Chapter Text
The clash of a wooden sword to Byleth’s shield forces her to regain her footing as she takes a step back upon impact— Rhea sharply twirling in the other direction to strike her side. She quickly reorients to block again, the force of each swing pushing her back until Rhea finally leaps to kick herself off of Byleth’s shield, knocking the young woman onto her rear.
With a cast of Cutting Gale, Rhea catapults the wooden sword at her— Byleth quick to abandon the shield as she rolls through the snow; the strings of her cape tangling around her neck as it whips over her body— wood cracking into pieces as the sword lodges itself into the trunk of a tree.
The crunch of feet running through snow catches up to her before she flings a fistful at Rhea. The split second it takes for her to swat it away is when Byleth lunges at her, but she remains stalwart as she blocks each punch with her forearms— maneuvering around the next swing with a wrist to deflect, setting her counterpart off balance. Rhea locks both arms around Byleth’s neck, forcing her to her knees.
Her breath is visible in the cold air as she leans into Byleth’s ear.
“You abandoned your shield—” the woman wrestles out of her grasp to stand, Rhea rising to meet her eyes— “again,” she says disdainfully.
“And you are without a sword,” Byleth retorts. She takes a moment to fix the knots of her cape. “I’m sure you wouldn’t be launching your weapon so freely in the war.”
Rhea gazes at the worn shield behind the young woman before breathing in the sharp, cool air. “Taking into account durability. A worn sword would do me no good.”
The excuse makes Byleth frown as she walks back to the stump that hoists their belongings. She dusts off snow from Rhea’s fur lined hat before helping her tuck any stray strands of hair into it.
Ignoring the knit in the woman’s brow, Byleth gingerly lifts the hem of the hat over red, pointed ears.
“Remind me how long you’ve lived for,” she says as she latches the sheathed Sword of the Creator to her waist.
“Irrelevant. I believe it to be paramount for you to learn to wield a shield,” Rhea says. They begin their trek through the woods of Sautice; their next destination to the nearest village was a half day’s worth of travel.
“Yes, with time, but your irritation at my inability to expertly wield it overnight is—” she pauses, Rhea’s glare piercing as she waits for her to finish her thought— “unreasonable. You would think a millenia would teach you patience.”
“Byleth, the two of us will have nothing but time, but your length of life is but a small fragment in comparison to mine and I will not have that lack of experience be the reason I lose you. I will not allow it.”
Since her revival, they’ve had extensive conversation on the effects of her “evolution” as Rhea had taken to calling it; immortality being an aspect of it. She had posed the pain in losing loved ones, watching friends age and wither away; having to uproot or seclude oneself to prevent growing suspicions in being an ethereal. She had lectured Byleth in the practice of detachment; to love and nurture humans from afar.
“Rhea, you don’t have to worry so much. Ever since I’ve—” she pauses—” changed, I’ve grown stronger. The Nabatean blood— your blood— the awakening of the Sword of the Creator, and Sothis; I would have thought that would set you more at ease, but it feels like it’s only made you more paranoid.”
“You did not grow stronger, my love. You became. It is the same as thrusting a sword into the hands of an infant.”
Byleth halts, Rhea turning to look back at her.
“I am not a child. Don’t discount everything I’ve learned from Jeralt— the blood I’ve spilt to hone my skills. It is not the same.”
Rhea stalks toward her, pressing a hand against Byleth’s chest as she pushes her back against a tree. Her expression is conflicted; her brow creased in worry, her lips downturned in disapproval.
“With time, you will realize—” Byleth shoves her arm off of her.
“No!” she protests. “Enough with speaking to me like I’m beneath you! I am Nabatean. You made me this way or—” she stammers as she attempts to sort through her thoughts— “you had a part in it. But you have to start loosening your grip so I can properly learn. So I can grow, not be controlled.”
There’s a slight tilt of Rhea’s head as she carefully scans the woman; her viridian eyes raking the similar hues of Byleth’s hair and eyes before briefly falling to her lips.
“I’ve come to realize I may be many things to you,” Byleth continues. “Your hopes in the resurrection of your mother, the future of your people, the reminiscence of your family.” Rhea leans closer, their gazes locked as she hangs onto Byleth’s words. “A predecessor to my mother, the woman you—”
“My experiment,” Rhea says. “An artificial human; my twelfth demon.” Her clinical tone makes Byleth’s heart sink.
“But you loved her. You loved all of them. You grieved,” Byleth says. Images of Rhea wailing over contorted bodies of her previous vessels resurface. Her heart skips a beat in thinking Sothis is the one inserting the scenes into her mind’s eye again, but the imagery lingers in stills, having been burnt into her memory as if she, herself had witnessed the atrocities.
“But did you truly grieve for them? Or had it been for Sothis?” she whispers.
Rhea doesn’t answer.
“She’s gone, Rhea. Everything you’ve done— it didn’t transpire the way you’d hoped it would.”
“I know.”
“Sothis is the reason I’ve changed.”
Rhea hums.
“I’m the reason you’re never going to see her again.” With bated breath, Byleth watches the older woman as she releases a sigh. She raises a gloved hand to caress Byleth’s cheek, her fingers snaking her jaw before tenderly settling at her neck.
“I’ve thought of this over and over again,” Rhea says. “There are moments where I feel the endless pit of hopelessness bubble into contempt. There are nights where I turn in bed to watch you sleep— the rise and fall of your chest, to feel the softness of your skin against mine. I look at you and I feel the crushing weight of my love for you. There are times where my heart races in just thinking of you, that I think it would kill me. Sometimes I wish it did. Centuries of bearing this agony of a lost mother; to stoop to unspeakable actions all in the justification of her vision of peace. To protect and nurture the same humans that killed her and slaughtered my people. And I had deluded myself into believing that I was only moments away from reuniting with her again, but she had decided to save you instead. But what if I kill you, Byleth? As an act of rebellion against my own mother; a selfish daughter throwing a tantrum because she couldn’t get what she wanted? You were so willing to lay your life on the line for me before; I imagine there wouldn’t be much protest coming from you.”
“Rhea,” Byleth says. “If you wanted to kill me, you would have done that long ago. I know I can’t even begin to fathom centuries of pain and suffering— a thousand years of living. The only version of you I know, is the person you are now, largely shaped by her past and that has never been lost on me. I just want to understand you, even if I’m irritated by your methods, even if we disagree.”
There’s a brief pause.
“Even if you frighten me.”
Rhea brings their faces closer, her hand still around the woman’s neck; their breaths mingling in the frigid air.
“You scold me for being fraught with worry because of you, but an entanglement with human emotion had always set us apart. I am sorry for looking down on you, but for what it is worth, it wasn’t my intention nor had I ever seen it that way. Ever since you’ve changed, I’ve noticed how much more animated you’ve become; how you’re evolving and coming into yourself. It’s moving to witness. But before then, you had lived as a dormant human; now you are something else entirely. That isn’t lost on me either. I am also learning you, so forgive me for being protective.”
Byleth tilts her head so their foreheads touch.
“You are many things to me. A representation of all of those things, but who you are is separate and distinct. I am cruel, Byleth. The things that I’ve done are because I am cruel. And I will be cruel to you.”
She doesn’t allow Byleth to speak as she presses her lips against hers in a fervent kiss; it was a representation of a longing to be known, the desire to fill the void of loneliness and loss; for her love to recognize the insurmountable effort in mending a shattered mind.
But it would take time for Byleth to truly know— another millennia for Rhea to wait.