Chapter Text
My memory carried me to the past where I lived with my adoptive mom in the remote village in the mountains. I had no memory of my birth parents, and my mom did say that she is not my biological mother. She only said that my birth parents are 'not here', and I didn't understand it at that time, but slowly I came to guess that maybe they died long ago.
The village where I lived and grew up in was located in the lands of Ordelia, as I occasionally saw a noble carriage move by and the noble riding in the carriage was often called as 'Count Ordelia'. Our village was relatively simple and silent, with people going out for hunting and several farmers tilling the land and growing crops suited for mountainous regions. It was one simple village with several houses and fields.
And that was all I knew about my village; only limited to a world visible outside my window and the voices I heard through the opening of the frames. For some strange reason, my mom did not allow me to go out and meet other people. She always said that the village is not safe because there are poachers everywhere in the woods, and that at night, there was always a liability of me stepping into an abandoned trap. She was right in a way. As our village had to hunt for a living, poachers were always an issue. I even heard a rumor of some kids around my age abducted by those poachers and taken away, never to be seen again, and with no demands for ransom. That fact alone was enough to confine me to my home.
I wasn't so sad about it, though. Occasionally, some of the kids in the village came to see me while at home, and they spent time with me for some time. Mom did let me go out and get some air with the other kids several times, even though it was limited to the surrounding park and paths. Although it stung that I couldn't go running around the village like the other kids, I was still happy with what I had. Mom even found ways to entertain me by providing stories of the outside world; she was surprisingly intelligent and resourceful about the world beyond the borders of my village. Whenever I heard of her stories, I felt like I was riding on the back of a wyvern, soaring through the air and looking down the entirety of Fodlan from above.
That, however, changed when I grew up and I was about 10 or 12 years old. Around that time, a mercenary band came to my village, hired by the village chief to protect us from the recently increasing amount of poachers and bandits around the woods. I don't remember that mercenary band name right now, but all I could remember was that there were two particular people that caught my eye among them. One was the leader of the mercenary band, who looked pretty old but also built properly. It seemed like he had spent a long time leading the mercenary band. What was surprising was that he spoke of events that happened 200 years ago as if he experienced it, but I decided that maybe it's because he had a lot of experience of battles.
The other was a boy that seemed to be around my age. The boy wore in black and grey, with his hair and eyes navy like the deep waters. He also held a sword made of iron at his side along with a spare dagger at his waist. It seemed like he learned how to wield a sword and the trades of the mercenary even as a young child. What made him unique was that he rarely spoke. When the chief asked if he was the band leader's child, he did not speak; he merely nodded. He seemed aloof and cold, but I noticed his eyes carefully looking over the entire village, as if he was examining the village's appearance. His eyes then seemed to linger on me for some time, but then he frowned a bit and turned away, continuing to examine the village once more.
Naturally, I was curious about them, so I wished that I would like to meet them in person. After all, they were hired to protect our town, so it would be natural to run into them so often. But mom did not allow it. It might not have been a surprising thing considering her attitude, but she seemed to act more paranoid recently upon hearing the tale of increased amount of bandits. And to be honest, it was around that time where mom forbade any of my friends to come see me either. I was confused at this change and I confronted her about it.
"Mom, why? Why are you not letting me go out?" I protested.
"Shez, why do you think these mercenaries arrived here? They were here to protect the increased amount of bandits, meaning the outside is not safe anymore," she replied.
"Yeah, I know, but do you think they will raid the inside of the village even with these mercenaries out there? I don't think there will be any madmen who will go out and do it."
"You never know. Some people do hide their own agenda, after all."
I groaned at her response.
"Seriously, mom, don't you think this is too paranoid? I can understand you restricting me going out at night because of these increased bandits and poachers, but now that we have these mercenaries, we will have a reduced chance of getting caught. And you are now preventing any of my old friends to come see me as well. Why can't you trust them? Do you have something against outsiders? Do you think they will leak about me to them?"
Mom grimaced at my words, and she spoke out firm.
"Shez, no. I am not letting you go out, and this is final. End of discussion."
She then stood up and walked away, not giving me a chance to retort.
I flopped down at my bed, moaning. I was so curious about this boy, and the entire mercenaries. It felt like they were somehow drawing me in, as if something was calling me to this group. But mom was prohibiting me from leaving the house now, and was preventing any of my friends when I was younger come visit me as well.
This is absurd, I thought. Even when safety is assured in the village, she is still prohibiting me? That doesn't make any sense.
I finally determined that I would make a bold but stupid move. I would leave secretly at night, and see these mercenaries in person.
For the next few weeks, I looked out the window several times and checked where this young boy was going around. Every time he moved past the street where I the window to my room was facing, and he walked away to the right. It seemed like this boy was assigned by his father who was a mercenary leader to patrol the village streets at night. This was a good sign for me since I would have gotten caught by mom when it was broad daylight; my violet hair made me very striking in the day. At night, however, my hair was not really visible in the shadows, so it was possible to hide if I wore black and grey. And surprisingly, one of my cloaks I had were dark and grey, so if I wore this over my clothes, then it would work.
Around two weeks passed since the arrival of the mercenaries, and from what I heard, they will be staying here for three months. Around that time, I finally decided that maybe now is the good time to sneak out and meet him. As my usual day, I lived my life normally that day, until nightfall came. As soon as mom went to her own bed, I pretended to go to sleep, but in reality, I had my eyes open the entire time. I waited for the perfect chance to get up and leave, and soon I finally determined my time to get out.
I got up from my cot and pulled over the black cloak over me, and slowly opened the window. The window creaked as it opened, and I was on edge as I continued to open it, fearing if my mom will hear the window opening. But there was no response, and I continued to open the window until it had an opening that I could fit in. I carefully slid out the window and landed on the ground outside, and continued on to carefully closing the window.
As soon as I was outside, I took a deep breath and let out another exhale to prevent waking up anyone in the village. I stepped out and headed to the direction where this young mercenary walked over. I only guessed on where he would go, so I constantly walked and walked and walked. However, I never found him, or any person, to that extension. I sighed. Of course it was a stupid idea. How am I supposed to even know the patrolling paths of this boy by merely seeing him move outside my window? It didn't even help that the path was totally desolate and silent. It made the place even more terrifying. The more I thought, the more stupid I felt about myself; I only planned on leaving the house without getting detected, not after then.
Oh my..., thought I. I never thought that the night of the village was scary like this...
The path of the village was too dark and dead silent in the night. I did hear of silence, but this was the silence. And in this silence, every noise mattered. The whispering of the leaves felt like the bandits conspiring to capture me. The scrapes of the ground felt like someone walking to grab me. And even its darkness seemed to suffocate me. After standing there frozen for some time, I decided that mom was right and it was not worth to find him, and I decided to just go back home. I started to retrace the path back home, chastising myself for being naive.
But when I turned the last corner, I couldn't find the window that was supposed to lead me to my room. All that had was an empty wooden wall. I was confused. Maybe I turned a corner too early? I crept back to the path I took and headed down to turn a second corner. But this time, the little street didn't have a wall at all; it led to a empty lot. Fear started to creep into my heart. I walked back to find the real path that led me to my home, but the path was literally a maze at night. I could not find a single thing that hinted that this building was my home.
At the fourth attempt, I was about to just give up and wait out until the sun rose. I sat at the wall, attempting to hide as much as possible into the shadows just in case a bandit might notice me. That, however, was a trouble in itself. Every sound felt so threatening and scary. They do not scare me now, of course, but as I was a kid at the time, I have imagined these sounds as some bigger threat. Soon I gave in to fear and started to cry. My sobbing voice echoed across the empty path. I didn't care about bandits now; I just wanted to go home. But I couldn't find my way home and that was a huge problem. My sobs started to increase in intensity as I slowly fell into panic.
"Hey, are you alright?"
Someone asked me. At that voice, I looked up. To my surprise, it was the boy I was looking for. He was holding a sword at his right hand and on his left hand was a lantern held on a stick. He wore the same clothing as I seen him several weeks ago; grey and black with some armor on his elbows and arms. He was wearing his jacket in an odd way as his arms were not going through the sleeves, but was rather going above it.
"What are you doing here?"
"I...I wanted to see the mercenaries...and one person...but mom stopped me...so I got out at night...unprepared...I was so scared...," I said, sniffling.
The boy nodded with a still expression before putting the sword into the scabbard and resuming speaking.
"The path here is dark at night. You should have brought a light to light your way. Also, if you ran into a mercenary, you might have died because you don't have a light and they might have saw you as a threat," he said in a monotone voice.
His voice was somewhat unnerving. It was as if he had never learned how to add intonations or emotions into the words. It was as if he was reading literally out from a script that was pre-written. It was a bit jarring, I admit, but his voice was the one that calmed me down. Also, he was speaking the fact, and the more I thought, I really felt that I had planned this terribly wrong. I haven't gave a deeper thought regarding the matter, and I had done this all by my pure impulse.
"Okay. I'll remember that."
"Do you know your way back home?"
I hesitated and slowly shook my head. In response, he said one thing that surprised me.
"Considering it is dark and you don't know your path back home, it might be a better option to head to the inn and stay with our band for the night," he said.
"Really? But..."
"It's fine. My patrol is done."
"I...I see..."
"And you're too young and cowardly to be a bandit."
I let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank you..."
I started to walk by his side before I decided to take the leap.
"Can I ask for your name?"
The boy looked at me confused. Maybe he was suspicious of me asking of his name, thought I. I decided to introduce myself first to have him lower his guard a bit.
"I guess I should introduce myself first. I'm Shez. Shez Alaine."
The boy nodded and replied.
"Nice to meet you, Shez. My name is Byleth Eisner."