The Wyvern Moon came and went with a swiftness that Eve hadn't anticipated. The days had all blurred by; seminars on battalion leadership, weekend skirmishes at Lake Teutates, a birthday celebration for Ashe. Everything seemed to happen all at once.

And among it all, Eve had somehow fallen into a comfortable rhythm. She spent her early mornings before class training with Felix when no one else was up yet. When classes were over for the morning, she had lunch with the rest of the Blue Lions before their afternoon training. During class, she was always with Dimitri—glued to his side after her public proclamation of love.

Evenings became Eve's only variable in her days. Sometimes she would join Sylvain in town for a meal while other times she would fish or read or train. But her favourite night-time activity that she had started to indulge in that moon was to steal away on a Wyvern to stargaze from the roof of the cathedral.

On occasion, Claude would join her up there. The two of them had grown closer after the first time he found her up on the roof. And though she didn't tell him as much of the truth as Sylvain knew, the two of them did divulge in marginally more honesty with each other than they did the rest of the students at the academy.

Eve found herself almost happy despite her circumstances. She had found friends in Ashe and Sylvain and Claude; she had found a way to balance her public life with Dimitri and her private one with Felix.

And yet here she was, hiding away from the revelries that were happening inside the dining hall.

The Blue Lions had won the Battle of the Eagle and Lion with sweeping victory. Thanks to Byleth's leadership, they had been able to make quick work of both the Golden Deer and the Black Eagles. And now, in a rare moment of unity, the three classes were all enjoying a feast in the dining hall.

But Eve had no desire to join the party. She didn't want to have to stand next to Dimitri and be his shadow throughout the feast. Not only did she not have the energy to do so, but she also felt like her presence was always holding Dimitri back.

When she was with him, Dimitri was acutely attentive of her. He made an effort to include her in any conversation he was having, to speak to her more than anyone else. But she wanted him to become closer to his peers rather than focus on her. More than anything, Eve wanted Dimitri to have his youth—something he couldn't do if he was always fussing over her.

There was something else that was also weighing on Eve's mind that made her unwilling to join the festivities. Lately, she had been re-evaluating her relationship with Rhea and everything that kept her here in Fodlan.

She remembered when she had first met Rhea, though the two of them had both gone by different names back then. Eve had been so hopeful about the person her mother had told her so much about. When she had first come to Fodlan, she hadn't met Rhea but only hear stories about a benevolent figure akin to the Goddess herself. But upon her return to Fodlan, Eve's image of this person had been shattered.

It hadn't been all at once. Eve's distrust of Rhea had instead been a slow trickle of making excuses for her behaviour until the whole dam broke.

It was a proposition, a simple request that had broken Eve's resolve. Even her desire to cling to what little family—however distant—that she had couldn't dismiss what Rhea asked of her.

"It has to be you, dear child."

She could still remember it as if it had happened yesterday.

"You are the key that I have been missing."

She was no key; she was a sacrificial lamb. It was then that she had realised that the familial bond she thought she shared with Rhea had all simply been for show. Rhea had never cared about her; she had only cared about how she could use her.

So when Eve finally returned to Garreg Mach the first time after having hidden in Fraldarius territory for so long, she had been enraged to discover Rhea had never changed. Eve had hoped that her departure would have awoken something in Rhea to realise that her actions were wrong. And yet she had only continued her ridiculous quest to revive the Goddess.

Back then, Eve had hoped to return to Rhea and the tattered remnants of what she could call family. But after only a few months back at the monastery, she had run away again refusing to be complicit in Rhea's actions.

As Eve thought back on her storied past with Rhea, she heard voices nearby. She looked over to the other side of the landing overlooking the fishing pond to see the Professor standing there. Eve wasn't surprised she hadn't noticed Byleth there given how dark it was outside.

But now with the doors to the dining hall open, light poured out to illuminate the Professor as she talked to Dimitri. For some reason beyond her, Eve founder herself ducking further into the shadows to eavesdrop on the two of them.

"I was wondering where you had gone, Professor." Dimitri said with a smile.

"Dimitri." The Professor regarded her student casually as she turned to face him. "Do you need something?"

"I simply wanted to ask you to join in the merriment." Dimitri motioned back towards the open doors of the dining hall.

Eve could hear the laughter and overall jovial chatter pouring out from the door. A strange part of her wondered why Dimitri had gone out looking for the Professor but not her.

She frowned at this thought. Eve wasn't sure why she cared given she didn't even want to be at the party in the first place. But for some odd reason it stung to think that Dimitri hadn't wanted Eve to join him.

"You were instrumental in our victory, Professor." Dimitri said in response to something Byleth had said while Eve wasn't paying attention. "Besides, I do not think there are any rules against professors socialising with their students."

"I just didn't want to impose since you're all students." Byleth shook her head.

"No one will think you are imposing." Dimitri seemed shocked at this notion. "If anything, I think the others would be happy to see you join us."

"Very well then." Byleth nodded. "I suppose I can join for a little while."

"That makes me happy to hear." Dimitri smiled. "You go on ahead. I would like some fresh air before I go back inside."

Byleth nodded once more and retreated into the dining hall, shutting the doors behind her. Eve looked on as Dimitri watched the Professor silently. Once she had closed the doors and both the light and the noise from inside was sealed away, Dimitri's polite smile and princely posture crumbled away.

He leaned with his hands on the ledge of the promenade, hanging his head down with a hefty sigh. From where Eve stood, he looked exhausted. She had never seen him break character like this before. He was always the upstanding prince who was a paragon of chivalry. But now she could see him for what he had always been—a boy.

He was a boy whose childhood had been stolen away from him. He had lost his family, bearing witness to the worst tragedy the Kingdom had ever experienced. As a result, he was forced to focus on becoming a king as soon as possible. He poured himself into his studies here at the Academy, devoted himself to becoming personable and kind to his peers. Dimitri devoted himself to becoming a good king, putting forward the face that he thought everyone wanted to see.

Eve almost felt like she was violating him by witnessing this moment. She knew he would never want her to see him like this; he would never want anyone to see him like this. Some small part of her could empathise, thinking of how she would never want anyone to see her true self.

Eve decided to allow Dimitri this small moment to himself. Even if he wasn't aware of her presence, it still felt wrong of her to stay. So she decided to slip away, silently leaving her shadowed corner to make her way to the greenhouse.

Dimitri let out a sigh as soon as the Professor had closed the door to the dining hall behind her. He was glad she had agreed to join the feast; some of the other students had been asking where she was.

But what he didn't tell her was that he had actually gone out looking for Eve. At some point in the festivities, he had realised he hadn't seen Eve since they left Gronder Field. And upon asking Sylvain and Felix, he got the sneaking suspicion that Eve had never made it to the dining hall with the others.

Dimitri hung his head, leaning on the ledge before him, as he thought about the month that had passed. The days had all blended together, one after the other, as they settled into a pattern. He and Eve were amicable, each understanding the limits of the other, but Dimitri knew all too well that he knew precious little about his fiancée.

He always felt that she held him at an arm's length for some reason. While she was kind to him, he knew that she didn't open up her heart to him the way she did Felix. At first, he had attributed this to the fact that she had romantic feelings for Felix. But Dimitri was also aware of how close Eve was with Sylvain. He would see the two of them speaking with lowered voices and serious expressions that neither wore around others.

It was becoming increasingly evident to Dimitri that there was nothing he could do to convince Eve to love him. No matter how many times he reached out for her, hoping she would take his hand, she never sought him out—at least not genuinely.

He had hoped that his feelings for Eve would diminish over time, especially knowing that she didn't love him. But it seemed with each passing day that Dimitri only fell deeper in love with her.

It was the small things that he fell in love with, really—the things that made her seem so human. He loved the way she would brush the tip of her nose with her quill when she was thinking, the way her hands were never idle. He loved watching her in the greenhouse when she thought no one was around and she would sing to the flowers. He loved the way her emerald eyes reflected the sunlight when she looked up at the sky. And, of course, he loved her genuine smile that she would grace him with on occasion.

These were all things that made her seem so different than the woman he had met when he responded to Rodrigue's call for aide. And Dimitri felt as though these were slivers of the true Eve—pieces of her that he didn't need to know her past to understand.

"Eve?"

As he was thinking, Dimitri had looked up and out over the fishing pond below. And from the corner of his eye, he could have sworn that he saw the silhouette of her lithe form slipping into the greenhouse.

Dimitri couldn't help the excitement in his heart at the idea of getting to speak to Eve alone. So often they were together in front of an audience that made it impossible for her to be candid with him. If he could steal a moment of her time here while everyone was still in the dining hall, perhaps she would share a bit more of her heart with him.

Before he knew it, Dimitri's feet had brought him to the door of the greenhouse. But as his hand reached out for the handle of the door, he hesitated at the sound of Eve's voice.

"I didn't think I'd see you here."

She seemed to be speaking to someone, but who? Instantly, Dimitri's mind went to Felix. Perhaps this was one of their secret trysts that he had stumbled upon.

"I could say the same to you. Don't you want to be partying with the rest of the kiddos?"

Captain Jeralt?

Dimitri was taken aback by the voice that he heard responding to Eve. What was the Captain doing in the greenhouse so late at night? And why did Eve seem so familiar with him?

"I don't really have the energy for all that." She replied with a sigh.

"Then why didn't you go to bed?" Jeralt's question was met with a dry laugh from Eve.

"I suppose some part of me wanted to be missed." She answered. "Maybe I wanted someone to come and find me and convince me to join the party."

Dimitri wondered if it was him who she wanted to come find her. He wanted to hear more, unconsciously leaning forward to strain his ears to listen. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he couldn't help his desire to eavesdrop.

"You know, I'm a bit jealous of you, Jeralt." Eve said after a pause, once again surprising Dimitri with how familiar she was with the Captain.

"Oh yeah?" Jeralt sounded amused. "Why's that?"

"You got to stop ageing when you were already grown." Eve replied. "I think the reason I find it so easy to revert to my adolescence is because my body is stuck in that time. People perceive me as young, so they treat me as young."

Stop… ageing?

What was Eve talking about? Dimitri found himself rooted to the spot, trying to find to explanation to what he just heard. Surely, he had misunderstood, right? There was no way Eve had just insinuated that both she and Captain Jeralt did not age.

"I don't know about all that." The Captain replied just as casually as if they were talking about the fish in the pond. "Being in this old body isn't all that fun either."

"Do you remember how old your body is?" Eve asked. "I can still remember the exact day my body stopped ageing."

"Eh, somewhere in my mid-thirties I think." Jeralt grunted.

"I was twenty-two." Eve replied, her voice taking on a wistful tone. "It was three moons after my twenty-second birthday. I remember it because it felt like a steady stream of water had suddenly frozen over. I guess no one would notice there's a sensation to ageing until it's gone."

"Can't say it felt that poetic for me." Jeralt's laugh was hearty, but it fell hollow on Dimitri's ears.

What in the Goddess' name were they talking about? They couldn't truly be talking about not ageing, could they? It was impossible. But there was no denying what Dimitri had heard.

Was this why Eve was so coy about her past? When he had first professed his love for Eve, she had told him her past was complicated and that it was dangerous for him to be involved. Was this what she had meant?

Dimitri felt like his mind was spinning out of control as questions he couldn't even hope to answer filled his head. One particular question kept resurfacing, though: did Felix know?

It was perhaps the least consequential of the questions Dimitri was thinking of, but it was the one he kept returning to. Was Felix aware that Eve was not the age she appeared? Or was this something that even he didn't know?

And suddenly, Dimitri's mind was occupied by only one thing. If Felix didn't know, it was proof that there was some part of Eve that didn't belong to him. Dimitri felt almost giddy at the thought, drunk on the idea of knowing some part of Eve more intimately than Felix did.

But that feeling receded almost instantly as Dimitri realised he was not meant to have heard all that Eve had said. She had not confided in him to tell him the truth about her age, he had taken that secret from her without her knowledge.

And suddenly Dimitri felt dirty, guilty that he had invaded Eve's privacy in this way. But what was he to do? Should he tell her? Confess that he had overheard her conversation with Captain Jeralt? Or was it better to let her go on thinking that her secret was safe?

"…Dimitri."

Dimitri was snapped cold out of his thoughts by the sound of his own name. Lightning shot down his spine as panic set in that he had been caught. But the door to the greenhouse was still firmly shut and there seemed to have been no alarm in the mention of his name.

"Have you decided how you'll tell him?" Jeralt asked and Dimitri returned to intently listening to their conversation.

"I don't know." Eve's voice was soft, unsure. "I don't want to shatter his view of our world."

"I don't think you have to." Jeralt replied.

"What do you mean?" Eve asked.

"He accepted your Crest at face value, didn't he?" Jeralt paused and Dimitri could imagine Eve nodding silently in response. "So just tell him your Crest also causes you not to age. You don't have to tell him how old you really are."

"He'll certainly ask, though." Eve sounded sceptical.

"Lie." Jeralt answered rather bluntly.

"I suppose that's the easiest way to go about it." Eve mused.

Dimitri felt his heart sink at this. Would she lie to him again when the time came to reveal the truth about her age?

"Is it silly that a part of me wants to one day trust him enough to tell him the real truth, though?" Eve piped up again.

Dimitri didn't hear Jeralt's response over the hammering of his heart in his chest. Eve wanted to trust him, wanted to tell him the truth. It was proof enough to Dimitri that there was some piece of Eve's heart that cared for him, belonged to him.

It was with this elation in his heart that he returned to the dining hall, his mind filled with the hopes that Eve would someday soon come to him with the truth. And he knew that on that day she would be his.

A lingering voice in the back of his head, however, wasn't content without sowing the seed of doubt.

But what if she doesn't?