🌺 and though i burn, how could i fall / when i am lifted by every word you say to me?
[ How vastly different their lives had been five years ago. Bruises and minor scrapes have become broken skin and cuts deep to the bone.
That Hidla hasn't managed to lose her sanity is terrifying and it's something she doesn't want to consider why that may be. Sure, she's cried - but the salt from her eyes only mingles with the sweat from her brow and the blood that is not hers until these liquids are impossible discern from one another.
She can't be certain how long they've been fighting. Somehow she's lost sight of her friends and it's only desperation that keeps her fighting to get back to them. To keep them safe. But what all the Goneril warriors and her brother had said about fighting and how easy it was to be swept away in the battle tide had been true in some respects. Because, when there is no other wave coming after her, she finds herself alone on a hill top gazing down at the carnage below.
Smoke - or perhaps it's fog or both - make it difficult to see. But it doesn't matter, does it? The forces down there don't carry Leicester flags. It's all Adrestian red and Faerghus blue as far as she can see. And as much as her heart aches to find her friends from those territories, she knows she can't because it would be a fool's errand. But then, inexplicably she sees a hulking figure that can only belong to one person. ]
Dimtiri?
[ It's a whisper to no one but herself; it seems all of her old classmates - enemies - are dead beneath her feet. The adrenaline that had coarsed through her is quickly fading away and soon enough the ache of muscles and her injuries will make themselves known. By now she should be turning around and heading back to her friends, pleading with Raphael to deposit her butt-first into a hot bath because her hair is matted, her lips are cracked, and there is more blood on her than she's ever wanted there to be. Yet none of these things that would normally bother her seem to matter now as she stares at the heaping mound of viscera-coated armor and blood-soaked cloak that is Dimitri who has collapsed to his knees on the ground.
All the cowardice in her tells her to leave. What else had all those years of whining been for? She doesn't even know if he'd recognize her, let alone care to do anything but slaughter her for breathing in his direction. But then she sees movement - Adrestian soldiers - and she remembers everything he'd ever done for her in those peaceful, blissful, innocent years. The moments they had shared despite their different houses. How she had grown to genuinely like the both endearing and exasperating prince turned friend.
Mad King or not, he couldn't die this way. He couldn't die alone. Before the realization of what she's doing sets in, she darts forward meeting the advancing men with a clash of her axe. How she manages to fell them is beyond her. But it doesn't matter because they're dead and she and Dimtiri are not. Dimitri - she's not thinking straight as she drops her to knees (into the muck and the grime and the Goddess knows what else) as her blood stained gloves try to find the worst of his wounds. There's so much blood. There's so much viscera. It makes her stomach curdle but she pushes through with a sob as she strains to pour whatever reserves of her magic left into him as she can, babbling to keep him awake. ]
You're okay. You're okay! Oh Goddess, I didn't study enough Faith for this when we were in class- please be okay, Dimtiri. [ Failure and doubt push at her senses but she shoves them away. Surely her meager healing skills would work to stabilize him. They had to. A sound - something between a choked sob and a nervous laugh croak from her lips. ] And maybe don't kill me? I'd really love a bath after all of this is over.
[ He's lost track of how many it's been — days, years, people he's killed. The latter come to him in the night in his dreams, along with the faces of the people he's left behind in his mad quest. Each fight blends together until it feels like he's never stopped fighting at all. Sleep comes in fits where he can get it, tucked into a corner, seated upright under a tree, always with spear in hand, waiting. He's only careful enough to not let his guard down, but he doesn't bother hiding his presence or his anger. He carves bloody path in front of him, leaves a trail of the dead behind him, travels with the ghosts of the people he's left behind.
There are too many of them when he comes across the battalion of Adrestian soldiers, but he's never bothered to count before and he's not going to start now. The roar he lets out is animalistic, and while it affords him the upper hand at first, the situation quickly turns on him. Before he realizes it, he is slumped over, arrows piercing his armor. Hunched over as he is, he looks the very picture of the wounded boar Felix would consider him, and it is that thought that leads way to hearing Felix, then Sylvain, then Ingrid and Byleth and Hilda—
It's the last one that causes him to startle, eye opening as he realizes she's still talking, begging for him to be okay, to not kill her, to— want a bath?
Dimitri lifts his head, vision blurry through the viscera dripping down his face. His ribs start to itch where her magic begins it's attempt to knit his muscle back together, and he stares at her (a little stupidly) before opening his mouth to speak with a voice that has only been used to express pain these last few years. ]
Why are you here?
[ And that's the remaining effort he has in him. Dimitri falls over, no longer bleeding but still bloody, the exhaustion nipping at his heels these last five years finally having it's chance to catch up to him. ]
[ It shouldn't come as so much of a shock when Hilda hears his voice when she had been pleading for him not to be dead mere moments ago. But hearing Dimitiri speak feels like she's hearing a voice from the past that she had very much thought she'd never hear again. Despite the magic she was pouring into him, willing, demanding, that his skin stitch itself back together, she still finds herself flinching at the sudden response that she had very much not expected.
In spite of herself, she flinches.
Before she can point out the obvious (she's healing him - or at least trying to) Dimitri's hulking figure begins to fall. In a battlefield the only conclusion she can come to is that he's going to attack her - but with Freikugel just out of arms reach the only thing she can do is push on his chest -
Only to realize that he isn't trying to attack her. He's weak and still dying. ]
I'm trying to help you! But I don't know if I can do that if you're putting all of your weight on me -
[ There's a grunt of exertion as she tries to push him upright. And of course, because she has always underestimated herself, hidden the sides of her that aren't pretty and wrapped in pink silks and satin, she manages it in a way that no one without her strength or aid from her Crest would. By some miracle she throws his arm over her shoulder, her own arm trying to wrap around his waist to hold him up. It's another miracle that only manages to gag slightly at the smell of viscera, sweat, blood and whatever smell hadn't been washed out from the fur of his cloak. ]
I'm going to try to get you to a safe place. To someone who knows how to heal you. Properly. Okay?
[ He's in and out of lucidity but he understands enough that Hilda is trying to help him and that he should at least stand on his own two feet. His lance anchors him on one side and Hilda's radiating body heat anchors him on the other, and he turns his good eye to her, studying her carefully before speaking again. ]
Why are you helping me?
[ She's never been part of the Empire, to his knowledge, but she's always been loyal to Claude — and the Alliance had been in skirmish with the Empire for the past few days. And Dimitri? Dimitri has no loyalty, not anymore. He's neither friend nor foe and it'd be wisest to leave him to his fate. He's been dead these last five years, after all. ]
[ Every moment spent out here feels drawn out. Torturous. Laborious (and that has very little to do with the very heavy man draped mostly on top of her) in a way that grates on her raw nerves because every minute out here means that she runs the risk of running into more Imperial soldiers that she definitely would not be able to outrun given the circumstances. Which begs the question: If that were to happen, would she leave him?
His question feels like it hits home harder than he intends it to. Unbeknownst to him she feels her nerves ripple and alight once more as heat rises to her cheeks that has less to do with the exertion of each step she takes back towards the Leicester Alliance's camp and more to do with shame that chases at her heels. The reality of everything she had just done (to survive, to save her own ass, to keep her friends alive -) clashes once more with the reality of having slain familiar faces. Faces that she had had tea with, had laughed with.
Her fingers flex around the hilt of Freikugel that she drags behind them on the ground. Why is she helping him? And would she continue to if they ran into trouble? It would be easier to run and say that she tried, wouldn't it? Through the din of the voices in her head that accuse her of cowardice she responds to him quietly but with no less conviction echoing what she'd thought moments before. ]
[ The response is immediate; he doesn't even need to think about whether or not he deserves something so basic as survival. Her healing is wasted on him, better spent on someone who hasn't been nothing but a wandering corpse.
He keeps walking, though. If the world has deemed it so that he must trudge on, then trudge on he will. ]
You wouldn't be saving me if you knew what I've done.
[ It isn't a threat, just a blunt statement of fact. The blood on his hands is metaphorical, but it is there, staining everything he touches deep crimson. His body hasn't stopped aching for five years, the acute pain of each time he's been stabbed or shot through with an arrow. That anger that has always simmered away inside of him, roused out of it's slumber into a howling crazed beast, lingers just out of what's left of his vision, whispering into his ear to kill, kill, kill. It's all he's good for until he takes that woman's head.
Still, a part of him thinks he should be grateful to Hilda. At least this way he still has a chance of letting his father and stepmother rest. ]
[ If he had stopped walking, if he had simply given up it probably would have incited a rage that so very few people got to see. The ones who had were somewhere on this battle field, unable to tell others what they had seen. (If they had, what would they say? A pint sized flash of pink wielding an axe made of bone felt like a ridiculous notion to her even though it was a well-known, poorly kept secret that she was far more of a threat than she wishes she were.) And the others were those that she trusted far above and beyond any faith that she might have for Fodlan's Goddess were, hopefully, somewhere safe.
Instead, the Boar Prince receives a fraction of what he would have been subjected to had he simply laid down on the cold hard earth. For a moment his despondent response makes her second guess her actions. For a split second, he makes her feel like what she knows is right into something bitter on her tongue. Annoyance splits across her face manifesting into mild venom. ]
What are you talking about?
[ Her head turns towards him, or rather, up at him with a gaze full of fury. ]
Look where we are. Look at what all of us just did. If that's the case then no one deserves to keep living after this.
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There are too many of them when he comes across the battalion of Adrestian soldiers, but he's never bothered to count before and he's not going to start now. The roar he lets out is animalistic, and while it affords him the upper hand at first, the situation quickly turns on him. Before he realizes it, he is slumped over, arrows piercing his armor. Hunched over as he is, he looks the very picture of the wounded boar Felix would consider him, and it is that thought that leads way to hearing Felix, then Sylvain, then Ingrid and Byleth and Hilda—
It's the last one that causes him to startle, eye opening as he realizes she's still talking, begging for him to be okay, to not kill her, to— want a bath?
Dimitri lifts his head, vision blurry through the viscera dripping down his face. His ribs start to itch where her magic begins it's attempt to knit his muscle back together, and he stares at her (a little stupidly) before opening his mouth to speak with a voice that has only been used to express pain these last few years. ]
Why are you here?
[ And that's the remaining effort he has in him. Dimitri falls over, no longer bleeding but still bloody, the exhaustion nipping at his heels these last five years finally having it's chance to catch up to him. ]
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In spite of herself, she flinches.
Before she can point out the obvious (she's healing him - or at least trying to) Dimitri's hulking figure begins to fall. In a battlefield the only conclusion she can come to is that he's going to attack her - but with Freikugel just out of arms reach the only thing she can do is push on his chest -
Only to realize that he isn't trying to attack her. He's weak and still dying. ]
I'm trying to help you! But I don't know if I can do that if you're putting all of your weight on me -
[ There's a grunt of exertion as she tries to push him upright. And of course, because she has always underestimated herself, hidden the sides of her that aren't pretty and wrapped in pink silks and satin, she manages it in a way that no one without her strength or aid from her Crest would. By some miracle she throws his arm over her shoulder, her own arm trying to wrap around his waist to hold him up. It's another miracle that only manages to gag slightly at the smell of viscera, sweat, blood and whatever smell hadn't been washed out from the fur of his cloak. ]
I'm going to try to get you to a safe place. To someone who knows how to heal you. Properly. Okay?
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Why are you helping me?
[ She's never been part of the Empire, to his knowledge, but she's always been loyal to Claude — and the Alliance had been in skirmish with the Empire for the past few days. And Dimitri? Dimitri has no loyalty, not anymore. He's neither friend nor foe and it'd be wisest to leave him to his fate. He's been dead these last five years, after all. ]
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His question feels like it hits home harder than he intends it to. Unbeknownst to him she feels her nerves ripple and alight once more as heat rises to her cheeks that has less to do with the exertion of each step she takes back towards the Leicester Alliance's camp and more to do with shame that chases at her heels. The reality of everything she had just done (to survive, to save her own ass, to keep her friends alive -) clashes once more with the reality of having slain familiar faces. Faces that she had had tea with, had laughed with.
Her fingers flex around the hilt of Freikugel that she drags behind them on the ground. Why is she helping him? And would she continue to if they ran into trouble? It would be easier to run and say that she tried, wouldn't it? Through the din of the voices in her head that accuse her of cowardice she responds to him quietly but with no less conviction echoing what she'd thought moments before. ]
Because nobody deserves to die out here.
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[ The response is immediate; he doesn't even need to think about whether or not he deserves something so basic as survival. Her healing is wasted on him, better spent on someone who hasn't been nothing but a wandering corpse.
He keeps walking, though. If the world has deemed it so that he must trudge on, then trudge on he will. ]
You wouldn't be saving me if you knew what I've done.
[ It isn't a threat, just a blunt statement of fact. The blood on his hands is metaphorical, but it is there, staining everything he touches deep crimson. His body hasn't stopped aching for five years, the acute pain of each time he's been stabbed or shot through with an arrow. That anger that has always simmered away inside of him, roused out of it's slumber into a howling crazed beast, lingers just out of what's left of his vision, whispering into his ear to kill, kill, kill. It's all he's good for until he takes that woman's head.
Still, a part of him thinks he should be grateful to Hilda. At least this way he still has a chance of letting his father and stepmother rest. ]
no subject
Instead, the Boar Prince receives a fraction of what he would have been subjected to had he simply laid down on the cold hard earth. For a moment his despondent response makes her second guess her actions. For a split second, he makes her feel like what she knows is right into something bitter on her tongue. Annoyance splits across her face manifesting into mild venom. ]
What are you talking about?
[ Her head turns towards him, or rather, up at him with a gaze full of fury. ]
Look where we are. Look at what all of us just did. If that's the case then no one deserves to keep living after this.