Great Tree Moon, 1196

Hilda woke up to the sound of Leonie's voice saying something that she couldn't quite catch, and when she cracked one eye open she saw her friend standing by the door, which had just been shut. "Innkeeper was asking when we planned on heading out," Leonie explained, walking towards the other bed in the room, where her knapsack had been packed back up after their night's stay. "I said we'd be out as soon as you were ready to go, since we've got to get to our destination today if we're going to be there for this gathering."

Stifling a yawn as she sat up, clutching the blanket tightly to herself, Hilda gave Leonie quite the dazed look, almost as if she had no idea what was being discussed. "Remind me again why I let you decide when we'd leave home," she muttered, a statement at which Leonie laughed. "No, I'm serious. Why did I do that?"

"You didn't, we left the morning after you got back to Fódlan, because we were supposed to leave the day before and you never showed up!" Laughing, Leonie grabbed her bag and threw it over her shoulder, before picking Hilda's bag up off the floor and moving it to the foot of her own bed. "I'm going to head down to their tavern to grab a bite before we're on our way, you finish getting ready and meet me down there." She went to the door, gave Hilda a look that told her that delaying them any longer was not an option, and left quickly.

In her absence, Hilda sat there in her spot on the bed for a few minutes, fully waking herself up while spacing out with her eyes focusing on nothing. Then, as she got up to get dressed and pack her things, she ended up stubbing her toe on the wooden plank floor and bursting into tears at the mere inconvenience a sore toe was going to give her for the rest of the trip.

By the time she'd collected herself, she was wearing her clothes for the day, a loose-fitting blouse that she'd bought from a market vendor in Almyra right before she'd left, and a pair of riding pants that she'd snagged from Holst's closet upon getting to his home. She looked slightly disheveled, even after going to the mirror to check her appearance, but there was only so much she could do about what she was wearing.

With a flounce of her shoulder-length hair, she decided she looked as good as she was going to get for the rest of the ride and grabbed her bag, heading down to the tavern to find Leonie in deep conversation with the man at the bar. "Let me guess, you need me to pay the tab," she said as she approached, hearing both of them laugh before Leonie told her that was exactly it. "Well, you're in luck that I kind of have some money right now." Fishing that out of her bag, she handed the man all he was owed and then some before she and Leonie made their way out to the stable, where Leonie's horse was being boarded for the night.

"He was telling me the quickest way to get to Gautier territory from here," Leonie explained once they were on the back of the horse and on their way, her ponytail hitting Hilda in the face a few times until she'd secured it underneath the collar of her shirt. "Sorry about that, guess I forgot to keep you in mind when I got ready this morning. But anyway, he told me a shortcut that should get us there just early enough to be there for a late lunch."

"After this ride, who knows how hungry I'm going to be," Hilda remarked, feeling the breeze blowing her already-messy hair all askew; she'd questioned cutting it as short as she had when she'd done it but figured she'd be fine, only to go on this trip without any way to pull the pink strands back. "I'm honestly surprised my stomach's cooperated as much as it has this whole trip. Last time I was on a horseback trip, when I was home to visit you guys at the inn for Ignatz's birthday, I couldn't keep anything down the whole time. Holst got so annoyed with how many times we had to stop that trip."

"Yeah, but you were also—" Leonie was cut off by a sudden dip in the road, her horse gliding over it without the need for her to direct it to do so. "—whoa! Okay, you still feeling fine after that?"

She may have needed to swallow something down, but Hilda said that she was fine even with the surprise leap. "I know, I was also kind of dealing with something a lot bigger than just a stupid horse ride," she continued, instinctively shrinking back away from Leonie, only to come back forward when the road started to feel a bit bumpier than it previously had. "I can't believe we didn't know it until we were back home, though."

"And you didn't tell me until I came to get you from Holst's, which…don't know how I didn't suspect it the moment you were spending most of your time with us at the inn throwing up." Leonie laughed, which made Hilda relax just a bit. "It all made so much sense when you told me, because with how all over each other the two of you have been since you reunited, the moment you got married we should've known what was coming next."

Now she was back to tensing up and trying to shirk away from her friend, which would only result in the cycle starting anew. "Look, we weren't getting any younger and I wasn't ever planning on being an 'old' mom to begin with," Hilda pointed out, to which Leonie shrugged at the logic. "It's true! If it were up to me, I would've done this all, like, ten years ago just to get it over with, but someone decided to go be king instead of get with me. Took us long enough to sort that whole mess out."

"Yeah, you slept with an old friend for a while, got out of that nonsense, hooked up with said king for a while then married him, and now you're having his kid, how exciting, right?" A lot of Leonie's positivity towards the situation came from a few days prior, when she'd been waiting around at Holst's home for his sister's arrival. She'd been there to see the wyvern descending from the sky, on its back the royal couple of Almyra, and she'd been witness to the very stern warning Claude gave Hilda about being careful while on her trip, not just to protect a country's queen but its future ruler as well. Since up to that point, only the two of them and Holst had been aware of what was going on, it came as quite the shock that Leonie got to be one of the first to know about it, and she was hanging onto the high that reveal had given her the whole ride.

But that had to come to a stop, because Hilda hadn't chosen to wear completely unflattering clothing just for the fun of it, there was a very specific reason she'd done it. "Yeah, super exciting, but no one else knows about any of it. Well, I mean, at this point it might've gotten out that Claude and I…you know, got married late last year, but the rest of it? Still definitely a secret I'm keeping until I can drop it on everyone."

There was quite the groan that came from Leonie, even while being muted slightly by the wind. "How am I going to get around not mentioning it? It's all I can think about, honestly, that you've loved him since we were at Garreg Mach and now inside you's his baby!"

"Please, don't ever say it like that again." Another groan, but no matter how much Leonie protested there was no way that Hilda was going to let someone else talk about something big in her life on yet another occasion. "I'm hoping that this gathering Sylvain and Ingrid have put on is a great opportunity to inform everyone of how excellently my life is going without intervention of their royal family, but if it's not then they'll just have to wait until the whole world knows about it." Which, as Hilda was completely aware, wasn't going to be nearly as far in the future as someone less familiar with everything might suspect.

"Fine, I won't tell anyone, but only because I actually respect you." That was that, and even though they talked about the situation again on the ride, it was clear that Leonie was going to hold herself to the silence she'd just agreed to partaking in. When they could see the Gautier residence off in the distance, she promised Hilda that she was done talking about matters until given permission to touch the topic again, and that was all she could ask for from her friend right then. "Now that we've got that all settled, I wonder if anyone's already here or if we're going to be the first ones arriving. It is still quite early in the day…"

"You'd said we'd be here by lunchtime, and," Hilda looked up to see where the sun was in relation to the highest point in the sky, "I think we'll have made it right on schedule."

"Whoa, no, I said by late lunch, we must've gone way faster than I expected us to." Patting her horse's neck as an apology to the steed, Leonie took them up to the front doors of the not-so-modest home, which was more of a castle than anything they'd passed in the surrounding territory. That was where she dropped Hilda off, telling her that she'd go get the horse somewhere comfortable and meet her inside, an arrangement that Hilda was perfectly fine with, given that she was hungry and looking forward to being able to sit down somewhere comfortable and rest for a bit after that ride.

She firmly knocked on the door, banging as hard as she could with the side of her fist a couple times before stepping back, adjusting the waist of her pants so that it was properly covering her stomach and not making her shirt do all of the work. That gesture promptly flew out the window as being necessary when the doors open and the first thing she saw was a pale head of red hair zip out towards her, followed by an even paler and smaller one. "I told you both not to charge at the guests," she heard Ingrid saying, but her attention was drawn to the two small children who'd began clinging to her. "Or…guest? Hilda, I thought you'd said you were bringing Leonie with you."

"She's taking care of the horse," Hilda replied, still focused wholly on the two children that she'd never met before in her life. "Are you going to tell me who these kids are, or am I supposed to just let them hang on me?" she asked, finally looking away from the kids just to see Ingrid standing in the doorway, leaning against the opened door with one hand on her hip, the other cradling a very swollen stomach that made Hilda's hips hurt just to look at. "And tell me about what's going on there, while you're at it!"

"Please, I'm sure you're quite able to connect the dots for yourself. You were invited to a birthday party, after all, and it certainly isn't mine or Sylvain's anytime soon." Watching as Hilda's face betrayed her confusion towards that statement, Ingrid groaned and shook her head. "He never told you, huh? Well, guess all of this has to come as a bit of a shock, then. Come on in so we can catch up a bit while we wait for the others to get here."

She whistled after speaking, the two kids taking that as their cue to let go of Hilda and to run back to their apparent mother's side, and soon their quartet was inside the castle, going straight for a sitting room right near the door. "I hope this doesn't come off as needy or anything, but could we possibly have something to eat? Leonie and I are both hungry and—"

"There'll be a meal when Sylvain gets back, which shouldn't be too long from now. He knows that if he makes me wait too long, he'll have quite a problem on his hands." Laughing as she sat down in what was clearly a well-worn chair, Ingrid let out a long sigh as she kicked one of her legs up, her bare foot the same width from toes all the way past her ankle. "I'm surprised you showed up so early, we figured we'd have time for him to run this errand before anyone was here."

"Yeah, you can blame Leonie and the shortcut she was told about for that one," Hilda replied, unable to focus her eyes anywhere but on Ingrid's midsection, her own clenching in fear of someday soon looking anywhere close to that large and uncomfortable. "Honestly as long as we got here in time for lunch that's all I cared about, and it worked out in our favor."

"Mama, who's this?" the older-looking of the two kids cut in, his hands pressed against his cheeks, while the younger boy was doing the same action but without the words. "Who's here for m'birthday?"

Taking a second to give the boy a strong side-eye for jumping into the middle of a conversation between two adults, Ingrid answered him in a bit of a roundabout way. "I suppose some introductions are in order. I was going to wait until Leonie was in here too, but sometimes impatient little children need their answers sooner. This is Hilda, she's an old friend of ours from back when your father and I were at the monastery and in the war."

Both of the boys nodded, although the younger one seemed to understand very little of what was said and the older wasn't doing too much better. "Hilda, okay!" he proudly said, puffing up his little chest and offering her a small hand to shake, which she did while trying her hardest not to laugh. "I'm Aerick! 'morrow's m'birthday!"

"Tomorrow's not his birthday, but he's so excited about his party that sometimes he forgets that his birthday's not for a few more weeks." Switching which foot she had elevated on the small footstool in front of her, Ingrid shifted how she was sitting so that she was propping herself up on one arm, fist curled underneath her jaw. "When he gets older he'll understand why we celebrate a few weeks early, but of course, he's not quite four so that might go over his head just a bit."

Hilda paused for a second, to do some math, before nodding in understanding. "Right, because you wouldn't want to be celebrating him when your king is celebrating the birthday of the princess and prince, makes sense." She'd purposely left out someone in that statement, and she hoped that wouldn't be called out on it.

Thankfully for her, Ingrid seemed to ignore it completely, but to drop something completely different on her instead. "It's just the struggle when Aerick has the same birthday as Vali and Lexy, you can't celebrate him on the actual day. Not like we've had too much of a problem with celebrating beforehand, except maybe…" She trailed off, shifting back to sitting fully upright. "No, I'm not even going to think about that happening."

"Think about what happening?" Hilda couldn't help but ask, not sure what the answer she'd get would be.

"Nothing, it's nothing at all." Except it clearly was something and Ingrid was going to do her best to make sure she didn't have to explain it to Hilda, but Hilda was insistent and kept prodding with asking what was going to happen, until she finally snapped. "The only problem I can see with us celebrating early is that Mercie isn't going to be able to make it and it always seems that when she's unavailable for being moral support is when these kids decide they want to be born. Happened with Aerick, happened with Dilan, probably will happen with this one."

"Wait, she's not going to be here?" That was the takeaway that Hilda gathered from what Ingrid said, and to see her friend look at her very confused before nodding made her feel like she'd been missing out on a lot of things. "I'd have thought she'd drop everything to be here, I mean, it just feels like a Mercedes thing, you know? But I guess it makes sense, she's got to stay in town to watch the orphanage and all that."

Ingrid laughed, which caught Hilda off-guard because she felt her reasoning was rather solid for why Mercedes wouldn't be coming. "I guess she never told you? She passed the orphanage on to one of her close friends in that line of work and headed out to Duscur with Dedue. Been almost two years now since she left, but almost three since she started getting plans made for it. That's how she nearly missed being there with Dilan, but…that worked out in its own way."

"Mercedes left to go to Duscur?" Hilda asked, making sure she'd heard that correctly. "I never would've guessed she'd actually do it. She seemed pretty content with her role at the orphanage, and obviously I'd never expect Dedue to leave his service of the king."

"Oh, yeah, it came as a huge surprise to all of us when they announced it, but whatever makes her happy, right? The rest of us were all living our lives, they wanted to go out and live theirs as well." Ingrid let that hang in the air for a moment, while Hilda found herself idly playing with the two boys who were running laps around her, both of them so obviously Sylvain's children that she felt a bit bad for their mother for that arrangement. Noticing her attention being on the boys, Ingrid cleared her throat before continuing to speak, hoping she'd catch Hilda's interest again. "I'm honestly surprised that we haven't been walked in on yet. I thought you said that Leonie came with you?"

"She did," Hilda said, realizing that it had been just a bit since they'd come into the sitting room and they hadn't heard a word from her traveling companion. "I wonder what's taking her so long, I never thought it would've—"

Her words were cut short by Leonie poking her head into the room, a giant grin on her face as her eyes landed on the two children. "You really weren't kidding, they are both adorable," she remarked, which made zero sense to either of the women already in there as they hadn't said a thing on the matter, until Sylvain came around her to show that he was there too. "I'll be honest, the moment you mentioned them I wasn't quite sure that you could be telling me the truth, but you did a good job."

"Thanks, I like to say I did a quarter of the work, but it was arguably the most important part of all: the good looks." Based on how his bragging sucked all of the joy out of the room, leaving a bone-chilling cold that was supplemented by the deadly glare Ingrid was shooting in his direction, it was clear that she did not agree with that statement at all. "H-hey now," he chuckled as he saw Ingrid starting to try lifting herself out of the chair, eyes zeroed in on him, "there's no need to strain yourself over that, is there?"

She didn't let his words deter her from getting up, and once she was on her feet she looked between Hilda and Leonie and said, "If either of you have kids, make sure that the man you have them with isn't a self-centered prick who takes more credit than he deserves," before she was moving towards Sylvain as fast as she could. The two boys followed her happily, and while Hilda was getting out of her own chair she could see Leonie's big grin still firm on her face, eyes darting between her friend and where the others had just headed.

"Say anything, and our friendship is over," she warned, deflating Leonie's excitement just a hair, but the grin remained prominent as they left the room and headed to the dining hall for the lunch they'd been looking forward to their whole way there. It definitely was not easy in the slightest for Leonie to keep her mouth shut, and she may have made a couple very obvious glances in Hilda's direction whenever the topic of children was brought up, but she kept up her end of the deal and didn't say a word.

The meal was chaotic, as to be expected when there were two extra people at the table and the children present were trying their best to behave in front of the strangers. By the end of the meal (which the quality of was decent, but both Hilda and Leonie recognized that they'd been shorted on food to appease someone else dining with them), they'd learned a lot more about those two children than any letter written about them would teach, as well as a few more details about the seemingly loving marriage that Ingrid and Sylvain had going on. There was definitely something about the way they'd look at each other that explained how they could not only put up with each other for so long, but how they'd managed to get two, almost three children out of the deal.

But dwelling on that was only going to make what she was hiding more obvious, if Leonie's little glances weren't doing the job for her, and so Hilda had to play it off like she wasn't a little jealous that her own marriage—which was still secret to everyone except Leonie—would never be quite as casual as theirs was. She was a queen to Claude's king, and that meant that they would immediately have a lot more going on in their lives than a margrave and his margravine would have. "What are you so deep in thought over there about?" Sylvain asked her after a maid had come to clean off their lunch plates, him leaning forward into the table like a schoolgirl looking for gossip. "Something heavy on your mind?"

"Just taking in everything, you both sure have thrown a lot at me already," she answered, not wanting to say what she was actually thinking about because of how much would unravel if she did. "Like, for starters, the fact that you invited us here for a birthday party for a kid I didn't even know existed."

"Yeah, that one's my bad, would've figured someone else had told you about him before then." Shaking his head, Sylvain glanced over to the child in question, who seemed to be gleefully kicking his feet in his younger brother's direction while looking around like he was waiting to be spoken to. "Look, you can't blame me on that, with how much Ashe talks about you I would've been wrong to assume he wasn't giving you weekly updates on everyone he knows, except clearly he wasn't."

"He barely updates me on what's going on in his life, other than his work with literacy for orphans, why would he tell me anything about anyone else?" She didn't mean to come off as a bit annoyed or heated, but based on how Sylvain's face darkened a tad at her words, she feared she'd done just that. "Even just telling me when you invited me would've worked, instead I came out here thinking it was going to be some kind of adults-only gathering and now there's little ones around."

"And there'll be more of those, just you wait," Ingrid cut in, catching both Sylvain and Hilda's eyes on her for the statement. "What? It's true, and you know it."

Waggling a finger in her direction, Sylvain corrected, "No, I know that's true, Hilda doesn't, and if Leonie were in here she wouldn't know it either, I'm sure."

"What's that about me?" Leonie asked, walking in with her hair removed from its ponytail, her having stepped away to go fix it after their ride. "Whatever it is, I've got no idea what's going on. When's the rest of the party getting here?"

It was an accidental diversion from the topic, but the couple of the castle were quick to capitalize on it. "The others should be here later this afternoon, if what they told me hasn't changed," Ingrid said, smiling at Leonie out of thankfulness for getting them out of the previous conversation. "It's not too many others, but it'll be enough to make this place feel full for a couple days. Then they'll all be off to their homes and we'll be here and you both will go…where, exactly?"

At the same time that Leonie answered with, "Oh, to visit Fhirdiad for a couple days," Hilda's eyes went wide with the realization that she'd forgotten all about a second part to the trip and had told Claude to meet her back at Holst's place much sooner than he'd need to. She coughed into her hand, trying to get Leonie's attention, but it was futile as Leonie kept going on about what she planned to do in the capital city when she was there.

"Mama, Hilda looks 'ick," Aerick pointed out, having been the only one to see that in the moment of her realization, Hilda's face had started to go rather pale. His innocent way of announcing that to everyone brought all of their attention onto her, and in that moment she had to play it cool and act like nothing was bothering her at all.

But Hilda's go-to strategy in those situations was to lie to cover herself, and so she pretended like nothing was wrong for a split second, before she felt like something was about to come crawling up out of her stomach and she literally jumped to her feet, covering her mouth with the hand she'd initially coughed into. As she was the only other person standing, and had just done some exploring of the castle herself, Leonie quickly grabbed her other arm and dragged her away from the table, hoping to make it somewhere safe before anything else had the chance to happen.

They got as far as the sitting room before the pressure building in her stomach got to be too much to bear and she stumbled down, bracing herself with one arm while she was trying her hardest to keep her mouth covered. "Come on, get up before they follow," Leonie begged her, having been dragged down with Hilda when she'd fallen but easily picking herself back up. "You don't want this to be how they find out, right?"

"Find out what?" Sylvain asked from behind them, but only Leonie was able to turn to look. "I mean, if it's that we need a better cook, I'm already aware of that. Ingrid only tells me that every day."

Leonie wasn't sure how to answer that, if she was meant to agree with him and insult the person who'd done the cooking or if she was supposed to tell the truth, but Hilda composed herself long enough to reply. "I'd say you definitely need a better cook. Something about what was served to us just now is not sitting well with me."

"Yeah, figured by how fast you bolted out of there. Here, before you make us need to clean up before company arrives, lemme show you where you can hang out for a bit." He and Leonie both helped her back to her feet, and as woozy as she was she was able to make it to the bathroom chamber before she felt like throwing up again; however, they were barely out of the room in time to avoid having to bear witness to her throes of sickness. And by the time she'd emptied the contents of her stomach and felt better, she left the room to see them both staring at her, Leonie looking rather sorrowful and Sylvain looking smug.

"Do I want to know what this is about?" Hilda asked, wiping at her mouth in case that was the culprit. "You're both looking at me kind of funny."

"Never would've taken you for being someone to want a family," Sylvain told her, and the way her eyes widened gave away that he'd struck a nerve. "If you were wanting to keep it secret, you could've picked someone better to keep it secret from. Ingrid picked up on it the moment you ran out of the dining hall, and honestly? Can't believe I didn't notice it sooner."

She shifted uncomfortably on her feet, feeling the fabric of her shirt brush against where her pants covered her stomach, and she realized that in all of the hustle and bustle of looking for salvation, she'd let her drape-like shirt catch on herself to become a bit too tight and revealing of what she was hiding. "I-It's not like I'm unmarried or anything," she blurted out, before groaning when she saw Sylvain's smug look turn more knowing. "Oh, come on, how'd you figure that one out?"

"That'd be me, actually," Leonie admitted. "He asked me if you were pregnant the moment we were out here alone, and when I said yes he asked me if you were married, which I also said yes to. But I didn't tell him to who, so at least there's that?" A small victory, but a huge blow to what Hilda had planned to do with dropping all of her revelations in one go. "Hey, not all's lost, right? You get to wear your ring now without having to lie about it."

"Yeah, I supposed that's something," she reluctantly agreed, reaching into her pocket to pull the dazzling band of gemstones that Claude had given to her, an heirloom from the Almyran royal family that he wanted her to have. When a ray of sunlight struck one of its gems it shone, to the point that everyone's eyes—even her own—were drawn to it, and she slipped it nice and snug onto her finger. "There, that at least feels a bit better."

As they were walking back towards the dining hall where they'd left Ingrid and the children, Sylvain said, "Man, wish I could've given something half that nice as my proposal, but all Ingrid wanted was something simple. Your man must really like you if he's shelling out big money for that sort of quality."

"Yeah, I'd say he really likes me." Hilda couldn't help but think about the oftentimes insane games that she'd had to play in order to get to be with Claude, from her mistakes to her mail being stolen to losing the closest friend she'd ever had, but in the end, their love had been allowed to flourish and that ring was plenty proof of that. "He's a great guy, you'll have to make the trip to come visit us sometime."

Sylvain seemed to think that was a great plan, and for traversing that topic without saying who she was married to, Hilda felt relieved. Leonie, though, seemed a bit uneasy about something that had been said. "Wouldn't visiting you guys be a bit difficult?" she asked, without thinking of the implications, and no amount of shushing her was able to get the problem with her question through her head. "I mean, it was hard for us when we did it."

"I bet it'd be plenty hard to have to cross Fódlan's border," Sylvain added after the implications of Leonie's question struck him. "But we'd do it for you guys, I bet Ingrid would love to get to travel in the future. And, wow, I can't even say I remember the last time I actually got to have a conversation with—"

"Don't, just don't." Her eyes glaring daggers at Leonie for ruining everything, Hilda didn't want to hear Sylvain's smug voice telling her things she already knew. "It was probably when your king and queen got married, since up until…not all that long ago, really, that had been the last time I'd even seen him. If not then, I have no idea when."

"—yep, definitely could've called it sooner that you hooked up with Claude. How's being queen of a completely different country feel?" So the bombardment of questions was to begin, which was why Hilda had wanted to avoid the topic until she had as large of an audience as possible. When they got to the dining hall, Ingrid got in on things too after getting a quick recap, and for the next hour, it was time to grill Hilda on everything that had been going on in her life as of late.

A maid bustled into the room to interrupt their talking, somewhere around the time that Hilda was fully annoyed with answering questions about herself. "It seems a carriage is enroute to the castle," she said with a bow of her head in Sylvain's direction. "Would you and the guests like to come see who it is?"

"Suppose a little peek wouldn't hurt," he decided, looking at Hilda and Leonie. "You two want to come see who's arriving?" Neither of them had any reason not to, so they left the dining hall together, while the maid stayed back to help Ingrid with wrangling the children and getting them ready for more people coming in. "I'm willing to guess I know who it is, seeing as it's still daytime," he said with a laugh as they walked to the front doors, then outside towards the road. "I'll keep that a secret, though."

"Based on the fact that I can see a Fraldarius banner flying on that carriage over there, I think I can make a guess for myself," Leonie slyly replied, pointing in the direction of what she could see. True enough, there was in fact a banner that gave away the identity of who was riding underneath it, but even with that defeat Sylvain still seemed to be coy about who was really inside the carriage.

That was because, as it parked and the driver came around to open the door, the only person riding inside was Annette, her hair coiled tightly into a high bun that she nearly knocked on the top of the carriage. "Hello, everyone!" she greeted as she was helped down to the ground, an attendant bringing her bags up to the front door of the castle where a maid came and took them inside. "I'm so glad I could make it today, I was beginning to worry that I'd be delayed to tomorrow as well."

"You see," Sylvain explained after giving Annette a big hug as his own greeting towards her, "I already knew that her and Felix were coming separate. Something about him being in Fhirdiad for something for a while and needing extra time to get ready to come up here, he wasn't really specific on the details. As long as they're both here for the festivities tomorrow, I couldn't really care when they got here or how, and I made sure to tell him that."

Annette's eyes narrowed and she raised her gloved hand, smacking Sylvain's arm a couple of times before moving in for hugs with the two ladies. "He did not appreciate that, I'll have you know! He was super annoyed that you wouldn't want to spend more time with him, and he told me to give you a hard time while I've got you alone."

"Look, until everyone else gets here, I'm surrounded by four adult ladies that I've known since the school days, I don't know how you could possibly give me a hard time when I'm in this sort of wonderland." He was joking, obviously, but the way that Annette got so fired up about it made it entertaining to be watching their back and forth, something that Hilda was sure would get tiresome to witness if she was around too often.

Of course, the moment that Annette hugged her, she noticed the ring and began asking questions about it, and that meant that the temporary reprieve from having to answer personal details had ended. By the time they were back inside and off into a different sitting room than the one previously used, Hilda had divulged just about everything possible about her current life situation, which Annette seemed to eat up like it was some delicious delicacy. "I really wish Mercie was here to see you, she'd be so happy for you if she knew how well you were doing!" she said as she clapped her hands at the baby news that Hilda only was slightly reluctant to talk about again. "She always asks me if I know what's going on with you when she writes me, but I never know, except next time? I'm definitely going to have a lot to share with her!"

"That's…great that she's interested in how I'm doing," Hilda mumbled, thinking about how it could've been so much easier if Mercedes would've just reached out to her instead of assuming someone she wasn't as close to would have the details. "Tell her that if she wants to ever come visit me from Duscur, I'd be more than happy to get her across the border."

"Will do!" Annette was so cheerful, and it was clear that even having been attached to a well-known grump for as long as she had been, it hadn't diminished even a bit of her natural enthusiasm for life. The four of them settled into a long conversation about Fódlan as a whole after that, talking about changes they'd seen or experienced since the war, and after a while Ingrid even came in to join them (with only a slight distraction from Annette when it came to greeting her friend and checking in on her).

It was nearing dinnertime when the same maid from before came into the room, once again bowing her head towards Sylvain. "There's another carriage inbound, were we expecting anyone else to be arriving tonight or should we turn them away at the fork?" Sylvain's eyes darted from side to side as he thought through the plans, before getting to his feet and telling the maid to allow the carriage to near the house. She gave a quick nod and bustled off, while he motioned for everyone to rise out of their seats as well.

"Didn't think they'd be getting here until morning, so this comes as a bit of a surprise," he admitted, "but if anyone wants to see the rest of the party—minus Felix, that is, sorry Annette—then please, come with me to meet them at the door."

The use of the word they was what caught Hilda by surprise, and she looked to Leonie to see if she'd noticed it as well, but she didn't seem to have heard anything strange in what was said. Naturally, Hilda was going to see who this guest was, but she didn't know if Sylvain was playing sneaky with the reveal again, or if there were multiple people on their way to join them all there at the castle. Her deepest fear was that they'd get to the door and it'd be the king and queen of Faerghus with their children, and just the idea that she'd be coming face-to-face with Marianne in such a state was not something she wanted to entertain. But Sylvain had to be aware of that whole situation, he couldn't have been willing to put her into a position of ruining her whole experience there at his family home, so perhaps it was just Dimitri and the children, Marianne left behind.

Her head beginning to ache with going over the possibilities of who they were about to see, Hilda looked to Leonie to see what her take on the scenario was; Leonie was merely along for the ride and didn't seem to be thinking too much about who it was they'd be seeing. In fact, she seemed more interested in whatever it was that Annette was talking about, her jabbering along like she was the most important thing in the room. If only Hilda felt comfortable enough to slip into that mindset, being so blissfully unaware to what horror may await them on the other side of the door.

Right as they approached, there was a barrage of soft knocks on the outside of the castle's door, causing Sylvain to laugh. "How many of them do you think there are right now?" he asked, a general question to the three ladies that only Annette seemed to know how to answer, her scrunching her face before saying she had no idea. "Let's see, then!"

He pulled the door open so that they could all take a peek at who was on the other side, and the first thing Hilda noticed was that she didn't know a single one of these kids that she was now staring at. They were all older children, maybe ten years old at the oldest, but she couldn't say she knew anyone who had a child older than the elder prince of Faerghus, and he wasn't more than five…. "Uh, who are these kids?" she asked Leonie, who shrugged, before leaning over to ask Annette the same question. Annette seemed confused that she was being asked that at all, and she whispered her response to Leonie, who seemed taken aback by the answer she got.

"And just where are your parents?" Sylvain playfully asked, almost growling at the group of four children at the door, who all seemed a bit stunned to have been revealed to an equal-sized group of adults. "Come on, I know you're all quite talkative."

"I said, who are these kids?" Hilda repeated, a bit louder so that Sylvain and the kids themselves could hear her, because Leonie sure wasn't answering. "I'm not sure I'm down with strangers being here when—" She silenced herself immediately when she saw someone coming up behind them, a familiar gray head of hair she'd never forget, and when he realized she was staring him down, all Ashe could bring himself to do was stop where he stood and give her a small, shaky wave.

"What do you mean you forgot to ever mention this whole part of your life to me?" It wasn't so much that Hilda was heated, but she certainly sounded like she was, as she and everyone else were gathered back in the larger sitting room, every possible chair used by someone. The four kids at the door had just been a small taste of who all had been arriving then, as there were two others of similar size that came in right after Ashe had, but that wasn't the part that had Hilda so worked up. "All those times we met each other, all the letters you wrote me, and you never once mentioned that you were adopting every kid you couldn't personally find a family for?"

"It never felt right to bring up something so big in our talks, but I never had the chance to invite you to my home to show you what I was doing. My apologies if this comes as too big of a surprise to you." He looked remorseful, looking at the collection of children he'd brought with him, before his eyes landed on someone else he'd brought along, who had been sitting off to the side to stay out of the crosshairs of an enraged friend. "Make that two somethings I need to apologize for, actually. We never really spoke on romance, especially nothing of my own, so I kept that silent as well, for much longer than I should have."

"I'd say, I'd never would've guessed that you actually had someone in your life if it hadn't been super heavily hinted at me years ago." Hilda could recall that conversation fairly well, despite it having been one of her lowest emotional points, and she had never forgotten what Mercedes had said about Ashe that day. "Just didn't think you'd be so bold to keep that all a secret from me, especially since I thought we were such good friends!"

He let his eyes shift back over to Hilda, his gaze filled with remorse. "We are good friends, I was just hesitant to tell anything about myself. Of course, it seems that you have been big on doing the same, so we can consider ourselves even on this front, can't we?" That wasn't something she could argue with, seeing as in the short time they'd all been in that room as this whole group her marital status (and therefore her position as queen of Almyra) had been told to everyone, the newcomer children all oohing at the revelation. "You look past me not mentioning my personal life and I look past you not mentioning yours."

It wasn't that hard of a sell to convince Hilda to take that deal. "Sure thing, but I've got just one small question about all of this." As she raised her fingers to denote how small of a question it really was, she motioned towards the person who was nestled off in the corner. "Is the kid she's holding a former orphan, too?"

"W-why would you ask something like that?" Leonie sputtered, grabbing her cheeks in frustration at what she'd just heard her friend ask. "At least, if you're going to ask it, ask it in a nicer way, don't you think?"

"No, it's fine how she asked it." Taking a second to compose himself as he stood up and carefully navigated the crowded room to get to the woman's side, her looking almost bored at the proceedings while the child she held slept in her arms, Ashe placed his hand on the top of her head before giving Hilda a smile. "I suppose now is as good a time as any to have this conversation. You are already familiar with Hapi, we fought alongside her in the war, but after things settled down she decided that she wanted to help me with rebuilding Gaspard lands to what they always could have been. Somewhere in all of that, we decided that helping orphans find homes wasn't enough and that we needed to do more."

"Which is how the six of them ended up being part of the family," Hapi explained, sounding kind of bored as she spoke. "Kind of stole our hearts, each and every one of them, so we decided they could be our kids."

"Exactly that, but then…" Awkwardly chuckling, Ashe leaned over into Hapi a bit more, until the arm he was using to rest on her was bent uncomfortably and he had to retract it. "One thing led to another, and we ended up with a child of our own as well."

This came as no surprise to Sylvain, Ingrid, or Annette, as they'd been in the know for some time, but Hilda found herself almost in awe at what she was hearing. "That's crazy, I never would've thought of you as a father," she admitted, trying not to make her surprise too apparent. "I mean, I only sometimes actually considered you being interested in others, so count this as a huge shock to me."

"That's not what Mercie told me you'd told her, but I'll accept it." Laughing again, Ashe didn't seem too bothered by Hilda's response, although he did seem slightly downcast when he spoke next. "When I found out you were going to be here, I wasn't sure how you would take finding out not just about me and Hapi, but about our children, both adopted and not. But it seems that you're going to handle things just fine, given how you're handling yourself right now."

"Oh yeah, because Hilda's got everything in her life perfectly under control," Leonie remarked with a smirk in her friend's direction, Hilda immediately giving her a glare in return. "What, you know it's true! With everything you've got going on, it's a miracle that someone can say you're handling anything fine."

"I was unaware she had anything out of the ordinary happening to her until we came into this room. I honestly had no idea of any specific thing that's been going on in Hilda's life since her letters started coming in at a much slower pace, although now I know that is due to her status as queen somewhere I have not been writing to her." He seemed to be missing the sarcasm that Leonie had used, but honestly that was for the best. "Perhaps before we go our separate ways today, you can update me on where is best to write you? I'd love to be able to give you proper updates on my life going forward."

"Always eager to please others with his updates," Hapi said with an amused laugh at the end of her sentence. "Although, let's be real, Freckles, you wouldn't have told her a thing about any of the kids until you saw her in person."

"Maybe so, but who knows if that's the case or not because it didn't happen." He seemed to be beaming at the nickname use in front of everyone, but that joy washed itself off of Ashe's face rather quickly when he realized that he still commanded the attention of the room. "A-anyway, let's move on to something else, shall we? I'm getting quite overwhelmed being the center of the conversation."

Hapi immediately chimed in, "You heard him, let's talk about something else. There's bound to be something more interesting than our lives to discuss."

Unfortunately for Hilda, that "more interesting" designation was planted firmly on her, because the moment she had the chance, Annette was bubbling over with more questions about the baby—which, of course, was something else that she hadn't told Ashe about, and so he, Hapi, and the children they'd brought with them all had to be caught up on that part of the story. "I'm sorry I'm so excited about it," she apologized once Hilda had gone through the motions of telling the same details over again. "It's just…between everyone in this room, that's three babies this year and I'm totally excited to be able to say I know all of them! It's definitely giving me a bit of a want of my own, though…"

"Here's a suggestion: don't bother." Ingrid's response seemed harsh, but something similar had been on Hilda's tongue and she'd only been beat to the punch by seconds, and it seemed that Hapi was going to say something as well. "Not like you'd get much of a chance, I doubt Felix would be that into the idea of having something else to care about in his life."

"That's true, but I can't help but be a little jealous that everyone else gets to have cute babies and care for them and love on them, while all I get is work. And singing. And traveling whenever Felix makes me go with him. But no babies." The pout Annette put on was slightly endearing, but since no one there was going to be able to help her with their problem, it ultimately went unused.

"Hey, having no kids isn't that big of a deal," Leonie pointed out. "I mean, I might live with a couple of guys but have I ever gotten involved with either of them? No way! So you've got more going for you than I do, if you want to think of it that way."

While she got to ruminate on that, Ashe also had a suggestion for Annette as a way to handle her problem. "I may not know exactly how Felix feels about children, but I'm sure it would be much easier to convince him to care for an older child than a younger one. The youngest we'd taken in before we had Maeve was still a few years old, so it came as quite the shock how much extra work we had made for ourselves."

"Hmm, I bet if I decided to suggest that route, I could reach out to Mercie and she'd be able to find us a child somewhere that desperately needs a home and some serious love, and I think me and Felix could definitely provide that!" Once again she was bubbling over, this time with her excitement towards the idea of finding a child to adopt, and after she thanked Ashe several times for his advice, she'd immediately gone back to talking about the babies that weren't quite part of the group.

That night, after everyone had been dismissed to their rooms to sleep well, Hilda lay in the bed she'd been given, her hands laced over her stomach as she thought about how much of an overreaction everyone seemed to be having towards her carrying a child. Sure, that baby was going to be next in line for the Almyran throne, but that didn't seem to even be the biggest deal people were seeing about it. They were all more excited that she was going to be becoming a mother, with her child belonging to someone they'd all known she'd loved since before there'd been a war in Fódlan.

The party the following day was fairly tame, all things considered, as it was everyone who'd been there the day before plus Felix, who showed up fashionably late and was irritated about having to be there. It was just a rather low-key celebration for a child who was very, very happy to have so many people there with him, even though he would frequently remind them all that his real birthday wasn't for a few weeks. When the younger attendees all fell asleep and the adults were able to talk among themselves, it was right back to where they'd left off the day before, except including the person who'd missed out on everything that had already been covered. One last time that trip, Hilda had to explain her life situation, and while she was still annoyed for having to do it, knowing that she was causing Felix to be equally annoyed with her drama made it worth it.

She and Leonie stayed for a few days after everyone else had left, each goodbye being bittersweet as they'd been apart for so long just to not be together for more than a short period of time. Annette made her promise that she'd write and come visit again, while Felix grumbled something about being open to a visit at some point if she'd bring Claude along. Hapi was more than willing to share any mothering tips she'd picked up in raising all of those older children, and Ashe, of course, was the one who nearly refused to let go of Hilda when he was hugging her goodbye. "Now that I know where you're living, you can expect much longer letters from me," he promised her. "That way, you aren't left out of the small details in my life from this moment on."

"And I'll write you back when my queenly schedule allows it," she jokingly replied, feeling tears come to the corners of her eyes. "Plus, next chance I get to come out this way, we'll have to try and have our usual meeting again, if possible."

"Oh, I'll make sure it can happen! Just say when and I will be there." He seemed so genuine about that, there was no way that Hilda was going to forget to tell him when to meet her in Fhirdiad again. "It was great to see you here, and I look forward to that next meeting."

It wasn't until right before she was leaving for herself that Hilda finally broke down into the desperately-needed cry that she'd felt brimming since Ashe had hugged her, requiring Leonie and Sylvain both to step in and comfort her while Ingrid did her best to keep the children from getting underfoot. "How did I get so lucky to have all of these amazing friends? I don't deserve any of you and—"

"Shut up, it's literally just your baby hormones getting you all worked up over nothing," Ingrid told her, speaking from personal experience that only she would understand. "You deserve everyone that cares about you, and no, I'm not taking any other response from you because it's the truth."

"—well, if you put it that way…"

Did that mean that she didn't deserve the friends who'd cut her out when she'd been at her lowest points? Hilda wasn't going to actually ask that, but she was certainly thinking it, and that thought was going to linger on her mind for quite some time. She'd done some things she was ashamed of, looking back on them, and she'd paid a steep price for everything she'd done, but at the end of the day, the cost of getting the love of her life and the life she'd desperately craved was just a couple of friends, and was that too big a price to pay for it?

Wyvern Moon, 1196

The letter had come via a tired-looking wyvern, its rider insistent that the message inside be given to the king at once, and while the guard at the castle doors seemed hesitant to follow the command, the courier kept insisting until he gave in. When the letter made its way to Dimitri's hands (with the verbal delivery of the message that the letter was important), he noticed first and foremost that it held the seal of a former Alliance family that held no power or position in the new Fódlan, and that meant that it was mail straight from Almyra. He carefully opened it, making sure not to tear at its delicate paper as he fumbled his way through pulling its wax seal off.

He'd only gotten through the opening sentence of the message—not strictly a letter so much as a declaration—when he was calling for a maid to find his wife so they could read it together. He and Marianne found themselves in the dining area minutes later, all three children off doing their own various activities in different corners of the castle, as they began to read what had been delivered to them so urgently.

The King and Queen of Almyra would like to announce the birth of their daughter, Princess Khalilia, on the 1st of the Wyvern Moon, 1196. As this is a joyous occasion for the royal family, they would like to introduce the newborn princess to the royal children of Fódlan as soon as possible. The royal family will be visiting Fhirdiad mid-moon and would be willing to set aside their plans to make this happen.

There was no signature at the bottom, but the penmanship had caught Marianne's eye immediately, although it was the date attached that had Dimitri amused. "Why, if they're planning on visiting mid-moon, that should mean they'll be in town within the next day or two," he remarked, reading the message over again. "It would be nice to see Claude and his bride, as well as this child."

"I…suppose it would be in the spirit of good relations between the countries," Marianne replied, not wanting to point out the glaring issue she'd noticed. She knew that handwriting, she knew exactly who it belonged to, and while it was a problem of years past she could still feel her blood boil at the idea of her coming into the castle once again. "The children will enjoy getting to meet with another country's princess, and we can be diplomatic with their royal family to build strength."

"Always with the diplomatic ideas, it's no wonder I decided to marry you," Dimitri said, leaning over to give his wife a gentle kiss on the cheek, completely unaware of why she was sounding so forced in her words. "Come, let's prepare for this meeting, who knows when they'll be stopping by. Claude has always been quite sly in his appearances around here."

Unbeknownst to them, a much more regal-looking wyvern had just touched down elsewhere in Fhirdiad, bringing with it the very family they were expecting to see. Ever the gentleman, Claude hopped off first, before turning to offer a hand to Hilda, who took it graciously in her own as she slid off the wyvern's back, her other hand wrapped around the bundle she had tied to her chest. "You think they got your letter?" he asked her after checking the wyvern into a stable for the duration of their visit. "I'd hate to just drop in unannounced."

"They've probably gotten it by now," she replied, taking a sharp breath as she looked around the familiar territory they'd stepped into, memories of her last visit flooding her mind and causing her to lean a bit into her husband as they started to walk. "And if they didn't, well, I have somewhere I'd like to stop before we get to the castle so there's time for them to get the letter after all."

The path they took felt like it should've been snowy and cold, but it was a rather temperate day even in the usually frigid city. Hilda found herself glancing around often, almost expecting a ghost from her past to pop up and take her back to the first time she'd been there with the intention of meeting a child—but there was never going to be her and Lorenz crossing paths again, and she knew it. She kept close to Claude, who was fine with letting her lead the way to wherever she wanted to go, and every so often her hand close to her chest would tighten and she'd feel the tiny squirm of her baby, their Princess Khalilia, and she'd think about how at one point in her life, she never would've been able to imagine herself being in her current position, as a queen and as a mother.

She was able to shake the thoughts of horrors past long enough to remember that she was still not done paying for the bad things she'd done while her back was against the wall, and whenever she walked into the castle later that day, she'd be face-to-face with the person she'd hurt most in it all. She'd still never spoken to Marianne since their fight and she hoped that her new roles would allow them to begin the process of forgiveness, but she (and Claude) knew that it was very much likely that their time at the castle would be more tense than it needed to be. In fact, her sending the letter announcing their arrival was the first time she'd written anything intended for Marianne's eyes in years.

But there were other things to think about before she'd have to worry about dealing with that, and as they were getting deeper into Fhirdiad she found herself scanning the buildings, looking for one she hadn't seen in years. Her salvation came in the form of a man standing in a doorway, a smile on his face and his hand gently waving her over. This time, rather than going in with Lorenz being overprotective and impatient, or her looking for answers to questions no one had tried explaining, or just meeting a friend there, Hilda went towards that doorway knowing that she had her world right there with her and that nothing that could happen inside that tavern would come as a surprise.

"It's about time you got here, everyone's been waiting," Ashe told her, before giving a very formal greeting to Claude, who laughed it off, much to his surprise. "I haven't told Dita that we have royalty here with us, so please be understanding if her service isn't any different than usual, but—"

"Please, Ashe, we're able to handle the same service the rest of you get. It's not like we even look like we're royalty, anyway." That wasn't true, as they were both wearing scaled-down versions of regal clothing that a normal citizen wouldn't be wearing, but between Hilda looking like a frazzled mother who'd just taken a long trip with a newborn strapped to her chest and Claude being his unshaven, grinning self, there may have been some truth to what she'd told Ashe after all. "It's going to be perfectly fine, right, Claude?"

"Oh, definitely," he replied, patting her shoulder before slipping inside the tavern, hearing the cheer of everyone inside rise at his appearance. As he went in, Hilda found herself looking inside as well, although her feet remained firmly planted on the ground and her hand was still holding Khalilia tightly. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ashe's attention turning to inside as well, even as he still held the door open for them both.

There were so many children afoot inside, running around and having the time of their young lives, while the adults were getting to have their fun. Sylvain and Felix were both up at the bar in a conversation with Dita, her towel cleaning out a glass that almost certainly had been filled with cider at some point (and just thinking about getting some of that cider made Hilda's mouth feel a tad dry). Annette was standing beside Ingrid, holding what looked to be another blondish-red haired child that would someday grow up to be as wild and rambunctious as their older two siblings; next to them was Hapi, looking bored while she had two mugs of cider sitting right in front of her, one of them clearly belonging to the man still holding the door.

"Where's your little one?" Hilda asked when she realized she didn't see the child, despite seeing her older siblings all playing with the two Gautier boys. "Did you leave her back at home or something?"

"No, Mercie's holding her, wherever she got off to." Ashe happened to look at Hilda at the perfect time, while her jaw was dropping in surprise. "Yeah, they planned a return trip from Duscur this same week you intended on being here, what are the odds of that?"

"Incredible, honestly, she'll get to meet Khalilia the same time the rest of you do." It was then that Hilda pulled down the top of what was securing her child to her chest, revealing the faint whisps of dark hair on the top of the girl's head, nothing more and nothing less. "It feels almost like the goddess wanted to make this trip easy for us."

"Well, there's no sense in just standing here when there's cider to be drinking and friends to be talking to! Let's go in and join everyone, I'm quite looking forward to getting to celebrate my birthday here with just about everyone who matters most to me." Ashe was beaming as he escorted Hilda inside, the door closing on them in time with the volume of everyone in the building growing louder as they shared their excitement for who they knew they were about to meet there in that Fhirdiad tavern.

A/N: and that's a wrap! I had so much fun writing this story and also sprinkling in little hints about some of this endgame stuff in the earlier chapters, it was quite a blast! c: