Warnings: Torture, hints of sex slavery, light suicide contexts, blood
Gender: Female

This is a pre time skip Dimitri I should mention. I wanted to do one where the protagonist is so fearful of people they don't talk, and I thought this was the best way for it.

Also double check those warnings, some heavy stuff is implied later.

Inspired by a similar Ashe X Reader from byleth-fe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a simple mission. Our class was sent to clear out some bandits in an abandoned mansion nearby a village. The thieves had taken it as a hideout, and we were sent to rout them out. I gave a quick slash to the bandit I was dealing with, and turned to see everyone had gathered around. "That looks like the last of them." The professor explained. "But we should search around incase there's anyone hiding." 

With a nod, I set out alongside Felix and Sylvain. As we explored, we seemed to come to a dead end room. However, there was shining blade next to the rooms fireplace. It was quite suspicious, as everything else in the room seemed to be dirty, dusty or in need of repair, but the sword was shining and perfectly spotless like it was just moved.

"Hey, cool sword!" Sylvain smiled and went in, grabbing it right away.

"Wait Sylvain, it may be a trap--!"

Before I could even finish my warning, Sylvain had picked up the weapon and was looking at it. Yet at the same time, something shook the ground, and it quickly stopped. Then, a thud was heard from inside the fire place; a secret passage had opened up inside of it.

"Dimitri? Is your group ok?!" The professor yelled to us.

"Yes. We found some kind of hidden passage way, you should come check it out." I responded back.

"Turns our your impulsive nature actually helped us for once, Sylvain." Felix teased. Sylvain scoffed, and lightly pushed each other around. Then, the professor, along with the other Blue Lions students came in. When they did, I began my decent into the darkness.

"Here take this." Sylvain insisted, handing me a lit torch. I nodded in thanks and continued down the hall that opened up. I wondered how this was hidden, as you couldn't tell anything was off about the room unless you pulled the sword.  Not too much walking, and we had found what seemed to be, at one point, a dungeon. The stairway gave to a hallway, one direction leading to a room, and another leading to cells. I took the way to the room, and saw what was inside it.

Metal bars that made small holding cages, about 4 total, though the one against the edge of the room was half taken up by a crumbling wall. Beaten up torture tools and a scent of rot that plagued it all. However, much of the room seemed to be destroyed, as the walls were crumbling. Yet I turn my attention to the cells in this room. Within them, I saw people. Well, more like corpses, as no one drew breath. Most of them were young ladies. 

I was horrified to think of what went on down here. This had to be the work of those bandits, some kind of holding area for all the women they found and sought to 'play' with. Most of them seemed starved, though a few had wounds on them, and they were chained to the walls.

I came to the edge of the room, where the wall had given into the cell it was attached to, and I took a glance. The wall between the third and fourth cells had given in, and inside the fourth cell, where the edge wall had crumbled taking up half the space, I saw a person. Chained like the rest, They had torn and shredded clothes, many wounds on the body, and were nothing but skin and bones. Their H/C hair was stained with blood.

But then I noticed something... 

Their chest was moving. They were breathing, meaning they were still alive. I was in shock almost, I wanted to get in the cell to try and see if they could be saved, but the door was locked. Turning, I saw Sylvain approach. "Sylvain." I whispered. "See if you can't find any keys or a way to break this open. There's someone alive!"

He took a glance and saw the poor girl in her disastrous state. I saw him give a smile, to which I nudged him in the arm for. "Not now, Sylvain! Keep your skirt chasing urges to the side for 5 minutes?"

He scoffed, but with a smile, and seemed to walk off, trying to look for any keys, to which Felix and the professor were also doing, but in the other hall. It wasn't long before Sylvain found some keys just barely visible through the ruble. He threw them to me, and I instantly opened the cell door. I went in, and knelt down to the girl, who was still breathing, but it was hoarse, and sounded weak. They had large gashes on them which had been scabbing over, and were bruised in several places.

I tried to use the keys we found to unlock the chains, but none seemed to work. "Damn, there's gotta be some way." I whispered.

But I probably shouldn't have. I saw the girl flutter her E/C eyes open slowly, taking her a moment to realize what was going on. When she did, she gasped, and tried to run away. Well, more like crawl away. She couldn't get far because of the chains and small space, so she hid in the corner, holding her arms in front of her face like she was scared.  

"Be at ease. I mean no harm." I tried to reassure her. She peeked from behind to look at me, up and down, I didn't move. "Please, I'll find a way to remove these chains. We aren't related to the bandits that took you."

She slowly put her hands down and stared at me, as if judging, but still scared. "Please, let me help." I told her. She seemed hesitant, but slowly, she moved one arm to me. I grabbed it, and she flinched a little. "Ease. I won't hurt you." I insisted, and she looked back to me.

I tried the keys on the chains, but nothing seemed to work. Instead, I remember, Ashe is great with picking locks. I stood up, and yelled to Sylvain. "Sylvain, find Ashe and tell him I need him."

I saw the red head give a thumbs up before turning to find my fellow classmate. I turned back and knelt to the girl, who seemed to be slowly getting more comfortable with me. I held onto her hand again. "We can help you. What's your name?"

She didn't talk. It seemed like she tried to, but couldn't, so instead just looked away. "Do... you have a name?" She nodded. "Can you understand me?" She nodded once more. "Do you know why you can't talk?"
She shook No. "Blast. She must have been so traumatized that she can't, or won't, talk. What did those bandits do to her?"

"You needed me?" I turned to see Ashe, with his grey hair and pale green eyes. He took a step into the cell, and the girl instantly recoiled like she first did with me, hiding and trying to push herself as close to the wall as possible.
"Calm down, he isn't going to hurt you. He wants to help." I tried to reassure. The girl seemed less receptive to Ashe, as she still shied away. "Please, show us your wrists. We can get the locks open."

The girl was still shaking, but slowly and shakily held out one hand. As I held onto it, Ashe began to pick the lock. Just a few seconds, and it was open, showing the girl had spiked cuffs within her wrist, the blood leaking from their cold iron, now spilling from her. I saw Ashe take out a bandage roll from his satchel, and I took it to wrap around the girls wrists. "This is horrible... what did those bandits do to you?" I asked.

She gave no response and just held out her other hand, and we repeated the cycle. When her wrists were all bandaged, Ashe and I stood up, and I held my hand down to the girl. "Please, come with us." She seemed to hesitate, just staring up at me. "We can help you; give you medical attention and get you to safety." After looking up and down at me, she grabbed the hand and pulled herself up. However, after taking a single step she gave a quiet grunt, and almost fell, had she not grabbed my uniform and I catch her. I looked to her right leg, a massive cut that was crusted over with dried blood and oozed a foul smelling white liquid. It was almost like the leg itself was decaying from inside out, despite her being alive. It ran from the ankle up to the knee.

"By the goddess, this is far worse then I thought." I muttered. "Please, let me. You can't walk with that." I went and I picked her up, holding her against me. One arm under her legs, the other holding her upper body. She gripped my uniform at the shoulder, and hid her face in my chest. "I'm surprised by how light you are... when did you eat last?"

She didn't respond, not even bothering to look out. "Never mind that, we'll worry about it later. For now, let's get you back to the monastery." I explained. I nodded to Ashe who walked ahead of me, and met up with the rest of the class. As I walked with this girl in my arms, she slowly began to turn her head to look around.

Soon, my class mates and professor had met together. "Who is that?" The teacher asked. The voice seemed to catch the girl off guard, and she went back to hiding herself in my chest and holding my shoulder. I felt her heart rate accelerate, as she quivered. I stopped dead in my tracks.

"She's terrified of people, but I found her as the only one alive in this dungeon. She's starving, sick, and injured." I glanced down to the girl. "Please, don't fear these people. They won't hurt you either."

Mercedes started to approach, possibly to try her healing magic, but the girl managed to slip from my grasp as she struggled to get free. She tried to run, but didn't get farther then a single step before she collapsed; possibly from both having no energy, and her leg injury. She turned over, and crawled until her back was against the wall. She was gasping for air now and looked around wildly. I went and knelt beside her. "These people don't want to hurt you. Let Mercedes try and heal you, even a little. It will help you feel better."

The girl just shook her head, and whenever someone tried to step closer, she flinched and tried to crawl away. I gave a large sigh. "You all go ahead of me. I'll catch up with her. She's too scared of people to let anyone but me get near."

"Alright." The professor agreed. "We'll bring your horse closer to the entrance, but we won't head back without you."

"Thank you." I responded, and watched as my class all headed back. Once they were out of sight, the girl started to look around again, and noticed it was only me. "What happened to you? I've never seen someone so afraid of other people." I whispered as I gave a somber look. She didn't respond, obviously, and just looked away, almost like she was embarrassed to be fearful. "Well, let's get you back. I'll keep you away from as many others as we can."

I picked her back up and we went outside, where my stallion was waiting. She didn't seem afraid of the animal, thankfully. It was extremely difficult to mount a horse while carrying a person, but I had no other choice as she would try and run if anyone else held her. Once I was finally on, I saw my class and started to fallow behind at a distance. As we rode, I saw the girl had been looking around, seemingly in awe over the autumn surroundings, as if she hadn't seen outside in a long time. I will always ask this until I learn;
What did those bandits do to her?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As we neared the monastery, I waited for everyone else to dismount and stable their horses before I came in. I managed to dismount, much easier then mounting, while still carrying the girl. I took her right to the infirmary. "Manuela?" I asked for. She wasn't in there, so I placed the girl on a bed for the moment and stretched my back. "Carrying someone like that... tires you out."

I sat in a chair next to the bed, and looked back to the girl. "Are you able to talk now? What's your name?" She just kept looking around frantically. Then, she leaned over to a paper and pencil, and wrote out something before turning to show me what she wrote.

"Y/N... is that your name?" I asked. She nodded. "I see... so you can communicate, just not through speech." She nodded once more. "Were you able to talk before those bandits did... whatever they did?"

Another nod. She must be clearly suffering from panic over everything that's happened to her. "How long were you stuck down in that dungeon?" She seemed to think for a moment, then wrote it out.

 "2 months?"  Was her response, the question mark included.

"You can't say for certain how long you were down there for?"

She scribbled more. "I lost track of time... I hadn't been outside since you took me." 

"Chained like an animal. Those crooks..." I mumbled. "If it makes you feel any better, those bandits can't hurt you anymore, their all dead."

She seemed to not give any response. She was possibly unable to process everything she's heard so far. "Now that you can talk-- er, communicate... what did those bandits do to you? I've never seen someone in such a condition."

She looked away and scribbled. "You don't want to know."

"I do. If you tell us, maybe we can better help fix whatever damage they did."

She looked away then sighed. She began to scribble a lot on the paper, and eventually, she turned it back to me.
"I was taken when they raided my village, along with most the other girls. They used us like prizes for how much others got when looting. I was the 'top' prize, so week after week those people desecrated me. I was beaten for talking, starved so I was weak and unable to fight back, and never left that room except for sleeping with the men who 'won' me. Many of the others perished before me, dead from starvation and beatings... but I managed to hold on. To be honest... I was hoping you were there to slay me, and release me from this torment."

I was in shock as I read what had happened. No wonder she was horrified of people, they treated her like some kind of slave! Used her for pleasure, beat her for speaking and kept her weak and unable to fight back. My anger grew as I read the paragraph, I wanted to stab a lance through the faces of each and every one of those bastards! They got off too easy with the killings they had, I should have made them suffer!

But it didn't matter now, they were all dead, and the girl saved.

I let myself calm down before handing the paper back to Y/N. I sighed. "I am so sorry you had to deal with such pain. If I had known before, I would have made those bandits suffer for what they did to you. I can see why you're so fearful. But know that it's all in the past... those people can't hurt you anymore, and now you're safe with us."

Y/N smiled and held her arms out, almost like she wanted a hug. "You... want a hug?" She nodded. I smiled, sat on the bed with her, and pulled her in for hug. "It's going to take him, but know that you are safe with me. I won't let anyone hurt you anymore."

"T-T-Thank you... Di-Dimi-Dimitri..." She whispered.