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Blue Lions Week, June 6: Training/Fighting
When he's first brought down to the training ground of Fhirdiad Castle and asked what weapon he has a talent in or wants to learn, Dedue looks out towards the armory spread out all around him and has no idea.
"I know the lance," His Higness Dimitri says from besides him, stubbornly on his feet despite the fact that he probably shouldn't be. On the surface, he looks like a Faerghus prince probably should: hair brushed straight, expensive clothing on his person, all of that. Still, Dedue can see bandages peeking out just past the sleeves of his jacket, and there's a hollowness to his gaze. If not for the Duke lingering near the doorway who acts as their escort for this minor excursion, the healers and servants of the castle would likely have never let him even stand from his bed. "We could take lessons together, if you would like."
The prince does not say he would particularly like it if Dedue decided to take up polearms as well. Yet it's obvious. Probably even strangers could tell, looking at them: both of them sharing a similar dead gaze, their shoulders brushing, the prince's hand holding so delicately onto his.
Dedue is scared of holding back, sometimes. He knows he is not liked here. He knows the reputation that plagues his people, his home. What will they think of him, so close to their treasured prince?
He holds onto Dimitri as well anyway. Part of it is because he knows how powerful the prince is, saw him break through stone and haul away debris back in Duscur as the two of them clung so desperately to life. To something better. He knows the strength they hold, knows the fear that in turn holds onto Dimitri. He thinks the least he can do for the boy besides him is prove that fear wrong.
And honestly, maybe more than that... He needs to hold onto someone as well.
That is a weakness and he knows it, of course. His fear cannot stay with him forever, cannot decide his path forever. If he wants to keep the promise he and this boy made to each other in the smoldering ruins that were once his home, then he needs to something more than simply cling by his side forever. So Dedue shakes his head, and looks at the other training weapons about him.
His father is - His father was a blacksmith. Yet Dedue cannot recall him ever making many weapons. Knives, mainly. Arrowheads for hunters. His father was a blacksmith, and he made horsehoes so that steeds could forge forward and nails that kept homes together. So little of what he looks at seems as though it is something he would want to train with. To learn.
And then his eyes land on something else, something familiar, and Dedue pauses.
Dimitri moves when he moves, until they're standing in front of a row of the largest weapons in the room. They'd seemed large when his father was making them too, although now Dedue knows he was just small. Still, he'd always been fascinated by them: a weapon, certainly, with a blade that could do true harm, and yet it mainly targeted that which it came from.
Cutting through things, destroying them, just to make something else again - a cart, a home, a bed, a shield.
An axe.
"I know the lance," His Higness Dimitri says from besides him, stubbornly on his feet despite the fact that he probably shouldn't be. On the surface, he looks like a Faerghus prince probably should: hair brushed straight, expensive clothing on his person, all of that. Still, Dedue can see bandages peeking out just past the sleeves of his jacket, and there's a hollowness to his gaze. If not for the Duke lingering near the doorway who acts as their escort for this minor excursion, the healers and servants of the castle would likely have never let him even stand from his bed. "We could take lessons together, if you would like."
The prince does not say he would particularly like it if Dedue decided to take up polearms as well. Yet it's obvious. Probably even strangers could tell, looking at them: both of them sharing a similar dead gaze, their shoulders brushing, the prince's hand holding so delicately onto his.
Dedue is scared of holding back, sometimes. He knows he is not liked here. He knows the reputation that plagues his people, his home. What will they think of him, so close to their treasured prince?
He holds onto Dimitri as well anyway. Part of it is because he knows how powerful the prince is, saw him break through stone and haul away debris back in Duscur as the two of them clung so desperately to life. To something better. He knows the strength they hold, knows the fear that in turn holds onto Dimitri. He thinks the least he can do for the boy besides him is prove that fear wrong.
And honestly, maybe more than that... He needs to hold onto someone as well.
That is a weakness and he knows it, of course. His fear cannot stay with him forever, cannot decide his path forever. If he wants to keep the promise he and this boy made to each other in the smoldering ruins that were once his home, then he needs to something more than simply cling by his side forever. So Dedue shakes his head, and looks at the other training weapons about him.
His father is - His father was a blacksmith. Yet Dedue cannot recall him ever making many weapons. Knives, mainly. Arrowheads for hunters. His father was a blacksmith, and he made horsehoes so that steeds could forge forward and nails that kept homes together. So little of what he looks at seems as though it is something he would want to train with. To learn.
And then his eyes land on something else, something familiar, and Dedue pauses.
Dimitri moves when he moves, until they're standing in front of a row of the largest weapons in the room. They'd seemed large when his father was making them too, although now Dedue knows he was just small. Still, he'd always been fascinated by them: a weapon, certainly, with a blade that could do true harm, and yet it mainly targeted that which it came from.
Cutting through things, destroying them, just to make something else again - a cart, a home, a bed, a shield.
An axe.