Hello, this is Cyber Emblem with another sort of one shot. While I was away on vacation, I had the inspiration for this one. I will upload a new chapter of C.R. shortly, but I wrote this one first. I have had the idea for other "one shots" for a while, but I chose to do this one, as I felt the others have some important spoilers for future events, while this one… not so much. Any spoilers in this chapter are the kind I'm willing to divulge to anyone willing to read this. So, if the name of the chapter doesn't give it away, this chapter is centered around Claude and Sylvia. Please enjoy and Review!

Dancing had been all she knew. Raised by an abusive man that she knew was not her father, it had been what cheered her up. As he drank away at the nearby bar, she would watch the dancers present. Sylvia thought they were lovely. All the men present seemed to think so too. So, she would practice at home while the man was passed out. She had hoped that someone would see her work as lovely as well, and that dancing would be her way out of the home of the man. So, once she hit puberty, she started to share her dances with the world. At first, it seemed wonderful, but within a month, a terrible day came. The day that she realized the truth about her occupation. That what she saw in the dancing was not what others saw. She wept and the man mocked her once he found out. But he wouldn't let her stop. Her dancing was a source of income, a way for him to continue drinking without working so hard. So he forced her to go on, and burned all of her more decent outfits to ensure that she would keep going. This held Sylvia back for about six months.

She began to stand outside for hours at a time when she wasn't dancing, no matter what the weather. She hoped that it would either make her to ill to dance or cause her to build a tolerance to bad whether, so that if she tried to escape, she could withstand any weather. Finally, she stopped thinking about escape, and just did. She ran to a nearby town. Quality of life wasn't much better for her there. All the townsfolk saw was a woman who was unashamed of what would make them turn crimson in shame. Sylvia didn't know better. She had grown accustomed to the outfits she wore, and thought nothing of them. It was her dancing outfit, and no one had told her that there was anything wrong with it.

No one knew this of course, thus they showed no sympathy for her. Eventually, she had to turn back to dancing to make a living. At first this was a bittersweet turn of events for her, but it turned sweet when she met him. A young man came to town, wearing a turban tangled in his messy green hair, and with a scarf around his neck. He said he was a traveling bard, and his talents certainly did seem to point to that as the truth. The first time he saw her dance, she called Sylvia and the dance beautiful. Then asked if she would like to go out to dinner with him.

This was a shocking turn of events for Sylvia. She had heard other men utter those words, but those words had never been uttered regarding her. So she accepted, he told her that his name was Lewyn before dinner, and after dinner he suggested that they should work together. They were both entertainers after all, and working together would be handy for both of them. She accepted gladly and quickly, as her heart had already latched on to the young man. So Lewyn and Sylvia worked together for the next couple of weeks. He didn't pay for all their meals, and they rarely ate together but when they did, he offered not one complaint.

Then one day, bandits attacked the village. Lewyn promised to clear them out, and proved that he could by displaying his talent for wind magic. This made Sylvia distraught. He was leaving her! She couldn't let him leave without her! Fortunately for her, acting like a jilted lover was enough to convince him to bring her along. They soon ran into an army, and Lewyn decided to join forces with them. Sylvia, of course followed suit. In an effort to make herself seem better than she was, she flirted with the commander… only to find out soon thereafter that he was married, and was expecting his first child. She was embarrassed by that and wanted to find a way to deflect that… so when one of his soldiers started flirting with HER, she responded to him in kind, and in a much more lecherous way than she would normally respond with. The day after, she was horrified with herself for her behavior… but refused to let it show. Instead, she became more clingy with Lewyn. And then a Silessian pegasus knight by the name of Ferry came along and revealed that Lewyn was their missing prince. After that, the desire to get him to marry her was solidified in her heart. Which was unfortunate for Sylvia, as Lewyn had his eyes locked on to Ferry from almost the day that she came along.

Naturally, this made Sylvia very jealous. She became quite spiteful towards Ferry, one day, she crossed a line with her words and made Ferry cry in public. That was when Sylvia realized that her attitude had caused her to deteriorate into the very kind of woman that many had assumed she was from the beginning. The realization was horrific and drove her into a panic. While she was panicking, she ran into Claude the Lord of Edda. The members of the Edda household were mostly religious leaders. Many had high positions in the church hierarchy, but none were required an oath of celibacy. It had been recognized long ago that enforcing one would be impractical and cause more problems than it caused. However, for the most part the members of House Edda did not search for romance. They used their position to help the people, and show unbiased kindness. If they found love, even when not pursing it, then it was the will of the gods.

So when Sylvia ran into Claude, and wanted to make a confession, Claude was willing to listen and not make a personal opinion on the matter. Starting a romance was the last thing on his mind. The confession, however, stuck in his mind, and later it made him ask about her personal life, and thus she told him her story. He sympathized with her, and was thereafter insistent in making sure that she was alright at all times. Over time, he started giving her gifts. What started it was Claude noticing that Sylvia was wearing her normal dancing outfit in the middle of winter while they were in Silesse. This was what wound up causing him to delve into her personal life. Soon after, he started buying her outfits. Outfits that she would be free to dance in, but were warmer and more decent for everyday wear. Sylvia accepted them gladly, and deciding that he made good company, she started to spend her spare time around him. Wanting to repay him, she began to do small things for him. She thought she was being subtle, but Claude noticed, and he appreciated it. Although he insisted that she didn't have to anything in return, she insisted that she did it because she wanted to. By then, Claude had already begun to develop feelings for her, so he did not press the issue.

Over time they became closer, and as they neared Belhalla, Claude tried to plead with her. He wanted her to get to safety, but she refused to leave without him, confessing that she wasn't about to abandon the man she loved. Claude hesitated for a moment, then said that if she was going to follow him into the arms of fate, she might as well do it as his wife. The wedding was shortly thereafter.

When things went to hell at Belhalla, Claude received a serious head injury. Serious as in, his eyes were burnt off. They survived thanks to Dew's foresight in bringing Return rings for everyone, but Claude would (obviously) never be able to see again. Sylvia stayed by his side and acted as his eyes. They stayed especially close that year.

One day, Claude sensed that Sylvia was anxious about something, and he asked her what was wrong. She said nothing, but she gently placed his hand on her belly and made him rub it. He understood immediately. "So, this father is to truly become one now." Sylvia gave birth to a girl, and they named her Leen. Sylvia had hopes that her little girl wouldn't have to live the same life that she did, but the couple knew that wish might be in vain. They hadn't been trying particularly hard to hide, and they worried that someone would take action against them.

Those fears were realized when Leen was almost two, when a priest of the Loptyr cult tried to kidnap and sacrifice baby Leen. This was an act that the cult normally wouldn't partake in (they preferred to wait until they could think for themselves before sacrificing them. An oddity in their religious code), but they did it purely to spite Claude. Fortunately baby Leen was saved, but this made them realized that they could no longer keep her around them. Leaving Leen in front of an orphanage in Darna was the most heartbreaking moment of Sylvia's life.

After that, Sylvia lived in the shadows. She still stayed with her husband, but didn't ever appear publicly. They hoped it would make their enemies think that she had disappeared or left him. Claude even hired a young church initiate to act as his eyes in order to foster the illusion. But even then, there was some persecution, and the couple were put into another tight spot when they found out that Sylvia was pregnant again. She gave birth to a son, Corple, and they put him in the orphanage like they did with Leen. A few years later, they faked their deaths. They did it to further protect their children from being hurt by their association with them. Only a handful of others knew the truth, and they used them to pull strings in their children's lives.

They managed to get Corple adopted by a kind Thracian general by the name of Hannibal. When he did this, Sylvia met him in private. She explained the truth to him and gave him the house of Edda's family heirloom, the Valkyrie staff. Once she explained the details, Hannibal promised to give it to Corple one day, and he swore that he would keep their ongoing survival a secret. Afterwards, Sylvia began to look into the welfare of Leen. She found that her daughter had become a dancer, just like herself, and recognized that her daughter was even more beautiful than she was. Sylvia recognized the problem that this would present, and she secretly hired some men to discreetly guard Leen. She was later very glad that she had done this when one day, one of the men she had hired reported that he had saved Leen from being assaulted.

She mostly let the men she hired look after Leen, but she would occasionally do it herself. One day, she came, dressed in a plain brain robe and hood to the performance space in Darna. She went into an adjacent room to get a drink, and with a start, she recognized one of the patrons as King Eldigan, sword and all! No, Eldigan was long dead, she had been there for the funeral. She then remembered that Eldigan apparently had a young son that he had sent to the Thracian peninsula. This must be him. An inquiry confirmed it.

Sylvia then got it into her head that maybe Leen shouldn't have multiple men looking after her, but just one man of significance. She was old enough. A man of the prince's calibre would surely ensure her daughter's security.

So, sidling up next to him, Sylvia began to question the prince, Ares was his name. At first, he thought she was flirting with him, so he tried to brush her off. Realizing her mistake, Sylvia showed Ares her wedding ring and explained that her intended conversation was meant to leen elsewhere. Accepting this, the two began to talk. Sylvia asked him if he intended to watch the dancers. He responded with a disgusted no. "That kind of revelry is something I refuse to indulge in. The way they look at those women is appalling. How do the girls stand it? They take off most of their clothes and prance around before men who don't give a damn if she is a good person trying to make a living or not. All they care about is her bust size. How can they stand it? Why do they demean themselves that way? I try to think positively about them, think that they have good reasons to do that, and I try to be sympathetic… but then they all flock to me and try to get my attention, and that pretty much kills any notion that I have that they are decent, but oppressed people. Now I generally think they do it just for the attention." he said

"That may be true for any number of them." said Sylvia. "But that is not necessarily true for all of them. I used to be a dancing girl myself. I did it because I liked it. I thought the dances were beautiful… at first. But then things happened, and I got stuck doing it when I didn't want to anymore. It got to the point where I was so habituated to the kind of treatment that you are talking about, I didn't really think about what was proper to wear in public. I was seen as a… you know."

"What changed things for you? You obviously got a happy ending." said Ares

"I wouldn't necessarily call it happy. Sure, my husband and I love each other, but we were forced to give up our children before they got to know us. We live in a world that doesn't allow for happy endings… but my life still is happier now than it was then. That was because of the actions of one man. He called me beautiful to my face, took an interest in my life, and was a friend to me. He helped to lead me out of the life of a street dancer. I wasn't able to secure him as my husband, but it is thanks to him that I met the man who is. Some of these girls, all it would take is one man's kindness to change their lives. Watch the girls dance tonight. Watch how they dance, watch their faces, watch their eyes. Watch for the signs of a lost soul, and make it a found soul. I can guarantee that if you watch the dancers carefully, you'll see at least one who just needs kindness. Even in troupes, you can be lonely." said Sylvia

This made Ares thoughtful. He promised to keep what Sylvia said in mind. So he watched the performance. To Sylvia's joy, after the performance, Ares made a beeline for Leen. She watched their relationship take root, and her heart was filled with hope. Hope that her daughter would find a happy life after all.