Chapter Text
Watching for Comets
A Fire Emblem Three Houses Story
Chapter One
You burn so bright, I see stars.
The way you laugh is like a heavenly choir.
You made me feel invincible.
When you’re with me, I can take on the world.
You were a comet, and I lost it.
Watching for comets, will I see you again?
You burn so bright, you burn me up tonight.
“Now that we know each other, our hearts are connected. Even if our paths diverge, and we’re forced to say good-bye...I know that we’ll meet again.”
Word after word rolled off his tongue, and for a moment, Claude thought perhaps he laid it on a bit too thick. Sure, it was probably really sappy of him to tell her all this—to call her not just his teacher, but his friend—and his timing was horrible, what with the rest of the Golden Deer preparing for the Empire’s assault on Garreg Mach, but something in him screamed that he needed to tell her, now, before the fighting broke out, before battle swept them into the nightmare on the horizon. For now, in this moment, he wanted Teach to know how much she meant to him, that he cared for her and valued their friendship tremendously.
He didn’t expect the way she cocked her head, as if perplexed, until her lips curled into the broadest grin he’d ever seen from her, and the additional flutter of laughter—was she seriously giggling —sent a ripple through him from his toes to the crown of his head. It was rare for Byleth to laugh; hells, it was rare for Byleth to emote anything . Bit by bit in the almost year he’d known her, however, she’d slowly started to come out of that shell, or maybe he’d just gotten better at reading her, or both. She’d laughed only a handful of times before, usually while he told some preposterous story over tea, and each time filled him with a smug sense of satisfaction for breaking past her wall. No, his beloved Teach was a woman of few words and fewer expressions, but the smile she wore now was so genuine and so kind that his chest tightened.
“So what you’re saying is, no matter what happens, I’m stuck with you,” Byleth said, something playful dancing in her eyes.
He recognized the look as his own influence, reflecting back at him to ease the gravity of the moment. Grinning, he shrugged. “I know, I know, it’s kind of a threat, isn’t it,” Claude said genially, tucking his hands behind his head.
She giggled again, and something swooped in his gut. That sound, that rare, floaty, beautiful sound of Byleth genuinely enjoying a conversation...he wanted to keep it forever. No more Garreg Mach, no more war, no more Empire or Kingdom or Alliance, just he and Byleth. He wanted her laughter and her smiles and her kindness all to himself. With her smile to strengthen him, Claude felt invincible. He could do anything, go anywhere, take on the world and shape it into the one in his dreams. Maybe he’d say as such when this battle met its end. He needed something to look forward to after the hell that awaited them.
“Well, if I had to be stuck with anyone, I’m glad it’s you, Claude,” she said, her eyes crinkling with a warmth he could feel in his own body.
Why the hells was he blushing suddenly? And why was his heart threatening to burst out of his chest? Playing off his embarrassment, he huffed a chuckle. “Can’t have you running off without your favorite student, can we?”
Byleth’s eyebrows rose at this, and he expected some retort about how she didn’t play favorites. Instead, however, her lips curved again, her eyes shutting in a way that made her look simultaneously serene and sly (It really wasn’t fair; how did he end up with the most impossibly gorgeous woman in existence as his teacher?). “I suppose we can’t,” she said.
His jaw fell in genuine shock. “So I am your favorite!” Claude said, a grin of bewildered triumph on his face.
That same heavenly, damnable giggle that made his heart skip answered him, and she turned. “As you say,” she said casually, but he could see the way the corners of her mouth quirked upward. “Come on. We need to join the others.”
“Lead the way, my friend,” he said amiably, following only a step behind her.
“Have you seen Teach?”
They lost. It was futile from the beginning, to be honest; the Imperial force greatly outnumbered them, even with... whatever that thing was on their side. Once the Empire secured victory, they gathered the students together in a cluster for further instructions to evacuate the monastery. Claude weaved his way through the crowd, asking his question of any familiar face he saw. Each one shook their head in turn, and the coil of anxiety in his stomach clenched tighter and tighter. As he milled through the procession back into Garreg Mach—to collect their belongings and return to their home territories—he scanned the crowd, desperate for a flash of mint hair in the throng. He caught just that in his periphery, and, breaking rank, he cut through to get closer. Please be Byleth. Please be okay. He needed to know she was okay. He needed to tell her she could come home with him to Derdriu, that she’d be safe in Alliance territory. He needed her verdant eyes, altered from their original cobalt hue, to stare back at him with the understanding that they’d lost this battle but not the war. Together, they could turn this tide another day; he ached for that comfort more than anything else.
It wasn’t Byleth, but instead Lady Rhea, looking stern but submissive with a cohort of Imperial soldiers around her. If anyone knew where Teach was, it was Rhea. She seemed to watch Byleth like a wolf stalking a sheep, doubly so since that day Byleth’s appearance changed. He had to chance it.
“Lady Rhea!” he called out, arm in the air to get her attention. She looked up at him in surprise, as did her cadry of guards, who advanced to stop his further approach. This was his one shot. “ Where is Professor Byleth? ” he shouted, even as the soldiers were upon him, grasping his shoulders to push him back.
Rhea looked at him with a blank gaze, as if she was staring through him, then she shut her eyes and turned her head.
Claude’s heart sank somewhere into the ground as Imperial goons yelled at him to get back in line, shoving him away from the scene and back into the queue of students filing into the monastery.
No. It couldn’t be true. He misinterpreted her body language. Byleth couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t . Not Byleth, the Ashen Demon, the woman who fused with a goddess and cut a hole through the very fabric of reality, not...not his precious Teach. Not the woman who only hours ago giggled at his admission of sentiment, teasing him in a way he knew he’d taught her and that he treasured so, so much. The woman who gave him a wink and a nod before charging down the hill toward the fray, an unspoken promise that she would return. Something scalding burned in his throat, and he slumped his shoulders, accepting the aggressive handling of the soldiers.
He never saw Rhea again.
He...He never saw Byleth again.
Claude awoke with a groan, his arm bent over his head on the pillows. Of course. Of course he’d have that same dream, the same one that plagued him every year around this time....and any time he allowed himself to think about her. He stared at the ceiling in the predawn darkness, debating with himself if he should attempt to sleep some more or just prepare for the day early. Byleth’s face, frowning at him in scolding for not getting enough rest, swam to the front of his mind, and he swallowed, burying it again. Silently, he slipped from beneath the comforter, and his bare feet lapped against tile as he paced the short distance to his bedroom’s balcony.
Ethereal Moon kept the air severely frigid despite the lack of snow, but he ignored that as he stepped out onto the terrace, barefooted and in thin pajamas; if anything, the shock of brisk weather slapped him out of his post-dream stupor. Derdriu sprawled before him, pitch black save for a few flickering watch fires in the distance. The Alliance’s capital, unmarred thus far by the hellish assault of Edelgard. On the horizon, dawn threatened, the faint glow of the new day barely tinting the furthest reaches of the sky. His gaze landed above him, however, staring into the deep blue of the waning night sky, his one source of solace dwindling with the advent of daybreak. Looking at the stars always grounded him, more than anything else in his entire life. It was hard to find your troubles significant when staring into the infinite depths of the cosmos. He’d spent quite a bit of time in the past five years on this very balcony, losing his worries over squabbling lords, Imperial oppression, and barely keeping the Alliance from breaking apart at the seams. The chill of the balcony’s stone wall comforted him as he folded his arms atop it, eyes still transfixed on the few lights that dappled the ever-brightening sky.
Once, he overheard one of Edelgard’s mysterious pals call Byleth, “Fell Star.” It made Claude envision a star that descended from the heavens to the ground below, shedding its light on the world, and he had to agree with the imagery. Byleth shone brighter than anything in the sky, a shooting star that came into his life and then left just as quickly as it arrived. Her light... His light...it wasn’t truly gone, was it? He had to keep believing. He had to hold onto hope. If he lost that too, then what else did he have left? Slouching into the wall, Claude buried his chin into his crossed arms, his thin beard scuffing against his hands. Beards were a badge of honor in Almyran culture, a symbol of maturing into manhood, but damn it all if his mother’s Fódlan genes hadn’t severely incapacitated his ability to grow one. An accent to his jawline was the best his mixed blood could muster, sadly, but he still took pride in it nonetheless. He amused himself for a moment with the thought of Byleth’s reaction to it, to him.
He’d changed. He was no longer that mischievous boy who supposed himself a man, manipulating his way into getting exactly what he wanted. Next year’s Blue Sea Moon would mark his twenty-fourth year, and his seventh in Fódlan. Things certainly had gone to hells since he first arrived in Alliance territory, bearing the Riegan Crest and presenting himself to his now-departed grandfather. The man had never approved of his parents’ relationship—it’s why Claude’s mother fled across the border to marry his father, after all—and he doubly didn’t approve of Claude and his mixed race, at least at first. Claude had no misconceptions about his inheritance of the Riegan estate; had it not been for his uncle’s untimely death and the Crest of Riegan gifted to Claude at birth, he never would have gained his grandfather’s approval. To his credit, though, the old man did soften toward him considerably over time and especially before his death, to the point that Claude felt his grandfather was, in fact, proud of him. Proof that given the opportunity, the people of both Fódlan and Almyra could learn to understand each other, just like he’d always dreamed.
His dreams...Funny, for all his yearning to build his new world, he now couldn’t imagine it being as bright and utopian without Byleth by his side. He missed her. Hells, it was more than missing at this point. He pined for her, ached to see that radiant mop of unevenly-styled seafoam hair, to hear that sweet trill of her laughter again. He no longer fooled himself, brushing away his own feelings out of embarrassment or some damnable need to consider their relationship platonic. No, he was older now, which had to mean he was wiser, right? Regardless, he didn’t deny it. He loved Byleth. Claude loved her more than he ever thought was possible in a man. Being apart all this time, not knowing where she was or if she was even alive, shattered his heart into tiny pieces that he then painstakingly reassembled until the next time he crumbled under the weight of longing for her. To be certain, he had plenty of activity to distract him during the day, and he put on a strong front of his typical airy demeanor, but the nights...alone with his thoughts and his heartache, the nights brought him nothing but personal misery. And so, in an effort to shake himself out of his doldrums, he turned to the stars, to the one comfort he had left.
Dawn crept ever closer in the distance, the stars fading until he could no longer see them. Sighing through his nose, he straightened, retreating to the warmth of his bedchamber to begin the day.
He’d see her again. He’d bet his life on it.