It was Great Tree Moon again. The New Year was upon them, and the Blue Lion Pension was prepared to receive it with a blast.
Garreg Mach had the largest New Year's Festival in all of Fódlan, in great part due to receiving the First Year students that began trickling into the city on the last week of the Lone Moon, ready and anxious about the great changes to come in the next days.
To celebrate their achievement, and to reassure any lingering concern of the parents', the university opened its doors for curious visitors, sponsoring plays, concerts and street artists' performances on campus and all through the Upper City, as well promoting a large ritual at the Cathedral, celebrated by the Archbishop herself. The streets were beautifully decorated with floral themes, as city-folk, students and faculty take to the streets and celebrate together the limitless potential of a seedling that shall become a great tree.
It is also traditional for the student housing units to offer refreshments and sweets for the visitors and incoming First Years, and their guest-house was known the city over for their apple biscuits and jam. Sitri is taking out a batch from the oven, while Jeralt set up the fairy lights on the backyard.
A few blocks away, sitting on the cable car bench as the rowdy youth party around, Dimitri was nervous.
It should not be so. He had given many a public speech on the hallowed halls of the university that loomed up the hill, he had faced his demons and campaigned for better mental health care in Fódlan on a NGO he led and funded with invaluable help of his fiancée, and was even regarded as a Member of Parliament to replace the copious absence of his father, still felt so many years past his death.
Still, he had been nervous every step of the way, from the deeply traumatized teen he was when he left Garreg Mach over four years ago to the man he is today and the man he wishes to be tomorrow. He had also had help, he had a capable staff working with him, and all the advice his PR could offer was "Just be yourself".
A damn good thing to say to a man with debilitating self-esteem issues.
Needless to say, at the moment, Dimitri believed that meeting his fiancée's parents was the most daunting task he ever had to face.
"Relax, will you?" Byleth grabbed his hand before leading them out the cable car, as he had not even noticed they arrived at their stop. "It was not as if you've never met them. We lived together for years!"
She honestly did not know what he was going on about. Despite being the first time that they come down from their home in Fhirdiad to Garreg Mach ever since their engagement, Jeralt and Sitri knew Dimitri very well. In fact, one might wager that the couple liked their son-in-law more than their blood daughter, given their gushing towards the awkward blond man.
Rationally, Dimitri knows all that. Rationally, there was no reason for fear. Yet, there will be monsters he shall never defeat, only ever control, and that feeling of worthlessness is one of them. In his heart, he feared that his in-laws would think him lesser for his scars and traumas and idiosyncrasies, that they would think him not enough for their daughter.
The seconds before the door opened felt like an eternity for him as he tried to do what he was asked. The door flung open and he was greeting immediately with the smell of those familiar and dearly-missed apple jam biscuits and tea, which did a bit to calm him down.
As Sitri emerges from the kitchen, she almost immediately enveloped her daughter in a hug.
"Byleth, honey! You've arrived! How was the train here? No issues at the station? I'm sorry we couldn't pick you up, but we're with our hands full." She greeted them, placing a kiss on each of their cheeks. "Oh, honey, you absolutely must calm Seteth down. Flayn is starting college tomorrow and he's a mess, you've always had a way with him and if I hear him nagging about an extra lock on the door, I'll smack him with a cookie tray. Jeralt! They're home!"
"Oh, hey, kid!" The tall blond man greeted them from the back door. "Happy New Year!"
Jeralt patted her daughter in the back and shook Dimitri's hand.
"Happy New Year, sir." The youngest responded.
"There you go again with the sir business. I'm still young!" Jeralt chuckles. "Now, help me taking those to the attic."
As the night went on and the excitement did not waver, Dimitri honestly felt a bit silly about being so nervous. He normally spent his holidays alone with Byleth or at Rodrigue and Felix's, both really quite muted affairs, but this he did not mind much at all. It reminded him of the feeling of having a family, something he had never experienced.
It felt good.