Chapter Text
"So, teach- how's Garreg Mach treating you so far?" Claude laughed, walking idly backwards, "I mean, I doubt you really got to see the sights, given the mini coma and all, but still..."
Claude was very insistent on trying to make small talk. It was almost enough to make Rhea regret her choice.
...and then she remembered Edelgard's eyes and Blaidydd's might, and...
"It has rather aesthetic architecture." Rhea shrugged, glancing at the arches above her. It was true- she was actually rather taken with the clean marble and grand halls. Especially the way she could likely fit through even in her other form... "How do you find it?"
"Eh. Bit of this, bit of that." Claude shrugged, chuckling, "It really is Fodlan in a nutshell- the good and the bad."
And what a perfectly Claude answer that was. Telling and inscrutable in equal measure...
It was an easy enough mask to teach, she supposed. Personable, clever, mischievous but never to the extremes of harm...
"It truly warms the heart to see the Lady Serios so... spirited... despite all that's happened to her..."
"That's a strange way to say 'a calamity on two legs'... Although, I can't say I disagree with the sentiment..."
Before she knew it, Rhea was stood before a classroom, tapestries depicting proud Deers framed in gold surrounding the open door.
"Well- here it is Teach!" Claude winked, bowing dramatically, his cloak flowing in the wind, "The Golden Deer! Too late to turn tail and run now, you're stuck with us."
Rhea snorted, looking past him to the student's she'd agreed to teach. A colourful bunch, just at a glance, only one properly worn uniform between the eight of them and a whole rainbow of hai-
A blur of orange bolting towards her.
"Lily!"
...only one person this age called her that.
"Leonie?"
"The one and only!" Leonie laughed, hopping back and cheekily saluting, "I should've guessed it was you, when Claude said he'd been saved by a weird woman in the forest..."
"...I don't know if I should take offense to that." Rhea admitted, smiling softly at her greatest- and only- apprentice.
Sauin had been one of many temporary homes, so grateful to her for sending away some poachers, they'd given her free room in an inn for so long as she wanted it. Technically that still stood- but...
She didn't stay in one place for too long.
"...I'm guessing 'Lily's' one of the 'many names' you alluded to?" Claude chuckled, leaning on the doorframe. "Hmm... I give it a solid seven out of ten... Quite pretty, but a little on the nose... 'Rhea's' an eight, for reference..."
"Hm? Nah, she just refused to give us one, so that's what we all called her." Leonie chuckled, gesturing at the lillies woven through Rhea's hair, "She's been doing her hair like that longer than I've known her..."
"And I have no intention of changing that..." Rhea muttered, half under her breath. Really, her apprentice would have a better hope of making that point if she didn't so blatantly imitate the style, a sunflower tucked behind her ear...
...She didn't do it all the time. Just... around unfamiliar people...
Which was most people.
"I suppose that makes our new professor the master you spoke of, then, Leonie?" a purple haired boy asked, "I am-"
"Right- heartwarming as this reunion is, the doorways not the place to have it." Claude chuckled, clapping his hands, "C'mon Deer, lightning round introductions everyone- don't give Lorenz time to get going."
"I see you continue to be aggravating as ever, Claude." the same boy pouted, presumably Lorenz, "Honestly-"
"Hilda Valentine Goneril!" a pink haired girl cut in, appearing at Claude's shoulder and shooing away Lorenz, "And this is Cyril- my retainer, technically, but we're not like... Dedue about it, yknow?"
"Hilda, she's been here a day." The young boy she'd gestured to sighed, head in his hand. "I doubt she's even met the guy, 'course she doesn't get what you mean by that."
"...Oh well, I'm sure she'll figure it out!"
"Lysithea Von Ordelia." a white haired girl who hadn't looked up from her book said, nodding briefly before continuing reading.
"I-Ignatz Victor!" a boy with glasses stammered, sheepishly rubbing his neck. "It's a pleasure to meet you, professor..."
"And this is Marianne Von Edmund!" Hilda beamed, throwing her arms around a blue haired girls shoulders.
"It's... nice to meet you..." Marianne mumbled, eyes shadowed by her heavy fringe.
"Is that everyone?" Claude asked, cranking his neck around the classroom and pointedly ignoring Lorenz, "I think that's everyone-!"
"...I am going to delight in overshadowing you in the Mock Battle." Lorenz muttered darkly.
"Mock battle, right, that's the topic of the hour!" Claude chuckled, pulling a slightly crumpled map out of his pocket and laying it across one of the tables, "I happened to very ethically and safely procure a map of the grounds it'll be held at- not as much of an advantage as I'd hoped, but Edelgard doesn't eat anything Hubert hasn't, and Dimitri is just... too easy... poisoning him is like taking candy from a baby, he doesn't even notice... "
Rhea hastily stifled her chuckle with a cough. She was fairly certain she shouldn't be endorsing this behaviour, but... "You do realise my brother is the observer for this Mock Battle, yes? I could've easily saved you a scheme..."
"Ah, but then he'd know what our advantage is..." Claude laughed, perching on the back of a chair with a wink, "We might squeeze some extra credit if no one can figure out how we did it..."
The Deer gathered around the table, leaving the seat at it's head free for her, right beside Leonie. She leaned on the back of it.
It didn't escape her notice, that the Riegan boy had quietly assumed his own lesson plan would go ahead. Or that he'd then placed her in charge regardless.
"So, where is your current plan at?" Rhea asked, scanning the lightly penciled markings on the ink map- definitely Jeralt's, now she could see it clearly. "I presume there's been some discussion, even just between yourselves, prior to my employment..."
Two could play that game.
"Well, the starting positions are gonna be decided by numbered straws- picked by the House Leaders and comically easy to rig- so I was planning on snagging us the forest- plenty of cover, a decent little fort to retreat to, all in all a great place to bunker down, let the other two wear each other out for their weird little rivalry, and then pick off the exaughsted second place..." Claude explained, pointing to the spots in question and dropping five buttons onto the map, "As for the who, you and me aren't optional, but otherwise..."
"I, of course, will take the field!" Lorenz chuckled, "Even discarding the fact that Claude should not be left unsupervised, given Leicester's proud archery tradition we are fairly lacking in experianced melee fighters- a niche House Gloucester has long provided!"
"Right. That," Claude dismissed, idly waving a hand in Lorenz' direction, and placing the purple button at the forests edge, "I was thinking we keep Lysithea out of it, for the mockup- don't wanna show off our living Flame Orb too early, after all-"
"For the last time, Flame Orbs are an entirely different discipline of warfare-!" Lysithea snapped, tome slipped neatly into her bag, "If you must make such inane metaphors, you'd be better to compare me to a Blaze charge or some such gambit- artillery magic is a topic I've yet to even approach, it's a world of difference from standard Dark or Reason magic, and regardless you vastly overstate the importance of any single fighter-"
"-I've been trying to convince this guy to take Leonie or Hilda if he's gonna go all headlong charge on them," Claude continued, as though Lysithea hadn't interrupted, "But he's insisting on Ignatz- because an archer is so much more useful alongside the wannabe cavalry than in the forest trap-"
"Come now Claude, I've explained my reasoning a dozen or so times now!" Lorenz scoffed, "Ignatz and I have, at times, had chance to train alongside one and other while his parents and mine did business. While I don't deny the strategic advantages of fighting alongside a fellow frontline fighter, you've yet to so much as acknowledge the advantages of our familiarity with one and ot-"
"And, uh. For the record? I'm like. Super happy to sit out. Couldn't be happier, in fact." Hilda offered, hand raised, "I'm just a delicate flower who'd get in you guy's way anyway..."
"Uh, yeah, no, Hilda can put a training axe in guys shoulder at twenty paces, don't believe a word out of her mouth." Claude scoffed, acknowledging the interruptions for the first time, "Not the best with a bow, but I honestly don't think we stand a single chance if either of their royal royaltinesses are still around to collapse on us without her... So that makes our lineup you, me, Hilds, Lorenz and Ignatz. Thoughts so far?"
...Claude truly was an interesting person.
"A fairly solid plan. I can handle Edelgard else Blaidydd with ease, so that's one more archer to hide in the forest... Although Ignatz and Lorenz and yourself and Hilda would be better positioned in opposite sides of the fort, ready to attack once I've drawn the other Houses in..." Rhea nodded, idly rearranging the makeshift tokens. Where did he find such colourful buttons, anyway...? "That being said..."
She removed all but the green and yellow.
"That's your plan." Rhea chuckled, "No matter how thoroughly you paint yourself as an unknowable trickster... That, in and of itself, is predictable."
"...Indeed it is." Claude smirked, wicked and toothy. He dropped four more buttons, white, orange, blue and teal. "Indeed it is. So Teach... What's your plan, mysterious lady no one knows a thing about?"
Rhea smirked.
Perhaps it was cruel, to unleash the wrath of Serios upon a friendly competition.
But, at the mix of matching smirks and tentatively eager smiles...
Rhea couldn't exactly bring herself to care.