Disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Three Houses, all rights to the owners.

Worldbuilding, yay! That's my only semblance of a plan going into this chapter, we'll see what else pops up.


Normally Claude is a fan of history books. He consumes every one he can get his hands on. Those available at the monastery however are… underwhelming. It's obvious to Claude that they are heavily censored, but there are a few gems of information to be had.

While mostly glossed over, the books do briefly mention eras past. They talk about the rise of the Adrestian Empire of course, as well as the era of Liberation that came before it, but beyond myths about the goddess and the saints there is precisely little information about what civilization was like before the era of Liberation. There is some vague mentions of dragons and the powerful old bloods (who may or may not have been the dominant species at some point. Not the most populous, but in charge so to speak), and some vague implications that angels (like Lorenz) may have controlled the church at some point.

There are some other miscellaneous myths that hint at other things, like the mention of a stupidly powerful species known as the "arcanomoths" that apparently hasn't been seen since before the founding of the Empire, or something called a "lieye" that just isn't explained at all so Claude doesn't have the faintest idea what it was or if it's still around.

Garreg Mach's history books are suspiciously lacking information on the era of Giants too, which came between the goddess's supposed descent and the era of Liberation. The books don't even mention giants at all, or the fact that they went extinct via being killed by old bloods. From Claude's knowledge of history, the timeline is along the lines of: Goddess descends, era of Giants, era of Ancients (the old blood, angels, and demons being dominant races), the era of Liberation, and then the current Imperial era.

That's tentative however. Almyran history books only say so much about Fodlan, and the Alliance, being the newest of the three countries, doesn't have as many records and whatnot as the other two. The Empire likely has all the most detailed history books.

With those out of his reach though, Claude settles for keeping on eye on merchant stocks for history books on sale. There is unsurprisingly few. There are, however, occasionally collections of old myths from across the continent which Claude snaps up. Are they inaccurate? Yes. Might they still hold precious hints about general attitudes towards certain ideas or species? Also yes.

Claude is glad student's rooms don't get searched at random, or his ever-increasing book collection might raise eyebrows… not to mention is poison brewing kit. Actually, the poison kit would probably grab more attention now that he thinks about it. They might even overlook the gunpowder.

"I should really hide this stuff." Claude muses. "Just in case."

###

Darkvision is fun, especially when others don't have it. Claude doesn't have to give away his position by carrying a torch, and there's no real risk of him tripping because he can navigate perfectly fine. The guards need torches to see because they're human, but that means their sight is limited to the torchlight. It's effortless to sneak by them.

There are a few places on Claude's list tonight. He wants to check Manuela's office. He's hoping that because of how disorganized she is he'll be able to find something useful. If there's anyone who'll have left something important lying around, it's her. Claude would check Hanneman's too but… well he's a ghost, so sleep isn't exactly something he does. Claude also intends to poke around in the library. There's a restricted section in the back, guarded by the monks. He's hoping at this time of night that there won't be anyone to stop him poking around.

The results are… less than impressive. Manuela has a few miscellaneous notes on treating certain students that intrigue him, like a warning that Bernadetta receives healing magic and vulneraries poorly, and instead it would be prudent to give her a mana potion of all things to help her heal, or use reconstruction magic if the situation is dire.

Reconstruction magic is much less delicate than healing magic. It's used for big things like fixing furniture, structures, and generally non-biological things. It can be used on a person in place of healing magic, but without masterful control the results tend to be… messy. It's too imprecise to fix veins and tissue and such.

If the note recommended only reconstruction magic Claude would assume the girl is a golem, but a mana potion? That complicates things. The note also mentions that they can contact… some person Claude doesn't recognize to help as well, which is weird because it implies Manuela just doesn't have the skills necessary to heal Bernadetta in some fashion.

Another oddity is for Mercedes. To help her, the note just says "can consume anything to heal herself". Now that is a tell… that Claude can't place. A species that heals itself by eating or 'consuming' things doesn't spring to mind. There are certainly undead that consume things, but usually it would be something specific, not anything.

Claude, who brought his notebook along this time, scribbles it all down before moving on.

There simply isn't time to read as much as Claude wishes he could in the library before he needs to leave to actually get some sleep. He finds a promising book or two, but doesn't get very far before he needs to stop.

As Claude is moving back to his room, he spots something interesting. One of the people he read about in Manuela's notes, Mercedes, is casually wandering the monastery grounds. She even passes by some guards who nod and make no move to stop her. This must be normal, but why is Mercedes allowed to do something like this? Why is she doing something like this?

Curiosity wins out over his need for sleep, and he trails Mercedes from (what he hopes is) a safe distance. She navigates the twisting paths of the monastery easily and stops on the path behind the storehouse where the wall is low and one can easily see the stars and the fires of villages and camps below on the mountain trails.

Mercedes moves toward a bench, and Claude spies a large rock in her way. Knowing her clumsy reputation, he fully expects her to trip on it but… she doesn't. She steps on it, but there is no loss of balance whatsoever. She continues walking as if she didn't step on anything at all; a difference from her usual self.

She takes a seat on a bench and starts stargazing. The moon is half full, but the light still illuminates her features a bit. Just enough, in fact, for Claude to notice that some parts of Mercedes seem weirdly translucent, but it's inconsistent. A ghost, for example, is uniformly translucent for their entire body. For Mercedes, it's her hair, her fingertips, and just small parts of her body. That's definitely going in his notes.

Not expecting anything else for a while, Claude resigns himself to going back to bed.

###

Claude blinks awake at the sensation of someone poking his cheek. He feels awful to be honest. He stayed up way too long digging through things in the library, then following Mercedes. He just wants to slee-

"Shit, I'm in a class." Claude forces himself to sit up slowly, unobtrusively. He sat behind a pillar today for a reason. Then he notices everyone getting up and leaving. Class is over? How long was he sleeping for? He glances at the person who woke him up, Hilda of course, and she merely raises an eyebrow at him.

"Feel more awake?"

"I wasn't sleeping." Claude lies with an easy grin. "I was… writing."

"You were lying against me Claude, not the desk." Hilda snorts.

Welp, there goes that lie. "And you didn't wake me up? Hilda, what am I supposed to do about notes?!" Claude gasps with fake offence in his voice. "Do you want me to steal them from someone? Are you driving me to-"

"Oh shush drama queen, I made notes." Hilda huffs. "You can copy later."

"Hilda? Making notes? Is this a dream?" The half elf gasps again. "Hit me Hilda, wake me up for true!"

She raises an eyebrow. "I think you'd prefer not to have broken bones. Look, do you want my notes or not?"

"Ah, uh, yes please." Claude coughs. He clumsily puts his things away, praying the teacher (Manuela) didn't notice him sleeping the whole class. Thankfully she's busy talking to Marianne, so even if she did Claude manages to slip out of the class unharried.

"Claude!"

Mostly unharried. It's not like Lorenz to pass up an opportunity to bother him after at all. "Hey Lorenz, need some help with the lesson material? You've come to the right person."

"Do not mock me. I saw you sleeping the whole class! For shame! You are supposed to be the heir to the Alliance, and yet you act in such a disgraceful manner!"

"Hey, calm it down lightbug, I was up later working last night." Claude isn't lying, but he's taking advantage of a technicality for sure. "Besides, Hilda paid attention. I'll just copy off her, no big deal."

"No big deal?" Lorenz sounds offended. "You have a responsibility to the other students as house leader to be a proper role model!"

"Sheesh, okay." Claude mutters.

"And could you not have chosen a better place to sleep? Using Hilda as a pillow is most uncouth! And you Hilda, you should not be allowing such a thing!"

"Yeah yeah." Hilda says dismissively; clearly indifferent to what Lorenz is saying.

"You could have at least moved him to your shoulder instead of-"

"Yeah, whatever, we get it." Hilda interrupts. She flips her hair dismissively and pulls Claude along towards… somewhere that Lorenz isn't. Thankfully the angel doesn't follow them as they move towards the dining hall.

"What do we have next again?" Claude asks. He rubs his eyes and hides a grimace. He really feels like shit right now.

"Professor Eisner's class."

That's not good. Teach's class is always the most physically demanding, and Claude is not in a condition to do that right now. He doesn't really have a choice though. "R-Right." He yawns.

Hilda shakes her head. "That's what you get for sneaking around all night."

"Come on, I had to!" He insists. "Or I wanted to at least…"

Hilda rolls her eyes.

###

Claude is used to being able to take care of himself if needed. Even if he's tired he can still shoot a bow or swing a dagger. He's handled himself while more exhausted than he was yesterday before.

That's why he hates being this sick. It's the one thing that totally removes his ability to defend himself. He can barely drag himself out of bed if he needs to. This is the consequence of him spending too much time out that night, isn't it? That night and Teach's training the next day totally ruined him. Exhaustion and exertion is a terrible combination.

"Stop squirming!" Hilda huffs. "Geeze Claude, you're supposed to be relaxing."

For once, Hilda being here doesn't make him feel more comfortable. Some part of him is ashamed of that. Hilda is his closest ally and has helped him dozens of times, but he just can't relax knowing how incapable he is of self-defence right now. He has zero reason to assume Hilda will hurt him in any way, but his instincts still whisper at him to be wary of her.

Claude was trying to sit up, insisting that he was fine enough to care for himself so Hilda could just leave, until the girl plants a hand on his chest and (slowly) pushes him back down. With her incredible strength Claude really doesn't have a choice in the matter, but the action still makes him more nervous than it has any right to.

"Manuela said not to get up. If I have to hold you down all day, I will." Hilda threatens.

"How forward!" Claude jokes weakly.

"Ha ha." The pink-haired girl snorts. She doesn't remove her hand from his chest as she grabs the wet cloth from his bedside table, squeezes it, and drapes if over his forehead. "Now stay still for Goddess's sake."

Claude reluctantly complies. He still feels nervous about it though.

###

Hilda shakes her head. It took way longer than it should have for Claude to actually go back to sleep. He was weirdly reluctant about it. At least he's asleep now, though for how long she has no idea.

Darkvision means Claude's eyes are very sensitive to light, so the room has been made as dark as possible. The curtains are closed, there's no candle, and Claude even put a cloth over his eyes just to block out any extra light that managed to worm by the curtains or under the door.

There is, however, enough light to read by if you sit near the window, and that's exactly what Hilda is doing. She has Claude's notebook in her hand and is flipping through the pages. She doesn't feel like she's being particularly intrusive. After all, she knows for a fact that Claude has gone through her things at least once, and probably a few times. His paranoia is not news to her. That's why she doesn't feel bad about looking through his things in return.

The notebook is… well, it's more of a binder than a book actually. It has wooden clasps along the spine that can be opened to rearrange the pages within. It's separated into three parts: the first is a roster, with each person having at least one dedicated page with every scrap of information Claude has managed to find on them scribbled down. To her amusement, Hilda herself has the most dedicated pages at five. It details everything from what he knows on her species, familial background, possible goals, personality notes, and even more basic things like likes, dislikes, and what foods and drinks she enjoys.

No one else has anywhere close to that many pages. The most others have are two, like Lorenz, Raphael, and Ignatz, and that's just because of how forthcoming they are with information about themselves.

The second section is Claude's idea on the world's timeline of history and all associated notes and musings. It's dense, confusing, and he clearly is having trouble placing certain events and sorting through some contradictory information. Hilda skims that section, it's not really her forte or to her interests.

The last section is dedicated to plans, personal notes, and immediately relevant information. It's the least thick section, though Hilda knows any pages Claude doesn't need anymore he puts in an entirely separate notebook for safekeeping, so it's likely the last section has a high page turnover rate and could be more dense than the rest put together if he kept all his old notes there. Some of the notes seem very personal, so Hilda only skims this section too.

She does notice two instances of the note "You owe Hilda cake, again" though. Hilda can't help but grin to herself upon seeing that.

When she's read everything she cares to, Hilda puts the notebook away. Claude will probably know she looked through it but she doesn't really care. He's done the same to her after all.

With that done she pulls out Claude's school books and her own. He was too tired to copy anything last night, so she supposes it falls to her.

"Better make that three cakes Claude. You're racking up my debt." She huffs silently.

###

Hilda is keeping an eye on him. She's not even particularly subtle about it. She's hovering behind him constantly, keeps "forgetting" that his books aren't hers so that she "accidentally" carries them around for him, and keeps glancing at him during class.

"I'm fine Hilda, seriously."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Hilda says, not looking at him.

"I'm feeling a lot better today, you don't have to watch out for me." Claude insists. "Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Nope, you're imagining things." Hilda insists. She turns up her nose to ignore him when he gives her a pointed stare. Claude laughs silently.

Coming up with a quick plan as they're walking, Claude conveniently trips over a loose stone. It's a fake stumble to begin with; exaggerated to make it look like he's going to fall. Hilda predictably reacts by grabbing the back of his shirt with her free hand and hauling him into the air before he's even halfway down.

Hilda opens her mouth to scold him, but Claude grins cheekily and cuts her off. "Not looking out for me huh?"

The girl's expression turns into a scowl. Rather than putting him down, she just drapes him over her shoulder like a sack of grain and marches off towards their next class. Claude laughs out loud the entire way there.


Yes, I am being intentionally vague about what species most of the other students are. It would be no fun if I revealed everything right away.