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Thrice now had Felix taken to the small balcony of the New Opera House of Fhirdiad, an opulent palace of a building on the far outskirts of the city, away from the sound and crowd of the masses and lower self styled lordlings denied entrance. It was a cold winter and the caustic smell of the region hadn’t cleared with the end of the war.
No matter how much he wished to see Annette on the stage, her first big supporting role or so he was led to believe; the bitterness over his own role or lack thereof on the peace treaty left little pleasure in his life. How could he sit in his booth and enjoy the music when his father– wounded in a useless direct battle against Imperial forces– could never again? When Dimitri, their only hope, had never been found? Felix tried to protect his hair from a gust of wind but it was useless. He quietly left for his booth, uncaring of his disheveled appearance.
With his face set in a scowl, few people dared to approach Felix, and thankfully the nosy kind wasn’t in attendance at the private booths, so he managed to escape to his own unbothered. Felix burrowed into the chair with the programme notes on his lap. He hoped it would pass by quickly.
He remembered little of the original opera house, only the vaguest childhood memories of attending with Dimitri and their families, bored and uncaring for the story-line but appreciating the songs nonetheless.
The moment the curtains raised, Felix noted something strange. From his vantage point he could see the managers and directors rushing around the stage, how it seemed less like getting actors into position and more like making last minute arrangements. It was also strange how Annette was wearing a dress too big, her makeup similar to the other women on the scene.
She would have told Felix and the whole world if she had gotten the main part.
Afterwards, things go as smooth as they can with a lead that only half knows her parts. Annette sings well enough to cover it up.
The second time Felix is to go to the Opera House, he ends up with a cold. It seems to be his saving. On the next day, when he reads in the newspaper about the accident during the play: the lead, an older singer from Adrestia that had recently joined the company, falling into a false pit opening and injuring her leg.
And Felix forgot about it all as time went on. It was weird, certainly, how from time to time accidents would happen, much more frequently than what should be common, and that Annette would constantly tell him that the building was haunted. She had left the Opera House for a smaller company closer to the old borders to live with Mercedes, but she kept contact. It seemed the weird incidents had been too much for her, already scared of ghosts without them. Felix wasn’t one for superstitions, but he couldn’t deny that there must be some amount of truth to Annette’s claims.
By year’s end, all stories drop as if they had never even existed in the first place. The Opera House runs smooth, but its shady beginning has certainly made Fhirdiad a lesser place for stars, having to bank on local talent and up comers.
When Felix finally undertakes the trip from his secluded home in Fraldarius to Fhirdiad again, it is for work. The Opera House only comes up incidentally in conversation but he ends up invited for a new show by one of the management associates. The man seems sincere enough Felix accepts it.
A shadow follows him. He hadn’t paid much attention the first and only time he had been to the House, but it must have already been there, Felix reasons. He had felt trailing stares and a heavy presence even when alone, but he had assumed it was paranoia instilled by the war.
Felix goes through the motions of watching the play, of listening carefully to the songs, but his mind is on the body behind the curtain of his little private booth. He can hear the minute shuffle, the breathing that picks up along the play, the little tells that someone is there. Hadn’t he been through life or death, it might have gone unnoticed.
In a second, Felix whips around, his hand on the velvet, pulling back and unveiling; he’s ready to fight, uncaring of the noise of his chair being pushed back by his jump, free hand reaching to grasp at the person. He almost faints from the shock of who he finds.
Dimitri stands living dead in front of him.
His face is pale and ashen, as is his lank hair. What strikes Felix the most is the half mask, hiding the right side of Dimitri’s face. Dimitri too seems surprised at seeing Felix; he takes a step back and sprints, but Felix’s reflexes let him catch up, getting a hold of a fistful of Dimitri’s coat and pulling him back and into the booth. Both stumble over the chairs, Dimitri falling onto Felix’s chest.
“How.” Felix is breathless. He can’t formulate any of the questions running through his mind, can’t enunciate anything more complex than a choked up sound.
Dimitri is just as shaky as he answers: “I ran.” Felix doesn’t need to see to know that Dimitri is crying.
It takes effort to right himself while holding Dimitri in his arms, but Felix manages to.
“Should we go somewhere private or are you just going to run again?”
“Talk… Yes, we can talk.” Dimitri seems tentative as he speaks. Felix notes how deeper his voice is, how despite the awkwardness of his speech it still rings authoritative. “If you would allow me, after all this time…”
He weasels out of Felix’s arms, turning and holding onto one of Felix’s hands.
Dimitri takes him through a convoluted deserted path, sidestepping with ease into hidden nooks and crannies the moment he sees a shadow or hears something. In the end, Felix finds himself beneath the Opera House, in a hidden tunnel just tall enough for him to walk upright; Dimitri walks hunched, his posture almost menacing.
The tunnel is long, and Dimitri is still quiet. Felix had thought he would get an answer as soon as they were safely alone, but that was not the case, so Felix finds himself pressed. “Where are you even taking me to, you boar?” Felix pulls his wrist to his chest, away from Dimitri’s grasp. He doesn’t quite know why, but Dimitri simply letting him go hurts his heart more than his wrist would have had he held on.
“I– sorry, somewhere more comfortable for one such as I. Where I have been living.”
The lair– Felix can only describe it as a lair, or perhaps a bandit’s hideout, is a simple place. It must have been some maintenance room before Dimitri commandeered it. Now it sports a simple ugly bed with ratty covering, a small cabinet and piles of old books and clothes.
“And where would that even be after you abandoned us? Did you even know what happened to my old man when he went looking for you? What almost happened to me? Do you even care that Ferghus is no more?” He wants to take Dimitri by the shoulders and shake him; the thrill of seeing him again isn’t greater than the wish that he had never left, that he– Felix would have done anything to prevent Dimitri’s decision to… to try to go alone and negotiate a treaty or something completely alone… Everything is murky in his overwhelmed memory, and it just makes it all worse. The eye patch and scars tell a different story than that of the sensationalist papers and pamphlets, but still. There is no way Felix can trust him this blindly again.
“Before I begin to explain myself, I must apologize again, Felix. If there is one thing I would change, could I turn back time, it would be my decision to leave alone for Fhirdiad. You always told me my obstinance would be the cause of my demise, and you were right as always.” He is half turned toward Felix, almost shy. “I needed to see the city for myself, I needed to talk to Cornelia in person, I needed to make sure that I knew exactly what the situation was and how to proceed after the war was declared. I couldn’t stand writing letters and waiting, hoping they weren’t being intercepted and forged… ”
Felix half pays attention to Dimitri’s drawn out monologue. He repeats himself and seems so tired, at moments almost whispering the words, that Felix can’t focus on anything but Dimitri himself. The way his hands shake, long fingers even bonier than Felix remembered; the dull color of his hair; the dirty hem of his pants and the smell of mold and sweet rot. Everywhere Felix looks he finds a distorted, beaten version of the Dimitri he knew.
“Shut up. I don’t need an apology. I don’t need your ifs and explanations– I don’t care! I really don’t! I just…” Felix could feel himself starting to tear up, and the words were hard against his throat. “I just need you with me, again.”
He knew it wouldn’t be that simple. Dimitri had been legally dead for five years, had completely disappeared; were he to reappear, not only would it be contested, he would be putting himself in harm’s way again. And that was only the simple parts. His estate had been dissolved, his goods and land repossessed, his money stolen, all his relations cut. Felix had no way to fix any of it, but he could take Dimitri home, lead him to the guest suite for a warm bath and small meal, and maybe that was a good first step.