Chapter Text
A blue bird brings happiness and hope to people, or so the ancient folktales say. From the great kings and nobles of this world, to low-class pedlars and lackeys, everyone wishes to own a blue bird, but very few are even able to articulate how it should look, let alone seeing one with their own eyes. Fishermen by the streams would hear a soft chirp, yet a glimpse of a fleeting reflection in the water is all they can catch. Woodmen would pick up a shiny feather in the mountains, while the sky high above remains still and undisturbed. Even the most ambitious knights would depart in search of a blue bird, and on such expeditions waste their prime idly in distant lands, only to come back empty-handed and grey.
One free blue bird soars across the world, and in its journey has witnessed various landscapes and intriguing tales. On the continent of Fódlan once graced by the goddess Sothis, for example, was this pair of young boy and girl living on the cold soil of east Faerghus, both of them aspired to become knights. They made their acquaintance at a friend’s place, but the little girl, Ingrid, was too young to remember the details. All she knew was the presence of a big brother in her life from the very beginning. When people recall the eldest son of House Fraldarius, they would call him a young genius way more mature than his age, but at the same time unapproachable and sharp-tongued. This is, however, different from her memory, for the Glenn she knew had the brightest, warmest smile, and was always followed by a group of younger kids wherever he went. To the little girl, he was the one remarkable and amiable existence that she looked up to. Back then, even a pat on her head from him could light up her day.
It was also at his home that she had spent countless joyful days of childhood, including some seemingly trivial moments of which the significance was not revealed until many years later, such as her first encounter with King Lambert.
The start of it was a blur. For some reason, she was in the courtyard of the Fraldarius manor. She was at most five, completely awed by the regal bearing of the blond man with striking blue eyes. The man turned his face to the duke to confirm that the little girl was from Galatea, and immediately smiled after seeing a nod. The look on his face was as soft as a spring breeze, blowing away every remnant of reservation in young Ingrid.
His voice was low, and his tone gentle. He asked her many questions from her name to her favourite food. Strangely enough, nobody said anything about his real title that day, and she did not feel anything unnatural about that either, except how Lord Rodrigue seemed to be more talkative and heartily happier than usual. The little girl thought to herself silently that this “Lord Lambert” must be a very good friend of the duke. And even when Lambert mentioned “my Dimitri”, the only revelation that occurred to her was “oh, so this is Dimitri’s papa”.
The two fathers were chatting at the tea table in the courtyard’s pavilion, and Glenn and her were sitting in the corner. The elder boy was holding some pastry that he had taken out from nowhere, which he broke open and handed to her piece by piece. In Ingrid’s own household, there were always a lot of rules to follow. Eating away from the dining table was not permitted, and nor was breaking and eating food with hands. Perhaps the different vibe of freedom was one of the reasons why she was so keen to visit House Fraldarius at the time.
Just then, in the flow of conversation between the two adults, Lambert cast another look at her and asked, “what would you like to do when you grow up, Ingrid?”
Ingrid looked at him with wide eyes, her cheeks stuffed with the food that she forgot to chew. She had never thought about the question before. At home, father always told her that she was to become a proper lady and make contribution to the prosperity of their territory after getting married-- to be honest, she had little idea what the second half of the teachings meant. So when she was inquired about her own wish, the five-year old had to exert all her knowledge to come up with an answer.
“I will become Glenn!”, she swallowed the pastry and announced proudly.
The air in the courtyard went still for a second, and the short silence was soon broken by a burst of laughter, so loud that it startled a blue bird resting nearby and made it flap off into the sky. The duke couldn’t even straighten his back when laughing, while Lambert patted his friend on the shoulder and leaned into his chair, struggling to catch breath. Glenn was also smiling in front of her, his eyes curled and glowing like new moons.
She was dumbfounded by their reactions, a bit unsure why her words were funny. Glenn made a desperate attempt to play stoic and gave her a pensive look. “Huh, but I am to become a knight when I grow up. How shall we reconcile that?”
This question alone was beyond her, not to mention Lambert’s following comment to Duke Fraldarius on how quickly they had “found someone for Glenn”, to which the latter replied with a knowing smirk “it’s still up to them when they grow up”. The gear in her head turned really hard for a while, and suddenly she came up with a brilliant idea. If even Glenn wanted to be a “knight”, then this word that the grown-ups often mentioned must mean something really splendid.
“Then I shall become a knight too!”