Work Text:
The entire thing was, believe it or not, Mercedes’ idea.
The Lions had been assigned the task of sorting through and cleaning out the armory, where the academy’s entire stock of spare weapons of every variety were stored. There were the basic training weapons, of course—rows upon rows of dull swords lining the walls, spears and lances in precarious piles on the ground, stands crammed full of arrows sticking out every which way. Behind that were the more intense weapons, the kind of thing students would have to get special permission to check out—a lightning-touched sword with a zigzag shape, a sickle with a wickedly sharp curved blade, an axe that hummed with dark energy. There were some sort of darts strewn all over the floor, where a careless student could easily step on them. The place was a weapons enthusiast’s wet dream and a neat freak’s worst nightmare, and the contradiction was visibly rending Dimitri in two.
Byleth had to admit it was impressive, what all the academy had managed to amass. This wasn’t even including the rest of the church army’s formidable stocks, kept in a separate armory that was strictly off-limits to students for reasons Byleth had begun to understand were very good.
Case in point: The scene in this armory, right now. Not typically permitted in here unless under the supervision of someone far stricter than Byleth, Felix had already made a beeline for the more dangerous swords and was making a point to handle every single one of them. Sylvain was trying to see if he could juggle three of the darts, and Mercedes was wading through nearly waist-deep piles of weapons in an attempt to get to who-knew-what in the back of the room.
As usual, Dimitri had taken charge of the situation and was mostly managing to redirect his classmates’ attention. “I think we should start by picking up everything on the floor,” he was saying. “That will make it much easier to get around, and once that’s done, we can decide—Mercedes, watch your elbow—”
His warning came a little too late. As she tried to navigate around a barrel of spears, her arm bumped against the strange axe Byleth had noticed earlier, knocking it off the wall. Reacting just in the nick of time, Felix lunged forwards and managed to catch it just before it hit the ground, toppling over the barrel of spears in the process and sending them scattering everywhere with a deafening crash. Sylvain jumped, fumbling one of the darts he was juggling, and cut open his finger with a hissed oath.
There was a moment of very loud silence. Dimitri’s eyes slowly moved towards Byleth, a sort of hopeless despair in them. “In order to be a king…” she offered.
He only sighed, massaging his temples.
“Oh, goodness,” Mercedes said. “Did I cause all that? I’m terribly sorry. Felix, thank you so much for catching that axe—you rescued me.”
Felix looked like he’d just seen his life flash before his eyes as he placed the axe back on the wall with more force than was necessary. “Be more careful next time, you idiot,” he snapped. “You could have killed yourself.”
“Oh, I know. I try so hard, but I’m just so clumsy. I’ll do my best not to touch anything else.” Obviously downcast, Mercedes hunched her shoulders, clasping her hands meekly in front of her as though trying to physically make herself smaller. Annette sent Felix a glare so cutting Byleth was almost surprised he didn’t explode on the spot. Felix looked devastated.
Dimitri sighed again. Byleth couldn’t blame him.
One thing at a time, she reminded herself. “Sylvain, show me your finger.”
“It’s fine, Professor, no biggie.” He popped it in his mouth and sucked on it, winking at her. “I’m very touched by your concern, though.”
Byleth was not going to argue with him, especially not if that involved looking at the rather upsettingly provocative thing he was doing with his tongue. Instead she turned to address the class as a whole. “In that case, everyone please just stand still, don’t touch anything, and listen to Dimitri.”
“Thank you, Professor.” Dimitri’s tone was somewhat dry. “We were sent in here to clean up, not to make even more of a mess, so let’s all be careful, alright? Like I said, let’s begin by picking up everything on the ground and finding a place for it, whether that’s on the walls, on a shelf, or in a barrel. I think part of the issue here is that there aren’t enough separate storage units for the quantity of weapons, so I’m guessing no one would complain if we brought in a couple of those old boxes from back behind the stables to keep things organized. Ingrid and Ashe, would you mind running to get those? In the meantime…”
Dimitri took over, and in the face of his clear instructions the chaos in the room gradually subsided into order, each person finding a job to occupy themselves with. Byleth slipped towards the back of the room, where Mercedes knelt on the ground, quietly picking up the spilled spears and placing them back into the barrel. “What were you looking for back there?” she asked.
Mercedes looked up, surprised. “Hm? Oh, nothing important, really. I shouldn’t have been distracted like that. I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
This was something about her students Byleth had never understood: although they each expressed it in different ways, almost all of them reacted in fear when they made a mistake in front of her. It was as though they were worried she would be angry, even though she had never once expressed anger towards them for an honest mistake. The children of nobles have so much more trauma than I ever could have guessed. “I’m not angry. I was just curious—it seemed like you were looking for something.”
Mercedes looked a bit relieved. “I was just wondering what those were, back there in the corner.”
She pointed, and Byleth followed her gaze to the very back of the armory, where about a dozen objects sat piled on a very dusty table. They were slender tubes, a couple of feet long, and looked clumsily handcrafted.
Curious now herself, Byleth made her way through the chaos towards the table to pick one up and inspect it more closely. “These are some kind of blowguns,” she realized. Stooping down, she picked up one of the darts on the floor. Sure enough, it fit snugly into the tube. Pressing her lips to the end, she let out a sharp breath, and the dart flew out, pinging against the stone wall before clattering to the ground. “Huh. Not bad.”
Turning, Byleth realized she’d attracted the attention of all of her students, who were now looking at her curiously, their tasks forgotten. “Professor, what are you doing?” Dedue asked, squinting at her.
“Testing out these blowguns.” Byleth turned it over in her hand. “I’m curious where they come from. They’re functional, but they look poorly made and I doubt they would be of much use in any real battle.”
Ingrid brightened suddenly. “I bet I know, actually,” she said. “Seteth was just telling me that they used to offer a class where students learned to craft their own weapons, which I thought sounded really interesting, but the professor who taught it retired. A blowpipe seems like a relatively easy thing to make, so maybe they were an early assignment.”
“Mystery solved, just like that! That’s our Ingrid,” Ashe exclaimed.
“Professor, do you think you could pass me one of those?” Mercedes requested.
Mercedes asking to be handed a weapon was a somewhat rare occurrence. Byleth did it, even though it made a couple of the closer students take a surreptitious step back. (She supposed she wasn’t one to talk; she had just fired off a blowdart in a room full of people).
But Mercedes only turned the blowgun over in her hands, inspecting it mildly. “Ooh, that’s her “I’ve got an idea” face,” Annette declared. “What are you thinking of, Mercie? Don’t keep us waiting!”
“Aw, Annie, it’s nothing that special. I was just wondering if we could find some way to use these as a training game of sorts.”
Dimitri’s eyebrows rose up into his bangs. “You want us to… shoot darts at each other?”
“W…well obviously we can’t do that. Someone could lose an eye, that would be awful. But—”
“—But we wouldn’t have to load sharp darts into them,” Sylvain interjected suddenly. “Hell, we probably wouldn’t have to load darts into them at all—the way these things are shaped, you could probably toss just about anything in there as long as it’s the right weight.”
Mercedes beamed at him, latching onto the one person who seemed to understand her idea. “Exactly! If we didn’t have to worry about hurting each other, don’t you think it could be fun? We could train our stealth and our aim by sneaking up on each other and trying to shoot each other.”
“That’s a strangely devious-sounding idea coming from you, Mercedes, but I like it,” Ashe said with a grin. “On the other end of things, it would also help us hone our senses and our reflexes in order to avoid getting hit, wouldn’t it?”
“Sounds to me like you all are trying to get out of real training in favor of playing a ridiculous game,” Felix grumbled.
“Come on, don’t be like that, Felix!”
Annette leaned towards him, poking at him mischievously. He reeled away and was met with Sylvain on his other side, who started prodding him as well. “Yeah, don’t be like that, Felix! You don’t have to play if you don’t want to, but don’t spoil the fun for the rest of us.”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
Felix shoved them both away—not hard, but the heel of Annette’s shoe got caught on one of the boxes and she would have toppled over had Dedue not calmly reached forwards and caught her, gently depositing her back on her feet. “How about we refrain from fighting in the armory,” he said without any inflection. Byleth may have been the one with a goddess inside of her, but if anyone here was a saint it was Dedue.
“I would be willing to give it a try, if the Professor is alright with it,” Ingrid offered. “...Are you, Professor?”
Byleth had long since stopped listening, already playing with possibilities in her head. Training her students to be more aware of their surroundings was something she had a vested interest in, and had actually been trying to come up with a good way to work on it for a while. It wasn’t as if it was a problem specific to them, but it was easy for anyone on the battlefield to get too focused on the battles right in front of them and fail to keep their senses alert from attacks that might be coming from afar, for example.
“I think it’s a good idea,” she said. “Dimitri?”
“If you support it, Professor, then so do I,” he replied immediately. “We’ll need to establish some rules, of course.” A quick glance around the room. “...But first we need to finish cleaning up in here. And please, let’s try not to have any more near-death experiences while we do. For my sanity if nothing else.”
To their credit, over the next couple of hours they did manage to bring the chaotic armory into a remarkably organized state. The ‘doing it without any more near-death experiences’ thing was a bit more ambiguous, as there was one notable incident involving Ashe and an entire box of armor falling off a shelf, but no one died and Dimitri did not have a heart attack, so Byleth was willing to count that as a win.
Once it was done, they broke for lunch, gathering together in the courtyard to eat and discuss Mercedes’ idea. Byleth laid out most of the rules, with the students occasionally chiming in to make proposals. Even Felix was quickly drawn in when Byleth informed them it was going to be a competition.
And so the activity was established that, failing to come up with a better name before this one stuck, the students took to simply calling “The Game”. The rules were as such:
- Each student receives one blowgun and several modified darts. (The darts were a team effort, their sharp tips replaced with rounded wooden ones to avoid any actual injuries. They could be dipped in a special non-staining ink Ashe had gone to great lengths to get his hands on, so that there could be no arguing over whether or not someone had been hit.)
- Hitting another student with a dart rewards the attacker with one point. The Game will last for five days, and at the end of that time, the student with the most points will win. (Byleth was still working out whether there would be any sort of prize for this, but all of the students seemed perfectly motivated just by the prospect of bragging rights.)
- There is no dedicated time of day set aside for The Game—in order to instill the importance of constant vigilance, attacks may happen at any time or place, except for the following:
- No attacks while you are actively in class. (“I think Seteth might actually expel us on the spot if we started attacking each other with blowguns in class,” Annette remarked, giggling at the mental image.)
- No attacks after curfew. (“You can catch someone when they’re sleeping, but only as long as it isn’t between the hours of 2200 and 0500,” Byleth decided.)
- No attacks in the cathedral. (“I can’t imagine that the goddess would mind, but something tells me the clergy might feel a bit differently,” Mercedes mused.)
- No breaking into off-limits areas in order to hide or lie in wait. (Byleth was pretty sure she didn’t have to say this one—the only student likely capable of such a thing was Ashe, and he wouldn’t in a thousand years dream of it. Still, she figured it was probably best to cover all her bases.)
- No attacks during actual battles. (“Just… please,” Dimitri said wearily. “Don’t do it.”)
- Hitting anyone other than a Blue Lions student with a dart or attempting to lie about hitting someone/being hit will result in disqualification. (“And I can’t protect you from Edelgard’s wrath if she gets hit with a stray dart, so attack in crowded places at your own risk,” Byleth said. The entire class shuddered in unison.)
Once the rules had been approved by all, at the end of class the following day Byleth distributed the blowguns, darts, and ink. “So, when do we start?” Sylvain asked, spinning his blowgun deftly in one hand like a spear.
“Well, class is dismissed,” Byleth said. “So I would say… right now?”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than there was a thunk and Sylvain was turning around, startled, a spot of ink on the shoulder of his uniform.
“Heh,” Felix said, and jumped out the window.
The classroom erupted into chaos, students racing for the doors or bravely trying to take shots while they were still all together in one place. Aside from Felix’s shot, however, none of them connected. “Goddammit,” groaned Sylvain, charging after him. Within seconds, the classroom had completely emptied out, the sounds of shouting fading into the distance until Byleth was left alone in slightly ominous silence.
It occurred to Byleth, distantly, that this may have been one of her worse ideas as a professor.
She decided she didn’t care.
* * *
Byleth did not go out of her way to monitor the students, but as it turned out, she didn’t need to. The Game quickly became the talk of the entire academy, even among those who weren’t participating. It was impossible not to notice that something was going on—even though they obeyed the rules and kept classes attack-free, the Lions got into the habit of practically sprinting out of class the second the professor said they were dismissed, and often had dramatic confrontations in public spaces.
As a result, Byleth was almost immediately forced to explain to the other professors what was happening. Hanneman wanted to know why Lions kept showing up to his classes with ink spots on their clothes. Manuela thought the whole thing was hilarious. Seteth took it better than she thought he would, reluctantly admitting once she explained the purpose of teaching stealth and vigilance that it was “not the worst idea” but that “for your own sake, just make sure it does not get out of hand”, which Byleth interpreted as the threat that it was.
The other houses’ students also became invested in The Game, whether intentionally or not. There was a great deal of conversation about it around the monastery—Byleth overheard Caspar begging Manuela to let the Eagles play The Game as well, and listened to several of the Deer making bets on which Lion would come out of the competition the victor. (It seemed like the majority had their money on Felix, but every student had their devoted supporters.)
On day three, Byleth’s quiet lunch with Claude was interrupted by Annette suddenly bolting into the courtyard and diving under the table next to theirs, huddling up tightly to avoid being seen. Upon noticing the two curious pairs of eyes on her, she winced apologetically and mouthed, Dimitri. Byleth and Claude nodded sympathetically.
As if on cue, a royal blue cape came sweeping around the corner. “Oh, Professor, Claude,” Dimitri greeted them. “Have either of you by chance seen Annette?”
Annette shook her head frantically at them from under the table. “Nope,” said Claude brightly, popping the P. “No,” agreed Byleth.
“Hm. I could have sworn she came this way. Well, thank you anyway.”
He turned and left. Annette heaved a tremendous sigh of relief, crawling out and brushing grass off her uniform. “Thank you so much. His Highness almost had me.”
The next moment, her eyes flew wide and she leapt backwards as a dart spat into the ground at her feet. Following its trajectory, Byleth saw a grinning Ingrid perched in a window on the opposite end of the courtyard.
“Ooh, I’ll get her for that! Sorry, Professor, gotta go!”
Annette took off. They watched her go. “You’ve really done something to those kids, huh, Teach?” Claude remarked, amused.
“They were already like that,” Byleth responded. “I just gave them an outlet for it.”
What entertained Byleth the most, however, was seeing each student’s different approach to The Game, and the ways in which their strategies did or didn’t line up with their personalities and their tactics in battle.
Some were exactly what she would have expected. Felix was single-minded and aggressive, targeting almost exclusively Sylvain and Dimitri. His fixation on them likely meant he both missed some easier shots and the others got more points off of him, but he was scoring so many points anyway that it hardly seemed to matter. When Sylvain sprained his wrist vaulting over a cafeteria table to avoid him, Byleth did not blame Felix exactly, but she did give the group a blandly general reminder about not taking The Game too far. It did very little. Byleth had been expecting it to do very little.
Sylvain undoubtedly would have been doing better had it not been for Felix pursuing him at every turn, but he was crafty and athletic and managed to get almost as many points off Felix as Felix got off him. He was also the first one to think of allying with another student, and racked up a huge number of hits with Mercedes at his side before she turned on him and shot him three times, then ran away giggling. (“It was a tactical decision,” he asserted. “Worth it.”)
Ingrid’s biggest skill lay in her dexterity. She became the talk of the onlookers by miraculously evading several nearly impossible shots, including ones from Ashe and Dimitri, who rarely if ever missed. The other Lions would celebrate a hit on her more than they would celebrate ten hits on anyone else. She did a lot of climbing, and used flying practice as an excuse to rain darts down on her classmates from the back of a pegasus.
Annette was accustomed to mid-range combat, and so had a lot of strategies that mostly consisted of getting in a shot and then simply running away. On day two she started to keep a journal consisting of, in Byleth’s best guess, a combination of potential strategies and notes on the tactics and weaknesses of the other players. To try to land a hit on her while she was writing in said journal was to invite certain doom—somehow she seemed even more alert to her surroundings when she was doing so. Byleth was forced to consider whether or not the journal also fell under the ‘taking The Game too far’ umbrella. Ultimately she decided that there was not quite enough insanity in Annette’s eyes to say it was. (She let Dimitri get away with far worse every day—a little obsessively unhinged behavior from her other students wasn’t going to kill them.)
Mercedes may have been unathletic, but she was far and away the most cutthroat player. Aside from betraying Sylvain, she found countless ways to get the others to let their guards down, ranging from a sweet smile to a fake stumble to a weaponized usage of her extensive knowledge of all of their abilities, habits, and preferences. Everyone was afraid of her. She was having the time of her life. Personally, Byleth was rooting for her.
Dedue’s strategy was primarily to do nothing, which worked out better than you might expect. Rather than hunting down his classmates, he would simply go about his usual business until someone tried to sneak up on him, thinking he would be an easy target, at which point he would turn and shoot them before they had a chance to shoot him. He was not fast or nimble, but he was possibly the most observant of the Lions and seemed to be able to pinpoint in a fraction of a second exactly where a sound was coming from.
Ashe may not have been the type of person to break into locked rooms, but he certainly was not above quietly placing himself in the least expected locations. Sylvain swore he nearly pissed himself when he stumbled into the bathroom at the crack of dawn and found Ashe camped out behind the door. He was also by far the most skilled sniper of the group, which put him at something of an advantage due to his ability to accurately strike from the blowguns’ maximum range. Finally, he was unassuming enough that he actually got a point off Annette by striking up a friendly conversation with her, causing her to completely forget he was participating in The Game at all. He apologized profusely to her afterwards, claiming it had been such an unchivalrous point that it shouldn’t count at all, but she insisted he had earned it.
No one besides Felix attempted to attack Dimitri at all. In fact, most of them avoided him so thoroughly that he had trouble getting any points himself. Whether this was out of a feeling that it would be wrong to shoot at their future king with blowdarts or a healthy fear of Dimitri and his abilities, Byleth wasn’t sure. He had already come trooping morosely into her office once, holding a somewhat mangled blowgun that he had apparently gripped a little too hard. Byleth was far from an expert at weapon repair, but blowguns were simple, and being able to quickly patch up a weapon in a pinch was an important skill for a mercenary. When she was done, she was left with a malformed blowgun reinforced with scraps of steel that looked somewhat like a creative instrument of torture—but it was functional, and Dimitri was happy, so Byleth was happy. Sometimes being a teacher could be so simple.
(In any case, once Byleth implied that she would give out an extra prize to the student who managed to land the most hits on Dimitri specifically, the playing field evened out a bit.)
At the end of each day, Byleth held a fifteen-minute safe period where the students came to her office and reported their scores. They would shuffle in at 2130, exhausted from both their regular studying and training and the hypervigilance that came with playing The Game, and drape themselves around the room while she noted down points and asked them what they’d learned that day.
“Do you regret signing up for this?” Byleth asked them the evening of day four.
“Yes,” said Sylvain, who had sprawled out on the floor, nursing his injured wrist.
“Liar,” said Felix and Ingrid in unison. “Don’t try to pretend like you’re not having fun,” Ingrid added.
He cast them a halfhearted glare. “Sometimes it sucks being around people who know you so well.”
“I think it’s fair to say it’s served its intended purpose,” Dimitri offered. He was standing in the corner, looking more alert than any of the others, and subsequently the one other chair in Byleth’s office was unoccupied because everyone felt it would be inappropriate to sit in it when he was standing, even if he didn’t want it. Byleth was certain he had no idea that was what was happening, which was probably for the best. “I suppose I can only speak for myself, but this exercise has certainly made me more vigilant.”
He was probably one of the last people who actually needed that, besides maybe Dedue, but of course no one commented. “Me too,” Ashe said enthusiastically. “And I feel like I’ve learned a lot from watching the rest of you, as well. Everyone’s strategies are so different, but so effective.”
“I’m just glad that people are enjoying my silly little idea,” Mercedes said serenely, twisting a strand of hair around one finger.
“Oh, no, you don’t get to act like that,” Ingrid accused her—lighthearted, but very much not joking. “Yesterday you convinced me the Professor was injured just to get me to let my guard down so you could shoot me. I’m half-convinced you cooked this up as a way to act out your secretly-buried grudges against all of us.”
Mercedes gasped, horrified. “Oh, I would never! I love you all very much! I’m just having fun playing The Game, is all. I’m very sorry if I hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“You haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings, Mercie,” Annette assured her. “Or, um… not really. No one’s taking it personally. It’s just a game, right?”
Her comment was followed by the conspicuous silence of a group of hyper-competitive teenagers who were incapable of taking anything as ‘just a game’, even when it was in the name. “Let’s just go through the standings so we can move on with our lives,” Felix griped.
Byleth flipped open her notebook. “As of now, the standings are: Felix with 39 points, Ashe with 36, Mercedes with 34, Dimitri with 33, Sylvain with 31, Ingrid with 30, Annette with 27, and Dedue with 24.”
The students murmured amongst themselves. “You’re on a roll, Ashe,” Sylvain said, pointedly not commenting on the front-runner (who kicked him with the toe of his shoe).
“Yes, well done,” Ingrid agreed. “You were unstoppable yesterday. I don’t think you missed a single shot.”
Ashe blushed. “Aw, you guys are exaggerating. I just had a few lucky hits, that’s all. The rest of you are doing amazing, too.”
“That may be true, but it is no reason to downplay your own accomplishments,” Dedue pointed out. “Your success in this game is something to be proud of.”
Ashe only blushed harder. Compliments from Dedue were three times as potent as compliments from anyone else. “Well said,” Dimitri declared, clapping Dedue on the shoulder.
“Before we turn in for the night, I’ve been instructed by Seteth to remind all of us that just because tomorrow is the last day of The Game, we are not to be distracted from our classwork or cause disruptions for those who are not participating,” Dimitri continued. “That said, it’s still anyone’s game, and I certainly do not plan to lose, so I hope that all of you will give it your best tomorrow.”
Byleth did not think he had to remind them of that part, but he wouldn’t be Dimitri if he didn’t. “Seconded,” she said, already looking forward to the free entertainment the following day would almost certainly bring. “Now get out of here and go sleep. Dimitri, that includes you.”
“Yes, Professor,” the students chorused, with varying levels of enthusiasm. Mercedes helped Sylvain to his feet, and the group dispersed to their dorms.
The final day of The Game began much as Byleth expected: in complete and utter chaos. The students who had fallen behind were attempting risky maneuvers, knowing it was their last shot at victory, and the students in the lead fought furiously to stay there.
Dedue and Annette teamed up and hunted down Mercedes, chasing her all over the monastery and eventually cornering her by the fishing pond. They made a tremendous team, working perfectly in sync and covering each others’ weak points, and Byleth made a mental note to assign them to work together in the class’s next assigned battle. The encounter eventually resulted in Annette tackling Mercedes into the pond as the latter exclaimed, “I surrender, Annie, I surrender!” and Dedue stood by, splattered with water and visibly trying not to laugh. The people trying to fish were not terribly pleased, but a few earnest apologies from Mercedes quickly smoothed everything over.
Ingrid bravely faced off against Dimitri in the entrance hall to a rapt audience of dozens, students and faculty and monks and soldiers alike, all of whom gave the pair a generous amount of space to avoid any chance of getting caught in the line of fire. It was relatively clear to Byleth that the majority of them were rooting for Ingrid, although of course no one was willing to say as much. This showdown ended with less fanfare and significantly more embarrassment: a poor monk trying to pass through the area stepped on one of the stray darts littering the ground and slipped, accidentally knocking into Dimitri and shoving him bodily into the crowd of onlookers—specifically, into Byleth , who he instinctively grabbed by the waist to steady himself. The monk apologized profusely to Dimitri, who hardly noticed because he was so caught up in apologizing profusely to Byleth. Byleth barely heard a word of it anyway, too fascinated by the remarkable color Dimitri’s face had turned. In any case, once the chaos finally subsided, Ingrid was nowhere to be found—apparently wisely having decided her job here was done, and slipped away during the commotion.
Ashe’s strategy for the day seemed to consist mostly of hiding, occasionally sneaking in a shot from a well-disguised hiding place before disappearing again. Byleth only saw a flash of gray hair or a pale, freckled face here and there before he would flash her a quick, bright smile and dash away. Byleth thought privately that Mercedes was not the only one far more dangerous than she looked.
But it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the remaining two members of the Blue Lions who were responsible for the peak moment of drama through The Game’s entire duration. Byleth was standing on the stairs outside the cathedral when it happened, talking with Rhea and Seteth about the plans for the coming month. “All of that aside, Professor, I wanted to thank you for all the hard work you have been putting in,” Rhea was commenting warmly. “I know there were those who doubted you at first, given your youth and your lack of experience teaching—” (Seteth coughed quietly next to her) “—but I think all would now agree that you have more than proven yourself as the right candidate for the job. You seem to be bonding with the students, as well. Would you agree?”
Byleth pondered. She was beginning to realize that her ideas about things like what ‘bonding’ entailed were somewhat different from those of most people. Still, was pretty convinced there was nothing that brought people closer together than going to battle and having near-death experiences together. “I think so.”
“Connecting with your students is only one part of your job as a professor, however,” Seteth was quick to add. “I hope that you are continuing your own training to be better able to instruct them in various fields. In addition…”
Byleth stopped listening. Not because Seteth’s droning on was unbearably boring (even though it was), but because something else had caught her attention. She wasn’t even sure what it was at first—a tiny twinge like a sixth sense telling her that something was coming.
Then she heard a commotion coming from behind her, and glanced over her shoulder. Students and staff were flattening themselves to the sides of the bridge as Sylvain came charging up the pathway at a dead sprint. He was peppered with splotches of ink, sweating through his uniform, his hair—normally carefully styled to look charmingly messy—a rumpled disaster. Seteth scowled, calling in his direction, “Slow down! Your foolish behavior is going to cause injuries.”
Byleth had bigger concerns. If he’s here, then…
Right on cue, another figure appeared, blowgun in hand, murder in his eyes, racing up the bridge a few paces behind. Sylvain suddenly noticed Byleth standing there and skidded to a halt, trying to duck behind her. “Professor! Hide me!”
“What did you do to make him that mad?” Byleth asked curiously.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear! I only shot him in the—oh no.”
A great many things happened in the next few seconds. Felix reached the end of the bridge and, fixated only on his target, lifted the blowgun to his mouth and fired off a shot. Its aim was, regrettably, excellent—because, even more regrettably, Sylvain dodged out of the way at just the last moment. As the dart passed through the space where he had just been, he made eye contact with Byleth for a split second, and she saw the dawning horror as he realized what he had just done—
—and then the dart hit Archbishop Rhea square in the forehead.
A stunned silence fell. The dart dropped to the ground with a sad little thump that seemed bizarrely loud, leaving a little spot of black ink on Rhea’s serene face. Seteth drew himself up furiously, taking a deep breath and opening his mouth…
…And Rhea burst out laughing.
In the moment that followed, Byleth learned what Felix Fraldarius looked like with terror written all over his face. Sylvain’s eyes darted to Byleth as though desperate to verify that she was also seeing this and that he was not hallucinating. Whatever Seteth had been about to say was left forgotten as he stood there in silence with his mouth half-open, looking utterly baffled.
“Oh, my,” Rhea sighed eventually, wiping at her eyes. “I haven’t laughed that hard in… I’m not even certain how long. Thank you for this, Professor, truly.”
“You’re… welcome?” Byleth tried, testing for a reaction. “Yes. You’re… welcome.”
Seteth finally seemed to snap out of it, turning on Felix with blazing eyes. “You need to apologize to Lady Rhea, right this instant. And you, Professor—”
But Rhea forestalled any conflict, silencing him instantly with a simple raise of her hand. “Peace, Seteth. It’s alright—no apologies are required.”
He looked indignant on her behalf. “But, Rhea—!”
“No buts. It brings me great joy to see the students having fun while they learn. There is not enough fun in this world, and as you well know, there are fewer chances to partake in it the older one becomes. This was an honest mistake, and I’m sure Felix has learned his lesson. Yes?”
“…Yes,” Felix responded slowly, still looking like a deer in the headlights.
She wiped the ink delicately from her forehead. “See? There is nothing to be concerned about.”
Seteth released a sharp sigh, rubbing his temples. “You are endlessly forgiving, Rhea. Very well, I shall not argue with you. But Professor?” His eyes bored into Byleth’s. “I expect to see a notable improvement in your class’s performance in this month’s battle as a result of this exercise.”
“I think you will,” Byleth answered honestly.
“Hmph.”
He swept off. Both Felix and Sylvain released visible sighs of relief. Rhea just looked amused. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Professor.”
Once she was gone, Sylvain turned to Felix, grinning and extending a hand nervously. “So… truce?”
Felix sighed, aggravated but resigned. “There’s no need, moron. According to the rules of The Game, I’ve been disqualified.”
“Hey, since when have you ever needed some dumb game as an excuse to mess with me?” Sylvain joked.
Felix did not respond, frowning and staring into the middle distance. “…Felix?” Sylvain prompted.
“You know what, you’re right.”
Sylvain gave him a puzzled look. “Huh?”
“I have never needed a dumb game as an excuse to mess with you.” He stooped and picked up the fallen dart, smirking. “If I were you, I would start running now.”
“H-huh? Hey, Felix, wait, wait, I didn’t mean it! Professor, help me!”
Byleth just gave him a solemn salute as he scrambled away, Felix hot on his heels once more.
* * *
They tallied the final scores in Byleth’s office that night. “Someone give us a drumroll,” Sylvain said through a mouthful of the toffee Byleth had started keeping in a jar on her desk.
No one did it. They were all clearly exhausted, and most of them seemed to know more or less what the final standings were anyway, but Byleth could still see that competitive spark in their eyes—they just wanted the scores. After an awkward pause, Dedue of all people thumped his fist against the wall, creating a sound like a drumroll’s more ominous cousin. (Byleth was just grateful it wasn’t Dimitri; he would have put a hole in her office.)
“Okay,” she said, silencing them. “The final standings are: Felix with 51, Ashe with 49, Ingrid with 42, Dimitri with 42, Sylvain with 40, Annette with 39, Dedue with 37, and Mercedes with 36.”
“Oh, well done, Felix! And everyone else, too!” Mercedes started clapping.
“Stop.” Felix cut her off before any of the others could join in, exactly as Byleth had expected him to. “This is ridiculous. I didn’t win. I was disqualified.”
“Now that I think about it, Sylvain did mention something like that, but he didn’t go into the details,” Ingrid said curiously.
“What happened is I shot the Archbishop in the face,” Felix answered flatly. The entire class stared at him, stunned. Dimitri looked like he might actually have that heart attack now.
“She wasn’t even mad, though, Felix. I know how this is gonna sound coming from me, but I think you deserve this win,” Sylvain said.
Felix looked at Byleth. “Come on, just tell them. I broke the rules, so I didn’t win. Ashe did.”
“No offense, Felix, but I really didn’t expect you to be such a stickler for the rules,” Annette said with a frown, tilting her head to one side. “Are you sure you aren’t just doing this to be nice? Because that would be really sweet of you.”
Under normal circumstances, an allegation like that would have both angered and flustered Felix, but he didn’t even glance in Annette’s direction. “Of course not.”
Byleth met Felix’s level stare. He wasn’t being a stickler for the rules. That wasn’t why he was refusing this win, and she knew it, and he knew that she knew it. She nodded, breaking eye contact. “Felix is correct. I never said that he won, only that he got the highest number of hits, which is still something to be proud of. But, based on the rules of The Game… our victor is Ashe.”
Felix seemed satisfied. Mercedes started clapping again, and Ashe covered his face, surprised and flustered as the entire class cheered for him. “You were truly remarkable out there, Ashe,” Dimitri complimented him. “I think that all the rest of us could stand to learn from your tactics.”
“You made so many incredible shots,” Ingrid added. “You were just like the heroic archers from the stories.”
Ashe had turned bright pink, still hiding his face in his hands. “You guys, you’re embarrassing me. I really wasn’t anything like that.”
“Ashe,” Dedue chided gently. “Remember what I said last time?”
“Ah… right. I shouldn’t downplay my accomplishments.” Ashe lifted his head, smiling, and Byleth could see the pride shining through his bashfulness. In a class full of people the world said were more than him, royals and nobles, people stronger and more accomplished and more charismatic, he had managed to rise above and do something none of the rest of them could. That was the kind of thing a kid like Ashe would think about for a long time. “Thank you, Dedue. Thank you, everyone.”
“I want to go on the record and say that every single one of you exceeded my expectations with your performance in this game,” Byleth said, bringing the students’ attention back to her. She hesitated, struggling to put words to the light, warm feeling that lingered in her body as she looked at them all sitting there, as she thought back on everything she’d seen them do the past week. “I… I’m proud of you,” she said eventually.
Pride. That felt right, she thought. And looking at the expressions on the students’ faces—the vulnerable sort of surprise on Dimitri’s face, Dedue’s tiny smile, the actual tears that had sprung to Annette’s eyes—she was glad she had said it.
It was getting late, so Byleth sent the students to bed—all except one, who she asked to stay for a few minutes. “Look,” Felix said the instant the door had shut behind the others, folding his arms. “You don’t have to say it. I already know I fucked up. Clearly, I missed the entire point of this exercise and failed to be aware of my surroundings. You don’t need to lecture me.”
Byleth blinked at him. “Oh, I didn’t call you in here to lecture you. You obviously understand all that already, so what would be the point?”
“I…” said Felix eloquently, completely disarmed. “Oh.”
She’d considered saying something about how there were better ways to flirt with people than furiously chasing them all over the monastery trying to shoot them with darts, but had decided that would open up a can of worms she didn’t feel like sorting through. “That is why you were fine with Ashe winning, isn’t it? Not because you were being nice or because of the rules, but because even though you technically got more hits than him, you thought he accomplished the actual goal of the exercise better.”
Felix scowled at the floor, which was as good as a yes. “Felix,” Byleth said, waiting until he reluctantly raised his eyes to hers again. “What matters to me is that my students are learning. You clearly learned something from this experience, and that’s all I could ask for.”
“...I see.” Felix’s demeanor had become infinitely more awkward—he’d clearly been gearing up for an argument, and didn’t know what to do with what Byleth had given him instead. “Then why did you ask me to stay?”
“Oh, right. To give you your prize for landing the most hits on Dimitri.”
His eyes widened. “What—really? I was sure you were just hinting at that to talk the others into playing with him. You mean you actually have a prize?”
“Of course I do,” Byleth replied loftily. He didn’t need to know that she’d only thought of this a few minutes ago. “Here.”
She reached down to her belt and unhooked her favorite knife, holding it out to him. Felix stared at it, uncomprehending. “You’re giving me… a knife?”
“You don’t want it?”
“No, that’s not…”
She saw the moment he figured it out, that this “prize” was clearly a gift meant specifically for him. He accepted the knife, turning it over in his hands. “This is a beautiful blade,” he admitted reluctantly. “Where did you get it?”
“It was a gift from when I was a mercenary. I saved a girl’s life when she wandered off and got captured by bandits, and her father, who was a blacksmith, made me this knife as payment.” Byleth had been a young teenager at the time herself, but she remembered that little girl vividly—stubborn, sharp-tongued, dark-haired. Her father had had to force her to mutter out an apology she clearly didn’t mean. For whatever reason, Byleth had been thinking about her a lot recently.
“Why in all of Fódlan would you give something like that to me?” Felix asked, scrutinizing her face as though he thought he might find the answers there.
“Because I thought you’d like it,” Byleth answered simply. It was true. She had never had much of a sense of sentimental value—she held onto things that were useful to her, and disposed of things that were not. This knife was functional and lovely, but she had no qualms with parting with it for a good reason. She had other knives.
Felix was quiet for a moment, still gazing down at the knife in his hands. “I do,” he said eventually. “…Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Byleth hefted a box into her arms, blowguns clattering together inside. “Now, I need to go bring these back to the armory, so you’re dismissed.”
Felix nodded. As he moved to leave, he paused in the doorway, the knife still in his hand. “Professor?”
“Yes?”
“We should do this again sometime. It… was fun.”
Sometimes, Byleth thought, she really liked her job.
* * *
It took the students a few days, once The Game was over, to stop jumping and looking over their shoulders every few seconds. Byleth was not entirely sure that what she had taught them was vigilance and not paranoia, but she supposed either one would keep them alive.
That weekend, with the help of Annette and Mercedes, Byleth arranged a party for the Blue Lions to celebrate Ashe’s victory and the end of The Game. They reserved the common room, and the students with culinary inclinations made dinner and dessert while the others set up the area.
Before the party could get into full swing, Byleth got the students’ attention. “Ashe, I have something for you.”
He blinked at her, startled. “Huh? For me?”
“Obviously it’s your prize, silly! For winning The Game!” Mercedes elbowed him gently.
“Um, I kind of thought the party was my prize. But, okay. What is it?”
“Someone do a real drumroll this time,” Sylvain said lazily from where he was lounging in Felix’s lap, sitting in an overstuffed chair that was definitely not meant for more than one person. Oddly enough, Felix was tolerating it, even carelessly looping a loose arm around Sylvain’s waist as he ate jerky out of a bowl on the table with the other.
They weren’t the only ones, either. The students had spent the past week almost completely unable to chat or hang out with each other, since to do so would have made them vulnerable to attack—so now that The Game was officially off, it seemed like they had suddenly become several times as clingy. Mercedes and Annette were practically joined at the hip. Ingrid and Ashe rejoiced in being able to peacefully read in the library again. Dedue was following Dimitri around incessantly, and Dimitri didn’t seem to mind at all, giving him affectionate glances when he thought Dedue wasn’t looking. (Dedue was always looking. He was just good at pretending he wasn’t.)
“Okay, everyone has to do it,” Ingrid said, slapping her palms against the arm of the couch until, one by one, the rest of the students joined in, creating a still-sloppy but much livelier drumroll. Once Byleth judged that an adequate amount of suspense had been created, she produced a bag from behind her back and held it out towards Ashe.
He accepted it hesitantly. “Should I…”
“Open it, open it!” cried Mercedes, clasping her hands together excitedly. Ashe did as he was told, reaching into the bag and extracting its contents—which was, of course, a book. It was a beautiful, meticulously bound tome with a hand-painted cover reading in elegant calligraphy, Sword of Kyphon.
Ashe’s eyes went wide. “Wh—! Professor, this is my favorite—how did you know ?”
“This gift was a team effort,” Byleth said, glancing at Ingrid, who smiled and twirled her braid around her finger. “Do you like it?”
“Of course I do! I’ve never owned such a beautiful book before.” He held it to his chest and smiled widely, sniffling a little. “Thank you so much.”
Some of the others crowded around him to admire the book, which with the help of the girls, Byleth had procured at a local artisan’s market. “Can we get to the food now?” Felix grumbled.
Annette grabbed a pastry from a nearby plate and flung it at him, nailing him square in the cheek. “Are you allergic to nice, genuine moments?” she demanded.
“I’m allergic to pointless, sappy— hey!”
She threw another one. Felix tried to duck out of the way, but Sylvain physically held him down, grinning as he struggled and writhed. “Yeah, Annette! Give him a taste of his own medicine!” he crowed.
“I hate all of you.” Felix launched a piece of jerky in Annette’s direction, but Dedue stepped in front of her and caught it.
“You people,” Dimitri sighed. “Have we really not already had more than enough projectile warfare for one week?”
“Your Highness, you’re talking to the Blue Lions. There’s no such thing,” Ingrid said wryly.
Watching them bicker and laugh, Byleth felt that warmth inside of her again. Pride, mixed with a kind of peaceful contentedness she did not often know. It was a relaxing night—one of the nights that Byleth would look back on later, when things were bleaker, and feel a devastating combination of grief and hope at the memory.
But just for then, she was living in the moment, the worries and angers and sorrows of the world chased out of her mind. Dimitri smiled at her, and seeing the look in his eyes, she thought that the students might feel the same—that this could be an escape from the things that haunted each one of them, if only for one night.
* * *
Two weeks before the war ended, Byleth stepped into the armory of the Officers’ Academy once more.
It was strange, she supposed, to think of it that way. The Officers’ Academy was a thing of the past, this monastery now populated by the ghosts of a happier world—and the living who those ghosts haunted.
But this armory still stood, untouched by the passage of the years. It was just as she remembered it—disorganized, dusty, packed to the brim.
“This place certainly brings back some memories,” mused a voice from behind her. Byleth turned towards her companion as he stepped through the doorway, his single eye ranging over the room’s stone walls.
She wasn’t sure if she should ask at a time like this, but her curiosity got the better of her. “Good or bad?”
Dimitri cast a quick glance in her direction that said he knew what she was thinking. “Good ones, mostly,” he reassured her. “And in no small part thanks to you. It’s true that I was… not doing particularly well at the time. Certainly not as well as I pretended. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have good memories from my days at the Academy.”
He trailed his fingers absently over the handles of training lances lined up on the wall, and when he spoke again his voice was quieter. “I kept myself going, during these past years, by dwelling on my fury and my desire for revenge. But now, no small part of what is sustaining me are those good memories—and a desire to see a future where more like them can be made.”
Something squeezed in Byleth’s chest. A complicated feeling, both happy and sad, the kind that she was still getting used to. To distract herself, she turned back towards the weapons on the wall, searching to see if there was anything in here that could be of use for the upcoming battle. There was that strange dark axe Mercedes had knocked off the wall, once upon a time. Byleth picked it up, measuring its weight in her hand. Someone could probably make use of this. Dedue, Cyril, maybe Sylvain—he has a knack for black magic.
A soft laugh from behind her pulled her from her thoughts. She turned to see Dimitri in the back corner, looking down at something on a small table. “Byleth, you should come have a look at this.”
Setting the axe down, she picked her way through the mess to come stand next to him, opening her mouth to ask what he was looking at—but closed it the next moment, understanding. On the table sat a box full of blowguns and handmade wooden projectiles.
Dimitri reached into the box, gently rifling through it before finding what he was looking for and pulling it out. A blowgun that looked different from the others—malformed, clumsily reinforced with pieces of metal. He smiled, and for a while they just looked down at it, shoulders brushing against each other, reminiscing.
“You know,” Dimitri said eventually, a thoughtful tone coming into his voice. “At a time like this, our troops could probably use a bit of a morale boost.”
Byleth raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
He glanced at her, and there was a faint little spark in his eye that she hadn’t seen in years. A spark of mischief. “And with such a monumental battle coming up, a reminder of the importance of vigilance couldn’t hurt, either.”
“Are you suggesting…”
“Only if our esteemed Professor gives it the OK, of course.”
He was actually teasing her. What a world. “She does, but under one condition,” Byleth replied.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
Quick as a flash, Byleth lifted a blowgun to her lips and shot a dart straight into Dimitri’s chest before lifting her head with a grin.
“That this time, she gets to play.”