There are a number of scenarios Edelgard dreamed of finding her beloved teacher in after their years-long absence; injured and in need of care, whole and helping in some far-reaching part of Fodlan she had yet to take over, or even just amnesiac and roaming about the country selling her sword the way she'd grown up doing her entire life. She'd even dreamt of finding Byleth at her front door or captured by her soldiers and brought to her for 'questioning'. A reunion of mixed feelings but ultimately resulting in her victory and having her teacher at her side once more.
One such dream involved Byleth sneaking past the guards and Hubert to whisk her away, just the two of them, to seek revenge on Those Who Slither In The Dark, and remove their threat once and for all. The rest of it be damned, Hubert would be able to carry the rest of the plan out himself while she lived what she had of her life left in as much happiness as she could. That dream was still her favorite and she tried her damndest to bring it back every time she shut her eyes.
None of her dreams ever involved a blizzard, a small space, and two of her biggest enemies currently awaiting an explanation alongside Byleth.
Her instinctive reaction is to lift her chin and give them every last bit of noble pride she has within her veins; they don't deserve the answers they so demand from her. It isn't like they're capable of understanding what she's been through, what she has to do in order to make sure those who died didn't do so in vain. They don't know what it's like to see their families driven to madness, to starve to death, to die in agony or otherwise hear their screams day in and day out without rest-
Dimitri's words from before, callous and bitter, about the cries of the dead sneak up on her and she viciously throws the mental barricades shut on that line of thinking.
She knew he'd witnessed the Tragedy of Duscur, and the descriptions she's heard have been nothing short of horrific. He saw many of his own people, his family, die in battle and that's different than what she saw. It has to be different. He's not the same as she is. Duscur and dying in battle are a far different series of events and tragedies than what she's been through. She tells herself that he still wouldn't understand.
He can't understand if he's in league with Rhea and the fucking Church of Seiros to this day.
It doesn't matter what answers you give them. They've already made up their mind and it isn't as though it will change the outcome in the end. Edelgard tells herself and draws strength, and comfort, from this fact. Claude is an unknown but might be able to be convinced, she's not sure and isn't willing to bet on it in the end, and she knows for certain nothing she will tell Dimitri will ever change his mind.
Byleth, in the end, is the only one she desperately needs on her side in all of this.
"Which question do you want answered first?" Edelgard replies at long last.
To her private delight, Claude genuinely looks surprised that she's willing to cooperate. The mysterious heir-turned-leader of the Alliance is a difficult one to surprise and an even harder one to score a true victory on. "Didn't expect you to actually answer," he admits to her with a grin that's there and gone in the span of a heartbeat. "Let's go with the second one; why are you working with the people who assassinated Jeralt and tried to do the same with Teach?"
He would pick the more difficult one first.
She tries to pick her words carefully and finds the holes in her own logic as she structures her argument. There isn't a good reason, even the one she clings to the hardest- to be able to stab them in the back and make them pay for what they've done the moment she's united Fodlan under one banner- falls short of the clout she wants it to have. In the end, that's the best she has to offer and the only possible explanation she has that isn't comprised of lies and half-truths.
"Necessity." She says at last. "I know them, I know their tactics, and I know of their plans and desires; they have been in agreement with at least one of my goals even if their execution thereof is not to my approval or liking." How can she explain this to them and make them understand? She didn't have a choice other than this; she didn't have another way out other than this blood-stained path. "They have the power that helps me combat my enemy so that I can get rid of her and restore Fodlan to the way it should be. The moment I have that accomplished… they will be brought to justice, I will see to it with my own two hands."
"The whole 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' thing." Claude replies easily.
"No." Edelgard responds, sharper than she intends to. "Regardless of how useful they are or what power they use at my command, they are not my allies or friends."
"...they're the ones you mentioned five years ago." Byleth speaks after a moment's thought. "The ones backed by the Prime Minister."
Leave it to her beloved teacher to remember something so important as two fleeting conversations in a moment of weakness. She stiffens at the reminder of those vulnerable nights and the beacon of hope that there might be someone out there who would understand her. "The very same, yes."
"The Prime Minister of the Adrestian Empire had something to do with all of this?" Claude inquired, brow furrowed as he shifted his weight to his other foot.
"Yes and no." Edelgard replies, reluctant to elaborate further. "It's…"
"Complicated, I'm sure." Dimitri's response is borderline unforgivable in its sarcasm and Edelgard imagines removing his head with her axe in one fell swing.
"He is one of the reasons I walk this path. He is no longer a threat to the people of Fodlan, I've made sure of that." She says with a vicious edge that she didn't intend. "The rest of them will fall the moment I can get to them."
"Blaming the Prime Minister for your decision to become a cold-blooded murderer of hundreds, if not thousands of innocent people is hardly what I call a compelling reason for your behavior." Dimitri continues, ignoring the elaboration even as something about the words irritate something in the back of his mind. "It's no excuse for the betrayal of your allies and those who have shown you mercy and kindness."
"What allies?" Edelgard fires back. "Who of you were there eleven years ago? Certainly not the Church of Seiros, who were in league with the Prime Minister and the bastards who-"
"Edelgard," Byleth interjects before she can really fling the verbal daggers into the one-eyed traitor's face. She looks, hurt, to her teacher and awaits the woman's response. "They don't know."
Of course, they don't know. Why would they? It- her thoughts stop there as the implication and weight of the Professor's words sink in.
They don't know, therefore, they don't understand because they don't know what she does and she's… she's kept it to herself, with the exception of Hubert, and then Byleth. Her father knew too, but he was powerless and in too ill of health to do anything to stop it. Had he tried, he'd have been killed too, and the family would have been deposed with the Prime Minister likely stealing the throne for himself.
Looking at it from Dimitri and Claude's perspectives… she did this out of nowhere and without prompting. She betrayed them all for… for some paltry power grab and desire for conquest, making her no better than the very nobility they all held some degree of resentment toward.
No wonder they look at us and see only monsters.
But what could she have done to convince them back then? What could she possibly say, or do, to make them understand just how much was at stake if she refused to act?
They wouldn't have stood a chance and they would have faced even worse ends than that of what she'd had planned. It would have been terrifying at first, but they'd have died in noble, if tragic, battles. Heroes to their people and forever remembered as promising leaders who fell too soon. Their deaths would have promoted her cause against the Church and would have come to make her dream a little less bloody and difficult in the long run.
They weren't there and they didn't know, and Edelgard doesn't know how to begin telling them to make them understand.
"What happened eleven years ago?" Dimitri surprises them all with the question. His lone eye focused solely on the Empress in front of him. "You left Fhirdiad with your uncle around that time if I recall."
Edelgard looks at him, confused. "Yes, but how did you…?"
His eye switches to Byleth, whose attention is focused on him, as he withdraws the dagger he'd kept. He looks to Edelgard again.
"Does this look familiar to you?" His voice is still hostile, but there's something else in his voice that makes her nervous as she stares at the dagger in his hands, and then to his face.
"Where did you-"
"You dropped it five years ago. Do you recall who gave this to you?"
She shakes her head after a moment.
His mouth twists into a parody of a bitter smile. "'Use this to carve your own path.'"
The words, and memories, came back to her a moment later. "You-"
"Me." He replies without allowing her to finish. "I was your ally eleven years ago, as I was five years ago."
The last several words are a blow she feels even without the bite he has in his voice. "You were powerless back then, as was I." And oh how she had wished for him to save her back then. For him to send for her, for her mother to request her return and they could have been...
They could have been happy.
"Powerless to do what, Edelgard?" He mocks her. "Die in the name of whatever mockery of peace you claim to desire? Cede my kingdom to your tyranny? To save you from the monster you allowed yourself to become?"
"That last one is closer to the truth than I would care to admit." Edelgard shoots back, teeth clenched as she tries her damndest to continue speaking instead of backing down and allowing whatever beliefs they have to comfort them in their continued defiance. "Whatever you wish to think, continue to do so if it allows you to-"
Claude clears his throat. "Fascinating as this back and forth is, what happened eleven years ago? You left Fhirdiad and then what?"
Edelgad swallows hard against the bile rising in her throat. She's not spoken of it to anyone but Hubert and Byleth. That Dimitri was the one who gave her the dagger that kept her going all these years was not the revelation she'd asked for, nor was it one she needed. It was another blow on top of Byleth being alive that threatened to shake her conviction.
An idea, wild and crazy, strikes her like a bolt of lightning as she reaches to unlace the straps of her gauntlets. Allows the crimson armor to fall to the ground with a dull thump and pulls off the glove underneath. She shoves the long sleeve of her coat up to the elbow and reveals the array of thick, badly healed scar tissue from wrist to the point they disappear into her sleeve.
"You heard Dimitri," she hears herself say with a bitter laugh that borders on hysteria. "I became a monster."