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Ferdinand, letter on mixed parchment dated 2 Ethereal Moon 1186

At the end of the war, Ferdinand leaves Enbarr and returns to Aegir. He talks about the grape harvest and how the warm weather has made it come earlier. His Astral Knights pass on the majority of their weapons and heavy armour to the Enbarr weapon stores in exchange for civilian clothes and food and water for the road. They mingle in the palace courtyard with Ferdinand on the afternoon of their departure, chattering about house repairs and irrigation of the hills that form the north western border between Aegir and Bergliez. Ferdinand barely has time between these discussions and distributing the last of his battalion’s wartime pay to say proper goodbyes.

His departure surprises and disappoints Hubert more than it should. Edelgard is disappointed as is Manuela and Dorothea. Edelgard hopes to bring Ferdinand into the restructuring of the court, especially since Bernadetta immediately retreated home and Linhardt and Caspar went east. Manuela and Dorothea hope to bring Ferdinand into the opera, either as a major patron or a member of the chorus or corps. They all understand that Ferdinand must put the recovery and strength of Aegir first if he hopes to support the recovery and stabilisation of Hyrm. It was foolish of them to think their own needs would supersede these immediacies.

In the scope of things, Ferdinand is only one person, and his Astral Knights are only one battalion of the fifty-seven that Byleth and Edelgard managed. Many of the battalions aside from Edelgard’s armoured corps and Hubert’s sorcerers and secret spies have also been released and gone home. Claude’s carefully planned departure to Almyra after their joint battle with Dimitri in Shambhala has left many of the mobilised citizenry of Leicester to return home and to previous occupations. Only the Kingdom, badly ravaged by mismanagement and plague under Cordelia, maintains a full military force. It is not to wage war but rather to give employment and organisation to its reconstructing economy. Ferdinand and the Astral Knights returning to Aegir are part of how Fódlan will begin to heal.

Still, Hubert is struck by how empty Enbarr feels without Ferdinand specifically. Without him and Caspar, there is no early morning shouting on the training grounds. There is no one bursting in through the front door to Edelgard or Hubert’s studies, demanding they come look at this report, or hear a seemingly minor petitioner, or go outside and see the sun. There are no laughing toasts with wine at dinner, and there are no fresh shortbread fingers to accompany afternoon tea and coffee.

“It is very strange,” Edelgard says, a week after Ferdinand has departed and they share a quiet, almost stifling dinner together, “how much I miss his presence.”

Hubert cuts his tomato in half. He puts it in his mouth.

They spend the rest of the evening in silence.

Ferdinand, letter on mixed parchment dated 25 Ethereal Moon 1186

The first winter after the war, the plague ravages Fódlan.

It is the worst in Faerghus. There is additional water contamination that affects Fhirdiad, Fraldarius, Conand, and Galatea. Ingrid and Felix are spared, but Dimitri catches it and nearly dies. For the week and half that Dimitri battles the plague, Hubert barely sleeps. Every time he shuts his eyes, he has nightmarish visions of what could happen. Dimitri has not had time to find a spouse, let alone sire an heir. If he dies, House Blaiddyd will be ended, and the unstable peace in Faerghus will certainly collapse.

Edelgard’s sleep is equally disturbed. She eats comforting sweet buns as Hubert drinks coffee brewed to the consistency of oil. They sit together in her bedroom, huddled together like children for comfort.

“He will live,” Edelgard says, even though they do not know if it is true. “He survived this long and through much worse. Illness will not take him.”

Hubert does not have the heart to inject truth to this. He also knows, without needing to look at Edelgard, that she says this because she has always believed words have power. They give shape and clarity to her will. It is her sole concession to spirituality.

He writes, after Edelgard has gone to bed, in his journal, a project he agreed with Bernadetta to keep after the war. His personal correspondence box is empty, his usual letters from Shamir and Ferdinand delayed. Unlike his letters with them, which concern the miscellania of Shamir’s travels and an ongoing but light-hearted argument about carpets in public areas with Ferdinand, his journal is deeply unpleasant. It is too personal. That is the reason it is private.

In the wake of the war and the new and even more difficult peace that struggles to bloom, Hubert uses the journal to ruminate over the war. Over the events and the pieces of himself that brought him to this point. He writes, using the old ciphers that were his great-grandfather’s and have never left House Vestra, and tries not to worry that anyone, even though he writes about, will learn his thoughts.

He knows, in any other world, his crimes would not be forgiven or even understood. After all, Hubert’s death count started when Edelgard was taken from him. He was fourteen, an age for his first kill that he shares with Dimitri. Hubert, however, did not have the distinction and acceptable pride of murder on a maiden battlefield. In his mad dash to try and rescue Edelgard, he killed the first wave of men his father sent after him. He did not dwell on it then, and they did not haunt his dreams. Despite his disobedience, Hubert suspects he pleased his father due to this. His father was the type of man who would be happy to know his heir was capable of killing, especially familiar faces.

The best part of the war in the beginning was to realise he and Edelgard were not alone. The Black Eagles and Lysithea and Mercedes: their presence was the balm that Hubert could not provide when Byleth disappeared into the abyss. They made the war easier for Edelgard, which was all that Hubert could hope for, and they contributed their skills intelligently and well, which was what Hubert needed.

The worst part was also the best. In their short academy days, they had all killed. Byleth had led them with a firm understanding of what they had to do on the battlefield, a courtesy that reached beyond their teaching duties and included everyone willing to sit and share a meal together. Looking back, this may have made all the difference. All students, even Hubert, came to Garreg Mach with personal goals, and Byleth listened to them all. They laid out battle before them, and they were honest about the consequences. Some students wept, especially once the shadow of war grew longer and made its descent. Dorothea’s smiles became grim, and Linhardt often fell ill after combat. Caspar flinched sometimes, but he, in a strange similarity to Edelgard, made peace with each death upon his hands and rallied himself. With a herald’s roar, Petra kept her own peace and always faced forward and ahead.

Conversely, Bernadetta always screamed, but she never flinched. She was used to nightmares, and she knew, in a way that did hurt a part of Hubert that he kept secret and buried, worse things than death. Killing, to Hubert, is not unlike breathing. For Bernadetta, screaming and breathing were the same: equally difficult. Killing was a byproduct rather than its own cause. It was part of her self-preservation.

She always wept after battle, but she never refused orders nor asked for easier placements. In those post-battle moments, when Bernadetta retreated from the view of the troops to hide her tears, Hubert felt –

“I wonder what that is like,” Ferdinand said, slightly slurred with drink.

It was five years and four months into the war. Two months before, they had lost half of Gronder Field to Cordelia’s warped Titans and disorganised but numerous western Kingdom forces. This morning, they retook it by riding out from Varley and launching a western assault. It was extraordinarily costly, even for a strategic location. They were back at Varley now, and Bernadetta had opened the town for a victory feast to improve the fragile troop morale.

Ferdinand would not have said those words aloud if he was sober. He never spoke so vaguely nor shared unformed thoughts. Hubert would not have responded to such an aside either, but he, too, had been drinking. Neither of them had expected Varley wine to be so strong.

“You will need to clarify,” Hubert said, watching his hands refilling their cups almost outside of himself.

Ferdinand watched the wine splash into his glass. Recently, he seemed tired. Hubert was not aware that anything had changed in Ferdinand’s schedule. It could have been the war, which is tiring everyone, or it could be something back in Aegir that was not a concern to Hubert’s spies. An illness in his family that was not his father, perhaps. Ferdinand never shared anything personal of his home life. He shared, in fact, very little of himself at all.

“When I was seven,” he said as both he and Hubert lifted their glasses, “my parents considered a merger with House Varley.”

They drank. Hubert stared into the wine as he swallowed. House Varley had only one heir. From what Hubert knew, Ferdinand has two siblings, both of whom would have been alive at that time. Hubert kept three spies in Aegir who had mentioned two female children, one seven years older than Ferdinand and the other two to three years younger. They stayed close to their mother and enjoyed embroidery samplers. They were both very strong horse and pegasus riders but were not particularly dedicated to martial or magical arts. They both bore minor crests of Cichol.

“But,” Ferdinand said, drawing Hubert’s full attention back because there is a flat aspect to Ferdinand’s voice, accentuated by the drink, “Bernadetta was so strange that I was spooked by the rumours, so my mother baulked. My father decided there were better options for additional territory. I have wondered... sometimes…”

Hubert waited. Ferdinand lips pressed together. He looked into his drink for a long moment before he put it down. He had drunken rather less than Hubert in their last gulp.

“I find myself suddenly tired,” Ferdinand said, and he stood up, his hands at his sides. “Good night, Hubert. Thank you for listening.”

“Yes,” Hubert said, for a lack of anything further to say. “Good night.”

Ferdinand, letter on reused sheepskin parchment dated 8 Guardian Moon 1187

The winter is one of the coldest in recent history.

The deep cold helps to slow the plague, and even the usual attacks from Sreng are greatly reduced. These are bizarre consolation prizes as starvation and structural damage wreck havoc throughout Fódlan. Dimitri, who had hoped to travel from Fhirdiad to Garreg Mach to coordinate aid with Byleth, is advised for his health not to travel at all until the spring defrost.

Hubert takes to wearing his full mage robes and boots indoors to keep warm. Out of doors, he begins to wear the heavy outer robes that he used to scoff at and even the leather beaked mask he gave up for better peripheral vision in combat. This level of cold does not agree with him, and he cannot imagine what the northern territories of Faerghus and Leicester are like.

It is better that they never headed north to conquer Fhirdiad. Hubert, as he strokes higher the fire in Edelgard’s study, would be very grateful if he never has to travel more northward than Fhirdiad ever again.

Edelgard breathes out on a chuckle. Hubert blinks. He does not colour, but it is a near thing. He has been at the hearth for too long. When he turns, Edelgard smiles at him, wry in her desk chair. She also wears heavy clothing, although she does not get quite as chilled as Hubert, who finds himself wanting a blanket if he sits still for too long even close to the hearth.

“A copper for your thoughts?”

Hubert turns back to the hearth. Set the poker on the stand.

In the war, he kept his own peace. Edelgard, except for that one time when they argued over the nature of duty and love, never pushed him. It was not their place with each other to delve further, and his old feelings for her linger as a good dream. Byleth’s tutelage and Dorothea’s open, gushing love have given Edelgard all the things Hubert always knew he could never provide. It is different from providing happiness. He is content, especially in these winter days, to know his simple company like this is enough.

“I was thinking about the weather,” Hubert says with a sigh because it feels like now that the plague has tapered off, the harsh winter is all that anyone talks about, “and Ferdinand’s most recent letter.”

“Oh?” Edelgard murmurs, and she sits up straighter in her chair as Hubert seats himself in her short chaise. “We were commiserating in our latest correspondence about the fluctuating cost of wool hats.”

“Wool hats,” Hubert echoes, rather dumbly.

Edelgard’s lips twitch. “It is not for you to concern yourself with,” she says because Hubert neither has use nor desire for woolen hats; he is a mage and has a hood. “I am guessing that your correspondence is quite different.”

Hubert nods. He leans back on the chaise. The fire gives off greater warmth, and he can feel his feet tingling as feeling grows stronger in them. They hurt. He let himself get too cold.

“I believe he is concerned about his sisters,” Hubert says after he takes a few moments to become more comfortable, “and he is still grieving, so he has externalised his personal concerns to focus on the issues brought up by Dimitri’s recent illness.”

“Succession,” Edelgard says, and she sighs, shaking her head. “He spent so much time in the Alliance up north in Edmund. They’re too pious up there.”

Hubert blinks, rather shocked by the bluntness of the statement. “He did benefit from the Margrave Edmund’s eloquence.”

Edelgard’s lips draw into a thin frown. “He did. It will serve him well as our Prime Minister to know scripture so thoroughly. I do not believe the influence served him well for his place in the war.”

Hubert nods again. Ferdinand does not believe in the Goddess or saints anymore than Edelgard or Hubert himself does, but his relationship with the Church and its teaching is far more complex. His recent letters, as he struggles through both his father’s and his mother’s death within the past year along with the war, very much reflect this. This is not for Hubert to share, but he senses Edelgard has ascertained much of the major points herself.

“I have thought,” Edelgard says as the silence begins to stretch, “that we asked and will continue to ask too much of him. Byleth understood his potential well before you or I, and that is why we lost him for so many years. If not for that mistake, with our messengers…”

She falls uncharacteristically silent. Hubert also does not have anything to say. If it had not been for that Imperial messenger getting caught between Gloucester and Mryddin while carrying information meant for Thales from Shambala, the war would have been utterly different. Against Claude and Byleth and with the Kingdom in self-destructive disarray, the trajectory of Fódlan’s future would be utterly different. They both know this. They planned for their deaths as much as for their success.

What guilt they could have had for what they have done was counterproductive. Hubert squashed those tender parts of himself when he killed his father’s men as a boy. Edelgard squashed even more of herself to become the Flame Emperor. Adrestia must bloom in the sea of carnage they made in the war and in the shadows. Neither of them have any illusion that they will escape. One day, both Edelgard and Hubert will have to step away. It is the only way for Adrestia to join Fódlans dawn.

This is why they need Ferdinand as Prime Minister. Ferdinand served Leicester and the Church and then returned to Adrestia only after the truth was made plain. He is well-respected. His battle ability and political mettle are well-known. And, from Hubert’s perspective, he also has what all of their other possible Prime Minister candidates lack:

The name Ferdinand von Aegir instills fear.

If Edelgard and Hubert began their bloody paths earlier in life, Ferdinand makes up for lost time in the sheer efficiency he enacts in combat. The battles towards victory are littered with bodies left behind in Ferdinand’s wake. Petra, Ingrid, and Claude were faster flyers, but Ferdinand, either on wyvern-back or on foot, could evade even Nemesis’s attacks at the end. He rushed ahead, just as he always had, and never faltered. Hubert stopped being surprised. Byleth asserted Ferdinand was the best choice. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude agreed.

Ferdinand paid for his gifts. Hubert knows his acceptance of his frontline and finishing role ruined his relationships with Dorothea and Marianne. They know he was chosen to deal those final blows because he had the highest chance of survival, even though Felix in particular certainly did not appreciate this distinction. They know that if it was not Ferdinand, the deaths of their enemies would be on their hands. Dorothea hates that Ferdinand did not flinch from any command. Marianne wept for the sacrifice to make Ferdinand into who he is.

Hubert is known for the shadows. His enemies die choking on his magic. Drowning on land. The spy network he built following his first kills and expanded upon absorbing his father’s assets runs beneath and above the earth. He keeps Edelgard safe, which keeps Adrestia and now Fódlan safe as well. Hubert is von Vestra. It is his purpose to do anything to keep his Emperor safe and see her will fulfilled.

The only person he does not need to protect is, and always has been, Ferdinand.

Ferdinand, letter on sheepskin parchment dated 10 Pegasus Moon 1187

The Lone Moon comes in like a lion with a taste for lambs.

In the histories, the arrival of Ferdinand von Aegir on the eve of the Great Tree Moon 1187 would mark the dawn of modern Adrestia. His installation in Enbarr as Prime Minister would begin a period characterised by religious crises that precipitated the 1190 Schism of the Church of Seiros and civil service reform that eventually extended throughout Fódlan.

In the moment, however, no one knew exactly what lay ahead. Hubert and Edelgard were busy with projected food shortages and an outbreak of cholera in the south west of Enbarr. Hubert missed Ferdinand’s arrival past mid-day because he was down in the underground passages, attempting to ascertain whether or not the outbreak was connected to anything beneath. It was not, which was poor news. The early winter plague had wiped out much of Enbarr’s stores of medicinal herbs, and imports from Albinea and Almyra had not yet resumed due to stalled trade negotiations.

Ferdinand brought some medicines from Aegir, even though their stores had also been depleted. He brought, too, preserved apples and hazelnuts from the autumn harvest along with his father’s letters between Arundel, Tomas, and various other identities and stolen faces of Those Who Slither in the Dark. Whether the former Duke Aegir understood who was a stolen face and who was not would always remain unclear, but his communication would provide much more accessible insight than the burnt and nearly illegible records of the Agarthans.

Hubert joined Edelgard and Ferdinand over these items. The Prime Minister’s offices and rooms had been cleaned out during the war, and Edelgard had made the decision during the second year of the war to sell off much of the interior decor to fund the war effort. It is, aside from what could not be removed, essential furniture, and the books in their fine cases, barren. Manuela and Dorothea had sent rugs which were formerly props in the opera so that the rooms would be less frigid. Hubert sourced a mattress and bedding for the empty frame in the bedroom only after swallowing his pride and begging Lorenz to rush one from Gloucester, which is the only place in Fódlan with the resources and skill to make such things. He understood Edelgard's concern about wool prices then.

“Hubert,” Edelgard said as he stepped into the Prime Minister’s office, “you are looking chilled.”

“I am always chilled,” Hubert says as Ferdinand, who had been buried in his traveling trunk, straightens. “Good evening, Your Majesty, Prime Minister.”

“Oh, I don’t like that,” Ferdinand breathes, crossing around the mess of his initial move and careful not to accidentally knock over the open pot of preserved apples that Edelgard is eating directly from. “Good evening, Hubert, and please never call me that again.”

“But you are our Prime Minister,” Hubert says as Ferdinand extends his hand in greeting.

He accepts Ferdinand’s extended hand and squeezes it somewhat harder than he usually would with such contact. Ferdinand smiles at him, squeezing back. Aside from shadows beneath his eyes, Ferdinand looks well. His hair is longer but better cared for, and there is colour to his skin both from out of doors and general health. Despite how well Hubert knows his grief and tumultuous thoughts through their letters, he has taken care of himself as well as his family and land.

Ferdinand’s lips twitch. Hubert realises that he is still holding Ferdinand’s hand, and the gesture has passed out of mere greeting and politeness. At the preserve pot, Edelgard pops another apple slice in her mouth and grins as she chews. A sugary, wolfish expression.

“I am your Prime Minister,” Ferdinand says, lips turning up at the sides and quite amused.

Hubert knows his face is burning. He uses that as an excuse to extract his hand from Ferdinand, who lets him go with a brief crinkling of his eyes on a wider smile. Edelgard reaches into the pot and holds out to Hubert one of the slices on sticky fingers.

“Try some, Hubert,” she says as Ferdinand and Hubert both cross to her. “Ferdinand says it is a regional specialty.”

“We have not exported it before, even though it is so popular at home,” Ferdinand says as he moves a bit further away to untie one of the correspondence stacks packed onto the small meeting table. “I believe my father and grandfather considered it too provincial.”

“Didn’t they say the same thing about the hazelnuts?” Edelgard says as Hubert takes the slice from her.

“Yes,” Ferdinand says, pulling the twine out from beneath the papers and adding it to the pile on one of the chairs. “I am glad Nalina stopped listening and started selling them during the war.”

“I do hope to meet her soon,” Edelgard says as Hubert, who had paused upon belatedly realising he now has sugar syrup on his evening gloves, puts the candied apple into his mouth. “I know you hope she will attend at Garreg Mach when the academy reopens –”

“She hopes to attend,” Ferdinand says, very bluntly, before raising his head. “What are your thoughts, Hubert?”

The apple is very sweet with a ghost of a tanginess. It is far sweeter than anything Hubert prefers to eat but nowhere near as sweet as the decadent Adrestian desserts popular in Enbarr before the war. It is soft, almost melting in his mouth as he chews. Hubert swallows. The sticky apple sugar taste lingers on his tongue and the roof of his mouth. It reminds him bizarrely of ice cream or sorbet if they did not melt.

“I am not one for sweet things,” Hubert says, before nodding to the pot, “but I understand they would have universal appeal.”

“You only like meat and spicy things,” Edelgard snorts.

Ferdinand laughs, moving to begin untying the second to the last stack of correspondence. “You may prefer them pickled,” he says as Hubert wipes his gloves off as best he can on the towel the pot’s lid rests on.

Hubert shakes his head. He moves to inspect some of the unpacked papers. It is easy to recognise most of the handwriting, and he is not surprised to quickly find some of his father’s communication with the former Duke Aegir mixed in. Edelgard and Ferdinand murmur about the events on the morrow. Ferdinand will be installed during the morning court session. It will not be a public affair, but it will be observed by Manuela, Hanneman, and Dorothea. Hubert listens to them talk about the weather and Ferdinand’s lack of Adrestian courtwear due to all experienced Aegir tailors and seamstresses perishing during the war.

“I have planned to wear my wyvern lord uniform,” Ferdinand admits as Hubert’s eye strays from a letter dated a decade ago by Count Gloucester to Duke Aegir regarding Ordelia to the open chest that shows his meager wardrobe. “Is that truly so inappropriate?”

“It sends the wrong message,” Edelgard says, and Hubert looks to her to find her lips pulled into a stern frown. “We are not at war.”

Ferdinand sighs through his nose. He reaches up and pushes hair on the right side of his face from his cheek. It is a familiar, almost nostalgic motion. Placing his hand on his cheek is one of Ferdinand’s most obvious tells of society anxiety and discomfort.

“I can wear it without the flight plate armours, skirt, and greaves,” he says, and Hubert takes a moment to look over Ferdinand’s informal evening clothes; now that he pays attention, they are at least six years out of date and were obviously made for someone not quite as tall and wider than Ferdinand and reworked with fabric from other outfits; Hubert has the disturbing realisation Ferdinand is wearing his father’s clothes; this is why Edelgard and Ferdinand have been talking about wool. “I would really rather not –”

“You can borrow my day court suit,” Hubert says, causing both Ferdinand and Edelgard to look at him in grateful surprise. “You should wear the trousers of your uniform, though. My trousers would do poorly at your knees and calves.”

“I will lend you one of my out of doors capes,” Edelgard says, nodding to herself as she turns to the door to the hall, “so you do not drown in Hubert’s black. It should reach your heel and look proper enough with our closed audience.”

“I am grateful,” Ferdinand says, even though he has not taken his hand from his cheek and sounds as embarrassed as he looks. “I am sorry for my oversight.”

“It is no great consequence,” Edelgard says, somehow managing to sound both magnanimous and reproving as she opens the door. “I will be back soon.”

Hubert inclines his head as Ferdinand opens his mouth. Edelgard steps out and shuts the door behind herself before Ferdinand can get out more than a sound of protest. Ferdinand shuts his mouth. He looks somewhere between irritated and gobsmacked. Hubert feels his lips twitching as Ferdinand turns to him, hand lowering and expression shifting more towards irritation.

“I would prefer to wear my wyvern lord uniform even without armour,” he asserts, moving to put the lid back on the pot. “We may not be at war, but we should not fool ourselves. We have many battles ahead of us, and we will have to take the field again. Governing and administrative positions should not be separate from this.”

Hubert watches Ferdinand cross to the water pitcher. He pours water around the lid and the rim of the pot, seating it temporarily since the clay that had sealed it shut from the autumn has been broken. Ferdinand rights the pitcher. Lifts his head. Meets Hubert’s gaze.

When they met on Gronder Field, Claude and Byleth’s letters to both Edelgard and Dimitri begging for the opportunity to speak, Ferdinand had sat astride his wyvern. His light armour was the same make and material as Marianne’s and bore the Crest of Cichol carved into his vambraces. Throughout the war and even now, Ferdinand wears the vambraces along with his greaves. Hubert does not miss that Ferdinand has not volunteered to remove the vambraces for tomorrow.

Time rolls forward and the past into history. Hubert, as he moves to stand next to Ferdinand and the apple preserves, is beginning to realise how little they may control.

“We must look to the new world,” Hubert says as Ferdinand looks up at him, focused and firm and very passionate, “but we also are still ourselves.”

Ferdinand’s lips lift. It is not a pleasant smile. It is different from Hubert’s sneers or Edelgard’s coldness. There is something too knowing to Ferdinand’s eyes. Hubert understands this look well. They share it.

Unlike everything else in this world:

“For better or for worse,” Ferdinand says.

Hubert inclines his head. Their foreheads press together. Ferdinand breathes out. His breath smells of apples. Sweet and a little tart and very warm.

Leaning together:

They find peace.