#tbd probably but its been so fun….. to write something Silly for a change

[morganadismay]

unexpectedly spent the majority of this christmas break progressing on my quest of writing my terry pratchett style gay little arthuriana stories

[patricia-von-arundel]

A World on Its Side: Prologue - A Temporary Sanctuary; Strange Smiles

Art by @zaaschila​

An anon sent this what-if:  What if: Jeralt's mercenaries was in actuality not a mere mercenary group, but one with more organization and it has its own squad section that acted in the shadows like spies or infiltrator. What if: they received a request that ended up with them secretly raided the place where El and her siblings were experimented on? (I'll leave the number of survivors to you) What if: they rescued the kids and disguised them, raising them along with Byleth in the merc group?

I opted to keep Jeralt as a mercenary, and then, well... 

Before I start the story, I’m going to explain some of my thought process in how I wrote it, and then of what I’m concerned about with it. I would really, really appreciate feedback as to whether this particular style seems to be working, or if I goofed it and should scrap it and start over using a more traditional story format. This is just part 1 - I didn’t intend for it to get this long (shocker, I know), and we’re just getting to where the action starts, despite the format being an attempt to keep it short and sweet. So, uh... yeah. Under the cut, some info/thoughts.

This was initially just going to be Edelgard being rescued through meeting Byleth and training as a mercenary, but then I wondered what would happen if they somehow eventually wound up at the monastery anyway (bear with me when I haven’t given the reasons for that chain of events yet - I do have a chain, I promise), and then it became... well, I don’t want to spoil everything, but there’s more. And then it was the usual “well, shit” moment of realizing I didn’t have a drabble, I had this whole, stupid story. With inconvenient nonsense like a plot. 

...Bother. 

So what I wanted to try to do, to keep it as short as possible (ha!), was write it in more a... well, not a comic-book format, obviously, but as if it was, or perhaps a serialized pulp kind of story, since the whole “what-if” thought came from my love of the Marvel “What If?” comics I read as a kid. Not a whole lot of introspection or exposition in here, just action and movement from one scene to the next. No room for lollygagging in the mind. 

And I think that worked broadly, but what I’m concerned about is that it muzzled Edelgard. Especially since she doesn’t have a lot of chance to show her anger and her pain without introspection, because she almost never talks about it. She felt to me at risk of losing her bite - and of getting over what happened to her too quickly. And that’s the last thing I want, because without those parts of her, she’s no longer, following the canon scenario of her childhood, Edelgard. It can be argued that a certain degree of softness might be acceptable if she was in the hands of Jeralt after the experiments rather than (I assume?) Hubert and Thales/”Arundel,” but I still worry that it becomes too much. Or that when the darkness in her does surface here and there, it rings false, because nothing else in the text supports it. I shouldn’t rely on readers’ knowledge of that side of her. That’s sloppy writing and bad characterization. 

I also doubt Edelgard was still being experimented on this late in her life, but I needed to make it late for the sake of that damned plot. That won’t change regardless of whether I decide to rewrite it. I could stretch out her time with Jeralt and Byleth a little bit more, I suppose, if it just seems too unlikely she was still there only a year before the events of the game start. (Again, I doubt it myself. But I needed it for the story.) You can probably tell at the beginning that, before the plot wormed its way in, she was initially written to seem younger than seventeen. I haven’t changed that (yet). 

So... now what I have to decide is whether to complete the story in this choppy, scene-to-scene format, or scrap it and do more development in a longer story. Therefore, I will happily accept the most scathing criticism you can throw at me. (I mean, I would anyway, but for this, I’m asking for it! Please tell me if Edelgard is just... completely unrecognizable.) 

This is also... well, you may see this story as choppy for other reasons. Personal reasons I will go into at a future time. Whether you like it or not, let’s say this story is something of a rebirth. And with birth comes starting anew. Never a quick and easy process. Shaky steps.  

All that said, if it does work - I hope you enjoy. This is not my usual style of writing at all, so it was kind of fun to just write the exciting parts. Even if the real excitement won’t begin until later. 

Part 1/?

Rating: TBD (this part is probably a T, just for the beginning)

-

She tensed at the sound of footsteps, biting back a whimper - even that would hurt. She was too weak to lift her head, time now a blur of slippery consciousness. The footsteps were the first thing she had heard in... in what seemed a very long time. She could no longer say how long. There was just herself - and the silence. 

They’re all dead. 

I’m dying, too. Then the rats will eat me. 

The rats were gone, for now. Sated by the flesh of the others - the tortured, mutilated remains of those who had been her brothers and sisters, left to rot around her. She no longer opened her eyes. She told herself she had grown accustomed to the smell. 

Perhaps she wanted to die. To be quiet and still, as they were - to feel no more pain. No more fighting the shackles. No more screaming beneath the needles, the knives, the magic. No more agony sent coursing through her with every frantic beat of her heart. 

She lived, though. Whatever she might long for - she lived. 

And they were coming for her again. 

She hugged her arms around herself, curling up as small and tight as the chains would allow, despite the pain of movement - it was almost involuntary. She had begged, at the start. Begged them not to hurt her. Begged for the others to be alright. Begged for her father to save her. But it did nothing. So now, she lay silent, and still, and alone. 

The steps were coming closer now, echoing in the stone corridor. But something curious about them - they seemed almost... hesitant?

Father?

Her breath caught, hope like a taper within her scarred, aching chest. But just as quickly, it was gone again: the voice she heard was not her father - nor any she had ever heard before. 

“The lock,” it said - deep and rough, even in hardly more than a whisper. “Be quick about it. We don’t have much time.”

“I know, I know.” A woman’s voice now, but just as rough. It made her think of the kitchen girls gossiping under their breath, their accents so harsh it sometimes seemed almost a language of its own. “Shut up. Lemme work.”

The soft clattering of metal pushed slowly, carefully against metal - an even softer click - then the familiar scrape as the door separated from its thick iron base. 

“Wait here,” the first voice said. 

“You’re the boss.”

A candle - he had a candle. How long had it been since she’d seen natural light? The ones who kept them here used strange, glowing orbs, set high against the walls, casting only faint, greenish light to the floor below. She wanted to stare at that bright little flame, despite the pain against her eyes. But it was too much. She looked at the man instead. 

It was hard to make out details of his features, candle or not, but there was clearly a harshness to them that matched his voice. Sharp eyes, scarred face. 

Scars. 

She opened her mouth, but no sound could force its way past the rough, swollen surface of her throat. She didn’t know him, but he wasn’t one of them, and that was enough to relight that taper, deep inside her. 

Those tentative steps again - he held the candle out, casting it around the cavernous room, empty of all but chains... and corpses. 

And her. 

“What the hell?” He was breathing shallowly, through his mouth, and suddenly she was very aware that the stench was still there. A trickle of the nausea she had felt the first time she smelled it, realized what it was, once more twisted through her belly. Like her whimper, she fought it back - dry-heaving had more than once made her pass out from the pain. If she passed out, he might think she was dead, too. She would be left. 

Please! But still, she could force out no words. 

“They sure didn’t mention this...” the man said. She didn’t look down to see what he saw. She didn’t want to see, truly, what they had become: the sisters who had braided flowers into her hair and showed her how to knock apples from the trees. The brothers who had called her silly names and sometimes read her stories. That was not all there had been, but it seemed, now, all she could remember: the childhood things she had not known to treasure. Things that could never come again. Things that no matter how many times she told herself to forget, her mind seemed simply incapable. 

“What is it?” the woman asked, sotto voce, from the doorway. 

“Pretty sure it’s the Hresvelg kids. But they’re all long - wait.”

Sudden light, full in her eyes, and she gasped and shied back. Bolts of agony - in her head. In what remained of the rest of her. 

When the opened her eyes again, he was crouching before her, holding the candle carefully aside. His own eyes were brown - and softer, friendlier, than any she had seen for a long, long time. 

She felt her lip tremble, but resisted the urge to cry. Crying hurt, too. And besides - like begging, it did nothing at all. 

“Hey,” the man said. “What’s your name?”

For the first time in days - weeks - months - she found her voice again: 

“Edelgard.”

-

“What’ll you do with her, Jeralt?”

Jeralt - the first time she had learned the man’s name. They had made a makeshift sling for her across his back; she was too weak to walk, much less to ride, and so was strapped in a blanket like some swaddled infant. She might have cared more if all of her focus was not on staying conscious - even at a slow pace, every step the horse took sent nauseating agony pulsing through her. 

The man - Jeralt - seemed to consider for awhile, then sighed heavily. “I was going to bring them back to Remire if they needed some patching up before I figured it all out, so I guess I’ll take her home with me. Maybe some company her own age will open the kid up a little bit.” 

“If this one survives. She’s in pretty bad shape, Jeralt.”

“She can hear you, you know. Anyway - just another reason to keep her with me, at least for now. It might be hard to hide 11 children just reappearing, but one? Simple accident. Poison made to look like some common ailment. Anyone who kills 10 children - 10 Imperial children, no less - doesn’t seem likely to care about killing one more. I’ll figure out what to do when she’s gotten some of her strength back.”

It was night - Edelgard could see the outlines of trees against the sky, and the stars above them. The world smelled of wet leaves, the earth, a clean chill that spoke of autumn. Despite her discomfort, she couldn’t ignore it - couldn’t stop a frisson of... of almost hope. 

“Still back there?”

“Yes,” she said.

At some point, she slept.

-

She woke to blue eyes, far too close to her own. 

Her first instinct was to scramble away - but even attempting to push back with her arms brought a cry of pain she could do nothing to suppress. She hunched her shoulders and closed her eyes once more, breathing in harsh gasps, until the sharpest of the agony subsided, leaving the familiar, dull ache that she had come to know so well. 

“Sorry.”

“You don’t sound particularly sorry.” The words out before she could stop them, somehow defensive of her own childish behavior - but it was true. She heard no apology in that voice. 

“Huh?”

Edelgard finally forced her eyes open again. The others, thankfully, had retreated - instead of looming over her, they now watched from beside the bed. They belonged to a girl about her own age, perhaps a little older - though without a current date, Edelgard had long since lost track of how old she now was. The girl had messy hair that matched those blue eyes and well-patched clothing. She was still staring quite unabashedly. 

“My father said he’d be back soon,” she said - as if already dismissing her attempt at an apology. 

“Your father?”

“Jeralt. He said you might be thirsty when you woke up. No food yet. Are you thirsty?”

Non-sequiturs. It took Edelgard a moment - thinking was hard enough through the haze of pain. Was she thirsty? She had found herself, at times, lapping at puddles on the floor, desperate, telling herself it was moisture seeping through stone, and nothing more. 

Silent, painful attempts to speak, the night of her rescue...

“Yes,” she said - trying to hide the sudden, urgent realization of need. “Please.”

“I have to be careful.” Another strange, contextless statement - then the girl was up and gone, right out the open door to the outside. Edelgard could see the grass there, and the dark trunks of trees just beyond. 

For the first time, she wondered exactly where she was. She looked around - a small cottage, perhaps? No more than a cabin? There was a semblance of two rooms, but no complete wall or doorway between them. She seemed to be in the smaller of the two. There was little to see - rough, chinked-wood walls; beams across the low ceiling; one bed besides her own, and what looked like a pallet on the floor between them. The next room was only in partial view: a fireplace, a table and two chairs, cured meat and dried vegetables hanging from ropes strung across the walls. 

She had never been anywhere like this. But it wasn’t the hell beneath the palace in Enbarr - sunlight streamed through the narrow window next to her bed, and across the threshold of the open door on the other side of the room. She could feel the warmth; hold one weak hand up and watch it cast a shadow across the quilt around her. That was what she must focus on. 

Sunlight. 

Freedom. 

The strange girl returned, now with a bowl and a ladle. She stopped short of the bed, and seemed to consider for a moment, looking towards the other room. “Do you want a cup? I think at least one is clean.”

Edelgard shook her head. Best to try not to think about it all just now. Best just to pretend that of course she knew how to drink from a ladle. Best to ignore the protests of her swollen throat as she swallowed - and to ignore as well the water that spilled down her chin, her chest. It was cold. 

“Slowly,” the girl said. If she noticed the mess Edelgard was making, she said nothing. 

-

Cleaning her wounds was like yet another round on those tables, strapped down and screaming. Except... it wasn’t like that at all. Somehow. Despite the pain. 

“Do I need to have her hold you down?” Jeralt asked, nodding his head towards the strange girl - Byleth. Her name was Byleth. “This is going to hurt like pure hell.”

“No!” Too frantic - Edelgard stuffed it back: the terror of it. Her wrists and ankles were still raw, where the chains had bitten and rubbed away the skin. “I... I can stay still.”

The washing wasn’t so bad - it hurt, and a lot, but he was careful and quick. She could finally see the full extent of what had been done to her: her legs, her arms, and most of all her chest were a tangled web of scars and puffy, red-and-purple half-healed incisions. She could hardly stand to even look at them. 

No one here had asked what they meant. She wasn’t going to tell them. She might not ever tell anyone. Anyone who knew was already dead - or would be very soon. 

Worse than the washing was the brown glass bottle - spirits. Strong ones; just the smell made her eyes water. “Sure you can stay still?” he asked the first time. 

She nodded. She was not sure at all. But she would. 

He took her hand, extending her arm out, over the floor. There was a tub there. His fingers were gentle, but held her firmly. 

“Won’t take long,” he said. 

She held her breath. 

On her other side - another hand slid into hers. She looked over, startled. 

Byleth. Her eyes met Edelgard’s. She was almost... smiling?

The alcohol was like acid against her swollen, abused skin. Her back arched, and she fought desperately the urge to twist away - and to scream. Still, her mouth opened, a silent cry, and she felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. 

Each of her legs. Her other arm. A rag, wiping agony against her chest. By the end, she was shaking with voiceless sobs, her body trembling all over. 

Byleth never let go, except to move to her other side, even after Jeralt said, “There we go, kid. I’m sorry about that.”

Edelgard kept her eyes closed, as if that did any good against the tears seeping from them. She felt scoured - flayed open, every nerve set ablaze. 

“He does the same to me.” Byleth’s monotone voice - but did Edelgard imagine the hand around hers squeezed, just slightly? “When I get hurt on missions. I took a sword to the back of my shoulder last summer, and he did that twice a day for two months. He does it to himself, too. You should hear him curse.”

It was by far the most Edelgard had ever heard her say at one time. But what caught her attention was - “Missions?”

“Mercenary missions.”

“You’re... mercenaries? You are? I mean - you, not just your father?”

“Yeah. For... awhile. I don’t remember exactly how long. Do you want some soup? You can try having some food now. But only a little bit at a time.”

Even when Byleth’s hand left hers, Edelgard could feel the warmth of it against her palm. 

A blur of weeks - she still slept often, and drank water almost ravenously. Food, even soup, was more difficult to reacquaint herself with; her stomach seemed to twist and clench, rejecting it. 

“Take what you can,” Jeralt said. “Just take what you can.”

Her wounds were healing - leaving raised, jagged scars, tattoos she did not need, would never need, to remember the place from whence they came. But there were no more baths of spirits, at least; just water now, every morning. It almost felt good: to be clean. To be cared for. 

As weeks became months, Jeralt encouraged her to begin walking again, to rebuild the muscle that had wasted away. Her legs and arms were so skeletal, fragile, she had almost grown afraid to even attempt to use them. 

But Byleth said, “Here,” and held out an arm. 

Edelgard hesitated - then placed a hand upon it. 

She would have been embarrassed by how tightly she clung, if she wasn’t focusing the entirety of her attention on her trembling, stiff, knock-kneed legs. She understood than how a foal must feel, stumbling to its feet for the first time after birth. 

Outside the window, she could see that winter had arrived: the trees bare, the sky low and grey. They must be well north of Enbarr - there was snow on the ground, more than she had seen since her time spent in the Kingdom. But nothing gave any greater clue as to where they might be. She hadn’t asked - she wasn’t sure she truly wanted to know. Not yet. 

When walking grew easier, Jeralt had her lift books or small pieces of firewood, to strengthen her arms. Byleth did the same, though surely it wasn’t necessary - even so young, Byleth was already all lean, hard muscle. Edelgard found herself watching how it moved, though she couldn’t say why. Envy, perhaps?

She didn’t understand many of her emotions, now. She kept them to herself. But she liked Byleth’s company, curious as it was, and she liked that odd little almost-smile Byleth sometimes gave her. 

She also watched, through the window, as Byleth trained at weapons: sometimes with Jeralt, more often alone. Jeralt was gone quite a lot - missions? - but Byleth stayed behind. She practiced most often with a sword, but occasionally with the axe used for cutting wood, or a long, sharpened stick in place of a proper lance. 

As the snow melted and daffodils began to peek through the crust of frozen earth, Edelgard felt almost whole again - or as whole as she was now likely to ever be. She still ached sometimes, but it was dull - bearable. She went outside, and could walk the perimeter of the little cottage six or seven times before beginning to feel exhausted. She woke in the morning eager for breakfast, plain as the fare on offer truly was. 

But with all of this came clearer mind - including the nagging reminder of the vow she had sworn, beneath the palace, as her family lay dying around her. A vow she would keep, even if it ultimately meant her death as well. The time had come - the time for true preparation to begin. 

The first almost spring-like day, warm and breezy - that was when she finally asked Byleth, “Will you teach me how to use weapons, as you do?”

Byleth lowered the makeshift lance, for a moment looking almost confused. “Why?”

“Because... because I'd like to learn. And it would continue to... to build my strength up.” She should have prepared an excuse in advance, instead of stammering all over herself. 

But Byleth, as usual, seemed not to notice. “Okay,” she said. “What would you like to start with?”

And so Edelgard began, slowly, to prepare for the future.

To prepare for vengeance.

-

It was late spring when she finally confessed. It was only two months until the Garland Moon, and her birthday seemed as appropriate a time as any to leave. She could not put this off any longer - it was time to accept that. 

But she also could not stand the thought of leaving Byleth without warning. Especially since...

“Kid?” Jeralt’s voice, late in the night - soft, but Edelgard no longer slept deeply or soundly, and woke at the slightest noise. “Hey - this again?”

In the meager moonlight seeping between the closed curtains, Edelgard could see Jeralt standing beside the pallet where Byleth now slept, half-bent over her. Byleth was on the pallet, just as she should have been. But she was sitting up, and her eyes were open. Open wide. The meager moonlight seeping through the curtains seemed to catch in them, so that their deep blue appeared almost green. 

It was not the first time it had happened - and if anything, the frequency of it was increasing. Each time, it lasted only a few minutes, then Byleth would begin to stir and murmur, as if waking from perfectly normal sleep. She saw a girl, she said - but never elaborated, and Jeralt did not ask, and Edelgard did not know if it was her place to do so, despite her curiosity... and her concern. 

She liked Byleth. She liked Byleth... in ways, and for reasons, she did not understand. That hand holding hers. An arm to help her stand again. Strange, wordless smiles. For the better part of a year now, Byleth had been here, a constant companion, helping, serving, teaching. 

And now, when Byleth might be the one in need, Edelgard was leaving. She had to. But she owed Byleth at least an attempt at explanation of why.

“I would like to show you something,” Edelgard finally said one morning, as they were finishing breakfast. Just the two of them, Jeralt gone again; Edelgard was not ready to face both of them, though she suspected Jeralt already knew much of what she was going to say. 

“Okay.” Byleth cleared away the table, accepting the request as easily as always. “Where?”

“Outside.”

It felt almost like summer - hot, the air still and heavy. Perhaps that was why Edelgard could feel the sticky discomfort of perspiration against her hands as she lifted the now-familiar old axe they used for practice. 

She had never allowed herself to do this before, yet she knew herself capable of it: gathering all the power now contained within her. 

The power of two Crests. 

She drew the axe back, and hurled it before she could second guess herself. 

Capable. Yes - the strength they had whispered of with such hungry need...

The axe flew, a blur of silvery-blue, and sliced completely through the slender trunks of two young trees before stopping, with a reverberating thunk, deep inside another.  

Edelgard left it there and turned to Byleth, speaking the words before she could fight them back: “I have to leave. And soon. There... there is something I must do.”

Byleth just stared at her for what seemed a long time, her expression almost... concerned? It was hard to say. It was always hard to say. 

“I know who you are,” she finally said. “And I know where my father found you. That’s why we came here - because it was safe for the Hresvelg children, if they needed to be kept hidden. But you were the only one who lived.”

Edelgard looked down, afraid her expression would offer more than she was yet prepared to give. “Yes.” At least that part she wouldn’t have to try to explain. How long had Byleth known? “They were doing... experiments. They wanted...” She took a deep breath, and forced her head back up, her eyes meeting Byleth’s. “They wanted a weapon.”

She told it all: the experiments. The deaths. The dungeons. She told it before the begging voice in the back of her mind could gain control. By the end, she was looking down once more: at her arms, crossed tightly against her chest. 

At the scars. 

“Two months until you go looking for them?” Byleth asked, when Edelgard was finally silent once more. 

“Yes. Two months and a bit.”

“Go get the axe.”

Edelgard looked up then, surprised - it sounded almost like an order. But Byleth stared right back - then turned and left. Walked into the house without another word. 

Edelgard blinked. 

Then, she did as told. It took three tries to jerk the axe from the tree. She didn’t want to use her Crests again. Even with no one watching, she felt self-conscious now. Vulnerable and exposed. She bit her lip and took a deep breath before turning back. 

Byleth had gotten a charred remnant of log from the fireplace, and used it to draw a large X on a tree - a far bigger one than those Edelgard had severed, and far closer to the clearing where they trained. 

“Can you hit that?”

Again, Edelgard was surprised. She looked at the tree, then back to Byleth. “I... I suppose so?”

But the axe flew far to the left of the target. Edelgard did her best to keep her expression neutral, but there was no way to hide the flush that rose in her cheeks. “I... perhaps I am tired. My apologies.”

Byleth cocked her head, considering, apparently, the untouched target. “That’s what we should focus on,” she said. “Before you leave. Your aim. We can do that in two months.”

But they didn’t have two months.

-

Edelgard was half-awake in bed, drowsy, blanket pulled to her face. Jeralt was packing to leave again, and quiet as he was, it had been enough to keep her from sleep. Byleth was in the other room, preparing food for his journey. 

An ordinary evening - until came the desperate, frantic pounding at the door. 

Edelgard sat bolt upright, sleep forgotten, her heart pounding at the sudden noise and the accompanying, baseless, terrified thought: They’ve found me. She pulled the blanket to her shoulders, like a child after a nightmare. Byleth was standing in the partition between the two rooms, and Edelgard tried to focus on her - bright, alert eyes. Her hands by her side... but one held a knife. 

It was Jeralt who opened the door. 

Edelgard tensed. Blood pounding in her ears - she could hardly understand what they were saying. Something about an attack...?

It’s just boys. Just three boys. Nothing dangerous about them. Dressed in uniform, though they did not appear to be military. Something familiar about it, though - had she seen such uniforms before? When she was younger, maybe?

One of them - the tallest among them, his unkempt blond hair falling across his face - was scanning the room, as the other two talked to Jeralt. 

Jeralt sighed. “Guess I’ll have to leave a little later than planned. Kid, you -”

The blond boy pushed past him - his eyes had locked on Edelgard. She met his gaze, letting the blanket drop, and lifted her chin. A boy. Not dangerous. 

Jeralt tried to grab his arm. Missed. “Hey -!”

Byleth had the knife up. 

The boy ignored them. And now Edelgard could see the shock in his expression. 

He stopped a few feet from the bed. His eyes were huge, his cheeks flushed. 

He spoke one word - one word that chilled her more deeply than the coldest winter day. 

“...El?”