Chapter Text
He had been right. The ghosts had joined his sleep.
Dimitri awoke with the usual mixture of horror, pain, and profound loneliness that hounded his dreams.
This time, it was joined by fresh pain in his side and the sight of bloodied sheets as well. He blinked at the red spots in mild confusion, before memories of the past day rushed into his head with searing clarity.
The girl.
The dagger.
Rodrigue.
Rodrigue was dead.
The realization hit him with the same cold harshness as it had the day before, when he had felt the blood stop welling up from Rodrigue's wounds. Dimitri winced as he forced himself up from the bed and took stock of his surroundings.
His father was there of course. He stood by the door, holding his neck, squeezing words of vengeance past the injury that had claimed his life, as usual.
His stepmother was by the window, her usual forlorn look on her face, only now it was not textiles in her lap, but flames.
The people of Duscur were crowded all around him, clawing at his skin, his hair, wailing at the injustice that had been done to them and their lands, and how their bodies would never rest easy, for they had never been returned to the earth god.
His father's entourage lined the walls—knights and cooks and translators and guides—accusing him of having forgotten about them.
Glenn sat in the nearby chair. The veins exposed on the crushed side of his skull pulsed in anger as he spoke of how Dimitri's failure, his inadequacy, had now claimed the life of Rodrigue as well.
And yet, Rodrigue was not here.
He surveyed the room three times to be sure. He closed his eye to try and find his voice in the endless sea of whispers. He sighed Rodrigue's name into the twilight of the room.
And yet, Rodrigue was not here.
Could it be...
Dimitri flinched with each step as he got up and moved to the desk. The bandages Mercedes had left for him almost seemed to mock him with how much their pale fabric stood out against a room that was still mostly dark. She had told him to put these on before going to bed and he hadn't even been able to do that right. Now some poor, overworked servant would have to wash even more blood out of even more sheets.
And yet, in spite of his many failures, in spite of how woefully inadequate he had proven as a prince, as a commander, as a man, and even as an avenger, Rodrigue was not here.
"Could it really—" Dimitri inhaled sharply as the futili t y of the words hit him. Rodrigue was not here.
Could it really be that you passed on to the other side without regret, my dear friend?
Was that why he somehow felt... lighter today? Or was it just the lack of armor?
I slept without armor.
For a moment, the thought seemed ridiculous beyond compare. Of course he had not slept without armor! Doing so was a sure way to get killed. What kind of fool would remove his armor before going to sleep in the middle of a war?
And yet here he was. Without his armor. Without even so much as his shirt. Dimitri traced the scars that marred his chest—he barely even remembered where he had gotten half of them—and flinched at the sensation of bare skin on even more bare skin. The pile of black armor next to the bed barely stood out from the shadows of the room, yet it was undeniably there. He could feel the cold metal underneath his fingers as he bent down to assure himself it was not a hallucination.
Apparently, the fool was him.
Of course it was him. He hadn't even been able to follow simple instructions. Dimitri sighed and retrieved Mercedes's bandages carefully from underneath Glenn's clenched fist. He tied them around his torso as tightly as he could. A second pair of hands would have been useful for sure, but judging by what little light fell through the half-shuttered windows, he would not be surprised if most of the fort was still asleep. His shirt came next, followed by the freshly cleaned armor plates.
He expected the weight to return. He expected his back and shoulders to hunch once more, as they had done every day since he had escaped from the jail cells of Fhirdiad, but this time they did not. Even now, with all his armor equipped and the dead still clinging to him, he felt lighter than he had had in years.
He had never, in his entire life, had anything feel both so indescribably wrong, and yet so unbelievably... good.
It felt like comfort and health and freedom, like all the things he did not deserve, and yet here he was.
Dimitri sighed, put on his eye patch, and left his room in search for his cloak.
***
The fog had followed them up from Gronder. Dimitri grimaced as he stepped out onto the southern ramparts. From up here, he should have been able to see far into Gronder Field and across all of the internal courtyards where the laundry was usually hung up to dry, yet in between the cold mist that crawled across every surface and the twilight of the earliest hours of dawn, it was hard for him to even see the next brazier along the ramparts, let alone the guard next to it.
He was about to descend into the inner courtyard, when an unmistakable movement outside the walls caught his eye and gripped his heart, cold as a blizzard in the north.
The cart rolled forth from the fort with an eerie silence befitting its cargo. The pile was high. The shroud pale. The blue-clad soldiers who walked beside it carried swords on their belts, yes, but in their hands they held shovels.
One cart.
Two.
Three.
Four.
On and on and on it went. Dimitri stood, paralyzed in abject horror for the first time in years, as the morbid parade continued, into the fog, into oblivion.
Somehow, Dimitri's feet found the strength to move without his will, as if possessed by some unearthly power. They led him back down the stairs, into the walls proper, through the lower halls, past servants busy with clearing and lighting hearths to begin a new day and shouting instructions at each other to prepare for the rising of the lords and ladies and their retainers.
The pale soldiers who shuffled next to him as he fell in line with the caravan heading out of the gate were never going to see a new day again. Their flames were not ones of warmth and homeliness, but of regret and torment. Their voices were not the vibrant sounds of human speech, but the creaking of the carts and the occasional, downtrodden neighing of the horses, both choked and muffled by the fog.
The march might have lasted a minute. It might have lasted a century. In hindsight he wished it had never ended.
Dimitri froze as they reached their destination, as the wagons split up to take different routes. The sight before him made him wish he had lost his second eye, as well.
They called Gronder Field Fodlan's Bread Basket. Its granary. The most fertile land on the entire continent. Blessed by the earth god, Dedue had called it, and his tone had been one of solemn reverence.
As Dimitri gazed upon the vast expanse of hole-riddled soil before him, as he watched the men who had been waiting here sit down and cling to their shovels in exhaustion, as he watched the ones who had come with the carts unload their cargo one by one, carefully filling the holes in the ground, he finally understood why.
'In Duscur, we believe that each person's body is a gift from the earth god and each person's soul is a gift from the sky god. We receive them when we are born, and we must return them when we die.' That was how Dedue had once explained the burial customs of his people to Dimitri.
'In Duscur they mutilate their dead and use them for fertilizer.' That was how Rufus's servants had explained the same.
"How many..."
They were the only words he could muster before his voice gave out.
How many people had been buried at Gronder, to make its soil so rich?
How many people were they burying now, as a result of his failures?
Once more, his feet moved without his bidding. They shuffled forward blindly, yet steadfast. He counted six in the hole, the crater, to his left, and another six to his right, before the fog swallowed the rest.
They laid in two rows per hole, shrouded head to shrouded head, an army of bones and dead flesh, laid to rest without coffins, without swords and armor, in soil that could barely have been farther from home. Their spirits rose from the dirt that got shovelled onto them as if to mock the efforts of the living. Some stood where they laid, others marched at his side as he passed the first grave. And the second. And the third. And the fourth.
In the fifth grave, a shadow of a red-haired soldier grasped helplessly at a golden lock of hair peaking out from underneath his shroud, wailing for the woman he had left behind in the abyss below Garreg Mach. Another wandered the paths between, shouting for his father. Yet another clawed at the shovel in her undertaker's hands in vain, as if stopping him from his task might undo the war hammer that had crushed her chest.
By the time Dimitri had reached the end of the field of horror, his insides had turned to ice.
"How many..." The words repeated endlessly in his head. "How many..."
"Your Highness?" The rider who stepped forth from the southern mist looked nearly as pale as the ghosts. Had it not been for the light of the torch he bore making his red hair glow, Dimitri might not have recognized Sylvain. "What are you doing here?"
"I might ask the same of you." Dimitri swallowed hard, silently cursing his swollen jaw for hurting at such a simple gesture, and shook his head, but of course the specters refused to disappear. They never did. "I might ask the same of them."
Sylvain sighed, dismounted, and frowned at the sight in front of them both.
"It's ungrateful work for sure, but someone's gotta do it. We can't take them home..." His steed neighed, as if in agreement, then bumped his muzzle against Sylvain's head. He gave the stallion a quick rub along his neck, before focusing on the miserable scene in front once more. "... but at the very least we can bury them. It is our job as the survivors, after all. We must all do our part, if we wish to see the end of this war."
"And is your part not to patrol the southern border, to watch out for enemy scouts?"
The pegasus came out of nowhere. It landed soft as a feather between the two of them and the seemingly endless field of graves. Ingrid dismounted, but her helmet remained on.
It almost hid the bags under her eyes. Almost.
"Pardon the interruption, Your Highness." She gave a quick bow. "But should you not be resting, considering the injury you received yesterday? And you..." The slap also came out of nowhere, but even though he was not on the receiving end of it, Dimitri reckoned Ingrid had about as much intent to harm Sylvain as Felix had had to harm Dimitri with his punches the night before. "You are supposed to watch the front line! What if we got ambushed now?"
"That's rich, coming from the woman who's supposed to watch the sky," Sylvain retorted. "What if we get set upon by enemy wyverns in a minute?"
"How bold of you to assume that it will take me that long to slap some sense into you and His Highness!"
"You? Slap our prince? Right!" Sylvain laughed, a sound that felt so alien in light of their surroundings that it made Dimitri shudder like a drenched cat. "And tomorrow, pigs will start taking to the air!"
Ingrid's eyes narrowed. "Are you calling me fat now? Is that the level of petty spitefulness you've fallen to?"
"What? No—I—what are you... What is wrong with you Ingrid?"
"What is wrong with both of you?"
The question came out harsher than he had intended, a deep, guttural growl that made both his childhood friends cease their quarrel immediately, and spooked their steeds just enough to make them tug their reins hard.
Ingrid, as usual, was the first to regain her composure. "My apologies, Your Highness." She bowed deeply. "It won't happen again."
"Yes, it will."
He had spoken in his usual, jesting tone, yet there was no humor in Sylvain's face. His mouth was pressed into a thin line, his brow furrowed into a deep scowl.
"And it should. Because if we come out of this war having forgotten how to joke and laugh, how to be petty and silly, how to tease and flirt and actually behave like human beings instead of wild beasts, then what's the point? If that's where we are headed, then I would rather be lying in one of those holes."
"Don't say that." For once, Ingrid's voice was more pleading than commanding. It made her look infinitely small and fragile—words that were so foreign in association with her, they made Dimitri feel like he was trying to think in the tongue of Morfis. "Not when we have already come so far."
"Have we?" Dimitri scoffed as he stepped around the majestic wings of Ingrid's pegasus and looked at the graves once more.
The people of Faerghus had always been diligent, that much was sure. It showed in the intensity of their training and the discipline of their fighting. And this morning, it also showed in the disposal of the dead. The first crew of diggers was already leaving. He could see them climb onto the now empty wagons, heading back to Myrrdin, and though the fog still persisted, it had become thinner and less demanding. He could see as far back as four rows of graves now, the last of which was no longer manned by soldiers with shovels, but by bishops, who were undoubtedly speaking prayers to the goddess over the freshly disturbed soil.
"Tell me, Sylvain..." He dreaded voicing the question, yet the words still crept through his brain, like irritatingly invasive weeds. "How many men and women of Faerghus died here at Gronder? A thousand? Two-thousand? Five-thousand? Ten-thousand?"
"Does it matter?" Sylvain merely shook his head. "Counting their number won't bring them back. The best thing we can do for them now is to remember them not for how they died, but for how they lived and what they were fighting for—their homes, their loved ones... and an end to the Empire's invasion. So don't go blaming yourself for this mess, Your Higness."
Sylvain sighed and got back into this saddle. There was a fire in his eyes, yet somehow his voice had lost none of its tenderness.
"If you would not blame me for dragging our whole class into a fight against pillaging scoundrels that followed my brother, then don't blame yourself for fighting back against imperial invaders that follow Edelgard."
"Indeed." Ingrid nodded and mounted her pegasus once more, while Sylvain disappeared back into the fog. "We may not have started this war, but someone has to finish it, and I have faith that that someone will be us. We will prevail. For Faerghus. For Fodlan."
"Such confidence..." Dimitri shook his head as he gestured towards the graves. "... especially in the face of all of... this."
"Not confidence," Ingrid corrected, and though he doubted she could see the dead, nor hear them, as he did, he could tell from the bitter note in her voice that they were not far from her heart. "Faith, Your Highness."
"Faith..."
The word had never seemed more ridiculous. How many of the men and women who had been buried here this morning had believed that the goddess would protect them? How many more of those who had yet to be buried?
"I would have expected that answer from Mercedes, not you."
"Then you misunderstood me, Your Highness." Ingrid turned her pegasus back towards the fields of Gronder and raised her lance towards the spot where Sylvain's torch had disappeared into the mist. "Sylvain is who I have faith in. Him and Felix and the professor, Annette and Ashe and Mercedes, Gilbert and Dedue and all our knights, every soldier who fights here, fueled by the desire to protect their homes and loved ones. And you too, Your Highness. Whether you believe it or not..."
The faintest hint of a smile graced Ingrid's lips, before she took to the air again. "I have faith in the man who single-handedly saved border villages of Faerghus from entire imperial battalions. I have faith in my old friend. In my prince."
He wanted to shout that the last person who had believed in him had died a needless death, but she was gone as swiftly as she had arrived, swallowed once more by the fog. Just a few feet in front of him, the priests and bishops had reached the last rows of graves, their own words of faith thin but unwavering on their lips as they blessed the dead. Dimitri passed them quietly, catching fragments of prayers he had once been taught as a child and then untaught as an adult, as well as glimpses of just how far the rows of graves stretched on. In the dim light of the morning, they reminded him faintly of the dunes on the shores of Fhirdiad—pale waves of dirt before the actual waves, only in Fhirdiad the actual waves were blue waves that gave life. Here in Gronder the waves were red and all they gave was death.
At least, Dimitri thought glumly as he passed through the gates again, Myrrdin no longer reeks of death. He walked through the same hall he had staggered into the night before. There were servants busy rushing back and forth, just as the night before, their hands clutching heavy pails, but this time the waters were clear, not dark with blood. There were soldiers in the halls again as well, but they stood tall and proud, not bent and half dead. No longer were they leaning on each other, sobbing over the loss of their friends and the horrors of the last battle, and while he only caught pieces of their conversations, what he heard confirmed what Sylvain and Ingrid had hinted at.
They spoke of home. They spoke of their friends. They spoke of the future.
They also spoke of him, and though there were traces of fear in the short glances they gave him as he headed towards the inner courtyard, for every ounce of fear there was twice the amount of confidence.
No, not confidence, Dimitri corrected himself. Faith.
"I heard the Emperor was gravely wounded, too" a familiar voice chimed to his left. Even in the aftermath of what was likely one of the most devastating battles Fodlan had ever witnessed, Annette's spirit seemed to have remained unbroken. "It might not be the wisest piece of information to share with His Highness, but at least it might cheer him up a bit."
"Goddess forbid, he already takes far too much delight in battle."
He caught a glimpse of the blue hem of Annette's dress and the dark grey of Gustave's tunic as they descended a stair case just a few feet in front of him and turned towards the courtyard. For once, it was Dimitri who felt like a ghost shadowing someone, rather than the other way around, following them as quietly as their brisk pace allowed, and the irony was not lost on him.
"I was joking, father!"
Annette's hands balled into fists at her side as they usually did whenever she was upset. Even back at the Academy he had always been able to tell her mood by the gesture of her hands before she even said a word. Some things apparently never changed.
"Good." Gustave nodded and lead their way past the rows upon rows upon rows of drying sheets, cloaks and tunics. "It would not be wise to encourage any hasty decisions now—we've lost significant numbers of troops, Fodlan's granary is burning, and Faerghus won't be able to send any more help unless a miracle happens in Fhirdiad. We can count ourselves lucky to have such stalwart allies as Margrave Gautier holding the western line, or we would be fighting for nothing but bones and ash at this point."
"Don't forget uncle!" Annette pushed a particularly inconventiently fluttering sheet out of her way and dodged an empty laundry basket just in time. "He might not be able to do much, but he is interfering with the Empire's supply lines best as he can. Oh, and mother wrote to me from Fhirdiad! It's hard to get letters out of the capital these days, but apparently she and most of other citizens have taken to complying with Cornelia's orders in the most obstructive ways possible—you know, like closing down all shops the moment the sun goes down and not letting anyone in, no matter the weather, not even Cornelia's soldiers, because curfew rules say no activity after dark."
For a moment, Gustave froze in his tracks and so did Dimitri. He could not see Gustave's face, but he could see the sudden shudder, the tension in his body before he finally moved on.
"That is... a dangerous approach to take. For both of them. For everyone in occupied territory."
"Well, yeah..." Annette shrugged. "Which is precisely why we have to make sure it won't be occupied for much longer. I've been up all night wracking my brain to come up with ideas for how we might get His Highness to prioritize the capital."
"Is that so?" Gustave sighed. "Do any of them have a chance of success high enough to compensate for you ruining your own health, and your own proficiency as a mage?"
"It's just one night of sleep, father! It's fine!"
"No, Annette, it is not!"
This time, Gustave stopped for good. Whatever intention Annette had had to keep on striding through the yard was broken when her father grabbed her arm and forced her to follow his example. She whirled around to face him almost fast enough, but thankfully only almost. Dimitri had barely managed to hide behind a piece of laundry.
A suspiciously familiar blue piece of laundry with suspiciously familiar white and black fur attached.
If the last five years had not taught him that betraying his location was a good way to die, he might have scoffed loudly at the coincidence.
"It is never 'just one night of sleep' nor is it ever fine." Gustave's voice was strict as usual, but somewhere in the distant corners of his mind, Dimitri distinctly recalled the tinge of warmth it held as well. It had only ever been there when Gustave had spoken about his wife and child. "I know, because I thought the same, felt the same in my youth."
"I sincerely doubt you know how I feel!" Annette lobbed back at him. "Excuse me for showing some love and dedication for my family, my country, and its people! You cannot even be bothered to write to mother!"
"And you believe that means I no longer love her?" Gustave shook is head. His voice softened just a little, but his grip on Annette's arm remained firm. "I love her so dearly, it hurts. I love you so dearly, every second I think of you stepping out onto the battle field terrifies me. I love Faerghus and its people. I have loved them since the day I was old enough to know the meaning of the word and I will love them until the day I die. I love His Highness as if he were your brother. But we are at war, Annette, and war is not kind to those who overestimate their own strength, their own chances."
"And you believe I don't know that?" Annette sighed. "Father, how old do you think I am? Five?"
"If you were five, I'd be teaching you how to hold a sword," Gilbert sighed, too, "and not how to survive a war."
For a moment, the courtyard was eerily quiet again. Still, the last clouds of fog were just about disappearing, and the gloominess with them, as the dawn finally neared its conclusion.
"Alright." At last, Annette's fists unclenched. "I promise I'll temper my enthusiasm a bit, no more all-nighters. Happy now?"
"Very." At last, Gustave let go of her arm. It was the only sign that his words had not been dry sarcasm.
Annette nodded, then grinned. "But first, I'm gonna go make some sweet buns to remind my 'brother' of home!"
She dashed out of her father's reach with all the speed and grace of a spooked deer and bolted back towards the kitchens, past Dimitri's hiding spot... only to promptly stumble over the laundry basket she had evaded before. Gustave sighed and followed slowly.
Dimitri, against his best judgement, felt the slightest hint of a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, and though it did not last long under the disapproving glares of his father, Glenn and the others, at least it had existed, even if only for a second, and for one blissful moment, that was good enough.
It was the push of blue fabric billowing against his hand in the wind that eventually brought his attention back to what he had actually come here for.
The cloak looked majestic as ever from even the slightest distance, yet that had hardly been why he had chosen it. He had needed portable shelter from the rain and cold. He had had no money. He had been on the run. He had missed home. He remembered all of those things quite clearly, yet even so Glenn could not miss to point out that he had foolishly picked a flag of Faerghus—a symbol that would quite literally mark him as a target for any imperial soldier—as his choice of sheltering clothing. What he did not remember as clearly were the wolves he had killed for the fur. All he remembered was that they had looked at him as dinner, not knowing that he himself had been absolutely famished.
"Five years..."
Five years of living like a feral animal, and yet, the cloak was still whole. Even more: it looked clean this morning. There was no more blood marring the blue, no more dirt diluting the white. Goddess knew how long it must have taken the washers to clean it, especially without damaging the silver griffin that still shone proudly on the azure fabric.
Five years of war, and yet the griffin was still on the flag.
Five years of abandonment and terror, and yet the other Blue Lions were still here with him.
The professor, reaching out their hand to him in their unending patience, even after so much had been lost thanks to his failures as a warrior, a commander, a prince, a man.
Felix, seemingly resorting so quickly to violence, yet always with temperance, hurting him just enough to force a retreat, but not enough to kill.
Mercedes, spending her precious spells on someone as undeserving as him in her uncompromising kindness.
Dedue, helping him find peace from himself and the world, with just a few words and unwavering loyalty.
Ashe, using his uncanny ability to bring joy even in the darkest of hours with the simplest of gestures, with the same precision as he used for the bow and arrow.
Sylvain, reminding him to turn his thoughts towards the living, so full of affection for those around him in spite of his quips and jokes.
Ingrid, always encouraging him not to lose hope, with such unbreakable faith in him and the others.
Annette, running herself ragged in her tireless pursuit to support everyone and everything she loved, which somehow included him.
Gilbert, keeping track of everyone and everything with a sense of modesty that required the experience and humility of someone who had spent decades, living, fighting... and occasionally failing.
Five years of his absence had not made them abandon him, and neither had five months in his presence, which was arguably worse.
Perhaps the professor had been right. Perhaps the goddess never denied such treasures to even the worst of people. Perhaps, the only one denying them to him, was he himself. Perhaps the goddess still had a purpose for him. Perhaps, there was still a place in Fodlan, in Faerghus, for a wretch like him.
"Faerghus..."
Dimitri grabbed the cloak with his left hand as it fluttered in the wind and traced the cuts in the fabric that he had never bothered to fix with his right. Some poor servant had taken it upon themselves to sew them closed instead, and though they had done a fine job, if you knew where to look, the marks were there. Still the cloak was whole again. Damaged, but not broken.
Just as Faerghus was at this moment. Damaged, but not broken.
Faerghus...
He missed its forests and mountains, its snow and ice, its cold, dark nights and crisp, clear mornings. He missed, its songs, its traditions, and most of all, its people.
Its tenacious, loyal, brave, diligent, unwavering people, who fought to survive, and survived to protect, who had managed to make a land that was near inhospitable be hospitable, against all odds, by banding together to achieve what even the strongest, even a Blaiddyd, could not achieve on his own.
Just as he would not have made it this far without the other Lions, without Rodrigue, without all the men and women of Faerghus who had chosen to support him, without the aid of the church and its remaining forces. It was an unpleasant truth, but Rodrigue's death was proof enough: without their help he would have died.
You should have, the voices surrounding him whispered, even as their misty forms were all but bleached out of existence by the light of the rising sun. It is not just that you and that woman should live while we do not.
"No." Dimitri sighed as he ran his fingers through the fur. "It is not."
But when was life ever just? Had it been just when Edelgard had declared war on the Church and Faerghus? Had it been just when men and women of Faerghus died to defend their homes and lives from her invasion? Had it been just when Rodrigue had died for him at Gronder?
No. No it had not. At the end of the day, what was just and what was not, had mattered little.
What had mattered, was that Edelgard had had the support of those strange black mages and her demonic beast for her attack on the church and Faerghus, or else they could never have taken Garreg Mach.
What had mattered, was that Faerghus had lacked the support of a regent for its defence against Adrestia, or else it would not have fractured as it had.
What had mattered, was that he had reuinted with the Lions and the professor, and gained the support of half of Faerghus and the church in the process, or else he would not have made it to Gronder.
What had mattered, was that they had lacked the support of half of Faerghus and all of Leicester at Gronder, or else the battle would have been won easily.
What had mattered, was that Dimitri had had the support of Rodrigue, or the girl with the blue eyes would have killed him then and there.
No, life was hardly ever just, but if experience had taught him one other truth, it was that lack of support only ever made it worse, especially when the support was supposed to come from someone in a positon of authority.
Such as a commander. Or a prince.
You cannot even avenge your own father, Lambert whispered through his cut throat to Dimitri's right. You are not worthy to call yourself either.
"No." Dimitri took the cloak off of the clothesline and almost sighed at the welcome familiarity of the weight. "I don't think I am, but the goddess and the living seem to disagree, and I am the only prince Faerghus has."
He turned to his father slowly. "And wasn't it you who taught me that a Blaiddyd's first priority should always be their duty to their people, to protect, rather than to conquer or punish?"
The silence that followed his question spoke more than any of the specters ever had.
"I love you, father, and I believe in you and what you taught me. A Blaiddyd's first priority should always be their duty to their people. To protect. I may be a monster who murdered, stole, lead thousands to the slaughter, and failed to avenge his own parents... but I am still a Blaiddyd. I am only sorry that it took the death of Rodrigue and the suffering of my friends to remind me."
Dimitri sighed and fastened the cloak around his shoulders. He gave a quick glance at the heavens, before turning to his father once more.
"So I shall do what Rodrigue told me to do—to live for what I believe in... for what you taught me. I shall protect my people."