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“Professor? Wh-…What are you wearing?”
The snow had barely melted a week ago, yet here Edelgard finds the professor sitting nonchalantly beneath the gazebo in the courtyard, sipping tea with a book in hand as though the cold doesn’t bother her at all.
“Hm?” Byleth looks up over the red rim of a pair of glasses sitting neatly on the bridge of her nose, and presses a thumb between the pages of her book, raising it in lieu of an answer. “I was reading.”
“I can see that, yet you read in class all the time without the need of visual aid. Has something changed?” Edelgard casts a worrying glance at Byleth’s eyes, no longer a sea of blue, but a saintly light green.
Byleth removes the spectacles with her free hand, swinging one temple shut with a small flick of her hand, the other with her thumb, and places them on the round table in front of her. “I wear them from time to time. When I’m truly interested in the subject matter.”
“I see.” Edelgard scolds herself for feeling slightly disappointed she doesn’t get to see the professor wear her glasses a little while longer. Though with her current appearance, perhaps it's a mercy that not everything about her looks new right now.
“Please,” Byleth gestures to the empty seat at the other end of the table. “Help yourself to some tea if you’d like. It still has some heat left.”
Byleth’s eyes return to the pages of her book as Edelgard accepts her invitation, wondering if the professor had prepared an extra cup simply in case a student would come by, or because she somehow expected Edelgard to find her. She decides the latter is wishful thinking.
The scent of the tea is gentle as she pours herself a cup. Floral, reminding her more of something you would drink in spring rather than winter.
“I can’t help but wonder, my teacher, why sit out here and not inside where it's warm?”
“Because no one takes their tea outside when it’s cold.”
It’s a couple of seconds, brows furrowing in question as she sips her tea, before Edelgard understands. “You mean no one’s around to gossip behind your back.”
It was impossible not to notice. Everywhere you went you would hear whispers of the professor’s appearance, and the coming revelation. From staff, students and teachers alike.
Byleth throws a quick glance and a slight smile Edelgard’s way, seeming almost amused. “They don’t. They talk about it with me too.”
And she would probably prefer it if Edelgard didn’t question her about it either, though she couldn’t deny she was curious. It wasn’t a transformation you saw everyday… At least not without losing a little of yourself in the process.
“What are you reading? If you don’t mind me asking,” she inquires instead, partly to change the subject, partly to relieve her mind of the images she sees of loved ones no longer themselves.
Byleth presses a knuckle to her bottom lip, seeming to contemplate what indeed it is she’s reading. Her fingers cover half the title, and what is visible she keeps turned away and in shadow, out of Edelgard’s sight.
It seems almost to tease her, stealing her professor's attention when she would like to think herself more interesting than whatever could be written in the pages of an old book.
Something dances in the corners of Byleth’s lips then, something mischievous Edelgard can’t help but closely follow with her eyes. “It’s a secret.”
“You realize that just makes me more curious.”
“Well, Her Highness can’t be given everything she points her finger at.”
Oh, so she was being cheeky, huh?
Byleth chuckles at the pout Edelgard, unsatisfied with the answer, presents her with. Her foot playfully bumps into Edelgard’s beneath the table, and she keeps it there, ankle touching ankle, to soothe her pretend sulk away.
Edelgard is glad some of her humor has returned to her at least. Byleth had been inconsolable after Jeralt’s death, and with everything that has happened since…
She looks to the mint-green hair framing Byleth’s face. It looks even brighter in the cold winter sun, promising something divine, like she’s been touched by the goddess.
Byleth is limp in Edelgard’s arms as she carries her to the audience chamber, the rest of the Black Eagles close in tow, worried and confused. The doors are thrust open, and inside, the Archbishop quickly turns, interrupted in her prayer.
She gasps when she sees Byleth, and calls for Edelgard to bring her closer, even as her feet already carry her halfway across the room in quick steps.
“I knew it,” she whispers to herself, “I always knew…” voice trembling as she gazes upon Byleth’s sleeping face.
With near veneration she reaches out, and gently brushes away a stray lock of hair, now painted over by the same brush used to color the various renditions of the saints and the goddess Edelgard had gazed upon so often as a child.
Rhea takes Byleth from her hands with a smile, an uncanny strength in those arms, and something twists unpleasantly in Edelgard’s gut.
“Leave us. I will take care of the professor,” Rhea says, eyes never straying from Byleth, free from worry unlike the rest of them. “She will be okay.”
Edelgard doesn’t miss how elated she sounds, the possessiveness with which she carries the professor to the throne at the end of the room.
Byleth has never felt so far away.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?”
Edelgard blinks. “Professor?”
“My hair,” Byleth says, finally closing her book and meeting Edelgard’s intense gaze. “You’ve been staring at it for a while.”
“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” Edelgard stammers, averting her eyes. “I didn’t mean anything by it, it’s just…different.”
She can’t help but pick at the ends of her own hair, remembering a time when it had looked quite different from now. “Was it painful? When it changed?”
Byleth shakes her head. “It’s…quiet.”
“Quiet?”
Silence is her answer. Byleth looks almost sad, staring into the distance, lost in a memory.
“My teacher,” Edelgard begins, somewhat carefully. “How do you feel about all this? This revelation you’re supposed to receive.”
“You’re the first to ask me that,” Byleth mentions with the hint of a laugh. “I don’t know how I feel about it, truly, but… Thank you, Edelgard. I appreciate you thinking of me.”
Edelgard’s heart skips a beat at the warm smile she’s given, filled with that special kindness that could only belong to the professor.
She knows it then. Knows it’s still Byleth beneath those borrowed eyes. Still her with everything that she is. The one who had selflessly jumped in front of an axe to save her, who had taught her so much over this past year, helped her live it to the fullest.
The one whom Edelgard fears the most when the time comes for her true intentions to be revealed.
Byleth puts her book down on the table with an audible thud, pulling Edelgard back to the present. “It’s about time I take my leave. Tomorrow’s lesson won’t prepare itself.”
The gentle pressure on Edelgard’s ankle leaves her as Byleth stands to collect the teapot and cups, porcelain clinking as she leaves Edelgard alone to the chill of the winter air.
Though she scarcely feels it, a slow heat rising to her cheeks as her eyes land on the book still situated on the table, title conspicuously facing her as if Byleth wanted her to see.
‘Words of Love. How to court and seduce.’
Where had she even found this book?