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"So, about your brothers," Byleth started. She looked down when Seteth made a sleepy questioning noise as he yawned and rolled over in bed.
It was a lazy Saturday morning for the archbishop and her advisor, the latter having a hard time keeping his eyes open. They had nothing scheduled until the afternoon, which was rare in her almost three years as the reigning leader of the Church of Seiros. Byleth had been up for almost an hour, watching her fiancé sleep and giggling at his light snoring. In that time, she also observed his pointed ears, that she had to refrain from touching like every other time she saw them, and his slightly pointier canine teeth when he yawned. Both things reminded her that her soon to be husband was not human, though she would not have it any other way.
Seeing his Nabatean features had her thinking about how she still had questions for him about his lineage, and as he stirred into wakefulness, she thought now would be a good time to ask.
Byleth never had brothers growing up, really any family outside her father, and the topic made her rather curious.
"What about them?" he inquired, dragging an arm around her hip to bring himself closer to her. He nestled his cheek against the pillow. She laughed when his eyes fluttered closed again.
"Will I ever meet them?"
"You have. Or at least one," he replied, voice slurring the words together.
She had already met one? Alarmed, Byleth set her hand to his shoulder and shook him two times. Seteth's eyes burst open, and he blinked up at her as he let go of her hip to roll onto his back. "What do you mean?"
"You remember—" Seteth paused to yawn and stretch and Byleth saw a glimpse of those teeth again. "You remember when Linhardt and Leonie thought of the great excursion to go find that holy weapon in Lake Teutates?"
Byleth remembered Leonie lamenting about her broken bag that led to Linhardt's suggestion. The two of them—or mostly Leonie as Linhardt was almost asleep standing up—had to practically beg Dimitri to let them go, and, honestly, Byleth was a little surprised he did as they were so close to invading Enbarr. Perhaps it was because of the idea that the Inexhaustible would help them secure their victory for the Kingdom, and she had to admit that it really did help. Leonie used that weapon to its best potential, taking down many Imperial Soldiers on her horse.
That trip did cost them a week's journey flying there and back, and Byleth would have remembered meeting Seteth's brother, what with their green hair and green eyes being very rare in Fodlan. "Yes, but we didn't meet any other Nabateans."
"Oh, but you did." Seteth was fully awake now, though still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. "The Immovable."
"No." Byleth remembered the beast, a large turtle like creature with a booming voice. Seteth and Flayn had gone with them on that journey, and she found herself surprised that she did not notice any interaction between the three of them.
"Mmm." Seteth sat up and Byleth tried not to get too distracted at the slip of skin and muscle he showed as he used both hands to lift his sleeping shirt to scratch at his stomach. He yawned again, eyes crinkling at the edges as it happened. "That was Indech."
Byleth let her mouth fall open. "But if we had killed him—"
"No, he is entirely too sturdy to let himself die. I've checked in on him since then. He's still breathing, just not moving in that lake." Seteth chuckled as if he made a joke. "The Immovable."
Byleth ignored the pun, instead flooding the bed with questions. "Can he change back? Does he have something to change back to? Do you have something you change into like Rhea?"
Seteth laughed, leaning against a pulled-up knee to quirk an eyebrow at her. "I do not think Indech can change back to his, well, I guess his human-like form, just as I cannot change into my draconic form." He yawned into a frown. "I lost that becoming injured in the war so long ago."
"Flayn as well?"
"Flayn as well. She hasn't been able to since she's awoken from her long sleep."
Byleth turned so she was facing him. "I haven't met Macuil."
"No," Seteth said with a sigh. "I haven't seen him in so long, but I know he's still out there in the desert."
"The desert?"
"Deep into Sreng." He paused, mouth twisting into a frown. "He's a petulant sort."
Byleth laughed at that. "You could be called that as well."
Seteth scoffed, but it turned into a gentle smile. "He's grouchier than I have ever been in my own lifetime." He paused to eye her, his smile growing. "I think he'd like you though."
"You think?" she asked, leaning down closer to his face. He stole a quick kiss from her, Byleth itching to get more but still curious about what he had to say.
"He liked anyone who teased me while growing up." They both laughed at that admission. "I suppose that's how older brothers tend to be," he added with a wistful sigh.
Byleth hummed in agreement. It was always something she had observed when seeing family members together around the church. The older ones tended to tease and boss around their younger siblings. The thought of a small, young Seteth with two older brothers teasing him, maybe tiny him with a pouting face, brought immense joy to her expression. So much so, that she thought she might look a little silly with the way her grin stretched across her face. She leaned over to rest her forehead on his arm before he could see her too cheerful face. She sighed as Seteth's fingers pressed into her scalp and trailed along to the ends of her tangled hair. "Why are you up so early on a free morning?" he asked her.
"I can't sleep in anymore. I've been ruined." He chuckled at that.
. . .
"Do you think we could ever get away to go see Macuil?"
Seteth peered over his book he was reading at his desk. Byleth had draped herself sideways on his chair, legs kicking out every once and awhile, eating grapes out of the palm of her hand. It was after two in the afternoon, and they had just finished a meeting with a set of clergymen that had built a new church all the way in Gloucester territory. This would be their normal teatime, but they opted for a light late lunch of fruits and cheeses instead. Byleth knew he frowned at the way she lounged in the chair, but the door was locked to any peeping eyes. "Go all the way to Sreng?" he asked.
Byleth nodded as she popped another grape into her mouth. Seteth sighed, shaking his head. "Not with the way the Srengi people are quarreling with Gautier and the Kingdom. Though I suppose the new Margrave is trying to sort that out."
"Sylvain is really trying his best to settle their differences," Byleth acknowledged. It did not help that his father died and left the deed to him with decades worth of hostility in their past. The old Margrave Gautier insisted on handling the Srengi border with brute force, as did the previous Margrave's and Gautier leaders had done in the last two centuries, and left Sylvain without much trust between them.
And trying to go through Edmund territory and fly over the peninsula? A worse idea. "And I can't be caught venturing into that land until it's calmed, I suppose."
"You're right. It's not a problem the church needs to get themselves involved in, unfortunately."
Byleth finished her grapes in quiet thought.
. . .
It has been almost a decade into Byleth's coronation as archbishop and it had been almost that long since she had seen Flayn. It surprised Byleth how much those, in their long lifespan, few short years could have changed the girl. First, she couldn't call Flayn a girl any longer. It was as if her age had finally caught up to her. She was just a few centimeters taller, and the short cut of her curly green hair brought out the matured sharpness of her cheekbones and chin, though her hair kept her ears hidden to the world outside of them. She wore more modern dresses, less bows and frills, and Byleth had to admit that being married certainly helped in her aging.
Being pregnant helped even more.
Her marriage announcement, however many years late it had been, had distressed Seteth to no end. Byleth was with him when the messenger delivered the letter Flayn had written him one moon before and had to calm him down from a panic when she thought he finished it.
"She's married!"
"I think that was pretty obvious by her running off after the war. You should probably lower your voice." Byleth tried to alleviate his tension by running fingers through his hair. She gently massaged his scalp, scratching from the top of his crown to the edge of his nape, and it was not working well, though, he did lower his voice just a tiny decimal.
"Byleth, she's married!" He clutched the letter with one hand, wrinkling the edge of it.
"I'm happy she told you, even if we weren't invited to the wedding."
"My love." He looked up at her, eyes wide and voice very grave. "She's married."
Byleth chuckled and Seteth groaned. She ran her fingers through his hair once more, saying, "for the third time, yes she is." She didn't mean to laugh, but she didn't think she had ever seen him so distraught before. It amused her to no end.
Seteth lay his cheek flat on the desk, holding the crumpled paper up to his tickled wife. Byleth took it, smoothed it, and read it to herself. Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline when she got to the end, and she had to read the letter through again. "Did you not get to the end?" she asked, keeping her voice smooth and even. It was one of the hardest things she ever had to do, and she fought an emperor once. Seteth nodded. Byleth bit her bottom lip, trying and failing miserably to hold in her growing grin. She knew he really had not finished the letter. He would have surely combusted if he had. With a steadying breath that certainly didn't do its job, Byleth said with all the delight in her tone, "she has also written that she's with child."
The way Seteth's head lifted and snapped towards her so quickly had Byleth almost crying in laughter. "She's with child?" he bellowed, and Byleth was sure even Alois could have heard them across the hall in the captain's office.
So, before Flayn and her husband came to visit them at the monastery, Byleth made sure to help Seteth through the intense power of his emotions. First it was denial, not even acknowledging that Flayn would move on in life without him. Byleth listened to him talk about every other subject in the world while obviously avoiding the large elephant in the room during many teatimes. Denial turned to anger at his daughter for not telling them about her growing family, and Byleth was there to spar with him a few days in a row to blow off steam. She enjoyed the workout. He tried to reason with himself that he wasn't hurt by her actions, though Byleth knew he was very unhappy. Before he truly accepted the facts that his only daughter had gotten married and pregnant without his knowledge of it, she watched as he cancelled all his own meetings three weeks before Flayn arrived. He didn't leave their shared room that day, and Byleth had to assure everyone that he was fine, just feeling under the weather.
Or at least she hoped he was fine. When she came to him in the evening with a plate of food, she found that he had been crying. "I just…" he sniffed out as Byleth sat on the edge of his side of the bed, smoothing away a tear. He swallowed, eyes closing.
"I know, my love. You feel betrayed." Seteth nodded. Byleth brushed away another tear and leaned down to kiss his cheek. "You're allowed to feel that way."
He chuckled, and Byleth playfully tugged on his hair. He swatted her hand away, leaning up. "I guess it is permissible for me to feel this way, although it's quite amusing to hear you say it."
"Do you think you will be able to face her when she does finally come back to us? She said it would be soon."
Seteth sighed, and she could see his dejection in the way his shoulders sagged. She held his hand, thumb smoothing over his knuckles. He breathed out again and set his other hand over hers. "I think I'll be able to, yes."
After a moment of them sitting in silence, he sat up a little straighter. "Just promise you won't allow me to strangle that von Hevring boy when I see him."
Byleth promised with a laugh.
And so, they stood, three weeks later, in the archbishop's chamber. Byleth watching the time and Seteth anxiously pulling at his sleeves. They both looked up when the doors opened in front of them. Flayn and Linhardt stepped through the archway, walking up to the stairs and stopping, Flayn an extra step closer to the steps where the archbishop stood with her advisor. There was a definite tense charge in the air around them as Byleth watched Seteth walk down the few steps towards his daughter. He stood in front of her, Flayn standing straight and tall and with just a little defiance in her gaze, hand caressing the top of her curved belly. Byleth walked down the steps after him and almost said something first to diffuse the situation, before her husband cracked the widest smile and pulled Flayn into a close embrace.
"Welcome home," he murmured, and when he pulled away, both were wiping away tears.
. . .
When Seteth finally got to hold his granddaughter, so new and small within his grasp, it made Byleth weep. He held the little one so closely to his chest, with the gentleness of a thousand years of warmth and knowing, and the tears just sprang to her eyes and quietly trailed down her face. She wiped them away discreetly as she got closer to them. "She is beautiful," she whispered after gazing at the new baby for a long moment.
He couldn't find the words to respond, just nodded with a wetness in his own eyes. The baby yawned, eyes opening to reveal a green-gray color and Byleth could feel the love just emanate outward from her, stealing her breath away.
She had been nervous that she wouldn't feel any which way for the baby, a fear so obviously misplaced now. Flayn was her stepdaughter and Linhardt her former student now son-in-law, and she loved and kept both family members so close to the crest stone of a heart in her chest, that she almost laughed at how scared she had been. Looking at the tiny girl erased all that dread.
After another five minutes, Seteth passed the baby over to her, and if Byleth died in this moment she knew it would be a happy end. Unused to holding small children, Seteth guided her hands and arms until they cradled the baby girl just right. His hand moved away to wrap around her waist, watching the new grandmother gently rock their grandchild side to side. Byleth turned to him when he tried to speak, voice catching in the back of his throat. He hummed softly and tried again. "I think you'd do well as a mother."
"You think?" It had crossed her mind a few times since her marriage to her husband, but she knew it wasn't the right time for them. Though, if she had to be honest, she had never thought having a family like this would be in her plans. To be able to hold a descendant was already so unfathomable to her, almost like a dream. She smiled to herself finding it funny that she skipped motherhood just to become a grandmother instead. She was barely thirty-six years old. "I think you'll do well as a grandfather."
"I'm too young to be called that." He met her chuckle with a smile of his own, leaning over to gently smooth the baby's soft green hair to the side. "To think we're grandparents."
"Who knew we were missing out on something so precious," she said with more wetness coming to her eyes unbidden. She watched as her grandchild yawned, all pink gums, and the smallest cooing noise she had ever heard in all her life reached forth from that mouth.
The smile that stretched over Byleth's lips was perhaps the widest she thought she'd ever shown.
. . .
The Wind Caller—Saint Macuil—lashed out so quickly, Byleth feared she would almost have to pulse back time if her movements weren't swift enough.
She pulled out her weapon that was attached at her hip, Seteth pressing the hooded face of their daughter to his neck to shield from the sand that whipped out from his brother's attack. "Macuil, please! Calm yourself! There is a child present!" his voice rang out.
"I would not be so foolish to attack you or the small one, Cichol," came his brother's deep reply. The wind creature lifted one taloned foot. Byleth glanced towards Seteth as he took several steps away from the two of them, his eyes widening in worry. "This one smell's of Sothis, and I must challenge her strength." The beast's heavy claw swiped downward and Byleth countered with her sword.
Her pulse raced at the exercise, parrying every move the transformed Nabatean threw her way. It had been a while since she had to fight, and she thought maybe she had grown too soft since becoming a mother almost four years before, but she soon found herself matching each of his strikes, however close they got. With a roar, the beast lifted into the sky. Byleth only had a second to deflect his powerful downward strike, her crest activating in a spark of light as she struck his thick arm with a cry of her own.
The Wind Caller cursed out in pain but recovered quickly, landing on all four legs in the sand, wings stretched out and tail lashing back and forth. He slowly lowered his wings, and his tail eventually stopped its motion. In the almost quiet after, they could hear his heavy breathing as the dark blood ran down his arm. Byleth didn't relax her stance until she heard a muted chuckle come from the winged Saint in front of her. "Ah, there is the Crest of Flames. You truly must have the Divine Power of Sothis in you, human." The birdlike beast tilted his head, one eye focused on Byleth below him. "Or perhaps you are not so human after all."
Seteth rushed to her side, once they figured the fighting had stopped, as she looped her sword through her belt. His one free hand not holding their child brushed against her cheek, neck, anywhere that had skin showing, ending his search with a quick kiss to her temple and asking her in a quivering voice if she was alright.
"I'm fine. Just fine." At that, Seteth handed over their daughter, the young girl wrapping arms around her mother's neck, and stomped his way over to his brother who was licking his wound he received in the quick fight against Byleth.
"You have exactly two seconds to explain yourself, Macuil."
"Or what? You'll punish me with your small hands?" The beast was laughing again, and Byleth would almost chuckle at the elder brother's antics, but she could practically see the steam rolling off her husband in waves. "I needed to test her power."
"You could have hurt her! You could have killed her!" Byleth was sure she had never heard Seteth's voice get this low and sound so seething. She ran her hand up and down her child's back. The little girl holding on to her harder, eyes flared at the argument that was transpiring between brothers. "That was unnecessary! If you had struck her even one time, it could have been the end!"
"You worry too much, Cichol. You always have." Byleth watched as Seteth stomped a little closer—and was he rolling up his sleeves? She started with a jolt, afraid her dear husband might take it a step too far. She didn't want to see that end to a family squabble, even if she could just turn time back.
"Macuil, I—"
"Seteth, you'll give yourself heatstroke out here." Byleth was at his side, hand on his arm. The muscles were corded, angry tension pulling his whole body taut. "I'm fine. Not a scratch on me. You know I can handle myself."
Seteth hissed out a breath, and Byleth was a little worried that maybe he hadn't lost his power to transform into a dragon after all with the way his eyes were glaring at the Saint in front of them. With another few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling, he finally looked away, hands tightening then uncurling. He would not look towards his brother. Byleth sighed, intertwining her fingers with his hand, smiling when she felt his thumb caress her own.
"I sense a new crest in the little one." Macuil shifted his head closer and proceeded to sniff the girl in Byleth's arms. She giggled when his huff blew her hood away from her face revealing long light green hair and pointed ears. "A new Nabatean."
"Her name is Ethlynd," Byleth said, smoothing an errant curl on her daughter's head. The small girl somehow got Byleth's own unruly hair. "We call her Lyn for short."
"A good name," Macuil growled, getting close enough to almost touch the top of Lyn's head, if Seteth hadn't gotten between them. The elder Nabatean wheezed out a sigh. "I will not hurt her."
"Haven't you done enough?" Seteth pulled the girl into his arms, turning his back towards Macuil. Lyn seemed pleased, though, giggling and holding out her hand. Before either of them could stop it from happening, Macuil gently bumped into her with his curved beak, the girl's arm bending back almost to her face. The Wind Caller's eyes closed as he hummed in what sounded like happiness.
"Uncle, uncle!" the young girl shrieked, giggling again. Byleth smiled, though Seteth's frown deepened. Lyn turned big, emerald eyes to her father. "Papa, uncle big!"
"He is," he uttered with a sigh, not able to hide a growing smile from his daughter. "He is so very big, though I'm afraid his brain did not grow with him." Byleth snorted, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand.
Macuil grumbled at that, flapping his wings once, the gust of it throwing all their hair into ruin. Lyn giggled again.