Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They say that when the Nabateans came to Fodlan from another galaxy, they brought with them technology so advanced they were heralded as miracles.

Genetic modifications called “Crests” that grant the bearer special powers. Powerful weapons that could be wielded by people with that genetic code. Space travel that connected Fodlan’s solar systems.

These were all the gifts of the Goddess, and the Church of Seiros reigned strong in most corners of the Fodlan Galaxy.

But there are always exceptions, and Byleth counted among them.

It might sound contradictory considering their lifestyle, but despite working as mercenaries, Jeralt has always done his best to keep his daughter as sheltered as possible. Not from blood and violence, but sheltered from things like the influence of prejudice and custom, authority and religion.

From the Church.

They were constantly on the move, never staying in one place for long under the pretense of chasing the next job. Jeralt was the one who dealt with the clients, never Byleth. And he always, always kept her away from the Church.

Byleth never questioned it. Just like she never asked about his past, or about her mother, or about anything, really.

But when her spacecraft is shot down out of the blue, she wonders if maybe she should have asked why they’re in hiding.

And who to fine for her broken spaceship.

Byleth coughs through the smoke as she kicks open the caved door of her wrecked ship, and her hand comes away from her mouth bloodied. The fall hadn’t been exactly gentle, and her ride didn’t have much in ways for protection since it was only a short-distance one-man spaceship she’d been using for an errand. Her only saving grace was the fact that she had just barely taken off and hadn’t been high enough that the fall had turned fatal.

She stumbles away from the smoking wreckage, trying to get her bearings. She’d spiralled off course while falling and isn’t familiar with this planet in the first place so she has no idea where she is. Hopefully there’s a town or some people around that she can borrow a transmitter from because the one in her ship has taken a beating.

But when she emerges from the brushes, what she finds is a child stained in red, desperately trying to staunch the blood from a boy’s severed leg.

A man rushes towards them, axe raised and a snarl on his lips.

And Byleth doesn’t know these people. She doesn’t know what’s going on. But she catches sight of the fear and desperation on the child’s face, sees eyes so red and puffed from all the tears they’ve been abused by, and she moves without thinking.

She throws herself in front of the axe.

But before the blade can rend her back open, time shatters .

Something roars like an engine in her ears and her absent heart gives a single pulse and it feels like she’s being sucked into a black hole—

[Honestly!]

Byleth gasps as the pressing sensation is lifted. She opens her eyes at the high, childish voice to find herself in a strange place that’s all black like space without the stars, with only a green-haired girl on a stone throne and Byleth herself in existence within this universe.

The girl sighs at her.

[What are you accomplishing with that little stunt?! It’s like you’re trying to get me killed, you fool!]

But then she smiles at Byleth and consents to turn back the hands of time to save them both.

[You can call me Sothis. But I am also known as “The Beginning.”]

And so, following space travel, Byleth now gets to experience time travel too.

If it were anyone else, they might have had a freakout or breakdown right then and there.

But because Byleth was born almost barren of emotions, because only machinery whirls away where there should be a heartbeat, because she’s lived through life in a haze as if she’s half asleep— she just takes it in stride. And when time restarts and she sees the man surging forward once more, this time, she’s ready.

Byleth knocks the axe out of the man’s hand with a well-placed blow to his elbow with her sword. The man drops the weapon with a cry of pain and Byleth kicks it away before he can lunge for it.

She had only meant to stop him, and then maybe ask what’s going on. But the moment the man registers her, his face contorts into a snarl and he reaches for her with hands outstretched as if to strangle her.

Byleth is acutely familiar with violence and battle. She recognizes that there will be no reasoning with bloodlust like this.

She brings up her sword in a swift slash that cleanly slits his throat.

Byleth steps away from the spray of blood as the man falls with barely a gurgle. She turns around to face the two people she’d shielded. The boy with a missing leg seems to be on the verge of passing out, due to blood loss or shock, she’s not sure.

The other child is awake and wide-eyed, though, looking up at her in— what, she’s not sure. Byleth has never been good with emotions, whether they be her own or deciphering others’.

It’s no use asking anything when she’s already sided with them and killed (and died) for them, she supposes. So instead of asking questions, she just sheathes her sword and approaches the two slowly as she would an injured or frightened animal. The child is trembling slightly and watches her every move, but it seems saving them has dulled some of the wariness as they don’t try to pull away when Byleth gently kneels down beside them and reaches out her hand.

Byleth wordlessly lays a hand on the child’s bloody shoulder and the faint glow of a Heal spell lights their faces.

The child gasps in surprise as the pain fades away, and then grabs Byleth’s hand with desperation.

“Please, heal Glenn! He’s more hurt than me, he got hurt trying to defend me, and he’s— he’s the only one I have left—! ”

Byleth blinks, both at the sudden outburst and at the child’s voice—because while it’s still high-pitched like a child’s, it’s unmistakably the voice of a boy, where Byleth had assumed he was a girl given his delicate features and blonde hair that reached his shoulders—but soon nods and reaches out to heal the boy too. Her Faith magic isn’t the best, but at the very least it will heal him—Glenn?—enough that he won’t bleed to death.

The blonde boy sighs in relief when the blood stops flowing and the older boy’s face loses some of the strain.

Then both turn their eyes on Byleth again. It seems like they’re about to say something when another cough tears its way out of her mouth. The blonde’s eyes widen at the blood spilling from her lips, finally seeming to realize all the wounds on Byleth’s body from the crash landing.

“You’re bleeding!” he exclaims.

“So I am,” Byleth acknowledges dryly.

The two boys look at her like they can’t believe her, and their expressions are enough to make the green-haired being snort inside Byleth’s head.

It’s the last thing she sees before she passes out.

Chapter Text

It’s been three days since Dimitri came to Duscur.

Three days since his family was murdered in front of his eyes. Three days since all the knights and servants he knew were slaughtered. Three days since he and Glenn have been on the run.

Dimitri’s gone through the stages of horror, denial, rage, grief, and has settled on a bone-deep weariness by now, but his limbs still tremble and his ears still ring with screams of the dead.

Glenn would be among them too, if it weren’t for the teal-haired stranger.

As if prompted by his thoughts, the woman groans quietly as she wakes. Her dark lashes flutter, and even before her eyes fully open her hand shoots for her weapon. She only relaxes her grip on the hilt of her sword after she takes a good look at their surroundings and finds only Dimitri and Glenn in the vicinity.

She blinks at them. Dimitri stares back. Glenn is passed out.

“...Are you alright?” Dimitri eventually asks. The woman has healed both him and Glenn, only to throw up blood and collapse herself. He doesn’t want to see another person die, especially if that person saved him and, more importantly, saved Glenn.

If the woman detects the slight unstableness colouring his voice, she does him a service and doesn’t acknowledge it.

“I will be,” she says simply. But Dimitri can see how her wounds still bleed sluggishly. He bites his lip.

“Can’t you heal yourself?” he asks helplessly.

“The Heal spell can only heal others, not yourself,” she tells him in a monotonous voice. He isn’t sure if her blank stare is meant to be reapproaching or if she’s just stating a fact.

The woman doesn’t dwell on it. Instead she takes another look around and blinks slowly at the interior of the small broken spaceship they’re inside.

“You brought me to my ship,” she says, and Dimitri relaxes a little.

“Oh, good, so it is your ship. I carried you and Glenn here because we needed shelter and I couldn’t find anywhere else.”

At that, the woman turns her blue-grey eyes on him.

“You... carried both of us here. On your own,” she repeats slowly.

“Yes?”

He knows how ridiculous it must sound. Dimitri, at age thirteen, is tiny compared to fifteen-year-old Glenn or even the woman, who looks to be even older than Glenn. But the genetic modifications brought by the Crest of Blaiddyd grants him superhuman strength, so even though he’s small, he had no trouble carrying them here.

He’s ready for her questions. But instead of pressing, she just accepts his answer and nods.

And then she falls silent.

She doesn’t ask who he and Glenn are. Doesn’t ask what they were doing, or why they’re covered in wounds, or why someone was trying to murder them. She just presses a hand to the wound on her stomach and leans on the wall of her ship, seeming content to share her space with Dimitri and a still passed out Glenn.

So it’s Dimitri who breaks the silence.

He could have—should have—said a number of things. Thanked her for saving him, for saving Glenn. Asked who she was. Why she was here.

But when he opens his mouth, what he finds himself blurting out instead is—

“Why was there a bear in your spaceship?”

The woman blinks.

“Father said he wanted Duscur bear steak,” she states, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And Duscur was only a few planets away.”

Dimitri finds himself staring.

“So... you went hunting. A few planets away. Just because your father said he wanted Duscur bear steak,” he repeats.

The woman just shrugs a shoulder.

Dimitri stares.

And then the most ridiculous thing happens.

Dimitri laughs.

Here he is, the Crown Prince of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. He’s just watched his family slaughtered a few days ago. Countless friends and knights had died trying to save at least him. He and Glenn had been on the run for the past few days, and Glenn too almost died protecting him. And then the one person who comes and saves them didn’t even mean to, but just happened to have come here for bear steak.

The absurdity of the situation (and perhaps the hysteria and trauma that had been steadily building over the past few days) renders him helpless as he laughs. The stranger doesn’t say anything about his outburst, even when his fits of laughter turn into sobs. She just sits there quietly, and while she doesn’t offer any platitudes or sympathy, her gaze is devoid of any judgement.

For some reason, Dimitri finds it comforting.

*

The woman only moves after Dimitri has calmed down.

She tentatively rises with one hand to her stomach and the other gripping the wall. Dimitri wipes the tears off his cheeks and scrambles to help, but he’s just waved away. Her face betrays no pain or discomfort as she opens a compartment. Most of the vials of medicine inside are shattered, presumably from the fall. The woman lets out a breath that might have been a sigh from anyone else. Then she takes a swing from one of the few surviving Vulneraries and picks up a few other bottles.

“Do you know if there are any towns we can request help from nearby?”

Dimitri shakes his head. He and Glenn had been purposefully running into the woods in hopes of losing their pursuers. Also, they’re not sure where the people of Duscur stand. Dimitri is as likely to get help as he is to get a knife in his back, so they’ve stayed away from people they don’t know.

The woman is obviously an exception, and again, she lets out a little not-quite-a-sigh.

“We’ll have to somehow repair my transmitter ourselves, then,” she says, and Dimitri follows her gaze and winces at the mess of metal and wire that must have once been her communication system. “I’m not much good at repairs, so it might take a while to send out a signal. Do you have someone you can call for help?”

“Yes,” Dimitri answers. His uncle Rufus, Gustave, Rodrigue. “I’m actually the pri—”

Glenn kicks him.

Dimitri whirls around to find that Glenn has woken up and is staring at the woman with narrowed eyes.

“Before that. Who are you, anyway?” Glenn asks.

The woman blinks at them slowly, likely catching on to the fact that Glenn had stopped Dimitri from telling her who he was.

“Glenn,” she eventually calls, probably remembering what Dimitri had called him. Glenn shoots Dimitri a dirty look for already having given her leverage and the prince shuffles guiltily. The woman takes no heed and just passes Glenn some vials. “Drink these. They’re Vulneraries and Antitoxins. My Faith magic isn’t very good, so we’ll have to rely on them. Plus,” she lays the back of her hand on Glenn’s forehead. “You have a fever.”

Glenn swats her hand away, though he tellingly keeps the vials of medicine. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Hmm,” she hums. “How about this. You don’t ask who I am, I don’t ask who you are. We repair the transmitter, call for help, and go our separate ways.”

“Just like that?” Glenn presses. “Why did you even save us if you’re not even going to tell us who you are?”

The woman shrugs a shoulder. “I’m in hiding. I think.”

“You think? ” Glenn repeats with disbelief at the same time Dimitri curiously asks “Why?”

Again, she shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know. I never asked.”

Dimitri and Glenn stare at her. She stares back.

“What the fuck,” Glenn eventually sighs. He downs the vials she gave him like they’re shots of whiskey (never mind that he’s underage) and flops back on the floor. He’s out cold again in five seconds.

Dimitri stares down at his unconscious friend and knight, feeling oddly betrayed.

“Well then,” the woman says after a beat. She pulls out a tool kit and drops a wrench in Dimitri’s hands. “Let’s get to work.”

*

The next few days are... strange, to say the least.

True to her promise, the woman doesn’t ask anything even when a few more people discover them and she’s forced to kill them. She does so with a grace that belies her injuries, and her face betrays no emotion when she cuts them down or when she searches their bodies for supplies.

Glenn is unconscious more than he’s not. The wound of his severed leg has closed but he’s still far from healthy, having been exposed to the wild with an open wound for too long and having lost too much blood. Vulneraries and Heal spells are meant for flesh wounds, after all, so their effect on the fever that has set in is limited. The woman passes her hand over his burning forehead and presses Heal spells into him whenever her mana recharges, but it only temporarily reduces the fever.

“I’m not much good at Faith magic. If only I knew Restore...” she trails off, and though her face remains as stoic as ever, Dimitri thinks maybe she sounds a bit regretful.

The woman herself is slowly healing too even without the aid of white magic or medicine. She refuses to use any more of the meagre medications that survived the fall, using them instead all on Glenn, saying he’s in much worse shape than herself. Dimitri is torn between being worried and grateful.

Dimitri is the only one unscathed (at least physically) and tries to help as best he can as the woman hobbles around the small spaceship trying to repair the communication systems.

They skin the bear and eat it.

It’s... peaceful, almost, in an odd way.

Dimitri doesn't know what to make of it.

*

“Why did you save us?” Dimitri asks one day. “You never really answered.”

The woman, who’d been reaching for the tool kit Dimitri is holding for her, pauses and looks at him. Dimitri swallows at the impassive, almost blank stare that he’s yet to get used to.

“I mean, you don’t know us. You don’t know me, but you still threw yourself in front of me. Are you a knight?”

A righteous and courageous knight, like the idealized image he was taught in chivalric tales, is the only thing a young prince can think up.

But the woman shakes her head.

“I’m a mercenary.”

A space merc. He’s heard about them, of course, soldiers with no loyalty but plenty of skill, travelling between planets and solar systems as the job calls, who fight not for honour but for a paycheck. The complete opposite of a knight. (And, Glenn would whisper to him later, notoriously famous for being almost impossible to track down their true identities.)

“Oh,” he says. “Well, I don’t have much on me...” he drifts off. Maybe some decorations on his clothes might be worth something if pawned off? He doesn’t think Glenn has any bullions on him either, but it can’t hurt to check—

The woman stops Dimitri before he can raid Glenn’s pockets while he’s unconscious. She shakes her head and picks up the wrench from the tool kit Dimitri is holding.

“I didn’t save you because of a contract.”

Dimitri stills.

“Then why?” he asks in a trembling voice. Even though it’s been days since... since the tragedy, he’s still raw with mistrust after having his back stabbed and his world burnt down. “Why did you save me? You don’t even know me.”

The woman just looks at him for a long moment, and despite her impassive face, Dimitri somehow gets the impression that she herself is trying to find the answer too.

“...Because it was the right thing to do,” she says at long length.

Dimitri finds he has nothing to say to that.

*

A few hours later, Dimitri asks another question.

“How did you crash in the first place?”

Duscur is a small planet, and its atmosphere doesn’t have any turbulent force fields that make it hard to fly ships off planet.

The woman shrugs a shoulder.

“I was shot down.”

And Dimitri’s heart sinks.

She was probably shot down by the same people who murdered his family (and his friends and tutors and servants and knights). She must have gotten caught up in this mess.

In a sense, it’s his fault.

Guilt clogs his throat.

Dimitri doesn’t ask any more questions that day.

*

But the next day, he asks her other questions. What she’s repairing first. How she knows about the plants they’re gathering for food. Who taught her to hunt. What her favourite meal is.

Dimitri asks, and the woman answers.

It goes on like that. Dimitri asks questions or just talks to her in an attempt to distract himself from the memories of gore and violence fringing on the edge of his vision. The woman still doesn’t speak much without prompting, but she always answers his questions and listens when he speaks.

Dimitri just lost his family, his friend and knight is lying unconscious on a sickbed, and he’s basically stranded on an unfamiliar planet.

It’s only natural that he latches on to the only person he can.

*

Out of the three main solar systems in the Fodlan Galaxy, the Holy Kingdom of Faerhgus is the coldest. Their sun is small and far away from its planets, unlike the blazing suns of the Empire and Alliance. Their entire solar system is cold, doesn’t have enough sunlight, crops don’t do very well, and has an all-around harsh climate.

Duscur is one of the planets on the fringes of their solar system. So even though it’s not yet winter, the nights are biting cold. The heating systems of the woman’s spaceship are thankfully undamaged but they keep the temperature set at a minimum in an effort to conserve fuel.

Instead, they huddle together at night.

The spacecraft is a small, cramped thing in the first place, only a modest a one-person ship. Dimitri had had to drag the bear carcass outside before he could even bring the two unconscious people in. Glenn lays on a mat for most of the time and he gets the thickest blanket since he’s still feverish. Dimitri and the woman huddle together beside him at night, sharing one quilt and body heat between them.

When Dimitri is wakened by nightmares, the woman simply puts her arm around his shoulders and pulls him more into her side.

Dimitri has never been treated like this before. She isn’t like his parents, who clearly love him but are stern and demanding. She isn’t like his tutors or knights, who somehow look up to him as a royal and look down at him as a child at the same time. She isn’t like his friends, who joke and play with him but are still glaringly aware of his status as their future king. She just treats him like... a person. Not as a royal or noble or even as a child, just a person. And it’s... nice.

She doesn’t ask questions, but she answers when he asks her. She listens when he speaks. She nods and accepts his words without a hint of doubt. She has no judgement in her eyes when he wakes from tearful nightmares.

Dimitri finds himself latching on to her at an almost alarming rate.

Not only did this person save him, but she saved Glenn (saved Dimitri from losing one more person). She was the one person who was there when he was at his lowest, as odd and apathetic as she may seem. She took care of him without question. And as the days pass, she starts to gently rub his back when he wakes them both with his nightmares. Now, she awkwardly pats his head when he tries to help her with repairs or preparing food. She lets him burrow into her during the cold nights.

The gentleness of human contact is so stark and jarring after the bloodshed and cruelty he witnessed.

She saved him in more ways than one.

With all that he’s been through, it’s really no wonder that Dimitri clings to her.

So one night, when he’s woken by yet another nightmare and the woman sleepily rubs his back— he can’t help but ask her.

“What’s your name?”

His voice is barely a whisper.

It’s a breach of their promise, Dimitri knows. But while it’s nice that not knowing each other means she doesn’t hold him at arm's length for being a prince, it also makes him insecure because he doesn’t even have a name to call her by.

“I know what we promised,” Dimitri continues in a rush. “You don’t have to tell me who you are, it’s just, I need— I want something to call you. Please.”

It’s dangerously close to begging.

For a moment that feels like an eternity, she doesn’t say anything. Her hand stops rubbing his back and she goes very, very still.

Dimitri’s heart sinks.

Of course, the woman wouldn’t be as attached to him as he is to her. She is his saviour, but he’s just a child she happened to rescue. He shouldn’t have thought (hoped) they’d grown close enough for her to trust him with her name when she’s in hiding.

He starts to think she won’t answer him when she finally does. Her voice is light as a sigh, soft and careful, as if she herself isn’t used to its sound.

“Byleth.”

Dimitri’s heart soars at the implied trust in her answer.

At first he thinks she said Violet, but then realizes no, it’s much softer and rounder than that. The v rounded into a b, and instead of a sharp t it was a soft th.

“Byleth,” he repeats carefully, trying out the name, savouring how it tastes like a triumph.

The woman—Byleth—hums and pats his back almost as if by habit.

Dimitri lays next to her, his back pressed against Glenn and half embraced by Byleth.

He can’t think of anywhere he’d rather be at this moment.

“And you?” Byleth asks, and Dimitri flushes with pleasure that she’d ask for his name in turn.

Dimitri smiles. (He doesn’t realize it’s the first time he’s smiled since the massacre.)

“My name is Dim— ah!” Dimitri cuts himself off. Hadn’t he just been thinking about how nice it was to interact with someone who didn’t know that he was the Crown Prince of Faerghus? He’d ruin that by giving his true name. Dimitri isn’t a common name, after all.

But at the same time, he doesn’t want to outright lie to her, either. And he doesn’t like the idea of her calling him by someone else’s name.

“Di...ma?” Byleth repeats his stumble with a questioning lilt, and actually, that works out perfectly. Granted, ‘Dima’ had been a pet name that only his parents had used, and even that only until he’d turned ten, but it brings back fond memories. And for some reason, Dimitri doesn’t dislike this person calling him such an intimate name.

“Dima,” he affirms firmly.

Byleth pats his back again.

“Dima,” she calls him sleepily. “Go back to sleep.”

And so Dimitri becomes Dima for Byleth.

*

Just as Dimitri had hoped, they become closer after sharing their names.

Dimitri comes to learn to read Byleth’s impassive face and tone a little better. Byleth, in turn, starts to notice that Dimitri can’t taste anything (especially with how he almost poured sugar in his stew instead of salt) and takes it upon herself to season all his food for him.

Glenn, understandably, is flabbergasted at this development.

“Dima,” Byleth calls. “The driver.”

“Coming!” Dimitri answers as he rummages through the tool kit, and he can’t help the way his stomach flip-flops happily at how easily his pet name rolls off her tongue.

But Glenn, who’d been in one of his rare moments of wakefulness, startles at their exchange. His eyebrows shoot up incredulously.

Dima? he mouths at Dimitri.

Dimitri chucks a wiping cloth at his face. Just for that, he’s never telling Glenn her name.

“Hey!” Glenn grouses and claws the oily cloth off his face.

Byleth leans around a crate and fixes Glenn with her deadpan stare.

“Glenn. You’ll worsen your fever. Stop flailing around or I’m letting Dima salt your lunch again.”

Glenn sputters, and Dimitri actually laughs.

(He doesn’t notice the surprise and relief that flashes across Glenn’s face at his bright expression. And if Glenn subtly softens towards Byleth after that, well. It’s no one’s business but his own.)

*

It takes them a full week to repair the transmitter.

Byleth, as per usual, doesn’t make any fanfare or commotion over it.

“Dima,” she just calls him. When he comes over, she hands him the device wordlessly.

It takes a moment for him to catch on.

“We’re done? It’s fixed?!”

Byleth nods, and motions for him to use it.

Even though she too had been stranded (and he still feels like it’s his fault), she’s giving him the first call. As if it’s the most natural and obvious thing to do.

A lump forms in Dimitri’s throat even as he takes the device with shaking hands.

“It’s not fully operational, so it can only send and receive short messages,” Byleth explains, almost apologetic despite her usual smooth tone. Dimitri nods. It’s more than enough.

Who should he call? Who can he call? Most of the people he was close to in the castle died in the massacre. But then Dimitri’s eyes drift to Glenn’s sleeping face.

Rodrigue.

Dimitri punches in the address and the message hastily. That he and Glenn are alive but stranded. Byleth tells him the coordinates of their location, and he adds that too.

Byleth sends off a message of her own when Dimitri’s done. When he asks, she hesitates for a terrifying moment where he wonders if he’s overstepped before she tells him it’s to her father.

Right. The one who wanted bear steak.

Dimitri has never met the man, doesn’t even know his name, yet he hates him for unknowingly sending Byleth into danger and loves him for bringing her to Dimitri.

Rodrigue doesn’t keep them waiting for long.

They’re heating up some rabbit stew. Byleth salts a bowl and tastes it before nodding and handing it to Dimitri, as she’s taken to doing. They’ve barely started eating when the transmitter starts beeping.

Byleth stands up and crosses the few steps to the machine, then she brings the transmitter over.

“Dima,” she says, almost gently. Dimitri takes the device from her hands.

Gustave will be there by tomorrow. Thank you for being alive. Both of you.

The breath escapes him in a gush. He hunches over. He’s not quite sure what the emotions that are overcoming him are. It feels like everything at the same time.

A gentle hand on his shoulder pulls him back up. Dimitri raises his head to find that Byleth had saved his bowl from being knocked over.

“Eat first,” she says, firmly but not unkindly. Dimitri nods with a grin that comes to him more and more easily.

“Gustave is coming,” he tells her excitedly. “He teaches me and Glenn martial arts and tactics, and he can be stern and strict, but he once woke us in the middle of the night and told us to go catch a deer! And also—”

Dimitri doesn’t notice that he’s prattling excitedly, but Byleth listens to it all and nods or hums here and there.

“You should come with us. I’m sure everyone will welcome you once they know you saved us—” But Byleth cuts him off at that.

“Dima.”

She shakes her head.

“I can’t.”

And just like that, Dimitri’s heart sinks. Oh. Right. She’s in hiding.

His mood suddenly darkens, even with the prospect of returning home. He’s become attached to Byleth, he admits, and she had become his emotional anchor while he was at his lowest.

Byleth doesn’t seem to notice, though, and checks the transmitter as it beeps once again.

“My own ride will be arriving soon too. I’ll probably leave before daybreak.”

It’s implied that these are their last moments together.

At that thought, Dimitri finds that his hands have reached out on their own accord to grasp Byleth’s arm. She blinks down at him, and Dimitri is surprised by his own forward actions. He was raised better than this, to be polite and courteous and proper, but—

“Can I see you again?” he blurts out desperately. He wracks his mind. Dimitri knows she’s in hiding, so he can’t exactly ask her to waltz through the gates of Fhirdiad, not to mention that she still doesn’t even know he’s the Crown Prince of Faerghus yet.

“Here!” he exclaims as a thought strikes him. Dimitri fumbles through the bundle of what little possessions he has and draws out a knife with a blue scabbard. It was made for his tenth birthday, but that’s not what’s important with now.

“There’s a keystone in the pommel,” Dimitri tells her hurriedly as he holds up the knife. “It leads to a private warp zone that no one else knows—” well, no one except the royal family, but he’s the only survivor now “—so you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing you. You could come here to meet me when you have time, or when you want to, just, please, I never even thanked you properly—!”

“Dima,” Byleth’s hand comes to gently rest on top of his own, cutting off his blubbering stream of words. “Breathe.”

Dimitri does. He takes in a deep breath, and Byleth pats his head as if praising him.

Byleth waits for Dimitri to take a few breaths before speaking hesitantly.

“I might only be able to stop by once in a few weeks. Or even a few months.”

It takes a moment for Dimitri to understand.

“That’s fine,” he says eagerly. “I can wait.”

When Dimitri looks up, he finds that Byleth’s face still isn’t smiling, but it’s just a hint softer and—dare he say—fonder than he’s ever seen before.

She takes the knife from his hands and carefully puts it away in her coat.

“Then I’ll be seeing you,” Byleth says simply.

It’s not a goodbye.

It’s a promise.

Dimitri can live with that.

Chapter Text

Dimitri is sure she didn’t mean to, but over the next months, Byleth becomes the worst kept secret in Fhirdiad.

Worst kept, because everyone in the castle knows of the mysterious mercenary that saved the prince and heir Fraldarius. And that Dimitri sneaks off to meet her every few weeks.

But still secret, because Dimitri refuses to betray her trust and tell anyone her name.

It drives Rodrigue crazy.

“It is not that I am not thankful,” the man who’d become something of a second father to Dimitri had insisted. “But it does not bode well that she felt the need to hide her identity. And with the state of things, we must be vigilant. Saving you was one thing, but meeting you again? Repeatedly? Alone?” The man had shaken his head. “Please, Your Highness, at least let me look into her identity to verify whether she is to be trusted or not.”

But Dimitri wouldn’t.

And it’s not like anyone can even stop Dimitri from meeting her even if they try. Warp zones can only be accessed through other warp zones, and only if you have the right Crest or keystone. Dimitri is the last bearer of the Crest of Blaiddyd and the dagger he gave Byleth holds one of the few keystones that lead to the secret chamber that acts as a sort private bunker for the royal family. No one other than the two of them can even access it, so no one in the Kingdom can stop them from meeting.

At Dimitri’s stubborn silence, Rodrigue turned to his eldest son. But Glenn wasn’t much help either.

“I don’t know her name. And I didn’t pay much attention to what she looked like. Who am I, Sylvain?” Glenn had scoffed. He would have left it at that if Rodrigue hadn’t looked like he was going to burst an artery.

“She had dark hair and dark eyes?” He made a token effort. He paused, then, “and she was really good with a sword,” he added with grudging respect.

Rodrigue looked like he was on the verge of tearing his hair out. “Of course that’s the one thing you’d notice even when you’re bleeding to death. So I am to find a female mercenary with dark hair and eyes out of the thousands in the entire galaxy. Goddess, it would be easier to find a needle in a haystack.”

(Glenn only gives Rodrigue the most important piece of information when he thinks Dimitri isn’t listening. The older boy is still in the infirmary, recovering from his loss of a leg and his fever, and Rodrigue is staying up with him. Dimitri had been on his way to check on them when he noticed the two whispering and ducked behind a pillar to listen.

“Relax, old man. She really did seem trustworthy, even if she was a bit weird.” Glenn pauses, then amends, “really weird.”

“You do know that’s not helping,” Rodrigue sighs. “Why are you defending her so much, anyway? I know you—all of us—owe her a great debt, and I understand that His Highness must have latched onto her when he was emotionally vulnerable, but for you to be this trusting? There must be a reason.”

Glenn is quiet for a moment, and Dimitri holds his breath from his hiding place.

“She made him smile,” Glenn eventually says gruffly. “She made him laugh. ...I could barely even get him to talk in those three days before we met her, but she... she made him brighter. Better.”

Silence follows this revelation.

“...Then I pray to the Goddess that His Highness is in good hands,” Rodrigue eventually sighs.

After that, Rodrigue doesn’t badger Dimitri about Byleth as much anymore.)

*

His other friends are more positive—almost too positive, if you ask Dimitri. They all try to talk Dimitri into letting them meet her or even try to secretly follow him down to the royal bunker.

Ingrid was in awe when she heard the story. The way Byleth risked her life for strangers and cut down foes effortlessly despite her own injuries seemed to spark fervent hero-worship in the girl. “A true lady knight!” she exclaims with starry eyes and willfully ignores Dimitri trying to tell her that Byleth had been a mercenary, not a knight.

Felix wants to meet her as well. “I want to fight her,” he demands. “If Glenn says she’s strong, she must be strong.”

“Not to mention beautiful!” Sylvain winks. “She must be a looker if she could get even our pure little princeling head over heels, crushing this hard on her.”

The prince blushes to the roots of his hair at Sylvain’s leer and waggling eyebrows.

Dimitri respects Byleth, is grateful to her, is grateful for her, looks up to her strength and kindness, misses her when she’s gone, looks forward to seeing her again, feels more alive when she’s with him, and is admittedly probably far too attached to be normal. But it isn’t anything like a crush.

“It’s not a crush!” he insists.

It really isn’t.

*

Until it is.

Byleth has started teaching Dimitri weaponry and tactics. Gustave has left in the wake of what people are now calling the Tragedy of Duscur, Glenn is still recovering from losing a leg, and while Felix is always eager for a spar he’s not yet skilled enough to be able to properly hold his own against Dimitri’s brute strength. There’s no one in the castle to help Dimitri with his training, and Byleth fills that void perfectly.

It’s been six months since they started meeting, and this time Byleth has shown Dimitri a particular dodge move. He’s been having trouble with it since it’s vastly different from the stiff style of the Kingdom knights he’s used to, but he’s determined to master it.

“Ah!” Dimitri exclaims once he manages to flip correctly while using his practice spear as support. “Did you see that?!”

He turns excitedly to Byleth, and—

—oh.

“Well done, Dima,” she praises, and a small part of Dimitri notes that she’s become better at giving encouragement. But most of his brain has halted to a full stop at the small but genuine smile that’s actually gracing her lips.

Byleth has become more expressive over the months, and Dimitri likes to think it’s at least partly due to his influence. But he’s never seen her smile before. Not until now. And—

“Can you make that expression one more time?” he blurts out.

Byleth blinks, then raises a hand. Her fingertips touch the corner of her lips and she seems as surprised to find them upturned.

But then the surprise turns into humour as those lips curve again.

“Like this?” she says, almost teasingly.

Dimitri finds that he can only stare at her smile.

It’s downright mesmerizing.

A snap sounds as his practice lance breaks in his grip but Dimitri doesn't even have the attention to spare for it, still transfixed by Byleth as he is.

Oh, he thinks as he swallows hard.

Oh.

*

Of course, because Byleth is Fhirdiad’s worst kept secret and his vassals apparently don’t have a life, everyone that Dimitri is close to knows about his realization by the end of the week.

Sylvain rolls around on the floor laughing, Ingrid only makes a token effort in trying to shush him, Rodrigue sighs like the Goddess has personally put the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Glenn and Felix scoff and a roll their eyes in eerie synchronization.

“Oh, Goddess,” Sylvain gasps from the floor. “At first I was only teasing about the puppy love, but it actually came true!”

“What did you expect,” Glenn scoffs. “He made her call him his pet name within the first few days he met her—”

“Glenn!” Dimitri yells, blushing hard.

“It’s so romantic!” Ingrid has both her hands to her cheeks, her eyes dancing with stars. “Falling in love after a dramatic rescue! It’s just like the knights and fair maidens in the stories! Although, I suppose that makes you the damsel in distress, Your Highness!”

Even Felix snorts at that. Sylvain sounds like a dying cat.

Dimitri just buries his flaming face in his hands.

*

“So what, you go through all that trouble to sneak off and meet each other in private, and all you do is talk and train?” Sylvain shakes his head and sighs dramatically, as if Dimitri’s lack of romantic tact personally pains him. “You’re gonna have to do better than that if you wanna woo her, Your Highness.”

Dimitri blushes red. He isn’t trying to, to woo Byleth, even if he’s realized his feelings for her.

To Dimitri’s eyes, Byleth seems so old and wise and strong, so far away, untouchable. He feels humbled and honoured to even be able to keep seeing her like this. And he knows that he’s probably just a child in Byleth’s eyes.

(Not to mention that Byleth once told him, in an off-hand manner, that the first time she saw him she’d thought he was a girl. Dimitri had been mortified at that revelation.)

(Dimitri swears to Felix that this had no influence whatsoever in his decision to cut his hair.)

(He’s lying.)

“Please tell me that training isn’t all you do with her. Have you at least given her any gifts?” Sylvain presses.

Clearly, his subjects don’t have a life if the future head of Gautier is this invested in what Dimitri is adamantly refusing to call his love life. (He’s still only thirteen, damn it, and calling it puppy love doesn’t do what he’s feeling justice, saying it’s a simple crush feels insultingly underwhelming, but he doesn’t feel ready to call this love yet.)

“I gave her my dagger,” Dimitri says defensively.

Sylvain isn’t impressed.

“A dagger?!”

“She liked it!” Dimitri defends, then remembers Byleth’s chronically blank face. “...I think.”

“You don’t just go around giving women daggers! It doesn’t matter if it has the keystone to the most private and secret warp zone in the entire Kingdom, it’s still a dagger! Try flowers. Or sweets, or even lipstick—”

That’s all Sylvain manages to get out before Ingrid calmly whacks her tome of chivalric tales against the back of his head.

And you see, Dimitri would like to think that he knows better than to listen to anything that comes out of Sylvain’s mouth regarding women, especially considering that the older boy’s exploits including trying to flirt with Ingrid’s grandmother and crossdressing men. But the thing is that Sylvain’s words stick with him, and he can’t help but think them over.

Dimitri isn’t trying to woo Byleth. Really. It’s enough that he gets some of her time and attention. But... if he can do something for her, make her happier, tease out that hard-earned smile again... well. He’s done worse things than following Sylvain’s advice.

So the next time Byleth comes to visit, Dimitri goes to the bunker with a bouquet of flowers clutched in his hands.

Byleth blinks and cocks her head at the vibrant phlox, the clusters of winter jasmine, the shy snowdrops, the spring of bleeding hearts, and the single camellia blossom thrust her way. It’s a messy bouquet as the prince had more or less raided the royal gardens and doesn’t know the first thing about arranging flowers. But he hopes she can still feel the sentiment behind them.

Dimitri fights to keep from fidgeting as he bites his lower lip and colour floods his cheeks.

“These, um, are for you,” he stammers.

Eloquent.

Byleth isn’t phased by his stammering, as she never is. She reaches out and takes the flowers carefully, oh so carefully from Dimitri’s outstretched hands, as if she’s never received anything like it.

For some reason it feels like it’s his heart she’s cradling in her hands, not stems of flowers.

Byleth lowers her face to the blossoms and inhales with her eyes closed. Dimitri gulps at the sight, transfixed by how the bright flowers contrast with her dark hair and clothes, how peaceful she looks, and—

—oh. There’s that smile he’s hoped (wished) (prayed) to see.

Her smile is a small thing, rare and fleeting, soft and fragile as the flowers she holds but more beautiful than any blossom.

“Thank you, Dima,” she says softly, and Dimitri feels something unfurl in his chest, like a kitten purring and stretching in sunlight.

He’s still swallowing hard and struggling to respond when Byleth reaches for her pack and brings out something.

“These are for you,” she says, echoing Dimitri’s words.

He blinks, thrown. He lowers his gaze to the tin can she dropped in his hands and reads the label.

“...Tea leaves?”

Byleth nods.

“I know you can’t taste anything anymore, but you can still smell. So I thought you might enjoy tea. Do you know what your favourite is?”

Dimitri shakes his head dumbly.

“Well, then.” Byleth lifts the corner of her sack to show him the many, many cans of tea leaves and an actual tea set inside. “I guess we can find out together.”

Dimitri just stares at Byleth for a moment.

Byleth, who never even asked her father why they’re in hiding, asked if he has a favourite tea. She chose the beverage specifically because she knew he couldn’t taste, brought an entire assortment of tea leaves just on the off chance he would like one of them, and is fully prepared to drink a frankly noxious amount of tea just to help him find something he likes.

Here Dimitri was, trying to do something for Byleth, and she just casually one-ups him in the most breathtakingly way. Dimitri already knew that Byleth is the sort of person who would put her life on the line for total strangers, but this kind of attention, this kind of intimate care, this, this is.

It’s too much.

Dimitri’s hands spasm around the tin can, careful not to crush it, too overwhelmed to even blush. He might actually have tears in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispers around the lump in his throat.

Byleth looks at him uncertainly. Dimitri swallows hard, brushes his sleeve over his eyes, and beams up at her. “Thank you,” he says properly this time.

He’s rewarded with another fleeting, tiny smile, and he treasures it like pocketing a shooting star.

*

Despite the stolen moments spent with Byleth, all is not well in Faerghus.

With the King murdered and the Crown Prince too young to lead, the Kingdom is in turmoil. The people are baying for Duscur’s blood, ignoring Dimitri’s claims that the ones who killed his father (and his friends and knights and advisors and servants) were not of Duscur.

Glenn has more sway since he’s of the Royal Guard, but his young age coupled with the fact that neither he or Dimitri can tell who the attackers were results in his words too being brushed aside.

People call what happened that night the Tragedy of Duscur.

Dimitri thinks the hate aimed at the people of Duscur that follows is also part of the tragedy.

And one day, he sees an innocent boy from Duscur being pelted with stones for a crime his people did not commit.

He can’t help but step in.

“Why did you help me?” the boy asks, voice ragged and eyes warry. “You don’t even know me.”

And Dimitri remembers himself asking nearly the exact same thing to Byleth.

And while there are so many things that Dimitri can say to the question, what matters the most is exactly what Byleth had answered to him all those months ago.

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

(And if Dedue becomes as loyal to Dimitri as Dima is to Byleth, well. He would be a hypocrite to deny it.)

*

Dimitri teaches Dedue to read and write the common tongue, and Dedue tries to teach Dimitri how to garden and arrange flowers. Dimitri isn’t good with anything delicate or fragile, but he’s pleased to say that his bouquets have started to look a little better, at least. (He knows that Byleth would take any bouqet from him regardless of how well it is or isn't arranged, and while that warms his heart and heats his cheeks, he wants to do his best for her. It’s the least she deserves.)

“Ah,” Dimitri exclaims as they’re weeding in the royal garden one day. “This looks familiar. She taught me to recognize some herbs when we were in Duscur. Even here, sometimes you find edible plants among the weeds.”

Dedue doesn’t bother asking who ‘she’ is, as he already knows that there’s only one person Dimitri constantly speaks of. But he does have a pained expression.

“Please do not eat the weeds.”

It’s rare for Dedue to show any emotion. Dimitri bites his lip to keep in a grin at the utter exasperation in the other boy’s tone.

“I’m just saying.”

*

Time passes.

Dimitri isn’t over what happened in Duscur. Blood fringes on the corners of his vision and screams echo in his ears every now and then, but he gets better.

Rodrigue does his best to care for him despite having his own territory to look after. Glenn refuses to let the loss of a leg hinder his carrier as a knight and turns his eyes on the mounted classes, demanding that Dimitri spar with him. Felix is right behind his older brother, with Slyvain and Ingrid tagging along with their usual antics. Dedue has all but become a second shadow.

And then there’s Byleth.

Despite their strange arrangement, despite the secrecy, despite others’ doubts and worries, despite everything, Byleth still returns to him. Over the weeks and months and years, Byleth remains a constant if not always present friend (saviour) (mentor) (and yes, he now admits, his beloved) and Dimitri puts his faith in her like some do in the goddess.

Byleth always, always returns.

Until one day, she doesn’t.

Chapter Text

Dimitri had thought that, what with having been helplessly in love with Byelth for years, his poor heart would be used to her clueless deadpanned antics by now.

He was wrong.

He was so wrong.

The greeting that had been on the tip of his tongue dies off in a strangled choke as his eyes land on Byleth.

“What— what are you wearing?!” the prince sputters as Byleth steps out of the warp zone.

Byleth just blinks down at herself. She shrugs a shoulder as if she doesn’t find anything wrong. (Why does she not find anything wrong—?!)

“My new outfit,” she says simply, as if Dimitri isn’t on the verge of a heart attack just at the sight of her.

“Your new—?!” And Dimitri just cannot.

He groans as he buries his beet-red face in his palms. (But he can’t help peeking through his fingers after a moment.)

“Is... isn’t it a bit too... revealing?” Dimitri asks helplessly.

Byleth looks down at herself again, and Dimitri finds his eyes following the trail of her gaze.

“Is it? It almost completely covers any bare skin.”

Yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still revealing.

True to Byleth’s words, she is, technically, mostly clothed. She even has a huge overcoat thrown over her shoulders, the sleeves flapping gently as she moves. The only bits of bare skin excluding her face are the space between her arm guards, a strip of creamy skin across her chest, and a peek of her smooth stomach.

But doesn’t she understand that that makes it all the more tantalizing? And what is with those lace tights?!

Not to mention the way she hung his dagger on her belt, the royal blue scabbard on proud display, the tip of the blade tapping against the inside of her thigh—

—Damn it.

Dimitri is ashamed to admit even to himself that the first (and the next) (and all the following) times he woke from sleep wet and burning, he dreamed of her. It was bad enough when he dreamed of her as he was younger and more naïve, with nothing but fleeting images and vague impressions to weave his fantasies from, but did she have to add fuel to the fire? Now Dimitri knows what his next dream is going to be, and it isn’t just guilt that makes his mouth dry when he tries to swallow.

“Some of the new recruits in our mercenary band suggested it,” Byleth is continuing. “I have armour covering the most vital points, so don’t worry.” As if that’s what has Dimitri choking on his own tongue. “And this outfit has actually proved quite useful.”

“...Useful?” Dimitri repeats, and his voice sounds weak even to his own ears.

Byleth shrugs a shoulder with an easy air that Dimitri envies.

“Mm. Our last contract was a capture, not kill, mission. The target took one look at me and threw himself at my feet. I accidentally stepped on him, and he thanked me.”

Dimitri presses the balls of his palms into his eyes with a groan.

“Of course he did.”

Yes, he definitely knows what he’s dreaming about tonight.

*

Dimitri had caught up to Byelth’s hight by the age of fifteen, hit his first growth spurt at sixteen, and now towers over her at seventeen.

But though he is physically larger and taller, he still feels small in front of Byleth.

In his eyes Byleth is always so wise and strong, larger than life and too good to be true.

Which makes it all the more special when he gets to teach her for a change.

Despite having travelled the far reaches of the galaxy as a mercenary, Dimitri had found that Byleth’s knowledge of what he’d considered common sense is woefully lacking. She barely knew anything about Crests or the Church, and at Dimitri’s aghast expression when he first found out she’d merely shrugged a shoulder.

“Father never told me, and I never asked.”

Of course she didn’t.

So Dimitri has taken it upon himself to teach her.

It’s a heady feeling, being able to help someone who’s helped him so much. To be able to give and teach someone who has given and taught him so much.

It makes her feel less unreachable.

Not that Dimitri would—should—reach for her.

“Garreg Mach Monastery...”

Dimitri is brought out of his thoughts by Byleth’s voice. She’s tracing the words on a page of a history book he brought.

“The mothership and headquarters of the Central Church, resting within the black hole at the heart of this galaxy.”

Dimitri smiles as he leans over her shoulder to look at the page too.

“Ah, has this caught your attention? The monastery also serves as the Officer’s Academy, where students from around the galaxy attend a two-year course to learn and forge relations outside their own solar system. I will also be attending next year.”

Most of his childhood friends will attend this year, but Dimitri decided to enrol a year later to complete his training with Glenn first. He had even convinced a reluctant Dedue to go on ahead as well, a feat he feels is worthy of acknowledgement. Even if Dimitri won’t spend the full two years with his childhood friends, they’ll at least be learning one year together.

It’s not his friends he’s worried about, though.

“It... will be hard to meet you when I leave,” Dimitri bites the inside of his cheek. “I do not know how many times I will be able to leave the Academy and return here, but I will do my best to...”

He turns his gaze from the page to Byleth’s face, adamant to reassure her and be assured in turn that they’ll meet again. But he finds Byleth’s eyes wide and her lips slightly parted.

“You’re going to Garreg Mach?”

“Next year, yes.”

And then, she smiles.

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about making time to see each other, then.”

“Oh?” Dimitri questions once he’s taken a moment to recover from seeing her smile. It’s been three, almost four years since he first saw her smile, but it still never fails to make his breath catch.

“I’ve been... offered a position. I’m still in hiding, but I’ll be settling down for a while.”

“Then how will I meet you at the monastery?”

Byleth’s eyes dance with humour and joy, and her tone is almost teasing. Dimitri marvels at how expressive she’s become over the years.

“I think it’ll be more fun if we leave that as a surprise.”

Dimitri takes a moment to digest her words.

“Then... will I get to meet you?”

Byleth implied she would be at Garreg Mach. Even if she is still in hiding Dimitri might get to actually meet her this time. Meet her properly, not just as a mercenary with secrets to her secrets, not just hidden away in stolen moments as Fhirdiad’s worst kept secret, but to get to know who she really is.

Of course, that means Dimitri will have to reveal his identity too. That he isn’t just Dima but Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. But while at first he was afraid that Byleth wouldn’t treat him the same way if she knew he was royalty, Dimitri knows better now. Byleth isn’t the kind of person who changes her attitude depending on someone’s status. And even if she is, Dimitri would like to think that they’ve grown close enough over the years to overcome it.

Byleth smiles at him again, this time softer and fonder.

“Yes, Dima.”

Dimitri finds himself returning her smile, full of long-awaited excitement and tender hope.

“Then I look forward to getting to meet you.”

*

The months fly by. With the Ethereal Moon comes the anniversary of the monastery’s completion, and Dimitri learns from Dedue’s monthly letters (that read more like reports) that the Academy is planning a ball for the festival.

Honestly, Dimitri is rather glad he doesn’t have to participate in that.

Although...

He chances a glance at Byleth. The mercenary has been coming over periodically over the past months, contrary to the irregular schedule she used to keep, and he wonders if it has to do with how she mentioned she’d be settling down for a while.

If he can meet her at Garreg Mach...

He thinks he wouldn’t mind the posh and pomp of a ball if he gets to dance with Byleth.

“Do you know how to dance?” he blurts out before he loses his nerve.

Byleth pauses and looks up from the training sword she had been twirling in her hand. She cocks her head at him.

“Dance?”

“The waltz is the most common in most of Fodlan,” he begins, but she’s already shaking her head.

“The only dances I’ve seen were preformed by drunkards in taverns,” she tells him dryly, and Dimitri can’t help but grin at the mental image. He wonders if she too ever gets drunk, but files it away for another day.

“Then, in that case.”

Dimitri lays one hand over his heart and stretches out the other hand towards her with a bow.

“Will you let me have the honour of your first dance?”

Byleth blinks at him, looking a little thrown. Dimitri delights in having broken her impassive expression.

“...I’m going to step on you,” Byleth objects.

It’s hard to imagine Byleth being clumsy. She’s always so graceful and efficient when wielding a weapon, her flowing movements almost a dance in itself. It’s surprising that she’s so unsure and hesitant to dance and Dimitri finds it—he can’t help it—just downright adorable.

Dimitri feels his face break out into a grin.

“I have thick boots,” he persuades.

“I have heels.”

“All the more reason to practice, isn’t it?”

Byleth narrows her eyes at him and Dimitri tries to school his expression into something less teasing. Eventually, she lets out a small sigh and lays down her training sword on the rack. Something flip-flops in Dimitri’s stomach as Byleth steps towards him and puts her hand in his.

“You’re going to regret this,” Byleth mutters threateningly.

Dimitri gives her a crooked smile.

“I doubt it.”

He takes her hand gently, ever so gently, hyper-aware of his inhuman strength. He draws her closer and guides one hand to his shoulder, his other hand going to lightly hold her waist. He clears his dry throat and tries to keep his voice light.

“Just follow my lead,” he says. “Right foot first. One, two, three—”

There’s no music in the bunker and Byleth’s steps are hesitant and stumbling. Instead of looking up at his face, Byleth keeps her head down as she tries to keep track of their feet. Her usual grace is nowhere to be found and instead she’s stiff and tense. True to her warning, she does step on Dimitri. Several times.

It’s the best dance Dimitri has ever had.

The way she’s concentrating so hard on trying not to step on his feet is so cute in a way Dimitri wasn’t prepared for. He bites his lower lip as something squeezes tightly in his chest. Warmth floods his entire body, from the tips of his fingertips entwined with hers to his toes that Byleth steps on again.

What he wouldn’t give to dance with her every year.

“I... I know you said you are still somewhat in hiding,” Dimitri clears his throat and starts hesitantly. “But... in five years, there will be the millennium festival. By then, your situation may change again. If so... would you attend the festival with me?”

Byleth tears her eyes from their feet and looks up at him at that.

“The millennium festival at Garreg Mach, five years from now?”

“Yes.” Dimitri would be King by then, and who knows what Byleth would be doing, but he still wants to promise a future where they will dance together.

Their steps slow until they’re barely moving, swaying gently to some unheard melody.

Byleth’s face is so close, her chest barely a handsbreadth away from his own, her waist supple and warm beneath Dimitri’s hand, but for once Dimitri isn’t distracted by inappropriate thoughts. Her answer matters too much for that.

They’ve been meeting for four years now. Dimitri wants, needs assurance that they’ll have another five, and then more, until however long they can, as close to forever as possible.

“Five years from now,” he almost whispers. “Will you meet me at Garreg Mach?”

Byleth looks up at him wordlessly for a moment with wide eyes. Dimitri thinks the entire galaxy may be holding its breath with him.

But then, she smiles.

“I’ll be there, Dima.”

And Dimitri feels like he has an armful of stars.

*

He didn’t know it would be the last time he sees her.

*

When Byleth goes radio silent, Dimitri isn’t too worried to begin with.

Five weeks without any contact, he is slightly disappointed but not too concerned. Byleth had been coming to meet him at the beginning of each month for the past nine moons, but she has gone longer without coming to meet him before.

Two months pass, and he starts to get restless. But he tries to be patient and scolds himself to stop acting like a needy child.

By the time three months have passed, Glenn refuses to spar with him saying that he’s too distracted. Byleth has never been away for this long, and anxious worry sinks its claws deep into Dimitri’s skin.

Four months, and Dimitri wonders if this is some kind of punishment. He doesn’t even have a future to promise, and yet he all but begged Byleth to promise him her future, like a needy and greedy child.

He wonders if Byleth finally got tired of him. It had already been a miracle that she stuck with him for four years, as broken as he is. Maybe she finally realized the beast he is. Maybe she just forgot about him. Maybe he never meant anything to her in the first place.

The thought hurts and makes his heart ache. The berating whispers of the ghosts that haunt him only fuel his despair, and he desperately tries to think of other reasons for her silence.

Maybe she’s just busy. Maybe she can’t reach him. Maybe she crashlanded somewhere again, just like on Duscur four years ago, except this time she doesn’t have Dima to help her, doesn’t have him to keep her warm at nights, doesn’t have him to be there for her as much as she was for him. Maybe she hasn’t come because she’s lost, or hurt, or dying—

—and no. Dimitri’s thoughts grind to a halt. His breath becomes short and ragged just at the thought of Byleth bleeding out on some unknown planet, alone and hurt. No.

He’d rather it be that Byleth got tired of him or forgot him or even straight-up abandoned him than imagine she’s hurt. (Than imagine she’s dead, he stubbornly does not think.)

He’s a barely functioning mess when the Great Tree moon arrives once again, and Dimitri has to enrol in the Officer’s Academy.

Dimitri tries to renew hope. Byleth said they would meet at Garreg Mach, so even if she hasn’t come to meet him, Dimitri can go meet her for the first time.

Dimitri enters the Officer’s Academy. His childhood friends are in their graduating years while he’s a first-year, but even so he becomes the head of the house of the Blue Lions. He uses that position and his status to try to find Byleth.

Until now, Dimitri had kept Byleth’s name his most closely guarded secret. He had hoarded it away for himself like a dragon jealously guarding its gold. But now he’s desperate. Byleth always, always came back to him, but she’s been gone for months. He needs to find her. So Dimitri asks students, both in his house and out. He asks faculty members. He goes down to the town and asks the villagers.

No one has heard of a mercenary called Byleth.

Months into his search, and Dimitri is almost beside himself. Dedue worries about his lack of sleep and even Felix regards him with narrowed eyes. But Dimitri can’t stop.

His efforts are rewarded almost a year after Byleth has disappeared.

Space mercs are notoriously famous for being slippery and hard to track down their true identity. So Dimitri frequents the Battalion Guild every time a new battalion enlists and asks around, hoping that some mercenaries might have heard her name during their missions across the galaxy. If not, Byleth mentioned that she would be settling down for a while, so he thinks her mercenary band may have been employed here for a while.

One day, the mercenary band lead by the famed Jeralt the Blade Breaker returns to Garreg Mach. Dimitri has heard from Dedue’s letters that the man had rejoined the Knights of Seiros last year but left some time at the end of the year. His departure coincides with the disappearance of the Arch Bishop and some faculty members, but Dimitri isn’t here to inquire about that. He’s only looking for one missing person.

But as soon as he utters Byleth’s name to one of the members, the easy-going grin that had been on the merc’s face drops.

“How do you know that name?” he demands, and Dimitri’s abused heart skips a beat with tentative hope.

Five minutes later, Dimitri is all but dragged to the mercenary camp.

“Boss!” the merc shouts as he bursts into the captain’s tent. “I found a kid that knows Byleth!”

Jeralt the Blade Breaker himself shoots up from his seat at the name. Dimitri comes face to face with the man that’s all but a living legend, and the two stare at each other for a while.

“So you’re the one that my kid’s been running off to see,” Jeralt finally says.

At that, it dawns on Dimitri too who he’s facing.

“You’re the one that wanted Duscur bear steak,” he realizes.

Byleth’s father.

Her father was the famed Captain of the Knights of Seiros. But he can digest that later. Right now, the most important thing is—

“Where’s Byleth?”

Jeralt’s face clouds over in grief.

Dimitri feels like someone wrapped a hand around his heart and squeezed.

Chapter Text

“I’ve tried to keep my kid hidden from the Church,” Jeralt tells Dimitri, voice heavy with bone-deep weariness and thick with heartwrenching grief. “But I guess you can’t run forever. We couldn’t, at least.”

*

When Byleth volunteered to go hunt a bear in Duscur, Jeralt didn’t think much of it. It was a simple and easy errand for anyone in their merc band but especially for her, their unofficial number two, the living legend monikered the Ashen Demon before she even hit twenty. She should have been back before dinner.

Which is probably why everything went to shit.

And his kid is as smooth-faced as ever when Jeralt finally reaches her, as if she doesn’t have dried blood crusting her clothes, as if she hadn’t been stranded on a foreign planet for a week.

“Sorry. I ate the bear,” is what she says when Jeralt hastily tumbles out of the spaceship, all deadpanned humour and totally unapologetic.

Jeralt blinks, then throws his head back and laughs.

“We’re never having Duscur bear again,” he announces as he chuckles weakly.

“But I like bear steak,” she jokes back with the same flat voice and deadpan. Jeralt just snorts and reaches out to put a large hand on top Byleth’s head. (And Byleth realizes at that moment that, oh, so this is where she picked up the habit of patting Dima’s head.)

After that incident, Jeralt thought things would return to normal.

But things change.

Byleth changes.

See, Jeralt has met many types of people during his long (too long) life, but his own daughter is one of the strangest. For example, let’s say that he wakes someone in the middle of the night and suddenly tells them they’re leaving.

Most people would ask things along the lines of “why,” “what’s going on,” or even “where to?”

Byleth would just say “Okay.”

She’s been like that since she was born. Byleth never questions Jeralt, never asks for an explanation. She just nods and follows his lead. (Sometimes, he wonders if it’s because she just trusts him to tell her what she needs to know.) (Other times, he wonders if she simply doesn’t care enough to ask. Wonders if whatever Rhea did to his kid left her not only without a heartbeat and without tears, but also without emotions too.) (There’s a reason Jeralt drowns his nights in alcohol.)

So when Byleth outright disobeys him for the first time, he’s... torn.

On one hand, he’s worried about his daughter. Jeralt has tried so hard to keep her hidden, had set fire to Garreg Mach and lied to the Arch Bishop’s face to hide her away. And yet seventeen years later Byleth is running off to meet someone. Repeatedly. In private. And refuses to stop. To top it all off, when Jeralt asks who she’s meeting, she just shrugs a shoulder and simply says “A kid.”

(“A kid,” yeah right, Jeralt will think five years later when he meets Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, who’s hardly a child, barely even a teenager, and whose lips shape Byleth’s name with all the reverent desperation of a man in love.)

So yeah, Jeralt is worried.

But on the other hand...

This is the first time Byleth had ever really wanted something.

And damn if it doesn’t make his heart swell with something he can’t quite name.

In the end, Jeralt just watches silently as Byleth takes off every few weeks to see that mysterious friend of hers.

He’s rewarded with a sight he’d all but given up on seeing from his daughter.

She changes.

Warp zones are few and far between, almost impossible to access without a solid ID. But ‘almost impossible’ still means ‘possible’, and Byleth comes up with a surprising determination that she’s never shown before. She makes use of all the street smarts she’s picked up from the band and does everything from bribery to forgery to slip into warp zones all over the galaxy.

She starts collecting every brand of tea from every corner of the galaxy until her collection grows to the point where even the most hoarding nobles and connoisseurs would be envious.

She becomes subtly more expressive and inquisitive.

She blooms like a flower in the sun, steadily growing brighter. Happier. More alive.

And then one day, she comes back with an armful of flowers.

Jeralt can’t help but stare. Her hair colour is nothing like her mother’s (or his own) (what have you done, Rhea?) but the way she caresses the blossoms, the way she holds them close to her chest, the way she looks down at them with wonder lighting her eyes and an actual smile ghosting her lips...

“You remind me of your mother,” Jeralt finds himself saying.

Byleth looks up at him with wide eyes. It’s the first time he’s really said anything about his wife, he knows. Jeralt gazes at Byleth for a moment more before giving her a broken smile.

“She loved flowers. Whenever I brought her back an unusual flower, her face would light up.”

Just like yours, he doesn’t say.

Jeralt still doesn’t know who it is that Byleth keeps going to meet, who gave her those flowers.

But if they can make her face light up like that...

He’s willing to take a risk.

*

For all his worrying over the years, it’s not even the unknown stranger that blows their cover.

It’s Alois.

“Captain Jeralt!” the boy—no, not a boy anymore, the man—calls out joyously, and even though it’s nice to see him Jeralt feels his heart sink. Alois means no ill, to be sure, but there’s no way he’ll let Jeralt get away quietly.

Even so, he has to protect Byleth.

“And how about you, kid? Are you the captain’s child?”

Jeralt sees Byleth blink when Alois turns to her. He knows Byleth will say yes without much thought.

He steps hard on her foot.

Byleth’s eyes shoot to him. Jeralt can’t shake his head with Alois watching, but he looks back at her with hard eyes.

She gets the message.

“...He’s a stranger to me.”

Thank the goddess for his daughter’s resting poker face.

“We just met here in Remire Village,” Jeralt follows up seamlessly. “Figured we could use help with the bandits.”

Alois looks between them for a moment but readily accepts the excuse. Jeralt has never been more relieved that Byleth doesn’t look like him.

He’s just thought he might be able to get Byleth out of this when Alois lets out a boisterous laugh and gives Byleth a hearty slap on the back that makes her stumble forward.

“Well, I’d love for you to see the monastery too! After you rescued some of our students, I can’t possibly let you go without proper thanks!”

Damn it.

When Alois leaves for a moment to give the Knights of Seiros orders Jeralt excuses himself on the pretense of packing and drags Byleth to a corner where no one will overhear them.

“Listen,” he takes his daughter’s shoulders with urgency. “When we get to Garreg Mach, no one can know who you are. Especially Lady Rhea. From this moment, you are not a mercenary. You are not Byleth. You are not my daughter.”

And for all that Jeralt had rejoiced at how expressive Byleth has become over the years thanks to that mystery kid, it feels like he’s been stabbed in the gut when he sees Byleth’s eyes widen and cloud over with hurt before her face smoothes out again.

“Yes, sir,” she whispers.

Jeralt nods mutely.

And then they turn away from each other.

The moment Jeralt’s mercenaries pick up on the act, they seamlessly follow their lead and pretend as if they haven’t traversed the galaxy with Byleth. There’s a reason Jeralt chose to become a space merc of all things when he left the Knights. They have an unspoken rule, a code of sorts, and the way they help cover up Byleth’s identity without question helps Jeralt breath a little easier.

But even when they deny any relation to each other, Lady Rhea must still sense something because the moment she lays eyes on Byleth, she strongarms her into becoming a professor at the Officer’s Academy.

“I heard of your valiant efforts from Alois,” Rhea says to Byleth, and Jeralt wonders if he’s just imagining the glint in her eyes that’s so at odds with the serenity of her smile. “What is your name?”

“...Eisner.”

Jeralt bites back a groan.

Granted, none but the Arch Bishop herself probably knows his surname anymore, but it still would have been better if Byleth could have come up with a name that has no correlation entirely. Though he supposes that, poker face aside, his kid doesn’t have his experience in lying (read: bullshitting) on your feet.

“What? It’s not that rare of a name,” Jeralt forces himself to say casually when Rhea’s eyes drift to him.

Lady Rhea just smiles, and he’s not sure if she buys it or not.

(She probably never did.)

*

Jeralt rejoins the Knights of Seiros and Byleth becomes Professor Eisner.

Things are... actually not that bad, for a surprising total of nine months. Lady Rhea blatantly favours Byleth but doesn’t make any moves despite Jeralt’s fears (and even when the Sword of the Creator glows red in Byleth’s hands, the Arch Bishop only smiles with a triumphant gleam in her eyes). Byleth takes to teaching noble brats with an ease Jeralt never expected. He goes fishing with Alois and sometimes Seteth.

He’s just begun to tentatively hope that things might turn out well. That maybe there wasn’t a reason to have left in the first place.

Nine months into the school year and the Academy throws a ball. Jeralt watches his daughter be tugged around the ballroom by her eager students and hides a smile. At the end of the month he joins her class as they repel Demonic Beasts from the old chapel in the monastery grounds.

The mission itself was easy enough. They should have been back before sundown.

Which is why, of course, everything went to shit.

Even months after, Jeralt still isn’t sure what exactly happened. He and Byleth had walked away from her class after the battle to help some of the students who’d been caught in the mess. Monica, her name was. But then he heard Byleth shout something from behind his back, and as he turned a gigantic explosion erupted.

He can only recall snapped fragments of what happened after that. Tears running down Byleth’s cheeks. People with strangely pale skin warping in and out with magic sparking at their finhertips. More Demonic Beasts springing up from the chapel. A white dragon roaring to the heavens. A tear opening up to swallow Byleth whole.

And then silence.

No one, not Jeralt, not Byleth’s students, not the knights and monks that came running from the monastery, none could say what had just happened. The clearing was ravaged as if the Goddess had raked the earth with gigantic claws and a pool of blood soaked the earth where Byleth had stood, but there was no one there.

Soon after, Lady Rhea is declared missing.

Byleth is declared dead.

Bullshit, Jeralt snarls.

But the other Knights and the monks of the Church just shake their heads with sad eyes and pitying words.

She lost too much blood, they say. No one can survive standing in the midst of an explosion like that, they say. A strange magic swallowed her whole, they say.

She’s dead, they say.

And Jeralt can’t— he just can’t.

He never should have returned to the Church. And now, even Lady Rhea doesn’t do him the courtesy of staying so he can rant and rave and demand answers from her.

So Jeralt quits the Knights of Seiros because of his daughter once more. He takes his mercenary band and heads off to find anything he can about the Flame Emperor. ‘Monica,’ if that’s even what her name really is, had changed her appearance in the brief moment before the explosion. With the precedence of Solon/Tomas at the Remire Calamity, Jeralt is willing to bet that the skimpy girl also has ties with the Flame Emperor. Finding them will lead him one step closer to Byleth.

Jeralt refuses to believe Byleth is dead. If there’s even a sliver of hope that she’s still there, he’ll cling to that faith and ignore any logic. She’s out there.

(That’s what he tells himself. That’s what gets him out of bed each morning. That’s what stops his hands from shaking and his feet from dragging and his heart from just straight out giving up, because for all the long years he’s lived and outlived he can’t survive losing his daughter too after losing his wife, not her, not his kid—)

Months pass and he’s no closer to finding Byleth.

Hope wanes like a wilting violet.

He returns to Garreg Mach periodically, to the place Byleth’s students still are, to the place she’d been the happiest he’d seen.

He doesn’t find Byleth there.

But he does find a prince who knows her name.

*

“...Why are you telling me all this?” Dimitri whispers once Jeralt falls silent. Not that he isn’t hanging on to Jeralt’s every word like he’s clinging for his life, but it’s strange that the man would divulge all this to someone who’s essentially a stranger when he hid even Byleth’s name from the world.

Jeralt regards Dimitri silently for a moment.

“Did you know that she never cried?” Jeralt asks out of the blue. “Not once. Not even when she was born.”

No, Dimitri didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. He knows that Byleth is proficient in just about any weapon but that she prefers the sword. He knows that she would rather have sweet cakes than biscuits with her tea. He knows the way her face lights up when he manages to tease out a rare smile. He knows how tenderly her fingers caress the flowers he gives her.

But Dimitri doesn’t know where she was born. He doesn’t know what kind of company she keeps. He doesn’t know what she does between contracts. He doesn’t even know her birthday. He doesn’t know anything that may potentially lead to exposing her identity as he’d always been painstakingly careful not to ask, too fearful that she might never come back if he crosses the line.

Dimitri knows Byleth. But he doesn’t know about Byleth.

“She’s always been like that,” Jeralt says with a shake of his head and a fond smile (and Dimitri is seized with such a sudden and violent grip of envy at the easy, intimate familiarity the man shows that the young prince is surprised with himself). “Never cried, never smiled, never laughed... Heh, people even called her the Ashen Demon because she’d cut foes down without a hint of emotion on her face. But then...”

Jeralt fixes Dimitri with a look.

“You made her smile. You made her laugh. I couldn’t get her to make any expression at all in twenty years, but you... you made her brighter. Better. More alive.”

The familiar words ring in Dimitri’s ears. Hadn’t Glenn said something similar about him too? For the first time in his life, Dimitri realizes that he and Byleth may have been more similar than he’d ever thought.

And the way Jeralt looks at him, all grateful yet with lingering resent, torn between love and envy... Dimitri remembers how he both hated and loved the man even before knowing who he was, and realizes that he’s probably not the only one who has conflicting feelings between them.

“Twenty years?” he asks instead of lingering on that, desperate to distract himself from Byleth’s—no, not death—absence.

“Twenty-one, to be exact. Byleth herself didn’t know how old she was. Never asked, that brat. But that’s how old she was when she di... disappeared last year.”

Twenty-one last year. Which means she must have been seventeen years old on Duscur.

Dimitri, at eighteen, is now older than Byleth was when they first met.

And at that thought, all the disbelief and confusion and denial and grief and just everything catches up to him.

Dimitri laughs.

And if he chokes on his laughter and cries into his hands, well.

Just like his daughter once did, Jeralt is kind enough to sit by his side wordlessly.

Chapter Text

“Professor Eisner? Your secret crush was Professor Eisner?”

“I mean, you can’t blame him, I know I’ve fantasized about those lacy tights— ow!”

“Sylvain!” Ingrid hisses with more venom than usual. “There’s a time and place for everything! Don’t disrespect the Professor like that when she’s—”

—dead, Ingrid cuts herself off before she can finish, and some part of Dimitri’s mind that isn’t clouded and fogged over is grateful for her tact.

Sylvain’s lips twist apologetically, his mask of a smile falling away. Sylvain tends to default to joking and flirting, but he’s a perceptive and sensitive person in truth. The fact that he made such a crass joke in a situation like this shows just how truly affected he actually is.

“I know. It’s just, the Professor, she... I...” Sylvain swallows hard, then looks away. “She meant a lot to me too,” he whispers in a moment of rare raw honesty.

“She meant a lot to all of us,” Mercedes murmurs softly. Annette and Ashe nod with teary eyes and even Dedue’s lips are pressed into a grimmer line than usual. “Though I suppose we can’t compare to what you must be feeling, Your Highness.”

The second years of the Blue Lions have had almost a year to come to terms with their professor’s disappearance, so while their wounds aren’t as fresh, everyone can see Dimitri’s dishevelled hair and red-rimmed eyes.

But Dimitri didn’t come here for their pity.

“Ashe.”

The boy starts at being addressed before looking up with wide eyes. Despite being a year ahead of Dimitri and the adoptive son of Lord Lonato, Ashe is still painfully awkward and stiff around the prince. Normally Dimitri would try to ease him with smiles and kind words, but he can’t muster the energy right now with his state of mind.

“I need your help,” he says bluntly, too emotionally worn to coat his request with polite headings or flowery language.

“Of, of course, Your Highness.”

Ashe, bless his kind soul, nods readily even as he eyes Dimitri with mild alarm. No one here, save for Felix, has seen Dimitri’s pleasant mask break this much, and he can tell how much it unnerves some of them. Even so, Ashe is willing to help him, and his easy acquiesce helps sooth Dimitri’s fraying nerves somewhat.

“How can I help?”

“I need you to hack into Garreg Mach’s main server.”

“You need me to what.”

Ashe isn’t the only one who stares at Dimitri like he’s grown a second head, but he is the one whose eyes harden the quickest.

“Professor Eisner helped me so much. Especially last year when Lonato...” Ashe takes in a deep breath and nods decisively. “I’ll do anything I can.”

Felix, who’d been on the receiving end of Ashe’s starry-eyed tales of chivalric knights and the straight and narrow for almost two years, is looking at him like he’s never seen the other boy before.

“You do know that it’s a crime punishable by execution, right? Not to mention no one’s ever hacked into Garreg Mach.”

His voice sounds harsh and accusing to anyone who hasn’t grown up with him and doesn’t know him well enough, and a year ago that might have made the soft-spoken boy at least falter. But Ashe, who’s had enough positive reinforcement, soft encouragement, and firm guidance from Byleth to grow a backbone of mithril, only straightens his spine and looks back at Felix straight in the eye with a steely glint in his gaze and his jaw set firm.

“Then I guess we’ll make history.”

And so they hack into Garreg Mach.

Garreg Mach is one of the oldest space crafts in the galaxy, made by technology from the times when the goddess walked the land. To this day it’s the only ship that can stand in a black hole, it’s technology having died with the departure of the goddess. Hacking it will be a feat unheard of in its millennia of existence.

They are, to borrow Ashe’s words, making history.

Ashe makes the most of his background as a former thief and underground hacker. The rest of the Blue Lions all help as much as they can, subtly probing Seteth about the monastery's firewalls, asking other house students about what they knew of Professor Eisner, sneaking into places they shouldn’t be.

When Ashe finally manages to break into the server, Dimitri almost falls over himself as he scans the logs on Byleth. Seteth has been ferociously protective of the Church’s records since the disappearance of the Arch Bishop, so even Dimitri had been denied any access. But Jeralt had mentioned that there may be some crucial information the Church is withholding that might help in their search for ‘Monica’ and, by proxy, Byleth. (And if he’s being honest with himself, Dimitri needs to see some kind of proof with his own eyes that Byleth is— that she might be— of course she’s not, but—)

Dimitri’s hands shake as he tries oh so very hard not to break the data pad Ashe hands him.

His eyes skim across the barren personal information section—full name, unknown; year of birth, unknown; heritage, unknown—and part of him vaguely recognizes that one of the reasons Seteth withheld this might have been because he didn’t want anyone to know how woefully lacking the Church’s intel on Byleth actually is.

Dimitri’s eyes finally land on the last line of Byleth’s page.

Imperial year 1180, Ethereal Moon: Killed in action.

Killed in action.

Killed in action.

It feels like the world stops for a moment.

Just like Jeralt, Dimitri outright refuses to believe that Byleth is dead before he sees her body and feels her beatless heart for himself. Byleth always, always came back to him. She can’t be dead. She isn’t dead.

But seeing those words printed out so crassly, so crudely...

...Something inside him breaks.

(So does the data pad.)

*

Dimitri refuses to go to class for the next few weeks.

He alternates between demolishing training dummies in the training grounds or shutting himself up in his room.

People around the Academy and back in Fhirdiad are alarmed and worried as the prince had always been upstanding in his behaviour and conduct, but his childhood friends and even the other Blue Lions second years all band together and cover for him.

For all the times Dimitri had had to make excuses for Sylvain, this time around it’s Sylvain who intercepts any and every authority figures who try to approach Dimitri, with subtle help from Ingrid. Felix wordlessly props up more dummies when Dimitri has destroyed all the ones standing. Ashe hacks the lock on his door so that Mercedes and Annette can push in the food they’ve made and keep him fed. Dedue stands in front of his door, silent and towering as he scares off any well-wishing first years in Dimitri’s class.

Dimitri knows that, at least for the second years who aren’t his childhood friends, it’s probably due more to their understanding and shared grief for Byleth than due to their loyalty to their future king. He doesn’t care. He needs time, and he’s grateful that they give it to him.

“It’s like watching him go through the stages of grief,” he catches Ingrid murmuring to Felix one day when they think he can’t hear through the door.

The stages of grief, Dimitri thinks dully, too worn to even cry anymore.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

Except she’s wrong, because while Dimitri may have suffered through the first four, he stubbornly refuses the last. Dimitri can’t accept that Byleth is dead. He won’t.

Byleth always, always came back to him.

(Except when she didn’t.)

*

The only time Dimitri ventures away from his room and the training grounds is when Jeralt and his mercenary band visits Garreg Mach again.

“Seteth seems to think Monica is part of a group called Those Who Slither in the Dark,” the prince tells Jeralt as he hands him the data pad that Ashe had coded. “We couldn’t get too deep into Seteth’s private server, let alone anywhere near the Arch Bishop’s, but it seems this group may have some connection with the Agarthans.”

It’s an old myth. They say that when the Nabateans came to the Fodlan galaxy, the Goddess fought off other evil gods, the Agarthans. The humans who aided her in that war were blessed with Crests and Relics, which laid the foundations of the social structure today.

Though he hails from the Holy Kingdom, personally, Dimitri has never been much devout. The goddess may watch over from above, but no matter how hard someone begs to be saved, she doesn’t so much as offer her hand.

Dimitri knows this from experience.

(He puts his faith in other things. Like the point of his lance, like the speed of his steed, like the strength of his comrades. Like Byleth.)

(Except she didn’t come.)

Dimitri’s reservations about myths aside, it’s the closest thing to a lead they have. He lifts his head to ask Jeralt if he’s found any other leads when he catches the man eyeing him with a peculiar look.

“Yes?” the prince asks.

“...Have you been sleeping?” the man asks after a beat. His eyes linger on the dark bags under Dimitri’s eyes, only made all the more prominent by his pale skin. It must be bad if even the gruff man is asking about it.

Dimitri just shakes his head. He’s had more than enough people worrying about his health. It’s not what’s important right now.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says dismissively.

But Jeralt is one step ahead of him. He fixes Dimitri with a look.

“It would to Byleth.”

And that punches the air out of Dimitri’s lungs.

Because it would, wouldn’t it? It would matter to Byleth. She would care about his wellbeing. And the fact that Jeralt, Byleth’s father, the man who has watched her for her entire life and probably knows her better than anyone, more or less just acknowledged that Byleth would care for—cares for—Dimitri... That makes Dimitri’s heart pump and his fists curl.

“...Then she can scold me in person,” he finally manages to wrangle out of his tight throat after a moment.

Jeralt huffs a small, tired laugh at Dimitri’s stubborn response.

He too doesn’t even try to hide the dark bags under his own eyes.

*

Through the Blue Lions second years, Dimitri gets to know about Professor Eisner. About a Byleth who wasn’t a mercenary in hiding but a teacher of the Officer’s Academy. About a Byleth who wasn’t a fleeting visitor but a constant figure who ate, slept, and fought with them.

He hears about how she used her free days running around the monastery and abusing its facilities, doing everything from gardening to fishing. Ingrid mentions she could be relentless during training but that she’d always praise her students for a job well done. Felix grudgingly admits that he’d never been able to win a duel against her. Annette says she had a lovely singing voice that was distinctive even amongst the choir. Mercedes comments on how she’d always find and return lost items to various people within the monastery, and Ashe recounts his journeys accompanying her to the market where she’d buy gifts and tea to later shower her students with. Dedue says she had a large appetite but had a particular fondness for Duscur bear steak (and the memories that particular dish brings up is enough to make Dimitri break his bedframe).

Sylvain has the most stories to tell. He tells Dimitri about Byleth’s prowess in battle tactics, how ferociously protective of her students she was, how even students from other houses—namely Claude—would try to tease out a smile or an even rarer laugh out of her chronically blank expression, how she’d deal with other faculty members, how she took care to guide every student to their fullest potential.

It makes sense that Sylvain knew “Professor Eisner” the most, seeing as he’d been the leader of the Blue Lions before Dimitri came. But it doesn’t stop the stab of envy that spikes through Dimitri’s veins like poison as he listens to just how close they’d been.

That could have been him. That should have been him. It should have been Dimitri who Byleth turned to at the end of each mission. It should have been Dimitri who joined her for her first meal at the Academy. It should have been Dimitri who danced with her at the ball.

But it wasn’t.

And now she’s gone.

*

It makes some sort of perverse sense to Dimitri that a galaxy-wide war breaks out within weeks after he finds out Byleth is dea— gone.

For how could the universe continue unscathed when Byleth isn’t there?

For four years, Byleth had always come back to him.

But now, she doesn’t.

And with her absence, all order in this world falls too.

Edelgard declares war on the Church, Garreg Mach crumbles to ruins, his friends are scattered, and his own Kingdom labels him as a traitor and tries to kill him.

She doesn’t come.

Dedue dies in his stead and Dimitri lives as a walking corpse, killing all the rats and dogs who cross his path that claim to be human.

She doesn’t come.

Dimitri's emotions are as dead as the enemies he leaves behind him in a bloody trail. He wonders if this is what Byleth felt like when she was a mercenary, before she learned emotions, before she learned how to smile and laugh. But then he feels the burning hatred and rage consuming him, devouring his heart, and remembers that no, Byleth would never have been like the monster he is now.

She doesn’t come.

Ghosts of his murdered family have always haunted Dimitri, demanding he avenge them. He wonders if Byleth’s ghost will join them too. Some part of him doesn’t want it, because he doesn’t think he could bear the proof of her death, and it would tear him to pieces if her ghost screams and accuses and hates him too. But another part of him wishes for it, begs for it, because seeing her at all would be his salvation and damnation, his personal heaven and hell.

She still doesn’t come.

*

But one day, he finds her.

*

When Dimitri fights his way back to Garreg Mach, it isn’t because of a promise he’d foolishly asked of Byleth. It isn’t because five years ago she promised she’d be there. It isn’t because he still dreams about dancing to a silent melody and feels the ghost of her skin on his fingertips. It isn’t because his resolve for vengeance is so weak that he’d indulge himself this fantasy.

It isn’t, he tells his ghosts as he leaves a bloody trail of bodies behind him.

Dimitri clears the old monastery of rats who call themselves men. The mothership of the Church is in miraculously good shape despite the Empire’s attacks and having been abandoned for years. The prince wanders aimlessly amongst crumbled corridors and ruined columns for a while with lance in hand before his drifting attention is grabbed by something.

The ground in front of a gazebo in the gardens has crumbled to reveal a staircase that Dimitri never knew existed. He enters it without much thought.

The steps lead down, down, down until he stands in the Holy Tomb that he’s only seen in images. An ethereal green glow illuminates the area, and Dimitri unconsciously steps forward toward the light. It’s coming from the stone throne at the end of the room, which has some sort of glass pod on top of it. Various pipes and wires snake out from across the tomb to connect to the large glass container rested upon the throne. The surface is fogged over, hiding what’s inside, save for a pulsing green light.

Dimitri isn’t quite sure what possess him to wipe away the steam from the glass and peer inside. Perhaps it is coincidence. Perhaps it is curiosity. Perhaps it is the Goddess finally reaching out her hand to guide him.

Because when the glass is cleared, what—or who—Dimitri finds is a woman.

His lance clatters to the stone floor.

The entire universe seems to hold its breath with the prince as his one eye widens.

The woman is curled up on herself inside the glass tube, bare of any clothing, floating in some translucent liquid. Her long hair flows around her, the colour so pale a green that it almost looks white in the dim light. A sword that’s jagged like a cracked spine is cradled within her arms.

And even though she has a different hair colour, even though she’s in the last place he expected, even though he hasn’t seen her for the last five years, Dimitri would have to have gone blind in his one good eye for him not to recognize her.

Byleth.

To be completely honest, the moment his lips silently shape her name, Dimitri panics.

He breaks her out of the pod.

The glass shatters under his hand. Translucent liquid spills out as Dimitri rips off his armoured gauntlets and gloves to lift Byleth into his arms. His knees hit the floor in front of the stone throne as he cradles Byleth in his embrace, tossing the sword to the side uncaringly.

Panic settles in like a bird fluttering frantically in his heart, like an ocean rolling in his stomach, like thick sludge pouring down his throat. Her skin is cold, so cold, and she isn’t breathing. Her head lolls lifelessly against his shoulder, and has she always been this small? This fragile?

Dimitri lowers his head to press his ear against her bare chest. The countless fantasies that had plagued his wet dreams don’t even register to him as he desperately listens for a beat, holding his own breath.

He hears nothing.

And just— no.

Dimitri lost his friends, lost his people, lost his Kingdom, lost an eye, and is well on his way to losing his sanity. He is not going to lose Byleth too (again).

He puts his mouth over hers and desperately tries to breathe life into her, praying to the goddess he thought he lost faith in, begging her to take his life if it means saving hers. Even the ghosts that have haunted him incessantly are silent now, watching and waiting to see if another ghost will join them.

For a few moments that feel like an eternity, nothing happens.

But then, Byleth takes in a shuddering gasp against Dimitri’s mouth.

Dimitri pulls back only far enough to be able to watch as her eyes flutter before opening (and even her eyes are green, now). Her gaze is hazy and unfocused, and it takes long agonizing moments before her eyes find their way up to Dimitri’s as he hovers over her.

And the moment she sets her eyes on him, Dimitri is suddenly seized with fear that she might not recognize him.

Byleth’s hair is longer and a different colour, as is her eyes, but other than that, she is unchanged. She doesn’t look a single day older than the last time he saw her.

But Dimitri is not the person, the boy she’d known five years ago.

He has become a beast, a monster, and the sudden realization that she may look upon him and not know him is terrifying.

Dimitri stays frozen as Byleth slowly raises her hand. Her pale lips move as if to shape some word, but before her fingertips can touch his face, her eyes close and her hand falls.

Dimitri’s heart falls with it.

It’s only after he confirms that she’s only fallen unconscious and is breathing to a steady rhythm that he too can let out a long breath. He wraps his cloak around Byleth’s cold bare body and cradles her against his chest in an effort to warm her. He tucks her head under his chin and just takes a moment to breathe.

It’s alright. She’s alright. She’s alive. She’s here.

Nothing has changed. The Empire is still waging war on the Alliance and what remains of the Kingdom, the Church of Seiros is in shambles, and Dimitri is still haunted by ghosts that bay for Edelgard’s blood.

But now he has Byleth in his arms.

And that changes everything.

*

Dimitri had kept to the shadows during the war after Dedue sacrificed himself to save Dimitri. But with Byleth breathing but not waking, he needs someone who knows Faith magic to heal her.

So he sends out a mass distress signal.

People flock to the monastery. Not just Empire soldiers who are quickly dealt with his lance, but people from the Kingdom. Faculty members of the old Academy. The Knights of Seiros. Even some former students from other houses return to the ruins of Garreg Mach at Dimitri’s call.

(Some of them came for Dimitri, for the Crown Prince of Faerghus, for someone long dead.)

(But most of them came for Byleth, for Professor Eisner, for someone finally alive.)

Manuela, who has been frantically trying to revive Byleth along with Mercedes, Linhart, and Lysithea, almost throws a fit when she hears how Dimitri found her.

“You broke her out of cryo? You broke her out cryo?!” the healer exclaims. “You don’t just break people out of cryo! Do you know how dangerous that is?!”

She pauses, then calms down enough for a glint of her old teasing humour to return to her eyes.

“Though I suppose I wouldn’t be able to help myself either if I saw such a fine specimen waiting naked and vulnerable,” she says with a wink.

And while four years ago Dimitri might have blushed and sputtered, this Dimitri only spares Manuela a glance that’s just shy of being a glare. It might have been enough to quiet any of his old school mates, but the seasoned diva only sighs and shakes her head at his refusal to react.

“You used to be more fun to tease,” she murmurs softly, and she sounds sad more than anything, as if lamenting the loss of something precious.

Dimitri turns his head and doesn’t acknowledge her words.

*

It takes three days for Byleth to wake.

Dimitri had been standing as a silent sentinel by Byleth’s bedside during that time, but as soon as her eyelashes start to flutter, he lets the others crowd around her as he flees out the door.

It’s not that he isn’t overjoyed that she’s alive and awake. But the fear that she won’t recognize this monster he’d become as her Dima is overpowering. He hadn’t cared that he’d become a beast, a blood-soaked demon before, but when he stands in front of her...

And so he’d fled, like the coward he is. He can’t even bring himself to stray too far away so he stands outside her door, like a pathetic dog.

Eventually, everyone starts pouring out of the room. Mercedes smiles at Dimitri and gestures inside.

“She’s asking for you.”

Asking for who? Dimitri wants to ask. Did she ask for the person who broke her out? Did she ask for the prince of Faerghus? Did she ask for Dima?

In the end he can’t ask any of that and just enters the room wordlessly. He is still utterly terrified that Byleth won’t recognize him. But if she asks for him, then he has no choice but to stand in front of her judgement, whether he be damned for it or not.

Dimitri enters the room with heavy footsteps. He takes his time closing the door behind him before he drags his eyes up to see her. Byleth is sitting up on her bed, her long green hair flowing down to her waist. Her green eyes bore into Dimitri, and he stands frozen by the door.

Who does she see? What does she see? Does she see a stranger? Does she see a beast? Does she see a monster?

Is there even a sliver of Dima left in him for her to recognize?

Dimitri waits for her verdict with a turning stomach.

For a moment that feels like an eternity, Byleth only looks at him with a searching gaze.

But then, she smiles.

“Dima,” she calls, and Dimitri is finally able to breathe again.

She recognizes him. She knows him. She smiled at him. And that moment is heaven and bliss and hope and faith.

If anyone ever asks if he’s had a religious experience, this is it. This is what he’d tell them.

He stumbles forward on unsteady feet until his knees hit the floor by her bedside. His hand grasps forward, and she meets him halfway. Their fingers tangle together and she’s warm, so warm. Dimitri circles an arm around her waist and buries his face in her lap.

“Byleth,” he sobs, and she combs her fingers through his hair in a soothing gesture.

“I promised I’d be here,” she murmurs, voice still thick with unuse and filled with regret. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

But it doesn’t matter.

Byleth always, always came back to him.

And she’s here now.

Dimitri can live with that.

Chapter Text

[I have not seen the likes of you before. Who are you, anyway?]

Such a simple question, and yet Byleth has to pause for a moment that might have been an eternity before she can answer.

“I’m a ghost,” is the first thing that comes to her mind. For what else would you call a being whose emotions are like the fleeting shadows of winged birds, whose memory trickles like fine sand through open fingers? What else would you call a being who sleepwalks through life without truly living?

But the green-haired girl doesn’t accept that as an answer.

“I’m a demon,” Byleth tries this time. No one outside Jeralt’s mercenary band knows of Byleth, but the Ashen Demon is both feared and revered across the galaxy. Few know her age or even her gender, but many have heard hushed whisperings of a singing blade, of spraying blood, of blank grey eyes.

But again, the girl isn't satisfied with this answer, and Byleth is lost.

Who is she?

You’re a person, her father would have said, eyes rolling and tone exasperated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. But can Byleth really claim that when she knows that her emotions and memories are not whole? When she cannot shed tears? When she doesn’t even have a heartbeat? When she sometimes catches her own father looking at her with worry and a hint of fear in his eyes? When she knows that she’s broken somehow?

“I’m a mortal,” is what she finally settles on, because if there’s one thing she knows about herself it’s that she’ll die, be that day sooner or later. And while that answer would have upset Jeralt, it at least appeases the girl on the stone throne.

But though Sothis never brings it up again, Byleth finds herself returning to that question time and time again, more and more as the years pass.

Who is she?

She asks it when she lays a hand over her heart and hears only whirling machinery. She asks it when the light catches her father’s hair and illuminates it in bright colours so different from her own. She asks it when Rhea smiles at her with knowing eyes.

“Well, then, Eisner. How is it that you came to meet Jeralt in Remire village?”

It’s phrased differently, but in essence, it’s the same question.

Who is she?

She recalls what Jeralt had said to her.

‘When we get to Garreg Mach, no one can know who you are. Especially Lady Rhea. From this moment, you are not a mercenary. You are not Byleth. You are not my daughter.’

And since she already royally fucked up with her pseudonym (Jeralt’s jaw had clenched as if he was holding back a sigh and Sothis had openly facepalmed) Byleth has to do better this time.

“I was a... private tutor of sorts,” she begins cautiously. The best way to tell a convincing lie is to mix as much truth into it as possible. Granted, Dima taught her as much as she taught him, but training with him is still what takes up most of her life outside of mercenary work and she can fall back to it comfortably.

Rhea and Seteth drill her with a few more questions that Byleth answers readily. Jeralt doesn’t comment, keeping up their act of being strangers, but she can tell that he’s impressed and surprised at how quick she is to adapt and lie (or, as he would say, bullshit) on her feet, but in truth, she’s only saying what she actually did with Dima.

But it seems as if she’s screwed up this time as well, as the Arch Bishop’s eyes light up almost gleefully.

“Then you would fit just right in as a professor of our Officer’s Academy.”

Byleth and Jeralt discreetly meet each other’s eyes.

Shit.

*

When Hanneman and Manuela graciously offer her the first choice on which house she wants to lead, there’s no hesitation as Byleth chooses the Blue Lions.

The first reason is that out of the three house leaders, Sylvain is the only one who doesn’t seem to want to use her in some way. Edelgard judges her every move in a contemplative manner and while Claude hides it better with his cheery attitude, his smile never reaches his eyes as he watches Byleth with calculating scrutiny. Both have the air of master tacticians weighing her worth as a chess piece on a board of a game she does not know the rules to.

On the contrary, Sylvain may wink and his eyes may openly drift to her legs or her cleavage, but she doesn’t get the sense that he actually wants anything from her.

The second reason is that while Byleth herself may not call any of Fodlan’s solar systems her home, she is admittedly biased towards the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.

Byleth has never tried to figure out Dima’s identity (especially since she recalls how Glenn had tried to keep it a secret) but it’s still blatantly obvious that he’s a noble of Faerghus, so she can’t help but favour the Kingdom over the Empire or Alliance.

Thankfully, all of the Blue Lions follow Dima’s president and are absolute sweethearts. (Though Felix would probably sputter like an angry cat if he ever catches her calling him that.)

Jeralt had worried that Byleth may be overwhelmed with her duties as a professor, but all those years training and learning with Dima pays off. Making lesson plans, doing drills, instructing students on various subjects, giving criticism and praise as needed. Thanks to her time with Dima, Byleth takes to it easily.

Sothis helps too.

The girl floats around the classroom while Byleth lectures, sometimes commenting on a student’s handwriting or giggling at their doodles.

[Sylvain is passing notes in class!] Sothis tells on him in a sing-song voice.

“Sylvain, don’t pass notes in class,” Byleth calls out without missing a beat, not even turning from the board.

Sylvain sputters. “What?! I didn’t do anything!”

Byleth turns around and raises one unimpressed eyebrow. Sothis floats closer to the boy’s seat as peers at something hidden behind his book.

[Ohh, it looks like he was trying to ask Maya out for a date to town!] she cackles.

“So you weren’t passing a note trying to ask Maya out for a date to town?” Byleth questions, and Sylvain groans and slumps while he obediently crumples his note.

“Seriously, Professor, do you have an extra eye or something?”

Two extra eyes, in fact.

Sothis comes back to her side. Byleth gives her a high-five behind her back.

*

A few short months after Byleth becomes a professor, the Blue Lions are tasked to help quell a rebellion against the Church.

The only problem is that it’s lead by Ashe’s adoptive father.

Ashe visibly pales and grows thinner as the month comes to a close and the mission draws nearer. Byleth has never been good with words or feelings, so she falls back on what she knows.

Jeralt had said that he used to bring her mother flowers.

But it’s Dima she thinks of when she picks a bouquet of violets and hands them to Ashe.

The boy’s face brightens, if only slightly, and Byleth is reminded of how Dima’s face would light up every time she smiled at the blossoms he gave her as if it were him receiving a gift and not the other way around.

She brushes the thought away for the moment and invites Ashe to cook with her.

“You’re quite good at this, Professor,” Ashe compliments, sweet and kind even as distraught as he is.

Byleth hums as she expertly flips a knife.

“I used to cut a lot of onions as a child.”

“...Okay,” Ashe says slowly at her strange answer with a lifted brow, pauses, then blurts out as if he can’t just leave it at that. “There’s a story behind that.”

It relieves Byleth that he’s curious enough to ask. While perhaps she shouldn’t speak about herself too much in case it reveals her, if it helps distract Ashe, she’ll take the risk.

“As you must have noticed, I do not emote much. It was worse when I was younger. And so our...” our mercenary band, but she can’t say that. “...neighbours bet that even I would cry while cutting onions. And every time a new recruit— a new member joined us, they’d make the same bet.”

Ashe’s eyes are bright. Perhaps it is because it’s rare for Byleth to talk about herself. Perhaps it is because he’s interested in stories in general. Perhaps it’s because he’s desperate for any kind of distraction.

“So? What happened?”

“I always bet on myself. And let’s just say...” Byleth flashes Ashe a small grin. “I was never wanting for pocket money.”

Ashe laughs out loud. Byelth’s grin softens into a smile at that sound.

“Wait, but what does that have to do with you being a great cook?”

“Well, since the others were broke after I raked in all their coin, we had no choice but to cook the onions for dinner.”

“Could.. couldn’t you have just treated them?”

“Fill their stomachs with money bet on my loss? Never. And besides, they were perfectly good onions. No point in wasting them.”

Ashe actually has to set down his knife as he laughs, doubled over, his freckled face splotched with colour.

“That’s a great story!” the boy finally exclaims, wiping the corners of his eyes.

“What about you?” Byleth inquires as she finishes chopping the vegetables. “How did you learn to cook?”

“Oh, well, I used to help my parents’ restaurant... my birth parents, before Lonato adopted me and my siblings.”

And just like that, Ashe’s merriment dies again. Byleth would smack herself if she could. Sothis sighs sympathetically in the back of her mind.

They continue preparing the dish in silence until Byleth speaks up quietly, cautiously.

“You don’t have to participate in this months’ mission,” she tells him carefully.

But Ashe presses his lips together in a tight line.

“Thank you. But I... I want, I need to go. I need to see if Lonato, if he really...”

Byleth puts her hand on Ashe’s head (just like she would for Dima).

“You love him,” she states more than asks.

“I do,” Ashe agrees softly.

“But you’ll still stand against him.”

“...I will,” he whispers tearfully.

*

Later that day, Byleth visits Jeralt’s room on the excuse of faculty training.

“...If it were me, I would rather set fire to the monastery and escape with you in the dead of the night,” she admits.

Jeralt’s eyes widen before he throws his head back and laughs.

“I guess it runs in the family,” he chortles without explanation, far too gleeful considering they’re talking about his hypothetical execution.

But regardless of how happy Jeralt seems at Byleth’s confession, Byleth knows that Ashe’s situation is different. Byleth has no love for the Church and no duty to a people. But Ashe... he’s a good kid. A kind soul. He has siblings to look after, a people to protect, a moral code to follow, a dream to pursue. It just so happened that Lonato threatened all of those things. And so, as much as Ashe loved (loves) his adoptive father, he made a choice.

Byleth wouldn’t have, couldn’t have done the same thing. For all the lives she’s severed as a mercenary, she had never had to end a life that weighs as heavily as it must to Ashe.

It makes her respect the fledgling knight but also ache for him too.

He has made a choice, yes.

But he shouldn’t have to.

Byleth bites her lip and turns over the ideas wrestling in her head. In the end, she makes a decision.

“I need your help,” she tells her father.

“Sure,” Jeralt agrees readily.

“I need to hide a body.”

“You what.”

“Actually, it might be closer to several bodies.”

“Byleth.”

*

When the Blue Lions are ambushed by Lonato’s men in thick fog, Byleth is grateful. Catherine and the zealots who accompany her are hindered by their obscured vision, and when the fog lifts, Byleth positions her students in an arc around Lonato so that the Knights of Seiros are fenced off from him without it being too obvious.

Byleth is the one to strike the final blow. Lonato falls from his steed as Ashe turns his head away.

And while Catherine and the Knights are busy fussing over the letter detailing an assassination attempt on the Arch Bishop that Byleth had picked off of Lonato’s body, the members of Jeralt’s mercenaries discreetly break off from her battalion to “bury” the fallen enemies.

The “bodies” of Lonato and his men are smuggled to Sarah, a former member of Jeralt’s mercenary band who retired to a farm on the fringes of Alliance space. And if she gained a few dozen farmhands overnight, well.

No one needs to know except Ashe.

*

After Ashe it’s Sylvain.

“I’m so sorry my older brother is causing all this hassle, Professor,” the boy tries to grin. But Byleth had seen just how white his face had drained when he first heard of this month’s mission.

It isn’t fair, Byleth wants to say. First it was Ashe’s father, and now it’s Sylvain’s brother. Not to mention Dedue and his treatment for coming from Duscur despite being a victim himself, or how Mercedes is being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want, or how Annette has thrown her entire life and education to finding the father that abandoned their family.

And then there’s Dima, who clung to Byleth with shaking hands when he woke from nightmares. Who still has a shadow over his eyes even as he smiles. Who can’t taste a single thing to this day.

Fate seems especially cruel to those of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.

Byleth would love to be able to say the right thing to Sylvain, but as always, words fail her when she needs them the most. So once again she falls back on what she knows, what she learned from Dima.

“Your collection of tea is impressive, Professor. You even have my favourite!” Sylvain comments over his cup of Bergamot. Byleth just hums and sips her tea, happy that his smile is less strained and his posture more relaxed.

To be honest, most of the tea she has are leftovers from all those years ago when she and Dima drank through all the brands they could get their hands on to find a type he likes. It turns out that Dima only likes Chamomile, so all the other flavours had been sitting on her shelf.

It’s probably fine, though. Tea leaves don’t go bad.

Right?

*

What does go bad is the mission.

Miklan’s scream of terror fades into an inhuman roar as he convulses and contorts into a demonic beast.

“What the fuck,” Felix swears under his breath, and Byleth agrees. Sylvain doesn’t even utter a word as he stares up at the beast his brother has become, his face unreadable to Byleth.

The Relic feeds Miklan its strength and the beast he’s become is more powerful than he was as a human. It takes time, not to mention trial and costly error, until they break down the beast’s shields and whittle down its health.

But the more it’s struck the more desperate it becomes. The beast is a tricky foe, one of the likes they’ve never faced before, and so they’re not prepared when the beast rears and strikes down Gilbert. His large shield crumbles and his orange hair is stained red as he lands in his own blood.

“Father!” Annette screams, and Byleth uses her last Divine Pulse before her ringing scream even fades out.

Time shatters. Something roars like an engine, her still heart gives a single beat, and it feels like she’s being sucking through a black hole as time rewinds itself to before the battle—

“Lysithea!” Byleth barks out as soon as the world rightens itself. Her vision is still swimming with vertigo but she firmly pushes it away and rearranges their battle formation.

Byleth had asked for Lysithea’s mission assistance this month, and she’s grateful for her choice now. Initially she had assigned the girl as an adjutant for Ashe, but with all of her Divine Pulses used up, she needs to use a different tactic.

“You’re coming with me, in the front lines.”

The girl looks surprised for a moment before her face sets in grim determination as she nods.

As soon as they’re close enough, Byleth has Lysithea warp her right behind Miklan.

Miklan sputters in surprise as he turns. The numerous archers around him all turn their arrows to Byleth, but she has eyes only for their leader.

“Miklan. This ends now.”

At that statement (promise) Miklan’s face twists.

“Who are you to decide that?!” he snarls.

There’s that question again.

Who is she?

But Byleth doesn’t even pause to ponder an answer for Miklan.

She knocks the Lance of Ruin out of his hand before he can even finish his monologue.

Miklan’s underlings scatter as soon as their leader is defeated, Byleth retrieves the Relic, tells Rhea that Miklan has been ‘dealt with’, and Sarah gains a new stable hand.

When she tells Sylvain what became of his brother, the boy looks conflicted. He had made it no secret that he was more than ready to cut down his disowned brother, but Byleth had heard the bitter nuance in his voice and seen how his wide shoulders had drooped at the prospect of having to kill him.

“...Are you sure? He won’t exactly be a willing prisoner,” Sylvain bites out hesitantly, struggling with his conflicting emotions.

Byleth just cocks her head to the side.

“You don’t have to worry about that. He’s in capable hands. Miklan isn’t the first person we’ve sent to Sarah for rehab,” Byleth informs him, and Sylvain’s eyes widen in realization. He may act like a goof, but Byleth knows that Sylvain is far sharper than he lets on. He probably already made the connection between her words and how quickly Ashe had recovered from “losing” his stepfather.

And besides. There’s really no need to worry about Sarah. On the contrary, knowing what she’ll put them through, Byleth almost feels sorry for Lonato and Miklan.

Almost.

“...You really don’t need to go so far for him, Professor,” Sylvain says at length. “I told you. He’s a low life. He’s really not worth so much of your effort.”

“I’m not doing it for him,” Byleth corrects. “I’m doing it for you.”

“...He tried to kill me,” Sylvain says hollowly, as if it’s something he’s told someone (himself?) numerous times.

“But he’s still your brother,” Byleth replies simply, because really, that’s all there is to it.

“...Disowned,” Sylvain protests, but it’s a token effort at best.

“Even so.”

For Ashe, even though he loved Lonato, the man still threatened everything Ashe held dear.

For Sylvain, even though Miklan hates him, the man is still his brother.

Two sides of the same coin, both stained with pain.

Family is a strange thing. Both love and hate can be so strong, and yet, at the end of the day, no matter what they may have done, no one should be forced to kill their family.

“I’m not trying to say that you should go meet him. And definitely not that you should forgive him,” Byleth emphasizes. “But disowned or not, he’s still your brother.”

Byleth doesn’t mean to excuse what Miklan did or belittle what Sylvain suffered just because they’re family.

But this way, Sylvain knows that his brother is at least alive and unable to get into more mischief. This way, Sylvain knows where to find him, should he ever want to. This way, Sylvain is not forced to do anything. This way, Sylvain has a choice.

For a long while, Sylvain just stares down at Byleth with eyes that are so incredibly lost.

“...I used to hate you, you know?” he whispers out of the blue. “But now...”

Sylvain covers half his face with a hand. He lets out a breath of laughter into his palm, then peers out between his fingers to give Byleth a smile that’s all crooked and unbalanced.

“I’m glad you came to the Blue Lions.”

It’s the sincerest expression she’s seen him wear.

*

Margrave Gautier delivers the Lance of Ruin into Sylvain’s possession, only for him to immediately pawn it off to Byleth.

Byleth accepts it wordlessly. She now knows just how much Sylvain hates Crests and Relics. She also knows that he understands their value more than he wants.

The easy route would be to give Sylvain the Relic that matches his Crest.

But the next lecture day, Byleth pulls Sylvain out of riding and lance class and sets his new study goals to flying and axe.

She makes sure he never sees the Lance of Ruin again.

Sylvain doesn’t say anything. But he does stare at her for a long moment before he gives her a crooked smile. It’s not half as smooth as when he’d wink and smile at girls. But Byleth is certain it’s worth more than a thousand of them.

*

A few weeks later, Byleth bumps into Caspar on her way to class.

“Man, I don’t think I can beat Jeritza... I bet I could beat you, though!”

It’s not uncommon for the boy to pick a fight, either in jest or in seriousness, Byleth isn’t sure. But today it gives her pause. She cocks her head.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah!” Caspar pumps his fist.

Byleth contemplates him for a moment as Sothis eggs her on.

Well. Dima did always say she has a surprisingly competitive side. And besides, seeing different styles should be useful to her Lions.

“Do you have class today?”

“Huh? Uh, no, not until the afternoon.”

Byleth expected as much, as Manuela tends to schedule the Black Eagles’ classes later in the day so that she can spend the mornings recovering from hangovers.

“Well, come along, then.” And with that, Byleth turns with a swish of her overcoat.

Caspar follows her to the training ground enthusiastically at the prospect of a fight, only to furrow his brows in confusion to see all of the Blue Lions, including a Lysithea who recently transferred over, waiting for them.

“Class,” Byleth nods. “Caspar has graciously volunteered to demonstrate for us today,” she deadpans.

Caspar sputters. “I did?!”

But the boy was never one to back down from a fight so he shrugs and rolls with it. Byleth leaves the weapon racks untouched and brings up her own fists for a brawl. Caspar charges in with a yell as soon as Ashe gives the signal to start.

He’s laid on his back in five seconds flat.

“—And that,” Byleth addresses her class, face as smooth as ever, not even having broken a sweat, “is why you should never charge recklessly at an unknown opponent.”

She continues the lecture even as the students snicker at Caspar’s absolutely dumbfounded expression. Sothis openly cackles at him.

[Your Dima and Lions would know better than to ever challenge you in a brawl,] she giggles, and Byleth wonders at her wording (“Your?”) but brushes it aside.

“That goes for you too,” she addresses Caspar, and he snaps out of his disbelief. Just because he isn’t in her house doesn’t mean she can’t teach him. “Striking first can be valuable depending on the situation, but when you can afford it, it’s almost always better to know both your and your opponent's strengths first.”

She pauses, then decides a little one-on-one tutoring wouldn’t hurt.

“You’re smaller than most people,” she says, and before he can bristle defensively, she continues. “Use that to your advantage. Use speed to make up for what you lack in reach and raw strength. Go for the joints. Fight aggressively, but not recklessly.”

Caspar’s indignant expression fades into awe and starry-eyed excitement the more he listens to Byleth. He leaves class with a skip in his step, and Byleth doesn’t think much of it other than a job well done.

Except, the next day, Caspar bursts into the Blue Lions classroom towing a half-lidded Linhart behind him.

“Hey, Prof. Eisner! Me and Linhart are gonna transfer over, you cool with that, right? Right!”

And then he plops down between Felix and Annette.

Byleth blinks. Her eyes meet Linhart’s from across the classroom.

“...Translation, please?”

Linhart sighs.

“Caspar was so impressed by your teaching yesterday that he decided both of us need to be in your class. So here we are. Professor Manuela has already given her consent,” he says even as his eyelids droop ever lower. “And besides... your tea is really...” he yawns, “good...”

“...O...kay,” Byleth says slowly. She decides she isn’t going to even ask why they’re apparently a package deal. “...Welcome?”

The Blue Lions burst into cheers and warm welcome. Byleth watches them confusedly.

I wasn’t even trying to recruit them, she bewilderedly says to Sothis.

Sothis just laughs at her.

*

This is all Dima’s fault, Byleth tells Sothis when she finds herself sitting at a tea table. Again.

[Oh?] Sothis snickers, entirely too amused at Byleth’s confusion.

It’s true, though. Since Byleth had so much excess tea from her failed tea ventures with Dima, all she’d been thinking was that she might as well use them when she invited various people from in and out of her house to tea.

But then word seemed to spread that she had a truly impressive stock of tea (she suspects Ferdinand) and then people had started accosting her in the hallways expressing their love for tea and saying they wouldn’t mind being invited for tea, hint hint, wink wink.

Which is how she came to find herself sitting at the tea table with Lorenz today.

“My! Your tea simply is exquisite, Professor Eisner!” the boy exclaims. “You must have had years of experience to be able to make such a delightful cup of tea!”

Four years, in fact.

To be honest, Byleth doesn’t actually mind hosting these tea parties. No, the problem is that people who’ve been invited (or invite themselves) to tea with her are starting to ditch their original houses and drop into the Blue Lions.

She wonders what Hanneman and Manuela think about all this.

Then again, they also seem to enjoy attending Byleth’s tea parties and lectures too.

It’s gotten to the point where Byleth has actually started having to buy more tea just to keep up with everyone’s expectations. She really doesn’t know how this all happened.

Actually, she does.

It’s all Dima’s fault.

Not making things any better is that Chamomile, the one tea Byleth always makes sure to have a stock of, is one of the more expensive wares the merchants at the monastery sell. They must be robbing the monks blind because they’d charged her a thousand gold pieces for just one packet. She could have bought a decent shield with that money.

Inflated prices or not, Byleth would never give up buying the one tea Dima actually likes. (Which, come to think of it, might be why those merchants won’t lower their prices. Bastards.)

“Pardon my rudeness, Professor. You always treat us, but I’ve neglected to ask which tea you favour!” Lorenz exclaims after they’ve chatted for a while.

Byleth has to think for a moment.

To be honest, Byleth doesn’t really do favourites in general. Growing up as a mercenary, she rarely had the luxury to pick and choose what to eat. She can and will eat almost anything placed in front of her, and that goes the same for flavours of tea.

Although...

...Byleth has found that she’s developed a particular fondness for Duscur bear ever since it was the catalyst that brought Dima into her life.

And so for tea...

Byleth hums lightly as she brings her cup of tea to her lips.

“Chamomile.”

Chapter Text

Byleth thought of herself as only half alive, once. Not just because she couldn’t shed tears, not just because she heard only whirling machinery where there should be a heartbeat. But because her memories trickled away from her. Because emotions were hard for her to feel and even harder to express. Because she knew she was broken somehow.

Then she met Dima, and over the years, somehow, miraculously, he slowly began to fix her.

Ever since she met Dima, Byleth found it easier to remember things. Emotions stirred inside her stronger than ever, and in only half a year he even got her to smile.

She wonders if this is what it feels like to be a person, not just a mortal like she told Sothis.

But perhaps she’ll never know because for all the good that Dima’s done to her, Byleth’s changes are not all positive.

Ever since she met Dima (ever since she met Sothis, she later realizes with greater understanding) Byleth has fallen victim to vicious strikes of dizziness. She’d feel so tired and sleepy even when she knows she should be physically fine. At times she’d even collapse and pass out.

Like now.

Byleth bites back a groan as consciousness slowly returns, her head throbbing painfully. Sothis doesn’t even try to hold back her moan as she rubs her head.

[It’s getting more frequent], she hisses against their shared pain, a hint of worry and fear hidden beneath her irritation.

Byleth struggles to wake, clawing her way up to consciousness. Dizziness blurs her vision as she pries her eyes open to find herself on the floor of— the greenhouse, this time. She must have collapsed when she came to check on her crops.

Instead of immediately getting back to her feet, Byleth scoots over to lean against the wall in a secluded corner. She hides behind a pot, curls up, and takes a moment to just breathe.

Sothis is right. Passing out like this is getting more and more frequent. But Manuela hadn’t found anything wrong with her and the songstress’ Faith magic hadn’t done anything for her, so there’s nothing she can really do about it.

(Later, when Byleth knows the truth about Sothis and what Rhea did to them, she will realize her failing body must have been due to some sort of overheating, figuratively speaking. Her body was fine when Sothis was asleep and Byleth too sleepwalked through life, but with her memories and emotions returning to her and the goddess awakened, her mere mortal body couldn’t possibly house both consciousnesses at once. It was as if her hardware could no longer process her software. Byleth had become too much of a person when she was only ever supposed to be a vessel.)

If not even Garreg Mach’s best healer can help her, Byleth wonders what she can do.

She wonders why this is happening.

She wonders what’s wrong with her.

She wonders what she is... and there’s that question again.

Who is she?

“...Professor Eisner? What are you doing here?”

Byleth opens the eyes that she hadn’t even noticed she’d closed. She looks up from her position on the floor to find Felix looking down at her with a raised brow.

“Resting,” Byleth answers after belatedly realizing he’d asked her a question.

“...While hiding in a corner of the gardens?” Felix counters, his brow arching ever higher.

He gives her a skeptical look that would make most people squirm. But even though Dima taught her emotions and expressions, her default is still a blank poker face that doesn’t break even when she’s been caught by her student hiding curled up behind a potted plant. And so when she just stares up blankly at Felix, it’s him who gives up first and loses their impromptu staring match.

“Whatever,” the boy eventually huffs and turns around. It must be his turn to water the plants, Byleth belatedly realizes as Felix proceeds to ignore her and continue watering the crops and flowers.

But for all he’s making a show of ignoring her, Byleth still catches the way Felix keeps shooting her glances over his shoulder when he thinks she can’t see him, or how he tries to be quieter than usual while moving about, or the way he goes out of his way to move a pot plant so that it shields the sunlight from directly hitting Byleth’s eyes.

As Byleth said. All of the Blue Lions are absolute sweethearts, even if some of them would rather stab themselves than admit it.

“Thank you.”

Felix all but glares at her.

“For what? I didn’t do anything,” he challenges, daring her to point out how considerate he’s being.

Byleth just shakes her head with a ghost of a smile. His prickly attitude and reluctance to be seen as soft (when he absolutely totally is a sweetheart) sometimes feels familiar. She gets a nagging sensation as if she’s met him before, or perhaps someone similar, maybe a long time ago...

...but though her memory is getting better there are still glaring gaps and holes, and she cannot recall who it was.

Felix finally finishes watering all the plants. But he doesn’t immediately walk out of the greenhouse as Byleth expected. Instead, he returns to stand in front of Byleth and stoops to lay the back of his hand on her forehead.

“...You don’t have a fever, so walk on your own,” he huffs, rising.

Byleth blinks at him, then smiles when she catches on to the implication that he would have supported her if she did have a fever.

“Thank you.”

“I keep telling you, I didn’t do anything. Go find Manuela or something before you get sick and cause more trouble for us,” he tosses behind his back grumpily as he leaves.

Byleth doesn’t, of course, since she already knows that Manuela can’t help her. But the healer still comes to find her within the next five minutes, claiming that a haughty Felix had sent her this way.

Sothis laughs fondly, and Byleth can’t help but smile again.

*

With the Wyvern Moon comes the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

By that point Dorothea, Lorenz, Ignatz, and Flayn have joined Lysithea, Caspar, and Linhart’s footsteps and transferred over to the Blue Lions.

Byleth wonders if the house battle is even fair when she has over half the Freshmen in her house. Or when she somehow ended up hoarding most of the magic users without even meaning to.

“Edelgard and Claude certainly don’t think so,” Sylvain informs her with a groan over tea. “Seriously, Professor, they were insufferable at the house leaders meeting. What’s a mere noble to do between the combined wrath of the future Emperor and the next sovereign duke?”

With that the boy dramatically throws himself on the tea table as he puffs out his lips in a pout and bats his lashes up at Byleth.

“Comfort me!”

Felix would have curled his lip in disgust and Ingrid would have thwacked him.

Byleth doesn’t miss a beat and just pats him on the head.

Sylvain blinks up at her in surprise from under his tousled red locks. He’d seen Byleth pat her students’ heads from time to time, of course, but it’s the first time he’s been on the receiving end of it. Mostly because unlike Ashe or the girls Sylvain is too tall for Byleth to reach comfortably. (Dima knows to stoop down for her, of course, but none of her students have yet to pick up his habit.)

Sylvain gives her a crooked grin that’s she’s seeing more and more often.

“To be honest, I’m only the house leader because our prince enrols next year. I’ve been looking forward to passing on this burden to him and becoming a free—well, freer—man. You know me, Professor, I’m not cut out for all this responsibility and stuff. But now that I think about it, I guess it’s not too bad if it means I get some private tutoring from you,” he says with a wink.

Byleth lowers her hand from his head to flick his nose.

“In that case, you can go Sky Watch with Ingrid.”

“I said private, not a group task, Professor!” Sylvain protests even as he laughs good-naturedly.

Regardless of her questions on whether this is even considered fair, Byleth is a pragmatic mercenary at heart, so she relentlessly lectures her expanded Blue Lions until the day of the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

They, to put it lightly, wipe the floor with the other houses.

*

Perhaps they did a bit too good a job because, not long after the house battle, Claude corners Byleth and all but bullies her into “inviting” him to tea.

Totally Dima’s fault, Byleth insists to Sothis once again.

“Teaching, fighting, cooking, fishing, singing, and tea brewing too? Geez, Teach, is there anything you can’t do?” Claude jokes with a playful wink even as his gaze is ever intense and calculating.

Instead of rising to the bait, Byleth just helps herself to some cake.

“Dancing,” she deadpans as she forks a bite of the cake into her mouth, recalling how Dima seemed to delight in every time she missed a step and stepped on his foot. Weird kid.

Claude blinks, then throws his head back and laughs. (Byleth wouldn’t have said this if she knew the boy would pull her onto the dance floor with a wink and a devilish grin on the night of the ball. But while Byleth can rewind time she can’t see the future, so.) (Once again, totally Dima’s fault.)

They dance around each other with small talk for a while before Claude finally brings up what he probably came here for.

“Say, Teach, I’ve been hearing some rumours about this farm on the fringes of Alliance space. Ever heard of a retired mercenary called Sarah?”

Sothis shrieks. Byleth feels like joining her but her poker face holds strong.

The boy studies her face carefully as he continues.

“Rumour has it that she obtains farmhands out of nowhere. As if they were spirited away. And that they seem... familiar to some people. Not to mention she herself is famous— or should I say infamous. Splatter Sarah, she was once called, I hear.”

Byleth just sips her tea at the familiar nickname.

“Is that so. Space mercs do have a peculiar sense of naming.”

[I’ll say!] Sothis huffs. [The Ashen Demon, really!]

See, even Sothis agrees with her.

But Claude isn’t deterred yet and continues doggedly.

“I did some research. She was a former member of the Blade Breaker’s band, right? But ever since Jeralt’s mercenaries have come to Garreg Mach, they’ve been hired as battalions. Your battalion, to be exact. And I must say, you’re an amazing tactician. One might even think you and your battalion must have been together for years with how well you work with them.”

Sothis slaps Byleth’s shoulder frantically.

[Abort abort abort! Divine Pulse! Now!]

But Byleth just brings her teacup to her lips again.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she responds breezily, doing her best to ignore Sothis screeching in her ear.

Claude narrows his eyes for a moment, then grins and winks.

“Sure, sure. Just like you had no idea Almyran Pine Needles are my favourite tea and just happened to serve it today?”

Actually, that one’s on Claude as much as it’s on Byleth.

Byleth never means to eavesdrop on the students, but living as a mercenary in hiding means she grew up constantly masking her presence. Old habits die hard, so sometimes she walks in on students talking with each other and hears things they probably didn’t mean her to. This is also how she came upon Claude talking to Cyril the other day. The supposed heir to the Leister Alliance spoke as if he expected the young Almyran boy to know him, or at the very least, know of him.

But Byleth isn’t one to go probing at others’ secrets, even if the other party doesn’t do her the same courtesy, so she just turns the metaphorical blind eye.

“Again, I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

On Claude’s part, Byleth’s deflection only makes him burn with more curiosity. His greatest interests lately are the identities of the newest Professor and Flayn. It drives him crazy. But thankfully Professor Eisner has dropped a little more crumbs than Flayn.

See, Claude totally knows about the rehab barn. It’s in Alliance space after all, give him some credit. He’s also fairly certain Professor Eisner isn’t strangers with Jeralt’s mercenaries like they claim, though he’s not sure what their former relationship was. He isn’t even sure if her cover that she used to be a tutor is fake or not (because the Blue Lions and everyone who’s transferred over are definitely seeing results with how they’re crushing the Deer and Eagles in all the house rivalry battles and monthly tournaments) but there’s something she and Jeralt are hiding.

A grin stretches over his face. He hasn’t had such a fascinating puzzle in a while. And the fact that she wields the Sword of the Creator makes it all the more worth it.

He wishes she chose to come to his House.

Claude waggles a biscuit at her.

“Alright, alright, be that way. But mark my words, Teach, one day I will figure out who you are.”

“Is that so,” she muses.

If he does, Byleth hopes he’ll share his findings.

Because she doesn’t know either.

(Who is she?)

*

The other two house leaders have always had kept their eyes on Byleth ever since she helped save them from the bandits, but apparently the crushing loss at the House battle really was something because after Claude makes his move, Edelgard is next.

“My, Professor. Showing favouritism outside your own House?”

Byleth looks up at the mildly teasing tone to find the future Empress of the Adrestian Empire. But she doesn’t even get a chance to either confirm or deny before her companion leaps to her defence.

“Edelgard!” Ferdinand exclaims. “It is unbecoming of you to make such accusations! Professor Eisner was only kind enough to answer some questions I had about her opinion on battle tactics. I am sure you also noticed how skilled she is, especially with that outstanding performance at the House battle.”

Edelgard raises a questioning brow at the assortment of sweets in front of them.

“Discussing battle tactics... at the tea table?”

Ferdinand just beams at her skepticism.

“What better place to discuss the art of war? And our dear Professor has such a fine selection of tea, I simply could not pass up the opportunity.”

Byleth just bites into her muffin, letting their one-sided rivalry or whatever it is play out. Though, come to think of it, it’s rather odd that Edelgard was the one to initiate conversation when usually she tries to avoid Ferdinand’s enthusiastic... everything.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Edelgard turns from Ferdinand to focus on Byleth.

“I can’t help but notice, Professor, that you seem to be more... relaxed around Ferdinand, despite the fact that he is not even in your House. Is there a particular reason?”

Byleth blinks at Edelgard’s observation. The girl is watching her closely, waiting for her answer. Byleth turns to Ferdinand, expecting the noble boy to answer for her and boisterously declare that it’s only obvious considering his natural charm or something along those lines. But instead he’s looking to Byleth with bright eyes, seemingly awaiting her answer with as much curiosity as Edelgard.

Well then.

“He reminds me of someone special to me,” Byleth admits honestly without even trying to deny it.

Because it’s true. Dima and Ferdinand are not the same, of course, not by a long shot. Dima is nowhere as self-assured as Ferdinand while Ferdinand lacks the demons and shadows that lurk beneath Dima’s smiles. But they share their enthusiasm, earnestness, and fundamental goodness that Byleth can’t help but see the one in the other.

“They must be very special indeed if merely thinking about them can bring such a smile to your face, Professor!”

Byleth is shaken out of her thoughts at Ferdinand’s exclamation. The smile she hadn’t even been aware of slips off her face as she returns to her default blank expression.

Edelgard’s eyes linger on the flattened curve of her lips.

“...Yes. I have never seen you make... such an expression.”

(And if Byleth knew the princess better, perhaps she could have detected the way her gaze lingered a moment too long or heard how her voice was tinged with wistful envy. But she doesn’t know, so she doesn’t see and she doesn’t hear. Only years later when Ferdinand mentions how Edelgard was always fixated on her will Byleth look back in hindsight and wonder...)

“Well. It is an honour you think me similar to someone so special to you. I shall endeavour to meet and exceed your expectations!”

Byleth just quirks a faint smile at Ferdinand’s declaration.

And maybe she should have seen it coming, but for some reason Byleth is still surprised when she walks into the Blue Lions classroom to find Ferdinand beaming among her ever expanding House.

(Totally Dima’s fault.)

*

“Professor! Help me!”

Byleth turns around at the desperate call, a hand instinctively flying to her sword, but before she draws the blade she pauses at the sight she’s met with.

Instead of foes or beasts, Byleth finds the girls of the Blue Lions. Mercedes and Annette are each clinging to one of Ingrid’s arms with matching wide smiles on their faces. Ingrid looks like a lamb being dragged to slaughter.

“Please!” the blonde girl all but wails, but Byleth hesitates for too long, trying to process the situation, when she finds herself too captured.

“Oh, won’t you join us, Professor? We’d be delighted to have you!” Dorothea all but purrs, saccharine sweet, wrapping her deceptively thin arms around Byleth’s in a vicious grip. Flayn just titters from behind her hand, no intention of helping either prisoner.

“We may have lost Lysithea to Hilda, but we won’t let you escape too!”

And so Byleth finds herself being kidnapped along with Ingrid, still thoroughly confused about what’s going on.

The girls all pile into Mercedes’ room. And then they proceed to pull out dresses and makeup.

“We’re getting ready for the ball, of course!” Annette beams when she catches Byleth’s bemused look. And while Byleth still doesn’t understand why they’re already preparing when the ball is still a few days away, or why they’re doing this together in a cramped room, the girls all seem happy and excited (and even Ingrid seems resignedly amused) so she decides to play along.

Mercedes, Annette, and Dorothea take turns applying makeup on Ingrid, who suffers through it until she can’t take it anymore and offers up Byleth as a sacrificial lamb instead. The girls then play with Byleth’s hair and face almost as if they’re playing doll. Flayn asks questions about different makeup and techniques, and they all chatter about everything from cosmetics to classes.

Byleth is suddenly struck by the realization that this must be what people call ‘girl talk’ and that she’s somehow stumbled into being a part of it.

Eventually, the topic of conversation turns to romance.

“I mean, it’s so hard, you know?” Dorothea sighs as she braids a strand of Byleth’s hair. “I’ve sung so many love songs, but in real life, it isn’t so easy. For me, marriage is more an investment than anything. Love is a luxury.”

Mercedes sighs sorrowfully. They’ve already foiled a marriage proposal where Mercedes’ adoptive father tried to marry her off to a terrible man that thankfully Dorothea recognized and was able to warn her against, but they all know it won’t be the last time something like that will happen.

“What about you, Professor?” Flayn asks with sparkling eyes. “Do you have a lover?”

Byleth blinks.

“No.”

The girls pout in disappointment at Byleth’s flat answer, but nod as if they expected it.

Byleth isn’t sure if she should be insulted or not.

“That means you and Dorothea are the only ones with experience, Ingrid,” Annette points out, grinning. “Plus, yours is actually your fiance! Tell us all the juicy details!”

Ingrid turns beet red and sputters for a moment.

“Well, I— Glenn isn’t— I mean, he is, but—!”

(And Byleth cocks her head at that name—Glenn?—as it sounds like it should be familiar, but Dorothea scolds her not to move her head as she pins her hair up, and so Byleth’s fickle memory quickly forgets before she can recall those cold nights on Duscur.)

Ingrid looks around the room helplessly but all the girls (except Byleth) are looking at her with expectation, so she sighs and gives in, her cheeks still tinted pink.

“We’ve been engaged since we were children,” she begins, trying to sound nonchalant but failing spectacularly. “I... I don’t know. I suppose we were too young when it all began to really... um. Well, I always looked up to him and relied on him, but it wasn’t, you know? It’s just, he’s always been there, and he’s like family.”

Annette sighs in disappointment but nods sympathetically.

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“But,” Ingrid continues, her flush deepening and her hands fidgeting. “Now... now that we’re older, sometimes, I do feel... something. He’s still the same person I looked up to, he’s still my role model as a knight, still almost a brother figure, but now... he isn’t just that? If that makes sense? Like, he’s also a... a man.”

Ingrid buries her face in her hands as the other girls all coo and squeal.

“That’s such a cute love story. From childhood friends to lovers! I could write a song about this!”

“Please don’t,” Ingrid mumbles, but she’s smiling through her blush.

Byleth still doesn’t understand what all this is about, but the girls look happy, so she decides it’s all fine.

(Later, either months or years in the future depending on how you count, she’ll look at the crown prince of Faerghus and see that he isn’t just Dima anymore, isn’t just the child that clung to her after a bad dream, isn’t just a boy she watched grow up, but that he’s also Dimitri, who protects her as much as she him, who towers over her, who watches her with smouldering eyes, who is no longer a child or a teenager but a man.)

(Oh, she’ll realize. So this is what Ingrid meant.)

*

The Ball isn’t as terrible as Byleth dreaded it would be.

Claude is the first to pull her onto the dance floor with a mischievous grin and wink. Sylvain squawks in indignation when he sees them stumbling around gracelessly, claiming that Claude can’t steal our Professor dammit, go dance with your own Head of House! (to which Claude responds ew, no, I am not dancing with Hanneman, thank you very much) and whisks Byleth away for himself. Ingrid swoops in and steals Byleth away from Sylvain as soon as the song ends, and then passes her on to Annette who links her arm in Byleth’s and just kind of prances around more than dances, only for a scandalized Lorenz to demand he dance with Byleth next in an effort to teach her how a ‘real’ dance is actually supposed to go. It goes on until Byleth has danced (or whatever equivalent) with almost everyone regardless of whether they’re in her House, swirling and laughing despite herself.

By the time Byleth slips away Sothis is giggling a little drunkenly, swaying from side to side. Byleth didn’t know Sothis could get dizzy from Byelth’s spinning, but apparently she can and it brings a small grin to her lips.

[That was fun,] Sothis laughs, and Byleth agrees.

But it does make Byleth wonder what Dima is doing right now.

She settles her elbows on the stone of the Goddess Tower and looks out into the night.

Byleth has lived all her life in hiding. From what, she still doesn’t know, but things are... things are good, now. Sometimes she misses the familiarity of being a mercenary, sometimes she feels guilty when someone calls her “Eisner”, and she hates that she has to pretend not to know her own father, but... things are good. She’s grown fond of her students and she likes teaching here in Garreg Mach.

She thinks she can stay here.

Stay here, and see her students graduate. Stay here, and surprise Dima when he enrolls next year and is there to greet him. Stay here, and dance with him at the millennium festival five years from now.

Yes, Byleth thinks. She can do that.

For most of her life, Byleth had just lived the moment, never bothering to look back on the past or look forward to the future. But Dima and Sothis have changed her, and now, she plans, she dreams, she wishes for a future with them.

Byleth leans of the stone of the Goddess Tower and looks up at the stars.

“Sothis?”

[Hmm?]

“Some of the students said that if a man and a woman make the same wish here tonight, the Goddess will fulfill it. Do you think that’s true?”

While Byleth doesn’t care much for rumours or legends, Sothis usually finds them interesting, if only to laugh at ‘how imaginative you humans are’ or something.

[Well, we can’t experiment and find out since you’re alone.]

“I’m not alone. I have you.”

That makes Sothis pause, and though she’s speechless Byleth can see the pleased flush that tints the girl's face.

[It’s not the same thing,] she eventually scolds haughtily, even as her expression is still bright. [What would you even wish for, anyway?]

Byleth looks up at the stars again.

Byleth has never put much stock in legends. She doesn’t pray to the Goddess. She doesn’t wish on falling stars.

But maybe, just tonight, she can be a little sentimental.

She makes a wish upon a star.