The Dawn of Silver Snow.
Story Summary: Byleth, a girl with no heartbeat and Daughter of Jeralt, a mercenary, finds that Sothis has Awakened inside of her; soon, changes begin to occur to Byleth while Sothis, the Spirit who guides Byleth, remembers everything of her Past life. Will the World be Ready for the Goddess to walk with the living once again? Who are the mysterious Argathians? This story is a Rewritten Silver Snow route with a couple of significant twists.
Chapter Summary: A raid on Bernadetta's adoptive family home was conducted where they found significant evidence, and a piece of a much larger plot against the Church is uncovered. Catherine learns of a secret. And Byleth and her Class get ready to march to help deal with the aftermath of Lord Lonato's Rebellion.
Chapter 9: Raid of the Varley Residence
Several weeks have passed since the reunion of Bernadetta and Indech/Matthew at the beginning of the Garland moon, and they have gotten back on excellent terms. Bernadetta, still the recluse and terrified of everything, shut herself in her room, but now that Indech/Matthew is around, she is starting to open up more. In the meantime, Byleth has been working hard training her class for the upcoming mission. She now hopes that is enough.
Nighttime 23 Garland moon, the Imperial year 1180
Byleth Room
Byleth is in her bedroom, while her hands are on her hips. She was hyperventilating while walking back and forth in the room. Her eyes were bulging, and her heart rate was steadily increasing.
'Byleth,' said Sothis appearing right in front of her, 'you need to calm down; you're going to go into a panic attack. If you don't.'
'Sothis, I don't know if I can,' replied Byleth
'Byleth, just follow my lead. Can you do that' answered Sothis
Byleth looked at Sothis and nodded her head yes. Sothis then put her hands on her shoulders and looked directly at Byleth. Sothis then stated, 'Okay, take a deep breath, hold it…one…two…three, and release, now repeat. Good now, keep doing it until you calm yourself down.'
Sothis listened to Byleth's breathing and waited until she was certain Byleth was calmed down. Once she was certain Byleth was calm, she asked, 'Byleth, what has you all upset? I need to know so I can help you. But first, I need you to remain calm,'
''I don't know if I can remain calm. If one of those nobles dies, they will be down my throat, and I may even be executed. It will be all my fault. I am not prepared for how they will react to their first kill. Killing someone is never easy.
'Byleth, can you do me a favour? Can you stop being a drama queen,' said Sothis 'first, you have my power; sending children into battle does not sit well with me, so I am giving you my ability to turn back the hands of time. Now remember this, you cannot go too far, and it drains your power a lot, so it only should be used on an emergency basis. As of now, you can only use it two times. Any more than that, it drains from your life force.'
'Thank you, Sothis, ' said Byleth
'Now you also have the knights; they will ensure that your students are protected. I can assure you that your students will be okay; now go, you need to sleep; you have a big day tomorrow. We have to begin your march to meet with the aftermath of Lord Lonato's rebellion.' said Sothis 'Now hurry up. If you don't fall asleep, I can always put you to sleep.'
Byleth then laid down on her bed and closed her eyes 'Night Sothis,' she said before going to sleep.
24 Garland Moon, Imperial Year 1180
Audience Chamber's
Byleth was wearing the armour and sword that Macuil made for her while she was in Zanado. On her left arm was a steel shield to help her deflect attacks. Her facial expression was flat and emotionless. Standing next to her was Catherine, a knight of Serios and swords master. After what seemed like an eternity for both of them, Rhea, Seteth, and Matthew entered the room and stood across, facing both of them.
"So, this is the situation we believe that the Lord Lonato and his troops are headed towards Magdred Way; we do not think that there will be any fighting; however, be prepared for the worst and hope for the best," stated Seteth "any questions?
"None whatsoever," said Byleth giving them a bow.
"May the Goddess be with you, Byleth; you are dismissed. Get your class ready to do your last-minute preparations, Catherine. You stay," said Rhea
"Yes, Lady Rhea," said Byleth putting her right fist on her left shoulder before leaving.
When Byleth left, Rhea looked at Catherine and said, "Catherine, I can trust you to protect my granddaughter, right." she asked.
"Lady Rhea, you have my word, but who is your granddaughter? I need to know to protect her," replied Catherine
"Catherine, she was just in here; she is Professor Byleth," said Rhea. Then Catherine's eyes went big.
"Lady Rhea, can you again," said Catherine blinking rapidly with raised and curved eyebrows and a gaping jaw.
"Catherine, the professor Byleth is my granddaughter by blood. Her mother was my daughter. My daughter, unfortunately, died while giving birth to Byleth. Captain Jeralt took her death very hard and retired and raised Byleth on his own away from here. I need you to promise me that you will protect her." replied Rhea
"Lady Rhea, it will be my honour." said Catherine before asking, "Can I take Shamir to help me in this task? The more we have, the better?"
"Yes, you may take her; as you are now aware, Byleth is an essential member of the church, and she is going to have unprecedented dangers on her if word gets out, so I am entrusting you to help protect her and her students as well," said Seteth "you are dismissed."
"There is a reason why we need you to watch her; however, that reason is something better left unknown," said Matthew
"High bishop Matthew of the temple of Indech as cryptic as ever I see," mumbled Catherine
"Catherine, can you at least try to get along with Matthew? You are dismissed," declared Seteth.
Varley Territory
Meanwhile, in Count Varley Territory, Alois and Jeralt and two small battalions of the Knights of Serios were outside at the Varley residence. One battalion was under the command of Alois the other was under the command of Jeralt. In Jeralt's hand were the arrest documents that were signed by lady Rhea and stamped by Seteth. King Ionius IX was given notice of this raid, as was Edelgard, but there was nothing they could because this involved matters of the Church.
Now to the right of the main door was Alois, while Jeralt was to the left of the main entrance. Alois had an axe in hand while Jeralt had a lance and a shield.
"Ready," whispered Jeralt in a low tone so he could be sure that nobody heard him.
"Yes," whispered back Alois in an equally low tone of voice
"On my count, we move in, got it" whispered Jeralt
"Got it," replied Alois in a whisper
"Three…two…one now," Jeralt whispered; then Alois took his Axe and opened the door. Once the door fell down, the knights rushed in then Jeralt yelled, "This is the Knights of Serios surrender now and drop your weapons!"
"What! Is the meaning of this!" yelled a lady with purple eyes and long wavy purple hair, wearing a red and black dress covering her feet.
"Count Varley, you are now being charged with Kidnapping of the child of a high-ranking member of the Church of Serios, aggressive child abuse, aggravated assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child. Attempting to change the identity of a child, sexual battery of a child, you will be taken to Garreg Mach Monastery for interrogation and to be held accountable for your crimes Knights bind him," Jeralt read from the letter in his hand at that moment, the few knights took Count Varley. They took him off his seat while one knight tied his hands behind his back with rope.
"You ignorant fools, I am a noble of the empire. You can't do this to me. I will Have my revenge," yelled Count Varley as he was being secured.
"Countess Varley, you are now being charged with Kidnapping of the child of a high-ranking member of the Church of Serios, aggressive child abuse, aggravated assault, and battery with a dangerous weapon on a child," Jeralt then read from the second letter "knights bind her."
Three more knights came forward to bind Countess Varley, but a knight came forward; she took a dagger and swung it at a knight. The knight then grabbed her wrist and threw her to the ground. While on the ground, a knight grabbed her hands and tied them behind her back.
"Alois, you will search for evidence on the first floor. I will search the second. You two secure the prisoners. Everyone else watches are backs." Ordered Jeralt
Jeralt then walked up the stairs and entered the first door on the right and his eyes wide as he surveyed the room. In the room the was a chair with restraints on it for the legs, hands, and neck. There was a small bed with restraints on it for the legs and arms. There was a table with various stuff on it, including some containers with a green-like fluid in them Jeralt went and opened those containers and smelled them, and it had the smell of blood. Also on the table were whips and nails with dried green blood on them.
"Poor Bernadetta, I now have no reason to doubt Rhea about Byleth; she bleeds the same as Byleth," whispered Jeralt to himself "nobody should have to go through what that poor girl went through"
Jeralt took an iron rod that looked like it had been molten and chilled several times; he could still see flesh on it on a close examination. Jeralt put it in a bag; he put the nails with dried blood, the whips, and the containers of blood in separate bags and labelled them for the archbishop's eyes only.
Garreg Mach Monastery
Back at Garreg Mach, Byleth was getting her students ready for the battle in the armoury, fixing up their mistakes when putting on armour and giving them arms. Byleth was sure she had trained them well. The entire class has, by this point, been promoted to their beginner classes. Byleth was sure she gave them a suitable battle class for each student. For Edelgard, she has been promoted to the Fighter class, and she was given an Iron Axe and an Iron Sword as backup weapons.
Hubert was promoted to the Monk class, and he gave a backup, an Iron Dagger; for emergencies, he was given an Iron Shield. Ferdinand was promoted to the soldier class; he was given an Iron lance and an Iron axe as his backup weapon. Linhardt was promoted to Monk and was given an Iron dagger and Leather shield for emergencies. Casper was promoted to a fighter given an Iron Axe. Bernadetta was promoted to a Fighter, and she was given a Steel Bow with three hundred arrows which she put on her back. Dorothea was promoted to a monk and, like the other monks, was given a dagger and a shield.
Petra was promoted to Myrmidon; she was given a steel sword and an Iron Shield. Yuri was promoted to Myrmidon and was given a Steel sword and an Iron Shield. Balthus was promoted to Fighter and given Iron Gauntlets and an Iron Axe. Constance, Hapi, and Flayn were both promoted to Monk and given the same kit as the other monks. Altogether, Byleth had two Myrmidons, Six monks, four Fighters, and one Soldier. Two of them specialized in healing magic. Of the four fighters, she had one Archer, and this is going to be interesting to see how she will position them should they need to fight.
Varley Residence
Meanwhile, Alois began searching through the place on the first floor of the Varley residence. At first, looking from office to office in his search, he found nothing. He eventually entered a room that was labelled as the Count's office. Once he was in there, Jeralt entered the room.
"Take over watching the prisoners. I will search this room," ordered Jeralt.
"Will do, captain."
Jeralt then opened a cabinet; in the cabinet, he found a series of letters; on the first letter, he read:
To Lord Thales
My wife sent the beast to the Church to learn at the officer's academy in a bag as this is what those beasts deserve. Let Solon and Moros know. The beast is known to the Empire as Bernadetta her real name is Demeter. I do have some of her blood samples you can use for testing. We will set our plan in motion. I know that Kronya, Solon, Moros, and Erinyes are hiding in the Monastery to begin our plan. The fool of Serios and Cichol to not check who they are hiring; I say that Monastery will make an excellent spot for a castle for killing all members of the Church and restoring Argarthian rule to this continent after all the first step was to make Lord Lonato Rebel.
From Count Varley
Jeralt then flipped the page to read the second letter
To Count Varley
To think it was so easy to capture one of those beasts; you did fine work; your job is to experiment with that beast but keep that thing alive. That beast is a great experiment opportunity to use for our eventual return to the surface; the plans are going smoothly. But for now, I need a bit of her blood.
From Thales
Jeralt didn't bother reading the rest of the letters; he took the entire stack of letters and put them inside a cover, and labelled the cover for the archbishop's eye only.
"I need to take this to the archbishop; these Counts know about them," whispered Jeralt to himself.
Garreg Mach Monastery
Back at Garreg Mach, Byleth got the entire class ready and was not eating lunch with them before they left. Catherine and Shamir then entered the cafeteria; Catherine then taped on Byleths shoulder, which caused Byleth to look back. Catherine then signalled Byleth to follow her outside.
When they were outside, Catherine asked, "why didn't you tell me that you are related to Lady Rhea?"
"I didn't want to be treated any differently, and I am still trying to get to know her better," replied Byleth
"Regardless of your reasoning Lady Rhea asked for me to protect you and your class me, and Shamir will do that. I also want to apologize for the other day; if I had known you were Lady Rhea's granddaughter, I would not have borderline insulted you, and the fact that you didn't want to get treated differently than others means that you have a very noble heart," said Catherine " I just wanted to be sure that you have no ill intentions towards Lady Rhea, but I may have overreacted."
'Look at that; it seems that she did have good intentions after all, just poorly executed them.' said Sothis
"Your Forgiven Catherine," said Byleth
That evening
A path outside of the Monastery
It was a quiet evening, and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky which was rare for this time of year. Byleth was standing with her armour and her sword in her belt. And she was walking over Catherine as their convoy of students, knights, and supplies had come to a stop.
"Catherine, I take it we are camping out here for the night," asked Byleth
"Yes, we are, have you taught your students about sentry duty?" asked Catherine
"No, I have, unfortunately; however, this is a great time for them to learn," replied Byleth
"We have tents and sleeping bags for everyone; remember males with males and females with females and only two people per tent," said Shamir as she approached them.
"Also, for sentry duty, just have your sentries patrol the area around the tents that your class will be sleeping in and make sure they make periodic shift changes," stated Catherine. "I will have the knights gather food and patrol the entire perimeter."
"Will do," stated Byleth.
Byleth then walked over to where her class was standing in a semi-circle; she then faced them. In the center of the semi-circle was Edelgard, which Byleth was facing.
"Okay, so here we are making camp for the night; I know everyone is likely hungry after marching with armour on for half a day; the knights are gathering food for everyone so while that is being taken care of. I am going to brief you on how tonight and most likely every mission that requires us to leave the Monastery and involves camping out will go. First, we will set our tents there will be two people in each tent boys will be boys and girls will be with girls and yes, I already assigned who will be with who. Everyone following so far," declared Byleth.
"Yes," said the entire class in unison."
"Bernadetta and Petra, you two will share a tent, Edelgard you're with Dorothea; Constance, you're with Hapi; Ferdinand, you're with Hubert; Linhardt, you're with Yuri; Caspar, you're with Balthus, and Flayn you're with me, any questions so far" When Byleth looked and saw that nobody had any questions she went on to say "Now I will appoint four people for sentry duty, for half the night your job will be to patrol the area around are tent you will be are Sentries, midway through the night you will be relieved by four of classmates. Edelgard, Dorothea, Caspar and Balthus, you are the first sentries; the relief will be Ferdinand, Hubert, Petra, and Bernadetta; those with sentry duty you will patrol the area around are tents only understood."
"understood," said everyone
Later that evening, Byleth and her class got together and sat and ate the food that the knights had hunted and fished. It was a night filled with enjoyment and getting to know one another better; however, there were two beings in the distance from beyond the trees. They were wearing birdlike masks, with dark robes that covered their entire body. They were watching and observing from a distance.
"There she is, the fell star incarnated," said one of the beings with an evil grin on his face.
"If we want our plans to go smoothly, we must eliminate her but not now are troops will help that fool after they exhaust themselves, then we commence are plan," said the other being, this time a more feminine voice
"These beasts think they deserve the surface, but the reality is the surface belongs to us, the Argathians, that fool Lonato was fun to play with and make rebel the fool fell right into our plans, we will continue overserving for now until then report everything you see to our troops," stated the first being.
Varley Residence
Back at the Varley, residents Jeralt and Alois had finally managed to clear through the entire residence. They have found multiple documents that collaborated with what Bernadetta told them. They had even found physical evidence that made it clear that it was worse than they even could imagine. At this point, they were relieved that the search was all over, and now they could go back to Garreg Mach monastery, but first, there was something that needed to be done.
Jeralt and Alois, at this time, were getting a general headcount for the rest of his knights. After confirming that everyone was there, they grabbed the prisoners, put them on the carriage, and began marching back to the Monastery.
To Be Continued
A/N: Rewrite of Chapter 9 is complete; this is the chapter to date, mostly because I want to get chapter 10 released after not updating in so long.
A/N #2: join the fanfiction treehouse none of the rewriting and my writing style improvements would have been able to be completed without the resources here. If you want to talk to other authors, talk about other fics, just hang out, or use the resources there, your free to join it is a relatively fun and active discord. Discord. gg/9XG3U7a