My Ghost is a Dork

by FavChanger

When the girl in Byleth's dreams finally woke up, she didn't know what she was expecting. She never expected her to be the ghost of a lizard person from space. Then there was her time powers, her visions of the future, crests, being a teacher, and stopping wars, it was all a confusing mess. At least the sex was fun, and Edelgard was adorable when she got embarrassed. Sothis-SI

3. A Long Time Ago, a Galaxy Far, Far Away!

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," began Sothis theatrically, "was me. I don't know why or how, but for some reason, I decided to come to this planet."

Byleth blinked. "I don't know some of those words."

"Ah, right. To phrase it another way, I came to this land from beyond the stars."

Did that mean Sothis was from the heavens? "You're an angel? I thought you were a demon."

"Uh, well, if we want to get into the specifics of what I am, most people call me a goddess."

Byleth stared incredulously at Sothis and looked her up and down. Obviously, the girl was supernatural in some capacity, but a goddess? There was no way someone of her stature could be that powerful, right?

"But it would be more accurate to say I'm an alien."

Byleth tried to remember what the word 'alien' meant and remembered that alien is another way of saying the word 'foreign.' "You're from a different country, then?"

Sothis shook her head. "I'm from a distant star."

"Oh." Byleth considered that for a moment. "So, you're not a demon?"

Sothis smiled. "No Byleth, I'm not a demon." She shook their joined hands. "And neither are you."

Byleth frowned. "But I'm called the Ashen Demon." Surely there had to be a reason why she was different from everyone else, why she had been given her moniker, and why all the other mercs acted so unsettled around her. If neither she nor Sothis was demonic, why would Byleth be called such a thing? It did not make any sense.

Sothis frowned toward the empty void beyond. "It's possible to have traits that can be perceived as demonic without being a demon," she said emphatically and turned back to Byleth. "I wouldn't be surprised if you were autistic actually."

Byleth did not know what the word 'autistic' meant, but she pondered over the rest of Sothis' statement. It seemed unlikely that so many people, mercenary or otherwise, would make the same mistake when calling her a demon. Was this another case of people being non-truthful for the purpose of exaggeration or sarcasm? Byleth hated when that happened, she always had a hard time figuring out when someone was doing that. Still, Sothis seemed convinced that there was nothing demonic about either of them. Despite the weird floating alien girl saying confusing things a lot of the time, she seemed to know what she was talking about. "Okay," Byleth said. "What does autistic mean?"

Sothis perked up at that. "People who are autistic or have Autism have brains that are wired differently than what is typical. Among some of the symptoms of Autism that I've seen you display include a lack of emotive expression, hyper-fixation on certain subjects, your robotic manner of speech, difficulty understanding social situations, and difficulty relating with peers. There's likely more since that's all just off the top of my head, but yeah. I don't think you're inhuman or anything, just differently human." Her expression became somewhat contrite. "Though that's just my opinion, I might just be projecting my own Autism and I could be completely wrong."

As Sothis babbled on about brains, symptoms, and whatever this 'autoism' thing was, Byleth's frow burrowed. A lot of the traits that Sothis listed were true. She was not expressive, had a strong dedication to her job, and had difficulty with social situations. All of those things had something in common, however, so she asked Sothis "what about my heart?" All of those symptoms could be because her heart does not beat.

Sothis opened her mouth, closed it, and said, "I'm afraid I don't understand the question."

Byleth figured that since the heart is responsible for one's emotions, the lack of her own heart beating would be why she did not feel as much. "Is my heart why I'm different?"

"Eh," Sothis neither confirmed nor denied. "That was the consensus of uh," she tapped her chin thoughtfully, "might be the consensus of people who talk about you in the future, they come to think that while I was asleep, your heart was not, uh, 'activated' for lack of a better word. Which was the reason you were emotionally distant."

"Were?" Did Sothis infer that she might not be 'emotionally distant' in the future?

"Right, after I woke up, that combined with the soon-to-come change in environment causes you to form a lot of close emotional connections with people."

Byleth was not sure what to think about that. A closer relationship with other people meant that it could increase overall battlefield morale. Yet on the other hand, if she became more emotional in the future, it may lead to her detriment on the battlefield. An emotional opponent was easy to take down. Case in point was her attempt to rescue Edelgard. She did not know what came over her, it felt like her body moved on its own. Was she gaining emotions? Was that what it was? If so, then that must mean that her heart had activated with Sothis waking up, and if that was the case, then it stood to reason that she didn't have this brain-rewiring thing Sothis was talking about. "So, I'm not 'orsticsik.'"

"Autistic," Sothis corrected, "and," she shrugged. "It could be both, could be neither."

Right, she remembers one of the older mercenaries always talking about how things were not mutually exclusive. Either way, they were getting distracted. "You were talking about being from a distant star?"

"Oh, right, yes, um," Sothis cleared her throat. "So, when I came to Fódlan I was, y'know, alive, so I had all my powers. I tended to spend my time helping out the locals, improving technology, fertilising crops, and the like. I also had a bunch of children."

Byleth looked up and down at Sothis' pre-pubescent body and raised an eyebrow. "You're a mother?"

"I'm pretty sure I just built them or something instead of making children the human way," she explained. "I don't know if there was a father for any of them," Sothis smirked. "I certainly don't look like a mother do I?"

"No."

"Actually," she looked down at herself. "I wonder if I can change my form somehow," her head shook. "Experiments for later. So, the people I made were called the Nabateans, you can recognise them by their green hair," Sothis pointed to her own hair, "and I'm pretty sure they have pointy ears as well, but I could never confirm that for certain. On the other hand, there were the indigenous people of Fódlan called the Agarthans, they and the Nabateans lived in harmony, and all was well. Until the Agarthans got greedy. They wanted all the technology that I had either created or brought from home for themselves and waged war, I think. There might be more to it, but that's all I could gather. The Nabateans won and drove the remaining Agarthans underground. Unfortunately, because of all the advanced technology from beyond the stars, I had to use a very large amount of magic to fix all the damage done to the land just to make it habitable. As a result, I had to go to sleep so I could recharge. Did that all make sense?"

Byleth was good at summaries. "Two factions: Yours was the Nabateans, the other, the Agarthans. A war over resources. You won and fell asleep trying to fix everything."

"Pretty much. Then, while I was asleep, the leftover Agarthans hired some bandits to enact revenge. The leader of those bandits was Nemesis, the guy from the recurring war dream you've been having."

Byleth remembered. "You said your heart was in his sword."

Sothis nodded with a grimace. "He killed me and harvested my organs to turn them into a weapon, the Sword of the Creator. It's my spine with my heart put into the hilt."

Oh. Well, that was certainly morbid, Byleth thought and copied Sothis' grimace. She decided to avoid the possibly sensitive topic and moved on. "And now it's my heart," she asked.

"Mhm," she nodded. "Nemesis, in the process of harvesting me, also somehow injected my blood into his body and inherited some of my power. That power is known as the Crest of Flames, or as I prefer to call it, the Fire Emblem. Here, let me show you." Sothis brought her free hand forward as if to cast a spell and summoned a magic circle in the air.

It glowed with golden light and was littered with tiny arcane symbols and had some form of writing Byleth could not quite parse circling around it. In the centre of the circle, was a symbol that reminded Byleth of fire and the scales of a fish. The lines folded upon themselves and pointed outward like horns. Something about the symbol felt achingly familiar like a word stuck on the tip of your tongue.

Sothis gestured to the middle of the circle. "That symbol in the middle represents my Crest. Each of the Nabateans has or had their own individual Crest. They can provide a variety of benefits, usually in the form of increasing one's physical or magical prowess. This one in particular can stun your opponent to prevent a counterattack and even sometimes heal you equal to thirty percent of the damage you deal an enemy, while also boosting your strength. Since you possess my heart and have my blood coursing through your veins, you have the Fire Emblem as well."

Byleth had this? A magical power that could stop an enemy in their tracks, heal her wounds, and make her stronger? That would be an invaluable asset in combat! Actually, now that Byleth thought about it, there were certain times in past battles where enemies went down a little too easily, or didn't strike when she expected them to, and then there were the times where she did get hit but after a continued battle did not feel the need to use a vulnerary. Had she been using this Fire Emblem the entire time? Either way, she could not reliably use a weapon she was not trained in. "How do I use it?"

Sothis adopted a sheepish expression. "I'm still figuring that part out. Amnesiac, remember?"

"Right," Byleth said disappointedly.

"I do know that a Crest's powers can randomly activate during combat, but nothing beyond that. Anyway, Nemesis. So, after he got all that power, he proceeded to slaughter other Nabateans and let his eleven commanders gain similar weapons and Crests. Naturally, the remaining Nabateans were absolutely livid, and so my youngest child, Seiros, and four others led a counterattack on Nemesis and his army. You saw what happened next."

Byleth nodded. "Seiros won."

"Right, after that, it gets complicated. So, for humans, Crests are hereditary. If you have one, you can pass it on to your children. All of the eleven commanders had kids, and Seiros, weary after battle chose not to," Sothis' face twisted into an overexaggerated snarl, "kill every last one of them," and as suddenly as it appeared, the snarl was gone. "Long story short, those possessing Crests became today's nobility, mostly due to the combat advantage Crests and the bone weapons, now dubbed 'Hero's Relics' can bring. If someone without a Crest tries to wield a Hero's Relic, it can kill them, or even turn them into a Demonic Beast."

Byleth remembered the company fighting Demonic Beasts before, large monstrosities that tower over buildings. They always won, but never without casualties. "These bone weapons make Demonic Beasts? Wait, Demonic Beasts are human?!"

"Uh, I'm fairly certain that not all Demonic Beasts were human, there are other ways they are made, I think." While Byleth reeled over that information, Sothis continued. "There's a saying, that history is written by the victors. In this case, Seiros rewrote history by lying to the population. I don't fully understand her motivations, but I suspect a lot of it is motivated by her grief over me. She established the Church of Seiros and turned her memory of me into an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent goddess. She told everyone that instead of the Crests being stolen by the eleven commanders, they were instead blessings from me, and that Nemesis was a benevolent king until he got greedy, not unlike the Agarthans before him. The Adrestrian Empire was formed, and Seiros named William Hresvelg the First as king. Wait, was it William? No, it was Wilhelm, that's right! Seiros also gave Wilhelm the First her Crest. Uh, it wasn't lethal for her to do so, for either of them. This created a new status quo, lineages with Crests became the nobility and their corresponding Hero's Relics were passed down from generation to generation." When Sothis looked back up at Byleth, she fidgeted in her seat. "Uh, did you get all that?"

Byleth was suffering from a case of information overload. Crests, nobles, Hero's Relics, Churches, what? She took a deep breath and went over the information a couple of times in her head. "Let me know if I'm wrong," she told Sothis, who nodded. "Seiros won, made a church, and established the nobility by telling a lot of lies."

"Yep." She patted the back of Byleth's hand. "Don't worry, I'll remind you of any information when it becomes relevant, okay?"

That relieved Byleth, she did not have to remember everything herself. But then she realised that there was a potential issue. "What happens if I forget something while I'm awake?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. I can talk to you in your head while you're in the real world and not just here. I mean, that's technically what we're doing now. I've just stopped time, so there's nothing really to be in the waking world for."

Byleth looked around the room. "Oh." She was so used to seeing this room in her dreams that she automatically assumed she was dreaming. If she was understanding Sothis well enough, she managed to stop time just before that bandit's axe hit Byleth's back. She looked back at the girl who saved her. Sothis was insistent that what she had to say was important, and she said that her father's life was in danger. Yet Byleth could not see a link between the two. She asked, "how does all this relate to my father?"

"The Agarthans. They're still underground, plotting a way to destroy the Church of Seiros and retake the surface world for themselves. They kill Jeralt."

Byleth's jaw tensed. "How? Why?"

"An Agarthan takes on the guise of a young noble, Monica von Ochs, and when Jeralt's guard is down, stabs him in the back. They do it because, uh, what's the Watsonian reason? Right. I think it's because he was, sorry, will be working for the Church of Seiros, and he's a big enough accessible threat to prioritise taking out. At least, I think that's the reason?"

Finally, Byleth had the information needed to save her father. The company would be able to survive any upcoming war as long as he was around. While the things Sothis told here were interesting, a lot of it didn't matter. Sure, it was nice to know why she was different and that she had an edge in combat not many others had, but all she needed to know was that underground people will want to kill her father because of a future client and to avoid any Monica von Ochs. Now it was just a matter of following through. "Alright, avoid the Church of Seiros and Monica von Ochs, got it."

"Uhh," Sothis said nervously. Her face was pinched, and her hold on Byleth's hand became tight.

"Is that not what I should do?"

"Um, yeah, no." Sothis rubbed her face. "That's not what I think you should do."

Byleth tilted her head. "How come?"

"Well, you," Sothis licked her dry lips. "You can't stop the war unless you're hired by the Church. A-and Jeralt says something in the near future, 'even I can't run from the Knights of Seiros,' so I don't think you'll be able to decline working for them, so-"

"You want to stop the war," Byleth asked incredulously.

"I," Sothis hesitated, and then that hesitation turned into silence. She turned to look at Byleth, and then quickly looked back down again. "Um," she rubbed her face again. "Okay, I just, I just realised that it was kind of a dick move to just assume you'd want to help me stop a war and," Sothis let go of Byleth's hand, gave a deep sigh, and buried her face in both of her hands.

Byleth was not sure what to do with herself. Sothis was very obviously stressed about the upcoming war, and it can be assumed that she wants to stop it, much like Byleth wants to stop her father from being murdered, but what did Byleth think about it? If all of Fódlan were to go to war, what would it mean for her? With the assumption that they are able to prevent her father's death, it would mean that the mercenary company would still be running. What would a war do for the company? Well, it would mean that soldiers would be preoccupied, which means more job opportunities to deal with opportunistic bandits, but it also means that the pay will be lower due to the cost of war. The more Byleth thought, the more complicated it all became.

Byleth looked at Sothis. Her shoulders were tense, and her breathing was laboured. Something about her hunched figure made Byleth's stomach curl uncomfortably. Something inside of Byleth burst free and made itself known in her mind. This isn't right! Someone as tiny as Sothis should not have to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders. She should not have to bear such a burden alone.

Sothis sat back up. "Look, I just," she took a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry. I've been dumping all this," she waved her tense hands in the air, "shit on you, and I, then I just expected you to go along with everything I've been saying. It's not fair to you and-"

"I'll help." Byleth interrupted. In retrospect, she was not sure where that came from, but before she knew it, the words had escaped her.

"-I shouldn't," Sothis whipped her head towards Byleth, her eyes wide. "You'll help?"

Byleth felt a tad uncomfortable underneath Sothis' staring but nodded anyway. "I owe you my life, and potentially my father's. It would only be fair."

"Oh, well, um," Sothis' eyes darted from side to side, and she bunch some of her dress in her hands. "That's, uh, okay," she said with a blush. "Thank you, Byleth."

Byleth nodded.

Sothis smiled fondly at Byleth and grabbed her hand. "I promise that I will do everything I can to make sure the people you care about stay alive."

Byleth looked down and their held hands, then back at Sothis, and had a sudden realisation. "In return, I promise to help you prevent the war." She shook their hands to signify the making of a deal. Why else would Sothis keep grabbing her hand?

Sothis' expression became somewhat bewildered, and then she let out a giggle. Did Byleth make the wrong assumption? "T-that, that wasn't my intention," said Sothis, "but I guess that works? Anyway, plot. So, linking everything back to the present, the Agarthans have been rather active in the past few years, and none of it is pretty."

"If they're active now, do you want the company to hunt them down," Byleth asked.

Sothis hummed. "Not right now? I don't really know where their bases are, and the Agarthans that are above ground have entrenched themselves so deep into politics that attacking them wouldn't work. No, we have to gain allies first, ones with a lot of political sway. Fortunately, the three students you met fit the bill."

Byleth frowned. "I'm not good at making friends."

Sothis gave Byleth's shoulder a pat. "Don't worry about that. I can help! That, and I can erase any mistakes we might make, and even then, I've seen you become the most important person in their lives without my help."

"You mean in the future?"

"Exactly. So, those three nobles, they're the future leaders of their respective countries. Edelgard von Hresvelg, the princess of-"

Byleth interrupted. "Her name is Edelgard?"

Sothis blinked at Byleth. "Yeah?"

"And the others, they're Dimitri and Claude, right?"

"Oh, did they introduce themselves?"

"No." Byleth brought up a hand to her chin. "How did I know their names?"

"Maybe because I do? I mean, we're sharing the same brain, so maybe you already know some of what I know?" All of a sudden Sothis jolted. "But wait, how did," Sothis' eyes darted, and she frowned, deep in thought. "Okay, I'm definitely wrong then."

"What is it?"

Sothis shrugged, "I have guesses, but nothing concrete, and there's a bunch of other stuff and," Sothis shook her head. "Not important right now, I'll get back to you on that. So, Edelgard is next in line for becoming the Emperor of the Adrestrian Empire, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is the Prince of Faerghus, and Claude von Riegan is next in line to becoming Duke of the Leicester Alliance, and all three have a vested interest in making sure the Agarthans are stopped, even if some of them don't realise it yet. I'll go in order of least complicated to most.

"First there's Claude, while being next in line to inherit Leicester, he's also half Almyran, he's essentially the prince of two countries that are hostile to each other, so on either side of the border, he has been attacked, and ridiculed for his dual heritage. His major goal is to, in the most basic sense, end racism, and the Agarthans certainly haven't helped in that regard since they're racist to everyone."

"Question. What's racism?"

"Uh," Sothis reared her head back. "Basically, racism is uh, the idea that one race of people is superior to another."

"Ohh. That sounds stupid."

Sothis snorted. "That's because it is. Moving on to Edelgard and Dimitri, they've both been directly affected by the actions of the Agarthans. Dimitri's father, the late King Lambert, was murdered by them, and the blame was put on the people of Duscur. Dimitri knows it wasn't Duscur, but knows nothing of the Agarthans, and thus couldn't prove anything to the royal court, and the whole thing really messed with Dimitri's head. You'll know the event as the Tragedy of Duscur. The event led to even more racism happening, but that's a story for another time."

Byleth remembered overhearing a conversation between some mercenaries. "I think I remember someone saying that the People of Duscur were nothing but violent psychos. Is that racism?"

"Yep," Sothis said with a sniff. "Lastly there's Edelgard. The lynchpin in the upcoming war. Agarthans replaced some of the Adrestrian nobility and colluded with others to enact the Insurrection of the Seven, which stripped the Emperor of his power. They then kidnapped all eleven of his children and used them for experiments to implant within one of them a copy of the Fire Emblem, while the subjects already possessed the Crest of Seiros. Prior to their experiments, no one has ever possessed more than one Crest. In the end, Edelgard was the only success and the only survivor. Since then, Edelgard has come to the conclusion that the Crest-based society that Seiros facilitated way back when allowed the experiments to take place, and that Fódlan putting such an emphasis on them has created a toxic society that only causes and allows suffering. She plans to overthrow the Church of Seiros, and since the enemy of my enemy is my friend, has begrudgingly allied with the Agarthans to do so."

Byleth's immediate thought, once she had processed Sothis' deluge of information, would be if she wants to stop a war, and Edelgard wants to start one, then the obvious thing to do would be to kill Edelgard. Yet as soon as the thought crossed her mind, Byleth felt a sudden and unexplainable hollowness in her gut. She held a hand to her stomach in confusion.

"Are you okay," Sothis asked.

What was that, Byleth thought. Why did her stomach suddenly feel wrong? Was she sick?

"What was what," Sothis asked again.

Did Byleth say that out loud? "My stomach felt," she searched for an appropriate word, "weird."

Sothis hummed and pursed her lips. "What were you thinking when it happened?"

"That the obvious solution would be to kill Edelgard." Did the feeling just get stronger?

Sothis' eyes widened. "Oh," she breathed. Then she let out a brilliant grin. "Oh! Right, so, I'm pretty sure what you're feeling is a physiological reaction to your emotions, it's your body's way of telling you that whatever is happening or going through your mind is bad. You had a gut feeling that killing Edelgard would be a bad idea."

"A gut feeling?" She remembered her father making some odd decisions only to describe them with a 'gut feeling.' "I thought that was one of those things people say when meaning something different."

"Nope. Well, sometimes." Sothis shrugged. "Everyone's different. Anyway, yeah. Killing Edelgard is the last thing I want to do, and even then, the act of doing so would likely start a war anyway."

Byleth hummed. If killing Edelgard was the incorrect path to take in order to stop the war, then what other paths were there? "Could we convince her to stop?"

Sothis sighed. "No, that wouldn't work either. For one thing, there is nothing that could convince her to not try to remake Fódlan's society. Secondly, she's right. There is so much suffering because of the way that Crests are held in such high regard. Child abuse, arranged marriages, parasitic nobles, and murders. No." Sothis floated off of the throne, still holding Byleth's hand, and held herself just above Byleth so that they were face to face. She held up a finger. "What we need to do, is change Fódlan without resorting to war."

Now, Byleth would be the first to admit that she was not politically minded, but even she could figure out that it was impossible to make the sweeping changes both Sothis and Edelgard wanted without angering a lot of powerful people. So Byleth asked, "how would that work?"

Sothis frowned, "unfortunately, we're gonna need political power, and a lot of it. Luckily," she poked Byleth's sternum, "you are uniquely situated to become next in line for being the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros."

An archbishop? Her? "But I'm just a mercenary," said Byleth confusedly.

"And, you are my avatar." She poked Byleth again. "You have the heart of a literal goddess in your chest."

It was a lot, Byleth thought. Sothis and everything about her was overwhelming in a way Byleth did not know how to deal with. Suddenly, this sleeping girl she had dreamed of decided to wake up, completely rewrite how Byleth viewed herself, saved her life with time magic, and then asked her to stop a war and become a leader of a religious organisation that Byleth did not know even existed until today.

Then there were the noble children, their complicated lives and ambitions, Agarthans, Nabateans, oh, and her father might actually die if she was not careful. Byleth had led a simple life until now. She was told where to point her sword and she did it, with ruthless efficiency, and now that simple lifestyle had been completely shattered. This little girl with her autisms and Crests had come along, grabbed her by the hand, and dragged her into the forest where the villagers swear that demonic beasts roam, and did so with a grin. No more was her life that of a mercenary; it was now the life of a fairy story.

She needed some time.

"I need some time," Byleth said, pulling her hand away from Sothis' grip.

"Oh," Sothis said quietly, and her face grimaced in a way that appeared apologetic. "Right, sorry, I should have spread this out a lot more. I've been frontloading you with," she waved her hand through the air, "a lot." She floated back from the throne and stared at the floor. "Do you need some alone time," she asked sadly.

Then again there was that inexplicable feeling in her stomach. These visceral and uncontrollable feelings were another layer of chaos in the mix. It was if Byleth was suddenly dropped into the middle of a maze and was just expected to solve it. The only guide she had, was the one who had dropped her in the maze, to begin with. Without a guide, she would be even more lost than ever.

They just needed to slow down.

"Can you stay?" Byleth asked.

Sothis smiled gently and nodded. "Yeah." She then floated back to Byleth, only this time, instead of squeezing in beside her, she turned sideways and hovered her body just above Byleth's lap. "Is it okay if I sat here?"

Byleth huffed. It seemed that Sothis could not help but act unlike everyone Byleth had ever met before. Thinking on it, Byleth found that she did not mind the idea. Maybe Sothis' oddities were bleeding over to her. "I don't mind."

"Cool," Sothis exclaimed, then settled her weight onto Byleth and rested her head on Byleth's shoulder. "I'm sorry if all this contact is too forward I just, I find it comforting and, well, I wanted to share that with you and," Sothis seemed to come to some sort of realisation as her face turned pink. "Jesus, what the hell I am I even doing?"

Byleth did not know what 'jeezus' meant but answered anyway. "You are sitting on me."

Sothis, let out a huff of laughter. "That I am." She snuggled closer into Byleth as if she were a blanket. "I've been leading the conversation this whole time, and it's just been a massive word vomit. Maybe it would be better for you to lead instead? So that we're going at a pace you're comfortable with."

Byleth thought that over and then nodded. She would like that very much. "Let me think," she said and closed her eyes. She recounted everything that Sothis' talked about, coming from the stars, Nabateans, Agarthans, Nemesis, Seiros, Crests, Claude, Dimitri, Edelgard, their shared heart, and not to mention the whole goddess thing. Byleth didn't know how long they had been talking, but she had certainly lost track of time putting it all together in her head.

She was distantly aware of the girl sitting on her lap like a child and their mother, how her soft breathing had at some point turned into something melodic, and how she tapped out a rhythm to a song on the top of her leg. It was kind of cute in a way.

"So, let me know if I've got this straight," Byleth asked. "You came to Fódlan from the heavens, made Nabateans, went to war with the Agarthans, sent them underground, went to sleep, got killed by bandits and turned into weapons, Seiros made a counterattack, won and created the nobility because of Crests."

"Yep."

"Your heart ended up becoming mine, so I have the Fire Emblem, and now that you're awake, you can control time."

"Uhuh."

"The Agarthans are still around and making problems, and the whole Crests thing is making Fódlan a bad place to be, which you and Edelgard want to change. To do so, Edelgard wants to start a war, and you want me to become an Archbishop."

"Yeah."

"We need to be careful because if nothing changes my father will die and the Church and the Empire will go to war."

"Mhm."

"And the reason you know all of this is because you saw the future and because you remember since you don't have any memories."

"Well, technically, but yeah."

Byleth pursed her lips. After saying all of that out loud, it only went to show how insane it all was. She then remembered her thoughts from when she opened her eyes after she tried to save Edelgard. "I'm still not sure if I'm just hallucinating all of this."

"I," Sothis said, and then sighed. She shifted around in Byleth's lap and snaked her arms around her in a hug. "I'm of the belief that there is no reality, only one's perception of it. I don't know if that's what you want to hear. I guess I find comfort in the idea that even if my senses lie to me, or I understand what I'm witnessing differently to others, it's still real. That even if it can't be proven, the fact that I am here, with you, cannot be taken away."

No reality, only how you perceive it? It was an odd thought, but one that seemed to come with the territory of interacting with Sothis. Maybe if Byleth woke up, stitched up, and given forced bedrest, she could ask her father about Sitri, her mother. Maybe that would help Byleth see if this was real or not. But then again, Byleth could feel the weight of a tiny girl perched on her legs, could hear the rustling of Sothis' robes and she fidgeted about, and could smell the faint hint of some sort of incense from Sothis' hair.

Yet, Byleth reminded herself, she was a mercenary. A demon of the battlefield that rolled with the punches and always did her job. She just had to treat all of this like a job and do what she needed to do. Nothing more, nothing less.

Byleth asked, "what happens now?"

"Now? Well, that's up to you. Do you have more questions, do you want to stay here for a bit, or do you want to try saving Edelgard again, without turning your back on the enemy?"

Byleth never liked sitting around when she could be doing something. "I want to go back."

"Okay," Sothis took a deep breath as she let go of Byleth and floated upright in front of the throne. "Okay." She clapped her hands together and turned to face Byleth. "Before we turn back time, there's one thing I need you to do."

Byleth tilted her head questioningly.

"So, that bandit that almost got you, Kostas, you need to either capture him or," Sothis swallowed, "or kill him. Either way, you need to make sure that he doesn't escape."

"How come?"

"If he's still around to lead the bandits, we'll end up missing an opportunity to rescue the real Monica von Ochs."

"The person that might kill my father?"

"The person an Agarthan impersonates to kill your father."

Byleth stands from the throne and meets Sothis' gaze head-on. "I can do that."

"Alright, good luck, Byleth." Sothis summons the magic circle with the Fire Emblem symbol on it and uses her power to spin it in the opposite direction.

Byleth's real eyes open, as she finds herself once again on the field of battle.