SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN

@adcinerem· // planned event thread!

“Professor…?” Dedue asks, and it’s only for a moment that he thinks about how he’d met the professor before, but he was definitely different. It bothers him for only a moment before he shakes his head and continues towards him. “Are you here to enjoy the festival as well?”

There’s an easter egg in Dedue’s hand, and he looks down at it for a moment before opening it up. There’s only a small little piece of candy in it but that’s definitely better than a frog. “I think we will do better if we work together to find these.”

every familiar voice was a boon, but this brought a special warmth. byleth turned to answer dedue’s call, the hint of a real smile crossing his lips, before he looked down and saw the treat held in the man’s hand.

“so you can only find candies as well...” the statement came with a little sigh of disappointment. “i had heard there were frogs hidden among the eggs-- true frogs.” though a part of byleth worried it was but a rumor after all, as he had picked up egg after egg only to find things so useless as jewelry.

the person he found, however, nursing a rather small wound but a wound all the same, was not one of his current battle partners-- but an eternal one in their stead.

“i didn’t see you in the skirmish,” he said as way of equal parts greeting and warning before he put his hand on the gash in dimitri’s side, channeling recover to seal it quickly. having access to his spells was a welcome change indeed.

“any other wounds? how have you been faring?”

i’ll be coming back from hiatus with a bang tomorrow: byleth will be siding with null for the time being. he doesn’t know that he trusts either side, but he knows which one reminds him more of people he super doesn’t trust, so he’s following his gut.

he will not attack people he knows unless he is attacked first, and he will act in a largely preventative fashion, protecting the weak points and trying to stop attempts to disconnect power. he will also be making attempts to sway people he cares about to null’s side.

“ i do wish to get back into teaching, but… ” he trails off. “ i am rather unsure if teaching about the history of my world would be of any use in this one. ”

“It does cross my mind every now and then, as do other topics…” It was more than that, but there was no need to delve into the details as of now, especially since there was a more ‘pressing’ matter that he had to address.

“So locking myself in my room isn’t enough to ward off danger then? I believe that’s called breaking and entering. Say… what do you think I should do if it gets to that point?”

Watching Byleth recast his line, they turned back to their own. It hadn’t been able to get even the smallest nibble this whole time, and they started to wonder if it would be best to simply recast and try again. Pulling the line back in, they did just that, sighing as they began the wait once more for a bite.

Though when Byleth spoke again, their attention was drawn back to him instead of watching the line.

“Your name?” Was that what he had been thinking about? They hadn’t thought too much on referring to him by name, simply used to calling him ‘professor’. “If that’s what you would prefer, I’m more than happy to. It was simply out of habit I continued to refer to you as ‘professor’ after all.”

Maybe that wasn’t very reassuring that they would abide by his wishes, though. The idea of teaching him how to act in times of peace was also a bit funny, but given his situation, it did make sense. “I’ll do my best to teach you how to live in times of peace then, Byleth. I think the first step is to not worry about the possibility of it all going away in an instant and planning how your friends will protect themselves if that is the case.”

he nodded, almost hesitantly at first, but when linhardt said his name aloud the smile came unbidden. subject matter aside, it was.. what was the phrase? music to his ears. he had no worries surrounding how linhardt saw him-- of all people, he trusted lin the most to treat him as a person. still, this confirmed it was the use of the title that had been tugging uncomfortably at his mind, as that discomfort disappeared like so much smoke in the wind.

not that it helped much as lin continued.

“maybe...” they had.. a fair enough point. maybe. but going from mercenary to battle instructor to war tactician hadn’t left byleth much time to consider peace an option, desired or not. much as he cherished this chance to simply rest, and fish, and nap... he was in no position to question the nature of people as a whole. “i can’t judge the intentions of others. mercenaries follow the violence, so it feels.. inevitable.”

“Well I suppose so… Foxglove, lilac, and lilies. Why?”

“Well not for this one—as far as I’m aware. Ferdinand gifted me a flower crown the day you gave me chocolates is all.”

“A holiday surrounding wearing green order not to be pinched? One in which you receive flower crowns and chocolate? Who makes up these sorts of days…” At least they had no fear of being pinched.

“Wearing green to avoid getting pinched…? I’ll just stay indoors.”

SPOILERS FOR FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES IN THIS POST!

hello! this is a unique plotting call for (male) byleth surrounding some concepts i would like to get into with him. there are things that plague him that he will never ( or almost never ) be able to discuss with his castmates, due to the very nature of the problems. here come the spoilers!

in short, byleth is combined with the goddess, and is something of a deity himself as a result. the true nature of this is somewhat known in canon, and i use that to draw from in how i portray him, but he does not personally know all the details.

what he does know is that he can ( usually ) turn back time and thus reverse death, and that age-wise he is likely immortal. he also knows that he is either the only person like him in his world, or he doesn’t trust the others who may be like him. basically, he feels very alone in his newfound godliness.

teach…….. you are.

🍀 — luck

everyone ( almost everyone ) was so lucky to survive the war.

there is no such thing as luck.

there is only skill, and power, and every bit of pain put into making things right.

there is only the slumped-over exhaustion of byleth after a tricky battle, the glazed look in his eyes as everyone asks if he’d like to join in the celebration, and all he wants is to sleep before his fatigue takes him on its own, but they can’t know. they can’t know who died that day, which of the people at their table shouldn’t be there.

( lucky you saw that one coming! ) ( lucky no one was around that blast… ) ( lucky we went left instead of right, so many people could have died. )