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Again.
The tomb of Sothis was as it ever was. If not welcoming, at least depressingly familiar. The throne sat empty—it was no surprise, it simply could not be after so many repeated disappointments. There was a positive, however: that it still hurt just as much as the first time he felt the echoing absence of the green-haired little girl. That meant that he hadn’t lost himself completely. That was good, probably.
As ever and forever, the many memories of his past lives started flooding back to him. It was almost too much; too much sadness, too much happiness, for one person to experience without going at least a little bit mad. Though the different Byleths mirrored each other, not one was the same, each carried a lifetime of grief and love, of dreams broken and made true, of oaths kept and spat on.
And then came the frustration. He saw the same mistakes repeated again and again. And the same bloody, inevitable ending. The winner and loser changed plenty, yes, but the game was ever the same. The same cruel, unjust game, where for some to survive, others had to die, where to advance some pieces, others had to be sacrificed. What hurt most of all, however, was how despite them being all his dearly beloved students, he always failed in not picking favorites.
What a shame that each of his attempts deprived him of all the experience he had gained in the previous ones. He only could claim the privilege that was memory while inside the tomb, outside it, where it actually mattered, he was always as clueless as the first time he stepped into Garreg Mach. Yes, he had an eternity to plan. Yes, he knew anything and everything that would and could happen in the whole of Fódlan and even beyond. But what was the use of all that knowledge and preparation, if , as soon as he sat on the throne and embarked anew, it vanished like dust in the wind? As far as he could tell, the only reason the different timelines played out any differently was a combination of pure chance and the sheer amount of repetitions. And even then, no matter how different the path may have seemed initially, like in an island, it always seemed to lead back to the same bloody and indifferent ocean.
He didn’t even have the comfort of infinite tries. For, what was a vessel without its liquid? The former may give the latter its shape, but the latter gives the former its essence, its function. He had become excruciatingly aware of how the few traits of individuality he had actually managed to painstakingly cultivate out of the barren soil that was his pulseless body were vanishing indistinctly, bit by bit. Indeed, he was only aware that there was something left in him because he felt it actively leak out.
Byleth laughed as he had not done so in many lifetimes. It echoed, both against the stone and his hollow chest.
It seemed that he had not much time left, if any. He, who jumped timelines as a child might a puddle, he, who had shaped time as easily as wet sand between his fingers, he, to whom units as minuscule as millenia had meant nothing, was running out of time. A fitting end for a god like him.
Those students of who knows how long ago, those who he would have endured anything for, those with whom he had cried, laughed, bled, and opened up to, he had also killed and desecrated beneath his boot. Each time he returned to the tomb outside time, his resolve to start anew wavered, as he felt increasingly indifferent to those had set out to save. He grew colder, for they meant less each time. His will was strong, but even the grandest of monuments will find itself one day covered in dust, it, with everyone else, having forgotten why it was built.
Byleth took the first step towards the throne, then another, perfectly aware that this might as well be the last time that he would be able to garner the motivation to sit upon it again. Even that felt like a foolish overestimation. Although the distance was negligible, the journey up the steps felt nonetheless eternal. And though the distance he covered with each step was minuscule, the equivalent change in temperature was akin to that of warping thousands of feet up a mountain. Soon enough, he found himself freezing alive.
All at once, he questioned if it was worth it to continue the climb. The answer was deafening; it wasn’t. What was the point of it all anyway? He had seen them die, come back, die again, kill each other, befriend each other, love him, hate him, laugh their hearts out, bleed their hearts out. Were they even real? Behind every single version of the students were there unique thoughts, a consciousness? Did it matter if in one timeline everyone survived if in every other there it was only a few? Did each new try he attempted mean that everyone had to suffer everything once again, was he bringing this upon them? Was he that selfish? The cold became unbearable. Byleth crouched and embraced himself, trying to maintain whatever heat remained in his body inside. His hands were so cold, had they always been? Or were they once warm, warm enough to comfort others? If so why couldn’t they now do the same?
“Oh, Sothis, why did you leave? At least in that other void, I still had you! Goddess help me, help me please”. He had stopped praying a long time ago. He knew it to be useless. But it is the mark of the insane to try the same thing and expect a different outcome.
“Have you truly grown so pathetic? I’m almost ashamed to be one with you”
Sothis lounged nonchalantly on the throne, her feet up in the air and her long hair lying limply on the side opposite. Her countenance was impassive, and adorned with eyes that seemed not to be looking at Byleth at all, but beyond him into the darkness of the tomb. Garreg Mach had taught him to cry, but ever since that first time, he had not done so again. Now the sound of tears splashed against the cold stone, somehow bouncing against the vast darkness that forever encircled them.
“My slumber was peaceful, yet you have had the gall to awaken me. There is no need to explain yourself, I’m already familiar with what has happened. I have lived it through you. My advice is this: mature and accept the hand that providence has given you. Why must you continue after already reaching not only one but multiple conclusions? I tell you now, there can be no perfect ending if the beginning was already set up to be flawed. There will always be pain and death, for that is life. You must learn to accept it”
“I can’t.” Byleth whimpered.
“So you will continue this foolishness until your mind is no more?!
“I will”
“Until you are nothing but a husk, not only without a heart, but without a soul too?”
“I will”
“Until something changes, no matter what?
“Yes”
The girl chuckled disdainfully.
“You amuse me. If anything, Seiros did grant me an interesting vessel. I would not dare complain on that front. I will give you a chance at what you think you wish, but I must warn you, all that I said nonetheless stands. Even you will find that much will change, though it might not seem like it at first. Furthermore, even if you accomplish to somehow unite them l in purpose, I assure you, sacrifice will still be inevitable; it will just come in other, equally wicked forms. Do you comprehend?”
“I do”
“Then make the best of your selfishness. I bid you goodbye again, my friend, though this reunion was brief, it won’t deny that it was fun.”
The girl vanished just as she had appeared. Only the sword remained limply in the throne. Curiously enough, he had never seen it before while in this plane.
Byleth knew what he had to do. He took the final steps up the stairs, grabbed the bony handle firmly with both of his hands, and ran his own stone heart through with the spine of the goddess. His body fell with a hollow thump upon the cold ground.