Chapter Text
Kings shouldn’t have the ability to wage war.
Though, if you were to scratch at that concept and peer beneath the surface, you would be shown an even greater truth: There should be no Kings. Divine rule did not make one an effective ruler, it did not make one a noble leader, and it sure as hell did not mean they would value the lives of any in their service.
Lives are considered even less than “things” when those in power refer to people as “bodies.” Skirmishes, battles, wars, deaths—lives laid to waste with the same ease as throwing away a broken sword. You are useful as a solider, as a knight, as a meat sack… as a body. Useful until you weren’t, worthwhile until used up. How can you see the depth and currents of the people you send to die? Humans with thoughts and feelings and lives, used and tossed around as if they were toys on a placemat. War convinces you that those who die are simply numbers and not what they truly are--individuals with intricate and full lives that were cut into nothing.
What is a man to a King? What is a King to a God? What is a God to a non-believer?
What a simple way to categorize the depth and intricacies of humanity. How utterly foolish it is to pedestal yourself above another with lofty, bloated titles.
All corpses decay the same.
What was it he’d told you? Your step-father, perhaps the most bloated of them all, for all his wisdom and maneuvers could not fathom a world where he could be measured to any. His astuteness amounted to little more than posturing, even when he spoke with you.
“Any noble in the Leicester Alliance would give near anything to ensure their child could attend Garreg Mach.” You can still remember the way the opalescent buttons on his collar reflected in the light and struck at your eyes. “The heir to House Riegan will be the house leader.”
A statement, brief and sure, laced with words and thoughts unsaid.
“Wonderful, I’m sure we’ll work excellently together.”
All walls have ears, all one can say means measures and leagues more than simply what you hear. How proud he was of his own observations, swollen with the spoils acquired through his own schemes. Schemes he laid at your feet, schemes you would sooner throttle him with.
“There will be a dinner in the coming days, where all of the families whose children will be enrolling will be in attendance. I’m certain that you will make a wonderful impression.”
Of course you would.
You still remember the first time you saw him, Claude von Riegan. Exactly how you’d heard him described, all smiles and touches and words woven into circles. It felt surreal being around him, around the others who would join you at the monastery, and it made you oppressively aware of how long it had been since you’d last interacted with people your own age.
“You would be Lady [Your Name], of House Sommer, I presume.” His voice was slick, coated in emotion but you couldn’t precisely comprehend what that emotion could’ve been.
“I would, it’s wonderful to finally met you, Lord Riegan.”
“Wow, Lord Riegan, I suppose I could get used to that.”
“You’d certainly let it go to your head, if anything.” Lorenz Gloucester, stiff but somehow playing at aloofness, regards you quickly before he goes back to nursing his drink.
“Come on, Lorenz, don’t make me look bad in front of our new housemate!” Claude shoves lightly at the boy beside him, a smile catching you soon after. “I was surprised to hear you would be joining us, House Sommer rose to prominence in such a short amount of time, after all.” His words, like all the pomp and circumstance of the Alliance, was laced with things left unsaid.
You smiled, but you wonder now if the gesture managed to reach your eyes. “I suppose I would be the reason for that.”
His expression softens slightly, it occurs to you now that that was the first display of genuine emotion you’d seen from him that night. “That would seem to be the case.”
What you can’t quite recall is how you managed to isolate him from the others.
You can recall talking with him, watching as the honeyed words that fell from his lips would cause something to stir around in the deep dark of his eyes. Surprised by how despite being so boisterous, so sickly sweet, you can clearly remember feeling like he was trustworthy. Or, maybe, you just had hoped and convinced yourself of this because you knew how much you needed him.
What was it you whispered to him? You couldn’t fathom a guess, but you still got him alone.
All walls have ears.
For that one time, you had hoped beyond hope that that wouldn’t come back to haunt you.
You’d both entered a room, Claude had started to say something in a tone that coated your skin, before you unceremoniously pulled a small, worn stack of letters from beneath your clothes.
Claude’s lithe expression snagged the moment his eyes landed on the hasty script on the letters. All at once, his entire stance changed, stiff and alert where it had once been aloof and relaxed. He seemed to pour over every inch of those papers, all-bright green eyes seemingly committing every pen stroke to memory.
Your hands clamored around the fabric of your dress, watching as Claude’s face never gave ground to what was whirling around in his mind as he read. You tried to study him, fervently tried to watch how the light caught the whites of his eyes, the flush of his skin under the faint glow of the room.
“Well…” he starts, his chest blooming as he lifted his face to you, “seems the church is up to things of a more dubious nature than would be appropriate of those who claim to be in the service of a “Goddess.”
“They need to be taken down.”
Brazen, foolish even, of you to just lay before him. Dangerous, to be sure, but Claude merely pauses, expression soft and reserved, before looking up at you through his lashes.
“One King, one Alliance, one Emperor--they’re nothing. They’ve had untold centuries to get to where they are… to cultivate that kind of unchecked power.” The words nearly die on your lips, you’d never given yourself the freedom to speak those words out loud. Not around here, not anymore.
“What, exactly, are you trying to say?” There in his eyes, a look, that light in his gaze that feels like it wants to drown you.
“You’re a schemer.”
“Baseless rumors.”
“You’re have the most charming tongue in all of Fódlan.”
“Oh, now I’d love to know where that rumor comes from.”
“You don’t trust the church either.”
“I’d say no one should trust omnipresent, totalitarian based religions.”
“You’ve seen what the church is capable of.”
You were surprised when he didn’t respond vocally, not a shift or change in his blithe expression—nothing, save the push and pull in the deep dark of his eyes demanding to drag you down.
“I’ll ask again: What, exactly, are you trying to say?”
One beat, two, and you square your shoulders.
“The church cannot be brought down by force alone.”
He hums in response.
“Force and fight produces martyrs, produces zealots, produces… idolatry. Even the truth,” you gesture to the letters in Claude’s hands, “does nothing in the face of blind conviction.”
Another hum, his eyebrows narrow as his lips twinge upwards.
“The only way for anyone to change anything…” You trailed off, implications falling from your lips like stars, “is to tear it down from the inside and leave there no one who could possibly be in a position to fix it.”
Silence.
You stood perfectly still, eyes leveled with the Riegan House heir, refusing to give your ground. Claude was relentlessly difficult to read; his lax affect did not betray him even a single thought or intention. You wondered, cold and hard and calculated, how you seemed to him when you’d so brazenly shown your hand. How idiotic you must have appeared. One girl—one insignificant, fatherless child—wanting to implode the whole of The Church of Seiros. How utterly, totally foolish you must have seemed.
But you were every single, desperate inch your father’s daughter--and you would stop at nothing to follow this through to whatever bitter end it would lead to.
“My thoughts, exactly.”
You reared back, shocked to see Claude grinning ear to ear before he pressed your letters back to his face.
“I was under the impression I would have to do most of the heavy lifting of this plan alone… but it appears that I don’t have to.”
All-bright green eyes catch yours and you watch his grin mold into something slick and sly that makes your heart drum in your ears.
“Seems we have similar goals, Lady [Your Name]. I hope I’m not being too bold in suggesting that we make this official and join forces.”
It was your turn to grin, an act too bright and too relieved to rival his. “Not at all, Lord Riegan. You are the only person in Fódlan who could even remotely hope to help me achieve something so impossible.”
“Now, don’t stroke my ego too much, we’ve only barely gotten to know each other. And, please…
“Call me Claude.”
---
You’re worried they’ll remember you. Perhaps, in your hope beyond hope, the years compounded on tragedy and trauma had worn the specter of you from memory. Like faded yellowing on the parchment of a book left too long in the sun—barely worth noticing.
Your journey to the Garreg Mach Monastery was uneventful, uninteresting, and almost mundane. The monastery itself, from what little you know of it, in addition to being the headquarters of the Church of Seiros, seemed to thrive off serving the wealth and nobility of Fódlan’s independent nations in the form of an Officer’s Academy. Well, anyone can go, of course, provided they had the coin and the clearance and some worthwhile qualities. You knew what to expect, knew to look forward to the arrogance. Arrogance, not just from the wealthy or from the nobility, but from the commoners who felt themselves above their own people. How they laughed and chortled and vehemently agreed with the words of those so far removed from the population that suffered. How they truly believed that by bolstering the nobility that would mean they could become one of them someday. As if commoners could ever come into nobility by their own means, as if the system was not rigged to keep them subjugated.
You forced yourself to take a deep, staggered breath.
You knew, knew the moment your step-father muttered the words, that it wouldn’t just be the Leicester Alliance who would be holed up in these walls. Of course they wouldn’t be, Fódlan was comprised of three separate countries, all with their own power structures. For one, there would be those from the Adrestian Empire, led by one Princess Edelgard von Hresvelg. You were very interested in her, in the words you held inside you whispered from the quiet of your childhood, but knew better than to indulge in those thoughts so soon. Then, of course, there would be those from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, under the watchful gaze of the young Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. A sole survivor, a boy against the world against himself, there were no shortage of songs cast against him from the mouths of wealth and nobility.
Surely it had been enough time… right?
You hoped so, anyway.
I will carry your ghosts and they can live forever; I will build a home for them in me. Never forgotten, never misplaced. Please, let me take them, please—
“You feeling alright, [Your Name]?”
“Of course.” Your response is too quick, too even, and you know without even looking that Claude doesn’t believe you. He probably wouldn’t show it, maybe even just rolled his eyes like you’d told him a joke, but he would make no visible show of his thoughts. Why would he even bother asking when he knows that you couldn’t possibly tell him any manner of the truth when you’re all moving your belongings into your rooms?
“Well, try not to get too wrapped up in those thoughts. They can kill, you know.”
You resist the urge to growl at him, opting instead to stare pointedly. He shrugs at you and puts his hands up defensively before you say: “Claude, go sort out your room and leave me to mine.”
“I just wanted to check up on you! Unfortunate you had to have a room near the clergy, huh? Especially since there’s a spare room beside the little Blaiddyd prince’s right-hand man.” You tense at Claude’s words but try and make it look like it was because you were struggling with a box of your things.
“I don’t see an issue with having a room near the clergy and other students in the Officers Academy. Just because they aren’t directly a part of our house doesn’t mean they aren’t still students like us.” You grimace at your own words, not liking the implication of how you said students like us, as if that needed to be explained.
“Most nobility would be rather cross about having to room near commoners.”
You stand to your full height quicker than intended and snap towards him with an almost full snarl, your body heating up upon looking onto Claude’s cool and calm face.
He was riling you up on purpose.
“You know, for someone who’s supposedly on my side, you’re sure not acting like it.” Your skin crawled, agitation still dancing in your chest. Most nobility, most nobility, most nobility—you throw one of your bags on the desk across the room. It clattered against the wood and shook the frame, candles and books toppling to the floor soon after.
“Hmm, seems nobility is a bit of a touchy subject.” You do not bother giving him a second glance, the deep quality of his laugh ringing in your ears soon after. “Very touchy, perhaps. I do genuinely apologize if I said something too rude, that wasn’t my intention.”
You hum in response, gaze kept on the knick-knacks you could barely register as you took them out and stuck them onto shelves. “You know, Claude, we’re in the same house, on the same side—you don’t have to try to pry my secrets out of me.”
Now it was his turn to be silent, back leaning against your doorframe as he watched you work.
“No… I suppose I don’t.” Ahh, first lie you’ve been able to ascertain from him with any amount of confidence.
Then again, knowing what you know of Leicester, trust was in short supply no matter what house you hailed from.
“I have no reason to lie to you.” He doesn’t respond, you sigh and turn away. “Well, when you’re ready to have a real conversation, you know where to find me.”
You don’t turn back around until you’d finished putting everything away but, by the time you’d done that, he was gone.
---
Water always calmed you.
Just being able to revel in the way the small waves lapped at your legs could fill you with a sense of peace nothing else was quite capable of doing. You aren’t sure why, you don’t have any memories tied to water, nothing so profound as a moment with your parents or a hideaway with a friend. You just… liked to run away to water. Liked to disappear to rivers and ponds and streams, liked to stick your whole body in the rushing currents. Unsafe, of course, for a child to wonder to rushing water in order to sit on the banks and resist the pull. You could’ve died many times, many ways, but you never did.
Always pushing your luck, even now.
Already risking trouble as it was, hiding behind the pillar of the tall waterway that let fresh water into the pier and practically leaning your entire lower body into its currents. The skirt of your uniform was pulled up to not get wet while letting your legs sink in. You braced your feet against the pillar and leveraged the small of your back to the small ledge just below the concrete walkway behind it. Halfway in, halfway out—something you can guarantee you probably aren’t supposed to do. Luckily, there were a fair number of crates and wagons that were, probably, supposed to cut off this part of the pier.
That’s why you chose it, less likely to be bothered in a marked off area.
“Umm… excuse me…”
A voice thrills beside you, so close to recognizable.
You throw yourself forward enough to springboard off the pillar and back onto the walkway to your feet, legs slick and resistant as you pulled your skirt all the way down to cover them. “I’m sorry! I know I’m probably not supposed to be back here.”
“No, no, it’s my fault for frightening you! I was merely… concerned seeing someone hidden in the water, I was worried you could’ve been in trouble or—"
You keep your face down as you attempt to pat dry your legs with your hands, fingers trembling from the adrenaline coursing through your veins. You don’t look up, you don’t want to, you know already know who it is.
“I apologize, I’m certain this is insurmountably rude of me to ask, but… what are you doing back here?”
Curious, so curious, you want to see what’s changed, the lines of a face and light in the eyes of a child you still see in your dreams, but you don’t. “I like the water, is all.”
“I imagine the bathhouse would be a safer option.”
“I need running water.”
Silence. You can’t keep pretending to dry your legs for much longer. “It… has to be running water, does it?”
“Yes.” Too close, this would be safer far away where features blur and twist. Why come so close to you?
“I see.” You could count the seconds in heartbeats with how loud they pounded in your eardrums. “Well… I’ll leave you to your recuperations. I sincerely apologize for disturbing you.”
“It’s no problem.”
The rustle of clothing, a deep bow, then the sound of footsteps leading away.
Your heart drops into your stomach and you feel sick.
If ghosts could scream, they’d be doing it now, bellowing and echoing in the canyon of your mind. Maybe they’d be blaming you, maybe they’d urge you forward, or maybe they’d just want to give you torment.
But the dead don’t speak.
So you’re left with silence instead.
---
“You cannot possibly hole yourself up in here forever.”
You would say that Claude’s appearance at your bedroom door was surprising, had it not been for the fact that you’d spent the last week in self-imposed solitary confinement.
“Just until classes start, hardly “forever.”
He shook his head at you, hands on his hips as he did so. “The other house leaders and I are going to be on an excursion for a time, you can’t avoid the outside world while I’m gone!” With that, he burst wide your doors, stepping fully into the threshold of your room as they sung back behind him to close with a soft “click.” “Not to mention, it’ll be incredibly suspicious if you do so.”
“Obviously.” You say, cross-legged on your bed, needle and thread in your hand as you stitched. “Though, not that suspicious, that girl Bernadetta from the Black Eagles house stays locked up in her room too.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that she doesn’t illicit suspicion due to her frequent bouts of screaming when she’s nervous.” You scowl at his words, weight on the edge of your bed involuntarily shifting you enough that you prick your finger. “You, however, skulk around in the dark and wade full bodied into the pier.”
“I stopped doing that during the day.”
“Yes, hence the “skulk around in the dark” bit.” Your scowl deepens but Claude just laughs. “Are you going to find notes and leverage in the water that’s going to bring down something as long standing and far-reaching as the Church or Seiros?”
“Of course not, I just am trying to keep myself calm.”
“I see, wouldn’t want you to lose than calm and turn into a monster, now would we?”
You don’t respond.
Claude pauses obviously, unease settling between you soon after.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“You haven’t asked.”
“Didn’t realize I needed to ask questions I never considered needed to be asked in order to be told pertinent information.”
“It wasn’t safe to talk about in Leicester, you know that.”
“But it’s safe here?”
“Safer.” You sigh, stabbing the needle into the thickest part of your work before setting it down beside you. “All walls have ears. But I think these walls are too old to listen.”
“Then,” he gestures to you, “by all means.”
“I have a major crest.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that’s how House Sommer rose back into favor.” You shift at Claude’s response, hands pulling at the sleeves of your uniform as you did so. “Crests mean more to nobility than wealth in this foolish land, though one could argue that wealth should mean nothing to begin with.” Claude takes quick notice of your fidgeting form, all-bright eyes travelling over you before he began again. “But, even to have an heir with a crest, the House should not have risen to such prominence as it did.”
“No,” you choke out, “it shouldn’t have.”
His gaze catches yours, and you let out a breath. “Then…?”
“Claude von Riegan! [Your Name] von Sommer!” You and the boy break apart (when had you leaned in so close?) upon hearing the authoritative, furious tenor of Seteth. “You know that dorm rules do not permit two students alone behind closed doors in any personal dorm room.”
“Where are people supposed to talk privately then, sir?” The picture of cool, the absolute definition of lackadaisical and carefree, Claude smiles brightly up at Seteth’s frustrated expression. “In the private courtyard, where people never are?”
“The monastery is not concerned with private conversations; it’s concerned with your tutelage and ability to take guidance.” You pursed your lips as Seteth turned to you, his glowering expression almost comical.
“Understood, Seteth. No closed doors unless it’s more than two people, got it.”
“That is not, exactly, what I meant.” Despite his words, Claude had already sauntered past the man, leaving you with a dismissive wave behind him. “Are you listening to me, Claude? That is not what I meant!”
You had, miraculously, managed to keep your affect level, but Seteth’s frustrated expression that had snapped in your direction was proving it mighty difficult to maintain. “Is there anything else, Seteth?”
“You haven’t come out to the dining hall since arriving,” you groan audibly, earning you a stern stare from the man in front of you, “it is in the best interests of the students to engage and converse with others, to build bonds that will be invaluable to you in battle.”
Battle, something you desperately didn’t want to consider.
“Of course, sir.”
When you made no move to stand, the man cleared his throat. “That means now, Miss Sommer.”
---
And, now, here you were.
You instinctively pull down at the side of the slouched sock hat that you’d sown together from dark fabrics you had lying around. It wouldn’t do much, couldn’t change your features, but it could perhaps muddle them enough at first glance.
The line to get food wasn’t long, you were clearly one of the last people to get there, but you still felt weirdly exposed. You briefly wished Claude hadn’t sauntered off after Seteth came into your room, you’d at least have someone with you while you waited.
“Look! There’s still some pheasant roast left! Lucky for me.”
Your ears start to ring almost immediately, eyes sliding up to land on a slender back and expanse of braided blonde hair.
She’s here too?
Your heart sinks.
That could mean… they’re all…
“I’m going back to our table, okay Ingrid?”
Ingrid Brandol Galatea. Fierce like fire and ready to fight, she liked to bury herself in fresh grass and always let you braid flowers through her honeysuckle hair.
You can’t breathe for a moment, emotions hit you like a hammer to the gut, but you manage to turn away just as she passed by. You think you hear rustling, a body turning back in question, but the feeling leaves quickly.
You barely look down at the food you choose, desperate to eat and run back to your room or to sprint and drown yourself in the pier.
No, stop overreacting.
You can see the other members of your house clearly sat at the table at the far end of the room, but you doubt you would’ve had much trouble finding it anyway with Raphael’s hulking form being so incredibly easy to spot. You make moves towards the table when you get promptly railroaded by an impatient form barreling into you.
“Oh, sorry! I’m sorry, I should’ve—”
Another familiar face.
You can’t worm your way out of this one, you’re right against him, and he’s looking at you with the kind of scrutiny only a man scouring the depths of his memory would have.
“It’s fine.” You dip your head down quickly, hands pulling the skullcap further down your face. “I should’ve been watching where I was going, sorry again.” You make a brazen attempt to dash forward when a lifted arm stops you from moving.
All the blood in your body rushes down, leaving you cold.
“Hey… don’t take this the wrong way, but…” You keep your gaze towards you table, mind begging someone to turn towards you. “You look familiar.”
“I-I don’t believe we’ve ever met.” You wish you were capable of sounding sure of yourself, instead of whatever the hell it was you had been doing.
“You… sure?”
“Positive.” There! Hilda catches you gaze, you send her a panicked expression, she lists her eyes to the side and a knowing look crosses her face. That… certainly wasn’t what you expected.
“You really sure?” You nod again, wondering why on earth no one seemed to even give your situation a second glance. “I know! We’ve dated before, right?”
You went completely still, the hand you were using to block your face lifts. “… What?”
“Come on, you have to help me. Was it last week? Or a few months ago?”
“No, we haven’t dated before.” You spit out, pretense shoved out the window just in time for Hilda to saunter up.
“Sorry to interrupt, but you have my classmate there!” Without even a second to consider, Hilda slaps the arm blocking you away and sweeps you into her grasp. “Sorry!”
“Hey, wait!” Before he could continue, a resonate smacking sounds throughout the room, something the cafeteria also doesn’t seem to pay much mind.
“Do you truly have no tact? Are you honestly that much of an idiot?”
“Oh, come on, I wasn’t doing any—”
“I don’t care, get out of my way.”
“Felix, come on.”
Felix Hugo Fraldarius. Eyes like the sun, cried like the world was ending over nothing, he would always ask you to paint butterflies and birds on his hands when his brother wasn’t around.
“Sorry about that.” Hilda says after a few moments, either not noticing or consciously not commenting on how pale you probably look. “He can be a real pain.”
All at once, the room feels oppressively small.
Hilda regards you for a moment as you both sit down, her expression even. “You know Sylvain?”
Sylvain Jose Gautier. Hair brighter than fire, would skin his knees almost every day crawling around in the dirt and leaves, he’d beg you to climb the trees near his house with him because you were the only one who liked them.
“No,” you lied, “I’ve never met him before in my life.”
You don’t think she believed you.
Before you could try to change the subject, you chanced a glance that you hadn’t given yourself a week ago.
There he was, every inch what you remember.
Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. Eyes the color of rushing water, believed every truth you ever told and every lie besides, would demand he hold your hand when you waded out into rivers and streams because he didn’t want you to get swept up alone.
“You… sure you don’t know him?” Hilda asks again, feigned interest belying something beneath the surface of her gaze.
“No.” You lie again.
You wonder where Claude is.