Chapter Text
When she found him, she thought him a ghost. The wraith of a boy five years dead. He looked so sad, hunched against the ornate marble of the crumbling monastery. Gaunt face flecked with fresh blood, his lance still clutched in his hand. He kept his gaze cast downward like he did not hear the echo of her footsteps ricocheting endlessly from the walls.
She stepped over the still-warm bodies of slain Adrestian soldiers and extended her hand, shafts of sunlight warming her skin and catching in his golden hair. Five years ago he would have taken her hand and let her leverage him back to his feet. He would have smiled at her and given soft thanks for her aid. Five years ago he still wore a carefully constructed mask of chivalry.
Dimitri looked up, face somber, and Byleth masked her surprise as only a single blue eye beheld her. A clearer image began to take shape; she remembered then what had lurked beneath his facade. How it had cracked in the weeks before the revelation of Edelgard’s betrayal.
He observed her hand, still suspended between them, “I should have known that one day,” he looked away, his voice was deeper, hoarser, “You would be haunting me as well.”
Then Dimitri, heir apparent to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, rose to his feet. Five years was a long time. He was broader of body, but his face was narrower, nearly gaunt. His skin was sallow, a dark circle adorned his good eye while the other was obscured by a simple black patch. His flaxen hair had grown long and unkempt. Draped about his massive shoulders was a cloak of fur, and his armor was black as pitch. He inclined his head slightly towards her, squinting with his good eye as though he were discerning the realness of her. Something haunted lurked behind his icy iris.
The sight of him was glorious and terrible all the same.
Still, something of the young man she had known remained. Or she hoped it did. There had been a time when Byleth had harbored forbidden affections for him, she cared for him deeply. To see him potentially resorted to the ‘wild boar’ of Felix’s tauntings was almost unimaginable.
“Dimitri…” She breathed, and suddenly she felt the five years. Not on her body, which seemed not to have aged at all; but in the sight of him, how time had ripped him apart and rearticulated him into something so ferocious and bloodthirsty.
The would-be-king watched her with an intensity that made her want to squirm. Standing in his shadow, him towering over her, Byleth found it hard not to look away. Her face felt hot, she remembered flirting in the Goddess Tower, his hand on her arm…
Dimitri jerked away, cape billowing as he spun after some distant sound. He murmured to himself, and then again, more forceful, as though he were speaking taciturnly to someone else. Byleth took an uneasy step backward.
A feral grin split his handsome mouth, and his face darkened into a grimace, “Bandits. It would seem there is killing to be done.”
Byleth was helpless but to follow. Who was she to deny the whims of a wayward king? Nevermind how mad he had become.
-
Battle won, enemy routed, monastery reclaimed, Blue Lions reunited on the field of combat. It was all very story book; Ashe had even proclaimed so aloud to Byleth’s wry amusement. But there was one element that they were sorely missing, though none yet dared to speak it aloud.
Their valiant king hadn’t returned to them, and the haggard raging creature they did receive had no interest in reclaiming his kingdom. “A beast,” Felix said, and Ingrid punched him hard in the shoulder.
He did not dine with them that night, cook fires burning low and hot in a courtyard. The kitchens had not yet been cleared of detritus, so they settled on fish caught fresh from the pond roasted and seasoned with wild herbs. A fine meal. Byleth found she could stomach very little when the heavy weight of five years of war bore down on all of their shoulders.
She could see how it had bent and shaped each of her students in sharper, keener warriors. Their skill made her proud. Still, it made her heart ache that they must know such bloodshed to hone said skills.
But her divine heart ached for none more than Dimitri. Her fallen prince. He whispered to things unseen and did not let his lance from his grip in the presence of others. Only hours since she had found him and already she knew the depths of his unhingedness. He was paranoid, aggressive towards once friends, and hellbent on revenge.
Byleth needed to speak with him, alone.
After the sun had set and the moon hung low high in the sky, casting the world beyond their campfires in its pale glow, she slipped away into the shadows. It was not hard to find him, she need only follow the dull pangs of steel splitting wood to find him at the training ground. Bathed in moonlight his pale hair looked to be spun from silver. Still armored, the ebony of the plate glinted paradoxically white. He walked across the field and retrieved a short spear from a wooden target. He had splintered the thing to a thousand tiny pieces with the force of his throw.
When he finally looked to her, his single exacting eye was a pool of moonlight.
“What do you want?” He snarled, making his dissatisfaction with her interruption abundantly clear. Whatever gentleness he had harbored towards her seemed to have died somewhere in the five years that lingered between them. Her heart fell, but still, she tried, she owed him that much.
“We are all worried, Dimitri.” Then, more quietly, “I am worried.”
He shook his head and took a menacing step towards her, “Worry not professor. I have finally found my purpose in this terrible world. And I will see that I fulfill it.” Something like a dreamy half smile ghosted his lips, “For the dead, I must.”
“For the living, you musn’t.” Byleth sniped back, a bit more harshly than she had intended.
Dimitri grunted dismissively and turned back to the makeshift range he had constructed from debris and what little equipment remained. He stepped back on his right foot and lifted his spear, aiming for another target.
It was then that she noticed it, her ever analytical eyes spotting how he favored his left shoulder. His expression shifted almost imperceptibly to one of muted pain as his body shifted and coiled. Then the spear flew, his form followed through with deadly grace, and whatever had been was again obscured behind his cold facade. The second target was resorted to smithereens, his weapon lodged in the dirt where it had once stood.
He thought himself a good actor. Maybe he was. But Byleth had been instrumental in his training for the better half of a year. They had worked together nearly every day on his form. She had coached him through countless drills and sparring sessions. She knew his tells.
“You’re injured.” She breathed, and closed the distance between them. A piece of plate over his shoulder was scuffed silver.
His gaze narrowed when her fingertips brushed the cold steel, “A bandit slipped a blade between the plates as I slew his comrades. The tip barely pierced my mail. ‘Tis hardly a scratch.”
“Perhaps Flayn or Mercedes should take a look…” Byleth offered, but she knew he would not accept.
Dimitri frowned in response and caught her wrist in his hand. He wore gloves of black leather, but she could still feel the furnace warmth of him on her skin. His grip on her was tight, but not painfully so.
“Why are you here?” He bid, darkly, “What do you want from me that you plague me so?”
“Dimitri I only came because I am worried for you. I care about you.” She let her free hand rest over the scuffed plate, noticing a single fleck of dried blood beside her fingertip. His or the bandits? “You do not interact with us, you whisper to the dead, you hide wounds—
“And why is any of that your concern, professor .” His grip tightened, his handsome face soured with suspicion.
“Because I care for you, Dimitri,” she insisted, sharing more in her flustered state than perhaps was appropriate, “Since I first became acquainted with you five years ago I have cared for you.” The half confession brought heat to her cheeks and she looked away from him.
The king went perfectly still for a frigid moment, then replied, measured, “I see.”
He tilted her chin with his free hand, and before she had time to read his face his lips crashed into hers in a brutal approximation of a kiss. It was rushed and unpracticed, teeth and spit and tongue as her back impacted hard with the smooth stone wall behind them. She wondered as she struggled to keep up with his frantic pace, precisely how many people he had kissed before this moment.
Not that she minded. His mouth was surprisingly soft and the scrape of his teeth over her lower lip sent a shot of sparks through her middle. Byleth gasped, and savored how he had to hunch over to meld their mouths properly.
When he pulled away, chin slick with spit and pupil like a single pinprick, none of his inexperience showed. Dimitri was not shy or demure. He looked cold, hungry and confident.
Byleth’s heart was thundering so loudly in her ears she almost missed his command, “Turn around, shorts down, hands on the wall.”
The words took a moment to process, her eyes drawn to wear his fingers worked methodically at the clasps of his codpiece. When they registered a spike of searing heat went through her and her cunt clenched like a vice around nothing. The world was ethereal, shrouded in the disjoining light of the moon. Her chest heaved with the force of her breath and she acquiesced, tugging her shorts and leggings down her shapely thighs.
Clothes around her ankles she did as she was bid. She bent over and pressed her palms flat against the cold stone wall of the training grounds. Behind her she heard metal thud dully in the dust and she curved her back subtly, sticking her ass out tantalizing. She could hardly think, her mind was so clouded with the surrealness of this situation, and the lust it provoked within her.
She shivered with anticipation at the clank of his armor as he stalked behind her, and she shut her eyes. A shuddering breath escaped her lips when the leather of his gloves cupped her ass. There was no hesitance, no illusion of gentleness from Dimitri; only pure animal want. He did not speak, and growled as he pressed two fingers into her aching slit.
Byleth gasped as he hooked them, and whimpered when he pulled back. Humming, satisfied with her wetness, he wasted no time with foreplay. She heard and felt him shift over her back, then felt the blunt head of him press against her. Then in. And in. And in some more.
Goddess, his cock was as large as the rest of him. When he had finally seated himself, her ass flush to his skin, she squirmed against him marveling at the fill of it. Dimitri didn’t give her time to adjust, huffing like a beast he gripped her hips with with bruising force and began to rut into her. Each thrust tinged with a touch of burn at his size, the sort of pain that only intensified her pleasure. The air was filled with their gasps and moans and the brutal fast squelch of her cunt as he fucked her.
There was no gentleness here, not an ounce of reverence. The King’s wants were clear. He did not lean over her and kiss her shoulders, he did not whisper sweet nothings in her ears. Dimitri fucked Byleth hard and fast and raw, his austerity held true. He was sating a physical want, burying himself in her wet, welcoming warmth to quell a whim and appease his turgid cock.
Byleth could not bring herself to care, not when her jaw hung wide and her eyes rolled. When he did lean over her it was not to kiss or caress but to grope roughly at her swaying breasts while he snapped his hips wildly into her own. As a student he had often gazed at them when he thought her occupied. Secretly she had enjoyed the attention.
He hissed when she overfilled his broad palm, and her pussy clenched in needy response.
“Fuck.” Dimitri snarled, and his hand dropped to circle frantically at her clit as his cock seemed to impossibly thicken inside of her.
Byleth peered back over her shoulder to watch him take her. He was a marvel in his black armor, hips snapping furiously, blue eye locked on the place he plundered her. Sweat beaded on his brow and she wished she could lick it off, but knew that touch would be unwelcome.
His eye closed and his handsome mouth dropped open, brow furrowing as his hips lost all remaining rhythm. Byleth gasped and dropped her head as his fingers circled wildly at her clit. The white hot blaze of an orgasm tore through her center and her cunt tightened around him like a vice. Impossible wet and tight around him.
She felt his dick swell, his hips stuttering to a brutal stop, and then a rush of wet warmth inside of her. He grunted through his orgasm, puffing out boarish breath until he was through pumping into her. She huffed, pressing her forehead to the cold stone of the wall. Had he ever come in a woman before? From the way he had kissed her she guessed not.
Something about being his first made her wet all over again.
Dimitri didn’t notice, or perhaps he simply did not care. He pulled out and tucked himself away. When Byleth righted herself and turned to face him she hoped to find even a fraction more of the man she had known present with her. She was met with only a cold, discerning gaze. He snorted in disgust at the sigh of his cum dripping down her thigh, as though he hadn’t put it there.
She wiped it with her robe, suddenly self conscious.
“Return to your campfires professor,” he said coldly, “The night grows cold, you would not want to catch a chill. I will be in the cathedral, I am less likely to be disturbed there. The dead speak loudest in the quiet.”
She physically recoiled from his scorn. Had he not enjoyed himself? Had she not just allowed him to use her body for his own pleasure? She wanted to ask him, wanted to demand why he sought out the dead so readily when she was here and willing, warm and alive . But he was already gone; a great ebon menace stalking the halls of Garreg Mach, soft cock still wet with her.
Byleth, a frustrating combination of irritated and exhausted, cleaned herself up as best she could before she returned to her former students. She fussed with her hair as she walked and hoped that it wouldn’t be obvious what had just transpired between their former professor and their king.
No one seemed to notice, save for Sylvain who gave her a look. But he was always giving women looks.
“Professor.” Ingrid greeted her, giving a small smile, “Did you go to speak with His Majesty?”
Byleth nodded and resumed her place by the fire. It was very warm, her eyelids felt suddenly heavy.
“Any luck?” Ashe asked, hesitant hope brimming in his soft voice.
“With that wild beast? Unlikely.” Felix groused, not looking up from his blade and whetstone.
Mercedes frowned at him, “Do not say such terrible things, Felix!” Then her wide, innocent eyes turned back to Byleth, “Well?”
All of them, save Felix, were so hopeful. Even Gilbert seemed to be listening in from his place by one of the wagons.
Byleth shook her head and gave a sad smile. The group seemed to deflate on cue. The night ruined.
“It is only our first night reunited.” She consoled.
Gilbert drew nearer to the firelight, and agreed, “Your professor is right, give him time.”
Slowly, the nostalgic chatter resumed. Byleth played along for a time before sneaking back off into the night, none of them knowing their king’s spend lingered between her thighs. Except maybe Sylvain, who watched her retrated with bemused, knowing eyes.
On her way to her old quarters she paused to gaze at the marvel of the cathedral. Even partially destroyed it was still beautiful.
That night she lay awake wondering if perhaps Felix was right. Maybe Dimitri was truly gone, maybe all that remained was a bloodthirsty husk.
Maybe, she thought, this is what he had always been.
Byleth closed her eyes and tried to remember the stretch of his hot cock inside of her, fingers slipping beneath the band of her sleep pants.