You are the protector of the weak, and she is the boot of strength and tyranny, pressed hard onto the faces of men
As the rain falls on the path
I chase your shadow
I don't feel a single drop,
Or the ground below
…
Supposedly, the point of choosing Dimitri and his house would have been to try and save him, to see if you could guide him to some kinder fate than the one he was met with the last time around.
But this…
This is worse.
How is this not worse?
Cornelia didn't even have to bother with the assassins this time.
You can imagine it all too easily: When he first returned to Fhirdiad, he must have been reeling from Edelgard's betrayal, and likely, the fallout of your own disappearance as well. As far as he was concerned, she would have been your murderer as well. He was likely brooding all by himself in a a foul and volatile mood, too distracted with his own black thoughts to take any note of the plot that was being hatched against him, and when he was finally framed for the regent's death, the young heir's constant talk of murder would have seeded just enough doubt in the minds of the palace staff for the witches' treacherous words to be believed… or at any rate, enough for them to tell themselves that they could be excused for bending their knees to the sorceress' will.
He was probably forced to fight his way through some number of palace guards who were only doing their jobs, perhaps even men that he knew, whose families would have suffered harsh punishment if they had defied the dreadful lady – And though he'd killed in self-defense, to escape with nothing but his life and the clothes on his back, it would likely prove too much for him, maybe not right away, but surely over time.
In his father's absence, Lord Rodrigue had raised him to fear hell and to hold himself to the standards of the heavens, but knowing that he could never again reach those heights of purity, there was nothing left but him but despair and wailing ghosts urging him that he might as well earn the long-reserved special place that awaited him down in the eternal flames.
This probably didn't happen all at once.
The hopelessness must have consumed him bit by bit as he wandered this world by himself, staking out the pits of its misery, while you slept motionless at the bottom of a river.
If only that body of yours could have reassembled itself just a little bit faster, if only you had made it here a little earlier… then maybe you would have found something other than this:
You find him in a grotesque nest of dead imperial soldiers – goddess, he smells.
His once neatly maintained hair has transformed into a wild, pale mane surrounding his sallow, sunken face.
The best you can say that he at least seemed to have found the means to cover up his missing eye.
He towers above you now – he's grown into a tall, hulking beast, though you wonder how exactly he managed that, given how emaciated he looks despite it all.
If he survived to this day, he must have been eating something all those years, and you dearly hope that it was chiefly dandelion greens and stolen rations.
He must have lived in total isolation – and considering that alone, the state he's in shouldn't have come as a surprise but –
You never thought that you'd have to dissuade him from gleefully torturing that imperial general to the last – if you remember correctly, he was a relative of Caspar's. You were forced to kill him last time as well, but not like this.
How… how could this possibly have happened?
You still remember how he used to be – for you, it was practically yesterday. Sure, Felix always told you that he was a violent man and if you're honest with yourself you always sensed something worrisome about him, but that can't be the whole story either.
You recall him crying after you were forced to take out the civilian militias during Lonato's rebellion, his guilt-ridden wails about how he ought to have found another way –
He wanted to help people, he always wanted nothing more than to protect the weak and downtrodden. He was always stopping on his way do do good deeds and teach little orphans helpful skills… and maybe he was irresponsible, unrealistic, and impulsive, maybe he had always been vindictive and even a little judgmental, but he had always been aware of his flaws and struggled with them, always pushing himself to improve beyond what anyone could reasonably expect from him – He was a good person. He wanted to be a hero of justice.
He didn't deserve this.
It's too cruel.
Death might have been kinder, and you have milder options still – You would have abandoned this timeline in a nonexistent heartbeat if it weren't for one sentence -
"Someone must put a stop to this cycle of the strong trampling the weak!"
He's still in there. He might be hurt, lost, misguided and pushed to the edge, but like a droopy plant that has long been starved of water, you think that it's chiefly for want of proper care.
Whatever quest you had in coming here, whatever answers you sought, whatever destiny was in store for you, you realize now that it is over.
Whatever your doubts, whatever personal sentiments may be, they don't matter anymore – you have a responsibility.
From now on, everything needs to be about Dimitri.
…
The people of Faerghus are in need of their king, but Dimitri doesn't have the interest or the capability to fulfill that role, and while you could say that he is being irresponsible in not assuming these duties, he's not giving anybody any illusions: If they'll offer him an army to raid the imperial capital with, he'll take it, but if they won't, he'd gladly leave on his own.
You begin to see why Felix was always so critical of the kingdom's cultural preoccupation with loyalty and honor, why no one had just persuaded Dimitri to wait back when you asked Gilbert to join Seteth's army – If Dimitri were to march off a cliff, you think there's a nonzero chance that they would all follow him, as his stalward friends, his faithful subjects - He's not asking anybody to put him on a throne, or to build their wayward hopes on him – The prince had made his intentions very clear.
But in their desperation, they need something to cling to, they need their Rightful King, even if he is, at best, a figurehead, a mere symbol that sparkles only at a distance, through the tales and humors that they all hope might make it back to the subjugated populace far back hope which still groans under Cornelia's cruel yoke.
No one really knows where they are going.
No one really knows what they want. Left to themselves, you can easily see how they might find their doom – it's up to you then.
Everyone is looking to you – Your former students, to whom your return must be the first glimmer of hope they were lucky enough to see in a long, long while, as well as Gilbert, and Rodrigue, once he arrives, who seek to guide their young liege in his father's place, but don't quite know how.
They start conferring with you, because they've had no luck with Dimitri, and before you know it, you realize that you're effectively in charge – You have become the brains of this operation, but it's direction could come only from its heart, which is these days quite preoccupied with haunting the ruins of the old cathedral, absorbed in thoughts of fire and brimstone.
You don't think you've ever frowned this much in your life.
Everyone looks to you, and you do your best to lead them as you think Dimitri would have, if he were truly here with you in this present moment – you're not sure how close you come to the real thing, even with Gilbert ever at your right hand, weighed down as he is by his own burdens, still tiptoeing around Anette – it's weighing on her, too, and at some point she got into an argument with Mercedes, and that's how you really know the world is ending, as if misfortune were making a point to rain down on you from every possible angle, piercing your resolve both from unexpected directions and old familiar stings.
With Rodrigue around, Felix inevitably makes a point of glaring daggers at him, and Sylvain's usual attempts to liven up the mood fall short in this harsher, darker climate – they only serve to irritate Ingrid whose bossy concern has long since crossed the line into unwarranted harshness.
The air is thicker than ever, but this is only a side effect to the certainty in their hearts, that they are all at their wits' end, that your little group is breaking apart, and that the situation looks hopeless and dire, leaving you not even a proper base of operations with much of the kingdom still under imperial control.
So many of them had lost people they cared about, so many had been forced to cross blades with their own blood, and there might be more to come.
At times, it feels like your one genuine place of solace is the greenhouse where you try to reassemble what's been neglected and overgrown for five years into some semblance of flowers and vegetables, but even this place is heavy with memories now – your one saving grace is that Ashe is at your side and not, as he was in some other world, long since killed in service of the Rowes, but even so you cannot pretend that your little reunion had been complete.
You used to come here often, and in that sense, you ended up fitting in quite well as the 'heart of the blue lions', but yourself, Ashe and Anette weren't exactly alone here.
There's a marked absence palpable in your midst and as a fellow commoner, and one of the gentlest ones in your ranks, it was only natural that Ashe would be one of the first to say it out loud:
Dedue.
After years of mistreatment, he had scarcely believed that anyone could possibly want him as a friend, but in truth, he had been essential to your group with his calm, grounded presence and his stalwart insistent caring… and now, he would never know.
Among the small sample of your generation that had made its way to the academy, (early overachievers like yourself and Jeritza included), almost all had been harshly affected by the abject irrationality of this world in one way or another, but even in such company, Dedue's life stood out as having been especially miserable, if not outright the very worst:
Everybody he knew had been brutally murdered before his eyes, his whole people decimated, his idyllic village life with his family exchanged for constant cruelty and mistreatment.
No wonder then, that he and the prince had been so inseparable: No one else could even come close to understanding what it really meant to see the better part of your loved ones massacred.
But at least Dimitri was a prince. He would be mentioned in the history books no matter how miserably he were to crash and burn. Though he seemed intent on disregarding them for the moment, he still had many friends that would care if he were gone.
Dedue had only him, and perhaps, in the last few months (of a bygone year), he'd been beginning to open up to yourself and some of his classmates, especially Ashe and Flayn… but now, it seemed like that had come to nothing. The one serving grace about all this abysmal injustice had been that Dedue was still a young man, and that the future might still hold calm, peace and acceptance for him, but now, even that seemed to have been extinguished, leaving only a handful of memories of something nasty, brutish and short, a string of meaningless suffering, soon to become a statistic…
The very idea of it was just too cruel, not to speak of the realities it implied -
And Dimitri must be thinking the same, how utterly wrong it was, how nothing he might go on to do with his life could possibly be worth the price it had been bought for, and that certainty must tear at him in every waking moment, leaving room for only one thought:
He must kill Edelgard.
Break Edelgard. Crush Edelgard. Smash Edelgard to pieces. Burn Edelgard to cinders.
Cut off the seat of her wicked thoughts and spill the contents through the eyeholes.
Beat her till perhaps at last some semblance of human feeling would show up on her face even if it were only the basest of fear.
You dare not consider what he intends to do with her remains.
The wheels were ever turning, the disturbing fantasies ever sprouting up like rampant weeds, as if he'd seen all the world's evil packed into one woman's face, all the world's coldness and indifference, all its uncaring, impersonal disregard and all its unyielding, crushing strength, all its boots pushed down into the faces of the weak, for him to stab at from hell's heart and spit at with his last, bloodied breath, or, failing that, to make her the sheath for the happy blade he once gave her, so that it may rust there forever.
The flesh must go cold, or else, it is to be purged from this world forever, and he will hear of no other course.
When you as much as suggest that it might be wise to take back the capital first, he snaps at you, and though you know that he's not at his best right now, even though you're… you, it still manages to sting. Isn't it your duty to lead the church? Didn't Rhea put you in charge`? Shouldn't you go get her, just as the faithful wish it to be?
You're aware that he doesn't know what was done to you, or how very little choice you had in the matter, but it hurts – it hurts precisely when it's coming from someone who always made a point of encouraging you to show your feelings.
The rational, unflappable part of you notes that, in a sense, it shows how he thinks: His life isn't his own, so he cannot fathom that yours should be yours either, and you would hardly deserve him at his best if you couldn't handle him at his worst, you mustn't take this personally… besides, going for the imperial capital might not be the worst course of action. It's true that decapitating their forces would throw the imperial troops into disarray, you might end the fighting then and there, and you might find Rhea, which Mercedes, Seteth, Catherine and other devotees appear to be pushing for. To be honest, you've kept your distance from her this time around, unsure how to act with her now that you know what it is she wants from you, but that doesn't mean that you wish death upon her – She's still Flayn and Seteth's family, and she's important to Cyril and Catherine.
Besides, you think that the news of Dimitri's return and any military victories he might score would do more for the citizen's morale than the man himself could at this time. You don't quite trust him to make the right decisions yet, not when their enemy was liable to use his subjects as hostages.
So perhaps, under the circumstances, at least for the moment, the soundest decision might actually be to march forward and give the empire a bloody nose, and maybe in time, through steadfast application of care and patience, you'd get Dimitri to the point where he might actually be presentable by the time he returned from the capital.
He'd been all alone for so long – he would decide to turn back of his own accord once he spent some more time among people, if only you gave him some time…
...
During your campaign for the Great Bridge of Myrrdin, you are snapped out of your habitual calm when you notice familiar faces in the ranks of the enemies – There's that same spineless blond Alliance noble who made himself a nuisance last time, that austere imperial general with the topknot and the batwing-like decorations on her armor, and there is Lorenz, ever the fashion victim, in his fancy purple armor, now twenty-four years old.
But you had been expecting them. What chills you is the speck of red right next to him, and how it turns out to be what you think it was once the lenses of your eyes manage to focus:
The illustrious son of house Aegir, high atop a shapely war horse, garbed in an ornate red coat of arms, waves of copper-hued hair cascading down his shoulders…
What on Earth is he doing here?
What-? How-?
Your second startling realization is that no one else seems all that surprised to see him here – was he not always a proud citizen of the empire, ever extolling its illustrious history and former glory, as well as his own noble duties? And it should not be strange to see him show up alongside Lorenz, given that the two had been rather friendly at the academy.
If Edelgard had to send a messenger to try to bring the Alliance lords under her sway, Ferdinand must surely seem like the obvious choice – indeed, you may have inadvertently laid the groundwork for this yourself when you found a new home for Ferdinand's excess tea set all those years ago and made the two acquainted with each other, unaware that it might lead to a future where they stand at each other's sides while facing you as their enemy…
So you get why he's here with Lorenz, but what still baffles you and you alone, is what he's doing here at all. Perhaps, if you hadn't known him any better, this wouldn't surprise you, but unbeknownst to your comrades there was that other life where you had grown to be quite close, and learned some important things about him…
You knew, for example, that the horse beneath him was named Karlotta, often affectionately referred to as "Lottchen", an expensive, well-bred beast that had been a birthday gift from one of Duke Aegir's concubines. You remembered many occasions on which he had confided in you in long conversations at the stables, telling you of his ambitions and insecurities while he cleared out her horseshoes or brushed the animal's luscious chestnut coat…
You knew that for all his faults, he was upright, stalwart and independent-minded and believed fiercely in thinking for oneself, disdaining any who would just blindy follow authority.
The Ferdinand you knew had rebelled against the emperor even in your absence, to the point that he was forced to flee with only his most loyal soldiers. He was not the type to follow orders without question – indeed up to this very moment, you would have been convinced that he would never follow any sort of leader unless he were convinced that they were on a just and righteous course…
So what was he doing here, facing you down in the name of a tyrannical conqueror?
What could he possibly have to gain from that?
The contradiction alone drives mighty cracks in everything you believe, and your thoughts race to reconcile it – perhaps he turned out somewhat differently without your influence or, he saw no real chance to escape without the hope promised by your presence, but try as you might to make that explanation fit smoothly into the holes in your knowledge, it won't cease to stick out in bulges and creases.
In your heart, you know that Ferdinand von Aegir would never have backed a cruel tyrant – you remember that, even as he charges at you with his lance.
He doesn't remember quite as much of you as you remember of him, but his eyes are filled with reminiscence all the same – his much smaller pile of memories is precious to him all the same, but there's something else as well, an expression that you recognize very well – in that other world where you were his instructor, you got to see it more than anyone else:
The look of defeat.
He wore it once when he spoke to you of his resigned certainty that he would never beat Edelgard, and he wears it now, knowing well that he will never beat you.
"You know… Edelgard has always been somewhat obsessed with you, " he muses as he steels himself to face you.
Did you hear that correctly?
You would have thought that any significance you once held to her would be long forgotten, discarded on a pile along with any other feeling she ever had, anything that wasn't of use for advancing her ambitions. Had she placed a bounty on your head, as the one who is most loathsome to her? Or...
"Honestly, I'm a bit jealous…"
Wasn't she his enemy? Didn't he want to best her, once upon a time?
"I guess I'll just have to impress her, won't I?
I hope that Ladislava and the others will tell you what I did today..."
His expression settles, his decision made. "For this, I shall be known as the legendary Ferdinand of Adrestia!"
He charges at you with a desperation that could only be mustered by a man who fears the footsteps of oblivion at his heels. He always wanted to be remembered, not in a vainglorious way, just I any way at all – and now he's no longer sure if even glorious death could grand him that honor.
But there's nothing glorious about it, for every strike of his that connects, he knows that it will be returned to him a hundredfold.
You move on instinct, because you must – he's far outclassed, and he knows it, his every endeavor doomed. "This will show her!" he wails, even as reality proves him wrong with every passing second. "This will show her that I'm nothing like my father!"
His father? His father, who, insofar as he told you the last time you saw him, was wrongfully dispossessed by the emperor?
You have many questions, but there's so little time, much less a place for them while carnage swirls all around you.
The young noble's final moments prove to be nothing to brag about, nothing grandiose at all – here, for certain, is the Ferdinand you used to know, urging his soldiers and his fellow generals to defend, no, protect the stronghold to the last – But the strict-looking wyvern rider follows him rather quickly, struck down by Dimitri's hand, lamenting how she could not repay some debt to the emperor – No one backs down at all, as if you were the plundering horde lusting for conquest, and they the ones hoisting up the banner of justice with the last of their strength.
They did the same when you came here with Seteth, but there weren't as many familiar faces, not when Ferdinand was right beside you, brought to the other side to what now looked less to be the inevitable tide of righteousness, but merely a chaotic eddy of fate that could easily have washed him onto some other shore.
You're not sure that you look like heroes, not when you find yourself stepping over his fallen body, soiling his hair with your boots, sword dripping with his blood, forced to keep moving at all cost by the carnage around you…
But Dimitri has no such doubts.
Not of his foes villainy, not of his own damnation. But the more he asserts that they're not better than him the less it sounds like a consistent tragedy, and the more it resembles an excuse for violence. He stabs the general's body a few times to many, as if one hole through the chest weren't enough to finish her, splattering the ground while her eyes are already losing their luster.
"Fools!" he cries without the faintest hint of mercy, "Throwing away their lives for that wicked woman!"
Wicked she may be – it's too early and, at the same time, too late for you to doubt that – but he doesn't know what her followers have been told, what she's promised them. At the very least, they too must have loved ones back in their country. If you're being attacked, you surely have to defend yourself, but there is no need to be this excessive…
You fight on, taking charge where you can so that Dimitri doesn't, doing what you can, and focusing on the small mercies.
Whether it is because he align with the kingdom's traditional values, because expects the customary Faerghus honor, or because your larger army appeases the opportunist in him, this time, Lorenz throws himself at your feet and pleads for mercy, cowed by the deaths of those braver than him.
He crumples before you, shaking, humiliated, yet alive – and you don't think twice about the choice to keep it that way, having seen enough death for today.
See, you tell yourself, you are making a difference. You must believe that you are making a difference, you must keep going, you must shield Dimitri from his own darned recklessness-
Then, a mercy from the heavens:
The clouds open up, and out comes a familiar face, blocking a cowardly strike of stray magic from that defecting alliance noble who had slithered away to some hidey-hole once the action got heated:
A figure in broad armor, wearing gold ornaments and a great shawl with tribal motifs.
His looks are probably not what most people in Fodlan would have associated with a guardian angel, but this is the closest you have come in believing in such a thing as a godsend:
It's Dedue.
He's alive!
He's actually alive, standing before you in flesh and blood, face covered with scars, but alive all the same. He just saved the prince's life for what must be the bajillionth time, and he knows it, too – For the first time since you climbed out of that river, you see a ghost of genuine joy on Dimitri's gaunt features.
No manner of obsession could have managed to numb out all the relief he felt, the tears of joy welling up -
Some may have thought it odd, to see two large, grizzled men embracing tightly amid a gore-stained battlefield, especially since one of them was crying profusely – the soldiers, some of which had only known Dimitri as a hard and wrathful man are rather off-put by what must look like yet another display of volatile emotion, but as far as you're concerned, it's the first thing that has felt right in a very long time.
The next thing the young prince does is to chastise his vassal for being so reckless with his life, because of course he does… maybe you're getting through to him.
...
Maybe you're getting through to Dimitri, but probably you're not getting there fast enough – You can't win this war with hope alone.
You need soldiers, stratagems, and a reply to Claude's offer. You should have been expecting it it to arrive, just as it did last time… As expected, Seteth didn't mind joining the Kingdom army when you're the one in charge of it, but it seems that there's some elusive curse preventing you from marching to Gronder with all three armies under a unified banner.
Perhaps with you here and the Church's resources under their thumbs, they think there'd be more to lose than to gain from joining up, if Dimitri is thinking anything at all; He's hardly even listening to yourself or Gilbert, and he has no patience at all for Claude, whose intentions are still unclear.
He didn't doublecross you last time, but that time, the whole arrangement had been his own idea for his own purposes…
Then again, you barely know how their attempt at joining up turned out the last time, only that they both perished whether they worked together or not.
This time, you think you might actually witness that entire mess -
The reality of it hits you when you catch Annette half-wishing that she'd never made friends with anyone from the Alliance or the Empire if they were only going to end up fighting.
Many of the people that were destined to butcher each other on that field had once been cramped into the same dormitories, running into each other every day, and using the same facilities – Annette herself had spent much time in the Library, and hence come to know many of its other regular denizens, such as Linhardt, Lysithea and even Claude himself.
On one occasion, you think Linhardt once complained to you that Annette had once ratted him out to Hubert for slacking off in some well-meaning attempt to get him to apply himself for his personal growth, a notion to which you imagine he would have readily agreed, much to the chagrin of a certain sleepy bookworm. And it shouldn't have been hard for Annette to find him, either, as he and Edelgard were avid readers themselves – but if you remembered correctly, they had never spent quite as much time lingering in the library, tending instead to just grab a large pile from the shelves and disappear to their rooms with it – and you think Annette had just spelled out why.
They would have known all along that this strife was coming… To know that, and to play at being friends with everyone regardless – Well, you figure that even they could not have been that cold-blooded. No surprise then that they had mostly restricted what little mingling they had ever done to their own housemates, insofar as their official duties and clandestine plots had even left them the time for that. Suddenly you're no longer certain that keeping her distance from Dimitri had been a a question of snubbing him.
But for all her determination, her pokerface wasn't perfect, nor her walls impenetrable – though you were fated to be enemies, she had sought you out – you, and to a lesser extent, Miss Lysithea from the Alliance class.
You also realize also that once upon a lifetime, you had ran away with what few friends she had allowed herself to have, though they might otherwise have stuck with her to the bitter end – at least, it seems that Ferdinand did…
But whether or not she regrets making enemies of you, you do not doubt that she will crush you with her full might – It's the sort of person she is, she wouldn't let her personal feelings stand in the way of her goals. For better or for worse, she really IS Dimitri's diametric opposite in every possible way…
…
"I wonder what the Emperor looks like..." you hear from one of the kids living at the monastery. "I bet she must be really scary… " You try to convince the little girl that Edelgard is, in fact, barely a head taller than her, but it proves rather fruitless. "No way! For all this fighting to be her fault, she has to be scary!"
"You wouldn't believe what I saw the other day!" one of the guardsmen tells you, "Prince Dimitri, patting some little Orphan on the head! Does this mean that even this cruel man has a heart somewhere?" Of course he'd say that… after all, this man hasn't known Dimitri any other way.
...
You're not sure who shot first, but it could have been someone in your forces.
It could have been Dimitri, impatiently plowing forward, or it could have been Claude's forces, shooting first to preempt being shot at. You tried to keep the distance from the Alliance forces, at least on your flank, but pandemonium breaks loose all the same – Someone, somewhere, must have lost their nerve.
You'd think that there was no reason for you to fight, but even as Claude points that out, he doesn't give Dimitri the chance to strike first and things are not nearly so simple as they seemed when you thought that your only challenge would be to get all three forces coordinated to strike at the much larger imperial army, that friend and foe were clear-cut here, as were innocence and culpability-
But were they really?
Even if Edelgard had called back her imperial hordes, you don't think Dimitri would have relented, and if he would have to plow through Claude to get at her, he surely would -
And as for Claude, you had assumed that he had maintained neutrality out of self-preservation, to protect the Alliance from a strife it could not withstand and divert the empire's attention from it, but you're left to doubt whether it was really that simple.
And for all that he was the one to propose cooperation and would sure have preferred talking it out, he had once described himself as the embodiment of distrust. He's not the type to let down his guard or let anyone know what he's thinking – He will absolutely attack before he'd let anyone get at his soft underbelly.
Your eyes search in vain for the bratty, easygoing boy you remember from the academy -
in his place is a grave, serious man, regal, bearded, authoritative, wreathed in opulent golden clothing, armed with an enormous bow made out of bone, riding in atop an enormous white wyvern – The creature sticks out like a sore thumb lacking any stealth whatsoever, but despite the obvious glaring target, no one dares to come near: He's a flying archer chasing you down on a wide open field.
He's only a man, and Dimitri could and would effortlessly snap him in half if he could ever get his hands on him, but even so, he easily goes toe to toe with the enraged prince just through guile and sheer speed – it worries you enough that you can't bear to let them out of your sight, though you're no longer entirely sure who you're worried for – You suppose it must be Dimitri – but all around you in chaos and slaughter and he has no such compunctions of making sure that you can keep up.
You're not the only ones on this battlefield, and you are assailed from all sides by painfully familiar faces.
Claude is neither the only one nor even the first. Moments earlier, Dimitri had skewered a large, burly warrior who could only have been Raphael, without as much as a second thought – They used to be classmates. The burly merchant's son had never been anything other than helpful and considerate – You think you once saw him asking the former house leader for training advice. The days in which Dimitri could never refuse a request for help were beginning to feel alarmingly far away.
You wonder who's going to have to tell his sister.
You already won't ever forget Anette's shriek though you heard it only moments ago – When you rushed toward her, you found her body unharmed but her eyes full of tears, and in the distance, you could make out Ingrid, holding a bloodied lance, and before her, the stained outline of a body, still dressed in the ornate purple robes of a mystic, the white hair spilling on the ground almost unmistakeable.
There was no choice, they would later tell you, never quite believing her own words – There was an obscenely powerful Ghremory in the enemy ranks who had singlehandedly blasted through scores of kingdom soldiers, using both dark magic and light in perfect unison.
She was fierce, unrelenting and uncompromising like only one driven forward by desperation could be, and operated with uncompromising efficiency.
In a flash of sparking magic, she'd been right behind Anette and Mercedes, looking, without doubt, to take out the enemy healer. The girls stood there frozen in the face of mortal danger, but Ingrid acted fast and came swirling down on her pegasus from whichever heights she'd been surveying the carnage from.
The first time, the enemy evaded her, teleporting out before she could slow down from her first strike, but the next time, Ingrid's aim was true, and her opponent's little body crumpled without much resistance, struck while she'd still been frantically trying to catch her breath.
She'd been too powerful to capture alive, too dangerous to let live, such unparalleled determination cut short at only twenty years old.
Sylvain would later tell you he'd encountered Ignatz, looking rather more mature and determined compared to the timid boy he'd once been… the Gautier heir had been the first to admit that they couldn't afford to hold back, not if they wanted to live to see the next dawn, but jaded as he was, he couldn't wholly bring himself to believe in his own undeniable righteousness, or that some kid he'd once discussed landscape paintings with could have done anything to deserve the bite of his lance. Instead, he'd reflect on his last words – How he'd said that he was helping Claude build the future of fodlan, how he understood that they, too, must have had their own reasons, things that mattered too much for them to back down.
You do understand – you didn't envy Leonie's position when she challenged you, telling you that she couldn't hold back simply because she knew you. You get it, you were a mercenary too once – this must be worse for her, forced to choose between the ideals she was striving towards and a promise she made to the very person who inspired her to walk that path in the first place.
So many in your class had been forced to fight those they considered part of their family – So why should you expect to be spared?
You're almost glad that your father isn't here to see you fighting; It would probably break his heart.
At this rate, there wouldn't be much left for the imperial army to mop up, but neither are they standing back and waiting:
Soon, there's a hail of arrows bearing down on you both from the front and back:
Right, the ballista. There's an outpost of wooden planks plated onto a hill in the center of the field. You remember discussing it in preparation for the mock battle, considering how to account for the fact that everyone would inevitably come rushing for it… but that would have been a beginner's tactic, far too straightforward for the likes of Edelgard and Claude.
And since Dimitri's attention is wholly taken up by whatever enemy is currently closest to his face, it seems almost inevitable that you will be lured into a trap if you don't act.
So you sneak your way to the wooden stairs, careful not to alert the archer with some treacherous creaking of the boards, fully resolved to take them out as quickly as you can – but the top of the hill holds a bitter surprise, and the only reason that you survive that first moment of shock in which you stop and stare is because your counterpart atop the hill is frozen as well:
Bernadetta?!
But she grips her weapon tightly and with a courage that you'd never known her to possess.
"Professor…? You're… with the enemy… That means… That means I have to kill you now!"
She actually shot at you.
With no time left to think, you evade, your boots and armor scraping against the wood as you slide down the hill, hoping that it's inclination would at least provide for a temporary cover.
But you have already sprung the trap.
The sound of combustion envelops you from all sides, flames licking up from below – in a mad dash you tumble down the platform more than you really jump.
Grunting in pain, you roll around in the mud once you get to the bottom, and only when you've made very, very sure do you pull off your scorched overcoat.
Some part of you can't help but admire the bold efficiency of the maneuver, after all, it was inevitable that everyone would be going for the hill.
At this moment you're too pumped with adrenaline to feel much in terms of pain but later that day Mercedes would have to mend quite a few blisters –yet right now, you can't afford to do anything other than scramble to your feet, and right you are to do so, for there it is: The full might of the imperial army, lying in wait like a tightly coiled pit viper.
You're not as screwed as you could have been, for you doubt that the fiery beacon behind you could have gone unnoticed, but the prospect of Dimitri making a beeline for your foes fills you with more worry than relief. For now, you have no choice but to draw your blade and hold your own, but you can hear the rest of the army coming – Heaven knows what had become of the alliance forces...or Bernadetta.
You don't want think about it. It's easier just to fight, as you have done all your life, your mind empty of anything but your next move.
But that's no longer as easy, though not in any way because you remotely struggled to cleave through the enemy hordes – within moments of witnessing you, the ones left standing all back away in fear – Some run, as if they had caught a glimpse of something from the pits of hell, yet others still persevere and come charging back at you after regaining their bearings.
Though they are your enemies, you cannot say that they were not courageous – like Ferdinand had been, or like that general who'd had the misfortune of catching Dimitri's attention – at the time, he'd just been protecting his comrades. You again recall a different lifetime, where a certain girl told you that you were more terrifying than you realized, that not even the knights or imperial army might be able to stand against you, and at the time, you were surprised that she'd bring up such a thing, but now you suspect that she must have spoken with real fear, fear that you would one day become her enemy, and sadness, too…
You almost understand her.
It doesn't take long for the masterful hacking of your weapons to draw the attention of the enemy generals, and before long, a pair of voices cuts through the clamor to rally the troops and reorganize their assault. They're familiar voices.
Hubert's eyes narrow in disdain as they fill with recognition. "You're interfering with the plan… Looks like we'll just have to get rid of you."
At the edge of your perception you're aware of voices protesting, that you're the messenger of the goddess, that you bear the lost crest of legend, and that surely, no ordinary man could stand a chance – But undaunted, the voice of an ordinary person disagrees: "We will not be needing crests or relics to be grabbing the victory! Here, we will be showing that all we need to do it is human hands!"
While Hubert stays back to coordinate the assault at large, a single warrior flings herself at you with unparalleled courage and unmatched speed, braids of purple hair flinging through the air as a thin, curved blade meets yours.
Petra. But why? How?
If anyone would dare to fight you after such a display, it would most certainly be Bridgid's princess, but what is she doing here, fighting for the empire that subjugated her homeland… is she forced to be here? If so, she doesn't show it. She had always been mature and certainly not the type to flinch away from doing what must be done, but unlike with Edelgard, you never had cause to doubt her honor.
She she is fighting you now like the word depends on it – though she is chiefly the distraction. Despite their earlier stunt, the imperial troops are not nearly out of explosives and fire assails you from nearly all directons, likely, at Hubert's command. But the man himself isn't so busy that he couldn't pitch in with some ranged support when you least expect it – more so than the natural flames before, the dark magic burns and brought with it a loud, demanding pain that insisted on being heard.
"Bow before Her Majesty!"
He sends his sorcerers at you with half a mocking little bow.
The soldiers' movements are more coordinated now, and even you are much starting to feel the weight of your numerical disadvantage.
Hubert wears a smirk that makes it quite clear that he's got you where he wants you, though he couldn't hope to beat you one-on-one, he has you outmaneuvered – That is, until the cavalry comes in, delayed, as they may have been by the need to go around the hill, an army of your own.
Before you know it, Sylvain and Lorenz have swept in at your sides, while Ingrid bears down from above, and behind them come the soldiers.
Sylvain shoots you a strained impression of a daring grin as he gets Petra's blade out of your face by way of his lance, countering her not just with its longer range, but with his dreadful superhuman power which it served as a conduit for.
You waste no time in barking out orders and the more of your allies join the fray, the more the tide turns in you favor, and the more your opponents find themselves beaten back. No one could quite place the exact moment when the balance shifted, but one by one by one, the imperial troops must have come to realize that they were somehow clearly losing, trudging backward into the scorched mud with their doom hot on their tails – Before they knew it, they'd found themselves overwhelmed and frantic, and in their desperation, guaranteed to slip up sooner or later.
Your once overextended forces were now pooling at this side of the hill and whatever was left of the alliance forces had wisely chosen to stay their hands instead of tearing into your flanks – surely, Claude must be sitting in some tree surveying the mayhem, as he had five years before, possibly looking to pick off the loser, or at the very least, to remain the last man standing.
There was Anette, blowing holes in the lines of enemy archers and mages from a distance, determined and stalwart though she could not hope to match the imperial mages in sheer prowess.
Mercedes did not even need to come all that close, given that she'd always had an impressive range with her healing magic, which she'd always been uniquely suited to, but it was her arrival that truly cemented their advance, for the imperial soldiers could hardly beat any more holes into their formation once she arrived.
And here was Dedue, appearing right beside you, an impenetrable wall blocking the enemy weapons one by one – He took no pleasure in it, but he showed just as little mercy as his liege would have commanded, carrying out his will with uncommon ferocity.
And if he was near, then the prince couldn't be too far.
The empire might have had the larger army, but the kingdom's ranks were packed to the brim with terrifying elite warriors that had been holding their weapons for longer than they'd been holding quills, each of them worth an entire regiment, apart from Felix and Prince Dimitri, who were each an army onto themselves.
It was all over when they arrived, the prince plowing forward like a juggernaut, and Felix hot on his tail, hardly missing a beat in scolding him for his recklessness – But since his words had fallen on deaf ears, he soon sighed and set to work, for it was all he could do now. In a sense, you felt the same now. If the prince was going to forge ahead no matter what, it was up to the two of you to rescue this operation and twist the resulting chaos into some semblance of a victory.
Dimitri paid little heed to anything around him, anything, that is, for the flesh and blood of his enemies, delicate features twisted by craving and lust, birthing gore and destruction like he was born for nothing else, anything else he had ever been, or done, or believed in burned away in hellish fever dreams and long, long years, and where he was a brutish behemoth bereft of his former princely elegance, Felix' movements almost resembled a dance in their elegance and precision – the death he dispensed was quick, painless and without flourish and all the more plentiful if that's what it took to keep the piteous foes out of Dimitri's claws, yet away from the kingdom's own soldiers.
Though hate to think about it that way, both of you know better than to get in Dimitri's way, so you stand back to back, severing those that come at you in resigned, bitter unison.
But at least it was not for nothing,
Somehow against all odds, you appear to be holding your own against the empire's much larger forces… winning, even.
Even your opponents must be seeing this.
You catch a glimpse of Hubert and Petra, bloodied and leaning on each other.
It seems bizarre, given that you have memories of a world where they ended up as foes – while many of your former students had expressed regret and anguish at the prospect of fighting their classmate, Hubert hadn't seemed all that fazed from having to fight her and Bernadetta.
As far as he was concerned, the rest of the eagles had been dead to him the moment they'd decided to side with the church – real or perceived, he did loathe a traitor; If he had no mercy for his own blood, then it should scarcely be surprised that he had only spite, scorn and contempt left for his former classmates…
But seeing them now, you recall that back at the academy, you had seen them together many times - Both serious-minded, studious and mature, you once upon a time had the impression that they'd always gotten along. It seems that this time around, they still did.
You had to think them valiant – standing against the likes of yourself and the elite knights of Faerghus with no crests, no relics, no exceptional talent, only whatever grit, determination and tenacity had sustained them to this day.
You'd try to talk them into a surrender, but realize with some measure terror that Dimitri would never allow that.
"You have only one thing left to do before you take your place in the eternal flames… " he growls, "WHERE. IS. THAT. WOMAN"
Though ostensibly beaten, Hubert remains as irreverent as ever, a thin, defiant grin arising on his pale features.
"Are you sure you want to know that?"
He knows something. Something's about to happen. You sense it plainly, but you don't think Dimitri does – the minister's mockery only manages to enrage him more.
"Shut your you wretched reptile! I should have known what she really was, it should have been enough to know that she associates with the likes of you! Because of you… because of spineless wretches like you who follow her without thinking… that all this land has been bathed in blood-!"
"That's rich, coming from the unwitting pawns of the church..."
You don't know what would have happened if this had been allowed to continue, or if you could even have stopped it even if you'd wanted to, but just one moment later, none of it means anything anymore.
"Professor! Your Highness!" It's Ashe, panting, hands propped up on his knees.
He was supposed to be stationed with Gilbert on the northern flank.
"We- we've been forced to retreat. Our position's been overrun… I'm sorry but… We couldn't hold them back, they'll be here any moment..."
"Imperial reinforcements?! Who's commanding them?"
Dimitri doesn't wait for an answer – He's thinking exactly what you're thinking, he knows exactly what you know, deep in your very flesh and blood, even before the frantic screams and shouts of the retreating soldiers filter into your consciousness.
There is indeed a second regiment coming your way, joining up with the one before you having made quick work of the forces you entrusted to Gilbert and Rodrigue, and yet, it is but the shaft of spear tipped with what appears to be a lone warrior of unparalleled prowess – you'd sensed her before you saw her, but you would know that crimson armor anywhere.
There is no way you could forget.
You fought her in the goddess tower before, but she was holding back.
You fought her in Enbarr when she was already weakened.
But neither of these are the case right now:
She drives out hordes of foes before her, cleaving through them with her weapon or bludgeoning them with the spikes at it's back – The massive contraption is bigger than herself, resembling a heroes' relic, but not any that had ever been mentioned in any sort of record; And she swings it around with ease, more light-footed in the crimson plates of her armor than some might have been in a comparably billowy ballgown, striking above all with power that often left spiderweb cracks where she struck, not to speak of the shattered bones of your soldiers.
She will be described in later days as something that stepped out from the pages of a fantastic tale, like the dark lords in epic stories – Tales will tell of her weapon striking again and again and again like a tempest, as if time and space themselves bent under her will -
And perhaps they did – You recognize that power, the flashing, flaming sigil, you know it very well, though you hadn't known its meaning for the longest time, and you would have to, for you held that very same might that she was now unleashing after keeping it hidden all this time, and because you knew that might, there could be no mistaking it.
But how could this be? You were positive that she had a minor crest of Seiros, and never had Hanneman or Linhardt mentioned the possibility of one person having two crests, not on any of their various ramblings on the subject – instead they'd often bent your ear about how unlikely and mysterious it was for even one person to have the crest of flames – Sure, according to the legend the Hresvelgs could boast of some modicum of divine blood, but it should have been dilluted through countless generations – you got your might directly from the source when you were implanted with Sothis' crest stone.
So how?
How?
It's not like you can stop to ask her while she's mowing down your army – Someone needs to slow down her advance, and fast. There aren't many in your forces who could hope to pin her down in battle. It would have to be you… you, who holds the same power.
But you've barely made your decision before you're beaten to the punch.
You're not sure when he got so close, his movements like the inconstant waxing moon, a hunter springing from his hiding place after carefully stalking his prey, dark cloak passing in front of the sun as he pounces not unlike a great panther – The emperor is ready to meet him, firmly parrying his strike, but for the first time in very many years, she is overpowered – Perhaps it's simply because boys mature a little slower that Dimitri had not quite reached his full potential back at the academy, maybe it's the extra inches of vantage or the fact that he spent very many years doing little else but kill, but though you're certain that this was not the case at the academy, he's stronger than her now – and she was never exactly reliant on brute force and all things considered, always the more well-rounded fighter, but so far, she'd always been able to rely on the option of out-bruting her opponent if all else should fail.
She didn't have any experience in fighting opponents that were physically stronger than her because she couldn't have – their number was few, but Dimitri could most definitely be counted among them, and he held nothing back.
"You will pay for all that you have trampled for the sake of your selfish arrogance and greed! I'm going to snap you in half like the rotten beast you are! I'm going to smash your smug little face until your neck cracks in two! I'm going to break open your ribcage and slurp the juice out of your black, black heart! I'm going to tear off that sick head of yours and piss into your skull, you crazy heartless bitch!"
Yet even as he surely managed to give her battle more than any other foe she had felled today, her expression remained steeled and composed, even looking up at him with a distant sort of pity, though it didn't much color her uncompromising rebuke.
If an outside observer had seen them clashing like this and been asked to point out who was the villain and who was the hero, there was a good chance that the rabid raging of the raging prince would have seemed more off-putting than the Lady's stalwart command, and they might have found themselves fearing that she would lose simply because she seemed the less terrible evil.
Seeing that she was challenged, her allies, through weakened, prepared themselves to assist her, but though hard-pressed, she still found the breath to address them:
"Fall back, Petra! You must survive to lead your people!"
"But Lady Edelgard-"
"Worry not, Hubert. I will take care of the rest."
With a dutiful nod, Petra turns, dragging her companion along with her before he could try anything desperate and the last you see of them is a glimpse of them leaning on each other as they flee -
But it's not like they could have done much to help here:
The battle had become a clash of inhuman warriors – The prince clawed at her with the ferocity of a demon, his face twisted into a grimace of bloodlust while hers remained unmoved like that of a statue. If he had lowered himself to the level of a beast, then she appeared as something just as above a mortal man as he was below it, but there was nothing godly about it; Instead she seemed an asura, a jotunn, a titaness piercing at the heavens in jealous rage, and nothing he could do could move anything in her icy face, which just fired up his rage more and more, as if she were all the world's cruelty and indifference rolled into one shape, an exquisite White Whale that he would spit at to his last breath.
Strong as he was, he wasn't thinking, and as his element of surprise waned you could see her surely gaining the upper hand – and he would not, could not be persuaded to fall back but you know that you have only one choice.
She sees you coming, blocks you opening strike, with melancholy apparent in her eyes even as her face does nothing – She had known this day would come, and she had accepted it, resigned herself to it, and met you with her full might.
But while she might have beaten either of you if you had fought her one on one, she cannot take you both.
She certainly cannot take you all as your allies start pouring in, she can't negotiate all of your allies as they come pouring in, Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain wielding his dreadful lance-
Whatever she may be, you can surely beat her if you all join forces -
Strong as she may be, she can't carry all the world's weight and burden all upon her own shoulders.
Oh, she holds out against your assault, longer than any mere mortal should have any right to, but mortal, it would appear, she still is, however subdued her dull surprise when she finds herself suddenly struggling not to sink to her knees in the dirt.
"I… lost?" There's some genuine disbelief there, but not the rage of wounded pride that most of you expected – she organizes her thoughts in a moment, propping herself up on her weapon. "As expected, you aren't making my path an easy one."
Then, she sounds the retreat. For a supposed megalomaniac, she still had quite enough presence of mind to escape while she still could – which is more than could be said for Dimitri.
Before the sun touched the horizon, the once clear demarcations of black and white had been muddied beyond repair – for some out there, it is you and your allies who look like the monsters.
For some, you are as hateful as the foes you had chased to your own doom.
…
You have got to put an end to this.
You have got to end this madness once and for all – No one else will do it, no one else would dare.
Gilbert won't, and Rodrigue can't, not when he's passed out out of this world
You had loved being a genuine part of something for once in your life, even it's heart, but it's because you are an outsider to Faerghus who was never impressed with its customs or values that it now falls to you to think the this thought that even Felix couldn't fully finished for all that he might have complained only to get swept up by the tide one way or another.
So when you hear what can only be Dimitri's footfalls heading out of the camp in secret just as you'd always known they would, it is plain that you can no longer avoid this confrontation.
This got way longer than I expected, and this seemed like a natural cutoff point.