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In Dion's earliest memories- the memories of such an early part of his childhood that he is later unsure of whether they are true memories or just dreams conjured by a lonely, aching mind- his mother holds him close and calls him 'My Light.'
She bounces him in her lap, golden curls falling softly around him in a curtain that shields him from the world as she whispers to him all her dreams for their future, all the places they'll go and things they'll do once she's saved enough money to travel, all the wonders of the world that are theirs to claim and conquer once Oriflamme and the brothel she has worked at since before his birth are a distant memory only revisited by choice, not necessity.
She tells him how much she loves him. She calls him all sorts of pet names: My Light, My Love, My Dear- there are too many to name, too many to remember.
My Light is the most common. It's his favorite too. It's the name he thinks of decades later when his memory of her has faded to a vague mass of white and yellow, the color of her eyes and the shape of her face and the feel of her arms around him lost to time but the love she gave him and the way she gave it seared into his very soul in a way that endures far after the rest of the world has moved on.
When he is young, his mother calls him 'My Light.'
When he is young, he loves to be called hers. He loves the 'my'; he loves how proud she is of him. He loves how happy she is to let the world know they are together. He loves to be loved, and to bask in the warmth that being 'My Light,' being her Light, entails.
He will miss it more than words can convey when she is gone and he never hears the term again.
He is five or so the first time he will later be able to recall meeting the man who is apparently his father. By the snippets of conversation that he catches well enough to be recalled by his older mind, the man has visited before.
Sylvestre, his mother calls him. Celestine, the man calls her.
It is her name. Dion has heard one or two of the older folks in the city call her that. But all of her friends just call her Celeste. Dion just calls her mother. He doesn't like the way this man he can't remember calls her by her full name. It doesn't feel like he has the right.
But the man calls her Celestine and he makes her bring Dion out from where he's hiding behind her skirt so the man can take a good look at him.
“Show me your son,” the man orders, gaze sharp and voice displeased despite that Dion has done no wrong as far as he can tell.
The man does not say Dion's name. He does not call him 'my.' He does not seem to want to acknowledge that he had any part in Dion’s existence.
Dion does not mind. He does not know this man. Even if his mother has told him that Sylvestre is his father, it doesn't feel like it. If Sylvestre was a true father, then he'd help them, because that's what fathers are supposed to do. He would come by and give Celestine the money she needs to realize her dream. He would bring her flowers- wyvern tails, for they are her favorite, enough so that there’s always a bouquet of beautiful white blossoms on their table even if it’s a strain on their budget- and he would eat with them for their evening meal. But Sylvestre has not come by- not in Dion's memory, at any rate, so his few visits must be infrequent- and has done nothing that a parent who loves his child should do. Dion would know; his mother loves him very much, and she's always been happy to show it. So he does not mind that Sylvestre refers to Dion as his mother's son rather than Sylvestre's own. He is proud to be Celeste's son. He is proud to be her Light. He does not care for Sylvestre very much at all.
After calling Dion forth Sylvestre spends a few minutes crouched down to Dion’s level, examining Dion’s face and eyes as if looking for something deep within that Dion does not know how to bring forth. It is uncomfortable, the weight of his gaze making Dion’s stomach do flips as he does his best not to squirm under Sylvestre’s examination, the soft touch of his mother against his back the only thing keeping Dion calm enough not to dive back behind her skirts for shelter.
Sylvestre does not say what it is he’s looking for. Dion does not ask.
Whatever Sylvestre came for, he does not find. He rises, mutters a simple “I see nothing. You may continue on” to Dion’s mother, and pulls the hood of his cloak back over his head.
He leaves with a grumble, walking out the door of their tiny abode to the staircase that runs along the side of the bakery beneath the rooms that Dion and his mother live in. They rent them from an old couple who Dion does not think are related to his mother, but treat her like a daughter and him like a grandson nonetheless. They are much more like family than the man who walks away from him without calling him “my” or even by his name a single time.
They old couple looks after him sometimes while his mom is at work. Sometimes he goes and stays in one of the back rooms at the Respite if they are off visiting their children, wherever they are- the Respite being the brothel, that is, but his mother never calls it that, only others- but usually she leaves him with them and he's fine with that. They call him 'My Dear' or 'My Boy' too, sometimes.
But never My Light. Only his mother calls him that. And he likes it. Very much.
For it is a sign that he is loved. And he loves in return.
He is seven when the scream signaling the end of his life as he knows it sounds in the air.
That morning the baker and his wife had gone out to visit their daughter in Northreach, so Dion had accompanied his mother to the Respite for the day. He'd spent most of the morning chatting with a few of the other people who worked there, and a chunk of the afternoon playing with a baby that one of his mother's friends had had a few moons back. It had been a big deal when it happened; Dion could remember peeking around the corner a few times as his mother and the baby's mother had hushed conversations at their table, the other woman in tears as she rubbed a swollen belly that still had room to grow. Dion didn't understand how it worked at the time, but he did know that sometimes women got babies in their belly, and while many wanted them, sometimes they did not. And even if it might seem sad, that was okay too. They did not have to have a baby they did not want to.
Dion's mother told him that she'd always loved him. That from the moment she'd learned she was with child, she had decided she would give her all to see that child had a happy life. That the moment she'd first felt him kick she'd been overjoyed, and that when she first set eyes upon his tiny face she'd felt complete. She told him that she would never lie to him, so she was honest when, after some people on the street had yelled mean things at them one day, she told him she had not originally planned to have a baby. But once she learned she would, she decided she'd go through with it. And she didn't regret it a bit.
But not every person felt the same way. The mother of the new baby had not seemed very happy at first. Dion had heard whispers that the owner of the Respite had made preparations in case the mother decided she did not want to have a baby after all.
But whatever those preparations were the mother must not have taken them in the end, for the baby grew anyway and she was born and after a few weeks her mother went back to work and Dion got a new playmate. Sort of. Babies didn't play very much. But he was determined to be a good brother to her, even if they did not have the same mother, because his mother said that the baby's mother was like a sister to her, so that basically made him the baby's cousin. Or close enough to it. It didn't matter. It was close enough.
He was with the baby when he heard the first scream. Another man was in the room to watch them, one who normally worked in the Respite like his mother but who had been injured somehow and had been staying in the back while he recovered. Dion didn't know how he was injured, just that he couldn't walk very well at the moment. Both Dion and the man jerked up when the scream sounded. The man collapsed in a grunt of pain while Dion rose to his feet.
"What's happening?" Dion asks after that first scream sounds, looking up from the crib where the baby begins to cry.
He takes a few steps toward the door leading to the main hall. His mother is somewhere out there. What if whatever made the first woman scream gets her too?
"Fucking-" the man grumbles under his breath, and behind him Dion can hear the man fumble about as he tries to rise to his feet. "Don't leave this room, kid. I don't know what's going on out there, but it isn't good. One of the guards will take care of it. Just sit back down and stay with Marie's kid, okay?"
Dion turns. "But-"
Then the second scream happens and everything is a blur of panic and terror and a bubbling something in his chest that he cannot name but hurts in a way that feels like something is trying to claw its way free.
For the second scream is familiar.
The second scream is his mother's.
He's only heard it a handful of times before. Once when they were attacked on the street coming home from the Respite , her scream alerting one of the guards to come and take care of the person threatening them for money before he could even touch them. Once when Dion played a not-so-funny joke and thought he'd spook her by popping his head up from under their bed. Two or three times when a spider got into their bedroom and it scared her.
This scream is worse than all of those. So, so much worse. Louder, longer, but cut off at the end in a way he doesn't think means she ran out of breath.
The world doesn't come back into focus until he's standing in front of an open door, a terrible sight he will never forget awaiting him.
There are three people in the room.
One is a man holding a bloody knife. What he looks like doesn't matter.
The second is the baby's mother. She's naked on the bed, and the blood pouring from her stomach has made the already-dark sheets shine wet under the torchlight. Her eyes are glassy. Dion knows she's already dead.
The third is his mother. She's collapsed at the foot of the bed. She has her work outfit on- the one she doesn't like wearing around Dion, the one that barely covers anything at all- and the ends of her golden hair are stained red too. Her hands are bloody. Her left sits at her side, the side closer to the door, the side closer to Dion, and her right clutches at her bleeding chest.
She lifts her left hand towards him. Her arm shakes so badly it's a wonder she can lift it at all.
"Dion," she gasps, blood bubbling on her lips as she breathes. A trail runs down her chin. Her pupils are wide, the golden-brown of her irises nearly lost in their entirety. "My Light, run. Please. Please!"
"Another fucking kid?" The man spits, taking a step forward.
One of the brothel guards finally runs up behind him, sword in hand, but Dion does not notice, his world reduced to the small space on which his mother lies. He is blocking the door. The guard cannot get past him. He does not notice.
"My Light," Dion's mother chokes again.
Something in Dion cracks.
Another strangled breath is all it takes for his mother's eyes to close and her head to lull forward.
He knows she is gone.
And before the knife-wielding man can reach him, before the guard can push past Dion to reach the man, the crack in Dion's heart breaks.
The world is engulfed in light.
Dion sees and hears and feels no more.
When he wakes up, he is on the softest bed he has ever been in, softer than even the bed in the Royal Suite of the Respite that his mom had let him take a nap in one morning after he'd been unable to fall back asleep following a nightmare the night before. He is wrapped up in blankets and there are so many pillows around his head that he can hardly see what's to the side of him. If it weren't for the ache that permeates every fiber of his being, it would be the most comfortable he'd ever been in his life.
Well. The most comfortable he'd ever been without his mother by his side. Her warmth and love had always been better than being alone.
But as he wakes he is alone, and in the exhaustion that clings to him as he struggles to shake off the pull of sleep, he cannot quite figure out why.
Through his blurry vision, he spots a figure next to him. A blonde woman, humming as she does something he can't quite make out.
"Mother?" Dion asks, voice rough and throat pained as if he'd spent the last several hours screaming. He doesn't sound like himself. He sounds very tired. Very small.
The woman jerks at that, shooting to her feet. Dion's eyes focus a moment later.
He frowns as his vision clears.
The woman is blonde, yes, but she has white-blonde hair, not the honey-gold of his mother. Her hair is short and straight, and the look of horror on her face is not anything his mother would ever wear.
"You're awake…!" the woman breathes, so quiet Dion wonders if she even realizes she spoke aloud.
"Where's my mother?" Dion asks. It is the only thing he can think of. Many things are wrong about his situation- the stranger, the too-soft bed, the way his body aches, the pain in his throat- but his mother's absence is the most wrong of all.
The woman doesn't reply. Instead she runs to the door and says something to someone outside. When she comes back to Dion, she doesn't answer his question, instead pestering him with questions of her own.
She calls him 'Your Grace' for some reason, and Dion doesn't like it one bit. He is not 'Your Grace.' He doesn't know why she's calling him that. What kind of person even gets a 'Your Grace'? What does it even mean? He is Dion. He is his mother's Light. His mother's son.
And as the woman blathers on and Dion's mind focuses on the pet names he is not being called, realization hits.
His mother is dead.
Dion watched her die.
She is gone.
She will never call him 'My Light' or hug him or kiss him or tell him how much she loves him ever again.
He begins to cry, and when the man that is apparently his father walks in some unknowable time later with arms outstretched and for the first time calls him 'My Son,' Dion cannot find it in himself to care.
Sylvestre asks Dion to call him Father. In the emptiness left in the wake of his mother's death, Dion agrees.
Sylvestre enjoys calling Dion 'My Son.' Dion tries to enjoy hearing it.
But there is a hollowness there. It does not have the warmth that it did when his mother said the same. It does not feel as if Sylvestre is proudly showing Dion off to the world. As if he is saying so because he loves Dion for what he is and is proud of what Dion has accomplished. Instead it feels as if Sylvestre is constantly boasting of his connection to a possession. To the Dominant of Bahamut. Not to the boy at its core.
The 'My Son's that Sylvestre throws out in public like seed to a flock of ravenous crows feels like it is meant only to elevate himself, not the son whom he is addressing. There is no warmth behind it. No care.
But Dion is lonely. He has no friends in the castle that comes to be his home.
Harpocrates is nice, and he has the most fascinating stories. He reminds Dion of the baker he used to live above. He wonders what happened to the baker and his wife. He hasn't heard anything about the baker or the Respite or the baby or anything else, and he worries for them. But Harpocrates merely shakes his head when Dion asks him if he knows anything, and for reasons he does not understand the servants won't speak to him at all. Harpocrates is only ever around for a few hours at a time, and even then he doesn't come every day, even if he comes more days than not, so Dion is very lonely indeed.
He goes to the castle's chapel most days. His father is crowned Emperor not long after Dion comes to live with him, but before that he was apparently a Cardinal, and he takes religion very seriously. Dion's mother used to take them to the church a few blocks away once a week, and he has always worshiped the Goddess Greagor, but his mother wasn't nearly as strict as Sylvestre. Dion learns much of the church very fast.
It is nice, he supposes. He likes the idea of Greagor. He likes the idea of a being far greater than himself knowing of and loving him regardless of who he is or what he has done.
For some few weeks after being taken to the castle, the details of his being taken in emerge, and all the prayers in the world can't seem to cleanse the guilt from Dion's soul.
Dion already knew what Dominants were. He knew what Bahamut was. He'd heard tales of the Wyrm King since he'd been born, and he knew the immense power that Bahamut commanded. He hadn't ever imagined that he might be the next Dominant, but he'd imagined seeing Bahamut's Dominant or even Bahamut himself one day, and he'd always dreamed those dreams with admiration and awe.
Then he learned the details of what had occurred on the day he first Primed and his dreams turned darker.
The Respite had not survived Dion's transformation. If any of its occupants had survived, it would've been with heavy injuries and by a miracle. There were no confirmations of any survivors as far as he knew.
The whole block had been razed, and the blocks nearby had sustained heavy damages from the beams and bursts of pure, destructive, undiscriminating light that had rained down around him. People's livelihoods were erased in an instant. People Dion had known and loved were injured or even killed.
His mother's killer had died in the attack. That victory Dion reveled in, even if killing was supposed to be a sin.
He'd begged and begged his father to recover his mother's body the day after he'd awoken. They'd had a quiet ceremony for her once she was retrieved, just Dion and Sylvestre and some guards and the man performing the rites. She was buried in a cemetery behind the castle. Dion could remember the day and moon of her birthday, but not the year. Sylvestre knew even less. In the end they decided they'd just put down whatever year would've put her death at age thirty-two.
In the end the only things Dion has to remember her by are a gravestone with an estimated year and the earrings they'd retrieved from her body. No one in the castle had known her. Sylvestre never spoke of her either. Dion has a feeling he hadn't known very much about her either.
He had his ears pierced after that. He swore to wear them every day. He does. He only ever takes them off to clean them. He will wear them when he dies.
Sylvestre calls Dion's mother only that: 'Your mother.'
He does not call her Celeste or even Celestine. He never calls her 'my dear' or 'my love' or any of the pet names the baker and his wife would call each other by. She is just 'Your Mother.' Sylvestre says it with disdain. Like he is disgusted with her, and only tolerated her because of her association to Dion. He doesn't even try to say it with the false love he puts into 'My Son.'
…
After a while, Dion begins to question the falsity of that love. He begins to doubt whether it is feigned. He begins to doubt himself.
Maybe he's misreading his father. Parents are supposed to love their children. It would make sense that his father loved him. Dion is being too harsh; Sylvestre had never raised a child before Dion, and Dion had never had a father before Sylvestre, so clearly the distance between them is only a product of unfamiliarity, not a lack of love. It is Dion's own misery over the death of his mother that is tainting his reception of the love Sylvestre must have for him. His loneliness is a product of unfamiliarity, not reality. It must be.
Sylvestre took Dion in, even if it took a few years, and he gives Dion everything he asks for. New books, a new set of sheets when the softness of the first disturbs him too much to sleep, more time with Harpocrates, visits to the stables to pet and later ride the chocobos. All Dion has to do in return is go to church most days and accompany his father for various things on the other ones. He is well fed and well dressed. Well educated and well treated. He wants for nothing.
Nothing save company. Nothing save the feeling of being truly loved. Nothing save for what his mother once provided.
The doubts eat at him, gnawing deep at his core and insisting they are well founded as they beg for his attention, beg for him to accept a painful truth that will hurt him even further, but Dion begins to question them anyway.
Maybe it's because he is desperate. Lonely. Maybe it's because his doubts are misplaced.
In either case he cannot bring himself to hate his father, even if each and every time Sylvestre says 'My Son' brings a bad taste to his mouth and a rumbling of indescribable emotion to his chest. No matter how uncomfortable things may at times be, they are not bad. He most certainly does not hate his father.
But does he love his father?
Dion wants to love his father.
And, in truth, that desire to love comes from a desire to be loved, a blinding hope that perhaps if he extends the olive branch and shows his father his love, then mayhap his father will love him back.
So, a few moons into his new life, he decides he will.
Not in the same way he loved his mother. He does not think he will love in that way ever again. He does not think he will feel that warmth, that unmatchable joy ever again. After what he did the day she died he does not think he deserves it.
But just as Sylvestre does not love Dion in the way his mother loved him, Dion cannot bring himself to love Sylvestre in the way he did her. But Dion longs for love- any love- so different as it is he does all within his power to convince himself that he feels it all the same.
He does his best to impress his father. To get him to be proud of Dion, not just Bahamut’s Dominant. He thinks it works. Sylvestre’s smiles seem to hold more warmth, and the distance Sylvestre had maintained for those first few moons- as if touching Dion might somehow send Bahamut into a rage and strike him down- begins to close. Sylvestre asks Dion how he is doing when they dine together. Dion responds that he is well. He always responds that he is well. It does not matter how he is actually doing; to say anything but risks displeasing his father, risks severing the tenuous bond that is forming between them. Sylvestre nods at Dion’s lies and does not question them. Dion is torn between being relieved his lies are unchallenged and feeling disappointed his father either does not notice or does not care enough to acknowledge them in hopes of bettering Dion’s life.
The loneliness in Dion's life does not abate, but it does become more tolerable. He becomes better able to tolerate it.
He has a people to serve, he comes to accept. He has a role to play. A greater purpose. And in his role he will love them as they deserve to be loved, regardless of whether he is loved by anyone himself.
But he still tries so very hard to be the perfect son and prince not only because Sanbreque deserves no less than the best, but also because any praise or pleasantry or most miniscule sign of something that may be interpreted as love from his father is a most feverishly desired drop of water in the desert Dion finds himself in, rejuvenation in a dying land, restoration in a crumbling castle whose walls he worries himself too weak to hold up on his own.
Dion's life is not perfect.
He is still lonely.
His father's love is not the love Dion once had.
But it is enough.
Or so he tells himself.
So he has to tell himself, night after night, praying to Greagor at the foot of his bed, the only way he can endure the weight of the priests' and nobles' requests and stares. He is doing well because he must do well. Because there is no alternative.
So he does well and is not lonely and he is loved by his father and he is happy with his life and if the servant who greets him each morning notices how puffy his eyes always are when he wakes, she for a mercy does not comment.
At one point Dion is introduced to a boy named Terence. He is the son of a noble who holds a respectable rank among the knights. He is Dion's age- or thereabouts, really about a year older but they are both yet children and it is close enough.
He is nice. He is introduced to Dion as a potential friend.
Dion wonders if perhaps his father noticed his loneliness and sought someone who might bring some welcomed joy into Dion's life. Or, that traitorous, ever-present doubt lurking in the back of his mind and the pit of his heart whispers, because he was tired of Dion's moping and sought something that might keep Dion's persistent unpleasantness away from him.
In the end the reason for Terence's introduction is irrelevant. For he is nice, and they are of an age, and he is interesting, and he is funny, and he is sweet, and he is friendly, and he is the friend that Dion so desperately desired.
He is the source of the love that Dion has been looking for.
When they first meet, that love is the platonic kind. The love of friendship. The innocent love between children, of wide eyes and large gestures as tales are exchanged, of laughter over a harmless mishap or the recounting of the observed silly mistake of another, of afternoons spent wandering the castle grounds exploring all they have to offer, of discussing which chocobo in the stables is the best considering speed and weight and temperament and how soft they are and how much they tolerate the hands of children across their plumage, of favorite books and stories and dreams of the future. The love of friendship is no less important than the love of family, or the love of romance. Love is love no matter the form, and with Terence many of Dion's doubts slip away. With Terence Dion can feel like a normal person, not just a prince. He can never ignore the fact that he is now a prince, or that he houses an Eikon within his body, but it feels less like a noose and more like a necklace. It is less damning.
A noose is unignorable, tight around one's neck and terrible not only for the pain of its rub but for the dread of awaiting the moment when one's body is left hanging and life snuffed out.
A necklace can be forgotten for a time; it is light, and though at any moment one might be reminded of its presence by it catching on something or the cold of it changing positions or even a simple memory, it is much more a part of one's being, something meant to be good at its core.
Or something like that. Dion's lessons with Harpocrates had turned to poetry lately, and when Terence had been allowed to sit in on a few of them, he seemed enamored. For Terence, Dion wants to learn more. He enjoys poetry on his own of course. But he likes Terence too, and he wants the people he likes to be happy, so he very much wants Terence to be happy. Terence deserves it. Terence has done no wrong. He assures Dion that he has done no wrong either, but while Dion trusts Terence very much by the second or third moon of their acquaintance, on this he firmly believes Terence to be wrong.
When Dion is fourteen, for a time life is good. He loves Terence, and Terence loves him back. As a friend, he realizes with something that has now turned to a slight tug at his heart as he realizes that perhaps he wants a little something more. But he is loved, and he loves back, and regardless of the form that is as much as he can ask for. With that, he is content.
Sylvestre regards him warmly enough. Dion loves him. After many years of urging himself to love his father and reassuring himself that he does, the thought now comes easily to him. He does love his father. He does. And he believes Sylvestre loves him back. The wyvern tails Sylvestre likes tucking behind his ear feel like a display of said love. It is a way to say 'I love you' without words. Sylvestre does not need to say 'I love you.' Dion is not saying this to make an excuse for why his father does not say such a thing. It is because it is true. Because it is. Because it has to be. Because it is.
Harpocrates is good to him too. Dion wonders if their relationship is something one might call 'love.' Harpocrates looks at him with more warmth than his father does. Harpocrates says he's proud of Dion. Harpocrates' expression brightens when Dion asks questions or engages in debate or even enters the room.
If Harpocrates loves him, then that's three people who love Dion, and who Dion loves back. And three is a perfectly good number.
Three, unfortunately, is as high as it will ever get.
For when Dion is fourteen, Sanbreque invades Rosaria.
When Dion is fourteen, his life forever changes.
For when Dion is fourteen a demoness enters the castle and the happiness Dion has managed to scrounge for himself shatters as he lies helpless, unable to muster the strength to save it.
Sylvestre tells Dion that he will officially begin training with the dragoons. Dion has already been training for a handful of years, but it was a slow process. Now he is to cease his other lessons and spend nearly all his waking hours- with the exception of those spent in church or doing his duties as the Dominant of Bahamut- working to master the lance and Jump. His lessons with Harpocrates have gone on long enough- so long that Dion is not even granted a chance to say goodbye before the man is dismissed from the castle, his final lesson apparently having been the one he had only hours before the news of the invasion broke.
Terence had already begun working with the dragoons the year before. He was to be trained young so that he might protect Dion. Dion had wanted to join him, but he hadn't thought it would be wholly so soon. Dion's one reprieve is that at least Terence will not be torn from him too.
For the moment he meets this Duchess Anabella- though has technically met her in the past, during his meetings with the Phoenix and his family, and oh how Dion's heart aches at the knowledge that that bright young boy had lost his life in the invasion, for he most certainly did not deserve the hand he was dealt- she takes Sylvestre from him.
Not in the literal sense as Harpocrates was. Dion still sees his father. Still speaks with him.
But Sylvestre is enamored with the woman that- a mere two moons after her arrival- he announces to be his future wife. And Anabella does not like Dion. So the love Sylvestre had finally begun to show Dion begins to crumble, bit by bit, as his father is cruelly and helplessly caught under her spell, his attention now captured by a woman who only moons prior was married to another man whose death she happily orchestrated.
He and his father had had family meals together in the evenings prior to Anabella's arrival. Just the two of them.
Sylvestre would ask Dion how he was doing, how his studying and training were progressing and so on, and Dion would answer. Dion would be updated on the state of Sanbreque, and the two would discuss what the best course of action was. Or rather, Sylvestre would muse aloud while Dion would hang onto his every word, eager to aid his father and his homeland but knowing the words of a fourteen year old were not nearly as important as those of a man who'd spent more than Dion's lifetime in a position of power, whether as Cardinal or Emperor. Still, those meals were pleasant enough. Those meals were where Dion would reassure himself that yes, his father still loved him, and yes, he still loved his father. They spent time together and they talked of things important to one another. That was love, wasn't it?
Then Anabella entered the picture and that small dose of happiness was crushed. Dinners become about Anabella and Anabella's dreams for Sanbreque and the future. They become avenues for talks of purity and bloodlines. Odes to how Rosaria was weak and better off lost. Dismissals of the suffering the innocent people of Rosaria were suffering with the loss of their rulers and annexation by another. Rants about the incompetence of the Cardinals in their ruling of Sanbreque. Bells of pessimism and negativity in which an air of love could not thrive.
Not for Dion, in any case.
His father loves Anabella. That much is clear. Far clearer than the love he holds for Dion, which though Dion will not claim to be gone, does feel as if it's been put aside for a newer toy. Sylvestre's love for Anabella is so quickly and freely given that Dion cannot help but feel jealous. She had not had to work for that love as Dion had. Plotting the downfall of one's own duchy does not count.
There is naught Dion can do to stop it. He quickly learns to mask his disdain for Anabella; though she regards him with disgust regardless of his actions, Sylvestre is upset by Dion's dislike of her. He wants the two most important people to him to get along. For the two people he loves to get along. And Dion cannot bear making his father unhappy, so though he cannot make himself love her as he learned to love his father, he does learn to hide his hate from Sylvestre. Dion will not let Anabella poison his relationship with his father. He will not allow her that victory.
Terence, then, becomes Dion's only reprieve. Training with the dragoons is harsh. Terence beginning his training at fifteen had already been an exception; Dion at fourteen is extraordinary.
But he is not merely the prince. Dion is the Dominant of Bahamut. He was born to rule the skies, so it is only fitting that he joins the company of men who rule them as well as any man can. It is his birthright. His destiny. And he will do well. He must.
After Anabella, Sylvestre's addresses of 'my son' begin to grow uncomfortable once more.
Anabella only refers to Dion in two ways: a seemingly polite yet somehow degrading "Prince Dion" when in public, said as if she questions his right to the title; and a haughty "little bastard" or "whoreson" when they are alone.
Those two make Dion's blood boil. Not merely because they explicitly insult him, but because though they may be true, they are clear jabs at his true mother. To be insulted himself is one thing. He can deal with it. He is no child. But to insult his mother- a woman with far more class than Anabella even if her bloodline was not as 'noble' or storied- is unacceptable.
Dion's mother may have worked in a brothel, but she always called herself a courtesan. That much Dion can still remember. She was not a whore. She was a courtesan. Whore was a dirty word- a clear insult. Courtesan implied respect. A courtesan was clean and trained. A courtesan was better educated, that they might converse with their clients about the going-ons of the world. A courtesan knew what they were doing. A courtesan was an escort while a whore was a tool, his mother had once said when she was once called a whore in public and Dion looked to her with a question in his gaze. She told him that she was not a whore and Dion was not a bastard. For a bastard implied one was undesirable, while Dion was very much wanted. Though she and his father may not have been married, Dion was loved, and she could not have been happier to have him nor prouder of the fine young man he was shaping up to be.
So yes, his mother was a whore and he is a bastard in the most technical sense.
But they both deserve respect. His mother even more so, now that she cannot defend herself. Dion is the only one left who can.
His attempts at telling Anabella to stop are only met with more venom. The harder he tries to get her to respect them, the more creative her insults.
Eventually he learns the best strategy for dealing with Anabella is pacificity. She thrives on his anger. He will not let her see the effect her words have on him. It is the only thing within his power.
Dion is not privy to Sylvestre's private conversations with Anabella, but there is no doubt she whispers poison into his mind. When Sanbreque takes Rosaria back from the Ironblood, they do so not to restore a land, but merely to expand their control. It is not to extend Greagor's mercy. It is to hold power over those who cannot fight back. This is made clear by the fact that the only supplies sent there from Sanbreque are those meant to construct Sanbrequois outposts and outfit Sanbrequois troops. The quality of life for the Rosarians is probably better than what it was during the Ironblood's brief rule- which in truth was more just plunder, as they never did attempt to instate any true leadership there as far as Dion is aware- but it does not appear to be any better than it was under House Rosfield's rule. The Rosarians' lives under Sanbreque re not better than those lived under Rosaria. Though it may be Vicereine Anabella's homeland, she doesn't seem to regard it as anything more than a trophy. She does not treat it with respect.
Such disregard for a people does not befit a ruler. It is shameful. Unacceptable. Were Dion any older, were he stronger, were he to believe his father would listen to him, he would urge Sylvestre to appoint a different advisor to oversee the remains of Rosaria. Sylvestre had been a kind and thoughtful and caring ruler once upon a time. He still was, for the heart of Sanbreque in any case.
But as it is Dion is in a precarious position. He fears doing anything that might displease his father. Sylvestre's love for him sits upon a precipice, wavering in the winds accompanying the storm that is Anabella, and Dion fears any unpleasant ideas he brings may be the last gust needed to send said love over the edge.
No, he cannot speak to his father in such a way. All he can do is vaguely mention the glory of Sanbreque and Greagor's mercy, and that he believes it essential to their mission that goodness and care are spread throughout the realm, and hope that eventually his father picks up on the message.
In his prayers to the Goddess Greagor, he begs forgiveness for not doing more.
When Dion is seventeen, he has his first kiss.
His love for Terence had grown from the love of a friend to the love of a crush to something more, at what exact point he could not name. It had been gradual. It was not due to any one thing Terence did, but due to the culmination of all he was. Terence had been there for Dion when no one else was. He had been Dion's confidante, his support, his source of encouragement. His light in the darkness. His reassurance that despite all of Dion's failings when it came to keeping Anabella's influence from distorting the dreams of a greater Sanbreque that Sylvestre had spouted in Dion's childhood, he was not a bad person.
When Terence speaks to Dion- when Terence even merely looks at Dion, he feels loved. He feels as if he is home.
So when Dion is seventeen, he takes a risk.
"Terence," he begins, gaze directed out the window of his sitting room where Terence had accompanied him after they were released from training for the day. He cannot bring himself to look at Terence. Already the blush is creeping up his cheeks, his palms sweaty underneath the gloves he has yet to remove. He wants so dearly to ask his wish of Terence, yet his mouth feels drier than training-induced dehydration should have wrought it, and the beating of his heart feels akin to a rampaging wyvern. "I wish to ask something of you."
Behind him a faint clatter of armor sounds as Terence likely straightens. "Yes, your highness?" He sounds slightly puzzled.
'Dion,' Dion wishes to say to him. For in this moment he does not want to be the prince of Sanbreque. He does not want to be the Dominant of Bahamut. He simply wants to be a man. He simply wants to hear his name come from the lips he longs to claim with his own.
Dion swallows hard, then begins the hard task of voicing his desire. "First I must beg for forgiveness. If you do not wish to do that which I shall ask of you, I beg you forget this conversation and forgive me for starting it. I do not want to damage our relationship."
Tears threatened to come to his eyes at the mere thought of losing Terence. He cannot bear to lose another. The anxiety of that possibility creeps up at him. He'd dreamed of a single kiss for moons, agonizing over whether he should voice his request or keep silent. In the end he had decided that the pain of maintaining his silence was too much. Though he fears the pain of rejection more than anything, he does not think he could go the rest of his life in lonely silence. Not if he could have more. If Terence wished only for friendship and Dion knew he did not desire more, then he would not force Terence into more. He could not be happy if Terence was not happy. He would much rather spend the rest of his life in friendship but with the pang of the knowledge that he wished for more than with a lover who did not love him back.
There are so few pleasures Dion allows himself these days. So few things he desires that he is granted.
So just this once, he will take a risk. He will try for that which he desires.
He swallows again. He will not let the nausea of anxiety win. "Terence," he begins again, doing his best to keep his voice even. He does not want his desperation to creep through and influence Terence's response. He wishes for it to come solely from Terence's own feelings; Terence's own heart. "Would it be alright if I kissed you?"
A sharp intake of breath.
Dion bites his lip.
Perhaps he had strayed too far. Perhaps his desire had blinded him to Terence's true feelings.
This is why he does not grant himself pleasures. This is why he does not take risks. They bring only pain, both for himself and others. He is the Prince of Sanbreque and the Dominant of Bahamut, and with the responsibility of his position he has no right to bring harm to those within his-
"I would like that very much."
Dion spins around in an instant.
A rosy pink covers Terence's cheeks. Unlike Dion, he does not look away. He stares into Dion's eyes, determination glittering in his own.
As Dion stands frozen, Terence takes a step forward. And another. And another.
Their chests are nearly touching when Terence stops. He had a growth spurt recently, and his chin is at the level of Dion's eyebrows.
Terence's blush deepens as he then takes a step back, creating space that makes Dion's heart ache.
So, at the last moment sense had entered Terence, then. His own heart had told him no.
Except that isn't true at all, for Terence brings his right hand to Dion's face, cupping his chin and rubbing a thumb across the smooth skin there. Dion wishes they had shed their gloves. He wishes he could feel even more of Terence's touch.
"Your radiance," Terence whispers, a term of respect Dion is not used to being afforded.
Then he leans down and captures Dion's lips in a kiss.
Dion has to lean back a little bit to make it work. Though Terence had taken a step back, he is still just a hair too close for Dion to remain upright. But when Terence has to lean forward to close the gap, Dion does not mind leaning backward. It is only fair. And the kiss is so wonderful he thinks it would be worth it to lay on a bed of hot coals to be granted such a lovely, delicious, wondrous thing.
When Terence pulls away, Dion can do naught but breathe and stare.
Terence takes a step back, eyes finally drifting elsewhere as he clears his throat.
"I, ah, hope that was acceptable," he mumbles, embarrassment clear. "I don't have much practice."
The spell is broken. Terence still looks lovely and Dion's heart still pounds in its exhilaration and longing, but the enchantment no longer holds him frozen in its spell.
"And I have none. That was… wonderful, Terence. I cannot imagine anything better."
Terence seems to perk up at that, eyes returning to Dion with a sparkle of joy. It brings a warmth to Dion that he had not realized he'd been missing until it fills him to the brim.
"Good!" Terence exclaims. Then the embarrassment returns. "I mean, well-"
"Thank you," Dion breathes.
Terence nods. "Thank you. Truth be told, I've thought about it for a while. About you. About me. About us. But I did not know if my feelings were reciprocated, and I worried it wasn't appropriate to think such things about one's prince-"
"To hell with propriety!" Dion huffs. Then, his frown softens into a look of regret. "At least in private. I…don't think we can make our relationship known in public yet. Nor for a long while. I understand it is a lot to ask this of you, yet I must ask it anyway.
"Do you still wish to be mine, and I yours, even if we must confine our relationship to the private world? Could you be happy having to hide?"
Terence scoffs, expression soft. "With you? Of course. No matter what. I have no regrets, My Prince. Nor will I."
Something about those words sets Dion's already pounding heart aflutter. The warmth that already filled him seems to grow all the more pleasant. Dion feels as if he were melting, but in a way of bliss.
My Prince, Terence had called him.
Mine.
Dion was Terence's. And Terence was his.
Oh, how he has yearned for such a thing. To be loved. To be truly, truly loved.
"Thank you," Dion whispers once more, the tears that had begun to bud in the corner of his eyes finally falling. "Thank you!"
He closes the gap between them, enveloping Terence in a hug. The press of Terence's armor is cold against his cheek, but he does not mind, for the cold is only there because it means he is with Terence. He can brave the unpleasantness for the sweetness that resides within. He can brave anything. Anything at all.
Terence laughs, wrapping his arms around Dion and holding him tight.
When they finally part, Terence's lips are wide with a goofy smile. Mayhap it is just because of the wonder of love, but Dion finds something suspicious about the expression. In a playful way.
"What?" he teases, raising a brow at the way Terence tries and fails to straighten his lips.
Terence lets out a cough as he brings a hand to said traitorous lips, trying to hide the expression where he could not smother it.
"It is nothing, your highness."
Already does Dion long to hear the words 'my prince' come from Terence's lips once more. But he does not press it. He wants it to be genuine. He will not force such a thing; it is not nearly so sweet when it is. He wants their love to be natural; to be true.
"You need not hide it from me," Dion insists, a pout rising on his face. "Are we to have our first couple's spat only five minutes into our relationship?"
Terence splutters, waving his hands in denial. "No, no! It's only that- well- how do I put this…" He clears his throat. "You're glowing."
Dion looks down.
It is evening, and Dion has not yet lit the sconces in the room. Some light comes in through the window- through which Dion now realizes in a burst of terror that someone could have seen them- but it is rather dim.
And since it is dim, Dion can very clearly see how the floor and wall and furniture around him are being faintly lit by his own person.
He shrieks in a decidedly un-princely manner. Terence laughs and laughs until Dion cannot help but laugh too, and in the end, all is well.
He is loved.
He is loved.
And it is a wonderful thing.
Dion's life continues. He grows taller, but so does Terence, and in the end he remains the shorter of the two. A few times he is called "pretty" by Anabella's pet knights who share in her dislike of him. Dion knows it is meant to be an insult- and it does sting, in a way- but he does not reply with anything beyond a commanding stare. He supposes he looks like his mother. It is hard to remember what she looked like. It's been so long since he saw her alive and well. He can remember the events leading up to when he first Primed in perfect detail, but he does not like thinking of a dying woman and her corpse.
Dion works hard and continues on the path to being a true dragoon. Terence decides to train as a foot soldier among the dragoons rather than an aerial one as Dion does, preferring to stay close to Dion rather than risking being deployed afar, and conceding defeat when it comes to the harsh training and extreme skill required to perform a Jump.
By age twenty-two Dion does not have dinner with Anabella and Sylvestre very often anymore. He prefers to take it among the dragoons, appreciating their presence and working hard to build camaraderie. He is their prince, but he wants to be one of them. He does not think himself far superior. He does not want them thinking he does either. He shall fight among them, so he will eat among them. It is less awkward than family dinners anyway.
But he still does dine with his father and Anabella on occasion. And it is during one such dinner that the demoness makes the gentle peace he has fought so hard for come crashing down.
"I spoke to the chirurgeons today," she says during the second course, drawing Dion's attention.
For a brief moment, he wonders if she is ill. For a brief moment, he relishes in the thought.
He pushes it down. It is wrong to think ill of other people. Even if Anabella deserves it. He will not be brought down to her level.
Besides, she wouldn't sound so happy if she were ill. She would not sound so pleased with herself.
As it turns out she is ill, but only slightly. Only the illness of morning sickness.
The illness a woman has because she is pregnant.
With his father's child.
And as Sylvestre rises to his feet in joy and stands to hug his pregnant wife, Dion cannot stop the single tear that slowly meanders its way down his cheek. Nor can he deny the nausea churning in his gut and the way the world seems to fall out from under him, made only worse by the sneer Anabella directs his way when Sylvestre has his back turned to Dion, arms wrapped around the woman who is to be the mother of his second child. The lawfully wedded woman who is to be the mother of his only properly-begotten child.
Anabella begins to speak of the holiness of the union between the bloodlines of Bahamut and The Phoenix, and of how if Gregor is good, mayhap their child shall be the Phoenix reborn. Her son's death was unfortunate- and Dion notices how she acts as if she only ever had one before, her elder son worthless in his lack of having an Eikon of his own- but with the previous Dominant of the Phoenix dead and gone, mayhap their child shall be the next Phoenix incarnate.
Dion does not hear much of the rest of their conversation. He is still there, technically, sitting at the same table. But he does not feel as if he is there. He feels adrift, as if he is watching the scene play out in front of someone else's body through someone else's eyes. He hears through someone else's ears, sound muddy and distorted as if carried on rushing waves from a surface above the waters he finds himself drowning in. They speak of joy and of preparations and rooms and celebrations and more. Wine is brought out- though none for Anabella, now that they know of her condition, as she will not allow any chance for harm to come to the wretched babe growing in her belly- and Sylvestre heartily partakes while Dion only takes a few sips. Or something like it. He feels distant. It does not feel real.
He does not know how long the chatter goes on.
Eventually he rises to his feet and claims he is feeling tired and must go to bed. He mutters something about especially harsh training with the dragoons, about the day's exertions having exhausted him, and that he does not wish to take away from the celebration with drooping eyes and a yawn.
Sylvestre dismisses him with a nod, seeming somewhat disappointed but far too entranced with Anabella and their new child to spare Dion much concern.
Anabella sneers again. It is a wretched expression. Something deep within Dion wants to rise and thrust the knife sitting by the roast straight into her belly. Something within him craves violence, begs for him to give in to his emotions for once and satisfy the beast that has long been chained up within his heart.
It might be Bahamut. It might just be Dion. Sometimes he cannot tell.
He departs before that urge can grow any stronger.
Anabella is the monster. Not him. He will not stoop to her level.
He readies for bed quickly and efficiently. It still feels as if someone else is doing it for him. That a single sentence could affect him so is disturbing, but only slightly. For something to truly disturb him he would need to be present. He does not think he's very present at all. It feels like a twisted dream; a nightmare of the worst kind, for the nightmares that could be real are the worst of all.
He goes about the next day as normal as he can. One of the servants must have overheard the news, or Anabella must have otherwise chosen to spread it, for throughout the day Dion is congratulated on being an older brother, and asked how wonderful it feels to finally have a sibling.
A few of Anabella's special Black Shields ask him how it feels to know he will have a 'proper' sibling. They say this with a sneer.
He hears the implication that he has others. It is quite clear, no matter how vague the words. It is something that has plagued him for the past fifteen years. Dion did not come to the castle until he was seven; though Sylvestre had done his best to quell the rumors, the rumors that Dion's mother was a courtesan- or rather whore- have persisted throughout his life, and those who do not like him have never been afraid to call to it. Once he'd even been asked if he'd spread his legs for enough coin as his mother did. It was implied that he'd risen through the ranks so quickly not because of his efforts, nor because of the power of the Eikon that ran through his veins, but because he'd let his superiors fuck him until they were pleased enough to raise him higher. Dion beat the man until he'd been so bloodied that had Terence not been there to pull Dion off and give the man a potion, he might've died. Terence dropped the man off at the infirmary and apparently told the chirurgeons on hand something about fears of treason. The man was not removed from the Sanbrequois army, but he was assigned to Rosaria. When, some years later, Dion asked Terence if he knew what had happened to him, Terence looked away and said that it had been five moons since he'd died. Dion had never even learned his name. He did not care to.
So after a day of congratulations and Terence hovering at his side so close as to nearly be improper, he cannot help but break down when he and Terence are finally in private. He'd not had the energy to seek out Terence the previous day. Now he has enough energy to sob for hours, armor removed from both of them so Terence can press Dion up against the warmth of his chest and rub circles into his back.
Terence orders dinner up to Dion's chambers at one point. They are supposedly there discussing strategy, and what it might mean to have a new princess or a second prince in the castle, with Waloed acting in a way that suggests Barnabas might not be content with only a single continent in his grasp. It only makes sense to order dinner when their 'strategy conversation' drags on past dinner time. When Dion cannot eat more than a few bites- bites he struggles to choke down, only eaten at Terence's insistence- Terence sighs and eats most of the rest so the servants are not worried by seeing one mostly-untouched plate. It is a small kindness that Dion is so largely grateful for.
Eventually Dion dismisses Terence. Terence does not seem keen on leaving, worried by the redness in Dion's eyes and the oppressive sadness emanating from his being, but Dion dares not risk anyone saying anything improper about them. Not now. He cannot give Anabella any more fuel. She hates him already. If she begins to spout something about how she must continue their glorious bloodline because Dion will not, he thinks he will snap.
Terence leaves. Dion lies in bed for hours, mind blank but emotions churning.
He dresses at first light and applies some of the makeup he keeps for occasions just like this, when sleep eludes him and the circles under his eyes deepen enough to be noticeable. He is the Crown Prince. He is the Dominant of Bahamut. He must be Perfect. He will not let his people down. They do not deserve anything less than the best. He cannot afford to present as anything less than the best.
So when he departs his room, it is with a gracious smile. He greets every person he passes, thanks them all for their kind words, speaks of his excitement over the prospect of having a new sibling, goes hard and long in his training, and visits the gardens to prepare a bouquet for the mother of the newest member of his family. He insists upon collecting it himself, much to the initial uproar of the gardeners, saying he wants his devotion to show when he presents the bouquet to Anabella. The gardeners acquiesce to his demands. They have seen him often; he visits at least once a week to stand among the wyvern tails, sometimes more when he needs to clear his head. He takes the flowers for the bouquet from throughout the garden, crafting a bouquet that says 'I wish you well.' In the center of the bouquet is a single wyvern tail, its white petals soft and unblemished, its leaves free of any bite marks or browning.
When he hands it to Anabella that evening, he makes sure she feels the single root when he presses it into her hands.
Her fake smile falters, and Dion allows the hatred in his gut to be fed for a single moment, the fury in her gaze feeding that angry, terrible beast that lies caged in his chest, forever starved.
She says nothing of the root as she accepts it gracefully and graciously.
That night he prays to Greagor for forgiveness, not for wronging Anabella, but for doing something that could have harmed an innocent child, even though he knows Anabella would have discretely disposed of the root before it could do her or the child any harm. The child has done no wrong. All they have done is exist. They have not even been born. It is not their fault that their existence is at the hands of a woman with ill intent. Dion can only pray their life manages to be a good one.
The child is a boy. The second prince of Sanbreque. Anabella names him Olivier.
He is an oddly quiet babe. Anabella dotes on him endlessly. Dion is glad for the reprieve from her attention.
He misses the attention of his father though. For Sylvestre is equally enamored with his new son, having not been around when Dion was the same age for more than a few minutes at a time, based on what Dion's mother told him of his few visits. Now that he is older, Dion realisez Sylvestre had probably been looking for Bahamut.
His mother had once told Dion that there was no doubt that Sylvestre was his father. Sylvestre had said the same. Dion had an understanding that Sylvestre had paid her extra for exclusivity during the time they were together. She had hidden that she was pregnant until her body had grown too round to hide even under dim lights and drink, and when she'd borne the child, Sylvestre had insisted she allow him to check on it from time to time, just in case. There were priests that Sylvestre and Anabella had Olivier brought to to see if the spark of the Phoenix had yet awoken in him. Had Dion been a properly or officially begotten child, he would likely have been brought before them too. But since he was not, Sylvestre had kept Dion a secret. If Dion had not awoken as Bahamut, he doubted Sylvestre would've ever officially recognized him. The circumstances of Dion's birth was a nagging stain on his reputation even now; had Dion not been blessed by Greagor to be the Dominant of Bahamut, such a stain might even have had Sylvestre's former position as Cardinal revoked.
Olivier's birth has no such negative associations. He is a miracle babe, an alliance between two Dominant bloodlines. Though he does not ever show the spark of the Phoenix that Dion knows Anabella is so desperate for, always asking the priests to do a second examination on those times that Dion accompanies them, he is still of the noblest of noble blood. He is possibility given flesh.
Dion begins to be sent off for war.
With a new child in the house, the continuation of Bahamut's bloodline is ensured, and so Sylvestre no longer hesitates to use Sanbreque's strongest weapon. It is the threat of Bahamut that ends rebellions more than the presence of Bahamut; Dion rarely even semi-primes.
But he does his best, always, to earn the smiles and thanks of his father when he returns home. He does exactly as his father asks, exactly when his father asks, exactly how his father asks, all to ensure his father is pleased. All in the hope that if Dion does by him well enough, Sylvestre may begin to hold his words in higher regard than Anabella's. When Sylvestre speaks of how proud he is of Dion and how important Dion is to the continued prosperity of Sanbreque, he is able to relax. He is reminded of the reason for his existence, and reassured that he still has his father's love. He is reassured that the father he loves and who loves him back still exists under the mask that Anabella seems so hard to be trying to put on him. He is reaffirmed in his commitment to Sanbreque, and he is refreshed in his efforts to see the threats to Sanbreque's wellbeing quenched.
Anabella meanwhile somehow manages to grow worse. With a child borne from her loins and of Sylvestre's blood, her place in Sanbreque is sealed. Even if Sylvestre were to divorce her- which Dion knows shall never happen, for Sylvestre remains as enamored with her as he was on the day he announced her to be his wife- they now share an heir. She has served her purpose admirably. She will not be dismissed. So, she need not fear repercussions for her cruelty to Sylvestre's other son, so long as she is not overtly cruel in public.
She begins to tout her role as Olivier's mother just to flout Dion's existence as the child of another. She continues to call him bastard and whoreson in private. She does it more often, and with more vitriol staining her tone. She knows Dion will do nothing to stop her, not when they both know Sylvestre would either not believe him or dismiss his claims as exaggeration were he to bring it up. But she begins to refer to Dion as 'Prince Dion' less and less in Sylvestre's presence, instead preferring to say 'your son,' with the 'your' emphasized in a way that shows Anabella does not wish to associate with Dion and only tolerates him because of his association with Sylvestre. To call him a prince affirms that he is royalty. To remove the title of prince allows for the suggestion that while he still shares Sylvestre's blood, he does not share the truly noble blood produced by the joining of her and Sylvestre's bloodlines, and is therefore inferior. Accordingly, she constantly refers to Olivier as 'our son' at every opportunity. She bats her eyes and cozies up to Sylvestre every time she does, reminding him of both their child's greatness and her role in it. She will not be discarded.
One of the worst parts of it is how firmly Anabella believes in her own superiority; in the superiority of her child that comes from being the product of two Dominant, noble bloodlines. If it had been just another one of her lies, just another falsified part of her persona meant to please others, it would be easy to dismiss. Anabella is a smart woman. She plays her hand well. But when her hand is made of forged cards, Dion has built enough resilience to be able to accept the losses he is dealt in the games in the games she plays.
When it is the truth it simply sting. There is nothing he can do but take it and concede defeat.
Sometimes Terence proposes he do something. It hurts him to see how Dion withers under her gaze. But Dion cannot afford to do anything that might harm her. Not anymore. Where once he and Anabella had been placed at equal heights upon the pedestals at Sylvestre's shoulders, now Anabella was raised to eye level, her son above his head, while Dion seemed to have fallen to waist or below. He had and still has to earn his place. To Anabella and Olivier, that place was freely given.
But Dion has fought for Sylvestre's love before, and he can and will continue to do so until his dying breath. He will persevere. He always has. He's always had to. He always will. Until his dying breath.
Dion is not present for much of Olivier's childhood.
He spends much of it out on campaign. His presence motivates the soldiers, and Dion wishes to be a man of action, rather than one who hides behind castle walls and waits for his men to tell him of their triumphs. If they are to bleed for his sake then he will bleed alongside them. They deserve no less than his all.
Odin comes for Storm and Bahamut is there to meet him. Dion is…disappointed when he learns that his father will send no reinforcements, but he understands the importance of maintaining peace at home. He could not bear it if his father were to come to harm. It is best that his father remains safe.
But Dion's presence on the battlefield means his absence when invaders come for Drake's Head, and when Dion learns that the Mothercrystal has been destroyed, he feels as if the world is collapsing out from under him. It isn't the same sort of churning distance he felt when he learned of Anabella's pregnancy. It is a complete and utter despair of a different kind. Dion thinks some of it comes from Bahamut. He had failed to keep their Mothercrystal safe. He had failed. The Blight would consume Sanbreque all the faster without the Mothercrystal and her blessing, and Dion had been unable to stop it, so focused on other threats that he had let the most precious of resources be destroyed.
But Sanbreque is not yet dead. There are yet Mothrcrystals on Storm. So though he opposes the breaking of the treaty, finding treachery more than just unbecoming to an empire- for it is antithetical to his very being, not to mention a disgrace to abandon the very people who made Sanbreque what it is, and his father's later comments on breeding and rebuilding will sicken him more than anything that has ever before come from the man's mouth- he does as his father asks and leads his men as they take control of the Crystalline Dominion and the Mothercrystal that sits at its heart.
"Thank you, Dion," his father says when he enters what is to be his new throne room, smile wide as he looks at the new seat of his power. He carries a wyvern tail with him. The symbol of the homeland they had just abandoned.
There are no fields of wyvern tails just over the hills here in the Crystalline Dominion, no beds of wyvern tails down in the gardens, ready to explore in moments of conflict when he sought peace, no fresh bouquets of wyvern tails arranged throughout the building. Sylvestre tucks the flower into Dion's armor and brings a hand to his cheek. "I am proud of you, my son."
It feels slimy. Dripping with the poison that Anabella has stuffed so far down Sylvestre's mouth that it now pours from his mouth every time he opens his lips.
It reminds Dion of how his father had spoken when he first came to the castle. In that time before he felt his father truly loved him for who he was, as Dion and not just the Dominant of Bahamut.
It stings. It works its way through the links in Dion's armor, nestling deep into his heart, barbs poised to hurt with each aching beat.
"I give my all for Sanbreque," Dion responds.
Sylvestre nods. "Good."
As the Cardinals enter, a thought comes to Dion's head. One he would never voice.
'Do you still love me?' He wonders. 'Or do you merely love that which I can do for you?'
Terence is a blessing. Terence has always been a blessing, but times are hard and some days Terence is the only reason Dion can still bring himself to rise.
"You must stay strong," Terence insists, helping Dion into armor that Dion could don alone had he truly wished, but nowadays he feels so alone that he relishes in the help he might have once denied. He thinks Terence worries about what might happen were he to leave Dion alone too. He does not allow himself to think much more about why. "You cannot allow Anabella to win. Sanbreque needs you. It needs you, My Prince, not any other."
Dion's breath hitches.
In a world of poisoned 'my son's and venomous 'your son's and emotionless 'your highness'es, My Prince is more than just a welcome reprieve.
It is Dion's lifesource. His light.
"Your Radiance," Terence still calls him on occasion. From Terence, it feels like a prayer. Like worship. He does not believe himself worthy of such devotion, but Terence insists upon it anyway. For he believes Dion worthy of his complete devotion, and Dion cannot deny him anything.
The destruction of Drake's Head is the beginning of the end. Terence can try as he might to help Dion, and by Greagor does he try, but the highlight of Dion's life has already come, though he does not yet know it.
It is the beginning of the end. And in the end, they both will weep.
Sylvestre keeps Dion in the Crystalline Dominion more often than he'd kept him in Oriflamme in the years prior to their abandonment of it. Dion is still sent out on campaign, of course, but he returns to the Dominion Often. After all, Sylvestre cannot well risk his son coming to harm.
The son in question is not Dion though.
It is Olivier, whose mother has molded him into the most wretched prince Dion has ever met, one that has no care for propriety or politics or politeness as he lazes about each day, the most passion arising from him being only the purest hatred with which he regards Dion, stronger than even that of his wretched mother.
Dion is merely the weapon with which Sylvestre protects his younger son.
Dion will not allow Anabella to win. Nor will he allow Sanbreque to be tainted by that which she has wrought. So he is ever the example of politeness, ever the perfect prince, ever wise and kind and authoritative and knowledgeable. He does not rise to anger at anything Olivier says to him. He will not be defeated by a child. Not even a child who is a well-bred, properly-begotten prince.
He and Terence spend more time together. The dragoons all know of their relationship at this point. Dion has spent so much of himself warding off Anabella and her son that he cannot scrounge up any more energy to hide it from the dragoons too.
They are supportive. They guard the two's secret well. Dion spends most of his time in the barracks, where none will comment if he and Terence remain together into the late hours of the night. Where they will not comment if Terence puts a hand on Dion's curled fist when he reads his father's latest decree.
They are loyal to him. Ultimately loyal.
So when Dion reveals his plan to end Anabella's treachery, he is greeted with their full support.
It is she who ripped Sylvestre's love away from Dion. She, who drove him away from the righteous principles by which he had ruled Sanbreque during Dion's childhood, hand firm but kind and well-meaning. It is she who distorted his father into something he was not. It was she who corrupted Sylvestre into a man willing to abandon his own people, willing to sacrifice them for the continuation of even only his own bloodline. And hers.
It is she who has worked to spell Sanbreque's doom.
It is she whom Dion must eliminate if he is to save Sanbreque and his father both.
When Dion meets with the Phoenix during one of his increasingly rare campaigns outside of the Dominion, and then again within the Dominion's walls, it is she that Dion decides must go. It is she that allowed Ultima to corrupt his father so. She is the traitor. The demon. The vile poison that has drained the life from Sanbreque's veins. To release the hold Ultima has on Sylvestre and return him to the righteous, loving man he once was, Dion will bloody his hands once and for all.
And nothing- not even his father's objections- will stop him.
Everything goes wrong.
Sylvestre dies.
It is by Dion's hand.
Dion's name is the last word to ever pass from his father's lips.
Dion's heart cracks. Breaks.
When Ultima taunts him through the demon-boy's lips, he shatters.
…
The world is engulfed in light.
And though Dion is not in control, he sees and feels and hears all that the Eikon borne from his own flesh sees and feels and hears and does.
He wakes and flees his saviors. He cannot bear their stares. He cannot withstand the weight of their gazes. He is unworthy of the care with which they treat him.
Somehow he gets his aching body back to the Crystalline Dominion.
When he sees the destruction he has wrought, he weeps.
How many had died? Hundreds? No- thousands. It has to be thousands. The ruined city he stands in is a broken husk of what it had once been, and it had once been one of- if not the largest- city in the world.
He is a monster. A murderer of the highest degree.
These were not soldiers he killed. It is not like it is on the battlefield. These were innocent people. Innocents like those who died on the day he first Primed.
He comes across the body of a dragoon. Only the gauntlet is visible, the body it belongs to unrecognizable under the rubble covering it. He looks up at the spire from which Ultima's power flows freely, choking the air.
It is more than he can take.
He crumbles.
Once again he is treated to more than he deserves. A young girl- Kihel, she names herself- cares for him despite the fact that her means are so small she must hardly be able to care for herself. She could've sold the medicines she used on him; could've used them to support her own livelihood. But she used them on him. Him, the very one who put her into such a situation in the first place.
He will not impose on her any longer than he absolutely has to.
He leaves.
He does not know if Terence yet lives.
He fears he does not.
But he cannot accept it. Not yet.
For if Terence is dead then so is the last bit of Dion's heart, and then there will be no reason to live.
Terence deserves better than Dion. He deserves so, so much better.
But if Terence yet lives, Dion needs to find him, if only to apologize for what he has done. For all the years he has trapped Terence beside him when Terence could surely have found more happiness elsewhere. For betraying Terence and everything they believed in when he killed his own father and destroyed what little hope Sanbreque yet had just as he destroyed the Crystalline Dominion.
Dion stumbles forth, desperately searching for the last hold his heart has on this wretched world.
He finds Terence. Or more specifically, Terence find him.
About half of the dragoons managed to survive. A miraculous number, all things considered.
And for some reason they are all still devoted to him. To Dion. They do not blame him for what happened in the Crystalline Dominion; he was clearly not himself, and it was clear that the demonic magic by which Anabella and her spawn had corrupted the Emperor had unfortunately managed to capture Dion too. They saw Dion attempt to destroy the smaller crystal that rose where the evil pillar now stands; they watched as the Mothercrystal morphed to form the beautiful petals of the wyvern tail that Dion adores so much. They know he was trying to destroy the demon's magicks, and do not blame him for failing when even the might of a Mothercrystal was not enough. They saw him fighting the demon's firey form, its two legged, horned form joining the fray after its imitation of the Phoenix could not defeat him.
Terence keeps Dion from telling the truth when Dion tries. He thanks the men for their devotion and takes Dion aside to plan their next course of action.
"Why?" Dion asks, eyes dry only because he has no tears left to shed. He is empty, now. So empty. Even Bahamut seems to have left him.
"Because it was not your fault, my prince," Terence answers, placing a gentle kiss upon the crown of Dion's head. Not even the term of adoration can stir the warmth it once did in Dion's shattered heart. It is more kindness than he deserves. "The Phoenix warned us of Ultima's danger, yet I left you alone to face him. For this, I am sorry. I should've been there for you. I shouldn't have left."
Dion's breath catches in his throat. He pulls away.
Terence stands above him. He had seated Dion down after they moved into one of the rooms of the inn the dragoons had claimed as their temporary base, worried by the way Dion had trembled under his grasp from his lingering wounds.
At Dion's movement Terence lets his hands drop. Dion can see the pain in his eyes as the touch is broken.
"You only did as you were asked," Dion whispers. He feels he lacks the strength to speak any louder. "You were needed out here. To protect the people. It was my own weakness that led to my downfall; had I not been flawed- had I not given in to my weakness and allowed my emotions to get the best of me- my father would yet live and the Dominion would be whole. Our fellow dragoons would yet stand beside us in full." Dion swallows. A darker possibility rises in his belly, the beast in his heart uncaged when Bahamut had forced his way out, angrily laying claim to all that Bahamut had once shielded Dion from. "And-" his voice breaks. Dion raises a hand to his face, sucking in a choking breath as he desperately tries to calm himself enough to speak. "Had you been there, you very likely would have perished too, and I could not- I cannot-"
The dam breaks and Dion cannot hold back the raging river any longer, tears spilling down his face and through his hand as sobs wrack his broken, empty body.
Terence sighs, leaning down, down, down to envelop Dion in a hug. His armor is cold. The edges dig into Dion's unarmored form. There is a distance between them now, one that Dion's treacherous heart and terrible actions have formed. He has ruined everything. The warmth of Terence's body tries to reach for him, spreads to him through the touch of their cheeks, but it is not enough. It will never be enough. Not anymore. Not after what Dion has done. Nothing can make up for that.
But Terence holds him tightly anyway. Terence, who still loves Dion, undeserving as he is. Terence, the only good thing Dion has left.
Terence, whom for his own sake Dion must push away.
He smothers his own sobs as he makes a decision about what he must do.
Terence hugs him all the tighter, unaware of the fate that awaits him.
They make it to Kanver. Dion had collected himself eventually, donning the extra armor that Terence had apparently retrieved at some point and taking up his spear to lead the dragoons toward their new objective.
Order needed to be restored. In Dion's search for redemption, he would give his all to see to it.
When he meets with Byron Rosfield, the chance arises for his plan to come to fruition. Present also is the Dhalmekian Chief Strategist, who shall help ensure the success of Dion's ploy, underhanded as it may be. He pledges his men to Lord Rosfield's cause. He'd already informed them of his plan before meeting with the man, sure as he was that the man would be amenable to it and that it would be for the best.
Then he takes Terence aside and seals his own fate. His own misery.
Terence's survival.
The look Terence gives him threatens to break his heart, so he looks away. Terence forces Dion to face him, yet even still does Dion avert his gaze, shattered heart so poorly mended from his father's demise that he know its pieced-together remains will simply disintegrate on the spot if he is to look into his heartbroken lover's eyes. He cannot bear it. It is for the best. For both of them. He has to do this. He has a debt to be be repaid, and he cannot stand not repaying it. But he cannot see it repaid himself, and there is none Dion trusts more than Terence. Besides- he knows that if he does not give Terence such a mission, Terence will pursue Dion until the end. But Dion does not deserve his kindness. Nor does Terence deserve to be stained by Dion's presence any longer.
Dion loves Terence more than anything. He is the last love Dion has left. And Terence loves Dion back, much as Dion wishes he would take his heart and give it to someone more worthy.
Dion cannot stand to hurt Terence. But he has no other options, and this is the least painful parting he can arrange.
He does not call it permanent. He phrases it as a quick task for Terence to perform. Nothing extraordinary. The possibility for a reunion still theoretically exists.
But they both know they will not set eyes on each other again. Not for a long while, if ever.
It kills Dion to do. But he must do it. For Terence. For Terence.
For Dion himself. His one small bit of selfishness. The last bit of selfishness he will ever afford himself.
"My Prince," Terence whispers, so quiet none else can hear. "Your Radiance."
Dion bites his lip and does his best to mask his choked gasp with a longer inhale. It does not work.
But Terence is a good man. He has always been a good man. The best of men.
Terence does as he is told.
Dion is alone.
As he is meant to be.
As he deserves.
Haprocrates is at the hideout. A man Dion never thought he'd see again.
Somehow Harpocrates obtains a wild wyvern tail; a beautiful purple bloom that Dion has never seen in all his travels, something so rare he thought it extinct. Harpocrates presents it to Dion as a gift.
But Dion cannot take it. He does not deserve it. He does not deserve the kindness behind it.
He has shut his heart off from the last true love it had. He cannot accept a gesture of love from another. He cannot afford to falter. Not until he has earned his redemption.
…
But if he survives it all- if somehow he defeats Ultima and lives to tell the tale, then perhaps he will take it. Perhaps he will take it and he will ask Clive where he found it, and he will tuck the stem behind his ear as he goes to collect the love of his life and bring him- and perhaps the child he has found, for Byron Rosfield had let him know that Terence had managed to spirit Kihel away before the Crystalline Dominion was sent aloft by Ultima's foul magicks, even if Dion had not been able to bring himself to read any of the increasingly frequent letters Terence has sent him- to see where the live flowers grow.
It would be a lovely thing.
Such a lovely thing.
He banishes the idea before it can make his heart waver any more than it already has.
He has a duty.
And he will see it done, no matter the cost.
"Dion," Clive says to him at the precipice.
Not 'Your Highness.' Not 'Prince Dion.'
Not 'My Prince.' Not 'My Light.' And most certainly not 'My Son.'
"It's time."
Dion nods.
He pushes off the wall.
They have a god to kill.
It is the end.
There is no time for doubt or second thoughts.
He only hopes he can find his redemption. He only prays he can find his forgiveness.
He apologizes to his mother, and his father, and most of all Terence as he takes what will be his final flight.