Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard sat atop the snowy Oghma Mountains together, exhausted, bloodied and beaten all. The frigid winds snapped and bit at their exposed skin through torn fabric and damaged armor. Their weapons laybroken beside them, the flurry of snow burying them deeper each moment. All sat too exhausted to raise their arms against one another anyway.
"Tell me," Edelgard said, propping herself on her good arm. "When you look down there, what is it you see?"
Claude looked down at the vast expanse before them. He still favored his mangled leg as he answered. "I see a Fodlan divided. One continent, one people, torn apart by archaic customs and beliefs. The very land itself stands as a barrier, from the mountains that divide Adrestria and separate Leicester from Faerghus, to the river keeping the Alliance and the Empire apart. History sees us all desperate to break free from one another, and yet, at Garreg Mach, we saw how we could all live together, learn from each other. That's all to say nothing of the lands and people outside of Fodlan.
"Time and time again, people kill and die for freedom and independence, but even when they win, no one is any more free. They cast off one shackle for another." Claude jerked his head toward Dimitri. "Heck, the king of Faerghus himself is slave to a commitement he feels he owes to the church and the dead, and he's locked into a bloody war, forced to watch friends, former and current, as well as the very people he's sworn to protect, die by the thousands." He turned back to Edelgard. "And you, for all the lofty ideals you preach, are slave to a childhood trauma you could never overcome, a fate no child should ever have to endure."
Tears in his eyes attracted a more bitter cold. "So what do I see? I see shackles, oppression, ignorance, hatred, and things far worse. But when I look back up from the horrible things below, back to the top of this mountain, with the three of us, and up further, to the open, undivided skies, I see hope, for a better world, united and accepting of all."
"Hmph." Dimitri clutched at his open wound. Even the best armor the kingdom had to offer couldn't stop a hero's relic. The snow beneath him grew darker by the minute, his blood staining the pure snow the crimson of the Flame Emperor's empire. "You speak of people as if they're pawns in your game of chess. I didn't hear a single mention of any of the Golden Deer, of your own closest friends and allies." He sighed.
"Yes, I am pulled forward by wills other than my own. Yes, I adhere to tradition. I cannot afford to turn my sights to a far-flung future when my eyes are fixed on the suffering in the present. I'm so very tired, but I fight on despite that. I fight so someone like Felix will never lose a brother to such a pointless tragedy again. I fight so families like Annette's never have to be torn apart. I fight with the conviction and belief people like Ashe and Ingrid have placed in me, despite what happened to Lonato and Glenn because of me. And Dedue. What kind of leader would I be if I didn't do everything in my power to assist him and his people? No amount of effort will ever bring back his family, or those of anyone else, but perhaps as king, I could offer something to ease that suffering. I fight for all those who came before me, who died by my hand or my orders, who will continue to do so. I carry with me their desires, their hopes, their dreams, and yes, their burdens. I am not so callous as to cast them off.
"Sure, perhaps someone like Sylvain may agree with some of your ideals, might see the evils of our current crest system and want to change it. Yet others, like Mercedes, may not be so ready to cast aside the institutions that saved them. Rhea may have created an institution where suffering is abound, empowered families like Mercedes' or Bernadetta's to do unspeakable things. However, the church is also the same institution that offered a home to victims of the nobility's cruelty, like Mercedes and her mother, offered sanctuary to the Ashen Wolves and the denizens of the abyss when they had nowhere else to turn. They adopted Cyril, an orphan of a foreign land entirely.
"Crestbearers and hero's relics are capable of many atrocities, but they also enable great people to enact positive change, like Loog. You yourself bear Amyr and your twin crests in the name of your self-righteous ideals. You've ended countless lives, torn apart numerous families, all in the name of your self-proclaimed 'greater good.'
"Can you honestly look down there, to a continent dissolving into chaos, with no order to guide it, and tell me what you're doing is right? In what you're trying to destroy, as in everything, there exists cruelty, I admit. But there is also kindness, and good. And you'll find the people you trample over on your way to your Fodlan are the same. I can not, will not cast out tradition and stability so easily when the alternative you peddle is death and destruction."
Edelgard shook her head. As she gazed upon her two former friends, listened to their words and ideals, she truly saw them, perhaps for the first time, not as classmates, not as the enemy, but as people, every bit as complex and confused as her, as reflections of herself. "I look down and all I see is suffering. I see the scars of Fodlan's past threaten to consume it. I see relics of a bygone era trying to cling to power through violence and deceit. I see a land beaten, lied to, defeated. I hear it crying out for change, to go back to a time before the crests, before nobility, before the church. I see an opportunity to unite Fodlan and its people under one banner, to erase such arbitrary divisions as borders and blood." She faced Claude, genuine compassion in her eyes. "And perhaps, when that's done, we may look beyond Fodlan, to other peoples and cultures, and accept them as readily as the Empire will accept those from Leicester and Faerghus, but that time has not yet come."
She hung her head low. For the first time since the war had started, Edelgard found herself unable to face her foe head-on. "Dimitri, the burden you carry is a result of the church's malicious influence. You are as much a victim of Rhea's influence as you are a product of it. Your very kingdom, your status as royalty, the enormous responsibility you bear, were saddled on you by her and her kin. Even Duscur was but a domino in the chain of cause and effect the Nabateans set in motion.
"I am human, a native of Fodlan. I want what's best for these people." She clenched her fist. "And I'm willing to dirty my own hands with their blood to obtain it. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps this isn't the way forward. Perhaps Claude is right and I'm merely stuck in the past. But I can never accept that you're right, Dimitri. I cannot accept stagnation, that things are fixed the way they are, nor that they should be.
"This world needs change, and I am the catalyst for it, for good or ill, since no one else has demonstrated the will or ability to do so. I have the resources, I'm in a position to do so, and though I won't live to see the world I wish to create, I continue to tread forward with what little time I have left, to carve a path for those who come after me. I will leave a legacy, a torch for all to pick up in my stead. I'll leave behind a better world than this."
The snow continued to fall, unmoved by their words, and the frigid cold threatened to consume them. None of the three lords could muster the strength to move, let alone raise a weapon, and the only tool they had left, their words, had been exhausted.
Dimitri was the first to collapse, even his boarish nature succumbing to the blood loss eventually. Claude was next, no doubt wracking his brain for one last scheme, but none must have come to him as his form hit the snow.
Edelgard looked upon the two of her greatest foes with fondness. She would be satisfied to die here with them. Hubert was more than capable of continuing her work without her, in some ways more capable than her. But a burning desire to see what a future held with them in it, to see what truly awaited them at the bottom of this mountain, drove her to rise. Pain and fatigue gnawed at her bones and muscles, but Edelgard had endured much worse at the hands of the Agarthans. She could push on, just a little longer.
With her good arm, she grabbed Claude, and with her bad hand, injured at the hands of the Boar Prince himself, she took Dimitri by the cloak, tying it to her mangled limb. With all her might, she heaved, dragging them one step forward across the snow. The tremendous amount of effort it took to take the first step reminded her of the beginning of the war. The second step was easier, the third a bit moreso. Though her body ached and groaned and burned, did everything in its power to force her to stop, Edelgard marched forward, the King of Faerghus and Leader of the Alliance in tow, into the blizzard.