Chapter Text
To be totally honest, Claude didn't particularly care for this strange young mercenary with dark blue hair. Sure, she was certainly talented on the battlefield - especially given her youthful appearance - but Claude didn't care for stars. He needed team players for his schemes, and he didn't trust this oddly silent girl who spoke with her sword more than she did from her lips. Not that he really trusted anyone, of course - but he distrusted her more than most.
Really. Anyone with eyes could see that the girl was having a thousand conversations in her head hidden behind a stony face (but with who, he didn't know - and Claude had a healthy skepticism of people who talked to themselves too much). He could only assume that the tactician mind that exemplified itself on the battlefield worked overtime, and that type of analytic scheming in day to day life was something he preferred to claim monopoly on.
But when Edelgard and Dimitri both stumbled over each other trying to recruit her, Claude knew that he had to get in on the action, too. Not just to compete - but he knew that if he could win the favor of someone who had somehow so easily won the favor of the future rulers of the Empire and the Kingdom… well, it certainly wouldn't hurt his ambitions of true unity.
“I was personally planning to develop a deep and lasting friendship on our journey back to the monastery before begging for favors,” so he said, flashing his silvertongue at her with an easy grin.
But then - somehow, this stranger whose only friend was a blade had also captivated Lady Rhea herself, and suddenly the mercenary that Claude didn't trust became his professor .
If Claude ever thought the goddess might actually exist, it was then. Forcing upon him the professor that he didn't trust but everyone else wanted had to be some ironic joke being pulled on him by some deity with wounded ego.
Was he missing something, or was everyone else just that blind?
But truth be told, having a murder machine as a professor yielded results. Claude had never been so impressed with his ragtag house as when Marianne had destroyed a dummy with a lance without apologizing, and he derived a little amusement from watching Teach shut down Lorenz's and Hilda's antics.
...Okay, a lot of amusement.
But the amusement was largely quelled by how quickly his house fell head over heels for her. Ignatz taking to the professor was expected. There was something comforting about her stoic presence that even Claude appreciated (but only when they were on the battlefield, of course), and the professor was exactly what someone as insecure as Ignatz needed to root onto.
But Lorenz, reconsidering his stance on commoners because of Teach? Someone out there was definitely playing a big joke on him, and he didn't like it. He preferred to be the one who instigated the pranks, thank you very much.
At least Leonie defied the professor, though Claude personally thought her reasons could use some improvement. Jealousy over lineage was not something Claude understood, and as far as lineage went, Teach's lineage of being descended from Captain Jeralt was hardly the most impressive. (So he was a little bitter that he couldn't even properly bond with the only other person in the world who wasn't enamored with Byleth. It was an immature emotion, sure, but he wasn't so immature as to blame this one on his professor, too.)
To be fair, the woman did make endeavours to befriend Claude as well. She invited him several times for tea or for a meal - and though she still was sparse of words, they exchanged pleasant conversation and the time usually passed well enough as he filled the silence with sharing whatever he had been reading recently. (Claude would be the first to admit that he always loved the sound of his own voice much more than a schemer really should. Okay, well, maybe fifth to admit. Though he had no qualms acknowledging this tendency, he knew a few too many who would quickly clamor to say he talked too much, ironically.) Coupled with her destructive talent on the battlefield, Teach became someone Claude easily respected.
Didn't mean he trusted her, or that he particularly liked her.
It was obvious how good of a teacher the mercenary made when Sylvain switched over from the Blue Lions.
First of all, what?! Sure, "Sylvain" and "skirt-chaser" were pretty much used interchangeably around the monastery, and Claude admitted that Teach wasn't bad on the eyes. At all. (It was definitely a power move, Claude thought, to be a mercenary in lacy leggings - though he wasn't sure the reasoning behind the professor's outfit, be it to tempt the eyes of horny men downward and away from the dangerous weapons she wielded in her hands, or if it was just her saying that she was so sufficient in her sword mastery that she could get away with arriving to the battlefield essentially only half clothed. Or quite possibly both.)
But Sylvain and Dimitri had been friends for years, and surely Dimitri wouldn't be taking the switch lightly. Claude didn't know if Teach knew what she might be allowing by letting a Kingdom noble switch into the Golden Deer house, but it was enough to force Claude into rearranging a few game pieces in his schemes.
Maybe it did make some sense for Sylvain, Claude thought when he observed Sylvain in his training. Sylvain was good at fighting - always had been - but it was saying something when the likes of Raphael, who hadn't had the training Sylvain received growing up as a Crest-bearing noble, best him in a spar with a pair of gauntlets.
Teach was a grueling professor with unmatched focus. Claude had found it frustrating when she hadn't let him take his certifications when he felt ready ("You have yet to master your current class," she kept saying), but it seemed like her attention to detail and her vision paid off.
Her success was noticed by others as well. After Sylvain, Dorothea switched houses. Then Claude noticed some of the Knights even started attending her classes. And Claude was certain that Catherine didn't start sitting in on a first year professor's lectures to ogle at a pair of lacy leggings.
Which, by the way, Claude did not do. (Okay, so they may have been featured in one of his wank fantasies, but he was certain he wasn’t the only student to have thought of the professor late at night behind locked doors at some point or other. Despite his apprehension over Teach, he still had a very healthy sex drive.)
"The new professor is strong greatly, is she not?"
Claude turned to meet the Brigid princess who had come up beside him at the edge of the training grounds where Teach was refining her sword technique. It was Sunday, but even so, he'd never known Teach to actually rest.
"I'd wager she learned to swing a sword before she learned to walk," Claude acknowledged as he tightened his bow string.
Petra frowned. "Why would you wager that? I do not think that is a wager made wisely." She shook her head. "But, if it is a wager you make, then I make - " She cleared her throat, visibly frustrated with her fluency. "I accept."
Ah. He'd forgotten about Petra's charm that was enhanced by the language barrier.
Claude winked at her and grinned. There was nothing the matter with playing along, he supposed. "We need a few fools in this world to keep it interesting, wouldn't you say?"
If he were to make an honest bet, Claude figured that Teach would say something along the lines of, "I don't know." She said it often enough when it came to her personal life. But come on - no one knew that little about themselves, did they? Who did the professor think she was kidding?
The woman had as many secrets as the Church of Seiros. But at least the Church didn't play stupid when he poked around for answers.
"I do not think you are a fool," Petra said, shaking her head emphatically, "but you do make the world interesting."
Now Petra, Claude liked. She was blunt yet generous with her words, and Claude had always liked Brigid - not that he’d been, but he’d like what he had read about it. And the princess made obvious sense as an ally for his big dream.
He laughed off Petra’s compliment, while testing the bow string’s tenacity. “Aw, Petra,” he said, tossing her another wink, “there you go again, making me blush. Whatever your reasons for being here in Fódlan, I’m glad you are so I could meet you.”
Petra didn’t need to know that he was aware she was essentially being held by the Empire to keep Brigid in line.
Petra sent him a demure smile, and then she threw an axe at a dummy from a distance. Claude laughed to himself at the contrast. “How is… how is the new professor’s riding?” she asked, broaching a new topic, after a bit of silence fell. “Does she ride greatly as well?”
The question took Claude off guard. Was her inquiry what he think it meant? First Teach had somehow enticed over a Kingdom noble and now a Brigid princess kept hostage by the Empire was interested in joining the Golden Deer house as well?
This could work, Claude thought. Having them in his house could lay the framework for his ambitions.
He looked over at the young professor just as she spun and cleaved two dummies in half. She was a weapon, he fancied, and he would have to learn how to wield it.
The thing is, there are only so many times you can go into battle and trust that someone beside you will defend you, and you them, before you start to trust them a little more in your day to day.
Teach had started to become a little more expressive as well. She’d started smiling more at his jokes, and even deadpanned a few of her own - which took Claude by surprise, but it made sense that someone who grew up on the battlefield would have a bit of a dry sense of humor that bordered between morbid and silly.
He… kind of liked it, truth be told.
Lately, Teach had been a central figure in most of his schemes. And why wouldn't she be? The few people she didn’t instantly win over, she warmed up in the end. (He’d overheard Leonie apologizing - or, well, trying to, at least - to the professor and acknowledging her insecurities around Captain Jeralt. Which Claude privately thought was a little ridiculous, but Teach waved it all away with grace and smiled and said she understood.) And beyond seeing how much they’ve grown in the past few months under her tutelage, her influence in bringing them together and working through their personal conflicts was undeniable.
What group she invited to share a meal with her, who she paired up for the group tasks - all of it began to make sense when he saw Hilda literally doing something for Marianne, like a protective older sister, and when he heard Lysitheia actually asking for help from Ignatz.
The Golden Deer house went from a house of ragtag Alliance folk to a house of allies Claude wanted on his team. He was proud of them, he thought. They’d all grown so much. And that Teach helped enable this transformation, and this unity… it made him think that his ambitions might actually somehow work.
So when it came time for the Academy Ball, he proposed that they’d all meet again in five years. After all, who knew where they’d be after graduation? He’d want to see them again, he was sure - and he knew he’d want the chance to recruit them to whatever scheme he had laid out in five years to bring him closer to his dreams.
He wondered what the world would look like, five years from now.
Claude looked over at Edelgard and Dimitri, who were the first to break open the dance floor - together. He thought he might be able to see them quietly bicker with each other. Those two always needed him to smooth things over. He hoped he wouldn’t have to be doing that still, five years from now.
But for now, he had to open the dance floor for the Golden Deer house (and pray that no one noticed that he didn’t actually know any Fódlan waltz steps). Maybe he’d choose someone who could lead him instead, and he could just follow?
Or...
His eyes snapped to Teach, and he smiled.
She likely didn't know any steps either, given all he'd (of all people) had to inform her about the Church of Seiros. But he figured, hey.
He couldn't pass up the opportunity to ruin the grace that the future empress and the crown prince showcased on the dance floor with two people who had absolutely no idea what any of this formal garbage was.
Trying to fit in was overrated, anyways.
…
He made a getaway, after a turn. These formal Fódlan parties weren’t really his thing.
Besides, for all his training, he never trained in Toe Strength - and his toes were a little bruised right now, given the number of times he tried to push his partner in the wrong direction because he’d gotten the steps wrong.
But then, Teach was there as well - cheeks flushed from the heat of the ball room, no doubt. (After the first dance they’d fumbled through, there’d been a long queue of men trying to get a dance in with her - no doubt trying to show her how a waltz should actually go - with an offended Lorenz and a crafty Sylvain fighting at the forefront. Switching houses over a pair of lacy tights, indeed. ) She seemed surprised that he was there, but… happy, as well, maybe?
Some sort of tightness tugged within him. Claude immediately replaced acknowledging it with a barrage of words.
“You know the legends say that if two people make a prayer here…”
He wasn’t quite sure what he was saying, or why. Teach knew he didn’t put much stock into religion and legends outside of what could properly be backed up by historical events, but here he was, spewing out some version of a myth he'd heard people giggling about as if it had any relevance to him and Teach.
If there was one thing that Claude was good at, though, it was talking. He could pivot out of this situation he'd landed himself into for no apparent reason. Here he was, in a tower alone with Teach, and he could maybe finally ask her about what he really wanted to know.
“You’ve got some ambitions of your own, right?”
The ex-mercenary was watching him intently with a furrowed brow. “More like… a hope,” she supposed.
She didn’t say anything more, and Claude decided wouldn’t press on it - not tonight, at least, though he itched to know. Briefly, he wondered if he were a part of that hope. (Where had that thought come from?)
But then he realized as soon as he wondered if he was a part of her goals - that she actually was part of his dream, now - that what he’d want to see across Fódlan and beyond also featured her, helping him fight for it. When had that happened?
It made sense that she was, now that Claude thought about it. Despite his initial misgivings, his time at Garreg Mach wouldn't have been nearly as enlightening without her. They made a good team, he thought: her focus against his wit, her sincerity against his schemes. He could do more with her than without; a counterbalance, perhaps.
He’d tell her this in full, one day, maybe. Once he’d unpacked everything swimming through his mind at the moment and inspected each thought thoroughly.
But, Claude thought, at least he could tell Teach now just how important she had become in his life. She deserved to know.
So he did, in a rare act of earnestness.
“And, well, Teach," he continued suddenly as he moved to part ways (because he could never stick around for too long after baring a part of his soul open), "save a dance for me, will you?” He’d put his toes to the test one more time, maybe, for her.
And then…. Her father was killed.
Captain Jeralt.
It was a tragedy, and many throughout the monastery were beside themselves with grief. And Teach, his daughter, walked through her daily routines as if nothing had changed, putting together lesson plans, stone-faced as ever. The smiles she started sharing had retreated back into hibernation. This Teach was the one he’d first met, not the one he’d come to know.
But it was different, all the same. (He could practically hear Petra with that remark - "How can it be being so different and also the same?") Before, even as she stared off into the distance, there was life in her eyes. The conversations she had in her head with herself that concerned him when they’d first met.
Now, there were no thoughts. As if she were… numbed. It was a subtle tell, given how stoic she was by default, but Claude had spent enough time tracking the professor to notice.
And Claude realized, his Teach had never been just a murder machine. She was a person, probably only a few years older than himself.
An odd person, to be sure - one that Claude found difficult to decipher, to his great frustration. But maybe that was just because she grew up an outsider. She didn't even know about the Knights of Seiros that her father had commanded, for crying out loud.
An outsider. Just like him.
At night, he stopped by her room and knocked.
The door creaked open. “Claude?”
“Hey, Teach,” he gave her a smile and held up a bag. “I found some herbal tea leaves and wondered if you’d help me drink it.”
(Truthfully, he found the herbal tea leaves at the marketplace and he’d paid a decent amount of money for them. But they were her favorite, and so it was worth the expense.)
A tired smile pulled at the corner of her lips as she opened her door wider to let him in. Her room was a little smaller than his, up in the nobles’ quarters, but it was tidy. Teach herself had changed out of her armored shirt, and in her robes, she, too, looked smaller.
It made her look like someone who needed to be protected, rather than the fierce swordmaster and tactician he was accustomed to.
“I’m sorry, by the way,” Claude said earnestly. “The Golden Deer are here for you, if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “You and your classmates mean a lot to me.”
It was such a used line that Claude wouldn’t have believed it, had it come from anyone else. There was a reason everyone in the house felt comforted with Teach standing in battle with them. He thought about the excursions they made as a house, and the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, and saving Flayn. Her careful command, and her reactions whenever someone narrowly missed a potentially lethal hit - always subtle, with her eyes glazing over worry, or something - and how she’d always taken time to praise them after, individually. Those were the careful ministrations of someone who cared .
Claude just wished he knew why she cared. It was hard to anticipate her when he didn’t understand her motives.
But what he said instead was, “You’ve done so much for us, in the time since you’ve arrived. We’d like to take care of you for once, you know?”
She smiled but she said nothing. No matter. Claude was used to her silence.
“Teach,” he said, imploringly, “what do you want?”
Her eyes drifted over Claude’s shoulder as she focused on something not on this plane. And the light flickering behind her eyes - the one where Claude thought she might be talking to herself again - came back for a brief moment, and she let out a mirthless laugh.
“I want revenge,” Teach admitted quietly, and when she snapped her eyes back to his, there was a fire there that Claude had never seen in her before.
“You’ll have it,” Claude promised.
Revenge. Claude smiled. That was a motive that was easy enough to understand.
Teach had her revenge. But she wasn’t careful, like he asked her to be.
And Claude wasn’t okay with that.
He’d come to… depend on her, he realized. Fully. The schemes he had without her in it were colorless by comparison.
And then there was Jeralt’s diary that he’d surprised himself at his own boldness when he asked to borrow it, and then he was even more surprised when Teach consented. It was a gift of trust she’d given him, which warmed him a little.
After reading the book, Claude realized that maybe he’d pegged her all wrong in the beginning. That she was never playing dumb when he’d probed her with questions - that she was exactly as confused as she let on. That perhaps she was honest in a way that a schemer like him couldn’t understand, and maybe that’s what everyone else saw in her all those months back that he didn’t.
And it made him feel a little guilty with all the calculated wordsmithing he did to spin himself in her favor, when it seemed like she had opened whatever little she knew of herself to him.
And when she just - winked out of existence, like - he didn’t even know -
Claude realized that he’d come to more than trust her, but believe that she would be there for him and his ambitions - and, for the Golden Deer house, of course - and he believed in its truth with a faith, a religion, a fervor he didn’t understand because it didn’t make any sense . But now she wasn’t , and it was only now that he was beginning to understand just how much he needed her, that he’d even begun to truly appreciate her -
And then she was back, but no, it wasn’t her - but it was -
(He had a dream later that night, of Teach returning from whatever dimension she was stuck in. “I came back for you,” she had said in the dream, and there was no mention of anyone else. Just him.)
(And then his randy teenage self twisted it into a sex dream, which made him deeply uncomfortable when he woke up for reasons he couldn’t fully articulate. In the end, he couldn’t look his professor in the eye for a few days after that, and he hoped that she just chalked it up to him being unused to her new eye color.)
(But that didn’t stop him from guiltily recalling the dream a week later with his hands beneath the blankets, of course.)
And then she explained it all to him.
That she’d had an immortal being trapped inside her, as if she were just a sentient genie lamp. That the look she got when ideas warred inside her head, those conversations he’d thought she had with herself, had been replaced by looks of quiet unease - as if she weren’t used to being alone in her thoughts.
Now it was just Lady Rhea with the secrets, around Teach’s birth, around Crests, around why the damn Sword of the Creator (because of course, that damn sword would find its home with her, because why the fuck not, everyone else was finding the same thing anyways) glowed red hot in Teach’s hands.
Now it was just Lady Rhea with her secrets, and him with his secrets - of his ambitions, and the hope he was scared to acknowledge to even himself that Teach would be there to hold his hand through it.
(He’d never admit it, but those lacy tights of hers that he still didn’t understand were featured in more than one fantasy now.)
(It was fine. It wasn’t a crush, just fantasy or two. It was a normal thing for a guy his age to think about, of course.)
But then Lady Rhea was gone.
For once, Claude found that he didn’t care that the source of the answers to his questions had vanished, because there were more pressing matters at stake.
Lady Rhea was gone,
but so was Byleth.