Chapter Text
Garreg Mach, 1190
From the windows overlooking the grassy courtyard, Edelgard could almost imagine herself there. Young, eyes focused on a future only she could see. A future that hadn’t quite come to be. The chatter of students below met her ears—indistinct words spoken in joyful tones, heedless to everything but the small world around them.
Perhaps once, she could have been like them.
An ache settled in her bones, and Edelgard clenched her fingers into the stone window panes. She’d always anticipated the possibility of her death before her life’s work was finished. Even so, it felt much too soon. When the pain faded, she opened her eyes. The students had gone.
Perched atop the edge of a cliff, the ever-watchful Goddess Tower stood immortal. Reproachful, even, mocking her in her failure and knowing it would stand among those summits long after she was gone. A monument to everything she sought to change. Though to Edelgard’s mind, it wasn’t so simple. It was there that her parents had fallen in love. It was there she stood once the monastery had fallen, her banners raised high from that very tower in victory. It was there she had met with Claude and Dimitri in tentative parley, the war between them at an end, and a new war to begin.
She had told them what little she assumed they would need, and kept the rest secret. Nothing of her own past was necessary to eliminate those who had inflicted it upon her.
The sound of church bells broke the reverie. Behind her, the unhurried tap of footsteps alerted her to another presence in the hall.
“Your Majesty.”
Edelgard turned. “Hanneman. It’s been quite some time.”
“Indeed,” Hanneman said, digging through his pockets for the keys to his laboratory before opening the door and gesturing for her to enter. The heavy sound of the door shutting behind them echoed through that room, barring them from the outside world. The sound of the church bells faded to nothing.
The room fell silent as Edelgard seated herself and Hanneman gathered a teapot, warming it with a faint fire spell. Deep lines that hadn’t been there the year before creased his brow, dark circles under his eyes betraying his exhaustion. Despite it, his hand remained as steady as ever as he poured two cups and extended one towards her.
“Tell me,” she began, accepting the tea he offered her, even if she had no intent to drink it, “how have your studies been progressing?”
Hanneman’s expression shifted to that same vibrant curiosity he’d worn all those years ago, and seated himself across from her. “The archives you’d given me were quite informative. Though the morality of the procedures detailed there were… questionable, at best.”
Questionable. A more charitable word than she would have used. “Is that so?” she asked, toneless.
“Indeed. Nevertheless, the insights they offered were helpful. How did you—?”
“How I came across those records is not important. What is important is their value to you.”
“And they most certainly were valuable,” he said, pausing to sip his tea. “It was as though hundreds of years of research had been poured into them.”
That likely wasn’t far from the truth. Now, those hundreds of years spent with the intent to destroy humanity had been used for its benefit. How Thales would have loathed the thought.
“They’ve yielded rather encouraging results. Dare I say they may have guided me towards the answers I’ve sought for all of these years,” Hanneman continued. For such a strong declaration, he seemed rather composed.
Her breath hitched. “Oh?”
“Not directly, mind you, but with how thorough these records were, Lysithea and I were able to make conjectures on other methods for the transfer of Crests. Aside from the ones outlined in your documents, that is,” he elaborated, pulling a few of the reports from his desk to hand over to her. His neat handwriting bled into the margins of the papers, Lysithea’s less elegant penmanship alongside it, as though in conversation with his notes.
“And how is she?” Edelgard asked. She could feel her expression soften.
“Quite well, actually,” he hummed. “With our research, we may have found a means to restore her lifespan. I try to keep a level head about such things, but it is a rather exceptional finding. I’m certain you would agree.”
The handle of the teacup snapped in her fingers, and she set it on the plate. “You mean to say you’ve removed her Crests?”
“Indeed. We’ve kept such matters to ourselves for the time being, but we do hope to come forward with our findings when it is appropriate,” Hanneman said, and placed his own cup aside on his desk. “We wish to be certain of its efficacy first.”
The room fell silent. With little more than a handful of papers, those unfair institutions set by the nobility fell away to nothing.
“So, you’ve done it.” Words far too simple to convey the depth of it, but the only ones she could find in that moment.
“What matters now is that my sister can finally rest peacefully,” Hanneman sighed, hiding the flicker of emotion in his gaze under the guise of cleaning his monocle. “What use would my research be if I could not spare others her fate?”
Words scraped at her throat, yet she could not find the means to voice them.
“There is still much to be done, and I doubt I will live to see the true scope of the changes it will bring, but I am pleased to know my studies have been worthwhile,” Hanneman continued, taking the papers from between her fingers. She could only hope he did not see them trembling.
Whatever storm that raged within her drowned out Hanneman’s voice as he began discussing at length about the methods and science of it all. How little of it she could comprehend beyond the thud of her heartbeat in her ears.
A cure. To request it would be to offer a glimpse of that most fragile part of herself; the part long guarded by armor, defended by axe and will. To request it would be to reclaim what was lost. Or perhaps she merely wished it could be so. Her past, her path, those could not be changed. Even so, the shackles placed by her captors would be cast aside. The Crest of Flames, the symbol of a false divinity, would burn.
One breath. Another. Steady.
“Hanneman,” Edelgard began, once more the composed Emperor. “I have something I wish to ask of you.”