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Jeralt’s little girl is growing up.
She isn’t graceful, she isn’t soft. Her edges are sharp and worn, all wire and bone. But there are new parts of her that have been sanded down, jagged pieces that have been dulled and blunted. If only just a little.
Byleth isn’t a woman of many words. She doesn’t care much about appearances and barely makes time to brush her hair. She eats like an animal starved, stuffing bread and drumsticks in her mouth while bits of food fly. After all, Jeralt had raised her to hold her own around a bunch of uncouth mercenaries.
She isn’t rash, though. She isn’t shy. She takes things as they are, takes time to think, calculate, and plan. Byleth is nearly the opposite of her mother in those things.
And, in a way, Jeralt is happy that she isn’t so much like her mother. Like Sitri.
But, like Sitri, Byleth is kind. Kinder, Jeralt thinks, than he himself can ever hope to be.
He watches her accidentally step on someone’s toes.
He winces.
Well, his daughter isn’t much of a dancer either.
To be fair, he really hadn’t taught her ballroom dancing much before—only the most basic steps of the basics. Neither of them had thought she’d have much use for such a skill anyway. Except that he realizes that this thought doesn’t save them now. They had been sellswords out in the field, earning coin through killing would-be thieves and ending every day by washing the muck off their boots.
Still, he admits, it is a little painful to watch.
He can’t believe that Byleth had offered to help train Dorothea to dance so that she could represent the Blue Lions at the White Heron Ball. He should be grateful that Manuela was there to assist, and most importantly, that Dorothea is already a born and bred performer.
The student Byleth is dancing with, ever respectful, grins and bears it. But Jeralt does not expect anything less from Claude. The poor boy is probably enjoying circling around with a professor and observing everyone’s reactions. It’s just like him.
“Careful there, Teach,” Jeralt hears Claude say as he twirls Byleth out, “you’ll make the prince jealous.” He winks, spinning her until she’s free of him, still chuckling to himself as if he has just told the most hilarious joke.
Jeralt doesn’t have time to place his glass of sparkling champagne down before he’s off to catch Byleth.
He moves with the precision of both a highly skilled mercenary captain and a father who has most definitely raised his child on his own.
He taps his daughter’s shoulder before she can blink.
“What was that out there, kiddo?” he asks, smiling despite himself.
Byleth stares at him with those wide, violet eyes he’s sure she inherited from some distant Faerghan relative of his, and it is all he can do not to laugh.
Because, though many find his daughter difficult to read, Jeralt thinks she is an open book.
And right now, Byleth looks utterly confused.
He knows what she’s thinking based on the twitch in her left eye. She wants to know what he means because she doesn’t know what happened herself.
Jeralt sips his champagne.
“The prince, huh?” he asks, lifting a curious eyebrow. “He wouldn’t happen to be talking about Prince Dimitri, the leader of the Blue Lions and the heir to the throne of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus…that prince?”
Byleth glanced away, her teeth tugging on her bottom lip.
Ah.
Jeralt sighs, then downs the rest of his champagne. He places the glass on the corner of the refreshments table directly behind him. He holds out a hand, prompting his daughter to look at it.
“Why don’t you dance with your old man?” Jeralt suggests. “Who knows, maybe you could learn a thing or two.”
Byleth takes his hand without hesitation, and it’s easier, in a way, for him to accept that his foot will likely be numb after this.
A moderate tune plays from the orchestra, just slow enough that it isn’t frantic, yet fast enough that the music reminds him a bit of a jive playing in a town center during a festival.
He guides her hand to his shoulder.
“You’re enjoying yourself,” he remarks.
Byleth nods. “I am,” she agrees.
Jerald allows her to whirl from his right arm to his left. She narrowly avoids his left foot, and it’s all he can do not to sigh in relief.
“Then why are you so nervous?”
His daughter almost stops in her tracks, and it takes the fantastic swell of the string section to get her to move just in time to avoid a dancing couple gliding their way.
“Nervous?” she murmurs. “I’m nervous?”
With startling clarity, Jeralt remembers that though Byleth has always had her own opinions, her own feelings, she had never truly expressed them. Not until more recently, when she had become a professor here at the Officers Academy. Being around her students has begun to change her.
“You’re nervous,” he explains. He pauses, swaying them to the side and grimacing as she steps on his big toe. “Is it because of the prince?”
He sees it, the way her eyes dart from his face to something over his shoulder.
He spins them around, improvising a dance move that he is sure would be frowned upon in most nobles’ ballrooms because of its lack of refinement.
But it’s worth it. Because now he sees that boy…this prince Dimitri.
Dimitri is on the other side of the ballroom, alone with a table stacked high with sweets and not an inkling of interest in any of the confections laid out. Instead, it seems as though he is searching for someone.
Then, as if Jeralt’s very thought has become magnetic, Dimitri’s eyes lock on Byleth.
Jeralt’s heart stutters.
In the span of a few seconds, he sees this, but he has not discovered it. It is not a new occurrence. In fact, he knows that this is all bound to happen sooner rather than later.
He knows that look. He has seen it before. On the practice field, when Byleth is gently instructing students and speaking to Dimitri as if he is just another boy and not a prince at all. In the way Dimitri seeks out Byleth after a particularly difficult battle in which a stray arrow might have glanced her arm.
Jeralt has seen the look on his own face when he first courted Sitri.
It is admiration, it is longing. Who knows if this could yet be called love? But it is there. And it aches.
“Go,” Jeralt says softly, taking his hands away from his daughter’s waist.
“Go?” she asks, tilting her head.
They stand now at the outer edge of the dance floor, two chess pieces playing different games.
“Go to him,” he says. “You’re nervous because you’re afraid you’ll embarrass yourself when you ask him to dance, aren’t you?”
Byleth remains silent, her gaze flicking to the side.
“Dimitri is looking for you, you know. Don’t you think you should give him a chance to find you?”
Jeralt places a steadying hand on the small of her back, then guides her to turn around.
He witnesses the moment both of them realize they are staring at each other. Those few seconds are small, but they are electric.
He wishes he hadn’t seen it at all.
He is reluctant at first, but then Dimitri’s face lights up. The boy brightens like the full moon, lighting a clear path in the middle of an endless night.
Byleth straightens, then she blushes.
Jeralt lets her go.
“Don’t worry about me,” Jeralt reassures as he nudges her forward. “Just promise me your first dance on your wedding day.” He has a teasing smile on his face.
Then he watches as the two of them soften. How they drift toward each other, flower petals floating on the surface of a pond in spring. And he thinks that he is still uncertain, still protective.
He sees Sitri in Byleth as she holds onto Dimitri’s hand. Perhaps she is more like her mother than he knows.
A slow waltz bursts into the crevices of the high vaulted ceiling, a perfect melody, an elegant song.
He will look forward to dancing with her again.
Isn’t this what life is all about?