byleth has sleep problems / @demonslord / SUSP.
↳ Send me ‘ I’ve got you! ‘ for my muse’s reaction to yours catching them before they hit the floor.
⚔️ // she could just BARELY remember it all. familiar faces of ancient and long-dead warriors — children. beloved ones. flashes of a temple that rose high into fódlan’s blue sky , nestled in the crater left behind by her earthbound FALL. hearings with , and prayers from the humans who SERVED both herself and her divine children , all in exchange for protection , and the knowledge that only THE BEGINNING alone could bestow.
they weren’t byleth’s memories. yet her head grew fuzzy and stuffed full of the endless years she could not recall. only to leave her HAZY and tired as the restless nights dragged on. no amount of pondering would reveal their truth to her. no quill could quite capture the fleeting moments of time , and byleth was left with another half-blank journal page and a yearning for an era long since passed.
the next thing byleth knew , the sun was cresting over the horizon once more. birds rejoiced of the new dawn , and the breeze from her half-opened window carried the scent of wet earth ; of fresh dew. byleth had sighed heavily and scrubbed her palms over her face , blotching her cheeks with color and abruptly standing up. her candle , which had burned to the wick AGAIN , put itself out in her rush. she would need to get a new one. and , mayhaps , she had thought , a long WALK would do her good.
eventually , byleth had wandered far from cotes. her feet had drawn her to the fibonacci ward , where on the skyscraper’s various levels , vendors had set up shop. she took in the sights of the early morning shoppers who quietly mulled through the rows and rows of various wares. some artifacts seemed to FIT this world’s hodgepodge aesthetic. others were more primitive. some , even , far more ANTIQUATED , and what byleth was used to.
so how was she to know , as she wandered through the area’s inter-dimensional LOST &. FOUND , that she might stumble across the very harp that was quickly fading from her memories? it was UNMISTAKABLE , with its plated gold and the vines , leaves and flowers etched across its surface. seeing it , the entire WORLD seemed to sway. and she reached for it - the name tag tied around the harp’s pillar. but the ground beneath her feet tilted and careened with the effort even that simple action took. to reach not for the harp but the starry nights where only her VOICE and deftly plucked chords could be heard echoing through that old temple , weaving together lullabies of the the past . . . the FUTURE.
byleth snapped back into the PRESENT by the solid weight of the arms of a stranger. her face scrunched and the world slowly began to come to a stop. black splotches at the edges of her blurred vision began to fade.
grunting with the effort , byleth righted herself best she could. her palm pressed against her forehead. and when she opened her eyes she realized she had been standing PRECARIOUSLY close to a fragile object from another world. she would have broken it had she fully fallen.
“sorry.” her voice , muffled to her own ears , came slowly. softly. she peered up at the man who had caught her and — stiffened. if only for a moment. he was . . . tall. perhaps even rivaling dimitri. but more than anything there was something inherently . . . OFF about him. though she was too dazed to pinpoint it. “— sorry.” she repeated , pushing off in an attempt to stand on her own. she WOBBLED.