Chapter 2: The actual story begins.
It was shortly before midnight when Hubert found himself alone on the outskirts of Enbarr, walking alongside the busy nightlife of one of the more seedy neighbourhoods of the capital. His path was lit only sporadically by lamps, and it had been quite some time since he had seen a soldier or constable walking the streets. However, Hubert knew the streets well, and his route, while longer than a direct trip to his destination, most certainly avoided a troublesome whorehouse and two taverns serving questionable ale and even more questionable meat.
Perhaps it was a coincidence, but he found that the area had a notorious shortage of stray cats and dogs, not that he would admit to ever caring.
He did care however, about how the events of the day had left him unable to sleep, hence leaving him little choice but to walk the streets of Enbarr.
He slowed his pace before stopping at a corner, glancing at a set of cobbles he had once seen a man bleed out on. It was the first time he had watched someone die before his own eyes, yet with the passage of almost seven years and thousands of deaths, the initial shock he had suffered seemed to be little more than a distant memory. Hubert let his gaze wander for a moment, his eyes settling on another cobblestone where a brave young idiot had made their final stand. He amused himself by thinking of how the poorly dressed noble had unconvincingly waved a poorly maintained rapier against a gang of laughing assassins, dying when one finally got bored and fired a crossbow quarrel true.
Hubert was glad when the man did. At least he had paid for one professional assassin out of seven. The other six assassins were either playing a cruel game, drunk, had seriously missed crossbow leg day, or some unholy combination of all three. It was unthinkable that they missed six shots at practically point blank range, barely grazed their victim with two more, and had hit an unfortunate drunk with a particularly awful shot.
Hubert glanced at the spot where the drunk had bled out. It was a pathetic scene. He had even seen bandits die less pathetically and melodramatically.
Hubert snapped out of the world of the past when he heard a pebble clatter against the cobbles behind him. A third rate pickpocket in all likelihood. Potentially a mugger. He tightened his fist, feeling an immense amount of arcane power bow to his will as he rose several inches above the ground.
Perhaps noticing that his intended victim was actually floating, instead of walking, like most mugging victims did, the figure behind him hastily turned away, taking rapid and nervous strides away from the man on the corner, obviously and wisely attempting to find easier prey.
Hubert let a grim sneer grace his lips before turning his heel toward his final destination, a third, unassuming tavern deeper in the maze that was Enbarr's outskirts. It was more exclusive than the other two, though the exterior was in dire need of new paint and the roof needing new tiles. What truly set the tavern apart was what lay inside the tavern, and he had opened enough wrong doors to know exactly why the vices he saw inside would never be accepted elsewhere.
The house also served delicious pot roasts, but he had already eaten a fairly awkward dinner in the palace alongside Edelgard and Byleth, so he soldiered on and made a mental note to return another day.
The once great tavern had been converted into a house of unspeakable vice, enough for any citizen caught partaking to suffer a great deal of public shame. Yet even here, he had never met anyone mad enough to demand to be crushed under another's foot or claim the bath waters of another patron.
Hubert opened the front door and was greeted by a man stepping on another man. In high heeled boots. Both men otherwise naked.
Ah, so Hubert was wrong. What a shame, he wanted to keep his dinner down. It was a good cut of pork that didn't belong on the nice clean floor of the tavern.
Around them, about a dozen observers watched on, equal parts male and female, their faces enamoured by the display that was being seared into Hubert's mind. Then as one, they seemed to turn their heads at Hubert, surprised they had a visitor so late in the evening.
"Ahh, we were wondering where the prostitute we hired was." One of the men, wearing a mask that vaguely looked like a pig's snout, offered cheerfully.
Without even a word of greeting, Hubert shook his head and spun to the left, hastily fleeing down a flight of stairs that lead to the basement of the tavern, jumping the final four steps in a panicked leap, though the small crowd noticed his attempt at escape, and more than one traced his path to the basement below.
He was so desperate that he almost battered the door down before one of the occupants inside managed to open it, leaving Hubert sprawled on the ground as the man in the dim basement dismissed any curious onlookers that Hubert's entrance had attracted.
"I need a drink." Hubert declared, still sprawled on the ground when the door swung shut, to which the door opener nodded, turning to a nearby table and pulling a flask from it.
As he rose from his position on the ground, Hubert was greeted with a welcome shot of bourbon, which he downed in a single gulp.
Hubert rose up quietly as he dusted his clothes off, still in close proximity to the man who was now wiping away the shot glass.
"I apologize for coming in so late." Hubert said calmly as the man turned his back on him.
The man chuckled as he returned to his dimly lit desk, his features unusually frightening in the darkness and his slight frame choked with grim laughter.
"So," the man asked as he sat down, gesturing Hubert to a chair off to the side of the crowded basement, "to what do I owe this particular pleasure to? Surely you have more important things to attend to than poor little me, mighty Brazen Beast of Enbarr."
Hubert sat down and rubbed his eyes gingerly, trying to purge the memories of the two men upstairs. His subtle glances at the roof however, caught the eye of the man sitting across from him, and he joined Hubert in glancing up.
The man Hubert sat with chuckled when they returned their gaze back to the desk and the rich bourbon that sat on it. "It wasn't always this open. Before those idiots in the church tried to rebel, people generally did keep their more strange habits to themselves. As for their celebratory mood, let us remember they have lived through five long years of war. Perhaps a few nights of debauchery could be excused."
Hubert glanced at the ceiling again. Even with the solid wood floors and multiple layers of reinforced logs separating him from the debacle upstairs, Hubert could still hear grunts of pleasure and gasps of amazement from the audience.
Just as he looked back at the man shrouded in dark, Hubert heard a loud gasp above and rancorous applause.
His host shook his head with a small wince, the look in his eyes apologetic, and his face no longer that of a nightmare. "They pay well and are safe. No idiots playing with matches. Nobody dropping hot wax on each other."
Hubert joined him in the head shake. "Let's forget about them, and what's left of the previous tavern as well. I'm here to discuss something very important."
The man behind the desk nodded as he sat back into his chair, his laid back demeanor having gone out the window. "Alright then. There's a lot of things more important than a pack of hedonists and a pile of charcoal. What is it that you want? Another head that needs to roll? An old man who goes into the next life in his sleep? A purge you want me to oversee? My grandmother's pot roast recipe?"
Hubert shook his head, closing his eyes. "No, erm. It's none of those things."
The assassin cheerfully slammed a hidden knife into the desk. "Good. I would have killed anyone who wanted that recipe, although it's a shame I'm without decent paying work for the next while."
Hubert sighed at the antics of his host. "It's about Shambhala and the emperor's uncle."
The man behind the desk snorted before gesturing Hubert closer. "I figured that was the case. I figured you wanted to consolidate your power anyhow. Maybe get rid of that pesky rogue faction."
Hubert leaned in as the man lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, both of them huddled over the desk.
"But when it comes to those slithering in the dark, I'm curious what approach you want to take. Publically putting Thales to death would raise some eyebrows, and probably see Enbarr become a pile of ashes, though poisoning him quietly would also likely lead to Enbarr becoming a crater."
Hubert drew back from his position and settled back into his chair. Finally, he nodded his head in agreement.
"As for a potential full scale purge, we would actually, you know, have to find their agents before we can get to the fun murdery bits." The man paused before he leaned back into his chair. "A knife in between ribs is easy enough. Finding the right set of ribs to cut into, is a much more difficult prospect, especially if we are dealing with forces not actually in Enbarr or Shambhala."
Hubert nodded confirmation. "We can assume Shambhala is the biggest hideout these worms have, but surely there is more than one out there, especially in former Kingdom and Alliance territory, both of which we only have limited knowledge of the lay of the land."
Seeing his expression, the man before him continued, gently pouring another drink, with his eyes drilling a hole in the glass and table.
"But we must remember that these places are parallel societes to us." The assassin sitting before him stated as their gazes met. "Those who slither in the dark may only have a single major base in this mysterious Shambhala, but it also might have smaller ones. If we lay waste to Shambhala, whatever it is, how are we going to prevent a potentially hidden city from firing on Enbarr or any of the Empire's new gains?"
Just as the assassin finished, the back door leading to the street creaked open, and grunts could be heard from a man descending the stairs.
Perhaps out of a sense of duty that came with running a tavern, Hubert's host hurriedly rose from his seat and helped the man out, carrying a box of vegetables that would go on the next day's menu.
The other man, a humble employee who Hubert had first met at an orphanage, poured himself a long drink as his boss set aside the vegetables, Hubert losing track of the conversation as the two discussed regional spices that were in season, though he watched intensely as the man sorted out what would go on the menu and what would be preserved for later.
It was a boring talk, the kind of thing that commoners with free time did as they would.
"What is your opinion on those who lurk in the dark as a society?" Hubert asked the man suddenly, drawing his attention as he set down his glass.
"I'm not a giggling nutjob remember? I didn't even meet the two guards they sent to watch over her."
The assassin chimed in as he turned around, wiping a thin sheen of sweat from his brow. "As I see it, it's an interesting society. Not many are capable and willing to raise insane monsters like Kronya."
"Getting into blind guesswork huh? Guess I could take a swing." The labourer sneered as he downed another finger of alcohol. "Either whatever hellhole she crawled out of was self sufficient, in which case I would like to see how they did it, or they had help from regular merchants and citizens, in which case they left some trail behind for us to follow, especially if this winter is harsher than usual."
Hubert closed his eyes as he tried to remember the insane Kronya. It wasn't a difficult task. Her choice of clothing alone made her unforgettable, and her insanity made even the other monster look like Bernadetta in comparison.
"Let me give you an example of what my friend here means by self sufficient." The assassin said quietly, pausing as he downed a shot of bourbon. "That blade that girl carried. Athame, if memory serves correctly. Someone out there mined the ore the blade was made from. Someone smelted that ore into metal that could be fashioned into a blade. Someone took a hammer to it while the metal was burning hot to forge it. Someone taught that girl to use it and keep it. And that's assuming there wasn't a professional blade designer involved in the process."
Hubert nodded as he gestured for the drink. "At least four people apart from Kronya were involved with it. And if even one of them wasn't part of their society, and indeed counted themselves within our society, they would lead a trail of some sort."
"And if all four of them were part of the same society, outside our own, then we have a second empire in the dark, capable of wiping out one of Fodlan's largest cities in the blink of an eye, with a considerable amount of people within it. And that's a problem that should be solved." The assassin drawled. "Preferably quickly."
Hubert downed the liquor as he sat back into his seat, thinking of the man's words.
A thunderous crash of wood against stone seized his attention wholly, and the two hosts scrambled to their feet, with the tavern owner grabbing a dark bronze meat cleaver from a blade holder on a nearby shelf.
Even in the dim light, Hubert saw that the man's playful nature had gone out the nearest window, and the way the light reflected on his aged features made him look like a demon.
Hubert scrambled up as he glanced at the back door, which crashed open a moment later, a soldier with a heavy club on the other end.
Ahh, so that was where the city guards were. Very sneaky. He would have approved, if he wasn't in the building being raided.
Hubert found his attention drawn to the main door. Perhaps if they moved swiftly, they could slip into the night.
The door fell off its hinges, and Hubert decided maybe he should have postponed his visit, perhaps summoned the assassin to a nice, quiet restaurant in a nicer quarter of town. Surely the tavern owner would have passed for an elderly gentleman.
Much to his shock, Shamir staggered through the door that lead to the tavern and the orgy, and stopped dead at the sight of Hubert staring back at her.
Before anyone could speak, Hubert noted Shamir was a bit pale.
She glanced at the assistant shopkeeper, who stared back, before turning her gaze to the horrified face of Hubert, before glancing at the proprietor of the shop, who still wielded a massive meat cleaver.
Before she could speak, a crashing body came close to knocking Shamir over, though the woman noticed the large figure falling and dodged, rolling away from the doorway as one of the many revellers from the first floor landed heavily in the space where she had stood mere seconds ago.
The poor assistant made the fatal mistake of moving closer to the body when a second reveller flew down the particularly long flight of stairs, landing face first into the still twitching form of the first reveller.
"Paul! They're onto us! We need to escape!"
The assassin facepalmed with his remaining hand.
The man at the foot of the stairs hastily stood up, exposing to all in the room that he was naked, as well as the fact that he had never learned how to shave.
The assistant turned away in horror, his face green, and even Hubert had to turn his nose away at the stink of body odour.
"Didn't ya hear me Paul man?" The reveller, who Hubert could tell was heavily intoxicated, babbled on. "We need to escape!"
A third body fell, this time a heavily armoured soldier who brought his whole body down on the legs of unfortunate drunk, who sprawled forward, grasping at Shamir.
Hubert blasted the man with one of his weaker spells, forcing him away from Shamir, watching as the man contort into the best impression of a dead spider that Hubert had ever seen.
A shout in the street grabbed Hubert's attention as both Paul and the assistant scrambled up the back staircase, Hubert hot on their heels.
"Where are we going?" Hubert asked in a hushed tone as he slipped into the back alleyway, glancing over to see the soldier who should have been guarding the door fighting two nearby drunks.
"I suggest you split up once we reach safety. The Minister of the Imperial Household should not be caught walking alongside a commoner and a professional criminal."
The assistant nodded. "Shame we had to leave that place though, it would be very difficult to restart over again."
"Naive brat." The assassin chuckled. "I own many more."
The young man looked stunned at his employer's words. "Wait, really?"
The older man snorted as he ran, tossing his cleaver off to the side, the heavy blade landing neatly behind a heavy crate.
"Worst case, some fool gets a new knife for free. Would be too much of a bother to find it. Cheaper to replace the blade."
Hubert nodded at the words, though the party still ran through streets he wasn't familiar with.
Turning left on a particular corner, he noticed that the quality of the buildings had changed.
He also noticed the assistant had fallen into exhausted gasping, and the assassin had stopped, the assassin glancing around the street with paranoid eyes.
"We should be safe enough and far away enough for us to walk like normal citizens." The ever vigilant assassin said once the assistant caught his breath. "But just for good measure, Hubert, I will escort you to a safer and quieter district before we part ways."
Hubert nodded his thanks as he began a slow walk behind the assassin.
Reaching a different, much cleaner and brighter district, the older man waved Hubert off, his posture turning to resemble a respectable gentleman. "We part ways here. Send a message to the house if you wish to meet me."
Hubert nodded as he rose to his full height, taking on the appearance of a haughty noble as his two companions slipped away, their footsteps more hushed in the night.
It was an odd sight to see Hubert nervous. Even when the war against the church reached its darkest hour, her personal confidant was cold and logical. Now, for some reason, he appeared worried. It was an obvious sight, even from the corner of her eye. His hands were clasped firmly behind his back. A surefire tell that he very rarely showed. The dark circles on his eyes and the uncomfortable guards beside him suggested they had been with him for some time, and were equally nervous.
"Hubert." Edelgard ordered as she sipped her morning tea. "Come in."
Turning from her desk, the emperor rose from her seat, content with the number of reports she had read on the growing season. A few bandit attacks and lesser beasts did raise some eyebrows, but little else was out of the ordinary. It was a quiet year, and hopefully the first of many to come.
Hubert arrived before her with a slight nod of his head.
"I would like to tell you my side of the story before Shamir tells hers." Hubert offered.
Byleth, sick from a cold, tossed a pillow at his direction from the bed.
Edelgard raised an eyebrow in turn, finishing her tea and tossing the pillow back at Byleth. To her credit, she hit the imperial consort's face with the heavy pillow, and Hubert could swear he heard Byleth's surprised voice under the pillow.
"Come, let's walk in the gardens while we talk." Edelgard said as she opened a back entrance to the gardens.
Hubert nodded and glanced around the royal sitting room, quietly following Edelgard outside. She had changed little, except pulling a dark cloak out of her closet and draping it over her shoulders.
The pair walked in silence for some time, savouring the early morning air.
"How are the people of Faerghus doing?" Edelgard asked. "Are they well prepared to see through this winter?"
Hubert grimaced. "There are few places we can house them, if we are going to be honest. Both major cities in the former Kingdom have been sacked and badly damaged. It is unlikely they will be repaired in time for the first snow. As for the former citizens of the Kingdom, a few have made it as far as Enbarr. But growing operations in the north have been largely been unaffected, apart from Tailtean Plains, which has been converted to a refugee camp. It is mainly the city folk that have suffered. Especially from bandits and highwaymen."
Edelgard paused at his words. "I received word that former church soldiers were committing acts of banditry against civilians. Is this true?"
Hubert nodded. "Some of these bandits have since been taken alive, and they indicated they believed what crimes they had been committing were just, even against unarmed civilians. Something about avenging the church. Others may just be your run of the mill bloodthirsty killers."
Edelgard shook her head in disgust. "Send word to Linhardt to open up the Holy Tomb as a staging ground or campsite. We will use the monastery as a staging ground for shipping food up north. I would rather see the holy tomb be used as a camp in the winter or a storehouse for food rather than lie empty and unused."
Hubert turned to look at a nearby flowing stream. "I've also received reports that roughly two thirds of the surviving Kingdom and Church forces have either disbanded or have offered to serve us."
"Put the professional soldiers to work guarding roads and outposts. Mounted cavalry should be used to hunt down bandits, and larger units, if available, should be devoted to hunting beasts. Ensure their salary is maintained, at least for the time being. Might as well have all the gold we seized be put to good use for once."
Hubert looked around for a quill, before seeming to remember that he was outside.
"If there are any peasant levies amongst the Kingdom forces, have them dismissed from armed service and contribute to the harvest and organization of the relief effort. They will serve a greater purpose as millers of wheat or harvesters of grain than as sixth rate militia. After all, the war is over."
Edelgard paused as she pushed back a loose strand of her hair, which was tied in a bun while her crown sat untouched on her nightstand.
"See that they are paid well for their work. I do not intend for my subjects in Faerghus to starve or for my reign to mark a return to slavery."
Hubert paused, but to his credit, didn't look for a quill.
Hubert nodded. "Should we convene with the rest of the Black Eagles to discuss this operation? I believe some of them would have valuable insights."
Edelgard smiled at the words. "But of course, we are due for a meeting at Garreg Mach soon anyhow. It will be a good time as any to meet."
Hubert nodded. "How should we frame this to the public? Something about making sure the refugees are well supported for the winter? Possibly checking up on the injured of the war?"
Edelgard nodded. "I suppose so. Such a move would allow us just a little bit of privacy."
"I can arrange that." Hubert offered, quickly bowing, eager to be on his way.
A hand found Hubert's shoulder as he turned.
"I would however, like for you to explain yourself in relation to poor Shamir." Edelgard said in an unnaturally cheerful state.
Hubert swallowed. His escape had been foiled.
"I was discussing the nature of Shambhala with Paul."
Edelgard blinked, probably not fully awake. "Who is Paul again?"
Hubert coughed lightly. "Paul is the cleaner who made our reforms go smoothly."
Edelgard seemed to pause for a short moment before her face lit up. "Oh, the one with the crossbow?"
Hubert nodded before he winced. "Yes, that one, the only capable marksman out of all seven we hired."
Edelgard opened her mouth to say something before seemingly taking it back, choosing instead to look at the early morning sun rising over Enbarr. "I didn't hire him, you did. Something about security once we met Shambhala."
Hubert nodded. "I'm glad it didn't come down to that."
Edelgard sighed as she turned to follow Hubert back to the palace. "I'll talk to Shamir. See her side of the story before making a final judgement. Take the day off. You need some sleep and for this whole thing to blow over."
Hubert bowed and turned to leave.
"And Hubert?"
Hubert stopped and turned back at Edelgard's call.
"Try not to grow the legend of the Beast of Enbarr. It is becoming a distraction."
Hubert nodded before he hastily fled back into the palace.
Seteth glanced around at the wooden cottage that he had lived in for the past few months. It was a quiet place, sturdily built several decades prior, but it had served its purpose.
He then looked at the exhausted family at his doorstep.
A man stood at point, his frame long and his clothes ragged. There was a certain desperation in his eyes, and Seteth glanced at a dagger, barely concealed by his filthy cloak.
Behind him, a woman, her stomach bloated with a child, stood by her husband. Whereas her husband had a certain desperate fire still in his eyes, the woman had sunken eyes and a face that simply looked defeated.
As he turned his gaze to the moving bush behind them, the man seemed to follow his gaze.
A child with sunken eyes popped out of the bush, eating handful after handful of berries.
Seeing three sets of eyes staring back at him, he popped back down, although the bush kept shaking.
"My sister Flayn grew those berries, but I suppose if your child is hungry, she won't mind." Seteth offered awkwardly. "If you intend to come in, please put the dagger away."
The man flinched, but seeing the glare on Seteth's face, tossed the blade to the ground.
Seteth glanced at the rust gnawed blade. The misshapen blade and clumsy hilt told him that it was a half-baked makeshift weapon. Useless scrap metal sharpened in desperation, or possibly a weapon taken off the corpse of a bandit.
"Please come in."
It was shortly before dawn when Yurius returned to the small cabin that acted as their outer defensive strongpoint.
He sighed at the sight of his partner slumped over in a corner, fast asleep. It had been a boring patrol, but with Shambhala on lockdown, it was not exactly a great time to be caught napping on the job.
"Ryan." Yurius said in a measured tone, probing for any kind of response from the younger man.
A grunt and confused muttering escaped his partner before the boy fell back into the world of dreams.
"Ryan." Yurius said again, his voice a tad bit louder this time, sighing when the boy muttered something about minutes.
Yurius glanced at the door for a minute before he decided to wake Ryan. It was a few minutes before dawn would break and their replacements would arrive shortly. It would be very bad if Ryan would be caught sleeping on duty
Yurius gently shook Ryan as he kept vigil over the door. If they were lucky, perhaps one of their replacements would be late.
And then Ryan woke, still blinking sleep out of his eyes.
"Good morning." Yurius said in a hushed tone, his vision gazing at the door again. "Make yourself presentable. The next patrol should come around shortly, and unless you want to be cleaning latrines, I suggest you look alert."
Ryan, surprised by Yurius's aggressive tone, nodded nervously, the last hints of sleep leaving his face as he quickly snapped back to attention.
"Sorry, I've just been doing a lot of training." Ryan explained awkwardly. "I didn't expect to be sent out of Shangri-La so early."
Yurius shrugged. "We expected large numbers of refugees to move once the war was over, and getting caught up in that would not be good."
"Spite say that to you?" Ryan asked.
Yurius shook his head. "Mortis said something along those lines when you came here."
Yurius paused when he noticed the younger man stiffen, glancing back at the door again and offering Ryan a hand up. "They'll be here any minute now."
Ryan nodded as he pulled himself to his feet gingerly. "I usually don't sleep so much, but I've been working on my spear skills a lot."
Yurius nodded. "Who are you training with?"
Ryan shrugged. "Almost anyone who has time has tried to help me at one point or another. Some being more helpful than others. I was hoping that Mortis could help me later."
Yurius snorted. "Mortis doesn't train people, and she also doesn't date."
Ryan flinched, and Yurius sighed as he slowly walked to the door. "There's a reason she's still single Ryan. Everyone in my generation is already taken except for her."
Ryan followed at an unsteady pace, stretching his muscles after the difficult position he had slept in. "I just really want to know more about her."
Yurius shook his head. "You really don't want to know more about Mortis. She's not really into guys anyway."
Ryan looked nervous. "Is she mean?"
Yurius snorted as he halfheartedly opened the door. "Mortis is the nicest person in Shambhala.
Ryan opened his mouth, glanced at Yurius, glanced behind Yurius, and saluted.
Yurius turned around and found himself staring down the pointed plague mask of a mage.
"Mortis is most certainly not the nicest person in Shambhala." The mage offered cheerfully. "Did you see what she did to poor William?"
Ryan looked curious. "What she did to William?"
The mage filed in, followed by a bored looking archer. "Why are you talking about that buffoon?"
Ryan looked scared. "What are you guys talking about anyways?"
The archer shrugged. "Oh, it's the new guy. Nobody ever told you then."
The mage turned his head and focused on the sun rising in the distance. "Legend has it that she killed him without even touching him. I mean, damn, that was cold of her."
"Got away with it too. Spite didn't do shit."
Ryan looked horrified. "Seriously, what the hell are you guys talking about?"
"Mortis." Yurius, the mage, and the archer all chimed as one.
"I said it first." The mage said after with a small laugh, while the archer crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.
"Story goes that William tried to hit on Mortis." The archer said with a shake of his head. "She insulted him, he got angry, and it all went to hell from there."
Seeing the horrified look on Ryan's face, the mage continued. "He tried to punch her a couple of times. And that was his mistake."
"Hitting her?" Ryan asked, his voice betraying his curiosity.
"No, of course not, trying to hit her in front of Spite was his problem. Spite was furious."
"That and making half the people in Shambhala hate him. Nobody shed a tear for that worthless scumbag."
"What did he do?" Ryan asked.
Yurius answered. "He hit on basically every woman in Shambhala. They didn't like that, and their male friends most certainly didn't like that."
Ryan stood stunned. "So erm, what happened?"
"Mortis spat on his face and told him that was all he was going to get from her." The mage said with a laugh and a shake of the head.
"He lost it and charged her. She stepped to the side, he tripped, and broke his back in the fall." Yurius explained with a shrug.
Ryan looked stunned. "How?"
The mage laughed. "Yurius here didn't mention how poor Will fell down three flights of stairs."
"And Spite didn't do anything?"
Yurius chuckled along with the other two. "Will hit on both of Spite's sisters. Spite was probably angry that he didn't get to strange Will himself. He wrote the death off as a death by misadventure and tossed Will into the nearest incinerator. Oh, and he may or may not have broken Will's neck after he fell from the stairs."
Ryan looked disturbed and sat down, any sign that he might have been asleep gone out the nearest window. "I have something to confess."
All three men looked at him at the words. "Oh really?" Yurius asked, his tone amused.
"I told Mortis I wanted a one on one training session this afternoon."
"What for?" The archer asked, his tone inquisitive. "She's very good with her knife, and she's a damn good mage, but not much else. Spite is the senior weapons master, not Mortis."
The mage shrugged. "Yurius, did he miss anything or was that accurate?"
Yurius nodded. "She doesn't like the idea of a fair fight, so I guess that's a pretty accurate description of Mori Mori. And she isn't even capable of using healing magic."
The mage scoffed. "Nobody here likes the idea of a fair fight. Not Thales, not Spite, and certainly not Mortis, but I've seen her use basic recovery spells."
"What does she like anyways?" The archer asked, now comfortably perched on a chair and juggling an apple. "Yurius, you did run with her on a year long mission. Does she really do nothing except turn her nose up at people and sneer?"
Ryan looked surprised at the news. "Really?"
"Not alone though on the mission. We were just there to babysit Kronya. And that job was done almost exclusively by Mortis, I mainly just tagged along."
"You didn't do squat?" The mage asked, his voice amused. "And what's up with Mori Mori?"
"I stood there and looked scary. And don't mention that nickname around her unless you want to be found with a broken neck. Only three people ever called her that, and two of them are dead."
"Georgi told me the Emperor's personal pet looks like a monster out of a fairy tale. Is that true?"
Yurius laughed bitterly. "Hubert and Mortis looked like they either wanted to strangle each other, murder each other, or get in one another's pants. I mean, that's how you met your girl wasn't it?"
"Oh shut up." The mage snarled, his voice tight and his body tense.
"You could never have told if those two were going to kill each other first or get into bed first." The archer said in between bites of apple.
"And we aren't friends anymore, traitor." The mage said, his arms crossed as he turned back to the door.
"Don't mind him, we should be all done here." The archer said as he leapt to his feet, off to throw the apple core off the mountain cliff. "Good luck with your training session."
Ryan nodded as he followed both men out of the lodge, Yurius following him silently as he shielded his eyes from the morning light.
Edelgard looked grumpy when her favourite body pillow wasn't in bed with her.
Byleth found it adorable how she simply replaced him with her second favourite body pillow, the teddy bear he had gotten her five years prior.
Shaking his head at the sight of his beloved, Byleth paused in the small drawing room where the painting of him lay unfinished.
It was cute of Edelgard to try to hide it from him. And even cuter of her to try to finish it when she thought he was sleeping.
What was not cute was the fact that she had once fallen asleep inside the room well into the early hours of the morning.
While he was still sick.
And very annoyed that a guard had to wake him up in the early hours of the morning.
"Not even Hubert was awake, and they chose to wake me of all people?"
"I'm sorry sir. But we weren't sure what to do." One of the guards said from the open doorway, her tone humiliated. "We found it romantic that you carried her back to bed though."
Byleth gingerly clenched and unclenched his fists. "Edelgard has been eating too many sweets. I almost dropped her that night."
"Could it be the crown?" The guard asked. "That thing looks really heavy."
Byleth thought about it. "Yes, that's a good point. That damned thing probably weighs enough to be used as a hammer."
The guard snorted before she turned back around.
Byleth turned back to the painting, and then rose to his feet. "See to it that her blue is replaced. She's running very low."
"Of course, your highness." The guard replied.
"I'm going back to bed, and she won't have to make do with a teddy bear."
"Yes, your highness." The guard said, her face flaming red.
"Let nobody into this room, and nobody goes into the bedroom unless it's Hubert or Dorothea."
The guard nearly fell over, but nodded. "Yes your highness."
AN: As explained earlier, there has been a slight issue here with how I spelt "Thales". That has been corrected. A few minor details have been retconned.
