Unmarriageable Girl
25th Day of the Red Wolf Moon
Year of the Goddess 1186
Silver Snow
Bright, fluorescent white, unlike the comfort of a freshly rung sheet. Luminous scorch from a hidden star, the brilliance of the Well of Souls overcame Bernadetta as she clenched her lidded eyes in the blinding bask of white expanse. Before long, her vision adjusted, and she crept her eyes apart to witness what had lied in wait.
Nothingness. An expanse devoid of all features, the Well of Souls had plucked her consciousness like a fruit and planted the seeds of her being in another heavenly realm. White, like the frigid snow coating Garreg Mach's untouched roof slats. Bernadetta's agoraphobia gripped her throat, forcing a yelp from the girl as she hunted for comfort.
"B-Byleth?" she cried. No answer. For the first time in a while, Bernadetta felt alone. The queen did not feel the comforting seclusion after a difficult day of socializing, but truly and deeply alone. Bernie was without Byleth for the first time since before the war began, and the unknown expanse crept into her heart and filled her lungs with sap.
"Byleth!" Bernie fruitlessly called. "Ohh. Okay, Bernie. Looks like you're gonna have to figure this out by yourself. Unless," she pondered. "Sothis? Are you there?" A similar eerie reply, an echoless silence. Nothing made sense as the girl calculated her every move up until now. If she was truly alone, why did she feel the nagging pull of someone's unseen gaze? Someone, or something, was watching her.
"Bernadetta? Sothis?" Byleth was caked in an irradiant warmth, firstly noting that the Sword of the Creator had dissipated from his grasp. The former professor studiously observed his surroundings, or rather, the lack thereof. Initially, the white expanse pulled Byleth's memory back towards his mental audience with Sothis. The goddess often peered forth from a black void atop her ethereal throne whenever he visited her. Now, residing in this void of endless white, the king couldn't help but draw similarities.
"Sothis?" he asked once more, louder and with more clarity. "Sothis, are you out there?" If she was, she didn't respond. Separated from his body, Byleth's soul wandered forth, noting that his physical form in this realm appeared to draw inspiration from his days as a professor. Trademark coat arms flapping behind him, the professor traversed through irradiant nothingness. Pressing his glasses firmly to the bridge of his nose, Byleth's head swivelled, scanning for any sign of irregularity. He'd call for the goddess a few more times before being struck with realization. His heart was beating.
"Sothis, can you hear me?" he shouted. A heartbeat is a constant in every living thing, but to Byleth, it startled him with each pound. Finally, a sound drew him from the anguish of his heart's newfound cadence.
"Of course I can, if you continue shouting like that perhaps the whole of creation would perk their ears." Materializing, a familiar comfort washed over the Professor as his old friend stepped from the unknowable fog.
"Sothis," he uttered. For all of his life, Byleth had been one with the goddess of Fódlan, but he had never bore witness to her beauty in any setting but his black mental void. Here, she didn't appear so weightless, but retained a dainty affirmation in her stance. Her upturned nose and folded arms wore thin as her stature disparaged her gravity.
"Were you perhaps expecting somebody else?" she jested, swaying her hips to the placement of her nagging hands. Up close she looked so small, so fragile, as if the world was built on the petals of a rose.
"No," Byleth said through a modest exhale. "It's good to see you again after all of this time."
The goddess returned Byleth's humble formality with one of her own. "I am glad as well." Though brief, Sothis had learned to discern between the Professor's cunning brevity and his sincerely terse remarks. In regards to their reunion, Byleth was sincere. "Where are we currently?"
"Almyra," Byleth answered, tilting his head to scan the expanse once again. "We're in the Well of Souls. Supposedly we are separated from our corporeal bodies. There may be a way for you to return to the physical world separately than I."
The goddess remained unphased, masking her excitement behind a neutral remark. "In any case, we are separate to say the least. But where is Lady Bernadetta?"
"I don't think it works like that," Byleth answered. "I think this place is tailored to whoever enters. In our case, you were bound to my soul by your crest stone, so you are here as well. I assume Bernadetta has been placed into an expanse of her own."
"Oh it ails me to imagine that girl lost in such a desolate place," Sothis pondered, tipping her head to the floor in consideration.
"She's stronger than she seems," Byleth added. Though worry crept beneath his now beating heart, Byleth had faith in his wife, faith that all of her growth would not regress in the face of adversity. Faith that she would accomplish whatever had drawn her to enter the Well of Souls alongside him.
"Let us hope so," Sothis hastily offered. Though she wouldn't admit it, the Goddess had faith as well.
"Alright, I'll admit it," dipped the suave Almyran prince. "I could've seen this coming." Though delivered without much heft, Claude's words were true to his bearings. Readying his ancient bow, the shrewd prince darted from boulder to boulder, ducking and weaving his way towards his mount. Trailing him, Flayn panted in a huddled sprint, sparingly blasting away at the flock of hostile wyvern. With a moment to burn away, Claude fumbled with the copper whistle pressed to his chest. With a pressurized huff, the whistle's silent hum rose over the shouts of the Tanrin Ma onslaught, calling out to his steed.
"We must protect Their Majesties!" Flayn hollered, or at least, the closest the girl's sweet melodic voice could get to a holler.
"That's the idea!" Claude affirmatively barked. "If we can hold them off long enough, the four of us can make short work of our guests." Releasing his grip, an arrow sliced through the fog-soaked air of Alogan, barreling towards the airborne forces. Missing the flyer, Claude's shot embedded itself in the aerial steed's abdomen. As Alexandre's claws scraped along the dust ridden surface of the pinnacle, Claude bounded towards his steed's saddlestep. "Grab on!"
With haste, Flayn leapt from her hunkered state, grabbing hold of the prince's extended gloved hand. Yanking her on the ascent, Claude managed to hoist Flayn before Alexandre instinctively responded to hostile fire. With a ferocious roar, the prince's wyvern cut through the fog and steeled itself for combat, much like it's riders.
Claude winced as an arrow jabbed the air mere inches from his face. "Sheesh, thought they needed me alive."
Alight with a dazzling sheen, Flayn rippled her hands against the soupy air, letting loose a burst of light magic towards the airborne cavalry. "There are healers among their ranks. Twould not prove impassable to keep you alive after grave injury should they need to proceed with their leader's revival."
"Not helping!" Claude pouted. "At any rate-", his sentence drew short with the snap of his bowstring and a yaw from Alexandre. "-we gotta keep 'em away from Teach. Focus on them and blast anyone who gets too close!" With a metallic scrape akin to nails on chalk, a hail of arrows glinted off of Alexandre's armor, causing the Almyran prince to pitch his steed skywards.
Wordlessly, Flayn understood. Purveying the murky air between loops and rolls from their shared wyvern, she glared intently towards the lifeless husks of Fódlan's royalty. Momentarily, Flayn's heartbeat reset, syncing to an unfamiliar rhythm. It cast a flare through her shoulders and exited through the soles of her hitched boots. There were many reasonable reactions that would be expected in a situation as dire as this. Stress, anxiety, the nagging pull towards panic; all could easily weigh down at a pindrop. Remarkably, the heat in Flayn's chest produced none of these; it was luxury. It was comfort. The girl who slept decades away had woken up, but a part of her had always remained dormant, asleep.
Flayn's viridescent eyes glistened, a brilliance hidden for a century. And now she was awake.
PLINK. Another volley of arrows, some tipped in blazing oil, struck the pair's winged mount. Without such luck as before, Alexandre yelped as the fire singed at his wings, the seer lapping at his scales like a grand wooden door's knocker. The royal beast dropped several yards in anguish before regaining his bearings, charging upwards towards a nose-diving wyvern rider.
With a well-timed arrow, Claude sunk a shot between the eyes of the Tanrin Ma flyer, sending their limp cadaver crashing into the unknown wasteland below Alogan. The success was short-lived. As one fell, three more rose to take the deposed stance of the assaulter. Claude and Flayn were severely outnumbered, and for once, the Almyran prince had played every devious card up his sleeves.
Flayn, however, had one of her own. Spotting a lone foot-soldier darting towards the roundabout stone platform where Byleth and Bernadetta slept, Flayn blared a ray of accurate faith magic, eviscerating the assailant. Though brutality was forlorn in her heart, she would do anything to protect His and Her Majesties.
"Prince Khalid," addressed the sorceress.
"Little busy here, Flayn!" the prince huffed, nocking an arrow and releasing before giving any attention to it's trajectory.
"Do you still wish to know my identity?" Flayn humbly asked. Her mind, flush with vivid remembrances, was far from their battle.
Claude's curiosity took the back seat to his strife. "Can it wait?" With Failnaught's blinding fury matching his own, Claude dispatched another enemy rider just as their arrow met with Alexandre's neck, wounding the prince's beast, but not expiring him. With a heavy heart, the prince feared the worst for his faithful steed. Distracted by the impending ache in his lungs, Claude allowed for Flayn's hands to slip away from their saddle.
"Place your faith in me, Prince Khalid," Flayn flatly offered. Rising from her saddle miles above the Almyran mountains, Flayn endured the frigid wind through her hair. The girl felt the chill of flight pass around her acuminated ears for the first time in decades.
Claude panicked, flinging an arm to grab hold of her, nearly losing Failnaught in his grip. "Flayn, stop! What the hell are you doing?!" The prince cocked his head, and he saw. Claude von Riegen, master schemer and devious snoop, who was so sure he knew everything, now knew one more thing: he was right. "Give 'em hell, your Saintliness."
Flayn, awake at last, fell.
"You got this, Bernie," mumbled the queen. The same phrase muttered over and over and over. "You got this. You got this. You got this." Perhaps there was truth to it, as one seemingly held dominion over all that laid before them in the Well of Souls. Nothingness, barren and destitute, stretched on forever. But Bernadetta was no stranger to isolation.
And so she wandered on for what felt like hours and minutes and days, the concept of time remiss to the snowy emptiness before her. Finally, before panic truly dug it's claws into her, Bernadetta spotted an anomaly: something.
Fleet of foot, Bernie increased her stride. Truthfully, startle and an adult life knowing nothing but war led Bernadetta to instinctively reach for her arrow pouch. Nothing hung from her lower back, and no weapon rested over her shoulder. Bernadetta never truly felt safer with a bow in hand, but as she approached the spot of something on the endless horizon, she wished she had one.
Squinting, the queen tried to visualize what the shape could spell. A mass of crimson and sickly grey huddled like a fantastical creature around a blazing flame. Before long, the anomaly grew from a blob on the horizon to a figure. Then, grew from a figure to a man; and from a man to a nightmare.
Bernadetta clenched her fist and her eyes pooled with tears, another natural response from ingrained traumas. This time, the war had nothing to do with it; it was instinctual long before the war or Garreg Mach. Before her impossibly stood the foul serpent, the dismayed cloud which thundered and shook the ground beneath Bernadetta's feet throughout her entire life. Before her, once again, stood her father, the former Count Stewart von Varley.
"Okay," Bernadetta reassured one final time. "You got this." This time, she did. From the moment she had learned of the Well of Souls, of the unique opportunity it presented, Bernadetta knew what needed to be done. To commune with those you've killed seemed a grizzly ability to most, but it was just what she needed. To close a chapter in death was not satisfactory for the young queen or the battered recluse within her. Bernadetta needed more. She didn't need him to die- she needed him to know.
"Father," demanded the queen. Count Varley's back was turned to her, a sight that sent chills of reassurance down her nape. From a young age, she learned to be affirmed by the sight of her father's back- it meant he wasn't looking at her. "Turn and face me."
The serpent did not comply, nor did he give any indication of his daughter's presence. Despite his lack of return, Bernadetta knew he could hear her. Even in death he would feign ignorance.
"I-," she gulped, harrowing her throat to dice through her words. "I have been afraid of you for my entire life." Though she had defied him and even taken his life, Bernadetta's knees and lungs quaked in his ignorant presence. "I stood up to you. I k-killed you. You can't hurt me anymore," the queen silently wept, her cry drowned by the significance of her words. "And it's still not enough."
He knew this. Should his proverbial grasp around his daughter's throat loosen in death, he would have tried harder to preserve his fleeting life. The heaviness in Bernadetta's chest fluttered like a butterfly made of concrete. The night Sothis spoke to her, the young queen had choked back the truth of her father's death. It hadn't helped secure her wounded heart. Her mind still felt stricken, clutched by his wrinkled, calloused fingers. This opportunity, this one afforded chance, Bernadetta would have to be braver than ever before.
"Father," she gulped. "I forgive you."
The serpent's shoulders hiked. He was caught off guard. Even from behind, his expression could be read. Bernadetta's eyes clenched tight.
"I forgive you," she repeated. "Not because you deserve it, and not because I care about you. I will never forget for one second the pain you caused me- and I forgive you. If that pain is ever going to fade, it starts with this; leaving you, and all that you've done to me, behind. I do this because I have to move on. I do this for Fódlan, and for Byleth. I do this for all of us. I will never forget what you've done, but Father- I forget you."
On her final words' egress, Bernadetta's lidded eyes parted. She was alone again. The beast had been slain, and the intensity in her chest receded. Byleth, on Fódlan's behalf, banished Count Varley from it's borders- it wasn't enough. Bernadetta had ended his life, taking from him the satisfaction of watching her fail as queen- it wasn't enough. Here and now, Bernadetta purged her consciousness of her wicked father's infectious torment. Bernie stepped from her pain and began the arduous process of healing, for Byleth, for Fódlan, and most of all: for herself.
It would take time, but Bernadetta, free of her chains, awoke.
Dragon: the only word Claude's beholding mind could muster to describe the ascending creature as she gripped wyverns and wayward fliers like putty between her hulking clawed talons. The Almyran prince, far from the conflict in the Oghma Mountains, had heard whispered tales of The Immaculate One's demise- the same creature he had witnessed above Garreg Mach's titular battle on the eve of war. This one was smaller, less ferocious and more calculated, but no less the same breed. It was impossible to believe that this monster was sweet Flayn.
Shattering the Tanrin Ma's defenses, Flayn's beastial might sent the fainter of heart fleeing in terror. His highness, nor Flayn, would harm the defectors. Claude summoned the courage to address how useless he felt watching Flayn dispatch their predatory foes with ease.
"Alright, you- uh, you keep doing that!" Claude called towards the updraft. Flayn, of course, could not hear him. "I'm gonna go check on Teach! Try not to break anything too important," he whistled and released the reins enough to guide Alexandre downwards.
Bernadetta shook her head, a wafting migraine fleeing from her temples as her vision returned to her. At first, she was disoriented enough to feel as though she woke from a hibernation in her bedroom back at the monastery. Wishing to yank the sheets over herself and roll to her side, Bernadetta hummed. The illusion was shattered by the roars that shook her sandstone pedestal.
"Huh?!" Bernie huffed, clearing the fog from her mouth. "Wha-" A screech wanted out, but couldn't be mustered. The heaves of dragon's flames immediately threw her back months prior when Rhea lost control of her bestial form. Gripping her bow in a white-knuckled restraint, she regained her sense of urgency, understanding that her life was yet again in perilous danger.
"Bernadetta!" hollered a skyward voice. Approaching from the bridge's maw, Claude's wyvern dipped low enough for him to dismount with a less than graceful stumble. Flapping his arms wildly, he shooed his steed from battle. "Bad guys!" he shouted, readying Failnaught.
"I noticed!" Bernie gasped. She feared the gas that oozed from the Well of Souls would pull her again into a trance, but perhaps she afforded a natural immunity after waking so recently. Preparing her bow, Hedgehog, she scanned the domed hills around her for targets.
"Oh, and one more thing-" Claude shouted, careful not to get too close to the pit's fumes. "The dragon's on our side this time!"
"Good to know!" Bernie returned. She shot a glance at Byleth, who remained in a deep meditation. "Could really use you right about now, Bylie..." No response, predictably. With her moment of repose, she took note of how long his eyelashes were, and how faded his green hair appeared in this mist.
PLINK. An arrow whizzed past, striking the ground before the queen's feet. She yelped and spun with a nocked arrow, ready to dispatch her assailant- only there wasn't one, not that she could discern anyway. The fog grew soupier, obscuring Bernadetta's vision and greatly damaging her chances of landing a successful shot. Nevertheless, she dove her thinly armored torso in front of Byleth, shielding his helpless body from harm's way.
"I got you, you're safe," she reassured his lifeless form.
Claude had lost sight of the queen and struck a brilliant plot. Waving and bouncing like a celebrating schoolkid, Claude fought for Flayn's attention.
"When I wished to again walk in my own body," Sothis grumbled. "This wasn't quite what I had in mind." Having wandered the expanse for an endless river of time, the trickling droplets of each moment passed without exception. "You should've thought this through, but here you are, rushing into things without regard for your own safety! Why do you feel so indebted to your own demise? Honestly," Sothis barraged. Byleth did not retort; she was right as always.
The professor had been stricken with the same gnawing awareness as Bernadetta,- someone through the fog was watching. Closing his eyes, he brought the aft end of his knuckles to his brow in contemplation. "Someone is watching us," he revealed.
"Do you think me a fool?" Sothis chided. "Of course someone is watching us! Hundreds, most likely, given your aptitude for killing."
Byleth, tinged with guilt, said nothing. The pry of unseen eyes grew hungrier, forcing the professor to instinctively reach for his sword. With his hand catching only air, he widened his stance and spun rearward. His faculty for danger was correct, but not to the scale he expected. There was not a single pair of eyes- there were thousands.
Sothis had joined his gaze, peering out over the legions of dead soldiers. Each one was kneeling, their hands residing on their knees as if bound by adhesive. Having lungs of her own was still unadjusted, and the goddess used them to gasp for the first time in ages.
"This," Byleth struggled, tightening his stance. "This can't be how many people I've…" As the professor stared beyond the endless, statuelike deceased, the culmination of his life's work began to take shape. His greatest accomplishment was not rebuilding Fódlan, it was winning the war- and war is often won by those who lose the most.
Sothis would not share with him the abject horror she understood. It was not his body count, it was her's. Millions were slain in her name under banners woven from royal cloth, all in the sphere of falsities and divinity. Her stomach churned. The bodies before them were a group effort. Snapping Byleth from his convicted trance, Sothis uttered something inconceivably ghastly.
"Hello, daughter," bemoaned the goddess who's back had been turned to the dead. With another dizzying lurch, Byleth spun to be greeted by piercing eyes he had all but forgotten. She looked weary, tired, just as the holy woman had appeared after her rescue in Shambhala. Her calculated woven robes were replaced by a modest white gown, her hair tangled and free.
Rhea tearfully spoke the words she had waited a millennium for. "Hello, mother." She was apprehensive at first, a level of restraint befitting the archbishop. Rhea, as if realizing her duties and emotional sobriety were no more, wept as she lunged to embrace her mother. Her elation was short-lived, halted by Byleth with an outstretched imposing hand. The professor stepped in front of Sothis, not protecting her as a goddess, but as a friend.
Sothis, respectfully, shoved him aside. "I…" she searched, plucking the words like fruit from a tree, inspecting each for rot. "I'm disgusted by you," she finally mustered. Rhea's eyes and elbows drooped in unison. "To think that my own daughter could cause such strife in the world to fuel a selfish desire, why, the very notion churns my stomach!"
"Mother," quivered the former archbishop. "I did all of this for you-"
"No!" Sothis protested, planting her fists firmly to her hips. "You idolized me so greatly that you made a god of me; a god whose very name fueled conquest and misfortune for centuries. I am no god and you, my dear Seiros, are no saint."
The weight of her sins wore heavily on Seiros, the brutality of her quest fully realized. "I…" she stuttered, bumbling around words upon words that couldn't quite fit the grief in her heart. The pain of being scolded by her mother for her life's work was rivaled only by her death a millennium ago. The bittersweet truth of Seiros's lies were at an end; she reunited with her mother only to be lashed by her words.
Sothis gave way to her rehearsed chastising and her defiant shoulders fell. "Your selfish desires aside, what's done is done," she admitted with downturned eyes. "I have missed my child dearly- not the archbishop of a false religion, but the young girl who looked upon me as though I held the world in my eyes. For just this moment, I can look past your mistakes."
Seiros wept, this time her tears were sapped from joy. Another lunge cast her arms securely around her mother's shoulders, and with an affirming hum, Sothis shut her eyes. "Forgive me, mother," whimpered the lost child. "I have longed for this embrace for a thousand years, I'm-" she paused, wiping her eyes. "I'm so… happy."
With a brilliant display of rich fluorescence, the deceased archbishop's sparkling eyes met with Byleth's. She was basked in a yellow hue- as though the light of god creased the edges of her gown. Her words were mouthed, but never heard, the light consuming her, pulling her from Sothis' embrace. "Thank you," Seiros silently offered. Byleth wordlessly nodded, and with the mercy of her mother's caress, the saintly woman faded.
"Go in peace, my love," Sothis affirmed, an onliest tear cascading from her cheek. It fell, but never made contact with the ground. Instead, it carried on into the void beneath the pair's feet, as endless and divine as her image.
"Are you okay?" Byleth rendered.
Sothis did not answer. "There's trouble in the real world," she said matter-of-factly. "It seems Lady Bernadetta is in danger."
"What?" Byleth hurriedly exclaimed. "How do you know that?"
"Call it a matter of time," Sothis jeered, wiping the bridge of her nose with her wrist. Byleth only then took notice of the purple aurora emanating from the girl's hands.
"I-I'm in trouble now, aren't I?" Bernie winced, her dizzied stance weaving through thin volleys of arrows. Claude had utilized Flayn to dispatch his plan, her scaled wings providing a powerful gust against the Well of Souls' dense vapors. As with war, every step forward came a step back. This hurricane of frenzied wings provided a safe haven from the otherworldly gasses at the price of any chance at retaliation. Releasing an arrow into the gale would be as effective as if the archer were spun and blindfolded.
With the narrow bridge free of noxious fog, Claude's boots rattled on approach. The prince found himself kneeling, instinctively checking Byleth's pulse for any signs of life. "You two okay?" he raced to ask.
"I-I think so," Bernadetta replied with an equal hurry. "What's going on?"
"You two stepped right into the middle of the Almyran Civil War," the prince retorted. "I shouldn't have brought you three here. It was too risky, even for me." He stood, barricading his chiseled face against the wind. On the cliffside to his rear, Tanrin Ma snipers struggled to steady their weapons, their released arrows following a trajectory of their own device.
Bernadetta, arm quivering equally from anxiety and the wind, pointed an uncertain finger towards Flayn's awakened form. "W-what is that..? It looks just like Lady Rhea."
"Seems old Flayn had another ace up her sleeve," Claude huffed. "I'm thinking it has something to do with whatever's going on in Teach's world. Maybe that goddess of yours awoke something in Flayn." Unexpectedly, this revelation did not shock Bernie or bring her teeth to a chatter. She should've assumed as much based on her ancestry. With an affirmative nod, the queen stood, her back to Claude as her eyes met with her oppositions' across the abyss.
"How many are left?" she asked, white-knuckling her bow's woven grip.
"About half," Claude answered, slapping his palm to his chest to halt his medallions from snapping loose. "Scattered fliers are mostly drawn to Flayn right about now. Archers to our rear are defenseless in this wind. Foot soldiers only have one path to get to us. No sign of Marwah- oh, she's on their side by the way."
The queen sighed. "Of course she is." Bernadetta's luck had yet to run out, she fished around in her quiver, careful not to lose grip on the dozen or so arrows that remained. Spotting Claude's near-empty pouch, she took a handful of her own and extended them to the prince. "Maybe we can still pull this off," she prayed.
Claude expectedly smirked, accepting the queen's offer. "Why thank you, your queenliness." Flayn's roars muted his words, her limbs flailing towards the remaining wyvern's like flies needing to be swatted. Her efforts to maintain the gale were made all the more difficult by her attacker's thrashing their javelins from behind.
With Claude in wordless observation, Bernadetta nocked one of her arrows and aimed it skyward. Upon release, the projectile wobbled and waned, listing drastically to the right along the wind's path. The test fire was lost to the godly abyss below, but the pair of archers now understood their focus. In tandem, they readied their bows, flexing their might to hold them as steady as possible.
The security the pair felt amidst the gale was shared by their attackers, who lied in plain sight awaiting their brethren to halt the beast's wind. Adjusting for the impossible conditions felt in her hair, Bernadetta studied her test shot's trajectory. With a firm stance and thoughtful gap in her aim, she released her first of six remaining shots. It was an effort that paved the way to success, but the shot missed all the same, driving itself into the cliff face below her target. Five arrows remained with four visible targets.
Bernadetta took a deep breath, nocking her second arrow and exhaling to the repetitive sway of her arms. Inhale, hold, release; her second shot whipped through the sky, guided by an unseen path that only the queen could decipher. Her arrow curved, gaining traction from being shot along the gale. Before Bernadetta could release her breath, the shot made contact, ripping through her attacker's leather armor.
"I-I did it! I got one!" she hollered without restraint. Her self-doubt persisted despite her mettle being proven time and time again. With each success, Bernie felt a renewed sense of accomplishment. She habitually looked toward Byleth for praise, but his still figure rested ever quietly at her feet. Suddenly, her celebration was thwarted, she was reminded of what's at stake, and she prepared herself for another shot.
Four arrows remained with three attackers. They seemed blissfully unaware of their fallen comrade, likely feeling no need to check each other due to the impossible conditions surrounding them. Behind her, Claude let another arrow fly towards his unseen targets. Before calculating their next arrows' paths, both archers were pulled from their focus by the anguished cries of their draconic ally.
Flayn had been battered severely, suffering from javelin gashes and an influx of arrows. As she pressed on, it was clear that her stamina had dried up. Her roars lost ferocity, her gale lessened to a breeze. With a deafening thud, Flayn's awakened form slammed to meet with the craggy surface.
Claude and Bernadetta both jumped, their inclinations pulling them towards their injured friend. Before long, this notion was halted by a rain of arrows courtesy of the now-freed snipers. One tore open a section of Claude's unarmored waist, skirting by with just a flick to his skin. Still, he clutched at the wound and applied momentary pressure before returning fire.
Bernadetta, mistepping during the hail, had her bangs trimmed by an incoming projectile. Mere centimeters from her face, the glint of steel reflected in her lavender eyes a concerned grimace rather than the fearful wince of a scared little girl. The queen spun with a gaze alight with ancestral power. With the help of her crest, Bernadetta fired two shots in immaculate succession. Both struck the necks of their grouped attackers, one plummeting from the cliff face and meeting with the fogged abyss below.
With only one target left, the intensity of the archers' battle rose to a searing inferno. Bernadetta had two arrows left- she only needed one.
"I'm wiped out," Claude announced, ducking under the whizz of oncoming fire. "I got one hostile left on my end, you got an arrow to spare?"
Bernadetta twirled the wooden shaft of her arrow between her dextrous fingertips, wordlessly handing it behind her back to Claude. The prince accepted the gift without vocal offerance and nocked his shot.
Bernadetta quickly followed suit, raising her final arrow to the lip of her bow. The tips of her fingers nestled gently to the corner of her mouth as she aimed, and when her mental crosshair aligned with her target's skull, she'd release.
At least, she would've. Her target had readied faster than expected, but had not returned fire on the queen. Instead, the sniper's well-timed arrow zipped towards the comatose body of her husband. Without thinking and with an almost inhuman reflex, Bernadetta released her shifted aim along with an exasperated gasp. Her shot, now off-kilter, zipped to intersect her enemy arrow's path.
The entire exchange lasted less than a second. The anxious gnaw of time lapped at Bernie's quaking knees like shallow tides rising under a full moon. As her arrow approached the sniper's, it felt as though an anxious eternity had passed before the projectiles reached one another. They never did. She had missed.
Her target's shot landed as incredibly as it was placed. The arrow fired with haste pierced the unconscious skull of the king, her king, and Byleth wordlessly slumped without as much as an exhale. He did not so much as bleed. Before Bernadetta's tear-clogged eyes, their song had ended.
All hope, all drive for survival, all care had been vanquished from the queen as her heart snapped in two. Falling to a kneel, Bernadetta sliced her knees on an arrow launched toward her moments prior. She didn't notice, she didn't feel a thing. Horror dilated her pupils, her hands shaking with rage and pain and nothing. Not a word could crease her tongue, not a thought permeated her grief. Bernadetta's only urge was to vomit, her stomach upturned and full of a vile humanity. Finally, with still air and silence on the battlefield, Bernadetta wept over the corpse of her beloved.
"I… I couldn't save him…" she moaned through her tear salted fingers. "H-he's… he's d-... It's my fault he's d-..." Bernadetta's body became weightless as it was pierced by her attacker's bolt. She didn't care. She did not feel a thing. Hunkered over her fallen love, the queen resigned to the same fate as he. She'd die here, and she wouldn't care. "Byleth…" she whispered with her final breath.
Ugh, must I do everything myself?
Bernadetta's eyes opened from their prisoned grief, the sun forcing a path through her lids. Her tears had vanished, her nose unclogged, the smell of vile fog resuming it's mantle. With the flare of death fading, Bernadetta found herself standing with her bow drawn and arrow clutched. Shattering her illusion, her skin crawled as a voice called out to her from behind.
"I'm wiped out," Claude announced, ducking under the whizz of oncoming fire. "I got one hostile left on my end, you got an arrow to spare?"
"H-huh?" Bernie pondered for a moment if her life were flashing before her eyes, doomed to relive her final moments for an eternity.
"Bernadetta, this isn't the time for daydreams, can you spare an arrow or not?" Claude hurriedly asked. His outstretched glove seemed too real for a nightmare. The way the fog swirled around it, the sun reflecting on the leather surface, highlighting each pore and scratch- it was real. Bernie gulped, haphazardly relinquishing her arrow to him. She half expected it to fall right through his hand, as though he were a ghost. It didn't, and the prince spun to fire his final shot without offered words.
"W-what is…" Bernadetta stammered through her clenched jaw. With a fervent remembrance, her eyes leapt downwards, praying for her dreamlike wish to be fulfilled. Byleth sat unconscious, immovable, alive. Without so much as a moment to react, Bernadetta saw the glistening light from the final sniper's bolt. Clattering her bow to the ground, Bernie leapt for her husband, shielding him from the arrow with her armored torso.
It worked. The shot plinked off her steel-laden back, embedding itself into the sandstone ground. "I've got you," she whispered, tucking her shivering fingers behind Byleth's unhearing ear. "You're safe now."
Another arrow reflected, her armor began to bend and indent. Another, then another again, she shielded her husband's helpless body from as many as a dozen well-placed shots. With exceptional grouping, a final arrow parted the gates of the queen's armor and pierced her lower back.
It wasn't the first time Bernadetta had been shot, and she hoped it wouldn't be the last. Her mind still numb from Byleth's perceived death, Bernie felt little more than an insect's pinch. "I've got you," she reassured again.
"I know." A wayward tumble cast Bernadetta aside, the clank of her armor echoing throughout the abyss below. Byleth, awake, sprung like a gazelle towards his hero's relic. With an unruffled motion, he fluidly tucked his Sword of the Creator under his arms in a bear hug as he rolled on impact. Using the motion from his landing, the king leapt to his feet and his sword crackled like thunder.
Bernadetta watched as her husband's sword unlatched, the vertebrae whipping through the air like a beguiled snake. It was just long enough to bridge the gap, slicing the sniper's throat as cleanly as a knife to butter. He panted like a dog momentarily, groggy and feeling unwelcomed by mortal life. Tilting his head with a creaking neck, he eyed his wife, who's tears swelled in relief.
"I never should've left you here alone," he bemoaned, sheathing his blade. "I'm sorry."
It was the only thing Byleth was allowed to say before becoming swaddled in Bernadetta's arms. Wrapped firmly like a cocoon, Bernadetta's tears graced her lover's nape and she buried her face beneath his chin. Byleth felt responsible, having never followed through on his promise to always be with her through life's tribulations. He was not aware of her sobbing's true purpose.
"Y-you're okay," Bernadetta hummed, her words muffled by her husband's chest. "You're alive," she reassured herself.
"Of course, love. Why wouldn't I be?" Byleth began piecing together events. He had awakened to his wife's selfless barricade over him. Sothis had known of the danger present in the real world. Momentarily, the king mulled the possibility that Sothis had shared her gift with Bernadetta as her final energy fled the girl's bonded soul. Bernadetta unwittingly harnessed the goddess' power and turned back the hands of time.
"I'm sorry you had to see whatever happened," he offered, brushing aside the queen's arrow-trimmed bangs.
"B-bylie," Bernadetta cried. "It was horrible, it was awful." She took lengthy pauses between her words, halting to clear her nose and throat. "D-don't ever die. Please?"
The king chuckled, all but forgetting their embrace resided within an active battle. "I'll try my best, but no promises."
"Hey! Don't even joke like that!" she protested.
Claude, absent from the couple's eyes for the past moments, suddenly inserted himself in their conversation. "Hate to interrupt you both, but we've got a bit of a situation."
The royals snapped from each other's arms, peering around Claude to both sides respectively. The prince stood with tightened fists, his body positioned towards the bridge that connected the trio to the mainland. Atop it's length, Legate Marwah stood between two well-armored Tanrin Ma soldiers. The chaos of battle had been the perfect disguise for Marwah, who had slipped away in the ensuing clamor. Now present, she locked the trio's only escape route by means of force.
Byleth, still unaware of their foes' identities, questioned nothing, raising his sword in protecterance. Bernadetta followed suit with her bow, nocking an arrow and letting it fly towards their attacker. Marwah seemed unphased, standing with her hands neatly tucked behind her back like a handkerchief. The arrow was sliced in half by the polearm of one of her guards, proving little and exhausting Bernie of her only weapon.
Marwah coughed, the fumes from the Well of Souls returning in Flayn's absence. "Hand over the Almyran prince and I shall grant you painless deaths," the woman shrewdly demanded.
"Not a chance," Claude retorted. "I'd rather die than become a part of your twisted plans."
"Such arrogance as always, Khalid," Marwah chided. "We'll soon fix that."
"Better women than you have tried," Claude teased. Bernadetta gulped, fearful that the prince's charisma would lead to her doom.
Marwah coughed again, this time deeper, rooted in the very fabric of her lungs. Byleth sought a tactical use for her fit, perhaps exploiting her weakness against her when she moved to strike. Bernie hoped it wasn't contagious.
"Insolence." Marwah barked. Her armed guards, as though activated by code, raised their shields and polearms with intent to strike like a viper if given the chance. The order never came, and Marwah coughed again, the strength of it knocking her aside into one of her stalwart guardians.
Neither of them exhibited any symptoms familiar to Marwah's, but before long, each of the trio arrived at the same conclusion. Her guards wore helmets, barricading the Well of Souls' fog. Byleth, Bernadetta, and Claude hung steadfast, nobody moving aside from the swivel of the Tanrin Ma guards' heads.
Marwah tried to summon the words to berate the royals further, but they were lacking, replaced by the desperate clutch of breathless life. With a less-than-thunderous exit, Marwah fell to a knee and struck her chest with a balled fist, fighting the very air within her. Like a gator rolling it's prey, it would not let go.
The Fódlan trio waited, hinging on each passing moment to reveal their next peril. Marwah knelt between her guards, who looked equally as confused as the royalty. The pair exchanged glances with each other and the Almyran prince alike. Marwah had succumbed to Alogan's fabled enchantment, but it would not be for long.
Gasping for air, the warrior tumbled, caught by the fortress knight to her rear. She clutched her head, dragging her fingertips smoothly across every feature of her face. Though it was just a fleeting moment, she appeared as though she had been freed from a life sentence. Her adjacent guard offered his hand, but she swatted it away in protest.
It was just the flicker of her eyes, that's all that was needed for Byleth to loosen his stance. Bernadetta sensed his apprehension and tensed further. Marwah, spending equally brief eye contact with each of her acquainted foes, grimaced.
It was a narrow bridge, all it took was a shove. Marwah, extending her arms to rest atop each of her knights' shoulders, did just that- she shoved. Both struggled with their footing, blurting whatever noise awaited in their throat. But inevitably, both fell to their respective sides,plummeting to the endless pit at the bottom of Alogan's well.
"Well, now. That was unpleasant," she offered, dusting her shoulders. "Can you believe someone left this perfectly habitable body lying around?"
Byleth smiled genuinely.
"Hello, Sothis."
Epilogue Coming 2022