#Edelgard Von Hresvleg | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

notoriousjae · 3 years

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Love is a Little Box (For Home to Lay Inside) || Edeleth Fanfic (6/?)

Chapter Title: A Crest

Pairing: Byleth Eisner (F)/ Edelgard von Hresvelg

Rating: M

Chapter Description:

She’d read home was a place people returned to after war--the sort of place people hung their armor and their coats and stored these precious things in them so that they wouldn’t be lost or covered in dirt and blood. It’s the place where families sit and they have dinner and tea and laugh about political situations in the West of Fódlan and then cry about them when they escalate, or watch a crackling fire in the hearth as they settle on the sheets puddled on the floor.

It’s the place where they feel things--anger and joy and pride and everything else they’ve ever felt and never recognized--and the place they protect because it means more to them, in a place, than any other place they’ve ever been.

It’s a word she’s known the definition of, but understood less than any other word she had ever heard, until this moment.

Byleth feels clarity, overwhelming and complete as tears gather in her eyes and her swallow trembles:

If Edelgard was an emotion, she might be all of this and more: she might be home.

Chapter 1 | AO3 | Tumblr |

Chapter 2 | AO3 | Tumblr |

Chapter 3 | AO3 | Tumblr |

Chapter 4 | AO3 | Tumblr |

Chapter 5 | AO3 | Tumblr| |

Chapter 6 (Current) | AO3 | Below | :

Professor--

"I don't think I've ever had a home." Byleth's brows knit, boxing-laced hands stilling along the hilt of a scarred scimitar that’s raising along the wall, wobbling when the Professor lets it go upon the training room wall’s hook, its glinting, rusty surface catching light upon its dulled edge. The question lingers on her chest--stays in the air like dew after a long rain, the scent of it clinging to the mercenary's nostrils. Just this morning she’d recognized dew for the first time--breathed it in. She’d been sitting in the soft grass of the grounds behind the hedges at the sky's gentlest break of dawn when light had started to fill the air in streaks of blues and greys and pinks and she'd inhaled deeply, listening to the soft scratching noise of Ignatz’ pencil along a canvas nearby and Dimitri’s quiet laughter as he dodged a clinging sword from Dedue from the Blue Lions’ training hall across the courtyard. Dew, she'd discovered, like she had known what it felt like in a dream, but never fully realized it.

It filled her lungs so thickly that she wondered why she’d never noticed it, when she knows she had--knows, for a fact, she’d smelled air just like this and known--known so well--

It’s going to rain--

"So you truly are a mercenary, no home to prefer over another."

Byleth shakes her head, focusing, now, on the student patiently waiting for an answer, long cloak of reds and blacks gentle, here, somehow. A distracting color on a battlefield--striking--like the painted tines of a venomous spiders’ back.

Edelgard von Hresvleg, leader of the Black Eagles: a warning.

And yet, the soft sun of the monastery skirts down both of their chins as Byleth’s head tilts a little to the side, curious, tipping over her shoulder to look fully at Edelgard, taking her in for the first moment like she had that dew, this morning. A moment. A realization.

A small inhale through her nostrils and then a little more understanding of the world, she breathes Edelgard in from this distance and sees her.

Edelgard doesn’t look like much of a warning at all, here, bathed in soft hues of browns, the training room’s large walls of stone catching far more warmth from the outside than they retain and all of that warmth--all of that heat--seems to settle along Edelgard’s skin like a warm, drawn bath. Like a cloak of gentling water.

The scimitar sways from the gentle breeze outside as Byleth wordlessly moves to hang up the next weapon--an axe, her own question accompanied by a soft tink of metal. "Was Enbarr home for you, Edelgard?"

"I…" Edelgard’s breath stills in the air, as well, before precise fingers hook up a whip next to her professor, eyes darting over to Byleth before they settle straight ahead. "No. I don't think it ever was. I...stayed in Fhirddiad for a time, and was…" A quiet, fond laugh full of reminiscence. "Bored there, the whole while, save for a boy I knew."

"Dimitri." Eyes barely widen--a rare tell--and Edelgard’s head hangs before she nods, a little quieter before she turns Byleth's way. "He told me."

Professor--

"So he does remember." A beat, long hair tickling at the soft curves of Edelgard's chin, "But I never lingered. Not for long. I suppose the longest I feel I’ve ever stayed in a place has been...here.” Edelgard’s smile is slim in its genuine curiosity. “You never stayed in any towns for a while? Even as a child?" The white of gloves skim along the edge of a dulled practice knife.

"No. We always moved. Like you, I guess.” The memories are faint--foggy--facts of just what always was. She’s never bothered thinking over them--wondering; itemizing--there wasn’t much point, “Jeralt was gone for a few years in a town, once, but I kept moving with our mercenaries. I guess that's where he met Leonie."

"How old were you?" The knife sways in the wind, Reagent heir bending to pluck another weapon from the cleaned, polished mass from the floor.

"I don't know." Lips purse, eyes curiously searching a pair of gloves like they might hold a geneological report before they’re hung off a hook, as well, fingertips skimming along the curved, rusted bend of its point. She’d never thought of age so, so much, before, until time seemed to take another meaning, entirely. "I suppose I... looked as old as Cyril is, now. Maybe..." Brows barely knit. “Younger.”

"I see."

It’s been days, Professor. I’m starting to get worr--

“How do you know?” Byleth asks as Edelgard hangs another dagger--another. They’ve been doing assassin work with the lances and there’s shavings of wood about the stone by their feet, swept up by Caspar’s overzealous, uneven broom handling an hour prior. Edelgard used to ask her professor why she'd suited most of their classmates with tasks that were their weakness, but she no longer asks. Really, she no longer seems to question Byleth's judgment, at all.

“How do I know what, Professor?”

“How old you are?”

The question hangs in the air like the first one had, thoughtful and full of a heavy air about it--like Edelgard had never thought of it, before, similar to how Byleth had never known to think of a word like ‘home’.

“I...suppose I always knew, because someone told me. And I guess...I know that I’m getting older because I track it,” Edelgard hesitantly supplies, brushing hair back from behind a shoulder that’s been rebellious against its violet vice, bows as soft as that red in the afternoon sun. The white-gloved tips of fingers are covered in dust and soot and grease from the weapons, but Edelgard doesn’t seem to mind, at all.

“The 22nd Garland Moon.” Byleth offers and, this time, there’s no hesitancy to Edelgard’s soft smile.

“I’m touched you remember, Professor.” A beat, pile of weapons still scattered about their feet as she takes a single step closer, fingertips settling on her hips in a way that makes Byleth’s head curiously tilt. It’s a serious question that follows: “Well, you help me often enough. Let's see...do you remember anything from when you were young?”

“…” Moments--flashes--things she had never cared to carry around with her like a seed. “...yes.”

“That’s another way one could track how old they are, if...you were so inclined. I suppose, if I didn't have a date, I could remember all the things that have happened to me and realize how many of them could happen in a day--a year. And I...suppose if I remembered enough of those things, I could realize how far I’ve come from where I was, then. Hmm..." It's a problem for Edelgard--something for her to solve. She's hardly as scientific as Linhardt, but Edelgard does love a challenge, Byleth knows, "Especially if I knew how tall I was doing them. I’m sure Hanneman could tell you an immediate statistic of the average growth of a child.” It’s said lighthearted. Amused. Almost...teasing. Familiar. And there’s something aching in Edelgard’s voice--something about the way she curls her fingers in her hips.

Byleth can see it choreographed like a fight--can see the telegraph clearly on features--for a moment, clear as afternoon sun, it seems like Edelgard might take another step forward. Those fingers flex and her foot barely lifts and her lips part...before she sways simply beneath the wind, like it was only a breath of air.

Interesting. Edelgard, Byleth's noticed, always seems so hesitant to come close.

Byleth’s head tips a little.

“Six to Seven centimeters a year.” It's a thoughtless supply--remembering the book--the picture on the outside of it--the bent spine cover as she’d batted away the dust clinging to its fabric and pulled it out of an old herbalist’s shop in Leicester. She had waited three full suns until Jeralt woke up from too much drink in his system. All of them had sworn the man had died--there was no way someone could drink so much and live--but Byleth had seen worse. She hadn't felt concern. Truly, thumb skimming along the edge of the spine of the book, she hadn't felt much, at all.

After paying off the local innkeep their tab. It had been the first time she’d seen Jeralt since before--

Since…

How long had it been?

Is that a measure of time? Suns? Moons? How tall had she been--how little time seemed to matter, then.

How much it does, now that he’s gone.

Is that how to measure time, then? By height and distance and memories of faded, soft, painful things?

"We stayed in Remire for a while.” Byleth continues, dipping down to pick up another weapon, thoughtlessly hanging it and watching it sway. Edelgard, however, simply watches her. Unusual, since she always seems so determined to receive the highest scores on her chores and tests, alike. Always pushes. Always surpasses. “I don't know how many moons. We...stayed there--Jeralt's Mercenaries, and I. But it wasn’t long. I don’t think I’ve ever had a home. I think I’ve stopped growing,” It’s a quiet murmur, settling Ferdinand’s splintered axe between two hooks in the wall, its tip shining a beacon of light across the room. Bright. “So I can’t track it, now. But I don’t know if the time matters. It’s never been important to me. Why should it be, now?”

“Maybe it doesn't. But...on the subject of homes, you..." A hum, Byleth turning away from her to stare at the wall, "...like it here, don’t you.” It’s a bold assumption of Edelgard’s and Byleth thinks it over for a moment before she nods. “I do, too.”

Byleth won’t understand until she suddenly does why Edelgard looks so sad when she says it, smile curving up in the afternoon sun, the soft red of her spider cape muted like the inviting brown of an ivy’s shadow.

Edelgard steps forward and Byleth’s brows knit further as bare fingers skim along the base of a shoulder, dipping carefully along the wound caved into her flesh.

Edelgard never stepped forward. She--they--

“Professor--” El murmurs, fingers charting the curling vine of black now running down Byleth’s arm like water, “Do you track time, now?”

“What?” It feels odd. Different. But unlike the moment before, Byleth takes in the suddenly-down hair cascading over shoulders like a waterfall, her own hands thoughtlessly raising up to curve over the soft white cloth of a night shirt. The same one she’d seen so many times when they’d stolen away to the Goddess’ Tower. Unlike the moment before, Byleth looks at Edelgard, and knows she loves her. She knows her completely--fully--and forgets all of time, entirely--forgets that there's ever been a time where she didn't know her--didn't feel her--didn't love her--

“Do you track time, now?” Edelgard repeats, stepping closer, still, palm flattening over the length of that wound. Protective. It doesn’t ache. It hasn’t ached, at all--Byleth had forgotten it was even there, consuming her in black tendrils and pits. “You know how many birthdays I’ve had--all of your students that are here and gone. You’ve kept my letters to you on yours.” It's a calm list of fact, stepping closer and closer until it’s just her chest rumpling against the bloodied fabric on Byleth’s front, covered in mud and soot and ash, staining it, “You know how many moons Jeralt’s been gone--” Those bare fingers trace each and every black line up and down her side, pushing off her cloak that clatters behind them, contents of a box splaying open in the muted sun, glinting. Disappearing into the cool stone floor, “Oh, Byleth.” Edelgard’s voice huffs so quivering--like that smile. Like that smile before she said--

Wake up--

Promise me.

“You don’t grow in height, but the black edges of your wound creep further and further each and every day. You never understood time, but you’re scared of it now, aren’t you, love?” Edelgard’s lips skim over a dully thudding heart, idly wondering where her shirt went since training, but not minding it at all as the smaller of the two covers her fully as she presses up against the cool stone, feeling the gentle prick of a hook from a scimitar, caught between the wind and Byleth’s shoulders.

“Yes.” Byleth simply offers. She won’t lie--not to Edelgard. The last sword she had bent to hang feels heavy in her hand, dragging knuckles down towards the ground like an incomprehensible weight. Weary. Tired. The sunlight is still caught along its surface, orange-yellow glow haunted by the shadows of the black curving down Byleth’s bare wrist.

“It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Being so scared of something you control.” Another voice sounds from behind them so casually amidst a wide, sprawling yawn, Sothis settling an elbow on Edelgard’s shoulder, watching as the heir so gently takes the sword from Byleth’s hand, ring scratching its surface.

Edelgard’s scarred fingers curl and calmly the sword shatters, orange sunlight twinkling onto stone like dust--like wood shavings carved from a wooden pole spear by an inept but deadly dagger.

“I’ve marked so much of my time as days without you, Byleth. That feeling in your chest, right now--that constricting, clenching, restless feeling--that scrambling, animalistic desire--I believe your exceptional brain thinks it’s guilt . You feel guilty, leaving me alone.” Edelgard leans down to the scattered, faded contents of the box, picking up a single crystal and polishing the edge of the broken, jagged weapon like chalk upon a bow. “You feel guilty, leaving me to my fate without you by my side. You feel guilty, telling me we have a future, when we both know we have none--”

Her voice is so compassionate--as gentle as her hands as she presses up the small piece of the sword covered in powder at the edge of Byleth’s wound.

Her heart thuds, desperate.

“That’s not true.” Byleth argues for the first time in her life, back flat against the wall, palms trembling as they raise up to curve around Edelgard’s wrists. “We both knew.”

“We did. We do. Maybe that’s why you haven’t told me what you expected, all along.”

Byleth’s features contort more than they ever have, unused and dull --this weak ache from muscles never grown as she grimaces.

“It’s alright, my love.” El murmurs by her ear, pressing the jagged sword deeper inside of the hole inside of her, right above a weakly beating heart. “You can admit it to me.”

“If you can’t admit it to her, you can at least admit it to me,” Sothis chimes, green eyes calm and serene as she shifts closer, “I’m you , after all. I’m still you, you can feel it--”

This isn’t good--

“You can feel it, can’t you?” El murmurs in her ear, lips so gentle and hands so soft and heart so true as the sword pushes deeper. Byleth trembles. "You can feel it coming--"

It doesn’t ache. It feels like dipping a scalding burn in warm water, the shock of it...soothing. Welcoming.

Relieving.

“You can feel the change of time.” Sothis offers in her other, both of their hands curling over hunched shoulders against this monastery wall, Byleth’s eyes fluttering closed with...relief.

“I don’t want you to lose me, El.” Byleth trembles.

“That’s a burden everyone must bear, at times. A thing we cannot save those we love from--” Sothis consoles.

Professor!

“I don’t want you to become me, El.” Byleth sags, their hands the only thing keeping her up as the sword slides in--in-- in --pieces of black engulfing it as her flesh falls away--

This isn’t good--

“That’s a burden everyone must bear, at times. A thing we cannot save those we love from--” Edelgard consoles.

Professor--

“Tell me what you’ve been scared of.” They both murmur, pulling back so that Byleth can smile sadly at them both, useless weight held up by their steadying, resolute hands.

Her lips part--

“That I’ve always been one of them , underneath. That the human part of me was-- ” Byleth’s quiet voice trembles from Sothis’ lips, young--muted--

"Me."

--but Edelgard doesn’t turn away from her, tears swimming in violet as Byleth continues--small and quiet and young, lips unmoving and voice hanging in the air, “The part that I stole. The part I don’t deserve. The part that you hate .”

Byleth!

“You don’t mean you think you’re like Rhea, do you.” Edelgard probes and both Byleth and Sothis shake their head in unison, one.

The air feels heavy--no longer like dew, but rain. Thick, torrential rain. She feels it, now--feels cold, even as they both hold her. Mud starts to pour in from the window nearby as Byleth feels herself start to sink--start to stumble.

The sword slots the rest of the way into the black depth near her heart and Byleth tries to scramble to catch herself on a nearby log, sinking further--further-- further into this endless pit.

Edelgard looks so sad.

“Well, my hating you...that’s just not true, Byleth,” Edelgard murmurs--so much herself. So much of Edelgard that Byleth’s trapped here in her heart, like a seed. Like this blooming, tethering vine that carries a flower out of the darkness and into the sun.

Byleth had never understood why, until that moment she saw it all, so clearly.

The moment she saw that Garreg Mach was Edelgard's home.

Jeralt and Goddess forgive me--

“I would have helped her out of the mud, you know.”

“You’re not alone, Byleth.” Sothis’ hand covers the wound just as Edelgard’s had, gentle and caring and so knowing as the panic in her chest subsides, nothing but shadows left. “But you know we aren't the--”

“ Ah--”

Eyes blink owlishly at bright, overwhelming light--so, so bright--searing, searing pain hissing from a shoulder down to the tips of numb fingers, panic clogging a thick throat as Byleth scrambles backwards against something rough and harsh and sharp to grab at the thing harming her --

A stick--no, a blade--she realizes with a slice when her whole palm wraps around its surface, the knife sticking out of her already open wound, cutting skin as she moves upwards, instead, to the hand thrusting it into her, and widening dark eyes--

“Profes--”

Her whole body is sluggish--weak--sweat sinking so far into bones that barely move as she thrashes and manages to get her attacker off-guard, snapping a hand away and pushing legs with all of her might to scramble back and--

That voice turns more frantic, yelping, “ Professo--”

Weightlessness. Uneasiness. Searing, searing pain and floating--

She’s falling. The adrenaline spikes up until she can blink and see--

Stones. Rocks. Tumbling, tumbling rocks--ground...upside down. The ground is upside down, her body moving...away from it--away from--

It doesn’t make sense. Think. Think.

A cliff--realization sinks through her foggy, disoriented mind, dread and horror settling thick with nausea in her chest. She’s scrambled backwards and essentially kicked herself head-first off of a cliff away from her attacker, knife now wedged firmly in her shoulder from the motion.

Something wraps around her--tugs--

Pain. More pain as the knife jabs further into her shoulder, both of them rolling around sharp rocks and dirt and--ground. She’s on ground. They’re on top of her. She barely manages to lift up her elbow before she’s pinned down onto her stomach, a hand holding back her shoulder from the ground so that the knife now sticking from within her won’t slam into the rock.

A rasping, weak gurgling noise from her throat, sucking in a deep breath through searing, searing lungs to thrash when--

“For fuck’s sake , Professor!”

It cuts through, then, enough awake to hear it--

Leonie.

Panting and gasping and frantic , voice nearly three octaves higher.

Leonie.

Leonie’s fingers wrapped around her shoulder--Leonie’s hair tickling her neck--Leonie’s…

Leonie’s knife sticking out of her shoulder?

Still, Byleth weakly sags, fight so slim and body ragged, the gesture thoughtlessly pressing the knife deeper into her with a grunt and a scared noise from up above her as the mercenary is rolls her old professor onto her back the moment the squirming fight stops.

Byleth blinks again, rattling onto the mountain’s apparent peak like a cut sack of stones, bones tumbling uselessly and heavy along its surface. Mountain. Cliff.

Maybe a ledge?

A blink towards the sky, still so bright but...clouded.

Another rattling breath. Cold .

“Goddess, I should have restrained you.” Leonie sounds still frantic above her, hands seeming to bat all over Byleth’s shoulder before carefully--carefully--starting to remove the knife from where it’s wedged into her, a quiet curse following.

Byleth, pale, turns to see where the knife pulls with morbid curiosity, entire chest stained nearly black . Almost like blue ink, the knife’s tip a dipped feather as it’s raised into the knife and removed from her. Cold. She’s cold .

Below her shoulder are piles of furs arranged in different colors and shapes--from Brigid. They’re stained on the edges with that same black blood and so are Leonie’s fingers when they’re raised up into the light, holding up something...small. Non descript. Byleth blinks and realizes small flurries of white halo Leonie’s widened, fearful eyes. Snow.

It’s snowing.

Mountains--a cliff--snow--did they move West? East? No. There's trees, in the distance. It is a cliff. Long, spindly trees with great trunks and bright leaves. Falling--dying--

Winter.

A horse neighs nearby and Byleth...Byleth--

An owlish blink, feeling the exhaustion grip her, the pain--the pain--

“Oh, no, no you don’t, not again--” Leonie’s hands are on her cheeks, smearing black along far worse that stains her professor’s skin, curving Byleth up to look at her, “You’ve been out for a week. I’ve barely kept you alive. I was so worried , Professor--I realized you were getting worse, and you were feverish and--” She shakes the small little thing, “Poison.”

“No…” Byleth murmurs, barely shaking her head, “No...no--not...poison--” Her voice is strangled. Rasping. Thin. It’s barely a whisper above the sun and the snow and the wind on this mountain.

“Professor, I’m sorry. I hate to tell you, but it’s definitely poisoned--”

“No.” Byleth repeats, not wanting Leonie to misunderstand, “Not...just poison.”

“What?” Leonie looks at it, again, brows knitting, “What is it?”

“A...crest stone.” Byleth murmurs. Blinking--blinking--the halo around Leonie’s head is peacefully bright. Soothing. The snow fades into the back like a watercolor. Edelgard had seen Bernadetta doing one of those, once, shoulders hunched inwards as Edelgard leaned over to praise it.

She’d burned brighter than a rose. Than a--

Than Edelgard’s--

“Professor.” Another owlish blink, focusing on frightened, widened eyes. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, I need you to stay with me. Focus.”

Focus.

It’s a shame Shamir isn’t here. She would calm her--could--could--

“Shamir, what was that?” Leonie gasps behind the edge of the battlefield, snow clinging to her hair, hand raising up to rub where the mercenary had slapped her shoulder.

“Nothing.” Shamir hummed, non-plussed, eyes scanning over the horizon.

Byleth’s brows knit, curious why she hadn’t just told her it was a spide --

Another blink, Leonie’s dark hands smoothing up her cheeks, holding Byleth’s lolling head and shaking, just a little, to garner her attention. Her voice is gentle, lips thin and kind .

“What do you mean it’s a crest stone? How do you--what happened?”

Weakly, with trembling, cold fingers, Byleth gestures towards the torn remnants of her chest.

“Your wound?”

A shaking head, sagging into the blankets. Sweat has wicked and turned cold against her neck--colder than the air--but it feels...nice somehow. Sinking into it. Sinking into all of it like mud and snow and rain--

“I don’t understand, professor.” Leonie looks at a loss, “You’re not making any sense. I thought the cold was helping your fever, but I don’t--I don’t know --” It’s frustrated and furious as she tries to re-pack Byleth’s wound, now at least slightly cleaned of debris and blood and dirt.

Byleth’s fingers are stiff as they raise to curve around a slim wrist, feeling Leonie’s heartbeat thud beneath thin skin, stilling her. Just for a moment. Just enough so that she stops swimming in front of Byleth’s vision, trying to focus on her.

“Same thing...gave Edelgard.” It’s a struggle to talk. Struggle to breath. Struggle to think, blinking as she watches the snow coat Leonie’s shoulders and her damp hair and her furrowed brows and her--

“I don’t underst-- ”

“‘S her heart, Leonie.” It’s a gruff noise from behind them, and soon another figure emerges from the swirling white clouds around them, sunlight eclipsed by a large shadow. Jeralt? No. Another blink. Long hair--kind eyes wrinkling at the edges--a beard that swings beneath his chin--

A smile.

“Mat...ias,” It’s croaked. Blink sticking for a little too long before the shadow comes closer, kind eyes that had been eclipsed by their own shadow morphing from shadows into only one eye and a patch stiff from snow as a man leans down over her, his hair brushing along her cheeks but she doesn’t feel it.

He shakes his head.

Byleth remembers the way death always creeps upon someone who was so used to it--a faded thought; a reminder--Matias was gone a long, long time ago.

So was Jeralt.

So was--

“Ab...ner.” A ghost of a demon's smile barely tucks up on lips as his fingers, gruff and calloused, brush along her forehead.

“What are you talking about?” Leonie leans back on her haunches, once more working on the wound now that Byleth’s attention is stolen by the man taking the sun along his shoulders. Faint memories of her knees tucked over the edge of the rumbling boulders of his mountaint, stretching all of her stout, wiry height into rustling branches to pluck a piece of fruit--

--Of bandaging ribs, once, like Edelgard had done for her. Quiet, the smell of whiskey filling the tent.

--The memory of him wrapping his wrists with gauze and tossing her a roll--of the way his axe cut her hair during a sparring match once so lopsidedly that the merchant couldn’t even tug it up into a bun and his smirk dancing with a cackle up into the fire at night.

Abner. He lost half of his teeth through the years, most in the back replaced with wood causing his speech to resemble a drunken bar maid attempting to speak while guzzling a pint, jaw hanging low and bowing like a barking, lazy dog. He speaks like cotton lines his gums, teeth always brushing along his upper lip.

It was always...nice, being around Abner. He never minded the fact that she didn’t talk--he talked enough for the both of them--and even nicer, few people ever understood a single word he attempted to speak. She remembers--remembers--the times he'd taught her to read, both of them cowered over a book by a campfire, his nose bloodied and broken from an axe hilt to the base of it. He'd sounded just as he always had--

‘S why I read so much--’ Abner’s fingers are thicker than a tree trunk around the small book tucked in Byleth’s lap, helping her trace the curves of the letters, anyways. ‘No one ‘xpec’s it, for nothin’, bu’ it’s good work, readin’. All the people an’ facts ‘bout the whole wi’e worl’ you coul' e’er wan’ are righ’ ‘ere, ashen squirt. ‘Sides, like talkin’ to you, eh? Might be talkin’ ‘bout some o’ this together, ‘fore long’.

“Jeralt told me ‘imself one night, drunk as a Wil' Beast. Always was. Stunk to hell and back and told me--there’s somethin' in there . Somethin' in our girl. Was right. Saw it m’self once. Girl go' stabbed straight through the chest, jus’ like this’n here. Could see it shine under the light--some stone. ‘Ealed right up fore my eyes. Saw th' same thing when we were with yous in the tomb. Less bloody in the tomb, tho, innit, squirt?” He claps her uninjured shoulder and she watches the snow stick in his hair.

She blinks, smile having long since fallen as she thinks it over and then murmurs, decidedly: “Dustier.”

He cackles and Leonie pales, pulling up the small little stone up into the frozen day, sunlight glinting off the smallest shine on the corner, its black edge seeming to absorb all of the heat. All of the light. Everything around them.

“Hav’t lost your bite yet, then, ashen squirt, ‘ave ya?”

“A crest stone.” Leonie repeats, pocketing the small bloody thing in the utility strap around her chest before once more starting on cleaning up Byleth’s wound. A slow blink up towards Abner, jaw trembling from stiffness--difficult to speak.

“We’re still...in Faerg...us…” Byleth surmises, tongue darting over cracked lips, staying parted over struggling to close it and open her jaw, again.

“Snow give ‘er away?” Abner’s hands are working, as well, in a way Byleth can’t see--doesn’t look down to check, instead letting her body sink into the blankets. “North ’a th’ Monastery. Least a week's trek out, still.”

“More soldiers came from the East and North, following your attack. You routed the majority of them and enabled everyone to escape...but Abner came back looking for me. Thankfully just in time to help me strap you to a horse and escape East before reinforcements came.” Leonie’s brows are knit in concentration and Byleth sees the sweat on her brow--wonders how cold it might be to the touch. "Abner told me most of the Mercenaries are making their way to Enbarr, now, thanks to you. Unfortunately, so are the reinforcements."

“Don’t know much ‘a where they’re headin’ outside a’ Enbarr.”

“Heading...to Hrym.” Byleth offers, eyes closing just to--

“Oh, no you don’t.” Leonie lightly taps her cheek again, stern. Serious. Eyes frightened. “I nearly lost you, last time.”

Byleth makes a concerted effort to focus--to blink--to stay, since Leonie seems so inclined to keep her here.

“Abner...has to...warn them.” Byleth grunts. There’s three of them, now, and Byleth understands the logic of it. The strategy.

She’s dead weight.

“I already tried that. He won’t leave.” Leonie huffs.

“N’er was a goo’ lis’ner and all that. You know tha’ more’n most, eh? An’ fore you try, nay’er will Lonnie--”

“ Leonie ,” Leonie immediately cuts off, like this banter has happened for the better part of half a decade.

“One...of you....has to…” Byleth swallows--groans a pitiful, weak noise like a small, dying animal as Leonie stiches up her skin like leather. Byleth doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’s tried--to tell her that Ferdinand’s fingers had quivered in the tent as he tried to piece them both together like a horse’s quilt before it had opened a few hours later. That Byleth had lit her sword and pressed it until her teeth ground coal to diamonds in her mouth and the black seeped from her skin into the earth around her as she panted in the fields.

“No.” Leonie is firm. “You’re being an idiot. They probably already know. You already made me leave once, and this time you’re going to die if I--”

“Please.” It’s the first time Byleth has ever tasted the word, thick like blood. It tastes so foreign--feels so...unusual, how much it fills her chest and her lungs and her pain , spreading like fire in her veins in all of this ice and snow.

She looks from Abner to Leonie and back again--blinks.

Blinks. Focus. Focus.

“Please.” It's trembling, so tired--so quiet--

Please, Edelgard quakes so quietly she might have never said it, at all; Please, Edelgard quivers so fervently against Byleth’s chest in this big, big, endless room, that they’re dwarfed in it; Please, Edelgard murmurs in her ear, gentle and soft as a knife presses into her palm--

Promise me, Byleth--

Focus--

Please, Dorothea whimpers against twisted sheets, sweat staining her neck and her chest and her aching pain, curling against the wound as the fire sets it; Please, Ferdinand pants as he falls to his knees in the clumping dirt, palms flattening next to his spear as he digs a hole for the first soldier that’s fallen, not yet aware of how many will never once again become one with Earth, only with ashes scattered to the sky in flames-- Please, Goddess, please-- Mercedes quivers as her hands flatten over the fire-torn remnants of a church orphanage, curving beneath wood until the fire welts her fingers as she pushes and pushes and both Byleth and Jeritza stumble to help her; ‘Please’ Felix snorts, eyes cold and closing for longer than he should as he turns from the fallen crest upon his own shield, blue emblazoned emblem torn from his shirt and left in the dirt, ‘You’re not even trying’;

Please , Bernadetta’s palms flatten against the edge of her table, quiet and small, don’t --

-- do this, professor , Caspar draws himself to his full height, bouncing from foot to foot as he shifts his weight, wiping the sweat from his brows. ‘ We all know how it’s--’

‘Going to end .’ Ingrid’s fingers still above her Pegasus’ fur, silver gauntlets lost in its fur, brush curled so tightly in her hand that the skin hidden beneath armor must be paler than the moon. When she turns to look at Byleth, there’s a sorrow in her eyes. ‘ And I...maybe it’s selfish, Professor, but I--’

‘Want you to be there to see it.’ Sylvain scuffs the apple against his chest, light glinting off its edge, off-green color painted in shades of reds and pinks that Byleth might confuse it for a sunrise. She steps a little closer to him, watching the wind dance through his hair. ‘ We all do. A world without Crests. I mean, please--’

‘Professor.’ Manuela’s head lolls on Byleth’s shoulder, skin sallowed and slick with sweat. Byleth’s familiar with this--had done it for as long as she could remember. At least Manuela’s far shorter than Jeralt had been, especially when she loses the heels. ‘ What if there’s nothing left? What if there’s nothing left to--’

--‘Lose.’ Hanneman’s fingers carefully rub cloth along the glinting glass of his monocle, its sheen lost beneath the shadows and that thin, straight line cascading deep into the caverns from high above. ‘ We have everything left to lose. It’s too risky. It’s--’

‘What Edelgard wanted!’ Linhardt huffs, slamming down the stone, Byleth’s hands cupping cheeks. Lips brushing over her forehead, eyes closing as she holds Edelgard against her, protecting her from the endless chill of the monastery cavern--

Please. Sothis whispers--

Petra cries, hunched over a still body--

Monica begs, hand stretching up--

Lysithea cowers, face as still as stone--

Please , Hubert scoffs, flicking hair from his eyes as he looks out the window, pale body curving as he shrugs back on his shirt, the mark on his chest lighting beneath the sunlight before fading into a silver, thin line. Don’t pretend like you’re giving her hope. I understand you, Professor. I do, but don’t pretend you’ll return. Don’t pretend you’ll--

Return to me, my Empress.

Please they all say-- Please --

"They'll all die." Byleth croaks, "Please, Abner--"

What a thing is war that pleas become promises of fire to come. That the heart so desperately prays with its last breath for mercy once a body is so broken it cannot continue. What a thing is war that it turns pleas into harsh laughter.

What is this feeling, Edelgard? What is this feeling that makes her beg ?

Leonie looks stricken above her and Abner's face turns from the sun dancing along mountain tops to the deep shadows of tumbling rocks, below.

“She’ll...wait for me...she has to...go to...she has to-- Hrym . And them--all of them--all of you--you'll--they'll--they'll die--they'll die if you don't--”

A large hand curves around Byleth's still shoulder, stemming the explanation--the plea--the quaking desire--

“Can’ turn down a’ las’ order, squirt.” Abner’s voice is serious and gruff and Byleth’s never asked anything of him in her life, she knows, because the times she’s actually spoken to him have been fewer than most. She watches him, now. "I'll tell 'er."

Abner never met Edelgard--not truly. In all the fights they’d been in, side by side, Edelgard never had a chance to dine with Jeralt’s mercenaries who, for only a short time, had been guided by a girl no taller than his hip--his chest--his shoulder.

Edelgard would like him as much as she hated him--most people felt that way about Abner. It was a notion she still didn’t understand, but knew to expect.

They’ve done well, under Leonie. Abner’s grown. He looks serious--kind. Certain. He looks strong. Leonie’s mercenaries, as loyal to her as they’d been to Jeralt. And all of them so loyal to Jeralt that they would go to the ends of Fodlan for her, for him .

And she's never been more grateful for her father than in this moment as Leonie hesitates and Abner doesn't, a Professor's thin smile wavering as she watches Abner disappear back into the snow and the sun as if his lumbering, large form was made of snow as she feels a weight fall to the wayside.

Rest. She can rest. Abner will--

Seeing Leonie’s widening eyes and hearing--

“Damn it ,” Leonie hisses, “ Not again!”

“The crest...don’t...lose...i--”

Before darkness overtakes her.

“Where was this? This village. These bandits.”

“Rysalka, outside of the mountains some…northwest of there.” Byleth answers honestly, with no hesitation. Edelgard’s head barely tips downwards.

“How much did they pay you? This gold they saved for two months.”

“Twenty-seven gold.”

Edelgard’s face is calm but her fist tightens. Until, a moment later…it eases, looking up towards Byleth with something far different in her gaze. Something…softer. Almost like muted surprise, “You didn’t take the money, did you?”

“Mercenaries are only paid for jobs completed.” It’s a blunt answer—obvious, to Byleth. Factual.

“Not all mercenaries are of like mind, my teacher.” Edelgard’s voice is almost…soft beneath the calm afternoon sun in Garreg Mach, sunlight’s rays highlighting pale hair and deep eyes. Byleth’s head barely tilts.

“Yes.” Lips purse, remembering with a tipped head. Agreement. Not all mercenaries are. She'd argue that Shamir likely wouldn't take the coin, either, before a gentle voice continues--

“There’s more.” Edelgard notes and Byleth’s brows knit further. “There’s more to the story, my teacher. Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I’m coming to learn there’s more to you that’s often left unsaid than said. It’s surprising, truly, how little you tell us, even during lectures. I’m often left with the impression that you do not enjoy speaking, however gifted you are at the art.”

Byleth searches Edelgard’s features, watching the sunlight from outside eclipse around them as she comes closer, standing close to where the professor leans against the desk.

“I would like to know what you do, Professor. What do you do to…people that you feel are immoral—that kill needlessly. War is a matter of perspective, after all.”

“That’s an odd question, Edelgard.”

“I--”

"Is this it?" Leonie asks as they walk through the snowed-over ruins of a town.

Rysalka.

Byleth merely nods before her eyes once more close--

Time seems irrelevant as Byleth drifts in and out of sleep. Most days, she wakes to find Leonie hovering over her, occasionally with the scent of cold air in her lungs and the sound of game being skinned nearby--occasionally with the sound of a knife being stroped against a grinding steel carefully tossed in her pack.

It’s a blur of heaviness and pain--a kalleidoscope of red leaves cascading down into the white snow around her--the color of Leonie’s hair. Of her eyes. Of Edelgard’s cape and armor and determination.

The leaves are so beautiful in Faerghus that Byleth finds herself imagining a young Edelgard playing in them, mousy brown hair lost amidst the yellows and greens and browns as she disappears into snow--imagines a youthful, quiet chirp of a laughter from her lips until she blinks and sees Leonie often above her, talking. Sothis would have played with Edelgard, wouldn't she? If they both had been children instead of women turned towards false Gods--

Words that don’t stick, like the snow beneath their boots. There’s sharp pain as they move--the jostling of a horse and their hooves--the quiet steady hush of Leonie’s breath as they hide in the mountains and the bushes and the underbrush away from advancing soldiers and their torches.

Most days and nights are spent so fitfully that maybe they’re all dreams. And dreams interweave so closely with memories that Byleth isn’t certain how to measure time, at all, anymore.

“What do you think happened to the others?” Leonie asks around the water she’s carefully boiled and cooled in the snow, cautiously raising it up to Byleth’s lips, a feverish rasp her response as she slowly comes to enough to tell her what truly happened in Kleiman--to tell her of Ferdinand and Dorothea and their companies--to tell her of her suspicions of the rest of the holds and the spears of light that likely shattered them.

Leonie wakes her carefully, each time, now, likely not wanting her Professor to stumble like a hunted wolf off the edge of the cliffs they traverse.

Between days and nights and dreams and dreams and dreams.

Edelgard’s smile--her father’s large hand--a drawing of Sitri penned by Alaric’s hand, flower tucked underneath her curving nose--of thunder and hilltops and death--Edelgard in white, surrounded by field and fields of carnations amidst melting snow.

Most days, when she wakes, she has memories of sitting in a large stone chair, vast and intricate in its designs--the room lit with a warm green hue, and her footsteps sound so hollow as she steps up to it, painting the edges with fingertips before she sits down.

It’s lonely, isn’t it?

Slowly, it seems with Leonie’s care as they move from camp to camp, the fever that had taken hold of her seems to subside, and Byleth starts to grasp more of their conversations, holding them closely to her chest, her wound staying stitched for a small time--

“Lean against me on the horse, Professor.” Is all Leonie offers most days--all she says--and Byleth’s never been so grateful for it, head falling to rest between her shoulders as she falls asleep, sound.

But some nights--

"I...wished that it was you, not Jeralt, that died, you know." Leonie's voice is quiet and shamed, the garish white of the moon harsh on her shoulders but soft in the floods of white around them, still too cold even with such brightness to melt the snow, here. The mountains of Garreg Mach are barely visible above, cresting into the hanging fog of snow around them, eclipsing only part of the light that bathes them. The cold’s caused skin to be so dry that it cracks at the edges. Her lips are chapped and cracking, too, and Byleth idly wonders if there's anything in the world that might not crack underneath the steady sun and moon and endless cold around them, so at war with each other. Such opposing elements. "I'm...I'm not proud of it. And I spent...six and a half years feeling guilty that--"

"I don't blame you." Byleth says quietly. Evenly. Calmly. Because she doesn't blame Leonie at all, voice still hoarse and concentration split. Her body hangs like wet clothes on a line, now, barely able to keep much down. Barely able to keep herself up beneath its own weight. Leonie's stitched back together her skin three times, now--so much that the skin's barely able to hold together the first try, at all.

"It's just...it was--I just don't think you know how lucky you were."

Byleth curiously tips her chin up, watching the clouds above them.

She wonders, for a moment, if she does know how lucky she was. She wonders, for a moment, eyes sunken and skin the color of snow, if she ever understood what luck was.

Is it lucky, now? To still be living.

"I don't feel that way, anymore." It's so quiet Byleth looks up to make sure Leonie's spoken and, judging by the way she looks away--at the way her hand raises to brush away tears she doesn't yet admit have fallen--she has. "Because I looked back and wondered at myself if I knew how lucky I was...to have you. You're…" Leonie's voice trembles, turning upwards, hand hovering over the wound she’s so carefully tended like plants in a greenhouse until it healed enough to stumble onwards and onwards. It’s breaking at the edges, long slithering silken lines of black tracking up and down Byleth’s veins, charting her entire arm, now. "Like a sister to me. I know it's...it's overly sentimental, Jeralt wouldn't have--"

"No." Byleth catches her hand and squeezes. It’s a weak trap, really--Byleth wouldn’t even be able to catch a snail, let alone a rabbit as quick as Leonie, now. It lends the impression that Leonie doesn't mind Byleth trapping her, at all. "I think he would have been...happy."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think so."

The night spans eternity in the stars above, so many twinkling lights that it’s difficult to focus on them.

“Do you think he’s up there watching?” Leonie asks, shuffling a little closer in a way she’s done everytime Byleth’s woken since they’ve started to chart towards Garreg Mach. If Byleth still had her coat, she would have wrapped it around her shoulders.

She wonders if it’s still wrapped around Dorothea’s.

Instead, Leonie wraps the blankets and furs around them both.

“I don’t know.” It’s murmured, searching them, head slumping from effort.

“Your fever’s finally broken.” Leonie’s gentle excitement, quiet in Byleth’s ear, is shortlived given the hiss from her lips as she peels back the bandage. “That doesn’t look good. It's torn again.”

A hum of acknowledgement, watching Leonie shake the snow from the red wildflowers in her hair.

“Byleth…” Leonie hesitates, “Are you sure she’ll be there? If Abner makes it--”

“No.” Byleth admits, the wind rustling soft around them, “I’m not.”

"If she isn’t and we’re caught in the reinforcements, or worse, if she is and she��s caught in the reinforcements--”

“I know.”

A long pause before something emerges from beneath a thick layer of fur--a dagger, its blue scabbard missing, but the blade scratched, stroped, and shining beneath the flickering camp light. Byleth swallows, hand shaking as fingers made of rocks hover above it.

“At first I thought it was yours. I found it in one of the soldiers back by the border and thought it would be a good lift for your spirits, but then I realized who the dagger belonged to. And...then I realized why you were carrying it and...tried to restore it as best as I could. It’s still a pretty good lift to the spirits, right? It took me two weeks to get it back to being sharp. You really wore it out.”

Two weeks.

Byleth’s fingers curve around the handle with great effort.

“Guess you didn’t have anything to sharpen it with, but still, Professor.” Leonie inhales sharply through her nose but doesn’t turn from Byleth’s face as she brings the dagger into her lap. "You always used to lecture me on keeping my weapons sharpened."

“...you also used it to cut out the crest stone.” Byleth realizes but Leonie just shrugs.

“I had to.”

It’s a good enough reason, lifting up a small satchel for the knife a student made from animal fur during the trek--careful and well-stitched. Leonie must have taken up sewing since the last time Byleth saw anything from her.

She'd been stationed with Bernadetta for a time, hadn’t she?

“Thank you.” Byleth finally settles on, glad to have the weapon close to her hip.

Leonie clears her throat and smiles.

“You should sleep. I've got watch."

Byleth nods. Murmuring before she sags, "I trust you."

She feels Leonie wrap her with the fur lining of a familiar coat and realizes it no longer smells like her father.

But there’s a scarf tucked around her neck and Leonie's scent is familiar enough that she doesn't mind.

The war tent is cool, tent flapping underneath the wind from its latest departure, leaving only two strategists in the room.

The weight of this world has always bore down El’s shoulders and she could wear it like a cowl for the rest of her days and survive, Byleth knows, but an advisor slips behind her all the same, arms wrapping around her waist and gently guiding Edelgard backwards until her breath sags against her chest, twisting around to bury her nose in Byleth's craning neck.

El's lips are so warm as they brush along the familiar beat of a heart, now, lingering for a long moment before murmuring:

“One day, when Fódlan is secure...and the Slithers are gone --” Edelgard’s nose skims along her neck and Byleth’s hands smooth up to her shoulders, pressing her close, “When the land is bright in its future...is it so horrible for me to look forward to the day that I might be able to choose you over Fódlan? When I’m no longer an Emperor...but your wife, first?” A humorless laugh rumbles against Byleth’s heart and she pulls away just enough to see the composed exhaustion in El’s eyes. Determined. “When we find an heir who will look after it with as much passion as the both of us combined, and we have the future we’ve talked about in our grasp...is it cruel to be so selfish as to want to choose you first, as you’ve chosen me?”

Byleth hums, thoughtful, giving the question as much weight as it deserves, because this isn’t a whimsical question--it’s not a flightful fancy or an idle murmur of a laugh.

“If you’re asking me if you can step away for a day and the world won’t end , then yes. Someday. Not today. But...someday.” Because there’s a truth to the fact that Fódlan needs Edelgard--that it’s bigger than both of them, and likely always has been. “If you’re asking if you can step away for a year and the world won’t end, then yes. Someday. And if you’re asking if one day we can both step away and it will just be us and the world will be fine, then... yes .” Byleth nods. “Someday. You say all of that like it would be selfish for us to leave.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

Byleth hums, knuckles skimming down El’s cheek as she tucks up her chin, nodding.

“Yes, right now. But there...will be a time where it would be more selfish for you to stay and assume only you can do it, when someone else might be what Fódlan needs, when the time comes. There are other great leaders, Edelgard.”

“...I see.” Edelgard lets out a rattling breath, eyes fluttering closed until Byleth once more urges her upwards. “...my teacher…”

“You’ll have the day where you can choose me first, El, and you’ll take it. You’ll know when it’s time. Until then, we’ll stand side by side.”

“You sound so certain.” Lips bat upwards with a hint of mirth and Byleth can watch the promise of a future ease a bit of the burden of the coming days. Teasing, “Are you about to tell me it’s because you know your fish?”

“No,” Byleth chuckles, quiet and fond and full of love, dipping up one of El’s hands to kiss a ring, buried beneath white cloth. Hidden. Safe. “I know my wife.”

Edelgard’s smile spreads before, seemingly not caring if someone walks into the tactical tent, she tugs Byleth down to kiss her.

“Then let’s secure all of Fódlan’s future, my Empress, including our own.”

The determination settles further in violet, holding Byleth close for one moment more before they part, looking down at the map.

And Byleth stands behind her, hand coming up to confidently rest on her shoulder as they work, eyes set on Hrym and the last shadows eclipsing the light of Fódlan.

“Professor--”

A blink, head lolling to take in Leonie, trying to remember when she’d last gotten on a horse--when she’d last strapped in--when they’d last--

“We’re almost there.”

It doesn’t matter.

The horse’s hooves softly crunch along the snow, sound of the rustling trees accompanying the gentle footfalls as they ascend the mountain.

“And we have company. It looks like there’s twelve dead men on the way up the pass. I think either Bernadetta stayed or Shamir did, either way there’s enough arrows here to mimic a porcupine, all of them fletched with Adrestrian vanes.”

Byleth focuses enough in the snow to see the foot prints--the scattered retreat amidst the dark trees, afternoon sun warming the mountainside.

There's not enough bodies to sum the tracks.

A nod, untying herself from the horse and nearly collapsing as she falls down, Leonie catching her with a grunt.

“What are you doing? You can’t fight like thi--”

A finger raises upwards to lips, stiff and jagged, eyes skimming the trees, growing darker and deader the higher up into the mountains they climb. Wordlessly, she untucks the knife from its new holster and stumbles over to cut the saddle from the horse, letting the red fall into the snow and their supplies along with it, catching herself on her palm in the snow as she dis through.

“Professor--” Leonie hisses, “What are you--”

“I...can still move--”

“ Barely .” It’s a scoff, hushed, immediately moving forward irregardless to help stabilize her as she shifts through supplies.

“Cover me.” Byleth’s voice is calm, blinking to focus down at their nearly-empty reserves that Leonie's likely been careful to fill from dead enemies on the way up to Garreg Mach, too likely to give away their position. Barely a hand's wrap worth of gauze, left--no more food--a few weapons--several quivers of arrows--there it is. The flask she’d nearly emptied from setting the trees ablaze.

A frown.

“There’s not...enough to mimic blood.” The movement is getting more difficult, breathing a little labored even from just leaning over to sort through supplies, pain searing--always searing --she lifts up her own hand and frowns, remembering its ghastly black shade, unnatural.

Without a word, Leonie cuts her less dominant hand and offers it upwards, frowning when Byleth dumps it on the supplies and in the snow before thoughtfully running the cut along the horse’s back to stain it with blood.

“ Oww --” Leonie frowns before Byleth wraps it with the last of the cloth they’d had in their bag, hands trembling as she pulls it tight, a hint of red seeping through before it stills.

“Put...their saddle on it.” Byleth leans up against a nearby tree, body sagging a little against it as Leonie dips down to find one of the saddles most draped in blood, tying it to her horse. With a nod, Byleth prods the end of it, sending it galloping into the woods.

“Well that’s going to make going up the mountain harder.” Leonie sighs. Byleth just shakes her head.

“Hide.”

They both disappear into the winter brush of the tress on opposite sides of the pile of bodies, a trail of blood charting the horse’s ascent into the mountains. Byleth counts her breaths to keep awake and half a sun later, the sound of hushed whispers in a thick, familiar tongue chart the horse's hooves down, Byleth's body lumped against the tree, barely held upright.

A company of ten.

Leonie, perched in a tree above across the road, kills five of them with her bow before tossing her lance and killing the sixth. Byleth manages to kill two of them with inelegant stabs to the neck before tackling the last into Leonie’s spear stuck up from the ground, stumbling and collapsing onto the bloodied snow with a clatter as she does, knuckles white around the grip of a dagger stained red.

Only their panting breaths fill the quiet mountains. Leonie helps her up with a sigh, snow crunching as she pulls the bodies behind the cover of the forest, digging through the fallen soldiers’ satchels as Byleth settles against one of the elms, its trunk black with ice and shadow, slick and difficult to hold herself upright against.

Knees quake from the effort.

“Bad news.” Leonie wipes an arm beneath a runny nose, stuffed from the cold and the scent of blood as she calmly rises up beneath rustling furs, tossing Byleth a small, unrolled parchment, reflexes sluggish enough to barely catch it.

It’s difficult to understand the specifics of the language, but the numbers on it suggest much, much higher forces than anticipated.

It's a good thing they sent Abner. Hopefully, his body isn't one buried in snow along the tracks.

Byleth doesn’t frown as she buries it, no time for subterfuge or covered tactics--no parchment to attempt either, regardless--leaning against the tree for a long, long moment before she stumbles upwards to help Leonie cover the bodies with snow, pausing at one of the ones whose neck was pierced repeatedly with the sharpened end of a stroped knife.

“Wait.” A frown, trembling fingers stiff from more than just cold as she wipes blood and snow from the soldiers’ eyes. He’s from Morfis, or so the armor clinging to him claims, eyes tinted red with blood. It could have been from the wound--burst vessels in the eyes--but there’s something...different about them. Familiar.

Something familiar about his face.

Soft music, elegant and boring as it filters through the hall--

“What is it, Professor?”

That feeling pressing so tightly--so tightly--against her chest as she watches Edelgard twirl around the floor--

Byleth’s brows knit, remembering one of the nobles Edelgard had danced with at the wedding. His features are pale, difficult to match, but Byleth’s certain all at once and with horrifying clarity:

His spread smile and pressed uniform--

“This...man.”

But he hadn’t been wearing Morfician colors, then--there’s no tattoo spiraling up from his arm to his neck.

He had been wearing red. Had displayed a minor crest’s sigil proudly upon his garment--

“He’s from House Essar.” Byleth pulls back enough to gently lower his eyelids before continuing to cover him with snow.

“What? He defected?”

“No.” Byleth shakes her head as Leonie helps her up from the ground, professor swaying from beneath the anchoring support. “He...died from the plague. All...of Essar did. After...the wedding in Enbarr. People thought...they contracted it--” They once more start their ascent upwards, towards spiraling cloud and thick fog, “From Edelgard.”

“I remember hearing about that.” Leonie’s face is pulled taut from more than just concentration as they walk, steps heavy and lumbering but onwards . “From Hubert in a letter. That was...months ago, wasn’t it? There were those posters going around--people were calling it the Adrestrian genocide--”

“They were...before that. But Essar…” Byleth huffs through nostrils, pain searing down her side with each step, trying to focus on moving--on breathing--on concentrating.

It’s odd. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did , weeks ago.

I don't understand, Byleth--why--

"Professor." Leonie gently coaxes and Byleth realizes her mind had wandered--her silence had stretched--her eyes had closed far, far longer than they should have.

"Sorry. I'm...here."

“So...you think--” Leonie hesitates. Pauses. Frowns beneath the heavy snow, all of it sticking to her hair and her eyelashes, “You think they’re using some kind of...what, magic or something to--”

“I think I know...exactly how they’re doing it. I’ll...I’ll tell you--” Byleth’s breath is heavy--rasping--and Leonie curls likely sore muscles tighter around her sigh, hefting her upwards and pulling as much of Byleth’s weight onto her as she can.

“Save your strength, Professor. You need to just focus on not dying on the mountain, first.” A beat, “At least they didn’t kill Breaker.” Leonie’s horse. The descent had been silent, the mountains would have carried the terrified whinnie down the hill.

“He’ll...make it to...Garreg Mach.” Byleth’s legs are like unwieldy spears, stabbing into the ground with each unbending move.

They have to rest in a cave halfway up, Byleth’s body slumped against Leonie’s shivering bones in the corner, both of them not risking the heat from a fire. There’s so little Byleth can give--so little left--

“Don’t waste your energy, Professor--” Leonie huffs through nostrils, ice turned to smoke curling around her chin.

The rune lights up in the night regardless, weak and flickering, for only a moment as Byleth’s fingertips curve around Leonie’s skin, warming it before it cools.

Leonie’s smile is weak, “Hey,” Her teeth chatter, “At least you tried”--

They stumble up the mountain together, harsh wind carrying sharp snow that cuts eyes. The snow is thick--heavy--difficult to see through. Exhaustion clings to them both like a feverish child, reluctant to let go--reluctant to be alone --

Children laugh in the distance, no ties of title or crest binding them just yet, the sounds of their pittering, excited footfalls and stomping filling the cold night air as they hop in and out of the snow.

“I used to look up from the highest towers in Fhirdiad and watch the children play in the snow when I was a child. I’d get so jealous. I used to wish I was down there with them,” The snow is a stark contrast to the red garb cloaking Edelgard’s shoulders, the small window of her back and shoulders as bright as the fall around them. Her fingertips skim along the crinkling edge of a fragile leaf, golden yellow, the noise of it crunching beneath her careful palm filling the night air. “It’s odd to be here, again.” It’s a quiet reminiscence, caught in memories for a moment as Edelgard stops, the soft blanket of white around them coating the ground as they walked around what once was a great capital, so many times sundered by war.

Territory newly acquired by the Empire, ground thick with conquested blood covered by something so white and new. But to the children playing outside, now, who now only know what it’s like to be free from war, the snow must be a relief from so much strife. So much conflict. So much fear, with nothing to tie it to. They must be happy without any more war--they must be happy, even with so many dead. Children are far more resilient than most, Byleth's come to learn, even when all they can do is stretch upwards.

One of them pelts the other with a small little ball made of all of this new white, their laughter carrying up like wisps of smoke to the sky, brightening the dark night with it, dancing with the stars--

Byleth curiously looks down to a clump of snow beneath her feet, the flapping of the flag hanging high overhead hiding the soft sound of snow being packed by cool, precise palms.

Edelgard chuckles at the sight of one of them comically diving behind a tree to avoid being pelted with two more.

“By the time I was near snow, again, I was too weak to play with the other children without training. I’d like to say I look at children, now, and think it’s juvenile, but part of me still--”

The faint puff of a snowball, packed tightly, crumbling apart against an exposed back is bookended by a grunt of surprise from the trained, reminiscent soldier of an emperor. Who slowly turns on her heel to blink towards Byleth in surprise.

“Professor.” Surprise turns to annoyance turns to amusement when Byleth dips down to curiously pack another one. “ Professor .” The second call is a warning, finger raising up along with an eyebrow, slowly starting to advance on her enemy. Byleth barely misses her second shot, Edelgard ducking the fire like an arrow, snow covering her shoulder from its close skirt. “Oh, is that a smirk I see?”

Byleth isn’t sure--wouldn’t know--but she doesn’t get the chance to dip and pull up a third before Edelgard, Emperor of Adrestria, in Fhirdiad on a matter of great import to fashion peace amidst tenuous relations of people who once hung banners of Faerghus along their spires, tackles her advisor into the snow with deadly precision and accuracy.

“You’re learning.” Byleth praises with a calm grunt.

Edelgard huffs before smashing a handful of snow on her professor’s forehead, both of their smiles lost beneath the snow as she laughs

“Perhaps I had a good profe --

“--ssor.” Leonie’s voice is exhausted and gentle in her ear. “You’re fading, again.” Another blink. Sluggish. Leonie’s settled Byleth’s sagging body against a tree. How long has it been? Is it another day? She's up against a tree, head hanging lower than her shoulders, focusing all of her effort on meeting Leonie's gaze. “I’d go up first and get my horse if I wasn’t scared you’d be dead by the time I got back.”

Byleth doesn’t say anything in dissent or agreement as she nods, weak--pale--holding her hand up for Leonie to continue to carry the majority of Byleth’s dead weight up the mountain, determination settling deep within them.

They make it nearly three quarters up the path before a horse whinnies towards them, Breaker chuffing as he emerges from the snow, a great red gauntlet curving around his reins, the blazing symbol of a Morfician saddle clinging to the stallion’s carefully tended to frame. Byleth looks towards the noise first. The horse recognizes them, stamping feet eager to return, and through the snow Byleth knows that the company of archers who had pierced through men so efficiently are at the ready to receive them.

An arrow pierces the night and Byleth barely manages to push Leonie away from it with an inelegant shove, sending her student tumbling back down the mountainside through the snow as Byleth pushes forward, dagger curled tight-- tight --in her palm, raising upwards, its engraving lost in the mute of the snow.

It’s likely bad she hadn’t kept the seal to hold and resigns herself to yet another arrow in her chest at the sound of a bow string drawing, sharp, quick--

Byleth is surrounded in a matter of sluggish pants and the noise of Leonie rattling down the cliff behind her.

"Halt!"

It's screamed, deafening in the night. Their swords tremble. Another bow draws--taut--string quivering against pale, bloodied knuckles of a green soldier.

"I said Halt!" Furious and commanding--unshakeable in it's timbre. Familiar. "Don’t--Do not harm them--"

The soldiers all stiffen as Byleth stumbles forward, her sharp, trained feet determined and resolute in the night--deadly--and from a sea of white comes an elegant bob of violets and reds and blacks and creams tethered to an invisible rod as Byleth scatters through this pond of splashing water, bare feet weakly shuffling through salt and ice and snow.

“I ... order it, leave them be!”

Fingertips tremble around Adrestrian steel.

Red shoulders stand resolute beneath the Flame Emperor’s large pauldrons, mask covering eyes. And the moment Byleth sees that mask, a blur of red rushing forwards, fingertips cease to tremble.

Like a cart carrying an impossible weight by two horses down a rocky, treacherous mountain, the squeaking wheels of Byleth's knees cease--the quivering fabric barely concealing her heart stops batting beneath the wind--the horse hooves of her chest clip to a stop.

The knife falls into the snow with an anti climactic swish, red stain from recent kills clear in its calm, unassuming blanket.

Byleth's knees aim to follow it, body swaying on the spot--

There's no dull thud or agonizing recognition of clattering with the ground--only warmth. And when eyelashes slowly--slowly--flutter open, Byleth sees her clear as day.

Clearer than anything she's seen since a flash of white burned her tongue.

Edelgard's caught Byleth before she can hit the ground, the harsh unpolished weight of gauntlets curl in her shoulders, a distance between them--

"You’re alive. Oh, you two are alive--it’s okay, Professor."

Familiar.

A sinking, heaving weight that might cause water to fill eyes if they weren't so dry.

Byleth sees it, now. Sees the height--hears her voice beneath the roaring wind and snow on the mountain--

She can imagine it--

Edelgard's voice hushed, eyes swimming in amethyst hues, water brimming over every inch of her as she weakly smiles, the gesture trembling at its edges; skimming hidden, delicate fingers along her chin. Dip down to the valley of her cheek, curving down over parted, cracked lips in such a small, hidden gesture--a promise--a relief--

Byleth watches with fascination, eyes heavier than her body, sinking--sinking--sinking--like corpses in a bog.

The voice isn’t Edelgard’s. The hair, whiter than snow, caught beneath the mask and barely hidden beneath a black cowl in the wind, isn’t the right shade--eyes, were Byleth to remove the silver and red Adrestrian mask, violet might widen and quiver and steel, but it won’t be Edelgard.

“These are our people!” The Flame Emperor yells, louder--forceful--voice cracking a little at the edge in a way that’s far too full of emotion and exhaustion to ever be a woman tempered as a leader. Steel and determination and war tempered her, but not leadership . The Emperor holds Byleth up carefully by her shoulders--rights her, like she doesn’t have the energy to hold her upright on her own, at all.

Byleth’s fingers slump into the snow, heart aching. It sears. It suffocates her and if she had the strength, she’d rub desperately at her chest--she’d push this feeling back into nothingness until--

“Professor.” There’s a soft green glow hidden by the long stretch of the Flame Emperor’s broad pauldrons, tipping up the mask when no one’s visible to showcase long white hair and a sad, worried smile as a gremory’s hand raises up to her shoulder. Concern coats her voice, though she tries to hide the way it shakes, unfamiliar in armor. It’s been...so long since she’s seen Lysithea. She’s grown, but still not too tall to fully eclipse Edelgard's shadow, armor clinging to her frame far better than it might any of the other Black Eagles in her place. “We all were so worried. Not me, obviously, but I’m so happy you’re home.”

Home.

Byleth tastes the word, but no sound rises to her lips, the sound of Leonie's scattered, frantic footsteps lost beneath a gremory’s gentle shush, Byleth feeling all the fight leave her body, sagging in the safety of armor-clad arms.

“Hey...” Leonie pants next to her side, immediately reaching upwards to curve fingers around a familiar shoulder with a smile. “Edelgard.”

Home.

“And here Lady Edelgard was worried,” Hubert offers from next to them, seeming to ascend down into the snow like a shadow. “So worried she’s suddenly become far more proficient in the arts.” His hand replaces the one now gloved in red gauntlets, a faint green hue once more lighting up the snow as he hovers over Byleth’s wound to replace the ones above her, Edelgard’s sigh ringing into the night as her shoulders roll forward.

“ Sorry .” She sounds far more annoyed than sorry, but those eyes are still focused on Byleth and Byleth alone. Everyone’s are.

Hubert’s lips thin.

“Someone’s waiting for you, inside.” It’s a quiet offer into the air, his voice just as even as always, but a hint of something buried beneath it.

Byleth's chin trembles, slowly looking up towards Hubert to make sure--to make certain--

A trembling breath of relief and fear, both. Mixed.

“Alright then, let’s go,” Leonie immediately moves to heft Byleth up around her shoulder once more, both of them quietly grunting with the effort.

“No, you have to come with me, Leonie.” The Flame Emperor argues, dipping around to shift beneath Byleth’s other arm with a trembling gasp of pain at being jostled from their teacher, “You look awful. You both do.”

"You do, too.” Leonie's protest is swift and tired.

“It would behoove you to cover your face, Lady Edelgard .” Hubert threatens despite the eternal calm of his eyes, eyes snapping upwards as hands glow in the twilight, sun having set the closer they neared Garreg Mach. “The soldiers can see you and might take your concern as weakness .”

“Hey! It’s been a rough couple of months.” A huff as the mask is flipped back downwards, voice muffled through the thin, formed metal. “Sorry.” It’s repeated again, this time far more sincere.

“Tell me about it.” Leonie's drawl is murmured, not moving from Byleth's side.

“That’s no way to speak to the emperor, Leonie.” A soldier chides from nearby, coming to join the ranks, as well. Felix looks like he could care less as hard footfalls stamp into snow, his sword held carefully by a cocked hip.

“Didn’t you used to call yours a Boar Prince ?” It’s telling that Leonie allows Felix to take her place in hefting the Professor upright, away from the small stature of the Emperor and the following, healing hands of her vassal, Leonie sagging against the trees. Byleth might suggest Hubert work on her in her stead if she wasn't so certain she needed to make it up the mountain.

“That man was no longer the emperor. Professor,” Felix straightens her, “I agree with the Emperor. We all knew you would be fine. I don’t see what all the concern is about.”

“She won’t.” Hubert bluntly cuts off, and Byleth’s blink sluggishly raises to greet him fully--to see the way the hair hangs in his eyes and his features, drawn, showcase just what Edelgard and Hubert might have seen in her time gone. “It’s not healing. She won’t make it through the night, let alone--” Hubert turns from her.

For a moment, she thinks to ask of Ferdinand and is saved the answer to her question by the fact that her body sags and sags beneath Felix’s arms, who frowns at her when she shakes her head when he tries to lift her.

There’s so much to discuss--so much to strategize--so much to thank them for--but Byleth--Byleth--

Byleth is tired. Byleth is focused and so, so tired.

“Let me see her.” Byleth finally manages, voice struggling and staggering like her footsteps had, barely heard beneath the cold wind. “The Emperor...has a plan...doesn’t she?”

The Emperor turns away, fingers clenching tightly by her hip. “...yes." That young voice, growing older by the day, finally admits, "I guess I do. And...so does the head of the Black Eagles.”

“Then...follow it. All of you...go.”

There must be something in her voice--something in her eyes --because all of them wordlessly step backwards after raising Byleth up onto her uneven feet, their Professor off-kilter and trembling until Leonie wordlessly leans down and picks up the knife, offering it up to Byleth’s palm.

“I’m not in the plan.” Leonie tries, face crumbling in on itself and Byleth looks at her longer than the rest of them.

“You were...the moment...Abner came. They need...you.”

Byleth’s fingers wrap around the knife like a vice, staggering steps pushing up the small hill and towards Garreg Mach, so few of her students left below. They all move to rally behind her--to help her through until a sickening noise carries through the woods.

A gurgling, gasping squelch of a scream, silencing the bickering and snow in the woods.

Leonie’s eyes close and Byleth summons up what strength she can to clasp her fingers.

“Go.” Eyes settle pointedly on the Emperor, who visibly hesitates--curls inwards with hands and feet before Byleth shakes her head--firmer. “ Go. ”

“Professor--” Leonie’s lips part.

“You have...to protect...the Emperor. Wherever...wherever they’re--whatever they’re--” It’s difficult to focus--to speak, at all, stumbling backwards as Felix helps settle her against the next tree, barely a few steps above on the hill. Hubert’s hands curve over the Emperor’s shoulders, turning away for a moment before he tugs her away.

“ Hubert--” The emperor argues, armor not made for her dwarfing her frame before she straightens herself and struggles to right herself on a horse, sitting taller with determination. “Be careful, Professor. Please.”

“Felix.” Byleth pants and Felix sighs before pulling back, wordlessly following after them an disappearing into the snow, their soldiers following behind.

Only a mercenary is left, her hands trembling in far more than exhaustion as they hold Byleth up against the tree.

“You could at least take Breaker.” Leonie tries and Byleth shakes her head.

“You need...to keep up with them. And...keep reinforcements...from here.”

“Professor…” Leonie’s eyes are slick with tears--her fingers tremble--

“You saved my life.” Byleth offers to Leonie just as she had to Ferdinand. Just as she had to so many of her students, who stumble in snow over corpses and corpses left behind them. It’s rasping--swallow thick as she shakes her head.

“You saved mine first.” It’s combative. Angry. Caught like an animal in a trap. “Tell her she better keep you alive or I’m--I’m going to defect to Almyra.” Leonie wipes her battered arm beneath eyes before she’s suddenly ripping away like that’s the only way she’ll force her feet forward, at all, swinging up onto Breaker and charging down past the soldiers into the white mountain below.

A moment later, the Black Eagles have deserted Garreg Mach upon order of the Emperor save for one down the bottom of the hill, Hubert’s eyes lingering the longest before he goes, leading the back of the descent, reds and blacks disappearing into the night as they go.

In the silence of the forest, a dagger clung desperately in her hand, wind whistling through hair and a scarf wrapped around her neck, Byleth’s head tips backwards against a cold, dying tree to take in the long columns of stone and ice up above, hidden by white like red on the ground.

Garreg Mach stands up above her, barely out of reach.

Home .

She stumbles forward.

Home.

She scrambles in the snow when her knees hit the dirt, not knowing when she fell. Not knowing if it matters. She scrambles until she can stand, and then she walks, again.

Home.

It doesn’t taste right. It smells like blood and forest and ice as she walks and walks--

Home . Home. Home .

She repeats it over and over and over again, regardless, until she’s at the base of a long flight of stairs, fingers quaking against cold stone. She can’t feel anything, anymore, at all, struggling with trembling biceps to straighten herself up--to push--to push--

Focus.

A set of silver gauntlets curls in her sleeves before Byleth can collapse, helping her to stand, a pressed flower worn on the front of his armor.

“Hey, professor. I heard you were coming.” His voice is soft--gentle--as he wraps her arm around his shoulder.

He opens the gates for her one last time, the ice in the air no longer causing a chill up her bones, but can’t follow. Not when he’s likely one of the only few soldiers left. But it's enough. It's enough to get her trembling legs straightened upon ground, looking around at the vast, emptied halls of a cathedral.

The night air is colder this time of year and Byleth’s never really paid much attention to it, before. It’s funny, really, how that’s changed. Her lungs feel like they can fill more and more air within them and when she sighs quietly, a puff of it swirls about her chin before disappearing into the night, heart racing from something that isn’t quite her steps, despite her quick pace.

It’s been so long since she’s been here, stumbling, stiff feet inelegantly shuffling along stone.

The hall holds heat as poorly as it always had, rooms cold, but recently vacated. There’s no students or officers lingering--there isn’t a single soul in the night, at all.

Garreg Mach’s halls still echo sound and while they don’t pick up on a mercenary’s bare, torn feet, they do pick up on her panting breath as she crosses grass to a familiar room, the cold snow causing it to crunch beneath her staggered steps.

So many memories line each step that it’s difficult not to remember all of them, at once. So she doesn't--she doesn't do anything save for count her breath as she moves, slow. Labored. Panting. She doesn't do anything but walk.

Promise me--

For some reason, she knows a specific room tucked in the middle of the second floor of the old student’s hall will be empty, palm flattening over wood as she takes in the knots on the pattern, familiar. Sothis no longer resides inside, but fate still does.

She falls into it with a clatter before her hand raises upward to knock, eyes closing as she imagines the heavy sigh buried deep inside. The squaring of shoulders and the knitting of brows as the Emperor of Fódlan controls features in order to face whatever pressing need arrives on her doorstep. Another delay in her companions retreating--another plan foiled--another death or battle or war.

And when the door opens, that’s the face Byleth is greeted with: calm, ever-ready features and a thin-lipped nod, despite hair tucked in a braid and dark circles beneath eyes.

Edelgard hides how little she’s been sleeping well from the outside world, but Byleth still sees it. She always has.

A knife is held in her palm, ready for a different kind of business, as well--

And then, like moonlight painting the part of the sea on the helm of a boat charting its waters--

El.

For a second time the dagger falls to the floor from Byleth's weak fingers, this time with a clatter.

“ Byleth. ” Features shift and morph into surprise and relief and a thousand other words Byleth has the definition for and is slowly, slowly, coming to understand. It’s a gasp, eyes wetting as she reaches upwards to cup fingers so openly around Byleth’s cheeks, moonlight highlighting that shine along violet, that there is no hiding it. To curve around her and guide Byleth’s stumbling, unwieldy steps closer.

It makes her heart...ache--her stomach...churn--her breath catch so painfully against those cold lungs--

El.

She hadn’t expected that sharp pang of missing her to spread to fingertips even when Edelgard was in front of her, again.

Is this what Edelgard had felt for five years? It feels...unbearable.

Edelgard’s arms wrap so fully around her that when Byleth sags for a second time, it doesn’t matter--none of it matters--when the Emperor so easily swoops her into her arms and shuts the door with the toe of her foot, walking over towards the bed and settling her on mussed, blue and red sheets, the sound of a lock flicking lost beneath the sound of blood in her ears.

The pain swims her vision now that she’s no longer coated in ice, skin warming from the soft lit lanterns in the corner, stone walls of an office bathed in gentle reds. The wind rattles the window pane outside as Edelgard slowly pulls Byleth towards her, unrolling the muck of the shirt that’s clung to her frame for...how long has it been? How long, since she stole a shirt outside of Kleiman?

An owlish blink, unable to focus for very long, eyes drifting towards paper strewn across a professor’s old desk and the small easel of paint chips set inside. “Painting, again?” It sounds far away--disoriented--and when she looks up towards El--

Oh.

Her fingertips quiver from far more than just the cold as they curve around Edelgard’s cheek, beneath those eyes--their tremble, lined with water and salt and so many emotions Byleth could never aim to chart.

“Of course that’s the first thing you point out after not seeing me for months.” Edelgard’s chide falls flat as she wrings out a cloth with water set aside, fingers gently sifting the snow from Byleth’s hair, surprised and glad when El’s fingers, warm, scarred hands trace the bones beneath her cracking skin, a ring chilly against her, but so welcome in its quiet brush. She charts where a cloak might have been--charts down her arm, painting along ghastly black lines. How much did Edelgard know? How much did Abner prepare her-- “You’re freezing.”

Byleth ignores the comment and raises the one arm she can to cup fingers around El’s cheek, despite the shiver that races down the other girl’s spine--just as likely for cold as it is something else, entirely.

Edelgard leans into her touch, lips brushing a single kiss along skin--along the lifeline read in the deepest trenches of an abyss, their dates twined --Edelgard's voice quivering beneath it's false facade.

“Professor, I’m not going to get my fortune read by some woman underneath the Church. We have far more pressing matters to--”

“You’re not curious who she said I’m going to marry?”

The hesitation is long enough to almost turn up lips.

“...let’s focus on the matter at hand, Professor--”

A blink. El swims above her.

“I thought--” Edelgard’s voice catches--surprisingly hitches at the edge, and Byleth can hear those tears, even though they don’t fall and her hand aches from the might it takes to hold it up--to hold it so close to the sun of Edelgard’s lips, dirtied, bloodied thumb swiping a slow, stiff path over her lower lip.

It’s obvious , what she thought.

Edelgard starts to clean a dirt-stained forehead--a blooded, ashen chest--around a wounded arm, dipping a rag into water that turns blacker and blacker with each swipe.

"I suppose it doesn’t matter. Rest, my teacher. You're home, now." Edelgard promises but this time, Byleth believes it.

Home.

Tastes it. Lets her body sag into sheets and a warm bed and cold air, and the heat of Edelgard’s hands smoothing along her skin--careful and kind and loving.

“You got...my clues.” Byleth’s blink is still sluggish and staved off--scared with each and every one of them, she’s closer and closer to waking up. Scared that this, too, might be a dream--a faded memory--a wisp of the Goddess’ fingers through her hair like wind. Scared she never made it up that mountain, at all.

“Yes,” The water sloshes, “The men from Kleiman who insisted on speaking to me alone were unusual enough, but how awkwardly adamant about insisting you were also dead when Hubert refused to leave was telling. Your wax seal the most telling of all.” The water is warm along ice-chilled skin as Edelgard wipes away the ash and mud from her stomach. “But...Abner was the most insightful. How did you know I would stay, despite the danger of the advancing troops?”

“I...didn’t.” Byleth’s eyelashes flutter, heavy, from beneath Edelgard’s fingertips carefully wiping away caked blood from her eyebrow. “Did...did Ferdinand--”

Edelgard’s features still, haunted and quiet in the moonlight, nodding as she proceeds, a slim smile tucking up lips. “We’ll talk about that in the morning.”

Byleth’s eyes close, brows barely knitting before she feels warm, wet palms on her cheeks.

“This wound, Byleth…” El hovers above her on the bed, eyes searching her own.

“We’ll talk...about that...in the morning…” Byleth tries between ragged breaths and Edelgard’s quiet, humorless laugh, though it’s anything but unkind, Emperor merely nodding as she continues to clean her advisor’s body. “Your...escape plan…”

“There’s still a deceivingly large force here. Large enough to hold the fort and thwart any soldier’s attempts, buried beneath the church in the twisting caverns of the Abyss. Lysithea will meet Mercedes outside of Hrym to satisfy my uncle for a small time, until he arrives to Hrym, as well.”

“For...your wedding.” Byleth’s lips barely bat upwards and Edelgard gently eases up Byleth to undo the clasp of a torn bra, holding her up and against her chest as rag works down her back.

“I see Leonie briefed you on some occasions. Yes,” Edelgard murmurs over her ear, nose pressing into Byleth’s hair as arms wrap so carefully around her, holding Byleth against her chest. She feels the air swell in Edelgard’s lungs--feels her fingers tremble as she holds her close , “My wedding.” El’s voice husks in her ear, breath trembling with restraint as she holds her for a second longer before lowering her back onto the bed with a far cleaner back and an aching, aching chest.

Edelgar’s hands tremble as she wrings the cloth before tracing it up the long, curling black lines of Byleth’s arm.

Byleth responds by using the last of her strength to lean up and do one thing that’s haunted her dreams far more than empty promises--to kiss her. Slow and warm and breathless , panting from a pain she’s forgotten, palm sliding upwards to curve around the nape of her neck, tasting El’s gasp into her lips, fingers curling around skin.

“ Byleth ,” It’s quietly husked against cracked lips, legs tenting upwards by her waist and fingers sifting through her matted hair, catching in tangles and blood without a single hesitancy as she kisses her back. Greedy yet so, so careful--like the quivering tremble of Edelgard’s voice can only hold back quite so much from the fortress of her chest before it crumbles at a singular, yearning kiss.

Edelgard’s fingers curl so tightly against her that Byleth feels no guilt for crumbling them.

“I love you.” Byleth murmurs. It’s burned in her chest these months, aching and searing , like fire wrapping around her lungs and she’s certain if she was cracked open by an axe, an imprint of Edelgard’s smile or lips or nails might be burned into her heart.

“Oh, Byleth--” El sucks in a sharp breath through teeth and Byleth kisses her eyes and her cheeks and her nose and her mouth so sluggishly with what she can reach, breathless and aching and pained and yearning -- “I love you, too--” Her voice is so quiet , body craning up into lips, arching. Loving. Hands smoothing down her face and her shoulders and her hips like she’s missed her, too--

Like she can’t stop feeling her, or like she might not believe she’s there.

Maybe Byleth thinks that way because that’s what she feels.

“I missed you,” Byleth adds, herself--

“I missed you, too.” A ring skims down a shoulder--a bicep--a side--a hip--buries in the shadows of Byleth’s lower back as she cranes her closer. She’s so delicate--so careful as she pulls back to slowly peel the tights from her hips, torn. Useless. “You saw my letter. The seal you gave those men--”

“Yes.” Her eyes close, listening--listening--because Edelgard told her she can finally rest, but she doesn’t want to miss a moment of her--

“I knew if anyone could do the impossible, it would be you.”

“Edelgard,” Byleth murmurs, her skin pale in the night--sunken and thin, like a child dressing like a ghost in his old sheets. “You’ve told me you’ve loved me a thousand times. Your...your letter--”

“What?” Her slim, wet smile trembles as fingers smooth up Byleth’s cheeks--burrow in her hair as their foreheads settle. It causes the muscles in Byleth’s back to ease for the first time in...it must be months. Months , then.

“You’ve told me...you’ve loved me. I always...knew. I never...I never doubted it.”

“Quiet, My teacher,” But Edelgard sounds...glad, in her rasping voice--she sounds glad as she looks at her, eyes settling on the wound she’s cleaned, pulling away the edges of gauze to take in the full extent of it.

The Emperor’s eyes close as the student’s on the mountains had, but instead of turning away from her, she turns towards her with steely resolve, gently brushing matted hair from Byleth’s eyes and cupping her cheek.

“I don’t like the feeling like you’re intending to say goodbye. Close your eyes.”

Byleth does, trying to ward off exhaustion--off sleep--as she hears the sound of something pop open--feels warmth on the wound. A groan as it sears , the smell of burnt flesh filling the air. When she opens her eyes, half of a vial is emptied around Edelgard’s neck, features steeled but eyes full of far too much concern--

El’s fingers cup her cheeks, hovering over her on this bed, kissing her once--twice--thrice--before she lingers against the cold of Byleth’s weak breath.

The wound is wrapped, at least.

“The healers are too deep in the Abyss for me to call to them. You’ll have to make it through the night. I want you to promise me, my teacher.”

Silence is Edelgard’s answer, Byleth’s lips pulling thin, eyes sunken. The warmth sears through her bones --

Byleth’s never made a promise she hadn’t kept.

“ Promise me , Byleth.”

“...I promise, Edelgard.” Byleth finally offers, pushing aside all hesitation.

Her word, as always, is enough for Edelgard to steel her resolve, nodding as she kisses her, again, warm--

Warm --

“You’re too cold, Professor.”

“The...troops we...we passed--” A heavy blink, feeling Edelgard shake her head.

“We won’t have to retreat until tomorrow. Trust me. Rest . Rest. You’re safe, for the night. I’ll make sure of it.”

Trust her.

Byleth does. She trusts her so fully that any tension left in her body floods away into red and blue snow.

Safe. She...is, isn't she? For the first time--for the first time--since...since--

“What’s this feeling, El?” Byleth husks against her mouth, shoulders rolling with a whimper as Edelgard tugs a dark shirt over her own head, long white hair cascading down over shoulders, bra straps jostled and uneven from a rough journey Byleth doesn’t know enough to catalogue. What had Edelgard seen, these months? This year, away from her.

Byleth’s skin is covered in cakes of dirt, flaking away and chipping onto the red of the sheets she’d taken to setting, here, because El liked the shade of them mixing with the blue--

Edelgard pays them no mind as she unhooks the bra--as she pushes down shorts and the rest of torn stockings and wraps legs around her waist so that their skin can settle together for the first time in far too long, both of them sighing into mouths an unbidden noise, Edelgard shifting out of her own clothes and wrapping the blankets around them both.

Warm. She’s naked, but somehow she’s much, much warmer , now, wrapped in legs and arms and hands like a small trinket a child might keep in their pocket, cherished.

“Home, Byleth.” El kisses her and wraps around her and Byleth tastes the word on her pulse, weakly nuzzling into her neck, body aching at her touch. “This feels like home , to me. No other word can capture it.”

“Home.” It’s more of an emotion than Byleth’s ever read, kissing her and kissing her despite not having much air to fill her lungs. Weak, trembling kisses that Edelgard returns with steady resolve, pulling Byleth against her.

Byleth’s never had a home, before. Tents and a father and jobs. She had Garreg Mach, for a while, and the warm feeling that settled deep within her in the dreams of a temple, fingers curving around her shoulder as she leaned back into Sothis’ chest.

She’d felt warmth waking up in a bed to a quiet, singing voice, and has tasted a thousand sunsets along ponds, fingers skirting along the water as her line bobbed along them.

It’s a word she’s known the definition of, but understood less than any other word she had ever heard, until this moment.

Byleth feels clarity, overwhelming and complete and feels tears gather in her eyes as she swallows:

If Edelgard was an emotion, she might be all of this and more: she might be home.

Byleth pulls away enough to watch the moonlight shine along violet eyes and sink into bare skin.

“El…” She murmurs, cupping her cheek and feeling El lean up into her, holding her just as tightly in return, fingers gently curving around a dipped wrist and holding her heartbeat in her palm. “I’m home.”

El smiles, their foreheads settling as easily as their breaths.

Her tears drip onto Byleth's cheeks and she barely feels them as she paints Edelgard's swimming, trembling smile, sagging and sagging and sagging into the safety of the sheets, barely hearing El’s promise against her ear as the world fades away.

“Welcome home, Byleth.”

Welcome home.

#edeleth #byleth x edelgard #byleth/edelgard #fic #mine #fe3h fanfic #lialb

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