Chapter Text
5 years have passed, and the night sky still looks the same.
Leonie can’t sleep. She’s always been riddled with some insomnia, so this isn’t anything new. What is new, however, is the fact that she’s found her presumed-to-be-dead professor, partook in the world’s most perilous class reunion, and currently enlisted herself to the anti-Adrestian war effort, all in the same day.
Yeah, maybe that's why she can’t sleep.
Even as the night air slowly chills, she can’t find any incentive to return to her room. She’s been out here for a good while, staring up at the sky and letting thoughts flow freely. Very rarely does she happen upon moments of complete silence, and as a result, her mind is aching to fill that void with its incessant chatter.
Her room. It’s weird to think about. After five years of pitching tents, renting spaces in taverns, and traveling with the wind of work, being provided a permanent bed feels odd. Like reliving a memory. The only problem is that nostalgia is marred by the knowledge of the present.
She knows she’s not alone with this sentiment. Even if everyone is in their room now, dusting the floors or remaking the bed or sorting through clutter, nobody had been able to hide their disturbed expression upon seeing it again. Those rooms remain as if nothing has changed.
Of course, everything has.
Maybe if their rooms were ransacked or trashed, this rolling feeling in her gut wouldn’t be haunting her. The thieves haven’t bothered searching this area, apparently. Why would they? Sure, the children of nobles would probably carry around some valuable object or a purse full of gold, but would it really be worth the hassle of searching the entire monastery, wandering through its meandering hallways and multiple staircases? Of course not. Leonie is particular about efficiency, as anyone who strives for profit would. There is no incentive to touch anything here.
But Edelgard?
She knows this place like the back of her hand. If she was planning to invade Garreg Mach and destroy the Church, then setting the dorms ablaze wouldn’t be too difficult either, right?
Or maybe Edelgard is one for efficiency as well, which means she saw no reason to destroy the monastery entirely, which means that she was either indifferent or sentimental to this place — this monastery, her home, their home — and let it stay, which means that she either cared for or hated her classmates — her friends, her family, their family — and let their remainders stand, and….
Leonie feels sick with speculation. Even though it’s been five years, her heart lurches and stings from a betrayal that isn’t even directed at her. But the way most of these structures remain as they have always been brings up too many questions that she has no answers for. Edelgard’s tactful mind is both enigmatic and impossibly cruel.
It feels a little pathetic, honestly, how after years of living under the impending fear of destructive conquest, Leonie’s only question to the empress is why she decided to let all of this — the fishing pond, the greenhouse, the dorms — weather the forces of time. Could the emotions associated with the place prevented her from ravaging it? Or did she simply not see any use in furthering the monastery's ruin?
Leonie has no sympathy for the tyrant — no, of course not — nor for Jeralt’s murderer. However, she still finds herself hoping that it’s the former possibility. Maybe she’s in some twisted form of denial over how the girl from the Black Eagles class, who was always so particular about her white gloves and hated rats and carried such an aura of dignity and confidence, couldn’t possibly be the same one who plans to unify Fódlan and lay ruin to her village. After all, when two elephants fight, it’s the grass underneath their feet that gets trampled.
Or maybe she wants to believe that Edelgard isn’t acting on her own accord. Surely, the girl who couldn’t swim and drew doodles on the margins of her notes and hid her wistfulness behind stern looks wouldn’t take arms against a place all of them had considered a second home. Being so tied up in royal responsibilities and the affairs of nobles must certainly have placed her at their disposal. They must be holding some leverage over her, like a guillotine blade. It’d be easier to hate those humanoid outlines than the one person she knows.
But war and matters of the heart are never easy, so she must steel herself for both.
She wants to sneer at all of her debating. Leonie believed that she’d buried all this toiling and philosophizing under the more practical matters of recent years. However, something about home and family unearths the helplessness she feels in this rapidly shifting world.
She sighs and looks down at her lap. How long has she been out here? An hour? Two? No one has called her in yet, so either they’ve gone to sleep, or her stillness has exaggerated the flow of time. The bench opposite to their row of dorms isn’t exactly comfortable, but it still beats sitting inside. She’s become accustomed to the outside and the stars illuminating the night. It would be strange to go to sleep without bidding them a proper good night.
Besides, going into her room makes her feel slightly nauseous. Not only does it narrow her free flow of thought, it stands as an artificial sepulcher. Initially, Claude had proposed that they all sleep on the second-floor dorms, considering that this place was theirs and that proximity could be beneficial for strategizing. However, Lorenz, Hilda, and even he paled when they opened the door to Dimitri’s empty room, and nothing further was said on the subject.
There’s something disrespectful about sleeping in someone else’s bed, let alone that of a dead person. A distinct flavor of them will always linger in the air, in the creases of the linen, in the position of a candlestick. Rooms were made to be private and intimate. To trample over them would be a violation of one’s personal reprieve from the outside world.
So, while the Golden Deer have decided to inhabit their own rooms, the ghosts of past students border them on opposite sides.
Leonie gets up, only now noticing the bundle of nervous energy that has settled in her abdomen. If sleep wasn’t already far in sight, it’s become too obscure to hope for now. In her dismay, she stretches. All it does is send more tension into her bones. Damn it.
Still, energy in any form cannot be wasted. Nothing should be discarded — not even her own faculties. Will a walk or some physical exercise will wear her out? It’d be best to tell someone first, in case someone will come looking for her. Now, out of Ignatz, Raphael, and the professor, which one would’ve fallen asleep first?
The answer to her question comes from the creaking of floorboards in the room to the far end of the row. Her muscles feel heavy with a strange reluctance, but she presses on and heads to the door of her professor’s room. Leonie gives two knocks. “Professor? You awake?”
She hears some shuffling before the door swings open. The professor looks out and smiles softly when she sees Leonie. Ah — that’s another thing that hasn’t changed much. The professor has hardly aged, though it’s probable that the abnormal five-long sleep had something to do with it. The familiarity, though, invites emotions more akin to the night sky than to the dorms. Pleasant. Warm. Guiding.
“Leonie,” she says. “What are you doing up so late?”
“Couldn’t sleep. And by the looks of it, neither could you.”
The professor’s eyes fall bashfully. “You caught me.” Before Leonie can mention her plans, her professor opens the door wider. “Would you like to come in?”
It would feel awkward to decline, so without much thought, she does.
It occurs to her after taking a few steps inside that this is the first time she’s been inside her professor’s room. The layout is identical to everyone else's. Goodness, couldn't Seteth or Rhea have gotten her someplace nicer?
They don’t say anything for a bit. Thankfully, Leonie is armed with an arsenal of awkward conversation starters. “Trouble sleeping?”
“Oh, not really. I’m not very tired, and I was reading.” The stacks of books on the bed and desk are a testament to that.
“I’d bet. After a five-year nap, you’d have a lot to catch up on.” Leonie picks one of them off of the mattress. Embossed in the bear-skin cover is the word ‘Dictionary'. Huh. “You know,” she says, looking up and waving the book around a little. “Language hasn’t changed all that much.”
Smothered surprise peeks through her professor’s otherwise muted expression. “Oh, uh, that —”, she fumbles just long enough for Leonie to become suspicious, “— I wanted to make sure my writing and reading are still in order. Luckily, they are.” She holds out her hand. “I’m sorry, do you want to sit down? I’ll move these books.”
With a face as often expressionless as the professor’s, one would've thought that it lent itself to lying. Her teacher has become either more emotive or less reticent. In any case, the sudden fragility in her voice draws out greater curiosity.
After a moment’s deliberation, Leonie opens the dictionary. In it, notes upon notes fill the margins, winding lines pointing to synonyms and circles on the part of speech. Her mind processes the information a bit too slowly, and it’s only when she flips to the first page and sees the name written does it register.
Petra Macneary.
Leonie doesn’t need to blink. Instead, she turns to her professor, not really expecting an answer. If anything, maybe a sign of confirmation. But her teacher’s gaze has fallen to the ground, ashamed red rising to her cheeks.
She’d like to give some reassurance. Leonie doesn’t judge her for going through the belongings of these ex-students. All that comes out, though, is, “Are these books all...uh, are they all…?”
Her professor’s eyes widen, and then she proceeds to hastily clear the books off the bed. “Oh, no. No, no, of course not. No, I wouldn’t do that. It’s just…” Her professor wears stiff and mellowed chagrin. “I was at the library, see —”
“Professor, you don’t need —”
“— and I picked up whatever I could find. After all, once Claude made all those fantastic speeches, I knew I had to get back in shape. So I went through all these maps and geography books —”
“It’s all right, you don’t —”
“— Then, I ended up in the foreign books section. Which is very sparse! I think one of our reconstruction goals should be to add more to it. Make the library more diverse. I think it’d do us all good to read about other cultures and places and —”
“Listen, I’m not going to —”
“— anyways, I was there, and it turns out Petra left her book in that section years ago! How silly! I didn’t notice it until after I brought it back to my room. In fact, I was just going to return some of these.” Her professor finally stops rambling, and gestures for Leonie to place the dictionary atop the stack of books in her arms already.
She doesn’t. The professor offers a small and shaky smile as a plea to think nothing more of it, but Leonie finds it hard to obey. Who knew that the key to getting the professor all chatty was to strike a nerve?
“It’s okay, professor,” she finally says, placing Petra’s book on the bed instead.
“What’s okay?”
Leonie’s heart becomes heavy as she answers. It’s almost difficult to look her teacher in the eye. “To miss people. It’s alright.”
The professor stares at her, stunned for a moment, before her shoulders slump. Her head tilts forward, resting on the cover of the topmost book. Leonie can’t see her eyes, but the muffled sadness in her voice indicates enough. “You saw right through me, huh?”
Would it be polite to say no? “Yes. You’re a bad liar.”
Her shoulders convulse a little, and Leonie hears a sharp inhale of air. For a second, she’s afraid that she made the professor cry, but then she looks up, green eyes full of mirth mingling with melancholy. “Sorry. I should’ve known better than to fool you.”
“That’s okay. Did you really find this book in the library?”
“No. I was coming back from the library, and when I was passing by the other dorms I...I wanted to take a peek. And then I saw all these little reminders of them, and…” The sigh she makes sounds nostalgic but pained, as if gasping for air. “I wanted to see them again.”
Neither of them speak. While the words don’t echo, their meanings remain suspended in the air. The professor dumps all the books onto her desk. After shuffling through a few, she pulls out two, a bitter smile on her lips. She shows them to Leonie. “Lindhardt’s,” she says, sticking out her hands. “And Annette’s. I couldn’t help myself. We were passing all their rooms, and when I looked inside, I just…” Another heavy breath. “I was trying to find them.”
“In the pages?”
“They've made notes and circles and sketches. I’ve been pouring over them. I don’t really know why. But when I read them, it still feels like...they're here. I feel less alone.” Her professor laughs mournfully, and she shakes her head to discard those words. “Forget that. I don’t even know what ‘finding them’ means. I’m sorry. I’m being dramatic.”
There’s a comforting ache in Leonie’s chest when she hears her professor. Is that even possible to feel? Something that hurts in a good way? Slowly, she sits down on the bed. “No, I get what you mean.” Leonie’s afraid of her tongue swelling up with emotion and failing her, but she tries to communicate whatever she can. “Nothing feels...real, does it?”
Her professor follows, collapsing next to her. “Yes,” she says quietly. “It’s hard to accept. Moreso when there’s a five-year gap in my memory. Even looking at you guys, it’s just…” Her voice wavers, and she draws to silence.
The magnitude of her professor’s situation finally dawns on her. She’s been asleep for five years. She hasn’t seen them mature, hasn’t grown herself, hasn’t witnessed the world spiraling so far out of fathomability. The world around her teacher has moved five years onward, leaving her behind. She knows nothing of what happened. Knows nothing about them anymore. Leonie is struck by a melange of bereavement and dismay for her, because pity doesn’t suit their (infallible, infinite, improbable) professor.
“I remember this place being safe. And important to my heart,” Leonie slowly begins, churning out words like a hand pump. “I had a very different idea of how our reunion would be five years ago. I thought we’d all be welcomed back. The alumni of Garreg Mach! We’d be rich and famous by then, so all the new kids would be starstruck at our arrival. Rhea would greet us and tell us how much we’ve grown. Who knows? Maybe Ignatz or Raphael or I would land a teaching job here. Not unlike you.” She chuckles before the somber mood overtakes her. “So being back here, and finding this place I loved so much reduced to...well — maybe if it had been burned to the ground, I’d have an easier time accepting it. But this damn place is almost exactly like it was all those years ago, and you can’t help but...remember, you know? Your brain tries to rationalize it all. How you could’ve missed all the signs. How you could’ve been so stupid. Seeing the rooms of people who are now dead or dead to me, remembering that I shared walls with them, it’s just...it’s a lot.”
By the time she’s finished, the lump in her throat is so tight that it’s become difficult to speak. She looks up, hoping the heat pooling behind her eyes will recede in the direction of gravity. Her professor is rubbing her palms together — a nervous habit Shamir had once pointed out — and staring at her lap.
Then, the professor laughs. A genuine, honest laugh that startles Leonie. Her mouth is open, her eyes are squinted, and she laughs, reaching out to squish Leonie’s cheeks. “Look at you! How mature you sound now! The years have taught you a thing or two. I’d...you’d...I wouldn’t have imagined you speaking so eloquently.”
Had anyone else tried to do the same thing, Leonie would’ve smacked their hands away. However, the professor is always an exception. “I...I don’t think I’ve become all that eloquent,” she protests.
Her teacher’s hands retreat, but the joy in her eyes hasn’t. “Look at you! Putting feelings into words! You’re still doing so much better than me.”
Since laughter is infectious, Leonie giggles too. “You’re kinda strange, Professor.”
“I know. Thank you for mulling over feelings with me.”
“Anytime.”
Suddenly, Leonie allows herself to be entertained by the short-lived intrigue of what-if. The hypotheticals are returning. Although she has sworn herself away from them, she can’t help herself this time. If their professor hadn’t disappeared....if she had remained....would she have gone with the Knights of Seiros? Most likely, but Leonie can’t shake the wonderful idea of their professor returning to the Alliance with them. She is simultaneously excited by the thought and disappointed by reality, but dismantles those feelings as soon as she realizes how selfish her wishes are.
Her professor gets up and stretches. “So? Was there anything you needed from me?”
“Yeah, actually. I was going to take a walk near the woods to clear my mind for a bit.” Then, after a pause, “Would you like to come with?”
She shakes her head. “No, but thank you. I think I’ll have an easier time clearing my head by reading.”
“Only if you’re sure.”
“I’m okay, Leonie. Really. Thank you.”
“Well then, I thought it’d be smart to at least tell someone I’d be out and about. If you holler, I won't be able to hear you.”
“Smart choice. Be careful, alright? I know you will be, but….there are new dangers out there. Come straight back if you see Imperial soldiers. Stay close and keep your eyes open for anything suspicious. Carry something to protect yourself with, too.”
“So…patrol, basically?”
“No, of course not. If it was a patrol, I’d suggest you bring a lance. But I think a javelin will be enough for a walk.”
Leonie laughs at the joke. Unfortunately, her professor does not.
“A-anyways,” Leonie says, looking down to hide the embarrassed flush. “I think that’s a little excessive. I mean, it’s not like the word has spread. Can we compromise on a knife?” She looks up and gestures to the sheath attached to her belt.
This time, her professor does smile, and folds her arms across her chest. “Alright. But promise that you’ll be careful?”
Leonie jumps off the bed, beaming. “You got it, Professor.”
“Good.” Although her teacher is shorter than Leonie, she still takes a step forward and pats her on the head. “Don’t stay up too late. And don’t jog or run, either. You’ll get yourself worked up and alert.”
“I’m an adult, Professor.”
“You’ll always be my…what does Claude say? ‘My adorable Golden Deer’? Yes, you’ll always be my adorable students.”
“I’m sure you’ll want to add a curfew, too. Hell, why not get the church bells ringing too, mom?”
She lightly whacks Leonie’s shoulder, grinning. “Hey. I’m not that much older than you.”
“Then stop acting like it, Professor!” Although she looks exasperated, it’s hard to muster up any real rancor. Leonie spins around and heads to the door. “Anyways, I’m off!”
Just before she steps out of the room, the professor calls out to her. “Leonie?”
“Yeah?” She turns around, unprepared to witness the overwhelming pride in her teacher’s smile.
“It’s so good to see you again.”
Embarrassing as it is, Leonie’s heart is too full for her to look properly at the professor when she whispers, “I missed you too”, before running off into the night.
As conflicted as she is about the monastery remaining the same, Leonie is more than happy to see that the woods haven’t changed.
Chilly night air rolls past her arms, but months of sleeping under the stars has made her resistant to the cold. What truly calms her is the scent of verdant pine, a perfume that’s warm and earthy and leaves her feeling utterly free in this expanse of darkness. Cicadas and crickets consume the silence in their midnight rhapsody. Leonie recounts the various choral arrangements she’s heard from them all around the Alliance as her legs spur her forward.
Leonie keeps one hand tracing walls as she walks. The other rests on the hilt of her sheathed knife. She’s not paranoid, but years of high-alert missions have conditioned her right hand’s placement. It’s remarkable about how terrifying and stressful conditions — hunting in the night, concealing her presence, fighting with the barest of visibility — are now second nature after extensive experience. How wonderful it is to grow and change. Inertia is a death wish in a mercenary’s line of work.
The light from the lamps inside the monastery grounds reaches and spills over the walls. It is enough to illuminate only her immediate surroundings. Thankfully, Leonie has always had exceptional night vision. She can make out shadows of trees and bushes from far beyond with the help of the moonlight.
She hears the faint crunch of leaves and grass a good distance into the forest. She writes it off, attributing it to a wolf's late-night hunt or the scampering of a deer. The noise overlaps with her own walk, so she tunes it out.
The Blue Sea Star has disappointingly disappeared from the sky. Although she isn’t hunting for monsters in the woods or slashing down bandits now, she is aware of the difficulty travelers must face in the absence of their guiding star.
As a child, she used to think that the night sky never changed. All stars had their designated position and role. She was content with their steadfast consistency. In spite of knowing better now, the phenomenon still impresses her; the destruction and rebirth of thousands of stars can go unnoticed among the sea of its copies. It's a little tragic, but nonetheless, awe-instilling. The notion humbles her every time she feels too close to the sky, too close to her limit. She still has so much left to reach for.
The crunching in the distance seems louder. Rhythmic, almost, like an animal’s trot. Leonie pays it no heed.
She’ll admit that her feelings towards everything are conflicted. Leonie is more than happy to join their revolt, obviously — what does she have to lose? Although work opportunities in the past few years have drastically increased, the rewards and bounties have inversely decreased. Leonie has finished paying off her debts to Sauin, and now that her brothers are working, her mother can live comfortably enough.
She knows what’s to come. Bloodbath. Senseless killing. As much as she likes to assume that she always has her emotions in check, the possibility of her slipping up while fighting a familiar face haunts her.
And — there it is — that hot ball of knotted feelings clogging up her esophagus. She wants change — and she doesn’t — but change can be good — but it can be detrimental — but stagnation revives ghosts — but seeing things the same is so comforting, so easy to understand —
Leonie likes the night sky, especially when the Blue Sea Star is out. It’s able to conceal the lifecycle of stars and remains virginal from the destructive touch of man. She likes her professor, who has also stayed the same.
She doesn’t like the monastery, though. Doesn’t like how it reminds her of her helplessness. She had been so naive five years ago. If Leonie had payed closer attention to Monica and Tomas and the shady figures lurking in the background of her happy memories, she may have been able to prevent disaster. She wishes the monastery had changed, bringing down her regrets along with it. Presently, it invites her into its arms with a hidden sneer. I'll give you refuge, it seems to say. You, who failed to keep your classmates safe. You, who failed to keep me safe. Let your return home be your penance.
Leonie likes everyone here. Almost no one is the same as they were five years ago, which is wonderful to see. Development is necessary for survival. She is no exception. How will she protect the professor (who’s stronger and smarter than she’ll ever be) if she can’t master the lance? Simultaneously, they are all the same. Is their reunion not proof of that? They upheld their promise because they are ever-loyal, ever-caring, ever-eager. Most importantly, they believe in one another, and a singular, uniting hope for a better future. The professor was right: they will always be her adorable Golden Deer. Leonie's love for them hasn't faltered.
She doesn’t like Edelgard. Doesn’t like how she was able to turn against a place Leonie had worked so hard to come to. Why is she threatening to rewrite the world she has become familiar with? Was placing everyone in danger worth it? Were they all the means to her wicked ends?
This push-and-pull of her wants and likes is giving her a headache. Leonie was wrong — she can’t even pretend that she has a grasp on her emotions. She’d definitely falter if she ever had to face someone she knew in battle.
Sometimes, she wishes she could at least look emotionless, like her professor so long ago, and...the sound of an animal is rapidly approaching, isn’t it?
Leonie turns and peers into the forest, her hand automatically unsheathing the knife. Every sense of hers sharpens and directs itself at the approaching noise. She has numbed herself to irrational panic, but her breath instinctively hitches.
She makes out a shadowed figure on a horse coming closer. Leonie backs herself up against the wall, concealing herself in its meager shadow, before taking stock of the situation.
Is the horseman charging right at her, or have they yet to see her? Why are they arriving at the monastery so late? On top of that, why not use the main entrance? There’s no way it could be reinforcements or a lost traveler. Not with the frantic speed at which they’re approaching.
The dark shape becomes more defined with every passing second. The horse’s clopping grows louder, and the noise is competing against the rush of blood to her ears. There are two options, now — either a bandit or an Imperialist scout. She prays that it’s just a poorly-armed thief.
That hope is quickly smothered when she sees light glinting off of a chest plate. Okay, so a soldier. How did the Empire find them so quickly? They’d been here for only a day! Her professor had told her to come straight back if she spotted one, but there’s no time. The chance of fleeing grows slimmer and slimmer by the second. Confrontation is the only option, and while that doesn’t disconcert her, she fears the possibility of reinforcements. A knife can only do so much.
In-out-out, she tells herself. Just like Shamir says. In-out-out.
Leonie’s muscles loosen. Slipping into the mercenary mindset allows her to remove any doubt and single out her objective. She can do this — five years of experience are testament to that — even without her horse and a large lance.
The figure is close, continuing to gallop in her direction. She cannot spot an equipped weapon. The stranger must be a dark rider, then. Great. She needs to make the first move. Otherwise, she’ll have a hard time getting another one. The timer in her head goes off, and the unrest in her body — her racing heartbeat, her dry mouth, all the tension and butterflies — falls quiet.
3…
Maroon colored robes with the insignia of the Empire decorate the horse, confirming her beliefs.
2…
She doesn’t focus on the rider. Without a lance, she cannot knock them off in one swoop. The only option is to incapacitate the horse.
1…
The second the horse’s muzzle falls under the glow of monastery light, she charges forward.
With a thundering roar, Leonie sprints and lunges out with her knife. Instead of piercing flesh, however, she ends up thrusting into the air. The rider is able to maneuver the horse further right at the last second with a shriek. The blade slices right through the Imperial cloth and the flap of the saddle, grazing the horse instead of stabbing it. The poor creature brays in pain and shock. That noise, however, barely drowns out her name. “Leonie?” the rider yelps, and in the brief moment she turns up to face them, all she needs to spot is the shock of red hair to tell who it is.
The horse thrashes and cries some more, even as the rider tries his best to calm it down. Suddenly, it leans forward and kicks its hind legs up. He is flung off and sent catapulting through the air. He lands upside down, legs propped up by the wall and midway through a flailing somersault.
The horse bolts away, but Leonie doesn’t think to follow it. Instead, all she can focus on is the groaning man. She inches forward little by little, not trusting her eyes, until she can confirm that the hair, the face, and the eyes all match up.
“Sylvain?”
Upon hearing his name, he stops groaning. Sylvain looks up at her, first shocked, and then elated.
“You guys really are here!” he cries, face lighting up brighter than the Blue Sea Star. “Oh Seiros, It’s you, Leonie!”
Her thoughts are racing, proving to be strong competition against her pulse. The only thing she can latch onto and say without faltering is, “The...horse…?”
Sylvain looks around blankly, before shrugging (that is, as best as one can in his position). “I’ll be in some hot water when I get home. No big deal.”
Leonie’s eyes are still wide. She can’t tell whether the accompanying light-headedness is from the lingering adrenaline or the relief of seeing his face. His changed, adult face.
“But jeez, look at you! You’re so much...uh, bigger! Those fighting skills sure haven’t rusted, though.” His eyes are open, starlight glittering in them. “I’ll take it that the rest of the Golden Deer are here too? Sorry for being a little late. Wasn’t looking forward to taking the Ailell route, so I chose the longer one.” He beams at her and motions for her to come closer. “Mind helping me up, sunflower?”
And even though Sylvain’s smile is upside-down, Leonie realizes one thing, too.
Just like the night sky, it hasn’t changed either.