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He looked so different. He was taller, broader and world-weary. Stronger, now. No longer the teenager who looked to her for guidance, but instead a man who had been forced to set his own path and walk it alone.
Even as he smiled and passed her what meagre offerings of food he had brought with him, she could see the wariness in his looks, the tension in his shoulders as he tried to make sense of her. Though he never admitted it, knowing that she had been missing for five years while there had been witnesses to her fall over the edge, it would have been strange if he hadn't thought her dead.
Maybe she had been. It wouldn’t have been the first time it had happened, but he didn’t know that.
“You were really sleeping this whole time?” He finally broached as he brushed the crumbs off his lap.
She pulled at damp strands of hair that clung stubbornly to her neck and answered with a shrug, “I don’t know. I woke up downstream, snorting water, and then I came here. When the villager who pulled me out told me five years had passed, I thought he was the mad one.”
He still looked like he was hesitant to believe her, but he had probably conceded that like all other mysteries in her life if she couldn’t verbalize an answer then she probably didn’t know it either.
Their food finished, he’d egged her on to help him pick off some bandits and scavengers that had been ransacking the monastery. It was easy to fall into old habits, planning strategies as they scoped out the area, only Claude’s tactics were more refined and thought out, and the wyvern was definitely new.
They’d been in the middle of a skirmish when she heard a feminine voice squeal from behind her, and she couldn’t keep the shock from her face as she saw a flash of pink hair and heard the strike of an axe hitting armour. She simply stood there dumbfounded, as her ex-student felled the man and turned on the spot to face her, barely breaking a sweat.
“Hey, professor! Glad to see you’re not dead after all,” Hilda smiled, relaxing into her stance with easy grace, “Would have been nice if you told us a couple of years ago though.”
“Hilda!”
Hilda turned again to point a finger at Claude, high in the air, “And don’t think I want to kick your ass when we’re done here, running off like you did.”
Around a rubbled corner, Lorenz and Leonie appeared, the shock and surprise written on their faces when they realised just who was in front of them. Hilda waved her hand in a flourish at the new arrivals.
"I figured I had to save Claude's dumb ass when he ran off from the Alliance round table, so I decided to bring some reinforcements," Hilda declared triumphantly, hands on her hips, "I think this class reunion is already turning out better than expected!"
Just like Claude, the rest of her class had also changed and grown. Lorenz had grown out his ridiculous haircut to look slightly less ridiculous, Raphael was even bigger than before - as if that was even possible, even Ignatz and Marianne - both seemed to have found a certain confidence that had not been there before.
If there had ever been any doubt in her mind, it was gone now.
When the bandits had been dealt with, her old class stood around her, barraging her with questions all at once that she could barely hear one over the other. At her stunned silence, they quietened, but not before Ignatz grinned and pumped his fist in the air.
“But boy, Professor, have we missed you!”
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Byleth stared out at the mountains that crowned over the scenery before her. Even now, it was hard for her to reconcile the ruins of the monastery with the memories in her head. Yet the mountains and the trees remained the same, constant despite the history that had come to pass without her knowledge.
“Penny for your thoughts, my friend?” Claude’s voice echoed from beside her, and she turned to look at him leaning against the stone wall of the bridge with that feigned casualness he had so perfected. She wondered how long he had been standing there while she had been lost in her own thoughts.
“I think that’s too high a price to pay,” She replied grimly.
Undeterred, he tried again, “Then perhaps you’d just like the company?”
“The company...would be nice, thank you,” She turned back to the view over the bridge, watching as a wyvern rider passed overhead. For a while, Claude seemed happy to enjoy the scenery beside her in silence, yet from the corner of her eye, she could see him fidgeting away.
So it didn’t surprise her when Claude cleared his throat conspicuously, ending the comfortable silence that had fallen and drawing her attention to him. He looked sheepish as he pulled something from the inner swathes of his clothes and held it out to her.
“I think I held onto this a little too long,” He admitted.
Byleth took the old, worn book from him and turned it over in her hands. To think he had held onto Jeralt’s diary all these years, even when he had no hope of ever meeting her again. She looked back up to find him with his face turned away in guilt.
“Thank you,” She said, surprised, “I didn’t expect to ever see it again.”
“I shouldn’t have taken it from you, to begin with. I was young and I was only thinking for myself. I’ve had enough years to reflect on that, now,” He replied, his eyes doleful. When she looked back down at the book in her hands and skimmed the pages, barely reading her father’s familiar handwriting, she thought back to the headstone she left flowers at every chance she got.
“There’s a dog, by my dad’s grave.” She said softly, abruptly, “It’s always there when I visit, rain or shine.”
Claude’s expression changed in surprise, and he stepped in closer as if she was sharing a great secret, “That is curious. Jeralt didn’t have a dog?”
Byleth shook her head. They’d never had pets when they had been travelling mercenaries, and she doubted he would have adopted one before he…
She would have known.
“I know it's silly, but I keep thinking it’s some kind of sign. I just have no idea what it’s trying to say to me.”
Claude looked thoughtful as he mulled over his response, “I’ve read that in some other cultures, people believe they have their own...spirit animals, of a sort. They help to guide them through life and times of difficulty. While I’ve never heard of them taking a physical form, if it helps you to think of it that way, then I don’t see any harm in it.”
“You think Jeralt sent me a spirit animal?” She asked, unconvinced.
“ I don’t think anything,” Claude shrugged, “But that’s not how faith works. It’s what you choose to believe in, and whether it gives you peace to believe in it.”
“What if it’s not a sign, but an omen instead? After everything that’s occurred, I can’t stop myself thinking that none of this would have happened if I had never come here. If Jeralt had just turned tail and I had left with him."
"These plans were set into motion well before you came to the monastery for the first time. Whatever history that has come to pass, you were never the cause," Claude reached out to rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder, leaving Byleth acutely aware of the warmth he possessed in his body.
Byleth stroked her thumb across the worn leather, "Wasn't I? What if I'd never been born, or if Rhea never intervened and I simply died? Would that have changed things?"
"If not you, it would have been another baby. If not Edelgard, it would have been some other angry noble,” Claude disagreed, taking another small step into her space. It felt like a mile.
“And… I'm kinda glad it was you. I don't know if I would want to see the dawn of a new world with someone else."
She remained silent, unconvinced that things were as black and white as he painted it. Still, a small part of her was happy that she was still surrounded by the only friends she had ever really known. Claude’s hand dropped from her shoulder and he stepped away, and Byleth suppressed a shiver that coursed through her from the sudden chill.
“I’m leaving tomorrow with Lorenz to start negotiations with the Alliance. Having Judith on our side is a boon, but our forces are still nothing compared to the empire. If we don’t build support, we’ll be crushed”
He smirked, and there was a softness in his gaze as he looked at her.
“Will you miss me, Teach?”
She rolled her eyes at him and he laughed, but inside she felt her heart flutter in a way it only did around Claude. It made her think of the ring sitting in her desk drawer, untouched for half a decade.
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Capturing the great bridge of Myrddin was the first solid win they had made in this war, solidifying their position as a contender against the empire. When the last enemy fell their army cheered in victory, yet Byleth could only focus on her own breathing, trembling through her chest.
She had killed Ferdinand. There had been no convincing him, so strong was his devotion to his duty, and she knew that there was no other way.
And yet…
Byleth knew this would not be the last time she would be forced to face her past students sitting on the other side of this war. The thought left her wheezing and light-headed. As she walked past the crowds, searching for any familiar faces in the distance, she started to see stars spark in her vision.
Was this a panic attack, she wondered as she propped herself up against a wall and tried to keep her breathing as deep as possible. The stitch in her side was throbbing more insistently, and she pressed her hand against it to relieve the tension in the muscle only to find her armour dripping wet.
She lifted her hand up to her face and saw the scarlet print painted upon it, unable to comprehend what she was looking at.
Then the world turned and spun and went black.
When she woke sometime later, it was to the roof of a makeshift tent and Manuela’s busy fussing around her.
“Oh, you’re awake. That’s good,” She paused for the barest seconds before she shook her head and continued, “It would have been more polite to have told someone you’d been impaled during the battle before you, y’know, died. ”
“It was just a flesh wound,” She said meekly. Manuela’s arched brow and pursed lips told her that she disagreed.
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Manuela rolled her eyes in exasperation, "It's a wonder you stayed upright as long as you did."
The older woman gently pulled up the wadding covering her ribs and cleaned the wound, though all that was left of it was ruddy, fresh skin.
“Even I’m impressed with how well I’ve managed to patch you up. You’ll have a nasty bruise and the skin will be tender, but once you’ve had some food and your body has replaced some of the blood you lost you should be right as rain,” She tutted.
“Claude’s holding the debriefing right now, but I suggest that you go and get some rest. Whatever they plan next, it can wait until tomorrow,” Manuela suggested as she handed her shirt back to her and left her to get redressed.
When Byleth stood to leave the infirmary Manuela called out to her one last time from her position over another wounded soldier.
“And Byleth? Try not to get yourself killed again. If you died, I'm not sure I would be the figurehead this army needs. Or wants. ”
Later, when she had been shown to her assigned room within the freshly cleared out fortress, she was awoken from her slumber by a loud knock at her door.
Claude stood there, crowding out the doorway with his very presence. His eyes, usually vibrant with life, stared back at her with a storminess she hadn’t ever seen before.
“Claude?” She queried gently.
“What were you thinking, letting him get that close to you?” He threw back as he shouldered his way into her room. Byleth let him pass through with only a curious look.
“What do you mean?”
“Ferdinand. You let him close, even though you knew he couldn’t be swayed. You wasted precious time pleading with him like you could change the future and you can’t, ” He hissed through his teeth, while she simply stood there watching him pace like a caged beast.
“You nearly got yourself killed-”
“It wasn’t that dire-”
“ Killed, Byleth, because you hesitated,” He stared at her, his mouth drawn into a frown, “There’s no hesitation in war.”
Words dried up on her tongue as she listened to him, knowing deep down that he was right. Yet as she looked at the visage of the man in front of her, the panic thinly veiled behind the tension in his shoulders, the nervous energy in his hands that ran through his mussed hair or the way his eyes kept straying downwards as if he expected her to collapse in front of him at any moment, she thought that perhaps the pedestal he had placed her upon was a little too high.
“The war doesn’t end just because one person dies, Claude.”
His eyes snapped back up to hers and suddenly she found herself being crowded back against the heavy door. His gloved hands came up to cradle her head in their grip, and Byleth breathed in the warm scents of pine and spices that always seemed to cloud her judgement when she smelled them.
“No, it doesn’t, but I can’t bear - I can’t,” Claude’s eyes squeezed shut as he pressed in further, his forehead hot against her own, “I can’t lose you. I swore I would see this world become a better place for everyone, but I don’t think I can do that without you.”
“Of course you can. I know you, Claude. If anyone’s going to see their dreams come to fruition, it’s you,” She smiled up at him, even as his expression became more pinched at her words. She reached up to grasp his elbow through the softness of his sleeve, silently begging him to open his eyes and just look at her.
“It’s not worth it if you’re not by my side to see it,” He whispered in a small, broken voice she had never heard from him before.
She opened her mouth to refute him but stopped on a breath as he opened his eyes to look at her like he was seeing straight into her soul.
“Claude…”
Byleth gasped as his lips pressed to hers, took the advantage she had given him in her surprise and delved deeper, his teeth pulling at her bottom lip as if he could transfer his thoughts and feelings to her through the action.
He choked on a moan when she kissed him back.
His fingers reached back to tangle in the strands of her hair as his other hand moved south, mapping her spine until he curled his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. Out of his armour and regalia, she could feel the hard planes of his body as it pressed into the soft curves of hers.
His fingers clenched briefly and she squirmed as he pressed uncomfortably against her freshly healed wound. Claude picked up on her discomfort and almost immediately the delicious pressure of his body left hers as he stepped back.
“I’m sorry, this is inappropriate,” He looked away, clearing his throat, “You’re convalescing.”
The flush of embarrassment across his cheeks was charming, Byleth thought to herself. The way he kept glancing her way told her she must have looked quite similar.
“I’m not dying, Claude,” She pushed forward into his personal space again. She reached up and gave a playful tug at his cravat.
“Life is for the living, isn’t it?” She asked as she looked up into his eyes, watching patiently.
When they kissed a second time, it was with gentle patience that shadowed the desperation they felt.
It felt perfect.
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Claude returned to the Alliance for further negotiations, with Lorenz in tow to bolster their support. Their successes in the battle of Gronder had solidified their power in Fodlan, bringing them one step closer to putting an end to the empire’s tyranny.
But it was not without losses, she thought to herself. Seeing Dimitri again, a bare shell of the boy she had known, had twisted in her gut. When Hilda had recounted what she had witnessed, she'd been tempted to turn back time to save him. Deep in her heart, she had known it would have been futile, if not completely reckless, to do so, but it didn't stop the what if's from rolling around inside her mind.
War was senseless, regardless of what the reasons and motivations behind it were.
The meetings in the cardinal’s room were decidedly subdued as everyone mulled over the events that had come to pass, and the two most vocal members of the council were missing.
Hilda was also missing.
When the meetings were done, or rather postponed for a brighter day, Byleth sought her out. Byleth had never known her to be particularly pious, so she was surprised to find the pink-haired girl sitting in the pews of the ruined cathedral, her hands drawn together as if in prayer.
Byleth sat down beside her, and Hilda looked up with a small smile.
"How are you holding up?" She asked gently.
"Barely,” Hilda shrugged. There was a long silence before she spoke again.
"I know it's silly, but seeing Dimitri die like that… it made it all real. Before I could just pretend because I didn't know who I was fighting, and I just needed to survive. But fighting my old friends…"
“I know,” Byleth closed her eyes on a sigh, “It doesn’t get any easier from here.”
“I just find it so strange that I’m parading in a war with a man I once thought of as a complete stranger.”
“Claude was always a bit of a mystery back in the academy,” Byleth agreed, “But I thought he was only distant with me. The two of you were always scheming at the back of the class.”
“Sure, we got along, but I didn’t know him. I mean, I knew as much about him as I did about you Professor. Which is to say, not much,” Hilda turned to her with a pointed look, but it softened on impact, “When he showed up at the academy none of us had ever met him before. Sure, we’d all heard that Duke Riegan had an heir that turned up out of nowhere and our parents had seen him at the round tables, but it was all kinda hush-hush. My brother just told me to play nice, so that’s what I did.”
“Lorenz had some pretty strong opinions of him,” Byleth brought her hand to her mouth, covering up a snigger.
"Lorenz was meant to be house leader that year, but Claude came and stripped him of his title. That’s why he used to nag at Claude all the time about proper nobility and all that," Hilda giggled.
"Claude kept his distance from everyone, even if he did his best to pretend that distance didn't exist. But I've watched him grow into the leader he is today, made sure he didn’t kill himself while you were...gone. I wouldn't want anyone else to be heading our army, and with you by his side, we're practically unstoppable."
"It just sucks that we got to this point, y'know? I wish we could go back. I miss it. I miss just being me."
"Yeah, I do too."
Hilda sprung up and reached over and took her hand in hers, the leather of her gloves luxuriant and butter soft. She swung theirs between them and smiled through her own sadness.
"Enough of that sad stuff. Let's get to the dining hall before Raphael eats all the rations again."
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Fort Mercius had been a close call, no matter how victorious they had been. If it had not been for the Death Knight’s curious actions, every single one of them would have been dead and buried, and there was no turning back from that. It was little surprise that everyone was on edge as they returned to Garreg Mach to recoup and consider their next plan of action, with eyes looking to the sky, waiting for another javelin of light to fall and end them all.
The tense atmosphere in the cardinal’s room was cloying as they planned their attack on Enbarr, to the point of distraction. Byleth nearly missed her own surprise as she watched Hilda reach out and clasp her hand over Lorenz’ in a tremulous grip, or the fact that Felix didn’t even attempt to remove Sylvain’s offending hand from his shoulder. When they finally called it quits, the sun had already set and everyone left to slake their anxiety in their own personal vices.
That was just the way of war.
So when a familiar knock echoed through her room a little past midnight, Byleth was unsurprised to find Claude standing there, dressed down for the night and his own fears barely hidden behind his smile. Byleth beckoned him in, feeling the familiarity of this setting as she closed the door behind him.
“We could have all died, just like that. A blink of an eye and it would have been all over,” He turned to look at her, suddenly grave, “It would have all been for nothing.”
Byleth thought back on all the times she had seen her students die before her, had seen Claude die. Whether the death was silent and quick, or vicious and slow, they were images she would never forget. Still, she decided to voice the one sentence she told herself every time, words Sothis had spoken to her the first time it had happened.
“There’s no point in dwelling on what could have happened. We should focus on what did happen, instead.”
Claude hummed softly in response.
“Life is for the living, right?” Claude asked, tremulous, echoing words she had spoken to him, once.
She swallowed down the nervousness she felt and stepped into his space. He didn’t reach for her, he also put up no protests when she spread her palms out over his chest, feeling the heat of his body and the beat of his heart. Her fingers curled around the loose neck of his shirt, seeking skin, “Be alive with me tonight?”
His eyes, such a vibrant green, scanned across her face for confirmation, and she hoped that she displayed her emotions as strongly as she could.
They danced to a choreography only they knew as they mapped their way from the door to her bed, a heated reinterpretation of the dance they had shared in a ballroom a lifetime ago. Claude was quick to pull her chemise over her head, leaving her bare except for her pants.
The calluses that had he’d worn into his fingers from a bowstring tickled as he traced the shape of her body with them, leaving goosebumps in their wake. His touch was so delicate and gentle it felt reverent, and when his hands finally settled in the dip of her waist she took the initiative to pull his undershirt over his head.
Just like her, his body had become battle-hardened by the necessity of war, his dark skin marred by pink scars. Some were faded and old, while others were still fresh and puckered, like a painting of all the close calls and risky strategies.
Byleth watched as her hand combed through the dark hair on his chest, marvelling at the contrast between the colours of their skin. She followed it down, mapping the contours of his chest and abdomen, watching avidly as his muscles flinched under her touch. When her hand travelled further south, his own came up to grip her risk and pull her away.
“While I like where this is going,” He said, his voice lower than she had ever heard it, “I’d like to take my time on this memory.”
He pushed her down on the bed and followed her down onto it.
Byleth lost herself to the hot pleasure that unfurled inside her as he mapped her body with his mouth, gasping when he suckled at her nipples and moaning when his tongue traced the edge of her underwear. Like most things in their relationship, Claude seemed intent to tease every little reaction he could out of her.
Her frustration reached a paramount when he leaned back up and caged her between his arms, languid and in control and fully content to abuse her neck with his wanting mouth. With a huff, she pushed him over and clambered over his reclined body, and she liked how the look of surprise complimented the flush on his cheeks.
It was a scramble to remove the last of their clothes after that, and when she settled herself onto his thighs, finally, finally connected, she couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that passed her lips.
Byleth revelled in the feel of his hands clenching into her thighs as she rocked above him, cherished the way his voice became strained with each vocalisation of her name, of devotion, of…
“ Oh, fuck!”
He sat up and wound both of his arms around her back, and as she continued to move his chest hair brushed her sensitive nipples, causing little sparks of lightning to shoot through her core and meet with the furnace inside her that sparked each time she rocked forward and brushed her centre against his pelvis.
“I need you,” He panted against her neck, peppering it with wet kisses, “Need you so much. You can’t leave me. Promise me, promise me…”
“ Claude ,” She gasped into his hair.
When they lay side by side, spent, Byleth traced her finger in patterns across his chest, feeling the pitter-patter of his pulse just below the surface.
“If I died tomorrow, would you miss me?” He asked out loud, the question captured in the darkness.
“Don’t say things like that,” She muttered into his shoulder.
“It’s just...it could happen. To me. To you. To any of our friends.”
“I know.”
And I’ll change it every time that it does.
“I guess I just want to know that the future we’ve been building towards,” He paused, and she heard him swallow even as he squeezed her tighter to his side, “I want to know that will still happen, even if I never get to see it.”
“We’ll see it together, I promise.”
“You can’t promise those things.”
“Watch me.”
“I think I’m starting to rub off on you.”
“Oh, is that what you did? I’m not sure that’s what it felt like.”
With a growl, Claude rolled them over and trapped her underneath his body. She squirmed halfheartedly as she tried to fend off the giggles bubbling up in her chest.
He nipped playfully at her neck and she gasped.
“Do I need to give you another demonstration?” He whispered in her ear, his voice cheeky.
“It might be beneficial...to my...studies.”
Any further thoughts Byleth had were soon drowned out by the heat and shallow moans and the softest of sighs, but before they did, she couldn’t help thinking that they made quite the pair.
Just two outsiders, forging their own path to the future they wanted to see.
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The dust in the air glittered like diamonds when it hit the light of the moon that peaked through the tears in her curtains.
She couldn’t sleep that night, kept up by her own thoughts. They’d nearly lost Ignatz in the last battle, though no one else ever knew that. Yet she had seen the arrow piercing through his neck, watched him gasp on empty air as he collapsed to one knee. She had watched as she had rewound time and screamed at him to duck and the arrow clipped his hair instead.
She wouldn’t trade a single one of her student’s lives for Edelgard’s, it had not even been a choice for her to make.
And yet...
She’d seen countless deaths and twisted time to prevent them many times before, but it was tonight that the images continued to replay inside her mind every time she closed her eyes. Perhaps it was because the end was so close she could almost taste it. Or maybe it was because the end was only ever the beginning.
“When we’ve killed Nemesis, and the war is finally over, will you come with me?' His voice asked from over her shoulder. Hushed as though the moon itself was listening in.
It surprised her how easy it had been to hide the evolution of their relationship. Claude’s tactical mind and ability to evade difficult situations had its applications when it came to sneaking around the monastery for spare moments of time, and if anyone noticed that Byleth kept the window to her rooms open at all times, no one had questioned it.
Well, Hilda might have noticed, but if Byleth knew her like she thought she did she knew any information she held would be kept for blackmail material as she required it.
“Where are you going?” She asked back. Claude’s lips pressed against the skin of her shoulder.
“Wherever. I want to see the world,” He finally answered, though the words meant little as he mumbled them against her skin. His hand clenched briefly at her hip. Was he nervous, she wondered?
She decided to humour him, “Maybe we could go to Brigid? Visit Petra, when everything’s settled. Or maybe Morfis? I’d love to try the plums fresh for once.”
He hummed in response, and his hand stroked up her side, leaving goosebumps in his wake until his arm was snuggly wrapped around her middle. He pulled her torso back towards his, and she closed her eyes to the moon as she tried to focus on his warmth instead.
“I was thinking of Almyra, actually.”
Byleth’s eyes flew open.
“I want to explore the open plains on horseback and traverse the great deserts. I want to fight magnificent beasts and celebrate the challenge. I want to try the food and see the culture for what it really is, not what the people of Fodlan think it is. I want to find every hidden treasure in the capital city, and I want to do it… I want to do it with you, Byleth,” Claude’s voice wavered as he finished.
“I want to do that too,” She admitted softly, “But I think I need to help Fodlan first.”
Claude was silent behind her for a long while, to the point she wasn’t sure if she would hear his reply. Instead, she felt the tip of his nose trace a path from the base of her neck and into her hair. He sighed as if the world held him down.
“Will you miss me?”
Byleth reached up and weaved her fingers through his, holding their joined hands to her chest. When she flexed her fingers, he squeezed back.
“Always.”
Byleth wondered when Claude would come clean with the secrets he kept so thinly veiled from her before she decided that it didn’t matter.
She had her own secrets to keep.
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Nemesis had barely settled back into the dust when the world that they knew began to spin in an uproar. Treaties were signed and agreements were made in a whirlwind of politicking that Byleth barely understood. Before long, she was being pitched for the new head of state for a united Fodlan.
It was terrifying.
Lorenz had promised to show her the ropes of the political world, and Hilda told her she was welcome at the locket whenever she felt like she needed to escape. Ignatz was already mixing pigments in preparation of her royal portrait. It made her happy to know her ex-students were truly her friends and would be there for her every step of the way. Yet the one person most important to her was absent from these plans.
“The Queen of the United Kingdom of Fodlan, huh,” Claude’s voice called out from behind her, and she turned to see him standing bright in the light of the sun, “I gotta admit, it’s got a nice ring to it.”
“It should have been you,” Byleth sighed as she stepped back from the window and towards the man that had changed her life.
“Nah, it was always going to be you,” He grinned, reaching out to take her hand, his thumb stroking over the gold bracelet he had once gifted her, “I’ve got other plans I need to see finished anyway.”
“As you’ve always said,” She was saddened by the prospect, if not a little confused.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Where does it end, for you? If Fodlan was never the end goal, then what is?” She asked, her frustration at his constant evasion bubbling over.
He looked grim as he stepped closer to her, his head bent low, ready to speak words meant only for her ears, “Fodlan wasn’t the end goal, no. First, I need to return to my homeland and do what I can to reform it from the inside. When I’ve done that, with you on this side we’ll be able to split open Fodlan’s Locket and allow the free passage of trade, of culture and acceptance to occur. I can’t stop until I’ve seen it done.”
Fodlan’s Locket…
“Almyra,” Byleth murmured out loud, her suspicions finally confirmed.
He smiled, “Yeah. I’ve got some connections to the royal family there, insignificant as they are. It gives me a few strings to pull while achieving my goals.”
Byleth stepped further into him, resting her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. She wondered if this would be the last time she felt his warmth before he left. How long would it be until she felt it again?
“There’s something I want to give you, before I leave,” He spoke against the top of her head. When she looked up, he had already pulled his arm back to squeeze it between the two of them, a ring pinched between his fingers.
“Claude…”
“Think of it as a promise. That one day we’ll be able to travel the world together and see the work we’ve achieved with our own eyes, and I’ll never have to leave your side again,” Claude threaded the ring onto her proffered finger, and the emerald gleamed in the sunlight in a facsimile of the way his eyes did.
To think, she’d have to look at a stone to remember that.
“Will you miss me?” Byleth asked with a sad smile, echoing the words he had asked of her time and again. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye when he answered.
“Like the moon misses the sun.”
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Byleth had expected unrest. Fodlan's status quo had been turned on its head, and it was understandable for the people to be concerned or even disgruntled. She'd made it her priority to help rebuild the lives of those most afflicted by the war, but it stretched their resources thin.
"Your Majesty, the imperial loyalists have breached the city walls and it looks like they’ve brought some friends," Lorenz entered the debriefing room, where Byleth had been stuck trying to find a solution.
"Our troops are all across Fodlan helping with the rehabilitation project. Our battalions are low. They've come at our weakest point," Byleth grimaced.
"The best course of action right now is to get you out of the city, your Majesty. You are the figurehead of our new country. One defeat will not crush us," He reasoned.
Byleth closed her eyes, her hands turning to fists on the desk. She knew he was right, that she was no longer just a number in an army but now a figurehead for a country to look up to. Still, if they could evacuate who they could before they escaped themselves…
She glanced over at the sword of the creator, which has sat dormant in her office for months.
“No, let’s face them. Show them that we won’t be so easily defeated. We can’t win, but if we can make an impact before we evacuate it might send a message to these loyalists,” She reached for the sword and headed out the door to get fitted in her armour.
“Are you sure? This seems like a needless risk,” Lorenz followed after her.
“Who knows? Maybe we should pray for a miracle.”
“I- Professor… I will follow your instructions.”
“Get everyone ready, and send the message to the townspeople to leave. We face them now.”
The battle was brutal, their army small in comparison to their enemies, and the survivors of the fall of Shambhala were skilled in magic that was unknown to most. Byleth was quick to use her powers to test and strategise each move to it’s most effective, but it quickly left her exhausted.
“Your Majesty- Byleth- We need to leave, now,” Lorenz pushed as his hand came up to grasp her arm.
“I know, I know. Do we have evacuation numbers?” She asked as she observed a skirmish that broke out down the street.
“Not enough. But we don’t have the time to worry about the numbers n-”
Screeches filled the air, first one and then several, until they reached an impressive volume. Byleth clasped her hands over her ears as Lorenz turned to gape at the sky.
“What-”
A cloud of wyvern passed over them, their screeching called echoed by the battle cries bellowed by their riders. A wave of arrows rained down after, slaughtering the imperialists with expert precision.
“Claude!” Byleth cried out and pulled herself from Lorenz’ grasp.
“We keep fighting! We can win this!”
The battle was won, with the forces of Fodlan and Almyra combined, and the imperialists and those that slithered in the dark were driven back once more to assert the dominance of Fodlan’s new ruling system. When all was said and done, Byleth weaved through the crowds of settled Wyvern, looking for a very specific one she’d only captured glimpses of before.
Yet when she did, her legs turned to lead and she couldn’t move.
He was here.
Nader was here too, and when he spotted her he grinned behind his bushy beard and gestured out to the crowds of soldiers around them.
Nader raised his arms and called out to the crowd, joyously announcing his charge, "The people of Fodlan, I present to you the newly anointed King of Almyra!"
Claude dismounted his white wyvern, dressed to the nines in royal regalia from another land. He looked even more beautiful than she remembered, and when he flashed his cock-sure grin her way she couldn’t stop herself from running into his arms.
He gathered her up, pulling her tight as he spun them around on the spot.
When her feet were back on solid ground, she leaned back into his arms to get a better look at him. The Almyran sun had darkened his skin further, but he looked healthy and proud, and Byleth felt a wave of love flow through her as she looked into his beaming green eyes.
"You're such a liar. 'Insignificant connection to the royal family’ my ass, " She laughed through the tears that had sprung up, surprising even her.
"Hey, I like your ass," He grinned, and his hands made a not so discreet pass downwards, "and I'm hoping to get reacquainted with it, real soon."
“That’s rather inappropriate, you know. You’re referring to a queen now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Allow me to do it properly then,” He laughed and pulled back, her arms chasing his retreat.
She stood there, stunned when he got down on one knee, in front of their friends and armies, to the deafening cheers of all.
“I’d like to call in that promise I made to you now,” Claude said, his eyes shining bright, “So, Byleth, love of my life and the source of all my happiness, will you marry me? So we may get...reacquainted?”
Byleth tackled him to the ground.
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“I gotta say, even I was surprised when you said you’d picked the deer.”
Byleth looked up from her hands to turn a curious eye on Jeralt, who shrugged even as he remained attentive on the battalion reports he had rolled out on his desk.
“Don’t give me that look," He continued, "I just expected you to pick one of the other houses, considering how desperate the two royal brats were when they tried to recruit you to their causes.”
Jeralt was right of course. Even before they had arrived here at the monastery Dimitri and Edelgard had tried their best to butter her up for a role in their respective home armies. When Rhea had decided to ignore all advice and appoint her as a teacher, well…
“Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. Isn’t that what you said?” Byleth meekly replied with a half-hearted shrug.
Jeralt scoffed and shook his head, “Not exactly what I meant, kid.”
Byleth looked back down at her palms, where her calluses built from sword fighting had been rubbed raw by her absent thumb, and clenched her fingers into tight fists. Her tongue ran against the back of her teeth as she tried to sort her thoughts into a tangible sentence. Eventually, she settled on something with a sigh, “They’re just as lost as I am. I liked that. The other houses - there’s an order there that I don’t understand. I’m not - good. With order. With people.”
A rough hand dropped its weight onto her shoulder, causing her to lurch forward. When she looked up once more into Jeralt’s weather-beaten face, she saw the concern in his eyes even as he pulled a familiar smirk, “You’re good with people. People just aren’t good with you, that’s all.”
Byleth swallowed at the stone in her throat and nodded. Jeralt must have sensed the end of the conversation as her attention wavered once more, so he returned to the work he had spread out over his desk.
That left Byleth to repeat the last interaction she'd had with the leader of her chosen house over in her head, the calculating look in his eyes as he tried to size her up, and that cock-sure smile that never seemed quite genuine enough. A part of her wondered if her father was right, and she had chosen the wrong house.
"Don't worry yourself too much kid, it's just a class. And, who knows, maybe that Claude kid will be good for you. Bring you out of your shell a little bit. So you won’t miss your old man too much when I’m gone."
“I’ll always miss you.”
“Yeah, I know. But I still think it’s a good idea.”
Someone good for her, huh?
That… would be nice.