Author's note: This is a seven part mini-fic, comprised of vignettes that play out within the already existing structure of White Clouds and Azure Moon to create a patchwork whole.

White Clouds, Harpstring Moon

Byleth suspected that Seteth would be much happier if he knew how little funding she was receiving from the Church of Seiros. Money talked, and although Rhea had made the incomprehensible decision to appoint Byleth to a professorship, the archbishop was apparently hedging her bets, financially speaking. Although it was hard to imagine Rhea personally approving all the monastery expenditures; maybe it was actually Seteth who signed off on Byleth's monthly funds.

That would certainly explain the sad little coin purse sitting in the middle of her desk. She picked it up and gave it whirl by the drawstrings, the ten gold pieces light as a feather against the needs of a classroom. With a sigh she let it hang at her side and rose from her desk. Even the gold itself was an annoyance; she would have to make a trip to the moneychangers if she wanted to spend it on anything useful.

"Professor?"

Byleth looked up from the ledger on her desk. Dorothea stood in the door of the classroom that doubled as Byleth's office when she wasn't lecturing. She had considered directing the students to her personal quarters if they had any concerns, but that felt strange, and she spent so much time in the classroom anyway that it made little difference to tack an office hours schedule on the bulletin board.

But Dorothea was a surprise, considering her enthusiastic choir participation and how gravely serious she was about her love life. Not to mention the whisperings of an amateur opera that Byleth had heard tell of in the dining hall.

Byleth sank back into her chair and waved Dorothea toward the empty seat she placed in front of her desk between lectures. Dorothea entered, poised as always, even when there was no one around to impress. She perched on the edge of her seat and smiled coyly—although Byleth had come to see it not as a condescending smile, but one that said Dorothea wouldn't be caught dead in a moment of embarrassing ignorance. She always knew what was going on, even when she didn't.

"Professor, I was wondering if you might give me something to do."

Byleth regarded her silently for a moment, until she remembered Dorothea found that discomfiting. "Such as?"

"Anything, really. Whatever you need to do this afternoon."

"Why?"

Dorothea cast a glance over her shoulder. "Seteth has been, well, insistent that I sing in the Saint Macuil Day choir, and I would rather not."

Byleth folded her hands on top of her ledger and retreated to the calm of her thoughts. Or, the once calm. She was still growing accustomed to sharing that space. From the bookshelf along one side of the room, Sothis looked up from her examination of the book titles. She pointed to them with a questioning air, and Byleth supposed that was as good an idea as any other.

"I recently bought a set of books for studying the arcana," she said. "Their pages still need to be cut. If you want, you can stay here and do that."

Dorothea looked much happier than the occasion warranted. "That sounds perfect. Even with the two of us, it could take hours."

"Just you." Byleth opened her desk drawer and removed a page knife. "I'm going to the celebration."

"Oh." Dorothea accepted the knife, visibly confused. "I didn't realize…I didn't think you were particularly religious."

"I'm not. But I've never gone before, and Seiros's Day was interesting. I'm curious to see how Macuil differs."

Dorothea stifled a laugh, and Byleth cocked her head. "What?

"Nothing, it's just no one calls them by their names, not unless you want a dressing down from most-pious-in-the-room. Usually Ferdie."

"Macuil was his name, so that's what I call him." Byleth gestured to the bookcase. "The books are on that middle shelf over there."

She rose and tied the coin purse to her belt. She would deposit it in her personal quarters on her way to the cathedral. As she was preparing to go, Seteth strode into the room.

"Professor, have you seen—oh. There you are, Dorothea. Both of you, it's almost time for the celebration to begin. The choir has already begun warming up."

Byleth hesitated, then removed a small whetstone from her drawer and placed it on the desk. With a nod to Dorothea, she left her to the mind-numbing task of cutting open the pages of a ten volume primer on the white arts. Even agnostic as she was, Byleth would rather be at a celebration. She liked fun.

"Dorothea," Seteth said, "come along. The choir would be sadly lacking without you, especially considering Manuela's current…state."

Byleth stopped in the doorway. "Dorothea is staying here. I need some book pages cut for tomorrow's lecture."

Seteth's brow furrowed deeper than usual, and he looked between the two women as though he suspected conspiracy. "Are you covering a lecture for someone?"

"No. It's for my white arts seminar."

"You can perform white arts perfectly satisfactorily, I've seen you."

"Yes, but I can't lecture on it. I lack the necessary foundation." She indicated the very monastery around them, religious seat of all Fódlan. "Which is why I'm going to Macuil's celebration."

"Saint Macuil!"

Seteth nearly choked on the words, but Byleth merely shrugged and left the room. After a glance at Dorothea, Seteth also left in a huff. On the walkway between the tea gardens and the cathedral, he sped up and passed Byleth, muttering something about making sure everything was in place. For a brief moment she walked in silence, and then the sound of hurried footsteps on stone caught her up from behind.

"Professor." Dorothea fell in beside her. "Did you mean that, about learning the church's teachings to understand the white arts?"

"Yes."

"But the arcana is something within us, innate. You don't see people drawing a connection between the goddess and the black arts. To say nothing of the dark."

"True, but I am curious. I've noticed all the best practitioners of the white arts are religious."

"Certainly not! Manuela's the best healer I've ever met, and she's one of the most impious people I know."

Byleth pursed her lips in thought. "I think Manuela is angry more than impious."

"Angry?" Dorothea came to a halt and fell behind before catching up on the grand bridge at the cathedral entrance. "Angry with the goddess?"

"Yes."

"You can do that?"

"I don't see why not—but then, you're asking the wrong person."

Dorothea lapsed into silence as the cheerful roar of saint's day festivities engulfed them. She stayed close to Byleth and did not take a place among the choir, but when the time came for call and response singing, she leaned close and sang off the same folio as Byleth. Byleth had never seen her so subdued.

After the opening hymns, the evening passed in a blur of further song, food, and traditional dancing, which most of the students found dreary and stolid, although apparently they were amused by how closely Byleth paid attention to it.

"Like a field researcher studying animal behavior," she overheard Hubert musing to Edelgard.

At the end of the celebration the cathedral doors were thrown open, and the crowd spilled out into the late spring evening in two and threes, carried along by currents of laughter and murmured conversation. Byleth took a detour to her classroom and retrieved the books, and to her surprise Dorothea followed.

"You don't have to help me," Byleth said. "I was planning on staying up."

"I said I would, so I will." Dorothea paused as they each took an armful of books, and then, "Besides, I wanted to ask you something."

Byleth glanced at her and continued walking across the dark monastery grounds in silence. They passed through the shadows of stone columns and garden trellises, the moon drifting like a great fish among the clouds.

At last Dorothea said, "I don't have much faith in the goddess, but I do have faith in you, professor. You went to the celebration to better help us as students, and I can't help but admire that. If you'll have me, I would like to join your white arts class."

"Do you have the time?"

A venomous little smile appeared at Dorothea's lips, and Byleth could see that from anyone else, Dorothea would have taken that as a jab at her love life, but her expression soon shifted back to contemplative as she discarded the offense.

"I can make the time."

"It starts at noon," Byleth said, and added, as Dorothea raised an eyebrow, "For Linhardt."

Dorothea laughed, and they stepped into Byleth's personal quarters. With the door propped open and lantern light spilling onto the green, they stayed up for the next two hours, cutting open pages to the sound of Dorothea's quiet humming and Byleth's whetstone along their knives.