#byclaude

The plan had been to use Leonie and Raphael’s loud and overbearing natures to force Byleth into choosing somewhere else to stay, at which point Claude would suggest that the only safe place for a pair of fugitives—that wasn’t filled with the same sort of people—was outside the kingdom. But she has taken the maelstrom of people in stride better than he had when he first got involved with them. From the chaotic meals to helping with the myriad of chores, she had fallen into step with Claude as if she’d spent her life dodging high-born egos and high-strung housemates.

Which wasn’t to say he left her completely at their mercy: that would be cruel no matter how well she was adapting. It was only humane for him to sneak her off for picnic lunches to escape the inn; even he needed that break from the others after spending so long on his own. No one should have to deal with Lorenz all day long, and it gave Claude a chance to show off his cooking skills and use supplies. His spices were going to go stale if he didn’t use them soon.

In fact, he had logical explanations for every moment he took her away from the people he was supposed to let her run from…

…Except for why he was bringing her to the gardens to meet Marianne.

Blue hair shining in the sun, her dark dress blending in with the shrubs, the woman in question was sitting with on one of the stone benches when Claude rounded the corner. She was so intent on the book in her lap that she didn’t notice she had visitors. Byleth stopped abruptly when she saw the other woman, and took a step back as she looked around with a touch of unease. Marianne certainly looked peaceful, with the birds at her feet and the flower petals drifting over her skirt; Claude could see why Byleth would be hesitant to intrude. He felt a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, but he took Byleth’s hand in his and drew her forward all the same.

“You haven’t met all of the Golden Deer, yet,” Claude said in response to her unasked question, even as she let him steer her towards the bench. “You’ll like her. Trust me.”

Marianne stood when she caught sight of them, her eyes only a little wide as she shut her book and tucked it into a pocket hidden in her full skirt. For the first time since he’d known her, she didn’t have sleepless circles darkening her eyes, nor did she have an expression of defeat. She was still looking at Byleth as if she was potentially dangerous, but at least she was looking up. She hadn’t even tried to run away, either. Claude could only shake his head, and tried to keep the disbelief out of his expression.

To think he had considered Leonie with long hair to be the most drastic change.

Neither woman spoke, nor would they meet the others gaze. Marianne was looking at Byleth’s collar, and Claude was pretty sure Byleth was staring at Marianne’s braids. They stood in silence for so long that Claude briefly entertained the notion of counting down the amount of time it would take for one of them to speak up; it would probably last until lunch. But he took pity on them when they looked to him at the same time, clearing his throat to hide the smile that he still couldn’t get rid of.

“Marianne, this is Sunshine. Sunshine, Marianne.”

“Ignatz was right.” Marianne was the first to speak after the introduction, giving a slight bow with her hand over her heart as she smiled shyly. “You are beautiful.”

Byleth nodded in response, her eyes softening in that just-perceptible way that was becoming familiar to Claude since they had arrived at the inn. After a moment she mumbled a faint thank you, and mimicked Marianne’s bow before the two women returned to staring at each other.

“…So what were you reading?” Claude asked, before the awkward silence could set in too badly. “New book?”

“Yes, it’s the Goddess’s wisdom.” Marianne nodded solemnly, and she pulled the leather-bound book from her pocket. “A collection of tales to teach and encourage.”

“Ah, I should have guessed that’s what you would be reading.”

“Claude that’s not—”

“I didn’t know the goddess was for everyone.”

Byleth spoke the interruption quietly and without inflection, yet the conversation evaporated as surely as if she had just insulted the Saints with a bar-room brawler’s choice vocabulary. Marianne and Claude turned to look at her as she reached out to touch the book with a hesitant hand. Her fingers rested against the cover as if she was reassuring herself it was real. Her brows were pulled together in the barest frown.

“My mother never…I thought…”

Claude’s stomach dropped. His temperature followed suit, and he even got a little light-headed. It was a feeling uncomfortably similar to his first time on the back of a wyvern, when it had decided to dive for the ground without his input. Unlike his wyvern though, words didn’t have reigns on them he could pull to regain control. There was no explaining what had just been said. Everyone knew the goddess. Everyone worshipped the goddess. Byleth’s comment was a glaring error in the carefully hinted-at-but-never-explained background he had built for her to keep her from suspicion, because no one was a non-believer in the kingdom.

At least not openly.

Marianne wouldn’t be able to pursue them, so all he needed was to get to the barn and the horses before Leonie and Lorenz got word that something wasn’t right with Byleth—she was already on thin ice with Leonie because she had never heard of King Jeralt, and Lorenz would be delighted to take Claude down a few notches. He just needed a head start and everything would go back to plan.

Every excuse he could think of on the tip of his tongue, Claude was already reaching for Byleth’s hand when Marianne smiled.

“Of course the Goddess is for everyone.” With all the softness she usually saved for injured animals, Marianne offered the book to Byleth. “Would you…would you like to read with me? The Goddess can be for you too.”

And just like that, the world started turning normally again as Byleth nodded and followed Marianne to the bench.

Leaning back against a nearby tree as he watched them, Claude silently let out his breath and drew it back in as he tried to calm his nerves. Somehow the gaffe had escaped notice, with Marianne misconstruing it to mean that Byleth had somehow been denied access to the goddess; her ignorance was being seen as something to be pitied instead of suspected. Claude smiled wryly. He really needed to remember that not everyone had grown up looking over their shoulder with one eye.

The sun picked out threads of white-green amidst Byleth’s blue-dyed hair, and made Marianne’s match the morning sky. Their heads close together, framed by the gardens and shaded by the arching branches, the two women were almost painfully picturesque as they read together amidst the flowers. It was something that Ignatz would love to paint, given the chance.

Not that Claude was going to give it to him. Instead, he sat down at the base of his tree and settled himself in the grass. Claude didn’t know what Byleth’s mother had told her about the goddess, but he knew it couldn’t have been good. If his suspicions were correct, it couldn’t have been anything close to good.

Her red hair had gotten so long since the last time Claude has seen her that it was gathered off to the side in a ponytail. She’d gotten taller too, and she gleefully ruffled his hair once she let him go so the rest of the inn could get at him. They too were all visibly older since he had seen them last, and Claude had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat as they gathered round with smiles and cheers.

Raphael scooped him up into a bear hug that lesser men had died from, and Claude’s ribs creaked before he managed to free an arm and shove Raphael away just enough to breathe. With his lungs taken care of, he submitted to being affectionately crushed and called out greetings as the others laughed at him. Ignatz was trying to be polite about it, but all three girls were openly giggling over the fact that Claude’s boots were a foot off the ground; not that he’d ever accuse Leonie of giggling to her face.

Her caution having turned to curiosity, Byleth closely watched the entire exchange from where she was still standing by the door. Her grip on the sword had loosened and her head was tilted slightly to one side. When Raphael finally put Claude down, the blond noticed her gaze and turned to her with a grin.

“You want a hug too, miss?” He asked in his always too-loud voice, arms outstretched.

Byleth looked at Raphael, considered, and then—to Claude’s great surprise—nodded. Raphael gallantly let her keep her boots on the ground when she came forward, pulling her into his barrel chest for the relatively gentle embrace he reserved for his sister and Lysithea. Claude was pretty sure Byleth still got the air knocked out of her though, if her quiet huff of breath was anything to go by.

When Raphael let her go she stepped back towards Claude, but her stoney expression was soft around the edges as she glanced around the inn. She waved a hand in a vague gesture, and Claude leaned closer to hear her over the sound of the inn.

“Who…who are they?” Byleth finally asked him, her cheeks tinged pink.

“They’re the finest the kingdom has to offer,” Claude said more honestly than he intended, the lump coming back up in his throat. He quickly coughed a couple times, putting his hands on Byleth’s shoulders and moving her in front of him before anything else slipped from his mouth.

“Time for some belated introductions!” He called out.

“About time!” Hilda said, bouncing up from her chair to reach out a hand to Byleth. “Don’t mind Claude’s awful manners, he’s incorrigible. I’m Hilda, what’s your name?

“It’s—”

“—Far too long for such a short stay,” Claude cut in smoothly, hoping he showed no outward sign of the fact that his heart had just slammed into his chest, “I prefer to call her Sunshine, myself.”

Byleth seemed not to mind the nickname he’d given her, for which Claude was ever grateful. She simply nodded in agreement with his statement as Hilda pouted. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Lysithea frowning at them with narrowed eyes though, and he had to stifle the urge to look guiltily at the sword. Had the wrapping slipped? There was a reason why the white-haired girl was his chess partner. If anyone could guess who Byleth might be…

“You’re unbelievable Claude,” Lysithea complained, stamping her foot and nearly causing him to fall over with relief. “You give this woman a gallant nickname like that yet insist on calling me a kid?”

“But Sunshine is such an apt observation!” Ignatz lit up like the natural occurrence in question, leaning forward to inspect Byleth’s face. “Your skin is practically luminous somehow, and your eyes are so bright! Would you let me paint you? Just a sketch at least—”

“Ignatz!” Hilda shoved the young man away in horror that was only slightly exaggerated. “You do not just ask a strange woman if you can paint her, you sound like a creep!”

“Don’t worry, Iggy just likes painting! You can paint me and my muscles instead if Sunshine says no,” Raphael laughed, as Ignatz turned a deep shade of red and stammered out apologies.

The girls were still tsk-tsking over Ignatz’s comment as they assured Byleth that the boys were really just harmless idiots, and Claude was trying to placate Lysithea when a peevish voice drawled out from an upstairs railing and caused half the people gathered to turn towards it.

“I can tell from the ruckus that a certain someone of ill-repute someone must be back.”

Back ramrod straight, Lorenz looked down at Claude with a frown as pointed as his pale face as he tucked a silk rose into his lapel. His glare focused on the state of Claude’s tunic, fussily readjusting his own immaculate clothing as he posed at the rail. But Lorenz visibly deflated—to Claude’s amusement—when Hilda rolled her eyes, and his dignity took a further hit when Lysithea snorted.

“Oh, give it up Lorenz,” Leonie said, flapping a hand dismissively at him as the final blow that had his shoulders practically slumping. “Come down and meet the new girl.”

“By the Goddess, if I must.”

Something about the comment caught Byleth’s interest, her eyes flicking to Lorenz as her mouth opened, and Claude was relieved when Hilda unintentionally cut her off by loudly clearing her throat. Everyone stopped their friendly arguing yet again, Ignatz physically covering Raphael’s mouth to stifle whatever comment was almost made. Hands propped on her hips and scowling at the now-mostly-silent inn, Hilda scolded them thoroughly on behalf of their “new girl”.

“Ahem! Now that everyone is done being too energetic, I think it’s time for proper introductions, don’t you? The poor thing has no idea who anyone is but me!”

“You’re absolutely right, Hilda.” Lysithea sighed and offered her hand to Byleth. “I’m Lysithea, and I’m the mature one. Don’t let anything Claude tells you convince you otherwise, regardless of my age!”

The others crowded around to offer their own names and contradict each other’s claims, cheerfully offering various hospitalities on behalf of the Golden Deer. By the time Claude managed to extract her, Byleth’s cheeks were pink enough that Claude wondered if they were going to stay that way permanently. She sighed in evident relief when he pulled her into the relative quiet of the kitchen though, and sank into a chair as he began to rifle through the cupboards.

“Raphael is setting you up in the room next to mine, or he will once they’re all done arguing in there” Claude called out, head in the cold storage box. “How about a snack while we wait? I can’t even remember the last time I ate today.”

“Yes.” Byleth was looking at the doorway to the main area when Claude turned, her expression unreadable once again. “Are they always like that?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘that’.” Claude started cutting slices from a loaf of bread after he set a pan on the stove. “Loud? Definitely. Friendly? Usually. You might have got a different welcome if you didn’t come in with me but I wouldn’t put money on it.”

Claude could almost feel Byleth’s gaze switch from the doorway to his back, and he fought to keep from visibly tensing up. If she was searching for something, he wasn’t going to volunteer an answer he hadn’t planned on. So he continued cooking as if he hadn’t noticed her watching, glancing over his shoulder to smile at her as he cracked eggs into the sizzling pan. But Byleth didn’t respond beyond a slight tilt of her head, so Claude shook his and focused on not burning himself.

When he handed her the toast, topped with tomato slices and a fried egg, Byleth took it almost mechanically. Her eyes dropped to her plate in vacant deference, and she stuffed the edge of the bread into her mouth without even looking at it; as if eating were a chore to be endured, rather than something to be enjoyed.

Then, as Claude watched with consternation, she froze. Her cheeks turned the faint pink it had been in the main room again, throat bobbing as she hastily swallowed the bite she had taken before she broke into a coughing fit. She covered her mouth with both hands, the sword dropping under the table. But she waved him back when he rose from his seat, so he sat back down and waited.

“So…are you all right?” He ventured to ask after a minute, once he was reasonably sure she wasn’t about to choke and have her adventure outside the monastery be very short-lived.

“Mm.” Byleth nodded, and sipped from the goblet of water Claude had poured for her. “I…It was unexpected.”

“What was? The egg?”

“Yes. It was so different from what Mother used to make.” She shrugged, took another bite, and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing. “More…flavoured.”

“Flavoured?” Claude almost choked on his own bite of his snack, trying not to laugh and spray food everywhere. “I barely seasoned this! If you think this is flavoured, I should take you to my hometown someday. They have some truly tasty dishes.”

“They do?”

“Absolutely. In fact, come here a minute.”

Before long, the kitchen was in a state of disarray that was going to get Claude scolded within an inch of his life as he pulled out his stashes of herbs and spices for Byleth. He got her to smell and taste them as he described the food they would be used with, rattling on about how much more could be done in the kitchen than boiling or baking. Not even a taste of dried pepper dampened Byleth’s interest. The candles burned low as Claude talked long into the rest of the night, and even when his stock of tales burned as low as the light did, Byleth’s green eyes never left his face.