Chapter Text
For five years, long after everyone else had given up hope, Claude had kept faith with his professor. He’d waited, trying to keep Leicester out of a war he couldn’t win without her, and dodged questions from friends and enemies alike. The search for Rhea went on, his grandfather died, half of the Kingdom fell. And Claude kept waiting.
“She was the key to this all, wasn’t she?” Judith asked one late-winter afternoon, jerking her head toward Byleth as she corrected Raphael’s stance in the training yard. “I thought you were just being lazy all those years, but you knew something I didn’t.”
“I didn’t try to keep it from you,” Claude replied, deliberately keeping his eyes off of Byleth. “I just couldn’t explain. No one understands until they meet her, and then all of our devotion makes perfect sense.”
Judith’s hands found her hips and she tossed out a laugh. “Devotion is a good word for it. Are you smitten at last, boy?”
“I’d rather not think about what that sword of hers would do to me if I got too presumptuous,” Claude replied easily. His gaze nearly slipped to her then, but he forced himself to look at Judith instead. “War first. Romance later. Maybe never, if I can help it.”
“Sure.” Judith gave his shoulder a patronizing pat that made him grit his teeth in frustration. “Keep telling yourself never, and you just might make it to the end of the war without embarrassing yourself.”
He brushed her hand away. “Are you the Hero of Daphnel or just a pain in my ass?” he asked her. “I have to speak with Seteth. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“See you later, lover boy,” she called after him, and he counted backward from ten to keep from saying anything he’d regret.
The problem was that he’d waited five years for Byleth, and now that she was here…well. It was different. He wasn’t a boy anymore, and his feelings didn’t end with a crush. One smile at the top of the Goddess Tower in the perfect light of dawn had been enough to ruin him, and now every time she was near, Claude couldn’t control his thoughts, could barely control his body. And yet he knew he had to: there was a war and he could not let himself get distracted. If he did, people died. If he did, he might lose her.
So when he longed to reach for her, he balled his hands into fists. When flowery words jumped to his lips, he bit his cheek and stayed silent. When she caught his eye across a battalion map or a dinner table, he tried to look away before too much of himself showed on his face.
The unfortunate side effect of all this restraint was that Byleth was clearly coming to believe that he didn’t trust her anymore. He could see it in her eyes, the way she sometimes looked almost hurt when he drew away. But he had to draw away. There were risks he would take, risks he had to take, but he couldn’t gamble when it came to her.
It was a weakness. One Edelgard was aware of. One she could exploit. But she thought he merely respected Byleth. If the Emperor found out he was in love with her, she would stop at nothing to destroy them both.
He reached Seteth’s office and passed off the troop and supply reports, waiting as the older man scanned them and sighed.
“We knew Judith’s supplies couldn’t last forever,” he said softly. Seteth nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“So we did. Still, we had better find a way to secure more food, or pressing on from Gronder would be suicide.”
Claude remembered the rolling hills of ripe, golden wheat from five years ago. Gronder supplied so much of the Empire’s food, but it was gone now. Consumed by the fires of war. At least Edelgard’s troops wouldn’t be any better fed than his own.
Seteth handed back the reports. “Does Byleth know?”
Claude shook his head. A frown pulled Seteth’s brows together.
“Claude,” he said carefully, “she is the commander of your armies. She should have been the first to know.”
Claude didn’t reply.
“Whatever it was that caused this…this gulf to open up between you, you must fix it. We cannot win the war if you two are at odds with each other.”
“We’re not at odds,” Claude protested. “We’re just…busy.”
It sounded lame even to his own ears.
“I’m sure you don’t want my advice,” Seteth said after pausing just long enough for Claude to really understand how stupid he’d just sounded, “but here it is: find the time. Talk to her. And fix this.”
Fix this. Like it could be so simple. But how did one forget they were in love?
He left Seteth’s office and made for the quiet sanctuary of the library, but he was too restless for the endless stacks. He went back down the stairs and decided he’d train in the knight’s hall while Byleth used the training grounds.
He almost made it. The steps were right in front of him, and if he’d been as quick as the owl that dive-bombed him on its way inside, he would have missed Hilda altogether. But it was too late; she’d spotted him, and if her syrupy-sweet call of, “Oh, Leader Man,” was any indication, she had a bone to pick with him and he wasn’t going to be able to slip away until she’d had done.
“If it isn’t the master of delegation herself,” he said in saccharin tones of his own, and she gave him an exasperated look as she came to a stop. She put one hand on her hip, her long pink hair swinging behind her, and gestured with her other hand toward the training grounds on the other side of the monastery.
“Are you going to avoid her forever?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied immediately, keeping his face extremely neutral.
“You’re not fooling anyone, you know.” She sighed. “I think she’s really upset. I know she doesn’t really show it, but…she’s been quiet. I mean, even for the Professor, this is too quiet.”
“Why does everyone seem to think there’s a problem? Maybe she’s just worried about our upcoming battle. We still haven’t put the finishing touches on our plan,” he reminded her. When Hilda gave him a flat, unimpressed look, he lifted his arms and shook his head helplessly. “Look, no matter what else is happening, Teach is going to come through for us, okay? She always does.”
“Oh, I know she isn’t going to let us down on the battlefield. It just sucks to watch you let her down right now.” Hilda glared at him much the same way she did at Holst. It should not have been intimidating from a woman whose head barely reached his shoulder, but it was. He’d seen what she could do with an axe, especially when properly motivated.
“Enlighten me, Hilda. How am I letting Teach down?”
“You’re hurting her feelings. She’s confused, she thinks she did something wrong. And since you’re the only person she really opens up to, she doesn’t even have anyone to talk to about it.”
“So how do you know what’s going on?” he countered. She shoved him, harder than usual. He staggered back, out of the shade of the covered walkway and into the bright winter sun. Luckily, he kept his footing, but his hand came up to rub the place where her palms had connected with his chest.
“Because I’m not blind, Claude. Go fix this. Now.”
“Now? I was just going to—”
“Now, Claude.”
And there was really nothing he could do after that except for head back to the training grounds and hope he could find some way of soothing Byleth’s fears without hinting too much at his own inner turmoil. Hilda trailed him all the way to the great double doors that led into the miniature arena, but she didn’t follow him inside. There was nowhere to escape to from there anyway. He found himself a spot along the side of the sand pit and watched as Byleth finished her lesson with Raphael. Both were sweating, faces pink with exertion, but Raphael was beaming at Byleth’s quiet praise, and she was smiling at him with pride.
“Go wash up,” she said to him. “And remember, we’re rationing. No complaining about the serving sizes at supper.”
Raphael groaned. “I’m twice as big as everyone else, Professor. I should get twice as much food!”
“I’ll have a word with the cooks,” she told him, “but no promises.”
“You’re the best, Professor!” Raphael crowed. He walked out of the training grounds with a jovial little whistle on his lips, and Claude had to smile. It was so easy to make him happy. If only more people were like him, things like this war would happen a lot less often.
Byleth walked over to a large copper basin, cupped her hands, and splashed water into her sweaty face. Then she turned back toward the center of the sand pit and said, “You can stop lingering in the shadows. I saw you come in.”
Was everyone going to give him a hard time today? He couldn’t seem to catch a break. But he stepped out into the sun without a protest, tilting his head as he watched her pick at the leather straps of her vambraces.
“Hey Teach,” he said. “Good session. Raphael’s axe skills are improving fast.”
“I know he likes to focus on brawling, but a double-sided axe in his hands would definitely intimidate any infantry troops he faced off against,” she commented. The vambraces dropped to the sand and her eyes slid up to his, sharp as any blade. “I don’t think you’re here about Raph, though.”
“Ah, no. I’m not.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Judith gave me her weekly reports. The food situation is getting bad again. And Edelgard torched most of what grew around Gronder Field, so…”
“So we need to negotiate with Ordelia and Gloucester.”
“Yes. I’ll dispatch the requests for an emergency roundtable meeting tonight.”
She nodded thoughtfully, her mouth turned down a little at the corners as he explained. Then she said, “That’s not why you’re here either, is it?”
He dropped his hand and looked away from her, unable to bear her too-perceptive scrutiny. His heart was pounding faster than he could remember it doing in a long time. His palms had grown slick but he dared not dry them on his clothes. He didn’t want her to know exactly how nervous he was. He studied a small crack in one of the wooden support beams, traced it with his eyes like it was going to lead him to salvation. He said, “No, it isn’t.”
“I know that I abandoned you for five years. Five of the worst years I could have possibly disappeared. I can’t change that, Claude.” Her voice bled, it cut him too. “Had I been given the choice, I would have followed you to Derdriu without hesitation. But I wasn’t given that choice. I’m not trying to make excuses, but leaving you was the last thing I wanted.”
“No, Teach—” He cut himself off and stepped toward her, softening his tone as he drew near. “My friend,” he said gently, “you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t blame you for any of that. I don’t blame you for anything.”
Her hands fluttered. He’d learned that this was one of her tells, a subtle sign that she was anxious. He reached out and caught them in his own, trying to reassure her with a squeeze of his fingers.
“Before Edelgard took Garreg Mach, I felt…I knew I had your support and your trust. You told me so yourself, and I believed you. But when I came back…” her voice trailed off. “You were happy to see me, and then you weren’t. And now you only talk to me about supply lines and battalion formations.”
Ah. He winced, knowing she was absolutely justified in her take on recent events, and knowing that he would have a very hard time explaining that she had misinterpreted his actions without telling her that he was—well, hopelessly infatuated with her.
“You will always have my support,” he murmured, feeling her drawing him in closer with nothing but a glance from those magnificent eyes. “You’ve more than earned it. And there’s no one in the world I trust more than you.”
She let out a gusty breath. He felt it blow past his cheeks and tried to tell himself to let go of her hands and step back. He didn’t.
“I know you’re always going to have secrets. I don’t mind. But I feel like you’ve been shutting doors between us that I can’t open,” she said, soft as a whisper.
He closed his eyes, tried to fight the pull she exerted on him. He had to choose his next words very carefully. He released her hands but he couldn’t let go completely. It wasn’t very long ago that he’d been foolish enough to think that he’d grown strong in her absence, but he was starting to realize that their years apart only made him want to cling to her tighter. His fingers found her upper arm, curled around it, and then he stopped, struggling not to cross any lines. One false move here, one whisper, and the boundaries he’d been constructing between them would blur and disappear.
“My friend,” he started, opening his eyes to see her staring up at him, lips slightly parted, breathing a little shallow, and boundaries be damned, she was so kissable in that moment that he…
That he…
The doors to the training grounds slammed open and Lorenz strode in, a letter in his hand that bore the Gloucester seal. He took one look at them, heads bent together and Claude’s hand curled around her bicep, and rolled his eyes so hard it looked like he was going to hurt his neck.
“I might have guessed. You’ve been mooning over the Professor for weeks. Well, there’s no time for that now. Do you realize that Acheron has illegally begun changing the borders of his holdfasts? My father has sent maps.” He thrust the parchment under Claude’s nose. “Nearly fifty acres of land have been stolen from our tenants, which would be bad enough, but he’s also hindering our supply lines—”
“Lorenz,” Claude said, with every scrap of patience he could possibly muster, “would you mind putting a pause on this discussion until I can get the rest of the Deer to the Cardinal’s room? We should discuss this with everyone.”
Lorenz snorted. “Be quick about it. This is no time for-for canoodling.”
He walked out, still huffing like an offended ostrich, and Claude let go of Byleth’s arm and stepped away.
“Canoodling,” he repeated incredulously. Byleth made a funny choking sound and then couldn’t hold in her laughter any longer. Their eyes met and suddenly he was laughing too, unable to stop it. Hers was soft and musical, his more carefree, and he found he liked the sound of it, of them laughing together. He remembered the days when she’d barely crack a smile, and his heart warmed in his chest.
“Shall we go settle some territorial disputes, my friend?” he asked. She bit back the last of her giggles and nodded, eyes brighter than he’d seen them in weeks. Perhaps he didn’t have to hold her so rigidly at arms length. Perhaps he was strong enough to be a true friend to her.
He let her leave first, bowing with a flourish as she passed, and she swept by like a queen, doing such a good impression of Lorenz when he was in one of his superior moods that Claude had to bite back another wave of laughter.
She smiled at him. I missed this, her eyes said. He beamed at her and knew he’d missed it too.
Wings unfurled and beat the air impatiently, sending clouds of sand up into Claude’s face. A saddlebag dangled from his hands and he was too late throwing his arm up to block the worst of it, so he had to settle for ruffling the dirt out of his hair when the wyvern had settled again. The animal shifted on her feet, keeping a wary eye on the human, and Claude made a face at her.
“I know its cold,” he said. “I don’t much want to go either.”
She blew out a hard breath, her nostrils flaring, before turning her back on him with an impatient swish of her tail. He didn’t approach—you never approached a wyvern from behind if you liked your throat in one piece—and she glanced over her wing at him and made a disgruntled noise.
“When we get there, you can have all the fish you want,” he coaxed. “There’s a whole bay full of them, just waiting.”
She made that disgruntled noise again, and her tail whipped back and forth like a cat’s.
“We’ll stop halfway and hunt?” he offered instead.
More swishing.
“Ela,” he said, testing the wyvern’s name. It meant hazel in his mother tongue. “They should have called you inatçı.”
She hissed at him. Apparently, she recognized enough Almyran to know when she was being called obstinate.
“Ah, you’re right. How rude of me. It’s only that I’ve got a roundtable conferance to get to and I’m already running late. But no pressure.” That only earned him another hiss—she didn’t like sarcasm either.
“You gotta be sweet to her,” said Cyril as he came out of the stables with another wyvern in full riding tack. “And she likes to be scratched right behind her wing joint. I thought you were good at this, Claude.”
Claude ran a hand over his face and blew out a breath. His usual control was slipping, but the idea of flying back to Derdriu in the middle of planning a secret inflitration and a bait-and-switch manouver had left his nerves a little frayed. He knew he had to go: there was no road forward to Enbarr if he didn’t keep the Alliance nobles on his side. But he had no wish to.
He glanced at the wyvern that Cyril was leading. He was murmuring to her, soothing her and running his hand in long, slow strokes down her neck. She was older and calmer than Claude’s chosen mount, and she preened happily under Cyril’s administrations. “It’s too early to relieve the watch, isn’t it?” he asked the younger man, glancing up to guage the position of the sun. The wyvern and pegasus riders protecting the monastery weren’t due to trade out for another hour and a half.
“Ah, nah. Aurora’s not for me,” Cyril replied. He placed his hand on her muzzle and she nuzzled into his touch. Meanwhile, Ela’s tail thumped into Claude’s side while he wasn’t paying attention and nearly sent him sprawling. “The Professor asked me to get a wyvern ready, and since she’s a novice rider I thought Aurora would be the best choice. She’ll keep her head and fly straight no matter what.”
Claude’s brow furrowed. “Teach wanted a wyvern?” he asked, but before Cyril could answer, the sound of footsteps caught his attention. He turned to see Byleth approaching the wyvern stables from the monastery road with a small bag of personal goods thrown over her shoulder and the Sword of the Creator strapped to her side.
“Hilda mentioned you might need some help at the conference,” she said as she drew near enough for her voice to carry. “I thought I’d offer my assistance. İt seemed to help last time.”
“Can Seteth spare you?” he asked as she closed the distance between them. Byleth nodded, her expression serene in the morning sunlight.
“I think he secretly likes being left in charge,” she confided. “And of course with you and I gone, there are less people to argue with.”
Then she reached out an open palm to Ela, and the wyvern turned and shuffled closer. She pressed her snout into Byleth’s hand, then rumbled happily as the woman’s touch shifted under her chin and down her neck, pausing to scratch near the wing joint. The blissful animal looked ready to roll on her back and let Byleth give her a good long bellyrub, and Claude nearly threw his hands up in exasperation.
“Traitor,” he accused Ela. The wyvern flicked out a wing to cuff his head. Byleth smiled but Cyril laughed out loud.
“Ela has good instincts,” the kid said. Claude huffed, but he broke into a smile as Ela tried to rest her head on Byleth’s shoulder, nearly taking her to the ground. He reached out and scratched the spot right between the wyvern’s short antlers, and she let out a chirruping purr.
“Well, if Seteth doesn’t mind and the rest of the Deer aren’t begging you to stay, I’m happy to have your help, my friend."
Ten minutes later, the pair of them took off. The wyverns circled the monastery before heading northeast, and despite the freezing temperature of the wind, Claude found himself enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. His temper had been soothed and his frayed nerves forgotten; after all, Byleth was with him. They couldn’t possibly fail.