Marianne's death had made Dimitri rampage.

When he'd first heard the rumour, his blood had run cold. He'd steeled himself, furious at the whispers and gossiping that had spread around the camp, and had continued onwards as best as his unsound mental state had allowed.

But, when the next battle had rolled around, and the soft-spoken Bishop had been nowhere in sight, Dimitri had felt fire within him. His chest had grown hot, his throat tight with rage. It was Hilda's eyes, however - those once-artful eyes showing nothing but dull, aching pain - that had riled Dimitri into a frenzy.

That had been his most vicious battle. Roaring until his voice was hoarse and he coughed up blood; sweeping through the enemy forces like they were nothing more than matchsticks; feeling nothing as swords nicked his skin and sliced at his armour. Dimitri had felt wrath: pure, unadulterated fury blazing within him like an untamed fire. Marianne had been taken from this world - her loss had affected so many - and never again would Fódlan experience anybody so sweet.

Dimitri had lost a part of himself upon her death. It could never be replaced.

At long last, after what had felt like endless hours of nothing but haunting, horrifying images playing over and over inside his mind, the King finally felt himself coming back down.

The screams had faded from his ears - even the whispers had calmed until eventually they dissipated, blowing away upon the wind that gently riffled through his hair.

The wind.

Where was he? Dimitri gently pried open his eyelids, seeing - as usual - nothing from his right eye. Dim light filtered gently into the vision of his left, though - grey and dusky and vague. With a soft grunt, one hand scrabbled against the back of his head and he pulled his eyepatch away from his face, allowing his bad eye to sear with pain as feeble dregs of light pressed against it. The vision that came to it was blurred and hazy, but at least he was free from the confines of the eyepatch.

He looked around himself, becoming aware that he was curled up in the foetal position on the floor, something hard against his back seeped a chilliness through his garments and into his skin. He made to push himself upright, feeling a cold, slick substance beneath his bare hands: wet stone. The floor was rough brick, the wall was made from the same material, and the room he'd woken up in appeared to be narrow and circular, with a high ceiling above him.

"Oh. Hey, Your Highness."

A voice echoed around Dimitri, half-sending him spiralling again. Another ghost? Another voice? Another mental demon come to torture him-?

The King looked to his left, seeing a small figure sitting alone in the centre of the room. The voice had been young: boyish, winsome. And, familiar, somehow…

"… Cyril?" The King's voice resonated against the damp brick walls around him.

"Yeah," that youthful voice came back at him. Dimitri heard shuffles, and then saw the silhouette of the boy grow closer, until eventually the sliver of the moon's glow through the open window bathed him in light.

He didn't look any different from how Dimitri had last seen him. Curls of dark chocolate rested messily atop his head, a small red scar visible from beneath the tresses that fell into his eyes - his eyes of a sunset upon sand. His clothes didn't look particularly spectacular; he certainly wasn't dressed in finery, looking to be still wearing the new uniform of Garreg Mach employees.

"You okay, Your Highness? You seemed pretty shaken up."

Dimitri fought to comprehend his words. Where were they both? How had he gotten here? How long had he been here? The questions began to circle in his mind like cackling vultures, weighing up his enervated brain for their next meal. He let his head droop, looking down at his pale, scarred hands, before he returned his gaze to the boy. "I am shaken up, Cyril," he agreed.

"I figured." He readjusted his position so he sat cross-legged. "I wondered why else I'd find you up here."

"Where is 'here'?" Dimitri asked.

"Huh? You don't know? Well, I guess it's been a while since you were here. This is an abandoned watch tower. How come you're not down at the festival?"

An abandoned watch tower. Somewhere deep in the monastery grounds, so far away from the celebration that he couldn't even hear it anymore. His panic must have taken him lengths - made him scrabble, terrified, through Garreg Mach until he'd found somewhere he'd deemed safe. This wasn't the first time he'd dissolved into panic and awoken in a new situation. "How did you find me?"

Cyril shuffled where he sat. "I just saw you running through the monastery, and wanted to check you were okay. I was calling after you and stuff, but you couldn't hear me, I think. So, I followed you, and we ended up here." Unlike most other citizens, Cyril beheld Dimitri not with a look of awe or disbelief, nor even with fright or concern. The boy looked simply like he was talking to an old acquaintance, seemingly unfazed by Dimitri's harrowed mental state, nor by his status.

"Thank you for looking out for me." Passion had left Dimitri's body. He was grateful, but he was tired. The night had seemed to drag on for an age already, emotions wheeling through him faster than he could keep track of. "I… feel better."

"You sure? You seemed really…" He shrugged. "… not okay."

"I'll be fine with time."

Silence fell throughout the room. Dimitri's breathing was still heavy - still ragged from how his lungs had fought to intake breath amidst his hysteria. The boy merely looked at him, quietly.

"Alright. Well, unless you want me to leave, I'll stay with you. To make sure you're okay."

His youthful optimism brought a breath of a laugh from the King's nose, managing to amuse him despite everything. "Thank you, Cyril. I'd appreciate that."

And he got back to thinking. The night around him was almost silent; the watchtower must have been near trees, for Dimitri could hear the soft hoots of a single owl from out of the shattered window. The breeze could be heard whistling through branches, disturbing the leaves and causing them to rustle. He let his eyes drift shut, embracing the calm and the quiet and letting his heart return to its normal slow pace.

He thought of Dedue. The love of his life, probably cooking up a beautiful soup right now. Perhaps Annette and Mercedes would be encouraging him - perhaps Ingrid and the others had joined them to cheer for their childhood classmate. In a way, Dimitri wished he could be there with them - but then he thought of having to apologise to them. Having to dig up their old memories of war, ruining their night, as he'd ruined Hilda's. As he'd ruined his own. And he grimaced. No - he wasn't ready to face anybody just yet.

"What happened to your eye, Your Highness?" Cyril piped up with such genuine inquisitiveness. "I never knew why you covered it up, but it looks like it hurts."

Ah, yes. His eye. Dimitri was used to repelling the repulsive memories of his past that often came hurtling back to him, but the memory of his eye always genuinely made him shudder. As though the cold of the wetness all around him had finally seeped through to his bones, the King gave a shiver as the thought of what he'd once done snaked its way into his mind once more.

"Yes, I, uh…" His ghosts taunting him, his own tortured screams. "I wasn't… in a good frame of mind." His fingernails clawing; the warmth of blood cascading over his hands; the burning, blinding, white-hot pain. "I didn't want to see anymore." Dedue rushing to his side and prying his hand away as he howled. "But, it doesn't hurt anymore," he reassured the boy, opening his eyes yet again.

Cyril remained quiet a moment, eyes earnest. "I'm sorry to hear about that."

"It was a long time ago." One eye being so blurred, having lost almost all vision from where he'd scratched at it years ago, could be disorienting. Looking in the mirror, though, was the worst part. Dimitri wore the eyepatch not to ease his eyes from processing one clear and one blurred image, though - he wore it to stop the world from seeing his scars. Dedue had seen them - had tended to them when they were raw, and ran delicate fingers over them each night, reminding the King that he loved every part of him. The rest of Fódlan, however, did not need to see the ugly red blemishes that streaked his eyelid.

"Tell ya what, Your Highness," Cyril chirped, giving a small grunt as he stood up. "Why don't we go and get some tea? That might cheer you up!"

Dimitri could not stop a small laugh from leaving his nose. This freshness - this innocence. What the King wouldn't do to have that back.

"I've got Almyran pine - that's my favourite! - and crescent-moon tea, honeyed fruit, chamomile-"

"Chamomile," Dimitri said, the memories of drinking it with his father in his youth flooding back to him. "Yes."

The King began to stand, taking Cyril's small hand as an offer of help, and felt the chill of the dark, dank watchtower press in around him.

"D'you want anyone else to join us for tea? If you've got friends at the festival you want to invite, I'll happily go find 'em for ya." Cyril began to lead Dimitri from the room, down a small, narrow, spiral staircase that he had no memory of ever climbing before.

"No, thank you, Cyril. It would be nice just the two of us." Dimitri thought he could use the boy's freshness - his juvenile exuberance. Perhaps it would open his mind - teach him how to recover.

"Yeah, that's cool too. I've got new chamber all of my own now! I attend all the classes that you used to!"

"That's wonderful news." Dimitri stepped out of the watchtower's crumbling doorway and into the grounds at the back of the monastery. Looking around, he couldn't work out where he was; he couldn't hear a thing from the festival, nor see the burning torches in the distance. The sun had fully set, and the moon lit a silvery path for the two men to navigate across the field. As he counted the stars, Dimitri began to wonder. How long have I been out of it?

With dismay, he realised that boots had been sucked into the muddy, marshy mire that came with Garreg Mach's disused grounds. He tried to quickly catch up with Cyril's pace, who had already begun to traverse the field in the direction of the monastery's brooding silhouette, but the suction of the mud beneath the King's feet made his movements slow. The boy turned around, hearing Dimitri's boots make loud squelching noises with his every step, and began to laugh loudly.

"Are you laughing at my boots…?" Dimitri asked with an almost pained smile.

"They sound so funny!"

The King shook his head, joy creeping into his empty, sullen heart. He needed a cup of tea with this boy.