#i guess being the self insert parent + the greil knock off did wonders for Jerry

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dimiclaudeblaigan mentioning that Grill didn't let Ike join his mercenaries until he was 17, made me realize what a pile of shit Jerry was.

In Billy's c support with Seteth, they mentioned that they started working as mercenary about 10 years ago. In other words, not only did Jerry neglect to feed his own child, but he also made them start working as mercenary at the age of 11.

Yep!

Rolf and Mist are children who are part of the company, but not expected to fight.

Ike only fights when he's 17.

Billy... fought as a kid - and when we know merc work isn't aplenty in Fodlan, there's no objective reason as to why Jerry wouldn't have done something like Greil, aka doing the job himself while training the kid/letting some rando take care of them while he was out fighting.

Because Cyril is the trending topic of the week... Billy started to fight at 11, aka at the age Cyril was "sheltered" by House Goneril because Almyra dgaf about war orphans : they were both kids.

Imagine some sort of weird AU where kid!Billy is picked up by a Church member (maybe Mercedes's mom?) who gives them food, and somewhere to sleep when Jerry is away (either drinking or fighting or feasting somewhere else), maybe mends their clothes and offers them to spend time here with the other children - but Jerry barges in (worried Rhea will pop up from the chimney or something) takes Billy and they leave asap.

Maybe years later, Archbishop Billy returns to that random church and sees the random who wanted to help them all those years ago - the church member doesn't recognise them, but they do, and Billy thanks them.