Chapter Text
Nothing.
An empty void was what greeted Archbishop Rhea when she met her end. It was hardly the worst thing to see, considering her actions more than likely earned her a spot in some other religion’s afterlife of eternal damnation. Still, it wasn’t Heaven with Mother, so it was rather disappointing.
Of course, Rhea didn’t die immediately. She faded in and out of consciousness, catching glimpses of the aftermath of what was arguably the most important battle in Fodlan’s history. She watched the Traitor collapse, her Emperor catching her in a panic. A small twinge of satisfaction rang through the mad Archbishop at sight. Then, as everything went black, she saw the Thief stir, more human than ever with a soul that shone even brighter than her Mother’s.
Rhea didn’t really like that. Why should she be denied her happy ending? Why should those blasphemous mortals be given theirs over her broken corpse? For a moment, she almost believed that Hresvelg girl’s inane speeches on the absence of her Mother’s presence, for how could Sothis let this happen?
“Stars above, time has done nothing to dull your sense of drama.”
Rhea blinked. It occurred then to the Nabatean woman that she could blink, and that the void was not, in fact, entirely empty. Her corporeal, human form was mostly intact, though wearing none of her usual attire. Then she remembered the voice from mere moments beforehand and looked about frantically to find its source.
“You’ll not find me like that, my child.”
Again the voice spoke, its tone and cadence familiar, even if the pitch was too terribly high for Rhea to recognize.
“My voice is not that high, thank you very much.”
And apparently the voice could hear her thoughts. Great. Well…
“Who… who are you?” Rhea asked hesitantly. She made no effort to conceal her distress, as she figured dying gave her a pass on any sense of formality.
“My dear, sweet, stupid child. I’m surprised you could forget me so easily, given how fervently you killed in my name.”
Rhea’s stomach did a flip. “C-child? … Mother?” She inquired, her voice frail and unsteady.
“Who else?”
In that moment, the darkness gave way to a structure some distance away. Atop a throne of stone sat a figure, small and radiating authority. Rhea felt the ground beneath her take shape, and she cautiously made her way closer. When at last she was close enough to behold the girl, she was honestly dumbfounded for a moment.
Sitting before Rhea was a girl, obviously Nabatean in origin. Her long, flowing, forest-green hair was unkempt and wild, and she wore an ornate and terribly distinct dress. Time might have marched on in the past thousand years, but Rhea would have recognized that dress anywhere.
“Mother…” She took a few steps forward, the gap between them growing ever smaller. “Oh… oh, Mother…” The mantle of Archbishop crumbled away, and with it went Rhea’s will to stand.
She collapsed before Sothis’s throne, throwing her head into the girl’s lap and tears trickled down her face. For a brief moment, Rhea was little Seiros again, crying in her Mother’s arms after a bad fall.
If only she didn’t have to be dead for all this.
Rhea, sniffling, began muttering to no one in particular. “Oh Mother, I’ve missed you so much… I tried so hard to fix everything, to lead them like you would, but those mortals, those humans… all they knew was how to hurt themselves and everything around them…”
Sothis frowned at her daughter’s words, but didn’t interject just yet.
The woman continued. “I tried so very hard to bring you back, but it never worked… So many vessels, and not one was fit for you, it seems… and the last of them, oh… I was so, so sure I’d gotten it right this time, but it didn’t listen.” Rhea raised her head slightly, noting how Sothis’ hand was outstretched and approaching. “It turned its back on me, on you, spat in the face of your legacy, not to mention those damnable Hresvelgs--” Rhea leaned in in an attempt to accept what was no doubt her Mother’s loving touch, when something else entirely happened.
A sharp pain shot through Rhea’s forehead. The woman blinked and looked up incredulously. Sothis looked back, unamused and hand already poised for a repeat performance.
Mother just flicked me. On the head. Like a child.
These thoughts rumbled through the woman’s head like a hurricane. She tried opening her mouth to protest, only for Sothis to flick her again without a moment’s hesitation.
“O-ow! Mother!” Another flick. “Mother, please--!” Rhea covered her forehead, desperately trying to defend herself from any further chastisement. Unfortunately for her, that was just the preamble.
“If you want me to stop treating you like a child, then perhaps you ought to cease with your tantrum and actually act like an adult.” Again Sothis proved that she was currently scanning her daughter’s innermost thoughts, defusing any further refutations before they could be voiced.
“I--but--” Rhea flinched backward and Sothis raised her hand yet again, the woman already covering the red spot on her brow.
“Seiros,” Rhea shrank sheepishly on her knees. “I brought you here for a reason. While I could simply tell you what that reason is, that would be entirely counterintuitive to my purpose here. Instead, I urge you to cut with the immature ramblings and reflect upon your actions.”
“R-reflect?” Was Mother implying… that I did something wrong?
Sothis groaned aloud. “Yes, you overgrown hatchling. You did something bad and wrong. A lot of somethings, actually, but we’ll get there when we get there. Now use that big brain I gave you and think.” The goddess emphasized that last syllable in an almost condescending tone, clearly irritated with her daughter’s closed mind.
Rhea decided it was best not to talk back anymore. Instead, she followed Mother’s instructions and sat silently, thinking about her most recent actions.
“That’s far from the worst of it, but I suppose it’s best we start somewhere fresh.”
The Nabatean frowed sadly at her Mother’s observations of her thoughts, but kept thinking. I suppose I should make my way backwards, retrace my steps. For the first time in five years, Rhea was calm enough to actually recall the events leading up to her demise.
Well, there was that fire in Fhirdiad. That was probably her most recent blunder. Probably. Rhea noticed she had yet to be flicked again, so she continued.
Perhaps goading Dimitri into a confrontation at Tailtean wasn’t the brightest idea. Their battle had no doubt destroyed valuable farmland, a necessity for the resource-starved nation the King was doing his best to lead. Confident she was on the right track, she moved back further.
Letting the Empire take Arianrhod was a terrible decision. Rhea honestly refused to believe that the city legitimately fell to the Empire, obviously some misstep led to its capture by the Emperor and the Trait--
“Ow!” Rhea had let her guard down too soon, and received another blow to her face. “Mother, I was just thinking about how the Trai--”Another flick. “Ah!” She hazarded a glance upward, seeing a very displeased expression adorning the goddess’s face.
So apparently it had something to do with the Trai-- ow-- Byleth. But what? Maybe how I failed to make it into a suitable vessel? Ow. Apparently not. Then… letting it be a teacher? Ow. Not quite. She’s looking angrier. I honestly don’t know where I went wrong with it--
“Stop--” Sothis grabbed her daughter by the ear this time. “--calling--” She grabbed the other and pulled in opposing directions. “--her--” She released the woman’s ears, only to position both hands in front of her forehead. “--’it!’” Rhea recoiled from the force of Sothis’s double-flick, clutching her rapidly bruising brow (could she bruise if she was dead? Questions for later).
“It’s very insulting to know that you don’t see my closest friend as a person, let alone the fact that you see humans as beneath you.” Sothis perched the backs of her palms on her hips.
“Closest friend?” Rhea parroted her mother for the millionth time since their reunion.
“Hmmm.” Sothis floated back into her chair, crossing her legs. “Indeed. For the better part of a year before the war, I regained consciousness, though was bereft of my memories. As only Byleth could see or hear me, I took it upon myself to guide her where necessary, and in return she did her best to uncover my origins. Eventually, we were forced to part ways, though our souls are forever linked, much like hers is forever intertwined with her beloved Emperors’.”
Rhea tried to process this expository dump. Mother… really WAS inside it--her? She was speaking to Byleth directly all this time, and still she turned against me?
“Bzzz. Wrong.” Sothis chided her. “How could someone have ‘turned against you’ if they were never with you in the first place?”
Rhea didn’t like where this was going. She backpedalled, asking,“B-But, why did you not say anything? Surely you could have convinced Byleth to inform me of your presence--”
“And get her strapped to some altar so you could spend months trying to ‘draw me out?’ Besides, I didn’t even know you were my daughter! All I knew was that you were the most powerful woman on the continent, spoke crypticaly about lost and forbidden secrets, and had a clear bias against the spread of said ‘secrets’ that were only ‘secrets’ because you deemed them so. And that’s not even mentioning your clear disregard for any sort of due process involving those deemed ‘dissidents.’” Again Sothis rose from her seat. “You might have framed it as a choice, but the moment you offered her the position of professor, her path was decided. After all, no one just turns down the Archbishop, now do they?” She waggled her hands mockingly.
Rhea suddenly felt very small again. She tried to make herself smaller still, to avoid the scrutinizing gaze of the physically smaller woman before her, but to no avail.
“Not once was Byleth given any real decision in donning the mantle of teacher. Oh, she certainly took to it like a fish to water, but that’s not the point. She made her choice on which class to lead, but was always told on how each mission should end. Her lessons helped her students flourish, but the lesson you wanted taught was ‘never cross the Church.’ From the instant you realized that she and the child Sitri gave her life for were one in the same, you had already decided what her fate was to be.”
Sothis turned away from her daughter, her voice lowering. “Is it any surprise, then, that when given the option to seize her fate, she took it? That day in my tomb, I saw two paths laid before her. One had her fall in line, acquiesce to your demands and turn her sword on her own student. The other saw her take a stand and decide her own path. She chose to protect her student, her beloved Emperor, and to defy the being who was hellbent on killing anything that threatened her rule.”
It hurt to hear that day framed like that. Rhea had seen it much differently for the past five years, and not a soul around her thought of it otherwise. To Rhea, the moment Byleth turned the Sword of the Creator on her was the moment Rhea lost all faith in humanity and her Mother’s vessel. To the Archbishop, that action akin to stomping on her Mother’s grave.
Evidently, Sothis saw things differently.
“My position does allow me a different vantage point, but that’s neither here nor there.” The goddess turned back to the other woman, sadness clear in her eyes. “What matters is that you were so caught up in chasing a thousand-year-old dream, that you saw the people around you as nothing more than assets. The moment one openly revolted, your mind simply recategorized it as an enemy. Their reasons didn’t matter to you, because they were not your own.” Sothis looked ready to shed a tear of her own. “You’ve lost your empathy, my child; that wonderful big heart I helped nurture and you’ve gone and lost it.”
Rhea didn’t feel like she’d lost her heart. In fact, in that exact moment, her chest felt heavier than ever. Her regrets rapidly began to shift in focus, and her head was throbbing painfully with it all. She clutched desperately at it in a vain attempt to make it stop.
The only thing that helped was the feeling of two small arms wrapping themselves around her. Sothis remained silent, rubbing comforting circles into her daughter’s back.
The now former Archbishop squeezed her eyes shut, choking out half a sob. “Oh, what have I done? What… what did I do? What can I do?”
Sothis smiled weakly. “And at last, you ask the right question.”
Rhea felt her Mother let go, and she looked up in confusion.
“You see, my dear, I brought you here because of the turmoil surrounding your soul. Deep inside, you knew exactly where you’d gone wrong. You didn’t need me to tell you any of that, but I came regardless because you’ve waited so long.” Sothis floated back into her throne and gestured towards a new seat across from her that definitely wasn’t there before.
Rhea graciously took the offered seat with an uneasy posture.
“Back straight, dear, and keep your chin up.” Rhea obeyed almost immediately. “Now, as to your question, there are a few different answers.”
“Firstly, the most obvious answer as to ‘atonement’ would be to send you straight to the underworld.” The taller woman winced at that suggestion. “I am not fond of this idea for several reasons, chief among them being that you are already showing remorse for your actions. You want to improve, and there’s not much room for improvement in eternal damnation.”
“Second, you could still go to the underworld, but to seek employment.” Sothis nearly chuckled at the incredulous look her daughter gave her. “From what I hear, they need all the help they can get down there, though I have a feeling that venting your frustrations on ‘irredeemable sinners’ won’t be terribly constructive to your fragile psyche.”
“The third option is something… different. It’s less world-changing than either of the previous options or even your old position, but I think it would be for the best.” Sothis paused, partly for dramatic effect and partly because she was still unsure of the idea herself.
“The third option… is that I send you back.”
Rhea could only mutter, “Wuh?”
“The deal goes that I send you back into the land of the living, though it shall be much different than what you remember. Your only task is to live your life as every other mortal, finding your way in the world that was forged by those who sought to overthrow you. So, in case you were thinking it wasn’t a punishment, it still very much is until such time that you may or may not find some comfort in your ultimate fate. If and when that time comes to pass, we may consider you ‘officially’ redeemed. After that, you're free to join me forevermore whenever your given time runs out."
Rhea… had to think, again. She laced her fingers together and stared at her lap, pondering the strange circumstances her death had put her in. She sorely wished that she could just stay here with Mother for the rest of time, but it was looking like she’d have to earn that choice. Choice. The word seemed terribly ironic, given what her Mother had just discussed with her.
She still didn’t like the idea of living in a world where she had no control. But Mother seemed hopeful about it, and it seemed as good a chance as any to prove that her heart was in the right place. Besides, just how hard could living a ‘normal’ life be?
Of course, Sothis knew her daughter’s answer before she even voiced it, but she let her say it aloud all the same.
“I want to go back.”
Sothis smiled at her. “I thought you might.”
The goddess rose from her chair, and from her hands flowed a wealth of glowing green strings. With them, she tugged and pulled at the very fabric of reality, weaving a new place for her wayward daughter. Rhea watched silently, half in awe and half still nervous about… well, everything.
Sothis suddenly spoke up. “Ah, I think I should mention, I’m placing you quite some time after your demise. Less fresh that way, and it gives you a good chance to see how things develop without you.” Rhea winced again, this time involuntarily. “Not to worry, though, I’m not so cruel as to just drop you in the middle of some town with nothing but a ‘good luck’ to your name. A familiar face awaits your arrival, though do not be surprised if she does not recognize you at first glance.
“U-um, Mother…” Sothis’s words were raising more questions, all of which the goddess seemed to have no intention of answering.
“And before you ask, I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you again.” Sothis’s expression went sad again. “But I won’t coddle you. The point of this is to prove you can grow in my absence, without thoughts of me ‘guiding’ your every move.”
Rhea fell silent and let her Mother finish her work. She didn’t have to wait long, as soon the goddess clapped her hands together in a flurry of green sparks.
“Right! All done and ready, sweetie.” Rhea blushed as she noticed the return of Mother’s casual baby-names. “We shall talk again soon, once you’ve gotten your bearings.” Sothis traced a circle in the air, creating a rift through which Rhea was clearly supposed to walk.
“Okay.” The taller woman stood up and slowly walked over, halting between her Mother and the portal. Turning back to face her deific parent, she muttered, “... I love you, Mother.”
Sothis smiled and floated upwards, drawing her daughter in for another hug and planting a big, motherly smooch on her forehead. “I love you too. Be safe, and mind the vertigo, dear.”
Rhea nodded and stepped through the swirling tempest of energy without further ado.
…
Wait, vertigo?
She didn’t have any time to think on that last part as the world became a blinding rush of colors around her. It felt like she was simultaneously falling and jumping, and her organs threatened to escape from her all at once. She felt odd and strange, and suddenly she felt something inside her change. Something inside her morphed; it wasn’t good or bad, but different enough that her head was left spinning even faster than before.
Suddenly, it all came to a halt.
The former Archbishop blinked a few times, trying to get a grasp on her surroundings. Walls of stark white were on every side, with strange pedestals lining the walls. Each was a different size, capped off with a glass box that housed things that looked almost as old as Rhea (or her Mother). Small red ropes partitioned off certain spots, including what looked to be a door with a sign above it that glowed with the word ‘EXIT.’
It was also terribly bright; so bright, in fact, that Rhea wondered if Mother had made a mistake and sent her straight to Heaven. Alas, this was not the case, as she searched her surroundings and found that the lights were coming from some peculiar circles in the ceiling. They weren’t torches, and they certainly weren’t windows, so what were they?
The Nabatean was terribly confused, almost more so than before, when she heard footsteps approaching. They were loud and obvious, thanks in part to the immaculate tile floor as well as whatever this approaching person’s shoes were made out of. Rhea stared at the floor, marveling at how alien the architecture was. They were certainly more clean-cut than most tiles she’d seen, and they showed her reflection far better than even the most polished of stone (thanks in part to those strange lights overhead).
She tilted her head curiously as she took notice of her reflection, pointedly ignoring the fact that the footsteps were getting closer. Something was… different. The colors in the reflection were all wrong.
“Oh, hello! Are you enjoying the exhibits?”
The newcomer announced their presence, halting any further analysis by Rhea. She raised her head and turned slightly to see a young woman standing there. She was kind of short, though not as short as Mother. What the young woman did have in common with her Mother was a natural shade of green for her hair, though hers was much lighter than Sothis’s. Her eyes, too were a bright, pale green, which contrasted rather nicely with the navy-blue dress she was wearing.
“Hello? I’m sorry, are you alright? You seem out of sorts…” The stranger stepped forward, and Rhea could see them more clearly now.
The features on her face were so familiar to Rhea, but she couldn’t figure out why. Her mind still hurt from whatever it was Mother did to get her here. She noticed the stranger squinting at her, a look of surprise slowly forming on her face.
“Wha--w-who are you, miss?”
Miss? Rhea was used to being called ‘Lady,’ not ‘Miss.’ The more she heard this stranger’s voice, the more an image formed in her head. Slowly but surely, her favorite niece took shape in her mind’s eye, and even slower did that girl’s face slowly shift into the woman standing before her.
“Flayn?” Rhea asked.
Flayn’s eyes went wider than saucers. “Auntie Rhea?!”
Before Rhea could respond, the world started spinning again. She heard Flayn’s panicked squeaking as everything again shifted out of focus. The floor started approaching her at rapid speeds, and the last thing Rhea could remember before her face met with the ground was her Mother’s parting words.
Ah. That vertigo.