Glass Table Girls

by willow4040404

Summary:

Byleth, on Captain Jeralt's orders, finds herself on a odd-job in Gautier lands some five-or-so years after an unexciting teaching stint at Garreg Mach; for an aimless Sylvain, who has long since watched his friends find their footing in the world and move up in life from afar, the professor's sudden reappearance is nothing short of an upheaval.

Chapter 1: Eisner I

Byleth’s breath escapes her in wispy, gray puffs as she pulls over to the side of the trail. The incline had been sharp, unforgiving, and combined with the unyielding patches of snow and ice made for an unpleasant day’s journey. Resting her hands on her thighs, she gazes out down the lip of the cliff they are traveling along with something akin to wonder; the union of the Whitehorn Sea and Fraldarius’ eastern coast is a sight to behold, after all, a mess of jagged rock and white-capped waves. It is violent where most of the coasts and beaches she’s been to have been calm, with harsh crags in place of soft sand. The moon sits lazily in the sky above as twilight settles; it’s only early autumn, yet the days are becoming shorter far quicker than she’s ever remembered.

“Kid, keep up.”

A wave of Jeralt’s hand from atop his destrier is all Byleth needs to snap out of her daze and scurry back into their ranks. Their band will be making camp soon, he says, and she’s needed to scout ahead to find a more level clearing to set up in. Wordlessly, she obeys, mustering up whatever energy is left in her reserves and jogging uphill after the head of their line.

Sure enough, she finds a glade not far inland that seems suitable. Where the ground isn’t muddy, there are patches of snow, but it’s better than trying to pitch their tents on an incline. With a satisfied nod to herself, she turns on her heel to find her father, her boots sinking into the soil.

It’s Leonie that creeps up on her, somehow. Though Byleth does not acknowledge her approach, she feels the girl’s eyes on her profile. “You find that good spot, by the stream? It seems flat enough.”

“Yes,” replies Byleth. “It’ll suit us, for now.”

Leonie scratches her chin, falling in pace with the merc now. “Cool. Good. You want me to report it back to Captain Jeralt?”

Byleth pauses in her tracks, balancing her feelings on the proposal. “I suppose you could.”

The ginger-haired girl scrunches her brow together. “What? I don’t have to if you’d prefer to.”

Large blue eyes find Leonie’s narrowed orange ones, indifferent. “Go ahead.”

“...Okay,” she responds, her tone rising on the last syllable. With that, she’s off, slinging a recently-caught rabbit over her shoulder.

Byleth feels irritation worm around in her gut, but lets the girl leave without issue. It was nothing new, after all, the odd rivalry that’d been forced upon her. Letting out a sigh, she begins to tinker with the lamp hanging from her waist; it’s getting dark. A simple fire spell gets it going, thankfully - she’s out of practice with magic, but the essentials still come with ease. Though only a small hip-lantern, the warmth of the flame is still palpable in the chill of the wintry air. She can hear the others approaching through the underbrush, now, and the distant pitch of Leonie’s voice as she doubtlessly recounts the good find to her captain.

It’s been around five years now since the woman joined them. After Jeralt abruptly pulled Byleth from the academy mere weeks before graduation, she’d expected not to see any of her former students unless she went out of her way to make it so. Leonie, however, had tracked them down the moment they rejoined with Jeralt’s old crew and practically begged on her knees to accompany them.

The rest was history; Byleth still finds it hard to believe it’s been five years, though. She finds it even harder to believe that much time has passed since she’d last seen the others at the academy. Time had escaped her, perhaps another frustrating issue with her general lacking cognizance. Yet she hasn’t made time to check in on any of them, even still. Not that it would be easy to - the invisible veil separating the world of a commoner from that of a noble descended like a portcullis once she’d left Garreg Mach, something she hadn’t seen when she’d been invited on campus. Even if she wished to visit one of her former comrades, it’d be difficult - or that is the excuse she makes for herself, at least.

The teaching stint feels like a lifetime ago, nowadays. It is easy for her to slip back into the life of a mercenary - it’s what she grew up with, after all. She no longer has to play the difficult social games that come with walking in stride with nobility, no longer has to spend so much of her time with her nose in books, no longer has agendas and curriculums and daily end-of-day meetings with church officials eager to measure her performance alongside the performance of her students. No, life is beautifully simple; follow her father’s orders, travel some days, fight other days, hunt up meals or budget coin to spend at roadside taverns. There is no worry about the distant future, no life planning, no concern of legacies or global politics; the straightforwardness of it all is easy for her to tackle day-in day-out, if a tad unexciting.

Still, she figures she would rather have a physically taxing lifestyle like so than a mentally taxing one like what was proposed in the monastery. And worse had been the emotionally-taxing aspects of it. She had been wholly unprepared for the plethora of social nuances and traumatic burdens she’d need to shoulder on behalf of her students there, winging it the entire time. It was a wonder they didn’t fire her the first week, really.

Byleth pulls her thoughts from the topic. Garreg Mach is best left as first described - a stint from a lifetime ago, nothing more than something she did at some point, with no further significance to her history nor her future than the last time she pulled over into the woods to take a shit. It’s not bitterness attached to the memory, not disdain… but indifference, maybe, if not a tinge of loneliness for the few things at that monastery she had enjoyed, or at least found stimulating.

She pulls a knife from a holster along her leg and sits down around the bonfire her father’s men have going, offering a hand in skinning the day’s game. Leonie sits across from her, only glancing up once in her direction before going back to her own work; the man who slides Byleth his own caught rabbit, meanwhile, is overflowing with gratitude at the offer, and no sooner excuses himself to go warm up in his tent.

A few minutes pass like this, the only sound being the grotesque peeling of hide from flesh and slicing of their knives. Then a pan is prepped, oiled, and they’re tossing bits of rabbit in alongside a handful of herbs and mushrooms. Leonie is a far better cook than Byleth, though it’s never bothered her much; in fact, she finds an odd satisfaction in learning something from one who was once her student.

“ He was awfully grateful.” Byleth blinks at the sudden words when they break the otherwise dull wall of campsite noises around them, staring across the fire at Leonie. She’s still engrossed in her work with the pan, but after a few long seconds, she realizes the girl was talking to her and not just herself.

“Who, Masa? He and a few others were looking a bit too red,” she says, referring to the way the man’s hands had been dry and chapped from the cold air. “We still don’t have enough gloves for everyone.” Perhaps in the next town, they could find a tailor, or a leatherworker…

“Ever-observant,” responded Leonie with a chuckle. The rabbit flesh was beginning to sizzle and pop, a mouthwatering scent drifting from the pan.

Silence. Byleth hears her father’s voice from somewhere in the drone of noises around them as their group, some 50 strong, settles for the evening. She fidgets with the knife, figuring she should find a place to clean the blood off it. “Good that this is the kind of mission we can light campfires for,” she comments. “Without any kind of risk.”

If Leonie thinks strangely of her attempt at conversation, she does not comment on it. Byleth has picked up that while the girl is not quite as socially inept as she is, she lacks the headache-inducing etiquette that so many nobles she’s met has, and is relatively straightforward, if not awkward. It’s something she admires, truthfully; she at least doesn’t need to think too hard about what she says around this former student. “For now, at least. Let’s hope it holds up. I hardly ever camped out without a fire back in my home village, and this far north…”

“You won’t need to worry about it.” Jeralt comes out of nowhere, his heavy steps emerging into the ring of firelight. He takes a seat beside Byleth, eyeing the rabbit. “Risk will be low for the next few days, and by the time we enter territory that’s potentially dangerous, we’ll be covered on accommodations. Mostly, at least.”

Leonie gives an annoyed, if not affectionate, sigh. “‘Mostly’? That doesn’t sound too concrete.”

Jeralt leans back on his hands, light flicking across his neutral expression and emphasizing the hills and valleys of his wrinkled features. “No idea if we’re going to get enough coverage to put a roof over everybody, but I’ll try.”

“Right.” The girl swaps out the cooked rabbit for more raw meat, starting the process over. Byleth continues to rotate the knife in her hands. “Where is it we’re heading, again? Do we have a town name, yet?”

“She’s right, boss,” another man, Jerome, speaks up from where he’s pitching a tent nearby. “We still don’t have a clear description, do we? Last we checked, you said we were ‘heading north’. Kinda vague.”

Jeralt shrugs. “Everyone’s on my case today, yeesh… The customer is all the way up in Gautier territory. Got a bird with that tidbit a couple days ago. I don’t know if the job’s gonna be held there, but we’re at least stopping by to pick up the details and collect the down payment.”

Gautier . The knife stills in Byleth’s hands, and she lowers her eyes, suddenly interested in its shape.

“That far north? Shit!” Jerome grumbles to himself, spit flinging from his crooked teeth.

Leonie, meanwhile, furrows her brow. “If that’s the case, I wonder if this has something to do with Sreng.”

Byleth agrees, but prods the woman nonetheless with a question. “What makes you think that?”

Auburn eyes flash her way, almost timid. “...Well, the Kingdom would’ve posted work sooner if this was just for the sake of bolstering the imperial border, don’t you think? And Gautier territory is far enough north, I can’t think of any other reasons they’d recruit a mercenary group over a formal division of Kingdom men.”

She’s satisfied with the answer, and tries to throw Leonie a look of approval. The girl flushes, busying herself with the food. “Good. I agree.” Then her brow furrows, and she glances to her father. “Dad, do we plan on stopping in Fhirdiad to stock up on supplies?”

Jeralt scratches noisily at his beard. It’s as much of a no as his next words are. “It’s just barely too outta the way, I think. Besides, customer’s offering to provide anything we need.”

“I see.” The disappointment brings a wrinkle to her brow, but she tries not to show it this time.

A chuckle rumbles from her father. “What, you yearning for the big city? It’s been, what… a year since our last job in Embarr? Or, no - you’re hoping to see some of your old students . Is that it, kid?”

The wrinkle deepens into a frustrated ridge at his teasing. She appreciates his ability to read her emotions, but sometimes it goes too far. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, now.” She shoves the skinning knife into a snowbank near her feet, then, using the ice to clear off the blood. “Just planning ahead.”

Within the hour, they’ve portioned out rabbit stew for the bulk of their party. Byleth washes it down with a zip of good brandy she’d stocked up on during a recent stint in Boramas. The climate there had been far more agreeable, she laments.

It’s later that night that she’s bundled up in her tent, wishing she were on a featherbed in Fhirdiad - or at least on her way to one. Sure, she’s more than used to this life - until her teaching stint, it was all she’d known - but that brief taste of luxury is enough to haunt her on some nights.

The permafrost is hard as rock now that night has drawn the temperature far below freezing and makes her back feel like sin as she lays atop it. It’s only going to get worse the further north they travel, she knows. The air is dry, arid even, and her sinuses are scratchy, making it hard to fall asleep. She shifts beneath the weight of blankets and furs, restless.

Against her will, her thoughts flit to the Kingdom students she’d had in her class. It’s no wonder they’d all had such thick-skinned personalities - Faerghus must’ve hardened them from birth with all its gray skies and shitty weather. Ingrid and Felix come to mind, who’d always seemed to be carrying some insurmountable weight on their shoulders… Dimitri went without saying... Annette and Sylvain, too, had been… pleasant, in their own ways, though beneath that had been their own arrays of unresolved problems.

Her thoughts dwell on the latter student as she stares into the dark. She knows she shouldn’t give him the time of day in her mind - it’s a pointless effort - but he appears anyway, all false smiles and curious glances. What a frustrating individual. One day he’d been sulking about his inescapable circumstances, the next, whoring around and making thin promises of becoming a trustworthy man.

And there’s the memory she really doesn’t want to recall - the godawful tower. She wonders if he ever spoke of that to anyone. Not that it matters, years later, when the only students she really keeps in touch with are Leonie and Bernadetta. It almost seems out of character for him not to go around bragging about it to his buddies, strangely respectful… but not enough to convince her he wasn’t full of shit to a disrespectful extent, that evening.

Shoving off her covers, Byleth stands and stretches her aching back. If sleep will not come, that’s fine - there are other things she can busy herself with. She dresses light and shoves her way out of her tent, scaring the daylights out of one of the nearby men on guard duty. She starts toward the camp outskirts so as to go practice her swings somewhere she won’t accidentally behead someone, but finds that it’s bitter cold, instantly sending a shiver coiling up her skin.

“Fuck,” she mutters, trying to brush the discomfort off. It persists, though. She’s too stubborn to go back in her tent and dress appropriately.

Her frustrated stomping pauses, though, when she passes by the glimmering embers of the firepit they’d eaten at earlier. Masa’s tent still has a light on, a thin thread of orange staining the frosted black mud it’s perched atop. An idea worms her way into her head. Maybe not a good one - definitely not a good one, she’ll definitely get shit from her father and his minion later when they inevitably find out - but her judgment is worn down from the cold and the ruminations in her mind.

Masa is always reliable, for better or worse. Reliable in his silly infatuation for her. They’d picked him up three years ago - he’d been starry-eyed in a way that vaguely reminded her of some of her students. He’s thirty or so, but green, his only experience being from a small Arundel town’s militia. Byleth hardly cares, but more than once in the past few years he’s tried to make timid moves on her, and she’s far from blind to his affections. More than a few times she has used that for an output for her own come-and-go desires, when she’s hit with an urge and isn’t able to find someone suitable at the closest tavern. If he’s aware that she’s using him, he doesn’t seem to care, so she thinks little of it.

The last time they’d had a tryst, it’d ended in Jeralt yelling at her. She’s toying with him, he claimed, and his affections got him into trouble recently when he tried to courageously take an arrow for her on the battlefield. So she agreed at some point to stop. ‘ I don’t care what you get up to off-hours, as long as it isn’t with our men, alright?’ Well, she needs something now, and as far as she knows, there aren’t any taverns around. Masa will have to do.

He’s a flustered mess when she nudges into his tent, reading a book or something - no, he can’t read, she remembers, but he’s learning. They exchange only a few words, and things escalate quickly - the way Byleth wants. No wasting time. Straight to the point. If they’re quick, she might be able to get a few hours of shut-eye before dawn. He takes a while to get hard even as he’s kneading hurriedly at her breasts; she can’t stop thinking how goddamn cold it is. Masa is a shrimp of a merc, lithe of build, and there’s little heat to be found along his clammy skin and between his spindly fingers. If she hadn’t taken him four or so times before, she’d be afraid of crushing him as she chases an elusive high atop his cock.

She can’t quite grasp it, though. He moans and sputters like a birthing horse beneath her, her name coming too loudly off his lips, and, grunting, Byleth clamps a hand over his mouth to keep from waking the whole camp. Why can’t I finish? The frustration is returning, now, as she madly pursues any kind of fleeting pleasure. All she can think about is how frigid the air is and how much her lower back stings, exacerbated by their hastened motions. She feels close, but the rush isn't remotely intense enough. Like most of the other emotions she’s felt in life, the ecstasy is dull, only offering a glimpse as though she were spying it through a pond of muddy water.

Masa finally gathers himself, clutching her hips with sweaty palms and chasing his own finish. Biting her lip, she takes matters into her own hands and leans over him, one arm holding herself up, the other snaking fingers beneath her underclothes to find her sex.

It’s barely enough to finish, but she does, and with no time to spare - Masa practically jumps backward, scrambling over his own mess as he spills on himself. Byleth takes a heaving breath, two, then wastes no time in buttoning herself up.

The man notices her retreat at once, and fumbles over his words. “Wait-! Miss Eisner - it’s been so long, wh-what made you seek out my bed?”

She frowns, confused. So long? It’s been a few months, maybe, since Dad got on my case about it. And it is hardly his business why I came by. Misinterpreting her silence as a prompt to keep speaking, he fumbles to pull on his trousers. “I was just thinking, maybe you wanted - you needed - settle - “

Her interest is out the window, by now, and she bids him goodnight before dipping out of the tent. His bumbling reminds her vaguely of Ignatz, tripping over his words when he spoke of the goddess - and maybe it’s supposed to be romantic of someone to think of you in reverence, she supposes, but not like this. It’s an impersonal hookup, nothing more.

Her arms reach up in a yawning stretch as she reaches her tent, fatigue finally settling in alongside the vague satiation her tryst allowed. Her mind dwells on the topic of Ignatz, wondering whether he ended up pursuing art or not - but the ruminations over her former students are foggy and unobtrusive, now, so sleep comes quickly, pulling her into the frigid dark of the north.

Chapter 2: Gautier I

Notes:

CW in this chapter for mention of past dub/noncon

(1185)

 

 

An overcast dusk settles across the sky of Fhirdiad as streetlamps battle against the encroaching gloom. The air is weirdly heavy - no doubt there’s a storm hiding beyond the distant mountains, waiting to unleash another blanket of snow on the city. It won’t be his problem though, he figures - if he makes good time, he’ll be close enough to the Fraldarius border to find a roof before the roads become too risky to pass.

Cutting across the moorlands of Itha would be faster. Sylvain’s guard know that as well, have already made their objections known to detouring over to the neighboring Dukedom. But he’s made this back-and-forth trip, Fhirdiad to Fraldarius to Gautier, enough times he can do it with his eyes closed, and it’s never been a problem. If lady luck doesn’t turn his way and he ends up being stranded in the snow somewhere, he’d rather it be in friendly territory than in the beast-infested shithole Blaiddyd’s uncle rules over.

His retainers end up agreeing, and then they’re off, leaving the softly-glowing streets of the capital behind them. Lars even claims he could rule Itha far more efficiently than Rufus, commoner and all, which earns a genuine laugh from Sylvain. Because he’s right - but it’s neither here nor there, not now, not with the Empire still out there machinating in the shadows. War is still looming, after all - always on the horizon, never actually breaking through the glass barrier separating peacetime from wartime, but visible all the same.

The visit at Fhirdiad had only been okay, despite how much he’d been looking forward to it over the past few months. He’s only seen his friends a handful of time in the years since they’ve graduated, and each visit always feels too short-lived. Annette is the one who arranged it, this time, pulling Felix from the merc gigs he still insisted on revolving his life around. Ingrid and Dimitri are local, the former serving under the latter as the captain of his guard alongside Dedue, and have become close in their own regard. But for all Annette hyped the meetup to be, it’d ended up falling flat. Sylvain had spent the first hour drifting on the outskirts of the hall Blaiddyd had set aside for them, making light conversation - small talk, really, a far cry from the more intimate conversations he’d used to have with the group. The same bullshit he did every day. How is the Margrave faring? Is the border still secure? Have you settled down yet, any ridiculous tryst stories to share? Are you going to inherit the title? It’s all fine and well coming from anyone else, but with his childhood friends, it feels informal to an uncomfortable degree.

That being said, he’s not sure how to break the ice in the way he’d normally be able to. That’d left him skirting the dining tables, giving half-assed answers, eavesdropping on conversations that were equally uninteresting. It hadn’t been till he’d gotten a few drinks in him that he’d loosened up a little and forced himself into a discussion with Felix and Annette, managing to scrounge up some scraps of his younger, more flowery conversationalist self. The way they all eyed him had been weird, though, like they weren’t sure what to expect, and perhaps he hadn’t been sure, either.

In any case, the lunch hadn’t lasted long enough for him to defrost. He’d turned his back for one second, and in the next, Felix and Blaiddyd were up each other’s asses, the king railing on his former friend for taking jobs for the Empire. Then accusations went flying around on who had informed Dimitri of those jobs, since apparently, they were supposed to be kept under wraps. Just like that, the stuffy hall had become chock full of tension, and he’d wanted no part of it.

He sighs atop his horse, stifling a shiver. It’s unusually cold for this early in autumn. Once winter kicks in, it’ll be hard to leave his family’s peninsula, he knows, so that really was his last chance to catch up with his friends before spring. And despite his trip back detouring through Fraldarius territory, he’s aware Felix won’t be in - he’d made it clear to everyone he had a new assignment out west, toward Dominic territory, which Annette will inevitably get her hopes up over.

It’s hard to believe the amount of time that’s passed since Garreg Mach. With tensions high across Fodland, it’s been easy to bury himself in work. The days he spent wasting away at the monastery feel a lifetime ago, and the comments that his friends had made about how he’s mellowed out and not constantly on the prowl only make it feel further away. The two or so years between himself and the others never felt all that significant in the past, but now, they stand out like a sore thumb. Ingrid, Dimitri, and Felix have all found their callings, after all, more or less. Or what they think are their callings. Sylvain, however, despite the years he has on them, is still running around in circles, aimlessly chasing after duty in absence of any real ambition.

Is one really better than the other? He wonders about it, thumbs running along the worn reins of his mount. Sure, he’s outgrown the resentful philandering he’d given himself a reputation for in his youth, but the result of that is hollow. At least he had some kind of purpose back then, even if it was a shitty one, in retrospect.

Nah, not worth worrying about, he reminds himself. Hoping for a distraction, he looks to the sky, and gets one - snow flurries, drifting lazily down around their four-man group.

“If we end up a freeze-dried chunk of meat for the wilderness beasts, it’s ‘cause you refused to stay in Fhirdiad one extra night, milord.” Lars is ever the complainer, and Sylvain rolls his eyes, but does not respond.

“It’s fine,” barks Andre, an older fellow leading their march. “There’s a crossing an hour or two’s ride from here.”

“Assuming we make it that far,” mumbles Lars.

Sylvain keeps his jaw clenched, uncharacteristically. The whole Fhirdiad trip had been shitty, and he just wants out - though that’s nothing his retainers are going to hear. After the lackluster reunion with his friends, he’d gone out into town, feeling lost. There isn’t much in the city to distract oneself with outside of the sorcerer’s academy and the usual debaucheries, so he’d ended up at the latter, catching a drink at a tavern that seemed shitty enough that he’d no chance to run into his friends here - or anyone else that knew him, or knew of him.

Ironically, he hadn’t been looking for trouble, or a lay, or anything like that - but it’d found him, in the form of some boobed up grad student occupying the chair next to him. He chatted her up just to be polite, but her intentions became blatantly obvious, and despite her attempts to act like she didn’t have an inkling of who he was, it was relatively easy for him to sniff that particular part out. Still, though, Sylvain had played along - maybe it was the buzz, maybe his low spirits from the shitty reunion, maybe even his older habits had jumped out after all the teasing from the others. One minute they were at the bar, the next they were in some tiny, dinky room upstairs, the girl laughing loudly when he bumped his forehead on the top of the door walking in. She was hot enough, definitely eager, so why not, he figured. It’d been a while. Years, really. She didn’t stop yapping as she pushed him to the mattress and stroked him until he was hard, and one thing led to another… at one point he was almost into it, too, enough for his breaths to grow labored and his thighs to strain with effort as he matched her riding with tired pumps.

Then it all started to become too much, and he could feel himself reaching his peak. Before her, too - he used to be better about that. He gave her plenty of warning, but on and on she went, ambition in her eyes as she rode the shit out of him and it almost would’ve been hot if he wasn’t about to cum in her. Growing agitated, he tried to shift out from beneath her, but she forced two palms down on either of his shoulders to keep him there, her gyrations reaching a horrible pace -

And then, Sylvain had sobered, the reality of the situation setting in. It’d been so long, after all. It took no effort to throw her off his hips and onto the other side of the mattress, and he didn’t hang around to listen to her excuses as he tugged his trousers up over his already soft cock and stormed out of the room.

The crossing Andre had spoken of comes up sooner than he expects, and he joins his guard in stabling their mounts before heading to the nearby inn. It’s pitch black at this point, snow still falling in tenuous flurries. He can feel the questioning looks from his retainers as they pay for their rooms, but ignores them, still simmering from the memory of the drunken tryst. He’s been to this particular inn probably a hundred times in his travels around Faerghus, knows the kind old innkeep, but he’s not feeling social enough to chat her up this time and instead goes straight to his allotted quarters.

It’s only once he settles in bed that he begins to calm down. The resentment is strong, poignant, like an effective poison, and he hates how easy it is to roil in it. I promised her I would change, he knows, but goddamn, is it hard.

 

 

 

 

(1180)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The end of the Ethereal Moon has brought frigid winds with it, snaking between the sky-piercing spires of Garreg Mach like an invisible serpent. It’s just before eight in the morning, yet the sun has yet to climb high enough to shine over the monastery’s towering walls. The chill of night still prevails. Sylvain is grateful for the cover when he ducks into the Blue Lions classroom - it’s not exactly warm, either, but it’s enough just to be shielded from the elements.

He sneezes as he shuts the door behind him, inadvertently alerting the others of his arrival. Ingrid and Felix are closest, greeting him from where they stand beside the backmost desks; at the head of the room is Dimitri, who eyes him coolly as Professor Hanneman rambles on to him about something.

“Hey,” he calls over to the pair closest, stifling a shiver beneath his cloak. “Cold morning, huh?”

They make idle conversation, mostly about the coming winter and the different training expeditions their classes have scheduled for the rest of the week. The Lions are going to Fraldarius territory, it seems, to investigate a recent sacking done by a group of bandits. Nothing noteworthy - apparently Rodrigue had picked it out as a good task to measure the student’s gains prior to their upcoming graduation. Sylvain isn’t sure where he and the Deers will be headed - that is the Professor’s decision, after all.

His thoughts grow distracted as she passes his mind, Ingrid and Felix’s banter slowly becoming a drone in the background. He’d hardly been able to hold his composure when he’d found her alone atop the Goddess Tower; he’d fully expected a rendezvous with Riegan after the show they’d put on earlier that evening, after all. But, no - the professor had been alone, glancing up at him with wide, blue eyes as he’d made his presence known. Surprise - an expression he’d never recalled seeing on her face.

“Tryst?” She tilts her head in question, strands of hair the color of the night sky above them brushing around her jaw. “Where’s your lover, then?”

He’s not sure how she manages to look so innocent, all things considered. He’s seen her in combat - they all have. She’s a hardened warrior, a killer - probably even more accustomed to death than the prince is. Yet here she is, an anomaly, blinking nonchalantly as he tries to push her buttons with flirtations and innuendo. Unflappable.

It’s crazy, really. But in a way that makes laughter bubble up in his chest.

“Well…” He drifts closer, and to his relief, she doesn’t step away. She looks radiant, honestly, but he bites back the compliment knowing she’ll probably see it as disingenuine. Her usual overcoat and attire has been ditched for intricate robes of deep forest green that flow around her curves. She’s wearing jewelry, too -  he wonders which of his classmates spent hours helping her prepare, psyched to use her as a dress-up doll. The brass and gold pendants catch the moon’s light with each slight movement in the same way her eyes do as they blink placidly up at him, so ridiculously blue. The gown shows a generous amount of skin, too, something Byleth owns rather than shies away from - which is as refreshing as the outfit is flattering.

“I suppose the person I’m interested in is already here,” he continues with a polite smile and an edge of mirth in his tone. “Y’know. You’re here alone. I’m here alone. Maybe, you know…”

Again, he’s granted a peek at that surprised expression of hers. The stoic Professor, truly taken aback for once. He figures he should wear that badge with pride, but it’s too damned adorable for his ego to catch up with everything. 

Even so, her voice reflects none of the perturbation shown on her features, as deadpan as ever. “Wait. Me?”

His grin grows, and he gives her a bit of space, stepping back to lean against the nearest pillar. “Well, of course! We’re the only two people here, aren’t we? I keep thinking about it, and it just makes sense.” He’s hungry for a reaction out of her now, he realizes, and in his eagerness to get one he may be oversharing. “I have the leverage my crest offers me; you’re a mercenary, living the free life I’ve always wanted. I feel like we could make it work.”

Then, just like that, her face rubber-bands back to that placid expression again, and the illusion breaks.

I can’t even trust you.

The words still sit in his mind like a rotting fruit left out on the counter. A stinging reminder of what he could’ve had, and what he spoiled. And now I have to keep sitting through class with her the rest of the year, he laments. I’ve already done enough damage by not giving a shit about my reputation. Now it feels like it actually might matter. Just my luck.

An elbow to the side brings him out of his stupor, and he finds Felix fixing him with a look. Dimitri has joined their group amidst his daydreaming, and is mid-conversation with Ingrid.

“What’s wrong with you?” his friend spits, quiet enough to not be heard by Ingrid over the loud tones of Dimitri’s voice.

Sheepishly, Sylvain rubs at the back of his neck. “Another time. I should get my ass next door; don’t want to be on the Professor’s bad side again.”

Felix snorts, crossing his arms as a way of farewell. “As if you aren’t already. Go.”

It’s only a short walk to the Deer’s classroom, but inside, there’s an entirely different atmosphere. 

Nobody acknowledges his entry, at least with nothing more than a sidelong glance. The students stand in huddles, speaking softly, their posture stiff. The only voice that stands out in the crowd is Lorenz, who seems to be talking loudly less because of his usual bloated sense of self-importance and more out of anxiety. Claude, Hilda, and Lysithea are with him. Curious, Sylvain approaches them.

“Morning,” he says, nudging in next to the much shorter Gloucester. “Something up?”

One by one, they eye him. They all look excessively anxious, really, save for Claude, who’s still as chill as the professor herself. He raises a brow at Sylvain, lips quirking into a catlike smile, and leans back on his heels.

“Gautier. Fess up, we won’t tell anyone.” Before he can come up with a witty reply along the lines of I have no idea what the hell you’re on my case about, though, Claude continues. “If Teach is all cozy back in your dorm right now, let us know.”

Lorenz turns a shade of red warmer than Sylvain’s hair; Lysithea’s features scrunch up in disgust; Hilda snickers under her breath.

Something about the question isn’t right - he can discern that right off the bat. It’s not an out-of-character thing for Claude to say, sure, but the atmosphere just isn’t right. He holds his hands up as if caught, putting on a false air of levity. “I’m flattered you think I’m a serious contender in that race, but no, buddy. Sorry.” Biting the inside of his lip, he adds, “Why - is she running late?”

Any humor drains from Claude’s face almost instantly. “No. She’s missing.”

“Ah.”

The Professor is missing.

And that’s how the rest of the day goes. Class is cancelled, the archbishop and her cronies are as dubious and silent about the issue as they usually are, rumors are stirred into the pot almost hourly. Sylvain sticks near Riegan, as he seems to have the most insight into the situation. He keeps a level head about the whole thing, too - a far cry from Dimitri, who quickly loses his composure once word reaches him.

The day passes agonizingly slow. The Professor’s room, as they find out, is halfway cleared out. By noon, they learn that Jeralt is gone, too. There are no signs of a struggle, no signs that they were abducted, but Sylvain can’t keep this ugly feeling from wriggling in his chest like a worm in an apple. Is he worried for her safety? Upset at the thought that she’d leave them all behind and run off, for whatever reason? It’s unfamiliar, and he finds he doesn’t like it.

As evening approaches, the latter seems more and more like the case. The Archbishop’s flimsy cover story is that she and Jeralt left on leave - but why it happened so abruptly is beyond anyone. Death in the family? She had none, outside of her father - her mom had died in childbirth, as he’d come to learn later that night from the others. Scandal? The Professor and the Captain were exceptionally well-behaved, all things considered, outside of some rumbling complaints a few months ago about her relationship with students sometimes brushing improper - he’d done nothing to help her reputation in that regard. Certainly, they didn’t seem to hold much loyalty or faith in the church, but they carried out orders more efficiently than most. So, what?

They would never find out, it seems. Weeks drag by, Seteth takes over teaching the Deer for what little remains of the year, and then shit hits the fan in the form of an imperial assault aimed at the Archbishop. Nobody is told of their approach, of course, at least none of the students nor their families - not until the army is on their doorstep. Sylvain figures it’s all intentional; they have no choice but to arm themselves and throw their lives into defending the monastery.

The rest is history. Sylvain manages to escape the battle with his life alongside Ingrid, Felix, Annette, and Dimitri, fleeing north to the Faergusi border. The monastery becomes a smoldering cloud of dust behind them, engulfed by conflict. By the time they reach Galatea, news has spread that the Church of Seiros has fallen. And by the time they reach Fhirdiad, they learn that the Kingdom is preparing for an assault from the Empire.

That assault never comes, though, instead turning into a cold war of sorts that keeps both sides on their toes - Faerghus upholding the old ways and shielding what remains of the Knights of Seiros, the Empire continuing to mobilize and drastically reshape their government and society. Efforts to weaken the Kingdom from the inside out are made in the form of betrayals and espionage, making Dimitri’s new position a stress-filled hell. Duties at home pull the Lions in different directions; he only sees Felix and Glenn every so often, at the most. 

The academy becomes a distant memory. The Archbishop is lost. Their Professor is never heard from again. All the while, the gutting feeling of unease from the morning of her disappearance - of being exposed, of having some kind of protection he didn’t know he needed stripped away - remains.

Notes:

hello, thanks for reading!! I've gotten into three houses super late and totally missed the popularity wave, but Byleth and Sylvain's dynamic stuck with me (despite there apparently being way more universally liked ships across the fanbase for them both lol)

I'm hoping to do that some justice here and contribute to the tag for the few fans of them there are <3 Hopefully the details of this semi-AU aren't too vague - Rhea is/was an antagonistic presence upholding the shitty crest system, but with no Sothis heart transplant or TWSITD subplot, so this Byleth still has Jeralt and lacks any superpowers lol (though retains her personality + difficulty "feeling" things since I feel like that's a pretty important aspect of her character)

Most of the significant pre-timeskip story events (namely character deaths, sword of the creator/empire looting the tombs, Miklan etc) did not occur here and the academy months were pretty mundane. More of this will be explored and fleshed out down the line, hopefully smoothly lmao!!

Chapter 3: Eisner II

He’s running late, Byleth knew. Her old man had sent her a note asking to meet up after their last lecture, promising they’d go for a ride through the town that evening. He wasn’t one to run late, typically - was that the reason her stomach felt like she’d swallowed a jar full of spiders? Or was it something else? He was a capable warrior, after all, and within the cushy safety of the monastery there was a fat chance he’d run into any actual danger.

Still . Something was prickling the hairs at the back of her neck.

Far beneath the overlook she sat atop were the student commons and classroom buildings. Bodies moved across the space carefree, some mingling together, others remaining on the fringe. She spied Bernadetta’s small frame scurrying toward the dormitories, Marianne and Ignatz chatting awkwardly beneath the yellow-green boughs of an oak, the entire Lions pack chattering amiably in the middle of the quad. Hresvelg and Vestra glancing over their shoulder at something she couldn’t see while attempting to speak privately, Goneril trying to eavesdrop.

Byleth picked at her tights idly. It was still all so foreign to her, and the aching feeling that she had missed out on something indescribably significant gnawed at her chest.

“You do not wish to join them in after-class activities?”

Rhea’s approach caught her by surprise. Her neck snapped to her right to find the Archbishop there, hands folded politely before her. She stood tall, this one, and always seemed to emit an aura of serenity.

Dumbly, she bowed her head in greeting. “I have plans with my father,” she replied. “I’m waiting for him to return.”

The woman strolled closer, leaning against the lip of the wall where Byleth was seated. Her faraway gaze swept across the courtyards below. “You are not fitting in.” It wasn’t an accusation, but a fact, stated plain and simple.

Byleth pursed her lips, unsure of what to say to that. Was it such a problem? She and her father had been hired temp to teach, not to befriend the students or recruit them to their mercenary band - though some of them had certainly made their interest in that part clear. There was nothing wrong with letting herself be used as a tool for their martial self-betterment. Even still, though, Rhea’s words struck a chord.

“Do you want to talk about it, child?” Rhea pressed, gazing over at her. The Archbishop was always too benevolent, all-seeing… what might have been comforting to anyone else was offputting to Byleth.

“I’m not sure what you mean.” The offer took her aback, and her brow just barely furrowed.

“You have… difficulty socializing,” murmured the Archbishop, lowering her tone as though telling a secret. “Difficulty with emotion of all sort. I’ve observed as such. There is no need to hide it, dear.”

She didn’t appreciate the hard read. Yes, her own lack of social skills were undoubtedly the reason she was up here brooding rather than down fraternizing with the students, but that was none of the Archbishop’s business. It was nobody’s business but her own. Nor was it ever a problem, she thought bitterly, before we came here.

“I can help you,” Rhea offered, shuffling closer in an innocuous way. “I know you and your father are nonbelievers , but… by the goddess’s will, we can help you, child.”

Yet as much as she wanted to decline the woman’s request, something stopped the words from leaving her mouth. She felt her back press against the brick wall behind her as Rhea grew closer, silken locks of pale green filling her vision. I don’t need help.

“You do,” murmured the woman. “You are lacking, child. Inadequate. We can fix-…”

 

…

 

 

Byleth wakes with a cold shudder, and in an instant, the memory-turned-nightmare is no more. She takes bearing of her surroundings to calm herself - the sliver of light coming through the flap of her tent, her bow and sword beside the bedroll, tangled and dirtied sheets, mud-caked boots, gooseflesh running along her skin…

Then, with a sigh, she brings her knees up to her chest. Rhea had never said that last part, or even gotten close to suggesting it outright, but it rings in her ears all the same. She had been nothing but friendly - too much so, her father had argued, back during her tenure at Garreg Mach. It wasn’t until far later that he’d unveiled the Archbishop’s more dubious intentions in regard to Byleth, and no sooner had they fled the monastery…

And she’s six feet under, now, thinks Byleth with another measured breath. How frustrating.

Outside, their band is already on the move. Jeralt spies her leaving her tent - it’s one of the only structures still pitched, to her own chagrin - but rather than walk over for a scolding, he simply tips his head in acknowledgement.

I should move, she knows, before Leonie finds me…

They travel alongside the Fraldarius Fork, mud and slush and all, leaving the seaside cliffs and salted winds of the eastern Dukedom behind them. Slowly but surely, villages begin to speckle the landscape. Farmhands and cows alike watch their line as they march northward curiously, and Byleth stares back, finding the picture of their simple lives somewhat comforting. It’s idyllic here, almost; the peasants don’t seem left wanting much unlike the many other parts of the Kingdom and beyond that they’d passed through since the church crumbled.

The perception is turned on its head, however, when they pass through their first settlement, situated at a river crossing her father is intent on taking. Doors and windows are shuttered and the villagers that are on the streets scurry away at the sight of their men. Signs of battle are evident along some of the shabby buildings and shacks; dents and gashes in the wood, trampled belongings, ruined wagons. Byleth’s brow furrows, and she urges her horse into a trot to catch up with Jeralt.

“Yeah,” he says at her approach. “This place isn’t looking so hot. Someone or something came through, no doubt.”

“It seems recent,” she observes. “Three or four days prior, maybe. We should go after them.”

“No can do, kid,” answers Jeralt. “Who knows what kind of can of worms that will open. We don’t have time to kill; I agreed to meet up with the client by the end of the week, and any extra time we spend out here in the boonies could let for a snowstorm to come through and make travelling up into the mountains a lot harder.”

Byleth pouts at this, but doesn’t argue. Up ahead, she sees a bruised-up woman perusing a street stall grab her child and disappear into an alley like a frightened rabbit.

Evidently, Jeralt sees it as well. “I know. Trust me. Might be that some of the bandit gangs from Itha made their way over here; this is a pretty key river crossing, and not all that well guarded, by the looks of it.”

“At least let me ask,” she presses.

He gives her that look, then, the single raised eyebrow. It’s the look he always gives her when she does something he deems unexpected. On anyone else, it’d bother her. 

Then he shrugs. “Go for it. Just don’t take the whole day.”

It’s the mother she goes after, hopping from her horse and following on foot. She figures she might terrorize the poor woman considering she fled at the sight of them, but the other half of her thinks it may be less intimidating if another woman were to approach her solo.

“Ma’am?” she calls when she spots her target, over on the next street - she’s paused beneath the awning of a deserted shop, evidently thinking she’d avoided the gang of armed travelers. “Can we speak-”

The mother starts, then, eyes bulging as they find the various weapons hanging at Byleth’s waist. Then her head swivels left and right, searching for an escape.

“Wait,” she says, trying and failing to put a sympathetic inflection into her tone. “I just want to talk. Who did this to you?”

“Are you a knight?” asks the little boy, much less petrified than his mother. He slips around her skirts and approaches Byleth.

She’s about to give a blunt, no, when she hears footsteps behind her. Turning, she finds Leonie is jogging over, face contorted in an expression of clear concern that she’d been unable to mimic. “Hey! Yes, we’re knights,” she answers, stopping beside Byleth. “Is something wrong? What’s happened here?”

The mother finally snaps from her fervor, then, stepping forward to pull her child back by his shoulder. “E-excuse my rudeness, milady, milady… We were attacked… a few nights ago…”

Bandits, no doubt, thinks Byleth. Dad was right.

“Do you know where they came from? Or if any of them are still around?” asks Leonie, maintaining a safe distance from the trembling woman.

She shakes her head, fine blonde hair shivering with the movement. “N-no. No. I mean… They c-came from across the river, the moorlands over that way… Took what they wanted and went right through toward Fraldarius lands… We haven’t the men nor horses to send notice to the nearby towns, though we sent messenger doves north to the Margrave’s men…”

“How long ago?” Byleth pries. They took their horses, she realizes. And whatever arms they might’ve had. It’s a script many gangs of bandits follow throughout Fodland - some, she and Jeralt had been hired to exterminate, while others like this were simply not part of the equation. Even when the church was in power, it was rare knights were dispatched to deal with small, trifling threats like this - unless they concerned an artifact, holy ground, or some breakoff sect. Treated as though nature simply had to run its course on the commonfolk.

“...we’ll report this to the Margrave, as well,” Leonie is saying. “I’ll see if we can spare any men to stay behind and protect you, okay?”

Byleth sighs at this. There’s no chance Jeralt will allow that, for better or worse. She or Leonie could stay behind, perhaps, but given the way brigands work, there’s not even a high probability that they’ll loop back and return to a town they’ve already pillaged. No, the damage is done - it’ll be the Margrave’s mess to clean up.

Still, the insidiousness of the scene shakes Byleth to her core. The image of the bruised woman and her child stay seared into her mind’s eye for the next two days as they heave themselves through slush-soaked wetlands between a low autumn sun. In the distant horizon are the blurry shapes of mountains, undoubtedly where they are headed; the Gautier estate is situated close to the highlands bordering Sreng, that much she’s been told.

Towns become more frequent the further north they trek, fortunately none in the same shape as the southern crossing. Every now and then they pass by a patrol of heavily-armored knights, led by a standard-bearer displaying the Gautier coat-of-arms - the red weave of the crest atop a field of black. Byleth tries and fails to push away the memories of its wielder each time she spots it in her peripheral vision - the half-assed grins, the animated ups and downs of his voice amidst a quip, the warmth off his skin when he’d dared to slide his way into her personal space, the glimpses past his facade she’d spy amidst a lecture he took interest in.

Frustration and disappointment; those are the only two emotions she can put a finger on within the stewing pot. Those, he had been good at - too many times she’d allowed a sliver of faith through, seeing his potential, only for it to be struck down by some hogwash running out of his mouth or some mean-spirited tryst she’d hear of his involvement in.

He never seemed to care, either - that had been the most frustrating part. Sylvain had been cognizant of it all. His reputation, the resentment and futility of his own behavior, the future he was spitefully throwing into the trash. Her disapproving glares would reflect back a scoff and a look of malice, much in contrast to his response to Galatea’s rebukes - always much more coy, humorous, giving no hint of what was stewing beneath.

She’d mistaken it, at first. Assumed the cold reception was due to her being an outsider, not part of their circle of childhood nobility and ineligible to bust his balls like Galatea and Fraldarius tended to.

But that wasn’t the case, she thinks, ducking beneath the low-hanging bough of a bare tree as their line weaves a way through a glade. It had been easy to pick up on within the first few interactions they’d had - even for someone as apparently emotionally dense as her. Gautier had been tentative to open up to his friends, no doubt - perhaps in the way an elder brother might avoid burdening his siblings with his problems. Why he’d had no trouble displaying that undesirable side of himself to her, she can’t figure out. Maybe he’d seen them as equals - they’d been around the same age, after all, a bit of an outlier amidst the Deer and his own buddies in the Lions.

She snuffs out the train of thought.

“Hey,” Leonie says, punching her arm from her own saddle. “Look over there.”

Byleth follows her hand, squinting to see between the shifting array of gray tree-trunks. Someone horseback, armed - multiple people, actually. A hunting party? Or the bandits from before?

Before she or Jeralt can say anything, then, the haughty girl spurs her horse toward them and veers off the main path. Byleth, with a frown, follows on her heels. “Leonie, wait-”

It’s too late, though. Her sudden approach alerts the party at once, and they turn toward the two of them, weapons drawn. Shouts erupt from behind them. Byleth spies someone near the back of their party nock an arrow, and barely draws her shield in time to deflect it.

“Bandits!” shouts Leonie, and her sword slides loudly from its sheath. “You’ll pay!”

Byleth clenches her jaw and grabs at her comrade’s reins before she can charge them. “Hold, damn it. They’re not bandits - “ the cart full of game, now visible between the ragtag group of warriors, is evident of that. “It’s a hunting party.”

Pinelli’s eyes swim in confusion, flicking from Byleth back to the group - who’ve thankfully held back any further attacks, but are shaking with hostility. “What? I don’t see any standard.”

She can’t blame the girl for the assumption. The group looks ragged to say the very least, and are armed to the teeth. One glimpse is enough to tell they aren’t knights. Byleth has been in the business long enough to recognize another band of mercenaries, though. Leading her horse in front of Leonie, she sweeps her gaze across the men in assessment.

“Apologies,” she offers, monotone. “We’re a group of traveling mercs. We mistook you for bandits. A town south of here was recently sacked-”

A loud guffaw cut her short, and her lips parted in surprise. One of the older men was laughing with his belly, his buddies joining in. “ You two? Mercenaries?” Everyone seems to join in, then - everyone save for the guy with the bow, who still looks like he wants to pierce them both through.

Byleth only blinks, impassive. It’s a line they’d heard countless times. Not worth a response. “Hatchet’s Edge?” she asks, spying a sigil hanging off of one of their warhorse’s saddles. The name rings a bell - they’re the main purveyor in northern Faerghus territory when it comes to sellswords, which is likely part of why she’d never had a direct run-in with them before. Her father is familiar with them, for sure - and as if on cue, she hears his destrier approach from the trees behind them.

“What’s all this rabble?” Someone files through the band’s ranks - a grizzled old man, bald as her father with a great beard of gray, built like a bear and riding a horse around the size of them. “Who’s starting a fight with my men?”

“No one,” comes Jeralt’s voice from behind her. Leonie has gone dead quiet, she notices. “It was a misunderstanding.”

The big man eyes Jeralt like he recognizes him… but the moment passes. Amazing, really, what a simple haircut can do. “Who might you be?”

“The leader of this group,” her father explains calmly. “Headed to Castle Gautier for an audience with the Margrave. We’ve been commissioned.”

A long grumble leaves the big guy, who Byleth can only guess is their leader. At Jeralt’s approach, the snickering group of hunters has quieted down, too. She leans forward on her saddle, settling her elbows on her horse as she looks between them.

“...Right. Well, do us a favor and stay out of our way.” The bearded fellow throws a mean look at Leonie. “Step on our toes again and it’ll hurt, girl.”

“It was a mistake-” starts Pinelli, but the words seem to die in her throat.

Jeralt pats her on the shoulder. “Apologies, man. Move along.”

They don’t seem satisfied with the outcome - Byleth can recognize the look of someone hungry for a fight - but they shuffle away regardless, hauling their captured game along with them.

“...They’re headed in the same direction as us, aren’t they,” she observes once they’re out of earshot.

Jeralt begins to lead them back toward their own column. “Yeah. Won’t be the last we see of them, I imagine.”

“You can’t blame me,” Leonie says with a frustrated huff. “They looked like bandits.”

“ We look like bandits,” Byleth reminds her coolly, taking up the rear to ensure their new friends don’t change their mind and come riding back for a brawl. What I’m more curious about is why there’s a second band of mercs getting comfortable in Gautier territory.

Chapter 4: Gautier II

Fraldarius passes by in a blur. By the time they board the ferry that will lead them some ways up the fork, the land is coated in half a foot of snow, and only a few scant leaves the color of his hair still cling to the deciduous trees speckling the hills. The Duke is kind enough to refresh their supplies and provide them with more suitable overwear, so Sylvain finds himself with a fresh new hat of cured leather and fur with flaps on either side to shield his ears from the elements. He’s also kind enough to warn their group that the Margrave is up to some new bullshit (thankfully not concerning Sylvain or inheritance, for once), and has been organizing in-house troops alongside a few of Fraldarius and Galatea’s spare men. Sylvain wonders why his father didn’t key him in on the news, but figures it at least takes the attention off of the ever-important task of arranging his heir’s marriage.

They’re just under a week’s journey out from home, now, traveling under an ominous sky of puffy, iron-colored clouds. The sun sets early in the afternoon, cutting the day’s travel up the river short at a small town sitting at the base of northern Gautier territory foothills. Wynguard is a major player in lumber and vegetable production, and even amongst the recent years of tension across Fodland, it had found itself growing. Sylvain’s group makes their way to the largest and oldest inn, and as his retainers squeeze inside the doorway to purchase their rooms, he notes the abnormal amount of noise practically bursting from the building’s foundations.

Unusually busy, he thinks, and doesn’t dislike the atmosphere.

By the time his men return, a light rain has begun to fall. Frigid flecks of sleet splatter loudly atop the heavy wings of his shoulderplates, and the horses huff, irritated with the chill. “We should get them to the stables out back,” says Andre on his approach.

Sylvain lends a hand, guiding his own courser by the reins along the side of the rowdy inn. It’s pitch black out, save for the light coming from the windows, with the moon above them swallowed up by an apparent storm. “What’s with all the people? Did they say?”

Lars shrugs. “Some mercenary group is passing through, by the sound of it.”

“Huh.” The Duke hadn’t mentioned mercenaries. His father isn’t normally one to hire that type, but he shrugs it off; perhaps they're just passing through Gautier. “Well, as long as we have rooms, I guess.”

When they round the corner and come to the stables, however, they encounter their next problem - there are only three open stalls. Sylvain pads all the way to the back of the shit-smelling structure to ensure the two at the front aren’t the only vacancies, but finds nothing more. Their mounts are far too large to squeeze two in one stall, and he’s not interested in swinging his nobility around to unhouse a mercenary’s horse - especially not in this rain - so he has Lars and Andre take the two that are open, and offers to find another stable for his own.

“Are you sure you don’t want company?” asks Andre, and the exhaustion in his tone only seals the deal for Sylvain.

“No, I’m good. We’ll regroup in the morning. Just grab a room, before some drunk merc accidentally claims the one set aside for you.”

“Alright, milord.”

Sylvain leads his horse back into the streets. It’s black and gloomy out, and the light rain turns into a heavy, wet, hail that soaks the clothes beneath his armor. It’s nothing new for Faerghus, but still irritating, and as he tries to find somewhere to house his steed, a chill begins to set in.

Eventually, he comes across one of the newer built inns - and thankfully, it is significantly less populated. A short conversation with the keep is all he needs to get clearance to stable his horse, along with a bit of extra coin. He inquires about the mercenary group, too, but the keep doesn’t have any useful info on them.

As long as they’re mercs and not bandits, Sylvain thinks, it’s fine. He’d spotted the telltale signs of brigand incursions south near their border with Fraldarius, after all - it’s on his list of things to interrogate his father about.

With a yawn, then, he starts back toward the first inn - only for something else to catch his eye. More light dancing across the street, two blocks down. What’s that? He wanders closer, temporarily forgetting the sleet drenching him.

The source of the light is an old mill standing decrepit just off the town square, but it’s not lumber workers inside he finds - it’s a group even rowdier than the one occupying their inn. Loud, boisterous men all huddled around something, a scant two lanterns hanging from the rafters to light the space. He stands in the sliver of orange, peeking in for a minute or two, entranced by the warmth and noise - and then, throwing caution into the wind, Sylvain advances inside.

The air is stuffy and reeks of booze. The sheer volume of bodies has it so hot inside that a welcome shiver of warmth  runs up his spine, defrosting him. He discards his cloak indiscreetly before anyone recognizes the colors or sigil of House Gautier - he’d rather not be identified right now, after all. Then he maneuvers carefully between the cheering and jeering commoners, smiling at the atmosphere. What’s all this?

Eventually, he glimpses what the main attraction is - a fight pit, and he recognizes the sport right away. This particular brand of boxing is popular in taverns across the kingdom, though outlawed in many districts as well. It’s Srengi in origin, brought over by families that’d immigrated to Fodland over the years. He and Felix had snuck out to watch a match or two as boys, and prior to his Garreg Mach detour, he recalls betting on a few games, as well.

It’s a rough, bloody ordeal. Hardly a place for a noble - though the stigma didn’t stop many in the higher caste from gambling on such events or even hosting them under-the-table. Sylvain grins as he pokes his head over the crowd and shifts closer to the arena’s ring, his interest more than piqued.

The two men facing off are forces of nature, each corded with as much muscle as they are with hair. They’re like elks as they clash together, shoving back and forth, blocking blows made by fists as large as bounders like they’re nothing, and all the while the crowd erupts into joyous cheers. Someone shoves a tankard into his hand at one point, and the next it’s empty, another welcome wave of warmth buzzing through his head.

Two matches pass, then three. It seems the people have a champion - a man with limbs as thick as a tree’s trunk with a laugh so loud it drowns out the rest of the applause. His baritone almost reminds Sylvain of someone he’d known at the monastery, but he can’t put his finger on it. The only guy he’d known with long, wiry black hair like that had been Glenn, and this definitely isn’t Glenn. Someone passes him a drink before he can give it much more thought, and he chugs it to boisterous praise.

“Who’s next!?” bellows the champ, raising his fists into the air. His audience eats the performance up. Nah, he thinks, Glenn would never have this much fun.

Then someone new files into the ring, which at this point is decorated in streaks of spittle and blood - and for a moment, Sylvain and the men around him wonder if this is even a contender, given their size. It’s unserious how tiny their frame is, moreso next to the mountain of a man that is the reigning champion. But they step into the spot the last contender had fallen in and assume a fighting stance, which leads to a great waterfall of laughter across the crowds followed by chanting cheers for the champ - a foreign name he can’t quite make out.

Sylvain furrows his brow as he sizes the newcomer up. He’s stout, and infinitely slimmer than the champion - but he still has defined muscle running up his legs and arms, their tone clear even in the low light offered by the two hanging lanterns above. This particular form of boxing valued both speed and strength, sure, but the difference between the two fighter’s condition was still so stark that he didn’t think this new guy stood a chance, and - is that a woman?

His gaze halts on their chest, noting the wrap over their pecs and the shape of what’s being contained there. He blinks the glaze over his eyes away and runs a second glance down the rest of their body, noting the curve of their waist. It’s impossible to see their head through the padded gear contenders were made to wear to protect their skulls, but he stares at it as though he might be able to see through it and spy a woman’s face beneath.

And just like that, his interest is more than piqued.

A sharp whistle announces the start of the fight, then, and they’re off, the champion hurtling forward like a bull. The crowd gasps, fearing the new fighter would be trampled - but in an impressive show, she darts to the side, rolls through the dirt and grime, and comes up to her feet behind him. While he’s trying to get his momentum under control, then, she dashes forward and plows him off his feet. A cloud of dust fills the air as he collides with the ground, and when it clears, they’re grappling with each other. Her grunts and cries as she fights sound like the bark of a dog, and Sylvain cringes as she takes numerous hits to the head.

She doesn’t falter, though, and soon the two fighters are on their feet again. A hush falls over the crowd as the newcomer’s onslaught intensifies - she moves at an inhuman speed as she lands punch after kick after punch on the champion, backing him against the edge of the ring, and Sylvain realizes he’s actually holding his breath when she pulls two folded hands over her head and slams them down atop his head.

The mill goes silent as the champion falls face-first into the dirt. The woman is left standing, sweat sheen on her muscles. For a second, Sylvain is afraid the contender is dead - it’s part of the reason why the sport is outlawed in the kingdom, after all - but then he begins to grunt, and the next thing he knows, the two are shaking it out.

The uproar of cheers is deafening, and Sylvain finds himself smiling stupidly. What a spectacle!

“No idea who she is, but I can’t believe she took out Big Balt!” exclaims the guy next to him, who he’s never met in his life but over the past thirty minutes has treated Sylvain like they are best buds. “Can you believe it!?”

“That’s insane,” he laughs, and Buddy passes him another drink. Somewhere in the waves of bodies, the showrunner announces fights will continue in ten minutes.

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen a woman partake,” Buddy continues. “I’m warming up to the idea now, though.”

“You and me both,” he jokes back. “I like a girl with fight in her.”

The man raises a fuzzy brow his way. “Oh, a fancy lad like you would get stomped by the likes of her, methinks.”

Sylvain finishes off the ale, elbowing Buddy. “Don’t count me out so easily. I could take her.”

“Wanna bet?” cackles one of Buddy’s friends, a stout man with a big beer belly.

Apparently, that’s all it takes for Sylvain to agree to put himself in the pit; the next thing he knows, he’s shedding his shirt and fitting headgear over his hair while someone scribbles a false name onto some papers. Maybe it’s the atmosphere, maybe it’s curiosity about the fighter woman, maybe it’s the drink, or maybe even the shitty trip he was coming back from, but he’s more than up to the challenge of something new. They fasten some cloth around his wrists, pat his trousers down to ensure he isn’t stashing a weapon, then send him on his way with a slap to his shoulder.

The cheers are somehow infinitely louder in the center of the ring. He’s not sure if it’s the slight swinging of the lanterns above, or the booze, but the world seems to be just barely gyrating around him, though not in a bad way. The woman has her back turned to him at first, speaking to what seems to be another commoner girl in the crowd on her end of the ring - but no sooner does she swivel around to face him. Her eyes are blank, face half-shadowed by the headgear.

He tips his head in greeting, drinking in the sight of her - it’s actually immensely refreshing, considering the rest of the room is filled with sweaty old balding men. She’s not old, not young either. Maybe his age, with a muscular build. It’s hard to tell in the flickering, low light, but it seems her skin is painted in scars and bruises. All unusual for women, even commoner women, and something about that interests him.

She doesn’t return his friendly greeting, offering nothing but a simple nod. When she bends her knees and raises her fists, though, Sylvain feels a tinge of unease invade the warmth in his chest. She took down that last guy with ease. I need to get my shit together, or I’m actually gonna be in for a bad time. Returning home with a black eye might be a bad look, but it also may delay any potential courting arrangements his father has brewing for him. But he doesn’t doubt his own abilities - he’d trained hard after leaving the monastery, harder than he ever had during his tenure there - so he puts his trust in that, raising his own fists in a stance loosely mimicking hers.

Unfortunately, the crowd around them is so noisy that he doesn’t even hear the whistle dictating the start of the match - and all of a sudden, Miss Fighter is bearing down on him. She is a storm. Each of her punches hurts, no matter how quick or light a tap it is, like she knows exactly where to aim and how much pressure to apply. It brings him back to the anatomy classes where he’d been taught which parts of the body housed vital organs and where to target when shooting with bow or lunging with sword. This good at her youth, she has to be Srengi, he figures, or at least descended on one side from them...

It’s relentless. His brain switches into the same fight-or-flight state a battle brought to accommodate, forearms picking up pace to catch some of her blows. Even deflected, though, they don’t sting any less. There’s no humor in her dark eyes as she glowers up at him, a predator, pushing him thrust by thrust toward the edge of the ring.

Fuck, he thinks, this one would even give Felix a run for his money.

She has the upper hand when she finally pauses; her breaths come heavily, signaling she’s pushed herself too hard. Sylvain takes the opportunity to counter, bearing down on her instead with thrust and kick alike. His height is to his advantage. You're impressive , he thinks, for sure - but I know a few tricks, too. I’m not about to lose a bet. 

Their fight carries on to thunderous cheers. His blood pumps in his ears as they match each other evenly. She fights smarter, more efficiently than any mercenary or commoner he’s known, while also carrying more brutality than any knight or noble. Like she’s not afraid to break one of his bones. It’s electrifying, and absurdly, he feels the familiar pressure of desire stir in his core amidst the pain.

As they both tire, though, things take a turn for the worse. One second, he’s charging her - the next, she’s planting her heel in the ground and then all of a sudden he’s blind. He curses under his breath, realizing she kicked sand into his face - then nearly pukes when a heavy blow hits him square in the gut.

Sylvain doesn’t falter, though, letting frustration drive him as he strikes back. Only he miscalculates everything - the middling distance between them, the power behind the punch, it doesn’t help that he’s only got one eye half-open so his depth is fucked up - and, worst of all, the familiar surge of his crest tickles his veins just as he lets the blow loose. It hits the mark, nailing the woman square in the face. He thinks he feels something crack under his knuckles, and when he opens his other eye, she’s down, lying still in the dirt.

Ah, fuck. Sylvain hurries over to her side, falling to his knees. Around them, the crowd is in a joyous uproar at the development, but he pushes the noise to the back of his mind. “Hey, you good? Sorry about that.” He can barely hear his own voice over the cheers and jeers.

She pulls her hand away from her face, and oh shit that is a lot of blood. Her lip is cut wide open, and her eye, too, is swelling like it’s been stung by fifty bees. “...Fine,” she manages to huff through it all, flecks of the gore sputtering off with the movement of her mouth.

He’s helping her back to her feet when someone breaks through the crowd, over her shoulder - a uniformed man, his face half consumed by a matted thicket of beard. He looks pissed. “Both of you are disqualified! Get on outta here!” He makes a sweeping gesture toward the doors, which is echoed by a cacophony of booing. Sylvain vaguely registers his voice as the ref. “No illegal moves!”

He opens his mouth to compose a reply, but the chain of thought is broken when the woman he’d helped up slips from his grasp and paces toward the doors, apparently uninterested in offering any defense. He watches her go, gears in his mind spinning, and decides he’s presently more interested in her than he is hanging around the fight pit any longer. Coin be damned.

He snatches up his cloak from where he’d left it, balling it up to conceal his house’s sigil, and jogs after her - she’s pulled over beneath the main awning of the mill’s entrance, now, slipping an assortment of clothes back on.

“Hey, wait up,” he calls. The chill in the air hits all at once as soon as he’s through the threshold, and he shivers. “You took a pretty serious blow there, milady. You should get that looked at.”

She gazes over at him blankly, as if he was nothing more than a bird that’d landed on the steps, and then dabs boredly at her lip. The blood is darkening, hardening, but it still looks like hell. “I suppose,” she says. “It’s not that bad.”

The nonchalance in her voice is achingly familiar, and even when staring down the inflamed mess he’d made of her face, he feels the desire from before spike. “Do you have a room around here?” Classy, Sylvain. “I can at least walk you there.”

She fastens on a gauntlet, leaving one off to apply pressure to her lip. “...That’s fine. I’m just around the corner.”

It shouldn’t have surprised him when the fighter takes the right into the entryway to the rowdy inn housing the mercenary band from before, but it does. He’d been figuring she was a local - she was certainly gruff enough to be a Faerghus native. She walks fast despite her height, and his long legs work quick to keep up.

To his fortune, they slide through the main foyer and pub on the inn’s first floor without catching much attention. She makes a beeline for the bartender, and by the time he’s caught up, she’s being handed a rag bundled with ice. The portly man behind the counter points vaguely down a hall beyond him, lips moving inaudibly, and she nods.

“Hey. Any luck?” he asks, slipping between a group of drunken men to walk beside her. In the dim light he can make out more of her appearance; her hair is short and dark, cool in hue, the sleek ends of it hugging the thin column of her neck, and amidst the layers of dirty, sweat-stained garments is the stout - and shapely - form of a close-range fighter. She turns, craning her head back to peer up at him, and the nasty wound he’d inflicted becomes apparent all over again in the layers of bruising skin around her lip and cheekbone. Ouch.

“Salvsh back there,” she states, tipping her chin down the hallway they are headed into.

“Oh! Cool.”

Her eyes linger on him as they slip into the shadowed cover of the corridor, and he realizes he’s still in somewhat of a state of undress. She doesn’t say anything, though, and he can’t find any bubbly words to throw at her, either. Sylvain tosses a smile back instead, and she finally averts her gaze.

It’s in a dusty backroom that they find first-aid supplies. He gathers up the essentials while she seats herself atop an empty crate, still observing him as he bumbles around the various shelves. When he turns to approach her again, he finds she’s scrounged up a flask of something from her satchel, presumably liquor. Before he can even comment, she’s downed it, letting out a sharp huff and wiping a droplet of something from her chin. She blinks hard, once, twice; he hopes that’s just the alcohol and not her being concussed.

“Hey, slow down there,” he half–laughs, kneeling in front of her to get a better look at the wound. All of the sudden her breaths are puffing into his face. They’re too warm against his skin, and even in the dark her scrutiny is boring holes into him. T his isn’t gonna end well if we keep this up, he knows, cursing himself for not having better control. He’d already slipped up once in the past week, but it’s so goddamn easy to fall back into his old patterns. “So,” he starts, wetting his lips and hoping conversation will keep his focus, “that style of fighting - you here from Sreng?”

Her brow furrows in unhidden confusion. “Sreng? No.”

It’s not like to be a lie, he can tell. She doesn’t seem to give enough of a shit to lie, and she clearly doesn’t know he is associated with the Gautier family, so she has no real reason to. “Just that good at hand-to-hand combat, then,” he comments with a nod, dabbing some of the salve where the worst of the swelling is along the gentle rounds of her face. Her eyelids flutter as she flinches, but she doesn’t object otherwise. The wound has already bloomed into something nasty, to his growing regret.

“It’s necessary, in my field.” Her voice is intensely familiar, but there’s not enough blood in his brain for him to really give it much thought.

“A merc, then,” Sylvain confirms. “Shame I had to go and mess up such a pretty face.” The words slip out like slobber, splattering flaccidly into the otherwise growing tension that sits between them. More slop, and he can already tell she’s the type not to be won over by slop. Maybe it’s for the best, though - better to repel her now before he gets in too deep.

The fighter doesn’t respond to his line, thank the goddess. He feels sweat on his brow as he gathers up another round of syrupy salve on his fingertips. She doesn’t object when his free hand rises to hold her head steady, fingertips cupping her chin as gently as he’s capable of, the other dabbing more of the substance onto the still-weeping wound adorning her lip. It must’ve stung, or maybe he applied too much pressure, because she lets out a soft noise on contact. Her eyes are dark, lidded by thick lashes as they bore into him.

He swallows hard.  No. We’re not doing this, man. Come on.

 

 

She fits comfortably in his lap as they sit on the edge of her bed, and Sylvain eyes the nightstand. The candle is still lit, and part of him would prefer it kept that way to get a better look at her… but on the other hand she hasn’t made a guess at his identity yet, and he’d like to keep it that way. Decidedly, he snuffs the candle between two fingers while his free hand shifts beneath the bottom hem of her undershirt. When he reaches the rise of her breasts, she wriggles, moving further inward on his lap. He’s not sure if it’s intentional on her part, but the encouragement only makes him harder, and soon his cock is pressing against the softness of her ass from beneath their remaining underclothes. Equally eager, he slips his other hand up to cup her chest and revels in the quiet sigh she lets out.

“So,” he starts, voice hushed as he weighs her in his palms, “what brings you all the way up to this part of the kingdom?”

“Work,” she says flatly, though there’s a breathy edge to her voice. He likes that, and shifts to lightly play at her nipples, earning another sharp gasp.

“Of course. Not the talkative type, are you?” he asks. He’s only half paying attention, now - all the blood has long since gone to his groin, and he’s far more interested in the noises she’s making than what she might have to say.

“No,” she answers, and he can’t help but laugh.

“That’s fair.”

One of his hands leaves her shirt, instead shifting to her upper thigh with the intent to move things forward, but he stops halfway, instead tracing circles on the soft skin on the inside of her leg. She’s so eager to get through with things that now he can’t help but want to draw them out, if only to frustrate her. “Where’d you learn to fight like that, anyway?” he asks idly, thumb just barely brushing the hem of her undergarments. “Don’t see a lot of women in those types of matches. Not that I’m against it.”

Her voice is strained as she entertains him with a reply. “...I grew up fighting. That’s all.”

He could’ve guessed, given her profession and the number of scars just barely visible on her exposed skin. Something about that brings another wave of arousal over him, unexpectedly. This had never exactly been his type, he’s not used to it - that, and warrior women were never exactly the ones falling for his tactics back in his hayday. There’d been Leonie, who’d gotten pissed at him seemingly for not treating her like a piece of meat, and Catherine, which he could respect as a beauty in her own regard but was definitely off limits for more reasons than one. No, the closest person he’d been into that matched that niche was probably the professor, who simultaneously had been one of the few women he’d put more than minimal effort into getting into the pants of who hadn’t ever caved.

Now that I think about it, he thinks, gaze tracing up her curves again and landing on the barely-visible silhouette of her head, this one reminds me a lot of her. The memories sting, just as much as they stir his desire further. Even now, she’d left a hole in him he hadn’t been able to fill.

Impatient with his staring, the woman rolls her hips. The warmth within her muscular thighs drags tantalizingly along him. Any thoughts of the professor recede, leaving only traces in their wake.

“Fighting,” he groans up at her with a smile, “isn’t the only thing you’re proficient in, is it?”

Despite the desperation in her movements, the gaze that lands on him is blank. Again, he’s reminded of her ; he’d really thought she was the only one in Fodland so unflappable. Apparently not.

“You’re talkative,” she observes flatly. There’s mirth in the words, though, just barely perceptible. Again, she grinds against him. His breath leaves his lungs, shakily, and he notices her gaze flick to his idle hands.

“Alright,” he says, “I’ll take the hint.”

Byleth’s concern about the inevitable disappointment of her comrades - rolled eyes and words of scolding sure to come - are left at the door. He seems as enthusiastic about this as she is - she’s never considered herself to have much pull outside of really desperate men and women, and he doesn’t seem nor look particularly desperate. On the contrary, there’s something equally enticing and familiar about the edges of his face, cut of his jaw, and the masqueraded friendliness of his smile, though she can’t put her finger on it. Regardless, it seems she’s lucked out - in spite of the fact that she’s just come off weeks of travel on the road and is by all means an unkempt mess, he’s into her. Maybe it’s a side effect of passing through a small, rural northern town like this, or maybe he’s like Masa and he has a thing for women built like a brickhouse. Either way, she’s fine with it.

It’s a pleasant surprise when he slips a finger beneath her underclothes. A gasp she didn’t know she was holding escapes her, the feeling of his thumb lightly brushing her folds sending electricity up her spine. She’d been intent on leading this whole operation, making it a quick and efficient affair - but he had other plans, clearly, and she can feel her authority slipping.

She doesn’t know why she clamps her teeth shut and stifles any further noises as he continues his ministrations. He looks up at her, watching, measuring. The grip his free hand has on the soft rise of her hip tightens. What's this? He wants to make her snap, it seems, to best her in a way he hadn’t in their brawl earlier. She scowls, even as heat rushes to her cheeks.

“Is this alright?” he asks, the honeyed tone of his voice almost a taunt. His finger is still lazily tracing a line back and forth, and she can almost hear her own arousal in the quiet of the rented-out room.

“Of course,” she snaps, not understanding her own sudden stubbornness. Is she this used to holding control when bedding someone, that letting someone with his apparent experience and skill take the lead is this difficult?

“You sure?" A flick, and her jaw clenches. "You seem tense.”

He slips the finger into her, then, all of a sudden, and it’s all she can do to keep from crying out. Her body is stiff, not used to staying so idle when taking pleasure.

“I-I…” she chokes on the word, and the beginnings of that feeling twinge in her chest. The feeling she’s always chasing; of feeling alive, heart racing, senses thrumming. “I’m fine. Keep going.” An understatement. But he doesn’t seem like the type who needs any more praise piled on top of his ego.

He does just that, and, thankfully, has finally shut up. His hand shifts so that his index is inside her and his thumb is playing her clit, his movements all slow and lazy - though it’s still making an absolute mess of her. Gradually, her grip on things weakens. She stops holding her breaths in, letting them come labored and hard, lips hanging open. She leans into his touch, silently asking for more - and he gives, increasing his pace.

It’s only when he coaxes a moan out of her that he leans forward, stripping the rest of her bodice and burying his face in her chest. His hips press up, and she can feel his hardness press against the inside of her thigh. Were she not so disarmed, she’d cut to the chase and take him then and there - but he has her, much unlike their fight earlier, and he seems to only need a single hand to accomplish it.

The stranger's movements increase in pace, aided by her own escalating arousal. His free arm wraps around her waist, tugging her closer, and he takes a nipple between his lips to play skillfully at it with his teeth. Byleth melts in his grip, another soft moan leaving her. The noise he makes in response is low and unexpected, and it stirs her desire tenfold. It’s a reward, almost, for her being expressive, and she finds she doesn’t mind it. She’s so fucking close , and with so little effort from either of them.

“More,” she whispers, fingers threading into the curls of his hair. She finds she doesn’t really know what she’s asking for, or how to ask for it, but this one seems to just know.

In an instant, he’s shifting them both, handling her weight easily as he deposits her atop the mattress and clambers over her. His hand is only missing from her for an instant, delving back into her folds the moment they’re reoriented - and the angle works to their favor. His fingers are long and calloused; the back-and-forth of them against her turns the embers in her abdomen into a bonfire. She loses her grip on words, sounds she didn’t even know she could make being coaxed methodically from her throat.

He’s playing her like a fucking instrument, it seems, one he’s exceptionally talented with. It’s all so overwhelming and unexpected that she can only give in to the delirium, her legs shifting apart to allow him to have his way - and he does, quick to replace his fingers with his cock.

“ Fuck, ” she breathes, feeling him fill her.

His hand finds her hair, brushing it in an odd show of affection as he slowly pumps himself further inside her. Absurdly, she wishes it was the length it once was, back before she and her father had gone on the run - if only so that the fingers threading through it now could grip it. “You still okay?”

“Yes.”

It’s all the encouragement he needs. In no time he’s setting a reckless pace within her, the bed’s old wooden frame creaking far too loudly under the stress of two built fighters fucking unabashedly atop it. Byleth feels her control slip in a way it never has before, giving herself to this stranger, and it’s freeing. His hand shifts from her hair to her face, cupping her jaw, thumb tracing her lips before parting them and moving into her mouth. It only loudens the cacophony they’re making.

Safe to say Byleth had no idea what she was getting into. The chill that’d been lingering in the compact room is gone. Her pulse is pounding, blood roaring in her ears, the swell of inflamed skin on her eye and lip throbbing with vague pain.

“ Fuck,” she hears him mutter into her hair as his pace shifts into slow, heavy thrusts. Byleth feels her muscles tense up; there’s something intensely familiar about his voice. Her mind latches onto that, eyelids fluttering open, trying to pinpoint it. What was it? Who? It’s hard to hold onto the train of thought through the waves of pleasure, but still she digs through her clouded memories, certain that it’s more than a coincidence. His voice isn’t the only thing familiar, is it? Something about the way he carried himself in the brawl, the false glaze in the words she’d only been half-listening to when they were seated in the back-room applying the salve…

He bottoms out in her, then, and the thoughts dissipate.

 

 

Sylvain has lost his grip. He knows it, but he can’t bring himself to pause, especially when he feels the fighter’s firm thighs snake up to his waist and her ankles lock together around the small of his back. It’s dangerous, and he really should’ve learned his lesson after the stupid mistake he’d made in Fhirdiad, but - 

She hums beneath him, again, making it known without articulation that she’s close. And then his brain is playing tricks on him - because in the complete lack of light, he can only see the form of the professor there, her usual wide blue eyes lidded and her signature composure melted away. That alone is enough to nearly make him finish right then, and he blinks hard in an attempt to dispel the image.

Only it stays. Even when he closes his goddamn eyes and buries his face in the nook of her shoulder he can’t unsee it. Sylvain had only resorted to something this desperate - pretending the person beneath him was her - once or twice in the past, usually when he’d been intoxicated or just zoning out while going through the motions. This was far from the same scenario, though - he was very much present, and still, Byleth’s memory seemed intent on haunting him.

He curses again into her skin. Stupidly, he thinks she even smells like his professor - steel and sweat and vaguely floral, although overpowering it all is the stench of whatever spiced liquor she had taken a swig from earlier clinging to her breath. He ignores the unwonted impulse to seal her lips with his in spite of it, instead finding the thrum of her pulse along her neck with his teeth. It earns a heavy shudder, and no sooner are her fingers weaving into his hair, gripping so tight it hurts.

Then, finally, the woman yields. A strained sound slips past her lips as her folds tense and tremble around his cock, the resulting pleasure winding him. Her grip on his locks releases, back arching off the mattress, and out of habit he quickly returns his hand to her sex to ride her through it. He’s aching for release at this point, sense leaving him; before her climax has even ceased, Sylvain sits up, hurriedly pulling her closer by her wide hips and pumping harshly into her spasming warmth to chase his own release. They’re making a terrible amount of noise at this point, between sounds of pleasure and the beating the bed is taking and the slap of his sex against hers, but he hardly cares if the whole tavern hears them. He’s frustrated with himself for his own repeated lapses, frustrated with the absent professor, and all the while intensely attracted to the rough-strewn fighter reduced to a mewling mess beneath him. It all culminates too fast for him to react, and suddenly he’s spilling inside her, pressure in his groin releasing all at once.

Sylvain realizes too late, scrambling off and out. Fuck, he thinks, panic setting in as rapidly as a summer storm and blotting out the pleasure.

Fuck - fuck, I -  

“Hey,” comes a breathy voice, and he resists the urge to shoo away the woman when she approaches his side of the bed in clear concern. “...You alright?”

He struggles to find his composure; all the while, suspicion sets in. Did she know after all? That has to be… No, she couldn’t have. I got carried away. That’s all.

The bed creaks far more softly than it had been a few minutes ago as she settles down beside him, leaving a safe few inches of distance. “...I’m protected, if that’s what you’re so concerned about. Though you should say something, next time.”

The words sink in, settling atop his rattling mind. He feels a breath of relief leave him. “...My bad,” he tries to say nonchalantly, ignoring the quiver in his own timbre. “I usually don’t do that. I know that sounds like bullshit, but seriously.”

In the darkness, he can make out the shape of her shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “It happens. That’s what the ward is for.” She’s back to the monotone, he notices, the evidence of her pleasure gone. There’s a tiny sliver of humor in her words as she continues. “Typically it’s the person in my position worried about that.”

Sylvain doesn’t know what to make of that. It’s an odd observation, if not true. She can’t be commending him for considering the weight of his actions, right? Unless it’s suspicion - the only men in Fodland truly concerned about accidentally siring a bastard, after all, are nobles and those married.

He feels her gaze on him again, and realizes he’s cornered. But just as he’s about to fess up about his position, throw some halfhearted words at her to send her away, she stands and begins to dress.

“Thanks,” she says, voice low and casual. Transactional. The sweat coating his skin begins to cool, and he shivers, finding he’d rather her stay a bit longer. It’s almost laughably karmic, really.

“Leaving so soon?” He rolls confidently back onto his elbows, the sheets still tangled around his calves. The farce is pointless, really, now that he’d already let his guard down, but it’s a force of habit.

She turns as she pulls her tunic down over her head, and he feels her eyes sweep down the length of his body. “This is my room, actually,” she reminds him matter-of-factly. An arm gestures vaguely towards the door. “And I’ve got an early morning ahead. So, when you’re ready…”

Notes:

Byleth having shitty memory is canon right? Because the constant in-game prompts asking whether they remember certain events definitely gave off that vibe #ourneurodivergentqueen 😩😩‼️

Chapter 5: Eisner III

“I think I have something.”

Leonie doesn’t knock before barging into their shared room, feathers ruffled. She’s already fully dressed and armored down to her laced riding boots, much in contrast to Byleth, who is still pulling on the prior night’s breeches and entirely bare otherwise; she turns on her heel at the girl’s entry, brow raised in surprise.

“I’m sorry...?”

The woman paces over to the singular desk sitting between their halves of the room, planting a handful of papers atop it. Notes are scribbled here and there in her signature chickenscratch handwriting. “The group that pillaged the town south of us.” As if finally realizing Byleth was there, then, Leonie glances over and blushes. “Uhh, you’ve got a…”

Her hand rises to pat her own neck, an awkward display, and Byleth mirrors the motion. All at once, the memories of the night prior rush back. She feels heat creep up to her ears - not at Leonie’s scrutiny, but the more-than-poignant memory of skilled hands on her skin. “Oh. Don’t worry; it won’t be visible once I’m dressed.” Sluggish, Byleth digs through her pack for a fresh woolspun turtleneck; convenient, since they were all but necessary this far north.

“...Right,” is Leonie’s sardonic reply. “ Anyway, the gang. I spent the better half of last night - after you ditched me at the mill, just so you know - asking around.”

Byleth slides the long-sleeved undershirt over her head and shakes her hair out, half-listening, mind still fixated on her bed and the guy that’d been occupying it. “Yeah?”

“It definitely wasn’t the Hatchets,” she continues, “though those guys definitely still rub me the wrong way. Apparently the group in question is notorious over in Itha. Governing there has been lacking the past couple of years given the Grand Duke is preoccupied in Fhirdiad… so this band has been growing like crazy. Pillaging like crazy.”

Fastening the buttons on her tunic, Byleth turns back to her friend. “Hm. Then this was just a one-off incursion?”

“Maybe, maybe not. They weren’t sure. We should ask the Margrave when we’re given an audience with him, though.”

It’s worth considering, but Byleth knows her father will object. “We’ll see. Good work.” She paces over to the desk, eyes scanning over the papers before landing on Leonie. She tries to smile. “If this was an attempt to make up for the incident the other day, it wasn’t needed. I hope you know.” A heavy hand plants on the girl’s shoulder.

Leonie shrugs off the compliment, comment, and gesture alike, insisting it’s unrelated - but Byleth knows better. It’s as clear as the gray bags sitting beneath her eyes.

“Just hurry up and get dressed. I want to grab some food before we hit the road again.”

The rest of the trip into Gautier lands passes by uneventfully. Around them, the snow-coated landscape grows craggy and the mountains in the distance closer. Aspen and cedar and pine serve to break the hills of white up with splashes of dark viridian. The river disappears as quickly as it’d shown up, becoming a distant glimmer to their east. Despite Leonie and Byleth’s vigilance, there are no further signs of bandits - though their march does find itself crossing fresh tracks in the snow multiple times. She figures they belong to the Hatchets. Every now and then, in the evenings, she spies the rising tendrils of a campfire a ways up the main road from them, too.

Their client turns out to be Baron Auclair, a noble serving beneath the Margrave. His lands sit just a short distance from Gautier Estate, or so they’re told - the only thing visible around are highlands to the south and the towering Ruska Mountains to the north, with Auclair’s settlement sitting humbly at their base. The little town is not much, but it’s a welcome sight after five nights of camping out in the cold.

They’re welcomed warmly, the Baron himself greeting Jeralt at the town’s gates as though he were an old friend. Byleth can tell they’re not acquainted - her father is tense, gives stiff replies to the Baron’s questions. Distrustful. It adds up, but she has a feeling this man, at least, is no less trustworthy than any other client they’ve dealt with. They’re welcomed into the town’s walls after a short discussion; she notes the vaguely familiar banners of Gautier hanging just inside the portcullis alongside the pine-green banner of what she assumes is Auclair.

She lingers close to Jeralt, not so much as to draw attention to herself from the chatterbox of a Baron, but enough to hear bits of their conversation. There are bandits about, he says, expressing surprise that their group didn’t run into any on the way up from the border - and Imperial spies, too, he seems certain of. It’s Sreng, however, that they’ve been hired to probe. Skirmishes in the border mountains can’t go unignored in Gautier, and security is hampered by the fact that some of Gautier’s knights had been drawn away to attend to other Kingdom territories given the ever-teetering threat of war.

When all is said and done, her father is left with an obscene amount of paperwork to fill out - another thing Byleth doesn’t miss about their stint at the monastery. The plan itself is clear enough. Today they’d stay on Auclair’s grounds, and tomorrow, they’re to head up into the mountains - to the Margrave’s castle. There, they would be fed, armed, and stocked up on whatever supplies Jeralt deemed necessary for their assignment. 

Antsy, Byleth leaves her father to his duties and strolls out into the estate’s yard - where she runs into Leonie.

“Oh, Byleth. Did you already talk to Jeralt?” she asks, using their names a bit too brazenly for Byleth’s liking given the public setting.

Still, she nods. “He’s got paperwork to do at the moment. I’m going to scope out a perimeter.” A pause, then, she offers, “You want to join?”

Leonie weighs the question for a second before nodding her head. “...Sure.”

They pace around the estate until sundown, taking note of where their mounts are stabled, Byleth pointing out the easiest points of attack to Leonie - not that an attack is at all anticipated. The cold is creeping and pervasive, grasping hold of Byleth’s spine and not letting go; she finds herself yearning again for the warmth of the tryst back in Wynguard.

“So, then,” Leonie starts, breaking her from her chain of thought, “We’re going to Gautier Estate tomorrow?”

They pause by the doors to the Auclair great hall. “Yeah,” Byleth answers, “Assuming we’re invited, and not just Jeralt. You know how it is sometimes.”

The woman nods, stroking her chin. “That’s a good point.” Then she turns to Byleth, casually pondering, “I wonder if that guy Sylvain will be in.”

Byleth crosses her arms. “I considered the same, but I doubt it. The Duke of Fraldarius seemed to insist he and the other nobles from Faerghus are gathered in the capital.” The braziers on either side of the entryway fend off twilight’s gloom, tall splashes of warmth; the way their red flames waver in the wind reminds her of the Gautier second son.

The sinking feeling in her chest is easy to recognize as disappointment. I suppose I would’ve liked to see him. There’d been much left unsaid, after all.

“Hmm.” Leonie shrugs. “Well, nothing missed there. Classmate or not, he was kind of an asshole.”

Byleth doesn’t reply to that, instead shaking off her boots and making her way inside to avoid growing any colder. She can’t find it in her to agree with the girl’s sentiments - the prospect of meeting up with one of her past students does something to lift the gnawing loneliness that’s made its home in her since their departure, after all. But it’s a moot point if he’s in Fhirdiad. They would only be at Gautier Estate for a day, then set off on their assignments - and Byleth is still under a pseudonym, at that. It would do no good.

Still.

She rummages through her pack of meager belongings when she reaches her quarters that night. The room is tiny, meager, and cold, even with a fire burning in the hearth. The stone floor underfoot becomes frigid enough on the pads of her feet that she shuffles the junk atop the bed aside to continue her task, folding her legs up beneath her.

There isn’t much. Some of her students back at the academy had joked one time that she wasn’t one for worldly possessions, and thereby more of a monk than some of the Knights of Seiros themselves despite her ignorance of the Church in her upbringing. Pouches of tea and maps take up most of the space in her bags aside from survival essentials, alongside a brooch adorned with the sigil of the Golden Deers, a jar of fishing bait, a sewn bear Bernadetta had gifted to her, the ring her father had gifted her stored in a velvet satchel, a floral hair ornament of which Hilda had bought the two of them along with Marianne matching clips…

…and a small leatherbound journal. Byleth zeroes in on that, lips just barely curling downward at the realization that it’d gotten quite dirty buried at the bottom of the pouch. The face is sticky with what smells of long-dried rum - her flask is empty, she reminds herself, she needs to refill it soon - and small seeds litter some of the pages, spillage from a pouch of sunflower seeds she’d been munching on a month back.

She cleans the notebook off as best as she can. The pages are empty - despite her tenure as a professor, she isn’t much of a note-taker - and there are quite a few sheets torn out from letters she’d sent to her former student over the years. What she’s looking for, though, is tucked between the remaining blank pages; folded up responses from Bernadetta, communications going back three or four years, all sent on high-quality stationery imprinted with the sigil of Varley.

Byleth threads through until she finds the odd one out. It’s the one letter in here lacking Bernadetta’s fine handwriting; in its place is an equally familiar script, one she’d reviewed countless times.

Still frowning, she unfurls the paper and rereads it, the bed creaking as she leans back.

Professor,

How’ve you been? No idea if this letter will actually reach you - it took a lot of groveling to get Bernadetta to help me out. If it does, it’s worth it, though. 

We all miss you and hope you’re doing well. To be frank, I feared the worst when you disappeared all those years ago. But that’s not the reason I’m writing - I wanted to apologize. It’s been sitting on my conscience for a while, and it might be selfish of me to think an apology this long after is worth anything, but I’m shooting my shot regardless. It was unreasonable of me to resent you, and to treat you the way I did. I’m sure it’s obvious, but at the time, I was jealous of the freedom I thought you had in your life. While I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses, I at least owe you an explanation for why I acted that way.

My parents made sure I was never left wanting, growing up. As great as that sounds, the reality of it is that it was hollow. They didn’t treat me well out of love for who I was; it was my Crest and the importance that brought the family. On the other hand, my brother - the firstborn - didn’t have a crest. I’m not sure you ever knew about that, whether any of the others ever let you on to it - but he was disinherited when I was a kid. Thrown out like he was trash, frankly. Not that he didn’t have it coming - making an attempt on your brother’s life will do that to you, especially when your brother is the coveted heir to a major crest. He - 

- there are two more lines of words crossed out, the ink too blotted to make out what words might’ve been penned underneath.

Anyway, I’m getting off-track. I was angry with my family, angry with society, because of my crest. At the time, it was like the Gautier inheritance is all anyone saw when they looked at me, and that really ate at me. It was unfair of me to lash out at others over that. I’m sorry for the way I treated you, for the way I treated everyone in general. From the bottom of my heart. I know it made a bad impression, and when we talked the night of the ball, I tried to act like it never happened. To be honest, I was afraid that was part of what drove you away. (Maybe it was?) That being said, I don’t want you to go thinking I was being disingenuous; I meant everything I said back then, good and bad. I know your teaching days are far behind you, and I’m probably as distant a memory as the rest of the class, but I need you to know you had an impact on me, whether that was your intention or not.

Thank you, Professor. I hope you and your father are well - and stop by sometime, if that’s in the cards. If not, I get it.

Sylvain Jose Gautier

 

The letter is dated a little over a year ago; a tinge of regret pinches in her chest, now, at the thought that she’d never bothered to write a reply. He was one of her only students to have reached back out, after all - and that meant something to her, she’s certain, even if she can’t quite identify the feeling that blooms in her stomach at the thought of being remembered, being significant enough to someone that they would write her years later out of the blue. Even a year later, Byleth still struggles to read between the letter’s lines and identify what is Sylvain’s usual flattering gloss and what is genuine - because it certainly feels genuine, only the skeptic in her knows to distrust the Gautier boy.

It doesn’t matter now, though, since he won’t be around to receive her. Even still, she reprimands herself for not writing a response. Varley certainly would have forwarded it without judgment. And what else does Byleth have when it comes to connections? Even in five years, she thinks bitterly, you’re still the same person, stuck in the same cycle.

Byleth folds up the letter and tucks the rest of her belongings back into her satchel before splaying back heavily on the mattress.

/

They’re all invited up inside the Margrave’s castle, as it turns out. It’s not an unexpected development, since the land around isn’t exactly on the hospitable side. Auclair hardly had space for their entire party to settle, but the Gautier head certainly would.

The next morning is busy with preparations. Flurries drift down from an overcast sky as they prepare their horses and mules for the final stretch into the mountains. Byleth is exhausted, even moreso than usual. Sleep had come easily, but still, she finds herself moving at a snail’s pace and asking her comrades to repeat themselves on multiple occasions throughout the day. It’d been a while since she’d slept on a proper bed, perhaps that was it - she never had trouble waking, otherwise. The zip in the frigid air is all that keeps her alert as they journey up the final stretch of road, long fingers of pine stretching over in a jagged canopy above them as tiny flurries snake their way down from above.

It’s as far north as she ever remembers going. Her father had been here countless times before prior to her birth, though, and navigates them through the winding mountain paths with confidence.

She’s dozing atop the saddle when the ground suddenly starts to decline. Around them, the treeline opens up - and then a massive castle rises up from the snow-coated cliffs and valleys before them, surrounded by a sizable town and a collection of covered bridges leading off in each direction.

“There it is,” someone nearby comments, and she blinks her sleepiness away.

We’re here already? She glances behind, back through the tree-covered pathway they’d come up. It’d only been an hour or two’s trip from the Baron’s place, yet the scenery is drastically different.

“Hey, don’t fall off your saddle there, kid.” Jeralt rumbles her way as he kicks his own mount past hers. Leonie is at his tail, eyeing her briefly before moving forward.

Despite all her effort not to think much of it on their journey north, with Gautier Estate now standing tall before her, Byleth can’t help but dwell on the thought of its heir. This is his home, and likely a place the other Faerghus students had frequented in childhood too, given their closeness. What type of man could the Margrave be? Sylvain had never spoken of his family at all, save for what he’d confided to her in his letter.

With that comes the uncomfortable thought, again, that it’d been no less than five years since she’d seen any of them. Does that make her a failure of a mentor? Of a friend? No - she’s not certain she was ever even friends with any of them per say - that word’s meaning is still hopelessly elusive to her.

But in Sylvain’s case, she’d glimpsed the conflict behind his well-constructed mask, and there was no unseeing it. Is he doing better, now? Has he settled down, resolved things with his brother, matured beyond his habits of resentful escapades with women? Or perhaps it’s the opposite - his brother has been fully ousted, or killed, and Sylvain’s dreaded scenario of being married off to reproduce has come true. She supposes she’ll begin seeing auburn-haired children scurrying about at their entry, pretty soon, if that’s the case. The thought wells up a sudden urge to turn her horse around and leave, and a hard lump forms in her throat. She hadn’t even considered the prospect of any of her students having married until now, despite many of them being nobles well into their ripest years.

As they pass through the town’s massive gates, she gazes up at snow-coated rooftops and iron-gray standards billowing from atop the surrounding battlements. It’s a harsh place for a child to grow up, she thinks - all of northern Faerghus is. She catches sight of a couple of kids (older than five, she thinks with absurd relief) standing atop the parapets of the portcullis. It’s a precarious perch, and they mumble excitedly to each other as they point down at the passing ranks of swordsmen. All she can think when she looks up at them is that it’s a dangerous spot to be leaning out from. One misstep and they’d shatter against the cobblestone, a meaty stain on the ground.

Directing her gaze forward, Byleth clenches down hard on reins. Ahead, Castle Gautier looms in the shadow of the surrounding mountains. I should focus on the job.