2024 Dimiclaude Exchange

[warmskies]

He's standing in the middle of a freezing Faerghan forest.

An enraged one-eyed man is storming straight at him.

And Claude is pretty sure that he should still have been in the Academy, bickering with Lysithea in the way that they so often do, but listen. Things happened. And there's really no time for him to really think deeply in on that, although, as his feet trip and slip against icy rocks, Claude does have to wonder a couple of things.

Namely, if the Goddess really does exist and is watching everything from her star, is she just as confused as he is when he popped out of nowhere, or does she think this is all a great big laugh?

...Okay, there are a few more things, but Claude puts more of his mental faculties towards diving towards the side, out of the swing of that massive lance. "Hold on!" he yells, his one means of defense - he didn't even show up in this place with so much as an arrowhead. Yelling is all that he can do. "Hey - I'm a noncombatant! I'm a student!"

Granted, to many people that might be the sort to start swinging a giant lance around in the middle of nowhere, that doesn't really mean a lot. Those types of people tend to be bandits, or criminals on the run - essentially the kinds of guys who really don't need any sort of witnesses running around, no matter how dashing and clever and really good looking that witness might be. So it's really not a surprise to Claude that his words fall on deaf ears as the man in pitch black armor straightens up, already swinging his lance again in hopes of catching him by so much as the tip.

But because it's no surprise, that means it's easy enough to have made plans against already. Not particularly elaborate plans, considering Claude's involves scaling a thick and rather barren tree higher than his rather tall opponent or even his lance can reach there on the ground, but it's a plan nonetheless.

And he's always been a pretty quick climber.

Necessity and all that.

So he's up a good couple of branches, already higher than he is tall, when that lance goes swinging, and he grimaces just feeling the rush of air that comes with all the power behind it right beneath his feet. Funny, it almost makes him feel nostalgic in a way - which is a funny thing to say considering that he only saw Dimitri not that long ago, only that morning as a matter of fact.

Fun wistful memories of three hours ago can be put on the backsaddle for right now. Claude just focuses on scrambling to a pair of branches where he can balance both of his feet, and still look down to where this scary lancer is waiting for him with bared teeth. "Listen, I'm better off to you alive than dead," he says, trying to use his best cajoling voice even as his brain is still clicking along in schemes and tactics. This guy is practically a berserker, all lance first and any questions later, but he can use that to his advantage. Next time he strikes, he might be able to leap down, get his feet right against that guy's head... "I'm the heir to House Reigan; I can arrange a lot of valuables be handed over in return for my safety."

It's a pretty good deal, all truth be told. You know, for something that he's absolutely bullshitting in the moment, and may completely go back on depending on how the rest of this encounter goes. Claude just hopes that this guy isn't smart enough to think of that particular possibility.

However, unfortunately, he does stop and think for a moment, gauntlet still wrapped tight around the lance he carries. Now that they've entered a period that isn't composed of Claude ducking away from increasingly violent attacks on his person, he can see just what a complete disaster his attacker is. The armor may be good - actually, it's fantastic, clearly not the kind of thing that just any old bandit harassing villages would get a hold of, pitch as night in a way that only expert blacksmiths can craft - but it's worn. Claude can't even begin to imagine how many battles it's lived through now, judging by all those scrapes.

Yet it can't even compare to the weapon that is gripped there in the man's hands. When's the last time it was sharpened properly? Rust glitters dull as blood along the whole length of it; surely this can't be his only weapon.

Then again... Claude's gaze finally lands on the one which is focused so intently on him, a single bright blue eye that nearly burns with more emotion than he thinks he's ever seen in his life. Yet only a single eye. If there's anything left of its partner, well, Claude can't see it, not when it's hidden behind a ragged black eyepatch.

Funny. Maybe it's that blond hair - limp in a particularly wet way as it hangs around the man's face and brushes at his armor's pauldrons - but he can't help thinking of Dimitri as he looks down at the guy.

Whoof. He's really down bad if all he can think of is Dimitri while his life is on the line here. Considering that the Blue Lions House also is home to people like Ingrid and Mercedes (actually, does Mercedes count?), it's not as though Faerghus is lacking in blonds here. Even if, in those facial structures, Claude could swear that he sees a little bit of Dimitri there - the hard line of his nose, the particular shade of blue... Did his Uncle ever produce some sort of stray bastard, maybe? With his reputation, it wouldn't be surprising.

Just, unlike Dimitri, this fun new stranger doesn't have any of his princely charm. He just bares his teeth, focused right on him. "How dare you," he snarls, and, wait, what did he do? "How dare you come here, looking like that!?"

Oh, dammit, it's this sort of thing again. Claude's smile stays a little frozen right there on his face, even as he wants to drag his hands over his face. This looks far more north than anything, if the trees and all the snow is any indication, and yet apparently that's not far enough for him to get away from the nonsense of the Alliance. Or - actually, if this is far up north, maybe he's being mistaken as Dusci?

"Sorry that I'm just naturally handsome like this," he shoots off, because he can't contain himself, and he needs some sort of relief, no matter how minor. "But if you just let me down out of this tree, I'm sure you won't have to look at this appearance of mine ever again."

It's not ideal, or anything, you know - making his way through a snowy and miserable patch of land until he can figure out where exactly he is up in Faerghus, get some help of friendly towns people or something. Lysithea's magic really must have sent him flying somewhere if he's this up north. But he thinks he'd still rather take that option than have this guy keep swinging his lance around.

Something about his response, at any rate, seems to have the stranger pause, eye narrowing for a moment as though trying to figure out what his angle is. You know, whatever angle he thinks might exist that isn't just Claude trying to survive here.

"...Did he have a son?" the man mutters to himself, although Claude's keen ears can still pick it up thanks to the dead silence of the forest. "Or - he could not have died. Not him. He would never have allowed it."

Ugh. Claude tries to remind himself that he has self survival to focus on. He tries to remind himself that he needs to get to a town, find a carriage or a horse or something, and make a very long and frustrating ride all the way back to the Academy. He really doesn't have the time to get deep into this man's mysteries, and weird tragic backstory, and all of that.

"Who are you talking about?" he asks. "Would love to meet the no doubt dashing rogue who I apparently resemble so much as to get you talking to yourself about it."

For all his humor, the man at the base of the tree just dead eyes him. Some people just don't have a good sense of humor, what can he say? It's such a dead stare that, honestly, Claude almost thinks that he might not get an answer. The guy's social skills could clearly use a lot of work, honestly, and politely answering questions asked to him is probably missing somewhere in his belt of mental tools. Yet, finally, there's just a slow breath hissed out between his teeth, and a steam of breath coils up through the air. "To either a wraith or a strange apparition of my past, perhaps I should not bother speaking with you on such matters, for they would matter little."

"Even a little is something, you know. Try me, let's see how it goes."

"It is exactly because it is something that you should be told nothing, if you are to be some manner of spy or scout."

Claude can't help scoffing, just a little bit. "A spy or scout?" he asks, settling his feet a little more securely. "While dressed as an Academy student? That could hold some merit,  you know, save for the part where I'm scores and scores away from any hints of civilization as far as I can tell, let alone near the Academy. Come on, you know that doesn't make any bit of sense." Probably this guy knows. Claude sure hopes he knows.

For a second, there's just a little bit of silence again, and then the man huffs through his nose. "Fine then. There may be those yet who know not of Duke Claude von Reigan's face-"

Claude almost falls out of the tree.





Maybe it's his genuine surprise that convinces the man that Claude isn't a spy. Maybe it's the onslaught of questions that Claude tosses at him afterwards as he strives to figure out what the hell is going on here. Whatever it is, he actually seems to ease up for a little bit... at least long enough to answer the rough generals of it all, before he scowls and growls and goes, "Enough, do you have nothing but questions!?"

He has, you know, at least a little more than just questions. It's just that questions are what's in surplus, especially now, as he sits there on the tree branch, head in his hands as he tries to just sort it all out. "So it's been five years," he mutters, brain churning through the math, through the idea that a war is going on just past these mountains, the very trees he's sitting in. "Five years with a completely fractured continent, a war between Faerghus and Adrestia, and - you said that the Alliance is trying to keep things reserved?"

There's just a rough jerk of a shrug. For all that he just snapped at Claude about talking too much and having so many questions, the man still answers him after a second. "I know little of the Alliance's station, only that Adrestia has not assaulted it so blatantly, as far as I know."

Well, that's good news, he supposes. Never could he have expected that a war would break out in Fodlan during his lifetime - or, at least, while he was attending school here. Still, if war did have to break out, then he's just glad that he's managed to keep the Alliance from being completely steamrolled over. But he thinks that both him and whoever this guy is know that's not the whole story. "So what about not so blatantly?"

The guy's stare is impressively unimpressed, with all the weight carried in just that one eye. "Truly, you ask only the best to know of the Alliance, which is another country away, whilst in the middle of the forest," he says.

Aw, he can still be sarcastic despite all of what's clearly happened to him - and considering the guy is indeed running around in the middle of snowy forests and missing an eye, Claude would have to say that he's had a lot happen to him. It's obvious with just a look... and it's equally as obvious to him that this guy has no reason to lie, either. Especially with such an outrageous one.

Honestly, if he ever manages to get back to the Academy that he knows... He's definitely going to give Lysithea her due. This is far beyond just a teleportation spell. This is something far more unbelievable.

Well, that... That can be for the future. Right. For now, Claude just chuckles and tosses his hands to the side in his shrug. "Alright, I get it, I get it. Obviously not the right place to ask."

"Of course not." The man squints him, although at least his lance is now held a little more loosely down at his side instead of being waved around everywhere. "...This war has taken its toll on the common people of Faerghus," he says, voice a little more quiet now. Still deep and low, but - not as sharp and stand offish. "The people in its villages and town struggle to fill the stomachs of their children, with who holds the reins on this country now, with only a scant few territories able to hold their own, and, even then, I cannot say that the people there are able to live truly well." The lance is swung to the side, gesturing off to a sad fate far from Claude's eyes. Out of sight, but not out of relevance. "Who are you, that the fate of it all would be such a shock?"

Hm. Well. In truth, answering honestly means trusting a complete stranger to believe something which sounds absolutely unbelievable. Even Claude is struggling a little bit, honestly, and a part of him is still skeptical enough to want some sort of proof more than the words of some bandit living in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately, well, what else can he say here? What story can he possibly weave in this situation that would excuse such unbelievable ignorance? And if what this man says is true, well, that means he'd have to come up with some sort of excuse for the uniform he's wearing as well. A uniform belonging to a school which no longer is able to exist as it once did.

Five years. Or - not quite a set five years yet, Claude thinks to himself, remembering a promise made amongst him and so many others. Is it too late to run away over there? Is it too early? He's going to need a more exact sense of what time it is here... Faerghus wears its seasons differently, goes through time with a different light shimmering against its snowclad mountains. There's still so much to do here, and...

And maybe that means he can't afford to come up with some elaborate story that would make all of this make sense to a stranger.

So he takes a breath, and releases his grasp on at least a little bit of the truth. "Alright, so you have all the reasons in the world to not believe me when I say this... But the reason that I have on idea about this war, and everything that's happened, is because I'm actually from the past. I'm actually Claude von Riegan, you know - before all of this happened, apparently."

With all that actually leaving his throat and taking form in the air, well, it sounds even more ridiculous. Claude can't really blame this guy for staring at him in a complete dead silence. As a matter of fact, it would be even more unbelievable for him to believe it. Ugh, he might just have to come up with something else here... Maybe if he plays into being mad, or something like that? Someone sleepwalking through life? It might be the only way that he can come off looking like less of a threat -

"Come down here." Claude blinks, snapping out of his thoughts, and he stares back down at the blond man. The man who is now staring at him with an even heavier intensity than before, as though he's looking straight upon Fodlan's Goddess himself. He's always looked a bit pale - no doubt something assisted by Faerghus's long winter months - but now? Now he nearly looks white as a ghost.

White as starlight.

"What?" he says, just out of habit as a response.

There's a quiet whine of metal, fingers wrapped in metal squeezing down on the lance. "Come down here. If you are truly Claude von Riegan - let me see it for myself. Let me see your face."

What, he didn't get a good look? Well - no, he had to at least get something of a look, Claude supposes as he carefully braces his hands upon the tree branch. At least enough to make a connection between him and, well, himself. But if he's acting like this... Was he someone who attended the Academy once upon a time? It's hard to imagine but, at the same time, it explains how he could get such nice armor if he was a part of some noble house...

Still. He is a very powerful guy, swinging a lance recklessly at anyone who he deems suspicious. Claude can't just blindly agree to this. "Alright, I'll come down, but - only once you let go of the lance. I'd rather not have a repeat of what happened just a few minutes ago." Well, at this rate, it was probably a half an hour ago, but that's just nitpicking on the details.

There's another beat of hesitance from the man, before he actually obeys, the lance clanging noisily against rocks before it rolls into the snow, which muffles all the sound of it. Even from this high up, Claude thinks he can see bends in the shaft...

The man is still staring at him, in a way that almost feels as though he doesn't need a lance to pin Claude straight through and up against the tree. Maybe that just can't be helped. Either way, well, he did as promised, so... With no small amount of cautious, Claude begins to make his way down from branch to branch, until he can hang from one particular branch and drop down to the ground.

He'll say one thing for all that movement: at least it helps warm him up a little.

It's a thought that he doesn't really have a chance to linger on, however. Not with the blond that's suddenly looming over him, a creature almost of pure shadow with the light behind his head and that massive cloak of furs draped across his shoulders. Makes him look all the more intimidating in some way, if Claude is honest. As though he's a beast that's finally pushed forward to see what prey has wandered onto his territory.

Claude tries to not think too much about that, honestly. Unfair to the guy just because he's wearing furs, and all. And, anyway, the more he thinks about it, the more his heart squeezes down in his chest, which is really counterproductive when he's trying to keep his cool in the face of this hulking warrior leaning down to stare at him. Even when he reaches up, Claude works on his breathing - slow, in and out, letting it rest fully in his lungs before it filters up through his mouth.

Despite his expectations, no cold metal fingers dig into his cheek, turn his head this way and that. Instead, they stutter to a stop just centimeters away from the soft flesh of his cheek, before pulling away. As though he doesn't dare touch him, in a way that Claude is pretty sure has nothing to do with his noble status.

"It really is you," the man breathes, eye so wide and looking almost more through Claude than anything else. "You truly are... the Claude of my memories. You haven't changed in any way whatsoever..."

So he was someone who attended the Academy with him. And yet, with the way he talks - dammit. Claude nearly curses his sociable and nosy nature. Even in less than a year in the Academy, he's been doing his absolute best to get to know everyone, see who would be a threat, who was more personable, who held more secrets than the average noble. How many blonds had he met? Too many to count. How many from Faerghus? Only a number a little less, frankly. So just looking at this man, right in the face, seeing the way time has been unkind and worn him down...

"Sorry, it's apparently been far too long," he says, not wanting to make an assumption and make this whole situation even worse. "Uh, who are you, again...?"

That one wide eye finally eases up, and it is as if the entire weight of the world has bore down on this man, made him lose all of that frantic fury he carried so well with him just a moment ago. If anything, he just looks tired. Hopeless, almost. "Yes... It has been many years, now. I... have changed much from the man you once thought you knew. That uncertain fool who thought to mask his own terrible nature." That one eye - no longer burning, yet still so very brilliant - slides shut from Claude's view. "And yet still, I bear the name of Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd."

It is a very good thing he got out of the tree.





With their identities both settled to one another, the chill finally becomes impossible to ignore, unfortunately, but at least Dimitri seems to pick up on that quickly enough. Back in the Academy that Claude knows - with the Dimitri that he knows - he'd been very much the same. So he escorts him back past the trees, through the far too plentiful snow, all the way to a cave that seems to snake its way deep down inside the earth through the mountain.

It's clearly a place that has been well lived in, he has to say as he scrunches up next to the dead pile of burnt wood which makes up a campfire. Even just a cursory glance around shows piles of clothes, something of a nest of blankets and capes in a corner, and various little things which have been gathered together.

As he sits there, Dimitri makes a move over to the opening which leads further down into the caves, and tugs a set of planks down from where they'd been propped against the wall. A crude barrier to block the opening, done better with the ruined flag of some noble family draped across it. "It will keep the heat from escaping," Dimitri mutters in response to Claude's staring, shuffling back over to the pile of firewood that makes up one corner of his little encampment. "The caverns go... deep." With that simple explanation, he crouches down by the campfire, and begins the task of coaxing a fire to life.

Arms crossed, hands rubbing along his sleeves to bring even a little bit more warmth, Claude just takes in that little fact. In truth, he has to admit that this sort of... rugged living is rather beyond him. His life back in Almyra couldn't be said to be easy, sure - his brothers were constantly getting on his case in one way or another, whether because they saw even a little child as something in the way to the throne or simply because they hated his blood.

So, in a life like that... He more than once had to be careful, had to slip away and eat his meals in somewhere far away from the prying eyes of his own family, or even the chefs who couldn't be fully trusted. In other words, not really the kind of life that one would expect to live in a palace.

And yet, in the end, he did still live in a palace. It was a point of pride that a true ruler of Almyra was the kind of person who could provide even well for his servants, or else he was nothing more than a weak ruler who couldn't even do that much - a view similarly held in regards to those who have polyamorous romances in Almyra.

So if he slipped away to an ignored little spot in the servants' quarters, or if he hid near to the beloved stables of the wyverns, he was still well sheltered. If he was careful and smart, knowing to not take food if he was oblivious to its origins (including which chef and whose allegiance was held in them), then he had plentiful and delicious food. Even if his brothers and many others in power there held him in contempt, his parents still ensured that he could learn to defend himself. Sure, some nights he had to sleep underneath his bed and hold his breath at the sound of footsteps, a knife in his hand, but at least he had a bed, right?

If he had to run away from the capital, survive purely in the deserts of Almyra fending for himself in terms of both food and water... Could he have done it?

Claude likes to think he could have managed it. Certainly, a part of him had been wary that it was something he might have to genuinely consider one day, before the things in his life changed and he had the opportunity to visit Fodlan. If nothing else, he's incredibly well learned, and there's no denying his survival or combat skills - anything to do with fitness.

...And yet still. As he looks over at a pile of bloodied bandages tossed aside in one corner, Claude has to wonder.

"What on earth happened that would lead you to camping out all the way in the middle of nowhere, far away from Fhirdiad?" Claude asks quietly, and Dimitri's mouth twitches at the question, although his hands keep working. "It's conceivable that the Empire could have made some decent gains, especially considering who's at the helm over there, but Faerghus is hardly any slouch either... and it's not as though you're lacking in strong houses as well. I mean, everyone knows that Duke Fraldarius would have come running in a heartbeat if the royal family of Faerghus called on his name." And that royal family is really only Dimitri, even now, it seems.

There's a crackle, and a spark bursts there amidst all the firewood. Dimitri spends only a moment to coax it into a flame, something that can stand and devour all on its own, before he settles there on the other side of it. In the light of flame, he somehow... looks a little more like a person, rather than a pale wraith all in black.

"...The rot was buried deep inside of us," he finally says in answer, armor creaking as his hands form fists again. "When the war first broke, a putrid pustule, I did not realize how deep it went, or how revolting it truly was. Yet as crown prince, I was nothing more than a chained and muzzled beast. It was through my uncle that a response to the war could be made, so I went to demand action of him. Yet now I know... it was nothing more than a trap that simply lay in wait."

"By your uncle?"

Dimitri's lip curls upwards. "No - using my uncle's life to frame me."

Maybe it's put in a slightly vague way, but Claude gets it immediately, and his own eyebrows rise. "You were framed for the murder of him?" If there's no regent in place to run things smoothly, and Dimitri himself is a criminal - no wonder Faerghus is in such a sour state.

However, it's apparently far worse than he could guess at. "That snake," Dimitri hisses, his eye narrowing. "Cornelia... She spearheaded every bit of it. Even from within my cell... I could hear that she was the one even the one planning how my own execution would go."

"Is that how things go in Faerghus?" Claude exclaims incredulously. "Just an accusation of the crown prince murdering the king regent, no investigation done into it properly, and then going straight into execution?" The entire timing is completely suspicious, and yet, it's suspicious in a way that can afford to be. If Cornelia was able to forcefully speed up the process of executing the last of the Blaiddyd line, the only holder of the royal Crest, without any resistance...

Then that clearly means she had enough supporters snuck into the castle ahead of time to make it all happen, before more royal retainers such as Duke Fraldarius and even Gilbert could step in to argue against it all.

And that Dimitri is living out on his own in the middle of the mountains, while a war rages on... As Claude raises his gaze to look over to the Crown Prince, he finds a bitter and twisted little smile played out against chapped lips. "And with that... I am nothing more than a dead man, for all intents and purposes." The laugh he makes, dark and low and strangled in the back of his throat, is like no noise that Claude thinks he's ever heard Dimitri make before. Not back in the Academy, at any rate. "Perhaps they think I died when I was broken free from my cell and ran into the cold Faerghan wilderness, or perhaps it is better for them if they spread the idea of my death no matter if it is untrue. All I am is a criminal, after all."

"You're a falsely accused man is what you are," Claude counters, scooting a little closer to the fire as it continues to grow. "But jeez... I can't say I'm an expert in recent Faerghan history, but Cornelia's name was always lauded pretty highly for her work in helping cure that plague from a generation back. That she was getting up to things like this..."

Back in his time, has she already managed to get it all set up? Claude doesn't know the ins and outs of Faerghan noble circles, or what would be suspicious giveaways. That had never been Dimitri's strength, either, he knows, so even if he could go back - or, well, return in time to it all, he might not be able to know himself... It's not a scenario that really looks like it's set up for an easy win.

Funny. He has no idea if he can ever get back to that time in his life... Where the Academy still stood strong, and Teach was able to guide all of them with a careful hand. Where no war had yet started, although things were far from peaceful. Despite all of that, his mind is still churning, trying to think of what he could make different if he could just show up back in the Academy with all of this knowledge on hand. If maybe... he could help keep Dimitri from this cold, barren cave.

"...As usual, you speak of many things all without saying much on yourself," Dimitri mutters, which drags Claude out from his thoughts. "You have explained in no way how you have ended up the youth of my memories, here in this war torn present."

Ah. Claude blinks. That's actually... a pretty fair point to make, he has to admit. Dimitri, as usual, has been incredibly patient with all of his questions, although still very exasperated in many ways, too. And yet the strangest thing of all, Claude's presence here, hasn't been given an explanation whatsoever.

"Well, you can understand that there's been a lot for me to hear," he says, trying to laugh it all off for a moment, before he shuffles in place. "But... Honestly, it was a day like any other, back in the Academy. I was simply messing around with Lysithea, a little bit - just one of those kinds of mornings. But she got a little annoyed at me, which isn't new. What was new was the spell she had been working on. You know magic's never been my particular strength, and all that, so I can't exactly tell you the details. Probably, it was just meant to see if we could get a handle on the idea of teleportation magic. But, well..."

Claude shrugs. He'd flap his hands to the side, really exaggerate how little he knows about the matter, but he kind of doesn't want to lose the body heat.

"I guess I did teleport, by all technicalities. It just was much farther than I think Lysithea ever could have guessed."

If she'd had even the slightest idea that such a thing could happen from a little bit of idle threatening, she probably would never have done it, honestly. Sure, he gets on her nerves on occasion, Claude can't deny that, but this is a bit much in terms of punishment.

...Probably, she wouldn't have done it.

He's pretty sure.

For all that it's a pretty outrageous tale, somehow, Dimitri seems far less surprised about any of it than the rest of the day that's happened, and he just tilts his head to the side in consideration. "I see," he says, matter of factly, like time travel is just a thing that happens, sometimes. Then again, he looks and sounds so tired that maybe this is really nothing worth expending the energy over. "I thought there a strange pull in that area...?"

"A pull?"

"Mm. Something strange that seemed to be gathering in the air." Dimitri lets out a slow breath, and his eye drifts shut. All the fire that had burned in him while talking about Cornelia seems to have left him, and now the only flame which burns is that which stands between them which they huddle around for desperately needed warmth. "I thought it to be a dark magic of some sort, for there was little reason for anything good to be in such a wretched place as this... but I turned my back to retrieve water, and suddenly there you were."

Claude squeezes his hands out from underneath his arms, at least enough to waggle his fingers a bit. "Ta daaaaaa," he says, maybe a little deadpan. It's hard to be energetic when he's freezing his ass off.

If only it earned something a little more than just a deadpan stare from Dimitri.

But Claude supposes that he should just get used to that. War, betrayal, being driven out of his home... It's clearly done a number on Dimitri since their school days, when he could look across the practice field to the prince and earn a daring but bright grin.

Still, that there was something there in place even before he showed up there in the forest... Wiggling his fingers back down into the warm space against his body, Claude stews on that for a moment. Did that mean Lysithea simply got lucky, and tapped into something already there by pure stroke of luck? Or maybe... If he's already disrupting the way time works, hell even space considering he's far from the Academy, maybe that means that instead he was in some sort of inbetween space while reality had to work around that?

Ugh. This definitely requires someone with a much stronger interest in magic and science than him, honestly. It's not the kind of thing he can just bullshit on with what little he does know, especially considering Amyra does magic in a completely different fashion.

"There must be a way back," Dimitri mumbles, over the crackling of the flame, and Claude pulls himself from his own thoughts so that he can properly listen to the other man. "You shouldn't be in this place... or in this time. It will bring you nothing but suffering." A huff of air, and he shakes his head. "Perhaps with the knowledge that you hold of me now, you may know better than to form any dalliances with me back in that time."

Wait, wait, wait. "Hold on," Claude says. "I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions right now. Why would this make me second guess our relationship with one another?"

Honestly, just saying it like that - their relationship - makes it sound almost... tame? No, that's not right. Downplays it? He guesses so. Of course, the second he thinks of that, the more he gets kind of annoyed at himself. Of course he should downplay something like that. From the very start, he had told himself that he'd never let any sort of relationship happen with anyone in Fodlan. Nothing really deep and binding, at least.

That... wasn't something that could be in the cards for him.

So if Dimitri had kept seeking him out on little practice battles in the field, or they'd spoken with one another during late night research in the library, well, it had just been natural that they'd grown a little closer. That Dimitri maybe had gotten affectionate of him and, well, Claude has to admit the reverse is true as well.

And maybe they'd kissed once while horseback riding together, no one else has to really know about that.

But they were both royalty in the end. Claude had felt, especially with Faerghus's reliance on Crests and Dimitri being the last Blaiddyd, that it would never be anything that could last. To downplay the things they've experienced together - that Claude is still technically experiencing, he guesses - is honestly for the best. Besides, what good would that kind of old schoolboy romance do for Dimitri right now, as he sits there across from him?

That's what Claude is thinking until Dimitri just stares at him as though it absolutely never crossed his mind, and says, "Because you have seen me now as the violent and monstrous beast I always was, rather than the facade which I played in our Academy days, surely you will break things off and save yourself any manner of heartbreak."

...You know, Claude is starting to suspect that he is having an entirely different conversation, reading from a whole different book, than whatever it is that Dimitri is talking about. "Alright, so," he says, just to break some silence, keep things from getting too awkward. "I mean, I'm not going to deny that I was pretty surprised to get jumped the second I'd teleported. Could have done without a lance being swung straight at my head. However, I'm not going to pretend it's unreasonable to be on the paranoid and offensive while in the middle of a war, especially considering how strange things apparently were looking even before I had shown up. And besides..." He raises an eyebrow, twirling his hand in Dimitri's direction. "Even after you attacked me, while you were under no obligation to, you've still helped me get somewhere warm. I mean, look at how warmly you're dressed yourself - you probably didn't have to do this for me, did you?"

Dimitri wrinkles his nose like he's just been caught downwind from a very ill-kept stable, so Claude knows he's got him. "Even so, I am nothing as I once was," he grumbles. "There will be no future, having any affection for me."

"Wow!" Claude exclaims, deciding then and there that he's not going to listen to what Dimitri is saying - must like he's opted to not listen to a lot of people in his life who've tried to tell him he can't do anything (which is most people, on most things, until he moved to Fodlan). "Maybe I'll decide if there's a future for us, or not."

That dead eyed stare does not loosen up in even the slightest. "I always said that you and Felix would be fine friends if that momentary clash could be ignored," he grumbles, which is true. Dimitri has definitely said that, and Claude has always raised an eyebrow at him for it, just like he does now, because he can't think of two more different people. Well, that's not true. Felix is still friends with Sylvain, and they're pretty different people. Actually, and Sylvain is rather similar to Claude, and...

Hm. Well, he's not going to acknowledge that for now. Instead, Claude decides to just ignore that entirely, because now that's got him thinking. If he really is still around, this future self of him, instead of... he doesn't know, not existing because he's here? Anyway, if he can maybe just reach out and connect to him...

Would that Claude have experienced this too? The Claude having to think about all of this can't imagine him having done so, or else, well, all of this would be different, wouldn't it? He can't imagine a life, knowing that a war was coming, and knowing that Dimitri would suffer through this kind of scenario, and just do... nothing about it. He'd have to do something.

He's going to do something.

"So we're in Faerghus," he says, just to make sure he's right on the money with that one, and Dimitri raises an eyebrow, but doesn't correct him. Alright, good, they're on a good start. "Then, how far away are we from the border with the Alliance?"

Dimitri narrows his eye at him cautiously but, soon enough, his gaze slips away from him. Silence weighs there between them both, stretching on long enough that Claude nearly thinks he won't get an answer... only for Dimitri to prove him wrong, after five or so minutes. "We are... many days of travel away from it. Longer still, in this season, with no steeds to carry us through. With the Alliance having restricted travel, or so I can surmise judging from the movements of the Empire's troops, they have had to mostly come to us through more narrow paths..."

Good. Just because this future version of him is trying to carefully balance being inbetween two clusterfucks doesn't mean he has to make it easier for the more aggressive clusterfuck to roll over them like a crocodile with a kill in its jaws. Because once Faerghus falls... Claude has absolutely no doubt that the Alliance would be pursued next.

But, also, at the same time, bad. Bad because the Alliance being so far away means this is all the more awkward and difficult for him. Of course, he can't just give up on things, that's not his style. It's just... difficult.

"I guess there's no way we could easily steal horses during a time of war," Claude muses. "I mean, it's a nice thought, and it'd make the journey easier, it'd just come with the double edged sword of people wanting to pursue us because we stole their steeds."

Dimitri squints at him. "...What are you talking about?"

"Well, we should go to the Alliance, shouldn't we?" He grins, just a bit. "I mean, there are no doubt people here in Faerghus that would obviously be of pretty good help to you - Duke Fraldarius certainly sounds like the kind of guy who'd drop everything for you in a heartbeat. It's just, I think we should make sure we have options for getting you backup. I mean, you've been picking fights - apparently against the Adrestian Army - all by yourself in the middle of the woods. Do you think that you could do any kind of damage like that?"

He doesn't even need a response, honestly. Not with the way Dimitri just snarls at him, and averts his gaze. Yeah, that's what he thought. Whatever this is... Well. In a lot of ways, Claude suspects that it was just the lashing out of someone hurt, and angry, and powerless to do much else.

It's not how he's ever done things in his life, but... he can understand the impulse well enough.

However, it's not something that he's going to let Dimitri just wallow in. He has to admit that he has absolutely no idea how he's going to get back to the time that he should be in. However, he's here now, so he has to effect where he's at. That means, best he possibly can, offering his hand out to Dimitri and getting him out of this self destructive mess he's in.

That happens to mean, for right now, getting up from his side of the campfire, and shuffling over to sit right down next to Dimitri. Which is - kind of a lot - because oh boy he didn't notice it before, but with the fire, he is absolutely picking up a lot of - smells? There's smells happening here. Claude has to blink a couple of times before he stubbornly presses onwards. "Listen - you want to get back against the Empire because it targeted Faerghus, tore apart peace, and destroyed the Academy, right?" he says. "Listen - you know I was the tactics guy, back in our school days. Listen to me. I'll figure things out, for both of us. Just - try something a little different."

He can't ask Dimitri to trust him, after all... Not this version of him from a long time in their past, who hasn't really had a chance to prove himself to the world at large.

So he'll just have to settle with this. With asking him to try something different with his usual methods clearly not working.

Dimitri stares at him, wide eyed for a second, and Claude actually isn't sure if he heard him or not? He seems startled just by his existence sometimes, him being here and just... being here. Both in a more time travel sense, and a physical sense. But then he jerks his head away, leaving Claude to just stare at a black eyepatch and greasy blond hair. "...I need to move in order to find more prey," he grumbles. "I will give you a few days of travel south to convince me of your plan."

Ha. Claude grins. Maybe it's not a complete victory yet, not technically, and he knows better than to count his wyvern eggs before they all hatch... but it's a step forward. A sign that he at least has a chance.

And a chance is all that he's asking for.

"Great. But, while you're giving me things, do you think that you might be able to give me the gift of you bathing somewhere too at some point...?"





Traveling in Faerghus during the cold seasons is an absolutely miserable damned experience, and Claude resolves to never do it ever again in his entire life, whether he makes it back to his own time or not. The snow pulls at his legs, making travel difficult, and ice that coats the other surfaces threatens to make him slip and break his neck. That's even going without the absolutely brain-freezing chill which is bad in the daytime, only to get a million times worse when night falls. Without even the illusion of warmth the sun provides... it's bad.

So, honestly, Claude has to admit that it was probably a good thing that he was teleported right in front of Dimitri. This might all be a nightmare for him, sure. Yet in contrast, for a man who not only grew up in this horrifically frigid environment, and has spent the last few years of his life roughing it out in the wilderness...

There's no doubt in his mind. Without Dimitri to snag his arm when he threatens to fall, and without the warmth of his thick furred cape (no matter how stinky it is), Claude is positive that he'd have frozen to death in his sleep a long time ago.

And he's starting to wonder if there's anyone better in the entire continent who can find places to slip into for shelter at night, too, considering the ease with which Dimitri seems to find such things so easily. After the fourth day of hard travel through the snow, only for them to tuck away into a little nook in the mountains, Claude just has to ask. "How do you know where all of these places are, anyway? Don't tell me you've secretly made hundreds of safe houses all throughout Faerghus." If so, he'd have to admit he'd be impressed there's someone with even more paranoid preparation plans in place than him.

Of course, this is Dimitri he's talking about, and the blond scoffs in a blunt way that's still so very unlike the version of him that Claude knows. Knew. "That sort of thing is impractical," he says, which, alright, that's not exactly wrong. "And impossible to maintain..." He shifts, gaze once again going out towards the dark of the night. To things he cannot see, and which he doesn't tell Claude much about.

It's funny. He used to think that Dimitri was so upfront and honest about himself, and probably that's still always been true. But the light of day sometimes does a lot to blind a person to the secrets hiding past the gleam.

"Rather... it is easier to pay attention to the kind of landscape we are in," Dimitri continues, after a pause that was a little too long. "And the paths of animals, what kind of vegetation grows here. Simple things, such as spaces which are more traversed with newer and more sparse plantlife."

It's the kind of thing which sounds so very simple and obvious, when Dimitri says it - especially with that rather dark and almost imperiously independent tone in his voice that's taken it over in these past few years. Yet Claude wonders about those fine details he doesn't mention, the kinds of things which truly make or break survival in such a harsh wilderness as Faerghus's own mountains and forests. It's knowledge that can only be learned through desperation and struggle and perseverance.

Maybe he should be more dismayed, that Dimitri has had to do all of that, just to scrape by in something that could tenuously be called living when it seems like the whole world has been out to get him ever since their school days.

And yet... Strangely, all he can feel is settled.

Also, you know, absolutely cold as god damn hell. He can feel plenty of that.

Despite how freezing he feels, however, Claude still does his best to try and ignore it all as the two of them make their long journey down south, towards the east. Instead of paying attention to the biting chill which snaps at his fingers and toes before all else, he watches Dimitri - looks where he looks, commits various little details to memory. In some ways, it almost feels nostalgic, being in what felt like completely unfamiliar territory and left to rely on the little but silent observations to help him survive both in the present and for the future.

Yet if there is any difference - and he admits that it takes him maybe longer than it should for him to realize this difference - it is that he is not alone as he tries to figure it out. While he may be arguably be in more danger as he struggles through the cold Faerghus wilderness in the middle of a time of war, Claude has to admit that, unlike in his childhood in the Almyran royal palace, he does have someone on his side.

A question about how he knows to look for certain plants that herald a cavern, which tracks lead to safety and which are a gamble. Dimitri grumbles, and growls, and glares at him over his shoulder with every word out of his mouth, but he answers regardless. Even if that is many hours later, in a cave, and Claude honestly forgot he asked anything at all.

Of course, things aren't always flowers and cream. You know, for the obvious reason of what he just described, which is the cold Faerghus wilderness in the middle of a time of war.

That gets made pretty clear somewhat early on in their little journey, when Dimitri comes to an abrupt stop and holds up one dark gauntlet. Claude doesn't disturb the silence with silly questions, or making more noise than he needs to. All he does is stop, exactly as told, and shift back a little bit so that he's closer to the nearest large outcropping of rocks. Somewhere to hide, in case he needs to, and he might very well need to.

It's only after he's stopped shuffling through snow and fallen branches that Claude's ears pick up on the distant sound of wood rattling, hooves clopping along unforgivingly hard dirt, a sort of white noise which can only be casual chatter.

Some sort of caravan.

Dimitri wears full plate armor. Plate armor, generally speaking, is not the kind of armor which lends itself particularly well to stealth. Leather is better by far, and chainmail is manageable sometimes, but full plate? No chance. That's just impossible, and asking for trouble. Even half of it is a complete problem that would give away everything.

So how the hell does he do it? How on earth does Dimitri suddenly seem to go so quiet, the grind of metal against metal more like ice crackling in the ear then the sound of a warrior slipping through the forest?

Claude would genuinely love to know the trick.

All the tricks he knows simply compel him to stay in his hiding spot, hoping his brown and curly hair (all the more curly after a couple of days of hard travel) is something that can be dismissed as something else from a distance, because there's no way he can take his eyes off of Dimitri as the once-prince makes his way down through the snow, slips in amidst trees and rock as though he bore his entire life in this place. Yet to survive even one winter... Maybe that's enough of a lifetime, for Faerghus.

The sound of the caravan gets even closer. With how tightly wound the mountains are here, with no easy way to get to the flatter plains, him and  Dimitri have had to get closer to the roadside than he thinks the other man is truly comfortable with in most cases. Claude gets it, he does, because it's made him more than a little on edge as well... but he's glad for it, just a bit, in this moment.

It means that, perhaps unlike any other time, this hiding spot of his is just enough for him to see what's approaching, even if surely Dimitri  would have preferred to do all of this completely solo.

And, almost certainly, he would have preferred that. In the back of Claude's mind, he had wondered - or maybe even hoped - that it would simply be any other sort of caravan. Perhaps merchants, hoping to find some luck in an entirely different city further into the heart of Faerghus. A group of townspeople, finding safety in numbers, retreating to where things may feel more safe. There are, he has to admit, probably many reasons why a caravan would be traveling along a difficult mountain road.

Unfortunately, one of those reasons is that it's also easier to avoid prying eyes or the gaze of the public through a remote path like this... which makes it handy if you're some sort of military force not wanting to be seen.

So, all truth be told, he's not particularly surprised when he sees a flash of bright red past the barren darkness of the trees and which reflects far too brightly on the painful white of the snow.

A bit of movement shifts from the corner of his vision, and Claude glances over to where Dimitri has tugged the furs of his cloak a little further upwards. Like that, while he can't quite see correctly from his position, the brilliant gold of Dimitri's hair is hidden, tucked away. There's only the jagged white and black of the fur - something that could be mistaken for an animal at most if someone were to glance at it. Maybe not even that much, Claude realizes. White blends into the snow, black could be rock or even ice, and who would look so closely anyway? Who would bother to think about that, this far off the beaten path, when they're part of an empire whose victory seems almost assured?

Certainly not the small group of men who appear past the trees, some on horses while others walk and a couple of them hitch a ride on the wagon that they're pulling along. It's comparatively not a very large group, honestly. Barely hits the double digits, just from a quick glance of Claude's eyes. And yet, for a person like him that's on his own, still not a group that he'd want to tackle on his own.

Dimitri has different ideas.

It happens in the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart. Claude takes in a breath, blinks, exhales, and opens his eyes to see Dimitri's lance already slamming against an Imperial soldier past the steam of his breath. It's a hit that takes two in one, flinging him into one of his compatriots. Dimitri is already moving before they've hit the ground, when the others are still scrambling in response to the chaos. They're trained soldiers, the Empire would want nothing but their best training for something like this... But people are people, in the end.

Just from the way they're dressed, Claude can already tell that some of these people were just meant to be scouts with a small delivery on their hands. It was the kind of job that was no doubt touted as easy.

They weren't prepared for something like this, not here, not now, and it shows in the way that Dimitri is able to tear through an alarming number of them - half or so - before they're able to adjust properly to the surprise attack.

It should be a relief, a sign that Dimitri has a chance, and Claude is relieved, in more ways than one. It's just... For all that it might be necessary...

He can't truly be happy to see so many lives falling into blood and nothingness.

The battle is swift and brutal, where Claude can only watch Dimitri ignore arrows that bounce off all the most protected parts of his armor, tear through everyone he gets close to. There's only one point where things go south, one point where Dimitri is hit so hard that even he can't ignore it, and it's when there's a sudden burn through the air - magic carving itself in reality with its symbols, bursting forth with intense fire that briefly wipes away the cold of winter.

It hits Dimitri right in the shoulder, where  arm and torso connect, and he staggers for a moment. Only but for a moment. His other hand shifts, takes lance in hand, and throws it with so much force that it sends snow scattering beneath its trajectory. There's no escaping it, not for the mage who'd managed to land that hit, and they're speared straight through with an indescribable noise that wants to be a scream but is trapped right in something far more guttural. Claude grimaces, even as Dimitri storms forward, and finishes the job.

Claude isn't by any means an innocent waif to the bloody reality of battle. Almyra made sure to never shy away from such things and, since coming to Fodlan, he's also got to experience battle here as well. People dying to battle in stories and poems is always very emotional, touching... Clean.

Those little works of fiction never really can impart the disconcerting stare of a corpse, or the smell of gore in the air, or how blood clumps and freezes where it falls in the snow - ugly rather than pretty, poetic, or anything else.

Maybe it's because the pale snow and rock makes it all stand out so much more, but it truly does look worse here than anywhere else Claude has ever seen it. He doesn't let that hold him back. Instead, after positive that no one will suddenly rise to their feet for one last stab, that no hidden throwing daggers laced with poison will be pulled out, Claude slips out from his position behind the rocks and carefully makes his way past the trees and down the incline where Dimitri is already yanking at his armor and tossing it to the ground in frantic clatters.

Once he's close enough, Claude hisses inbetween his teeth. Fire magic against metal is nothing to sneeze at. He's always known that, in theory, but he's honestly not gotten up close and person with the idea in actual and physical real life. Almyran armor is a little bit different in construction, along with a very different view towards magic, so it never came up back there. Here, well, a lot of his fellow Golden Deer also don't tend to wear that kind of heavy armor and, when it has occurred, Marianne has usually patched it up before he's ever gotten close.

He's pretty close now as Dimitri peels away his gambeson and showcases the way the metal burned hot enough to warp his skin, even with padding in the way. All red, and twisted, and painful.

It has to be painful, even though Dimitri's snarled up lips are a sight that Claude has grown familiar with over the years. "Wretches," he growls, leaning down and taking a giant handful of snow to just press against the wound.

Maybe that's a decent quick and temporary fix. Claude can't say he's any sort of proper healer, although he knows plenty about mixing plants together, just usually for very different results. However, he has to say it's by far not the best fix, and so he turns his attention back to the wagon that had been pulled along. He doesn't know when, but at some point in the whole mess, the reins with the horses was slashed through, and they've long since galloped off to who knows where. That's a shame, because a horse would probably make it much easier for his traveling, but at least the wagon was left behind. That's fine. That's all he needs.

Any self respecting mage will of course pack up things which can help treat the results of their spells - you know, if nothing else, in case they or their allies get caught in some accidental misfire. And it's just smart to have medical supplies on hand during a journey in a time of war anyway. So soon enough, he's picking  up a bottle with exactly what he's  looking for rolling around in it, and hopping over the side for that extra second of time.

"Here, I think this will do you a bigger favor than some snow," he says, tossing it over to Dimitri. "And heal a lot faster, too."

It might not feel particularly great, no, but, well, beggars can't be choosers. Dimitri doesn't seem to care much about it either, just gritting his teeth before tilting his head back to chug it all straight down. Must be a really lovely taste in there, Claude bets. During times of war, making potions like that palatable is never really the first thing on anyone's mind. "Grab a bow," Dimitri chokes out, as the healing starts to take effect.

Claude pauses for a second, not really expecting that. Honestly he'd been sort of hoping for any sign of gratitude, even if he hadn't been expecting it, really. The order is a surprise, but not as much as the realization that, yeah - this would be the perfect time to actually arm himself, wouldn't it? There's plenty of weapons laying around. Best to grab something now, before rigor mortis sets in, and not even thinking about how the cold would freeze these bodies stiff.

It's not exactly the most honorable thing in the world, pulling a bow from a dead woman's hands, picking up the various arrows that were shot around, but, well, honorable actions aren't what keeps a guy alive. By the time that he's gathered everything up with a set of arrows slung over his back, Dimitri as well is back to putting on his armor layer by layer.

It's clear by the way he's glancing over at the wagon what's on his mind, and Claude jogs over, hopping over a fallen soldier or two. "Hey now, why don't you just stay put right there," he tells him, trying to push Dimitri's hands away from his own chestplate. Trying, and failing. This guy really does have too much strength in him, honestly. It's kind of wild. "Just sit down, relax, and maybe let the still smolderingly hot metal cool down a little more before you start trying to wear it again. I'll look over the wagon to see if there's any supplies that we can grab for ourselves."

Frankly, it's just a common sense sort of solution. If one guy does all the actual fighting, on account of apparently being an absolute juggernaut with a lot of experience in jumping Imperial wagons, then it's only fair if the other guy picks up slack in everything else. It's nothing to write home about.

Yet Dimitri stares at him for a moment, as though he forgot that Claude ever existed, before he makes the slightest motion with his head. Claude thinks it's probably a nod of his head. Either way, while they don't move the way that Claude is trying to force them, Dimitri's hands don't make any further movements to dress himself up again. That'll have to do.

Claude leaves him to it, hopping back into the wagon to start poking through everything. There's some rations, which is good to see - it'll save them time from having to hunt anything and waste time when they could be traveling. A few more medical supplies are always good to have, which he's more than happy to pull from their storage crates. Then there's just so many arrows, which he can't all fit into his quiver... A bit of a shame, but that's fine. He'll just have to make do with a whole quiver, and resuse anything he sends out. A few other bits and bobs that will make their camping life easier, all shoved into a large pack he's sure Dimitri will have no problem lugging around, and Claude is convinced this is as  good as he'll get it for now.

By the time he pops up and over the wagon again, Dimitri has actually settled down onto a rock large enough for it on the side of the road. To Claude's satisfaction, he's still not wearing even his gambeson. It can't be comfortable, considering the obvious ways he's hunched in on himself, but it's better than being burned by his own armor.

"Here," Claude says, holding up a small jar and popping it open with his thumb. "This salve should help speed up the process a bit." The spot against Dimitri's shoulder and pec is already looking much better than it was before - not so warped now - but it's still a bit red. "Stay still, won't you?" This Dimitri may have a whole lot of life experiences that have made him a little different than who Claude knew, but, well, he can make some reasonable guesses all on his own. Sometimes, with Dimitri, just asking permission won't do.

The actual best course of action is to lean forward and just start applying it to Dimitri's skin all on his own, before he can be stopped. Underneath his touch, he can feel the way the blond goes absolutely dead still, to the point that he actually has to glance up from underneath his eyelashes to make sure the man is still breathing.


Definitely still breathing, at least. Also just... staring at him, intensely, with that one blue eye so wide that his gaze feels as though it could swallow Claude up whole.

Huh. That's... kind of an intense feeling.

Ignoring the heat in his cheeks, old memories of emotion that remember another eye to join that one looking at him so intently too, Claude just finishes what he's doing, and then finishes it all up with a quick little wrap of bandages. "There were a lot of things in that wagon," he says, to distract both of them from the utter silence that fell over everything just a second ago. Claude doesn't think he can stand it, at least for right now. "And these bandages were just one of them. I know it'd cut into our travel time a little bit, but I think we ought to spare a little while to pack some of it away in some hiding hole or another around here. Resources like this are hard to come by, right? No point in putting them to waste."

Dimitri stirs at long last. "It would," he says quietly, voice just a little hoarse. Probably from when he was screaming and snarling during the battle. "I will move the supplies, then. Dispose of the corpses."

Out in the middle of nowhere, it's not as though there's really any good place to put the bodies of the dead. In a perfect world, maybe they could bury them... But things are far from perfect here. Claude does what he can, takes whatever keepsakes or identifying objects he can find to store with the supplies Dimitri goes to get, sure. Just because he thinks if he forgets that these are people...

Well. That's an entire philosophical discussion for another time.

But the long and short of it is that he's positive that if he forgets these were people rather than just obstacles, things that were in the way... Then that's it. That's the end of a lot of things.

For right now, however, it's not the end of their journey. So with Claude now properly equipped with an actual weapon he knows he can use and their supplies replenished far better than they ever were for the past couple of days, the two of them set off again. 





If there's one bright spot, it's that most of their journey isn't like that. Dimitri may look like a bit of a mess, and stink to high heavens, and Claude has a feeling he's talking to people at least he can't see... But there's a reason that he's been so successful in surviving for so long, once you take out factors like the Imperial army existing. Most conflict is something that he tends to avoid, even getting the two of them past the hulking bodies of demonic beasts that occasionally roam about.

Luckily, Faerghus has a lot of mountains and valleys. Double luckily, but since demonic beasts are partially feared for their size, that means they're often down deep in the valleys, and all the paths Dimitri knows are far higher up. 

It's long, and tiring, and Claude thinks he could happily go the rest of his life without ever seeing snow... but, eventually, the icy paths ease away, and the land levels out, and he realizes, one morning as he wakes up to stare groggily across the plains, that they're officially in Leicester now. They're in the land that is, arguably, debatably, almost something approaching safe. 

As long as they approach no populated towns and introduce Dimitri to no one. 

While Claude thinks seeing more people besides himself, Dimitri, and corpses might do a little good for his brain to help adjust to the fact that this all comes off as still something dreamlike more often than not, he refrains. Keeps them on track and soothes Dimitri whenever he seems to get a little too antsy. It's understandable, really. Where they're going, there are no massive mountains with plenty of hiding spots for him to duck into. Claude wishes he could show him how to really do it, but, well... Honestly, he  doesn't know Leicester nearly as half as much as he'd prefer to. How could he?

But he knows it enough. And, more importantly, he knows himself enough. Even five years of war, he's positive - mostly positive, which will have to do - on just how exactly his mind works. So he guides Dimitri along to a little town that, once upon a time, he passed on through when he first arrived in Leicester. When he was given a look at the country that he would have to call his new home.

It's just... it's been five years. So even as he tries to tell himself that he's confident, as he tries to tell himself that he'd always have one little card hidden away under his sleeve, Claude isn't sure what to expect when he slips into the forests outside of town.

He sure as hell welcomes the pure relief that rolls through him when he peers into the hollow and finds a pair of messenger birds that he'd cultivated when he was in Leicester. Just in case.

(Back then, he had thought the 'just in case' would be him having to make a run for it on the chance that his brothers would continue to send assassins after him even in Almyra. Back then, he couldn't have imagined that one of his classmates would start a war.)

"What do we do now?" Dimitri grumbles, having settled down into silence to glare past the gloom of the trees that they're resting underneath.

Hopping down from the tree, Claude stretches his hands up over his head, fingers interlaced. "I mean, there's not much else we can do," he says. "All we can do is wait for a bit, and make sure that our own stores are in decent enough supply."

And it's a good bit of waiting. Claude gets it, he really does, honestly. He's apparently a duke now, this adult version of him - something Claude had imagined he would have tried to avoid as best he can, if not for some sort of politics at work in the Alliance that would have made that difficult. Or maybe even impossible to get back home? It's the sort of thing that he ponders a lot, just what has lead to his future self (present self?) still being in Fodlan.

It'd be nice to have that information, even if he's still not wholly sure what exactly he'll do with it.

It takes just a little over a week before there's any sort of response, which is fine. Taking into consideration how far the messenger birds had to fly, and then the time for making a decision on his other self's end, plus travel time even if he made plans to go immediately... Well, honestly, he'd expect a good couple of weeks, considering all he doesn't know.

So for it to only take roughly a week before he can hear the sound of horses some distance away from the little camp in the forest he and Dimitri have made, well, it's impressive. Not that Claude lets himself be an optimist so soon, of course. While he never would have thought it, that's one thing him and Dimitri seem to have in common. It shows in the way that they both silently pick up their weapons, and Claude acts as the scout slipping on ahead just slightly so that he can peer through the trees. Without the benefit of his native terrain, after all, Dimitri is just a little more noticeable with his dark plate armor. Best leave it to the guy that's still dressed in a school uniform, which is at least a little better.

What he spots out from the trees is a small group of riders on horses, cloaked in garb that is plain at a distance, but which Claude is pretty sure in a couple of cases is made out of finer material than just plain. Just a guess, with what he can see from a distance, so who knows? He could be wrong.

There's nothing wrong about his guesses or his eyesight when one of the figures reaches around for something on the saddle of his horse, and, from it, releases a familiar little messenger bird.

"Alright," says the figure, in a voice that is utterly unfamiliar to Claude and yet which he realizes must be... "I'll put down my bow and keep it with my horse, alongside my companions. As a show of good faith that you won't shoot me with whatever bunch of people you could possibly be keeping in the trees. Sounds good, right?"

Just the first sentence alone is enough to have Claude grin, and he calls out from the trees. "That would be a wonderful show of good will indeed," he calls back from his spot in the trees, "save for the fact that I know you have at least three different knives hidden on your person at all times." In truth, Claude only has the one right now, but he hadn't been expecting to get transported into the middle of the Faerghan wilderness, so he thinks he has a solid excuse there.

From the back of the group, he can see one cloaked figure suddenly perk up quite visibly, and the one who is most certainly himself actually pauses for a moment. "Well," himself says. The figure behind him is whispering something at him, judging by how they lean forward, but Claude can't hear it. "I will say this - you're a little wrong. I've had to update the number of hidden knives lately, on account of the war and all."

Yeah, that makes sense, honestly. Claude can't say he's surprised. Taking advantage of that almost soothing certainty, he decides to press it further, and inhales slowly. "Alright. I'll step out from the trees with my hands up. I'll take that good will on face value  even knowing the truth, okay?"

Because what other choice does he really have?

As he steps out from the shadows, however, the cloaked figure from before suddenly claps her hands together. "Oh my gosh!" says the familiar voice of Hilda, the girl who'd been one of his best friends in Fodlan. "Claude, if this is some sort of trick, they nailed down how you looked as a student pat."

But his older self doesn't respond. Not immediately. Instead, there's just a stunned bit of silence from him before he reaches up... and there goes the hood.

Claude looks himself in the face.

It's kind of dizzying, honestly. In a lot of ways, it's like meeting some distant relative - because he's seen a lot of the features before him in other people. Things that connected his brothers to their father, various cousins to his father's siblings, on and on. Little traits that were shared with so many different citizens of Almyra, and even connected him to it all.

And yet so many in the court - in his own immediate family and all their allies - seemed to be able to see things that he tried to track down in his reflection. The bright green of his eyes were just the most obvious tell, that which connected him to his Fodlish mother. Yet he'd search for other things, too, sometimes, when the pressing desire to just know overrode all else for whatever reason.

He thinks of that, more than anything, as he sees the way his own face has become just a little firmer, a little more sharp, since the last time he ever had a chance to look in a mirror.

Also, it looks like he's trying to grow a beard, or sideburns, or something like that, and Claude is kind of interested, he won't lie.

"I had to admit that I wasn't sure what to expect, getting a letter like that, through channels only I should have known about," his older self says, trying to hide shock and surprise in some sort of casual light-heartedness. "And maybe there's still a chance to explain all of this in something more logical. Certainly we've had to deal with a lot of two-faced backstabbing in a rather more... literal way than usual." Claude frowns, understanding exactly what events he's referencing. How could he not? He's lived through them much more recently than his other self. "But the details were a little too close to home, and seeing you for myself, weeeeeeeeeell...."

"And I don't think you have any secret children running around," Hilda pipes up from behind him, pulling down her own hood with a grin. It's incredible, honestly. While Claude is pretty sure he's changed a lot, Hilda hardly seems like she's aged a day.

But that sort of strange and warped nostalgia can wait for later. His older self rests one hand on his hip, shifting his weight from one leg to the next. "Anyway, you said you had something important besides yourself to let spill... So we better make it quick. As much as I would like to hang around, reminisce about old times, try to solve yet another bizarre mystery that's been handed to me... As you can tell, we're in the middle of a war right now, and this is far from the only thing I have to solve."

Right. Well, here's the reason that he came out here in the first place, right? Claude still isn't sure what this is going to mean for his own life - especially since if there's a version of him who's grown up and become a Duke of the Alliance, shouldn't that mean he's still here, or is this more messed up? - but he can focus on helping one person, at least. One person who really needs it... and whose existence Claude is positive can mean something for this war. Ideally, something that will help spare some lives from being otherwise lost. So, with a quiet intake of breath to help prepare him for whatever might happen next, he nods, and turns back to the trees. "Dimitri! You can come on out!"

Silence.

...And then more silence.

Claude gives him a couple more seconds of silence and doing absolutely nothing before he shakes his head and flings his hands out to the side in a gesture of pure exasperation. "Alright, come on, you know this is fine," he says, turning around fully so that he can push through some grass that is way too long. "We've come all this way, so isn't that a sign of trust, or what?"

For all his reluctance, Dimitri isn't very hard to find, there in the trees. He's an enormously tall guy in hulking black armor and a cape that is only going to get dirtier out here in a place that has more than just snow. What's really impressive is how he's managed to successfully hide all of that behind a thick enough tree with a few large shrubs to back him up. But what really stands out to Claude as he comes upon him is... the way that Dimitri won't quite look at him. How his arms are pulled in closer to his body, holding onto his worn lance so very delicately.

"Hey," he says, having at least the presence of mind to lower his voice a little bit. His other self and Hilda are still waiting a distance away, both of them talking to each other in their own low tones, but he doesn't feel the need to air this conversation out. "Come on. If you get the help of a duke here, that will help you work even closer to your goal. That's what you want, right? We both know that you can only do so much on your own."

If Dimitri won't agree, for whatever reason that only makes sense to him... Claude isn't wholly sure what he'll do, quite honestly. On one hand, this feels like the kind of thing that he should just push forward with. But at the same time... Well, if Dimitri isn't agreeing with just meeting them, then, even if he tricks him into it, he'll still dig his feet in, right?

And maybe he'd rather not betray Dimitri's trust if he doesn't have to.

Dimitri takes in a deep breath of his own, one that rattles on in through bared and clenched teeth. "He will see me as this," he mutters. "He will not want to help any sort of monster such as I."

"I mean, he's technically already helping you," Claude points out, before he grins in response to Dimitri's blank and uncomprehending stare. He points a finger up to himself. "After all, I would be the best authority on that, considering that I've been helping you all this time, haven't I? So come on." He reaches over, rests a hand along one cold gauntlet. They may not be in Faerghus anymore, but the season is still a chillier one. "Trust the idea, at least a little bit."

There's a long, quiet stare down at his hand - or maybe it's only long because it feels like it should be long and not because it actually is. "We have come all this way," Dimitri mutters at last. "We will see what comes of this latest scheme of yours, then."

Claude could never say that he has a perfect card game face. He's only human, after all, and sometimes he's just genuinely surprised, truly happy, things like that. But, ever since he had to grow up in the politically fraught environment that he did, he learned to keep whatever cards he could close to his chest. Just as a matter of safety. Of necessity.

So it means something, he knows, when he finally steps out of the trees with Dimitri shuffling after him, and he can watch his own green eyes widen more than just a little bit before his older self catches onto the act, and returns his expression to something a little more... neutral, relatively speaking.

So it means something, he knows, when he finally steps out of the trees with Dimitri shuffling after him, and he can watch his own green eyes widen more than just a little bit before his older self catches onto the act, and returns his expression to something a little more... neutral, relatively speaking.

But Claude knows himself. And he can know what the hesitation roughly means, maybe, even if he can't tell exactly what is going on inside his older self's head.

Dimitri's armor grinds against itself as he shifts in place. Claude wonders if he's even heard everything that was said to him. Sometimes, as they've been traveling, and he's done his best to fill up awkward silence around the campfire, he's gotten the impression that Dimitri isn't always listening... but the man never really says one way or another. Unlike his youth, this Dimitri is a lot harder to read in some ways. "I have come to deliver you to yourself," he finally says in that low deep voice of his, disregarding anything about his own circumstances. "You can keep him safe, then, or at least a better kept secret. That is all."

"Whoa, wait, hold on," Claude exclaims, openly staring now. "That's not what this is about at all - wait, don't you just walk away from me, buddy." Not that he can actually do anything when Dimitri decides to just turn and start tromping back in the direction of the trees. Sure, he can latch onto his arm - and does - but it's not exactly an equal contest of strength here.

Claude grabs onto Dimitri, and Dimitri just drags him along as though he weighs absolutely nothing. Honestly, for him, that's probably just a basic statement of truth.

Well, Dimitri might be able to keep moving without Claude able to stop him, but Dimitri isn't able to stop Claude in turn from talking. "Since Dimitri is alive, this should change at least a chunk about the war," he calls back over his shoulder, only to lower his voice once he realizes that his older self is following right behind them. Hilda, of course, is just happily sitting right where she is on her own horse. "I think you should get in contact with Duke Fraldarius over in Faerghus. With how things are looking, I know you have Teach on your side, but they're just one person, too, so -"

"So," his older self says, interrupting him. "The problem here is that we actually don't have Teach."

"What?"

"They disappeared right as the war broke out," his older self explains, brow furrowing. There's a lot of emotions in that one tiny little gesture, and not nearly enough time to dissect them all before his older self gets it under control again. "Or, rather, they fell off a cliff after a lot of things happened. Ever since then, we haven't been able to find any trace of them. For all we know, they could be dead."

Just hearing those words, that Byleth might be dead... Claude feels his heart drop through his stomach so hard that he almost doesn't realize Dimitri has come to a stop. Still, he doesn't let himself get swept up in the kneejerk despair. Instead, he thinks back to his own words, to the very circumstances that they've all found themselves in, and looks right over at his older self. "You know, they never found Dimitri's body either," he reminds them both, on the exact circumstances his older self just referenced.

His words earn him a grin. "That's true enough," he admits. "And, you know, Dimitri, I heard the reports of what happened back in Fhirdiad, even if it was long after the fact... but they were saying that there was an attack on the royal capital against that dear former advisor to the king. Tried to spin it as being another Dusci attack, although it never really took root too much, considering that the Faerghan people have had far more pressing things to worry about. But they never found the body of that criminal either, you know..."

It should truly be no surprise that the implication here - of  who did the 'attack', of who isn't dead - is enough to make Dimitri look over at them both properly. "He is dead," he says, but he dares to sound uncertain.

Both Claudes grin. "Not when there's no proof, he isn't," they say together.





There's no way that Claude can go back with Claude to the home he was expected to live in while residing in Fodlan. Keeping the Alliance together has been a full on nightmare, apparently, at least with the threat of the Imperial Army looming at their borders. Very predictably, every single noble has a different idea on how to deal with the matter, especially since the matter isn't looking too good. "Gloucester especially has been wanting us to surrender to the Empire, and just become a part of them," he explains on the long ride to the center of the continent. "No small amount of nobles apparently think that if we just cooperate, then Edelgard will let them exist exactly as they are."

Over to the side, on his own horse (a bulky thing, to keep the weight of his armor), Dimitri snarls and scoffs, but doesn't really verbalize the issues with that idea. Claude decides to pick up that slack. "You know, I wouldn't say that we were bosom buddies or anything, but Edelgard never did strike me as the kind of woman to do things halfway. I wonder if she'd really be satisfied with just that."

"Especially since she never seemed particularly pleased with the way of nobility back in school," he agrees with himself (that is to say, his older self agrees with him). "But that would require knowing just a little more on what exactly she's aiming for. And she's been rather difficult when it's come to straightforward answers..."

Another low growl from Dimitri. "Surely she is one of those with false faces, and seeks only to spread misery and bloodshed wherever she goes," he mutters to himself.

Claude exchanges a raised eyebrow with Claude. Unfortunately, it's not an idea that either of them can really disregard right now... Especially since Claude can recall Edelgard, in the time he's more familiar with, having hung around a certain red-haired spy before things had gotten really weird. Really, he hopes that's not true. He wants to hope that the good times that they all had together, like the feast after their mock-Gronder, was something done with sincere joy and camaraderie.

But then, maybe that would make it worse that, no matter how close they could have been as friends, she still might have done this sort of thing regardless.

"Anyway, that's basically the long and short of things," his older self says, and looks up ahead of the path. "But there it is - Garreg Mach. We're almost there." Sure enough, there towers that old academy, the place where the church once consolidated its power.

It is a mess, even just from a distance. Enough of a mess that it churns Claude's stomach just a little bit as they get ever closer, and he can see more and more of the ways in which it has fallen into disarray. Places where the wall has crumbled in on itself from some massive attack or another, roofs whose shingles have fallen away in terrible weather, a sort of emptiness to it all which is hard to describe. Even when they finally inch towards the gates after making sure there's no sign of bandits, at least immediately, the gates are so rusted that they probably wouldn't ever be able to lower again.

All of them - both of the Claudes, Dimitri, Hilda, and even Leonie who had managed to show up partway on their journey all the way here - make sure to hitch their horses outside, a little bit off of the beaten path. It never hurts to be careful, after all. Who knows what has taken up residence inside the place since the start of the war, when it was long abandoned.

This would go fantastically well if they could all just agree to a nice little bout of stealth. The Claudes agree, because that's sensible, and Leonie agrees, because all good mercenaries understand the importance of winning by any means necessary, and Hilda agrees, because she'll do anything to put off work.

Dimitri takes one good look at a gathering of clear bandits, milling around their camp site and barely managing to wake up after a night of who knows what, before he picks up his lance.

"Well, there we go," Claude mutters to himself right as the lance finds its mark right through a guy who'd been trying to just polish his boots. He's already pulling out his own bow as well alongside his other self and Leonie, while Hilda loudly groans. Considering the state of things, the bloodied rags and weapons that they could see, this sort of violent end was always in store for louts such as these guys. Yet if only this sort of ending could have been penned with a little more forethought.

Fortunately for them all, there is a good editor waiting in the wings, as it turns out, and her response to such improvisation is the scorching wild burn of fire raining down on from high.

At least Dimitri knows well enough to hastily retreat on that front, boots digging into stone and dirt as he pulls back from mid-battle, and that's good, that's fantastic for the rest of them, as they take out the rest of the criminals holding up space in a place that was once holy. With the threat of surprise on their side, and more than enough skill in their hands, it is hardly anything which could be called a battle.

If anything, it was likely and unfortunately a simple necessity, as this sort of miserable bloody business often is. Claude tries not to let himself dwell on it, because there's no true point to such an action. Rather, he looks to brighter things.

He looks over to where, descending down some stairs from the side, Lysithea comes, and stares at him absolutely boggled.

"When you wrote in your letter to me that I would see you doubled, I thought you were just  messing with me," she exclaims, hurrying over. Claude doesn't think she's grown an inch, although her face certainly shows signs of more maturity than he ever saw in their school days. "But that's really you, isn't it?"

"Yep," they say, together, before Claude lets his older self take the reins from here. "He told me that, back in his past, it was you sending a spell at him which got him transported all the way out here, and in Faerghus no less, through means I'm not even going to pretend that I understand. I was hoping that, if we could get a hold of you, that maybe you'd have some sort of idea on how to send him back."

Alright - that has Claude pause, raising his eyebrows over at his older self. There's only a grin in turn, but maybe he shouldn't be surprised. While he'd been told that his older self planned to get back to the Academy a little earlier than planned for their long reunion so that they could better decide on what to do with Dimitri... Well, he's always been a trickster, and this is far from the worst surprise that he's ever gotten. Probably, both this and that were simply easy to package together.

"And you dragged the crown prince of Faerghus with you too, huh?" Lysithea says, casting an uncertain glance over where Dimitri lurks like an uncertain ghost who's got turned around from his regular haunting. "Well, that's all on you. I'm not the leader of any war effort for right now."

That's an interesting change of phrase. Claude tucks it away in his head for a second, and just follows Lysithea's lead for the meanwhile. After all, she's the magic expert and always has been. Just letting her look over him and ask him questions is for the best right now. He's not sure if there really will be a way to get him back, but, at the same time, well... If he went one way, then it's not too unreasonable for him to go the other, right? He can only hope that it's in the right spot, this time.

And also watch the others as well. Hilda and Leonie seemed to have grown closer in the time that's passed of his own familiarity, but that's really only an idle observation. What has most of Claude's attention is, well, himself - not to sound too narcissistic there.

To be more specific, his older self, and Dimitri. While Claude stays in place while Lysithea does her very best, and the other girls (women, now, he guesses) go to search through the rest of Garreg Mach to make sure that they're truly alone in this place, his older self just... stares at where Dimitri stands, for a long moment. Claude knows the feeling, of trying to figure out how exactly to approach him. They've been traveling all this time but, frankly, Dimitri has been all the harder to communicate with than all the times that Claude has been traveling with him himself through the Faerghan wilderness. Maybe it's just been easier for Dimitri to withdraw in, when there are so many more people to occupy each other. Through that, he can melt into the shadows, and gain no attention.

But there's none of that, now. And frankly, while maybe he didn't have to contribute to the conversation much like that, Dimitri has far from escaped noticed, for all that he may want that. Claude has not a doubt in his chest that his older self, too, has been looking after him and over to him this entire journey. It's just, now, there's nothing in the way of him stepping closer. Of him looking over Dimitri with a careful and softer gaze than he's allowed himself all this time, before he raises a gentle hand to lay upon dark and unyielding armor.

His lips move, then. He says something. Claude can't even begin to accurately read his lips, not from this angle, and certainly he can't hear a single word. All he can do is observe the way that Dimitri shifts, jerks his head to stare down at that Claude with his brow drawn tightly and his one good eye almost wild with a dozen different emotions. Yet, surprisingly to Claude, he doesn't raise his voice, or any such thing.

Instead, the two of them speak quietly together, the exchanges no less quick, before Dimitri turns away with grit teeth again and storms off. Far from letting him have his moment of solitude... Claude's older self follows right after.

Why?

Why, with that kind of pained look on his face? Why, when he knows that he surely can't stay for much longer in this country? This very continent?

Claude just doesn't understand it. Even as he turns it over and over again in his mind, he just can't understand it, and he's forced to leave those thoughts in his mind when Lysithea smacks his arm slightly. "Unfortunately, there's no clues on your person that might help figure this mystery out," she tells him. "But that doesn't mean there are no clues to begin with." She crosses her arms, frowning, brow tucked in like she can catch any trace of hints before they escape her cute little skull. "Magic like that would surely leave traces somewhere, and I think there must definitely be something here to deal with it... I just don't know where. So you have to listen to me and make sure to look over every single stone here in the Academy, okay?"

It's good to know that, even if she's gained some amount of maturity, Lysithea is still has demanding and bossy as ever. Or maybe she's just acting like that to this specific version of him, for whatever reason. Claude has to admit that he can't really tell right now, since they've only just re-met. So he grins a little bit instead, and offers a rather insincere salute. "I won't rest until my fingers are worn to the bone."

Lysithea sighs, staring up at him with that quietly aggravated expression he grew to know so well. At least it's better than when she's full on angry. Except then it eases up a little bit, not so harsh, returning her to a more youthful appearance in some ways. She always did look a little more her age when she wasn't so angry. "...If we can get you back, then you might be able to see the Professor again, right?" she asks him, and something in him pings a little in response to the sadness on her face. "We all promised to see one another here, the Professor included, and Claude seems to think they're not dead... But you have to make sure that we never have reason to think that in the first place, even as an off-the-wall possibility. That's what you need to do, got it?"

It's kind of funny, honestly. Garreg Mach - at least in the time where he attended his school years - was a place that was technically meant to help raise the next generation of nobles alongside one another for a peaceful future. Yet because it was a gathering place of nobles, even if maybe some never meant to, class politics always still did play out in many places.

But Claude thinks that it's only ever been in the Golden Deer house where a simple commoner like Leonie could boss around a noble son like Lorenz without any worry, and someone like Lysithea could make demands from the son of such an important duke like him.

It's one of many reasons why Claude is so glad that he got to be a part of the Golden Deer, similar to why he's proud of some of the traditions in Almyra as well... and why he'll always love some parts of both countries, no matter how difficult things get. It's why he smiles, just a little, in response to her demands. "C'mon, now, Lysithea. You know that I won't ever let anything happen to Teach if I know better. With the two of us, I'm sure we can make sure that never happens."

Just, you know, assuming he can ever get back.

Still, if there's nothing about his own person that offers any clues, Lysithea is right. They have to hope that there's something in the monastery itself that can offer any sort of hint. So they all get right to it - or, at least, Claude assumes that the all get right to it, considering that he doesn't run into his older self until the day long since ends, and they all reconvene to start up a fire in an old room possessing a fireplace. A little drafty but not so much that it can't be blocked.

"I think there's only one place left to look that might have a connection," his older self says when they've all finished telling each other where they've looked, including in the very room where a younger Lysithea cast a spell at Claude. "For how long it's been and how many bandits have made this place their home ever since the Empire took leave, I noticed that the way into the goddess's chambers hasn't really been touched." From the corner of his eye, Claude can see the way that Lysithea and Leonie scowl both together, and even Hilda's nose wrinkles a bit. Something that happens in his future that's a little more near, maybe...? "We never did get any proof that it seems to be what Rhea thought it might be - which is more than it is, whatever it was - but that doesn't change the facts."

"Well, we may as well check it off the list," Hilda says, shrugging. Much like his older self, she seems rather skeptical, even if a little bothered. Claude can't say much more than that without having any more information. "Then I guess we'll check tomorrow before getting around to cleaning this place up?"

Leonie nudges her in the side with her elbow, grinning. "When you say that, you better include yourself in that, you know. There's no Lorenz or Raphael or Ignatz here to take over your work for you."

"Ugh, Leonie, you could at least play along a little better, especially after all this time..."

Leaving Lysithea to roll her eyes and tend to the fire which will help supply their dinner for the night, Claude edges a little closer to his older self. "So, what's on your mind in case we don't find anything at all?" he asks in a low tone, since it really does have to be said. Sure, it's him, so he probably should already know just what his older self will do, but, well. For as confident as he was in sending off his initial letter, the longer he's had to deal with his older self, the more he's seen him act... The more he's decided he wants to be at least a little more cautious.

His  older self leans back, arms stretching up over his head. "Well, that's the big question. Honestly, we'd probably have to consider disguising you at some point. I'm fine with the rest of our Golden Deer knowing-" In other words, those like Marianne, and Raphael, and Lorenz, and Ignatz. "-but anyone else... Well, that would make me seem either off my gourd, or like I'm blatantly lying. So we might have to change you up a little bit so you don't look quite like me."

Claude scoffs a little bit, a wry smile on his lips. "You know, it's kind of funny, that idea," he says, and doesn't explain any further. He doesn't need to, not when his older self chuckles a little bit with what's no doubt a very similar expression on his face.

Khalid, to Claude, to who else will this new face be? At this rate, it almost seems as though he might end up with a habit of collecting masks.

For more reasons than one, it'd be nice if they really could find a way to send him back home. Claude wants to be hopeful about it. However, while one can be hopeful, they also have to be a realist, and the realist that Claude is says that they'll really have to get a nice handful of luck for that one.

Still, what can they do? Only their best, sometimes, and hope that fortune favors them - truly the most fickle of all plans. But there's no point in dwelling on it. That's what Claude tells himself, even as so many other things weigh on his mind while he goes to prepare the tent for himself and, well, himself. Who best to share a tent together other than the two of them?

...At least, that's what he thinks, up until he finds the tents already more than set up, and with a certain figure in all black armor looming around them.

"You know, we were going to do this ourselves," Claude says, even as he pokes his head in through the flaps. "Although I'm pretty impressed. With how you've been roughing it out in the wilderness, I thought maybe you'd long lost the memories of how to set up a tent. Did you even bother to take off your gloves the entire time? If so, then that's even more impressive, considering I can't spot a single tear."

"...The wind will roll through with any holes like that," Dimitri mutters, not looking in Claude's direction. They're back to this old game, then, are they? "It is a simple matter, even with gauntlets."

Pulling out from the tent, Claude walks up to him just to stand by his side. Considering the travels they've had to do, and how they haven't found any trace of something that could send him back to his time, he's in different clothes for the time being, something that would be a little better to sleep in. Hopefully that won't come back to bite him anytime soon... "Well, thanks. I didn't think you'd bother with any of this. So, which tent do you think you'll take? Spoke about it with anyone yet? Although it'll probably be a little awkward, considering it's just women here, but I imagine Leonie wouldn't care too much." She's sensible enough to understand this is just how things end up at times, and it's not as though Dimitri is the kind of guy to worry about when it comes to that kind of thing.

Lots of other things, maybe, considering how he went right after those bandits, and how he still mutters to himself and people who Claude can't see. But nothing that would make it a problem to share a tent with him, honestly. Claude would know; he's had to share lots of camping arrangements with Dimitri for days now.

Of course, jokes on him for thinking that Dimitri would - heaven forbid - take care of himself, because the blond shakes his head at him. "I will not take up residence in any of the tents," he mumbles, still staring off into the distance. Towards where the cathedral stands, against all odds, even if some parts of it have fallen in on itself. "I will keep watch, to make sure that no more vermin sneak into this place."

"Oh, absolutely not," Claude says, only to pause at the sound of his voice reverberated somehow. It's a mystery that soon solves itself neatly as his older self steps into view, raking a hand up through his hair.

When his hand finishes its journey, it flops down to his side, and then in Dimitri's vague direction. "Don't tell me you planned on skipping sleep again," he says, which makes Claude jolt just a bit, around his own hand. He'd noticed occasionally that Dimitri seemed a little bit exhausted in their journey, as evidenced by the dark circle under his eye, but he'd just assumed little sleep, because who could sleep easy after the kind of life he's lived? After all, the guy still manages to tear through Imperial soldiers like it's absolutely nothing. Who could do that without sleeping at least a little bit?

Dimitri, apparently.

"I sleep," Dimitri growls, narrowing his eye and really having to turn his head so that he's not looking at either of them. "But it is a waste of time when there are more important things to do."

The older Claude shakes his head. "And what important things were there to do when we were traveling all the way here?" he asks. "You can't fool me, you know. I know for a fact that you stayed up for watch with me, and, when I asked Leonie, she said you told her you'd gotten plenty of rest before when you went to stay up the next night, too."

"Tch."

"Wow, you really have gotten learned to relax and get a little rude!" his older self teases, grinning just a little bit. "But I think what that means is that you need someone to have a handle on you and make sure that you sleep for any sort of hours, so..." He inclines his head over to Claude. "I'm going to have to trouble you to handle the second half of the night watch, if you don't mind. But when you go to do it, can you make sure to bully this guy back over into the tent? I'll take over the rest."

A part  of Claude's brain, admittedly, stutters to a stop, and threatens to stop working all together. Fortunately, he has another part of his brain  that will always keep working even under threat of poison (he's made sure this is a true fact and not just boasting), so that part of his brain clicks into place. "Oh, yeah, sure. Won't be anything new for me, with how long we've been out on our own!"

It's around then that he makes a sort of excuse, to go glance around to see what was in his (their?) old dorm room, just so that he can get out of there. He needs a second, all to his own, to just - take that all in.

On one level, he knows it must just seem like the practical thing to have done. For a guy like any version of himself, sometimes it's just better to make sure things are done by his hand. Sometimes that means meals for himself, or the maintenance of his arrows, and sometimes that apparently means making sure that you know better than anyone that a guy is getting some actual sleep.

Except... Then he thinks of the particular way in which his own hand had gone to Dimitri's arm without any fear of what could happen to him. He thinks of the way his older self looks over to him, with a quiet and deep look that doesn't seem anything like wholly calculating.

He thinks of a pair of brilliant blue eyes that lit up in the strangest kind of guilty joy whenever they saw him, and hands that were always so careful around him.

Claude's heart suddenly aches. It aches like a wound that was left long neglected and hidden away beneath layers and layers of bandages. He'd thought it was just surprise, and incredulity, that had made him so surprised at the thought that his older self would want to welcome Dimitri into his tent, maybe even into his bed if things turned out that way, but...

Deep away in the quiet and lonely stone hallways of a ruined Garreg Mach, Claude curls his fingers slightly there against his chest, the fabric of his shirt crumpling beneath even that little bit of pressure. It's something almost like envy. Or maybe jealousy. There's a difference between the two of them, of course, and yet, in this moment, it's impossible for him to differentiate one from the other. Not when all he can think is that suddenly he misses Dimitri.

His Dimitri. The Dimitri who hadn't been imprisoned and threatened with execution, the Dimitri who still had a chance, the Dimitri who had glanced up at him and smiled and invited him to tea on the sly when the gardens were a little empty-

Shit.

He never really had any cause to be surprised that his older self would do any and all of this, did he?

He's always known.





"We are the luckiest people in the world right now," Leonie says, over the sound of Lysithea's note taking, and past the sound of... Well. It's kind of hard to describe the sound that they're hearing right now.

Not a lot of people really encounter strange portals that may possibly lead through time, after all.

It's funny. Dimitri had never really described the strange thing that he saw to Claude in detail before, but, now that he's here in person, Claude... has to admit that it almost seems familiar in some strange way. As though he saw it once before somehow, or maybe in some kind of strange dream. The problem is that it's not completely similar to this strange and all too vague feeling. Just... enough to make him feel a little off-step somehow, and wanting to stare even longer as though that will give him any answer at all.

"It is as I saw before the younger Claude arrived," Dimitri says rather plainly while the Claudes are both still staring in shock, and Lysithea is murmuring to herself various things about magic that Claude wouldn't be able to understand even if he wasn't otherwise mentally preoccupied. Only Leonie seems to look over to him, frowning a little. "Exactly this."

At least there's no need for any of them to be left wondering, then, and Claude finally remembers to respond to Lysithea's impatient look just before she can give him even more impatient words. "I'll have to trust you on that one, then. I was too close to the blast zone to see exactly what the spell looked like in its entirety, and, when I was spat out again, it had already disappeared from behind me when I had a chance to look." He casts a wry smirk over up at Dimitri. "Then again, that chance did come just a little bit late, considering I had to worry about someone jumping me the second I showed up..."

Dimitri's return stare is somehow both completely flat, and yet not totally lacking in repentance. "Any would act the same in times of war," he mutters, although he has to avert his gaze again soon enough. What a stubborn guy.

"Well, it's good that it's at least the same kind of magic or whatever it is that you saw before," Leonie said, scrubbing her chin with one knuckle. "However, I think I'm just speaking common sense when I point out that this doesn't necessarily prove anything. Even if it teleports someone through space and time, that doesn't mean it'll go right back to the space and time that he's supposed to be in."

Claude's older self lets out a long, slow sigh, and then scratches the back of his head. "Yeah, that's the thing of it, isn't it? If we just start tossing things in for a laugh, then who knows what the actual result will be? If only we had a certain Teach-hair-stealing someone around with us, he could probably come up with all sorts of interesting little experiments to try and make sure that this works right as we want it to... But that means we'd really have to spend some serious time on it, even if we did have that kind of help."

In some ways, the simple reality of things is enough that it would make anyone's heart sink a little bit like a stone down into the depths of their stomach. Something so close, and yet still so far away despite everything. But at the same time... Claude smiles, just a little bit.

Even if it's something still far away, that he can even tell it's far away means he can see it. And if he can see it, then, surely, one day, he'll be able to reach it. And he can wait that much longer, can't he?

Certainly this much is good enough for a realist like him.

However, well - it seems that his view isn't one that's not always shared, and maybe he shouldn't be surprised that it is Dimitri who speaks up again, eye narrowed. "Will you surely have the time for such a thing?" he growls suddenly, cutting through whatever conversation there is, straight through whatever Lysithea was telling Hilda. "The war looms eternally, as you well know. You spoke, this entire way, of meeting here to reunite with comrades, to see one another again - and perhaps this would change something. Can you be so certain that you will have the timet to look into this? That you can spare a moment for it?"

What a way to sour the mood. And yet it's clear from the look on everyone' s faces - and surely Claude's own in some way, he suspects - that this is a simple truth that none of them would have been able to forget about long, once they got over the shock of their surprise, or the elation of discovering a strange sorta-unknown magic.

"It can't be helped," Claude says himself, just so that no one else feels guilty about this simple fact. Life is life. What can he say? It stings, and he'll grit his teeth in the privacy of a tent or some spare crumbling room, but for now? For now, this is all he can do, even if he can't quite fight the slight pull of a frown to his lips. "This is an entire war that we're talking about, and reckless magic that's just lurking right there in the air in front of us. These aren't the kind of things that we should rush. It just looks like I'll have to get a hair cut and hope that a lot of church members' memories of me as a teenager aren't so keen." Especially someone like Seteth, honestly, when he thinks on it. If that good Father is still kicking, then that's sure going to be a problem to handle...

Nothing he says is anything less than sensible. Claude likes to think he has that sort of thing nailed down. And yet instead of settling Dimitri down at all, all he does is growl, lips curling up over bared teeth. "You all get lost within your own heads too much," he snarls, which is frankly a riot to hear from the guy who has spaced out mid-conversation with Claude more than once. "Do you not all hear it?"

"What?" Claude says, not only with his older self, but also, at the very least, Hilda too.

"The sounds of nostalgia," Dimitri says, which is, so very very vague. Why can't he give more concrete descriptions than that? Claude isn't sure if he can make out any noise he's ever heard before from that strange rift in the air. "They echo, there, from within it. The exact same kinds as that which you emerged from. There is a reason for it all- and you should know it most of all!" The metal of his gauntlets creeks and whines as Dimitri curls them into fists, incensed for some reason in a way that Claude doesn't think he could have ever expected. "Why stay in this cursed time, this wretched place? Not when you still have at least some months to savor any kind of joy! All that staying here will do is give more questions than answers, and how long until any of you are satisfied with what you could learn of this through your tests?"

Maybe some of this comes off as doubt to Lysithea's ears; it's hard to take it as any admission of confidence. She bristles, eyes flashing with some of her fiery temper clearly still intact. "And what would you know of magic?" she demands. "I remember our time in school together well enough. That was always your weakest subject, and the thing which you were weakest to in battle."

Back then, with a Dimitri who had two eyes to smile with, Claude always used to tell him that he didn't need to apologize as much as he thought he did to some people. He managed well enough with certain people, sure - Claude can think of a few Faerghus knights who ran away from him because of the tongue lashing he gave whenever they badmouthed Duscur. But that Dimitri would have stepped back in the face of an expert like Lysithea, enraged at him doubting what she knows. At least he doesn't need to worry about that with this Dimitri. Not when he can snarl right back at her, not backing down for a moment. "And it is because I know the vicious bite of it that I can speak on this in a way you cannot," he counters. "Tell the truth, Lysithea - how old would this Claude be until you could be certain that this portal would send him back? Would it even last that long?"

Ugh. Claude has to say that he might have liked it a little better when Dimitri had some sense of delicacy with his words, since his touch was always going to be out of the equation. That's a little bitter truth that Claude had tried to downplay the importance of, mentally, because, well... What else could they do?

Mainly hope that Lysithea manages to work her magic (literally) and find something to help them. Hope that the Professors of the school, who had grown close to Byleth and the Golden Deer in turn, would still be alive and could help.

Hope that it would all take not too many years, so that he wouldn't feel as though he lost so much as the trade off for all of this knowledge here.

His older self steps a little closer, this time, hand brushing along Claude's shoulder before he's there in front of Dimitri. "None of us here like the idea either, Dimitri," he says quietly, expression just a little tired. Claude can tell. It's his own face; how many times has he stood in front of the mirror to train such little tells out of it? "But you pointed out, just earlier, how we have a war to fight right now as well. We'll want to hide this portal, for as long as it's here as well. We need to prioritize certain things."

And Claude himself... At least, in this particular and absolutely outlandish situation... is in the rare position of being lower priority.

He barely has a second to wonder just what is Dimitri's point to all of this when he growls right at his older self, and storms past him. "Then prioritize better," he snaps. And - okay, wait, hold on, why is he being lifted up by the back of his uniform? "Uses those senses you are so proud of!"

"Uh," says Claude, student at Garreg Mach.

"Please put me down," says Claude, Duke of the Leicester Alliance, maybe more than a little bit strangled.

Off to the side, Leonie already looks as though she's doing the math in her head on if she'd be able to kick Dimitri inbetween the legs despite the fact that he's wearing armor, and Lysithea is very clearly two seconds away from throwing a giant handful of fire over at the blond. Dimitri ignores all of them, despite having an otherwise decent survival instinct that kept him going for five years. "No," Dimitri growls, bristling, and yet... not as wild as Claude thinks he's seen him before, when he's gotten worked up about Edelgard, or gone into battle. "With him, you will be hindered and, with us, he shall be tormented. Listen to it properly, and trust it will send him back!"

The older Claude takes a second to scrub at his face, and Claude takes a moment to feel a pang of sympathy. More than he would for anyone else, honestly, because it's himself. "Dimitri, you're asking us to do a lot on a hope and a prayer," he points out.

"Prayers mean little," Dimitri scoffs, which is as lovingly optimistic as always to hear. (Dimitri never did seem to care too much for the church in his own quiet way, back in Claude's time.) "But what else do you do, if not ask for hope, Claude von Reigan?  What has your entire dream not been but that of hope?"

Claude knows his own answer even before he hears it from another mouth. "A lot of hard work, primarily, ha." Harder and longer work than anyone else could imagine.

And no one would ever be able to argue against that... Except Dimitri, all full of fire and desperation and a lack of care for his own future, who looks straight at him and says, "If there is no hope, then no fool would ever put in hard work to begin with."

It's funny. They're simple little words, something that is admittedly based in facts. So why... do they twist around Claude's heart like that?

He only has a moment to take that feeling in before Dimitri hauls him up a little more again and finishes with, "So put hope in this, and throw me out as you see fit, but I know this more than you."

And, despite the fact that everyone starts yelling and rushes towards him, Dimitri just turns sharply on his heel and flings Claude through the air, straight into the portal, as easily as though he were tossing a bag of laundry off to the side. It's air all around him at one point, and then the strange rippling sensation of the portal as though parting air, and -

Oh.

Claude closes his eyes in that split second as he falls through the portal, and he finally takes Dimitri's words to heart. He listens. And he can hear it in turn. Dimitri really was right.

He can hear nostalgia.





"I - I will get a ladder, Claude, and someone to help! I am so thankful to the Goddess that you were alright..."

"Ha ha, yeah. You know, I do have some luck left in me, Marianne. I'm just glad it was you here in the cathedral rather than anyone else. I'd like to keep a little bit of my reputation intact!"

Because right now, dangling from a statue, where his clothes have caught on points of it in such an awkward way, well... He thinks he could live without spreading around too much as the latest rumor. He'd survive a harmless little rumor like that, sure, but it'd still be nice if he could go on without it. Not as nice as being able to get down without falling and getting his ass bruised, of course. Still, it'd be nice. He can ask for that much, can't he? 

Unfortunately, Marianne just shakes her head. "I will see who I can get, but... With you going missing, for the last few hours, everyone has been running around trying to find you, Claude... I will get someone, now!" And just like that, she runs off, uniform skirt hitched up a little bit so that it isn't in the way as she runs off.

Well, it is what it is. He can only hope that whoever Marianne finds first, they'll be someone at least a little reliable. And, with what he's learned, someone who isn't from the Black Eagle house. He still has a whole lot to think on, honestly, and what to do with this present is at the top of the list. He always knew something was up even before he got transported to the future, of course, but now he has even stronger leads and ideas of how things will turn out, thanks to his older self telling him all sorts of things while he was there... and Dimitri's own perspective was invaluable too, even if he was prone to tangents, and his words were occasionally difficult to untangle.

Trying not to wiggle too much considering he's hanging by literal threads, Claude crosses his arms. Along with the trouble with Edelgard and all her plans (or are they really her plans? The questions never end), he also learned some rather important information from Marianne just now. Everyone's been looking for him for hours. Only hours. Not days, or weeks, or anything like that.

Maybe he just imagined everything that happened to him, as a consequence of going through a strange burst of magic. Claude doubts it, however. Not with the dirty state his uniform is in, even with the best that he and Leonie of the future could do to clean it.

He has to say, the magic that Lysithea accidentally unleashed just because he was bothering her a bit sure was something. He'll have to really impart to her that it should never be used again.

The heavy clanking of metal boots along stone disrupts his thoughts - and Claude knows that particular sound well, stirring from where he's hanging. Coming around the corner, into the room with all the saints... there is Dimitri. His Dimitri, with both of his blue eyes still in their places, shining bright with concern, hair mussed atop his head from what is surely all his running about. While there's no Marianne at his side, he does have a ladder tucked underneath one arm, and quite a massive one, too. That kind that would make any other student struggle to carry it without any wobbling if they were on their own, or even with a couple of people.

"Claude!" Dimitri exclaims, rushing over to the base of the statue. In contrast to how easily he's been carting it around, Dimitri is a lot more careful and slow as he props the ladder up against the statue. It isn't exactly an equal rest, in comparison to a wall, but it does well enough. Well enough after some fiddling until Dimitri is satisfied, anyway. "Are you alright? Do you feel terribly ill, or are wounded in any way?"

It's kind of funny. Hearing his voice now... Claude can still hear traces of that deepness it will gain, in probably no small amount of time. Even without everything that will happen in the future, this Dimitri now has still been wounded by his past. There is that weight, there in his throat. It's just, right now, he is not so scared of showing the lightness of his hope. "Yeah, I'm fine, I promise," he tells Dimitri soothingly, watching as the man so very delicately starts to ascend. "Just a little surprise teleportation, you know how it is."

Dimitri's deadpan gaze is hidden a little better, in this time, but only a little. "Claude, you are absolutely filthy," he points out, coming closer bit by bit as he does his best to not shatter the ladder underneath his grip. "What on earth happened?"

"Lysithea's little spell sent me right into a forest," Claude says, which isn't wholly a lie. "And some things just happened before the spell grabbed me again." And that's sure a way to put it, really. "Honestly, it's a pretty weird bit of magic. I'll have to tell Lysithea not to try it again, just between you and me. Didn't seem very reliable in more ways than one." Also true! Just what on earth made the portal manifest all the way in Garreg Mach, rather than back in the Faerghan wilderness?

"Well, from what I heard, it did seem to be a spell born of emotion that managed to work through unlucky coincidence with many other factors at play," Dimitri says, which means he knows only the vaguest of the details. Lysithea was right in that it's never been his strong suit and everyone knows it. "Alright... Here. Can you reach me well enough?"

Probably a normal person wouldn't be able to reach Dimitri from the position of the ladder and their own compromising state hanging from a statue by their clothes. However, well... As he's so recently been reminded, work and hope are impressive things when combined together, so Claude does what maybe only he can. He dares to swing a little bit by the points where his clothes hang from the statue, just enough for his own impressively trained flexibility to gain a foothold right there along Dimitri's shoulder, where his outstretched arm is connected.

That's around the time when ripping sounds off in his ear, clothes unable to deal with all that moving around, but it's fine. Even for all that Dimitri yelps, he stays sturdy enough, and that's all Claude needs in order to get himself a little more forward so that his hands can go to statue and ladder both.

"Yep, I can reach you!" he says cheerfully, getting his other foot onto Dimitri's other shoulder.

Dimitri groans from down between his legs, and not in the sexy way, either. "Truly, it is a miracle that you were able to survive even a strange spell like that," he grouses. "Fine then. Climb down upon my back, and I will get us the rest of the way down."

At this rate, maybe it'd be easier for Claude to just go all the way down past Dimitri, on his own two feet. But right as he's in the perfect position for it, he hesitates... and, instead, wraps his arms tight around Dimitri, and presses his face against his shoulder. "All yours, Dimitri," he tells him, and closes his eyes for a moment. Just to take him in, the sturdiness that he can hold onto, and the steady way he breathes while slowly descending.

He's gotta say, this Dimitri smells much better than his future self had. And... more than anything else, he smells truly and comfortingly familiar.

Clinging to Dimitri like this, however, is something of a double edged sword. It means that Claude doesn't really have much time to step back or slip away when they reach the ground before the blond is turning around getting him by the arm. Probably he could have dodged it if he really wanted; Dimitri never reaches out as fast he otherwise could. For whatever reason, however, he hesitates just long enough to be grabbed, and there's Dimitri pushing up some of his sleeve.

"Just as I thought," he huffs, squinting down at Claude's skin. "Bruises. You hurt yourself during this adventure, didn't you? Sit down, then."

Claude's first plan of action had been the sensible one, and that which would most likely soothe away any suspicion. Reconvene with Teach to work out some things, cross his fingers that he'd only have to talk to Seteth so that he could skip some questions (or just talking to Rhea at all for the time being), trying to gauge just how Hubert is reacting... Except Dimitri will get upset if he does anything else, he can already tell. Claude supposes he'll just have to trust that Marianne went to Teach over any one else, so that he at least has a little more time. So, with a wry grin playing on his face, he flops down at the feet of Fodlan's saints, and just lets Dimitri do whatever it is that he plans on doing.

That, as it happens to be, means reaching down into a pouch hanging there on his belt, and... pulling out, so delicately, a small little tin of something. A salve of some sort, clearly, as he nudges the top off with his thumb. It bends a little with the motion; Claude has no doubt that Dimitri will bend it back the other way when he puts it back on again.

And with that... He reaches over and, so very softly, begins applying it along the bruises Claude has picked up here and there.

Claude's stupid little heart does some fascinatingly and physically impossible movement deep down in his chest, just for that, and he can't keep his eyes off of Dimitri's fingers. How slow and gentle they are, so terrified of leaving even more bruises on Claude's skin. "I was worried terribly for you," he says softly, voice so quiet so that the walls cannot steal it away and echo it between themselves. It's an easy thing, here in a place which steals away the voice to spread it like these wide walls, but Dimitri manages just fine. "I thought, if I were to never see you again... I would not know what I would do."

Closing his eyes, Claude just focuses on the sensation of his bare hands, so rarely devoid of their metal shield. "Sorry for worrying you," he says quietly, and wonders if, in this, his older self is giving similar reassurances to a different Dimitri. If it's him... So long as it's him... Then surely that other Claude is making sure Dimitri doesn't purposefully ostracize himself or run away back into the wilderness. Surely, he'll get in contact with Rodrigue and the Faerghan rebel forces, and they'll figure something out.

As for him?

He'll figure something out, too, for the sake of those gentle fingers right there along his skin, and the sturdy shoulders they are connected to. For a pair of brilliant blue eyes, that he'll work to always keep that way.

When all is said and done, Dimitri finally satisfied that Claude isn't hiding any more serious injuries (Dimitri and then his older self protected him well on that front), they both finally get up, only to run straight into Byleth and Marianne amongst the pews. "I'm glad that you're alright," Byleth tells him immediately, even as Dimitri stands awkwardly to the side. Sure, Byleth's own expression may not seem to match their words, but... Claude knows that they really do mean it, in all the little ways. Leaning a bit more towards him, the focus of their gaze. Byleth can be hard to read, but that doesn't mean they're any less sincere.

"Ah, it was just a little bit of an adventure," Claude says, waving his hand. "I'll be glad to just have a bath and lay in bed for a while. Don't worry, Teach - Dimitri was here to fuss over me instead." And he's happy about that, that Marianne found a figure of authority like him rather than, say, Seteth. A lucky break, perhaps.

Byleth nods over to Dimitri for that, who nods in return. "Then, if you are with your professor, Claude, I will take my leave," Dimitri finally says. "Professor, would you like me to tell the others that we have found Claude, and to call off any more searches?"

Ah, Dimitri. Claude used to think that he was such a goody two shoes at the start, and yet, funnily enough, he's one of those who trusts authority the least at times, depending on the circumstances. Byleth has just won him over despite not even being his professor, which they seem to have a talent at. "You can tell Seteth," Byleth says matter of factly. "But we'll escort Claude back to the dorms, and make sure that he's alright."

Thank goodness. Under the guise of needing a little care after his ordeal, Claude will be able to take a bit of a break before he's interrogated. And that means....

"Hey, Teach," Claude says, when the two of them have finally stepped away from places where all sorts of prying ears could catch wind of their words, and he knows his voice can still be loud enough for them and no one else. "I was just thinking, while I've been gone, but... Lately, you've been practicing swordsmanship with Felix a lot lately, right?" One of the many ways in which Byleth seems to get on everyone's good side, engaging with the things they admire and like most. He knows they've managed to even court a few Black Eagles from their house too, in interest of their enigmatic professor.

"That's right. Why do you ask?"

"Just some thoughts I had. I was thinking it'd be good to learn how to live in all sorts of situations no matter what, so I figured that maybe Felix would know more about that, especially being from Faerghus and all. That's the harshest place to live in for the entire continent, isn't it? Or if not Felix, maybe his father." Claude smiles. "Since I'll clearly be dealing with the Alliance a lot in the future, it's always good to make friends and learn about their lands, isn't it? As a future duke to a proper Faerghan duke, it'd be nice if we could get along with each other."

Not to mention... Claude doubts they'll ever be able to solve everything that falls apart in the future by focusing purely on what happens in Garreg Mach alone. He's sure that, even if he confronted Edelgard -

Okay, well, first of all, if he tried to confront Edelgard on literally anything, Hubert would try to poison his very next tea time. Jokes on him, of course, because Claude can recognize poison and survive dozens more out of pure necessity, but he'd still rather not let that little bit of knowledge slip on over to a guy like Hubert. He doesn't need to get him motivated to find what sticks, after all.

More importantly, the rot runs deeper than in just Garreg Mach. It's clear that something is festering all across the continent, from deep within the Empire that it's making Edelgard work in such a stubborn way, to even Faerghus, where the rot will fall out right beneath Dimitri's feet and send him tumbling into a pit.

Cutting off one limb isn't enough. The head would be ideal, of course, but nonetheless, cutting off limbs shouldn't be disregarded so easily.

That's still more than enough to make a creature stumble and limp...

...And when they're limping, that makes them all the easier to line up in his sites to take them out.

Gently, subtly from where he's folded them together along the back of his head, Claude tightens one hand over the other, a little bit of determination for solely himself. He's gotten quite a heads up, thanks to that future self of his. Just as he's always done, he'll make sure to not let a single bit of precious information go to waste.

And he'll make sure that Dimtiri doesn't fall into that pit, either.