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The sun was beginning to rise off in the distance, slowly illuminating the ruins of Garreg Mach around Byleth as she sat at the edge of the dock with her fishing line in the water. She hadn’t caught a fish yet, her string empty nearby but firmly anchored into the rocks and sand, but that didn’t bother her. It gave her time to think, time to try and reorient to this world where her hair was blue and her students, all of them, were alive and well.
They were all alive.
That meant she had the opportunity to fix things with each and every one of them.
Which made today the first good day in an awfully long time.
Sleeping in an undecorated room that would later become her office, or had become her office in a different timeline, had been an odd experience. Byleth hadn't minded sleeping among the rubble, she'd found a cot and set it up in a corner to sleep through the night. The sleep itself was fine, the weirdness came in sleeping in a place that she intimately knew but was drastically different all the same.
She suspected this unease, this oddity, would be frequently recurring for quite some time and tried to pay it no mind. After all, she’d been given a unique opportunity to try and fix things. No sense in complaining about it, but she was still getting used to having a heartbeat which was the far odder sensation to wrap her head around after all these years.
She couldn't find a fishing pole but that hadn't deterred her either. A pair of well-shaped sticks, some string, and bits of metal were close enough to the real thing. She hadn't caught anything, but her hook was in the water so she had to be doing something right.
The fishing pond had remained largely the same. There was still a wide variety of fish lurking under the surface, she'd spotted several species lurking near the docks when she first sat down. An old turtle had even lazily swam by a bit ago, now sunbathing on a large rock further down. The old oak tree was still growing as it likely would for the next century, providing shade eventually to the dock later in the day but first casting its shadow across the pond instead.
They had spoken a bit more yesterday at the Goddess Tower, but ultimately Edelgard left with a promise to return in the morning daylight for their fishing date. Byleth hadn't felt abandoned by that, she understood the Emperor had many duties on her plate, but she had something to look forward to.
She couldn't recall the last time that had been true in her life.
It was daylight now.
Edelgard was nowhere to be seen.
That was okay.
Byleth had time.
Edelgard had promised.
Byleth watched the sun slowly rise, the light crawling along the surface of the pond as the sunlight finally began warming the dock and beaming down on her. Many mornings over the past century had been spent at this pond, playing out just like this one. As she watched the turtle bask in the sun, she realized she’d probably seen many of its descendants once imitate the same behavior.
But this morning was different. She found herself content like this, feet splashing in the pond and warmed by the sun’s touch relishing in these experiences. The world around her was alive and she found herself being a part of that world too.
“You're still… real.” Edelgard’s voice rang out behind her despite being a soft whisper, Byleth finding herself hanging on every word as she turned away from her impromptu fishing rod to look up at Edelgard.
Byleth’s heart skipped a beat, unwilling to fight the smile that grew across her face.
She was far less formal today, wearing a loose fitting cotton blouse and a pair of black trousers as her hair was done up in a ponytail held together by a red ribbon. Edelgard was missing her crown, the ponytail laid over one shoulder, and she still carried Aymr in her off hand. Even in casual clothing like this, Byleth thought Edelgard was beautiful.
Perhaps even moreso than yesterday.
Edelgard stared down at her, an unreadable expression across her face as she looked at the sticks with string attached on the docks and Byleth. “To be honest, my teacher, I believed yesterday to be a dream even with your talk of fishing but now I know better.”
“I'm real, Edelgard. Whatever I need to do in order to prove it, I will gladly do so without hesitation.” She nodded, smiling as she patted the edge of the dock next to her as an invitation for Edelgard to join her.
After a moment, her former student sat down and joined her on the dock’s edge. Aymr was put between the two of them, even now the axe vibrating as if alive with rage and anger. Edelgard sat a respectable distance away, farther than Byleth wished, and she took her shoes off to let her feet dance along the top of the pond.
“Then tell me the bad news. Tell me the terrible things, the pain you felt, why you fought so hard to come here.” Edelgard looked over to her, still sizing her up and her eyes catching on the Sword of the Creator as she did so. “I know my request is a difficult one, but I need to know what happened in this other timeline, my teacher.”
Byleth stared at the placid water.
Flashes of memories raced through her brain. More funerals than births, Flayn imitating the Immaculate One in flames, drunkenly wandering the halls of the monastery alone, tears and anger across so many of the faces of the people she loved, but one feeling quashed all the others in her chest.
Loneliness. An overwhelming sense of loneliness. Everything that happened in that century which never was, all of her actions only led to a growing road of isolation and pain and loneliness.
Even Rhea had left her.
Not that Byleth could have blamed her. After her students died, what little color in life she could find withered and perished with them. For most people it would have been a lifetime, nearly fifty years, but for her it had been a jail sentence by the end of it.
Flayn deserved better, Byleth knew. Seteth and Rhea had their faults, Byleth had hers too, but Byleth could find it in herself now to regret how she’d treated Flayn by the end of it. There was no one moment in time that she could point to and say definitively that was the end of the potential of a real friendship between them, but she’d used the divine pulse far too often for anything real to blossom.
That curse, that temptation had been lifted now even as Byleth knew she’d be far more ineffectual in helping Edelgard achieve her dreams in this timeline.
“You didn't succeed.” Byleth muttered, directed as much to Edelgard as to herself.
“I gathered as much by the way you've behaved yourself.” Edelgard quietly responded, her eyes staring off at the water. “You are… different.”
“It was you and Hubert with only the Agarthans and the Empire at your back, much as I assume your current situation stands.” Byleth swallowed the painful memories of the confrontation in the Mausoleum, the look of distress on Edelgard's face as everyone and especially Byleth abandoned her. “The other Eagles fought under my command and were backed by the Church.”
“Are you going to try and dissuade me from my current course?” Edelgard asked without humor, carefully measured and flat in her tone as her hand brushed against Aymr's handle between them.
“I couldn't. Even if I wanted to.” Byleth shook her head, fingers gripping the material of her pants in lieu of something better to hold onto.
“I lived to see the world in which you failed, it turned out not much different than this one.” She sighed. At first the future had seemed so bright, her students alive and well with the Church doing its best to keep the stability. “Nobles still squabbled amongst one another, the common folk paying the price of conflict, and the Church eventually stopped caring to police the continent. Every day seemed to prove you only more correct.”
“That is…” Edelgard trailed off, retreating into her own thoughts while Byleth sat patiently.
She had time.
She could wait.
She would wait.
After a moment, Edelgard whispered. “How was I defeated?”
Byleth glanced at the sword at her side and Edelgard's face dawned in recognition.
She closed her eyes, memories of the past running through her head whether she wanted them or not. The last time she had seen Edelgard was with her sword in her students chest, blood leaking from her mouth as Edelgard smiled and died in her arms. Her veiled suicidal threat yesterday had been all too real, if Edelgard wished for her to die then it would be a blessing to the alternative.
Even as the memory played out in her brain, Byleth struggled to force the words out of her mouth. She didn’t trust herself to string them together into anything resembling a lucid thought, didn’t trust herself to retain a measure of composure if she began to babble. If she began talking, she was uncertain if any of her thoughts would mean anything beyond a glimpse into the madness buried within her skull.
“I see.” Edelgard slowly nodded, her hands bunching up together in her lap.
“I regretted it every day.” Byleth wiped at her eyes, still unaccustomed to the spontaneous tears she could cry now. “I'm… not the Byleth you knew.”
“The Professor I knew…”
“I'm out of practice with my sword. I picked up a bad habit of imbibing frequently as a coping mechanism and I'm a bit pudgy around the waist.” Byleth lifted up the hem of her shirt, pinching at the fat around her belly button. She frowned at it, the pudge a bit larger than she remembered, before looking up to a blushing Edelgard. “And I lost my connection to Sothis.”
“Your… what?” Edelgard's brow crinkled, the Emperor squinting at her as though she had misheard.
She was aware it sounded absurd, insane even, and there was no more proof for her to offer. If she had the power still, she could have done any multitude of things to try and convince Edelgard. It would have been fun to guess what Edelgard had in her pocket or the number Edelgard was thinking of, but she had no flashy tricks left up her sleeve.
Only a wasted century to show for it and the wear and tear on her own body as a result.
Byleth distantly found herself hoping that her body had recovered that century or that, somehow, it hadn't taken a toll on her and she was still physically only in her twenties.
“Right.” Byleth turned on the dock to face her former student, still all too aware of Aymr between the two of them. “I know now that we were both experimented on in our youth. I don't know what was done to me even now, but that doesn't matter. The first day we met, when you were being attacked by that bandit, was when Sothis woke up inside me and showed me that I had the power to turn back time.”
“That's…”
“Absurd, I know.” Byleth nodded, trying her best to smile as she found a subject on which she had some solid footing and happy memories. “But think back to five years ago. Did I ever make a mistake on the battlefield that you can recall? Did I ever provide a command that seemed nonsensical only to be proven right in the aftermath?”
Edelgard only nodded, inviting Byleth to speak further.
“My hair turned green because Sothis had to merge with me to save us from that attack by Solon. You didn't like it, I don't think anyone else did either.” Byleth paused. “Well. Flayn did. And Rhea.”
She thought Rhea liked her once.
Maybe the Archbishop had.
“I think I burnt through whatever power I had simply getting back here.” Her hair was back to its usual navy, she could feel her heart pounding in her chest especially whenever Edelgard was near, and she could no longer tug the strings of time. The Sword of the Creator still responded to her touch, however, and Byleth found herself grateful for retaining that at least. “I remember Sothis finally smiling at me for the first time in nearly a century, but she's… she's gone now and I remain.”
“What I'm trying to say is, I don't know how useful I'll be on the battlefield.” She frowned, taking a breath as the confession threatened to knock the wind out of her. All her life she had only ever been useful, only wanted when she could be wielded as a weapon. That was at risk, now, and Byleth knew it but she had to persevere. She had to be honest, had to see this conversation through to the end. “I have nightmares, now, and they invade even my waking hours. Nightmares of your death, the others dying, the screams and the blood and-”
“My teacher, you said you knew what I had gone through.” Edelgard reached out her hand, pushing Aymr farther away from the two of them, and scooted closer on the dock.
“Yes, I read it in your diary.” Byleth solemnly nodded. “I apologize for the breach of privacy-”
“Then you should expect to have my sympathy, if not my understanding.” The corners of Edelgard's mouth slowly turned into a smile. “You needn't be perfect. I would never ask that of anyone. Not even you, my teacher.”
Byleth frowned. “But you need-”
“I need many things. You have intelligence regarding enemy troop positions, you have information of the personalities at play, you can provide context behind how the Church, Faerghus, and Leicester interact with us and one another. You can give advice on our strategies that you have already seen executed once and presumably foiled. You are the reason that the other Eagles left, you could bring them back.” Edelgard put her hand out between them, putting up fingers as she rattled off her list
“I…” Byleth trailed off before confidently nodding in agreement. “I could do that. All that and more.”
She wasn't in better physical shape, she would never regain her powers from Sothis, but she did know things and she would talk to her students. She could right her greatest wrong, she could bring her family back together again.
With nobody left behind.
“You are still the Ashen Demon, feared mercenary on the battlefield and you still wield that Sword, cute tummy or no.” Edelgard softly giggled as she smiled, glancing at Byleth's midriff.
“Most importantly, I need a friend, a confidant.” Edelgard let her hand fall on the dock between the two of them, glancing to Byleth's hand as the smile endured in the light of her eyes as she spoke. “Hubert is my dearest ally, but you know he can't be those things for me. But you could be that again in time.”
Edelgard reached for Byleth's hand and cradled it in her own, gently rubbing her thumb along the top of Byleth's hand with a small grin.
“In time?” Byleth's breath hitched at the sudden contact, the enticing idea that they could be closer than ever before.
Edelgard's hand was so warm, the light radiating in her lilac eyes, and Byleth was so giddy that she found herself vibrating in place.
This was real.
After so long apart, this was real and Byleth hadn't needed the divine pulse to get the outcome she wanted.
She just had to be herself. Her pudgy, tired, honest self.
That had somehow been enough for Edelgard.
“In time.” Edelgard nodded. Her tongue swiped along her bottom lip, teeth gently chewing in anxiety. “We have plenty of it now and I am still… uncertain you are real.”
Edelgard laughed, an earnest and full-chested laugh and Byleth’s chest felt warmer than the sun shining down on them. “But then you say these silly things that my head could never imagine, regrets about fishing or your cute tummy and I know better.”
But the smile faded, quick as it came, and Byleth found her anxieties renewing even as Edelgard gripped her hand tighter.
“It really hurt that day, you know. I never expected you to listen to my pleas, to join me, but I couldn't have prepared for how deeply it wounded me in the years after.” Edelgard slowly nodded, her other hand stealing away Byleth's other hand to cradle them both. “I… know it took a great deal for you to be here as you are, I cannot imagine what the years have done to you. But please know that my struggle to accept this change does not diminish my pleasure at having you here, my teacher.”
“I will spend every day making it up to you.” Byleth said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“You don't have to-”
“It is good to move slowly, day by day. The last century weighs dearly on me.” Byleth frowned, her hands squirming in Edelgard's own as the past threatened to resurface in her mind. She swallowed it down, shaking her head. “I am afraid I'm worthless, broken. But I want to make it up to you, it would do me as much good as it would you. Maybe I can be useful, in the ways you say, and I would like that.”
“You can make it up to me, then, by teaching me how to fish.” Edelgard smirked.
“Happily.” Byleth nodded, laughing as she realized the makeshift rods had fallen into the pond amidst their moving along the docks end.
Edelgard’s nose crinkled as she snorted alongside Byleth as the pair of sticks floated along the surface of the pond. “You will teach me the art of fishing another day. You won’t get out of it that easy.”
“It’s okay.” Byleth smiled at her with a nod. “We have time, Edelgard.”
Edelgard moved hair away from her face, Byleth whining at the loss of contact, before scooting closer to Byleth. “You may call me El, my teacher.”
The smell of bergamot tickled her nose, warmer and brighter and more captivating than any tea before it.
“Then you may call me Byleth, El.” Byleth stared into her lilac eyes, unblinking, and leaned in as Edelgard mimicked her movements.
Their lips pressed chastely together, Byleth having never tasted anything so sweet.