Author's Note: Brigid Tongue is spoken in parentheses. Enjoy

Day 31 of the Harpstring Moon

Santaniel caved the skull of a thief in, moving to the next with his war hammer already in striking position. He jabbed first with the handle and disarmed them with an uppercut to their jaw, followed by crushing their chest with the head of the hammer.

He wiped the blood from his cheek and ran a hand through his hair, leaving streaks of red in his thick brown and white curls. He leaned down on the hammer while he waited for people to catch up.He had been brought on the mission to see what he could do and well... needless to say seven years of experience would suffice for taking care of these idiots.

His eyes caught on a single unit guarding a stash and made a break for him, snapping his spine in a fell swoop, ripping the key from his belt. He tossed it around and approached the chest while whistling and popped the key in, hearing a ker-chunk noise when it popped open. He hefted out a large bullion, giggling he- felt a sword pass through his stomach. "Oooh boy, that's not... not good..." he slumped over on the chest, losing consciousness from blood loss-

--

Byleth pulled back the hands of time and quickly closed in on Santaniel's position, loosing an arrow on the rogue, finding it's home in the back of his throat. It had pierced his wind pipe, causing him to gargle and choke on his own blood.

Santaniel reacted to the man falling on his back and reached behind him, tossing the man like a rag doll off the cliff. He watched as the man concluded his life as a broken corpse on sharp stalactites, he shuddered.

Byleth approached him and Santaniel grew a sheepish smile, apologizing. The Professor only responded with, "Stay focused." To which Santaniel nodded respectfully and they reconvened with the rest of their group.

Claude, Hilda, and Lysithea were untouched, Lorenz had blood soaking his chest, but not his own. Marianne was tending to Raphael's gash on his forearm and Leonie was stringing her new bow after the previous had broken from dispatching a bandit.

Ignatz had taken to the back lines and would provide cover fire for Raphael.

--

Santaniel leaned forward on his hammer and hummed as Byleth went over the battle plan for taking on Kostas. That was his name.Apparently he'd be leading the charge through the main bridge with Lysithea, Lorenz, and Leonie.

The Professor would be leading Claude, Hilda, Raphael, and Marianne through the Western bridge. Santaniel accepted the responsibility and gathered his troops, "Leonie, I want you take out the archer positioning themselves beneath the bridge. They'll try and pick off Lysithea."

"Speaking of which, Lorenz I want you covering her while she rains down Miasma and Swarm on whoever I miss or is closing in. Understood?" They all nodded beside Lysithea who began to protest until Santaniel silenced her with a stare, "You're a frail mage and Magic travels slowly. Best case scenario you survive an ambush and barely live to tell the tale minus two limbs. Now, am I understood?"

They all nodded and Santaniel unstrapped his steel hammer, spiked and ready to spill blood.

As they approached, Leonie picked off the archer he knew to be there and they continued, Lorenz and Santaniel taking on the main forces while the other two rained down some death from above.

They cleared the way to the main area the enemies' leader was hiding in, Santaniel approaching with Lorenz close behind. As they hit the steps, Kostas lunged at Lorenz and landed a slash on his shoulder, a swipe towards his head blocked by the nobleman's lance.

Santaniel jabbed the head of the hammer into the man's stomach, toppling him down the stairs with axe still in hand, getting pursued by the hammer wielder.

Kostas made a break for it when he hit the bottom of the steps, eyeing Lysithea and tackling her to the ground. He pulled his arm around her neck and threatening to slit her throat with the axe. He stared Santaniel down, "Take another step I slit the brat's throat!" He smiled and cocked his head, "I don't think you have her. I think she has you."

As he finished speaking, an audible hiss could be heard as Lysithea burnt a hole in his arm and broke away from him, Santaniel delivering a solid strike to the bottom of his chin, followed by Kostas babbling, "I should have never listened to that idiot... What a mistake..."

A slew of Miasma from Lysithea snuffing his life out. He was stone cold dead when he hit the floor, a smoldering piece of garbage on the ground needing to be cleared. Santaniel smiled sweetly at Lysithea and offered her a high five, which she gladly accepted.

He turned his head towards the rest of the group meeting them at the steps, he pointed at Marianne and directed her up the steps where Lorenz needed some healing.

She raced up the steps and Byleth nodded at him with some kind of respect he assumed, maybe thanks? Eh, he didn't care. He knew he did an alright job. He slung his hammer across his back and started the trek back to the caravan of knights. He was about half towards the wagons and horses when he spotted Xavien and Arti waving from atop a cliff overlooking the canyon.

He glanced around for a moment before taking off towards the cliff, following a narrow path that had been used only an hour or two ago by the duo awaiting him. He reached the top and Xavien gave him a high five while Arti smiled with his eyes, "Good job Sant, you handled yourself really well out there. Well, besides when you let that rogue sneak up on ya like that."

Santaniel shrugged, he knew he could be distracted sometimes with side things and the such, but he came out alright. Arti spoke next in his quiet whispery tone, "You did good to have faith in your allies, but remember not to leave them behind like you did the Lorenz child."

Santaniel nodded at the critiques and took them to the back of his mind to stew.He opened his notes that he had from earlier this week and showed them to Arti about him learning Luna, having already mastered Lightning.

It was his newest spell and he was trying to get it to actually work.Arti pointed out the flaws, that being in the diagram itself, not his actual summoning technique. Xavien gave him a new set of Daggers to use, those being the kind that drip dangerous venom.

He didn't know how to really use them but he thanked him nonetheless, maybe he'd find someone to use them. He slid them into his blade holsters and watched the venom collect and glow iridescently, jellyfish venom. Potent.

He gave them both a hug and watched them head off into a shattered mirror, tight squeeze but it wasn't anything unusual.

--

Claude and Leonie stared at the scene unbelieving, 'What the hell' was coursing through their minds. 'What kind of power was 'that?' Nothing usual in Fódlan, that's for sure. Anymore at least.

Santaniel started to turn around and they ducked behind the bush they used for cover, what in the hell did they get themselves into? Who the hell was this kid?

"I wonder what's for dinner. You guys know?" It seemed like it was directed towards them, but what happened was... actually surprising. While no one seemed to be there, the smell of Warp could be detected in the air, metallic, just like blood.Santaniel shook his head and went off towards the knights, "C'mon idiots, you're hidden worse than whoever the hell was sneaking on me." Santaniel brushed past and clomped down the hill, staggering to stay upright.

Seemed heights hated him and he hated them.

—————

Once they arrived back at the monastery, it was time for class again.Santaniel rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He refused to ride any animals back so he slept in an equipment wagon on the way back.

He grabbed lunch and sat down at a table with some people he hadn't talked to yet nor really wanted to.He took a bite of a sandwich, the sauce spilling slightly on his chin, he grumbled a curse and reached for his napkin...

Why did he do this to himself? Why does he forget trivial things like names and napkins?He stood up and walked over to the counter, politely asking for a napkin, and when he returned, someone had sat themselves in his seat.

What the hell was with his luck today? He muttered a curse in Brigid tongue, putting on his calm face to take his lunch back. He swooped in and picked the plate up with one hand, giving the person who sat down in his seat a nice little shock before walking off.He sat down and started to eat, getting interrupted by a group of people surrounding him.

He sighed and put on his mask, the sickly sweet smile and turned to look at the person behind him, "And how can I help you?" His question was met with a punch to the face.

Wow. Well Hephaestus got him into plenty of bar fights and this wouldn't be any different he supposed.

He took the sucker punch and smiled, standing up to his full height and leaned into the man's face, "Let me show you what a real punch feels like sweetie." He drew back his right arm and shot it into the teen's face, knocking a couple teeth and blood out of his mouth.

He didn't learn how to brawl but he knew how to throw a knock out punch when need be.

He looked around and saw a baby blue headed man, who was pretty stocky approach him. "Hey! What the hell is going on!" Santaniel rolled his eyes and sat back down, back to eating his sandwiches. If it wasn't on a plate, it could wait.

Apparently not everyone felt that way, because the blue haired kid knocked his sandwich out of his hands and onto the floor, Santaniel blinked and then turned to the guy, uttering the words, "If you try to tempt me into a fight. I will shatter your jaw like glass."

The rest of the kids backed off but not him, Santaniel groaned and got back up, walking about ten meters away before beckoning for him to come. As he charged, a dagger was thrown between his feet, a woman with purple hair and one with chocolate brown hair stood between them. The purple haired woman caught his attention... that was the hair color of someone in Brigid and he cursed in their tongue when he couldn't remember.

She turned her head and looked at him with sheer confusion, mostly thinking, 'How does this man, with no visible lineage to Brigid or any of the local features, know my language?' He explained himself shortly and sweetly, (I'm from an island just South of Brigid. My parents spoke the language and I picked it up.)

He smiled at her while she spoke, 'Then as future queen of Brigid, I order you to stand down.' Santaniel could get a kick out of this, he slowly got up and walked over, leaning into her ear, 'My island is not within the jurisdiction of Brigid. You may be a future queen, but not of me... unless you'd like to be my queen in the bedroom.' Santaniel sauntered off, laughing as deeply as she did blush. He approached Caspar and clapped him on the shoulder, "Join the Golden Deer, we need more front linemen." He then went off towards the classroom, ready for his last lesson of the day.

—————

Everything went about as smooth as last time, some pointers for Santaniel with black magic and axes, followed by his assignment of battle tactics.

He glanced them over and was satisfied with the challenge they produced, he demonstrated Luna to his classmates while Lysithea did the same, her's being a greater showing due to her natural ability and dedication to be in tune with magic.

He spied the Crest of Gloucester forming in front of her and kept it to himself as he congratulated her on learning the spell, even though she seemed hesitant to accept the praise.

He went to the library with Xavien and plucked some books from the shelf, mainly for reading on his spare time like novels. He climbed the shelves and tossed what he'd read down to Xavien who was waiting below, as he plucked them he noticed Lysithea had entered the library, "Hey Shortstack, what ya up to?"

Lysithea looked up at him with a pout as he dropped down to the floor, landing next to Xavien. He introduced the two, "This will be your first time really meeting each other I suppose so I'll introduce you. Lysithea, this is Xavien Catacomb, Xavien, this is Lysithea von Orderlia, she doesn't want you to forget it either."

He held a small smirk to his face when she realized he was teasing her, but he ruffled her snow white hair and that snapped her out of it. "So, what book ya looking for Lys?" He asked, prodding the info out of her, "None for your information. The Professor told me to come look for you actually, there's going to be a joint sparring session and he wants you there to practice against the other houses," she looked to Xavien, "And you may come too Mr. Catacomb."

Xavien gave out a shaking belly laugh, hearing that had to have reminded him way to much of assassin work. He shook his head and said, "Just call me Xavien. My formal work uses my last name too much." Lysithea nodded and seemingly put the nugget of information in her back pocket. She then soon turned on heel to leave, "Think you can check the books out while I head to the training area? If he sent for me I'm probably going to have some kind of role in some massive thing."

Xavien nodded silently and flicked a small bit of blood on the library mirror, jumping through it like one would air.

—————

Santaniel jogged to the training grounds and waved down Byleth, "Hey Professor, you called?" Byleth nodded and explained it'd be a mock battle, 5v5, he'd be a unit on the team led by Dimitri with Lysithea, Petra, himself, and... Arti!

He hugged the mask wearing idiot and whispered to him, "Make sure to tone it down on these guys, don't wanna hurt em." The other team had a person in armor, Caspar, Felix, Mercedes, and... Hephaestus?

The tall mage waved at him and it was received with a small smile. Santaniel was instructed to wear some heavy armor which he obliged in, leaving his right arm bare. He gave his axe a few swipes through the air and signaled he was ready to Byleth.

Santaniel took the front of the formation with Dimitri, who more or less placed them in an arrow head formation vs the bunker position that the enemy had formed. He pulled Dimitri to the side and told him his idea that would work if they took the brunt, he nodded and they realigned their formation, he whispered the plan to the other three and they were ready.

The battle commenced, Caspar and Felix shooting for the outside flanks which were intercepted by Santaniel and Dimitri, opening up the inside which was quickly followed by Nosferatu, Swarm, and training arrows. It swallowed the center field with a metallic smell.

Santaniel had intercepted Felix, a bad matchup but one he'd make do with, he ducked the swipe for his head and retaliated with bashing into him with his full body, followed with a near slam into the ground by his axe, narrowly hovering to avoid hurting his opponent.

Well, hurting them too badly.Felix launched an assault again, brushed off while Santaniel scanned the field, Dimitri was doing fine with Caspar but the armored knight was making their way through the center while weathering attacks from Petra... Time to act. He shoved Felix off and raced towards the center, crashing through the armored knight, yelling, "Fight Felix!" To Petra.

He brought the flat end of his axe at the person's feet, sweeping them before dropping the axe over their head, forcing them to surrender, then he turned his attention to Hephaestus and Mercedes.

He dodged a Fire followed by Nosferatu, the next couple spells intercepted by Lys and Arti. He threw down his axe and opted for fists, closing in on Hephaestus and knocking him down, just like Xavien taught him, and flicked out a silver dagger, holding it to his throat. That took care of three- four with Caspar getting his ass kicked by Dimitri and that left... no one.

Felix lost to Petra due to her drawing a dagger on him, pressing it to his throat.Santaniel cheered which earned a glare from Felix who uttered, "Coward." Santaniel pulled his helmet off and winked, just making him more irritated. Good.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, turning and seeing the armored knight now with their helmet off, 'Oh... it's Edelgard.' He thought, a small smile danced on his lips, ruffling her hair.

She seemed taken aback by the action, it's not like he was going to hurt her. She didn't think that... right?

Turning the focus of his attention back to Byleth, he heard the debriefing of the battle, "Dimitri, you did a good job selecting the formation but you got too caught up in your fight with Caspar, had you planned correctly-"

Santaniel cut in, "It was my idea that we split off to counter both of the flanks while Petra could cover the mages if we fell Professor. That blame falls on me." Santaniel knew he messed up and if it were a real battle, he may have lost a lot of good soldiers like that.

Byleth reprimanded him and corrected the strategy, drawing up a different formation for them to use in real battle and Santaniel nodded. Xavien popped in and gave some pointers to Petra about daggers and bows while Arti and Hephaestus worked with Mercedes and Lysithea.

Santaniel took humming in the corner while sharpening his axe, Dimitri and Edelgard bickered about Kingdom and Empire affairs, Felix was somewhere, and Caspar was talking to Byleth about focusing on being a Brigand instead of a Grappler.

His humming soon came to a stall when he noticed that some other people were entering and he started clamming up again, face going stony.

There was a new assortment of people from the other two houses, he ran their names over in his head... he recognized Dorothea, Dedue, Ashe, Hubert, Ingrid, Sylvain, Anette, and Linhardt.

They were accompanied by a big man with beige hair and a lance strapped to his back. He wore a persimmon vest and the same stoic look as Byleth so he assumed him to be Jeralt. They locked eyes for a moment, Santaniel couldn't find anything in them but the emotion he displayed which was nothing.

Guy had a good poker face at least, he'll give Leonie credit for that. Santaniel turned his attention back to axe and humming his drinking song that Hephaestus taught him all those years ago.

He got distracted by Petra and Caspar getting heated about something, so he wasn't paying attention when his whetstone grew so thin it snapped in half and he ran his thumb over the blade and a thin trickle of red blood flecked with emerald green dripped out. He mumbled a crude curse and shook his hand.

He stood up and briefly walked out of the training grounds to get a small band aid, leaving a small trail behind him and out of the doors. Too bad several people saw the emerald colored specks in his blood, he'd have a lot of attention from here on out.

——————

Santaniel winced visibly as he forced himself to chug the thick, sour blue concoction Manuela handed him. It was supposed to help with restoring muscle, bone, pretty much anything honestly. He rubbed his eyes and stretched, yawning loudly. Dropping his attention back to his thumb he reminded himself that he needed to grab a new whetstone since his just gave out on him, he'd miss it.

Santaniel dropped his axe off at the classroom, walking while humming, never noticing Hilda and Dorothea tailing him.He reached the marketplace and waved his hand to Anna, digging through her pile of stuff. The two woman still behind him, speaking to him but it went I one ear and out the other."Hey Santaniel... you're a big strong man right?" Hilda asked.

"Uh-huh"

"Do you think you could help me and Dorothea with something?"

"Maybe."

"Pleeease, we'll repay you handsomely~"

"Yep. Hold this please." He tossed the whetstone behind his back and Dorothea caught it, Santaniel heading to the woman who sold shields.They both allowed the information to buffer, maybe it was just Hilda wasn't his type? Dorothea attempted next.

"Santaniel, do you think you could take over cooking duty for us? It'd be a biiiig help." She said this, attempting to squeeze his right arm that was pure metal.

He bargained with the woman and got a new steel shield for about one thousand gold, he handed it to Hilda absent-mindedly and carried on to the weaponry.

He glazed over the weapons while the girls tried to sugar coat him into doing something, cooking? Eh. Probably a prank like Xavien does.

He hummed as he turned an axe over in his hand, testing the weight, "Sweethearts, if you feel like playing a joke on me, then you'd be best off just doing it." He said deadpan.

'...He thought they were joking?' They thought nearly simultaneously.

"..We're not joking though?" Hilda said bewildered. "Uh huh, then why flirt if not to play a joke?" Santaniel retorted, sliding the axe back into the rack and grabbing a Short Axe that grabbed his attention, tossing it from hand to hand.

Santaniel was taught to flirt as a way to deescalate a situation and to pull off pranks or pick pocket by Xavien, all it ever had was a hidden intent.

Wait...

The sparks seemed to catch when Santaniel blushed bright red, the color speeding across his cheeks like wild fire. He coughed into his elbow, hiding his blush as he paid for the new axe and took what he bought from the ladies before silently moving off, leaving the two even more confused than before.

How many people had he led on?!

——————

Santaniel groaned as he cooked for his family after his blunder at the marketplace. His hands dancing delicately around the ingredients, fresh peppers getting minced and added to a pot with thick hunks of Duscur Bear, picked up at Santaniel's request by Xavien.He stirred the hearty broth and soon scooped it into bowls for the group, four bowls and a bit extra for later.When Santaniel would inevitably wake up from a nightmare. Yay.They all took hearty spoonfuls of the savory smelling meal, the flavors mixing harmoniously into one. They chatted about their days, Santaniel retelling the tales from the battlefield that day. Arti and Xavien giving their perspectives and how everything looked from the sky. Of course the secret to Santaniel knowing where the archer was his and Arti's secret. He had taught him how to receive scry spells, and how to use it. He rarely ever needed them but it was helpful to have Arti as his eye in the sky or even be his own. Santaniel yawned and left the table, taking to his room.

——————

Santaniel retired for the night shortly after dinner, the fresh peppers still dancing hotly on his breath as the thoughts of the future danced in his mind. There was a lot to Fódlan, the rest of the world, and himself that he needed to know.He listened to the conversation of Hephaestus, Xavien, and Arti, lively words shared between brothers forged by the molten ways of the world.He knew those molten ways all too well and they were the kind that tortured him in his dreams.The burns and scars of a past long forgotten yet remembered still aching and burning brightly like a candle in the night, the wick, his life flickering at each and every wind. It was times like these he allowed himself to feel frail and find comfort in the darkness and his sheets.The things that embraced him when he truly needed itWhen he finally let himself be vulnerable to the horrors that he escaped during the day, to the ghosts that haunted him from the lives he ripped from this world. And of course from when he watched people die in his cell of an underground lab, aching and crying for help.As the memories set in, the Crest of Macuil flared and lit the world up like his Guardian. Protecting his flame.Four Hundred and Forty Nine Weeks.