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Day 8 of the Blue Sea Moon. Strong winds
As far as Combat Arts go, the Wrath Strike is fairly standard,
It's mostly about claiming space; killing if you can, but moving in to take the area for yourself.
Byleth has a good grasp of spacial awareness already, and is usually even more aware of our surroundings than I am.
It feels almost unfair to give her another tool to dominate the bandits we've been up against recently.

Almost.

1183
Red Wolf Moon

Petra was not left to wait long in anticipation. Before a week was out they were recalled to the village, and amid celebrating the new Chief-in-waiting, the coalition business and negotiations were being wrapped up.

As they returned to their duties, Byleth discovered that, externally, little changed between herself and Claude in the wake of their new understanding. They trained, they debated, they hunted, they kissed -and yes, that was new. There was a lot more physical affection, though still mostly when they could be in private, despite the fact that it seemed everyone had been, and was, expecting it.

Internally, it felt as though she had lived through some sort of earthquake and was still discovering new things left exposed in the upheaval. There were different sorts of anticipation all through the day; the time leading up to first seeing him, then to whatever he might tease her with, to when they could steal a quiet moment together, to the sort of dread anticipation of needing to part in sleep. Her heart trilled and her spirit felt warm when he looked at her and gave that particular smile. She could close her eyes and picture it, summoning that feeling to sustain her.

Byleth's previous frame of reference for romance came from her Father's diary. He had spoken long on anticipation and separation; but what followed was usually of peace and contentment. Those were not the feelings Claude inspired in her. If she could have given a name to them she might have said vibrancy. Everything was brighter with Claude. It came to her slowly that perhaps she was more like her Mother that way; perhaps it was obvious that a naturally contented personality would be attracted to someone with more vivacity.

She stood at his side; tingling with the knowledge that he was just there and they were courting, listening with one ear as he talked with Chief Macneary while she scanned about them as their peoples trained and sparred and ate and spoke together.

The moment was broken by a shout from a watchman, waving for attention and pointing out towards the bay. On a course towards them was a ship -if it could so be called. The hull was charred and blackened; the mast was an amalgamation of several pieces, lashed together and swaying perilously as the ship rode the waves, the sails were tattered and crudely stitched. It was a disjointed union of whatever had survived the fire in the cave, barely seaworthy but heading towards them nonetheless.

The deck bristled with weapons. A drumbeat rose over the sound of the waves.

Chief Macneary immediately ordered every boat in the village launch and meet them. At a glance he had reached the same conclusion Byleth had; this was not a parley, this was no mere raid, these pirates had come seeking a place to die and to sow as much destruction as they could on their way. They could not be permitted to gain the shore.

Claude's hand gripped her wrist fiercely and she returned the grasp for just a second as they hurried in different directions: he to the wyverns and she to the boats being launched.

It could barely be called a skirmish. Vicious though they were, fuelled by rage, the raiders had seen better days. Boarding from the much lower vessels of Brigid should have been a challenge, but with the Immortals providing cover the boarding party might as well have been walking in a meadow. The ship itself presented the most difficulty, as the railing crumbled beneath their hands and the planks shifted under their feet. Byleth was fighting near the edge of the deck when with a terrible grinding moan the mast swayed too far, one joint straining out of the ropes that bound it and brining the whole crashing down.

Byleth dodged the mast. Raising her sword she cut a gaping hole through the sail that threatened to blanket her and everyone nearby as it came down, but for a moment she had been enveloped, for a moment she had lost track of the fight around her.

That was all it took.

As she emerged from the sailcloth she retreated a step, straight into the back-swing of a hefty axe. The haft caught her solidly on the back of her head. Her sword dropped from her hand. She crumpled.

The fight was all but over, but the Commander went overboard.

~o~*~o~

The Princess of Brigid, the newly confirmed Chief-in-Waiting, swam like a fish. It had been Claude's cry that alerted her to Byleth's fall and she had launched herself into a perfect dive over the side to aid her. Her muscles strained as she kicked for the shore, dragging Byleth's limp weight with her. It was adrenaline that gave her the strength to haul her up the beach and away from the waves, fingers dancing deftly down the commander's armour to loosen it before flipping her onto her back to search for a pulse, for a breath.

Claude's wyvern landed nearby, but Petra kept her focus as he dismounted, kicking sand about in his mad dash to them. "Petra-" he began, but was cut off

"Be having quiet!" she snapped, ear tipped towards Byleth's mouth. She frowned and tilted the commander's head back, clearing her airway in order to breathe for her.

Claude's jaw clicked shut, and he knelt opposite her, preparing himself to begin compressions on Byleth's heart.

Between them, the children of Brigid and Derdriu knew more about drowning than they might wish to. Certainly more than they would ever wish to put to use.

~o~*~o~

Byleth stood in darkness. In front of her was a wall of -fog? Cloud? Mist? Whatever it was obscured the path before her. Imposed atop the wall the Crest of Flames shimmered in blinding luminescence.

Some instinct drove her to reach out to touch it. Before she could make contact it began to dissolve, the mist parting like curtains. Beyond the fading mist she saw a green forest in the full rush of spring; young and beautiful. She stepped towards it.

Then stopped.

Some force held her in place, the mist began to close once more.

"Do you deliberately ignore everything I tell you!? It is so simple even your mortal mind should comprehend it! Do not jump in front of axes! Honestly!"

Invisible hands grasped her shoulders and spun her round, gently pushing her away from the wall.

"Can't you hear them calling you, Kid? Back you go. Keep doing me proud."

Byleth woke. Her eyes snapped open and Petra quickly rolled her to her side as she heaved seawater out onto the sand. Claude rubbed her back in dazed relief, his mind reciting every blessing in every language he knew –including the ones with no phonetic components at all.

~o~*~o~

When he was ten, Hubert had spent three days in the woods, running from his Father's men, trying desperately to reach Lady Edelgard's side as her Uncle stole her away to the Kingdom. Those days had been a waking torment.

Only the knowledge that his Lady was securely positioned in Enbarr kept these days from exceeding that torment, but it was a close run thing.

Judith had slipped into unconsciousness within the first few hours of their flight. Within the first day a fever had started raging through her, radiating uncomfortably hot against his back as the winter winds chilled him from the front and Hubert could not help her. Her best chance lay in reaching Garreg Mach and Manuela, though he did what he could to ease cool water down her throat when he had to break for a rest. He kept to waterways as much as possible, trudging through the water to hide his passage, legs alternately burning and freezing and exposing them to every cursed insect in Leicester looking for one last winter snack. On the third day he gave that up -if Kronya had caught his trail at all then there was no means of concealing his direction. He began as direct a path as he could towards the Monastery.

With each heavy step the Oghma mountains rose into view. By the fourth day Felix and Bernadetta should have started looking for him. With luck he would stagger into one or other of them before too long.

But, as with that first torment so many years ago, Hubert was caught.

He had broken from the cover of the forested regions, was perhaps a mile out from the shelter of the trees behind him, three more from the Mach foothills and the direct path to the monastery. The open fields were patched with snow and ice, brown stalks poking through providing slight relief from the otherwise blinding ground as the sun moved overhead. He was making a straight path across when the first arrow thudded to ground nearby.

He had no breath to swear, but he certainly thought it as he dropped to a knee, lowering Judith from his back so he could carry her in front of him, to protect her as far as he could.

He turned as he rose again, to gauge what was behind him. The arrow had come from a longbow at the very edge of it's range, the furthest forward of his pursuers. More were breaking from the trees now, gaining on him. He couldn't make out how many or what weapons they bore, but he knew enough.

He ran.

Hunched over Judith, stumbling on uneven ground, he wasn't going to make it far. The adrenaline beating through his heart would give way to exhaustion before long. He needed a plan, an escape. He began calculating the largest Mire spell he might be able to cast, even knowing it wouldn't save him. He didn't have it in him to slow the pursuit enough to cover the league to the foothills. Already his vision was tunnelling, the sunlight on the snow ahead of him seeming to flicker and move.

The second arrow tore through the edge of his coat. He didn't stop to cast the Mire properly, focusing only enough to fling it back behind him, trusting that it would at least impede the Agarthan's way forward, if it did not actually catch any of them. Just enough to buy himself some time-

The third arrow struck deep into his calf.

Judith's limp form flew from his arms as he fell, rolling to a stop some distance ahead of him, but not even that motion had roused her from her stupor. Hubert dragged himself towards her. Was this to be his last stand then?

Edelgard was safe in Enbarr. Claude and Shamir knew where Judith had been heading; they would recognise the importance of their deaths, would know where to focus their intelligence efforts.

They were coming for his life, all he had left to do was make them pay for it.

He pulled himself upright by force of will, leaning heavily to one side to favour the injured leg. Two warriors were advancing across the Mire and more were approaching it. Kronya led from the rear, sauntering casually across the field as her forces raced forwards, a masked and hooded mage keeping pace at her side. The sniper lingered at the edge of the conjured swamp, his bow drawn -and released!

A purple-fletched arrow hummed past Hubert's ear, colliding directly with the oncoming bolt. Hubert flinched, looking back over his shoulder. Bernadetta was outpacing a battalion of Seiros Knights; the flickering sunlight he had seen before had been moving -it was their armour, gleaming white.

"Pretty good, huh?" Bernadetta asked, as she came level with him, letting off her second shot, pinning one of the warriors.

Relief sapped the steel from Hubert's legs and he sank to the ground again, a dark orb of Miasma flying from his fingers to the still-mobile warrior. In a heartbeat the situation had changed, his long planning had paid off. They could survive this. A battle-yell from somewhere beyond his rapidly narrowing vision alerted him to Felix's presence as well, coming at the Agarthan forces from the side. They would survive this.

Evidently, Kronya thought so too. Hubert felt her gaze on him from across the battlefield as she sheathed her daggers, then lifted one hand to wiggle her fingers at him in a taunting farewell as the masked mage clapped a hand on her shoulder.

The mage Warped her away, but not before she called out a command to the sniper. He adjusted his aim to Judith's prone form.

"No!" Hubert called, lurching to the side to shield her.

The impact didn't come.

A wet, gurgling gasp of breath above him etched itself across his mind. The grim, heavy, pattering sound of blood falling to earth froze his lungs.

The masked mage came upon the sniper, Warping away with him and abandoning the rest of their forces.

Bernadetta's outstretched arms fell to her sides. Her legs quavered, her knees buckled and Bernadetta sank forward over the arrow that had pierced through her, coming to eye-level with Hubert for one burning moment before slumping to the side. His hands shot out to catch her, to help, to take the arrow, to stem the bleeding, to anything, but somehow only hovered over her, impotent.

"Bern-Bernadetta-" he tried, but found he had nothing. Bernadetta offered him a tremulous smile through glazed eyes.

"It's okay, it's okay," she sighed, and with one last motion, lifted her hand to straighten the embroidered rose she had pinned to his collar "Now… now I… don't need… to be afraid… anymore."

Hubert had been on his last legs for nigh on a week. He had been dragging himself and his companion forward on sheer willpower. He had brought them to salvation only to very abruptly discover that he had learned to care for Bernadetta not only for her value to Edelgard but also for herself. Very late, too late, Hubert realised that he had things, people, friends of his own, that he cherished. That he could lose.

The spell that he summoned cracked and scarred the land, the brown stalks left from the last harvest crumbled into dust and choked the air. From his knees he hurled the darkest magics he knew at any who dared approach. His head swam and his vision blacked out entirely as he sacrificed control for area, blighting the ground to catch as many of their assailants in a spell as he could. The pounding in his head doubled, trebled, as the Knights arrived and broke around them, charging ahead to rout the enemy, and Hubert at last allowed the blackness spilling over the edge of his awareness claim him

For years thereafter, in a quarter mile radius, the only grass that would grow marked the place where Bernadetta von Varley had fallen.

~o~*~o~

Byleth had been resting fitfully since the battle. As the evening wore on she somehow found herself on the beach looking out in the direction of Fódlan as the sun was setting somewhere behind her. She knew the moment it touched the horizon, as a golden path spread across the waves before her.

She walked forwards and the ocean stilled to flatness as she trod the path. For eons, it seemed, she walked endlessly, unthinkingly, forwards until a light mist started to rise around her. The water beneath her remained a blazing gold, but the sky above transitioned into something approaching violet, faint green wisps vanished in and out of the mist, moving forwards with her like the sparks drifting from a fire. The mist became something more formidable, solid, a wall, as she stepped off the water road and on to ancient stones. She knew that wall, she knew the Crest that lit it, she had been here only today. That same instinct which had earlier prompted her to reach out and touch the mist now told it would not part for her if she tried it. Her heart beat strangely in her chest, uncomfortable. She rubbed at it, trying to recall if it had felt so before…

"Commander?"

Byleth froze as the voice hailed her from behind. No-one should be here. This was not a place for people to meet.

This wasn't even really a place, was it? Was she even here?

"Bernadetta." The name came out in a hoarse whisper, her lungs suddenly lacking air as she turned to face her assistant.

"I, um, I think I'm going that way, Commander." Bernie answered, stepping forwards, and Byleth knew, from some place that seemed out of time and mind but simultaneously intrinsic and primal, that the mist would open for her. In another breath she could almost, almost, feel that connection with Sothis once more at the edge of her conciousness.

Bernadetta stepped forwards again, and Byleth reached out to stop her, but her hand couldn't take hold of her. Byleth's vision blurred and for a second she could see through the archer and briefly also saw other people around them, walking into the mist, but when her vision cleared only her friend remained visible to her. Bernie stopped at the threshold of the mist-wall, and turned back to face her, lit eerily from behind by the Crest of Flames that glowed on the surface.

"I'm sorry I wasn't more help. Was there any more I could have done?"

"No." Byleth countered immediately, the words sticking in her throat, her heart thundering that uncomfortable pulse and her eyes brimming over with tears "No, Bernie, thank you. You were brilliant."

Bernadetta smiled, and vanished into the mist.

Byleth woke.

~o~*~o~

In the morning, Claude found her standing on the shoreline looking out towards the rising sun. She turned at his approach and he was taken aback by the red lining her eyes; the tracks on her cheeks that were too uniform for sea-spray.

"We have to return to Fódlan" she told him.

End of Act I

Dear Readers, there will be a short intermission in my posting schedule here. There are a couple other projects I want to get ahead on and this is the right place to have a break, You can expect General to resume in July -August at the latest. (This note is dated June)