"Listen up, Golden Deer! I'll lay it out plain and simple; there's a new professor, and I want us to all do our part to impress her and get her to pick us."
Claude walked back and forth between his fellow Leicester Alliance students, beaming with confidence as he delivered his plan.
"I've been told she'll be around talking to the other leaders as well. That's why we'll plant ourselves all around the monastery, but concentrated around the other house leaders. Everyone will need to be as charming as possible, and our winning personalities will do the rest of the work. Any questions?"
"Hmph." scoffed a tall, violet-haired noble from the midst of the group. "You can't possibly expect to order us around after we've just met. I see no reason why we should go out of our way to sway the new Professor. I have heard that she has no previous experience as a teacher. It hardly makes sense for the academy to have hired her, frankly."
Claude rolled his eyes.
"C'mon Lorenz; you mean that you, the prestigious heir of House Gloucester in all your vast knowledge, haven't heard? Archbishop Rhea herself appointed the Professor. Plus, she's the daughter of some famous mercenary or something. I've seen her fight. She'd make you look like the uneducated one, I guarantee as much."
She sounds like she could be a good training partner, Leonie mused. The part about the new Professor's parent being a famous merc was made up. There's no way there existed a mercenary in Fodlan as famous as Jeralt. And Leonie knew for sure that the Blade Breaker didn't have a child. When he had saved her village from the poachers, he had with him only a few mercs to back him up.
"I totally agree with you, Claude," said one of the girls in the group, the one with the brightest pink-coloured hair that Leonie had ever seen.
"So what if the new Professor is a newbie? I won't mind." she bounced up and down on her heels, smiling harmlessly.
"Of course, you wouldn't. A new teacher means she's likely inexperienced. Something you clearly would take advantage of. You have no academic drive whatsoever."
This jab had come straight from the mouth of Lysithea. Leonie still hadn't learned much about her neighbour yet, but if she was always this blunt, she knew they would be fast friends. Friends. Something Leonie never had back home in Sauin Village. She was simply too busy, either hunting or training. No one there had the same interests as her, even remotely. But here at the monastery, maybe she would finally be able to connect with her peers.
"What's this, Claude? Do I hear you correctly, you are attempting to secure the most talented Professor for the Golden Deer House?"
A new group of academy students had walked onto the scene. At the forefront of the gathering was Edelgard, the head of the Black Eagle house, and it was she who had spoken up.
"Don't get any silly ideas. The Professor has already come and spoken personally with me. I believe that she will ask to instruct us. Strength attracts strength, you know."
From Claude's Golden Deer, a booming male voice responded.
"If all that stuff about strength is true, then she'll pick us! Have you seen my muscles? Ha!"
staring down Raphael, the muscle-bound giant who had addressed her, Edelgard chuckled.
"One wonders if your physical strength is on par with your mental strength? With the Black Eagle house, the Professor will educate the strongest minds Fodlan has to offer."
Leonie glanced over at Lysithea, who rolled her eyes in annoyance. Claude, however, didn't miss a single beat and retorted jokingly,
"Your house has the strongest minds... if they're not cowering in their room in fear or always asleep. Or if the strength of one's intellect is decided by how knowledgeable they are on the topic of fine teas. I hear you, your magnificence. But the Golden Deer house has more of a down to earth attitude and enough heart to keep up with the likes of you and your cronies."
Edelgard scowled momentarily, then stuck up her nose and led her house past them, refusing to engage in further argument. She was confident that she had already won the interest of the academy's newest Professor. And if her plans were going to succeed, she would greatly value the experience the former mercenary offered. Claude could insult her and her house's students all day. In the end, she didn't care. She wasn't here to make friends or enemies. Just acquire the means by which to accomplish her goals.
After speaking with Dimitri, House Leader of the Blue Lions, Byleth made her way to where she was told she could find Claude, the last person she had not spoken with among the leaders. She tried to remember all of the different student's names that she had heard thus far; Sylvain, Dorothea, Ferdinand, Ashe, Mercedes, Hubert, Petra. There were more, but she had been flooded with so much information throughout the day she didn't have the headspace to remember everyone.
"Um, excuse me."
Byleth looked around for the meek sounding voice and found it belonged to a young man with round glasses.
"I'm really sorry to bother you, but you're going to talk with Claude, aren't you?"
She nodded towards the student and asked for his name. She didn't expect to remember it necessarily, but she extended the formal introductions all the same.
"I'm Ignatz Victor; son of the Victor family merchants in Leicester, perhaps you've heard of them?"
Byleth shook her head and politely let him know that she did not. This was not the first time today that she had given such an answer. It had hit her hard that all these years, she had been more isolated from the rest of the world than she realized.
"We're one of the more influential merchant families in the Leicester Alliance. N-not that I think that makes us better than anyone else, of course. It's just, you know, a fun fact about my family. I'm just letting you know in case Claude skips over that part when you talk with him. It's not like I distrust him, mind you. I think he's a decent guy. But he might just describe me as a thoughtful, shy teacher's pet. Which is not true, I have to point out. I'm sorry, am I rambling? I sound like I'm rambling. You better just talk to Claude. I'm going to say something wrong if I keep worrying about how I'm perceived. It was really nice to meet you, Professor."
Ignatz rushed off, his head hanging low, and he chastised himself until he was out of range for Byleth to hear. Almost as soon as he was gone, Byleth found herself confronted by a short-haired, intense-looking redhead with matching coloured eyes. It was Leonie.
"There you are! Everyone around here is talking about you. How great you are and how you saved Claude and the others. Your dad is some so-called "famous" mercenary. But now that I see you, I don't know what's so great about you at all. You don't look nearly as strong as you'd have to be to make a good merc. I should know. I was trained by the best one that ever lived."
Byleth wasn't expecting such aggression, and her expression didn't show her surprise as much as she thought it did.
"I'm Leonie. First apprentice of the Blade Breaker himself."
Now Byleth's eyes widened, and her surprise was evident enough for Leonie to take notice.
"Hey, what's up with your face? Is my name weird sounding to you? Or have you never heard of the most famous mercenary in Fodlan? Jeralt Eisner, the Blade Breaker?"
"That's my father's name." Byleth quietly muttered, confused why this random student claimed to know her father.
Leonie, taken aback, blinked and then let out a far louder confused yell than she intended to.
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!"
