Archive of Our Own

BYLETH: Most people would be forgiven for saying that the early 1180s were a blur. The War of Reunification razed many of the structures in Fódlan and ate up half the years in the decade. Those events are what are most seared into our memories. However, change was happening outside the castles of monarchs and chambers of government before the first Adrestian Invasion.

—Now, popular media has a way of presaging social trends. The Season 2 Founding Day Special, somewhat unwittingly, ushered in a new level of Duscur presence on the big and small screen. We’ll soon be speaking with the actors for an inside look at the discussions that were— or weren’t— happening and what reaction was like within Studio of Seiros.

—Even more intriguing, with original archival footage, we’ll prove that the events that culminated in Duscur issues being discussed after the war were almost wiped from the tape. Conspiracy theories about time travel during and after the war abound, but we can prove, using the Studios of Seiros archive, that something was afoot.

Byleth sits in an armchair across from Ashe and Dedue, who loosely embrace each other. Against the wall on the other side of the room is a TV with an old video player.

BYLETH: Thank you for welcoming me into your home. Duscur is lovely this time of year.

DEDUE: Oh, you can say it’s cold.

ASHE: The snow has a magical quality. It’s not like you see in Faerghus.

DEDUE: It’s not magic. It’s fewer people and stricter pollution laws.

BYLETH, smiling politely: Before we get started, I just wanted to observe how comfortable you are with each other. The cameras are rolling.

ASHE: Yes. Will this cause a problem with the footage?

BYLETH: I’m sure you can appreciate the irony in asking that.

ASHE: Well, aha, um. Yes.

BYLETH: Do you feel like you’re presenting something to our audience? Performing, even?

ASHE: I mean, what isn’t performance?

DEDUE: We've always been honest about our love and how we express it. Isn’t that right?

Dedue kisses Ashe on the lips.

ASHE: Mm, good performance.

DEDUE: Honest performance.

BYLETH: Exemplary. In that case, let’s get started with the footage.

A white lion darts across a golden plane, mane wild in a blustery wind. Off in the distance, barely a thread on the horizon, sparkles a river, or maybe the ocean.

ASHE: I think this clip was filmed in the empire. Bergliez maybe? I thought it was nice.

DEDUE: It was whimsical. Lions like that couldn’t survive in a suburb of Fhirdiad, or even as far south as Gaspard.

The camera arcs around to the lion’s face. His eyes follow as the focus zooms in on one eye. The white of fur retreats to the corners of the screen, chased out by glacier-blue pools of iris. His pupil hovers in the center, growing larger until it is the whole screen. LIFE OF LIONS fades in, emerging from the black box. “FOUNDING DAY SPECIAL.” A STUDIO OF SEIROS PRODUCTION.

DEDUE: Do you remember when it came out that the title font was more heavily consumer tested than the flag of Unified Fódlan?

BYLETH: Now now, I'll be asking the questions here.

DEDUE: Yes, professor.

BYLETH: That won’t be necessary, I’m just Byleth now. But do go on. The font?

DEDUE: At first, Life of Lions was known for being about inconsequential things. That sounds bad— I mean it in the best way. I think it shows how something that looks easy can be the result of great difficulty.

The halls of Garreg Mach High are abuzz with preparations for Kingdom of Faerghus Founding Day festivities. The title credits begin in the same font.

ANNETTE FANTINE and MERCEDES MARTRITZ. They’ve dressed comically warm for the choir room: knit hats on their heads, bright mittens on their hands, fur-lined boots on their feet. Snowflakes fall onto cars in a parking lot on the other side of thick windows, but Garreg Mach High does have central heating.

Mercedes blows into a pitch pipe. Laa— they both match. Annette counts in one, two, three, four , then the first words of a solemn rendition of classic Faerghus carol “Warm and Together” pour out with the heart-warming, hearth-warming spirit of a pumpkin spice latte. A record scratch is followed by the percussive pa-ta-ta of a drum, and the wail of a power chord. The tempo jackrabbits. The girls throw off their scarves and belt from their bellies, fists pounding the air, pom-poms and wavy hair bobbing into dishevelment. After the first verse, their voices continue as background music, overlain with a light jingle of bells. 

FELIX FRALDARIUS and SYLVAIN GAUTIER. Felix staples cutouts of autumnal leaves and blonde-white lions to the bulletin board in front of Byleth’s classroom. Sylvain sips a hot beverage, probably cocoa or apple cider, as he scrutinizes Felix’s placement. He takes off the decorations and re-staples them in irreverent ways. One lion ends up upside-down with golden leaf-antlers; another sprouts crimson leaf-wings. Felix explodes inaudibly, but doesn’t amend Sylvain’s handiwork. Sylvain touches him on the cheek. Felix freezes, then melts. Sylvain smiles.

ASHE UBERT-GASPARD and DEDUE MOLINARO. Cut to another bulletin-board, scaled thick with moons worth of club announcements: chess, tea, equestrianism, Dagdan dramas, Almyran dance. The wavy cardstock borders on this one show earth-toned squash with elated faces. Ashe and Dedue approach from either side, the circular wolfskin logo of Fhirdiad Kånken visible on the matching backpacks slung over their shoulders. With eager looks and open faces they scour a flyer for details. Each points at the announcement for the Founding Day Dance. THIS FRIDAY!!! is circled and underlined in ink. Tickets now on sale. They walk away with matching twinkles in their eyes.

DEDUE: Aw. Weren’t we cute?

ASHE: News for you, dear. We’re still cute.

INGRID GALATEA. In an indoor gym, Ingrid dribbles a soccer ball around an array of neon orange cones. Her motions echo strangely, a squeak here, a tap there. She sweats alone with the sound of her breathing. The camera pans up and reveals Ingrid traversing a connect-the-dots version of Garreg Mach’s lion mascot.

BYLETH EISNER and DIMITRI A. BLAIDDYD. An eye-bagged Byleth leans forward with elbows on her desk. A large thermos simultaneously full of both coffee and tea, by running gag, depending on what the students in the scene prefer, and an implausibly red apple sit to one side, nestled among binders and spiral-spined workbooks of instructional materials.

Byleth clicks her tongue at the paper in front of her. She lifts reading glasses from the nadir of her collar. “A central theme of Singing Songs of Itha ,” she says in the strange mix of flat and singsong that accompanies didactic speech, “is the twin roles of honesty and dishonesty, exemplified by the protagonist’s careful management of multiple allegiances.” Does that sound familiar?”

ASHE: Ugh, I hated that book. It was basically A Girl From Arianrhod with more anti-Sreng propaganda.

Dimitri gulps with cartoonish depth, with enough force to vibrate like a tuning fork. “Um, yes. I wrote that in my answer to the chapter 6 review questions.”

“Interesting, because what I just read was from Sylvain’s assignment.” Byleth turns the paper towards Dimitri, whose face scrunches in confusion. Sylvain’s casual penmanship slurries across the page.

Dimitri avoids looking at it, but avoids making eye contact with Byleth. His gaze is slippery, everywhere and unsettled. “Oh, really?” He forces his squirming hands to settle in his lap and ekes out a shallow smile. His eyes settle on the stem of the apple. “How coincidental.”

“It is coincidental, isn’t it? Just like how neither of you know that allegiances has two l’s.”

“It’s just one of those words that’s hard to spell, like,  uh— judgment . ”

“Uh-huh, interesting choice of example” Byleth sits up in her creaky swivel chair and scoots herself in. “Dimitri, did you know that you can use patterns in grammar to guess who authored a given text? Along with more surface-level things, like commas and spelling errors.”

“No, I didn’t. How fascinating.”

Byleth takes a breath in, slow like a barely tilted scale. There’s no one else in the room, but her voice is only loud enough for Dimitri to hear it at close distance. He has to lean in, and even then, to read her lips. “Do you know why I’m talking to you and not Sylvain right now? You’re honest, Dimitri. Moral. You know what’s right, so.” The bell rings for the after-school period to begin. “At this time, I have to give you both zeroes on this assignment. As a result, you’ll have a C in this class. Think about how that could affect your GPA, and how that could affect your future. Please leave the door open on your way out.”

In the library, Sylvain lounges on the tomato-sauce colored couch, running his fingertips across the corduroy's ribbed grain. “I can't believe I dont have a date yet, and the dance is on Friday. That’s only four days from now!” Sylvain turns to Felix and regards him tenderly, pouting. “Are you going?”

Felix scrolls through images of swords on the large monitor and misses the significance. “At this point, not unless someone asks me first,” he says to the screen.

“You don’t have anyone in mind?”

Dimitri walks in, throws down his backpack, and curls into the fraction of the couch Sylvain hasn’t claimed. He groans into a pillow, croaking out a glottally fried “no—” that tapers off into nothingness and despair.

“What he said,” Felix puffs.

“Oh, hey Dimitri! Thanks for helping me out with the English homework the other day. I swear I’m like this close to failing.” The gesture for a hair’s breadth is also the one for the world’s smallest violin, lying silent with no one to play it for Sylvain.

Felix twists around and slaps the back of his chair. “Maybe you’d be passing if you did your homework instead of going on all those weeknight dates!”

“I wouldn’t have to go on so many dates if you’d let me practice my pickup lines or my smooching on you.” Sylvain winks.

Felix blushes a deep hue that could blend into the sofa. “Maybe that could be arranged.”

Dimitri rolls his eyes. This will-they-won’t-they had started in the pilot episode and would be milked until the very end. “Ms. Eisner just told me she thought I cheated. She’s going to give me a zero.”

Sylvain whistles a falling tone. “I mean, you sort of did.”

“I need to keep a B average to keep my scholarship. If I get a zero on this, then I’m done here.”

“Dang man, that sucks.” Sylvain tries to recline further into the sofa cushion, to no avail.

“How can you that sucks me when it’s because of you that I’m in this mess.”

Sylvain looks at the ceiling. “Hey, you made your choices. What can I do about that to undo it?

Dimitri puts a hand on Sylvain’s arm. He reacts like it’s a stethoscope chilling his skin to read his heart. “Do you feel anything?”

Sylvain shrugs noncommittally. “I can feel whatever you need me to, Dimi.” The line is more gelled than his hair. “But what’s that gonna do to make it better?”

Dimitri withdraws his hand. “I should have known better than to help you. You know, Ms. Eisner said she didn’t think you were honest, but I was. I had my doubts, but I thought you could be better.”

“Okay, okay, hurtful. I’m going to bury that for now, deep down.” Sylvain motions laboriously through the air to match the abyssal depths of his repression. Personal attacks aside, It’s not like they’d give you credit for me fessing up.”

Dimitri shakes his head. “I’m leaving.”

Felix glares daggers at Sylvain. “I try to keep what I think about your behavior under wraps, but sometimes you disappoint me that much.” He huffs and follows Dimitri out.

Sylvain looks at the carpeted floor as if he could divine some truth from the trodden grainy pattern. “Well, I guessI’ll bury that too.” His voice quivers. Felix got to him.

BYLETH: Anything to say about this scene?

ASHE: We like to remember Sylvain and Felix’s relationship as light-hearted, flirty courtship, but then there are moments like this that bubble up from beneath the fluff.

DEDUE: It was believable how often they hurt each other in little ways. Ashe and I didn’t have anything like that until after the war.

Ingrid sits in a practice jersey, shiny mustard-yellow mesh, cleats tapping the floor adagio. “Coach Al, the Founding Day dance is at the same time as the Empire High game on Friday. And I know— a lion’s team is her pride ,” she quotes one of the high school’s many pride-pun mottos, “but I was wondering if I could take it off. A personal bye. Just this once.”

Alois strokes his mustache. His shirt reads GO BOARS! Est. 1162 in athletic letters on heathered grey . “Well, you know what your priorities are as a member of the team. We've had the schedule since the beginning of the season.”

“I— I understand.” Ingrid looks at her knees, eyes shining with liquid grief. “I really wanted to go to the dance.”

“Empire High has that very skilled girl from Brigid, you know, the one with the braids.” Alois waves his hands in the air along impressive braids he doesn’t have. “Think you can best her?”

“Coach Al, I see what you’re trying to do.” Half a smile lands on Ingrid’s face but it has no vigor in it. “Did you know I haven’t had a single day to rest since the start of the school year?

“Now that can’t be right. Sure, weekends are busy, but don’t you kids get Saints’ Days off? Macuil in Harpstring Moon and Cethleann in— was it Garland or Blue Sea? Those are national holidays!”

“You’re right that we get them off school, but I work a part time job. My siblings and I wouldn’t be able to come to Garreg Mach otherwise. Have you heard of Kupala Fried Chicken?”

“Yes, I know them. Their drum and thigh meals help keep my dad bod in shape!” Alois chuckles and yuks at his inimitable wit. “And the biscuits— oh, you’re saying you work there.”

Ingrid nods slowly. “I’ve worked opening shifts there since I was fourteen.”

“Oh, food service.” Alois looks into the nostalgic middle distance. “I worked the dining halls in knight school. It was brutal.”

“So you see how much I need this! I don’t want to be a student or an athlete or a worker all the time. I want to just be a girl and, I don’t know, do something fun for once. Okay?” Ingrid realizes her hands have escaped her and she’s leapt up. She attempts a corrective mumble. “I mean, I really would appreciate it.”

Alois thinks hard and sighs through his nose. “You know what. If I say no, you’ll have this resentment bottled up inside you. That’s one way to grime up your game, and we can’t have one of our best players grimed and gunky!” Ingrid leans forward. “Go have fun. We’ll miss you, but this will give some other girls a chance to move around.”

She hugs him until his eyes bulge. “Thanks for this, so much.”

“I want your heart to be in it when you come back!”

“Yes Coach, both atria and both ventricles, promise!” Ingrid runs off, braid bobbing.

DEDUE: I think I’m going to be saying some unflattering things about Ingrid soon. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about what I think of her or her character. This scene was a good move on a show where everyone is assumed to live comfortable, cushy lives, if not outright shown doing so. Do you remember the two-part slumber party episode at Dimitri’s mansion ?

ASHE: We had to learn to swim for the pool party segment. Neither of us had ever so much as been in a pool before that.

DEDUE: So back to my point, at the time, I didn’t realize how autobiographical this scene was for her— for Ingrid.

BYLETH: What do you mean? What happened to her character on the show?

DEDUE: This was Ingrid’s last episode until after the war, although we didn’t know it at the time. The writers were able to work it out. The school cut her from the team for ditching the game on some other technicality. That was, uh— Ashe, do you remember what it was? I’m having a hard time.

ASHE: Right, it was that even though she cleared going to the dance with Coach Alois, who coached her team, she didn’t clear it with Coach Catherine, who ran the whole athletic program. It felt forced to me, because even though Catherine’s character was strict, they usually wrote her as a softie if they could make a moral point.

DEDUE: The writers did their best for such short notice.

ASHE: I agree, but with the rest of Catherine’s character, it suggests, I guess, that rest isn’t moral enough? That’s a terrible thing to tell viewers.

BYLETH: Do we know why Ingrid left the show? What were the real-life circumstances that led to her character being written out?

DEDUE: Let's start at the beginning. It was no secret she had personal motivations for hating the people of Duscur. It could be pretty tense on set. She wrote herself out of scenes that involved me. Even threatened to quit if they put her back in. I didn’t learn until several years later that it was more than merely personal. Her family did business in a very— uh— what’s the word.

ASHE: Conservative?

DEDUE: Yes, but we can be clearer— I’ll just say racist. A very racist corner of the Kingdom. Her family’s business was in media. They were hemorrhaging contracts after this episode aired. We haven’t even gotten to that part yet. Wow. Well, I still wouldn’t feel safe in that part of Fódlan, if I’m honest. But I understand why Ingrid left the show.

BYLETH: You understand with your head or with your heart?

DEDUE: I can never forgive her, if that’s what you’re getting at. Not that I think she needs it from me. It’s not my job to assuage whatever guilt she has. She should know that.

BYLETH: What about anger that you have? Or am I mischaracterizing it?

DEDUE: No, that’s accurate. There will always be as much anger in my body as there is water or bone. It is what it is.

In the girl’s bathroom, Annette, Mercedes and Ashe lean in front of the wall-length mirror like flowers to sunlight, faces splashed with the buttery light of a row of halogens. Against the backdrop of the nude stocking-shade stalls, they touch up their make-up and re-style their hair. Ingrid leans against the white-tile wall with her arms crossed.

“Who are you going with?” Ashe asks.

Annette giggles. “Mercie and I are going as friends.” She winks and makes one-handed scare quotes as her other dabs lightly smoky eyeshadow. “That’s what my mom is telling my dad, anyway. She caught me and Mercie making out in the kitchen, so, oopsie—”

Ashe’s mouth forms an incredulous oh . “No way, that happened?”

“Yep.” Annette smacks her lips, pop . “Tasted like her cherry chapstick.”

Mercedes digs around in her handbag and holds up her find. “It was Noa Fruit chapstick. I love it— so fragrant.”

“Mercie that’s the vibrator!” Annette hisses, embarrassed. “Anyway, uh, How about you, Ashe, did you make up your mind? Are you going after all?”

Ashe lights up, keeping her hands close to her body. She has a secret to warm for a moment longer. “Yes.”

“Oh you got an ask! Who is it, can I know?”

Mercedes joins in. “Do tell us!”

“Well,” Ashe closes her eyes and lets her feelings leak onto her face. When she opens them, they gleam brighter. “It’s someone strong, and kind, and tall— and a little distant, sometimes, but that’s okay.”

ASHE: I ad-libbed that.

DEDUE: I know.

ASHE: Oh, honey, you’re crying.

BYLETH: When you were delivering this line, did you know that you were saying it about Dedue?

ASHE: Oh, now there’s a story. In short, no. I mean, I was thinking about Dedue, of course, but I was thinking about what I could say that would be generally true. I realized I was shorter than everyone else it could be.

Onscreen, Ashe adds as an afterthought. “I don’t know what I’m going to wear though.”

Ingrid and Annette cry out in unison, “me neither!”

Ashe looks into the mirror. “So, Mercedes, you’re all set?”

“Oh, I have too many outfits. I’ll pick something. What issue are you having? Haven’t bought anything yet? Time is ticking.”

“It’s finding something that looks good. I don't want to draw attention to my shoulders, but covering them up— was that a weird thing to say?” Ashe turns her side to the mirror. “Sorry, I—”

ASHE: Oof, now it’s my turn to be autobiographical.

Ingrid’s mouth compresses with thought. When she speaks, Ashe startles. She blended so well into the periodic slamming of stalls and people who were actually in the bathroom to go. “You could get something wider, something that emphasizes your hips and lower body. But don’t ask me where to get one— I’m not sure where I'm going to get them.”

Annette snaps her fingers. “You know who has all sorts of costumes? The performing arts department— Miss Casagranda!”

“Great idea, Annie!” Mercedes says. “ And she’s our next class!”

The bell rings. This lunch period is now part of the past.

Manuela takes one last sip from a red-scummed glass. A celery stick peeks out against her cheek. She picks up an attendance list instead. As she calls students’ names, the camera shows bits from around her classroom.

“Dimitri?”

“Here.”

How to Hide a Hangover peeks out beneath “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Monastery” and “The Two Gentlemen of Varley.”

“Annette?”

She hums present .

Ashe puts her chin on her desk and turns another page in Good Knight, Sleep Tight: Chivalry and Phobias. The knight on the cover wears both flannel pajamas and a full suit of armor. He peers out from behind sheets held up to where his cheeks should be beneath the helmet. Ashe’s eyes grow wide as they jump around the text.

“Felix?”

A plush eagle and lion fight each other atop a supply closet. The eagle wears cardboard 3-D glasses with the blue lens missing. The lion sports oversize plastic spectacles with an attached nose and mustache.

“Felix Hugo?”

Dedue hurriedly scribbles down answers to his math homework. All matter of exponents and fractions nested in parentheses crawl across the page in smudgeless 0.5mm graphite.

“Last call for Mister Fraldarius of the Gloomy Visage?”

Amidst a sea of giggles, Sylvain puts a guilty hand to his nape. “Where is he?” he whispers.

A flock of red and orange balloons squeezes through the door, the balls of latex rubber bop-bop-bopping against each other. As people realize what’s happening, a crescendo of attention builds and touches the ceiling. Felix presents a poster-size sign, handwritten. Angular letters look  like sword slashes, a whole font built on the Z in Zorro. It reads “WILL YOU BE MY ARMORED BEAR STUFFY?” and comes with a three-foot tall teddy bear with emotive plastic beads for eyes.

“Sylvain Jose Gautier,” Felix grumbles uncomfortably, “will you go to the Founding Day dance with me?”

Everyone claps. Ingrid whoops. Annette cheers. Mercedes puts fingers to her mouth whistles.

Sylvain wipes smarting eyes and leaps out of his seat. “You sneaky little—“ He hugs Felix with vigor enough to draw a gasp. He cups a hand below his ponytail and tilts his head, ready to kiss him. His eyes close. His lips purse.

Manuela raises an objecting hand. “Please boys, leave room for the Goddess! There will be time to do all that— “ her finger traces an outline of their combined forms— “not during my class.”

Sylvain steals a kiss on the cheek on the way back. Felix frowns, eyebrows and pouting weighed down with a cocktail of disappointment and longing. He touches his face and turns to where Sylvain sits across the classroom. Blink and you’ll miss it, just a couple frames show Manuela’s satisfied smile. She had separated them at the beginning of the year on a whim.

“Ingrid, Sylvain, Mercedes, Dedue, Ashe, all here. Yes. Okay.” Conversation in the room climbs the decibel scale. Manuela belts out a sustained note that engulfs the scattered chatter with its resonance. The littlest echoes ring from the corners once she’s done, dissipating into silence.

“Excuse me, Lions.” Manuela tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “Thank you, Felix and Sylvain for that introduction to today’s lecture topic. It has been brought to my attention that some of you are unprepared for the dance this weekend. As the utmost arbiter of culture on this campus, I cannot let that deficiency stand.”

Her heels clack on the linoleum, an implicit countdown towards the mic stand in front of the whiteboard. She caresses the microphone with long-nailed fingers, coated a deep red for the blood of men who’ve wronged her, and empties her lungs into the start of “White Heron Cup Song” by Choir Coordinator: “Stand up, pair off, get down!”  

The students follow her instructions. Through the power of post-production, the rectangular grid of desks yields to two rows along either side of the classroom. The Lions leap dyadically from their seats. Mercedes and Annette, Felix and Sylvain. Dimitri is with Manuela. Ashe is with Ingrid. Dedue is unpartnered. Manuela saunters through the aisle, hips swiveling. Everyone follows her around the room.

As Manuela makes it through the first verse, she throws open the doors to the closets along the back wall. Clothing of all kinds bursts forth and rains fantastically down on the students who could wear it. Dresses for the girls, suits for the boys, in the self-aware over-binarized style of But I’m a Pegasus Knight . Ingrid grabs a suit from in front of Sylvain as it falls from the air.

Next is a montage of students going through permutations of silly outfits while dancing on desks: Dedue in a feather boa, Ingrid in oversized sunglasses, Felix in a rainbow clown wig and white makeup, Dimitri in a vaguely appropriative Almyran headscarf, Mercedes in a hot pink tutu. Everyone’s get-up changes to the beat once, twice, three times before settling on their final dancewear.

Another loop around the classroom as Manuela starts the chorus, which explains the steps to a basic dance. She chalks diagrams on the board and paces them out in a clearing among a ring of desks. Waltz. Manuela shows Dimitri when to lift his hands so she can twirl. Rumba. Ingrid leads Ashe. Swing. Mercedes dips Annette.

The vocals fade out, followed soon after by everything but the baseline.

“Now students, tango is a sensual dance. A dance of passion.” Manuela lets the words slide halfway down her throat as she enunciates them. “Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.” Her thigh peeks out from the slits in her dress with each step.

Dedue raises a hand.

“Yes?”

“What about Adrestian tango?”

“That is called a tango, but it’s very different from what I’ve taught you. Besides, this is Faerghus. Are we clear?”

“Yes ma’am.” Dedue nods with only his eyes.

“Now you all, practice with each other. I know what often passes for dancing at these functions is merely rhythmic writhing.” Manuela circles her wrist in disgust. “I hope to see no such thing because you know your basic steps! Now go, practice amongst yourselves!”

“May I have this dance?” Dimitri proposes to Ingrid.

“Why, yes.”

Their bodies do not match, even by the low standards of still-growing teenagers dancing in a class that isn’t phys-ed. 

“Could you stop tugging on me?” Dimitri protests as his heel drags against the floor.

Grooves deepen in Ingrid’s forehead. She doesn’t stop. “It just seems natural.”

“Typically, the man leads,” Manuela hints to Ingrid.

“Typically I'm not dancing with a man,” Ingrid retorts.

Still half-strangled by the fluffy boa, Dedue partners only with his math textbook. 

Ashe touches him on the shoulder. “Shall we dance?”

“No.” He draws an arrow and vigorously underlines an answer.

“I— don’t think you refuse, but that can't be right, can it.” Ashe withdraws her hand. “Consent and all that?”

“Even if I can’t refuse, I’m not one for dancing.”

“Is that so?” Ashe chews on her lip, gears turning in her head. “You seemed to be having great fun during the montage.”

Dedue’s fingertips dance on his calculator. “Perhaps. Let me finish this problem.”

On the other side of the classroom, Sylvain extends his hand. “May I have this dance?”

Felix mumbles “fine” and lifts his in return.

Sylvain laces their fingers so their palms touch, warmth to warmth. “I’m so happy right now,” he whispers to the space between them, Adam's apple bobbing in Felix’s reddening face.

“Let’s just dance, okay?”

Sylvain’s fingers settle in the small of his back. Felix melts just a little, or maybe a lot. Relaxation is a matter of degrees and he starts from a well-wound place.

They go through several repetitions of the basic form. Felix steps on Sylvain’s foot once, “an accident. ” Sylvain isn’t the best leader, his motions not polished smooth like his lines. They bump into Mercedes and Annette, who laugh it off, then Ingrid and Dimitri, who are audibly more annoyed.

“My turn.” Felix slides his hand down from Sylvain’s shoulder to his back. Sylvain yields, not like putty but like someone who wants to be led.

“Good.” Felix’s form is stiff but sturdy. Sylvain follows smoothly, better at taking cues than Felix anticipated.

“Now listen to me.” Felix grabs a handful of Sylvain below the belt. Sylvain pops a flirty smile, but it evaporates a half second after Felix doesn’t let go. “If you care about Dimitri even a fraction as much as you care about me, you need to own up to what you did.”

“Okay!” Sylvain croaks.

The bell rings, ending the period.

“Thank you Lions, go forth and dance!” Manuela makes sweeping gestures to either side.

“Thank you Ms. Casagranda.” Ashe and Ingrid leave with garment bags draped over their forearms.

“Be sure to wash them before giving them back, especially if strange, sticky fluids are involved.” Manuela winks. Behind her, Dedue walks out with the boa dangling loosely around his shoulders.

BYLETH: I think we all got a little drawn in there. What are your thoughts?

DEDUE: The first thing I want to point out is that, during roll call, my character was doing calculus and doing it right.

BYLETH: Oh? Why is that?

DEDUE: The Lions had Hanneman for math and science, but only the science class ever got air time.

ASHE: A lot more can go amusingly wrong with beakers and bunsen burners. Rulers and graphing calculators, not so funny. You can only have Sylvain do the BOOBLESS joke on a calculator so many times.

DEDUE: Exactly. So even though the Lions are supposed to be in trigonometry, I let my character skip a grade or two in protest of all the other ways he was slighted. Did you see how little I had in that sequence?

BYLETH: I admit, I never realized you were doing that.

DEDUE: And neither did Studio of Seiros.

BYLETH: What about the rest of the scene?

DEDUE: There was controversy on set about whether Sylvain consented to Felix touching him. It was a litmus test, really, in the end. The understanding was that Sylvain had dreamed about something like that happening.

ASHE: I think that phrase was in the script. He had dreamed about this happening.

DEDUE: But from the audience perspective, they can’t see that and don’t know that when they’re watching.

ASHE: But as a way to resolve the Dimitri plot line—?

DEDUE: It was clever leverage. Just not something that could fly on TV even just after the war.

BYLETH: Well, let’s see what that resolution looks like.

Dimitri walks into the classroom, shoulders squared with confidence despite the anguish on his face. “I’m ready to admit my wrongs, Ms. Eisner,” he announces with the finality of a funeral.

Byleth tilts her head. Her expressionless demeanor serves her well in this role. A lack of anger can be mistaken for kindness by those who expect only the former. “And what wrongs are those?”

Dimitri fidgets. His life flashes before his eyes, the picture playing in reverse on his corneas invisible except as a distant stare. “I wanted to help my friend. I knew Sylvain was going to fail, but I didn’t want to do nothing. I know what the academic honesty code says, but that’s a piece of paper I signed seven moons ago. On the other hand, Sylvain is my friend who’s with me now. And still— that honesty code. I did sign it. I feel awful.”

“Now Dimitri, I think—” knock knock “—hold that thought. Yes?”

Sylvain pops his head into the classroom, the first signs of a pout tugging at the corners of his lip. Flirty is a better look on him than somber. “Ms. Eisner.”

“Hi, Sylvain. We’re in the middle of something.”

“Because of me, isn’t it?”

Byleth nods knowingly. “Okay, come in.”

Sylvain turns a chair the wrong way and sits straddling it, arms crossed atop the back. “I feel awful.” 

How coincidental.

“Why’s that?”

Sylvain’s eyes triangle between Dimitri, Byleth, and the floor. “I made Dimitri feel shi— cruddy.”

“Dimitri just told me he struggled between what he felt bound to do because he was someone’s friend and what he felt bound to do because he is a student at Garreg Mach.”

“Oh I know this one! That’s a lot like the protagonist in Singing Songs of Itha , isn’t it.”

“Very good.” Byleth sits back in her chair, lips thinned in thought. She makes up her mind and leans forward. “I think you both understand the central theme of competing allegiances better because of this. Sylvain. Due wholly to lack of effort on your part, your grades are middling that you can take a zero or two. But since this was a group assignment, so to speak, I will also give you credit.”

Dimitri and Sylvain in unison as they step out the door say, “thank you Ms. Eisner.”

“Now go and have fun at the dance.” She shouts after the departing students, “Don’t make me do this again!” Shakes her head and takes a long sip of coffee/tea.

Dimitri totters back in and puts his fingertips on the corner of Byleth’s desk. “You know I didn't get to ask anyone.”

“No, I will not be your date. The student handbook expressly forbids me from doing so. Also, I chaperoned the Leicester Alliance Founding Day Dance, so I have a bye tonight.” Byleth points at herself with two thumbs. “I’m going night fishing.”

“That’s— some insight into your life, I guess. I just wanted to say that I was so torn up about this cheating thing that I couldn’t ask.”

“You’re a good egg, Dimitri. Look, you can still have fun if you go stag. Or—  go lion? A male lion really is just called a lion, isn’t it.”

“You’re right, Ms. Eisner. Thank you again. Go Lion! Like a sports cheer?”

“Go lion!” Byleth pumps her first.

BYLETH: Go lion! Well?

DEDUE: It was unsatisfying to have Sylvain come around for external reasons, but his character always had to be tempered by others.

BYLETH: Next up, we’re about to get to the scene where it all comes together. The dance. How do you feel?

DEDUE: I forgot how little dialogue I actually had in this episode.

ASHE: I was just going to say— where were you?

DEDUE: The boa looks good, though. Maybe I’ll get another one.

ASHE: Dedue, no.

BYLETH: Alright, let’s get on with the show. It’s Founding Day Night!

“Dimitri!” Ingrid almost trips over her dress pacing over, four inch heels clacking. “Oh, it is something being almost as tall as you. I wasn’t sure you were coming!”

Dimitri shifts his weight away from Ingrid. The heel and toe of his duckbill shoes make twin clacks against the floor and echo strangely in the hall. “I don’t recall telling you anything to the contrary, but I did make up my mind about three hours ago.”

“So you have no date,” Ingrid nods with conviction.

“No need to remind me.” He sags.

“I have no date. And I have parents who I may have told I found love.”

“Okay,” Dimitri stirs the air with one hand, “I see where this is going.”

Pictures to fit inside wallets, or more realistically, gather dust on mantletops, are the currency of relationships. Ingrid will get rich through counterfeiting.

Ten minutes later the photographers direct them to pose in front of the hay bales and pumpkins that ground then against an overcast backdrop. They point their toes based on tape squared and do their best to smile like they enjoy each other’s company.

“Okay, this is too close.” Ingrid grabs Dimitri’s wrist and removes his hand from her stomach like a used tissue or a piece of dirty laundry. “You’re my date but you’re so obviously my beard.”

“Uh, r-right. Sorry.”

“Now say cheese so I can get out of this dress and ugh, these hee—“

She holds her mouth squeezed taut for heels and Dimitri cheeses, A click and flash later, the dazzle in their eyes is still settling and Ingrid is a bathroom stall metamorphosing. Her metaphorical butterfly form wears slacks, a thin tie, and a suit jacket.

“Felix—” Dimitri extends a hand to someone at the end of the line. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Helps that Sylvain is standing right there”

Felix sports a burgundy suit; Sylvain a navy blue. Their black bowties are each other’s match. Felix’s usual ponytail is undone, his hair draped chaotically over his shoulders. The elastic band rests around Sylvain’s wrist.

Ingrid bends a knuckle to her chin. “You look… different.”

Felix pushes his hair to one side of his neck. “If you say I look like my brother—”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Nothing like that. Just— good.” Dimitri palms Felix’s shoulder. “You look good.”

“See?” Sylvain gives him a kiss on the forehead “You look good.”

Inside the gym moonlighting as a dancehall, the music is loud enough to rattle ribs and vibrate viscera. Twin disco balls scatter multicolored light, now magenta, now teal, now green, migrating through every vibrant hue. An ice sculpture of a lion melts slowly in the dark. It guards offerings of frothy punch, half-sphere bowls of rainbow sherbet slicking secondary colors into soda. Every kind of chip and baked dough dessert exists somewhere in its demesne.

Ingrid folds her hands and tilts her head toward Dimitri. “No hard feelings, but we can split up now.” She chases after Mercedes and Annette fast enough to Doppler off. The top of her lungs barely crests over the music. “Hey girls!”

Mercedes calls her over and locks arms with her. “I had a hunch you weren’t a dress girl,” she elbows Ingrid affectionately.

“Alright, let’s get wasted!” Ingrid yells. “That’s how you let loose at these things, right?”

“She’s kidding, this is an alcohol-free event, we know that.” Annette disclaims loudly. “Why don’t we start with some unspiked punch first.”

“I do have mini-bottles in my bra, like we talked about.” Mercedes hums, “If you need a little extra.”

“I should really be watching what I eat. A lot of sugar this late will mess up my sleep, and I do have work tomorrow.”

“Isn’t this your night to let your hair down?” Annette peeks at Ingrid’s neck, where the curls of a chignon are held tightly in place by all manners of hairpins. “I mean— it’s an expression. I haven’t studied or done homework since three o’clock, woohoo!”

“Wow, you’re living on the edge,” Ingrid says limply.

“Annie, think we’re going about this the wrong way. Ingrid. You get one bite and one sip of anything you want for tonight. What will you have?”

“Okay I see. That way I do something, but not too much.” Ingrid puts a finger to her lip. “I think you’re the expert here. Can you build me an experience ?”

“An optimization problem.” Annette gazes at the platters of saccharine-saturated carbs, running combinatorial calculations in her head. “That sounds like fun. But Mercie, this could get complicated.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m thinking. The punch is easy. It needs a lump of semi-melted sherbet in it, but we can make those ourselves. What should she eat ? I’m thinking, a little bit of everything, or the most Founding Day food only?”

“We can arrange that.” Mercedes smiles cryptically.

Ashe and Dedue hold hands and sway side to side on the dancefloor.

“Did you have dances like this back in Duscur?” Ashe asks.

“No.”

“Oh. Well, now you can have them.”

“Yes.”

DEDUE: Okay, let it be known that Duscur had high school dances. The word prom is from Duscur, for goodness sake. 

ASHE: This is the scene where we had to do four or five takes because we kept laughing.

DEDUE: That it was.

Dimitri finds Felix and Sylvain hovering over the party mix, sorting out pretzels, cheese cracker triangles, honey-drizzled cereal, and those savory brown things that are apparently called rye chips. Their Garreg Mach Lions-branded paper plates are tilted like gold pans, with treasures separated from the rest of the blend. In the background, Ingrid sips water from a wax-lined cup.

“You can tell I like you because I let you have all the brown ones.” Sylvain says, crunching cereal with his molars.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if they had the ghost pepper flavor instead of this pitiful sweet mix, but our classmates are too weak-willed to enjoy it.”

“Um, I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Dimitri inserts. “I just wanted to say thank you, Felix, for getting Sylvain to apologize. That’s kind of why I’m here right now.”

“Of course.” Felix takes another rye chip from Sylvain’s plate. “You know what I’d do for you.”

Sylvain throws his plate to the floor. “Really, you did all this for him? What am I to you, chopped Duscur Bear?”

Felix doesn’t take the bait, or maybe he’s always stern. “You know how far back our families go, so you know how disastrous it would be for us, for me , if he lost his scholarship and got kicked out?

“Wow. Wow, you couldn't even lie to me. No Sylvain, I asked you out because I care about you, you’re charming sometimes and I think you’re cute.”

“I’m sorry, okay?”

“Well, I said yes because I care about you, you’re charming sometimes, and I think you’re cute. As long as you know that.”

“I’m sorry, alright? I made my choices.”

“Do you regret it?” Sylvain challenges.

“I—” Felix’s voice catches in this throat. “Do you want me to lie to you?”

Sylvain holds Felix’s face in one hand, the tip of his middle finger at Felix’s earlobe and the base of his palm at Felix’s chin. “Fine. I get it. You clean up nice, but you’re still the same.”

“This was not worth it.” Felix takes Sylvain’s hand and slips off the elastic band. In one motion he ties his hair up again. He storms off, cutting a path through the crowd that organically closes behind him.

Ingrid finds Mercedes and Annette at the sweets table on the other side of the gym.

Annette pumps her fists. “Are you ready? We have prepared for you this evening—”

“Um, I think I just witnessed a trainwreck and I’d really like some booze.”

“Suit yourself. Have the dry bite first and I’ll fix this up.” Mercedes obliges, dribbling the contents of a mini into the punch-filled cup.

“Okay.” Annette drumrolls on her thighs. “We have for you a compressed cake of seven semi-brittle Party Platter cookie varietals nestled between two spicy chips. Also there is a rainbow punch shot that is only lightly spiked, because the alcohol will dehydrate you.”

Ingrid doesn’t cook much, but she adds wet to dry in her mouth and blends expertly. “This is good. I love sugar.”

Mercedes digs around in her purse for a tissue and dabs lightly at the corners of Ingrid’s eyes. “Don’t cry, your mascara will run.”

The last slow dance of the night begins.

“Let’s dance together,” Mercedes offers. “It’ll be a good way to close out the night.”

Annette frets. “Manuela didn’t teach us how to dance with three people.”

“Then she’ll be okay with our, what was it, rhythmic writhing?” Ingrid laughs.

Outside, Sylvain slouches inches off his height. The white tube of a cigarette in his mouth, a lighter in his grip. He cups a hand around the weak flame as it dances. The spark reflects in his eyes.

Dimitri paces from behind him and plucks it from his lips. “You don’t even smoke. You have asthma. You literally have an inhaler in your other pocket. Stop that.” Dimitri finds the other nineteen cigarettes still in the pack in Sylvain’s breast pocket. He throws the pack to the ground. The cigarettes land noiselessly in the snow.

Sylvain blows clouds of breath. “Those were Miklan’s anyway.”

“Sure.”

Dimitri takes Sylvain’s fingers and breathes warmth between his palms.

Inside, Felix sits in the wallflower section, arms crossed. He taps his foot to the rhythm reluctantly and tries to look like he doesn't enjoy it.

Outside, Dimitri makes excuses. “I didn’t ask Felix to do this, you know. When he takes the initiative, he reads in what he wants to.”

“Not helping, man.” Sylvain frees his fingers and touches his neck, making himself shiver. “But yeah.” He smiles lazily, thinking of somewhere else. “That does sound like him.”

“He does like you. A lot.”

“Haha—” Sylvain blinks and blinks. “What?”

Inside. Dedue and Ashe dance a crisp waltz. The last notes of the song fade into oblivion. They loosen their grip on each other, moving out from the frame. Ashe’s hands lock at Dedue’s neck. He leans down. They kiss and hold on the beat, as if it were another step in the form.

Roll credits. Distributed by BRANDL GROUP. With funding from the Fhirdiad Provincial Department of Arts and Culture and from viewers like you, thank you.  A Studio of Seiros Production.

BYLETH, softly: How are we feeling?

ASHE, crying: Just a little, um, oh—

Dedue rubs the back of Ashe’s hand with his palm. She lifts both of their hands together to her face and wipes a tear with his knuckle.

DEDUE: There there.

BYLETH: Had you seen the episode recently?

ASHE: No.

DEDUE: Not for several years.

BYLETH: Here’s a softball question. What is the importance of what we just watched?

DEDUE: There were thousands of Duscur-Faerghus couples. It was just that no one had ever bothered to show them on TV before, much less hormonal teenagers, much less on a popular state-funded show. And it really was only about Duscur, in the Kingdom. Everyone knew that one of Claude’s parents on “Fear the Deer” was Almyran.

BYLETH: And why do you think there was that bias against Duscur— I mean, besides the obvious—

DEDUE: Scapegoating a whole people for an event that happened to take place on their lands, and before that, pure xenophobia?

BYLETH: Right, how did these things manifest in the television world, in the Life of Lions world?

DEDUE: I said earlier how Ingrid would write herself out of scenes with me. As you saw in the ending credits, her family enterprise was crucial to the show. So much so that they could get whatever they wanted. They had line-item veto power, more or less, written into their sponsorship deal.

ASHE: It didn’t start with Brandl Group though. Before that, when there were only rumors that Dedue would come on the show, there was an issue with a smaller sponsor. They ended up cutting ties with the show entirely over their, well— they would say principles , we would say prejudices .

BYLETH: Dedue, why do you think you were cast in the first place? If attitudes were so poor towards Duscur people, what was to be gained?

DEDUE: They were following the money, which I don’t fault them for. I saw the projections. The Duscur population was a wholly untapped market for the major networks. The executives thought the fraction of screen time they were willing to give me was enough to give them good returns. Even with the losses from other partners, enough companies would be indifferent or caught up in the inertia that it would work out.

BYLETH: Could you say more about how you don’t fault them for following the money ?

DEDUE: We were invisible, except in what we made for ourselves. The right direction for us happened to be the right direction for them. It’s not like they dug deep in their hearts, realized that Duscur people were yearning for screen time, and acted altruistically.

BYLETH: So let’s talk about how this specific episode came about. How did the kiss go from someone’s idea to being broadcast? How did it start?

DEDUE: I— think it was kind of on a whim at first, but then it got serious. We weren’t thinking of it as a grand political gesture. Snowball, butterfly, whatever the effect is. Both.

ASHE: If you want to get to the root of it, um, we had met a couple years before. The Kingdom circuit for child actors is pretty small. It’s no Enbarr.

DEDUE: It’s not even a Derdriu, really. So, we met and realized there were things about food and grief and stories from elsewhere that brought us together. We had been going out for a year when I started on Lions. We kissed on set all the time. We had to actively practice behaving like we weren’t head over heels for each other.

ASHE: That was some of the more frustrating feedback we had to work with, but I feel like it was beneficial to us as a couple in the end.

DEDUE: As far as how it made it to the screen, I want to say it was Ashe’s idea to write it in. 

ASHE: Really? All this time I’ve remembered it as your idea.

DEDUE: Well, whoever’s idea it was, we were both nervous. We knew it wouldn’t be smooth sailing.

BYLETH: What happened?

DEDUE: It almost didn’t happen. Our original ask was for a whole subplot where we dated, but that was quickly shot down. We knew, I think in the way a lot of performers know in the back of their minds, that people were reading what they wanted to into our interactions on screen. The more we thought about it, the less we thought we needed to ask for.

—We had a running list of things that could be included. It was always going to be with Ashe, because our characters had the most believable interactions in that direction already. There was social stuff like, Dedue shares his lunch of Duscur-style food, Ashe goes over to Dedue’s house and meets his parents, Dedue compares something to a Duscur work in English class. Then there were the more physical possibilities. Ashe and Dedue hold hands, Ashe and Dedue hug, that kind of thing. As far as I can remember, Ashe and Dedue dance together was not on it, so we were pleasantly surprised.

—We didn’t plan for it to be in any particular episode, but as soon as we read the script for Founding Day, we knew we were going to try.

BYLETH: And how did it go?

DEDUE: We got Sylvain and Felix to agree to ask for a kiss too. That whole thing in Manuela’s classroom was first written as just a hug, but Sylvain went for it during filming and they kept it in. Meanwhile Ashe and I were, I guess, foolish enough to be asking permission instead of forgiveness. 

ASHE: Okay, total aside, how did Sylvain and Felix go for so long without so much as dating? I hear now Felix will just send him swords from movie sets that he works on. It’s such a Felix thing to do, but it’s kind of romantic, don’t you think?

DEDUE: Right? So unlike their onscreen lives. They just popped out in a fully formed and functional relationship, it seemed. They really enjoyed getting to ham it up. Uh— that was kind of a swerve. Are you going to cut this? 

BYLETH: We’re going to keep it as organic as the Garreg Mach greenhouse.

DEDUE: So— that’s a no, right? No need to be cryptic.

BYLETH: No cuts unless you really go off topic. But so long as you’re talking about the show or its after-effects, we record on.

DEDUE: Okay, thanks for the clarification. Where were we—ah, yes. Our changes were controversial enough that the writers pushed it all the way up the chain of command at Studio of Seiros. Everyone wanted to see it, but it was generating enough buzz that it really only mattered what one person thought of it.

BYLETH: And who was that person?

DEDUE: “Lady Rhea” herself, the president of the whole company. She has a last name, it might be Seiros, I don’t even remember, that’s how unimportant it was relative to her first name. Everyone inside just called her Lady Rhea. 

—She sees our modest changes and says absolutely not. From her perspective, Life of Lions is one of her highest rated shows, and it’s one of her safest shows.

BYLETH: What does it mean that it’s safe?

ASHE: Well, there were some other shows funded by provincial tourism, for example, that were politically tame, but a lot of programming was really leaning into invective territory. Even the little jab about Adrestian tango felt, I don’t know, politically risqué for Life of Lions. It’s hard to imagine now with the broadcasting reforms, but so much of it was almost formulaic in showing people from outside the Kingdom as agents of chaos and destruction.

DEDUE: Honestly, it’s a wonder that the Empire didn’t invade earlier with all that Faerghus broadcasting did to stir that pot.

ASHE: So a show about high schoolers doing things that seem big but will barely impact their own lives in five years is quaint and wholesome by comparison.

DEDUE: And Rhea was mad about this. We got a no in writing, we each got a hell no in a phone call from one of the saints.

BYLETH: Who are the saints?

DEDUE: Her four proxies, kind of an executive team. And then we got a, pardon my Faerghus, fuck no from Rhea herself. She came down to watch us film it. It was horrifying, that kind of scrutiny for what’s supposed to be a light-hearted show. We somehow had spine left enough to do a take where we kissed, just for the heck of it.

BYLETH: And Rhea’s reaction was—?

DEDUE: She lost it, just started screaming everywhere that it would never make it before an audience, called us miscegenating garbage. I had to look that word up. I thought she had said misnegating , which I also had to look up. It was tough after that. Some people tried to use that word to empower themselves, but it never caught on. Not that I’m upset about that.

BYLETH: With all that resistance from the top brass, how did your kiss get recorded and make it in in the end?

DEDUE: The Fhirdiad branch of Fódlan Filmworkers really came through for us. We didn’t know it at the time, but they had been organizing against some of the worst of the jingoistic programming— there are some repugnant segments that never saw the light of day because of their efforts. So, union leadership saw what we were trying to do as an extension of that work. They also appreciated the chance to play offense more than defense, I think.

—As for how it went down, I thought it was going to be a complex operation involving secret films and swapping, but no. We had given them a fine take, once they stripped out the audio of Rhea exploding at us. Upper management gave the okay to an edited version without our kiss, and then the Filmworkers members tacked on those last couple seconds.

BYLETH: And then what happened?

DEDUE: It didn’t air for several months. That gave us time to contemplate what we’d done.

ASHE: I was told there would be footage to lead into this part? I don’t know if I can watch it. Dedue, are you going to watch?

DEDUE: I don’t need to.

BYLETH: And when it was going to air, what happened? What did you do?

ASHE: We let ourselves forget about it for a while. But once we remembered, once the moons began counting down, we began to prepare. Dedue and I split up his connections and made— it must have been hundreds or thousands of calls but it felt like hundreds of thousands— we told them something might be happening and that they should be prepared for whatever unlikely thing might happen. It’s hard to give specifics when you’re under a nondisclosure agreement about unaired episodes.

DEDUE: Not many people took it seriously. We did. We made a plan. We had plane tickets to Albinea—but it was clear from what happened even hours later that we wouldn’t be able to use them.

BYLETH: Hours later, meaning once it was broadcast?

ASHE: I remember— there’s a smell that stays with me. My adoptive father Lonato, who was killed in the war— he owned a designer goods brand that was popular with those in the Faerghus upper crust and those who wanted to be. It did belts, gloves, handbags, that sort of thing, with a mixture of real and synthetic products. We passed by the flagship store later and the windows had been broken in. In the plaza area in front of it, all the products were piled up. You know, burning leather, if you can get it to burn, smells like hair. And artificial leather is made of plastic. It was an awful smell.

BYLETH: We have more video of the response to show.

A logo in the corner identifies this as KFHR, broadcasting at the feet of skyscrapers in the Kingdom’s capital. A warmly-dressed woman with dangling earrings offers running commentary. Snow falls into her hair. With each sentence she bobs her head and glitters as punctuation. “Protestors have hauled their televisions into Fhirdiad’s central square. Here you can see the statue or Loog, King of Lions.” The camera pans. “He’s seven feet of bronze and stands on a pedestal, but he’s dwarfed by this twenty-something foot pile of consumer electronics.” Small pops and tongues of fire spread orange light on the undersides. Smoke fills the square, acrid from burning plastics. The broadcaster walks briskly towards the lens. “We need to get back, now, let’s go down the—”

The host of gossip segment Daphnel After Dusk, her hair in a long braid, reads breathlessly from a teleprompter, “In Ailell tonight, city officials have declared a curfew following unauthorized gathering and vandalism—” The screen shows the next day’s newspaper headlines, INTER-ETHNIC KISS SPARKS DUSCUR SLUM BLAZE, AUTHORITIES SAY. “Well, not sure how I’m getting home then, but our newsroom has some comfy couches. A—ny—way,” her voice slides down, “at the same time as this controversy is boiling over, this is one of the most popular gifs on social media from Edmund to Enbarr.” She gestures to a looping play-rewind gif of Ashe and Dedue kissing, pulling away and kissing again.

A gaunt man in a windbreaker white-knuckles a microphone. “Attitudes toward Duscur refugees have long leaned negative, but that was made explicit tonight, when race demonstrators overpowered government security forces to hang this banner from the capitol building.” Duscur-Free Teutates is written on a yards-long banner. They couldn’t wait until it dried. The paint, hued uncomfortably close to blood, drips and runs.

Hosts on an Almyran morning talk show sit with crossed legs on a long couch. The middle host reads from a prompter in the throaty, choppy-wave cadence of the modern standard dialect. [ Widespread violence in the Kingdom over a school soap opera smooch. We’ll show you the kiss that lit a thousand fires. Honestly, it’s not even that passionate! They can do better! What’s the deal? We’ll talk with an expert on Faerghus to explain— ]

A long-haired man with a necklace intended to look like a flock of orange butterflies emotes vividly into the camera, animated in the reedy lilt of southern Dagdan. [ Fódlan has no experience in the governance of multiracial societies. The overabundance of ethno-states in the region presents clear challenges to progress. Let’s be glad that there’s an ocean between us and them. ] The host on the other half of the screen, dressed in a more somber emerald tunic, nods along. [ And in economic terms, exclusion of qualified candidates from the labor pool can only ever be a disadvantage to development of— ]

“I will tell you—” a hoarse voice switches to Duscur. [ Not my name, not where I am. We are fearing for our lives. They are in the streets tonight with torches burning. I’m glad that I live in a brick house now. I used to be afraid here, because of earthquakes, but it can withstand this. Still, I will not sleep tonight, nor will my spouse, nor will my children. We will cower and pray until dawn. In the morning, we will not have our dignity, but I hope dearly we will have our lives. ]

Ashe and Dedue vibrate in place, each lost separately in a distant stare. Dedue gropes for Ashe’s hand and finds it. He squeezes tight. She squeezes back.

BYLETH, making an effort to speak gently: That was difficult.

DEDUE: I had not heard that last one. I have to admit I feel blindsided. I knew— I knew that this showed the rest of Fódlan, and I guess the world, how entrenched attitudes were against Duscur people. I remember that we were scared. The whole Duscur refugee community was terrified. My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. I let it run out of battery, and then they were calling Ashe’s phone, because she was also a friend. So we had two dead phones. I was just thinking, you know, I didn’t want this for them. I felt responsible for it. It’s been a lot of therapy.

Ashe wraps her arms around Dedue and pecks him on the cheek.

DEDUE: We did make one call though, and it wasn’t to whom I’d expected.

BYLETH: Meaning?

DEDUE: Sylvain— he was always sympathetic to us. He pushed back against the nonsense people would way about, oh, what we ate or how we slept or who we fucked. But he was notoriously flaky.

BYLETH: So Sylvain was no help then.

ASHE: Just wait.

DEDUE: I was shocked when Ashe dialed for Felix. I thought she was overcome by the panic and had lost her good sense. If there’s one thing Felix knows how to do, it’s grumble and come up with reasons to not do something. But he’s also fiercely loyal, and as the cast of Lions, we were sort of his people. So Ashe has him on the phone. She says, hey, you’ve seen what’s happening on TV? We’ve heard people are looking for us, and not for autographs. We need a place to stay.

ASHE: And Felix says, he snaps, really, you know I live in a tiny studio that can barely fit me. So I tell him, not your— admittedly very neat— little studio that's so small that one spice rack takes up half of your counter space, but Sylvain’s old money house, yes the one with the guest bedroom that he probably uses to sleep with people.

DEDUE: We did later learn that it was mostly Felix who he was sleeping with there. Anyway, maybe Sylvain has a burner phone and gave Felix the number, or maybe he gave the rest of us a burner phone and Felix had the real line. Always seemed to have a connection straight to and through him.

ASHE: So Felix puts us through. We say, hi, it’s Ashe and Dedue— and, I’ll always remember, Sylvain goes, I can guess what this is about. I hope you like air mattresses because that’s what I’ve got.

DEDUE: For all the careful planning we did, it all went to shit. Let that be a lesson. Plan, but also practice your plan.

BYLETH: This is some home video from that day.

DEDUE: What?

“Hi, getting comfortable?” The camera views planks of stained hardwood and feet that must be Sylvain’s. “Oh, wait.” Sylvain turns the video towards himself.

Behind him, Ashe lures a cat off the sofa so Dedue can set down a duffel bag. Dedue has to shake his head to move hair out of his eyes. His usual topknot has come undone and its constituent parts are scattered..

Sylvain continues unfazed. “Okay, we just picked them up.” He nods towards the sofa. “Oh, and look at me fitting in.” Sylvain’s hair hides beneath a gray beanie.

“Don’t say that like you were driving and had to be inconspicuous,” Felix rolls his eyes. “You could have worn a burlap sack and it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“And you would still have said something nice, right?” Sylvain winks.

Felix shrugs. “You’d pick something to match with your skin tone, at least.”

Sylvain clutches his chest. “Aww, you know me so well.”

“Wait, is this some kind of video diary?” Ashe is still holding the cat. She looks at the camera and back at the cat, sheepishly. “Oh, I couldn’t put her down, so.”

“It was before Felix derailed it! Look, you’ll want to remember this someday.”

“Now is not the time.” Dedue’s shoulders hover pinched at his ears.

“Humor me. Please. Felix, babe, can you get the hot water?”

“I brought tea,” Ashe adds.”Mint. Uh—” she unzips a side pouch and rummages through for a bag of looseleaf.

“Fine.” Dedue’s mouth is wired shut with stress. He sounds as frazzled as he looks with his hair unkempt and wavy.

“So,” Sylvain says too nonchalantly, “what did you have for breakfast this morning?”

“What?”

“I want you to think of something irrelevant and random to take your mind off of things. I don’t know if it works after I tell you the intent though.”

Dedue softens. “I— okay. Thank you.”

“Okay, presumptuous of me. Did you have breakfast this morning?”

“We did.” He frowns. “I just can’t— uh—”

Ashe touches Dedue’s cheek and guides stray hair behind his ear. “Remember, we had— um—” The cat finally leaps from her arms. “Duscur yogurt and oats.”

“Right, with berries from the garden, because that means—.” Dedue’s eyes widen. “Fuck, I forgot my shot stuff. It’s shot day tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it. Let me stop the video and make a—”

DEDUE: I looked terrible! Justifiably so, but even then.

BYLETH: Did he take care of it, your shot stuff?

DEDUE: He and Ingrid took care of it.

BYLETH: What? The same Ingrid whose family business didn’t want you on screen at the same time?

DEDUE: I couldn’t believe it either. I was pleasantly surprised, as I often was during this whole ordeal.

ASHE: Usually your surprise is stoic, like, aah, yes. But I think your eyes bulged out of your head a little when Ingrid handed you your injection supplies.

DEDUE: She even brought the travel-size sharps disposals— and hair ties. Those weren’t part of the kit, but thank the gods! I didn’t think to bring any spares, then lost the one I had in the shuffle. I should say, to put a timeline to it, the video we just saw was the first morning we spent at Sylvain’s. Then it was the second morning that she and Sylvain went to get everything we missed.

BYLETH: Let’s look at how the rest of the cast reacted in the meantime. Some of this was broadcast. Some of this is emails, group texts, and other channels with varying degrees of privacy restrictions.

Sylvain appears on TV, smirking into the camera. He’s clearly lost sleep over something. Dark circles under his eyes and a tilt to his posture compound the effect. “I’ve kissed Felix on the set before, so it’s not about the kiss. Just to say the obvious.”

Felix has his arm around Sylvain’s midsection, as if to emphasize his point. “Don’t you have better things to do? The Adrestian Empire is assembling forces uncomfortably close to our southern border and you gossip about lips? Get a life.”

DEDUE: I think we were in his house at this point

ASHE: I remember them stepping outside for this.

A microphone dangles in Dimitri’s face. “Look,” he puts up empty palms and pushes air, “I really have no comment on this. The show is a labor of love first and foremost. Let’s go back to that.

Annette and Mercedes release a joint statement on social media. “During this whole ordeal, the public is behaving like Annette’s character’s father, who prohibited her from dating another girl. News flash: that didn’t stop her. We are dismayed and embarrassed that this is how you choose to respond to our show. —A&M.”

A tuxedoed spokesperson from Studio of Seiros overenunciates at a podium. “We thank our viewers for maintaining a level of sensibility and decorum appropriate to the people of Faerghus.”

Ingrid looks into the camera, smiling weakly. Her eyes and heart aren’t in it. “I was opposed to showing the kiss, and I am also opposed to destruction of property. There must be a way to express your dissatisfaction with civility.”

In a dimly-lit restaurant, Manuela, one can tell by the contour of her bob, pushes the last bit of buttered crust into her mouth. She takes a slow sip from a wine glass that looks like an upturned bell. “I ordered the house red, if you want to report on that.” She smiles weakly, knowing in her deepest heart that the quip won’t land. “No? Well, you people have managed to scare off my date for tonight. And , you all know my character would have had a fling with an adult from Duscur if we had any on the show. By the goddess, stop antagonizing them already.”

Byleth pushes up her reading glasses and unfolds a small paper. “I have permission to say that Dedue and Ashe are in hiding, and their thoughts are with the Duscur community during this time of upheaval, and yours should be too. As a professional educator impersonator, I think whoever instilled those values in them ought to be proud. Um, there’s also some phone numbers to resource hotlines here—”

DEDUE: It seemed natural to ask you to deliver our statement, considering your role on the show as an authority figure.

BYLETH: I will say, I didn’t know that you were with Sylvain and Felix at the time. I thought you were, I don’t know, hiding away in a barn somewhere. How long did you spend at Sylvain’s house?

DEDUE: As I was getting to before we watched his home video, nothing lasts forever.

ASHE: That makes it sound ominous.

DEDUE: A couple things happened. I charged my phone and the world came pouring in through it. People blaming me, people thanking me, people saying unspeakable things. It turns out I was— what’s it called when your information—

ASHE: Doxxed. They were nasty. I didn’t tell you, but I had been too.

DEDUE: Really?

ASHE: “Do not disturb” works just as well for late night reading as it does being a— cultural fugitive, or whatever we were. Did you read any of it?

DEDUE: No. With all the gunk coming through, all of this psychic sewage from everyone on the continent, it was strange how similar it was to having a dead phone.

ASHE: I liked to think that being trans and on the internet gave us a good baseline ability to ignore vitriol. I think, you know, I was really wrong.

DEDUE: It was so thick and viscous.

ASHE: Vicious?

DEDUE: That too.

ASHE: And that was just the start for us. A couple of hours later, we were having toast, and then Felix, who had stayed the night with us—

DEDUE: It was a terrible night. I don’t think we slept much, Sylvain neither.

ASHE: The air mattresses were great, but it was like our blood had been replaced with adrenaline. So we’re eating, and then Sylvain looks at his phone and blanches.

BYLETH: Did he get doxxed too? I’m sensing a theme.

ASHE: Two things happened. Some wannabe paparazzo saw Ingrid’s car in front of our apartment. Also, it turned out that Sylvain was using an automated social media poster.

BYLETH: Oh?

DEDUE: What did us in was a sponsored post for instant coffee. Sylvain doesn’t even drink coffee.

ASHE: It happened to post while he was at our apartment. Someone who was very interested in figuring out where he was pulled the location data from the post. Not just something vague like Greater Fhirdiad metro, but coordinates. He showed me later. It’s creepy how much you can see from a post. You can turn that off, but it’s collected by default, which means that someone can go in and find it. And that they did.

BYLETH: What did you do then?

DEDUE: Felix sort of— exploded into calm. It was frightening, which is not a word I use lightly with him. He helped us pack, and then told us to get into the trunk of his car.

ASHE: I had never been kidnapped before.

DEDUE: We put our duffel bag in the cabin and then he started lining the trunk with pillows and blankets. It was an odd sight. And then we got in and they drove. 

ASHE: He had the sense to keep us on speaker to tell us where we were. Do you remember what he said when we got there?

DEDUE: “Smoothest I ever drove.”

BYLETH: And where was it he was taking you?

DEDUE: To Mercedes and Annette’s house, which was a little place in the countryside.

BYLETH: I was wondering when they’d come into the picture.

DEDUE: Yes, nearly everybody features at some point, although Dimitri more so after the war.

BYLETH: Not to get ahead of ourselves. We’re still several months out from the first declaration.

DEDUE: Right, right. So Annette has this lovely cottage that she inherited from her father.

ASHE: Did she though?

DEDUE: Hm, the details are a little fuzzy. I guess her father dropped off the face of the earth, but the house was part of her inheritance. If he wasn’t dead, then we all might have been squatters. Whatever the case was, Felix says we’re there and opens up the trunk. One of the longest hours of my life. And this place has a garden, trellises everywhere, a pond, not one but two arbors— it’s winter, so it’s more subdued, snow-crusted, but it was really something else.

ASHE: Mercedes is there, Annette is there. Mercedes goes, “oh good, I made muffins for you. With dried fruit.” I cried. I fucking cried. 

DEDUE: Those were divine muffins during a hellish time. We should ask her for the recipe after this. As for me, I remember one thing happening. Speaking of Dimitri—  we get a call from an anonymous number and it’s him. He says that his minister of something-or-other aunt wants to author a resolution in support of the Duscur people living in Faerghus.

BYLETH: Wow.

DEDUE: It was a very Dimitri-ish happening. He always had boring, middling politics, but he was very valuable for who he had connections to, like this. So I tell him, you know, this doesn’t mean anything without money, or services, or you know . 

BYLETH: You know?

DEDUE: At that point, I had told him so many times about Duscur independence that all I had to do was give him this look or say things with a certain intonation and he would know to fill it in. But it was some kind of start, so I told him about some people I know in Fhirdiad who wouldn’t pucker and shrivel at working with the government, and that was that.

BYLETH: What became of the resolution?

DEDUE: You know how that sausage-making goes. It took about six months for them to get anything to the floor, but by the time it was ready for a vote, Adrestia was knocking. It was a well-written document in the end, though.

BYLETH: Okay. What else do you remember from Annette’s— uh, father’s house?

DEDUE: It was a delight. Almost uncomfortably so. She made us tea and made us watch the Great Brigid Bake Off. We binged the whole thing.

BYLETH: Which season?

DEDUE: Uh, let’s see. The one with the raw Oghma wolverine incident. Where they had to test the judges for rabies.

BYLETH: I remember that one! “ It’s not like steak tartare, it’s like chicken!” That was Season five.

ASHE: We watched seasons, plural, five through eight. That’s what we got through, and we were doing other things too.

BYLETH: Wow.

DEDUE: Look, I don’t want to make it sound all lush because it was as if— we were eggs, and needed to be cushioned. Our insides were safe but we were so close to psychologically shattered.

BYLETH: Okay. How long did you stay with them?

DEDUE: What was it, two, two and a half weeks?

ASHE: Yeah, thereabout.

DEDUE: But it wasn’t like we went back to our old lives either. We broke the lease on our apartment and floated around the city for a while. I’m on record opposing short-term home rentals for how they make cities even less affordable for Duscur people, but at the time, when we couldn’t even live month to month, it was something. But losing the place you’re connected to— well, losing it twice— it really uproots you in all senses. And that carried through until after the war, and truly, for me, until we came home.

BYLETH: Home, here to Duscur.

DEDUE: Of course.

BYLETH: Ashe, was there anything we missed?

ASHE: Right, I called Lonato once we had started season six. Do you ever get so overwhelmed you can’t even remember your family? That’s how out of it we had become.

BYLETH: And what did Lonato say?

ASHE: First he said, you worried your siblings sick. So he put them on a call and everything spilled out of me. They were just public school kids in the southwest, which didn’t have a huge Duscur population. That might sound safe, but homogeneity is a camouflage for all sorts of filth.

BYLETH: And what did they say?

ASHE: Dedue, don’t listen.

DEDUE: No chance.

ASHE: My little sister says “I told you this would happen.” Because it’s not like I kept Dedue a secret from them. And then Lonato says, “your brother and sister were spooked by the bonfire they made out of our Fhirdiad store, so I told them the truth.” I knew this talk. It was always the money talk.

DEDUE: The money talk!

BYLETH: The money talk?

ASHE: My birth parents were poor. Lonato, of course, was not. The first time he bought us new clothes, we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to eat. He wanted us to know that we— that he— had enough and would, barring Faerghus gold becoming worthless, always have enough. 

—So what he told my siblings was, ahem, “Unlike many other people, we have enough money that angry people could burn every store, I could say fuck all of you , drop everything and retire, and we would be able to live comfortably.” He was a brutally honest man and it often served him well.

BYLETH: That’s some money talk.

ASHE: Then he said, “because of that, we have not even one excuse to not support Ashe and the person who I think is going to become your brother-in-law.”

DEDUE: You never told me that part.

ASHE: I thought it would come across as the rest of my family saying “we can support you and be decent because we’re rich.”

DEDUE: Hm. [shifting, silence] —I agree with you now, but I think with the right framing, I would have heard “my family is your family and will be there for you.”

ASHE: Even if we didn’t say it, would you say we were there for you?

DEDUE: It sure panned out that way. They loved me because you loved me. It was alright.

ASHE: I’m glad.

DEDUE: I don’t think Lonato ever told me that he knew we would stay together in the long run.

ASHE: There were some things he didn’t see a need to be brutally honest about. It usually meant he thought it was obvious.

BYLETH: Well, I think that’s a good place to wrap our discussion of what happened after the Founding Day Episode aired. Do you have any big ideas, any bows to tie on top of the package?

ASHE: Sure. You know the saying about the boiling frog?

DEDUE: Fódlan figures of speech are so cruel to animals.

ASHE: I think of that time as the opposite. We were in boiling water and it cooled so gradually that we didn’t notice. By the time we did, somehow we were living our lives. But it all blends together with the war. There’s no way to separate them.

DEDUE: As my last thought on this, I think— our castmates were kind to us when we needed them. That’s what I want to remember about this era of Life of Lions.

BYLETH: So that brings us to the war. So now we’ll discuss that, or rather, we won’t.

DEDUE: Right, we’re not here to relitigate the war. People from Duscur fought on both— on all sides. That’s what we thought you had to do to prove yourself to people who don’t think you’re serious. You die for them.

BYLETH: Duscur regiments in Faerghus were some of the most decorated, but also suffered some of the highest casualty rates.This did not go unnoticed. I’m going to engage in some great oversimplification of history that I hope won’t frustrate too many viewers. There are footnotes, parentheses, asides, and carve-outs to this story that we can’t cover. As in please, if you want a fuller picture, read a book.

—Following the war, with strong pressure from Duscur people, activists, and the international community, Duscur was granted autonomous region status for one year and then gained full independence. The pan-Fódlan treaty’s prohibition on discrimination on the basis of national or ethnic origin wended  its way through public life.

DEDUE: I don’t delude myself into thinking that it was our work internally that had a majority of the effect, or even the plurality. The threat of economic sanctions on Unified Fódlan from Dagda and Almyra carried at least as much weight. But even so, there was some really beautiful cross-cultural organizing among those who fought for reunification of Fódlan. FWD is Forward — Fódlan Without Duscur is Freed With Duscur. I still have one or two of their t-shirts around somewhere.

BYLETH: Life of Lions continued after the war. Once armed conflict stopped at the end of 1186, we began filming. Episodes began to air in 1187. That was season 3, or as some people took to calling it, season TS 1.

ASHE: I just wanted to mention how funny it was to me when I saw people using the TS designation. I know it stands for “timeskip,” but it has another meaning that’s a little more if you know, you know.

BYLETH: Do I know?

ASHE: Well, when I heard about my role as TS Ashe, I imagined I would be wearing a lot less clothing. How about that?

BYLETH: So that’s a no, I don’t know. What I do know is that season 3 used the same characters as seasons 1 and 2, except they had all graduated and ended up at the same college, which was Garreg Mach University. The studio received all sorts of angry fan mail saying that there was no evidence of graduate students, so it should be Garreg Mach College, but by then the merchandise orders had gone out and there were no do-overs.

—The new theme song was also controversial. Not just in the way that changes to the iconography of series often are, but also because it was in a key described as “gay and warlike,” by the writers. That was a big no-no immediately following the war. Furthermore, the show ditched the musical numbers, because In the post-war era— You know what, let’s just start the episode.

Click.

The artificial bell in the Garreg Mach clock tower chimes once, brooong , then the theme song starts: “Divine Pulse Me Sothis (to the Bus Stop of Life)” by Saghert and the Creams. Nasal voices and angsty vowels start, Waking up after a long, long night of living — but the person in the song goes on to miss the bus. The introduction sequence is a montage of the cast running through the tree-lined, cobblestone-paved campus. One character runs at a time and switches to the next on the beat. Dorms, sports venues, dining halls, auditoriums, boba shops, and the library all whizz by. “Will I make it? Will I make it? ” All the cast members smile for a photo in front of the golden-scaled Fódlandy fountain gargling water in the middle of campus. “ Not gonna be late to my own life .”

Gone are the lengthy, episode-specific introduction sequences. The new gimmick is a couple seconds of characters in a setting doing something relevant to the episode. Ashe and Dedue linger in a cake shop, pointing at a white-frosted cake with little flowers made of purple icing.

The title text simply reads WEDDING EPISODE in a confident sans serif.

DEDUE: When we started doing Life of Lions again, I knew we had to revisit this in the first season. Obviously there was a whole war in the middle of it and there was a lot to go through, but it had to happen.

BYLETH: Just to say it outright, you wanted to revisit the relationship you and Ashe had on screen.

DEDUE: Yes. There’s a saying in Duscur about flowers budding after fire. Classically it was saplings budding after fire, the kinds of trees that needed fire to open their seed pods. But once people started returning, they saw the flowers pushing through the rubble in all sorts of inappropriate places. The change has stuck.

BYLETH: That’s powerful stuff.

DEDUE: So to make it explicit, we were thinking of this sequence as our flowers after the fire, the fire being the war.

“Will you need candles?” the shopkeeper asks.

Flipping through the binder of cake themes, Ashe stops on the Loog and Kyphon design, which comes with a plastic lion. “Oh, no, this will be pretty low-key. Actually— maybe just one.”

DEDUE: Wait, is this where I think it is?

ASHE: Only the best little cake shop north of the Airmid.

DEDUE: I’m salivating just thinking about it.

ASHE: We can go back the next time we visit.

Dimitri narrates. “Finals week is heaven and hell. It was hell because of all the tests, of course. Not all of them were for a grade.”

ASHE: Oh, the voice overs. Very 1190s. I guess that makes this cutting edge.

In a different room now, Ashe and Dedue slip cards into envelopes and lick the vertex of each bitter vee. The view zooms in on one of the rectangles of fine cardstock:

Dearest friend, you are joyfully invited to a brief and exciting ceremony to celebrate the wedding of

ASHE UBERT-GASPARD

&

DEDUE MOLINARO

3pm Tuesday of Finals Week, Winter Semester, Imperial Year 1187 at the West Campus Greenhouse. Leave the formalwear behind and come as you are .

Dedue and Ashe make their way around campus, spreading their good news. 

Byleth’s invitation goes in her department mailbox in the literature building. Before they leave the floor, they get an email.

To: Dedue Molinaro < [email protected] >, Ashe Ubert-Gaspard < [email protected] > 

Subject: Wedding invitation

Dedue and Ashe,

I will be there. Congratulations and good luck on finals!

Best, Prof B

Dimitri and Ingrid live in an airy off-campus apartment close to the athletic center. Ashe and Dedue’s shoes clonk up three flights of wooden stairs. Little succulents sit in a strip of sunlight outside the door.

Inside, Ingrid is lounging around in a turquoise sports bra. One hand has speared a whole boiled chicken breast with a fork. The other holds dense notes on pericyclic reactions, a multimedia collage of highlighter on pen on pencil on paper.

“Looking for Dimitri? He has poli-sci right now. History of Western Faerghus from IY 751- IY 901. I don’t know how he does it.”

“That’s a juicy period. If Klaus I had hung on for a couple years longer, then maybe—”

“Yeah?” Ingrid nods like she has any idea what Ashe is talking about.

“Sorry, we can’t all be history majors. Or minors,” she adds to flatter Ashe.

Dedue crouches outside, poking at the plump leaves of each little succulent, squeezing the fleshy bits as if to take their pulse.

“The plants will be fine.” Ashe calls. “Come in so we can do it together!”

Both with one hand on the envelope that bears Ashe’s narrow cursive, they deliver the invitation.

“That’s what you’re both here for—duh! Wait.” Ingrid opens it with a pen and gasps, a hand over her mouth. “Congratulations!” She stands and hugs them, one in each arm. “I’ll take Dimitri’s too. Of course we’re going to make it. You checked all our schedules.”

BYLETH: Ingrid is back. What’s with that?

DEDUE: Her family lost everything during the war. Brandl Group pivoted to communications and made itself a military target. Their building doesn’t exist anymore, except as a layer of dust in the soil for acres around. Ingrid lost many things, but not her desire to act. We were her community. Well, me less so. 

BYLETH: Were you glad, in some ways, that misfortune befell her?

DEDUE: Befell , my. I think— no one who has lost everything would wish it on another. But two people who have lost everything can come to certain understandings.

Ashe and Dedue traverse a quieted campus. The building they stop in front of shines with new glass. Again they walk up several flights of stairs, this time to avoid a growing line at the elevator. On the destination floor, a paper snake coils across a bulletin board. WELCOME TO KYPHON HALL FLOOR 5! A paper hamster nibbles on a sheet labeled FLOOR RULES.

Down the hallway, every room has name cards in the shape of animals kept as pets on its door. Sylvain’s is a moody cat and Felix’s a sunbathing dog. Everyone down to the “floor parent” who made them agreed that this was exactly wrong.

Dedue is about to knock on the door when they hear shouting. He looks at Ashe with a smirk that says of course and slips the invitations labeled SYLVAIN and FELIX under the door.

The shouting stops. In the silence, the wrinkling and ripping of paper could be faintly there, or it could be a brain filling in what it knows is happening. The doorknob turns.

Felix, out of breath, hair strewn in his face, spits out a “congrats.” He reties his ponytail. “Yes, I’m going. Just a moment.” He yells “Sylvain!” as if his voice was crossing a valley and not a room.

Sylvain peeks out. “Congratulations! I’ll be his plus one, naturally.” He winks and closes the door. The shouting starts again.

Guarding another flight of stairs, a goldfish perches on the rim of its bowl, miraculously not asphyxiating by virtue of its paper gills. It asks in urgent red capitals, “DID YOU REMEMBER YOUR KEYS?”

They walk in front of a mural on the side of the psychology building. Cartoon brains with cartoon googly eyes run, jump rope, swim, and do push ups across the smoothed plaster. Mercedes and Annette live three blocks away, on the other side of a restaurant advertising “Fine Morfis Food and Fine Donuts.” The warm smell of cookie dough lingers in the air even outside their red-trim rental.

“Hello?” Ashe asks through the screen door, only to be interrupted by the bitonal chirp of a timer.

“Come in!!” Annette waves with oven-mitted hands. “I’ll be just a second.” The timer continues to whine. “We procrasti-baked eight dozen sugar cookies. And decorated them with flood icing. Well, only seven dozen are decorated.”

“This is a lot of cookies,” Dedue assesses. “Did you have time to study?”

“That’s where Mercie is now, but this girl? All project-based finals and essays, yeah!” Annette pumps her fist. “All finished. Please, please take some of these cookies.”

Dedue looks knowingly at Ashe as he asks Annette, “Have you considered catering?”

Ashe nods back. “I think these would go to good use at, say, a wedding.”

On cue, they offer the invitation. Annette opens it, squealing.

“Ooh boy I’m so excited! I mean, we knew it was coming because you asked us ahead of time, but having the invitation on paper makes it feel so official!”

“So we should officially put you down as coming?”

“Yes ma’am, me and Mercie both!” Annette affirms. “Remind me again though, why are you getting married now? It’s not like you got pregnant and had to— you know.”

“One reason is taxes.” Dedue says stonily.

“Wow, really?” Annette is engrossed.

“Really?” Ashe echoes, more indignant.

“No. But there is a money reason. International tuition is an arm and a leg, two legs, even with the Duscur Foundation scholarships.”

“I’ve heard! My lab has another assistant from Brigid and when I heard what her tuition was I thought, woohoo her family better be made of money.”

“In my case, it’s hard to prove residency using official documents when your country wasn’t around to issue them. Passport? Can’t get one. Birth certificate? Burned. But a marriage license can be used as well.”

“Wow! Married for lower tuition! I always thought Mercie and I would get there first, to make our adoption applications look better.”

“I’m not marrying for money. I’m marrying because I love her, and it happens to suit our financial situation.”

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Congratulations lovebirds! Good luck on finals!”

On the porch again, Ashe turns to Dedue. “We’ve forgotten something.” She whips out her phone and swipes frantically.

To: [email protected]  

Cc: [email protected]  

Subject: Wedding Invitation & Officiant Request

Dear Professor Eisner:

Dedue and I hope this email finds you well. We’re following up on our previous discussion about our wedding. You have been the most constant educator presence in our lives between Garreg Mach High and now Garreg Mach University. We would be honored if you would be willing to officiate the ceremony for us. We can prepare a script for you.

Please see the attached draft agenda for an idea of what we might be doing. We’re open to any suggestions we have, as you are our first choice! We hope this helps you make your decision.

Thank you so much for your consideration. 

Ashe Ubert & Dedue Molinaro

Thirty seconds later. “[Re: Wedding Invitation and Officiant Request] sounds good, see yuo then!! -Prof B. Sent from my fehPhone.”

“Wow, that was fast!”

“Isn’t she giving a final right now?”

Dedue checks his phone and grits his teeth, “I don’t know, but I need to run to mine.”

“See you tonight?”

“I’m hosting a study hall for The Undergr-Ag-uates. Be home late.”

“Okay, kiss me when you get back.”

“What if we kissed now?.”

Ashe pecks him quickly on the cheek. Dedue returns the favor.

ASHE: I remember why I have fonder memories of the post-war seasons.

DEDUE: Me too. You know, that paperwork stuff really was an issue for so many of us. Do you want to talk about what this last interaction was about?

ASHE: Oh, yes, we should say, a central conflict between our characters was— well, it was between us and our busy schedules. We were college students who had been high school sweethearts, which, I mean— if only, right? So one or both of us was always out during the week and we didn’t see each other except on random evenings, lucky weekends, and then finals week. There was an episode earlier in the season where I missed your birthday for, uh, something like a leadership convention, so we almost broke up.

DEDUE: And then I ended up missing your birthday for a trip to Duscur to gather agricultural specimens.

ASHE: See, that sounds like something you’d do in real life. I believe you’d miss my birthday for that. And I’d let you!

DEDUE: But our characters would always learn that what was important was being there in the long term. It was very wholesome, which is how we ended up getting married before Felix and Sylvain or Mercedes and Annette.

ASHE: Who did eventually get married and adopt was Mercedes and Annette, I think two seasons after this? The lesbians loved that.

DEDUE: Yeah.

Next comes a montage of mornings that are all the same morning. Dimitri wakes up with the sun and looks over several pages of notes while munching on toast. He crunches an apple and chews it thoroughly. He listens to lectures at three-times speed while going for a run. He showers and shows up at the lecture hall fifteen minutes early in jeans and a t-shirt. When Byleth arrives to open the door, he’s among the first in. He sits in the front row.

Felix springs awake. He turns to his right. Sylvain is drooling on a pillow. “Wake up,” he nudges. “Hnnggg—  let me sleep— alarm’s set.”  Sylvain’s whole body rocks in a charmingly uncoordinated way that still reads as pointing to the phone. “If you say so.” Felix eats a salad with eggs and some kind of cheese dressing while staring at a list of literary terms. He checks his watch. At some preordained time, he steps into black slacks and puts cufflinks ib his sleeves. Felix gets to the lecture hall and sits to Dimitri’s right. The seat to his left is empty. “You’re dressed up,” Dimitri says. “You’re not,” Felix responds. “Uh oh.”

Ingrid runs on a treadmill, her steps rhythmic as a heartbeat. She says to herself in a quoting tone, “If you can comfortably carry a conversation, you’re going too easy.” She goes through flashcards one after the other, mumbling sub-audibly. Beep after beep marks the intensity rising until sweat glistens white on her forehead. She showers in the space of a screenwipe, stepping out with dried hair and a piercing blue suit. In Byleth’s classroom, she sits in the back. The seat to Dimitri’s left is empty.

Byleth passes out yellow, red, and blue papers. “Remember to clearly indicate your test version on your answer sheet.

If you don’t, I will guess. I am not a good guesser.” She glanced at the seat to Dimitri’s left. It’s empty.

At noon, Sylvain’s phone rings. One hand emerges from beneath the duvet to grab and silence it. Five minutes later, he stirs again, yawning, and creaks awake. He pats the wrinkles out of the shirt he slept in, pops a breath mint, tussles his hair, and lumbers down the hall to the elevator. Thank the goddess he rides down alone— he zips his fly and buttons up his shirt. When the doors open to the first floor, he aggressively power walks across campus. Right before he reaches the door, he throws on the suit jacket in his backpack and strides into the room like he owns it. 

A restless silence blankets the hall. All eyes feign looking down at papers, only to follow him askance.

“Hi professor, I’m here for the final.” Sylvain extends an expectant hand.

Byleth folds her arms. “You’re late.”

“Yeah, I can tell time. No need to rub it in.”

“Yet you had time to put on a suit?”

“I believe in dressing for success. And—” his voice dips into whisper. “Our 3pm.”

Byleth purses her lips, annoyed but acceding. “You can't have any additional time, but you are here during the allotted hours. I guess this flies.” She gives him a blue version.

All the other seats are taken, so he makes his way to the front of the room and takes the seat to Dimitri’s left.

Dimitri drops his eraser. He and Sylvain both reach for it. “Why are you dressed like that?” they whisper in unison.

“Quiet in the front,” Byleth tuts. “We treat academic integrity with utmost importance. Don’t make me investigate you for cheating.

Sylvain opens a bag of peach gummy rings and gnaws on them through the test. His thumb and index finger spread sour-sweet powder all over.

Above the blackboard at the front of the room, the minute hand circles the clock twice. Sylvain wipes his hands together and turns in his test. He’s the first one out of the still-tense hall. “Piece a cake”

The minute hand traces a slower arc. Dimitri checks his work. Ingrid crosses out a paragraph and starts again. Felix turns in his test. The room empties.

Dimitri narrates again. “Finals week is hell because of the tests, but finals week is heaven because there is nothing else. It’s like a painting.”

DEDUE: I didn’t think much of it until you pointed it out, but this is very much of a certain era.

Cut to the quartet sipping boba and standing in the campus art gallery. The painting in front of them is a winter landscape, different shades of gray, white-gray, ash, snow white on the canvas. Stark black forms of gnarled trees.

“You can do a lot with absence,” Sylvain says.

“You can do a lot with absence,” Dimitri echoes.

A pregnant pause gives birth. Twins.

“Negative space,” Dedue intones from across the display room. At another piece in the gallery, a gong sounds.

ASHE: [ laughing ]

DEDUE: Late 1180s, early 1190s indeed.

In the greenhouse, everything is ready. Ashe and Dedue wear jeans and T-shirts. The cake from the beginning of the episode sits on a small table beside them. A fairy ring of white plastic lawn chairs has sprouted in the wide central aisle between planters brimming with leaves and vines.

“Excuse me,” Ashe says to quiet the chatter, “Thank you all for coming.”

“Special shoutout to Dimitri,” Dedue begins, gazing over the attendees to the dewed squares of glass that form the walls.

Dimitri pulls on the hem of his t-shirt. “I thought—”

“—for being the only one who read and heeded the invitation! We’ll give you first dibs on the cake, after us, of course.”

“It said come as you are . See, I read it! I woke up like this,” Sylvain shrugs.

“Liar,” Ingrid and Byleth scoff in unison.

Annette and Mercedes trade giggles. “We just couldn’t help it. The temperature here makes it nice to bring stuff out that would otherwise have to wait for summer!”

“Hey Felix” Sylvain nudges, “we’re overdressed. Want to undress me?”

Felix loosens his collar. “No.”

Sylvain stares intently.

“Not here.”

“So anyway,” Ashe smiles widely, “um, we didn’t go to many weddings growing up. Our reference is birthday parties, so we hope you’ll humor us with our alterations.”

“This candle represents the start of the first year of our married life.” Dedue presses it into the middle of the cake and lights the wick. It throws out excited sparks. “It will also encourage us to hurry up. No one likes waxy droplets on their cake frosting. Professor?”

“That’s me. Yes.” Byleth assumes her position behind Ashe and Dedue and spreads her arms. “As your former teacher, current professor, and recently ordained online minister of the Church of Seiros, it brings me great pride to say that marriage is what brings us together today. Do you have your vows prepared?”

“Yes.” Dedue nods once; Ashe, several times. “Memorized ‘em a long time ago.”

“And the ring situation—”

“We’re doing it the Duscur way,” Dedue says. “ Ear -ring.”

“Very well. Who would like to go first?”

“These are traditional vows in the towns my parents are from. Lonato, but also my birth parents. It’s a small world, Western Faerghus. Ahem.” She removes a small wooden stud in her left earlobe and takes Dedue’s hand. She loses herself in his eyes. “I will walk with you in spring, run with you in summer, sit with you in autumn, and warm you in winter. So shall it be all the days of our lives.”

“These are called northern vows. They are for men of Duscur who do not have much. But I—” Dedue’s voice cracks, “I think I have the world. They go like this— I cannot promise you gold or green forests. I promise you myself as I am and you as you are so that we may be more than ourselves.” He removes a similar wooden stud.

In unison, they pass the gold hooks through each other’s piercing, declaring in Duscur, “I wed you.” It fits into one indivisible word.

Byleth wipes a tear. “You may now kiss—” Byleth’s eyebrows arch. “Wait, that’s not what we agreed on. You may now smooch the spouse .”

So they do, tilting their heads so the earrings catch the light.

A montage of wedding activities fades in and out, overlapping like waves in a small pond. “One, two, three!” To cheers, they blow out the sparkling candle. Byleth pops champagne and pours into red plastic cups. “I will check ID.” Dimitri refuses, “I shouldn’t, with my meds.” Mercedes smiles saccharinely at Ashe, “so, children?” Ingrid chugs her champagne. “When we first met, I misunderstood you,” she nods to Dedue, who holds a plateful of cake, “but I also misunderstood you.” She nods at Ashe. Felix bites the head off a cookie person. Sylvain stuffs a forkful of frosting into his mouth and explains to Annette, “—and then I told him, that is my idea of spicing it up!” 

DEDUE: You know, that did count as us getting married, in the Duscur way. If we had a Faerghus style wedding, we would have signed a real marriage certificate. We had it all figured out, one way or the other.

ASHE: I don’t think we’ve told anyone that I made us practice so many times. I was nervous my hand would shake, or I would poke Dedue in the ear—

DEDUE: In the end we did it in one take, so all’s well that ends well.

BYLETH: Actually, the episode hasn’t ended yet.

DEDUE: Ah, my bad.

Dimitri narrates again. “Finals week. For some it was more heaven.”

Ashe reclines in bed, the form of her torso covered flatteringly with a thin sheet. Dedue approaches, freshly showered. Ashe yawns with her whole body, like a dried bloom in hot water once again unfurling. Dedue matches her contours. Then they are lumps moving light around beneath blankets, shaded like eyelids in REM sleep. A lighter foot and a darker elbow emerge along with pleasured grunts from the body-shaped ripples in the sheets.

Dimitri continues. “For others, it was more hell.”

Sylvain clicks on the alert symbol at the top of the MyMach Student Portal. “Hah, 69 on the Eisner final. Nice. I passed!”

“Oh, so you did.” Felix looks over his shoulder. “Higher than I would have guessed, for all you didn’t study,” 

“What can I say, C’s get degrees.”

Sylvain’s phone buzzes and jitters across the table.

Felix eyes the caller ID and leaves the room. “Good luck with that.”

“Mom, hi!” Sylvain plasters a this is fine tone and an artificial smile she can surely hear.

He must have pressed speaker phone by mistake. His mother’s voice, warped by digitization, chides, “Sylvain Jose Gautier, what is my bright, capable son doing scraping by in a lower division literature class? I can’t believe—“

Dimitri talks through the fade to black. “But for most of us, it was somewhere in the middle— living the Life of Lions.”

The credits roll up. The dragon logo of Studio of Seiros spreads its wings. Brandl Group is nowhere to be seen. Names of the cast and Studio of Seiros executives scroll by.

BYLETH: Here, your names are given as Ashe Molinaro and Dedue Ubert-Gaspard. What’s going on?

DEDUE: Ah, this.

ASHE: Funny things happen in cross-cultural marriages. We know in Faerghus that it’s customary for the bride to take the groom’s name, assuming there’s one of each. So that’s how I get to be Ashe Molinaro.”

BYLETH: Okay, so far I follow.

ASHE: Duscur is fiercely matrilineal—

BYLETH: Fiercely?

DEDUE: Fiercely.

ASHE: —so Dedue would traditionally take the last name of his bride. Which was mine. Thus, Dedue—

BYLETH: —Ubert-Gaspard, I see!

DEDUE: We thought it would be fun to try it out.

BYLETH: But then—

ASHE: Are you going to ask why it was only for this episode that we traded last names?

BYLETH: You get this a lot.

ASHE: We do.

DEDUE: We looked at how much it would cost to change our names legally with all of our memberships. And considering we were already professionally established with our old names, inertia and stinginess—

ASHE: —thrift—

DEDUE: —took over. They won out.

BYLETH: Since we have another episode about the post-war seasons as a group, I’ll ask, what was your overall impression of the third season in particular?

DEDUE: Honestly, it felt like a lie. The world had changed around our characters, but the characters had not noticed. I think we were able to poke holes in the fantasy. But if you’re still dressed in a lie, then poking holes— I don’t know where this metaphor is going.

ASHE: You’re right though, it was peculiar. There was no attempt to acknowledge that there had been a war. History was frozen in 1180. It was by some miracle that no one in the main cast was killed. That would have been really weird.

BYLETH: Even if it was leaning into, shall we say, historical revisionism for the purposes of maintaining an idyllic façade—

ASHE: Well, wow, that’s exactly it, isn’t it?

BYLETH: How was it received?

ASHE: Well. It wasn’t bad, but in the context of post-war Faerghus, there was an explosion of media. On top of that. several hundred thousand people had died—

DEDUE: That’s a lot of hedging to say that the TS seasons did well, but never achieved as much popularity as the first two. The psyche of the Kingdom was changing. It was drifting, ever so slowly away from what Life of Lions represented.

BYLETH: How was the wedding episode received then? Wouldn’t it have been unthinkable to air just a handful of years prior?

DEDUE: We knew it would be different. We hoped for nothing like the Founding Day Special. The world had in fact changed around us, but we made a plan anyway. We didn’t know whether it would be a difference in kind or only in degree. All of the Duscur associations made plans, and the embassy beefed up security. It was still a lot for a TV show. We were actually in Albinea when it aired. 

BYLETH: And what happened?

DEDUE: What is it called, a nothing hamburger? Next to nothing. There are machines that can pick up energy we can’t see from plants, that can measure the crawl at which they grow. That was the scale of the reaction. It was like a blip on an EKG.

ASHE: Remember how it was shorter than a typical episode by so much that they could put in an extra commercial?

DEDUE: It was, wasn’t it. 

ASHE: We came back the next day because the primary reaction really was nothing. Almost silence! 

DEDUE: In the end, it was just special for us. Some of the tabloids covered it because two actors were getting married, but on the whole, no one cared. And that’s how it should have been all along. Ubert-Gaspard-Molinaro wedding, and that’s it. 

ASHE: I did get some suggestions about what order to put the names in from people who thought I was going to hyphenate. 

DEDUE: Ubert-Gaspard-Molinaro is the obvious choice. Chronological order, like the first two.

ASHE: Right? Then someone told me that the numerology was better with Molinaro-Ubert-Gaspard, and then someone just wanted my initials to spell “gum.” People have many opinions about things they can’t control.

DEDUE: I missed that. Even though the wedding was a much bigger deal in Duscur, it was all “Dedue’s getting married!” I have only one name here, so.

ASHE: The Dedue.

DEDUE: They interviewed me a couple times. They said the earring looked good on you.

ASHE: Aw, thank you, interviewers from years ago.

DEDUE: Honestly it was embarrassing!

BYLETH: It’s rolling.

The language is sprinkled with popping sounds, the stubborn determination of a brook over stones. The new broadcast language of Duscur media was haphazardly cobbled together based on chance and survivorship. Ashe knows enough to place this as a southern accent, to Dedue’s northern. Dedue’s own Duscur had smoothed from years of mostly living and thinking in Fódlan, but he sounds at home.

The host’s hair is shorter than Dedue’s and just as naturally silver. Her lips are glossed the steely blue of a shallow ocean on a cloudy day. She has a long neck suitable for her high-collared formalwear. [ So, tell us about her. Just pretend all of our viewers are your aunties who want to know! ]

Dedue is a foot taller than everyone, the cohosts whose lips glint with matching shades of orange, pink, and purple pizzazz, but he looks meek and small. Everyone cowers before the might of lakhs of aunties. [ Are you asking about— oh my gosh, this is a lot of pressure. ]

The cohost with orange lipstick hums, [ What is the song she makes your heart sing? ]

Purple lipstick cohost whispers, [ What does she like? ]

[ You understand, ] Dedue stammers, [ She will watch this, and Faerghus is a less open place about these matters. ]

Blue co-host swats it away with a dismissive hand. [ You say that, but there was basically sex in that clip— that was shown on evening TV! Clearly they’re not that prudish. ]

[ And is she going to watch this? ] The main host tilts her head.

[ For all I know, she could be watching right now. ]

All of the hosts aww in unison.

[ Wait, would she understand? Does she speak Duscur? ] asks the pink-lipped host. She plays with part of her long dress.

Dedue responds more confidently, [ I’m teaching her. ]

Everyone is intrigued by this revelation. The purple-lipped host clacks her heels against the floor. [ Ooooh? Are you teaching her dirty talk or useless stuff like “this is a pen. That is a pencil” ]

Dedue blushes. [ Demonstratives are very important words. ]

[ Well, let’s teach her some verbs. Ashe, sweetheart, are you watching? Insert it. Thrust it. Push it. Pull it. ] The cohosts not too scandalized to gesture provide movements to illustrate the meetings.

Dedue covers his face and tries to drag his brow down over his eyes. [ Oh, gods watch over me .]

[ Ahahaha. How about an easier question— how was filming that sex scene? ] Pink-lipped cohost swivels her torso to accentuate every curve.

[ Okay, okay ] the blue-lipped host calls for quiet with her hands, [ let’s not torment him so much he doesn’t speak to us ever again.]

DEDUE: I guess it would be my turn to tell you not to listen.

ASHE: My Duscur is much better now. I know all of those words.

DEDUE: I know.

ASHE: Don’t sulk, I really can use all of those words now, in sentences with a second-person singular imperative.

DEDUE: Honey, please.

ASHE: Are we sure it’s Faerghus that’s the prudish one?

BYLETH: So, that show clearly enjoyed talking about your life together. While there weren’t riots, did anyone not like your, shall we say, escalating relationship on TV?

ASHE: Nothing new for me. The same people who made a show of not buying Gaspard goods continued to not buy them.

BYLETH: And you, Dedue?

DEDUE: Sure. I also wasn’t surprised. The way I see it, if I have enough energy after all I've been through to not like Caledonian crayfish, then I can see how people have enough energy after a devastating war to not like me.

ASHE: But no one likes Caledonian crayfish.

DEDUE: People don’t send hate mail to Caledonian crayfish, but Caledonian crayfish doesn't have a publicity department that dutifully shields it from public ire.

BYLETH: Then, considering the whole trajectory, from your casting to the kiss, through the war, through, I guess, your historic televised wedding— how do you look back on your career and your life?

DEDUE: I’m still stuck on historic — oh. Right, I guess we were the first Duscur-Faerghus wedding on Fódlan TV, both fictional and actual. Mind you, that’s not the case in Duscur— there was a show about a tourist from Adrestia who swaps bodies with a Duscur couple about to be married that beat us by a year. My Bride is from Boramas . We watched it.

ASHE: It was, um, B-list.

DEDUE: Oh it was C-list at best.

BYLETH: Whatever the list, this is an important perspective you’re providing. We, and by we I mean people from Fódlan, get stuck thinking that we are the world. Anyway, back to the question—

DEDUE: Right, well. I am amazed and humbled to have witnessed, partaken in, incited— all of these verbs of experience— these changes on and off screen. When I first started, to be realistic, they were in progressive territory by just showing me on screen. Then, not ten years later, in TS season 3, they introduced a transfer student whose parents were from Duscur and the former Leicester Alliance. She was class president. That was unthinkable

BYLETH: Yes, I remember her! And that casting started a career for her that’s still going strong.

DEDUE: Life of Lions launched several careers. Like, Annette is a viral singer-slash-jingle writer now, and that started with the show. As for my life, I have some suspicions that Ashe and I— well, I’ll speak for myself— even if I hadn’t gotten the part, my life would have revolved around trying to do the best for my people. I would have inclined that way regardless of the venue.

BYLETH: And you,  Ashe?

ASHE: I mean as far as the history-making goes, I always felt like I just kissed him. Everything else followed from there. He made it easy.

DEDUE: Now, now. You loved me when it would have been easier to not.

ASHE: It has always been easier to love you. Don’t believe otherwise for a moment.

Dedue blinks as his lip squiggles, holding back emotion. Ashe rubs his hand.

ASHE: There are some other ways to answer the question, if we want them. Having Lonato’s fortune kind of fall into my lap— our laps— during the war, we were in a unique position to finance all sorts of aid programs.

DEDUE: We did agree not to relitigate the war.

ASHE: Mh, we did. One last way that Lions gave us a platform was— we don’t talk about this much, but we would sometimes get mail from trans kids, or the parents of trans kids, telling us we showed them that life or love or, you know, was possible. It, um, wow, now I’m crying.

DEDUE: We had kids telling us they were adopting us as their mom or dad, or both. We’ve done our best to keep in touch with everyone, but we lost track of many people during the upheaval of the war. So, if that was you and you’re watching, please reach out. We remember you.

ASHE: Thanks. I think that’s a good place to stop.

BYLETH: Okay, now I have a more sensitive question. What would your life be like if these episodes had never happened?

DEDUE: Excuse me?

ASHE: I don’t follow. Then it wouldn't have happened. What do you get otherwise?

BYLETH: Okay, let me show you first. It will be confusing, but I will explain. This is footage from the Studio of Seiros archive.

Opening music from the first Founding Day Special jingles in the background. ASHE UBERT-GASPARD and INGRID BRANDL GALATEA. Ashe and Ingrid each dribble a blue and white ball around neon yellow cones. “Congrats on making the team!” Ingrid says, patting Ashe on the back. “There’s something else I wanted to ask about—”

DEDUE MOLINARO. Dedue bakes something in the home ec classroom. Flour comically powders his eyebrows, cheeks, and hair. The bell rings. “Aw, shoot.” He wraps his dough and puts it in the fridge to chill, then pats the flour from his face.

Cut.

At the lunch tables, everyone rests their forearms uncomfortably on the lattices coated with thermoplastic, always ever slightly sticky to the touch. On every tray is a variant on a theme: a carton of milk, styrofoam cups of fruit, a cookie in wax paper. Dimitri’s cookie is undercooked to the point of still being wobbly. Dedue’s cookie is brittle. No one’s cookie is just right. This is the duality of man.

The focal point of each lunch is a bowl of sweet and salty whitefish sauté that would be an embarrassment splattered on any white clothing. Dimitri picks at it with a metal spoon, its handle cloudy with hard water.

“You can save the tomatoes for me.” Dedue smiles. Dimitri lifts the sun-dried chunks to the side of his plate. The wrinkly red-orange slivers are semi-reconstituted after sitting for a long time. 

“Dedue, has anyone asked you to prom yet?”

“No. I’ve never been to a prom before. I think it could be interesting.”

“Let’s go together then. How about it?”

“Okay.”

They shake on it.

Cut.

In the bathroom, Annette asks, “Ooh, who are you going with?”

“Um—” Ashe smiles shyly and glances at Ingrid, who leans against the wall. “Can they know?”

“If it was a secret, you just spilled it.” Ingrid chuckles. “And I mean, they’ll see us eventually, won’t they?”

“Aw,” Mercedes cups her hands at her chest. “You two will look so cute together.”

Ashe blushes. “Oh, you think so.”

“Whoa there.” Ingrid holds her hands up. “I make it a rule to not rule anything out, but we’re solidly in the friends stage.”

“Gals being pals, hm?” Mercedes smiles but her eyes gleam with flame and vigor. “I accept your challenge.”

“What can I say,” Annette daubs cherry lip gloss around her mouth. “Mercie’s excited about even the idea of not being the only lesbians in our class.”

Cut.

Dimitri’s hands are folded in his lap. “If you think you know that I helped Sylvain cheat, then that’s fine. But I think I’m a good enough friend to know that sometimes, we do what’s right over what’s allowed.”

Byleth takes a long sip of coffee/tea. “I applaud your desire to stick to your moral code, but I will have to write you up for cheating.”

Dimitri swallows. “I understand. I accept my punishment.”

“In addition to receiving a zero on this assignment, you aren’t allowed to attend the dance tonight. I’ll let the chaperones know.” Pause. “That’s a joke. I’m a chaperone.”

Dimitri gasps a silenced no.

“That’s all, Dimitri. I hope you remember: the choices we make define us.”

Cut.

“Dedue, hi.” Dimitri’s hand sweats against the receiver.

“What is it?” Dedue holds his phone to his ear and tightens his bowtie. 

“Well, um, I know I asked you to the dance, but it turns out I can’t go after all.” Dimitri wipes one eye with a knuckle. “I know that sucks, a lot, but you can still go and have a good time without me.”

Dedue stands in silence for a long time, looking at his reflection in the mirror. The receipt for his tuxedo rental crinkles between his fingers.

“Um, are you still there?”

Dedue takes a chest-swelling breath. “I think I’ll go anyway. I’ve still never been to prom.”

Cut.

Dedue goes and sits alone in a chair against the wall, sipping a second cup of punch down to the last drop. The lights cast pink, purple, and blue shadows on the planes of his face. “Screw this.”

Knocking follows a doorbell ring. The back of Dimitri’s head is on screen as he answers. Dedue is there, lit by the porchlight, still in his tuxedo.

 “I’ve been to prom. Whatever. Let’s play video games.”

“You’re supposed to call ahead of time! You’re lucky my aunt and uncle are out of town.”

“Right. So, video games?”

“Sure! Have you heard of Fire Emblem?” 

The sound of bare footsteps down the hall trails off with their voices.

BYLETH: Your eyes are wide. It was weird, right? Putting that aside, what are your impressions about the content of these cuts?

DEDUE: What does it mean that Ingrid’s credited with her middle name? The same is the name of her family’s firm.

ASHE: I think it still would have been important if this aired. The main character having positive interactions with a Duscur character could have been enough to stir things up back then.

DEDUE: Maybe, but it’s pretty clear that they have Dimitri pitying me more than anything. That’s pretty different from having him stick his tongue in my mouth.

ASHE: We didn’t do that until the wedding episode, but I see your point. And even with you two spending time together in the last couple seconds—

DEDUE: And the line about his aunt and uncle not being home? That encapsulates the attitudes of the time.

ASHE: This feels like one of those— oh, what are they called, false fakes? That’s not what it is. Um.

DEDUE: Deepfake.

ASHE: Yes, that’s the word.

DEDUE: It’s eerie. Us, but not us.

ASHE: Uncanny.

DEDUE: I don’t like it at all.

BYLETH: Okay, allow me to explain what you just saw. We have to start with some technical stuff. There are several copies made of the tape for each episode. There are digital versions and there are film versions. Sometimes there are different cuts because different time slots have different lengths or content restrictions.

—We viewed all of the copies of this episode and noticed the film had been double-exposed. Using methods that didn’t exist in the 1190s, we can separate the contents of both exposures. One exposure was the episode that was aired. The other was what you just watched.

ASHE: Double exposed, you said?

DEDUE: That still means that we had to have acted what we just saw. Were we hypnotized or something? Does the rest of the cast remember this?

BYLETH: That’s the thing. No one remembers. I sure don’t recall that kind of storyline ever coming up.

ASHE: Then how can that footage exist?

BYLETH: Looking at the exposure patterns, we think this new version was filmed first, and then the version with the kiss was filmed over it.

ASHE: Wouldn’t they catch the fact that they had recorded over something? You wouldn’t be able to watch the playback and not see two things going on at once.

BYLETH: The best explanation we’ve been able to come up with is still outlandish. We think there is a kind of time reversal at play.

DEDUE: What?

ASHE: That’s miraculous. No, wrong connotation. Preternatural. Yes.

BYLETH: Whatever mechanism is afoot would have to have a fairly limited scope. Importantly, film that had already traveled forward through time once would not be erased, simply rewound.

DEDUE: If that’s true, you could go through the archive and look for other double-exposures.

BYLETH: Yes, that could happen. Unfortunately, Studio of Seiros went wholly digital after the war, so it would be a pretty limited range that could be affected. However, we have looked at footage from the KFHR archive, that’s the Fhirdiad broadcast station, and we see similar double exposures. So.

ASHE: I’m having a hard time taking this all in right now. That’s incredible.

DEDUE: I— yeah.

BYLETH: The big questions are, how and why could someone have turned back the hands of time?

DEDUE: The first version censored the kiss.

ASHE: Are you thinking that—

DEDUE: Someone wanted it to happen, so they went back and made sure it did.

ASHE: That could make us sound self-centered, but I really can’t think of anything else in the episode or in the world at that time that someone would bother meddling with.

BYLETH: What would you think if it was all an accident?

ASHE: I wonder about the ripples. The coffee brand that outed Sylvain— I looked it up later. It went under during the war. Factory was bombed, all that stuff.

DEDUE: Even if it was an accident, I’m glad it turned out the way it did. I’d like to think, even if the hands of time were turned back a dozen times, even a baker’s dozen times, I would choose this. For my people, for myself, and for my marriage.

ASHE: What more can I add after that? I endorse his words, for what little that means. I’m okay with this. I— it’s creepy to think about, but so many things are accidents of history. Someone wanted it to end this way, and it ended with us together. I can only hope that I would choose you again and again.

BYLETH: And that’s where we’ll stop. Thank you again for allowing me into your home today and for sharing your lives with our viewers across the continent and beyond. How would you like to close us out?

DEDUE: I think we know.

ASHE: Yes, we know.

Dedue and Ashe look directly into the camera with defiant smirks on their faces. They kiss. The frame freezes. DEDUE MOLINARO and ASHE UBERT-GASPARD.

BYLETH EISNER. Byleth winks into the camera.

Fade to black.

Closing Music plays, “Aeroplanes Brought the Wyvern Lord Down” by The Bulganones, 1179.

The footage rewinds. Flames retreat from piled-up televisions into thrown bottles, which return to hands. Angry mobs roll up a long banner. Snow falls upward. The smell of leather drains from the air.

The gif runs in slow motion. Ashe and Dedue kiss and separate. For the last half second, time resumes a forward march. They kiss again.