Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

He grit his teeth as the counter-spell took effect. It wasn’t pleasant by any means, but at least it was more gentle than the initial transformation. His tail shed weight in motes of light that bobbed past the surface. The tail twitched unpleasantly until he managed to slowly pried his legs apart. His entire body writhed as the magic erased the traits he’d grown used to. His legs felt like wet clay, the invisible hand of a potter smoothing scales back into flesh. Almost done, he promised himself.

Popping up past the surface, he inhaled a gulp of air and didn’t suffocate. Hands reached out to pull him from the water. He panted on land as the transformation finished. Part of him mourned what he was leaving behind. Carefree mornings of fishing, breakfasts of overeating and napping, his bubble nest, nights of being held and cuddled, dances and kisses shared between only him and Dimitri. Real life couldn’t be ignored forever, though.

Opening his eyes, it occurred to him that he’d passed out for a short period. He was in a room now, tucked into a bed. Infirmary. Blinking sluggishly, he glanced down at his renewed legs and saw only a blanket. Right, he was naked. Wiggling, he pulled the blanket off. He could feel his legs, but it was still something he wanted to see for himself.

Two legs. He smiled as he wiggled his toes. Good. Everything was back to normal. 

Then his scales glinted in the light.

Scales. His smile dropped. There were scales on his thighs. Reaching out, he brushed the dull-copper things, receiving a numbed sensation of being touched in return. There was plenty of skin on his legs; his legs were mostly skin overall, as legs should be. But there were also patches of scales. No longer bright emerald, they roughly matched his skin color.

Determining that a full examination was in order, he found further alarming changes. The gills against his ribs remained, though the ones on his neck had sealed up. His teeth were slightly sharper than they had any right to be. His canines poked past his lips when his mouth was closed, giving him two little fangs at all times. His ears now sported a point. He still had his back spines, which admittedly was a bonus as far as he was concerned.

“Hello?” he croaked out, wincing at his sore vocal cords. Bah, his entire body was sore. 

Manuela and Lysithea immediately pushed the partition screen aside. “How are you feeling?” Manuela asked, resting her hand over his forehead. “You were out for about an hour.”

“Sore, but otherwise fine. Lysithea, you missed some spots.” He pointed to his ears.

Her shoulders hunched. “It was a very difficult spell to undo,” she mumbled to the floor. “We’ll fine-tune it. Then you will be fully back to normal. It wouldn’t be so difficult if not for all the extra weight you put on when the initial transformation happened. It’s embedded in your system. There was too much flesh and mass to simply slough off. In order to prevent you from gaining dozens of pounds on your lower half, we had to take some liberties.”

Considering how much larger and thicker his tail had been… “Fair enough.” Better to deal with some scales than a sudden extra 50 pounds in his legs alone.

After a few tests, he was allowed to get out of bed. It had only been a few days, but his legs felt new and unused. He bumbled as he took a step. He could walk, but his walking was on the same skill level as a newborn fawn. His classmates were quick to point this out when they saw him. As the day passed he got better at walking again. It was frustrating to go to bed without fully mastering the art of walking, but he was tired. Given the transformation, his fatigue was understandable.

He crossed paths with Dimitri once. They shared an awkward smile. Nothing more. His heart felt heavy about that. It would recover. His affections for Dimitri had to remain in that pond. 

As he settled into bed for the night, he relished the feeling of blankets against his legs. He was missing a specific warmth, though; a warmth better than any blanket. Damn him. He was going to miss Dimitri. He was going to miss Dimitri’s warmth and strong arms and endearing tentacles. He could still go visit the prince whenever he wanted. It wouldn’t be the same. Silly as it was, he was going to miss… ugh, he felt stupid for even thinking it in his head. He was going to miss being held. It was nice! Objectively speaking. No one was ever going to learn that about him. He was seventeen years old, he didn’t need to be held like a baby. Dimitri would laugh at him.

Rolling over in bed, he felt an odd twinge at his side. His gills hurt. Twisting, he felt the slits open and gape as if trying to bring in air (or water). They hadn’t done that at all earlier. He couldn’t get comfortable in bed. Frowning, he bent down to rub at a cramp forming in his leg. His fingers brushed scales, scales, and more scales. Which was strange, given that he only had patches of scales. 

Looking down at his legs, he subsequently realized he couldn’t pry them apart. He inhaled to shout. 

All he managed was to gag on air.

Sylvain couldn’t sleep. 

That damned spell. Why did those girls have to be so brilliant? Only a pair of geniuses could’ve built such a solid, permanent spell on the fly. If the girls had been a bit less perfectionist, the spell wouldn’t have been such a pain to unravel.

Then again, if the spell hadn’t been so perfect, it was entirely possible that His Highness would be dead. Untested spells rarely ended with a happy ending.

Tossing in bed, he was keenly aware that the reversal spell wasn’t perfect. The teeth and ears were simple enough. Watching Dimitri bend his newly flexible legs was an experience. It was like the prince had dough for joints! Yet it didn’t appear to subtract from the prince’s strength or steadiness. That was fine. The worst of it was that Dimitri’s legs moved when the prince stopped paying attention. Dimitri told them all how his sea-legs had a mind of their own. Now his land-legs had an independent streak. While focusing, Dimitri could stop them. And yet, those same legs had thoughtlessly sent Dimitri wandering off to the empty Golden Deer classroom. Knowing how spacy Dimitri could get without enough sleep… He wasn’t looking forward to the prince’s future day-walking fugues. Or sleep-walking fugues either.

At least His Highness was whole and alive. He had to keep that in mind. At least His Highness wasn’t half fish anymore. Just one-fifth fish. Maybe a sixth. To think—

SMASH!

He bolted upright in bed. Crumbles of stone rained down onto his desk. A fist with bloody knuckles disappeared through the gap. “Dimitri?!” No one else was strong enough to punch through a stone wall. And that was Dimitri’s room beside his. 

A horrible gagging sound made all the blood leave his face. On his feet in a moment, he rushed  out of his room and into Dimitri’s. What he found confirmed his worst fears. Bright red gills flared on either side of Dimitri’s neck. 

“Just hold on, I’ll get you back to the pond,” he babbled, rushing to Dimitri’s side. It wasn’t until he was hauling the prince into his arms that he noticed the damned tentacles. Sure, it had been implied that His Highness had the fish-form of a damned kraken, but actually seeing it was something else. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was making sure Dimitri survived.  

“Urk, you need to lay off the fish,” he grunted, struggling with the added weight of Dimitri’s lower half. Damn was that massive! Dimitri helped out by wrapping around his body. Okay. That was helpful. Not terrifying. 

Pond. Get to the pond. 

As he rushed out of Dimitri’s door, the tentacles around his legs locked tight. Cursing, he nearly fell on his face. In the last moment, he managed to angle himself to just slam his shoulder into the wall. “Dimitri, I can’t go anywhere like this! Loosen up so I can run, yeah?”

His prince gagged, sputtering and suffocating. Pointing, Dimitri jabbed at a nearby door. Claude’s door. Of course. If this was happening to Dimitri, it must be happening to Claude too. “I can’t carry you both!”

Despite being literally in the process of dying, Dimitri shot him a flat look like he was stupid. Backing up a room, he kicked open Felix’s door. That earned him a shout that abruptly cut off. “Get Claude to the pond before we have a dead duke on our heads!” he shouted, wasting no further time. Felix would understand the severity of the situation. 

He raced for the pond. 

Instead of prying Dimitri’s tentacles off of his body, he just plunged them both into the pond. The shock of cold tore the air from his lungs, but luckily Dimitri let go of him. Kicking back to the surface, he sputtered and made for land. Right when he got to the edge, something snagged his ankle. 

“Claude,” Dimitri wheezed.

“Felix is getting him. I’ll go help, let me go.”

Dimitri immediately let go of him, going a step further to wrap around him and lift him out of the pond.  

He took no more than three steps when Felix rushed down the stairway, a harrowed Lorenz helping to carry a suffocating Claude. The half-fish man clawed at his gills, his lips blue by the time he was plunged into the pond.

The three of them collapsed out of sheer combined relief. Well, he and Lorenz did. Felix would bite him before admitting he was relieved. “Stay,” Felix snapped, unclear if that was to him or Lorenz. It wasn’t a bad idea, having someone nearby to keep an eye on the pair of fishmen. Lorenz followed Felix as the pair rushed off to get Annette and Lysithea.

“Welp. This night is sure off to a shitty start.” Turning back to the pond, he cursed. The pair were too far underwater for him to see. So much for keeping an eye on them.

“You’re okay,” Dimitri gasped into Claude’s mouth.

“We’re both alive. We’re both okay,” Claude replied, pawing at his body as their lips crashed back together. 

That had been too close of a call. If he was the only one to die, well… that was that. But Claude… If he hadn’t woken Sylvain… If he’d been just a bit slower… Claude would have suffocated and died. 

They held each other for a time, the passion of their kissing melting into gentle, soft things. They were alive. 

The sound of splashing drew their attention to the surface. Someone was slapping the water. Not letting go of each other, they rose back to the surface as one.

“I’m so sorry!” Annette cried when they broke the surface. 

The pair of mages weren’t entirely sure what went wrong. The pair babbled some magic-lingo that went over his head. He and Claude could remain in their water-forms indefinitely, so there was no danger of drowning in their sleep. That was the important bit.

They didn’t sleep much that night, only dozing here and there. Mostly they just held each other, trading occasional sleepy kisses. They didn’t talk. 

Sometime around dawn, Dimitri felt it. Like a key slotting into a lock, waiting for him to turn it. Claude’s eyes widened. “You feel that too?”

He nodded. Together, they made the trip to the surface once more. When his head broke the surface, his instincts took over and he felt something twist.  

Losing his tentacles for a second time wasn’t comfortable, but it was easier than the first time. The transformation came and went swiftly. Within moments, he and Claude were treading water with (mostly) normal legs. 

“I wonder…” Claude murmured, dunking himself into the water. After a tug from Claude, he joined his friend below. Despite being ‘fully human’ again, he could still breathe underwater. Not as comfortably as before, but the gills on his side still worked. “We’re amphibians now!” Claude declared with a grin. Little fangs cutely poked out past peach lips. Averting his eyes, he did his best to scrub that adorableness from his mind.

“But only during the day, it seems.”

“Amphibians on a time limit.”

Popping back out of the water, his eyes trailed up the empty dock. “We have a minor problem.”

Claude tutted, knowing exactly what he was referring to. Dammit, those fangs were still there! And still cute! “Wait here. I’ll do a rush to grab us some underwear.”

As much as he didn’t want to expose himself to anyone, the idea of Claude leaving his line of sight — especially when there was the possibility of their air-breathing human forms failing — was abhorrent. He reached out to grab Claude’s hand. “We’ll go together.”

Claude’s grin widened and the corners of his eyes crinkled. His adorable fangs were impossible to ignore, just as impossible to ignore as the way his pointed ears wiggled. “Heh. Together. C’mon, Your Princeliness, it’s time for a bit of streaking.”

Eight hours.

The spell gave them roughly eight hours of being human per day. As Lysithea explained it, their bodies had grown accustomed to their new forms. Since the extra mass from their tails/tentacles couldn’t be transformed with them, it had to be ‘magically stored’. However, that ‘storage’ was exponentially more complicated when it came to being permanent, causing the ‘storage’ to fail after a period of time. Their bodies were now stuck bouncing between two different states.

“Can’t you just get rid of the tail permanently?” Surely it was easier to destroy than create.

“Not without the possibility of crippling you. Or worse.” He didn’t ask what ‘or worse’ could mean. He didn’t want to know. “We can push back how long until you two need to transform, but going down this track of magic, you’ll never be free from the need to transform eventually.”

In a place like Fódlan, that was already dangerous. It meant he and Dimitri had to stay near a body of water. The future was what really worried him. Almyra’s capital was in a desert. If he didn’t get this transforming nonsense figured out, it would be a death sentence to return home. 

He kept his concerns close to his chest. For now, they could make this work. He and Dimitri got back into the routine of class. After school was over, they gravitated towards the pond. Dimitri always trained. He usually read. It was grating to be tied to a spot, but he didn’t fancy running out of time and suffocating while he explored Garreg Mach’s secrets. They had roughly eight hours. It wasn’t an exact amount, so they had to account for the potential of early transformations. It was, in a word, frustrating.

When the transformation began, it happened swiftly. He had about thirty seconds to fling himself into the water from the moment his gills started to hurt. That was plenty of time when he was near the pond. The one time he stepped out to grab a bite at the dining hall despite knowing he was cutting it close, he hadn’t made it to the pond in time. Luckily Hilda was nearby to throw him into the pond. Eventually he and Dimitri figured out that they could purposefully trigger the transformation whenever they wanted. It was a lot simpler to go underwater early than deal with killing time.

He felt like a different person when he was forced underwater. He felt like… Khalid.

Worries about classwork, politics, and the future melted away. In the pond, it was just him and Dimitri. Just the two of them in their personal little escape. They spent their evenings catching fish, dancing, kissing, and cuddling. In his treacherous heart, he knew that he loved Dimitri. Though he liked being admired by everyone, he loved it when Dimitri watched him most of all. He constantly felt the urge to show off to Dimitri, to fan out his fins wider and dance through the waves in a way that would keep Dimitri’s eyes glued to him and only him. He never felt this way out of the water. 

“I wish there was no counterspell,” he admitted to Dimitri one night. “I wish we could stay down here forever. It’s better here. Just you and me.” During the day, he abhorred those very thoughts. In the pond, it was all he wanted. He felt safe and loved with Dimitri. It was all he ever wanted.

“I wish I didn’t have to give you up,” Dimitri agreed. “It’s like cutting off a limb every morning. We rise to the surface and go our separate ways. I hate it.”

“Me too.” He cuddled closer against Dimitri, loving the engulfing blanket of tentacles. Above them was their perfect bubble nest. Sometimes, he dreamed of building a family with Dimitri. Just silly fish-instinct things. But he yearned. He had his mate. It was a good thing neither of them were female. If they could build a family, he would abandon the surface in a heartbeat. 

They slept together. When morning came, they woke together too. Their bodies were recharged and ready for surface life again. They drifted with each other a bit longer though. It was nice. So nice.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” Dimitri finally said, nuzzling against his chin. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.” He pressed a kiss to Dimitri’s forehead. “Okay, my dear tentacles, time to let me go…” The process of detangling himself was slow. That was fine, especially when he didn’t really want to go back to the surface. He pressed a kiss to each and every tentacle. When the last limb holding him was Dimitri’s hand, he clasped that in his own. “To the surface?” He smiled for Dimitri. “We’ll be back here before you know it.”

Dimitri replied with a weak little smile. “Would you like to have lunch with me too, Claude?”

His smile grew. “Gods, there’s nothing I’d love more, Dima. Yes, let’s have lunch together.”

They rose to the surface and changed. The smiles they shared grew more awkward. Still affectionate (his was, at least), but… unsure. They held hands until they stepped back out onto land, grabbing their daily towels and drying off. 

It wasn’t that Dimitri was any less beautiful than before. Dimitri was gorgeous. Yet the careless spark that urged him to throw away his dream was gone. As much as some of that yearning remained, his head was clearer now.

“For lunch…”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Yeah. That’s what I was gonna say.”

The two of them couldn’t be together. The politics were too messy, and that wasn’t even counting his eventual return to Almyra. This current fling, it was spurred on by silly fish hormones and nothing more. Though it lingered as a heavy ache in his chest outside of the pond, he knew it wasn’t a love meant for reality. 

A month after the initial transformation, things were still warm and fuzzy for them in the pond. They kept their surface lives separate. They learned to manage both sides of their lives (and love). 

Then Annette and Lysithea improved the counterspell. They only needed to transform once a week instead of daily. 

Time progressed and he saw less of Dimitri. Eventually the ache in his chest would vanish. Once a week, they met under the waves like clandestine lovers. Once a week, his heart filled to the brim. Every week, his treacherous heart begged him to stay in the pond forever. 

Missions became more dangerous as the school year passed. Something wasn’t right. The Death Knight, Remire, Solon, Kronya… Dimitri stopped sleeping. Seeing him on the surface was like seeing a ghost. Once a week, Dimitri curled into his embrace and cooed broken sounds. It was all he could do to hold his heart and grant a good night’s rest. But morning always came, and his heart died upon land. 

Lysithea and Annette improved the spell further. They only needed to transform once a month. Some of their fishy traits could be hidden too, with enough focus. When he concentrated, his ears returned to their normal shape, his sharp teeth becoming less sharp.

He barely saw Dimitri anymore. They shared one last night together under the pond.

Then the Flame Emperor’s mask shattered and the heart he left in Dimitri’s chest shattered with it.

His grandfather passed away one week after he returned home. He thanked whatever Gods were listening that he got the chance to say goodbye to the old man. He never got to say goodbye to Dimitri.

There was no time to grieve. He was Duke Riegan now. War raged on the border. It was up to him to keep the balance. The only thing standing between his newly inherited people and war was himself. Him, an eighteen year old outsider. The first time he slid into the noble clothes of a duke, he felt like nothing more than a child playing at being important. 

He took to wearing a headscarf. It made him look just as young as he truly was, but it hid his pointed ears. One less thing to focus on hiding. When he wasn’t talking, he kept his mouth closed and made the conscious effort to keep his fangs in his mouth. Most of the time he was able to force them into a smaller state. They were only at their full size when he was angry (or scared). Though he never showed any outward anger, the Roundtable tested his patience on a good day. 

He made it work. There was no other option. He forced the old men at the Roundtable to see him as an equal despite his youth. For all the respect he would never be able to demand, he schemed and ensured the old men were too busy bickering to come to a conclusion whether or not to fight or surrender to the Empire. He did what he had to.

His duke duties came to a halt once every month. His need to soak was inevitable and inescapable. It was just once a month. The Riegan manor had a private pool. The pool could be warmed too. It was perfect, all aside from the longing he felt in his chest. Without the distractions of politics, his loneliness was inescapable. He could build his bubble nests all he pleased, but without Dimitri, they weren’t right. 

It hurt. Damn him, it hurt. Underwater, there were no responsibilities to drown himself in. Only the lonely water. Not once in Garreg Mach did he spend a single night alone in his water-form. Not until there was no other choice.

His fins remained limp in the water, refusing to flare out even at his command. When he swam, the golden wave of fins were almost nonexistent. There was no point in showing off. The bubbly, giddy feeling that used to come so naturally to this form was absent. 

Curling up in a ball in the corner of the pond, he did his best to sleep through it all. The less time he was half-fish, the less time he would be forced to suffer the pain in his chest.

He fell into routine. The heaviness in his chest was ignored on land. He avoided all thoughts about the prince (king? No, not yet, not as far as he was aware). There was so much for him to do. He easily forgot about Dimitri. Right up until he was forced under the water for his monthly soak. Then the absence was unavoidable.

It wasn’t a good day when he heard the news of Dimitri’s execution. Not at all. Time passed in a haze after that. He smiled and didn’t let it show. He did his duties. The two of them never would have worked out anyways. This made things easier. He could move on now. It was a shame, Gods, it was such a bitter waste of life. Dimitri deserved so much better. But it was done. There was nothing he could do but move forward and continue living.

There was no body. No public execution. He didn’t dare hope. Not consciously. What he felt for Dimitri… it wasn’t important. His duty was to his people first. To his dream. 

That night, alone in his pool, he wept. In the morning, he left his braid underwater. He cut ties with that part of his past.

Time pressed forward and he glided along with it, refusing to be swept under its unending current. Once a month, he sat with his heart and nursed it. The rest of the time, he drowned his heart and did his duties.

Months passed. Years passed. He tried and failed to grow a beard. Probably a side-effect of his condition. He grew out a braid — left side this time. In Almyra, that meant he was taken. Either married or… a widower. His mother would smack him for being dramatic. Having a braid on the left meant he wasn’t to be approached for marriage offers. It made him feel a little better to have it. Every single time some noble threw their daughter at him (or on occasion their sons), he wanted to vomit. Just another fish thing. He must’ve… bonded, or… something, with Dimitri. The idea of taking anyone who wasn’t Dimitri to bed made him physically ill. 

His fish body went through a few minor changes. Small branch-like antlers sprouted from his head — thankfully they went away in his human form. The spines along his back grew more defined, spreading out into an actual back-fin even when the spines were sheathed. He developed an incessant craving for fish even outside of his transformed state. Otherwise, he didn’t change much at all.

Before he knew it, nearly five years had passed. He and the other Golden Deer promised to meet at Garreg Mach. Even if he was the only one to show up… he was going to show up. He had to go back. He had to.

Scouting above the ruins of the monastery, there was an eerie surplus of somewhat fresh bodies. Garreg Mach was quiet as he settled his wyvern into the abandoned eyrie. Reds of imperials and mixed nothings of bandits littered the courtyard. None of the corpses were too fresh. Plenty weren’t more than a week old, though. 

He intended to go to the Goddess tower. And yet, his old haunt tugged at him. His monthly time limit was fast approaching. Might as well take a dip a few days early and save himself the trouble now. Just in case anyone else showed up. 

It was bitterly nostalgic stripping off his armor and clothes. He shivered as he slid into the pool, aware there would be no Dimitri to warm him. The transformation was swift. 

He swam through the depths, curling up at the bottom of the pond. He shimmied slightly into the mud, knowing it wouldn’t keep him very warm but doing it anyways. Closing his eyes, sleep came for him quickly.

When the wretched traitor Cornelia attempted to execute him, he escaped through the very sewers she introduced to Fhirdiad. Any fool who dared attempt to follow him into the depths was drowned without mercy. It was a better death than the traitors deserved.

He refused to stop. His ghosts didn’t allow it. He would slaughter that woman if it was the last thing he did. The emperor would fall by his hands. But that meant surviving until he got to her. 

He hunted. Killed. Slaughtered. No matter how many corpses he piled towards the sky, they continued to infest the countryside like rats. Rats, rats, rats…

The best way to kill a rat was to drown it.

He stayed near the water when he could. The only time he strayed was when he traveled to a different river. In the water, he was invisible. Untraceable. He gave his enemies no chance to retaliate as he pulled them into his new domain. A quick death was too good for the curs. Slow deaths opened him up for attacks, though. He learned that the hard way when he lost an eye. His limbs, those were fine. Those regrew, he learned. His eye did not.

As time passed, he heard their whispers. Their sniveling prayers. ‘Beware the waters,’ said the foolish soldiers who thought their little bridge was safe, ‘for the fallen prince will devour all who he can reach’. He did kill those men, but he did not devour them (much). The fools who thought they were safe by running from the bank made for easy targets. None expected him to rise from the river and give chase by foot. None ever survived, either.  

When he slept, he slept in the river. When he hunted, he hunted fish (or the occasional bear passing by the river). He spent more time breathing water than air. None could compare to the Tempest King, crowned by the Goddess to haunt the land for the injustice done to him and his people. Yes, he knew the rumors about him. He knew how the people believed their prince’s body had been tossed into Fhirdiad’s harbor, transformed by the Goddess’ wrath into a half-kraken. Some whispered that he was divine. Fools. There was nothing holy about his body. Nothing human either.

His body grew alongside his bloodlust. His human body grew in inches. His aquatic half grew by feet. Each tentacle swelled in size and length, granting him extra reach so he might pluck an imperial from the riverbank without needing to leave the water. For each monstrous action he took, his tentacles grew to reflect his inner nature. 

By the time he traveled to the coast, he was large enough to crush small vessels through the strength of his tentacles alone. The bigger ships weren’t any harder to destroy. It was child’s play to break through the bottom of the hull of a ship. The helpless Imperials could do nothing to protect themselves from the ocean’s wrath. He didn’t dare return to Fhirdiad — his ghosts screamed that he would be a coward to return there — but he attacked every last Imperial ship approaching or leaving the city. Sometimes he stalked a ship for hours, allowing the crew’s fear to fester. The ships all sank eventually.

Sometimes the ships carried prisoners. It was easy to identify the people who squirmed through the water, sinking with binds of metal lashing their hands and feet together. He always delivered those ones back to land, gnawing the pathetic steel into pieces. When the prisoners were especially pathetic, he was forced to curl around them until they warmed up. The seas of Faerghus were nothing to him in his current form, but even the hardiest Faerghan faltered in the face of winter’s chill. 

It made him think of Claude. He had no time to think of Claude. There was no beating heart left in his husk of a body, so he did not allow himself to think of Claude for long. 

The Imperials got tricky. They knew he avoided Faerghan vessels. They sailed flags of blue in hopes of tricking him. The fools didn’t realize the hull of a Faerghan ship and an Adrestian ship was different. 

The Empire kept trying. Soldiers would occupy Faerghan ships. Merchant ships, fishing ships, anything and everything. They knew the ghost of the last Prince of Faerghus didn’t want the people to starve and wouldn’t destroy every ship. He hated them. The Imperial swine remained fat and hale while his own people withered away. Wretches, all of them.  

The Imperials learned to avoid being seen on deck. He may refuse to sink a ship full of grain and civilians, but he gleefully reached his tentacles towards the deck and snatched the fools who dared occupy his territory. He lost a few limbs doing that. The limbs regrew stronger, bigger, longer. The souls he dragged into the ocean did not regrow. 

He split his time between the coast and heart of Faerghus. When the ships grew fearful, the troops of the land grew bold and needed to be put in their place. When he took care of the fools traipsing across the countryside, the ships along the coast became brazen.

He killed. 

He needed to slaughter that woman most of all. Yet his limbs always circled him back to Faerghus. The way to Adrestia wasn’t clear. When he tried to follow the coast, he never could seem to swim in a straight line without getting turned around. When he tried to walk, his legs always brought him back to the waters of Faerghus. So he killed, and killed, and killed, and waited for the day the Emperor Herself would appear before him so he might carry her to the frigid depths of hell.

Then one day, he needed to go somewhere.

He went. His legs carried him to a river. His tentacles swam him until the river became a creek and was too narrow for his body to fit. His legs finished the journey, following the stream until he came to a hill. He knew where to go, even though he did not know why. The compass in his mind was insistent. He had to go.

He returned home. Rats infested his old grounds, so he killed every last one of them. Then he waited. He waited, and waited, and waited. His tentacles busied themselves by ‘cleaning’ up the old den. The shelf at the bottom of the pond wasn’t spacious anymore, but he could still fit. Barely. 

Finally. The water rippled with electricity. Finally. The feeling was intoxicating. Overwhelming. Finally! He lurked in the darkness, stalking. A familiar sight caught his eye, a sight he ached for. His. His his his. Patience was important. He stalked what was his. Waiting until the lovely creature settled at the bottom of the pond. Then he approached.

Claude. Mate. His.

Claude appeared untouched by time. The only change was his mate’s braid. It was longer now. On the other side?... No, he must be misremembering that. Briefly, he had to wonder how much time had passed. It felt like years. Decades. An entire lifetime. And also as if no time had passed at all. Judging by Claude… a year, perhaps?

It didn’t matter. He collected Claude in his tentacles with no intention to ever let go. His. Claude barely stirred at all. The smaller man foolishly curled closer in his sleep, cuddling into an inescapable trap. 

He pawed at Claude’s face. Brushing the pads of his webbed fingers over Claude’s cheek, he was mindful of his claws. Time had changed his form. Once his nails had been human-like in this form. Now they stretched into long, deadly weapons. There would be no hand-holding for him and Claude. His hands were too hideous for that. Where once his hands were covered in burn scars, now there were scales. His human-flesh was pocked with midnight-blue scales. They covered every inch of scar tissue, only excluding the scar across his eye. 

He touched Claude’s face while the small man slept. How he had longed for this. Longed to see his mate again. A deep rumbling filled his chest. Need hissed through his bones, but he didn’t understand what he needed to do. He simply needed. He needed Claude, needed his mate. 

“Nmmm…mm?” Claude’s eyes fluttered open. Brilliant green eyes widened, then crumpled. “Please tell me this isn’t a dream. I don’t think I could bear it.”

He cooed a long noise, burying his face into the crook of Claude’s neck. He bit down softly, fighting against the urge to tear out a chunk of flesh. Those sorts of bites were for enemies. His teeth broke skin regardless. They were too sharp for any other result. Claude sucked in a gasp of water, gills fluttering as he writhed in his grip.

“Y-you’re really here…!”

Satisfaction licked at his whole being. His rumbling increased in volume. A pleased growl filled the space between them. ‘Mine,’ the noise said. He admired his catch. Claude’s mouth remained slack, showing off his little fangs. Hah, to think he once thought those fangs were large! They were tiny compared to Dimitri, whose mouth was filled to the brim with far too many wicked teeth. 

“You're alive. Dimitri…”

Dimitri. Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri. How long had it been since he heard that name? “I’m not,” he growled, nibbling into Claude’s shoulder. His voice crackled and warbled from disuse. “Dimitri died long ago.” He was nothing but a husk for his ghosts to achieve vengeance. He was nothing but a corpse.

“No, you’re here, Dimi—tri—!”

He growled, low and displeased this time. His limbs tightened around his reclaimed possession, quieting his mate into a little squeak.

“I missed you.”

His tendrils loosened slightly. Not enough for Claude to escape (that was wholly impossible), but enough for his mate to be comfortable again. Cooing softly, he rubbed the side of his face against Claude. Claude’s hand crushed his cheek. It had been a lifetime since he was touched for any reason but violence. Sliding his eyes shut, he nestled his head under Claude’s chin. Arms wrapped around his shoulders, uncaring of the rough patches of scales coating his body like ugly, mottled patches. 

“Heh, look at you… You sure don’t do things by halves. You’re huge.” He rumbled a warning. “I didn’t say that was a bad thing, silly.” Claude pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. “I missed your hugs. I missed you.”

‘I missed you too.’ He replied in the language he was most comfortable with: purrs and bites. He nibbled a line down Claude’s throat, enjoying the way it made his mate squirm. 

“H-hey—ah! That st-stings, you know!”

‘You won’t forget me this way,’ he replied by way of chomping into Claude’s previously unmarred shoulder. This one made Claude squeal beautifully. ‘Mine.’ His nails dug into Claude’s back, marking up his mate’s skin in every direction. For each slice of his nails or teeth, the tip of a tentacle followed in order to drift close and press fluttering ‘butterfly kisses’ to the cut flesh. ‘My beloved.’

Claude squirmed fruitlessly. At first his mate gave token human protests, human yelps, human gasps. Finally he earned the truly satisfying noise: nipping a tiny bite into Claude’s earfin, a long trill echoed through the water. He wanted more of those. Licking the earfin with his lengthy tongue granted him a long warble. Emboldened, he didn’t let up. His fangs and claws were sharpness contrasting his tentacle’s soft caresses. His lingering touches and licks paired with rhythmic squeezing. 

He made Claude sing in the way his mate was born to sing for him. No more words. No more humanity. Just the two of them. 

He ended their little ‘dance’ by filling Claude’s mouth with his tongue. The song was capped with a long moan from his mate. Claude’s body shook in his hold. He kissed his mate, and kissed, and kissed, and kissed. His tentacles worked in tandem to soothe the bleeding scrapes covering his mate’s flesh, carefully rubbing every inch of stress from Claude’s body. 

Finally he ended their kiss, rearing back to look over his artwork. Scratches, nibbles, and bruises covered Claude’s flushed body. Nothing deadly. None of his cuts went deeper than just below the surface, and most had already stopped bleeding. Just enough to mark his claim on his mate, but not so much as to cause real harm. 

“Di…” Claude gasped, only for his mouth to be filled by a tentacle at the hint of human language. His mate quivered and shook beautifully. Claude did not bite down on his tentacle. He just stared at Dimitri with wide, loving eyes. 

Some of his tentacles began to pull them towards the little cave-like den at the bottom of the pond. He wasn’t sure what they were going to do when they were tucked away. It felt right though, like it was the next step in… whatever he was doing. The next step in claiming his mate forever.

He wanted nothing more in the world than to just stay here forever. To hold Claude, kiss Claude, mark his mate… It was all he wanted. Forget Edelgard and his country, he just wanted—

‘You DARE?!’ the ghosts screamed. ‘You would abandon us to eternal damnation?! For a boy?!’

No, no, he wouldn’t—

‘Tempter! The siren works with the witch! Kill him! Kill him before he kills you!’

Claude… working with… Her? A growl built in his throat. 

“D-Dimitri…? Y-you’re blocking my gills.”

Baring his teeth, he bit into the false tempter’s soft flesh. ‘Make him pay. Make him regret straying you from your path.’ His fangs drew blood, more than before. This was no little nip. But he couldn’t bring himself to tear away chunks of flesh. This wasn’t some Imperial wretch. This was… was Claude…

He threw Claude away from himself. He had to leave. Claude was too tempting and he didn’t want to hurt Claude. 

Flinging himself to the surface, he shed his fish-half and fled by land.

“Dimitri!” he shouted, breaching the water. Flailing, he struggled to follow his love. Dimitri’s lower half seamlessly shrunk until all that remained were two human legs. Claude didn’t have that luxury. He hadn’t soaked long enough to have access to his full human self. “Di—hnhgh…” He clawed at the mud, dragging himself out of the water even as he felt himself start to suffocate. “D—” 

He can’t breathe. Dimitri doesn’t turn around. Dimitri leaves his line of sight. He curled in on himself, clawing at his gills as they flared and failed to catch any water. Dimitri! He weakly pawed at the mud, failing to carry himself any further from the pond. 

He needed to go back into the water before it was too late. Dimitri wasn’t coming back for him. He was going to die if he stayed out of the water much longer.

He tumbled back. It was only through the grace of the slope of the pond that he found the strength to get back into the water. If it wasn’t for gravity, he wouldn’t have been able to haul himself backwards. 

He choked down water in long gasps. Dimitri wouldn’t have come back for him. Dimitri would have left him to die.

Alone once again, he screeched. Everything he had been repressing for the past five years exploded through his body. How dare Dimitri! His upper half was marked in nearly every spot, from cuts to bruises to hickeys. How dare that man! To appear out of damned nowhere, to give him hope that his heart still lived, to give him all these marks— then to what?! To run away?

Pacing laps around the depths of the pond, he shoved a lid on all his feelings and focused on figuring out whatever the hell just happened. Things had been going well! A bit weird from a human standard, but it had felt so right. Then Dimitri did a complete 180 and ran away.  

…What did he do wrong?

The wait was killing him. After about an hour or so, he forced the transformation early. It hurt to force it, but waiting hurt even more. He looked extra fishy as he hauled himself out of the water. Not bothering to grab even his clothes, he raced in the direction he watched Dimitri vanish.

“Dimitri!” he cried out.

Dimitri was nowhere to be found. 

He dried off. Got dressed. Climbed the Goddess Tower. Anything to get away from the pond. He sat there and watched the sun rise. He didn’t think about Dimitri. The cuts and bruises covering his body didn’t allow him to forget.

Footsteps came from behind him. “Seems I’m meeting a lot of ghosts today. Teach, you overslept.”

He left his heart in the pond and moved forward towards a brighter future. Even though his body ached from Dimitri’s roughness, he didn’t care. Dimitri was alive. Changed, but at least the man was alive. Even if they were no longer compatible, he was just happy that Dimitri was alive.  

And maybe it did hurt, the rejection. He was no maiden waiting for a dashing prince, though. He moved forward. Ever forward. The Golden Deer showed up to the reunion. And some of the Blue Lions, ironically. Sylvain, Ingrid, and Felix had been chasing Dimitri’s trail. At least Claude was able to inform them that Dimitri was alive, even though the prince was gon—

“He’s in the cathedral,” Teach said, stunning him into silence. Dimitri… was still nearby?

He didn’t visit. It would be too much of a distraction. There was a war to plan. So much to do. No time to pine over the boy he used to kiss. He didn’t visit Dimitri.

Time progressed. They joined forces with the Blue Lions and the Knights of Seiros. His plans were coming together neatly. Since Dimitri wasn’t giving any orders, the Blue Lions lent their aid to his cause.

Dimitri remained in the monastery. Claude didn’t go to see him. He asked, though. He asked about Dimitri.

“He won’t speak to any of us. He mutters, but he sure isn’t talking to us.”

“He’s restless. Sometimes he leaves the cathedral, then shakes himself and walks back. Just goes back and forth, back and forth. I don’t know how His Highness hasn’t gone mad from it.”

“Everyone’s too scared to go to the cathedral. His eye, I swear it glows. What happened to him? The prince looks demonic.”

Time progressed. The Empire learned of their position and sent a force to drive them out. On the night before the battle, his legs brought him to the cathedral. He didn’t visit Dimitri. He only watched from the shadows. The others were correct. Dimitri talked to himself, mumbling and sometimes yelling at nothing. When Dimitri got distracted, he seemingly thoughtlessly walked towards the exit of the cathedral. Then Dimitri would notice and either grunt, or yell, or threaten his own legs. 

“I will not return to that place,” the prince hissed to no one.

Dimitri looked so different even as a human. For Claude, his fishy changes were easily hidden. Dimitri didn’t have that luxury. He was tall now, broader too. The size change wasn’t exclusive to his fish-form. Dimitri’s teeth were far more noticeable than Claude’s, and there appeared to be more of them than there should be. The prince’s skin was paler than before, taking on an almost pale-as-death pallor. Dimitri didn’t wear gloves. Instead, dark sapphire scales covered the  flesh of his hands, his human nails sharpened to a wicked point. There was an aura to him, a sort of ‘I will bite your hand off and then gut you’ sort of aura. It was hard to reconcile the man haunting the cathedral with the boy he used to know.

There was also Dimitri’s single glowing blue eye. It was eerie in the darkness. That matched the rumors his spies got out of Empire soldiers: the vengeful Faerghan river spirit with one glowing ice-blue eye.

He left Dimitri. There was nothing to say between them. He needed to rest for the fight in the morning. Obviously Dimitri couldn’t be counted on for that.

When the Empire attacked the monastery in the morning, Dimitri was there among the fighting. They didn’t acknowledge each other. 

“We’ll be fine, Leader Man. Just go do your thing, we all know you’re itching to take a bath.”

“We’re barely any distance from Gronder Field, Hilda. After that mess of a battle, everyone’s on edge. I should remain to—”

“You should be taking care of yourself, idiot. Stop worrying about morale! You know what’s really bad for morale? Our leader keeling over and suffocating.”

He sighed. “Fine. I’ll make it as quick of a soak as possible.”

“It’s not like we can start marching until morning anyways. Just go.”

He headed into the woods. Over the years he’d grown a sort of sixth sense for detecting water. There was a nice big pond nearby, he was certain. 

He found the pond in a secluded grove. He also found familiar armor. 

He began stripping. He felt watched. Because he was being watched. Dimitri’s single blue eye glowed in the depths of the pond.

As soon as he slipped off his last article of clothes, he was swept off his feet. A massive limb rose from the pond and curled around him. In an instant, he was dragged under the surface. The transformation rushed through his body. His fins expanded, then curled against himself.

“Dimitri.”

“Claude.”

His body wanted to relax, but he couldn’t. Dimitri nearly skewered him on the battlefield. The prince had been mad. He’d thought Dimitri was going to get himself killed. Right up until he was nearly trampled. He got knocked from his wyvern. It had been stupid to get distracted by Dimitri. Nearly cost him his life. Instead, Dimitri took the blow for him. Dimitri survived. Not long after, the prince passed out and Dedue swooped in. Gods, he was just glad Dimitri didn’t die on the battlefield. 

Despite the teamwork between Leicester and Faerghus, in the past few months Dimitri had been growing restless. So he’d been told. Dimitri only ever attended strategy meetings on the rare times Claude wasn’t there. The only ‘strategy’ the prince had to share was ‘kill Edelgard’. Which amounted to making a straight line for Enbarr. So basically suicide.  

The Blue Lion forces began to break off more and more from his command over the months. It hit a head last month when Dimitri gave his first order: ‘We leave the monastery and march for Enbarr’. That was that. There was something of a mythos around Dimitri now. The Tempest King. The Kraken of Fhirdiad. The Ghost of Blaiddyd’s Wrath. It was enough for people to follow him.

Then their armies met on the battlefield. Luckily there wasn’t too much crossfire between their armies, but the casualties couldn’t be numbered at zero. He’d watched Dimitri tear down everyone ‘in the way’, be their uniform red or yellow.

“Going to kill me this time?” He knew Dimitri wouldn’t and couldn’t. That had been proved on the battlefield. 

A mournful coo was the only verbal reply he received. Tentacles squirmed around his body. He missed the sweet innocence of before. No longer did any of the tendrils try to slip into his hands.

“Please talk to me.” He cupped Dimitri’s cheek. “At least while we’re here, isolated from the rest of the world. You can go back to ignoring me after our soak.” The tentacles squeezed him slightly tighter for that comment. “I just want to understand.”

Dimitri rumbled, nipping his neck.

“No!” he snapped, freezing Dimitri in place. “You don’t get to do this to me again. Not if you just plan to run away.”

An injured noise was the reply he got. Then a little nuzzle.

“I know you haven’t forgotten how to speak.”

“…Don’t like it…” Dimitri finally whispered. “So much simpler… to not speak…” A growl. “Was so much simpler… before returning to the surface…”

“Hate to break it to you, but you can’t spend all your time in the water.”

That earned him another growl. “I did before.” The growl faded into a sigh. “It was simple.”

It clicked in his head. “How much of the past five years did you spend in this form?” Slowly, he stroked down one of Dimitri’s tentacles. Once, it had been slightly thicker than his arm. Now it was thicker than his entire body, and it was just one of many.

“Most of the time.”

“Guess this explains why your form grew so much more than mine.” He spent the bare minimum time in his alternate form, so of course he barely changed. Dimitri… 

“I need to return to the pond,” Dimitri whined, nuzzling aggressively against his neck. “It gnaws at me in my every waking moment. It’s so much worse in this form.”

The pond. The monastery pond. “Fish instinct?”

Dimitri growled an aggravated ‘Yes’.

“We can go there. Together.”

“I can’t. I’ll… I won’t be able to leave.” Dimitri’s single eye stared at him hungrily. “And you won’t be allowed to leave either.”

“Ah!” Dimitri chomped into his shoulder. It hurt, but he wasn’t afraid. Quite the opposite.

“I’ll never let you leave.”

He squirmed, but that only made the tentacles cradle him more thoroughly. There would be no escape for him, not unless Dimitri allowed it. He didn’t think he had enough venom in his spines to numb even one of Dimitri’s massive tentacles, let alone all of them. 

“This is the problem. These instincts are out of control.” Another soft nuzzle, another little nip. “This is why I can’t be around you. I want to abandon everything. But I have to…to…”

“Kill Edelgard, I know.”

Dimitri’s eyes slid shut. “Rodrigue died during the battle.” What? He hadn’t been informed. That was a massive blow to Faerghus. In the void of Dimitri’s lacking leadership, Rodrigue had been the Lion’s voice of leadership. “He… died saving me. He said some things that made me… reconsider certain things. I’ve been such a fool.”  

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmured, stroking his fingers down Dimitri’s back. “He was a good man.”

“It was so simple before. I killed Imperials. That was all.” Dimitri’s lone blue eye stared past him. “I became a monster in my pursuit of revenge. Just look at me. All the killing, all the blood — it changed me.”

“This old argument? Dimitri, our forms have nothing to do with our ‘inner-selves’. You changed more than me because you spent most of your time in this form. Hell, you probably eat most of your meals like this, right? Whereas I’ve comparatively been starving my fish-half.” 

“Claude. I ate people.”

He flinched at the unexpected declaration. “Well… I mean, you killed plenty, so I suppose you had a surplus of meat laying around. And, well, is it really cannibalism when we’re like this? I’m not going to judge you for surviving.”

“Don’t excuse me,” Dimitri growled, “I am wretched and evil.”

“No, no you are not.”

Dimitri’s shoulders slumped. “You’re supposed to be disgusted by me. Horrified. Look at me, I’m… I’m terrifying.”

“Nah.” He patted a squishy tentacle. “These are still super cute. Just like you.”

“I… I didn’t really eat people. Not… not entirely. Sometimes when I bit into someone, I didn’t spit the flesh out. I swallowed my bite. Never ate an entire human. But I still consumed human flesh.”

“Dimitri, I’m not afraid of you.” Mindful of his little horns, he bonked his head against Dimitri and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You can stop trying to convince me to hate you. It won’t happen.”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I don’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness.” 

“Mm, I don’t think that’s for you to decide.”

All at once, Dimitri went limp, hanging his head. “I suppose you are correct. You don’t hate me? Even after how I acted?”

“I missed you, Dimitri.” He refused to let go of Dimitri. Not again. “I don’t hate you.”

“I want to go back to the pond. With you. But… I have a duty to my people. Fhirdiad needs to be retaken.”

“Will you let me help you this time?”

“...Yes.”

When they finished their soak, they exited the pond together. Even back in their human forms, they continued to hold hands. 

It wasn’t until the carriage stopped that they broke off their kiss. They’d been going at it for a while, but it was that time of the year after all. “We’re here,” he told his husband with a gleam in his eyes. Dimitri wordlessly picked him up and exited the carriage. He burst into peals of laughter. Garreg Mach had been rebuilt over the past few years, but it was still the same in all the ways that mattered. In fairness, right now, the only thing that mattered was their vacation home. The pond.

The eagerness to return to their spot struck both of them once every year, right around the monastery’s founding day. It was a subtle thing for Claude. An insistent need to go. Compared to Dimitri though, his eagerness was nothing. Dimitri needed to go. One year they’d been forced to delay their trip by a single day. Dimitri ended up snatching him by the waist and then started walking to Garreg Mach. Though hilarious, the restlessness it prompted in Dimitri was understandably uncomfortable, bordering on unbearable. 

This year, they made it right on time. That didn’t diminish any of Dimitri’s eagerness. 

There was a little set of walls right beside the pond’s edge. A ‘wedding present’ from Teach, supposedly. It was a place for them to change and dip into the pond all without being seen. Claude would have used it plenty if not for his husband.

As soon as they were close enough to the pond, Dimitri just jumped in while holding him. He laughed until water filled his mouth, then laughed again when that water became breathable. “Dima! Our clothes are soaked now!” He began the process of undressing. Thankfully, he’d expected this, so he wasn’t wearing anything complicated to get off.

“There’s always spare clothes stocked in the shack,” Dimitri stated, already tugging him down to their den.

Their den was ‘renovated’ a few years ago by none other than Dimitri himself. The den had been getting tight, so Dimitri dug out a bigger space. It was a good thing too — Dimitri wouldn’t be able to fit in their old den these days. Not comfortably, at least.

Every year, they followed the same routine. First, examine den. Second, kiss inside den. Third….

The third step was his favorite part. Grabbing one of his husband’s tentacles and looping it around his waist, he led Dimitri outside the den and into the pond proper. Step three was to dance.  

Now that he understood himself better, he knew this was a mating dance. It always had been. The joy he felt at Dimitri watching him, the way his fins fanned out and stretched towards Dimitri — it had always been about catching Dimitri’s eye. He danced for Dimitri, and danced, and danced, spinning and twirling through the water until his husband couldn’t bear it for a second longer.

“Hello, my sweet friend,” he cooed as one of the tentacles curled around his hand. Before he knew it, the both of them were dancing around each other. Dimitri’s tentacles fanned out too, turning bright, vivid colors just to please him. 

“You’re too beautiful,” Dimitri told him breathlessly. 

His body instinctively preened. His emotions were so much stronger at this time of the year. He always loved Dimitri’s compliments, but he especially adored them now. “You’re pretty too, beloved.” Dimitri smiled bashfully at him. Earlier in their relationship, Dimitri would have argued with him. No longer. “Sooooo cute,” he repeated, nuzzling up to the nearest tentacle. It turned pink, just like Dimitri’s cheeks.

“I love it when you smile like this.” A thumb caressed his jaw. “Your fangs are so cute.” A tentacle curled around one of the fully grown antlers crowning his head. “These too. All of you is cute.”

They laughed and danced some more. Then it was time for the fourth step. Rising to the surface, they took gulps of air and then chased each other back down to their den. Trip after trip, they grew a pretty bubble nest together. By the time it was finished, his entire body felt light and floaty from sheer satisfaction. 

Step five was fun too. He was pulled into a familiar embrace. Squishy tentacles formed a sort of chair-shape for him to lounge against. His husband-throne, he liked to call it. 

“Let’s just stay here forever,” he joked. It was an old joke between them. 

“But who will take care of the fish population in Fhirdiad?” Dimitri teased right back at him. 

“You, ugh. I don’t care how tasty the fish are, I’m not swimming in ice water. Now Derdriu’s port, I’ll gladly terrorize the fish there.” He was looking forward to their stop in Derdriu. They always stopped by the old Leicester territories on their way back to Fhirdiad when their yearly migration was over. The water was so warm and nice there. At least in Fhirdiad he had a heated pool. And a heated husband. Besides, he preferred to spend the majority of his time as a human. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch as many as you desire.” Dimitri was his opposite, preferring to spend more time in his aquatic form when possible. Dimitri just seemed more settled like this. His husband had come so far in his self-consciousness. No longer did Dimitri call himself monstrous or ugly. Claude had enthusiastically reinforced how lovely and beloved both forms were. Still, something about not having to be around people appealed to Dimitri. 

In some ways, it was a shame that Dimitri was king. His husband deserved to relax for the rest of his life. Dimitri would be too restless in retirement though. Too guilty. Claude knew he wouldn’t do well in ‘retirement’ either. Not yet, at least. Not until he achieved his dream. Even though he wasn’t the King of Almyra, his dream was still going strong. As Fódlan’s official ambassador, he was making great strides across all borders, not just Almyra. 

Dimitri struck a balance between his forms. Work was always done as a human, of course. When it was time for bed, they alternated between sleeping in a real dry bed or sleeping underwater with squishy tentacle pillows and blankets. Both were good, he loved both. Dimitri took most of his meals in his fish-form, preferring to hunt them himself (and often bring back more for the castle staff). Claude took dinner in his fish-form with Dimitri, but he preferred to eat other food too. It had been a nice discovery to realize that Dimitri’s increase in size was influenced by spending more time in that form; specifically, when he ate. Now that Claude ate a third of his meals in fish-form, his tail had lengthened slightly (about half a foot) and grown a bit plumper (he refused to measure that). Dimitri had grown a lot more than that, but he wasn’t complaining. He loved his big husband no matter the shape. And maaaaybe he encouraged Dimitri’s eating habits more than he otherwise would. Dimitri was regaining a sense of taste, so obviously his beloved deserved all the tasty food and fish in the world! Heh, and the more squishy tentacles for him, the better. Gods, he adored everything about his husband.

Tomorrow, they would rise to the surface and meet with their friends for their yearly get together. Annette and Lysithea could probably fix their aquatic forms by now — the pair ended up joining together and opening a magic school, of all things — but the truth was that he and Dimitri didn’t want to be ‘fixed’. Sure, Dimitri looked a little fishy, heh. He was the Savior King though. During the war, he had saved many of his people, which grew his legend into a benevolent force. 

Today, though… 

A growl and a nip to his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. “Mine. Focus on me.”

“Well, how can I say no to that face?” They kissed, and cuddled, and then came the sixth step of their routine. It was a special step meant just for them in the privacy of their den. Afterwards they would take care of each other, cuddle more, and purr each other to sleep. Now... well, now was no time to be thinking. Now was the time to express their love for each other, as lovers do.