#claudeth ask

And he just thinks "oh...so this is where this is going" and slowly walks away to give them space

The next few months

Mitya and Edie: 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

Claude: she's great but I wouldn't like do anything for her

Post timeskip

Mitya and Edie: my feelings don't matter you're my enemy now

Ah, well...hm...how do I put this...

Okay, let's just pull an Edie and forge right ahead

My take on those three relationships is that they all start of at different places.

Claudeth distinguishes itself by being a friendship first and foremost. Claude is the only one out of the three who doesn't develop a crush on Byleth early on. Instead he takes his time to really get to know her, tries to earn her trust and eventually returns that trust wholeheartedly. He builds a friendship with her, then a partnership. They both lead the army, they both decide what happens, he confides in her, she in him, he makes an effort to show her she's appreciated by helping her achieve her goals on the side while she does the same. It's an equal relationship from start to finish and them becoming a couple seems like another small step, a logical conclusion. He also doesn't keep nearly as many secrets as he pretends to. He even comes right out and says he's using her and makes up for it by being absolutely supportive of her the entire time. They stand on the same level the whole game, which is not something that can be said about the others.

Dimileth starts out with a pretty obvious crush on Dimitri's part. He's eager to please and support her while she doesn't seem to realize that at all. He's very open about his trauma, about his past and his goals. But he does keep some pretty heavy secrets, like his hallucinations and chronic nightmares and inability to taste. While they both trust each other he doesn't like himself enough to open up completely and that's what leads to the eventual fallout in a way. By keeping secrets and not letting Byleth in on what he's actually doing for most of the Academy Phase, he deprives himself of the mental support. And come the war phase he hates himself so much he can't even fathom why she would stick around. Meanwhile she abandons her own goals, her hunt for answers, to be there for him no matter how much he tries to push her away. Their relationship is a lot of pushing and pulling and tightrope walking because there's trust and appreciation there but it all gets buried under tragedy for a long time. They do eventually manage to find common ground, but getting there requires a lot of effort. On both ends. Letting someone see you at your lowest and then grabbing their hand is incredibly hard, speaking from experience.

Edeleth...well, that's a tricky one cuz while Edie very obviously has a huge crush on Byleth during the Academy Phase, she doesn't make an effort to build trust between them at all. She lies and manipulates and evaluates and actually kind of demands Byleth trust her without really giving a good reason. To me it feels like Edie is the driving force behind the relationship, that there's again a push and pull there but Edie does all the pushing and Byleth let's herself be pulled. To me, it doesn't feel equal. It feels like Edie has all the power there and drags Byleth along with her. That's not necessarily bad, some people are passive and let their more dominant partners lead them, but considering Byleth never keeps secrets and Edie keeps a lot of them - and big ones, like planning a war - but doesn't bother to let Byleth in on them, it doesn't get me nearly as invested in it as Claudeth or Dimileth

That's not to say I don't like Edeleth, I just don't like it nearly as much as the other two. It's not build oh mutual trust because Edie doesn't give me a single reason to trust her. The other two...they give me reasons. And I trust them.

Well, let's see

When Claude sits down cross-legged anywhere Byleth will sit down in his lap and cuddle into him. He'll then wrap his arms around her without even stopping what he does

They can communicate without words perfectly and it freaks people out because Byleth's facial expressions are very subtle and if you don't know her it's like Claude can read her mind

Before they get together they spend many nights sitting up together in each other's rooms until they fall asleep cuddling and Hilda walks in on them like this once and almost faints because FINALLY. When it turns out they're not actually a couple yet she breaks a desk by slamming her head down on it and everyone is very confused

Claude likes playing with Byleth's hair and she let's him do whatever he wants with it. During an especially hot day, Claude notices she's not doing too good with it during a war meeting, gets up to put up Byleth's hair while he's in the middle of explaining a strategy and only realizes he did that afterwards to Byleth's amusement

No matter how bad things seem, Claude and Byleth can still laugh and have fun and their allies know everything is okay as long as those two can smile at each other like that

Claude always has some candy on him in case Byleth gets snacky and she'll just shove her hand into his pockets sometimes because she knows exactly where everything is and Claude won't bat an eyelash

The green in Claude's time skip outfit was picked specifically because the color reminds him of Byleth but it's darker so it's not too obvious for the others

Claude boops Byleth's nose sometimes because she scrunched up like a cat and he thinks it's adorable.

He calls her "my stars" in Almyran because at some point she replaced the stars as his gods and she gets flustered every time because she knows how meaningful it is even if she doesn't understand the words

The first thing they do after defeating the remains of the Empire and Agarthans is jump onto Claude's wyvern, fly to a high place outside Derdriu and watch the sunrise.

After a few years of reforms and unification they establish democracy in Fódlan and Almyra, wait until its integrated right, abdicate over night and disappear from their room. Claude's been meaning to show Byleth the world and they travel for years until they find a pretty little village with a cottage by a lake a bit out and settle there. They live a humble, peaceful life surrounded by people who don't know them and return to Fódlan and Almyra only to visit their friends from time to time

Claude: to be fair I cry about that when I'm sober too

Lorenz: you cry because you're married to your wife?

Yes!

Riegan men:

Their wives:

Yeah, she'd probably take a look at wall of the kids and just go "mine now". Local woman adopts a few dozen students, no one argues cuz she's just too nice and made everyone flower crowns