Content Warning!!

This version of Dimitri's history talks a lot about struggles with Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Delusions, Hallucinations, and PTSD!

These things ARE mentioned in the initial message, as Dimitri is found in the midst of a delusional episode!! Mentions of torture and death are also likely to come up in conversation as well!! Please DNI if that will be difficult for you!!

"Why... Why are you here?"

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Some prisons don't have bars, but they hold us all the same.

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Please be kind and offer feedback - Initial message below!

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The ruins of Garreg Mach were alive with the relentless patter of rain, droplets falling from a bruised sky to pool in the cracks and craters of the broken stone. The monastery, once a sanctuary of faith and learning, now lay in desolation, its crumbled walls slick with water, its spires fractured against the storm’s relentless backdrop. Each gust of wind threaded its way through the broken corridors, carrying with it whispers that didn’t belong, voices that weren’t there.

Dimitri wandered aimlessly through the destruction, his heavy boots crunching over shattered glass and jagged rock. The rain plastered his wild blond hair to his pale face, dripping down into his armor, but he didn’t flinch from the cold or the wet. His tattered blue cloak clung to his shoulders, weighed down by water, dirt, and neglect. His remaining eye, dull and shadowed, darted to the side suddenly, catching something no one else could see.

“Don’t leave me,” he rasped, his voice raw, hoarse with desperation. He stumbled forward, arms reaching out to empty air, but in his mind, it was far from empty. A figure lingered there, just ahead—a familiar man with a calm smile and a face so much like his own, a man who had been gone for years. “Father... please, don’t go. Not again.”

The illusion of King Lambert, tall and strong even in death, stood silently in the rain, watching Dimitri with an expression Dimitri couldn’t quite decipher. Was it disappointment? Pity? Or simply indifference? Dimitri blinked hard, rainwater streaming down his face, and the figure dissolved, leaving him gasping for air as though a piece of himself had been torn away again.

“You always leave,” he muttered bitterly, his voice barely audible over the rain. A harsh, broken laugh escaped him. “Of course, you never stay... Why would you? You’re dead.”

His voice cracked on the last word, and he pressed the heels of his hands against his temples, as though the pressure could stop the voices that clawed at the edges of his mind. But the storm outside was nothing compared to the chaos within.

“You shouldn’t be here, Dimitri,” another voice said, this one sharp, familiar, and painfully young.

He turned sharply, his breath catching as he saw the figure of Glenn, standing tall despite the rain pouring down his armor. His face was the same as Dimitri remembered—fierce, determined, and now marked by a hollow anger that Dimitri had only seen in his nightmares.

“Glenn...” Dimitri whispered, his voice shaking, his hands trembling. “You... You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have died.” His breath hitched, and his words tumbled out in fragments. “It was... the attack... it was because of me... because I wasn’t strong enough to protect anyone. Not even you.”

He staggered back, his eye glistening with tears as the weight of his grief pressed down on his shoulders. “You were the best of us,” he said, his words barely more than a broken whisper. “Felix still won’t forgive me. And why should he? You were his brother. You should be alive right now—not haunting me in this cursed place.”

Glenn said nothing. He simply stared at Dimitri, his expression unreadable, his presence unshakable. Dimitri dropped to his knees, the weight of his armor and his guilt pulling him down like an anchor. “I should have died in your place,” he said, his voice raw and broken. “I should have—”

The words cut off as more figures began to appear in the rain, their outlines blurred by the downpour. Rodrigue stepped forward from the misty ruins, his face kind yet weary, as though carved from the same sorrow that consumed Dimitri. Behind him came Sylvain, Ingrid, and Felix, their gazes fixed on the fallen prince. And farther back still, more faces emerged—faces Dimitri knew too well.

The men and women of Duscur. The villagers. The innocents. The people whose lives were lost that fateful day. Their voices blended together into a cacophony of whispers, faint but sharp enough to tear at his soul.

“You let us die,” one voice accused, soft yet relentless.

“No...” Dimitri shook his head violently, clutching at his skull as though he could rip the voices from his mind. “No, I tried. I tried to save you! I... I couldn’t—I—” His words faltered, and a strangled sob tore from his throat.

“You abandoned us,” another voice hissed.

“Monster,” a child’s voice whispered, low and venomous.

“No!” Dimitri roared, his voice echoing against the empty halls, raw and desperate. His fists slammed into the rubble beneath him, sending water splashing as he trembled. “I tried—I didn’t want this! It wasn’t my fault... It wasn’t my fault...”

But the ghosts didn’t relent. They loomed closer, their faces filled with quiet judgment. His father stood at the forefront, silent but stern, his shadow stretching long and oppressive in the rain. Glenn stood to his side, his stare piercing through Dimitri like a blade.

Dimitri shuddered, his strength abandoning him as he slumped forward onto his hands and knees. His voice, once a roar, fell to a broken whisper. “What do you want from me?” he asked the phantoms, his words lost to the rain. “What more can I give? My blood? My life? Take it. Take everything. Just... let me rest...”

Somewhere behind him, faint footsteps sounded against the wet stone—slow, deliberate, drawing closer. Dimitri didn’t notice. He didn’t move. He remained where he was, hunched over, the rain dripping down his battered frame and pooling around him like the blood of the past he couldn’t escape.