Chapter Text
Byleth hadn’t been planning to become a student in the monastery. Father likely hadn’t been planning to become a teacher, either.
It was hard to reject the Archbishop’s offer, though, especially when she had promised a fair amount of monthly payment in gold, and teaching some teenagers how to fight didn’t sound very hard, especially if Byleth were to be among them and help out. So Father said yes. He hadn’t sounded very happy about it—“Trust Alois to run his mouth about how my mercenary experience would do some noble brats good”—but it was the highest-paying job they had been able to get for months now, and they’d both be lying if they said they weren’t just a bit curious to see how it would go for both of them.
“Now the question is which House you’ll be joining,” Father says during dinner in the dining hall. The Archbishop had let them have the night to think their choice over. “They’re all the same to me, so I don’t care which bunch I’ll have to handle. But you?”
Byleth tilts his head to the side a little. He hadn’t gotten to know any of the three House leaders all that well in the short time they had spent together walking back to the monastery, and he doesn’t remember—doesn’t know, really—where in Fódlan he had been born, so he can’t even base his decision off that. “I don’t know.”
“Thought you’d say that.” Father takes a bite out of his meal, apparently taking the time to savor it. Byleth had finished his several minutes ago, a decision he’s beginning to regret. “Didn’t you go around and talk to some of ‘em today? Anyone you like enough to be classmates with?”
“Mmh…” They all have varying personalities. It isn’t that none of them stood out—it was more accurate to say they all did, equally. “They’re all the same.”
Father raises an eyebrow, and Byleth supposes he could have worded that better. “I mean, I don’t mind any of them. They’re all… nice.”
Then Father snaps his fingers. “That girl! The one with the white hair, the one you saved during the fight. What’s her name, von Hresvelg?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“Why don’t you join up with her, then? You seem to like her well enough.”
That’s an odd assumption, but it isn’t like Byleth has thrown himself in front of a giant axe to save a stranger’s life very often, so Father probably has a point. The Black Eagles… He’d met so many students that Byleth can only firmly remember Edelgard and her retainer, that Hubert von Vestra, as members of that House. If he tries hard enough, he can probably recall more of them, but he doesn’t really care that much. “Sure.”
Father blinks. “What, just like that?”
“Sure,” Byleth repeats. It doesn’t make a difference to him. Everything Father will be teaching will be things he already knows, and he doubts they’ll be staying in the monastery long enough for his choice of House to really matter. Eventually they’d have to pack up and leave for real mercenary work again, probably after the Archbishop finds a more qualified teacher, and Byleth doesn’t like the idea of getting attached enough to stay behind.
Father looks at him for a while longer, then shrugs. “Alright. I’ll tell Lady Rhea tomorrow, then.”
He only lasts another minute before he sighs and pushes the rest of his plate to an eager Byleth.
“This is Byleth Eisner,” Edelgard announces. She had called for a meeting among the Black Eagles not an hour after Father told the Archbishop about their choice of House, and Byleth had thought it was something serious. Apparently, it’s just his introduction. “He’s Jeralt Eisner’s son, and he’ll be joining us as our classmate.”
“No way! The Ashen Demon?” someone crows—Byleth turns to face them, and is met with a shock of bright blue hair. What was his name—Casper? “I’m Caspar! Von Bergliez,” Caspar adds, his title something of an afterthought. “We should spar together sometime!”
“Oh. Um, sure.”
“Aren’t you nice on the eyes?” someone else coos. This one Byleth remembers—Dorothy, right. She smiles, both kindly and flirtatious. “It’s Dorothea. Nice to meet you.”
Ah. Not Dorothy. “Nice to meet—”
“Dorothea, it would not do to pounce upon our new classmate so soon after he’s joined us,” another student chastises. Dorothea pouts; Byleth struggles to remember this person’s name. Orange hair… it starts with an F, surely? “I am Ferdinand von Aegir,” he says, showing off a perfect smile. “Are you of noble lineage, by any chance? How did you come to be a student here?”
Ferdinand—he’s technically right, he supposes, the name starts with an F, after all. “I didn’t—”
“Let’s not crowd him,” Edelgard sighs. Byleth shoots her a thankful look, which she returns with a smile—really, Byleth’s just impressed she had been able to realize it was a thankful look at all, with how often Father’s mercenaries tell him how inscrutable his expressions are. “There’ll be plenty of time to introduce ourselves later. For now, it’s getting late, and the professor already assigned us some reading.”
Professor? Byleth thinks, and realizes, Oh, Father. The thought of twenty-something kids calling Father Professor is more amusing than he’d expected.
The rest of the Black Eagles disperse, chattering among themselves, and Byleth takes the time to evaluate them as quickly as he can, the same way he evaluates enemies in the middle of a fight—Hubert had stayed silent at Edelgard’s side, the girl with long, braided hair is speaking lowly to Dorothea, and another girl with ruffled violet hair is out the door before Byleth can get a better look at her.
They’re all a little—Byleth can’t really think of a word that describes all of them accurately, but at least they don’t seem like they bear ill will against him. Except perhaps Hubert, who Byleth makes a mental note to avoid offending. They don’t look hard to get along with, for now—
“Byleth Eisner,” someone says. “Hello there.”
Byleth’s first thought is to position his sword right against his assailant’s throat. Byleth’s second thought, coming from a yelping Sothis, is “He’s just a student, he’s not going to kill you!”
Byleth reluctantly lowers his arm back down to his side—his hand had been inches away from the hilt of his sword. When he turns around, it’s the quiet boy who hadn’t said anything, eyebrows raised and gaze clearly curious. “Your reflexes are admirable.”
“Thank you?”
“I suppose I should avoid threatening you next time, if I would like to avoid being stabbed as well.”
Byleth shrugs. “You didn’t threaten me.”
“Oh?” The boy smiles. For the life of him, Byleth can’t remember his name. “Is that a challenge? You seem like a strange one.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Take it as you like it. It doesn’t matter to me.” Then, with a slow blink of his dark blue eyes, the boy turns to leave. “I’m a little tired now. But I’d like it if we got to know each other better soon, Byleth.”
He leaves after another meaningful look behind him—and Byleth, staring blankly at the door the boy had left through, realizes he’d forgotten to ask for his name.
“You’re not busy right now, are you? Could you go look for some recipe ideas for me, then?”
Byleth can’t say he’s used to monastery life yet.
Everyone’s… easygoing. Perhaps it’s unfair to say so, when these students haven’t exactly been pushed into life-and-death situations so often that they’ve become the norm, but Byleth can’t get used to it. They treat him like one of them, even those from the other Houses, and none of them seem to care about his mysterious mercenary background. Mostly, they care about things like his preferred meals or his favorite tea.
He’s not used to it. But he can’t say he doesn’t like it, either.
For today, the head chef had asked for his help on procuring recipe ideas from cookbooks in the library. “Or maybe a student can spark some inspiration,” the chef had mused—“anyway, let me know if you find something, would you?”
It’s a long walk to the library, but Byleth likes the calmness that comes with just walking, no looking around for threats or surveying his surroundings. He climbs the stairs, crosses the hallways (avoids looking into the audience chamber, where the Archbishop is—if Father doesn’t trust her, then neither does he), and slips into the library at last. The quiet here is comforting, the pleasant hum of silence interspersed with the flutter of book pages or the flicker of a candle.
Byleth takes a moment to close his eyes and breathe in the smell of old books. He can’t say he’s used to monastery life yet, but he could certainly get used to the library.
The chef hadn’t rushed him, so Byleth takes his time scouring through the shelves, running a hand across the spines of the impeccably-arranged volumes. The history of Fódlan, the four Saints, Hero’s Relics… he barely knows anything about any of these. It’s probably a good idea to start reading up on them soon, then, if he doesn’t want to be left behind in conversations where these are common sense. He pulls the most comprehensive-looking books off the shelves and tucks them against his chest. The founding of the Adrestian Empire, the geography of Fódlan, the existence of Crests—
“Ah,” someone says—“if it isn’t Byleth.”
Byleth pulls his hand back so fast, his arm almost snaps—that brief brush of skin, fingertips on fingertips, is already far more than he’s used to. The boy in his class, all dark green hair and dark blue eyes, gives him a curious look—this close, Byleth realizes the boy’s just slightly taller than him, not enough that he has to look up, but enough to, well… notice.
“Well?” The boy looks back at the book they had both reached for. He pulls it out of place and hands it to Byleth. “Weren’t you about to get this?”
“You can have it,” Byleth says, too fast. There’s something about the boy’s eyes that unnerves him terribly—it feels like they’re looking into him, analyzing him, discovering things about Byleth he shouldn’t. Things about Byleth he himself doesn’t even know about.
“Hm? Are you sure?” But the boy is already retracting his arm, a faint smile on his face. “I think you might need it more than me. You don’t know much about these subjects, do you?”
Byleth’s about to ask how he knows before remembering that the stack of books he’s steadily collected isn’t exactly subtle. He clears his throat and looks back at the shelves, more to avoid eye contact than anything. “My father didn’t tell me much about these.”
The boy raises an eyebrow. “Professor, right?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“Will you call him Professor, too? Seems a little odd.”
Byleth shrugs, but he wonders what face Father might make if he ever called him Professor. He’d probably look appalled beyond belief. “I don’t know.”
“Oh,” the boy says, looking amused, “so you can smile.”
The smile he hadn’t even been aware of falls from Byleth’s face immediately. “By the way,” he says, ignoring the confusion on the boy’s face, “could you point me to some recipe books? The chef needs them.”
“Hmm.” The boy frowns, but he doesn’t press the issue; instead, he waves a hand at the shelves at the back, where Byleth is well aware the cookbooks are, along with magazines on home design and architecture. “Are they in need of recipe ideas? You could always ask them to make something sweet for dinner.”
Byleth inclines his head in a half-nod, offering nothing else as he slips past the boy and fixes his gaze on the shelves—he hears a huff from behind him, then footsteps shuffling away.
What bothers him most, Byleth thinks as he starts retrieving some books, is that he hadn’t even registered the other boy coming closer until they’d been right beside each other. That kind of inattention is the sort of thing that would get him… no, get the both of them killed on the battlefield. Father would have scolded him for it, really.
And worst of all, Byleth still doesn’t know the boy’s name.
“Here you go.”
He’d gathered the nicest and most up-to-date recipe books he could find. Byleth doesn’t know much about cooking outside of common fish and meat, as those had been his meals day in and day out, so he can’t say he understands a thing in the books he found. But the head chef lights up when she sees them, thanks him profusely, and says, “I’ll look forward to seeing you on cooking duty one of these days.”
Ah, he thinks, this is bad, huh.
Dinner that night is far too sweet for Byleth’s tastes, really, and Father makes a face at the overwhelming flavor as well. But he sneaks a glance at the Black Eagles table, and the boy from earlier, seated between Dorothea and Caspar, seems to like it well enough.
“You know you can hang out with your classmates, right?” Father asks, noticing his gaze. “If you keep eating with the Knights, you’re gonna start looking like one of them.”
“Yes, and what a tragedy that would be,” one of the Knights, Shamir, mumbles. Her partner Catherine laughs and smacks her back with far more force than necessary.
Byleth pushes his food around his plate in contemplation for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I don’t feel like one of them, really.”
Father sighs, and when Byleth looks up, he can see Father’s expression softening at the edges. “Yeah? I get that.”
Byleth supposes attachment is something they both fear after all.
“By the way, the uniform suits you.”
“Really?” Byleth tugs at the jabot, although he’s already tugged at it several times over the past few hours that it’s nearly fully undone by this point. “It’s stuffy.”
Father laughs, and for a moment he looks younger than Byleth knows he is. “I’m kidding. The hat’s ridiculous, for one.”