Nyx

이준호 | Lee Junho 

baby I’ll be  whatever you want, whatever you need.

FUSH1GUR0 M3GUM1 ☆ L0CK5CRE3N!!

⠀⠀⠀𖧁 SUKUNA ╴W4LLPAP3RS!! ♡̷̷   

⠀⠀⠀ꗃ⠀[ReQ] 𓈈

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1T4DOR1 YUUJ1 ☆ L0CK5CRE3N!!

M3GUM1 H3AD3RS

Dimitri had never seen you collapse, before. He had never seen you fall unconscious in an instant, you had never let yourself be knocked out by the butt of an axe or the hilt of a blade- you were always on your toes.

You were too capable a fighter to let such a thing happen.

It was in the midst of battle, six months after you wed, when he saw it for the first time. You were beside him, and then suddenly, you were in front of him, six meters ahead, and your blade clattered to the ground.

Your body heavily followed after. Dimitri screamed.

“BYLETH!!” He roared, vision going red as he charged forward, cutting down enemy after enemy in a fit of bloodlust. 

His body heaved, burying his lance in the dirt as he struggled to regain himself. Someone hurt his wife. 

His beloved.

He didn’t know who had done it, he didn’t know how it happened, but Dimitri wasn’t having it. The Blue Lions that had joined them on the battlefield could only stare, watching their king absolutely destroy the battlefield with no mercy whatsoever.

It was Mercedes who came to your aid, first. You were in bad shape, but it didn’t seem like you’d taken many injuries.

Instead you were unconscious. Cold, and faint. The pale of your skin was made equal by your husband’s violent vengeance.

“BOAR!” Felix shouted over the clamoring of weapons, “Enough!! Byleth needs help!!”

Dimitri paused in his slaughter, looking back to where you lay. You were unmoving despite Mercedes and Annette crowding you, healing staves poised over your body.

The lance fell from his hands.

Felix was right. You needed help. You needed him.

Dedue would overtake the remaining rebels, quashing the last remnants of the Adrestian Empire... Perhaps that was why this battle had brought you to such a state. Destroying the remains of what Edelgard put in place, all those loyal factions… It must have caused your focus to stutter.

“Seteth- quickly, someone find Seteth and Flayn! They’ve both got Caduceus staves- they’ll know what to do!” 

Ashe sprinted off to find the wyvern rider, as Dimitri brushed past the group and to the center of the Lion circle. You were surrounded by frightened students, now adults, though they didn’t seem to know what to think.

Never had they seen their Professor felled in battle.

Felled.

Dimitri’s heart skipped a beat at the very thought. He knelt beside Mercedes, his hand on your cheek. You were still. You were cold.

“Mercedes…” 

Dimitri didn’t even want to think the words he spoke.

“Is she still...or did she…?”

“Dimitri…” She trailed off, her expression crumbling as what he spoke connected with her. She shook her head, “I-I hadn’t thought to- I just started healing her, I haven’t-”

Dimitri ripped the gloves from his hands, pressing his fingers to your neck.

“There’s no-” He choked.

“Milord-”

“There’s no pulse.” 

“What?!” Annette gasped, “N-no!!”

“Mercedes, there’s no pulse, she doesn’t-!” Dimitri pulled you into his arms, pressing his ear to your chest with trembling limbs. 

They watched as their king crumbled around his wife. They could never forget the roar of grief, the sorrow in his voice as he cursed at the goddess. He clung to you, desperately, begging you to wake up. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

It was never supposed to end like this.

He didn’t remember the Lions moving away from him. They were shoved away mercilessly as he left you in the grass, launching for his weapon and returning his fury onto the last remaining rebellion. 

They did this.

Even now, Edelgard managed to take everything away from him. She destroyed everything he loved, once again.

The only thing he loved.

The one person he absolutely needed.

Another was lost.

He didn’t see Seteth burst through the crowd of mourning students, or see him tear your breastplate away to reveal your chest still moved up and down. You still breathed.

He was blind to everything until Sylvain’s lance struck him in the back, forcing him down and stopping his mad razing.

“Byleth’s not dead!” Sylvain managed to crack out before Dimitri came at him, and it was enough to freeze Dimitri in his tracks.

You weren’t...you weren’t dead?

But he heard your heart. It didn’t beat.

Your pulse was gone.

You were so cold...you weren’t there.

But Sylvain insisted he come, and see for himself. On staggered legs he pushed himself away from the end of the fight, and he returned to see Seteth lifting you up, preparing to take you to the monastery on his wyvern.

Dimitri came close enough to see it. The rise and fall of your breast. You were…

You were alive.

-------------------------

Several days passed before anything really changed.

Your husband was latched to your bedside, your dainty little hand engulfed in both of his, calloused fingers trembling as he held you for all he could.

“She should wake up soon, milord.” Seteth told him gently when he finished his latest check-up. The last few days the diagnosis was simply, “She is not ready to wake. She must continue her rest. Have patience.”

Have patience?? When he thought his wife dead mere days ago??

“How do you know?” Dimitri questioned him, his voice quiet and calm. Tired.

Seteth looked at you in silence, his hands tight behind his back. “It is my duty as someone trained in clericism, milord. It is clear that she-”

“No.” Dimitri cut him off. Seteth glanced at him. “How did you know?”

“Know what, milord?”

“Everything. All of it. How did you know she was alive?” Dimitri’s form was stooped over in the chair, his one good eye piercing straight through the dragon’s heart.

Seteth did not like how someone centuries younger than him was capable of making him feel so uneasy. 

“Dimitri...there are many things that you do not know about Byleth. They are difficult to explain. I worry that it would frighten you, o confuse you if I tried to-”

“Tell me.” 

It was an order. A threat.

Seteth looked at him, long and hard. He debated the truth, honestly, because there wasn’t a single human on the face of the earth who knew what you could do. Only the Nabateans carried this knowledge,e, and for good reason.

But you were also married to a human. One that would move the heavens and earth to protect you.

Perhaps he had a right to know.

“Byleth,” He started slowly, “Can turn back time.”

-------------------------

The day that came after was slow, and blurry.

For Dimitri, it was filled with guilt and angst and worry. He had been the cause of your coma, he realized, from Seteth’s brief explanation.

He had divulged all the secrets he had protected so long; your ability to change the future through the Divine Pulse, as he called it. Your body being a vessel for the goddess Sothis, herself. How your heart never beat since you were a newborn because of this.

How you were so quiet and blank because of what you were meant to be.

You were not supposed to be what you were, now.

But you were. 

And you survived.

The only problem was the usage of Divine Pulse.

You had been drained so much from overuse that it put you into stasis. You were recovering nicely, Seteth assured him, but you were in no position to use tat ability the way you did.

According to Seteth, you had been halfway across the battlefield. That was what he vaguely recalled, before you were suddenly before your husband, fending off the rebels that had likely taken his life multiple times.

For you to have fallen the way you did, it was clear you had used it far more than you were supposed to.

When that happened, Seteth explained, using it when it was supposed to be recharged, it would take the mana from your own body to be usable.

You needed to rest, then. Otherwise you were never going to fully recover.

All because Dimitri could have died. Should have.

But you protected him. Yet again, you saved his life. 

Dimitri wanted to cry, but he was too overwhelmed by everything he had learned. What was he supposed to say, after all? How could he react to learning of his wife’s divine powers? Of the purpose that had been forced upon you without your consent?

This was someone he cared so very deeply about, and yet you were at the mercy of things that Dimitri couldn’t even protect you from.

While he still hadn’t left your side, he was filled with the desire to go out and tear the world apart. It was the universe that was responsible for your suffering. He had only made you more vulnerable to it by being too weak.

His grimacing and brooding came to a standstill only when you showed signs of waking. 

He was watching you intently, so he had noticed right away when your breathing changed and your chest rose a little higher. Your eyelashes began to flutter, suggesting your eyes might be opening at a moment’s notice.

Then your hand shifted in his, flexing around his palm when you realized that you were being held. 

Dimitri was on his feet and bearing over you instantaneously. His hand touched your cheek, unable to contain the quivering of his fingertips when he realized that you were absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, awake.

It had been far too long since your eyes met his, yet there you were...awake, staring at him, and giving him the faintest of smiles. 

“Dima…”

“O-oh my darling.” He crumbled. 

His forehead touched yours, and he wrapped his arms around you drawing you into the gentlest embrace he could manage. He knew it was likely best not to move you so much, or even be holding you like this, but he didn’t care.

No, what mattered was you were awake.

You were finally, finally awake.

“Dima, it’s okay.” You murmured, and with a soft push on his chest, he drew back, just enough to look down at you but far from relinquishing his hold on your body.

“I thought you were dead, Beloved. I-I thought I had truly lost you.”

“Never.” You shook your head, and squeezed his shoulder. “I’m here to stay.”

Dimitri bowed his head, forcing himself to be calm. He wished he could stave off the thundering of his heart, but he couldn’t quite find it in himself to relax. He had longed for you so deeply, after all. And as full as he was with joy, he was still filled with questions.

The kind that couldn’t wait.

“How many times?”

Your expression remained soft, but neutral. “What?”

“How many times did you try to protect me?” He explained further. “How many times did you use your...power?”

“My…?”

“The Divine Pulse- that’s what Seteth called it.”

“He told you about it?” You looked at him incredulously. He pulled further back, letting you settle back into the pillows.

He returned to his seat, but it felt a bit too far away.

“He told me everything. Your parentage, your duty as a vessel, your abilities...all of it.”

“But why…?”

“Why did you hide it from me?” He asked quickly, stopping you from even attempting to protest. Your mouth fell closed, and you looked at him for a long moment. “Why didn’t you tell me? We are supposed to know everything about each other- yet you would hide this?”

‘It didn’t seem like something that many people should know about. Seteth made that clear.” You told him in a softer voice. Dimitri wasn’t having it.

“You didn’t think it prudent to tell me your heart didn’t beat? That you weren’t lying there dead, on the ground, but you were recovering from using your power? A power that  was never told of- that I didn’t know existed- because you didn’t think it was important for me to know?”

“Dima, I-”

“I thought I lost you, Byleth- I was certain I would never look upon your face again! Yet the cause of my fears was a secret you kept? After everything I’ve trusted you with, you still cannot trust me? Do you think me that incapable?”

“You’re not incapable. I just couldn’t say anything.”

“I’m not incapable.” He repeated with a bitter tang that made your heart twist. “Then why would you throw your life on the line so often? This wasn’t the first time- you had to use it multiple times for it to knock you down like that. You were abusing it to protect me! Would a capable husband need such protection?”

“It’s not that, Dima.” You insisted, “Please, let me explain.”

It took an enormous amount of willpower for him to give you the floor. You looked at each other for a long minute, the silence between you thick and uncomfortable. 

“...There have been many years where there was a mistake I missed. Where someone was harmed or killed because I wasn’t paying enough attention. But  Divine Pulse helped me reverse that. I use it most often on you...because I can’t bear to see you hurt.”

“Because I couldn’t protect myself.” He spat, though his voice was hardly above a whisper. You shook your head, holding his hand to yours. 

“Because every time you were cut, or beaten, or broken...it was torture. I would gladly turn back time a thousand times if it means you’re unharmed.”

“But that is not your duty- that is an abuse of your power, with grave consequences!!” Dimitri protested passionately, “What if you use it too many times? I mean more than falling asleep- what if you die just so I don’t get a scratch on my skin? What if you sacrifice yourself just to keep me alive?!”

“Then it is a sacrifice-”

“NO!!” He practically bellowed. Your mouth clamped shut. 

Dimitri had never yelled at you, before.

He was breathing heavily, his hand torn from your grasp as he collected himself. He looked away, and removed himself from the bed. 

He paced to the window, resting his hands on the sill and holding his shoulders up, hunched into the glass panes.

“...No, Byleth.”

“Dima?”

“You can’t.” 

“I-”

“You can’t sacrifice yourself for me. I can’t allow it. I won’t.”

He took a deep breath, and then another. You watched him quietly, waiting for him to get a proper grip on himself. You understood where he was coming from, truthfully. But you wanted to hear his explanation, yourself.

His eye remained low, but he slowly returned to you.

“I have watched countless loved ones give up their lives for me. If I lost the one person who pulled me from the brink...the one person I cannot live without...I would never find my way back.”

He sank onto the side of the bed, and gingerly touched your cheek. 

“I beg of you, Beloved...you cannot become another voice.”

You very quickly understood the gravity of your choices.

“Dima,” You leaned into his hand before you pushed yourself up, grasping his wrist. “I won’t.”

“You swear it?”

“I do.” You swallowed thickly, lacing your fingers with his. Dimitri seemed to bite back tears of his own, able to look away for a moment more. Then he couldn’t be without your touch any longer.

He pulled you into his chest, carefully, but wholly engulfing your fragile frame in the safety and comfort of strong, warm arms.

You pressed your head to his chest, breathing in the scent of pine and snow, helping him ease the anxiety and fear and remorse that had him swallowed up mere moments before.

“I’ll be more careful with the Pulse from now on. I won’t let myself reach fatigue, or worse.” You vowed, feeling him shudder softly around you.

“I will pay more attention to my surroundings- I won’t let myself be harmed so badly that you’d have to use it. I will be by your side through every battle.”

“Until we don’t have to battle, anymore.” You murmured, “I pray that day comes, soon.”