[26th of Great Tree Moon]

[Clear]

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeello, everyone!" Robin, as always, starts his lessons unexpectedly. This time, he arrived five minutes late. That was planned. It was late enough that everyone would notice and pay attention to the fact that he was late, but not so late that everyone's minds would have wandered away from class.

It's the way he strode into the classroom that caused most of the students to stare at the white-haired man. Somehow, he managed to fly through the air on his back, flip, and land on his feet with his back to the class.

Swaying slightly, he walked to the blackboard.

"So! How was By's lesson yesterday?" He yells out with a massive smile on his face. The class simply stare at him.

"Huh, tough crowd, huh? Seriously, is there an 'Impersonate Lon'qu' contest going on right now? And you didn't invite me?"

The class is still quiet.

"P-professor?" Edelgard shoots me a confused and concerned look.

I chuckle. They must not be used to Robin's way of teaching. Seeing that Edelgard is still shooting me that look, I smile at her.

"So class, how's it been? Dorothea, been up to anything recently?" Robin smiles at the brown-haired girl.

"Um…yes sir? I've been practising magic if that's what you mean. Though I think it would be more exciting if you're the one teaching me, if you catch what I mean," Dorothea seems confused, but she quickly recovers and gives Robin a quick wink.

I definitely didn't catch what she meant, but Robin seems to have and he erupts into laughter, a large smile cracking onto his face.

"Sorry, lass, I'm already taken," Robin holds up his left hand and points to his ring. "Ask Mikal, he'll treat you to a fun time."

Dorothea giggles slightly.

Robin's gaze scans the otherwise quiet room and frowns.

I think it was at this moment that Robin realized that the class did not know how exactly to respond to his entrance.

"Huh, not used to eccentricity, huh?" Robin folded his arms and sits on the desk in the front of the room. "Let's get serious, then."

Robin's face suddenly falls and the face of a scholar and library

"Edelgard, what's the best way to counter a calvary charge?"

"Eh?" The girl in question seemed surprised at the sudden question and scrambled to think of an answer. "C-Counter charge their line?"

Robin shakes his head.

"Ferdinand? Any ideas?"

The ginger thinks for a moment before responding.

"...perhaps a massed archery attack?"

Robin nods slightly this time, but then quickly shakes his head. Ferdinand looks downcast while Hubert of all people looks satisfied.

"Hmmm…maybe it isn't time for you all to think for yourselves yet. Let's start with regurgitation for now. Bernadetta! What are the strengths of calvary when compared to infantry?" Robin sighs.

The girl in question whimpers upon being called. Silence reigns until Petra answers for the timid girl.

"They are…" The Brigid girl frowns as she searches for the right word. "More…soghluaiste…than normal foot soldiers,"

"Mobile, Petra. Soghluaiste means mobile, though with different connotations," Robin nods. "But yes, the primary advantages of cavalry when compared to infantry are their weight in a charge and their mobility. Now, can someone tell me some weaknesses of calvary?"

The room stays silent. The whiplash of eccentric Robin must be conflicting with scholar Robin too much, and the speed and ease that Robin switches between the two makes it all the harder to know what he's like.

"Why are you guys so silent? What did I do?" Robin frowns.

"Er… Professor? I assume you're a Professor since you're the one teaching us, but who are you?" Caspar asks.

Wait, why would they not know him? Then I take a closer look at what he's wearing. He wasn't wearing his signature purple cloak. Why I did not know.

"Caspar!" Edelgard yells at her blue-haired classmate. "He is Professor Robin!"

This causes an uproar in the class.

"That's Professor Robin?"

"Where's his cloak?"

"He's very muscular…" I snort. Of course, it's Dorothea who said that.

"Seriously? That's the person who beat Catherine?"

"He doesn't look that tough…"

"Alright, alright!" Robin claps his hands, causing the voices to die down. "Do you guys really not recognize me when I don't have my cloak on?"

The class, save for Edelgard, nods.

"To be completely fair, Professor, you did have your hood up…" Linhardt points out, then proceeds to go back to sleep.

"Touche, Linhardt. Also, don't sleep in my class!" Robin grabs a piece of chalk from behind him and chuckles it at Linhardt in a similar fashion that I did yesterday. The only difference is that Robin throws it with the experience of a lifetime, not just an improvised toss made by approximating a dart.

It smacks Linhardt's forehead with enough force for him to fall out of his chair.

"Pay attention, Linhardt. Go sleep later," Robin huffs, folding his arms. "There's only so much time in the world. Savour every single second."

Linhardt stays silent as he gets up, rubbing his forehead while hissing through his teeth.

"Also, Linhardt. I've heard that you're interested in crest research. Is that right?"

"Uh-yes?"

"Great. I just so happen to be in possession of a crest that has never been categorised in Fodlan before. I'll send you some notes and tell Hanneman to let you use the vial of blood in his lab. Just stop sleeping in my class, alright?"

Linhardt blinks for a couple of seconds.

"Wait, what? You do?" Linhardt suddenly seems very excited, the earlier injury was seemingly forgotten.

"Yup. The Brand of Naga is what it's called. I'll go with you to Hanneman's later. Just knock on my door sometime after 4," Robin nods.

"I will take you up on your offer," Linhardt.

"Going back on topic, do you guys only recognize me because of my cloak?" Robin raises an eyebrow.

The class nods.

"Well, you're going to have to get used to me without my cloak, seeing as Lysithea accidentally blew in the pond. Only me and my yellow jacket to keep you guys company," Robin chuckles.

"She did? Where is it now?" I yell out. I had not known this. I knew that Robin loved his cloak above anything else and that losing it would be a terrible loss for him.

Thankfully, Robin only chuckled at my sudden panic.

"On the window, drying. I fished it out yesterday before it sank to the bottom," Robin laughs. "Now, let's start with what I was going to teach you today. I must say, I am slightly disappointed by your performance yesterday, everyone."

"What do you mean?" Ferdinand frowns.

"Good point, Ferdinand. Now, let me ask you a question. Can you ride a horse into battle?" Robin smiles at Ferdinand.

The ginger pauses, then frowns.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to teach us?" Ferdinand asks.

Robin actually laughs.

"I am supposed to teach you that. It just makes me want to laugh. Seriously, what self-respecting noble doesn't know how to ride a horse at your age? Maribelle would have my head if I didn't rectify that issue," He says with a smile. "Nonetheless, the situation that we find ourselves in is appealing. I only trust Petra with any sort of combat, and that's because she has hunting experience. You guys are not ready to fight in any sense of the word."

"Er…what do you mean by that, Professor?" Caspar asks.

"Caspar, if I asked you to commence an echelon attack with Ferdinand, Petra, and Edelgard in a 1-1-1-1 formation spaced by 5 minutes, would you know what to do?" Robin snorts.

"Er… a what, Professor?"

"Exactly. Linhardt, explain," Robin sighs. The green-haired boy blinks at Robin though got on with the explanation.

"An echelon attack is one made in succession. I'm guessing the 1-1-1-1 simply means that the echelon is spaced out into four major groups, and each has the same number of troops in them. Spaced by 5 minutes the time in between the attacks," Linhardt answers with a slight look of distaste in his eyes. "Why did you call on me, Professor?"

"Simple. You're the most bookish of anyone here, so I assumed you read up on some common strategies," Robin shrugs. "Looks like I was right."

"Professor, why do we need to know what an 'esheelong' attack or whatever it was that you said is?" Caspar raises his hand and asks his question in the same second.

I frown. What's the point of raising your hand if you're going to shout out your question?

"Aha! Good thinking, Caspar!" Robin grins brightly and points towards the now confused boy.

"Thanks…?"

"Now, Caspar, are you volunteering to be sent alone, with no backup whatsoever, into the think of enemy lines with no way to contact your allies or way to come back to their camp?" Robin proposes this while still having a massive grin on his face.

"I- What does that have to do with anything?" Caspar yells indignantly.

"If you don't understand plans, that's the only role you can fill in an army, Caspar. A beast to be unleashed on the enemy, not a warrior that fights an adversary, nor a soldier that serves a nation. To be a soldier means to be able to understand, to be an officer means to be able to lead and understand, and to be a ruler means to be able to comprehend, lead, and understand. If you cannot understand, you cannot lead, and you cannot comprehend. That leaves you with the role of a beast, not even fit to be a soldier," Robin folds his arms.

A calmingly oppressive air settles onto the room as the students take in what Robin just said.

"Those are some wise words, Professor. Where did you learn them?" Edelgard frowns.

"Do you want the answer you want to hear or the truth?" Robin muses with a slight smile on his face.

Edelgard looks Robin straight in his amber eyes and responds without hesitation.

"The truth,"

Robin's smile shines a little brighter, then he devolves into laughter.

"When'd the atmosphere get this dark?" He manages to spit out in between laughs. He takes a deep breath, and upon seeing that the room is giving him confused frowns or raised eyebrows, he sighs. "Trying to make said atmosphere lighter. I suppose not going through war means you guys can't laugh about it. Now, to answer your question, Edelgard."

Robin turns to face Edelgard with a smile on his face.

"I came up with it on my own. Now, I didn't come up with it on my own, Chrom and Emmeryn influenced my thinking a lot. Still, it was a realization that I came to during the Valm war. I can say for certain that Chrom has never said a single philosophical word, and Emmeryn said enough philosophy to fill up an 8-volume compendium, but she was a saint, not a ruler, so she never said anything on that topic. Does that answer your question?"

Edelgard nods.

"Now, Caspar, understand that I will have you understand why you are doing something and not just blindly following orders, understand? I do not want any of you to turn into a beast. Do you understand?" Robin says with a smile, folding his arms again.

Caspar nods vigorously.

"Good. Now, let's get to the fun part," Robin grins wildly.

"The fun part, Professor?" Petra asks.

"Where I get to spar against all of you!" Robin's grin is unmistakable. I give a silent prayer to Naga; the children are going to need it.

"Now everyone, we're going to the training grounds again! Be sure to be ready!" Robin announces before using a magically propelled jump and a pass to move through a closed door and disappear from the room.

This managed to shock everyone except for me and Edelgard, the latter not surprised due to her knowledge of pass.

"How did he manage to do that…?" Hubert of all people managed to speak for everyone in the room.


The actual training session went as well as expected.

This is to say, everyone was either groaning and nursing new bruises or is in a pile on the ground. Only Dorothea and Edelgard haven't gotten a turn with Robin yet and their faces were growing more and more apprehensive by the second.

"Ooof!"

Robin managed to hook the foot of his newest victim-I mean student, Caspar, who grunts as he tries to regain his balance.

Robin doesn't let him do so.

A quick whack with his wooden sword against the blue-haired boy's neck and thigh causes him to stumble backward, where then Robin smacks his wrist, causing him to drop his axe with a yelp. . In the next moment, Caspar finds Robin up against him, sword at his neck.

Panting deeply, Caspar manages to choke a single word out.

"Y-Yield…"

Robin nods to himself as he back away, letting the boy slump to the ground, utterly exhausted.

I wince a little. The redness on Caspar's neck is evidence enough that he's going to nursing a nasty bruise in the coming days.

Robin, of course, is fine. A slight sheen of sweat is slicked on his forehead, but his breathing is calm and neutral, despite beating 6 people in a row in single combat.

Of course, if Robin were fighting seriously, he wouldn't even have that sheen of sweat. He would have blasted each person with a quick bolt of Thoron and called it a day. No, there was a reason that Robin was this tired.

He wanted to teach them not to waste energy. See, for the first ten minutes of each spar, Robin wouldn't attack at all. Instead, he would walk around leisurely, as if he was taking a quiet stroll, and dodge when necessary. Ferdinand had called it cowardly when he volunteered to start first.

Robin always had an excellent sense of time. At exactly 10 minutes, his stance would suddenly shift. He still conserved energy as if his life depended on it, but he went on the offensive. When Robin is able to weave through your attacks as a worm burrows through dirt, it's infuriating. When Robin uses that same distance to get inside your guard and smack you multiple times in a single second only to disengage and start over, it's frightening.

Ferdinand had gone down in 10 minutes and fifteen seconds. Bernadetta in 10 minutes and six seconds. Petra managed to last 10 minutes and forty-four seconds. Hubert, 10 minutes and thirteen seconds. Caspar just lasted 10 minutes and thirty-six seconds.

Linhardt didn't even last ten minutes. He tripped over his sword at 6 minutes.

Dorothea's up next, and she looked incredibly uncomfortable.

She grabbed a wooden and thunder sparkled in one hand.

I realize that we had almost wasted an entire morning proving a point that had been so thoroughly pounded into the student's heads that any more would just be humiliating for him. Plus, we hadn't sparred at all since coming to the monastery.

I smile as I think of a way for me to kill two birds with one stone (This is how you use this, right Robin? Yep. -R)

"Robin?" The man in question turns to face me. "Can we speed this up? We haven't trained together in a long time."

Robin frowns, then smiles.

"If you say so, By. So…should I go all out on Dorothea?" Robin raises an eyebrow at the singer, who pales. I can see Robin biting the side of his mouth as he tries to not laugh. "Nah, that would be too cruel. Don't worry though, you'll see a sliver of the man who managed to fight Exalt Chrom the Great to a standstill."

I feel bad for Dorothea. When Edelgard said the mark, Robin leapt forwards with a speed that matched a pegasus.

Shouting a yelp, Dorothea fired off the thunder that was coalescing around her hand.

A bright light flashed around Robin as Tomebreaker activated and the thunder stopped, the power of Robin's skill nullifying it completely. Not that it would have done any damage should it have hit him, but the point still stands.

A shocked look emerges on Dorothea's face. Edelgard and Hubert, who recognized Tomebreaker, had their jaws on the floor.

Robin leaps up and performs the skill that he had helped perfect, Astra. Five strikes reach out towards Dorothea, who shrieks.

Smack

All five strikes hit home, and Dorothea collapses, a groan of pain escaping her mouth.

"And that, my dear students, is why even mages need to learn some physical combat. Unless your name is Miriel, then in that case please keep that Valflame away from me," Robin says with a massive smile on his face. The House looks as if Robin just started to fly. Then again, he can fly, so I suppose that's not too unusual for him.

"Also, Linhardt, please see to it that our dear Dorothea isn't hurt too bad. I want her to see the show,"

The boy in question nods quickly and rushes over to cast a quick heal spell on her.

"Hey! You could have healed me too!" Caspar yells out.

"Caspar, you're fine. Dorothea here fainted," Linhardt dully pointed out.

"Professor Robin, what did you mean when you said there's going to be a show?" Edelgard asks as Dorothea regains consciousness and manages to stand up, despite her swaying.

"Hmmm?" Robin raises an eyebrow at the Imperial Princess and then smiles. "Ah, that. Well, Byleth and I going to have a spar. That's going to be a hell of a show."

"Live steel?" I ask, unclasping my sword that I keep at my side at all times.

"If you're fine with me using my Levin sword," Robin shrugs. I nod.

He smiles and grabs the intricate sword from his waist. Sparks of electricity shoot across the surface of the blade, the runes engraved onto it shimmering angrily as Robin's magic awoke the arcane workings of his sword.

"Any magic?" I ask him. He shakes his head, causing me to frown. He usually uses magic in our spars, so why not now?

"Not today, By. I know you'll be disappointed, but I don't want to throw out an Arcflame and accidentally engulf the entire monastery in magical fire. We've progressed to the point that we can barely hold back if we use magic, and you know how powerful my magic can get," Robin explains. "Plus, it's been a while since we didn't use magic for our duels, so it'll be fun. I know you've been looking forward to this. "

He then shoots me a bright smile. I give him a slight grin in response. He's right, I am looking forward to fighting Robin with just a steel blade.

We take up stances.

"Go!" Edelgard's voice shoves my brain into combat mode, and I rush at Robin with my sword raised in a high guard.

Robin swings a quick diagonal slice that I parry and riposte. The dodges my riposte and counters with a quick jab at my side that I step out of the way of.

I disengage, frowning. Robin's going on the defensive. Why is that? Usually, at this point, he would be using combat skills already to push me onto the back foot.

"You're holding back," I note dully, causing a shocked expression to emerge on Robin's face, though it quickly turns into a smile.

"And you said that you couldn't be a tactician," He shakes his head. "I will never understand how that brain of yours works…"

"Really, Grandmaster?"

"No, of course not. It's just another puzzle to be solved," Robin smiles and comes at me piecemeal, carefully inching forward.

I frown again. This isn't like Robin, he must be up to something.

My instinct was proven right after as he lowered his stance and put his sword behind him. I had exactly three moments to respond before Robin lurched forwards, Astra leaping out of his Levin sword.

Unlike the attack against Dorothea, Robin is not holding back. The flower-like pattern of his strikes has been memorized by me, but I still cannot match the sheer speed that Robin can reach.

I managed to block three of Robin's strikes, but the second and last rip into my skin. I hiss in pain as my skin is opened by the jagged blade of Robin's sword.

I can hear a gasp as I realize that Robin drew blood. I ignore Edelgard's anguished cries as she tells, no, commands Robin to stop. This is normal, when we spar, we go until someone yields or cannot continue.

I grunt as I realize that Robin's cut into my shoulder and my forearm. I can still move my arms, which means the cuts aren't too deep. Nothing to worry about. Still, it hurts, and I would rather it not hurt.

I exhale as I pull back, pumping power into my sword. I rush at Robin, my sword glowing with a yellow-orange glow as heat pulses off the metal blade in waves. Sol, a combat skill that Robin helped me learn.

A rapid feint followed up by an equally fast slash across his chest blows him back a couple of steps, though a pass and he's out of my striking range. I tut, but I can see a red line across his chest. I feel heat pulse through my body, stitching my wounds back together.

Robin hisses, but smiles.

"The gloves are off, then, By. I hope you're ready," He grins.

"Come at me," I glare at him.

A gutteral roar comes out of Robin as he passes towards me, totally ignoring the distance that he put between us. I quickly raise my blade as Robin's Levin sword comes down hard and fast, causing my guard to crumble.

I disengage, but Robin uses pass again to rush towards me. I roll to the side as an overhead strike that I cannot block or dodge come down onto me. A jolt of electricity reminds me that Robin uses a Levin sword, not a normal one.

I curse at myself. I can't keep running, not when Robin has the range and speed advantage. He's deciding the range of this engagement, and that's not good for me.

Turning back to Robin, I can see that his face is contorted into a mask of sheer rage, but his eyes are filled with curiosity and amusement. It's a test, then.

He's asking me how I'm going to get out of this.

A smirk tugs at the corners of my mouth as a plan comes to fruition.

I see that Robin is charging at me from the corner of my eye, and I turn on my heel, letting him rush past me. I keep doing this, weaving and dodging as a fish swims, letting the roaring storm called Robin brush past lazily.

I need to tire him out. He has more stamina than I do, but that doesn't mean he has infinite stamina. At least, I think he doesn't.

As Robin rushes past for the sixth time, I did not realize that he had a massive smile on his face, instead of a smirk that had inhabited it earlier. By the time I realised it, it was too late.

As I turned away again, Robin passed to the side, ending up on my left, and right as I was spinning towards him. Stopping would take too long, and Robin's sword was already up.

Cursing at myself for letting him lure me into a sense of security, I raise my blade to counter when Robin disappears again.

My instincts scream at me, and I listen. I tuck my legs under me and dive into a roll just as I feel the air above me get cut by Robin's Levin sword. I curse. Of course, Robin's plans always leave more choices to take should the original goal of the plan was not met. I should have expected this to happen.

I almost chuckle to myself. Robin might say that I had the ability to become a tactician, but in reality, I wasn't even close to being able to think like Robin.

I inhale as Robin's sword kicks up dust behind me as I stand from my roll, the overhead strike quickly diverted to strike me as I roll. I click my tongue. Robin's really good, stupidly good. He hasn't even used magic today, which is the only reason I lasted this long.

I pull out the dagger sheathed on my thigh. If Robin's going to be tricky then I'll be tricky too.

I throw the dagger like an arrow, the glint of metal catching Robin's attention as it races towards his eye.

Of course, he passes out of the dagger's path, shooting me a confused glance. He lifts his hand, and an arc of lightning shoots out of his sword and towards me.

Shit. I forgot that he could do that.

I tuck and roll again, the arc too wide to simply step to the side.

"Come on, By! You're getting rusty!" Robin chuckles out, causing me to grit my teeth. He's right, and I know that. I haven't been training these past couple of days, and he most definitely has.

"Shut up!" I roar out, swinging out, managing to catch Robin off guard slightly and nicking his shoulder, which he responded with by cutting a gash on my knee.

We trade more and more blows, earning me a couple of new cuts on my cheek. Infuriatingly, after a while, I can't wound Robin anymore while Robin takes apart my guard piece by piece.

I kick back after another failed attack. My foot impacts Robin's knee, but he simply snorts in pain and passes backwards. Before I can recover, however, he passes back forwards, sword raised high.

I sigh. It's over, then.

"I y-"

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE GODDESS IS HAPPENING HERE?" Seteth's booming voice stops the duel before I can finish my sentence.

"-ield," I manage to finish my sentence after Seteth's outburst. Robin nods and backs away.

I finally give attention to the seething green-haired man standing at the entrance. Standing at his side is an extremely tired-looking Caspar.

I frown. He must have ran off during the spar.

"We're sparing, Seteth," I stand up. Something doesn't feel right, and I stumble to the right. "Fuck…"

Robin rolls his eyes and grabs a vulnerary from some pocket. He hands me the blue potion. I frown at him.

"Why?" I ask.

This causes a groan from Robin and a sigh to come from Seteth.

"By, look at your leg. I'm not sure how I managed to do that, but that happened," Robin shakes his head and points to my right leg.

I take a look at see a multitude of cuts and lacerations on it. I frown even deeper. I don't remember taking those wounds.

"Care to explain?" Seteth sighs as he stares at the two of us. He seems to have calmed down after Robin gave me his vulnerary.

"What is there to explain?" I ask.

"Well, we could start with why Mister von Bergliez thought that you two were trying to kill each other," Seteth sighs again. We must have pissed him off at an incredibly opportune time. He stopped yelling at us within five minutes. That's certainly unusual.

"Well, I'm not sure why he did that. We were just sparing normally," Robin shrugs.

"H-How was that normal, Professor?" It's Dorothea who speaks up. "You cut up Professor Byleth pretty badly. You used a combat art, for the goddess's sake!"

"Hmmm? Astra?" I ask with a tilt of my head. "What's wrong with using that? I used Sol against him afterwards. Plus, Robin would never injure me on purpose."

For some reason, Robin stiffened a little tiny bit at that, though he quickly relaxed.

This time, Caspar's jaw dropped to the ground.

"You two use combat arts during sparring sessions?" He asks, incredulously.

Robin and I both nod.

Seteth sighs again.

"I see that this situation has resolved itself. Please, for the love of the goddess, inform your students to not worry the next time you do something like that," He waves me off and leaves.

This leaves the rest of the Black Eagles House dumbfounded until Edelgard insists on getting us to Manuela's infirmary.


"How exactly did this happen?" Manuela shoots us an intense glare when we entered the infirmary. "You two look as if you've just walked through a battle!"

"No, we don't," Robin shakes his head. "The stench of rotting flesh isn't surrounding us."

I nod in agreement. It's impossible to not get hit by rogue splashes of blood or the odd chunk of flesh that lands on you. By the end, the stench of the battlefield could be smelled by everyone.

"Well, you two still look beat up. What happened?"

"Sparing," I answer for Robin.

"Against who?"

"Each other," I nod.

"I- What did you two use?"

"Live steel,"

"Why?"

I shrug.

"It's what we usually do,"

"And do you usually get this hurt doing it?"

I shake my head.

"No, but that's because Robin would usually blast me with magic until I yielded. We decided to not use magic this time because we wanted to showcase higher-level sword fighting to the students," I explain.

"And I'm guessing that's why I'm getting reports of Combat Arts being used as well?" Manuela snorts.

"Well… We use active skills, what you call combat arts, all the time in spars. We've trained ourselves to be able to hold back when using them, and we don't get hurt when we use them," Robin scratches the back of his head.

"You call this not getting hurt?" Manuela nearly yells.

Robin snorts.

"Calm down, Lissa the second. We haven't broken any bones, and any injuries we've sustained are flesh wounds; a heal at the very most will be able to heal us back to full strength,"

"...I'm not going to ask," Manuela sighs. "Still, you two are going to be confined to bed rest for the rest of the day. I don't trust you two to not get hurt today."

"Fine…" Robin says while I groan. This has put a damper on what I had planned today. This has, however, given me time to catch up on this journal, so I suppose it's not all bad.

We spent the rest of the day in the infirmary.


AN: Hello everyone! Acardia here! I'm back with another chapter! It's a bit shorter than usual, and I apologize for that. Still, 5 thousand words is a lot to write, especially since my muse is a fickle mistress.

I have to thank Blackplantfor reviewing my fic. He's the writer of Headmates, if you didn't know. It's a great fic, and I recommend you guys go check it out if you haven't already.

As for news on this fic, the release rate is probably going to slow down. I have some other projects that I want to work on, and my muse is pointing a gun at my head to work on those. I have more of this fic down the pipeline, but I think I'm going to release A Thousand Burgundy Flowers on FFnet as well. It's my OC-SI fic that I started to post on AO3. This fic might get slowed down to an update every 2 weeks. Other than that, I don't have much else to talk about. There are two reviews that I've gotten, so I'll go over those, I suppose. (Fuck, I've been watching too much Re:Zero, haven't I? Ugh...)

Guest: I'm sorry if I sounded "extremely defensive and passive". That's just how I roll. I don't mind ideas and feedback, but the way that you wrote it seemed like a commission. I dunno if that makes any sense. It feels like you're trying to inject your ideas into my fic, and I really don't like that. A lot of the suggestions would have me completely rewrite the fic, and I like the direction it's going right now. This is not a story about Robin or Byleth. It's a story about Fodlan and the ramifications of Grima's destruction on the life of the Shepherds. I don't mind constructive criticism like the fact that the hook isn't very good. I understand that and I'm probably going to write a new prologue one of these days. If my muse allows me to do so. She is so fucking fickle. It's probably going to be the end of Book III of FE:H. Look, it's a fun game, alright? Even if it is a gatcha. Even if my strategy of catapulting Edelgard into the frontlines is probably detrimental to learning the game, but fuck it, it's fun seeing the enemy just melt before Her Majesty. Also, for the chapters being short, could I have an explanation? The average word count for each chapter is 4 thousand words. It's even large if you don't include the chapters that are under 1k words. I just...don't understand? Anyhow, thanks for the review, even if it's not very nice.

Blackplant: Thank you! I don't know if you know how much seeing the author of a fic that I've been loving for a while now review my fic. Yeah, I suppose don't knowing who Robin is might make this fic harder to understand. I'm trying to write him the best that I can, but there's really not much Robin to go off of in the first place. Robin is an avatar and is the self-insert of FE:A. That makes it hard for him to be written 'correctly,' I suppose. (AAAAAAAH GET OUT OF MY HEAD BEATRICE)

As for the future of the fic, we're going to see more shepherds in the next couple of chapters. I think I'm going to have 2-3 Xenologues (Chrom again, Tiki, and maybe Frederick) and 2 Paralogues. This is two stories being told at the same time, so I'm sorry for any unfortunate narrative whiplash. When I finish the fic, I might reorder some things around, but it's fine as is. I think.

Once again, please review! It helps me a ton!

Acardia out!