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There was no helping hand to be spared when on the last few days of the Lone Moon of 1179 the pleas of one Baron Ochs finally reach Edelgard; they are, of course, first and foremost directed at the Emperor but she and Hubert have long had a system of sorting through her father’s correspondence even if it is Regent Arundel, or more often, Marquis Vestra in a well hidden hand who do the replying.
“So they’ve taken her then,” Edelgard says, her back to Hubert as she looks down onto the courtyard where her “uncle” converses with the insipid Duke Aegir; once, Arundel catches her gaze with a sickening one of his own but Edelgard remains as impassive as the mask they fitted her with, and so will continue to, at least until Hubert can assure her of their privacy.
“Yes,” her vassal affirms, “to what end there is no telling. The Ochs territory is little compared to Gerth and we know those slithering forces are well ensconced there, but for them to be so bold as to take aim at a young scion such as Monica bodes ill.”
Edelgard merely nods at the confirmation of her own thoughts as she takes her place at her desk. She clenches and unclenches her fists from beneath the hard wood, before straightening to look at the ornate map of Fodlan hanging upon the office wall.
“It means none of the scions of Adrestrian nobility, particularly the crested ones, are safe.”
Hubert huffs a laugh, “well, regardless of what that pig Aegir thinks we knew that already. Still - they are indeed moving faster than expected, how shall we respond Lady Edelgard?”
“We continue as planned,” she says, standing, and making her way to the map on the wall. She taps the center of it: Garreg Mach monastery. As much as it chafes her to have to wait for the crown to be placed upon her head, she had to admit there was little better a place to do so than in the heart of the machine itself.
“Beginning in spring you and I take our positions as students at the Academy. While there, you gather much intel as possible and I… I play both roles given to me. If we stay on top of it all no other subject of mine will have to pay in the way of flesh Monica did.”
--
The first time Hubert comes with to her with a report that Jeritza has had his “professor” status revoked, and he is now a mere an instructor it is something of a relief really – the following complaints she receives from staff and Thales alike, not so; still, she must remind herself Emile was indispensible to her plan so long as Edelgard was kept from command of the imperial army.
And, as always, she had to remind herself of the fact that Emile von Bartels was just another victim of Fodlan’s illogical system of inheritance and violence. The Death Knight was a dark mirror to her own Flame Emperor persona – that had always been clear enough, particularly when she stood next to him in the underground chamber facing her professor and classmates.
Steel yourself, Edelgard reminds herself; for this confrontation will undoubtedly happen again – she is thankful for the vocal component of the magic in her mask when she tells the others she will reforge the world. She will, of this Edelgard von Hresvelg is determined, but seeing the bodies of Flayn and Monica at her feet brings a weariness to her bones far beyond her years.
--
She had not allowed Thales to run off with Flayn, and so he punishes her with Monica; typical she thinks, even as “Monica” winds a finger in her hair and with coquettish delight says the next time the imperial princess wants a change in style she should call upon her favored vassal.
It is exactly what she has come to expect, and it seems to bother Hubert more than she but Edelgard feels stifled enough that she need take several steadying breaths before assuring her professor that yes, everything was fine, there was merely more curriculum to catch Monica up on than she had first expected.
The night is more productive for thinking (it has not been for sleeping in some time, and Garreg Mach has not changed that), and so Edelgard has tended to stay later these last few weeks in the grand hall so as to draw up plans, update their ciphers, and for a moment just be.
She finds herself walking in the later hours when work is done, and she’s surprised by despite the sordid history here how comforting it is to traverse the well worn paths here and create a circuit all her own. She keeps her dagger on her as always, and Hubert informed of her whereabouts but on nights where she can simply breathe she finds herself grounded.
On this night passing the green house it is the scent that hits her before the singing (and later she will wonder if she had truly heard it, syllables in Flayn’s soft voice but unlike ones from any language she knew). She slowly peeks her head in to see the newest member of the Black Eagles patting the ground of a well-watered shrub as if congratulating it; before Edelgard can now announce herself the girl has turned her way with a wide smile.
“Miss Edelgard, hello there! Welcome!”
“Just Edelgard is fine,” she replies, amused, “is this one particular plant you are tending to? I swear I have seen it before, but I haven’t smelt its scent quite strongly my last few walks. It’s quite nice.”
“Isn’t it?” Flayn enthuses from her place on the ground, “the gardenia here spreads its scent at night for the moths and other bugs, or so I’ve read, but I find it quite charming myself. Ever since I came by the other night I’ve wanted to keep visiting it!”
“You get along well,” Edelgard chuckles; “and I can certainly understand why you would be attracted to the scent. Perhaps you could take a cutting into your room?”
Flayn seems to consider this before saying, “perhaps… but you know, I am thankful for this gardenia. I had not come to the green house very often before meeting it, thinking it would be too cramped and full of dirt. But now I find it a place to be cherished.”
Edelgard blinked, the conversation stuttering in understand for her; “you seem perfectly fine bending down in the dirt to me. Do you dislike it so? I can give you a hand up.”
“Oh no,” Flayn says, standing herself to brush out her skirts, “it’s not the dirt itself but the ground and the pressing of it on… well,” she says, turning to Edelgard with a starkly lonely expression, “compared to where I was before I came here the crisp, night air of Garreg Mach is a welcome experience.”
Edelgard cannot help but agree, pushing her own memories to the side as she walks Flayn back to her room that night — the other’s words and the scent of gardenia staying with her long after she’s returned to her own.
--
Despite she and Hubert’s best efforts Thales has become more and more elusive, disappearing for longer periods of time and no longer asking but taking Jeritza’s aide as he pleases. It has become something of a nightmare to navigate and Edelgard finds herself more often than not in Hubert’s room, taking from his stash of coffee beans just to stay awake and plan.
But so too does she continue her walks, for the comfort they bring and the simple fact that while Thales and Monica may be slithering about as they are want to do she has nothing to fear from them. Yet.
She spends a long time on the bridge, for she has always felt the winds feel best here; looking out over Garreg Mach castle town and its temporary peace has her thoughts turn south once more, however, and she does not stay as long as likes – headed toward the cathedral and then down the steps to circle back to the doors.
Once near the cathedral it seemed a waste not to at least once more ascertain the floor plans there; if no worshipers were there at this hour Edelgard might be able to inspect the entrance of the Holy Mausoleum once more; having decided this she moved swiftly through its entrance and into the large incense-filled space.
“We meet again!”
Even having expected some activity to the east the east near the saint statues the sudden voice had Edelgard on alert at once, but of course she recognized it —— Flayn, her intonation as distinct as ever and reminiscent of their last nightly meet.
Still… Edelgard thinks even as her feet lead her toward the alcove of the four saints and her beaming classmate, had the other’s eyes always been so bright?
“Are you restless again?” Flayn asks, and Edelgard can see the worried frown form clearly on her face even in the dim candlelight.
“Something like that,” Edelgard affirms, watching Flayn who has gone back to looking upward at the statue she had been admiring before; Edelgard, now that is closer is struck by the near fond expression on her face. She is used to people bowing or kneeling here but Flayn looks around her at the bronze faces as if they are friends.
“When I feel restless I often come here,” she tells Edelgard, voice hushed as it was not before; this time she peers up at Edelgard from beneath her bangs as she adds, “I come here to speak with Saint Ceathlean, and if there are still worries on my mind I wonder what she might do in my place.” Calm radiates from Flayn as she speaks — the kind Edelgard has not found in a holy place for some time, but looking down at her now Edelgard finds her own stance softening in answer.
“Oh my!” Flayn says suddenly, hands rushing to cover her suddenly red cheeks. “I must sound so silly talking like that.”
“Silly?” Edelgard considers. “No, I did not think so. I may not be among such faithful myself but I know of many back home who would go to different shrines of the saints when Enbarr’s cathedral was too far off.”
Before their lack of funding had led to closure each of the saints’ had even had state ordained shrines, but the ones on the side of the road to bless travelers with Cichol’s guidance or in the heart of the market for Indech’s bounty, and Macuil’s cunning those were the most popular and still continued to this day.
Truthfully, Edelgard had not thought much of them until Flayn’s comment – much more part and parcel of the folk culture than any of the remnants of the Seiros dogma in Enbarr, and she mulls over that now aloud.
“I suppose it is only natural people would seek the blessings of such remarkable beings. To beg for some of their strength in leu of one’s own, is that not so?”
She feels rather than sees Flayn’s consideration as well as the small smile upon her lips.
“I can tell you have a deep understanding of your people, Edelgard; but I must admit I come to see Ceathleann and the other saints not because of who they are but of who they might have been.”
“I… am not sure I follow. Would you explain?”
“Mm, you see. As far as I am concerned the four saints were merely people just like us. They followed the Guardian Seiros, of course, and it was said they were gifted sacred weapons but their choices, their decisions, those were made based on who they had been as people before then. Or at least that is what makes the most sense to me.”
Edelgard had thought she had heard enough talk of saints and elites for a lifetime, but the way Flayn spoke of them as real people - players in a game Edelgard could well understand, made her reassess said previous thoughts.
“I think about Ceathleann in wartime. What it would take to be someone worthy of the mantle the tender and it inspires me.”
Tender, benevolent Ceathleann – Edelgard had heard those same words in prayers many times, but never considered them in context of a continental war; one that unlike the saints, Edelgard knew for a fact existed.
“Carry us away from this time of trial,” Edelgard said, shocked herself at remembering the words to a less notable prayer but then again it had been her sister, Augusta’s, favorite.
“I do so hope I will not need Ceathleann’s strength, but then again there are always trials are there not?”
All Edelgard feels she can do is nod.
--
Hubert may be useful for keeping away perspective suitors but it is Monica and her ways Edelgard must use her energy to dodge the eve of the ball; what the Agarthan gains from keeping Edelgard separated from her classmates she cannot fathom but it has long become obvious that she finds all this far more of a game than a job when Solon or Thales are not around.
Caspar unwittingly comes to her rescue when she shows up next on his list of “dance challengers” and not wanting to give either one those two a chance to see here after their challenge, results withstanding, Edelgard manages to catch Hubert’s eye and slip out into the night for a welcome reprieve.
She takes a side path through one of the gardens, coming to stop when soft footfalls that mimic her own come to her ears; turning, she finds Flayn, hands clasped together with a troubled expression on her face.
(At this point, Edelgard is more shocked Flayn herself has been able to escape from her brother’s watchful eye than at meeting her again).
“Flayn? Is there something I can help you with?”
“I that is - ah, I suppose there is no use hiding it. I have worried for you tonight, Edelgard, and so when I saw you slip away I thought to follow you and ascertain you were alright.”
“Have I really seemed so off?”
Flayn studies her with that clear, focused gaze of hers that Edelgard has come to appreciate precisely because of how unexpected it was, at first (and despite how oddly searching it felt in this instance).
“Consider it a healer’s intuition,” Flayn says with a wink that could be Manuela’s if it were not so decidedly playful rather than flirtatious; still, the resemblance indeed wins Flayn a small smile
“We have all been off since Remire. And you as our house leader you shoulder that burden most of all.”
She had not expected to be checked upon like this; the professor, certainly, but Edelgard? She was the untouchable princess of the Black Eagles and though she had shown disgust at the village during their mission she had thought it no more than what her position required.
…How much she wondered, after their nightly visits, did Flayn see in her? No, more than that, what was the world like through her eyes?
“I had hoped tonight of all nights you would not have sad thoughts.”
“I… no, not sad. Nostalgic maybe. I was thinking of my parents.”
They sit down upon a bench, their quiet exchange a strange calm in the charged atmosphere of the courtyard as both faculty and classmate sneak away for sudden rendezvous and planned meetings alike.
“Your parents?”
“Yes, my father as the Emperor had already taken consorts by the time he met her, of course, but it was here at the Goddess Tower that he first met my mother. He only mentioned it once but he said it was love at first sight.”
“How lovely… for him to share that with you, as well. Tell me, Edelgard, when you father spoke of your mother like that did his face light up?”
“It did… yes.”
She looks away to peer at Flayn, surprised at the insight; for it was that expression of his, one she had never before nor since, that had convinced her of the truth of her father’s words.
“I thought so. Did you know, yours is just the same way right now?”
Edelgard has no idea what to say to that, or to Flayn suddenly standing above her; even harder to parse are her movements as she side steps away from the bench, then prances forward in practiced motions that Edelgard realizes she does recognize even if seeing Flayn use them is as baffling as it is delightful.
“Is that the pas de minuet?” Edelgard asks, her voice coming out strangely young; as if by taking those steps Flayn truly has transported them to another time and place.
“Indeed, but it would be ever so much more enjoyable if I had a partner!”
Shaking her head but smiling still, Edelgard rises and joins Flayn’s side once her feet have returned to the first position; and despite it all, she finds herself taking each step in a practiced routine she’d thought long lost.
“I was taught this as a child for when I would have my debut ball at the palace in Enbarr,” Edelgard recalls, finding both her body and mind relaxing into the steps; back when there were still balls at the palace — “where on earth did you learn it?”
Still, humming a simple tune to the ¾ beat Flayn takes a moment to answer and when she does they have circled around to face one another. “Why, I taught myself, of course,” she declares, “I may be an official student now but when we first arrived here Seteth simply sat me in the library and told me not to go out into town!”
There is as much anger in Flayn’s voice as there is love when she speaks of Seteth, and Edelgard thinks back to the question of her own father’s expression, and to what the world might look like through Flayn’s eyes as she looks into them. The set has stopped for a moment as Flayn looks back into Edelgard’s and extends a hand; this time they take the first steps together.
“If we were to do this in Enbarr’s palace together I would be considered a suitor of some status,” Flayn tells Edelgard and the princess merely blinks for she is correct. What books had she been reading to know all this?
“Yes, heir apparent or not we would be the talk of the entire venue,” she says, playing along, this time when their hands separate it is Edelgard’s who catches Flayn’s and the shorter girl surprises her with an impromptu twirl.
“And all eyes would be on us,” Flayn grins, closer than Edelgard had first thought, “but now we need worry only of the stars!” Next, she breaks all decorum entirely by taking both of Edelgard’s hands and pulling her into a twirl; soon they are dancing a set entirely unorthodox, one entirely their own.
Edelgard finds herself laughing at it all – the ridiculousness, the chiding of her long gone dance tutor in her head, but most of all the joy of simply spinning in place on a night as lovely as this
“You have a most enchanting laugh, Edelgard,” Flayn tells after a moment of catching their breaths, “and I would have been delighted to be one of your suitors in truth.”
Edelgard is so taken aback she has little time to reply before Flayn slips away again, and she hears Hubert calling for her but in the hidden corners of heart Edelgard feels it. Her answer. She would have wanted that too.
--
When Edelgard finally accepts the mantle of Emperor on the Pegasus Moon of her eighteenth year she no longer has any room for her own wants. She is Hresvelg and Emperor first and foremost, and by her own doing she will be student no longer.
None of them would, for it was time for Fodlan to grow.
Though she had told no one but the professor of her coronation Flayn had found her a week or so prior and placed something into her hand. “A charm,” she’d said, “for luck.”
It was a pure white flower of the night gardenia, pressed so that Edelgard might keep it on her. Though it no longer possessed its alluring scent she felt as if she could smell it still, just as strongly as on that first night.
She should have rid herself of it when she put on her armor but the Flame Emperor does not.
--
“I command you to collect the Crest Stones! If anyone attempts to stop us… kill them.”
Edelgard memorizes each of her classmates’ faces as her orders are met with stunned silence and then the sound of steel upon steel. The professor has already started to give orders to chase and surround Metodey’s men, and any feeling behind their eyes is unknown to her. Good, better that way.
Flayn, however, goes to Rhea’s side as the archbishop screams for her guards and though expected again something hidden, long thought buried hurts anew in Edelgard.
Though she has no need for it any longer she slips the mask on once more and takes her place.
As her classmates come closer she sees some of them hesitate. Petra and Bernadetta though in positions to knotch their arrows waver, and Ferdinand calls up to her pleading for an explanation.
“Do not bother,” Hubert says from her side, ready to warp away at any moment; and Edelgard does not, she does very little until it is just her professor before her with Rhea at her back. Byleth’s stare continues to be unreadable and Edelgard braces for the worst, axe in hand.
But as Byleth steps away from Rhea to shield Edelgard so too do her classmates one by one. Only Flayn remains standing by Rhea.
“So this is the choice you have made,” the archbishop mutters in a low voice that turns to an actual growl as her entire body starts to glow and grow; at the same time, however, Flayn too steps forward – arms wide.
“Rhea! No!”
As the Immaculate One’s transformation completes itself several of the Black Eagles’ are knocked back including Hubert but the professor and herself with their Crests stand strong, as does Flayn.
The Major Crest of Ceathleann flares bright as Flayn holds up both hands and creates a shield of pure light. The Immaculate One’s eyes turn to slits, stalking around the perimeter and slowly it opens its maw.
“You need to leave,” Flayn yells, “now!”
“Hubert. Can you warp us all?”
“Your Majesty?”
Edelgard had wondered once if she should take the risk of extending her hand but now as Flayn raises both of her own to protect her the answer seems simple.
“Everyone, link up,” the professor tells them, and Edelgard steps forward. She can trust very little, not the church, and never their goddess.
But a child of the goddess?
“Edelgard, hurry!”
Ferdinand says from behind her and Edelgard thinks of fathers, thinks of Flayn telling her that the four saints had just been people.
“Take my hand,” she tells Flayn, and without hesitation the other does. The roar of the Immaculate One resounds, turning the world to white, but Hubert has already started to cast, aided by Dorothea and Linhardt, and when they can all see again they are on the outskirts of the castle town.
Edelgard holds Flayn still, and for a long moment does not let it go.
“It seems like the charm worked.”