Delayed fic fb replies under the cut!
I like to think Dimitri was put on house arrest. It's not hard, he's half mad anyway, especially after finding out he's been lied to by Rhea for the last five years. That of course both breaks him and snaps him out of it, and he and Edelgard finally play Real or Not Real and align their histories and make up. He joins her cause, Rhea takes her turn being imprisoned similar to how she's held in other non-CF runs. They finally get to be fucking siblings again.
It's easy to have Rhea be on the edge of madness - she certainly veered from either teetering or diving head first into it (and sometimes both) depending on which path you take, but no matter what, she ain't doing so right in the head. As for Byleth, I should have probably been more careful with that word in the fic. Her definition of madness is more centered around the unfeeling Ashen Demon. She might not have known enough before coming to the monastery, but she feels enough now, having grown closer with her own humanity that she never wants to go back to how she used to exist. Anything is better than feeling nothing - even if it's feeling too much.
I still have a hard time reconciling Byleth as a character the player makes decisions for/as without voiced dialogue. We chose what she says, but don't get to hear her say it. For me, it blurs the line between Byleth as a character with personality of her own and a self-insert of sorts for the player. I'm still struggling with that, and the terse structure of the writing helped me both keep my head out of it and staying in Byleth's personality as well as showing the effects of her circumstance upon her. It worked, I think?
I loved the Count of Monte Cristo 2002 remake, and pulled the idea of Byleth sleeping on the floor directly from where Edmund Dantes did the same. Poor kids.
And uuuh, yeah. If they thought Edelgard was mad before, they haven’t seen anything like the wrath she’s about to unleash...
Yep yep and yep. There's so many layers of pain and guilt, right?
For Edelgard it's:
the heartbreak that this is happening to Byleth at all
the pain that she understands, painfully, what it feels like
that no matter which way you look at it, it's her fault
that Byleth was an enemy of the Church to be captured
that they couldn't find her in the aftermath of the Battle
that it took them five years to get her back
None of them are her fault, of course. Byleth and the Black Eagles will tell her she’s wrong until they’re blue in the face but it doesn’t stop Edelgard from taking it on anyway. Its just an onion of guilt
But the flip side of understanding is not just sympathy, but an empathy that few aside from Edelgard can give. My grandparents had twins and when they were four, one had an asthma attack and died. My grandfather, a rabbi, would talk often about how whenever he left a house of mourning after consoling the grieving family, he would point to the sky and say "chalk one up to you, Rinah." It was only thanks to that tragedy and heartbreak that he could know it intimately and comfort others.
Edelgard's greatest desire is that nothing of this nature would ever happen to anyone again, that's why she's fighting the war in the first place. Her compassion and empathy is what pushes her to fight past the pain, harden herself, and ensure a better world. She hates that she has to know. She hates that she has to keep comforting those who continue to suffer. But I'm sure, when nightmares haunt and the past screams in the present, she's grateful to be able to help.
Neither of them know what to do, really. But sure as anything, they'll figure it out together.
Tragically, I am a one-shot kinda kid, but who knows, maybe the flip side POV will happen one day? Stay tuned. Don’t get your hopes up though, I am v slow sry
@lullabyofanabandonedhell:
thank you! Telling a lot with a little usually lets the reader paint the rest of the picture, making the trauma more effective and also my own life as a slow writer easier. bonus!
