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Cyril learns early what the cost of war is - he loses both of his parents at six, and like most war orphans, is dragged into serving Fodlan-Almyran war machine off the streets. He doesn’t see active battle until he’s eight - but between the years spent begging for scraps and running errands for the Almyran army, most of his childhood had melted away into a cold reality of bloodshed and violence.
It’s at that battle where he and a bunch of other soldiers and kids are captured and marched into the mountain range that makes Fodlan’s throat. He makes a break for it when the camp is asleep between guard rotations and just runs - anywhere, anywhere but here. He runs for what feels like days until he trips and tumbles. Down, down, down - and all he has to show for it is in the end is a bunch of scrapes, bruises and what feels like a twisted ankle.
Cyril is exhausted, the fight to live leaking out of as the hours pass. He lays there, too tired to move, until the sun starts to lower in the sky. After everything, after all that, he thinks, he’s going to die alone, even scavenging animals won’t find his body. The sky looks like it will turn into dusk when he sees them - a stranger out of the hills making their way towards him.
It looks like a teenager, lean and gangly and dressed in all black, with piercing deep blue eyes like he’s never seen. Their face is blank with emotion and Cyril shudders. Some stragglers of the Fodlanese forces he guesses - it’s certain now he’ll be dragged back to Fodlan’s locket and forced into servitude. Rumors from the other recruits about what it’s like beyond Fodlan’s Throat bounce around in his head - a place of malice and suffering. How can it be any worse that what he’s experienced back in Almyra? How can the world be this terrible?
The stranger bends down, “Are you hurt?” He’s knows enough Fodlanese to understand them but he can’t believe it how soft their voice is. It’s not gentle or even concerned - but it’s the closest thing he’s heard to kindness he’s heard in a long time. Partly out of shock he responds, shaking his head no. The teenager considers him, before responding matter-of-factly. “You are.”
They step back, examining the situation before bending down. “I’m going to pick you up.” They wait for a response - When he doesn’t say anything, they put their arms underneath him and lift him gently. The stranger didn’t seem that tall from where he was before, but now they feel larger than life. “OK?”
He’s too nervous to respond verbally, so he gives them another nod. With that, the teenager is off, moving quickly but carefully through the rocky terrain, like they think any stray jostle could hurt him. Instinctively, Cyril grabs at their armor for balance. He thinks the stranger will scold him for it, but they don’t say anything until they reach a clearing. A dozen men or so are huddled around a small campfire, but the stranger beelines to a man in orange garb - he assumes its their leader.
“Jeralt.” The leader turns, and looks at the two of them. His eyebrows are knitted in concern, but Cyril just grips the stranger’s armor tighter. All of these men are Fodlanese and staring at them now that the stranger has brought attention to them. His stomach flips with fear.
“Oh kid, what did you do?” The teenager shakes their head and gestures back towards Cyril’s legs. Jeralt stares back briefly before letting out a deep sigh.
“Yeah okay. Let’s take a look”
The man the teenager called Jeralt is equally gentle in examining him when the stranger puts him down. Though relatively fluent Almyran that comes out of Jeralt’s mouth is a bit of a surprise. “Tell me what’s wrong, kid.” His voice is still lost to both fear and nervousness, but he’s able to gesture feebly towards his ankle and his scraped knees and arms. The stranger kneels at his side as Jeralt leaves to get first aid supplies and water from a canteen. Cyril glances at them - the stranger isn’t looking at him, but out into camp, their hands loose in their lap. Is it concern, he wonders?
When Jeralt comes back, Cyril takes greedy gulps from the canteen as Jeralt works on bandaging up. The teenager watches them now, their stare a bit unnerving now that its focused on him.
“That should do it.” Cyril feels himself jerk away once Jeralt says that, like he’s still not sure if this just some kind of trick. “I wouldn’t walk on it for a week, but it should be fine with some rest.” Cyril examines the wrappings as he continues, “Where’s your village? We’re pretty deep into the mountain range here. What about your parents?” When Cyril doesn’t respond for a beat, he’s sure the man has put the pieces together.
“A war orphan, huh.” Jeralt has switched back to Fodlanese, his mouth in a tight line. Cyril looks away. He hates that look - it reeks of pity.
“He can come with us.” He whips his head around to stare open mouth at the stranger.Their expression is still blank, but there’s an edge of demand in their voice. Jeralt raises his eyebrows, like he wasn’t expecting them to speak either.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, kid.”
The teenager’s face doesn’t change, but they stand up, between Cyril and what he assumes is their father. The surprise on the man’s face is apparent, but it’s replaced quickly with what he thinks is a look of pride.
“What am I getting myself into... “ The man, Jeralt, rubs the back of his next and sighs once more. “Do you want to come with us?” He’s switched back to Almyran “At least until we get to the next village.”
Cyril considers. What choice does he have? There is nothing left for him anywhere he’s ever known - not for years anyways. He’s not sure about the rest of the group, but this man, Jeralt, seems okay at least. His kid, the stranger that brought him here - he glances up at them. He’s still not sure what to make if them- with their overly intense expressions, they remind him of something out of a story; a demon perhaps. But they wanted to help him for some reason - there hasn’t been a lot of people who’ve cared about someone like him.
“If that’s… okay.” His voice is small and still hoarse from the day spent in the heat.
Jeralt nods, standing up to give his child a look “I’ll leave them in your charge then, kid.” He ruffles the teenager’s hair and then heads back to the rest of the campfire. In the time Jeralt’s been tending to him, the sun has started to set into the mountains in the distance, and he smells meat cooking over the fire.
“Byleth” He blinks before he realizes it's an introduction from the stranger.
His reply is not as sure “Cyril?” The teenager, (Byleth he corrects himself), nods. They offer out a hand, and he stares at it. He thinks… a handshake? Tentatively, he reaches out and puts his hand in theirs - It’s calloused and warm. With that, Byleth seems satisfied, and helps him up to his feet.
“Let’s eat.”
--
The first couple months are an adjustment to say the least. Jeralt’s mercenaries are constantly on the move, maybe even more so than the Almyran army was. They flit through Fodlan, going from job to job, only really staying still when Jeralt spends a month away with a handful of other mercenaries to head into what they call “Gloucester territory”. He’s not sure why the others stay behind, but Byleth doesn’t seem concerned, so he decides not to worry much either.
He spends those first couple months clinging mainly to Byleth. The older kid doesn’t seem to mind at all - and though they still don’t emote, Cyril can start reading at least their basic emotional states pretty easily. Byleth is seemingly infinitely patient - showing Cyril how to do the things he doesn’t know, helping him practice his Fodlanese and answering any questions he might have about mercenary life and about themselves.
(“How old are you?” “Not sure.” “How can you not be sure?” “Jeralt says I’m probably fourteen.” “Why do you call your dad Jeralt?” “That’s his name.” “You’re weird” “I’ve heard.”)
He’s not sure what to do around camp for the first couple weeks either - he can’t fight like the rest of them, but he has to do something - “Can I help?” It’s Byleth’s turn to cook dinner, and they’re chopping a bunch of foraged and bought vegetables for stew.
Byleth considers and then nods. “Sure.” Without another word, they gesture towards bunch of carrots they had . “Chop these. Like this” They demonstrate and gesture towards the rest of the vegetables when they’re done. Cyril mimics them as best he can. He’s slower and more careful - the knife feels foreign in his hands, but when he’s finished he can see what looks like pride shining in Byleth’s eyes. They reach down and pat Cyril’s head and he beams back. “Please do the rest.”
From then on Cyril insists on helping out Byleth with all their chores. He helps mend shirts, cook, take care of the horses, set up the fire. There’s so much to learn to do, and it’s hard work after a long day of travelling, but he takes it in stride. He spends so much time with Byleth the rest of the mercs jokes that they’re attached at the hip. “Like a baby brother.”
He likes the sound of that. “Big sib?” he tries it out one day. Byleth’s eyebrows raise, but they don’t say anything, which as good as acceptance when it comes to them. It joins his repertoire of nicknames consisting mainly of By (He relishes in the fact that they bristle when anyone else calls them that), and Byleth responds to them without fail.
Byleth remains their same self - serene and ponderous despite everything. Even the few times he sees them on the battlefield in those first year, their emotionless appearance never really cracks.
(Cyril’s usually blended in with the rest of the mercenaries enough that no one in Fodlan says anything about him, but he knows he still gets stares and whispers sometimes. It's been six months when some kids in a town they were passing through called him something nasty. Something like “dirty heretic” - he doesn’t really remember. What he does remember is Byleth seeing the look on his face and them immediately going up to said kid and breaking his nose.
“Byleth, we can’t do that to everyone that makes us angry.” Jeralt scolds them later, but Byleth’s reply is easy and monotone, definitely not angry “They upset Cyril”. Jeralt can’t really reprimand them after that, but he does seem to have a long talk de-escalating conflicts without knocking someone’s lights out.)
It takes him longer to warm up to Jeralt - the man is kind, but distant at first. But as the months wear on, it seems they both wears down their own defenses. It’s not the same feeling as before - while he’s lost his parents years ago now, there’s something about how he’ll take the time to teach them how to read and write Fodlanese after a long day, or the extra blankets he drapes over both him and Byleth on cold nights. It’s in the equally fond head pats Jeralt gives both him and Byleth when he passes them doing chores together, or the warm afternoons the three of them spend fishing when there’s a body of water and a break in the work that their doing. It reminds him of what he remembers family feeling like.
Jeralt’s mercenary group is mainly Fodlanese (a couple Almyrans and Dagdan’s come and go) , and their speech is rapid and hard to follow at the best of times at first. The two groups watch each other warily, with Jeralt and Byleth being the main bridge between him and the rest of them. But as the months pass, and his language skills gets better, the group opens up warmly to him. It’s weird going from having no family to having what amounts to an adopted father, sibling and several rowdy uncles and aunts in a span of a year, but it’s hard to complain when you go from nothing to what feels like everything.
And suddenly he realizes, he’s not alone anymore. He spends his days with people that seem to genuinely care about him, want him around, respect him. If violence is to follow him, he reasons, let it be on his own terms, with a side that seems to care about him. Sure they’re kind of weird, but he thinks, as Byleth dozes next to him and he watches the stars, fiercely and deeply, that he wouldn’t trade this for anything.
(“We can never go back.” Byleth remarks after the group flees some town in Daphnel territory after the whole company gets involved in a bar fight with some locals over both Byleth’s lack of expression and Cyril’s general foreignness. He replies easily “At least this time, Jeralt threw the first punch.” Byleth doesn’t laugh, but the gleam in their eyes is amused. “He did, didn’t he?” )
--
“We’re heading back to Almyra for this next job” He’s eleven now, but those words feel like a punch to the gut. Their last couple years had been spent exclusively in Fodlan, though all throughout the continent - the empire, the kingdom, the alliance. As different as all of those places seemed to be, they all seemed to want Jeralt to do work for them.
(“What’s that place in the center?” Cyril points to the center of Fodlan, where no country seems to have claimed.
Jeralt’s voice is clipped “That’s Garreg Mach.”
This gets Byleth’s attention - they’d been only half listening when Jeralt had pulled out the map for a quick geography lesson. “What’s that?”
“Some place I hope we’ll never have to go.” The two kids share a look but know better than to ask more.)
Jeralt rests his hand on his shoulder - like Byleth’s, its calloused from years of mercenary work, but his grip is more firm. “You don’t have to go with us, kid. We can stop in Ordelia territory like last time we had to split up. I’m sure Byleth and some of the boys can clean house there while we’re gone.” Cyril looks at Byleth - they stare back at him - considering, waiting.
He’s at the point where he’s shoved most of his memories of his homeland into a deep corner in the back of his mind. Sure, he’ll practice his Almyran with the other mercenaries, or tell Byleth tidbits here and there when something reminds him of it, but the thought of stepping back on to that land terrifies him. The wound still feels raw after all these years - he thinks of begging for food, of being worked to the bone in the trenches, of fire and blood that seemed to constantly surround him then. Conceptually, he knows there are some good memories there, but they’re locked deep, buried under mounds and mounds of terrible things.
But, he thinks, looking back into Byleth’s eyes. He doesn’t want to disappoint them. He doesn’t want this weakness to weigh them down.
As if Byleth can hear what he’s thinking, they speak. “Cyril.” They don’t need to say anything else, but they don’t need to. I will be here no matter what you choose.
It’s what pushes him over the edge “I’ll go.” Jeralt gives him a weary smile, ruffling his hair, and Byleth simply nods.
“Okay. we leave tomorrow.”
He spends the two weeks travelling there filled with both anticipation and dread - but even more than usual, Byleth is at his side. “Byleth, give the boy some room to breathe!” one of the other mercenaries shouts. There’s a chorus of laughter from the rest of the group and Byleth steps back.
“No, you’re alright.” Byleth’s eyes light up, and they take their spot back at his side. It’s true, he doesn’t mind. Their presence is comforting at this point, familiar. It’s something easy to cling to. “Can I tell you about some of the good stuff I remember? Maybe it’ll help calm me down.” As always, Byleth listens patiently. Though he notices this time, they seem even more engaged than usual - asking questions or gesturing for him to continue when he gets self conscious.
When he gets to the hard parts and stops, Byleth doesn’t say anything. They continue walking side by side, expression unreadable. He’s stopped speaking for a long time, when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Byleth’s body language says everything their expression does not. What do you need me to do?
Cyril pats their hand, a smile breaking on his face for the first time in weeks. “Did I tell you about the food? I’m sure you’d be happy to hear how much meat they put in everything.”
The jobs in a part of Almyran border he’s never been to, and it wraps up within a fortnight. By then, he’s got both new things to appreciate - Half of the mercenaries spitting and gagging on some of the hot peppers they’d found while Byleth eats them like candy, buying a cold treat from a wandering merchant and feeling sweet relief as the cold touches his tongue - as well as old things made new. Like pointing out the constellations and their stories to Jeralt and Byleth that his own family had told him, and seeing the sun rise over the desert, painting the ground and the hills bright yellow and orange while sipping on warm Almyran Pine Needle tea as the rest of camp busies itself with preparation for the rest of the day.
It still hurts, he knows it's going to hurt for the rest of his life. But, as they make their way back over the mountains and Cyril stares down the valley at the land he was born to, he thinks, briefly, he might miss actually miss it now. “Cyril?” He turns back, and Jeralt and Byleth are looking at him expectantly.
In the end though, he muses as he runs to join them, it’s no longer home.
--
He wants to learn to fight, he decides at twelve. Jeralt and the rest of the crew never try and pressure him into joining in their line of work, but he hates sitting on the sidelines, watching Byleth and Jeralt, swords and daggers strapped to their side, go out and face the world while he’s stuck in the background, waiting and hoping they won’t come back bruised and bloodied and dead.
“Is this what you want?” Byleth asks later, after he’s finally convinced Jeralt and the rest of the mercenaries to start teaching him some basics. Anyone else asking would have made him bristle, but he knows by now it’s Byleth’s way of making sure
“Yes” He looks back at them - he feels more confident about this than he’s felt about a lot of things in his life. The older teen considers him and nods approvingly. “Let’s begin then.”
Over the weeks, they walk him through the basics - swordplay, axes, lances, hand to hand combat. He’s small enough that even the practice weapons feel unwieldy in his hands, but it feels good to know he’s getting somewhere, that he’s working to stand at equal stride with Byleth. The whole crew pitches in, but it’s under Byleth and Jeralt’s tutelage where he really blooms. Byleth takes to instructing him like they take to everything else - unflappably and thoroughly, while Jeralt’s skill at just about everything concerning fighting and strategy unparalleled.
He takes to the bow the best. He can see the relief in Jeralt’s eyes at this - He knows Byleth starting fighting even younger than him, but they’d always been best with their swords and fists. And the way he’s seen them throw themselves into a battle, graceful and uncaring, if it scares even Cyril now, when Byleth is nearly grown, he can’t imagine how their own father felt.
Byleth’s watching when he gets his first bullseye. “Did you see that?” He crows, nearly throwing his bow in the air in his own excitement.
He thinks he sees a ghost of a smile cross their face, but it’s gone before he can process it. “I did.” Byleth ruffles his hair fondly and he beams back. He gets many more bullseyes after that - his sibling has the same air of pride each and every time.
--
“I have dreams sometimes” He’s thirteen when Byleth tells him. The band is travelling through Faerghus during early winter. The snow hasn’t quite started falling, but the two are huddled together under a mass of blankets and a recently repaired tent. It’s still thin enough that the brightest stars peak through, but the warm body of his adopted sibling at his side is enough for now.
“About what?”
“War.” The way they say it startles him - it’s the most emotion he’s ever heard in their voice. It sounds like sadness, like longing “And a girl.”
He waits for to continue, but when they don’t, he asks. “What kind of girl?”
Byleth speaks more that night than he’s ever heard them speak at one time. About a desert, about armies clashing for what feels like all eternity, and about a girl, with long green hair and an open face, sitting on a throne in a deep deep slumber. The descriptions flood out like they’ve kept them bottled in for years.
“It’s like they’re calling out to me.” Their voice sounds far away. “But I don’t know what they’re saying.”
“What…” Cyril gulps. He can’t help but feel nervous - there’s something foreboding about the way Byleth talks about their dream. Like it’s already happened, or like it will happen again. He shudders at the thought - he doesn’t want to see another war. His birth mother and father have to have been enough loss for one lifetime. “What do you think it means?”
They don’t say anything for awhile - Byleth stares up at the ceiling of their tent, and Cyril is staring at them. “I don’t know” They admit quietly. Suddenly, he feels them grab his hand and squeeze. Like they’re fighting their way back to reality and Cyril is what’s keeping them from drifting away. “I don’t know.”
--
He’s on the edge of fourteen when Jeralt admits something - “You know, Cyril” He’s musing into a glass of ale from the barrels that the group had bought in the town they’re camping outside of. Byleth and Cyril found themselves on baby-sitting duty for twenty very hammered adults - making sure they didn’t tumble into the fire or wake up the rest of the town with their bellowing and arguing. Byleth is draping blankets over the rest of the unconscious mercenary group and cleaning up the half drunk or empty tankards into a semi-neat pile, while Cyril’s in charge of wrangling the drink out of Jeralt’s hand.
“Byleth’s changed a lot since you came around.” He continues on despite Cyril not saying anything other than “Please give me the drink, Jeralt”.
“It used to be hard to get them to care about anything. Sometimes I’d have to tell them something over and over, and it still wouldn’t quite stick in their head.” He laughs to himself, and it sounds sad, sadder than Jeralt usually lets himself sound. Cyril stops trying to remove the glass from his hand and actually listens.
“What do you do with a child that doesn’t laugh or cry? A kid who seems to barely think for themselves if its not for their own survival?” He handed the cup to Cyril, and he takes it. “You want what’s best for your kids, you know? You want them to grow up and be their own person. Make friends. Be happy.”
“I think the first time I ever saw them care about anything other than me was you, kid.” It’s a striking thought, but doesn’t seem nearly that implausible, Cyril thinks. Jeralt’s starting to mumble now, head in his hands. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Goddess preserve, I still don’t know if they’re ever happy.”
Cyril takes this as time for him to do some comforting “Well, I’m pretty content.” He gestures over to Byleth, who’s dumping out the last of the cups into the bushes. “And I think they don’t show it, but By’s doing pretty good too.”
Jeralt’s smile is wider than he’s ever seen it, and he ruffles Cyril’s hair. “You’re a good kid.”
“Dad.” Byleth calls. They rarely call him that - and Cyril had thought, at first, it had been a symptom of their general icy demeanor. It turned out, after that first year, when Byleth called Jeralt that for the first time in front of him, it clicked. It was just something they didn’t want to share with the rest of the world. It was something only meant for Jeralt, and now him. Family, this is family, it has to be. “It’s time to sleep.”
Jeralt winks at Cyril and whispers conspiratorially. “They’re just like their mother. Always demanding things from me, huh?” Byleth coughs loudly and at that Jeralt finally stands up fully, complaining half heartedly. He watches as Byleth leads him over to the tent they’d help set up earlier and get him tucked into bed. Guess their sleeping out with the stars tonight.
He’s already set up their nest of blankets when Byleth makes their way over. Groaning as they slide under the covers, Byleth drapes the entire blanket over themselves, just leaving their head poking out. “Jeralt’s a menace.”
Cyril laughs freely. He hopes this never has to end.