Part 1 — Great Tree Moon
Over 1,000 years ago, the continent of Fódlan was ravaged by strife as the burgeoning Adrestian Empire — whose founding marked the beginning of our modern times — attempted to unite all under its capital in Enbarr, where the great Saint Seiros first performed the Goddess' miracles. Yet even when Seiros defeated Nemesis, the King of Liberation, centuries to follow were all but quiet. Adrestian land was divided into the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus to the north, and later the Leicester Alliance to the east.
It would not be until the Adrestian Empire approached its first millennium of existence that the three nations united once more to stop powerful invaders from the eastern land of Almyra. Soon after, the Church of Seiros helped establish the Officers Academy to train leaders from across the continent in case of future invasions.
Some say the decision to establish the Officers Academy was two-fold; as it is much more difficult to start a war with those whom you have forged bonds and shared a diverse wealth of experiences.
For what was expected to be a rather dry first lesson, Byleth immediately endeared himself to the Blue Lions as a professor with a unique teaching style — Even if many were still on the fence about him as a guardian and ally.
The students had expected a run-of-the-mill discussion of the sword, lance and axe that told them everything about their triangular rock-paper-scissors advantages which had been hammered in since their youth.
Instead Byleth's discussion bordered on waxing poetic as he described each tool as an extension of their user; as finely-crafted instruments that could, in fact, transcend any sort of traditional thought about 'inherent' strengths and weaknesses. He said less capable soldiers clung to those perceived advantages as a way of digging their own niche in a faceless army. However, a sword could just as easily cut through the arm of a halberdier as a battle-axe.
Everyone was so invested in the lecture that it came as a surprise when the monastery bell rang to signal the end of this period.
It was a simple and calming five-note ring. Some might even say nostalgic.
Dum… Dum dun dun… Dom…
Within moments of hearing it, the room was awash with clatter as students gathered up their things and moved for the exit. There was a horde of energy in the idle conversations and laughs shared among classmates as they pushed into the rejuvenating sunshine and joined the coalescing crowds also coming from the two surrounding classes. From the outside looking in, Golden Deer students came from the left and Black Eagles from the right.
Dimitri and Dedue were the last to leave the Blue Lions classroom, as their idle chatter was somewhat graver.
"Really Dedue, I will be quite alright on my own." The Prince rests his hand on Dedue's shoulder. "Please, mingle among our classmates. You deserve to get to know our allies just as much as I do."
Dedue is silent and contemplative hearing that, and eventually relents.
"I suppose you are right. But I will be watching in case anyone presents a danger to His Highness."
The large man lumbers away, off toward an archway pillar in front of the Black Eagles classroom from which he could see the entire field. Along the way he passes by Byleth, Manuela and Hanneman near a bulletin board on the wall. Those two veteran professors surrounded their new faculty member, eager to discuss lesson plans and personal details alike.
Dimitri sighs as he watches Dedue go, mumbling something to himself about his friend's overreliance on being nearby. It wasn't like Dimitri was particularly surprised by his attachment, but he did hope Dedue would make friends at the Officers Academy.
That said the Prince begins to scan across the courtyard from his position in the Blue Lions' doorway.
Of his house allies, he could easily pick out a few from the crowd. Annette and Mercedes were attached at the hip while talking with a Black Eagles girl in a black cap. One he did not recognize immediately. Felix, the loner that he was, was leaning up against a pillar on the way toward the dining hall.
Dimitri attempts to offer him a courteous wave, but Felix sneers in return.
He took it in stride and kept looking around. Claude was off in the grass chatting with a pair of girls, one who had a pair of pink ponytails and the other a mess of white hair that rivaled even Edelgard. Speaking of, he noticed her in the shadows of an overhang, seemingly conspiring with a tall man whose wavy black hair covered half of his wicked expression.
Hubert, he immediately recognized. Edelgard's vassal.
In trying to drift his gaze away from the future Emperor, Dimitri lands upon a lone girl trying to blend in with one of the courtyard's trimmed hedges. She was not doing a particularly good job of it despite her reserved stance, as her cool blue hair stood out far more than even Caspar's similar turquoise locks.
Something about her weary expression immediately drew Dimitri in. It seemed strange for such a lovely young woman to be isolating herself the way she was.
Naturally, he approached.
"Afternoon," he says simply. Even that causes the girl to yelp as she nearly jumped out of her skin before turning her brown, dark-ringed eyes his way.
"My apologies," he continues with a slight bow. "I did not mean to startle you."
"It's… Fine." She gets the last bit out hurriedly before looking away again.
Clearly she was not the most sociable person in the group. Dimitri would have to pick up a bit more of the slack.
"I couldn't help but notice you standing off on your own. Is everything okay?"
She nods.
"Yes."
The Prince can't help but let out a brief laugh at her insistent, to-the-point tone. It reminded him quite a bit of Dedue.
"Well I'm happy to hear it." He offers her a hand, which she hesitates to take. "If I'm not mistaken, you must be Marianne von Edmund. Is that right?"
The girl's eyes widen, though they are somewhat covered by the bangs hanging over her face. She immediately believed this interaction was a mistake. He knew who she was, but she could not begin to place who he might have been.
"I… Y-Yes. How did you…?"
"I have been well-acquainted with the study of nobility all across Fódlan since I was young, both the lords and their children. It comes with the territory."
Marianne swallows back some of her nerves and nods.
"I see," she manages to get out while tentatively taking his still outstretched hand. "Just who are you, then…?"
"Ah, right." Dimitri lets out another brief laugh. He wasn't used to not being recognized, but it was rare he talked to anyone from the Alliance. "I am Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd. It's a pleasure to meet you, Marianne."
Suddenly, Marianne's entire body tenses up, and her eyes widen like saucers again. Her hand instinctively clutches tight around his, as though she forgot how to let go.
"As in… Heir to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus…?"
"The very same," he says.
The girl immediately pulls her hand away like he were a hot stove and tries to back away, but finds herself cornered by the hedge. Her head starts to rapidly shake, much to Dimitri's confusion.
"You… You really don't want to be around me, Prince."
He tilts his head and gives her an assuring smile. "Dimitri is fine, honestly. What makes you say that?"
"I'm… Bad luck to be around." She looks at her feet, voice meek and shuttering. "It would do you no good to die simply because you chose the wrong company…"
Rather than being turned off, Dimitri's curiosity piques as he hears her unique brand of self-deprecation. He begins to rub his chin with one hand thoughtfully.
And then he smiles.
"You're an interesting beast, Marianne."
The girl yelps again and can't control her shaking hands as they clasp before her bosom.
"W-Why would you say that?!" She asks in a suddenly panicked tone.
Dimitri is taken aback by her sudden energy and holds up both hands.
"Whoa now. It's simply a figure of speech, I promise. I assure you there was no intent to offend, if it came across that way."
It takes Marianne a moment to get down of the edge, but soon she was trying to hide in her hair again. This time it was slightly harder, as her cheeks ran red. Suddenly Marianne began to realize that for her to freak out like that in front of the Prince? How was she ever to regain any sort of clout?
"I… Sorry…" She mumbles.
He shakes his head.
"There's nothing to apologize for, Marianne. I simply should have been more up-front." He crosses his arms over his chest. "I think we have a good deal in common, you and I."
"Huh…?"
"I, too, tend to be rather bad luck for those who choose my company."
She stares blankly at him, blinking as she tried to comprehend exactly what he was saying.
"But… You are a prince, are you not? How could you be any bad luck?"
"Well, let's just say that one's noble status does not necessarily protect them from the ires of fate. It's actually something I've thought about quite a lot."
For the first time, seemingly all day, Marianne cracks a soft smile.
"I do too…"
"Ah!" Dimitri grins seeing her expression lighten. "I suppose perhaps you might be able to offer some insight I have yet to glean on the subject, then. We should find the time to—"
He stops halfway through a thought, noticing Dedue off in the distance trying to desperately wave him over. The boy bites his lip before looking back at her.
"… Another time, though. It appears I'm being summoned."
"Of course." Marianne remarks, somewhat more confident than before.
"I look forward to it, Marianne." He holds out a hand again, which she gingerly accepts.
"Likewise."
With one last bow, Dimitri heads off.
Marianne watches Dimitri's cape flutter in the wind as he confidently strode toward his mountain of a vassal, leaving small indents in the grass with each step of his heavy boots. She felt frozen in place, bangs once again shadowing her eyes as her arms loosely crossed over her stomach like a limp marionette.
That couldn't have been real.
She thought over every brief interaction from the day so far and none had gone nearly as well. Sylvain's introduction was almost sleazy, filled with sugarcoated niceties that he echoed to Lysithea moments later. Raphael seemed kind, but managed to pivot their brief discussion back to food four times in the span of two minutes. Two minutes that felt like an eternity to the soft-spoken girl.
Claude was arguably the most genuine when he first came to meet her while the members of the Leicester Alliance were unpacking their things before class… But some part of her couldn't shake that it was simply the formality of being their de facto leader. Nothing more.
Why else would he bother spending time with a girl like her?
But Dimitri? He had genuinely engaged with something she took no pride in sharing with the world. Talking to him was… Natural. And he was the prince of the Kingdom! He was arguably the second most prominent political figure in their class behind Edelgard.
Just imagining she might have someone to talk to regarding such matters barely curled the left edge of her lips into a smirk — if not a smile.
However, the smile faded as she became more aware of the gaze bearing down on her back of her neck. Her hair stood as she heard the grass rustle from whoever was approaching.
"You shouldn't bother with him."
She looked toward the voice and found Felix standing beside her. His right arm bent into his hip while the other hung free, and his fiery orange eyes were locked onto Dimitri's cape.
"E-Excuse me?" Marianne mumbles, leaning away. Felix was right up there with Hubert in the 'intimidating as hell' category of her classmates.
Yet he'd chosen to speak to her. So she would have to frown and bear it.
"The boar prince," he continues. With a sharp, sudden flex, Marianne was now the sole recipient of his icy gaze. A few loose strands of black hair fell to cover his face, but he gently threw his head back to clear them away.
"You'd do best to stay away from him."
The blue-haired girl swallows back a lump in her throat and takes a deep breath through her nose.
"W-Well… If I might be so bold… What does it matter to you who I fraternize with?"
Felix smirks, seemingly happy to have grabbed her interest so readily.
"It has nothing to do with me. I'm simply trying to save you the trouble."
He shifts his weight onto his left foot and brings both arms up, holding the left across his chest like a shelf that the right arm rests on. That way he can start gesturing his hand to animate his speech.
"I saw the brief flash of affection in his eyes as you two spoke. The kind of emotion he nary shows a soul." His eyes squint. "You two must have something in common. Be it a hidden, insatiable bloodlust or what have you."
"What are you…?"
"I really don't care what it is."
Felix scans her form, seeing the way she immediately shut down when he interrupted her train of thought.
"All I know is that any shred of affection he doles out today will inevitably come back to haunt you. You are from the Alliance, yes?"
Marianne nods, eyes cast down at Felix's feet.
"A meek girl like you? As soon as relations run cold between our people, he won't hesitate to snuff you out. That affection will rain down as daggers a thousand-fold once you're his enemy, because you'll be the first target his beastly mind will hasten to remember."
Felix pauses. His arms fall to his sides and he watches as Marianne folds her hands at her waist, and then mindlessly tugs on her left index finger as if to snap it off.
"Understand?"
Marianne struggles to swallow back another hard lump in her throat, but once she does her breathing evens out.
"Perhaps that would not be so bad," she mutters, dejected. "A quick death would be bliss for one as useless as I, should our nations come to blows."
Felix's sharp gaze softens to curiosity as he mulls over that sentiment.
"Tsk…" He clicks his tongue and looks the complete other way, slipping his hands into the pockets of his uniform.
"Suit yourself. Just don't come crying to me when you're impaled on the tusks of a rabid boar."
As he turns and walks in the direction of the dining hall, cool stride barely perturbed even by a prodding hello from Annette, Marianne slinks back into the shade of a trimmed hedge.
Here she believed she might have made an acquaintance — if not a friend in some far-flung reality… Only to have that belief nauseatingly thrust in her face like weeks-old custard. How could she have been such a fool? Of course her damned Crest would turn even the slightest glimmer of hope into misery.
It's not like she deserved any better. This was shaping up to be a long year.
Apologies for the extra late upload today, it took me a while to get this chapter through my editor. A good chunk of this chapter was actually written weeks ago as stress relief when I was busy with other work, and it's essentially the genesis of the story as a whole. That made it pretty special to me so I wanted to make sure it reads as well as possible.
Side note: I didn't account for how the chapter select slider was going to effect the spacing of my month indicator at the top of each chapter. Don't mind me trying to mess with how it gets laid out for a bit!