#areadbhar

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“W-we have to do this,” Ingrid said, her eyes filled with tears but determined. “We can’t let his Highness…”

“Wait! Maybe… ” Ashe wrung his hands. “Umm….”

“Maybe it’s reversible?” Mercedes asked.

“He’s turned into a demonic beast,” Felix’s blade dripping with bandit blood. “There’s no undoing that.”

“But he wasn’t attacking us during the battle!” Annette spoke up. “He looks like he’s struggling, we should—”

“He could have rabies,” Felix countered. “I’ve had to cull deer that flopped around like that.”

This was bad. He wanted to speak up. Say “I won’t allow you to kill me again,” or “I’m not rabid, I’m just not used to having this many heads.” But when he tried to open his mouth(s?) he didn’t know which one he was opening. And which one he was supposed to move his mouth, his tongue, his lips. Did he have lips?

He tried licking his lips. One tongue tasted dirt because that head was on the ground. Another tongue bumped against his closed mouth. The last of his tongues managed to feel that the opening of his mouth was smooth. At least one of his three heads seemed to have something like lips. Maybe.

“Fall back,” the Professor spoke up, his voice calm and soothing as always. “Let me talk to him.”

The Blue Lions let the Professor through.

“Dimitri,” he said, walking towards him, slowly. “Is that you?”

Yes.

No?

Yes, he was Dimitri. But no, he wasn’t Dimitri. But yes, he was Dimitri and more.

He couldn’t stay like this. Mother didn’t like it when he was big and wildly when she was in her human form. It made it hard for her to speak to him. He didn’t want to get scolded by her so soon after she woke up.

But wait. How could that be? The Professor was a man. He couldn’t be his mother… but yes, that was Mother. And she didn’t like to be kept waiting.

Now that his form had changed to mimic the one Mother had now with only two legs, two arms and a single head, it was easier to stand up and keep his balance. And, having one head meant it was easier to turn it towards the Professor.

“What the—!?” Sylvain somewhere in the edge of his vision was staring at him with big eyes and an open mouth. “Dimitri?”

No.

Yes?

He was Areadbhar. Dead for over a thousand years, but still alive. Forced to be wielded by the descendants of that necromancer that first drank his blood and tore his heart from his chest.

Drank his blood? That didn’t happen. His heart was still in his chest, beating. …Wasn’t it?

“You look confused,” Mother— the Professor said. “Why don’t you tell us what you remember?”

Remember… He remembered watching his siblings taking to the sky, wishing for the day his wings were strong enough to carry him. He remembered Gustave nodding in approval whenever he managed to finish a drill without bending the lance he had in his hands. He remembered fighting, clawing his way through faceless masses of humans, the taste of their blood in his mouth. He remembered crushing heads, arms, fingers, and bones beneath his hand; the screams of his quarry so loud and shrill in his ears.

He remembered as Dimitri that he had been in a cell. He was going to be executed. Dedue had come to save him, and they had stumbled around the castle’s underground without a single torch to light their way. And by some happenstance, they had come to the castle vault where Areadbhar had been put in storage since his father had died.

He remembered as Aredbhar that he had been still for a long time. Whether it was one year or a hundred, it all felt the same. But his slumber was interrupted when that boy took him, and he felt the synergy between their blood. And that was when he realized that there were some traces of Mother on the boy. Almost like how people tended to carry the scents of the places they were most often in. Priests definitely weren’t frankincense, but they carried the smell of it when they left the temple.

Dimitri remembered that Dedue had told him to flee, that he would stay back and keep the soldiers off. He had wanted to fight alongside his friend. But Aredbhar had urged him. His voice wasn’t a voice, but it was a feeling, an inclination. And he told him to leave.

Areadbhar didn’t have time to waste. If Mother was somewhere, they had to find her before they did. The last time Mother was resting beneath the citadel, her body was killed and looted. Then, she was forced to kill her own children. The canyon was dyed with blood. He couldn’t let that happen again. They had to leave.

When Dimitri had found the Professor, fast asleep in some underground river beneath Garreg Mach, he thought he was dead. But something seemed to guide him to check his breathing and his pulse at his neck. Once he saw that he was still alive, he carried him back to the monastery. 

Areadbhar had guided the boy on how to take care of a hibernating dragon. Keeping Mother bundled and warm in the safety of the monastery, putting warm rocks in his bedding as he hibernated and repaired his body.

When bandits had first come over, it had been to loot. They didn’t have any weapons, and it had been easy to kill them all. But the local bandits started to realize that something had taken up residence in the monastery. They started to come up the mountains with weapons.

It was when Dimitri had fought to drive them off that he realized that his senses felt sharper— more clear. Sometimes he even noticed that his hands would feel more like claws, or that he had grown a tail during battle that would fade back. Sometimes, his skin itched with scales that he would shed after battle. 

All of his changes had been temporary and minor. Until that day.

“I see,” the Professor— Mother nodded. “So you’re Areadbhar and Dimitri. It’s almost like… but I always had full control.”

“What…” Dimitri—Aredbhar— asked. “What will happen to us?”