[ dimitri will bump into him as he rounds one of the bookshelves at the library in a shower of stardust. sorry i have to extrapolate all these scenes from this hell canon, also i want one back please and thank
You are thirteen and wake up to a terrible pain lancing through your back.
It is, of course, all properly bandaged and healed as best as the clerics can manage. You are the crown prince of a Kingdom, the only son of the late king. Every resource that can be spent is spent to save you.
Still, there's only so much it can all do. Your injuries from the ambush are only just healing. The freshest wounds are huge swathes cut into your back by blades. Even with magic, they will hurt and scar, ugly and painful to look at for the rest of your life.
You do not consider that. Once you can speak, you order your attendants to bring another boy to you—one from the adjacent country of Duscur, no older than you are, and thought by many to be the reason you nearly died (again), despised for it.
...But he isn't who struck you down. No, this boy is the last survivor of his village, which your Kingdom burnt to the ground. No matter how much you insisted that they were innocent, you are not king yet, and the people of Duscur were sentenced, their houses razed, their people killed, their lands to be annexed into your own.
The country of Duscur, functionally, no longer exists.
No, you nearly lost your life because you leapt to protect this boy from your own men. To catch blades meant for him with your back as you huddle over him, clutching a child who has lost everything. Your back is small, but so is he. In the end, that is all your miserable effort amounts to: you almost die saving just a single life.
When they do bring the boy to you, you learn his name is Dedue. You cannot coax any words from him, shocked and afeared as he must be, surrounded by enemies, and you do not speak the same language regardless. He likely expects to die, as his family did.
Instead—you grasp his hands in fierce relief. You hope your emotions are palpable even if you cannot understand each other, total strangers as you are. You wonder if he understands why you feel like weeping, why you are certainly crying now, so grateful that he survived that your heart could burst.
Because if nothing else—you saved one person. A single life. For all that you have wished for death, your life amounts to something still, because it means that this one precious, invaluable stranger could live.
Dedue will spend the rest of his life telling others that you saved him. But the truth is, he saved you.
[ it is fine because i had to make up most of my memories lmao. anyway.
that memory is a lot; it's a world so far removed from his own — where every little personal success or frustration feels like a huge life-affirming or world-ending deal — that it's a little difficult to process, and if he wasn't feeling all of this and experiencing these thoughts firsthand, he doesn't know that he'd be able to understand the weight of everything at all.
that relief at knowing he'd saved someone, in particular, is so strong that for a moment when the memory's ended it still feels like it's his, before he remembers that no, actually, he'd just watched his best friend be executed today because he'd failed to save him.
he wipes the tears — probably both his and that past dimitri's — from his eyes on the back of his hand and takes a deep breath, trying to separate out his own feelings and put them aside. ]
...You're a good person.
[ maybe that's not really what he was supposed to take away from that, but. between his feelings here and what he's seen from him in trial, he thinks he's pretty admirable. ]
[ this one is a happier memory for him—a life-affirming one. but it's still a lot to process, especially for someone dropped into his memories without any real context, left to feel his pain and relief both.
he doesn't cry much these days though. so as sebastian swipes away his own tears, dimitri smiles, a little slanted. ]
I am just a person. [ he's not good. he's just human. ] But it is kind of you to say so.
[ he'll put a hand on sebastian's shoulder though. his touch is cautious even if it tries to be assuring. ]
I'm sorry if my memories... affected you. Are you all right?
[ he's finally gotten used to reassuring touches, so he doesn't flinch this time, and gives a bit of a smile back. ]
Yeah. I'm fine. It's just... been kind of a hard day, you know?
[ it feels a little stupid saying that now that he knows something about the days that led up to that memory he just saw, but he doesn't want to downplay kazunari's importance to him either.
...as if on cue, there's another cloud of stardust and a memory of another hard day plays.
(i rnged between two dad memories and got the worse one, so enjoy the blaise debeste experience.) ]
[ wow. while dimitri is basically a copy-paste of his own father, there's no resemblance whatsoever between that man and sebastian, besides perhaps a predilection for tears.
it's the unnerving stare and last words he says that leaves dimitri coming out of the memory with a distinctly sour expression, bristling slightly, but he very quickly smooths it over to concern. ]
[ it's hateful how often these memories happen; he looks sympathetic, because he knows first-hand that this is a difficult thing, and his question is gently asked. ]
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w3 ; sunday
It is, of course, all properly bandaged and healed as best as the clerics can manage. You are the crown prince of a Kingdom, the only son of the late king. Every resource that can be spent is spent to save you.
Still, there's only so much it can all do. Your injuries from the ambush are only just healing. The freshest wounds are huge swathes cut into your back by blades. Even with magic, they will hurt and scar, ugly and painful to look at for the rest of your life.
You do not consider that. Once you can speak, you order your attendants to bring another boy to you—one from the adjacent country of Duscur, no older than you are, and thought by many to be the reason you nearly died (again), despised for it.
...But he isn't who struck you down. No, this boy is the last survivor of his village, which your Kingdom burnt to the ground. No matter how much you insisted that they were innocent, you are not king yet, and the people of Duscur were sentenced, their houses razed, their people killed, their lands to be annexed into your own.
The country of Duscur, functionally, no longer exists.
No, you nearly lost your life because you leapt to protect this boy from your own men. To catch blades meant for him with your back as you huddle over him, clutching a child who has lost everything. Your back is small, but so is he. In the end, that is all your miserable effort amounts to: you almost die saving just a single life.
When they do bring the boy to you, you learn his name is Dedue. You cannot coax any words from him, shocked and afeared as he must be, surrounded by enemies, and you do not speak the same language regardless. He likely expects to die, as his family did.
Instead—you grasp his hands in fierce relief. You hope your emotions are palpable even if you cannot understand each other, total strangers as you are. You wonder if he understands why you feel like weeping, why you are certainly crying now, so grateful that he survived that your heart could burst.
Because if nothing else—you saved one person. A single life. For all that you have wished for death, your life amounts to something still, because it means that this one precious, invaluable stranger could live.
Dedue will spend the rest of his life telling others that you saved him. But the truth is, he saved you.
no subject
that memory is a lot; it's a world so far removed from his own — where every little personal success or frustration feels like a huge life-affirming or world-ending deal — that it's a little difficult to process, and if he wasn't feeling all of this and experiencing these thoughts firsthand, he doesn't know that he'd be able to understand the weight of everything at all.
that relief at knowing he'd saved someone, in particular, is so strong that for a moment when the memory's ended it still feels like it's his, before he remembers that no, actually, he'd just watched his best friend be executed today because he'd failed to save him.
he wipes the tears — probably both his and that past dimitri's — from his eyes on the back of his hand and takes a deep breath, trying to separate out his own feelings and put them aside. ]
...You're a good person.
[ maybe that's not really what he was supposed to take away from that, but. between his feelings here and what he's seen from him in trial, he thinks he's pretty admirable. ]
no subject
he doesn't cry much these days though. so as sebastian swipes away his own tears, dimitri smiles, a little slanted. ]
I am just a person. [ he's not good. he's just human. ] But it is kind of you to say so.
[ he'll put a hand on sebastian's shoulder though. his touch is cautious even if it tries to be assuring. ]
I'm sorry if my memories... affected you. Are you all right?
no subject
Yeah. I'm fine. It's just... been kind of a hard day, you know?
[ it feels a little stupid saying that now that he knows something about the days that led up to that memory he just saw, but he doesn't want to downplay kazunari's importance to him either.
...as if on cue, there's another cloud of stardust and a memory of another hard day plays.
(i rnged between two dad memories and got the worse one, so enjoy the blaise debeste experience.) ]
no subject
it's the unnerving stare and last words he says that leaves dimitri coming out of the memory with a distinctly sour expression, bristling slightly, but he very quickly smooths it over to concern. ]
Your mother... did she return?
no subject
he shakes his head. ]
No.
...I think the police probably stopped looking a while back. It's been a pretty long time.
no subject
Have you stopped looking, though?
no subject
So I'm not really... looking, I guess. But I still hope she'll come back eventually.