xenologue 1 | if you hear the hunter's coming then you hide or keep on running [closed]

[hegemonwings]

🧙 WHO: byleth eisner and YOU
⚔️️ WHAT: catch-all for may! closed starters, tdm continuations, lots of quests and hangin' around probably.
🕒 WHEN: throughout may
🗺️ WHERE: multiple places
⚠️ WARNINGS: n/a for now
📝 NOTE: feel free to pm this journal or hit me up at clockworkbrain if you'd like a thread with byleth!

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[flame_emperor]

She watches how expertly her general handles the knife as she liberates the corkscrew from the bottle. "Indeed I have. It's one of the qualities about you I've always admired." Edelgard smiles knowingly as she takes the proffered cup, her fingers brushing against Byleth's tenderly. Even if her teacher's propensity towards boldness had sometimes landed her, or almost landed her, in hot water, like that business with Kostas when they first met. Or when she chased after Kronya and nearly got lost in Zahras thanks to Solon. Her will to act was something Edelgard admired, found...familiar. It was a trait they both shared.

Her faces flushes a little when Byleth does not hesitate to model for her. She's trying to move past it now that their relationship has matured, but it's still hard to live down the embarrassment of the sketch and portrait Byleth stumbled upon before they had actually openly admitted their feelings for each other. "Well...I suppose I had plenty of time to look." She admits, before clearing her throat so she can explain.

"I used to work on sketches of you. Not in class, but if I ever saw you pose a certain way, or if the light hit you in a particular spot, I'd do my best to commit it to memory, to be worked on later in my room, usually when sleep was eluding me and the night air wasn't enough. I told myself at the time I was simply trying to improve and you cut such a striking figure it made sense to use you as my subject." Completely made sense to stay up late into the night sketching the professor who had so captivated her. "A silly justification, but for awhile I believed it. I was never trying to capture anything but you." She takes a drink of her wine, savouring it. "Mmm. Those sketches are how I first started to notice you were becoming more expressive, you know. At first I thought I was projecting, but it just caused me to look harder and I saw that it was becoming easier to tell what emotions you were feeling as time went on."

Of course then it turned out that wasn't a sentiment most of her classmates shared, which gave Edelgard pause and the "justification" that it had all solely been for art practice began its swift and final collapse.

[hegemonwings]

Byleth pulls her legs underneath herself and feels her smile widening as Edelgard begins to talk, taking a long sip of her wine. A sweet red, of course. She huffs out a quiet laugh at the admission of her Emperor's self-deception at the time, even as she finds it a deeply touching thought.

"I had no idea, my heart. I noticed you watching me, sometimes, but I never minded it." Her mouth quirks downward a bit, as something occurs to her, and she hastily takes another sip. Some of that initial warmth and brightness falters, but only for a moment. "It was different, from the looks I was used to. Better. Not harsh, just... searching. I could see that you wanted to understand... and I'd wanted to understand you, too. From the beginning."

[flame_emperor]

"Really? Was that why you decided to lead the Black Eagles?" Edelgard asks, bringing a knee up to rest her head against. It's odd they've never really talked about this, but at the time Edelgard was simply just...oddly happy that the strange yet striking mercenary had taken over as head of the Black Eagles. And then she became certain their paths would diverge, and then even when they didn't Byleth was gone for so long, and then the push against Myrddin, and then, and then, and then...so little time to themselves that perhaps in hindsight, it wasn't so strange that this topic had never been broached. Not when Edelgard was in the mood to begin looking towards the future, rather than the past.

"I always wondered what ultimately made you decide to align with our House. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised it was because of me." She looks down into her drink, blushing slightly. "But it's true, you did fascinate me. From the moment we first fought side-by-side against Kostas and you stepped out of Captain Jeralt's shadow. I'd never met anyone like you before, and I was curious to know more. The beginnings of my infatuation, I suppose."

"I remember speaking to Dorothea and some of the others in the dining hall. It was just after one of our many extra-curricular assignments, when Ingrid received that marriage proposal, do you remember? We were talking about it afterwards and I remember Dorothea being quite relieved the lout of a suitor would be out of Ingrid's life, but she was concerned at your lack of reaction. I told her quite simply that wasn't true, that you were in fact, immensely relieved and glad Ingrid was out of it. Everyone stared at me as though I'd grown a second head. And I had to keep going, explaining a particular look in your eyes that I'd come to recognize, the way your body language shifted after we drove off his sellswords at Ailell when he tried to capture Ingrid, the cadence in your voice. All of them were clear indicators that you were in fact pleased at how everything had turned out. Fortunately I don't think Petra entirely understood, Caspar certainly didn't, Lysithea was too involved in her dessert and Linhardt was asleep as I recall, but Dorothea just gave me this look and shook her head at me when I reacted in confusion that nobody else saw it." Edelgard shifts, assuming a not bad facsimile of Dorothea's familiar seating position, miming resting her arm on an invisible table. "'Oh Edie, you really are hopeless, aren't you?'" She mimes Dorothea's light and lilting tones with obvious exasperation. "I felt...so embarrassed afterwards for reasons I couldn't quite articulate. At first. The more I thought about it...the more obvious the answer became."

She shakes her head. Dorothea was absolutely right about her. "And now I'm Emperor of Fódlan. I really do hope I know what I'm doing." She chuckles.

[hegemonwings]

Once again, Byleth listens, just... rapt. Edelgard has always had a bit of a tendency to go on, but she enjoys it—especially when she's telling her about something like this. Without even thinking about it, she scoots a bit closer to sit properly next to her, wanting to enjoy the simple intimacy of all of this.

"I'm told that being oblivious about these things at that age is normal. And it's hardly the same skillset as revolutionizing our society," Byleth notes, lips again quirked into a fond smile. "But... yes. When I chose the Black Eagles, I chose you. I suspect I always will choose you. That day, I... I couldn't understand why I threw myself between you and Kostas. You were a complete stranger, and that... simply wasn't in my nature. I could have died—I would have, if not..." Her eyes flick slightly away from Edelgard, and she reaches for some of the charcuterie. That topic is a separate conversation, and not for a day such as this. Somewhat distracted, she begins to stroke at Edelgard's hair with her free hand.

"So I wanted to understand you. I needed to. I thought that if I could get a better sense of you, I might... understand why I put myself on the line that way. That I might begin to understand myself, if only a bit." There's a slight pause, as she considers. "I never considered the other Houses for a moment. I want you to know that. Claude and I are both outsiders, Dimitri and I were... both struggling with our nature, but both of them were pretending to be something they weren't, and I saw it from the start. But you... the way you looked at me, you just wanted to take my measure. To understand."

[flame_emperor]

"Mmm." As Byleth reaches out to stroke her hair, Edelgard leans into the motion, pressing herself against the older woman fondly. Eyes closed, she listens fondly. "We were both drawn to the other from the start. A promising beginning." A thought then occurs to her, so absurd and yet close enough to the truth that it makes her chuckle. "Though you realize this does mean we owe the entirety of our relationship to the departed Kostas." And not just because Edelgard had hired him in her guise as the Flame Emperor to attack the three young lords on their wilderness survival training in the first place. If in his desperation he'd tried to attack anyone other than Edelgard, if she hadn't lost her axe in the fracas...well. "It almost makes me regret running him down in the Red Canyon." Not a great deal given his long list of other character deficiencies, but it cannot be denied; she and Byleth are together because of that bandit chief.

However, her eyes open. "Byleth...I've never doubted your commitment to the Black Eagles...to me, since you turned the Sword of the Creator on Rhea." She assures the other woman, reaching down for her hand and grasping it tightly. "Finding out about these other worlds where our paths diverged doesn't change that. You are you, and I am me, and we're both where we belong. Put such cares from your mind." That is the privilege and joy of having achieved that understanding Byleth speaks of; their bond is far too strong to suffer even the smallest cracks from the knowledge that Claude and the others of his world brought.

[hegemonwings]

"Those worlds don't trouble me," Byleth says, taking a long sip of her wine, and the assertion is mostly honest. "I hardly think of them. Our path is what I chose... what I have a responsibility to. The others are someone else's burden." Those other worlds are inhospitable thoughts, things she finds utterly unconscionable, but they might as well be bad dreams, from her perspective. And whoever those other Byleths are, they're not her. She doubts that they're even fully themselves.

She doubts they ever will be.

She squeezes Edelgard's hand, idly pressing a kiss to the top of her partner's head as they sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Her eyes shift to watch the fairies. "I'm not sure I would give him the credit. He was... an interchangeable piece. He got on stage, performed his role, said his few lines, but..." There's a pause, then. "I think you and I are together because we refused to play our parts. I don't know what connected us, but... we must have met for a reason. Don't you think so?" It had to be something more than just Edelgard's plan going wrong. There was far too much synchronicity in what had happened—not just that day, but even afterwards.