Chapter Text
Clouds hung heavy in the sky over Fódlan, threatening rain with blooms of dark grey.
“Not good,” a roughly eleven year old, blue-haired mercenary dressed in simple leathers muttered to herself. “That will obscure his tracks”
The young girl had been following the tracks of her quarry for the past few hours at this point through a sparse woodland. Her father's mercenary group had taken on a job to find some lost son of a noble house in the Adrestian Empire and, after a day of searching, Byleth Eisner found his tracks and began following them. Her father, Jeralt Eisner, followed closely behind her while the rest of the mercenaries fanned out to cover more ground.
Eventually, the trees gave way to a small clearing, within which sat a run-down, wooden shack. Maybe it was used as a hunting lodge once, but the caved in roof and moss-covered walls spoke of disuse that had lasted for years. A stench of rot permeated the clearing, and Byleth had to hold back a slight gag at the stench. Regardless, she drew her sword and carefully stepped forwards towards the old structure, keeping an eye and an ear out for anything nearby.
She placed a hand on the door, damp and rotted wood giving way slightly beneath her palm, and gently started to push it open. She faltered as she heard something unexpected from inside the shack: sobbing. Odd, but it did at least confirm her quarry was most likely inside. Byleth quietly pushed the door open, her grip on her blade tightening. The sobbing suddenly stopped, and Byleth heard a frantic breathing coming from the back of the shack before a young child frantically began scrambling to get away, knocking over a dilapidated table in the process.
“Got him,” Byleth whispered.
With a determined expression, Byleth rushed forward to tackle the child to the ground, her boots nearly slipping on the damp wood beneath her. The child screamed as Byleth tackled them to the floor and pinned them down. The clouds parted for a brief moment, letting moonlight illuminate the terrible bruises and open wounds on the child's face and body.
Their deep-purple hair, the same colour as the nobles who hired Jeralt's Mercenaries, was jaggedly cut short and framed a face frozen in fear. No older than ten, the child was dressed in what appeared to be a peasant’s dress, but it was torn and burned in places. There was a circular scorch mark on the dress’ hip that concealed a roaring, red welt on the child’s skin. A large, weeping wound sat on their upper lip. Light-blue eyes wet by tears stared pleadingly back up at the girl pinning them to the ground.
Byleth paused, taking all of this in. The marks upon this child's flesh were so clearly done by a person; falls and animals could never leave such marks on someone in her experience. Theories about who could have done this to them swam through her mind.
“Are you the Bictari kid?” Byleth asked, a hint of confusion and curiosity rising to the surface. The child nodded, then attempted to speak in a voice that was most definitely higher pitched than their normal cadence.
“I am, but please don’t take me back there! I won’t be safe!” The child barely got that last sentence out, desperation in their voice.
“Why not?” Byleth asked, cocking her head in confusion. Something about the sheer panic in the child's voice tugged at her chest.
“My parents hate me for being a girl,” the child responded, fresh tears welling up in her eyes. “When I told them, my dad hurt me. Claimed I was an abomination of the Goddess.”
Something stirred in Byleth’s chest, her unmoving heart making a small motion at the mention of the Goddess. Ignoring it for now, Byleth looked down at the child, making a realisation and then a subsequent decision.
“What’s your name? Your real name, not what we were told,” she asked, the softness in her voice surprising even her. The child smiled a little bit, some relief coming to her face.
“Emily. Emily von Bictari is the name I chose,” she replied. Her eyes filled with a small amount of happiness for the first time since Byleth had found her in this dreary place.
Byleth raised herself off the ground and extended a hand towards Emily.
“Sorry for tackling you like that,” she said, her usual monotone coming back to her. “Did you want a hand up?”
Emily nodded and grabbed Byleth’s outstretched hand. As she pulled the girl up, the door opened and Jeralt stepped through. A tall man, with a handsomely scarred face, Jeralt cut an imposing figure. His torso and large lance took up nearly the entirety of the doorframe. He ducked under the door and looked towards the scene, watching Byleth pull Emily up from the floor. His daughter looked back at him, a grim expression on her face that gave Jeralt pause.
“I found her, Pa,” she said, concern returning to her tone. “But we can’t take her back there; they’re hurting her.”
Jeralt stopped; his daughter never normally expressed this amount of concern over… well anything really. He stepped forwards and knelt in front of Emily, inspecting her. Her many varied injuries made him wince as a brief flash of rage crossed his face. He ran a hand through his short blonde hair, an exasperated smile on his face.
“Yeah, kid, you’re right. Wouldn’t do my conscience any good to bring her back to that sort of place.” He smiled and, despite the roughness of his exterior, kindness radiated off of him. “We’ll just tell them we found him dead or something. Could you take her back to the others, kid?”
“Of course, Pa,” Byleth responded, Emily’s hand still firmly gripped in her own. “Come on, Emily.” She began to half drag the girl out of the shack and back towards the mercenary’s camp.
Jeralt let out a happy sigh at the sight.
“Damn kid, giving me another mouth to feed. But she’s got a good heart in her, eh, Sitri?” he mused to himself. With a smile on his face, Jeralt Eisner, the famed Blade Breaker, exited the shack, a new responsibility waiting for him.
…
Jeralt told Emily’s parents that they’d found her body in a wolf den, completely torn to shreds. There was nothing left for them to bury. Her mother and younger sister were inconsolable, but her father seemed mostly unaffected. He refused to pay Jeralt’s Mercenaries, claiming that they didn’t fulfil the contract, but Jeralt didn’t argue. If anyone within the group asked him, he would have just said that he didn’t want money from an abusive asshole like that.
Emily stuck with the group for ten years. Over that time she and Byleth became exceptionally close, beginning to view each other as sisters. Byleth taught Emily sword skills so she could defend herself and fight with the group. While she never got to the level of her surrogate sister, she was able to hold her own against almost all of the mercenaries around her.
Jeralt’s Mercenaries welcomed her into the group with open arms, especially after hearing about what happened with her parents. On her sixteenth birthday, she was even surprised with a shopping trip by some of them so she could expand her wardrobe into what she wanted it to be, no longer having to rely on hand-me-downs and whatever she could cobble together from scraps and loose clothing.
With Emily around, Byleth began to express more and more emotions, though still substantially less than most kids her age. Hearing Byleth laugh for the first time at a joke Emily had told brought a tear to Jeralt’s eye. Though Byleth still struggled with a lot of different emotions and social cues, Emily’s influence helped bring her out of her shell a bit, even if her occasional flares of anger were concerning to witness.
Then one evening ten years later in Remire Village, a small town in the north of the Adrestian Empire, everything changed.
…
Emily had been sleeping peacefully, but was rudely interrupted by Byleth next to her, suddenly waking up.
“ Ahh! ” Emily exclaimed as Byleth shot up in bed, frantically looking around for a moment, the bed creaking beneath her weight. “What’s the matter with you, sis?!”
Byleth looked over at Emily, a slightly apologetic smile on her face.
“Sorry,” she said. “Had one of those dreams again.”
At that moment, the door to the room opened as Jeralt pushed his way in, a fearful expression on his face.
“The hell’s going on in here? You two okay?” he asked.
Emily and Byleth looked at each other, then back to Jeralt. The years had allowed both of them to grow into young women and now each of them had defined their looks with splashes of colour and individuality.
Byleth now sported torn black tights, with a slightly armoured corset and a pink ribbon around her chest. Draped over her shoulders she tended to wear a long coat, the sleeves left out and over her arms so that they could flow behind her in battle like a cape. Her teal hair had gone through several styles over the years, but she had recently settled on it coming to a stop just above her shoulders.
Emily on the other hand seemed to take more from Jeralt in her look, sporting an orange and brown leather top with a padded chest area. Her purple hair, now reaching to the middle of her back, was usually done up in a high ponytail, but it tumbled over her face in waves after her rude awakening. White trousers with detachable armoured plates covered her legs.
“We’re all good here, sis is just having strange dreams again and woke me up,” Emily answered, using a higher pitch she had been experimenting with recently. She turned to Byleth. “What was this one about?”
“There was a battle. So many dead on each side. There was a woman with green hair fighting a giant of a man with a strange sword," Byleth explained. “Then it changed, and I saw that young girl with massive amounts of green hair again, only this time she spoke. Turns out we share a birthday.”
Emily snorted.
“Okay so the strange child you’ve been seeing sleeping in your dreams finally wakes up and you find the most interesting part about it is that she shares a birthday with you? Why am I not surprised?” Emily laughed softly. Byleth cocked her head to the side as Jeralt cleared his throat to get their attention.
“Well regardless, I’m glad you two are okay, but get yourselves ready. We’re shipping out at dawn. Got a job in the Kingdom lined up,” He looked between the two of them. “Make sure you’re ready,” he said before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
Byleth and Emily looked at each other again before Emily stretched and lay back down.
“Well, since you interrupted my beauty sleep, I’m going to get 10 more minutes before I move again," she said, closing her eyes in an attempt to peacefully drift off. She was rudely interrupted by a crash from outside the tavern.
Jumping to their feet, both women grabbed their blades and rushed downstairs, where Jeralt was talking with another of the mercenaries.
“Bandits? Here ? At this time ? Well that’s just great,” Jeralt reiterated with a defeated sigh before noticing the two of them. “You two are with me. We’re protecting this village from bandits now before we move on.”
Byleth and Emily nodded in sync, ready to protect those in danger. They all stepped outside into the cool night air. It carried a young man’s voice towards them.
“Excuse me! Please forgive the intrusion. We wouldn’t bother you were the situation not dire,” the voice said. The family turned to see a young man with messy blond hair wearing what appeared to be a military uniform with a blue cape over his left shoulder. He was flanked by two others in similar uniforms; a man with dark scruffy hair and tan skin, and a woman with white hair and lilac eyes. They wear a yellow and a red cape respectively, rather than the blue of the middle man.
As the three figures approached them, Jeralt stepped forward to speak.
“What do a bunch of kids like you want at this hour?” he asked. The blond one spoke up again.
“We’re being pursued by a group of bandits. I can only hope that you will be so kind as to lend your support,” he answered, a sense of confidence in his voice.
“It’s true. They attacked us while we were at rest in our camp,” the young woman added, her voice oozing authority.
“We’ve been separated from our companions. They’re after our lives… not to mention our gold,” the other man finished, his eyes betraying his fear.
“I’m impressed you’re staying so calm given the situation. I… wait, that uniform,” Jeralt started before being swiftly interrupted by a scream from a nearby villager.
“Okay, we’ll help,” Byleth continued, already drawing her sword. “We were gonna be dealing with them anyway. You look armed, can you assist?”
The three uniformed individuals looked over at Byleth, intrigue crossing their faces before they raised their weapons: a lance for the blond, a bow for the dark-haired boy, and an axe for the white-haired girl, who Byleth’s eyes lingered on for a second longer than the others.
“Okay, good. Follow me,” she ordered and began making her way towards the nearby bandits. The three uniformed individuals followed after her. Emily sighed briefly before turning to Jeralt.
“Always eager, isn't she?” she said, light teasing in her voice before she rushed off to join the fray.
Jeralt sighed contentedly. He mounted his horse, Storm, and rode off to join the fray.
“Damn kids are going to be the death of me…” he muttered under his breath, lance at the ready as the battle began.