knowlee- Well, here I am with another Claude x Byleth fanfic...

(I swear I don't need help...)

*sigh* Guess I'm gonna be hooked on this for a while, aren't I?

Well either way, hope you guys enjoy this little fic!

(This is an AU where Byleth was a normal student at the Officers Academy and was a Golden Deer while there. Also she has no connection to Sothis!)

A Fire Emblem Three Houses Fanfiction

Like It Was Fate

Chapter 1: Wyverns and Nostalgia

By: Knowlee Raven

This was definitely not how she expected to start her day.

Byleth was on her way into town and was fully anticipating spend the rest of her day shopping for more food and other necessities before returning home to enjoy her evening. However, the sound of a wyvern screeching caught her attention and while she would've probably just went on ahead and ignored it to continue on her merry way, the sounds of men shouting stopped her in her tracks and made her realize that it was something a little more serious. Her doubts still tried to stop her from investigating, but her feet were moving before her brain could catch up. Her father did always used to tell her that she was too curious for own good.

Once she reached the top of the hill where the sounds were emanating from, she saw the wyvern that she presumed made the cry in a defensive position trying to fend off three bandits who were attempting to attack it. The color of the wyvern was one she hadn't been expecting. It was a glaring bright white and it made it the creature stick out like a sore thumb against the foliage of the forest surrounding all of them. It's color, she mused, was probably also the reason why the bandits were attacking it. White was a rare color for wyverns after all. At least that's what she could recall being told by an old friend of hers from her Academy days who happened to be an expert at them. A brief smile formed on her face before she forced it back down to focus on the situation at hand.

Although she rarely intervened in cases like this as no person was being hurt (plus no transfer of money was involved as she did have bills that needed paying), she could say that she did have a soft spot for animals of any kind (this was certainly true of the cats and dogs that were prevalent back during her school days). And this poor creature was desperately trying to defend itself from the people set to do it harm. She couldn't let that stand.

As she started to quietly remove her sword form its sheath, she vaguely wondered why it hadn't just flown off yet. It could very easily knock the men down by using it's wings to blow a gust of wind back at them and quickly make an escape. She was about to chalk it up to it just being too scared to think straight, when she saw it.

There was an empty saddle on the back of the wyvern.

That meant it had a rider.

And based on that thought and how the creature was positioned, it was probably trying to protect said rider from these men.

Her eyebrows furrowed together as when she looked further, she could see that it looked like the beast was shot down from the sky. A few arrows protruded from it's right wing and as she continued her analyzation, she saw the boots of said rider on the ground next to them.

They weren't moving.

Which meant that they were either seriously injured or dead.

She took a deep breath and made her decision. Looks like like her plans for today just changed.

With her sword having been already removed from it's sheath, Byleth quickly studied the three men and could tell from a glance that one was an archer, and the other two wielded a sword and lance respectively. She knew she needed to take out the archer first as she wouldn't be able to dodge his arrows if she was too busy dealing with the other two. She was fast, but not that fast.

Next she would need to take out the sword user since their weapons were the same it would be easy to take him out. The lance user would have to be last as she would have to be more careful with them. Swords were more difficult to use against lances due to their longer reach, so she would need all her attention to be focused on him when it came time to face him.

She took in a slow, deep breath to relax her nerves. She studied the situation one more time to make sure they hadn't noticed her and once she knew for certain that they hadn't, she made her move.

The archer fell first.

Her sword ran through his chest before he even had a chance to realize she was behind him. He was dead before he hit the ground. With him out of the way, she moved towards the sword user and took him out just as silently as his companion.

The lance wielder must've seen his two friends fall beside him for he looked over in her direction and noticed his companions lying dead on the ground. Seeing as he was momentarily distracted, she took the opportunity to run towards him and got her sword ready to move.

At her sudden movement, the man was able to pull himself back to attention and went to attack her with his lance before she could get the drop on him. Byleth anticipated the move and sidestepped out of the way of his attack. She swung her sword in an upward motion before he had a chance to respond and sliced deep into his chest. The man stumbled for a bit before finally falling to the ground; dead like his companions who fell before him.

Once she was completely certain that they were all dead, she turned her attention over to the skittish wyvern who was still hunched over it's rider. She knew that it probably thought she was a threat especially since she was wielding a weapon like those who were attacking it earlier, so instead of riling up the beast more, she slowly returned her sword to it's sheath and began softly talking to the creature in an attempt to show that she meant it no harm.

"Hey there, it's alright. Those bad guys aren't going to bother you anymore." She shot it a smile while simultaneously moving her hand out before her to try and get it to sniff her scent. Vaguely she found herself remembered the same friend she thought of earlier telling this to her back when they had to interact with wyverns as a class assignment. Her smile grew a big wider at the fond memory.

Her actions towards the creature seemed to work as it cautiously began to sniff the air near her. She took a chance to try and take a step forward. She prayed that was moving slow enough for it to start trusting her. While doing this, she took a glance over where the boot of its rider sat. Was he, or she, still alive? She needed to hurry up and gain this wyvern's trust. Otherwise her trying to save this person would've been for nothing.

Byleth slowly inched her way towards the creature with her hand still outstretched before her. Once she got close enough to the wyvern, she stopped and let it sniff her hand. It took it a few seconds, but once it got a good whiff of her scent, it deemed her as a friend and licked her hand as a gesture of good will.

Byleth laughed quietly at the sight. If only her friend could see her now. She used to be terrified of the things when she was younger. With the smile still on her face, she continued to console the wyvern for a few more moments until she saw that it was now relaxed. Maybe now she could get a closer look at the rider and see what the damage was.

She gently eased her way over to the person in question while continuing to hold a hand to the wyvern's body. She didn't want to unintentionally spook it and cause it to lash out again. When she got closer to the body, she felt the wyvern shift it's own body around to look back at her and its rider and nearly jumped to find it's head coming over her shoulder to try and nudge it's owner awake. She could hear distress noises emanating from the creature's mouth. It obviously was worried.

She frowned in concern as she knelt down onto the ground. Now that she was closer, she could tell that it was a man. He was dressed in what looked noble attire, yellow being the main color, with some gold armor on one shoulder and black and green being used as accent colors. He had thick, dark brown hair, tan skin and an earring in his right earlobe. A regular silver bow and a quiver full of arrows that lay near him showed her that he attempted to fight off his attackers before getting shot down.

She moved her fingers over to his neck to feel for a pulse and was relieved to find that he was still alive. Now she had to see if he had any wounds. She looked over his back and didn't see any blood there. She gingerly grabbed him by the shoulder and gently turned him over to see if he had any on his chest. When she had him on his back, she immediately noticed the large, dark red color on his stomach right above the sash he was using for a belt. Ah, there it was.

She grabbed the small knife she had strapped near her hip and pulled it out to cut the fabric near the wound. Once she got it torn away enough she could see that it looked like an arrowhead wound. After a little more gentle prodding she could see that the arrowhead was luckily not stuck inside him. It looked as if he probably pulled it out before he either passed out from the pain or before he hit the ground.

Either way, she needed to stop the bleeding before it continued. Most of her medical supplies were back home so she would have to make due with something else. She sighed. This was definitely not what she expected to be doing today. Granted she knew it wasn't his fault that someone decided to attack him as he was flying, but she was really hoping to just make a simple trip into town and then spend a nice, quiet evening in front of the fire reading a book and drinking some tea. Now, she instead had to cut out the whole trip and instead go straight home with both of them in tow in order to give them time to heal.

Chiding herself at her own selfishness, Byleth grabbed some of the yellow cloth the man had draped over his left shoulder and used her knife to cut off some of it to use as a makeshift bandage until she got more proper supplies in hand. When she moved to do this, that's when she noticed the other cloth that he had draped across his other shoulder. It was a dark black cloth with the symbol of the Leicester Alliance adorning it.

She froze for a moment while her mind was calculating the implications of this. She jerked her head back to the dead bandits. Were they bandits or were they soldiers from the Empire? Was he one of the high nobles in the Alliance? She had managed to keep herself out of the war during the past year after she woke up, she really hoped that she hadn't just dragged herself into it unintentionally. As she looked at the bandits, she didn't see anything on them that showed an Adrestrian allegiance. Maybe they were just bandits that happened to see a noble flying and hoped to use him as leverage for money or something?

She sighed. Well, either way, there was nothing she could do about it now. She had already gotten herself involved. All she could do now was hope that no one would connect the dots to her if it did turn out they were enemy soldiers. She looked back at the man. Plus there was no way she was going to let a defenseless man die. Sure she had killed a few nobles in her line of work as a mercenary, but that didn't mean she hated them. She even refused some of the offers on the basis that the people that potential clients wanted to have killed had done nothing wrong. Regardless of her line of work, she had morals after all.

She pushed those thoughts aside to focus on later when she had the luxury of doing so. Now, she had to bandage this man's wound and find a way to get him back to her home with further injuring him.

After getting him properly taken care of, Byleth slowly eased the man's now bandaged head down onto the pillow. She had just finished wrapping another wound that she had noticed he had on the back of his head when she had picked him up earlier to lay him over the back of the wyvern to carry him back to her home. It wasn't a serious one luckily, but it did help explain why he was unconscious when she found him. His head would definitely be killing him though when he woke up from slumber.

After making sure that he was comfortable lying down, she stood up and moved to pull the blankets over his now bandaged torso. She stopped at the base of his neck and lay the top part of the covers there. She didn't know how long he would sleep for, but she knew it would probably be a while. She sighed and looked out the window to the stable she had outside. The wyvern was out there all tucked in for the evening after eating some of the oats she could spare from her horse's feed. Although she knew that that wasn't a wyvern's usual diet, she knew that's all she could give it for now as she hadn't had time to go fishing since she had to play doctor to it's rider.

With another sigh and glance back at the strange man in her house, she decided to start up some tea. She turned and walked over to the water pump while grabbing the kettle sitting on her table. After she filled it up with water, she put it on top of one of the iron stove's eyes. She leaned down for a moment to open the hatch to make sure that the fire was still going and once she was satisfied with that, she closed it back up and turned her attention to her cupboards.

She sifted through the collection of teas she had until she pulled out one that she had a desire to drink that evening. Almyran Pine Needles. She smiled in anticipation as she grabbed a tea cup from the shelf above where the tea was located and poured some of the tea into it. Her smile grew a bit wider as she once again remembered the same friend who had introduced her to this tea and had helped her acquire a taste for it. Her smile disappeared as her emotions changed.

She missed him.

She kept being reminded of him all day today ever since she came across the man and his wyvern. She turned back to the still sleeping man. She didn't know what it was about him, but nearly everything she saw connected to him brought back memories. Memories that she was desperately trying to forget.

The yellow clothes he wore and the symbol of the Alliance he bore made her think of her old classmates she had back at the academy, the Golden Deer, the wyvern reminded her of her friend's love for them and his dream of one day riding one, and the bow he carried… Her eyes shifted to the weapon that was knelt against the wall.

Her friend's weapon of choice was the same thing.

She breathed in deeply as she returned to the man's side. Why was he making these memories come up? She tried so hard to keep those memories buried as it hurt to think about it.

Her falling, going to sleep and ultimately breaking a promise.

A promise to return to the monastery five years later.

A promise that she couldn't keep.

She didn't like to think ill of her classmates, but she was sure that they didn't want to see her after she didn't come. Granted, she knew deep down that it wasn't really her fault. She was still recovering from the wounds she sustained from her fall and subsequent coma and the villagers that cared for her wouldn't let her leave because of it. But still…

She wanted to keep that promise.

She wanted to see… him again. And maybe they could have...

The shrill sound of the kettle caused her to jump and tear her mind away from her memories. She moved quickly to remove it from the stove before the sound woke up the stranger.

Regardless of who he was and why he was causing her to remember things she wanted desperately to forget, she had an obligation to help him get better. And then once he did, she would let him go on his merry way and she would return to living without those memories bothering her again.

She poured the hot water into the cup and the smell of the tea began to fill the room. Her smile slowly returned to her face as she placed the now empty kettle back onto a cloth that was laid on the table. She picked up the tea and moved to sit down at one of the chairs that sat near the round piece of furniture.

She brought the cup near her lips and blew out in an attempt to cool it off a bit before she began to drink it. After she sipped at the tea for a second or two, she saw in the corner of her eyes, the man began to stir. She placed the cup down onto the table and moved to stand up. Before she could start walking over to the bed, Byleth saw him open his eyes and began to look about the room with a look of confusion.

Once his gaze finally caught hers, she found herself feeling strangely nostalgic. She didn't know fully why, but his green eyes somehow struck her as familiar. Where had she seen them before?