JULY - AUGUST TEST DRIVE MEME

[indigo_events]

➞ Post with a character you wish to test drive in this game's setting.
➞ Tag other people's starters and thread out shenanigans!
➞ Invite your friends! Try out new characters! Come play with us!
➞ Have fun!

NOT SURE WHERE TO BEGIN YOUR TEST-DRIVE JOURNEY?
CHECK OUT ALL THE LOCATIONS WE HAVE AVAILABLE IN:

JOHTO | KANTO | SEVII ISLANDS

Feel free to make various prompts in multiple locations!

✭ ✭ ✭


OTHER USEFUL LINKS:
NAVIGATION | RESERVES | APPLICATIONS

Comments

[bestswordmaster]

Felix isn't that stupid - he doesn't think it would be literal, that Dedue would actually be at Dimitri's side at all times. It's his presence, his shadow looming over them all like a silent reminder of every mistake they've ever made when it comes to Dimitri. It's knowing that he'll have to watch Dimitri light up like the sun every time Dedue walks into the room, when he's never been that excited to see Felix, not since they were children. Not even here in Johto. It's knowing that Dedue takes up as much figurative room in Dimitri's heart as he does physical room anywhere, and that for all that Dimitri says he loves them all equally, and Felix is sure he thinks he means it...Dedue was enough to replace them all, back when they were all stumbling through post-Tragedy life without a roadmap and no one but Dimitri's vassal could seem to really get through to him. Felix has no reason to think that will ever change.

And why should Felix expect Dimitri to be that happy to see him? He's hardly much better company now than he's ever been, that he can tell...except when Claude and Sylvain are around, maybe. They don't walk on eggshells around him trying to be perfect, or whatever it is Dimitri thinks he's doing when he approaches Felix like he's a spooked horse. How many times does Felix have to tell him he loves him before he'll believe it?

If Dedue told him the same thing, Dimitri would believe it instantly and wholeheartedly.

Maybe no matter what he does, Felix will never make up for the mistakes he made as a stupid, angry teenager.

He grits his teeth when Dedue decides to berate him about exactly that. "Don't lecture me. My relationship with Dimitri is none of your business, no matter how entitled you feel to stick your nose into every little thing he does. You're his vassal, not his mother."

Not his boyfriend, either.

"Months, at this point. It had only been a few weeks past when I arrived here, but I've been here since Ethereal Moon."

[donoteattheweeds]

The statement wasn't intended to be barbed, but merely a statement of fact that the way that Felix had treated Dimitri had often been a source of pain for him. Dedue would not be upset to have that pain lifted from His Highness, even if it means having to endure more of Felix's prickly company.

"I do not intend to lecture you," he says. "And if I do, you will know it."

As far as Dimitri's relationships not being his business-- well, they tend to become his business when they distress His Highness. Besides, he already is generally aware that lecturing Felix about anything would be an exercise in futility, and he generally does not apply his efforts to futile things. So, really, Felix is spared from an undue amount of Dedue's attention; he enjoys arguing with Felix about His Highness about as much as he enjoys beating his head off of a wall.

"Then I wish to ask you something." Technically, of course, Felix could deny him, though there seems to be little reason for him to withhold information. "Does His Highness continue in his attempts to assault Enbarr?"

The death march. Dimitri had been fixated on reaching Edelgard at the Imperial capital rather than returning to Fhirdiad to retake his kingdom and rally his own troops to his cause. None, not even the Professor, could seem to sway him from his goals. It could perhaps be admirable, his sheer determination, if it was not also likely to end in their deaths.

[bestswordmaster]

Felix isn't surprised to hear the question. It was bound to come up eventually. And no doubt Dedue will follow it up with 'what changed' and Felix will once again for the millionth time have to explain that someone in his family died to save Dimitri's life. He's sick to death of this song and dance, this fucking ritual he's had to perform since he was thirteen and will have to perform for the rest of his life.

"No. After the battle at Gronder Field, we marched to retake Fhirdiad and won."

[donoteattheweeds]

"Good. He has seen reason."

That particular revelation may not have come from Dedue-- not entirely from a lack of trying, but when Dimitri refused to speak to him on the subject, what could he do-- but what mattered was that he was turned from his current trajectory. An attempt at reaching Enbarr would have only ended in disaster for the Kingdom army; Dedue was no tactician, but he was certain of that. They needed the support of the remaining lords in Faerghus to have a hope of successfully assaulting the Imperial capital, and it is heartening that Dimitri finally heeded the wisdom of returning to Fhirdiad.

"Ah. Was he coronated, after the capital was retaken? I may be incorrect in referring to him as His Highness."

He would be His Majesty then, not His Highness.

[bestswordmaster]

"Hmph. I'm surprised you bothered to have an opinion of your own on the matter."

But Dedue doesn't ask how it happened or why, and Felix is torn between relief that he doesn't have to explain it and disdain for the way Dedue insists on clinging to all these pointless formalities that are only going to make Dimitri feel shackled again by his fate as king and the distance between him and his friends due to his station that he always hated.

"Not officially. There wasn't time. Claude requested our aid to defend Derdriu; we set out the very next morning at dawn. In practice, he's king. But if you were truly concerned about how much pain his friends bring him, you would forget about titles that mean nothing in this world anyway. Call him by name if you don't want to see him hurt."

And if Felix is saying this, he must really feel strongly about it.

[donoteattheweeds]

"His Highness' hatred is my hatred," he says, "and his goals are my goals. He desires Edelgard's head, but Enbarr is well defended and our armies are small. Retaking Fhirdiad and bolstering our forces would provide us with the best opportunity at successfully besieging the Imperial capital. I will always prefer the course of action that gives His Highness the best chance of success."

He doesn't mention that how much it would pain him to watch Dimitri fling himself at suicidal odds at the behest of the ghosts in his head, until he either seized victory at the cost of body and soul or until he was left a broken corpse on the battlefield. Nor should the people of Faerghus languish under the heel of a tyrant, if they could be freed. But it is heartening to hear that Dimitri responds to Claude's call for aid so quickly-- that he recognizes friends and allies again, and will go to defend them.

The idea that titles could mean nothing in this world is one that hadn't occurred to him; he had been too preoccupied with finding Dimitri to concern himself with such things.

"I afford His Highness the respect that he deserves," he says. "And as you have seen fit to remind me, I am but his vassal. My duty remains regardless of whether we are in Fódlan or not."