Summary - Western AU set in 1875. Rose is kidnapped by enemies of her father, so he sends the one man he knows that will be able to find her. Now, she has to survive the trip back to San Francisco and not give into fleeting fancies for the man hired to protect her.
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Link
Fanfic / Ao3
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“Will you please stop running,” the tall man rasped, his accent making the words nearly impossible to understand. “We won’t hurt you, Rose.”
I laughed; a hint of hysteria in the high pitch. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” I snapped, “I’ve been through too much to believe the words of a man I don’t know.”
His lips pressed together, and he reached into his coat. I flinched back, and he froze. Our eyes met, and he didn’t look away as he slowly withdrew a small item. When he turned it, my eyes widened, and I felt the first ounce of hope since my ordeal began.
It was a silver badge, barely half the size of his palm. I recognised the intricate detail, the simple lines that represented each of the four elements—it was the seal of my father.
(different different anon) Your last post gave me an idea for a headcanon of how Dimitri and Ivan met.
So, Dimitri is 17 and at a party (either at St Basil's or in Baia). While there he overhears a creepy Moroi hitting on Sonya. He's not taking no for an answer and starts getting grabby/aggressive, but before Dimitri can go all wild west on his ass, Ivan comes out of nowhere and socks the guy square in the jaw.
Instant bffs
This string of anons is making me cackle.
And yes oh my god yes I love this so much. And maybe not even like instant bffs, mostly because I'm remembering that line from Dimitri where he was like "[me and Ivan] weren't close like you and Lissa but we did grow closer over the years and when we graduated he requested me for his guardian" (paraphrased but you get the gist).
So instead I'm thinking like, Ivan flies in out of nowhere and punches this asshole moroi, and there's this moment after where they both kind of stop and look at one another. And Dimitri's like "a royal moroi who isn't a total dick? amazing" and Ivan's like "a dhampir who isn't afraid to square up against a moroi? i think i'm in love". And after that they kind of become like unwitting partners in crime?
Like they don't even necessarily hang out together at first, but as two of the few students who aren't willing to take that moroi=superior crap they end up in a lot of the same brawls watching each other's backs. And like there's a time Dimitri comes across Ivan, who's right in the middle of pranking some asshole moroi who's been talking shit, and Ivan's just like ".... do you want to help?" and yeah of course Dimitri's in.
And they go through the rest of high school like that, and Dimitri wouldn't call it friendship exactly (even if there are times when they hung out and ate pizza after Dimitri has swooped in and saved Ivan from a 3 on 1 fight he was losing badly). But then he finds out at graduation that Ivan has requested him as his guardian and he kind of goes to talk to him about it and Ivan's like "well if i need to have someone watching my back, i'd rather it be someone i can call a friend" and Dimitri's like "..... are we friends?". And of course they are, and of course they're definitely besties from then on, and the rest, they say, is history.
Anyone else super curious about Dimitri’s backstory? In particular his relationship with Ivan?
Basically the only bit of detail we get about their past is during the scene in VA where Dimitri catches Rose and Jesse together, when Dimitri says this:
“When I was seventeen, I met Ivan Zeklos. We weren’t like you and Lissa, but we became friends, and he requested me as his guardian when I graduated.”
So we know how old Dimitri was when they met, and we know that Ivan was his first guarding assignment. We also know that Dimitri was “away” when Ivan was killed, and that he was assigned to the Academy the year before he dragged Rose and Lissa back there (according to the short story The Meeting). Since VA starts in early October, that puts Ivan’s death 9-21 months before Dimitri meets Rose. And that’s… basically it. That’s all we know for sure. But this is me and I seem incapable of making a post shorter than an essay, so let’s take a deep dive into this mystery.
Firstly, how did Ivan and Dimitri actually meet?
I’d always assumed that they were at school together, but it seems unlikely that they only met when Dimitri was 17 if that was the case. Possibly Ivan transferred there in their final year, as it seems likely that there are at the very least two Academies in Russia (there are at least two in the US, so it would make sense). Or perhaps there was some kind of exchange that was done between Academies (like how Dimitri spent a few weeks at the Royal Court when he was 16, as seen in ‘the Turn and the Flame’), and they met then. This is, of course, assuming that Ivan was raised in Russia.
But we don’t actually know that Ivan was a student, or even if he was close to Dimitri’s age. Dimitri specifically says “when I graduated”. “I”. Not “we”. So maybe Ivan was older than Dimitri. And we know he had two guardians (as he was “with his other guardian” when he died), so perhaps he already had one assigned to him and had been out in the world with him for some time before he requested Dimitri as his second upon his graduation. Who knows, Ivan could have met Dimitri on a visit to Baia while Dimitri was home on break from St Basils. (Though I find it hard to believe that Dimitri, who beat up his father at 13 for mistreating his mother, would become friends with a royal visiting his hometown given the reputation visiting Moroi men have there). We just don’t know, and it really frustrates me.
Also, where were they and what did they do in the time Dimitri was Ivan’s guardian?
Depending on exactly when Ivan died and if Dimitri was 17 or 18 when he graduated, they would have spent 5-7 years out in the world together. Did they spend time at the Royal Court? Did they travel? Did they go to college/university? If so, does that mean Dimitri has a degree in something, since he would have taken classes with Ivan? Also, where were they living? My main theory is that they lived in the US for most of that time, since Tasha describes Dimitri’s Russian accent as “thick” when he was 16, whereas Rose describes it as “faint” when she meets him at the start of Vampire Academy, a little over 8 years later. But again, we don’t know.
And finally, where was Dimitri when Ivan died?
Simply saying he was “away” doesn’t really tell us much. This is Dimitri we’re talking about, so there’s no way he just decided to take a day off on a whim and left Ivan a man down unexpectedly. So, like Rose, let’s assume Dimitri was on legitimate leave when Ivan died. But what does that mean? Did he take the day off? The weekend? Did he take a month off to visit his family? Did he hire a horse and spend a week riding across the Great Plains and living out his cowboy fantasies?? What does “away” mean??
Also, what actually happened to Ivan? Did he get attacked while he was out partying it up one night while Dimitri was away? Was he having dinner at a restaurant and got ambushed in the parking lot, like Strigoi!Dimitri did to Lissa, Christian, Priscilla Voda and the others in Spirit Bound? Did a Strigoi break into their house? And if so, was Dimitri the one to find him when he returned?
I have so many questions and zero answers. Hopefully Richelle Mead writes something else from his POV, or about his past. Even if it’s just some basic details in a Q&A. Just a crumb of information about Ivan, please Richelle, I’m starving.
Or better yet, they could go into some detail about Dimitri’s backstory in the tv show. Could you imagine if they give us a flashback as Dimitri tells Rose about him, and we actually get to see Ivan?? Or even just a photo of the two of them that Dimitri keeps in his room? It’d feel like getting a flash of a woman’s ankle during the Regency Era - just the tiniest look and I’d lose my freaking mind.
some of my VA headcanons/AUs I choose to believe over canon
Rose is bi. Dimitri is bi. They are the ultimate bi power couple.
Dimitri was in love with Ivan at the time of Ivan’s death. That’s why the death hit Dimitri so deeply. Dimitri had taken leave for the first time in two years to visit his family and to try and get some distance between himself and Ivan in order to deal with the feelings he had for his charge. And that was when Ivan died, while Dimitri was actively trying to understand and reflect upon the extent he loved Ivan. So not only did Dimitri lose his best friend, but he lost the man he loved as well, which is why he blamed himself so deeply and shut himself off from others.
Meanwhile, while on the run Rose and Lissa had a little thing going on. Neither really addressed it or labelled it, but they would often hold hands, kiss and cuddle together. They held deep feelings for each other. All alone, two vampire girls in a human world, they turned to each other for love, comfort and affection. It started one night when Rose woke up to one of Lissa’s nightmares through the bond, and climbed into bed with her. The spent all night cuddling.
Rose and Adrian never dated, and are instead the Chaotic Duo (as coined by @thegoldenlily). Instead of their toxic relationship, they formed a solid friendship where they constantly called each other out on their bullshit (including the clown transformation).
Bloodlines, except instead of Angeline coming to guard Jill, Viktoria does instead. Like I love Angeline, but it just makes sense for Viktoria to be chosen instead. She’s someone that Rose knows and trusts much more than Angeline, and Viktoria can get an opportunity to explore the world beyond Baia. I just think it fits, especially because she would be arriving in Palm Springs with Dimitri and they would be there to support each other.
All plot holes can be fixed with Yeva or Abe meddling/withholding information theories. How did Rose and Lissa stay hidden while on the run? Because Abe had people watching out for them from a distance, and was leaking false leads to the academy search team. Dimitri didn’t know that Sonya was pregnant? Yeva informed the family that they weren’t allowed to tell him, and that he’d find out ‘in his own time’.
