#c: seteth

[soulcluster-moved]

@divergentpaths / byleth

"Archbishop." Seteth said the title with no small amount of affection in his tone.

Much had happened in the days after the war, including Rhea stepping down to live in seclusion, and while Seteth had been sorely tempted to follow her and ensure her well being, he knew Byleth would need him in the coming years. He was happy to stay and provide his expertise as he had once done for Rhea.

"I had tea prepared for us and cleared your schedule as requested."

[nicolewrites]

We Stand, Fate-Tested - XII

I’m making a final note to talk about some bonus content like things I considered including but didn't and so on in the next couple of days. Send me any questions you have that this doesn’t tie up and I’ll try to answer them. 

Thanks for sticking through this craziness!

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 5,279

Loose ends are tied up. / A friend visits Almyra.

AO3 | FFN

XII - Guardian of Order, Keeper of Truth

Sealed Ruins, Old Monastery - 25 Lone Moon, 733 AU

Byleth held the journal close to her chest as they crossed back to the caved-in entrance. She paused at the stairs and glanced at Claude. He hadn't said much since they had left the secret tomb, but she had felt him eyeing both her and the journal curiously.

She grabbed his hand before he could climb the stairs. "Claude," she said softly.

He looked at her and Byleth's heart twisted in her chest. She was holding the answers to almost all of her questions in her hands, but her mind was stuck on the way he looked at her and the ghost of his lips against hers. A lump welled in her throat and she felt suddenly selfish and shy. She knitted their fingers together fully and Claude glanced wordlessly at their joined hands.

Byleth rocked forward on her toes and there was a moment where they almost came together before a muffled shout had them jerking apart. Byleth dropped Claude's hand like she had been shocked and raced up the stairs to the cave-in.

"Seteth!" she called out.

"Byleth! Thank Sothis! Where on earth have you been? We've been calling for you for fifteen minutes. Edelgard said you've been back here for nearly an hour," her advisor said from the other side of the stone. He sounded exhausted and truly relieved to hear that she was okay.

Guilt twisted in her stomach. She and Claude had been selfish in searching the ruins instead of waiting for rescue, but now that she was clutching the journal to her chest, she couldn't find it in herself to regret her actions.

"Are you both alright? They're going to work on clearing this blockade shortly and we'll get you out of there," Seteth continued.

Byleth glanced behind her. Claude had followed her up the stairs and he was just approaching her. "We're safe," she assured Seteth. "And," she glanced behind Claude to the hidden tomb and then at the journal she was holding, "Seteth, I found them."

There was a moment of stunned silence and Claude stepped next to her, tucking his good arm around her shoulders and squeezing briefly. Byleth held her breath. Seteth had said he wanted to know what had happened to the people he had known hundreds of years ago, but she honestly wasn't sure what to expect from him.

"Found who?" came her advisor's breathless reply after a moment.

"The Guardian and the King. They're buried down here."

Seteth laughed airly and Byleth relaxed against Claude's touch. "Of course they are," Seteth murmured. "I shouldn't have expected anything less from her."

"Not that this isn't all exciting and crazy," Claude cut in gently, "but, what happened to the shooters? Is everyone okay?"

"Dimitri!" Byleth gasped. "Is he okay? Did everyone else get out okay?"

"Yes," Seteth said reassuringly. "Last I heard, Dimitri was en route to the hospital for minor surgery and stitches. He should be fine. Everyone else managed to get out with very few injuries."

Byleth looked at Claude. He looked like he had aged years since they had first descended into the strange tomb. She twisted against him and raised a hand to his shoulder. His gaze dropped to hers quickly and it softened from wary fear to a bone-deep weariness that she understood. His left hand awkwardly scooped her hand off his shoulder and he brought it to his mouth, pressing a feather-light kiss to her palm.

Byleth smiled faintly and pressed her palm to his cheek, running her thumb across his warm skin. She nearly forgot about Seteth and the dig and the chaos for a moment until Claude broke their eye contact, his eyes straying back to the caved-in rock.

"The shooters? What happened to them?" he asked.

"Arrested," Seteth said. His tone was sharp and almost disgusted. "A group of terrorists trying to further destabilize Fódlan by going after children of politicians after an attack on Parliament."

Claude's arm around her shoulder suddenly felt like it was burning her. Byleth dropped her hand from his face and worriedly pressed her thumb to her bottom lip as she wrestled with how much to tell Seteth.

"That's not what they were doing here," Claude replied slowly, making the decision for her.

Byleth sighed. "No," she agreed. "Seteth, they were here for me. They said something about a goddess. I think they think that I'm the same goddess as back then."

Seteth was quiet for a moment. "I see," he said before Byleth could try to take back her words. "I'll handle it."

"Handle it?"

"Byleth, I've handled these things for hundreds of years. Trust me, and I will take care of it," Seteth continued.

Byleth relaxed a bit. "I suppose." She glanced at the journal she was clutching. "There's more to show you," she began, but he cut her off.

"Let's continue this conversation when we're not separated by a foot of solid rock and all breathing in unhealthy amounts of dust, shall we?"

Claude chuckled and she could practically feel the laugh in his chest. She smiled to herself and tapped her thumb on the cover of the journal.

"Yeah," she agreed.

-

Garreg Mach University - 12 Great Tree Moon, 733 AU

Byleth knocked on the doorframe before she stepped inside the office. The shelves were almost completely bare and there was only a single frame left on the wall. Byleth ran her fingers over the back of one of the visitor's chairs as she waited to be addressed.

Seteth placed a framed photo of Flayn into the half-packed box on the desk and looked up at her. "You made it," he greeted warmly.

Byleth nodded. "And you're really leaving, aren't you?"

Seteth's normally hard green eyes softened. "Once you get the official transcriptions released, there will be too many questions. It's better for us to just disappear now." He paused, tapping his palm against the top of the cardboard box. "There's another thing that we should deal with as well."

Byleth pursed her lips. "And you still won't tell me what that means, will you?"

Seteth smiled faintly. "It's not for you to worry about. You have a Master's thesis to write and then you'll have a Ph.D. to defend."

"It'll be hard to write a Master's without a supervisor," she pointed out.

Seteth shook his head. "I appreciate the effort, Byleth, but any professor in the archaeology or history departments would happily take you on. Besides, Harriet and James are staying on in the lab so you'll have connections with them too."

He sat down in his worn office chair and gestured to the chair she was holding the back of. Byleth relinquished her grip and slid into the chair. She had sat in this office across the desk from him many, many times in both her undergraduate years as well as over the course of her first year of her Master's.

"Seteth," Byleth began slowly. "Do you think that my father knew?"

Seteth pursed his lips, considering the question. "Considering the fact that he pulled out of the previous dig project as quickly as he did, I have a feeling he may have figured some things out. He never treated myself or Flayn differently, but you figured it out, and your father was always just as sharp as you were."

Byleth thought about the way that Jeralt had acted after he had withdrawn from the dig. He had been secretive and almost unnerved, but he had never wavered in his protective treatment of her. She hadn't thought much of it back then. If he knew, it made sense with what she remembered. Suddenly uncomfortable thinking about her deceased father, she changed the subject.

"It's going to be hard to see someone else take your office. You're leaving awfully big shoes to fill, you know," she commented, tapping her knuckles against the oak desk between them.

Seteth smiled fondly. "Maybe you'll find yourself sitting on this side someday."

"I don't know if I'd like teaching," she admitted.

Seteth laughed. "Well, from how well you taught as the TA and as the undergrad program leader, I think you'd make an excellent teacher."

Byleth's lips twisted into a small smile. "Maybe," she assented.

"She was a teacher one time too," he said. "Before she was a general and an archbishop, she was their teacher."

She looked up curiously. The translated pages of the Almyran King's journal had made reference to the ancient Officer's Academy a few times, but he hadn't mentioned that the Guardian had been the professor for himself and the Saviour King.

"I had my doubts about her when she first started, but she was the finest professor we ever had at the Officer's Academy, age be damned." There was a wistful glimmer in Seteth's eyes as he recounted his feelings from hundreds of years ago.

Byleth's stomach turned as she remembered the guilt on his face when he had admitted to her that he didn't know what had truly happened to the pair since he hadn't been on good terms with the Archbishop in the end.

"I've read most of it now," she said. Seteth raised an eyebrow. "She spoke highly of you, right to the end. You shouldn't feel guilty about how it was left between you."

He sighed. "It's hard not too," he confessed, "but, hearing you say that helps." He made eye contact with her and Byleth felt for a moment like he was picking her apart, bit by bit. "Flayn and I still miss them dearly: both of the Kings and the Archbishop and all of the others. It's funny that even almost eight hundred years later and the wound hasn't hardly begun to heal."

"Do I make it worse or better?"

"Both," he said. "It's hard to look at you and to see her face, but it is reassuring to look at you and know that everything she suffered wasn't for nothing. Her bloodline lives on in you and I think she would be glad to know that."

"I still dream about her and her life," Byleth said suddenly. "For some reason, I thought it might stop once I had all of this figured out."

Seteth's head tipped curiously as he studied her. "You don't have to become her, Byleth. In fact, you shouldn't. As great of a leader and teacher and friend as she was, she suffered horribly in her life, as did so many of her companions. I think that you, and those around you, are here to be your own people and to live in this world they fought for without a war. That's what she would have wanted."

"A life without war sounds nice," she mumbled.

"There is no diminishing the pain that has existed in your life, Byleth, but as a man who has lived too many lifetimes, you have to take extra care of the things that matter and the things that make you feel. Those are the things that you will be glad to have experienced."

"Would she have wanted me to share everything? Some people have been arguing that since all this disappeared in the Scorch and the Riots that maybe it was supposed to stay lost."

Seteth laughed. "She was stubborn and private, but I think she'd want her story out there. They called her the Guardian of Order in her time for her honesty and her commitment to peace and rebuilding a better Fódlan. I can't think of a better keeper of that knowledge and I think she would be happy to have it shared in the end."

Seteth stood up from the seat and closed the flaps on the box on his desk. He studied his almost empty office with a fond look and his gaze landed on Byleth warmly.

"I was grateful to have known you centuries ago. I am honoured to have known you for a second time, Byleth Eisner."

-

Garreg Mach University - 28 Great Tree Moon, 733 AU

Byleth was taking notes on a set of scanned pages from the journal when a cough caught her attention. She placed her pen down and looked up, seeing who had disturbed her work in the lab.

Edelgard and Dimitri stood before her, smiling as they took in the papers pinned to almost every surface and the chaotic organization of her workspace in the lab. Byleth quickly pulled her hair up into a ponytail and stood up from her chair. She twisted her head to work out the stiffness in her neck that was developing after hours of sitting and smiled at her former students.

"I didn't know you guys were still around," Byleth said in lieu of a greeting.

Dimitri laughed. "Last exams of our undergraduate degrees were today. It's strange to think about."

"Yes," Edelgard agreed. "This place was our home for four years. It will be strange not to come back in the Horsebow Moon."

Byleth raised an eyebrow. "Have you decided on where you're headed then?"

The pair exchanged a look and wary smiles. Edelgard nodded to Byleth. "We're actually both headed to Fhirdiad in a couple of hours."

"Jumping into politics?" she teased. Edelgard shrugged and Byleth's brow shot up. "That was mostly sarcastic. I knew you studied Political Science, Edelgard, but, Dimitri, aren't you a business major?"

"Business Major with a Politics and International Relations Minor," Dimitri added. "So, we thought we might take a crack at getting whatever remains of our fathers' parties to get along."

Byleth's eyes flickered to Edelgard's face, but the other woman seemed fairly composed. Edelgard's father had died still very recently, but it had come up between them before and Edelgard had assured Byleth that she had never been particularly close to her father since he was always so busy. Still, Byleth understood what it meant to lose a parent suddenly and violently.

She smiled at the two of them. "Well, with all things considered, I have a feeling you'll be good at that."

Edelgard studied one of the pinned up journal pages for a moment. "With everything we've learned recently, it feels like the least we can do is make sure this country keeps moving forward."

Byleth nodded. "How are you guys feeling about this?" She gestured to the chaos around the lab.

Dimitri shifted, scanning over a bulletin board which was covered in translation notes and Byleth's own notes. "It's strange," he admitted tentatively, "but we're different people."

"Right," Edelgard agreed. "It's one thing to think of ourselves as copies of them, but that's not true. We're fairly disconnected, especially since we didn't know hardly anything about the past. I think it as it stands, the best thing we can do is respect the past and honour the truth."

"Honour the truth," Byleth repeated. She smiled. "I like that idea."

"Oh!" Dimitri exclaimed. "That reminds me. We came here to give you something." He slid his bag off his shoulder and rummaged through it until he pulled out what appeared to be a wrapped picture frame.

Edelgard took it from Dimitri and handed it to Byleth. "From all of us," she explained.

Byleth broke the tape on the blue wrapping paper with her fingernail and peeled the paper away. There was a card in an envelope that she placed onto her desk as she pulled the picture frame free of the paper.

The frame was a simple frame made of dark cherry wood. It had a stand on the back so it could be displayed on a table. Byleth almost teared up when she saw the photo in the frame. It was the eight undergraduates from the dig team all squeezed together from the last day on site. It was the photo she had taken before everything had gone to hell, but she was happy to see that the photo had turned out well.

"We wanted to thank you," Dimitri explained. "As crazy as this last term has been, we all immensely enjoyed our experience with the project and that's largely due to you, Byleth."

She laughed and placed the photo down. She reached out to pull Edelgard and Dimitri into a hug. "You all had better come back and visit me. I loved working with you all too."

Edelgard squeezed her back and tapped against the sealed card that Byleth had put down. "Everyone wrote something personal in the card. We figured this was a nice way to thank you for all the work you put into helping and teaching us."

"I love it," Byleth assured.

She dropped the hug and picked the card up. She used a pen off her desk to tear the envelope neatly along the crease and slid out the card. It was a hand-painted image of the History building on campus and Byleth touched it reverently.

"Ignatz," Dimitri explained. "He insisted."

She smiled and opened the card. Annette's bubbly handwriting was the first thing that caught her expression, but it was closely followed by Ignatz's artful script. There was the slightly messy slanted writing that belonged to Linhardt and Lysithea's almost typewriter-esque printing and Ingrid's smooth cursive. Edelgard had squeezed her message in the bottom left corner and Dimitri had taken the bottom right.

She hesitated when she spotted Claude's message. It was simple: "Thanks for the memories and for putting up with our chaos, Teach. Till next time, my friend. It has been a pleasure. Claude."

She knew his writing almost as well as she knew her own. Half of the pages around the lab had his notes on them as well. He had been a consistent visitor to her workspace for the first few weeks, but since she had had her final meeting with Seteth at the start of the exam period, she had hardly heard from Claude. Her heart and head were still twisted and muddled from what had transpired on-site and off-site and while they had been stranded in the tomb, but she wanted to talk to him about it.

She lifted her eyes from the card and looked at Edelgard and Dimitri. "Is Claude around?" she asked casually.

Edelgard's brows twitched into a frown and Dimitri's cheeks hollowed as he inhaled. Dimitri's large shoulders lowered in what Byleth recognized as a muted form of pity and she turned away, sliding the card back into its envelope quickly.

"He went home to Jodat last week," Edelgard admitted after a moment. "I know he hasn't moved out of the Golden Deer House yet though, so I'm sure he'll be back."

"Yeah," Byleth agreed. Her heart twisted in disappointment.

He hadn't even come to say good-bye to her.

-

Garreg Mach University - 15 Verdant Rain Moon, 733 AU

The TV in the lab was jabbering on about some big political announcement as Byleth adjusted the dish she was looking at with her lens. It was nice to take a break from thousands of pages of disputed translation notes and abstract history to catalogue and study some of the smaller pieces that were recovered during the main part of Seteth's expedition.

Harriet and James were both not in today, leaving Byleth to have the lab to herself. She liked being alone while she worked. She could hum under her breath or read aloud as she tried to compile the most precise version of the Almyran King's old journal.

Six different translators had created what they claimed to be the most accurate translation of the journal, but as she combed through them, there were dozens upon dozens of different interpretations of the old Fódlani language. Byleth herself had created a translation, but having read the works of other translators, she was quick to admit some of her own translations were incorrect. It was exhausting to piece together, but it was exciting all the same.

She placed her magnifying lens down on the lab bench and glanced up at the TV to see what kind of story was being told now. To her surprise, it appeared to be a summary of a recent Almyran broadcast.

Byleth fumbled for the remote and was about to turn the volume up so she could hear it better when she caught sight of the figure standing in the doorway of the lab. She dropped the remote and the plastic cracked against the bench, almost landing on top of her lens. She stood up from her stool, still staring at the door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in absolute shock.

Standing in the lab doorway, wearing dark jeans and a fitted yellow shirt that brought out the deep tan of his skin and the green of his eyes, was Claude. His hands were tucked in his pockets and he was watching the TV in the lab curiously.

"I can summarize that for you," he offered, pulling a hand free to wave at the screen.

Byleth blinked.

"Almyran Royal Family announces change in the line of succession as Khalid Al-Qadir steps aside for older cousin, Arshan Al-Qadir."

Surprise blossomed across her face. "You abdicated?"

He shrugged and stepped into the lab. "I never wanted to be King. Honestly, I never had any intention of becoming king either."

Byleth sat down on her stool again but stayed facing him. "Claude, what are you doing here?" she asked again.

"I came here to tell you that I fucked up. Royally."

Byleth crossed her arms. "Not so royal anymore," she pointed out dryly.

Claude gave her a half-amused glare. "By, when I left things were fucked up."

She closed her eyes and exhaled warily. "That's one way of putting it," she agreed.

"Things between us got so twisted and messed up so quickly," he continued.

"If you're here to apologize, this is a shitty apology," she remarked shortly.

"You're right," he agreed. "As always." Claude walked further into the lab and studied the paper that was taped to the cabinet above where Byleth was working. It was the list of translators who had worked on the journal. "I would take everything Alan Steren has to say with a grain of salt," he suggested.

Byleth looked at the list and noted he had pointed out the second translator. Alan Steren had been recommended to her by the head of the Department of Linguistics. "Why?"

"He's done some pretty anti-Almyran translations of other works. I can't imagine he'll speak favourably of all of this information coming from an Almyran King."

Byleth considered that and glanced at the stack of notes by her computer. She had been struggling with one section where two translators had given her vastly different interpretations of an important war meeting. It was very possible that one of them had come from Steren.

"I'll keep that in mind," she agreed.

Claude didn't say anything for a moment as he skimmed over some of the other sheets she had pinned up. Despite having worked solidly for several months, the lab still looked like a hurricane had run through it.

"Did you come here to apologize or ask me about my research?" Byleth asked after a moment of nothing.

Claude sighed. "I really can't get one over on you, can I?"

Byleth rolled her eyes. "Slip a shitty apology by? No, you can't."

He turned towards her and Byleth was almost caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze. The emerald of his irises was practically burning right through her.

"I handled it poorly, but, Byleth, what I said to you still stands."

Her cheeks flamed suddenly and she buried her face in her hands to try to get her emotions under control. Why did he have to be so damn eloquent and why did he have to make her feel like a sixteen-year-old girl with a crush again?

"Why are you like this?" she muttered.

Claude laughed and Byleth's heart flipped a bit at the sound. "You make me nervous too, if that helps," he said gently. "I've never felt more like an idiot than I do around you."

She dropped her hands to her lap. "Let's review," she suggested. "First of all, we meet because you're a smartass student and I'm the TA for a course. We chat about my research and slowly start to talk about other things. We end up working on a project together for several months that results in us getting run off the road, jumped in an alley, and shot at in ancient ruins." She tapped a different finger for each of the horrible events they had survived. "I also find out you're the prince of a foreign nation and we then discover that I'm the reincarnated form of a former war leader who was totally married to the ancestor of one of your close friends."

"And somewhere in there, I discovered that I was crazy about you," Claude added helpfully.

Byleth bit her lip and stared at Claude. For as defensive as he had been when he had first come into the lab, he was being equally honest and open with her right now. "We're kind of a mess, Claude, and that doesn't even begin to evaluate everything going on behind the scenes."

He reached for her elbow and tugged her up so they were both standing. "I like messy," he said cheerfully. He brushed a piece of her loose hair behind her ear affectionately. "Sometimes messy is the truth and the honest truth is always the best part of any relationship or connection."

Byleth reached out and touched the hem of his shirtsleeve over his bicep. Claude's hand cupped her elbow, holding her hand and arm basically captive.

"I have my life's work ahead of me here," Byleth confessed.

"Would you be opposed if I told you I was planning on sticking around to do a Ph.D. in the History department?"

Byleth blinked. She leaned into him unconsciously. Despite the total chaos of the last 11 months, Byleth had been glad for Claude's support and cynicism and companionship. She had sorely missed him for the last four months when he was in Almyra.

"You're not leaving?"

Her father had left. Seteth and Flayn had left. Her undergraduate friends had scattered when they had graduated. Even the friends she made this year had mostly disappeared after they had graduated to pursue other interests.

"Unless you tell me I should, no, I don't think so," Claude replied.

His hand slid up her arm and then down her side to her waist. His other arm was somehow already there and Byleth's other hand landed on his chest, just over his heart. She could feel his heartbeat thrumming beneath her touch.

"You still haven't told me how you're feeling," he pointed out. His voice was soft and almost breathy as he held her close.

Byleth hummed. "And you still haven't said you were sorry."

Claude kissed her. His lips were warm as he pressed them to hers. Byleth slid one hand up into his messy dark locks and let the other rest over his heart as she kissed him back. Her lips parted and Claude took advantage of the action, pressing his weight against her until she backed up so she was trapped between the lab bench and his body. He finally pulled back to breathe and Byleth's heart fluttered at the dark, wanting look in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said breathlessly.

"Shut up," Byleth said.

She kissed him again and tightened her arms around his neck. He grinned into the kiss and Byleth pulled back after a second.

"I'm in love with you," she said.

It was hard to remember the last time she had that she loved someone. Probably, it would have been to her father as he bled out in her arms. But, Claude made her feel light and fluttery and simultaneously heavy and irritated, but she felt human. She felt real and wanted and it felt like her choice and not some predetermined cycle where she was reliving someone else's life.

"It would be kind of awkward if you weren't, wouldn't it?"

"Shut it," she said.

"I love you too, Byleth." Claude's green eyes were bright and Byleth loved him. "Now, how can I make myself useful to you with all this chaos you've got around here."

Byleth grinned. "Thank you for offering."

- ~ -

Almyran Royal Palace, Jodat, Almyra - 3 Garland Moon, 38 AU

Hilda's heels clicked on the tiled palace floors as the servant escorted her to the king's office. The palace was different from the fortress in the Locket and different from Garreg Mach and from Castle Goneril and especially different from the Royal Palace in Fhirdiad.

The servant knocked on a pair of decorated wooden doors. "Lady Hilda Valentine Goneril for His Majesty, King Khalid."

There was a muffled call of 'enter' from in the room and Hilda pushed past the servant, letting herself into the office. The room reminded her almost immediately of Claude's study in the Riegan Dukedom and his old room in the monastery.

Her friend looked up from the paperwork he was filling out on his desk and smiled at her with the same trickster smile that had gotten her into so much shit over 40 years ago at the Officer's Academy.

"Hello, Hilda, I wasn't expecting to see you," Claude greeted pleasantly.

Hilda waved the servant away who was hovering at the door and he disappeared, shutting the door behind him. "Hello to you too, old friend."

Claude laughed and stood from his desk. "Oh don't say it like we're old yet, Hil. It hasn't been that long has it?"

"A few years," she pointed out.

Claude's smile dropped a few inches. "Well, it hasn't exactly been the easiest time for me to visit the Throat."

A ripple of sympathy crossed her expression. "You quelled it before it started, Claude. You said it yourself to me back during the war, Almyrans respect strength, not complacency. You'll be okay."

He looked past her to the portrait on his study wall. An Almyran woman with amber eyes and short-cropped black hair and a dancing smile. "It's still a shame that I lost Amal."

Hilda studied the portrait of the late Almyran queen. "You never loved her though, did you?"

"She was a close friend and someone I could trust. We might have married for convenience, but she was a dear friend, as are you, Lady Goneril."

Hilda wrinkled her nose. "Can't we just drop titles?"

He grinned and offered her his arm. "I have something to show you, Hil. If you'd be so kind as to indulge me?"

She slid her hand into it and patted his forearm lightly. "If you insist."

They walked in a comfortable silence from Claude's office to another wing of the palace into what looked like a gallery of some sort. Hilda stopped short when she saw what Claude had been looking to show her.

"She would hate it," Hilda said instantly.

Claude laughed. "Absolutely. I think Dimitri actually would have tried to take my head off."

"I love it," Hilda said next.

"Me too," Claude agreed. "It's nice to see their faces from time to time. They would be proud of what has become of Fódlan. You all did good work."

Hilda squeezed his arm. "You helped."

"Maybe," he agreed. He stared up at the art before him. "Byleth said that we'd see each other again. I hope you know," he said, raising his voice a little, "I'll hold you too that, my friend."

Hilda rested her head against his shoulder and said nothing.

The world seemed to speak for itself, after all.

[pxperhearts]

@magnumbullet​ asked: SETETH .......................... PLEASE HELP

“There is no need to shout. I am right here.”

[soulcluster-moved]

“Smash or Pass Byleth?” for Seteth, oops.

Send me “Smash or Pass” + a name and my muse will answer with 100% honesty

"That is a highly inappropriate question. And, what is that? ‘Smash or pass’? Is that the new trend among the students? I must rethink allowing Flayn to mingle with the student body if that is the kind of topic that comes up.”

[soulcluster-moved]

@mercyburned​ / byleth eisner

Tragedy seemed determined to strike the monastery this year. He had been beside himself with worry over Flayn’s disappearance, realizing just how close he was to his very worst fears coming true, and now, mere months later, their monastery suffered yet more. First the students and the demonic beasts and then Jeralt’s death. 

He did not know the man as well as Rhea, but he had been pleasant to work with. Like himself, he understood what it meant to be a father, and perhaps that was why Seteth found himself trusting him.

In his wake, he left his daughter, and it was her Seteth now felt compelled to see. To what end, he had not fully considered, because grief was so varied and complex an emotion, experienced differently by each individual, that it would be hard to tell what kind of assistance he might offer Byleth. It was luck, though it made him frown, to see her lingering in Jeralt’s office, which was so close to his own. He could not say that he was surprised to find her there.

He rapped softly upon the open wooden door to gain her attention. “Would you have a moment, professor?”

[nicolewrites]

We Stand, Fate-Tested - VI

And I finally start to earn that mystery genre tag here. Exams are almost done and then hopefully I'll be able to work some more on this story during social distancing. I already know chapter 7 will be a doozy, so get prepared.

Also, just a reminder to check dates as we’re jumping ahead a little in both timelines. 

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 5,800

A strange symbol discovered during the dig has strange consequences. / Rhea delivers unpleasant news.

AO3 | FFN

VI - Am I Dreaming Or Awake

Old Monastery Ruins, Garreg Mach University - 19 Pegasus Moon, 733 AU

It was spectacular. She had noted the elegance of the old architecture the first time they had been down to the excavation site, but it was something that caught her off guard every time she came down here.

Byleth passed the security sign-in table and flashed her ID badge as the guards nodded at her and she moved over to the supply table. Shovels and trammels and boxes of gloves were littered over the table along with a carafe of coffee that someone had bought for the team. Byleth helped herself to a small cup of coffee and walked further into the chamber.

They had begun in one of the main tombs of the monastery. It was the one that had been worked on all those years ago, so Seteth had chosen it as the initial starting point for the current excavation. It was also the only chamber that had been approved for inhabitants by structural engineers. The two other known crypts were still under investigation to see if they were structurally sound enough to support a bunch of archeologists digging around in them. Then, of course, there were rumours that there were dozens of other sealed-off chambers down here somewhere.

Byleth sipped her coffee as she walked forward through the in-process dig. It was early, just past 6, so the only people who had arrived were herself, Seteth, and Harriet, one of the post-docs in Seteth’s lab. Byleth picked her way towards Seteth who was crouched in a marked square as he assessed a handful of ancient coins he had unearthed. She cleared her throat and he looked up.

“Good morning, Byleth,” he greeted politely as he stood up. “Reporting for duty?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I assume I can take the same sector as before?”

Seteth shook his head. “No, I’ve actually assigned that to James today. He’s working with Annette, Ingrid, and Ignatz over there. Harriet will take Lysithea and Linhardt, but I was hoping you would be able to manage Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri.”

Byleth was surprised. Usually, Seteth split the undergrads into pairs, not a pair and two trios. Additionally, he usually had her working with Lysithea and Linhardt.

Seteth continued, not concerned with Byleth’s surprise. “I want you guys to start over there. I’ve already marked your area for the day.” Seteth gestured to the far wall of the tomb.

Byleth could see the staked-out area. It was further away from the main body of the dig than anyone else had been working, towards a crumbled section of what was probably a statue. She turned to Seteth and raised an eyebrow.

“Why the new site? We’ve been working fine in other places.”

Seteth sighed. “I’m starting to think there isn’t much in this particular chamber. As much as I hate to admit it, most of what was here was recovered by Catherine five years ago. She did good work while she was down here.”

Byleth smiled sympathetically at her advisor. “Seteth, we’ve only been working for a few weeks.” She gestured to the coins he had unearthed. “That’s something, isn’t it?”

He chuckled. “It’s a small start,” he admitted. “I do have an admission to make though,” he continued. “I intend to send a group of people up to Fhirdiad to retrieve some additional supplies from the National Museum this weekend. I was hoping you would be willing to do that.”

Byleth blinked. “Leave the dig and go to Fhirdiad?” She was almost a bit offended. She had spent so much time preparing for the dig and helping to prepare the undergrads that it felt a bit cruel to ask her to step out on a trip for errands.

Seteth hummed. “You would leave Saturday morning early and make it to Fhirdiad by the late evening. Sunday you’ll collect the supplies and come back. You should be back late Sunday night in plenty of time. I actually hoped to send some of our students with you.”

Byleth put a hand on her hip. “Which students?”

“Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude,” he explained. “Dimitri lives in Fhirdiad and both Claude and Edelgard have residences there due to their parents.”

Byleth sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it. I don’t have a car, though, you know that.”

Seteth shrugged. “You can borrow mine or take one of theirs if they have one. Flayn is in town for a while so I won’t be troubled if you do take mine.”

Byleth nodded. Before she could respond, a chatter of noise caught her attention and she turned and saw a gaggle of people at the sign-in desk including all of the undergrads. Seteth nodded to her and made his way towards them to assign their duties for the day. Byleth trailed after him, biting her lip.

Seteth was just giving out the directions when Byleth caught up and Claude caught her eye with a smug grin as Seteth explained that they would be working together that day and the next. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Since her trip to Almyra at the end of the term, she and Claude had become even closer. He still liked to bother her about random historical or archeological things and it happened even more frequently than it had occurred in the previous term because now she wasn’t his TA.

When Seteth finished the briefing, he turned to her. “Could you ask them about this weekend?”

Byleth nodded. She walked over to the supply table and plucked a pair of gloves out of one of the boxes, snapping them on. The undergrads were mostly chatting amongst themselves, but Claude turned his full attention to Byleth as soon as she approached.

“So, a new quadrant?” he questioned. Byleth shrugged.

She glanced at Edelgard and Dimitri who had also turned their attention towards her. “Good morning,” she greeted the three of them.

Edelgard smiled. “An early one,” she noted jokingly.

Dimitri laughed. “Claude, Ignatz, and Annette are the only three crazy enough to normally be up at this time.”

Annette gasped, offended. “Hey!”

Ignatz just chuckled. “Archery events are good at being scheduled super early.”

Ingrid laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m normally up too. Felix really doesn’t know how to stop messaging at 6 am when he’s up and going to fencing.”

Most of the undergrads filtered away then, leaving Byleth with her trio of students. She straightened her shoulders and fiddled with the hem of one of her gloves.

“Are any of you busy this weekend?”

Claude’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Uh,” he muttered, looking caught off guard.

Dimitri frowned slightly. “I’m supposed to celebrate Felix’s birthday tomorrow night, but not beyond that,” he admitted.

“Well, Seteth has asked the four of us to go to Fhirdiad to pick up some supplies. We’ll be back by Sunday.”

Edelgard pursed her lips. “I suppose that makes sense, but why all four of us?”

Byleth winced as she recalled a reason why Seteth might have chosen to send away Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude in particular. Claude picked up on her expression right away and he laughed dryly.

“Probably has something to do with that argument last weekend,” he noted.

Edelgard and Dimitri both flinched as they all recalled the bitter verbal sparring match that had occurred the last time they had been on-site together. Claude had identified something Edelgard had unearthed before she had had the chance to and she had snapped at him. Claude had retorted right back which had caused Dimitri to step in and defend Edelgard. Of course, then both of them had snapped at Dimitri for intervening where he wasn’t needed. Tensions had been prickly between them all since, much to the discomfort of anyone forced to work with them.

“Well, maybe this will be a good thing,” Dimitri offered.

Edelgard huffed and turned her full attention to Byleth. “Where are we working today?”

Byleth gestured to the far-off plot. Edelgard nodded, grabbed a clipboard from the supply table and stalked off, heading in the right direction. Claude rolled his eyes at the dismissal from the Prime Minister’s daughter before he followed in her footsteps, spinning a small shovel in his hands.

Dimitri sighed. “This is weird for us, Byleth,” he admitted to her. Byleth eyed him curiously and Dimitri frowned after his friends. “It’s almost like being down here brings up some unspoken tension between us that we didn’t know existed.”

Byleth took a deep breath. “Well, let’s not let grievances get between us and work, alright?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

Dimitri immediately walked over to join the others at the dig spot. Byleth took a bracing breath and followed after them. She was going to need all of her patience today if the three of them were going to be as snippy as they had been previously.

Byleth was about to kneel down next to Edelgard to begin her own digging when something on the wall caught her eye. She stepped over the boundary rope and narrowed her eyes. The three students paused in their own work to watch her. There was something etched faintly in the crumbled stones.

“Dimitri, hand me a brush please,” she requested. Dimitri fumbled with the brush for a moment before he pressed it into her palm.

Claude crossed the rope to stand next to her, eyes sharp and curious. “What do you see, Teach?”

Byleth ran the brush gently over the surface of the wall. A few layers of dirt drifted off, but it was clear that the sigil she was curious about was more deeply buried. “Something right here,” she murmured quietly, gesturing to the area she was brushing.

Claude made an affirming noise and this drew both Edelgard and Dimitri closer as the four of them stared at the mark on the crumbled wall. Byleth pressed the pointed handle of the brush against the mark and scraped at the stone. Dust and dirt fell away, revealing the pattern more fully. Byleth brushed it again, clearing away more layers of dirt until she’d uncovered what portion she could.

The carving was some kind of looping pattern. It was incomplete, with probably only a third of it intact, but it seemed weirdly familiar. Byleth lowered the brush and lifted her hand. She pressed a gloved finger into one of the pattern’s grooves. As soon as she touched it, it felt like something in her had been electrocuted. She jerked back, glancing between her finger and the stone.

“Teach?” Claude questioned. He sounded concerned, but Byleth’s curious instincts were stronger.

She pressed her hand against the marking again and felt a similar prickle of energy. This time she didn’t pull back, pressing her palm to the stone as well. The energy spiked and Byleth blacked out so fast she didn’t realize it was happening.

-

She dreamt of the weird throne again.

This time, the chamber was intact and not in the state of decay she normally saw it in. Byleth turned, assessing the massive room. It was some kind of tomb, she already knew that, but she wanted to find a hint of where it was. Massive stone statues decorated the four corners of the tomb, but as she turned toward the throne again, there were two figures standing in front of it.

She tried to step towards them, but her feet were anchored in place. She blinked and the figures blurred as if they weren’t really there, but they didn’t fade away. It appeared to be a man and a woman, but their details were fuzzy no matter how hard Byleth tried to focus on their features.

They were conversing quietly. Byleth heard the murmured timbres of the two voices and reaffirmed her suspicions of one man and one woman, but the words themselves felt like they were travelling through water to reach her so she couldn’t pick out anything in particular.

She tried again to force her body to move quickly, but a pulse of energy rippled through her so strongly she almost keeled over. She reflexively lowered her head and closed her eyes tightly When she lifted her head again, the figures were gone and her surroundings had changed. She was staring at the throne head-on from the base of it.

Byleth exhaled in surprise. She lifted a hand carefully and touched the stone arm of the throne. Oddly enough, the stone felt hot to the touch. The warmth tingled in her fingertips and there was a flash of white before her face. Byleth’s vision whited out from the burst of light, but when it came back to her, there was a sigil floating in front of her face.

It was the sigil that had been carved in the stone at the dig site but complete, with intricate loops and a crisscrossed pattern. It hovered in the air in front of her as she kept her hand pressed to the throne. Byleth lifted her free hand and tried to touch the symbol. Her hand passed through it cleanly, but she could feel a warmth emanating from it.

“Byleth!” a voice cried out, loud and sharp and concerned.

She spun, drawing her hand back to her chest. She was alone in the chamber, but her sudden turn caused her vision to dim as quickly as it had during the dig and the dream faded.

-

Byleth blinked open her eyes slowly and immediately winced at the bright sunlight overhead. It took her only the briefest second to realize that someone was holding her in their arms and her head was resting against a shoulder. Voices filled her ears as her senses returned to her and she let out a low groan. The arms holding her instantly tensed and Byleth tilted her head and looked up to see that it was Dimitri holding her.

“Byleth!” Seteth exclaimed.

She tipped her head away from Dimitri, ignoring the faint ringing in her ears and saw her thesis supervisor standing next to him, staring at her in concern. “Seteth?” she mumbled.

“Teach, are you okay?” Claude asked. Byleth’s eyes flicked to him where he stood next to Seteth. Edelgard was hovering on Claude’s other side.

All four of them looked extremely concerned. Byleth shifted in Dimitri’s grip and flicked her eyes back to him.

“Can you put me down?” she requested. “I’m fine,” she said.

Dimitri frowned, but he did lower her to her feet. Byleth was surprisingly steady on her feet, but all of her muscles felt weirdly sore.

“What happened?” Seteth asked. By his tone, it was clear this was not the first time he had asked the question. He also had clearly directed it at the three students, not at Byleth.

“I touched that symbol and then everything went black,” Byleth said, answering him anyways. Seteth frowned.

Edelgard folded her arms. “But, why would that make you pass out?” she prompted.

Byleth shrugged, genuinely puzzled. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But, I feel fine now.”

Seteth studied her face with a creased brow. “You’re not going back down there today,” he said firmly. “Or tomorrow.” Byleth opened her mouth to protest and Seteth shook his head sternly. “Absolutely not,” he insisted.

Byleth huffed. “Seteth, I’m fine.”

“Byleth, you just collapsed. I don’t really think it’s fair to say that,” Dimitri said gently.

She pressed her lips into a line. She glanced around and noticed that they were standing at the courtyard just outside of the entrance to the dig site. She couldn’t have been unconscious for that long if they had only gotten this far when she was out.

“How about you and I go back to the lab and do some cataloguing?” Claude suggested, lifting the clipboard he was holding. “We can get started on entering this stuff into the database.”

“That’s agreeable,” Seteth consented. “I still want you to call Flayn tonight though.”

Flayn was a nurse and Byleth knew that Seteth wanted Flayn to do a full check-up, but having Byleth call her was his way of compromising with her. Byleth sighed and nodded.

“I’ll call her later,” she said.

“Great, well if that’s settled, we can head out, Teach,” Claude said cheerfully.

He gestured towards the main university campus and Byleth sighed again and headed in the direction of the lab with Claude following on her heels. They walked in silence right up until they entered the building when Claude finally couldn’t hold his tongue.

“What happened, Teach?”

Byleth glared at him half-heartedly before shrugging. “I fainted, apparently,” she muttered dryly.

Claude laughed. “No, what did you dream about?”

She stopped mid-step and stared at him. “How the hell do you know that I dreamed?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, that was a wild guess, but I’m glad it was correct.”

Byleth groaned and kept walking, trying to outpace Claude. He mostly kept up and caught up right outside the door to the lab.

“Was it bad?” he ventured carefully.

“Confusing,” Byleth corrected and slipped past him into the lab.

“Confusing,” Claude echoed as he followed her. “Care to elaborate.”

“Same throne, but there were people. I couldn’t hear or see them clearly,” Byleth said shortly.

She dropped into her chair and grabbed a pad of paper. Closing her eyes, she conjured the symbol that had appeared when she had touched the throne. She grabbed a pencil and made a very rough sketch of what it had looked like. She slid it across the table towards Claude.

“I saw this too.”

His eyes widened as he obviously recognized it from the dig site. He slid his pen off of the clipboard and carefully drew a half-circle around the part of it that Byleth had uncovered. He tapped the pen tip against the page and stared at her.

“What does this mean?”

“I have no idea,” she sighed. Byleth rubbed at her temples. “Everything about this is giving me a headache.”

Claude laughed at her. “Well, let’s do something distracting then.” He grabbed a TV remote from one of the shelves and pointed it at the lab TV in the corner.

Most of the time, James just used the TV to play whatever satellite music channel he wanted, but sometimes Seteth or Harriet would have the news on in the background as they worked. It appeared that Seteth or Harriet had been using it last since it was playing the news when it turned on.

“Enbarr Police are investigating the mysterious death of a woman recently identified as Monica Ochs,” the TV reporter explained.

Every muscle in Byleth’s body went completely rigid and she rose to her feet, staring at the screen in disbelief. The screen changed from the reporter at a desk to two images: one a plain portrait photo and the other a police sketch of the same girl. Byleth’s blood ran cold as ice as she recognized the police sketch. Both detailed a woman with delicate features and a slender face. She had dark red hair and thin lips.

Claude looked between Byleth and the TV. “Teach?” he inquired.

“I know her,” Byleth said reflexively.

“Ochs was identified as a person of interest in a murder investigation in the central city of Remire five years ago. A witness described the sketch on the right which was identified to be Ochs. At the time, police had been unable to locate Ochs for questioning and the investigation was eventually left unsolved,” the reporter continued.

Claude touched Byleth’s arm. “You knew a wanted murderer?”

“I described that sketch,” she said numbly, pointing to the police sketch.

Claude’s hand on her arm tightened and he immediately shut the TV off. “What?” he said, sounding startled.

Byleth sank back into her seat and stared blankly at the table in front of her. Her blood was racing and she could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Monica’s face was engraved in her mind. It had been for five years and it was jarring to see it again after so long. Her hands trembled and she was shot straight into a memory of a dark rainy alleyway in Remire as her father bled out in her lap with sirens wailing in the background. She started to feel lightheaded.

Byleth didn’t realize she wasn’t breathing until Claude forcibly placed himself between Byleth’s chair and the table and gripped her face between his hands. “Byleth, you need to breathe,” he ordered. “Breathe out,” he instructed sternly.

Byleth exhaled and Claude shook his head, shifting a hand to press against her stomach.

“Exhale,” he said harshly.

Byleth pushed out more air until it hurt and Claude nodded and she took a desperate breath in out of reflex. Claude continued coaxing her to breathe for several minutes. Byleth’s chest ached from the action of it. The fuzziness at the edges of her vision she had barely processed faded and Byleth started to come back to herself. Her eyes were burning and her head was pounding and her cheeks were wet as she belatedly realized she was crying.

Claude was kneeling on the floor in front of her, still holding her face and staring at her with a concerned expression on his face. “Are you alright?” he asked her quietly once her breathing had settled.

Byleth closed her eyes and felt her whole body tremble with a half-sob. “She killed my father,” she whispered.

Claude said something sharp in Almyran which was probably a curse before he gently pulled her head down so that he could press their foreheads together.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered. “I can’t imagine what this feels like. Do you want me to get Seteth or someone else?”

“No,” Byleth mumbled. With Claude’s forehead pressed against hers, she could feel his breaths gently fanning against her face. She focused on breathing in time with him. His presence was calming and comforting. “Just don’t leave,” she added quietly.

- ~ - ~ - 

Fhirdiad Royal Palace - 3 Pegasus Moon, 7 AU

As soon as the servant had left the chamber, Dimitri kissed her. He kissed her like he was drowning and she twisted her fingers into his hair as she kissed him back. He hardly waited a minute into the kiss before his hands were under her thighs, lifting her up so her legs closed around his hips.

Byleth broke their lips apart to trail kisses along Dimitri’s jaw as he walked slowly towards the bed. A growl rumbled in his chest and she almost laughed at the sound. She tilted her head further to try and kiss at his neck, but the collar of his shirt impeded her motion and she huffed.

“Dimitri,” she complained, tugging at the collar.

He laughed, a low rumble that she felt resonate through her body. He dropped her abruptly back on the bed and climbed onto it after her. Byleth instantly went to work at the buttons on his shirt, her fingers slipping over the silk-capped buttons as she struggled with them. Dimitri finally managed to get his shirt open and he leaned back to slip off his jacket and shirt.

Byleth was able to admire her husband for a moment before a pang of deep-seated guilt flooded her chest and her smile dropped. Dimitri dropped his jacket and shirt to the floor, but as he turned back towards her, Byleth pulled her knees up to her chin and cast her eyes to the side, withdrawing from him. Dimitri paused and stayed seated on the end of the bed as he watched her.

“Byleth?” he questioned softly.

She closed her eyes and inhaled shakily. She pressed her forehead against her knees and wrapped her arms over her shins, her fingernails digging into the sides of her calves. Dimitri didn’t press her for words, but she felt the bed dip as he started moving towards her slowly.

“Can I touch you, my love?” he asked carefully.

Byleth opened her eyes and saw him kneeling on the bed next to her. She tipped sideways into him and he caught her, wrapping his arms around her. They sat in the middle of their bed for a long moment without saying anything. Dimitri ran his hands through her hair soothingly, pulling out combs and pins and placing them aside until her hair was limp down her back. Byleth closed her eyes again and let him remove all of the pins without complaint.

“The court hates me,” Byleth said quietly once Dimitri had finished his task. Her husband tensed, but she didn’t let him cut in. “I see it in the way that they whisper when we’re together. The only reason they’re not open about it is most of them are scared to death of Felix and Ingrid. The common people can’t be any better.”

“Byleth,” Dimitri murmured. “The people love you. You are a hero of the Unification War and the leader of the Central Church of Fódlan. You have been a wonderful queen and no one looks down upon you,” he assured.

Byleth twisted so that she could look him in the face. “We have no heir, Dimitri,” she said bluntly. “We have stripped the politics from the church and we are building a free Fódlan. The people want security on the throne.” She ran a palm along Dimitri’s bare chest. “I bear no children, that we can be sure of.”

Dimitri frowned. “We are young yet. There should be no worry of children yet,” he said stubbornly.

Byleth pursed her lips and let her hand wander up to touch the side of his face. “Ingrid and Sylvain have three beautiful daughters. Annette and Felix have a son with another on the way. Mercedes and Dedue have two of their own.” Her thumb grazed Dimitri’s cheekbone. “We are outnumbered, my love.”

Dimitri closed his good eye and shook his head. “You are my wife, Byleth. The court does not get a say in that matter. There were certainly no protests when we were wed.”

Byleth raised an eyebrow. “There were,” she countered. “They were just never brought to your attention.”

Dimitri stared at her. “There were?”

“Some of the church officials didn’t like the idea of the union because they rightfully thought I would remove power from the church to distance state and religion. Seteth had them removed from their positions of power. Some of the nobles didn’t like the idea that the Saviour King would marry anyone other than their own flesh and blood. Especially someone who was born a commoner. Felix and Sylvain and Ingrid are quite good at squashing rumours in court,” Byleth explained sadly.

Dimitri looked pained. “You’ve carried this for 6 years and you never told me? Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

She kissed him between the eyes. “You had enough to worry about. I loved you and I was good enough at ignoring whispers. I believed in what we were doing.”

“You say loved,” he mumbled, looking almost nervous.

Byleth kissed his lips. “I love you,” she corrected herself. “I will always love you.”

“We can figure the rest out later,” Dimitri murmured.

Byleth sighed wistfully at his optimism. “Dimitri, I do not know how much longer the kingdom will wait for an heir.”

He scowled. “We went through hell to create this kingdom.” His hands on her waist tightened possessively. “They can wait.”

Byleth pecked him again. “I’ve asked Seteth to take me to see Rhea,” she confessed suddenly. “She has settled in Zanado and Catherine keeps watch over her. Seteth has agreed to accompany me.”

Dimitri stilled. “When?”

“Three days from now. After I return to the monastery.”

He considered her words for a moment. “I suppose I cannot come with you.”

“No,” Byleth agreed. “Seteth says she will likely only speak with me.” She cupped his face between her hands. “I’m sorry I won’t be here to receive Ashe and Petra with you.”

Dimitri chuckled faintly. “I’m not worried about Brigid. Ashe is a good friend and he and Petra are a well-suited match. I do sorely miss his skills as a scout and spy,” Dimitri added.

Byleth shifted so that she was facing Dimitri fully, kneeling between his legs. She reached up and pressed her palms against his bare chest, pushing him back against the mattress. “I miss having all of our friends around, but there are certainly certain perks of having just us around.”

Dimitri’s hands squeezed her waist as he guided her on top of him and they didn’t need words for the rest of the night.

-

Somewhere in Zanado - 6 Pegasus Moon, 7 AU

“Byleth,” Seteth said, catching her attention.

She turned towards him, tearing her attention from the small house that was just down the road. “Yes?”

Seteth gave her an unreadable expression. “I am unsure if what Rhea is willing to tell you will actually be of much help. I am also sorry that Flayn and I were unable to tell you more ourselves. I had hoped to avoid this.”

Byleth touched Seteth’s arm. “Flayn is alright,” she assured. “She wrote last week saying she is safe and is travelling with Ignatz.” Byleth smiled faintly to herself. “I still almost can’t believe I never noticed the connection there.”

Seteth frowned. “I wish she would have stayed.”

Byleth squeezed his arm. “She is young at heart, Seteth. You cannot be her concerned father and her overbearing older brother at the same time. Let her have this time.”

He nodded. “We are not here to discuss my relationship with my daughter.” He gestured towards the house. “Come.”

Byleth followed Seteth towards the house. Catherine stood outside, straight-backed and poised, just as Byleth remembered her. She was carrying Thunderbrand and her hand rested comfortably on the Relic’s hilt.

“Hello Catherine,” Byleth greeted once the knight had nodded in greeting to her.

Catherine’s eyes were sharp and not exactly welcoming. “I wish you didn’t have to have this conversation.”

“Rhea said she would have it,” Byleth countered sternly.

Catherine backed down immediately and opened the door, gesturing for Byleth to enter. Byleth stepped past her and into the small house and closed the door behind her. She heard Catherine and Seteth start talking in quiet, muffled tones.

The house was small and Byleth had stepped right into the kitchen. Rhea was seated at the table nearby, her posture straight and neutral as Byleth approached and sat across from her. For a moment, neither of them spoke, until the silence became so heavy that Byleth grew uncomfortable.

“Seteth told me what you did,” she began.

Rhea’s lips tightened. “I saved your life.”

Byleth forced her expression not to show her distaste. “You used me to try and resurrect Sothis,” she corrected.

“I created your mother,” Rhea said, ignoring the accusation. “I did many things to try and save my mother, but creating your mother was one of my many regrets. She was born dead and I saved her by placing the Crest Stone within her heart.”

This much, Seteth had known and had explained to her. She also knew the story of her parents’ meeting and getting married thanks to her father’s journal.

“My father bore the Crest of Flames too, didn’t he?” Byleth questioned.

Rhea looked straight into her eyes and the pale green of them was cool and unflinching. “I gifted it to him when he saved my life all that time ago. When he and your mother conceived, I feared for you. I did not know if Sitri could bear children. My concern was apparently warranted. You were born without a heartbeat so your mother begged me to transfer the Crest Stone to you to save you. I did and you lived and she died.”

Byleth felt her face twitch with pain and she inhaled sharply to regain her composure. “So you placed the Crest Stone inside of me and that is why I have no heartbeat.”

“That is why you are alive,” Rhea corrected. “You would have been dead without it.”

Byleth frowned. “What am I?”

“I don’t know. Your mother wasn’t truly mortal, and neither were you, but since you merged with the goddess it has been far more complicated than that.”

Byleth twisted her hands and pressed them, below the edge of the table, against the flat of her stomach. “I’ll never be able to have children, will I?”

This time there was a glimmer of sympathy in Rhea’s gaze. “My dear,” she said softly, “I don’t believe your body could ever handle that stress.” She studied Byleth for a moment and Byleth caught a flicker of guilt in Rhea’s face. “There is something else about the Crest Stone too,” she continued softly.

Byleth felt ill, but she had a pretty good idea of where this conversation was going. “Sothis kept its power contained when she was inside me. It’s been killing me since then, hasn’t it?”

Rhea looked down as the guilt swallowed her expression. “The Crest Stone’s power is not meant for mortal bodies. There is a reason your mother was so frail. It is likely then, that its power is eating you from the inside out. But, without it, you are dead anyway.”

-

An hour later, Byleth burst out of the house, slamming the door open, and scared both Catherine and Seteth. She immediately stalked away from the house, trembling with grief and pain. Seteth followed immediately while Catherine disappeared to check on Rhea.

“Byleth!” Seteth called. He ran ahead to cut her off and grabbed her by the upper arms, forcing her to acknowledge him.

“The Crests came from the blood of the Nabateans. The Relics came from their bones,” Byleth said. Rhea had confessed the origin of the weapons shortly after admitting Byleth was running on borrowed time.

Seteth looked saddened, but not overly surprised. “I suspected as much,” he admitted.

“I’m dying,” she said next.

This appeared to catch Seteth more off guard as his hands dropped from her arms. “What?” he demanded.

Byleth closed her eyes. “Sothis kept the Stone’s energy at bay. It’s consuming me slowly now that she is gone.”

“Then we remove it,” Seteth said sternly.

“I’m dead without it,” Byleth continued. She opened her eyes to look at him and saw the grief and sadness in his face. “Thank you for bringing me here to answer my questions,” she said. “I would like to fly back alone to have a moment to think, so feel free to stay here and catch up further if you would like.”

She didn’t wait for a reply before she headed off to where they had left the wyverns they had flown here on. She did hear his footsteps following behind her as he pursued her, but he did not try to speak to her again and for that she was grateful.

[nicolewrites]

We Stand, Fate-Tested - VIII

D&D took up much more time than I anticipated which is why this is late haha. 

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 6,249

A birthday party gives Byleth a headache. / Claude unmasks an enemy. 

AO3 | FFN

VIII - Complications

Garreg Mach University - 10 Lone Moon, 733 AU

"How's your neck today, Byleth?" Harriet asked as she entered the lab.

Byleth turned her head experimentally. There was still a twinge of pain when her jaw angled towards her right shoulder, but it was much, much better than it had been directly after the crash.

"It's alright," she replied. She kept her eyes focused on the screen of the computer in front of her, hoping the post-doc would leave her alone if she was clear she didn't want to talk about it. Thankfully, Harriet got the hint and settled down at her own workstation, leaving Byleth alone.

Since the crash, Byleth felt like she was being babied. Flayn called her every night to check up on her and Seteth never left her alone on-site during the dig. He also seemed keen on having one of his other students in the lab whenever Byleth was there as if she was just going to keel over on her own. It was starting to get annoying.

Out of the four people in the car, Byleth felt like she had gotten off the easiest. Edelgard was recovering from a not-so-fun concussion, Claude had fractured his arm in three places, and Dimitri was another story entirely. While he wasn't as physically hurt as the rest of them, the accident had dredged up some horrible psychological trauma for him and he had been basically catatonic for a week, responding only to the gentle prodding of his childhood friends who knew him best.

Edelgard's father had wanted her to return to Fhirdiad where she could be safe and guarded, but she had protested, staying on in all of her classes as well as the dig in the pinnacle of stubbornness. Claude had had his archery season cut short which was definitely annoying, but he still managed to keep his head up and help out on site, despite lacking the use of his left arm.

The crash had been the subject of several tabloid stories for about a week before Edelgard's father finally managed to get it snuffed out. It had been strange to get sympathetic glances wherever she went and to hear the murmured whispers behind her back. It still happened occasionally, but it helped that Edelgard, Claude, and even Dimitri were good at ignoring rumours and pretending that nothing had happened.

Claude had been spending a lot of time in the lab with Byleth when he wasn't in class. He claimed it was because he needed to feel useful to the team somehow since he thought his arm was impeding the dig. Byleth never protested his company. He never pushed her to talk about the crash or its lead up, instead chattering about history and whatever artifacts they were working with. It was both a pleasant distraction and a welcome motivator.

The door to the lab swung open and Byleth glanced up. Seteth strode in, looking more stressed than she'd seen him in a long time, not counting the look of despair he'd worn when he'd visited her at the hospital. Byleth straightened in her seat as Seteth hung his jacket by the door.

"Seteth?" she inquired to her advisor.

Seteth turned towards her when she spoke and Byleth caught the hint of guilt that rapidly spread across his face as he did so. Byleth frowned and pushed her chair back.

"What is it?" she demanded.

Seteth glanced at Harriet who was working away at her own computer with headphones in and he walked towards Byleth, sinking into the seat next to her. "I received some news today," he admitted.

He passed her a folder that he had been holding and Byleth flipped to the first page in it. It was a letter from the Fhirdiad Museum. She scanned it and felt her features twist into a scowl as she processed the words on the page.

"Cancel the dig? They want you to call it all off? Because of a car accident?"

Seteth sighed and took the folder back from her. "Byleth, you were run off the road. That's not just a car accident. You happened to be with three of the most famous youths in the country at the time while on an equipment retrieval trip for a sponsored dig. That's not good press."

Byleth huffed. "And we're all fine and still ready to work on the dig. They can't just cancel it! You've been working towards this for so long. We've only barely started the work we wanted to do. We just got structural approval for the eastern chambers and we're only now passing where Dr. Charon got to. If we don't do this now, there's no telling when the next time someone will be allowed to excavate down there."

Seteth's expression flashed with guilt again. "I was the one who proposed cancelling the dig," he admitted quietly. "There is no history or discovery that is worth the lives of students."

Byleth's hands slammed against the desk and she shot to her feet. Harriet looked over at the disturbance. "You don't even know that that was what any of this was about," she hissed. "You can't throw this away just because of one thing, Seteth."

Seteth looked tired, but he didn't argue with her. Byleth frowned and stepped away from her desk. She grabbed her purse and jacket from by the door and gave him one last hurt look.

"I'm going for lunch," she said shortly.

She made it almost out of the building when her phone started buzzing in her pocket. She huffed and fished it out, expecting to see Seteth's caller ID. It wasn't him calling so Byleth answered and pressed the phone against her face.

"Claude?"

"Teach! Exciting news! We've finally gotten everything organized for Friday so we can start inviting people now," he said cheerfully through the phone.

Byleth laughed faintly. "Inviting people?"

"It's Ignatz's birthday on Friday and we're having a surprise party for him. Consider this an official invite."

"A birthday party? Claude, I don't know," she began, but he cut her off.

"Don't worry about not knowing people. It's Ignatz, so we're keeping it relatively small. The whole undergrad dig team is getting invited, plus the archery team, plus our roommates so you'll probably know almost everyone that's there."

She huffed a laugh. "When and where?"

She could practically hear the smile on his face through the phone. "Friday at 9 at our place. I'll text you the address."

"I haven't said yes yet," she pointed out.

Claude chuckled. "You asked when. For you, Teach, that's a yes."

-

Golden Deer House, University Suburbs - 14 Lone Moon, 733 AU

Byleth knocked on the door with the backs of her knuckles. Her toe tapped against the stone of the doorstep as she took in the house again. It was a beautiful place: something much more extravagant than she had expected for a bunch of students. She had almost wondered if Claude had given her the wrong address until she saw the wire cutout of a deer stuck into the garden and she had chuckled to herself.

After a moment, the door swung inward and Byleth was met with a grinning Hilda. She blinked in surprise at the sight of another of her former students. Hilda's hair was pulled up and she was wearing a flashy silver top and a cute skirt. Hilda stepped backwards and gestured for Byleth to come inside.

"Uh, thanks," she mumbled. "And hi, Hilda, I didn't know you'd be here."

Hilda snorted a laugh as Byleth stepped inside and slid off her boots. "Wow Claude really didn't explain anything, did he? I live here. This whole place is a bunch of Golden Deer in our year. We've been living together since our second year."

"So, it's you, Claude, Ignatz, and," she trailed off, waiting for Hilda to continue the list.

"Lorenz, Marianne, Lysithea, Raphael, and Leonie. You know Lorenz and Lysithea, obviously. Marianne is my best friend and Raph and Ignatz are from the same small town. Leonie's from eastern Fódlan. Most of us are in fourth year, but little Lysithea is in her third year and Leonie's doing five years because of her job," Hilda explained, tapping her fingers as she counted out her roommates.

Byleth furrowed her brow. "Wait, Leonie Plinecky?"

Hilda blinked, her pink eyes widening a bit as Byleth caught her off guard. "Yeah. Do you know her?"

Byleth laughed to herself. "Yeah, she used to take self-defence from my dad," she explained.

Hilda shrugged. "Huh, small world I guess. Now, come on. Ignatz is already here and we did indeed scare the shit out of him with this party. You've got to say hello."

Hilda linked her elbow with Byleth's and dragged her through the living room towards what Byleth assumed to be the kitchen. She recognized a few of the faces in the living room that were drinking and playing games from around campus, the time she went to one of Claude's archery competitions or people Claude had exchanged words with when they had been together on various occasions.

In the kitchen, Byleth recognized more people. There was Ignatz, Lorenz, Annette, Ingrid, Lysithea, Dimitri, one of Dimitri and Ingrid's other friends with dark hair who she thought was named Felix, a boy she recognized from the archery team, plus a few others, and of course, Claude. Lorenz spotted them first and wandered over. Hilda dropped Byleth's arm and planted a light kiss on Lorenz's lips. Byleth blinked in surprise, but her attention was quickly drawn to Claude who had beelined to her side.

"Teach! You're late," he teased.

Byleth rolled her eyes. "You said 9, it's only 10."

"Hello Byleth," Ignatz said brightly. He was wearing a crooked birthday hat and Byleth laughed at both it and the blush on his cheeks.

"Happy birthday," she replied.

"Ignatz! I got it working!" the hulking young man next to Ignatz said, practically shoving his phone in the smaller boy's face.

Ignatz's smile grew and he took the phone. "Maya!" he greeted. Instantly some of the people in the kitchen giggled and started filing out of the room.

Byleth glanced at Claude curiously. He pressed a cup full of some sweet, alcoholic-smelling beverage into her hand and steered her back into the living room.

"That's Raphael," Claude said. "Ignatz is dating his little sister Maya, so that's who's on the phone there. They do long distance, but Ignatz is very sweet and loyal as I'm sure you could guess."

Byleth smiled. "That's sweet." Her eyes wandered the party until they landed on Hilda again who was tucked against Lorenz's side this time. She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know that was a thing," she said quietly to Claude.

He followed her gaze and laughed. "Oh man, that's a heck of a story. They've been together for almost three years now though, so I guess it's working."

Byleth was about to press him for details when she felt a tug on the arm that Claude wasn't occupying. She turned, so that she didn't spill her drink, and found herself face to face with a grinning, pink-cheeked Annette.

"Hi, Byleth! I didn't know you were coming!" Annette said cheerfully.

Byleth smiled at her former student. "Yeah, it was kind of last minute, but I'm glad to be here." She sipped her drink and was momentarily impressed by the strength. Most university parties supplied watered-down drinks, but this was something pretty heavy-hitting.

"Claude, I bet that's your doing," said the young man standing next to Annette. He had slightly curly silver-coloured hair and bright green eyes. He was holding Annette's hand and Byleth knew she recognized him from the archery team.

Claude winked. "You bet, Ashe," he said.

"Claude!" a loud voice called suddenly, causing all four of them to turn towards the table where cups were lined up to play pong. "Just because you have a bum arm, don't think you're getting out of this!"

Byleth gave Claude a side-look. "Is that Leonie?"

He laughed. "Yeah. We make a decent pong pair and even the bad arm," he shifted the arm that was still in the sling, "apparently doesn't get me out of that."

Byleth took another long drink and looked back at Annette and Ashe. "I'm good here. Go play."

Claude grinned at her and Byleth felt her stomach warm. She turned back to Annette and Ashe and took another sip of her drink.

"I'm Byleth, by the way. I think we met very briefly once."

Ashe nodded. "Yeah, I think you came to an archery comp. You were the Archaeology TA, right?"

Annette nodded. "Yup! And she works with us on the excavation process."

Ashe brightened. "Oh yeah! That whole thing is so cool."

A girl with a long dark purple braid suddenly popped out of the crowd and grinned at them. "Annette, may I be borrowing your boyfriend? Claude challenged my pride and I intend to be showing him his place."

Annette laughed and nudged Ashe. "Of course, Petra. I'll come and watch too!"

Ashe and Petra immediately headed for where Claude had vanished off to. Annette lingered for a moment longer, glancing between Byleth and the table. "You should come watch," she suggested lightly.

Before Byleth could reply, Hilda had reappeared at her side, linking arms with her again. "I've got her from here, Annie. Go watch Ashe and Petra destroy Claude and Leonie again."

Annette grinned and vanished into the group of people. Hilda peered into Byleth's almost empty cup and immediately steered her back towards the kitchen to get a refill. She filled Byleth's cup and grabbed one of her own, waving at Ignatz and Raphael who were sitting in the corner still talking over Skype to Raph's sister. Hilda then dragged her out the opposite side of the kitchen into what was probably supposed to be a dining room. Ingrid, Dimitri, their friend, and a girl with faint, silvery-blue hair were sitting on the far side of the room, chatting, but they didn't seem to pay Hilda and Byleth any mind.

"So, you and Claude are pretty tight, aren't you?" Hilda said, turning back to her.

Byleth took a sip of her drink. "We're friends," she said. "He pestered me a bunch last semester until we started meeting up to discuss my research. Most of what we talk about is history related anyways," she deflected.

Hilda rolled her eyes. "Look, I've hooked up with Claude. I know what infatuated Claude looks like."

Byleth didn't know what was more surprising to her: the fact that Hilda and Claude had hooked up or the fact that Hilda thought Claude liked her. Hilda noted the surprise on Byleth's expression and laughed.

"Oh come on, you haven't heard that story? In first year, Claude and I were flirting it up when we both met Lorenz. Lorenz and I also hit it off. Claude and Lorenz naturally hated each other, but once they found out I was kind of seeing both of them they united into hating me for all of like two weeks until Claude got his head out of his ass and Lorenz and I had a chat. I'm kind of the whole reason this house exists since Lorenz and Claude hated each other before they both united against me."

Byleth laughed shortly unintentionally. "Wow, not sure that's something to be proud of."

Hilda shrugged, smirking. "Claude's my best friend and Lorenz and I have been steady for a couple of years. I think it worked out okay."

Byleth giggled lightly. "Sure, sure." Her gaze wandered to the other side of the room where there were the other four. "I know Ingrid and Dimitri, obviously, but who are the others?"

Hilda followed her gaze. "That's Felix, Ingrid's boyfriend, and Marianne, my best friend and totally not Dimitri's girlfriend." She said the last part sarcastically and Byleth smiled faintly.

Marianne was very pretty and Dimitri kept casting her quiet, affectionate looks. They certainly looked like a couple. Felix and Ingrid, on the other hand, were much less lovey-dovey looking, but they certainly looked comfortable with each other.

"Drama with that is that Ingrid was dating Felix's brother Glenn when he died. Ingrid and Felix got together a couple of months ago after a lot of dancing around," Hilda continued.

The story clicked in Byleth's head. She lowered her voice to an almost whisper. "Glenn died in the same crash that killed Dimitri's parents, right?"

Hilda nodded. "Yeah," her smile dropped a bit, "it's pretty sad." She shook her head and turned her full attention back to Byleth. "But, I'm here to bother you about Claude! What's really going on with you guys?"

Byleth shook her head. "Nothing, Hilda, I swear. We're friends." A spark of pain flared behind her eyes and Byleth grit her teeth. Her headaches had been more frequent and much worse since the crash and she had been hoping to get through the night without any more of them.

She downed the rest of her drink and felt the alcohol sting her throat as she swallowed. Hilda finally seemed to take the hint that there was nothing more to talk about and shrugged. She bid Byleth a farewell and darted back to the rest of the party to play hostess. Byleth cast Ingrid and Dimitri's group a glance and felt another headache rip through her mind.

She shook her head and slid out the side door of the dining room into the main hallway. Annette and Ashe had apparently migrated there and were chatting with Linhardt and a boy Byleth faintly recalled to be Linhardt's boyfriend. Pain pulsed in her skull again and she winced faintly. She needed to get somewhere quiet. She quickly slipped past the group and found a flight of stairs leading up. There appeared to be a glorious absence of loud music and chatter from upstairs so she headed up, massaging her temples as she went.

She closed her eyes briefly at the top of the stairs and almost keeled over as another sudden sharp pain flared behind her eyes. She saw white for a moment and something that she could have sworn was Annette and Ingrid's boyfriend Felix. Byleth staggered into the nearest room which happened to be the bathroom and sunk onto the floor. She leant against the cool bathtub and rubbed her temples.

A few more images flashed in her brain: Ashe and Petra wearing strange clothes, Lorenz and Marianne sharing tea, Ingrid riding horseback with a man who looked like her other friend Sylvain, and Dimitri extending a hand to Byleth with a soft smile on his face. She exhaled heavily and rubbed at her head, trying to get the images to fade.

"Byleth?" a voice called softly. She snapped her head up and saw Claude standing in the doorway of the bathroom, looking concerned. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, sealing out most of the noise from the party. "Are you alright?"

She smiled faintly as her headache pulsed again, but more weakly. "Just a headache. I needed a breather."

Claude drifted towards her and sat next to her, leaning his back against the tub as well. "I get that," he admitted. "Linhardt said he saw you heading up here and I figured I'd come to check in."

Byleth nodded. "Ah," she agreed faintly. The headache faded more until she was almost feeling like herself again, just definitely drunker than she normally was. "Did you and Leonie win?"

Claude snorted. "Nope. Ashe and Petra murdered us. Leonie mentioned that you guys know each other though."

Byleth smiled faintly and nodded. "Yeah, she knew my dad pretty well."

Claude winced. "Sorry."

Byleth shrugged. "It happens," she mumbled in reply.

"Are you really okay though? You kind of looked like you were in pain."

She shifted so that their shoulders were pressing against each other. "Headaches," she explained. "At first it was just the usual stuff I've been getting since the crash, but," she trailed off, not sure if she should mention the roiling feeling of wrong that had settled in her stomach since she'd first arrived at the party.

Claude twisted so that they were making eye contact, but their shoulders remained a point of contact. "But?" he prompted softly.

She sighed. She had trusted him with many of her strange dreams and feelings in the last eight months so she didn't see a reason to hide anything else from him. "I feel like everything is wrong. Everyone is talking to the wrong people. Everyone is acting strangely."

"The wrong people?"

"Annette and Felix, Ingrid and Sylvain, Lysithea and Linhardt, Lorenz and Marianne, Ashe and Petra," she listed off-handedly. "That feels right. Not, whatever is actually happening."

Claude's brows furrowed. "Strange," he mumbled. "Do you think this has anything to do with the dreams?"

Byleth dropped her gaze down and shrugged. "I have no idea," she confessed. Her head was starting to feel foggier and less painful. Claude's solid presence next to her felt comfortable.

She looked up and was almost taken aback by the startling green of his eyes. They had made eye contact dozens and dozens of times since they'd met, but he'd never induced the strange warmth in her stomach that she was feeling right then. She exhaled shallowly and studied his face.

Claude's breathing echoed hers as his eyes flicked over her face noticeably. She could smell a hint of alcohol on his breath and she knew that she herself was fairly tipsy, but she couldn't remove herself from the moment.

"Is this wrong too?" he asked quietly. Something unreadable and serious flashed in his eyes and Byleth's chest contracted a bit.

"Yes," she confessed just as softly.

"You're impossible to read sometimes," he said. "But," he inhaled slowly and Byleth watched his gaze noticeably dart to her lips, "I still think I'm crazy about you."

She leaned forward and kissed him.

His lips were warm and softer than she was expecting and he reciprocated the kiss immediately. It wasn't the best angle with them still awkwardly shoulder to shoulder and with their backs against the bathtub, but the kiss made something simmer warmly in her stomach. His shoulder shifted and his right hand, the uninjured one, came up and cupped her face as he pulled back to breathe before kissing her again.

Byleth felt a twinge of stiffness in her neck and a tightness in her chest due to the lack of air, so she leaned back, gasping. Looking into Claude's heavy, green-eyed gaze, the words he'd spoken to her sunk in and Byleth's whole being twisted viciously with a sense of wrong. She jerked back away from his touch, her neck protesting the movement. Her palms thudded against the bathroom tile to catch her weight before she tipped to the ground.

Claude looked startled. "By," he started gently.

Byleth's breathing sped up. It was shallow and fast and the room suddenly felt too warm. "I have to go," she said suddenly.

Hurt flashed across Claude's expression as she scrambled to her feet, ignoring her alcohol-induced wobbliness and the headache that had sprung back to the front of her mind. He looked like he was about to protest again so she bolted.

-

Infirmary, Garreg Mach Monastery - 2 Lone Moon, 7 AU

Byleth came to feeling like she had been trampled by a pegasus. Her body was aching and there was a sharper, razor-like throb from the side of her ribs. She blinked and saw a faint glimmer of candlelight nearby. There was a blurry figure sitting next to her, dabbing a cool cloth on her forehead. The cloth jerked back as Byleth blinked again and she heard a familiar gasp.

"Professor!" the familiar voice exclaimed and Byleth's vision cleared enough that she saw Annette sitting next to her, looking incredibly relieved.

Byleth's throat felt dry and sore when she tried to speak. Her words came out breathy and almost as a whisper. "What happened?"

For a second, her mind was blank, but when Annette's features twisted into deeper concern, the memories came rushing back. Byleth jolted and immediately tried to sit up, ignoring the lingering pain in her side.

"Dimitri!" she exclaimed.

"Please, Professor!" Annette said sternly, gently pressing her back into the mattress. "You were very hurt. You need to stay down."

Byleth listened, settling back against the mattress, but a cold fear spread to her limbs. "Where is Dimitri?" she asked again.

Annette sighed slowly. "He's going to be alright. Don't worry."

The cold panic and fear drained away slowly and she tilted her head a bit, checking out the rest of the room. There was no one else in the infirmary besides the two of them, but one of the other beds looked like it had had some recent use.

"Where is he?" she asked, her voice cracking.

"I believe he's with Sylvain, Ashe, Dedue, and Felix," Annette answered. She furrowed her brows at Byleth. "You were both hit with powerful dark magic spells, Professor, but I think the fact that he wasn't also stabbed helped with that."

Annette fetched Byleth some water and sent a monk to fetch Mercedes while she answered more of Byleth's questions. She had been unconscious for almost two full days. Dimitri had woken up in the afternoon yesterday. They hadn't caught any of the people who had attacked them. No one else was hurt or targeted in the attack. The perpetrators hadn't left much of a trace besides the magic traces on Byleth and Dimitri after they'd been knocked down.

Byleth recalled the blade suddenly. "I need to talk to Sylvain," she said breathlessly.

"You're not going anywhere until I check you over, Professor," Mercedes called from the entrance to the infirmary. "That magic did a number on both you and Dimitri, but I've never seen anyone react to it quite like you did, Professor."

Byleth frowned. "Annette, please fetch my husband and the others. Especially Sylvain. It's important."

Annette nodded and Mercedes took her place, asking Byleth a million questions about how she was feeling and if she was in any pain. After another Heal spell and a few more swallowed herbs, Mercedes checked the sword wound. It was almost completely healed, but the healer let out a startled gasp that had Byleth twisting her shirt up further to try and see what Mercedes had seen.

She had basically removed it when she saw it: a burn scar kind of in the shape of a star right over her heart. The skin was tender, but the burn appeared to have healed itself and Byleth recalled the intensity of the wave of white magic she had released to repel their attackers.

"What is that?" she asked quietly.

Mercedes shook her head, looking puzzled. "It looks like a white magic burn. Dimitri didn't mention they used white magic too."

Byleth exhaled slowly. She knew where the burn had come from, but how was she supposed to tell her dear friend that it had been self-inflicted by the power sizzling in her veins that was eating her alive. Before anything else could be said, there was a sharp rap at the door and Byleth yanked her shirt down, making herself decent.

"Come in," she called before Mercedes could ask for a bit more time.

Dimitri burst into the room and hightailed it to her side. He basically fell to his knees next to her and Byleth saw the hurt and pain and love in his gaze as he reached up to touch her face. "You're alright," he breathed.

"You're okay too," she replied, lifting one of her own hands to cup his jaw.

Their moment was interrupted by the arrival of the rest of their friends and Dimitri quickly stood and pulled up a chair next to Byleth's bed. He and Mercedes helped her sit up so that she could face all of her friends. The entire group of her former students were present, minus Felix and Ingrid.

"Sylvain," Byleth started, focussing on the northern Faerghus noble. "Has Sreng ever struck this far south?"

He seemed alarmed at her question and shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "They press at the border, but I've never heard of them striking at the heart of Fódlan."

Byleth exhaled warily. "How has the border been?"

He frowned. "Chaotic. They come and go, but I had believed we were reaching an agreement recently since I took over for my father."

"The blade had Sreng lettering," Byleth confessed.

Annette's breath hitched. "What?" she squeaked.

Dimitri looked troubled at the news. "It did?"

Byleth closed her eyes, conjuring the memory of it. She was quite sure. "It did."

Sylvain ran a hand through his hair, looking distressed. "The Sreng people are warriors. They do a lot of weapons trading. Perhaps this was an attempt to frame them."

Dedue folded his arms and looked down, something dark crossing his expression. "This information mustn't leave this room. There will be slaughters if it gets out."

"Yes," Seteth agreed as he strode into the room. He dipped his head to both Byleth and Dimitri in respect. "It is good to see you are recovering Your Grace, Your Majesty. I agree with Dedue here that we must not let the word of a potential attack from Sreng get out. In fact, I would recommend we try to limit the spread of the attack entirely. It would not do well to know that someone got close enough to render both of you unconscious."

Ashe nodded. "I asked Petra and our guards to return to Brigid without me. If the information does get out, I would like her not to be here. Foreign powers interfering at a time like this would be bad." He looked guilty for a moment and Byleth knew it was the guilt of leaving his wife so soon after they had been wed as equals in Brigid. "I hope my skills are still welcomed here," he added quietly.

Byleth nodded. "Ashe, you are always welcome. I agree with Seteth, though." She looked around the room at her trusted friends. "News of the attack does not leave this room," she said sternly.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

-

Garreg Mach Monastery - 9 Lone Moon, 7 AU

Byleth was in the market when she heard the crowing of a wyvern. She snapped her head up and spotted the white beast descending towards the stable, followed by a brown wyvern. Her lips parted in surprise. She knew that wyvern and she had no idea what it was doing here. She smiled politely to the vendor she had been speaking with and excused herself, making quickly towards the stables.

Claude was assisting his two companions down off of the second mount by the time she had arrived. Byleth's steps faltered and she stared at the Almyran King for a long time. Claude helped Lysithea down and said something quietly to the third new arrival, Linhardt, before he turned and finally noticed her. He grinned.

"Hello, Your Grace," he said lightly. There was a familiar teasing lilt to his voice and Byleth could only stare dumbly at him.

"What are you doing here, Claude?" she demanded after a moment.

His grin twisted into a sly smirk. "I figured you could use a dark magic specialist and someone who has some ideas who might be interesting to you," he offered, gesturing to Lysithea and then Linhardt.

Lysithea brushed off her skirt and sent Claude a dirty look. "He's being evasive, as always, but he did bring us some interesting news."

Byleth furrowed her brow and stared at Claude again. "How did you know?"

He shrugged. "I'm good at knowing things."

Byleth scowled at him. "This information wasn't supposed to leave the monastery grounds," she said firmly.

Claude winked. "Good thing we're on the grounds then." Byleth scowled, but he continued before she could interrupt him. "Gather your group. This information is probably more than you're expecting."

-

They met in Byleth's study. Dedue, Mercedes, Ashe, Dimitri, Claude, Lysithea, Seteth, and Linhardt stood and sat around the room each wearing an expression of varied discomfort and concern. Sylvain, Felix, and Annette had had to return home for their children's sakes and Sylvain was also looking into the Sreng lead.

Byleth turned the paper in her hands over. It bore Hubert's writing and detailed the activities of the dark group that had assisted in the Empire during the Unification War. Linhardt had presented it to her along with a few more just like it that he had recovered from the Vestra estate after the war. Apparently he had been doing his own research from Ordelia territory where he had settled with Lysithea after the two of them successfully had Lysithea's Crests removed and dissolved her noble house.

Claude, of course, had gotten wind of their work and the attack at Garreg Mach and had apparently drawn a thread connecting the two. He had brought them to the monastery to discuss their research and Lysithea's past experience with them. She shared her horrible childhood trauma where she had had her second Crest implanted and Dimitri's breath caught when she had described the fading of her hair's pigment and the weakness the second Crest had imposed upon her.

The group, dubbed Those Who Slither in the Dark, according to Hubert's notes, were apparently vehemently against the children of the goddess and had fantastical weaponry and dark magic mages, including Cornelia and Solon. Dedue and Dimitri had both stiffened when Byleth had read about Cornelia and her involvement in what Hubert described as the orchestrated Tragedy of Duscur.

Byleth placed the last letter down on her desk and frowned. "Claude, you're saying these people are the ones who attacked Dimitri and I?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, but it certainly seems more likely than a Sreng invasion and assault to me. If I had to guess, I would say their target was just you, Byleth, and that Dimitri was meant more as a personal attack. If you give Linhardt and me more time, we could probably work with Hubert's notes more and figure out where they're hiding. Then we can remove them and remove the threat entirely."

"No," Seteth cut in sharply. His face was pale and Byleth bit her lip as she studied her advisor. "Doing so will only create bigger targets on both His Majesty and Her Grace. If you pursue this, they could only come after you harder and if you're wrong, then you are chasing empty threads into the wind and letting the true culprits get away."

Lysithea scowled. "We're not wrong. The Hades spell that struck Byleth and Dimitri was strong enough to take them both down. I know that spell," she asserted. "I have met very few people who could cast it at that strength. We're not wrong."

"Even so," Dedue said, "I agree with Seteth. We can look into it, but His Majesty and Her Grace should not be leading any charges. It endangers them too much."

Dedue's compromise settled the animosity in the room, but Byleth felt frustrated. She was tired of being protected. These attackers had tried to kill both her and her husband in their home. She wanted to remove them personally. Dimitri looked conflicted and Byleth instantly understood. He felt the same way she did, but he obviously did not want to put her in any more danger, just like how she wanted to keep him from further danger. Claude had said the target was likely just her, so she wanted to protect Dimitri as much as she wanted.

She took a deep breath. "I give you permission to look into this further," she conceded. "But, no one will be taking any offensive action until we reassess."

Dimitri frowned at her, but he didn't argue. Dedue and Seteth looked placated and Mercedes and Ashe nodded in agreement as well. Linhardt gave her a cryptic look but didn't argue. Lysithea huffed and narrowed her eyes. Claude simply studied her, his expression unreadable. Byleth inclined her chin and refused to show her hand.

"Now, I believe this discussion has concluded. We should all go for dinner." She smiled at Lysithea and Linhardt. "We have friends visiting, after all."

Her companions accepted her suggestion and began making their way out of the room. Claude and Dimitri lingered until it was only the three of them left. Dimitri looked between her and Claude twice, but the Almyran King didn't even flinch.

"My love," Byleth said gently, "I would like to speak with Claude briefly about handling private matters of state. We'll join you in a few minutes."

Dimitri looked only partially convinced, but he kissed Byleth gently on the lips and made his way out of the room, leaving her alone with Claude. Claude raised an eyebrow at the door as it shut behind Dimitri.

"Private matters?" he inquired.

Byleth took a deep breath and folded her hands atop the desk. "We're going to finish this," she said firmly. "We stamp them out and remove the threat as soon as you figure out where they would be."

Claude's eyes narrowed. "You didn't send everyone away to tell me you're going against the direct council of your closest companions."

"No," Byleth agreed. "I sent everyone away to tell you we're going to do this without Dimitri."

[nicolewrites]

We Stand, Fate-Tested - III

Social distancing? More like stay up super late and write more. Stay safe and take the necessary steps to help out your community everyone.

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 5,488

Claude likes Almyran Pine / A familiar face pays the monastery a visit

AO3 | FFN

III - Tea and Conversation

Garreg Mach University - 16 Horsebow Moon, 732 AU

Byleth arrived before Claude did. She ordered a cup of tea and sat at one of the tables in the corner of the café. She sipped at her tea silently and observed the bustle around her. As the café on campus, Anna’s was busy from its opening hour right up until when it closed. The time Byleth had chosen, 4pm, was right in the middle of lecture slots, but the place still had a line to the door and barely any open seats.

At five minutes past the hour, Byleth checked her watch. Claude had been so interested in meeting with her, but he was late. She wondered if he was standing her up for some reason. She would give him another five minutes before she left, she reasoned. While she waited, she pulled out her laptop and looked at the form on the screen in front of her.

She was currently working at forming the application questions for the undergraduate application to Seteth’s research team. She had the general points hammered out that she wanted to include, but the specifics were bugging her a little. Seteth was supposed to reply to the draft he had sent him that morning, but there was no email in her inbox yet, so Byleth felt stuck.

“Hi Teach,” Claude greeted and Byleth snapped her head up. Claude stood in front of her table, grinning and sounding just the tiniest bit out of breath.

Byleth raised an eyebrow. “You’re late,” she pointed out.

Claude shrugged. “Practice ran long, I’m sorry. I made it though.” He glanced at the teacup on the table in front of her. “Ah, darn, I was going to pay to thank you for doing this.”

Byleth waved him off. “It’s only a few coins, I can handle it.”

Claude sat down and Byleth closed her laptop, sliding it off the table. “Even so, I wanted to be polite. I did ask you here.”

“To talk about archaeology,” Byleth said. “It’s not a date.”

Claude laughed and the corners of his eyes wrinkled. Byleth stared for a moment before she dropped her gaze to the table. Claude was pretty, but he was also her student so she didn’t really want anything to do with his charming face.

“So you just really want to talk about archaeology, do you?” he questioned.

Byleth glanced back up at him and studied him for a moment. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt with the emblem of a deer on it. The shirt stretched across his chest as he reclined in the chair, stretching his arms over his head leisurely. He wrapped his hands behind his head and smirked at her. The action caused his forearms to flex, showing off the wiry, toned muscles in them.

Byleth rolled her eyes. “That’s what you said you wanted to discuss,” she noted, raising an eyebrow.

Claude chuckled. “Alright, I guess I can start then. Why study the Guardian? You could have picked any discipline, so why focus on the Unification Era?”

“It’s the single biggest archaeological field in Fódlan. It has the most funding,” Byleth said shortly.

Claude clicked his tongue. “See, I might have believed that if I didn’t know you weren’t lying. In tutorial, you could have had us categorize any artifact and you chose the Guardian’s Blade. That, to me, indicates a specific interest in her. Plus, your thesis is specifically on her disappearance isn’t it?”

Byleth sighed. “Fine, you’re right. When I started learning about the Unification Era, I looked into the leaders of the time, as most people would. Notably, there was the Saviour King and the Guardian of Order. There were almost no records that survived the Scorch of Garreg Mach in 101 AU, but some of the documentation was preserved after the riots in Fhirdiad the following year. The King’s disappearance is explained a little there: he was killed in battle, presumed to have been in the Sreng region fighting off an invasion. The Guardian, on the other hand, was much more ambiguous. She outlived him, that much is clear, but it doesn’t make sense why she would just up and vanish like she did with very little explanation.”

Claude’s eyes gleamed as he listened to her explain. “You think she left for a reason,” he supplied.

Byleth nodded. “I do. I don’t know if archaeology is the way to prove that, but I’ve been digging into the Royal Collection and the artifacts of that era as much as I can to try and figure out why she would leave so suddenly.”

Claude nodded. “Makes sense to me.” He paused and ran a thumb over his lower lip, thinking, for a moment before he looked Byleth in the eye. “I think you’re looking in all the wrong places though.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you’re so interested in the Guardian, you should know that she was supposedly the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros at the time. Why look in the remains of the Royal Collection when you could look into the Old Church records and such?”

“She was married to the King,” Byleth said simply. “That, and the fact that many of her personal effects were found as a part of the Royal Collection.” She glanced out the café window at the university’s main building. “Plus, the Old Church has never made looking into their records after the Scorch easy to do.”

Claude considered her words. “I suppose so. Still, the GMU used to be the central monastery of the Church, didn’t it? Wouldn’t there be more answers there?”

Byleth shrugged. “Honestly, I hope so, but, as I said, there’s never been a full excavation of the old monastery.”

“But there was an excavation,” Claude said. He tilted his head and the green of his eyes was cuttingly perceptive and Byleth bit her lip. “Everyone tries to keep it all hush-hush, but there was an excavation, wasn’t there? You’ll have to excuse me as I’m not entirely caught up on archaeological news.”

Byleth took a sip of her tea. She had ordered Chamomile because it was her favourite decaf tea and it was too late in the day for caffeine now. Claude clearly knew something about the failed excavation. It felt like he was testing her to see how much she would tell him or how much she knew herself.

“It was supposed to be a full-year endeavour,” Byleth said finally. “It was a professor from the University who received private funding from a benefactor to lead a team below the old monastery. The security coordinator pulled himself from the project and it ended up falling through just shortly after it began. That was five years ago and no one has had approval from the Old Church and the government to be down there since.”

“Privately funded?” Claude questioned. “For an expedition to a historical site of religious and political importance, I’m surprised it was allowed to happen at all.”

Byleth paused. She had never actually considered that point herself, but it explained why Seteth had been jumping through so many hoops with the museum’s board as well as with the university to secure permission and funding.

“What do you think you’d find down there if you went looking?” Claude continued, watching her curiously.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t know the whole story with the last team, so I can only wonder if they really articled everything they found down there, or if something else happened.” She sipped her tea. “Who knows, maybe there’s some kind of written record of the Guardian. That would certainly make my life interesting.”

“You know, Teach, for someone who was so hesitant to meet me, you’ve sure told me an awful lot of stuff,” Claude said teasingly.

Byleth rolled her eyes. “Most of it is common information for someone in our departments. You could have learned all of that yourself, so why did you want to hear it from me?”

“You’re interesting,” Claude admitted. “You have this air of cool and collected around you, but that first day, when I mentioned that you bore a resemblance to the Almyran depictions of her, you got uncomfortable. Then, when I placed the Guardian’s Blade as a Relic without background information, I startled you.”

He was right, of course, and Byleth hated it. “My physical resemblance to an unproven depiction has nothing to do with my studies,” she replied sharply.

Claude held up his hands. “Woah, I didn’t mean that it did. Besides, you’re my TA, so am I not allowed to just be genuinely interested in you as a person?”

“You haven’t asked me anything personal.”

Claude leaned forward onto his elbows and smiled challengingly. “I wasn’t aware I was allowed to.”

Byleth bit down a retort. “You mentioned a practice earlier as the reason why you were late,” she commented instead, swinging the topic to a different place.

He raised an eyebrow. “So you get personal questions and I don’t?” Byleth held his gaze and waited for him to answer the question. Finally, after a good three seconds of eye contact, Claude gave in. “Archery,” he replied. “I’m the team captain.”

She gestured to his shirt. “Does the deer have anything to do with that? It has the university crest on the sleeve.” It wasn’t a detail she had seen immediately, but on the right arm right above the hem on his bicep was the logo for Garreg Mach University.

“You don’t know about the Houses?” Claude asked. He sounded genuinely surprised.

Byleth shrugged. “I guess not.”

“You did your undergrad here, so how did you not know about them?” he asked.

Byleth shrugged again. “I wasn’t the most social person. Especially in my first year.”

“Ah,” Claude noted. “Well, in first year, students can pledge one of the three Houses at the University. You get an upper-year buddy and get invited to specific social events and it’s an integration assistant basically. I’m a part of the Golden Deer House.”

“That explains the deer. And the yellow.”

Claude laughed. “It does, yeah. Some of my best friends are from the Golden Deer, so I can’t really say anything negative about the House system.”

“Are Edelgard and Dimitri in the Golden Deer?”

“Nah. Edel is part of the Black Eagles and Dimitri is part of the Blue Lions. They both followed in their parents’ footsteps in that regard and I just decided to be contrary to them since I didn’t have any previous connections here at the university.”

Byleth nodded and sipped her tea again. It was almost cold now, so she placed the mug down on the counter and spun the teabag through it, studying the ripples it left with interest. Claude didn’t say anything for a moment and Byleth let the silence hang over them.

“I’m going to grab a cup if you’d like a refill,” he offered after a moment.

Byleth blinked and noticed that he had extended his hand to take her cup. She slid it over the table to him. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Claude just picked up the mug and headed for the line in the café. She watched him stand in line and pull out his phone to check something as he waited for a till to free up so he could place his own order. It only took him a few minutes to get a refill of hot water for Byleth as well as his own mug and he made his way back over to her, placing the two steaming mugs between them.

“Thank you,” Byleth said again.

Claude smiled again. “No worries.” He paused to stir his own teabag through the hot water before taking a tiny sip. He raised an eyebrow when he noticed Byleth was staring at him. “Teach?” he questioned.

“What kind of tea?” she asked before she could stop herself. There was something itching in her brain and she felt like it hinged on the type of tea that Claude preferred.

He looked a little surprised at the bluntness of her question. “Almyran Pine,” he answered. “It’s an old favourite of mine.”

“Bitter and very caffeinated,” Byleth supplied.

Claude nodded. “Almost as much caffeine as green tea.” He glanced at her own cup. “It sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Do you usually drink caffeinated teas?”

Byleth curled her hands around her own mug and felt the hot porcelain sting against the sensitive skin of her palms. “I’ve never actually had Almyran Pine,” she admitted. She knew it’s flavour profile, but she’d never actually tried it. She was more partial to the softer floral teas or a black tea like Bergamot.

Claude looked almost offended. “Everyone here seems to be like that. Edelgard and Dimitri think I’m strange for liking this blend. Honestly, Anna’s doesn’t even have a particularly good blend of it.”

“Can I try it?” Byleth asked.

Claude shrugged. “Sure.” He slid the cup across the table to her and she could already smell the fresh, earthy aroma wafting up to her.

She lifted the mug and blew gently across the liquid to cool it. She took a small sip and was instantly struck by the sharpness of the tea. It was bright on her tongue, tasting quite similarly to how she imagined biting a pine needle would taste.

“So?” Claude prompted as she placed the mug down and slid it back to him.

Byleth furrowed her brow, trying to process. “It tastes familiar,” she murmured. It was a strange admission to make, especially since she couldn’t remember ever tasting it before. She had never really been a big tea drinker before university, and she knew that she had definitely never ordered the Almyran Pine blend from Anna’s in the 5 years she had been studying at Garreg Mach.

“I thought you said you’d never had it before,” Claude commented, furrowing his brow.

Byleth bit her lip and took a drink from her own tea, trying to push away her discomfort. “I haven’t.”

Claude was definitely caught off guard by this, as evidenced by his silence. He sipped his tea himself and just watched Byleth curiously. She kept her gaze firmly either on the table or at the bottom of her own mug.

“Dr. Cichol is putting together a team for a dig below Garreg Mach in the new year,” Byleth confessed after the silence had lingered for too long.

Claude’s eyebrows shot up and he almost choked on his tea. “I thought you were saying it was hard to get approval for that.”

“Hard, but not impossible,” she corrected. “Seteth has been working at this for four years now and he’s finally got the clearance. He’s taking on everyone in his lab, including me, and a group of undergraduates.”

Claude straightened. “Wait, this is only the second major expedition to the old monastery ruins below the university and he’s taking undergraduates instead of a full team of professionals? Which students?”

Byleth nodded. “The idea came from the Board of the Fhirdiad National Museum of Unification who is funding him. They want it to be an educational experience too to give students some practical hands-on training.” She paused, pursing her lips. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about this until the application is finalized.”

“Application?” Claude inquired, a gleam in his green eyes that was equal parts interest and mischief.

Byleth sighed. “Students in Archaeology 356 class will have the opportunity to apply for the eight spots as student researchers.” She lifted a finger and jabbed it towards Claude. “You are not supposed to know this information yet, so you are absolutely not allowed to say anything to anyone until the application is released.”

Claude grinned. “Won’t tell a soul,” he promised. “Why did you tell me, if I can ask?”

Byleth honestly didn’t know. “You’re passionate,” she said. “You’re interested in history and archaeology and I know you’ll be applying anyways.” She studied his face before adding, “and you remind me of myself when I was in undergrad. I wanted to learn everything that I could and I was just so damn curious that Seteth finally sat down with me and just handed me a brochure for the graduate program and didn’t let me leave until I committed to applying to it. I see the same spark in you.”

Claude’s lips twitched into a half-smirk. “The graduate program, hm? Is this a recruitment speech now?”

Byleth rolled her eyes. “No. This is me answering questions you had about my research and having a conversation with a peer that I share interests with.”

Claude nodded. “Fair enough, although, I will admit, I haven’t asked many questions today.”

Byleth frowned. “You still have questions?”

“Sure, plenty,” Claude answered. He glanced at the watch on his wrist and gave a faint smile. “More than I have time to ask, unfortunately.”

Byleth sighed. “Well, honestly, this wasn’t entirely unpleasant. I’m usually here Wednesdays and Thursdays after 4 doing reading or work.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“It’s an open comment,” she refuted. “I’m still your TA.”

Claude shrugged. “Peers with similar interest,” he parroted her earlier phrase. He drank the last of his tea and set his empty mug on the table. “It’s been a pleasure, Teach. I’ll see you next week.”

Byleth watched him lift his backpack up and walk out of Anna’s, pulling his phone out to make a call as he went. He left her with no context for his farewell. She had no idea whether he meant he would see her Monday in lecture, Tuesday in tutorial, or Wednesday or Thursday in the café. It was a fitting ‘Claude’ reply and Byleth now understood Edelgard and Dimitri’s warnings and apologies about their friend.

Byleth sipped at her tea again, but the chamomile tasted more bitter than it had previously. She could still taste the lingering, strangely-familiar Almyran Pine when she swallowed and she frowned, looking at the door to the café.

- ~ - ~ - ~ -

Garreg Mach Monastery - 7 Ethereal Moon, Unification Year

Byleth was in the garden on the third floor of the monastery when Seteth found her. She heard him coming and turned around as he approached. She gave him a small smile as he bowed respectfully.

“Your Grace, I was hoping I might have a moment of your time,” Seteth said. He gave a cursory glance toward the entrance back to the monastery where Cyril was standing guard.

Byleth gestured for Cyril to head inside. “Give us a few minutes, would you?”

“Of course, Lady Byleth,” he said, immediately turning and heading inside, leaving Byleth and Seteth alone under the moonlight.

“What can I help you with Seteth?” Byleth asked curiously, turning her full attention back to her advisor.

“You have grown into your role beautifully, Your Grace,” Seteth said instead, seemingly disregarding the question.

Byleth pressed her lips together and nodded. Many of the Archbishop’s duties she had already been carrying out before her official ascension to the position, so in reality, she hadn’t really taken upon that much more in the last few weeks. Most notably, it just seemed to limit the amount of time she was able to spend training.

“You’re not here to compliment me on the role I have been groomed for, Seteth,” Byleth pointed out.

He paused, but then he nodded. “Fair enough.” Seteth looked up, squinting at the moon where it hung in the sky. “I assume you remember what I told you that day, back at the monastery.”

Byleth’s eyebrows rose and she bit her tongue. This had not been the direction she had expected Seteth to take this conversation. “I do,” she agreed.

Seteth looked back at her and gestured to one of the benches on the terrace. “I did not tell you everything, nor did I explain the things I did tell you well enough. I gather you have figured out that I am one of the Nabateans, and that Flayn, despite her mortal mother, has taken after me.”

Seteth paused to let her process and things started to slide more concretely into place in her mind. Seteth and Flayn had Nabatean heritage and since Rhea herself was supposedly Seiros–her brain short-circuited. “Seteth,” she breathed. “How old are you?”

He chuckled lightly. “Don’t you know you should never ask people their age?” Byleth levelled him with a stare and she watched his eyes take on a far-off look. “I am from the old era,” Seteth finally admitted. “Flayn and I had been with Rhea for a very long time.”

He fell silent together and Byleth studied his profile. Something clicked in the back of her mind and Byleth put it together. “Cichol. You’re Cichol.”

“And Flayn is Cethleann, yes. Macuil grew disgusted with humans and conflict and he isolated himself away from it all. Indech hid away as well, taking on the mythos of a great protector. Flayn and I changed our names and moved around. After the fire at Garreg Mach where your father left with you when you were a baby, Rhea called us to the monastery. She always believed you were alive, even when Jeralt said you had perished. I supposed she could feel the Crest Stone inside you.”

Byleth held up a hand to get him to stop. “If she knew all this time, why did she let Jeralt take me in the first place. Wasn’t I her means to an end?”

“At first, Rhea searched for you and your father, but Jeralt knew Rhea well enough by this point and he knew how to hide from her. I suppose then that she knew she couldn’t keep looking for your without tipping Jeralt off and causing him to go deeper underground, so she waited for the right opportunity.”

“In Remire Village, when I first met Dimitri and Edelgard and Claude, did she have anything to do with that?”

Seteth shook his head. “As far as I have discovered, the bandit attack that drove them to Remire Village was actually orchestrated by Edelgard in an attempt to remove the heads of the other houses. Your mercenary group being there was probably a happy accident and a massive wrench in her plan.”

Byleth nodded. It made sense. As twisted as it was for Edelgard to attempt to assassinate Dimitri and Claude, it unfortunately aligned with the in-depth plan that Edelgard had created in order to orchestrate the war against the church. “So you and Flayn are Nabateans by blood and Rhea is Seiros, the last surviving child of Sothis. I don’t understand why you’re telling me all of this right now,” Byleth confessed. She touched her engagement ring and bit her lip.

Seteth sighed. “Byleth, I have to admit, Flayn and I have been looking into all of this for some time and I didn’t know when it would be important for you to have this information. Everything that happened with you and merging with Sothis, surely you have noticed something about yourself?”

Byleth touched her hair as Seteth spoke. Sometimes when she woke up in the morning, the green of it was still startling to her. The changes that Sothis’s power had bestowed on her body had made her different, obviously, but the changes had all been sudden: her hair, her eyes, and the spiking power that had coursed through her veins. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly.

“We are unsure of anything right now,” Seteth admitted, “but there is a good chance that your merging with the goddess has changed you, Byleth, from a mortal with a Crest Stone for a heart, to something else entirely.”

Byleth leaned away from Seteth, recoiling in surprise. “Are you saying I am immortal?”

“I have no idea,” Seteth confessed. “It is a possibility. Flayn and I have established two possibilities for what happened to you: either your body accepted Sothis’s power cleanly thanks to the Crest Stone and you will take on her immortality, or,” he paused, grimacing slightly.

“Or what, Seteth,” Byleth prompted, feeling a cold fear creep through her veins.

“Or the Crest Stone has acted as a conduit to Sothis’s power, allowing you to wield it as long as you have strength. There is a chance that the goddess’s power has corrupted your mortality entirely and,” he trailed off, looking almost ill.

Byleth stood up from the bench and took a few steps away, her head spinning. “And it’s consuming me from the inside,” she murmured, completing Seteth’s explanation. She turned to face him and saw the pain in his eyes. “You’re saying that the power could either make me immortal or kill me and we have no way of knowing which one until one or the other happens.”

Byleth buried her face in her hands and shook her head. “I’m getting married tomorrow!” She snapped her head up and glared at Seteth. “Why did you tell me this now?”

Seteth sighed and Byleth noted that for the first time since she’d known him, he looked defeated and completely bone-tired. “Because you deserved to know all of this the moment I discovered it and because your life no longer affects only you now. I wanted you to have this information so that you could make the decision to tell Dimitri. I am sorry, Byleth. I wish I had more answers for you.”

Tears stung in her eyes and she wiped them away angrily. “So I am supposed to just tell my fiancé that I might either die suddenly or outlive him by thousands of years right before we pledge ourselves to each other and expect him to just accept that?”

“You are supposed to decide when and if you tell him,” Seteth corrected gently. “The information is yours now and I promise you that Flayn and I will continue to work on this to try and find more answers.”

Byleth’s shoulders trembled. “I don’t want answers, I just want all of this to stop!” she cried out. Her knees felt dangerously weak and she lowered herself to the stone floor of the terrace and stared up at the sky.

The moon and the stars blurred behind her tears. Byleth twisted her hands together and felt them warm up with white magic. The healing power didn’t sink into her because, of course, she had no physical injuries, so she let the Recover spell fizzle into nothingness. Even after the magic had physically dispelled, Byleth could still feel the lingering warmth of its power in her veins, a feeling similar to that invoked by the Sublime Creator Sword when she wielded it.

“Where is Rhea?” Byleth asked. She wiped away the lingering tears in her eyes and stood back to her feet. She turned back to face Seteth and lifted her chin up with what confidence she could muster. “Would she know?”

“Rhea did not see fit to tell any of us where she would be going once she left the monastery,” Seteth began.

“Seteth,” Byleth cut off sharply. “Would she know?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Rhea spent a long time trying to,” he winced, “create you, but I don’t think anything about how it happened was according to her plan. Implanting the Crest Stone in you was clearly not something she had intended to do, but I don’t know if she knew what it would lead to.”

Byleth nodded slowly and rubbed at her arms nervously. “Okay,” she said softly. The information was still whirring in her brain and she had no idea how she was supposed to be feeling or how she was supposed to react. Mostly, she was still afraid to tell Dimitri. They were supposed to wed tomorrow and she hadn’t the slightest idea what to tell him, if anything at all.

“I am sorry to spring this on you, Byleth,” Seteth said again.

Byleth exhaled slowly. “I know.”

She didn’t know what she would have done next, but Cyril reappeared in the doorway of the monastery and she instead wiped her face quickly and straightened up. This was not the time for the leader of the church to come across as weak or divided on anything.

“Cyril?” she called to him. Seteth turned, noticing their visitor.

“Your Grace, Seteth, there is important news,” Cyril said.

“News?” Byleth frowned, walking towards her friend. “What happened?”

Cyril looked like he was trying to hide a smile. “There’s someone here to see you, Your Grace.”

Now Byleth knew she looked as confused as she felt. “Wait, what? Everyone who was coming to the wedding should have been here yesterday or earlier. Who’s here?”

“You ought to come see for yourself. They’re in the main hall with Dimitri and the others.”

Byleth sighed and stepped past Cyril. She would take up this conversation with Seteth again later, but for now, she was just incredibly curious about who was showing up at the monastery the night before her wedding to the King of Fódlan. She made her way quickly down to the first floor. Seteth followed her a few paces back and Byleth led the charge through the reception hall towards the entrance hall.

She entered the hall and walked towards the main monastery gates. She could hear familiar voices–Flayn, Dimitri, Ingrid, Annette–and she hurried forward so she could see down the stairs. The first person she saw was, of course, the large frame of Dimitri, but then she saw who was beside him and her jaw dropped.

Claude von Riegan stood next to Dimitri, arms folded and a smirk on his face. He was wearing the armour of a wyvern rider and he seemed to have lost all of the regalia he had previously adorned as the leader of the Alliance.

Seteth had stopped next to her at the top of the stairs and Byleth could feel the ripples of surprise coming off of him that were similar to her own shock. Byleth stepped down one stair and then another, still looking between Dimitri and Claude. The last time she had seen Claude had been in Derdriu when he had ceded the Alliance to Dimitri and announced his intentions to leave Fódlan. She had no idea what he was doing here.

Though she hadn’t led the Golden Deer during their time at the Academy, Byleth had always enjoyed Claude’s company. He had been clever and snarky and just distrusting of the church enough that her father had liked him too. He was an excellent shot with a bow and he was a brilliant tactician, skills Byleth definitely commended. She felt almost affronted that he would choose the day before her wedding to miraculously drop out of the sky.

Her shock faded and her annoyance and anger replaced it and she descended the rest of the stairs quickly. She approached the group of her friends and Annette barely had time to notice her before Byleth was cutting in front of Dimitri and grabbing Claude by the collar of his armour.

“Claude von Riegan, what in the goddess’s name are you doing here?” Byleth demanded.

Claude had tensed as soon as she had grabbed him, but he relaxed when he noted that it was Byleth who had assaulted him and that she didn’t truly look angry, more annoyed. Dimitri stepped closer to Byleth and gently tugged her hand away from Claude’s neck. Byleth resisted for a moment before she dropped her hand with a huff. Dimitri let his hand curl around hers, partially out of affection and partially to make sure she didn’t accost Claude again.

Claude chuckled lightly and straightened his armour. “Hey, Teach, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Byleth narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she repeated.

Claude smirked. “Well, when I heard that the King of Fódlan was getting married to the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros, I knew that I couldn’t miss my chance to stop by and give you my best wishes. Surely you’ll be able to find a seat for me at the ceremony tomorrow?”

Byleth pursed her lips. There was something fishy about his explanation–some edge to the words that hid their real meaning. It was a tone of voice she was familiar with from Claude’s time as her student. The wedding was only an excuse for him because he definitely had some sort of ulterior motive.

Dimitri didn’t seem to share her observation because he laughed. “Don’t worry Claude, we won’t turn you back out into the cold. We’ll find you a seat if you tell us where you’ve been this past half-year.”

Claude’s lips twitched. “It’s kind of a long explanation for the night before such a big day.”

Byleth folded her arms and levelled an even stare at the former Alliance leader. “You’re not weaselling out of this one.”

Claude held up his hands. “Alright, alright, but surely we can find somewhere to sit first?”