#I've been sitting on Crimson Flower!Dimiclaude thoughts for quite some time now

[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Okay but like CF!dmcl angst tho... Dimitri being so sure that Claude is going to outlive him since Claude has such a high sense of self-preservation and thus letting himself not worry as much about him... how it must have felt like getting the news that the Alliance has fallen and that Claude has been confirmed dead (because of course he isn't spared here lol)...

(OR, Claude IS spared, and has to live knowing that he can't do anything to help Dimitri else he drag the Alliance back into the war, after working as hard as he did to keep them safe... maybe plotting a bit of vengeance himself across the border once he hears of Dimitri's inevitable death [now without Byleth's god hax to bail them and The Gard out of trouble 👀]... thonks...)

Ooh see this. Another avenue for Fallen Claude. Like a gravely injured Claude not quite being spared, but not hunted down either. Getting the hell out of doge to regroup and plan a next move with Dimitri--

Except he'd failed, and the moment he can stand on his feet again, he learns Dimitri, and the Kingdom, have fallen.

A complete, utter loss like that? That breaks someone.

So! I think Claude should get to plot and scheme and be a little vile. Assemble whatever is (if there is anything) left of the anti-imperial Alliance forces, the Adrestians that can't stand what their emperor is doing/has done, and the vestiges of a kingdom who only fell once their every last hope was slaughtered. I think he should get to bring those people together, should they exist, and promise them a second chance at getting their homes back.

If they're willing to break a few self-imposed rules to get there.

I think Claude should go back to Almyra and become a fucking terror. Everything still hurts him, when he's treated like shit, but now instead of using that as motivation to make the world better....it's reasoning to become a person that can tolerate it not because he's overly resilient and kind, but because he's willing to backstab and threaten and spit venom just as they are.

I think Claude should get to use his heritage as a trump card as he announces plans to drive out the Empire by force. Because of the boy left in him, he gives her one shot and one shot only: retreat, or be felled by the axes and claws of the Almyran army.

She would call it a bluff.

Claude would give the go ahead, and hundreds of thousands of little dark shapes soar over the Throat.

They're given express instructions to stay the fuck away from civilians and to preserve buildings--especially the castle in Fhirdiad.. The streets Dimitri would talk about walking through when if he ever made it to his coronation.

Claude would wonder if Dimitri had had an inkling about the war, or if there was another battle he'd been fighting without Claude knowing a thing.

The Empire is, frankly, trampled. They were worn thin from the original war, and overconfident because their enemies and either bended the knee or had their throats slit.

Claude knew this. Hit them where it hurt the most. Pried out the Empire's rule from Fódlan root by root, leaf by leaf. He had to step in to take her place when they were quashed, which hadn't quite been the goal, but it was certainly an inevitability.

Dubbed the Two-Faced King, Claude's reign was either loved or hated. He was the man that broke the Empire's control in half, but he also caused more strife and destruction when all they had wanted was peace. As time went on, it became clear that the progress of the Empire as it was would have caused far more destruction than Claude's reign--rebellions had already started breaking out by this point--and Claude's name became less synonymous with cruelty and more with tenacity.

There are rumours, of course, of Claude having a strange, bony lance perched above his throne in Almyra, and his being sighted wearing a heavy fur cloak whenever he had to arrange meetings in Faerghus. Some see them as spoils of war. Should he have any friends left, they would never ask any questions about them. How he had even gotten Dimitri's things...If he'd gone through the trouble, after all this, it was best to let him have those things in peace.

For Claude, they're protection against the nightmares that tell him what life would have been like if justice had had even a slightly greater chance at prevailing.

He doesn't know if Dimitri would have liked this world he's created. Claude wished he had the luxury of caring outside the walls of his room and the realm of this dreams.