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silversdragonemporium · 2 years

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From Your Secret Admirer

Ship: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Byleth Eisner (female)

Summary: Shortly after starting to teach at the Officer's Academy, Byleth started to get weekly tokens of affection from a secret admirer. It started with flowers; then food and liquor; then a handkerchief. As the moons go by, she starts to notice that her mysterious gift-giver had started to put cologne on the tokens.

If she had to hazard a guess, it probably was part of some sort of noble courting ritual. As alphas and omegas were most common amongst the nobility, she assumed they tended to favor specifically-scented gifts. The gesture had seemed odd at first, but who was she to judge?

Byleth was a beta. She didn't need to worry about such things.

The second of my double entry for @dimilethfever's Hot Flash Round #3 (Anonymity)

Warnings: A/B/O (omegaverse), YANDERE DIMITRI ALEXANDRE BLAIDDYD (I mean it), bitching, super dubconny, That Blaiddyd Breeding Kink™

Rating: Explicit

AO3 Link

Have you heard of the story of Gwynedd and Powys? It’s an old tale, from a time almost forgotten. On the years after Blaiddyd of the Ten Elites perished, his seven sons and daughters vied for his legacy.

The sole victor of that bloodshed was a mighty alpha daughter named Gwynedd. With her victory, she had the duty to secure the Blaiddyd bloodline. However, Gwynedd was desperately in love with a common beta woman, named Powys.

Had Powys been born as an omega, Gwynedd would have been able to easily take her as a mate and spouse.

It was the Garland Moon. In Garreg Mach, much like any in any other place in Fódlan, there were droves of excitable youths that chattered merrily as they wove white rose love garlands to give to their family, friends and potential lovers. Byleth didn’t know what was so important about those white roses, or why they were so sought out for garlands. Roses had thorns, after all.

In her opinion, it was easier to just weave crowns from daisies, or any other thornless flower with a flexible stem.

“It’s a symbol of Saint Cethleann,” Dimitri had explained one evening after training, sweat making his shirt cling to his body in a way that was only mildly distracting to Byleth. “When someone weaves a love garland, their blood can get mixed with the white petals, making them red and representing the passion they hold for their beloved.”

That sounded stupid.

Dried blood didn’t look red. It looked brown.

Byleth was well-familiar with it, as she had seen it once a moon for years.

Perhaps that was why she didn’t get the ritual. Considering the emphasis on bodily fluids, it was probably some kind of weird alpha or omega thing.

Byleth was a beta woman, and as such, she had been… “gifted the moons of womanhood”. That was what the madam at the brothel had called it, when Jeralt dragged her there when she woke up with her bedroll stained with her blood. According to the madam, being a beta woman was a special boon, as it meant that she would be able to plan around her fertile window and decide when to have children in her own time. This was unlike alpha women, that were simply compelled to impregnate whoever was available each rut or —and the madam actually knocked on the wooden table as she said it— omega women, whose entire reasoning was completely out the window during their heat, and were prone to get themselves into compromising situations to satisfy their instincts.

During her time as a mercenary, Byleth had more often than not interacted with other betas. She could count the number of alphas and omegas she had to interact with in one hand, and most of them were nobles.

When she was given the class roster for the Blue Lions, which she was explicitly told to keep safe and secret from prying eyes, she noticed that almost all of her class were either alphas or omegas. Those with crests had the symbol for their designation underlined, as if having a crest somehow meant something to their designation.

Perhaps it did? Byleth sure didn’t know.

On the last day of the Garland Moon, Byleth received the first gift. It was a single white rose in full bloom, with a small note attached to it with a blue ribbon.

‘From your secret admirer.’

Gwynedd loved Powys with all of her heart, and she knew that she would accept no other mate than her. But the chieftains underneath her would turn up their nose at the idea of their alpha leader diluting Blaiddyd’s blood with a beta mate. To them, only an omega would be a fit consort for their chieftess. If the union went through, there were whispers of rebellion.

With her legacy and the Blaiddyd bloodline in danger of ending with her, Gwynedd prayed to the Goddess Sothis for a boon…

Ever since the mission at the Holy Tomb, people were being weird.

When she had taken that really weird-looking sword, which also managed to turn into a whip upon command, she was merely doing her usual thing of just adapting in battle to come out alive. It was just natural. She would’ve encouraged any of her students to do the same, should they find themselves in a similar situation. To do anything to survive.

But then it turned out that the weird-looking sword was not just any sword, but some kind of Hero’s Relic. And wielding it meant that she had a crest. Apparently, it wasn’t some kind of normal crest, either?

Ever since then, everybody started swarming around her, asking her questions she didn’t know the answer to about her origins and her crest. They also asked for her designation, over and over again.

That was actually quite rude. You don’t really ask people these things. Not unless they’re relevant, Byleth supposed. Still, Byleth decided to humor the students’ curiosity. And all she got for her troubles were a lot of unsubtly disappointed faces whenever she told them she was a beta.

The only one that wasn’t weird about it was Dimitri. Everybody else, yes even stoic and quiet Dedue, had asked about her designation. Dimitri just kept treating her the same as normal, asking for additional lance training drills after class and smiling his small, gentle smile whenever she called for him to stand up and answer a question on the chalkboard.

She appreciated that.

Her secret admirer had also remained steadfast. Every week, since that Garland Moon white rose, Byleth found another token in her bedroom with the usual note and blue ribbon. The gift varied from week-to-week, but usually they were flowers.

Although, actually…

Ever since the mission at the Holy Tomb, she did notice that the gifts were now more often than not small bottles of honey mead, candies and other such sweet treats.

Byleth appreciated that. Flowers were nice, but she liked gifts that were edible much more.

The Goddess appeared before Gwynedd, having heard her pure and desperate love for the beta she desired from her star. Gwynedd had hoped for the Goddess to change the chieftains’ mind about the worthiness of a beta as a mate to an alpha. But the chieftain’s hearts were black with fear, and not even the Goddess’s light would reach them.

So the Goddess whispered in Gwynedd’s ear.

Apparently, Byleth’s birthday was in the Horsebow Moon.

When Lady Rhea congratulated her with one of her enigmatic smiles, Byleth had only nodded, because the information didn’t quite register at first.

But now that her desk was covered in gifts, she realized that birthdays were a bigger deal to noble children than they were to commoners.

Dimitri had personally given her a small blue box with a smile, and shyly asked if she could wear it on the next mission, when they’d go to Gronder Field for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. It was a brooch of a lion. Byleth had been quite happy that he had noticed that she liked to wear a brooch, and had gifted her something that she’d use. Byleth decided to not only use the brooch during the mission at Gronder Field, but every day until then. Seeing Dimitri light up whenever she walked into the classroom was another small gift in and of itself.

On the other hand, her secret admirer had disappointed her a little.

Instead of giving her more of those simply divine sweets or alcohol that she had a hankering for, the only thing she got as a birthday gift was a handkerchief that she thought had been the wrapping, but had actually been the gift itself.

Byleth remembered looking at the handkerchief, feeling a little cheated. It was a very exquisite handkerchief, the kind that Mercedes and Annette would splurge on whenever they’d go to the town. But the issue was, that Byleth didn’t really know what to use it for.

It was a little too nice for it, but Byleth’s training sweat rag was falling apart, so she decided to use the handkerchief as a new sweat rag. She needed a proper rag to dry her sweat, now that she and the Blue Lions were training more diligently than ever, leading up to the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

Byleth’s moon came to her with a lot more cramping than expected. She was in so much pain, she tried in vain to drink as much alcohol as she could, which did manage to knock her out for a bit before her pain woke her up again.

In her alcohol-induced dream, she dreamt of a man picking her up by the hips and licking her bleeding pussy clean, making her body shudder with a sweet release that lessened the cramps. Then, her mysterious visitor left a vial on her nightstand and caressed her sweat-drenched forehead before leaving.

When she woke up with another cramp, she noticed that there was indeed a bottle of cloudy honey mead on her nightstand. With a blue ribbon a note.

Byleth didn’t know if her secret admirer had actually come into her room and… did that. But, she really didn’t care. She opened the bottle, and she noticed that it must have been a special casket-aged honey mead, because a mild cedar smell came from it.

She drank it, and felt the warmth of the alcohol ease her pain. The bottle her admirer had left was bigger than the usual small flasks he left for her, but she nevertheless drank it all in one go, as it tasted too good to go to waste. The more she drank, the less pain she was in. After finishing the last drop, she settled into a deep sleep.

The next day, her bleeding had slowed to spotting. It was about two days early, but during the first three days of her moon cycle she had had more bleeding than usual. Must’ve gotten it all out in one go, which would explain the uncharacteristically painful cramping she had.

Now that Byleth wasn’t in too much pain to function, she decided to go back to the training grounds and get back to preparing for the Battle of the Eagle and Lion.

That day, when she brought up her sweat rag to wipe her brow, she noticed something peculiar.

It was faint, but it smelled like cedar.

Some moons after Gwynedd’s divine revelation, the miracle promised happened. The beloved Powys went into her first heat as an omega in her alpha’s embrace.

Powys gave herself over to Gwynedd, and from their shared love the bloodline of Blaiddyd flourished.

Ever since the Wyvern Moon, Byleth noticed something interesting.

All of her secret admirer’s gifts actually had a scent to them.

Whether they were sweets, alcohol or flowers, they all smelled as if someone had spritzed cedar cologne over them.

Some kind of noble courting ritual, perhaps?

Byleth at first had found the scented tokens to be a little off-putting. Unfortunately, she had no way to communicate back to her secret admirer to not go crazy with the cologne. And he thought it best to just lay it on thicker with each passing week.

Still, it would be kind of a waste to not eat the food he’d leave for her. So she just learned to live with it.

Byleth had thought she was just bearing with the scent, but then, something peculiar happened.

Her sweat rag— handkerchief— the one her secret admirer gave her was gone. It wasn’t in her drawer, nor the convoy, not even in the training grounds nor the bathhouse.

Dimitri had stumbled upon Byleth as she was opening every drawer in her desk, desperate tears in her eyes.

“Professor?” He asked, as polite as always. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s not here!” Byleth sniffed. “My handkerchief! It’s not anywhere!”

“Did you lose that handkerchief that you used to train with?” Dimitri asked. “Don’t worry professor, I can get you a new one from the town—”

“No! It’s not the handkerchief, it’s…” she swallowed, and tried to understand why she was even so upset over a gift that she didn’t even like that much when she first got it. “It’s special. Someone gave it to me. And it…”

It just smelled really nice. When she’d wipe up her sweat with it, she felt that she was fresh and clean.

“Don’t worry, professor,” Dimitri reassured her. “I’ll help you find it.”

When he rubbed her shoulder, Byleth could’ve sworn she caught a whiff of cedar. But. It was all just wishful thinking.

Fortunately for her, that evening she saw her missing handkerchief wrapped up in blue ribbon. The note on it, read ‘I’m sorry for taking this from you for so long, I wanted to clean it for you. From your secret admirer.’

When Byleth opened up the handkerchief, she squeed in delight when she was hit by the powerful smell of cedar. She didn’t even think twice before she stuck her hand inside her shorts and sat on the floor, rubbing her aching clit as she breathed in the scent in the handkerchief.

When she came, she couldn’t stop herself from imagining Dimitri looming over her.

His name sounded so sweet when she moaned it.

What the Goddess whispered to Gwynedd during the divine revelation is not known to any living soul. Though there are some who say that Gwynedd’s Secret is fiercely protected by the blood of Blaiddyd and is passed down even to this day.

Ever since her handkerchief had reappeared, Byleth had been determined to figure out who her secret admirer was.

Unfortunately, as if guessing at her intentions, the students in the Blue Lions started to put on various colognes to throw her nose off.

How vexing.

But, she got the last laugh! Because, this meant, that her secret admirer was definitely one of her students.

Sylvain? He would pull off something like this.

Byleth singled him out and asked, straight to the point, if he was the one leaving her gifts. He denied it vehemently, fearing her wrath at the accusation.

Mercedes wasn’t it either, but she did say she could make more sweets for Byleth if she wanted them.

Felix just huffed at her and ignored her for the rest of the day.

Annette said she could ask around.

But on the eve of the Ethereal Moon Ball, Byleth found a blue ribbon and a cedar-scented note on her desk.

‘I know you want to meet me. Go to the courtyard after the eleventh bell at the ball. There, I will show myself.’

Byleth hadn’t really planned on going to the ball. It was an event for nobles. She had honestly hoped to just go to bed early and curl up beneath her warm duvet.

But, when she smelled the note again, she thought it’d be a good idea to go, after all.

Going to the ball was a bad idea.

It reeked.

Claude had dragged her to the dance floor with a smile, and for the next hour or so she found herself being spun around from one student to the next, each one smelling like a gross melange of various colognes and perfumes.

It honestly made her want to gag.

When at last the eleventh bell rang, Byleth fled the ballroom and ran to the courtyard.

Outside, the air was actually breathable. Byleth took a few deep breaths, easing her nausea after having to smell so many disparaging scents.

“Professor?” A voice called out to him. “Are you alright?”

“Dimitri?” Byleth asked, turning around to look at him. When she was turning around her head, she was hit by a familiar scent.

Cedar.

“Professor,” he smiled at her. “I saw you run out of the ballroom, and I was worried. What brings you out here?”

He was asking that, as if he didn’t know. As if he hadn’t left that scented note with the request to come meet him. As if the anticipation hadn’t made her feel… wet, down there.

Oh great. She was wet. And it seemed to her, that there was… a lot of fluid down there? Almost like when she’d get her moons, but without the cramping, actually.

Wait. Was she bleeding? Byleth tried to think of the last time she had had her moons. It must have been… around the Wyvern Moon.

She had been so caught up in preparing for the battle of the Eagle and Lion, then the dance competition and trying to weed out her secret admirer, that she had completely forgotten to keep track of her moons. Not that she’d need to. She usually could tell when it was almost time. She had been fairly regular for years now.

Though… the last moon cycle she had, had been odd.

She couldn’t fathom why.

“Professor?” Dimitri gently asked again. “Is something the matter?”

“I…” Byleth pressed her hand against her belly. She didn’t feel a cramp. She just felt… “Dimitri, you were the one sending those anonymous gifts, weren’t you?”

Dimitri’s eyes seemed to almost sparkle in the moonlight. But after that instant, he clearly tried to reign back his excitement.

“How did you know?” Dimitri asked, approaching her slowly.

Byleth could detect something unusual in his gait. It was almost… as if he were preparing himself to pounce at her.

What was going on?

“You started to put your cologne on the gifts,” she said the obvious. “In fact, you really started to lay it on heavy. I had no idea how you managed to rope in your classmates into it to put on other scents but—”

“You can smell that?” Dimitri smiled, now looking down at her.

The smell of cedar was overpowering. But unlike the ballroom, where she wanted to do nothing but run away and gag… Byleth realized that she wanted to bury her face in his chest and breathe deep. She wanted— she needed it filling her senses, consuming her mind, until there was nothing but Dimitri’s mark of ownership stamped out on her body.

Byleth’s legs felt weak.

“I can…” Byleth said. “I can smell your cologne even now.”

“How interesting,” he mused. “You can’t smell the other student’s from the ballroom?”

“I actually left because it was too overwhelming… Out here, it felt better. I can only smell yours.”

“Is that so…” he said, then picked up a lock of her hair.

Before Byleth could ask what he was going to do, he brought it up to his nose, and breathed in deep. Dimitri let out a small grunt of appreciation, which inexplicably made her feel even wetter. She was going to drench through her clothes at this rate…

“You smell so good, professor…” Dimitri moaned against her hair. “I’ve never smelt a more delectable omega in my life.”

Wait.

What?

“I’m not…” Byleth protested. But as she did, she realized that her legs were now wet. Her underwear must have been drenched…

“You’re in heat, professor.” Dimitri said, wrapping his arms around her.

Byleth leaned into him. His scent was all around her.

Yes. This was what she needed.

She let out an involuntary little gasp when his hand unceremoniously dove into her shorts. The wet, squelching sound that came from her was just barely covered up by the little moans that escaped her.

“D-Dimitri… you’re so rough!” She whispered, but she didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Her mind thought that she shouldn’t let this happen. But that was getting overriden by her body and just how good it felt.

She had never touched herself this roughly, but she had never felt this good so quickly. Hell, even when she’d think of him when she’d touch herself, she had never felt so excited. She had imagined his fingers inside her as they passionately kissed, kind of like he was doing now. But this was worse—better. Yes, this was better.

“Shh, it’s alright professor…” he shushed at her, rubbing his fingers around her clit. “It seems you’ll need a little more help than this, don’t you?”

More. Yes. She needed more.

“P-pleaseee…!” Byleth whined. “I need…!”

“Yes, you’ll need a lot of help,” Dimitri pulled out his hand from her shorts, but easily picked her up and held her close to him. “Your scent will cause a commotion here. But don’t worry, I’ll take you someplace far from the other alphas and omegas.”

Her scent? But she didn’t have a scent.

She was a beta. Betas don’t have scents.

She was…

Dimitri had taken her to the Goddess Tower, Byleth noticed. He took off his cape, and set it down on the floor gently, before laying her on top of it. Dimitri’s cape smelled so good. Like cedar. Like him. Byleth couldn’t resist rubbing her face on it, trying to get that scent all over her.

“Professor, you look so undignified,” Dimitri said with a smile. “I’ve barely even touched you, and yet you’re already presenting? It’s dangerous for an omega to show themselves so willing, you know. A lesser alpha would take advantage of you.”

“I’m not…” she protested weakly, turning to look at him.

That was when she realized the position she had taken. Her face was down, and her hips were up.

Omega presentation, the dusty anatomy tome in the library had called it. A courting pose made on instinct, meant to entice alphas into mating with the omega in heat.

Byleth had thought that it looked weird and kind of hard to pull off, when she saw the illustration.

And yet here she was.

“You poor thing,” Dimitri cooed at her, almost as if she were a lost kitten under the rain. His hands hooked beneath her shorts and panties, and pulled them down. “You must be so confused. This is your first heat, isn’t it, professor?”

“I don’t… I’m not supposed to be in heat—”

“But you are, professor. Look at how much slick you’ve made,” Dimitri patiently said, grabbing her by the hair and forcing her to sit up.

Byleth looked down at herself, and she could indeed see that her legs were drenched with clear fluid. When Dimitri’s hand wrapped around her breast and pinched her nipple, she could see just how she practically sprayed out more slick unto the blue cape.

“But this can’t…” Byleth shook her head. The day she got her first bleeding, her body had decided that she was neither an alpha nor an omega. Once she had gone through puberty, her nature had been set in stone.

Nobody just switched presentation. That was not something that could happen.

Not as far as Byleth knew.

“You were a beta, weren’t you professor?” Dimitri helpfully wrapped his other hand around her and rubbed at her sensitive clit. “I’ve heard that in some circumstances, betas can change into either alphas or omegas.”

“Th-they can?” Byleth asked, bucking into his hand.

“Yes. There is a legend about it in Faerghus.” Dimitri said, teasing at her hole. “The story of Gwynedd and Powys. Gwynedd was a Blaiddyd alpha, and she coveted Powys, a beta woman.”

“A-an alpha woman wanted a beta woman?” Byleth asked, desperately trying to understand the point of the story.

“Yes. Back then, those of the blood of the Ten Elites were forbidden from mating with betas. Even if Gwynedd could have impregnated Powys, the old chieftains wouldn’t have accepted the union.”

Byleth whined. She really didn’t care, she just wanted to feel more of Dimitri inside her…

Dimitri chuckled when she tried to hump herself on his hand, but he wrapped the hand that wasn’t inside her around her waist, keeping her still. Try as she might, she wouldn't be able to overpower him.

“So the Goddess decided to make Powys into Gwynedd’s omega. Powys’s first heat belonged to Gwynedd, and during their mating, she freely gave herself to her alpha. They were mates from that day forth.”

Her first heat—

“What an interesting coincidence, professor,” Dimitri said. “It would seem that I managed to keep you safe from the other alphas, just when you got your first heat.”

A small voice in her cried of deceit. But before Byleth could understand what that meant, it was gone. Drowned out by the giddiness in her body.

Dimitri kept her safe. Dimitri protected her when she was confused and vulnerable. Dimitri was an alpha.

Dimitri had a knot.

She needed a knot.

If she asked, he’d give it to her, right?

“Dimitri…” she begged. “I need…”

“What do you need, Byleth?”

He used her name.

Hearing him say it against her ear made her come with a whine. She could feel herself clenching in vain around his finger.

But.

She needed more… she needed…

“Dimitriii….” She whined. “I need your knot…!”

“Oh, Byleth,” Dimitri whispered against her ear. “I can’t do that.”

“What?!” She balked. Her alpha… she dug her nails in Dimitri’s thigh, distraught at his denial. She wanted his scent on her. She needed his scent in her…! “Why not?”

“In your heat, you are at your most fertile, Byleth,” Dimitri explained. “If I give you my knot, you will get pregnant.”

Pregnant? She would…?

Byleth could see it in her mind’s eye. Her belly round with Dimitri’s child. Her tits swelling with milk. Dimitri rubbing her belly, whispering praises against her ear for being such good omega and getting bred by her alpha.

That mental image was nice, Byleth decided. She wanted it.

“I want your child,” Byleth rambled. “So please, come inside me. Come inside me as much as you can, and fill me with your knot…!”

“You want to be bred, don’t you Byleth?” Dimitri rubbed her lower belly.

It was almost exactly like the fantasy Byleth had conjured up just now, but with the important distinction that her womb was achingly empty. They had to fix that. Now.

“I do, I need you,” she nodded. “I need your knot. Please…”

“I would love to give you want you need, my beloved Byleth,” Dimitri sighed against her neck.

Byleth felt a twinge of electricity run through her body. Yes that. She needed that too!

“But I cannot allow you to be dishonored, can I?” He said, before licking her neck. “If I were your mate, nobody would be able to object to you carrying my child. But, if I mark you as mine, you will forever belong to me. Your body will never know pleasure unless I give it to you, and you will never be able to smell any other potential mate’s scent… In fact, your mind will not be able to even regret it, once the deed is done.”

A trick, a dying part in her cried out. This is what he wanted all along.

But if she accepted, she’d be his mate and being his mate meant she’d belong to him and belonging to him meant that he’d knot her over and over again and she’d carry his pups and she’d be—

A good omega, the Dimitri in her fantasy whispered against her ear.

Yes. She wanted that.

“I won’t regret it,” Byleth reassured him.

“Are you sure?” Dimitri asked, against her neck. “There will be no turning back if I continue. You will be my mate and queen. You will return to the Kingdom with me, and you’ll carry the first of our many children in our belly.”

The first of our many children.

“I-I was…” Byleth babbled. “I started to turn into an omega because of your gifts. The gifts that had your scent.”

Dimitri’s body stiffened. His rich cedar surrounded them, almost like a heavy cloud of smoke.

“My body changed because of your scent. I’m now an omega because of you,” Byleth let out a happy giggle, as it all came together. “It’s no coincidence that you were there when I first went into heat.”

“Byleth, I—”

“I’ve always belonged to you.”

Dimitri sighed in relief, nuzzling her.

“Byleth,” he breathed her in, her honeyed scent surely affecting him as much as his cedar was affecting her. “I’m so happy you’ve finally realized that.”

“Yes,” Byleth nodded, then turned to let him get to her neck. “I’m already yours… Your omega. Your mate…”

“My queen,” Dimitri breathed in deep once more, and then bit her.

Claimed. Safe. His. His. His.

Byleth came once more, her cunt pathetically clenching on nothing as it expected to be plugged up by his knot, and milking every last drop of his semen.

“Dimitri!” She cried out, her voice a half-whine of desperation and a half-scream of rapture.

“It’s alright, my beloved,” Dimitri pushed her back unto the blue cape, and rose her hips. “Let’s give your tight little omega cunt the love it deserves.”

And finally, he pushed his hot, thick cock into her aching pussy. She was so wet, that he easily sheathed himself in one fluid motion, despite the initial strain it was to take something so big. Her body wasn’t used to taking something of that size. But it was fine. She’d get used to him. He just had to keep fucking her, and she’d learn to take all of him.

“How is this, my beloved?” Dimitri asked, pressing his hand over her lower belly as he thrusted in and out.

“Good,” she moaned, because it was the only word she could think that could describe it.

She didn’t know how many times she came. But when Dimitri growled against her ear and she felt his knot strain against her entrance, she felt a great wave of relief wash over her.

Dimitri’s seed… He was filling her up.

“A-ah…” she let out a weak whimper, remembering her mate’s promise to her. “I’m a good omega… I’m a good omega that’s getting bred by her alpha…”

“Yes, you’re my omega,” Dimitri grunted, leaning forward and nipping over his bite. It was healing over into a scar that now marked her as Dimitri’s mate, forever. “My wonderful omega queen. Did you like your fertile, sweet body getting claimed by me?”

“Yes,” Byleth nodded, because it was true. “I can’t wait to be bred again.”

“Don’t worry, beloved,” Dimitri’s hand once again rubbed against her lower belly, with an almost possessive grip. “Our first child will be born in the Horsebow Moon. I’ll gift you another one, as a birthday present.”

“C-could you…” Byleth asked, burying her face into Dimitri’s cape and breathing in the scent of cedar on it. “Could you also give me another handkerchief? With your scent?”

Dimitri let out another beautiful, clear laugh.

“You won’t need that anymore,” he gently pulled out of her, and then turned her around to rest her face against his neck. “You’re always welcome to take it straight from the source, whenever you want.”

Byleth reached out, and bit.

It tasted like cedar.

#silverfic:complete #silvercoldbrew #dimileth #fdimileth #DimilethHotFlash #fe3h fanfic

23 notes · View notes

mechawaka · 4 years

Text

Spring in Derdriu

A commission for @artsytardis

Words: 11.7k

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Pairing: Claude/Byleth

Rating: Teen

Mood music: Roses & Revolutions - Dancing in a Daydream

Summary: Five years after the war, Claude is the king of Almyra and Byleth is the queen of United Fodlan - but neither of them had the courage to propose at the Goddess Tower. When Byleth comes down with a sudden fever, they might have another chance.

---

They couldn’t possibly name Derdriu the new capital of United Fodlan, Lorenz had declared the very day after Byleth’s coronation. It would ‘imply things,’ he’d said, aghast that she would even suggest it.

Lo and behold, Ferdinand and Sylvain had expressed similar worries about Enbarr and Fhirdiad, respectively, and what ‘things’ their hosting would ‘imply.’

And Garreg Mach was also out of the question. Archbishop Seteth, recently crowned himself, wanted to keep the reformed Church of Seiros as far removed from political power as possible. Byleth couldn’t make her capital there, he’d insisted. The implications!

So which will it be? her newly appointed cabinet - four representatives from each geographical region, with twelve in total - had prodded, each sect adamant that theirs couldn’t possibly be the permanent home of the new government.

And Byleth, already exhausted despite only being in charge for a grand total of one moon, had replied:

All of them, then.

That day, United Fodlan’s migrating government, colloquially known as the Wandering Court, had been born. Byleth spent one season in each capital - spring in Derdriu, summer in Fhirdiad (on which she was insistent), and winter in Enbarr. In the fall, she and the entire cabinet gathered at neutral Garreg Mach to conduct any business which required everyone’s presence at once.

For five years, the system had worked perfectly. There had been some inevitable pushback at first, mostly from anti-Imperial factions who were upset that Byleth had adopted the old Empire’s ministerial structure, but they had gradually quieted down as the continental economy stabilized and flourished under its guidance.

Moreover, Byleth liked being on the road. She was raised in tents and on horseback, always moving between destinations, and the frequent travel helped soften long days of paperwork and political debate.

It also let her document certain supply and infrastructure problems firsthand; to this day, Byleth fondly remembered a tiny village on the Rhodos Coast whose inhabitants had sent in an official request for a new bridge - and had been shocked senseless when the queen herself, in transit from Fhirdiad to Garreg Mach, had shown up to build it.

(Petra had put her personal stamp of approval on that one; you only rule what you can see and touch, she’d written of the event.)

Today, though - this season, this cursed spring - the system was not working.

Oh, it had started normally enough. Byleth, once settled in the palace at Derdriu, had taken up her usual duty of hearing the cases which had passed since her last time in residence and breaking any tied votes.

It wasn’t until her ministers were tying up the season’s work that a heavy rain swelled the Airmid, causing flooding in four different territories and knocking out a siege-battered section of the Great Bridge of Myrddin. Suddenly, they were swamped with petitions: drowned fields, lost livestock, choked roads. All with less than a moon remaining before the court’s transition to Fhirdiad.

In short, Byleth hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours.

Her head was a splitting fissure of tectonic activity, rumbling in the background of every meeting, every hearing, and roaring to life at random intervals that left her gritting her teeth and glaring at Lorenz, wherever he was in the room.

Oh, we simply can’t stay in Derdriu permanently, she mocked him mentally as, again, a searing wave of pain spiked behind her drooping eyes. It would ruin everything, or whatever.

“- and with that in mind, the Merchants’ Association asked us to move the boundary twenty feet down the riverfront,” Marianne recited from an open ledger. She, like all the other ministers, was dressed in a smartly cut, floor-length robe of office that bore the seal of United Fodlan, with her hair gathered neatly at the back of her neck.

“Ministers Victor and Goneril voted in favor of the merchants, while Minister Gloucester and I voted in favor of the fisheries. How do you rule?” Marianne looked up from her record and across their round discussion table. Her eyes were bright and serious at first, but they creased with worry upon taking in Byleth’s pinched expression.

“Are you feeling ill, Your Majesty?”

This garnered the other ministers’ attention as well. Ignatz pushed his glasses up his nose to study her better, staring in that perceptive, sympathetic way that said he’d already identified all the faults in her appearance.

Hilda, who’d been twirling a quill pen between her fingers, glanced up and gave Byleth a detachedly brutal once-over, indicating with an arched, sculpted eyebrow that she disliked her findings.

Lorenz, meanwhile, simply regarded his queen with a dry, ‘I told you so’ stare.

“No, no. I’m fine,” Byleth asserted, avoiding everyone’s concerned faces, and especially Lorenz’s. He had warned her against overworking only a week prior, and here she was zoning out like a bored student. She’d get an earful from him later, no doubt, about a ruler’s responsibility to their subjects extending to self-care and time management.

“My apologies. Minister Edmund, please recount the case again.” Byleth pushed herself up, ignoring the pounding rhythm inside her brain. She often paced the length of the room for difficult petitions, anyway, and maybe movement would help ease the pain - but she took one step and the world went sideways.

She swayed dangerously on her feet, catching herself on the edge of the throne. Her legs were soft and wobbly as a dessert jelly; her vision swam with blots of darkness and intense color at random.

In a hushed, grave voice, she whispered, “Oh, that’s not good.”

“Quite,” Lorenz agreed curtly, having materialized at her elbow to aid in stabilization. He turned to the others, lips pursed and demeanor supremely unamused. “I believe Her Majesty is finished hearing cases for the day. All in agreement?”

Byleth barely registered the other ministers’ responses; her ears were suddenly full of cotton, dampening all incoming sound. Even Lorenz’s voice, so close at her side, was fuzzy and jumbled. She could only nod and follow him out of the throne room, vaguely aware that Marianne had joined them.

When had her headache gotten this bad? It must have been a slow progression, she reasoned as the trio headed toward her chambers, building in intensity during the meeting. She vaguely recalled an old medical lecture of Manuela’s about blood vessels in the brain, and how moving suddenly after a stationary period could cause...something. Something bad, probably.

Not for the first time, nor even for the hundredth, she wished she’d paid closer attention to the other teachers’ seminars back at Garreg Mach.

Lorenz politely turned around while Marianne helped Byleth out of her heavy court mantle and into her gigantic bed, busying himself by preparing a teapot at the dresser.

“I’ll be fine by tomorrow,” Byleth professed as she collapsed onto her mattress, allowing Marianne’s white magic to flow over her in a soothing current. “We can re-convene at first light.”

With his back still turned, Lorenz scoffed. “I highly doubt that.”

“I’m sorry, but he’s right,” Marianne corroborated, ceasing her spell and pressing the back of one hand to Byleth’s forehead. “You have harvest fever; you’ll need to rest for at least a week to let it run its course.”

“A week?” Byleth demanded, sitting straight up again. “But I leave for Fhirdiad in two!”

Lorenz brought the teapot over on a wheeled cart, putting his hands on either side and warming it magically. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t have taxed yourself to infirmity, hmm?”

At that, Byleth shot him an impotent - and, in all likelihood, given her state, pathetic - glare, but the mere action of tensing her forehead muscles worsened her headache and she fell back onto her pillows, defeated. He was right, damn him.

“Byleth,” he continued, exasperated, dropping all formality as he always did in the absence of prying ears. “Just rest. We designed this government to run in your absence - let us handle things from here.”

Marianne echoed the sentiment with a soft smile, pouring some strong-smelling medicinal tea from the pot. “We’ll see that Ordelia and Hrym are well cared for,” she said, holding out the teacup like a peace offering.

Byleth grudgingly took it.

---

Lorenz squinted down at Byleth’s sleeping form, sprawled and content amongst her blankets, and sighed. No one had ever prepared her for a life of leadership and politics, but she’d risen to the challenge admirably in the last five years. Perhaps too admirably, if situations like this were any judge.

Her problem, he’d decided long ago - and informed her whenever the chance presented itself - was moderation. Temperance. Byleth Eisner tackled every problem with a single-minded determination that, while remarkably efficient during the war, had tended to cause a variety of problems in peacetime.

In that regard, she was quite similar to him. To Claude. And speaking of Claude -

“We had two guards and a trio of footmen at our assembly today,” Marianne observed, keeping her eyes on the bed, but her message was clear.

“Indeed.” Lorenz tapped the heels of his polished boots restlessly against the floor. He could practically hear the wagging tongues from here; he could picture the story of their fainting monarch billowing out from the palace like blood in water, ripe for scenting - and there was one particular green-eyed shark always circling for a whiff.

He forced a long, resigned breath out through his nose, and said dismally, “I’ll direct the staff to prepare the guest wing at once.”

---

Thanks to whatever was in that tea, Byleth slept straight through the next few days. Even when she woke, she was groggy and mostly insensate to the world around her; she recalled Marianne’s visits to administer medicine or urge a few sips of water, but other than that - nothing. Only light and color and sound, all indistinct and running together.

The fever itself wasn’t so bad. She was being treated by the most studied healer in the region, and the rest was good for her, as much as she resisted the notion.

No, what had her itching for freedom, for an escape, had nothing to do with the sickness and everything to do with her own shoddy mental compartmentalization. Byleth had a single unbreakable rule, and it had kept her safe and stable for most of her life: don’t slow down.

Her friends - formerly students, and now United Fodlan’s new ministers - had always struggled to understand what went on in her head, and Byleth had to confess that it was often a confusing place for her, too. That was why she spent as little time there as possible. If she was solving governmental disputes or plotting a route through the Oghmas, she wasn’t thinking about her problems - and for someone that had attended the Jeralt Eisner school of “don’t confront your problems until they literally confront you first” coping strategy, that suited her just fine.

But these hours cooped up in her bedchamber were slow, and Lorenz had taken great strides to ensure that nary a tax report breached its threshold. And when there was no work to do, no roadblock for her mind to chew on, it drifted to contemplation, to nostalgia, and then, inevitably, to Claude.

What would he think of the stalemate between the merchants and the fisheries? That one was easy. He’d find a third option, something neither of the institutions had proposed but that benefited both, and dazzle them with its presentation. He’d find a way to spin the conflict so that it wasn’t about competing guilds, but about the betterment of the city as a whole.

She wondered if he looked different now compared to when she’d seen him last, at the Alliance Founding Day celebration the previous Horsebow. They only ever saw each other in formal wear these days, painted and decorated and utterly without privacy. Had he let his hair grow over the winter like she had? Was it curling near the base of his neck, thick and wild?

Oh, here we go, she thought, rolling her eyes and then squeezing them shut. This was why she kept herself preoccupied; any lapse in activity brought these sorts of ideas to the forefront, and they always turned to indulgent fantasy. Only Claude brought out that side of Byleth - and it made her so paradoxically angry, and afraid, and lonely.

Angry because she hadn’t intended to let him in; he was just there one day, snugly by her side, a few months after she’d joined the faculty at Garreg Mach (and she would always lament, at least a little, that Rhea hadn’t put her with the students instead). Even after he’d admitted his ulterior motives in getting close to her, Byleth never had the heart to be mad at him for it. He was so damn endearing.

Afraid because, as easily as he’d attached himself to her, he’d un-attached. Byleth could admit to herself, alone in her darkened bedroom, that most of her mental evasion strategies centered around one specific memory: that early morning conversation they’d had right before her coronation, in which Claude had spontaneously announced his departure from Fodlan.

(“There’s something I need to do,” he’d said up at the Goddess Tower, and she had been so sure he’d wanted to say more, but instead he’d just...left.)

Lonely because their friendship had never been the same after that. They were both so busy, now, and with so much responsibility - and she missed him. Missed their easy conversation and matching drive; missed the academic dissections of famous battles and the late nights spent comparing various cultures’ names for the constellations.

Her remaining friends were certainly a balm, and she wouldn’t trade them for the world, but none of them were him. She’d never filled that spot at her side. Couldn’t fill it. Nothing and no one else fit there.

But she also couldn’t ask him back. He was the king of Almyra now, fulfilling everything he’d wanted and worked for and talked about with stars in his eyes - and Byleth could never begrudge him his lofty and admirable goals. Never. Instead, she’d had to accept the possibility that the grand arc of his ambitions no longer included her in its trajectory.

She sprawled out sideways on her bed, letting the warring emotions flood her body. Maybe this was good for her. Maybe, like the fever, she just needed to let them run their course. Maybe these were the natural consequences of escapism and denial.

And it wasn’t like she’d be able to get away from herself any time soon.

---

“Of all the - absolutely not,” Lorenz stated, planting himself in the center of the hall that led to Byleth’s bedroom. “There are procedures, Claude. Royal protocol. You know this!”

But Claude had already danced around him, utilizing that foot speed the mages never needed to master. “Come on, Lorenz, I’m not some Srengan diplomat - we’ve all seen each other covered in mud and guts. What’s a little illness between friends?”

To his credit, Lorenz didn’t ask how Claude had come by that knowledge. Nor were his protestations very vigorous, as if the man had foreseen this exact scenario - and for that, Claude was proud of him.

That pride wouldn’t keep him from his goal, however. He’d saddled up his wyvern as soon as the words “queen” and “sick” had left his spymaster’s mouth.

“She’s not well. You’ll be interrupting her convalescence - Claude,” Lorenz said sternly, holding his friend by the elbow and fixing him with a soul-searching gaze. “She cannot receive visitors in this state. What’s gotten into you?”

For an instant, Claude’s happy-go-lucky mask slipped. He’d been too pushy, so much so that even Lorenz got a glimpse of the panic underneath - the cold terror that had driven him across the continent and still gripped his heart. He knew it wouldn’t let up until he could confirm Byleth’s condition.

But he was a consummate faker, and so the mask slotted deftly back into place. “Why don’t you go ask her, hmm? I’m sure she’ll be positively overjoyed.”

---

When Lorenz walked in, Byleth was still in the same position, all spread out and despondent.

“How are you feeling, Your Majesty?” he asked pointedly, and his use of her title - coupled with his formal position near the door - should have clued her in to what he was really asking, but Byleth was far too addled for nuance.

She tilted her head in his direction and flatly, shamelessly said, “Fine.”

Lorenz’s disciplined expression soured a fraction. “Well, that is wonderful news -” his ironic lilt suggested that this news was anything but wonderful, “- because you have a visitor.”

He stepped back to clear the doorway, giving Byleth a look that said she deserved everything that was about to happen. “May I present King Khalid ibn Riegan of Almyra.”

Claude poked his head in much too casually for Lorenz’s theatrical introduction. “Byleth! I brought you some -”

He paused, staring at her depressed-starfish pose. Byleth, in the blink of an eye, sobered completely and experienced all the stages of grief in quick succession.

“- fruit,” Claude finished lamely. Behind him, Lorenz pinched the bridge of his nose.

---

“Claude,” Byleth intoned, dredging up her ‘serious teacher’ voice for the occasion. She’d bathed and changed her clothes since his impromptu arrival - Byleth had never possessed a single modest bone in her body, but, again, he just incomprehensibly brought it out in her - and now she sat on the edge of her bed while he occupied the bedside armchair.

“It was so nice of you to drop in,” she continued, folding her arms across her chest.

Claude laughed anxiously, holding a woven basket full of fruit in his lap half like a shield and half like an offering to an angry deity. “Okay, why do I get the feeling you’re mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you,” Byleth said icily. It wasn’t a lie; it was more like she was mad around him - mad at the space surrounding his stupid, handsome head - mad that he’d shown up, as if summoned, right when she was feeling so sorry for herself about him.

But that was far too complicated to explain, so instead she asked, “What’s your business in the city?”

He brightened a bit, perhaps relieved to divert the topic. “Thought I’d tour the Goldroad - see what travel is really like there outside the official inspection dates.”

Byleth cocked her head to the side, staring out her west-facing window. He referred to the winding trade route that now spanned the Throat, starting at the Locket and ending at a similarly sized fort across the border in Almyra - but that was over a day’s travel from Derdriu.

Following the path of her eyes, Claude went on quickly, “And, you know, I was in the area, so why not visit my very best friend?”

She wasn’t sure she’d classify a seventeen hour wyvern flight as ‘in the area.’ Byleth narrowed her eyes, looking from his rigid smile, to his posture, to the basket he carried, then back to his face, waiting for the actual answer.

“- All right,” he confessed, exhaling deeply. “My spies said you were sick, so I came to check on you - how are you still so good at that?”

She smiled despite herself and pointed at the basket, which he promptly handed over. Popping a dried date into her mouth, she asked coyly, “At what?”

Claude laughed heartily, reaching over to get one for himself, and that simple action propelled them effortlessly into a comfortable, familiar rhythm, dispelling their outer veneers of royalty.

They traded stories about travel, about new friends, about insufferable opposition; Claude told her about one of his subordinate satraps - which served a similar function to Byleth’s ministers, but with more concentrated local authority - who had threatened to raise an army in his territory over the price of grain, and then panicked when Claude had called his bluff and negotiated a lower price.

(“Did he even have an army?” she asked, completely absorbed in the story and eating sour cherries by the handful.

Claude, with a wide, gleeful grin, replied, “Not a chance.”)

In return, Byleth told him about last year’s failed rebellion in eastern Faerghus, in which a group of Blaiddyd royalists had tried to rally the region’s former aristocracy under the banner of House Fraldarius - and how Felix himself had ridden out to personally disband them.

(“Oof. Embarrassing,” Claude commented, making a face like someone had punched him in the gut. “What did he say to make them listen?”

Byleth snorted and modulated her voice to match the prickly swordsman’s. “‘This is not happening. Leave.’”)

As the afternoon wore on, servants brought in tea service and then dinner - and Byleth’s temporary surge in vitality upon seeing her dear friend started to fade, replaced by the fever-aches she’d come to know so well. Her movements grew slower and her answers shorter, overcast by brain fog.

Claude watched this change in her with considerable worry, helping her back under her blankets after they’d finished eating and re-situating the pillows around her head.

“Oh, stop it,” she chided, swatting away his hands. “I’m not completely helpless.”

He backed off, smiling easily, but stayed within range to aid her again if needed. “I don’t know about that,” he teased. “You know what they say about people who catch colds in the summer.”

“It’s spring,” she insisted, wrinkling her nose, but he didn’t laugh. In fact, there were no traces of mirth left anywhere on his face.

Byleth sat up straighter. “Claude, it’s only harvest fever. Marianne said it should clear up in a few days.”

He dropped back into his chair, resting his elbows on his knees so he could bridge part of the gap. “But what if it’s not, though?”

A nearby Church of Seiros’s evening bells rang out across the palace grounds. The brassy sounds changed with each echo, reaching her bedchamber as ghostly distortions.

“What, you think Marianne got it wrong?” Byleth asked, pulling her blanket up subconsciously.

“No, just -” Claude ran a hand back through his hair, pushing it even further out of its usual style, “- what if it’s related to...whatever Sothis did to you after the siege?”

He’d spoken so quietly that Byleth had to lean forward and slow her own breath in order to hear it. The concern in his tone - the restraint in his clasped hands; the uncertainty in his eyes - made her take a second pass over everything.

She no longer saw a casual check-in made by a concerned friend. Claude had traveled here with speed and intent, and now she knew why; just like their parting words at Garreg Mach had stuck with her, her long and mysterious slumber had probably stuck with him.

(The realization, while illuminating, didn’t hit her as hard as it should have. She thought some version of that truth, formless and undefined, must have been swimming around in the back of her mind for a while. It explained so succinctly why Marianne had insisted on treating Byleth herself, and why Lorenz stood vigil so often outside her room, even though the two had comparably little free time.)

Now that she thought about it, the long-term consequences of merging with a goddess should probably be a bigger concern of hers, too.

“I haven’t heard Sothis’s voice, nor felt her presence, in six years,” Byleth explained calmly, striving for an affect that would put him at ease. “And I’ve been in perfect health, besides.”

Claude gave her a long, lingering look - one that took in not only her face, but her long, mint-green braid and her customary wardrobe, unchanged from her days at the monastery - as if he wanted to commit her current state to memory. Byleth returned it with a confused frown, ready to comment on the odd behavior, but then his usual smile returned in a flash.

“You’re right,” he acquiesced with a little shrug, standing and straightening his riding harness. “It’s probably nothing serious. A few days, you said?”

Byleth’s confusion skewed into suspicion. Claude never let anything go that easily. “Yeah,” she answered slowly, searching his face for signs of duplicity. “Marianne said I’m already over the worst of it.”

“That’s great,” Claude enthused in the exact manner he’d use to win over his enemies, and Byleth’s misgivings quadrupled. “You should get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He was out the door in a flourish of his royal half-cape, paying no mind to the official etiquette of departure. (Byleth didn’t care about such things, but Lorenz was surely fuming about it in the hall.)

She let herself fall, warily, back onto her bed, pondering what Claude could possibly be up to - because he was up to something. It was only after she’d started to drift off, her head nestled warmly in one of about a dozen pillows, that the implications of his parting words struck her.

---

Ignatz rushed down the administerial wing’s main corridor, clutching a stack of accounting ledgers in one arm and several sheaves of operational business licenses in the other. Sunlight was just starting to peek through the hall’s windows, painting slowly elongating bars of yellow on the opposite walls; nobody would be in their offices yet, but if he could deliver his cargo before breakfast, he’d be able to get a head start on his own day’s work -

Thus distracted, he pushed his slipping glasses back up the bridge of his nose - using an occupied hand. Fifty business licenses, previously sorted alphabetically and geographically, drifted to the ground in a fluttering cloud of failure.

“Oh, no,” Ignatz muttered, dropping to his knees and gathering up the papers as best as he could without dropping the ledgers. If he didn’t deliver his cargo before breakfast, that would delay all of his tasks by at least an hour, thereby pushing back tomorrow’s tasks as well, to say nothing of his meeting with the merchants’ guild -

A head of shaggy brown hair and a pair of leather-gloved hands bent to organize the papers into a messy but holdable pile, then helped to situate it more snugly in Ignatz’s grasp.

In his haste and immeasurable relief, Ignatz threw a grateful, “Thanks, Claude!” over his shoulder as he resumed his flight down the corridor.

At the threshold of Hilda’s office, though, while balancing both stacks with one hand so he could turn the doorknob, he froze and shouted back the way he’d come, “Claude?!”

---

Instead of the usual morning sounds - like the rustling of Marianne’s skirts or the trundling of a breakfast cart - Byleth woke to singing. It originated somewhere to her right, winding and unhurried, and she knew this gentle melody; Claude had taught it to her during the war.

So he really was still here, then. He’d really stayed.

She opened her eyes just a hair, hoping for a chance to observe him before he noticed that she was awake.

It was still early. All the curtains were tied back and the windows cracked, letting in pale, diffused light and a sea-salt breeze off the bay. Claude stood at her personal writing desk, which Marianne had turned into a makeshift apothecary, weighing a small pile of freshly ground coriander. He was dressed more casually today, having discarded his courtly attire and riding leathers in favor of a belted Almyran-style tunic; his hair was bound in a simple but flattering tie at the nape of his neck.

Byleth watched him work - watched him thoughtfully consider the ratio of coriander to ginger to water, his hand hovering over each as he deliberated. All the while he sang that soft tune, so beautifully laden with memory and affection.

When he’d finally settled on a mixture, he reached into a pouch at his belt and uncorked a vial of honey, adding a spoonful to the mug. She tried her best to hold it in, but a tiny, breathless laugh escaped her; that rich wildflower honey was a signature of Claude’s home-brews - a sweetener to make his questionable concoctions more palatable.

He jumped and whirled at the sound, his cheeks darkening somewhat at being caught unawares, but Byleth just shook her head slowly, reassuringly, and hummed the next few bars of his song. At once, his embarrassment morphed into a wide, slanted smile, and he turned back to put the finishing touches on his creation.

“What are you still doing here?” Byleth asked, pushing herself up to a sitting position. Her hair must have been a mess, but she had to settle for a quick smooth-down.

Claude chuckled and sat on the edge of her bed, holding out the mug of steaming medicinal tea. “Really? No ‘Good morning, Claude, and thank you for taking such good care of me?’”

She took the cup and shot him a faux-scowl. “Who’s running your country, though?”

“Oh, it basically runs itself.” He waved a flippant hand, staring out a window in the direction of the Throat. “Our scholars say, ‘A king is a great ship’s rudder.’ It just so happens that my ‘great ship’ has a good heading right now.”

Byleth regarded him doubtfully. She knew this proverb, and its wisdom was definitely not intended to excuse literal flights of fancy.

“What?” he asked, rolling his head to the side playfully. “If anything happens, Nader knows where I am. Besides, aren’t you happy to see me?”

Her stern facade - only performative, anyway, since Claude never failed to disarm her - softened. “I’m always happy to see you,” she said quietly, hiding her vulnerability with a big sip from her mug. (It was delicious, of course, after being assembled so skillfully.)

The curious look he gave her in response lasted a little too long, probed a little too deep for comfort, so she followed it up with a nervous, “Where’s - where’s Marianne?”

Claude, ever-insightful, let the moment pass without remark. “She allowed me to perform her caretaking duties in exchange for a little, ah...discretion...on my part.”

That was easy to imagine. Her ministers had enough on their legislative plates without the obligatory fanfare that would accompany an ‘official’ royal visitation - so the last thing they needed was King Khalid, the former leader of the Alliance, showing his highly recognizable face all over Derdriu.

“We’re both locked up, then,” Byleth said plainly. That explained his wardrobe; a casual observer might think him no more than a member of the staff. As long as he didn’t linger in unfamiliar company, he could move freely about the palace.

“Yep.” Claude smiled contentedly, like he’d gotten the best possible end of this deal. (Byleth begged to disagree.)

In a comically professional, woefully unconvincing physician’s voice, he asked, “So, how are you feeling today, my liege?”

Byleth choked on a sip of her tea, cough-laughing and beating her chest to clear her airways. “Much better, doctor,” she spluttered, setting down her mug to prevent any spasm-related accidents. It was true; her head and body aches had been fading with each passing day, and the fever was low enough that she didn’t feel like a boiling crab leg anymore.

“Good, good,” he mused, looking far too pleased with himself. “Then what do you say to a bit of chess on the balcony?”

She gave her sternum a few more good thumps to really get all the spicy ginger out of her lungs, using the extra time to examine Claude more closely. He knew he couldn’t beat her at chess; what was this about? And was it related to - to whatever inscrutable scheme he was currently enacting?

“Sure,” she said, knowing he wouldn’t give up his plans if asked. (Not until the most dramatically poignant moment, anyway.) If she was going to figure it out on her own, she’d need more opportunities for candid observation, and chess should do nicely.

His face split into a grin immediately. “I saw a board in Lorenz’s office. Meet you back here after lunch?”

“Yeah, it’s a date,” she agreed lightly, and didn’t miss the way it tripped him up on the way out.

---

“You’re still here,” Lorenz observed with the same sort of weary derision one might direct at a persistent rug stain. He stood in the doorway to his office, holding a tea tray and projecting an aura of disappointment.

Claude, who was currently inside said office and in the midst of burgling a marble chess board, hastily clicked all its pieces back down and clasped his hands behind his back. “I am! Very astute of you to notice.”

Lorenz’s eyes flicked pointedly from his uninvited guest to his now-askew board, then he calmly strode around both to reach his polished mahogany desk. “Well, then. Would you join me for tea, Your Majesty?”

The way he gestured to the opposite chair spoke clearly of interrogation, but Claude sat anyway. It wouldn’t be polite to steal a man’s gaming paraphernalia and refuse his company.

“Why, thank you, Minister,” he answered, exaggerating his friend’s formal air, “we are simply delighted by your invitation.”

Lorenz’s poker face had improved over the years, but Claude still caught the subtle tightening of a jaw and the slightest arch of a brow; dead giveaways that he’d still snap at a piece of bait like a Brigidian piranha. Good to know.

“All right,” Lorenz said, clipped, like he’d come to a decision at the end of a long internal debate. “What are you doing here, Claude?”

Claude blinked, taken aback by the suddenness of the question. “Uh, well, Marianne and I -”

“I quite understand the generous arrangement which Marianne has afforded you,” Lorenz cut in quickly, pouring out two cups of tea. He handed one over the desk with the gravitas of a commander handing down orders. “What, precisely, are you here to do?”

Faking affrontation would be a moot point here, Claude thought. Lorenz was chasing down a specific answer, and from the set of his brow, he’d probably figured out most of it.

And that was fair. Despite their rocky interactions, Lorenz was one of the few people that Claude would say he trusted, and he knew that Lorenz felt the same (even though he had a peculiar way of showing it).

However, while Lorenz looked confident in the answer to his question, Claude didn’t even know where to start. How could he sum up this whirlwind?

Should he begin with the primal fear of hearing that Byleth had collapsed? With the breakneck flight to Derdriu, imagining all the worst possibilities in his head? (The mild shock in her eyes as she toppled backward into the chasm; her ensuing five-year absence, silent and absolute.)

Or at the boundless relief - the sheer, joyful knowledge that she had not, in fact, been re-afflicted with Sothis’s ancient sleeping sickness?

Or, should he skip straight to the certainty that he wouldn’t survive another such scare, and the unwillingness to be apart from her for even a second more, political repercussions be damned?

In the end, holding a steaming, fragrant cup of bergamot, Claude - in one of only a handful of occasions thus far in his life - couldn’t find the right words.

Luckily, Lorenz, who must have witnessed his friend’s rapid expression shifts, found one instead. Gently, and with more sympathy than expected, he asked, “Still?”

Ah, so he had figured it out.

Claude raised his teacup in a silent toast. “Still,” he confirmed, then downed it in one gulp.

“Hm.” Lorenz paused to serve out refills and scones, and Claude knew exactly what his friend was remembering.

(For five years during the war, Claude had periodically returned to Garreg Mach, even though everyone else had given up the search for Byleth. As the visits persisted in the face of increasing danger, one by one, and with varying levels of understanding and acceptance, his friends had all come to the same conclusion: their leader was in love with their former professor.)

“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Lorenz said curtly, but not unkindly. “You have a plan, then? - Oh, what am I saying? Of course you do. The Master Tactician wouldn’t have shown up without a plan.”

Claude, who had been trying to decide if Lorenz was mocking him or not, visibly fumbled his cranberry scone at that final comment.

Instantaneously, Lorenz’s face went from invested concern to mortification. “Goddess above - you don’t have a plan.”

Claude didn’t have the heart to say that his “plans” often sprung from gut feelings like this; that, very often, he was building a bridge to his goals and walking it simultaneously, trusting that there would be another plank when he reached back for one.

In this particular instance, his bridge took the form of an impromptu and extended stay at the palace while he figured out the world’s most diplomatically sensitive marriage proposal. He wanted to tell Lorenz that, actually, he had several possible scaffolds in place, he just hadn’t chosen one yet - but Claude could see the foundational flaws in all of them, and still hovered at the juncture, unsure where to lay the next plank.

“- No, I don’t,” he finally admitted, steepling his fingers on the desk. “I’m taking suggestions, though, if you have any?”

Lorenz took a slow, calculated sip of his tea, giving Claude one of his patented ‘how did you manage to become the leader of anything’ looks. “Marianne assures me that Byleth will recover in a matter of days -”

“I know,” Claude interjected miserably. His timetable was tragically inadequate.

“- And, while your presence here is temporarily acceptable on the basis of friendship, it will become much harder to justify after the palace returns to its normal operations -”

“I know, Lorenz,” Claude said, letting his forehead fall onto the points of his fingers. The pain, he thought, was well-deserved. “Sheesh, you don’t have to rub my nose in it…”

Lorenz laughed softly. “Apologies. I’m simply savoring the moment; it isn’t often you need my strategic input.”

With his face downturned and concealed, Claude grimaced. He supposed he’d deserved that, too.

“But,” Lorenz went on, “I do have a suggestion. Given your limited available time and lack of direction, we should enlist outside support.”

Claude raised his head incredulously. “Your solution is to have more people laugh at me?”

“Yes. Hilda and Marianne, to be precise.” Lorenz smirked and crossed his legs. “And they won’t laugh - in fact, Hilda will be delighted.”

His tone of voice was too amused for the answer to be anything good, but Claude still asked cautiously, “Why?”

“Oh, because I owe her quite a bit of gold, naturally - I thought it would take you and Byleth far longer to act on your feelings, and my money was on her acting first.”

---

Byleth loved the balcony off her bedchamber. It was on the same side of the palace as the throne room, only higher, with a wider perspective of the canal below and a down-angle view of the opposite block. Sitting on it and looking out, with the stone railing acting as an artificial horizon, she really felt as if she were floating above Derdriu; the city sprawled off endlessly to her right, while its great network of canals spilled into the bay on her left, all set in miniature from this height.

A tangy sea breeze teased through her hair, rustling the many and vibrant plants - in pots, hanging from the roof, and mounted in window boxes - that scattered the area. They were in perfect health, she noticed, despite the rarity of her visits, and Byleth wondered if it was some palace staffer’s entire job to maintain luxurious spaces like these, even though some busy official might seldom use them.

She privately resolved to appreciate the balcony more often.

It didn’t take long for Claude to come whistling through her chambers, bearing a chess board like a server delivering a high-end meal. He put it down on a small, circular table where Byleth’s own board was already set up, then carefully aligned their edges to create a double-long playing field.

(They’d invented this game early on at Garreg Mach after discovering that neither of them felt challenged enough by the base rules. It had gone through several name changes before they’d agreed to just keep the original; after all, if either of them ever mentioned the game to the other, they both understood which (clearly superior) version was being referenced.)

“So, you managed to get Lorenz to part with it,” Byleth commented as he arranged his pieces and sat down opposite her. “What’d it cost you?”

Claude made a face like he’d just licked a lemon. “Oh, nothing much. Just my reputation and dignity.” He laughed it off, but there was a distinct, hollow ring of truth to his words. “Anyway. Sixty-point game?”

She cocked her head, intrigued. Their special rules allowed for custom “armies” to be built from the standard chess units, each with an individual point cost. Byleth personally liked to run an army without pawns - high risk, high reward (usually reward).

“Not forty?” she asked mildly, picking out her standard array plus an extra frontline of knights. Claude would regret handing her such an aggressive opener. “Are you trying out a new strategy?”

He grinned and laid out his own army, which seemed to focus around his sovereigns - and, as usual, contained a robust line-and-a-half of pawns. What he sacrificed in speed, he made up for in defensive surface area.

“I am. I think you’ll really like this one,” he said, playing his first (highly predictable) move.

That was the thing about Claude, though. Byleth thought his move was predictable right now, at the beginning, but he was a highly intelligent improviser. The long field between armies meant that most of the game was based on ranged path speculation.

Was a cluster of pieces actually heading toward her left flank, or would it divert to threaten other units at the last second? She’d have to put a metaphorical shield in place for the first possibility, and a sword for the other - and with Claude, it was impossible to tell ahead of time which he would actually pick.

But, despite the chaos his playstyle caused, its spontaneity was also what made him such a compelling opponent. The tactical element never got stale.

“It’s bound to be more exciting than your rook phalanx idea,” Byleth teased, starting her knights off on their long journey.

Claude gasped like she’d just insulted his mother. “Hey, that was not my fault - it was a good attack pattern in theory!”

She made a tiny sound of agreement to humor him, but remained privately unconvinced.

As usual, they lapsed into silence for the first phase of the game, each trying to dissect the other’s overall strategy. Of course, at this stage, it was largely conjecture; there would be many, many reactive and counter-reactive moves before any two units actually engaged.

The quiet was nice, though. Ships’ bells echoed in from the piers, mingling with street noise rabble and the shrill cries of bay gulls. There was no one to demand her ear or her time - a rare commodity. She could tell Claude enjoyed it, too, by his easy smiles and relaxed posture.

Why had they ever stopped doing this? It dawned on Byleth that it had been years since their last game.

“- Hey, Claude,” she said at the thirty-turn mark.

He didn’t look up from his spread. “Hm?” “What in the world are you doing?”

His green eyes, which had been bouncing between forward pawns, flicked up to her face. “Setting up my midgame?” he half-asked, gesturing to his formation like the answer was obvious. “Why, what are you doing?”

Byleth narrowed her eyes at the board. He’d split his pawns into two staggered ranks with his sovereigns in the middle, like some sort of sandwiched convoy, and the outer ring of mid-tier pieces looked to be guards.

“Your brilliant new strategy is to hand-deliver your king to my army?” she contended, tracing his column’s trek down the board with her hands, then opening them wide, fingers hooked, to mime the pieces being eaten by a sharp-toothed monster.

Claude laughed confidently. “You’ll see. The king and queen together are unstoppable.”

It was certainly an unconventional approach. By virtue of its novelty, it tripped Byleth up several times in the early game - one might even say, around turn sixty, that her opponent had the advantage. But the sheer speed and maneuverability of her knightly vanguard eventually prevailed, and by turn ninety, she had his entire escort block surrounded.

“Multi-point threat,” Byleth declared, moving in on his rear line. “This was an interesting idea, but I do believe your king is in mortal peril.”

Claude, who’d been standing for the last dozen turns, paced to the other side of the table. (He loved to do that - to see the situation from all angles, like he would in a real conflict. Unfortunately, that expanded perspective could do little for him here.)

“No, I think - listen - he still has his queen.”

Byleth examined the setup again. “Uh-huh, he sure does,” she drawled, trying to understand how that might change their fates.

“I’m just saying,” he went on, crouching so that he could view the board at eye level. “Look how far they’ve already come. Look at all they’ve been through together - it’s not like a little opposition could stop them now, right?”

She crossed her arms, a bewildered smile tugging at her mouth. “Are you seriously trying to Nemesis me right now? My bishops have them both in four.”

Claude gave a frustrated sigh. “No, this isn’t a scheme - well,” he amended, scratching pensively at his chin scruff, “okay, it is a scheme, but -”

I knew it, she thought, vindicated, and grinned accordingly.

“Ugh, forget it.” Claude toppled his king. “You’re right, it was an ill-fated venture that clearly needs outside support.”

Byleth frowned. “What? I didn’t say that.”

He waved his arms like he was dispelling the entire conversation. “Never mind. We’ve still got plenty of light - how about another game?”

---

Later that night, after Byleth and most of the palace had retired, Hilda’s raucous laughter rang out through the entire administerial wing.

“You tried to tell her with chess?!”

She, Claude, Marianne, and Lorenz all sat around a table in one of the meeting rooms, passing around a bottle of strong Faerghan whiskey.

“No wonder she didn’t get it,” Hilda continued, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes (in a delicate manner that spared her makeup). “You know how Byleth is!”

Lorenz refilled his glass, nodding emphatically. “Agreed. Subtlety will get you nowhere in that arena, my friend.”

“I thought it was sweet,” Marianne disclosed quietly.

Claude propped his feet up on an unused chair and dipped his chin gratefully. “Thank you. I also thought it would be sweet. And successful.”

He took a long swig straight from the bottle, much to Hilda’s amusement. “But you were right, Lorenz, okay? So -” he slapped the tabletop in invitation, “- go on. Advise me.”

Perhaps sensing that their friend was already punishing himself enough, no one pushed the teasing any further. Lorenz and Hilda shared a look - one that said they’d already discussed the matter privately - and then everyone got straight down to business.

“First of all, we should discuss the legal ramifications of your union,” Lorenz said, indicating the palace walls. “It’s true that anti-Almyran sentiment has died down greatly since the war, especially here in Leicester, but I fear widespread confusion - how much power would the king of Almyra suddenly have over their territories? Their livelihoods?”

Claude recoiled from the intensity. “Whoa! She hasn’t even said yes - aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves, here?”

(In truth, he had the same worries about his own homeland; it wasn’t like xenophobia was exclusive to Fodlan. His current plan - if she agreed - was to introduce her presence like he’d introduced his own: aggressively and unapologetically, with hopes that the Almyran public would regard it with the same eventual respect.)

The other three gave him bland looks.

“You really, honestly think she’ll turn you down?” Hilda asked in angry disbelief.

Claude gritted his teeth. “I don’t know - I mean, that’s Byleth’s whole deal, right? Unbeatable strategist? You never know what she’s thinking?”

“Oh, Claude,” Marianne said, patting him on the arm. “You should have more confidence in yourself.”

Hilda snorted into her tumbler.

“- Regardless, I don’t want to discuss the politics without her. If she says yes,” Claude emphasized with a stern glance around the table. “I have to get to the actual question first, okay? Lorenz. Ideas. Go.”

The man in question raised his eyebrows. “All right - well, Leonie proposed to me during a horseback ride. She’d painted all of her mounted archery targets with one word each, and in order they spelled out a question...oh, it was very romantic,” he said, his tone warming as he spoke. He then promptly cleared his throat. “But, ah, Byleth isn’t in a physical state for riding, hmm?”

Hilda propped her elbows up on the table and cradled her chin in her hands, recounting dreamily, “Marianne took me deep into the forest at night and professed her love under the light of the full moon. How could I have ever said no to that?”

Marianne hid behind her glass, her face beet-red. “I don’t, uhm, think there are any full moons coming up soon, though,” she managed to squeak out.

“Yeah, you have to do something quick.” Hilda pointed at him with her glass. “Let’s see - we already know it can’t involve winning something, so that’s out.”

Claude laughed sarcastically into the bottle.

“A grand display would not be diplomatically feasible, either,” Lorenz added.

Yeah, that made sense, Claude thought. A single plant in the throne room had brought word of Byleth’s illness to him in under three days - and he wasn’t the only one with eyes here.

“You should do something that’s meaningful to both of you,” Marianne suggested, her face returning to its usual pallid shade. “Something simple but significant. Byleth would appreciate that, I think.”

Simple but significant.

Claude swirled the idea around in his head at the same time he swirled the contents of his bottle. Significant he could do - had been doing - but simple was another story. Maybe that was his problem; maybe he just needed to go back to the basics.

“And don’t get her a ring,” Hilda said. “I never see her wearing jewelry unless the tailors insist.”

He chewed on all of that, taking slow, measured sips of whiskey. Something meaningful to both him and to Byleth - something memorable, but uncomplicated. No rings, he added mentally. That was fine; as an archer, he disliked having obstructions around his hands, anyway. (And while they were out here breaking traditions, who cared if it was one or one hundred?)

“Hey,” he began, doing some quick calculations around wyverns’ seasonal nesting habits. “How quickly could I get something down the Goldroad?”

Lorenz’s brows knit together. “From the capital to here, I presume, and with the use of your royal seal? Within the week. Why? What do you need?”

Claude grinned, luxuriating in the rush of a good plan coming together. “All right, listen to this -”

---

If she could’ve had her way, Byleth would have chosen to remain in those last days of her fever forever. Her symptoms were mild and unobtrusive, she didn’t have to do any paperwork, and Claude was there; simply put, it was the ideal situation.

They spent four whole days together playing games, mixing various drinks, going for (short and supervised) walks around the garden, and reminiscing about old times - but Marianne’s medicines were effective and all things, even good things, must end.

On the morning of the fifth day, she knew she was cured. Her mind was clear and her body strong, if a little feeble from the bed rest. Everyone else must have been on the same page, too, because Marianne came to greet her after breakfast in Claude’s stead.

“So that’s the end of the arrangement, then?” Byleth asked, trying to keep her voice even and normal.

Marianne smiled softly and pressed the back of her hand to Byleth’s forehead. “Yes. Claude will be returning home this evening, as I’m sure he has many decisions waiting for him there.”

That makes two of us, Byleth thought dejectedly.

“Your temperature is perfectly normal,” Marianne reported. “Do you have any lingering fatigue? Dizziness?”

“Nope. Nothing,” Byleth said, heaving a reluctant sigh. “I suppose I should head down to the audience chambers.”

She really, truly hadn’t meant to sound like a pouting toddler bound for punishment, but that was exactly how it had come out.

Marianne laughed. “Yes, you should - tomorrow.” To answer Byleth’s questioning stare, she pointed across the room. “I think you’ll be too busy today.”

Right on cue, something large impacted outside the windows with a dull, cracking thud. Without thinking, Byleth whirled, ready for some sort of threat - (her sword belt was hanging next to her bed, easily accessible for such emergencies) - but it was only Claude on the balcony.

Rather, it was his massive white wyvern, Sahar. She’d perched on the railing, her sharp claws gouging long scrapes in the stone, and he was mounted on her back.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for that!” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Good morning! Care for a ride?”

Byleth burst out in surprised laughter, too endeared to be mad about the property damage. She looked back, confused and curious, but Marianne just shook her head.

“Go,” she said, gesturing outward. “Have fun. You have my official medical clearance.”

That was all the permission Byleth needed to throw open the doors and run out, barefoot and grinning, to leap at Sahar’s saddle. The seaside wind blasted her hair back and Claude opened his arms for her arrival, bracing in his stirrups to absorb the impact.

They’d performed this maneuver many times during the war; since Byleth preferred to do her fighting on foot, Claude would often sweep down to reposition her more quickly. Even after five years without practice, they executed the pick-up without a hitch: she landed knees-first at the front of the saddle and Claude anchored her, wrapping both arms around her midsection.

In combat, the move had been utilitarian - the fastest way to mount up. Right now, though, it felt more intimate; with no armor, no weapons, and no urgency, they were basically just hugging on wyvern-back.

Byleth quickly turned herself around, hoping he hadn’t seen the blush rising up her neck.

“That eager to get out of there, huh?” he teased, helping her get situated.

She rolled her eyes and cinched a pair of flight straps around her waist. The fit was snugly familiar, securing her to both the saddle and her fellow rider.

“You know the answer to that,” she replied, glancing down the tall outer walls of the palace. A few people in the canal-side gardens had looked up at the spectacle; they were too far away to see much detail, but this was clearly the queen’s bedchamber. “This isn’t the most discreet escape, is it?”

Claude scoffed, turning his mount skyward with a nudge. “Oh, it’s fine. Not many Fodlanese know about the white wyvern thing. Besides,” he said mischievously, testing the knots on her straps, “didn’t Marianne tell you? Our arrangement is done.”

With that, they were off. Sahar spread her massive wings - leathery and smooth, delicate and powerful all at once - to catch the current, pushing herself off into it and raining stone chips and dust in her wake.

Byleth yelped at the sudden lurch, falling back against Claude, who gladly supported her while they gained rapid altitude in the midday sky. Sahar’s rhythmic wing beats took them high above the notice of anyone in the city, down the palace’s canal and out into the bay.

She watched it all fall away as they climbed. The great trade ships shrank to the sizes of beetles in their lanes; the flocks of gulls that chased them, to mere specks. The ocean itself became an undulating cobalt tapestry, shot through with threads of white and gray.

When they leveled off and the wind died down in their ears, Claude spoke, “Remember when I taught you to fly?”

A series of images flashed in her mind: wrangling a saddle onto an impatient wyvern; losing straps and buckles under flapping wings; falling before she could even take off - so, so much falling.

“I remember when you tried to, sure,” she said, cringing at the memories. Even Leonie, who never gave up on anything, had declared Byleth’s flying skills unsalvageable. “Why?”

Claude laughed a little too hard, like he was recalling the very same foibles. “Nah. You just needed more time - we couldn’t spare any in the war. But now?”

“Are you suggesting,” Byleth said, throwing him a flat look over her shoulder, “that I fall on my ass repeatedly in front of the entire court? It was bad enough when it was just jeering students.”

“No, no, my point is -” Claude directed her attention back to their view of the bay, “- you could come out here whenever you wanted. Get away from it all.”

So he’d noticed her restlessness. Well, of course he did, Byleth admonished herself. He’s Claude.

“That would be...nice,” she admitted, giving him a half-smile. “It’s different, isn’t it? Leading during peacetime?”

He relaxed his hold on the reins and let Sahar go where she would in the open sky; she took full advantage of the freedom, floating into various air currents and skirting low, wispy clouds.

“Yeah, it is.” Claude’s tone was sober and diminished. He prodded gently, “How have you really been, Bee?”

The nickname brought unexpected tears to her eyes; he hadn’t used it since they parted at Garreg Mach five years ago. She’d forgotten how fond and welcoming it sounded - how warm - coming from his mouth.

Byleth faced straight ahead, glad he couldn’t see her expression. It must have been just as regretful and conflicted as her mind.

“I never expected to be here,” she murmured, and in her heart she finished the thought: without you. Her voice barely carried over the wind, but she knew Claude had heard it; he scooted closer to her in the saddle, whether consciously or not. “Everyone around me is so certain of their place, and I’m...not.”

Her thoughts strayed to Edelgard and Dimitri, to their twin drives that - even misguided and corrupted as they were - strove for a better world at their roots. Byleth, who held no grand vision for the future, couldn’t help but feel unfit for the mantles they’d left behind.

(Truthfully, that was one of many reasons why Derdriu was her favorite capital, and spring her favorite season. Fhirdiad’s and Enbarr’s thrones still felt like someone else’s seats to her - someone else’s dreams.)

“I don’t think anyone expected to be where they are now,” Claude said, matching her volume. When Byleth shot him another ‘quit your bullshit’ look, he chuckled and corrected himself, “Okay. Maybe I did, but nobody else did.”

“Lorenz thought he’d be leading the Alliance, hitched to some noble lady. Hilda didn’t think she’d be doing anything.” Claude put up one finger for each example. “Marianne wanted to keep her head down. Ignatz thought he’d be barred from his passions.”

He rested his chin on the top of Byleth’s head. “Expectations and reality don’t always match up. Are you unhappy with where you are, Your Majesty?”

I’m exceedingly happy where I am, she thought, easing herself back to rest against him. And that’s the problem.

“No,” she answered simply. “I’m not.”

Claude, perhaps sensing the dishonesty in her words, hummed doubtfully. The sound rumbled deep in her chest. “Well - if you ever were unhappy, you know I’d help, right? No matter what it was.”

“I know,” she said, tilting her head to smile up at him. “And - I think you’re right.”

He shifted to accommodate her better, crossing his arms over her lap to grip the saddlehorn. “Oh? About expectations?”

“No, about flying.” She settled into their pseudo-embrace, resolving to enjoy it while it lasted. “I should learn.”

Claude made a small, happy noise in his throat. “I’ll teach you. It’ll be great.”

They drifted down the Edmund coastline in a comfortable quiet after that. If not for the Throat looming in the distance - a constant reminder of the hourglass hanging over their flight - Byleth would’ve been perfectly content. The longer they went, the more she wished he would just keep flying straight over the mountains - but the sun continued on its inexorable path through the heavens, and all things, even good things, must end.

Still, though, when he wheeled them around and began the journey back, Byleth thought she detected a resonant note of hesitation in him.

By the time they’d reached the bay of Derdriu, the sun hung low and the sky had turned to vibrant oranges and indigos; the frothy crests of waves, the metal fixtures on ships’ masts, and even the scaly tips of Sahar’s wings shone golden in the rich evening light.

The palace’s white marble exterior reflected sunset-colors onto the streets and canal below. In any other instance, she’d find it beautiful, but right now it was no different than the Throat: an ominous, prohibitive barrier.

Claude guided Sahar to the balcony again, wincing as her claws ground fresh holes into the railing.

“- I’ll pay for that,” he reiterated sheepishly, then hopped down to offer Byleth a hand.

She took it, letting him assume her weight while she scrambled much less gracefully to the ground. The stone tiles, quickly cooling with the onset of night, chilled her bare feet on contact; she shivered, looking back wistfully at the evening sky.

When she turned around again, Claude was watching her intently. Unreadably.

“Did you enjoy the ride?” he asked.

“I did. Thank you.” She tried to match his tone, to hide her sadness - to appreciate the time they’d had together instead of mourning its conclusion. “I suppose you need to get going, then?”

“Mm, not quite yet,” he replied with a secretive smile, wrapping Sahar’s reins around her saddlehorn. He muttered a phrase to her in Almyran, to which the great wyvern nuzzled into his hand and took off in the direction of the aviary.

“Let’s get you warmed up, first.” He strode past her to the open balcony doors, jerking his head toward it encouragingly when she didn’t immediately follow. “Come on, it’s okay - I have time.”

Byleth trailed after him, instantly suspicious. He was using his ‘false sense of security’ voice again, like he had on the first night. “Claude, what are you planning?” she called out warily, stepping into her darkened bedchamber.

A spark struck in the hearth, setting the tinder inside ablaze and silhouetting Claude in a red-orange halo. “Why do I have to be planning something?” he countered, overly defensive, as he stoked the fire. “- You looked cold, is all.”

She gave him a skeptical once-over, then turned to grab a cloak from her wardrobe - and there on her dresser, shining in the firelight, was a lacquered ebony box the length of her arm.

It was decorated with glittering gold leaf along its edges, clearly meant to hold something valuable. Byleth whipped around to fix Claude with an accusing glare, but he just shrugged innocently and motioned for her to open it.

He had a long history of bequeathing strange gifts to his friends, always seeming to enjoy the reactions a little too much. Byleth wasn’t aware of any current holidays, though, either in Fodlan or Almyra.

She sighed and lifted the lid. “I swear, if this is another apron -”

The breath caught in her throat. It most definitely was not an apron.

Nestled in a bed of burgundy velvet, only slightly smaller than the box itself, laid a porcelain-white wyvern egg dotted with flecks of pearlescent ivory.

This time when she glanced back, it was in affectionate curiosity. “So this is why you were pushing flight training,” she said, gingerly touching the warm shell. “But - aren’t white wyverns only given to members of the royal family?”

Claude moved to stand next to her, drained of all his earlier mirth and bravado. In its place was a tense energy she hadn’t sensed in him since they’d last met at the Goddess Tower.

“Well, yeah, that’s the idea,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I was hoping you’d, uh, well - I wanted to ask you, since -”

He stopped and grunted, looking disgusted with himself. “Let me start over.”

Byleth nodded, absolutely baffled. What in Sothis’s name was he trying to say?

Claude ran a hand back through his hair and took a deep, steadying breath. “We both didn’t have the best experiences with family growing up. I mean, you had Jeralt and I had my mom, and they were great, but other than that it was…”

“Lonely,” she offered. They’d discussed their respective childhoods many times before - commiserated in the shared wounds of alienation and neglect.

Delicately, he took her hand and squeezed it. “Yeah. Lonely. And if I’m reading this correctly, so were the last five years, right?”

Byleth swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded again.

“Yeah,” Claude repeated softly. “For me, too. So, I thought - maybe neither of us has to be lonely anymore.”

His meaning dawned on her like a sunrise, blooming heat high in her cheeks. Her embarrassment fueled his, in turn, and they were left staring at one another in stunned silence; from an outside perspective, they must have looked - fittingly - like a pair of panicked deer.

“Claude,” she pronounced thickly, needing to verify her theory, “are you asking me to…?”

“Mhm,” he confirmed, a portion of his usual confidence flickering back to life in his smile. He tipped her chin upward with his index finger. “I want to be your family. I want you to be my family.”

Byleth had spent the first part of her life without adequate modes of expression. Before meeting Claude, she’d gotten by on curt gestures and a flat affect - and now, in the face of overwhelming emotion, she regressed right back to that state.

All she could do to communicate her answer was to jump and reach for him, just like she was leaping onto his wyvern - and, predictably, protectively, his arms closed around her. Anchored her.

Like always, she thought. A perfect catch.

“Woah - I’ll take that as a yes, then?” Claude asked, tentatively hopeful, laughing and stepping backward from the unexpected force.

Byleth buried her face in his shoulder and nodded, unable to speak; hot tears spilled from her eyes, soaking into Claude’s tunic collar, and her wrists trembled where they were clasped at his neck. Her heart had never beat, yet now it was overflowing, filling her chest with something happy and potent and home that she’d never dared to covet before.

In the glow of the hearth, to the crackling of logs and the faint rush of a sea breeze outside, Claude rocked them back and forth at a measured, soothing pace. He kissed her forehead, her temple, her cheekbone, wiping away her tears with his thumb and whispering in a shaky voice, “It’s okay, Bee. We’re going to be so happy, I promise. I promise.”

---Epilogue---

Lorenz understood the severity of the Airmid flooding - really, he did - but he did not understand why it needed to translate into a six-in-the-morning assembly. Anything the ministers discussed there could be handled just as easily, and with more lucidity, during their regular working hours.

Still, he trudged diligently up the stairs to the meeting rooms. If there were emergency measures to enact, then, by the goddess, he’d see them enacted. The peoples of Hrym and Ordelia had already suffered enough for several lifetimes.

He was just inside the threshold, blinking and stifling a yawn, when he saw them: Byleth and Claude, seated side by side at the head of the meeting table, the former digging into a plate of food and the latter grinning like a madman.

Lorenz’s yawn cut off abruptly; his jaw snapped shut with a click.

“You’re still here,” he grumbled, sliding into a chair on an empty side. “Somehow I doubt this is about the floods.”

Hilda and Marianne, who were sitting opposite him, giggled quietly together, their hands clasped on the tabletop. (Frankly, it made him jealous. Leonie hadn’t wanted to touch the office of royal minister with a ten-foot lance.)

“Nope,” Byleth said, pointing at Claude with her fork. “This is about the legality of our marriage.”

Hilda clapped frantically with excitement. “Congratulations! Ooh, this is going to be the biggest wedding ever - can you imagine the guest list? We’ll be curating it for months.”

“I think I’ll exclude my paternal cousins,” Claude mused. “Just to watch them squirm.”

Marianne nodded. “They deserve it.”

“Wait. Hold.” Lorenz slapped his daily ledger down on the table like a judge calling for order, and it worked just the same. The rabble died down, all eyes turning to him. “First of all: congratulations, you two. You’ve made me a marginally poorer man.”

Hilda snickered triumphantly.

“Second: this is going to be a legislative nightmare - and don’t you tell me differently, Claude von Riegan,” he added, holding up a finger when it looked like Claude would cut in.

“I’ll abdicate,” Byleth suggested, stabbing into a sausage.

“No -!” all three ministers shouted in unison - even Marianne, who’d also half-stood from her chair, hands braced on the table.

(Meanwhile, Claude simply watched his new fiancee with moon-eyed adoration; Lorenz was sure he’d humor anything she said right now.)

“That - that won’t be necessary,” Lorenz said, clearing his throat and smoothing down his ascot. “I only mean that it will take time and collaboration. Claude, I insist that you stay another week while we draft something for you to take home. I’ll write to Nader.”

Byleth let out a rare exuberant gasp; beside her, Claude glanced down the table and gave Lorenz a sly, conspiratorial wink.

“- Oh, try to act professionally about this, would you?” he insisted, but an infectious smile was already spreading across his own face.

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Author’s Notes

candidates for game names:

byleth: better chess (rejected - judgmental)

claude: long chess (rejected - misleading)

hilda: chess 2 (considered but ultimately rejected - legality)

lorenz: tactician’s chess (rejected - boring)

#mega writes #fe3h #claudeleth #images are free to use and sourced from pexels pixabay and unsplash

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