Work Text:
Red has always suited her.
Red, the Adrestian banner when ablaze in the fires of the Empire’s destruction. Red, the silken and armored dress she adorns. Red, the dirt and rust-specked gloves over her delicate pale fingers. Red, the soaked blood of those that opposed her.
Red, the cloud of anger that washes over his eyes when he sees her.
“Edelgard!” he yells. “You… I will kill you!”
Nevermind that she has him down to his knees. Nevermind that he is down to his last living seconds. Nevermind that he knows he will ultimately die at her hand.
He has nothing but his words now, and he will curse her with his remaining breath.
“You’re a monster,” he snarls, bitter spit forming in his mouth. “I may die here today, but you will always live with my ghost. I will haunt you to the ends of time. You will know the regret of my father. You will hear the cry of my stepmother — your mother — slain by none other than you!”
She offers nothing in response, and her eyes are as blank as when he first recognized them behind the Flame Emperor’s mask.
“And your ideals?” he continues, acid on his tongue. “All those lives you trampled over for your world — you will die in misery with their screams in your dreams, and you will beg for a mercy you will never be granted.”
She closes her eyes momentarily, taking a slow and practiced breath, before meeting his eyes again.
“Your obsession with me is appalling,” she finally replies. “If you were a normal human, you would most certainly have died already. Perhaps you already are a ghost, and perhaps you already are a shell of a man — inside you, only hate. And for me, it seems.”
He laughs. “Fuck you.”
A frown creases over her lips then, but she flattens it.
“Farewell, King of Delusion,” she says.
Her breath hitches as she lifts Amyr over her shoulders. The axe hangs above his head now, casting a shadow over his face in the light of the setting red sun.
He smiles.
“If only we were born in a time of peace, you might have lived a joyful life as a benevolent ruler.”
His smile grows wider.
Of course, this is how it ends. Of course, the same girl who he urged to never give up on her dreams is the same woman who will kill him for those very dreams.
She should have killed him with the dagger he gave her. It would have been more poetic.
Does she even still have it?
Does it even matter now?
“To the fires of eternity with you…” he tells her. “El.”
He looks up at her, and she looks back at him — softly, if just a moment — before her eyes turn to glass.
Then her axe falls forward, and the world turns black.
...
When he next awakens, he is still surrounded in black.
He knows where he is. He is in purgatory — at the very steps of Hell, at the very gate of Heaven. He has been here before. He has been here when he last crawled so far down, he nearly laid his head to rest next to the demons in his mind.
“My dear Dimitri,” a soft voice greets him.
He lifts his head up to acknowledge it, and a white light consumes his vision. A figure stands before him, shining so bright he cannot make out the details.
But he knows who this is.
The Goddess.
“Have I… died?”
“Yes,” she replies. “You have.”
For a moment, he wells up with anger from the memories of his lived past: The red blood of his fallen friends staining the earth. The red fire that trailed the golden fields at the outskirts of Fhirdiad. The red woman in a red dress and red gloves. Edelgard.
Edelgard —
But as quickly as his rage comes, it also goes. Right now, in this space between nothing and everything, he feels oddly at peace.
“You’re here to sentence me then,” he concludes, bowing his head down in stifled deference. “Tell me then,” he says, as if in challenge. “Shall I burn? Or shall I be forsaken?”
Silence. Then he feels the Goddess’s hand on his shoulder, warm. He doesn’t dare look up, keeping his eyes on the white hem of her dress, the shapes of her legs behind her gown. She smells of perfume, of lilacs and bergamot.
“Why do you ask this question with such a scowl on your face?” she asks. “Do you doubt that you have done good?”
“Yes,” he replies without hesitation. “And I have learned that this world is not fair. The poor grow poorer, the weak grow weaker — and only the most terrible continue to thrive. Likewise, the good are thrown to the fire, and the evil spend the rest of their eternity in Elysium.”
“You were always such a champion of justice, weren’t you?” the Goddess replies. Before he says another word, she answers his question. “You’re going to Heaven, Dimitri.”
His eyes widen. “And El?”
The Goddess’s hand snakes over his shoulder, up his neck. Her hand cups his chin and she gently lifts his face up. Her eyes — an emerald green — meet his.
“You were never meant to be together,” she tells him. “Not in life. Not in death.”
He swallows. “Then El...” he says. “El will go to the fire.”
The forlornness in his own voice nearly shocks him.
Why does he say this with such sadness?
He’s angry at her, he reminds himself. She killed everything that was ever good in his life, including herself.
And she was wrong. She was wrong the entire time. She only thought of her own pain and nothing of others’ suffering.
She should be the one going to hell.
And he should feel redeemed. He should feel light as air.
Yet, his heart weighs heavy.
“What will become of her?” he asks.
“Do you truly wish to know?”
“I do.”
The Goddess sighs, looking at him curiously. “Sometimes to know is to suffer,” she tells him. She stares at him, as if analyzing his intention. “Are you certain?”
“Yes,” he replies, in a whisper.
She smiles then, and then leans in. She gives him a kiss — so light, he barely registers it — and in the moment their lips touch, he sees everything.
He sees a young El cry so hard her entire body shakes. He sees El’s brown hair fall out in patches to be replaced by ghost white strands. He sees the scars over her body and how she covers them all with her gloves, with her leggings. He sees how she lives as two people, how she trusts no one with her plans, how she stays misunderstood and hated, how she wages war with regretful eyes, how she rebuilds her new empire, how she later abandons the throne, how she fights against snakes in the dark of the night...
And how — even to her death — she still carries the dagger he gave her.
Suddenly he understands.
“El!” he cries, gasping for air.
When he comes to, he finds the Goddess’s eyes staring back at him.
“She can’t go to the fire,” he declares, and then he repeats, in a raised voice. “She can’t go to the fire. Why, after all that she does, is she sent to the fire?” He narrows his eyes then. “It’s you! You’re the one that judges — you’re the one that can explain!”
The Goddess gives him a small smile, shaking her head. “I control nothing of the sort. I am simply a gatekeeper. Humans control their own lives, and in their end, I see the weight of their heart, and I see what door their heart unlocks. And then I open it.”
“Surely there must be something you can do!”
“Oh, I cannot change her fate. After all, the Fates are more powerful than even I,” she tells him. “The Fates are older, less benevolent. They have spun every story, and they have heard every appeal. They will hear nothing and they will see nothing. They will only braid, measure, and cut the cords that come to their hands.”
“Then why do we pray to you?” he demands. “Why do we worship you when you will do nothing for us? Why do we worship you when you can do nothing for us?”
She grants him a smile. “Because I’m the only one that listens,” she simply replies.
She pats his head, straightening her back and then stepping backwards to sit into a throne that suddenly materializes behind her. She crosses her legs and rests her head in one hand, looking down at him.
“However, I have decided that I like you, and I am willing to help you within the limits of my power. So tell me, my dear Dimitri: What do you want?”
Dimitri has never begged for his life.
If anything, he has wished many times his own death — any degree, any method. As quiet as the assassin that took out the last nobleman in the Tragedy of Duscur, or as violent and merciless as he himself has passed judgment onto the poor unfortunate souls that scoured the ruins of Garreg Mach after the Professor’s death.
But now, as he kneels before the Goddess, he can think of nothing but —
“Another chance?” she asks, reading it off his mind.
“Yes,” he says.
“And what do you plan to do with another chance?”
“I will save El. I will change her fate.”
“You cannot change her, nor can you change her Fate,” the Goddess reminds him.
“I know,” he says. “I want to try anyway.”
...
The next thing he sees is the edge of Amyr’s blade — how it shines golden in the falling sun. Then he sees Edelgard’s eyes, fiercely focused on him.
“El,” he tries, desperation lining his voice. “Listen to me. Please.”
“We can make this work,” he says. “I know the world you want to create. I didn’t understand all this time. But I understand now.”
“We can make it together. You and I.”
Her eyes soften then. “It’s already too late, Dima,” she says, his childhood name coming out in a whisper.
His heart nearly aches when she calls him so.
“Your reasoning makes perfect sense,” she continues. “But it’s not just you now who stands before me. The Church waits for me after you.” She pauses, closing her eyes, then looking back down at him. “We should have had this conversation much earlier.”
“It’s not too late,” he says.
They can change. They can change their destinies.
Edelgard frowns then, and he thinks he sees pity in her eyes.
“Farewell, King of Delusion,” she tells him.
Does she still think he’s delusional? Even when he tells her they could work this all out?
She takes a breath, and she lifts Amyr high above her shoulders.
“It’s not too late,” he repeats. “I’m here with you. Now.”
He offers his hand up to her.
...
She killed him anyways, he realizes, when he opens his eyes and sees the Goddess before him again.
“You must let me try again,” he tells her.
She purses her lips. “I cannot have you keep trying. I have already set the timeline once. My power can only take you so far.”
“I have to try again. It’s different now. I was so close. I will have Edelgard understand. There is still a chance.”
“My child,” the Goddess says. “Have you maybe considered that you are doing the impossible? Have you ever considered that the Fates have made it so that it is either you or her? Do you ever wonder if maybe the King and the Emperor were always meant to be at war with each other? To die in each other’s hands?”
He presses his lips together. Of course, he’s considered it.
But it’s not fair. It’s not fair for El, and it’s not fair for him.
“I want to try again,” he says, although there is doubt in his mind that he will succeed.
How can he convince her to reconsider? How does he tell her that he knows what she has suffered? How does he tell her that he has completely and wholeheartedly forgiven her?
“Why do you care so much?” the Goddess asks him then.
Why does he care so much?
But he knows the answer to this question. In fact, he knows the answer to all these questions — and it’s in his heart.
“One more chance,” he says. Then he looks up at the Goddess, the light radiating from her so bright that he can barely see her face. “Just one last chance.”
He thinks he sees a flash of something in the Goddess’s eyes.
Pity, maybe.
Before he recognizes the look, he finds himself suddenly back before Edelgard’s eyes — as if she has replaced the Goddess herself.
…
He looks up at her and begs.
“Please, El.”
She blinks, staring down at him with her beautiful lavender eyes. She stands there, frozen and poised. She holds Amyr up high above her — it’s been at least a few seconds, and he thinks he sees her small arms shaking from the weapon’s weight.
But she has always carried heavy burdens, hasn’t she?
At this point, he knows what happens next.
He knows how she frowns slightly just before she tells him farewell. He knows how she takes a small breath before she lifts Amyr over her shoulder. He knows how her eyes glaze over just before she lets gravity and the last of her regrets swing the axe down on him.
This is his last chance.
“I love you,” he confesses.
A couple of seconds, or maybe a few eternities, pass.
He still hasn’t died, and she still hasn’t killed him.
Maybe this is it? Is this all that he had to tell her? Is this all that she needed to hear from him?
He swallows thickly. “I still love you.”
Something flickers in her eyes then, but it’s gone as soon as he sees it.
And for a moment, he thinks he has turned their fate with his final confession.
“I know,” she tells him then.
And her axe falls forward.