"Do not think of interrupting," Death says with Jeritza's speech pattern, a slow stilted manner of speaking as if he had learned from books instead of people.
He carves through one of his few soldiers in his lunge for Byleth, his entire body alight with eagerness.
A lifetime of facing Jeralt keeps Byleth from withdrawing, drops her stance low, points her blade at the horse's neck as it charges.
Her Crest scales over her like a second skin, drawing up on the surface like gooseflesh. The Sword of the Creator shoots out, its many sections rattling as it drives into the horse's throat.
A scream tears from the beast. Shaking the air. The cry of a banshee preceding death.
The horse lurches backward at the first bite of her sword. Makes her strike a shallow one instead of a deadly one. The motion yanks her forward as well, following her blade. Dirt and mud grit beneath her feet, lending no aid in holding her ground.
The horse turns on her, breath coming in thick bellows. Eyes roving and enormous. White frothing at the corners of its mouth. Giant hooves gouging deep trenches as it draws her into the range of the scythe.
Byleth takes a section of the sword against her palm, pulls it up to block Jeritza's scythe. The back of her sword digging painfully into her hand. Electricity trembles up her forearms at the force of the swing. She twists, aiming to deflect the weight of the scythe. Snaps her sword back together. Swings it high the second she gathers a breath, feeling a give beneath her, the Sword of the Creator biting deeper in the horse's neck, sliding its teeth through the previous injury. Sweeping over the horse's side, streaking over its rider's leg armor and sliding off.
The scythe carves into her cheek, swing going wide as the horse stumbles and Jeritza readjusts with a low growl, rips at her shoulders as she dodges low. Pain rumbles in the muscles of her back as she slices at the thick tendon of the horse's leg, tumbling out from beneath the beast as it goes to its knees. The weight of it, a phantom burden against her shoulders, slowing her retreat.
Jeritza is upon her at once. A wolf falling on prey.
Leaps from his horse with impossible nimbleness, as if the armor weighed no more than feathers. The red eyes in the mask gleam, Death himself rising to greet her.
Byleth chokes as the handle of the scythe digs into her throat, feeling the bruises come over her as she falls back. Swings her leg up to kick him away. Following with the furious swipe of her blade, withdrawing when he dodges.
She could see a lifetime of development in his form. No weaknesses to take advantage of. No openings in his guard.
Tension in his legs.
Set to spring.
A twitch of his fingers.
Steadying his wrist.
"Come!" he loosens the challenge.
They fall at each other as two blades. Mere weapons with no thought for anything else.
Battle-forged.
War hardened.
They meet in collisions. Each one like a bloom of thunder.
Full of pain and blood.
Each one reaching for life with a bandit's greed, simultaneously refusing to recoil from death.
Byleth punches his mask, her knuckles splitting with the force of her blow. Sweeps left as his head snaps back, her blade going soft into its whip shape, yielding and bending with her as she twists up the side of him. Striking for the head just as he breaks into her chest with the shaft of his scythe. Throws her to the ground just as she knocks the mask from his face.
Breathing becomes a talent on the edges of her reach. She gasps for air, unable to draw it back into her lungs. Her vision blurring as her boots skid the ground. Precious seconds she cannot afford to lose. Gravity reaches for her. Draws her into its grasp.
The scythe soars overhead, the wicked curve of it just barely missing her throat. The weapon twists in its path, weightless in Jeritza's hand, marking out a serpentine current in the air as it redirects with impossible ease. Strikes her down like the wrath of a higher being.
An iron weight against her sword.
She can feel Jeritza's breath in a snarl as he bears down on her, pressing her into the ground, the blade driving forth, hungry for her neck.
Byleth breathes fire, calling for her Crest, feels it burn at her, snapping at her limits, threatening to overwhelm. Something painful clutching at her chest, echoing the burn in her lungs –
In the distance, Ashe cries out.
A scream bright with terror, torn in half by an agony that sunk too deep in the core to be anything more than –
Byleth's Crest erupts.
Fire, the heat of it like the eternal flames, exploding from her. Detonating the grounds. The heat tearing at her skin, flaying her alive, seeking a form and finding no offering besides hers.
She shoves Jeritza aside with a strength bleeding out from the core of her. The effort so light she nearly stumbles, surprised by it.
The scythe carves at her side, a brilliant bolt of pain splintering through, as she twists just enough to catch a glimpse of Ashe falling, his grey hair caught in the wind as he went, the tail of a shooting star.
Miscalculated.
She'd miscalculated.
Again.
Ashe's cry is an echo in her heart, a distant pained thing she had not expected to hear when he'd run towards his father.
She had –
She had expected a surrender. Knows deep in her heart Jeralt would have had he seen them running, knows –
You absolute FOOL.
Reprimand rings in her mind, an oath tearing from her mouth as she spirals around to force Jeritza from her.
"Move!" she roars, a cry rivaling Raphael's warcries, piercing the skies above as she shoves back against the knight.
A near echo of the Mausoleum.
Fury guiding her arms as she swung up, the teeth of her sword clawing through his armor, sinking deep enough to eat at flesh. The sword twists and lunges like a live thing, guided and pushed by her anger, nearly alive in her hand, delighting in the battle, dancing under the song of her rage. It laps at the thick rivulet of blood across Jeritza's chest, seeking to mete out another injury.
From the corner of her eyes, she sees something flash.
Lonato raising his lance.
He couldn't do it. He wouldn't. Not his son - how could he possibly think to –
"No," Jeritza's voice echoes from behind her when she turns and she gasps, a wet ragged thing as his scythe carves at her side, lining over the first injury, him bearing down on her with enough force to bring her to the ground.
His knee digs mercilessly into her back and she can feel him moving. Rearing back for a strike. She whips her blade behind her, forcing him to roll off her, whisking out a thin rivulet of blood in the collar of his armor, just below his throat. She springs up the second his weight leaves her back, adrenaline dampening the burn in her sides.
"You and I are destined to fight. You cannot allow yourself such distractions," he shouts, something eager and hungry in his voice as if battle were his only sustenance, "I will not be robbed of another battle!"
Byleth inhales sharply, feeling the burn of her Crest. Something like smoke dancing in the roof of her mouth. A spiced heat lighting her tongue as she reaches for the power within her. Feeling it boil like an unwatched kettle, rising up and up to greet her. Something just as hungry as Jeritza behind the thick rush of power, a sensation twisting her stomach, skeletal arms of greed rushing over her body, aching to claim. Sweeping over her back. Her arms. Lending her strength. Blunting the pain in her side and shoulder.
As if from a distance, she watches her Sword section out. The individual pieces swirling around her with a force beyond her swing. Matching the arc of the scythe.
The scythe glimmers in what little light the fog offers and then gleams as a flare of sunlight strikes the black edge. The tip caressing the skin of her throat, just above the artery, drawing a thin –
Jeritza's blade goes sideways. His face twisted with the force of the hit.
"Professor!" Caspar's gauntlets flash in front of Byleth's eyes, the claw unfolding from its fist, grasping at her arm, shoving her, "Go!"
From behind, Catherine lurches out. The pale tendrils of the fog dissipating around her shoulders, trailing witch fingers over the silver of her shoulder armor. Thunderbrand screams as it rips at the air, one long mournful howl as she swings at Jeritza who meets the sword uneasily.
"Begone!" he snarls, "I will not be so robbed again!"
A Crest Byleth doesn't recognize lights the air above him. Low enough over him, it casts a ghastly hue against his cheeks as he rushes at Catherine who reacts in kind. Her own Crest splitting the air behind her head as she runs at Jeritza. An arrow cast on a target.
Someone shoves at Byleth and she remembers.
Ashe.
"I brought Catherine. I know you said keep her to the other troops but Linhardt said to. Said you'd be careless. Run ahead. Reckless. And dammit you were – I can't believe you proved him right. Do you know just how he's going to gloat about this? Or yell?! You haven't seen him upset, that Mausoleum … oh man, the Mausoleum really got to him. And you - you really don't wanna see him upset like that –"
Caspar's mouth runs like a spooked horse, the words falling from his lips in sharp rapid-fire staccato beats though he doesn't seem to hear himself. Something panicked and lost in his face as he goes to shove at her again.
"Shit shit shit, I know I went against orders. I can't - I don't – fuck, go!"
And Byleth is already moving. Knowing to take her openings, turning her gaze –
Ashe goes to his knees, rolling out of the way of the lance. His breath hitching. Not solely from exertion. The sound contorts into a sob as it bursts in his chest. Something wet and hot blazes against his cheeks. Tears blurring his eyes and his first shot is wide, unbecoming of the form Claude had shown him when teaching him close counters.
He cannot find himself to be too regretful. Relief burning in his chest as the arrowhead nicks Lonato's cheek instead of notching in his throat. Just a little scratch against a weathered face that used to brush Ashe's in a hug.
Ashe scrambles to a stand, dropping harshly down on one knee, stumbling in his blind attempt to flee. The pain in his thigh cresting over him in thick waves.
"Come Ashe!" Lonato shouts, his face sallow, twisted into something Ashe did not recognize.
Lonato presses forward, the step like a condemnation, his blue eyes sightless and blind in his vengeance. Seeing nothing of the present but only the past. Lost and drowning in a place Ashe could not reach. A set determination hanging in the deep grooves of Lonato's mouth and the dark bags beneath his eyes.
"I will not be moved," Lonato says, drawing resolution over his words, something wild in his face, "I will carry out my son's justice. I will burn the false goddess from this land. There will never be another like me – no more children to be stolen by that witch and her followers!"
The lance drives into the ground between Ashe's legs and in response, he fires two arrows, one striking Lonato's shoulder and the other biting into a thigh. Barely enough for Ashe to pull himself out of the way of another swing. The lance puncturing the air beside him, herding him like cattle towards the three knights around them.
"Lord Lonato," Ashe gasps, shouting as strong hands yank at his hair from behind, forces him to look up into a face he knew.
The vulnerability of his exposed throat draws terror to him, rattling in his rib cage like a trapped bird.
A knight who had once taught him to string a bow. Who had taken the blame when his sister broke a vase in Castle Gaspard on their first night. A woman who routinely bested him in chess. Laughed at him and his siblings when they raced on the castle grounds.
Someone grabs at his leg and he knows that knight too. He'd bought Ashe a set of books just four moons ago. Gifts for his acceptance to Garreg Mach.
Another behind him. A sword coming off the man's hip as he steps forward and Ashe doesn't want to look.
Faces he recognizes. People he'd trusted.
Dismay and sorrow and terror grabbing for him. One mangled mass of limbs clawing at his heart, tearing in all directions.
The knight's expression above him is unwavering, nothing resembling regret as she draws her sword. The point of it over Ashe's neck like an executioner's blade. Driving down towards him. Flashing in the sunlight.
Death written on the edge of it.
A scream, bloated with pain rips from Ashe's throat as he brings his bow up, gasping wetly as he just barely deflects the sword, feeling it whisper against his thumb as he knocks it aside. It swings wild towards the man holding his leg and Ashe slips from them with a thief's evasiveness. Half-blind as he scrambles out of their grip, feeling the echo of their touch. Will carry those feelings forever. Ghosts of people he once knew.
He twists to the side, firing a slew of arrows, biting his bottom lip bloody as one of his arrows finds a mark in a knight's chest. Grief tearing at Ashe's rib cage. Singing in his blood.
Another arrow pierces his leg, breaking his retreat. The knights are on him like wolves. His hands slipping in the mud as he tears himself from them. Driven solely by base instinct.
Feeling the cold fingers of death on his spine.
Understanding battle to be much different from the knights of his fairy tales. He shouts, vision going white for one hideously terrifying second as someone yanks at his hood. Snaps him backward. A fist drives against his cheek. Throwing him to the ground.
At the mercy of his father.
Ashe's nails bite the ground at Lonato's boot. The bitter taste of tears mingling with the iron in the back of Ashe's mouth.
"I am sorry this is the way of things," Lonato says, his voice like ice, dripping with cruel acknowledgment as he steps closer.
And his eyes are blue. Crystalline and bright. So like Christophe's.
Ashe can see the definition in Lonato's face. A noble's nose. A high brow. Wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. Knows them to crinkle tight when Lonato smiles. Remembers the lift in Lonato's mouth when he was full of mirth. Recalls warm summers when the sunlight struck them, the heat of the sun just like now against Ashe's fingertips.
The lance raises.
Ashe knows the weight and strength of Lonato's training lances. Recalls when he'd bore whaps and testing knocks against his arms and back and thighs as the knights looked on. Remembers training grounds, full of nothing at all but laughter and weightlessness. A time when Ashe did not know grief, could forget the cruelty of the world.
A space full of contentment –
"Father, please."
The lance jitters a little, a faint tremor in Lonato's hand, just a fraction of a second as his eyes go wide and then –
His head snaps back. So hard, Ashe has one hysterical moment of fear that he'd witnessed his father's death.
"No!" the scream rips from Ashe, clawing his throat bloody on the way out.
And then a burn of fire.
The spine of a dragon set alight whipping the air, displacing men and women with sheer strength.
A rattle like a ghoul.
A voice cast in judgment, holding incredulity and accusation like a blade.
"What are you doing to your son?"
Lonato weighs next to nothing.
A man of no worth.
Byleth can see the pulse of his throat against the teeth of her sword. The fragile flesh of an aged man. Knows it would take nothing more than a twitch for her blade to sink through. To eat away at his life as he had attempted to take his son's.
His son's.
The thought makes bile rise in Byleth's throat. An acerbic tang more cruel than any of Claude's poisons. The knights about them shift, their intentions clear. Intent on protecting an unworthy master. Someone who –
Her blade lashes out before she can think. Turning sword into whip with barely a thought. Her sword a part of her. The two of them intricately tied. The blades rattle and whisper, another voice roiling beneath her skin. Asking for her next move. Intent on coaxing her next swing.
Hatred is not an emotion she was accustomed to.
The taste of it against her tongue like ash. The feel of it in her belly, a poison eating away at the core of her.
Kill him.
The thought strikes her as an oddity.
The Ashen Demon did not feel such thoughts. Had never had great qualms against death. No hesitation and grief for the task the same way her brother did - he felt enough for the both of them. But she similarly did not crave killing. Felt no enjoyment in the clumsy way corpses slid from her sword. No satisfaction in carving out holes in her enemies.
Death was only meted out when required. Dealt by someone displaced and untouched by a desire for it. It was something to be done. A chore sometimes.
But this one.
This one she wanted to kill.
Hate blooming like a rose in her chest, a Garland Moon rose stained red as she stomps on Lonato's leg, feeling the sickening crunch of bone beneath her leg.
Old bones shattered so easily.
He doesn't cry out. Too much a knight to allow anything more than a low snarl of pain. But he cannot hide the effort of it. His weight drops more firmly against her, his breathing labored and difficult. Stuttering as his cheeks go red. Strain coming over him in a slow wave.
Nothing in comparison to the hurt reflected in his son.
Ashe looks at them both, terror in his grey eyes. His face a mess. Torn and bloody, tormented with agony. Byleth watches as he slowly stumbles to his feet, trembling as he looks to the bodies around him. His breathing too sharp and too quick as he hovers.
A bruised jaw. Arrows in his thigh. Blood staining his armor.
Byleth snaps the lance out of Lonato's hand, some sick pleasure coiling fingers around her heart when she feels a pop in his shoulders.
"Vile witch," he spits at her.
Hatred rips over his face as he curses. The look of a man unable to carry through his ideals but unable to relinquish them. Someone incapable of surrender. Who would seek death before he even thought on it.
Very well.
Byleth draws her hand back. Something dark beating within her. Urging her blade –
"No!" Ashe tackles her, stumbling too hard to take her to the ground.
Tears blot the back of her hand as he shoves her blade aside. He shoves Lonato aside behind him. Bracing himself between them as if the man had not attempted to take his life mere minutes ago.
"Please," Ashe begs, the words a fragile whisper, as if he lacked even the strength to speak them.
At odds with the boy who'd bore down on her the last few weeks with plan after plan. No trace of the steel determination of someone ready to carry out a difficult task. Ashe presses his face against her hand; blood, tears, and snot, wiping a filthy line against her arm as he wept.
"Please. Please. Please," over and over, the prayers of a man on his last breath.
There was something off about the Western Church troops.
Jeralt feels their retreat as if someone had burst a bubble. An abrupt break in the forces bearing down against him. Too sudden to be anything but calculated
The fog against his skin peels back, molting from him, and there's a pattern to the way the fog vanishes he barely traces out. Abrupt drops of the spell signal the death of a caster but there are other drops as well, on the very corners of his army. The fog drawing speedily away from them all and then bleeding away. Dispelled. Followed by the barest trace of something metallic and burnt.
Jeralt glimpses another uniform, something darker with a different cut to the Western Church uniforms. It flashes across his vision and then disappears.
In the sky, a blaze lights the air, calling for his attention like a beacon and he recognizes the color, already running for a horse before the Crest disappears. He grabs for the reins of one bearing the symbol of Seiros, leaping onto the empty saddle. The Deer fall into step behind him with the rest of his mercenaries. Adapting as easily as the wild mares Byleth had likened them to.
"Forward!" he shouts.
The Western Church falling from his mind. Spilling away as his thoughts turned to his daughter.
He sees her first at the border of Gaspard. Picks her out as if he were always searching for her. There's a tension to her form. Full of stiff movements, guided by messy thoughts and uncharacteristic emotion.
Sees Byleth raising her blade.
Sees Ashe against her. Screaming a plead.
"Stop!"
"Put down your arms!"
A familiar voice.
Jeralt.
Father.
He shouts something again and Byleth looks up.
Sees him approaching with Claude. The group of them emerging from the forest - where had the fog gone?
Brown eyes find hers, flitting once to the man on the ground. Pinning her with understanding. A command rippling over Jeralt's face as his horse slows.
"Surrender!" Jeralt shouts to the few members of Lonato's forces still struggling, his voice clear enough and loud enough it carries over the field, "Lord Lonato has been captured. The battle is decided!"
Byleth sees Catherine approaching too. Jeritza nowhere in sight. At the sight of her, Lonato tries to lunge. As if he means to crawl to Catherine on his hands and knees and mete out his revenge.
"My son! You killed my son!" struggling to reach his lance, to push himself to his feet but Ashe is the one to still him, knee on Lonato's back, holding him down with shaking hands.
"No more," Ashe breathes out, more a plead than anything else, "It's over."
"No - release me - I will have my vengeance! I will not forgive those who struck down my son – gloried over his death. Celebrated his execution as a victory. Give him back – my son! My son!"
"What about Ashe?" Byleth hears herself say, understanding coalescing in her heart like a piece of coal. Burned down into something blackened and hateful.
Lonato doesn't seem to hear her. She doesn't think anyone does. Had barely heard herself. Jeralt bumps her back. A presence she barely notices. Her attention fixed on the Lonato.
Writhing like a man caught in death's grip. His eyes wide. Half mad with grief.
"Release me, Ashe," Lonato spits, "You would abide by their orders?! Would raise your hand against your kin for this witch?! Christophe would have wept. We thought better of –"
Byleth feels her knuckles split, acknowledging the pain absently. Her shoulder screaming in protest at the savage whip of her arm as she'd reared to strike. A thick blurt of blood streaming down her front. Down her arm. Something tears in her side, heated liquid spilling over her, sleeking down her leg.
She doesn't register the cry Ashe lets out, barely noticing him grabbing for her arms.
Only knows she wants to do it again.
"You would never understand," Lonato spits in her face.
She draws her hand back.
Knuckle throbbing with the urge to feel the bone of Lonato's cheek shatter –
Another hit and it doesn't make ebb the anger in the slightest. The wave of it slipping up the shorelines, rising fast. Threatening to overwhelm. She pulls back –
"Kid," Jeralt rumbles, his hand curling over her wrist, fingers pressing into the soft flesh. A firm but gentle hold. There's a strength to his grip and a heaviness to his voice, "Battle's over."
And slowly she feels the anger slip away from her. Hatred receding. The tides pulling back. Dropping down her waist. Away from her ankles, dragging lines in the sand, leaving her behind. Leaving only bone-weary exhaustion and only now does she register Ashe against her, a fresh wave of tears on his face. Drawing out a line in the dirt and mud on his face.
"No more," Bylead says, his eyes sad as he holds her sword back. He makes a face at the brothers still locked in a battle, shakes his head as he tugs at her. Guiding her back to Remire, "This is enough. This much is enough."
"I lost my temper," Byleth says, the words numb on her tongue.
"Yeah …. yeah, I know," Jeralt says, his hand on her head, a familiar weight bearing down on her like a thick blanket.
"I know, kid," he says, voice low and gentle as a stream, easing the tension from her body. Eroding the anger.
Byleth drops her fist.
Lets herself go limp.
Staring down at the shallow husk of a knight. Still spitting curses and worthless promises. Slinging insults that grow lower. Darker. Aiming at pain as they turn towards Ashe who bears them like a post in a storm.
"You are no son of –"
Jeralt releases Byleth then. Clamps a hand over Lonato's mouth. Thumb digging bruises into his jaw.
"Hey now. Any more and I'll be the one to lose my temper," Jeralt says, something furious spinning out on a thin thread, tenuous and ready to snap. His voice dips lower, cold anger dripping from his words, crystallizing into stalactites as they fall, "From one father to another, that's enough. Your children can hear you."
A silence drifts over them. The madness seeping from Lonato's eyes a little. Something like clarity shattering the blue. He looks to Ashe and for a moment it's as if he is seeing him for the first time. Despair. Anguish. No words strong enough to name the look in his eyes.
Lonato bows his head.
Makes no move to resist as the knights take him away.
A healer guides Ashe away and he goes with his head bowed. His expression troubled and pained. Crying silent tears as the healer takes his arm.
"C'mon," Jeralt says, taking Byleth's arm, "You too."
She nods, her head feeling like a cloud. Her body weightless. As if she were still coming back to form.
"Caspar," she calls.
Half-hidden behind Raphael, Caspar jolts. Steps out as if he hadn't been hiding.
"… Tell Linhardt I want to speak to him when I get back."
"Yeah, okay," he says.
Caspar's eyes dart to Byleth and then skitter away. He shifts, a little wince twitching his cheek when he does.
"Good job," Byleth says, feeling weariness come over her like a hood. Feeling pain creep up over her. The ache in her side sharp as a winter morning, extending long reaches up and down her abdomen, the sensation fragmenting like ice over a frozen lake, "You came at the right time."
"I –" Caspar blinks, mouth working soundlessly, repeating her words. He bobs his head, "I … yeah, okay. S-sure thing."
"Raphael, go with Caspar to get his leg checked out. He's walking on a sprain."
"W-what?! No, I'm not. You should be worrying about your – GAH!"
"C'mon buddy!" Raphael booms, lifting a flailing Caspar in a bridal carry, laughing as Caspar beats on his chest screaming to be let down.
The rest of the Deer approach then, Marianne and Lysithea coming to Byleth's side at once.
"Oh, Professor –" Marianne's face twists, concern turning into self-reproach.
Her fingers press against Byleth's side, soothing and cool. It sweeps up over the gash, a pulse of Heal pushing back the pain, gentling the ache. On Byleth's other side, Lysithea does the same, her small fingers digging into Byleth's arm as if in admonishment.
"You got too far away from us," Lysithea tsks like a fretting parent, "You should know better than to do that. You were the one to tell us to work cautiously when surrounded by enemies on unfamiliar terrain. Honestly, what kind of Professor goes against their own lessons?"
"I remember I also taught you to take advantages where you could. I saw Lonato and I ensured the battle would end."
"Ha – and what happened to 'heroics are a fool's death'?" Lysithea mutters under her breath, low enough that Byleth knows she does not intend for Byleth to hear her. The words dissolve into faster angry muttering. At odds with the steady roll of Heals over Byleth's side and back. The warmth patching up stings and pangs Byleth hadn't even noticed.
"I'm starting to rethink this whole strategist title, Professor," Hilda says as she drops the head of her battleaxe in front of Byleth. She crosses her arms over the handle, frowning at Byleth, "You sure it's not just luck?"
"Oh, Professor, I am sure Hilda means to say, it concerns us all to see you bearing such ghastly injuries," Lorenz says. He regards her for a moment, making a face at the blood on her clothes and legs, and nearly topples Marianne as he reaches out, his own Heal sputtering over Byleth's skin, a weaker hue that refuses to hold steady.
Lorenz frowns. Moves as if he intends to try again but Lysithea shoves at him.
"You're in the way!" she insists, "Go sit down somewhere else. Can't you see it's crowded enough? Who do you think you're helping with your pitiful Faith magic anyways?"
"I am merely –"
"Please, d-don't fight," Marianne pleads, her voice fluttering, lost beneath the other's.
"Enough," Byleth says over them all, teacher again, drawing herself up as best she can. They all prickle. Hilda most of all, scarcely able to hide the flash of disapproval under her veneer of nonchalance, "The battle's won."
She eyes them all hard. Cataloguing injuries. They are relatively unscathed, bearing mostly scratches and bruises. Hilda has a gash on her shoulder, creeping behind her, a blow from the back. Leonie has a sluggishly healing head injury and her eyes don't focus as well as she blinks at the healer leaning over her. Both Ignatz and Lysithea bear burns on their clothes and minor singes on their arms and legs.
"Go to the healers. Get yourselves checked out. We will debrief afterward. And then we can discuss our mistakes," she says as if they are in a forest clearing outside of Garreg Mach, hardening her tone when she feels them shift as if ready to argue.
She presses more firmly against her father. Leaning experimentally to one side. Feeling a little stutter of pain. Jeralt makes a low noise of disapproval as her grimace.
"Good job today. I'm glad you didn't die," she says and then nods, "Dismissed."
A little sharp inhale from Lorenz that speaks of his disapproval but no one says anything more. Marianne and Lysithea pull reluctantly away from her, exchanging a glance.
"Same to you, Professor," Hilda says, shouldering her axe, something else in her tone rearing its head, "Next time, you could stand to be a little more subtle when you vanish at the start of the fight. You're going to make me think you were waiting on a chance to dump us in the dust."
"Hey, now Hilda, quite an accusation to make," Claude smiles as he strides in the middle of the group, gathering attention as if it were meant for him. He winks at Hilda, "C'mon, show a little sympathy for an injured patient. It all worked out in the end."
"Hmph, I am too much a frail young lady to be left all alone on such a dangerous battlefield."
"Oh, c'mon. You definitely did not come off with the worst of it," he gestures at his cheek, to the little cut marked out against his skin, "What do you think? Makes me roguish and handsome? A man with a dangerous secret the ladies can't stay away from?"
"Oh yes, the most dashing charlatan," Hilda says.
Her eyes say she hasn't forgotten the previous topic but she doesn't pursue it. Tips her foot against Lorenz's when he opens his mouth and he, too, goes silent, frowning heavily at Claude, alight with disapproval. Claude wiggles his brows at the two of them, smile going a little wider.
"Your face marred by a former mistress you led astray. Rightfully deserved," Hilda says, her tone turning playful. It doesn't match her face. Her posture more rigid than Byleth had ever seen.
"Ouch. Such sharp thorns from a beautiful flower," Claude clutches at his chest, "Not even the finest blade crafted by Zoltan could match the sharpness of your tongue."
"Are you done?" Lysithea snaps at the two of them, "Must you carry on with your childish snips here and now?"
"Aw, Lysithea - a little cranky today? Must've forgotten your nap with all the commotion. Sorry, next time – ow, ow! Wait! It was a joke! Marianne, Ignatz cover me!"
"C'mon," Jeralt says quietly, and Byleth lets him guide her away, gripping his hand like a lifeline.
"Dad," Byleth says as they approach the healer's tent and it drags up an old ache.
His daughter did not falter. Would rather reach into her own guts and stitch herself together than allow any glimpse of vulnerability. Particularly on a battlefield.
Jeralt catches Claude looking at them. Surprised to find concern there, unhidden and full of fierce protectiveness. As if the kid were capable of draping himself over Byleth and shielding the hurt. The house leader stiffens when his eyes meet Jeralt's. As if he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. It lasts for only a second. Replaced by a winsome smile as Claude turns back to the students. Ushering them away, stirring up another argument, ensnaring their attention and keeping it trapped on himself.
"He was going to kill his son," Byleth says and the judgment in her voice casts a dark shade over the words. He can read the disbelief in her face. Can understand her repulsion.
Jeralt aches to reach out to her. To hide the vulnerability of her from the world.
And so he does.
Wraps an arm around his daughter, drawing her into his chest. Feeling a tremble go through her. A shudder of pain she hadn't felt even when stepping on their first battlefield.
"Just like Remire," she says, a low hateful whisper as her hand fists in his back.
That last mission before the students had come upon them. A set of brothers ready to tear each other apart. A father who had welcomed it. Steepled his hands and sat back without a care. A cruelty of the world that Byleth, for all their travels, had never been able to accept.
Jeralt feels her breath hitch, a little stutter translating to his palm as she takes in a shaky breath. His shirtfront remains dry but though she doesn't cry, he can feel the load of grief bearing down on her slender shoulders. His children were so slender. Not huge soldiers, no fortress knights in the making. He can feel the bend of her spine. Brushes her hair aside as he had done when she'd fallen as a toddler. Unable to cry then. Still unable to cry now.
"Yeah … sometimes that happens, kid," he says, just holding her, knowing her brother was infinitely better at things like this. Knew them to buttress each other, holding each other up, making up for his failings.
He returns his lance to his back to bring both arms around her. It'd been a long time since he'd held his daughter so close. Remembers her as an infant, a toddler, a child - no, still a child. His child. He closes his eyes, breathing in smoke and iron. Aching to lend comfort. Strength. Aid. Anything his daughter would require from him. Anything to soothe –
"Tell me you did not wish she survived over them."
"You are no son of –"
No, Jeralt thinks, tightening his grip. The thought resonating in his chest. Ringing clear and true.
No, I don't.