do you have any family , byleth ? -- lansseax
this used to be a question she answered instinctively — provided it for anyone who cared to ask, never tiring. in truth, she welcomed it more than questions about herself because it meant she had an opportunity, even if indirectly, to give her father the compliments he normally refused to accept. it was a point of pride, always, to claim jeralt as her family, as the man who raised her, as the man who’d known, as if innately, how to help her navigate everyplace she considered herself lacking in. as the strongest warrior she’d ever witnessed. even now, with only his memory left to commend and no one to share in it, she finds the pride remains.
“ my father, ” almost like an invocation, this title. “ he was killed some— ” she blinks. how long now? how long since she’s told his story? “ twenty years ago. ” she wandered the continents for too many days to count in the wake of that final battle, mostly contemplative and largely aimless in her travels. even this estimate seems insufficient. “ he wouldn’t want me talking about him too much. used to always say that i was falsely advertising him; to let his reputation do the work instead... but i learned everything i know about the sword from him. ” the older she becomes, the easier some of the more innocuous, mundane rememberings of her childhood spring to mind. all things she thought she’d never get back when she first lost him.
“ and then my mother. ” stranger to speak about her and not think of the injustice. “ i never got the chance to meet her, but my father said she was happy to have me. ” loved you for as long as she could, one of jeralt’s journal entries had said.
she thumbs at the leather cuffs of her gloves, never quite distracted enough these days. i had something like a sister, too. for a time. “ can i ask about your family? you must have more stories than i do. ”
@saovaene