Is it wrong that I'm already planning a sequel to this story?

Edelgard stood at the top of the stairs that led into the cemetery. They had been given several days before class resumed, but she had seldomly seen her teacher. She knew he required time to mourn on his own, but in part, she felt responsible for Jeralt's death.

No, that was a lie. Edelgard felt completely responsible. It was she that brought Those Who Slither in the Dark to the monastery's doorsteps. It was she who had until recently decided the lesser of two evils would be to align herself with the monsters who saw the lives of her fellow students and innocent villagers as expendable. All for the greater good of freeing humanity from the Children of the Goddess.

In truth, she knew Solon and Thales would have only been looking for an excuse to wreak havoc on townspeople such as Remire Village or the outer city of Garreg Mach. But Jeralt felt personal. Not only to herself, but it was a clear message to her teacher of what happens to those who interfere with their plans. And Edelgard was clearly their plan they had no intentions of letting go of.

Edelgard watched as Byleth sat upon the grass next to a headstone. He wrapped his arms around his knees and had been there all morning. In fact, she wasn't sure he had even returned to his quarters the night before.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. There had been many times in her life where she felt vulnerable… poisonous. She was afraid to get close to anyone for this exact reason.

Her teacher had aligned himself with her, and paid a harsh price.

"Do you plan to stand there all day?" Byleth barely moved but his voice carried through the empty cemetery.

Edelgard readjusted her weight. Of course he would know she had been watching, "I apologize, I imagined you would want to be alone-"

"Join me," his request was simple but surprised Edelgard.

She hesitated for several moments. Somehow it felt wrong for a stranger to intrude on what was clearly such a personal moment. Then she finally began descending the stairs.

Byleth didn't move, he didn't lift his eyes to meet hers. He continued to gaze at the headstone before him.

Edelgard lowered herself to the grass beside him as she scanned the words chiseled into the stone. Jeralt's name had been placed below another, Sitri.

"Is that-" Edelgard spoke without thinking. Her voice cut through the silence and it felt as if it were out of turn.

"My mother," Byleth nodded. "I only recently learned about her. On my birthday, in fact."

"It's a beautiful name…" she let her words trail off. In truth, she didn't know what else to say that wouldn't sound like a cliche.

"I know what you're thinking," Byleth stated.

Edelgard swallowed hard. She knew her teacher was very astute when it came to reading body language, but she had barely seen her teacher the last several days.

"It's not your fault."

She didn't reply. His words did little to change her mind of her own culpability.

"It's theirs," Byleth continued. "It's Solon's, it's Kronya's and whoever the hell Thales is."

"He leads the branch," Edelgard explained, her voice low.

"All of them," Byleth closed his eyes. "The only message I heard was that they're ready to go to war."

Edelgard could hear the anger in his voice, something she seldom heard from him. Their numbers were very few and while she had faith in her teacher's abilities, he would not be a match for Those Who Slither in the Dark.

Darkness was everywhere. Even in the brightest of Fodlan's corners, there were always shadows in the smallest of corners where they dwelt. Turning back the hands of time was a true sight to behold, but even then, Byleth could not be everywhere at once. Not like them.

"You should've let me go," Edelgard tightened her lips as she focused on Jeralt's name on the headstone.

"You think they would've let you pick up where you left off?" Byleth lowered his brow.

"They wouldn't have killed me," she tried to quell the quiver in her voice. "They've spent too much time, too many resources making me into what I am-"

"Whether they would've killed you is beside the point," Byleth interrupted. "Best case scenario, you would have resumed your quest to fulfill their wishes. Their pawn… their tool."

"At least I would've been alive," she felt guilty using those words as she gazed upon the stone that rested over Jeralt's remains.

"You would've been lost, El," he lowered his voice. "Dead or not, you would've been lost to me and the others. Then I'd be sitting here remembering you instead of my father."

Edelgard did not speak. In her heart, she felt that would have been better than losing the one person in his life that he could call family. She did not have the power to turn back time and change the outcome and though her teacher did, he still refused to let her go.

"She died giving birth to me," Byleth interrupted her thoughts.

Edelgard peered at the tombstone again, in particular, at Sitri's name, "it must be hard to share a birthday with such a horrible memory."

"I never knew much about her," he elaborated. "Jeralt rarely spoke of her at all. And I never celebrated a birthday before this year."

She quickly did the math from Sitri's ending year, "does that mean… you're twenty-one?"

Byleth shrugged, "I suppose so."

"Hmm," Edelgard let a small grin form from her lips. "You're barely three years older than me."

"Jeralt never kept track of such things," Byleth didn't seem to see the irony in teaching a class of students very close to his own age.

Captain Jeralt may not have kept track of those sorts of things, but Edelgard would. It was such a small detail, but it felt nice to know at least a little something more of her mysterious teacher. Besides, based on her last conversation with the older man, he seemed to keep track of much more than Byleth realized.

And the realization struck her like a ton of bricks.

"At the ball," Edelgard began. "I spoke with Captain Jeralt, and he told me of something he kept for you."

"For me?" Byleth queried. "Did he say what it was?"

"No," she shook her head. "Only that you should search his quarters, every nook and cranny were his exact words."

"My father did love his secrets," he let out a soft chuckle.

"Perhaps, some were safer to keep hidden until the moment was right," Edelgard replied. She was no stranger to her own secrets though she had shared more than she ever had in her life with only a single person. Sometimes secrets can get you killed.

Byleth took a long pause, his eyes darted from side to side.

Edelgard recognized that look, "is… Sothis saying something?"

"Hmm," Byleth hummed. "She agrees that the moment is right."

Edelgard wasn't sure she'd ever get used to the fact that another being lived inside of him. Though it wasn't something she doubted in the least, she felt as if she were always speaking to two people. And one of those people was fabled to be the most powerful being to ever walk the dirt of Fodlan.

"Pr-professor?"

Edelgard snapped her head to see several of her peers standing on the stairwell. Bernie stood in front of them with a bouquet of colorful flowers gripped tightly in her fists.

"We brought flowers," Bernie lowered her head. "We-we weren't sure which Captain Jeralt would like best…"

"So, we brought as many as we could," Ferdinand also held a small variety of differently colored flowers within his hand.

Edelgard noted the only person that did not carry a tribute was Shamir, who stood at the top of the stairs with her arms crossed tightly in front of her chest. Her head was lowered and she did not dare gaze into the cemetery.

"I also brought something…" Leonie held a small object in her hand. Her eyes watered as she peered at it. "It's the spearhead of my first lance… it's silly, really."

Byleth lifted himself from the grass and gave them a weak nod, "I'm sure he would've loved them all."

Flayn tightened her lips as she descended the stairs next to her peers, who, one by one, approached the headstone to lay their flowers on the ground, "Captain Jeralt was truly a titan among men."

Petra laid her flowers on top of the stone and put her arm across her chest, her fist bundled in front of her heart, "a true warrior, indeed."

Edelgard suddenly felt embarrassed that she had not brought an offering to his tombstone. The least she could've done was bring flowers. She watched as Dorothea wiped tears from her cheek before burying her face in Ingrid's shoulder.

She craned her neck to see Shamir had not moved from the top of the staircase. It seemed she shared a lot of qualities with her teacher. Though her relationship with Shamir had been somewhat of a volatile one at times, a fact that was most likely unknown to the knight, she knew Shamir was doing her best to hide the pain she felt inside.

Soon, the stone that sat above Byleth's mother and father was covered in a myriad of colorful flowers. Her eyes darted to each of her classmates. None had offered their condolences to their professor, more than likely because they knew him well.

Instead, each only came to mourn a man that had meant something different to each of them. To Leonie, Jeralt was a father figure and mentor. To Shamir, a brother and comrad. To Edelgard… well, that was a complicated answer. To her, Jeralt had accepted her unconditionally and was the man that sired her teacher.

But he was more than that. He had taken the time to watch her catch her first fish. To ask her about her offspring aspirations in the kitchen the day her teacher had cooked them all a feast. And the man who she had made a promise to when they danced. Perhaps, like Leonie, Jeralt had crept his way into Edelgard as a father figure, as well.

Edelgard fought the swell of tears that had begun forming behind her eyes as she pursed her lips, and her teacher's words rang in her head.

Unbeknownst to Those Who Slither in the Dark, they had, in fact, drew the first blood in a war.

His father's quarters were neat and showed almost no personal knick-knacks or flare whatsoever. This didn't surprise Byleth in the least. Jeralt preferred to carry what he needed in a single sack in case they needed to move quickly.

"It would seem we have our work cut out for us," Edelgard ran her fingers across the desk that sat in the back of the room. "We've no idea what we're looking for, or where it could be."

Byleth's eyes scanned the room. He certainly didn't disagree, but if there was one thing he prided himself on, it was that he and his father thought alike. He studied each piece of furniture and tried to analyze its ability to hide something valuable.

"This seems out of place," Edelgard focused on something that sat in the center of the desk. "Could this be it?"

Byleth turned and his eyes rested on a small piece of silver, "that was the ring my father proposed to my mother with."

Edelgard held it between her fingers for several moments as she studied the detailed craftsmanship and stones, "it's beautiful."

"It's odd," Byleth furrowed his brow. "He always kept it in his breast pocket, but now leaves it out in the open in his room."

Edelgard extended her arm and handed him the ring, "a valuable keepsake such as this belongs with you."

He gave her a weary grin as he took it from her, he opened his own breast pocket, the one where he kept a certain folded parchment and slipped the ring inside, "but that's not what we're looking for."

"How do you know?"

"If my father said to search every nook and cranny, he wouldn't have left it on a desk for all to see," Byleth turned to face the bookshelf that was adjacent to the desk. Something had caught his eye from the moment he entered.

Though his father was an avid reader, almost none of the books that rested on its shelves had been disturbed. A thin layer of dust remained undisturbed across the dozens of binders, but there was no dust on the side of the bookshelf.

"Do you see this?" Byleth approached it. His father had taught him everything he knew, and Byleth still felt the unsurmountable urge to continue the tradition of passing that knowledge to those closest to him.

"The bookshelf?" Edelgard scrunched her face as she walked beside him. "It doesn't appear he did much reading."

"Not of these tomes, no," Byleth lifted his finger to point at the wood that made the side paneling. "But yet there's no sign of neglect here."

Edelgard leaned as she studied the wood.

"It's been moved," Byleth explained. "Not that recently, otherwise we would have seen fingerprints or swipes in the dust. But not so long ago that dust and hair had time to resettle."

Byleth placed his hand on the wood and felt it under his fingertips. Slowly he began to try imagining his father standing in that exact spot. What purpose would he have had to move this bookshelf in particular?

His hand moved across the wood until he reached the back where it met the wall. There was a thin space that separated the wall from the bookshelf, but not so wide as to draw attention. Byleth placed his fingers in the small crevasse. His hand barely fit inside, but he managed to wriggle his wrist inside and his fingers brushed against something.

"There's something here," Byleth tightened his face as he tried to push his arm further behind the bookshelf.

"What is it?" Edelgard stepped closer as she put her fingers against the corner of the shelf and pulled to try and give him more room.

It worked. Byleth's hand rested over something. Leather. It felt as if it had been held in place as it didn't fall to the ground when Edelgard pulled on the bookcase. He pulled on it and with the slight pressure, it came free.

He watched as he pulled his arm out and within his hand sat a leather-bound journal. It was small in size, something that would've been easy to keep on him rather than have to keep in his bag.

"A journal?" Edelgard peered at it.

Byleth slowly nodded as he made his way to the desk, "my father would often scribble late into the night. I never knew what he wrote about, but…"

"But he wants you to know now," she finished his sentence. "Perhaps, I should leave you alone."

Byleth shook his head as he opened the small book, "no more secrets, remember? Well, I suppose except for the last that you need time with."

"This doesn't feel much like a secret," Edelgard moistened her lips. "It feels more like an intimate moment between you and your father."

"He told you about it, El," Byleth's eyes scanned the words written upon the first pages. "He wouldn't have done that if he meant for his words to be just for me."

"If you insist," she took a few cautious steps toward him.

"I do," Byleth skimmed his father's writing. The first several dozen or so pages spoke of Sitri, and his desire to return to the monastery to share with her his latest adventures.

Edelgard now stood shoulder to shoulder with him, her eyes focused intently on the journal.

Byleth stopped turning the pages. He rested his hands on the desk as he leaned closer. His father's haunting words stared back at him.

They won't even let me see her body. Rhea said she died bearing our child but they won't even let me pay my last respects to my wife. Nor will they let me see my child. I don't even know if I have a son or a daughter.

Byleth peered at the date and it was indeed the date of his birth.

Edelgard did not speak, but he could hear her sigh deeply. He turned the page.

Finally, now I know that I have a son. But something isn't right, he bears a fresh wound upon his chest, and though he looks at me as if he knows who I am… he doesn't make a sound.

"A fresh wound?" Edelgard's concern exponentially grew. "On your chest…"

Byleth placed his hand over his heart and felt the outline of the scar that he believed he always bore.

"It sounds like you may not have been born with it, after all," Edelgard huffed as her eyes continued skimming the journal.

What kind of baby doesn't even cry? I'm not an expert at being a father but even I know babies make noises… when they're in pain, when they're scared… but my son, he makes none of these sounds. He only stares at me. I don't know what they did to him when I was away, or my wife for that matter, but I know I must take him and leave.

He is the flesh and blood of Sitri, the last remaining piece I have of her. I've thought of the best course of action, and a large enough distraction should prove sufficient for me to take my child and leave under the cover of darkness.

Byleth closed his eyes and stepped away from the desk. Edelgard followed suit as she kept close to him.

"Are you alright, my teacher?" Her voice was low and her eyes pleaded for his reply.

He didn't know how to answer her. It felt as if his father spoke to him from beyond the grave, but this was a different side of Jeralt he had never seen. Byleth knew Jeralt had more emotion than he was capable of showing, but the words on the pages described nothing short of a man who would be willing to risk anything for his love of his son.

"Do you think…" Byleth sighed heavily. It was true that he had begun to feel things he never had in the past, and he yearned to feel more if only to dull the pain of reading Jeralt's words. "Do you think you could call me by my name? At least… when we're alone."

Edelgard opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

"It's not like you haven't already," he continued. "Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Only when I've been angry," she swallowed hard. "Or when you haven't listened to me and it was the only way to get your attention. But, I suppose… given what we've been through, I could accommodate."

Edelgard seemed flustered. Byleth didn't have to study her very hard to see her face had reddened and she began fidgeting.

"Do you think…" she began. "Whatever wound your father witnessed could be the cause of your lack of heartbeat?"

The thought never crossed his mind before, "I never thought much of it. It was just a scar… and I've never had a heartbeat, so I guess I never put two and two together."

"I'm sorry Byleth," Sothis's voice startled him.

What are you sorry for? He tightened his lips as he tried to enunciate his thoughts, a feeling he'd never get used to.

"A baby who doesn't even cry," she hummed. "I don't know why, but I feel as if it is my fault."

It's not your fault, Sothis, Byleth tried to comfort her. You're a part of me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

"What is she saying?" Edelgard furrowed her brows as she crossed her arms.

Byleth peered up at her, "hm? Oh… Sothis feels like it's her fault that I've had no emotion as a child."

"Could it-" Edelgard stopped herself short as she carefully contemplated her words. "As implausible as it sounds… is it possible Rhea found a way to… implant a goddess into a newborn child?"

Byleth shrugged, "I don't know. I didn't know much about myself before coming to the monastery. But I feel… I feel like Sothis has always been with me. Her first words to me were when she gave me the power to turn back the hands of time, when I first met you. But… it didn't come as a surprise, because I always felt her inside of me."

"Does it ever get crowded in there?" Edelgard queried as she held her finger to her own head.

He shook his head, "no. Sometimes it's hard to hold multiple conversations at once, but… honestly I don't know what I'd do if she wasn't with me."

"Another part of you I find endearing," Edelgard chuckled.

"Endearing?" Byleth lifted his brow. "I've never heard you use that word before."

"Well," she cleared her throat. "You're like two individuals in one, and one of them happens to be a goddess. It's a little hard to not find that intriguing, no?"

"I don't know if I'd call that 'intriguing,'" Byleth bit his lip. "I know that Sothis holds tremendous power, even if she does berate me on occasion. I also know that I can't afford to lose anything else dear to me, and with her help, I know I can bring Kronya and all those affiliated with her to justice for what they did to my father."