Dimiclaude Week: Day 2 - Joint Route

[warmskies]

 All Claude meant to do was try and make a secret trip up into Faerghus. You know. Maybe see what he could work out by making a connection with the few rebelling families up north, with Cornelia having become an illegitimate regent and the Empire gaining a stronger foothold than he would like up there. It's dangerous, yes, risky, but it's also not meant to be anything complicated. In, out, done.

And then terrible weather - one of Faerghus' favorite things in existence, apparently - had struck, and it had forced not only his small group to change their route, but it had forced an Imperial scouting party to change their route where they'd been on the way to apparently harass the Galatea lands.

All that would be one thing. It would be one damned pain in the ass of a thing, but it would be one thing to deal with.

...And then the apparently undead Prince of Faerghus comes charging out from the mist and rain like a horror story wraith, and takes out three Imperial heads off in one swing. 

It happens so quickly that Claude almost can't believe what's happening. For a second, he even wonders if he's seeing things wrong past the hard rain and mist... but there's no denying the brilliant splash of crimson as Dimitri whirls in, still as unbelievably strong as when they were just teenagers meeting for the first time. The only difference between now and then is that Dimitri isn't even trying to hold back.

The cold stings at his ears, threatens to weigh down the scarf he has tied around his face and neck in a weak attempt to stay warm, and Claude snaps out of it. He calls out orders to the people who were able to come with him - Leonie, Raphael, Lysithea, mainly, along with a couple of others he managed to pull from his family's side of things. This is as much as he could afford to bring during a time of war, and if he wanted to make sure troublesome parties like Gloucester didn't catch wind of what he was doing. When the battle had first started, he'd thought that decision could prove a mistake... but now, he thinks it might be helping him.

Easier to guide a handful of people than a full battalion. Easier to see what the hell is going on with a handful of people than a full battalion.

With his own people pulling back, it becomes easier for Claude, too. His arrows fly sharp and true through the rain, no longer having to worry if he's taking out an ally by mistake. Granted, there's Dimitri, but, well... Claude doesn't think he has to worry about the other man, a blur of blue and black that almost gets lost in the mist. If not for that golden hair, Claude doesn't think he would even recognize him as human.

Fortunately, he recognizes the shape of him now, and he recognizes enough to shoot through through the arm of an Imperial soldier who tries to swing his axe down on the would-be king. His howl of pain echoes past the torrent of rain, only to be drowned out again as Dimitri whirls on him, a flash of silver blade visible through the gloom.

The battle started in a heartbeat, where the world almost froze before descending into utter chaos. It has ended just as quickly, and he and his group stare in utter shock at the phantom standing there amongst the dead. It's more death than Claude would have ever cared to have done, and they'll have to deal with the bodies later, amongst his bitter and quiet regret. Just... That's later.

Right now, his voice finds him, and he jumps off of his horse, boots slipping in the mud. "Dimitri!" he calls out.

In the gloom, the two of them separated by the corpses wrought by the war and their own hands partaking in it, that form of blue and black wavers in place. Something about the scene feels so surreal.. as though Dimitri might disappear, right along with the mist. He doesn't. At least, he doesn't disappear like some strange ghost told about around a campfire.

Instead, he turns around, and just bolts for it.

Distantly, he's aware of some of his companions boggling at the site, of Leonie's incredulous "Is that really him!?" Claude doesn't stick around to really take it all in. Instead, well, what else is he supposed to do? Of course he makes a run for the trees as well, his companions' yells at his back. This is definitely not a part of the plan. This will almost certainly cause some delays.

It just also can't be helped. This is a one in a million kind of chance... and the rain works quick. He'll lose track of Dimitri with this rain, and the way it wipes away all traces of a trail.

Already he's being proven right on that front. Back when they were in school, he never thought Dimitri to be one of those particularly quick on his feet - in more than one meaning, if he's a little honest. So it's stunning to find that he might as well be chasing after a lion in the desert as he scrambles up the uneven terrain Faerghus is so terribly known for, with Dimitri becoming more and more just a flash of blue.

In the back of his head, Claude's thoughts are racing almost as quickly. There's so much to think about; where does he even start? How Dimitri survived? Why Cornelia said he was dead, instead of saying a supposed criminal had escaped? Why Dimitri is running from him and others who would be his allies, if only he stayed put in one place for longer than five seconds? That's just the tip of the iceberg. If Claude had the time, he could write an entire book of his questions.

He just doesn't have the time, clearly, and he's losing more of it by the second.

Alright, maybe it was a stupid idea from the beginning to try and beat Dimitri on a contest of athleticism. Claude wouldn't say that's a particular weakness of his. Just, he needs to play more to his strengths. He needs to chase smarter, not harder. His eyes flit around everywhere, daring to take a risk his foot might catch on something and end this chase pre-emptively.

This would be easier if he knew this area better. If he knew where Dimitri planned on heading. Even if the weather wasn't just this bad.

His lungs burn. His throat aches. Claude gets an idea, as he realizes that there's something missing from the sight of Dimitri's retreating back. So even if it's just a shot in the dark, aren't such shots what he's good at? What he's aiming for? Taking in a deep breath through his mouth, lungs straining, Claude puts all the force he can into yelling out a question he hopes will cut straight through to Dimitri.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO DEDUE!?"

In the distance, the blue becomes brighter. Clearer. Dimitri's stopped running, shoulders hunched upwards and heaving with the force of his own breath. Only a fool would waste an opportunity to not get closer. Panting, Claude dares to eliminate the distance between them, and gets a good look at Dimitri all the while. With so many unknowns, maybe that's a bad idea. If Dimitri didn't go to the Fraldarius lands in the first place despite being alive, if he was able to slaughter an entire Imperial scouting group so easily...

Where does that even put the two of them, in relation to one another?

Despite those worries, Claude forces himself to stay calm. He puts away his bow, even. No matter what the situation might seem like, he's not going to lose hope. He reminds himself of that, even as he makes his way around Dimitri's side.

As he does so... Well, in weather like this, it's pretty impossible to be stealthy. The best one can hope for is the hard rain drowning out any sound. Claude works against that, loud sloshing steps meant to herald his exact movements. It gets all over his legs, into his boots, but he doesn't care. More important to him than that... is the look on Dimitri's face, when he finally catches a glimpse of it.

More than how one would normally look while caught in the pouring rain... Dimitri's face is pale as he stares at nothing right there in front of him, gaze distant and unfocused. The lance he was using in the battle hangs limply from one hand. It's hard to say for certain what state the weapon is in, just that it's not exactly in the best of condition. Claude would find it impressive that Dimitri still did so much with it, if he had the time to ponder such things.

For now, as much as he'd like to reach out and shake Dimitri awake from whatever weird daydream he's having, Claude gets the feeling that would be dangerous, somehow. "Dimitri," he says again, raising his voice a little bit as he carefully puts himself in range of that lance. It's the better option than being in grabbing distance, he thinks. "Dimitri, you do remember me, don't you?"

Sure, they haven't seen each other in months, over a good year now, a little more than that. Still, they knew each other decently, back in Garreg Mach. Dimitri has to see him, doesn't he?

Even if it's just through the one good eye he still has, with a strip of black cloth tied firmly around his face, falling over his right.

It takes a second for Dimitri's mind to register Claude's existence, to no longer chase after things that he can see and which Claude can't. His lance arm jerks, only to stop before going into a full swing - a relief to Claude, let him just say. That said, the tension in his legs doesn't ease up, not exactly, and the way Dimitri's expression darkens doesn't help that. He looks so very different than the optimistic and stalwart prince Claude remembers from their school days...

"Claude," Dimitri says, and, hoo, the way his voice has dropped since they last saw one another. Claude's heart does a weird flutter, energized in a few different ways. This is probably at least a mildly dangerous. That's fine. Probably. "This is Faerghus."

"I'm aware," Claude says, keeping his voice light, casual. Is that the right choice? He has no idea, but at least it makes him feel better. "But I have my reasons for being here."

Before he can get to the meat of the matter, Dimitri narrows his eyes at him slightly. "...Are you trying to grow a beard?"

"Yes, although I think that's a lot less surprising than finding out that you weren't actually executed for whatever nonsense Cornelia put out-"

"You look terrible with it."

Wow. Wow! Wow. Claude gapes at him for a moment, caught off not only by a little bit of bastardy from Dimitri of all people, but that this is the first conversation they're having after months of war. "Okay!" he says. "Thanks for that bit of input, although, honestly, I'd like to see you show me a Faerghan noble with better facial hair, thank you very much." With all due respect to the resting King Lambert Blaiddyd of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and His Grace Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius, Claude would not say they are winning in that facial hair department at least any more than he is. "Let's put aesthetic differences aside for the time being, because, last I heard, Cornelia had said you were dead."

Clearly, Cornelia was lying. Claude had always suspected this, of course. If Dimitri had truly died, then he has no doubt the Imperial Army would have made as much a spectacle of this as possible. The execution would have had to be public, so that the people of Faerghus would be all the more demotivated. If he had truly died, well...

The Fraldarius family - one of the strongest forces in Faerghus, almost the main component to why the country as a complete whole hasn't fallen - has been an enormous pain in the side of the illegitimate regent and her forces since practically Day 1. That was just with them refusing to accept her taking over like she did, the bullshit about Dimitri murdering his uncle, and basically the entire mess that this war is. Claude has actually heard a lot of daring tales about duke and heir clashing against Imperial forces, including a raid to steal back a holy item. For all that Felix had been quite bitter and caustic towards the prince of Faerghus in their school days... It was obvious that his disappearance had set something aflame in the swordsman, and his father no different.

If either of them had seen Dimitri's corpse, Claude isn't entirely sure Fhirdiad Castle wouldn't have been set on fire.

There are only a few people that could explain exactly what happened that day. For most of them, Claude is pretty sure he'd never get to meet most of them, in the case of the soldiers who surely stood in the way of the prince's escape, or they'd never tell him the truth in any case, like Cornelia. Dimitri is the one person left who he can get answers from.

Of course, that's a bit of a problem with what seems to be Dimitri's everything right now. Claude almost isn't sure if Dimitri will give him an answer, with how difficult he was. And yet... As he looks into that haggard and pale face, some of that peculiar distance reemerges into his eye, and Dimiri's inhale shudders throughout his entire body. "I didn't," he finally manages to say, which was a given. Claude doesn't poke or tease at him for it, however. He just stays quiet, patient and waiting. "They would have, if they could, but..." The exhale, now. It practically clatters against his teeth, or maybe that's just the chill finally setting in. "Dedue..."

Ah. Claude's expression softens in sympathy. He understands, now... It makes sense, honestly.

The bulk of their surveillance has, of course, had to be on the main Adrestian forces, held back by honestly only a river and a lot of clever maneuvering as Claude has stepped more and more into his role as the Riegan heir. His grandfather, after all, isn't going to last much longer. Probably not before the new year comes, quite frankly, with winter coming for them down in Leichester.

Yet it would be beyond idiotic to completely ignore the drama going up to the north of them, even if none of them can help that much at all - not with his own hands being full with not only warding off the Empire, but dealing with a bunch of bickering nobles all around the table, far too many who seem to think that going along with Edelgard's plans would spare them. So of course he'd made sure to have some people at least keep an eye out in what was happening in that direction. It wasn't as many people as he'd like... but that was just the hand life had dealt him, so Claude had played the cards he could.

That had let him hear about the archer who had protested against the Imperial march into the Gaspard region, saving those who were under threat from war's cruelties. It let him hear about the healer and her mage defender, who blew away those who would seek to ruin the last place of healing on the front lines. And for that dashing rider at the coldest edges of Faerghus, who would dive into enemy formations with skillful riding and send their formations scattering with skilled magic...

Yet not once had he heard anything about the loyal vassal to the crown prince.

Which Claude had always found unusual, of course. Even if Dedue had never been particularly liked by most of the Faerghn knights from what even Claude had managed to hear, his presence at Dimitri's side had been undeniable. If something had happened to Dimitri, well... If the Fraldarius family would have burned Fhirdiad Castle to the ground, then Dedue probably would have reduced it to rubble. That kind of heartbreaking rage...

The same kind of rage that Dimitri wears on his face right now, expression contorting into something outright painful.

I'm sorry is what one would typically say in a moment like this. Claude never had a chance to get himself involved in such things, however. He couldn't have saved Dedue. So instead, he looks Dimitri in the face and says quietly, "He would be glad that you're still alive, Dimitri." Alive, despite all of the machinations of their enemies. While he never got as much of a chance to know Dedue as much as he would have liked, Claude knows that Dimitri was important to him. To do something so dangerous... There's no way he wasn't aware of the risk. "But where exactly are you going? There aren't any towns near here."

Keeping the conversation going seems to be the right choice. With him right there, talking, it makes Dimitri focus on him again instead of going in on his own grief, and that gaze eventually refocuses. "It doesn't matter to someone like you," Dimitri growls at him.

There are a lot of ways Claude could counter - how the still living existence of Faerghus' crown prince is important to everyone, how he's trying to meet with one of the few resistance forces, all of that.

Yet that isn't what truly comes to mind as he looks over at Dimitri. Instead, he thinks of when they were students, and how, for all the darkness that dogged at his footsteps, in his shadow, Dimitri still seemed to do his best so smile like a lone star's light in the night sky. He thinks about how he'd seen Dimitri help so many people back in the monastery, how he'd huff at him when he teased him too much only to laugh a little too loudly at one of Alois's stupid puns. He thinks of Dimitri talking so energetically to him, eager to reach across country lines for a time of peace with all their countries, and to understand more about someone so different from himself.

He thinks of how, during the attack on Garreg Mach, Dimitri had still shoulder checked a soldier away from him as he'd been drawing his bow, and the prince had helped so many students escape from the attack, even as he'd raged at Edelgard's betrayal in a way that had seemed like a much deeper wound than someone betrayed by a classmate.

"It matters to someone like me because I was worried for you," he says, out of all the answers he could have given.

That's definitely not what Dimitri was expecting; it shows on his face. Of course, it can't be so easy. Immediately, he scowls and looks to the side, as if to bury that weakness. Claude is distantly reminded of Felix. Is this some sort of Faerghan specialty? "You shouldn't," Dimitri says, and the spear makes a quiet whine in his hand from the force of his grip on metal. "What are you doing, Claude von Riegan?"

Honestly? Good question. Claude didn't really have an end goal in mind here. He just knew that it was more important than anything to chase after Dimitri, make sure he didn't get away. His existence could change so much about how the war is going, the politics, everything, but, well, Claude hasn't thought that far ahead... Especially because it needs a lot of thinking ahead. So what is he doing? Well, in the end, he supposes this is one of those occasions where the most honest answer is the best one.

"I was going to take you back with us, and treat you to some shelter and a decent meal," Claude says, and grins, even as he reaches out for Dimitri's hand. The one holding the spear, which he hopes isn't too much of a risk. Hopes won't get him in trouble. It doesn't, not immediately, and instead Dimitri goes still enough to be a statue, staring at Claude uncomprehendingly. "Figure things out from there."

Because so long as Dimitri is there, right in front of him, this beaten down man who looks as though he could disappear with the mist and rain at any second if Claude isn't touching him... Claude is certain he can do something.

And, gods, but with how much the war has beaten down on all of them so much? Sometimes, he feels he truly does need to do something. He needs to help someone, instead of dancing the line that has kept the Leicester Alliance carefully neutral against a force he is positive won't give them the same courtesy.

Dimitri's hand twitches underneath his, and Claude holds his breath. For a second, he wonders if Dimitri will pull away or, worse, take a swing at him. Yet fortune seems to be favoring him today, for all the damned rain doesn't make it seem as such, because Dimitri doesn't do any of those things. Instead, he just glares at him. No doubt it is quite a threatening expression; Claude can't deny that. It's just... With those dark circles under his eyes, and how he looks so miserable, he can't help but feel sad for him more than afraid of him. "You're asking a monster to stay amongst your people," he snaps.

"I thought I was actually asking an old friend, Your Princeliness," Claude says lightly. "Is that really how you see yourself? Actually -" He holds up his other hand. "I think that's a deeper and longer conversation than deserves  being talked about in the rain. You can leave later if you really like, but, for now... What's the harm in coming with me?"

The real answer is that there is none, and he suspects Dimitri knows it. It shows in the way he scowls, and snarls a little under a breath - a sound he never thought he'd hear from the proper and uptight crown prince of Faerghus. Yet, after a moment... He nods. Subtle, slight, but very much there all the same. When he looks away from Claude's eyes, it's just to look down instead at where their hands are joined.

How long, Claude wonders, has it been since Dimitri had been touched in any other way than for battle? The signs of damage on his armor, the dirt along his cape, how no one had spoken of his existence...

Well, he was going to hold onto Dimitri's hand anyway if he could get away with it, if only to make sure that the other man wouldn't disappear on him. This just works out great to his advantage too. Ignoring the way the chill and metal bites into his hand slightly, Claude awkwardly maneuvers himself around the spear, and starts to pull Dimitri along.

Take risks, get rewards - it's always nice when things turn out that way. Claude doesn't often get a chance for that kind of thing, especially with the Leicester Alliance being how it is currently. Of course, his companions have very different ideas for their future leader just running off into the rain, after a presumed dead prince who slaughtered most of an Imperial scouting party in front of them. As he and Dimitri tromp through the mud, back in the direction they came, they fortunately soon come back into sight of Leonie leading his group through the trees in pursuit of him.

Which means he's right in yelling range, even over the thundering pour of rain.

It's fine, in the end, of course, and he's pretty sure his own group isn't opposed to Dimitri's presence - not when all of them understand how important this is too, to find the ghostly prince of Faerghus still alive and well. That doesn't mean they act normal around him, of course. Instead, they seem to keep their distance, staring at him with a mixture of awe and almost fear.

Claude gets why. The why is pretty damn obvious. Back in school, Dimitri was unapproachable in his own unique way - sure, the crown prince of a country, but also the kind of upright and noble guy who seemed sometimes like he popped right out of someone's fairy tale. Being blond haired and wearing blue only really enhanced that image. Now, all of that feeling no longer seems as though it exists in him. Instead, Dimitri walks like a wraith, his dark stare passing right over people like they don't even exist.

Is it all the black armor? Claude kind of feels it's all the black armor. Anyone could look intimidating in black armor. He ponders getting some for Hilda, as a gift and joke  both at once.

Still, for all that they may be intimidated by him, there's no denying how grateful everyone is to have Dimitri on their side when he soon says a simple "This way" and tromps off the beaten path. That's how their group finds themselves in a large cave in the mountainside, safe from the elements. Dimitri doesn't explain how he found it... But Claude supposes the answer is pretty obvious.

A man like Dimitri couldn't just stay in your average town, especially with possibly no money to his person, and with Cornelia's lackeys undoubtedly still looking for him to make that execution finally a true reality instead of a mere fabrication told to the people. Living out in the wilderness, away from society... It's not a glamorous way to live, but it's still a way to live. Better to live in squalor than just die. Claude suspects it's far from the only cave that Dimitri knows about, or has stayed in, either.

Claude is one of the few people who sits next to Dimitri once they've gotten a fire started, which he sort of soon regrets. Dimitri sits a distance from the fire, purposefully separating himself from the others. When Claude settles down besides him, Dimitri eyes him as though unsure of what he even is, before his gaze slides right away.

Not in a talkative mood, apparently. That's okay. Claude has enough chatter in him for both of them. "You know, you never really asked just what a bunch of people from the Leicester Alliance were doing here," he says, watching as Leonie carefully instructs some of the less experienced in their number on how to dry their clothes. The last thing they all need is falling sick all the way out here. "Then again, I don't know just how aware you are of what's going on beyond Faerghus's borders, or, well, anything, really."

Dimitri doesn't answer. Not right away. Claude is fully prepare to wait him out on this, like any proper archer knows how to do. Perhaps the guy realizes that, after a second, because a sigh hisses out from between his teeth. "...Leicester has managed to do well with avoiding the most of the damage."

"In a way," Claude agrees mildly. "So you have been listening, although I won't even begin to imagine where and from who. I'm pretty sure that's only because they've been focusing elsewhere."

"And once they get Faerghus... They will come for yours next."

Oh good, Dimitri gets it. Then again, Claude always figured Dimitri was savvy enough when it came to politics, even if he came off as a naive and optimistic princely types at times. Of course he is. A person who protested in favor of one country, only to watch as it fell to genocide from his own... Dimitri is highly aware of the kind of things that come from politics, especially in who holds what kind of power. The Faerghus royal curriculum didn't fail there, at least.

"Exactly. Of course, if we really wanted, then we could take our time preparing for the eventuality while Faerghus fended off itself in this mess of a civil war... But I don't like that route." Claude shakes his head, brow drawing together. "It would lead to far too many people dying, the longer this war rages on. I'd like to reach out to Edelgard to find out just why she made the decision to start all of this, because I always though of her as sensible enough, back when we were in school together... If she wanted to start a war against the church, that would be one reason, but bringing it down on everyone's heads..." And that's not even going into some of the things that Claude was able to dig up during his time in Garreg Mach. If he was able to get just a little more time...

His thoughts are spread to the wind by Dimitri unleashing a guttural snarl, and Claude jolts in place. When he looks over to the other man, it's to find Dimitri's face drawn into yet another snarl... this one even more intense than those prior, and yet just as pained. At least, certainly in Claude's eyes.

"For a wretched monster like that, the only thing that satisfies her is bloodshed," Dimitri growls, hand tightening into a fist on his lap. "You need not think so much on it."

Jokes on him, because thinking too much on things is about as automatic to Claude as breathing. It's far too late to stop.

"I think we both know it's more complicated than that," Claude says, although he does so carefully. Gently. Even as he fakes watching Leonie and Raphael, all of them, over at the fire... More of his attention is on Dimitri, and any movement he might make. "Even a monster or a beast has reasons for the things it does, whether that's hunger, shelter, or pain. Those aren't things that should be dismissed."

"Does that matter!?" Dimitri snaps, shoulders hunching up. He looks tense... a spring about to snap.

Claude wishes he knew the right words to tell him, but he doesn't. Even back in school, Dimitri held so many bleeding wounds out of sight. Now, while Claude understands some of them - losing his home, his dear friend, practically his existence - there's still so much he still doesn't know. all he can say is, "Of course. If we know how something started, we get an idea of how to stop it... Both now, and in the future."

The things that made Edelgard what she's like... That made her decide the casualties of a continent wide war were worth whatever her goal is... Claude doesn't want someone to go down that kind of path ever again. Not while he's still alive and breathing, and hopefully even after that.

There's one more thing, too... "And if I can stop that, maybe I can help stop what happened to you happen to someone else, too," Claude says. "Whatever is happening here... It has a connection to the Tragedy, doesn't it?" And Dimitri goes still besides him, still as the dead.

Claude doesn't know everything, although gods know he tries, best he can. The circumstances in Faerghus especially still have a lot of mystery in them to him. Still, with some basic investigation into knowing about that tragic event, how worked up Dimitri has gotten, and honestly how deeply entrenched every other bit of miserable bullshit has started to look like... He can make an educated guess.

Dimitri falls quiet, and it's hard to get a good look at his face. They've been out of the rain just long enough for his hair to dry, and it's no longer the carefully short haircut from their school days. Instead, it's the start of a shaggy mop around his face, not quite reaching his shoulders just yet. That's still more than enough to hide the majority of his expression. Claude doesn't dare try and peer past it all. This is something too serious for such blatant nosiness... and, honestly, he doesn't want to ruin this for Dimitri. This moment for him, where he's been able to be around people, allies, without having to worry about if he'd be stabbed in the back again. 

Finally, he speaks. Low, quiet. A mutter that Claude has to strain his ears for. "You are an idealistic fool, Claude, even after all of these years since we attended school."

Well. That's not exactly a refusal or even necessarily a disagreement with the core idea, or the sense that Claude knows for a fact he's talking. Dimitri is just being difficult about it. Considering the things that have happened to him ever since he entered adolescence, and apparently never stopped... Claude will let him have a little bit of difficulty. He'd love to act the same sometimes, but he knows that's never going to happen. May as well let someone else live that dream, right?

"Well, someone has to keep a bit of hope after all this time," he says, before pushing himself up with a grunt. "Anyway, it looks like they've managed to make a decent meal out of our rations. It might be a little thin for right now, since war isn't easy, and we weren't expecting to pick anyone up... But hopefully it will do alright by you regardless."

Claude is pretty sure that won't be too hard to do. It's impressive enough that Dimitri would have survived on his own like this out in the wild, although maybe there's something to Faerghus' militant-like culture and training if it helped Dimitri, and even more impressive considering how harsh this land is even to people who have each other to rely on as they struggle through it. But just because he has survived like this doesn't mean it has to have been a pleasant affair.

A warm stew, or even some seasoned jerky, might do him a lot of good. Certainly, Claude doubts it'll worsen his mood.

As he goes to get some of it, however, he's surprised to find that the portion he's handed for Dimitri is a little larger than he would have expected. He gets an answer pretty quickly, and Raphael hefts out a huff. "It's no good to go out on a weak stomach," their protective brawler says. "I'll probably be really hungry, when we finally get to that Duke, but Dimitri looks like he needs it more. So make sure he eats every single bite! It'll keep him going really strong!"

The world has gone to hell. Schoolmates have been forced to turn on one another, as someone who Claude had felt so certain was a good person started a war on the rest of them, for reasons he's fairly certain she hasn't been entirely forthcoming with. Idiot nobles bicker over their own power struggles, instead of thinking about those under them who need help most of all during times like these.

But Dimitri protected them during an enemy attack. Raphael is giving up a little portion of his food so that someone else can eat well. People still fight against injustice.

The world is kinder and better than people like Edelgard and Cornelia would have anyone else believe. For that reason, Claude doesn't mind being thought of as some sort of fool. He'll keep chasing after his dreams... and he lets moment like these remind him why he does it.

Dimitri doesn't complain about the food, just dutifully eats, and everyone manages to put on warm clothes again thanks to the fire they managed to start up. While they've recovered, eaten, the rain outside has only gotten worse, and, frankly, Claude suspects that's in terms of temperature too. Traveling in such weather would just get them turned around, or raise the chances of them running into some stupid disaster. They camp out in the cave for the time being, and Dimitri quietly goes to take up first watch.

Claude plans on sleeping. He really does. With the trip they still have to finish making, and through inclement weather that's only made the path worse, he'll need all the energy he can get. Despite that, he wakes up maybe only an hour or two later, to the gentle sensation of something laying across his entire body, and the sound of metal scraping against stone.

He waits. Just a moment, until the scraping has stopped, and there's only the sound of rain - a little gentler now than when it was pounding against the ground outside like trying to carve evidence of nature's misery into the very earth. Then Claude opens his eyes, and pushes himself up slightly to get a good look at the cave and, more importantly, himself. Really, what's on him is the most important thing of all.

Over in the center of their little group, the fire has died down from its plentiful and comforting roar. Now, only embers crackle in there. Plenty of them, granted, enough to provide a dim glow that illuminates the room. Everyone is accounted for, slumbering peacefully where they lay in their own sleeping bags: Leonie tucked away in a small corner, a bow and dagger easily within her reach should things go bad. Raphael, bag straining to container him while he keeps a hand stuffed in his mouth to keep him from snoring. All of their other companions who are with them on this journey, their own little anxious quirks on display, slumber just as peacefully. Or, at least, as peacefully as could be expected with the situation being what it is.

Claude's own sleeping bag shouldn't be any different than theirs. It was just the practical choice, really - he couldn't afford to stand out as some hoity toity noble with fancier things than all the others. That kind of thing would make him a far too easy and recognizable target.

Extra blankets obviously weren't included as a part of that package, although Claude knew that would make him just absolutely miserable to be left bereft. And yet, undeniably, there is something doing the job right there on top of him. Just... Not a blanket. No. Instead, it is a blue cape that goes past his own feet, and the top of which is composed of black and white fur in alternating layers. Compared to all the other clothing, it dried exceptionally quickly and well, something Claude noticed even before they all turned in for the night.

It absolutely reeks. It's also the warmest thing he's felt for probably days now, and Claude has to resist the greatest temptation in the universe by not wrapping it around himself and never leaving it.

Very possibly, it's his own damned masochism that has him wiggle out of his sleeping bag, although he's not so much an idiot that he doesn't wrap the cloak tightly around himself. Like most of them, he's still wearing his boots as well - just in case of trouble. No cold feet - colder than they already are anyway - as he makes his way through the cave, all the way to the entrance.

Without the white and blue of his cloak, Dimitri really is almost a part of the night. Just like before, it's only the gold of his hair that differentiates him from the dark of night, the dark of stone. His armor is really too good at hiding him, in a strange way. Like he's a part of these miserable dark rocks,  too, slick with the rain...

Maybe someone else would leave Dimitri alone like this. He makes a striking image this way, with his backdrop nothing but a dark rainy night. Claude isn't that kind of person, however. "Thanks for the cloak," he says, drawing it closer around his shoulders as he goes towards Dimitri. It's important to talk, he thinks, before he actually gets besides the other man in order to sit down. On Dimitri's left side. It only feels polite. "Not that I know why you gave it to me. I don't think you became that fond of my nagging, and I'm pretty sure that's what I've mostly been doing here ever since we first met."

Dimitri has to know that he's here. It's not as though Claude was particularly subtle as he approached, in a very purposeful manner. And yet there's no reply, not immediately. Dimitri simply stays quiet, his distant gaze focused on the shifting color the rain makes right outside of their cave, in the dark.

It's almost as though he's listening to something... Any signs of someone who might be approaching their hideaway? Just the rain's steady beat against trees and stone and earth? Or is it something else entirely? Before Claude can even find a single indication that it's any one of those or the other, Dimitri finally shifts slightly in place. "...The beard doesn't suit you."

Oh boy. Here they go again. "If you're going to start insulting my appearance, I can always just go back to sleep first," he says dryly. "It would make us both happy, I'm sure. Honestly, with how long you've been out here in the wild, I'm surprised you haven't grown some fuzz yourself."

Dimitri rolls his shoulders in a shrug. "I do. I get rid of it."

What - did Dimitri get a straight razor somehow as a priority issue while being a wanted man thought dead? And yet Claude can't help but lean a little bit closer. It's hard to see when there's no light... The fire they made is a little deeper in the cave, so that it would be harder for someone to see it from the outside. Honestly it almost feels impossible to see anything at all, until, finally...

"Those healed cuts on your jaw," he mutters, squinting stubbornly through the gloom. Their arms are touching, now, but Claude isn't entirely sure Dimitri feels even the slightest bit of it. Wearing armor does that, and it's not as though Claude is particularly heavy in the first place. "I'd have to see in the daylight to be sure, but... Those are from being treated with potions and the like, right? Wait, did you actually just go at your face with whatever blade you could find, and heal whatever damage there was later?"

At last, Dimitri reacts, shifting away from him with a slight and thin frown. "...There's no getting any sort of razor in the middle of a war."

Claude would love to tell a lot of fussy nobles that, back in Leicester, but he long decided that he wasn't going to pick those kinds of stupid arguments with them? There's something more important to focus on here. "Dimitri, that's reckless... You could really hurt yourself. I don't care if all Faerghans apparently learn how to handle a blade by the time they're five - you still shouldn't keep that to your face if it's not meant to be there. Was growing a beard really that much of a big deal to you...?"

He wouldn't have thought so. It can't be stated enough that Dimitri is the crown prince of a kingdom under siege, the subject of a coup thrown which attempted to kill him, and believed dead as he wanders about the wilderness attacking Imperial soldiers. Why worry about a beard? If anything, a beard would seem like an even better idea. Beards keep a guy warm. 

Probably. Claude can't say he knows from experience just yet.

For a second, it doesn't seem like Dimitri is going to give him an answer, which Claude is starting to suspect may be a regular occurrence. So it's a surprise when Dimitri actually does speak up, and relatively quickly, too. "He already hangs over my shoulders... His words make so many demands. I will give him what he wants, that is no doubt, but, if I see him even in the reflections of water and steel... Will his face eventually warp unto mine?"

What? Claude's brow pinches together as he tries to take in those words. Dimitri says them like they're an answer to the question he asked. In practice, it sounds... Well. It sounds like eerie sleep talk, the kind of thing someone would mumble in their sleep and which would leave any eavesdroppers feeling their skin crawl with a chill.

"Is... someone giving you orders, Dimitri?" he says, for lack of any other idea on what to say. It sounds absurd, of course. Who would give the crown prince of Faerghus, its should be and rightful king, any orders? Especially when he's dead, or at least presumed to be? Certainly a wanted man, at the very least. And do they know about Dimitri running around like this, hiding in caves? The only person that Claude can think of in a position to do so, both politically and personally, would be Duke Fraldarius, but he's pretty sure that man would act much differently if he knew that Dimitri was alive...

Dimitri still isn't looking at him. For some reason, Claude really doesn't like that. "My father," he says and, oh, okay, that's... Okay.

Okay. Claude needs a second here.

King Lambert of Faerghus died years ago, before this war ever thought of starting it up. That is an undeniable fact, and an enormous tragedy that changed so much for so many people, in all the worst ways possible. Granted, Claude has to admit that common knowledge is that the bodies from then were mutilated and sometimes burned so badly that the only way people could recognize the dead were by what armor they wore - something made easier by people like Lambert and one Glenn Fraldarius, whose armor easily made it clear what bloodlines they belonged to. That means that, sure, there could maybe be a chance that the former king was actually alive all this time...

But that's a conspiracy theory Claude isn't entirely sure he's willing to throw too much into. Not yet, at least, with only a brief throwaway line from someone that's clearly gone through the ringer.

Besides, there's one more thing.... It would be one thing if Dimitri were getting orders from his dead father. Yet if it were just something like that, Dimitri wouldn't be talking about such strange and disconcerting things like his face being... what, stolen from him? Claude thinks briefly of the dopplegangers that plagued them all throughout the school year, back in Garreg Mach - Solon, the woman who killed Geralt Eisner, no doubt many others that just never ended up being found out.

Different things, he's pretty sure because Claude has thought long and hard about those dopplegangers. Obviously they weren't the original and real people whose names and identities they stole, but it was telling that no one ever came forth to proclaim themself the real individual.

He wonders if maybe that's why no one with Dimitri's own name and face has popped up for the Empire's own propaganda efforts, especially with such a strong connection between Edelgard, Cornelia, and those doubles. It might have done a good deal for them, but it also would have been a real problem if the real Dimitri ended up coming along back into the light. Between a real and a fake, after all, it wouldn't take much for the power of a Blaiddyd crest to become apparent.

He's getting sidetracked. Point is - not the thing his brain started to think of. "I thought he was dead," he says, trying to balance his tone on the tight line between casual and careful.

"He is," Dimitri says, which is reassuring. Or, at least, it would be reassuring, if not for the words that follow after. "And yet his spirit haunts me still, along with so many others. They can't go, you know.... They can't go to where they belong. Not like this..."

Something digs at the back of Claude's memory, like a dusty old tome that he'd shoved under his bed and then just completely forgot about. He and Annette got to talking, once. The dead, and regrets, things like that. Or, well, he ended up reading way too much into things over what were just silly songs she sang, but the point is, this is sounding a lot like some of the old folklore he's read about from the Faerghus region.

Claude isn't particularly sure if he believes in it as a fact of life. Then again, he's the kind of guy who was skeptical of the Goddess, too, or at least the way that the Church of Seiros told her story.

Still... He doesn't want to chase off Dimitri with an argument over something even he can tell is a sensitive subject. There's too many parts to the complication that is Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd for him to want to move carelessly. "Alright," he says, mostly as filler, so that he isn't quiet for too long. At any rate, he can apply this new information to the thoughts he was considering before. "So you don't want to grow a beard because it would make you look too much like your father..."

Even without everything else that Dimitri has said tonight... That much is understandable. It's human, honestly.

Lambert died a long time ago. No one will ever be able to replace him, or the hole that he left in many people's hearts, Dimitri most of all. To look into a mirror, and see the face of someone you adored, like some sort of mockery...

Claude can understand it in theory. He wonders how it feels, to have someone with such a large spot in his heart that it would affect him like that.

While he might not be able to adequately deal with the whole so the dead talk to me deal just yet, not without a lot more thinking on it, Claude reaches up to rest his hand along Dimitri's pauldron. "Listen, I don't know what you've heard-" He means that literally. "-but your face is always going to be your own. So's the rest of you. Just remember that, alright?"

Feeling a touch past a good few centimeters of solid plate is kind of an impossible task, and that's especially true when it comes to a man who can wear it without even thinking about weight thanks to supernatural amounts of strength. Yet Dimitri still stares down at his hand as though surprised at its very existence, as though it actually weighs something to a man like this. Is it a good stare? A bad one? Claude hopes it's the former; he doesn't need to be snapped at right now, or have his wrist snapped in.

He doesn't get any of his bones broken. Dimitri just turns away, and the look in his eye is... complicated. "...I liked it more when you had a braid."

This is a minor jolt to the conversational path, here, but Claude decides that's fine. Dimitri's trauma has clearly done a number on his old conversational skills. It's not surprising, when he thinks about it. After everything he went through? It's nothing less than a pure miracle, a freak accident of luck, that he didn't fall apart sooner. Claude merely adjusts himself, decides it's fine if he leans against his shoulder. "I mean, if we're honest, I did too," he admits. "But while that might have been fine over in Garreg Mach, it's a little different in the Leicester Alliance, especially as I come closer to running more and more of the Riegan affairs, and thus, to an extent, the entire Alliance." Reaching up, he rubs at the fuzz along his jaw. "Did you know there's quite a few people over there that wear beards? I always knew a lot of them thought of it as respectable, but I didn't realize they judged so heavily about that, too."

But maybe he should have expected that. In a way, he actually did. While he's sure both countries would loathe to hear it, they really do have that sort of thing in common - putting so much weight on facial hair for the most stupidest of reasons. Back in Almyra, it seemed like he got the short end of that stick too, not growing facial hair even though he was, like, what - 12?

But the people who despised his existence didn't need a logical reason, back in Almyra. They didn't need one here in the Leicester Alliance, either. It's stupid, but, well, what can he do?

Dimitri lets out a slow hiss of a breath inbetween his teeth, and somehow the heat which filters out is easier to see than anything else in this cold and miserable night. "Nobility often care about the most asinine things," he says. "You were better than them a long time ago."

Ha - Claude tries not to smile too much, because it's just an old classmate, who happens to be the prince of another country, who's paying him lip service. Except it doesn't feel like lip service. It feels... sincere. Maybe that's just one thing about Dimitri that will never change, no matter what kind of hardships he goes through. He can't help being honest, sincere, every word that leaves his mouth a truth that he believes truly. Claude used to tease him for it, back when they attended school together, but it's not a bad thing at all.

"You know," he says suddenly, "I used to have something of a crush on you back in school."

He wasn't expecting that to have much impact at all, on a guy so worn down and tired and angry. It was just an idle comment, something he meant to use as a lead in on how Dimitri is still showing good qualities after so much. So it's something of a pretty big surprise when Dimitri jerks with almost his whole body, and looks at him with that same wide eyed eyed expression of pure befuddlement that he used to show back in Garreg Mach. "What?" he blurts out.

Claude wheezes in a breath so fast he almost chokes, all to keep himself from bursting out just cackling. Since their reunion right there in the rain, he wasn't entirely sure that he would see that side of Dimitri ever again. The blond had clearly changed since then, and who knew how much of that change allowed for Dimitri as he knew him before? That stiffly proper but golden-hearted prince who would stumble over the implications that someone might be romantically into him, or him acting on any romance otherwise? Who would counter Claude's own teasing by forging straight ahead in whatever challenge or mock battle they were doing at the time?

He really probably shouldn't want to laugh so hard... But somehow, it's a relief, too, to see that Dimitri can still be like this. It's a little bit of proof that maybe someday, in a brighter future, he could still fluster and smile and laugh.

One of many little things that make finishing this war as soon as possible all the more important.

As soon as he's certain that he's not going to wake up the rest of the group with his laughter, or choke on his own breath, Claude shifts so that he can wind the cloak tighter around him again with a wide grin. "I had a lot to say after that, but now I almost don't want to say it. That look on your face is truly priceless, Your Princeliness." Priceless in more ways than one.

Immediately, Dimitri scowls at him. In some ways, it's a lot more fierce and maybe intimidating than when he was young. At the same time, it is like when they were younger, and Claude got one over him in whatever silly and small way it was that day. "You are just mocking me again," he grumbles, metal grinding against metal as he hunches up his shoulders. Distantly, in the back of his mind, Claude wonders if he's any warmer for it.

Just distantly, of course. Presently, he chuckles, and leans a little more towards Dimitri again. "Just because I almost laughed doesn't mean I was telling a lie, you know. I really was pretty fond of you back then." Of course, he hadn't really planned for it to go anywhere... His situation would never have allowed it. Still, he'd felt what he'd felt, and daydreamed more than once.

He can almost see the gears in Dimitri's head turning, even just watching him from the corner of his eye. "...You liked me for who you thought I was," Dimitri finally says dismissively. "It's good you grew out of it."

If the man wasn't wearing plate armor that's clearly survived a year in the wilderness plus who knows how many attacks on Imperial soldiers, Claude is pretty sure him jabbing Dimitri in the side isn't going to do anything. He contemplates it anyway. "I liked you for the guy I saw teaching orphans how to defend themselves, and who I saw trying out sewing with Mercedes once out in the courtyard," Claude says. "Don't try to out-logic me, buddy, I've overthought my own feelings about you way more than you have, I can promise you that. Anyway, the only reason that my crush on you was a crush, past tense, was because we haven't seen each other for around a year, and also a war started happening." He shrugs. "Sort of hard to really stick with any romantic fantasies there, you know?"

Dimitri is still staring at him, like he can unravel some sort of hidden meaning if he just avoids blinking for long enough. Eventually, he seems to give up on it, and he turns his head away, back towards the rainy night. "...War does that."

Claude supposes a country like Faerghus would know that most of all... And Dimitri has probably been living his own internal war for longer than Claude ever gave him credit for. "Well, we'll end it soon, hopefully," Claude says, "although hope is something that only take fruit when you work hard enough at it."

"Is that why you are here, then, Claude von Riegan?"

Back in Garreg Mach, it was Claude that was one of those labeled as a schemer, as the clever one. In contrast, everyone knew Dimitri for his straightforward tactics, and an honesty that was almost painful. Yet Claude is well aware that doesn't make him an idiot of any stripe. To survive to his teen years in a country that was as unsteady as Faerghus, with lots of people who would surely love to take advantage of a young crown prince with no other family that would really watch his back anymore... He's had to become smart. That was especially true with the kind of things Dimitri put a lot of importance in, like defending Duscur's reputation. It's one thing to care about a matter like that, and another to figure out the right way to solve it.

Granted, half the time that looked like Dimitri on the verge of dueling half his own knights for saying something inappropriate about Dedue, but hey. Sometimes a part of the plan has to be loudly smacking one's hands in front of another's face, to snap them out of it. Claude's rarely been able to use that tactic himself, but he knows it works on occasion. Certainly shuts people up, depending on the circumstances.

At any rate... This is going to be affecting Dimitri, too. Claude supposes that he should tell the other man, although a part of him is hesitant to. There's still so much to be concerned about when it comes to how much he can trust Dimitri, or at least this worn down version of him who seems so unstable and has so many mysteries behind him.

Hiding it won't do him any good. He decides that, after a quick second, well aware of Dimitri's heavy gaze on him. "It is," Claude says. "If you're really curious to know... We were heading off to Fraldarius, to meet with the Duke there."

Claude expected that to have a reaction at least. He just wasn't expecting Dimitri to suddenly get up to his feet. "I- can't," he grits out. "I cannot. Not after.."

No answer comes, just trailing off, but Claude wasn't exactly waiting for an answer before he reacts, one hand snapping up to latch onto one freezing metal gauntlet. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," he says gently, and feels distantly like he's calming down an aggravated wyvern. Dimitri is about as dangerous as one, he'd say. "Dimitri, it's fine. You don't have to see him. That's just where we're going." He'd say it's okay, that everything is going to be fine, except he doesn't like to make promises such as that. Things are very clearly not okay.

At least that tactic works out, far as he can tell. Dimitri doesn't go tearing off into the rain and trees. He just stays there, eye riveted on something unseen right there in front of him. Who is he listening to, exactly? Claude would like it if it was just the rain that was filtering into his ears.

"I can't let him hear Glenn," he mutters, although it seems like a thing he says more to himself than Claude. "I can't even let him hear Glenn."

The things Dimitri is dealing with just keep piling up... Claude wasn't expecting this when he first insisted Dimitri come along with them, but he wasn't expecting to run into him in the first place, especially not on this trip. "You don't have to see him," he simply repeats. He doesn't like avoiding a problem like this, but he's not nearly equipped to handle it. "Dimitri... Hey." He tugs on one hand a little. "Dimitri, look at me, okay?" It takes a little bit more action to finally drag Dimitri's gaze back to him, but Claude feels it's worth it in the end. Has to be. "Whoever else you're listening to... Listen to the living too, okay? Listen to me. I'm going to help you."

Probably, he'll be able to do that.

Dimitri seems a little more skeptical of this front, although Claude will take skepticism - it's better than that foggy and distant look in Dimitri's gaze. "And just what do you think you can help me with?" he growls, voice rolling low, past the rain. A part of it, almost.

What Claude would really like to say is that he could help him get a decent bath for the first time in months, maybe eat something that wasn't brutally haunted and likely clumsily prepared over a campfire, and maybe have him not take orders from dead people. Those are all goals that would be pleasant to achieve, and probably do Dimitri a bit of good. Something in him is pretty sure that's not what Dimitri wants to hear. What he consciously wants.

"Considering that you mowed down a bunch of Imperial soldiers and then tried to immediately leave?" Claude quirks up an eyebrow. "I'm going to take a shot at revenge."

Revenge for the war. Revenge for killing yet another member of his family. Revenge for taking over his country. Revenge, no doubt, for the suffering of so many people for a senseless war that makes no sense except, perhaps, to Edelgard herself.

And there's more to it than just that, it seems. Claude watches Dimitri's lips part slightly, that barest hint of white which betrays the presence of his teeth. The heat which trickles past like smoke. "She started all of this," he hisses. "She killed them, Claude. My parents. Glenn. Countless innocent knights and servants. How dare she. How dare she."

That doesn't sound right. Yet it also doesn't sound like, through all that Claude has dug up, that there's zero connection. He just needs to find what the actual thread is.... Well, he was going to do that anyway. "We'll reveal the truth of things, then," Claude says, and doesn't mention whether it's what Dimitri believes is true or not. "Anyway, sit down. I have your cloak, so you'd just freeze to death out there anyway. Gods know I would."

Dimitri might still run off as he is, honestly, but he wavers. Doesn't. It takes a little while, longer than Claude is really happy about when it's still freezing cold and he's holding onto metal, for Dimitri to sink back down to the ground. "You were cold," Dimitri murmurs, looking down at that same hand.

"You say that as though that was something that ever stopped," Claude says, amused and letting the conversation twist once again. That's going to be the norm here. At least Dimitri is sitting back down with him again. "You know, with how much we've covered, I'm not sure we ever actually got to why you gave your cloak to me? I feel like that got lost, somehow." He's pretty sure Dimitri started talking about... his beard, right? Claude is pretty sure that's the turn that particular line of conversation went.

A blank blink. Does Dimitri even remember that he asked that question? It wasn't that long ago, sure, but Dimitri seems as though he's having a time of it... to put it lightly. "You..." He frowns, tries to scowl again, as if that will chase the matter of answering this little question away. It doesn't. Claude has been glared at by far worse people and, even seeing the kind of carnage Dimitri was able to carve, he doesn't think the blond quite matches up. "...It doesn't matter."

Ah, the words of someone for whom the answer in fact matters quite a bit. Claude grins. "What, did I end up getting you back for that crush you bestowed me back in Garreg Mach? Have I charmed you just moments within meeting?"

It's mostly a joke, something he doesn't put much stock in. Yet Dimitri goes even more still in the darkness, and turns away with an awkward jerk of his shoulders. "...You always did talk far too much," he grumbles. The thing is, he's probably not wrong, but that's also definitely not an answer to his nonsense.

Claude leans in closer. It's still far too dark to see Dimitri's skin properly, to tell if that pale shade has become darker with a dash of red across it. It's just his endless curiosity that wants to know, right? Claude tells himself that, and that his curiosity definitely isn't because he wants to see it himself. "Hey, let's go back to the fire," he suggests. "You must be pretty freezing, out here in just your armor. C'mon, how about it?"

Another low grumble of a growl. It reminds Claude of an old hunting dog, not wanting to move from its spot. "That is a shallow excuse coming from you, and you are well aware of it."

"Maybe so," Claude concedes, and just grins wider. "But what you didn't consider, Dimitri, is that even just you refusing to come with me into the light so that I could see your expression gives me an answer as well. If you don't want to even consider going near the fire, or what's left of it, then that must mean you're aware of what your expression is like. You really are blushing, aren't you?"

A beat of silence. A huff. "That's... It is merely because I do not want to leave my post."

"Then why not lead with that, instead of trying to point out what I was doing?"

Both of them know Claude is right, of course, and that's exactly why Dimitri doesn't say anything. All he does is scowl in the darkness, something that Claude is barely able to see. Well, that's fine too.

Chuckling, Claude draws his hand back into the confines of the cloak. It's really too cold to keep his hand out like that. He needs all the warmth he can get. "I'm not saying that as a bad thing, you know... Honestly, I'm really glad that you can still react like that. If I'm completely honest, then you actually were really frightening when I first saw you today. I mean, no doubt a part of it was the weather - even someone like Hilda could look frightening during a rainy and misty day like this. And then you swoop in, swinging a lance around, killing Imperial soldiers..." The blood had stood out so starkly in Faerghus's dim and grim landscape. Claude feels as though it might haunt him. "I almost didn't realize it was you. I still don't know how I did."

Maybe a part of it had just been a keen archer's eye, picking up on little details that were then entwined into something coherent by a desperate hope and the quick knowledge of intuition. Things like the faintest shape of the Faerghus crest on that fluttering blue cloak he wears now, or the recognition of Dimitri's exact shade of blond hair. The lancework he was so familiar with back in school, warped into something just a little more reckless now.

Who knows. Claude certainly doesn't.

"And things didn't exactly improve when I managed to catch up with you," he continues. "I mean, the fact that you tried to run away like that had my brain wondering just what kind of disaster I'd wandered into, or if you were even the same person. And, well. You've changed. Obviously, and for obvious reasons." Claude can't blame him for that. How could anyone? "But... You still guided us to shelter so that we could wait out the rest of the storm instead of wandering around lost and wet and probably dying of hypothermia. You helped protect us in the first place." Reaching up, he runs his fingers along the black and white fur resting around his shoulders. "And you can still get flustered like this. Those are good signs. At least, that's what I think."

For a long moment, there's just silence. Claude deals with it well enough. Honestly, silence - save for the beat of rain - is kind of a blessing to him. Back in the Alliance, he's had to spend far too much time where silence was almost more precious than gold, at least in his eyes. Everyone needed his attention, from his grandfather's fervent desires to still be included and give directions, to the latest missive carried in by a servant, to whatever idiot at the round table had to open their big mouth.

Here, it's just the rain, and him, and Dimitri.

Dimitri breaks the quiet eventually, because that had to happen sooner or later. "You are mistaken. There is no good in this husk of a creature, in this monster that I am... Just a monster, who brings nothing but suffering and death to those that are around me."

Once upon a time, Claude is fairly certain he used to hear rumors that Marianne and Dimitri spoke occasionally in the cathedral, their hushed exchanges a mystery to everyone but them. He'd wondered about it himself, honestly. Funny how he'd get what he's fairly certain is the answer so much later, and when Marianne isn't even anywhere in the area.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not mistaken at all," Claude counters, casual as anything. "But if that's the way you think... That's why you've been avoiding people like Duke Fraldarius so much, and everyone else who knew you back in school, isn't it? It's why you've been trying to take down Imperial soldiers all on your own."

It's a train of thought that goes against logic, but what is a thing like logic compared to the heart-rending pain and trauma of consistently losing those beloved to you? Dimitri was the sole survivor of a massacre, and then the only one who made it out of Fhirdiad when he was betrayed once more. How many people have to die around you before you too decide that the common factor in all of that is yourself?

That's not how it works, of course, but Claude can see the reasoning. Can see why Dimitri has been so scared to see familiar faces again.

Granted, that then brings up an entirely difference matter. "Although if we go with that incredibly likely theory... Just why was it that you ended up agreeing to my own demands?"

Claude had made an attempt to convince him, of course, both in terms of how it would be easier to get his revenge with a group than on his own, and he'd been more sincere than he'd been in months to most people... But had that all truly been enough? At the time, he thought it might have been. Now, with new information, and new theories... Well, he doesn't want to think that Dimitri dislikes him or Leonie or Raphael so much that he'd hope they'd end up meeting the same fate as so many others who had been around him. It's just that he can't deny that's a possibility in this Dimitri that he still has to relearn in some ways.

Such a worry is soon quickly and gently put to rest. Dimitri lets loose another one of those low weary dog sighs. "...I was going to leave to start with."

Ah, time to figure out the puzzle that is Dimitri's confusingly developed conversational skills. "So you always meant to leave after partnering up with us," Claude says. "Do you mean just vaguely eventually, or something a little more exact?"

It's almost a guarantee that Dimitri is scowling in the darkness. "I would have already been gone by now if I had my way."

Yeah, that sounds exactly like Dimitri - both the prince Claude knew in the past, who worried so intensely about others, and this man sitting besides him now, trying so hard to fade into the mist and rain instead of rejoining the living. A small chuckle pops past his lips before he can stop it. Claude supposes he doesn't particularly want to. "Of course... After leading us to a safe and dry shelter." His fingers grind against fur some more. "And after giving me a cloak, so that I would be guaranteed to say warm. You never even lashed out at me, or any of the others."

Just snapping, and glaring, and insults towards Claude's beard.

No answer comes for a long time after that, and Claude gives up on hearing one from Dimitri. An honest one, at least. Instead, he just lets out a soft and warm breath of his own, and leans against Dimitri. Almost a pity that it's so damn cold, even with Dimitri's cloak. He thinks he could fall asleep like this. "People have wanted to kill me for a long time, you know," he murmurs as they sit there in silence, more than willing to fill up the silence enough for two people. He just doesn't say that it had nothing to do, not exactly, with anyone's views of him in the Alliance. "But here I am, still alive despite all their attempts. With me right there next to you, our luck will cancel each other out, don't you think?"

Obviously, that's not how it works on any level. Dimitri wasn't responsible for all the terrible things that happened to him. Claude fought for his own life with his own ability and desperation, with occasionally only the barest of help from other people. But hey, who knows? Maybe a little bit of luck is exactly what the two of them need... to believe in, if nothing else.

"....You really are ridiculous, Claude." Despite that, Dimitri's form almost seems to be easing up, difficult though that may be to tell when he's wearing such stiff armor. At the very least, his head bows, hair falling around his face. If it was hard to see his expressions before, it's impossible, now. "Would you really risk your life? The lives of others? For someone who is nothing more than a murderous monster?"

"Apparently I'd risk all that for a guy I had a crush on back when I attended the military academy," Claude comments dryly, and smirks when that curtain of gold jerks, slides away to show off a glare he's sure is set his way. "But more than any of that... I would risk it to help a friend, and someone who I think really could save the lives of a lot more people, if I could convince him that it's going to work out all right. Of course, I'm not so naive as to promise that to be an absolute guarantee... But nothing in life is guaranteed, right, Dimitri? I'm sure you know that more than anyone... With how hard you've worked for years, now, with your own training."

Is that enough to convince Dimitri? Is it enough to keep him at his side, maybe even all the way to Fraldarius? Claude isn't entirely sure, because Dimitri isn't giving an answer. There's only the rain again... Well, sometimes it's important to aggressively push an idea, if one can manage it. Yet it's important for a little bit of breathing space to be granted, too.

So Claude pushes himself up to his feet and, with no small amount of reluctance, peels the cloak from off around his shoulders. "Here," he says, and swings it around Dimitri's own shoulders. Getting that close, and he can see that blue eye staring up at him with absolute confusion. "If you're really determined to slip off into the night, then I don't want you to end up dying after all this just from some stupid cold. But... If you're even a little bit convinced by the things I've been saying after all this, if you think that I could find a way to get that revenge you're looking for and that I could keep both of us safe without falling prey to the tragedies that have happened to those around you... Then stick around, even if just for a little while now." Shuddering, he wraps his arms tightly around himself. "In the meanwhile, I'm going to go back to sleep before I end up freezing to death."

As Claude hurries back into the cave where he can coax the fire back up, he reflects on what a risk he's taking. It'd be a damn pity to lose Dimitri after he's been missing and presumed dead so long... But that's fine. Knowing that Dimitri is actually still alive, and that he's been staying in Faerghus, is valuable knowledge all its own.

And besides... There's no guarantee that Dimitri will leave, either.

When he wakes up in the morning, it's to the sound of everyone else doing very much the same. Can't be helped - Claude's always been sensitive to the slightest noise around him. While the careful droning of rain might have helped him a little bit, everyone else had been far too close for him to ignore so easily. So as people start prying themselves out of their sleeping bags, and Raphael yawns loud and deeply enough to go straight to the center of the earth, Claude too rouses himself and quickly looks around.

They'd brought a single spare sleeping bag, in case anything happened to any of theirs, and because it's always good to be prepared. Dimitri had refused it - had said he'd be just fine sleeping on his own, with his cloak for warmth. Claude had wondered, at the time, if Dimitri slept at all, considering the dark circles under his eye... And he's certainly not slept tonight, as Claude's gaze does a quick skim of the cave, and finds no sign of Dimitri propped up against one of the walls, or curled up in the best approximation of a corner he could find. It's just them, and a fire that's since died out.

Claude doesn't let his sinking heart show on his face. Instead, he just untangles himself from his own sleeping bag, and stretches out his sore limbs. Camping was always something that bugged him, with the state it left him in, but it can't be helped. "So, how are our rations looking?" he asks, to anyone who'll honestly listen to him, or can provide the answer.

"No need to worry about that!" comes Leonie's bright and confident voice. His eyes are drawn to her as she comes back in from the entrance, smiling widely as she holds up a few rabbits with one hand. "I went hunting this morning. The rain's stopped, and it turns out Faerghus wildlife try to take advantage of that. I'd always heard of that, but I guess it's true." Settling herself down in an area where no one's claimed the space yet, Leonie starts to get everything out in preparation for getting the rabbits fit to eat. A messy job, but one she's always handled so easily.

Well, it's good to know that's one less thing they'll have to worry about. Still stretching out his arms, Claude walks over with a grin on his face. "Well! It looks like you were quite successful, so early in the morning. But didn't you have the last stretch of watch duty, Leonie? Was it really fine to just run off like that in that case?"

"You don't have to worry, I didn't abandon my post," Leonie says, inspecting her knives carefully to make sure they're in the right shape for her task. "Dimitri took over for me - actually, he's the one who pointed out that it would be a good morning for hunting."

Claude almost doesn't hear the rest of her words, after that first sentence. Instead, his heart beats painfully in his chest, and he turns away, heads back in the direction of the entrance. Sure enough, sitting there in gloomy sunlight, is a familiar figure draped in white and black furs, a stretch of blue flowing from him. His battered spear is propped up against one shoulder, clearly barely holding on now that Claude can see it better without rain or mist in the way.

God. He must look like an idiot, with how much he's smiling. Claude can't help it, and just plops right down next to Dimitri. His ass doesn't appreciate it, but his ass isn't going to appreciate the hours of riding that are coming up either. "So you stayed," he comments, trying to be more casual than stupidly giddy. Why is he so happy? He should rein it in a little.

It's not exactly a sunny and beautiful day, here in Faerghus. The sky is still dark and miserable, gray cloud bloating everything about the trees. Low to the ground, mist still creeps along the dirt and grass. When Claude breathes, heat still filters out from his mouth, and fades away.

And yet the world still breathes and thrives no matter the misery. In the trees, birds chirp out songs to herald that a new day has still come and they're all alive. Past the faded and washed out colors of the mist, greenery seems to pop out all the more, and a soft verdant wind rustles through the foliage. Right besides him, Dimitri is still there - alive, breathing, and staying right there for him.

Well. Probably not for him. Probably for revenge. Still, isn't it nice to feel special now and then?

"I stayed," Dimitri simply says, as though this is nothing important, as if he didn't almost run off at being told that Claude's destination was Fraldarius. He shifts slightly, metal grinding against metal. In the light of day, it's a lot easier to tell how he's avoiding looking Claude in the eyes.

Well, if he's feeling a little bit shy, that's fine. Claude will more than happily take that. "I'm glad," he tells Dimitri, bracing his hands against the stone behind him as he leans back, and immediately regretting it as cold greets his poor palms. A decent enough trade for letting him sit like this? Time will tell. "I was honestly worried when I didn't see you with everyone else."

"I am not one of you," Dimitri says dismissively, and maybe that's true, on some level. Certainly it's true with how Dimitri apparently views all of them - Claude is pretty sure there's more to the reason why he didn't go to sleep with the rest of them and wake up in the morning. A little more of that particular puzzle is revealed as he hunches up his shoulders, cheek to spear. "Staying with all of you... Everyone is telling me that it's a mistake. That I won't be able to put them to rest like this... That it should be my burden alone."

Everyone else... King Lambert, Glenn Fraldarius, who knows how many others. Claude wonders if the voices Dimitri hears actually sound like any of the people he cares for so deeply, or if his own biases and the passage of time have changed all that, and he just doesn't know it.

It doesn't really matter, he guesses. That sort of thing is just idle speculation, and Claude isn't entirely sure how helpful it would be to anyone. The most important thing is this: Dimitri has stayed. "Then all you have to do is prove that kind of idea wrong," Claude says simply, and smiles at Dimitri when his head turns just enough to glance at Claude. "Things aren't set in stone, Dimitri. You and I both know that. It's why you used to work so hard to become someone that could change Faerghus, and give Dedue a place to belong, right? Stay with me, and I'll help show you a lot of things beyond the forests that you've been hiding in all these months."

And what he'll show him... is the world that Claude is striving for, too. A world where things like that won't happen to Dimitri again, won't happen to Dedue, won't happen to him.

"Stubborn and optimistic," Dimitri murmurs, still just barely staring at him. Before Claude can counter against such an observation, Dimitri keeps speaking. "But then... That was the sort of thing that drew my attention to you, all the way since back in Garreg Mach..."

Since all the way back in Garreg Mach... A silly little part of Claude that still remembers how it felt to wear a school uniform flutters in pleasure. It's soon quickly overridden by another part of him, which is his brain that picks up on every single bit of information that wanders past him. "Since Garreg Mach?" he echoes, and knows he's on the right track to something with the way Dimitri freezes up. "Not even back in Garreg Mach?" Does this mean...?

Dimitri gets up abruptly to his feet, and Claude is vaguely hit with a sense of deja vu. "I am going," Dimitri says. "You'll need food."

"Oh no you don't, Leonie can make more than enough with what she got today-"

It takes a little bit of time, and a lot of stupid bickering, to get Dimitri to stay. Fortunately, that's also around the time that breakfast is finished up, and, well, nothing stops a bickering mouth like shoving food into it. It's not a luxurious meal, but it's still a decent  one, and Claude doesn't complain. They're really lucky that they have such skilled people like Leonie and Dimitri there to watch over them, he supposes...

After that? Well, after that, they still have to make up for a lot of lost time that an Imperial scouting group and the terrible weather took from them. It feels a little bit awkward for all of them to prepare their horses - who'd put up admirably with terrible weather and a dreary cave, he has to say - while Dimitri just stands around as he's fully prepared to go out on foot... But it can't be helped. While they may have packed an extra sleeping bag just in case, a horse is a lot more than that. They'll just have to keep on carefully forging on as always.

Yet there's still something badgering gently in the back of his mind... Something he knows he said offhandedly, but which doesn't seem entirely right, not with what he knows. As they all make their way through the forest and mountains, on their way to Fraldarius, Claude devotes some of his time to picking at it.

What was it? What did he say that wasn't quite right?

It hits him as they're making their way down a particularly bothersome path, and Raphael points out some flowers so brilliant a blue that they stand out even in the mist - "Oh, my sister would love those!"

"It means we're getting closer to Fraldarius," Dimitri mutters, voice somehow heard over their travel. Sometimes, it really does seem like he does everything possible to make himself into a ghost, and that means speaking softly, too. "That flower is responsible for the blue of this country... It's something that was vital to us, once."

Something vital to Faerghus... Something vital to Dimitri... It's a vague train of thought, and yet, that's just the stimulus that Claude needs for his thoughts to snap right into place. He immediately gets off of his horse, handing the reins over to Leonie, all so that he can jog up to the front and clasp his hand on Dimtiri's shoulder. "Hey," he says, ignoring the way that Dimitri stares at him. "Something just hit me, Dimitri."

"What nonsense are you going on about now..."

"They never found Dedue's body either, did they?"