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discomfort-food · 5 years

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Terrible, Beautiful, Maddening (a Hegeleth fic) 2/?

Summary:

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.” ― H.P. Lovecraft

The second oldest is love.

Canon-divergent at the end of Azure Moon.

Read on AO3

The Sword of the Creator pulses warm in her hands as she swings it above her head, once, twice, lashing and striking the masked mage in front of her. The crackling violet magic at his fingertips is extinguished as he slams into one of the columns adorning the throne room. He slumps to the floor, leaving a crimson streak on the cold marble.

The nightmarish creature across the room snarls, hurling a blast of screaming magic at them. “Dimitri! On your right!” She yells, but he is already dodging, rolling, and leaping back to his feet to plunge Areadbhar into the chest of another imperial soldier. The air is acrid in the wake of the blast and burns her throat.

They cut their way closer to the hovering form once known as Edelgard. The beast’s tail lashes in frustration as yet another burning blast is dodged by Dimitri. This time, however, he is a hair slower, and the end of his cloak takes the blow, burning a crescent shape into the end of it. He swats at the smouldering blue fabric and in his distraction he doesn’t notice one of the imperial soldiers raising their axe behind him. But she does.

“Drop!” Immediately he complies and she lobs a bolt of lightning from her hands, knocking the enemy off their feet and they move no more.

She rushes up to him, dodging magic cast from the remaining clutch of mages in the center of the room, and reaches her hand out to bring the prince back to his feet. Together they run behind the nearest pillar a few feet away.

“Thank you, professor,” he grunts, wiping a smear of blood off his face with the back of his gloved hand. She’s been wounded herself, her left arm burns where an errant fireball grazed her, and she’s bleeding from several gashes from blades that made it past her armor. She conjures up a basic healing spell, patching their wounds with a glowing white light. Mercedes or Flayn will have to take a closer look later, but for now it does the job.

“We must finish this, Professor. The Edelgard we once knew is long gone.” She nods, but can’t help feeling like there could have been another way to avoid this twisted path of fate.

Byleth woke to the steady plip-plop of water in a mostly-full bucket. The best inn in town didn’t have to worry about keeping its roof leak-free when it also happened to be the only inn in town. The drips, not as frequent as the night before, signalled the downpour had decided to let up.

She blinked the sleep out of her eyes as she visually located her sword, propped against the bedside table. An old habit drilled into her by Jeralt: “Always know where your blade is, and always keep it within arm’s reach, especially when among strangers.” At the thought of strangers, her brain registered the second body in the bed beginning to stir next to her.

“Mornin’, you,” the woman next to her whispered, ghosting her fingers over Byleth’s muscled abdomen. “How’d you sleep?”

Byleth grunted and closed her eyes again.

The woman-- did she say her name was Odette? Odelle? It didn’t really matter, she supposed-- tried again, this time, tracing a finger up a particularly jagged scar that followed her collarbone and reached toward her heart. “How’d you get this one? Looks pretty nasty.”

Byleth huffed, rolling over and swinging her legs over the side of the bed in one fluid motion. The room had a draft, and the cool air against her bare skin chased away the last remnants of sleep clouding her mind. “I need to get going,” she intoned, running her hands through her pale hair.

A disappointed hum came from behind her. “Yeah, I get it.” The bed shifted with the removal of weight. She could hear the sound of clothes being found and pulled back on behind her.

Byleth massaged her forehead, contemplating the floor. “Um… Thanks.” It came out awkwardly, she had never been good at these things. She doubted it would be any less awkward if she was able to process emotions properly.

The shuffling of clothes paused for a moment, then resumed. Floorboards creaked towards the door, and the latch opened with a click.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, mercenary.” And she was alone in the room.

She peers around the pillar they’re using as cover. The remaining forces between them and Edelgard have dwindled to a handful of masked mages. They circle around a single one who Byleth presumes is their commander. She can see by now most of them don’t have enough energy to cast spells at them from their distance. Their leader, however, is more difficult for her to read. She notes that he is not wearing the standard issue imperial mage uniform.

“Focus on taking out the weaker ones around the edge. I’ll engage their leader. Ready?”

Dimitri nods an affirmative. She raises her sword and darts out from behind the marble column, Dimitri following suit from the opposite direction. The mage closest to her raises his hand to release a spell, but before he can let it go, she is on top of him and he collapses.

Now, standing so close to their leader, she can see how his dress differs from the others. Rather than the standard imperial black with red trim, his black robes are detailed in gold patterns. Looking closer, the patterns remind her of eyes staring back at her. Like a whisper of a forgotten dream, a familiar feeling that she’s seen something like this before brushes her mind.

But this is not the time nor place to ponder forgotten memories, and she is immediately dodging a purple bolt of magic from the mage’s outstretched hand. She slashes at him, but his heavy cloak takes most of the damage.

He laughs as he dashes backwards away from her, his masked face distorting his voice into a mocking tone that grates on her ears. “Oh my, it looks like her Majesty’s plan isn’t working out as well as she’d anticipated!” He laughs as another magical blast from Edelgard shrieks over his head, narrowly missing her.

“Graaaagh!” With a roar, next to her, Dimitri pulls his lance out of the last of the surrounding mages. He pulls his arm back and launches it at the retreating mage. Just before it hits its mark however, the mage snaps his fingers and Warps away mid-cackle.

The rain finally ceased a couple hours after leaving Belfort. Byleth was grateful; her water-resistant cloak was unfortunately not water-proof, and enough dampness had made its way underneath to make her a bit more than mildly uncomfortable.

Around noon, the sun managed to make an appearance, and a warm breeze did its best to dry her. The fields of ruined crops sloped gently downward ahead of her, and in the distance she could see a river crossed by a wooden bridge. Upon reaching the bridge, however, she turned left and walked along a faint, narrow path that followed the winding river, as the innkeeper in Belford had directed her: “Ayuh, just follow that path there, say about three miles, an’ you’ll run into ol’ Ulag. Fair warnin’, he’s gone quite mad livin’ out there on his own since his wife passed, goddess bless her soul.”

As Byleth made her way along the path, low bushes changed to small trees, which eventually gave way to a loose grove. She could tell this path was old, but infrequently used, with the occasional rotted fencepost poking out of the ground at an angle, and overgrowth that had begun to retake what it once owned.

The first sign of human life she came upon was a wooden board nailed to a knotted tree. “No Trespasing” was carved into it in shakey gouges. She ignored it and continued on.

The next warning was a series of animal skulls impaled on rusty lances stuck in the ground.

Finally, a lopsided stone shack came into view through the trees. She sidestepped an obvious tripwire set a few inches off the ground, a quick glance showed her it was attached to several strings of bones hanging from the surrounding trees that would make a good deal of noise if they were disturbed. She walked closer towards the building, eyes searching for the resident.

“That’s far enough, missy,” a voice croaked from behind her. Spinning around, she could not locate the source of the voice until she raised her eyes above her.

Sitting several feet up in a tree was an old man pointing a drawn bow at her. “Can ye’ not read?

Disregarding his question, she spoke, loud enough for him to hear her up in the tree. “Are you Ulag? I was told you had seen a strange creature around here a month or so ago.”

The man’s bow went slack as he peered at her. “A ‘strange creature?!’ Bah!” He hawked a glob of spit at the ground. “That’s no way to talk about a man’s wife, you know!”

Byleth blinked. “Your wife?”

Ulag squinted at her, “Aye, my wife. You deaf as well as blind, too?” He dropped out of the tree, landing on his feet with the grace a man of his age should not have possessed. “Who are you, anyway? Did they send you to spy on me?” His posture grew slouched, and his eyes darted around, searching for some unseen threat.

“I don’t know who they are,” she monotoned. “Can you tell me about your wife?”

At the mention of his wife, his demeanor changed again. He sat back on a log, eyes misty amd far away. “Oh, she’s just the loveliest, the sweetest girl a man could ask for. She has soft, white hair, and has always loved to dress up in that pretty gown of hers. That’s how I knew it was her, of course.”

“You knew?”

“Well of course I did! I’d be able to recognize my own wife, wouldn’t I? Who are you to come here, asking so many questions, anyway? You’re not trying to seduce her are you?” He jumped up from the log in a frenzy, waving his bow. “Don’t test me missy! Ol’ Ulag’s still got fire in his bones yet!”

Byleth stepped back a few paces, unfazed. “I’m not seducing anyone. I’m tracking a creature that may have passed through this area several weeks ago. The innkeeper in Belfort mentioned you told him that you saw something unexplainable in the woods here, which caused me to investigate.”

Focused again, Ulag shook his head. “The only unexplainable thing here is you insisting my wife is some sort of monster! I saw her clear as day! Well, it was night. But it was a full moon! She was there, I swear on my life!” He gestured toward a clearing in the trees where several stumps of broken trees poked out of the ground like tombstones.

“You only saw her the once?”

“There I was, sleeping in my bed. Next thing I know, Everett over there,” he pointed over his shoulder at possibly the oldest donkey Byleth had ever seen, “he starts screaming bloody murder. Now, I figure it’s a bear, ain’t seen one in a while but sometimes they get brave. So I grab my old pot and a stick, you know just to scare it off, but when I turn the corner, there she is! I know, I know, they all say ol’ Ulag’s damn near pickled himself in drink. But so what?! I ain’t got no kids, ain’t got nobody no more. Everett here’s not the best at conversation neither.”

Byleth interrupted his rambling, trying to keep the old man on topic. “Ulag. What did you see?”

“Oh, oh right. I saw her! Veiled in moonlight, a golden halo atop her head, and wings of an angel. But she startled me so, I dropped my pot, and quick as a whip, she was gone, back into the darkness.” His voice cracked and Byleth realized he had begun to tremble. “Ever since she got sick, terribly sick, she’s been hiding from me. She’s shy, you know. But now that I saw her I know she’s watching out for me. I just wish she’d come home...” His voice trails off into a whisper.

Byleth had heard enough. “Thank you for telling me of this. Take care of yourself, Ulag.” Circling him, she moved to return the way she had come.

“Wait,” He spoke as she passed him. “Won’t you stay for a cup of tea?”

Wordlessly, she continued walking.

“No! But..” Edelgard’s cry echoes through the chamber, laced with fury and frustration, her eyes searching for any sign that the mage still remains in the room, but it is in vain.

Dimitri picks up his lance from the ground and points it at her. “To be changed beyond all recognition. That is what lies at the end of the ideals you served so diligently. I have no pity for one such as you. If that is the future you hoped for, then you deserve no compassion.” The creature remains silent, her features set in determination.

He charges up the stairs towards the emperor, and she follows a few paces behind. Her calf muscles burn from exhaustion, and she knows Dimitri must be in an even worse state. Edelgard hangs in the air above them, haloed in harsh light streaming from the stained-glass window behind her, a twisted illusion of an angel.

They reach her, and in tandem, swing their weapons. She lets out a snarl, swatting them with clawed hands wreathed in violet magic. They strike again, and again. Her thick, hide-like armor withstands most of the damage, even from their holy relics, but more and more gashes break through, each one punctuated by a gasp of pain.

Curiously, she notices a pattern. When both of them rush to attack together, Edelgard favors defending and retaliating against Dimitri, allowing the Sword of the Creator to pierce her armor. Desperately, she fights on, trying to ignore the way the monster’s burning red eyes bore into her unbeating heart.

“It was just the strangest thing. Never seen anything like it in my life. Pa said it must have been the wolves, but I’ve seen wolf tracks and those weren’t made by any wolf I ever heard of.”

Byleth was standing just outside a stone-fenced corral, currently home to half a dozen squealing pigs. The farmer, a young man barely out of his teens and sprouting a patchy beard, continued to shovel foul-smelling mud over his shoulder as he spoke.

“If not wolves what would you say the tracks looked like?” Byleth asked, but she already knew what his answer would be.

“That’s the thing, see. They almost looked like they were made by a human, as if they were walking on their toes, with their heel raised up, you know? But of course the size of them would make them stand fifteen, twenty feet tall.” He scoffed, shaking his head.

She nodded, confirming her suspicions. “Thank you for your time.”

He squinted at her in the late afternoon sun, planting his shovel in the ground and leaning on it. “You’re trying to find this thing, yeah? If you know what it is, I’d be grateful if you told me. Myself and others around here can’t hardly afford to lose more livestock, not with things spread thin as they are right now.”

Byleth shrugged noncommittally; “It’s been moving steadily north for the last few months, so I doubt any of your pigs will become a second course meal.”

“That’s comforting, but you still haven’t told me what it is. A bear?” He wiped a line of sweat off his brow, leaving a brown smear across it.

“A bear.” Even she knew her response was less than convincing. A pale lock of flyaway hair blew into her vision. As they stood there, a dark stormfront had rolled in from the east, the sky there nearly black. “Wind’s howling.”

“Aye. Better get a hustle on if you’re looking to make it to a dry bed in time. Next town’s an hour’s walk from here.”

With that, Byleth set off. The information she received from the farmer was nothing new. One of his pigs, or what was left of it, had been found a week ago, torn to shreds. Mysteriously, there was no way he could tell how the pig managed to escape it’s pen or if the predator had broken in, as the gate had still been locked securely that morning and there was no sign of a broken fence. It was as if something had simply plucked the animal from over the top of the pen.

Byleth had been collecting reports like these for several weeks, a mutilated farm animal here, some strange tracks there. Other than Ulag, the only other person who witnessed the creature was a young girl who had decided to take a shortcut through the forest from her grandmother’s house. She hadn’t stopped crying for three days.

Gradually, the time between sightings and Byleth’s arrival shortened, from almost two months at the beginning, until now, where she estimated she was less than a week behind. At first, most people only reported tracks, or dogs howling at some unseen presence in the forest. Occasionally a single cow or sheep would go missing, the only exception occurring on the same night the young girl saw the monster in the woods. A whole herd of cattle had been destroyed shortly after. Most had not been eaten at all, but torn apart seemingly by pure rage. This incident was most concerning to Byleth, and after that she had quickened her pace and endeavored to close the distance between her and her quarry.

All of these sightings loosely meandered north, and now Byleth was somewhere in the western reaches of Varley territory from what she could tell. In the distance, she could see the foothills that would roll into the mountain range that divided Fodlan and where Garreg Mach monastery was nestled deep within.

A fat raindrop landed squarely on her nose, breaking her from her silent contemplation and she knew she would not make it warm and dry to the town that night.

They fight for several torturous minutes, neither side gaining substantial ground over the other. They are much faster than Edelgard in this form and strike her more often than not, but her armored body is able to withstand the brunt of their blows.

Next to her, Dimitri’s movements grow more harried; he has taken more hits than her and he holds his body at an angle that implies more than one of his bones is broken. For a moment she can see a flash of the old Dimitri, the ghoul that she found lurking in the Goddess Tower months ago. With a strained yell, he leaps at Edelgard, his lance miraculously finding purchase between the plates of armor at her shoulder and tearing a gash across the spot where glaring red energy shines through.

Edelgard screams, the wound leaking an inky black liquid, and reflexively reaches her hand out, her whole palm enclosing Dimitri’s arm that holds Areadbhar, and flings him across the platform they stand on. His body land out of sight with a sickening thud that echoes through the room. She calls out his name, but there is only silence. She offers up a quick prayer that he is not dead, in the slim chance that Sothis can somehow hear it.

She turns back to Edelgard, bracing for a strike, but it does not come. She realizes that while she was distracted by Dimitri’s fall, the emperor could have taken several opportunities to strike her. But she did not. Rather, Edelgard floats in place, trembling with exhaustion. Her face is downcast, almost expressionless but for a slight frown.

“Facing you, I grow weak.”

The words reverberate sorrowfully and a pit grows in her stomach with the knowledge of what she must do. She raises her sword, and a clawed hand lifts to strike.

With a quick spark, flint met steel and her campfire was set ablaze. Byleth had finally reached the edge of Fodlan’s central mountain range, and she had set up camp on a flat overhang halfway up a mountain at the mouth of the valley.

The sun was just beginning it’s final descent on the horizon, and from her perch above the valley she could see the vibrant colors of the trees, indicating the Wyvern Moon was nearly at its close. As if on cue, a flock of wyverns swooped over the far end of the valley, heading south, not wishing to be the last ones caught in the chill of the Red Wolf Moon.

She pulled the tie out of her pale hair and let it fluff out; it had begun to grow longer than she normally kept it but for reasons unknown to her, she had yet to cut it and instead had been tying it back. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to cut her hair at all, in fact. As a child, Jeralt would give her a trim once in awhile to keep it out of her eyes, and later on she only kept it at a manageable length to avoid getting in the way during battle. She supposed now there wouldn’t be many battles the future Archbishop needed to involve herself in. Perhaps she would let it grow out.

Byleth leaned back against a tree, munching on the last of her bread she had bought two days ago at a small mining camp, the last sign of civilization since entering the mountains. It would only be three or four more days to Garreg Mach, although that would be rough travel as there were no roads on this side of the monastery. She supposed it was fortunate that she had naturally ended up so close to where she would have to return anyway, but a faint feeling of melancholy still settled in her chest.

The sun finally dipped below the valley walls, and Byleth reached for more firewood to increase the blaze. Normally, it would be unnecessary to make a fire this large, unwise in fact, as being high up on the mountain would make one a shining beacon for any potential bandits or thugs. This time, however, she wanted to be seen. Even two days away was too close to civilization for her liking, especially after witnessing the destruction of the cattle herd that was triggered by getting too near to one small girl.

No, this campfire was a warning.

She waited and listened, and the sun dropped lower, taking the last colors of daylight with it. Not long after the stars had appeared in the sky, she heard what she was waiting for. On the opposite side of the valley, the sound of trees, snapping, and crashing to the forest floor echoed through the night. The sounds grew fainter as they moved further away, until there was silence again.

Byleth slipped into dreams, regretting that her journey was nearing an end.

This time, she extends the Sword of the Creator to its full length, swinging it up and around the floating figure in front of her. It wraps itself around the towering creature and tightens, eliciting monstrous gasps as each section of the blade digs itself into flesh. She wrenches the sword downward and Edelgard is dragged to the ground, crashing to her knees.

She bites back the taste of blood in her mouth and only just now realizes a sharp pain in her chest. In the struggle, a clawed hand has pierced through her armor, through her chest where her unbeating heart lay.

She looks up at Edelgard, who still towers over her even kneeling. The creature struggles against her binds weakly, but it only twists itself tighter; a morbid serpent wrapping around its prey.

Glowing red eyes meet green, and despite the war, despite not knowing if Dimitri still lived, within the black depths she can still see the eyes of the girl she saved all those years ago from a bandit attack.

She can do this no longer.

With a flick of her wrist, she withdraws her sword, releasing the monster before her. She raises it up again, and Edelgard flinches, anticipating a final strike, but it does not come.

The Sword of the Creator extends, reaching towards a new target. It arcs beyond the platform they stand on, and reaches the stained glass window high above them. The glass shatters, showering them in multicolored shards. The sudden increase in light pains her eyes and she closes them for a moment. She is tired, so very tired.

A cold, yet burning sensation fills her chest as the claws within it are withdrawn and she stumbles, now she is the one on her knees. She can feel her vision grow hazy as a wet warmth bleeds from her wound, staining her white collar crimson. She sees wings outlined in the blurred light of the window, and the last thing she remembers is drawing on her last reserves of magic to call down a Ragnarok spell just a few feet away where Edelgard had been moments before.

Then, there is nothing.

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