Before Fate
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Until he was 5 years old Leo spoke in nothing but Hoshidan.
It wasn't until he was allowed the chance to meet his older sibling's long term after his mother died that he realized he didn't understand what they were saying. Despite this fact the older two took to him and Xander taught him the Nohrian language.
Leo understood he was a Nohrian Prince but didn't understand just exactly what it meant until, when he was still a beginner of the Nohrian language, he was brought to Castle Krakenburg to live with his father.
He was taken from the castle he grew up in on the border of Hoshido and Nohr where he had lived with his Hoshidan mother, from the people who spoke predominantly Hoshidan and dumped into a world with a harsh language and even harsher people.
Even at the age of 16 Leo could still remember those mocking condescending looks the nobility gave him, of their harsh whispered words that he would not understand until he was older whispering "Why does the King keep the half Hoshidan runt?" "Why allow him to even have a title?"
He had grown bitter his eyes never once dancing in laughter as they had once had when with his mother. Once where there was a happy go lucky child who laughed and played around, was a child who was cold and blunt.
Camilla had worried, he had known even at the time. While he had not had much interaction with his siblings for the first 5 years of his life he had visited them the few times his mother met up with theirs. That had stopped as soon as the first concubine had killed a royal child.
His mother in fear had locked down their castle in the mountains; no one was allowed in or out. It had worked well for a year and some months until that fateful day where Leo had found her in their shared quarter's blood pooled around her.
She had still been alive clinging onto life perhaps just to see her precious son one last time.
"My Shishi… I am sorry… my dear son."
"Okaa-sama?! OKA-SAMA!" He remembered trying to grab at her healing staff, to try and heal her as she had been teaching him, hoping to pass off her skills as a Great Priestess to him.
But it had been for naught, she had died there in his arms. He had been found an hour later by his mother's retainer covered in her blood and still crying.
Camilla had known what had happened, had known how he was before his mother's death, before being brought to a court who hated him for half of who he was. And so when she saw him spiraling down a dark path she pulled him back out into the light.
Xander helped the best he could all things considered. But as crown prince of Nohr he had duties and was not around as much as he wanted to be.
His newest sibling and the youngest of the surviving royals was a 3 year old little girl named Elise. He had never been an older brother and took pride in being called Big Brother. He had tried to have her call him Onii-chan but once her maids and caretakers found him trying to teach her Hoshidan they forced him to stop.
And so he did.
He had tried to distance himself from his siblings but little Elise had clung onto him like the octopus he used to eat at home.
And so, he allowed her in. Camilla forced herself as usual being over protective of her cute younger brother and his Nii-sama, Xander, came to visit at least once a week.
Despite the upset of the court over his being there life passed fairly normal and quickly. Until one day his father came back from Cheve with a little girl wrapped in a cloak ten times bigger than herself. She looked downright miserable. No one was talking to her and she glared away from everyone anytime someone tried to engage her in conversation.
A day after she arrived he found her in the gardens, guards posted all around. When he walked into the gardens the guards glanced at him quickly and then away.
Stepping closer to her he greeted her softly.
"H-Hello…"
She looked at him confused for a second before looking away and sighing. "I don't understand you."
"It's okay I understand you." Her eyes widened. "You speak like me?" Leo nodded as he moved to sit down next to her on the stone bench she was sitting on. He looked at the dark sky before turning back to gaze at the girl.
"What is your name?"
"Kamui. B-But they keep calling me Corrin. Why won't they call me by my name…" She started to tear up and Leo wanted to lean over to hug her tightly. He refrained though because he knew if he comforted the prisoner (for what else would she be?) it would get back to his father and he wouldn't have to deal with the consequences.
"I'm sorry…" Leo muttered quietly. Kamui must have heard though because she told him it was alright.
They sat that day in companionable silence, the slight breeze rustling the flowers of the garden.
The next day when Father called a meeting of the Royal children and told Kamui (or rather Corrin as he introduced her) would be their new sibling Xander looked perplexed but Camilla and Elise looked happy at the fact that there were more girls now.
Leo figured they thought that Kamui came from another concubine, one that perhaps hide after giving birth to her. But Xander as Crown Prince would have been told everything, especially about how she was in all actuality a prisoner.
Leo sighed but decided he would get closer to her. After all she spoke his first tongue.
Less than a week later she was put in the Northern Fortress and they were only permitted to visit her a couple times a month.
He spent every time next to her teaching her Nohrian as he was learning despite the fact she had her own tutors.
It helped he realized as Kamui babbled about something inane that happened to her (about her best friend what was his name Silan? Silis?). It helped to have someone that he could talk to in his birth language. She slowly but surely helped him heal from the trauma of his mother's death.
And he, unknowingly, helped her adjust to not having memories and being alone.
They were each other's best friends.
(And if she was really happy when he called her Onee-chan for the first time and squealed and hugged him, well…)
AN: part 1 of 4. Shishi, btw means Lion in Japanese. Please review.