An: Huh, apparently it is fanfiction etiquette to not offer criticisms unless asked for, at least in some circles (I hope I haven't accidentally offended someone in the past). Just so it's said, I'm absolutely open to critisisms, constructive or otherwise!
To Bustertank (Jun 14, 2024): Yup, the bridge is on fire as we speak and Reidun is there like: "This is fine."
To Kaiserreich (Jun 14, 2024): In many ways, Joseph would be inclined to agree with you.
To Niuzo0130 (Jun 27, 2024): If it's any consolation, I don't want Flayn to mess things up either, but it feels like I have no control over what these characters do, so no promises.
Haunting Daybreak - Law Abiding
"Hey, stop!" The little ginger girl was stopped mid run by an armoured grip. "Let go of me! That's mine! You can't do this!"
Ahead of her, in the fortress courtyard, a nobleman oversaw as his soldiers took Reidun's cart away, taking only a moment to acknowledge the girl he'd allowed to join him for breakfast.
"Oh really? I don't see why not," he mocked and raised a hand to start counting as he continued. "You have no noble backing; no guild connection; no reputation; and no strength of arms to deny me."
"You rotten knave!" she cursed him.
"Says the one trying to do business with those treacherous barbarians. More coin than sense in that head of yours," the man turned his attention to the guards holding her back, "take her out of my sight."
…
Surprisingly enough, it's hard to hold someone in a cell when they have a ghost who can just open it from the other side.
"Reidun, if you get caught, I'm warping you out without our things," Joseph warned.
"Then I won't get caught," she assured, 'is this door safe?'
"Just a moment…" Joseph floated through to the other side.
…
"Well… that's a problem," Joseph mumbled, while Reidun nodded along.
They found the cart, and the horse along with it… but everything in it had already been unloaded.
"I think it's time to cut our losses," Joseph suggested.
'No, I'm not letting him get away with this,' she thought, before smirking, 'anyway, you can just warp me out if I get caught.'
…
They found their goods.
"Okay Reidun, I know I've never advocated for petty vengeance, but just this once…" Joseph started, "take the gold, he probably got it extorting people anyway."
'Do we have the time? I need to carry all of this to the cart, and that's already going to take multiple trips.' Reidun worried.
"It's fine," Joseph reassured, "I was wondering how we got so far and realised that everyone we've had to avoid has been off duty. I reckon that all the soldiers here are busy trying to keep things out."
…and the locks on the doors didn't matter when you could just open them from the inside.
…
Reidun secured the last piece of the harness, before taking her spot in the driver's seat of the cart.
"Okay. I'm ready."
"Warp!"
The cart, the horse, the contraband, the gold, the goods, and the girl driving it all disappeared in a flash.
They never travelled that route into Duscur again.
8th of the Great Tree Moon
Reidun was restless.
It was early morning and she had nothing to do.
She couldn't go running, she couldn't go training, and she had caught up on Joseph's copied fiction.
To top it all off, the assassin hadn't even bothered to try to sneak up on her again!
'On the bright side, Caspar's cohort is probably finally getting enough sleep,' she thought optimistically as she just… roamed. 'I don't even get it. What's wrong with doing a little extra training!'
As usual, her internal whining and stomping had no effect on her outward expression.
"The training wasn't the issue. Subverting authority was," Joseph argued. "What we were doing could have easily been interpreted as protesting the abilities of your cohort leader."
'That's not what I was doing…' Reidun whined internally. Ingrid was a great cohort leader.
"No, it wasn't, and normally it likely would have been ignored," he agreed calmly. "It's just unfortunate that you were subject to a lot of scrutiny as of late."
The girl visualised a disdainful scoff.
"Anyway, I'd note that it was specified that you couldn't use the academy's store of weapons," Joseph pointed out with a smirk.
Reidun stopped.
'Meaning… if I buy my own training gear I can practise on my own?' she noted.
"That's right," he acknowledged, before managing to sound sheepish, "all things considered… Caspar broke a lot of training axes when you guys were sparring on sunday."
'Yeah, what of it?' Reidun asked, oblivious to the point.
"Well, they probably thought that was you as well," he elaborated, "at least in part."
She internalised a groan, '...hence the equipment ban.'
"Yup."
'Then we better stop by the merchants and see what we can afford,' Reidun concluded.
…
No luck.
'So the church buys up all the stock and then distributes it further to the staff and knights,' Reidun noted. '...which also means that any purchases I want to make have to go via the professor, and thus via Ingrid, who didn't seem very happy with me last we talked.'
"...and since they buy up all the stock, then there won't really be any in the village down below either," Joseph continued. "In the game most of the weapon and item purchases were done through individuals. I guess this is why."
'So where does that leave us?' Reidun wondered.
Joseph was silent for a moment.
"...I guess… no… yes…" he mumbled to himself in thought, before settling on whatever he was thinking, "I think we need to find Abyss."
Reidun's mood perked up at the word.
'Abyss? Is that some sort of secret coven? Ooh, is there a gateway to hell here!?" she thought excitedly.
"Nothing that exciting, it's just the secret society that lives under the monastery," Joseph teased.
'Tell me more!' Reidun mentally demanded as she made her way to morning classes.
The meetings and training with the cohort for the day was a stiff affair. Ingrid focused on the rest of the cohort and just let Reidun just do her own thing. That in and of itself was nice, all things considered, since Joseph wanted her to get her axe skill up to standard to be able to qualify as a Fighter.
The part that actually bothered her was that in addition to the exclusion, Joseph had spent most of the time somewhere under the floor or in the walls looking for a way into the series of passages that led to Abyss.
Which was how Reidun ended up sneaking her way through a bush to enter a secret tunnel once classes were done for the day.
'Can't you just Warp me through?' she complained.
"I could," he said, "but we're treading dangerous waters here and I need to be able to get you back to safety in a hurry."
The girl's shoulder's sank as she rustled her way onwards-
"Hello?" a light voice asked, "does someone be going there?"
Reidun froze.
"Hello?" the girl repeated.
'Weren't you supposed to keep a look out?!' Reidun accused.
"I was!" the ghost defended, "Petra's is just hard to notice sometimes…"
Turning her head, Reidun could see the purple haired foreign princess curiously inspecting the bush.
'I don't think she's seen me yet,' Reidun thought.
"No, she has," Joseph refuted with a shake of his head. "I think she's just giving you the chance to come out on your own accord before she calls the guards."
Stuck between an awkward social situation and trouble with the law… Reidun made the obvious choice and rushed to the hole, slinking through before the guards arrived.
"Reidun…"
Much to Joseph's disappointment.
'It's fine. She might have noticed me, but she didn't see enough of me to point me out, and definitely won't recognise me if we run into each other again.'
Joseph merely sighed.
Actually navigating the ancient catacombs and secret passages was a whole other beast.
The least of their issues was the complete lack of natural light, since Joseph could conjure some magical fire to deal with that at least.
The seemingly nonsensical maze structure, unstable construction, and literal traps were the real source of problems.
"Reidun, I'm starting to think that the folks in Abyss probably don't use these… specific passages," Joseph helpfully pointed out as they continued to try to navigate the dank structure.
"What, why?" Reidun questioned, jumping just as the floor below her collapsed below her. She also chose to ignore the wave of concern wafting her way through their sympathetic connection, and the way Joseph froze up when the first few bricks broke away. "Sure, it's a bit dangerous…"
She felt Joseph's hand on her shoulder and stopped just before stepping on a panel that would have seen her impaled by spears.
"Very dangerous, yes," Joseph corrected, raising an unseen eyebrow at the girl in anticipation of where she expected to go with that statement.
"...I think I see your point," Reidun instead admitted, her tone even, but her sheepishness colouring their connection in metaphorical purples and pinks.
"We can leave whenever," Joseph pressed again.
Reidun shook her head.
"No. You can Warp me back to my room in the morning," she decided, before dropping down through the now open floor.
9th of the Great Tree Moon
Reidun appeared back in her dorm in a flash a few minutes before the first class of the day.
'I can't believe we didn't find it!' she whined, her mental self stomping precariously in her headspace, 'we spent ALL night looking!'
"Much of which we spent going in circles," Joseph countered.
'I'm sure it was just around the corner there,' she said, while she struggled with getting all the dust out of her hair.
"...like you were sure the last twenty corners before that?" Joseph denied rhetorically. "We ran out of time. You can't neglect your classes to explore, and we can go in again tonight."
The girl grumbled, and readied herself for the new day.
10th of the Great Tree Moon
…
11th of the Great Tree Moon
'...are you sure this secret society actually exists?' Reidun asked, having had little success so far with the three sleepless days they'd searched so far.
"It wouldn't be particularly secret if it was easy to find," he defended dryly, "but you do make a good point. We probably shouldn't keep this up. While you're keeping up with your studies well enough, you've completely neglected your social life… again."
'What about that game you played?' Reidun thought just a bit too quickly. 'How did they find Abyss there?'
"That's not going to work for us," Joseph said. "It's been a while so I might not quite be remembering this right, but in Cindered Shadows I think they just fell in a hole and ran into the 'students' guarding it. While in the main timeline… I think it started by talking to the merchant Anna, but if we could talk to her we wouldn't have a problem in the first place."
'Well, what alternatives are there?' she asked, again trying to rid herself of all the dust on her person before the day's classes began.
Joseph put a ghostly finger to his chin.
"Well… as I said, if we could talk to Anna directly, that would fix our problem," he started. "I reckon she hasn't shown up yet because the venture here isn't profitable enough until the academic year properly kicks off. There are other merchants, but as we found out, they sell their wares directly to the church."
'Yes, we figured that out already,' Reidun noted.
"Yup, but what we didn't consider at the time was placing an order." Joseph elaborated.
'Oh, that would work!' she thought excitedly. 'Ask one of them to put aside a bit of stock the next time they're here for us to purchase…'
Reidun pondered the course of action as she continued mechanically preparing herself for the day.
'My word might not be enough incentive, but paying ahead bears the risk of them not following through.' She fiddled with her hair with practised ease. 'We can get around the problem by approaching one of the regular traders and having a reliable local as a witness to the deal.'
She packed away her comb.
'...but that will take a while. We'd first need to find a trader, convince them to take the deal, then wait until they finish a whole cycle of their route.'
Joseph nodded.
"Yup. It is probably also going to cost a premium too, but it is an option. In terms of getting a Beginner Seal -which I just remembered we need- it might be the best one," Joseph speculated. "I did also have another idea."
Joseph leaned back, turning his eye to the second floor of the main administrative centre of the monastery.
"In the games, a professor could have their class assist the Knights of Seiros dealing with minor issues throughout Fodlan during the weekend…"
'...and until professors are assigned, our weekends are all rest days.' Reidun thought. 'Are you thinking I see if I can help out myself without the class?'
"Bingo. They'll have to arm you so you can fight, and might even let you keep it," Joseph acknowledged with a smile. "If they don't? You might be able to swipe something of whatever bandits we deal with, maybe even some more funds to work with… if they let you get away with that."
Reidun hovered her hand over the handle of her dorm door.
'…we could find out where they're going and go deal with it ourselves,' she thought. 'We'd get to keep everything for ourselves and it would give me a chance to practise what I'm learning in class.'
"We could…" Joseph reluctantly agreed. They both knew that, despite the risk, she wouldn't be in any danger as long as Joseph could heal and warp her away. It's specifically why he'd learned those skills in the first place.
Reidun visualised a roll of her eyes at the overprotectiveness.
'We'll see if the Knights will take me along first, of course,' Reidun compromised.
Joseph sighed.
"You're only saying that because that would give me a chance to see where Alois keeps his reports about bandit sightings…"
Reidun had stopped reviewing the class notes with the rest of her cohort.
Well… that wasn't exactly true. She still sat with them, but Ingrid made no effort to involve her in the conversation and the rest followed suit. So over the course of the three days she'd been diving into the abyss, she'd grown more and more distant from them.
Joseph had reassured her that Ingrid wasn't really doing it on purpose and more just didn't know how to interact with Reidun at the moment.
Not that Reidun needed the reassurance, as long as she had Joseph she was fine.
Today… that ended. Reidun took the next natural step and sat on her own. Ignorant to the conflicted guilt in Ingrid's posture the action prompted.
This meant that she should have been sitting alone.
"Is there something I can help you with, Lord Riegan?" she asked the half-Almiran who sat across the table from her. 'Any clue, Joseph?'
"Nope. He's an inquisitive guy, so just about anything we've been up to could have caught his attention," Joseph answered with an unseen shrug.
The boy had sauntered up and was lounging in his chair.
"Why yes actually," he answered pleasantly. "I was hoping to talk to the crest seeing girl. Do you happen to know where she is?"
"Unless someone else has been supposedly seeing crests, that would be myself," she answered frankly. "Though it's as of yet unconfirmed, since I've only seen the Blaiddyd and Daphnel crests so far, and only twice each."
"Really?" he accused with a raised eyebrow. "That's it? I'm sure you should have had the chance to see a bit more than that."
"I assure you, yes," Reidun answered. "Though, if I happened to have seen more and decided not to mention it, I certainly wouldn't just because you asked. That would be counter to the point."
"Not even for me?"
"I barely know you."
"Ah shucks, and here I thought you had a soft spot for foreigners," Claude joked, before he continued with an inquisitive eye. "Guess that privilege only extends to Duscans."
Reidun, of course, didn't visibly react to the subtle accusation.
"Figures Claude had the connections to look you up," Joseph remarked, answering Reidun's unspoken question.
Reidun mentally acknowledged the information, before disagreeing with the boy "I wouldn't call exploiting a people, who were recovering from a tragedy and desperate, for my own gain 'having a soft spot for them'."
"You wouldn't call it exploitation if you didn't," Claude countered.
"People are people," Reidun clarified with a shrug. "It's not exactly a privilege to be seen as such. Duscur simply had wealth, just like everyone else."
"Hot take," he said, before leaning forward conspiratorially. "Is that why you're fighting with your cohort leader? Rumour has it that Ingrid has quite the grudge against them. Maybe you'd be more comfortable with the Golden Deer."
Reidun stared a moment while internally her gears turned.
'Um… Joseph, is he actually trying to recruit me?' she asked.
"No, he's just joking… I think," Joseph answered hesitantly. "The boy's hard to read and probably three parallel dimensions ahead of us right now."
'Meaning?'
"He's probably mainly trying to fish for information. If you don't tell him, he'll gauge your reaction." Joseph clarified. "The joke combined with the accusation should unsettle you and help provoke a reaction, but I wouldn't put it past him to be planting the idea for you to actually consider… and that's just what I managed to pick up on."
Reidun considered the words for a moment.
'...right.'
"You should probably actually answer him instead of staring into space," Joseph noted.
Reidun blinked, giving the impression of a machine booting up after a crash.
"You're not wrong, but she doesn't know that yet. She just knows that there's something about me that I think she won't like," she answered honestly. Then she packed up her notes. "To be clear, I've got nothing against her and any 'undermining' I've done has been purely incidental."
She stood up.
"Now if you would excuse me, I do have classes to get to."
Neither the ghost nor the girl quite managed to decipher the expression on the boy's face as they left.
After the day's classes, Reidun visited Alois' office…
"...while I applaud your enthusiasm There's no need to rush. You'll be assigned professors and get practical experience soon enough!"
…which went about as well as they had expected.
"Of course, thank you for clarifying what I'd heard," Reidun accepted, dismissing herself as she did. 'Did you find them?'
A sigh from Joseph and a wave of affirmation across their link answered.
'Excellent!' She thought back. 'Let's go find a merchant while we're on a roll!'
In contrast to the ghosts' exasperation, Reidun skipped down the stairs and out to the town below.
8th of the Great Tree Moon
Flayn had done it, and just in time by the sounds of it!
Seteth had thanked her for the warning and now he was looking into the professor to confirm what personal grief he had with the student.
It was a small change that would have absolutely no bearing on the future, but it was proof that the future wasn't set in stone.
With her spirits high, she sat herself down to finish the last two books of the series.
11th of the Great Tree Moon
She'd finished the day before, but there was… a lot to digest.
Shambala, the home of Agarthians; Rhea, put down like a rabid beast; Nemesis, the king of liberation; Byleth's heart, the crest stone; Byleth's mother; the walls around Fodlan, literal and otherwise…
She hated to admit it, but Byleth siding with the church does nothing as the world burns down around them. Despite her own biases, it was the worst outcome.
Claude could accomplish so much if he could just trust the ones by his side, but his route saw both the kingdom and the empire far worse off than they were under Edelgard and Dimitri.
…but Flayn had the whole picture now. The absolute mess before her.
The whole thing left her with such a simple, yet immeasurably complex, question.
'So… what now?'