Elgar sat bolt upright when he heard a sharp knock on the door. For a moment, he was a little confused as to where he was. Right... Garreg Mach... He shook his head and got up, going over to the door. A Church staff member stood there, offering a stack of uniforms to him. "For your vassal," the man said. Elgar nodded and took the uniforms, then retreated back into his room. Hubert sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  "Your uniforms for the school year." Elgar plopped them down on the bed and Hubert nodded.

  "All right, all right... I'll get ready soon." Hubert yawned widely. Honestly, Elgar could concur... He'd slept surprisingly well that night, but if anything, it left him feeling more exhausted than normal. He was so used to having nightmares plague him and being up like half the night pacing and just trying to avoid them. It was...strange to get a full night's sleep for the first time since he'd been about thirteen years old. He yawned himself, but started getting ready. He changed out of his night clothes and into his uniform, adjusting the cape on the shoulder. This was all still so strange to him. To be around people his age... It was bizarre. He was so used to being around older members of his community, though there were people there making their own changes to their bodies to make themselves more comfortable... He mostly stayed around the older people, though.

  After that, he ran his comb through his hair and pulled it back into his signature ponytail. Though as he looked at Hubert, he did realise something was off. "By the way, Hubert...do you want your signature hairstyle back?" He had almost forgotten about Hubert's normal haircut. Still short cropped but he usually had his hair over his eye. "If so, I know the spells to help hair grow faster." It would still take a bit of time to fully get it to grow out but if he wanted the help...

  Hubert blinked then looked at his fairly traditional male hairstyle: short cropped in the back, short bangs... There really wasn't much length to it at all. "Hm. I hadn't even thought about that to be perfectly honest. I've grown so used to having this short-cropped hair... Can I think about it for a while?"

  Elgar nodded and smiled. "Of course you can. It's an offer that you can choose to take or leave. You don't have to do anything with it if you don't want to." It was kinda strange seeing him without the normal hairstyle now that he thought about it. But it had been almost a decade since he'd last seen Hubert, so it made sense he'd sorta forgotten as well. It was an incredibly strange dichotomy to deal with.

  After getting ready for the day, Elgar looked at his schedule then sighed. "Right... We won't be in the same classes." He had found a paper stuck in one of the uniform pockets and handed it to Hubert. It was his schedule. It looked like second-year stuff. Commoners attending Garreg Mach could either go through a three-year prep period before going into their final year with nobles or, if they were smart enough, they could bypass that and go straight to the last year with the nobility.

  Hubert frowned. "That...is distressing but I understand why Lady Rhea won't let us be. We can at least meet up at lunch and after classes." He paused. "Though...would you mind filling me in on what happened to you after I disappeared from your life at some point? I thought you would've been taller by now. You've barely grown since then." Elgar shifted uncomfortably. At one point, he had trusted Hubert inherently, but they were basically strangers now. He knew the man would never not be loyal to him though. But the thought of having to live through that trauma again.... He really didn't like it. But Hubert did deserve to know.

  "How about before bed tonight?" He wouldn't be in any emotional state to attend classes if he brought all of that up right now. He was surprised he hadn't broken up bawling when talking to Rhea. He had his misgivings about the Church, but he sincerely doubted most of what the Slitherers had told him was true. They were probably half-truths at very best, outright falsities at worst. It was clearly some sort of propaganda. It didn't explain why they had the goddess' blood if she was really the bloodthirsty monster they made her out to be. Why try to imbue him with the Crest of Flames if it wouldn't benefit them? Lord Arundel had tried to win him over to their side multiple times before, but he absolutely refused. That man was no longer his uncle... He frowned. Right. He should tell Rhea about that too...

  "All right. I wish I could have done more to protect you..." Hubert looked down, then closed his eyes.

  Elgar walked over and took one of Hubert's hands, squeezing it." You were a literal child when you were taken from me, Hubert. There was nothing you could've done." It wasn't like Hubert could've predicted Lord Arundel would take him to the Kingdom to spare him from the Insurrection. Apparently Hubert had just put up too much of a fuss at wanting his then-lady back... He could hardly blame him. From what little he did know, Marquis Vestra had really pounded the loyalty factor pretty deeply into Hubert...to his own detriment. Marquis Vestra really had no idea the monster he was creating. But once he became too much to handle... Well. He just gave him away as if Hubert meant nothing to him.

  "Still... I feel like I should've been able to do something to help you..." Hubert's voice was quiet and his grip on Elgar's hand tightened considerably. There was nothing Elgar could say to make any of this right. Hubert would forever blame himself for what had happened. Elgar was just happy to have him back at this point. They were kind of essentially strangers since they had led such separate lives unto this point now. But Hubert's loyalty couldn't be doubted. He had risked his own life to come talk to him. If this did get back to Marquis Vestra, assassins might very well be a reality for them and Elgar would have to protect Hubert, not the other way around...

  "Want to walk around the monastery grounds a bit?" They still had a little while until classes began, so he saw no reason not to kill a bit of time. The bell would alert them when classes were about to begin. Hubert nodded a bit and Elgar pulled out the map he'd been given of the monastery grounds. They started walking around, taking in the sights as long as they could. They did come out to the training grounds where several students were practicing. One was a girl with long blue hair and Morgan, the lord of the Iris Warblers. She bore a strange sword unlike any Elgar had seen before. They both used live steel instead of training blades and the sound that resounded from each clash of the blades... He would hate to get hit by one of them. They both had some monstrous strength behind their blows.

  He watched the match until the girl lifted up her blade at an odd angle near her chin and sent Morgan flying straight back into a wall, more than ten feet away. Elgar winced and went over to Morgan, offering him a hand. "Hey, you all right?" He was tiny compared to Morgan and the girl who seemed to be his sister. But it didn't mean he couldn't at least help the other man up.

  Morgan looked mortified. "You saw that?"

  Elgar nodded, still holding his hand out awkwardly. "Yeah, I did." Morgan sighed and took his hand, standing up. As usual, Morgan was around a foot taller than Elgar. So many people were well over a foot taller than he was... He hated how short he was, but there wasn't really anything he could do about it. The Crest experiments had entirely messed with his body. He wasn't sure if removing the Crest of Flames would help him grow further or not... He couldn't even reach past the third shelf in the library. It was so frustrating.

  "Well don't tell anybody what you saw if you can figure out how it works. That's our family's secret technique. It's the only way a match between Lucian and I can end." The man looked at the woman--Lucina, then. She was actually pretty. Though they looked very different. Dark-skinned people weren't too common in Fodlan. He had noticed it in Claude too. Lucina...was pretty fair. It was interesting to see the stark contrast between the pair of siblings.

  "I don't think I could figure it out without really studying it in extreme depth." He didn't have the same sort of combat acuity some people did. He needed to really study the mechanics of how things functioned in order to pull them off. He'd spent far more time drilling down certain techniques than he cared to admit. He would need Morgan or Lucina to outright teach him whatever that technique had been. It looked powerful and it no doubt was, considering how far Morgan had gone flying.

  "Good. We really don't want that getting out. So what brings you out to the training grounds this early?"

  "Hubert and I were just walking the grounds for a bit before class. I'm surprised you two are using steel weapons, though... And live steel at that. We're only supposed to use practice weapons for a little while after arriving." It was to prevent any serious injuries occurring on school grounds. There were healers, of course, and good ones at that. But still. It was best to prevent serious injuries before they occurred. It wasn't hard to tell the steel was live. There were dulled steel weapons available to the students after the second month, but for now, they were supposed to be using wooden weapons.

  Morgan let out a scoff. "Wooden weapons won't do me or Lucina any good. We've fought live steel with live steel for basically our whole lives. Wooden weapons aren't weighted correctly and can only get you so far. If they'd start you on dulled steel weapons immediately, that would be better. They won't cause serious injury." He shook his head and Elgar folded his arms. What was his problem? The way he moved... He'd definitely been through hell. His eyes were hard in a way so far that he hadn't seen in anybody else's eyes here. Dimitri's eyes were haunted as if some great tragedy had befallen him. But that was sort of the norm for Fodlan…

  "Morgan, relax." Lucina spoke and walked over, her sword sheathed. She offered Elgar a smile. "Forgive my brother. We grew up in war. So a lot of the teaching methods in this school are...frivolous to us. We already know how to handle ourselves in combat because it's basically all we've known our entire lives."

  "I'm sorry." Elgar offered her a sympathetic smile. He had only known peace, but it didn't mean that he didn't understand tragedy or loss. He'd lost so much. He'd lost his entire family and even his closest vassal...until yesterday, at least. He wasn't really sure what to say. If he had had greater resources...then Fodlan might have been plunged into war. But he had nothing. He refused the Slitherers on the principle that, while they would've had the resources he would've needed, they had obviously lied to him. And they had been the ones to take his family from him. Why should he side with somebody that had caused so much damage and destruction? He would rather see them wiped out than ever side with those delusional fools.

  Lucina shrugged. "It is what it is in the end. We all live our lives. War is what we've known and it's what's forged us. I can see you've suffered your own losses through your eyes. Your own tragedies have forged you into the person you are today, right?" Elgar nodded. He was who he was today because of what he'd suffered through. If he could erase it, he would. He would want his family back. He wanted his mothers back. (Except Helga. Nobody liked Helga.) He wanted his siblings back. He never wanted Hubert to be taken away from him. If he could go back in time and change literally all of it, he would. But time travel was impossible... He just had to try to bear through everything he possibly could.

  "I'd rather not talk about it."

  Lucina shook her head. "I'm not going to force you to talk about your deepest wounds with somebody you've only just met. What's your name, by the way? I'm Lucina Vastel." She smiled at Elgar with genuine warmth. She was very sweet and kind unlike her brother. Morgan was hard. Then again...he could understand that. He had tried to kill off Edelgard as much as he possibly could, but she still reared her head sometimes as much as he hated it.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  "Elgar von Hresvelg. I'm not familiar with any House Vastel, at least within the Empire..." Then again, she obviously wasn't Imperial nobility. She was in the Iris Warblers, the house for foreign students. Why Petra wasn't there...he couldn't entirely be sure. She was in the Black Eagles. Maybe it had been her own choice or maybe the Church had forced her into the Black Eagles due to Brigid's vassal status. He had no idea on any of it.

  "We're from another world entirely. House Vastel is the Halidom of Ylisse's Exalt line. We're royalty...albeit disenfranchised now." Huh, he hadn't been expecting that. But looking at Morgan... Okay, yeah, he could definitely see 'king' just rolling off the man's posture. He was bad at hiding who he was. His father hadn't held himself erect, but yes, he could definitely see 'king' in Morgan's mannerisms and posture. Lucina... Definitely noble, but far less obviously than her brother.

  "Ao, so I see. I'm sorry you've lost so much." For royalty to get disenfranchised... Something major must have happened. Even the Empire at its worst continued to be controlled by House Hresvelg. He would never get the house to fall if he could help it. He really did need to pass on the bloodline of House Hresvelg but he was afraid of how he'd have to do it... He desperately hoped that he would fall in love with a woman while here. Then they could just use magic to bypass the need for any sort of sex.

  He pushed the thoughts away. He saw Lucina shrug. "We chose this life. We would rather this than be sitting around with our thumbs up our asses." What was their story? A lot had obviously happened to them, but it wasn't like he could just go asking their life stories when they'd just met. Maybe in due time they would feel comfortable talking to him, but for now... They would just have to remain acquaintances. Which wasn't so bad. He was fine with that. He was just a bit too curious for his own good. "So who's this?" He saw Lucina looking over his shoulder at Hubert.

  "My vassal, Hubert von Vestra. We've known each other since we were children." Not a lie. They just...hadn't seen each other in basically a decade at this point. He still worried about Hubert not being around him during classes. Then again, the more powerful of them was Elgar beyond the shadow of a doubt. Hubert hadn't had any proper combat or magical training in the entire time he'd been gone. So he would fail to keep Elgar safe if something were to happen... For the time being, Elgar would have to be the one to protect Hubert. "Due to...extenuating circumstances, though, he won't be in the same classes as us." He wouldn't explain anything past that. It wasn't Morgan and Lucina's place to know his life. He would rather keep the Empire's secrets close to his chest if at all possible.

  "Ah, so I see. You'll see my vassal around her eventually... Her name's Seren Emory. Well. Technically Seren Vastel since she married our cousin, but she still refuses to not see me as her princess." Lucina rolled her eyes, though her tone was full of warmth. She clearly had a soft spot for her vassal even if she sounded rather annoying and overbearing from what little Lucina had said. "Brown hair, falcon knight. Her nickname back home was Severa and, well... You'll see why when you meet her." Severa, huh? That...was quite the lofty nickname. Severe personality then?

  Elgar nodded. "I've dealt with my fair share of severe people in my time. I doubt she'll ruffle my feathers too much." He really had dealt with some of the worst people over the past several years since he'd stepped into court. He hadn't met Ferdinand before, but meeting every young noble wasn't going to happen. There were too many houses in Adrestia for him to be able to keep track of personally. It was one reason he wished Hubert had been around to help him... Keeping track of everything was a nightmare and he had to bring his various notes with him. There were just boxes on boxes of notes to remind him of the dealings he'd made with noble houses. He hoped they wouldn't betray him once he ascended the throne, though…

  "We'll see about that. She ruffles almost everyone's feathers at one point or another. She's not a bad person; she's just been hardened by the same wars that hardened me and my siblings." Siblings? So there was one more? Or, at least one more.

  "Thankfully, dealing with Adrestian nobility has taught me a thing or two about remaining calm even in the face of people trying to get responses out of me." Yeah, they really did try to get rises and reactions out of him. Duke Aegir and his ilk constantly poked the sleeping dragon. He would have Eike on his side which would be a nasty surprise to Marquis Vestra. And now that he had Hubert back on his side... Oh boy would they really regret what they had done. The torture they had put him through had made him strong and resilient and he could do damn near anything he set his mind to. He would push past his limits and become the best possible version of himself that he could be.

  "By the way, if you ever need a tactician for something, Morgan's unparalleled." Lucina smiled and he saw Morgan blink, his cheeks no doubt heating up.

  "L-Lucina! My skills aren't for hire!"

  "You know you'd do anything to be a tactician again."

  Elgar gave a calculated smile. "Well, we'll have to see then. I could definitely use a tactician in the Empire if you should be so inclined to it. Perhaps we can talk at a later date. How would you feel about a coup?" He probably shouldn't be so bold, but these were people without any attachment to Fodlan. That was a double-edged word. Maybe Morgan would relish the challenge of trying to overthrow a nasty government to push himself or maybe he wouldn't care at all. Either way, he hoped he could sway Morgan to his side.

  "I'll need to know the ins and outs of the Adrestian court if you want me to help you work on that. So that will mean trust for both of us. Are you ready to trust me with your secrets?" Morgan's mask was unreadable, tone incredibly neutral. That...would be a tall order. He didn't really trust anybody, at least not easily. It seemed like he and Morgan would be locked in a mental tussle to see who was worthy of trust. It seemed like Morgan would have his own issues with trust.

  "We'll see about it in due time. We have an entire year to learn about each other, after all." He placed a hand at his waist and offered a bow. Yeah, Morgan was definitely going to be an interesting person to get to know. Lucina was pretty soft, but he didn't doubt she was intelligent in her own right. He could see the sparkle behind her eyes, the one that told of curiosity and desire to make herself better. He would have to keep a close eye on her too. She would likely be a formidable ally should she desire to work for the Empire as well…

  "Well, it's getting close to class, so we should probably let you go. We'll see you later." Morgan offered a brusque bow and left, Lucina hurrying after him. Hm. What an interesting pair. They could be formidable allies or opponents depending on what happened. Should he have had the resources to go through with the war, he would not want to be on the opposite side of them. But seeing as he had only himself to rely on...he couldn't start that war. He wanted so badly to take the Church down and bring Fodlan to its knees, but he would never side with those awful Slitherers. They had taken his family from him, all of them. He was alone in the world though he had Hubert back now...

  "We should probably follow their lead, my lord." Hubert's voice was quiet. Elgar turned around to face him before nodding. That probably was a good idea. "I'll see you at lunch."

  "See you then, Hubert." He gave a small nod before heading off to his classes.

  ∩

  Lucina hurried behind Morgan as they headed off to classes and caught up to him. As usual, his face was set and borderline unreadable, but she could tell he was bothered. "Morgan, what's wrong?" She slipped into their conglomerate language, Chonleesi, so nobody would understand what they were saying. They needed their own way to stay hidden and keep their communications with each other private.

  "Something about that boy didn't sit right with me. The fact he was so brazen in asking me to perform a coup... He has a lot of confidence." Morgan folded his arms as he sighed. Even though he wore the kingly mask, she understood her brother well enough to understand when he was bothered. Growing up so close to the twins made sure she understood how her brother felt. She had ruled alongside him in Ylisse though he'd never fully allowed her to take the throne by herself as was her birthright.

  "That...was very brazen. There's something going on in the Adrestian court. I wonder if anybody would know what was going on." Lucina couldn't help but feel the same. Why did the heir apparent of the Empire need to commit a coup? Then again...he hadn't stated it'd be for Adrestia. For all they knew, it could be against Faerghus or the Alliance or even the Church. He hadn't specified, but she also knew to trust Morgan's intuition by this point. If something didn't sit right with him, he was usually right. And if his intuition said it was for the Adrestian court, who was she to go against it? Granted, they had only been in Fódlan for a short time. Applying to the Officer's Academy had been a risky gamble and Rhea hadn't been too fond of the idea of allowing more foreigners in. The Hoshidans were already pressing on her desire to keep the country closed. But she was glad they'd been allowed in...even if paying the Church back for their tuition would take time.

  "I wonder if any of the other Black Eagles would know what's going on. I doubt Petra or Dorothea would know... I've heard about that Bernadetta girl being a recluse in her room, so I doubt she would know... I doubt we're gonna get anything out of his vassal if he's anything like Seren is to you. So that leaves mostly Ferdinand, Caspar, and Linhardt in the high courts. Elgar seemed unwilling to trust me with anything so yeah, not getting anything out of him." Morgan sighed. His mind was already going a million miles per hour as it so often did. He was purely in tactician mode. He was looking for weaknesses to penetrate and how to gather the information he needed. They sure as hell knew they weren't going to get anything out of the Church, though. And she doubted the Hoshidans would have anything to add. They were as foreign as the Exalt kids were.

  "There's so much to deal with here. There are no doubt a lot of secrets... I still can't get over Rhea and Seteth appear." They looked far too close to Tiki and Nowi for comfort. She doubted with as curated as the library was that they'd find anything about dragonkin. It seemed like nobody knew anything about dragonkin here. Sure, they were rare in Ylisse, but people knew of them. Naye was technically with them, but she had opted to stay in a village not that far from the Monastery... She didn't want to go to school to fight when she'd already been through three different wars. The poor girl's sensitive demeanor was hell on her.

  "Agreed. There are a lot of secrets in Fódlan and I don't know if there's much of anything we can do to uncover them." Morgan shrugged and sighed. "Maybe I should just take up Elgar on his offer. I know it'd require trust, but he'd also see my ulterior motives from a mile away. He has the eyes of someone that doesn't trust easily and is willing to backstab if needed. I don't know if I can trust him, but I might need to do that to get to the bottom of Fodlan's secrets. Why in the world is there a Manakete in charge of the Church....?" He sighed again, shaking his head. Well, they couldn't see her ears, but the hair and eyes were enough of a dead giveaway to the Exalt kids.

  "Well, that's your prerogative, Morgan... But if you could get in good with the Empire, it would honestly leave us with a financial future here in Fodlan..." Lucina rubbed the back of her neck. Even the year of schooling they had was fairly expensive and they had signed a contract with the Church which let them attend the school and pay over the rest of their lifetimes. It was the best place they'd found... Sure, they were foreigners and not treated super well, but it was peaceful as far as things went. They desired peace even if adapting to it was incredibly difficult. Morgan still had no idea how to not act in Exalt mode 24/7. Even around their parents, he kept the mask up.

  "Yeah, that it would. But I would like to talk to Owain before we commit to anything. Plus...who knows, maybe you could find something to do as well. If the Kingdom or Alliance are looking for people to recruit too...we might end up on opposite sides."

  "There's no war ongoing, Morgan. We don't have to worry about that. Plus you know I wouldn't let us end up on opposite sides." They would never end up fighting each other in a war no matter what happened. She wouldn't let it happen and neither would he. They loved each other and had been through far too much to allow something to pull them apart.

  They entered the classroom and sat down in their assigned seats. With that, the dull lesson began and the pair tuned most of it out. What a long year they had ahead of them...