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Linhardt examined his latest sketch, cross-referencing it with his memory of the shape. A new crest, an unknown crest! He was so excited he had barely been able to get to sleep after he had seen it yesterday evening, mind a-whirl with possibilities. What was the rarity? Was it a major or minor Crest? What did it do?
He was tempted to ask Hanneman immediately, but the man had been in a meeting with the Archbishop and the other professors and the guards outside had made it very plain that he was not allowed to interrupt it. They had been oblivious to his plight.
The plight that was a crest he knew nothing about. The crest that his sketch did not do justice. The lines were too… squiggly. He crumpled the page up and tossed it into the pile beside him.
“Uh, Lin?” Dorothea drifted closer, as usual ignoring all rules of politeness and decorum. It was refreshing sometimes. “What are you doing over here? You look frustrated.”
“Oh just trying to draw something I saw last evening,” Linhardt said airily as he drew out another sketch, this one even more careful. He was getting used to straight lines.
Dorothea watched him for a moment with her perfect brows lightly furrowed before she went to the wastebasket to pluck out the top papers. “This thing? It looks like a… lattice?”
“A pie crust?” Caspar suggested, standing on tiptoe to see as she held it spread out.
Edelgard had also been drawn in by Dorothea’s curiosity, her somber shadow drifting in behind her. She glanced at the image and then back at Linhardt. “A Crest.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Oh, you know me too well, Lady Edelgard,” Linhardt said, trying not to let himself get distracted from his work.
“Hm. I don’t recognize it,” she said after a moment. “And yet… Where did you see it?”
Linhardt held up the most recent sketch and deemed it satisfactory. Finally. Paper wasn’t cheap, after all and his hands were cramping fiercely from his aggressive scribbling. He stretched his fingers back with his opposite palm, first the right, then the left, as he looked up at her.
“Professor Hanneman’s office. I’m trying to figure out who it might belong to.”
Caspar crossed his arms and leaned back to make better eye contact. “What were you doing in Hanneman’s desk?”
“It wasn’t in his desk, it was on his crest analyzer. The frustrating thing is that it doesn’t require a whole person. From how I understand it, it can operate with just blood or hair--so the person might not even know their Crest had been analyzed. They might not even be in the Monastery.”
The Imperial Princess’ lavender eyes narrowed marginally, but Linhardt was sure he hadn’t imagined it. “Well, perhaps you can ask the professor whose crest it is that he was investigating.”
They were early for classes, with no professor in sight. He had no idea if they even had Hanneman or not. Asking him had been next on the agenda now that he had a proper replica of what he’d seen.
“Right, I’ll go and find him.”
“Wh--now? Lin, classes are about to start!” Dorothea pointed out, surprised by his vehemence.
“Which means he should be in one of the homerooms,” Linhardt said simply.
“Should you really just ask him?” Caspar mused, swaying restlessly as he thought. “I mean, he’s a crest researcher, and so are you, though not as officially. He might view you as a threat.”
“Linhardt? A threat?”
Ferdinand finally joined them, giving up on his attempts to coax Bernadetta out of the corner. “Oh, let him go. As long as he doesn’t fall asleep in another classroom, he should make it back in time! I haven’t seen Linhardt this energetic about anything.”
“You make it sound exhausting,” he complained, feeling his shoulders droop. No, he couldn’t sleep yet, it would be impossible until he knew who the Crest belonged to, that he wasn’t about to lose a rare test subject.
“I shall return.”
“In time for class,” Edelgard called at his back. The princess was so loud, it was making his headache worse.
He left the Black Eagles classroom and went sharply left, stepping over a snoozing tabby stretched out over the cobblestones as he did so, her belly exposed to the sun, glinting off the pale hairs. Linhardt spared her an envious glance and The Blue Lions classroom was empty of staff when he glanced inside. He didn’t even stay long enough for Annette to finish her greeting before he was out and looking in the Golden Deer homeroom.
And there, at the desk, sat Hanneman, shuffling through papers and looking delighted with himself. Linhardt felt dread pool in his stomach. What was he so happy about? His recent discoveries? What if Professor Hanneman did not want to tell him? They were technically rivals, as his classmates had pointed out, but Linhardt was the more sly of the two, surely. Maybe it would completely slip the professor’s mind in his eagerness to discuss his passion.
“Professor, I was hoping to speak with you,” Linhardt said, sidling up to his desk, ignoring Claude’s greeting.
It was not a question so much as a demand.
The older man looked up at him, startled, then out at his class. “Linhardt? Aren’t you in the wrong classroom?”
He didn’t sound sure of himself. Linhardt brushed it off. “It’s about Crests. I went to your office yesterday evening to return that Crestology journal to you and I couldn’t help but notice your analyzer was displaying something interesting.”
Hanneman’s expression lit up immediately like the cathedral during a church-sanctioned holiday. Linhardt felt hopeful.
“Yes! That, which I believe is either a new Crest or an extinct one.”
Both of which were so exciting Linhardt felt giddy at the prospect. “It isn’t an error, then… Who is in possession of this Crest, that they have a new or extinct Crest?”
“Now, a good researcher doesn’t give away his sources until his name is on the literature,” Hanneman said, half-smug and half-scolding.
Linhardt didn’t care for either possibility. “Come now, what could I, a student, possibly do with this information? I’m merely curious.”
Hanneman’s mustache twitched evilly as he adjusted his eyepiece. Claude and Hilda looked on, closer now than they had been, their expressions hungry as red wolves. “My dear boy, I think we could both come up with quite a few possibilities to answer your own question.”
Linhardt cursed in the safety of his own head. He didn’t care for fame, only the knowledge and satisfaction of it all, but Hanneman was not the same. “Perhaps, but likely none of your answers are of any interest to me, Professor.”
“I find it difficult to believe you wouldn’t go running to collegiums and church with your findings, if I should give you the answer. Who would not relish the glory of discovering a new Crest!”
“Only a thief thinks everyone is stealing from him,” slipped out before he could tame his tongue. Hilda made a noise and Hanneman’s monocle glinted dangerously.
He could see his dreams wilting before him, shriveling on the burning cobblestones like so many dried petals from Lorenz’ lapel. Shattered, broken. The injustice and fury built in his chest. Linhardt, you should have kept your mouth shut, now you’ll never know unless Hanneman gets his research published and that will be the worst fate of all. That could take years when the properly scientific types were involved.
“Regardless, I don’t think they want to be bothered right now anyway, especially not by students they don’t have to teach—”
“It’s the new professor,” he blurted, gripping the edge of Hanneman’s desk. Had it really been that easy? Was this really all it took? Lose his temper and he just spat it out like Ferdinand drinking subpar tea?
They regarded each other in silence, valiantly ignoring the observing students. Finally, the professor let out a tired sigh and sat back in his chair.
“I cannot believe I am arguing with a student before classes have even begun. Yes, Linhardt, it is the new professor, but I doubt they’ll be of much use to you. They didn’t even know they had a Crest.”
“I’ll deal with that as I get to it.”
Linhardt was unconcerned with that, turning on his heel. Hopefully, the new professor was assigned to their class, but that would be a lot of reliance on luck. Raphael bid him a boisterous farewell as he marched back to his classroom. The Blue Lions still had only students, so he hopefully scanned the Black Eagle homeroom as he entered it.
“Ah, Linhardt, I was wondering where you were!” Professor Manuela greeted him with a musical lilt in her voice and a smile on her face.
Linhardt visibly shrank with his disappointment. “You are not the new professor. I was hoping to meet them.”
The former songstress blinked in shock at him while Ferdinand chided him under his breath for being so rude to a lady. Manuela made a comment that showed she wasn’t entirely displeased and then began her proper introduction.
Linhardt merely sank into his seat and wrote beneath his best sketch.
New professor.
Name:
Gender:
Place of origin:
Notable relatives:
Known crests:
Now at least he had something. Not much, but it was enough to begin with.
-L-
He had been mistaken when he had passed the Blue Lions classroom. It had not been fully occupied by students, but the professor also, who, according to Annette, was very young. He was able to corner her after his post-lesson nap, as she was just finishing up her studies for the next day. How tiresome.
She was able to give him the description of a young man, out of adolescence, who had a peculiar shade of dark blue-green hair and matching eyes.
“And a… sort of scary expression!” She added, after looking around as if he might appear at an instant.
He raised an eyebrow at that. Was he an unpleasant person, then? “Scary?”
She quickly waved her hands, as if dispelling his suspicions. “He seems perfectly nice, I swear! It’s just… his expression… He doesn’t really have one.”
Flat, then. “I’ve been told my expression can be rather deadpan.”
“Worse than yours—ah! Not that there’s anything wrong with your face! I mean, you expression! Ohhh, forget I said anything!”
And then she was gone before he could protest. But at least he had some information. Now to find this young man. Linhardt had no idea where his quarters were but felt as if he might have seen someone matching his description wandering the courtyard the day before. So Linhardt set out, sketchbook tucked under his arm, hunting.
It was a beautiful evening, students were clustered together, discussion lesson plans and professors. Cats napped and begged for attention from any student who made eye contact. The echoing screams of Caspar in the training grounds, like some strange bird seeking a mate. It would have been a wonderful time to curl up somewhere, he thought unhappily, torn between his desires.
Still, he searched. First the training grounds, where Caspar was pestering some unfamiliar men who looked like mercenaries, begging to spar with them. Felix was trying his hardest to murder Ingrid with a training sword, or that’s what it looked like to him. Some people were just too violent. He silently disapproved as he scanned the area once more before leaving before Caspar could notice him. Linhardt only had enough mental fortitude for one task at a time and that happened to be new Crest right now.
It was nearly dinner time, so he sought out the dining hall. There were several familiar faces (Raphael, Claude, the Princess and Hubert, Mercedes and Annette), and many unfamiliar (more of those strange mercenaries). No new professor.
He spent several minutes outside the sauna before he feared the heat seeping up from the stones would cause him to fall asleep on his feet. The boss also confirmed no sign of a young man with dark blue-green hair. The stables held Marianne and Ferdinand and a handful of other cavalrymen whose names he didn’t know. The markets were closed. He only found Cyril, Dedue and the Prince in the greenhouse.
Linhardt began to despair. It was very likely that the man was back in his quarters planning lessons, or even speaking with the other professors or the church officials. He could even be back in one of the places Linhardt had already checked. This was why he hated doing things so physical; what a waste of energy and time that could have been spent sleeping or studying. He let out a sigh as he left the greenhouse, trudging straight ahead for his room. It was too late for this nonsense. The sun was setting, throwing harsh reflections off the lake in amber and gold.
He paused as he realized there was someone sitting on the dock, fishing at the end of it, someone with dark hair and dark clothing. His feet had turned him toward the lake before he even realized it, walking almost hurriedly past the man at the shack and toward the stranger.
“Professor,” he called, half-hopeful as he stopped, leaving two arms’ length between them.
The man turned to glance back at him, and then away before Linhardt could say anything or register much of his features. He began to feel righteous fury building in his gut. He had used up an entire afternoon searching for this man and he was too high and mighty to even spare him a glance? Annette hadn’t said he was a noble.
At that moment, as he was preparing a scathing introduction, the man hauled an alarmingly large fish up onto the dock where it flopped mightily, the vibrations reaching him through the boards. He took a step back, afraid that it might thrash its way toward him, when the man drew a knife from his belt and struck the animal on the head and returned the weapon to its sheath. He hadn’t even had time to blink. Linhardt felt a little ill, but he could hardly call it cruel when it seemed to have well and truly killed it.
The man collapsed his fishing rod, then reached out and hooked a finger through the fish’s gills and stood. The fish, longer than his forearm and twice as thick, dangled from his grasp like a child’s toy.
“I don’t remember your name,” he said, his voice quiet but confident, staring through Linhardt as he stood there, all his words dead and dry upon his tongue.
Annette had been right about his expression: it seemed utterly flat. Linhardt despaired that this meant he would be just another dullard employed by the Church, but then remembered that he’d been chosen to be a professor. He would reserve his judgements.
“Linhardt. Linhardt von Hevring,” he supplied, regaining his composure.
The man blinked and Linhardt scrutinized the motion, trying to learn if this person did in fact emote. “Not in my class then. There’s only… one ‘von’.”
He had paused, as if trying to remember. At least he knew some of the students from his class. That was Mercedes, right?
“Yes, that tends to be more common with the older houses in the Empire. You are the new professor, then?” He was almost positive, but this man seemed to be made to cause miscommunication. Was it an act, then? “I would like to get to know you, if you don’t mind my prying.”
“I am. Byleth, Professor of the Blue Lions, I suppose.” He looked at the fish, still dripping onto the dock.
“No last name?” He prodded carefully.
The man looked back up at him. With his back to the sunset it was hard to make out much of his features, but he had skin tanned from hours outside, with harsh lines where tan met white skin at his neck. His eyes were indeed the same shade as his hair. Odd.
“Eisner. Byleth Eisner.”
“I don’t recognize that name, I’m afraid. Is it from the Alliance or the Kingdom? Or perhaps beyond…” He allowed himself to consider Almyra, Brigid, even Duscur, but his skin tone said otherwise. Of course, names outlasted traits most of the time.
“I do not know,” the man said without pause.
“You don’t know where it’s from? Do your parents?”
“My father isn’t a talkative man,” said the professor.
And neither are you, he said, safely in his head. “Who is your father, then? If you don’t know, perhaps I’ll ask him. Where are you from?”
“Jeralt. Everywhere.”
“Eisner,” he added, annoyed by the stilted conversation. Everywhere probably meant that he had travelled constantly in his childhood. Suspicious.
“He’s also called the Blade Breaker.”
Oh hell, now that was a name Linhardt knew.
“Your father is Jeralt, the Blade Breaker… And your mother?”
“I do not know,” he said, though this time with an odd tone to his voice, eyes sliding downward and past Linhardt, thinking.
Not a lie, but a sore spot, perhaps? Still, to not know his mother! Usually it was the other way around with mercenaries, very odd. But if he didn’t know, then the key to his Crest could be lost forever with this unknown mother.
“I find that hard to believe. An aunt, perhaps? How old are you, surely you haven’t been traveling with active mercenaries your whole life?”
“I don’t know.”
“About any aunts… of course not.”
“My age,” the professor said, with a hint of something. Linhardt almost thought he seemed annoyed rather than embarrassed.
Linhardt opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, feeling much like the fish, reeled up on the deck and bashed in the head by this man.
“Ridiculous! How can you know so little about yourself! If it was your father you didn’t know, I could understand—Oh, forgive me. I’ve had a long, terrible day trying to find you and now I’m afraid I’ve been rude.” He offered a small bow, but the man seemed unaffected.
“You were looking for me?” His head tilted the slightest bit, fixing Linhardt with dark, inscrutable eyes.
Time to be honest, Linhardt, while there’s still sunlight to see by. He sighed and slid the sketchbook out from under his arm and flipped open the page with the Crest, holding it out to the man. Byleth leaned forward, muscles tensing and relaxing again like a nervous cat, frozen in place as he studied it.
“…”
“I learned about you from Hanneman. I hope you don’t mind all my questions. I’m something of an aspiring Crestologist and I was hoping to gain some insight into your Crest by your answers. But it seems as though you don’t have any. I apologize if I’ve offended you.”
He hoped the man couldn’t tell how aggravated he was now, feeling frustrated and even more curious than before. He had a splitting headache and really needed a nap.
Professor Byleth looked up at him again, silent for a moment, before speaking: “I would be interested in anything you learn.”
“You… you would?”
“I didn’t know I had a Crest until I came here.”
“Of course not,” Linhardt all but spat, resting his head in his hand with a dreary sigh.
The man walked past him without a farewell and the flutter of his cloak against his arm startled him out of his annoyed reverie. Was that it? Were they done? Were his dreams slipping out of his hands again? “Wai—”
The man looked back at him over his shoulder. “If you can get anything out of my father, please tell me.”
“What makes you think I can or would actually ask your father? Why would he tell me anything he hasn’t told you?” Linhardt asked in exasperation, sighing again.
“You aren’t me.”
And then he was gone, leaving Linhardt to stare at the place where he had been standing. A smattering of silvery scales glinted in the sunlight, surrounded by dark droplets. In the dying light it was too dark to tell if it was blood or water.
-L-
Jeralt the Blade Breaker was not as difficult to find as his son had been. This search only entailed finding a mercenary and asking to speak with his leader. They were a friendly bunch but had had strange reactions when he had said his request to see the Blade Breaker was in regards to the Professor. Rather than suspicion, there had been a lot of whispering and exclamations, but they were forthcoming with the information.
As it was, the man was in the dining hall, eating an ungodly early breakfast. Linhardt asked his guide, a short brunette woman named Anastas, for confirmation twice before he even approached the man for an interview. He did not see the resemblance in the slightest.
Byleth was not a small man, but his slim build made his slightly above-average height stretch. Jeralt was massive, both horizontally and vertically, and it was all muscle. He had a naturally heavy build, more like Dedue than Raphael, and his hair was sandy blond and his eyes were the warm, rich brown of cognac. The closer he got to the table, and the more glanced were thrown his way, the more resemblance he saw in their features. But even that was not overly obvious.
He stopped just out of arm’s length from the table and cleared his throat. “Jeralt Eisner?”
The man washed down his toast with a hearty swig of whatever was in his mug, certainly not water, and turned to look at him. He didn’t look like he smiled much.
“Can I help you? Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“I have twenty more minutes, and my professor is often late,” he waved off the first attempt to dodge him.
Something flashed across the man’s face. “And whose class are you in, exactly?”
“Professor Manuela.”
“Ah,” Jeralt said, then his face screwed into something like amusement. “Ah. Right, then I guess you’d better make this quick since we’re both on a schedule.”
Alright then, Linhardt could appreciate that. He didn’t sit, but he did move closer so the man wouldn’t have to angle his head so to speak with him.
“My name is Linhardt von Hevring and I fancy myself something of a Crest researcher. Through circumstance, I happened across Professor Hanneman’s analysis of Professor Eisner’s Crest. I was wondering if you could answer any some questions, such as where you’re from, and if you have any idea if the Crest comes from your side… or… the maternal…”
Linhardt trailed off, all conversation around the table had gone silent. Jeralt’s mug was making alarming noises in his hand, his eyes staring through Linhardt with an intensity twice that of his son’s.
“Could you repeat that? I could have sworn I heard you say my son had a Crest.”
Oh. “Yes, Hanneman was able to confirm it with his Crest Analyzer in his office. When I questioned Byleth about it, he was aware of it,” Linhardt proceeded with caution.
Jeralt’s eyes widened a fraction, and then his expression shut down, hiding behind something that was half a smile and half a grimace. “I’ve never heard of a Crest Analyzer. How does it work?”
This was something Linhardt knew the answer to, so despite feeling as safe as a fish in the lake when Professor Eisner was fishing, he responded to the best of his knowledge. “The initial scan is as simple as walking over it. It will detect a Crest and display it, but it won’t often be able to tell if it is a minor or major Crest, or analyze the affects. That usually requires hair, though I’ve heard blood works best for a thorough analysis.”
Linhardt jumped, and for a moment he thought he’d been had. But after his eyes opened back up, and he was still alive, he realized that Jeralt’s mug had finally lost its battle against his grip. Luckily it had been empty.
“I see. Thank you, I had no idea, kid. Now, did you say you had some questions for me?” Jeralt asked, his smile growing wide.
Linhardt, born and bred a noble with well-vetted and well-bred companions, felt a feral certainty that this human man was baring his teeth at him. Questions, yes, he had questions. He discarded most of them as too dangerous.
“How old is Professor Eisner? He looks of similar age to some of the students.”
“Told you there was a betting pool,” one of the mercenaries hissed at another, but Linhardt didn’t dare take his eyes off the threatening man.
His expression became less horrific, his muscles relaxing as he leaned back a bit, eyes roving over the mercenaries and stifling any further comments. “Mm. I don’t know, it’s hard to keep track of time on the road.”
“Ah.” Linhardt had the suspicion he was being lied to, but wasn’t lacking enough in self-preservation to suggest that. “Well… how about you? Do you remember your own age? Perhaps I can at least deduce an approximate.”
Jeralt threw his head back and laughed at that, a short, sharp bark, and when he looked at Linhardt again, his expression had softened somewhat. “Now, that, boy, I definitely do not know the answer to.”
At least he had more or less admitted to lying through his previous answer. The man stood before Linhardt could even begin to think of a third question, and clapped him on the shoulder.
“It was nice meeting you, Linhardt, but now I think it’s time for you to leave.”
A cold wave rushed through his body, as if he had narrowly dodged Ice magic. The mercenaries grumbled amongst themselves as they got up, collecting their bowls and utensils, seemingly unconcerned. Was he being threatened? On holy grounds? Not that Linhardt particularly cared, but perhaps the reminder could save hi—
The man turned and strode toward the exit, toward the gate. “You have three minutes.”
Linhardt blinked, then realized he had not been threatened, but warned. He was going to be later for class than usual. One of the mercenaries gave him a friendly smack on the back as they walked past, all of them un-phased by their leader’s antics. And then Linhardt was alone save for the kitchen staff.
This had been a disaster. As he ambled toward the homeroom, he realized that he had not only not had his questions answers, but that they had multiplied. And they were no longer just about Crests. The Eisners were some of the most cryptic and frustrating creatures he’d ever met.
Now he was intrigued.