Wyvern Moon, 1191

It had been right after the first snow of the season in Fhirdiad that Marianne had sent out her letter to Hilda, and when it arrived in her hands it had clearly been damaged by the wet weather. That was irrelevant, as inside it detailed that a gathering would not be possible until the summer moons of the next year, for various reasons, and that she would be updated with more details as the winter cold grew stronger across the northern parts of Fódlan. While that had been a bit of a blow to Hilda's expectations, she was thankful at that time that she didn't need to travel again, as her life in her part of the country had gotten even crazier than it had been before.

Underneath that letter from Marianne had been another letter, addressed to Holst and opened by him, but it had certainly not been intended for his eyes to read much of what it contained. Its point of origin had been in Almyra, and because Hilda hadn't recognized the handwriting, she almost thought it was someone she knew traveling the country and having someone else send their regards on their behalf. But it was only addressed by an unfamiliar pen, as when she opened it to read it, she'd been surprised to see that it was from Claude.

Hey there, Hilda, it began, and her eyes quickly devoured the entire short letter like a well-cooked meal delivered by the goddess above.

Hey there, Hilda, I hope this gets to you eventually. Been trying to send you letters since the war ended, and I honestly thought you were getting them but just not responding, which would've made sense. I mean, I did abandon you all when you might've needed me most. But it turns out, none of my letters have been making it to you, they were all getting stopped somewhere at the border and they were recently turned back to me. So instead of addressing it to you, I addressed this to Holst—and Holst, if you're reading this still, please go ahead and pass this off to your sister, thanks!

I'd say there's a lot of catching up we need to do, since I'm sure you've been thinking I'm ignoring you for my kingly duties. Write me back soon, and I'll set up a time I can get out there for a day or two, just to talk and share tea for old time's sake. My treat.

Hope to hear from you as soon as possible, I've missed you more than I think you know.

Signed, the King of Almyra, Khalid 'Claude' von Riegan

Just seeing his signature, with the name he'd reclaimed when he'd ascended the throne in Almyra plus the name he'd gone by in Fódlan, made Hilda's heard swell, but she had to temper her expectations on the matter. This was most likely a ploy at diplomacy, where he was trying to get into her good graces because something had happened along the border and he needed her to talk sense into Holst on his behalf. That, or he was lying to save face with her, and she couldn't let him trick her into believing that he'd been trying to reach her for years to no success.

Of course, judging Claude for telling a lie when she'd become quite the queen of lying herself would have been utterly stupid, so she accepted that perhaps there was a chance that he meant what he said and that he wanted to meet her for tea and a talk, and she quickly drafted a response that she sent off the next day. To put it into perspective, her response to Marianne's letter took almost three days to write and send away, and that had been the letter she'd been expecting to receive at some point.

Her correspondence with Claude had to be put on the mental backburner, though, when she received a second letter from Marianne far too soon for it to have been written in response to what she'd sent. It was short, which was unusual for her usually regal pieces, but within its words it detailed something that, as Marianne put it, was big enough that Hilda was only the second person she'd told about it. Of course, by the time you see this, all of Fhirdiad is bound to know, she'd added, and while Hilda couldn't easily check that for herself with the weather going sour, she was willing to believe it.

Naturally, after she'd written a response to that letter as well, she was dually focused on whatever else Marianne was going to send her as well as a reply from Claude, and it was those two similar-yet-different things that kept her going that whole fall and winter. She loved when she'd get letters addressed to Holst but meant for her, and she loved when she'd receive more embellished with the seal of the Blaiddyd family and could know what else was going on in Marianne's definitely-busy life.

Harpstring Moon, 1192

Then, as sudden as it had happened, Hilda's life being measured in the number of letters she received changed completely, and she went to getting nothing but the occasional piece from Ashe, who was still telling her about life as the head of House Gaspard as if it was the most enthralling thing in the world. The last letter she received from Marianne reiterated the point that a summertime meeting between friends would be happening, and despite her sending multiple responses she never got anything back, and Hilda was tempted to pull a Claude and address her next letter to Dimitri instead, but she chose not to because she knew that life as the most important couple in Fódlan was already busy enough without her interfering with the mail.

Claude's lack of letters also seemed strange, but she'd gone so many years without one from him that it felt like it was about time he stopped writing back. All through the rest of the winter and the early spring moons, Hilda went without hearing from two of the people who made her happiest, and while Ashe was still there he wasn't quite filling that void in her heart that the others had left. That didn't stop her from trying to make sure that he was going to be there when she saw Marianne next, penning the letter the night before she was going to leave for an intentionally-extended trip and sending it off before she left in solitude.

Her initial plan had been to have a friend come with her to Fhirdiad that that, but in the chill of winter she'd cut off all contact with everyone she knew in the former Alliance territories, because she didn't want to hear about Lorenz from them. It had been since before her last trip that she'd last seen him, making sure the Goneril soldiers knew to turn him away if he ever showed up at her home again, and she didn't know what he may have said to others in retaliation for her avoiding him. To her, nothing had been more sobering than coming face-to-face with the reality that she could have had his child out of wedlock, ruining her reputation among her brother's people (and Lorenz's as well, but she'd relish in that happening), and she knew that she couldn't keep up her fling with him any longer.

It was when she was dropping that letter off for Ashe that she saw a letter addressed to her from Almyra sitting among the collected letters, and she snatched it before anyone could take it. The wax seal had been tampered with, but it didn't seem like it had been opened, and she noticed that the ink used to write her address had been faded and smudged—meaning that the letter had arrived a while before she found it. Ever the intelligent horseback rider, Hilda made an art of directing her horse while opening the letter on her own to read it for herself, and when she saw the first words on the page she audibly groaned.

"Of course that bastard would try going to Claude about me," she spat, seeing that Claude's opening sentence was in direct reference to hearing about some sexual escapades that had been meant to be secret. Tears welling in her eyes, Hilda continued reading to see what kind of disgusted and disappointed reaction she was going to receive from that, but she was surprised to see that Claude was understanding, saying that he never would've gotten that desperate himself but that he couldn't fault her for wanting the company in bed.

Words hung in her throat that she would've spoken in response had it been a verbal conversation they were having, her wanting so badly to thank Claude for his kindness and acceptance, but they never came to fruition as she kept reading and realized there was so much else she'd say to him instead. His letter transitioned from him telling her what he knew about what she'd done, to apologizing for putting her in that position in the first place, because Lorenz had told him that she only was acting that way because she felt she couldn't get what she wanted. If I'd known how you felt before I left, I would've invited you along, the Almyran people need a queen as much as I do, he wrote, which made her heart almost stop in her chest. Not saying you'd accept, of course, but I should've offered and for that, forgive me.

There was something about his wording that made Hilda doubt for a split second that his intentions were meant the way she was taking them, but she had no reason to assume he was being anything but honest right then. But, that raised the question of why this letter had been kept from her for as long as it clearly had, and upon inspecting it further when she read it again after stopping that night, she deduced that it had to have been tampered with before she'd found it. Maybe not opening it, but the paper was just flimsy enough that using a candle allowed for her to read it while it was still closed, so someone could have snooped through her mail and read it.

What would the purpose of that have been, though? Why would someone be hell-bent on checking her letters from Claude? The realization hit her immediately, that someone working for the mail service had been paid off in some way by a certain man who wanted to sabotage her life for cutting her out, and she felt sick just thinking about how many things she'd have missed receiving because of Lorenz's intervention. That could very well mean that he was the one who'd kept the original letters from arriving, to make it seem that Claude had no interest in maintaining a relationship with her, and the mere fact that someone would stoop that low for their own desires made her want to turn around and go give him a piece of her mind.

"No, keep it together, Hilda!" she said to herself, setting the letter down on the bedside table as she settled in for the night in the room in the lonely inn she'd found. "You can't back out of meeting with Marianne when she's worked so hard to put this whole thing together. It's not worth throwing that away just to get some payback."

Sleeping was rough that night, as her thoughts were absorbed with the idea of getting revenge on Lorenz for the damage he'd done, but she eventually did drift off and woke up feeling rather unrested at dawn, the birds chirping outside the window. In her tired state she very nearly left everything she'd brought with her there in the room, which would have been a disaster, but she thankfully realized it was about to happen before it had the chance to actually go on. That letter was tucked into her bag of things for safekeeping, because of all of her belongings that was the one that would be most damning to multiple reputations if it got left behind somewhere.

She was getting better at making the journey to Fhirdiad by herself, taking only a handful of days instead of over a week as she had before, and even though her days of travel of long and her nights resting were not, by the time she got into town she felt like she'd made great progress in a short amount of time. Now, all she needed to do was to drop the horse off at the stable and make her way to the castle to see everyone who was there, and then she'd have succeeded on what her trip was for. The first part of the task was easy enough, but the second proved difficult when there were armed soldiers milling around the city streets, brandishing weapons she didn't want to face while she was unarmed. They didn't seem like they were there as part of an occupation, nor did they seem like they aimed to be violent, but Hilda wasn't going to risk trying to go to the castle and cause a scene with them around, so a backup plan was mentally created and she just rolled with it.

The tavern was empty when she got there, minus Dita behind the bar washing mugs, and her face lit up when she saw Hilda come inside. "Is anyone with you?" she asked, setting her rag down as she spoke. "Or are you alone today?" It was clear that she was referring to one specific person, but she was playing coy on naming him outright.

However, Hilda had been anticipating seeing Ashe already there, so when she found that it was just her and Dita there, she took a second before answering the question. "I suppose I'm alone," she said, taking a seat at the bar while the tavern-maid grabbed a mug and poured cider into it, passing it off to Hilda before she could ask for anything. "You were expecting Ashe to be with me, weren't you?"

"No, not necessarily him." Picking her rag back up, Dita finished cleaning the other end of the bar before tossing the rag into a bin on the floor. "Sometimes it's Lord Ashe, sometimes it's the Margrave and Margravine Gautier, on occasion it's been—" She stopped speaking when she saw Hilda looking at her over the rim of the mug, her taking down a few sips of the cider already. "—oh, sorry, I'm probably assuming that your social group overlaps with Lord Ashe's, now that I think about it."

"No, no, go on," Hilda assured her, "I'm all ears for whoever you think I know that you see coming in here."

Dita wasn't going to be convinced, her leaning on her clean bar-top with her elbows while her fists propped her head up. "It's foolish for me to make assumptions about nobility and those doing good for the best of Faerghus," she replied after a few moments of looking from left to right, as if she was afraid she was being listened to by someone other than Hilda. "My point is, it was silly for me to think that his friends are yours. Even though you were in here with the Margrave once upon a time."

"Yeah, kind of weird that you remember that." Taking down another drink of the cider, Hilda wasn't going to let herself be bothered by this woman's almost obsessive recollection of who she'd been there with and what it meant for her social groups, but she'd seemingly left out any mention of a certain purple-haired prick, so she wasn't really certain the woman actually knew what she was talking about. "Anyway, you usually this empty at this time of day? Never seen this place so barren."

"Most of Fhirdiad's people should be in their homes sending prayers to the goddess for the well-being of our queen," Dita replied without so much as hesitating, but the content of her statement had Hilda dropping her mug, sending cider spilling all over the freshly-cleaned bar. While Dita resigned herself to cleaning it up, Hilda felt like she was there in a trance, not sure if she needed to ask a clarifying question or if she needed to just bolt out of there.

A third option came in the timely appearance of a friend, coming into the tavern and being just as surprised to see Hilda there as Dita was to see them come in. "No drinks for right now, I'm afraid," Ashe apologized as he took a seat next to the still-frozen Hilda, her having not even turned to see who else was there with her. Shrugging, Dita went right on with her cleaning, while Ashe turned his focus on to Hilda and her completely blank expression, her eyes glazed over as she was mentally processing what she'd heard. "What are you doing here? I thought you would've been told there's no need to come into Faerghus right now."

"What's going on with Marianne?" she quietly asked, her mind registering that she was hearing Ashe's voice and that he was someone she could trust getting information from. "Why is something happening to my best friend and I'm left in the dark about it?"

Looking to Dita with an expression that wordlessly told her that he wanted to be alone with Hilda, Ashe waited until it was in fact just the two of them there in the tavern before he answered her question. "Well, uh, that's kind of the thing, if we're being honest. No one's been told what's going on with her, but ever since the incident three moons ago—"

The loud gasp that Hilda gave at hearing that had Ashe pulling away from her, as she whipped her head to facing him, her eyes wide and beginning to brim with tears. "Three moons? That…that'd be far too early for…"

"—yeah, that's what we all figured out right away." He sighed, reaching to wrap Hilda in a hug but keeping his distance before he got close enough to even brush against her. "I'm actually surprised that you knew even that much."

"She told me, personally. Said I was the second person she'd told, but all of Faerghus would know before I actually found out." Blinking and feeling the tears starting to freely flow, Hilda's lower jaw began to tremor as she thought about what else there was she could say, now knowing what she knew. "I'm only out here now because I thought, hey, why not come around sooner and get to spend a long while with my best friend and her one kid before she has her second, then get to see all of our other friends like we'd planned? And now…no seeing Marianne, no seeing her baby, no doing any of what I'd expected."

"You can always make this trip worth it in other ways," he tried to tell her, but she was mentally checking out of the conversation before he could so much as mention any possible way she could do just that. Her body shifted back to staring over the bar, hunching over so that she didn't have to sit too tall, and she could recognize that Ashe was saying words to her, but what they were, she had no idea. It wasn't until a hand slammed itself down on her shoulder than she came back into the present scene, barking for Ashe to let go of her, an accusation to which he stammered, "I-I'm not touching you, Hilda…"

"Dare I ask what she's doing here?" she heard Felix saying behind her, which would explain the way she'd been coldly touched, but she couldn't be bothered to answer him herself. "Not like it matters, you're the one I'm looking for."

"Why are you here getting me? I thought you and Annette were supposed to be…well, you know where." Ashe sounded more worried than he had when he was speaking about Marianne, which didn't make sense to Hilda as she felt that the queen's health would've been top priority for any of her people, especially ones that she knew personally. "I stopped by here to grab a drink before going back, but got distracted when I saw Hilda here by her lonesome and stopped to chat."

Whether Felix accepted that answer or not, Hilda wasn't sure, but he got his hand off of her which was a positive. "You were supposed to take Mercedes to the castle and come straight back, you idiot," he snapped, which caused Ashe to immediately give an apology. "Yeah, sorry, that's exactly what you'll be when we get back and we both get an earful for being gone. Come on, let's—"

"Why was Mercedes going to the castle?" Hilda asked, realizing that if Mercedes was able to go, then perhaps she would be able to as well. "Is it a hush-hush thing, or am I allowed to know about it?"

Felix, raising his eyebrows, looked at Ashe, who shook his head solemnly. "I'm going to say it's not my place to be telling you the country's secrets, and if your loose-lipped friend here wants to tell you, that's on him. But he can tell you later, because we're both needed elsewhere." There was something so commanding and rude about Felix's tone that was sending Hilda's mind into overdrive, but the way that Ashe followed his command without so much as an attempt at arguing told her that there was a lot more going on than what she'd been given to work with.

Instead of waiting for Dita to come back, she fished money out of her bag and threw it down on the bar and followed the men out, splitting off from them as they headed one direction into Fhirdiad while she went straight toward the castle, finding that the armed soldiers in the streets didn't see her as a threat until she was approaching the castle's doors. It took a lot of begging and assuring that she had a letter in her bag that said she was supposed to be there to convince them to let her inside, but once she could get through the doors she knew that she was going to find the answers she was looking for, whether she wanted them or not.

As she crept through halls that seemed rather unused in the castle, Hilda's mind was alight with all of the different possibilities. Three moons ago would've put Marianne as being far too early in her pregnancy for the child to have been viable outside the womb, regardless of the advanced medical care she could receive by being the queen, so at any rate the child was most certainly dead. What mattered more, and was more pressing of an issue, was if Marianne had succumbed as well or if she was being kept hidden somewhere in the castle, her life a shell of what it had been before. Just the idea of finding her dearest friend unresponsive and nothing like she'd once been made the hair on the back of Hilda's neck stand on end, and she'd rather walk in on Lorenz waiting for her somewhere than to know that Marianne had met any sort of doomed fate.

Never for a second did Hilda think that perhaps her pessimistic possibilities were taking things in the wrong direction, until she grew closer to the wing where she always seemed to meet with Marianne and heard what was undeniably one of her screams. Just the thought that she was suffering right then put a bit of hustle into Hilda's step and she began to run to meet the sound, throwing open the door she was certain Marianne was on the other side of to find a collection of different nurses in the room, surrounding her dear friend, who had Dimitri on one side of her and Mercedes on the other, both looking quite confused at the identity of their new visitor.

"How did you get in here?" Dimitri asked, as Mercedes was saying, "You're certainly not Annette with an update from the orphanage." As much as Hilda would have loved to reply to both, another pained scream from Marianne drew her attention right to the blue-haired woman, who looked very much alive…and very much in the throes of active labor. All at once everything that Hilda had started to consider was thrown out the window, and she was left at a loss for what she should do in that moment, because this was not the reality she thought she was going to walk into.

She ended up standing by idly for a bit, flinching with every time her friend would scream, watching her as the pain spasmed through her body in predictable cycles. There had to be something that she could do, though, and as she was staring her poor friend down she went through, but it seemed that between Mercedes and Dimitri, as well as the various nurses, everything was rather under control. That did give Hilda the time to start trying to figure out what had been going on, because since she'd gotten into Fhirdiad not a single thing that had happened had made any sense to her. How had she gone from walking into a city crawling with guards, to hearing that something horrible had happened to the queen three moons prior, to getting into the castle quite literally as the queen was giving birth, seemed nearly impossible and yet it was what had happened.

If there wasn't so much in the way of hecticness going on, she certainly would have interrupted the activity to ask some questions, but because she didn't want to be a distraction more than she had been, she stayed silent and instead kept watching Marianne's whole body tremoring and spasming as she was going through the thick of things. Now, she wasn't familiar with what it was like to be pregnant (something she was still thankful for, and something she prayed to the goddess about on a near-daily basis), and she hadn't been around when Marianne had been pregnant the first time, but something still felt off about the whole situation. It wasn't the timing, she knew that babies were born on their own schedule and it felt like it had been long enough since she'd been told for this to be a possibility, but there was just something about the way her friend looked there laying in the makeshift bed that didn't seem right. She wasn't an expert on the matter, though, so she chalked it up to her initial worries about what she would see there at the castle in the first place as making her mind assume something had to be wrong.

Her idleness came to an end when she heard the nurses begin to chatter about it being time for the baby's entrance and she wanted to be a bit more present for that. Sliding in behind where Mercedes was on one side, Hilda leaned down closer to Marianne's face and whispered, "Hey, I'm here for you, even if you weren't expecting me."

"W-what?" Her breath was sharp as she spoke, and it was clear that this was incredibly tiring and draining for Marianne, which made sense. "Hilda, I…you're here. For this."

"I am," Hilda replied, only for Mercedes to hush her and tell her that they needed to not cause Marianne to waste her energy on talking when she had something bigger to do. For a few moments, Hilda felt like being shushed wasn't necessary, but then she heard one of the nurses say that this was going to be it and she realized that perhaps Mercedes was speaking on their behalf, not on her own opinion.

Within five minutes there was a strong pair of lungs screaming in the arms of one of the nurses, wrapped up in a towel to clean their new body off, but neither parent seemed particularly concerned with the child. Hilda's eyes were unable to move from it, her interest gone from what was going on with her friend to what had just been born into their peaceful world. Right as she was going to move to approach the nurse to get a better glimpse of the baby, Mercedes grabbed her arm and held her in place. "No, don't move quite yet," she said with a smile. "I think you may end up being quite surprised here in just a moment."

Her eyes still locked on where the nurse was holding the baby, Hilda wanted to say something about how she was already quite surprised with what she'd walked right into, but the sound of another pained scream coming from Marianne distracted her. She was finally able to look away from the baby's location for just a moment, her eyes meeting Dimitri's single one as they were both beginning to focus on what was going on with the woman right in between where they were sitting.

As all of them watched, it seemed that time had reversed itself for just a few minutes, because the scene unfolding was nearly identical to what had preceded it, except without being quite as drawn out, and soon enough there was a second pair of lungs showing their strength there in the room, while the two who were lucky enough to hold the mother's hands were assuring her that she'd done excellently. "Hold on, you guys knew that was going to happen?" Hilda asked, breaking their streak of quiet whispers and turning the attention onto herself like she was best at doing. "Here I was, surprised to walk in to there being one kid being born, but two? Am I dreaming right now? Is this really happening?"

"I'll handle it, don't either of you worry about it," Mercedes said as she let go of Marianne's hand, giving it a gentle, respectful kiss before she did so. "Come with me, Hilda, so we can talk about what happened here today. I should be getting off to my other engagement again anyway, so we'll be talking and walking."

She didn't particularly want to go, and especially not with Mercedes when she felt that either of the others would be better at the explanation aspect of things, but Hilda understood that she didn't really have a choice in the matter. Expecting one of the new parents to fill her in on what she was missing was a bit too much to ask for. She apologized for her intrusion and followed Mercedes out of the room, and while they were heading towards the main hall they started talking. "I really thought that she was dying," she admitted, hanging her head and finding herself unable to really look at the blonde. "My surprise there was totally genuine, I'll have you know."

"Oh, I definitely understand, news about what was going on was intentionally kept under wraps just in case anything went awry." Her voice as pleasant and calm as always, Mercedes didn't seem bothered in the slightest to have to be the one delivering the exposition about someone else delivering a couple of kids. "How much did you know before storming in completely unexpectedly?"

Most of what Hilda knew didn't feel like it was appropriate to bring up in such a conversation, especially since now she wasn't sure how much of it was meaningful at all. "I knew that Marianne was expecting another child, she made sure to tell me that in a letter. Told me I was the second person she'd told," she added, trying to remind herself that she'd been at least graced with that knowledge in a timely manner. "Last thing I heard from her was that our grand summer of getting to spend time together was still on, but that was, geez, probably about four moons ago?"

"She was hopeful that she'd be able to carry these blessings long enough that your plans would fall into line exactly as she'd planned for them to," Mercedes said after sorting through Hilda's admission to make sure she had the proper timeline. "If it'd only been a day longer, then she'd consider that plan a success, but every day was a struggle here recently so I don't think she could have held on much longer than she already had. That incident in the public eye was such a detriment to what she'd intended to do…"

"Don't mind me, being completely ignorant to everything all the way back in my home territory, but what was this 'incident' that happened? Can't have been that bad if she clearly just had two healthy babies in there." Picking up her pace to now keep rhythm with Mercedes' steps, Hilda was at least no longer looking down at the floor in shame of her ignorance. "I only found out there was an incident in the first place because Ashe happened to run into me right after I got into town."

"You must have crossed paths with him when he was on the way back to the orphanage, which is where I really need to be getting off to myself." After sighing, Mercedes looked over her shoulder at how close Hilda was behind her, and rather than brushing her off completely she stopped walking and turned to face her, grabbing her hands and holding them tightly in her own. "What happened stays a secret between the royal family and those who've been in the know since the start, unfortunately, because a sign of weakness could create room for a revolt in the Faerghus they've worked so hard to rebuild. What I can tell you, though, is that it was right after she'd collapsed during the tour that we'd all been surprised to learn about…well, them."

"So that's all you can tell me? All this build-up and that's all I get?" To say she was slightly disappointed would've been putting it far too lightly, because Hilda was almost irritated that she was finally in a position to get answers but Mercedes was leaving her out. "Come on, I'm Marianne's best friend, I can—"

"Is something the matter here?" Dedue's voice asked from a newly-opened door, the sound of a loudly babbling child intertwining with his words. "I can handle things if there is a problem at this point, I know you are quite the busy woman today, Mercedes."

Bowing at his statement, Mercedes gestured to where Dedue was wrangling the young prince in the nearby doorway, drawing Hilda's attention over to him instead of her as she let go of her and started on her way out. "Multiple people ask me to keep them company on one of the biggest days of their lives and it just so happens that they end up being the same day! I'll see you both around when I have a bit more time to get my head straight on my shoulders!"

In her absence, Hilda swallowed down any further complaining words as she saw Dedue, standing broadly in the doorway to where he was just barely fitting without hitting the frame in any spot, with the squirming prince under his arm making noises like a horse. "I bet you're wondering how I got here, huh," she squeaked out, trying to plaster a smile on her face but coming off more fearful than anything. "And I also bet you'd wish I'd leave on such an important day, don't you?"

"I can make an educated guess on the first point, and the second would be appreciated but, given the lengths you went to be here, I wouldn't force you to go. However, until the nursemaids deem it appropriate for visitors, I'd prefer if you'd stay with me here. Keep us both company for a while." He took a step backward into the room he was in and Hilda followed him inside, finding that the room was actually a playroom specifically set up for the prince. "This is where we have been since the labor process started yesterday morning, minus leaving for meals. His Majesty had requested that we keep our distance, no matter how long the process went on for."

"Makes sense, what I was in there for could've been pretty scarring for such a young boy." As she was watching Dedue set the prince down, the boy's eyes locked onto Hilda and he ran towards her, grabbing her in a big hug not because he recognized her, but because she was someone new in his playroom. "Good to see you too, Lambie," she greeted, having to bend down to ruffle the boy's stringy hair that seemed to have been left uncombed all day. "You're lucky to have someone so fun to keep you company all day."

Rather than use any sort of words to express his thoughts, Lambert let go of Hilda's legs and dropped onto all fours, neighing and whinnying like a horse as he galloped around the room as awkwardly as a human would. "We went to the stables with His Majesty the other day and it left quite the impression, as you can tell," Dedue explained, keeping a straight face even with the noises at both of their feet. "I can only assume that his first interaction with his new siblings will be as a horse."'

"At least that'd make for an interesting story years from now," Hilda laughed, sitting down on a chair clearly meant for a child and feeling it creak underneath her weight. "I can only imagine it, you and Dimitri and Marianne all trying to explain that to all these kids and them just not believing a word of it. Doesn't seem like something you guys would lie about, but also seems too fake to be possible."

"We'll be hopefully that this is not what happens, then, and that he has a rather normal first meeting with them instead." It was clear that the thought of having to recall a prince acting like a horse was not something Dedue ever wanted to have to do in the future, so to make him comfortable with the situation Hilda tried her best to break the boy of his neighing habit before one of the nursemaids came by to retrieve him and his caretaker, and even though she hadn't been invited along, Hilda was right there with them when they went down to the birthing room to meet with everyone else.

Her lack of invitation kept her outside the door as Dedue and Lambert went inside, and she could hear the excited voices on the other side of so many others as the prince met his two new siblings for the first time. Hilda was annoyed that she was missing out on the fun but she really did understand why she wasn't welcomed into the room right then, since she'd never been invited in the first place—that didn't seem like it was going to change out of thin air because she wasn't supposed to be there. Yet it did change, when the door opened and Dedue was coming back out with the prince, who had grown bored with the meeting and wanted to go play based on how he was tugging at his caretaker's hair while up on his shoulders. "They have an important question for you," Dedue told her, and as she was waved in by one of the nursemaids, all Hilda wanted to know was why he was telling her that. Why couldn't they have said it themselves if she was already right there?

"Your arrival earlier today coincided with their arrivals almost perfectly, I must admit," Dimitri said as Hilda came into the room, her noticing right away that he was holding one of the children while Marianne had the other in her arms, both of them looking overjoyed and exhausted at what had happened. "It came unexpectedly, but so did theirs, which makes what Marianne has to ask you all the more fitting."

"Oh, it's you that has a question for me?" Hilda asked, trying not to make it clear with her face that she had questions of her own she'd like to ask. "Well, go on with it, I suppose. Don't want to drag it out too long, you've had quite a day, after all."

Her laughter soft as her exhaustion showed on her pale face, Marianne looked down at the baby wrapped up in her arms. "Yes, yes, of course I've had quite a day, and you've been so in the dark about things but I was…fearful of an interception of letters happening that would give away my condition to the world. I intended on telling you when you arrived here in town but by then it was too late."

"No worries about it, I totally get that fear." How that would be a fear that Marianne would have and have it be a logical one, Hilda could only guess, and she hoped that it was something planted in her mind from the other person it had happened to. "So, again, what's the question you've got?"

"It's something else I'd have asked you long before this, if I felt it was safe to do so, but please don't let this come as much of a surprise." Her eyes slowly pulling up off of the baby, Marianne's exhaustion was clear in how she could barely hold her head high enough to meet Hilda's gaze. "We'd wanted to know what names we'd be using for these children long before we met them, since the pressure to introduce them both to the people of Fhirdiad will be great after this extended disappearance I've had. For the possibility that they were both male, we had a long list of potential names, just like we'd had at our disposal before Lambie had been born. For the opposite possibility, though, we never got past having one name, because…Hilda, may we name our daughter after you?"

The question was honestly what Hilda had expected it was going to be with that build-up, but she was still smacked hard with it actually being spoken into existence. "Oh, uh, definitely! A princess named Hilda, that's the best idea I've ever heard!"

"No, we're not naming her Hilda, we're naming her Valentina," Dimitri spoke up, watching Hilda's spirit immediately deflate slightly. "It was considered using just Valentine, but Marianne though the variation would be just as fitting."

"That's correct, and," Marianne's eyes tracked over to where the other baby was sleeping in its father's arms, "since we had one of each we can use the other name we'd prepared to supplement the one she now has. Princess Valentina Mercinette Blaiddyd, named after three women who supported her mother through some of the darkest times of her life." It took a moment for it to sink in that the other two being recognized were Mercedes and Annette, but when it did hit her Hilda felt proud that her name was coming first in the mix, because best friendship was more important than a physical closeness.

"I just…a princess, named after me, who could believe that would happen!" Her face was alight in a huge grin, the culmination of all of the wild emotions she'd had to endure that day, but Hilda knew that what she'd been through was completely worth it. "What's the other one's name going to be? Not to distract from my own namesake, of course, but I'm definitely curious."

"Ah, yes, which makes sense, all things considered. We were just discussing the matter with Dedue before you came in, so his name is fully settled as well." That explained why it had been Dedue who'd mentioned they had a question for her, if they'd been talking about a similar thing with him before she'd been allowed in. Respectfully nodding towards Dimitri, who looked almost afraid to move holding such a tiny child in the crook of his arm, Hilda waited for him to continue with what he'd been saying. "Oh, are you expecting me to tell you right now? No use in keeping it secret for too long, I suppose."

"I can tell her," Marianne asserted, using as much strength as she could to sound like she was really putting her foot down on the matter, and Dimitri immediately deferred to his wife's demands. "His name is Prince Alexander Jabari Blaiddyd, named after his father and an old friend dear to his father's dearest friend." She seemed pleased as she spoke, and given that Dimitri was not cutting in with any argument it seemed that he was pleased as well, so Hilda shrugged off the somewhat less regal name for the second child and went back to only caring that one of these new royals was named after her.

A few days later, once things had settled down in the castle after the arrival of the twin children, the plans were made to have the grand introduction of the newest members of the family to the country that would be watching them grow up. "It has been over three moons since the people saw me in any capacity, they'll be overjoyed to know I'm in good health and in in even higher spirits when they see why I've stepped back from the public eye for so long." Her level of exhaustion had not gone down any in the days since the birth, but Marianne was looking positively radiant for having two infants and a toddler to be mindful of every minute. "It's going to be such an exciting time for all of us when we're greeting the public next week."

"There will have to be heightened security around here, to keep any further unexpected visitors out of the castle once the world knows that not only was one child born, but two." His head resting against his fist as he was leaning against a wall near the door to the room they were all gathered in, Dedue glanced right at Hilda as if she was his mental example before looking back at Dimitri. "Your Majesty, if I may suggest we enlist some extra hands to assist with the matter. I happen to know that many trustworthy people are in town, we could use them if you allow it."

"I've been toying with that idea myself, to give you some extra assistance and perhaps some breaks as well," Dimitri said with a chuckle, which brought the tiniest of smiles to Dedue's normally straight face. "I'd assume that if anyone will be willing to help, it would be Felix as always, but given what brought him into town in the first place…"

At once, the memory of her time in the tavern before she'd rushed to the castle came flooding back into Hilda's mind, and without thinking she interrupted the conversation with her own question. "What is he doing around her, anyway? I met Ashe and Felix in a tavern when I got here, and then, obviously, when I came here people thought I was Annette and, well, color me kind of confused on what's going on."

"It's not our place to answer that question, I'm afraid," Marianne answered, giving Hilda an apologetic glance. "You'll certainly find it out sooner rather than later, though, I can guarantee that, especially with your odd habit of running into the right people at the right time around here."

Hilda nodded, unsatisfied with the non-answer but knowing that she wasn't going to get anything else, sat back and let the conversation continue around her. While the other three discussed the details of more security at the castle and the plans of the introduction to the people in the streets of Fhirdiad, Hilda was losing herself in her thoughts, running down all sorts of avenues to guess what was being kept from her. It obviously involved Mercedes and Annette, and Ashe and Felix were both in on it as well, but there were just so many possibilities for what they were doing that nothing seemed like the most plausible option. It was frustrating that she was being left out of things, but she knew that Marianne was right that she would find out at some point, whether she was aiming to or not.

That, after all, was the name of the game when it came to finding out information when it came to her friends; it always seemed that she was given news without being fully anticipating it at the time. Something told her that revelation would come at the cost of meeting a gray-haired man somewhere again, even though it may not have been his news to tell her, but at that point, Hilda wasn't going to be picky about how she got her gossip.

She mentally returned to the conversation when she noticed that Marianne's eyes were firmly on her, as if she was waiting for some sort of answer. "Did you ask me something? Kind of got lost in my thoughts."

"Well, yes, I did ask if you were interested in joining us when we tour through the city, but I realized that you wouldn't turn down a chance to do something of that sort, so it was…kind of a silly question." Crinkling her eyes as she smiled, Marianne looked so radiant and happy, even with the giant change that had just recently occurred in her life. "We want to give the children some time before we subject them to the public's eyes, so we're aiming to do this a week from today. You'll still be around, won't you?"

"Of course I will be! I don't plan on going home for a while." Pumping her fists into the air, Hilda quickly withdrew them and tried retracting some of her enthusiasm when she remembered she still hadn't explained how long she intended on sticking around. She definitely wasn't going to talk about why she was planning on being there for as long as she was, and if that topic did get approached she'd just say it was because of the timeline she thought she was working with and leave it there, saying no more than necessary. Somehow she knew that if she got started talking, Claude and Lorenz both might get brought up, and if either of their names were mentioned by herself in that context, she might tell listening ears something they weren't meant to hear.

That didn't mean that she couldn't bring either of them up in other contexts, however, and so as the conversation dwindled down to nothing and both Dedue and Marianne left to do their own things, Hilda knew that she wanted to talk about something in particular with Dimitri while she had the chance. "Hey, are you planning on sending anything about these babies out to the world outside of Fhirdiad?" she asked, watching as Dimitri sat back down rather than following his wife out of the room. "Because if you do, I've got a word of warning for you about it."

"It would be the appropriate thing to do, announcing their births through letters to those we know who cannot be here for the grand reveal," he replied, eyeing her with his good eye just to try and get a read on her intentions. "What's your warning you want to share?"

"I've had quite the problem with mail getting to me from all over," she answered, not wanting to come out and say that it was specifically mail from Almyra that seemed to keep disappearing or being held up. "So if you're going to be sending things out, see if you can get it to not have to come anywhere near Goneril territory, just in case it's something there near my home that's causing the problem."

Dimitri looked at her for a few tense moments before turning his head, rolling his neck and letting his shaggy hair fall into his face as he thought about what she was saying. "It's funny that you mention this to me now," he confessed, "because I've heard from a certain king of a nearby land a few times now that his correspondences with you seem to disappear into thin air and he's always concerns his with us will do the same. Does Claude have anything to do with why you tell me this?"

"That'd just be silly, it's been more than just letters from him I've been receiving far later than they've been being sent!" It wasn't, though, and Hilda knew it; she was playing with fire for lying to yet another member of the Faerghus royalty and while this lie was much more innocent than the ones she'd told Marianne before, they were directly intertwined with each other and unraveling one would unravel both. "I'm just saying, if you want him and anyone there in the old Alliance territories finding out about Valentina and Alexander anytime soon, you need to make sure your letters don't go anywhere near my home."

"We'll…see what we can do about that." His words felt like a concession rather than something he wanted to do, and Hilda knew that she had to be sounding slightly pushy over nothing, but Dimitri was a king, he could tell her off if he wanted to. "By the way, on that same note, are you fine with taking some letters home with you when you go? You'd be more likely to see their recipients before they'd receive them at that distance if your warning is to be taken seriously, given your social standing and your habit of visiting everyone you can when you're traveling."

Already knowing that one of those letters would be addressed to a certain Gloucester man, Hilda forced a smile on her lips and promised Dimitri they'd get to their destinations as soon as she could get them there. He was thankful and she was glad he hadn't been looking at the way she rolled her eyes as she spoke, because she knew exactly what was going to happen with those letters the moment they fell into her hands.

But there was still a lot of time left in Fhirdiad before she would have to worry about that, and by the next day Hilda had already pushed the letter debacle from her mind for the most part. It was beginning to feel like that first visit to the castle after Lambert had been born all over again, with other friends there hanging around for meals and making small talk, all of which were in on the news in the first place. She spent a lot of time with Annette in the room with Marianne and the babies, helping out on occasion (even though she let Annette do most of the helping), and sometimes they'd be joined by Mercedes, who only came by to make sure that nothing had fallen apart in her absence. There were a few times that Mercedes coming to the castle meant Ashe was with her, and because of how comfortable she'd found herself getting with him on their meetings, Hilda would gravitate towards spending time with him.

She never had the chance to try and get him to explain what had been going on at the same time as the birth of the twins, because the only time she got him wholly alone he told her he'd tell her the next time he saw her, but the following day he was gone. "He had some urgent matter to attend to back in Gaspard territory," Mercedes announced when she popped in to visit. "Nothing life-changing, but big enough that he went straight home on the back of the courier's horse instead of fetching his own ride."

"About time he found a reason to head off," Felix grumbled, lacking sleep as he'd taken on the night guard shift to help Dedue out with keeping strangers out of the castle. "Was beginning to think he was going to stay around here forever. Only so much being asked to grab drinks at the tavern I can take before grabbing my sword gets tempting."

"Felix, that's super uncalled for!" Annette scolded, gently smacking his arm with the back of her hand, and when he glared at her with his eyes rimmed with dark shadows, she immediately gulped and moved her chair away from the one he was in a tiny bit. "I still don't think it was very nice, Ashe just likes sharing what he loves with his friends."

"You didn't have to take him up on the offer at any point," Mercedes reminded him, to which she received the glare that she merely shrugged off. "I've turned him down more times than I can count, even with his insistence that I wouldn't be paying and that the tavern-maid is just the sweetest."

There was something about the way Mercedes delivered that line that made Hilda perk her ears up a bit more, listening intently to the conversation going on around her. "I've heard she knows his name and waits for him to stop by," Annette recalled, sounding chipper even though she was clearly still not fully pleased with the man beside her. "Wish I could remember her name, though, she was nice the one time I met her."

"Dita, her name's Dita," Hilda inputted, knowing that for a fact because of her time spent with the woman. "And yes, she knows Ashe's name, as well as mine and the titles of several others. She's definitely got something going on with him that's more than just a tavern-maid and patron relationship."

That stunned the others into silence for a moment, Felix being the first to break the quiet with a snort, before Mercedes insisted, "No, that's not quite possible at all. Ashe never would do such a thing."

"Oh, is that because he's seeing you?" Raising her voice a teeny bit, Hilda knew she was in over her head but a wave of confidence in her order of events had her raring to speak and challenge the seemingly pure Mercedes for a change. "I know he stays with you when he's here in town, and everyone acts like they don't know why that is, but it's totally because you're sleeping together. Except that's a problem, because he's got a thing with the tavern-maid and you've got a thing for someone here at the castle."

By then, Annette was rising from her chair to rush to Mercedes' side, just to check on her friend, while Felix was struggling to contain his amusement at the situation, his exhaustion not helping matters at all. "I'm afraid you have it all wrong," Mercedes said, aghast at what accusations had just been lobbed at her. "Ashe is nothing more than a friend to myself and to the woman at the tavern, and as for my personal life, there is someone here at the castle I am involved with, and he'd be beyond disappointed to hear you accusing me of cheating."

"Maybe you should be nicer to someone when you don't know what you're talking about," Annette piped up, staring Hilda down and trying her best at looking intimidating as she did. "Imagine if you were in Mercie's shoes and someone just accused you of sleeping with your friend, how would you like that?"

Much like he had one time so long ago, Dimitri entered the room, looking at the disaster of a conversation that had unfolded, and asked, voice stern and commanding, "What in the goddess' name is going on in here? Are you all choosing to fight on a day such as today, when we have such important plans to follow?"

"No, of course not," Hilda replied, going back to minding her own business while the others decided that keeping the spat secret would be best and agreeing with her on the matter. She felt like she'd done the right thing to call out the conception she had of the whole situation, but seeing Mercedes so distraught at her accusation didn't feel right. Adding in what Annette had asked, it was nothing but a mess that Hilda shouldn't have gotten herself involved in from the start. If it was her in that spot and she was being accused of sleeping with someone, such as Lorenz, she would have been able to lie about it like always, but knowing that it was being talked about would have just made her feel guilty about things.

[Despite her initial plans, Hilda's guilt on the matter started to eat away at her before she even saw Marianne that day, so when she did get to see her best friend she immediately had to bring herself to apologize and say that she needed to head home to handle some matters of her own. "Two different people having the same reason for leaving us so soon," Marianne remarked, looking slightly hurt at the turn of events. "I understand, though, you've been away from home for so long already, haven't you?"

She could tell how she was breaking her friend's heart for making the decision, and above all else Hilda wanted nothing more than for Marianne to be happy, so she swallowed down all of her reasons and answered, "I have, and really…what's one more day here with you? I'll head out first thing in the morning, so that Holst isn't worried sick about me being gone longer when he needs me back."

"That sounds like a lovely and noble sacrifice you're making, choosing your friends over your family, but Holst will certainly understand one day's difference." Holding her arms wide for a hug, Marianne watched Hilda hesitate before taking her up on the offer, and so when she was able to hug her she made sure it was long and meaningful, a sign that despite a change in plans, their friendship would remain strong.

To alleviate some of the awkwardness she'd brought onto herself, Hilda kept her distance from the pair of ladies she'd fought with while they were all out on the town, introducing the people of Fhirdiad to the surprise pair of twins that had graced the royal family's presence. The people oohed, they cheered, and they tried to get too close for comfort many times, but they were stopped by both Dedue and the armed guards that were still being used to help patrol the city. Nothing was going to happen to these two children on any of their watches, and that was something that everyone accepted as fact.

Also accepted as fact was that sometimes, Hilda's insistence on being in the know with all of the happenings going on around her would cause her trouble, and when she left the following morning she did so with a bag of letters meant for people in former Alliance territories that would have passed through her own home territory on their way. How she'd managed to convince Dimitri that there was a legitimate, widespread problem with mail delivery, she'd never really know, but it was causing her more of a hassle than just coming clean with why she'd said anything at all would do. Because she was transporting urgent letters from the King of Faerghus, she couldn't do her usual route of taking her time getting home, although dropping the letters off at different points to send them on their way did give her a bit of that exploration.

When she returned home, she had two letters extra than what she should have had at that point, one which was addressed to Lorenz and had a special note from Marianne on its envelope wishing that he'd been in to visit with Hilda (which had made Hilda feel like retching when she'd seen it), and the other addressed to Claude. The only other letter she had at that point was Holst's, and after he'd gotten it he'd mentioned that a visitor had come by looking for Hilda while she'd been out, and that he'd told him to write before stopping by next time. "It's funny, he said he has written you, which was quite strange to me. If he'd been writing to you, I would've known it, but I haven't seen anything from anyone I'm not familiar with."

"Must be someone who's delusional about who I am," she replied with a flippant shrug, carrying her two bonus letters and all of her belongings with her until she was back in her place, in the room she'd left empty in her absence. There were envelopes sealed with wax scattered over her bed, some from Almyra and others from other friends, but she'd pay attention to those after taking care of some business.

Burning one letter and opening the other to add her own message into its safe pages was morally wrong on several letters, but at that point Hilda didn't care about being correct with her behavior. She wasn't going to let Lorenz find out what everyone else in their world knew, and she was going to make sure that Claude knew how much she wanted him at the same time he learned about the twin royals of Fhirdiad. There was no way any of this could backfire on her, and she was confident enough in her scheming that she personally took Claude's modified letter to be sent off, watching as it was handed to the delivery courier with an express delivery to Almyra's capital fully intended.

Sometimes it was good to be Hilda.

A/N: so with this chapter, reading this fic on AO3 becomes visually more appealing! also wow look at me throwing some plot curveballs in, this can only bode well.