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Jeralt had learned not to have any expectations for what he’d see when he arrived back into his tent.
Well, most of the time it would just be Byleth, staring blankly at him, having got up to some normal kid stuff or other while Jeralt had been away, which Jeralt would then hear about in one or two word segments over the next couple of hours. But if there was one thing Jeralt had learned from raising Byleth, it was that “normal kid stuff” was a surprisingly wide net.
There was the time Jeralt had come back to see Byleth had gathered apparently every single bug in the surrounding woods and arranged them together on rocks out the front of the tent. “For a family meeting,” apparently. Or the time Jeralt had found half of the company’s contracts covered in charcoal imprints of leaves, because Byleth had got really into shading over leaves and hadn’t had any other paper to hand. Or the time—
Anyway. Jeralt had learned to expect the unexpected when catching up on Byleth’s day. Sometimes the unexpected involved buying slightly more paper the next time they stopped in town, and an explanation to an employer about having foolishly dropped a contract in a pile of charcoal coloured leaves. It happened.
What Jeralt did not expect, despite all of that, was to come back into his tent and see Byleth wearing a skirt.
Byleth’s eyes snapped to the tent-flap immediately. Never had been the most expressive kid, even to Jeralt, but the shock and fear were plain as day even if you didn’t know Byleth as well as Jeralt did.
“…Hey kiddo,” Jeralt started slowly, taking in the rest of the outfit his son(?) was wearing. There was the skirt, obviously, so obviously too big for Byleth that Byleth was having to hold onto it to keep it bunched up. The skirt hung so low on Byleth’s legs that Jeralt only now saw the comically oversized heels he(?) had on his feet. What Jeralt had initially mistaken for food smudging of some sort on Byleth’s face were, on closer inspection, a child’s first attempt at lip stick and eye shadow.
“You trying out some new clothes?” Jeralt asked, carefully keeping his voice neutral, not letting the surprise show. He’d got pretty good at that, by now. Didn’t matter how weird Byleth was, how much the other parents at the camp told him that their kids didn’t do anything like that. Byleth deserved to be a normal kid in Jeralt’s eyes at least.
Byleth nodded, posture shrinking away, hands trembling on the skirt. “Sorry.”
“Nothin’ to apologise for, kiddo,” Jeralt said, sitting down carefully a few paces away from his child. “Well, ‘cept whoever you stole the skirt and shoes from,” he added.
“Jessica,” Byleth said quickly, not meeting Jeralt’s gaze, but then that was nothing new.
Jeralt nodded. “We’ll get the clothes back to her. Or buy her new ones if she doesn’t want ‘em any more, I guess.” He paused, eyeing Byleth with a studied gaze. The panic had subsided, thankfully, replaced now by a quiet nervousness that seemed to be something like guilt? Well, not on Jeralt’s watch.
“Would you like us to get some new clothes like that for you too, Byleth?” Jeralt asked, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Which he supposed, it was now.
Byleth’s answering nod was the fastest, most breathlessly delighted, that Jeralt had ever seen.
A few memories that had been slowly assembling in Jeralt’s head finally made their attention clear. The way Byleth would get so distressed every time “his” hair would get cut. The way Byleth never complained about having to do the “girl” chores around the camp.
The way Byleth had complained softly as Jeralt read the story of Loog and the Maiden of Wind, that it would have been so much better if Loog had been a heroic girl.
Just like she was.
“Hey Byleth,” Jeralt said, standing slowly. “Why don’t you go get changed, and I’ll go look into getting you some new clothes next time we make it to town, alright?”
Byleth nodded quickly again. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, so softly. It made Jeralt want to weep.
“Anytime, princess,” Jeralt said.
Byleth froze for a moment. Then smiled up at him, for what might have been the first time that year.
Jeralt held her gaze softly, backing out of the tent with reverence on his face.
Then bolted across camp to the medic tent as fast as he could.
“—So there was this knight I used to work with, right,” Jeralt was explaining to Vio, the company physician. “When she joined, well, I dunno if that’s the right way of putting it.” He scratched his head. “It was like she was always one of the guys, y’know? Then after a point she was one. Short hair, rowdy drinker. Even grew a beard.” Jeralt snorted at the memory. “We were all so used to calling him Cal by then, most of us forgot he even had an old name. Couldn’t rightly tell you myself what it used to be, think he preferred it that way.”
Vio nodded. “It’s not common, but yeah, I’ve met a couple of ‘em in my time.”
“You helped any?” Jeralt asked, trying not to let the pleading tone seep too heavily into his voice, and failing.
Vio raised an eyebrow.
“It’s just, y’know, I figured there had to be some kind of magic or medicine or both to how he started growing the beard…” Jeralt explained lamely.
“Unless he prayed really hard, I’d assume so,” Vio agreed. “Don’t know if there’ll be much about it in the books I have here on keeping idiot mercenaries from getting gangrene, but if you bring us past a town with a good library, maybe a city, I can look into it,” he offered.
“Right,” Jeralt said, conjuring a mental map of where they were in the Empire and how quickly they could get to Enbarr and— Wait, shit. “It works the other way too, right?”
“Hm?”
“Like, if that woman could become a man, a man can become a woman too, right?” Jeralt asked, almost certain that that was the wrong way of saying it but putting it off as something else to look up to when they made it to Enbarr.
“Why, Jeralt!” Vio said with a teasing grin. “Being a parent really has put you in touch with your feminine side.”
“Not for me, you idiot!” Jeralt growled, then saw the shit-eating grin on Vio’s face.
He sighed.
Vio cackled. “Sorry, sorry, too easy. It’s for Byleth, right?”
“Yeah,” Jeralt said. “I saw her, uh, trying on— you know what, never mind. Thanks for the help, anyway. Let me know what funds you need for the research and materials once we get to Enbarr.”
“No problem, boss,” Vio said, turning back to his supplies. “Oh, one thing?”
“Yeah?” Jeralt said, hand on the tent-flap.
“You want us to call Byleth your daughter, right?” Vio asked.
Jeralt nodded slowly. “Can’t believe I forgot to— Yeah. Yeah I think she’d like that a lot.”
Vio saluted. “Aye aye, captain.”
“You know,” Edelgard said quietly, as Byleth stood from laying the flowers on the grave. “I never asked what he said when you told him.”
“About?” Byleth asked, stepping back into her wife’s gentle touch. “Oh!” she said, realisation slotting in. “Honestly he was… incredibly chill about the whole thing.”
A gentle smile grew on Byleth’s face at the memory. “Caught me wearing one of the other mercs’ skirts when I was like nine. I was so scared he was gonna freak out or something, and he was just like. OK, fine,” Byleth mimicked her father’s gruff voice easily, despite the long years since she’d heard it. “But don’t forget you’re on laundry duty tomorrow.”
Edelgard laughed, her voice sweeping over Byleth’s ears like gentle waves, her arm hugging Byleth just a little tighter. “That sounds just like him.”
Byleth nodded. “Called me his daughter from that day on. Bought me a bunch of new girl clothes when we got to Enbarr, got the camp doctor starting me on all the transitional potions and spells and stuff.” She leaned harder into Edelgard’s touch, squeezing her hand for comfort as she gazed down at the gravestone in reverence. “He was so matter of fact, like he always was with supporting me. He loved me so much that it was like, the fundamental constant of my life. The one rock that underpinned everything.”
Byleth paused, catching her breath, the tears that had been pooling at her eyes subsiding slightly. Even now, his memory was the only thing that could draw this out of her.
Well, that and one other person.
Edelgard brushed her gloved thumb lightly over Byleth’s hands. She didn’t speak now. There were words she could have said, gratitude for Jeralt, regret at having never shared her love for his daughter while she’d had the chance, soft reassurances.
But Byleth didn’t always need words. Sometimes they were harder. Sometimes, all she needed was Edelgard’s gentle touch, communicating all that love, regret, and peace in comfortable silence.
Byleth breathed deeply, pressing a kiss to Edelgard’s white hair. “Thanks.” She turned back to the grave, the lonely white stone overlooking the deep chasm the separated the former cathedral from the rest of Garreg Mach.
“Hi, dad,” she began. “Sorry it’s been so long. Well, it’s been a year, same as always, just feels like it cause so much has happened. I’m… here with my wife, dad. I’d tell you who it is, but I think you already know. You always knew.” She chuckled softly. “I couldn’t always tell what people were thinking, but I knew with you. The little smiles you’d make when you saw us. I… I know you were hoping she’d look after me, that she’d love me as much as you do.”
Edelgard pressed a kiss of her own to the side of Byleth’s head. “I can only try my best.” She turned her attention to the quiet stone, to the delicate carving of Jeralt Eisner indelibly marked into the smooth rock. “I have so much to be grateful to you for, Mr Eisner. Sir Jeralt,” she took a quick breath, “Dad. You’d have been the type to ask me to call you that, wouldn’t you?”
Byleth giggled softly next to her. Definitely correct.
Edelgard rolled her eyes fondly. “I’m sorry I never got to ask you for your wonderful daughter’s hand in marriage. I’m sorry for… a great many things. But… from the bottom of my heart, and from Byleth’s…”
She set a hand on the gravestone.
“Thank you, Jeralt Eisner.”