"You… How long do you intend to sleep? Your body is awake. Your eyes must open now, and you must find the strength to stand upon those legs of yours. Like so much rain, a curse has fallen upon the earth. It weeps. And even now…it weeps. The people of this world are lost in an abyss of suffering. They weep as well. The only one who truly knows the nature of such things is I… Or rather, you."

The girl with green hair waits for a response and doesn't get one.

"You are a complete and utter fool! Have you not changed one bit?! Are you saying you have forgotten who I am? How dare you! Get on your feet. Right now! I'll coddle you no more! You are just like a child, always needing me to hold your hand...You can never help them if you don't remember who you are…."

Byleth awoke in her motel room. It's been at least fifteen years, and that girl is still rude as hell. She's better than the one with the green-haired lady kissing the bony sword and calling it "Mother." She had had two dreams for as long as she could remember. Usually, she would mention it, and then shortly afterward, she would end up in a new foster home. She learned not to share much about herself. This time, the dream was interrupted by persistent knocking. She lumbered out of bed and cracked the door open. Claude was there looking entirely too chipper. "How can you be this perky so early in the morning?" she mumbled.

"Because it's 10:00 am, Byleth. I guess bounty hunters work on different schedules. Come on, get changed. I'm taking you to breakfast. It's right next door. You'll love it."

"Ugh, fine," Byleth said. She slammed the door. She changed quickly, brushed her teeth, and returned to Claude. He took her to the diner next door. It was called Ashe's and looked homey. They sat at the counter, and a woman with dark skin and red hair came to take their order. "Claudster, who is your guest?" she asked.

"Hapi, this is Byleth Eisner, bounty hunter extraordinaire. She saved our lives last night."

Hapi seemed mildly impressed. They both ordered, and Hapi passed off their order to the cooks, a small young man with gray hair and an extremely tall man with white hair. Claude and Byleth sat quietly while they waited for their order. The tall man brought their food out. As he set down their plates, he said to Byleth, "I'm sorry. I couldn't help but overhear that you are the person that saved Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri last night?"

Byleth nodded, and the man gave a slight smile. "I just wanted to thank you. Dimitri is a very close friend." He went back to work before Byleth could respond.

Claude said, "That's Dedue. He's Dimitri's best friend. Dimitri saved his life a long time ago. He's super quiet - pretty much only hangs out with Dimitri and Mercedes, his girlfriend. But he and Ashe are amazing cooks. Try your food, and you'll see."

Byleth wondered how many incidents Dimitri had been involved in for someone so young, but she put the thought out of her mind. She tried her waffles, and they were, in fact, the best waffles she had ever eaten. Her eyes widened, and Claude said, "I know, right? It's quiet here now, but this place will be packed during tourist season." They continued to chat while they enjoyed their breakfasts.

After they finished, Byleth asked to go to the police station to see Ingrid, but Claude insisted on giving her a walking tour of downtown Crestwood. The town was so neat and perfect-looking that Byleth found it nauseating. They passed a man and a heavily pregnant woman performing on the street corner. The man was sword swallowing while the woman juggled. Byleth watched for a few moments until the woman finally said, "An audience is nice, but tips are what pay my crippling student loan debt."

"Leonie, you can't say that to people!" the man huffed.

"Easy for you to say, trust fund son, but some of us need to make ends meet until tourist season."

Byleth said, "I'm sorry, but I'm probably more broke than you are."

Claude stepped in and said, "Byleth isn't paying anyone while she's here. It's my treat for saving our lives last night." He put a few dollars in their jar.

Both performers immediately lit up when Claude mentioned last night. The man said, "You're the bounty hunter! I would love to try my marksmanship against yours. There's no one to compete with here."

Leonie said, "Man, I wish I could fight you, but my training days are currently on hold."

Claude stepped in again and said, "I'm sure Byleth would love to fight both of you at some point, but we have other errands to run. I hope you both make a good haul today."

They continued to walk. Claude seemed to know everyone. He pointed out the various businesses, the art gallery, the playhouse, and the bookstore. Claude always said hello to everyone, and they said hello back - except for the purple-haired gentleman running the bookstore that shooed Claude away after Claude mentioned something about Leonie to him. Apparently, the reclusive fantasy series novel, B von Varley, lived in Crestwood. No one usually saw her, which disappointed Byleth. She mentioned to Claude that she had read them all, and Claude studied her for a moment. They continued to walk, and Claude continued to greet everyone he saw by name. Byleth said to Claude, "You seem to know everyone. I'm half expecting you to break out in the opening song from Beauty and the Beast."

Claude laughed, "I promise not to sing, even though it would be amazing."

They finally arrived at the police station where Ingrid was sitting behind her desk. A man with red hair was sitting with her. Upon seeing her, the man stood up to shake her hand. He said, "Well, hello, you must be our heroic bounty hunter. I'm Sylvain Gautier, defense attorney. We should probably exchange numbers since we're in similar fields."

Ingrid rolled her eyes and threw a pencil at him. She turned to Byleth and said, "Ignore him - he was just leaving."

Sylvain grabbed his chest and pretended to be hurt. "We'll see who brings you lunch today, then." He took one last look at Byleth and left.

Byleth sat down with Ingrid and gave her statement. There wasn't much to say. She got lost, saw three men shooting, they fled when she shot back. It was dark, so that she couldn't give much of a description. Claude also issued his statement, but he didn't have a lot of details either. Ingrid was disappointed but said she would do everything possible to find the attackers. Claude smiled and said, "I have an idea - why not hire Byleth as your deputy so you can have some help to find these men. She has incredible skills!"

Byleth stammered out, "Oh no," while Ingrid said, "I'm sure I don't need a deputy."

Claude's tone suddenly became serious, and he said, "I'm sure Byleth could also look into other unsolved crimes around here."

Ingrid gave Claude a hard stare for a moment and then said, "It might be nice to have someone who can look into things without attracting attention."

This was all too much for Byleth. How dare Claude suggest that she would want to stay in this boring nowhere town when her entire life had been spent moving from place to place. Her life was spent following bounties and never being tied to any people or places. She stormed out of the police station to gather her things back at the motel.

Claude was chasing after her. He was surprisingly fast. He caught up and continued to walk beside her. "Byleth, please don't go yet - hear me out…" he pleaded as they walked. Hoping he would get the hint, she continued to stare straight ahead and picked up her pace. Unfortunately, he continued to tag along. When she finally got back to her room door, she told Claude it was time to go. He gave her the saddest puppy eyes and said, "May I please tell you everything before you make up your mind?" She sighed heavily and let him in.

Byleth sat down and said, "So what could you possibly say that would make me interested in staying for more than ten more minutes in this suburban hellscape?"

Claude began to pace and fiddle with his hands. "Well, it's kind of hard to just come out and say…Do you ever think you should be leading another life?"

Byleth blinked at him, "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Do you know how hard it was just to get to this point in my life? If you're too bored with your life, you should just go somewhere else!"

"That's the thing - no one seems to be able to do that here! Everything stays exactly the same! Everyone talks about "tourist season" coming - but did you notice no one could tell you exactly when it was? I know we're supposed to have one, but I don't remember there ever being a tourist season here. None of my memories here seem real."

Byleth furrowed her brow at Claude, "You realize that you sound insane, right?"

Claude ran his fingers through his hair, "I know. But Edelgard started to think something wasn't right either. It was easy to convince Dimitri to come along since he thought Arundel was hiding something after his parents' deaths. We tried to leave town for the night, and look what happened right at the border."

"You wrecked and nearly got murdered," Byleth replied.

"Exactly! Then you cross right over the town border and take everyone out. And then Dimitri knew your name!"

"That was strange," Byleth acknowledged.

And everyone is too terrified of Arundel to look into it further. He controls everything here."

Claude sat down across from Byleth and softly said, "There's more...when you read B von Varley's books...do you ever feel like it's something that's happened before? "

"Stories are supposed to feel real - that's why people love her books," Byleth answered.

"I think you know what I'm talking about. Why does everything in those books feel more real than anything here?"

"For me, it's because my life sucked growing up. Everyone in those books is having a much better time. That's how I know they're fake - because everything works out. The Teacher helps unite the Princess, and Prince, and the Duke, and they finally save their town from the evil wizard's curse. Everyone lives happily ever after. It's fun, but that's not how things work out."

Claude sighed and said, "Fine, but do you ever have the same dream over and over again? I dream that Edelgard is the princess, Dimitri is the prince, and I'm the duke. Our armies destroy each other, and we're all killed. It feels so real. Do you have any dreams like that?"

Byleth's eyes widened, but she recovered and replied, "Sounds like you need to put the books down and go to bed earlier."

Claude caught her first reaction, though. "No, you know what I mean."

"Okay fine. I have the same dream of a rude little girl with green hair telling me to 'remember who I am' and that she's sick of coddling me. I told my first two foster families about it, and they couldn't get me out of their houses fast enough. That's why you don't put much stock into dreams."

"Does she ever tell you what you're supposed to remember?" Claude asked.

"No, she's really not very helpful. Rails about the earth being 'cursed.'"

Claude raised an eyebrow.

"...And I know what you are thinking, and no, it's not 'just like the book.' Honestly, I've always felt like there were giant chunks of my life missing. Supposedly, my mom died in childbirth, and my dad was murdered shortly afterward. But I've never been able to find anything out about them. It's like they never existed."

Claude looked down thoughtfully for a moment and said, "That's really rough. What if we made a deal? You stay here as a deputy - investigate who shot at us and any other weirdness, and I'll look for information about your parents. At worst, you end up with a steady paycheck, and at best, we finally get to fill in some missing pieces about ourselves. You also get the satisfaction of knowing your presence here pisses Arundel off to no end."

Byleth thought for a moment. If she was going to stick with old habits, she should get in the car and go as far away from this place as possible. But it had been so long since she had a roof over her head and a hot meal on the same day. Plus, Claude seemed so convinced that he could find out more about her parents. So she said, "Fine. Deal."

Claude's face lit up, and he said, "Great! Let's go back to Ingrid, and then we'll check on Dimitri."

At that moment, the town clock rang to signal the hour. Claude said, "That's interesting - that thing has been broken for as long as I can remember.