Here's a new story. You might notice that this has nothing to do with Beruka. In fact, it doesn't even take place in the same timeline as those two stories ("Love Is Like Killing" and "Hans Must Die"), since this is very clearly a Birthright story while those were Conquest. This idea is actually the first idea I ever had for a Fates story.

This story takes place on the Birthright route, starting some time before the battle at the border wall where you so unceremoniously knock off Charlotte and Benny. Also, while this does feature a pairing, it's not meant to be a ship fic. I just thought these characters worked best for the themes I wanted to explore, particularly Setsuna. Enjoy! ~Sean

"Wow… that was… exciting!...Let's—ow—do it again,—hah—Silas."

"Exciting?" Azama raised an eyebrow as he handed the baby to Sakura. "Most mothers don't say that until after they've seen the child. And they certainly don't ask to go through childbirth again."

"Aw, thanks—hah—Azama. You're so nice." Setsuna slowly turned her head to Silas, who was still holding her hand. "Uh… Silas?"

Silas didn't answer. He was staring at Setsuna's face, obviously more tired than she was—somehow.

"Silas… You can let go of my hand…. I can't feel it anymore."

"Hmm? Gwah!" Silas snapped his hand loose. "I'm sorry, Setsuna, I—I was just a little dazed!"

"Oh… that's fine. It felt kinda neat."

Sakura turned toward Setsuna while holding the baby in her arms. "I think Azama forgot to mention, but she's a girl!"

"I didn't forget, Sakura. I just didn't see the point in expressing an ultimately meaningless detail in the newest incarnation of this being's life. It would be like my saying that it was a horsefly in its last life."

"She was a horsefly?" Setsuna asked.

"No, of course not. What kind of fool would think that?"

"Oh…"

"Um… here, Setsuna," said Sakura after giving a confused look at Azama. "Hold her in your arms like this."

Setsuna's arms mimicked Sakura's as she received her new daughter. "Aww… she's got fuzzy teal hair like mine… except I guess mine isn't fuzzy. Aww…"

Silas ran his fingers through her hair. "A baby girl…. Well, Setsuna, we need a name for her. Do you remember the list we had for girls' names?"

"Awww…"

"Setsuna?"

"…"

"Setsuna?"

"I like her. She's so nice. Awww…"

"Well, I happen to like—"

"Sophie."

Silas raised his eyebrows. "Sophie? That's not even a Hoshidan name. Don't you want to pick a name that'll help her fit in a little more?"

"Sophie's a nice name, though. I thought you liked Sophie."

Silas ran his hand through his hair. "Well, yeah, I do. If we were in Nohr, it would have been my first choice, but—"

"That's why I like it. It's your favorite name, so it's also mine."

"Well, I—"

"Sophie's adorable… Aww."

"Well, I guess she's our little Sophie." Silas leaned in to get a better look at Sophie. He traced his finger around one of the curls of hair near her ears.

"Hey, Silas…" Setsuna pointed to around the ears, where his finger was. "Her hair's got the little shwoop thing that yours does." Setsuna reached up and played with his cowlick. "See? Shwoop!"

Silas chuckled and watched his daughter. "Setsuna, do you mind if I hold her for a little while?"

Setsuna smiled and held Sophie a little higher so Silas could slip his arms under Sophie's head.

"Hey, little Sophie. It's nice to meet you," Silas said quietly. "You don't know how long we've been waiting for you. Then again, that's only here in the deeprealm. I guess it's only been several weeks back in Hoshido." Silas's smile fell slightly. "And I wish things were better out there. Then we'd take you with us and you'd meet your mother's family in Hoshido and your godfather, Corrin. I wish he had been here too, but there was no way a messenger could get him to the deeprealm in time. But he's out there helping keep your future home safe. And soon we'll—we'll have to go too."

"I wish things were better out there," he whispered.

"Hey, Silas… I wanna hold her again."

Silas smiled at his wife and handed Sophie to her. "Here you go, Setsuna. I'm going to get us ready to leave and talk to Sophie's caretakers." Silas leaned down and kissed both of them on the foreheads. "You two enjoy your time together…"

As Silas walked out the door, Setsuna thought she noticed tears coming down his cheek as he whispered to himself, "Enjoy the time together while we can."

"Silas!" Corrin appeared from the deeprealm portal and rushed to his friend in a huff. "I suppose I missed it?"

Silas smiled and embraced Corrin. "I'm afraid so. I guess that's your payback for me missing Kana's birth."

"Oh, no, you're not getting off that easy. After all, my sister was able to make it."

"Sakura was the midwife. She doesn't count as a sister in that case."

"Well, she certainly did a better job than if we had left it to Azama."

"Tell me about it. If I ever have another kid, I'm going to try to find someone else to trust with my wife and child's wellbeing."

"You're not talking about another one this soon, are you? Poor Setsuna can't handle all that."

"Want to bet? She wanted to do it again as soon as it was over."

Corrin stopped short. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Silas nodded. "She has a… a very high pain tolerance."

"I figured that from the constant bear traps. But childbirth? Your wife is forged from steel."

The two chuckled, but followed with a blaring silence.

"Corrin, how did you leave Kana behind in the deeprealm after you saw her? How were you able to see your daughter in your wife's arms and still decide to leave your baby girl for weeks at a time—and months for her!"

Corrin hung his head. He wasn't surprised by the question in the slightest, which indicated to Silas that Corrin had thought often about it himself. "I couldn't. Not on my own. I would have brought her along everywhere if it weren't for my wife. The day before she and I were to return to Hoshido, I asked Kagero if she wanted to take our daughter anyway—though I was really asking for myself. I could see the sorrow in her eyes—the thought tore her up so badly that I was ashamed for making her dwell on the thought. But ever since she took her brother's place as a royal retainer, Kagero's always placed her duty and the wellbeing of others above all else. And she knew both of us could not guarantee our daughter's safety in a castle that invisible warriors raid regularly. So we left Kana in the care of people we knew only through Lilith's connection to Moro, in hopes that we could eventually bring her back to a world where Hoshido and Nohr are at peace. But no, Silas, I myself wasn't able to do it."

Silas sighed. "That's not what I needed to hear."

"All I can tell you is the truth."

"I know."

Silas and Setsuna returned briefly to the castle to introduce Sophie to their friends and enjoy some time with her. But as they laughed and greeted their friends for the first time in months, Silas couldn't help but watch the gates constantly. Corrin had put extra guards on watch for Silas's benefit, but that didn't seem to dampen his paranoia in the slightest.

Setsuna was sitting in Lilith's temple, where just about every off-duty woman was gathered, admiring the curly-haired girl in her mother's arms. Setsuna, meanwhile, never seemed to take her eyes off Sophie whenever she was in the room. She was fascinated with Sophie, which should not have been surprising, had she been any other woman. But this was Setsuna, the woman who never was fascinated with anything. Well, she had become fascinated with Silas, but that was merely blasé curiosity compared to the adoration on her face when she played with the "shwoops" around Sophie's ears.

But out of the corner of her eye, Setsuna saw Silas looking on from the entrance to the temple with what seemed to be a smile, but without much joy.

"Silas?" Setsuna called out, suddenly turning everyone's attention to her suddenly self-conscious husband.

Reina, the oldest of the women who had gathered, tactfully suggested that the family be left to themselves for a while, allowing Silas to venture over and speak in relative privacy.

"Setsuna?"

Setsuna turned Sophie around so that the baby could see her father. "Look, Sophie! It's your daddy…. Hi, Silas."

Silas smiled and knelt to look at Sophie at eye level and tickle her fat cheek. "Hi there, baby girl."

After a moment, he stood again and laid his hand on Setsuna's shoulder. "It's time to go now."

Setsuna didn't answer.

"Setsuna?"

"Hmm?"

"It's time to go. We've got to take Sophie to her deeprealm."

"Mhmm."

Silas leaned down to make sure Setsuna wasn't dozing off. She wasn't—she was wide awake as ever she was with Sophie. "Are you listening, Setsuna?"

Her eyes still didn't rise. "Yep. I know. I hope she likes it there. I hope she has lots of friends."

Silas's hand slipped as he lost his balance for a moment. "Um, yeah…. Yeah, I hope she does too. But you know we won't be able to see her for a while, though, right? And she'll be quite a bit older the next time we visit."

Setsuna slowly stood and adjusted her arms to keep Sophie comfortable. "Yeah…. That's sad…. Really sad. But it's for the best, right? I wouldn't want anything to happen to her. Not ever. So I think I can do it… for Sophie."

Almost immediately, Silas felt his anxiety subside. It seemed that Corrin was right. Silas leaned down to his wife and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, Setsuna. I can't tell you how much I need you."

Setsuna finally looked up at Silas and kissed him back. "Love you, too."

The first month sailed along, with Silas and Setsuna making weekly visits to see Sophie. Setsuna's daydreams during their separations were consumed by thoughts of how she and Silas would spend time with Sophie. And when those daydreams found life at the end of the week, Setsuna was completely absorbed in loving her daughter and giving her whatever she wanted or needed. And Setsuna always knew whichever thing Sophie needed. Her connection to her daughter was practically telepathic, especially considering how little time they had spent together.

Silas, meanwhile, was more reserved. He often would just sit and stare at Sophie when she giggled, cried, teethed, slept, and wriggled in his or Setsuna's arms. In fact, it was almost as if he and Setsuna had switched personalities when they were with Sophie. He would sit virtually comatose just to watch his lovely daughter, but Setsuna suddenly became enthusiastically engaged in feeding her, shaking a rattle, singing a lullaby, or playing peek-a-boo with the bang that fell over Setsuna's eye. And the moment they left the deeprealm, Setsuna would talk constantly about every minute observation she had made about Sophie until Setsuna gradually settled back into her more lethargic manner. They both couldn't be happier. And they wouldn't be.

The next visit was precisely calculated so that they would arrive in time to mark Sophie's sixth month. Although determining age didn't work quite that way in Hoshido, Corrin's army generally maintained the Nohrian system, and Setsuna was eager to find any excuse to dote on Sophie. Setsuna brought with them a special set of clothes that she had Oboro make for the occasion. Silas, meanwhile, brought a small stuffed horse toy from his younger days—he planned to get Sophie hooked on horses as soon as possible. To both of them, this was an event, and they were going to treat it as one.

The caretakers greeted them and chatted briefly with Silas. They had long since learned that attempting to converse with Setsuna was useless when Sophie was on her mind. They led her to a different door than usual—apparently Sophie had moved out of the old baby room. Silas thanked them as Setsuna poked her head through the door quietly—just in case Sophie was asleep. She slipped in and glanced around.

Suddenly Silas felt something clutching his right ankle. That something was a mop of teal curls attached to a toddler. A grin crossed his face. "Hello there, my baby girl."

Setsuna spun around and nearly squealed. "Sophiiiieee!" She fell to her knees by Sophie and held her arms out for Sophie to crawl to.

The little toddler gurgled and began crawling over, falling over herself as she did.

"It looks like she got a little more from you than her hair," Silas said, bending down to their level.

"Yeah, she's got my nose. Heehee…"

"That wasn't really what I meant," Silas said, watching Sophie clumsily pull herself into Setsuna's lap, "but it works."

Setsuna picked Sophie up and let her daughter play with her face. As she held Sophie in one arm, she reached up to pull her bang of hair away from her eye. "Boo!"

Silas grinned as Sophie squealed and reached out to pull Setsuna's hair back over her eye.

"Every time we visit, I can't believe how much I've missed seeing her." He wasn't quite speaking to Setsuna in particular. He was more or less speaking to himself, as if some cleric were recording his words to read back to Sophie when she grew older.

"What?! Silas, did you hear that?"

Setsuna was unusually urgent. Silas had grown used to her being more vibrant around Sophie, but he had never heard her express any kind of distress.

"What is it, Sets—"

"Na-na. Na-na, na-na."

"She did it again!"

"She's speaking!" Silas couldn't understand what Setsuna was so concerned about. This was amazing! Their daughter was speaking her first words right in front of them, and—

"Why is she asking for 'Nana'?" Setsuna's voice sounded as if Lady Hinoka had just decided to leave Setsuna in a pit and then covered it up again just to be sure.

"Nana? I think it's just gibberish. We shouldn't expect her first words to be—"

"They're not her first words, Silas! She's asking for someone called Nana."

Silas was about to interject when one of Sophie's caretakers came in.

"I'm sorry, I thought I heard Sophie calling for me. She's—"

"You're 'Nana?!'" Setsuna stood up, glaring at the caretaker in a way she didn't even look at the most barbaric Nohrian berserker. Sophie, on the other hand, saw "Nana" and began giggling and clapping.

"Yes, she started speaking a few weeks ago. We had been calling ourselves Pop-Pop and Nana around her, and she began to pick it up. Is she fine? I can get something for you if she needs it."

Setsuna fumed. "How could you! We're her parents, and we not only missed her first words, but she doesn't even realize who we are. She thinks of you that way, but she just sees us as visitors!"

The caretaker, an older woman, looked into Setsuna's eyes and saw something familiar. "I know how you feel, dear. You've missed a lot in these few months, and I can't imagine how—"

"But it hasn't been months," Setsuna said, casting out her free arm in exasperation. "It's been only a few weeks! I should have come back. You could have sent someone to—"

Silas grimaced. He didn't know what to do—Setsuna had never behaved this way before—but he felt like he had to do something.

"Setsuna, there was no way they could have gotten word to us in time for this."

Setsuna's glare turned on him, which unsettled him in a way he didn't know was possible.

"You're on her side, Silas?"

"Her side? No, no, Setsuna, I'm not on any side. This doesn't have any sides, it's just something that can't be helped."

"Yes it can, Silas. We can stay here. We could be raising our own daughter and we wouldn't miss anything."

Silas laid his hand on her shoulder. "But we would be missing something. We'd be leaving our friends to fight and possibly die on our behalf while they still can't raise their own children. Suppose that while we were in here, Lady Hinoka or Lord Corrin were to die because we weren't there to protect them?"

Setsuna didn't answer. She didn't even seem to be listening. She was looking at Sophie, who bore a look of absolute bewilderment as she listened to the two of them argue.

"I think…" she began, "it would be better if we talked about this later. We can wait until Sophie's asleep… And when I've thought about it more."

Sophie started looking at Silas, as if she knew exactly what was going on. He stepped forward and hugged the both of them—his family—before returning to playing with Sophie just as they had been.

Over the course of the week, that conversation never finished. Silas and Setsuna took every opportunity to avoid it, which became far easier when Sophie began to yell "Mom-mee" repeatedly as she crawled over everything in the room. When it came time to leave, neither of them felt the need to waste their last few moments with Sophie continuing an argument that had since become pointless.

In fact, the issue didn't arise at all for the next few visits as Sophie approached her first year. Part of it was helped by Corrin, who saw to it that he allowed more frequent visits for Setsuna, explaining it away as for the sake of morale, though it was obviously a personal favor to Silas. But Setsuna was hurting nonetheless. Every time she saw her daughter, her face displayed bitterness mixed in the joy. She noticed every tiny difference between the Sophie before her and the Sophie she last remembered. Nonetheless, she took it in stride—just not in the devil-may-care way that was usually her nature.

Unfortunately, that ended when the army drew closer to Windmire. While they could conceal themselves in the astral realm to rest or return to somewhere Lilith had established a connection, they still had to march by foot to anywhere they hadn't already been. And once in Nohr, it became too dangerous to march without every able fighter on hand—or so Saizo insisted. And after Ryoma concurred, Corrin couldn't bring himself to disagree. After passing through the border wall, visits reduced for everyone.

Setsuna wasn't happy with the change. She didn't show it, given that she was still caught daydreaming just as often as always, but Silas had lived with her long enough to notice the differences. She had stopped trailing off her sentences with a smile on her face, laughing at some thought that scrambled in and out of her head. Now she was simply consumed with boredom tinged with yearning. Silas sometimes would try to cheer her, chatting her up and trying to hold her interest, but then she would see his cowlick and her mind would wander back to Sophie's deeprealm, her fingers tracing along the "shwoops" of Sophie's hair.

When the time finally came to visit Sophie again, Setsuna was starved for time with her. She once again brought a set of clothing made by Oboro, while Silas simply tried to keep Setsuna calm. Several times she found herself wandering toward the gates out of the castle after she repeatedly lost patience, and Silas fortunately had prevented it every time. But when the time to visit did come, Silas and Setsuna rode through Lilith's portal to the deeprealm with haste that the horses seldom saw outside of battle.

When they arrived, Setsuna practically leaped off her horse and ran up the path to the cottage's door while Silas hung back to tie the horses down. Setsuna stood at the door bouncing on her toes as she waited for the caretakers to respond to the rung bell. She almost charged through the doorway until she heard a sudden gasp and a force strike her in the legs and wrap them tight.

"Mommy!"

Setsuna looked down to see a five- (maybe six-?) year-old girl with short, tangled teal hair. A sudden burst of excitement caught in her throat. This was a young girl, speaking without a toddler's lisp and walking without a toddler's wobble. The joyful squeal of "Sophie!" that she had bottled for months instead came out as a soft, bittersweet whisper as she knelt to hug her daughter. "What happened to my baby girl? You're far too big to be her."

"It's me, Mommy! Nana says I'm gettin' to be big 'nough to help her with the horseys an' the cows and the chickens. She says she needs it after Pop-Pop went away, an' I'm really good at it, too. I been practicin' with the horsey Daddy gave me." Sophie raised the stuffed horse that Silas had given her years earlier, before her eyes suddenly widened and she ran around Setsuna. "Daddy!"

Setsuna watched Sophie dash to Silas as he squatted down with his arms open for her. "She's even running now," she whispered to herself, wincing briefly when Sophie stumbled on a rock and clambered back up. "We've missed it all."

"Lady Setsuna?" It was Sophie's "Nana." She continued, "I heard Sophie mention it, roundabout. It's just me now. My husband is in the afterlife now with the forgotten."

"We've missed it all." Setsuna said again.

Nana laid a hand on Setsuna's shoulder. "Believe it or not, lass, they always do—deeprealms or no. I know it breaks your heart to see the change so sudden."

"We've missed it all." Setsuna didn't snap this time. She just stood watching Silas talk with Sophie as she showed him how well she had groomed her toy horse.

Nana guided Setsuna inside. "Why don't you have a seat? I don't have Hoshidan tea, but I've always found the Nohrian kind calming in its way."

The day progressed fairly well. Sophie bounced all over the cottage, playing with both parents and spending a considerable amount of time with Silas around the animals. Silas himself could hardly keep up, while Setsuna sat back far more than usual—not that Silas noticed. Sophie was moving far too quickly for him to do so.

When night fell, Sophie and Silas were each tuckered, and he took her to her bed for the night before trudging to the guest room and falling asleep himself. Meanwhile, Setsuna still sat with the images of her daughter as she remembered her.

"Do you want to talk, lass?" Nana said, sitting in a chair next to Setsuna.

"No…" Setsuna said, her fingers following an imaginary hair "shwoop." "No… I want my daughter back…. The way she used to be…. We missed so much."

Nana leaned forward and smiled. "I know, lass. Every mother knows. No matter how many you have or how much time you spend with them, children always grow up too fast."

"But… if I'd been here… in the deeprealm…"

"Believe me lass. I've lived here all my life and had seven children who have all gone their separate ways. They all grew up too fast. It's not the deeprealms. It's being a mother."

Setsuna turned to look at Nana. "If that's right… how could you do it? I can't…"

"It's hard at first. Harder than most anything, I'd say. People say that childbirth is hard, but physical pain goes away, and magic can soothe it. But the pain of watching the years pass stays with you always, and there's no staff or balm to make it any easier. But it's the pain of living, and—believe it or not—that pain is part of what makes life wonderful. It's a string of fiery trials that makes you stronger for it and so that when you look back on life as I do now, you do so with pride and love."

Setsuna didn't answer, and she didn't ask anything else either. Nana eventually rose and went to bed, leaving Setsuna to think to herself.

"How could she do it? How… can I do it?"

"I can't."

"But… I can do something… something else."

Silas didn't wake up until the late hours of the morning. He rolled over to reach around Setsuna, only to realize she wasn't there.

"Must already be up." He mumbled to himself.

Silas dragged himself off the bed and stretched before leaning on the wall to give himself a moment to wake up a little more.

"I don't remember ever being this tired before, Sets—oh, right. Maybe I should have sent Sophie to play with her for a little while. Then again, Sophie's probably already awake and making up for the lost time."

Not having changed out of his clothes in the first place—and not caring to do it now—Silas walked straight out toward the fireplace where he suspected he would see the evidence of the breakfast he missed. But there wasn't any. The room was entirely empty.

"Maybe they're with the horses."

But they weren't. They weren't with the horses; they weren't with the cows or the chickens. They weren't anywhere around as far as he could tell.

"Are they not up yet?" Silas said to himself, feeling somewhat awkward for doing so even if there was no one else there to hear him. "I guess I'll go check."

"SOPHIE! LADY SETSUNA!"

Silas whirled. It sounded like Sophie's caretaker, whom he just realized he hadn't seen yet either. He found her standing inside Sophie's room, panicked and yelling out a shattered window. Silas froze. The room was trashed, with the blanket tossed on the floor and arrows driven into the walls.

"What happened here!?"

The caretaker turned, sobbing and holding Sophie's torn pillow in her hand. "I don't know, Lord Silas! I came in here this morning to wake little Sophie and she was gone with the window busted and arrows everywhere, and then her mother was gone too and I—I—I don't know, I must have passed out, but I—oh, dear, Lord Silas, how could this happen? If anything happened to that baby girl I'd just—"

Silas held the old woman as his mind sorted itself out. After a moment, he found clarity. Pulling himself away, he marched to the stable in the farmyard and began cinching his horse's tack.

"YAHOO! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!"

The hare Setsuna had been aiming at dashed away. "Oh… Yes, Sophie?"

"I got one, I got one!"

Setsuna crept through the brush to the tree that she had stowed Sophie in. Sophie was hanging from one of the limbs by her legs as she clutched a wriggling lizard in her hands. "Can we eat this one, mommy?"

Setsuna glanced over the lizard. She had never eaten a lizard—as far as she knew, it wasn't a great idea to try, either. But if Sophie caught it, she wanted to give it a chance.

"Sorry, Sophie. I don't think there's much to eat there. Why don't you come down and walk with Mommy?"

Sophie tossed the lizard into the weeds and tried to gradually pull herself back up so that she could safely climb over to the trunk and then down. Unfortunately, a stray twig poked through her clothing and surprised her, causing her to tumble off the branch onto her back with an "oof!"

"I'm okay!" Sophie sprang back to her feet and came to heel behind Setsuna.

"Phew." Setsuna suspected Sophie could take a few hits without much issue—if she took after Setsuna at all, Sophie should be able to take a lot more than that—but it still worried Setsuna.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, Sophie?"

"How come Daddy didn't come on this huntin' trip?"

Setsuna thought of Silas back at the cottage. He shouldn't be worried. Setsuna had wandered off for early morning hunts all the time. Granted, she never brought Sophie before, but that was why Setsuna had smashed the window and shot a bunch of arrows into the wall. Silas would come looking for them soon enough, once they were back in Corrin's castle and this stupid deeprealm was long gone. Silas probably wouldn't have thought it was a good idea, but Setsuna did, and Silas had often suggested she take more initiative.

"Mommy?"

"Hmm? … Oh… yes, sorry Sophie." Setsuna regathered herself. It was rare for her to be caught daydreaming around Sophie, but if anything could draw her thoughts away, it was Silas. "Daddy… um… doesn't like… hunting."

"Really?" Sophie looked down at her feet for a moment as she hopped across some tree roots, stumbling briefly. "What does Daddy like?"

"He likes… fighting for Lord Corrin… he likes horse stuff…" Setsuna giggled. "He likes your Mommy and Sophie most of all." Setsuna's mind popped back into her memories for a visit with Silas before Sophie asked another question.

"Well, why isn't he here, then, Mommy? He doesn't hafta hunt. He could just walk with us an' talk an' tell me about horseys an' help you not fall inta' traps an' stuff."

"Well… um…" Setsuna wasn't sure what to reply. Technically she hadn't lied. Silas wasn't particularly fond of hunting, but he had gone occasionally to spend time with her. But before she could think of an answer, her eyes caught a glint in the grass.

"SOPHIE!"

Setsuna yanked Sophie away from the object of interest—a bear trap that Setsuna laying in the grass.

"Mommy, what's wrong?"

"You see that in the grass, with the metal teeth? That's a bear trap. You don't want to get caught in one without a good healer or liege nearby to help…. Well, actually, it would be better for you never to get caught in one at all."

Sophie began to grin in admiration. "Wow, Mommy, that's cool! Daddy told me you were really bad about spotting traps, but you're actually really good!"

Setsuna had to roll that statement around in her head for a moment. It was true that when she traveled by herself, she let her eyes wander from the grass to the butterflies to the mountains without any care for where her feet landed. And when Lady Hinoka or Silas were near, she had them to rely on. But around Sophie, she now realized, she was much more cautious. And a cursory glance through the woods revealed a whole new world to her. From where she stood, she spotted at least two more traps—three if you counted the spiderweb between a pair of ferns (and Setsuna always counted webs—she had been blinded by enough to know).

"Sophie, I think it might be time we move a little quicker. Stay beside me, though."

"Okay, Mommy."

Setsuna and Sophie made much slower progress after the bear trap incident, but they successfully avoided every trap and made it very nearly to the exit of the deeprealm before night fell and Setsuna decided to make camp. Sophie had tired herself out and Setsuna let her nap as she kept watch by the fire with her bow. She never quite slipped into daydreams—did they still count as daydreams if you had them at night?—but her mind couldn't help but wander back to Silas. It came at one point that he could almost hear her calling her and Sophie in desperation, and at one point she very nearly picked Sophie off the ground to head back to the cottage.

"I'm sorry, Silas. But this will be better for us. Better for Sophie. She needs her parents, and once we're back with the army, you'll see."

"Setsuna?"

Setsuna paused for a moment. Was that from her head?

"Sophie?"

"Silas?" She said softly. The voice definitely wasn't from her head. It sounded as if it were coming from beyond the forest somewhere—probably a nearby meadow, if her sense of direction served her well (and it generally had on this trip).

"Setsuna?"

It was definitely him. And Setsuna wanted to call out in response. But she couldn't—not until she and Sophie were out of the deeprealm. Silas had too much of a sense of duty to see what Setsuna could—what a mother could—and he wouldn't see it until she could show him.

Setsuna glanced around and became aware of the smoke rising from her campfire. "He must have seen it after I set camp." Setsuna turned to douse the fire with a bucket of dirt she had gathered earlier. "I'm sorry, Silas."

The sudden loss of heat roused Sophie briefly. She rubbed her eyes and groaned before pushing herself off the ground.

"Mommy? Mommy? Where are you? It's dark!"

Setsuna hurried over to Sophie and held her reassuringly. "Shh, it's all right, Sophie, I'm here. It's okay."

"Mommy, what happened?" Sophie's voice quivered as she clutched her mother.

"It's okay, Sophie. We just need to move a little earlier than I expected. Here, I'll carry you for a little ways."

Traveling through the woods was even slower than before. Aside from having to carry all of their gear on her back and Sophie in her arms, Setsuna was still trying to avoid any potential threats, which became even harder in the dark. Fortunately, Sophie had fallen asleep again, which made her harder to carry but easier to keep calm.

"My… you're heavy now, Sophie. Such a… big girl." Setsuna thought to herself, letting her tears flow in the dark.

It wasn't a terribly long walk, fortunately, and she hadn't heard Silas's voice since leaving the camp. She eventually stood on the edge of the deeprealm's permanent connection to her main universe. She wasn't certain what was on the other side—she had always used temporary portals created by Lilith before—but she was certain she could pray to the tiny astral dragon to get her attention once in the main realm.

She walked to the edge of the portal, glowing blue and displaying a small village with a river and a few forests. She waited for the image to change to daytime—easier to travel that way—and stepped through.

The light of the sun was fairly muted. Apparently, she had emerged in Nohr, which was usually night-black all day, save for a short period of time every few years during which it exchanged skies with Setsuna's homeland. She turned toward the village, pausing only briefly to consider if it was safe to visit. Who knew how a Nohrian village would react to a woman very clearly wearing Hoshidan clothing and a yumi? No, it was best to march alone. She couldn't risk any harm to Sophie from Nohrian loyalists.

She crossed the river to the relative cover of the forest, hoping some wyvern riders high above were too far away to pay attention to her. Once there, she laid her still-sleeping daughter on the ground and bowed her head.

"Lilith, I need you to give me a portal to the castle. Please hurry, I've been traveling for a long time."

…

Nothing.

"Lilith, please. I need your help."

Still no answer.

"Where is she? She's always heard us before."

Perhaps Setsuna was too far away. It was possible that Lilith could hear, but not respond. Lilith's portals generally had to be near a place the army had already marched through, so maybe Setsuna just wasn't close enough. It wasn't as if they had traveled terribly far into Nohr before she and Silas had left to visit Sophie.

"I guess we'll have to take our chances in the village, then, Sophie," she said as she picked Sophie up from the ground and cradled her as if she were still the baby she remembered. "Let's go."

A day later, she and Sophie safely left Riverside Village. While they had found her clothing and her yumi odd, none of them found it suspicious, and after seeing a map, she saw why. The village wasn't terribly far from the Dragon's Gate, which likely made oddly dressed strangers a common sight. Fortunately, the Dragon's Gate was also a landmark that she knew Lilith had linked to, even before they had crossed into Nohr.

Although it was close, the Dragon's Gate was still a fair piece of traveling away from Riverside Village. Sophie was awake now, however, which made the journey easier. But Sophie herself was growing concerned.

"Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"I miss Daddy. This hunting trip is too long."

Setsuna ran her fingers through Sophie's hair, noticing a black headband that Silas had given her during one of their visits after he had noticed that her locks had become particularly unruly. Sophie reached up and pulled it off her head to look at it.

"Daddy gave me this, remember? He said it would help me keep my hair from getting in the way once I become a knight and ride my own horsey."

"Mhmm." Setsuna tried to sound calm in order to spread that feeling to Sophie, but it didn't seem to work.

"I can't wait to be a knight. Daddy told me about some knights from a place called Arky-nay-uh. They're not real, but they're really cool. The green one is my favorite. He's sometimes called the Panther, but his real name is… Avel, I think. I think I'm gonna name my horse Avel once I'm a knight." Sophie's smile turned down again. "If Daddy were here he'd remember everything about the Arkynayuns and Prince-Hero-King Mars. But Daddy's better than any of them."

Setsuna stopped in her tracks. Sophie had brought Silas back to the forefront of her mind, and she could hear his voice calling again, clearer than it ever could have been even if he were standing right in front of her rather than in a daydream. She could see him calling, and then Sophie ran to him and leaped into his arms before he could tell her about the Bull and the Panther or the roguish flirt Sain or the mighty gold knight Mycen. For the first time in a while, Setsuna realized how hard it must have been for Silas. She had assumed it was easy for him, the duty-bound cavalier, to put his lord ahead of his family, and that he simply couldn't understand that it just wasn't as easy for a mother to do that as it was for a father. But she hadn't been paying attention. Just as she had doted on Sophie with every visit and hardly let her out of her sight, Silas had always hung behind her shoulder, just as loving and obsessed with protecting and raising their baby girl as she had been. But then why couldn't he see it? How could he miss years out of his daughter's life if he loved her as much as Setsuna did?

"Mommy? What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Setsuna felt Sophie grab her hand. She looked down to see Sophie's eyes about to overflow as well, even though she had no idea what Setsuna was thinking. Setsuna leaned down and wrapped her daughter in her arms. "Oh, Sophie. Someday you'll know."

They stayed still for a few minutes, embracing each other and crying into each other's hair, until Sophie raised her head.

"Mommy, there's a knight coming up the hill."

Setsuna turned, but saw nothing. She wiped her eyes to clear her vision, but still saw nothing.

"It's not over there anymore, Mommy. His horse rode over there." Setsuna turned east, where Sophie pointed. She could see the Dragon's Gate atop a hill in the distance, but there was certainly no knight in the space between.

"Mommy, I can hear his horse, but I can't see it."

Setsuna still saw nothing, but drew her yumi cautiously. "What did he look like, Sophie?"

"He was hard to see. At first I thought he looked normal, but then he turned purplish and I couldn't see parts of him. Like a glass of water."

Setsuna scanned around with an arrow nocked. She listened for the sound of hooves. She sniffed the air for the scent of a tired horse. She typically took down enemies with a casual flippancy, but those who threatened her family would receive her full attention.

"Mommy, behind you!"

Setsuna whirled and her eye caught sight of a violet glint. Within a moment, her arrow struck the glint and revealed a physical form of a cavalier who tumbled to the ground and vanished.

"Mommy, there's more!"

Setsuna turned again to see a brigade of more cavaliers riding up the hill before their images faded into faint purple outlines.

"You can't have her!" Setsuna shouted as she let loose more arrows. Most of the cavaliers fell instantly, but a few were paladins, able to take her arrows with ease.

"Mommy, they're getting closer!" Sophie huddled behind Setsuna, fortunately aware enough to avoid grabbing a hold on her and allowing her to fire freely. Setsuna turned her attention to the remaining paladins, managing to fell them before they came close, but the distraction allowed several of the cavaliers to approach closer than she could handle.

"Please Lilith, if you can hear me, send help."

Setsuna heard a muffled response. Lilith! She could hear apparently, but it was difficult to discern. "Help us, Lilith, send help!"

"Sets*na. I can't sen* an*one in t*me, but Silas w*s *earchin* for you at R*vers*de Village. He may be near."

Setsuna shot the closest band of cavaliers and turned her eyes westward for a moment. She couldn't see anyone, but that gave her a goal.

"Sophie, come with me, hurry!"

Sophie scrambled to her feet and ran beside her mother. Setsuna had to slow down, both to keep Sophie along and to shoot cavaliers, but they made fairly good time in entering the woods across the river from the village, where the cavaliers could not easily follow. Now they could make a move.

"Sophie, look through my bag for a tube of wood with a slot in it."

"Found it, Mommy."

"Okay. Now blow into it from this end as hard and as long as you can. It'll make a loud noise, but keep blowing it."

"But they'll find us, Mommy."

"That's okay. Mommy can handle them in here long enough."

Sophie nodded and obeyed, repeatedly blowing as loud as possible. Setsuna's deer call had always been a little too loud to actually be useful for hunting, but if it worked now—

"SETSUNA!"

"Daddy?!"

There was his voice. Not in her head, and not calling uncertainly in some field. And in his voice's echo, she could practically hear the hooves of his horse riding towards her.

"Keep blowing, Sophie. Make sure Daddy hears."

Sophie continued with new vigor as Setsuna continued firing at the cavaliers clumsily meandering between the trees. And then she saw someone else riding through. The rider's skill in navigating his horse showed this wasn't just another grunt, and the black sheen of his armor was far more welcome than the invisible horsemen.

"Sophie, run to Daddy!"

Sophie stopped blowing and whirled to see her knight-in-shining-armor fell an approaching paladin that Setsuna's arrows had softened. Silas's eyes turned to her and he rode forward, leaning to the side so that he could sweep Sophie up into the saddle with him. Setsuna shot a few more enemies before Silas rode up to her.

"Need a lift, milady?"

Setsuna turned and hopped behind Silas, holding him tight around the ribs. "Silas... I…"

He began riding out of the woods toward the village. "Some trap you've fallen into this time, isn't it?"

"Are you mad?"

"To have married a girl like you just because I love you? I've got to be mad. But I've never been happier to have you with me."

Silas rode back into the deeprealm, and seemed to have lost the invisible cavalry. Upon returning to the cottage, Sophie's caretaker nearly cried a moat around the farm when she saw Sophie safe for what had been (for her) the first time in half a month, while Silas and Setsuna simply sat together holding each other tight by the fireplace with cups of tea in their hands. They didn't speak for a while, but each had questions to ask the other eventually.

"How did you know… where we went?"

"Well, let's just say that once I calmed down, I realized that all of the arrows were shot rather haphazardly. It reminded me of when you used to shoot arrows at me for help, and I thought perhaps there was more to the scene than we had thought. I voiced my theory to the caretaker, and (once she calmed down) she mentioned that you had been particularly hurt by realizing how much you had missed. I began searching and saw the smoke from your fire. From there, I followed your tracks when daylight came."

"Are you mad?" Setsuna asked again.

Silas sighed. "No, I'm not. Even if I wanted to be, I'm too tired for it now. I know I seem uncaring when I insist that she be kept here, but—"

"I understand. She told me… about some of the time she spent with you when I wasn't paying attention. I let my selfishness get between you and me."

"No, milady. You let your daughter take first place, and I'll never blame you for that. She's the most exciting thing that's happened to us, after all."

"Ha… yes…. But… I almost got her killed today, though, Silas."

"Oh, Setsuna. But you didn't. I've never seen you shoot better than you did today. They were never going to lay a finger on her."

"But if I had left her here… like you said… they never would have come close."

"Well. That's probably true. That's what I've been telling myself all this time after all. But quite honestly, my only regret is that I didn't go with you. We can't keep Sophie in a bottle, nor should we. We won't get to spend all the time with her that we should, but there's no reason we should waste that which we have panicking over keeping her safe from everything. While we've had enough adventure for this visit, I wouldn't mind taking Sophie on a camping trip in the woods for a few weeks sometime. After all, we wouldn't miss too much time on the outside."

"Silas…. You're so nice."

"And you're so beautiful." He replied, kissing her on the forehead.

She continued, "But I still feel… that we should take her home."

"I agree. I always have. That's why I fight for Hoshido: to bring peace home so that Sophie can live as much of her life with us as possible in a land without war. And that's how I can live with keeping her safe in here, because I live to make it safe out there."

"Is it that easy?"

"Not easy. But it works."

"Mmm.,,, Then I'll fight for her too."

Silas raised his teacup in front of him. "For Sophie?"

She clinked her own in response. "For Sophie."

From what I can tell, Setsuna's character is essentially a noblewoman who's been so pampered all her life that she's lost any sense of danger and therefore puts herself at risk regularly for kicks. The story idea came from that, wondering how Setsuna would react if she found something completely new that she wanted to protect and care for in a way she didn't for herself. Then there's the fact that the deeprealms would cause her to miss much of that experience, which isn't something the game really deals with—not with the parents, anyway. Unfortunately, that leads many fanfic writers to just pretend deeprealms don't exist, but I hate that kind of approach, and preferred to tackle it rather than ignore it.

It also fits with Setsuna's child supports. As a side effect of all the mothers' supports essentially being the same, Setsuna doesn't act nearly as airheaded around her daughter as she does when speaking to anyone else. This story interprets that to be a result of Setsuna finally finding in motherhood the excitement that she's always sought.

I once again give my disclaimer not to expect any more stories if I don't find something I like. I do however, have a few ideas:

1. A Conquest AU in which both sides have kids go through the Easy-Bake Deeprealm Ovens, and Selena adopts Caeldori after Subaki is killed in combat and Caeldori is a prisoner of Nohr.

2. A story that explores Kagero's character through the eyes of Orochi until motherhood. This would be a Kagero x Corrin fic, but the purpose wouldn't necessarily be shipping. Rather fleshing out the best aspects of Kagero's character, i.e. self-sacrifice and artistic expression.

3. A story about Kana thousands of years in the future as the goddess of Fateslandia, an examination of what Manaketes experience as they go mad.

4. Assorted Beruka stories that don't have well-developed ideas yet.

I hope you enjoyed "Parent Trap." See you later, maybe. ~Sean