AN: As there are actual spoilers for the Fire Emblem Three Houses in the following chapter, don't read it if you don't want them.
Shade Emblem: Hunger Eternal Part Three [Fire Emblem: Three Houses]
The pleasant and fresh air of the mountains soon left the place to the tranquility of the hills. I enjoyed my quiet moments of contemplation, my delight at the sights, and my capability to just sleep like a log and wake up when I felt like it.
My first day of relax and vacation passed with me happily taking a stroll through nature. On my second day, I reached a small thicket with a crystal clear pond and sat down, taking a deep breath as I cracked my neck a bit, the tension in my body loosening up.
"It feels like the Arthurian myth," I muttered under my breath. "The blade that hides within the lake."
The waters of the lake remained placid. The only ripples being mine as I quietly swam into the cold waters, reaching for the center before taking a plunge and staring at the darkness within.
Don't cry, we'll be fine. The darkness will protect us.
My arms moved the water behind me as I reached deeper; the lake wasn't that deep, but where I was headed was its deepest point.
We must lick our wounds. We must prepare ourselves. We must kindle our hatred, but not let it consume us.
A large, pyramidal object was standing at the very bottom of the lake in question. On one of its sides, a hand-shaped print remained. An old system to identify the user. Agarthan. Crafted under strict orders of secrecy, placed there decades ago by a willful mind devoted to one purpose alone.
Humans are not our enemies. Fodlans are not our enemies. The Nabateans are. The Gods are. We will kill. We will butcher. We will devour. Any who fall prey to the power, shall by our hatred be subsumed.
My palm pushed against the hand-print. The small pyramid beeped in the underwater lake, and then it trembled. I grabbed hold of its edges, held my breath, and as the floating devices functioned, we soon rose to the surface of the lake itself.
I gasped for air, letting it fill and burn my lungs.
We face dragons. We face monsters of might and magic, and their slaves twisted by their falsehoods. We shall become as gods, so that we may cast the gods down. And if the new gods shall become as the old, then they too shall be cast down.
I began to swim, pushing the small pyramid towards the shore. Once I reached it, I dragged it a bit further ashore, and the placed my hand against the hand-print again. This time, dark blue lines started to thrum, and the pyramid sides opened up like a delicate iron flower revealing their contents. There was a brief moment of silence, as I gazed into its contents.
We shall know no mercy. We are the remnants of our civilization. We are the guardians of the true history of the world. Until the last Nabatean dies, we shall know not freedom. Just as they condemned us all to die, we shall condemn them all. Let this cycle of hate, this vengeance, burn into our souls.
The weapon was small. It was a weapon of a more refined era. It was a product of humanity. It was the final arbiter of equality. Kings, Gods, Heroes, a strike to the head would wound them; it would kill them. It was the final equalizer. The ability to kill others, that was what determined equality in a world of might and magic.
When all are equally capable of dying, that is when true freedom is achieved.
I took a deep breath. Humanity had sought freedom. The Agarthan had sought freedom from the yoke of a Goddess. No Gods, no Kings, only humans. Did the Goddess have to die? Yes. The difference between a Tyrant and a Merciful King seldom depends merely on which side of the bed they wake up that particular morning.
Absolute power, in the hands of a single individual, is always a recipe for death and destruction. The chosen of the Goddess, for every kind one, how many were unkind? For every protector, how many were tyrants?
There was no way of knowing anymore. History had burned. The past had been destroyed. The present was a lie. The future would be born of the spilled blood.
I holstered the dagger. Perhaps a Nabatean might recognize it for what it was, or a fellow Agarthan. I wiped the water off my brow, and rubbed my hair to remove the last traces of water.
The rest of the contents of the cache were either small vitamin supplements and a mixture of first aid kits and drugs, designed in case of a special operative stuck in enemy territory, or small, honey-bathed portions of food. Nothing had spoiled. I glanced at the change of clothes within the cache, and closed my eyes.
The fiber that composed those clothes was three times as resistant as the Fodlan equivalent. There was a time where the Fodlans fought with the same intensity as us, a time when they were evolving to become like us. Then, the surviving Nabateans choked on their evolution. They choked on their intelligence. They made them sheep, braindead fanatics to a religion that held no other purpose but to keep them down, to direct the world into a path chosen by a monster.
Was that the truth?
Was that a lie?
There was no way for me to know.
I was merely a human, thrust in a world where history was broken.
The clothes fit. As I wore them, I stared at the symbols etched upon them. A black drop, with a silver eye surrounded by splitting branches. Military symbol, worn in battles to recognize active military personnel. It would be a crime to go without it.
The past was gone. No tribunal would sentence the likes of me for removing those.
The humanity that remained was regressed; the technology, the knowledge, the everything...
I wiped my face, the weight of the dead a soul crushing experience I had gone through more than once in my past, but still present to that day.
The final item in the cache, a mask.
"Are you God, that you get to decide who lives or dies?" I muttered, grabbing hold of the mask with both of my hands, lifting it up, staring at its contours. "Are you the judge, the jury and the executioner?" I whispered, faintly tracing the details of the flowery motifs that were etched upon it.
"Are you a wraith of the past, a vengeful spirit with justice as its purpose, or revenge?" I whispered further. I was talking to myself. I was talking to the past. I was talking to the dead. "Or are we merely human, with crushed hopes, and nightmares in place of dreams?" I chuckled. "Let us go," I stared up at the sky. The beautiful sky that was forbidden to those who still hid beneath, in the darkness, with fear and hatred their nourishment and strength.
I would free them from the chains of hatred. I would shatter the choking hold of the unwanted Gods.
"We have purpose," I murmured. "But truly, it is a wicked one."
---
"Three days," Byleth's voice was unwavering as always. Jertal knew she was taking it heavily, her expression ever so briefly shadowed by a hint of emotion. He had never seen her cry, but even he had to admit that when it came to emotions, his daughter showed them more whenever Shade was mentioned.
On one hand, he reckoned it was a youthful crush. On the other, he was probably the motherly figure in her life. The thought of Sitri briefly brought a fleeting shadow of sorrow in his own mind, but as he looked into Byleth's face, he could see her own face.
"Yes," he said, "Rhea doesn't want me to help you," he added, "You need to be careful around her. Shade said he'd help, but he managed to wriggle out three days of vacation for himself in the meantime."
Byleth's face remained unfaltering. "Three days."
"I said one, he said a week," Jeralt hastily added, "I wriggled him down to three."
Byleth's crestfallen expression was a pout, a small one.
"It's not going to be that bad," Jeralt said. "We've all gotten too used to his cooking. Some time weaned off it might do us all some good. Gonna help lose some weight-"
"...am I fat?" Byleth asked.
Jeralt had no answer to give, thus he gave none. "I hope you're handling your students well," he said instead. "How is it?"
Byleth nodded, "The Black Eagles, they are...with problems."
"Are they going to be up to the task? I know you'll handle it egregiously, but they're young and it will be their first time in a battle," Jeralt remarked.
Byleth crossed her arms in front of her chest, her expression unreadable, but it was usually the case with his daughter's muted emotions. She was way better than before though; Shade excelled not just in cooking, but also in dragging out from Byleth more and more emotions. Sometimes, he wondered if it was luck that made them cross each other's paths decades before.
"Oh Goddess gracious, that's a kid. You're bringing a kid with you on the battlefield. Good reasons or not, do you even know how to properly feed them? Name's Shade. Tough, wonderfully brilliant mercenary who shines light in the dark. Cause I'm brilliant-don't you groan at that! I bring my humor wherever I go. I'm a great cook, a great logistic officer, and most importantly...don't ever put me on a horse. I forget the word 'Retreat' if you do that. And the horse tends to die. I don't know why. Just, no horses."
Other times, especially when his men got accustomed to his cooking, he wondered if it wasn't just bad luck. Which brought him to the sad reality he had to notify his men that there wouldn't be any of Shade's cooking for the next few days.
"I'll teach them well," Byleth said. "Shade is going to lead your company?"
"Yes," Jeralt nodded, "But the church of Seiros has offered a battalion of mercenaries and some of their knights too, so you can lead either-"
Byleth nodded. "He'll make food for all of us?"
Jeralt sighed, louder still. "You'll have to ask him that. It's up to a battalion's leader to handle the supplies for their own men."
"He'll make food for all of us," Byleth affirmed.
"Byleth," Jeralt muttered, but then shook his head. "Bring it up to him, but bring your own supplies."
She nodded, looking ever so slightly more pleased than before.
Maybe Shade was right with some of his daughter's nicknames. The next step, though, would be the hardest.
"Well, Captain Shade is gone for three days, so you know what this means people!" one of the soldiers exclaimed.
"We're all going to starve?"
"We'll have to pun ten times harder to make up for his absence?"
"We must start a hunting party and bring him back?"
"We must make a peaceful protest with signs? No mercenary action, without food satisfaction?"
Jeralt simply massaged his face with the palm of his hand. What had Shade done to his mercenaries. Why had he not realized sooner. And how long until his company returned to accepting the natural order of things?
He really needed to keep a stricter eye on his men, and count the horses. He really didn't want anyone to get strange ideas.
---
My return to the monastery happened without much fanfare, and late at night. I yawned as I waved at a couple of knights of Seiros in charge of guarding the gates into the fortress-church. I was pulling a small hand-drawn cart with some supplies on it.
Mostly coffee beans, admittedly. "Got some special supplies for cooking," I said. "Couldn't manage to get back earlier in the day. I can wait outside until dawn if you prefer-"
"And miss preparing breakfast? I think not," one of the guards grumbled, "Captain Shade-" he was one of Jeralt's mercenary. "These three days were hell. Please don't leave us ever again."
I snickered, "Oh, you big babies. I'm sure you'd all cook delicious meals if only you tried."
"But why waste time learning how to cook, when we can have you cook?" the mercenary retorted, before giving the order to open the gate just enough to let me in with my supplies, not even bothering to check if what I was bringing in was coffee or some other manner of food.
It was coffee. For the most part.
I slept long enough to get some of the tiredness out of my limbs, and then reached for the kitchens to resume my post.
I was mostly done with the first batch of freshly baked honey bread and coffee, when a presence entered the kitchens.
"Oh, Devourer-of-breakfasts," I said with a grin, "Missed me?"
Byleth simply nodded, and extended a hand.
"What makes you think I found some candy out there?" I mused, before filching from inside one of my pockets a small sugar-filled, honey glazed, sugar-sprinkled, and wrapped in a small piece of cloth, candy. "Here you go," I said, "Am I forgiven?"
She popped it into her mouth, suckling on it before giving a quiet nod. "Jeralt told me," she said, "You'll be in charge of his company."
"Yeah," I said, "The armored division. I'm going to leave the Flankers to a support role. Canyon fighting-if they're smart enough to use the terrain to their advantage, it's going to be a gruesome inch-by-inch fight."
Byleth turned thoughtful, "Morale's gonna be the most important thing then," she said.
I nodded, "True enough. They'll be fighting for their lives. We'll be fighting to kill them."
"Motivation will be important," Byleth insisted.
I blinked at that, "Yeah. Have you prepared a speech or something?"
Byleth shook her head. "Food is important in motivating people."
"Uh, well, yes," I said, "That's why Jeralt's company has the highest morale of them all, I would hazard. That, and my charming personality. You want some pointers on-"
"Cook for us too," Byleth said.
"That's...I mean, that's a tall order. Jeralt's men are already a lot to handle. I can't handle two more battalions on top of that, even with the flankers helping me out in the cooking department-" I said, quietly glancing at the oven where the honey was starting to caramelize on the bread buns.
"Cook for me, then," Byleth said.
"No," I said. "If I cannot cook for the men, I will not cook for the officers," I softly added.
"The students," Byleth said then, "It's their first battle."
I sighed, "That much, I can do. But I want it to be clear; it's because they're students and they're going to be killing for the first time. Not because they're officers."
Byleth nodded. "It's my first battle as a professor too-"
"Byleth," I flatly said, "No."
"You are being mean."
"I am being honest with the soldiers," I remarked, "Treat them as you would your own sons, and they'll follow you into the depths of hell itself-" I whispered, "Rest and eat only after they have, and they shall stand by your side even in the most desperate of situations. That's what being a leader is like."
Byleth quietly looked on as I proceeded to pull the bread buns out of the oven. I could see the corner of her mouth showcase a single droplet of saliva. One of her hands nearly moved, but she then stopped it, and shook her head.
"I see," she said simply enough. "Leadership...is different from being a soldier."
"It is the weight of responsibility," I acquiesced. I glanced away. "Their lives are in your hands. They live, or die, by your commands and your mistakes. Just as much as your enemy's commands, and their mistakes, will determine their fate."
We are the horse riders of Agarth. We plunge our lances in the hearts of the evil Nabateans. We show no mercy to our enemies. Ride, my brethren! Ride and laugh at death's maws! Let evil be murdered, so that we may stand triumphant!
"Never forget that, Byleth," I whispered, "For every single one that dies for you, you owe the world a human life."
Even Hard-To-Read could see there was a slight bitterness on my face. "I'll make sure they all live."
"Don't make a promise that you may not get to keep," I retorted. "It will hurt you harder, when you fail to do so."
She shook her head, and then grabbed eight of the still cooling honeybuns. "I'll bring these to my students," she said.
"Oh? Not taking one for yourself too?"
She smiled, "If any remain afterwards."
I snickered at that, "Then, here," I said, grabbing one and placing it on the bundle together with her eight, "I don't actually like these sweet things, but I make them for the others. So, have mine."
She walked away with a happy skip to her step.
The smile slipped away from my face.
There is no justice to be found on a battlefield. No enemy is ever evil or good.
There is only the blood of the dead. There are only the cries of the wounded, the rasps of the dying, and the smell of death.
Yet, we must continue on this path.
I glanced at the buns that remained, cooled enough that I could start piling them up to one another and prepare another batch.
For it is the only path we know how to walk, us remnants of the past humans.
Us, vengeful wraiths of a long-forgotten civilization.
Us, demons with an eternal hunger for justice.
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