Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I see.  Welcome back, my friend from beyond my vision.  You’ve come again to pry into the realm of fantasy.”

“I suppose I should be proud of what I have made, to be so interesting as to merit a revisit, even after the conclusion of my fable’s end.”

“I am glad to know who you are, True Seeker, as you answered my call before - even though my voice was but fleeting in that time.  Pardon my curiosity, of course, but what brings you back?”

“How curious that my world yet still remains fiction to your otherworldly gaze.  I suppose, from the keyhole which you peer in from, that this fantasy is your’s to mold - as it was yours to guide in earnest.”

“I suppose then that it remains true.  Another world dawns.  Yet this one is not my own.  Perhaps, then, it is truest fiction.  Fantasy in its most pure form.  As now, instead of it being a tale told to you…”

“It is your story to tell.”

“I must ask you to indulge me once more, my friend.”

“Is fantasy limited only to the context in which it is written?  Is a story’s meaning set?”

“More than the author’s will.  More than the meaning that they infuse the tale with.  Something capable of alteration, transformation, and becoming greater than the content of the words within.”

“This must be what you believe.”

“I must admit, the answer still eludes me.  Are we so predisposed to whimsy to lose track of true meaning?  Or is true meaning found in this very dreaming?”

“But consider: if a tale is born from the desire to convey meaning… a desire to impart worldly wisdom or truth upon those who encounter it…”

“Then perhaps dreams are malleable.  Thus arises the bounty of our shared experiences, our hopes and prayers made manifest through the interpretation and evaluation of our meanings.  Reality need not be reforged - for within it is an endless horizon.”

“Perhaps your story shall tell us.  I must say, you’ve rekindled my curiosity.  What a grand dream we share.”

“Let this new tale begin.  I do hope it is what you dreamed of.”

{ ~ }

Each bump in the road was a fairweather reminder of the length of the road.  As a journey’s start is far more defined than its closer, the road’s dips and divots could only hasten the sense that this was to be a great undertaking.  The greatest she had ever known.  A life reared in fog, only these sights and sounds had color’s clarity applied to them - adventure had a way of giving light to curiosity’s lost spark.  Let it be a paintbrush on a pallid canvas.  This would be her breakout act.

She shielded her eyes from the searing Sun on high as she looked away from the shaded innards of the wagon, levying her attention towards the road ahead.  A red-tressed traveler in front of her spared her a single unbothered look as she did.  Perhaps newcomers were common here.  Common enough that one’s awe upon seeing the scale of Enbarr’s walls was not an unusual sight.  Indeed, how could one not be full of inspiring emotions upon viewing just how grand the capital city truly was?  Tales did little justice to the truth of it.  Uprooted from the grasslands like a monolith towering, the city’s walls were as though each section was in itself a cathedral.  The decorations, greatly colorful mosaics and statues alike, each depicted a great warrior, or perhaps a beast that they had slain, or even the Great Imperial Eagle.  But at the main gate was the icon of power in this land.  The Sanctist dragon.  White, resplendent, immaculate.  The Herald of God that had blessed this great country - the Immaculate One.

And her wings dominated even above the city walls.  The Regalith Grand Cathedral’s immense shadow fell over the city below, its grand wings defying the very weight of the material they had been constructed with.  The first and almighty symbol; the Crown Theocracy’s truest mark of splendor over this world.  

To outstrip even that of the Emperor.

Or some would opine, at least.  Such talk was best reserved for inner dialogue, else the royalists may treat one with ire.  Unevenly applied ire, at that.  Clemar may receive a slap on the wrist.  A wealthy nidia?  Perhaps a day in the stockades.  But for a mercenary?  For an eldan mercenary?  

Well.  There’s a reason for the gallows to exist.

“Your thoughts are always so dour.”  A voice piped up from the traveling satchel on her lap.  “Look at the expression on your face.  You’re practically relaying that you’re thinking about being killed.”

She looked down.  A small figure, no taller than her head is long, peered up from within her satchel.  Green eyes and greener hair would’ve marked her as strange anywhere else, but her diminutive size and insectoid wings marked her as something truly special.  That was Sothis, of course.  Her traveling partner, and closest confidant.  In her own eyes, one blue and one purple, Sothis was being remarkably bold.  Perhaps the fae are quick to forget that the rest of the nation is not so kind towards things that stand out - and what’s worse?  An elda?  Or an elda and their fairy friend?  She closed the satchel and felt a bead of sweat roll down her face.

The red-tressed traveler seemed to avert her gaze when she looked up.  Best not to ask.  With such prodigious ears, she must be roussiante, and it’s never wise to ask questions of the ‘superior’ tribes.  Even should she be without nobility or duty, her tribe held a great deal of privilege all the same.

Keep your eyes down.  Sothis’s muffled voice still penetrates the bag.  “Ugh, you’re so obtuse.  We’re in the clear.  Enbarr’s in sight, take a breather.  It’ll be the last for a while yet.”

The gravity of their task was not below her notice.  It’s somewhat difficult to breathe when considering the scale of what lies ahead, just how great and terrible this all may be.  Sothis had a fair point.  What point was there in being so wound up before the events even passed?  Clear your head.  The time will come when this thought process will merit itself to even exist.

But then, a bang.  The wagon shook and everyone within started to gasp and shout.  The word on the roussiante traveler’s lips, “Bandits!”

A single look from beneath the wagon’s canopy told the truth.  A legged military machine straddled a rocky outcropping, its cannonade still smoking after firing its first warning shot.  The road, now marred by the black stain of magla-infused firepower, remained blocked off to the travelers.  Of course, they departed.  They lined up, just as they were ordered to.  

“Bandits?”  A tall man with horns, marking him out as a clemar, practically guffawed out.  “We’re the militia!  No noble is givin’ us our pay, so what’s better than takin’ out a loan from the people we’re set on protectin’?  Ey, people?  Want your roads to stay safe?  Then cough up your goods, and we can be all peaceful like.”

It was rich hearing a clemar speak as though the world had forced him into a rough position.  Perhaps that was unfair of her to think, but he had it better than she did.  Yet, he had the gauntlet runner.  And the armed buffer of comrades.  She had a book, a fairy, and a sword that didn’t belong to her.  

“What’s this, then?  An elda, eh?  Hah!  What the hell does a wretch like you have goin’ on out in the capital?”  The clemar then noticed the book she firmly held onto in her right hand.  “Oi?  Holding out on us, are ye?  Hand it over!”

He grabbed for it, and soon enough, she was fighting to hold onto this possession most prized.  Turns out, she was willing to die for this book.  What a whimsical thought.  Yet, here she was.

In the scuffle, someone had the thought to run off.  Another clemar, one from the wagon train, attempted to escape into the grasslands.  But with a flash of steel and a splatter of blood, he soon crumpled to the ground - laid low by the blade of one of the bandits.  

The next moments were a blur.  With an unbelievable precision and haste, the roussiante traveler had leapt behind the offending bandit and claimed his soul with a flicker of her own blade.  “Should steel be drawn, then steel shall be your answer.”

A rough boot to her chest.  Down she tumbled, each hit a rough one, before she landed face-first against the bottom of a nearby cliff.  Nothing felt broken, even if her nose was absolutely bleeding.  There’d be some real nice bruises to wake up to…

“Are you alright?”  Sothis piped up as she fluttered up from the satchel.  “That was a rather long fall, even for you.”

“I’m okay.”  She hoped this was true, at least.

“Well, good… we’re not out of the heat yet, far from it, but at least those bandits are out of our hair.  I doubt they’d follow you down here.  No offense - but you’re not exactly worth it.”  Sothis had a way of pointing out the truth, as blunt as can be.

But it was true.  She nodded along.  “This book…”

“Means a lot to you, yeah.  And hey, a book sells for a lot, but… not enough to chase you into a beast infested ravine.  There’s a lot of them down here.  Hungry.  Angry.  They’ve been displaced.  The sense of desperation down here is almost as strong as the one I got from those bandits, actually.  What fools are culling the prey populations to the point that the predators are hunting each other like this?  Aagh… it’s not worth thinking about right now.  Lots of hungry valmos and wolves.”  Sothis placed her hands on her hips as she hovered midair, held aloft by a shimmering green glow.  She pouted for a moment, thinking somewhat deeply, before she visibly brightened.  “Hey.  I’ll just lend you my sight.  We’ll navigate back to the road.  On foot, Enbarr’s maybe an hour’s walk from where we were ambushed.  With this little detour, I’d reckon an extra hour or so before we see the road again.”

“Alright.  I trust you.”  She nodded.  Sothis smiled and flicked both of her wrists towards the air.  The pattern of green lines and what looked to be musical notes that glittered from her palms was mesmerizing, but in seconds, that pattern soon weaved itself through her very vision.  In a moment’s haste, soon the landscape was illuminated to her.  The ambient magic of all living beings - now it was her’s to perceive.  Is this how the fairies normally saw the world?  What a beautiful thing to behold…

She could now see in mounds of sand where slavering valmos lied in ambush.  Behind foothills where packs of hounds lie in wait.  How in the center of the clearing, hidden by fog, crouched a gargantuan beast.  

She’d be wise to skirt the outskirts of this ravine.  And so she did.  Out of the den of beasts, into the mouth of the approach to Enbarr… the capital of the Adrestian Empire.  This was the seat of her duty.  The place where she would become one with the annals of history.  To be more than the ninth tribe.  More than her birth.

Perhaps she would be a hero.  

They entered into a clearing away from the ravine, where Sothis soon stopped her in her tracks.  “Whew.  Good hustle, kid.  I almost believed that you were running for your life, there.  Next time, though?  Please show a little bit more of a survival instinct when it comes to the choice between living and… not losing a book.”

“No promises.”  Was her only retort.

“Fine.  I can’t believe we’re the only ones left… whatever.  Do you remember our mission?”  Sothis asked the question with a tone in her voice that didn’t exactly imply confidence.

“Absolutely.”  A single, simple bob of her head.

“Suure… well, just to go over it again - we’ve got a couple of months until our contact returns from the north.  Until then, we have to make ourselves useful in the capital.  Odd jobs, mercenary work, whatever.  We’ve got a pretty decent job offering from the Academy, however, so I suggest we start there and pick up whatever we can on the way out.  Your role is simple.  You have to become trustworthy.  Someone worth thinking about.  So when it comes to the day everything comes together, your name will carry the right amount of weight.”  Sothis laid it all out quite clearly.

“It’s for the Princess,” a melancholic tone entered her voice, “If this is all I must do, then my task is quite easy compared to what she has ahead of her.”

“Heh.  Don’t think it’s going to be easy.  You’re an elda.  This is Enbarr.  Sure, you might have a better shot here than most of the border towns, but this isn’t like your village.  Things won’t come easy.  But, at least you have faith in yourself.  That makes one of us, huh?”  Sothis snickered after that last line.

“When we get in town, you’re going to want to find the recruitment center.  Our friend on the inside will have people expecting us.  The process might be rough, but if you can stomach it all, you’ll end up entering in her service.  She’s a mercenary pagan like you, but she’s ingratiated herself with the Sanctists, so most overlook her status while she’s around.  It’ll be a nice safety blanket, eh?”  Sothis nudged her traveling partner in the shoulder.  This didn’t seem to wholly dissuade the air of nervousness that had overtaken her, but it was a nice gesture all the same.  “It’ll be a learning experience.  A big metropolis?  It’s so different to where you grew up… but you said it yourself.  Your task is a lot easier than the alternatives.”

She did not hazard a guess at what these alternatives were.  Instead, she sought the road.  Sothis’s words filled her mind in the quiet, and she considered the weight of each one.  Indeed, she had to keep her head held high.  

What was the point in becoming a known name?  In becoming a figure to rely upon?  In this way, upon the Princess being liberated from her curse, she’d have a lodestar in which to reveal her path.  In this way, should the curse fail to be cured, she could rally her blade to the fall of the mastermind of the curse.  But… not yet.  Such a thing was beyond even them.

And so they went.  Enbarr sent, and to Enbarr to whence they are meant.  Her legs hurt by the end of it all, but ere long, they stood in the mouth of the greatest city in all the land.  The road ahead was naught like anything she’d ever seen, and she certainly gawped at the sight of it.  Tall buildings with glass windows.  Rooftops painted red.  Posters and wall art.  Vines that creeped down old constructions, with new constructions standing unblemished at their side.  Grand buildings that stood proud above the others, still overshadowed by the domineering Regalith.  The roads were clean.  The air was full of energy.  Voices called out and crushed all quiet.  

But before she could even enter, a soldier placed his spear in her path.  She could not see his eyes from beneath the shade of his helm.  The surcoat he wore bore the colors of the royal family, at least.  He was one of the city’s guards, not any sort of private or religious soldier.  

This was a narrow relief, as he was still capable of throwing her to the wolves or worse… but he was considerably less likely to do such without an order.  “Halt.  You’re an elda, are you not?  Your type are practically nonexistent out of wherever you hail from, so I’m going to have to ask what your business in Enbarr is.  We’d rather keep the riff raff out, especially what with the underclass riots as of late.”

“Riots?”  This was the first she’d heard of such a thing.  Not that she could blame anyone for buckling under the weight of polite society, it just hadn’t been a focus of her’s.  “Your lessers surely can’t cause you too much trouble.”
“Hm.  You show the right deference.  Nevermind that - answer my question, else I shall bar you entry.”  His voice grew more harsh.

The thin polite veneer he’d taken was worn away in instants when his viewed ‘inferior’ did not follow his requests immediately.  She made mental note of this, filing it away for the future.  She bowed her head.  “Ah, well… I’m here for work.  There’s not much for the elda in the rest of Adrestia, and so I hoped to find employment here.  After all, if I can’t make it here, where else is left?”

“Fair point.  Go along, then.  Be careful to not cause any trouble.”  The guardsman tilted his head and let her pass on by, not thinking to stall her for another moment.  As much as he must’ve gained some pleasure from harassing an elda, he likely had little patience to actually converse with one, not to mention upend his schedule for one.  

Each guard had a green pendant around their necks.  Filled with shimmering light, like a kind of crystal.  Such a beautiful thing… but what for?  She’d have to ask again later.

First things first: Enbarr.  

The entry to Enbarr was a storied thing.  Thousands of years of history, and a thousand exactly since the Empire’s founding, so many dignitaries, Kings, and Emperors had paraded down this very lane.  Untold lives were made and forged anew upon this avenue of destiny.  To those who lived and died in this place, it must have been such a mundane thing.  But to the ones from beyond this earthly paradise?  It was a chance at elysium.  

For what best gains a hero’s entry than gold, knowledge, and the means to embark upon their journey?  She walked forth, unbidden, with the hope in her heart to see it through.  Ignore the eyes, the jeers, the outcries.  Feel not the spit that now rolls down your cheek, the stone hurled at your back, nor the pain of the shoulders bumped into you, nor the elbows angled towards your stomach.  Feel only the wind and the hear only the sound of the world.  Even should it be drowned out by the words of the wicked and the shortsighted - this place was unlike any other, and every voice was a member of a greater choir.  Not a singular role, merely a piece of a grand melody.  Magic in its surest form was musical.

As perhaps the eldest magic is music itself.  Sothis clutched to her traveling companion’s wrist and sent a latticework of magla up her arm.  It passed into her memories and became one with her conception of the world.  These voices were not the only melody.  A soothing song now settled into her mind, hastening her step and emboldening her spirit.  They may hate her now, but they do not know her yet.  

And perhaps the Seeker knows her, but perhaps the Seeker has yet to meet her.  From our view on high, who can say?

She could pick out voices in the mess.  Two men spoke earnestly near a storefront.  “Troubling news, eh?  I heard another village got taken out.”

The horned man balked.  “Another?  The Royal Army just let another slip between their fingers?  What’s this country coming to?” 

The original speaker, with tattoos lining his grey skin, shrugged his great shoulders.  “Who knows.  I heard the General couldn’t spare time to it… as he was preoccupied with another gala or somesuch.  Busy getting reeve pressed into the palm of his hand to give a lick about the countryside.”

“A shame, that.  I almost felt like the military had a chance, what after Louis put down those rebellions.”  The horned man took an inhale from a strange object in his left hand.  He exhaled what appeared to be excess magla crystals.  

Her attention waned.  Another conversation, between two women, caught her whimsy.  “Did you hear?  The Sanctifex wants to hold another conclave later this year.”

“Oh yeah?”  The other woman set down the apple crate she’d carried in her arms.  “The Sanctifex has been oddly busy, wouldn’t you think?”

“Aye.  It’s been so quiet, I can’t help but wonder what the Church is up to.  Do you think it has something to do with the… ah, nevermind.”  She shook her head.  

“If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, yeah, it’s best to keep quiet on that for now.  Who knows what’s going on - and I’d rather be on the right side of it, all the same.”  The woman wiped her brow.  “Keep your head down, y’know.”

The traveler stopped ahead of another window, as a man eyed a brilliant display of what looked like jewelry.  Her attention piqued, she then turned her head and saw something that stopped her dead in her tracks.  A towering scepter.  Royal as can be, with the deep blues and golden sheathe, the ribcage made of rich metals that surrounded a heart of pure magla.  That crystal alone was the size of her head.   Incredible.  

“What’s this?”  A clicking of heels and a sashaying of cloth.  The traveler turned her head again to see a frankly jawdropping woman round the bend.  Her long white hair was kept in an elegant side braid, with much of the rest falling to the middle of her back.  Her silver eyes were framed by shortly chopped bangs, long eyelashes, and interesting diamond tattoos that formed a row beneath them.  Those very eyes, ringed by magenta eyeshadow and eyeliner, were piercing.  The rest of her ensemble, dark and elegant, marked her as a rich woman for certain.  But the pants?  She must be equally practical.  She planted a hand on her hip, her loose coat accentuating the motion.  “An elda in front of my shop.  Do you like what you see?”

The traveler followed the motion of her eyes.  Indeed, she’d given that scepter an appraising look.  “A replica of the Royal Scepter.  It makes for a great souvenir, wouldn’t you say?”

“The… Royal Scepter?”  She tilted her head.  Sothis popped her head up and out of the traveling satchel. 

Flittering up, she eyed the replica for a moment, all before her companion’s words hit her.  Animatedly so, Sothis wheeled around on her friend.  “Why do you sound like you don’t know what the Royal Scepter is?”

“That’s the thing.  I don’t.”  A simple answer that carried quite a bit of knowledge to Sothis’ pointed ears.

The fairy almost fell out of the air.  “Were you raised under a rock?  Actually, don’t answer that.  Okay… where to start, uhhh…”

The beautiful shopkeeper chuckled.  “The Royal Scepter’s been passed down from Emperor to Emperor for generations.  Within it is held the Royal Magic, which is the very stuff of fantasy.  It’s proved a deterrent to war for generations for a reason.  It’s said that the Emperor is able to transcend the limits of what’s believably possible, invoking magic so almighty that it cowers even natural disasters.  To put it bluntly: that’s the mother of all igniters.  It’d be untoward of us not to try and mimic it, even should the power of our little model be less than a hundredth of the real deal’s.”

“So, how much is it?  Sounds useful.”  The traveler picked at her coinpurse… only to remember that those bandits had pilfered it from her before she’d even gotten here.  

Sothis rubbed at her cheeks in irritation.  “Listen girl, even if you did have the paltry funds we rode in on, you’d be able to afford a whole palace sooner than that thing.”

The shopkeep’s eyes held on the fairy for a few moments.  “An elda and a fairy, how curious… Ahem.  Your miniature friend has the truth of it.  Igniters are kept costly for a reason.  We don’t need everyone running around with the ability to hurl fireballs willy nilly, now, do we?  Sounds like a right mess, and the Church preaches temperance and somesuch in the face of it.”

“Ah.  I see.”  Magic.  Sothis made it look so fun, but if its truly beyond her reach… She’ll just have to save up for a nice igniter.  Maybe like one of the ones those soldiers wear around their necks.  That had to be what they were wearing, no?  The crystal looked exactly like some of the crystals in the forefront of this ‘Igniter’ shop.  The traveler, somewhat blue, turned away.

“A word of warning.  Tensions are high in town.  You two are unfamiliar faces, and worse still, originate in places that some of the people of this land consider unseemly.  For your sakes, I hope whatever your business in town is doesn’t keep you for long.”  Her tone turned to be much less friendly.  This was serious to her.

The traveler only nodded.  “Thank you.”

They had places to be, the two of them.  It still was an enlightening discussion.  Perhaps she’d seek that shopkeeper out again, at least when her reputation was high enough to warrant their dialogue.  Sothis tugged her ear towards the direction of the Cathedral Square.  Though they did not yet head towards the Regalith itself, in its approach could be found the Academy of Garreg Mach.  One only needed to walk down the same road that led to the cathedral’s grounds to find the path that led towards the greatest learning institution in the entire country.

The traveler wondered what it was like.  A school… an education.  To be raised with like minded peers not of your own tribe.  The people that milled about the deeper streets of Enbarr gave her a wide enough berth when they saw her face.  The closer she got to the cathedral, the more white cassocks she saw, with fewer merchants lining the roads, with so many road-weary pilgrims eyeing her with caution as she surpassed them on the street.  

A bald monk stared daggers into her at some point along the way, but she paid no mind to him.  So long as she could help it, they would never meet.  

The Regalith was intimidating from a distance, so to be so close to it now… Nothing she had ever seen had been that massive.  Not even mountain nor canyon could truly compare to the absolute scale of it.  Perhaps if she spent more time in the mountainous territories in the middle of the country, she’d see more sights that’d put even the Regalith to shame, but from the flatlands and forested country she’d hailed from - it was beyond impressive.  To think that the very royal palace could not be seen from the front of the city… It remained evident what the true power of this land had to be.  She did not travel towards a royal academy even though its body was full of those noble and royal alike.  Her destination was a holy academy.  A monastery that had been converted into a place of learning, to grasp at power greater than the crown.

It made sense, at least.  Though it was the Hero Emperor Wilhelm whom had led Adrestia against Nemesis in ancient history, he had been led to that point, step by step in his heroic journey, by Saint Seiros - the founder of the Sanctist Church herself.  Wilhelm’s power had been predicated on her power.  Without her, there would be no Empire.  So perhaps he had ruled, but it was not due to his own power.  

There were three paths ahead of her.  Following the one she was already headed down, she’d find herself at the Regalith.  And since few were passing to the right, she naturally found herself reaching out for the shoulder of one of the people walking that way.  “Excuse me, is this the way to Garreg Mach?”

She expected him to brush her off.  Part of her even expected him to shrug her hand off and admonish her for laying her ‘filthy, lesser hand’ upon his body.  But no, he gave her a solitary glance, doing well to mask his surprise.  There was a shocking kindness in those grey eyes of his.  Anyone else would’ve given her a dull look, but this clemar at least offered her a polite smile.  “Ah, oh.  Sorry for my gawping.  You’d be forgiven to think that I was raised by a dullard, and not by a noble family.  Yes.  Follow this crowd and you’ll make it.  Say, are you enrolling?  Hah.  That’d make heads roll, I think.  An elda in the same class as some of these other lords…”

“Oh, no.”  She shook her head in return.  “I’m going to be working there.”

“Oh!  Sorry for being so glib with you, professor.”  He rubbed the back of his head.

She stared at him, and then she blinked.  With a shake of her head, she responded,  “Not like that.  Just another sword at the ready to help with your military training.”

His cheeks were dusted with a light pink.  “That right, huh?  Sorry.  My words have a tendency to get ahead of themselves, and so I get myself into rhetorical traps like this.  Let’s start again, huh?  I’m Strohl.  Leon Strohl.  I’ll be a student this year, presumably to join the Black Eagles.  That’d be the class of the Imperial Heartland, if you didn’t already know.”

Given that she didn’t, she was very glad that he was being so accommodating.  “Thank you, Strohl.  It’s been hectic getting here, but your kindness is like the sun peeking through stormy clouds.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”  He tried to hide his smile, but the corners of his mouth surely betrayed him.  “Say, if I’ll be seeing you around, then… what should I call you?”

“Curious.  Even I do not know the name of our protagonist.  Who is she, Seeker?  Is she familiar to you, or have you forgotten, just as I had before?”

“Byleth.”  She reached forward to shake his hand.  He firmly gripped her hand and shook it in one solid motion.  If he was as steadfast as his handshake, then this Strohl was one she’d be sure to consider as a hopeful companion, if not a future friend.  

“Well then, Byleth… my road here was arduous.  If your’s was anything like mine, then let’s walk these last few steps together.”  He turned towards the direction of the monastery, unsure if she would walk at his side.

And indeed, she did.  Side to side, in a sea of future students and faculty alike, Leon Strohl and the traveler, Byleth Eisner, set forth to the crossroads of their shared destiny.

The Academy of Garreg Mach awaited, steeped in the shadow of the Regalith Grand Cathedral.

Chapter Text

No journey in this land could be made free of hindrance.  For indeed, halfway up this meandering path towards the goal in the rock that was Garreg Mach, the freshly minted duo found themselves barred in their path.  Or rather, one was barred.  

Having taken notice of Byleth’s nature, a small pack of would-be students had taken to walking just a slight ways ahead of Strohl and her, leaving little space between them.  That gap was surpassed in time.  A tall roussiante sneered as he looked over his shoulder, cocking his head in a way as though to beckon to his fellows.  And they all turned, nearly causing Byleth to run into the man at the head of the van.  He scoffed.  “Typical of your kind.  You don’t know your place in this world, so you scamper hither and thither, ‘til you scuff the boots of your betters.  What business does trash like you have with this vaunted place?  What, do you mean to defile the holy with your pagan magics?”

“Heathens.  You’d think they’d understand that they’re better off staying out of sight, out of mind.  But here one is, all up in your business.”  A portly clemar chuckled.  He swept his cap from his head and brushed back his hair.  “Begging for trouble, she is.”

“Hah.  No, no, my friends.  You apply far too much malice to her deeds.”  The wings that wrapped around this one’s waist denoted him as an ishkia, the rarest of the Eight Tribes, yet one of the most celebrated.  Perhaps the vaunted wit that made his people stand out so strongly would be to her favor.  And yet… “They’re far too stupid to understand such high minded ideals.  Consider them like beasts, and you will better understand it.  They assume nearness to greatness will curry them some favors.”

Byleth stood still, her head hung low.  Sothis was practically chomping at the bit to start buzzing around their heads, messing their hair up, maybe throwing their hats into the mud.

But, most surprisingly indeed, their third was the one to look out for.  Strohl’s fists were curled into tight balls, and he did not look these men in the eye.  “Oh good.  And this is who I’ll be enrolling alongside?”

The tall roussiante gave Strohl a curious look.  “Aye.  You’re joining up with good company.  Well, maybe not as great as we were promised, if an elda is meant to bring rot to the academy.”

“No wonder we’re having a national crisis.”  Strohl’s voice was like a dagger in bare flesh.  “Our soldiers are cowards and our noble sons are no better.”

“What did you say?”  The roussiante glowered at him.  

His friends blistered at the sound of it.  The clemar especially took it hard, his cheeks flushing a ruddy red.  “And what would you know of nobility?  I’ve never seen you before.”

“Oh, me?  I choose not to be defined by my birthright.  But you’re correct at that appraisal - I’m from a family you’ll have never met.  We choose not to sully our honor with the sorts of lordlings who spit venom at the people they’re meant to stand for.”  Strohl lifted his head, eyes full of fire.  “You don’t even know her!  You took one look and decided that she stands for every little wrong that you’ve been told her people are responsible for.  Have you ever even met an elda?  Do you know where they’re from?  Their culture, their methods, their ways?  God, man.  It’s pathetic, really.”

“This isn’t even a matter of tribes anymore.  It’s pride.  You owe us both an apology.”  He stuck a finger into the roussiante’s chest.

Byleth girded herself for fisticuffs or worse - yet she saw the posse of ingrates shrink back.  They were used to having the strength in a situation, but Leon Strohl had effectively humiliated them.  Their intelligence, their pride as nobles, hell, he’d even thrown mud at the profession that they likely hoped to pursue.  All in the span of a handful of breaths.  This Strohl had a future - in who knows what, but it definitely would be rousing.

They turned away, grumbling and mumbling, and left the trio be.

Sothis flittered up from the satchel, huffing and puffing.  “You’re kidding me.  I knew it’d be different, but…”

“It never gets easier.”  Byleth glumly noted with a nod accentuating her exacerbation.  

Leon clenched and unclenched his fists.  It would seem he had yet to give up the feelings he’d developed in that brief, yet equivalently frustrating, exchange.  He opened his mouth, only for a choke to escape him.  He couldn’t even find his words.  After he paced for a moment or two, he pointed his finger up and started to speak in earnest, “I find it so amazing that people like that exist.  I guess I can’t be astonished, by all means I’m the outlier here… but still!  Yes, I’ve heard exactly what is said about the elda - I also can’t believe a single word!  Believing them about you would mean I’d also have to believe them about…” He then trailed off, his eyes losing that fiery conviction.  He brought his finger back down and let his hands fall limp at his sides.  “...A lot of things.”  He concluded with a sigh.

“Well, it’s nice of you to stand up for her, Strohl.”  Sothis gave him a joyful nod and grin.

Byleth hadn’t raised her head yet.  “You don’t have to help me, you know.”

Sothis and Strohl looked back, astonishment matched in both their expressions.

“It’s not like I don’t appreciate it, but…” She sighed through her nose, letting her head tilt to the side.  “I just don’t want you to be dragged into the muck with me.  You’re the freest a man can be in this country - clemar and noble.  Associating with me will only eclipse your potential.”  And with that, she was off to the races, returned back to the trodden trail with nary another word.  She didn’t even offer a second look.  It was a snap cut through the tension.  The two she’d left behind offered a sympathetic shrug to each other, all before they returned to her side.

Strohl would remember this.

But at last they’d arrived.  Step after step, carriage stops and campfire rests - they’d arrived.  Constructed in grandeur like the Regalith at the heart of Enbarr, its stone towers stood austere over the comparably drab pavilion that surrounded it.  Like a dagger of rock stabbed into the heart of a flat square, it bled into its surroundings with a fervor only shadowed by the very object that left it in shadow during the late hours of the day.  Across its walls spanned massive banners spun of the Empire’s finest silk, bearing the ornate silver emblem of the Church, which itself was ensorceled inside the Imperial symbol itself.  A very overt message sent of the church and state’s merging, the Adrestian Eagle and the Sanctist Dragon were practically kin upon those silverite colors.  From the steeples to the spires, to the steps to the stands, to all who came and all who went - this was more than a mere academy.  The soldiers were clad in silver.  Their armor and weapons shined unlike the drab uniforms of the city guard.  They marched in tandem pace, unbreaking in charge and equivalently unfearing of their surroundings.  Faceless as great helms masked their features beneath, they were a whole.  At least with the sallets and kettle helms of the ordinary guards, one could discern features, could witness personhood.  

Here, it was as though you’d been asked to tell apart grains of sand on a beach.  Byleth didn’t fail to take note that all of the soldiers of the rank and file were composed of maybe 2 or 3 tribes.  If there weren’t clemar horns, there would be roussiante ears, and lacking either of those, the man’s shoulders were broad enough to be rhoag.  The lesser tribes were nowhere to be seen in this line up.

And of course, as was evident by her treatment yet, not a single elda was in this place.  Not a knight, assuredly not enrolled, and Byleth even doubted that she’d find one cleaning the toilets.  How odd it was to be an oddity.  The dragon knows not of his magnitude among lizards ‘til he learns that only he has the means to fly, after all.  Though, in her case, she was but a dopey eldan mercenary with a huffy fairy as her guide.  The wings, the claws, the hard scales, and the means in which to breathe fire would be quite the boon indeed.  Alas, unlike the dragon, her head was only metaphorically in the clouds.

Relax.  Deep breaths.  It was easy to forget one’s purpose when mired by so much doubt, from within and without.  Such was the nature of this anxious cloud that shrouded the country.  In lieu of the stability of better years, people turned on their countrymen, picking upon existent discrimination and division to better guise their fear’s true face.  Yet the heart of it was always the same.

She could not let herself be taken by it.  Sothis had come so far with her, all so that they could make contact with a person within these very hallowed halls.  And what kind of person would she be to fail her charge - all due to her feet growing ever colder.  

They’d reached the gates.  The doors were ajar, all so that the stream of newcomers and returners alike could make their way within the academy.  This was the first day for many, and a new year for many more.  ‘Twas the Great Tree Moon, dead in the beginning stretches of Spring and the New Year, and so too would the academic year be renewed after the Winter’s long pause.  As, for travel from the outskirts of the Empire was often barred by Winter’s harrowing months - leaving many of the academy’s student body severed from its institutions.  Such a break was only sensible.  

Byleth was a rare one.  She hadn’t come to teach or to learn.  Nor was she guidance, or even security. 

Strohl offered her a look upon their entry to the academy’s grounds proper.  He smiled.  “I take it this is where we will part ways.  It truly was a pleasure meeting you both.  I hope… I hope the academy will treat you well.  The Sanctists may look down upon the elda, but not everyone’s so dogmatic.  People aren’t so monolithic in the capital, I find.”

“Thanks a lot.”  Sothis hovered in front of Byleth.  “Just remember to take care of yourself, alright?  If its any sign of how you are elsewhere, you should probably stick your neck out for fewer strangers.  For your sake.”

“Hah.  No promises.”  He bobbed his head and turned on his heel, likely treading off towards enrollment.  The new students were likely getting the walk-around, the proper introductions to their new (while temporary) homes.  Byleth, sadly, had to go the other way.  This lone tether would be something she’d miss.

Hopefully not for long.  New allies were what she came here to make, after all.  There’d be no point in renown and name recognition if it didn’t bear fruits such as that.

So she ignored the sights around her and honed in on what she’d been told before departing.  

Her memories reflected on times not so long past.  There she was… home.  Sothis at her side, and in front of her, the cursed Princess.  At her side was an elderly eugief, his batlike ears hanging low, his eyes shadowed by sorrow, and across from him levitated a wise old sage, her own attention mostly fixed upon the Princess on the slab.  Her eyes, sealed.  A black and red, shadow-smoke embrace of thorns kept her bound to her unconscious state.  

The old man turned to Byleth and Sothis.  “Alas, we have no one else to call upon.  As our agents are thinning and depleted, the Resistance turns to our last agents to carry out our plan.  As two have already been deployed, this leaves our last.  To prepare for Her Highness’s return, I trust you both with finding Garreg Mach, and building for her a support base in which may revitalize our cause - hopefully serving as her base in which she may return and rule from.”

“And should the destined hour grow close… then this base will be your platform in which to aid in her curing.  Be it by the blade, or through a cure.”

He’d imparted the general outline of Garreg Mach to her.  It may have appeared like one large building from a distance, but it was actually a collection of assorted buildings that surrounded a larger central hall - all which stood in front of one of the access gates to the Regalith Grand Cathedral’s main pavilion.  She sought to circumvent the central hall, to clamber through the academy’s stables, armory, and to find herself in the academy’s barracks.  There she would find her contact - the mercenary captain in the Sanctist payroll.  

Shamir Nevrand.  A mustari from Dagda over the seas.  Hopefully, her obscure standing with the typically xenophobic Sanctists would allow her some wiggle room with a group that’d almost always deny her.  

To be careful, she pulled a hood over her head, and hurried past the many students that milled about in preparation for the beginning of their officer’s training.  The many knights that may have otherwise stood in her path likely had taken to guarding more vital locations, preventing student provocateurs from interrupting the start of the year.  Few likely even noticed her gliding through the crowds.  

She counted it as luck that she made it to the Knight’s Hall unmolested.  Count your blessings, Eisner, for they were rare indeed.  Unfortunately, and she knew this factoid well, she’d avoided the vipers only to go straight to their nest.  She pulled back her hood and found herself faced by the scrutiny of the other Sanctist soldiers that weren’t marching or standing watch.  A sandy-haired roussiante, clad in ivory white, kicked off from the wall as she watched Byleth approach.  In those lightning blue eyes was a thinly disguised hatred.  Few looked upon a normal person with so much ire, other than a knight of great zeal.  

The strange blade upon her hip marked her as an important person, indeed.  Sothis flittered nervously behind Byleth.  “Be careful, friend.  That sword…”

Now stood a meter away from Eisner and her fae companion, the sandy-haired knight scoffed.  “Somehow, even in this holy place, scum like you have a knack for slipping through the cracks.  Don’t you feel shame, heathen?  Rearing your fiendish head so near to the Sanctifex herself…  I should gut you here and now.  Your heresy won’t tarnish this place, not so long as I still draw breath!”

Byleth’s skin started to feel electrified.  That blade… She didn’t know why, but it filled her with an odd sensation.  Familiarity?  No.  Something else, though it was a familiar feeling.

Ah.

Fear .

The knight grabbed at her blade, and in a shocking display, a storm of orange bolts of lightning cascaded from its sheath.  A seven pronged blade, glowing with a menacing orange magla, now was pointed directly at Byleth’s throat.  An unhinged air now filled the roussiante.  “Keep your head still!  At least this way it’ll be a quick and clean death!”

“HOLD!”  CLASH .  Steel against steel.  The roussiante’s blade did not move much further, as midway through her intended deathblow, another sword had captured it.  

The red-tressed roussiante from the covered wagon.  Even this seemed to give the previously cocksure knight a measure of pause.  “…You wouldn’t stand to defend her, would you?  You know perfectly well that the enemies of Sanctism are exactly what killed your charge.  You betray your honor.”

“I will hear none of this, Catherine!”  The red-tressed knight deflected the thunderous blade, leaving the two women to stand at odds with each other.  “You dare say that I betray my honor?  You sully OUR honor by brandishing that blade like a butcher’s knife.  No knight should act so brazenly. This is an important day.  To spill blood on holy ground on such a day would not bring honor to the Sanctifex - it should only bring shame upon her and your uniform.  You know not even why this traveler has come.  Ignore her origin ‘til it is impossible to do such.  Then - only then - will I give you leave to act in defense of the Empire.”

“Feh.  My loyalty’s to the Sanctifex.  The pittance you offer the Empire gains you nothing here.”  Catherine slid her blade up its sheath, all before she returned it to where it belonged.  “Still, I would hate to bleed one of our nation’s finest knights for a lapse in her reasoning.  God only knows you bleed enough for that.”

This ‘Hulkenberg’ then sighed and threw her blade back to the man she’d taken it from.  So fast.  So calculated.  She hadn’t even drawn her own blade against Catherine - it’d been a spur of the moment leap into action.  

Whomever her charge was, they were lucky to have had her in their defense.  Of course, Hulkenberg then turned on Byleth.  Those icy blue eyes of her had a great intensity to them.  But unlike the lightning in the thunderer’s eye, this glacial stare was one of pure appraisal - a knight regarding the worth of a stranger, not of a murderer staring down a potential victim.

“So then,” Hulkenberg’s voice was as even as the fringe bangs that cut off right above her eyes, “for what purpose have you sought out the knighthood?”

Byleth’s mind raced, but she managed to calm herself as she felt Sothis’s arms tighten around her shoulder.  With clarity, she managed to answer, “Shamir should be expecting me.”

Catherine’s brows furrowed, and she slinked off into the Knight’s Hall.  The remaining roussiante seemed a bit confused.  “A curious name, Shamir.  Would that I knew anyone of that name, ‘tis impossible that I would forget.  Forgive me, traveler, it is beyond my knowledge to aid you.”

“Ah, oh.”  Byleth’s head lowered.  This’d become a common feeling, and she didn’t quite appreciate it.

“Say,” so Hulkenberg then unfolded her arms, “You were aboard the same wagon as I.  The one who’d fallen down the cliffside - I had wondered if you’d survived that gauntlet.  Full glad am I to see that you yet live.”

“But you didn’t step in sooner.  Those bandits claimed a man’s life… and you stood aside?”  The traveler couldn’t stop herself from questioning the knight.  Even though her position was far from advantageous, she was owed an explanation, even if the world would deny her what she deserved.  

Hulkenberg nodded.  Indeed, her brows softened and her lips curled downwards - was she sad?  This wasn’t what Byleth had expected… a knight in this place had no reason to treat her so personably, especially not one seemingly sworn to such an important charge.  Yet she offered her sympathies. 

“The weight of gold is hardly measurable to the weight of a man’s life.  I would surrender more than a few possessions should it mean no blood is spilled.  And yet, perhaps my outlook is flawed.  Am I truly a good knight if I keep allowing people to get harmed under my watch?”  A probing question, loaded with an indecipherable weight.  Byleth knew not how to measure this errant thought.  Yet, she felt a warmth deep in this outwardly stoic woman’s spirit.  Perhaps she did not wish to reveal this part of her, but her mind raced thinking about the safety of others.  

Even those bandits were owed this knight’s faith.  Byleth shook her head.  “You’re asking me an awful big question.  Even if I could answer it, why would you believe me?  It’s not that easy.  Nothing’s that easy.”

“Mm.”  Disappointment reflected in her gaze.  It would seem that not all the people of Garreg Mach were a monolith.

Before either could linger on this thought, Catherine rounded the corner.  “I have no idea what business you’d have with my partner, but make it snappy.  I don’t want to explain this to Rhea…”  

“You’re going to have to.”  A curt reply left the one who followed next.  The green, collared jacket, with its sleeves pinned up at her elbows; the overbust black corset; the black corset with its silver pendant; even the thigh-high heeled boots, which were the same color as her jacket - if not for the third eye squarely in the middle of her forehead, this Shamir would’ve looked one with the nobles of this country.  Fashionable to a lethal point, that one.

She brushed back a few strands of raven black hair.  “You’re early.”

Byleth disagreed.  “The missive said -” 

“Yeah.  And I’m the only one ever on time.”  She interjected.

The mustari were raised outside of this country.  Her curtness might not be applicable to being rude - 

“You dress strangely for a mercenary.”  Pot, meet kettle.  She actually might be rude.  “Look kind of soft.  We’ll find out.”

Even Hulkenberg looked confused as she then shot a look at Catherine, who then only replied with a light shrug.  Shamir glanced around.  “Right, right.  This is Byleth Eisner.”

“Eisner?”  Catherine’s eyebrows shot up.  Hulkenberg remained completely out of the loop.

“Yeah.  Seems like the Bladebreaker’s got crotchlings running around.  Oh, and he’s alive.”  Shamir crossed her arms.  “She got recommended to me.  Apparently she’s handy with that…,” Shamir looked down to Byleth’s hip, “...Shortsword there.  Handy enough to work with the helpers before the cavalry arrives.”

Catherine took a step forward.  Almost breathlessly, she brought her face so close to the mustari that their foreheads almost touched.  There was no emotion on the roussiante’s face.  “I like you, Shamir.  We make a good team.  But don’t forget that it’s only under Lady Rhea’s grace that you have any place here.  Hiring an elda?  Even if she’s Jeralt’s… You know I can’t let this slide.”

For all the intimidation of a knight wielding a divine weapon, that did little to cow the confidence of her ‘partner’.  Shamir stood her ground.  “I can tell that you don’t mean it.  I’m going to hire her if - and only if - she passes muster.  Sanctism needs someone to do its dirty work.  An elda doing it?  Isn’t that perfect?  Wouldn’t want a clemar or any of your people doing the job of pagans and heretics, would you?  She’s here for the same reason I’m here.  There’s nowhere else to go.  We’ll make money off of our skill and skill alone.  That’s all the world’s got left for us.”

“Turn her away if you mean to.  I can’t promise I’ll stick around, though.”  That got Catherine to back up.  “It’d be smart to line something up.  After all, job security clearly doesn’t exist for us inferior tribes.”

“You’ve made your point,” Catherine spat out.

“I know.”  Shamir then gestured for Byleth to follow her, and then she swiftly turned on her heel.  She headed towards the Knight’s Hall’s interior.  Byleth looked between Catherine and Hulkenberg and wordlessly shot them an apologetic look.  It’s not as though she’s any the wiser on the inner machinations in Shamir’s mind - they’d just met!  And yet, somehow… it was imperceptible, maybe.  But Byleth could sense something to Shamir’s words.  Perhaps it was just the way she came off, and Byleth had merely failed to adapt to the mustari ways, but it felt as though Shamir was trying to protect her.  That could’ve been an earnest doubt, of course.  There’s no reason to believe that Shamir would lie about fears that her job would be in jeopardy.  It remained the truth, however, that she also had no need to say that.  Had it all been a dramatic show?  Or had she truly sought to safeguard Byleth from Catherine’s discriminatory remarks?

What a mysterious person.  Ere long, she’d be Byleth’s new captain.  All it would take is Byleth signing the mercenary’s accord, and in that their compact would be forged.  Still, an anticipatory anxiety sent jitters throughout Byleth’s body.  She had to know something.  “Captain -”

“I’m not your Captain.  Yet.”  Shamir cut her off.

“Okay.  Future Captain.”  Byleth amended.  Shamir raised an eyebrow at that, and perhaps she saw a bit of cheek in Byleth’s response.  She wasn’t going to comment on it, not if Byleth didn’t first.  And Byleth simply continued on.  “The knights are mobilized already.  I saw it as I came in.  That tells me that we’re going to be deploying soon.”

“Good eye.”  Did Shamir’s third eye glimmer when she said that?  Byleth wasn’t going to comment on it, not if Shamir didn’t first.  And Shamir also simply just continued.  “Yes.  They’re preparing.  Marching in formation, wearing their new boots - it’s all for something later this week.  They’ll be taking runners to the mountains.  A class will accompany them, and after their lesson’s completed, another will rotate in like clockwork until the test location is depleted.  This’ll complete until the initial test’s done with all classes.”

What kind of test takes this much effort…?

“It’s an important test for an academy like this.  Garreg Mach teaches these students how to fight and to lead.  Other academies might employ simulated battles.  Garreg Mach is the only one who can afford the real deal.”  She’d answered as though she could read Byleth’s thoughts, or could at least perceive something in Byleth that she thought was inaudible.  Yet, somehow, that was not the most disturbing thing Shamir had said.

They send children to fight in real battles?  And so…

“Yes.  We’ve found a nest of bandits.  It’s our job to keep them in the area.  To thin their numbers for a ‘proper test environment’.”  With the energy of a person describing their day at work, Shamir recounted the terrible truth of the academy at Garreg Mach.  “It’s got to be the right environment for their first blood.  Wouldn’t want them going home and depriving the Church of their family’s sponsorships.”

Her role was that of the psychopomp.  To ferry souls towards the Underworld… 

Unsavory indeed.  It was no small wonder the Church asked this of its lessers.  A knight’s luster dims in the face of such adversity.  Or, at the very least…

It should.

Chapter Text

Storms had a habit of stirring things that were not meant to be seen.  Churned up, once buried - now laid bare for penetrating eyes to ascertain.  And from the perch where she sat - with the raging river pouring out its rage beneath her - as she stared down at the unforgiving waters, she could see the twisted things unleashed by this torrent.

Byleth’s having a bad month.

Coursing rapids, in tandem with winds a-howling, screamed into the air.  Who else scream’d back but the harried?  Her hunters, her foes.

On her heels had they rushed, and had they come moments before this tempest’s outcry; they might’ve had her.  Nature, unlike man, does not wait.  Sure as rain, Byleth’s ticket to safety came wrapped in a cloud wreathed by thunder.  A broken dam.  Trapped in the middle of a storm, with mercs and bandits alike after her - how’d things gone so wrong?

But of course, she’s an elda.  So, was it really that hard to explain?

{ ~ }

3 weeks prior.

Badump.  THUNK.  Her head knocked into the side of the wagon as it rolled unsteady over grounds well-trod.  Rude to wake a girl so suddenly, but it wasn’t as though anyone had done it on purpose.  This time, at least.  She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and peered at the low Sun that crested over the hills.  Eyes so bleary from the ill-held rest, she could scant make out just where in the heavens the Sun laid, but she could tell at the least that it hadn’t been long since she set her head down.  It was never a good idea to ride into business on less than half a night of sleep, yet beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she was of a class meant to beg from the beggars.  Any scrap of slumber she could eke out here would be a mercy, not a promise.

Nary moments after she stirred, Sothis flittered up to her side.  None of the others in the cart made any notice of her.  “We should almost be there - smack the exhaustion out of yourself before we arrive.  These mercenaries might be less organized than the Knights, but half of them have been glaring daggers into you since we joined up.  I imagine the only reason you’re still here and not laying face down in a roadside ditch somewhere is by the sheer value of your recommendation - from Jeralt and from Shamir both.”

Byleth’s brows dug in.  The corners of her mouth shaped themselves into the slightest downward bend, and her bottom lip jutted out ever so slightly.  Mild motions that few could fully track - Sothis, however, knew her well enough.  “You’re a grown woman.  Knock it off.”

“Okay, grandma.”  She murmured to herself.

The man to her left jolted, the ears atop his head twitching upright.  “The Hell’d you just say?”

“Oh.”  Byleth blinked at him, her expression flattening out entirely.  “Sorry.  I just woke up.  You know how it is.”

He stared at her for a few upsettingly long seconds.  His lips were flat, his brow flat, and he’d leaned in to observe her face.  Then, a nod.  “Yeah… ain’t that the gospel truth.  With all them Sanctist preachings, you’d expect them to put in a word about neck pain after sleepin’ weird, but I guess God’s grace includes cricks and cracks, eh?”  

She side-eyed him for a few seconds as an awkward silence settled between them both.  He coughed into his fist and leaned away, giving her as much space as she could get in this wagon - like it wasn’t packed like a can of sardines in the first place.  This little fishie knew full well she couldn’t wait for the moment she didn’t have to bump shoulders with the big and the smelly.  Of course, who expected servants to actually be bathed?  Or to bathe themselves?  ‘Twas a hassle sustained only for the shining hussars that yet paraded around the academy’s grounds - a show of pride meant to light the path forward for the students the Sanctists intended to guide.  Heavens forefend the Sanctist care about those just beyond God’s Light.  

Truly, she bemoaned her fate to be crowded by men who knew not the difference between a scraper and a scalpel.  Of the oils most essential to hygiene, these men only knew of the oil to fill their lanterns with.

She shared the bench with a square shouldered roussiante to her right and a squat paripus to her left.  To her glee, the roussiante was not as dirty as the sellswords in the rest of the van - though she pondered at why.  Perhaps he was of a higher class?  That would align with how he dressed.  The deep green may have been a more down to earth, inexpensive color to dye cloth in, but the coat he wore was of a decently fine make.  He did not don much armor, but what he did wear (mostly in defense of his chest, legs, and upper arms) was of a decidedly high quality.  The over the shoulder, collared half-cape bore floral designs.  A cut out at his pit was found in the front and the back, dividing said cloak into multiple segments, and the innermost segment on both sides, front and back, also bore this three petaled flower design.  Though his face was square and broad, his brown hair practical and his beard short and simple, his attempt to look naught but like an ordinary soldier had failed.

Byleth had him clocked the moment she knew he didn’t stink.  The rest had been evidence in favor of that point.  Then she realized he was looking at her.  Maybe he’d stared awhile, having recognized that she was practically reading him like a novel.  

“Ah… er… Well, hello there.  Why’re ye looking so fierce at my face?  Did I do something to offend, miss?”  He offered straightforward politeness in the face of the land’s claimed enemy.  Either he was a kind soul, or he knew how to act.  Kindness, a rarity, was assumed to be missing.

So she backed off, shrinking back in her seat.  “No.  I was…”  A lie from her was no different than a truth, what with how monotone her voice was.  “Admiring the color of your greatcoat.”

“Aye, were ye?  The colors of the Martira guard have always been a favorite of mine, but maybe that’s my bias barking louder than my sense.”  Martira, then?  Byleth had heard of it, though she’d never been.  It was a town in the rundown Hrym territory of Adrestia, practically on the border between the heartland and Leicester.  As the years had progressed, fewer and fewer reasons could be found for actually going that way instead of passing over the Myrddin Bridge to enter the Ordelia family’s lands due north of the border.  

A queer thought entered her mind.  What is a Martira guardsman doing in a mercenary caravan?  She tilted her head at him like some kind of hound.  

He stared down at her for a few agonizing seconds.  “Oh!  I suppose my being here is a wee bit strange.  Apologies.  But if it means anything to ye, I’m not taking any of the reward money ye get for this job.  Nae, I’ve come for other pressing causes.  I took this work out of necessity… it’s the least I could do for yer Captain, Shamir.  As Guard Commander of Martira, it’d be untoward of me to do anything less, else it could shame the already diminished renown of my fair home.”

She nodded at that.  Not that she followed his reasoning, but it was a fair enough explanation for his presence in this pack of miscreants.  If anything, she was glad to have a fully blown Commander on this ride.  That’s not to say mercenaries are unreliable, but she’d always take the command of a trained leader over the command of a sellsword.  Their pay, at least, was more reliably sourced.  

The wagons came to a sudden stop.  Byleth’s head bounced off of the Martiran’s big shoulder, and he somehow found a way to apologize for it.  One of the mercs at the mouth of the cart waved for the rest of them to get up and follow him, and follow they did.  Byleth was the second to last to leap out of the back, the guardsman at her rear.  She waited just a second, as from atop this small perch, she was given a slight bit of a better vantage over their surroundings.  They’d ridden for a week, resting each night.  Each stop had seen them pick up new wagons, supplies, and reinforcements.  What had started as a ride with just five mercenaries and two drivers, had then grown into a fully blown company of mercs.  She had pondered exactly why they needed these kinds of numbers, but upon viewing their rather severe environs, she had come to understand the rationale.

Enbarr was ensorcelled in rolling hills, with lush woodlands and wide open plains rendering it a rather lush and pleasant territory to be in.  That was the profile of most of Imperial Hresvelg.  So leaving the heartland for what they’d landed in?  It was a shock.

Byleth had never seen mountains so tall.  Drops so steep.  They rested upon the banks of an old river, and as its historic range dug deeper into the craggy terrain, she felt her breath hitch at watching the dips and gulfs that awaited them.  It was an odd place for any other kind of work than mining and well…  She already could see the shadows where to hide, the peaks in which to scout out an approaching foe, and the valleys and back paths to flee into - nigh impossible to be chased within.  A mental note was made right then.  If things turned foul, she at least had the inklings of an escape strategy.

“Some of you have been with me for a couple seasons.  The others?  You’re going to learn.”  Shamir marched ahead of their caravan, kneeling down to overlook the valley ravine to the north of them.  “This is the mouth of a sacred location.  The Sanctifex prefers it uninhabited.  Normally, we’d be tasked with smoking them out.  But…”

She gestured at her second.  A Clemar in shining white armor - he was clearly a Knight of the Order of Saint Seiros.  His hair was slicked back, a lone bang hanging over his face as though it was a replacement for personality.  Indeed, if not for that, he’d’ve looked the part of any ordinary jackbooted thug.  With terrible facial hair, to boot.  Yet, he was quick to change this rather dour first impression, as a broad grin crossed his broad face - and he rather exuberantly began his speech.  “You all have a very important duty!  To make sure there’s not too deep of a valley between the peaks of knowledge and skill in this brotherhood, I will be explaining your job.  To all of you.”  

He’s telling terrible jokes, and of course, only Byleth can hear the fairy laugh.  Just her luck.  The loudmouth continued, pounding a gauntlet over his barrel-chest.  “Hahah!  You’ve got to be clever for this canyon foe.  There’s a batch of ruthless brigands that have taken to raiding this here stretch of mountains.  Harassing pilgrims and shepherds alike - it’s our turn to lead these lambs to slaughter.  Yet, it isn’t your job to fight.  You’re to be the shepherds for this ill flock.  Shamir and Captain Bardon -,” He then gestured towards the tall roussiante, “- Will lead the effort in harassing these dastards into the kill zone.  From there, you will hold them in place.  This mission has a deadline, of course.  As the semester began last week, we have three weeks until the first exam.  This exam will be the first battle for many of our students - it’s a vital learning experience for the future officers of this country.  Therefore, you will be compensated greatly for your service.  I understand if you may have a mountain list of concerns, but if you do this for the Church, you might never have to worry for another job again.  I am Alois of the Order of Saint Seiros.  You can trust my word.”

“So, are there any questions?”

{ ~ }

The question and answer segment hadn’t quite finished by the time the Sun dipped below the horizon.  When Alois started to cough out answers, Shamir forcefully dragged him away by the ear, leaving a bunch of shit-eating fools to go and bug each other instead of the woefully kind man that chose to answer questions such as ‘What if I fart and the echo startles the bandits, I can’t help that sound carries out here’ and ‘Do you think they’d just go along with it if we asked them to play dead’.  

Byleth meandered away from the group, amongst others, during the time.  Not to speak or to mingle, but to observe.  Sothis sat on her shoulder and pointed people out for her as she watched, waited.  There were at least 16 of them.  Maybe 17 or 18 if a handful had been dispatched to scout ahead.  The paripus of the company were easy to pick out.  The ears of horses and hounds, of cats and cattle.  They were bestial in look - yet not bestial in truth.  But people are people, and to see the similarity is to often judge the similarity.  She saw some without pointed ears and fancy horns.  They must have been nidia; lesser to the clemar and those most like the clemar, as they are seen as liars by nature, but Byleth cared little for such things.  Bardon, the captain, was the only roussiante in their company.  Of the clemar, Alois and one other were a very short number.  No ishkia, no rhoag.  One mustari, in Shamir… and one elda, in her.  She pondered if the two that Sothis had claimed to be present were eugief.  It would explain why she couldn’t pick them out.  So small, so able to hide in shadow…

Sothis tugged at her ear.  Byleth glanced sidewards in the direction of the pull, towards a pair of paripus commiserating next to one of the wagons.  He slumped against the side of it.  His arms moved rather limply as he shrugged at a question she hadn’t heard.  Still, it had to be worth hearing this gossip.

“Whatever it is, I don’t like the job.”  He rubbed at the scruff around his chin.  “The type of word that comes from out yonder…”

His friend tracked the motion of his hand towards the more steep set of cliffs off in the distance.  The man continued.  “Yeah, there.  Them’s the Oghma Mountains.  Naturally, they form the border for a lot of Faerghus and the Heartland, and Leicester sidles up next to ‘em all comfortable like too.  So you’d figure that we’d know more about the heart of the country, yeah?  Well… and don’t repeat this to no Sanctists if you wanna keep your skin.”

“They say it’s ‘coz we just haven’t explored up there.  But who’d believe that, really?  The flock’ll believe anything, I s’pose, but…” He rubbed at his nose.  “One of my ol’ Captains said to me that one of his first employers - think he were the old lord of Hrym before the insurrection - said that the Varley owned this here stretch of land.  But they had to give it up… near a thousand years ago.”

It’d been nearly one thousand years since the foundation of the Adrestian Empire.  His friend snorted.  “Can’t believe ya’ believe all that, Vigo.  Don’t get me wrong, now, I got reasons to doubt the Church just like you do… just… that’s so long ago.”

“Yeah, yeah.  That’s why I told you not to bring it up to no churchmen.”  The paripus flicked his horse-like ear and scrunched up his nose.

But his friend seemed to be curious enough to push the point, as he leaned in and re-engaged.  “It’s a good question to ask, though.  I figure the center of this Empire’d be something mighty interesting to just about any group that’s come and gone since anyone started livin’ out here.  How do we not know?  Augh… now you’ve got me thinkin’ about it.”

“I’m curious.”  The two paripus almost jumped high enough to touch the firmament.  They had not noticed the silent insertion of an elda between them, and so to hear her monotone voice was a major shock.  She hadn’t the grace to wait for them to recover.  “I am a traveler and I do not know the history of this land well.  This rumor - how much of it is truthful?”

One of the pairpus held his chest (likely to still his racing heart) while the other regarded her with a narrowed stare.  He drew his mouth tight - likely to guard his expression in case he was being studied by a member of the Church’s inquisition.  Yet, his eyes widened.  Her eyes weren’t special.  Her ears were round.  She had no horns, and her complexion was not like clay or stone.  Elda.  The paripus’s ears unflattened and he straightened up.  “Guess an elda would like to know, huh.  Well…”

He brushed his hair back and then held that pose.  “Official history’s pretty clear.  The mountains’re treacherous, but they’re also sacred ground.  So there’s never been much of a reason for anyone to chart them out.  The Sanctist version of things says that the mountains were where Saint Seiros received her first vision of God.  These mountains used to be where her people dwelled - before they were attacked by the enemies of the faith.  So, reason we can’t do nothin’ is because ‘it’s too hard’ and also because we’d be insulting the Saint by messin’ with the ghosts of her people.  But that’s what they say.  They also say that your people are practically demons, and that mine are dirty hedonists.  So.”

His friend coughed into his fist.  “Right!  Believe what you can!”

“I see.”  She nodded.  “Thank you.”

And like that, she was gone.  The two paripus were left confused and moderately unnerved, but they forgot it soon enough.  Campfire songs and boozy stories drowned those feelings fast.

Thought provoking.  Their job was in relatively uncharted territory.  It seemed rather odd, didn’t it, that the Church would be so willing to ignore long standing dogma for the sake of a test for their students.  Sothis flittered down.  Byleth had stuck her finger and her thumb against her chin.  Her eyes pointed up and to the right.  

“Gossip’s something that’s always worth listening to.”  Sothis piped up.  “Seeing that you’ve put on your ‘I’m thinking’ face, I can tell that this piece of information was worth listening in on.”

Byleth sighed and shook her head.  The absolute audacity of this tulip-tall girl.  “Try not to make it a habit.  There’s reasons that people say that fairies steal socks.  Always floating in places you shouldn't be.”

“I do not!  But you can learn so much from a person's wardr- I'm not making a good case for myself...”  Sothis shrunk backwards.

“Nevermind your disinterest in privacy.  The Church is very careful about what evidence it omits when it comes to history.  Bringing so many children and sellswords out into mountains that are supposed to both be forbidden and uncharted makes me question the second part.”  Byleth looked down at Sothis, meeting the fairy’s eyes with a surprising intensity.  “What do you think they have us out here doing?  What did these bandits do?  Are they even bandits?”

“Good question!  But remember: you’re not a detective.  Your only task here is to do a good job and live to tell the story.  If you think it’s important enough to push, then we’ll push, but until then?  Cool your momentum.  You already normally look like your head is lost in the clouds.  We don’t want to lose sight of you in the fog completely, now.”  Sothis may scold, but her words were wise.  The last thing Byleth needed was to gain the wrong kind of attention.  If the Church caught wind of her snooping into their lost history, into the possible lies of their constructed narratives, then Byleth may share the fate of those consumed by the fires of yore.  She wanted their trust - and if not trust - then she’d settle for a steady employer.  She wouldn’t get that by barking up this tree.

But she had to keep it in mind.  She wouldn’t forget this feeling of doubt.

They made camp for the night.  Three weeks was a pretty tight deadline for a whole pack of bandits in poorly mapped terrain, but there was no point in kicking things off while everyone was so dead tired from days on the road.

Byleth rested on her lonesome, her back to the ground, with her eyes trained on the stars above.  Her lodestar - the Blue Sea Star - was a brilliant light in a tapestry of glittery pinpricks.  Though the words of man were ever uncertain, one thing had remained true.  The night sky.

She did not know, yet, that this peaceful night was no ordinary omen for the times to come.  There was always quiet before the thunder rolled in.

Her racing thoughts kept her awake.  The lack of sleep did not disturb her, at least, as she kept operating throughout the witching hours.  Her novel took up her thoughts.  It was an odd book, not like any in the rest of the country, as this land forbade philosophy - for God provided man His wit, and so why should man question God’s will?  To question God through these profane texts was to blaspheme against Him.  Yet, hidden in the fantasy novel bound in spun gold at her hip, was something more profound than a simple fable.

It told a tale of two men.  Apollo and Dionysus.  Brothers, they share in purpose and in duty to the people.  The world within this text desired great thoughts and even greater men to shepherd the uncountable masses.  History was not defined by raw chaos, nor by iconic order, rather by the vigorous dialectic.  In Apollo was a dreaming soul, he sought ideals and virtues beyond the physical pale.  And in his brother, in Dionysus, was the rather galling physical real.  Apollo was a mage king, a healer, a lord bathed in solar delight.  And his brother was a dark, mundane creature - distant to the high mind of his sibling, yet still a lord of the ground.  

The story told between the brothers began with their father, of course.  Zeus had a unifying vision for the world - yet chaos ever reigned.  His efforts to impose a lasting order would always shatter and break beneath the weight of ‘Typhon’, this roiling shadow, this King of Monsters.  Zeus, the King of Men, could do nothing when Typhon appeared again.  Nothing but wait and weather the rain.  

The mother?  She was gone before the fable could document her name - her’s was a voice yet fleeting, and somehow it still reached her sons.  The father’s death, his grief at failing to unify the world, led his sons to stand at opposite sides.

How could they save the world from the shadow?  Imposed order?  Embraced chaos?  

Sothis yawned and opened a lone eye.  “You’re still awake?”

Illuminated by starlight, Byleth’s face turned the fae’s way.  She’d flipped onto her stomach, reading her novel in the dim light of the heavens above.  She nodded.

“That novel, again?”  She sighed.  Whatever thought had gone through her head, it was enough to stir her fully, getting the fairy to hover up and land on Byleth’s shoulder.  “Alright, what’s it about?  If it’s not interesting, I’m seriously going to start worrying that there’s not much going on up in there.”

Byleth pointed to the passage she was reading.  

Sothis began to read the passage out loud, “Apollo stood before his brother, disgusted by his vulgarity.  The barbarism of the Dionysian peoples had begun to stain the very ivory columns that their father had erected in ages past.  The kind, bright-eyed, and sunkissed son could not believe how far his brother had descended.  The spiritual health of their people would not survive this havoc.  ‘To what end do you suppose this is all for, brother?  This writhing throng of intoxication is not how a society is made.  We find no purpose nor any meaning within such disastrous clamor!’  Yet, Dionysus was unmoved.  From his velveteen throne, he supped from a gilded goblet, not even reacting to the person straddling his waist.”

“The bearded monarch, stained with his hedonistic efforts, rebuked his brother simply.  ‘My brother - you’d suppose that this world has meaning?  Yet, whenever our father dared try and construct meaning, the beast would come and consume his flock.  Each new beginning was merely another meal for the dogs. To indulge is to be human.  We are not victims of our base natures - we are freed by them!’  And so they continued to argue into the night, neither man willing to cede his ground.”

Sothis hummed.  “I can see both of their points.  Apollo’s got it right - society can’t be built out of an orgy.  But is Dionysus so wrong to desire chaos?  Fairies live a long time, see.  And we’ve witnessed the rise and fall of so many civilizations.  It’s to the point we barely can tell them apart.  Your lives are so short and chaotic.  It’s always felt so… sad to me.  To see you passionately strive for these ideals, only to die so young.  And where do those ideals go?  They fade.  Sometimes they die with you.”

“Apollo’s order is not wrong, but for ordinary people, Dionysus provides an escape from a very cruel world.”  She stroked her chin.  “I can see why the Church has this book banned.  It’s not only questioning the will of God by interrogating the mind, but it’s outright questioning imposed order.”

“Thanks for sharing, can I read - hey wait!  How long ago did you fall asleep?  Byleth Eisner!  You wake up right this instant to turn these pages!  Ugh… it’s no use.  Sleep well, you dolt.”  And like that, Sothis flittered from her companion’s shoulder, and went back to sleep.  Byleth was going to awaken with a wicked neck cramp.

‘An interesting story.  It is so different to the one that I penned, yet so similar.  I must wonder, then, if the author of this fable will play a role like I did?’

‘Two dichotomies are formed within this text.  Perhaps they are mirrors of each other - still, they cast a steep shadow over this Seeker’s story.  Such a curious fantasy…”

Upon the morning sun’s arrival - such thoughts may continue.  But the traveler and her fae companion must rest.  And so, they shall.

Chapter Text

Week one of the mission in the Iron Hills.

O’Sun, how ye swelter.

Cloud-scarce in heights so towering, the mountains and slopes they crawled alongside dispersed the pillowy blanket that oft covered the angry Sun’s solar rays.   Indeed, though it was only Spring-time, the Heartland’s weather was a fickle beast - especially so close to the Faerghus border.  A cold deluge of wind and weather sprinkled down the western slopes.  From here, from the eastward approach, all travelers sat in a shadow.  And in a mountain’s shadow did rain rarely fall.  Dry as dry can be.  With the Sun unbothered by the towering peaks, it left aught but a fiery path for the ones who’d come to clamber up these here dry banks.

Sweat glistened across her brow as she stopped in her efforts.  Peering o’er the side of the hillock her group was climbing up, Byleth could not help but boggle at just how severe this landscape truly was.  These dry hills were so stark - with white rock and arid, cracked dirt forming most of the footing.  There were scattered, sparse embankments of squat scrubs and bent trees that occasionally broke through.  The rare dabs of green on an otherwise monochrome page.  And here they were, the sunburnt splotches of reddened skin on the mount.  So small on the slopes.  Practically specks of dirt on the monument to the ages - the mountains on high.  She had felt small before.  Of course she had.  Having been to Enbarr, having seen the Regalith Grand Cathedral; it had a way of making one feel miniature.  Like a porcelain figurine on a collector’s shelf.  One of many, so small and so fragile.  This landscape, however, had a way of even reducing the Regalith to mundanity.  As hard as man had toiled, he still could not yet reach the true heights of natural splendor.  Humbling, if not equally terrifying.

She thought for a moment about how it may seem to the fairy in her satchel.  For one as small as that, perhaps the mountains matched the scale of the world.  

The hike paused as the head of the group, the towering figure that was Elphas Bardon, stopped and brought his hand up high.  “This should be a good place to break.  Let’s try to be up and at ‘em within the next hour.  We have a lot of terrain to cover, so it would do us right and proper to be smart with our stamina.”

She swept the sweat from her brow and sat where she stopped.  Gladdened to have packed a waterskin in advance, she watched some of the mercs balk at the prospects of climbing more of the mountain.  Then she caught a green glow in the corner of her eye.  Someone was out and about.  

Sothis lingered over the stones, peering at what looked like nothing.  She supposed that even a fairy could have hobbies.

But, of course, Sothis flew over to her and made a few faces.  Byleth’s inquisitive streak could not be smothered.  And so she had to ask, “What’s wro-”

“Rephrase the question like you’re asking it to yourself.”  Sothis was sharp at cutting her off.  “I’d rather stay mostly a secret from them.  They can’t see me so long as I don’t want them to, but the last thing we need is them either thinking you’re crazy or assuming that you’re talking to someone they can’t see.”

Harsh, but fair.  Byleth still winced.  She recovered fast, however, and rephrased, “Something’s wrong with the rocks?”

“That’s good.”  Sothis nodded and turned her attention back to the stones.  “Nothing’s wrong with them, per say, I’m just… reminded of what this used to be.  The mountain used to be coated in snow.  From the tallest peaks would streams of melt-water flow, and they bore stones from on high, carried down low.  Water trickled through these stones for centuries, perhaps millennia.  To see this face silent, not to mention navigable by foot, is… shocking.  The river below is silent, and all her tributaries are dead.”

“Hm.  Hard stones eroded by glacial melt-water.”  She picked up and studied one of these rocks.  They were banded, very hard, pale grey stones, with an almost glassy, grainy surface.  “Good for tools.”

“Your ancestors climbed these mountains to make axes, spear tips, and arrowheads from the rock.  But now…”  Sothis stared off into the direction of the dead river’s source.  “You bar the course.  I’m going to blame you for the area’s changing climate, too.  No reason.  I’m just upset.”

“We barred the river?”  Byleth followed Sothis’ gaze.

“You did.  You won’t see it from her, but there’s a big dam that way.  The mountain range is the beginning of the Sanctist Holy Land, the rest of this area belongs to the Varleys.  The Varleys have been gradually building up downriver, and they grew tired of the regular flooding - plus they wanted extra land to grow grapes on.  There’s a lake up there now.”

And so, while the mountains themselves were far larger than what man could build, it was not as though man could not irrevocably change the lands around them. 

Enlightening.  

Sothis flittered back into Byleth’s satchel, as two other mercs had begun to approach.  It was to be expected.  Not only was she a curiosity, but she was a fellow blade in the company.  They were smart to try to meet her.  

It was the paripus named Vigo and another mercenary.  The second was a woman with big, glassy, bright blue eyes who regarded Byleth with a small smile.  A nidia, if Byleth remembered rightly.  Their eyes all looked so dreamlike.  Vigo rested his hands over his belt, his thumbs hung in the belt-loops.  “Say, elda.  What’re you yammering on about?  Ain’t nothing but the wind to hear ya’.”

“You never know.  They say the elda are cursed.  She could be speaking to dark spirits for all we know.”  The nidia woman squared her stance and kept her distance.

Vigo scoffed.  “The Church says that.”

“I don’t know any dark magic, if you’re asking.”  Byleth decided to be up front about it.  “I don’t even own an igniter.”

Vigo wordlessly pointed his eyebrows at the nidia mercenary, as though he was saying ‘see?’.   She rolled her eyes.  

Byleth wanted her to do it again.  The kaleidoscope of colors was mesmerizing… She snapped out of that errant thought.  “But to answer your initial question: I was curious about the terrain.  It would seem that runoff trickled down the surface of this mountain, and it presumably met a river that no longer flows.  We’ll be here awhile.  Though the mountain seems dry now, should it rain while we’re here… we’d best be prepared to lose a few days.  There will be no way to navigate it should a downpour come.”

“Hm.”  Vigo nodded his head a few times.  “Hm, mhm.  Seems like sound reasoning.  You suppose we should bring it to the Captain?”

“Go ahead.  I want to study the landscape a little more.”  She waved them off as though they were buzzing beetles, and not the very sapient company that they were.  And yet, she did not seem to notice, and if she had - it was as though she did not care.  Could anyone blame her?  She hadn’t come to know these people.  Whether a compassionate spark was concealed within her or not, few could exactly expect her to immediately acknowledge these people.

Or perhaps that was what she was telling herself, or what she’d naturally come to believe.  In spite of the awe of the mountains around her, in the grandeur of nature’s peerless supremacy over the deeds of the enlightened races ambling in its shade, she had somewhat emulated the apathy of the monolith.  Stark and iconic.

She did not see Vigo flip his middle finger at her.  She did not notice the nidia sticking her tongue out at her.  They were beyond her sight, and well beyond her care.

Byleth returned to her study of the mountain, though she gleaned little else on her own.  Sothis had likely retreated to the satchel, or had possibly flown off to observe things on her own, leaving Byleth to her own devices.  It… was not so bad.  After seeing much of the same as she’d discerned before, she found a nest of stones around a mountain stream.  And within it was another solitary being.  Unbowed by trust, unbothered by the lack thereof.

A frog.  It rested in the shallow pool, with an almost dazzling light splayed across its slimy skin by the sunlight reflected from the water.  The minerals within had likely given the water the sparkle and shine that now illuminated the amphibian.  It lazily blinked, one eyelid at a time, and regarded her with the sort of tepid calm that most animals provided.  Hopefully, if it did not move, the predator in its vicinity would pay it no mind.  But to the outside observer, it looked serene.  Comfortable in its niche, unafraid or uncaring of the events around it.  Byleth knelt down and continued to stare at it.  An itch filled her fingers - what if… No.  That’d be unkind.  But…

She prodded it.  It shifted beneath this unwelcome contact.  The frog’s skin bounced back from her touch, with the feeling of wet skin and the mucus coating following her previously dry fingertip.  How scintillating.  This truly would be a -

“Stop playing with that frog.”  Byleth peered up to see Sothis, halo’d by the sun, glaring down at her.  Her hands on her hips, her brow drawn into a deep scowl.  Byleth looked back down, only for the frog to have run off into places unseen.  Her lower lip slightly jutted out in response. 

She absentmindedly stirred her finger in the water.  “You scared it away.”

“I did not.  You already did enough work terrorizing the thing, I just gave it space to flee,” the fairy retorted.

Byleth clearly disagreed.  “It seemed fairly calm.  Its natural predators are avian in nature.  Your wings must have been what startled it.”  

“Bah.  You’re as much of a wall as that dam…”  Sothis shook her head.  “I flew ahead to take a look at things.  Your group probably doesn’t know it yet, but I think I know where the bandits have holed up.  They’re by the dam.”

Byleth’s right eyebrow lifted at the suggestion.  “By the dam?  Wouldn’t the local guardsmen have stepped in by now if that were true?”

“The dam’s old, at least from the perspective of the tribes.  It’s as much a natural feature as the river that it holds back.  Who cares to patrol it?  Nobody’s going to destroy it, it’s not really a strong defense for Varley territory, and nobody really travels over it for the sake of trade.  There’s frankly little need to have any kind of guard up there, aside from the one or two who sleep in the guardhouse.  The bandits can operate pretty freely over there.  It gives them a lot of cover, and there’re a few caves and natural depressions hewn out of the riverbed that make for a pretty solid camping ground.”  Sothis nodded.  “With all the safety it gives them, they probably overlooked the fact that they’re backed up against an actual wall.”

“So it’d be easy to funnel them in?”  Byleth began to stroke her chin.

Sothis nodded once again.  “I’d say so.  I can’t say how deep or how extensive the riverside caves are, nor can I comment on their numbers, but if you can keep them from fleeing the dry riverbed, and funnel them towards the dam’s wall - they’d have nowhere to go.”

“I’ll bring it up to Shamir.”  Byleth stood up from her crouching position.  Her frown remained after not being able to see the frog even from her higher vantage point.  “And thank you.”

“W-what?  Oh, it was uh… it was no trouble.  You’re welcome.”  Sothis seemed genuinely taken aback by such a simple ‘thank you’.  Was gratitude so unbecoming of her?

No time to interrogate that.  Byleth was off.  She hoped that Shamir was at their camping site, and that her captain hadn’t run off to surveil the terrain personally - but that had been a hope well beyond hope.  Shamir was nowhere to be seen.  Instead, that Alois fellow sat at a table, playing cards with Bardon.  

Neither man was winning, somehow.  Their decks were emptying out, their foreheads were tensed up, and their eyes darted across their hands - unsure how to take the next step.

Had they been at it all day?  Byleth approached.  “I bring news.”

“Not now - I must hand it to you, Bardon, you’re a powerful opponent indeed!  Never in my days have I faced such fierce competition!”  Alois’s voice made Byleth wince a little.  So loud…

Bardon glanced up for a second.  “Ah, really?  Ye treat me well, Alois.  I’m but a newcomer, yet ye’ve given me quite the bally chance to take a victory.”

“May I begin…?”  She waited, if not out of politeness, but out of the desire to retain her paycheck.

“No, no!  It can wait.  Ahah!  If I use this Piercing Vesp card, I can take out your Treasure Card by ignoring the barrier put up by your State Sorcerer!  Thus, your army will lose much of its attacking power, for without your treasury, your men lack the vigor to carry on!  Haha!”  Alois slammed the card down.

But Bardon didn’t seem afraid, indeed - a smirk broke across his face.  He turned the Treasure Card around, revealing its true face.  A Treasure Mimic.  He had two Treasure Cards active, but only one was real!  “Ye’ve activated my trap monster.  My mimic now returns all the damage dealt by your Piercing Vesp to any target of my choosing… And I choose your Commander!”

“What!?  No!  I can only take one more direct attack…” Alois begins to furiously sweat.  He double and triple checks his hand - and then he yelped as Byleth slammed her hands into the table.

Their cards go flying.  The game was decided in one fell blow.  The victor: Byleth.

“What’s gotten into -”  Alois turned on her.

“Aye, what’s yer problem?”  Bardon shouldered his way in.

“I know where the target is located.”  She cut through their anger like a scythe through grain.  Both men staggered to their feet.

“Are ye positive?”  Bardon went first.

Alois, lagging behind, stammered out his question next, “Are you su-” He recognized that Bardon said what he said and recalculated mid sentence, “Ahem.  What I mean to say is, are they nearby?  You found them awfully fast.”

A good point.  Sothis could fly over the mountains and travel in a fraction of the time it took for anyone to go by foot.  Indeed, that was what she had already done.  It’d likely take Byleth days to travel to the lower parts of the valley – something that had taken Sothis a matter of hours.  She had to consider her next words, then.  She didn’t have a spyglass… but she could lie about that.  Who’d care, anyways?  “I questioned the value of searching the mountains.  The terrain isn’t conducive for much.  We’re lucky we got here while it was dry.  Should it rain, we’d be stranded up here.  And so, I studied the lower parts of the valley.  Lacking the means to traverse it rapidly, I used a spyglass, and that way I was able to scan distances that’d take days to reach otherwise.  Motion in the lower valley, met by the figures of men, as well as the glint of light from their metallic weaponry - it is an answer, I suppose.”

“You suppose so, eh?”  Alois stroked his chin and approached her, and he gave her a rather scrutinizing look.  Hells.  While Bardon had been accommodating, he had no reasonable cause to act a certain way towards Byleth.  They were mercenaries, after all.  You win no favors here by reasserting the social hierarchy.  But this knight?  He had every reason to remind her of her place on the totem pole.  Buried beneath it.  He stopped a few steps ahead of her.  Maybe half a meter, maximum.  “It sounds worth looking into, wouldn’t you say, Elphas?”

Who?  What?  Bardon then spoke with his usual honest cadence, “I’d reckon, aye.  There’s no reason to dilly-dally - to tarry now would be to keep these lands trapped in the shadow of fear.  The last thing the pious folk of Varley need is a bogeyman to keep them trapped in their homes like frightened lambs in their pens.”

Bardon was Elphas.  Noted.  Bardon was his surname, not his given name.  Byleth was waiting for the shoe to drop.  These two had what they wanted, now it was their turn to cut her out of it.  They’d take the glory, the money, and keep her out of it. 

She’d made a mistake.  She should’ve kept this to -

Alois and Bardon both walked past her.  Alois didn’t offer a second look, but a hand on her shoulder stirred her from her thoughts.  The tall roussiante looked down at her with a warm smile, though his face remained somewhat taut.  Tension.  Could she trust this smile?  He would have to prove that.  Though, he started from a decent place, at the very least.   “Ah, sorry, right.  Ye probably should come with us.  I got a little ahead of myself - too excited, ye know?  Pinning these scoundrels down is my first and highest priority, so to hear that we might already have them?  It’s meaningful stuff.”

She was silent, but she held eye contact with him.  Words escaped her.  So, she relied on the oldest trick in the book and… nodded.  A single, stoic nod.

Affirmation enough.  Bardon clapped her on the shoulder once more and shoved off.  He lightly jogged to catch up to Alois; somehow, he hadn’t noticed that nobody was following him.

But Byleth did not walk to meet them.  She stood in a silent… confusion.  Confusion would be the best way to put it.  There was such a stark difference between Alois’s reaction and that of the other knights she’d encountered yet that had left her lurching.  This man; what had he planned for her?  Was he truly blind to the differences between them?  That couldn’t be true.  It was doctrine -  nay - DOGMA to them!  ‘Tis a blind man who did not know the signs.  ‘Tis a deaf man who ignored his heart’s cries.  ‘Tis a fool of a man indeed who trusts the deeds of the Knights of Seiros.

She approached Alois and Bardon with caution in her measured step.   She stood two paces behind them as they reached a sort of plinth, where the knight then retrieved a horn from his hip and blew into it.  One long note was all he sounded out, likely because the mercenaries lacked the knowledge of standard horn-blowing signals.  If there was even a standard… Byleth rubbed at her neck as she considered that.

It kept her mind busy – long enough that, by the time she finally looked up, the mercenaries had already gathered.  Shamir stood in the center of their throng.  Her icy stare focused on her, not on Alois.  Curious, if a smidge intimidating.

Byleth rubbed at her knuckles while she watched the gathering.  

Alois cleared his throat.  “Sorry for the abrupt callback, but it’s my firm belief that we’ve got good intel.  There’s no need for us to waste the rest of this day bouldering, if you catch my drift.”  He smiled at the assembly.  “Our quarry has backed up against the dam in the lower valley.  The mercenary who spotted this, Byleth, will take it from here.”

He knew her name?  She hadn’t said… Ah, he probably read the dispatch.  Smart man.  He had a bit of an airheaded energy to him, but he was decently perceptive despite that.  Perhaps he was more than the standard type of blowhard that lined the ranks of the white-coats.  Only perhaps… right.  She should probably start talking.  They were staring at her like she had two heads.  Frankly, she might as well have two heads.  It’d be a little less mysterious than being the only elda most of them had ever seen.  If not all of them.  She couldn’t discount the possibility that the only elda that existed lived in the Sanctum.  

“The riverbed seems like a strange place to camp, but you will understand why I’ve come to this conclusion after I explain it.”  Byleth did well to project her voice.  She needed this to be well-understood, and so she made sure her voice was clear and pitched up.  “We are in the dry season.  And since the source of the river has been cut off from the rest of it by the old dam, what was once mud has been baked by the Sun into a hardy, sedimentary ravine.  The ground will be tough and walkable.  You can bring carriages through it without little pause.  Horses, other beasts of burden; men, as well, will find it easy to pass through.  But these walls provide them cover.  The dips and bends of the old riverbed, eroded by the waters that once flowed over top, offer natural fortifications and hiding places for the entrenched.  With the dam behind them, nobody can sneak up on them.  Indeed, a strike from the high embankments would be a fool’s endeavor without the proper engineering.”

“They have all routes covered.  Their number is mysterious, as well, due to the difficulty of the terrain.  There could be any number of places they could conceal the scale of their operation, both men and materials hidden in caches along the dry banks.  We have one advantage.  They have nowhere to run.  They cannot escape through us, nor can they scale the embankments, and the dam behind them bars their path entirely.”  She closed out with a nod, never having broken eye contact with Shamir.  

There was a shout from the back.  She recognized the voice, maybe.  “Hey!  That was our information to share!  Thieving elda!”

Byleth broke eye contact with Shamir to see who it was.  Lo and behold, the nidia girl had parted the crowd a little bit by crying out.  Vigo stood at her side, and she shared a long, potentially agonizing look with the paripus.  Something flashed through his eyes.  Was it guilt or shame?  Neither mattered, as he joined the cry.  “That’s right!  We all scaled that mountain.  Here she is, trying to take the credit!”

The other mercenaries grumbled or said some things that should go unrepeated.  Words that stung worse than that of the sting of a vesp.  Bardon put his arms out and started to call for quiet, and Alois?  He looked at her.  She expected scorn, but all she received was… a frown.  His brows were drawn down, and this downcast expression caught her so off guard that she briefly forgot the volley of black arrows currently being slung at her heart.  He steeled his expression after a moment and pushed in front of her and Bardon.  “Where the information comes from does not matter!”

The crowd disagreed somewhat.  The clemar and roussiante were keen on pointing out that the information came from ‘thieves, liars, and heretics’ (pairpus, nidia, and elda) and some other harsh things.  The others barked out their own mixed feelings, lost to the clamorous wave of discontent.  

“What matters,” Alois continued without a misstep, “Is that we can do our jobs!”  He then looked back for a second, catching her eye.  There was a glitter to his stare.  He turned back to the mercs.  “It seems rather simple, doesn’t it?  Our enemy has holed up in defensible terrain, and so they’re going to make us work for our goal, but our goal is well within sight!  Chase away your ill sediments , my companions, and get prepared to fight in that riverbed.  We begin in the morning!  If that’s okay with you…”

He looked squarely in the eyes of the mustari in the middle — she who led this entire endeavor.  Shamir was silent for a beat, but she nodded.  A small smirk formed on her lips.  “Well played... You heard the man.  Break for the evening.  Rest up, we’ll be up and at it in the early morning.  Soon as the Sun rises, if you’re lucky.”

“Break!”

The crowd dispersed eagerly.  They wanted to sleep, they wanted to get paid.  There’s no reason to stick around and trade barbs with your leaders.

Byleth was slow to leave the plinth.  Indeed, by the end of it, it was just her, Alois, Shamir, and Bardon.  Well, Sothis too.  The fairy had remained silent throughout the whole ordeal, but it wasn’t exactly her place to interfere in these proceedings.

She clenched her fists, though not out of anger, but so that she could feel like she had a grip on something.  Her read of Alois had been all wrong, or had it?  She couldn’t tell anymore.  She never had been able to tell.  He hadn’t defended her, but he hadn’t admonished her.  Not a second of hesitation.  He had taken her word.

“Why?”  She broke the quiet.  The three stragglers all looked at her.

“Why what?”  Alois turned to face her fully.  He stroked his strange facial hair, as though he had a handlebar mustache, but cut out the part that was on his lips and glued the rest to his cheeks.  

“Why did you…” Her words trailed off.  She hadn’t the ability to enunciate her feelings, not with the mire in her mind.

Alois looked down for a moment.  His smile faded, and his expression grew hard to read.  His brows were neutral, his lips drawn into no particular shape.  Though his cheeks definitely seemed to puff out, just a smidge.  Perhaps he was thinking.  No matter, he broke the pause in conversation soon enough.  “I have no reason to doubt you.”

“But why?”  She felt her heart flutter.  What an odd sensation.  It was like water was being poured through the cracks of a dry riverbed.  Brief cold splashes through what was cracked and dead.

He shook his head, and soon enough, he cracked a massive smile.  Bright.  Boisterous.  Full of light and life.  He put a hand against his heart.  “You came recommended.  To doubt my old Captain would break my conviction entirely!  Plus, my heart tells me that you’re an honest sort.  Even if what you say or do isn’t fully honest, you aren’t a duplicitous soul — you act in the name of a goal bigger than yourself.  I can see it in you.  The way you conduct yourself… there’s so much confidence.  You never seem to doubt your actions.  While I know that the Church that I serve says quite a bit about you Elda… I don’t think it’s fair to cast aspersions upon an entire people just because of what a few priests have said.”

She misread him because she could not trust, deep within her still heart, that someone like a Knight of Seiros could be kind to her.

And so she had no answer.  No retort, no smart comeback nor witty comment.  Just the silent.  Her silence born of the gap of her knowledge and of the truth of this situation.

They were destined to be her comrades.  Her few companions on this Earth of beleaguered faith.  Cold hearts and frozen minds did not thaw overnight, not by sentiment nor by passionate words.  But in the hands of the chosen few would the scripture of a new faith be written.  Perhaps the old faith would be rewritten.  

Byleth felt, just now, that she was being viewed in an equal light.  By Bardon, the humble country captain.  By Shamir, the resilient warrior chameleon.  And by the most surprising of all, Alois — the white coat with a golden heart.

They’d believe her, even if none else did.  She’d carry this with her into the coming days.  Invigorated, her heart full.