[ Given the state of the western territories, this is a sadly believable outcome. He finds himself exasperated by the consistency—even outside of his timeline, under completely different circumstances, House Rowe and the others continue to be a threat to the crown.
But Dimitri himself? Apparently he travelled a very different path.
He's stunned silent in the face of it all. And there's no point in asking if this was Felix making the world's worst joke, not when his voice and expression are slowly hardening back into steel. Not when it makes a deathly amount of sense. Felix may boldly proclaim that he knows of Dimitri's darkness, but no one is so aware of it than Dimitri himself.
So he knows this is possible, even likely, and that his "other" self hadn't transformed into that monster. He simply unveiled what he really was. He simply lived in an era where Cornelia could successfully peel back his skin and flesh enough for the molten anger of his core to come spilling out—and he wonders if that's what he was actually meant to be. The creeping thought bursts suddenly into a migraine's howl in grief, a battering of voices: Felix's Dimitri had made himself a proper instrument of vengeance and is out there doing what should be done, what must be done, while he's here, their souls left to rot in an untangled bramble of regrets as his sits aside a friend, comfortable and fed and warm.
He reaches up, rubbing the bridge of his nose as his eyes shut and pushing his tea away. ]
I see. Well. I can't claim surprise.
[ His voice is almost dull, but he carries on. ]
...I'm lucky to have avoided such a fate. But forgive me, Felix. It sounds as though I left you and the others with the burden of war. [ No wonder he sounds so mad all the time, with five years of a losing battles under his belt. And now Rodrigue is dead. What do they have to show for it? ] Though the circumstances were different... Cornelia had me imprisoned as well. But she failed to carry out my execution, and lost her grip on Fhirdiad.
[ Is that the real point of history where everything changed? His mouth twists as he searches for words, and maybe stalls through the last dregs of elysium. ]
no subject
But Dimitri himself? Apparently he travelled a very different path.
He's stunned silent in the face of it all. And there's no point in asking if this was Felix making the world's worst joke, not when his voice and expression are slowly hardening back into steel. Not when it makes a deathly amount of sense. Felix may boldly proclaim that he knows of Dimitri's darkness, but no one is so aware of it than Dimitri himself.
So he knows this is possible, even likely, and that his "other" self hadn't transformed into that monster. He simply unveiled what he really was. He simply lived in an era where Cornelia could successfully peel back his skin and flesh enough for the molten anger of his core to come spilling out—and he wonders if that's what he was actually meant to be. The creeping thought bursts suddenly into a migraine's howl in grief, a battering of voices: Felix's Dimitri had made himself a proper instrument of vengeance and is out there doing what should be done, what must be done, while he's here, their souls left to rot in an untangled bramble of regrets as his sits aside a friend, comfortable and fed and warm.
He reaches up, rubbing the bridge of his nose as his eyes shut and pushing his tea away. ]
I see. Well. I can't claim surprise.
[ His voice is almost dull, but he carries on. ]
...I'm lucky to have avoided such a fate. But forgive me, Felix. It sounds as though I left you and the others with the burden of war. [ No wonder he sounds so mad all the time, with five years of a losing battles under his belt. And now Rodrigue is dead. What do they have to show for it? ] Though the circumstances were different... Cornelia had me imprisoned as well. But she failed to carry out my execution, and lost her grip on Fhirdiad.
[ Is that the real point of history where everything changed? His mouth twists as he searches for words, and maybe stalls through the last dregs of elysium. ]
I—...You've suffered a great deal. I'm sorry.