"Hello, child," Aubin greeted, smiling sadly.
Edelgard knelt in front of him, offering deference he would refuse time and time again. It was an odd sight, to be sure, of the Emperor of the mightiest country paying her respects in a jail cell to a man older than all.
Aubin was one of the few relics of centuries past that looked his age. Wrinkles marred him, white hair patchy and wispy. He had kind eyes, a short beard, and looked like a grandfather she'd never had. Though blind, he felt like someone who actually saw her.
"I failed," Edelgard whispered, speaking words through the magicked cell door. Though Myson did not watch his brother, he did not leave his escape up to chance. The doors were a steel of darkness of the make only Jeritza's scythe could mimic. Tried as she had, there was no way to break them. And none could call her attempts lacking, for they were the same restraints that held Lorelei.
"Child," Aubin chided lightly. "I do not think that word applies to you in the slightest."
Tears. Tears for this old man who had seen her grow over these years. Tears for dreams lost, regained, then taken again. Tears for the clock of her life that slowly neared its terminus.
"I failed," she repeated. "I could not heal this land. I could not bring about a future for this place, one where Crests were nil. One where a little girl could grow up safely."
Aubin reached out through the lattice of steel and stroked her cheek, his hand fumbling before finding purchase. "Edelgard, you strove towards your ideals. You fought for what you believed in, what you knew to be right. I do not think your conviction was wrongly placed."
She looked up into his face for the first time, seeing a warm smile.
"Macuil is dead, I could feel it," he murmured. "My fellow friends…brothers and sisters in arms…I am the last, untainted by time. Seteth is marred from his true heritage, as is Cethleann. Timotheos, Chevalier, Noa…gone as well. Indech…I fear he has given the last of himself as well. I am well and truly alone."
"I am to blame for that," Edelgard said, bowing her head again.
He pulled his hand back. "Oh, I do not think so. What we did for the Goddess those years ago, I believe it was the right decision. But man is not meant to live for so long. We all bear our scars and wounds from the passage of time. Who can blame one so ephemeral as you to desire a new order? A new path for people?"
Edelgard said nothing.
"Rhea was a friend, once. But as the years passed, I did not recognize her. One by one, we all gave into madness." Aubin smiled. "Even I."
"How do you mean?"
"I healed a child, some time ago. It reminded me just how fragile you all are. And how different my people are. Though I have no say over the others of my kind, I have such over myself. I have relinquished my immortality, to allow for the years to catch up to me. In time, I too, will die."
Aubin looked down at her, though her head was still bowed. "Do not cry, child. You did wonderfully. In a time far past, Rhea would have respected you and championed your resolve. She'd have stood up to exactly what you fight: a world dictated by those with power over the weak."
"But in the end, it does not matter," Edelgard said. "I lost. The dream is dead."
"Our actions have far reaching impact," Aubin whispered, voice growing so light as to vanish into the wind. "Though we might not see it ourselves, the way we touch each other's hearts is powerful. You might not noticed such things, but it does not deny their existence. I wager the people of the Empire have seen the way you fight. The way you stood up for them, to break down this system of inequality." He smiled. "I daresay they would be the first to say you have not failed."
She looked up at him, the tears spilling anew. Edelgard was desperate for something, anything, to give her a reprieve from the weight on her shoulders. The guilt, the stress, the anger, the hate, the love. All of it, a colossal burden upon her weary shoulders.
"To live is to suffer," Aubin said, as if quoting a bygone era. "But you did not accept that. For were that true, then the rich would not rest easy. The powerful not emerge victorious. The impoverished not weep. To live is to suffer for the weak, a poor tenet for a world. To live. Yes, that is what it should be. You fought for that: to live. A woman rent asunder by experiments, hate, and evil, and you rose. You did not crumble, you did not give in. You stood tall and decided to fight."
"Edelgard," Aubin said, kindly. "This world will remember you for your part. Some not well, but pray in time, none will doubt the impact of what you had. Uprisings rarely succeed, but they are always remembered. Remembered by the next who stand against the powerful, by those who seek a savior. You give strength to a generation and generations to come."
She cried. Tears unshed for years finally found release. There was a catharsis in the outlet for such emotion.
"So rise again, child. Do not say you failed. You succeeded in the ways that mattered." Aubin's smile grew. "Your plan to unite with the Alliance to defeat my brother and the abomination he has become, it is a good one. Should you succeed, I could pass to the next life without regret."
In the wake of such emotion pouring from Edelgard, she found resolve. The resolve she'd carried for so long and lost along the way. It was hers again, molten flame in her heart burning anew. An anger, a love, a fear, all mixed into one. Such was this emotional alchemy, this recipe to walking tall.
She stood.
"I will not lay down until he is gone." Edelgard swore her vow, one she would not forget. "I will expunge Myson from this world. And then I will know I succeeded."
Aubin smiled, laying a hand over his heart. He stood, and gave deference to her. "Go, child. Go, make me and those who came before us proud."
He did it all for her.
Hubert stood on the precipice of a balcony, overlooking Enbarr. The city prepared for the coming battle, and for most it would be the end of their days. Perhaps even for him.
But the promise he'd sworn her so long ago, it burned eternal in him. "I will stay by your side, no matter your path. I will give my life, my soul, my everything, should you ask it, and even if you don't. I live for you, and for you I will fight. Yours is a dream, a goal, I will champion."
He loved her, both in the way a friend loves a friend and the way a partner loves another. It was an unshakable pillar within him, the sole antidote against the wrongs he'd committed. Obsession, perhaps, but it was his bulwark.
Everything for her, he'd vowed day after day. And such was a vow he would keep.
She claimed to be taking time to rest, but he was not so stupid. Let her and Jeritza plan on how to kill Myson, he would not interfere. He would take the burden of this war from them, to allow them to focus.
When he was gone, then could Hubert hand this war back to her. Then would they begin their fight anew, emerging victorious. All for the dream. The dream they would never give up.
Then perhaps, she would deign to feel the same. Perhaps in free world that they strove towards, she would be happy and unfettered.
The wind carried with it the scent of the sea. He seldom allowed himself such pleasures as relaxation, but it would truly be the last time he'd have. For there were no contingencies beyond this, for he was the contingency. By the Emperor the time she needs. Hold the Alliance at bay. Let them do away with Myson's Deadlords.
This, he would do for her. Not that there ever was doubt.
"I will not fail your legacy," he whispered to the winds. "I will ensure this world you seek is born."
A retainer of his wordlessly strode forward, holding out for him a note. He accepted it, glancing at the report written for him.
"Ah," he murmured, a smile growing. "So it begins already."
Under the cover of night and magic ushered the three of them into the lab. The Imperial Research Institute was a well-guarded building, and its ins and outs were well known to Hanneman.
"I worked here before Garreg Mach," he'd explained. "I've worked here after Garreg Mach too. I daresay I know this building better than anyone."
And so it would seem. Lysithea pulled the hood of her cloak down as they entered his lab. Petra followed suite, chewing on her lip.
"Relax," he bid her. "If we had been found, there would be alarms. I should know, I designed them."
"You've built quite a lot," Lysithea remarked, remembering the ballista at Myrddin.
He smiled, sadly. "Would that my achievements were scholarly, that my work was not for war. It is why I left the Empire in the first place. There was pressure on me to work on such things, and I wanted nothing to do with it."
Lysithea nodded. "You made the right choice."
"And still I find myself back here." Hanneman shook his head sadly. "Forgive an old man his regrets. Give me a moment to set up."
The lab was a spacious room, cluttered with all manners of rubbish. Work tables filled with chemistry sets, scales, and whatnot. Half finished devices, projects given up before their completion. In the middle of the room, a ballista much like at Myrddin.
"I did not know you had two Crests," Petra murmured.
Lysithea raised an eyebrow at her companion starting a conversation. "Well, it's not exactly something I prefer to discuss."
The woman narrowed her eyes. "You underwent similar trials as Edelgard did, yes?"
"And what do you know about that?" huffed Lysithea.
Petra sighed. "Enough to know I have been unfair to you. You've been through a lot, and more I will never know. For that, I am sorry."
The apology shocked her, and it splayed across her face. Petra noticed, of course, and nodded.
"I don't think it excuses you, nor Edelgard, for doing such damage to this land." Petra folded her arms. "But I understand it. I sympathize."
"You…don't hate me for it?" Lysithea asked quietly.
"Hate? How could I hate something I understand?" Petra looked away. "We hate things we don't understand, things that contradict our logic of the way things should be. What you have done makes sense. I do not hate it."
"I…" Lysithea tried to find the words she sought, but failed. "Thank you, Petra. That means a lot."
"You love her. Loved her. Whichever it is. It makes sense," Petra murmured. "Lysithea…"
"Yes?"
"When the time comes, let me kill her." Petra refused to look at her still. "You don't deserve to be haunted by that."
"And you do?" Lysithea whispered, equally unable to meet eyes.
"I am haunted already. The hesitation you feel, that I see in you, it comes from a fragment of innocence I think you still carry."
And you have none left yourself? Her question was silent, but communicated as they finally locked gazes.
"Innocence dies screaming," Petra said. "And I haven't the voice to scream more."
Before she could reply, Hanneman called out, "Lysithea! It is ready!"
She reached out and touched Petra's shoulder, hand feather-light, before walking to Hanneman. The woman was an island, one Lysithea could not reach. There was too much between them, too much pain. Hate her she might not, but there was anger.
Lysithea hoped there was someone who could reach her.
Jeritza prayed before the impending end. His hands folded together, clasped tight as he sent thoughts to the Goddess.
It felt wrong for a man such as he to believe, but he did. The world was too cruel for a higher power to not exist. People needed salvation from ones like him.
The Goddess would take him before the end and punish him for his sins. They were innumerable. For many years, he'd known they'd catch up with him.
When they parlayed with the Alliance, he would meet his end. This, he knew without doubt. Mercedes traveled with the army, and he'd done her countless wrongs.
He'd killed their father. The lightest of the weights on him, for sure, as he'd been planning on marrying his own daughter to continue the line of Crests. Despicable. He did not blame himself, but she wasn't likely to know the reason.
He'd deprived her of a home. Had he sought her out, he could have saved her and her mother the struggle of eking out a living without their family name. But he did not, choosing instead to spare her from the coming violence of the Empire.
He'd killed her friend. Of that, there was no excuse.
His hand had been around her neck, and he'd snapped it without thinking. Why had he done so? Why?
Questions upon questions. He'd asked them over and over of himself, wondering just why he would do such a thing. Battle had a way of…coming over him. Once it had its hold on him, it was hard to shake.
The cold truth was that when he had weapon in hand, the thrill and contest of it was insurmountable. He'd killed the woman, this Annette, to sate his bloodlust. For that was all he was: a monster.
And that was all he'd ever be.
Emile would have never been this vile. He'd been a good man.
But then came Aegir. Experiments. Locked away in a cell, for years, stewing in lonesome. For it was a solitary place, his prison. At Ambrose's behest, he was their toy to do with what they will. Tortured so, they'd leave him alone for weeks on end, only to visit and torture him. By the end, he'd welcomed the pain because it meant he saw another person. And so birthed Jeritza.
His humanity was shattered, and still was. Not even Edelgard's intervention could repair him. He was a broken man, one who had given up trying. There was no forgiveness for one such as he, no matter how Edelgard tried to make him see it.
He prayed not for his salvation, but for one who would finally kill him. One who would best his survival instincts and give him the respite he didn't deserve. None such as he deserved a quick end.
They sought to fight the heroes of the Alliance. Perhaps in them he would meet his match. It was a hero's lot to slay one such as he, after all.
A monster, all he'd ever be.
It was not the first time she'd been strapped to a chair. Though she prayed with all her heart it would be the last.
Hanneman's concern bled off him like watercolor, knowing exactly what he was putting her through. "It'll be painful," he admitted. "If you were to interrupt me during the cast, I do not know what effect it will have."
To free herself from this, she would endure any pain. Let it come, she declared. Nothing would hold her away from the one thing she'd always wanted.
Petra had taken a spot by the door. She'd claimed it was to give them privacy, but Lysithea suspected her paranoia was rearing its head. To be so deep in the maw of the beast, it had her agitated.
Hanneman shrugged off his coat, wearing only his grey blazer and slacks. Cracking his knuckles, he asked, "Are you ready?"
"Can one ever be ready for such a thing?" Lysithea chuckled.
He shared in it, rolling up his sleeves. "This will hurt a lot." He handed her a thin, but sturdy, wooden board. She didn't need to ask what it was for.
"Do it." She put the wooden board in her mouth and closed her eyes.
His hands alighted, and blinding pain.
And she was elsewhere.
An escape, perhaps. The smallest corner of her mind, saturated in memory, that went untouched by the procedure. Or perhaps it was equally burned with pain and it was all she could do to ignore it. Or mayhap she was dead.
Not likely. She felt the nerves in her hands, legs, entire body, fry. If she screamed, she didn't hear herself. Not in this hell of memory.
For the moment her mind chose to relive was one of Myson standing over her. She was younger, far younger, than she was now. Those years were a blur, and the details were lost. But in this moment, the pain was not.
"You'll be something spectacular," Myson murmured to her, as if that would assuage a child's tears. "You'll be the salvation that we need. The beacon for Agartha."
He'd set to work, taking her blood, injecting other blood. Her hair had turned white by now. Gone were the purple locks of yesterday, replaced by the void of color. She'd screamed. More than any sane man could tolerate from a child.
Myson tolerated it. Perhaps he even reveled in it.
"A failure. Impossible, I was so close," he'd say later on. His words were angry and she shied away from them. He would not direct them away from her. "The calculations were sound. Perhaps you were just weak. A pathetic child, meant only to die in this wheel of destruction. A waste of flesh and soul, without a doubt."
"Yes," he said, speaking to himself and yet also her. "The next will be the one. She's stronger than this runt. Far stronger."
Cast out. Thrown into the world, a trembling broken girl who had not even lived a full decade. This was her lot, her prison. Soon she'd learn her lack of years to come and what had been done to her.
Anger. Untamed anger. For a time, until age mellowed it. Tempered it. Forged it into something stronger: resolve.
She would burn those that did this to her. That's right, wasn't it? When had she forgotten that? And here she cooperated with them. These people who did this to her, who inflicted such things on her.
Edelgard. She worked with them. She allowed them to continue to exist.
"—sithea!"
Her eyes snapped open and the first thing she felt was the sweat covering her skin. Then she saw Hanneman standing above her with concern.
"Is it…done?"
He nodded, but his attention was stolen elsewhere. The door they'd entered in crashed inward, throwing Petra who had tried to brace it. She landed on her feet, albeit barely.
Cured. Cured! Her mind struggled to catch up on what surrounded her, but this she understood intrinsically. For the darkness in her chest, it was gone.
The world did not stop for the rest. Into the room, flanked by guards, walked Hubert.
Petra hissed like a feral animal upon seeing him, drawing her silver blade. "You," she crowed, furious.
"Ah, so this is where the Shrike ended up," Hubert said, with interest, as he entered like a storybook villain. "What a wonderful turn of events."
"Hubert," Hanneman called out, interposing himself between Lysithea and Hubert's cadre. "It needn't come to this."
"Ha," he laughed. "You forgo negotiation. I was going to give you the option to prove your loyalty, but that seems needless now. You know as well as I do what I'm here for." A black flame appeared in his hand.
Hanneman growled. "You will not kill her."
That phrase was the spark her mind needed. Lysithea's eyes widened. Pained as she was, she could make the connection. Hubert hadn't come to spirit her away to Edelgard.
He'd come to kill her. To remove her from his path.
"You're past your prime," Hubert said. "You won't stop me, old man."
"Age begets skill, boy," Hanneman retorted. "I have seen far more than you."
"You taught me yourself, professor," he chided. "I know how you work."
"Then it is a good thing you never were my best student," Hanneman snarled.
Hubert's eyes narrowed. He raised a hand, and the flame coalesced. It roared, writhed, and screeched as it formed a long, jagged lance of darkness.
Hanneman was quicker. He threw a hand into the air, and the room exploded in flame.
Author Notes: Edelgard is so interesting to me. This fic, in a way, was my personal debate on how I felt about her, even if she's been off screen for so long. I know she's a point of contention for a lot of people, but I really came to respect her. Granted, this is just my interpretation of her. Everyone has their own.
Editing Notes:
2/22/2022: Minor grammatical adjustments.