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“You know this isn't what they meant when they told you to find a wife.”
There's an implication of chiding in her words, though the curling edges of her lips shatter the facade.
Dimitri leans his head on his hand, content just to stare at her. Felix's expression quickly sharpens, and she glares at his plate. He sighs and straightens up, dutifully lifting his fork. He enjoys spending the mornings with her, even if it generally includes her nagging. She's not wrong that he needs to eat more than he does, but he suspects that his appetite will never quite be what it was before…
Well. Before. There's no need to dwell on the details during such a lovely morning.
After Dimitri finishes his eggs (and Felix's, because she's always hated eggs, and he knows she only has them brought so she can scrape them onto his plate), he decides to test his luck again.
“Is that your only objection, then?” Dimitri lets his hand slide to his breast pocket, where they both know he keeps a ring in a pouch. Felix's eyes snap to the motion, and he sees her swallow. It's always so gratifying to get a reaction out of her. “Or do you have other reasons for rejecting my suit?”
She glares at him through her lashes, biting her lip. She hasn't applied any lipstick yet, so there's nothing to smudge on her teeth. Perhaps she won't use any cosmetics today. Her routine is somewhat mystifying to Dimitri, though he hardly minds. He looks forward to discovering which sort of beautiful she will be each day.
“I'm not rejecting you.” Her voice is quieter now. Gentler, almost. Honest in a way that's coming easier now that she's becoming ever truer to herself.
“I know.” Dimitri softens a bit. He's still not sure why she's holding off on their engagement, but he's past his insecurities. Felix has made no secret of her intention to stand by his side for the whole of their lives. He could be content never to formally marry, if she asked it of him.
Though he doubts that she will.
“I apologize for my eagerness,” Dimitri says, watching her carefully. “I’m afraid I am simply enamored with the idea of calling you my wife.”
Felix's blush is not a delicate thing. It blooms across her entire face and always comes with a strangled and deeply undignified noise. Dimitri adores making her flustered.
“Shut up.” Felix fiddles with her left hand, rubbing at her ring finger. Dimitri isn't sure she's even aware of it. “You know I hate your unnecessary apologies.”
Dimitri grins, wide and unashamed. “As you say, my love.”
She shoves away from the table and stalks into their bedroom without even a glance back. “I need to finish getting ready. You’re distracting me.”
Dimitri watches her go, admiring how the side of her tunic flutters when she walks so briskly. She still can’t tolerate regularly wearing clothes that restrict her movement, and her most recent compromise is a cut of tunic that suggests an asymmetrical skirt. It’s a joy to watch her experiment with different styles. He’s quite partial to the high-necked blouses which bunch at her waist, though he tries not to let on. Going by how she looks like a cat too well-fed to need the cream whenever she wears them, he suspects she sees through him.
Oh well. There are worse things than transparently finding his lover beautiful. She’s welcome to lord it over him as long as she likes. The rest of their lives would be ideal.
The ring in Dimitri’s pocket feels heavy enough to sink right through to his heart. He’d let it, then gladly pluck it back out for her. Her love is a cause worth far more than mere blood.
Felix comes back from their bedroom, a hint of color on her lips and a thin line of black painted just above her eyes. Polished jewelry glints at her ears, matching the pin Dimitri knows is holding back her hair. Gifts from him. She called them armor, once. Her cosmetics are a type of battle gear.
Dimitri doesn’t know who or what she’s fighting, but he trusts that she’ll tell him if she needs his strength. He draws so much of it from her. It’s only right to return it.
“I can tell just by looking at your face that you’re thinking stupid things.” Felix huffs. One hand is at her waist, and the other reaches out for him. “Come on, Dimitri. You have better things to do than sit there and moon.”
“I’m not sure I can agree in good conscience, but I won’t argue the point.” Dimitri says, kissing her hand after he stands up. Felix flushes red again, and Dimitri’s chest floods with warmth. “After all, I have heard that a king rules best with a happy queen at his side.”
There are perhaps three people in the world who could openly describe the sound Felix makes as a squeak and get away without a blade at their throat. Dimitri is not one of them.
“You can’t repeat nonsense from council meetings and call it romance.” Felix yanks at his hand, leading them forcefully to the door. “I’m not even your queen.”
Dimitri lets himself be tugged along, pleased enough that Felix doesn’t drop his hand when they get to the hallway. “Oh, I don’t know. I feel like you are. I’d like for you to feel that way as well.”
“Shut. Up.” Felix hisses. The guards stationed outside their chambers don’t so much as glance in their direction. “The only thing you make me feel is annoyed.”
“That’s not what you said last—”
Dimitri is cut off by a sharp jab to his chest, leaving him wheezing. Felix crosses her arms and waits for him to catch his breath. The only hints at her true feelings are a twinkle in her eyes and a slight tick at the corner of her mouth. She’s lovely when she’s pleased with herself, though Dimitri doesn’t dare say so, lest he go through the day with actual bruises.
“Are you going to behave yourself now?”
The way she looks at him makes Dimitri very much want to say no, though he’s aware there’s work they need to get done today. “If I must.”
“Hmph.” Felix turns and walks ahead of him, though not so quickly that he can’t catch up. Their hands bump against each other, and she allows him to lace their fingers together again. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
It’s a fair accusation. Just holding her hand has Dimitri thinking of rings and flowers and cloth binding them together. Perhaps it makes him a fool, but who isn’t at least a little witless when they’re in love?
Felix is willing to admit that Dimitri concentrates decently through paperwork and dull meetings for the rest of the day. She’s probably more distracted than him, though she doesn’t think he notices. He’s too caught up with his ridiculous daydreaming.
Honestly. Her, the queen? It’s absurd. It couldn’t happen. There’s no point dwelling on it.
Not that she really thinks he’ll stop asking. Nothing can make him quit. Not the council’s objections, not the way strangers stare at them, and certainly not basic logic. He’s too stubborn for anyone’s good.
(He’ll stop if she says no. If Felix tells him she doesn’t want to be his wife, he’ll accept the answer and take that damn ring somewhere she’ll never see it again. She has the power to force the King of United Fódlan where she wants him. To stop the raging boar in his tracks.
All she has to do is lie. Felix is so tired of lying.)
It’s a useless and winding path, but that doesn’t stop Felix’s thoughts from wandering all through their late dinner. At least Dimitri doesn’t question her about it. She’s finally trained him well enough that he knows it’s better to eat before prodding her. He still takes longer to eat than she does, and while she’s usually content to stay with him and linger in their shared peace, tonight she can’t tolerate sitting still.
She should take off her cosmetics. No one else is around, and Dimitri’s hardly going to question her. There’s no good reason to keep feeling overly aware of her mouth while she paces across the balcony. She can’t even rub her eyes, or she’ll look foolish and leave smudges on whatever she touches.
Felix is a pragmatic person. If she takes complete leave of her senses, then what comes next? What’s the use of her if she’s not herself?
Saints, what a stupid question. It’s the kind of nonsense Dimitri spouts. She hates it, even as she loves him.
“Felix?”
She stops, though she doesn’t turn to the doorway where she knows Dimitri is standing. She grips the edge of the balcony railing, willing the cold stone to soothe her.
“They'll debate about whether it really counts as you taking a wife.” Her voice doesn’t crack. She tightens her hold further, clinging to whatever steadiness still remains at her core.
“Does that bother you?”
It's a sincere question. Dimitri is trying, and Felix knows it. He always tries so hard.
“Yes,” she says, helpless to be anything but honest. “And no.”
She wishes it was only one or the other. Wishes that her life could either be wholly about this thing or not at all.
Dimitri’s footsteps are not quiet on the stone, and yet she still flinches when she feels his hand at her back. He doesn’t pull away. He knows her better by now. She relaxes into the touch, letting it soothe the worst of her. It’s barely less terrifying to let him see her now than it was at the beginning, but she’s learned to appreciate even slow progress.
“It’s still unusual to see you bothered by what other people might think.” He doesn’t say it as an accusation. It’s a question, unless she doesn’t want to answer it.
She sighs. The night air takes her breath and hides it away. She can bear such small kindnesses these days. “It’s not just about that. I don’t appreciate them picking me apart, but it’s not like they can actually do anything. I know who I am. No one can change that.”
Dimitri hums and slides his arm around her waist, not quite pulling her into him, but making the option known. She shudders, and he doesn’t move. It took so long for them to figure this out. She needs time to let herself take what she wants. He grew patience for her, nurtured it with a love that she’d be a fool to question.
“I’m so used to there being a reason that I can’t have you.” Felix leans into him, letting him take some of her weight. He’s in shirtsleeves, but still he’s running warm. Ridiculous. Who designed him? Who let Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd happen? “I know it’s not logical. The council’s opinion doesn’t really matter, especially with your plans to uproot the monarchy. It’s not about my—about me. At least not wholly. I even know you love me now, and you’re not likely to stop.”
“Do you actually think I would stop loving you?” His arms are firm around her. He sounds incredulous. He sounds afraid. Something about that, about all of this joined together, finally shoves her into the worst of herself.
“I didn't think you would the first time, so forgive me for being cautious!”
They both go stiff. Her anger dims, embers rather than a flame. She’s always known about this hurt. Years ago, she wanted him to know it. Needed him to feel this pain alongside her. To acknowledge the heart he’d torn from her chest.
Then he’d been laid out before her, bleeding all over himself without even trying to bind the wound, and she couldn’t bear to hate him any longer. When he came to her again, with bandaged wounds and a whole regiment of pills and tonics to try, she couldn’t bear to leave.
It was the best mistake she’s ever made. Dimitri, scarred and taking medicine with his breakfast; Dimitri, letting her and Dedue badger him into leaving his office for fresh air; Dimitri, telling her that he wants to be alive—at last, she couldn’t bear to do anything but love him.
“I didn’t…” Dimitri sounds shattered. It’s horrible. “Felix. If I’d known you thought—”
Felix whirls around and shoves her hands against his chest. Not to push him away. Just for space. Just to touch him. “Shut up. I know, okay? I know. I’m not asking you to explain. I didn’t mean to say that in the first place. Let it go.”
Dimitri doesn’t say anything. They don’t lie to each other. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? They don’t make promises that they can’t keep.
“I’ve been ready to marry you since I was five years old. Lack of desire isn’t the issue.” Felix flexes her fingers against Dimitri’s stupidly broad chest. It’s a comfortable place to bury her face, but she refuses to do it tonight. She’ll stain it with lipstick—or worse, she’ll cry and rub black smudges all over her face. At least that wouldn’t show on his clothes. It’s a fight to get him to wear colors. He’s so irritating. She loves him.
Dimitri brings his hands up to her back slowly, holding her with a gentleness that makes her want to spit, a tenderness that makes her furious, an open adoration that makes her lean up and grab him by his jaw, yanking him down until she can press all her twisted up love and hurt and anger and desperation into him.
He takes everything she offers and gives back as good as he gets. She’s drowning in how much he loves her. His easy acceptance of her (of her) is a knife debriding a wound she never thought could heal. She bleeds cleanly now. She can tolerate the agonizing care of his stitches and salves.
She wants to cry when he pulls away, before she realizes that there are already tears running down her face. Some of them are probably his.
Dimitri cups her face with one hand, while the other sits at her hip. His hands are so much bigger than hers. It took her a long time to realize why that never bothered her. Why she likes to feel small. She can’t stop realizing it these days.
“I want to marry you,” Dimitri breathes, tipping his head down until their foreheads meet. Eye contact is too much at a time like this. “But only if I make you feel loved. Only if you feel safe and adored and—Felix, you never need to be my queen, not if you don’t wish it, but I want you to feel like one.”
It’s a different phrasing from what he said this morning, but Felix knows better than to overlook even partial repetition. This means something to him. She doesn’t entirely understand it. It could be about his stepmother, the council, the weight of kingship on his shoulders, or an affirmation of her own womanhood. It could be something else entirely. There’s so much chasing itself around in that head of his.
“I’ll think about it,” Felix allows, though in truth, she already knows her answer. She only needs to figure out how to say it.
Dimitri kisses her cheek, probably to brush away a tear or some other sentimental nonsense. All he’s really doing is making even more of a mess. Not that he cares, of course. ‘I slept outside for five years, Felix, what do I care about a tiny smudge of color?’
Felix bats him away, though she’s gentle enough about it that he laughs, the absolute ass. “Alright, alright. Both of us need to wash up and go to bed. I’ll be damned if I let this keep us up all night.”
“There are better ways to stay up all night,” Dimitri says, in a tone that suggests he’s agreeing with her. She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply—though she does mull it over while she’s washing her face. She feels better after the emotional release. A physical release isn’t a terrible idea.
After Dimitri falls asleep, Felix lets herself watch him. He breathes deeply and evenly, though he could easily slip into a nightmare at any moment. She knows the signs of it and how to help him afterwards, as well as what to do in the morning to ease him back to reality. She learned all of that early into sharing his bed.
Felix sighs. They share so much now. A bed, meals, wardrobe space, what little elbow room remains in his office. All the honors and obligations of ruling. A life. In every way that matters, she is his wife. He is already her king. Her husband, the king. She may as well face reality.
She crawls out of bed and goes to the desk, pulling out paper and pen without needing to light a candle. She knows this room as well as she knows the man sleeping in it.
When she writes her answer to his proposal, she doesn’t know that it will be preserved far beyond either of their lifetimes. She could easily guess that he’ll keep it, and she could probably predict that he’ll tuck it in a journal, where he can see it every day. She might not anticipate that when he fills his current journal, he’ll keep it in his next one, and on and on for years, until he worries that too much more movement will tear it.
Felix could not possibly know that someday, people will write books and papers and all sorts of analyses of her words tonight. If she did, she’d burn the note herself.
As it stands, when Felix puts pen to page, all she knows is that she is a woman in love. Words are not her strong suit and saying this to Dimitri’s face might just kill her. Still, he has to know. She has to tell him.
Once she’s done, Felix climbs back into bed and tucks herself close to the love of her goddess-damned life. She’ll face his overwhelming happiness and her own panic in the morning. She’ll hold tight even when his joy turns to the same sorrow and doubt he always manages to find. She’ll take his hand every time she worries about the consequences of accepting this so publically.
After all, nothing could make her words any less true.
You make me feel like a queen.