A fic for the Ferdibert reverse bang in collaboration with @sugar-charlie
Enjoy, fairy tale lovers!
The Noble, The Thief and The Swan (4871 words) by MachineQueen
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Characters: Ferdinand von Aegir, Hubert von Vestra
Additional Tags: fairytale AU, Swan Maiden, Only One Bed
Summary:
Ferdinand and Hubert fall victim to the same thief and set out to catch the crook together.
Fairytale AU very loosely based on The Swan Maiden.
Platonic relationships question: which two characters do you want to see hug the most?
Thanks for your ask!Â
Part of me wants to say Edelgard and Dimitri, but why they should Hug It Out is quite well-established. So, please also consider:
Edelgard and Ferdinand
Their supports play the rivalry for laughs a bit, but thereâs honestly so much emotional substance/potential behind their relationship.
(under cut because this got slightly long)
When she introduces Ferdinand at the beginning of the game, Edelgard says:
For some reason, he thinks of me as a bitter rival and is always trying to challenge me. It's terribly irritating. His house is that of Duke Aegir, which produces Adrestia's Prime Ministers. That family is...perhaps too pleased with its own status.
I think itâs interesting that, despite the fact that she just singled out him as âirritatingâ the line before, she switches focus for the next sentence to say that his family is too pleased with his own status. Not him, his family.
...Itâs almost like sheâs always known that heâs not the arrogant person that his father is, that his fixation on his status pre-timeskip is more due to his upbringing than it his own character.
Because Ferdinand isnât his power-hungry father at all. He truly believes that in order to be worthy of the power they hold, nobles have to set a good example and protect others. Pre-timeskip, being noble is his reason for trying so hard at everything.
And then, the impact Edelgardâs first actions as Emperor have on Ferdinand canât be understated. When she strips Duke Aegirâs titles and puts him under house arrest, she also strips away the future he was so looking forward to up to that point. His entire motivation for trying so hard is gone. (This fic deals with this subject beautifully, by the way.)
...Or so he thinks. But he chooses to continue looking to the future, even when he realizes he canât get ahead of Edelgard, even grappling with the worry that nobody will remember him. Heâs not âtoo pleased with his own statusâ anymore. But heâs still trying his best.
And, to bring this full-circle, at the end of their A-support, even after heâs spent years trying to prove himself superior to her, this is their dialogue:
Ferdinand: Yes, exactly! Finally, Edelgard, you appreciate how important I am to your cause!
Edelgard: I've always thought of you as a valued friend, Ferdinand. That's nothing new.
Sheâs always thought of him as a valued friend. Sheâs always known that heâs nothing like his father, despite his fixation on noble status.
The other thing about this that makes me emotional is that he frames it as being useful to her cause. Because, after everythingâs been taken from him, heâs still searching for his purpose.
But Edelgard, who is one of the more practical and utilitarian characters in the game, sees him not for what he could offer her as an advisor, but just as a person she values. As her friend. As a person who had the integrity to look at the legacy he had valued so much, see the cracks in it, and resolve to repair them by making up for his fatherâs mistakes (see: his paralogue ending). To realize that Edelgard hadnât stolen his path, but had paved the way for him to walk his own. THATâS solid material for a long, cathartic hug on its own.
And ANOTHER thing that makes me sad about them is that they have a bit of a âgrass is greenerâ aspect to their relationship.
Ferdinand feels that he canât escape Edelgardâs shadow, and worries that he wonât be remembered in the pages of history books (see: A-support with Byleth). He says:
I know that I will never be greater than Edelgard. She will always surpass me. I am what I am...I will do what I'm called to do, even if no mark of me remains in the history books.
And then one of his teatime quotes, which is one of my favourites in the whole game because itâs so simple and sad, is:
You will always remember me, will you not?Â
He may have decided that heâll do what heâs called to. But he canât shake the sting of melancholy, the worry that nobody will remember him when heâs gone.
Edelgard, meanwhile, is the flame that throws her shadow over Ferdinand. Sheâs at the center of the war, the one who brought such upheaval to the continent. She knows that sheâll be remembered, she assumes it wonât be very positively, and she worries about that just like Ferdinand worries about being forgotten.
In her C-support with Dorothea (after Holy Tomb), she says:
If an opera is made about my life someday, I wonder how I'll be portrayed. The revolutionary who guided the Empire to a new dawn...or the foolish ruler who took her revolution too far...
Thatâs a lot of pressure on the shoulders of a 17/18-year-old.Â
And, like Ferdinand, sheâs well aware of the obligations of her position. One of her teatime quotes is:
Would it be OK...if I just laze about for a few moments? You're the only one I can allow to see me like that.
She knows that she canât afford to show weakness. But, unlike Ferdinand, she doesnât want to be a noble. Sheâd rather cast off the burden of her lineage entirely. One of her other teatime quotes is:
If I hadn't been born to House Hresvelg, I imagine life would have been much simpler.
So, yeah. They have a conversation where they air this all out, his fear of being forgotten, her fear of being remembered. And how nobody can control or predict their legacy, but can only âdo what theyâre called to doâ as best they can while theyâre alive. Oh, and this isnât even getting into the emotional upheaval Ferdinand would experience realizing what his father had done to Edelgard and her siblings. And how he was unintentionally rubbing salt in that wound every time he boasted of his familyâs status.
So. They hug. And they both probably cry a bit. And Ferdinand makes a joke about how Edelgardâs hair might be soft and nice-smelling, but his is even softer and better-smelling. And then the mood breaks, and they laugh.
...And Hubert senses that the two most important people to him in the whole world have been crying and just manifests out of nowhere with a knife, ready to throw down with whoever hurt them. But neither of them are even remotely surprised. Thatâs Hubert, after all.
@kalamaika âs gloomtober - âstarsâ. If you thought that those two wonât appear, you thought worng. They are chilling in the Goddess tower so they are kinda hidden from sight.
Basically just a lil list of fun things about Machina I picked up on while poring over the Fallen Arm (and some Colony 6) dialogue. Some of it may be a duh moment for some, while other things are really neat and hidden imo!
