History Fanfic / AnEagleAmongLions

* AlasPoorScrappy: An InUniverse example of sorts. [[spoiler:Despite her long-standing hatred of the Church and atheist[=/=]{{Naytheist}} attitude towards it and Sothis, Edelgard realizes, after Byleth tells her and Hilda about the MergerOfSouls performed to empower Byleth in Chapter 23 at the cost of Sothis's life/consciousness, that she really does miss her. Later on, she even takes time to "pray" with Marianne in remembrance of her.]]
-->[[spoiler:Edelgard felt as though the ground had dropped out from under her feet, and found herself shocked not only by what Byleth had said but that it had struck her with such force in the first place. Surely she couldn’t ''miss'' that little gremlin of a so-called deity.]]

** [[spoiler: Additionally, there is the mysterious third timeline from which [[HiddenVillain Desdinova]], a.k.a. [[MentalTimeTravel Future]] [[{{Doppelmerger}} Claude]], hails. This one is called Fódlan Delta; among other things, Byleth is a man, Claude was the victim of the Crest experiments, Hapi was the Death Knight equivalent, Leonie was murdered and replaced by Kronya, Flayn died in the tunnels beneath Garreg Mach, and Thales replaced Yuri to string Claude along before sticking the knife in his back.]]

* TakeThat: During [[spoiler:'Glenn'[='=]s funeral]] in Chapter 30, Byleth and Edelgard are made to wear the [[ImpossiblyTackyClothes Enlighted One outfit]] for the ceremony. Byleth, Edelgard, and several characters like Seteth ([[spoiler:or rather Vual]]), Dimitri, Claude, and Hilda waste no time in taking stabs at the outfit.

* DivideAndConquer: The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Agarthans use this tactic on Adrestia. As Faerghus is currently resource-poor and unstable, Dimitri and his army wouldn’t likely be able to match the full might of the Adrestian Empire’s army on their conquest for Fódlan. [[spoiler:They start off by killing Emperor Ionius and forged his will to have Prince Anselm, one of Edelgard's brothers, to be appointed emperor by virtue of his Major Crest instead of the crown Prince Burkhart. The resulting coup would eventually plunge Adrestia into civil war, granting Dimitri and his army the opportunity to crush the divided Adrestia.]]

* {{Doorstopper}}: Finishing in July 2022, ''Eagle'' clocks in at over 1,600,000 words over 87 chapters, making it the longest ''Fire Emblem'' fiction on Archive of Our Own.

---> [[spoiler:'''Desdinova:''' My advice? Make it quick. Make it painless. And tell your counterparts you’re sorry when you come back. Because eventually, there’s only going to be one of you.]]

* EarthAllAlong: [[spoiler:The current era in Fódlan turns out to be three thousand years after the destruction of modern Earth. Australia is mentioned by name when Edelgard and Dimitri find themselves in the ancient past, and they note that Sothis' flood reshaped the continents of the world.]]

* ExpendableAlternateUniverse: Played with. While her main objective is to return back to her own timeline, Edelgard takes her time to befriend several students of Garreg Mach, partly to keep up appearances and learn more of this world and partly because she was close to some of their counterparts back in her world (like Ashe, Annette, and Mercedes). [[spoiler:When Ashe falls to his 'death' in Chapter 14, Edelgard was devastated, even though his original counterpart is still alive back in her world.]]

* ForWantOfANail: The main premise of this timeline, where Edelgard never went through the Crest Experiments and resumed her normal life after returning to Enbarr while ''Dimitri'' takes her place in those experiments since the Agarthans set their sights on the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.
** Ferdinand is the house leader of the Black Eagles, since Edelgard isn't the sole heir, and is engaged to her as an agreement between their fathers when the Insurrection of the Seven was dealt with more amicably.
** Like Edelgard, Lysithea and her siblings were never experimented on; thus, Lysithea doesn't attend Garreg Mach, and her older brother Arcturus von Ordelia goes in her place.
** When Mercedes and her mother had to flee from House Martritz, they took Emile with them to Faerghus rather than him remaining behind. Though because they fled to somewhere in the Kingdom rather than head directly to House Bartels, Mercedes and Emile got kidnapped for the Crest Experiments and end up in the same prison as Dimitri, where the two were experimented on first. Mercedes ended up becoming Dimitri's prototype and was later adopted by [[CourtMage Cornelia]] while [[spoiler:Emile didn't survive]].
** Hapi remained in Cornelia's 'care' as her adopted daughter alongside Mercedes, being further experimented on for Those Who Slither in the Dark.
** Unlike in Edelgard's world, where Seteth and Flayn remain in the monastery after the latter was rescued from her kidnapping, both decide to leave Garreg Mach as Seteth initially planned. Likely because the Hurricane King made it clear that [[spoiler:he knows that Seteth and Flayn are Children of the Goddess]] and he nearly choked Seteth to death.
** House Nuvelle still exists in this timeline, having survived the Brigid-Dagda war unlike in Edelgard's timeline where House Nuvelle collapsed. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Constance might have been [[KillAndReplace replaced]] at some point and an Agarthan taking on her form.]]

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The final chapter sees Edelgard returning back to her original timeline and reuniting with her loved ones, with Fire Emblem style ending passages in between showing what happened to the people of the altered timeline:
** Dimitri had his crests removed and led a series of reforms that ended the Age of Crests beyond the Kingdom's borders. When that was done, he stepped down from his position and retired to private life alongside his wife Marianne.
** Dedue was able to rebuild Duscur alongside his wife Bernadetta. While he was known for governance of Duscur, and spycraft, some say his cookbook on Duscur food was his greatest work as now there are multiple restaruants across the land boasting amazing Duscur cuisine. Bernadetta, on the other hand, became famous for her stories which presented the histories of Duscurites and Agarthans as epic adventures.
** Sylvain married a commoner among the Gareg Mach faculty and left all of House Gautier's fortunes and authority in her hands.
** Ingrid led a brief rule as Count Galatea, only to mysteriously vanish from the land once she resigned. No one knows where she went, but the final scene reveals she somehow made it to Edelgard's timeline to live out her life with her and Byleth.

* AdaptationExpansion: The story expands upon Agarthan "culture". [[spoiler:Civilian leadership has been out of power for centuries, and they are in effect a military junta with no greater purpose beyond revanchism and revenge.]]

** [[spoiler: Additionally, there is the mysterious third timeline from which [[HiddenVillain Desdinova]], a.k.a. [[MentalTimeTravel Future]] [[{{Doppelmerger}} Claude]], hails. This one is called Fódlan Delta; among other things, Claude was the victim of the Crest experiments, Hapi was the Death Knight equivalent, Leonie was murdered and replaced by Kronya, Flayn died in the tunnels beneath Garreg Mach, and Thales replaced Yuri to string Claude along before sticking the knife in his back.]]

* AndIMustScream: When the Black Eagle Strike Force confronts Thales in the present timeline, they ultimately defeat him by [[CementShoes anchoring him to the bottom of the ocean]], but not killing him right away to avoid triggering a DeadMansSwitch that would launch a barrage of javelins of light wherever he is killed.
** The ultimate fate of [[spoiler: the iteration of Thales from Future Claude's timeline]] is to [[MentalTimeTravel mentally time travel]] into a past version of himself, his very soul [[YouCantFightFate forever compelled by temporal casualty]] [[TimeLoopTrap to re-enact the thoughts and actions which lead to his own travel through time]].

*** See also: the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle Novikov self-consistency principle]]''.

** The Blue Lions as a whole serve as this to [[spoiler:[[BlackKnight The Death Knight[=/=]Mercedes]]]], since whenever they fight him, he doesn't seem intent on killing or seriously harming them, at most he just leaves small injuries that will heal.

--->[[spoiler:Even though Raphael’s jaw was so tightly clenched that he thought his teeth might shatter in his mouth like beads of glass, [[GoOutWithASmile to the very end his smile never faded from his face.]]]]

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The Adrestian conquest of Shambhala happens outside Edelgard's perspective.

---> [[spoiler:'''Seteth''']]''':''' [[spoiler:Flayn! Get away from that monster! Now!]]

* RoleSwapAU: The premise of the story is exploring a world where Dimitri became the Agarthans' chosen champion instead of Edelgard. A throwaway line also discusses the idea that there's probably a world out there where Claude is in that same role.

** During Edelgard's trip to [[spoiler:antediluvian Earth, [[Franchise/{{Halo}} she sets foot on a space colony shaped like a ring. During her time aboard the spaceship, a commander named Jacob Keyes is briefly mentioned.]]]]

* {{Mecha}}: [[spoiler:The heroes are able to scavenge some old Agarthan war mechs from Research Facility Omega. They are named Blaiddyds and piloted by some of the heroes during the big showdown with Nemesis.]]

** In Chapter 80, Hubert ([[spoiler:[[OldFriendNewGender actually Heidrun - long story]]) and Edelgard describe coffee as "[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than Ailell]]".

* AlternateTimeline: The world Edelgard ends up in is one where she and her siblings were never subjected to the Agarthans’ Crest experiments and they are all alive and well as a result. Lysithea and her siblings were similarly spared from the experiments; consequently, she didn’t feel pressured by [[YourDaysAreNumbered a shortened lifespan]] to enroll at the Officers Academy at such a young age, while her older brother (who is still alive) attends instead. Hanneman from Edelgard’s world theorizes that the differences between the two timelines might have been artificially engineered, [[spoiler:and is proven correct when Edelgard discovers that the engineer is none other than her world’s Thales, who arrived in the other timeline several years before Edelgard to [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight turn Dimitri into a tool much more obedient than she was]]]].
** [[spoiler: Additionally, there is the mysterious third timeline from which [[HiddenVillain Desdinova]], a.k.a. [[MentalTimeTravel Future]] [[{{Doppelmerger}} Claude]], hails]].

* {{Frameup}}: On their way back to Garreg Mach from Fhirdiad after Dimitri's coronation, Byleth, Edelgard, and Dimitri, along with Hubert and Dedue, are attacked by an imposter posing as the Hurricane King. This is a ploy by the Agarthans to assassinate Edelgard to [[HeKnowsTooMuch keep her silent from telling Dimitri about the truth of the Tragedy of Duscur]] and to drive a wedge between Dimitri and his friends; for when the truth eventually comes out, no one will side with Dimitri in his war ''except'' the Agarthans.