[Dimitri freezes, eye fixed on that awful memory as it plays out before him. Is this the last time Felix spoke with him? When he "let" him die? Because somehow, choosing the professor meant turning away from Dimitri...
Again, he can't help but feel that his fate literally hinges on the professor's choices.
But that's a distant thought compared to the whirlwind of emotions he sees on his own face. Affection, ever so briefly — then fear. Both are there and gone so quickly, visibly snuffed out by anger, the shield he hid behind as he pushed every painful thought aside to impale Edelgard with his spear while throwing himself at her axe. And in that moment, he knows exactly what his other self had thought:
He didn't want Felix following him to his grave.
The realization sucks the air out of his lungs. It's something he knows he can never, ever tell Felix, not when he's already so consumed with guilt and self-hatred. It's better for him to think that Dimitri was truly lost. And who's to say that he wasn't? Even if his love for one of his oldest friends hadn't been completely destroyed, that might not have been enough to bring him back. Even if it were, would he have been able to truly recover? He's not sure that he has even now, and that's with the professor at his side...]
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Again, he can't help but feel that his fate literally hinges on the professor's choices.
But that's a distant thought compared to the whirlwind of emotions he sees on his own face. Affection, ever so briefly — then fear. Both are there and gone so quickly, visibly snuffed out by anger, the shield he hid behind as he pushed every painful thought aside to impale Edelgard with his spear while throwing himself at her axe. And in that moment, he knows exactly what his other self had thought:
He didn't want Felix following him to his grave.
The realization sucks the air out of his lungs. It's something he knows he can never, ever tell Felix, not when he's already so consumed with guilt and self-hatred. It's better for him to think that Dimitri was truly lost. And who's to say that he wasn't? Even if his love for one of his oldest friends hadn't been completely destroyed, that might not have been enough to bring him back. Even if it were, would he have been able to truly recover? He's not sure that he has even now, and that's with the professor at his side...]
Felix...