If Dedue weren’t in so much pain, he would shift away from Dimitri, to give him the proper space that is expected of a man of his station. But Dedue isn’t strong enough. He stays still, not leaning into the touch but not rejecting it either. It feels like fire on his skin.

“I know that we are prisoners aboard a giant ship. We have been taken from different points in time and place. But we nonetheless continue to exist back home,” he summarizes.

Closing his eyes, he says, “Erin said that we cannot escape. That this place is as far as dreams are from reality.”