Chapter Text
"Mommy, Mommy, wake up I'm hungry!" Aria's little voice pierced the veil of darkness giving Edelgard von Hresvelg the first night's sleep she had in weeks. And a weak tug on her blankets was doing its best to help usher way the welcome darkness.
Fighting back a sigh and groan Edelgard opened her eyes. Dawn not even broken yet, sunlight not yet intruding through the curtains. Aria's chubby little face moving closer and her bright blue eyes shining even without light. "Hi, Mommy!"
"It's too early to eat," Edelgard replied to her youngest daughter. "The sun's not even out yet."
"But my tummy's rumbling now!" Aria climbed into bed and absently smacked Edelgard's nose, putting her stomach next to her mother's face. "See? She's real loud!"
Not a single grumble came from the tiy stomach but that full-forced and weak smack on the nose had brought her fully awake anyhow. "Tell me you didn't wake your sisters and brothers?"
"Nope!" She gave a half grin with her silly teeth.
"You will if you keep being so loud so hush."
"Tummy's gonna wake everyone if she doesn't get food."
And she would do it herself if Edelgard didn't agree to this. "Give me five minutes, I'll make you something."
"Yay!" Aria leapt out of bed and waited at the night table. "Go wait in the kitchen, honey."
"But then you won't come!"
"I will, I promise."
"Promise, promise!" Being way too loud for so early her youngest daughter ran out the room and thankfully didn't crash into anything. She also completely forgot to close the door.
"Why did you let me handle that alone?" she asked her husband, still stiff as a statue.
"Because Blaze woke me up a few hours ago about monsters in his closet again." Byleth rolled over and put his arm around his wife. "And you weren't having any nightmares."
Edelgard hugged the arm of her husband. "Was it a sweater or pants this time?"
"It was Curtis."
Edelgard had to groan at that. "Right before we're supposed to go to the park?" She wanted to sigh but that would take too much energy. "It'll be more troublesome to punish him and listen to him crying for a week." They got too little sleep as it was.
"I've already come to the conclusion we should punish him after the park."
"That sets a terrible example."
"I think we can both agree that the sleep we'll get not listening to him cry about it for months was the less terrible option."
"A terrible example I wish to follow." The two shifted into a deeper embrace. "Any other problems I should know about?"
"It's been two hundred eighty seconds."
Edelgard flung off their blankets and rose to her feet just as Aria waddled back in. "See, honey, I'm up." Wearing only a nightgown with sleeves too long to properly cook in.
"I want bacon."
And I want a decent night's sleep. "We'll see what we have." Anything really but probably porridge.
"I want bacon! Bacon, bacon, bacon!"
"Quiet down or you'll have to share with whomever you wake up." Aria clasped her mouth. "Bacon." She wasn't remotely this bad at three, was she? Byleth certainly couldn't have been. "Bacon is for quiet girls," she tried her best to whisper.
But to no avail as the door to Blaze's room opened and her oldest son with his sweat-soaked pajamas came running out. He ran straight down the hall into their room and latched onto her leg, just barely avoiding tears. "Mommy there's a monster in my closet."
This was not the time! "Curtis if you're in Blaze's closet you're going to spend the whole day with Hubert!"
Curtis's door flew open with enough speed to make a falcon knight envious. "It's not me, I promise!"
"Everyone else, line up!" Amelia and Eleanor opened up their rooms as well. All five of their children were accounted for and not monsters in a closet. Edelgard hoisted herself out of the master bedroom, shut the down and lined her kids up. "Today is not the day to be playing pranks on your older brother."
"Hey, I didn't do anything! Curtis did!" Eleanor ratted out her brother immediately.
"Liar Elly!"
"Liar liar Curt!"
"Both of you be silent," Edelgard harshly rebuked them. Too sharp, too unfair sharp but her eyes were hurting, her head still ached and her vision still blurred. "I will determine who - if anyone - is at fault here."
"What's 'fault?'" asked Amelia.
"It's who did the bad thing," Aria beamed at her knowledge. "Do good girls get bacon?"
"Bad girls don't," Edelgard said, "and bad kids don't get to go to the park at all." They'd been planning this for a month and she wasn't about to let it get ruined because of childish whims!
"I said Curtis did it! He stuck one of Mommy's bears in the closet," Eleanor continued to betray her brother.
"I don't even know where Mom keeps her teddies!"
None of them knew where she kept either of her teddies. "I'm going to take a look myself. All of you wait here." Edelgard headed into her son's room. Messy, as a child's should be, and peered into the closet where a giant pile of pants and sweaters awaited her. Just bundled enough to look like a stuffed animal.
"Where's the monster?" Aria, of course, followed in after her.
"There's no monster. All of you come here." The four others marched in a complete non-formation. "Blaze, there's nothing here that is a monster."
"But I saw it…"
"Eleanor, Curtis did not put a bear in here." That daughter just looked away. "But the fact that you knew what it was supposed to look like tells me something."
"Curtis made me do it!" she passed blame.
"Stop lying Elly!"
"Both of you need to come clean to me if you want to have any chance of going to the park this morning. Because otherwise Uncle Hubert will be in charge of taking care of you while everyone who isn't lying is out having fun with all the other kids."
The amazing desire to save themselves immediately set Eleanor and Curtis to betraying one another's simple little plan and begging her to not send them to Hubert. Honestly she'd feel bad about using him like this if he hadn't outright requested she do it.
"That's enough out of both of you," she put a stop to their madness. "What do you say to your brother?"
"I'm sorry," they both said.
"Why are you sorry?"
"For scaring him," said Eleanor.
"What Elly said."
"In your own words, Curtis."
"I'm sorry for scaring you, Blaze."
Blaze stuck his tongue out at the two of them. "That isn't the answer, either, Blaze."
"But I didn't do anything wrong!"
"When you acted like that you did." He looked up at her like he wanted to say something but thought the better of it. "Now come along all of you, you're getting an early breakfast today."
"Breakfast! I want bacon!" Eleanor screamed.
"Only Aria and Amelia are getting bacon."
"But that's not fair!" Blaze screeched.
"I want bacon too," Curtis added on.
"The three of you know why you aren't getting any."
"This is all your fault Curtis!" Eleanor shouted at him.
"You made the choice to side with him, Eleanor," said Edelgard.
Caught in complete guilt and with no way to argue her way out of it, her daughter just crossed her arms and pouted. It was fairly adorable if it hadn't come from such a childish place. Or maybe that was why it was so adorable.
"But I didn't do anything bad," Blaze, however, kept up his protests.
"We just went over this, Blaze."
"Sticking my tongue out isn't nearly as bad as what they did!"
Edelgard fought back a sigh. "Why did you do that, Blaze?"
"Because they deserved it for what they did to me."
"That is for your father and me to decide, not you. Did you think we were going to let them off?"
"N-no but-"
"There is no 'but'. You knew exactly what we were going to do but still wanted to get back at them. That's why you're being punished - it's that you knew better and chose to do it anyway. Like Curtis and Elenor did."
Blaze was on the verge of tears again and turned his gaze to the floor. "Yes, Mommy."
Too much heart of ice. Even when it was sometimes necessary. "Now, the three of you may not be getting any bacon this morning but maybe your father will grill some up for lunch if you're good kids." Edelgard looked at the children who were giving her less of a headache this morning. "And of course the really good kids might get even more."
Aria practically jumped out of her pajamas in surprise. Amelia smiled and some measure of hope returned to the three punished.
Of course now she had to tell Byleth about this but it seemed fair enough play.
She marshaled the kids through the bathrooms and washed up just long enough for the sun to start peeking in through the windows. Byleth beat them to the kitchen, the pan already grilling up delicious wafts of bacon.
"I'll watch the kids, you should go wash up."
That was something she desperately needed and she ran off leaving him to deal with the delightful terrors they'd made together.