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Needless to say, being back at Garreg Mach is… strange.
At times, it feels as though Linhardt never left – he half-expects to walk around the corner and see Shamir scaring a gaggle of students into attending class, or Edelgard in her uniform demanding he come down to the training grounds. Instead, he’ll turn a corner and see scaffolding supporting a building that’s been around longer than his grandfather, or worse, see the gaping hole in the roof of the cathedral, and realize that very, very much has changed since his days as a student.
Not everything has, though. His classmates – former classmates, from the Golden Deer – are somehow all here, having heard and heeded Claude’s call. Seteth is still overly protective of Flayn; Alois is still terrorizing innocent passersby with his terrible puns; Cyril is still running around like a madman trying to single-handedly keep the monastery spotless.
Best of all, the fishing pond is unscathed, and as perfect a spot as ever.
Naturally, Linhardt has to test it out, on an unseasonably warm day a few weeks after he, Caspar, and Bernadetta finally made it to Garreg Mach. There have been a few skirmishes with bandits – in fact, the Deer had just wrapped one up a scant few hours before Linhardt and company arrived, more or less on time for the would-be Millennium Festival; he still finds it a miracle they made such good time on Caspar’s recovering ankle – but he’s stayed far away from the fighting. In fact, he’s doing his best to pretend war is not looming on the horizon, although he knows now that it’s only a matter of troops and opportunity before they move out. Still, no need to think on that. He can spend the day casting his line, lazily waiting for a bite, and perhaps dozing off on the dock in the warm sun…
“Ah, Linhardt!” a voice calls out behind him. “Just the guy I wanted to see.”
Linhardt starts awake, preemptively annoyed as he looks over his shoulder. With him seated as he is on the weather-worn planks of the dock, Claude towers over him. Linhardt can’t say he’s all that bothered by it, although Claude hardly needs the ego boost of looking down on others. He huffs and begins to reel his line in. “Claude. What a pleasure.”
Claude is all smiles, although Linhardt can see a hard edge in the gleam of his eyes. “No, no, don’t stop on my account. I just wanted to stop by for a friendly chat.”
Utter horseshit. Linhardt arches a brow. “Oh, I’m not doing this out of respect,” he says honestly, laying the rod on the dock beside him. “You’ve just scared the fish away with all your stomping.” He spares a disdainful look at Claude’s heavy boots. “Compensating, I see?”
“Always joking around, aren’t you?” Claude says; there’s a bit of strain in his cheery tone, which Linhardt counts as a success. He hit the mark. “C’mon, let’s catch up. Are you up to anything, my friend?”
Linhardt looks down at his discarded fishing rod, letting his gaze linger pointedly before looking back up at Claude, his expression blank. “Fishing,” he says flatly.
Claude snorts. “So I gathered. But I don’t mean right this second. Come on, Linhardt, we’ve barely had the chance to speak since you and your buddies came back to Garreg Mach. Talk to me.”
Linhardt narrows his eyes. Claude’s clearly digging for something. He doesn’t just talk to people , especially not Linhardt. Could he be suspicious? They are from the Empire, he supposes. “My ‘buddies’ are former Deer, remember?” he says. “But no, we haven’t been able to chat. I suppose that’s what happens when you’re the leader of a country as well as a resistance movement. No time for idle chatter.” Claude expression doesn’t change. Perhaps Linhardt hadn’t been clear enough in calling out his intentions. “As for me, I’ve been rather enjoying doing nothing at all.”
Claude nods. “I bet,” he says nonchalantly. “Gotta say, though, that’s an awful long way to travel just to do nothing.”
Ah, there it is. Linhardt was right – Claude thinks he’s a spy. Likely just him, he realizes, as Claude surely knows Bernadetta and Caspar would crack more easily under interrogation. Perhaps he’s spoken to them and learned of his reluctance to come here in the first place, although in that case he surely must know what pushed Linhardt to come anyway. “You underestimate how dull the Empire can be. Come, you can say what you’re really thinking.” He’s already tired of this charade. “Let me assure you, I’m not up to anything.”
Claude raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?” Linhardt narrows his eyes at him. He shrugs, totally calm. “I’m just asking. You’re not waiting on some hypothetical letter, now, are you?”
Linhardt furrows his brow. “A letter? From who?” The corners of Claude’s mouth twitch. “Oh, shut up. I’m not expecting one, as a matter of fact. Which just makes me all the more curious.”
Claude studies him for a moment. “You don’t say,” he says slowly. “Well, maybe dear old pop was just worried about you.” He flips an envelope to him, and it lands on the dock between them.
Linhardt’s blood runs cold. A letter? From his father ? What on earth–
He scrambles to pick it up, his fingers trembling a bit. How foolish. What is he expecting?
What’s the worst case scenario?
Sure enough, the envelope is addressed to him. He flips it over – it’s his father’s gaudy stamp sealing the letter. Of course. He tears it open, immediately beginning to read.
Linhardt,
I won’t bother asking what the h
He stops reading. “Ah. As I suspected.” He thrusts the letter back toward Claude; the tremble in his hands isn’t from anxiety anymore, but rage. “I think you’ll find he’s quite upset with my being here.”
Claude takes the letter, giving it a glance but obviously deciding he’ll read it later. Good. Linhardt wouldn’t want to sit through that experience. “I see,” he says, tucking it away. “I had no idea he was such a loyalist.”
Linhardt snorts. “Loyal to his own head, maybe. He only cares about how he can gain power, how House Hevring benefits from each minute action.” He shakes his head, disgust boiling in his chest. “Really, what was I meant to expect? That–”
Claude holds up a hand. “Woah, woah, Linhardt, let’s not get too angry at the old man just yet.” Linhardt crosses his arms over his chest, huffing. He doesn’t care one bit for the twinkle in Claude’s eye. “Here’s what I’m thinking.”
“I want no involvement in your scheme,” he says flatly, getting to his feet. He wants to go find Caspar. Caspar will at least listen to him rant before trying to hunt down a silver lining. “And it isn’t worth it. Besides, that letter’s all for show.”
Claude frowns. “I haven’t even told you what I was thinking,” he protests. For an arch-duke, he’s childishly whiney. “At least here me out.”
Linhardt puts a hand on his hip. “Let me guess,” he drawls. “I write back saying I’ve actually been planning to act as a spy this entire time so we can use him to feed false information directly to the emperor. Correct?” Claude huffs softly, and Linhardt rolls his eyes. “Even if my father somehow buys that – which I assure you he won’t, as I could never be so useful – Hubert will immediately see through me. He suspected me before I even left the Empire. It’d only be a waste of my time.”
Claude seems to toss his words around a bit, the wheels in his mind obviously spinning. Linhardt waits impatiently for him to get the idea through his head and leave him be. “Understood,” he says at last. “Then why exactly are you here, Linhardt?”
Linhardt’s almost caught off-guard by the change in subject. “Caspar,” he says, too startled to be clever.
Claude holds a hand over his heart. “Not for your other beloved classmates?” he asks, faux-wounded.
Linhardt levels him with an unimpressed look. “Certainly not,” he says. “The rest of you aren’t worth the trouble. Now, then.” He shakes his head, his hair sliding over his shoulder. “If Caspar were to decide that the Empire was actually in the right, you may be in some trouble. But seeing as he’s spent the past five years actively rebelling against them, I think you’re in the clear. So I’ll have to help you if I intend to keep him alive, which I do.”
Claude grins. “You definitely like us,” he says easily. Linhardt rolls his eyes. “I can tell. You wouldn’t go through the effort of helping otherwise.”
“Mhm,” he says. “Well, looks as though you didn’t need to send me an invitation anyway. What a stroke of luck.” His own words surprise him. He hadn’t really been thinking – he hasn’t actively thought about the fancy invite to the Millennium Festival that Bernadetta, and only Bernadetta, received since their escape from Varley. And yet, here it is again, back in his mind.
Claude’s brow furrows. “Invitation-wait, are you mad about that?”
Linhardt scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“It wasn’t personal,” Claude says quickly. “Seriously, it wasn’t. I sent one out to all our former classmates–”
“Except me,” he says flatly.
“ As long as I could contact them safely. Caspar didn’t get one, either, you know.”
“No one knew where Caspar was,” Linhardt says. “Except for me, a month ago. I’ve been rather sedentary by comparison.”
Claude holds up his hands in surrender. “You have, but that wasn’t the issue. It was a question of safety.”
Linhardt frowns at him. He’s half-expecting some bullshit excuse, but still he says, “Explain.”
Claude sighs. “Before I got in touch with anyone, I did some poking around. I wanted to tell the Deer that the class reunion was on, not the entire continent.” Linhardt understands the implications – several of the noble houses in Leicester are closely allied with the Empire, or hope to be. They could sell the news of a potential enemy force to the Empire for better standing. It’s no less than his father would do. “It was hard to keep tabs on those of you who weren’t in the Alliance, but I mentioned it to Lysithea,” he says. “She said the two of you were in contact for a while, but one day you stopped returning her letters.”
Linhardt’s brow furrows. “We were in contact,” he says slowly. “But she’s the one who stopped writing back, not me.”
Claude nods. “As I feared. I thought maybe your letters were being intercepted. And if that were the case, I couldn’t expose my plans to the Empire.” He grins ruefully. “Sorry, Linhardt. I didn’t mean to leave you out.”
Huh. Somehow that is… reassuring. He wasn’t intentionally ignored, then. He didn’t think he cared about that sort of thing. “Well,” he says lamely. “In that case. I suppose it was understandable.”
“I’m guessing that’s the closest I’ll get to a, ‘Gee, thanks for worrying about the safety of me and my friends, Claude!’ that I’m gonna get.” Linhardt glares at him, and he laughs. “Sorry, sorry. Well, whatever – whoever – you’re here for…” He sobers. “I appreciate you being here, Linhardt. We’d be missing you otherwise.”
Linhardt blinks slowly at him. “Ah,” he says. Ridiculous, he tells himself. Of course Claude is just saying that to pacify him. He’s a master statesman, after all. Still, he can’t escape the warmth that floods his chest. “Well, you’re very welcome. I’ll try not to weigh you all down.”
Claude laughs. “Never gonna happen.” He cocks his head. “I better get going. My work is never finished. Besides, you’re probably overdue for a nap, right?”
Linhardt huffs. “You could say it without making me sound like a cranky child,” he complains.
“Yeah, but it’d be a lot less accurate.” Claude is already making a tactical retreat, before Linhardt can smack him upside the head with a Cutting Gale. “Talk to you later, Linhardt!”
“You’re a bastard,” he calls after him, then sighs. That’s that, then. There goes Claude, and the letter from his father with him. He shakes his head. It wouldn’t help to read it. It never would. In fact, his father has probably already pinned the blame on him back in Enbarr.
Still. For a fraction of a foolish second, Linhardt had actually deluded himself into thinking he might be worried.
He shakes his head again, vigorously, as if that will make his thoughts dissipate. Enough of this. He’s going to go back to his room and go to sleep, and if he’s lucky he’ll wake up to Caspar’s arms around him, and he won’t worry about what his father thinks.
We’d be missing you .
How ridiculous, he thinks. But maybe his former classmates – the Deer – maybe they want him around, after all.
Imagine that.