Chapter 6: Dancing In the Ashes

Summary: Edelgard's war grinds on. Ashe gets a small revenge. Petra confronts Byleth. Ferdinand changes a life.

Edelgard stood in Fhirdiad as if it were her triumph, the endgame of her conquest of Fodlan. The people here bent over backwards in desperate attempts to placate her, to save themselves.

She sat in the old royal palace, now the puppeted duchess' home, and watched down below from a sunny window as the people of the old capital moved about their daily lives. Whatever emotions or regrets she had from watching her friend's city and home under the steel boot didn't show as she stood in a cold silence.

She adjusted her red velvet blouse and the rose that adorned her breast, noting the sun washing over it and her ornate jewelry making her shine like a goddess. She thought for a moment of Rhea, and adjusted her jewels to change the light. Then she looked over the reports that Hubert had sent her.

Things were, surprisingly, quite good. Anything to the east of Fhirdiad was a warzone that Imperial troops could not get a handle on no matter what they did, which was why she had insisted on taking a closer examination of the situation in person, inviting herself into the Duchess' home.

Military recruitment was up, taxes were being systematized out of the new Duchy to fund the remaining pacification of the east, the Alliance was on a political retreat as Lorenz and his father continued to kiss the ring of the Empire and the rest of Claude's men ripped into each other like an animal caught in a trap. And yet…

She turned over another report, this one from Lord Arundel, a short paper written in neat handwriting detailing the elimination of a Knight of Seros resistance cell in the western half of the Empire.

"Sixteen knights captured alive," It reported. "Seven selected to test properties of on-hand crest stones. The remainder disposed of via tests regarding flammability of new oil formulae."

She turned over the paper, keeping a heavy grip guiding her stomach from churning over as she regarded the text before putting the corner of it into the candle on the table, eventually flicking the burning ashes away into air.

Edelgard felt like she was bound by as many chains as the puppet duchess who housed her or the prisoners in the dungeon below. She looked over, coldly regarding the ashes a moment, before turning back to the other reports, hoping for something a little less disheartening.

The next was requesting information in some far-flung corner of the Empire, an encampment she didn't recognize the call-sign of being overrun and needing to be re-established, with Hubert's approval penciled in.

Stamping it and moving on, she found a request for additional funding for local anti-insurgency activities in another corner that it took her a minute of thoughtful focus to realize was the area around where they had battled Lord Lonato. Penciled into the corner was Hubert's recommendation that the funding was too expensive for the suggested activity.

Edelgard sighed as she stamped her disapproval into the corner, rubbing her eyes in frustration. Defeating Dimitri hadn't been the hard part, nor had conquering Garreg Mach even for all that casualties that her old mentor had caused in the chaos.

It was winning this damnable peace.

'Peace' was a hell of a word for it, based off of the reports of resistance and destruction piled across her desk, but none of her efforts to create her ideal world were panning out. She had come to Fhirdiad to oversee the efforts to cement Cornelia's rule, but even she could do damnably little here.

She looked out over the sea of papers, then turned her back on them as she stood and left the room, seeking some relief from them. She pushed past a dozen low-ranking messengers and servants before reaching a small private dining room, finding a box of tea leaves to relax with.

A box of blackberry tea, she noted as she poured hot water into the cup with it. The professor's favorite.

She swore, not for the first time, that is the professor had sided with her that the war would be long over, the peace secured beneath the Flame Emperor's blackened boot. Even now she could picture her mentor face smiling beside her at a great victory, a delusion that faded away into the reality that Byleth was long dead.

It was not her fault, Edelgard thought to herself. Rhea had bought and sold the world for a thousand years, lying beneath that matronly guise of hers. She had monopolized power in Fodlan, then sold it off piece by bloody piece to secure her place in this world. Something had to be done, anything to stop the killing.

Her mind flashed to the knights who had been burned alive in flaming oil, and those who suffered far worse, their orders of execution written in her own inability to stop it, and the world came crashing back as she shattered the tea cup in her fist.

—

Ashe knelt in the foggy dew of the early morning, his eyes trained on the road. Behind him the others were scraping through the brush that made up the heavy forests of Magdred Way, the place his only father had met his bitter end.

He glanced back, seeing heavily-armored Ingrid and the big burly man dressed in steel with his axe and tower shield high, Raphael he thought his name was. Traveling through the night from the Church's lands had left them all exhausted and mentally his brain swam like soup, but they had seized upon the heavy storms in this area to act.

It had been one of the Knights of Seros who had infiltrated the Imperial army who had sent them word of the incoming attack. A small but well-equipped garrison was incoming to the area to reinforce the Church's lands they had occupied mere weeks earlier.

Claude was desperate to keep the knowledge of what was going on at Garreg Mach a secret from the Empress and her advisors. There would be a swift and brutal crackdown on them, maybe even of the sort they saw five years ago, if they knew.

Their spies, however, informed them that the Empire was spread thin and that information traveled slowly. Every day that no word reached the Empire about the Monastery due to their soldiers being dead to the last man, they bought time.

And when their reinforcements got turned down a foggy road in a heavy storm into the middle of nowhere because resistance's men ripped away signs, hid roads behind felled trees and misdirected them, when those lost men were killed, dragged off and never seen again...

"Kid, you okay?" Raphael called to Ashe, who nodded at him. "You look like you're out of it, you need something to eat?"

"No." Ashe shook his head. "Just exhausted."

"Keep your strength up." The big armored man touched his shoulder. "We've still got to win this fight."

Ingrid crawled over to them. "Someone's coming." She hissed.

"Extinguish your lights everyone." Ashe called to the rest of their troops who still had any kind of flame, and soon they were ghosts in the night.

The Imperial men came up the small side road, wielding enough fire to light up the heavy storm in front of them, drawing the eyes of every resistance man in the night.

"By the fucking godddess!" One of the men at the head of the column exclaimed in anger, shouting it into the night. "We are cursed to be having to march in this shitting weather!"

"Shut up, Dale." Another voice called. "You yelling about it isn't going to make the rain ease up."

"You're not the one who had to ford the river on foot!" The man accused. "You had your bloody mare to do it for you!"

"Shut the fuck up, both of you." Another weary voice called.

"Maybe we should camp for the night." A fourth voice suggested.

"The tents won't hold in this weather." The second soldier insisted.

Ingrid held a finger to her lips, peering out at them as they crept into position. Her hand was on her spear as Ashe readied his bow. Just a little closer…

"I'm fucking sick of all of you!" Dale insisted. "If the tents won't keep out the rain, we should camp in the trees."

"The trees aren't a roof." A man called. "There's still rain under a tree."

"I'm going to make you march in cuffs if you don't shut up." The one who came forward now was an officer. "Now keep marching, we'll get out of this storm soon enough."

"You're the one who got us fucking lost!" The man insisted. The tension among the Imperials was growing more tense, their opportunity growing as they were now mere feet from the entrenched resistance men.

"I said shut up or I'll put you in cuffs!" The officer retorted.

"I'd like to see you bloody well try."

The moment that the violence broke out among their enemy, the resistance brought down a hundred times as much violence from the trees. No one Imperial soldier knew what was happening, who was fighting, as the punching among the soldiers in the front was just as muddled as the arrows and axes killing the rear guard in the storm.

Eventually a man managed to scream loud enough as Ingrid and Raphael barreled down onto them that everyone realized what was happening, and it was then that the battle began, after half the Imperial men were already dead.

The officer, to his credit, organized a credible defense given the circumstances, marshalling his forces into a box formation to defend at every avenue, and his men were trained enough to pull it off even in the chaos of what was happening.

The resistance had perhaps not capitalized fully on their supremely advantagious position, being mostly starving green men, but two thirds of the marching men were dead before this defense could be mounted and the fall of the rest was now inevitable.

Ashe ducked out from his cover behind a heavy tree, witnessing in all of the madness that Raphael was struck on his helmet by a heavy warhammer, sending him reeling. The man wielding the hammer's attempt to follow up with another hit was met with an arrow piercing him through his sternum.

Raphael ripped his broken helm off and discarded it, picking up the man's fallen warhammer and swinging it with a furious speed into the line of men standing like a box, the heavy point eviscerating those who it touched.

Another arrow came down on the defenders as the hammer rang true, and it became apparent that the men who stood against them were flagging and failing. Moving like a wolf, Ingrid sidestepped past the man she was engaged with, driving her spear through his chest before moving onto the commander in the centre.

"Men!" The commander called, Ingrid's spear glancing off of his shield. "Close formation, hold them here!"

Whatever delusions he held at holding this line were dashed when the knight flicked her spear across his throat and the rest of his column fell by his side.

Ashe scanned the trees for anyone else, then relaxed his bow arm, moving from the treeline to examine the damage.

"We lost a few guys back there." Raphael announced as he slung his warhammer away. "Damnit, those guys were screwed and they still put up a hell of a fight."

Ingrid examined the scene before speaking. "We passed by that ravine, to the east. It'll serve to hide the bodies on the off chance someone comes down this way."

"We'll need to hurry along." Ashe agreed.

"And here I was hoping we could stop to rest," Raphael's voice had a dark humor. "Cook some food." He smirked and patted Ashe's shoulder. "C'mon."

—

Byleth pushed the infirmary's door open, crossing the building to find where Dimitri lay, coming to his side. The man whom Byleth could still see the boy beneath still ached from his wound, barely managing to turn over to the woman.

"Professor…" He whispered, sitting up a little before being forced back down by sharp pains. "I… am glad to see you."

"Don't waste your energy." She encouraged with a soft voice. "I want to ask how you feel, but I think I should ask how you're being treated here."

The king gave a soft smile. "Well enough. Mercedes has been the one to take care of me the most and she takes her duty seriously. I am recovering, however slowly, although I knew from the start there would be nothing to do about my sight."

"I'm sorry." She said quietly. "In spite of it all, Dimitri, I am glad you're here."

"As am I." He coughed and blood came with phlegm. "I've been in and out, Professor. How did you come back to us? You were dead, were you not?"

Byleth shook her head. "It's a long story, for another time. The long and the short of it is that Dorothea saved my life, Those Who Slither In The Dark trapped me in another place and she found me."

Dimitri grimaced. "Bastards, all of them." His face tightened and sent him into another coughing fit. "The torturer who found me, tell me he's a corpse." She nodded. "Good. Professor, I long for a bloody revenge on the woman who began this insanity, but I fear I shall not be capable of such for… a long time to come."

She looked down, uncertain, before glancing back up, but eh had seen the look in her eyes. "You disagree?"

Byleth thought a brief moment. "I want nothing more than for the madness to stop. If Edelgard must fall to end this, so be it."

"You desire no revenge?"

"The Church has declared me a living god, the Empire a blood murderer, the resistance a holy hero, but what I am is a school teacher." She asserted. "I desire no blood, no conquest, no crowns. I desire nothing so much as to stop my students from dying, to see the children I took into my heart stop killing each other."

Dimitri considered a moment, looking across the infirmary. "Edelgard has to die." He declared bitterly. "She betrayed us all, betrayed holiness itself. She caused all of this."

"She did." Byleth agreed. "And I still have no stomach to see a woman I helped raise die a bloody death." She paused a moment. "You know as well as I do that there is good in her."

His face contorted and he spat out angry words. "She has caused the deaths of so many, cause my fall and attempted execution, killed Dedue. There will be no mercy for her. There never was any good in her, nor those who serve her. They will all die screaming."

Byleth contemplated a moment. "Then perhaps you truly are blind, Dimitri."

She expected an explosive temper to flare, but instead the disposed king looked at her, then away in shame, her words striking even deeper in the silence that followed.

—

Byleth was surprised but quite delighted upon returning to the rest of the Academy to hear several pieces of good news, enough to lift her spirits after seeing the state Dimitri left himself in.

One of Claude's men came to inform her that the Imperial reinforcements had been destroyed, killed where no one would ever find them. It would buy them some time, although it escaped none of them that the Empire's armies were vast and effectively encircled the rebels.

It was, however, the next person to find her with news that truly surprised her.

Byleth was met in the halls by Petra, who bowed before her as she stopped. "Professor," She gave a gentle smile. "Please may you be coming with me?" Byleth nodded and followed the Brigid woman. "Excuse me for stopping you, professor, but we have been receiving new kitchen provisions."

"Wonderful." Byleth nodded.

Petra nodded in turn. "The men who did the delivering said that they were having an easier time about finding provisions without Raphael."

She gave a dry laugh. "Sounds about right." They arrived shortly to find the large amount of supplies being filed away, and Byleth nodded appreciatively. "Thank you, Petra. Do you all need help putting things away?"

"Ah," Petra searched for the words. "No, but I had been hoping you would stay and be helping me cooking. We must be getting ahead with this if we are to cook enough food for all tonight."

"Of course."

The two grabbed a few pieces of odds and ends before moving to the kitchen, Petra laying some butter and lard onto a hot pan. "Could you be making the dough into biscuits?" She inquired, and Byleth obeyed, grabbing the dough to begin molding.

A moment of silence came over them as they worked before Byleth spoke up to ask about the chicken they had grabbed once she was done making small bread rolls, Petra asking her to begin preparing it as she herself went to grab and bring back casks of a local cider.

"Professor?" She inquired, and Byleth glanced over at her. "May I be asking you a question?" She nodded. "Have you been speaking with Dorothea?"

"I have." She replied uncertainly as she finished butchering the chicken and began removing bones. "She's seemed… uncertain, like she's dealing with something." She paused a moment. "I think the war is getting to her."

"It is," Petra agreed. "She has been taking the fighting harder than most. She has spent much time with Maxwell, I believe he gives her comfort that she may…" She looked for a word. "Preserve, some part of an innocent world."

Byleth agreed. "I've reached out to her, but she seems like she doesn't want any company at the moment. I was thinking of asking her to tea soon."

"That would be being good." Petra agreed, looking over to see that Byleth had finished with the chicken and brought it over to fry. "She has another concern, one that I do not believe she has been being good at speaking about."

She thought a moment that this was why she had been asked to do this task, but then her mind turned only to help Dorothea and getting dinner ready.

"What's been going on?"

Petra grabbed the molded rolls to put in the oven on the wall before returning to the chicken frying in the pan. "Dorothea has been having romantic feelings for you."

Byleth's stomach dropped out slightly and she froze a moment before continuing on, brewing a pot of honey-fruit tea before tapping the casks of cider and beer. "She confided this in you?"

"She did." She nodded. "It has been being my fault, professor. I have expressed a romantic interest in her, and she informed me about these things before we were being going too far." She flipped the chicken strips to fry on the other side. "I had been giving her my opinions, and I had been wanting to give it to you as well."

She turned the casks onto the counter before moving to pay attention to the biscuits, her stomach churning. "I'm listening."

Petra turned her attention from the meat. "Byleth," She rarely used the woman's first name. "I had not been wanting to be 'stealing' Doroteha. I had been wanting to tell you that if she wishes to be with you that there is no…" She searched. "Feelings that are hard."

Byleth smiled at her, the two coming to a place to pause at their cooking. "I appreciate it, Petra. If she wishes to be with you, I will wish you two the best in the world, okay?"

Petra smiled at her. "I thank you. But professor…" She turned her gaze back down at the meat. "I had been wondering if there is a reason she is needing to choose." Byleth looked at her curiously. "On Brigid, when a man has himself torn between two or more romantic companions, he is not expected to choose only one."

Byleth frowned. "Petra, I'm not sure what you're suggesting. We're not on Brigid."

"True," Petra acknowledged, turning her attention back up at the professor. "But we are adults, yes? We may choose how we live our lives, including in these romantic affairs." She looked deep in Byleth's eyes. "We need not divide Doro's heart, Byleth." She smiled gently. "I have been having interest in you as well, and I would not object to tying ourselves together like this."

Byleth kept remarkably cool as she thought a moment. "Perhaps." She admitted. "I admit, Petra, I had never truly considered you for a romantic partner, given that you were fifteen when I met you."

"Did you age in your five-year dream?" She inquired. "I am nearly as old as you now, professor, and Doro is older."

She chuckled. "I mostly meant that you were too young for me to grow an attraction to before. Dorothea was at least a full adult when we met, and nearly twenty when Garreg fell."

Petra nodded. "I do not wish to push anything onto you, Byleth. A man's wives do not usually marry each other on Brigid, only him, but…" She pulled the now-golden chicken out of the pan. "I am being interested both of you, and Dorothea is being interested in both of us. It may be perfect timing, yes?" She glanced down at the food. "If two of us may make food with as much gorgeousness as this, three of us may be making a feast."

Byleth smiled as she pulled the biscuits out of the oven.

"I will think on it, Petra. Thank you."

—

"Has anyone seen Marianne?" Ferdinand inquired as he scanning the dining hall before seating himself. Everyone at the table looked around before shaking their heads.

"I think I saw her headed up to the dorms a few minutes before dinner." Caspar called. "Not sure if she heard the bell."

Ferdinand determined to go and take her some food himself, grabbing two plates and a bottle of white wine to take with him before leaving for her quarters. Her door was open as he approached, Marianne sitting at her desk and turning her head to see as Ferdinand approached.

"Oh!" She gave him a gentle smile. "I didn't hear the dinner call."

"Quite alright!" He announced in his most heroic voice, bring her the plate of chicken and biscuits. "I brought you plenty to eat, I thought perhaps you were studying or just needing time away from it all."

Marianne smiled and accepted her plate. "Thank you." She nodded. "I would have joined you, but I must admit it is somewhat nice to be away from the busy dinning hall."

Ferdinand nodded. "Not to worry. I can head back by myself if you want solitude."

She shook her head, gesturing to the adjoining chair. "Come, I enjoy your company."

He sat next to her and set the wine bottle on the desk. "I have a fine Riesling here if you wanted, I thought might be pleasant to relax."

"Oh, I'm not very good at holding my alcohol." She giggled, cutting away a piece of chicken with her fork. "But I suppose we could give it a try."

"Excellent!" He pulled the cork out before realizing he had no glasses. "Er…"

"Looks like you forgot something." Marianne teased. "It's okay, we don't need to be fancy."

Together they ate their meal, and drank more than their share as they talked and laughed and teased. Ferdinand noted that she had really come out of her shell in the last five years, being a far cry from the holed-up asocial girl she had been all those years ago.

"Is something wrong?" Marianne's voice slurred every so slightly as she noted Ferdinand staring at her as he mused.

He shook his head. "I am sorry. You simply seem… very different, compared to when you first came here all those years ago."

"That may be true." She admitted, hiding a smile behind another drink from the bottle.

"Right there!" He exclaimed, teasing. "You are smiling, you never would have smiled before."

Marianne flushed a dark red. "P-please." She looked away.

"I don't mean to embarrass you." He assured her. "I'm just noting how much you've changed."

"Well," She looked back over at him. "That's because I have so many people I've gotten close to over these years. You, Linhardt, Bernadetta…" She thought. "You said I had a purpose, something that they needed to fulfill. That… meant so much to me."

"I am so glad to hear that, Marianne." Ferdinand smiled at her appreciative, himself feeling quite drunk at this point. "Did you find that purpose for yourself?"

"No." Marianne shook her head. "Not yet, but even just thinking about it makes me happy. I remembered a time when I volunteered at an animal shelter, how grateful the staff were for me, how happy I made the world just by looking after animals. Thinking about it made me so happy, that I could make the world better."

"It sounds like you've already reached your answer." He felt joy at her words, that he had struck such a cord.

Marianne smiled, swaying a little where she sat as she put the alcohol away. "I think we have overdone it." She shook her head before looking back at Ferdinand. "Ferdie, I…"

She paused before falling forward, Ferdinand jumping at the movement to catch her. "H-hang on!" He insisted, pulling her up. "Okay, that's too much wine."

She tried to hold herself up, blinking unevenly at him. "Y-yes, you're right. I should lay down."

He glanced at her bed and stood to escort her before finding his own legs giving out, having become considerably drunker than he had realized, the pair falling to the floor in a pile, laughing the whole way.

"Oh, how un-noble of me." He laughed. "I don't think we're even reaching the bed, Mari."

"Then we'll stay here." She slurred, reaching out to him. "It's so cold, though…"

"Well, come here." He invited, and she crawled over to lay on him. Marianne snuggled in, and only got one more word out before passing out for the evening.

"Warm."