AUTHOR'S NOTES: With Petra now at the palace, enter Hubert and Edelgard. Petra's interactions with them are scant in these early chapters due to her language barrier, but suffice to say, they have their eyes on her, and she has her eyes on them. They're all young yet, but even Petra knows how to play the political game to some degree. This game will only grow more challenging and more rewarding as time goes on, especially after Petra starts learning the language properly.
Happy Reading!

PART ONE: GREY SKIES

CHAPTER 003: WELCOME TO ENBARR

=Enbarr, Adrestia, 23rd of Verdant Rain Moon, Imperial Year 1175…=

Petra made sure she had left nothing behind as she awaited her escorts. She would play by their rules, and she would cooperate for now.

Within about a half hour, a few much fancier-dressed men approached her, gesturing for her to come with them. She had long since packed up her meager little collection of possessions, which now also included some of Dirge's meat strips, and comically, an unopened bottle of Captain Renack's whiskey—a quiet testament to Petra's cunning and stealth. Her belongings did not get checked at the port of entry either, and this was not lost on Petra. These people did not register her as a threat, and she would take advantage of that.

There were people who spoke to her, and while she wanted to ask questions, no one that spoke to her seemed to understand what she was saying. It went from confusing to frustrating, especially since she wanted to know what was expected of her, but had no way of doing so. Words were exchanged between several uppity nobles, and eventually, Petra was brought before a decrepit old man. She had no idea what was said either, but she was shunted off a while later to her next destination: a much younger girl with long white hair, flanked by a taller boy with jet-black hair and a sinister visage that intimidated her slightly.

"So she can't speak a word of Fódlanese then…" the boy turned to his liege as a puzzled Petra stared curiously, as if trying to make out the words being said.

"At present, no." the escort replied, "but per the order of Emperor Ionius IX, the tribute from Brigid is to be placed under the care of Princess Edelgard, and by extension, her vassal—you, Hubert von Vestra."

"Something will need to be done about that language barrier," Edelgard spoke up. "Would that I had time to try and teach her, but as heir to the Adrestian Throne, I barely have time for myself, even at my own age."

"Indeed," Hubert stroked his chin, "and playing teacher for an uncultured girl from a vassal state is hardly of importance for one destined to claim the throne."

"Do not be so swift to judge, Hubert," Edelgard asserted, "I will ensure she stays out of trouble to the best of my ability, and if I can find time, I will work to remove the communication barrier between us, to the benefit of all parties."

Petra may not have understood anything being said, but there was something in the tone of these two individuals that emanated an air of regality, matching how they carried themselves, and befitting of a future Empress and her royal retainer.

"The boy called Hubert is sinister," Petra thought to herself, "He is a strategist, and very smart even though he is young. Edelgard is the future Emperor of Adrestia? An heir to her throne the same as I am, then. Perhaps we can become friends, but I will need to learn how to speak to them in their language if I want to earn their trust. I need a teacher…"

Edelgard and Hubert showed Petra to where her room was, and over the next couple of days, she began to learn the layout of the palace: where things were, where she was allowed to go and where she was given dirty looks and shooed away from. She was not intentionally trying to get into trouble, but being unable to read and unable to speak, what was a girl supposed to do?

She did not like it here. Edelgard was nice enough but she was always so busy, to the point where she did not seem to even have time to teach her words like 'whiskey' or 'sneak' the way Dirge had done with her on the boat trip here. Hubert would not so much as give her the time of day, and while this upset Petra as well, it also fired something up in her that made her want to work to gain his trust—nay, his respect. She was a princess just as Edelgard was, and while Brigid was no match for the mighty Empire of Adrestia, Petra was determined to represent her homeland proudly, no matter what this ugly country threw at her.

Petra longed for the outdoors, and while she was free to roam much of the palace grounds, it was not the same. The trees and shrubs were too uniform; everything looked the same, carefully planted and shaped to have a nice and neat aesthetic, but not the wild and free chaos that nature normally took when left to its own devices.

And the skies… why were the skies here always so grey? Petra lamented these unfriendly skies. Sometimes it rained, but it was a cold and bitter rain compared to the warmth of the Brigid Archipelago, even if it was slightly farther south. Perhaps it was an altitude difference, or something in the geography of the surrounding area, such as the highlands and mountains to the east or north.

To Petra's mild frustration, her native attire was also swiftly dealt with, insomuch that she no longer had an opportunity to wear it the way she liked. Instead, she was stuffed into Fódlan garb, with blouses and skirts that were still somewhat breezy, but were particularly constricting around the waist or chest. Some of them had colors, but many of them had primary black or white themes that were not Petra's preferred style at all. In a way, it felt like another way that the people of Adrestia were trying to erase who she was—but she would not yield. The high necklines and long sleeves may have covered up the prayer marks on her back and her right arm, but they could not cover the lines on the corners of her eyes and the prayer mark under her right eye. She would put her fingers to this mark often, offering a quiet prayer, and hoping that it would reach the wind spirit for protection the way her grandmother Ophelia had promised it would when she had etched it onto her face.

She wondered if the spirits could hear her here. Enbarr did not seem like a place that they would want to come; it was very cold and uninviting, or perhaps she was so used to the rose-colored lens she viewed her homeland from that everything else seemed hostile in comparison. Whatever the case, the little princess walked with her head held high, even in the colorless skirts and boots and blouses of Fódlan, with almost all of her Brigid motifs scrubbed from her appearance—but the mark on her face was not so easily hidden, and in a way, it was her sole and singular act of defiance.

She enjoyed the feeling of hands styling her hair, but the stylists of Fódlan were so very different from the ones in Brigid, and Petra put on a straight face to hide her dislike of the way her hair was styled. She was vehement enough that only one attempt was ever made to cut her hair, before it was decided to not be worth the hassle against a fiercely defensive youngster, and so she was allowed to keep those voluminous purple locks of hers—and they could not scrub the prayer markings from her face and body. Petra smirked with pride at this. Even a tiny victory was still a victory to her, and they would never take away all of who she was.

"No matter what I look like or what I wear, I am a princess of Brigid, and there is nothing the people of Fódlan can do to take that from me."

Despite these determinations that kept her going, Petra was not devoid of emotions and found herself frustrated and forlorn far more than she was proud to admit, and her room became one of her favourite places to retreat. No one in this benighted land was going to see her cry if she could help it.

It also became apparent within a couple of weeks that despite her claims of wanting to, Edelgard would not have time to teach her the language of Fódlan, nor have time to arrange to find someone who could. Petra was on her own unless she got lucky—and so she raided the library, spending so much time in there that she sometimes fell asleep at one of the tables rather than even going back to her room. She garnered some suspicion for the way she tried to read the text in these books, but she keenly cataloged where she had pulled each volume from, and always left things exactly how she had found them. She was not going to give anyone anything that they could use against her.

…or so she hoped.

=Enbarr Royal Palace, Adrestia, 7th of Horsebow Moon, Imperial Year 1175…=

Petra's 11th birthday was by far her saddest and loneliest one to date, being a hostage in a cold and dreary land where no one cared to like her and no one cared to understand her. She was certainly not about to see any traditions from home here. The single glimmer of hope was that she had somehow conveyed what this day meant to her to Edelgard, although without any proper way to communicate, there was little she could do.

"A rose…" Edelgard offered Petra a Crimson Flower. Petra took it, gently running her fingers along the stem, touching each thorn along the way before reaching the velvety petals.

"Rose…" Petra looked up and nodded, unsure of how else to express her thanks. The smile she offered was what stuck with Edelgard for the rest of the day, even though she did not cross paths with Petra again for the rest of the evening.

"I am not saying she should not be trusted, Your Majesty," Hubert warned, watching Petra skip away with the flower in her hands, "but she should be treated with caution. Do not forget that Brigid was an enemy less than half a year ago, and that many of your own countrymen still reel from the damage they caused."

"I know that, Hubert," With their regal styles of speech it was often easy for Hubert and Edelgard themselves to forget that they were not much older than children themselves, "but while fear can help keep people in line, I think it would be better to have Brigid as an ally someday. Consider it: Dagda would not be able to use them as pawns or as a foothold towards Fódlan, and the famous hunters and warriors could become a valuable asset to the Empire. They are talented men and women, Hubert, and those are exactly the kind of people my Empire will welcome with open arms once my reign is secure."

"Of that I have no doubt," Hubert nodded, "But even then, it is a delicate situation, especially with the regions of Ochs and Nuvelle still licking their wounds. You would have to time any such movement carefully under this status quo, even after you were to become Emperor."

"I understand that," Edelgard put her hands together and closed her eyes for a moment. "But if that's the girl that's going to sit on the Brigidi Throne someday, then I firmly believe that being in her good graces will take us both a long way."

"And if she—or they—opt to misbehave…?" Hubert suggested.

"If they do not listen to reason then my hand will be forced, and we will crush them and drive them back as we did once before." Edelgard pointed out, "But they are far more likely to lash out in anger like a cornered beast if they are living in fear. If we were to grant them the status of a proper ally, I imagine it would ameliorate their fears of Adrestia enough to maybe even offer their support in turn. It's a delicate process, as you said, but given the pieces that need to move on this board between now and the time I ascend the throne, what is Brigid if not another piece in this delicate game?"

"Indeed," Hubert nearly smirked, "I am not saying you shouldn't trust her, Lady Edelgard—simply to be watchful of her. She could very well just be playing by our rules and biding her time too. Her motives may not even align with Adrestia at the end of the day."

"What makes you say that, Hubert?" Edelgard raised an eyebrow.

"The Princess of Brigid is always sneaking about, and she is slippery and hard to catch in the act." Hubert warned, "I have my ways and my sources as I always do, Your Highness, but the short of it is that even though we keep Petra Macneary on a short leash, she is still very much playing her own game here. If we were to pursue your course of action, we would not need to tighten the leash, but it would fall to you to warm her up enough to ensure that her motives align with our own."

"Are you suggesting I am incapable of that just because I am unable to find time to talk to her or teach her how to break the language barrier?" Edelgard crossed her arms with the slightest of huffs that nearly made the corner of Hubert's lip curl.

"On the contrary," he assured her, "I have full confidence that if anyone in this palace can decipher the little princess' machinations, it is you. Do not assume that my caution in this regard was done out of anything but concern for your well-being, Your Highness."

"I understand, Hubert." Edelgard sighed. "At this point what's one more task ahead of me?"

As much as Petra would have appreciated hearing this conversation, she had no way of knowing it had happened, much less what was said, and so instead she spent most of the day either in the library, or working on her stealth skills to raid the kitchen. Fódlan cuisine was so different than most of what she was used to back in Brigid, and while there were spices of their own, almost none of them compared to the ones she was familiar with.

She was dubious about some of the methods of preparation as well. She enjoyed the rich flavors of tropical fruits, but she would definitely need to accustom herself to how sweet everything was. It was preferable to the bland, flavorless food she had had to suffer through on the ship, but like so many other things, it would take some getting used to.

Most of the time, Petra simply opted to stay out of the way, mostly only letting herself be seen during mealtimes or other instances where her presence was required. Otherwise, she spent most of her time in the library or in her room with stacks of books. Having found a small guidebook on Brigidi to Fódlanese translations for common phrases, Petra immediately put in overtime to get what she could from this book, because it would pave the way for her to learn the language that no one seemed willing or able to teach her. The sooner she could master it, the sooner the rest of her plans could be put into action.

But even with her commitment and the swift learning capacity of her impressionable 11-year-old mind, it was not easy, and as the months went on, she felt that there was still so much for her to learn. She was still not confident enough to try and speak to Edelgard, especially not with Hubert around, because she wanted to make a good impression on them both—and blundering her way through basic sentences would not be the way for the future queen of Brigid to behave. This mentality stuck with her, because whether she was royalty or merely a commoner, she was still a representative of her homeland whether she wanted to be or not.

"The people here do not know Brigid, other than what they see from me. If I am a fool, they will think that all of Brigid are fools, especially since I am the one that will be leading them someday. I must maintain my composure."

While within a few months Petra's efforts had borne fruit insomuch that she was finally learning how to read Fódlanese script and many basic words, she still struggled with speaking and pronouncing many of these words, and so she stuck with visuals for the time being. Other times she would fall asleep among her stacks of books, or throw herself onto her bed in frustration after she had overworked her mind for the day even if she felt like she had accomplished nothing. The first six months had helped her acclimate to many things—the weather, the food, the clothing, and even the soft beds and fluffy pillows.

"Sometimes the steps are smaller steps, but a step forward is a step forward." Petra reminded herself, "and the ends justify the means, and I must win Brigid her freedom. I must."

These were the ambitions that kept her moving forward, and the drives that she wished to see through until the very end.

"For Brigid," She whispered and repeated every night without fail, "I find strength to carry on."

AFTERTHOUGHTS: There will be plenty of commentary between Hubert and Edelgard regarding our plucky princess. Stay tuned.