Day 5: Comfort, Custom & Culture, Family (heart and memory)

[warmskies]

 One of Dimitri's many charms is that he is not much of a liar. He can keep things hidden, and maybe some people think that is very much the same thing, but it's not, in Claude's opinion. If that's the case, after all, then everyone is a liar because everyone always has something to hide from the rest of the world, and... Hm. No, maybe there's something to that little philosophical quandary. It amuses Claude, if nothing else. 

But generally speaking, he finds it about as right as claiming a wolf is a dog and vice versa. Maybe there's some similarities there, but it would be ludicrous to say they're exactly the same. So while Dimitri is good at hiding things, he never lies, and always lets someone know if he's uncomfortable talking about a certain thing. It's an honest Claude was never afforded either by himself or by other people, and so like he said: a charm point. 

It's especially a charm point because it means that, no matter how long Claude is away from Fodlan, from Fhirdiad where his lover resides, he always knows when Dimitri is trying to get up to something in an attempt to get something past Claude. This time, it's not even because he's just a little too clever for his own good and Dimitri has to hastily request that he forget how to be smart for just an hour, or a week, maybe? A month, if Claude might be so willing? 

No, this time, it's just because he's managed to make it back to Fhirdiad just a couple of days quicker thanks to uncharacteristically good weather on the journey back. That doesn't make Fhirdiad any less damn freezing in late autumn, and Claude holds his cloak close when he enters the castle proper. Today, he foregoes the usual habit, and redirects various servants to take his things up to his room. There's nothing really important in them this time, so he thinks he can get away with that, and he really wants to get away with that in favor of finding out from someone just where King Dimitri is in the castle. More than anything, he wants to cuddle up against his lover, and leech heat away from him. 

It's his primary mission for the afternoon, in the couple of hours before supper. At least, it's his mission before he slips open the door into the sitting room Dimitri has claimed for himself, and the sound of clumsy Almyran reaches his ears. Claude stops right in place, just before this particular door can hit the angle at which is creaks - he's had more than enough time to get used to all the little quirks of the Fhirdiad castle, now. He's just in time, too; the amateurish Almyran doesn't stop. 

Shifting, adjusting himself, Claude smiles a little as he listens to Dimitri practice Almyran for him. Who else could it be for? And... he recognizes this book, too. Of course he does. He had commissioned it to happen, in a way - or, rather, he'd asked Hilda, who had commissioned a scholar to go out into Almyra and document all the different holidays that the country celebrates. Coincidentally, Claude had at the same time done similar of an Almyran scholar - which do exist, which he's sure shocks many Leicester folks who don't know any better. 

It hadn't taken much to ensure the two would run into each other, and, well. Biases may be biases, but there are stronger things than those. For example, in the case of the Fodlan scholar, he had quickly decided that Almyra was a fiery hellscape, and wanted to leave as soon as possible. In contrast, Claude knows his own Almyran scholar had looked at Fodlan, heard about a thing called snow, and decided zie wanted nothing to do with it at all... but it was still a job from zir king that needed to get done. Both scholars, upon meeting and realizing each other's duties, realized they could help each other out a great deal. 

He thinks they've gotten married, now, and the sentences Dimitri is reading out aloud to himself right now is from their jointly written book, written in Fodlish and Almyran both side by side, along with illustrations. It's quite popular for what it is. Popular enough to have ended up in the King of Fodlan's chambers as he practices his own Almyran... only to pause, and speak up again in his native tongue. "It lasts for twelve days?" Dimitri whispers to himself, shock writ all throughout his voice. 

Claude tucks his lips into his mouth, holding back his laughter, and manages to squeeze through the small gap he's made. It's not very much, with consideration to the creaky hinges, but he somehow manages. Years of getting into places he never should be has helped him a lot for little moments like this. Immediately, there's the faint sense of warmth that draws him so much - the fireplace lit to a nice and comfortable roar. Dimitri is near it, one hand curled at his mouth while the other props open his book against his knee. He really is absorbed into it; Claude's entrance has yet to be noticed. 

At least, until Claude slips right behind Dimitri's shoulders and cheerfully says, "Yeah, that's a big one isn't it?" 

The sentence hasn't even reached the midway point in his mouth before Dimitri scrambles off of his chair with a jolt, book snapping shut and held tightly to his chest. "Claude!" Dimitri exclaims, eye wide in shock, before a smile spreads across his lips. "Claude!" There it is: that look he'll never get tired of. That look of joy, of adoration, of nothing less than such a pure love that Claude wonders how on earth he survived Almyra without it wrapped around him tight. He savors it, because it lasts only a moment before it occurs to Dimitri that there's a question he should ask. "You weren't to arrive for another two days... What on earth happened?"

"Good luck and good weather," Claude says, chuckling as he moves around the armchair so that he can flop down onto it himself. He may love Dimitri, but he loves having the seat closest to the fireplace more. "Without any hail or heavy snow to block our progress, we were able to cut down on so much. We decided to take advantage of it as best we could. Needless to say, we'll be staying in the castle for a little while as the most annoying parts of autumn get themselves over with, and hopefully leave just in time to avoid the heavier snows you get around here." 

"I trust the staff here in the castle were able to attend to you without trouble, then," Dimitri says, trying to make the book innocuous as possible in the way he moves his arms down to his sides, and then just slightly behind his back. They both know Claude's already seen it, of course - and certainly he's heard Dimitri speak the sentences aloud. Well, Claude will let him get away with it for just a moment. "You spend so much time here, everyone should know your face." 

"At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of them have an inkling of our real relationship," Claude says, eyes glittering. One day they're going to get married. That's just a basic matter of fact, something they both agreed to a long time ago. However, they can't get married as simply as some of their friends may be able to. This... is something they're going to have to work on. The difficulties of being royalty, and wanting to make a better world. But those are serious thoughts for another time. For now, he just grins and asks, "So what were you reading?" 

Dimitri sends him a look of utmost exasperation and silent pleading. Claude knows. Dimitri knows he knows. He had just been hoping, very very hard, that Claude wouldn't ask about it. But he has. And Dimitri is a terrible liar. This is because Dimitri refuses to lie. When it becomes clear that Claude isn't going to move on from the subject, he sighs, and allows the hand holding the book behind his back to drop to his side. "I was hoping to surprise you," he informs Claude. 

"I know," Claude says, a little more gentle than teasing this time around. Dimitri loves to do this - find the things that really make Claude happy, that bring a smile to his face. He suspects a part of it is because Dimitri feels his own worth needs to be validated just a little bit by making other people happy, which he used to worry about before it became clear that it was just a normal reaction to, well. To being human. It's when it goes too far in the other direction that it becomes a problem. 

But he doesn't think it will be, or at least that's not what it is now, because Dimitri just... genuinely seems to light up whenever Claude smiles. At first, it was for just about any smile, honestly, which Claude found endearing as hell. But nowadays, now that they've had all that time to get used to each other, to learn all their quirks and habits... Now, Dimitri only lights up, brighter than a shooting star, whenever Claude truly smiles. 

He swears, this guy is going to kill him with how much he loves. Claude really swears it. 

Just, you know, not if Claude kills him first, and he winks up at Dimitri. "But Mitya, now that I know even a little bit, you know my curiosity is never going to rest until I've ferreted out every detail, right?" 

Sighing, Dimitri rolls his eye up to the ceiling as if beseeching an unknown entity for assistance with his endlessly nosy lover. "Sometimes, I wonder if I have not fallen for a ferret instead of a man," he says, and Claude laughs a little. "You could at least offer to pretend to know nothing, one of these times. You know that, don't you?" 

"But then you wouldn't get an honest reaction," Claude says, and watches how Dimitri melts at that. Honesty means a lot to Dimitri, especially honesty that he can actually trust. He's had too much betrayal in his life, too much tragedy, so he needs something like this. All the time, in Claude's frank opinion, but, barring that, he can give it to Dimitri himself. It's a strange feeling, being so honest. Vulnerable. 

Taking another armchair and effortlessly heaving it up to place right near to Claude, Dimitri sighs and sinks down into it. "I suppose so," he says in that soft and earnest voice of his, where he couldn't hide it if he tried on how much he loves Claude, even at his nosiest. "Well, I was... trying to go through this book, to learn more about holidays in Almyra. For you." 

Claude stirs in interest. "Interested in coming over to Almyra for one of them some time, are you?" he asks, and just the idea brings a smile to his face. Oh, it would require a little bit of preparation - well, maybe a lot of preparation, with how relations between their countries are still a little tense. And then there's the whole thing of how it's two kings meeting, and whatever other objectives their respective courts or trade groups might want to accomplish while this is all happening... 

He could still pull it off, however. Claude is confident in that, especially depending on the holiday he brings Dimitri over for. It's nice to think about... Dimitri's pale hair, colored by fireworks shooting off in the sky, or Dimitri's scarred skin dusted with brilliant purples and reds as he sneaks him through the city. Dimitri will stand out a lot, of course - tall, built like a fortress, distinctly not Almyran with his pale hair and pale skin, and that's not even talking about the fact that he's missing an eye... But foreigners are becoming a little less rare, these days. Enough clothing, strategically placed over Dimitri's frame, and Claude is positive that he'll be able to get the two of them out on the streets for time of their own. 

It's... actually almost kind of embarrassing how immediately Claude's mind starts running through obstacles and objectives of the whole thing. In his childhood memories, holidays were fun, yes, but they were fun in the way that watching wyverns twist and dive in the sky had been fun. They had been an impersonal fun, an excuse for enjoyment, more than anything special. For Claude, special with wyverns had at least come to him in a fairly obvious manner: his father introducing him to the one that would be his, and giving him the pleasure of choosing a name for the fragile little creature that had blinked at him with big red eyes. 

He's yet to ever experience that with an Almyran holiday, he realizes just then. Fodlan holidays, yes - he's had the good fortune of making friends here, and friends who have stuck by him even after the disaster which befell Garreg Mach, through a five year war, through the revelation of where half his blood lays and the crown that lays upon his head. Claude never grew up in Fodlan, hardly even had his mother's tales from her youth until his curiosity had won over her stubbornness, and yet it's strange, he thinks, that it's this half of his blood that he has such memories of.

All the more reason to make memories with Dimitri, then.

Yet where his brain tries to leap five steps ahead, Dimitri cuts him off when he shakes his head. "No, I wasn't thinking of going to Almyra... Although, would you like me to? The heat is so intense there, but I'd gladly go if you asked."

Disappointment. Claude calmly smothers it. That's his fault, after all, for leaping ahead before he's even given Dimitri a chance to speak, his brain at fault for burning ahead faster than fire on kindling. "If it wasn't what you were thinking about, don't worry," Claude says, smiling through his own disappointment that has no right to exist. The heart is a rude little thing, and he's made a practice of ignoring it when it gets out of the way of smarter things. "But what were you thinking about, then?"

Resting the book on his knee again, closed now, Dimitri rubs his fingers over the lettering that is its title. "Well," he says slowly, making a production out of a single syllable without even really meaning to. "I was thinking.... You are in Fodlan so often, Claude."

"I'm in a lot of places often," Claude says, and laughs a little. Ever since he was able to get things stabilized, he's been on quite a neverending journey, really. Almyra needs to be convinced that there are things outside of their borders worth caring about, that they don't need to be so on edge, that they can enjoy themselves with food and celebration and fights without going to war. Fodlan was honestly just the first step out of many. Brigid, Dagda - even Sreng, although it has been the slowest to accept any change, almost as much as his own Almyra.

Duscur has been the easiest in contrast, needing all the help it can take as it rebuilds with its lands properly returned when they never should have been taken in the first place. Dimitri has been giving everything he can in order to help, filtering it to Dedue as he takes the helm of it all. Sometimes, nobles say something, but it's ill-advised to say it in front of the king himself. He's calmer since the war, but there's still a righteous sort of fury to him for Duscur especially. Claude is more than happy to start up trade with the country slowly rebuilding itself. After all, it works out for him too, doesn't it?

Chuckling, Dimitri eases up a little bit, and his fingers still over his book. "You are... They call you the Wandering King, you know. I want to say it started in Almyra, but who can really say? You really do go everywhere." Claude laughs a little more, and Dimitri drinks it all in like a man in the desert. "Anyway... Regardless, it seems as though you miss a lot of festivals and holidays in Almyra, while you're traveling about so much."

An inkling of what Dimitri is thinking of starts to blossom in his chest, and Claude tempers it. He doesn't want to be wrong twice in a row like this. "I mean, I missed Almyran holidays five years in a row at one point," he says, shrugging carelessly. It hadn't been important to him at the time. There had been the Fodlan holidays to treasure with close friends, or the friends he still had around him. The circumstances had been miserable, tragic, but those he was close with... They made it bearable. "I've survived this long missing them, ha."

"Still," Dimitri insists. "I thought you might miss them, so I've... been doing some more research on them, when I can. I thought - well, if you are ever in Fhirdiad, and the time matches up...  Perhaps I could celebrate some of these holidays with you. I wouldn't make them official or anything," Dimitri adds hastily. "That may be a bit too much too fast. But... for just the two of us, or perhaps a few of our friends." His fingers start to rub against the title of the book again.

It feels, however... like he's rubbing a little bit against the softness of Claude's heart, a softness that clogs up his throat and makes the blood in his veins tremble. What is better: bringing Dimitri to Almyra, or bringing Almyra to Dimitri? He'd been pondering the former, after all.... but now he thinks they're both equally good, just in different ways.

Although he'd be lying if he said that Dimitri making the initiative to make Fodlan a little more home for him doesn't make his heart sing a little. And Claude had long ago made the promise to never lie when Dimitri was involved.

"I'd love that," he says, reaching over until his hands rest over one of Dimitri's. The scars stand out to his touch still, even after all these years. But they've healed. They're only scars, now. In their place, something sweeter and gentler now blooms. Claude thinks the same might soon be true for his memories of these holidays. "But you know, maybe it's a good thing that I ended up stumbling upon this after all." Leaning over, he presses a smiling kiss into Dimitri's jaw. "Instead of a book, you can have someone who's lived those festivals and can answer all your questions, right?"

A smile is shining all across Dimitri's face, and he reaches over with his other hand to gently tug Claude over onto his lap. If he really wanted to, he could probably just haul him over with brute strength alone. He doesn't. He doesn't, and Claude doesn't give him reason or desire to, instead slinking off of his own chair to settle against his lover. This close, Dimitri's love almost seems to keep him warmer than the fireplace roaring at his back.

But, you know, only almost. He's a realist, what can he say?

"Maybe I'm lucky after all," Dimitri agrees, pressing a gentle kiss to Claude's cheek, right under his eye. "Then, shall we start tonight? Oh-" His brow crumples in worry. "No, you only just arrived today after a long trip. Hold on, I'll get you back to your room so that you can have a bath, and you came just in time before dinner but you must be starving-"

If Claude let him, he's sure that Dimitri would haul him into his arms and march through the castle himself to ensure all of this happens. One of Dimitri's favorite things in the universe is, apparently, fussing over people. Instead of letting that happen, Claude just taps his finger on Dimitri's lips, and manages to easily divert that particular train of thought. "All of that can wait," he tells Dimitri, adjusting himself so that he can tug the book out from under his ass. "I think... I'd rather just be with you for a moment, Mitya. You and nothing else."

He can almost see the way Dimitri's heart melts out of his chest. "Then I'll gladly give you whatever you like," he murmurs, adjust his arms around Claude so that they're both comfortable. "Then, if you would like... Can you tell me about the twelve day festival? The Saffron Festival?"

"Of course." Flicking open the books, Claude quickly goes to find the place that Dimitri had been startled out of. It's not that hard, and soon he's able to lean his head against Dimitri's shoulder as he looks over what the book has down for that particularly rowdy holiday. "So the Saffron Festival is basically a celebration of warriors past and present, that much is right. I'll tell you, on the days leading up to it, the smell of saffron is so strong..."

They stay like that for a while, the two of them comforted by the crackling of fire and Claude's voice rolling on. As he does so, he thinks of what holiday Dimitri will pick, of what new memories the two of them will be able to make to make up for the ways his family failed him, and how he still views Almyra fondly still in so many ways. He thinks of saffron filling his lungs sweetly, and the warm weight of Dimitri's cloak around his shoulders. He thinks of those, and many other things, all mixed together.

He thinks of family, and culture, and the comfort Dimitri is helping him to find just because he loves him, because he's trying to make him happy.

The fire crackles. Claude feels warm in a way that wins against the snow which steadily starts to fall outside, and smiles into Dimitri's throat as his lover holds him close.