Author's note:
Hello intrepid readers! As you might've guessed, there'll be Hanahaki disease-type stuff as a mechanic in this fic-but this fanfic takes a bit of an alternative spin on it, and oftentimes has it in the background rather than foreground, so it'll be fairly untraditional in that sense. There will be more of an emphasis on backstory, fluff, and snapshots of Claude's experiences. There will also be content warnings on individual chapters as they apply. If all that's your cup of tea, then happy reading!
CW: Abuse, animal violence
Edit 3/26/2020: This fic was completed around the same time that some new canon was revealed about our favorite golden boy in a Nintendo Dreams interview (guess I'll die). I may revisit and edit/revise some backstory things to preserve canonicity, but not for a good, GOOD while. It's unclear whether more canon will be revealed later, so I'm just going to accept the fact that I can't keep up until the franchise has lived long enough that no new info will drop. In the meanwhile, if that interview has greatly affected your personal headcanons, please take any inconsistencies with a grain of salt. Thank you lovelies!
White Clouds
Curious. That was the word that I thought of as I observed you.
Not to say that you were curious of me, but that I found you to be rather interesting. Though I had to admit, it was funny that the word "curious" could go both ways like that. What a confusing way to use a word, yeah?
Well. It was a strange language we shared, you and I.
As I introduced myself to you, it seemed like you were listening. Something was off, though—maybe it was the stars, as faint as they were, somehow reflecting brightly in your eyes as if by some magic—or perhaps it was the awkward, sinking feeling of watching your gaze appear more and more distant as I spoke. It was a chilly night, and I thought in that moment that you were the coldest thing about it.
Everything was off—the way you joined me, the princess, and his kingliness without so much as a sigh of fatigue, the fact that you never so much as blinked when that reckless brigand rushed you, and the way you acted when I spoke to you afterwards—for all I could tell, looking like you were listening, but somehow feeling so far away and indifferent that it was almost irritating, even.
What made it bothersome, I think, was that I hated feeling as though I couldn't understand something, and the way you acted raised so many questions in just the hour or so that I'd known you. So, I decided that I was going to find out everything about you. Where did your strength come from? How were you so good at predicting our enemy's attacks? And how did stars as faded as pale ghosts end up burning brightly in your eyes?
"They all sound like they have their merits," you said, brief ripples disrupting the usual stillness of your face as you spoke. "But if I had to choose…perhaps I would choose the Leicester Alliance?"
You gestured at me. I could sense Edelgard's and Dimitri's disappointment at your answer, and I sensed a more profound shift within myself. So you really were listening to me this whole time. I wasn't surprised, exactly—but I wasn't expecting you to respond the way you did, either. It was hard to tell if I was pleased about it, but I probably was.
As the highnesses and I were about to walk ahead, I heard you murmur something—"curious"—I think that was what it was—as your starry eyes glanced at my mouth, then paused on my eyes. It didn't occur to me at that moment to ask what you meant by that. I just widened my smile a bit and turned away before things got too uncomfortable. It was one hell of a coincidence, though. With such an old and clunky language that we shared here in Fódlan-and in some other lands beyond—it was a wonder that people could understand each other as well as they did.
I could feel the chill night air curling around me as I looked up at the faded sky. The stars looked very, very far away.
Dusk Stars
I think I was around four or five years old when my wyvern hatched.
For practicality, a hatcher was in charge of all the wyvern eggs up to a point, to make sure the embryos grew in the correct conditions. Once the babies were strong, the hatcher would let the kids who were old enough (and privileged enough) pick out an egg to take home, which they were meant to protect and nurture until they emerged from their shells. The thing was, since wyverns were so huge—their babies included—it could take up to a couple more months for the baby to become ready to break out. People liked to read into the amount of time it took for a wyvern to hatch for a child. They tried to use it to predict that child's future, and the like.
Mine hatched the same day I got it. My father said that it was a good omen—a sign that I was to become a talented leader and would find a powerful wife with a lot of sway in the world. Being, you know, a kid at the time, I didn't really pay him any mind as I wiped the residue off of Csilla's dusky, slate-colored scales. Csilla—that was what I'd already named her. I guess it was love at first sight.
Csilla had a curiosity that matched my own. As soon as she'd mastered the art of standing and walking, she was chewing the bark off of trees, stomping through the gardens, and staring up at the birds flying through the sky, squeaking and chirping at them with her head tilting from side to side. Although she was supposed to stay outside alongside my father's wyvern, I snuck her inside the house constantly, and we had fun chowing down food from the kitchen and racing down the halls.
She was the only friend I'd ever had.
At first, since I was so young and could barely sprint myself, Csilla would win our races—then, after a couple years, I would always win. Wyvern legs weren't really made for speed, and by that time she had grown considerably bigger. My father, like the king before him, wasn't one for living in a giant palace with servants and spacious halls—he enjoyed being independent, getting his hands dirty, and joining his troops in battle. That was all well and good, except that the house we lived in wasn't nearly big enough to accommodate these little races anymore. Csilla could hardly fit down the hallway without scratching her wings and scales along the walls and knocking over all the tables and pottery.
"If you let her in the house again, then I'm going to get a chain for her," my mother threatened, supervising as I swept up the broken shards from our latest escapade. I kept wincing as I swept, covered in bruises, scrapes, and cuts from the grass. My father'd dragged me behind his horse again as soon as he saw the damage I'd caused. His punishments used to scare me, but not anymore—I guess I got used to it.
"That's not fair," I said with a pout.
"Oh? And how is that not fair?"
"Because—" I said, mind racing. "Because…Nader told me, uh...it's bad for wyverns to be in the sun too much. And then Csilla would get sick. So you have to let her inside."
"Uh-huh. Keep sweeping," my mother said, ruffling my hair. "I'm serious."
The thought of Csilla being chained up all day made my heart hurt, and the threat of it was enough to dissuade me from then on. However, Csilla didn't understand why she couldn't follow me inside the house anymore, and she certainly wasn't happy about it.
I was tossing and turning one night, still not used to sleeping in my bed without her there, when I heard Csilla's depressed crooning from outside. I got up and crept towards my window, gazing down at her silhouette down below. She was pacing in erratic loops and circles in the backyard. My father's wyvern, who was by now well-trained enough not to wander off, curled into a tighter ball on the ground and growled at the younger wyvern that was disturbing his sleep.
"Csilla, hush," I whispered. "You can't come with me anymore. Okay?"
She stopped pacing and looked up at me, tilting her head as she often did when she was curious.
"I mean it. You have to stay outside. Stay. Outside. Understand?"
With a tiny squeal, she tensed her legs as though she were going to leap up towards me and started flapping her wings. My jaw dropped when I saw her silhouette rising towards me, growing larger and larger until it was right outside my window. She squealed loudly with excitement when she saw my face. I grimaced, pausing to listen for whether my parents had awoken. When I heard nothing else, I threw open the window and jumped onto her back without a second thought.
"You can fly-you're really flying!" I said, throwing my arms around her neck and breathing in her scent. "I missed you."
I could hear her chest heaving with excitement as she flapped harder, rising above our rooftop. I looked down and felt a rush of adrenaline when I saw how far away the ground was, and I started laughing.
"Come on, let's go explore!" I said, patting her neck.
We started chasing after the clouds, climbing as high as we could until the air grew thin and cold. Then we dove down, passing over buildings and endless plains.
By the time we were too tired to continue, the sun had already started to rise.
With a few beleaguered wing flaps, Csilla brought us back behind the house and collapsed onto the ground. I flopped down next to her, and we fell asleep almost instantly.
My father shook me awake, and I squinted up at him, the sun now glaring over us with full strength.
"Am I in trouble?" I mumbled, and he shook his head.
"No…for once," he said, stroking my cheek. "But if your wyvern can fly, then that means you must start feeding her yourself from now on. From there, you can begin training her with food so that she knows how to follow your orders. Do you understand?"
I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "Okay," I said, not fully processing what he was saying.
"Good." He placed a tied rabbit in my arms, and my eyes widened. It was still alive, and I could feel it trembling as I held it. Its eyeball swiveled to look at me. "Go on," he said.
I looked back at Csilla, who'd raised her head sleepily to sniff at the air, and inched closer to her. I realized that it wasn't just the rabbit trembling—my arms were trembling, too.
Csilla lowered her head towards my arms, opened her mouth, and snapped it shut over the rabbit's body. Blood sprayed over my arms, and I fell back to the ground as I heard the snap of bones between Csilla's teeth.
"This, too, is a part of life," my father said as tears ran down my face.
With a gulp, Csilla turned back to me, muzzle dripping with blood and tissue. She stared at me. Heart pounding, I reached out and put my hand on her head, feeling her strength and stability beneath my palm. Soon enough, I was calm again—although the tears for the rabbit would not stop.
In Almyra, it was said that wyverns were meant to guide us through the two sides of existence—first they taught us how to bring life into the world, and then they taught us how to kill. It was said that a wyvern was the purest form of love.
Generally, you're supposed to be bonded with your wyvern for the rest of your life.
Author's note:
Thanks for reading my first chapter! The rest of the fic is already complete, with 16 chapters that will be uploaded semi-regularly starting from now. (I hope you like slow burns…) But yeah, no worries about this story getting finished. It's already done. Whoo!