The first time

The first time the war ends, Byleth holds everything together for a week or two. For a week or two, she is functional. She is even cautiously happy when she sees the way her Blue Lions rebuild themselves. It's only when messengers arrive notifying her of the official funeral rites for her other students, begging her attendance, that she feels her power begin to twitch, like a muscle about to spasm.

For a few days, she braces against it like an oncoming storm. There's so much she can't, or won't, do over. She refuses to watch her father die again. Her stomach turns at the idea of looking Edelgard in the face again as a student. The thought of blindly following Rhea's orders, decimating the West Church without blinking, makes her shiver.

She doesn't even know if she could make it back that far. All in all, it was far better to count her blessings, count on the continued peace of Fódlan and accept her own part in it. That's what she told herself, at least.

But resting against the door of Lysithea's funeral, eyes cast over a sea of attendant loved ones, Byleth felt her resolve weaken. Just as she had at Dorothea's. Petra's, Caspar's, Marianne's, Raphael's. The words to lose someone so young feel as if they are physically imprinted in her mind, the horrors of war never leave her. There are only so many times she can listen to her students, still burning bright and joyous in her memory, become one with the goddess.

It was all she could do to stay still. Nausea washed over her with a shudder of unshed guilt. I failed to save them, was all she could think. Because of my choices, they're all dead.

It's when she sees Hilda crouching next to Claude, whispering hoarsely through her tears, "It's better to be them. No one should survive to mourn like this." that Byleth's will dissolves.

Like a muscle flexing, divine light pulses around her.

How far can I go back? she silently asks the goddess. No answer, but in her gut she can feel Sothis warning her. A wordless dread that doing this might break the hands of time, or her.

If nothing else, at least I'll get to hear your voice again, she thinks, directing her thoughts to the pit of her stomach. Again, silence. The faint sense of foreboding, the impression of a weary smile. She doesn't have the goddess' blessing, but it feels like she has her permission.

Byleth fixes her mind on the exact day seven years ago. She breathes steadily out, straining to hear the divine drumbeat of time, and opens her eyes.

She blacks out immediately.

The first time she sees Edelgard again, she leaves with patterned indents on her palm from where she's gripped the hilt of her sword too tightly. For hours afterwards, she can trace the floral outline marked out red against the pale of her palm.

The passage of time has taken its toll on her, if only in reverse. Sothis only visits her in her dreams for now, but when she does there is a painful clarity to her visits, as if they are two experiences layered upon one another. In her dreams, Byleth's senses are sharpened until she can see the individual strands of the goddess's hair, until she can hear her soft intakes of breath as if they are her own. She doesn't know for sure, but she thinks the goddess understands what she has done. There is a weighted implication in the way she looks at her. You who can see both sides of fate has never been a more fitting title.

The strangest part is looking at her body again. Younger, and less in possession of its expressions, all she can see are the missing scars, an absent history. She is tongue-tied again, stumbling in her efforts to bring words to the surface. Feeling anything is like dredging up emotion from a long-forgotten sea trench, diving for pearls only to come up with crumbled shells. For the first time, Byleth realises what a blessing it was to become one with Sothis when she did. To have her body back, even if it meant giving up on the voice of the goddess.

This time, however, she does things differently. She steels herself. She pursues the interests of every student she can. Free time becomes a precious commodity. When House tournaments roll around, she throws herself into them in a way she could never have done before. Splitting dummies apart with hand axes, spearing targets with lances and arrows, she entices as many students as she can to switch houses. She understands, with a note of frantic hilarity, how ridiculous the others find her, a small woman, young and completely ignorant of the world, who somehow maintains a mastery of every weapon she picks up. It takes a lifetime to learn that is muttered in every corner of the monastery she finds herself in. Little do they know.

Mostly, she pours time into Edelgard. Memorising her favourite teas, noting her likes and dislikes, finding small gifts to give her in between teaching and caring for her own students. There's no doubt the Imperial princess is flattered, but Byleth fears it is not enough.

She prays she can pry open Edelgard's trust in time. Every time the princess hesitates with her words, Byleth holds her breath. Tell me, she wills. Trust me.

That, and every spare moment Byleth has she spends with Jeralt. Even if it's just silently polishing blades with him, enjoying the pale spring sun filtering through the storeroom's window, she soaks in every second she can get. She memorises his schedule and Tuesday evenings become their time. The first week she turns up with little more than bread and cheese on a plate, tilting her head to ask if she can come in. Less than a fortnight later, an intricate routine of hotpot has begun. Byleth scours the monastery for fresh ingredients, her father's favourite meats. In return, he gathers together what she's brought, and shows her how to make dishes the way he and her mother would.

She falls asleep listening to his stories more times than she can count.

And he notices. He begins to open up a little more, asking her how she's finding the academy, telling her whenever she reminds him of her mother. He ruffles her hair whenever she does something cheeky, a sensation she didn't even know she had been missing. His eyes widen when she makes her first joke. She has seven years practice that he doesn't know about, and she uses it to make him laugh.

She replays her last evening with him as many times as she can afford, until Sothis begins to warn her about the toll it will take on her body. The very last time Jeralt laughs and gently tells her off for letting him ramble on at her for so long it is all she can do not to cry then and there. The pain in her heart makes it harder to speak than usual. And, of course, he sees it.

"Tired out from a long week of managing those aristocratic brats, I bet."

She looks up at him, stretched out in his favourite armchair, lit by the glowing fireplace in his room. His face is worn, somewhere between old and young. She doesn't know how many secrets he hides, but she's seen his heart. She knows he does so for good reasons. Mostly, she sees the unbearable affection in his face, reticent in nature, but loving all the same. She swallows the lump in her throat, the caged feeling in her chest.

"They're not all bad," she manages, slowly.

He laughs. "Maybe not in ones and twos, Byleth, but looking at how many you've convinced to switch classes makes it nigh impossible! You could've just had the well-behaved ones following you around like ducklings if you wanted, but you seem to have made it your mission to handle the whole wild-eyed, arrow-throwing bunch."

She gives him a small smile. Neither of them had forgotten the first time she introduced Bernedetta to him.

"I've seen you take in some pretty wild brats yourself, you know," she replies. "Our band of mercenaries was half made up of kids you caught trying to steal from us."

"You've got me there," Jeralt murmurs, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Maybe it just runs in the family."

Her heart twinges again.

"I'm sure that's it," she says softly. She doesn't hide the look in her face, knowing its muted by Sothis' presence anyway. She wills him to read the love in her face, even as it mixes with her sorrow. It confuses him, she can tell, but he's counting on the many days they have stretched out ahead of them to ask her about it later. The thought makes her stomach drop.

"You're right, though," she continues. "It's about time we both got some rest."

She stands, and he mirrors her slowly, cracking some half-hearted joke about getting old and arthritic. She moves too quickly for him nowadays, when did she get so grown up anyway?

She smiles and wishes him a good night's sleep. As he goes to close the door, she looks him full in the face.

"Goodnight Jeralt, love you."

It's all Byleth can manage, even after six attempts at something more. She turns on her heel because she knows the look of soft surprise on his face will make her cry. She makes it to her room before she kneels against the bedpost, shoulders shaking. She sobs until she doesn't feel connected to her body anymore.

I'm sorry, is all that Sothis can say.

But it's not enough, it will never be enough.

As she sits upon the throne for a second time, she prays. She prays that Edelgard will have found another way, that she won't appear in the red and black armour of the Flame Emperor. That she will have found it in her heart to trust a professor, to know that she can confide in someone outside her House, outside her ambitions.

The sound of metal boots on stone shatters that hope.

For a third time she returns to that day, with dawn breaking fresh and sharp across the woodland. Her three young students are harried, out of breath. They beg Jeralt's pardon, ask him to help them, to protect the people of Remire. It is all Byleth can do not to grab Edelgard, shake her. Anger is at the back of her throat, all she can taste is her own frustration.

She tears through the bandits with a speed and ferocity that worries even Jeralt. She can see it in the way he winces when she's done, the way his eyes follow her afterwards.

When she lifts her eyes to the students, Byleth doesn't know what she will do, who she will choose. She turned back time without thinking.

Byleth sees the darkness in Dimitri even now. She can almost hear the voices haunting him as his grip tightens around the shoddy iron spear he carries. He has no idea what he will turn into. The thought alone makes her tired. Every bone in her aches. She doesn't know if she has it in her anymore, to be the light that guides him home.

Edelgard's judgement puts her on edge. For a moment, she thinks about choosing the her. Bathing her in all the undivided love and affection she knows Edelgard needs, deep down. She's little more than a child, fighting a Church that Byleth can barely call her own anymore. They haven't yet asked her to choose, but she is already hesitating, balancing on the precipice.

In her heart, Byleth knows she is not strong enough to forgive. She's seen the Empire cut through Fódlan's heart too many times. She's had dreams about it, choosing the Black Eagles, choosing Edelgard. She knows there would come a moment where she was asked to kill her, or to kill Rhea.

In her darkest moments, Byleth has wondered if there was a way to kill both. To be done with it all.

Then her eyes move to Claude, whose own gaze is never still. It chills her heart to pass over Dimitri, but she forces herself to consider it. If there was anyone she could even attempt explaining her situation to, it might be him. He's smiling, like always, but it doesn't reach his eyes. She has no idea what he's thinking or where he will lead her, but she's out of options.

Byleth prays to the goddess that the saying is true. She'll uncover every secret if she has to. She'll save as many as of them as she can. If she can find even one person who understands what she's doing and why, it will be worth it.

Third time lucky, right?

OK so I'm not fifteen anymore but I'm still playing Fire Emblem. Basically had a fever dream which convinced me Byleth is a time traveller and each new game file is just him/her going back in time to switch sides or save more students or try to avert the war. Wrote this because it's how it felt to play Golden Deer after Blue Lions & I definitely can't play Black Eagles now.

Reviews are always lovely! If you want to read my twenty seven chapter Awakening fic please do but don't me because it makes my eyes burn. Thanks for reading! x