if it takes fighting a war for us to meet

(it will have been worth it.)

Between the end of the war and the passage of six months, the construction of a new dawn takes some work.

Meanwhile, Byleth figures out the art of coming to terms.

"We're changing that."

The noble across from her reels back, as if she's struck the woman with the sheer force of her words alone. "You can't...!"

"Or can't I?" Byleth asks, deadly calm, and thinks she hears Catherine behind her, trying to choke back a snort. "Madame Bourtonne, Fódlan is a kingdom now, and its people must be united. Your proposition may be considered at a later date, but at this time it's far from advantageous to begin dividing us in such a way. Remember that your committee is there as a resource to assist you with the current guidelines for submitting policy proposals, and be prepared to bring it up at the roundtable summit, but be warned that I will not hesitate to counter with the exact points we went over at our last meeting."

"Well—!" Madame Bourtonne draws back with a high flush in her cheeks.

"I am sure you will understand that it is our collective duty to find the best solution for our nation, whether that must be through amendments or extended discussion. I trust that you only come before the throne with the best of intentions in mind—" Catherine does snort— "and that you desire the best for our people, as do I. To that end, I am also trusting, as a leader chosen by said people, that our fellow delegates at the roundtable will strive to aid us in the pursuit of safety and comfort for our people. Is this understood?"

Madame Bourtonne wilts under Byleth's glaring sincerity. Or perhaps just her dead-eyed stare, which she can summon back to her when it's useful enough. "It... it is understood, your Majesty."

"A pleasure to hear. Do your best for Fódlan."

The woman exits with her head held high, despite the firm line her lips are pressed into. A noble must always keep up appearances. At least, according to Lorenz—who truly is an accurate marksman as far as pinning the behavior of the nobility down goes, and who has kept himself in Byleth's good graces by being a genuinely good man and consistently sending shipments of Almyran pine needle tea to Derdriu's door.

In juxtaposition to the nobility's obsession with appearances, Byleth has very few compunctions about her image. The room is emptied of everyone but her, Catherine, and Shamir. She lets out a deep sigh through her nose, pinching the bridge of it, and slumps back on the throne, leaning heavily on its arm.

"She's a piece of work," Shamir says, blunt as ever.

Catherine laughs. "I'd hate to be you right now, Professor. Er. Queen. Your Majesty—"

"My name is Byleth," she grumbles, idly lifting her left hand and watching her emerald ring glitter in the light of the sun coming down from the engineered glass dome that covers the majority of the audience room she's forced to spend her time in. Catherine doesn't respond to that, which strikes her as odd, and when she looks up she finds that she's receiving one pitying look and one blank stare with a hint of warmth in it. "What?"

"We have a proposition of our own for you," Shamir tells her, casually stepping on Catherine's foot before she can fully open her mouth.

Byleth raises a brow. "It can't be worse than what she just asked."

"Oh, I wouldn't count your horses before they're hatched." Catherine smirks. Shamir and Byleth look at her with flat expressions; she looks between them with a frown. "What? What's wrong?"

"Horses don't—never mind," Byleth actually mutters, wondering if this might finally be her escape—however momentary—from being tossed into the pit that is the nobility constantly attempting to reintegrate their status and their titles as brazenly as the sun shines in the skies.

For her part, Shamir tilts her head and looks Byleth over. "At any rate, it looks like you've been keeping up your training. We wanted to ask you to come with us at the end of the month. Word is that some Demonic Beasts have started menacing villages in the former Ordelia territory, and my people seem to think there's more to it than the beasts lingering after the war. Thought you might find it interesting."

"I can be ready by the end of the week." She tries not to show how badly she would like to go right now, at this exact moment. Claude entrusted her with not only Fódlan, but his dreams. Dreams she, herself, has shared in her own way since she began to wake up and comprehend the state of Fódlan. She fully intends to attend to them as is necessary—but she would be lying if she said she didn't miss the simplicity of mercenary life, wandering the countryside with Jeralt and his men, taking contracts where they were needed to protect villages and towns.

The others tend to forget, well-intentioned as they are. Time goes on—life goes on. It's only natural.

Byleth did age while she slept, but Jeralt's blood is in her veins, and so the signs wouldn't be apparent to anyone but the man himself. And he's dead. Jeralt's dead.

Her father is dead. And for her, it happened not six years ago but just under a year and some months ago. Two years before that, they had lived together on the road.

To her, it wasn't all that long ago that they sat together with his men around various campfires, talking strategies and missions and complaining about badly-behaved client.

She fell when Edelgard stormed Garreg Mach, and she felt that it was a long sleep, but none of her dreams could have ever told her that five whole years had passed; the war was no time to reorient herself with all that had changed, and yet it was the only time she had. In her mind it is still hard to reconcile Dimitri, gone mad under the weight of loss; just as hard, if not harder, to track with the fact that Edelgard had cemented her base of power and had five years to throw the continent into disarray, rather than having just barely become Emperor with her secret military as leverage. That they were adults, bloodied by their choices and their paths.

And that's saying nothing of how much of Claude she missed as he balanced on his toes on a tightrope, obfuscating the internal discord of the Alliance from the Empire, scheming his way into a stalemate and being faced with the fact that it was all he could do on his own.

Emotions aren't her strong suit, not when it comes to expressing them, but she has come to understand them far more.

She is still grieving. And she probably has been for a long, long while, before she had known she had truly lost anything—she took on Sothis's own grief, after all, even when neither of them could remember what created that cold, dark, silent space deep inside Byleth's still heart.

Some days, it seems something of an unfair trick that she should have to both rule and exist at the same time.

It's... unfortunate, that now would be the time she understands everything going on inside her.

Catherine breaks her out of her thoughts by laughing in her face. "It'll take us until the end of the month to gather what we need. But I take it you're interested, your Majesty?"

"My name is Byleth," she insists, staring hard first at Catherine, then slightly less so at Shamir. "But yes. Very much so. If those who slither in the dark are trying something again, it is my duty as Queen to investigate."

"Good to hear." Shamir favors her with a rare smile. "I've missed fighting at your side in battle."

I've missed battle, Byleth thinks. The thought strikes at her jugular. Her throat tightens. Instead of responding, she dips her head, silent again.

Long after Catherine and Shamir depart to the room set up for them by the personal assistants Marianne sent to Byleth (Professor, they can clean and organize anything. Anything!), longer still after she's finished up her work for the day and is curled up under one of Jeralt's old cloaks in a bed that is too large for one person and too soft for a mercenary, but is certainly fit for a queen, Byleth stares at the glass figurine on the decorative table near the far window where it glitters in the moonlight. Her own realization haunts her.

All that blood spent to build this fragile kingdom, truly the newborn Claude had described it as before he left for Almyra. All the sacrifices. The hard work she and Claude staked their lives on to create peace, truly and finally, and—

—and she's still her father's daughter. Still a mercenary at heart.

Still a tool of war.

She has taken more lives than she can count, because that's what it is to survive and to protect those dear to you, but somehow she had thought that once the fighting was over, she would never want to engage in it again.

Her fingers curl into fists.

The Sword of the Creator is once again slumbering in the monastery, Sothis's bones finally given to their rest, Seteth and Flayn as its guardians and Rhea its mourner, stepping back from claiming the power Byleth acquired by accident in favor of living out the rest of her days in Seteth's quiet care. Rhea doesn't have much longer, and despite her personal issues with the woman, the clock can't be turned back far enough to stop her from doing what she did.

So it will have to be a peaceful passage out of time and mind. Seteth will notify her when Rhea has finally gone, but he will hide her bones away in a silent and secret part of the world that none in living memory remember save for himself alone, and the funeral will probably be held with a closed casket.

It's still odd to think that one woman's desperation could be responsible for so much of her own misfortune. She presses a hand to her chest, where her heart ought to be, but isn't surprised (despite a part of her wishing otherwise) that there is no thudding beat, no sign of life the way Claude's and Jeralt's hearts beat in her memory.

No sign of it slowing to a stop the way Jeralt's had.

She swallows.

Sothis's heart lies within Byleth, reunited with her soul, but the only way she's ever encountered to make a dead thing alive again is the Divine Pulse, and she hasn't had need of it being locked up in Derdriu with a bunch of fussy nobles preoccupied both with being incensed by commoners standing at their side as equals and with jockeying for favor and power, trying to reinstitute all the old systems that she and Claude wanted to break down for a reason.

Well. Except for the once.

Byleth rolls onto her back and presses her cheek into the fur lining Jeralt's cloak. Much like Monica and Tomas, one of the nobles parading about and preening about their (questionably held) station is actually one of those who slither in the dark—an Agarthan, almost certainly a spy, but one with a hot enough head that when Byleth presented a proposal from Linhardt to excavate Shambhala and reverse-engineer their secrets, they lost enough of their composure to go for her with a hidden dagger in their boot. Byleth, weaponless as a show of good faith, had been forced to choke them to death in front of her entire ruling cohort.

The aftermath had not been pretty. And she has no desire to rule by fear.

So she turned back the clock, resolving to do it right this time, as she did at so many other junctures.

But...

Once again she finds herself stretching out her left hand, letting her ring glint under the light, turning it this way and that to see every facet of the emerald. Her own actions make her sigh, realizing what had Catherine clumsily attempting to show sympathy earlier.

Claude. Claude, Claude, Claude, Claude. As the months stretch on, every letter from him becomes longer—they could be little novels, really, full of the sights and sounds and customs of Almyra, his praises of his beloved homeland tempered by his critiques, which themselves are juxtaposed with his dreams of fixing things. He is introducing her to the world as best he can when he's an ocean away and reassuring her that he still cares and, really, talking to her just because he wants to, like he always has; it's a little more difficult when nothing too sensitive can be sent over open channels, but she learned long ago to read between his lines.

He misses her just as much as she misses him. He may not be having to wage another war outright, but he's in a battle for the Almyran throne, despite his (very significant, "actual heir to it" significant, the absolute sneak) claim to it by blood.

And despite the necessity of both their positions, of the responsibility they took on by in part causing Fódlan's suffering and the responsibility he has to his homeland, every day without them together wears at him. Her, too. He may have gone five years without her, standing on his own as the Golden Deer returned to their territories and attended to their affairs, but this is the first time since she's met him that she's not had his constant presence at her side.

Of course, even when they spent every day in close quarters, they still had their own individual lives—but, she thinks, poking at herself and the emptiness where a part of her still awaits a response from a dead god, the space between those lives had been steadily growing smaller even before the war. It's a miracle—or perhaps a product of Seteth's nostalgia, because she's spotted him and Flayn alike giving her and Claude indefinable looks over time, like they keep seeing two different people in their places—that she never got a lecture on the finer points of appropriate conduct between students and teachers.

She hasn't forgotten what Claude said to her before the battle for Garreg Mach. How, even then, he took the time to step forward and hold out a part of his heart for her to see: to call her friend, Byleth, Teach, to say none of these things can encapsulate what you've come to mean to me—our hearts are connected, and I know we'll meet again. All of it borne from the time they spent together, sliding into place right alongside each other, like it was the most natural thing in the world to take a look at an entire stranger, decide to get to know each other better, and find yourselves inseparable with the passage of a few moons.

They've had an instinctive understanding between them from the start. Words have never been strictly necessary except for the fact that Claude likes to run his mouth.

So now that he's apart from her, she feels... almost adrift, but not in the dreamy way she wandered through life before the monastery. It's almost like one of her limbs has been severed. More than once, she's wondered if this is what it felt like for him while she was sleeping.

But he is coming back.

And she has no intention of letting him go, either—if she has to sunder the stars and move the sun and moon to do it, she will find a way to bridge the gap to him, now and always and forever.

With that settled, Byleth tucks Jeralt's cloak tighter around herself and settles in for another long night of trying to sleep without Claude's warmth near to her.

I'll write about the mission, she thinks drowsily. He'll want to know about that.

The month drips by far too slowly. When, finally, she finishes her last meeting of the month, it takes every ounce of self-control not to run out of the room and up to hers. She waits until the very last noble (aside from Sylvain, at least, the latest of her Deer to come and keep her company in Derdriu—it helps that they do tend to have legitimate business in the new capital) has left, drumming her fingers on her knee beneath the table. The second the door shuts behind the man, she leaps from her seat and lunges for the opposite exit.

Sylvain catches up to her pretty quick. "Hey, Professor, what's the hurry? You tired of having to sit and look at their faces propose policies that only benefit them?"

"Mission," Byleth responds, not intentionally short with him, but distracted—her mind is totally bent on preparations. "Catherine and Shamir have something I need to accompany them for."

"Oh yeah? Need any help?"

She spares him a brief glance. "If you're willing. But I know you're eager to get back."

His face splits into a helpless smile. Mercedes and their first child—a Crestless daughter—await him back in Gautier territory, and she doesn't blame him in the least for wanting to luxuriate in that joy. "Oh, I am. I think I could trust you to get me back to them, though. You always do."

"Alright. Start by heading down to the armory—I put in some orders there, for me and for Shamir. If you find anything particularly suitable for yourself, make sure to tell me. I'll reimburse you."

"I can pay for my own weapons," Sylvain calls after her a moment after he splits to go in that direction. "I am Margrave Gautier, you know!"

Byleth waves him off before her own pace begins to annoy her and she breaks into a run to get to her room faster. She's a Queen now, and this is a matter of importance.

Besides, the Golden Deer will never stop being her students just because they're adults. Providing for them is simply a matter of course. They ought to expect it by now.

(It will take her much longer to realize that what she's been classifying as "students" in her head is, by now, actually "friends".)

Somehow—somehow—the morning that she meets Catherine and Shamir and Sylvain outside Derdriu's gates, Felix and Leonie and Jeralt's mercs are waiting there, too, all with expressions far too innocent on their faces to be believed. Byleth stares first at Sylvain, who holds his hands up with a pleased smile, and then at Leonie, who has the gall to look completely unashamed.

"Heard you could use some help, Professor," she says, winningly.

Byleth looks at Shamir. Shamir looks at Byleth and tilts her head, as if to say well?

Well, indeed. Maybe it's not such a surprise that Shamir would figure seeing a few more familiar faces would do some good for her focus. She scans the crowd of mercenaries, finding a few very familiar faces who she knows for a fact retired after the battle against Nemesis. Faces attached to bodies that dandled her on their knees when she was all of three years of age, before her stoic behavior and memory problems began to put them off.

"Are we going or not?" Felix asks impatiently. "My blade won't wait for you to catch up, Professor."

She shakes herself out of her slightly suspicious stupor. "Yes, we're going. Let's move."

Jeralt's mercs cheer as one, their combined voices breaking the stillness of early morning. The guards outside the gates jump and give her father's rowdy bunch dirty looks. Despite herself, Byleth starts to smile.

It takes them several days to get to what was formerly House Ordelia territory, willingly ceded by the former Count Ordelia to the crown, soon to be governed by a coalition of the people living within it. In that time, Byleth can feel something in her that has been locked up tight since Claude crossed Fódlan's Throat begin to unclench.

The mixture of personalities on this trip is curious—it's never quite been just this arrangement of her allies, although Catherine and Shamir are inseparable and Felix and Sylvain are close childhood friends and Leonie has taken to sticking by her side as much as she stuck by Jeralt's.

It's strange, being with Jeralt's group without the man himself, and there is an absence where he ought to be riding alongside them, but when she starts to think too much about it, one of the oldest of them inevitably finds her, slaps her on the back, and launches into another tale about her completely serious antics as a child.

But, she realizes slowly, the world always changes. Time always continues on.

Before she departed from the monastery to take up residence in Derdriu, Seteth requested that she read over a manuscript he'd been working on for some years. It was a full-fledged novel, rather than just a parable like the ones he constructed for the children at the monastery. Always a quick reader, Byleth picked it up and blazed through it in about three hours.

His story was about a lone knight, wandering through the years, living on for years and years and years—ages, even. Centuries. It dealt with love and loss and the weight of those ages, of continuing on even after the end, of finding new purpose in a world so thoroughly changed from what you once knew, and it ended with the knight finding a small group of friends to spend her days with, walking the path at the same pace, come what may, however long they had each other. She realized quickly that it was far more than just a story brewing in his head. It was, in some ways, a letter to her, a reminder of things he'd said to her before they were entirely sure whether or not she had aged when she was sleeping.

It is... difficult, at times, to walk alone. Particularly when you bear a great responsibility to the world. Whether or not you learn the truth of yourself, you must remember that there are those who you can rely on. I happen to know that Flayn has come to value you dearly, and I would appreciate it if you continued to honor that.

Seteth could never replace Jeralt. But he came to occupy a different space, despite their... rather different beliefs. She knows he befriended Jeralt before he died, having happened upon them drinking together (the first time had shocked her, though she hadn't been able to express it). She overheard him very nearly interrogating Rhea on her behalf—doing so despite all their long years of friendship, pushing back when he sensed that the woman might have done something questionable. And while he was never soft on her, particularly when he didn't trust her, he always judged her fairly.

It doesn't mean he's blameless. That the church never did anything wrong. But it does mean that in some small capacity, he looked out for her. Whether it was because she rescued Flayn or because she could protect Flayn, he looked into her past for her and tried to help her when he realized her situation could have been similar to his and Flayn's.

The simple kindness of looking out for her and the students, despite how many people he must have watched pass by over the years, is one she will not soon forget.

Different people come into each life as time goes on. She hadn't known that before the monastery, accustomed as she was to only retaining her attachment to her father; first it had been Claude, approaching her with the intention of using her as an asset but soon finding that the understanding between them was so much more valuable than that, and then it had been a steady trickle of the rest coming along at different points, whether through her instruction or via the course of everyday life.

The people keeping her company now are doing that again.

She's still learning. Still growing. Still breathing.

There is a space to catch her breath, however small, however infrequent.

Absently, she runs her fingers over the ring on her left hand. I'll be alright. I will. I'm not only a blade to be used now. That's part of what this ring symbolizes, after all—a new life. A new dawn. Our new dawn.

Byleth,

I've heard the news. What, you didn't think my people were that fast? There's a reason we're able to send these letters every month, rather than every three. Or four. Without the hand-wringing officials, too! Anyways, as much as I hate to admit it, I can't say I'm terribly surprised to hear that our old friends who slither in the dark are still kicking, or that they tried to assassinate you by drawing you out to Ordelia territory. And it doesn't sound like you are either. Needless to say, it's pretty imperative that we protect Fódlan from them if and when they try to make a move. We fought to build a united kingdom, after all. What's the use if it falls like a mere house of cards?

But I believe in you. And I trust you. Whatever comes next, I know you'll be holding down the fort.

That said, the disparate rebel groups are moving quick, and they have some of the benefits of the technology of those who slither in the dark. My sources say they shouldn't be able to use their javelins of light—they used those up bombing their own city—but there's no telling what else they've got up their sleeves, unless Linhardt and Hanneman have made a great deal of progress in a very short amount of time. I'll do what I can from over here, starting with as much information as my people can relay, so be sure to keep in touch.

Speaking of... It shouldn't be too long, now. My negotiations are going well. In fact, the tricks I've picked up from you? Those are the ones that have helped me out the most, turning the tides on my opponents right as they step forward to claim their victories.

Just like when we took Nemesis down.

I hope to return to you soon, my love. And when I do, when our kingdoms are united and we truly open Fódlan's Throat to the rest of the world... I want to show you Almyra. Dagda. Brigid. Anywhere and everywhere. Got a place in mind? We can do anything, as long as we're together.

Let me know.

Love,

Claude

P.S.—My parents want to meet you, so if you're happy to go to Almyra first, there will be two duels awaiting you. Hope that's cool.

P.P.S.—Have I mentioned that here in Almyra, we like ritual combat, and we like it at almost every occasion? Nader's seeing so much of me for practicing it all that I'm going to have to start investing in a sustainable herbal salve business. If you hear of any good salvemakers looking for work...

"Duels," Byleth muses to herself as she scribbles something with her quill on a fresh sheet of parchment. Her brows are knit together. She pays no mind to anyone else in the tavern, although she's got to be aware of the stares, and she's completely ignoring the coffee next to her self-imposed work. "I'll need armor, of course... what weapons? Would they use training swords? Perhaps I should have invested in shields before all this..."

Catherine leans over to Leonie. "What's she mumbling about?"

"She got a letter from Claude," Leonie replies with a shrug and a dry smile. "There's no telling. Probably about tactics, if I had to guess—they love developing them."

"Pretty convenient shared hobby to have, huh." Catherine examines Byleth intently.

Shamir elbows her. "You could stand to be a little more interested in tactics, yourself."

"Ah, but that's why we're partners," she says with a grin, slinging an arm around her shoulders and drinking down the rest of her tankard. "Hey! Another would be pretty great, my friend."

This is addressed to the barmaid, Alouette, who gives Catherine an amused look. "As long as you keep the coin flowing, you'll have however much you want."

Byleth keeps working, for all visible intents and purposes lost to the world. Across the room, Felix and Sylvain are discussing something in low voices. She knows that Leonie's watchful eyes keep landing on her, periodically looking away to scan their environment and take stock of every potential threat. Catherine is laughing and hamming it up, but she picked a table for them that leaves none of their backs exposed. Shamir's body movements are deliberately fluid—her whole posture is geared toward being able to leap up with the daggers that she keeps hidden in her boots and her jacket.

None of them are quite accustomed to a supposed peace just yet.

It makes her feel a little better, selfishly, even as the part of her that's forcing a calm over being a ruler worries at the truth of it. Soldiers that have been at war for six years can only be expected to take to peace slowly, if at all; while she missed five years of that, she did spend most of her life in battle, going from one mission to the next.

Adjusting will take time for all of them, not just her.

They spend about a week and a half more in Ordelia territory, routing bandits and solving logistical problems introduced by the difficulties inherent in constructing a localized system of governance when the entire framework for said system is itself currently in progress—very slow progress, hindered by the bickering among allies now that the greater threat has been faced.

Privately, Byleth could never be accused of being slow on the uptake. She just didn't know about the previous political situation in Fódlan, before, and it'd left her with two left feet when it came to navigating an entirely changed world from what she was familiar with.

Caught up enough now, she thinks she can be confident in her read of things again. The brief appearance the Agarthans made here, coming after her with specially-designed darts that are being kept in containment for transport back to Derdriu, almost certainly heralds their reemergence from the ground. Claude's people have linked up with Shamir's again to figure out what weapons they're using this time around, providing a steady network of information flowing between Fódlan and Almyra; it's a good enough scheme to start from afar, beginning the unification underneath everyone's noses.

She thinks about the way his eyes gleam between reams of paperwork that need to be read, adjusted, and sent back. Breaks to go help the city center with organizing supplies that will be going out across the territory are spent doing her job, yes, but also daydreaming about what his commentary on her days might be like. For some time now, there's been a voice in the back of her head that sounds like him—not like Sothis, it's not actually him, as much as a part of her wishes it was. But it's... fun, almost. To imagine what he might say in his own voice.

It helps the days pass. With the amount of work she's picking up, not to mention the amount awaiting her back at the capital, the mild distraction is welcome.

Catherine and Shamir go off to attend to business elsewhere. Sylvain heads back to Gautier territory when a week has passed, but Leonie and Felix linger with Byleth. Felix badgers her into spars and Leonie badgers her into participating in story time—it's downright bizarre to see a group of hardened mercenaries sitting around in a circle, inventing bawdy tales and acting out the parts on the fly with a surprising amount of skill, but apparently it all started when they happened to be in Enbarr and Dorothea somehow contracted them into acting as extras for the Mittelfrank Opera Company's latest show.

"How exactly did she do that?" Byleth asks after story time ends, surprised and more than a little amused. Leonie goes a funny shade of pink.

Felix leans out of his tent with a bored look that does very little to hide the fiendish look in his eyes. "They had tea together, Professor. Extensively."

"Felix!" Leonie barks, storming into his tent to give him a piece of her mind. "If you want to say anything else in my charge's hearing, you can say it to my blade! You hear?!"

Byleth can't quite help it. She starts to laugh, all by herself on the little log she's been sitting on, because of course Leonie would still think she's got any obligation to protect her after all this time. When she looks up, both Leonie and Felix are peeking out of the tent, staring at her with wide eyes. "Come here, Leonie."

"Oh, I, uh—sure—Felix, I mean it," Leonie hisses when Felix shoves her with a smirk. "I'm going to beat you into the ground—"

"Go get your lecture," Felix says, just as snide as ever. It's nice to see that the more things change, the more some things stay the same. "I'll beat you into the ground later."

She kicks him, if his pained grunt is any indication, and steps out of the tent. "Professor, it's not..."

"Leonie," Byleth says, hoping her face is quite as blank as it usually is and that Claude's expressions haven't worn off on her too much. This mischief brewing in her is her own, but he certainly inspired parts of it. "I've had sex."

Leonie's eyes go wide with horrified embarrassment. "Professor—!"

"It's natural," Byleth continues ruthlessly. "Perfectly natural to express, too—"

"I can't do this," Leonie says, her voice pitched very high.

Jeralt did this to her when she was younger. If Leonie wants to be like Jeralt as much as Byleth thinks she does, well... you learn by living it. Or, at least, that's what he always told her. "Sit down, Leonie."

"I'm a grown woman!"

"So am I," Byleth agrees, dropping the joke and fixing her former student with a serious look. "Very much grown. You can just admit you want to protect me as Jeralt's legacy, if you'd like. In mercenary parlance, charge generally refers to a client in need of protection. I can't recall ever paying you." Or needing your protection, which is the part she'd rather not say, because Leonie does mean well.

Leonie is silent for a long, long while, thoughts clearly spinning behind her eyes. Then she sighs. "I... I understand, Professor."

"More than anything, I would be happiest to know that my students have made their paths their own—using their skills to fulfill their dreams, whatever that might be." She spares her a smile.

"And if my dream is to be just like Jeralt—no, even better?"

She leans in and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Then you'll have to work hard. But I wouldn't worry too much. You're most of the way there—I was watching your lancework in that spar earlier. Mastery is certainly within your grasp."

"...Thank you, Professor. Your confidence means a lot to me." Leonie smiles back. Then she hesitates. "What you said about our own paths—does that hold true for Claude, too?"

Byleth's answer is immediate, and spoken with all the faith she has within her. "Triply so."

"You really do believe in him."

"With everything in me," she agrees. "We both have our own goals... but we have two very similar dreams. Similar hopes."

Leonie looks curious, but she looks down at the ring, and then she looks back up at Byleth with a grin. "You know, I get the feeling that with you at the helm, Fódlan is going to be alright."

"That's one of the hopes," Byleth says, dry.

Things move very quickly after that. Work begets work begets work begets work, and for Byleth, most all of it is necessarily back in Derdriu.

"They're after you," Shamir says, implacable, when Byleth feels the itch to get outside the city again and escape the government (despite it growing more functional by the day). "They call you the Fallen Star. Fódlan as a whole may not know what you are or what that means, but the Agarthans do. Your safety is best assured here, where multiple people can keep an eye on you."

"Won't they come for me, knowing I'm here?" Byleth asks.

Shamir sighs. "Yes. Probably. They will."

"And the latest reports say they're joining with the Imperial remnant."

"Planning something?"

Byleth hums, already getting up from her chair in the conference room to go to her quarters and find some parchment. "Who's to say?"

Plans or no plans, what she does have is a very bad feeling about the rebels gathering in Ailell. It's the kind of thing you do when you want to remind your people of why you're fighting. When you want to renew old vows and take up old hurts.

The Agarthans haven't forgotten what Sothis did. Not once in all their long years of misery.

Sins of our forebears, she thinks. She closes her eyes and presses her hand to the space above where her heartbeat ought to be. Sins of our successors.

If she can do this right, history's next chapter will truly be one of peace.

By,

It's clever. Between the two of us, it might be the best plan we've ever come up with. I can definitely do as you ask—and I will.

Just...

Be careful. And hang in there.

I love you,

Claude

Dear Professor,

Brother is currently doing as your letter requested, so I took the liberty of composing this reply while he is out. It is my dear wish that you should succeed in the days to come, as I, too, tire of war—I have tired of war for a very long time. When you are done, do come and visit. We shall go fishing again, whether in the monastery pond or by the sea, and there I will be the one to instruct you on some things that have long been necessary secrets.

I put flowers at your mother and Jeralt's grave, as you asked, and my prayers go with them. Though I suppose those prayers would find their way to you, technically, would they not? How curious. I think this new era will be very interesting indeed, especially with you to determine its color and shape!

Best wishes,

Flayn

The trouble with the rebel forces is that they've all got a death wish.

Byleth isn't necessarily familiar with desperation herself, but she's seen it on the battlefield, and she knows how it functions there. The movements of the rebel forces are a steady plow toward Derdriu—they're not bothering with pillaging or much in the way of destruction as far as the landscape goes, which is a small mercy, but the unfortunate truth of that being the case is that it means they really are well and truly after Byleth herself.

She tried once or twice more to try to convince Shamir to allow her to bait the army out away from the city, but to her surprise, even the nobles at the roundtable, who don't know exactly why the Agarthans bear such a grudge against her, disagreed with that course of action. There was a general sentiment of you are our Queen, a bit of we cannot endanger our sovereign, entrusted to us as she has been by the archbishop, and a lot of pride involved in the discussion. If she said she wasn't expecting to ultimately lose that battle, though, she'd be lying.

Which is why she and Claude are doing what they're doing.

Lorenz once said something about the common wisdom during the war—it had been offhanded, more of a passing comment, but it's stuck with her. Claude and Edelgard both challenge the common wisdom. Defy it, even. It is truly visionary. Something along those lines. It isn't any real secret that Claude is incredibly skilled and gifted when it comes to tactical thinking. He's put in the effort over the years to truly master it.

One of the ways he did that was by teaching her what he'd learned in their five years apart.

Judith called his schemes from that period half-baked, but there had been the seeds of good ideas in his battle plans. He just hadn't had the manpower, or a rallying cry beyond the survival of the Alliance to get said manpower.

Byleth's clearest lesson from the events of the past year (and even before) has been that a symbol, more than anything, is powerful. Rhea's disappearance threw the faithful in Fódlan into chaos, the lack of a central figure for the religion of Seiros fracturing their unity; Byleth emerging as her successor, however temporary, brought together enough people to win a war. Whether they believed in Seiros, Sothis, Byleth herself, or something else.

The Sword of the Creator feels as familiar in her hands as it did the first time she wielded it. She hefts it up in the glittering morning light, making a few practice swings with no aim or intent but to feel the weight of it. Seteth stands watching at the side of the training ground. He isn't staying long—he flew here on his wyvern to deliver the sword to her in person, not liking the idea of entrusting it to anyone else.

She turns to him. "I'll take care of it."

"I do not doubt that," Seteth says. Crosses his arms. "Are you truly prepared to wait for their army to come all the way to Derdriu?"

Byleth nods. "They're only after me. And they're desperate."

"I am afraid that concerns me more, not less. It has not been a terribly long time since the end of the war. Those who remain among the Knights of Seiros are happy to lend you their aid, but I do not think it an exaggeration to say that our fighting force is less than what it was when we defeated Edelgard. Not only that. Your men are weary, your Majesty, and that will make routing the rebels far more difficult. They will not slow down just because your army is fatigued." He delivers the warning with a frown. It's his way of expressing concern. She's not sure he knows how to do it without lecturing.

So she nods again. "I'm concerned, too. But that's why I have a plan. You trust me, yes?"

"I... do," he acknowledges with a sigh, as if perhaps he wishes he could still say no. "You've used the power of the progenitor god with a deep commitment to the responsibility that comes with it. Your father would be proud."

The comment throws her off-balance. She blinks, at a loss for words, suddenly reminded—or maybe she just now pieces it all together—that he had known Jeralt long before she was born. That look they exchanged when she first walked into the monastery's audience hall with her father couldn't have been anything else.

Maybe what she saw when Jeralt lived was a rekindling of an old friendship. One her father gave up to keep her safe.

"At any rate, I will return to the monastery and gather the Knights of Seiros. We shall return in a week's time. I trust that will be enough?"

Byleth shakes herself out of her memories. "Yes, it ought to be. Please say hello to Flayn for me, and tell her that I look forward to seeing her again."

"Naturally." Seteth smiles a real smile at that, bows lightly, and departs into the interior of Riegan Manor.

She turns back to the training field and allows her mind to go numb under the comforting blankness of practicing rote katas.

Not much longer, now.

All through Derdriu, word goes out.

Board up your doors. Your windows. If you have safehouses beneath the ground, take to them. Look out for your neighbors. Keep your lives.

One last battle awaits Fódlan. Hold fast to each other and strengthen your hearts.

We will not be broken.

The words come from the Queen herself.

In the late night, she steps outside the gates of the city and holds the Sword of the Creator aloft. It glows red, bathing the soldiers nearest to her—mostly her former students, all of whom are present except Petra—in an unearthly light.

"They're almost here," Byleth says to her army. "They won't wait for morning. Many of our opponents hail from beneath the earth we stand on—they're accustomed to darkness. But that doesn't mean we're entirely at a disadvantage. Look to the sky!"

The United Army of Fódlan does so. The rising moon greets their gazes, a round disc gleaming in the deep darkness draped over the land.

"We have the full moon, the brightest in a hundred years, to guide us. More than that—we have each other. And we have the knowledge that no matter how dark the night becomes, the dawn always emerges despite it. The sun will shine upon us again. So fight with that faith in your hearts—faith that together, we will protect Fódlan and emerge victorious! We will forge a new path as one!"

It's a simple speech, really. She isn't accustomed to running her mouth and somehow making it sound good, not when she's spent most of her life as more of a listener and less of a talker, but once again, it's all a part of the plan.

What surprises her is the strength of the cheer that goes up throughout the army.

For Fódlan! For the future! And for our new dawn!

It almost makes her dizzy.

Hilda, standing at her left, clasps her hands together with a very coy grin. "Oh, wow, Professor. Even I didn't expect this response! You just might have a future as an orator, you know. I've heard your lectures!"

She very nearly sings the last bit. Byleth is grateful that the Sword of the Creator already glows red—she feels heat on her cheeks. "Don't start, Hilda."

"But Professor—"

"You ought to get going. Your battalion's going to need you to block attacks coming from the western flanks."

"The front lines?" Hilda whines, but her heavy armor creaks as she moves to do just that. "What did I ever do to you but finally get you together with Claude, Professor—"

"Oh, look, there they are. Waiting for you." Byleth gestures to her left, where Hilda's troops are indeed giving their commander very dry (albeit fond) looks. "Hop to it."

"Alright, alright, I'm going. But before I do... it's an honor to fight at your side. I thought I should say that now, since I never have before. You've taught me that I could do more than I ever thought possible... and I'm truly grateful. Thank you, Prof— no. Byleth. From the bottom of my heart." Hilda bows and bounds away before she can even think to respond to that.

Completely unbidden, Claude's voice pops into her mind. My flabber is completely gasted right now.

Byleth turns away to attend to her own battalion and finds that she's smiling, despite the seriousness of the circumstances.

Hilda isn't the only one to have thanked her, no, but she'd certainly never expected it from her, careful as Hilda always is to craft the image of a careless woman who has no real depth of connection to anything to speak of.

Somehow... somehow, hearing that her instruction meant something to her students makes it all worth it.

Even as reports start coming in that the rebel army has made first contact and she moves to her position at the central stronghold before Derdriu, that little truth plants itself in her heart anew and bolsters her flagging spirits.

It was worth it, despite all the hardship the monastery brought with it.

And soon, soon, she'll be able to make one of her own dreams come true.

Byleth has always moved across the battlefield with a preternatural grace. She knows this is true of herself; it was one of the first tricks she ever developed, a dedicated addition to her toolkit that has served her so very well through all the long years of battle.

But as the rebel army surges and she begins to face opponents who throw themselves at her with everything in them, as she is forced to dance between blades and dodge spells and arrows and lances and axes, she feels like nothing else—like she was born to do this. Strength surges anew in her with every foe that she takes out, the Crest of Flames she bears reinvigorating her body.

She understands, now, why people across Fódlan called her the Ashen Demon.

As the night wears on, both armies begin to tire—their movements a little slower, their aim a little shakier, their bodies not entirely able to handle the strain. Even the Agarthans. But Byleth fights on.

"What are you?" one of the enemy generals spits at her when he reaches her.

In the time before, she never would have responded. But now the world is different. She's different. And she's fighting for something she believes in. So she shrugs and says, evenly, "Myself. And you?"

"You're a witch," the man seethes. "A witch! You killed Lady Edelgard with your inhuman powers!"

One of the Empire's, then, and a loyalist besides. Byleth shakes her head. "We have nothing more to say to each other. Let's fight."

"I will avenge her!" he cries, and charges.

Another fallen man. She swings the Sword of the Creator, cuts through him, and leaps back before one of the enemy ballistae can hit her with their shells. Almost the same split second she's done that, she has to turn and parry an opportunistic sword headed for her back; only when she's eliminated that threat can she take a moment to breathe.

She has planned her position very carefully. Byleth is standing central on the battlefield—the stronghold she and her battalion are holding is one that Riegan territory traditionally used for the festival of the solar equinox, and it feels almost... grubby, to be dirtying the beautiful sundial she's chosen as her arena with the blood of so many.

All around her, holding the line, are her Golden Deer and their battalions, plus the Knights of Seiros and the rest of Fódlan's army. Derdriu's back is set to the sea, rendering it impossible for those who slither in the dark to try for a circular method of routing; while someone in the Agarthan army seems to have the capability to summon more phantom soldiers, Claude and Shamir's intelligence proved that there is no way for them to do that forever. They'll run out of energy after a time, even with magical supplements to renew them. A body can only take so much, after all.

Part of that intelligence is courtesy of the Agarthan who was masquerading as a noble. They are currently somewhere deep beneath the ocean's surface, last she heard, having escaped a captor's hold while on wyvernback and subsequently plummeted to the sea.

But—that aside. This is a battle of attrition. The enemy has more numbers than strength, and while her men are still fatigued from war, they are very capable. Her half-circle of allies are acting as stopgaps and valves—stonewalling the enemy, controlling their paths, forcing them to Byleth in a steady funnel instead of all at once, which would mean certain death even for her. While the ultimate goal is routing the rebels, they can afford to take their time, even with the Imperial remnant bolstering the rebels' overall skill.

They'll be in control even well after dawn, so long as they keep on the defensive. She can already see the first glimmer of daylight peeking through the clouds covering the wee hours of the morning.

With the break of dawn comes a fracture in her eastern flank.

It ought to be momentary—Cyril had to draw back to preserve his strength, and even now he's getting healed up—but it does force her to pay attention to each opponent that makes it to the stronghold.

(Last time it was the western flank, and Deirdriu had begun to fall by the time she found the right thread. The time before that, the central flank was cleaved in two; she will not let her students die, not for anything. She will do this as many times as it takes. She will get this army through today. There is no other alternative.)

Sure enough, more of them start to come at her at a time. By the time she finds herself facing three different opponents at once, all as dead-eyed and hollow as she used to be because they're not real, she knows that she's going to be paying the price to her body in recovery, even with the Crest of Flames renewing her. She's stretching herself. Even the unbelievable struggle that Nemesis had been felt like it had ended.

But all things come to an end.

"Look!" one of her men screams, pointing. "Look to the sky! Look!"

Everyone looks, even the enemy. Swooping in from the east is a winged army, a shining white wyvern leading their charge, and they're heading straight for the spot where the eastern flank has begun to crack open.

Byleth's face splits into a grin. "Our allies are here. Look sharp."

Inside her chest, she feels something.

Thump. Thump.

"Your Majesty?" another man asks—ah, one of Jeralt's. She recognizes the scar across his nose. "Is that—"

"The King of Almyra," Byleth answers, a fierce joy welling from somewhere deep within, a place so deep she hadn't known that it existed within her. Worry falls away from her thoughts and her countenance. In its place comes a renewed determination. "We join with Almyra—and we finish this fight! To victory!"

"To victory!"

Word spreads quickly through the army and renews everyone else's spirits, not just hers. Byleth, freed of the necessity of being bait, goes to the support of the central flank, where Marianne and Ignatz have taken up supporting Sylvain as he mows down anyone who tries to get past him. Almyra's wing power quickly proves to be invaluable, enabling the whole of the Fódlan forces to finally take up the offensive, rather than the few squads they were previously able to spare to advance across the field.

The last summoner falls to the Sword of the Creator as the sun starts to climb high into the sky. With that done, Byleth starts making her rounds.

All that's left to do is clean up.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

She doesn't have time to think about it. Not yet.

But she does suck in a mouthful of air just to hear her pulse pick up in her ears.

When the dust on the battlefield clears and the last of the rebel army has been defeated, Byleth doesn't hesitate. The Sword of the Creator is left to the nearest person—Marianne, as it happens—and, ignoring Marianne's startled "oh", she takes off toward the center of the battlefield, where the sundial is. Her body pulses in tune with the throbbing bruise on her left leg. Her head pounds. She can hear her heartbeat.

She ignores it all. She artlessly dodges startled soldiers and those whose reflexes would inadvertently put her in harm's way. Each and every crevice of this battlefield is burnt into her memory with all the running about she's done in the past few hours.

"Excellent work, everyone..."

Claude's voice, as always, carries above a crowd when he needs it to. He's addressing a group of soldiers along with Nader when he spots her coming a good minute away; although his lips quirk up, he continues speaking to them even as they part for her, right up until—

—Byleth slams into him. But he's ready for her, he always is, he breaks off and gathers her into his arms as she leaps on him and locks her legs around his hips, swinging them both around, and under the winter sun and the open sky and the watchful gazes of thousands of soldiers, Fódlandian and Almyran alike, they seal the day with a kiss that will be written about in history books and told of in operas and plays for centuries to come.

"That hurts."

"It sure looks like it." Gentle fingers trace the dark bruises on her bare shoulder. She shivers. "What did you do, By?"

"..."

"Oh, now I've gotta know. C'mon. You can't just look at me like that and not spill."

"...I ran into one of the pillars on the sundial."

Claude looks at her with wide eyes, taken aback. "You... you did?"

"Maybe." She buries her face in his neck and splashes his chest with some of the hot water they're sitting in when laughter wells up in him, helplessly, genuinely amused. "Claude..."

"The essence of grace! The woman who's always sure-footed, except... you didn't mistake the sundial for a dance floor, did you?" He yelps when she pokes him hard in the stomach. "Kidding! Kidding, I'm kidding."

Byleth indulges herself and bites down gently on the crook of his neck, which makes him still. When she's sure she has his attention, she leans her chin on the same spot. "You could try to make better jokes."

"Aw, Teach, you know you love my shining sense of humor." His voice is light, but he's holding her closer and tighter.

She only hums. His fingers trace loose patterns across her skin; this is the third bath they've had to draw to get rid of all the gunk, and finally most of the dirt and grime of battle is gone. She's waited so long for this (five months and eighteen days has never felt like more of an eternity) and now he's here, safe and alive.

With her.

It feels like the weight of the world has been on her shoulders, and only now has that pressure been lifted. If they really had to—if their separation entailed a period of years like she feared it might, or if their paths truly carried them away from each other—no, she realizes in the moment. No. She doesn't want to. Doesn't even want to consider it. Not doing so is truly impractical, but she can hardly think of anything she'd like less.

So she doesn't think about it.

"Claude," she mumbles, guiding his hand to rest above her heart. "Do you feel this?"

Thump. Thump. Thump. And when he draws in a breath: Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump—

"When did this happen?" he asks. His other hand stills on the small of her back, halfway submerged in the water.

Byleth looks up. "When I saw you coming back."

The look in his eyes makes her want to melt. "Small wonder." He presses a soft kiss to her forehead and guides her own hand to his heart. "You can feel the same thing happening here, can't you?"

"I can."

"When you came back to us that first time, you know, with the hair and everything, that's when this started happening. And the second time... that's when I knew. I could never let you go, By." His voice is warm and laced with an affection that makes her face hot. He cups her face with his free hand, his expression matching his eyes, his body oriented towards her. It's beautiful.

He's beautiful.

She leans in and kisses him, that same fierce joy that she knew upon seeing him again burning in her chest cavity, hollowing out all that was old and lingering in her and leaving something new in its place. His fingers slide into her wet hair and he's supporting the back of her neck, leaning in himself, and the world starts narrowing in to the feel of his skin against hers after so long—to his mouth and his hands and his curves and hard angles—but she has time for one last thought, overwhelming its sudden urgency.

"I love you," she whispers. "I love you so much, Claude, I—"

He laces his fingers with hers. Their rings gleam under the torchlight, symbols of a shared hope. When he speaks, his voice is a shade quieter, but no less heartfelt. "I know. I love you, too."

"I—missed you."

"Me, too," he echoes again, buries his face in her neck, lets out a shuddering sigh. "Every day. Even more than I could have imagined."

She sets to mapping the canvas of his skin with her fingertips, sparking shivers in him from touch alone. When she digs into the tense muscles of his neck with her thumbs, he groans into her skin—it sets her off with a jolt, like getting hit with a low-grade Thunder spell, and it takes very little time at all for them to fall into each other all over again.

Where before she had felt uncertainty and unease at the prospect of peace, now, with the Agarthans defeated and the Imperial remnant unable to muster enough force to come against Fódlan again, with Claude here and triumphant in fulfilling his dreams, with the Sword of the Creator again confined to its eternal rest in the Holy Tomb and Rhea unable to touch her again, with her dead heart beating in her chest, Byleth lets out a breath she feels she's been holding almost her entire life.

When she sucks in another breath, it's not to prepare to swing her sword or to take someone out before they can take her out—it's to kiss Claude again, and again, and again, and again.

To bring pleasure rather than pain. To comfort, as opposed to causing more suffering.

I could get used to this, she thinks, almost dizzy with the realization.

And she does.