A sea of eternal darkness.

That's all she saw after she opened her eyes. The blackness of the bottomless pit that reached as far as the horizon. If there even was a horizon, the woman corrected herself.

Was this how death looked like?

Byleth made a few uncertain steps forward and looked around once more. What she saw nearly made her scream. A few steps away, there stood a little girl.

"Honestly!" the girl shouted in an irritated voice. There was no echo, Byleth noticed. "What are you accomplishing with that little stunt?!"

Her brows furrowed slightly. It wasn't everyday that she was being scolded by a child.

"What…?" said Byleth blankly.

"It's like you're trying to get me killed, you fool!" Having expected a more spectacular reaction than a wide-eyed stare, the girl raised her voice even further. "Hey! I'm talking to you. Are you even listening?"

Then, something clicked. Like two parts of a single mechanism or two pieces of the same puzzle. Byleth's memory offered her an answer to her question. One of the many more she'd been having at the moment.

"Sothis!"

She remembered now. Byleth knew this child. No, not a child − a goddess trapped in an ethereal body of a child. But this couldn't be her. She ceased to exist on the woman's eyes.

"Where am I?"

Sothis tilted her head, giving Byleth a stern but worried look.

"Aren't you acting a little weird? Don't worry, it's probably due to your near-death experience. Fortunately for you, I have stalled the flow of time for now. Had I not intervened, you would have died while trying to save one young girl."

"Edelgard." The princess of the Adrestian Empire Byleth protected from the bandits.

But this was a long time ago.

The woman felt light-headed all of a sudden. Her knees were weak, her hearing compromised. Instinctively, she wanted to grab something, anything that would prevent her from falling. Around her, there was only emptiness.

"Hey! Are you feeling alright?" asked Sothis in a high-pitched voice, alarmed by Byleth's pale face. "Don't you dare faint on me! I have no way of catching you."

With a loud thud, Byleth sat heavily on the floor. Minutes have passed. She took the time to collect herself before speaking her mind.

"I can't be here," she said, eyes on her own hands. "I was with Dimitri. We were fighting the Imperial army, and then… then… I can't remember what happened next."

Sothis was circling Byleth. Observing her with increasing curiosity, as if she was a rare specimen. Her constantly moving face was making the woman even more sick.

"Dimitri?" asked the Goddess, thoughtful. "Is that the blond courteous boy or the curly-haired smarty?"

"You don't understand!" Byleth burst out. Her tone was uncharacteristically emotional, full of fear and desperation. "I've already been here, we've had this conversation."

Sothis came to a halt.

"Does it mean we've met before? I have no recollection of you. But then, I don't even remember my own name."

"Sothis," said Byleth, back to her usual stoic self. "Your name is Sothis. I must have− no, you must have turned back the hands of time to get me here. I want to go back. Now!"

The Goddess recoiled but only for a second.

"Whoa, easy there! Remember who you're speaking to," she reprimanded. "Whatever happened, you can't blame this on me. My powers allow me to go back seconds, not weeks or months."

"Years."

Years of her life that she was never getting back. The best things that had ever happened to her − gone, forever. The reality of the situation dawned upon Byleth. She was close to tears.

"Hey, don't worry! You're alive and that's what's important, right? We'll get you back. All you need to do is wait a few years. You'll be there in a blink of an eye!"

For reasons unknown to Sothis, her revelation did not lift the woman's spirit. With a gloomy look on her face, Byleth pointed out a major flaw in the Goddess's plan.

"I can't. I don't remember every choice I ever made. Wherever I end up, it won't be the same."

"Then make new ones!" said Sothis, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "See? Problem solved."

"New choices?" Byleth didn't seem enthusiastic at all.

"What is your problem now? You know the outcome of your previous choices, so now you make new, better ones! What would you have done without me, now? You truly are like a child wandering in the fog."

Truth be told, Byleth would go to great lengths to simply get back what she once had. However, if this was not an option, Sothis's idea seemed like a second best solution.

"You made me all sleepy again with your silly problems," the Goddess complained with a huge yawn. "Are you ready to go back?"

With some hesitation, the woman nodded.