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When the mask came off and Edelgard’s eyes looked back at him, Dimitri wasn’t sure who he had become. He couldn’t remember those few minutes—he remembered the blood, red-hot rage he felt through his bones. He remembered wanting to tear her head off of her shoulders, parade it around Adrestia like it was his Goddess given right.
He didn’t remember much of the next five years, either. Fragments of ghosts and blood, losing people over and over again. Pieces of war he never wanted to fully remember anyway. Maybe it was a blessing that he didn’t remember—maybe it would just send him back into that spiral again. Losing himself to whatever darkness had been within the whole time. Letting the ghosts override whatever had even been left of him.
Standing in the throne room of Enbarr was almost no different than standing in the Holy Tomb, in a way. It was a similar energy—standing across from Edelgard now. Though now, Edelgard couldn’t look back. Her body was slumped, collapsed on itself from when Areadbhar had entered her chest. It had been quick. Dimitri shouldn’t feel bad about it—she’d thrown the dagger at him. She spent five years waging a pointless war to unify Fódlan. She’d killed thousands of people, destroyed countless places across the world.
Yet, here, standing across and looking at Edelgard, Dimitri almost felt guilty.
Because, at the end of the day, he remembered El. Before everything, he remembered El in Fhirdiad. He remembered a strong willed, brown-haired girl who would not hesitate to tell him that he was doing something wrong. The girl whose feet he would step on, who would then turn to lecture him as he pretended to listen.
Maybe that’s why this hurt so much. He could remember Edelgard before the Flame Emperor. Before the white hair (which he still didn’t quite know what that was about. Not fully). He knew who she had been, all those years ago, and maybe it hurt to see what she had become, after all that.
He accused her of being a part of the Tragedy of Duscur. That had been wrong, he knew that now. She wouldn’t have been old enough to do anything. He knew now that there had been something else behind. Something he’d yet to fully grasp, and maybe he never would. It didn’t seem to matter as much to him—not anymore.
Because standing here made him think. He could do what he said he wanted—hang Edelgard’s head from the gates of Enbarr. He could parade her body around Fódlan and demonize her. Make everyone see her as the villain she was. Because she was the villain. She killed thousands of people with her pointless, stupid war. Edelgard was the villain he’d painted her to be.
Right?
But she was his age. And sure, Dimitri himself had done things he wasn’t proud of. He’d killed too. Maybe people who didn’t truly deserve it, either. He was sure of that. And Edelgard had started the war. She was the perfect villain.
Wasn’t she?
Standing here, staring at her lifeless body, Dimitri almost couldn’t see her as the villain. He himself had demonized her for over five years. He’d gone nearly insane trying to chase her down and kill her for what she’d done. What he’d thought she’d done. The only thing he could confidently say was really her doing was the war, but at this point, he wasn’t really sure if that was her idea in the first place.
He could do what he bet his life on for years. He could hang her head from the gates of Enbarr like he swore to the ghosts that followed him around. He could parade her around as the villain he always wanted her to be. Like she was the monster everyone thought she was. Like there wasn’t something else going on under the surface.
And maybe that was the smart move. Fódlan needed someone to blame. The continent was ravaged after this senseless war, and Dimitri knew it. He knew that they needed someone to blame in order for them to heal. So he should blame her. Act like he didn’t know that there was something behind her. Like there wasn’t something lurking in the shadows that arranged this whole thing. Because he knew, deep down, El never would’ve concocted this idiotic plan.
At least, he’d like to believe that she wouldn’t. He liked to believe that if she had stayed in Fhirdiad, with him and his father and Lady Patricia, that maybe things might’ve been different. Maybe the Tragedy of Duscur wouldn’t have happened. He wasn’t sure when, or how, those things in the shadows got ahold of her, but he knew it hadn’t happened when he’d known her as a kid. Maybe if Cornelia hadn’t been one of them, things would have been even more different. Maybe he’d have had a sister growing up, like he’d always wanted.
But maybe it was completely pointless getting lost in all of these ‘maybes’ and possibilities. He knew that in reality, there was nothing he ever could’ve done. Even if he hadn’t lost himself for all those years, he never could’ve stopped her. He never would’ve been able to save whatever was left of El in Edelgard. He’d lived his whole life in regret, the ghosts of it following him like moths to a flame. El would become one of them if he wasn’t careful. Maybe she already had been. Deep in his mind, he’d always regretted not asking his father about her. Asking where she’d gone, who she really was. Why he wasn’t allowed to bring her up around Lady Patricia. He wished he’d spent his time doing something other than chasing meaningless things when the world was starting to burn around him, even if he hadn’t noticed it quite yet.
He sighed. “I’m sorry, El,” Dimitri said, turning toward the door. “They need someone they know to blame. I can’t save you from that, can I?”
Edelgard’s corpse didn’t respond, but Dimitri almost felt her relief in the silence anyway.