The Flames Between Them

Transporting a captured person through a crowded area is as strange as it is awkward. They put a heavy cloak over her to hide her bound hands, and Hubert assumed responsibility for watching over the sword. When it came to guarding the captured, the protocol was one hand on their bound wrists and the other threateningly on the pommel of a weapon. Since Hubert was already holding the sword, and since Linhardt and Dorothea were mages, and since Edelgard cared very, very deeply for protocol, she bore that burden. For no other reason.

Edelgard was see-sawing on the appropriate distance from which to hold Byleth. So that her back was right to Edelgard’s chest? Or something more natural? She settled on a comfortable distance, where the tip of her nose was just barely touching the Professor’s bouncy hair, and the Professor’s bounded hands were held in a claw-like grip.

The Professor was so quiet throughout the whole matter. Edelgard tried prompting some conversation by apologizing, or by accidentally walking too close to her, but the Professor always found a mute way to respond. 

“Hey, El.” Dorothea was beside her, tucking her words close to Edelgard’s ears so that Byleth wouldn’t hear. “Why are you so quiet?”

Edelgard could almost spot cat ears perk up on Byleth’s head; so she was curious.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to-”

They certainly weren’t whispering quietly enough, because Hubert chimed in with, “She’s right, my Lady. You’re being exceptionally odd, if you’ll excuse me saying.”

“Both of you!” Edelgard admonished. “We are on the clock!”

“Edelgard’s correct, you two.” Linhardt defended. Then, his eyes slid to Edelgard, and he nodded his head to himself as he said, “They are also correct, however. You’re acting very…” He scrunched his face, searching for the right word. 

“Awkward?” Dorothea suggested.

“Awkward, and strangely giddy,” Hubert. 

Linhardt wanted a turn. “Awkward, giddy, and-”

“Enough, all of you.” She sighed, half expecting to find the Professor had slipped from her grasp, and felt relief when the Professor hadn’t. Instead, her shoulders were shaking and little sputters of laughter were about to break her taciturn dam. 

Edelgard considered that perhaps the three could continue their teasing if that meant the Professor would lower her guard and laugh. Then, she thought better of such an idea, and added half-heartedly, “We’re working with a very dangerous criminal. You all ought to be more professional.”

While Linhardt and Hubert were disappointed with Edelgard’s reaction, it was only Dorothea’s eyebrows who raised high into her hat. She widened her eyes so the whites were as big as a snowfield, and motioned to the Professor as if to say, ‘Her?!’

Edelgard coughed heartily. 

“A very dangerous criminal, indeed,” the Professor finally joined in with a gleeful voice. She tilted her head back and looked through the corner of her eye to pierce Edelgard’s sight. “I’m glad you have such a crew, Edelgard. Though I’m hardly in a position to do so, I’d advise you hold tight to them.”

The mood changed with that ominous advice. Edelgard’s grip tightened around the Professor’s cuffs, and the others fell back into a triangular formation right away. 

“The sooner we deliver her, the better,” Hubert announced.

Edelgard had almost forgotten where they were going. She leaned in close this time, smelling the fresh pine scent with sea salt on Byleth’s hair, and whispered, “I feel like I should warn you. Where we’re taking you-”

“It’s the Baron Myson, correct?” Byleth whispered back. 

Edelgard was silent, and Byleth chuckled. 

“I’d further advise extreme caution,” Byleth said. She squared her shoulders and looked straight ahead, indicating she was done with their quasi-conversation. 

After that, no more attempts at cutesy conversation were made. They rounded corners, familiar corners Edelgard had come to associate with brutality and evil, on their way to the Manse. Edelgard squinted as the sun sank lower and lower, and she sighed. 

“Dorothea,” she said and stopped so abruptly in her tracks that the Professor was yanked backward. “Does the guild still have a couple of extra holding cells?”

“My Lady, you can’t-”

“It does,” Dorothea confirmed. “I bet I could even get them at a discount rate.”

“That’s good, let’s go,” Edelgard said, pivoting on her foot. 

Linhardt was vaguely interested in the unfolding events, and so was Dorothea, though for different reasons, so they hovered close by while Hubert tried arguing with Edelgard while still acknowledging pointless servant-noble relationships. It sounded like this:

“My Lady-”
“No,” Edelgard said. 

“Please, My-”

“No, thank you.”

“M-”

Edelgard looked at him sourly, and Hubert sighed. 

“My Lady,” he visibly relaxed when he wasn’t interrupted. “Why would we risk her with us another night?”

Edelgard looked between them all. That was a very good point. However, none of them, besides Hubert, looked all that concerned, Dorothea looked more happy than not. 

“Because I don’t believe Baron Myson is best dealt with at night. I’d rather do it tomorrow morning,” she responded. 

All of them knew the subtext to that, and so conversation again stilled as they backtracked to the guild. 

This time, it was Byleth who turned her head back and asked, “Why?”

Edelgard took immense pride in coaxing unguarded curiosity in the Professor’s voice. “I’m exercising extreme caution.” She tightened her hold on Byleth.

As it would happen, getting someone from roped hands to the cuffs of a jail cell is far less difficult, and more hellishly awkward. Hubert stood outside the hall while Linhardt and Dorothea cleared up any issues about the Professor’s lodging. 

When Edelgard’s hands violently trembled, going to grasp the Professor’s wrists, Byleth finally sighed. “I always told the academy that techniques of enemy capture should have been a class. They listened, but they didn't take me literally enough.”

Edelgard moved in closer until her chest was flush with the Professor’s back. “I’m going to move your hair so I can see,” Edelgard warned. The Professor was ever so accommodating as to stretch her graceful neck, revealing the supple expanse of skin that her hair usually hid. Edelgard took that mischievous hair and tossed it aside before clicking the cuffs in place like her life depended on it. 

The Professor laughed as Edelgard scrambled away. 

Hubert had been silent during the whole exchange. Now his shoulders were turned to the staircase leading to the main guildhall. The drunken and feverish atmosphere practically seeped into the frosty bricks. “My Lady,” he said, gesturing upwards.

Edelgard slowly followed him, hoping the Professor would say something, quip anything. However, she reached the stocky wooden door without hearing a peep, and so the Professor’s only good-bye was the creaky close of the door far above. 

However, right before Hubert locked the door from the outside, Edelgard sighed and pushed him aside. “I’ll be quick,” she promised and raced down the stairs. Luckily, no one followed, and it seemed Dorothea had convinced Hubert to close the main door so that Byleth and Edelgard could have their privacy.

Edelgard crashed into the bars of Byleth’s cell, barely catching herself. A red gloss was 

over her cheeks as Byleth sauntered over with a fresh amusement. 

Byleth smiled. “What did you forget?”

“You…” Edelgard started, then re-thought her speech. “I remember our fight. You went easy on me.”

A toothy smile curled up on Byleth’s cheeks. “No, I didn’t. You were quite formidable, you know. It’s just that the axe is a weapon not suited for a one versus one with a sword user. It’s a bit too slow.” Even in a situation like this, Byleth had that cooing professor voice, the one used when a student raises their hand so confidently and gets the answer so confidently wrong. 

Edelgard drank in the Professor’s bright disposition, and then she knew she didn’t want Byleth to meet the Baron Myson. 

But still, the Professor was associated with the Baron. And so Edelgard was duty-bound to discover what Byleth’s affair was. Edelgard wanted a class in gentle and kind interrogation tactics, not the rough ones she knew. She couldn’t drum up any rhetoric on how to get the Professor to reveal what Edelgard wanted her to reveal. 

But, as would come to be tradition, the Professor encouraged a clandestine blanket over the scene. Like you were in a classroom, holding an axe with a dulled edge, and trying the riskiest and showiest sparring moves just because your audience’s gaze was so gentle.
Edelgard decided she ought to simply ask; do away with all these pesky fears. “What’s going on?”

The Professor tilted her head, a peckish smile planted firmly. “Hm?”

“The young girl, the one who was with you. She was strange. I’d never heard that particular accent anywhere.”

The Professor’s face was as gentle as ever, if not a bit playful. “Am I to understand you have had extensive travel experience?”

Edelgard slumped back, squatting with her heels on the ground and arms wrapped around her knees. Her face assumed a deep frown, and Byleth seemed ever at home.
“Why are you being obstinate? I’m referring to what’s going on with why a man like the Baron would want you.”

Byleth scoffed. “What kind of educator would I be if I gave up information without even giving my students the chance to torture me?”

Edelgard’s frown matured into a glower. “I won’t be doing that. That’s…” She shook her head. “In any case, I was only hired to bring you to him.” 

It was slight, but Byleth’s eyes narrowed. 

“That’s all he hired you to do?” 

“Yes. That’s all,” Edelgard leaned forward. “Why? Is there something else-”

“No,” The Professor abruptly said, shaking her head. Then, carefully, she asked, “But…there was nothing about my sword?” 

“No, there was nothing. But, Professor, just tell me what’s going on! You said it yourself, I’m a skilled fighter. I can be of help to you-”

“That’s just the thing, Edelgard.” Byleth’s tone was deprived of any gaiety or the coy fox that usually played in it. Edelgard realized she was hearing the Professor’s real voice. “You shouldn’t have had to become a good fighter. Not with such an aggressive and desperate style. Not with a style so clearly accustomed to fighting without support.”

And there it was again. That look in the Professor’s eyes, the guilt.

Edelgard felt weightless over the massive chasm of mystery that had opened all around her. She had supposed herself well-informed, a straight path to her dream. But what was this? It felt like a celebration for her she wasn’t invited to.

“Byleth,” Edelgard pleaded. “The Baron Myson is…” With a will of its own, Edlegard’s hand reached through and clutched Byleth’s. “ Please, just, give me a reason to take your side. I  don’t wish to do evil.”

“No one does, I think.”

Edelgard couldn’t seem to break this facade the Professor had constructed around that vulnerable truth from before. Even in such a situation, she became the woman who smiled glamorously at everything, and whose hair flayed in all directions like falling rain off a roof.

“I don’t do this for money. I do this so…” Edelgard considered if it was worth telling Byleth, and something within her broke, and told her yes. “I do this for revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” the Professor asked so carefully; whimsy really starting to wither from her person. 

“First, tell me this.” She sat next to Byleth, through the bars. “You said it yourself; you’re an educator. You clearly have so much passion, so something strange must have caused your dismissal from the Officer’s Academy.”

Byleth seemed so close to cracking and giving herself over to Edelgard, so the young bounty hunter felt quite proud of herself.

She sighed. “You’re right, Edelgard. I was fired under certain strange circumstances. However, I don’t blame the Academy.” Bylehth’s eyes, like glaciers, turned to Edelgard.. “I wasn’t a very good professor, really.”

“I don’t believe that,” Edelgard replied. 

Byleth almost flinched. She slipped back into her nonchalant skin, clasping the armor tight around her. And she shrugged, and there was already that damn smile shelved in the corners of her lips again. “Then you’re out of luck.”

“Byleth,” Edelgard chided.

The Professor hummed.  She was looking with lazy lashes at a corner of the room, gazing at it like it was a warm dinner after a long day. 

“You must tell me; you must give me some reason to believe you’re not a villain.” 

Byleth kept with that performance, the content woman in the freezing cell. Edelgard felt very embarrassed. That flush on her cheeks turned sharp and stinging, and she raised herself from the floor; there was always someone in her way, deciding this or that.

“You’re a fool, Professor.”

And, of course, as Edelgard stalked away, the Professor huffed. “I implore you to focus on your revenge, Edelgard.”

She stopped halfway up the stairs, She didn’t turn around, and kept a poised hand on the grainy stony wall as she asked, “What are you trying to say?”

The Professor released a deep sigh. “Only that the Baron Myson will pay you well, I imagine, after tomorrow. And you ought to use that, then stay away.”

Tomorrow came. Hubert paused from his and Linahrd’s conversation, being the first to notice Edelgard’s stony disposition. 

“You’re less flighty, now,” he observed.

“I am; I suppose now is a good time to apologize for earlier. I wasn’t myself, and I don’t quite know why-”

“I know why,” an operatic voice taunted. Dorothea sauntered through, yawning at the early hour. Judging by her rapt expression, she clearly wanted someone to ask her to elaborate; the answer was sitting on her tongue like a spell sparking to fly. 

Edelgard, Hubret, and Linhardt all turned away. “What sounds good for breakfast?”

“I don’t mind staying in the Guild Hall today. I believe that Ricowa has the morning shift, so maybe the food won't taste as hungover as its chefs usually are.”

Dorothea crept up behind them. “Edelgard,” she sing-songed like an annoying mosquito. “How did things go with your professor last night?”

“You mean to say how did things go with our prisoner last night.”

She winced; they all winced. “I take it not good, then.”

Witnessing their reactions, and setting aside the embarrassing implications that they all knew of Edelgard’s peculiar feelings on the Professor, she addressed them all. “I’m confused. I thought you all would be over the moon we could deliver her to the Baron with no fuss, or pesky questions of morality.”

Dorothea was the first to speak. “Well, El, we all want money.”

“I can second that,” Linhardt added. 

Hubert shrugged compromisingly. 

“But,” Dorothea picked up again. “It’s no mystery to anyone how important your revenge is. I haven’t said anything, but I’m honestly surprised you’re working with the Baron. After what he let your father do…” Dorothea trailed off. “So what I’m trying to say, is that if the Professor might be better in our hands than his-”

Edelgard abruptly stepped forward, and set a hand on Dorothea’s shoulders. She wore a kind smile, and said, “How lucky I am to have such friends.” She lowered her head humbly and gestured the same to the other two to share the sentiment. “But the Professor…Byleth, I did in fact do what you all suggested. I really grilled her. I demanded to know about her affiliations, whether she was the hero or the villain in this story.”

“And?” someone asked. 

Edelgard shrugged. “She was happy to be the villain. And, honestly,” Edelgard turned her back to them with an icy wind blowing off her shoulders. “I am inclined to buy into her claim, as well as her words.” Edelgard tucked her hair back. “I’m aiming to keep us out of this whole narrative.”

“My Lady,” Hubert began. “Should I take this to mean that we are delivering her right after our breakfast?”

She nodded. 

While they took their plates and ate, the scene was terse. Edelgard couldn’t eat; she could only imagine the torture that the Professor might endure. Torture was further in the question than out of it, working with the Baron, no matter what he insisted. And it was certainly related to that girl the Professor was toting around. 

The four came down with Edelgard to retrieve the Professor. She was sleeping very peacefully, reminiscent of a cat spread out on a warm window ledge. Edelgard shuddered at the familiar stony walls, the familiar coldness, and was tempted to reach between the bars and grasp the Professor by her hair and demand why she was so obstinate on accepting Edelgard’s help.

However, the same good educator’s words won out: ‘focus on your revenge, Edelgard.’ 

Byleth lifted her head up, shaking out the dust from her hair. The light crashing through the open doorway illuminated the four standing above the Professor. In that moment of dreary vulnerability, Edelgard scavenged in Byleths’ eyes for anything revealing of her intentions.

And when the Professor’s eyes finally came upon Edelgard, there was just guileless warmth in the cold, blue cell. 

“Professor,” Edelgard greeted.

“Is it time, then?” The Professor's stretch was accompanied by a lazy yawn. 

“It is. Hubert, the keys.”

When the Professor stepped out, Edelgard tied her hands once more. The palmy and anxious awkwardness from earlier had left, and what remained was the rope’s rough twines splintering into the Professor’s hands as Edelgard tightened the knot.

Edelgard stood behind the Professor as they walked through the streets, straying off the side even though not many were out. Dorothea and Linhardt had been making conversation, but it was clear they only did it to pad over any awkwardness that silence would’ve brought. 

When the Professor spoke to Edelgard, her voice was quiet, but not a whisper. “Edelgard. You still have my sword, I assume?”

“That’s right.”

The Professor hunched forward again, staring out into the empty streets, thinking. 

Edelgard tried to reign in her curiosity, but it got the best of her. “What is it?” she relented and asked. 

Byleth narrowed her eyes as, in the distance, the top spiral of the Count’s manse, where the Baron was, came into view. “I’m just thinking; You don’t like this Baron, correct?” 

When Edelgard was silent, Byleth added in, “You were willing to break your contract and not hand me over. I think that facilitates some distaste of him on your part.”

Her silence broke.“Distaste?” Edelgard scoffed, and all the others turned to look. Before she could catch herself, she said, “I hate him! He ought to burn-”

“My lady,” Hubert cut in. He glared at the Professor, “Should I take her?”

Edelgard let out a long breath. She shook her head, closing her eyes and using her free hand to rub between them. “No, that’s…” She had trailed off, for she had seen the coy expression the Professor wore. 

“Edelgard,” Byleth said. There was overwhelming joy brimming in each consonant. “I had regretted the fact that I couldn’t help you with your revenge. But now, I do believe I have a recommendation if you wish to cause him trouble.”

All of them were listening, and the hopeful little flutter in Edelgard’s chest only came out physically in the form of reddened ears and a fast heart. She knew very well the words she wanted to hear. Quick images of fighting alongside the Professor flashed through her mind. Images of Edelgard bringing her to a guest room. Setting her up within the guild for financial support. Fighting with the Professor’s sword as her support. 

“My sword,” Byleth said instead. “In some days’ time, I promise the Baron will want that sword very much. I would advise you to pawn that sword off to a fast-traveling merchant to make his life difficult. And, Edelgard,” Byleth lowered her voice. “I would also advise you to stay away from this affair after pawning the sword.”

Hubert ushered them all to move again. 

And Edelgard found it difficult to move through the disappointment. 

When they rounded the corner, all of them came into the courtyard. A servant noticed them and insisted that Edelgard stay out there for the Baron’s knights to collect Byleth. 

“Professor,” Edelgard found herself saying. “It’s now or-”

“The sword, Edelgard.” Byleth’s tone was unassailable. “Get rid of that sword, and chase your revenge, free of the hindrance of this entire mess.”

The Baron stepped out onto the steps, and Byleth’s shoulders curled like a beast’s. A shadow swung over her eyes as she said, “I’ll take care of it, this time.”

“Eelgard!” The Baron shouted with his hands raised wide. Then, “Professor,” he greeted in a voice somehow more smug than his usual one. “I applaud your success.”

Edelgard was silent, her hands clutched around the Professor’s. She knew this man was connected to her father, her revenge. That’s why she kept cordial with him. But wasn’t something like this, enabling him, too much?

The head knight stepped forward. He nodded a quick respect, before gesturing for the Professor. 

Edelgard didn’t hand her over. Byleth simply stepped out of Edelgard’s grasp with a step so strong she had to let go. Another knight handed Edelgard a light check with a heavy sum. Too heavy a sum for any scrupulous or diligent professor.

“Wonderful. Well, I wish you luck, Edelgard. I’ll ensure to recommend your name henceforth.”

Just like that. Just like that, the Baron turned around. 

Byleth inched her head back and shot Edelgard an assured smile. 

“My Lady?” Hubert said, touching a hand to her shoulder. 

The Professor was gone, and Edelgard had that much more money and repute to feed her revenge. Standing in the courtyard, she was finally able to blankly turn around. She kept on telling herself the Professor chose this, and that she was a fool. 

“Come,” she finally said after they had walked a few blocks. “Let’s take this to the bank, then we have a sword to sell.”

However, out of the corner of her eye, she caught the shadow of a fast-moving person.