Chapter Text
Byleth has been acting strange this month.
Even those who don’t know him very well would notice that something is amiss. Exhaustion, they might assume, a toll taken by his hard work preparing for the Battle of Eagle and Lion last month? But Linhardt does know him. Linhardt knows the length between each of Byleth’s steps when he walks. He has timed an exact count of how many seconds he spends taking a breath, and what it should sound like when he exhales. He has recorded the measure of dexterity in each of his hands and solid curve of his posture when he stands like a statue choosing its base. Byleth is breaking all of those normal patterns. The data is entirely abnormal.
He’s ill. Somehow. He won’t say, or—more likely—doesn’t know with what. Manuela infuriates with her selectiveness over which rules she suddenly cares about. Alright to bring her trysts into the medical ward and use the beds meant for the ill, but “patient confidentiality” is a line she won’t cross? Lindhart can’t even get Hanneman to talk, and it’s supposed to be impossible to make that man stop rattling on. Maybe if he baits him with an agreement...? He’d like nothing more than for Lindhart to continue his crest research as his apprentice. He could…agree to “think about it”, on the condition that he tell him what the hell they’ve all been finding out about Byleth’s health.
The students have begun to stir about it, a few. Claude, mostly, though he takes care to cover it up. He does have…intuition, for leadership, and no need at all for spotlight. A clever pair of qualities. Lindhart sees him distracting the more energetic classmates when Byleth appears fatigued—deflects more work than is necessary from reaching the Professor. He doesn’t let on that anything is wrong. Marianne can tell, of course. But she’s so unconfident that all she can do is worry about it. Linhardt feels…sad for her, sometimes. Similar. But Byleth concerns him now, more than…well, anything. Everything. He’s keeping a scientific journal about each incident he spots. He’s making analytic graphs. He’s looking for patterns.
He seems lethargic, overall, and pale, and looks as tired as Linhardt complains to be. He notices moments of unsteadiness. Byleth uses the railing of stairs, sits rather than stands whenever he has the option, and misses footsteps. Linhardt is uniquely equipped to recognize the symptoms of lightheadedness—Byleth keeps getting dizzy spells. Linhardt is always afraid he’s going to collapse one day.
This day, during lecture, the professor trails off in the middle of a sentence. He’s writing on the blackboard, so his back is turned to the class, betraying little. But Linhardt lifts his chin out of his palm as quickness comes into his eyes. Byleth does not lose his train of thought; he thinks everything out before speaking.
The slight tremor in the hand holding the chalk would not concern many. Is Linhardt making a big deal out of nothing? Or is today the day he finally watches the Professor hit the floor?
“Um, Professor?” Claude pipes up, raising his hand. “Could you go over page twenty-nine once more, the part about feinting in an inequal duel to gain the upper hand? I’m not sure I completely understood it.”
Byleth is able to get back on track, then, but Linhardt remains concerned about a whole different type of “feint”.
After the ten-minute-early end to class, Linhardt stays seated while the others pack up around him. He’s usually the first one out, but more and more he finds himself dawdling when lessons end. Not really sure why. Except this time, he has clear designs, which he’s been chewing on for about a week. If even Jeralt couldn’t make his child heed a medical prescription of rest, what would be the best strategy to accomplish that goal?
Linhardt has one he’s quite confident in. Time to test his ongoing translation of Professor Eisner.
Byleth sits at his desk, his shoulders sagging and his bangs in his eyes as his head hangs over an open book. He’s been “reading” the same page for nearly five minutes when soft but deliberate footsteps approach.
“Professor?”
It’s like he hadn’t noticed anyone was there; he starts a bit as he raises his head. Linhardt does a poor job at hiding the concern that crosses his face when he is afforded a good look into Byleth’s. He’s paler than parchment and the dark circles beneath his eyes could rival Marianne’s.
“I…apologize for this request. I’m afraid I need your help with a very important matter, if you’re available.”
The flicker of dismay in Byleth’s eyes is quickly snuffed out. “Of course,” he replies, without hesitation.
Byleth never asks what he needs before agreeing to it. His plan is working so far.
“Excellent. Shall we go then?”
He knows he doesn’t need to check; Byleth will be following him. He chatters as they walk. “There’s been a matter causing me a lot of stress lately. It’s all I’ve been able to focus on. I’m afraid it’s most distracting and I won’t be able to make any progress in class until it’s resolved.”
“Mm?” comes the listless, though worried reply. “And…how can I resolve it?”
“That will be much easier to explain once we arrive.”
“…” There is another span of silence. “But you’re alright?”
Linhardt feels his heart constrict in a way that makes him unsure of the answer to that question.
“…You’re always so. Selfless,” he mutters. And then he falls quiet.
-------------------
“We’re in the—"
“I must thank you again for your assistance; it may prove invaluable. Alright. Now, the first thing I’ll need you to do is remove your shoes.”
Byleth blinks at him, slowly. Linhardt offers no elaboration. Eventually, the professor sits on the infirmary bed and bends down to unlace his heavy boots. His movements belie a clumsiness only brought on by fatigue. The boots thud to the floor and Byleth looks up for further instructions.
This is easier than Linhardt thought it would be. He smiles. “Very good. What I’ve been worried about concerns this…” Pulling out a small velvet pouch from his pocket, he opens the drawstring and shakes the contents into his hand. Two round pills pop out and roll around his palm.
Byleth’s browline goes flat.
“You see, Professor Manuela has assigned me to making medicine as part of my…” he almost chokes on the word “apprenticeship.”
He is not, nor will he ever be, apprentice to that crone.
“I see.”
The fact that he can no longer read anything behind Byleth’s tone sets off alarm bells. Oh, don’t wisen up now, for heaven’s sake.
“Yes. This one is supposed to help with ailments such as lethargy, as per my susceptibility to such. But I’m not sure I’ve got the formula right. It seems to have very little effect in my case. I need to see if the problem lies with the medicine, or with me.”
Byleth softens with fondness and a bit of something that looks like sadness. Linhardt stares back, eyes wide but blank. If his little scheme had been found out, the Professor doesn’t seem to be calling him out.
“And you decided I would make a suitable test subject,” says Byleth.
Linhardt puffs a frustrated sigh and rolls his eyes, irked that he’s been seen through. He really thought he was going to pull this whole scheme off flawlessly.
“Well?” he sulks. “Who else is walking around the monastery like a thrall, ready to fall to a strong gust of wind?”
Byleth laughs. It’s as soft and small as the brush of a cat’s tail against your leg, little more than an exhaled breath. When Linhardt looks at him, his eyes are warm and shining, and the weary smile on his face finally resembles a human being instead of a wax doll.
“Were you worried about me?”
Linhardt stares at the floor. “…I apologize for causing offense. I should have known better. You’re much too clever to fall for a trick so obvious.” He starts to pour the pills back into their bag when Byleth reaches out and puts a hand over his. The Professor takes him by the wrist like he’s picking up a teacup. He holds his hand beneath Linhardt’s and tilts the pills into his own palm. Then tips back his head and tosses them into his mouth.
“…You took them.”
Byleth smiles again, and now Linhardt identifies the sad ache in his eyes as apology, appreciation. “Don’t worry any more,” he says. His voice floats like incense smoke.
For a moment he feels so guilty that he almost confesses everything: those were sleeping pills, the exact opposite of what he’d said they were. The extra strong ones he’d bargained off Manuela. But he only stands in silence, watching Byleth’s eyes slowly unfocus. When he begins to sway, Linhardt steps closer.
“Pardon me, Professor,” he murmurs softly. With the tips of his fingers, touching as little as possible, he peels the fabric of Byleth’s coat away from his shoulders. He slips it off, lifting his arms out of the sleeves for him. Linhardt notices keenly the veins in Byleth’s forearm as his hand hangs limply in his own.
Overcoat shed, gentle sleep-warmth radiates from Byleth’s back as Linhardt places his hand between his shoulderblades. He’s half-gone and pliant, easy to maneuver into bed. Linhardt lowers him to the downy pillows and his head sinks into their comfort like a priceless jewel placed on a velvet cushion. He pulls plush blankets up to the line of his collarbone.
Linhardt sits in a chair by his bedside and watches his eyelids fall. His every muscle drains of tension and he does not fight to keep it. Very soon, he’s gone to Celephaïs. The crease in his brow softens. His breath comes and goes with a force beyond itself, a seabreeze riding a steady tide.
He wonders how many have seen Byleth this way. As real as he ever is. The latency one holds in sleep is the most vulnerable iteration of a person. How Linhardt wonders what it must be like, to be seen in such light, to be looked upon as he now gazes at Byleth. Many have seen Linhardt sleep. None knew what they were really looking at.
Linhardt is not good at recognizing and identifying feelings when they happen. But it’s hard to mistake this one. Ache. It feels just like when he watches sunset. It’s what he feels when he is lying in bed on a free afternoon, next to his open window, with the spring breeze carrying in the song of evening birds. When he’s looking at the world at golden hour and the day is at its most beautiful, just as it’s about to end. Ache, sharp and gnawing. And it doesn’t make sense.
Byleth is here. Suddenly that feels precious. Suddenly it feels…uncertain.
-------------------
That Saturday, his bedroom door is nearly beaten off its hinges long before the first lark is due to wake up. He’d only been asleep for an hour.
“Gone.” He repeats the word, as if it will make more sense then. It doesn’t. His head feels like it’s full of fog. Exhaustion still buzzes in his chest, but fear chases it away. His head pounds with his heart. Gone could mean several different things.
“Can you hear me?! I said we’re leaving. Hurry up!” Leonie is eager to move on to the next doorway. The corridor is full of the sound of knocking and sleepy questions, worried voices, clanging equipment. The air of unease and urgency. Three people are locking Hilda into her armor, Ignatz can’t find his quiver… Linhardt doesn’t even know what they’re all getting ready for. What are we doing? Nobody answers the most basic questions around here…
“If everybody could hurry, that’d be real great,” Claude is saying. He sounds so unbothered. “Teach already has a head start on us, so we’ve got a bit of a gap to close to catch up to him.”
Oh. That sort of gone. He glares after Leonie, but there’s little room to tell her off. “Missing,” she should have said.
But this is only marginally better. Missing is still bad. Do they know where to look? Is he alright…? Linhardt is trying to find a thread of logic to follow, apply himself to a solution, but… he can’t think. Cold water replaces his blood. Byleth has been strange all month, and now he’s left sometime in the night, all alone, and nobody seems to think it was for a leisurely nighttime stroll. Why would he do this? He’s ill. Is that why? Is he not in right mind?
Someone runs past him—Leonie, tangled in a heated debate with Claude over whether they should go and find Jeralt. Because after all, it’s his son. Claude won’t hear of it. No time, he says, and Byleth can handle himself, they’re only going ‘just in case’. Leonie asks what if he gets hurt out there, what will she tell Jeralt then?
He’s ill. Why would he go? Where? Why alone?
Linhardt snatches his outermost robe off the floor on his way out. He doesn’t even need to grab anything; he has his spellbook in his head. He starts toward the stairs—but then realizes nobody can go anywhere until everyone gets moving. They’re helping each other. He should…do that. Solve problems at their source. He doubles back, looking for a room with a knightly-type in it.
“For heaven’s sake…” He moans when he sees the state of Lorenz’s plate mail. His hair is insane and he’s still got his sleep mask hanging round his neck. Nobody has ever looked less noble. “Your breastplate is on backwards.”
---------------
“Because it’s impossible to see,” Claude snips, which is unlike him, but being fair he has had Hilda screeching in his ear every time he touches ground. She wants to know how in the world he could have lost the trail. The lack of a moon and the poor weather has made it difficult to see, and they’ve lost Byleth’s track somewhere in a rocky valley where the path branches. Petra is still scouting from the air, and anyone with a horse has been sent to explore the numerous branching paths on foot. Some of them search for signs of passage. Like they’re tracking a wild buck through the woods. Linhardt was once forced to go on a hunt, very courtly and sporting. It was a boar. They scream and have a right to.
“Where would he go? There’s nothing out here.”
“I’m going to search east again. You go that way.”
They both go off in opposite directions. Hilda finally has her horse, so she gallops away, leaving those of the deer who are on foot to search the big intersection. There are about five roads stemming from this one spot, and nobody can figure out which one Byleth took.
Leaned up against a rock, Linhardt is struggling. Moving so quickly on such little sleep has given him a headache to rival all, and he isn’t just tired, he’s half dead. It’s freezing and he’d forgotten that when he ran out of his room with nothing but one robe over his sleep clothes. Damn this. If he knew this was going to happen tonight, he wouldn’t have stayed up late…
“Are you alright?”
It takes him a moment to realize that question is directed at him. He stares, and the look on his face must not be very reassuring to Ignatz. “Do…should we put you on a horse? Do you need water?” Raphael is there too, looking at him like… Linhardt bristles. How old do they all think he is? How helpless?
“He’s fine.” Another voice cuts in. Sharp, high, her eyes as she glares at the three of them. Lysithea approaches, arms crossed. “It’s the Professor you should be worried about. Get your priorities in order!” She turns to Linhardt specifically. Looks him up and down. “You’ve looked worse. How long are you planning on dragging everyone down? Are you going to get moving or what?”
“…Pardon?” he sneers flatly.
“Look!” She points to the rest of the deer, all scattered out, calling out to each other and searching high and low. Galloping hooves, sweeping wings. Action. Even Lorenz is on his hands and knees in the ignoble dirt, trying to spot footprints. “Everybody’s looking, and still none of them can figure it out.”
“We’re doing our best,” Ignatz rebuffs, a bit indignant. But Lysithia isn’t listening to him anymore, her petulant eyes drilling into Linhardt’s. He doesn’t know what she’s expecting, though.
“Did you hear me? Are you deaf?” She snaps her fingers and points again. “Nobody can figure it out.” She waits. Prompts him with her eyes. She’s got a look on her face like she’s never seen anyone denser.
She. She’s right. Because…look. He sees it. Scattered. Nobody is…okay. They’re all doing separate things. Nobody is putting anything together. Wait. “Wait.”
He rushes forward, and behind him, Lysithea groans, “Ugh, FINally.”
He watches the Deer for a while. He keeps a record in his mind of where each of them are, what they’re doing. They all move around him, scurrying, and he observes. They’ll think he’s weak or lazy or…whatever. Doesn’t matter. He can see it. He knows what to do—he can see where it’s all messing up. Something is missing—Byleth, and that’s the problem, and that’s where it’s all gone wrong. Nobody’s organizing them. Nobody’s putting the pieces in the right places.
When Byleth gives them orders, he knows exactly who should do what and why. The most effective person according to their talents gets assigned the job they can do the best. Putting those people in the wrong spots is how things don’t get done. It’s how they fail. Byleth is so…essential. Important. He’s the pin that holds the entire operation together. What Linhardt sees now is the keen absence of him, the disaster of his void.
Linhardt raises his head, searching for wings in the dark sky. “Clau—ugh.” He turns to Raphael. “Can you get him for me.”
Raphael raises his enormous voice to the heavens to call Claude’s name. You could hear him ten miles away, even if you are riding a wyvern up in the winter wind. Claude motions to Petra and they all recall the scouts—soon, the deer are gathered again.
“Did you find something?” Leonie asks eagerly.
“No—nobody can find anything.”
She looks indignant. “We know that! Why would you stop up from looking!? Did you call us back just to complain?”
“Don’t—we don’t need to search all the spots you’re going,” Linhardt begins. He isn’t saying this well, he knows, and knowing makes it even harder to be clear. “Look, you... You can’t coordinate. Lorenz has scoured the east road like he’s looking for dust on his mirror—but it wouldn’t matter, he wouldn’t know what tracks look like.”
Lorenz looks aghast. “At least I’m doing something. And not just here to insult the people who are.”
“It’s not—I’m not insulting, I’m saying, Leonie should be doing that task! Or Petra, or anyone who knows about tracking and…wilderness things. More importantly, they already did. Raphael,” Linhardt turns to him. “Didn’t you go down the east road already?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“How far?”
“I mean, I followed it up until the rockslide.”
“Rockslide?” Claude asks. “I didn’t see…where was a rockslide?”
“Bout half a mile out. Covers the whole path. Figured there’s no way the Professor coulda gone that way even if he wanted to, so I quit and came back.” Everyone is quiet. Seems he didn’t tell anybody about his findings; both Lorenz and then Leonie had checked that same path right afterwards, not knowing it was a dead end.
Linhardt observes, “You’ve all been following each other’s footprints without knowing. And the scouts—” he looks toward the wyvern riders, horsemen. “You’re looking at the big picture, so of course you’re not going to catch any details. Don’t look for Byleth’s presence, look for the potential of Byleth’s presence. What’s the most likely road? Start there, see if there’s evidence to support it, then move on to more viable subjects. Er, roads.”
“Hm. That’s right… We need to go from the ground up, not the top down,” Claude announces, dismounting from his wyvern. “Has anyone gone down the southwest path?”
Three people speak up—Lysithea, Ignatz, and Lorenz. None of whom have a horse or wyvern. All the other paths have been checked for a few miles out, but not this one.
Claude turns to Petra, and she seems to understand without words. Only a glance, and she nods, starting out along the path on foot. She's searching for tracks, moving carefully and slowly. Claude sends Leonie down another road, and Raphael down one more. Claude himself takes a fourth, and the search begins again.
Waiting with the others at the crossroads, Linhardt shuffles in place, uncomfortable. Lysithea catches his eye, and he could swear he saw a smug grin before she sees him looking and turns up her nose. He isn’t sure what that means. He felt compelled to speak out when he thought he saw the solution—but what if he wasn’t right after all? Has he cost them too much time now? His heart is pounding.
Finally, the call comes back. Leonie has found a footprint.
An hour later, they’re at the edge of the red canyon. It’s an impressive space, wide open sky, huge walls of orange rock reaching up to it.
Claude hovers within shouting range. “I think I can see where he went. There’s only one way into the canyon on foot.” He’s hanging from the saddle of his wyvern by standing in one stirrup, leaning out as he stares off into the distance. His eyes are sharp. Everyone hangs on his word.
“…Is he there?” Linhardt asks.
“I think…so…” Claude is not saying what else he sees. On purpose. “Um. Let’s hurry,” he clips shortly, swinging himself fully into his saddle. He rises to join Petra in the air, swooping ahead toward the red canyon.
As they approach the mouth of the canyon, a cry rises into the air. Beast-like, but with an intelligent rage in it that can only come from a knowing mind. It’s hideous. Linhardt feels the vague, hazy unease of nightmare creep into his heart. Everyone around him quickens their pace, and he begins to fall behind, not for want of trying. Several hundred meters away, dark wings rise above the rocks, and another strange scream blooms beneath the overcast clouds.
Why is this…happening? Everything was normal last month. What’s Byleth doing, what’s wrong with him? What’s been wrong with him? Where did this all come from?!
There is a hand on his arm and he flinches away; if someone tries to comfort him now he’ll fall apart. Marianne understands, pulling her hand away. “Let’s just get to him,” she prompts. She’s in the saddle of her pretty new white-dappled war-mare. “Do you want a ride?”
-----------------
“Listen Teach. No one likes aimless wandering more than me, but it’s not worth dying over.”
The tremors still haven’t left his legs. The rest of the deer mill around in the relief of a victory, while Claude and Hilda laugh and joke with Byleth in the aftermath. Linhardt sinks to the ground, knees up, putting his head on his arms with a yawn.
“How are you sleepy now?” Leonie is asking, as she grins and runs through triumphant sword drills.
“Be…cause that’s the normal consequence of exertion? How can you not be tired?” he asks, wiping yawn-tears from the corner of his eye.
“After a fight like that? I’m pumped! I’ve never fought so many demonic beasts at once before!”
He yawns again, putting his head back down. “I’ll let you have all the fun, then, don’t mind me…”
“Oh, Professor!”
He perks up immediately. Linhardt stares up at Byleth. The Professor is looking down at him with a brand new expression on his face. Sheepish.
“I miscalculated,” he says.
Oh, there it is again. Hollow, gnawing, cold fire in his chest. But he can’t stop looking at Byleth. He’s so very…pretty. …Is this…bad? This might be bad.
Byleth is surrounded soon by his students. He casts them all a fond, proud look. The small smile on his face grows.
“Thank you all for bringing me home.”
Linhardt aches.
----------------
Aside from occasional nightmares where demonic vultures swallow him whole, Linhardt makes sure to relax well and often after they return from that mission. The month becomes calmer. He needs to take advantage and enjoy it fully. There are two weeks left before their end-of-month assignment from the church, which is looking to be a nasty situation in Remire. The villagers are under the influence of some strange illness. Speaking of which, Byleth’s health stays…the same, but doesn’t worsen, and he takes more rest. Linhardt finds himself with a bit more free time now that his professor is taking more breaks, and he spends that free time with…his classmates. His whole world is brand new.
It’s just as well. He would like to avoid whatever has begun happening to him when he sees the Professor lately. He’s convinced himself it’s nothing but valid concern over his health giving rise to feelings of worry, and that’s all. Everything will go back to normal soon. But normal looks different now. He used to sequester himself in the library, or his room, or the gardens, preferring no company at all. Sometimes he’d get dragged out by Caspar. Now he goes to choir practice with Marianne and lunch afterward.
He passes old classmates sometimes, in the dining hall, but Caspar always makes sure to leave if they ever find themselves in the same place. Today, that happens, and Marianne must notice, because she looks at Linhardt softly.
“Is everything alright?”
Linhardt is staring intently at the lunch menu, a troubled look on his face, brow furrowed. “…No, not at all. They have only fish on the entire menu today—not a single thing without it.”
“…Eh?” She turns to the menu board, glancing between it and Linhardt. “Um. That’s…too bad.”
“Oh well. I’m quite used to skipping meals, so I will be alright for one night.”
“You…what?”
“Have I said something distressing?”
“You’d rather go hungry than eat something you don’t like?”
Linhardt nods. “Of course.”
Marianne looks even more distressed. “I-it’s not healthy to go hungry…please look after yourself.”
Dorothea greets him on the way to sit down. She’s sitting with the Blue Lions—Ingrid and her boys. She briefly smiles at Linhardt, catching him by the sleeve. “I’d like to talk to you sometime,” she says. Apprehension fills him. “Oh, it’s nothing bad. Promise.”
“I…alright.”
She lets go of him. “You look well, by the way.” She smiles. “I’m glad.”
He walks on, wondering why you’d ever tell someone you want to speak to them but not what about. Linhardt would never put anyone through that sort of anticipation. She…did seem genuine, though, when she smiled at him.
Marianne has taken him to sit next to Lysithea. He almost turns back to Dorothea, but… Oh well. There’s something he’s been meaning to do, and now’s as good a time as any.
She’d been digging into a parfait with girlish glee, but when they approach, she checks her expression and elegantly folds a napkin into her lap. He never rolls her eyes at this posturing—if anything, he’s jealous. If he’d been able to wear the etiquette mask as well as she can at her age, he would have avoided a great many sore knuckles at the dinner table.
“Lysithea,” he greets, but then pauses. “…Where did you get a parfait?”
She smirks. “I asked for one.”
Oh, well, that will never work for him. She’s just too good at this, blast her.
Unlike Dorothea, Linhardt is a staunch believer in getting immediately to the point, so he says, “In Zanado, you had no pity. I wasn't pulling any weight. Everyone else let me, but you appraised my potential value as higher than my contribution. You were the only one who treated me like a…an asset.”
She looks up at him. “Well, why shouldn’t I? I mean, aren’t you?”
He glances down. “…I’d like to be, I think. I can be.” He thinks for a moment. “Yes, I can be.”
For a moment, the silence is tense, as she surveys him with her sharp eyes. Lysithea humphs, closing her eyes as she takes a dainty scoop of strawberry and cream. “You can get off-menu dishes from that mousy cook with the yellow hair if you bribe her. She likes white wine and hair jewelry.”
He lights up, honing in on the cook in question as she bustles behind the counters.
Marianne and Lysithia glance at each other. Good. Maybe if…if they begin to see him as a resource. On crests. Maybe then either of them will utilize him, regarding the mysteries about their own. That’s not an angle he ever would have thought of taking, he didn’t know about it. He’s learning a great many things in his new class, that’s certain.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Professor Byleth enter the room. At once, the conversation he’d been part of becomes nothing more than background noise, his focus narrowing in. Lysithea humphs at his rudeness, but Marianne smiles and looks down at her plate.
He starts to stand. “I’m going to…” He looks at Marianne, searching for an out.
“Um…oh, please.” She picks up quickly, bless her. “If you could just go and ask him that one question for me…I’m embarrassed to ask myself, I just can’t seem to figure out that homework he gave me…”
Linhardt wonders why he ever thought she was incapable. She’s impeccably helpful. He only wishes she’d let him return the favor.
Leaving behind the girls, he bolts toward the Professor, who’s on his way out the door. Lately he’s been taking his meals back to his room, or else someone brings them there.
“Professor,” he calls.
Byleth turns around—there, further evidence to support his theory, that every time Byleth looks at him something strange happens in his chest. Especially when he smiles.
“Hello, Linhardt.”
And says his name.
“I…” his mouth is dry. “Hello. I was just wondering about…some questions. That I had, regarding white magic. I feel I could use some extra…curricular. If you have the time.” He notes the bags under Byleth’s eyes, tries to measure them against how bad they were yesterday. Are they any worse? “…How are you feeling? I suppose I should have lead with that.”
Byleth inclines his head in a patient nod. “I’m well. Let’s talk over lunch? You haven’t eaten.”
Linhardt shakes his head. How did he know that though…well. He knows everything about his students, doesn’t he.
Byleth serves sandwiches and apple blossom tea in the garden. Linhardt hasn’t a clue what to talk about, or why he did this. If he didn’t have anything to say, why did he ask for conversation? …He just wanted to be around him longer. He just didn’t like the way it felt when he was about to leave the room.
“You’ve been getting along with everyone a bit more lately.”
“Hm? Oh.” He nods. “You saw me with those two. I think I’m figuring out how to make them confide in me about their strange crest situations…perhaps. It is taking quite a lot of time, though. This method is very slow.”
“Friendship is.”
Oh. Is that what this is. Hm.
Linhardt clears his throat. “I am…” Concerned? Worried? “…curious about…what happened in red canyon.”
“I found something, yes.” Byleth is staring into his empty teacup.
Linhardt reaches for the teapot himself, for the first time. Why hadn’t he ever? Well, it would be rude to the host to pour their tea. It…doesn’t feel rude now. Byleth is tired. So Linhardt does it for him. That’s all it feels like.
Byleth’s eyes are wide as he watches his cup fill. He picks it up, staring into it until Linhardt has begun to wonder if he did something wrong after all—until Byleth smiles.
“Thank you.”
Oh my.
“What—” His voice comes out higher pitched than he wanted and he has to start again. “…What did you find?”
From inside the folds of his robes, the Professor produces a small gem, so clear it almost looks to be made of glass. He gives Linhardt a stare he doesn't know how to react to. Is Byleth...excited? He indicates he wants Linhardt's hand. He gives it.
What a strange way to hand someone an object. Byleth slips his hand beneath Linhardt's, cupping, shaping it into a bowl. He then uses his other hand to place the gemstone into his palm. He cradles Linhardt's hand in both of his own, not enclosing, but supporting from beneath.
"This is called a Knowledge Stone."
His hands are so cold. And gentle.
"It helps with focus, allowing your mind to make full use of input and information. It will ensure that, whatever you are studying, the learning will progress more quickly."
Or maybe Linhardt's hands are just very warm.
"...I thought of you immediately."
He slams back to earth. "You...w-were right to. I mean--" That's not how he should phrase that. "It's perfect. A very specific and well-considered..." He isn't sure if it's a gift, or a tool a teacher gives his student. Like a quill or a notebook. "Thank you very much, Professor. I shall get much use from this, I'll make sure to use it well."
Byleth looks relieved. He sits back in his chair, humming softly. Fatigue is taking him, again, and Linhardt is quick to suggest a nap.
"Please don't take this as another iteration of my quirks, Professor, but I wholeheartedly recommend you get some rest."
Byleth nods--or is he nodding off?
"Have you...or anyone, found out anything further about this vertigo of yours?"
Byleth struggles—brow furrowed. That’s not an expression he wears often. Sometimes when he doesn’t know how to explain something in class. Never lasts for more than a moment. But now, it doesn’t fade. Linhardt hesitates. “If…it’s something you would rather not say. You needn’t.”
Byleth shakes his head. “It’s a…complicated matter.” He leans back in his chair, briefly closing his eyes.
“Is it...well. A matter of great concern?”
Byleth smiles, tired eyes cracking open to stare at the clouds. “Oh, maybe.”
He isn’t used to such candid…spontaneous answers. Byleth usually never speaks in anything but absolutes. Maybe isn’t a common word in his vocabulary.
“Oh.” Linhardt isn’t sure where to go. He frowns. "You know, Professor, you're all mystery and no answers. It's not fair."
“...Hm. So. You want to uncover the mystery of me?”
His face is on fire, suddenly. Linhardt locks up, staring at the table and not moving.
Byleth laughs.
And Linhardt aches.
“If there is anything I can…do,” he begins, mumbling. “Please don’t hesitate to let me know. I confess I have less expertise than perhaps Manuela—but I have been learning from her for quite a while, in the medical field. I may be able to see something she missed. I…can be an asset, I’m sure. I can be of help.”
Byleth looks at him closely. Then he leans over and touches his arm. “You are helpful to us all. Already. In very many ways.”
He’s…overwhelmed. He swallows, his back straight as he nods stiffly. Is he nervous?
"There is something you can do. Specifically.” Byleth retracts his hand. “Focus on the situation in Remire. A healer is precisely what’s needed there. And you’re among the best I know. No one matches your aptitude for white magic. We’re going to need it.”
He takes a shaky breath. Among the best…
When he talks about Remire, Byleth looks so troubled. It’s dreadful. It makes Linhardt want to reach out and smooth the wrinkles from between his eyes with his thumb.
“Remire means a lot to me.” He sighs, a twinge of headache behind his eyes. “I can’t let them down.”
Linhardt stands up immediately. “I’ll make sure to research as much as I can. In fact I was on my way to talk to…” he winces. “Professor Manuela…about accessing some medical journals. Perhaps we can yet find what obscure disease afflicts them. Or…perhaps you.”
Byleth’s eyes, when they turn toward him, make Linhardt want to stay right where he is, and also to run far afar away. They’re not just soft, or tired, or vulnerable. They’re also…grateful.
He’s grateful for him.
For the next two weeks, Linhardt adopts a new subject of study. Fervently. If he doesn’t figure out what’s wrong with Remire, he might as well go home.
----------------
The word for this is carnage. Their hapless herd of deer run lithe through a town turned bloodmoor, overrun by too-early customers for coffins. He can smell iron, hear hell. They plunge into the nightmare, some more resolved than others. Ignatz is like a colt at Raphael’s side, protected by the massive brawler so that he can fire off long range miracle shots. His aim doesn’t suffer despite the tears in his eyes. Leonie has disappeared into a burning building that produces terrified screams, Jeralt shouting an ignored recall after her. Petra’s wyvern soars unimpeded over the blockades, descending swiftly upon whoever is trying to tear apart their neighbors. Lysithea calls down dark fire and impales mad farmers on black spikes. It is death and insanity and no amount of meditative breathing will stop him from knowing that.
He wasn’t prepared at all. It had been two weeks of ceaseless study and medical journals and double shifts at infirmary duty, waking up to discover Manuela has moved him from the desk to bed again. Hours and hours of stacks of books and reports, experiments with new drugs he concocted and used on himself. And none of it bore fruit. The most he could do is prepare spells and medicines meant to target the specific symptoms reported of the Remire sickness. But he couldn’t find a root cause, or a cure. It simply has never happened before. Not in any report he could get his hands on. He thought perhaps once he got there and observed the situation firsthand, things might be clearer. Easier to fix.
They aren’t. It’s the worst place he’s ever been. He wants to run far away, wants to hide and wait until it’s dealt with by people stronger than him. He can’t do that, though. He doesn’t turn away. Here, more than any place he’s ever been in, his skills are needed. By both sides of the conflict. There isn’t too much danger to his classmates, but it’s very difficult saving the villagers who have kept hold of their minds. They’re panicking and running outside his spell range. When the insane ones fall by his classmate’s hands, he tries to stabilize them without re-waking them. They need to stay down, but not dead…what a line to walk. There is no time to avoid getting covered in blood.
Marianne stays near him. Keeps him lucky. Keeps him sane. Her sunken, dark-rimmed eyes are sympathetic in a way that speaks to knowing the same horrors as haunt his nightmares. “Goddess save them. We do what we must. What we can.”
When people need her, Marianne is not the prey animal she is in a cathedral. Linhardt can’t think of anything to say back to her. But he stands a little steadier at her side.
One worry above all others. Where is he?
Linhardt fights the chill grip of desperation and tries to sort through the hellish chaos to find Byleth. The fact his father has come along provides a modicum of assurance—surely he won’t allow harm to come to his son—but Linhardt has never been good at leaving important matters in the hands of others. He must stay close to him; he’s in poor health. He might need him. He never should have come here at all. Neither of them should. None of them should.
Where is he?!
Someone calls for him—it’s Ignatz, pleading a respite for Raphael. Lindhardt has suggested a thousand times that he wear more armor. He throws a healing spell to him and immediately Raphael’s knees leave the ground—he’s roaring again, Ignatz is thanking the goddess. Like the goddess is the one who just…nevermind.
Great red wings swoop above them as Petra drives her wyvern over their heads, pulling around in a circle as she lands. She looks every bit like she belongs here, streaked with soot and fury, her axe glaring by the fires. A warrior defined, on the field, but Linhardt remembers when he had to explain to her what the phrase "lead a horse to water" meant, and she giggled while thanking him.
"Take them!" she shouts, which must mean the pile of unmoving bodies on the back of her saddle. One of them is gripped in the claws of her beast.
As his fellows begin laying out the villagers, Marianne kneels and begins healing. Linhardt does the same, his hands shaking as he holds them out for a spell to knit a girl's torn arm back together.
Petra is about to take off again, but he manages to shout at her, "Have you seen the Professor?"
She winces. "I can not be finding him. Do not be defeated by fear, Linhardt. I will go looking again. Remain strong."
"Please," he replies, and she swoops away.
The girl at his feet is stirring, and he is forced to stop before the spell is complete. She's still injured. But if she wakes up... He's afraid of her. And he hates himself for it.
There is a brilliant flash of dark energy far afield…he’s found the Knight of Death. He’s found Byleth.
There have been times in Linhardt’s life when he was afraid. Mostly when he was much younger. These days, all he can muster would be something approaching a rolling sense of dread. Anxiety. That he might have to encounter something unpleasant, do what he doesn’t want. But now he knows. He remembers what fear is.
He’s running. All he can see is the clashing magic auras rising into the air over a barricade—black and green. Behind it, he knows, Byleth is clashing with the Death Knight. But he can’t see them. Linhardt runs. He’s too consumed with it to think of anything else. He must get there.
Someone tackles him to the ground and his head reels as it connects with soggy earth. Stars in his eyes. Fingernails in his neck. All he can feel is annoyed. He was in the middle of something. And now he has this to deal with. Pinning him down…strangling. The face of a…baker, or a farmer, or the town cobbler maybe. Their eyes are full of blood and tears. Linhardt feels the way he does when he’s about to pass out. He can’t do that. He’s in the middle of something…
“Stop…” he chokes. He slams his fist into the man’s face. It hurts his knuckles more than it hurts his attacker. A ruler smacking his hands at twelve years old. He’s so angry. So angry. “Get—off!” He can’t breathe. He’s so angry…
He isn’t sure at first how he finds himself free of the crushing weight, the strangler removed as cleanly as if the goddess has reached down and plucked him off like a tick. But when he hears the roar, he recognizes Raphael. Imagine that. If he hadn’t healed him earlier, he wouldn’t have been able to save him now. There’s something in that. Maybe. He can’t breathe.
“Linhardt!” Marianne is pulling him to his feet. He’s choking, and trying to see where he’d been going. The bursts of electricity that had marked the spot are gone now. What does that mean…where is he—what happened?
“The…he…” he can’t talk, his throat is crushed. God damn it. “Byleth,” he coughs, trying to pull away and run. She holds him in place.
“He’s there!” Marianne points somewhere else. Byleth is standing tall next to Jeralt, accepting an unconscious villager from Lorenz, who keeps pulling more of them out of the rubble of a collapsed house. People flock to help—Leonie, Ignatz. No Death Knight to be found. Linhardt falls to his knees.
In short order, Petra and Claude close in on the man who is not Tomas. It’s done. The villagers collapse, delirious or unconscious. But no longer murderous.
People need healing. Linhardt needs…air. Everything smells like blood and smoke. He can feel it inside his mouth, like slime. Oh, god…
He’s sick in the grass behind the burning husk of a house, clinging to a tree. Never pleasant. But the crisis of the physical process distracts his body from dizziness, makes him unable to spend time picturing the scenes of gore and horror he’d just wandered through. Life is all about trade-offs. He’s heaving, but for the time being, at least, it seems he has escaped fainting.
There’s a hand wrapped around his bicep, a gnat’s whine of a voice in his ear. “Hey…Linhardt? Easy. Here, sit down. Take some water.” Leonie. Is who that is. Kind of her, but he very much wishes no one had noticed him in such a position. “Hey—can someone find the Professor? Jeralt? Can you bring…”
When the ringing fills his ears he knows what’s coming. He hasn’t escaped it, only outran it until now and now he’s trapped, can’t run another step, because the—the ground, it’s all soaked, and he…it’s too—it’s so—sticky—
“Linhardt. I’m here.”
He clutches onto those arms like a lifeline, gasping for breath, latching himself firmly to this anchor in the vortex that has been made of his world. He can’t see, thank god. Gentle and cold hands, one at the back of his head, the other covering his eyes. Somehow, he’s ended up horizontal, a lap beneath him as a pillow.
“You’re safe. Just waking up. You were fishing, and fell asleep on the scotchmoss by the riverbank. You caught a ten-pound trout.”
He pretends that’s true. It works, a bit.
“Can you breathe for me? Slowly. In full.”
It takes a while to remember how. Even longer until he can properly think again. His shaky fingers pull away the hand over his eyes and, with effort, Linhardt registers what he’s seeing. Byleth’s face against the sky. Haggard. Heartsore. Smeared in grime he’s tried to wipe away. He looks like he’s going to break open, and if so, all that’s inside him will be plainly spilt upon the earth. No more mystery. All in open view.
“I’m so sorry.”
Cold sweat and a rabbit’s heartbeat send him into exhausting shivers. He’s here again. Unable to face the reality—the embrace—that he’s in, Linhardt closes his eyes and whines, “I need a nap.”
“You’ve earned it. Let’s get you to a bed. A soft one. Warm. You won’t have to worry about anything at all, just rest as much as you want.”
That sounds like heaven. He begins to sit up, but the arms that enclose him hold him still. Byleth begins to stand up. Before he can protest, Byleth has fully scooped him up into a bridal carry, clutching him close to his chest. Linhardt can press his ear there and listen to his heartbeat.
Byleth carrying him out of hell and into heaven. He stares up through blurry eyes, his head light and dizzy. Seaglass eyes against the grey sky. Heaven.
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