Byleth was used to dreaming of wars. Each time after the clash of blades and rain of fire, she would inevitably find herself here. In a large room, or she assumed it was a room, as it was too dark to see any of the walls, all aside from one greenly lit wall, in front of which stood a throne of stone on a raised dais. On that throne, was a girl. An oddly dressed girl with very long emerald-green hair and long ears that came to a point, fast asleep.

When Byleth stepped forward, the sound echoed around the odd space, and for the first time since Byleth started having these dreams, the girl on the throne jolted awake. She straightened on the throne with a yawn and then turned her sleepy gaze to Byleth. She blinked and then blinked again. She let out a confused grunt and then suddenly brought her hand to her throat and began to furiously inspect herself with widened eyes, she looked at her hair, and her clothes, touching her ears and torso and surveyed the room from floor to ceiling. The girl then looked back at Byleth with a furrowed brow. "Huh."

Byleth was not entirely sure what to do with herself. "Is something the matter," she asked. While historically people would not answer the question, the phrase did seem to help others calm down, and the girl on the throne seemed stressed about something.

The girl tilted her head to the side and hummed consideringly. "I am not entirely sure how to answer that question, but for now I think I should just deal with the cards that I have been dealt, so to speak." She readjusted herself. "Tell me, your name wouldn't happen to be," she hesitated, "well, actually, you wouldn't happen to be the child of Jeralt Eisner, would you?"

Ah, it seemed she may have been a prior client of her father's or a potential one. "I am."

"Okay," the girl muttered to herself with a nod. "I suppose you may call me Sothis. May I ask your name?"

"Byleth," she said, hoping that the conversation would stay this easy.

The girl, Sothis, nodded again. "And" she gave another considering hum. "Which pronouns do you prefer?"

Alas, conversation never remains easy. "Pronouns?" Byleth knew they were a kind of word, but she could not remember a conversation where someone asked her favourite word within a category. Luckily repeating a keyword with a questioning lilt tended to prompt others to explain themselves when talking about something confusing, though whether or not their explanation made sense was another matter.

Sothis muttered something about fantasies under her breath. "What I mean is, would you prefer if I refer to you with masculine pronouns; 'he, him,' feminine pronouns; 'she, her,' gender-neutral pronouns, 'they and them,' or something else entirely?"

No one had asked Byleth anything like that before. Maybe Sothis couldn't tell Byleth was a woman and was trying to be polite? But that couldn't be it because Byleth was wearing armour designed to distract men in battle with her feminine physique, people only got confused when she was hiding her figure under a thick cloak. Maybe Sothis was near-sighted and didn't want to admit it? "I am female," Byleth answered, hoping that would answer the question Sothis actually wanted to ask. Politeness was frustratingly obtuse sometimes, but Byleth could usually make do.

"No, I meant," Sothis sighed. "Never mind, I suppose we can come back to that later," said Sothis. "Anyway, Byleth. I..." she drifted off. "I'm not sure how I should start this."

Oh, she knew what to say here. Byleth's father had a saying he always used when someone said something like this. "At the beginning."

Sothis chuckled, "Oh, if only it were that simple. There are multiple places in which the story could begin. Though I suppose your point of view would work. Remember that dream you had, the one with the war and the woman fighting a man named Nemesis?"

Oh, right, this was still a dream, Byleth realised while nodding to Sothis' question.

"Well, to make a long story short, as far as I know, the sword Nemesis used is my spine, and the woman who fought him, Seiros, is my," she hesitated, "daughter."

With that nonsensical admission from Sothis, first off, why would a child claim to be a grown woman's daughter, Byleth could only come to one coherent conclusion. This dream is very odd.

Sothis suddenly perked up. "Oh, was that...? Yes, I can see why you would think that, but while you are in fact, in a state of dreaming, this is more than a mere dream."

Sothis stood up from her throne and then promptly tripped over her own feet. Byleth lurched forward to attempt to catch her, but was too far away, standing beneath the dais. But instead of landing on the ground, Sothis began to float through the air, like one of those advanced magic users the company sometimes dealt with.

"Okay, new body, have to get used to that," Sothis said, and then giggled. "But then again, I have the power of god and anime on my side."

Byleth didn't know what an 'anime' was, but it looked like what Sothis was saying was to herself more than anything. And was she able to read minds? Still, her fellow mercenaries have told her that silently staring at someone while they do something clumsy is considered creepy, so she decided to not do that. "Are you okay?"

"I believe so," Sothis replied and then proceeded to float down over to Byleth, so they were face to face. When she came to a stop, Sothis had an odd smirk on her face and ran her tongue over her teeth. "New teeth," she said with an odd accent, "that's weird. So where was I?" But before Byleth could give a response, Sothis continued in that accent. "Oh, that's right, Barcelona!"

Byleth was acutely uncomfortable. Sothis kept doing and saying things that seemed to go against the usual formula of conversation, and it left Byleth unsure as to what she was supposed to do.

"Right, sorry," Sothis said, returning to her previous manner of speech, "that was a joke, I was referencing a story, and I... I'm sorry for being confusing and saying things that don't make sense, but this is important." Sothis then took Byleth's hand into both of hers and looked her in the eyes. "I exist, through you, Byleth, and I am real. If you recall the battle between Seiros and Nemesis, and more specifically Nemesis' sword, there was a glowing orb in the hilt. That was my heart, and it is currently acting as yours. It's the reason you have no heartbeat while still having blood course through your veins."

'No heartbeat.' That was a phrase Byleth overheard many times whispered among both the company and villagers across Fódlan, and each time it was in reference to her. And it was true. She had never felt the rhythmic thumping in her chest she felt in her father's chest as a child. That, along with her efficiency in her profession of bloodshed, her lack of visible emotion, and her curt manner of speech, were among the reasons she earned the moniker the 'Ashen Demon.' But if this Sothis girl was claiming that she was the reason that Byleth had no heartbeat, then perhaps she was not a demon at all. With that line of logic, it seemed reasonable to ask, "are you a demon?"

Sothis had a bemused expression on her face, before all of a sudden, she burst out laughing.

Ah, it seemed she had made herself look stupid. The company would behave similarly whenever she said something that went against common sense, only that no one had told her what that sense was.

But, yet again, Sothis defied convention. "I suppose I can be seen through that interpretation," she said trying to contain her laughter. "People have referred to me as a 'beast' before, and I doubt 'demon' would be much farther removed." Sothis' expression then turned sombre as she looked down at their joined hands. "Though, I believe that there is a reason you of all people would think I'm a demon over anything else."

From what Byleth could gather from Sothis' cryptic words, she was maybe a demon. She also said that she exists through her somehow, because of some orb that was in a sword made out of bone. So, she asked the weird floating demon girl "am I being possessed?"

"I mean," Sothis brought a hand to her lightly blushing face. "Yes," she said questioningly. "But it's in a more symbiotic way instead of parasitic. We're both alive in some way only because we're connected," she said lightly squeezing Byleth's hand. "If it wasn't for my uh, 'possessing you,' you would have been stillborn, and I would still be in a deep sleep. I hope that, despite the situation, we could be friends."

This line of conversation was far more familiar to Byleth, but whether that was a good thing or not was debateable. It was a pattern, a new or particularly brave merc would ask to be friends, they would put in an amount of effort, but then find the constant 'awkward silences' unbearable and then drift off to spend time with their actual friends. Her father would look at her and sigh each time it happened, but Byleth did not really feel one way or another. Still, people preferred it if she followed the pattern, so she said "of course."

Yet again, Sothis ignored patterns. Instead of smiling and continuing with benign conversation or going off on an errand of some sort, she tilted her head with a frown. "You seem doubtful. You forget Byleth, we share a heart." She let go of Byleth's hand and thumped the left side of her tiny chest with her equally tiny fist in some sort of salute. "I can sense your emotions. Now that I'm awake, I promise to help you in any way I can. I'll dedicate our heart to it." She adopted a rather sheepish expression. "Especially since you're the only person I can communicate with right now."

'They shared a heart.' That was what this strange and odd girl who could float through the air and read minds claimed. Again, Byleth remembered the fact that she was currently dreaming, and that dreams rarely made sense. Yet she could not shake the feeling that this dream was important somehow. Besides the dreams of war, no dream felt as vivid as this one. Furthermore, these dreams happened on a consistent basis. If that were the case, maybe it would not be a bad idea to humour Sothis, for when she dreams of this room again, Sothis may be awake again instead of asleep as she has been. "I suppose it would be inefficient if I didn't get along with the demon in my head."

Sothis, let out a bright grin. "Exactly! Now I..." she blinked rapidly "I..." and let out a massive yawn. "Oh, I... dammit. I have..." then all of a sudden, she stopped floating and collapsed into Byleth. After Byleth wrapped her arms around the tiny girl so she didn't fall to the ground, Byleth heard her whispers in her ear. "I have so much to... tell you." She yawned again, and the green light of the far-off wall began to fade away. "You're... awfully attractive."

"Hey," another voice said, and suddenly Byleth was whisked away from the throne room. "Time to wake up," said her father, and in the next moment, she was in an inn room. That's right, they were at Remire. "Were you having that dream again," her father asked as she sat up in her bed.

Byleth nodded. "The girl was awake this time."

Her father hummed. "You've described her to me before, but that's a first. What was she like."

Byleth tilted her head slightly and thought about her choice of words. "Odd. I think she's a demon. She said her name was Sothis."

"Sothis? A demon?! Why would you think-." Her father let out a beleaguered sigh. "Never mind." He headed to the door, "In any case, just put that out of your mind for now."

Ah! Byleth knew what her father was going to say now. That was what he liked about him, he made sense, and so, Byleth said along with her father, "the battlefield is no place for idle thoughts."

Her father snorted and shook his head with a smirk. "Suit up, and I'll see you downstairs, our next job is in the Kingdom, so we need to leave at dawn," he said and left the room.

Byleth couldn't help but always think when he said that in moments of respite, they weren't on a battlefield at the moment, so idle thoughts were okay to have. Still, perhaps Sothis was right, and that she did indeed have a heart of a demon, an odd demon, but a demon, nonetheless. So, when she overheard a fellow merc telling her father about nearby bandits, she strapped on her sword and got to work.