#& verse / every rose has its thorns / game of thrones

[godmona]

[fic-art-blurbs]

How “Lost In Thoughts All Alone” Connects To Each Route Of Three Houses

OKAY. SO RIGHT OUT THE GATE. I KNOW THIS SOUNDS MONUMENTALLY STUPID BUT HEAR ME OUT. I KNOW THERE IS 0% CHANCE OF THIS BEING INTENDED BECAUSE INTSYS IS INTSYS AND ALSO THESE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT WORLDS BUT THESE VERSES ACTUALLY FIT SOMEWHAT AND IMMA TRY TO BREAK IT DOWN. FAIR WARNING THERE’S GONNA BE SO MUCH STRETCHING THAT YOU’RE GONNA THINK YOU’RE IN A YOGA CLASS.

You can listen to the song itself in its entirety here, I’ll be going by verses and talking about the routes/characters I think each fits. And I’ll be putting this under a read more because I know this is going to be long also @iturbide​ here’s the essay

Also spoilers

First Verse/Opening Verse - Byleth/Sothis

You are the ocean's gray waves, destined to seek Life beyond the shore just out of reach Yet the waters ever change, flowing like time The path is yours to climb

This one isn’t too difficult to talk about. This is the opening verse of the song, and the first verse Azura sings in Fates. This verse also plays in between almost all of the verses in the song - note I said almost. It also plays at the end of the song. This fits Byleth, and by extension Sothis rather well. Byleth is the driving force behind how each route, behind each character’s growth. They manipulate time, constantly going back in time over and over again, whether it’s to take another path, or to try and save a life. Byleth is the one with the power here, and no matter how many times they go back, no matter how they make time bend to their will, it always flows back - the “Golden Route” so many desire is always out of reach, no matter how many routes they play. 

And yet no matter what, you keep going back. Byleth, though I guess at this point I’m talking about the player, is destined to continue trying to reach that happy ending, they’re destined to keep searching for a way to make that happy ending a reality.

The path is yours to climb indeed - as many choose to try and make one, unaware that the path they create is one treaded many times over.

Birthright’s Verse - Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Azure Moon)

In the white light, a hand reaches through A double-edged blade cuts your heart in two Waking dreams fade away, Embrace the brand-new day Sing with me a song of birthrights and love The light scatters to the sky above Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone Lost in thoughts all alone

I imagine the white light being referred to here being the reunion scene, and the hand as being Byleth’s. Remember how Azure Moon’s reunion scene left Dimitri shrouded in the darkness, and Byleth in the light? The double-edged blade here could refer to Edelgard herself - he may have been happy to reunite with his step-sister, but it was the reveal of her being the Flame Emperor that “cut his heart in two”, breaking his heart and making him fall victim to his rage. His “waking dreams fading away” to “embrace the brand new day” may refer to his ghosts, how they grow quieter (not quite disappearing entirely, but fading away for now) in the wake of Rodrigue’s death and Byleth’s words finally reaching through to him. 

“Sing me a song of birthrights and love” I think could refer to Dimitri’s mindset. He feels bound by his birthright as the future king of Faerghus, and the love he feels for both his family and his country. When Edelgard’s deception is revealed, a good chunk of the reason his breakdown is so bad is due to the fact she seemingly betrayed that love, betrayed the love that was shown to her by his father and her mother. He views it as her willingly betraying them and directly causing their deaths along with Glenn’s and the genocide of an entire country. He feels it is his birthright not only to right the wrongs committed by his country, but to avenge what happened to his loved ones. 

The next two lines I think reflect his finally quelling his rage, no longer letting it consume him. That “white as a bone” line I can imagine talking about his path - his intentions may have been honorable at the beginning, but his path is no less gory than the one he wanted the head of.

And the final line? It describes Dimitri for a good portion of Azure Moon. He’s lost in his thoughts, all alone, pushing away his support because he believes himself unworthy. 

Conquest’s Verse - Edelgard von Hresvelg (Crimson Flower)

Embrace the dark you call a home, Gaze upon an empty, white throne A legacy of lies, A familiar disguise Sing with me a song of conquest and fate The black pillar cracks beneath its weight Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone Lost in thoughts all alone

No I did NOT just pick this verse for Edelgard because of the conquest thing I PROMISE. I SWEAR THERE’S MORE TO THIS THAN JUST THE CONQUEST LINE I PROMISE

ANYWAY I imagined that first line referring to Edelgard marching home and assuming the throne. The Empire is far from a bright place, and she’s embracing it as she declares herself emperor in order to declare war on the church. The “empty white throne” line? It could mean one of two things, if not both. The first thing could be telling her to gaze upon Faerghus’s empty throne, the throne she made empty by killing her step-brother - even if she didn’t remember him being her brother. The second thing could be referring to Sothis’s empty throne, as she’s unknowingly following in the footsteps of Nemesis by killing the Goddess and her followers - first with the death of Seiros, and then the dissolution of Sothis’s crest stone (even if she didn’t directly play a part in the latter, Edelgard’s route is the only route where the crest stone disappears for good). If you stretch, you could also make it so that this refers to if you kill Claude, but the throne of Almyra wouldn’t be empty - it would just be angry and ready for war.

The next two lines could refer to the Agarthans. “A legacy of lies, a familiar disguise” could refer to Patricia and Arundel respectively. Edelgard’s mother was revealed by Cornelia to maybe having a hand in the Tragedy of Duscur and making that image of Patricia as a kind woman a lie - though this is in the Azure Moon route, so this could be handwaved. This line could instead refer to how Edelgard views Rhea and the church - they’ve passed on a “legacy of lies”, hiding the horrific truth behind the Relics and the Crests, claiming them to be gifts from the Goddess. The latter line, “a familiar disguise”, could be about Arundel. It’s revealed that Arundel is actually Thales in disguise, and Arundel is Edelgard’s uncle - someone she undoubtedly would’ve been familiar with. 

“The black pillar cracks beneath its weight” could be talking about the weight of Edelgard’s war. Even if the game states that Crimson Flower had no consequences in the end, there are undoubtedly consequences scattered across the land. The newly “unified” Fodlan would be cracking under that weight, with new cracks appearing with every new rebellion, every new attack. Every instance that could tell Edelgard that perhaps declaring war so hastily might have been a mistake. 

“Night breaks through the day” can very easily be equated to Edelgard’s war in conquering all of Fodlan. “Hard as a stone” would be her resolve - no matter what route you choose, Edelgard is steadfast in her belief that she is in the right. She never falters, never once wonders if she was wrong. Her only regret when you kill her in Azure Moon is wishing Byleth walked at her side - not regretting her war, regretting that Byleth was not on her side.

And of course, the final line. Edelgard is alone in her thoughts, even with Hubert seemingly knowing everything. She’s lost in her thoughts of conquest, and similar to Dimitri, vengeance. She may not be haunted by ghosts like he is, but she’s certainly haunted by her ticking clock and the deaths of her siblings as they fell in the experiments, one by one, until she stood alone. It could also refer to the ending of Crimson Flower - now that she’s won her war, what now? Stability would not come right away, and the increasing attacks and rebellions depending on certain choices could have Edelgard lost in her thoughts, perhaps wondering for the first time if she should have chosen differently.

((Fair warning, this is where most of the stretching begins - Revelations is strange in that it actually has 2 verses of its own - it has an opening to replace the “You are the ocean’s grey waves” verse, and a verse more similar to the other two routes.))

Revelation’s Verses - Claude von Riegan & Rhea/Seiros (Verdant Wind/Silver Snow)

The path you walk on belongs to destiny, just let it flow All of your joy and your pain will fall like the tide, let it flow Life is not just filled with happiness, or sorrow Even the thorn in your heart, in time it may become a rose

A burdened heart sinks into the ground A veil falls away without a sound Not day nor night, wrong nor right For truth and peace you fight Sing with me a song of silence and blood The rain falls, but can't wash away the mud Within my ancient heart dwells madness and pride Can no one hear my cry?

Again, there’s gonna be a LOT of stretching. I think that first verse might not actually be for Claude or Rhea exactly - that verse sounds a lot more like it’s meant for Byleth. Telling them to accept that they’ll not have their golden route, accept that life isn’t just happiness - but it isn’t just sorrow either. And yet Byleth persists. 

The second verse though - the first half I think fits Claude more, and the second half fits Rhea more. Though you could argue those last two lines also fit Nemesis emerging from Shambala in Verdant Wind - I don’t think so, but it’s there.

Claude’s definitely got a burdened heart - he’s got so many trust issues that if you could build with them, you’d have a skyscraper. But it’s through his interactions with the Deer, and by extension Byleth, that the walls he put up to protect himself slowly fall away. The mask he put on of a carefree individual silently gets dropped, and by post timeskip, you can see that Claude trusts his Deer - and Byleth, if this is Verdant Wind - with everything. He’s the neutral route in this, he doesn’t choose to fight for either side, his fight isn’t for either side. He’s fighting to destroy the borders between lands, fighting for the truth (in that his route is the one where you learn everything), and for peace, equality. He may be the funny upside down meme to most, but he’s the only one of the three to actually fight for truth and peace, the real versions of both - you don’t get to learn the truth in Azure Moon, and in you only get to see what Edelgard believes is the truth in Crimson Flower. 

Rhea’s the one who knows everything. She knows the truth behind the Relics, the Crest Stones, Crests, everything - and yet she stays silent. She stays silent, afraid that more would follow in the footsteps of Nemesis and bring more bloodshed - hence the “sing me a song of silence and blood”. The next line could refer to how no matter what she does, the darker parts of history wouldn’t be scrubbed away. Even if she did succeed in her attempts to bring back Sothis, in an attempt to wash away the dirt from their past, what then? Did she really think Sothis would welcome her back with open arms, with what she’d done to achieve her goal? And the last two lines...those are rather self-explanatory. Say what you will, for a time, Rhea did indeed go mad. She believed herself to be in the right, much like Edelgard did, and became furious when anyone said otherwise. That’s shown in her ruthless execution of those who opposed her, and her downward spiral in Crimson Flower. The final line, “can no one hear my cry?” may refer to how, even if one of her brothers and her niece were there by her side, neither knew what she had become. Neither ever knew what lengths she went to, nor did they know how much pain she was in to have driven her to madness, driven her to the belief that creating and killing at least twelve vessels in an attempt to create the perfect one for Sothis was right. Perhaps if someone had heard her cry, things would have been much different.

Interestingly, this is the only verse to not end with “lost in thoughts all alone”. If you think about it in the terms of Claude and Rhea, this may be for different reasons. Claude is remarkably well-adjusted for someone thrown into war - he gives a “power of friendship” speech during the final fight for crying out loud, if anything, he’s actually grown for the better. He’s not lost in thoughts all alone because he’s learned to actually lean on others for support. In Rhea’s case, her not being lost in her thoughts all alone would be for an entirely different reason - she isn’t lost in her thoughts. She’s not thinking clearly, but she isn’t lost like Dimitri or Edelgard. She isn’t so lost that she can’t command troops outside of “KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM”, nor does she question if she was in the wrong like Edelgard might’ve had the latter won her war at the cost of stability. To the very end, she doesn’t regret her decisions - she may not have made them with a clear mind, but she knows what she did, and she isn’t lost thinking of what might have been. 

((TECHNICALLY there is one more verse, sung by Shigure in the Heirs of Fate DLC. The reason it’s not brought up? That one is much more context sensitive - the only line I can really think of fitting anywhere is “Endless dawn came but not without a price” possibly referring to the end of the war in every route, with “dawn” here referring to peace, and the price being the countless lives lost in the war. Then again, each route’s definition of “peace” is rather shaky, some more so than others, so it could refer to each individual leader’s goals being reached in their routes at the cost of a war.))

[arch-wistcrias]

BELOW IS ALL YOU MAY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SHAHRZAD AL-KHAYZURAN, A CANON CHARACTER FROM THE WRATH & THE DAWN DUOLOGY. 

INTRODUCTION.

FULL NAME: Shahrzad al-Khayzuran  NICKNAMES: Shazi  ALIASES: The Calipha of Khorasan  AGE: 16-22  DATE OF BIRTH: April 19th  BIRTHPLACE: Rey ( similar to Nishapur ), Khorasan, Persia ( modern: Oxford, England )  SEX/GENDER: cis-female  RELIGION: mazdayasna / zoroastrianism ( modern: islam )  ORIENTATION: heterosexual  ETHNICITY: iranian  OCCUPATION: actual queen ( modern: writer )  LANGUAGES: old persian, english ( modern: turkish, farsi, english and basic french and arabic )  FAMILY:  Irsa Al-Khayzuran ( sister, alive ), Jahandar Al-Khayzuran ( father, deceased ), Khalid Ibn al-Rashid ( husband, alive ), Haroun Ibn Khalid ( son, alive ) 

APPEARANCE.

HEIGHT: 5′8″  WEIGHT: 125lbs BUILD: she is tall, with an average build.  COMPLEXION: golden, but more on the bronze side. she spends a lot of time in the sun and her skin soaks it up beautifully. being the Calipha she is also bathed in goat’s milk and uses rose oil to keep her skin soft and youthful, as well as rosewater to keep her skin bright.  EYE COLOR: as Calipha her hazel eyes are lined in kohl, but she does not usually bother with it day to day. modernly, she wears brown pencil liner a lot more.  HAIR COLOR & STYLE: her hair is wavy and shiny as Calipha. occasionally decorated with jewels, she uses raw olive oil to allow it to grow thick and healthy. her hair is described as having “gleamed like polished obsidian”, though in the sunlight it’s a dark brown. day to day, it tends to lie on the wild side, described as “vagabond hair”. it normally also smells like lilacs and rain, and sometimes olive oil and jasmine. in the second novel it’s cruedly shorn by the enemy’s guards, and falls to her shoulders in varying lengths. it grows back to her waist-length after, though.  NOTICEABLE FEATURES: the knowing smirk usually on her face. the way she carries herself with “poise and strength”. her “impudent” chin.  AESTHETICS & STYLE: damascus prints. sandy footprints. rubies and lapis lazuli and gold chains hanging down middle-parted hair or around a sun-soaked stomach. bejewelled daggers. black tea. fragranced lamps. golden coins. apple-scented smoke ( of the hookah / water pipe ). sugared dates. honeyed nuts. dried apricots. henna-ed hands, and its earthy scent. dried blood. FC: Medalion Rahimi 

HEALTH.

PHYSICAL DISORDERS: n/a  MENTAL DISORDERS: n/a  EATING HABITS: Shahrzad has a taste for decadent foods. she adores labnah and flat bread and jewelled rice, but has a fast metabolism ( that lucky bitch ). she regularly snacks on dates and pistachios, and drinks a lot of jasmine water, and water in general to stay hydrated. roast pigeon is her favorite food as a child, though not the most royal of dishes. ( modern Shahrzad lives for rice pudding and bastani [ saffron vanilla ice cream, usually with rosewater ]. she can’t stand the taste of maple syrup, however, since she used to it all the time as a kid and eventually grew to hate it, gagging whenever it hits her tongue. now she eats her pancakes with jam and nothing else. )  EXERCISE HABIT: running. often. it helps her clear her mind. sparring as well, but what burns a lot of calories and keeps her fit is actually using her powers as it takes more physical exertion than what one might expect. 

PERSONALITY.

POSITIVE TRAITS: inquisitive, strong-minded, courageous, enduring  NEGATIVE TRAITS: insolent, impatient, one-dimensional  TALENTS: storytelling, archery ( never needs to use the guides or aims ), staring people down  ZODIAC: Aries ( Taurus cusp )  HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor ( but a total hatstall because she could have been Ravenclaw )  NOTE: based heavily on Al-Khayzuran, an important figure in Iranian history. Like, it’s so obvious lmao. Scheherazade was said to be based off of her, and the stories based off of Harun ( as in Haroun, Shahrzad’s son ). "The histories do not detail Khayzuran's political achievements, but coins were struck in her name, palaces were named for her, and the cemetery in which subsequent Abbasid rulers were laid to rest carries her name, all testifying not only to status but also to civic largesse." Such as is Shahrzad’s legacy. 

ABOUT.

A magic-infused retelling of 1001 nights. IDR really remember a lot bc I need to reread so I could be mixing some things up. 

Basically Shahrzad’s best friend was killed by the Caliph ( king ) of Khorason. What she doesn’t know is that there is a curse upon the boy-king, Khalid, that he must marry and kill a girl of 16 every day for a 1000 nights for the curse to be lifted, or else the kingdom won’t have another night of rain again. Shahrzad volunteers to be the next girl to be wed and then killed, but she tricks Khalid by telling him stories that overspill into the dawn, and he is so bewitched by her that he resists killing her until eventually they have both fallen in love with one another. 

Shahrzad’s father meanwhile dabbles in dark magic in an attempt to save her. The kingdom goes up in flame. Shahrzad and Khalid are torn apart after she finds out the reason behind the girls’ murders. Basically Shahrzad also finds out she has the same powers as her father and learns to harvest and train them while she is living with the badawi tribes outside of Khorason.  Meanwhile the ruler of Parthia, a kingdom adjacent to Khorason is trying to kill Khalid and that’s just a mess. 

A lot of shit happens tbh, but obviously Shahrzad and Khalid live happily ever after ( although, her father did kill him and then gave up his life in return for Khalid’s after seeing how devastated Shahrzad was ) and they have a son they name Haroun. Also, she totally has a magic carpet. 

VERSES.

01. Canon ( compliant with most fantasy settings, such as acotar, game of thrones, tolkien, etc. )  02. Canon Divergent / TVD-inspired ( instead of being a human-witch/magician, she is an immortal-witch/magician [ able to be killed, but otherwise lives forever ] and outlives Khalid, going on to become a nomad of sorts, travelling from country to country ).  03. Modern ( Shahrzad’s father deals in translating old Persian texts and is part of the international federation of librarian associations and institutions. She’s lived in Turkey, England, Lebanon ( briefly ) and New York. Well read, and well travelled, she was published at the age of fifteen and by the age of twenty has three published novels as well as two poetry anthologies. She’s also been named one of Time’s most influential figures, and Vanity Fair’s 30 under 30. Her father tries to keep their Iranian heritage going strong, but Shahrzad barely remembers it during her adolescence. She goes to college in NYU, and  She ends up going back when she’s graduated college, working with women there to publish a third poetry anthology specifically about the modern Iranian women’s experiences. )   04. DC / Marvel / All Supernatural Verses ( Shahrzad has a gift: she writes stories and they come true, and it runs in her family. )  05. OUAT ( Shahrzad is the new Author of the stories. )  06. Harry Potter  07. Grishaverse ( Shahrzad collects the stories from the language of thorns, and publishes them; she travels searching for more folktales, as well as writes her own )