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When she comes out the other end of that crushing darkness, everything is… wrong.
She is caught in the unbridled rage—the feeling stronger, somehow, than ever before—of Jeralt’s murderer running free; she often pulls her punches in battle to save her students’ stomachs, but today she is so full of light and anger that she can only take a moment here and there to hope that poor Ignatz did not see her take a man’s head clean off.
It is all a blur from then on, killing Solon and his dark mages, and when Claude rushes to her to make sure she’s all right, she can only wonder why his face looks so much clearer than it ever has right before she passes out.
A sweet, familiar song wakes her up for a second, and as Byleth opens her eyes to Rhea, she wonders if the Archbishop has ever been this beautiful; has ever emanated such light.
When the night of unconsciousness returns, it seems to sit on her chest, knocking the wind out of her and filling her to the brim with panic. Sothis is gone now, and she cannot save Byleth from any more mistakes. No more can the goddess lift her from such sleep.
When her body realizes that this miasma is only that—sweet, terrible sleep—she sits straight up in bed, startling the person sitting so gently beside her feet that he barely weighs down the comforter.
“Seteth.” Byleth opens and closes her mouth, startled by the sight of his face. She can see every wrinkle in his skin, every fleck of gold in his green eyes, every speck of dust clinging to his hair, even in this darkness. Even from this distance.
He smiles gently, eyes crinkling, smile lines deepening. Byleth has always found him attractive, always felt some inexplicable draw toward him, but he is so much more beautiful in this moment, somehow.
“I advise you not to look so hard,” he says. “It takes some getting used to.”
She is distracted by the whoosh of his breath, the movement of his mouth, the—the sight of his teeth—
“I can see you running wild in there,” he says, reaching out to clasp her hand. She flinches as if burned, and Seteth’s eyebrows crinkle together in worry, but it is not a bad flinch. She can feel the bones and the muscles creaking beneath the surface, taste that barely-present metallic tang of magic. In his blood there is a song, and when she touches him the notes seem to fill her with starlight.
She has never wondered so badly what it would be like to kiss him.
“What are you talking about?” Byleth asks at last. Her own voice sounds far away and foreign, making strange sounds as it ricochets up her larynx and into the still air. “How… How did I get here?”
“I… carried you.” She can see the bloom of color in his face, and cannot suppress the instinct to touch that warming cheek: a motion that heats his skin even further.
Gently, he clasps her hand and brings it down from his face. “Do you know what happened to you, Byleth?”
“I…” she swallows, marveling over the sounds her body makes that she has never noticed. “I was enchanted. Sent to another world, I… I think. There, the goddess gave me her power. And I was able to come back out.”
“The goddess gave you her power?” Seteth repeats slowly.
“I do not know how else to explain it.” A moment passes before she thinks to say, “There is much I have not told you about myself.”
“In that, we are the same,” Seteth responds, sounding thoughtful. “The most—important thing to gather, at the moment, though, is that you are… you are not who you were before you entered that other world. Have you gathered as much?”
“I think so,” Byleth says, focusing on that thrumming beneath his skin, his hand against hers. “Everything seems much more than it was before.”
“That is an excellent way to look at it. I owe you much explanation, but for now, I only wish to help you adjust to this new way of being. Perhaps we could start by getting you to a mirror?”
A mirror? Byleth wonders as she lets Seteth pull her to her feet, so paralyzed by his touch that she is imagining his embrace more vividly than she ever has before.
He leads her to where a hand mirror sits upon her desk, wracked with ungraded papers and letters from well-wishing students and faculty: remains of her month spent mired in grief.
Seteth sets the mirror in her hand. She is distracted by the unfamiliar feeling of the porcelain beneath her fingers, the dead cold emanating from the glass, until she sees it.
Herself.
The reflection has sunken, tired eyes the color of chrysoprase, hair tumbling down her shoulders the pale green color of sunlight passing through leaves.
Though she does not recognize this woman, her eyes blink when Byleth blinks, and her lips part when Byleth lets out a little gasp. The mirror slips from her fingers in a moment of shock, very uncharacteristically clumsy of her—
And Seteth, with almost superhuman grace, plucks it right out of the air.
Then Byleth, stunned into silence, realizes how loud it is.
She can hear Dedue humming to himself next door, and the sound of spraying as he presumably perks up a dying plant. She hears the hissing of the sauna rocks. She can hear Sylvian and Dimitri arguing upstairs, something about gifts for women. She can even hear the clanking of plates and forks from the dining hall.
Seteth touches her shoulder; all seems to quiet. It makes her head spin. “Maybe you should sit down,” he murmurs, as if he knows he will blow her eardrums out with the slightest noise.
Byleth obeys, sinking back into the blankets on the edge of her bed. Seteth cradles the mirror in one hand, angling it up toward her face from his lap. “I know it is quite a lot. I am sorry. No one should have to experience this.”
Byleth searches for the right words. For any words. All she can come up with is, “What am I? What… What is happening to me?”
“Oh, Byleth,” Seteth begins sadly, looking straight at the floor, “where could I possibly begin?”
Byleth reaches for the mirror again. Seteth passes it over, something like pity in his eyes. As if he can imagine himself in her shoes.
Byleth sees the blood moving in the hollows beneath her eyes, sees the way the light travels through the green of her eyes. She moves her hair aside, much too silken than it should be, and is startled by the sight of her ears: pointed at the tips, ever so slightly, graceful and yet unfamiliar and very, deeply wrong.
The sound of her lips peeling back over her teeth startles her almost as much as the sight of her canines, pointed and sharp like a carnivore creature in a fairy tale. Terror fills her body and weighs her down further, pulling the mirror in her hand down into her lap.
Seteth finally seems to find words. “There are… legends, one might call them, about the dragons of Fódlan.”
“Dragons,” Byleth repeats, convinced in that moment that she will never get used to the sound of her own voice.
“Legend says that they were born from the goddess. They were her children, and could not only walk the earth in human forms, but they were also capable of great feats of strength, speed, and magic.”
“You are telling me that accepting the goddess’ power has turned me into a dragon,” Byleth says flatly.
Is this a dream? It must be a dream. She has never heard straight-laced, tight-lipped Seteth speak such utter nonsense.
“In—In a manner of speaking,” he stammers. “The goddess’ children grew more and more human over time. Those of them that are said to remain can no longer change form. They are either human or beast, though some indicator of the duality still remains.”
“And why would you possibly know this? Or know to suggest it?”
Wordlessly, solemnly, Seteth moves his own hair behind his ear.
A gracefully pointed ear.
Byleth drops the mirror as she stands, and again Seteth catches it. She paces, hands on her hips, unable to form a response.
Unable to think anything beyond silence.
“Are—Are you angry with me?” Seteth asks, concern coloring his voice.
The show of emotion nearly pulls her bodily to him. “No, I am… I am confused.” Byleth turns, sizing him up, drinking in his face again. “Have you been this way all this time?”
“If, by ‘this way’, you mean like you… yes.” He clutches the mirror in both hands. “Yes, I have. And I know that you must be scared and confused. I cannot imagine what it is like to suddenly wake up and be the way we—I am.”
“We?” Byleth presses, kneeling before him, looking up into those impossibly green eyes, that exposed pointed ear growing red and warm beneath her gaze.
Seteth frowns, considers his words, and then at last admits, “Me, and… and Flayn. And Rhea.”
“You are all… also dragons?”
“The dragon metaphor was perhaps too broad,” he mumbles, setting the mirror aside. “We are all children of the goddess. We are… not human.”
“And I,” Byleth presses, again listening to herself swallow her nerves, briefly catching the far-off sound of blades crossing in the training grounds, “I am no longer human. Is that right?”
“Yes.” Seteth reaches gently for her hands. She goes silent, fixated on his touch, and the way that it feels right to have her skin pressed to his. “I… I knew I had to do something when you returned the way you did. I am sorry that this is how you had to find out about me and Flayn, and I am even sorrier that you must now navigate this new way of existing. But you must know that I will not let you bear it alone.”
Byleth stares up into his eyes, believing him fully. Trusting him more than ever before.
Seteth has always been her friend, but now more than ever she wants him near her. Whatever it is that changed her has changed him, too. It turns the nagging crush she was trying hard not to nurse into a fire low in her belly.
“Is this normal?” Byleth asks plainly.
Seteth seems lost in her eyes, too. “Is what normal?”
“The… the seeing everything. The hearing everything. Even that which is so far away.”
“Yes. You learn to ignore it after a while.”
“And you,” Byleth whispers.
“Me,” Seteth responds, not quite a question, but in some tone that indicates that he is confused—or maybe even bashful.
“Your hands feel right. Touching you feels right. I cannot really explain it.”
Seteth, smiling weakly, anxiously, tells her, “It is perhaps an indication that we are the same. Or even…” he clears his throat. Byleth watches his ear redden. “…it may simply be the strengthening of feelings you already had. Everything you see or touch or feel will now be more than ever it was.”
“Oh,” Byleth murmurs, marveling at that revelation. That perhaps she has always felt stronger for Seteth than she wanted to believe.
“That, too,” he says, eyes briefly flickering away, “you will grow used to.”
She is not good with words, not good at vocalizing her thoughts or feelings. She does not realize that she is frowning until Seteth gently reaches a hand out to graze her face, as if to smooth the notch that has formed between her eyebrows. Can he, perhaps, sense that his touch will soothe her?
“You have nothing to fear,” he says softly, leaning down to try to catch her eye. “We will get through this together.”
When she looks up at him again, so beautiful and sincere and so deeply, selflessly kind, she cannot help but lurch forward, cannot stop herself from brushing her lips across his.
He is soft, and he smells clean and salty, like the sea.
She draws back quickly, snatching her hand from his, and ekes out a pitiful little, “I-I am sorry. I… I did not mean… please forgive me.”
“There is no-nothing to forgive,” Seteth stammers, voice breaking on his final few words. He seems to temper himself, then reach for her hands again. “Do not apologize. Byleth, I… I am not well-versed in giving out my feelings, but I had hoped that you could tell how much I care for you.”
She swallows. “I am not good at these things, either.” A pause as she looks for the right words. “I, too, care for you greatly. More than I think I initially realized.”
“I am honored to hear such a thing from you,” Seteth breathes, his voice betraying his surprise: and glee. “I—I will take care of you, Byleth. This, I swear. You will not have to shoulder this new existence by yourself and even afterward, I shall follow you anywhere you wish me to.”
Byleth stares at him, too touched to answer. She cannot remember a time when she did not care about him, nor can she think of a time when she stopped being grateful for him. A rogue, happy tear slips down her cheek, and Seteth makes a concerned noise as he reaches to brush it away.
“I am happy,” she says. “It’s all right. You make me happy.”
He smiles so gently, and Byleth can feel her heart in her throat. Is she more upset that her entire life is different? Or is she happier knowing that this change has brought her closer to Seteth, made her more sure of her want to be close to him? She cannot tell.
“You make me happy as well.” He draws her in close, arm around her shoulders. It is an embrace that seems to electrify her to her very core. “There is much I still have to tell you.”
“I will listen to it all,” Byleth says, breathing him in, nestling into his neck so that his chin scratches her head. “Just… let me hold you for a moment.”
Seteth, in what sounds like a dreamy sigh, responds, “...okay. For as long as you wish.”
Byleth closes her eyes and listens to his breath: content not to think for a moment.
Content, for a moment, to forget how deeply and fundamentally she has changed.