Chapter Text
“You know, Claude, being asked to upkeep your combat techniques is hardly punishment.”
The look Dimitri got was hardly charitable. “I’m thinking you’re a little biased on that front, Your Highness.”
He could concede to that. “Professor Manuela likely just wants to keep all your skills equally sharp.”
“A few nights in the library isn’t going to suddenly make me dense in a fight,” Claude said.
“A few nights,” Dimitri repeated, aware of how dry he sounded.
“Well. A lot of nights. Who’s counting?”
“Professor Manuela, apparently.”
Claude narrowed his eyes, but they shimmered in the lanternlight of the training grounds. “Should princes be so snarky?”
Dimitri shrugged. “What would you like to start with?”
With a sigh, Claude grabbed a hand-axe from a nearby rack. “If I’m stuck here . . .”
“I promise sparring with me isn’t as bad as all that.”
Claude’s face twisted into something resembling a wince. “I don’t know . . . . I’ve heard the stories.”
Dimitri had no rebuttal to that, though that didn’t stop the flush of shame in his cheeks.
“Hey, I’m not complaining.” Claude flipped the axe once—caught it seamlessly, too, never mind that he’d thrown it far too high and hadn’t even glanced up. “Well. I kind of was. But it doesn’t really have anything to do with you, I promise.”
Claude seemed more than capable of handling this conversation on his own, so Dimitri grabbed a sword before returning to the middle of the sands.
Claude eyed his choice of weapon, gaze keen. “Not your usual.”
Dimitri inclined his head. “Not yours either, as far as I recall.”
And when Claude smiled, lit by golden fire and the light of the moon, Dimitri had to remind himself that he was doing a favour for a boy he’d like to consider a friend. This had nothing to do with his father’s story of how his mother, the Faerghan ruler before Lambert, had won her husband’s heart by besting him under the moon. He also reminded himself that this was not about proving his own capabilities, but helping hone Claude’s.
He would likely have to remind himself of those things again before the night was out.
Dimitri opened his mouth to ask if they could begin.
Claude threw the axe at his head.
It was simple enough, angling his blade to divert the axe and lower his body away from danger. Dimitri’s breath left him as he watched Claude leap over his crouched form to retrieve the axe from where it had become imbedded in a pillar, and it wouldn’t return until he stood up with his blade raised and blood beginning to pound.
Claude grinned, molasses-slow and about as sweet. “I’m not stupid enough to think I can give you any leeway.”
Dimitri quelled the thing inside his chest that wanted to act equally wild. This wasn’t about him.
Claude didn’t try the same trick again, but that didn’t mean his next moves were any less swift, or deadly. The clang of metal on metal, muffled footsteps and the grating of parried blows—all of it was a song Dimitri had known practically since birth, and for Claude to play it so well . . .
Dimitri endeavoured, each day, not to be distracted. There were moments of indulgence, absolutely, but overindulgence wasn’t in his nature. There were important matters to attend to every waking hour, and they required most, if not all, his attention.
Even so, there always seemed to be some of his attention available to Claude.
“No matter how my duties as king weighed on me, your mother never failed to bring me back to myself with a swing of her sword and that star of a smile.”
The sound of his father’s voice almost had Claude’s axe landing in his gut; muscle memory was the sole reason he remained unscathed.
Claude narrowed his eyes. “What happened?”
Dimitri didn’t entertain the idea of using his voice, because there was no telling what sort of absurdities he’d let out. Instead he shook his head and solidified his stance, refusing to back down from something as harmless as a memory.
When was the last time, he wondered as he dodged another swing, that he’d heard his father’s voice without feeling in his gut the roiling burn of grief? He hadn’t been sure his mind was capable of that sort of recollection, and had the unpleasant realization it likely wouldn’t happen again.
“Dimitri,” Claude snapped, though he didn’t pause his attacks.
Perhaps Dimitri did need a moment, so he drove the hilt of his sword into Claude’s wrist. He bit back the guilt at the grunt of pain that followed, but there was hardly any time to sit with it; Claude swept his feet out from under him, and grabbed the axe with his uninjured hand before it could so much as hit the ground. Now laid out on the ground, Dimitri pressed the flat of his blade to Claude’s shoulder, and Claude did the same with the face of his axe to the spot where Dimitri’s amour plates met.
An impasse.
“You’re distracted.”
“If you mean to say that your victory is accidental, you’re mistaken.”
“I didn’t say anything like that,” Claude replied. “Though, can’t really call it a victory either way. I could maybe gut you, you might cut off my head. Overall a pretty nasty loss.”
“I don’t have the leverage for that from the ground.” Dimitri sighed, dropping his sword to the side and covering his eyes. He felt the dull pressure of the axe move away as well, but the heat and weight of Claude on his stomach went nowhere.
“If you’re done for the night, Your Highness, say so.”
His title never sounded all that respectful coming from Claude. Hardly an insult, but nowhere near the impersonality from the mouths of almost everyone else. A unique sound, and one that Dimitri found himself ceaselessly drawn to.
“No. No, I’m . . . all right. You’ll have to forgive my distraction.”
“It’s not a matter of forgiveness,” Claude said. “But I also don’t want to, you know. Accidentally kill you.”
Dimitri couldn’t help his snort. “You think very highly of yourself.”
Perhaps he imagined the way Claude relaxed a little. It wasn’t as though his mind were his sharpest tool tonight. “Comes with the job, don’t you think?”
“I find it hard to believe that you believe that,” Dimitri said. “You’re not a person of ego, Claude.”
He got no response, but Claude still had yet to move.
“It’s not about ego,” Claude said, and Dimitri stifled his shock at how . . . soft he sounded. “And you’re right. But you have to think highly of yourself if you’re going to care about what happens to you, Dimitri.”
By the time Dimitri took his hand away from his eyes, Claude was already moving off him. “Come on. I’m not tapping out until you do.”
“That’s . . . ambitious,” Dimitri told him.
“I know, so I’m hoping you’re the pitying sort.”
“I would never disrespect you like that.”
With a grand, long sigh, Claude fetched an odd-looking sword from the corner of the training grounds. Dimitri himself had never used it for a lack of familiarity with its curved shape, but Claude didn’t seem daunted at all. “Every king needs a bit of mercy, Your Royalness.”
“And yet,” Dimitri said, “what you ask for is not mercy, but for me to underestimate you. And, to use your own words . . .” He readied himself, having grabbed a lance from the closest weapon rack and settled his pounding heart.
“I’m not stupid enough for that.”
Claude’s surprised laugh was a beautiful opening to the song of their next spar.