Ever since she had finished her in-person schooling several years prior, Byleth hadn't done much beyond hang around home and occasionally log into her college classes, which she was only doing wholly online at her father's insistence. In fact, most things she did were because Jeralt told her it was either do them or find her own way of living, and even though she doubted he was serious with the threat she wasn't interested in finding out if he was. He made enough money as a freelance security guard to afford their small apartment and all of their basic needs, and he didn't seem bothered that his daughter didn't leave home too often, especially when she was willing to do all of the housework and split cooking duties with him. She was also a good companion to have around when the nights would get lonely and he'd miss her mother, but he rarely mentioned that to her (even though she knew it to be true, she could see it in his eyes whenever they'd sit in the living room in silence and he'd stare at her for what felt like hours).

If anything was going to change what had become their normal, it was going to be something big and unavoidable, and that happened to come just as a semester of classes was wrapping up, Byleth having gotten stellar grades without really trying much beyond logging in every day and completing every assignment within hours of it being posted. She was sitting on her computer in her usual spot under the window when Jeralt came home one day, grumbling about something that had happened to him that day, and she closed the computer to give him her undivided attention. "Have to break up another fight?" she asked, nothing prompting the question other than recognizing her father's body language. "Aren't you getting too old to do that?"

"No, no, nothing like that, and I've easily got another twenty, hell, maybe even thirty years before I'd be 'too old' to jump into a scrap around here." Jeralt chuckled at his statement but Byleth stared at him blankly, not finding anything he'd said even remotely funny, so he cleared his throat and moved along. "It's about the next job I'll be working. My days as a freelance guy, for the moment, are as good as over."

"Does that mean we're losing our home?" She was getting to her feet, not out of concern but out of habit; Byleth knew that after Jeralt got home, it was time to start making dinner, and she needed to be ready to help. "I suppose if that is the case, I can get a job to help pay the bills until your work is back to normal."

"Eh, don't jump to conclusions like that, kid." Watching as Byleth walked in his direction, Jeralt gave her a look from head to toe, before shaking his head. "Guess I really shouldn't keep calling you that, you're a grown woman now, but the point still stands. The new job's going to pay more, but it's got a different sort of cost to it that I don't think you'll like."

She stopped moving forward, feeling the tone of his voice shift from frustrated to something she couldn't quite place. "I'm afraid I don't understand. If we're not going to have to move, and I'm not going to have to get a job, what is there I won't like?"

"I'll be working at a local academy for, to put it bluntly, rich or entitled kids. Sometimes some middle-class students sneak their way in, but it's almost exclusively the rich snots we make fun of on the magazines at the store." That description made Byleth think about her shopping trips with her father, a bi-weekly activity they'd done together for as long as she could remember, if not longer, and how they'd pick out the entitled headlines and make jokes about them. "It's not a job I wanted, but some old connections dragged me in and I don't really have a choice when the pay's that good."

"So I won't like that you're working with rich kids?"

"Oh, goddess no, that's one part I'm not looking forward to. You won't like it because in order for me to have this job, you have to attend the students', as they put it, social club. It's open to the public but no one attends it outside of kids at the academy, and the headmaster wants you to become a regular. Some sort of snooty place, from the sound of it." Jeralt took a deep breath and exhaled it in a staggered way, waiting for Byleth to give some sort of reaction; as was her standard, she remained blank-faced and unsure of how to react. "Your first day with them will be my first day on the job, which is next week. At least you get that much time to mentally prepare for whatever nonsense they'll put you through."

"A snooty rich kid social club, hm? I suppose I should brush up on how rich kids act, and things they like." The last time Byleth recalled interacting with someone her own age in a social setting had been when she was still in high school, so the prospect of attending such an event was daunting, but she felt no real fear in the matter. It took something incredibly strong to get her to feel anything, though, so despite her father's worries she didn't seem to think there wasn't too big of a deal in her being forced to attend some club.

Over the course of the next week, between working on her schedule for the upcoming semester of school and doing her housework, Byleth found herself looking up different articles about what the higher-class students in Fódlan found interesting. High society wasn't anything she'd had to deal with before, and the expectation that she was going to fit in with a group of them seemed wrongly placed, but if anyone was going to adapt to the situation, it was going to be her. Jeralt would come home almost every day to the sight of her still in her seat at the window, intently reading something on her laptop, and it would take him calling for her to get her attention, getting her to move on to other things for the night.

The day of joining the club arrived and that was the first day that Byleth found herself on the campus of the Garreg Mach Monastery School, an elite academy she'd seen brought up in a couple of the articles she'd had to read. Named for the town nestled in the center of the country of Fódlan, it was not somewhere that many people were permitted to enter, and as Jeralt drove them in through the gates she could feel her eyes widening at seeing the campus buildings they were passing. "This place is really a school?" she asked, despite knowing the answer.

"Sure is. Used to just be a village and a church, but then someone got it in their mind that it should be less village-like and more school-like. The church's the only place on campus you're allowed to enter if you're not a student." Jeralt paused in time with slowing their car down, to take a sharp turn between two buildings. "We get a pass at the headmaster's insistence, of course."

Byleth was transfixed at the classic architecture of the buildings she could see, but she did not let it distract herself from the conversation. "Why does the headmaster insist on this? Did you do something notable to them?"

"You could word it that way." Taking another turn, Jeralt brought the car to a stop outside of one of the newest-looking buildings around, a smaller stone structure with its front doors wide open. "We can discuss that more later. Be good, kid, and don't get into any fights with the younger folk you'll be rubbin' elbows with around here. Last thing we want is for you to put a stain on either of our names."

She looked at the building, then to her father, who was motioning to her with his head, small gestures that she knew to mean she needed to take him seriously. There were many questions she wanted to ask in that moment, but voicing any of them would be answered with a reminder that she needed to go, so she undid her seatbelt, opened the door, and got out into the sunshine, closing the door behind her just as her father started driving away. It hit her at once that she was somewhere unfamiliar without him there to rely on, a feeling that she hadn't felt in a very long time, but the final words he'd said to her ran through her head: be good, don't get into any fights, no stain on their names. "I can try my best," she mumbled, tugging down the hem of her skirt so that it sat flat just above her kneecaps, her floral tights underneath it riddled with holes but she hadn't realized that until too late. "There are only so many things I can do on my own, though."

The time it took her to walk from the curb to the open doors felt like minutes, but based on how many steps she took it had to have only been a few seconds, and she was inside the building before she knew it. There was no taking back going inside, whether she would have wanted it or not, and any conversations that had been taking place before her arrival had fallen to a hushed silence at her appearance in the doorway. Right away the accusations started flying, that she was a stranger and unwanted in the place, that she didn't belong there, that someone was going to call campus security to get her to leave—and at that one she found her voice and replied, to the open air, "My father's campus security, I'd be okay with him coming back to take me home."

"Silence, everyone!" The response was not one that Byleth was expecting, and she found it to be delivered by a tiny girl with white hair hanging half-loose, half-tied up, who'd stood up from a table across the room and held her arms out to help deliver her command. "This must be the woman that we were told about this morning at breakfast. Stop accusing her of being an intruder in our club when she was invited here!"

"Invited here by someone you despise," someone next to her replied, which Byleth assumed was the dark-haired fellow she smacked immediately after the line was said. He wasn't the only one who had something snarky to say on the white-haired girl's statement, as the voices began picking back up with new accusations and speculations.

This time, when they were stopped, it was because someone had taken the initiative and approached Byleth for themselves, a kind-looking woman with long blonde hair pinned to the side, who instantly made Byleth feel at ease. "Oh, don't be too worried about all of this," she said in a sweet voice. "They're always like this with newcomers, it's why we don't get many around here. Come, you can sit with us so we can get to know each other."

"I don't know who 'us' is," Byleth told her, fairly certain that was an observation that didn't need stating but stated it anyway. "I just know that my father said this is a snooty rich kid club and that I have to be here, so I'm here."

The woman grabbed one of Byleth's hands and took it into her own, giving the top of it a couple firm pats before directing her towards a table covered in a blue tablecloth, where several others were sitting among empty chairs. She gave Byleth one that was already pulled out, before drawing her own with a dainty foot and sitting down in it, watching as Byleth did the same with her own. "My name is Mercedes, and I can tell that you aren't used to being in a place like this. Don't worry too much about the others, they'll all come around to you after a while. What's your name?"

"Byleth. Why do you already like me?" Although she knew that there were others at the table, and she could see at least one of them out of the corner of her eye, Byleth was trying her best to focus on Mercedes. "I never had anyone treat me like this in school."

"I just want to make sure everyone here feels welcomed, especially when the others try their best to make them think they don't belong!" Mercedes' voice picked up several pitches in that moment, making Byleth understand that this wasn't the first time she'd tried to swoop in and protect someone, but perhaps it was the first time it had worked. "I would also recommend that you not refer to everyone here as 'snooty' or 'rich', because that isn't true. If you want everyone to be friendly to you, Byleth, you have to be friendly to everyone back."

"Ooh, ooh, can I talk to her now?" The sound of a chair scooting across the floor echoed through the room for a moment, and soon there was an arm wrapped its way around Byleth's other side, causing her to turn to see an orange-haired girl who looked incredibly excited to have been able to get so close to the newcomer. "I'm Annette, and I just know we're going to get along super well! What kinds of things do you like? I like singing, is that something you're into?"

Blinking a few times as she thought about if she'd ever sang in her life (the answer was yes, she had, there had been several occasions where she and her father had belted out classic music together in the car), Byleth chose to shake her head and not get into that. "I like doing my school work, and sitting at home doing things there. I'm not really a people kind of person, if that makes sense."

"I totally get it," Annette replied, her voice turning more solemn as she scooted back away from where Byleth's chair was, "and I totally get that you probably don't want a stranger like me hanging all over you! You're so lucky that Mercie is going to be your buddy, she's super great at getting people to break out of their shells!"

"That's good, I think," Byleth said, turning her attention back to Mercedes, who had been sweetly smiling the whole time Annette had been doing her interruption. "You're my buddy now, I guess?"

"That certainly was the plan, until you're comfortable enough with mingling with everyone else." Mercedes looked at the others who were at the table, a silver-haired boy who was reading a book and a boy with dark hair that was pulled back behind him, who was scowling off in another direction. "I think we can stick with you being with just me and Annie for the moment, though."

Byleth again looked to Annette, who was humming something to herself as she swung her feet from her chair, before her eyes settled on Mercedes's face once more. "That sounds like a good idea, you both seem nice," she decided, mostly for her own sake but also knowing that people liked hearing positive things about themselves. "Is everyone else here as nice as you?"

"If they were, we would have many more people than we do! Some people here are very standoffish, you can't get to know them unless you force them to talk to you, and even then it doesn't always feel worth it." Mercedes motioned towards the table where the girl with the white hair from before was sitting, their table covered in a red cloth. "The Black Eagles, as their group is known, can be very difficult to get to know."

"You said black but their table is red." Looking at the table (and seeing Mercedes turn with her, so that they were both focused on the other group), Byleth had intended on getting a better grasp about who all was sitting there, but she couldn't process anything aside from the table itself.

"Yes, I'm quite aware, but that's just how it works. Besides, red is much more fitting with the other colors compared to what it would look like with black. But I digress, there are a couple people there that I'm sure would take to you like we have, but overall…the group is not worth your time." Turning their attention back to the table they were sitting at, Mercedes continued, "Our group is known as the Blue Lions, and yes, our tablecloth matches our name, before you point it out."

Having already seen the people who were sitting there before, Byleth instead focused on the surplus of empty chairs at the table, rather than anyone else who was present. "You have a much smaller group than they do," she said, looking back at the Black Eagle table to make sure she hadn't counted wrong. "They only have two empty chairs."

"One empty chair, the person sitting in it happens to be under the table," Mercedes corrected without missing a beat. "And I understand that we have quite a few empty spots but they would usually be filled. The fact that there were four of us here before you showed up was quite surprising, normally it would be only myself, Annie, and Ashe."

Before she could ask which one that would be, Mercedes pointed at the boy reading the book and Byleth nodded, figuring that the fact that the other boy wouldn't normally be there was why he looked so sour. "You're not going to tell her where they're at, are you?" Annette asked, breaking into Mercedes' apparently well-rehearsed introduction of the social club. "I wouldn't throw that on someone so new to all this, it could be…a lot."

"I wasn't planning on it, she'll learn about that in due time. For now, let's teach you about the Golden Deer, the third and final group that gathers here." This time, rather than having them both turn in their seats, Mercedes had Byleth stand up so they could fully turn around, the populated table with a yellow tablecloth nestled into the corner. "I'm aware they say they're golden but it's yellow, as I said before it matches better that way."

"They're staring at me," Byleth remarked, feeling just about every pair of eyes at that table digging holes into her skin. They all looked friendly enough, but she couldn't help but feel that they were judging her to some extent. "I don't want them to think I'm not a good person, what do I do?"

Mercedes laughed, a sound like gentle chimes blowing in the wind. "Give them a smile, it'll put them at ease and make them like you right away."

"I…don't smile."

"Everyone smiles, Byleth. Even if it's a small one, it will do wonders in making them like you without a word." Thankfully Mercedes wasn't looking when Byleth finally followed her advice and forced a smile onto her lips, the expression coming off more grimace-like than anything else. She did see the reactions, which were all confused or laughing, but she didn't seem to equate it to Byleth's inability to emote properly, simply because she didn't see that as an actual option. "Come on, let's go back to our seats, now that you're more familiar with the layout here perhaps you'll open up to me and Annie a bit better."

Not sure if she wanted to give a rebuttal or not, Byleth merely went along with Mercedes' direction and found herself back in the seat at the blue table, the dark-haired boy having left in the time they were gone. "Oh, don't worry about Felix, he's probably seeing what the hold up is with everyone else," Annette explained when she saw Byleth's eyes examining the spot that had been emptied. "That's…pretty typical of him, actually!"

"You're all friends here?" Byleth asked, referring to not just the people who should have been at the table but everyone else in the room as well, but whether or not that was clear to Annette she wasn't sure. "I've never really had friends. Just my father."

"Some of us are friends, yeah! Not everyone, but we don't expect everyone to get along, even if that would be neat!" Clasping her hands together, Annette seemed so happy for a moment, until a dark shadow seemed to fall over her face and she froze. The energy she'd been giving off disappeared, and right as Byleth felt it necessary to ask why that was, she felt a hand touch her shoulder and she turned to see who was there.

Standing behind her was a rather tall, thick boy with an enthused grin on his face. "Hey, come with me for a moment, my friends wanna talk to you," he said, waving his large hand as a greeting to Byleth, and she knew that he'd been sitting at the yellow table, and those friends he was referring to were the people who'd been laughing at her. "It's not a big deal if I borrow her, is it, Mercedes?"

"Of course not, Raphael!" she replied without sounding even slightly upset about it. "I'd love to see you properly introduce our new participant in this club with everyone in the Golden Deer. A gentle giant such as yourself will make for a perfect guide."

"Thanks for the confidence boost!" His booming laugh reminded Byleth somewhat of when her father would laugh at something he'd read in the news or heard on the radio, and she found herself becoming at ease knowing she'd be following this Raphael fellow around for a while. "Now come on, they're gonna think I scared you if we don't hurry."

Giving both Mercedes and Annette looks to let them know she intended to come back, Byleth stood up and Raphael immediately tried grabbing her arm to drag her over to the other table, but as she knew where it was she made sure to stay out of his grasp and walked herself in that direction. He kept up well behind her, holding his arms out to keep her from bobbing to the side and running away, which she thought was silly but she reminded herself that most new people left immediately so it might have been an act out of trying to keep her present. "Oh geez, he actually went and got her," the girl with two long, pink pigtails remarked right as Byleth got to be within earshot. "This is going to be interesting, don't you all think?"

"I'm not really interesting." Now, Byleth knew that the question hadn't been asked to her, but instead about her, but she couldn't resist stepping into a conversation she wasn't expected to be inside when she was the topic. "Why did you send Raphael to get me?"

The boy sitting next to the girl who'd spoken raised his hand, only to run it over his slicked-back hair instead of holding it up. "That'd be my fault, sorry about that. Couldn't help but want to get to meet you for ourselves, before the Blue Lions decide to keep you as their own. Needed to know if I wanted to fight them for you." His voice was playful, supplemented with a wink that stunned Byleth to see, never having considered herself any sort of person worth fighting over. "The name's Claude, but no need to introduce yourself, I already know who you are."

"How do you know me already, Claude?" she asked, while the pink-haired girl looked incredulously towards her friend at his brazen statement. "I'm curious."

"Snuck into the headmaster's office after hours the other day, saw the forms she filled out for you joining us, nothing too big." Claude laughed, before dropping his elbows onto the table and resting his head on his fists, tilting it side to side as Byleth watched him, still stunned at what he was saying. "You're the new security guard's daughter. Byleth, was it?"

"That's right, my name is Byleth." She didn't know what else there was to tell him, given that she didn't know what all the headmaster knew about her and had documented. Instead of trying to talk more about herself, she chose to go in a different direction: bringing up the fact that he'd been one of the ones laughing when she'd been looking at them before. "Did you think my smile looked funny?"

"Oh, that was supposed to be a smile?" the boy on Claude's other side spat out, his eyes going wide as he turned his head right towards the pink-haired girl and continued speaking, this time directly to her instead of the general group. "I suppose you win that bet, Hilda, but I never would have guessed something so pained would be a smile."

Claude looked at the people surrounding him before sighing, shaking his head as he did. "You'll have to excuse these two, Hilda and Lorenz are like gossipy hens here in this crowded henhouse, and they're enjoying picking on the new chicken among us. But don't you worry, not everyone else—"

"I can't hold it in anymore!" another person at the table yelled out, catching everyone's attention as all eyes fell on her and short orange hair, her face red from presumably having been keeping herself quiet. "You're Jeralt Eisner's daughter, how in the world did you end up coming to a place like this?"

"—I stand corrected, Leonie's got something to pick at as well." Claude, leaning back in his chair far enough to be able to forego his casual lean and replace it with kicking his feet up onto the table's edge, looked at the girl who'd interrupted him and offered her the floor. "Byleth's all yours, go for it."

"Go for it? I don't even know where to start! I've worked with your father on a few jobs and when I heard he got offered the open position here I had no idea that he'd have his daughter showing up to meet everyone!" It was undeniable that Leonie was a big fan of Jeralt, for one reason or another, but she never seemed to get to anything specific that made her feel that way, and by the time she'd rambled for five minutes about how awe-struck she was to be in Byleth's presence given who her father was, everyone was ready to move on.

Having taken back his seat after doing the retrieval job, Raphael looked across the table at Leonie somewhere around that five-minute mark and told her, "Uh, maybe you shouldn't make our new friend feel like a celebrity, I don't think she's enjoying it much."

"I'm not," Byleth agreed, not sure how she was supposed to be taking Leonie's behavior towards her. "I don't really know what to do knowing that you know my dad and think you'll like me because you like him. I'm not even great at security stuff like he is."

That didn't seem to faze Leonie, but she did promise that she'd keep things down as much as she could for the moment, not to overwhelm her. "Look at that, everything's just fine between us all," Claude said with a chuckle, wiggling his feet as they were still on the table, until Hilda got annoyed with them and tried pushing them back onto the ground. The ensuing argument wasn't anything Byleth was interested in being present for, so without announcing anything or even checking to see if she could go, she went back over to where Mercedes and Annette were waiting for her return.

"How did things go for you?" Mercedes questioned almost immediately, before Byleth had fully gotten back into her seat. "It seemed like Leonie had quite the story to tell you, and of course, Claude was talking to you as well. Everything go okay?"

Byleth considered relaying exactly what had happened word-for-word, but decided that she would just sum things up the best way possible, to put an end to the questioning. "As okay as it can on the first day," she decided to say, "and I'm ready for today to be over."

"So much social interaction and it hasn't even been an hour, you're going to be exhausted by the time you get to leave this afternoon." Even though Mercedes was most likely trying to sound friendly, she came off as a bit cryptic to Byleth, and for the remaining several hours she had to spend there at the club, she was fully expecting things to get ugly like they did on the TV shows she sometimes watched when she had nothing else to do. She'd already seen the start of one fight there at the yellow table, how many more would break out during her time there?

The answer was none, and the one she'd seen hadn't even really been a fight to begin with so it never should have counted; that didn't stop Byleth's apprehension about meeting everyone else by name and talking to them from growing with every person she met. She made sure not to stray from Mercedes and Annette for the whole day, having had enough excitement with that one breakaway that she didn't want to experience anything like that again, and with the two of them at her side she was able to meet just about everyone else there in their social club. The exceptions to that rule were three people at the red table: the white-haired girl and her dark-haired companion, and whoever it was that was camped out under the table for the entire day.

To celebrate the first completed shift on the new job, as well as his daughter's first day in an unfamiliar social setting, Jeralt decided to take them out to dinner for a change, finding a quaint restaurant near the school for them to try. "It's not going to be a home-cooked meal, but it'll be a good way to let today feel as important as it is for both of us," he explained as they blew past the turn that would have sent them heading home, Byleth fidgeting in her seat rather than replying to her father. He understood that she'd been through a lot that day and didn't pester her to get her input, although he did reach over and gently rest his hand on her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze to remind her he was there for her.

By the time they'd gotten inside the restaurant, Byleth had decided that she wasn't going to let her experience with all of those kids ruin her night with her father, not when he clearly wanted them to savor the day. "Do you want me to tell you everything that happened?" she asked him as they were heading to their table, the hostess jabbering about specials and deals and neither of them listening to the speech. "I can do that if you want."

"Only tell me the important parts, kid, I can't have you reciting a whole day's worth of activity when I've got things to tell you too." Based on how he didn't sound upset or even angry about anything, Byleth assumed that he'd had an overall good day, which she could say the same about her own even if it had been very much outside her comfort zone.

They were seated at a corner table, far away from everyone else who was dining there, and after taking their seats the conversation got into full swing. Byleth went first, picking out the important details of what she'd been through that day: meeting almost everyone who was a member of the club, making two friends without trying (that part impressed Jeralt, who admitted he hadn't expected to hear that on the first day), and finding that someone there was familiar with him. "Her name was Leonie, she did nothing but talk to me about you and how I should be like you."

"Sounds just like the Leonie I know, she gets better over time. You've just got to let her work through her admiration, it'll get better eventually." Jeralt smiled across the table at his daughter, who was looking down at her menu as straight-faced as ever, but she gave off an air of happiness, something he wasn't familiar with feeling with her. "But I'm glad it all went well. When Lady Rhea told me she wanted you there, I have to admit, I thought you'd be a fish out of water."

"Who's Lady Rhea? Never heard of her before." Byleth's eyes came off of the menu to meet her father's, seeing his grimace as he realized he'd said something he hadn't meant to. "Father, there's no reason to keep secrets from me, just tell me who she is."

"No point in hiding it from you, she's the headmaster there at the school. Not only that, but she's some high official at Garreg Mach Monastery itself, making her the kind of person you do not want to cross." Simply based on that introduction of the woman, Byleth found herself very surprised that she'd heard someone talk about breaking into her office to read her personal papers just earlier that day—a fact that she was going to keep to herself, especially after her father added, "I've been hired at the academy for security reasons, specifically for the administrative offices. Someone keeps sneaking in and they want an end to it, but they've only had enough manpower for a weak patrol. Hiring me gives 'em the ability to have the offices guarded as well as the rest of the campus, without sacrificing anything."

"Just guarding offices sounds like an easy job," Byleth remarked, thinking about some of her father's previous assignments where he'd been tasked with protecting entire neighborhoods or highly controversial figures on his own. "So why didn't you want this job before?"

"Ah, right, I did mention that when I got it offered to me." Heaving a sigh, Jeralt leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling for a moment, his eyes flickering all around as he thought about how to explain what had prompted him to make that original statement. "I know a guy, his name's Alois, he and I go way back but I was fine not going anywhere else with him as long as I lived. Turns out, he overhears your new friend Leonie talking about me, chats with her about how she knows who I am, goes and tells Lady Rhea that he's got a friend who could help the school out, and then…job offer I can't turn down.

Byleth raised her eyebrows, following along with the entire story minus one part. "I've never heard you talk about this Alois person before. Must not be a very friend of yours."

"Our relationship's complicated, and it's not something we're getting into over dinner. You asked about why I didn't want the job and that's the story I'm telling you tonight, we can get into him some other time." Jeralt sat up straight, trying to meet his daughter's eyes once again but she was only half-paying attention anymore, her focus instead on figuring out what she was going to order. "Eh, we can get into the details later, I suppose," he said, seeing where she was looking and how it still wasn't at him. "Not much of a story anyway."

"I'm still listening to you, Father."

"Right, right, and you're probably beyond curious, knowing you." He tried to laugh but felt it to be too forced of an action to make it count, but he still made Byleth wait a bit longer for the story to start, allowing their order to be placed and drinks to be delivered (and his first already downed) before he got into the main part of his story. "I worked with Lady Rhea for a while before you were born. Nothing exciting there, it was a strictly professional deal, but I couldn't stand her then, especially not after what happened between her and your mother."

At the mention of her mother Byleth nearly knocked her glass of water over, managing to push it to teetering on the edge of the table without spilling a drop. "What happened between them?" she asked, as she fixed the drink so that the same thing couldn't occur a second time. "You never really talk about her."

"That's also not the story we're telling right now. Point is, after your mother died, I couldn't keep working for that woman and so I struck it out in the world on my own, doing whatever I could to keep you happy and safe." Jeralt gave a motion with his hands to signal that he was at the end of his story, but just seeing the intense stare his daughter was giving him he knew that the end wasn't good enough for her. "What else do you want from me here, kid? I've only got so much I feel comfortable talking about in a place like this."

That statement struck Byleth as strange. "Why does the location matter?"

"You're still not familiar with the world of Garreg Mach, so you don't get it, but anywhere around here is crawling with people loyal to one person: Lady Rhea. She hears I'm saying anything negative about her from a secondhand source and there could be hell to pay." Crossing his arms over his muscular chest, Jeralt gave Byleth a look that told her, without outright saying it, that he wasn't going to tell her anything more about it, and she had to concede because she didn't want to cause trouble for her father.

At about the same time their food was delivered, the silence that had fallen over them was broken by someone else coming up to the table, a man who looked to be closer in age to Jeralt, asking if he could borrow Byleth for a moment. She seemed to distrust the request immediately, but after her father gave the man a knowing look and nodded, telling her that she should follow him, she stood up and, much like she had been at the club, was led to another table. Sitting there was one of the girls who'd been at (what Byleth remembered as) the yellow table, her blue hair tied back in braids and knots and her face a bright red at seeing the person who'd been brought to her. "You're part of the social club at the school," Byleth stated, looking at the girl who meekly nodded. "I didn't expect to see you here. It was Marianne, wasn't it?"

"Yes, um, that would be me. I-I didn't expect to see you here either," she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I saw you and…" Her voice trailed off as she looked at the man who'd brought Byleth to her, who was sitting back down with a smile on his face. "Thank you for being so kind."

"You're welcome." Byleth's response was short, but she knew that she had a meal waiting for her back at the table and she couldn't spend all night socializing with someone she'd just met earlier that day. However, she looked at the man, whose eyes were on Marianne, and asked, "Why did you have to bring me over here? Couldn't she have walked herself?"

"Marianne's a bit shy, and nervous around new people. The fact that she said anything at all about you being here was astounding!" The man seemed to be embarrassing Marianne with that statement, her sinking back into her seat and burying her face with her hands, but he didn't feel bothered by it, looking at Byleth with a smirk. "I'd be honored if you'd spend more time with her in the future, ever since her parents passed she's had very little in the way of friends and—"

"I'll let her decide if she wants to spend time with me." Cutting the man off because the conversation didn't feel right to her, Byleth gave Marianne an apologetic look before walking back to her table, Jeralt obviously having watched the entire thing from the comfort of the corner table. "I'm back, don't make me do that again."

"Ol' Edmund there isn't the sort of person I would say no to when he's asking for something, if only because he seems to be doing it with that girl in mind. Figured it would be a safe bet to send you off with him." Taking a bite of the already-half eaten steak in front of him, Jeralt looked on as Byleth sat down and began picking at her own meal. "I can assume that it didn't go well, given that the girl's hiding and he looks unimpressed."

Byleth didn't say a word, choosing to eat over talking. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she'd seen the plate of mixed greens and meat in her spot, and she wasn't going to let it go cold on her. This was in spite of having been fed a rather delicious lunch put together by some of the members of the social club, but she never seemed to be able to eat enough to fully put her hunger to rest. Knowing that he wasn't going to get any explanations from his daughter until she was fed, Jeralt muttered something to himself and continued eating his own meal, occasionally remarking that it was overcooked and that he could do better on his own.

They both finished at about the same time, their server coming by to offer them dessert and to clear the plates right away. The offer was turned down, Jeralt asking for the bill instead, and the server complied; in the moments between him leaving with the dishes and coming back with the check, Jeralt tried asking Byleth about what had happened at the other table again but she remained silent, her mind racing instead with all the possibilities of what could happen the next time she went to the social club. Was Marianne going to hold this against her somehow, even though she hadn't done anything? Was word of this going to spread and cause trouble among everyone? Was she going to have made it one day before everything fell apart for her?

There was only one way to find out, and that was what prompted Byleth to make her next words one small question: "When is the next time I'm going to be at the school?"

"Every weekday from here on out," Jeralt answered, still not getting to know what had happened at the table but knowing that he probably wasn't going to get to know. "Why, you have a hot date or something you need to prepare for?" That was enough to get the tiniest of smiles to crack on Byleth's lips, a victory that few could ever claim they'd achieved, but she didn't give him any answer for why she was curious.

The truth was, Byleth just wanted to know when she'd face the fallout from that short, disastrous interaction, and how long she'd have to prepare herself for losing the friends she'd thought she'd made. She couldn't fathom everyone there in that club still liking her if they found out that she'd fumbled an interaction like that, especially if Marianne made it out to be a big deal—but she had no idea that she was making a mountain out of a molehill that no one, not even Marianne, cared about.

Getting dropped off on the curbside took place earlier the next day, their whole trip onto the campus happening several hours earlier than it had the day before. Jeralt claimed this was because he'd gotten the wrong reporting time the day before, but based on how grumpy he looked when he was driving Byleth only assumed that it was part of that disdain for Lady Rhea coming into play. Either way, it put her at the club's front doors before they were propped open, and she had to let herself inside rather than casually walking in. There wasn't anyone present at two of the tables, both blue and yellow sitting completely empty and untouched, but there was someone that Byleth didn't recall meeting the day before sitting at the red-clothed one, a pencil in one hand and a notebook on the table in front of her.

Byleth was able to make it all the way to drawing a chair at that table before she was noticed, and the way that the girl she'd snuck up on screamed when she realized she wasn't alone was almost enough to make Byleth regret not announcing her presence. "W-who are you and why are you here?" the girl asked, her whole body trembling as she frantically closed her notebook. "I don't recognize you as being someone around here!"

"I'm Byleth. Yesterday was my first day, I'm new here." Sitting down as far from the girl as she could while still being at the table, Byleth looked at her notebook rather than her, watching the girl try to hide it defensively. "Are you doing school work, or are you doing something for fun?"

"Why does it matter? I wasn't doing anything! Please leave me alone!" As she was stumbling over her words, the girl had managed to bring her notebook down into her lap, and soon enough she was hiding under the table, leaving Byleth confused about what had just happened but not curious enough to pursue conversation. She could hear the girl down below once again writing something, based on the soft scratching of her pencil on the paper, but no matter how interested she was, Byleth wasn't going to cause a second meltdown.

Instead, she sat there at the Black Eagle table and waited for others to show up, because while she knew it was early in the day she knew that people would be coming eventually. Schools, even ones that had most students living in housing on-campus like Garreg Mach did, were wrapping up for the semester and there wasn't any way that all of the students from the day before were still doing full days' worth of classes. She kept track of the time by looking at the clock hanging on the wall, before taking notice of some of the other decorations she'd been too overwhelmed to look at on her first day, and she decided she'd go look at those rather than just sitting around.

While she was walking towards the collection of pictures on the wall, she heard the other girl climb back out from underneath the table, sighing to herself about something, but she didn't let that distract her. There were so many framed group photos on the wall, in columns against three distinctly colored stripes on the wall, each labeled with the name that Mercedes had used for the tables the day before. Blue was the Blue Lions, red was the Black Eagles, and yellow was the Golden Deer, and as Byleth looked at the pictures she found herself unable to find anyone she recognized in them. Sure, there were some people who looked like the ones she'd met, but they didn't have the same name and the pictures were too old for them to be the same person. "Oh, you're already in here," a voice said while Byleth was standing on her tiptoes, nearly knocking her over with how sudden it was. She shrank down and looked for the source, which was the white-haired girl. "I was expecting you to be much later, as you were yesterday. Have you been here long?"

"Only for a while," Byleth replied, looking over her head to check the clock. "The other girl has been here longer, but I couldn't talk to her."

"Bernadetta isn't fond of speaking to strangers, or those who have known her for years, so that comes as no surprise." The white-haired girl puffed up her shoulders and tried to look more physically imposing than she was, a task made difficult given that she was standing there by herself. "We did not get to meet yesterday, and I intended on changing that today. My name is Edelgard von Hresvelg, and it is an honor to have you as a member of our club."

She was offering a hand to shake, which Byleth took only because she thought it would be rude to deny it. "Byleth Eisner, but everyone just calls me Byleth. I don't have to call you that whole name, do I?"

"Of course not, I was merely being respectful and professional, as someone of my social standing is apt to do. I'm aware that you are only here because of your father's new position as a security guard with the Academy, but many of us who frequent this space are of much higher social standing than the average citizen." Edelgard motioned towards the pictures that Byleth had been looking at, specifically those of the Black Eagles of old. "Our particular 'house' of the club has traditionally been made up of those whose families have strong political backgrounds, whereas the Blue Lions are more business-focused. The Golden Deer are everyone else who wanders in."

"By that explanation, I'd be a Deer, wouldn't I?" Byleth asked, thinking about the people she'd met at the yellow table the day before. She hadn't found herself having many problems with them, even though she'd preferred being with Mercedes and Annette over being with their entire group. "Or can I pick whichever one I want?"

"It depends on whether or not people want you in their group, I suppose." Tapping a finger to her chin, Edelgard was looking Byleth over from head to toe, clicking her tongue and thinking where she would personally put her. "If it was my decision, I would say you are welcome to rebuke tradition and join me and my friends, but that is not a decision for me to make on my own, unfortunately, and I know how difficult it can be for some of the others to accept that tradition is not the only way to proceed."

"Aw, El, are you cornering our newcomer into becoming one of you?" someone else asked, and both of them looked to see a small group coming into the building, led by a man with stringy blond hair that Byleth had met the day before. If she remembered correctly, his name was Dimitri, and he was the so-called leader of the Blue Lions, and everyone around him were his friends that had been spending their time the day before with him rather than at the table. "I thought we'd agreed to give anyone new a week before we broke out the recruitment speeches."

"Very funny, Dimitri, but I'm telling her that she gets to make the decision herself. Besides, you know as well as I do that certain others will not take too kindly to the daughter of a security guard becoming the newest member of the Black Eagles." Edelgard turned completely to face Dimitri, who was looking past her to see Byleth's attention waning from the conversation and focusing on the pictures once again instead. There was more said between the two but Byleth didn't hear a word of it, her thoughts focused entirely on which of the supposedly arbitrary groups she wanted to associate herself with.

She was off in her own world until she felt someone grab her arm, and upon looking she saw that Edelgard had placed both hands on one of her arms, holding it tightly. "Just because you physically have a hand on her doesn't mean that you get her over me," Dimitri said, and Byleth realized that he was right there next to them both, hovering over like he was trying to keep something from happening. Having no idea how they'd gotten so close without her noticing a thing, she wanted to ask what was going on, but she was drawn to looking at the group gathered a few paces away instead.

They were all staring intently at the trio, watching the fireworks for themselves, and Byleth recognized them as being people from both the Lions and the Eagles, standing shoulder-beside-shoulder as if their groups didn't matter in that moment. None of them were saying a word, some looked unamused with what was happening, but it didn't seem like they were watching anything too out of the ordinary, until, coming up behind them and pushing her way through their human wall was Mercedes, her eyes narrowed in on what was happening. "I thought we were above fighting like this! Back away from Byleth right now, both of you!" she demanded, and Edelgard and Dimitri shared a look between them before doing as they were told. "What in the goddess' name were you thinking? I thought we liked her being here, we don't want to scare her away!"

"Wasn't aware that you were in charge around here," Edelgard muttered, casting a longing look in Byleth's direction. "I support your choice regardless of what you make, but know that I personally would love having you in the Black Eagles this year."

Mercedes was right there next to Byleth at that point, checking to make sure she hadn't been bruised in everything, and when she found no lasting marks on her arm she turned to look at Dimitri, giving no mind to Edelgard's retreating form. "You can't corner someone like that, even if they're trying to take someone we've already claimed for our own. Don't you remember the last time you and Edelgard disagreed on where someone should be? Two broken teeth and a hospital bill for a fractured ankle, on Lady Rhea's desk!"

"And it was a shame that he chose not to stay here with us, he was a joyful fellow." Bowing his head respectfully, Dimitri seemed to be acting apologetic about his actions but he never quite got to vocalizing the apology, instead repeating what Edelgard had said about supporting the choice no matter what was made, before tacking on, "Of course, Mercedes would be distraught if you chose anyone but us, so make that decision wisely."

"Ignore him, I will still be your friend no matter which group you select. After all, we're all quite close here, even with the different houses we associate with." Mercedes gave Byleth her sweet smile and got a blank expression in return, which made her exuberance fade into a sterner look. "Why don't you show me how happy you are to know that you have friends here in all of us? I'm sure you'd be lovely if you'd smile."

Byleth knew stating that she couldn't smile wouldn't work a second time, but her attention was grabbed by something happening in the wake of the entire crowd dispersing. There were more people coming inside the door, loudly talking and laughing as they made their way inside, and at the sight of the person at the head Byleth felt herself stiffen up. She saw that Claude was in the middle of a most likely riveting conversation with Hilda and Lorenz, all three of them wearing dark sunglasses that had yellow bands on their arms, and as she watched the three of them come in and go right to their corner table, the fact that they hadn't come over to try badgering her into joining them was what made a lasting impact. "Edelgard said that the Golden Deer is where people who aren't really anything go," she recalled, Mercedes giving Edelgard a questioning glance over at her table where she'd made herself comfortable surrounded by friends. "Does that mean that those three aren't as important as they look?"

"I…don't know how to answer that," Mercedes admitted, taking her eyes off of Edelgard and moving them over to the three now at the yellow table. "Claude doesn't say much about his background, but Hilda and Lorenz both come from families of considerable wealth, even though they don't do much to earn it."

"Are they the snooty rich kids Father warned me about, then?" The question felt wrong to ask, because Byleth had begun to believe that statement had been made by Jeralt to try and dissuade her from getting close to anyone, rather than because it was the truth. Based on how Mercedes awkwardly laughed instead of answering it, that seemed to solidify that stance. "I like you and Annette, but what if I went with them?"

"I heard my name, what's going on?" Poking her head into the conversation out of nowhere, Annette was quickly caught up to speed while Byleth kept staring at the three still wearing their sunglasses indoors. They looked so cool and confident, like they were people who weren't going to cause trouble for the sake of being better than everyone else, and as someone who'd always been a loner in life Byleth couldn't help but want to try getting closer to people like that. Once she knew what was going on, Annette helped make the decision a little easier: "Oh, definitely you should join them if they'll let you! If you get to be one of them, then maybe we'll get to get invited to their parties because you can bring us! I've always wanted to know what it's like to be at one of those…"

"A rather superficial reason," Mercedes pointed out, "but a valid one. We'd support you completely if you decided you wanted to be one of them rather than one of us, or if you wanted to join the Eagles instead as well."

What Byleth wanted to ask was why it mattered so much which group she spent her time with, if everyone who was there was friends anyway. She wasn't quite understanding why they were forcing themselves to divide up in such a way, and why they were so serious about it happening, but she couldn't find a way to ask it without coming off as rude. "I'll decide at the end of today," she finally said after giving it much thought. "It's between the Lions and Deer, though, I don't think I could do the Eagles." She'd thought she said that quietly, but as she walked over to the Deer table to give them a try, she saw the dirty looks from the Eagles, and she knew that Annette or Mercedes would explain her decision to the Lions if they hadn't heard it themselves.

"Well, hello there stranger, fancy seeing you come spend time with us," Claude greeted, flipping his sunglasses up onto the top of his head. His hair wasn't as slick as it had been the day before, a mess of curls that were styled in some way, but much more natural than she'd seem him previously. "You decide that the war between Eagle and Lion was too much to bear and give us a try?"

"Something like that," she replied, trying not to stare at him even though he was looking directly at her, almost as if his eyes were able to see into her soul. "I haven't picked where I want to be yet."

"She has impeccable taste if she selects us as her home while she's a member here," Lorenz said, taking his glasses off outright and setting them down next to the plastic coffee cup that he'd carried inside with him. "Not that you would know being a Deer is an elite claim to make, given your relative naivety towards how this whole thing works, but there will be time for you to learn."

Hilda, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as she tried not to laugh at how snooty and stuck-up what Lorenz had said was, almost knocked over her own coffee cup when she leaned over into the table, trying to look invested in the conversation she was going to try starting. "I heard from Marianne last night that Byleth here was out at dinner with her father, but that was all I got out of her before she said she didn't want to talk about it anymore. What's up with that?"

"That's really it, I don't know what else there is to know about what happened. I was there with Father and she was there and I said hello and she was very shy." Already the details of what had happened in the conversation were fuzzy, despite them being from the night before, but Byleth hadn't really wanted to remember what had happened. "It was not very fun, but she seems nice."

"She likes Marianne, that's another reason to keep her," Claude said as he mimed checking something off of a list, giving Byleth a small smile after. "What about us, tell us what you think of us? Maybe specifically the charming fellow with the dazzling eyes sitting across from you, if you don't mind?"

While she wasn't sure if it was a trap or not, Byleth didn't have anything rude to say and therefore chose to answer him honestly. "You seem nice too, but I don't really know you."

"Her judgment may be off if she thinks Claude's nice," Hilda loudly whispered over towards Lorenz, who nodded in agreement, while Claude snorted and tried ignoring them both by standing up and going to sit next to Byleth rather than between the two of them. "H-hey, get back here! You know that there's assigned seating here!"

"Sorry, Hilda, I'll be spending time with my new friend Byleth today, since she thinks I'm nice and all. No hard feelings." He blew a kiss in Hilda's direction and she dodged it, causing him and Lorenz both to start laughing, while Byleth sat there confused about how she was supposed to feel in the moment. She was completely aware that they were playing around, but she didn't know how serious what Claude had said about her was; if he thought she was a friend just for thinking he was nice, maybe she didn't want to be a Deer after all. "What's with the face there, Byleth? Looking a little lost in your thoughts, huh?"

She hadn't even been aware that she was making any sort of face beyond her usual, so Claude's words caught her off-guard. "Oh, I was just thinking about how nice it was to have someone who wants to spend time with me," she replied, shaking off any residual thoughts that may have been crossing her mind. "Other than Father, no one really spent time with me before yesterday."

"And now you're miss popular, how cool is that?" He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a couple pats, which she looked at in disbelief. "Lemme guess, you're not exactly used to all this attention and you're just so overwhelmed that you keep making that face."

"I'm doing it again?" Now Byleth really didn't understand what expression she could be making that had been called out twice in such quick succession, but rather than explaining what she was doing to her, Claude pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of her, giving that as his proof for what he was seeing. "That's…just how I look, I can't help that," she said, finding the picture to be showing her in her default expression, straight lips and wide eyes. "I didn't know that my normal face was a problem."

"At least she isn't trying to smile again," Lorenz muttered across the table towards Hilda, who nodded in agreement, and Byleth felt for the first time that she wasn't as welcome by all as she'd thought there at that table.

Claude, after deleting the picture so that it wasn't kept on his phone, gave Lorenz and Hilda both a disgusted look, showing how unhappy he was with how they were both acting, before standing up, getting behind Byleth and placing both hands on her shoulders instead. "I think she just needs a chance to get comfortable and loosen up," he explained, as he began digging his thumbs into the muscles of her neck and shoulders. "Something that isn't going to be possible with the two of you yapping all day."

"I think someone has a new favorite," Hilda huffed, "and he's making it way too obvious that he prefers her to us already! Ugh, not fair at all!"

Her eyes squinting as she tried not to react too much to the shoulder massage she was receiving, Byleth replied to Hilda with a genuine, "Why would I be his favorite? He barely knows me. That doesn't make any sense."

The two across the table looked at each other, before simultaneously grabbing their drinks and standing up. They made it a few steps away before Claude asked them what was going on, to which Lorenz answered, "We're going to go outside for a bit to talk, so we aren't interrupting whatever's going on here between you two."

"Plus, we're still waiting on everyone else and I'd like to greet them at the door for a change, rather than be lazy old Hilda sitting in her normal seat." The way she spoke in a sing-song made Byleth—who couldn't see the way she'd swayed and knocked her long pigtails from side to side—immediately distrust what she was saying, and she tensed up at the idea that she was being bullied by the pair.

"Don't pay them too much attention, they're just having fun." Trying to get his fingers deeper into the tense muscles, Claude leaned in closer to Byleth's head and whispered, "Besides, I know them both well enough to know that at least one of them likes you. No prize for making the right guess, it's really obvious even not knowing them."

It may have been obvious to Claude, but Byleth didn't have a clue which one of them wasn't as nasty as they were acting, and she wasn't going to guess the wrong one and have that be something she'd need to live down. Instead, she chose to stay quiet as Claude finished giving his massage before sitting back down next to her, looking her right in the face with a smile that felt warm and genuine to her. "Do you think everyone else here is judging me for talking to you?" she asked him, knowing that where she chose to be had been such a hot topic earlier. "I don't want to cause you any problems."

"No way, if anyone has an issue they can take it up with me, and by 'me' I mean I'll get Raphael to strong-arm them into dropping the subject. Dude's built like a house but wouldn't hurt a fly, but I think people forget that second part." Laughing, Claude must have been hoping to get Byleth to try smiling again, but she remained rather straight-faced. "What gives with the sour look, if you don't mind me asking? No idea how you're supposed to feel about anything?"

"I've never been good at emotions," she replied. "Father said when I was a baby, I never cried unless I was in horrible pain, which only happened once that he remembers. Other kids picked on me for being so…boring when I was in school, and so I never talked to people and now I'm not good at social interactions either."

"If it makes you feel better, I don't think you're half-bad at talking to people. You handled all of the wild and crazy characters around here without turning tail and running, you've got a better grasp on talking to people than you think." Claude winked at her and she froze, seeing the confidence and friendliness in his face with the gesture and feeling like she had something bubbling up inside of her at it. Never before had Byleth felt that before, a fluttering of sorts that seemed to be wedged in her windpipe, but she sputtered and tried to say how she felt, and only air was coming out to meet them instead of the intended words. "Do you need some water?" he asked, seeing her coughing and trying to say something that was not working for her. "I can go get you some, if you need."

They both heard someone from another table yell that they were on it (it sounded like Mercedes' voice, but Byleth was too busy trying not to choke that she couldn't be certain), and until that plastic cup was in front of her and she was able to sip from it to calm her throat, all she could do was cough and attempt to get words out. Once the sensation had passed, and the water was downed, she gave a thank-you to the deliverer, who had in fact been Mercedes, before looking at Claude and trying her best to wink back at him. "I appreciate your kind words," she finally said, not sure why that had been so hard to get out in the first place. "You're a very nice person, Claude, and I mean it."

"Heh, thanks, means a lot to hear that after I just watched you nearly choke to death on your own breath." Claude's smile felt like it should have been contagious, but Byleth couldn't return the favor for more than a tiny uptick of one corner of her mouth, a motion that Jeralt would have noticed because he was used to seeing his daughter's tiny smiles, but someone unfamiliar with them such as Claude wouldn't notice a thing. "C'mon, let's get into better seats for when everyone else gets in here, I want to see Hilda's face when she sees you in her spot. She'll lose her mind!"

Going along with him felt like the natural decision, but when Byleth stood up and turned she saw Mercedes still there, watching her with her hands folded in front of her and a curious tilt to her head. "Shall I assume you're going to stick with the Deer, given how close to Claude you've already gotten?" she asked, and Byleth, not knowing how to answer, instead dodged the question completely and went around the table. "I'll take that as a yes, but don't forget that we can still be friends even if you're one of them!"

"Does everyone who joins this club get hassled like that for where they go?" Byleth's question came as she was sitting in the chair at Claude's right hand, which had pink tape all around its back. "Or am I a special case?"

"Pretty standard," Claude told her in reply, motioning with his head towards a brunette over at the Black Eagles table. "Last new person here was Dorothea, she got an earful from everyone until Edelgard was able to snatch her up for herself. Apparently a songstress can hang with the political brats, but none of the rest of us can."

Byleth looked over at the table he was talking about, seeing them off in their own world with their one member under the table and a heated discussion happening up above, and she could tell that Dorothea looked like she wasn't where she belonged, not really giving any input to the conversation. "Why doesn't she just leave them, then?"

"Because once you've picked your 'house' you don't leave it, they become your family here. It's why it's a big deal, even though we try to pretend it isn't important. That's mostly so that people's feelings don't get hurt when they don't get to be in the house they want." Doing as he had the day before, Claude leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table, but this time he slid his sunglasses back down on his face and turned to look at Byleth. "Not like you'll regret joining the Deer, right?"

Unlike when Mercedes had asked about it, she felt like she could answer him. "I don't think I could regret a thing if it means having a friend like you."

A/N: geez this thing has a lot going on that I forgot about in the time since I wrote it. anyway, I hope it's a solid start for a story I'm really enjoying writing, it's only going to get more crazy from here!