incipio, incipere, incepi, incipetus - to begin, to start
Dedue is tired. Down to his bones. He barely registers Dimitri guiding him into the castle, away from Duscur, from home, from-
"And who is this? A brute from Duscur?"
"He's my age. How could we murder people who had nothing to do with… that event."
"He's still a part of that group. We kicked out the scum, and the ones we could trust are-"
Dedue doesn't pay that much attention as he stands there. There's not much to pay attention to, in his head. Faerghus is gray and stone, a pale imitation of the many different bricks and mortars that his cousin Jule would make.
In the end, Dedue keeps to himself long enough for him to be able to be in a room alone. If you ignored the guard posted outside. Dimitri said that he was working on getting everyone in the castle to treat him better. Dedue thinks it's too late for that, considering the circumstances.
He'll manage. He says it in his prayers and hopes that Terra is listening.
The next few months are a blur. Dedue eats, sleeps, trains with Dimitri, and reads. The prince seems to think that he needs to be taught the tongue of Fodlan, so Dedue indulges him, only using it to expand his vocabulary from functional to fluent.
He's careful when he's saying his prayers in Duscis, the words foreign to everyone else's ears and sparking danger towards him. He says that he can teach them the basics, but no one wants to listen.
Not listening to others seems to be a cultural staple. The few times that Dedue had found himself behind Dimitri were in rooms and halls where men argued and refused to compromise, always a test of wills, a duel of words. He internally smiles when he remembers one of the small tricks that Mihail taught him: "Let people talk for a long time when they're arguing. At some point in time, they will talk against themselves."
Many people talk against themselves. Not many people catch it when it happens. It delays everything.
He actually meets Sylvain while he's out by the stables, not-so forcefully banished from the castle at this moment. They speak, and Dedue finds himself again wondering how someone could be both so cheerful and carefree, yet calculating and cold. It is there, next to one of the prized stallions, that he learns about Crests.
Crests are said to be manifestations of the Goddess, Fodlan's one deity. Dedue still has trouble thinking about that. How is one figure supposed to take care of so much? She must be awfully tired to even exist. But, Crests are the one way that she is able to pass her power down to the people. Sylvain parrots all of this with sarcasm that is at least twice his age, and Dedue finds himself worried about the red-haired teen.
He meets Felix when they spar for the first time, his sword blade quick and uncaring about seriously harming his opponent. Dedue gets a closer look at the culture of chivalry and knighthood through the Fraldarius, and what he sees explains a lot about the behaviors of the world he finds himself in.
The argument between Felix and the Duke is a mostly private one, but it belies everything that scares him about putting those values above everything else. Their arguments are disjointed and so are his thoughts. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he hears a mournful whisper that says that he's far too young to deal with this.
It's at that moment that he realizes that he's 15. His birthday was yesterday.
He meets Ingrid during a small party that Dimitri manages to throw together for Dedue's late birthday. Their smiles are forced and small, his own out of awkwardness and anxiety at all of the attention he's being shown.
She appears after Sylvain tries to drag some of the tension out of him. "So, you're Dedoo?"
She messes up his name. She only makes the sound of the "u" in the last part of his name when it's closer to "way". He tries to tell her:
"I am sorry, but my name is Dedue."
She frowns. "Oh. That's kind of strange, isn't it?"
Everything here is strange to him, why should he have to worry about what is strange to her? But Dedue sees the few nobles along the walls of the room keeping a close eye on him and internally sighs. "I guess it could be strange."
"What's strange?" Dimitri asks, ever the socially awkward person that he is.
"Oh, Dedoo's name." Ingrid says.
"That's-" Dimitri starts to say, but Dedue sees the gleam in the eyes of the nobles and at that moment, decides he abhors Faerghus.
"It's alright," he lies, waiting for his mother to come rinse his mouth out with soap. "Would it be alright if I teach you all how to say 'Happy Birthday?' in Duscis?"
Sylvain and Dimitri are interested, and Felix looks as apathetic as he usually does. Ingrid looks like she's trying to swallow a whole fruit without chewing, but goes along with her friends.
They get through the sentence. It's rough, but soon, the four are able to stammer through, "Dies felix natalis."
Dimitri thinks it's really impersonal. "How do we tell this to a person?"
Dedue smiles. "You just simply say their name at the end. Dies felix natalis, Dimitri."
"Uh, hold up," Sylvain says, "It's not his birthday, it's yours. Dies felix natalis, Dedue."
Felix grumbles out the words, but they're audible and surprisingly coherent. Dimitri stumbles with the order of the words, but he gets there in the end, and the sincerity of his words is very touching.
It takes a while before Ingrid is goaded into saying the words, but when she does, she spits them out like they're burning her mouth, her words quick and not too friendly. "Dies felix natalis, Dedoo."
Dedue lets it slide like water off of a duck's back. Everyone else chooses to ignore Ingrid's demeanor. His already poor birthday party continues past the slight. It ends with the memory of his house burning to the ground.
He's humming a song to himself, the whimsical melody of a folk song he remembers, when he sees the broken down greenhouse. He brings it up to Dimitri the next time they see each other.
"I think that funds were moved for fundraising when it came to the training of more knights," he says, and Dedue is reminded about the alien values upheld here. "It hasn't been in use for a while now."
Dedue looks at the space, noticing the weeds growing in the healthy soil. His mind is made up in an instant. "Would you mind if I grow some plants here?"
"No, would you require some seeds?"
Everyone says he is but a vassal, someone who is supposed to do requests for the prince, not have requests of the prince. And Dimitri is honestly just the nicer part of the power that upended his life.
But a moment of personal selfishness doesn't retract from his criticisms. "I would. Would you help me find some?"
"Caelum, validum rei-" Dedue sings as he gardens, his voice steady and strong. A weed is plucked from the ground. "videt terram." (The sky, the strongest ruler, watched the earth.)
"What in the Goddess' name are you singing, boy?" A smashing sound accompanied the snarl as Dedue turned to face a group of angry men. The one in the front of the group pointed an angry finger at him. "You aren't casting any curses here, are you?"
"No, sir." Dedue said, keeping eye contact with him. "I am not proficient with magic."
"He's not proficient with good magic!" Someone in the group shouts. "Magic from the Goddess! He's probably used to some blood magic!"
"Yeah!" Another says, the group starting to get riled up. Dedue calmly puts his tools away, slowly backing away from the men. "The same type of dastardly magic found on the King's body!"
"He's lying!"
"He was probably a part of it!"
"You can't trust this scum!"
"Even if he did know magic, he wouldn't give it up! Those dastards are greedy and selfish!"
The shouts become louder and louder, ideas and beliefs more insane and villainous. The group has started to take steps forward and Dedue has almost made it to the other door when the next words send a chill down his back.
"Let's teach him a lesson."
Dedue has never run faster in his life. Not that he can remember anyway. His lungs are fighting to keep him breathing, and his legs are pumping to keep him safe.
In the end, the men cower under Dimitri's disappointment. "Dedue is a guest here. Would you attack a guest in the castle?"
"With all due respect Your Highness," one man says, the one that called him a witch doctor, "brutes from Duscur will never be guests to us."
Dedue's tongue moves before he can silence it. "What has a Duscis person ever done to you? Why do you believe we slaughtered the King?"
"Silence, dastard!" The group becomes rowdy again. "How dare you even speak of the King after you and yours slaughtered him and his family!"
Dimitri is working to quiet them down, and a few of the nobles in the room give half-hearted shows of support. Dedue watches as the meeting continues, and even though Dimitri pushes for the men to be punished, they are all told that they must lay off of drinking.
Dedue is told to act better, and that the greenhouse is just a privilege afforded to him, not a right. He wonders if he has any rights here. If anyone does, in the end.
He leaves the room, and that is the day he realizes he has to be the brick wall that Faerghus will try to break. He cries once that night in his prayers before he goes to bed.
He's standing behind Dimitri again at the prince's birthday party. Sylvain is the only person who is upbeat and smiling for the whole day. Dimitri acts like he sees spirits, Felix is almost always ready to jump down someone's throat, and Ingrid only joins the conversation to admonish someone.
At one point in time, during the meal, Dedue makes eye contact with Dimitri and sees sadness and boredom. So he smiles and says, "Dies felix natalis, Dimitri."
Dimitri smiles and the room silences itself. Dedue turns in his seat and sees everyone looking at him. The voice of a noble drifts over the air. "Your Highness, why did this dog say your name like he has the right to?"
"Dedue is a friend of mine, and I will not take insults against him lightly" Dimitri says, turning to face the noble. "Besides, I have told everyone here that they could call me Dimitri."
"But is it proper for him to speak in that tongue?" Another person asks, and Dedue is both aware of how he's effectively been iced out of the conversation about himself, and the disdain on the noble's face.
Sylvain chuckles, a darker sound than usual. "That's kind of rude, isn't it? Imagine being told you couldn't speak your language anymore."
"I don't know," Ingrid says, "he is here now. Not many people know that tongue, so maybe it's better for him to not speak it."
Dimitri looks angry. "This is ridiculous. Dedue was just wishing me a happy birthday, is that so wrong?"
"Your Highness," a sneering voice says, and the man who accompanies it stands up. "As someone who is in constant contact with the people of Duscur, I can say everything in their tongue is pure savagery."
Felix doesn't seem like he cares, Ingrid gives a small nod, Sylvain raises an eyebrow, and Dimitri stands up, the table groaning under the weight of his fist on it.
"That is enough, Kleiman. You are out of line." He says. "Besides, we have had many musicians from Duscur over in my youth, and their songs were always so wonderful, even when sung in a different tongue."
The words feel like a backhanded compliment. Adrista's voice slides into Dedue's head: "If the only thing someone can say to an insult of your character is your actions, then they don't bother to think of your character."
That night, Dedue is awakened by the sound of the stone floor shifting. There's no weapon in his room that he can use to defend himself, so he watches in tension as a head of red hair pops up from the floor. "Hey, are you alright?"
Dedue shrugs. "I could be better."
"Yeah," Sylvain says, a bitter laugh in the quiet night escaping him. "I get that. Sorry for not speaking up more today, but my dad was there and-"
"I get it."
Dedue does, sadly, have a good understanding of how things work in Faerghus now, after being here for at least a year's time.
"Yeah." Sylvain slumps down in the empty bed frame, suddenly looking so much older than he was. "You know, I'm the heir to the Gautier estate."
"Are you? What about your older brother?" Dedue knows about the existence of both Sylvain's slick speech and older brother, and it's not that he doesn't trust him (he doesn't), but he just wants to see how much Sylvain will say.
"He doesn't have a Crest. I do," Sylvain says. "I hate the damn thing, but because I have it, the person who has been practicing his whole life for the title gets shoved out of it."
"That makes no sense. If he already was ready to lead, why stop him because of something outside of his control?" Again, the odd culture of Faerghus seems to destroy more than it protects.
"He doesn't have a Crest," Sylvain repeats, as if it's supposed to make sense when you hear it more than once. It doesn't. "That's just how it works. It's dumb, right?"
It is. Dedue is curious about how dumb it could be. "How do you even get a Crest?"
"You're born with it. If one of your parents has a Crest, then the odds that you have a Crest are better," Sylvain explains, and Dedue can see a death grip on the bed frame. "So, people generally tend to want partners with Crest. I already have a few proposals to look through."
"Proposals?" Dedue is shocked. "You're 17. You're not even an adult yet, why are you being proposed to?"
"Noble women want the connection to Gautier. It's the lowest hanging fruit, and I'm seen as the lowest of that."
"Still, you're too young to be led to marriage. That's-" Dedue falls silent before he says something that changes Sylvain's opinion of him. "Are you safe back in Gautier?"
"I can get out of wells quickly now, so I should be fine," Sylvain says. "I'm good enough with a lance to disengage often against Miklan and his crew."
Dedue sees red, even in the low light of the moon through one of the windows. "Does your father not do anything about this? It sounds like you're being hurt."
Sylvain's eyes widen. "No, he doesn't know about it. Don't tell him either."
"Sylvain. By your own words, your brother throws you down wells and attacks you unprovoked-"
"It's not unprovoked!" Sylvain jumps to his feet, glaring at Dedue. "I understand why he hates me! He's just upset about what happened in the family!"
"So, he can be upset and try to harm you for it?" Dedue rises to the challenge verbally, not raising his voice or getting out of his bed. "Why don't the two of you try to work together? Both of you run Gautier's land?"
"It doesn't work like tha-"
"Make it work like that!"
There is silence after Dedue snaps at Sylvain. He looks the redhead directly in the eye and finds himself wondering how deep is everything buried and how well made the locks are to the window of his spirit. He doesn't know what shows in his own right now.
Sylvain angrily huffs and turns away, quickly leaving the room. Dedue is grateful that there are no guards outside his room now, so this talk can only remain in the air it lived in.
He says another prayer before he goes to sleep. This one goes to The Wisemen instead of Tellus.