It is rather cold outside. This Wyvern Moon seems to be particularly dreary that year, and Byleth briefly wonders why.
It is raining this afternoon, has been so for four days in a row now. The sky is grey and with a greyed disposition above Gautier territory, not that it is not like so very often, a sea of clouds hiding the blue firmament. The rain makes strange little patterns on the windowpanes, and its sound makes almost the beat of a melody.
It is the weekend, though. Sunday. There is no place to be and nothing to be done, so the horrid weather is almost pleasant. It is quiet in the manor, as most of the knights were afforded a day off work and the margravial family is working with a skeleton crew. It is not something she would feel comfortable by begrudging them, as they were doing the very same thing.
In the corner of the room, her messenger owl enjoyed its own day off as it cleans its long white feathers, occasionally letting out one of her cute little sounds. There is some music coming from down the hall, a tune she cannot recognize, from a composition she surely would not be able to name, but she likes the ambiance.
On the low table before them, two hot cups of Bergamot tea are cooling off, little puffs of aromatic steam disappearing as soon as they are created above them.
Byleth is reading a fresh novel, purchased from a travelling merchant that stopped by the castle a few weeks prior. Her lithe, aging body is hidden under her warmest blanket, almost lying on the sofa. On the opposite side of the table, Sylvain is doing the same as her, only he is reading a journal on wyvern rearing they bought in Garreg Mach instead.
She takes a moment to look at her husband of many years. His hair has grown a little over the past couple of months, now covering a part of his shoulder blades. There are traces of white in the blood-red stubble that covers his cheeks, and his reading glasses are a little lopsided on his nose.
She likes that look on him. The aging part, the watching you grow old part of loving each other. She pulls her mind away from memories of a time where it was not so sure that she could see grey hair creep up on his temples. It was a long time ago. The Empire and the war were long gone.
Instead of dwelling on such memories, she resumes her study of his features. His honeyed eyes she has always adored matches the colour of the swirly liquid on the teacups as they travel across the pages. The bruises that colour his cheekbone and his neck have not disappeared yet. His knuckles are still covered with bandages, but there is no blood anymore.
Byleth can see why her father-in-law left the margraviate as soon as he possibly could, even if she does not like it sometimes. The roads and borders in Fódlan are dangerous, and the administration of the territory is stressing and difficult. As in, it is tough to be the margrave now, she can imagine how tough it was when her relative through marriage was still in power. Retirement seemed like a luxury, something that was not to be taken for granted.
The margravine tries to help as much as she can, joining her husband whenever possible and taking care of the administrative side of things when not, but she also has duties in holding the line at the home front and lending assistance to the King and other nobles when their troubles find themselves out of hand, and so she cannot accompany their men in every incursion within Gautier. In one such occasion, Sylvain was hit with a stray arrow and had to be carried home half-unconscious.
It was not the first time that she wishes her husband had another occupation, or at least had somebody else other than her own son to delegate some of those duties, but she knows that this is a necessary evil and someone had to do it. Besides, for all his gregarious demeanour and youthful grumbling against the task and leaving home, she is well aware that the man enjoyed his moments of quietness and contemplation on the forests of Sreng every once in a while.
Still, she wishes she could make his scratches and bruises disappear simply with a kiss. He certainly would never be hurt if that were the case.
"Admiring the view, are we?" His voice pulls the woman out of her reverie, and she playfully throws a cushion at his face to make his smirk disappear.
"I mean... I don't blame you." He goes on with a toothy grin, easily catching the cushion before it would hit him. "With a husband as hot as I am..."
She scoffs. "I was trying to evaluate how much your hair had gone whiter these past couple of months."
"You are an evil woman, milady."
She laughs at him while he gives her one of his adorable pouts.
"Oh, do not be so despondent, dear." The green-haired noblewoman dismisses with a laugh. "I was admiring my indeed very hot husband. Besides, I like your grey hair."
The margrave raises an eyebrow. "Really? You like it?"
Byleth nods, humming appreciatively. She disregards the book completely and put it down on the table.
"I do. Reminds me that we have made it." She explains.
Sylvain gives his wife a tender smile, putting his journal away as well.
"We did make it." He nods, before his eyes would drift toward the hung portrait that rested above the mantlepiece, gazing settling on his favourite depiction of them and their two children. "And we have done pretty well for ourselves since, don't you think?"
Her sight follows his. "Yeah, I think we did."
"I just wish they wrote to us more often." The redhead laments.
"You still have your darling daughter around. I am sure you can stand some longer intervals between Dagobert's letters." Byleth points out. "He is at the Academy, learning, making friends and having fun. Just like you did when we were his age."
Sylvain gave his wife a pointed look. "Well, I sure hope he does not have as much fun as I did when I was enrolled in Garreg Mach. There was too much sex involved and I do not have the strength to deal with all that for now."
She laughed at him. "I am sure we have nothing to worry about, and, besides, he does not have even half as much reason for rebellion as you did. We ought just to lay back and wait for him to bring a nice girl home. "
"Our time is passing us by, milady..." Sylvain sighs, leaning to grab his tea and put down his glasses on the table instead.
He takes a sip but places his cup down again just as quickly. He turns to her, a large grin back on his features as he opens his arms, an obvious plea for her to cuddle him for the rest of the day.
Byleth knows the drill. How many days have been spent like this? Trapped in Sylvain's arms when she had a thousand things to do?
Many. The thought makes she smile.
"You are too far away…" He complains, giving her his adorable puppy eyes.
The Margrave had a strong, unfriendly expression most of the time, hardened through suffering and conflict, but the man had a boyish side to him whenever he relaxes and feels restful. As such, whenever he wants some attention out of her, he had these perfected pleading eyes that she could not help but melt to his will.
"I am literally on the couch with you, Sylvain." The woman chuckled.
"But are you in my arms? No. See? Too far away." He reasoned, as if it was obvious.
Byleth can only laugh at how silly he is sometimes, but she crawls across the sofa, nonetheless, settling against his chest and shoulder. She is forced to admit that it is much better than to be in the corner of the couch, no matter how comfortable her furniture is.
From Sylvain's corner, she can peer across the hallway into the music room. Her daughter was still sitting on the harp, playing another tune she is useless to identify, as the music plays against one ear and her husband's heartbeat on the other. She smiles at the sight, nuzzling against the crook of the redhead's neck.
Her fingers brush against his jaw and she can feel the thin cut that is slowly healing there.
"When are you supposed to go back to the watches?" She asks, gingerly.
He tried to defuse the situation with a stupid joke. "Tired of having me around already?"
"I am worried." She responded, direct and candid.
He heaves a sigh. "I'm fine."
"I know."
"So, no need to worry!"
"You attract trouble better than open jars of berry jam can attract wasps in summer, Sylvain." Byleth counters with a scowl. "I ought to be worried all the time about you."
"I am careful out there, you know?" He whispered, pressing his lips to her verdant hair. "I am not as reckless as I was back in the days of the war. Things have changed a lot with the world and with me since then. I have people to come home to, now."
Byleth smiles, his fingers doodling sweet nothings randomly on her forearm. "I know. I really do. Still, I cannot help myself."
He hums, low sound born in the depth of his chest, and she feel it vibrate through her frame from under her.
Sometimes he takes risks, but that is just who he is and she loves him despite his eventual reckless behaviours.
The margravine reaches for his hand and trace along his wedding band with her thumb. She has made such a good life for herself with him...
She reckons that he is right. For now, at least, he is here, in her arms, safe. Her children are safe, both within her own walls and far away, across the continent, and really, she does not understand why the Wyvern Moon is so dreary these days, because she is as happy as she can be.
"There is something that you could give me that would reassure me greatly today." She mentions bashfully, looking up at him with this thin and sweet smile of hers that he adores.
"What would that be?" He asks, flirtingly.
"You could kiss me." She responds, simple and direct.
He does not protest though, instead, he gladly complies. How could he not, after all?
After a few kisses, he tries to break away, eyeing the teacups on the table.
"The tea is growing cold." He mumbles against her lips, but she pulls him in for another kiss, and there is no way he can keep his eyes open when she kiss him like that.
"This is not important. We can brew another cup." She is the one mumbling against his lips this time. "You are warm, though."
He chuckles, his forehead resting against hers while he trails his fingertips across her cheekbone.
"You are just using me because you are cold, then?" He asks, a playful and rather mischievous look in his eyes.
"Do not be a hypocrite, dear. You are the one who begged for my cuddles not two minutes ago." She replies, faking outrage when she could barely keep a straight face.
He laughs loudly. "It is true. You have discovered my evil plan…"
Byleth gasped dramatically. "You are the one using me because you are cold! And I thought you just loved to be held by me…"
Sylvain lets out another one of his loud laughs, the ones that sound a little like he barks more than laughs. "I do, my love. I do love to be held by you."
He dives in for another kiss, always thirsty for some physical love, but she playfully escapes, his lips landing on her chin instead.
"You are too opportunistic, dear." Byleth points out with mirth. "I shan't give you any more kisses."
"No more kisses?" He gently bit down on her chin, making her shriek in surprise and try to escape his embrace, but she is trapped in his arms, and there is no way for her to move away now.
Not that the margravine does actually want to, anyways.
"Sylvain, I will hurt you." Byleth looks pointedly at her husband.
"You will do nothing of the sort, sweetheart." Sylvain smirked haughtily. "Mind, domestic violence! That would be terribly ungodly of you."
"By all that is good and holy, I cannot believe that, after all this time, you still insist on making this stupid joke stick!" She groans, regretting once again for ever telling him about Sothis.
"I do not have to make anything stick. This is a great joke and everybody loves it." He insists.
"No, it is not!" She counters.
The margrave scoffs. "It is hilarious! I am hilarious!"
"You wish." His wife scoffs back. "Two decades, Sylvain! For two decades I have heard that joke!"
The redhead shrugs. "And yet, you love it."
"I certainly not love it." She argues, dismissive.
"You do!"
"I do not."
"You love me, so it means you love my stupid jokes."
"You are insufferable."
"Well, maybe." He concedes, smiling softly and remembering the occasion when, during a skirmish at war, he took a thunder spell meant to his, at the time, commander-in-chief. "But you signed up for it the day you kissed me in the infirmary while Manuela was away, so you cannot complain about it now."
"If I had known that day what kind of trouble that kiss would get me into, I might have reconsidered and left you alone to groan in pain all night."
"Well, strange for you to say such a thing, since you signed up for it again when you kissed me behind the Dragon's Nose after our first date. And all the nights we spent in either of our chambers. And then when you moved up into Faerghus. And when you said yes and married me. And the days you carried our babies… And right now, when you came to cuddle me and asked for kisses."
He has such a cheeky grin on his face and she feels the fleeting need to make the cocky expression disappear, preferably through a well-positioned smack, but she cannot argue that she got what she wanted, after all.
Byleth has chosen him, indeed. Every single day since that heart-breaking, infuriating Ethereal Moon night all the way up the Goddess Tower. Every single day ever since, she has chosen to spend her life with him, and she has never wished for anyone to be by her side in his stead, and Sothis above, is she lucky that he kept on choosing her over and over again as well.
"So, are you sure you want to reconsider that choice you made so long ago?" He teases, knowing perfectly well the answer.
Byleth knows very well how to fight back against this smug look on his face. She has to kill him with honesty and love.
She shrugs her head. "No, I do not want to reconsider, not ever. I chose the love of my life that day, and I always will, no matter what."
His lopsided smirk vanishes in the blink of an eye, and instead, she can feel his heart beating faster in his chest, as it so happens whenever his wife proclaims her love so pointedly and clearly. This woman is very perceptive and she always could read him perfectly, but he is quite sure that she cannot feel through his ribcage that Sylvain suspects his poor heart might explode for holding so much love, and it is all for her. For her and their children. For the family they have built together.
"And I will always choose you too, you know?" He answers. "You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I will always love you."
Who would have thought he would be lucky enough to have her in his arms like this twenty years later? His stupid, angst-ridden teenager self who tried to play it fast and loose while he was desperately falling for his professor would not have, certainly.
Byleth snuggles into his chest again, and while she cuddles, abandoning their teacups to grow cold, his eyes drift to the dark sky outside and the angry rain hitting on the windows.
Why is the Wyvern Moon so sad? How could it, when in their home, the world seemed so bright?