Geez, what are the odds of running into a friendly mercenary band?
Posting a little earlier than I'd prefer today but something came up and my usual time looks to be out of reach.
"Well, damn," Edelgard heard, and she blinked open surprisingly gummy eyes to look at Claude. "When you promise fortifications, you sure don't disappoint, princess."
Edelgard pushed herself upright, dizzy but no longer needing to lean on the palisade. "It is my responsibility to live up to the proud legacy of my Imperial forbears."
"And you have done so admirably," said Dimitri, concern writ large on his face. "However, I must advise you against endeavors of this… this scale in the future, at least until you've had the chance to hone your magical prowess more."
"That's… probably wise," said Edelgard. Then, she noticed the three people who had come out with her fellow house leaders.
One of them was the legendary Blade Breaker, Jeralt, looking no different from the portraits she'd seen in the monastery. He sat astride a massive warhorse, no armor to be found, and in his fist he held a lance that was so heavily enchanted that it set her teeth on edge.
He also bore the Crest of Seiros.
Tearing her eyes from his imposing form, she looked at the other two. One stood a solid handful of inches taller than her, built almost like a swordmaster, with long, purple hair halfway down her back and a surly expression. There were two swords belted at her waist, one a relatively plain workhorse of a weapon, and the other looking to be enchanted as well, with a delicate, almost feathery handguard and a smooth curve to the blade, almost resembling artists' depictions of Blutgang.
The other was… captivating. Standing not much taller than Edelgard herself, with smooth, flowing blue hair, stood a veritable brick wall of a woman. Her armor was sparse enough to reveal chiseled muscles on her arms and stomach, and her tights were (as the name implied) tight enough to reveal similar muscle tone on her legs. Unlike her companion, she wore only one worn but cared-for sword on her hip, her other hip being occupied with a pair of gauntlets that bore similar signs of both use and care.
She, also bore a crest, but instead of Jeralt's Crest of Seiros or any other Crest she'd seen from classmates, she was all but overflowing with ethereal green flame, the Crest of Flames seeming to radiate power in all directions in a way that she couldn't understand how none of the others were noticing until she made the connection that there must be some resonance with her own Crest of Flames, although that didn't explain the strength of the phenomenon.
After a moment, she blinked, forcibly tearing her attention from the presumable mercenary and bowed her head. "My apologies, I haven't introduced myself yet. I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, Imperial Princess of the Adrestian Empire. I take it you've met my companions?"
Jeralt nodded, a brief, jerky thing. "Jeralt Eisner," he bit off, seeming preoccupied.
"Byleth Eisner," said the blue-haired woman, stepping forward. "Jeralt is my father, and this is Shez, my father's… squire, I think, is the best word for it."
"Nice to meet you all," said Edelgard. "Now then, we should have some time before-"
As if to undermine her, a small horde of bandits poured out of the woods, primarily wielding swords and axes, but there were a pair of pale-faced mages near the back of their contingent, visibly scorched about the edges.
"Here we are, lads!" shouted the leader, a beady-eyed man in a dirty, fur-trimmed cape that had been torn quite badly at some point, to the point where it didn't go past the man's rib cage. "We drag these royal brats in, we make one hell of a payday!"
"Ah." Jeralt looked skyward, as if beseeching the goddess for patience. "Byleth, this is as good a chance as any for you to experiment with command."
"Really? Now, of all times? With these prissy nobles, to boot?" Shez' disagreement was both swiftly provided and loud enough for the bandits to hear.
At the same time, Edelgard bowed towards the blue-haired woman. "Where you lead, I will follow."
Claude and Dimitri didn't offer nearly so overt a gesture as Edelgard, but they did turn to look at the young mercenary after unlimbering their weapons.
Byleth nodded once, taking in all three students with what seemed to be all-seeing eyes. "Edelgard, you and I will serve as the breakwater, we shatter their momentum. Dimitri, behind us, take advantage of your lance's reach, and Claude, see if you can't find an elevated position for fire support. Shez, Jeralt, herd them towards us."
She took a moment to slip the set of gauntlets onto her fists, then turned to the three royal students. "Ready?"
In response, they raised their respective weapons into combative readiness.
"Good. Follow me!" She charged forwards, provoking the bandits into a charge of their own, and Edelgard very nearly didn't keep up with her, entranced with how the ethereal flames around Byleth flared up from the equivalent to a torch to become a raging bonfire invisible to all save her.
The Crest of Seiros burned against her bones as she leapt forwards, sending a veritable explosion of dirt backwards to rattle against Dimitri's greaves as she advanced to match Byleth's position.
In the scant seconds Edelgard had been distracted, Byleth had managed to subdue no less than three bandits, broken swords lying near the battered, broken-boned, and bruised men as she deflected the swords of three of the standing men- not able to strike back with their superior reach combined with their coordination, but doing more than enough to fend them off that the closest their blades come to her is skittering off her armor.
Edelgard planted her front foot, using it for a pivot point for her whole body, and slammed her axe into the rightmost bandit so hard that he's thrown bodily into his compatriot, Seiros-granted strength sending the two of them tumbling to slam into a tree and collapse in a pile of bloodied limbs.
Byleth seized the opportunity granted to her, battering aside the third man's sword and, in a flash of the Crest of Flames, slamming a punch into him hard enough to hurl him into the air, landing at the feet of the leader dozens of feet away.
Her fighting style seemed almost counterintuitive, her broad shoulders and well-muscled limbs seeming at odds with the speed and fluid grace she moved with, but there was no time for further rumination in the heat of combat, especially if a pack of six bandits were advancing on them.
An axe wielder advanced out in front of the rest of his group, arm already pulling back for a swing before Edelgard intervened.
In a contest between alchemically reinforced steel against flesh and bone, the human body lost, Edelgard easily lopping off his hand and about two thirds of his forearm. The axe continued its brutal arc, and it's only through the unnatural strength Agatha forced upon her that she prevented it from taking off his leg too. Instead, Byleth casually backhands him on her way to the rest of his pack, sending him reeling and leaving him an easy target for Dimitri's lance.
One of them stumbled back, two of Claude's arrows sprouting from his wrist and his ribs, and again, Dimitri's lance skewered in to drop the man. This cleared the way for Edelgard's axe to take off the leg of the bandit next to him, bashing the back of the weapon's head into his face on the backswing and leaving him laid out alongside Claude's target. As his head thudded to the ground, the Crest of Flames activated, wiping away a portion of the lingering weariness in Edelgard's body like a flood drowning a particularly poorly planned village.
Byleth didn't just stand around idly during that time, diving into a forwards roll underneath the three blades flickering out not unlike snake tongues. She stabilized on one knee, gauntlets punches shattering first knees and then, as the men fell, hands.
From the back of the bandit line came a commotion, and Edelgard looked up to see the violet-haired mercenary carving a hole into the rear contingent, falling upon the bandits like a hurricane on two legs. Elsewhere, Jeralt hit their ranks like a hammer striking particularly poorly tempered iron, the enchantment of his spear briefly sending a spectral double out that let him impale both mages at once with as little consideration (and as little effort) as a normal person would expend to sip from a cup of water.
The leader took in the two contingents that were slowly closing in on him and then snarled. "Screw this," he said, grabbing a hatchet off of his belt and flinging it into the air. "I'm not dying over some kids!"
Edelgard spent too much time looking at the man and watching him run, as evidenced by the shout the blue-haired mercenary let out. Focusing her attention back on the here and now, she realized too late that the hatchet was aimed at her, and she spared enough thought to damn the man for his unexpected final gesture before trying to raise her own axe to intercept his.
Before she could, Byleth hurled herself between Edelgard and the flying axe blade, one gauntlet thrown out in a desperate punch that clipped the axe, altering its trajectory from her upraised other gauntlet to the unarmored patch of skin on her stomach, a vanity choice (more than likely, although the alteration could conceivably have been from consideration of range of movement) spelling her likely doom.
Byleth brought her knee up to try and deflect the axe-
Without warning, Edelgard found herself and Byleth in an odd stone room, all but covered in greenish-white flames.
Edelgard jumped back, hand outstretched, and tried to activate the alchemical circle inscribed in her glove to guide the far-too-near (at least, for her tastes) flames away from them. Instead of the feeling of alchemical energy rippling out from her hand, though, she felt the Crest of Flames activate, and the flames covering the floor leapt up and settled in a row of stone braziers along the walls.
"What is this place?" asked Byleth, frowning, "and how did you ignite the braziers?"
"I should be asking the question, considering this is my home!" snapped a young voice.
Edelgard and Byleth turned at the same time, gazing at the speaker, reclining on a stone throne.
It was a short girl, tall enough to probably graze Edelgard's chin when standing upright, with a wild mane of green hair pooling all over the throne she was lounging on. Underneath her pointed ears, braids with red and white ribbons spliced in with the green dangled, and her cheeks and the set of her mouth gave the impression of a permanent pout. She wore a deep blue set of raiments paired with golden jewelry that served to emphasize her literally glowing eyes.
At times, she appeared almost transparent to Edelgard, a reddish sphere pulsating with the glow of what looked like a Crest from within her chest, but it wasn't visible long enough for her to identify it.
"Apologies, my lady," said Edelgard, falling back on noble etiquette in this unexpected situation. "I merely thought we were about to be burned by the flames and attempted to move them. My Crest reacted… strangely."
"What flames? I just saw you push your hand out and then the braziers lit," said Byleth warily.
"Hmmm… so you can see them where she cannot… Interesting." The girl appeared to be lost in thought.
"You don't see them?" asked Edelgard. "When we first met, I assumed you were simply used to them, but now it appears…" She trailed off, then shook herself out of her contemplation. "There must be some other factor in place."
Edelgard turned to the girl. "Forgive me, I have not introduced myself. I am Edelgard von Hresvelg, Imperial Princess of the Adrestian Empire."
Byleth started. "Byleth Eisner, sellsword. Some call me the Ashen Demon."
"Well met to both of you," said the girl, inclining her head regally. "I am Sothis, bearer of the title The Beginning as granted by… how odd. I cannot place it."
Edelgard's eyes widened. "You are Sothis, the Progenitor God of Fódlan?"
"...perhaps. If I do not recall my own name, then I can hardly be expected to remember what I did before I came to be here, wherever here is." Sothis' gaze seemed at once amused, reproachful, and apologetic.
"My apologies."
"There is no need for apologies, it is just a mystery for another time. Now then…" Sothis turned to Byleth. "Are you trying to get both of us killed? Do you truly value your own life so poorly, your life and her skill at arms, that you would throw yourself in the way of a blow she was already going to deflect?"
"I…" Byleth seemed truly lost for words.
Sothis sighed and let her head drop. "No matter. I have halted the flow of time, or so it appears, so your death is not a foregone conclusion."
Byleth pressed her lips together for a moment. "Now what?"
"When time resumes, the axe will tear into your flesh, and depending on how exactly it strikes and the skill of your far more polite companion in healing, you may die." Sothis stood from the throne and walked down to stand in front of the two former combatants, and Edelgard had to force down first the urge to ruffle her hair as she did to the twins all those years ago and then tears as the reminder of her lost siblings broke her heart all over again.
"If you have any suggestions," said Byleth flatly, "then I would be glad to hear them."
An idea struck Edelgard. "If you can halt the flow of time, then surely you can reverse it, no?"
Sothis turned her head to look at Edelgard, a curiously owl-like motion that made her freeze under the intensity. "That is… no, the logic is sound… aha! Yes, that is something that I can do, for the both of you! My power is limited, and I cannot undo all of time, but time enough for this I know I can grant the pair of you."
"Now then," said Sothis, turning her gaze back to Byleth as more of the green-white flames gathered around her, glowing with such intensity that Edelgard had to shade her eyes. "You two, who bear the flames within, drift through the flow of time for the answers you seek!"
The room dissolved in a burst of green light, and the warmth of the flames seemed somehow comforting to Edelgard before the sensation faded.
And that's that!
I'm getting geared up to move in a couple months, if you want to throw some help my way on that one, I got me a Ko (fi) (https (:/) (/) ko (-) fi (/) lucifra) and a Pa tre on (https (:/) pa tre on .com (/) Lucifra). (remove spaces and parentheses)
I also have a discord sir ver for author stuff now (as in as of like right now it's going live)- if you have questions or comments that you'd like a more direct, that's another option: https (:/) (/) dis co rd dot com (/) NHRUKz8jyy (remove spaces and parentheses, dot to period)
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!