↬ MONOLOGUES

[didyoulosethis]

There's a lot of time that Byleth spends on their own, lost in their own thoughts or otherwise tending to personal matters without others' company. This is a little spot for those solitary scenes, for fun and to cover more rp/characterization bases. Enjoy the read!

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Around July 31

[didyoulosethis]

Sylvain is gone.

With time, the news spreads. From Felix to Claude, from Claude to Dimitri, until it finally reaches Byleth's ears. A grim capstone to a time of music, discovery, and friendship. It's not an absence that cuts them so deep as it does his lovers, but there's still a darkness that settles in their chest, that coils invisible around their throat. For perhaps the first time in a very long time since any of the others have seen them, in any variation, Byleth has fallen almost completely silent. As their students - their friends disperse to cope in their own ways, they hang in the middle, paralyzed by the strain, the indecision. They eventually make their way around as best they can, but there's a distance to them that smacks of who they were before they came here. What they were, perhaps, if Chip's assessments and Jeralt's revelations are to be believed. Not quite empty, not quite hollow, but buried deep inside a body that doesn't respond. Byleth's company is somber, regretful, and just a little bit afraid.

They fall on the familiar, as they did some weeks ago when an entirely different kind of loss had gripped them. In their first week in Johto, after all, the Professor had been forced to endure grief over someone that none of the others had ever known to exist as she had. The silence in their head had been deafening, more devastating than Byleth had ever anticipated, and yet those around them were largely blind to it, concerned with matters of introductions and reunions. Back then, as they do now, Byleth kept busy. Even moreso as this new Moon rolls in, they devote themself to keeping the ship afloat as best they can. They spend more time with Ashe, when they're welcome to, not talking, but simply helping him cook. They flit around all hours of every day, keeping people fed, checking for illness and injury, maintaining living spaces that fall into more disarray than normal as their tenants wrestle with their respective pains.

Which brings them to now. A bright and early morning, the sun shining despite the week's affairs. Quiet, as Byleth has come to expect - who could ask anyone to maintain the familiar hubbub with all of this? So this morning they're on their own, in a silence that they've known before but are slowly beginning to hate. There's a brief moment when they consider checking their Gear; they've fallen somewhat out of contact with Doppio, Jane, and Romelle lately. Has anything new happened while they were distracted? But the thought fades as quickly as it comes. Byleth cares for them, respects them, but they're still getting to know each other. And at least for the moment, they'd like to have their little piece of home, without so many reminders of how far away the rest has become. How far Sylvain is, now.

There's so much they don't know. The war they've come to learn about from the others is one they haven't seen, fraught with betrayals and tragedies they can scarcely imagine. And Byleth's imagination is not a kind one, when presented with such important blanks to fill. A lifetime sustained by detached bloodshed, nightmares of incredible slaughter, visions of desperate people down to their last resorts, these things have left their marks on Byleth's thoughts, and their mind contorts the foulest of them into something that many would surely describe as hell. That cruel envisioning isn't real, they know, it's simply their mind scrambling to answer the questions that burn hottest at the moment, but to have Sylvain woven into the carnage is nothing short of nauseating.

It's as Byleth is, not for the first time and likely not the last, wishing that Sothis would miraculously return to derail their gruesome train of thought, that someone approaches on four heavy paws. At first, they expect it to be their Absol; he's so watchful, so careful about ensuring his trainer's safety. But to their surprise, the pokemon that pads over to lay beside Byleth with a huff is a Luxray. Not one of theirs. Is this one of Felix's cats? They doubt it, seeing as he's who knows how far away by now. And surely any pokemon of the others' would be focused on their trainer's wellbeing, at least going by how amazingly compassionate Byleth has found the creatures to be.

Then...ah. One of Sylvain's? Byleth had little opportunity to meet many of his teammates, barring Inda, and they're not sure they've ever been introduced to this one. Mandagot seems unbothered by the lack of familiarity, though, or at least willfully ignorant to any possible unease it might cause. She reclines by her trainer's Professor with a certain stern determination, restful, but only at a glance. She would remain like that, even when Byleth returns to their business, refusing to budge from their side and always watching. Much of the time, though, they can't tell if she's watching their surroundings or Byleth themself. Perhaps it's a little of both, to look out for her trainer's Professor when they're still so new to this world, and to determine whether they are fit to look out for Sylvain's family, left behind as she was.

They can do it together, Byleth resolves. Not quite as trainer and pupil, but as two independent individuals of similar mind and spirit, side by side on a course to uplift and protect as both of them have.

As both of them will.