The late evening does not ease the heat of an Adrestian summer. Sweat lathers his horse’s neck as Byleth calls their army to a pause. The clattering choir of an army on the move slowly disbands to make camp as the sun flirts low with the horizon. A scout steps forward from the breaking ranks and bows lowly.
“Commander. Your Highness. We should be on course to reach Enbarr in half a morning.”
Byleth swings off his horse. Dimitri, already dismounted, meets his eye before addressing the scout. “Thank you. We will review our plans and announce them come morning. You are dismissed. Rest well.”
The scout bows again and disappears. Byleth watches Dimitri’s shoulders fall, relieving himself of his kingly image.
-
Byleth sits by the edge of the campfire, halfway to darkness. The Creator Sword rests weightily upon his crossed legs, humming gently with idle power under his fingertips.
The camp is more lively tonight than usual. Anticipation threads itself through each battalion like the smoke rising from campfires. It is late enough that soldiers are beginning to break off and return to their tents, but not far enough into the night for sleep to be a concern.
Sylvain barks out a high laugh, and Byleth looks up in time to see both Ingrid and Felix, seated by his sides, swipe at him. He offers a sheepish smile to the rest of the generals gathered that have turned to him.
Byleth shakes his head idly and returns his gaze to the Sword of the Creator. Washed warm orange in the firelight, he can almost imagine the shadows pooling in the grooves instead tainted with blood. He knows the rhythm of it dripping fresh from the blade like a heart beat he’s never had. The drip-drip-drip plays in his mind on sleepless nights, silent where there had once been a goddess.
The power of Sothis rises in his fingertips as if to answer the call of its mentioned master. He closes his eyes and feels it, lets it rest within him and seek a purpose. The flow of time laps gently at his feet. Where would it take him? No matter if he stepped back or forward, he’d find himself in the same place – marching toward Enbarr with an army at his beck and call.
There is no leap he could take, no rock he could lodge in the stream that would make a difference. He is left in a river too vast for him to ever understand, unable to see further than he can reach his hand in the fog. He wants often for something in the horizon, something that he can anchor himself to and know he is avoiding a disaster that haunts the place in his mind where Sothis had once been.
Sometimes he cannot shake the thought of the vacant emerald throne crumbling. There is something he’s missing, a star waiting to collapse, and all he can do is grit his teeth and pray it falls mercifully.
All he knows is standing before him in the tides of time is Edelgard.
He can trace the route through Enbarr to her on the veins in his hand. He could write a bullet point list of every possibility they’ve prepared for in the dirt over her grave. He could imagine the dying gasp of every one of his friends if they failed – he’s heard them all wading through the tides of time. There is no stepping around this fight. They have tried. Dimitri has reached out for her, they have sent countless messengers and offers and they have all disappeared into the fog.
Even still, though it will be the true tipping point of history, it does not feel quite like what he is waiting for. Edelgard and the Empire will fall, not quite neat, and then comes the grand task of redefining a country. He knows where it will take every one of his friends, his generals, but what is waiting for him? What comes for a mercenary-turned-professor-turned-commander harboring the silent absence of a god? What can he do? While the former Blue Lions will return to Faerghus, their teacher will return to Garreg Mach and hold tightly to the feeling of looming dread.
Jeralt had warned him to be wary of her, but Byleth knows there are answers only Rhea can give him. She is responsible, somehow, for what has happened to him.
Byleth tries to push away that thought. There is no use lingering on unanswered questions, looking into futures beyond the tomorrow that will be everything or nothing. Tomorrow, the war ends, whether it be victory or death.
If the archbishop is found, hounding her for answers is far down the list of what must come when the Empire falls.
“Professor. Forgive my intrusion, but is there something that’s troubling you?”
Supporting Dimitri and the unification of Fódlan is first on that list.
“I think we’ve long since earned the right to call each other by name,” He carefully lifts the sword from his lap and sets it aside, entwining his fingers to give Dimitri his attention as he sits down. His hands feel empty without the magical flow of the Sword of the Creator between them. “I have just been… thinking.”
Dimitri nods in understanding. He has since shed his coat, and the fur absent from accentuating his silhouette makes him look slim. Half hidden by night he is almost no different to the bright young prince at the academy. “I’m certain there are a thousand things running through everyone’s minds. It might be presumptuous for me to suggest, but perhaps if you share them we can put them aside for the night.”
He hesitates for a moment. How do you explain this to someone? He has never been good at speaking his thoughts and feelings. There is no one who could possibly understand him fully. He casts a look towards their friends by the bonfire. “Perhaps if we moved somewhere more private?”
Dimitri collects a lantern and offers his hand to help him up and lead them further away, deeper into the darkness of night. They carefully step over branches and stones in their path until Dimitri drops his hand. Distantly, Byleth misses the warmth of it, even through the fabric of Dimitri’s glove.
“Will this do?”—Byleth nods—“I see, would you like to sit?”
“It’s fine, I don’t intend to take up too much of your time, nor my own. You know about my connection to the Goddess,” He begins, uncertain of how the words will find themselves. “Her silence unsettles me. I feel that there’s something… Something we’re not ready for waiting for us in Enbarr.” Byleth closes his eyes, wills the tides of time to reveal something — knows it to be pointless— and sees nothing. “No matter how far I reach, I cannot find any answers.”
Dimitri is quiet for a moment while he takes in the words. Hesitant, he asks, “Is it something to do with Edelgard? Another, unknown outside force perhaps?”
Byleth shakes his head and opens his eyes to meet Dimitri’s gaze, one blue eye tinged by lantern light, focused solely on him. “I don’t know. I cannot promise what danger will come. I wish I could promise you safety.”
Something in Dimitri’s expression shifts, something Byleth does not know to place a name to. “Byleth,” he mumbles, and steps forward to take Byleth’s hand gently, bringing it up to press a kiss against his knuckles. “Whatever happens, you know you will always have me — a-and the rest of the Blue Lions, of course — with you.”
…Give this ring to someone you love as well as I love her…
Byleth finds the voice of his father once again coming back to him. He feels the ring tucked always in a pocket, weight amplified by something he can almost name. He can see it, for all of a brief moment, but it is enough. Dimitri, with the ring adorning his finger, looking at him just like this, its match on Byleth’s own hand.
“Together,” Byleth agrees, smiling. “I like the sound of that.”
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