Chapter Text
As a matter of scientific interest, he’s been observing the new professor.
He has to convince himself it’s scientific, because that way it’s interesting. He’d strictly decided that at school he would not do anything that didn’t interest him, so this way he could justify the attention he’d been paying. When his father sent him to Garreg Mach, Linhardt couldn’t have been more relieved. It would be, perhaps, the one opportunity he’d ever have to be on his own, to pursue the things he actually cares about. Dredged out from the political swampmire of his home and family, he was determined to allow absolutely nobody to take his time away from him. They would try, of course, to determine how he was allowed to exist—but none of them were his parents. They weren’t allowed to fill his pillowcase with nettles or remove his bedroom door or or poke him with sewing needles when he nodded off at his desk. At a school like this, whose reputation depends on maintaining relations with nobility, who is going to be the idiot who offends one of them by mistreating their child? The authority these people were going to have over him held absolutely no water when measured against the position of his father. “Student” is the closest thing to “free” he is ever going to be. On arrival, he had firmly intended to pack this one bright patch with enough self-enjoyment and peace and leisure to last him the rest of his life. Because it needs to. He’ll never get any more of such things for as long as he’s fated to live.
But he can’t very well ignore the crest of flames, can he?
In the few months since the school year began, Byleth Eisner has been the source of mountainous levels of gossip. Sorting through it to get to the truth seems an insurmountable task, but one thing can’t be contested. He bears Nemesis’s crest. Linhardt, having expected little more from his time here than a peaceful delay against the dreadful beginning of his life, is not sure whether to be overjoyed or exasperated beyond belief. He had planned to spend this time avoiding doing much of anything, but here now is something—someone, who makes him want to act, to do work. Just to find out. He never could resist a mystery.
Figures that a long-lost crest of legendary power would resurface right in his face, positioned between him and all the slacking off he’d so been looking forward to. Figures that the crest-bearer would speak like the mist crawls and look at him with seaglass eyes.
Linhardt had so far spent his time at Garreg Mach drifting in lukewarm currents, snagged occasionally by odd fishhooks tugging him in different directions. There is Lysithea, who he is fairly certain has never occurred before in the entire history of crestology. There’s Marianne, who wouldn’t have even had to worry about him investigating her secret crest if she didn’t make such a fuss over hiding it. Flayn had the major version of his own crest, and that wasn't even the most interesting thing about her. Hanneman, the reason he’d convinced his father to select Garreg Mach as his school, always regarding Linhardt with the eye of someone evaluating tomorrow. And here now, above all, there is Byleth, who every single person in this place seemed to have a theory about, each one wilder than the last.
He seems to be a bit lost at first, unsure of himself in this new responsibility, and Linhardt can certainly sympathize with that. He sometimes catches a glimpse of him lost in the hallways, and offers directions. That was their first conversation, as a matter of fact. Two days later he was surprised to be approached by the Professor with a thank-you gift in hand. By then, Linhardt had entirely forgotten the thing he did to deserve thanks, but he'd certainly not turn down a free owl feather. Maybe that's what first grabbed his attention, or broken the ice. He looks for ways to help Byleth when he seems to flounder in his new social situation, or stumbles in his new environment. But the Professor is quick to adapt, and shows a rapidly growing aptitude for teaching that soon has his students and colleagues alike talking. He approaches everything he attempts with complete, though often silent, earnestness that propels him and his students forward in bounds. The chatter about him amongst monastery inhabitants only grows the more he blooms. And a fine bloom it is. Linhardt finds himself looking more and more for opportunities to appreciate the sight.
They’d lately made a habit of taking tea together. Which is something no one had expected of a mercenary, much less expected him to be any good at. He is. When Byleth first invited Linhardt to one such evening, he’d leaped at the opportunity to interrogate and examine the first-hand source. Things had not gone at all to that plan. The Professor has a way of directing you onto whatever course he’s charted and tricking you into enjoying yourself. Tea time, apparently, is tea time, and nothing else. Somehow they’d ended up discussing not crests, but the merits of live bait verses lures, and where Linhardt’s hairband came from, and who may have put that note in the counselor’s box about dreaming to be a Pegasus knight. The time they’d passed together didn’t gain him what he’d sought, but somehow still didn’t bore him. It was very…charming. He. Is charming.
The new Professor has a penchant for distraction. The way he pours water over chamomile and smiles as gently as the spring thaws makes Linhardt think of leisure and peace, of powdered sugar, of featherdown. All the best things about life. And does he have to be so…ngh. Suffice to say that looking at Byleth makes it hard to look at anything else.
It's not in Linhardt's wheelhouse to know how to cope with all the unexpected by-products of this field study. He's stubbornly not recording all the ways Byleth affects him, because they're foolish and not worth dwelling on. Like the way his carefully organized thoughts all fall into a jumbled pile when the sunlight hits his hair. Or how his stomach aches every time he senses that he's upset and won't be soothed until he sees him at ease again. He'll often find that he's been reading the same page over and over without absorbing a word, because he can't figure out what that slight twitch of Byleth's brow had meant during their last conversation. Experiments have lately been ruined when a beaker explodes after he's left it too long on a lit burner because someone said that the new professor was out in the courtyard playing with the stray cats, and how could he possibly miss out on witnessing that?
However, because he is nothing if not diligent, Linhardt had managed to get in a few prying questions during the course of his investigation. He's asked Byleth about his crest. About his background, his abilities. Family history. And he's come to find out that Professor Eisner has no clarity to offer in relief of his own mystery.
Oh, but he's rather not, is he? Mysterious. For all the reputation he'd garnered, all the foggy scenes that illustrate his story—once one investigates him, there are simply no answers to be dug up. And not through lack of cooperation. Therefore Linhardt has to conclude that this grandiose, unapproachable question is not seated within Byleth, but rather, had been crafted and perpetuated and added on to by all those around him. The Professor hides no secrets, certainly never tries to deceive—well, what had he to conceal, even if?
The way Byleth’s eyes dull when asked such things—about his age, his childhood, his mother—it chimes a dusty bell in the back of Linhardt’s mind. Its tone rings of overworn bitterness and makes him inexplicably sad. The way Byleth closes up like wood sorrel at dusk every time he lacks an answer for a question, staring at the floor as he waits for the disappointment of others to wash over him and then ebb away. That sort of reaction makes it hard to interrogate him for long. Linhardt always ends up changing the subject, looking for one that might make Byleth edge close to a smile. That in itself is an entire field of study—one which poses a very real threat of getting him sidetracked for a good while.
He realizes quite quickly that Byleth is made entirely of glass. It's just opaque, frosted. Perhaps stained in pieces that form a mural if looked upon in full. He's an open book in a dead language. And isn't there something prideful in the way Linhardt just knows he can decipher it? Something possessive, private. That, even though everyone is looking, Linhardt is the only one who really sees him. Or could, if he’s clever, and if he's any good at what he does.
Yes. This time. Focus. He will absolutely stay on task.
"Professor," he asks, at the first opportunity. "May I ask for your assistance in learning something new?"
Backlit by a tall window in a way that makes his dark hair glow, Byleth raises his head from a stack of paperwork. In the empty classroom, he appears to be grading exams. Lindhardt has no idea why—reflex? habit?—but he steals a quick glance at the top of the pile (Hilda is in deep trouble in the area of horseback riding) before Byleth deftly flips the paper over.
His expression mild, he speaks deliberately, as he always does. "That is the description of my job, yes."
Linhardt's tired eyes light up, because he had spent some time crafting his approach in just such a manner as to elicit this response and is quite satisfied to find that it had worked perfectly.
For Byleth's part, he is quite content to let his attempt at humor fly right over the earnest student's head.
"That's what I thought you'd say," Linhardt's quickened voice is colored with a dose of happy satisfaction. "It requires a sample of your DNA. If you'll just use this vial, and make sure to secure the cork tightly so that the sample won't become contaminated."
Staring at the small glass bottle now sitting in front of him on his desk, Byleth's eyes wash over with a cloudiness that Lindhardt recognizes as a close relative of disappointment. Trepidation, perhaps?
"Yes," he ventures, "that really is is all. Not much effort at all, is it?"
Linhardt seems rather proud of that, Byleth notes, as the crease to his brow tilts fondly upward. Without further hesitation, he picks up the tiny bottle and pops it open, and Linhardt's mind begins to race with all the possibilities about to open up before him. Once he puts these hairs into Hanneman's machine—oh, he'll need to wait until his office is deserted, of course, and find a way around the lock on the door—then what might he discover about that crest? He really had been right; all he'd needed to do was ask. The professor is so unguarded, in fact, that he hadn't even asked what the sample was for, like anyone else would have. Suppose he wants to uncover the secrets of himself as much as anyone else. That would be only natural. If Linhardt is able to make some kind of breakthrough that Hanneman hadn't, it would be for the Professor's benefit too. He could have some answers and perhaps stop feeling so downhearted about the whole mess.
So preoccupied is he with this internal rambling that he hadn't at all noticed Byleth pulling out a knife. It flashes in a glint of pale sunlight from the window, and Linhardt feels his whole head go cold.
"Wait—!"
The tip of the blade sinks into Byleth's palm with the horrifying sound of a wet puncture. At once, the room begins to swim. It rushes upon him, all the blood draining from his face as that first drop of Byleth’s oozes out of broken skin.
Sensing a shift, Byleth looks up, his pale eyes sharp with worried confusion. The sight blurrs before Linhardt's eyes and he gasps, fumbling to grab for the desk.
"Not—like that..." he whispers, and faints dead away.
--------------
He’s never quite so embarrassed than annoyed when this happens; he’d long run out of energy to navigate the shame that he stirred like muddy water around the Hevring estate for its son of “delicate constitution”, and therefore had disregarded caring about it. To the best of his ability. Even still, the thought that won’t leave his mind as it shakes off the dregs of unpleasant sleep (yes, such a thing exists) is that look on the Professor’s unusually emotional face.
Linhardt groans awake. Muted, cream-colored sunlight blurrs his vision and the fourth afternoon bell chimes outside. His surroundings, and the downy bedding he’d brought in to replace scratchy sheets, are familiar. Knowing what’s about to come, Linhardt covers his face and wishes he could sink into his pillow until it swallows him whole.
“Oh, look who’s here! What a rare and unusual event that never happens.” Rings a voice somehow both mellow and chipper at the same time, which can only belong to his own house teacher.
So that he doesn’t just groan by way of greeting, he says, “Hello, professor.”
Sharp clacks mark her steps across the hardwood, followed by a flood of sunlight as she parts the curtains. Turning to him with a dramatic expression of inspiration, she claps her finely manicured hands together.
“I’ve had the most wonderful idea for you, Linhardt. A punch card! Every ten visits to my infirmary and you get a free coffee.”
Linhardt has to close his eyes so they don’t roll right out of his head. “I’d prefer pastries.”
“I’m terrible at baking, I’m afraid.” Manuela crosses the room with clicking heels and a glass of water in hand, stethoscope in the other. Having memorized this routine, Linhardt sits up, taking the water without looking at her and leaning forward so she can press the cold metal disk to his back. He preemptively holds out his wrist to afford access to his pulse. When examinations have checked out and he can accurately recite the day and time and archbishop’s name, Manuela asks, “Does your head hurt?”
“No?” Wait. A little. He lifts his hand up to the focal point of it and feels a bandage, as well as a spike of pain. “Oh. Yes.” He knows a cut that small wouldn’t respond much to magical healing. Those measures only make a significant difference to wounds less superficial. He tries not to think about his own skin having opened up.
“I’ll send you home with something to help. It seems that on the way to the floor, your forehead made a very quick stop at the corner of Professor Eisner’s desk.”
The memory makes him cringe, and he lays back down to cover his head with the blanket.
Manuela tugs it away, standing with her hand on her hip. “Linhardt, sweetie. I do believe I’ve told you, both as your doctor and your teacher, that until we can get you past these fainting spells you ought to avoid looking at blood.”
“It seems I have failed that request, professor,” is all he can argue back, without a single fuck to give as fuel in his attempt at self-defense. “But I’ll have you record that I did try.”
“Oh, what did you expect when you asked for his ‘DNA’? Poor thing was terrified. He very nearly burst down my door to get you in here. My locked door. Which was locked.”
He’s about to retort that the infirmary has no business ever being locked, but it’s then that he recalls it: a flash of brief, blurry awareness. He remembers feeling cold and listless, shivering against an arm around his shoulders. A hand cradling his head. The backdrop of this scene is the ceiling of the golden deer classroom, and in the foreground, Professor Eisner’s face. Surely he’s remembering it wrongly, because no emotion had ever shown so strongly in those blank eyes. More importantly, is the Professor…holding him? Linhardt’s heart leaps so hard that he forgets to breathe for a second.
“Oh, my. He didn’t.”
Manuela’s grin curls like a cat’s tail. “But of course he did! Why, I wouldn’t worry, though—only a handful of people must have seen him carrying you all the way here. In his arms. Bridal style.” Her voice prowls across those words, slow and deliberate.
“…Are you punishing me, professor?” How unbecoming of a physician to get annoyed at the sudden appearance of a patient to interrupt one’s day. Even if she was long past tired of seeing Linhardt in her infirmary with yet another non-emergency and a big fuss over nothing.
“Oh, not at all, sweetie! It isn’t your fault that you’re so fragile—and I must tell you, seeing Professor Eisner so animated was well worth the trouble. I hardly even minded that he scared off the…er, companion, I had in here.”
Of course. But at this point, Linhardt really can't tolerate any of Manuela’s charades. Maybe it's her jabbing toward his shame at himself, or her constant teasing over what she call his 'adorable little crush' (it is not a crush, it is an area of study.) Maybe he has no room left for politeness under the pressing matter of the new professor having learned of his weakness. Either way, he is in no form for playing nice, and quips back languidly, “Oh, good; at least it’s fortunate that one person was rescued from their terrible situation by result of my own. Perhaps there is a silver lining to my weak constitution after all.”
Manuela’s fake smile sloughs into a distasteful scowl. “Brat.”
“Crone.”
Manuela huffs and sweeps away, tossing aside her stethoscope and rifling through one of the towering cabinets full of medical supplies. “…You’ve been ‘organizing’ again.” Her tone is sweet and chipper to the most sarcastic degree.
Linhardt smirks. “Yes, I believe I did that the last time I covered morning infirmary duty for you. It was utter chaos before, just like your room which you made me clean. I wonder what Seteth would think of a professor engaging in shady deals with her students for her own personal gain?”
“Oh don’t give me that; I held up my end of the bargain.” She’s doing her best to put all his fine work to ruin again, in her futile search for whatever it is she’s after. “You wanted a stronger sleep-aid, I provided the very b—oh, for goodness sake, Linny, have you color coded?”
Linhardt tsks, sighing with profound weariness. “It’s a miracle nobody has died while waiting for you to find the right medicine amongst the mess you make of this place. Now it is all sorted by category. I can list them for you if—"
“How very helpful of you. Where have you put the willowbark, my dearest most responsible C-student?”
“Second cabinet clockwise from the door, fifth drawer from the top. Where the blue bottles go.”
With his direction, she finds the right bottle and begins counting out a few pills of crushed herbs, dropping them into a small paper bag. She drops it onto his bedside table and lets an unimpressed glare linger on his very best innocent eyes.
“Thank you, Doctor Manuela.”
She throws him a sarcastic smile. “Mhmm. Perhaps I ought to be giving you lessons in acting instead of medicine.”
Before she mercifully leaves him in peace, she pauses in the doorframe and snickers like a little imp to herself. “Oh, but he was quite worried, that boy. He kept asking me if you were really alright—like he didn’t believe me! In a little while, I think you’d better pay him a visit, just to let him see so for himself. It appears that’s the only way that one will believe anything.”
…Magnificent.
He waits until she’s a good pace down the hall before calling out loud and clear, “Tell Professor Hanneman he left his field notebook in your bedchambers again, madame.”
----------------
Of course, Linhardt has absolutely no intention to do anything but hide from Professor Eisner after such a display. Surely it can’t be that big a deal to him, anyway. Manuela had already assured him that the student was fine, and surely—or with any luck—he would soon forget all about this incident in favor of the manifold demands that came quick and often with shepherding his frolicsome flock of deer.
So Linhardt is not going to find Byleth; he is on his way to a secluded garden corner stuffed with hydrangea bushes which are very old and well tall enough to shade and conceal a stolen slumber. And just about the worst possible thing happens to him before he gets there: someone calls his name.
Linhardt produces a keening whine, because this is unreasonably not fair; hadn’t he earned his peace after the miserable day he’d had? Just one little indulgence for himself?
He is half between deciding to run or talk his way out of this when a hand grasps his elbow and turns him to face “…Professor Eisner.”
The young teacher stares, slightly out of breath as he surveys Linhardt with a scrutinizing eye. His gaze lingers long on the bandage on his forehead. After what feels like an awkward hesitant silence, he finally says no more than, “You’re alright?”
Ah. Well then. Manuela, it seems, had not been lying just to give him a hard time. Byleth really had been that concerned—enough to come and track him down, apparently. Maybe Linhardt had been overly callous in assuming he wouldn’t mind the matter. ...Linhardt is definitely not short of breath because he's thinking of Byleth worrying over him. He's just, still weak from passing out. Hours ago.
“I’m quite alright, Professor, yes. Do forgive me for startling you. It didn’t occur to me to warn you; I hadn’t expected, ah, blood. For future reference, please know that whatever I may ask of you, it will never be to hurt yourself.”
Byleth looks relieved, then perplexed. In his way. A subtle incline of his brow is really the only change to be read in his expression, but Linhardt picks it up and so clarifies, “I’ve what people call a weak constitution when it comes to such things. The sight of blood—well, even the thought of it, revolts me.” Recalling that bright red drop leaking from Byleth’s palm, Linhardt subtly presses a curled fist to his stomach. He suddenly he finds he doesn’t at all want to see the professor’s reaction. He tries to pull away, but his arm is still firmly caught in Byleth’s grip. Likely because his color has gone off. Again.
“Blood makes you ill?”
He swallows. He really wishes he was asleep right now. “Yes, well. Some people are such.”
Byleth pauses, then arrives at a hardened sort of seriousness. “What happened to you today was my fault. I’m sorry.”
He’s surprised. A bit. He’s not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t an apology. He manages to meet Byleth’s eyes again, because he’s intrigued now. The professor lets go of his arm, now that he isn’t trying to escape any more. “Sorry? …Ah, perhaps you’re still getting accustomed to being a teacher. I believe you’re supposed to scold me now.”
That tiny crease returns to the spot between Byleth’s eyes. “For what?”
Linhardt isn’t sure if the professor is testing him, or if he’s just as socially ignorant as he himself can be. “I’ve been told by all other teachers that it’s a big problem for a student of the Officer’s Academy to have such an aversion to…well, the exact goal of combat.”
“Garreg Mach teaches more than combat.”
“Mm. Yes, but it’s ultimately the point, isn’t it?”
Byleth glances downward. He has no way to refute that without lying.
“But.” Linhardt goes softer, meeker. “I don’t want to overcome that aversion.”
He can sense that Byleth is seeking eye contact, but he definitely isn’t up to that. He watches a couple stray cats lounging in the grass at the edge of the courtyard. “Battle is not something I ever want to get used to. I understand that, for some people on certain paths, it’s necessary to become callous enough to ignore the consequence of one’s violent actions. But why is that treated like the norm? Why do people who can so easily end a life want to tell me I’m the one who’s got something wrong with him? I find it not only natural, but right to be abhorred by bloodshed. Maybe if that was treated as ordinary, less people would bleed.”
Linhardt realizes he’s been speaking for much longer than most people let him, and chances a glance at Byleth. He finds no trace of impatience there. But he feels self-conscious all the same, so he swiftly brings his explanation to its point. “If that’s a weakness, fine. I’d prefer to stay the way I am, all the same.”
He prepares to endure a proper lecture, then, because surely hearing that will make the Professor’s cloudy eyes flash with disapproval. It will be sharp and (goddess grant him) quick, and it will drill down into the same old cavities: the importance of having the right sort of attitude and other such failings. Afterwards, he will retreat with stinging knuckles to a soft grassy haven. All he has to do is wait it out.
What the Professor says instead makes Linhardt’s mind go blank.
“Would you like to join my class?”
“…Pff—” He can’t help it, he’s just taken by surprise. He covers his mouth to hide the blush on his cheeks as he holds back further rude laughter. “Goodness, Professor, forgive me. I just—well, I think you’re probably the strangest person in this entire monastery. The most interesting, certainly.”
“Is that a no?”
“That is…a. Well.” Linhardt clears his throat, but his face refuses to smooth over into his usual placid countenance. A smile is firmly rooted there. “I will thoroughly consider it.”
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He forgets all about it. He’s very occupied with increasingly dramatic things. Busier than ever covering infirmary duty for dispatched Manuela and trying to find out who Monica is. He uncovers nothing. Her history ends on the day she disappeared, and then seems to pick back up the day she was found. A blank page year. Soon after she is incorporated into their class, the coming days see an ever-growing thickness to the air: a foreboding feeling surrounding the way the imperial princess and her new best friend speak to one another when they don’t care who eavesdrops. Linhardt thinks they must discount him as disinterested, and thus don’t see a need to put much effort into hiding things he surely wouldn’t be interested in knowing. They don’t see that one cannot be fully ignorant of things one chooses to ignore.
He very well knows when he’s being prepared for something. Put into others’ plans. Linhardt feels shackles closing in around him again, sees his mother more and more in his darkening dreams. He studies magic he hates, because Hubert thinks he’ll uncover a secret hidden talent for setting people on fire if he just sticks to the program. He avoids snake-quick darting eyes, pretends letters from home got lost in the post. He steals sleep tucked away in the infirmary and Manuela slowly stops getting cross with him for taking up a bed, because it’s the only place Edelgard won’t wake him from. His naps stretch as long as the shadows that slowly grow over the Black Eagle house.
The next time Linhardt sees Professor Byleth will be at the Battle of Eagle and Lion, watching from the safety of an old wooden platform in the far corner of the field, from which he flings out healing spells to reckless Caspar and liable Bernadetta. In vain. Bernie seems all too happy to be given an excuse to leave the field, swiftly fleeing before the rushing blue tide which floods the central hill and swiftly drowns poor Ferdinand on its way south.
Linhardt soon finds that the standing gentleman's agreement between himself and Dimitri, of turning mutual blind eyes to each other regarding curfew-breaking nights in the library, does not extend to his comrades on the battlefield. He's ruthless in a way that rattles those who have only known his mask. The way his eyes crave war could make one sympathize with Felix's disdain. The lions and deer clash on the hill, but Ingrid does not join them, her Pegasus carrying her high over the frontline and deep into the eagles' main force. She scatters their formation a fair bit and puts up a good fight, but has sorely overextended, and her land-bound reinforcements take longer to join her than she’d bet on. Not a sweet victory for Dorothea, who feels so guilty she leaves the fight to escort her sweetheart to the medical tent. Things soon begin to feel dire and, frankly, unfair, when the other two houses devolve into a race against each other to shoot down as many eagles as they can.
While Linhardt is occupied with desperate attempts to save anyone caught in Felix’s blazing path of destruction, Claude has snuck through the northwest treeline on a swift path to claim Hubert as a bragging-trophy. Dimitri has Edelgard weakening rapidly until he's sniped in the back by Ignatz (how is his range so far?), leaving his unclaimed victory to be snatched up by Hilda. He winces; Edelgard is going to be so annoyed to be taken out by someone whose reputation for laziness rivals even his own. When the Black Eagles’ house leader falls and leaves an open path to the makeshift little fort Linhardt now occupies entirely by himself, he will passively muse, Oh, bother; I ought to have been on that side.
He throws up his hands immediately. As Raphael whoops in the background and spins Ignatz round in his hulking arms, Claude tosses Linhardt a wink before sidling over to land the facsimile of a punch to his chest.
“You lasted longest out of everyone. Not bad.”
Linhardt’s eyes go dull with annoyance. “No need to mock.”
“I wasn’t. Honestly. No matter how one does so, it’s admirable to be the last man standing. A healer ought to be, anyway.”
Hm. How very Leicester.
When Claude steps away, he meets Hilda’s high-five even though she jumps to try and make it too high for him. He also passes Byleth, waiting a good distance away, positioned in such a way as to support his students but not get in their way. Claude claps a hand on his shoulder, grinning hopefully and joyfully as if the sun is about to rise—not set. The look that passes between the Professor and his house leader makes Linhardt stare. It’s foreign and audacious and intriguing. It’s mutual pride, security in each other. They’re friends.
Edelgard never looks at any of them that way; that’s why it’s something new to him. When anyone in the Black Eagles achieves something, meets an expectation, they would receive from their house leader solid satisfaction dosed with an appropriate amount of polite thanks. It isn’t that she lacks sincerity. In fact, Edelgard always makes sure never to let good merits go un-rewarded. It is all very earnest, and quite strategic.
But nothing in the eagles would ever approach this weird sense of freedom, the lucky fecklessness he sees now between this unruly group. Cheering their victory. But it isn’t just the winning that they share between them, is it? There’s something else they all seem to know. And he doesn't. To Linhardt, it looks more than interesting. It looks like a liferaft. It isn’t often that he encounters such a feeling—the flicker in heart and mind he has no name for, which tells him that he wants to know. Wants to discover this, whatever this is. Just to see.
He looks long at the ashen demon. Linhardt was not aware that Byleth could smile so warmly.
“Professor,” he blurts out, interrupting celebratory shouting and drawing many eyes. “I’ve an answer to your recruitment inquiry, now.”
Byleth’s eyes grow like a waxing moon, soft and alight.