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Enbarr, capital city of the Adrestian Empire and of the unified Fódlan, was a city blessed by its coastal geography with a pleasant and temperate climate all year round, caressed all through the winter especially by the gentle hand of the southern wind blowing from the sea. Frost, let alone snow, was a rare sight even in the middle of the Pegasus Moon, the winter month whose bitter winds (to Enbarr natives) were often scoffed at by residents of Fódlan’s colder extremes as ‘practically balmy.’ Indeed, some visitors from northern Faerghus would make a show of walking around in the middle of winter as scantily clad as was permitted by the law and common dignity so that they could mock bundled-up Enbarrites for their relative softness and intolerance of the cold. Put simply, it did not snow in Enbarr.
But on the twenty-seventh of the Ethereal Moon—the feast day of Saint Cichol—in the year 1189 of the Imperial Era, it did.
It came down overnight, sweeping in on heavy gray clouds and quietly depositing its soft and mountainous blankets upon the city, turning every cobblestone street and every copper-green rooftop white and glazing the skeletal trees like vanilla icing on a pastry. The city’s grand canal had frozen over, and some adventurous young souls had already begun to skate on it, sliding and gliding swiftly in loops and arcs across its breadth as swiftly as arrows loosed from a bow or birds lighting from their perch. To the north, the gulf of Fódlan’s Mouth had turned a hazy slate-gray, and the distant shore of Hevring opposite this side of the bay had completely vanished from sight. The sea and shore, shrouded in gray, blended in nearly seamlessly with the vast and flat gray expanse of the cloudy sky, making it seem as though the sky were encroaching somehow upon Enbarr’s harbor.
Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg observed the landscape of the snow-draped city through windows framed with a patina of frost. She did so from the comfort of her study that morning, protected from the wind that bit and snow that burned by the walls of the Imperial Palace and warmed by the heavy cloak draped over her shoulders and the steaming pot of bergamot tea on her desk as she busied herself with this morning’s reports, pausing every so often to yawn and rub the sleep out of her eyes. The sun was invisible outside, blocked by the barrier of the unbroken sea of clouds, so it was impossible to gauge the progression of the day except by the hourly chimes of the city’s bell tower, but it must have still been morning. Edelgard knew this because she felt awful. She hated mornings and was, as she had always been, an early riser purely by necessity and not by choice. However, she had forced herself to wake up early in the morning for so many years now that now it was impossible for her to sleep past nine o’clock, even on Saint Cichol Day.
So instead of sleeping, she studied the scenery outside, cup of tea in hand, bracing herself against the cold aura that seeped through the window and tried to penetrate the wall. It was an alien and beautiful sight of the city she knew so well that greeted her, a sparkling silvery-white snow that nearly perfectly matched the color—or lack thereof—of her far-prematurely whitened hair. Enbarr had not received snow like this since Edelgard had been a child, during the Great Snow of 1170. She’d played in it with some of her siblings that day, she vaguely recalled, though with her childhood still wreathed in a thick haze her mind’s eye could not put any details to their faces. It might have been her little siblings, then-four Pascal and then-two Hedwig, because she remembered them being smaller than her. All she really remembered was that it had been fun.
Snow had taken on a very different meaning to her when she had been taken as a child from Enbarr to Fhirdiad, where it snowed heavily and constantly from the first of the Red Wolf Moon to the first of the Great Tree Moon, where the warm wind of the south seas never reached. It had ceased to be a novelty or anything more than a nuisance. It had started to mean loneliness, and melancholy, and pain that wormed its way into her tiny body. Fhirdiad’s squat, thick buildings and narrow roads, as if the whole city were huddling to preserve its warmth, had only added to the cold and claustrophobic feeling of winter. But Fhirdiad was gone now, unfortunately, and while the rebuilding had progressed slowly but steadily since its destruction at the end of the war, still the snow covered little more than a charred and skeletal corpse, as black and spindly as Enbarr’s trees.
Snow in Enbarr, though, draping the city’s sprawling expanse, still struck Edelgard as a novelty, in a way. While she was glad she wasn’t out there in it, the tone and timbre the snow lent to the familiar and airy atmosphere of the city was delicately beautiful, not so lonely or stifling. And even from the tallest tower of the Imperial Palace she could feel the excitement of the youths out there in the streets who were gawping and boggling at this phenomenon, many of whom had been far too young to remember when it had last occurred nineteen years ago.
The excited youths were outnumbered, though, by the less-than-excited adults and elders who found themselves buried under a good three inches of snow, at least. From her vantage point, Edelgard could also sense the frustration of the people out on the streets who found their paths impeded by snowdrifts too high for their horses to walk over and the people who were currently shoveling themselves out of their own doorsteps with whatever they had available. Some streets in the city were choking on waylaid denizens like angered anthills.
It occurred to her that as Adrestia developed, with Fódlan’s growth and progress no longer tied to Seiros’ yoke, twenty-year snowstorms like this could become an even more severe problem if the city remained unprepared for it.
But that was a problem, perhaps, for another day. The first snow in Enbarr in nineteen years would all probably melt soon; perhaps it would all be gone in a week. The city’s ephemeral snow-draped beauty demanded to be at least respected if nothing else, until then; as she studied it, Edelgard grew more and more certain that she had to paint it.
She was distracted from her reverie by the creak of an opening door—a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye—and the startled throb of her own pulse in her ears. Her hand flew to the dagger resting on the back of her desk, cold fingers wrapping themselves tightly around the ornamental hilt. She rose from the chair and whirled around—
A pair of hands clamped down upon her forearm, twisted it behind her back, and eased the dagger out of her grip. Before she knew it, she found herself wrapped in a tight, if cold, embrace—cold enough that it nearly burned. As she let out a surprised yelp, she felt a hot breath upon her ear, and a familiar voice whispering—
“Happy Saint Cichol Day, El.”
Edelgard squirmed as her wife Byleth Hresvelg-Eisner softly nuzzled her cheek from behind. The feathery locks of her ocean-blue hair felt like soft pine needles against her skin. “By, my love—one of these days, if you keep doing that, I fear I might hurt you!” she protested.
“Got to keep you on your toes,” Byleth disagreed, tightening her grip and gently squeezing out Edelgard’s next breath before releasing her.
Edelgard caught her breath. “You know Hubert doesn’t like when you do that,” she said. “He thinks if you keep surprising me like this, I’ll end up with an assassin’s blade in my back because I thought it was you the whole time.”
Byleth shrugged. “You just need to be vigilant, then.”
“And if I should drive a dagger into your heart?” Edelgard asked, bending down to pick up the dagger she’d dropped and setting it back safely upon her desktop.
“You couldn’t.”
“By, darling, I love you, but—”
A subtle smirk pricked up the corners of Byleth’s lips. “No. You couldn’t.”
Edelgard let out a disarmed laugh and rolled her eyes. “Well, I’d hate to prove you wrong. I suppose I’d better stop training altogether, though, just to be safe.”
Byleth shook her head. “I won’t let you.”
“You aren’t my teacher anymore,” Edelgard reminded her.
“I don’t care,” Byleth said.
Edelgard sighed. “I love you,” she admitted.
“I know.”
She couldn’t help but drink in the sight of Byleth with her eyes. There was an almost mischievous brightness in her deep azure eyes. It was a look she had worn with increasing regularity since the war’s end and the power of the Fell Star had taken its leave of her. She never smiled quite so widely as other people did, but her characteristic enigmatic half-smiles never seemed any less full of warmth than anybody else’s.
And speaking of warmth, Byleth’s hair was lightly tinged with a rime of frost, highlighting its deep teal with feathers of silver, and her nose and cheeks were cherry-red compared to the deathly pale of the rest of her flesh. Her bare hands had been icy to the touch, and the silvery wedding band that rested upon her left hand’s ring finger gleamed with a burning cold. She wore shorts that barely went down to her thighs, sheer tights sewn with floral patterns all the way down her legs, boots that came up to her ankles, and a top that bared her midriff and exposed her collar underneath her father’s old jacket, which she wore like a cape and let the sleeves dangle emptily behind her bare arms.
It was little things like this that reminded Edelgard that her wife had grown up in Faerghus.
“My love, have you really been out in that?” she gasped.
Byleth nodded. “It’s no big deal.”
“‘No big deal?’ Darling, when you hugged me, for a split second I thought Constance had cast Fimbulvetr on me. You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine.”
“Say it all you like; you are most certainly not fine from where I’m standing.” Edelgard drank the rest of the cooling tea from her cup and poured a fresh cup, still quite steaming, from the pot. “Here,” she said, thrusting the teacup into Byleth’s cold hands. “I insist you drink this.”
Byleth clasped the teacup in her hands and deeply sniffed the steam rising from it, closing her eyes to better take in the scent. “Honey and vanilla?” she inquired, sighing.
“Constance and Hapi use it for one of those spirit-laden beverages they’ve invented. They say it’s the best cup of bergamot tea they’ve ever drunk, but I honestly think the recipe is fine without the gin.”
Byleth nodded and drank the tea down to its dregs in a single swig. “Thank you,” she said, handing the cup back to Edelgard.
Edelgard set it down. “You don’t look any less pale, my love,” she said, pouring another cup. “You need more. And should this not work, I think you should retreat to bed with me this instant.”
“Not unless you go outside with me,” Byleth said, sipping the cup down to the last drops.
Edelgard stared at her. “You’ve just been outside,” she pointed out as the frost on Byleth’s hair and shoulders steadily melted.
“But not with you.”
“By…”
“It’s snow. Ferdinand says it’s Enbarr’s first snow in nineteen years.”
“Yes, and it’s certainly a momentous occasion; I’ve half a mind to memorialize it in a lovely landscape painting.”
Byleth gave Edelgard one of her enigmatic little half-smiles, one that only intensified the mischievous look in her eyes. “You need to see it up close. It’s beautiful.”
“And then,” Edelgard said, “we go to our bedroom, have a fire in the hearth, and rest cozily under the blanket together to our heart’s content for the rest of the day.”
Byleth nodded. “That’s the deal.”
“I suppose,” Edelgard said, “that I can brave the cold for a little bit. But I’m not going out so underdressed.” She wrapped her hand around Byleth’s, feeling the cold flesh steal the warmth from her own body. For Byleth, she would endure anything, even the cold.
The two of them left Edelgard’s study and while Byleth did not change her clothes, Edelgard, who was still in her nightclothes, saw fit to bundle herself up as securely as possible. It was customary for her to cover herself from the neck down regardless of climate out of a self-conscious desire to hide her scars; and though she’d become more comfortable showing her skin as of late (now that she could explain the scarring as mementos from the war and not just leave their true causes unsaid), now was hardly the time to flaunt it. She dressed in layers, in thick and heavy winter boots, in a coat upon a jacket and a cloak upon that, all in glorious red. She did her hair up in her usual buns, which had the advantage of naturally protecting her ears from the cold, and wrapped a scarf around her neck and chin. She put cotton gloves on her hands and wool mittens over her gloves. All the while, Byleth steadily dripped on the floor beside her as the vast gulf of color in between her nose and the rest of her gradually evened out.
Finally, sufficiently bundled up to the extent that she could hardly let her arms rest flat at her sides, Edelgard ventured with Byleth out into the wintry wonderland that Enbarr had become. Stepping outside was like being struck by a hammer; Edelgard could instantly feel her breath stinging her lungs like a hail of icy needles. It came out as a puff of white steam, like dragonsbreath, curling in the air just past her lips. The cold even stung her eyes.
“It’s so brisk out,” Byleth said, expelling a stream of steam from between her lips.
Edelgard nodded and drew up her scarf over her nose and mouth. “Yes,” she said, her voice muffled. “Very brisk indeed.”
A part of her was regretting this already; snow was much prettier when observed from somewhere warm and cozy. Another part, though, could see the wonder in Byleth’s eyes as she took in the sight of the palace’s grounds and courtyard glazed and wreathed with snow. She hadn’t realized how much this weather might have reminded her of a childhood spent traipsing through the remoter parts of Faerghus with her father and the Blade Breakers. She hadn’t thought that to Byleth, weather like this might have been nostalgic for her in a far different way.
She and Byleth went for a walk all along the palace grounds, marveling at the familiar sights reshaped by the silver snow—the outer walls, the statuary gardens, the crenelations of the palace and the bits of aged green copper roofing that peeked out from under the snow and gleamed dully under the unbroken sea of clouds. The palace’s statue of Emperor Wilhelm I now wore a heavy white cloak, and snow coated the tinted walls and roof of the greenhouse. With three inches of virgin snow covering it, the path was more of a hike than usual, and by the time Edelgard and Byleth had completed the circuit and returned to the front courtyard, Edelgard had started to work up a sweat underneath all her layers. Byleth, of course, looked perfectly fine to be bearing her bare skin to the elements.
With the palace sightseeing done—and what sights they had been!—Edelgard’s gaze drifted beyond the palatial estate’s wrought-iron gate to the streets beyond. From here, it was harder to see the full breadth of the disruption these few inches of snow had caused than it was to see from higher up, but easier to hear it. “All this snow has been so disruptive,” she found herself musing. “I wonder how many Saint Cichol Day celebrations have been spoiled by this sudden snowfall.”
She found herself worrying, too, about those who still lived on Enbarr’s streets at a time like this. While there were far fewer children confined to the streets than there once had been, Edelgard’s campaign to help those who dwelt in poverty while the lords above them gorged themselves made frustratingly slow, if hearteningly steady, progress.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Byleth told her.
“I know; I’ll try to stop,” Edelgard sighed. Byleth wanted to have fun and enjoy the snow; it would behoove her to simply push aside the part of her brain that was constantly musing on the myriad problems she had taken it upon herself to fix.
“You probably want to go out there right now and start helping people.”
“You know me so well.” Surely, though, she assured herself, Ferdinand and (reluctantly) Hubert probably had that well under control. Surely Ferdinand was already thinking of ways to plan Enbarr’s future development to alleviate these problems for next time.
“Maybe we should. Maybe we’ll start a new Cichol Day tradition,” Byleth suggested.
Edelgard looked herself up and down. She was so bundled up that she more closely resembled a very large cranberry than a person. “If we went out like this, I daresay nobody would recognize me. We’d kick off some ‘new tradition’ about some rotund, red-suited anonymous do-gooder who goes from house to house brightening people’s spirits and, what’s next—delivering gifts to good little girls and boys?”
Byleth smiled. “You already delivered this year’s palatial feast to the orphanage. That’s a good start.”
“I hope you’re not bitter about that,” Edelgard said, knowing how much Byleth loved food. For someone who’d spent so much of her life so food-insecure and living on the bland diet of a cash-strapped band of mercenaries, she treasured varied and interesting meals the way some people treasured fine art or precious jewels. “I only pledged the excess; there’ll be plenty for us and our friends,” she assured Byleth.
“I’m not,” Byleth assured her back. “I told you I was fine with it.”
“Well, I just want to make sure. I just couldn’t say no to Dorothea,” Edelgard admitted.
“Neither could I,” Byleth said. “And it spares those children the pain of having Dorothea cook for them.”
Edelgard laughed. On the one hand, it was a bit cruel to laugh at one of her best friends behind her back, but on the other hand, even after all these years, Dorothea still managed to be so comically inept that she could literally burn a salad. Every orphanage in Hresvelg operated under the rule that she was to be kept as far away from its kitchen as humanly possible while still allowing her to enter the building.
“So,” she asked Byleth, changing the subject. “What do we, er, do once we’ve finished admiring the scenery?”
Byleth shook her head. “We’re not finished,” she said.
“But when we are done… I’d supposed that perhaps you’d wanted to do something else? I did see people from up above skating across the canal,” Edelgard blurted out before she could stop herself.
Byleth cocked her head and stroked her chin thoughtfully.
“I know that as a child, you likely weren’t the type to, er, romp and frolic through the snow, but…” Edelgard found herself floundering. “I know it sounds silly of me, but a part of me thought that perhaps that was what you wanted.”
“Is that what you want?” Byleth asked her.
“No,” she reflexively answered. “Um…”
“Maybe you did that when you were little?” Byleth suggested.
“Well, I suppose it’s possible,” Edelgard said. “The last snowfall was nearly twenty years ago; I was a child then, believe it or not…”
“Okay, you lead the way, then,” Byleth said, gesturing toward the untouched snowy field of the courtyard.
Edelgard found herself dumbstruck. “M-Me?” she sputtered, pointing a mitten-covered finger to her chest. “Me? You want me to… You think I can…”
“Yes,” Byleth said.
Edelgard shook her head. “By, dear, I don’t know how to…”
“I believe in you,” Byleth said with an encouraging nod.
“Well,” Edelgard sighed, relenting, “I… I mean, we’ve both seen children play in the snow before; we can just follow their example. Er… Perhaps we could build a snowman. My love, would you like to build a snowman?”
Byleth seemed unmoved.
“It doesn’t have to be a snowman,” Edelgard clarified.
“Let’s try it,” Byleth said.
“A snowman? Or not a snowman?” Edelgard asked.
“A snow-woman,” Byleth suggested.
“Okay,” Edelgard said, stepping off the path. “We can try that. First, we start by rolling together a large ball of snow, like a bale of hay… By, are you certain you don’t want to go inside and put on some gloves?”
Byleth had already begun packing two handfuls of snow into a fluffy white orb. “No,” she said quite casually.
“If your fingers should become gangrenous…”
“They won’t.”
Edelgard stripped off her mittens, leaving her hands protected by the elements by only one layer of gloves. “No, I insist. Put these on. If your fingers get frostbite, how will you ever touch me?”
“With my nose,” Byleth said, though she took the gloves.
“With your n—” Edelgard felt the blood rush to her cheeks. “I, er, um—Y-You’re—You’re incorrigible in your own special way, my love,” she said, struggling to keep her composure.
The two of them set to work rolling out the large snowball for the base of the snow-woman, and then the smaller middle snowball for its torso, and then a smaller ball for its head. When the balls had been assembled, Edelgard used her finger to draw a smile on the head and poke three dimples into it for its eyes and nose.
“There,” she said to Byleth, stepping back to admire their handiwork. “That’s a snow-woman.”
Byleth cocked her head and frowned.
“My love, what’s the matter?” Edelgard asked.
Byleth crouched down, made two handfuls of packed snow, and pressed it onto the snow-woman’s torso. She stood up, clapped the frost off of her hands, then stepped back with Edelgard to better assess her additions. “Now,” she said, a tinge of pride seeping into her voice as she placed her hands on her hips, “it’s a snow-Byleth.”
“So it is,” Edelgard said, laughing. “Shall we make a snow-Edelgard as well?”
“Of course. Otherwise, she’d be lonely.”
“Yes, and we cannot have a lonely snow-Byleth.”
The two of them set to work rolling out another snow-woman next to the first one. The three snowballs came together well, and when it was done, Edelgard made two more snowballs and pressed them onto the sides of the snow-woman’s head.
Edelgard stepped back and crossed her arms. “That,” she said proudly, “is a snow-Edelg—”
The snow-Edelgard’s snow-buns promptly slid right off its head and onto the ground.
Edelgard sighed and made the buns again, then pressed them more securely to the snow-Edelgard. She finished her work and stepped back, crossing her arms. “That,” she said, satisfied, “is a snow-Edel—”
Once more, the snow-Edelgard’s snow-buns slid right off its head.
Once more, Edelgard sighed, crouched down, made a new pair of hair-buns, and adhered them to the snow-Edelgard’s head. She stepped back, stood up, and observed the snow-Edelgard for a few moments to make sure it was still sturdy.
“That,” she concluded, confident that she had done it this time, “is a snow-E—”
The snow-Edelgard’s hair buns promptly fell off again, followed shortly by its snow-head rolling down its snow-shoulder onto the ground, leaving a decapitated snow-Edelgard standing beside the snow-Byleth.
Edelgard turned to Byleth, who had her mittens pressed over her mouth and was trying not to crack up. “I think,” she said, holding back a fit of giggles herself, “we should try something else.”
Byleth looked over the two snow-women, then looked down at the snowy blanket resting at her feet. “Snowball fight?” she inquired.
“Snowball fight?” Edelgard repeated, taken aback.
Byleth dropped to a low crouch and started scooping up snow in her mittens. “Snowball fight!”
“By, n—”
Edelgard was so bundled up that she barely felt Byleth’s snowball hit her point-blank in the shoulder.
“Byleth, wait—”
Byleth had already started scurrying away from her, hastily scooping up another handful of snow and fashioning it into a projectile. Once more, her aim was true, and it hit Edelgard in the chest.
“Snowball fight!” Byleth called out to her. “You’ve got to be prepared for an attack at any time!”
Edelgard sighed and picked up her own handful of snow. “Don’t make me throw this, my love!” she called out.
Another snowball collided with her knee with just enough force to make it buckle.
“Okay, dear, you’ve made me throw this!” Edelgard shouted out to her wife as she scurried and scampered across the wide white field. She lobbed the snowball at her and missed—curses! Why had she always turned up her nose at archery lessons? She had always been better at close-range combat and had never sought to bring her long-range skills up to match…
The two of them traded shots, snowballs sailing to and fro as they darted around each other. Edelgard’s layers of coats and jackets weighed her down and constricted her movements like heavy armor; Byleth, though, was as limber and unencumbered as ever, of course, due to her tolerance of the cold. Edelgard found herself fondly thinking of sparring matches and mock battles at Garreg Mach. She’d always worn heavy armor well, and it had always let her shrug off blows that would fell ordinary fighters, and Byleth had always relied on her natural agility and jack-of-all-trades weapon proficiency. At such a disadvantage, if Edelgard was to win, she would have to win with her wits, not her strength.
Edelgard’s eyes traced the arc Byleth’s movements made as she lined up her next shot. “Must we do battle, Professor? Have we not had enough fighting for one lifetime between us? Facing you, I grow weak…”
The next snowball hit her right in the face and knocked her flat on her rear onto the snowy ground. She felt the snow crunch all around her as she wiped the snowball’s fluffy remnants from her face. The sound of crunching footfalls came nearer as Byleth walked over to her, snowball in hand, ready to deliver the killing blow.
Byleth looked down at her.
Edelgard looked up at Byleth.
The two of them stared into each other’s eyes. The snowy world around them was perfectly silent.
Edelgard took a deep, pained breath and spoke. “It looks as though… my path will end here,” she gasped. “My love… claim your victory. Strike me down. You must! Your path… lies across my—”
Byleth dropped her last snowball directly onto Edelgard’s face.
Edelgard sputtered and spat the snow from her mouth, her chest heaving as she barked out peals of laughter. Byleth was laughing, too, and the ringing of her laughter in the quiet air was like the chimes of tiny silver bells.
Now, while she was distracted, Edelgard sprang up and threw herself at Byleth, tackling her to the ground.
“You grew overconfident, my teacher,” she chastised her, still giggling as she stood up before her and brushed the snow from her cloak. “You should have known that I would never give up. Even if my arms and legs failed me, I would still find a way to move forward.”
Byleth laughed again. “Good work, El,” she said, beaming in her own subtle way. Just that little smile made Edelgard feel as though the sky were clear and the sun were shining as brightly as it did on a midsummer afternoon.
Edelgard offered her hand to her. “Take my hand, my love,” she said. “I think it’s high time we go inside where it’s warm… and actually have some breakfast before noon comes.”
Instead of taking her hand, though, Byleth spread out her arms and legs and started sweeping them to and fro across the snow.
“By? What are you doing? Any more time in the snow and your arms and legs will surely get frostbite!” Edelgard said. “Just because I said I’d keep moving if I lost my arms and legs doesn’t mean—”
Byleth reached up and finally took her hand, hauling herself back up to her feet. She stepped away from the impression she’d left on the snow; The sweeping of her arms and legs had given it the silhouette of a robed figure with unfurled wings.
“It’s a snow angel,” Byleth said matter-of-factly, brushing the snow off her jacket and hooking one arm around Edelgard’s.
Edelgard smiled. “You’re my snow angel, my love,” she said, and she leaned in and planted a kiss on Byleth’s cold lips. Byleth pressed herself against her, as though now she finally needed some respite from the bitter cold, and took her up in her arms, their lips locked all the while. Byleth’s breath tickled Edelgard’s cheek with twin plumes of steam as they held fast to each other.
And then, satisfied and exhausted, the two of them returned to the palace, where for the rest of the day they could weather the cold together and bask in each other’s warmth. Neither of them would forget Enbarr’s Great Snow of 1189.