#fae eisner

so based off of some 3 houses lore from leonie & byleth and some inferencing, i’d say it’s pretty common that byleth and jeralt, and therefore fae, would split up for different missions that jeralt’s mercenaries would take on. it’s not like a super often occurrence but it’s something that happens when needed. and i imagine something like this happening during shez’s first encounter with the jeralt mercenaries, only seeing jeralt and byleth in the battlefield (primarily bc i don’t know where to throw fae into that and for plot).

what’s the plot? well, i think it’d be interesting that right after the brief timeskip, for shez & whatever leader they’re running with to run into fae and a small number of jeralt’s mercenaries not actively going under his banner (bc why would they announce themselves?). shez and the house leader recruit them temporarily to help out with a battle or two and shez grows into friends with fae! but then they have to leave because their leader/dad/jeralt is calling them back since their mission’s done.

and then several chapters later when the choice to defeat byleth comes up, fae also pops up with them on the battlefield unlocking some dialogue between them and shez. shez’s surprise and slight hurt that their friend was one of their enemies in the end, and the conflict of knowing about fae’s family (who also killed their merc group) but also somehow growing to care about them because it’s their friends family. but also wanting that revenge.

if the player pursues killing byleth, i think the next mini objective would to be to kill fae, with dialogue between them and shez talking about betrayal of their friendship and fae following shez’s path seeking out revenge. and this is where shez is given the choice of killing him or not.

if shez doesn’t kill them they’re recruited temporarily, so the player has the opportunity to finish their supports. and it changes their supports together as fae points out that he won’t forgive them for their actions, that they can never be the same. he’s only sticking around because byleth would want him to, but after the battles end he disappears back to jeralt’s mercenaries. shez never hears from him again, and the route runs very similarly to how it would’ve before (and same would go for if shez does kill them, with an added dialogue of shez talking about their regrets about betraying their friend, and how terrible it is that battlefields can come this way).

however! if shez doesn’t kill byleth and instead recruits them & their company, that’s when things can change towards a new route (i have no idea what to call it as of now though). at this point jeralt, byleth, and fae have come to know a little bit more than they should as outsiders to this conflict, but hey who wouldn’t be curious about what’s causing this war?

fae tries to convince shez, and the two try to convince the leader, that trying to eliminate all sides isn’t the best option for the people. with the shez supplied info about what happened to monica it becomes obvious to them both that there’s more going on in the world, and that many things can be traced back to one common enemy.

in edelgard’s route specifically i think it’s about convincing her that the two armies she faces are better as allies, as claude’s already disillusioned against the church & their secrets and dimitri probably has discovered his uncle’s connections to the force behind the massacre of duscur not being duscur’s fault. that they all have something in this against their true foes.