any way she could. Simply providing companionship might be enough.

So that was something worth getting out of bed for.

Marianne sat up, rubbed the sand from her eyes, then unfolded her uniform from the chair on which she had placed it the night before. Once changed, she turned her attention to her flattened mess of hair. Her smaller tangles could be quietly hidden within larger, neater-looking tangles until she judged herself passable in the vanity mirror. She was already running late, so wiping her face with a washcloth would have to substitute for a bath.

She could have detoured through the dining hall on her way to class to grab something bite-sized, but it wasn’t worth imagining the kitchen staff silently judging her for her tardiness. Quietly, she slipped through the clanking doors of the Golden Deer classroom to her usual desk at the back, shared with Hilda, who was slumped head down against the wooden surface. Hilda waved a peace sign at Marianne in lieu of an actual greeting. Marianne mentally tallied the rest of the class. She was late, but, strangely, not the last person to arrive. Professor Hanneman, who always arrived early to prepare his notes, was inexplicably not at the front of the room. Claude, from his bench right in front of Marianne, patiently waited for her to settle in before he allowed a grin to stretch wide across his face. Lorenz preemptively rolled his eyes.

“Hanneman von Essar, late for his own class!” Claude exclaimed. “Can you believe it?!”

“This is the first time he’s ever been late,” Lorenz pointed out. “Now, when we compare that to your own attendance record, Claude...”

“What do you guys think happened to him?” Claude asked, ignoring Lorenz.

“He’s probably in a meeting,” said Lysithea.

Claude shook his head. “I don’t think so. They don’t have meetings in the morning, ever, unless there’s an emergency.”

“What if he tripped on his shoelaces and died, or something?” Hilda asked with genuine concern.

“He’s not that old. Give him some credit,” Claude said.

“Maybe he spontaneously combusted,” suggested Raphael.

“Yeah, probably.” Claude scratched his chin thoughtfully. “That sounds about right. The atmospheric conditions would have to be—”

“Mr. von Riegan, please sit down,” boomed Hanneman’s voice from behind them. Claude raised his hands in the air in playful surrender as he slouched back into his seat. Hanneman strode through the classroom and dropped his satchel atop his desk, then faced the class. “Apologies for my lateness this morning. I was attending a meeting with the archbishop.”

“Told you,” Lysithea hissed at Claude, who didn’t react. An uncharacteristically focused look had come over his face.

“Are you all familiar with Seteth’s younger sister, Flayn?” asked Hanneman.

“Yeah. Did something happen?” Claude prompted him.

“Well...” Hanneman fumbled with his hands aimlessly. “...Yes. Flayn has been missing for almost two days. We must assume she has been abducted.”

Marianne’s heart skipped a beat. Next to her, Hilda sat straight up. A worried whispering, rumors in their earliest stages, sprouted throughout the room.

Hanneman rubbed the back of his neck as he continued, “As you can likely imagine, Seteth is quite beside himself with worry. Our new mission for this month, effective immediately, is to assist the knights in searching for the culprit. Classes will be suspended in the meantime.”

“Who could have taken her?” Raphael demanded.

“We don’t know,” Hanneman admitted. Coming from him, the phrase sounded foreign.

Hilda gasped. “What if the Death Knight got her?”

The quiet murmur of the room erupted into chaos. Lorenz and Leonie began arguing immediately, Ignatz was trying to say something about Flayn, Lysithea was shouting about having to reschedule an exam, and below all the din Marianne kept her head down and stared miserably into her desk.

She already knew what had happened to Flayn. Seteth’s little sister was, of course, the latest victim of her curse. Flayn had approached her at one point, and she was so earnest and disarming that Marianne couldn’t help but be drawn into the conversation. The two chatted about the dispositions of the monastery pegasi for a while before Flayn waved and went on her way.

Now she was missing. Possibly abducted. Possibly dead. It was a grim reminder of what happened when she allowed people to get close—

“Everyone shut up and listen!” Claude yelled, cutting off her train of thought. The noise in the room died out quicker than it had started.

“Hmm. Thank you, Claude,” said Hanneman. “Yes, it’s true that this ‘Death Knight’ has yet to be apprehended...however, we must not allow ourselves to jump to conclusions.” He paused to adjust his sleeves. “Unfortunately, we haven’t much evidence to work with. We know not when young Flayn disappeared, nor where she was last seen, nor what she was doing at the time of her disappearance. The only thing Seteth is certain of is that she would not leave the monastery.”

“What about town?” Claude asked.

Hanneman shook his head. “The knights were already dispatched to town last night. In any case, students should confine their searching to monastery grounds.”

Claude’s voice lacked its usual humor. “Are the other classes in on this?”

“Yes,” said Hanneman with a nod. “All three houses share this mission, so collaborate amongst yourselves.”

“You heard the man. Gather ‘round,” Claude ordered, standing up from his bench. He motioned for all his classmates to draw near, and a huddle quickly formed at the desk behind him, the one seating Marianne and Hilda. Marianne instinctively tried to shrink down—she could feel Ignatz peering over her shoulder, and checked and double-checked that her textbooks were arranged neatly, just in case he was judging her sloppiness.

Claude leaned on the desk with both hands. “This is as bad as it gets,” he declared. “Since we have no leads, our only option is to comb the entire monastery top to bottom. For now, we’ll split up to cover as much ground as possible. Search everywhere, leave no stone unturned-”

“Are you asking us to check every single dusty corner? That would take time we don’t have,” Lorenz interrupted.

“Of course not,” Claude snapped. “We’re not gonna find clues just lying around. I mean talk to people, talk to anyone and everyone from all over the monastery. Someone must have seen something; it’s just a matter of finding that someone. The only things we’ll need are time and effort.” Hilda pouted at bit at the mention of effort, and Claude’s serious demeanor softened somewhat. “If you hear anything suspicious, then make a note of it, no matter how small or insignificant it seems. We’ll reconvene at lunch and share what we’ve learned. Make sure to tell the other two houses. Everyone got it?”

A chorus of agreement arose from the students, save for Marianne. An immense, contradictory guilt quietly burned deep within her chest.

How could she participate in the search when her cursed Crest was the reason Flayn vanished in the first place?

How could she dare pretend to help?

She numbly shuffled outside behind the rest of the class, realizing only after everyone dispersed that she had no idea where to go within the vast freedom of the monastery. Across the Officer’s Academy, the Blue Lions and Black Eagles were filtering out of their respective classrooms. Professor Byleth glanced over, probably judging her for standing around, and, in her panic to look busy, Marianne started walking. Not knowing where she was going, she allowed her feet to blindly guide her until she found herself in the main reception hall. From here, she could make her way to the stables and hide for the rest of the day, free of human contact.

It was a tempting idea, but the guilt inside her flared up again, and she knew it would burn her from the inside out if ignored. She instead headed up to the cathedral, keeping her head down to avoid eye contact on the way there. Flayn’s disappearance had sunk the whole monastery into a solemn mood, and it was the only thing she could do to block out the worry she had caused. Her eyes only lifted when it came time to cross the bridge.

On her first day at Garreg Mach, her first time visiting the cathedral, she had stopped to lean over the bridge’s stone parapet. Her unwillingness to litter or spit forced her to judge the distance down with her naked eyes.

It was disappointing how survivable the fall looked, even from the bridge’s highest point.

Without conscious thought, an image popped into her mind; an image of her broken body decorating the bottom of the ravine. But the drop wasn’t high enough—she shook her head, and the image corrected itself to show her body, now alive, but immobilized and in pain beyond belief. She imagined the pegasus knights who would arrive first to the scene, never having been trained for something like this. She imagined the horrified whispers of her classmates, the engrossing worry that would taint the remainder of their school year. She imagined the physicians who would doubtlessly try to piece her back together—if not to save her, then to at least make her body look presentable, for the benefit of her adoptive father.

To whom would such a task fall? Professor Manuela, maybe?

Professor Manuela didn’t deserve such a burden. Her classmates, the knights—no one deserved the burden of cleaning up her mess. Selfish, she chastised herself, for even daring to imagine. The only one with the right to ordain her death was the Goddess.

Marianne crossed the bridge without looking back and entered the church, trying not to let her footsteps sound on the stone floor. There were more parishioners than usual crowding the nave. Settling herself at the front of the church, she ran through the routine of prayers born of her cursed life: firstly, safety for others; then, clemency for her parents. When her prayers turned on herself, she simply asked the Goddess for the painless passing that she surely didn’t deserve. Finally, she began an endless series of prayers for Flayn.

The cathedral bells rang again and again. She recited a prayer for protection fifty times over, then switched to a prayer for lost souls, hoping the Goddess would understand the idea, then switched back to the prayer for protection, this time intending to repeat it a hundred times over.

“Dear Goddess, hear my prayer...” she begged. “Please watch over Flayn...please protect her...”

The cathedral bells rang yet again, and Marianne opened her eyes for the first time in what felt like hours. She paused, dizzy, unable to concentrate. Her mouth was dry. When the echo of bells finally faded, she tried to remember how many prayers she had left, but only recalled losing count somewhere in the forties.

She twisted her shoulders just to stretch out the knots in her neck, and froze when she saw Dimitri standing behind her, absently facing towards the altar. When he caught her looking, he walked over and bowed to her as greeting.

“Hello, Marianne,” he said modestly.

“...Hello, Dimitri,” she choked. Surely, he could see right through her.

He stepped a bit closer. “I’m sorry if I interrupted you,” he said quietly. “It was not my intention. I was merely looking around.”

She unclasped her hands and let them fall to her sides. “Um, looking around...for Flayn?”

Dimitri shook his head. “For clues. The professor and I have been sweeping the whole of the monastery.” He jabbed with his thumb towards the back of the cathedral, where Marianne spotted Professor Byleth with the counselor, rummaging through the advice box together. “You know, I never appreciated the size of this place until searching it. After we’re done here, it’s off to the second floor.”

“I see,” said Marianne, feeling comparatively useless. She was suddenly taken by the need to contribute something, anything. Straightening up, she said, “There will be a meeting of all the students at lunch, I think. Claude told us to spread the word.”

“Ah, yes. Claude made sure to inform me personally,” he said, and Marianne felt stupid, so stupid—of course he would have already known. Then, Dimitri said, “Will you be going now?”

“What?” asked Marianne, confused. Going where? She was already where she belonged. Unless he meant...

“It’s nearly lunchtime, isn’t it?” Dimitri pointed out sheepishly.

“Oh, um...I would just get in the way,” she said nervously. “I don’t know anything useful.”

Dimitri tilted his head. “The meeting is for all students, is it not? It would be good for you to attend, to at least be informed.”

Marianne shook her head, unable to think of an excuse. He was right, of course, but there was no way to explain that her presence at any large meeting would lead to widespread misfortune. Her Crest had caused this whole disaster to begin with. If there was any way to redeem herself, it would be to stay away from the search entirely.

“...I’m sorry, but I would rather stay here and pray,” she said, finally.

Dimitri smiled again, but she could imagine his exasperation hidden underneath. “Faith is an important part of day-to-day life,” he mused. “In times of crisis, doubly so. While searching for Flayn, perhaps the rest of us have neglected to follow your pious example. What do you pray for, Marianne?”

Marianne froze up. She could not tell a lie in such a holy place.

“Um...it’s...a bit selfish...”

At that exact moment, Professor Byleth approached the pair. Dimitri turned to his professor, but Byleth looked right past him, directly at Marianne.

“Hello, Marianne. Will you be attending the meeting?” she asked, blunt as ever. Marianne shook her head. Professor Byleth scrunched up her face, then changed tactics. “Did you eat breakfast this morning?”

The question caught her off guard. “Not really,” she admitted.

“Then we’re going,” Byleth said, leaving no room for argument. Dimitri looked back and forth between the two, reluctant to comment. Marianne sighed internally.

Dimitri was nice and polite and...reasonable. Talking to Professor Byleth, on the other hand, was more like receiving orders. Marianne mentally offered a final few prayers before she trod along to catch up to the professor, already striding her way back to the monastery.

“You seem troubled,” Byleth informed Marianne as they left the church. From her tone, Marianne could tell she meant extra troubled. It would have sounded stern if she wasn’t so understanding at the same time.

“Um...” she began. Trying to explain the nature of her Crest would only make things worse. She had to talk about something else. “One of Dorte’s...friends...is about to have a baby. I was worried. Do you know of any medicinal herbs, or anything like that, that would ease her delivery?”

The expression on Byleth’s face was unreadable. She glanced at Dimitri.

“Is that what you were praying for?” asked Dimitri, breaking into a relieved smile. His voice had become a mixture of upbeat and incredulous. “You have a very unique idea of selfishness.”

“Well...” Marianne muttered, not looking at him. She was focusing on keeping her eyes pointed forward as they crossed back over the bridge.

“I know about herbs for injury, but not so much for pregnancy,” intoned the professor.

Dimitri laughed, still in an upbeat mood. “Strange. And here I thought you were an expert in everything.”

Byleth merely shrugged. “I’ve been injured. Never been pregnant. Now, as far as herbs are concerned, perhaps Dedue or Ashe...”

“I shall talk to them both,” Dimitri promised. Then, to Marianne, he asked, “How old is this friend of yours?”

“She’s around ten...”

Dimitri stared at her, suddenly lost for words.

“She’s a horse,” she clarified. Embarrassment burned her ears.

“Oh!” said Dimitri, flustered. “Well, I will...take that into account. I didn’t...I mean, I assumed...”

“Sorry. It’s okay,” Marianne said, not wanting to know what he had assumed. Dimitri nodded cordially and kept walking, but he seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh, or...something.

If he was judging her for not having any human friends, that was fine. It was something she had gotten used to a while ago.

***

The lunchtime meeting went as productively as anything organized by Claude possibly could have. While the students were reluctant to directly accuse anyone, sending them out to chase their own imaginations had led to some truly flimsy theories. Individuals were marked as suspicious for reasons no more than hounding Flayn with bad jokes, or handling a blade more impulsively than usual, or simply looking different from the other knights of Fódlan. At that last one, a knight—a tall, blonde woman who Claude had asked to mediate—stood up to control the discussion.

“I can vouch for Shamir,” she said firmly. The oversized Heroes’ Relic strapped to her hip bumped the table as she spoke. “But besides that, we’ve learned some useful things. For the time being, you students can go relax while we chase down the leads you’ve given us. Anyone have any final thoughts before we go?”

From where she had been sitting, Marianne stopped mid-chew and let her eyes trace over the weapon, a wicked-looking sword that radiated energy, holstered clearly in plain sight. For the blonde knight, a Crest and its associated weapon were things to be proud of, status symbols that could be flaunted for the world to see, for bringing power and prosperity instead of misfortune. What would happen if she volunteered the truth about her own Crest? Perhaps the knight would use the Heroes’ Relic to cut her down on the spot, denouncing her bloodline publicly—that is, if she even believed her.

She couldn’t. Marianne remained miserable throughout the whole meeting, focusing instead on eating her lunch with small bites. Across from her, Byleth and Dimitri had participated in the discussion while simultaneously pretending not to watch her eat. When it was over, she bid them well, and they set off with the rest of the knights and faculty.

The meeting had ended hours ago, and she would have headed back to her room if not for Hilda pinning her down, almost literally. For some reason, Hilda had decided to come over and sit with her, except Hilda’s version of sitting with someone was more like sitting on them, plus occasionally stealing their food. Hilda lounged astride the bench, leaning backwards into Marianne, and with her head resting on Marianne’s bony shoulder while she gabbed endlessly. There was no polite way to tell her she was heavier than she looked.

Long pink hair drooped into Marianne’s lap. Thankfully, she was done eating. If she had accidentally spilled food into Hilda’s hair, Hilda would probably never forgive her.

“I’m still kind of hungry,” Hilda was complaining. “Should I get dessert? Second dessert, I mean? I think they’re starting to remember my face, because I get dessert all the time. But I can’t help it, Marianne! The food here is, like, so good, right?”

“Yes,” Marianne mumbled. Hilda usually let her get away with short answers.

With great effort and grunting, Hilda sat up. She hoisted herself up onto the dining table, sitting with her feet on the bench, clutching the edges of the table in her palms and looking down on Marianne.

“Hey, I’m bored,” Hilda told her. “What do you wanna do now?”

“Nothing,” Marianne said truthfully. Visiting the stables seemed more trouble than it was worth, now, as the events of the morning had overwhelmed her. She didn’t like eating at busy times—it only exposed more people to her Crest—and having a meeting on top of the group lunch was truly exhausting. The only thing she could see herself doing was catching up on the bath she had missed and then going straight to sleep.

“Same!” Hilda agreed, exuberant. “I wanted to do some shopping, actually. I wanted to get these fabrics from this one shop—do you know the place I’m talking about? But it’s kind of far, and it’s kind of late, and getting to town is a hassle now...”

Marianne nodded without really listening. Her eyes were tilted downwards, in the direction of Hilda’s boots, which had been meticulously scrubbed free of grime despite Hilda’s claims to laziness.

“I was checking the market—I mean, I was searching for clues in the market, right?” Hilda was still talking. “And this guard stops me, and he says, ‘What’s in your bag?’ and I’m all like, ‘I’m not gonna let this weirdo into my purse,’ and he says, ‘We need to check all packages,’ in his dumb voice, and that makes me so mad, because now I can’t go into town. What is searching random people supposed to accomplish?” Hilda sighed melodramatically. “It’s just for show, right? To show Seteth that we’re doing something. The knights are probably going to find Flayn, so they didn’t have to make us do all this extra work. And...” Hilda leaned down from her perch, conspiratorially close. “...Here’s what I heard: some students went missing last year too, and there was never all this crazy mess to find them! Some of them were never found! Isn’t that so scary?!”

Marianne stared into the table.

“Anyway, Marianne, what do you think of wyverns? Hey, do you think I should go into wyvern rider? We had that flying seminar last month, remember?”

“Um...wyverns are...” Marianne paused. She was unsure how Hilda expected her to answer the questions when she asked so many at once. “They’re...gentler than most people realize. And they’re as smart as horses, I think. If you mistreat them, they’ll remember. And if you’re nice to them...they’ll remember that, too.”

“Really? They must love you, then. Remember that seminar?” Hilda rolled her eyes, but with a grin, as if reminiscing fondly. “Everyone was scared to get off the ground, but that pegasus just let you on its back right away. It was amazing!” She leaned forward again, elbows on her knees, propping up her chin in her hands. “I just think wyverns are kind of cute, you know? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a wyvern buddy to carry you around everywhere?”

Marianne gave a weak smile. The change of topic was appreciated, but nothing could truly take her mind off Flayn. Even after eating, she was starting to feel dizzy again. Hilda hopped down from the table to sit next to her on the bench.

“Is there anything you want to do now?” she asked again, softly.

Marianne shook her head, looked into Hilda’s eyes for the first time that day, and then strong arms pulled her into a hug.

“Yeah, okay, okay, forget it. I know,” Hilda said into her shoulder. “We’re all worried, okay?”

“I just...don’t know what to do,” Marianne whispered.

“No one does, alright?” Hilda consoled her. “You don’t have to feel guilty about it.”

“But...”

Hilda pulled back to look at her face-to-face, arms still looped around Marianne’s neck. “You know, you’ve been listening to me complain. If you want to talk, I’m always here for you.”

She didn’t want to talk. She couldn’t. There was simply no way to explain the misfortune that her Crest brought. Instead, she hugged Hilda back, burying herself into her, and the two girls held each other in deep embrace, rocking on the bench until the guilt stopped burning her and instead found an outlet in tears.

The grief in her chest slowly loosened to a tolerable level until she was convinced her heart would no longer give out. In that instant, she allowed herself to believe she was safe, that she and Hilda could be safe together.

After a while, Hilda said, “What do you want, you goober? We’re having a moment.”

“You guys,” said the voice of Claude, with rare urgency, “the Blue Lions found Flayn. There’s a fight going on. Get to the infirmary, now. I’ll catch up to you later.”

Hilda and Marianne both gasped, then looked at each other, then quickly untangled themselves and set off running. Claude ran in the other direction, towards the student dormitories. The halls were barely crowded, but Hilda still didn’t hesitate to shove people aside as she ran, and Marianne struggled to follow as best she could. The two ran up to the second floor, Marianne nearly tripping as she ascended the stairs two at a time, only slowing down when in the quiet upstairs hallway. An ominous bloodstain decorated the door of the infirmary, which Hilda ignored as she kicked the doors open. Marianne’s eyes widened as she took in the scene.

Professor Manuela was lying still in one of the cots, covered in her own blood, with Dimitri kneeling at her side and Professor Hanneman presiding over them. Manuela’s dress was torn in places and heavy with blood in others, and a large section had been cut away to expose her flank. Dimitri was pressing a towel into Manuela’s side, applying intense pressure to an unseen injury. Hanneman himself seemed more ragged than usual.

“Hello, you two,” Hanneman said, without turning, as if they had simply encountered each other in the library. “I believe Miss Marianne can now stabilize Manuela, if you would please?”

Marianne nodded and steadied herself. She was still short of breath from their run, but forced herself to breathe slow—in through the nose, out through the mouth—calming herself enough to focus on the familiar hand motions that she had learned by rote. The faint smell of healing magic sprung through the air.

“Move your hands, please,” she instructed Dimitri.

Dimitri lifted his bloody towel away, exposing a lethal-looking wound, and Marianne lay her hands against Manuela’s side. The atmosphere in the room shifted ever-so-slightly as Manuela’s vitality reversed its flow, collecting back into her body, and the bleeding abruptly stopped. Marianne let out a breath, and then shivered as everyone else in the room did the same. Nerves would do that.

Manuela’s right hand twitched, then moved on its own, thin fingers exploring the bloody wound in her side. Without otherwise moving, she slowly growled, “The Death Knight stabbed me. Did you catch the bastard?”

“The Blue Lions are currently in pursuit,” Hanneman explained. “Beyond that, I’m afraid we haven’t anything to offer.”

Manuela scowled. “Of course not. Useless knights.” With some difficulty, she turned onto her side and grunted, “Which one of you patched me up?”

Hilda clapped Marianne on the shoulder and proudly announced, “It was her.”

“Good job. You’re getting bonus marks,” muttered Manuela. Speaking was obviously putting her in a lot of pain, so Marianne readied a second dose of healing magic and placed her hands on Manuela’s cold flesh. Manuela sighed as a wave of relief coursed through her, then made to sit up. “Now, I was—arghhh!”

“Try to stay still,” Hanneman advised her, tactfully, as she fell back into the cot, clutching her side and swearing. At the sound of Hanneman’s voice, Manuela snarled, or was perhaps gritting her teeth in pain. She tried to sit up again, but collapsed, hissing while clutching her side. Marianne began moving her hands a third time.

Manuela waved her away and faintly said, “That won’t do much. I think my rib is cracked. Which one of you was holding the towel?”

“Sorry,” said Dimitri, embarrassed. He held his bloodstained hands up in the air in front of him, not wanting to touch anything.

“Good job,” said Manuela again, wincing. “Most people are scared of hurting their fragile patient. They wouldn’t have applied enough pressure. You’re getting bonus marks, too.”

“Uh, I’m not actually...in your class.”

Hilda piped up, “Hey, can I get bonus marks? I did some stuff.”

“Please stay focused,” said Hanneman. “With the infirmary master incapacitated...” He gestured at Manuela, who glared at him. “...We must prepare to treat any wounded soldiers ourselves. You three, go and clean your hands thoroughly, then return here immediately.”

“Professor Hanneman,” Dimitri said urgently, “I don’t have much skill with medicine. And Claude should be back here any minute. I should go rejoin my class instead.”

Professor Hanneman gave Dimitri a once-over, eyeing the blood that ran down his front. “Fine. Go with prudence, then—but wash your hands first.”

Dimitri nodded and stepped backwards at the exact same second Marianne was following Hilda out the door. They collided with each other, and Dimitri awkwardly raised his wrists to avoid dirtying her uniform. Marianne stepped back, surprised, nearly falling over before salvaging herself against a wall.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” she yelped.

“Ah! Uh, apologies,” said Dimitri at the same time, taking a step back himself. With both of them standing diagonal to the doorway, they fell into a hesitant standoff, still unsure of who should exit first.

“Um...” she started.

Dimitri stammered, “I, er...admire your healing prowess. We couldn’t have saved Manuela without your help. Yes.”

“Um...thank you,” said Marianne. She couldn't fathom why he was wasting time talking to her when he had a fight to get to.

Dimitri hesitated, as if intending to say something further, but then ran down the hall in the direction of the stairs, nearly crashing into Hilda on his way out.

“Cute,” said Hilda. “Real cute.”

Chapter Text

For Dimitri, there was once a time when nightmares simply meant bad dreams.

Nightmares were nothing more than random displays of sights and sounds and memories, no different from any other dream. They were simply a normal function of the mind. Nightmares couldn’t escape the confines of the dreaming, they couldn’t affect his physical body, and they couldn’t scare anyone more than a child.

Until the day that they could.

Ever since he killed Sylvain’s brother, they had been coming back to him again. He awoke in a cold sweat, more humiliated than he was frightened. He had believed himself to be past this sort of thing, but apparently, his traitorous mind had no intention of ever letting him go. Even after almost two years, the details were still exactly as he remembered, in a scene as vivid as it was unforgettable. His younger body, freshly awkward and inadequate, only served to remind him of the man he was supposed to be, and he had to remain motionless after waking to give his arms and legs the minute needed to mentally adjust back to their true lengths. Only after he was sure of his body did he sit up in bed and stare into the dark, his annoyance and frustration directed mostly at himself.

He could only imagine how Sylvain was feeling. Like watching a bad dream come to life, indeed.

As it stood, Dimitri literally did not have the time to be traumatized. There was simply no room for it in his busy schedule.

He waved away the dead and lay still until the sun came up.

***

The pitchfork in her hands screeched as she scraped at the ground, gathering another clump of soiled bedding for the wheelbarrow. It was a dirty job, but nothing Marianne wasn’t used to. At least the horses always made their appreciation known.

More footsteps approached, and she straightened up, wondering if she would ever get through a shift without being interrupted by some passerby. She straightened up and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, preparing herself for interaction.

The footsteps wandered closer, and then the person standing in front of her was Dimitri. She allowed her shoulders to relax a bit.

Even on a free day, he still wore his school uniform, with his ceremonial blue cape flowing over his shoulder. She felt downright shoddy in comparison; her own outfit consisted of the dull tan scrubs of a stable hand, with thick trousers that bunched up around tall boots. It was a size too big, but it did a better job than her uniform would have at shielding her legs from muck. Dimitri waved at her in a casual manner.

“Good morning, Marianne,” he said. His other hand was concealed, clutching something down at his side.

She leaned her pitchfork against a wooden post. “Um...good morning, Dimitri.”

“I know it’s been a couple of days, but I wonder if you were still in need of these,” he said, and pulled a bundle of herbs out from beneath his cape. He held them up to her reverently, and Marianne’s eyes lit up with understanding.

“Oh!” she breathed. “These are...they’re...?”

“A uterine tonic, for Dorte’s friend?” said Dimitri. He looked down, not at her, but at the bundle in his own hand. “Yes. They’re extremely effective, I was told. Strong enough for a horse.”

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, then collected herself. “Um, I’m sorry if it was any trouble...”

“Please. It was no trouble at all.”

She took the herbs from him, passing him a smile. “Thank you,” she said again, quietly. “I can mix these into her feed, but, um...at lunchtime. I’ll put them away for now.”

She walked away from her pitchfork, going to a nearby storeroom walled with shelves full of brooms, reins, harnesses, loose stirrups, boxes of hand tools, and combs and brushes of every shape and size. Sacks of grain and piles of rope lay on the floor. Marianne took tall steps over the clutter to set the bundle of herbs down on a shelf. When she turned around, Dimitri was standing at the door, having followed her, and looking a little bit embarrassed.

“Marianne—” He cleared his throat. “Marianne, would you mind pointing me to the head office? I don’t actually know where anything is around here.”

Marianne looked past him. “The head office is close to the monastery. Next to the entrance to the knights’ quarters. Um...are you taking out a horse?”

“I hope so. I wanted to speak with the stable master about riding practice.”

That caught Marianne’s attention. “Um...” she ventured, “are you...interested? In horses?”

Dimitri nodded enthusiastically, beaming. “I’ve always been fascinated, to be honest. From childhood stories of knights and cavaliers, you know...but I’ve never really had a chance to train on horseback until coming to the academy.” Then, he added proudly, “I hope to qualify for paladin in time for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.”

It occurred to Marianne that his pride was unwarranted, since he hadn’t actually trained anything yet. Nevertheless, she found herself oddly at ease with the idea.

“I see,” she said, still demure as always. “Well, in that case, I’ll, um...I’ll see you around.”

***

Training himself in riding was nothing if not a refreshing experience. For one thing, he could no longer rely on his childhood training to effortlessly outpace his classmates, so it opened his eyes to how complacent he had become with his lance. But, Dimitri reminded himself daily, it wasn’t a competition. There was no metric for progress other than the steady, gradual improvements he was beating into himself through continued time and effort.

If he was already a genius with a lance, then mastery on horseback would increase his versatility tenfold. However, although Gustave had touched upon the subject before, Dimitri’s equestrian skills weren’t much more than a meager foundation on which he would have to build from scratch. Starting from the basics was a daunting challenge, one that he would readily face if it meant increasing his strength. Optimism was key, after all. How difficult could it be?

He wouldn’t have made half the progress he did, if it weren’t for Marianne’s help.

The girl practically lived in the stables. She never trained in riding herself, but she could almost always be found nearby, performing some chore or another, which was extremely convenient in the days when he needed assistance with nearly everything. She showed him the proper way to muck out the box stalls, the proper way to brush a coat, the proper way to feed the horses apples or sugar, all secrets that would have taken him weeks or months to learn on his own. Never once was it out of pity. For all her misgivings about humans, she had endless patience for animals; Dimitri could hardly believe she deigned to extend that patience to him.

“Horses are great listeners,” she told him. “You can form a bond that, um, goes with your voice. Is associated with your voice, I mean.”

Dimitri looked to her, intrigued. “What should I talk about?”

Marianne glanced away, a habit he’d by now taken as a cue to her discomfort. “Anything,” she muttered, an answer as evasive as it was inviting. “Everything. I just, um...I just talk about my day. Dorte likes hearing about that.”

They settled into a natural acquaintance, crossing paths almost daily, becoming accustomed to seeing each another in their shared space that was the stables. Her presence was more than just helpful, it was a veritable godsend. Marianne didn’t hesitate to drop what she was doing if he, or anyone else, needed help tacking up, or spreading feed, or preparing the horses for a wash. He found himself increasingly indebted to her, yet all the Kingdom’s coffers couldn’t pay back what he owed. There was no price that he could put on becoming stronger.

In any case, it mattered not. If she was capable of speaking fiercely, she would have fiercely refused any honoraria, so he didn’t insult her by offering. Instead, he hauled buckets of water and heavy bags of feed, jobs that she could do, but that he could hasten. Even as the weeks passed, she still thanked him every time without fail. Kind words—the only payment they would accept in exchange for kind actions.

She was secretive, but also sincere. When prompted, she openly admitted her belief that no one wanted to hear her speak. How ironic, Dimitri reflected, that her soft-spoken nature had affected him in the opposite way. Her voice was a rarity, so he clung to every word, every piece of her advice made all the more valuable for it.

“Your hair is kind of, um, long,” she mentioned offhand. “You should wear a headband, I think, when you’re shoveling.”

The next morning, he obediently showed up with his hair tied into a half-ponytail. His hair rarely tickled his eyes while sparring, but it had been a frequent problem when he was sweating through menial work. The difference was noticeable as he spent hours cleaning the dirtiest corners of Garreg Mach, wondering all the while why nobody had ever suggested this to him before. As for how Marianne had noticed his problem when he never even complained about it, that was a mystery in itself.

When he arrived on weekday afternoons for his scheduled training block, her absence was palpable. Dimitri had to remind himself that she was merely a volunteer, that there was no sense in expecting her to be there at all hours when they both had other classes, other obligations. Still, he smiled when he returned from the fields and saw Marianne standing atop a stepstool, weaving a simple braid out of an overgrown mane.

Preoccupied by her task, she didn’t hear Dimitri leading his steed back to its stall. The mare she was braiding craned its neck to nudge at her.

“Yes?” she asked the animal.

The mare blew air through its nose, communicating something inscrutable. Marianne looked over her shoulder to see Dimitri, standing and staring.

He waved. She waved back. He washed up and went to dinner, strangely energetic, as if he hadn’t just spent the past few hours in heavy exercise.

As they entered the Wyvern Moon, his efforts intensified. The Battle of the Eagle and Lion was no longer a distant notion, but a rapidly approaching deadline. He pared his time at the sparring grounds to the bare minimum, dropped sword practice altogether, and awoke early on every free day in pursuit of his newfound goal. Success was a habit. His days were consumed by training, and he threw himself into it like an obsession, eager to discover how much more he was capable of.

He was hesitant to call training a coping method, but spending time at the stables—and seeing Marianne—was a fantastic way of taking his mind off whatever it needed to be taken off of. Sylvain, too, was out there somewhere, undoubtedly indulging his own signature coping method, but Dimitri could hardly do something like that. It wasn’t just him and Sylvain, though. Their entire class seemed understandably shaken after surviving two harrowing missions in a row.

It briefly occurred to him that, as their leader, he probably should have been doing more to help everyone move on.

Then again, if he knew how to simply ‘move on,’ he would have already done so himself.

Like all good things, his mood failed to last forever. There was a reason why house leaders were exempted from extracurricular work, and that was because the three of them were already laden by their administrative duties. He made further cuts to his activities in a futile attempt to free up his schedule: research time in the library had to go, as did his sewing lessons with Mercedes. The latter half of a whole day was lost when the professor brought him to a meeting in Seteth’s office, where they spent hours poring over the paperwork needed to enroll Flayn in the Blue Lions. The timeframe only sounded reasonable after Seteth informed him that Edelgard had taken twice the time that he had. Monica von Ochs, the student rescued alongside Flayn, had proven frustratingly difficult to reintegrate into the Black Eagles, probably due to the fact that she was legally dead. After the meeting, Dimitri pulled the professor aside and all but begged her for a helping hand, for tutoring the war orphans of the monastery in beginner swordplay. That, out of everything, he was not willing to give up.

No matter how he sliced it, no matter how noble his intentions were, his workload was catching up to him. Word had spread of trouble back home, rumblings of bandits swarming villages, and now whispers of rebels in Duscur.

To be crunched by a constant string of demands, all needing his attention, each more stressful than the last...was this what it meant to be king?

In these times, stable duty was his refuge. It became a reward, rather than a chore; it was the only thing that could reliably still his restless mind. During one of his free days, he declined to participate in Flayn’s fishing tournament, and, upon arriving at the stables, was privately overjoyed to find that Marianne had done the same.

“I just...I’m not too fond of eating fish,” she admitted as they spread fodder along a feeding trough. “Actually, um, any kind of meat...”

Dimitri connected the pieces. “Because it was an animal?”

Marianne nodded curtly, relieved that he understood. Dimitri paused with his bag of feed in hand.

“I’ve never thought about it that way,” he said slowly. It was true. The idea was so thought-provoking, so uniquely emblematic of Marianne, that it had astonished him. Not eating meat? If people stopped eating meat, then half the population of Fódlan wouldn’t survive the coming winter. But nobles like them had stores of food that could sustain a homestead for months at a time. Was it still ethical to hunt animals for their meat when other foods were in surplus?

Pondering her words had often led Dimitri into nights of overthinking, and on that night in particular, he replayed their conversation over and over in his mind. Marianne didn’t care for the moral discussion, she just did what she thought was right.

It was then that he came to the long-overdue realization of exactly why Marianne’s presence felt so freeing. When it occurred to him, he sat upright in bed, not understanding how he had missed it before.

It was so simple. She didn’t expect him to put up his face. It wasn’t the stables that could calm his mind, it was her.

Even in the stables, there was the need to play in the politics of the Officer’s Academy, in their juvenile rendition of a system that was already petty to begin with. Encountering Ferdinand or Lorenz would entail enough noble posturing for ten people. Even Sylvain needed a face to talk to, so Dimitri had put up his, and the two of them both pretended that Sylvain hadn’t spent the past month on a self-destructive bender. After all, friendship between young nobles now could mean good relations between their territories for decades to come. Likewise, a spiteful grudge between teenagers could spiral into extortive trade agreements, snubbed treaties, or straight-up war.

Nepotism begat nepotism. Companionship was a competition. It was honestly quite disgusting.

Marianne didn’t care for any of it. Her only ambitions were to not bother anyone, to live quietly, and to cherish any animal fortunate enough to cross her path. There was no need for either of them to fake a laugh or force a conversation. When she spoke, she spoke from the heart. Without realizing it, she had taught him to do the same. He didn’t have to act like the prince of Faerghus around her because she simply didn’t care.

And if Marianne didn’t care, then neither would he.

The next morning, he took perverse pleasure in yawning directly in her face. Yawning was an irrevocably rude gesture, a sign of impudence and disrespect, a faux pas of the highest order. Over and over he yawned, relishing in such a rebellious action, practically daring her to slap or reprimand him. Any other noble would have had him crucified.

“Did you, um, get enough sleep?”

Her voice was sympathetic, not sarcastic. Dimitri could have laughed out loud.

In a moment of sleep-deprived insanity, he briefly considered telling her his truth about the nightmares and all the other things that kept him up at night. Clarity quickly set in. She had drawn out his true face, yes, but that didn’t mean she should be burdened with it.

When he had delivered the birthing herbs, she had smiled at him. Since then, she had graced him with her smile only a few times, and only on monumental occasions, each memory a cause for celebration in Dimitri’s mind. More than anything, he feared never seeing that smile again.

This girl didn’t realize her smile could uplift even the sorriest of sinners. She deserved better than his fearful ramblings of death and nightmares and men turning into beasts.

***

She was shut away in her room, struggling through homework, when someone knocked on the door.

Marianne hesitated, trying to imagine who it could possibly be. Hilda would have just barged in. Everyone else was at dinner. Whoever they were, they knocked again.

“Marianne, are you awake?” called Professor Byleth.

“Y-yes,” she answered, so quietly that the professor probably couldn’t hear her through the door. She stumbled away from her desk and opened up. A familiar blank stare greeted her in the hallway.

“Sorry to disturb you,” said Byleth. “There is something urgent I need to discuss.”

The worst possibilities started racing through Marianne’s mind, of death and disappearances and the like. Panic took ahold of her. What business did she have that was so urgent that the professor needed to skip dinner to speak to her about it?

The professor, oblivious to her dread, stared through her and continued, “Can you assist the Blue Lions on a mission for the next couple of days?”

Marianne exhaled, and placed a hand on the door frame to prevent herself from falling over. A mission. She wasn’t expelled, she wasn’t exposed. A mission.

Trying to sound curious instead of anxious, she stuttered out, “Um...what’s the mission?”

“There has been an uprising in the Duscur region,” said Byleth. Her voice had taken on all the seriousness of a military briefing, a holdover from her days of commanding mercenaries instead of students. “We’re going to intervene. No fighting—this is strictly a peacekeeping mission. Your healing magic would be invaluable, Marianne. Will you join us?”

Marianne chewed on the inside of her cheek. When the professor put it like that, how could she possibly refuse?

“Um...okay. I’ll come.” She remembered her homework. “Sorry, I mean, if Professor Hanneman lets me...”

“Thank you, Marianne. Don’t worry about Hanneman, I’ll talk it over with him. We leave tomorrow before sunrise, so start packing your kit.”

Marianne’s jaw must have fallen open, because the professor looked a bit apologetic, a rare show of emotion cracking through her face.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you so suddenly, but it really is urgent,” said Byleth. “If you need to sleep, you can ride in the convoy on the way there.”

“Um, actually,” Marianne blurted, surprising herself with her own forwardness, “I think I can wake up on time. I’ll be fine on a horse, professor.”

***

The next morning, Marianne pulled herself out of bed at an ungodly hour and grabbed her school uniform out of reflex. She was already half-dressed before realizing her mistake. Hurriedly, she changed into her priest’s robes, and her uniform ended up scattered on her bed, where it would likely sit for the next three days. She would have folded it and hung it up if not for worry over being late. With her saddlebags in hand, she rushed down to the stables, frustrated at how she had already managed to go wrong on such an important day.

She had lain in bed after packing, trying in vain to go to sleep early, but regret had kept her awake. A couple of days was a lot longer than it sounded, especially if she would be surrounded by virtual strangers the entire time. Sure, she knew some of them, but there would be pressure to make friends, and they would feel obliged to open up their tight-knit group to accommodate her—except that was the last thing she wanted them to do.

Her curse hadn’t been affecting anyone too strongly as of late. The reprieve should have assuaged her, but instead it only worried her. If she concentrated, she could practically feel the curse festering in her blood—the calm before the storm, lying dormant like a hibernating beast, or as a bandit waiting to ambush an unlucky traveler.

Maybe meeting a new group would cause it to flare up, and the Blue Lions would all suffer horrible deaths, and then the Golden Deer would win the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Then, Claude and Professor Hanneman would congratulate her on actually making her Crest useful for once.

The bitterness of her own thoughts bothered her, even though she knew where it was coming from. Being with a new group was nothing short of deliberately spreading misfortune. And the idea that she could participate in a peacekeeping mission, that her presence would make things better instead of worse...it was simply nauseating.

But the professor had requested her especially. Nausea was simply something that she would have to deal with throughout the whole trip, starting as soon as the Blue Lions fell over each other in their eagerness to welcome her.

She knew Dimitri, of course. A couple of others, Ashe and Mercedes, recognized her from their frequent trips to the cathedral. Flayn, alive and well, had apparently joined the class, and her greeting was so charming that Marianne forgot about her apprehension for a moment. The rest of them introduced themselves with all the chivalry of aspiring knights, with the exception of a moody-looking boy sulking alone in a corner.

“That’s Felix. Just ignore him,” Annette had told her.

Marianne had nodded in acknowledgement, relieved that at least one person would be staying away.

Dorte stood waiting, already kitted out with her saddlebags. The class was nearly ready to depart, so she was double checking the harnessing of the draft horse, just to give herself something to do. Dimitri, Sylvain and herself would be on their own horses, while Ingrid would take to the skies on her pegasus, and the professor would be driving the convoy wagon with the rest of the class as her passengers.

Marianne had wanted to have a word with Dimitri, but he was nowhere to be found—it seemed that she would have to wait until they were on the road. Probably, he was somewhere with the professor, discussing the logistics of their mission before they moved out. He always gave her the impression of being industrious, not just because he was a house leader, but because whenever he was in the stables Marianne could see how badly he needed something to fill his restless hands. If he was idle, then he would go find something to pick details out of. At least his skill with equestrianism had tangibly improved ever since he started volunteering with her. He had readied himself even faster than her, using the extra time to brush behind the ears of his steed, before vanishing.

“Hey,” someone growled.

Marianne whirled around, startled. Felix had somehow crept up on her, and now the draft horse was glaring at him, and she felt like doing the same. A hostile feeling took hold in her gut. Everything about Felix’s body language was confrontational, like he was begging everyone in the vicinity to fight him.

So much for staying away.

“I’ll just get this over with,” he spat. “Listen. I know why you’re here, so I’ll just tell you. The boar prince isn’t the man you think he is.”

“What?” she uttered, taken aback. Almost instantly, she regretted even responding.

Felix narrowed his eyes at her. “I’ve known Dimitri for longer than almost anyone, so let me give you some advice. Beneath all that princely polish, he’s an animal, nothing more. Get too close, and he’ll rip you apart.”

Trying to stay calm, she said the first thing that came to her mind. “I like animals.”

Felix’s scowl deepened, but she stayed defiant under his gaze. Finally, he threw his hands in the air in frustration. Marianne watched him walk away, visibly angry, and nearly felt her own anger building up until the draft horse whinnied to her. She rested a hand on his withers, grateful for the support.

In a way, she was grateful to Felix as well. It had been years since anyone had threatened her face-to-face. She appreciated the reminder. It was nothing she hadn’t experienced before.

But for some reason, when Dimitri was the one being threatened, her blood had started to boil.

***

“Here,” commanded the professor. “We’ll camp here.”

“Finally,” Sylvain groaned, and recklessly leapt from his horse in a way that annoyed Marianne. She was pleased to see Dimitri dismounting properly, and encouraged Dorte to trot up close to him before alighting herself. Ahead of them, Ingrid touched down to the grass. Professor Byleth was still barking out orders.

“Mercedes, help Ashe with the fire. Felix, Sylvain, go fetch water from the river. Flayn, stay here. Everyone else, set up your tents.” Marianne stood still, unfamiliar of her role in all this, and the professor met her eye. “Marianne, you’re with me.”

“R-right,” she murmured, and the professor hopped down from the wagon and approached. Dimitri, rummaging through his own saddlebags, spared her a glance that looked almost pitying, which somewhat terrified her.

“Marianne, where would you keep the animals for the night?” Byleth asked, and gestured to her chosen campsite. Marianne studied the area before her. It was a small, grassy clearing on a riverbank, enclosed by trees, and only a brief distance from the road. It was close to a water source, but also reasonably flat and elevated. Snow might have been a problem, but there wasn’t any yet at this time of year. The professor had chosen a good spot for them. Now all she had to do was fit their horses into the equation.

Marianne breathed in. “That grove,” she said, pointing. “The trees are in a cluster, but also far apart, so we can tie a separate picket line for each horse. So the horses don’t agitate each other. Um, the horses and one pegasus, I mean. And, um...” She wondered how much of an explanation the professor was expecting. “...It’s not so close to the river that they’ll be distracted by the water.”

“Very good,” said Byleth, emotionlessly. “Let’s go tie the line, then.” She went back to the wagon to retrieve coils of rope, and Marianne was left standing there, stunned. She had expected an argument, or a correction—not for the professor to quickly agree with her assessment. She turned back to Dorte to search her own saddlebags, and Dimitri leaned close.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I should have known she would test you. It’s...kind of her job.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered back. “Um...I don’t really mind.”

“Oh, but—but you handled that extremely well!” Dimitri insisted. “I mean, that was simply a fantastic answer. I wouldn’t have been able to pick out that spot.”

“Well...” Marianne began, but then her fingers found the rope she was searching for. She glanced at Dimitri, and thanked the Goddess that he was one of the only people who didn’t mind when she ran off in the middle of a conversation. He nodded at her in understanding, and she jogged to catch up to the professor.

She didn’t want to admit it, but Felix’s wayward threat had affected her more than she would have liked. Throughout the morning, it had rankled in her mind, destroying her desire to talk to Dimitri while they were both on horseback. Talking on horseback was difficult anyways, unless both people shouted, which she didn’t have a mind to do.

There had been an opportunity to speak with him when their group stopped in a small village for lunch and information, but they only exchanged pleasantries before she went off alone to stare into nature, pretending to be interested in the foreign landscape. She prayed that no one would speak with her the rest of the day, a wish partially granted when the professor returned with news.

The situation had changed. Fighting had broken out again. And since every lodging in Kleiman territory would be occupied by soldiers, they needed to press on until sundown and then camp at the foot of the mountains. No one had time to speak when they were rushing along at reckless speeds, but now that they were settled in and the sun had finally set, she was going to be forced to socialize.

They were literally sitting around a campfire. Marianne couldn’t have imagined a more social situation if she tried.

“Hey, Marianne, you cold?” Sylvain called out. He sat on his haunches in front of the fire, poking it with a stick.

Marianne shook her head. “I’m fine.”

Ignoring Ingrid’s dirty look, Sylvain persisted. “Hey, do you wanna know how to make fire? If you want, I could teach you how to keep warm.” He winked, maybe. It was hard to tell in the flickering light.

“Um...I know how to build a fire,” said Marianne. Some faces looked at her in surprise, but she didn’t elaborate.

“How did you learn that?” Ashe questioned. “Professor Hanneman doesn’t seem like the most outdoorsy person. Uh, no offense.”

“Um, I already knew it. I used to...spend a lot of time in the forest.”

“Really? That’s so cool!” exclaimed Annette. “You’re from Edmund, right? That’s, um...”

“Across the bay from Fraldarius,” Ingrid supplied.

“Right!” continued Annette, without missing a beat. “What’s it like there?”

Marianne stopped for a second to collect her thoughts. The peppy orange girl spoke very, very fast. It was borderline unfair how much she needed to struggle just to keep up.

“Edmund is...um, kind of small. It’s mostly just one port city. Um...everything else is just forest.” She mentally kicked herself for sounding so detached, like a traveler’s guidebook. “...When I was small, my parents and I used to go swimming in the bay.”

She caught Dimitri’s eye from across the fire. He was listening intently, captivated by the mention of her childhood, and her tongue froze in her mouth. In all their time together, the topic of her past had never come up.

Flayn cheerfully broke the silence. “Ah! I myself was raised on the shore. It is good to know that others yet heed the call of the ocean.” She stared dreamily at Marianne. “Our days were filled with swimming and fishing...”

“Hey, not everyone got to do that,” objected Sylvain. “To fish where I’m from, you’d have to punch a hole in the ice.”

“But you learned how to swim, didn’t you?” Mercedes asked him.

Marianne stared at her feet, relieved the conversation was no longer pointed at her. The entire class was rubbing shoulders around the fire, save for Felix, who had gone off to practice his sword swings in the dark. On the other side of the fire, Dimitri, Dedue and Byleth were all sitting silently, and she wished she could join them. Dimitri never pressured her for being bad at talking, but that was a luxury that she didn’t have when she was the new girl facing down the rest of his class.

Maybe in time, but not tonight.

Eventually, Byleth did speak up, to assign the night watch and order everyone to bed. Flayn was sleeping in the professor’s tent—Seteth trusted no one else—and Annette and Mercedes were together, which left Marianne with Ingrid. She climbed into her bedroll, still feeling like she was intruding, although Ingrid assured her she was doing nothing of the sort.

“If anything, I’d say you’re doing me a favor,” Ingrid told her. “Before you came along, all the girls were in one tent, and Annette snores. And Mercedes also snores. Those two are perfect for each other.”

“Um...”

“Oh, but that’s enough about me. I hope everyone in our class was nice to you, Marianne, I really do. I know it must be tough to have us dragging you around, but you haven’t even complained or anything.”

“Well, everyone is so...nice...” she said, but her voice trailed off.

“Everyone but Felix?” guessed Ingrid. When Marianne didn’t answer, she laughed wryly into the dark. “I’m sorry about him. He’s not in a good mood. Well, I suppose he never is, but he...he really doesn’t like being back in Duscur.” After a few seconds’ silence, she solemnly added, “I guess I don’t either, if I’m being honest.”

Marianne nodded, then remembered that Ingrid couldn’t see her.

“Um...I’m sorry,” she lamely replied. She didn’t know what for, but Ingrid’s voice had carried a heavy sense of loss.

“Thank you,” Ingrid muttered into her pillow. “Just...never mind. We have a long day tomorrow. Good night, Marianne.”

“Good night,” she agreed.

As Marianne drifted off to sleep, she remembered something. As a matter of fact, they had slept next to each other before. Their bedrooms, on the second floor of the student dormitories, were literally right next to each other, yet they had never even exchanged words until today. But, if Ingrid was gracious enough to not mention this fact, then neither would she.

***

For Dimitri, there was once a time when nightmares simply meant bad dreams.

That changed after the Tragedy of Duscur.

The first time, he didn’t understand what was happening—it couldn’t have been a dream, because it was so real. He awoke in an unfamiliar place, kicking, sweating, confused as to where he was, and Rodrigue had to restrain him personally until he stopped crying. The next night, it happened again. Before a week’s passing, a guard had been posted by his bedside, later increased to two guards, then six. It was months before he could sleep for more than a few hours without waking in fear.

Together, the dead formed something monstrous, a congruent demon made of faces; faces that he knew by heart, that he knew every detail of. They interrogated him relentlessly, demanding things that he couldn’t possibly provide. They spoke to him in a way no dream could, in cries for vengeance and mercy and death all at once. Miklan had added his scarred face to the dead, sneering at him before he was consumed by the monstrous bile, the creeping, living muscle that crawled up Dimitri’s body, all the way up to his eyes, forming a hand over his nose, suffocating him, he couldn’t breathe—

“Your Highness.”

Dimitri scrambled in place, thrashing against his tangled blanket. His desperate kicks were restrained by the bedroll, and he panicked, nearly yelling out until Dedue placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Your Highness,” Dedue said again, quietly. “You were having a nightmare.”

“Duscur,” Dimitri panted between shallow breaths.

He had failed. The soldiers of Duscur had been beaten back, and could only retreat as the Kingdom Army advanced on them, laughing and jeering, no better than a pack of beasts playing with their food. It wasn’t a battle, it was a bloodbath. Dimitri had thrown himself in between the two armies, willing to take swords and arrows and magic from both sides if it meant just one more soldier could escape.

It wasn’t enough. Too many had died.

He had failed.

This was what it meant to be king. To throw your life on the line to save your people, and to discover with your own eyes that it was not enough. The dead soldiers would not let him forget. Surely, he would be seeing them again in his dreams.

Nightmares weren’t supposed to follow you into the waking world. They did so anyways. Even now, his father was before him, screaming for vengeance, screaming at Dimitri for wasting his time on practice tournaments, on birthing herbs, on leisurely horse rides when his death was still unavenged.

Dimitri, more humiliated then frightened, resisted the urge to listen. The last time he had listened was two years ago, at Felix’s side, in the midst of an unforgivable slaughter.

Felix’s immeasurable disgust had taught him to never let his face slip again.

Chapter Text

The first thing she did after returning to the monastery was pray. The cathedral at Garreg Mach had a grander ambience that she could not fully describe—prayers offered here seemed more likely to reach the Goddess’s ears, rewarding the faithful who had made long pilgrimages, yet Marianne never felt more like an imposter. Three days’ worth of saved confessions spilled forth, and it was humbling to discover that once her pent-up regret had run dry it gave way to anger. Marianne dared not offer the Goddess her sarcasm, but between bouts of begging for forgiveness she had come dangerously close.

How fortuitous it was that Dimitri had merely been wounded, rather than outright killed! The boy who wanted to work with horses had instead encountered a different kind of beast; the beast lurking in her blood, and yet she had knowingly clung to his side and stayed his company like a greedy fool. The hours they had spent together were more than she could recall, but she knew for certain that it would have been enough for any other sickness to kill any other person.

In the midst of rebellion, her curse must have addled his mind, rousing a dangerous recklessness previously unseen. Dimitri took one look at the rocky terrain and ran off on foot, leaving Marianne to desperately tie his horse to the convoy. Far removed from the boy in the stables, it was ferocity she had not imagined him capable of, as he ran wild across the battlefield to scream orders at enemies and allies alike, with zero regard for his own safety. He could only place himself between the soldiers and their prey so many times before sustaining his own wounds, and yet, he persisted so frantically in trying to be everywhere at once.

A Duscur rebel retreating through the mountains found himself trapped between a cliff and the Kingdom army. He chose the cliff. Soldiers descended, like scavengers come to pick the entrails from carrion, and found Marianne kneeling with him in the dirt. It was difficult to focus on setting the rebel’s twisted ankle as Dimitri stood guard over her, clutching his lance, screaming his injustice, with anger practically rolling off him in waves until the soldiers finally gave up.

He would not hear her thanks, for he was already running off to find the next crisis. Sometime later, he staggered back with more arrows and less blood than Marianne had ever seen in a person’s body, and she faltered.

Even as Mercedes began mending Dimitri’s injuries without so much as a gasp, she could not move. Her hands lay by her side, cold and immobile. Guilty sweat ran down her neck with the realization—the recognition—that her curse had come into bloom, that misfortune had struck him at last, that this was the inevitable result of their time together. Dimitri’s bleeding body collapsed in front of her was all their friendship could ever amount to.

In the end, they all came back to her.

Only the professor was stoic enough to call the mission a success. Nobody argued. The class was broken and weary on the road back to the monastery, but Dimitri seemed a special case. Marianne watched him nearly fall off his horse several times, and he admitted to her quietly that he had barely slept in his tent last night, not elaborating beyond that.

Marianne had nodded, because there was frustratingly little else she could do.

The second thing she did after returning to the monastery was go to the library. No one had explained to her what the Tragedy of Duscur actually was, and asking the Blue Lions about it was out of the question, that much she had picked up on. She recalled the phrase, vaguely, from the gossiping of her adoptive father. It would come up in conversation at dinner parties, always in polite whispers to other nobles about politics and economies and bloodlines that Marianne could barely follow along with. The only thing that her adoptive father made clear was that every loss was an opportunity in disguise. Whether it was his own loss or somebody else’s mattered not.

She supposed that distancing oneself was the logical view of a statesman. Yet when she witnessed Dimitri risking his life, it was as if his wounds had cut into her own body as well, logic be damned. How could she possibly distance herself? His pain was so acute, she could feel it as if it were her own. And if she had worsened his suffering by means of her curse, then she needed to understand. Through her own insatiable, morbid curiosity, she had to understand exactly what had been done to him.

She pulled down a tome about the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, with her heart beating more nervous and erratic with each flipped page until it finally sank with grief.

The royal family, killed by traitors. Their young prince, the only survivor. Somehow, she had never before connected the pieces.

These names, these faces...they didn’t belong to the imposing, legendary monarchs studied in class. They belonged to Dimitri’s mother and father. Marianne rested a thumb on a portrait of the late King Lambert. Even in this copied drawing, Dimitri’s features were unmistakable. It was a preview of the man Dimitri would one day grow up to be, after the world had already been foisted on his shoulders, with his parents already reduced to two sets of dates on a family tree. The latter date was shared between them—killed on the same day. Marianne stared at the page. Even with the facts right in front of her, it was impossible to conflate the Dimitri she knew with this...this cold, unfeeling story in a history book.

Dimitri was her classmate, who shared smiles and kindness, who still smiled even as he helped her brush the horses and scrub out their ordure. He was close to her. The Tragedy of Duscur was far. Historic, even. This couldn’t possibly be his whole story. It couldn’t.

Ingrid, Dedue, Felix...everyone had suffered so greatly, and she had wallowed in their presence for a weekend, oblivious. Dimitri was the hardest suffering of all, and she had cursed him to nearly die in the same place where he had already nearly died four years ago.

She shut the book forcefully and slotted it back onto the shelf. It was clear what she needed to do. It would happen the next time she met Dimitri in the stables. She crept out of the library, turning over frantic thoughts in her head when she saw him.

Dimitri sat at one of the desks with a massive tome splayed out in front of him. He caught sight of Marianne and immediately broke into a broad smile. Marianne froze.

“Marianne!” he exclaimed. Pleasantly surprised. Cordial. Far too loud for a library. “I didn’t expect to see you here so late. Do you come to the library often? I myself haven’t been here in a while...”

Marianne tried to respond, but her tongue offered nothing. This was too early, too unplanned. She hadn’t even fully processed what she had learned. She stared at Dimitri, dread washing over her. This was wrong, things were going to go wrong. She planned for the stables, where she would be prepared, where she would have her words ready in advance, but this—he had caught her unawares, and in a quiet place like the library where it felt as if she couldn’t plead without the whole world hearing her.

A deer, cornered by a lion. Her mouth unwittingly opened as the lion shut his book and stood up, towering a head taller than her. “Marianne?”

“Dimitri,” she said. Her voice was wet and ragged. “Um, I...I n-need to tell you something.”

“Of course.”

Marianne suddenly hated the gentleness in his voice, propped up to cover his worry that must have lain beneath. Why did he waste his concern on her? “I-I can’t stay with you anymore,” she said, and immediately cursed her choice of words. “I can’t, um...work with you anymore. I have to...I have to quit stable duty.”

Dimitri’s face fell with betrayal, but he kept control of his voice. “Marianne, what...prompted this decision?”

Marianne took a deep gulp of air, trying not to let her own voice quaver. Her throat wavered on paralysis, but she had to make him understand. “You were injured when you came to our aid.”

“That?” Dimitri crossed his arms. “It was just a scratch. A small price to pay for your safety.”

“But...”

“I would never regret helping an ally, even if it meant losing my own life,” he said sincerely, and Marianne’s blood started burning. He was so reckless, so deadly serious. There was no way to turn him from this path.

“No, no. That’s wrong.”

“How so?”

“It’s just all wrong,” she said weakly. Someone like him, with so much responsibility to live up to...the Goddess would never forgive her if she caused him to throw away his life. “You have my thanks for helping in the battle, Dimitri. But I’m afraid I have to ask that you keep your distance from me.”

He tilted his head down. “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Dimitri drew her eyes to his. “Forgive me,” he said, still frustratingly gentle, “but I will be there for you. Whether you want me to or not.”

He grabbed his tome from the desk and disappeared into the bookshelves, punctuating his finality. Gone, before he could say any more foolish things. Marianne blinked back tears.

“I’m sorry...” she whispered.

If he knew it was for his own safety, would he still have looked so heartbroken?

***

The house leaders gathered together at the at the edge of Gronder Field, standing tall and proud. Their meeting had been unplanned, yet the three of them fell into it quite easily, eager to exchange words before exchanging blows. Dimitri breathed in, calming the nerves he needed to maintain his friendly face. Something had happened to his face over the past week—without his noticing, all the emotion in his life had been drained away. Where it had gone, he had no idea.

“Remember, we’re not just fighting for honor,” Claude reminded them. “There’s a prize at stake!”

Edelgard smiled. “Well. I’m glad you’re motivated. It might make this a little more interesting.”

“Don’t claim victory just yet,” warned Dimitri. “I am not about go easy on you today.”

“Excellent!” said Edelgard smugly. “Defeating anything less than your full power would be unsatisfying. Make no mistake. The Black Eagles will emerge victorious today—even against you, professor.”

Professor Byleth was at Dimitri’s side, silently watching over the three of them. Professor Manuela was still healing from her broken rib, and Professor Hanneman had chosen to sit out, leaving Byleth as the only professor participating in the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. Dimitri still felt bad about injuring Manuela, but she harbored no spite towards him beyond joking that she trained her students to specifically target him as payback.

At least, he hoped she was joking. But he wasn’t about to let Edelgard know that.

“I gotta agree with the prince on this one,” said Claude. “If you’re bragging, it means you’ve already lost. So by all means, keep doing it.”

Edelgard’s eyes sparkled. “I don’t misrepresent my own strength, Claude. There’s a difference between guile and confidence. You would do well to remember that.”

“I’m plenty confident, no guile needed. But it certainly helps.” Claude punctuated his boasting with a wink. “All you guys have to do...is call your hits.”

Dimitri frowned. “I wouldn’t have imagined you a stickler for the rules, Claude.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve read the rules a thousand times. Everything I do today will be legal.”

“Let’s keep this a nice, clean battle,” interrupted Byleth.

“Of course, professor,” said Edelgard.

“Yeah, yeah,” Claude agreed slyly.

“It is almost time to begin,” Dimitri said. “Claude, Edelgard...I hope to meet both of you on the field.”

Edelgard nodded. “Likewise.”

“Same here,” said Claude. “Just remember, guys...call your hits!”

***

As Dimitri rode up the central hill, surrounded by allies, he carried the full power of the Blue Lion house at his back. Leading his miniature army of squires and pages and commoners and nobles alike...he supposed he should have been enjoying the feeling, like a real leader would have, but instead felt only a dull frustration at having to be here in the first place. So much fuss, just for a mock battle.

His horse was having some trouble climbing the steep terrain, so Felix and the professor had outpaced him to the top, where they had already engaged with Black Eagle students for control of the ballista. Standard sparring rules applied, but the chaotic fight was anything but a standard spar. Dimitri nudged his steed, prompting a burst forward that allowed him to surprise a distracted enemy with a jab to the shoulder. To his left, Dedue circled around to push the remaining Black Eagles into retreating down the hill, as arrows bounced harmlessly off his armor. The professor advanced on Bernadetta with the Sword of the Creator, and her bow clattered to her feet as she stuck her arms in the air.

“Eek! I’m dead! I surrender!”

Felix scoffed at her. “Why did they think it was a good idea to have you leading the charge?”

“I don’t know,” said Bernadetta, completely miserable. “Oh, Bernie, you’re no good...”

“No talking while dead,” the professor calmly reminded them, without taking her eyes off the bottom of the hill. Around her, Sylvain and Ashe took up their positions, cementing Blue Lion control. Something like satisfaction rung in Dimitri’s mind, and it occurred to him that if he acted like he cared about winning, then maybe they actually would. They had pushed the Black Eagles off the hill, and the Golden Deer hadn’t even shown up. Objectively, the battle was off to a fantastic start.

Annette snatched up an arrow that had fallen to the ground. “Don’t feel bad, Bernie. At least you got a shot off!”

“Huh?” Bernadetta stared at her. “But I didn’t, though. That’s not mine.”

Dimitri took a second look at the arrow clutched in Annette’s fingers. It was a standard practice arrow, with a blunted tip for safety, only someone had painted the wooden shaft a bright yellow color. He and the professor glanced at each other.

“Oh, Claude...” he cursed.

***

Leonie cackled to herself as she loosed another arrow. Behind her, Marianne and Hilda watched the spectacle unfold.

Claude’s plan had been brilliant in its simplicity: they didn’t have the numbers of the Black Eagles or the raw power of the Blue Lions, but they did have the range advantage thanks to the Leicester Alliance’s longstanding tradition of archery. Claude had ordered the hired battalions and less-skilled junior students to simply hang back and rain arrows en masse, picking off the other houses without any risk to themselves. When the two other classes contacted each other, the Golden Deer began sending arrows randomly up the hill in hopes of stealing kills from both sides.

It was a clever strategy that played to their strengths. As a priest, Marianne was to stay in the back, and Hilda had shirked her own position to come join her. The two girls hid behind a tree, with Marianne weary and Hilda enthusiastically cheering her classmates on.

“Nice shot, Leonie!” she screamed, even though they were right next to each other. Leonie smirked in response.

Anyone who tried crossing the southern field of Gronder would find themselves under fire from a battalions’ worth of arrows. A reckless cavalier broke from the Black Eagles and galloped across the flat plain, too fast to get a bead on. When he reached the forest in which the archers had sheltered themselves, he readied his lance, only for Raphael to step out from behind a tree and grab him off his horse, throwing him to the ground.

“Yeah, get him, Raphael!” Hilda screamed.

“You’re dead, pal,” Raphael told the cavalier, then noticed Marianne’s concern for his steed. “Take your horse and get outta here.”

The student meekly nodded and began walking off the battlefield, with one hand raised in the air to indicate his defeat. Marianne carefully analyzed the way he was leading his horse, because she sorely missed working in the stables, plus she had nothing better to do.

Even though it was technically the most important day of their school year, Marianne was bored. Or rather, she just wanted the day to be over. The Battle of the Eagle and Lion was for future knights and lords, not for girls like her who were going to be married off as soon as they graduated. She was fine with sitting away from the battle and healing. She could barely even cast offensive magic anyway, save for some weak Nosferatu spells that she didn’t intend on using today. Even if someone somehow broke through the lines, she would throw up her hands and surrender without a fight, just so they could all go home sooner.

An eerie silence fell over the field as all three houses took time to regroup. By now, the Black Eagles had realized that the Golden Deer were making themselves a difficult target, and the Blue Lions had decisively conquered the hill, so there would be a standoff until somebody made a move. Claude himself emerged from the thickets, unnervingly calm for his place on a battlefield.

“Hilda, come on. It’s almost time to do the thing.”

“What, already?” whined Hilda. She sighed, then motioned for Marianne to follow her. “Fine, let’s go.”

Marianne acquiesced silently, following Hilda through the forest. Claude was speaking quickly, giving complex orders to their classmates for maneuvers that would encircle the hill. “Okay, Lorenz,” he said. “You can go lead that charge you so desperately wanted to, now.”

“Finally,” Lorenz complained, and kicked his horse to start a canter. His battalion rallied around him, and Marianne watched as groups of students fought around the hill, dodging projectiles from the ballista. Only she, Hilda and Lysithea remained at Claude’s side.

“Marianne, stick with me,” Claude ordered. “Cast physic on those guys.” He nocked an arrow and fired it at the hill, aiming carefully even over the huge distance. In between shots, he spoke. “Lysithea, are you ready to do the thing?”

“Of course I am,” she snapped, annoyed that he dared question her ability. Claude grinned and loosed another arrow.

“Okay, looks like Lorenz is halfway up there. Go, go, go!”

Lysithea raised her hands, and Marianne watched as Hilda disappeared in a flash of light.

***

In the center of the field, Dimitri and Dedue stood firm against the assault. The Golden Deer had finally made a move, sending a charge to punch their way up the hill, and Dimitri gritted his teeth as his horse bucked on the uneven ground, while Dedue held his shield up to block a neverending rain of arrows. The Leicester students were already dangerous enough with simple bows in their hands. If they gained the high ground advantage and the ballista, taking the hill back would be near impossible. Dimitri could just barely make out Claude’s figure at the edge of the forest, watching and sending arrows into the fight. Suddenly, a strange pink light flashed, and Claude’s posse was unmistakably smaller by one person.

Dimitri’s jaw dropped in shock. He and Annette and the professor had considered hundreds of scenarios and battle plans, and yet it had never once occurred to them that Claude would utilize something as arcane as warp magic.

“SURPRISE, BITCHES!” Hilda screamed, and slammed the flat head of her axe into Felix’s lightly-armored stomach with much more force than was really necessary. Felix doubled over, eyes bugging out, dropping his sword and gasping for breath. Dimitri hesitated, torn in two directions at once, and barely came to his senses in time to dodge a thrown spear. Hilda had bypassed their defenses entirely, and he couldn’t direct his steed fast enough to block her attack. Even now, she was moving to strike at their rearguard healers who could hardly raise their hands to protect themselves, being as paralyzed by indecision as the rest of the class.

But then the professor was there, inexplicably standing guard on the top of the hill, and Hilda had only knocked Mercedes to the ground before the professor disarmed her in return. Ingrid swooped down seconds later to back her up, and Dimitri, relieved, focused back on the fight in front of him.

Hilda had eliminated Felix and Mercedes, yes, but if not for the professor their losses would have been so much worse. Bolstered by the professor’s protection, Dimitri steeled himself to retaliate. If Claude thought he could defeat them with a cheap shot at their healers, then it was time to pay him back in kind. Dedue and Sylvain had beaten back the offensive, and now the Blue Lions were charging down the hill to rout the disordered Golden Deer, decimating the archers at close range. Dimitri charged through the chaos, instinctively dodging an arrow flying by his head, grateful that he had practiced unpredictable riding patterns.

Claude was fixed in his sights. Lance in hand, he charged in at top speed, intent on tearing right through Claude and his healers with a single blow.

Instead, he froze up entirely when he recognized the blue-haired priest standing by Claude’s side.

Marianne stared right through him, terrified, and in that brief instant of eye contact they were alone on the field, lamenting what was lost. The slightest hesitation was all it took. Claude had an arrow nocked and pointed directly at him, and he was dead. Under standard sparring rules, Claude had defeated him, so Dimitri sighed and pulled his reins. “Claude...”

“Hold it!” Claude said gleefully. “I haven’t shot you just yet.”

Dimitri paused, then one second later figured it out. Claude had exactly one reason to keep him alive.

Sure enough, when Dimitri turned around, he witnessed what was left of the Black Eagles surging over the hilltop. They would be upon Claude in seconds, if not for the fact that Dimitri’s class was caught in the middle. He could only watch as Dedue fought off an entire battalion before a burst of miasma finally brought him down. The Black Eagles spread out, picking off weakened students both blue and gold, and doing their best to overwhelm the professor.

“Coercion is against the rules!” he yelled over his shoulder.

“No it isn’t!” Claude yelled back. “Now go forth, my valiant human shield!”

It grated him to do so, but Dimitri moved out, coming to Byleth's aid as the Black Eagles surrounded her. He knocked a pegasus knight through the air with his lance, only for a yellow-painted arrow to fly past him and finish the job. It happened again and again and again, as he weakened those foolhardy enough to challenge him, only to have more irritating arrows rob him of his victories. The professor, fighting alongside him, seemed to instantly grasp what was going on as she fended off the attack.

Something clicked in Dimitri’s mind. The professor had carried them this far. Getting her out safely was his only chance at victory.

He scrambled for an escape plan, but came up empty. The only thing he could focus on was his terrible situation: being held at Claude’s mercy for use as a buffer between him and Edelgard. And as if summoned by his thoughts, Edelgard came into view, marching straight at the professor with fire in her eyes, flanked on either side by Hubert and Monica.

Dimitri steeled himself, and Byleth tensed up next to him. Time seemed to slow down as Edelgard sauntered forward, practically salivating in anticipation of the battle, when Byleth suddenly pivoted around and darted the other way.

Neither Edelgard, nor Claude, nor even Dimitri had expected such a sudden movement. The Sword of the Creator glowed in the professor’s hands and stretched out towards Claude, who panicked and loosed his arrow, missing Dimitri by inches. Byleth rushed, and Dimitri nudged his horse to follow, again breaking into an erratic pattern that he hoped would help him dodge Hubert’s magic. Claude, of all people, had been caught off guard. The professor closed the distance, disarmed the Golden Deer leader with a single movement, and knocked him into the dirt in a rather undignified manner. Marianne moved to heal him, but Byleth pointed her sword at Claude’s throat, signifying an unrecoverable injury. Marianne balked, and then paled as she realized the professor would be cutting her down next.

The professor did no such thing. Instead, she swung around to meet Edelgard, who had chased her down the hill with singleminded determination. Dimitri considered interrupting their duel, but he had his own problem to worry about—Monica was advancing on him with alarming speed.

He readied his lance, but something about her caused him to hesitate.

The bladed weapon in her hand was one he didn’t recognize. It was too short to be a sword, but too long to be a hunting dagger. It didn’t belong to the armory, the training grounds, or even the kitchen. Monica held the blade in reverse grip, drawing near him with a dangerous look in her eye, and smirked knowingly at Dimitri with arrogance that belied her tiny stature. Dimitri gripped his lance, anticipating a...a slash? A feint? Monica was controlling her movements better than any other student Dimitri had ever seen. For someone who had spent the last year imprisoned underground, her form was remarkable.

A second before they met, a blast of magic stumbled her, catching her by surprise. Dimitri managed to follow it up with a wide swing of his lance, knocking Monica to the ground. He whirled around atop his horse to see Marianne behind him, frozen in a casting stance as if she didn’t believe what she had just done.

Dimitri stared at her.

Marianne wanted nothing to do with him, and yet she had still come to his aid.

But this was no time to dwell on it.

He nudged his horse towards Edelgard, and Byleth seamlessly adjusted her fighting style to give him an opening. She had offered to sit out of the fight, Dimitri recalled, only for the other two professors to insist she participate. Well, that was because they had never seen her in action. The professor moved with such strength and control that her battles were literally unfair. Edelgard quickly fell before their combined attack, and Byleth followed up right away with an extension of the Sword of the Creator, picking off Hubert, and—

“We won,” she panted.

Dimitri’s head whipped around, taking in the bruised students lying around them, the other two house leaders defeated, and Marianne, standing alone at the edge of the forest. Technically, she had not been eliminated yet.

“We won,” he agreed.

Trumpets sounded over the field above them, announcing that Lady Rhea had chosen to end the battle. Dimitri dismounted, and the soreness in his back and thighs hit him all at once.

“Teach. Teach! I got a small question,” spluttered Claude. “What the hell was that? How did you know where Hilda was going to be?”

“Surprise attacks don’t work on me, Claude,” said the professor. Even Dimitri could tell the answer was evasive, but it confounded Claude more than it did him, so he let it slide.

“I assumed you would attack us head-on,” Edelgard said, climbing back to her feet. “Chasing you down was...admittedly, not the best strategy.”

“You both deserve equal praise for a battle well fought,” said Dimitri. “All three houses did extremely well. Don’t you agree, professor?”

“The Golden Deer House was very strong,” said Byleth, and Claude grinned, his loss softened.

“Thanks, Teach! On that note, I have a proposition. When we get back to Garreg Mach, let’s have a grand feast to break down the walls between our respective houses.” Claude ruffled his hair sheepishly. “And by a ‘grand’ feast, I mean a fairly regular feast in the dining hall.”

“You really value that kind of thing, don’t you?” said Edelgard, discerning even in defeat. “Well, I suppose no harm can come from it. Count me in.”

“I have no objections either,” Dimitri lied. “And you, professor?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” she agreed, with a look of genuine happiness on her face, so uncommon that it shook Dimitri back to reality.

Right. They had just led their house to glorious victory, so he supposed that he should have been happy as well. Instead, Dimitri gazed over the field. Monica was nowhere to be seen.

For some reason, his body refused to let its guard down. The uneasy feeling of imminent danger was one he recognized; an instinct he had learned to trust since coming to Garreg Mach, but it had never nagged at him so long even after the battle was over. He checked the field a final time, searching carefully for danger that wasn’t there, and instead spotted a glimpse of blue trudging away through the forest.

The back of Marianne’s head ducked under branches on its way back to the Golden Deer camp. Something about the sight made him feel a little bit safer.

***

The grand feast passed by in a blur of accolades, noise and smuggled alcohol, each of which made Dimitri’s head pound more than the last. He didn’t care for the celebration. He didn’t care for any of it.

“Claude,” he said insistently. “Claude, will you listen?”

“For you, your princeliness? Always.” Claude winked, slowly and uncoordinated. “To what honor do I owe the esteemed crown prince, the exalted winner of today’s battle, the most jacked man in all of Fódlan, the, uh, the brightest—”

“Claude,” interrupted Dimitri. He placed a hand on Claude’s shoulder, grabbing his attention. “Was there anything in the rules about weapon regulations?”

Claude burst into laughter as if Dimitri had just said something hilarious. “Weapon regulations!” he repeated, snickering. “You know, you can be real funny when you try. I saw a guy using a fishing rod as a weapon, if that’s what you’re asking. Yes, there were restrictions on weapons. It’s a mock battle. Use common sense.”

“What about knives? Were they allowed?”

“What, like real knives?” Claude squinted, trying to see something far in his own memory. “No, of course not. Hey, that reminds me. I bet we got a lot more people than they counted, but no one noticed, because we were shooting them with practice arrows. I told Hanneman that we should have used real arrows, but he vetoed that...”

Dimitri sighed and left Claude to drown his sorrows. It wasn’t just that Claude was drunk, it was that he didn’t take things seriously. No one at this school seemed to take things seriously. The mock battle was just that—a mockery. They caroused and patted themselves on the back for playfighting, ignorant of real vengeance, of real danger. Dimitri had been at Garreg Mach for well over half a year now, yet was no closer to his goal. Distractions upon distractions had kept him busy, but even villains like the Death Knight and the Flame Emperor should have come second to finding his family’s murderers. More than anything, he wanted an enemy that he could hit. Chasing his nightmares was akin to stumbling blind through the dark, unsure if he was even going the right way, and the dead took care to remind him every night of how much time he had already wasted.

He wandered through the dining hall, frustrated, with chatter and warm bodies crushing him from all sides, and realized that he needed to get some air lest he suffocate under his own stress.

The openness of the night was refreshingly cool and shook him back to wakefulness. Students were scattered loosely over the balcony in groups or pairs, talking the evening away, but one student stood undisturbed, leaning against the stone barrier with her back to the dining hall. She gazed over the fishing pond, her skin shining in the yellow light of the feast, with a glow that seemed to envelop her whole body, illuminating shadows in the folds of her uniform and turning her into something ethereal within the darkness of the night.

Marianne had asked him to stay away from her. But, at one point, she had been his greatest distraction of all. When he had been with her in the stables, her tranquility could calm even the demands of the dead. A simple smile from her could brighten his whole week.

In his moment of anxiety, would she have begrudged him a passing word?

***

“Marianne?”

Dimitri’s voice didn’t even surprise her. “Oh. Yes?”

“May I...stand here? I just needed to step out for some air.”

“Um, you may.”

Dimitri leaned his elbow atop the stone wall. Instead of casting his eyes down like her, he gazed upward, taking in the moon and letting it brighten his face. His breath clouded in the freezing air, but he seemed content in the cold, and even more content to simply stand with her in silence.

She had told Dimitri to stay away, and he had obeyed her to the letter with absolutely no protesting, so there was no point in repeating herself. But if he was offering his ear again, then she wanted to repeat herself, to do anything to convince him, to do anything if it meant he would take care of his own safety. Men like her adoptive father would do anything for a line to the prince’s ear, because they cared for the position, not for the person. Marianne briefly wondered if thinking the opposite was equally irresponsible.

“I’m sorry,” said Dimitri, breaking the silence. “I know you asked me to stay away from you.”

“No, it’s fine,” she said quickly.

Dimitri absently ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not much for fancy celebrations. All the noise got to my head, I’m afraid.”

“I feel the same way,” she replied honestly, and he smiled.

“It’s...rather unexpected, I’ve been told, for someone like me to shy away from a grand celebration. But I’d rather share the company of one close friend than a dining hall’s worth of...of people who don’t understand.”

“I see,” said Marianne, and decided now was a good time as any to bring it up. “About the other day, when you said you didn’t regret risking your own life...um...that was...”

“I apologize for whatever foolish thing I said to upset you, truly,” he said, and she could tell he meant it. “But...may I ask why?”

Marianne took a deep breath, remembering the line she had practiced. “My bloodline is cursed. There is only misfortune for anyone who comes near me.”

“Misfortune?”

“I’m afraid so,” she said solemnly. “Especially those with complete disregard for their own safety.”

“Ah, so I didn't offend you! You're trying to tell me I should be more concerned for my own safety.” Dimitri stood up a bit straighter, visibly relieved. “Well, I suppose I could improve in that regard. As for you causing misfortune, that can’t possibly be true.”

So he did understand. He just chose to endanger himself anyway. Marianne felt something like exasperation cross her mind as Dimitri continued, “In fact, I find you to be a...lucky charm, of sorts.”

“Me? Lucky? I’m sorry, but I don't agree with that at all. My entire life up until this point has been nothing but a string of unfortunate events.” She stopped herself before she could reveal any more details, and Dimitri’s smile eased into gentle understanding.

“But misfortune finds us all,” he pointed out. “Perhaps those around you have suffered, or even perished, but look at you. You’re still here, alive and well.”

“That’s...” Absurd. Meaningless. Not worth the trade. Marianne trailed off, unable to put her feelings into words, but when Dimitri met her eye, she knew that he understood.

He turned away, no doubt pained by his own memories, and said darkly, “It doesn’t feel good, does it...to be the one left behind? You feel guilt for not dying along with the others.” He crossed his arms wistfully and leaned upon the banister. “You and I are the same. Maybe you should fear being cursed with misfortune for coming near me.”

Marianne laughed. They were the same? Of all the ridiculous things she had expected him to say, that was not one of them.

Dimitri, not offended in the slightest, dropped his serious tone into one of genuine earnestness. “Ah, a smile and a laugh. Coming from you, that’s a rarity. This must be my lucky day.”

Marianne laughed again. Dimitri had just won the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, but seeing her laugh was the highlight of his day? “I just find the idea amusing,” she told him. “It’s strange to think that someone like you could have anything in common with me.”

“Well, is it so terrible a thought?”

“No, no. It’s not that. It actually makes me happy,” she said without thinking. “As though there’s finally someone who understands how I truly feel...”

Dimitri smiled, and looked back up into the night sky. Marianne trailed his gaze over the water, content to stand with him under the moon.

The understanding went both ways. She had been alone, solitary in her cursed existence. It had never occurred to her that there might be others like her, wandering the world and cracking under the burden of life.

If Dimitri was still willing to stay by her side, then he must have needed her as much as she needed him.

Chapter Text

After lunchtime was over, Dimitri headed off for his scheduled riding practice and bumped into someone wearing an outfit he had never seen before. Marianne was dressed in tan riding breeches and a perfectly fitted equestrian jacket, and wore a saber sheathed at her side, with everything layered under the veil of a light winter cloak. She looked so different, so much older, somehow, that he assumed for a second that a beautiful traveler had only just graced Garreg Mach, the stables merely a stop on her journey to other important, faraway things.

But then she spoke, and her voice was still unmistakably hers.

“Hello, Dimitri. Do you have riding practice today?”

“Yes, right now,” he said, and swallowed. His mouth had gone dry.

“May I...um...come with you?”

“Of course,” he said immediately. “It would be my pleasure.”

Soon, they were tearing through the chilly air, with the monastery a shrinking sight behind them. She had signed out Dorte, predictably. Dimitri suddenly felt a sting of failure, for not building a close relationship with any of the horses—he hadn’t even bothered to learn most of their names. He generally signed out whichever steed was available, which seemed fine enough until racing against Marianne and Dorte, who worked together as one to glide easily over the rough terrain. It wasn’t until the path leveled out and the forest surrounded them that Marianne finally pulled to a canter, and Dimitri did the same, glad for the slower pace.

He sidled up closer to her and they trotted along, slow enough to talk, but she remained silent. Surrounded by nature, Marianne looked perfectly comfortable, despite never training riding before. Or if she had, Dimitri had never seen her. It was a point of curiosity for him, one he decided was innocent enough to broach.

“Marianne, how long have you been practicing riding?”

“Um...never. Not at the monastery.”

Dimitri raised his eyebrows. “Is that so? You...seem to be an expert. To put it mildly.”

“I’m not,” she insisted. “I just learned as a child, that’s all.”

“Why not take the cavalier exam, then?” he pressed, but then her face fell, and he immediately worried that he had overstepped.

“I don’t want to become a cavalier,” she said, patient with him as always. “I already know how to travel. That’s all I need to know. I don’t want to ride in a battle. I wouldn’t mind being struck down...but it’s too risky for the horse.”

Dimitri blanched. “Please don’t say things like that.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Are you still studying for bishop?” he asked quickly.

“Um...yes. Oh, that reminds me. The professor asked me to, um, come to Remire Village. For mission assistance. She said my healing magic was getting stronger.”

“She did?” Dimitri exclaimed. “I mean...I wasn’t aware. But that’s excellent news! We—all the Blue Lions—are happy to have you, as always.”

Marianne didn’t share his enthusiasm. “I don’t know what the mission is about. No one actually told me what was going on.”

“It’s another aid mission,” Dimitri said, recalling what the professor had explained in class. “Many in Remire have fallen ill recently. Some kind of disease. The church is taking it very seriously. Knights and scholars have already been dispatched—including the professor’s father, in fact. Our class is just assisting the knights with food, medicine, and things of that nature. An easy mission, so long as none of us get sick.”

“Is Remire Village far from Garreg Mach?”

“I don’t believe so. Perhaps an hour or two by horse? I participated in an exercise there before the school year began. It took us half a day to hike on foot.”

“Oh,” said Marianne. “I haven’t left the monastery much. I don’t know where anything is.” She gazed widely into the forest. “But, um, I think this is far enough.”

She pulled to the left, and Dorte obliged, veering slowly off the path and into the woods, and Dimitri curiously followed. Marianne navigated through the dense underbrush with ease, stalling at times but still moving forward. She guided Dorte through thin gaps in trees, seemingly going in random directions, but always putting distance between them and the road. Dimitri gave up trying to ride and hopped to the ground so he could lead his horse manually. Wet leaves, still covered with dew from the morning, clung to his uniform as he pushed through the forest. Finally, Marianne dismounted and retrieved a coil of rope from her saddlebags. Whatever destination she had had in mind, this unremarkable clearing in the middle of the woods was apparently it.

He caught up to her as she finished tying Dorte to a nearby tree. She handed him another length of rope, so he could tie his own steed down, and as he worked, she glanced away and muttered, “I simply...I still think this is a bad idea.”

“What is?”

“Um...you. Being near me. If you spend too much time around me, misfortune will surely find you.” She looked back at him, utterly serious. “You know this, but...you said you will still be there for me?”

“Always.”

“Um...okay. Can you follow me, please?”

She wandered a distance away, then stopped and reached into her cloak to draw her saber. The symbolic sword was part of the Officer’s Academy uniform, but many students, including Marianne, chose not to wear theirs on a daily basis. She had probably stashed hers in her room at the beginning of the school year and not retrieved it until now, now that she needed it for...whatever she was doing. Marianne held the saber with passable form, and glared at the large tree in front of her like it was a particularly tough sparring partner. Dimitri stood a few paces back, watching cautiously.

“I’ve never been good with words,” she said, without taking her eyes off the tree. “I’ve always been...awful. At words. So instead of trying to explain, I’ll just show you.”

“Okay,” he said, trying not to sound worried. “I’m watching.”

The hilt of the sword shook as she tightened her grip on it, holding her stance in front of the tree, frozen with her arm poised in front of her like an imitation of some heroic statue, except statues couldn’t tense their shoulders or have anxiety roll from them like sweat. Simply looking at her was making Dimitri nervous, like watching someone teeter on the brink of an important, life-changing decision, but she was doing this for him...

“Marianne, wait,” he said suddenly. “Don’t do anything rash!”

She swung the sword hard.

Woodchips and pieces of bark flew outward, blinding Dimitri, and when he opened his eyes again the tree was already midfall, unable to stand when half of its midsection had been blown away.

Behind them, the horses were panicking and wildly screeching, straining against their ropes. Marianne stepped back as what was left of the trunk bent itself into fragments, with each splinter accompanied by a sickening crack, before the length of the tree finally slammed into the ground with a thunderous crash. The noise echoed through the forest before fading away, and Dimitri realized too late that above the deafening silence, Marianne was sobbing.

“Marianne!” he cried desperately, and rushed to her side. She flicked the sword away as if it had bitten her hand.

“My blood...!”

She writhed in agony, pawing at her collarbones, scraping the skin over her heart; first with the pads of her fingers but then clawing with the sharps of her nails. Dimitri grabbed both her wrists in one hand, and, not knowing what to do, forced them down to her thighs. He moved around her to hold her firmly against himself, hugging to restrain her, clutching her as tightly as her panicked struggling would allow.

Such a tiny thing, being torn apart by her own power.

They stood on the forest floor, Dimitri rubbing her back through her cloak, until eventually her sobs ran dry against his armored chest. Despite the cold winter air, her body was burning up like she was feverish, and the skin of her neck was red and shiny with sweat. The spasms of her chest quieted down to a muffled breathing, broken by jagged hiccups, and Dimitri released her wrists to fall quietly between their bodies only after he was sure she would no longer try to rip out her own blood.

Sniffling, she asked him, “Now do you see?”

“You have a Crest,” he said, still gently stroking small circles on her shoulder. No ordinary person should have been able to shatter a tree with just a sword. “But...what does that have to do with misfortune?”

Marianne slowly pushed away from him, and wiped her nose on the back of a hand. Now that she had calmed down, she looked rather embarrassed by her hysteria, and Dimitri wished so badly for her to understand that nothing could ever make him think less of her. He retrieved his handkerchief, and she took it gratefully, and said, sniffing, “My Crest is a symbol of disaster. Anyone who is exposed to it will be cursed. It’s the reason my parents disappeared. And knowing this...even knowing this, you...”

“Marianne, please!” he pleaded. “I said I would be there for you. This changes nothing.”

“Then you’ll die,” she said weakly. “You already almost died, because I was near you.” With that, tears began rolling from her eyes again, and Dimitri instinctively reached over to draw her back into another hug. She pressed her forehead into his shoulder, rocking back and forth against the cold plate of his armor. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, as if confessing her sins to the Goddess, “this was such a terrible idea, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done this...”

Dimitri patted Marianne’s arm as she dried her tears against the blue of his cape. “There is nothing to apologize for. You cannot shoulder all the world’s burdens by yourself.”

“No, no. You’re just saying that because you don’t know the real me. Y-you should—”

“Let us sit down,” Dimitri suggested, before she could panic again, and realized a second later what an unthinking suggestion that was. The ground, being sheltered in the shade, was carpeted by wet dirt and damp moss, so sitting down would almost certainly ruin Marianne’s expensive-looking riding clothes. Still, she made no complaint as she plunked herself down at the base of a tree, perching on a protruding root, with the hem of her cloak dragging in the dirt. She sniffed and propped her face up in her hands, and mumbled, “Can you, um, pick up my sword for me?” She sniffed again. “I’m sorry. I...I don’t want to touch it right now.”

He nodded, and went to retrieve the sword from where she had thrown it aside, carefully looping it through his belt before he dropped down next to her. Her breathing was calm and deliberate now. A good sign. At the very least, he wanted her to be comfortable before picking at such an uncomfortable topic.

“About your Crest,” he said, “Marianne, does it only activate while wielding a sword? Or does it activate with any weapon?”

“Um...I’m not sure.” She stared absently at the sky, through the hole in the canopy she had just created. “Maybe. I haven’t held a weapon since the first week of school, when we did those, um, placement exams. I think my Crest is just...active, all the time.”

“Uh,” he said. That was not how Crests worked. “Marianne, have you trained with your Crest? At all?”

“...Trained?” she repeated, like she had never heard of the concept before.

“Did your adoptive father never provide any guidance?”

“No. My adoptive father has a different Crest than mine,” she said, as if that made a difference.

Dimitri held himself back from groaning aloud. In this world they lived in, a noble had somehow managed to reach adulthood without ever being informed of her own power. If it had been any person other than Marianne, he would have laughed it off as a story too unlikely to be believed. But the blame lay with her guardian, not her, and now she was in front of him, fresh out of tears, and in need of reassurance, not ridicule. Trying not to sound patronizing, he explained, “Your blood should not be hurting you. It is worrisome, but if—”

“No!” she interrupted. “I’m not using my Crest ever again. It would only bring misfortune to everyone around me!”

“Alright,” he agreed quickly. There was no sense in stoking an argument that would only cause her more panic. “If you oppose the idea of training, then I won’t try to convince you otherwise. But may I speak regarding my own experiences?”

“Um...if you wish.”

“When I was a child, I used to break swords just by swinging them. I’ve broken bowstrings, dinner plates, chamber pots, sewing needles, Professor Manuela, uh...well, my point is, through training and mental fortitude, I learned how to control my Crest. But the fact of the matter is, I was very fortunate. I had an easy time of it, I would say, with tutors always available to guide my hand. You had no such guidance, which is deeply regrettable. However, it’s not something you can go back and change.” Dimitri paused to renew the hopeful conviction in his voice. “Your Crest doesn’t have to dictate your life. Many people with Crests do consider them both a blessing and a curse. It may simply be the case that yours is just...excessively cursed.”

“No, that’s wrong,” she said automatically. “My Crest is different. It has no blessing whatsoever. It’s cursed by its very nature, and no amount of training will change that.”

“But it is your Crest, no matter how much you wish it otherwise. The only way you can keep going in life is to accept it.”

“Then maybe, it’s not worth it to keep going.”

A silence fell over them, broken only by birds chirping high up in the branches.

Dimitri stared at the dirt between his feet. A lump was welling up in his throat. His thoughts drifted to the handkerchief still clutched in Marianne’s hand, and he wished, rather distantly, that he had brought another one for himself.

It had been years since he last cried. He had not expected Marianne to bring him to tears on this day.

Quietly, she spoke. “I never told you what happened to my parents. Um...will you listen to my story?”

He brushed the back of a finger across each eye. “Of course.”

Marianne still glanced over her shoulder, although Dimitri was certain they were the only two people for miles around. “Promise you won’t tell this to anyone.”

“Not a single soul. I swear it.”

“Um. Okay. I grew up with my parents in the countryside. We were just, um, minor nobles. My father’s family was only an offshoot, um, so we didn’t have any retainers or servants. Um, so we didn’t live like most nobles do. We grew everything ourselves, and kept our own horses and chickens, and, um...I’m sorry. I’m not very good at telling stories.”

“It’s fine,” he reassured her. It was her story. No one else was better suited to tell it.

Marianne stared at her own feet. “Our estate was near the bay, but our land was just the forest. No one lived there, oh, um, except for a small hunting village. I don’t think my father ever...governed people. He and my mother just patrolled the forest a lot. They taught me how to forage for food, and build a fire, and listen to the birds. I could ride alone through the forest before I knew how to read.”

“I never knew,” Dimitri murmured. “That sounds...lovely.”

“It was,” she agreed sadly, as if acknowledging it for the first time herself. “But then one day...a man arrived from the village. He said that wolves had been carrying off his livestock. My father packed up his bow and went with him. Two weeks later, he came back home. He said that it wasn’t wolves, it was Demonic Beasts. I remember my mother gasped and held onto the table. She was so scared, and that made me scared too.”

“How old were you?” Dimitri asked gently.

“I was twelve, I think,” Marianne said. “I was old enough to come with my parents out to the village. But, um, the sheep and goats kept disappearing, no matter how hard we tried to protect them. There were always just more beasts. Nobody knew where they were coming from. Then, one day, one of the boys from the village...he...went missing.”

Dimitri remained reverently silent as Marianne withdrew into herself, crossing her arms atop her knees.

“His family was so worried,” she said, barely above a whisper. “My parents went out to go look for him, but they couldn’t find any remains. Or even footprints. The boy was just...gone. And it never stopped. Over the next year, it happened to more people. The beasts stopped being scared of us. They started coming close to the village, even during the daytime. My mother taught me a healing spell, so I could help those who had been attacked, but...I didn’t help at all. It didn’t matter when the beasts were everywhere. Everyone started saying the forest was cursed, and nobody knew what to do. Nobody had any idea how to break the curse...” The tiniest amount of bitterness crept into Marianne’s voice. “...Until one day, a Crest scholar arrived in the village. He said that he had a theory. It turned out that me and my father bore the Crest of Maurice.”

She said it with such intensity that Dimitri’s breath caught. Even though the words meant nothing to him, they clearly meant everything to her. She clasped her hands together, and Dimitri suddenly felt a stab of dread, and he wondered if he should have started praying too.

“Have you ever heard of Maurice?”

“No,” he said, privately frustrated with himself. Marianne had the courage to confide in him, and yet he didn’t even know what she was talking about. Being useless was not a feeling he enjoyed.

Still, it seemed to have been the answer that Marianne was expecting. She let out a resigned sigh before continuing her story. “No one has. He was erased from history, and for good reason. A thousand years ago, Maurice was a hero who fought alongside the Ten Elites, until...well, until he...”

“What?” Dimitri asked, enthralled.

“He turned into a beast and started slaughtering innocent people,” she said abruptly. “His Crest caused him to transform into a monster. So the Ten Elites killed him. They killed his entire clan too, just to make sure it would never happen again. But they must have missed some. The Crest of the Beast will still manifest in people, like me and my father, once every few generations. And, um, the Crest scholar managed to figure out all of this through his research. He told everyone that we...that my father and I were cursed beings. He said that we transformed into savage beasts at night, and we preyed on human flesh. And, in order to break the curse on the forest, we needed to be...removed.”

“Preposterous,” Dimitri said, before he could stop himself. “That’s completely absurd. Crests can’t do that.”

“How do you know?” she said, in a dull voice that nonetheless pierced straight through his mind. She was right, of course. Hadn’t he witnessed Sylvain’s brother transforming into a beast before his very eyes? And Lady Rhea had asked them not to speak about that incident—scratched from history, just as Maurice was.

Marianne, unaware of his thoughts, continued in a hollow voice. “At first, the villagers didn’t think it was true. But by then, too many people had...lost someone. And they all knew that we had failed to find them. Everyone was in so much pain, and it was all our fault...” Her clasped hands began trembling. “They...they threw stones at us, and they spat on us. They called us demons. Even my mother...and she didn’t even have a Crest. We were driven out of the village, and so we just...we went back to our home. At night, we were, um, woken by a mob of p-people, out-outside our manor, um...”

Marianne began crying, and Dimitri remained on the ground, completely helpless.

“They kicked on the door, and broke the windows, and they said...they said they would drag us out. They had bows, and torches, and...” She squeezed her eyes shut. “My parents were able to scare them away. But in the morning, my father said he was going to appeal to House Edmund, for aid. He departed, and then he...he didn’t...”

Dimitri couldn’t bear any more. “Marianne...”

“No,” she said reflexively. “I will finish this story. This is what happened. This is what happens to those who are near me. I never saw my father again. He disappeared, just like everyone else. My mother went out to go look for him, and, and...and she vanished too. My parents...”

“I’m...so sorry,” Dimitri said, painfully aware of how inadequate his words were. “What you’ve been through...”

“House Edmund’s soldiers found me a month later,” she said, despondent. “And when Margrave Edmund found out about me...he didn’t throw me out. He adopted me. He just heard the word ‘Crest’ and decided I was worth the risk. That was four or five years ago. I’ve been living with him ever since.”

A Crest, even a cursed one, being valued more highly than the beautiful, tragic person it was bound to—such stories were all too common amongst children like them. “I see,” said Dimitri, even as his chest ached with sorrow. “Thank you, Marianne. For opening up to me. It must have been hard to trust another person with all of this.”

“I trust you,” she said plaintively. “Because...no one else would understand.”

Dimitri, suddenly feeling very cold, ruffled a hand through his hair as he considered what he could say to that, and came up with nothing. There were no words that could do either of them justice.

“Dimitri...” said Marianne, regaining her composure, “if you’re so sure about being near me, then you should at least know the danger you’re in. I’m still cursed. You almost died. Flayn almost died. Everyone around me has met with misfortune. I’m nothing more than a burden to everyone.”

“You most certainly are not,” Dimitri said firmly. “That is something I take issue with. Your Crest doesn’t change who you are as a person. It doesn’t alter my opinion of you in the slightest. I only know of someone who is kind to animals, and heals the injured, and prays to the Goddess every day. Even if you are destined to become a monster someday, that day is not today. For today, you are a kind and gentle soul. Today, you are my friend. And as your friend, I must tell you that the person suffering most from your curse...is yourself. If you must think of yourself as a burden, then it is a burden I will gladly bear if it means alleviating your own pain.”

She stared at him, stunned by the long outburst.

Of course, that was one of the first things he had known about her. She didn’t know how to react to praise.

“Um, thank you,” she said. “Thank you...for listening. Um...just listening has been enough.” She breathed out deeply, belated emotions catching up to her. “Just one other person knowing...it makes it easier, I think. Just, please don’t let anybody else know about my Crest.”

“No one else will find out, I promise. It wasn’t even confirmed. Besides me, who else knows that you bear a Crest?”

“Professor Hanneman. And Linhardt, from the Black Eagles. And I’ve told Hilda, but she didn’t believe me. That’s why I had to show you, to prove it, or else you wouldn’t believe me...” She tilted her head. “Wait, um...how did you know my Crest wasn’t confirmed?”

“I signed off on your paperwork when you accompanied us,” Dimitri said, and a burst of shame washed over him, for he had already betrayed her privacy, but he kept it off his face. “Your adoption papers, things like that. None of it indicated you had a Crest. Before today, I was entirely unaware.”

Marianne’s face became beset by gloom. “Oh. That would be my adoptive father. He paid someone to forge those documents, I think.”

“Is that so,” replied Dimitri, even as a thought occurred to him—if her birth certificate was a fake, was the date on it even real? Surely a skilled forger would have copied her real birthday, yes?

“My adoptive father is very ambitious,” Marianne explained, and the distaste in her voice made it evident what she thought of his ambition. “He wants to marry me off to a powerful noble. He doesn’t understand the consequences of my Crest. Actually, um...he does. He just chooses to ignore them.” She patted the breast of her riding jacket. “He knows I love riding, so he had these clothes tailored for me, as a gift before I started school. But at the same time, he ordered me not to leave the monastery. That should tell you what kind of man he is.”

“You haven’t left?”

Marianne shook her head. “I’ve only left Garreg Mach on missions with my class. And your class, once. Other than that, I’ve never even been to town.” She gestured broadly to the forest around them. “Thank you for, um, accompanying me. Or allowing me to accompany you. I...I missed being in nature.”

“Then I shall accompany you whenever you wish,” Dimitri promised. “Still, that is quite...upsetting to hear. If you feel most comfortable outdoors, then Margrave Edmund was not right to confine you. You’re his ward, not his prisoner.”

“My adoptive father just wants to keep me safe,” she said, but a hint of misery had resurfaced in her voice. “Dimitri...there are still people looking for me. The Crest scholar, and people from the village...if I leave the monastery, there’s a chance that someone might recognize me. So I...I don’t want to spend too much time outside. It’s a risk...”

Dimitri clenched his jaw. This nameless Crest scholar was someone with whom he would very much like to exchange words with. In a dangerously low voice, he asked, “Does Professor Hanneman know about the Crest scholar? Did he study under him?”

“I don’t know. Um...he studied somewhere. I don’t think it was Garreg Mach.”

“Professor Hanneman wouldn’t stand for that scholar’s actions. If he could identify him, then I would—”

“Dimitri, there’s no point,” she said evenly. “I never want to see that man again, or even think about him. Please.”

“But...” He shook his head. “But that Crest scholar is still out there. If there’s anything I can do to bring you closure—”

“Enough, Dimitri,” she snapped. She had never before shown him anything even close to anger, and his own anger forcibly died down in humility. “I know that my parents are with the Goddess now, and I’ve accepted that’s all the closure I’m going to get. I don’t wish to dwell on it any further.”

“...Very well,” Dimitri conceded. “If that is truly what you want...then so be it.”

“You don’t have to do anything for someone like me.” She slumped against her tree root, exhausted. “Simply listening was enough, and I thank you for that. I already feel so foolish, making...demands of you...”

“You mustn’t think so harshly of yourself.” Dimitri tilted his head sideways to the ground, while looking upward to catch Marianne’s line of sight. “You are, quite possibly, the least demanding person I have ever met. I want to help you, Marianne. In fact, I am honored to. You said it yourself, that being able to confide in me helped you a bit. So please, don’t hesitate to ask me for help in any other matter.”

He sat back up as Marianne mulled over his words in silence. She looked very much like she was deep in prayer, making it impossible to tell what she was thinking until she looked back at him with a question.

“What class do you have after this?”

“A study block,” he answered. “I was planning to go to the library. Why do you ask?”

“Can you, um...” She looked away shyly, at some faraway point in the forest. “Can we stay here? I don’t want to go back just yet.”

“I will stay here, gladly. What do you have after this?”

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “Free period.”

Dimitri paused. “I thought this was your free period.”

“Um,” she said, unable to hide her guilty smile. “I’m...supposed to be in class right now. I just, um...skipped. Sorry.”

Exasperated, Dimitri pressed his fingers to his forehead. “Marianne, I know that I just promised to help you with any matter, but...”

“My class is awful,” she protested, and Dimitri broke out into a ridiculous smile, at the excuse that wasn’t really an excuse at all. She sounded so much like the normal teenager she was supposed to be, instead of the victim that the world had made of her.

“Don’t worry, then. I will stay with you for as long as you will have me.”

***

Thinking over everything that Marianne told him could have taken forever. As a start, he had begun mentally replaying every interaction with her that he could recall, and, now privy to her deepest, darkest, most damaging secrets, imagining what must have been running through her head at the time. He commended his past self for not forcing conversation at times whenever it trailed toward family, or Crests, or hopes for the future, when Marianne would become uncomfortable and change the subject, or she would clam up altogether. With her behavior cast in a new light, so many of her little idiosyncrasies suddenly made sense. Knowledge of her cursed Crest was yet another complication in the already-tangled threads of his mind, and it was one he accepted without complaint, for what right did he have to be worried? He wasn’t the person who woke up every morning dreading that today would be the day she became a monster.

The one thing he couldn’t understand was her...acceptance. A whole village of beasts, rabid in their need for a scapegoat, had unforgivably stolen away her childhood, and yet, Marianne had outright refused the idea of vengeance. Her parents had been spirited away into the forest, and she was still being hunted for her blood, and she was locked indoors under the pretense of safety, like a caged bird who would one day be a trophy for her gaudy husband, and she still was willing to roll over and let the world tear apart her precious life...

They were the same. That much, they understood. But for some unfathomable reason, Marianne believed that surviving made her weak, when nothing could be further from the truth. Surviving had made them strong.

If only she could see. If he could gift her his vengeance, if he could gift her that Crest scholar’s severed head...

The training dummy in front of him toppled to the ground, and he rested on his lance for a moment, panting. They weren’t even supposed to fall over. He was just hitting them far too hard. With a sigh, he righted the dummy and readied himself for another set of fifty lance swings when a flash of pink hair caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

The sight of the infamously lazy Golden Deer girl entering the training grounds of her own volition was so unprecedented that he couldn’t help but stop and stare. Hilda innocently dawdled through the training grounds, nonchalantly wandering as though she was taking a stroll throughout town. Casually, she cut straight across the central sparring ring, either not knowing or not caring that she wasn’t supposed to do that, and two students who were sparring fell over each other as she walked straight through their fight, oblivious. Dimitri straightened up as she approached him.

“Hey,” she drawled at him. “Are you the guy? The Blue Lions guy?”

Dimitri pointedly looked down at the distinctive blue cape on his shoulder, which very clearly identified him as leader of the Blue Lion house.

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “That would be me.”

“Cool, cool,” she said, widening her smile. “So your class is headed to Remire Village, right?”

“Yes,” said Dimitri. He could already sense where this was going.

Hilda started fidgeting with the end of one of her pigtails, twirling it around her fingers in a way that Dimitri guessed was supposed to be cute. “So...I’ve got this friend,” she said finally. “Her name’s Marianne, and she’s a real sweetheart. She hangs out in the stables a lot. You’d like her.”

“We’ve met. And I do like her.”

Hilda smiled again, for real this time. “Right. And she’s going with you guys. Right?”

“Right.”

“Yeah, so, I’ve been hearing some nasty rumors about Remire. Like, about curses, and stuff.” Hilda dropped her voice to a theatrical hiss. “And here’s the thing...Marianne already has some bad mojo with curses, and stuff. So I would hate it if anything bad happened to her. Get it?”

“Of course.”

“So yeah. Remember, bucko, keep an eye on her, or I’ll rip your nuts off.”

Dimitri blinked, certain he had misheard. From the way Hilda was gleefully awaiting his reaction, it became clear he hadn’t.

“Understood,” he said calmly. “I swear, on my honor as the crown prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, that I shall do everything in my power to ensure that no harm befalls one Lady Marianne von Edmund, up to and including safeguarding her from all manner of curses, lest my life be forfeit. Are these terms acceptable?”

“Sure!” she said cheerfully.

“Do you want that in writing?”

“Nah, I believe you. See ya later.”

“Oh,” he added, before Hilda could leave. “And her birthday is on the twenty-third, correct?”

Hilda grinned. “Yep. Get her something nice, Dimitri. She deserves it.”

Chapter Text

Professor Byleth filled the two cups between them, then set down the teapot with a soft clack.

“Tea,” she said plainly.

Marianne nodded.

The herbal smell of the tea grounded her a bit. One-on-one situations were still stressful, but the professor was so nice that Marianne had fooled herself into thinking that she would be fine. It wasn’t until now, squirming under the professor’s stonefaced expression, that regret began settling in—it felt very much like the professor was about to interrogate her, or something. However, no student had yet refused an invitation to one of the professor’s trademark birthday teatimes, so Marianne hardly wanted to distinguish herself as the first. Today was going to be all about not drawing attention to herself.

“Let’s talk, Marianne,” the professor said. “Any plans for your birthday?”

“I have stable duty in the afternoon,” she said, as the first thing that came to her mind. She lifted her cup to her lips, but didn’t drink from it. “Besides that, um, no special plans, no. Hilda told me she was going to surprise me at lunchtime. I’m a bit nervous about that.”

“I think Hilda needs to relearn what ‘surprise’ means,” Byleth commented dryly.

“That’s what I said, too,” Marianne said. “Although...she’s doing it to be nice. She told me in advance, so I wouldn’t be put on the spot.”

“How very considerate of her.”

Marianne looked away from the table. “She’s always so accommodating to me, even though I’m...I’m not such a good friend. I didn’t do anything to deserve such niceties.”

“Whether you deserve it or not is not the point,” said the professor, then took a sip of tea. When Marianne didn’t say anything, she continued, “Even if you don’t think you deserve a celebration, your friends think otherwise. So who’s right?”

“Um...”

“Don’t answer that question just yet,” Byleth added, “just keep it in the back of your mind. By the end of today, see if your answer is still the same.”

“Okay,” she said, and closed her eyes to hide her frustration. That sounded like extra homework. “I’ll...try to do that, professor.”

“Eighteen is a big milestone,” the professor said, as if starting a lecture. “It can be a new start, if you’d want it to be. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never had a birthday party before, because if you have one today, it sets a precedent for the rest of your adult life.” She paused. “You are turning eighteen, right?”

“Yes,” she said, a little proud she hadn’t stumbled on something as simple as her own age.

“Just making sure. In some places, eighteen is when you officially become an adult. In some places, it’s at sixteen, or at puberty. It depends on the culture, really.” Byleth nodded vaguely at the sky. “I was wondering...does the church have an official age for adulthood?”

Marianne took a sip of tea to stall for time. When it came to church scripture, she liked to think she was reasonably well-read, but specific questions like that were difficult. Eventually, she stammered, “Um...sorry. I don’t know. I don’t think there is an age. Maybe, um...when you’re old enough to have children of your own, you become an adult.”

“Really?” Byleth remarked. “That sounds like it would differ from person to person.”

“Well, that might be for animals, I mean,” she hastily corrected herself. “Human beings are different. Because, um, for humans, having a child takes more than just being a certain age...you need, um, other things...”

The professor stared at her inquisitively. “Other things? Like maturity?”

“...No,” Marianne said, awkwardly. “Well, yes. But I was talking more about things like...the Goddess’s love. Um, the Goddess loves every living thing, so...you need to understand what it means to take care of life. That’s what makes humans different from animals.”

It was jarring to see Professor Byleth—one of the most competent people Marianne had ever met—displaying total ignorance of the church’s teachings, as though she were a curious child herself. The professor didn’t look any more understanding than usual, and Marianne began worrying that perhaps her explanation had only confused her. She must have explained something wrong. After all, how could she possibly understand the sanctity of life? A life like hers was a mockery of everything the Goddess created. She was unable to do anything but bring harm to others—her own life was not worthy of love.

“Well, it’s...it shouldn’t be complicated,” she stuttered. “I know I should have explained it better. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, but that was a good explanation. Don’t apologize for my lack of knowledge.” Byleth took another sip, reminding Marianne that she had barely started her own tea. “I haven’t even read the Book of Seiros yet. I’ll get around to it, sooner or later. But I’ve been asking the wrong questions here, anyway.” She set down her teacup, and looked at Marianne expectantly. “What about you? Do you feel like an adult?”

“Um...” Marianne trailed off. The other students had sworn the professor’s birthday meetings were casual check-ins, but they were getting far too philosophical for her liking. “Well...I don’t feel like a child,” she said, and then stopped. So far, that was true. “...Eighteen sounds correct. I think that for adults...for adulthood..."

“If you had to slap a number on it, it would be eighteen,” Byleth supplied, and smiled rather apologetically. “So, not to put any pressure on you, but this is an extremely special day. No matter what happens today, you’ll probably remember it.” She waved her hands. “Again, no pressure.”

Marianne took a sip of tea, pondering the advice, and decided to turn the question around. “What did you do on your eighteenth birthday?”

Byleth smiled. “My father took me fishing. It’s one of my favorite memories. Every time I go fishing now, I’m reminded of that. But it doesn’t mean I have to quit my job and go fish for a living. See what I mean? No pressure. Just good memories.”

“I suppose,” Marianne said. It didn’t seem right to mention that all of her strongest memories were bad ones. She warmed her hands on the teacup, and lifted it up to warm her face again. It was getting colder and colder with every passing day.

Across from her, the professor drummed her fingers on her cheekbone, and said, “Actually, that reminds me of something. I was speaking to Professor Hanneman the other day, and he mentioned that you’ve been skipping class.”

Her voice was totally free of judgement, but Marianne still nearly dropped her cup. “Oh...um, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” said Byleth. “You’re not in trouble or anything like that. If something is making it hard for you to study, then talk to me, and we’ll solve the problem together. That is, if you feel comfortable talking about it.”

“The lectures are just, um...boring, that’s all,” Marianne said, trying not to make her grimace too obvious. She looked into her teacup, away from the table, up at the sky—anywhere but at the professor. “We always just talk about Crests.”

Byleth nodded. “Crests...that definitely sounds like Hanneman. What about your certifications, outside of the lectures? How’s your faith magic?”

“Those are still fine. I haven’t fallen behind. Yet.”

“Hmm. So it’s just the lectures, then.” Byleth set her teacup down on the table. “If that’s the case, then how would you like to join the Blue Lions?”

That caught her attention, and she finally met Byleth’s eyes. They were as imperceptible as ever, and a million questions stuck fast in Marianne’s throat, yet she could not pick which one to ask first.

Above all, she found herself unwilling to believe that the professor was serious.

“You’re already with us on this month’s field mission,” said the professor. “Adding you to the lectures wouldn’t be a problem at all. I promise I’ll try not to bore you.”

Stammering, Marianne managed to force some words out. “I just thought...if I’m from the Alliance, then, um, shouldn’t I be a Golden Deer?”

“Well, yes. You also shouldn’t be skipping class, but here we are.”

Red hot guilt flushed Marianne’s face.

“Marianne, I didn’t mean it like that,” said the professor immediately. “I know it might not seem this way sometimes, but all your teachers want to see you succeed—all of us. If you think you could focus better in another class, then give it a try. I promise Hanneman won’t hold anything against you.”

“I’m...I think I’m the one at fault, not him,” Marianne said. “I don’t think I’m very smart to begin with. What if I transfer, but then, um, I start falling behind even worse?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Byleth said firmly. “You’re not a bad student, Marianne—you’re keeping up with your certifications, aren’t you? And even if you do fall behind, we’ll work out what to do then. That’s what it means to try. There’s no shame in failing, but there is in not trying.”

The line about not trying was a cheap piece of advice she had heard before, and under normal circumstances it would have irritated her, but the professor spoke so confidently that Marianne was suddenly filled with confidence too. If all of Professor Byleth’s lectures were like this, than maybe...maybe she would actually learn. Her prospects for school—for life in general, really—had been entirely hopeless, and her future was best dealt with by not thinking about. Being able to imagine the Officer’s Academy as anything other than a dead end in life was a strange feeling, but...a welcome one. With cautious hope, she reined it in.

“Um...may I have some time to think about it?”

Byleth thankfully nodded. “Of course. You can tell me after we’re done with the Remire assignment. For now, just take some time to reflect on what your goals are.”

“My goals.” Marianne repeated. “I see, professor. Thank you for the tea. I look forward to doing this again.”

***

She barely had time to settle in at the dining hall before Hilda was already sliding over the tabletop and into the bench next to her, crashing into her with a hug and shouting, “Happy birthday!”

Marianne hid her face behind her hands, for all the good it did. “Oh—Hilda, people are staring...”

The soft edge of a wrapped present poked into Marianne’s back as Hilda wrapped her arms around, and Hilda tried pushing it into Marianne’s arms, only for it tumble down to her lap. Across the table, Ignatz said, “Oh, is today your birthday? Happy birthday!”

“Yeah, happy birthday!” echoed Leonie. “We would have got you something! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she mumbled, which didn’t truly answer the question. Hilda finally relented and set her present down on the table. With unsteady hands, Marianne managed to tear away the wrapping paper and open the box, revealing a handcrafted silver necklace that had been inlaid with tiny red-brown gemstones. The workmanship was nothing short of magnificent, and Marianne lifted it out of the box, silently marveling at every tiny metal link as she did. Crafting the necklace must have taken hours and hours of dedication—time that she could not help but feel had been wasted on her.

“Do you like it?” Hilda asked, with enough gleefulness for the both of them. If she was upset by Marianne’s lack of reaction, she didn’t show it. “I had to learn how to cut the stones myself, but it was so worth it. The color should bring out your eyes!”

“It’s...lovely. Thank you, Hilda. I appreciate this, but you didn’t have to do anything special...”

Hilda gasped. “Didn’t have to? What was I supposed to do? You specifically told me no party, no singing, not to tell anyone it was your birthday...”

“No making a scene,” Marianne reminded her.

Her interjection earned her another pout from Hilda. “So it was the least I could do! I didn’t even get you a cake!”

“I got you a cake,” Claude nonchalantly cut in, grinning, as he casually pulled said cake out of nowhere. “Happy birthday, Marianne! You wanna make a wish? Sorry, but there’s no candles to blow out. Seteth actually banned me from messing around with fire.”

“...I see,” Marianne said. Everyone’s eyes were on her, so she made a show of scrunching up her face in deep thought, even though she already knew what she wanted. She already prayed for it every night. “I’ve made my wish. Thank you, Claude.”

The first slice of cake went to her, then Lysithea made a fuss over accepting her slice, finally freeing Marianne from being the center of attention. Hilda helped her put on the necklace, lifting up her hair to secure it around Marianne’s neck as she ate. Across from them, Lorenz leaned across the table to offer his praises, although to Marianne they sounded much like condolences.

“Magnificent,” he declared. “Simply breathtaking. Have you never considered wearing jewelry before? Even something so subtle has accentuated your looks in such a manner...”

“Oh, stop it, Lorenz, you’re making her blush!” jeered Hilda, which of course brought an even more intense blush to Marianne’s face. It was a ridiculous idea, really; a single necklace couldn’t change a person’s whole appearance. Just because she was wearing one of Hilda’s beautiful creations didn’t mean she had turned into someone beautiful.

Undeterred, Lorenz said to Marianne, “Please accept my apologies for not giving you anything. Had I been aware it was your birthday today, know that I would have prepared a gift of equal—or superior—aesthetic quality.”

“You can make it up to her by taking us out on the town,” Hilda said sweetly, and Marianne nearly laughed at how quickly she had snapped up the opportunity. Hilda had been trying to convince Marianne to come shopping with her all year, and she had politely refused every time, not that that had discouraged Hilda at all. At the very least, she was confident that Lorenz would refuse Hilda’s obviously self-serving request.

“What an excellent idea!” Lorenz exclaimed. “Shall we depart, say, right at the end of lunch?”

“Wait a moment,” Marianne said, more urgently than she intended. “I have stable duty after lunch. I can’t come. I’m sorry.”

Hilda groaned. “Oh, come on! Don’t they let you skip chores on your birthday?”

“...No.”

“Really? Dang. I was looking forward to it.”

“Most regrettable,” Lorenz said. “Seeing one as lovely as yourself would surely brighten the day of any onlooker. By shuttering yourself away, you are depriving the world of your beauteous presence—a pity indeed.”

“I wouldn’t want anyone to share my presence,” Marianne said quietly. “Enough people are already looking at me...” As she spoke, she looked around the dining hall, and realized that, in fact, most of the students who had been staring had already lost interest and turned their eyes back to their own conversations. The Golden Deer class was so rowdy that lunchtime chaos from their table was barely even noteworthy anymore. And while their constant ribbing usually wore her down, in this case, it had shielded Marianne from prying eyes.

Even though she could never participate their bantering, the Golden Deer had given her an unambiguous place to belong, and suddenly, Marianne felt a pang of regret.

Their compliments and gifts and well-wishes that had been making her so uncomfortable...if she switched to another class, then she wouldn’t receive any more, and the thought strangely pained her. It was a bizarre thing to care about, especially when she knew that she didn’t deserve anyone’s companionship.

Marianne took a breath and tried to consider the situation from another point of view. Logically, her classmates weren’t going anywhere. Hilda would still invite her shopping, and Lorenz would still shower her with compliments, and Raphael would still sit with her at mealtimes, and Leonie would still walk her to the stables...the one shying away had always been her. The only reason she was missing them was because, in her mind, she had already accepted the fact that she was going to transfer to a different class.

And realizing that didn’t mean she would miss them any less.

“I think I’m full,” Marianne said to her classmates as she stood up to leave. “I should really be getting to the stables now. Thank you, everyone. You...all of you have made my birthday very special. Thank you.”

Claude waved. “We’ll see you later, Marianne.”

***

The stables had always provided her with mental shelter whenever it was needed. She was eternally grateful that Garreg Mach had at least one building where the animals outnumbered the humans, allowing her a safe place to escape whenever dealing with the humans became too much.

But of course, there was one final human who could potentially remember her birthday, and he spent a lot of time here as well.

“Hello, Marianne,” Dimitri said. His hair was already tied back. Ready to work. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you,” she said. Dimitri was still staring at her, and as she tracked his eyes below her face she remembered the gift looped around her neck. “Oh, um...this was a gift. I don’t wear jewelry very often.” She fingered the necklace’s chain as she mulled over her word choice. Technically, never was not often.

“It looks very nice,” Dimitri told her. “The gemstones bring out your eyes.”

Marianne giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Um, nothing. Have you hauled out the feed yet?”

“No, not yet. I just got here, same as you. Actually, you’re here rather early today.”

“I didn’t eat much lunch.”

Immediately, Dimitri’s voice filled with concern. “Oh. You’re still...skipping meals?”

“No,” she quickly assured him. “I mean, I had tea with the professor right before, so I wasn’t very hungry, that’s all. I had some cake...I’m sorry if I worried you.”

“No need to apologize. How was the professor’s tea party?”

“She asked me about my goals,” Marianne said, and then hesitated. For some reason, she was reluctant to bring up the topic of switching classes. “I didn’t know what to say to her. If I told her I didn’t have any goals in life, she would have gotten mad at me.”

“I don’t think she would have gotten mad,” Dimitri said. “She’s quite considerate in that regard. But...you do need a goal in life. I think everybody needs a goal in life.”

Marianne stared at the ground. “But there’s nothing I want to do,” she ruefully admitted. “There’s no point in, um, wanting to accomplish things with my life. Because something will always happen to ruin it. So I’m fine with not wanting anything.”

“Well, what do you plan to do after you graduate?”

“It doesn’t matter what I plan,” she said, dejectedly clasping her hands together. “After I graduate, my adoptive father will arrange a marriage for me. I don't know to whom. And there’s no point in trying to change his mind. I’ve already accepted the fact that I’m just one of his pawns.”

“You’re more of a queen,” said Dimitri.

Marianne gave him a look.

“Uh—” Dimitri began backpedaling immediately. “That is not to say—I mean—you are not any piece on anyone’s chessboard, I, uh, was simply referring to your, uh, capability—”

“I understand, Dimitri,” she said, before he could make any more a fool of himself. She, of all people, wasn’t going to get offended because he was bad at talking. Actually, his embarrassment was kind of endearing.

“There is no shame in not having a goal,” he said, regaining composure. “I know how hard it can be to find one—to even think about finding one. I have struggled greatly in the past, as well.”

“You...struggled?” she repeated in surprise.

She shouldn’t have found it as hard to believe as she did. He had told her that they were the same, didn’t he?

Dimitri nodded solemnly. “Sometimes, my goal was merely...getting out of bed in the morning. And sometimes...I failed to accomplish even that.”

His words suddenly struck a chord. She still had mornings when she woke up feeling inexplicably exhausted, unable to will herself to move, or do anything but curl up under the covers even as her stomach growled with hunger. No one else understood why she looked so tired on those days, no matter how much she had slept. Those were the bad days that only she seemed to have; a punishment upon her alone that nobody else experienced.

Except Dimitri just admitted he had those bad days, too.

“But you seem so...normal,” she said, nearly at a whine, her tone betraying her desperation, her inadequacy, the sense of unfairness of it all. “How did you...?”

“After my parents were killed, I gave myself a goal,” Dimitri said, answering her unspoken question. “I came to the Officer’s Academy to pursue that goal. And having a goal in mind gives me something to work towards, day by day. It gives me the motivation to get up in the morning.” He frowned apologetically. “Please, forgive me. I didn’t mean to speak of such morbid things on your birthday. After all, this is the day on which we must...” He took a second to search for the right words. “...Celebrate your life.”

He knew exactly what she thought of her own life. Cautiously, she reminded him, “My life is not worth celebrating.”

“I disagree,” he intoned. “I’m sure many others do as well. But I can imagine how irritating it must be for you. Any birthday celebration would undoubtedly detriment your mood, thus defeating the purpose of a celebration.” His smile returned to his face. “Bearing that in mind, finding a gift for you was rather difficult.”

She sighed. “You didn’t have to get me anything,” she said, for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

“That’s exactly what I thought you would say. So I got you...shall I say, it’s not a gift for you, exactly...”

Marianne, in spite of herself, couldn’t help but be intrigued.

Dimitri said, “I contacted the Kingdom treasury, and asked that they make a donation to the stables here at the Officer’s Academy. A rather sizable donation.”

Marianne’s jaw dropped. “You...what?”

“Well, as the crown prince, I have access to...certain channels...” Dimitri seemed a bit flustered, now. “There is a fund for tithing—it was going to be donated to the church regardless, so I simply asked they prioritize the stables. Well, the stable master is always complaining we need to replace the gates, and most of the stalls need renovation, and—”

“Oh, Dimitri!” she exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”

“Well, it’s something that benefits all of us,” he said, modestly embarrassed before her excitement. “I’ve enjoyed many, many hours here, and I daresay that you were a significant part of that...enjoyment. So I simply couldn’t think of any gift you would appreciate more.”

Marianne’s mind buzzed, and for once, every single scenario that popped into her head was optimistic.

Dimitri’s gift was wonderful because it was not being wasted on her, instead going to a far worthier cause, and, after they fixed the stalls and bought new bedding and replaced all the tools that were older than she was, the happiness of the horses and the other stable hands would far surpass anything Marianne could ever muster by herself. Dimitri had understood what she wanted—more than that, he knew what would make her happy.

He was like a golden prince from one of her childhood stories, yet unbelievably real; he still accepted her for her struggles even though she was anything but a perfect fairytale maiden. Truly, she was blessed that the Goddess had allowed her to meet someone like him.

A genuine smile was spreading across her face, and Dimitri was smiling back at her, and for a second, on her birthday, everything was perfect.

***

Two days later, she stood in Remire Village, frozen in horror as the villagers tore each other apart.

The Blue Lions had arrived far too late. Enough of the villagers had been infected to plunge the area into utter chaos. Even the knights were powerless to stop them. Armed with stolen swords, they ran mindlessly through their homes, attacking families, laughing madly, burning everything that would catch. The torches in their hands reminded Marianne of sights she had only seen in her worst nightmares.

But this was not some nightmare being played out in front of her. This was real. At her side, Dimitri shook his head painfully.

“Ungh...”

Marianne was not the only one who noticed Dimitri’s pain. Sharply, Professor Byleth turned to him. “Are you okay?”

“I...” Dimitri’s eyes hardened. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Don’t waste your time on me. Saving the villagers is far more important. We haven’t a moment to lose!”

“His Highness is right,” said Dedue. “There are unafflicted villagers who are still trapped. Getting them to safety is our top priority.”

“Hold,” the professor ordered. “If we rush in, we’ll get surrounded. Ingrid, scout!” Astride her pegasus, Ingrid immediately ascended into the air as Byleth quickly arranged the rest of the class into formation. “Dimitri, Felix, with me on vanguard. Dedue, Annette, left flank. Sylvain, Ashe, right flank. Mercedes, Flayn, Marianne—stay within the perimeter, no matter what!”

The well-trained Blue Lions scrambled to position, and Marianne rushed to help Dimitri untie his horse from the supply convoy. His hands were visibly trembling, and a gut feeling of dread suddenly seized Marianne.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she whispered. If he couldn’t show weakness in front of the professor, then at least he could be true with her.

He did nothing of the sort. He kept staring ahead, clenching his jaw, and Marianne began fearing that he hadn’t even heard her.

“Dimitri—”

“What could have caused this?” he blurted at her. “This...cannot stand!”

The blood drained from Marianne’s face. Something about Dimitri’s glare was utterly...wrong. He hopped up onto horseback without her help and kicked off to the front of their pack, leaving her behind.

“There’s a suspicious group over by the mill!” Ingrid called from above. “They seem to be observing the chaos! Should we engage?”

Marianne didn’t miss the way that Dimitri shook his head again. Ice flooded her veins. Immediately, she began begging the Goddess for respite.

No.

Not now.

Not after he had promised to stay by her side. The professor needed him. The people of Remire needed him. He couldn’t succumb. He couldn’t.

“Are they the ones responsible for this madness?” Dimitri growled. “If so...it’s clear what must be done.” Sitting tall atop his horse, he looked so regal; so much like the leader he would one day be, and in the commanding voice of a king, his orders rang out across the battlefield for all to hear. “Kill them all. Don’t let a single one escape. Sever their limbs, and crush their wicked skulls!”

Marianne’s heart dropped into her stomach.

***

Her greatest fear was running out of healing magic, yet when it was finally over, she was profoundly ashamed that she hadn’t run out.

The professor gently smeared rosewater under her nose. All of the students had survived, when even some knights had fallen. Their strict formation had saved their lives, as well as the lives of numerous villagers, even as Dimitri broke rank and charged across the village in search of something to kill. She could see that now. While they searched for people to save, Dimitri had only wanted something he could kill.

After those mages slipped from his grasp, Dimitri had returned to them with his tail between his legs, and was now surveying the destroyed village for survivors. Marianne could do nothing but watch as he overturned piles of wreckage in a futile search for atonement.

The scent of roses could not hide the smell of burning bodies.

The Goddess could be so cruel.

***

She stood in the cathedral for hours and hours, determined to pray until revelation struck. The sun was already rising by the time she gave up. The Goddess never listened to her before. Why did she think that tonight would have been any different?

Dead on her feet, she trudged back through the morning monastery, and, instead of staring at the ground like she usually did, she carefully checked the face of every person she passed. In Remire, the students quickly learned how to discern between friend and foe, and Marianne found herself unable to shake the instinctive habit, as if she were still trapped between the burning homes, fighting for survival. In a way, it felt unfair. She had never before been able to tell who was a monster just by looking at their face. It would have been useful in the past.

That one had a frown, instead of a contorted, hellish smile. No need to strike him down. Friendly.

That one had visible pupils, instead of white, eerie nothingness. She could still be saved. Friendly.

That one was just a boy. Children were safe from the infection, but not from their parents. Friendly.

That one had Felix’s face. He had a sword strapped at his hip.

Marianne hesitated.

Without so much as a greeting, he blocked her path up to the second floor. “I need to talk to you.”

She eyed him wearily. After staying up all night in the freezing cold, Felix was the last thing standing between her and a warm bed, and maybe going to bed would fix everything. Maybe she could wake up to a world where none of this was real. None of it even felt real.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” he accused her. “You saw the boar prince’s true face.”

Automatically, she said, “He wasn’t himself.”

“Wrong,” Felix shot back. “When he’s at the monastery—when he’s in the stables—that’s when he’s not himself. I’ve known the boar since before we could walk. I know what he really is. Do you?”

Marianne stayed silent. She had decided that she was too tired to care for Felix's theatrics.

“Well, you do now,” he said, visibly disappointed that she wasn’t fighting back. “Congratulations. You’ve discovered the Kingdom’s best-kept secret: our future king is nothing but a bloodthirsty beast. Guard it well. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

“He’s not a beast,” she said before she could stop herself.

Felix glared at her. “No? He was about two seconds away from slaughtering us all.”

“He’s not a beast,” she said, louder this time. “He’s a human.”

Felix studied her face very carefully. Up close, it looked like he hadn’t slept much either.

“Why do you keep pretending?” he asked her.

“What?”

Slowly, emphasizing his words as if she were stupid, Felix repeated, “Why. Do you keep pretending. He is human?”

A few seconds ago, she had been too exhausted for anger. Now, as her indignation flared, she didn’t bother trying to stop it. “Humans can do horrible things,” she said bitterly. “Horrible things. You can call him bloodthirsty, but don’t call him a beast. Dimitri will always be human, no matter what you think.”

“Then why does he feel the need to pretend?” Felix snarled. “Why does he put so much effort into disguising who he really is? Do you know how sick it makes me, to see the boar—”

“Stop calling him that.”

“—to see the boar walking around on his hind legs, with a smile on his face, fooling everyone? He fooled the professor. He fooled you, too. But one of these days, that face of his is going to crumble, just like it did at Remire, only it’ll be permanent. What do you think will happen to him then?”

“So help him,” she said, almost pleading now. Her anger threatened to bubble up again, but she forced it down—anger was too counterproductive for what she needed from Felix. “He’s your friend. Help him yourself, instead of threatening those who try.”

“How can I help a rabid dog?” he spat out. “There is no helping someone like him. That’s simply his nature. I can’t separate him from his bloodlust, no more than I can keep a wolf from hunting or a bird from flying. And neither can you. So dispel whatever storybook fantasy you have in your head, because sooner or later, he’s going to get bored of you and tear you to pieces. Stay away from him if you value your life.”

Marianne laughed.

“I’m glad you think this is a joke,” Felix said irritably. “It’ll be easier on my conscience when you die.”

“I’m transferring into your class next week,” she informed him.

That managed to get a reaction out of him, and she took a look at his surprised face and committed it to memory and decided that now would be a good time to walk out of the conversation. Felix chased her as she trudged up the stairs. She was already going slowly, but didn’t slow down any more for him.

“There’s something wrong with you,” he hissed, furious, but still desperate to get the last word in. “I thought he simply had you fooled—but no, you’re worse than that damn lapdog. You know what the boar really is.”

“Yes. He’s a human. And he promised that he would be there for me. That’s who he really is.”

“Unbelievable,” Felix muttered. “Fine. You can ask him yourself. Ask him if he’s a beast walking around in human skin. See if he denies it.”

With that, he stormed off.

Chapter Text

For the first time in years, Dimitri had let his face slip.

The facade he had carefully controlled had fallen away, like so much dust, at the behest of monsters beckoning him from the depths. The Death Knight, the Flame Emperor, that repulsive creature who was once the librarian—they all deserved deaths every bit as painful as the torture they had wrought. Dimitri had willfully allowed all of them to drag him down to their level, until he could bear it no more, until he was leaping for the honor of being the one to mete out vengeance on behalf of the victims who could not.

Then Solon had vanished before his eyes, and Dimitri was left holding his lance in his hand, gaping stupidly at thin air.

It was mortifying, in every way imaginable. He tracked down the professor days later, meaning to apologize for the glimpse beneath his face. He did not apologize for deceiving her. If he did, he knew he would begin apologizing to every person he had ever deceived, from his closest friends all the way to passing vagrants, and his ghosts would never allow him to do that. Just one person was a world too many, even if that person was his beloved professor.

“Solon and the Flame Emperor are both beasts who must be eliminated,” he spat, more at himself than at her. “Demons who kill the innocent. They aren’t even human at this point.”

Shifting the blame helped ease his mind. If they had seen the monster in him, then that was the way to move forward: by crushing the monsters who were even worse. The professor would play her role, and together, they waffled words until drifting back to the importance of helping the surviving villagers. It was a safe, amicable agreement that avoided the things he wanted to avoid. But, as he thanked her for everything, he could sense the professor’s concern. She had so much trouble expressing her own emotions, and yet she could still shrink him under a look of infuriating sympathy. She couldn’t detect the truth, but the absence of truth was another matter.

Dimitri nearly broke. At the very least, he could proffer some form of explanation.

“There’s a reason that I came to the Officer’s Academy,” he told her. “Just one reason.”

His ghosts were already howling at him.

“I came here for revenge. And one day, I will have it.”

The professor said nothing as he walked away.

***

In the strictest sense, Marianne knew that she could already talk to Dimitri whenever she so wished. Dimitri had always been willing to listen to her inane words, but that was just talking—she could never truly open up to him, at least not in the way that she could with animals or the Goddess.

So it shouldn’t have bothered her that Dimitri had never truly opened up, either.

The problem, as always, lay in words. Even around Dimitri, she still had a propensity for stumbling and stuttering, for which he had never judged her. Most of the time, she could just feel, but for something like this, Dimitri deserved more than just her feelings. Praying before the Goddess’s eyes, Marianne fretted, scrambling to arrange thoughts into sentences—she had a feeling of what Dimitri truly was. All she had to do was explain it. If she could explain, then Dimitri would know, he would know what she was feeling...

There was no need to go out and search for him. The perceived distance between them seemed ridiculous after it occurred to her that all year, they had been sleeping in rooms hardly a minute’s walk apart. Concerns of propriety notwithstanding, there had simply never been a reason for either of them to visit the other’s room, not until now. Marianne stood in the hallway, hovering her fist over his door, hoping that it was in fact the correct room and she hadn’t managed to somehow get lost on the way. She took a single, cautious breath, then knocked.

“Dimitri?” she whispered anxiously.

The door flew open and there he was, standing before her in his sleeping clothes. Marianne was still in her uniform, having figured it was the least objectionable thing she could wear, and Dimitri stared down at her for a second, surprised, before wordlessly ushering her inside. His room was perfectly neat and freezing cold, and Dimitri slammed his shutters closed before pulling up a chair for Marianne. He himself sat on his bed.

“Sorry about the cold,” he said, in a tone wavering between formal and exhausted. “I sleep with the window open. Uh...to what do I owe this visit?”

“I just wanted to speak to you, Dimitri,” she said quietly. Now was not the time to lose her nerve. “And...to see how you were doing. After Remire Village.”

He visibly deflated, but did not falter. “Ah. That. The whole ordeal has been difficult for everyone. Above all, I’m just glad the danger has passed, so the villagers can start getting back to their normal lives.”

“Dimitri...I asked about you, not about them.”

“Me?” Dimitri hesitated, caught off guard. “I’m fine. There’s no need to worry about me.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it. “There is. You spent too much time with me.”

“Oh,” he said flatly, and hesitated, again. “I assume you speak of your...curse. Again, there’s no need to worry about me. I was able to emerge unscathed. More importantly, none of the other students were hurt, either.”

Silence lingered for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry, Marianne,” he said. “Assisting our class put your life at risk. You shouldn’t have been anywhere near that disaster.”

He was so frustratingly close to not missing the point. Something inside Marianne wanted to scream. Instead, she calmly asked, “Then who should have?”

“Knights. Bishops. Those sworn to a life of service, rather than mere students. You helped, and greatly, but...” Dimitri met her eyes. “...I wish this were a world where you wouldn’t have needed to.”

His face was impeccable, and Marianne tore her gaze away. “You’re a student, too,” she reminded him.

“I am a prince before I am a student, and I must hold to my duty before anything else. For me, a life of service has already been sworn away.”

He sat up straighter on his bed, perfecting his posture, as chivalrous as a prince could be. Marianne shut her eyes. So chivalrous, yet still so bullheaded. Pointedly, she asked, “Would you risk your life to save another?”

“Yes.”

“But you would forbid others from doing the same for you?”

“I understand your meaning, but...” Dimitri’s voice softened in reverence. “Marianne, you are...too valuable to lose. Remire Village was just so dangerous. Worse than anything I’ve ever seen. And I...I can’t help but feel responsible for your safety, since you were only assisting our class at the time. If any harm had befallen you, I’m sure the Golden Deer would be calling for my head.”

“Don’t joke about your death.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You were worried about my safety?” she suddenly snapped. “Did you retain any worry for yourself?”

Realization flashed in his eyes before they were forced back into neutrality, and he blinked, stopped, and stared at the floor. Silently, Marianne crowed. Did he believe that she was incapable of worry? Did he think her incapable of anger? If anger was what it took to provoke a real reaction, then so be it.

“Don’t apologize for putting me in danger,” she pleaded. “It means nothing when you treat your own life as...disposable! You promised that you would be careful, especially after spending so much time around me. You promised, Dimitri!”

He didn’t even have the decency to look guilty. His guilt was visibly being pushed back down, just like every other emotion that threatened to flicker across his face. “I’m...sorry. Remire Village carried...extenuating circumstances. I pray that I never find myself in a situation like that again. I pray there will never be a situation like that again.”

Already, her anger had given way to heartbreak. “I do, too,” she said mournfully, “but I’m so scared there will be. I’m so scared you’ll meet with another terrible situation, because of me, that you’ll end up in another terrible place...Dimitri, I thought you were going to die. And I prayed and I prayed, I couldn’t stop praying—but I can’t protect you. Not even the Goddess can protect you, if you...”

Almost in tears, she let herself trail off. Dimitri hung his head down and away, like a child being scolded, yet he remained rooted to his spot on the bed. Marianne gulped, both from her nerves and to stifle the crying built up in her throat. She did not come to his room to make him feel guilty. Better to just get to the point. “There was...something else. I saw something. There was so much...darkness, inside you. You said such...such awful things, and...Dimitri, what happened to you?”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured again. Reduced to nearly a whimper, he reminded her so much of a hurt animal; he was a hurt animal, in all the ways that mattered. “What you saw was a side of me...that I am not proud of.”

Dimitri let his arms drop to his sides, vulnerable, absent, completely limp. Hoarsely, he said, “I always strive to keep my emotions at bay. Because I know, that if I let my emotions control my actions, I will...lose sight of myself. That darkness you saw...that’s what happened in Remire Village. When I saw the chaos, and the violence there, my...mind just went completely dark. What happened there was unacceptable to me. I lost control, and that was...unacceptable to you. I let my emotions get the better of me, and I risked my life—no, everyone’s lives—because of it. I cannot allow myself to do that again.”

“But it’s over,” she whispered. “You don’t have to keep your emotions at bay anymore. The fighting’s over.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and the Dimitri she knew was once again gone. “For me, it’s never over.”

“But it’s causing you pain,” she nearly begged. “I know you’re suffering, Dimitri. We’re all suffering. Anyone who’s human would be suffering after seeing that. And...if you go around...pretending like nothing is wrong...”

“It’s like I’m not even human,” he finished.

So callously, so casually, he had conceded what she couldn’t even say out loud. Marianne’s heart sank, plunging deeper than she ever thought it could again. Fighting back tears, she stood up and unfurled one of his arms from his chest, and he let her, and the skin of his hand was so frighteningly cold against her own. But she could still bend his fingers, flex his palm; everything was so pliable under her touch, and Dimitri stared up at her blankly, expecting her to say something, perhaps, but she only stood there with his hand in both of hers. Words had already failed her. She couldn’t summon any more.

Finally, he spoke, deliberately bereft of emotion. “Marianne, you’re right. I broke my promise to you. I swore to keep you safe—to keep myself safe—and I betrayed everything that promise was founded upon.” His hand involuntarily tensed, although his voice did not change. “My shame is...immense, and your anger is just. You would be within your honor to scorn me, to abandon me, to treat me lower than a base creature beneath your feet.”

“I will not abandon you.”

“I know,” he said, almost in disappointment. “Is that why you joined the Blue Lions?”

Marianne blinked back her tears.

“I only found out today,” he said, and his eyes suddenly became sharp. “Marianne, why did you join my class?”

My class, he had said, not our class. The distinction was not lost on her.

“Because I won’t have you suffer alone,” she said determinedly. “I won’t have that. I won’t. I went through the same thing, Dimitri. I know what you’re going through.”

He gave her a forced, patronizing smile, the cruelest look he had ever given her. “No one knows what I’m going through.”

“Then explain it to me. I will listen. Please.”

“No,” he said, with enough force to make his resolution clear. “I don’t have time to suffer. I simply don’t.”

“Please, tell me,” she begged, and she really was begging now. “You’re in pain, Dimitri. Can’t you see? I want to help you through this. Please.”

“Your concern is appreciated, but misplaced,” he told her, unmistakably dismissive. “As I’ve said, there’s no need to worry about me. I’m fine. And you should be heading back to your own room, in any case. It’s rather late.”

In disbelief, Marianne took a step back, and Dimitri’s hand dropped to the bed.

He stared at the wall behind her, unwavering. “I’ll see you in class in two days’ time.”

There was no point in arguing. Marianne left him alone, all alone with his loathing, just like he so wanted. She shed no tears as she left. There was no point in doing that, either.

Anybody with eyes could see the inevitable. With or without her, he was cracking apart.

All she had to do was wait.

***

Winter arrived proper in the middle of the night. Dimitri arose to find the monastery steadily disappearing under the first snowfall of the season, and as he trudged to breakfast, children ran about the grounds in delight, shrieking, playfighting, distracting themselves from the tragedy of a week past. His happiness for them far outweighed his jealousy. How good it was, that these orphans were still able find joy in the simple changing of seasons, in the progression of life.

What a way to herald Marianne’s first day as a Blue Lion.

Against his better judgement, he couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. At best, the poor girl was deluded; at worst, she was deranged. Their friendship was a perfect storm of awful circumstances: her life was much like his own, as miserable as that was to think about, and he had condescended to her, unwittingly, by preaching the hope that he did not himself practice. Now that she had seen his true face, she willingly chose to reject reality in favor of believing the lie.

Giving her false hope was surely worse than giving her no hope at all. The fact that he was damned was inconsequential, but to drag Marianne down with him was a regret that he could not accept. He was a beast, a monster, a boar wearing a prince’s face. She was decidedly human, and had refused the idea of vengeance even for her own family. There was no place for her in the vestiges of his life.

But perhaps, if anyone could conceivably understand...

He forced that thought out of his mind. Regardless of everything, he was now her house leader, and that came with the determination to pretend everything was normal, to treat her as he would any other classmate. The propriety was no less than she deserved.

“Dedue, go on ahead without me,” he said, spying her across the dining hall. “I must speak with our newest student.”

Dedue left his side without argument. Marianne rose to meet Dimitri, displaying none of the confidence she had possessed previously—the dense crowd of the dining hall was scaring her into submission, and Dimitri took note of that fact before immediately becoming disgusted with himself. In a different life, he would have never considered using her vulnerabilities against her.

“Good morning,” he managed to choke out.

“Good morning, Dimitri,” she said, and offered him a shy smile, far more than he deserved. It was nearly enough to break him on the spot. “Well, um...I think I’m ready. What are we doing in class today?”

“I’m not sure. We finished a unit on battalion tactics last month. Whatever we start next, I’m sure the professor will bring you up to speed...”

Just like that, they were walking again, chatting again, making small talk like nothing was out of the ordinary, just the way he would have liked it. Cloaked in snow, the monastery looked so beautiful, and Marianne looked perfectly suited in the midst of it, and Dimitri allowed himself to imagine—she looked so much like a normal student, going about her normal school life, with a normal future ahead of her.

The illusion shattered when they reached their classroom. All the desks in the room had been pushed against the walls, and a ring of chairs remained facing each other in the center. Most of their classmates were already seated, with all the levity of a funeral, and exchanging glances around the circle at their newfound closeness. Only Professor Byleth, standing by the doorway, looked as unperturbed as ever.

Of course she would have organized something like this. Nothing would ever be the same again.

“Good morning, Dimitri. Good morning, Marianne.” Byleth gestured inside. “Please, have a seat.”

Dimitri nodded. He hurriedly kicked the snow off his boots, then moved to pull out a chair for Marianne, except there was no table from which pull the chair out from. Consciously, he retracted his hand. Marianne didn’t seem to notice.

“Huh?” Annette’s voice rang from the doorway. “What’s happened to our classroom?”

“Good morning, Annette. Good morning, Mercedes,” said Byleth. “Please, have a seat. We’re doing something a little different today.” With everyone present, the professor shut the doors, sealing out the bitter cold, and took her place among her students. “I’ve been talking to many of you, and I’ve made the decision that we’re not ready to return to class. Instead, I’d like for us to discuss what happened in Remire Village. A debrief, of sorts. The past week has been so hectic that we haven’t had a chance to properly process our grief. Grief, and other emotions, as well.”

There was no way. Dimitri glanced at Marianne, his paranoid mind telling him that she had somehow put the professor up to this; that every contrivance in the world was a conspiracy against him. Instead, Marianne was visibly apprehensive, and more guilt seized at his heart. She couldn’t possibly have been looking forward to spilling her feelings on her first day of class. In his selfishness, he had forgotten—Marianne’s feelings would always take precedence over his own.

“I’ll keep this short,” Byleth said. “Frankly, you’re not taking care of yourselves. In the aftermath of disaster, there are always lasting effects. I’ve seen them with my own eyes, countless times, and I’m concerned they may be affecting some of you. I’m talking about things like nightmares. Or you may be getting scared of seemingly nothing—experiencing the so-called fight-or-flight response, even when you know that you are perfectly safe. I want to tell you right now that these things are normal. They’re not shameful, they’re normal. Even the most hardened of mercenaries suffer these things.” The professor nodded into the center of the circle, in agreement with herself. “In my experience, the mercenaries who admit their fear can process it properly, whereas those who refuse to mourn, the ones who keep everything locked up inside—they’re the ones who suffer the longest. As students, no one will think less of you if you admit that you are troubled. It may ease your minds to know that others are going through the same thing. Please, if anything still bothers you about Remire, then now is the time to share it with others who will not judge you. Share whatever you feel comfortable with. I open the floor to you.”

The room was met with dead silence.

“We can raise hands, or we can go around the circle,” Byleth said.

“I can start,” Ashe said quietly. Everyone’s eyes immediately swiveled to him.

“Go ahead, Ashe.”

“Well, there’s...kids running around everywhere,” Ashe began. “That’s the thing I worry most about, is how many of the survivors are kids. Every time I see them, it reminds me of my younger brother and sister, back when we had nothing. I know how hard it’s going to be for those kids now. I guess...I don’t really know what my point is. I suppose it’s that I can sympathize with them.”

“If I may,” said Byleth, “I recall you’ve spoken to me about your siblings before. About how their smiling faces motivated you at the worst of times.”

“Yes. I still remember every gift I brought them.” A note of positivity sprung up in Ashe’s voice, as if forced. “Years later, their smiles are what I remember the most. So...well, I guess I just need to remind myself that in a couple of years, those kids will only remember the things that made them smile. And, uh, not the other things.”

“Thank you, Ashe. That’s very thoughtful. Dedue, would you like to go next?”

Dedue, sitting between Ashe and Dimitri, looked even less enthusiastic than usual. More than anybody else, Dedue was not one to admit his personal worries, so Dimitri was surprised when he began speaking so readily.

“I will add on to what Ashe said,” he intoned. “I was also startled by how many of the survivors were children. Yesterday, I was on cooking duty. Numerous children came to the dining hall to beg for extra food. It was...disheartening.”

Mercedes raised her hand, and Dedue looked to her in deference.

“I think I know the children you’re talking about,” Mercedes said serenely. “Most of them have been staying in the cathedral. Yesterday, a boy came back in the afternoon and started sharing cookies and sugar buns with the others. He had a bag full of them. He said it was given to him by a friendly giant.”

“Oh.” Dedue’s stoic expression softened the barest amount. “I...remember him.”

Mercedes smiled, so much like a beacon shining through everyone’s sorrow. “They’re all so precious. It’s good that you’re being so kind to them. It lets them be kids for just a little while longer. Even though there was a tragedy, the Goddess has also given us a chance to do good.” Her hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean to speak out of turn.”

“It’s fine, Mercedes,” said Byleth. “Everyone will have a turn. That’s an excellent way of looking at things. The people performing acts of kindness far outnumber the people committing acts of evil.”

Mercedes nodded. “That’s how I’m getting through this. I choose to focus on the acts of kindness. Most people choose to help, and I’m happy to see that includes everyone in our class.”

“It’s very comforting,” Byleth agreed. “Dedue, do you have anything further to say?”

Dedue shook his head, and the professor’s empty gaze moved down the line.

“Dimitri, would you like to go next?”

Dimitri nodded, sat up straight, and recited, “I’m still troubled by what I saw. But above all, I’m just glad the victims are out of danger now. I’ll sleep well knowing that we were able to make a positive difference, however small.”

From across the circle, Felix was glaring at him.

“Dimitri,” said Byleth, as gently as possible, “I don’t think you realize that you are a victim as well.”

Dimitri froze. To his side, he could practically feel Marianne’s eyes burning holes into his head.

“I’m a victim,” Byleth continued. “Everyone in this room is a victim. We may not have lost our homes, but we were still affected all the same. Even if you consider it minor, your suffering is no less important than anyone else’s.”

“But...that really is how I feel,” he insisted unconvincingly, while refusing to look any direction but forward. “The villagers are my foremost concern. Whatever I may be feeling pales in comparison to them. Perhaps...perhaps it’s because of my station, but the way I feel is linked to the welfare of the citizenry. It’s inextricable.”

Byleth, and Marianne, and indeed the whole class was looking at him now, and Byleth said, “Then consider this: your station is no longer responsible for those villagers. The survivors have been taken in by the church—they’re no longer yours to worry about. The only victim you’re still responsible for is yourself.”

Dimitri could have stared at his professor forever, the way he was struck speechless like a fool. His mouth had fallen open at some point, and, if only because he had to say something, he stammered, “I’ve...never thought of it that way.”

She kept looking right through him. “That’s why you come to school, Dimitri, to gain new perspective. In many ways, Remire Village has been a test. It’s forced us to rethink our methods; to learn, to grow. That’s how we move on from this tragedy. Personally, it’s reshaped the way I’ll be approaching missions in the future. All of you must rethink your own perspectives in the same way.” She was no longer speaking just to him, but to the whole class. “I think it’s easy to die for others. It’s not so easy to have others die for you. If we are ever to move on, then we must learn to accept those losses, rather than be weighed down by the guilt of survival.”

“I will try to...rethink my perspective, then,” Dimitri said, stunned. “If it is to honor the dead, I can...reevaluate my own life. I can try. If you believe that is the best way to move on.”

Byleth hummed, satisfied with his answer, so he concluded, “I have nothing further I can say right now.”

“So you’re just not going to talk about your nightmares?” Felix cut in sarcastically.

His sharp voice pierced through the dreariness of the classroom, striking down any hope Dimitri had of avoiding this conversation, or at least, this aspect of it. But of course, Felix already knew what he was. Something like this had practically been expected.

“Be respectful,” Byleth ordered.

Ignoring her, Felix spat at Dimitri, “I can hear you whimpering through our paper-thin walls, night after night after night. It’s annoying. And you call that sleeping well?”

“I was not aware that I spoke in my sleep,” Dimitri lied. “Thank you for bringing that issue to my attention.”

“Not aware?” repeated Felix in disgust. “What about your little outburst back at Remire? Were you not aware of that either?”

“Felix,” said the professor sternly, “that’s enough. No one has to talk about anything they don’t feel comfortable with.”

“Then this whole session is pointless,” Felix snapped. “We’re wasting our time on this touchy-feely garbage instead of dealing with the problems that actually matter, our boar prince being chief among them. I thought the whole point of this was to be honest. If he can’t even manage that, then why should anyone else? Why should we even be here?”

“Felix,” said Byleth, but Felix was already striding out of the room, pushing open the towering doors, letting freezing air swirl in for a second before the doors slammed shut with a resounding thud.

Sylvain broke the silence. “I’ll talk to him later.”

“Thank you, Sylvain,” said Byleth. “I think I’ll talk to him later, as well. This class is supposed to be free of judgement.”

“Yeah, I’ll make sure to tell him that,” Sylvain said dourly.

The room relapsed into incredibly awkward silence.

“Marianne,” Byleth said, excessively gentle, “would you like to go next?”

The quickening of Dimitri’s heart suddenly shook him from his stupor. To be berated by Felix was something he could endure, but Marianne was different. If Marianne were to say anything...

“I still check people’s faces,” she admitted.

Dimitri breathed out, flooded by guilt and shame and relief all at once; guilt, for once again placing his own feelings before hers, shame, from Marianne implicitly concealing his monstrous self, and relief, utmost relief, that she had not blamed herself for causing the calamity.

“You check for signs of the infection?” asked Byleth.

“Yes,” Marianne said. “Everyone I see. I can’t stop myself from doing it.” As Marianne spoke, she did not stiffly face forward as Dimitri had done, but instead glanced from side to side, meeting the eyes of her classmates, allowing them in. Their first class together, and she was debuting with all the maturity and fluency that he himself had lacked.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Byleth said, “do you do it out of fear for yourself, or do you do it out of concern for others?”

“Concern for others.”

“That is something to be admired. Putting others before yourself, especially in circumstances like these, takes a level of selflessness that not many people can claim to have.”

“It may be selfless, but I don’t think I’m actually helping anyone,” Marianne pointed out. “All I’m doing is scaring myself. But...that may be good for me, I think.”

The professor stared her down. “Can you elaborate?”

“I was already...rather scared of people, before,” she admitted. “But...I realized something. I realized how tiring it is, to live a life where I’m always scared, where I assume that everyone I meet is trying to hurt me. But I know that my fear is going to pass eventually.” She glanced at Dimitri, and something abstract leapt up within his heart. “The fighting is over now. I know that no one is going to hurt me anymore.”

***

She found Dimitri in the same state she had left him: brooding alone in his freezing room, walled off on all sides, closed to the world, and yet a simple knock on his door was all it took to get in. Anyone could have done it. All Dimitri needed was somebody willing to knock.

“Good evening, Dimitri.”

“Hello,” he replied, utterly miserable, and once again pulled up his chair for her. He looked even more terrible than before, with his reddened eyes parading the kind of tiredness that sleep wouldn’t fix. Despite the temperature in his room, he was somehow sweating through his clothes.

“I just wanted to speak with you,” she said. “We didn’t really get a chance to talk in class.”

That was the politest way she could inform him that he was falling apart at the seams, and Dimitri grunted in acknowledgement. “Marianne,” he muttered, like it hurt to speak her name, “did you really join the Blue Lions just for me?”

“I had several reasons,” she answered, with her voice softened to its usual subdued tone. “But you were one of them. I don’t have much I want to accomplish. But I think the Goddess would, um, want me to prevent someone from...becoming like me.”

Dimitri’s face filled with pain, his eyes turning dark and downcast at the mere mention of her misfortune. Bitterly, he told her, “However forsaken you believe yourself to be, I assure you that I am far worse. Do not blame yourself for my behavior. It was before we even met that I became the way I am.”

He truly believed what he was saying. Her heart nearly sank once again.

“Why does Felix call you a boar?”

“Because I am one,” he said without inhibition. “Boars are disgusting, violent creatures. Untamable beasts who care for nothing but their own rutting and carnage. Felix has seen my true face, and can thence only describe me as such. The comparison is apt.”

“Dimitri, that’s horrible,” she breathed. “It’s n-not right for him to say those things about you. You’re not a-any kind of beast. Don’t think of yourself that way.”

“It matters not what I think,” he said dully. “A beast is what I am. I accept this in the service of my revenge. Felix looks upon me with disgust in his eyes, for he knows. He knows that he is, too, naught but a weapon...the Shield of Faerghus. It is abhorrent to him. And Dedue, loyal Dedue...I cannot even call him my friend, no matter how much I wish it so. He has pledged his service to me as a mere tool to be discarded.” Dimitri slouched atop his bed, utterly defeated. “We are all dead men walking. The only thing I can do is point my blade towards our murderers.”

“No,” Marianne pleaded, “no, Dimitri—listen to yourself! This isn’t you. You’re not a weapon!”

“You do not understand. And I relish that fact. It is proof you still have a life to live.” Dimitri’s deadened eyes met her mournful ones, and she could see how hard he forced himself to sit still, even as his restless soul fought back, bleeding, from the inside. “I’m...so, so sorry that I deceived you. The face you knew...it has been nothing but a front. I’m not human. I never was. You wasted your kindness on a beast. The man you knew...none of it was real.”

“None of it was real...” she softly repeated. “You worked alongside me in the stables, for months, and you always showed me such kindness, no matter how much of a burden I was to you. Was that kindness real?”

“The stables were a means to an end,” he said weakly. “I needed to train myself. To become stronger. You were merely...there.”

“I see,” she said, her voice trembling. “And what of my confiding in you? Dimitri, I told you things I’ve never told anyone else. Because of your humanity...I knew that you would understand. And you comforted me, with such patience...”

“That—” He shook his head. “Empty words...anyone would have done the same.”

“On my birthday,” she pressed, “you gave me such a wonderful gift. No beast could have done that. Only a human could have come up with something so thoughtful, only meant for helping others...was my birthday gift a fake?”

“No, I—” His voice snagged. “No, t-that was real. That one was real. I was...my own self...”

“Dimitri—” Marianne cut herself off, unable to stand the distance between them any longer. She sat next to him on the bed, and Dimitri flinched away, leaning from her touch; she reached out to rest a cautious hand on his arm, and tears began welling up in his eyes. “I was so afraid of coming here,” she said quietly. “When my adoptive father told me he was sending me to Garreg Mach, I cried all night. The Officer’s Academy was like a nightmare for me. Everyone seemed so happy, and normal, and I...I was so afraid of ruining their happiness. So I pushed everyone away. But when I tried to push you away, you fought to remain at my side. You said that you would be there for me, whether I wanted you there or not.”

Dimitri’s mouth quivered. He bit his lip, forcibly, to hold back the tears that longed for release.

“I was so relieved, to have someone understand how I truly feel,” she whispered. “For the first time since my parents disappeared, it feels like...like I’m not alone in the world. So tell me, Dimitri. Tell me how you truly feel.”

“I feel—there is—” A sob burst up from Dimitri’s chest. “Marianne, how...can you...how did you...know?”

Marianne leaned in to take Dimitri in her arms, and he slowly hugged her back, unsure, afraid of placing down his hands, sobbing in earnest now, and when he realized that Marianne was still holding him, not rejecting him for who he was, his sobs deepened, wailing, wracking the both of them with the heaving of his chest.

“I try,” he sobbed, “and I try, and it’s never enough. No matter how hard I try, it’s n-not going to be enough. I can’t save any of them. I c-couldn’t even save my family.” He was babbling now, blubbering into her hair, and she hugged him closer. “I t-teach swordplay, to the orphans here, at the monastery. And I saw them. I saw them, together with the new ones, the children of Remire...it’s never going to end, Marianne. This cycle is never going to end. When will it ever end?”

She held onto him, never to let go, and he wept messily into her embrace, his tears unable to stop once their flow had begun.

“I w-want to be...” He swallowed. “...Normal. As y-you said. Happy. I want to enjoy being a student, but there is so much violence around every corner. Every battle we fight, I remember what it was like—Marianne, I just want it to stop. But I can’t. My father, my stepmother...they will not let me rest. Even in my sleep, even in my dreams, even while awake—I am followed by a nightmare that never ends.”

His hands shot up to grip her shoulders, desperately holding her steady. “I can’t even tell what’s real anymore,” he begged her. “Lord Arundel—my uncle—he has come to visit me over this past month. And I can’t even tell who he is. He tells me stories from my childhood that I cannot remember. My childhood memories—gone. Like a gap in my soul. And I know he’s tampered with—with his niece’s memories. So I can’t even trust my own memories?!” Suddenly, intensely, his hands tightened like vices, and he fixated into her eyes, dark, wounded, terrified. “Marianne, what I’ve lost...what if it’s not real? How do I tell? What if I forget who they are?”

In the dark, Marianne looked into his eyes, and saw him as he truly was. Fighting back tears, strong enough to admit how weak he was, Dimitri had never looked more beautiful.

She considered all the advice that others had given her, that she had accumulated over the years and herself been unable to follow; all the advice that couldn’t possibly understand what it meant to pick up the remains and shape them back into something resembling a person, using willpower to seal up the cracks where they didn’t fit, to ignore the grinding noise the pieces made while falling off until there were so little left she wondered why she ever bothered at all.

“I’m here, Dimitri,” she whispered. “I’m real.”

Chapter Text

Marianne stared out the window of the dingy teahouse, absentmindedly stirring her cup of tea. Across the table from her, Lysithea loudly flipped pages in her new textbook, punctuating the conversation between Hilda and Leonie—those two had been going back and forth all day, and Marianne was content to just listen to them argue. Involving herself was never a good idea.

Mostly, she was still having trouble processing all the things she had seen on her first ever trip into town. Had these stores really been here, just outside her window, for the whole year? Everything she had seen today had set her mind whirling, from the secondhand store where Leonie scrounged for anything useful, to the tailor’s shop frequented by Hilda, to a tiny bookstore tucked away in an alley. Lysithea had dragged them all inside, purchased a single textbook on anima magic, then dragged them all back outside before Marianne had a chance to browse. The four of them had since gone to warm themselves up with tea, and luckily, they were the only customers inside the shop at the moment. The whole town seemed to have slowed to a standstill with the onset of winter.

“Hilda, you don’t have to alter a dress for me,” Leonie was saying.

“I absolutely do.” Hilda insisted again. “You can’t wear your uniform to the ball!”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t!” Hilda said, indignant. “Don’t even worry about it, okay? It’s no problem for me—I already have all the fabric and junk!” She wiggled the shopping bag tucked between her thighs, which overflowed with newly-bought textiles and spools of string.

“For a lot of kids, their school uniform is the nicest thing they own,” Leonie pointed out. “There’s nothing wrong with wearing mine to the ball. Hey, Lysithea, Marianne, you guys are going in uniform, right? Or are you gonna let her stuff you into a dress?”

“If Hilda is offering to shorten a dress for me, then it’s only logical to accept,” Lysithea answered, without even looking up from her book. She was already halfway done reading it. Hilda beamed in approval, then looked to Marianne.

To avoid answering, Marianne took an extended sip, and reflected on how the cup of tea in her hands was the only thing she had actually spent any gold on today. But Hilda was still making puppy-dog eyes at her, so she admitted, “I don’t really want to go.”

Immediately, Hilda went on the offensive. “Oh, but Marianne, you have to go! Come on, please?” She batted her eyelashes disarmingly. “If you don’t come, then who am I gonna dance with?”

Marianne resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Even after the better half of a year, she still wasn’t fully immune to Hilda’s charms, on the rare occasions when Hilda would stoop so low to use them on her. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find a better partner than me,” she said, then went back to staring out the window.

“Come on, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing!” Hilda begged her. “And plus, if you say yes, I promise I’ll stop asking!”

“I just, um...I don’t think me going to the ball is a good idea.”

“Oh, not this again,” Lysithea said irritably. “Marianne, we’ve been over this already. Your defeatist attitude is completely irrational. You’re not going to bring misfortune to the ball just through your presence alone—you said you never wanted to come to town either, but now that you’re here, has anything disastrous happened? How much more empirical evidence do you need?”

“Hey, be nice,” Leonie reminded her.

Marianne bit her tongue.

Sometimes, it felt as though joining a different house had only doubled the amount of people she could disappoint. Two sets of classmates now waved at her in the halls, or said something if they noticed her skipping breakfast, and the last thing Marianne wanted to do was give them any reasons to worry. A handful of changes had been noted over the past few weeks: waking up came to her easier and earlier, she was actually listening in class, and even felt safer eating in front of others. If something so small reassured her classmates, then Marianne could find it in herself to wave back at them, or sit with them during meals, or to even accept Hilda’s latest invitation to go shopping.

At times, she still fell into self-deprecation—right now, for instance. It was laughable that she could barely even leave the monastery, when others could do it so easily. But she did leave the monastery, in the end. That was the part that mattered.

Surely, her being here was a blight upon the town. But Lysithea was telling her it wasn’t. And Lysithea was usually right about these things.

Right?

Already, Lysithea was engrossed in her book again. “If you really believe that misfortune will occur, then simply extricate yourself from the situation.”

“What she’s trying to say is that if the ball sucks, you can just leave,” Leonie added helpfully.

Hilda didn’t say anything, but just held her breath while awaiting Marianne’s answer, peering at the other girl with wide, hopeful eyes, nearly bursting in her unkempt joy.

“I’ll think about it,” Marianne said.

***

Where could he go from here?

The cries of the dead had not been silenced, of course. By now, it was a fact that Dimitri had learned to live with, and before, he had coped by holding himself to their demands, swearing to never again show a shred of weakness—until he had. And miraculously, the world had not ended around him.

The person who made it possible was already in the stables when he arrived, and Dimitri instinctively broke into a smile when their eyes met. Did Marianne care one iota for how weak he was? Even after seeing him at his most pathetic, she would not judge him, or abandon him—none of the things that the dead had warned him about. She did not turn into another Felix, so determined to hate who he really was. Instead...the two of them could just talk. About anything. His duty was something he no longer had to face alone.

It felt nice.

Deep in his heart, he knew that he couldn’t keep this up forever.

But it still felt nice.

She was struggling to carry out a burlap sack of feed, and slowed to let him catch up as soon as he entered the storeroom. “Hello, Dimitri.”

“Good morning,” he replied, and hurriedly shed his outermost cloak and hung it up from one of the hooks on the wall, then scooped up his own sack of feed. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Marianne paused a step to readjust the heavy bag in her arms, propping it up with her knee. “Well...”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been thinking, recently,” she told him, “about...about the ball. It’s all anyone wants to talk about. It hasn’t even happened yet, and I’m already getting tired of it.”

The smile on Dimitri’s face came so effortlessly. “I think I know what you mean. It’s been a lot of preparation for just one night.”

“I don’t even want to go, but everyone is telling me to,” she complained. “The dancing sounds so stressful, and difficult, but everyone talks about it like...like it’s the most fun thing in the world. Well...I don’t think it sounds like the most fun thing in the world.”

Dimitri nodded fervently. He had yet to stop smiling like a buffoon in all the time it had taken them to reach the horses’ stalls. Hearing Marianne complain was a rare treat—at one point, he had believed that she was incapable of complaining, just as how he had once believed himself incapable of crying, and so he loved seeing the side of her that was more assertive, and less so willing to just accept everything that happened to her.

When she saw him breaking down, did she feel the same way?

With practiced care, Dimitri began pouring grain into a feeding trough. Marianne mirrored his actions at the stall behind him, and as they worked, she asked, “Do you think I should go?”

“Uh...that’s not quite my decision to make.”

“I trust you more than I trust myself,” she said. “Sorry—I trust a lot of people more than I trust myself. I just feel, um, that if I go to the ball, I’m only going to end up disappointing everyone.”

“The decision you make will be the right one, so long as it is your own. But, well, seeing as you asked...” Dimitri lifted his eyes up from his task momentarily. “I believe it would be an even greater disappointment if you didn’t attend.”

“So I’m going to end up disappointing people either way?”

“What? No, no—” Dimitri spluttered, and Marianne actually giggled a bit. “If you intend to raise the least amount of eyebrows, then you could simply arrive, greet everybody and then retire early.”

“That’s what I was thinking of doing,” she agreed. “Everyone is telling me to go...no one is telling me for how long.”

A short laugh escaped Dimitri’s lips. He had briefly entertained his own exit strategies for the ball, but unlike Marianne, his presence was required. The ball, much like everything at the Officer’s Academy, was a mire of juvenile politics—he would be expected to save a dance for every noble daughter in Fódlan, or at least the ones who approached him. As he and Marianne moved about, spreading fodder to every stall, he realized he hadn’t even considered the ones who wouldn’t approach him.

“Weren’t you going to go practice riding today?”

“Hmm?” Dimitri broke off his train of thought. “Not today. I would prefer not working up a sweat right now—the professor has invited me to take tea with her right after lunch.”

“Oh? Why does the professor want to see you?”

“Uh,” said Dimitri, “because today’s my birthday.”

The half-empty bag of feed in Marianne’s hands thudded to the ground, and she watched it sag for a second before whirling around and shooting Dimitri a look of exasperation, as if he was the one who had dropped it.

“You...you didn’t tell me it was your birthday!”

“Erm, it...slipped my mind?”

“Your own birthday slipped your mind?” she uttered, doing her best to look cross, making it very, very hard for Dimitri to keep a straight face. His mind flashed back to a minute ago, when he had hoped to see Marianne being more assertive. How blessed he was, that she was already fulfilling one of his birthday wishes.

“I apologize,” he said, with all the seriousness he could muster. “Truly. It just didn’t seem appropriate to bring up. With what happened last month...”

Marianne nodded in agreement, suddenly somber, and Dimitri slowly exhaled. Understanding was already something that very few people could share with him. “Worry not,” he reassured her. “I’m in a much better place than I was one week ago.” He paused, but there was no reason to hide how he felt anymore. “Your presence is a gift enough. I truly mean it, Marianne. Just being here today, being able to do chores alongside you, like we’re just normal students...it’s something that I never knew I needed. I don’t think I’ll take it for granted ever again.”

A tiny smile passed her lips, slight enough that he would have missed it had he not known to look, before she let out an equally tiny sigh. “Well, happy birthday, Dimitri. But I still wish I could have gotten you something, especially after what you did for me on my birthday.”

“Marianne, you’ve already given me something invaluable,” he insisted. “And not on the arbitrary date I was born, but rather, at the time when I needed it most. I’m extremely grateful to have you in my life.”

“Then it’s not a gift, I think,” she pointed out, pensive, but self-assured. “If you needed it, then that makes it not a gift.”

“Perhaps. So, that means I have everything I need right now. What, then, is there left for me to wish for?”

Marianne shrugged as she retrieved the fallen bag from the ground. “Well, what do you want?”

She probably wasn’t expecting a serious answer, yet Dimitri’s mind couldn’t help but supply one.

Slowly, he said, “The things I wish for...are things that only the Goddess could give me. But of course, I know that she’ll never grant me what I ask. No matter how hard I beg her, she’ll never so much as reach out a hand...and perhaps it’s selfish of me to hope that she even would.”

Marianne stared at him, stunned.

The two of them had been in such a festive mood just moments ago, and Dimitri was painfully aware he had ruined it, by disparaging the Goddess she loved so much. If there was anything she would chide him for, it would be this, and yet, Marianne instead clasped her hands together, protecting herself with the burlap sack draped loosely over her legs.

Quietly, she said, “I don’t think that’s selfish.”

“That’s a relief,” he admitted, and the tension between them seemed to defuse on the spot.

Marianne tilted her head down, in the way she did to force herself through bouts of shyness, and said, “Actually, there, um...there might be a way to make wishes come true. Even the ones thought impossible.”

This time, it was Dimitri who nearly dropped his bag of feed, acutely aware of what she was referring to. Marianne was hanging her head, embarrassed that she had even spoken up, and so on behalf of both of them Dimitri managed to stammer out, “With that being the case...would you...be willing to meet me at the Goddess Tower, on the night of the ball?”

His own cheeks were heating up now, and Marianne’s mouth had fallen open, but she managed work up some hidden resolve to face him and give him a determined nod.

A promise, unspoken.

With the Goddess as their witness, surely not even the dead could object.

***

It was with unprecedented efficiency that the reception hall was transformed into a pristine ballroom overnight, one meant to impress upon the future leaders of Fódlan moreso than the student body at large. Garreg Mach Monastery was the highest seat of the Church of Seiros, and the full splendor of the church was on display tonight as a gentle reminder of that power. A millennium of tradition gave the ballroom the feeling of being part of something eternal—the candles in the rafters lit up the hall with a divine glow, and students entering would stop dead in their tracks and gaze upward, stunned as they were by the sight, and once they finally looked down from heaven they could find their places among the privileged and take from the rows upon rows of champagne flutes and sate their nerves with more slices of cured meat and exotic fruit than most ordinary people would see in a lifetime.

Rarely did Dimitri feel so out of place in his own school. With him were the rest of the Blue Lion boys, plus Ingrid, all of them wearing the clothes meant for the abstract future versions of themselves; the clothes meant for lords and peers rather than gangly teenagers standing around in a loose semicircle, unsure of what to do or say while waiting for the evening to start.

Sylvain nudged Ingrid in the shoulder. “Hey, what happened to the rest of the girls?”

“They were taking forever to get ready,” she answered, while already working her way through a platter of samples. “I just left as soon as Mercedes finished my makeup, because I wanted get here before all the good food was gone.”

Ashe frowned, fidgeting with the collar of his coatee. “But weren’t they meeting in your room?”

“Yes,” Ingrid said, then popped another cheese cube into her mouth. “All this lipstick is making it hard to eat.”

“It looks good on you,” said Sylvain, and Ingrid glanced up at him.

“...Thanks,” she said grudgingly.

“Save your drivel for another night,” Felix muttered, more to himself than Sylvain.

Dimitri suppressed the urge to chime in. Apparently, the professor had managed to get Felix to mellow out, but the other boy was still decidedly testy around him and Dimitri didn’t want to ruin what tentative peace they had. Just having Felix attend the ball was already enough of an accomplishment, and Dimitri decided that, for the moment, he would settle for just enjoying Felix’s presence. His life wouldn’t have been the same without his classmates—not without all of his classmates.

Ashe, still fidgeting with his collar, suddenly nodded towards the entranceway. “Hey, there they are.”

Mercedes, Annette, and Flayn were striding in, straight-backed and proper, and painted in makeup more personalized than any professional could have done. Walking alongside them were four girls Dimitri recognized at first through hair colors alone—pink and blue, white and orange—all of them fledged in extravagant evening wear, and his jaw dropped when he saw Marianne’s hair let down from its usual braided updo, straightened out to cascade around her shoulders, its color offset by the pastel blue of her shimmering dress. Once a girl who strived to fit comfortably into any background, Marianne stood out so radiantly that Dimitri was immediately certain that anyone could tell of the goodness in her soul by first impression alone; it was clear to him that she was shining from within, the ballroom made so much brighter by her presence, a scene-stealer even on this night already so full of beautiful people.

“Your Highness, it’s rude to stare,” Sylvain murmured in his ear.

“I’m not staring,” he said automatically, as Marianne walked up to him. Her neck was trembling under the weight of holding up the rest of her with such confidence.

“Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he said, on reflex. “You look...gorgeous.”

“...Oh, um, t-thank you, Dimitri. I was w-worried...”

She trailed off, fraught with nerves. As she did, she brushed the long flyaways away over her shoulder, and the narrowest stripe of bare skin peeked out between the blue of her hair and the blue of her neckline, and Dimitri quickly looked at Marianne’s face instead, because he wasn’t staring.

“Are you alright?” he whispered.

“I t-think I’ll be fine,” she answered, her eyes darting around the room. “For now. Um, there’s...a lot of people here. I just...when d-does the ball begin?”

“Very soon,” he promised, and he had already lost her, with Marianne already looking completely uncertain of what to say next. Of course, he was the house leader, he recalled, and a prince beyond that. Tonight, the onus was on him to be a master of social cues.

“Lady Marianne von Edmund...” His breath caught in his throat, and he offered his hand to her, reverential. “I would be honored, absolutely honored, Marianne, if you would share the first dance of the evening with me.”

“Um, um...” she faltered, hoarse, panicked, “Dimitri, I-I’m...I’m sorry. I d-don’t know how to dance.”

Carefully, he dropped the formality they were both so unaccustomed to, and took ahold of her hands before she could start wringing them together. “I can lead you, if you would allow it.”

She giggled once, high-pitched and nervous, and she squeezed his hands like she was making sure they were real. It was much hotter in the ballroom than outside, and Marianne herself seemed to be burning, her palms sweaty, her breathing short and open-mouthed. Dimitri surreptitiously turned them to huddle towards the wall, shielding her from unwanted attention.

“I c-can’t...please, I think I would be a terrible partner,” she whispered at the ground. “I wouldn’t want to ruin your first dance. Is there no one else...?”

“There is no one I would rather share it with than you. Truly.”

Marianne looked up at him, her eyes reflecting a hundred candles above, and she must have seen the sincerity in his own eyes, meeting them with cautious nodding. Dimitri led her away from the safety of their wall, leading her out to the center of the room, instructing her in resting a hand on his shoulder, still holding her other hand in his own. Around them, many other pairs of students were taking their places on the ballroom floor. For a second, she burrowed her forehead into his chest, hiding her face from the crowd, and Dimitri held still, struck with doubt for a moment—until Marianne stood up straight and graced him with a smile, and he knew that together they could do no wrong.

True to her word, she was indeed a terrible partner. Keeping time with the music was easy enough, but dancing was simply something she had never been taught. After she stepped on his toes for the third time, Dimitri could feel her losing confidence, growing hesitant in his arms—but with Marianne, it felt so incredibly natural for him to take the initiative, using every bit of control in his body to guide her through the proper motions, wordlessly reassuring her that everything was going to be all right.

Their dance could not have been any more perfect.

The band brought the first song to a close, yet Dimitri and Marianne continued to waltz, swaying for a few extra steps until Marianne finally fell away from him, a flush spreading across her face.

“T-that wasn’t so bad,” she managed to say.

Dimitri meant to say something back, but found himself breathless. The only thing he could do was offer Marianne his arm and escort her back to the edges of the ballroom, and she passed him a final fleeting whisper before disappearing into the crowd.

“Midnight?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he promised.

***

Restlessly, Marianne paced back and forth throughout the stone chamber, listening to the sounds of festivity below. The Goddess Tower was cold, and pacing was a good way to keep her teeth from chattering, although her nerves were so shot that she knew that she would have been shaking even if she were warm. Attending the ball had been an ordeal, with every instinct in her body screaming at her to retreat back to her years of hiding—not just for her own safety, but for that of others. Now that she’d gone and done it and sullied the world, praying was the safest thing she could hope to do, but even that was to be a social activity tonight.

After that first exhilarating dance with Dimitri, she had found a place to stand out of the way, hiding behind Raphael and Leonie and listening to them talk about the food, and at their encouragement even took some of the food for herself—and it was truly delightful, far too nice for someone like her. The catering was meant for the students...but then again, she was a student as well, whether she liked it or not.

Days ago, she couldn’t have imagined herself attending the ball. With or without her presence, the ball would have gone on, with students laughing happily into the night whether she was there to witness them or not. Life would continue to go on, and she had once taken comfort in that idea. Even if she had thrown herself from the bridge all those months ago, the ball still would have gone on without her.

Marianne had always told herself that she would be missed by no one.

But in a holy place like the Goddess Tower, she could no longer tell herself lies.

The steady echo of somebody else’s footsteps were approaching. Marianne tensed up, just in case it wasn’t him, but then Dimitri was standing before her in his stiff, uncompromising formal wear. A prince, with all his elegance—he had been one of the most sought-after dance partners of the night, but now, at her own selfish indulgence, she had him all to herself.

“Oh!” she breathed, and clutched both hands over her heart. “You...you really came.”

“Of course,” he said, only slightly bemused. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I ran into the professor on the way here. We had a chat about...well, about my childhood.”

“I was fine with waiting,” she said, and it was refreshingly easy to talk to him, now that he wasn’t putting up a face for the ballroom. The smile on his face was so genuine, so endearing, and tailormade for her eyes alone.

“Marianne, would you believe I was a happy child?” Dimitri lamented. “When I was ten or eleven...I’d call that the happiest time of my life. And if there was a way to take a moment in time, and to somehow preserve it, to make that moment last forever...” He hummed thoughtfully. “Do you think me sentimental? Or foolish, perhaps?”

“No,” she said, then added, “I think anyone would want to cling to the time they were the happiest.”

Dimitri stepped forward, gazing around, exploring the interior of the Goddess Tower. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. Because right now...” He paused and turned to her, smiling earnestly. “...I can say that right now is the happiest I’ve been in a long while. Not just this night, but all my time at Garreg Mach—every day has been so wonderful for me. It’s been a joy to see everyone every day; to train together, to eat together...to see Dedue getting along with others, and to see Ingrid and Felix and Sylvain come into their own, and everything the professor has done for us...”

Dimitri moved to a window with a grand view of the cathedral and leaned out into the open air, and Marianne stood behind him cautiously. The night of the ball was blessedly clear, and the moon shone bright in the sky, illuminating the monastery below.

“That suggestion I made in class...” Dimitri sighed. “What was I thinking? In five years, nothing will be the same. And besides, I have no business making such promises for the future. There are certain things that I must accomplish, even if it means risking my life. I may not even have a future to promise anyone.”

“You survived,” she quietly affirmed. “You’ve already been through so much, Dimitri, and you’ve survived. I know how strong you are. I know you can make it through the next five years.”

He fixed her with a grave stare, although she knew that his darkness had not come from her. With that in mind, she rested a hand on his forearm, grounding him even as he leaned halfway over the windowsill. It worked last time. It worked this time, too. The misery vanished from Dimitri’s eyes, painted over by weary comfort; Marianne gently tugged on his arm to pull him back inside, away from dangerous falls and freezing nights. With no one around to judge him, it seemed as though Dimitri simply wanted to sit down and rest, at the cost of dirtying his prohibitively expensive clothes, but he remained standing.

“Sometimes,” he confessed, “I feel...as though I’m walking out on a frozen lake. Each step, I know, could be my last—the ice will simply give way and swallow me whole, and I’ll never see the light again. But I just can’t stop, because moving forward is all I know. I won’t even know which step is my last, until after I’ve already taken it.” He straightened up and gestured at the ceiling, vaguely, hopelessly. “Do you...understand what I mean?”

“I understand,” she assured him. “Well, um, actually...it’s funny that you describe it as walking on ice. Because you’re from Faerghus. I’ve always heard it described as walking on eggshells.”

Dimitri gave a short, humorless laugh, and slumped against a nearby wall, discontented. “I’m so afraid of falling through,” he said softly. “If I stumble, I’ll drown. If I put my foot in the wrong place, I’ll drown. And knowing that, how could I not want these academy days to last forever?”

Marianne didn’t say anything, only pondered his words in silence. Her only outward reaction was to reach out and clutch his arm again, because there didn’t seem to be any reasons not to. It seemed right. Beneath his shell of dress clothes, Dimitri was still the boy she knew.

“So, here we are,” he continued, “at the Goddess Tower, on the night of the ball. If there is any place to beseech the Goddess, it would be here...and if there is any person she would listen to, it would surely be you.”

With sudden apprehension, Marianne glanced to the ground. Dimitri was placing too much stock in a mere legend, but she was the one guilty of planting the idea in his head to begin with.

“Shall we make a wish, Marianne?”

“It’s not true,” she admitted quietly.

“What’s that?”

“The legend. It’s not true. It’s just something the knights made up.” She let go of his arm and brushed over her pleated skirts, wanting to be presentable for him, feeling the need to own up to her mistake. “The knights tell everyone that the Goddess Tower is off-limits, then they leave it unlocked and unguarded, so that students sneak here instead of...to their rooms, or...or to the forest, or anywhere where they might actually get into trouble. My adoptive father uses tricks like that all the time.”

“Huh,” Dimitri said, unperturbed. “Actually, that...makes sense. I suspected as much. So do you think praying here is a waste of time?”

“Praying is never a waste of time,” she answered immediately. “Even if...even if it might seem that way...”

He stared at her expectantly, and a final, contradictory surge of doubt washed over her. Dimitri had come so far, but she herself still couldn’t be truthful about what she prayed for, even after he had been truthful, even after everything he had done for her.

“All year long,” she tried to explain, “no, um...even before that...I prayed to the Goddess, every single day. And she never, ever listened to me. And, um...” Her voice cracked, betraying the exhaustion in her soul. “...It’s...it’s frustrating. And I’m so tired of it. And...I would do anything to make her listen to me, even...even partaking in this silly legend, if it means that the Goddess will give me an answer...”

“‘No’ is an answer.”

Marianne looked up at Dimitri, startled by his words, and was even more startled to see tears streaming down his face.

“The Goddess tells you the same thing that anyone would. No.” He was openly weeping now, silent tears to accompany the anguished calm of his voice. “If you wish harm upon yourself, then no Goddess worth believing in would ever grant such a thing.”

He sniffled, and Marianne was crying all of a sudden, and Hilda and Mercedes had been so careful with her makeup and their hard work was being ruined because she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks, and Dimitri dotted at his eyes and told her, quavering, “I was going to wish...for a world in which no one would ever be unjustly taken from us. That...that includes you, Marianne.”

She sobbed, for she had hidden herself away for years for nothing because Dimitri had known all along, the Goddess had known all along, and now Dimitri had taken her soul and bared it against the rocks, moved to tears by something inside of her that she could never find herself.

“Please, Marianne,” he begged her. “Please, live. I want you to live. I couldn’t—I don’t know what I would do if you were taken from me as well. Please.”

“In five years,” she agreed without thinking, straining through tears. “Five years. I-I’ll try, I’ll try my best to come, I’ll try to live—I promise, Dimitri. Five years.”

The shaky smile Dimitri gave her was worth more to Marianne than anything else in the world.

They didn’t dance.

They didn’t need to.

***

There was no way of knowing it at the time, but Dimitri would nearly lose his way forever, falling through the ice a mere two months after the promise was made.

There was no way of knowing it at the time, but Marianne would keep the promise regardless; not only for five years, but for many, many decades beyond.

For two wounded souls, the process of healing had blossomed with a smile, and grew into love that would last beyond their lifetimes.

For the moment, a smile was enough.