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Caring for the boss’ baby was the best job in the company.
At least, that was Terry’s opinion — maybe some of them preferred to be out on the battlefield, but he valued his life, thank you very much. And hey, you couldn't die on the battlefield when you had a baby in your arms because the boss wouldn’t let Byleth get close to the action.
It was weird, sometimes; the boss was terrifying. Head of Jeralt’s mercenaries, an undoubted up-and-coming company in Enbarr. And that was only their reputation — actually seeing Jeralt on the field? Well, Terry might have pissed himself just a little the first time, and he was on the right side. The man was a tempest, unbelievably hardy, and his accuracy? It could make a man take the Goddess’ name in vain.
So the fact that he had a baby was just… it didn’t fit, but it was oddly charming at the same time. He must have had someone he loved, once, long enough that he’d stayed with them the full length of the pregnancy. At some point, all that had ended, though, and Terry knew that old story well enough; the baby was the most precious thing. The only part of that old life left, the only remnant of that beauty that once captivated Jeralt’s heart. Not that the boss had ever said any of that, but he could tell.
Also, it made for a really good way to still get paid when there was none of the danger involved. When Terry was on baby duty, he just had to sit back at the camp and make sure the kid wasn’t starving to death. Which, incidentally, was real simple when Byleth was probably the easiest baby to take care of that Terry had ever encountered; and he was the oldest of six.
Byleth was silent when they were asleep and silent when awake. They never fussed and never demanded attention, but they paid attention when someone was trying to entertain them. They didn’t play, which was a bit weird and could get a bit boring, but if he did get bored he could just… stop. Keep holding the baby. Nothing else would change.
Feeding and changing them was a little bit more of a problem, obviously, as they weren’t at all fussy; they didn’t complain when they were hungry and they didn’t so much as cry when they needed to be changed. The former relied on time and the latter on smell, because Byleth had no emotional tells Terry had been able to pick up on just yet.
All that said, fucking the job up was monumentally difficult, which made it absolutely the best role. Terry had seen it happen only once, traipsing back from the battlefield with his bow strapped across his back to hear an absolute storm coming from the camp ahead.
It was a stupid thing for the guy to do. He’d left Byleth in their cot when he went to take a nap of his own, and then slept through the vanguard’s return. That vanguard happened to have Jeralt in it, and he’d walked in to find Byleth in their cot, stinking to high heaven and sitting up, staring resolutely at the empty bottles on the table.
That guy didn’t have a job after that particular incident. If it hadn’t been lightly terrifying to watch the boss absolutely go off on him, the reverse would have been cute; he was such a sap for little Byleth, fussing over them, trying to feed them slowly so they didn’t choke in their hunger, repeatedly testing the warmth of the water in their overdue bath. It wasn’t what you expected from someone so grizzled, but everyone had a soft spot, clearly.
Byleth in his arms, Terry smiled down at them. Byleth didn’t smile back at him, simply staring up at them with wide, blue eyes. Slightly freaky kid, but babies came in all kinds — Byleth was healthy enough, and Terry would make sure it stayed that way.
Wallace was starting to think there might be something weird about the boss’ kid.
He hadn’t been in the company for all that long — just a couple of months — but he’d spent plenty of time around Byleth. Three years old and approaching the height of their father’s knee, they were… well, they just weren’t like any baby he’d ever seen before.
Wallace was a healer by trade, and that came with a lot of babies; a lot of babies, actually. Kids got sick like there was no tomorrow, and parents took their kids to healers specifically because there might not be.
Byleth was healthy though. Robust, alert, and not at all lethargic. There was no rash to their skin, no fever that disrupted their nights. They didn’t cry for things no one could fathom, and Wallace had never once seen them get an injury they couldn’t just stand up from (keeping a toddler out of harm’s way entirely in a merc camp? Impossible, and he’d be the first to admit it — the sheer rarity of their injuries was even more unusual).
Still, they were strange.
Quiet, for one. Generally, babies started to speak properly when they were a little older than a year (and yes, Wallace had assured plenty of worried parents regarding the same thing). If they didn’t, they made noises, half-intelligible and half nonsense. Even children who would never speak, something in their brains wired differently that meant it just didn’t click, tended to make noises that, with practice, could be interpreted by parents into something that could be understood.
Byleth, three years old, didn’t speak a single word. At an age where a toddler would constantly ask after the state of the world, they just didn’t.
They made up for it in their own way, of course — Wallace could see they were plenty alert. They watched everyone as they went about their lives, wide gaze following each mercenary about the camp from their chosen vantage point. They sat on a stool in the kitchen, clambered onto an unused dummy in the training area, or sat atop the boss’ shoulders or in front of him on horseback, eyes scanning the world.
As far as Wallace could tell, they were bright enough, and the boss’ current semi-predicament spoke to that in buckets. Because quiet as they were, Byleth was still a toddler, and their personality was making itself known.
“Yes, kid, I know you were trying to do it on your own.” Jeralt squatted, still more than twice the kid’s height, in front of a flour-coated toddler. “But flour isn’t food, By, and the counter was too high. You get that, right?”
Byleth nodded, attempting to brush some dust off their arms. They were completely coated; it wasn’t going to do anything. It was pretty funny, given that Wallace wasn’t on Byleth bathing duty today.
“You wanted some food, right?” Byleth nodded again. “What did you want?”
Normally, Byleth would point in the direction of whatever they wanted. Today, they made a gesture with their hands, something that one of the mercs who’d left a couple weeks ago taught them when it became clear they weren’t going to be speaking any time soon. Wallace didn’t fully understand it — Jeralt seemed to, because he laughed.
“You’re not going to get that from raw flour, kid. And don’t think I’d let you cook, you can’t even reach the counter top.”
It wouldn’t be the first thing they’d tried to do themselves — for three years old, they were almost fiercely independent. As much as they were fierce about anything, anyway. They often made honest attempts at washing themself, putting themself to bed, and now this.
“Aw, don’t look at me like that.” Byleth’s expression, to Wallace’s eyes, hadn’t changed an inch, but clearly Jeralt saw something else. He reached down to ruffle their flour-coated hair, sending a small cloud into the air. “We can make it together. How does that sound?”
Byleth nodded, and Wallace watched them set to work. Jeralt did most of the baking — portioning out the ingredients (and huh, he knew how to bake. Who would have thought?), tending to the fire, and most of the mixing. He let Byleth crack an egg with surprising precision; only half of it went on the floor.
It was strange, watching Byleth do something. Watching was more their thing. It was… cute, actually. As cute as the mercenary with one of the highest kill counts Wallace had ever seen could be with a kid who just felt off, no matter how explainable so many of their acts seemed to be.
When the cookies were done, Jeralt handed Byleth one. They didn’t smile, didn’t get at all excited. They just blew on it studiously and put it in their mouth when it had to be just cool enough to eat.
A toddler couldn’t do something like that. Wallace would never say it to the boss, but he was starting to think Byleth might not be a regular, understandable kid at all.
Ashlyn was on Byleth duty this week, and if she was being honest? She’d rather take her chances with whatever the tempestuous Empire nobles threw at her instead.
It wasn’t that Byleth was a bad kid. Far from it, in fact. But what had once been a coveted job, a chance to stay off the front lines and babysit a well-behaved, easily entertained, and generally unobtrusive kid had become…
Well. Some fucking lunatic named Jeralt Eisner handed a kid a training sword for their fifth birthday and they’d barely put the damn thing down since.
As a general rule, Ashlyn wasn’t a judgemental woman. She’d seen and been all sorts in her life, and a kid who liked swords wasn’t anything new. Lots of kids liked swords, actually — her wife said that theirs had been begging for one for months now.
Byleth, though? Byleth was creepy.
They were nine years old, or thereabouts — Jeralt claimed not to know when their birthday was, and also that he hadn’t been keeping track of the years. If it were about anyone else, Ashlyn would believe him, but not when it came to Byleth. Jeralt always gave a damn about Byleth.
The problem was, that meant Ashlyn couldn’t exactly raise her concerns about the kid, which could be pretty effectively summed up in a single problem: she couldn’t trust them.
Byleth didn’t play like a child. They didn’t smile, and they didn’t talk very often. They were determined, committed. Sometimes, when they trained like they did, Ashlyn worried that they’d just turn round and stab a real person. If they felt like it, they probably could.
At this point, Ashlyn was pretty sure that the only reason there were any mercs left in the company was that Jeralt had really made a name for himself here. The Blade Breaker, the leader of the most lauded mercenary company in Fódlan. If you managed to get hired here, you didn’t have to work in the stupid cold weather in Faerghus— but you weren’t even going to spend time without work, because his reputation could carry them to enough jobs only in the other two countries.
There was money to be had, and stable money at that. Unless you were babysitting Byleth.
Nominally, protecting and minding Byleth was a fully-paid role. Practically…
Byleth had taken to swordplay like a duck to water. They trained every day, from the moment they finished their breakfast until the moment their frankly alarming stamina ran out and they had to stop for the day. And Byleth, who despite their general creepiness Ashlyn could admit was a very bright young individual, quickly got bored of fighting training dummies.
The trade-off was this: Byleth got to fight their minders. But if you lost, Byleth would tell their father; Jeralt would laugh, clap them on the back, and give them the pay instead of the babysitter. After all, Byleth was better at the merc’s job than they were.
Initially, this wasn’t a problem — Byleth was a kid! They couldn’t beat anyone. They were too small and too inexperienced. Their reach wasn’t long enough, and there wasn’t enough muscle behind their frame to really unbalance people. They were fast, but their legs weren’t long enough.
But then Jonath let his guard down when he was fighting them, and it was all over. Just a second’s advantage was all they needed to knock him off balance and then press the advantage, and then he was flat on his back. It was an absolute humiliation for the poor guy; he’d resigned a couple weeks later, even when Jeralt told him not to take it to heart.
Beaten by a kid — if he’d only stayed a little longer, he’d know he wasn’t going to be the only one for long.
First, it was people who let their guards down, sure they were infallible where Jonath hadn’t been. Then, it was the ones who were more useful outside of a one on one fight — those more used to being archers, healers, or simply the backup.
Now? Well, other than for the veterans, it was more like a coin toss.
Byleth could win against most of them, if the winds were right or wrong or someone had slept badly or not warmed up fully. Sometimes, Byleth was just better, even without a lot of the arm strength that would normally preclude a victory.
On occasion, Ashlyn thought it was a wonder that Byleth wasn’t out on the battlefield already. Given Jeralt’s parenting style — two parts hands off, two parts letting Byleth do whatever they voiced that they wanted, and one part ‘this man does not know how to raise a child’ — it almost should have happened the moment Byleth mentioned that they thought they were ready for the field.
Maybe Jeralt knew one thing about raising a child. The second Byleth had said even a single word about not being a man or a woman, so could the mercs who thought they knew better please just shut their mouths already, Jeralt set his warning and one-strike-you’re-out policy. Yet when it came to the battlefield…
“When you’re older, kiddo.” Ashlyn watched from a short distance as Jeralt and Byleth engaged in their usual pre-skirmish ritual.
“What if I fought from a distance?”
“Then you’d be the first target when someone gives the order to take out the archers,” Jeralt pointed out. “So: when you’re older. You’ve got plenty to amuse yourself with before then.”
Byleth frowned, but their gaze swivelled purposefully towards Ashlyn not a moment after the scouting party mounted their horses and set out. Oh, she was so screwed.
Laura was done, and she wasn’t alone.
Jeralt’s Mercenaries had a problem: Byleth Eisner.
Anyone would think it’d be a company’s dream come true — their boss had a kid, and the kid wasn’t a dead weight! When the boss backed them up on their skills, he wasn’t just bluffing, wasn’t just proud of the kid. They weren’t a liability on the field, and no one got screwed out of wages for doing something that looked stupid while protecting someone their boss would be incandescent if they lost.
Actually, incompetence was the opposite of the problem; Byleth was sixteen years old. Five years ago, the boss gave the kid a sword fit for the battlefield, they killed their first man, and they hadn’t stopped since.
It was, quite frankly, terrifying. They were unmatched within the company, at least in single combat. They could beat the most hardened veterans, and they just kept getting better. With that baby face of theirs, foes still underestimated them on the battlefield, too, which gave them a very specific kind of edge.
Alone, that would be weird, but savants existed. It was fine, theoretically, if they were good at one thing and nothing else. That way, Laura could watch them with the knowledge that Jeralt had his hands on the reins, and she trusted his judgement and good tactical sense.
But it wasn’t just that. Byleth was good at everything a merc could be. They knew how the company ran from the inside out; they’d lived it from practically the moment they were born. If you asked them — though people rarely did, and they didn’t tend to volunteer the information unprompted — they could provide insight into every member of the company and their opponents, the group’s finances, the morale.
And Goddess above, their tactical brain. Rumour had it (the veterans, talking over the fire and three pints of ale at the end of a battle) that they learned to read sitting on Jeralt’s lap as a toddler, then next to him as he poured over maps, and then… then they just started doing it themselves. They outstripped the kind of lessons a lot of mercs could give them. None of them were as well-educated as Jeralt, and even Byleth was better with the written word than he was.
For a couple of years now, Byleth had been devouring tactics manuals. Anything they could get their hands on was read once, twice, and then sold on at the next opportunity to buy more. It was frightening.
Even worse than that was the bare truth of it all: Byleth was by far the most valuable member of the company other than Jeralt. They were, Laura, would emphasise, sixteen years old. It wasn’t right.
Laura was done with being scared— she’d been one of the company’s most valuable mages for over a year now, and she knew when someone else in the company was bad for morale. She’d seen companies eat themselves inside out over it, and Jeralt’s Mercenaries were far too good for something like that. It would be a damn shame, and if she and some like-minded folks could put a stop to it, she would.
Still, she was glad she wasn’t alone as she marched across the camp, three others at her back as they moved to make their grievances known. And who better to take it to than the offender themself?
“Byleth, we want a word with you,” she announced — Byleth looked up, just as impassive as always. They didn’t know what was coming, clearly.
Or maybe they did. That would be worse.
Byleth sheathed their sword. Good. “Go on.”
Laura inhaled. She glanced at her fellows, who all nodded. They’d all been here longer than her — they were just cowards. “You’re not better than us, you know.”
Byleth blinked. “Is that a challenge?”
What? “No, it’s a statement. You’re some— thing that’s crawled out of Ailell to strike fear into the hearts of men, and it’s not working.”
“That’s very creative.” Byleth barely moved. Why weren’t they reacting? “Do you think that? Are you going to do anything about it?”
“Of course I think that!” Why would she say it if she didn’t? “We’re here to act before it gets way out of hand.”
Byleth tilted their head to one side. “How would it get out of hand?”
If Laura didn’t know better, she’d think they were totally clueless. What was this? “You’re bad for morale.” The other problem might be seen as an outright threat on their life if she voiced it.
“Winning battles is good for morale,” Byleth said, a certain note of correction to their tone. Like they knew exactly what Laura meant, and knew better than her. Pompous little thing. “My personality is not particularly encouraging. I’m aware I’m not as personable as most. But my competence makes up for it.”
“Your competence makes it worse.” That, for the first time, made Byleth’s composure stutter — but only a little. “You’re distant with everyone else and you could kill them all. What’s stopping you from just turning on all of us?”
“I wouldn’t turn on you,” they said instantly. “No mercenary who kills their fellows gets hired. Jeralt invests in you, so I wouldn’t kill you.”
That couldn’t be true. No one who was like Byleth could just be telling the truth. It didn’t make sense; they had every reason to deceive them, to lull them into a false security before they struck.
Laura exhaled, trying to think of every time she’d worked with Byleth. Could they draw their sword faster than she could get a spell off? She was faster than them, but she wouldn’t win if she attacked first. If they attacked, she’d have only a moment to really defend herself. It didn’t look good, even if she had the numbers advantage. One of them would die.
For a while, they just stared at each other. Laura couldn’t tell if it was a challenge or simply waiting or something else, but she didn’t like it. Something had to give soon. Maybe if they thought one of them would attack…
An instant before she reached for her tome, Jeralt appeared from behind Byleth, clapping them on the shoulder. “They bothering you, kid?”
Byleth shook their head. “They’re insulting me, but their reasoning isn’t good, and they don’t want to fight me. It’s fine.”
Jeralt moved to fix his gaze on Laura and the others cowering behind her. “Oh, are they now? And why would that be?”
Finally, finally, one of the others found his voice — which was good timing, because while Laura had some courage in the face of a weird sixteen year old, she absolutely wasn’t going to talk back to her boss about his kid. That was practically signing an early end to her contract.
“We were saying that the kid’s bad for morale,” Simeon said, chest puffed out like he hadn’t been hiding this whole time. “They’re not right.”
“Not right?” Jeralt stepped forward; Laura stepped back. “I’d like an elaboration, or you’ll all be out of the camp by nightfall. You may well still be.”
“Your kid’s a bad omen!” one of them called. His voice was so heightened with fear that Laura actually didn’t know who it was. “Some kind of demon, draped in an ashen cloak, here to steal our souls away.”
“An ashen demon, huh?” Laura watched as Jeralt turned to Byleth again. He didn’t watch them with anywhere close to the fear they warranted. “Now there’s a name.”
Byleth nodded. “It’s snappy. Like the Blade Breaker.”
“That’s just like you.” Jeralt chuckled as he spoke. “They approach you with a threat and you take a nickname out of it. Go on, all of you. Scram, and don’t let me see something like this again.”
Laura didn’t dare hesitate — she ran right to her tent. She didn’t know what could come next after something like that, but she didn’t know if she wanted to see it anymore. Byleth would just keep growing, and some day they’d be far too big for a company like this.