#my complaining knows no bounds and can not be contained on paper nor on screen

[maranull]

started keeping a diary, and the main thing that surprised me is that I'm putting down names. acquaintances or friends, it's in quite the contrast with my last attempt at keeping one when I was a teen

even if I'm still very reserved and overtly cautious not to bother people, there are people. I don't think teen Mara ever thought that would happen

[yukiwrites]

Byleth, Furtive

Thanks for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! Starting this year’s prompts with a lot of info! This is always so fun to write aksçjdlamd

Summary: Being forbidden by Manuela, Hanneman and Sothis to talk to Rhea about the reason why he bore Sothis’ Crest Stone, Byleth resorts to unsavory means of obtaining information... namely breaking into Rhea’s room. He finds what he wants, but what they all discover later makes sense only to the Goddess...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10  - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14  - Part 15

It was time for the morning mass -- the lazy sun had barely set itself up in the sky, its weak rays of light barely keeping the cold of the previous night at bay.

Apart from the devouts and the members of the Church, barely anyone was up at that Goddess-forsaken time.

Ah, but if only.

"This is a terrible idea!" Sothis, the Goddess herself, cursed at the one who hosted her consciousness. She kicked and screamed, wanting to pull Byleth's hair until he was almost entirely bald. "Listen to me, you!"

The Professor could swear he felt tugs on his hair, though it took everything he had to focus on the lock he was picking to be able to shut Sothis' voice out. He inadvertently stuck out the tip of his tongue in his concentration, droplets of sweat itching down his temple as he did so.

After finally hearing a comforting 'click' coming from the lock, Byleth's entire body relaxed as he breathed out in relief. "If I can't talk to her, the least I can do it look through her things, right? She's bound to have something on my mother here... if she truly was Rhea's protegée."

"Don't you throw this on me, young man! Not only one, but three voices of reason told you not to confront her, and I can assure you that BREAKING INTO HER ROOM ISN'T THE BETTER SOLUTION!" Sothis screeched and Byleth was sure that if he had actually heard it with his ears instead of inside his head they would be ringing. "Go back, go back right now!"

Promptly ignoring his mindmate's warnings, Byleth quietly slipped inside, pushing the door to a close behind him. Rhea's personal room was the only building that was completely detached from the monastery and the cathedral both, with only a stone bridge connecting them. From the outside, it rather looked like a small temple, with what the round columns and triangular ceiling, though it was somewhat normal once one was inside: albeit as big as a noblewoman's room, it was also cramped.

It comported the canopy bed in the middle, a large bookshelf on the left, alongside a sturdy-looking desk while the wardrobe, folding screen and bathtub were cramped on the right side. 

For a brief moment, Sothis clutched her chest, her voice dying down while she collected herself. The room of the child who was most attached to her -- and it looked like any other room, there was no personal touch or whatsoever. How had she lived her life after casting away the alias of Seiros? There was something driving her, that much was obvious, but... what was it? To the point of forsaking her very right of being her own person...

While Sothis was overwhelmed with such thoughts, Byleth thanked the soft pair of boots he had worn specifically for this earlier that morning -- he made no sound as he walked, nor did he leave any dirt behind his steps. Carefully did he eye the room before daring to touch it, not wanting to leave any unwanted marks.

First things first, how about he checked under the bed? The most classical hiding spot... He lowered himself to peek, his blue hair cascading on the floor as he squinted to see in the dark.

"What, there's actually something," he murmured as though he wanted to hear Sothis' feedback on his search. That managed to snap his mindmate's out of her own thoughts, making her widen her eyes.

"A box under the bed? What could this be- ughhh, this is so wrong, so terribly dangerous, but I am overcome with curiosity... take it out! Quick!" She materialized before him, sitting on the bed as if it were her own. "Open it, open it!" She urged as Byleth placed the box on the floor by the bed, kneeling in a position that would allow him to sprint out at the mention of any danger.

Carefully did he pull the lid out, and what greeted him from inside made him flicker his brow in surprise, then press his lips into a thin line.

A long, bluish lock of hair tied in a green ribbon sat atop a wide array of yellowed paper. Without even missing a beat, Byleth reached out to it, scared for a split second that touching it might make the fragile, old hair crumble. "Mother..."

Rhea had said that he looked a lot like his mother, both physically and personality-wise. So that battered, almost grey lock of hair unmistakingly belonged to his mother, which made the young Professor feel a lump grow in his throat.

Slowly did he pick the lock of hair, so very carefully it felt like a hundred years had passed until he brought it high enough to touch his face on it. 

The motherly embrace he never had the luxury to have. At last they were reunited.

Sothis patted Byleth's head in sympathy, allowing the young man the time he needed to compose himself. After a moment, he carefully placed the hair inside his pouch, any complaints Sothis had about pilfering something out of Rhea's room not even leaving her lips in the first place. It was something Byleth needed, after all, so she wouldn't complain.

Also, it probably belonged to him, anyway.

"We've not much time! You can contemplate the similarities between you two after we're out of here! For now, let's see what's in these documents and leave!" She urged, kicking her feet on the bed -- if she had an actual body, that would've hit Byleth on the face countless times, but alas, they simply went through his body.

Nodding, the Professor quickly unwrapped the brittle knot tying a pack of folded letters, carefully opening the first one.

The lump slapped his face, back in full force into his throat.

It was a letter from his mother -- Lilith was her name, as she had signed every single one of them -- to his father. It seemed that she never managed to send them, or that those were the ones she scrapped before sending a proper one.

Nevertheless, they were as romantic -- or cheesy, as Sothis commented with a mock sigh -- as Jeralt's entries were about her. Some of them contained information Jeralt barely gave Byleth after they arrived at the monastery: how happy she was to bear his child, how much she felt by simply receiving a flower or spending time with him... It brought warmth and pain into Byleth's heart.

He couldn't help but sob as he went through a few of the letters, his shoulders shrinking as though he were back to being a child, but now an orphaned one; alone in a world that had robbed him of his parents.

That line of thought managed to make the Professor straighten his back and sniffle back the tears, if only to focus on the matter at hand: it steeled his resolve in seeking revenge for his father's death and uncovering the truth behind his mother's.

From the letters and some of the other documents tied beside them, it did seem as though Lilith was Rhea's protegée -- there were a few lines of Rhea herself commenting on how much Lilith had 'improved' compared to the other ones, though there wasn't much apart from that to go on.

Other ones? Improved? Perhaps Rhea had kept multiple protegées throughout her endless life?

Regardless, Byleth, urged by an impatient Sothis, quickly and neatly put everything sans the lock of hair back in its rightful place, taking a last look at the room to check if he hadn't touched anything unnecessarily before stepping out. Sothis stood guard to check if there were any bystanders, and only when she gave her signal did the Professor leave the room, promptly reverse-picking it so as to lock it back.

At hurried steps, Byleth left the cathedral area, all but running towards the monastery once he was sufficiently far. "Sothis, what if-" he huffed as he ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, "what if we can check my mother's Crest through these strands of hair?"

Already expecting such line of thought, their minds one and all, Sothis placed one hand under her chin in thought. "It might all be for naught if she bore no Crest, as you well know." She said as he ran towards Hanneman's office. "However, if she wasn't... then perhaps that will be the answer we need to uncover this mystery once and for all."

"Hanneman!" Byleth banged the door to the older professor's office open, though found it empty. "Huh? He's usually here at this time-"

"It's the wee hours of the morning, you moron!" Sothis whacked the back of Byleth's head, though she, too, was guilty of that for not thinking of the time. Not that she was about to admit it, of course. "Go back to your room and rest, or go fishing! Be mindful of Hanneman's age and let the old man have his rest."

Byleth's head drooped as though he were a puppy getting scolded. "I can't sit still. Do you think this Crest-analyzer is hard to check? When I went to check mine, I just had to touch it..."

"Don't even think about it!" Sothis hissed at the same time a muffled voice said something by the door.

"My word! Professor Byleth? How come you're here at this hour?" Hanneman adjusted his monocle.

"What? Someone else bothering me this early in the morning?" Manuela groaned from behind the older man, her voice dragged itself as though it was an effort in itself to speak. "As if a crazy old man asking how to preserve a bloodstained shirt wasn't enough..." She grumbled, rubbing her eyes as she entered, immediately gasping once she saw who it was. "O-oh! Byleth!"

It was as though all three were caught red-handed: Byleth held a bluish lock of hair while Hanneman tried to hide a bloodstained shirt behind his back while Manuela carried a jar containing a transparent chemical.

"Ah, you know- that is... Professor, I have a confession to make." Hanneman's shoulders sagged as he flashed the shirt he had been holding on to. It could barely be called as such, since it was in tatters -- stained with blood, mud and Goddess knew what else. "As we were treating Sir Jeralt's body, I thought that it would be a shame to throw such a precious object of study, though I didn't know when to ask you if I could use it..."

"Can you even hear this old man? Keep someone else's father's blood just so he could satisfy his curiosity?! And I'm no better, finding chemicals to help him preserve it-"

"Actually, this is exactly what I've been looking for." Byleth blurted out with his characteristic expressionless face. Both Hanneman and Manuela exchanged surprised glances, their mouths wide open. "This," Byleth carefully lifted the hand that held the hair, "belonged to my mother. I wanted to know if I could find out if she had a Crest... If you have Dad's blood, we can test it as well."

“What about… decorum…” Manuela muttered as she allowed herself to fall on a nearby chair. Hanneman also hesitated, despite his own heart leaping at the opportunity to learn more about the ever mysterious Jeralt.

“Are- are you truly sure about this, son? It hasn’t been long since, well…” He trailed off.

Byleth would be lying if he said he was completely okay with using his dead parents as test subjects, but it was the only thing he could do without directly confronting the most dangerous being in the world, so he had to do it. “I am. Can you do it now? Or do you need something else?”

“Immediately!” Hanneman replied, running towards the analyzer and placing the darkest stain of blood right over it. “It will only take a few seconds…”

The room stilled with tension until they all heard a ‘click’ coming from the magical machine. Hanneman yelped with joy and surprise.

“A major Crest of Seiros?! Sir Jeralt?!” The older man took a step back. “The only known bloodline to rarely carry this specific crest would be House Hresvelg... Well, other than Lady Rhea, Seiros in the flesh, of course” Hanneman sweated, testing two more times to make sure that he had seen it right -- starting to even doubt he had Jeralt’s shirt. “That can mean two things: either she also bestowed her Crest to Jeralt somewhen or your Father is from the Empire’s own royal bloodline!”

Byleth shook his head slowly. “No. Dad was from the Kingdom -- Rhea said so herself when she mentioned the day she saved Dad’s life during their first meeting. Maybe it was then that she shared her blood with him.” Byleth said at the same time Sothis pursued that line of thought, echoing what was on her mind. “Can you figure out a Crest through one’s hair?” He asked right after, carefully handing Hanneman the lock.

“Yes, it takes a while longer, but it is possible.” Still frowning, the older man accepted the brittle hair, carefully placing it over the machine. It clunked with magical energy, then buzzed lightly before emitting a ‘click’ once again. “This!” Hanneman gasped loudly, adjusting his monocle as though it could be lying to him. “How can this-”

Byleth widened his eyes as Sothis’s expression fell.

Now she understood everything. Oh, how painfully so.

The machine displayed her own Crest, the Crest of Flames, as brightly as it did when Byleth was checked for the second time. Sothis lowered her head, whispering her daughter’s name with sorrow. “Oh, Rhea…”