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You’ve lived for such a long time, but Byleth shows you something new each day. Indeed, it has been this way since the first time you met, when he was shrouded under Lady Rhea’s many-layered gaze.
Some part of your brain looks at him with scorn, or maybe fear. He has been gifted the power of the Goddess- your guardian ever since your inception in this world- and yet he seems so far from the divine. You are hardly envious, for such a burden is remarkable and profound, and you seek not to overburden yourself. There are earthly concerns to be tended to, and you are content to tend. To raise a garden around you, rather than to seek the sun. To care for Flayn.
But if it were not for the tender sway of Byleth’s hair in the breeze, now a bright and shimmering petal green, it would be hard to believe him chosen for the task which had been set out in front of him.
(You wonder if he was really chosen. You’ve never been able to get answers regarding what Rhea did to him. She’s only recently been rescued, and as she recovers, it would certainly sour any further communion between you to interrogate her immediately upon her return. But you can’t help feeling that the knowledge of what’s unspoken sours your opinion of her. Will always do so, even if she tells you the truth. It feels like sacrilege, to trust Byleth over your own kin. But it is a warm sacrilege, honey-sweet and infinite in its gentleness)
These days, you try your best not to judge Byleth. Perhaps it is the goddess, or perhaps it is some immaculate character bestowed on him independent of her light, but his skills are undoubtedly manifold. How silly you were, to call him a child, to look upon him with judgement. If you could go back and tell the Seteth you were back then that you’d one day be kneeling for him, pledging yourself to his cause- well, he wouldn’t laugh. He wouldn’t find it funny. He’d be upset, and rather unhappy to see a vision of his future come to taunt him.
But you would be in the right. Not just in the sense of truth, but to pledge yourself in the first place. How Byleth wields a sword, how he runs his calloused fingers so gently over wounds and bruises, as if he has always known how to do so- all very impressive. And yet, more than anything, it’s how he leads. That the night after you all returned to Garreg Mach, everyone but Dimitri’s eyes lit up like winter hearths, slowly thawing the world around them. Even Flayn, who had always reserved such adoration for you and her mother.
If he does not heal you, then he commands someone to do so.
If he strays from you, then he will always return.
If you ask of him anything, he obliges it dutifully.
For this, and much else, you would give him your life. Not solely in your death, either; for you would live for him with the same reserved joy of duty which instills itself in you each time you pray. All of your hymnals are sung for him, even if his name remains unsaid, if it never escapes your tongue. Each night, you hold yourself in silence by the foot of your bed, and pray for him. Your morning begins when he comes to greet you, and your slumber begins soon after he wishes you farewell for the night.
He has held you, and he has venerated you. You shall do the same for him.
It is selfish to want his attention on you alone. He has much work to do, and it is not being done for your good. It is for the good of Fodlan, and for the good of its people. For the good of the church, of which you are only a single part.
But if he were to turn towards you, there is no part of your heart unsure that you would give him what he desires. You know that he would not ask you to destroy yourself; not if he knew that it was where the path would lead you. And there are many parts of your heart, perhaps comprising its whole, that would endeavour to hold Byleth as soon as he requested it of you. He would be warm, and you would trace the blemishes which mark his skin with the same patience that you sing the praise of the goddess with. Perhaps his skin would be soft; it is hard to say, as you’ve never truly touched his countenance, not with your own bare hands. But if it were, then perhaps his lips would be even softer, a fantastical invitation to move towards him-
Yes, there is a part of you which wishes to display your devotion in such… unseemly fashions. It is akin to the part of the mind which wishes to steal, which wishes to boast and cheat and kill for pleasure. Beastly, and unaware of the shame it brings the body. In much the same fashion, it is controlled, its claws filed and its unruly body chained.
In these days, after the war, he’ll marry a beautiful woman. In your capacity, you’ll act as the officiant, should he wish you to be so. He shall be the sigil of peace and faith in Fodlan, and no harm shall come to him.
Your drowsy feet pace across the cathedral floor with false confidence. You’re not quite sure why he wants you at the Goddess Tower right now, at such a strange time. The others are otherwise occupied. It is hardly an easy thing to imagine him wanting, not when a new dawn is splayed in front of him. But at the same time, it is entirely rational for him to wish to see a breathtaking view, and to wish for company in observing it.
As for you- even if the sky was grey and torn with storms in front of you, it would not tear away the splendidness of beauty laid out underneath it. Of Byleth, and of hope.