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The Light Weaver knew the ocean. She knew it with an intimacy often reserved to a farmer and acreage past down through generations. She knew it as a studied map, as though the salt water beneath her were as solid as mountains, as sure as valleys. She knew it like few others could; learning of the waters’ many forms from above with her mother and below with her uncle. She knew each current to run like her veins, the tides like the beat of her heart, the depths like the well of her soul.
That is how the Light Weaver knew where to cut the surface of the calm waters with her wing as she banked. She let out a call, crystalline in the long stretch of empty air, before ascending. She looped back around the gathered ships, beating her wings down at their sterns. The sails filled with borrowed winds, pushed ahead to the rippling waters she had created.
She knew what came next. She had done this times beyond counting. Nets would be thrown over the starboard side, just as the water began to bubble with motion. The ripple of sunlight would prove too alluring a bait for the fish down below, the glint reminding them of the delicious, reflective algae that glittered brilliantly on the surface of the north sea. The great school would move as though one, a thousand little writhing prongs launching upwards - mouths agape - with the force of a single mighty beast of the deep.
The people would cheer, as they always did for her. They would call out a name their children would think a mere legend, and the children after them would forget. Stories of the winged creatures guiding sailors out to sea, using their tricks to ensure bounty, would be ascribed to story books she would read to the monastery’s children a millennium from now.
Flayn knew what would happen. Still, she would have loved to see the bright smiles on the fishermen’s faces just one last time before she woke.
"Mother!"
Flayn rose with a start at the sound of a distant squeal. The sun, high above the coast, blazed. The rays hit her eyes too suddenly, making the woman wince and squint against the light. With a hand over her brow and a few more blinks, her eyes adjusted enough to see Kenric, her little son, running from a small, foaming wave that chased his ankles.
A few feet away, tall and solemn, stood the boy's father. Byleth held their littlest one close to his chest, watching as the elder ran to and fro in the waves.
Ever the watchful guardian, Flayn thought, allowing herself to relax just a little. She sat up properly, folding her long white skirts about her legs and calling out to Kenric.
"Mother!" Kenric squealed again. He waded in deeper as the water pulled back along the sand. Flayn could not help but shake her head, knowing what came next. "Come play, Mother!"
"Kenric," Byleth smiled warmly, but kept his voice even. "Give your mother a moment. You just woke her."
"Oh…" the child looked a little remorseful. He stopped in his tracks, turned to give an apology and was swiftly caught off guard by a wave he'd not readied himself for.
He laughed as it washed over him, cracking against the back of his legs. The spray of the water soaked him even further through than he already was.
His transgression and apology forgotten, he ran back towards his mother on her blanket. Sand stuck stubbornly to his feet, trailing all the way to his knees. Flayn laughed, imagining how her father would look if she let him back into the house in this state.
"Sit with me," Flayn said, patting a place on the blanket beside her. She grabbed a folded linen from a woven basket and set herself to work. "Let us see if we cannot make you presentable before we go to lunch."
"But I want to stay, Mother," Kenric pouted.
Flayn ran a hand through the mess of looping jade curls crowning her son's head. She sighed and pinched the round cuff of his ear, just like his father's.
Flayn's eyes wandered back up to him, Byleth slowly making his way back over to the blanket. There was no doubt he'd also noticed how high the sun was in the sky, how the children would soon need food and a rest.
"We will be staying at the old house a while longer," Flayn assured him. "So we can come back as much as you like. For now, though, we must clean up, head home, and have something nice to eat."
Kenric pouted no less but nodded.
"Good boy," Flayn smiled. "I am glad to see you enjoy your time here."
"Of course," Kenric perked up. Flayn watched the light in his eyes flare as he stared out into the distance. "I like the sea."
"Do you?" Flayn asked. She took one of his little feet into her lap and started to wipe. "What do you like best about it?"
"I like lots of things about it. That it plays with me," Kenric said. "That it's so big. But I think I like the colour best."
"The colour?" Flayn tilted her head, looked back at him, wondered.
"Everyone says that the sea is blue. It's blue in all the picture books and paintings too. But it looks green from here, Mother."
Flayn hummed, looking back along the horizon. "Yes. You are right, it does."
Her father had been relieved when she brought her family back to the old house. He had been waiting in the sun room with towels and buckets on hand, lest the little ones traipse sand through the home he had built for his late wife. Instead he found that the children were clean and all the family’s supplies were tucked neatly into the baskets they’d left with.
It did not take long for Byleth to pull together a meal from what was available in the pantry. It took a little longer for him to make a tea that was to his standard. Then - after all the bellies in the house were filled, the pot of tea ran dry, and the children dozed off - Seteth declared his intentions to fish.
Byleth rose from his seat, ready to get his pole, as that was usually a queue that his father-in-law wanted to speak with him. When Seteth cleared his throat, nodding towards the sofa where Flayn who had curled up, toying with her curls, he thought better of the idea.
“May I?” Byleth asked, catching the tendril she’d fixated on between his own gloved fingers.
Flayn bit her lip, waiting until she heard the swing of the back door, before nodding. “You may.”
Flayn shifted forward, leaving room for Byleth to seat himself behind her. She marked the sound of leather gloves slipping over the rough skin of his hands. She could not help but to smile at the warm touch of his fingers as he gathered up her hair, making sure not a lock could stray to affront her.
“You’re quiet,” Byleth said.
He went about his work with efficiency as he spoke, sectioning Flayn’s hair into three distinct parts before beginning.
“Are you not always quiet?” Flayn asked. “Perhaps I am attempting to imitate your charms.”
Byleth was silent for a moment. He made the first cross of a braid loosely, just beneath her skull. “Are you?”
“No,” Flayn sighed. “But just because I am quiet does not mean that something is wrong.”
“So nothing is wrong then?” Byleth asked.
Flayn shifted her weight nervously. It gave Byleth’s braiding hands a moment's pause as he tried to keep his plaiting even. When he continued Flayn laughed a little.
“It will never cease to amaze me how you say so little yet prompt so much,” she told him. “Nothing is wrong. I am simply wistful. I had a dream on the beach and something Kenric said reminded me of it, that is all.”
“Was it a bad dream?” Byleth combed his fingers through a section of braid to reach where he’d made a mistake on his first pass.
“Not at all. It was a marvelous dream,” Flayn said. “And I think that is why it hurts so.”
She waited but Byleth said nothing in return. She supposed he was waiting to hear what she wanted to tell him, if she wanted to tell him. He listened but did not prod; Flayn loved that about him.
“Do you know why the sea here in the north is green?” Flayn asked. “It is because of a special algae that thrives in the cold. You will find it thickest within the first twelve miles from the northern shore. In other words, all you can see of the ocean from here is green.”
“And this algae is green?” Byleth asked.
“Actually, when left to its own devices, It is clear,” Flayn answered. “It is only when light touches the water’s surface and warms the algae that it turns green. It triggers a chemical reaction, or so I am told.”
Byleth’s hands reached low down her back, finishing the last half of the braid. “Where did you learn this?”
“From my mother,” Flayn said. “One of the many times we rowed out on her fishing boat she told me of the algae. She said that when she saw it, it reminded her of us. You can imagine my father, so confused to have his daughter delighted at the thought she might be a floating ocean plant.”
“Hmm,” Byleth hummed. It was a contented sound. She wondered if that came from imagining her so bright eyed and young or if he was thinking of their own children. Either though filled her with an affectionate glow. “Why do you think that was?”
“Each of the most powerful Nabateans who roam Fódlan have a power, tethered to our dragon forms by a name,” Flayn went on. “This is why Sothis, progenitor and dragon of time was The Beginning, why Uncle Macuil is Wind Caller and so on. When we were not limited to a single form my father could become the Mountain Sire, and I Light Weaver.”
Byleth twisted the end of Flayn’s hair, tying the long tail of the braid around itself until the plait was completed. But the story was not over, and so he waited.
“Mother said our family was like the algae,” Flayn said. She pulled her long braid over her shoulder, turning back to her husband with eyes heavy with emotion. “It sat over Uncle Indech’s ocean, near Father’s shores, thrived in Uncle Macuil’s cold winds. Even she, a humble fisherwoman, was a part of the life cycle of the algae, catching the fish who came to the surface to eat it. Between the four of them the algae could live. But she told me, ‘were it not for your light, your touch, the algae would never glow and the sea would not be such a beautiful green.’”
“Your mother…” Byleth took a deep breath. He placed a hand on Flayn’s cheek. “I’m not so good with words but I think she said it perfectly.”
Flayn let out a huff. She allowed herself a little smile as she leaned in to Byleth’s hand. His thumb caught the first and last tear she shed before it could even fall.
“Memories like these, usually I can look back on them fondly. It brings me joy to remember her this way, but this one…” Flayn looked into her lap where her hand clung to her skirt. “I used to slip away to fly over the sea. I would remember those words then, but now I cannot. The memory only causes me two grieve two losses all at once: my mother and myself.”
Byleth nearly choked on his words. “Do you really feel you have lost yourself?”
“Oh, Byleth,” she shrunk back. “It is...difficult to explain. It is as though a piece of myself that you cannot see has been cut off, that I have lost it somewhere beyond my reach.”
Byleth did not know what to say. There was a pang in his chest, one he could not quite follow to its source. Whether it was hurt, empathy, or frustration that he could not understand entirely how she must have felt was a matter for him to interrogate at a later date.
For now, little feet padded from the hall and, in her small voice, Eyva was asking if her mother might help her pour a glass of milk.
The Archbishop’s family enjoyed their trip more or less undisturbed.
Flayn felt fractionally better after having a talk with her husband. It was not so much that this memory did not weigh on her heart, but she could once more smile bravely through her grief. As she chased both her children along the wet sand at low tide, she was even near to forgetting she had ever been troubled at all.
Days passed. With them there were many sunrises, many meals, naps, picnics and days by the sea. In the evening, as the sun set, Flayn and Byleth would stroll slowly down the pier and watch the glittering green sea dull as the sun disappeared beyond the waves.
It was the last day, when the sun hung low in the sky, that Byleth suggested they might go elsewhere to end their day.
Flayn followed him, gleeful all the while, through thicket not far from the old house. She held her skirts up, took no care if her boots were covered in the dry summer dust. Dirt and pollen rose in the couples blazing path and she giggled when Byleth itched his nose and sneezed.
“Where are we going?” she laughed, stumbling only to be righted by Byleth arms and pulled forward yet again.
Byleth did not answer. He grinned widely back at Flayn in a way she seldom saw. Her feet beat faster on the ground then, catching up to his pace as they went up an incline and burst from the woods into the glow of the day’s last light.
“Oh!” Flayn exclaimed when she saw the towering figure of a white wyvern, tacked and ready to be flown.
She was larger than any beast of her kind she’d seen before, but she’d read once that was usual for creatures of her status. Flayn pulled ahead to approach her, an open palm pointed up in greeting. The wyvern took easily to her, resting the soft underside of her jaw in Flayn’s hands.
“Where and how did you find this beautiful lady?” Flayn asked, delighted.
The wyvern seemed to preen at the compliment, wings splaying behind her as a show. One gentlewoman acknowledging another, Byleth thought.
“I sent a letter east,” Byleth said. “Someone owed me.”
“That rascal,” Flayn shook her head, not needing a name. “Or so my father would say. A white wyvern - they are so rare, even in the highest reaches of the Throat. We should send him something in thanks.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” Byleth smiled. “Now I thought we might fly over the sea before we head home.”
Flayn turned to Byleth, eyes wide.
“There is nothing closer to the power of a dragon that I could find,” Byleth admitted. “I know she is still so much smaller and different from you. Still, I thought a flight close enough to before might ease things. I want to make your memory happy again, like the others. I want-”
Flayn rose on her toes, closing the gap between her lips and Byleth’s. The kiss was soft, gentle. When she pulled away his eyes shone like the sea in the sun that faced them.
“I want you to smile,” he finished.
“I am smiling,” Flayn told him. She took both his hands firmly in her own before nodding up at him. “And I would love to fly with you.”
Flayn did not need much help getting into the saddle. She had rode before with her father and been trained on safe flying practices on pegasi as well - by Byleth himself, no less. Not to mention, she was a natural at flight and adored by most winged creatures she had ever met.
Byleth supposed it was a kinship of sorts.
Flayn sat behind Byleth. She held tight around his waist as the white wyvern beneath them adjusted herself. Her back tightened beneath them, like a spring coiled tight and prepared for the grand take off.
“Ready?” Byleth asked.
She was always ready to fly. Every waking moment of every day. It was a question that raised too much emotion in her to voice, so she settled instead for a “yes.”
The wyvern beat her wings and up they went. Flayn was guarded by Byleth from most of the initial burst of wind on her face. Her hair and her dress, however, flew back, trailing close behind her as they flew. Flayn watched the waves below, the morphing of the wyvern’s shadow as they rose.
Then, as they levelled, the way her wings were lined in a crisp silhouette on the shimmering green water. It was as though she were looking down at her own shadow, smaller maybe, but very herself.
“Are you alright?” Byleth called to her over the rushing wind in their ears.
Her smile spread wider over her face. “I am more than alright.”
“How do you feel?”
Flayn looked over Byleth’s shoulder. The sun only just peaked past the horizon. The water was turning to the dark pitch black, only barely tinted green.
She thought of her answer. She thought of her mother looking out over the sea at her side, her father walking barefoot with her through the sand. She thought of when she’d first stood near the beach with Byleth, looking out over their monuments guarding her mother’s grave.
She thought of her dream. She could feel her wings still. She could feel their power as they cut through the air over sailors' heads.
“Byleth,” Flayn laughed. She stood in the saddle, hands bearing down on Byleth’s shoulders. When he looked up, surprised, she sent him a look that told him there was no need to worry. “I feel like I could fly.”
Flayn spread her arms wide, the wind pushing her back and out of the saddle. As she fell to the sea, watched the last glimpses of the green on the waves below, she remembered the colour she’d seen so long ago with her mother. She remembered the colour her son loved best in the sea.
Her wings were still strong as she changed in a flash of light.
Byleth could not help but stare at her grandeur. With the mildest shift of her wings, she soared above Byleth. Her golden horns reflected the last vestige of day. She was all ivory and might and grace. As the sun finally set over the water, she became more even than that.
Flayn was light.
Byleth looked down. Beneath the bright glow of Light Weaver over the water and the shadow of his own mount, the sea glowed brighter than it did even in the sun. The waters rippled a luminous green beneath them, reminding him of the shade of Flayn’s own eyes.
Flayn knew Byleth had no dragon form before. He didn’t have the experience to parse the intricacies of her expressions in this body. Still, she thought he understood when he blinked up at her, love brimming in his eyes.
Her glow told him once more: “I am smiling.”