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~Jeralt~
His daughter had changed significantly since they had first come to Garreg Mach Monastery. Although Jeralt was often sent away on missions what felt like every time he stepped through those massive gates, whenever he caught a glimpse of his daughter between missions he still felt like she had gone and grown again before his very eyes. Her expressions were no longer that blank stare, reminiscent of a lifeless doll. Instead, he could see light in her eyes, and emotion on her face.
Maybe someone who hadn’t been with her since her birth wouldn’t be able to see the change, but to Jeralt, it was night and day. His daughter looked alive for the first time since her birth.
As he returned from his most recent mission and caught sight of her with yet another unfamiliar expression, he found himself thinking, ‘Maybe I was wrong to keep her from here.’ Maybe he shouldn’t have fled Garreg Mach the day that fire broke out, but it would do no good to dwell on these ‘what if’ scenarios. No. What would be important was what he did going forward.
As he watched his daughter from a distance, interacting with the crown prince of Faerghus, Dimitri Alexander Blaiddyd, he wondered what he should do, if anything.
Jeralt, despite seeming aloof, was a pretty observant guy. Or maybe Byleth was just obvious, never having had emotions to conceal. The expression on the kid’s face as she looked at the Prince closely resembled the expression Sitri would wear whenever she was with Jeralt. It was clear to him that she was in love. Or, at the very least, whatever equated to love in his daughter’s unbeating heart.
Jeralt had heard few, if any, stories with a good outcome when it came to commoners getting involved with royals. His daughter might have had a crest, but she had still only been raised as a simple mercenary. The boy, on the other hand, was destined to be the next king of Faerghus. That passionate look he gave Byleth might have been smoldering now, but who knew when those flames might die out? What would be left of his daughter if they did?
It actually hurt him to think of his daughter potentially going through the same years of torment he still fought with over lost love. When Sitri had died, he had truly lost a large part of himself. Looking back, though time had helped fill some of that hole, he still felt incomplete. Hollow. He knew there was little chance of him ever really regaining that part, at least in this life.
With that key part of himself missing, Jeralt knew he hadn’t been the best father to Byleth as she grew up, but he had done his best with the situation he had been dealt. He taught her how to live, kill, survive, and did his best to set her up for a life in which she could thrive. With or without him.
It had been difficult to lovingly raise a child that expressed little to no emotion. ‘She’s Sitri’s daughter,’ Jeralt would remind himself every time he looked at Byleth's lifeless expression, while struggling to connect with this impassive child that had replaced his beloved.
But now, that same person was in front of him, practically a stranger as she giggled girlishly at something the prince said to her, an adorable smile on her face. A stranger that he desperately wanted to get to know. If only he had the time, but working for Rhea left that resource in short supply for him.
~~~
It was completely by chance that Byleth decided to visit him that evening in the Captain’s Quarters as he prepared for the next mission Rhea was sending him on bright and early the following morning. Or maybe it was fate, though Jeralt had long stopped believing in such things.
“Jeralt,” Byleth addressed him, giving him a somewhat curious look as he was glancing over a supplies list.
“Kid,” Jeralt responded, looking up to meet his daughter’s animated gaze. The corners of her lips tilted upward the smallest bit in a sort of half smile. Another new expression, and this one directed at him. Jeralt felt his own lips settling in a semi-smirk.
“So you’re off on another mission so soon?” Byleth asked, gesturing around at the disarray of his office that hinted at his preparations for departure.
Jeralt nodded, returning to his usual grim look. “Yeah. Rhea has always been quick to make use of people in her employ,” Jeralt said with a sigh.
“You said it,” Byleth grumbled, as though knowing all too well what Jeralt had meant. He figured Rhea was keeping his daughter equally busy.
“I suppose, given that response, I don’t really need to remind you of my prior warning,” Jeralt mentioned, referring to the conversation the two of them had when they first arrived at the monastery.
Byleth shook her head no to confirm that she needed no reminders.
For a bit, silence stretched between the two of them as Jeralt paced the room, deciding what to pack and moving papers around as he went. In the past, the silence would have felt awkward to Jeralt, as he never knew how to continue conversing with his less than verbose daughter, but now, the silence between them was a comfortable one.
‘Should I bring it up?’ Jeralt wondered to himself. Maybe it would be best to keep silent about it, but at the same time, he wanted to better understand this woman that had replaced this daughter, whose expressions mirrored those of her mother.
In the end, his desire to be nosy won out. “So, you and the prince, huh?” Jeralt asked, doing his best to keep his tone even and casual.
In the next moment Byleth had all but flung herself across the room to shove a finger to Jeralt’s lips to silence him. “Where did you hear about that?” she asked, her tone low. Dangerous.
This was a part of his daughter he was all too familiar with, though he had never been on the receiving end of the menacing. It was no wonder people had called her the Ashen Demon.
Jeralt gave his daughter an amused look. “No one told me about anything. I just have eyes,” Jeralt stated as if that explained anything.
Byleth looked at him with confusion, and… anxiety? Her distress at his knowing all too apparent. “That’s…” Byleth paused, seemingly at a loss, before muttering quietly, “That’s supposed to be a secret. If word of our relationship got out, it would reflect badly on Dima.” Her gaze was downcast.
‘She calls him Dima, huh?’ Jeralt noted. Then he sighed. “Not like it’s any of my business. I have no intention of sharing your secret, kid,” he said before being overcome by the inexplicable urge to affectionately ruffle Byleth’s hair. He resisted however, in fear that she might actually take his hand off in her current stressed state.
Instead, he gave his daughter a hard look. “He makes you happy, yeah?” Jeralt asked, to which Byleth just silently nodded her head. Jeralt couldn’t help but smile at that. “Then good,” he said, and was surprised to find that he meant it.
Byleth looked up to meet his gaze, surprise etched into her expression. It was like watching Sitri emote all over again.
“What? Did you expect me to tell you not to love him or something?” Jeralt asked and Byleth nodded, looking a bit guilty.
Jeralt just shook his head and sighed again. “You can’t control who you love, and you’re a grown woman now. I’m sure you already understand what hardships your relationship is likely to face,” Jeralt started.
Byleth gave a somber nod. “Yes, I am aware of the complications, but Dima and I decided we would face them together,” she said resolutely.
Jeralt smiled with fatherly affection, and a bit of melancholy bubbling up for the woman his daughter had become. Maybe this is what other parents felt when saying that their children grew up too fast? For him, it was like his daughter had literally grown in an instant, at least, emotionally.
“Then I wish you both the best.” Jeralt said gruffly, and caved to the nagging desire to ruffle his daughter’s navy hair that had been growing by the minute.
Byleth’s surprised gaze met Jeralt’s at his uncharacteristic show of affection, before giggling uncharacteristically herself.
Still, Jeralt had one last piece of advice to impart on his daughter before their brief conversation ended. “Then just make sure to cherish the time you have together, kid,” Jeralt said, a bit of grief coloring his tone. The unspoken message of his words were clear. ‘You never know when you’ll lose him.’
Byleth gave her father one last determined look. “Of course.”
~~~
~Byleth(?)~
It was strange. It was like she was awake, but not awake. She felt like she did whenever she was in that between state of dreams and reality, the state when she stood before Sothis in a room with a stone throne, cobbled floor, and the endless void surrounding them.
But Sothis wasn’t standing before her, and the usual backdrop was replaced by an expanse of blue sky. The edges of her vision were faded, as though to indicate that this wasn’t quite reality, but it felt real. Glancing around a bit, she suddenly recognized her surroundings. Though things were not exactly the same, the place she was standing was at the edge of the monastery’s docks.
“Sitri!” a familiar voice called out, and Byleth suddenly felt as though she had taken a back seat, as her body turned to face the one who had spoken without her aiming to do so.
For the moment, this ethereal body was not her own. But she felt its every move, every feeling, as though it were.
As she spotted the one who had called her, she felt a smile bloom on her face, as a somewhat muted happiness pooled within. The one in her gaze was none other than her father.
“Jeralt! You’re back!” Byleth found herself calling out in excitement, before running towards her father in a burst of energy. The voice that left her sounded similar but didn’t quite match her own.
The smile that her father had in that moment was one she had never witnessed before in her waking life. He looked truly, genuinely, happy, but there was something more in his gaze. Something Byleth had only ever seen reflected in Dima’s gaze. Love. Her father clearly dearly loved whoever Byleth was taking the place of. That was when she realized.
‘Is this a memory?’ she wondered. But whose? And how? This didn’t feel like she was watching one of Sothis’s memories. This one was different. She couldn’t explain how or why, she just had a gut feeling that it was.
Her father drew the woman that was and was not her into a gentle embrace.
‘To think Jeralt could be so gentle,’ Byleth thought to herself. Her father had never given her the impression of being capable of tenderness. This was a wholly new side of him, one she had never met.
“Of course I’m back. I made a promise, didn’t I?” her father asked with a cheeky grin.
Her body moved a small, pale hand and placed it on her father’s cheek, the warmth of happiness permeating through their shared vessel. On her dainty, pale hand she saw a ring. One that Byleth recognized.
“This was your mother’s ring,” Byleth remembered her father explaining to her as a child. Her eyes fixated on the simple yet beautiful design.
‘This must be my mother’s memory,’ Byleth concluded. Somehow, she had been transported into her mother’s memory. As her mother. It wasn’t a good explanation, but as it stood, it was the only plausible one.
“So, tell me about your grand adventures this time,” she, or rather, her mother called out with a girlish giggle, before standing on her tiptoes and giving Jeralt a kiss on his cheek.
Jeralt smiled, looking very much like a dope in love. “Of course, but first, I want to give you this,” Jeralt said in his familiar gruff voice, pulling out a flower Byleth had never seen before. She typically wasn’t much for enjoying art or nature, but for some reason, her only thought as she looked at the flower was, ‘Beautiful.’
Her mother appeared to have similar thoughts, as she soon found herself voicing them. “It’s beautiful!” she, or rather, her mother exclaimed, and Byleth wondered how a person could smile so much and for so long, yet she understood why her mother, and by extension, she, was all smiles.
Jeralt’s eyes lit up happily in response to her mother’s excitement. “Glad you like it. How about we head inside, and I’ll tell you all about where I found your flower,” Jeralt offered.
Byleth’s mother cradled the flower delicately to her/their chest before latching onto Jeralt’s beefy arm, leaning her/their delicate frame against him for support.
“I would like that, very much,” Byleth said, once more voicing words that were not her own, and for a moment, she reveled in the echoes of happiness that once belonged to her mother, before her vision and the memory faded.
~~~
When Byleth next awoke, she was in her own body once more, much to her relief. She was a bit surprised, however, by the enchanted look of her boyfriend staring back at her. He was far too dazzling for the poor mercenary who had just woken up, so she closed her eyes again to protect herself from his light.
“What time is it?” Byleth mumbled sleepily. Dimitri being awake wasn’t a good indicator of time as, despite him sleeping better whenever Byleth was around, he still struggled with occasional nightmares that would have him up at all sorts of late to early morning hours.
“It is still before dawn. You still have some more time to rest,” Dimitri informed her, lovingly stroking a stray hair off her forehead. “Also, I apologize for staring at you, but you seemed to be having such a pleasant dream. The smile on your face was simply too adorable not to indulge in.” He spoke quietly to her, his low voice pleasant to Byleth’s ears.
‘A pleasant dream, huh? I guess it could be called that,’ Byleth mused to herself, recalling the strange experience that both had and had not been her own. It was a little embarrassing to know Dimitri had been staring at her smiling face while she slept, but she was still too tired to bother giving him shit for it.
As she became more cognizant, she could feel that her and Dimitri’s limbs were still entangled from their activities earlier in the night. Rather than bother separating herself from him, though, she decided to snuggle further into her prince’s warmth. This time, the smile and the warmth of affection she felt belonged to her and her alone.
“I love you,” Byleth muttered into her prince’s chest sleepily as she started to drift off again. She could feel Dimitri tighten his hold on her, as though if he let go, she would disappear.
“And I you, my beloved princess,” were the last words Byleth heard as she drifted back into a dreamless, comfortable sleep in the arms of her beloved.