Chapter Text
There was once a time when Byleth lived a fairly simple life.
Though the life of a mercenary is rather difficult when compared to other things, Byleth never felt out of place. She was good at swinging her sword, and was never in want for anything more than food in her belly and hearing her father’s faint snores for one more night.
Ever since she accepted a teaching job at Garreg Mach however, such simplicities have been thrown out the window. Even her emotions, so lackluster and mild, have grown too complex for her to handle.
It’s times like these that Byleth wishes Rhea would have listened to Seteth’s complaints, way back when. How could the archbishop have dismissed her advisor’s concerns so readily?
Especially when I , Byleth thinks with a little grumpiness, can’t escape his advice without a lecture.
It’s times like these that Byleth wishes her problems were still of a simple nature.
“Professor?” Ashe says, looking close to tears and eyeing the cat before them the same way she is, “What are we going to do?”
Byleth takes in the scene before her; Dimitri’s tent flaps are haphazardly thrown open, the wood of the campfire is strewn across the ground from where the cat before them crashed into it, and she has four wide-eyed students standing before her who can’t decide whether or not to stare at her or the cat.
I don’t know, she wants to say. I never do.
Instead of saying that, she looks around at her students’ faces, taking in their varying incredulity, and declares, “Someone bring me Seteth. The rest of you, don’t let the cat escape.”
Considering that she only has Sylvain, Ingrid, Ashe, and Annette to block the mean-looking cat from escaping, Byleth despairs when Ashe inevitably breaks from the group to do as she asked. They have to form a tighter circle around the cat to make up for the loss, which only agitates it further.
“I’m sorry,” she tells the cat, feeling genuinely awful about stressing it out.
The cat stares daggers at her. Then it springs into action.
It dives for the space where Annette is, and she squeaks as she tries to block the cat with a wind spell.
She succeeds, but the cat ends up hissing bloody murder and changing course. It sprints for the empty space between Annette and Byleth, but Byleth is ready.
She steps in front of the cat to block it and is promptly punished by the cat latching onto her leg with teeth and claws.
It hurts.
Her three students cry out, surging towards her.
“It’s fine,” she tells them, holding a hand up. “Stay where you are.”
“But what if it’s rabid?” Ingrid asks, anxious.
Byleth considers. “Well. Shit.”
“ Professor! ”
“What is going on here?” Seteth’s voice says from the left, and Byleth quietly sighs in relief. He may be harsh with his words, but her advisor knows a lot more than her at the end of the day.
The cat growls and tightens its grip on her leg. Byleth hopes her tights aren’t ruined.
“That cat has latched onto the professor,” Ingrid tells him.
“We think it’s Prince Dimitri,” Annette adds, voice trembling.
“And if it is,” Sylvain says, “he’s quick to make a move. Look, he’s already got his mouth on the professor’s skin—ow!”
The loud clunk of Ingrid smacking Sylvain for his comment scares the cat into flinching, and it abruptly lets go of Byleth. It falls onto the ground, disoriented, before remembering itself and turning to start screaming at Sylvain.
“Could you help?” Byleth asks Seteth.
He looks at her with an expression that she can only describe as why-would-you ?
“I would like to point out,” Byleth begins, feeling mildly resentful, “that for once, this isn’t my fault.”
Seteth’s expression turns strange. “Byleth,” he says slowly, “I stopped blaming you for everything years ago.”
Byleth pauses. “Right. Years.”
“Ah, I apologize for forgetting. To you, everything that has transpired has not had time to stew.” Seteth crosses his arms and taps his finger. “Still, it has been months since you awakened. Surely you don’t think I am still searching for faults within you?”
“I mean…” Byleth shrugs. “You’re constantly telling me what I’m doing wrong these days.”
“Because I am teaching you about the position of arch—“
“Um… Professor?”
They turn their heads to look at Ingrid, who is watching them with an expression of doubt. “Not that your conversation isn’t important, but… what should we, er, do next?”
“Well,” Byleth says. “We pray I don’t get rabies.”
“Yes, that reminds me,” Seteth begins, before snapping his head to her and scrunching up his face in the nagging-fishwife look. “Wait, rabies? Byleth, why would you let yourself be bitten?”
“But what if it’s Dimitri?” Byleth asks, staring at the obviously stressed-out cat.
“That—“ Seteth pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s far away enough that she can’t hear him, but she knows he’s counting beneath his breath. “Why, exactly, do you believe it is His Highness? Perhaps my memory is not always correct, but I seem to recall that his existence was that of a human.”
How to explain?
“It seems that Ashe was going to wake me up,” she says, nodding towards the wide-eyed archer, “to inform me about our impending march. He passed by Dimitri’s tent and heard a cat, and was curious to know why. He was, however, too scared to look or call out to Dimitri, so Ingrid took it upon herself to open the tent as the sounds were getting more frantic. The cat ran out, and when they looked inside Dimitri’s armor and clothing were strewn about the floor.”
Annette whimpers behind her. “He didn’t even use the bedroll,” she says sadly.
“At least we succeeded in getting him to enter the tent,” Ashe says, ever the optimist.
“They have noticed the cat is colored similarly to Dimitri’s hair,” Byleth continues, not wanting to think about a desperate Dimitri too scared to fall asleep. “And is also scarred over one eye. Using all of the information before them, they have gathered that either Dimitri is a cat now, or he has found a cat remarkably similar to him and he is also running around naked.” She concludes her report, satisfied it’s out of the way.
The expression on Seteth’s face says he doesn’t feel the same, which confuses Byleth.
“You never know!” Annette blurts, then reddens as they turn to look at her. “M-Maybe he has more c-clothes? He couldn’t be running around naked… right? ”
“Let’s just say he’s a cat,” Ashe says, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “That seems more likely. And easier to say.”
Sylvain snorts, running a hand through his hair. “Felix is going to be so mad,” he says, chuckling. When they turn their stares on him, he grins crookedly and says, “You know how Felix is always calling Dimitri ‘boar’? If that cat is truly Dimitri, he's going to have to change his insults because ‘cat’ just doesn’t have the same punch.”
“Is this really the time to be joking?” Ingrid asks him, eyes narrowed. “His Highness is missing.”
“See, Ingrid, you need to learn how to lighten up.”
“We,” Seteth says, shooting Byleth a disapproving look, “need to find you a trained healer. If one of you would, please find—”
“No need, I’m already here.”
Byleth’s eyes widen, and she turns to look to the left where the rest of the camp has already packed up most of their supplies. Apparently, Linhardt has not been exempted from this practice because he is currently awake and walking towards them, looking haggard. He raises a hand to mask a yawn, and waves at them, completely unbothered by their matching looks of disbelief.
“Linhardt?” Sylvain says dumbly. “You’re alive?”
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t be, but—” He takes a second to yawn again. “I felt a strange surge of magic coming from this direction a while ago, and I wanted to investigate.”
“Don’t you think you should have checked on it right away?” Ingrid asks, frowning.
“I did my best. I only fell asleep twice,” Linhardt replies.
Byleth has to hand it to him – his getting up at all is a miracle they shouldn’t take for granted.
“Well, the professor here needs to be checked for possible disease,” Seteth says, narrowing his eyes at the cat who is still watching them with possible intent to murder. “Be careful on making your way over to her. Or would a simple Physic spell suffice?”
Linhardt takes one look at the cat and says, “I’ll make it work. But first, I must say that this cat has traces of magic coming from it. It…” He scrunches up his nose in concentration. Byleth wants to poke his cheek. “It feels rather like the disturbance I sensed. I will have to ask Lysithea and Constance for their opinions, but I’m almost completely sure of it.”
All of this waiting around isn’t very helpful, especially when they can just ask the cat in question. “Are you Dimitri?” Byleth asks, ignoring how Seteth starts to mutter under his breath.
The cat looks at her with slightly narrowed eyes, then bobs its head in what she guesses is a nod.
“There you go,” she tells them.
“I’d say that’s not very convincing,” Annette says, staring at the cat, “but that nod looked too human.”
“You mean to tell me,” Sylvain says, “that this may actually be Dimitri himself.”
“I thought you agreed that it was him,” Byleth says, confused.
“Well, I didn’t really believe it at first,” Sylvain says defensively in response to Byleth’s words, putting a hand on his hip. “But looking at the little guy now…”
The cat hisses right on cue, giving Sylvain the nastiest look. Byleth has seen that glare on enough cats to predict who’s about to be attacked.
“Who knows – maybe that little furball is actually our great king. Looks grumpy enough.”
“That’s not possible, Sylvain. No magic in existence can do something like that.”
“We’ve seen people be turned into Demonic Beasts through the power of Crest Stones. Don’t be so quick to dismiss it, Ingrid.”
“Actually, Sylvain makes a good point.”
“Linhardt—“
Byleth takes in the matted, muddy (and slightly bloody) mess glaring at them with a blue eye as frigid as Faerghus winters, and decides she likes this cat.
Maybe it’s the way it holds its body, legs bent and fur puffed up to try and dissuade them from coming too close, angry and scared. Maybe it’s because of the possibility that it is, in fact, Dimitri in cat form, and Dimitri has always been able to pull emotions out of Byleth that she never knew before.
Like yesterday night, when she fell asleep in her bedroll, asking Sothis to please help her find a way to stop Dimitri’s bloody warpath. Byleth doesn’t like the way she felt yesterday; desperate, aching and pained —
She shakes her head. Byleth doesn’t think now is the time to be wallowing over what she doesn’t understand.
Instead, she lowers herself onto her knees, uncaring of how the grass and dirt dig into her skin, and holds out her hand. She makes sure her knuckles are facing the cat, nails tucked close to her palm – nervous cats don’t like seeing her potential weapons out in the open.
The cat stares at her.
“Ooh, what if it lets the Professor touch it?”
“Honestly, it won’t help our dilemma – animals and Dimitri alike seem to favor the Professor.”
The cat reacts to those words by hissing and yowling, pupils blown wide. Apparently, those words are of great offense. Or perhaps the cat stepped on a sharp rock. Either way, he doesn’t look very keen on approaching her.
She needs to take him back to the monastery.
“Dimitri,” she says.
The cat immediately looks at her.
“If it’s really you, we need to bring you back to the monastery. It isn’t safe out here.” Byleth slowly rises from her crouch and starts to approach him, keeping her knuckles out for him to scent. “Would you mind if I picked you up?”
He stills.
Is that a yes? A no? Byleth, not for the first time, wishes she could just return to the simpler halcyon days.
She takes a step forward, and he arches his back.
She has to keep him contained. But how? There is nothing in the environment that she can use.
…unless it can be created.
Byleth slowly takes off her coat, doing her best to keep her hands in Dimitri’s vision. Oddly enough, he seems to freeze as the last of her coat slides off (she kind of does too; the cold wind is leaving goosebumps on her skin).
Oh well. She won’t let this opportunity pass.
“Use Blizzard around us!” she yells.
Her voice breaks him out of whatever trance he’s in because he immediately takes off in a sprint. However, at that exact moment walls of ice form around her and Dimitri, and Byleth tries not to immediately start praising her students.
Dimitri is unable to stop himself in time and crashes into the ice, stumbling back in clear disorientation. Byleth takes the golden opportunity and snatches him up, keeping her arms locked around him as he begins to flail.
“Professor!” Ingrid calls. “Do you need help?”
“I’ve got him,” she grunts, wrestling to keep the damn cat inside her coat without him slicing it or her into ribbons. Her words seem to invoke an even worse frenzy because he yowls loudly before doubling his efforts. She falls to her knees and curls around him in a makeshift trap. “Does anyone have a bag big enough to fit him?” she calls, strained.
“O-Oh! I do!” Ashe scurries over and yelps as Dimitri hisses at him, but – Sothis bless him – he doesn’t cower away. He holds out a nice blue satchel to Byleth, and she spares a second to grieve for it.
“Open it. I’m going to put him in there.”
Dimitri screams.
Ashe’s face drains of blood but he dutifully obeys, pulling the satchel wide open.
It takes them a while longer, but they eventually manage to stuff Dimitri into the satchel. They even get some of Byleth’s spare clothes into the satchel, limiting how much Dimitri can wriggle and squirm. It’s probably not very comfortable for him, hanging next to her hip and unable to stretch his paws, but Byleth is determined to get him back to the monastery.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him, just in case.
He hisses at her. She can’t quite take him seriously, seeing how his head is the only thing poking out of the satchel. Despite his mats, he’s still a long-haired cat, and he just sort of… puffs out of the bag.
Puff, she thinks gleefully.
“Linhardt, if you would,” Seteth says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The rest of you, go and finish your preparations to return to the monastery. For now, tell no one about this. Just say the prince has gone ahead, and that Professor Byleth has chosen to take in this cat.”
For all of his skepticism, it seems he too is accepting the idea of this cat being Dimitri.
Her students obey, casting curious glances at her as they scurry away. Seeing that the danger has been mostly abated, Linhardt finally makes his way over to Byleth, hands up and willing a magic circle into existence. “I trust you won’t let him bite me, Professor,” he drawls as he inspects Byleth’s leg.
“I promise.”
He hums, looks at Dimitri warily when the big baby begins to make a low growl, and begins working.
In no time her hands and leg feel much better, the skin left unmarred. Linhardt performs a cursory examination on Dimitri and shakes his head as he lowers his hands. “I’ve healed what I can, but I don’t know the procedure on magically inspecting an animal. You would be better off asking Marianne to check for feline diseases.”
“Are animals different?” Byleth asks curiously, heading to where the rest of the war party has gathered with their mounts and supply carts.
“Of course they are. We all have a basic channel to the world’s magic, but there are specifics based on anatomy…” Linhardt’s clinical magic chatter keeps her entertained as they make their way over to everyone, and helps distract her from how their gazes rest on the angry cat by her hip.
Linhardt declines to ride back with her to the monastery. “As much as I’d love to,” he says, eyes down, “I’d prefer not to be too close to that accident waiting to happen.”
“Ah. Right.”
Byleth ends up climbing onto her wyvern, Sneak (earning a few loud yowls and startled looks in the process), unaccompanied by anyone other than the feral Dimitri. She feels a little unsettled; it’s been a while since she rode without an archer or mage behind her. It’s partially out of necessity, but it’s also because she likes to have company.
A low snarl breaks her out of her impending panic, and Byleth notices Sneak is reacting to Dimitri’s stream of angry sounds. She pats his neck soothingly. “Don’t worry about it, he’s fine. It’s okay.”
Sneak shakes his head, but he allows her to take his reins without further complaint.
“Alright everyone,” she calls out. Her students nod, signaling their attention. She does a quick headcount and grips the leather in her hands. “Let’s go.”
She snaps the reins, and Sneak leaps into the sky.
Dimitri doesn’t understand how this has happened.
Staring up at Byleth as his growls course through his body, he wonders how he can possibly exist this way. As a human, he used to tower over everyone, and so he has forgotten how to fear them, but as a cat he is painfully aware of just how weak he is. As a cat, everything seems so big.
He had woken up this morning, which in and of itself was already alarming considering how infrequently he sleeps, and found that he was half-buried beneath stinking cloths and furs. It was one of the more disgusting experiences he has had in a while.
That is one of his many complaints about his new form - the sudden intensity of his sense of smell. Everything is too strong now. Even the damned satchel he has been shoved into smells too much like provision jerky, and it is making him increasingly aware of how hungry he is.
It’s too much.
He can also smell metal, and the mild scent of tea he has learned is Byleth.
There was no precursor for his transformation. There is no such spell, at least to his knowledge, that can turn anyone into a cat. Though, Sylvain did bring up a good point. Crest Stones, when held by those without Crests, can turn people into beasts.
He tries to think. What could he possibly have touched or gained in his possession that could make such a transformation?
Green.
He blinks.
The verdant trees are going by rapidly below, and the wyvern he and Byleth are on lets out a low chuff. Dimitri almost doesn’t hear it.
“I know,” Byleth says to her beast, voice quiet beneath the rapid winds. “I’ll make sure you get a feast tonight. You’ve done a great job.”
Her voice is soothing, in that way she would speak whenever one of the Blue Lions didn’t quite make the score they wanted, or whenever they struggled in training with a maneuver. How Dimitri loved that tone, bringing a sort of quiet peace he frequently sought but never quite attained—
Realizing what he’s thinking, Dimitri lets out a particularly loud growl. It startles Byleth, and he takes vindictive satisfaction in being able to scare her, even from within this small body.
“I know it’s uncomfortable,” Byleth says to him in the exact same voice she used on the wyvern (now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t know its name). “But bear with it for now. When we’re at the monastery you can roam around the grounds as much as you please.”
If he were human, Dimitri would sneer at her arrogant words. As it stands, he has only the face of a cat to work with, so instead, he peels his lips back and snarls at her.
He is at her mercy, and he absolutely despises what this means for him. How is he meant to cut off Edelgard’s head if he is trapped within a monastery, kept as a common pet?
No specters appear before him, but Dimitri knows they are there, waiting for him to finally fulfill their last wishes. Waiting for Dimitri to avenge them, to earn their forgiveness, and put an end to their endless suffering.
“You should rest,” Byleth says tonelessly. “The journey is going to be a bit tedious, and I imagine you’ll get bored. I promise we’ll figure out a way to get you back into your normal body. Take advantage of the time until then.”
He growls at her. She has no right to tell him what to do. She has no right to treat him as though he is a child, with an attention span of twenty seconds. She has no right to treat him as lesser, as weak.
So, he resolves himself to stay awake the entire trip over. It’s what he’s used to anyway, with ghosts clambering over his shoulders and sobbing into his ears every waking hour of the day.
The rocking of the wyvern, and Byleth’s scent of steel, tea, and snow, end up having an effect on Dimitri that he wishes didn’t exist. Tucked within the warm blanket and satchel, in a small space by the side of one who wishes him no harm (whom, he suspects, is almost incapable of doing so), Dimitri feels what he hasn’t in a very long time – safe.
Warm and secure, he starts to drift off.
Stay awake, he commands himself.
Sleep, another part of him demands.
The journey back to Garreg Mach is tedious and boring.
It turns out that Dimitri is not a very gracious cat.
At first, the moment he is let out of Byleth’s satchel and allowed to roam her room he starts to jump around the place, clawing at everything and hissing at her every move.
When the door does not give way to his wrath, nor does the doorknob turn for his hooked claws, Dimitri lets out a fearsome yowl and turns to look at her. Byleth feels like she is facing down a lion rather than a cat (how fitting), his one blue eye almost blazing with murderous intent and his lips pulled back to reveal tiny yet scary fangs.
“I’m not going to let you out,” Byleth says, boldly forging ahead, “until I can be sure you’re healthy and won’t attempt to escape.”
He hisses and licks his lips.
Byleth does not like that. “I’m sorry,” she says, softening.
She knows she shouldn’t. Dimitri takes her kindness, her tentative care, her emotions , and spits them back out as though it is poison on his tongue. He does not care for softness. He believes in crushing it beneath his heel.
Just like the night before—
Don’t think about it.
But as much as Byleth knows this, understands that she should offer only clinical words so that he cannot refute her…
His ears flatten against his skull as she studies him. His pupil dilates, though as long as his eye is not overtaken by black she should be safe.
Dimitri is a cat.
Byleth adores cats.
Look at those cheeks, she thinks to herself, eyeing how his fur fans out on the sides of his face. Look at those tiny paws.
Paws with razor-sharp claws, she’s sure, but soft paws nevertheless. They’ll probably get softer if she washes him.
He licks his lips and resumes a low yowl.
Perhaps that would be best saved for another day.
Still, how could she not become enamored with that face? “I’ll do my best to make sure you’re comfortable,” she tells him. “I’ll give you reports on how the war is going – on Edelgard’s movements. I just need you to cooperate with me.”
Dimitri stops growling, and for a moment Byleth feels hope, thinking perhaps he will see reason and not spite her—
Except, he only cuts himself off to raise a leg and start scratching at his neck. Then he freezes, looks at his foot, slowly lowers it, and glares at her.
This must be humiliating for him, she realizes. To be turned into a small creature, and apparently be saddled with its instincts. She’s known this can’t be comfortable, but she’s never quite thought of the extent of that discomfort. “I won’t tell if you don’t,” she promises him.
He hisses at her, then dives under her bed.
Really feeling the gratitude, Byleth thinks to herself in a moment of irritation. She can only take so much rejection, and Dimitri has been putting her through the wringer ever since she found him.
Oh well. No matter how much he puts her through, Byleth doesn’t think she will ever be able to give up on him. She may not want to follow his breakneck pace in the path to Edelgard’s head, having seen too many people seeking vengeance only to leave grief and blood in their wake, having nearly lost herself on the same path, but on the off chance that his goal will help him—
She has to try.
There’s a knock at the door, and a muffled voice comes through.
“Professor? It’s Marianne. May I come in?”
Byleth glances at her bed. There is no sign of a cat’s snout, but she knows he’ll try to escape if she doesn’t take preventative measures.
“One moment,” she calls back and turns to face the bed.
The quiet hiss she hears confirms her suspicions, and Byleth wonders what she can use to block the feral prince from darting out. She briefly debates using her own body, realizes Dimitri is very likely not to give a shit about whether there’s a chair or a human in the way to maim, and decides to pull off the covers of her bed to form a heavy curtain.
That should have him struggling for a second.
Before Dimitri can decide to start his escape prematurely, Byleth hollers, “Come in quick!”
She hears more than sees his dash for the blankets, and Marianne, the ever-experienced healer for both humans and animals, slides in through the smallest of cracks and shuts the door just as Dimitri pops out of the blanket curtain like a hound baying for blood.
Marianne nimbly dodges to the side as he comes to an abrupt halt before the door.
Having his escape blocked pisses Dimitri off.
“You’re very experienced with animals,” Byleth comments offhandedly, moving to protect Marianne from Dimitri’s angry clawing. He slices up her hand, even hooking his claws into her flesh and bringing his teeth up to bite.
Byleth doesn’t let him this time, worried about the possible effects of his saliva. This might not be Dimitri, as Seteth has told her. Or, this body might be infected.
“Well, I do like to visit them,” Marianne says, watching Dimitri warily. It says a lot about her when she takes Dimitri by the cheek and forcefully peels him off of Byleth, even as her hand trembles with the effort. “I’ve learned to work around their anger.”
Dimitri yowls.
“Right, he’s not just an animal,” Byleth amends. “He’s also probably Dimitri.”
Marianne visibly swallows. “So I’ve heard.”
They spend a while wrangling Dimitri into immobility. Byleth’s hands are sliced to ribbons by the end of it, blood staining her sheets (and possibly white carpet – human Dimitri will be paying for that). It stings, but Byleth shakes her head when Marianne worriedly asks if she should heal her.
“Let’s focus on him first,” Byleth tells her. “The sooner we find out if he’s healthy, the better.”
Marianne looks like she wants to argue, but she just purses her lips and holds her hands over Dimitri. The cat is being held down by Byleth, his legs covered by the folded blanket to try and shield them from his sharp claws.
Eventually, the white light from Marianne’s hands fades, and she nods at Byleth. “He’s free of disease,” she says, looking a little awed. “He’s severely malnourished, and had many wounds that required healing, but he is otherwise fine. I would recommend feeding him light foods, like plain chicken broth, for now. Even as a human, His Highness barely ate – I fear his body would only reject eating heavy foods.”
Byleth nods. “I expected that. Anything else?”
“A thorough wash would be ideal,” Marianne says, eyeing Dimitri nervously as he twitches beneath Byleth’s hands. “And a groom. His matted fur must be cut off so that he doesn’t get infections later on. It is also more comfortable.”
Basically, Byleth thinks grimly, she has to take care of Dimitri the way he hasn’t for himself these past months, past years . Basic upkeep, made possible only because she can restrain him now.
In a way, Byleth is somewhat glad for this turn of events. If Dimitri will not take care of himself, Byleth is willing to do it.
No matter what Dimitri spits at her, Byleth will not leave his side.
Don’t think about it, she tells herself.
“Thanks for the help, Marianne. I really appreciate it.”
Marianne gives her a tremulous smile, the one that means she isn’t entirely sure of how much credit to accept. It saddens Byleth to see, but at least Marianne isn’t outright rejecting her thanks. “Of course, Professor. Have a good evening.”
Marianne ducks her head and exits the room.
Byleth looks at Dimitri, who starts screaming at her.
“You’re not going to make this easy,” Byleth says sadly, “are you? It would be better for you if you cooperated.”
Dimitri continues screaming, so she lets him go and watches as he starts bouncing off the walls.
She looks back at her blankets.
They’re covered in mud, leaves, and other filth.
“You,” she decides, “are definitely getting a bath.”
Dimitri hates life.
He hates it so much. All that it has ever done is take. It has taken his childhood, his loved ones, and now? His dignity.
“Hold still!” Byleth says, voice straining from the effort of not shouting.
Dimitri doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like how she pretends to be something she’s not, how she pretends she isn’t irritated with him as she tries to shove him down. He will not be handled by someone so dishonest.
He won’t be handled at all, he corrects as he crawls over the metal bucket he’s been dumped into. He is a person, damn it! He may have the body of a cat, but he is a man with agency and power. He will not be—
He’s forced back into the horrid water and shrieks.
After the debacle of being shaved and then washed, Byleth does her best to towel Dimitri dry (it doesn’t really work) before letting him escape beneath her bed again.
It seems that’s his favorite spot for now.
Byleth sighs, weary and stressed.
What are they going to do?
