The Palms of Christ - FE:3H - Dimitri/ F!Byleth

Offer your body as a burning building
without fire escapes.

I want to feel you like lifelines
on the palms of Christ
when the nails went through.

Andrea Gibson

-

Goddess, she was tired. Bone crushing lethargy made every step a mammoth effort, and her waterlogged boots wrought havoc on her poor feet. Five years since the battle of Garreg Mach, and Edelgard's betrayal. Empress Edelgard now, she supposed. Byleth rubbed her burning, bloodshot eyes, stopping abruptly just inside the crumbled monastery wall. Her sword was halfway from its sheath by the time she registered what she was seeing. 

A bloody bunch of corpses. In Imperial livery, no less, and completely brutalised. These had not been easy deaths. A prickle of unease spread across her scalp as she skirted the bodies, green eyes darting between the killing field and the dark entrance to the once great hall. The complete absence of sound only increased her anxiety, there were no birds, no animals, no voices. Not even a breeze to lighten the oppressively still air.

Through the broken doors Byleth could see wide swathes of golden sunlight cutting through the gloom, shining through holes in the roof. Crumbled stone and dust littered the floor, seemingly undisturbed but for some enterprising plant life growing through the cracks. 

Her booted footsteps were loud in the silence, and she gripped her sword hilt tightly as she stepped over the threshold. Her eyes were immediately drawn upward to the extensive damage, a humongous hole where the beautiful vaulted ceilings had once been, and a giant rock, likely the culprit, perched underneath. She didn't see him at first, hidden in the gloom, among the rubble. But as she moved around the sun warmed boulder, mid-step, their gazes locked.

Byleth froze, green eyes wide. 

"Dimitri..." His name a soft sigh from her lips.

He turned his head away, dirty blonde hair falling to cover a black eye patch, mouth curled in a twisted line.

"I should have known..." His voice was husky, rough with disuse, and heavy with bitterness "that one day... you would be haunting me as well."

Byleth staggered closer and he turned a furious blue eye on her.

"What must I do to be rid of you?! I will kill that woman, I swear it."

Her knees hit the stone with a 'thud' she barely felt, her entire being focused on the hunched over, snarling prince of Faerghus.

"Everything will be ok..." She murmured, reaching out to touch his face.

Dimitri flinched away, confusion and anger on his face.

"It can't be! You're alive?! Hmph. If that is the case... That can only mean you are another Imperial spy. Did you come here to kill me? Answer the question."

"Of course not! Dimitri..."

"Hmph." 

He pushed away from the wall, away from her, and stalked across the hall.

"I'm glad you're safe..." Byleth's voice was soft.

Dimitri paused in the doorway, sighed, and looked up into the cloudless blue sky.

"Am I?" He asked, but the heavens held no answer.