Dedue Week - Day 3 - Safety/Danger

[warmskies]

Fhirdiad Castle is massive, all towering stone meant to protect itself from any force that might crash against it. To the people living in the city built around it, perhaps that's comforting.

Of course. It would be. For them, the mountainous place, its halls almost cavernlike in their size, isn't somewhere that threatens to devour them completely.

Dedue can't say the same. Even at his age, inexperienced though he might be, he can feel the weight of so many stares on him wherever he steps foot. It's like trying to fight for air, going too high up mountain cliffs until it's a fight for every breath. And that's just within the castle. What is it like out on the streets of Fhirdiad, amongst all those still mourning a leader that they never truly met? Grief sharpening rage?

Something he cannot yet stand up to, so tucked away within the mountain he stays. Besides, at least he can say he is not alone, not in place and not in feeling. It is not exactly the same - no one in the entire city, let alone the castle, can feel exactly the same as he does - but drowning is drowning either way. Dedue still sees the way people look at Dimitri, visiting nobility and such that eye him like a wolf eyes a deer. He is a child, and he is alone, and that is something many people would take advantage of if they could.

Yet every single one of them fails to consider the depth of his feelings. Their feelings.

Sometimes, even Dedue thinks he misjudges the depth that's there. That leads him to surprises like one of his earliest nights in Fhirdiad Castle, when a soft knock sounds on his door in the middle of the night.

Where he would stay was a point of contention, initially, when he arrived bloody hand in bloody hand at the castle. Then, Dimitri refused to let go of him, not until the matter was settled. No one can just go and stay by the Crown Prince's room.

Dedue, quite frankly, isn't even certain if there are spare bedrooms near the places where Faerghan royalty slumbers. Just rooms to welcome guests, or study, or have tea and meals. Yet if he stayed carelessly anywhere else, or if he was made to stay with other people...

So it's in the bed of what would have been the room of the prince's fiance that he rises out of, if the prior king had ever gotten around to arranging such a thing for his son. Yet that had never happened. Now, there is no one alive who can or will do such a thing. No father, no mother, and the situation with his uncle is - complicated, from what Dedue understands of Faerghan noble politics. Theoretically, the man could arrange something for Dimitri and push through for some sort of marriage... especially since Dedue knows that if the prince is betrothed, then he will be forced to move again.

And yet if he were to push for something without the young prince's approval and cooperation, it could become a mess. A royal political brawl, or something of that nature. Fortunate for both of them, then, that the newly made regent doesn't seem to spare his nephew even a glance.

According to rules of Faerghan propriety, a fiance must have her own space to stay in, away from the main castle. Something about... learning to adjust to a smaller scale of the castle, Dedue thinks. About one day managing a smaller estate, and growing familiar with servants of her own, before ascending to a much higher title.

Apparently, her betrothed would also stay with her, in some cases, and they would grow together in this role. Dedue doesn't know anything about engagements, but...

That means his new home is surprisingly nice, because its construction would demand nothing less, while also being incredibly barebones. There is a large fireplace, which he quietly gathers his own firewood for, and there is a large wardrobe meant for someone who has to bear in mind such things much more than he does. No doubt it is wasted on him, really. In the coming days, he'll fill it with weapons and armor as he trains to prove his worth in this place.

It is not as though he has anywhere else to put his things. Besides some items that seem as bare necessities - a desk and chair to write things at, his bed - there is very little in the room. Dedue knows what the people behind such decisions are thinking, after all. Still, he won't say anything about it. This much is enough:

A warm bed. A place to store his things. A fireplace, and a desk.

The sound of someone knocking on his door.

At least they kept the rug underneath the bed, when they moved every other bit of furniture of value out from the room. Dedue is briefly thankful for it. All the moreso when he finally rises from his bed and slips out. Faerghus is about to head into its cold months, and each night has only grown all the more cold. The longer he can keep away from the cold stone of the floor, the better, even if its presence against his bare feet is inevitable.

Dedue expects - well, he's not quite sure who he expects at the door when he finally reaches it. There are a few different options, quite frankly. It could be the Duke Fraldarius, or any of his people, there to train him further so that he can be the Crown Prince's shield.

A possibility always remains that it could be one of the servants from the castle itself instead of this smaller manor to its side, sent by a noble or even the regent, hoping to put him to work and "in his place". There are a lot of options, and all of them are either mundane or wretched. Dedue tries to tell himself that he cannot know until he opens the door, and so there is no point in worrying. Such words do nothing to quell that anxiety gnawing its home in a corner of his heart.

It is no servant. It isn't one of the Duke Fraldarius' people.

Standing there in the dark outside of Dedue's room, peering back at him through the cracked open door, is Dimitri.

Relief seems to flood through the two of them almost at the exact same time. Dedue can feel it in himself, the way his lungs become loose and his muscles slump, and see it in the way that Dimitri's brow loses its wrinkles. "I'm glad you answered," Dimitri whispers, voice feather light in the massiveness of the hallways.

"I'm still here," Dedue agrees quietly, before opening the door a little more so that he can look down the hallway. There's no one else outside but the Crown Prince. All that lights the way would be moonlight filtering in from the windows, offering a shimmering path of silver that makes the shadows seem all the deeper. Dimitri isn't dressed, either. At least, not for anything important. He's just in his nightclothes, a comfortable white that hangs down to his ankles before his feet are swallowed up in warm slippers. "What are you doing here, Your Highness?"

"Dimitri," he corrects. "I've told you, you can just call me Dimitri, when it's the two of us."

He has told Dedue, as a matter of fact, almost for as long as they've known one another - which he supposes hasn't been very long. It was the name he gave him in Duscur, a bloodied boy with a hollow but desperate gaze offering his hand to him. Not "Prince", not "Blaiddyd". Just Dimitri, boots caked with mud and torn clothes, a shattered lance at his back. Just Dimitri, hunkering down with him in handmade shelters, acid stinging the back of their tongues as they both sat in silence thinking of the wretched things they'd passed by.

It was only two days later - two days of trying to find intact towns or villages and only finding more horror - that a group of frantic knights stumbled upon them and Dedue felt his heart freeze. Two days later that had Dimitri standing protectively in front of him, broken lance in hand and tears streaming down his face, blood dripping down his back. Two days later when Dedue heard someone say, for the first time, "Your Highness" in regards to the shattered boy who had pulled Dedue out from burning wreckage.

Lips can be loose in the halls of a castle, and even the most innocuous thing can be warped by the cruel intent of nobility or anyone with enough money. He's been advised not to call the crown prince anything less than by his title, with the utmost respect. That way, both of them will be safe. Dedue knows this.

But the mountain of a castle has air too thin for him to breathe as it is. Even in what should be a place he can retreat to, a bedroom of his own. So, for a moment... He gives in. "Dimitri," he concedes, and tries not to get too absorbed in the feeling that rolls through him. Just being able to say the name of someone else, of being able to do that and know that it won't fall down on his own head. "You still haven't said what's going on. Is everything alright?"

"It is all right as it can be," Dimitri says, which means he is hardly doing good at all. Still, after a brief second on reflecting on his own words, he smiles wearily and raises his hand up. "Everything is healing well. The doctors and healers from the church said that there may be some scars left behind, however. I suppose it can't be helped."

No. Dedue supposes it can't. The two of them struggled on their own before the Faerghan knights found their stray prince, and he knows that Dimitri did even more in his mad rush just to reach Duscur. Exactly what he did, Dedue doesn't know... But it can't have been easy to make it from Fhirdiad to Duscur so quickly. And even when the two of them were together in Duscur, scrambling through the undergrowth, digging through debris and still burning buildings... Of running into the occasional scouting party that were caught off-guard at a child that was not only their own, but who wielded such strength that he could knock them off horses with one swing...

"I'm sorry," he says, staring at that hand. There's a scar, he knows, along Dimitri's arm from where he was fighting for him. Not lethal, although it was not because he was a child. Dedue had seen the Faerghan forces burn the homes for children just the same as anywhere else, with no compassion. They'd found worst in the rubble left behind.

No, they had hesitated because this was a child not of Duscur, and so they had blocked instead of attacked when Dimitri swung his polearm about in defense of him. They couldn't have thought that their swords would shatter trying to defend against strength like that, jagged pieces flying through the air.

At the time, he had thought that such things were miracles, or blessings by some god of earth or metal. Maybe even Fodlan's goddess, taking pity on him.

Yet there is no god standing there in the quiet of the hallway, just a boy who smiles at him - tired and genuine. "It was never anything you did," Dimitri says. "Besides, I'm glad I have scars like those, you know. The alternative is a lot more frightening to me." The alternative that many others were not so fortunate to meet, and which neither of them dare to speak of just yet. With such darkness all around them, it feels as though it could be bad luck to speak such words aloud. "At any rate... I just couldn't sleep. I'm sorry if I woke you up... I wasn't thinking."

"You don't have to worry about that. I don't sleep well either." He likely wouldn't have gotten up so easily if he were sleeping properly. Then again, he wonders how anyone could sleep so soundly after.... everything.

It's a question he wants to demand of the men who went to Duscur. Of the noble who he hears will be awarded that land.

There are corpses underneath your feet and blood staining the stone of your homes. How can you sleep?

So here they are, two children who can't.

Dimitri offers his hand out to him, just like he had not that long ago. "Then we can take a walk, and see if that helps," he says, although there's something quiet in his town that says a mere walk won't really help either of them. Still, what really can? Even if they could magically change the world by dawn, restore Duscur to itself and put those responsible for so much harm to justice... It would still not change what they've seen. So Dedue nods, and accepts Dimitri's hand.

Sometimes, it still astonishes him how large even a side manor to the main castle can be. There's an office for the butler here, and then a study for Dimitri's use, not even counting the classroom he has for various tutors to visit him in. There's only one sitting room for guests, which seems excessive to Dedue as is, but apparently the castle has even more depending on the season and guest. Kitchens and a dining room and servants quarters, on and on and on... That a castle can be even larger is almost incomprehensible to him. What do you do with that much space?

Right now, in the dead of night, it mostly involves a lot of walking. "You get days off from training, don't you?" Dimitri asks, his voice a careful hush, like mist across ground. "All the other squires do."

Dedue is not entirely sure if he could be called a squire. Certainly no one else has referred to him as such, and it's not as though he's exactly an apprentice to any particular knight. No one seems entirely sure what to call him, besides Dimitri, and Dimitri doesn't exactly count.

Still, the details don't really matter that much to the answer of the question. "I can get rest on a holy day," he answers, glancing towards a closed door that they pass. The dining room, he thinks? No one should be in there this late - or this early, he supposes. "And then, every five days, another day of rest. It's more generous than I thought would happen, although I don't know what they expect me to do with such time."

"I suppose going into town is out of the question... Although does this mean you've been training even on the days you should have off?" Dimitri offers him a tired smile of his own. "I'd scold you, as a friend concerned about your health, but... Honestly, once everyone is properly satisfied with my own wellbeing, I will no doubt follow you out onto the training grounds whenever the weather allows it. Being stuck in my room all this time has left me feeling restless - worse than that, actually." He turns his head away, gaze going out into the shadows of the hall. "There's just too much..."

There's too much to do, for what they want to accomplish. Dedue understands him, even with the words left unfinished and dead in the air.

There's an elegant but heavy set of doors that lead out into a back garden area, separate from what connects the manor and the main castle. Dedue opens it; Dimitri would possibly destroy the handles if he tried and they need to be careful and quiet tonight. Maybe it would be harder for anyone else, but he often helped his family around the forge and the kitchens. It's hard work. It's also what no doubt helped him survive as he struggled through mud and forests. So even a large door like this is no problem, especially when Dimitri carefully steps forward to use just his shoulder to help move the door along.

Outside, the faint chill he'd felt outdoors is all the stronger, but... Somehow, he feels a little more at ease this way. The castle walls are a little harder to see from here, with various trees and even a greenhouse blocking the sight of them. He could almost forget where he was, if it weren't so overwhelming. Tilting his head back, Dedue searches out the sky, looks for familiar constellations.

Besides him, nudging the doors shut with his back, Dimitri suddenly grimaces. "I'm sorry - you came out in your bare feet," he says, looking down. "Here, you can borrow my slippers."

"That's not necessary," Dedue says, having lived a life of going off like this when he was younger, long before he ever came to Fhirdiad, at least when the weather was warm enough for such things.

Yet he's absolutely far too late. Dimitri is out of his slippers in the beat of a heart, and nudging them over to Dedue. Well, there's no stopping the boulder once it's rolling, he supposes. If there's one thing he's learned since living in Fhirdiad, and talking to Dimitri, it's that the other boy is incredibly stubborn. Dedue supposes he's glad that, most of the time, he's stubborn on all the right things. So he steps to the side, slipping his toes into the slipper...

And finding that's about as far as he can go.

Both of them stare. The difference can't be that great but, apparently, for something like a pair of slippers, that small difference is all that's needed. His foot is just too big for Dimitri's comfortable feeling slipper. Large toes bulge against top of it, and along the side from where he tried to push his little toe in.

Dedue snorts. It doesn't hit him what he's doing until he feels the sound pop off against the inside of his nose, and he looks to the side hastily, like that would hide it. Then again, Dimitri isn't faring much better, a laugh hopping out of his throat before it's quickly silenced by the slapping of skin against skin, hand over mouth. Dedue can see it properly when he looks back again just enough to see Dimitri from the corner of his eye, that blue all the brighter now where they peer over his hand.

"I'll go back inside and get you a properly fitted pair," Dimitri says, muffled from behind his palms.

"I could never turn down a gift from His Royal Highness, the crowned prince," Dedue replies, deadpan, and shuffles his foot in as far as it will go. "Don't worry." That only makes Dimitri shoulders shake all the more while he gets his foot in the other slipper, for a generous definition of "in". "There. Shall we keep going, then?"

Walking in such an awkward fashion means his strides aren't the longest thing. In fact, he has to shuffle more than really walk. Yet somehow, that's a small price to pay for alleviating even a little bit of the weight from their shoulders, his and Dimitri's both. "It feels like it's been an eternity since I laughed," Dimitri tells him when they've wandered away from the doors enough, no longer at risk of being too loud and heard with casual conversation. "I know that's foolish. What happened..." He pauses, not having the words to describe it.

Dedue doesn't either. Around the manor, and the castle, anywhere that has people speak, he's heard them refer to it as The Tragedy - as though it's some grand and terrible event that surpasses everything else.

A part of him wonders if it is the entirety of that misery, from the first slaughter to the country-wide devastation, that they are thinking of, or if it is only their own they think about when they consider tragedy. He wonders if it has really hit any of them that the true tragedy is that the ripples of it all will never stop affecting numerous people, until they too have been put into their graves.

A breath leaves Dimitri. "It doesn't feel like anything before then really existed," he murmurs. There's that hollow look in his eyes; Dedue feels a similar one must be in his. "I know that's not true, but it's how I feel."

With that fabled Blaiddyd crest in his blood, Dimitri can't even dare to hold on tightly to someone else for comfort. For both their sakes, Dedue squeezes down instead, where their hands join. "I understand," he says quietly, there in a garden where flowers start to fade. It's part of why he, too, has trouble sleeping. The jagged disconnect between his past, and where he is now in the present...

At least surrounded by hedges and trees, shielding them more from the rest of the world than any walls, they can steadily try to exist as they are.

Bare skin slapping on stone, too-small slippers scraping against the ground - those are the only sounds that can be heard as they make their way through the gardens. Dedue plans on just walking right past the greenhouse, honestly, and not even for any particular reason. It simply doesn't occur to him to do anything else.

Dimitri is the one who slows, thus making Dedue stop as well until he looks back. "Have you ever been in the greenhouse?" Dimitri asks, and Dedue shakes his head. "I thought not, since you've just been training ever since you got back... We should go inside."

Honestly, it's probably a good idea. If anyone were to wake up in the middle of the night and simply peer out the right window, the two of them would be caught in an instant. Dedue's stomach lurches in his belly. Stupid of him, really, to not consider what it would look like with him and Dimitri outside, wandering around. If anyone were to see...

It's hard, to think of himself as any sort of villain. What kind of person will he become, having to recontextualize himself through the eyes of people who already think him as such?

He doesn't realize that Dimitri has pulled him along into the greenhouse until the click of the doors shutting snaps through the silence and his own thoughts. Blinking, he raises his head and looks around. It's... not at all as he would have imagined it, quite frankly. Then again, Dedue supposes he's never thought of it in any particular depth. The greenhouse was simply a building made of glass which he happened to occasionally see as he made his way to and from training, the green of trees shining from within it as the sun hit their leaves.

He could not have imagined it so full.

A greenhouse is for flowers, or so he thought, and trees for shade, he supposes, and there do seem to be plenty of those. Yet it is more order than he thought it would be. As Dimitri guides him along, Dedue takes in the structure of the place. It's organized, with a curving row of flowering plants sectioning off a little area holding a small table and chairs. No doubt it's for a noble's tea time.

It's past that row which intrigues him the most. He can see various little plots that have been set up, full of greenery and splashes of color. Vegetables, it looks like. And now that he's looking at some of those bushes and trees carefully, isn't there fruit slowly growing in their leafy cradles? It feels as though he could duck inside him, and be hidden away from everything.

"So this is where some of the food for the kitchens comes from," he notes aloud, the two of them taking a seat at the little table. It really is a small thing... It fits comfortably for two, but hardly anyone else.

For all the grandeur elsewhere that he's seen, it's rather intimate. Are all Faerghan tea tables like this, or is it unique to this particular part of the castle, this little manor where a prince has retreated away to? Dedue supposes that's also something he'll have to learn more about, as he stays in this city.

Arms folding against the tabletop, Dimitri rests his head against them and his blond hair sprawls out everywhere. Dedue wonders if it's a sign of a child, that the two of them can keep their hair long for now. He wonders how long until he's told to cut his, and if he'd prefer that. "It's in case of siege," he murmurs. "Apparently there's magic embedded in the framework. I don't know much about it."

Ah yes. The domestic magic of Fodlan. Dedue doesn't know much about it either, although he's heard that it involves a good deal of knowledge, skill, and seeing what affinity one has. Or is it different from battle magic?

Perhaps here, he and Dimitri are similar, for he also can't say that he knows much about that sort of thing. All he knows is that Duscur does its magic different in the traditional way, patterns woven through clothing or wrought through metal or carved through stone. Is that how Faerghus does its domestic magic? Was it from Faerghus that they were taught that particular brand of battle magic?

He wonders if it really matters at all, anymore, and then has to tell himself that it does. It has to, even with how things are now.

Dedue decides to force his mind away from those kinds of thoughts, and looks back towards the hedge barrier. "Are we allowed to be in here?" he asks instead. If this is the kind of thing important to outlasting a siege, he wonders if it's truly alright for him to be in it.

"Probably not," Dimitri says, which isn't really that reassuring to hear. "But... I thought you might like it." Dimitri shifts his head, looking out to the hedges as well. "Here, it's not as easy to see what's going on in the green house, and all of the plants are really soothing. This way, we don't have to worry about being seen, or found out. That was just something I thought of when I saw how close we had gotten to it, however."

Soothing? Dedue breathes in deep, the smell of soil, flowers, and simple plant life sinking into the bottom of his longs. "...Yes. It is calming, I suppose." It smells so different from the rest of the castle, or even the city streets when he dares to so much as step out there. Maybe it's because of that difference that he thinks of the packets he has hidden away in his room. That difference which has him say, "I have seeds from Duscur."

Before he can ask himself why he even said that, why it matters, Dimitri looks up at him. "You do? Do you like gardening, Dedue?"

Does he? Gardening was just the sensible thing to do, back in his own hometown. Everyone had their own little plot of land, doing their best to bring to life various vegetables or whatever fruits could flourish. It didn't matter if they weren't a farmer who was going to sell their harvest, if they were a smithing family like his own. That was common sense. Sometimes, there would even be trading amongst neighbors, if a particular patch grew better in one plot than in the other. Dedue can remember his parents teasing some neighbors, forcing them to take problem vegetables that grew too much in exchange for taking something that was rather good as well. Which one of his cousins brought those seeds over? Wanted to see if they would grow by the next visit?

"I haven't thought of it too much before," he says. There were other things he was going to do with his life. Impossible things, now. "But seeds should be planted." It hits him then, that he wants to see them planted more than anything. It's a surprising force, knocking through him and leaving him dizzy for a second.

When will he next see Duscur? Will those scum who have taken his home appreciate the flowers that bloom there, the plants and animals that can only be there? Will he ever be able to return again? Will he see the same flowers blooming as he did for every spring he saw for the last decade?

There's a chance that he won't, and that idea... It's terrifying. For not the first time, Dedue feels as though he might throw up.

Past shadows, past the fragile moonlight, Dimitri stretches out his hand, and rests his fingertips against Dedue's sleeve. "Seeds should be planted," he agrees quietly, and somehow that helps settle the anxiety in his heart. Dedue doesn't understand why; it's not as though Dimitri addressed the feelings raging inside of him. "At least we have a greenhouse."

At least they have a greenhouse. Despite that, he's note sure if it's something they really have. Asking already feels like too great an imposition, like stretching out a hand that will get sliced off.... Still. "Maybe I could do gardening, on the days off," Dedue wonders aloud, although he knows that gardening isn't something one really does 'on their days off'. Plants are living things; they'll need his attention all the time.

Still. If that's overstepping, then he'll just carefully pull the idea back. It's exactly as he's been told, and that he know from the start anyway: Fhirdiad is a dangerous place for him.

Dimitri smiles a little bit, the warm expression making the bags under his eyes all the more noticeable. "That sounds nice. Will you plant the seeds from Duscur right away?"

"I don't think so. It's not the right season for it... and I want to know I can plant them well, when the time is right." So, he'll have to practice, just like he's practicing with an axe. The right kind of soil to use, how much to water different plants, what amount of shade and sunlight is for the best... There's a lot he has to learn, perhaps more than when it comes to battle. Still, while he's not certain if he can even do that kind of thing, it's still-

A grotesque gurgling sound rolls through the air, low and thick.

Even as Dedue watches, Dimitri's face grows dark and burning red. "I apologize," he mutters, pulling his hand back. It looks as though he's barely able to hold back from the urge to just shove his face against his arms. "That was unbecoming of me."

Sometimes, it's hard to understand nobility, and the entire culture around it. A hungry stomach isn't something one can exactly control. The way it can act up isn't always predictable either, nor is it a sign of one thing or another. If someone is hungry, then they're hungry. If they're sick, they're sick. The stomach can respond in a similar fashion either way, at least on this front. "You do not have to worry about apologizing," Dedue says, which is at least true and not just something said in consideration of their situation. "Are you hungry?"

"I suppose that is the only thing it could be," Dimitri says. An odd turn of phrase. Dedue doesn't have long to inspect his expression, however, before Dimitri carefully straightens up and removes himself from his seat. "I should go back to bed..."

"Without eating?"

Dimitri stares at him as though he can't think of any other alternative. "Of course. I don't want to disrupt the workers here when they're already sleeping. They'll be hard at work tomorrow..."

Of course he would think of that. A bit of warmth takes root in Dedue's chest, and he pushes himself up onto his own feet as well. "Then I'll make something for you," he says, having already decided on that. If Dimitri can be stubborn, then so can he.

It doesn't occur to him that it's a game that no one can truly win, because Dimitri's stubborn streak is thick and long. That much is shown as Dimitri steps closer to him. "Oh, then I'll help."

If he tries to argue, Dedue suspects they'll be here all night. He can tell because there's a glint in Dimitri's eyes as he stares up at him, just waiting for it. Well... "We'll see what can be done in the kitchens," Dedue says, because that seems to be the simplest way of dealing with it. Surely if they find something simple enough, Dimitri will calm down and not get so worked up about such a small matter.

The outside is just as quiet as when they disappeared from it, cool and dark. Only the moon is present, shining brilliant overhead. Still no one is awake to stop either of them as they make their way across the garden, through the doors that welcome them inside.

Dedue is expecting him to be the one to lead the way to the kitchens, since he's been there so often. It's not as though he's a visiting noble who is to be waited on hand and foot. If he wants or need anything, then he needs to get it for himself. Sometimes, even the kitchen staff ask for his help, and he feels he earns some favor from them there.

Instead, Dimitri is the one who takes the lead, steps slow so that he's not recklessly tugging on Dedue's hand. "Like everything else, it's on the first floor," he tells Dedue. "That's where the basement pantry is located as well."

Ah - Dedue thinks he's seen the door that Dimitri is referencing. It had always been clear to him that it couldn't be another room, because the structure of the house didn't really allow it in that area. Maybe it was just a small closet for various cooking utensils, or cleaning equipment, or anything else. That it would be the entrance to a pantry, large enough to be a basement... Well, he supposes that's not a surprise either. It would make sense, for a manor this large.

In the back of his head, he notes that down. He's not sure what use such information will have... but more information is never bad information, and he needs to know a lot here. It's just that, often, what he can know is limited.

Still. Maybe it's because of the strange and ephemeral feeling that follows them as they walk through a manor quiet as a graveyard, with only each other and their own shadows for company... It feels as though he is not as limited as he truly is. The darkness seems vast, yes, which means that the rest of the world is vast. Their opportunities are vast. It even seems as though the depths of their hope could be vast, if they only let them stretch outwards.

There are no doubt larger kitchens within the castle itself. That does not mean this one is unimpressive by any means. Counters stretch all along the walls, where the large ovens do not take up space, and there are more in the middle of the room so that more food can be prepared if that is necessary.

Dedue cannot imagine that is a necessity often, of course... Especially since Dimitri has just recently moved in, leaving behind his old room in the castle. Yet one day, who knows? Like any royal, he may host parties of his own for Faerghan nobles to attend, or maybe meet with some important foreign diplomat. Who knows. Not him. All Dedue knows is that this is an impressive kitchen, and he takes stock of the herbs and spices which hang about. While he's been here before, there's still plenty of different parts to it that he's unfamiliar with. After all, best to just take what he could for a quick meal, and then leave.

Is that suitable enough for a prince? Will he get in trouble if it isn't? While Dedue is carefully thinking about that, Dimitri leads him through the kitchen with that blond hair of his swishing through the air from each turn of his head. After a moment, he stops in front of a particular hanging strand of garlic and starts digging his hand through it.

And then he pulls a key out from it.

So that's a thing.

Dedue doesn't say a word. Still, his thoughts must be plain as day on his face, for Dimitri laughs quietly when he glances back at him. "It's a spare key into the pantry. I overheard that workers her discussing it once, on another night I couldn't sleep."

"Is it important for you to know where the key to the pantry is kept?"

Dimitri looks away again, away from the moonlight, away from Dedue. "No reason, I suppose," he says, before falling apart immediately at his own attempt to lie and brush things off. "I just feel better, knowing little details like that." What he doesn't say is that it makes him feel better to know the complete layout of his own home. What rooms lead to dead ends. What hallways go nowhere or can run into another one. What rooms are connected, what rooms have windows.

Or maybe that is Dedue imposing his own views onto the prince, because that is how he feels, too.

Maybe on another night, they can discuss those sorts of feelings. Just not tonight. Tonight, Dedue is on a mission all his own, and that is cooking a decent meal for them. So he just asks, "Is it truly alright if we use anything from the pantry?" It would certainly make things easier for him if he had that much variety at his disposal, but...

"Of course it is," Dimitri says, turning his head to look back at him again, eyebrows raised. "I mean, this is technically my home, isn't it? Even if only for a set amount of time, I suppose... But I can go over finances and adjust them to make up for anything we use. If it's really bothersome, I'll make sure to recompense the workers here, too." That someone so young should be expected to look over the finances of a manor is... not his business, he supposes, although it's still utterly bizarre. Shouldn't he have someone else here in the manor that keeps track of such things? Maybe he does, and this is merely practice. There is so much he still does not know...

Not his problem, Dedue reminds himself as he picks up a small box of matches that was left out on the counter while Dimitri takes him to the door. This isn't the sort of thing that he should entangle himself with. He doesn't know anything about nobility, or finances, or anything like that. He's just a blacksmith's son, after all.

Except... He's not. Not any longer. Dedue remembers that as he stands by Dimitri's side, the prince grimacing with each matchstick that snaps inbetween his fingers as he tries to light a flame. So what is he, then? The Prince's aid? A soldier? Sometimes, it's still hard to remember who he is, so far away from home, all he ever knew uprooted and viciously tossed aside.

What is he?

"Dedue." Blinking, he looks up, and realizes that a light has finally been struck. Dimitri holds it delicately in the fingertips of one hand. The other hand is stretched out towards him again. "It's dark, so be careful. I promise not to drag you down with me if I have a tumble, either."

Oh. Dedue accepts that hand, their palms well calloused and warm against one another. He keeps getting lost in his own head; that's no good. With his life here in Fhirdiad Castle, he's going to have to stay far more alert. And... maybe, just for right now, he doesn't have to get lost in his head. He doesn't have to agonize over what he is, not right now.

This is another indulgence for his own relief, he knows, but maybe he can just be a boy, walking down dark steps with another boy, looking to make food in the middle of the night.

Luck is on their favor, tonight. Various croissants were made earlier in the afternoon, as far as they can tell, and are still decently soft enough. Not stale at all, even if they're not at their freshest. "If we make something, maybe we can leave some things for them as well, with morning approaching," Dimitri suggests, just another way for him to make up for a 'selfish request'. Well, it's not a problem by Dedue, even if he doesn't truly care if those people have a fine breakfast or not. Certainly they've never cared for him.

So that means some sort of sandwich, and, if he's going to go to all the trouble of doing it at night, Dedue supposes he should make a better sandwich than just something plain. Fortunately, there's a block of cheese nestled carefully in a sack down in the pantry, and a sweet smelling ham upon a bit more investigation. A little more searching, through the cupboards up in the kitchen mostly, reveals plenty of various things that are useful to put into a sandwich: mustard, butter, flakes of onion bottled away, poppy seeds, and, of course, salt and pepper.

Dedue hates a lot of things in Fhirdiad Castle - just about everything that isn't training, and being near Dimitri, honestly. Yet he can't deny that, maybe if he got access to such rich ingredients as this more often, maybe he'd hate it a little less. It makes him almost feel special, to use them.

"What are we going to do with all of this?" Dimitri asks curiously, eyes bright as he resists the urge to fidget. It makes Dedue smile, a little, although he tries not to show it too much. This is a little more how they should be acting... Like how his cousins used to act. His sister, when she thought he wasn't looking as she cooked alongside their parents.

Food just does that to people, he supposes, even crown princes. "Well, first..." He pauses, taking Dimitri into consideration again.

They're going to have to be careful. If Dimitri breaks something, then - sure, it would be an inconvenience to the workers here, but, more importantly, Dimitri would hate it if he did such a thing. And it would be hard to keep cooking, depending on what got bent or broken...

Still, Dedue has an idea of how to handle it. "Take this," he says, inspecting the various bottles before him on the counter before plucking one from its spot. "Pour it on a large pan, just enough so that you can use a cloth to spread it around. When you're certain that the liquid has been spread around properly, put the cloth somewhere it can hang and dry." Cleaning it can come later, if they do it at all. They may not have enough time. "We will also want to start up the oven..."

"I can do that!" Dimitri interrupts, hands clenched in front of him. "The smaller door underneath the oven doors - that's where they put the wood, isn't it? I know how to start up a fire with flint, so I can get it done quickly."

A part of Dedue wonders if it's legal for a simple blacksmith's son to boss around the crown prince of a kingdom. Still, he can't resist him very well. "Then I will entrust that to you," he says simply, and finds any illegality made worth it by Dimitri's smile. At least there's no issue with Dimitri pouring some of the cooking liquid onto the pan, his hands almost trembling with care. While the fire is taken care of, Dedue moves over with the croissants in hand. It's a simple thing to slice them in half for the perfect sandwich shape, and they rest fine on the pan. Dimitri really did watch out how much he put in; there's not too much or too little oil as far as Dedue can tell.

"You're cooking it with the mustard?" Dimitri asks when he comes over after having stoked the fire properly.

Indeed, he's spreading it on each slice of croissant that he's put into the pan. "It will cook well with everything else on it," Dedue says. At least, he thinks that's how it should go. Certainly that's what his family used to do with some sandwiches, right? "Can you put the ham on a cutting board?"

"Do you want me to slice it up for you as well?"

"No..." And before Dimitri can deflate too much, Dedue explains, "I want them cut really thinly, in a particular way. It would be easier for me to do it, instead of explaining it."

...Which he says before he actually does it, whereupon of course the first slice that he makes isn't nearly as thin or even as he wants it to be. Dedue can't help it; he makes a face at the sight of it, flopping with a wet smack against wood. Another quiet laugh filters out from behind Dimitri's hand as he tries to hide it behind his hand again. "Is that how you wanted to cut it?" Dimitri asks, looking at the expression Dedue is making.

It's a bit of a struggle for Dedue to compose his face again, and he's not even entirely sure he succeeds in the end. All he can do is breathe out through his nose. He knows his mother did it quite a few times, whenever she was trying to keep herself in check whenever one of the neighbors bugged her.

"I don't cut meat like this often. One would normally go to a butcher for such fine slices. I will get better in time. I swear on my name that I will do that." Even if part of the name he goes by here isn't really the name of his own people. It's still a swear, so that should be enough.

Leaning against the counter, Dimitri lowers his hands and smiles at him. "I believe you," he says, and there's an honesty to his words even as much as there's laughter. "Then, I'll become good at slicing meat too. That way, we can cook again like this in the future."

Dedue lets him talk and doesn't reply right away. He is going to get this slicing meat business right, but, for now, that means concentrating on it so that he can get the cut just right. When he slices through this time, well... It's not exactly as thin as he would like it. The good news is that he's managed to make the cut even, and that's the most important thing. He answers as he's lining up the next cut. "Should royalty cut their own meat?"

"Probably not," Dimitri says, and Dedue smiles despite himself. "But I won't be royalty all of the time. I'm a warrior, or I will be once I've trained enough. And as a warrior... I'll need to take care of myself." He leans around a little more, watching with interest as Dedue does the next slice. A little better, now. "And I don't see why it's wrong for a king to know how to prepare meat."

"I suppose royalty is more important than the average person."

Silence. So caught up in cutting slices of ham, Dedue doesn't notice, not until he's finished and laying the slices on a nice plate to the side. "I don't see why," Dimitri finally confesses, right as Dedue looks at him. Looks and sees the way his eyes have gotten darker, that brightness turned away from the light of the moon. "It's not as if that self importance ever saves anyone from dying."

In a way, he's not wrong. To be royalty is simply to be someone that wrangles together all the many moving parts of a country, and little more than that. Somehow, riches and prestige were put into that. To be a king... did not stop Lambert Blaiddyd from dying, nor his wife. Nor the son of a duke.

Even so. Dedue looks into those dark eyes and says, "Royalty still has power, and we need that."

For revenge. For home. For so many things.

It almost doesn't seem as though Dimitri hears him properly, his eyes so dark, but then he blinks, he breathes, he gives a solemn nod and leans in a little closer towards Dedue. "Of course," he says quietly. "And we will use it." He shakes his head after a moment, as though such miserable and dark thoughts can be rid of so easily. "So, are we going to put the cheese on next?"

They are, in fact, going to put the cheese on next, with of course the ham being placed first onto the croissants that are waiting for them. The texture of cheese is a little different, and thus makes slicing through a little different. It's just not so different that it gives him any trouble. Honestly, Dedue is fairly pleased with how his experience with the meat helps making the cheese feel so much easier to cut. "You can put the other halves of the croissants back onto them," he tells Dimitri, reaching for a mixing bowl.

While they've been talking, the fire seems to have got into quite a good blaze. That works perfectly for Dedue's purposes. It hardly takes anything at all to melt the butter he took from the pantry, and he's soon dumping it into the bowl. What follows are a variety of other things he's picked up from around the kitchen and its stock: the onion, garlic, more mustard, poppyseeds, salt, and pepper.

"Are you going to pour that over the sandwiches?" Dimitri asks, once he's finished putting all the halves together, perfectly nestled up against each other in the pan.

"That's right."

"Won't that make it a little bit messy to eat?"

"Is that going to be a problem?" Dedue asks, already thinking of ways to adjust the recipe as best he can.

Dimitri grins. "Nope! Doesn't messy food always taste the best?"

Well.... There is a certain appeal to the mess, although Dedue only smiles and doesn't say that aloud. It's probably a bad thing, to encourage something like that in royalty. He just won't deny it, either. Instead, he focuses on mixing everything together. When it's done, over the croissants it goes as even a pour as he can make it. By the time he's finished, the fire crackles comfortingly over at the oven.

Getting a long metal pan to put over the one with the croissants, Dedue carefully slides their meal into the oven with some hope placed on it. It would be embarrassing, after all, if he made such a show and effort only for it all to go to waste.

The waiting is almost the most difficult process of it all, even as the two of them pass the time with conversation about the kind of training Dedue has gone through, and what Dimitri himself looks forward to when he's finally allowed out of forced bedrest. To cook something like this means cooking it for a specific amount of time, which means keeping track of time. And that is.. a little hard to do. If he just had an hourglass or something of the sort...

Granted, there might be an hourglass in the kitchen stored somewhere. However, neither of them know where it is, so all they can do is wait, and try their best to keep track of time. Dedue hopes they've done well enough when he reaches in with an oven mitt to remove the platter from atop the pan. The cheese still doesn't look melted... So he supposes it's fine if they wait a few minutes longer.

There is something about cooking that almost makes one impatient. Dimitri keeps fiddling with his pajama sleeves off to the side, and even Dedue can't help but want to keep opening the oven doors to check in on how it's doing. He wonders if this is how his mother felt, whenever she cooked for all of them...

Except there is no adult watching over the pair of them. This is all their own hard work.

After only a few more minutes, the two of them check on their sandwiches to great success. The bread has been browned. The cheese has dribbled over the sides in an appealing melt. Carefully, the two of them work together to pull the pan out from its toasty prison, and place it on one of the metal racks that are available for all matter of dishes. Dimitri is the one who hastens to close the oven and extinguish the flames with a bit of domestic magic that's embedded in the oven itself. In the meanwhile, Dedue is the one who tests how hot the sandwiches are.

"Not yet," he warns Dimitri, when the prince reaches forward for one of the sandwiches. "They're too hot." The Blaiddyd family might have unbelievable strength that is more than any other human, but strength doesn't mean anything against simple searing heat. He won't get blamed for burning the crown prince's skin.

"Ah. Of course." Dimitri pulls his hand away, sheepish. "Then... should I get some plates? I am sure there are small ones about... And even I can handle that."

He did handle that, as a matter of fact, and so it's fine if he goes to get them. Still strange, considering he is a prince, but fine. Dedue tries not to let himself think too hard about it. All he does is get a small wooden spatula in order to slide out a pair of sandwiches from their cheesy confines. After setting down the pair of plates for them, Dimitri even puts the large platter over the pan again. So that they're still warm for when the manor workers wake up, Dimitri explains to him.

Dedue doesn't think he would have done that, honestly. Not for the people here. But they are still Dimitri's people in the end... and he does respect that.

"We will want to eat quick, I suppose," Dimitri says as the two of them sink down to the ground, backs to the cupboards and plates in their hands. His eyes are on the windows. "It looks as though the sun will start to rise soon."

It will. The cocks aren't crowing yet, and there's not a trace of warmth in the sky... but there's still a slight shift in that deep blue which makes up the night. A hint of something that will become indigo, and then a deep purple, followed by red, orange, yellow... and finally that brilliant blue. They don't have much time if they want to eat their meal, and still get some vague approximation of sleep.

Back in Duscur, there'd be a thanks given to the spirits who had given parts of themselves to keep the cycle of creation going - the pig who will become of them, the wheat that grew for their bread. Things like that. Dedue bites his tongue for it, and instead waits for Dimitri to say his prayers to Fodlan's only recognized goddess.

Dimitri says nothing. All he does is hold the sandwich up to his nose, breathing it in deep until the warm smell must surely make up the entirety of his lungs. Only then does he take a bite. Dedue follows suit; there's no reason to waste good food like this. And that's just how it is for a long moment. The two of them sit there on the floor, who knows what clinging to their clothes from that little act. For Dedue, that's nothing, his clothes are plain and dirt or dust can be easily swept off. He wonders if there's some weird and special quality to the clothing of royalty that makes even dust a problem... or if it is more the idea of dust than anything else that would be such a scandal.

It doesn't really matter. Dedue follows suit, taking a large bite of his sandwich. As large as he can make it, as a matter of fact. The quicker he can eat, then the quicker this can be over with. That might make Dimitri uncomfortable, however, rushing through this meal that the two of them prepared together... Yet if he slows down on the chewing instead, keep this in his mouth...

After a moment, even he doesn't care much for the silence. "Do you like it?" he asks Dimitri, and takes note of how little of the sandwich has been bitten into.

More silence. Dimitri takes another bite, chews slowly. "I can't taste," he says.

He just says it, a simple fact dropped with no particular grace. It's there, right there before them, and Dedue pauses as he takes it in. "I see," he says after a moment. "Since when?" He has only known Dimitri since a short while ago, since the prince saved his life. Is this a regularly known fact, in Faerghus? He never paid any mind to what was going on in other countries, not until he arrived in Fhirdiad...

Dimitri shakes his head. He's not eating anymore. In fact, he doesn't even look at the sandwich in his hand. His dead gaze is focused... elsewhere. Maybe all the way back in Duscur, where Dedue thinks he looks, too. "It was... after that time," he says quietly, and swallows thickly. "Trying to eat... Whatever it is that I put in my mouth, it tastes like nothing. I just feel sick..."

Oh. Something aches in Dedue's chest. "Nothing but heat, or cold, or nothing at all," he responds, just as quietly. Dimitri's gaze slides up towards him as he speaks, not comprehending, not yet. "Nothing but the feeling of things turning to tasteless mush on your tongue." It hits him, then, that this isn't how he should be speaking to a prince. Using his name, in private, as just something to do only this once... That's one thing entirely. But this is... Dedue shakes his head. "I apologize. I'm overstepping my bounds and making assumptions."

"No!" Dimitri exclaims, before he smacks a hand over his mouth. "No," he repeats, much quieter. "You weren't overstepping any bounds. I was just..." Dimitri shakes his head, face contorting into - something. It's hard for Dedue to describe. There's too many emotions that twist across Dimitri's countenance for him to get a bead on any one. "I... didn't think that anyone else was experiencing that kind of thing as well... Foolish of me."

"Then we are foolish together," Dedue says simply, because he won't let the person who saved his life disparage himself like this. After all - "I didn't think on if anyone else would experience something similar to what I was going through as well."

The death, the gore, the terrible and all consuming loss that wracked through him... Dimitri leans against his side, still loosely holding his sandwich. "I'm sorry," he says, for not the first time.

Dedue's response is not the first of its kind either. "You saved my life. You have no reason to apologize."

"I wish I could taste the sandwich we made..."

"I do, too." Yet the cooking part was more pleasant for him than the act of eating is right now. Will they ever be able to taste things again? Will they ever recover from what happened to them? Dedue tries to think of that future, and it is as though trying to make his way through a foggy road. The present feels too overwhelming, too much.

Then again... It had felt like that too, when the two of them huddled together in Duscur, surrounded by destruction and the heavy smell of death.

Dimitri stays leaning against him. Dedue wishes he could lean back, rest their heads against one another, but he doesn't dare to. "It's still nice," Dimitri says, and forces himself to take another bite of his sandwich. It's the kind of bite that sticks, with Dimitri tearing it slowly away from the sandwich instead of just going right through. "There's - this nice texture to it that I like. It's the cheese, right?"

What a ridiculous sight... Dedue smiles, even though they had been talking about their miseries almost a moment before. "I didn't notice. I've just been trying to eat it as quickly as possible."

It's not a surprise Dimitri nods; surely he's had the same impulse. Eating is something unpleasant, now, and the best way to deal with unpleasant things is to get them over with as quickly as possible. That's true for an annoying chore, on the minor scale, or even in the wretched art of war... or, in this case, when one cannot taste the very food they are putting into their mouth. "If I can be on my own, then it's fine," he says. "But when they start to expect me participating in parties or when I'm invited to attend some noble's get together... It will be seen as rude, if I just shovel the food into my mouth."

"You would think that is a sign of respect to the cook, that you would want to devour their food so quickly."

For the first time in this conversation, there's a flicker of a smile that appears on Dimitri's face again. "You would think... but it doesn't look elegant, I guess, and so it's rude." He takes a deep breath, at that, before raising the sandwich to his mouth again. Another tear, another forced swallow. "I want to enjoy it. I know it smells good, and that's almost something... but it's not the same."

"It isn't," Dedue agrees, before he mimics the prince, his prince, and tears into the sandwich as well. He can't be more rude than the prince is being right now, after all. That can be his excuse, just for tonight. Dimitri was right; there is a bit of a stretch to the sandwich when he eats it this way.

"What do you think?" Dimitri asks, watching him. Maybe he thinks that if Dedue starts enjoying the food again, if he can taste...

The novelty of chewing like this is only that: a novelty. But it is at least a little more than chewing ash in his mouth. "It is different," he says, not wanting to disappoint Dimitri too much. "Although... This is not something I would have normally eaten."

Dimitri stares at him, absolutely boggled. "You wouldn't have? Wait..." His brows furrow, and he takes another bite of his meal almost absentmindedly. Good. That means food isn't going to waste, and, just as importantly, Dimitri is being fed. "Would that be because... Duscur issurrounded on many sides by water, isn't it?"

It's a basic fact, but somehow a little more than Dedue was expecting. Maybe it's because Duscur seems so far away right now. "It is," he says. "There are rivers flowing through it as well, and places where the ice was thin enough that you could still go fishing in the winter, if you just broke through." It had only been in recent years that he'd been allowed to go out with some of the other people from town, his parents having deemed him old enough to take care of himself in such freezing cold.

He'd never cared about fishing too much before, but he feels a slight pang, now.

Dimitri nods. "Next time, then, I'll go fishing," he tells him. "I'll bring it back, and maybe we can cook something together. Maybe if we just eat things we like... That will make things better."

It won't solve everything, of course. Both of them are too tired, too hollow eyed, to believe that a simple meal would solve anything. It might not even solve their ability to taste anything again. But... One thing at a time, maybe. Taste, then revenge, then everything else that requires the work of adults and royalty.

They'll make it. Bit by bit. Dedue tells himself that, then tells Dimitri, "That would be nice." And it would.

Maybe he'll learn more recipes in the future. Maybe he'll recreate the things his mother made as he stood by her, handing her ingredients or preparing some vegetable or another while his sister drilled the steps into his head. No doubt the people in Faerghus will be repulsed, because of course they will be... but Dimitri would like it. And Dedue thinks he would like it, too. It would be...

"Perhaps if we simply eat enough, it will come back to us," Dedue says quietly as they tear through their sandwiches. "Like doing something over and over again makes you better at it."

"Is that how it works?"

Who knows. Dedue is no scholar, had no interest in learning how to be a healer. Will it work like that? "It is something we can try," is all he says. It's all he can say.

At least Dimitri doesn't seem opposed, and he nods. "We can slip in here when everyone else has gone to sleep, and make food," he says quietly. "I think I would like to keep cooking with you, Dedue. Although-" He shakes his head. "It might be a little difficult to make something delicious if I can't taste, but... I will follow your instructions to make something good! Since you know more about cooking in a kitchen than I do." He takes another bite, but at least he's smiling a bit now. "And when we go out together, and have to set up camp... I'll be the one in charge for that kind of cooking."

Technically, Dimitri is always going to be the one in charge. If he had wanted to dump an entire box of precious salt in with the sandwiches as they cooked, Dedue is pretty sure he would have been legally required to go along with it. But... He understands what Dimitri means. "Whatever makes you happy," he says, and stops himself from saying Dimitri's name.

The sun is going to rise eventually. The small period of time he granted to himself to say Dimitri's name can only be limited. Around other people, he has to learn how to act, and he has to learn how to act if he wants to survive. He needs to remember that.

They're able to shove the rest of their sandwiches into their mouths, and hastily get up to their feet soon enough. Already, Dedue can hear the distant sounds of people moving about somewhere else. The manor is large, and noise travels easily if one isn't careful. Both of them peer out into the hallway carefully, judging where the sound is coming from, before they quickly begin to move the other way. Dimitri opens a door down the hall, gestures Dedue to come further in, just so that they can be certain that the noises will pass them by, or not reach their door at all. That's how the two of them make their way back to Dedue's room.

There at the threshold, between the hallway to the rest of the world and the nice but empty room Dedue has for his own, Dimitri's hand brushes against his. It always brushes against his. "I'll try not to randomly wake you up again in the middle of the night," Dimitri whispers, while dawn claws its way up against the sky. "But - we can plan to cook together again in the future, if you'd like."

A retainer should not carelessly take his lord's hand. A retainer should absolutely return his lord's slippers, which Dedue does - they've barely been keeping on this entire time anyway. Yet he still presses his hand back against Dimitri's. "If you would like," he tells Dimitri.

"That's what I asked you," Dimitri says in fond exasperation, before he nods. "Then... I'll think on it. Sleep well, Dedue." He doesn't even bother to put his slippers back on, only picks them up and patters away in bare feet.

As Dedue tucks himself back into bed, he doubts he'll get enough sleep to properly make up for what he lost staying up with Dimitri.

He doesn't regret it.





"Lord Molinaro, welcome to the Rud House. May we take your cloak?"

Dedue almost doesn't hear the butler as he steps into the foyer, glancing around the place. In many aspects, it doesn't feel as though it has changed much at all. The base architecture is still the same. And yet, did it always feel this small...? "Thank you," he says, because he was still raised with some level of manners. Besides, he reflects as he shrugs off his cloak to be handed to the footman, it feels strange to be treated this way.

It's been perhaps... not quite a decade, but getting closer bit by bit, since he last stepped foot in this manor. Then, the servants glanced at him suspiciously and, at best, tried to ignore his very presence. Here... Well, it's awkward and uncomfortable, looking at the young eyes of people staring at him with such fascination or, occasionally, admiration.

It has not escaped his notice that one particular person in a maid's uniform is definitely leaning hard on the latter part.

The butler, at least, seems to keep a cool head and a good supply of professionalism. "Very good, sir. His Majesty is currently waiting for you in the kitchens." Even before she nods her head in the direction of one hallway, Dedue already knows where it is that she's talking about. How many years did he and Dimitri make their way through the kitchens, every week or so, cooking in secret and surprising the servants of this place come morning? Dedue still wonders what was in the letter that Dimitri left behind one morning that kept the staff from snooping further to find out who was responsible.

It took a little over a year before Dedue could taste again. By the time they attended Garreg Mach, Dimitri had still not shown any such signs. And after...

"I will meet with him promptly, then," Dedue says matter of factly. "Excuse me." Some of the manor staff glance at one another, curious and confused in equal measure, but Dedue doesn't so much as look back at them. He simply keeps his boots and gloves on as he makes his way through the manor, counting the doors as he goes.

Once upon a time, he could remember the location of the kitchen because of a small statue that was kept near it - that of a roaring lion. The material used for it had never been anything fancy or special, but apparently Dimitri's birth mother had been quite taken with it because of the fine detail it possessed. Even the smallest of teeth had been included. Dimitri had cared deeply for his stepmother, but he'd fallen back onto old mementos after the Tragedy... Kept them close.

Yet it's been a long time since then, and Dedue can already see the changes that have swept through the manor. A great many things actually remind him a little bit of Duscur... Something about the color, the patterns, things like that. No doubt Dimitri hired an artisan from Duscur to make some of them. That's exactly like him, and no doubt it was all made with Dedue in mind. Such effort really isn't needed just for him visiting...

...But he'd be lying if he said he didn't appreciate it.

It takes around five doors before he finds the proper hallway that he's looking for. Right as he starts to enter it, a small alcove in the wall catches his attention. There, standing on a small miniature rug with Duscur patterns woven lovingly into it, a lion of plain stone roars voicelessly into the manor.

Dedue's lips shift, just slightly, into the faintest traces of a smile.

Not exactly befitting the ruler of three newly unified countries, Dimitri is dressed in simple pants and shirt when Dedue looks into the open doorway of the kitchen. They're of good material, of course, the kind of "good" that can last rather than just look "good". Dedue also has no doubts that Dimitri has those clothes and many like them, just in case he ever has to go out as someone not royalty... or just wants to. It almost makes him look like any one of the workers in the manor as he hefts a box of red bell peppers up onto the counter. He seems rather caught up in himself, smiling as he inspects his bounty. No doubt Dedue could stand there for a good few minutes without being noticed.

That would be a waste of their time together, however, and there are only a few things that are as precious to Dedue as this. So he raps his knuckles against the doorframe. "Your Majesty," he says, watching Dimitri jolt and whirl around with a smile on his face brighter than the moon. "I have arrived."

"That you have!" Dimitri exclaims, working his around the counter and striding towards him with his hands outstretched. He doesn't clasp his hands against Dedue's arms or shoulders, just brushes his palms against him as he leans in. It is automatic, now, for them to press their foreheads softly together. Dedue would have never done this, only a few years ago... But things have changed. They can do this now, and much more - something Dimitri isn't afraid to let him know as he murmurs, "And you know you can call me by name, at least here of all places."

Dedue smiles again, eyes closed as their foreheads rest against each other and his hand lays upon Dimitri's upper arm. "My mistake, Dimitri. Although I wonder what the workers here would say if they heard me speaking to the Savior King so casually."

When he opens his eyes again, it's to the sight of Dimitri pulling away as his nose and, really, his entire face wrinkles in distaste. "Oh, please.. Don't you go saying that embarrassing title as well! I would like to know who on earth came up with that nickname, and ask if they know how terribly ridiculous it is. It's not as though I did much work besides..."

"You've done a great deal to deserve the title," Dedue insists, hand still along the back of Dimitri's arm as the two of them step into the kitchen proper. It's clean, looking almost exactly as it did back when they were children. The base format of a kitchen doesn't really need to change much, he supposes. "Since receiving it, at the least."

A lot of people would buckle under the weight of such a title, the weight of their situation. Dedue would not blame any of them, honestly. To unite three countries sounds magnificent and deceptively easy, when told like a tale, or no doubt when it will be looked back on in history. However, the reality is much harder. Much more complex. The former Empire lands threw everything they had towards eliminating the church, towards trying to do the same for the Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance. They even managed to make it towards the Alliance capital, although part of that was certainly thanks to Claude von Riegan's own machinations made out of a rather desperate hope.

Yet those people are still a part of the country that Dimitri now governs. So even if they may feel strongly against him, even if the other two portions of this country may be bitter towards them... Dimitri will protect them, and take care of them. He must - not because of any archaic rule, but because it is the right thing to do. That alone is something that would be a massive struggle.

Then there's dealing with the aftermath of the war, establishing comfortable relations with the neighboring countries - most of which did not exactly have comfortable relations with any chosen Fodlan country to start with - and of course supporting Duscur as it has regained its independence, paying reparations as best as he possibly can.

Dedue went to Duscur to help mend the broken and creaking bridge between it and Faerghus, both because he was encouraged and because he wanted to. It has been a great deal of work just doing that, offering his own opinions and helping as an advisor. They were things he honestly never really thought he would be good at, even if he did learn some things when he was younger. Even if he knows that they have support from the Fodlish king, it has been difficult. The idea of taking care of so much more than that, at a much higher level with so many eyes on him...

"You helped revive Duscur," Dedue tells him, and watches as Dimitri's entire expression softens. "That is savior enough for me."

"Says the man who saved my life numerous times."

"And you have saved mine just as many times. Perhaps even more."

"I was not the one in massive armor and with an even more massive shield!" Except Dimitri is starting to laugh, now, grin spread wide across his face. There are still dark circles underneath his eyes, but they are no longer as intense as they once were - not as a child, not as the man haunted by ghosts in a ruined cathedral. "How about we call it even, and leave it at that?" His grin is brilliant, dazzling.

Dedue smiles back. What else can he do? "As you wish... Dimitri." While his king practically glows at the use of his name, and how close Dedue is, Dedue himself glances over at the array of ingredients that Dimitri has got around the kitchen.

Not only are there bell peppers, undoubtedly fresh from the garden, but there are plenty of other things: fresh eggs probably from the small farm on castle grounds that Dimitri insisted on being set up, green onions, a few lemons likely transported from further south just like the crab on display, bags of flour, and plenty of sauces and mixtures that were probably pre-prepared. If Dedue knows anything about Dimitri, he suspects his own staff had to haggle with him to make them themselves, instead of having the king of a continent spend all his time making things from scratch.

Many memories he has of his adolescence in Fhirdiad are unpleasant, but he can't say that thinking back to his time with Dimitri in the kitchens is the same. Even as he stands there, he remembers how limited they'd been by things they could prepare in one night, in a few hours, and how Dimitri had pouted about it. Those memories, at least, make him smile. "So I take it that you wish to cook together again?"

"Of course!" Dimitri smiles broadly at him. "We actually have excellent timing right now, with the delivery that was gifted to us by some merchants down in the southern lands, and I thought you would love to handle it..." Trailing off, Dimitri blinks and takes in Dedue's person a little more. That is to say, he takes in the travel boots he's still wearing, and the gloves still on his hands. Slowly, grimacing, he presses his face into his hand. "...You have had a long trip. Dedue, I am terribly sorry, my sense was overridden."

Outright laughter has never really come easily to Dedue, even before he had to arrive in Fhirdiad. Even before the Tragedy. It's just a part of his personality. Still, he lets out a soft huff of amusement as he peels off his gloves, one by one. "I am sure there are many nobles and merchants in Fodlan who would feel envious if they could override the sense of their king. The carriage I rode in was more than comfortable enough... so should we begin?"

Because he can think of no better way to start off his current short stay in Fhirdiad than cooking side by side in the kitchen he used to sneak into in his adolescence, welcomed in by bright sunlight and the growing smile of his friend and king.

"I suppose when it comes to the things you like to do, the journey would not matter anyway," Dimitri chuckles. "I'm the same, after all. But yes - I was thinking we could try this crabcake recipe I found in a book from the former Leicester Alliance. It seemed like the perfect thing to welcome you back!"

Dedue wonders if the crabs were brought to the castle specifically to appeal to the king, or if Dimitri made a special order exactly because he knew that he would be arriving. Honestly, it's a coin flip on which is the more likely scenario; a lot of people want to get on Dimitri's good side for one reason or another. Most of them don't realize how hard that really is. They don't know the truth of him.

Then again, they never knew the truth of Dedue, either, but they're certainly watching him more than they ever did before, and in different ways than before.

Sweeping his eyes over the kitchen, Dedue nods over to the stoves. "I see you've started up some pots already boiling a few of the crabs. Shall we continue with those, first?" As something with so stubborn a shell, that will take them some time to do.

Granted, they could use Dimitri's Blaiddyd-given strength, but that might send crab flying everywhere. Ideally, they'll want that a little more contained.

And Dimitri has long since gotten better with using his strength, as the war has started to become a part of the more distant past instead of overwhelming their every living moment. Together, they pull apart the crab with minimal incident, save for one spectacular crack of a leg that sends shell upwards into the ceiling where it then embeds itself inbetween stone. Dedue wonders if that distance to war is to thank for Dimitri's ability to control his strength a little more. Maybe it doesn't matter. Either way, there is a kind of serenity to just sitting there, working through crab shell.

They talk, of course. They often do, whenever they get a chance to be with one another, away from the prying eyes of court and politics. Sometimes, politics still creep into their discussions, because it is inevitable with Dimitri's station and Dedue's role in everything.

Most of it is griping from how thoroughly Dimitri wants to help make Fodlan something that can survive even long after he is gone, with no infighting or disregarding the situations of the common person.

Some of it is information no one else has had a chance to heard, like how reports have been coming in from the south-eastern front that Almyra has settled, and there is allegedly a new king on the throne that shares Dimitri's interest in reaching out across the border.

And, needless to say, they talk with one another about what their friends are up to as well - how their dreams and aspirations are slowly growing and blossoming into something fantastic.

It helps pass the time quickly, along with their own solid work ethic that means they go through the shells in a blink of an eye despite the quantity of them. "So I take it this is going to be the mixture you'll put together with the crab?" Dedue asks Dimitri, as he looks over the various ingredients that Dimitri has grouped very purposefully together on another counter. Various sauces, like mayonnaise and a few sourced out from other regions in this new Fodlan, plus more common things like panko, flour, egg, lemons, and, of course, the red bell peppers alongside some fresh green onions.

"Recovery towards the land and farming is going well," Dimitri tells him as they begin to slice and dice the vegetables, half proud, half relieved. A lot of harm was done during the war, in more than simply the blood that was shed. Just as much work has had to be done to get it back into decent order again, and there is more work still. "Downsizing the military was the correct move, in the end. I'm glad that I can say that."

Dedue is glad as well, especially considering how much the nobility protested against such an act. On one hand, it was understandable to want to keep a strong military force in the aftermath of any war, especially considering the circumstances.

A unified Fodlan was the best choice in the aftermath of the war, and yet that meant the enemies of each land was something they all had to deal with. Dedue knows this well; Duscur had been brought up as an example of one such enemy nation when Dimitri had first started to bring about this particular change.

The noble who had done so had clearly been woefully ignorant of Dimitri's person, or too caught up in some sort of fit, to have thought how that would go in saying it to Dimitri's face.

While Dimitri carefully slices through the green onions, not wanting to break the knife he uses in any haste, Dedue makes much quicker work of the bell peppers. "Some trade along the border of Fodlan and Duscur has picked up as well," Dedue says mildly, although he's certain that Dimitri is already aware. His dear liege and longest friend has been keeping his nose deep in every single bit of recovery and advancement he possibly can in his new role as king. It is almost too much... so perhaps Dedue cannot say it is a bad thing, for him to relax in a kitchen, cutting up vegetables. "With how so much of the land had been pecked out for wealth, it is something of a surprise."

"Wealth only matters to those with nothing better to occupy their minds," Dimitri says dismissively, as the king of a whole continent. As a man who spent five years living as some wraith away from the rest of society. "There are other things which are traded and cared for which are a lot more relevant to the day to day necessities. Things that can only be found in Duscur. Of course people will trade those... and as long as money flows, that is the most important thing - ah, shoot..."

A break is had, to make sure that Dimitri hasn't accidentally driven the knife too deeply into the cutting board. When all is clearly well, they move onto the next step, and really the main step in the actual cooking part of all of this. Everything else could simply be considered preparation.

So could mixing samples of all the ingredients together, honestly... But it's a bit more involved than just chopping up vegetables and measuring out the juice from lemons. Taking that mixture and making them into small patties no doubt looks a bit more like 'cooking' to some. Definitely moreso as the first patty is placed onto an oiled up saucepan, and sizzles brilliantly at first contact. "There is a lot of crab," Dedue observes, although he's hardly surprised. After all, he's distantly thinking of something else that happened once, a long time ago. "Will we be preparing food for the workers of the manor as well?"

Dimitri's smile is all the answer that he needs. "I was going to prepare it all myself, actually... You can take a rest after we make the food for the two of us!"

Dedue suspects that, if he could have his way, Dimitri would be far happier using his careful cooking skills to make food for the workers of his castle than running the complicated mess that is Fodlan. Certainly it would give everyone conniption fits to witness that happening just the one time... Which is likely at least part of why Dimitri doesn't do it, along with all the other work he wants to accomplish.

Of course, where Dimitri goes, Dedue follows. "I have not changed my decision since I first stepped into the kitchen," he says simply as he helps flip the patty before Dimitri can get the spatula. "One sandwich or fifty, it is of little concern to me."

"Honestly.... You get more stubborn than anyone else I know, Dedue." For all that the words should not be particularly praiseworthy, Dimitri seems unable to stop his own smile. To work against Dedue's own efforts on the stovetop, Dimitri starts to cut slices of bread slowly and carefully. It is an endeavor he is rewarded for with that kind of consideration in mind. Each slice comes out clean and even. "How about I feed you bites of the sandwich while you cook?"

Just the mental image alone could make Dedue choke, but he manages to refrain. "I believe that would cause some commotion if someone finally decided to step inside," he manages to say.

A scoff leaps from Dimitri's lips. "Oh, what else is new," he says. "Let me just spread some of this spread onto the bread, and we'll get your lunch ready, all right?" With that simple little action done with, Dimitri holds out a fine slice of bread, and beams at him.

It is incredibly hard to resist Dimitri's smiles, free of so much which burdened them both. It is like looking into the depths of a lake, and seeing moonlight reach the very bottom instead of remaining nothing but a mere reflection on a shimmering surface. What else can Dedue do? He leans in with his lips parted, and accepts the sandwich which Dimitri presses in against his teeth.

The crab is still good despite being so far away from its homeseas that it was fetched from. The ingredients are fine, a gorgeous bounty that shows how the land and its people are recovering from a miserable war none of them asked for. Against his chin, the corners of his mouth, Dimitri's fingers are warm.

Few foods could taste so delicious.

Dedue does not tell Dimitri any of this. "Be careful. I am putting down another patty," he says simply, "and I would not want the oil to splash on you."

Dimitri does take care, as Dedue has always made sure of whenever he could see him, and the oil splashes on neither of them. It is simply a warm morning with the two of them cooking in the heat of the kitchen, sweat gathering along both their throats as heat rises up from their work by the stove. At one point, Dimitri swipes a small handcloth along Dedue's neck, giving him a brief respite from it all.

There is a lot of crab meat; Dedue feels confident in saying that it is a relief to both of them that Dedue arrived early in the morning. Together, they take up the entirety of it, until crabcake sandwiches line up all of the counters, and Dimitri leans carefully against him.

For the last five, Dedue finally conceded to letting him try his hand at cooking the patties himself. The pan handle remains intact. "Are you sure that you do not want to rest? Take a bath? We could at least wet some cloth, wipe away whatever surface level of sweat and travel is on your person. It would hardly take any time at all, and the food will still taste good."

"I am certain it would," Dedue says mildly, well aware that Dimitri has been eyeing some of the sandwiches himself. It is unlikely that he is doing it out of hunger, although no doubt he is hungry, because Dimitri rarely acts that way towards food. Dedue does not think that has yet to change, although he wishes it would. "However, food is best enjoyed when it is freshly made. I am sure that your workers would also think this."

While that might sound manipulative to some, Dedue doesn't think it is. It's just a reminder of what Dimitri himself cares about, which is everyone his hands can reach. Right now, that means the people who work under him. If Dimitri really does still view fussing over Dedue more important than treating everyone - Dedue included - to a nice meal...

Well. Dedue cannot deny that he would feel flattered by such an action, in some manner.

But that is not who Dimitri is, at his core, although the route there can occasionally become complicated and messy, not at all the fairy tale future historians will undoubtedly praise him for when this is all centuries old. So he watches Dimitri pause, brow twitching together for a brief second before he lets out a breath.

They both know that, fortunately, this is a minor and simple matter. No harm would really be done for either choice, but the one to make the most people happy, here, is not such a bad thing, and it is what has Dimitri shake his head. "Of course. Then, please, Dedue - the dining room has not changed since you were here last, so at least go take the weight off of your feet and rest a while. I will get everyone else."

'Everyone else'? Dedue thinks of the grand furniture that made up the dining room when he was a boy, how reluctant some of the caretakers to the prince were to let him dine there.

That was an incident which lasted for approximately two days, before Dimitri managed to find out, and threatened to starve himself if Dedue did not eat breakfast and dinner with him every day.

There was worry about what some Duscur commoner would do to such fine furniture, which turned out to be nothing at all. The servants here are of Fodlan for the most part, but Dedue still has a feeling that disparity will strike at the heart of them. How many will be sitting stiff, feeling their organs in their mouth?

That is honestly not very much his problem at all, really. They will likely get over it, and wouldn't accept any comforts from him anyway. Just like Dimitri won't ask for any of his help, yet still Dedue cannot help but ask, "Will you accept my assistance bringing all of the food to the dining room, Dimitri?"

A light fills Dimitri's eye, the little curve of his smile, as he hears his name, as though it were something precious and holy falling from Dedue's lips. Not many people smile like that around him. Not many people would deny assistance for so much food, either. Dimitri, of course, is an anomaly in both cases, because, even as he reaches forward to lightly brush his hand against Dedue's, he says, "No, no. I cannot in good conscience ask you to do such a thing, Dedue, not when you have traveled so far. Please, go and sit. I will carry you there myself, if needs must."

What a sight that would no doubt make: the king of a country, hauling his retainer and Duscur emissary and old friend through the halls of a manor as though he were but a simple sack of flour. Dedue cannot help but ponder if that would make the servants stare more than when they have to sit down at such a fancy table, being given food made by their king's own hand.

Dedue goes to the dining room, for even such an amusing sight is not what he is interested in today, not when he would be a part of it. Sure enough, it is exactly where it always was in his memories. Yet things seem to have changed, somewhat. Not a great deal, admittedly. The furniture is still ultimately the same, which is something of a surprise, and somewhat not. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Dimitri would confess not only to him but a few others that he thought in some way that Cornelia would have ruined or destroyed or replaced various parts of the castle in the five years she resided on the royal grounds without anyone to oppose her. In some cases, that was even true, for places such as the main castle with all the rooms that an illegitimate and greedy regent would use regularly.

Yet little was actually destroyed or thrown away, because why put to waste such things? Why fan the flames of people missing the true royal family further, and encourage bad publicity? Certainly they were all sick of her, loathed her, by the time the army of the true king arrived... but such things cannot be done carelessly. And so most of them had been shoved to the side, hidden in ill-kept storage rooms or dungeons or places that would not see much use.

The manor in its entirety, the place where Dimitri spent so much of his adolescence and so too did Dedue, was an entire building that saw this treatment. And so things seem to be mostly the same in terms of the furniture like the table Dedue sits at or the chair he rests his body in. But, as he casts his gaze around the room, Dedue finds so many little differences.

It is the decor, mostly. Different little statues, paintings, things that are not always made of precious jewels or metal. There are things from what look to be a great many places, if Dedue can identify them correctly.

A delicately crafted paper fan with flowers stretched across it, no doubt finding its origin all across the wide sea in Dagda. An enormous fur skin that stretches across a massive portion of the wall it is held on, no doubt some sort of prize from Sreng. Intricate wooden carvings that Dedue thinks he recalls Petra having in their school days... All that and more.

No longer is this an isolated birdcage, meant to keep the young surviving prince of a kingdom safe. Instead, it represents so much more than that... and Dedue finds his own heart growing warm to see that there are many more things from Duscur than all else, especially since he can tell that they were not made out of fine ore or jewels or even wood. They are the kind of things which any craftsman in any town could make, a common touch to common items. He knows this, because he was there with Dimitri during the first official visit of the Fodlan King to a recovering Duscur when the man made his purchases. It was just an individual action, of course, something done by one man with simple access to a lot of money...

But even such a simple and individual action meant a great deal to those people who still required the assistance, the funds. It had not been without meaning, or effect.

Besides, once people heard about what Dimitri had done, you had tons of nobles either going or, more often, sending someone in their stead to buy some sort of handcrafted something from someone in Duscur. Perhaps they thought that if they acted sincere enough, the new king might forget those amongst them who had ravenously called for the heads of everyone in Duscur once upon a time, or grumbled about him behind his back as he tried to help the country back to its feet with reparations.

Dedue had even been there, for a few occasions, a front row seat to watching some simpering noble try to talk about how their eyes had been opened to the craftsmanship of the Duscan people, how generous and magnanimous their king was. Dimitri had smiled a politician's smile, taught to him in childhood and finally occasionally used in lieu of a fistfight's threat - polite, picture perfect, and with none of it reaching his eyes.

"They are doing some rather desperate things to earn your approval," Dedue had commented once, careful and distant just in case of any eavesdropping as they'd returned to his guest room for a cup of tea.

"They will not get it," Dimitri had said, blunt as always and with a flash of white hot anger to his gaze that had cooled almost instantly. Perhaps the smell of tea helped with that. "But it is nice that they are so kindly helping me, in these little ways, with Duscru's reconstruction."

Most will not say that Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is a brilliant tactician. Most of his tactics in war had come with Byleth Eisner guiding all of them along, or urged by people like Rodrigue, before the man perished. Yet occasionally, with other people, he shows brief flashes of cleverness, a little bit of depth that people do not expect and are tripped up by. It is always a sort of experience, to be reminded of it, and Dedue had tried not to smile as he had poured their tea. Not too much, anyway.

It takes approximately ten minutes before the doors to the dining room open, heralded by a pair of footmen who seem to be struggling on whether they should be bowing, keeping their heads down, or looking up. Dimitri's smiling presence is no doubt to blame for that as he comes through, pushing a cart loaded with carefully balanced sandwiches and some plates. He's followed by a pair of people Dedue suspects are chefs. Their clothes are not quite as prim neat and presentable as the maids and butlers and all that. An apron would not look out of place, and neither does the food they are pushing along behind Dimitri.

"Come on now, there is no need to act so stiffly today," Dimitri says cheerily over his shoulder as some more of the manor staff trickle in, still staring or trying very hard not to stare. "This is something I do not get to do very often, so you really should take advantage of such a rare opportunity."

Not a lot of nobles would so cheerily say "you should take advantage of me", and Dimitri is above them all. Dedue keeps his face expressionless, just watching as he starts placing down the rows of sandwich and shooing away everyone that aren't the pair of chefs when they try to assist him. As Dimitri so fondly likes to remind people, he attended school at Garreg Mach, you know! He set tables and cooked for people then, like anyone else!

Dedue can remember those years well, as a matter of fact. He remembers them so well because he, too, had tried to convince Dimitri - his liege, prince, savior, and dearest friend - that he could just sit down and relax. Dimitri did not listen to him, either.

If the workers here had not known this fact beforehand, then they certainly are learning it today. They begin to all sit down, around a dozen of them or more by Dedue's count. Some are clearly maids, butlers, footmen, that sort of thing, and they are all stiff or fidgeting in their own way. Yet Dimitri seems to have grabbed a few others who look like they might die if they move even an inch, for they are the gardeners and stable folks of this manor and thus no doubt feel that they carry too much filth on them for such pretty furniture.

If Dimitri speaks directly at them over the course of this meal, Dedue suspects they may keel over from sheer shock and anxiety. He is almost sympathetic.

Once the sandwiches are all spread out along the table - and they certainly made more than Dedue realized, the sight hammering it in home - only then does Dimitri finally settle down in a seat. He chooses, of course, the seat at the very head of the table, near to where Dedue himself sits. There are probably a few reasons for this, he imagines, and it is perhaps just a greedy and arrogant part of him that likes to imagine that it's because Dimitri favors him.

No doubt Dimitri would be more than happy to sit down amongst all the others, side by side, but, well... Just convincing some of the people to be treated to a meal cooked by their king at all probably took some doing. Best to just rely on habit and tradition for now. That is often how rules are broken: chipped away at until people are left wondering how starkly things changed.

"Thank all of you for agreeing to come dine with me today," Dimitri says, clasping his hands neatly on the table, as though this were any meeting with nobles or merchants or anyone else who'd normally have the chance to meet royalty. As though they weren't all the servants that most nobles would never look twice at. "I understand that I made quite a change in your usual schedule for this, and I do appreciate how you were able to adjust so quickly, especially in light of how I had you making sure this manor was in a perfect state for our honored guest, Dedue Molinaro of Duscur."

Of course he made sure that he would mention Dedue in all of this. Well, he supposes it is true that a lot of people had to make sure this place was in order for a visitor inhabiting it, even if that visitor is hardly any noble, or politician. Just a man, serving the one who saved his life and helped him keep living.

Still, Dedue supposes he should at least act the part if Dimitri is fussing over him like this. "Thank you for your service," he says simply, thinking of Ashe, and his talks of class, the struggles that those who did not have the fortune of being born into nobility. "I am pleased to be here in Fhirdiad."

And for once, that may actually be true. Bitter feelings still well up inside of him when he looks out onto certain streets, when he passes by a secluded patch of training grounds that he can remember spending so much of his time at... But Duscur has its independence back. Its freedom. The sun is shining, in a rare bit of comfortable warmth for the northern territories of Fodlan.

Dimitri is sitting besides him, both of them able to be treated like equals, and Dimitri didn't even have to threaten to starve himself to the head maid in order to do it.

Amazing, how his feelings can change over time, as both of them work hard for their dreams. Fhirdiad can almost be properly palatable this way.

A chorus rings out down the table, various humble and careful thanks for Dimitri's attention, and that it was only their duty - things like that, which Dedue himself has said a million times before. Some of the servants still seemed a bit shell shocked, but others have a sort of light to their eyes, a quiet warmth that threatens to tug at their lips and which is only held in place with discipline and a dash of struggle. Dimitri lets them do it, because that is another fight which isn't worth it, and besides... Dedue wonders if he knows how much at ease it can put a person, when they have a rough idea of what the "right" thing to do is. Sometimes that's manners, and it would be a little rude to steal that away from them.

Afterwards, Dimitri gestures towards the platters of sandwiches. "As a token of appreciation for all of your hard work, and to celebrate Dedue's arrival, the two of us made a simple meal for you all. I know that it is hardly anything grand, and on their own they may not be particularly filling, but there should be enough for everyone to have one and then even a couple of others. Please, enjoy yourself. It is thanks to the hard work of you all that Fodlan thrives."

And it is not just something said for a good look, only to be set aside and forgotten about again as soon as the day is done. Dedue knows Dimitri believes this with every fiber of his being, knows that he has witnessed and experienced first hand just how much the common worker anywhere has to suffer. It is why the policies he's been crafting, the plans he's consulted with others on, are all so focused on bringing back the people up from the lows they were forced into even before the war started.

That sort of feeling should be a given, one would think, even to those who benefit so greatly from having power and wealth all above the rest. If the pillars holding them up fall, then all their wealth will be for nothing. Despite that, Dedue knows for a fact that Dimitri, Ashe, and Sylvain have had to make quite a few plans and arguments to get many of their plans through... and those won't be the last.

It's that kind of stubborn sincerity that Dedue has always appreciated, because it was one of the driving forces behind that hand he stretched out to him so long ago.

Certainly, it's clear that he's not the only one who feels this way. Amongst those who have recovered from the rarity of this situation, along with the nerves that come with it, a look of relief and gratitude falls over their person. A few even look as though they may tear up, and must glance away from their king. It's a bit much, in terms of reaction... but Dedue can understand the feelings which drive them.

"Thank you for your effort and consideration, Your Majesty, and Lord Molinaro," says the butler from before, who met Dedue at the front doors. Alongside her, a great many voices echo the sentiment. Particularly near to Dedue, one person even gives an enthusiastic nod, and doesn't stop staring at him with shining eyes.

It's a weird look, honestly, and they're not the only one to stare at him in particular. Towards Dimitri, it would be nothing particularly surprising. Dimitri has always been a form of ideals, both in his appearance as the traditional sort of Fodlan fairytale prince, and also because of his own radiant personality - something that Dedue is most certainly not biased in feeling about. He's never been the only person to notice it, either, and so of course the once-prince and now-king has always had his fair share of shining, infatuated, admiring stares.

Dedue is fairly certain he has no reason to earn similar looks, especially here, in Fhirdiad, even if things have gotten better. It is.... more than a little bizarre. Especially because it is incredibly hard to say they aren't looking at him. So he looks back to Dimitri, who is always his steady rock, and suggests, "Then shall we get started, Your Majesty?"

"Of course," Dimitri says happily. "Then, to your hard work, and Dedue's arrival!"

It is the middle of the day, so no wine is passed up and down the table to pour into their cups. Presumably, once this little break of theirs is done with, they will all have to get back to work. So instead, numerous pitchers of some sort of juice are passed down the table, coworkers pouring drinks for themselves and each other. Dedue would do the same for Dimitri, except both of them are beaten to the punch when some servants insist on pouring for them.

That's fine, even if it feels a little strange to Dedue to be in such a position. It's even stranger when the person who's pouring his drink - one of those who had stared at him with stars in their eyes - says, "It's an honor to be serving one of His Majesty's most stalwart knights! We've all heard tales of your heroics!"

"I see," Dedue says, because he has absolutely no idea what else he could possibly say. Fortunately, it doesn't seem as though much is expected of him on the conversation front. Even that meager reply seems to sate them, and they return to their seat with a blush on their face. Absolutely nothing ever prepared him for that, so Dedue just... ignores it for a moment as he leans just a tad closer to Dimitri. Dimitri, perhaps without even thinking twice about it, mirrors him. "Tales of my heroics?" Dedue murmurs.

Dimitri would no doubt be an excellent liar, if he did not seem so pleased with himself when it comes to his friends. It tugs at the corners of his mouth, shines in his eye as he glances back to Dedue. "I suppose they must have overheard me, since I have become king, speaking of you. Or perhaps Mercedes, maybe even Ashe and Annette."

Mhm. And Dedue wonders just how many castle workers were coincidentally made to work in areas where Dimitri decided to speak of Dedue's efforts during the war, or even their time in Garreg Mach. How many people Mercedes may have charmed or sweet talked to, or in what way exactly Dimitri and Ashe deigned to portray him. All of them are good people, of course, and he values their company greatly.

Yet sometimes the sweeter a person, the more clever they can be, and he has no doubt they have all been working hard since the war ended to improve his reputation.

At least it does not take much to get the details out of Dimitri, once the servants offer to clean up the dining room and the pair of them go for an after-lunch walk. "You did just as much work in the war as anyone else," Dimitri acknowledges a little sheepishly, with hardly any inquiries at all. "We thought it was only right that you deserved to have some good rumors spread about you as well... Although I suppose even we were surprised by how quickly some people took to them. Then again, I suppose it is not too surprising at all. The castle has had quite a bit of reorganization put behind it, since we have kept Fhirdiad as its official capital."

"Reorganization?" Dedue echoes, and tries to think if he has heard anything about that sort of matter.

Yet while he is Dimitri's vassal, his part for now has mostly been in connecting Duscur and Faerghus - Fodlan - all over again with diplomatic discussions, helping refugees of Duscur find their way back to their homeland, and various other matters. The structure of Fhirdiad's royal castle is information that not only has not been something he thought to care about, but something that is not easy to overhear when he works so much in his homeland.

Dimitri smiles, an expression almost as bright as the flowers and plants around him - things which had once been withered and neglected under Cornelia's rule, as though she sought to make her own foul heart find root in the physical world beyond more than just her actions. "That's right. We were actually somewhat short staffed, to a degree, when I took the crown... It might have been easier if I simply continued to hire people from around Fhirdiad, or Faerghus in general, but, with the end of the war, I thought that felt... unfair." Slowly, his bright expression dims, and he looks away to somewhere that is past the plants. Past many of the things surrounding them, as a matter of fact. "If I am to be a king that unites so many people... Then surely I cannot only have those who were born up here in the north serving in this place. So, I made sure to scout out those from other parts of Fodlan who needed employment, and could be trusted."

No doubt that there will be plenty of people who dismiss such efforts. They will view it as trivial, as just a shallow gesture. Admittedly, it is not going to solve each and every bit of difficulty this nation faces as three once distinct parts are made to merge into a whole. And yet Dedue, although perhaps he must admit his own bias, does not view this as a bad decision. At worst, it will likely do absolutely nothing in terms of how Dimitri looks to those from the Alliance and Empire lands.

But just one instance of an outstretched hand to a single person... The impact of that to a single life must not be overlooked.

It meant everything to Dedue, after all, and those were in far worse circumstances.

At any rate, he thinks he understand somewhat what Dimitri means to say, and he considers it as he inspects a row of flowering herbs. "So they likely do not have the exact kind of idea of Duscur as those in Faerghus do..."

Certainly, Duscur's reputation had been smeared across the entire land... But that does not mean the impact was always exactly the same. Of course those of Faerghan blood would have the most to say about it, the most hatred for what they believed was a great injustice done against their royalty and, by extension, themselves.

But those in what had once been the Adrestian Empire, the Leichester Alliance - while they may have done nothing, may have believe the words that were spoken of Duscur and her people, they did not have the same attachment to the issue as Faerghus did. Why would they? At the time, Duscur held no real connection to the other countries, not when its only real neighbor was Faerghus. Perhaps they knew of it, perhaps they did trade with the occasional traveling Duscan merchant, or had wares, but nothing indepth. And anyway... During that time, Duscur and Faerghus were not the only ones having to deal with something that upheaved everything they knew. Betrayal in the Empire, disputes of inheritance in the more scattered gathering of nobles down in the Alliance...

It stings, still, to know that no one else had looked twice at the tragedy that had befallen Duscur, and yet Dedue knows that he cannot blame them, not truly. After all, what did Duscur know of what was happening to those other countries as well?

Granted, now it will be much harder for the three countries to be oblivious to what is happening within their borders, and what is going on with their direct neighbors, since they are all now one country. Not exactly how Dedue would have gone about it, and he suspects Dimitri would never have thought to do such a thing in a million years... But what's happened has happened, and, well, it does solve one issue, even as it raises a thousand more.

"Some of them genuinely do think differently of Duscur, I am certain!" Dimitri insists to him, with the greenhouse shining in the distance. With how their path is going, they'll meander there eventually. "In the time that the war started, a new generation has had time to grow... So they have been caught between what certain elders of theirs thought of Duscur, in contrast with the facts, which is that you were one of my most stalwart companions, and that many people from Duscur helped us in the war." A pause as he lets out a soft huff through his nose. "Which is not how I would have preferred people to change their minds, but results are results. I suppose I will just have to work backwards, as ridiculous as that may sound."

And maybe a different king would have simply washed his hands of the matter with that. Results are results, are they not? But the results will only mean so much if they are but temporary things, which matter little if the core matter has not been dealt with.

Still. Somehow, it feels almost selfish, to keep asking for more and more and more. "You are putting yourself through quite a bit on this matter," he observes instead, quietly and simply.

Dimitri blinks at him. "You are putting yourself through quite a bit alongside me," he points out, and then smiles. "So it is hardly any work at all. Although this is no time for work - come, we're near enough to the greenhouse. Let us sit a while, so our dinner may settle some instead of moving around so anxiously."

As it turns out, even people with rotten infected holes instead of a heart need to eat. So the greenhouse behind the manor where the prince once stayed, where his fiance should have stayed, where Dedue stayed - it has remained mostly untouched after so long. Yet it is still so different as Dedue steps in through the wide open glass doors, and he has to pause for a moment to take it all in.

He'd never been allowed to step foot into the greenhouse when he lived here as a youth alongside Dimitri. Of course he hadn't been trusted. The only times he had gone inside had been when Dimitri was with him, moon and starlight falling through the glass panes while Dimitri secreted him inside. No one ever realized that they spent a bit of time every night, slipping through the dead of night when everyone went to sleep and past guards, all so that they could have a moment of being with one another where no one could judge.

If they'd ever been caught, Dedue had always been certain that Dimitri would have taken the blame for it, of course. He would have said that he was the one who badgered Dedue into awakening, and convinced him down into the gardens.

That would have been a problem for Dedue, obviously, because it would have put him into the awkward position of letting Dimitri take the blame, or him seeming as though he were anything short of a loyal vassal who convinced his prince into getting into trouble. But in the end, they'd managed to get away with it, more often than not. Even during winter, when Dimitri would find boots larger than what they normally wore so that their steps in the snow could be mistaken for someone else's.

Yet if one thing had never changed, no matter if the seasons did, it was how they would sneak into the greenhouse.

The greenhouse, which always stayed warm thanks to magic that had been laid within it.

The greenhouse, where they could curl up near the plants so that it was harder for them to be seen, Dimitri pressing some candy into his hands that he'd gotten from the maids, or a visiting noble.

Dedue had never liked sweets. He still ate every one that Dimitri gave him, and savored the taste, there in the greenhouse where it felt as though the plants sheltered them from the rest of the world more than glass or metal or brick ever could.

The plants do not seem so massive now, as Dedue steps through the doors after Dimitri. There are trees, of course, taller than Dedue himself, but even so. It feels... like any other garden he has been to, like the one in Garreg Mach, where the plants crowded around him but were easy enough to push through. To tend to, and weed, and harvest. The world is no longer so vast and enormous, but instead something he can reach out and grab. Change.

The table in the greenhouse is surrounded now by more sensible plants, the kinds that can be gathered for food and medicine. It's a new one from what Dedue can recall in his memories, but the man sitting at it is is more familiar than anything.

When Dedue sits with him, it no longer feels like such an awkward fit to sit in the chair. A result of him growing, or Dimitri making sure there would be seats to fit someone of his stature? Hard to say. Dedue finds that the answer doesn't particular concern him, right then.

"The gardens are coming along well," Dedue says, folding his arms along the table. Dimitri must have gotten some particularly talented gardeners to handle this space. He can remember times back during their time here as adolescents where the ones responsible then still struggled occasionally, and problems with the plants were a constant.

It had all been a learning experience, honestly, and he could hardly blame those in charge for that, even if he could feel a quiet bitterness otherwise about how they might have treated him, or the things they gossiped about in regards to his king. The plague had taken a lot of people, and they were still learning. While the war might have also taken many people, the merging of three countries has no doubt allowed for a lot of opportunity.

Realizing where his thoughts have wandered just from a simple glance around the garden, Dedue can't help the way his lips twitch. It's a minor movement, really. Momentary, too. And yet Dimitri still perks up from across the table, sharp eyed as always. Or maybe it's only because it's the two of them. "Do you see something in particular that you like, Dedue?"

He's seen a lot, honestly. Some of it is new, while more of it are the results of seeds planted long ago, tended to gently, until now they are showing sprouts and blossoms. All Dedue says is, "I was thinking it is good that you still have gardeners for the greenhouse."

"I am positive that is not all... But yes, we have a very talented team here." Dimitri indulges himself in a bit of relaxation, no longer sitting up so straight and stiff. Instead, he leans forward, resting his cheek in one palm. "Faerghus fell in the past not to battles against magic or steel, but to food shortages, filth rampant in our streets, and plagues. I do not want Fodlan to fall prey to any of that... And so I have actually taken care into searching for those particular adept at understanding plants, both for eating and for medical purposes. I've ensured to hire many others from across Fodlan to work under them, to learn and get practical experience. I'm hoping it will help close the knowledge gap a little bit..."

It won't solve everything, of course, but every step towards spreading knowledge, making it easier to access, is always a good thing. Dedue cannot help being curious about it... but in good time. They'll have plenty of time to chat about such things later.

For now, he simply nods, and allows his arms to fold upon the table as well. It's not in his nature to so easily relax... Yet here, in this place, he thinks he is allowed.

"You have been working hard, Dimitri."

Dimitri smiles at him, and he looks like he did when they were children. Better than when they were children. Then, the world was massive, either in their havens or in their trials. Now, however...

"You've been working just as hard alongside me, Dedue."

Now, they've been able to make their havens with their own hands, and the world can be reached out, touched, just like their hands, side by side in the sunlight.