Chapter Text
When he saw his second waning moon rise over Almyra, Byleth wrote to Annette for the third time. His first letter had come out of Conand Tower with some censored discussion of their plans to seek out Claude von Riegan by meeting with the former members of the Golden Deer. The obfuscation of the letter was in his mention that Sylvain had entrusted them with an important mission for the safety of the Kingdom. Unable to risk anyone learning that two wandering swords in the Kingdom countryside were smuggling a grand total of four Heroes’ Relics from Conand throughout the rural territory of southeast Faerghus, Byleth could only promise that their mission would be a safe one, free from combat.
The second letter was an enigma he still felt sorry over. Coming from the Almyran palace, the source of the letter was obscured by the complex network that carried it—from the royal messenger hawks, through the border gate at Kupala for a search, before continuing to the Eastern Church, then transferred by owl to Garreg Mach—but the contents of the letters still had to remain dry and secure. There were codes and protocols, Khalid explained sheepishly, but Annette had only a ghost of a chance of knowing what Byleth meant when he wrote that he had met “the White Wyvern”. He did not even bother writing about “the White Queen”. And after all of those codes, Annette would not be able to send a letter in reply, not with all of the security protocols that would have her attempts returned to the writer for an unknown address.
So Byleth kept his first letter from Almyra to the point, as such:
M. and I have completed our mission from S.J.G. as well as our personal quest. We have arrived at our final destination. For the safety of our hosts, I cannot disclose where that is. Know that we are living safely and in comfort in the halls of the White Wyvern and may not return for some time. I promise to tell all that I can when we meet again.
All is well,
-B
When he had written that brief message, he had not meant for “some time” to mean more than a moon. The guilt over his cryptic missive gnawed him into composing this third letter.
Professor,
I write you again from the halls of the White Wyvern. Little has changed about our circumstances, but I will try to write as much as I can, to give you peace of mind if nothing else.
His pen ran dry near the end of his sentence. Almyran pens held ink inside them, rather than requiring a separate inkwell to dip into, but Byleth had to pause between paragraphs with the pen held vertically, waiting for more ink to drip into the tip. The time it took was comparable to the time wasted dipping a quill into ink, but crucially, it did not require the inkwell, which meant that Byleth could write his letters from the edge of the training grounds.
The hardest hit yet struck the cloth sack dummy at the east end of the shooting range. The force of the arrow, square in the center of the chest, nearly sent the dummy careening over backwards from its standing pole. From the western side, a joyous cry rang up into the rafters.
“Did you see that?!” Mercy shouted. “Vi—”
“Yeah, you missed the heart,” Viyan yawned.
Byleth fought down a smirk as Mercy again started to squabble with her unflappable training companion.
M. is now studying as a thief. She’s taken to the bow with as great interest as she takes to the sword. Her teacher comes from a line of the greatest archers in the world.
“Don’t listen to them,” Khalid called out to Mercy from his seat near Byleth, on the other side of Queen Alexandria. “Aim for the center of mass while you’re still training. You can get fancy with your targets after you get your form down. Viyan hasn’t gotten that through their head yet.”
Viyan dropped their jaw in a-little-less-than-joke indignation at their father. Mercy smirked with righteousness and nocked her next arrow.
After much deliberation, we are indefinitely postponing her Reason training. It is clear to me that, while she has the talent and raw magical power to become a formidable mage, she has come to a block that no amount of forced tutelage will break through. It is something she will have to resolve on her own, or not. All I can say for now is that she is much happier.
“Is that a letter?” Alexandria asked in a whisper. “I—I simply glanced, and saw the form of the paragraphs—I do not mean to pry—”
Byleth smiled and nodded. “To Annette,” he said.
Alexandria’s face warmed over with joy. “Annette,” she repeated. “May I…” She turned to Khalid. “Would it be safe, were I to write a message to Annette?”
Khalid’s face fell before he could stop it, and so too did Alexandria’s. He held up his hands placatingly before she could drop her eyes back to her lap and resume twisting the rings over her callus-scarred fingers. “We can figure something out,” he promised. “Give me time. You’ll be able to write her soon.”
In the halls of the W.W. is a woman you have met, but do not know, called the White Queen. She sends warm regards. I hope someday to reintroduce the two of you. You would make excellent penpals.
“Writing Annette again, though, huh, Teach?” Khalid sighed. “Does that mean you’re still not giving my proposal any thought?”
“On the contrary,” Byleth responded. “I’m writing my decision to her.”
“Oh?” Khalid draped an arm over Alexandria’s shoulders and leaned forward with interest, eyes dropping from Byleth’s face to his letter.
Byleth twisted in his seat to block the letter with his turned back. “No peeking,” he taunted.
Unfortunately, it will still be quite some time before we return to Garreg Mach. The W.W. has made a request of us that M. and I both want to honor, not as a debt owed to his hospitality, but by virtue of our own interests. Unfortunately, it will take us into Imperial territory: certainly the southern Leicester States, but most likely beyond that into Adrestia itself, all the way to the capital if we must.
“Does Viyan have a codename I should use?” Byleth asked.
“I’d prefer you didn’t mention them at all, if you mean the Almyran scion,” Khalid replied with a half smirk. “But if it’s about Fódlan, you can use the codename we already came up with. It’ll only be a matter of time before the whole continent knows it, anyway.”
It seems we will be accompanying one Vivian von Riegan for negotiations with the Empire for territory disputes and trade agreements.
That was the mission on the surface, anyway. The true aim was a darker sort of subterfuge, euphemistically called reconnaissance. Such plans could not be committed to pen and paper, nor would Annette be pleased to hear about them.
“So? Does this mean I need to start working my persuasive powers on Aggie?” Khalid asked with a wink.
“I think she will need to come to the decision in her own time,” Byleth said. “You have already been very persuasive.”
His persuasion came from all angles: the ethical obligation to correct or dismantle a corrupt government, the unending plight of the largest population in the world suffering under their rule, and an ever-growing salary proposal for the work to appeal to the mercenary in Byleth. None of these moved Agnus. Every time she was pushed, she gave the same unyielding response.
We may be accompanied by another representative from the Edmund margravate, pending M.v.E.’s permission, possibly. Will it matter, in due time? You know better than I that daughters are liable grow up and go against the wishes of their mothers.
Agnus spent much of her time alone with either Viyan or Alexandria. When she could get neither alone, she trained drills in the lance and the sword with single-minded focus. When she could get neither alone and the training grounds were occupied, as was the case now, she found other ways to make herself scarce. In her first week, she made a project of taking the Fódlan wyverns, though reluctant to leave the life of luxury found in the royal mews, back home to Leicester, along with King Khalid’s gift of reinforcements. When the wyverns had been corralled and ferried to their destinations, she still made excursions to take the remaining royal mounts on long, solitary rides for their exercise and for her flying practice.
“She is not one who is easily persuaded.” Alexandria smiled with a hint of pride for her daughter. “But just as well, she has a very strong sense of justice. I believe she will come to the decision that is right for her in time.”
Khalid’s smile, on the other hand, was hazy with adoration. “Yeah?” he said. “What decision you think it’s gonna be?”
Alexandria blinked, then shifted her focus back down to her hands to keep twisting her rings. “Well, I think I would like it if she were to return to Fódlan with Viyan,” she said cautiously, “but she should make whichever choice is best for her, and I would like to support that above all else.”
“What a sweet and motherly way,” Khalid said, “to give a wishy-washy answer. C’mon, Lexie, how am I supposed to make bets here?”
Alexandria cocked her head, eye wide in innocent surprise. “Er, we—were we betting?”
“I am. Hundred gold says she goes with because Viyan bullies her into it but she bails at the Gloucester border.” Khalid held out his hand for a counter-offer, and a subsequent handshake.
“I do not know if this is appropriate,” Alexandria protested with an indignant frown.
“Boo, you’re no fun,” Khalid whined. “How ’bout you, Teach? Any bets?”
“I’ll never tell,” Byleth responded, shaking his pen to get more ink to run. Once the tip gathered a bead of black, he wrote the truth to Annette:
To be honest, I have no idea how this will go.
Not three seconds after landing her wyvern, Agnus was accosted by the scion of Almyra in the plainclothes disguise they wore so often that it was no wonder that the whole city could recognize them. They kicked off from the stable wall with the foot they had propped up against it as they had been waiting, tugged their headscarf away from their mouth, and called out, “You’ve got one week.”
“I know when your birthday is, Vi,” Agnus groaned back, sliding off of the saddle with a huff as she hit the ground.
“I’m just saying. I’m not waiting any longer after that for you to make up your mind.”
Agnus’s hands slowed on the buckles of the wyvern’s saddle as she noticed the ice in Viyan’s voice. When she turned around, she found their eyes even more solid: hard as stone and fixed on Agnus while they folded their arms.
“The day after the festival, I’m leaving with whoever’s going with me,” they stated. “Not a day longer. I’m only staying this long because there’d be a national scandal if I skipped it.”
“Yeah, yeah, whole country’d get up in arms if everybody’s favorite royal pain in the ass didn’t get their special birthday party,” Agnus sighed, turning back to the saddle. “Look, Vi, I hear you, I get it, but the answer’s still no. It ain’t that I don’t got enough time to think about it, it’s that I ain’t goin’, period. End o’ sentence.”
“So the tattoo meant nothing to you.”
Agnus pulled the saddle down to fall into her chest before she dared turn around. When she did, Viyan stood with their robe hanging at their elbow below their right shoulder, its swirls and patterns an identical match to Agnus’s own up until it coalesced into the image of a two-headed chimera of wyvern facing back and deer facing forward.
“I shared this piece of my culture with you,” Viyan said hotly. “It’s a vow, remember? Not just a cool mark to show off to your girlfriends.”
“I ain’t ever showed it to anybody,” Agnus snapped, ignoring the wyvern snorting suspiciously behind her at the sudden outburst. “You think that’s the sorta shit my ma would let me—”
“Hey, Ag, do you know why it’s a tattoo and not, fuck, I dunno, matching friendship bracelets?” Viyan interrupted. “Because you bleed. This is exactly what we mean when we say the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. This goes above your ma. That’s what we promised.”
“Then cut off my arm and call me a liar for shit I agreed to when I was a dumb fuckin’ kid!” Agnus yelled. “I’m sorry, alright?! I’m sorry I ain’t what you or Mercy or anybody else wants me to be, but—”
“You’re what your ma wants you to be,” Viyan shot back. “You’ll listen to her. And that’s fine, whatever, don’t let me get in your way if that’s what you want to be, but don’t make it out like you’re doing what you want to do. Because you’re not.”
Viyan still moved quicker than Agnus could ever hope to keep up with. They struck her on the right shoulder with their fist before she could raise a block.
“Because nobody, stupid kid or what, bleeds that much for something like this, ” they said, “without meaning it.”
Agnus rubbed her shoulder, not from pain, but in absent rumination. “Y’ever think maybe I did just want a cool mark?” she muttered.
“Nah.” Viyan gave a one-sided smirk, a quick searching look, and then a wink. “Not for a second. You don’t know how to lie to me.”
With a two-fingered salute and a pivot on the ball of their foot, they shrugged their robe on and sauntered back towards the palace.