Chapter Text
Blue Sea Moon 1190
Stomping her boots on the doormat to free them of mud from the road, Byleth glanced up at the sign overhead, creaking on its old iron fastenings as it rocked back and forth in the stiff night breeze. In barely readable letters next to a painting of something that resembled a dog was the name Hellhound’s Hideaway . Byleth smiled fondly and stepped inside.
The second she opened the door, her senses were assaulted with the chaos of the old mercenary tavern. The smell of sweat, liquor and food mixed with the heat of too many bodies pressed into too small a room hit her like a slap in the face as she wove through the crowd towards the bar.
She tried to catch the eye of the bartender but he was facing away from her and when she called out his name, her voice was lost in the noise of clapping, boots clattering on the wooden dance floor, and a bard troupe playing and singing at the top of their lungs. They were dreadful; Dorothea would wither and die at the sound of their off-tune instruments and the way the lead singer’s voice cracked when he stubbornly kept trying to hit the high notes in the song. But it was a familiar kind of dreadful and Byleth listened to it without annoyance, feeling more at peace than she had in quite some time.
Suddenly, heavy paws collided with Byleth’s back, followed by a loud bark. She whirled around to find a huge sheepdog panting joyously, its tongue lolling out of its mouth and tail wagging so hard it almost knocked over one of the barstools.
“Oi! Daisy! Get the fuck-” the bartender yelled, then paused abruptly when he recognized who the dog was so excited to see. “BYLIE?”
Before Byleth could so much as say hello, the bartender hollered over his shoulder, “Linette! Little Bylie’s here!”
As Linette came racing out of the kitchen to join her husband, Byleth smiled at them both and said, “Harland, Linette. It’s good to see you again!”
Behind her, Daisy barked again, nudging Byleth’s hand with her snout. Dropping down to one knee, Byleth hugged the sheepdog, burying her face in its absurdly fluffy neck. When she stood back up, there was a mug of her favorite ale waiting for her on the bar.
“What brings you to this corner of Fódlan, sweetheart? The bandits up in the mountains?” Linette asked, plunking a plate with bread and goat’s cheese in front of Byleth. “We haven’t seen you here in ages! But my, you haven’t aged a day. Still got those baby cheeks and big eyes. Aw, it’s so good to see you again.”
“Yep. Bandits,” Byleth said around a mouthful of bread. She reached down to hand a hunk to Daisy who snapped it out of her fingers gratefully.
“Don’t feed her!” Harland groused. “She’s getting fat. Soon she won’t be able to chase off the rats and then what will be the point of keeping her around?”
Linette scowled at him. “She is good for business. People love Daisy. There must always be a hound at the Hellhound!”
Harland scoffed and bustled away to take care of other customers.
“Are you traveling with anyone?” Linette asked.
Byleth shook her head, taking a long drink of the ale.
Linette sighed. “You need to join a mercenary group, sweetie! It’s dangerous on the road alone.”
Byleth nodded at the silver sword strapped to her back and Linette clucked her tongue. “Even armed to the teeth, you still might catch frostbite up in those mountains and then who will carry you back to my tavern to thaw you out? Even in summer, there can still be snow up in the peaks and it’s cold as the devil’s heart up there.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Byleth replied. “How’re things for you?”
At the prompt, Linette began to pour out a tide of information, ranging from humorous stories about tavern guests to bemoaning the troubles with bandits or talking about how Harland has been trying to teach Daisy to hunt down the coyotes plaguing their chickens but failing miserably. Her chatter gave Byleth a chance to finish her meal and drink in peace and she just listened with a faint smile, nodding every so often to encourage Linette to keep talking.
Then after a brief pause in her monologue, Linette hit Byleth with a statement she had no idea how to reply to.
“There’s a reason your father always traveled with a group,” Linette said. “He and you could have taken on any group of outlaws alone. He didn’t need the help. He needed the company. People get weird when they’re alone for too long. Take him over there-” She nodded towards a man sitting in the far corner of the room nursing a large mug of ale. He had a hood up and the shadow cast by it hid his face, but Byleth could tell from his posture alone that he was purposefully emanating an aura of unfriendliness meant to keep everyone at bay.
“He’s a strange one,” Linette continued. “Showed up three days ago with the living daylights beaten out of him. He’s been staying here to heal up from his wounds, but he hardly says a word to anyone. Just scowls and drinks. You keep traveling alone and you might end up like him. You’ve always been a bit… odd, sweetheart. I worry about you being alone and getting so quiet you forget how to talk.”
Byleth wanted to point out that she was not nearly as quiet as she used to be; it was just that it was impossible to get a word in edgewise with Linette’s rambling. But she didn’t want to offend Jeralt’s old friend, so she just nodded and smiled.
Linette smiled back, her eyes warm and fond. “Forgive my lecturing. I’m just a worrier.” She grabbed Byleth’s empty plate then reached under the counter and produced a key, handing it to her. “Go lock up your things and that great hulking sword and come back and dance. It’ll help warm you up.”
Giving Daisy one last hug, Byleth took the key and jogged up the stairs to the inn rooms on the second floor. She followed the number on her key to her room and unlocked it. Setting her sword and pack on the bed, she shrugged out of her coat as well and brushed the dust of the road off her sleeveless shirt and leather pants. She kept a dagger strapped to her thigh and one hidden in her boot for good measure and stopped briefly by the mirror to check her reflection.
There was still the faint outline of a bruise across her cheek from a fight she’d gotten in last week and a bit of dirt smudged on her neck and jaw. Cleaning herself off, she ran her fingers through her short-cropped boyish hair to straighten out a few errant strands and decided that it was good enough.
As she returned to the main room of the tavern, she walked over to the edge of the dance floor, watching the merry chaos of stomping feet and spinning couples, eager to join in. Her gaze wandered to the loner in the corner for a minute, but he didn’t seem to notice her staring. Maybe he was asleep. Something about him tugged at her mind, but she couldn’t place what.
“Byleth?” a familiar voice said and she turned to see Linette and Harland’s nephew Theo striding over to her with a grin. He held out his hand and said, “Want to dance?”
She nodded and grabbed Theo’s hand, letting him pull her into the midst of the pandemonium. Laughing as he spun her in a circle then swept her back into his arms, she said, “Your footwork is slow! Are you slacking on your training?”
He glared at her playfully. “Slacking? Me? Fuck you, Bylie .”
She rolled her eyes at the childhood nickname and he laughed.
“Maybe married life is making me fat and happy, but I reckon I can still kick your ass in a brawl,” Theo bragged.
“Once!” she said. “You beat me once when I was twelve!”
“Well, we haven’t sparred since.”
“Because you always have a convenient excuse not to,” she said.
“I’m starting to think you came here for a fight not a dance,” he said, his grin widening.
“I just wanted to stretch my legs after being on horseback for days. Fighting will do that the same as dancing,” she replied. “But I understand if you don’t want to…”
Theo looked at her in mock disgust. “You’ve gotten mouthy these past few years. I miss weird quiet Bylie.”
“And I miss the Theo who always agreed to fight me,” she fired back.
“Saints, you’re a pain in the ass. Fine! You want a fight, let’s go. I stand by what I said. I can still kick your ass.”
“Are you sure?” she teased. “You don’t have to prove anything, you-”
He grabbed her arm and dragged her off the dance floor towards the door. His grip was surprisingly strong, considering that he didn’t look as in shape as he used to be, and Byleth hoped that meant he would give her a fair fight. She was itching to get her blood pumping. She had been on the road without any excitement for too long.
Before they reached the door, Byleth tried to struggle out of his grip, just to test his strength, but he caught on to the fact she was testing him and grabbed her other arm, all but carrying her out of the tavern and into the courtyard. The cool night breeze swept away the stifling heat of the tavern and Byleth took a deep breath, smiling wickedly.
“Yeah, I still got fight in me. Now shut up and raise your fists,” Theo said with a laugh.
Byleth cracked her neck, raising her fists and balancing her weight into a fighting stance. A couple onlookers noticed them fighting and reached for their weapons but Byleth waved them away.
“It’s all in good fun,” she said and they nodded and walked off to settle their horses in the stables.
With a roar, Theo lunged at her, his meaty fist crashing towards her with surprising dexterity. Byleth dodged it with ease and gave him a teasing knock in the jaw, hard enough to irk him but not enough to do any damage.
“Fuck you,” Theo spat with a smile.
Byleth swung at him again, but he reacted quicker this time, landing a solid hit that sent her sprawling back against the dirt. She had underestimated him apparently.
She was about to spring back to her feet when something flew out from the shadows and attacked Theo. In the course of an instant, he was on his knees and a glinting killer blade was pressed against his throat.
“Hey! We’re just-” Theo began in a panicked voice, raising his hands in surrender but the swordsman held the blade closer, biting slightly into the skin on his throat.
“Shut up,” the man snarled.
Recognition hit Byleth like a lightning spell and she staggered to her feet. “Felix?”
He ignored her, growling at Theo, “Why were you attacking her? What do you want?”
“He’s an old friend of mine! We were just sparring!” Byleth explained.
Felix looked up at her sharply and the hood fell from his head, revealing his face. He stared at Byleth for a long moment and she gazed back with wide, startled eyes. She hadn’t seen him since the fall of Fhirdiad, after they had all gone their separate ways. The sight of him affected her more deeply than she expected and her heart wrenched with a painful ache in her chest.
Felix’s face flushed in embarrassment and he yanked his sword away, sheathing it and stepping away from Theo. “Oh. I’m… sorry. Well then. I’ll just-” He gave up on the sentence and turned and walked away swiftly.
“Wait, come back!” Byleth said. She stopped briefly to pat Theo’s shoulder and say, “Sorry!” before dashing off after Felix.
She caught up to him in the dusty field outside the stable and said, “Felix!”
He paused reluctantly and turned around to face her.
“Where are you going exactly?” she asked, gesturing at the dark field and the woods beyond it, lit only by the glow of moonlight.
“Somewhere away from here,” he said stiffly.
“Without a horse or your belongings? In the night?”
He looked at her angrily and said, “I didn’t want to cause trouble. I almost killed that man.”
“It was just a misunderstanding. He won’t care.” She held out her hand. “Come have a drink with me.”
Felix didn’t make any move to take her hand or follow her. He just stood there, staring at her numbly. He looked older. Of course he did; he was older, Byleth realized stupidly, a bit staggered by meeting him again like this. He was rough around the edges like her, and there was a bit more muscle on his slim frame than there used to be. His hair had grown longer and wasn’t tied up in a neat, fashionable style anymore. It hung loose around his shoulders, making him look a little like a painting she had once seen of his brother Glenn. But he was alive, safe, here.
She breathed a sigh of relief and said, “I’ve missed you. No one’s heard from you in so long.”
“Maybe that’s because you dropped off the map,” he replied sharply. “I stopped by to visit Sylvain a month ago and he said no one knew anything about where you were or what you were doing. So don’t lecture me. I’ve at least kept in touch with a couple of my friends. If you had bothered to do the same, maybe you would have heard from me too.”
“Felix…”
“Don’t call me that here. I don’t want anyone knowing who I am,” he said. “It gets in the way of getting contracts and bounties. People don’t want to talk to the disgraced heir of Fraldarius. But they’ll talk to some sellsword nobody.”
“What do I call you?” she asked.
“Hugo.”
She couldn’t help but snort and Felix gave her a look of annoyance. “I know. I’m not creative. Just…” He trailed off and stalked off back towards the tavern. “I’ll buy you a drink, but don’t tell anyone who I am.”
Byleth fell into step beside him and as they walked back into the Hellhound, she caught sight of Theo sitting at the bar, dabbing at the cut on his neck with a rag. Walking over to him, Byleth brought a glow of healing magic to her hand and sealed the cut back up.
Theo grunted. “Thanks. So you’re friends with Loner, huh? Figures.”
Felix regarded Theo with a frown that Byleth knew well. He was sizing him up to see if he could take him in a fight. He must have come to the decision that he easily could because he relaxed and ordered a mug of ale from Harland then shoved it into Theo’s hands.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I’m the one who you should be apologizing to,” Byleth said.
“Why?”
“Because you seem to think I would have needed rescuing from him.”
Theo gave a half-hearted “Oi!” of protest at the implied insult but they ignored him.
“Fine,” Felix said. He ordered another ale and handed it to her. “My apologies.”
“So Bylie, how do you know Loner-”
“Hugo,” Felix interrupted.
“How do you know Hugo?” Theo asked.
Felix glanced at her nervously but Byleth just smiled and said, “I found him starving under a bridge a few years ago. I healed him up, bought him some food, and taught him how to use a sword so he could make a living as a mercenary and wouldn’t have to rely on begging for coins.”
She didn’t need to look at Felix to know he was silently plotting her murder.
“Well, I’ll let you two catch up,” Theo said, giving Felix a dubious look. “Have fun, Bylie. Let me know if you want to actually dance. I think I’ve had enough brawling for the night, though.”
As he wandered away, Felix hissed at Byleth, “Found me under a bridge? Are you kidding?”
“Would you rather I had told him the truth?”
“You could have made up a better story.”
“I did teach you everything you know, though,” she replied.
“Hmph. Not everything. I’ve learned a lot since the war, grown a lot stronger. I bet I could kick your ass in a fight now, Bylie ,” he said with a snicker.
“That kind of attitude is what started this whole mess,” she said, refusing to take the bait. “Let’s just drink instead. Tell me about your adventures.”
Felix hesitated then nodded begrudgingly towards the stairs. “It’s too loud down here to talk. Come on.”