Breakfast was finished and lunch was packed. The kids were outfitted in their adorable little clothes. Their hair was combed and fingers washed. Surely to be dirities on the play field but until then.

There was just one last step. The most important step of all. Security.

For all the advances made, for those who slithered in the dark's destruction, the repeal of noble privilege and the empowerment of the commons there ever remained the possibility of a threat. Even with Thales and his army exterminated and every base and outpost put to flame, every infiltrator and soldier dealt with, there remained the tiniest of possibilities one would return.

Hubert's men would be stationed nearby. Marked with black roses on their person and responsive to certain code words if danger erupted. "Do you know where Daddy met Mommy?" the parents or children would ask. Answered with: "On the battlefield outside Remire". Any deviation would be suspicious and wrong and they made sure the children knew that.

There were the other rules too: do not go out alone, always with a sibling or parent. Bring any adults to meet the parents. Children were fine, of course. Do not leave the eyesight of a parent. All the things to ensure they were in view and safe.

There was also the most important part: No Hitting.

"Not even if they hit first?" Eleanor looked askew.

"No," said Byleth. "Not even if they hit first. You get your brothers and sisters and you come to us."

"What if they're wrong?" asked Blaze.

"Even if they're wrong, and you're right, you come get us."

"But you hit first," squeaked Curtis. "Why was that OK?"

The others all looked at him in horror, fearful just mentioning that would ban them all from the park and rob them of bacon for a year.

They knew it would come one day. The spouses took a glance with one another and slipped the tiniest of sighs. Byleth met his son square in the eyes and said, "Those are very long and very complicated reasons. One day we will explain it, in a way you understand."

Curtis just frowned at the non-answer. "Then why can't I hit back if it's simple?"

Edelgard tried to put on a reassuring face. "Because you have people that can stop the hitting entirely. When we 'hit first' there was no one who could do that."

The kids looked nervous but after the morning they had, and didn't feel like pushing any further.

Finally came names. They could not go out as Byleth and Edelgard. Those names would bring too much attention with their weight and history.

"Anselma," Byleth called his wife.

"Jeralt," Edelgard called her husband.

Names with weight their own, but it was common knowledge both had departed the living.

Ferdinand's idea for a public enclosure that mixed foliage and construction to create an area where parents could bring their children and let them exhaust themselves outside the home had been met with some trepidation at first. When he vocalized how it could be used to span the gaps between former nobility and commons Edelgard began to put more weight behind the idea. And when Byleth began assisting her their three-way idea began to see more progress until finally parks like the one they'd arrived in were spread all over Enbarr.

Enbarr Palace Memorial Park was the official name of this one. Modeled after the garden in the palace. Sharing what was once beheld only by royalty and the foremost nobility was a powerful symbol of breaking down the barriers between the shattered classes.

And while the nobles, stripped of their power grumbled still, and few ever did meet their children as people rather than tools, every day that changed ever so slightly. The campaigning done by the former members of the Black Eagle Strike Force ensured such inborn prejudices and wrongs would be eradicated wholesale one day. Already noble children played with those who were once their lessers. Still-fancily dressed former nobles now stepped across non-existent lines to chatter with plain-clothed non-commoners. Little by little it was working. Only ever because they could root out the evils stopping such a thing from first taking place.

The first hour they spent with the kids, making sure all of them knew the inside and out of the small fake buildings they'd be roaming in. The environs of the park, the entertainment constructs. The kids scrambled all over a recreation of the opera house. When they grew bored of that they insisted on using a swing set. Blaze was scared at first but a few pushes saw him overcome it and shout "higher! Higher!" until he nearly fell out. Even then he wanted to get back on. Eleanor and Curtis weren't quite that brave but they still took a liking to the things. As did Aria, after some prodding. But Amelia grabbed unto Edelgard's leg and shook her head every time she was offered up.

There were some bars the kids swung from. They all needed a hand just reaching them and getting across but they all went through. There was some sort of slide that Aria loved and kept finding new ways to go down. Some pole that Blaze found himself sliding down as well.

And then came the final part. Letting them loose to play with the others. With a nod they ran off shouting and dispersing though still remaining in sight. Quickly forming their own little groups for children's games.

All save Amelia.

She clutched the hem of Edelgard's dress and looked on to her siblings running about doing all sorts of things.

"The other kids won't bite," Edelgard tried to reassure her daughter.

Amelia only tightened her grip and buried her face in the dress. "You'll have your sisters and brothers around." Amelia just shook her head. Trying to force her would just make it worse. So they relented and walked her over to a nearby bench. Amelia laid her head down on Edelgard's lap and she started stroking the brown locks of her daughter.

"Is there a reason you don't want to play with the other children, Amelia?"

"No," she blatantly lied.

"It's not because they're scary new people, is it?" Security reasons had meant only the most trusted comrades could bring their children to meet with theirs. Amelia only knew a few dozen people outside her immediate family.

Amelia just shook her head but her parents exchanged looks of knowing worry. Forcing her would do more harm than good so they resigned themselves to watching her and her siblings. With them running around with all sorts of smiles and cheer. Maybe happier than they'd ever seen the children before. Aria and Eleanor and Curtis were constantly running from place to place with seemingly unlimited stamina. Blaze was running around with a little brown-haired girl in a dress rife with patchwork threading. Despite the circumstances of either, they seemed not to notice the difference in their stature.

It was such a welcome relief. Some nobles were too die-hard to the systems in place. No matter how hard they worked there would be holdouts, even in silence. It would be up to the next generation to truly bring along and live for a world without nobility or commoners.

A woman of similar features and clothing to Blaze's new friend came up to the duo and Blaze pointed back over at Byleth and Edelgard on the bench. The woman approached, smiling as she did. "You the parents of that Blaze boy?" she asked.

Amelia turned her head as Edelgard answered. "Yes, we are."

"Thank you and your boy. My little Sally was all out of sorts trying to play with the noble boys but your lad friended her right up."

"Oh? You think we're nobility?"

"Well, former nobility, thank her former majesty for that. Begging your pardon milady, but your clothes are too new to be commoner stock and your hair's too clean."

"I see." Not something she really would have thought through.

"But you're certainly living up to what the word was supposed to mean."

That sounded like something out of one of Ferdinand's speeches. "Well thank you. I hope your child and ours become good friends."

"Hey!"

A shout from afar drew all their attention before names could be exchanged. At the base of a slide a tall boy in fine clothes was learning over Aria on the ground.

Byleth and Edelgard exploded from their seat, carrying Amelia along with them and the rest of the kids falling in to protect their sister.

And the tall boy had someone the same, an older mirror in height and thinness but with a pointed beard.

"Are you the parents of this ragamuffin little girl!" he shouted, indignation reddening his face.

"Yes, what seems to be the problem here?" Half a second with their eyes off her and some trouble. Byleth knelt down and made sure Aria was all right.

It was the little boy, with his voice going high, that shouted next, "She tried to cut in front of me!"

"Did not!"

"Did to!"

"You cut in front of me!"

And all the other kids had scattered in the shouting, so there was no way to sort this out. This was going to be trouble with no simple solution.

"Apologize the lot of you!" the man furiously condemned. "Or should I expect such manners from the lot raising a damned liar such as her."

Her eyebrow twitched at the insult. "Did you bear witness to this altercation, sir?"

"My boy is as honest as the sun. He'd not speak a falsehood in his life. Which is more than I could say for such lowborn such as yourselves."

This was the exact type of man who shouldn't be privileged into power. "Are you speaking sedition against Her Majesty's government?"

"H-hardly," his bluster had broken when greater power threatened him. "But your educations are obviously as recent as Her Majesty's government. Someone born and bred for leadership like myself is clearly more educated and able to tell apart liars."

What a nuisance. "Indeed? And what role do you play in the government?"

"As if you would know of government positions."

"Oh? Or is it because you know lying about being a governmental employee is a criminal offense?"

The man paused, agape as his mind raced towards some lie. "I'll have you know I was commander of the Empire's elite raider battalions!"

Not with hands that looked so soft. "Perhaps I should inquire with other military commanders in Enbarr to collaborate your claim."

"And you accuse me as a liar once more madam! I demand satisfaction post haste to clear these foul insinuations from your lips!"

A duel? Seriously? That was incredible in all the wrong ways and she couldn't stop a sigh from escaping. A single punch would end this matter easily but they'd just lectured the children on how they shouldn't hit. They could involve Hubert's men, already the plain figures with pins on their chest were surrounding the area. But that would ruin any chance of the kids making friends with anyone already here.

"Do you have any ideas?" she asked her husband.

"I could win by not fighting back. He'd exhaust himself easily."

"I don't want the children to see you get hit like that."

"He looks too heated to accept we should just go our separate ways."

"True." And speaking like this was making him redder by the second. "Very well, do make sure he doesn't hurt himself." Shattering his fist would earn them a petty enemy for no reason.

The man waited no longer and threw a punch. A lousy one: all arm, no hips at such a poor angle that it barely connected with Byleth's jaw. Her husband returned to the emotionless stance that was his constant companion on campaign. More and more the man threw out his slovenly punches and Byleth just tilted his head to take them. The man's sweat soon overtook him, pants for breath and the poor form grew even sloppier. She honestly wondered if he could take on a child with such a poor display.

The man buckled over gasping for breath without a single clean hit, bruise or even drop of blood drawn. It was so pathetic she had to worry. "Sir, I think you should see a physician," she said. "Such a reserve of stamina may be an onset of sickness." The man forced a glare at her. "It may even be contagious…" she glanced at his son.

Which seemed to slap the man back to his senses. "Hmph, very well," he said between gasps, "I'll let you off easily. Come Carlos, we need not associate with this rabble any further." With delay they hurried off. Or as much hurry as the man could muster.

Edelgard made sure Hubert's men didn't follow him.

"It isn't easy to change the nature of people," Byleth mused.

"No…" They should be thankful such men were in the minority these days. Edelgard looked over their children, each of them unwilling to look her in the eyes. The other townsfolk were little better, save the mother and daughter pair from earlier. It seems they'd made themselves outcasts regardless. "We should be heading home. We'll have a big lunch back home." It was a waste of what they prepared but the day wouldn't recover after that.

That at least got the kids smiling again as they all marched away from the park.

"Daddy," Aria spoke up, "why didn't you fight back?"

"We said not to hit. That went for us as well."

"But you're a grown-up!"

Byleth shook his head. "Daddy was much stronger than him. The strong shouldn't hurt the weak."

"The strong should help the weak become strong," said Edelgard. The man, for all his flaws, was protective of his kid. There was some nobility in that, no matter how slim.

"I don't get it," said Blaze."

"You will one day. You all will." That's what they'd dedicated their lives to, after all. That's what they'd raise their children to protect.

AN: I have half an idea for a Hubert chapter after this. Otherwise I suppose I'll be randomly writing ideas that get me or any ideas you folks have.

Also for anyone following Ashen Wake I can finally update again. Chapter 3 and a revised Chapter 2 are up.