Fanfic / The Savior King, the Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation

"Fate has a way of playing tricks on people even as it brings them together. Some of Foldan's legends say that when calamity comes, the goddess binds the souls of champions to ensure they fight at each other's side, onward to victory. Less spiritually-inclined individuals say that conflict makes friends, allies and more out of strange bedfellows. Or, in which Dimitri punches out a racist and history is changed as a result."

The Savior King, The Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation is the main story in the four part Fire Emblem: Three Houses Fan Fic series Verdant Moon, Azure Winds by ReynaAtTheEnd.

A merging of the Blue Lions and Golden Deer routes which starts off with Dimitri learning of Claude's biggest secret by accident with the former promising to keep it a secret, slowly earning the latter's trust. The story unfolds when the three house leaders meet the fabled Ashen Demon on that fateful night and soon, the fate of Fódlan falls into the hands of Dimitri, Claude and Byleth.

Beware of unmarked spoilers.

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This story contains the following tropes:

#-C

• 0% Approval Rating: As the war drags on, Edelgard's approval rating drops dangerously low; her civilian subjects riot in the streets, many of her soldiers do nothing to stop them, and all she has left are a few hardline loyalists and the Agarthans who plan to dispose of her once she outlives her usefulness.
• Acceptable Breaks from Canon: Due to the story being written before Three Hopes was released, several details and plot points aren't quite the same such as how the names given to some of the characters such as Linhardt's father is dated and how Count Gloucester is actually innocent in regards to the murder of Raphael's parents and Claude's uncle unlike in this story.
• Adapted Out:
  • Due to the Kingdom and Alliance forces rescuing the Church and granting them victory in the Battle of Garreg Mach, the events of Chapters 13-15 are skipped.
  • Due to the Empire fighting an active war on two fronts and the Kingdom and Alliance being on the same side, Chapter 17 is skipped.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • The entire countries of Faerghus and Leicester during the war phase. Due to the various nails in Part I, Byleth never falls into her coma, Dimitri is never overthrown in Cornelia's coup, the Alliance never falls into civil disarray, and the two nations are able to form a united front against Adrestia.
  • Several characters with Minor Crests — specifically Claude, Dimitri, Bernadetta and Marianne — instead have Major Crests, making them more frequently powerful than canon.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • At the end of the battle of Fort Merceus, instead of being killed in action (like on Azure Moon) or escaping (like on Silver Snow and Verdant Wind), the Death Knight is captured by the heroes.
  • Byleth is described as being 6'1". In canon, she's 5'5".
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Unlike in Verdant Wind where they only appear during the final battle, the Ten Elites are resurrected by the Agarthans as reinforcements shortly after the battle of the Great Bridge of Myrddin, a full 6 chapters and 5 years earlier.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Claude's POV has times where he recounts his childhood in Alymra and the assassination attempts he had to endure due to his heritage.
  • Byleth's status as the wielder of the Sword of the Creator is explored, with people such as the villagers from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus worshiping her as the Goddess' new champion. She's not very comfortable with all the extra attention.
  • Kronya is given a backstory. Her mother was arrested on suspicion of being a dissenter, causing her and her sister Atra to enlist in the Agarthan military. She took to killing like a duck to water, went Ax-Crazy, and now worships the ground Thales walks on.
  • The Wandering Beast a.k.a. Maurice is given some backstory. His parents were killed in the chaos of pre-Adrestia Fódlan, and the Agarthans offered him power in exchange for becoming their weapon.
  • The Death Knight's backstory, normally exclusive to canonical Crimson Flower, is recounted here. Jeritza also reveals that the Agarthans have been experimenting on him, depriving him of sleep and drugging him to force out his Death Knight persona.
  • Nemesis is given a brief backstory. He was a boy born from the corpse of his mother, turned to killing to survive, and eventually came across Agartha attempting to kill the sleeping Sothis by chance. He was clever enough to outwit the traps and kill her in hopes of becoming immortal.
  • Agarthan culture in general is greatly expanded upon; Thales runs Shambhala like a cult, brainwashing his people into believing that surface-dwellers are animals that only exist to be ruled. Shambhala itself is described as a city-state with multiple 'levels' that's run like a dictatorship; neighbors are encouraged to spy on each other and report 'traitors'. Anyone who is accused of a serious crime is taken away by the State Sec in the middle of the night and never seen again. Children are indoctrinated into the army and sent out to perform missions; Atra was only thirteen when she was sent to participate in the Tragedy of Duscur while Marian is an assassin whose job is to 'mind' Edelgard during the war and kill anyone who interferes with Agartha's work.
• Adaptational Heroism: Due to the much stronger position the anti-Empire forces are in when the war phase begins, Count Gloucester never betrays the Alliance. This is later downplayed as this does not stop him from rallying several soldiers and citizens to pick a fight with Claude over his heritage when he reveals that he is the Prince of Almyra due to Count Gloucester's pettiness and years' long feelings of entitlement towards Claude's mother, Tiana, for refusing to marry him years ago.
• Adaptational Karma:
  • Compared to canon Verdant Wind, where they were a full Karma Houdini, Cornelia is caught for her role in the Tragedy of Duscur and is presumably executed offscreen.
  • Count Gloucester is an odd meta-subversion. In canon, he only received a dish of Humble Pie at the end of Verdant Wind. In here, not only does his second attempt to get merchants to his land by monopolizing the route got found out with the Knights and Claude's grandfather holding it on his head, he is also on the receiving end of a Humiliation Conga when he decided to pick a fight and confront Claude over his heritage and rally several soldiers to his side and tried to undermine Claude out of entitled pettiness over not getting to marry Tiana Von Riegan years ago, only for it to backfire horribly on him when Bernadetta starts Shaming the Mob and the rest of the now former students coming to Claude's defense, concluding with Byleth completely destroying his bigoted claims, leaving him utterly defeated. However, this is all based on characterization extrapolated from apparent Offscreen Villainy in Three Houses, and Warriors: Three Hopes would portray him as an honorable man and the victim of Unreliable Exposition.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed. Thales and Myson never have a single truly positive interaction with anyone in the canon game, but in this story they have a Villainous Friendship with each other and Odesse.
• Adaptational Sexuality: The entire premise is that while both Dimitri and Claude are clearly attracted to Byleth, they are coming to terms with being attracted to each other as well.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • Yuri's Crest Power in canon is to stop counterattacks. Here, he can turn invisible at will.
  • Marianne's Crest Power in canon is to increase damage when using a weapon. Here, she can temporarily transform into a Demonic Beast.
  • Edelgard's Aymr is given a brave effect like Thunderbrand.
  • Bernadetta’s Major Crest of Indech, rather than enabling her at chance to launch an additional strike in quick succession, multiplies her attack threefold; for example, one arrow fired projects two additional arrows launching alongside it (think similar to Shadow Clones and/or Tsubame Gaeshi).
  • Downplayed in contrast to other examples but some characters had what crest type they had changed. For example, Claude, Dimitri, Bernadetta and Marianne all originally had Minor crests in the original game, but in this story, they have the Major crests.
• Adaptational Sympathy:
  • The game's version of those who slither in the dark, aka the Agarthans, are an entire faction of Hate Sinks who are depicted as Always Chaotic Evil and directly responsible for several crimes against humanity and wartime atrocities, including engineering the massacre at Zanado, the Tragedy of Duscur and at least two cases of human experimentation on children to spread war and division in the land of Fódlan as well as the unscrupulous medical experiments on the children of Houses Hraesvelg and Ordelia, which led to Edelgard and Lysithea's condition and pairs of Crests, and their hatred for the Children of the Goddess is depicted as pure spiteful bigotry. In this story, while all of those things are still true, with some additional attrocities thrown in for good measure, the majority of Agarthans are treated more sympathetically, shown as being held tightly under the claws of their tyrannical rulers, heavily indoctrinated with anti-surface world propaganda and at constant risk of being disappeared by the State Sec if they even express the slightest hint of treachery or sympathy for the surface world. All in all, the average member of that group is treated as a sympathetic, tragic Anti-Villain, although Thales and his cronies are still Hate Sinks.
  • Inverted with the Flame Emperor and Hubert. Due to the main characters being made aware of the existence of those who slither in the dark and the full extent of Edelgard's collaboration with them much earlier than before, the main cast are much less sympathetic towards her and her goals than they are in the game. They're much quicker to call her out on her flaws and how working with such horrible people has caused her to degrade into a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist. Hubert gets hit by this even harder. In game, his Undying Loyalty to and genuine affection for Edelgard is depicted as a redeeming quality, and he is given a Pet the Dog moment in Verdant Wind and Silver Snow by leaving behind a letter informing Claude or Seteth of the existence of those who slither in the dark to ensure their destruction in spite of his and Edelgard's defeat. This story is much less impressed with him, portraying his loyalty to Edelgard as Blind Loyalty at best and outright hypocrisy at worst given he spits on those who still believe in the Goddess as sheeple. He is also portrayed as responsible for getting several Agarthans killed in Uriah Gambits designed to kill as many of them as possible, which leads to him being killed by an Agarthan child assassin whose mother he had killed in the battle of Brigid during the siege of Enbarr.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Claude starts calling Dimitri 'Mitya' after being told by the latter to stop calling him 'your highness'.
  • Sothis affectionately calls Byleth's students 'delinquents'.
  • Michael Blaiddyd refers to Renata Fraldarius as 'Rena'.
• After the End: Both Sothis's memories and eventually Indech reveal that modern Fódlan is this; the two ancient highly-advanced civilizations that came before them, Agartha and Laputa, started a war between themselves that resulted in the Javelins of Light burning almost all life from the face of the world until Sothis put an end to them and spent an unknown amount of time healing the world afterwards.
• All for Nothing: Chapter 52 has Edelgard forced to face the fact that she threw away hundreds of Imperial lives in the Battle of Garreg Mach and has nothing to show for it.
• Amnesiac Lover: Glenn is this for Ingrid, as his grievous trauma from the Tragedy of Duscur wiped his memories. He regains some of them during the Battle of Garreg Mach.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: After 51 chapters rotating between Dimitri, Claude, and Byleth, Edelgard starts getting the odd interlude every now and then. After she is subject to You Have Failed Me by the Agarthans, further interludes go to Fraldarius, Blaiddyd, and several members of the heroes' group.
• Anguished Declaration of Love:
  • After much UST between the three protagonists, Dimitri, Claude and Byleth finally confess their love for each other in the Goddess Tower in Chapter 36.
  • Before the Battle for Garreg Mach, several other couples (such as Ashe and Marianne) confess to each other in the face of their impending mortality.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Claude delivers a devastating one to Rhea/Seiros as she attempts to defend the Church's institutionalized persecution of foreigners.
  Claude: So I should have just laid there and let that nurse suffocate me for being a godless half breed when I was eight for the greater good?!
• Artistic License – History: During the parlay before the gates of Enbarr, Hapi criticizes Edelgard for starting a war during the Spring and thus taking farmers away from their fields, predicting a famine in Adrestia's future. In reality, Spring and Summer were preferred months in which to conduct military campaigns in medieval times, as the weather was warmer and it was thus much easier to protect soldiers from the cold. This would be doubly important considering Edelgard's soldiers would be used to the warmer conditions of Adrestia and would suffer in the northern regions in colder months. Additionally, farming is a lot more complex than "plant in Spring, harvest in Autumn", but "Artistic License - Farming" isn't a trope.
• Artistic License – Politics: The author uses "kingdom" as a synonym for "country" fairly often, even when discussing Leicester and Adrestia. This wouldn't be as significant an issue except that Three Houses is always very careful to properly describe Adrestia and Leicester as an Empire and Alliance, respectively, as neither country is ruled by a monarch. Only Faerghus is ever referred to as a kingdom.
• Ascended Extra: In all canonical versions of the story other than Crimson Flower, Rhea is captured at the end of Part I and spends all of/nearly all of Part II in a cell. Here, she escapes and eventually regroups with the heroes, allowing her much more screentime.
• The Atoner: Atra is wracked with guilt for her role in the tragedy of Duscur and defected from Agartha to prevent any more of their plans for the surface.
• Author Tract: Edelgard’s plans to reform Fódlan and overall effectiveness as The Starscream to Thales is torn apart by the narrative framing how out of their depth Edelgard and Hubert are, that Evil Is Not a Toy, their Fantastic Racism towards the Children of the Goddess is called out as disgusting by the heroes, and that Crimson Flower having a Take Our Word for It positive conclusion seems like a massive stretch considering every feasible factor in the war.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: In response to the Empire declaring war on everyone, Dimitri assumes the throne of Faerghus.
• Badass in Distress: In Chapter 24, the Ashen Wolves end up getting kidnapped by Aelfric for his plans to use the Chalice to resurrect Sitri. He kidnaps Jeralt as well just so he can bear witness to his lost wife's 'resurrection'.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Dimitri defending both Cyril and Claude when the two were harassed by a foot soldier for their Almyran heritage which he then promises to keep secret is why Claude comes to completely trust Dimitri.
  • A side story reveals that the reason Jeralt and his mercenaries frequent Remire village is because the villagers were the first people to not treat Byleth like a monster. They also helped nurse her back to health when she was ill from an injury.
  • Bernadetta becomes attached to Byleth because of the heartfelt talk she had with the professor, cumulating in Byleth declaring she will bear new scars if it means protecting her. This results in Bernadetta transferring to the Golden Deer so she can learn more from Byleth.
  • The Ashen Wolves gain new respect for Byleth when she volunteers to help them defend Abyss from intruders, even though the Wolves had just attacked her under the mistaken assumption that she and her students were enemies. They prove their gratitude by using the Chalice of Beginnings to save her life.
• Becoming the Mask: In Fódlan's distant past, the Agarthans sent a tactician named Pan to infiltrate Loog's rebellion and use him to wipe out Fódlan. However, he quickly fell in love with the freedom and kindness he experienced on the surface, legitimately took up the role he was meant to play as a double agent, and lived out the rest of his days in the nascent Kingdom.
• Berserk Button:
  • The Flame Emperor sets Byleth off by accusing her of being a slave to Sothis.
  • Claude absolutely loses his shit in Chapter 71 when Rhea admits that Fódlan's isolationism (and consequently the vicious racism all foreigners face on the continent) is something she considered Necessarily Evil in order to stop the influence of Agartha, furiously ranting about how utterly horrible his childhood became as a result.
  • Linhardt is infuriated by Edelgard's insistence on painting the Children of the Goddess as the villains while revering the crests and relics as creations of mankind, as Linhardt and a good portion of the Alliance-Kingdom army had just learned the awful truth that they were forged from Children of the Goddess corpses after Sothis was murdered in her sleep.
    Linhardt: That – that-! You're what's revolting, Edelgard! How dare you say humans were justified in committing that horrific massacre solely because humankind benefited from it?! Because we benefit from it by carrying their stolen blood and bones?! Where does Agartha get off thinking they were entitled to commit murder and mutilate corpses simply because they were humans? Humans caused the cataclysm with their power hunger, humans were fighting and killing each other without any input to survive in the aftermath! The enemy was always humankind, spitting in the face of their kindness to us!
  • When Lysithea declares that Sothis was justified in destroying Agartha, Lord Arundel is so enraged that he ends parley on the spot and tries to force Riegan to kill them all, outing himself as Thales in the process.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Edelgard thinks that they're a Chessmaster who is using Agartha to their own ends, and that they're a noble revolutionary who is reclaiming stolen land for their kingdom and 'saving' humanity from the Children of the Goddess. Edelgard does succeed in starting a war of reunification, but their ruthlessness alienates their fellow students, their use of Dirty Business and demonic beasts turn their people against them to the point of open revolt, Maximus Varley, who she released under the assumption she could control him, attacks Hrym and slaughters hundreds of her own people, and they repeatedly underestimate Claude and Dimitri even as they invade deeper and deeper into Adrestia. Finally, despite thinking that she's The Starscream to Thales, they're actually just an Unwitting Pawn whose actions have only served Agartha's goal of destroying Fódlan.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Byleth is prepared to fight the Death Knight/Jeritza to the death in order to protect her students and save Flayn in Chapter 15. Dimitri and Claude's timely intervention prevent that from happening and Dimitri manages to destroy the Death Knight's scythe with his bare hands.
  • During the Holy Tomb battle against the Flame Emperor and Metody, four soldiers soon transform into Demonic Beasts and are about to attack the Blue Lions and the Golden Deer, until Byleth finally awakens as the Enlightened One with Sothis intact, jumps in the nick of time and proceeds to cut down each of the Demonic Beasts with a fully powered Sword of the Creator.
• The Big Guy: Edelgard sees Dimitri as this among the other faction leaders.
  It was obvious that he was the weak link among the leaders; half mad ([his] laughter in the chamber, manic behavior in battle, and absurd fixation on the idea that she had somehow 'betrayed' him made that clear) and likely reliant on Claude for strategy and Byleth to keep himself alive in battle. He was a destructive monster to fight, however. Anyone who wielded Areadbhar was.
• Big "SHUT UP!": When finally pushed to her breaking point hearing Count Gloucester disparage Claude for his Almyran heritage, Bernadetta yells at the top of her lungs to "SSHHHHUUUUUT UUUUUUUUPPPPPP!"
• Big "WHAT?!": Felix hollers the word "WHAT?!" at the top of his lungs when he learns about how Bernadetta's father "raised" her.
• Black-and-White Morality: In contrast to the original game's Gray-and-Gray Morality, the characters aligned with Byleth's side are majorly good, while Edelgard received a big dose of Adaptational Villainy along with Hubert, and is given No Sympathy by the majority of the heroes despite a good portion of them acknowledging why Edelgard turned out the way she did. Additionally, the Agarthans sans a few who managed to turn tail such as Atra and Marian are depicted in the "Black" spectrum of the Black-and-White Morality.
• Boom, Headshot!: Acheron meets his end via Blaiddyd-powered javelin through the skull.
• Break the Haughty: Edelgard is hit hard by this in chapter 73. After seeing both the Immaculate One and the Immovable tearing through the Titanus and Demonic Beasts that were meant to be her trump cards, almost being killed twice - first by Glenn, then at the end of a Curb-Stomp Battle with Lysithea and Sylvain who both tell her how self-serving and immoral her decisions have been, learning about Claude's status as the Prince of Almyra (meaning her invasion of the Alliance would have likely ended in disaster and bloodshed even if everything had gone as planned), she enters the castle to find Thales and Myson calmly having a discussion and planning to pull their troops out. When she attempts to confront him and force the issue, Thales summons Angel Lamine, who hits her with Bolting and almost kills her.
• Break Them by Talking: Claude gives one to Lord Lonato after the latter tries to attack Ashe. He starts off calmly questioning Lonato's motives before poking flaws in his plans and pinning down his true intentions, all the while playing him as easily as a fiddle. Claude breaks Lonato so badly that the grieving lord doesn't react at all as Claude kills him with an arrow.
• Breather Episode:
  • Chapter 16 features the cast enjoying a friendly school tournament which is set after the Flayn kidnapping incident and before the start of the Cindered Shadows mini-arc.
  • Chapter 27 acts as an epilogue to the intense Cindered Shadows mini-arc.
  • Chapter 30 has Byleth and the Golden Deer easily taking down Lord Acheron's 'army' after Sothis revealing some startling info to Claude and before the Remire village incident.
  • Chapter 33 is set after the traumatic Remire village incident and has the characters preparing for the Heron Cup competition.
  • Chapter 42 focuses on Byleth and the Golden Deer helping Hilda in defending Goneril Castle after the events of Byleth coping with Jeralt's death, going after Kronya in the Sealed Forest and Marianne unwittingly revealing her Crest of the Beast and before the Flame Emperor attacks the Blue Lions and Golden Deer in the Holy Tomb during an important ceremony.
  • Chapter 70 focuses on Dimitri trying to convince an Agarthan Child Soldier to turn on Thales by plainly talking to her. This happens after the army puts a stop to Maximus Varley's massacre.
• Cain and Abel:
  • Atra is the Abel while her sister Kronya is the Cain. Kronya hates Atra for defecting from the Agarthans' cause, while Atra has no reservations about the need to kill her as she is far too indoctrinated and has committed too many atrocities for mercy.
  • Dimitri and Edelgard, as per canon, are a step-sibling version of it.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Once he develops strong feelings for her, Felix just cannot fumble his way into confessing to Bernadetta despite clearly getting annoyed whenever other boys pay her any mind. He also struggles to tell Dimitri that his feelings towards him have softened since Glenn's reapparance and the former's improved mental state. He finally works up the balls to do it in Chapter 69 while fighting her father.
• Casual Danger Dialogue:
  • Seems to have become the Blue Lions' preferred tactic to keep Dimitri sane during battle.
    • During the battle at the Great Bridge of Myrddin, Dimitri, Sylvain, and Ingrid get into a discussion about Dimitri's love life.
    • During the battle at Fort Merceus, Dimitri, Sylvain, Ingrid, Felix, and Glenn get into a discussion about all of the Blue Lions' love lives.
  • During the battle in Brigid, several of the Leicester characters get into a discussion about Adrestia's color scheme.
  • During the battle of Shambhala, the group starts teasing Balthus about his inability to confess to Hilda.
• The Cavalry: Chapter 49 ends with the Kingdom and Alliance armies arriving to reinforce the battered Church forces.
• The Chains of Commanding: Once the war begins in earnest, Claude constantly feels the pressure of being the main strategist and being personally responsible for thousands of lives from two countries.
• Character Shilling: Claude is widely praised for his strategic genius, even by Thales, albiet only for the sake of insulting Edelgard, but in practice he relies greatly on Hollywood Tactics to win his battles, while Dimitri is renowned by the Adrestian citizens and soldiers for his kindness and mercy, even though neither he nor his army are shown going out of their way to spare Imperial soldiers until after he starts being praised for it.
• Children Forced to Kill: Atra was a mere thirteen years old when she took part in the Tragedy of Duscur and was partially responsible for the deaths of the king of Faerghus and all of his bodyguards.
• Child Soldiers: Agartha routinely makes use of children as front-line combatants and assassins; Atra was thirteen when they helped initiate the Tragedy of Duscur, and one of the random mooks Claude encounters during the invasion of Adrestia is estimated to be about the same age.
• Closet Key: Dimitri and Claude serves as this for each other. The story revolves on their growing attraction to Byleth and their gradual recognition of their newfound bisexuality.
• Composite Character: In-universe, when Claude learns that Sothis' children Shiva and Selene went to Almyra in the distant past to free slaves in the region, he wonders if the Almyran deity Asch was a merged version of the two.
• Cool Big Bro: Claude acts as Bernadetta's honorary big brother, and provides emotional support and encouragement to her. Not only does he refer to her as sis in both story and narration, Tiana von Reigan formally adopts her, technically making her an Almyran princess as well.
• Cooldown Hug: Sothis gives Claude one while he's in the midst of a Freak Out over learning that the 'scripture' that declared mixed-race children like him unclean was a lie.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Byleth has witnessed her students, friends, and occasionally enemies dying in different brutal ways:
  • Chapter 12 is the first time she uses Divine Pulse to save her students:
    • Lysithea is impaled from behind by thieves hiding behind a hidden wall, the weapon going through her chest.
    • Gilbert gets crushed underneath the Black Beast's claws.
    • Felix is struck in the stomach by the Black Beast's tail and violently thrown into a wall.
  • In the Cindered Shadows mini-arc, there are multiple instances where Byleth has to use Divine Pulses more than she usually needs to, especially when searching for the Chalice and fleeing from the Golem:
    • Dimitri, Claude and Bernadetta are fatally skewered by a Golem.
    • Ashe falls to the ground and is skewered by multiple human constructs at once.
    • Claude and Balthus are eventually overwhelmed and violently cut down by knights.
    • Dimitri is burned to ashes by the Golem's magical lance.
    • Constance is fatally shot by an archer as she reaches the final doorway.
  • Ladislava gets impaled by Areadbhar and is blown to pieces by its special ability in Chapter 56.
  • Discussed when Marianne hits an enemy in the middle of a Rewarp with Silence; Dimitri notes that people who get Silenced mid-warp have suffered gruesome deaths such as being bisected or having their body turn inside-out.
  • Death by Obsidian Dagger is described as being excruciatingly painful:
    To his horror, he started to see the veins in the child skin were turning black, his body jerking sharply and his eyes rolled up into his head. Glancing at Hubert was something even worse; the blood dripping from his side wound sizzled when it hit the ground; the smell of rotting flesh hit his nose as bubbling blood began to drip out of his nose and mouth and eyes, and the once sneering, eternally composed Lord Vestra was thrashing in agony, his screams bubbling because of the blood in his throat.
• Cruel Mercy: Felix doesn't kill Count Varley... but he does strip him off his lands and titles, give them to his abused daughter and wife respectively, and banish him from Fódlan.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • The entire war overall is one long Humiliation Conga for Edelgard and Adrestia. The war only lasts for a few months, the heroic forces led by Byleth, Dimitri, and Claude don't suffer a single meaningful loss, and the only ground she's able to gain in western Faerghus is swiftly undone when Almyra intervenes on the heroes' side.
  • The entirety of the Battle of Enbarr. Between the sheer numerical superiority of the combined Alliance-Kingdom-Church forces, having obtained information on Enbarr's defenses from captured Agarthans, and the participation of both The Immaculate One and the Immovable, the Imperial army quickly crumbles.
  • During the Battle of Enbarr, there's Edelgard vs. Sylvain and Lysithea. The two avoid or block her every attack, refute her attempts at garnering their sympathy, and verbally dress her down. In the end she's grievously injured by Lysithea and is almost finished off by Sylvain before Hubert teleports her to safety.

D-F

• Dark Action Girl: The Falcon Knight (actually a resurrected Fraldarius of the Ten Elites) is one of the few formidable opponents that Byleth actually struggles against with in Chapter 62.
• Deal with the Devil: The Wandering Beast a.k.a. Maurice recounts how the Agarthans offered him godhood in exchange for his service. He took the deal, and ended up regretting it.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Downplayed by characters who die in the canonical Part II such as Acheron and Ladislava. Due to the story omitting the five-year timeskip and having the war phase be immediately after the school phase, they die five years earlier than in canon, but under much the same circumstances.
  • Cornelia dies three-quarters of the way through canon Azure Moon and survives Verdant Wind outright, but is implicitly executed offscreen at the beginning of the war phase here.
• Death Seeker:
  • In picking apart Lord Lonato in chapter 8, Claude suggests that he is also one, but Claude is disgusted by the fact that Lonato would attempt to kill Ashe and lead a civilian militia to their deaths, and that he would disregard how his failed rebellion over his dead son would impact the family and territory he left behind.
  • The Wandering Beast is tired after a millennium of wandering the forests of Edmund territory, going berserk, and eating people. He offers to help the heroes besiege Shambhala in exchange for Byleth putting him out of his misery.
• Death Wail: Byleth lets out one after her father is killed by Thales.
• Demoted to Extra: Other than Bernadetta, the Black Eagles don't get a lot of focus. While the Blue Lions and Golden Deer spend most of the academy part of the story building a rapport, no effort is ever made to involve the Black Eagles in their cooperative endeavors. Edelgard in particular has a number of scenes cut out, and tends to stay silent when she is present; quite the contrast from the original game, in which she never fails to make her presence known regardless of story route.
• Deconstruction Fic: The fic notably takes a sledgehammer to the character of Edelgard, who finds themselves facing the harsh realities of war here:
  • In order to provide funding for their armies, Edelgard has to raises taxes, which puts a strain on the economy.
  • Most of the food gets sent to the army, while the rest is rationed among civilians, which causes famine in many cities. Furthermore, because they chose invade around the spring, most the farmers are conscripted, which means that the famine will grow worse come winter.
  • As Edelgard finds themselves facing one defeat after the other, they resort to even more desperate and immoral acts to try to eke out a victory.
  • The constant defeats cause the citizens to have doubts about the war and begin protesting in Enbarr. When Edelgard tries to quell the protest, the citizens see through her lies and half truths, which leads to a couple of bricks being thrown at her. One brick grazes her shoulder, and after she dodges the other one, one of her guards kills the protester who threw it, which sparks a riot in Enbarr.
  • Edelgard's relationship with Agartha is not an equal-footing Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. Rather, Thales makes it clear that he was always aware of her intention to usurp him and reminds her that rather than The Starscream, she's just an Unwitting Pawn by easily crushing her resistance via ordering Lamine to subdue her.
• Defiant Stone Throw:
  • In Chapter 66, Edelgard gets two bricks chucked at her when her attempts to explain her failures to Enbarr's civilians fall flat. The first glances off her shoulder, she dodges the second, her guards summarily execute the kid who threw the second, and a riot is triggered.
  • In Chapter 73, Edelgard's civilians stone her again during the siege of Enbarr, distracting her during her attempts to fight the invading Kingdom/Alliance forces.
• Demonic Possession: Edelgard is under the impression that Sothis scooped Byleth's soul out of her body and is now the only being inhabiting it. Of course, the truth is that Byleth is in general control and Sothis is more of a voice in her head.
• Demonic Spiders: In-universe, Dimitri considers War Masters to be extremely annoying to fight.
  They were faster than they had any right to be, their first blow paralyzed their victim for a flurry of follow-ups, and despite their comparative lack of armor they were stupidly resilient. All traits he admired in Dedue, Balthus and Raphael, but did not care to see in so many faceless enemies.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Canon Cornelia is a very important player in Faerghus' storyline in Part II. In this story, she is only mentioned once off-handedly and isn't even named, and it's mentioned she was caught for her role in Duscur and presumably executed.
  • Canon Randolph is a semi-important enemy general who has a brief but critical role in Dimitri's character arc. This Randolph isn't even named in-story until an off-hand mention in Chapter 73 and the battle where he's fought for the second time is Adapted Out.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • Instead of being taken out by a cheap shot from Kronya, Jeralt ends up taking an attack from both Thales and Kronya to protect Byleth in Chapter 38.
  • Instead of having her heart ripped out by Solon as a sacrifice for a dark magic ritual, Kronya is viciously stabbed to death by Byleth.
  • Solon gets stabbed through the chest from behind courtesy of Yuri.
  • Rather than being confronted in Firdihad or fleeing the country after Enbarr falls, Cornelia is captured off-screen by Rodrigue for her involvement in the Tragedy of Duscur thanks to Atra/Glenn's information and is implicitly executed.
• Didn't Think This Through: Exploited by the heroes when Yuri notes that children tend to have a poor grasp of long-term consequences. They convince an Agarthan child soldier to tell them about Edelgard's defenses so she can stick it to her out of spite for her arrogance and failures, and she doesn't realize that once Edelgard goes down Shambhala is next on the chopping block.
• Did They or Didn't They?: After the three protagonists finally confessed their feelings for each other, certain chapters are rather ambiguous on whether they went all the way in intimacy, such as Dimitri and Claude going to visit Byleth in her dorm room days before the war starts. Chapter 47 gives a confirmation that they did.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: During the morning before the ceremony in Chapter 43, the Blue Lions, particularly Sylvain, comments that Dimitri seems to be in a good mood than usual. Sylvain quickly assumes that Dimitri must have found himself someone and went all the way last night, to which Dimitri insists that he just slept well. Though given that Claude invited him to a room he found deep in the monastery that night and Dimitri clearly trying to avoid the subject, something must have happened. A side story confirms they had their First Time the previous night.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: The Death Knight ends up losing one of his eyes in Chapter 32 courtesy of Claude.
• Divide and Conquer: In Chapter 55, Byleth deduces that after failing to prevent the Kingdom and Alliance from teaming up, Edelgard's objective is to drive a wedge between the two by using Gloucester (who doesn't bite) and Acheron (who does) to kill Dimitri and Rodrigue and make it look like the Alliance intended to backstab the Kingdom from the beginning.
• Divided We Fall:
  • After the Empire's declaration of war, Byleth has to personally intervene to stop the other lords from tearing each other apart arguing over how to respond.
  • As the heroes prepare to invade Shambhala, Count Gloucester shows up looking to pick a fight with Claude for being a "half blood mutt born of sin and deception". All out of a petty entitlement over Claude's mother, Tiana, for not choosing to marry him.
• Doorstopper: As of 15 December 2020, this story has over 580 000 words since it was first published at 80 chapters.
• Does Not Like Men: Angel Lamine's mother never was comfortable around men ever since her husband abandoned her to the tender mercies of bandits in order to save himself.
• Dragon Their Feet: Caspar is the only member of Edelgard's inner circle explicitly shown to survive the war. He is left behind by the heroes to maintain order in Adrestia after Edelgard's defeat.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • After Byleth reveals her Divine Pulse abilities and Sothis revealing her presence to the students, they convince the students to keep it a secret so they can be safe from danger. Unbeknownst to them, Edelgard is also the Flame Emperor and now knows of Byleth's Divine Pulse abilities and her status as Sothis' host.
  • One of the reasons for not revealing Sothis' existence in Byleth to the Church or Rhea is due to the risk of making Byleth come across as a madwoman and a heretic for impersonating the goddess. Not only does Rhea know that the Sothis residing within Byleth is the real goddess, but she would be ecstatic to finally be able to speak to her mother once again.
  • In Chapter 43, Byleth expresses her total confidence that Edelgard is not involved in the conspiracy against the Church. She is so very, very wrong.
  • In Chapter 51, Judith puts the thought forward that those who slither in the dark might have taken advantage of the Insurrection of the Seven to manipulate the emotionally vulnerable Edelgard after the deaths of all of her siblings, but is quickly dismissed by the other lords. Not only is her theory right on the money, those who slither in the dark actually caused the Insurrection and have had more power in the Empire than anyone realized.
  • Many characters curse Edelgard for being callous enough to murder her own stepbrother for her own ambitions. While her faults are undoubtedly many, she cannot remember her friendship with Dimitri due to Trauma-Induced Amnesia, so as far as she knows she's simply murdering some random stranger.
  • Edelgard comes to the conclusion that Claude is a Machiavellian chessmaster who has manipulated both Dimitri and Byleth to serve his own plans to rule Fódlan and considers them disposable, assumes that everything he did throughout the year is calculated to that end, and starts treating him as their Arch-Enemy. Needless to say, Claude's POV sections make it clear that he actually discarded his initial plans for Fódlan after falling in love with the pair, he's opposing them out of a desire to protect the innocents being swept up in the war, and he has no idea how much they loathe him personally.
• The Dreaded: The Wandering Beast is this to the entire Alliance and to those who have heard about the elusive beast. He is a gigantic and powerful Demonic Beast who has been alive for a millennium and brings dread and fear whenever he is brought up during the Conference. When he approaches Byleth and her students in Chapter 53, his appearance puts the students on edge.
• Dropping the Bombshell:
  • In Chapter 29, when Claude finally gets to talk with Sothis (who's possessing Byleth at the moment), he decides to bring up a certain topic in the Seiros' Scripture; whether it's true that the goddess considers those outside Fódlan are unclean. Sothis firmly debunks it, declaring to Claude that she would never reject those outside of Fódlan, Claude included.
  • Atra explains to Claude about what happened that led to Jeralt's death, mentioning that her sister, Kronya was among those responsible.
  • After recovering some of her memories Sothis warns Dimitri, Claude and Byleth that the Agarthans destroyed the world once before and she cannot restore it again in her current state if they do it again.
• Enemy Mine: In Fódlan's ancient history, the kingdoms of Agartha and Laputa went to war, eventually bringing it to Sothis' doorstep. When Sothis blew them all up, they decided to team up to kill her and "free humanity from her control".
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The In-Universe author's notes for Chapter 73 describe the canonical Crimson Flower ending as this; Thales has had over five years to have his people infiltrate every level of Edelgard's government, and can implode her "utopia" in a heartbeat. And additionally, with Rhea dead and Sothis' power leaving Byleth, there wouldn't be any counter to the javelins of light, meaning that Thales' Taking You with Me would actually work.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • After the true identity of the Flame Emperor is revealed, Byleth, Claude, Rhea, Dorothea and especially Dimitri don't take Edelgard's betrayal very well.
  • After Fort Merceus falls, the Imperial soldiers who surrendered are horrified that Edelgard dropped the javelins of light on Merceus and would have killed them all just to keep it out of Kingdom/Alliance hands. A later interlude shows the Adrestian civilians don't take the knowledge much better.
  • Hubert feels this way towards Bernadetta as she chooses to side with the Church instead of her homeland.
  • Edelgard is shocked and dumbfounded by Petra's "betrayal", and wonders if Caspar or Ferdinand will turn on them next.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Edelgard is a ruthless extremist willing to plunge Fódlan into war to fix its societal issues, but she is utterly devastated to learn her Only Friend Hubert is dead.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Edelgard is willing to do almost anything to reunite Fódlan, but even they see releasing Count Varley to the front lines as an absolute Godzilla Threshold and are horrified to discover the Agarthans' transhuman project. However, this doesn't stop her from making use of the resurrected Elites, or from unleashing Count Varley to stop her people from rioting.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Agarthans can't understand how a half-mad boy-king is able to turn all of Edelgard's citizens against her through sheer kindness and charisma.
• Eviler than Thou: Dimitri hasn't quite forgiven the Death Knight/Jeritza for all of his violent actions, but when the party captures Lord Hevring, who has handed his own people over to the Agarthans to be used as test subjects, Dimitri separates the two so that the former doesn't have to listen to the latter's mad ramblings.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Edelgard is struck with a mundane version of this in regards to their dealings with Count Varley. She orders him to subdue the rioters in Hrym banking on Ferdinand to keep him from going too far, not realizing that he will simply usurp Ferdinand's authority and start killing everyone.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: In Chapter 40, Byleth brutally stabs Kronya to death with her own dagger.
• Eye Scream: In Chapter 32, Claude manages to gouge out one of the Death Knight's eyes.
• Face–Heel Turn: After the Flame Emperor's true identity is revealed, Ferdinand, Caspar, and Petra (involuntarily) all defect to her side, and the heroes realize Hanneman did the same a couple of weeks prior.
• Fantastic Nuke: The Javelins of Light, Agartha's ultimate trump card and the weapons that caused the Cataclysm over a millennium in Fódlan's past.
• Fantastic Racism: All over the place.
  • There's ongoing animosity and distrust between the Alliance and Almyra, punctuated by on and off conflict that's gone on for a few centuries; Tiana von Riegan had to abandon Fódlan entirely to marry the love of her life, and even then their child - despite being the prince - is still subjected to vicious Half-Breed Discrimination.
  • There's the hatred and contempt that the Duscur survivors have to suffer from Faerghus thanks to being The Scapegoat for the Tragedy, which happened after a campaign of near genocide was committed against them.
  • Agartha's stance on the 'surface people'; they don't even regard them as human beings, and commit all sorts of evils against them without remorse.
  • The Children of the Goddess get this from two different directions. Agartha despises them due to Sothis destroying their original kingdom (because they'd caused the Cataclysm through their pointless war, mind you) while Edelgard and Hubert regard them with distain and contempt, Edelgard especially calling Rhea a 'beast' and blaming her for human abuses of the Crest system along with the deaths of her siblings.
• Fire-Forged Friends: When the war starts, many Faerghus and Alliance soldiers become friends after fighting together on the same battlefields. Later, when Almyra joins the war on their side, they also bond with the heroes.
• Fix Fic: The author has admitted to frustration over the original game not criticizing Edelgard's ideals and intentions to her satisfication, and also for it portraying her as partnering with the Agarthans and succesfully besting them in Crimson Flower, and posthumously having a hand in their downfall in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind. Edelgard is thus portrayed as considerably more openly villainous and incompetent, and the Agarthans are portrayed as fully in control of their partnership.
• Flaming Sword: Atra's weapon is a flame sword.
• Flipping the Bird: Proving that irreverence towards those they do not respect is In the Blood for the Riegan family. In Chapter 72 after failing his initial assault against the main heroes during the parlay, Thales orders Ren von Riegan to once again attack, but the resurrected warrior, after staring at Claude with notable interest for a moment, turns to Thales and slowly and very deliberately flips the other man off before turning turning back into Enbarr. Claude is actually left in hysteric laughter after witnessing said actions from his ancestor.
• Flat "What": When Mercedes learns that the Agarthans used sleep deprivation and drugs to drive Jeritza into his berserk Death Knight state, her response is, "They what." The narration describes her tone as very flat and unnerving to anyone who hears it.
• Forced into Evil:
  • After the Flame Emperor's identity is revealed, Dorothea speculates that Petra might not have had any choice but to turn to her side, since Brigid is a vassal state of the Adrestian Empire and her refusal to cooperate could have dire consequences for her homeland. It's later confirmed that Brigid is being forced to serve them on pain of Petra being executed and Petra herself is rather reluctant to fight the heroes. Eventually, they rescue her and return her to Brigid, and she agrees to fight alongside them to bring down Shambhala.
  • The zombified Ten Elites are sentient enough to remember their human lives and feel bad about fighting the heroes, but they are compelled to do so by the Agarthans' geas.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Agarthan Transhuman project serves as foreshadowing for the final boss of Verdant Wind, the resurrected Nemesis.
  • In Chapter 11, after Claude brings up Sylvain's recent "night activities" with a girl he snuck into his room, one of the things Dimitri is worried about is what Sylvain intends to do if he ends up impregnating a girl he's fooling around with. Come Chapter 83, Dimitri or Claude (or both) end up impregnating Byleth just as they're near the climax of the war.
  • During their adventures in Abyss, the heroes meet a mysterious woman named Atra. When asked to speculate about her origins, Yuri's best guess is that she's from an obscure family on the Alliance border who was expelled from the Eastern Church for high heresy. Shambhala is on the Alliance border and is certainly very obscure, and Agartha's depiction as a militarized cult makes heresy an apt description for her crime against them.
  • When the students are comforting Byleth following Jeralt's death, Dorothea and Lindhardt are the only two Black Eagles (sans the already transferred Bernadetta then) mentioned to be present. They're also the only two Black Eagles to initially stand against Edelgard once she reveals herself as the Flame Emperor and her plans to declare war on the Church to her fellow classmates.
• Freak Out:
  • In chapter 29, Claude collapses emotionally and breaks down in Sothis's arms when she reveals that the scriptures that claim mixed-race children like him an affront to her are lies, and she does not reject him.
  • Later on, Dimitri has two notable breakdowns. First is his reaction to Edelgard being revealed as the Flame Emperor, while the second is triggered by Atra telling him the truth about the Tragedy of Duscur and her involvement in it. He has a manic fit and slashes her cheek with a dagger before fleeing to the cathedral, where Sothis comforts him.
  • Atra has a panic attack when Fort Merceus is blasted into oblivion by the Javelins of Light, publicly slipping into the Agarthan language while babbling about how Thales said he'd destroyed them all and they were too dangerous to use..
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Lysithea and Sylvain's opinion on Edelgard, remarking that they too have suffered because of both Crests and the Agarthans but have not resorted to the measures she has, not the least of which being siding with the Agarthans themselves.
• Friend or Foe?: In Chapter 41, Lysithea ignorantly attacks Marianne after her Crest turns her into a Demonic Beast.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: A nameless baby born from the hung corpse of his mother would grow up to be the leader of a band of thieves and then into Nemesis, the feared King of Liberations.

G-L

• Geas: The zombified Ten Elites are controlled by the Agarthans through magical compulsion.
• Gender Flip: In the original game, while the 10 Elites weren't given much in the way of development, Daphnel used the male portrait and battle model for a Holy Knight. Here, she's a woman.
• General Ripper: In an interlude, Edelgard describes Count Varley as such. Not that it stops her from unleashing him to suppress her rioting citizens.
  Edelgard: [E]ven in small matters, the man had no concept of collateral damage. Blood, slaughter and ruin would follow him should he be put at the head of an army against foes who were encroaching on what he considered 'his land'.
• Godhood Seeker: Nemesis thought he could become a god by drinking the blood of Sothis.
• Godzilla Threshold: As the opening stages of the war turn into several crushing defeats for Adrestia, Edelgard notes she is getting desperate enough to let Count Varley out of prison to help turn the tide even though "blood, slaughter and ruin would follow him should he be put at the head of an army against foes who were encroaching on what he considered 'his land'". By Chapter 68, she has actually crossed that line and sent him to subdue the rioters, with predictably bloody results.
• Gratuitous German: When trying to convince the lords of the existence of those who slither in the dark, Atra says a couple of sentences in German. Seteth immediately recognizes the language and goes pale, and the author's notes indicate that German is being used to represent an Agarthan language.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Dimitri's jealousy towards Yuri flirting with Claude, culminating in the former giving a playful kiss to the latter, is what made him realizes that he has romantic feelings for Claude.
• Hate Sink: Maximus Varley doesn't get a lot of screen time, but he spends every sentence he gets being as loathsome as possible. Not only did he tie Bernadetta to a chair and lock her in the attic to 'teach her to be quiet', he's repeatedly implied to have been physically abusive as well; on top of that, he even turns protecting her into a Kick the Dog moment - after catching Yuri as a would be assassin, he didn't tell Bernadetta that - instead, he has a maid take her to a window and force her to watch his men beat Yuri nearly to death to ensure she wouldn't 'disgrace him' by 'slumming it with commoners' again. Maximus holds commoners in such deep contempt that, when Edelgard reluctantly lets him out of house arrest in order to suppress the riots that have sprung up against her, Maximus leads the army to slaughter people armed with stones and bricks and their bare hands. When Ferdinand attempts to countermand his violent orders at Hrym, Maximus attacks and usurps him before ordering the city to be razed as punishment for defying the Emperor. When Felix confronts him in a duel, Maximus is unrepentant, claiming "when animals snap at their masters, it's prudent to cull the herd".
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Petra (for a strained value of "heel") defects from the Empire in Chapter 63.
  • After the battle of Hrym is concluded, Ferdinand abandons Edelgard.
• Heel Realization: Edelgard spends most of the second half of Chapter 80 realizing they are nothing more than a power-crazed tyrant who only ever cared about themselves.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Jeralt dies protecting his daughter from Thales and Kronya, who planned the attack in order to force Byleth to use Divine Pulse a number of times and kill her when she's weaken enough.
• Heroic RRoD: Divine Pulse is a powerful ability that allows Byleth to rewind time to an extent, but she's limited to using it 7-8 times before strenuous use of Divine Pulse starts to take a toll on her and triggers a magical burnout. She ends up getting knocked out for half a day when she uses Divine Pulse nine times and anything beyond ten is fatal to her and she nearly ends up dying from it if it weren't for the Ashen Wolves using the Chalice to heal her. Unfortunately for Byleth, Thales, Kronya and the Flame Emperor know of this weakness and exploit it to their advantage. Sothis giving Byleth the last bit of mortality she had left has greatly boosted the limits, though how much hasn't been seen yet.
• History Repeats: Byleth kills Kronya by stabbing her in the heart multiple times in Chapter 40 for the murder of her father. This is the exact same way Seiros killed Nemesis all those years ago, for the exact same reason (revenge for the murder of her mother and clan).
• Hollywood Tactics: The tactical know-how displayed in this fanfic, even by characters touted for their tactical brilliance, such as Claude, is underdeveloped, to say the least.
  • The most common battlefield strategy used by the heroes appears to be to have everyone break into small groups and do their best.
  • Battle is nearly always conducted in a pell-mell of individual smaller battles, and seldom in anything resembling a formation. Combined with the above, it's rare that other characters aren't wounded or disarmed through their equipment being damaged by the time we catch up with them.
  • Characters often don't explain their plans to each other, as if to invoke the Unspoken Plan Guarantee.
  • Talking Is a Free Action is regularly abused, particularly by Claude.
  • Vulnerable or high-value targets, such as healers, or mages go entirely without the protection of sturdier allies on ocassion.
  • Frontline General is in full effect.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: A stance the heroes take, especially after learning the truth of the crests and relics from Indech. Sylvain uses this as a talking point in his Shut Up, Hannibal! moment against Edelgard, pointing out that humans are more than capable of being cruel.
• Humble Hero: Claude is dumbfounded to learn that his tactical prowess places him on the same level as Byleth on Edelgard's priority to kill list.
• Humiliation Conga: Due to the various divergences caused by Claude and Dimitri's closer relationship and Atra's appearance, the entire unification war is this for Edelgard.
  • First she loses the Battle for Garreg Mach despite having heavy advantages, when The Cavalry arrives. Secondly, thanks to Atra and Glenn, Rodrigue is forewarned about Cornelia's presence in Faerghus's court and manages to capture her beforehand; the students also warn their Lord parents about upcoming conflict, so both kingdoms are better prepared for war than she planned. Then their attempt to assassinate Dimitri and Rodrigue to tear apart the alliance between Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance fails due to Acheron botching it, Byleth's divine pulse abilities, and Claude keeping the army from panicking and strategizing a victory against bad odds. As the allied army begins to march into Adrestia proper, Edelgard attempts to trap them in Fort Merceus and uses the Javelins of Light in an attempt to wipe out the army's leaders - however, Byleth sees the attack coming and evacuates the fort in time, meaning she only succeeded in killing her own troops and destroying her most defensible fortress. As Dimitri, Claude and Byleth continue to win victory after victory, information about the javelins and demonic beasts starts spreading through the common people via Imperial soldiers who Dimitri spared. This leads to a protest in Enbarr; when Edelgard tries to lie her way out, they call her out on it and a riot is triggered when one of her guards stabs a young boy who'd thrown a brick at her. This triggers further unrest, riots and desertion from their army (with those who stay in the guard often apathetic to stopping it), making her desperate enough to let Maximus Varley out of house arrest and order him to quell the riots. As soon as he's out of reach of any of her loyal men, Maximus promptly usurps Ferdinand's authority and leads a bloody suppression in Hrym that results in massive civilian casualties, Ferdinand's defection, and turns all but her most fanatical loyalists against her.
  • Amazingly, it goes From Bad to Worse for her from there. The Battle of Enbarr starts with The Immaculate One and The Immovable wreaking havoc on what little support Thales bothered to give her, while the Crusaders' numerical superiority allows them to storm over her loyalists while being distracted protecting the civilians she had trapped inside to serve as human shields. In short order, Edelgard is hit by Ruined Sky and barely escapes being killed by Glenn by Hubert's quick thinking, has said civilians hail her with bricks while she's fighting Kingdom soldiers, and upon being confronted with Sylvain finally learns that Claude/Khalid is the Prince of Almyra - meaning her attempt to conquer the Alliance was likely doomed to failure no matter what. This causes her to go into a full-blown Villainous Breakdown, which both Sylvain and an incoming Lysithea refute while dominating their 'fight' with her, pummeling her to the point that she has to be saved by Hubert again to survive.
  • Finally, she learns that Evil Is Not a Toy the hard way - returning to the castle, Edelgard finds Thales casually discussing Agartha's retreat with Myson. Her outrage bounces right off the Chancellor, who mocks her for her failures, chides her for believing she could be The Starscream to him, and orders Lamine to subdue her. Barely surviving Lamine's attempted Mercy Kill, Edelgard is promptly reduced to a prisoner of Agartha; bound in chains including a muzzle that prevents her from speaking, she's repeatedly assaulted by various soldiers until she's brought back to Shambhala proper. Her attempt to be a Defiant Captive nets her a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Odesse, and she wakes from that Strapped to an Operating Table where a young boy informs her of her final fate - enslaved to Myson's will by the same Geas the Elites are under and 'transfigured' into a weapon of war for Agartha.
• Hypocrite: Edelgard accuses the Church of altering the truth to suit their own ends in the exact same breath they lie their ass off about who really destroyed Fort Merceus.
• Identical Grandson: In Chapters 64 and 65, Dimitri ends up in a duel with a resurrected ancestor of his identified by the author as Michael Blaiddyd, who bears a close enough resemblance to his late father that Dimitri quickly mistakes them as the same man.
• Ignored Epiphany: Edelgard's thoughts indicate that several of the heroes' dressing-downs are getting to them more than they care to admit, but they keep pushing forward regardless.
• I Am the Noun: In one of the Edelgard interludes, she says, "I am the revenge of the my murdered siblings upon the world that sacrificed them, of the people mistreated and stomped on by the 'Crest bearing nobility!'"
• I Have a Family: An Imperial mook begs for mercy for the sake of her sister's children who she is raising. Fortunately for her, she's begging Dimitri, who indeed spares her, and even helps her up.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: It's mentioned at one point that Count Rowe murdered a woman's father, kidnapped her, and forced her to marry him, all because he assumed she had a Crest.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: When Dimitri reports the truth about Crests to his allies, Rodrigue, Balthus, and Tiana are all described as having various desires for a stiff shot of booze.
• Internal Reveal: Chapter 80 has Edelgard discover Dimitri was her long-forgotten stepbrother.
• I Reject Your Reality: Edelgard claims to be more open minded than any aristocrat before her, but in her interludes this quirk rapidly spirals out into a refusal to acknowledge that Byleth, Claude and Dimitri are winning the war, or that they have justifiable grievances against her that aren't rooted in 'propping up Fódlan's current circumstances'. Even when Renata Fraldarius spells out her lack of clarity and self-serving narrative, she refuses to consider taking Blaiddyd's advice to flee, refusing to abandon her sense of righteousness or her belief that she's Fódlan's savior.
• Irony: Sylvain finds it quite ironic that the "divine gift" passed through his family that his parents thought worth whoring him out to preserve was actually the result of cannibalizing an innocent child.
• It Can Think: The Wandering Beast surprises Dimitri, Claude and the others when he reveals that he can talk and holds a conversation with them before he goes berserk.
• It's All About Me: There's a subtle but tangible undercurrent to Edelgard's interludes; for all that she talks about improving her people's lives, she only thinks about that in terms of her ideals and her beliefs, by using her experiences and nobody else's. This actually plays heavily into her Villainous BSoD, as she's forced to confront the fact that she always thinks about how all of the bad things that happen around her are obstacles in her path first and tragedies inflicted on the innocent second.
• It's Personal: Once they learn of their existence, both Dimitri and Lysithea have it in for the Agarthans. The former because they orchestrated the Tragedy of Duscur from the shadows and the latter for conducting the Crest Experiments on her and her family.
• I Warned You: Macuil warned Seiros way back in the day that censoring history would doom it to be repeated, and reminds her of such when she has to beg his aid after his warnings have come to pass.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Edelgard's decision to release Count Varley from house arrest and entrust soldiers to him makes no sense in-universe (she explicitly placed Ferdinand in charge of the army Varley was part of only for Varley to take control of it out from under him, so what purpose did releasing and sending Varley serve?), but is continuously used by the heroes an example of how far she's fallen and how ill-suited she is to serving as emperor.
  • In Chapter 63, Lord Hevring orders his men to attack one of his own villagers (a small girl) for having the audacity to ask where her three missing brothers are and why the money their family was promised in exchange for them volunteering to be test subjects is.
  • In Chapter 73, Thales turns the resurrected corpses of Edelgard's siblings into White Beasts to sic on the advancing heroes.
• Killed Offscreen: Cornelia is caught for her role in the Tragedy of Duscur and implicitly executed offscreen.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Dimitri's greatest asset is his honor, mercy, and chivalry, and the effect this has on his enemies and allies alike. His kindness defuses Edelgard's attempts to characterize him as a mad boar and turns her already-unrestful citizens against her, sparking riots all across Adrestia because they know the'd get a much better deal being ruled by him than her.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The author's opinion on Edelgard, describing her as knowing nothing while playing the "I know more than you sheeple" card.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • As the war starts to turn against Adrestia, Ferdinand advises Edelgard to concede to the Kingdom and Alliance and sue for peace. She ignores him.
  • When the heroes are Storming the Castle, Thales tells Edelgard point-blank that he is not going to piss away any more of his men on her completely lost cause.
• Laughing Mad: Sylvain's reaction to discovering the truth about Crests and the Heroes' Relics is unhinged laughter.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Byleth discovers she's pregnant at the worst possible time: as she and her allies are making preparations to storm Shambhala.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Seteth, of all people, charges in half-cocked when faced with Agarthans attacking Rhea's probable location.
• Let Me at Him!: During the confrontation between Claude and Count Gloucester in Chapter 85, Seteth has to physically restrain Dimitri from attacking the Count.
• Locked Out of the Loop: The other heroes decide not to inform Dimitri that Atra was one of the soldiers who helped cause the Tragedy of Duscur, out of fear of how badly he'd take it. Atra finally confesses to him in Chapter 51, and while he does have a manic fit and slashes her cheek with his dagger, he doesn't kill her.
• Ludicrous Gibs: This is how the Atrocity combat art is portrayed - it pumps magic into its target and blows it up from the inside. Ladislava finds this out the hard way.

M-P

• Mercy Kill: When the Agarthans prepare to withdraw from Enbarr, Lamine creatively interprets an order to "take [Edelgard] down" and attempts to kill her in order to spare her from whatever horrific fate Thales has in store for her. Sadly for her, it doesn't work.
• Milholland Relationship Moment: Claude goes through many of these as all of his friends and allies react to discovering his Almyran heritage with unconditional support.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After being experimented upon by the Agarthans, Jeritza is in no real mood to keep their secrets from the heroic forces.
• Modest Royalty: Mercedes playfully points out in Chapter 71 after Claude openly reveals that he's actually the Almyran royal heir and prince that he does not carries himself at all like Dimitri or with the same trappings of someone of his rank, something that openly amuses Claude.
• Mood Whiplash: The battle at the Great Bridge of Myrddin starts off grim with an assassination attempt on Dimitri and Rodrigue by Acheron and plenty of violent and gruesome deaths on the battlefield. Then near the end of Chapter 56, Sylvain finally gets to press Dimitri on his relationship with Claude and learning there's a third party (Byleth) involved in Dimitri's relationship, with Ingrid joining them in the discussion. All while fighting a group of enemies.
• Morality Chain: Edelgard attempts to invoke this by sending Ferdinand to Hrym to keep Count Varley in check and make sure he doesn't do anything too vicious. Unfortunately, Varley simply slugs him and launches an attack on Hrym's civilians.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: According to the author's notes for Chapter 37, Atra and Glenn would never join the player on the canon Crimson Flower route.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Both Maurice and Fraldarius deeply regret following Nemesis on his path of destruction.
  • When Rhea learns the full extent of Lysithea's backstory, she is horrified at what her inaction allowed and promises restitution after the war.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • Bernadetta's father is given the name Maximus.
  • The original Fraldarius is given the first name Renata.
  • The original Blaiddyd is given the name Michael.
  • The original Riegan is given the name Ren.
  • Linhardt's father is given the name Fredrick.
  • The original Lamine is given the first name Angel.
  • The Agarthan impersonating Cornelia is given the real name Diado.
  • The original Gautier is given the name Griffith.
  • The original Daphnel is given the name Elizabeth.
  • "Nemesis" is indicated to be an alias, and his real name is Ronan.
  • The original Charon is given the name Julius.
  • The original Goneril is given the name Achilles.
  • The original Gloucester is given the name Simon.
  • The original Dominic is given the name Jason.
• Never My Fault: In Edelgard's mind, everything that goes wrong with their plans for Fódlan is either Sothis' fault, Thales' fault, or Claude's fault. The author repeatedly lampshades this in comments, remarking that this trait makes Edelgard Unintentionally Unsympathetic.invoked
  ReynaAtTheEnd: I would respect Edelgard a hell of a lot more if she wasn't constantly trying to worm her way out of responsibility for the evil actions of her allies.
• Nice Guy: Glenn, Indech and Holst all exemplify this.
  • Glenn considers Atra one of his closest friends and does not hold her in any way responsible for the actions of her people during the Tragedy of Duscur despite her presence there, which comes as no surprise considering she saved him from his canon fate in said tragedy. He also shows himself to be a friendly, charming and pleasant young man who is both a Cool Big Bro with Big Brother Instinct towards both Felix and Dimitri, a gentle and loving fiancé towards Ingrid and overall one of the best examples in the series of a genuine Knight in Shining Armor the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus has under their command.
  • Indech is a friendly, good-natured and gentle borderline All-Loving Hero who shows nothing but the greatest respect and admiration towards Atra, Byleth, Dimitri, Marianne, Bernadetta and the rest of the heroes and wastes no time in both assuring that he does NOT blame the heroes for using the Hero Relics despite their horrific history and genuinely utters several extremely touching and heartfelt You Are Better Than You Think You Are speeches towards our heroes. Overall, he comes off as both a perfect combination of Cool Uncle and secondary Big Good towards our heroes, and a much needed one. And considering his own extremely tragic and horrifying past with both Agartha and Laputa the fact that he's easily one of the most gentle and friendliest characters in the story speaks volumes about him as a person.
  • Holst is not only just as much a Cool Big Bro as the series implies, but in his letter to Claude after the Almyrans pull their Big Damn Heroes moment to save not only Holst's forces but also the Kingdom's from Count Bergliez's own forces he not only shows an incredible amount of admiration for Claude but it's made very, very clear that he considers the younger boy to be incredibly brave due to Claude's position as a half-Almyran in Fódlan considering the Fantastic Racism for his people that perpetuates the land and that the respect he had for Claude just increased ten-fold once it became clear what he was trying to do. Said attitude actually causes Claude to openly shed Tears of Joy, which become even more touching when Hilda unhesitatingly echoes her brother's admiration, adoration and respect for Claude.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Marianne calls out Hubert for his hypocrisy, saying that he's just like the "weak people" relying on their goddess, with the only difference being that he's blindly faithful to Edelgard instead of Sothis. Hubert doesn't take this well.
• Not So Stoic: Shamir is the picture of cold emotionlessness, but even she is openly dumbfounded when Claude reveals to his allies he's half-Almyran.
• Nuke 'em: The javelins of light are explicitly described in terms consistent with nuclear warheads. This is a major upgrade from Three Houses, in which they weren't nearly so destructive.
  Atra: The land they strike burns eternally; people who survive being in the blast radius are stricken with a heat that pierces through the skin and burns them from within.
• Number Two: Rodrigue is the clear second-in-command of the Kingdom forces, and killing him is second only to killing Dimitri in any antagonists' plans to destroy Faerghus.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Claude gets one over on the bad guys by acting like he is just "a fool playing at things he [doesn't] understand."
• Obligatory Swearing: Characters frequently swear in this fanfic. This is particularly notable given how clean the language is in Three Houses.
  Claude's narration in the first chapter: The blue haired teen – dammit, he hadn't gotten her fucking name – raced ahead of him, attracting the attention of three enemies.
• Oblivious to Love: All three protagonists have this to varying degrees:
  • Dimitri has a hard time recognizing romantic attraction from others, especially from males, both because of his limited social skills and the Tragedy. After the Tragedy, Dimitri was left with a burning desire for vengeance and survivor's guilt that made romance the least important thing on his mind, much less deserving for love because of his unhinged violent side which he tries to hide. As Claude comments, if Dimitri were to flirt with someone, it would be by accident and unintentional. He does recognize whenever he's attracted to someone, as Catherine was his first crush and he has been drawn to Byleth since he first met her. He's oblivious towards his own feelings for Claude though until the end of Chapter 22.
  • Claude isn't that bad compared to Dimitri and Byleth, as he is more socially savvy than those the two, but his trust issues makes him selective at times as a result of some of the assassination attempts on his life which includes being poisoned by a girl he slept with before. He knows whenever someone's flirting with him and isn't afraid to flirt back, but genuine romantic feelings being reciprocated are new to him. Claude's the first among the three to recognize his feelings for Byleth and Dimitri, but it takes him a while to realize that Dimitri's odd behavior around him is because the prince is in love with him. Claude calls himself out on this in Chapter 35.
  • Byleth is probably the worst out of the three because of her upbringing as a mercenary and her repressed emotions which have start to return to her since becoming a professor. As she's used to people being creeped out and disturbed by her unnaturally stoic demeanor, she's unable to comprehend whenever people are attracted to her, especially the females, something which Sothis enjoys teasing her about. She also has trouble recognizing her own feelings for others, particularly for Dimitri and Claude that she often has to ask herself why she feels differently for them. It takes all three of them to confess for her finally figure it out.
• Odd Name Out: Most of the core Agarthan leaders are named after the seven sages of Greece. "Cornelia", on the other hand, is given the name Diado.
• Official Couple: Several have been set up besides the Byleth/Claude/Dimitri triad, including Felix and Bernadetta, Ashe and Marianne, Flayn and Ignatz and Mercedes and Dedue.
• Off the Rails: The canon plot is fully derailed in Chapter 50, starting with Church/Kingdom/Alliance forces winning the Battle for Garreg Mach.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Chapter 58 ends with the Byleth confronting the Death Knight. By the end of Chapter 60 she's bested him entirely offscreen.
• One-Hit Polykill: During the battle of Hrym, Claude uses Fallen Star to kill nineteen dudes with a single arrow.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted in three cases.
  • One of Lysithea's siblings was named Maya, which also happens to be the name of Raphael's younger sister.
  • Gustav is the name of a minor OC from Jeralt's mercenary crew, as well as being Gilbert's real name.
  • The name "Justine" could refer to either a minor OC from Jeralt's Mercenaries or Imperial Princess Justine von Hresvelg, Edelgard's younger sister, who became mute and partially paralyzed as a result of the "experiments" performed on her by the Agarthans.
• Only Sane Man: Once the war phase starts, the antagonists have Ferdinand as the sole voice of reason among them. He is the only one to point out that they are losing the war and need to sue for peace, but Edelgard ignores him completely and he ultimately jumps ship after the Hrym massacre.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Lysithea usually refuses to show fear in public, so Dimitri hearing her openly panic is an immediate sign that something very, very bad is about to happen. Fort Merceus is about to get blown to kingdom come by javelins of light.
  • Claude notes that if Mercedes thinks you're a slimeball, you really suck (in reference to her adoptive father).
  • Fraldarius describes Daphnel as stoic in combat and refined out of it, so to hear her profanely curse her situation shocks her.
• Orbital Bombardment: In addition to the canon appearances of the javelins of light, it's noted in Chapter 59 that they have been used to blow up Arianrhod.
• Original Character: Several, usually from Jeralt's mercenary group, but the most important introduced is Atra, a rouge Agarthan who abandoned her people's cause in shame and disgust after helping cause the Tragedy of Duscur.
• Orphaned Etymology: Byleth snidely threatens to put Sothis "behind the wheel" when she gives birth to her twins, despite the fact that automobiles don't exist in Fódlan and likely haven't since the days Sothis was in charge.
• Overzealous Underling: Edelgard orders Count Varley to suppress a civilian riot in Hrym. He promptly usurps Ferdinand's authority and orders the rioters to be put to the sword. The civilians are forced to turn to the heroes for salvation, and the whole incident fractures the Empire's already deteriorating morale.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Marian, an Agarthan child soldier, recounts how she poisoned and stabbed a man who took out his frustrations about losing the war on her by kicking her repeatedly. In general, the heroes do not refrain from violently and viciously punishing unsavory individuals, such as Count Varley.
• Persona Non Grata: In Chapter 69, Felix declares his intent to ensure Count Varley can never return to Fódlan after his defeat.
• Point of Divergence:
  • The plot starts off with Dimitri accidentally learning Claude's half-Almyran heritage and becoming a Secret-Keeper. This allows Dimitri to gain Claude's full trust, the two becoming closer than before.
  • As the Cindered Shadows subplot is part of the main storyline, a chain of events soon occur that will affect the story after the arc:
    • Jeralt and Sothis were notably absent during the game's events of he Cindered Shadows side story. Here they play important roles in the mini-arc. All three house leaders learn that Jeralt bears the Major Crest of Seiros at some point in the arc and Jeralt learns what happened to Sitri. And Sothis allows Byleth to reveal her existence to her students after events lead to her near death, speaking to people other than Byleth for the first time.
    • Several characters that weren't involved in the Cindered Shadows game events join the cast in the mini-arc at different points of the arc. Bernadetta was with the group when they first discover the Abyss and meets Yuri much earlier who was also the childhood friend she thought was dead. Byleth is then joined by Lysithea, Marianne, Dedue and Felix later on when she heads to rejoin the group after falling into a coma after her brush with death.
    • The hunt for the Chalice led to Byleth nearly dying from overusing Divine Pulse, which leads to her revealing her abilities and Sothis' existence to her students, with Edelgard among those students.
    • In the aftermath of the mini-arc, Byleth is forced to sit out from the Battle of the Eagle and Lion as she's still recovering from her brush with death during the Cindered Shadows mini-arc and the fight against the Umbral Beast, thus all houses have to fight without their house teachers to guide them.
  • Yuri's involvement along with Dimitri and Claude keeping a close eye on Byleth ensures that she won't act reckless in her pursuit for revenge against Kronya in the Sealed Forest since they know that it's a trap for Byleth. As a result, Byleth is able to kill her father's killer and Yuri kills Solon, preventing the dark ritual from occurring and allowing Sothis to remain with Byleth with her individuality intact.
  • Unlike in canon the Church, with the help from the allied Kingdom/Alliance forces were able to obtain victory in the Battle for Garreg Mach against the Empire. The price for said victory is still taxing for the characters though.
  • When Glenn is revealed to have survived, Rodrigue is prompted to launch an investigation into who was truly behind the Tragedy of Duscur and convinces the Eastern lords to cooperate to find the true culprit offscreen. In Chapter 51, it's revealed that Cornelia was found as the true instigator of the Tragedy of Duscur and was promptly executed.
• Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Sylvain recounts an incident where he accidentally offered a girl some tea spiked with sedative. She forced him to drink it first, and it knocked him out cold.
• Polyamory: As the story progress it becomes apparent that Dimitri, Claude and Byleth develop strong feelings for each other. The problems come with them realizing their feelings and other external factors.
• The Poorly Chosen One: The Agarthan Marian views Edelgard as a terrible choice for a champion against the dragons, and thinks Dimitri would have been a much better fit for the role. In chapter 73 Thales himself admits that Claude would have been a much better champion for the Agarthans to have than Edelgard, openly stating: "I choose poorly; I should have waited until he stepped into Fodlan and whisked him away, made him our chosen dragon slayer. He has more guile in one finger than she possessed in her entire body".
• Power Trio: Lambert, Rodrigue, and Tiana were all good friends during their time at the Officer's Academy.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • In Chapter 47, Claude notes that no matter how much of a backstabbing jerk who hates him Count Gloucester is, his heir Lorenz is trapped in the monastery with him and he cannot afford to lose him to the upcoming siege no matter how much he might sympathize with the Empire.
  • Myson is described as the type of man who doesn't approve of senseless torture or violence if it doesn't serve a practical purpose.
• Prematurely Grey-Haired: Jeralt is noted to have this, though this is a strange case in that Jeralt is Older Than They Look. His hair is implied to have originally been blue, as if to suggest Byleth inherited her hair color from him. This is different from Three Houses, in which Jeralt had blond hair and Byleth inherited their hair color from their mother.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: The narrative harshly condemns Edelgard's war with the rest of Fódlan as nothing more than a base, imperialistic land-grab. The heroes' own invasion and conquest of Adrestia doesn't receive the same condemnation, even as sympathetic characters such as Claude plan and discuss which of their non-Adrestian allies are going to govern the region after deposing Edelgard.
• Punched Across the Room: After the soldier continues to insult Claude for his heritage, Dimitri reaches his breaking point and punches the man, sending him flying into a wall.
• Puppet King: Discussed after the heroes finally conquer The Heavy's capital; Claude concludes that if they spare Edelgard's die-hard loyalists, they will put the crippled Justine on the Adrestian throne and rule using her as a puppet.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In Chapter 50 the combined forces of the Church/Kingdom/Alliance manage to win the Battle for Garreg Mach against the Empire. Unfortunately, Garreg Mach is massively damaged, a number of soldiers both allies and enemies are either dead or wounded, a few of the characters are traumatized and exhausted from the battle, and this small victory isn't enough to stop the impeding war, so none of the characters feel like celebrating.
  Claude: We won. Why doesn't it feel like the incredible victory it technically is?

R-Y

• Rank Up: A flashback shows Ladislava being promoted from Sergeant straight to General due to her skills rather than her lineage.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Seteth, Judith, and Rodrigue are all willing to put aside their personal differences to protect Fódlan, and prove competent and reliable seconds to their respective leaders.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Plenty.
  • Bernadetta gives one to the Flame Emperor during the Holy Tomb battle.
    Bernadetta: This is the person who wants to change Fódlan? What good c-could come from h-handing power to someone who c-can do this without hesitation? You...you don't value your people's lives any more than my father does! You'd never be a good ruler. You'd just be one more tyrant. And I...I won't let you! I won't let you take my f-friends, or the Crest Stones, or Fodlan! We're...definitely going to stop you!
  • Rena Fraldarius gives one to Edelgard when it becomes clear just how arrogant and foolish she's being.
    Fraldarius: YoUu...aRe nOo HeRo. YoUu...aRe...just thEir t-tooL...lIke Us nOw. StUpId liTtLe giRl...dId you rEaLly ThinK, wHeN yOu saw t-their works AnD m-mAdE use oF tHeir evil...thAt yYou wouLd e-ever be a hero? [...] S-ShE's j-jUsT l-like Nemesis. D-Drinking bLoOd and c-calling iT righteous. M-MaKing hEr pEoPle, w-who fOoLishLy t-truSt her, a-accomplices to i-it AlL. S-Save yYour sYmpaThy f-for our dEscEndents.
    Edelgard: W..You compare me to Nemesis...? Then I am the next King of Liberation?
    Fraldarius: YoU...tRulY kKnow n-nothing. Nemesis c-commiTTeD aN unParaLelled e-evil...Serios was yYour hero, y-your sAlvAtion. We weRe tHe fOoLs...who n-naively trusted him... Y-YoU m-mock the idea t-that there are things you cannot come back from. T-That...is wHaT...MaKes you A fFool...
  • Felix gives one to Count Varley during their duel in Hrym.
    Felix: Do you always run your mouth this much? All you've proven is just how weak you are. You can't win loyalty without threatening to slaughter people in retaliation. You endlessly scream about deserving their respect by dint of a cosmic accident, when most people live past their second birthday without thinking the world owes them something for that achievement. You heap abuse on your daughter, your servants, your people; all who have no recourse against you, and think that doing so makes you powerful. You're so desperate to increase your name that you would sell your daughter as if she were a bed slave, when if you were actually a man of capability and respect, you wouldn't need to stoop to gutter crime. [...] The woman I love is still suffering because of you! You abused her...called her worthless...convinced her no one would ever want her! One of...the bravest people I've ever met... still lives if fear of you. You! You worthless, pathetic, spineless waste of air! You aren't worthy to carry her shoes!
  • Thales gives one to Edelgard in Chapter 73 that completely and utterly breaks them.
    Thales: I know better than to apply the best of my men to a lost cause. You cannot win this battle. You lost long ago, you just refused to realize it. The Riegan boy outwitted you, the Fell Star drew in more hearts than you, and the Blayddid boy hits harder than you. I had been under the impression, when you outlined your plans to reunite Fodlan under yourself, that you had the drive and the intelligence to make it possible. Yet you failed at every opportunity. You failed to break apart Riegan and Blayddid's love affair with the Fell Star, failed to kill the Fell Star's vessel when she was in your grasp for months before reclaiming her full power, and failed to do anything but loose ground in the war you started, even with our assistance.
  • Bernadetta goes nuclear on Count Gloucester and his men after they ignore all of the hard work Claude has put in protecting Fódlan in favor of hating him for being half-Almyran.
    Bernadetta: SSHHHHUUUUUT UUUUUUUUPPPPPP! SHUT UP! Just – just shut your goddess-damned mouth, you ignorant, peasant-murdering, power-grasping imbecile! And you...all of you! You should be disgusted and ashamed of yourself...have you forgotten the last six months?! Are you so blind, so contemptuous, so completely without honor that you're just going to forget everything Claude von Riegan, Prince Khalid, has done to save you in this war? You there! Sir Dagdar...I saw Claude save your life with my own eyes during the Battle on Myrddin bridge! He deliberately made himself a target for the flying mages and held them off while giving our army directions to reorganize in the midst of the ambush! As for you! Lady Tina. Just yesterday you were effusively praising how much Claude valued the lives of even the lowest of his soldiers, how he had dreamt up plans for battle that gave us our precious low-casualty figures, stating how other lords would have discarded them as impractical and the losses 'necessary'. Has that magically become untrue because his father is King Kirah of Almyra?! What do we care about the wars of men long dead, that bones and dust would compel us to hate those we have never even met? I've watched, all these months, as Claude agonized over the losses our army has taken! Spend sleepless nights hammering out the plans that took us from one victory to the next, saved not only our own people but those trapped by Adrestia's tyranny as well! He was the one who warned you before the war began that there was danger in the future; it is thanks to him that you were prepared for war, that the Alliance between Leicester and Faerghus was even possible! I saw with my own eyes how he valued lives, our lives; when our people would have rejected him the way you're trying to now! There is nothing more true than this... Khalid loves Fódlan! And you would turn on him now?! After he has fought so hard to save you, knowing that he would lay down his life for you, you call him a monster and an exile from Fódlan because of his birth?! Are you so craven?! Are you like Thales and his Agarthans, discarding those who aren't one of you as less than human?! Well?! Speak up!
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Discussed in Chapter 65 when Leonie stops to wonder why Wilhelm chose red and black for Adrestia's color scheme. Balthus explains that it was to symbolize all of the innocent people who died when Nemesis went power-mad.
• Reincarnate in Another World: A side story part of the same continuity has Edelgard, fresh off of her defeat in Shambala, awaken in the world of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Discussed in Chapter 47 when Felix notes how Rodrigue will probably react to the knowledge that Imperial forces are coming down on his prince and sons' heads.
  Felix: I know my old man; if he didn't raise everyone he could reach in a day before setting out the instant he got the letter, it's because he had a heart attack upon getting it. And he's not that old yet.
• Rotating Protagonist: Each chapter rotates between the three protagonists (Dimitri, Claude and Byleth), with each narration differing due to from the perspective it's been told from (Dimitri 'talking' to the dead, Claude reminiscing bits of his childhood in Almyra and Byleth communicating with Sothis). From Chapters 52 to 80, Edelgard gets an interlude every seven chapters; Chapter 87 gives an interlude to Fraldarius, Chapter 91 gives one to Blaiddyd, Chapter 98 gives one to several heroes, and Chapter 101 gives one to Yuri.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: The word "loose" is mistakenly used in place of "lose" frequently throughout the fic. "Lose" is used properly on occasion, but there's no apparent rhyme or reason as to when and why.
  Lorenz: Even if he sympathizes with the Empire, he can't afford to loose his only heir to this sacking.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Dimitri gives one to the combined Lions and Deer before they battle the Duscur soldiers.
    Dimitri: Everyone, what we're about to undertake is a venture most would call 'foolhardy'. To go up against an opponent that is gunning for victory, and fighting to disable...it's a dangerous venture, and it will require more skill and effort than a more 'normal' battle. But I have faith in this cause, and in all of us. Right now, I am surrounded by some of the most competent people I've met in years. We are organized, they are not; we are not desperate, blind with anger, or held back by anything but a desire to save lives rather than end them. So let's win this; for Duscur and for Faerghus! Forward!
  • Byleth delivers one right before the Battle for Garreg Mach.
    Byleth: Everyone, I won't lie to you. This is going to be the hardest, the longest, and the scariest fight we've ever been in. It will be a long, hard day. It will sap at your spirit and your strength. But I know all of you. I know what you're capable of and what you're fighting for. I wouldn't want anyone else standing behind me when I go to war. We will defend the monastery. We will repel Edelgard and her allies. And aside from making those people look like the idiots they are in the process? We're going to burn this wave of imperialism to a stop, and cast it down into the abyss of history where it fucking belongs! Now who's with me?!
  • Dimitri delivers one right before the siege of the Imperial palace.
    Dimitri: Everyone. Within these doors is the most dangerous conflict Adrestia has to offer us! The soldiers we fight within will be either desperate and furious, or utterly devoid of scruples – moral or otherwise! Yet this battle must be won – not only to free Fódlan from the threat of tyranny, but to save the common people of Adrestia from the clutches of Agartha! Be prepared for a bitter and terrible struggle; be prepared for the lowliest of tactics and the worst any army is capable of, and remember this! Each of you is ordered to return home alive! Let us finish this together!
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Claude racks up a few as the story progresses:
    • Dimitri learns of Claude's Almyran heritage in Chapter 1. Dimitri also reveals to Claude his guilt about the Tragedy of Duscur to reassure Claude that his secret is safe. Cyril also learns of Claude's secret as he was there when the foot soldier was harassing the two of them.
    • Dedue also learns of Claude's mixed ancestry after overhearing the latter speak in his native tongue to the war master in Chapter 14. He promises Claude to keep quiet about it out of gratitude for Claude helping them out in quelling the would-be rebellion in Duscur.
    • After a talk with Sothis, Claude finally tells Byleth of his Almyran heritage and his true name, entrusting her with both of his secrets by the end of Chapter 30.
  • Sothis earns a couple as the story goes on:
    • After raising suspicion about her 'magic' and nearly dying from overusing Divine Pulse during the Cindered Shadows mini-arc, Byleth reveals her Divine Pulse abilities and Sothis' existence to her students (the three house leaders, Linhardt, Ashe, Hilda, Bernadetta, Felix, Dedue, Lysithea and Marianne). Sothis has them keep this a secret to ensure their safety and to not risk branding Byleth as a heretic in the face of the church.
    • Because Byleth was asleep at the time when Atra deliver her the news about Kronya's whereabouts, Sothis ended up possessing Byleth's body at the time, revealing herself to Atra and Yuri.
  • The Golden Deer, Dimitri, Byleth, Sylvain, Ashe, Yuri and Atra end up witnessing Marianne's transformation into a Demonic Beast and learn from her that she bears the Crest of the Beast.
• Secret Relationship: Dimitri, Claude and Byleth decide to keep their newfound relationship a secret from the others for now after confessing to each other in Chapter 36. Justified as polyamory isn't that widely accepted within Fódlan and a prince and a duke having a relationship with a mercenary is one thing, but that mercenary also being their teacher is another story. Sylvian and Ingrid become privy to Dimitri and Claude being in a relationship in chapter 56 after Dimitri blurts out detail after detail. Shortly after, he remarks that Byleth might find it funny that the former thought that it was Lorenz and latter Yuri who was the third partner, leaving Sylvian gobsmacked as a result. Later on, Felix and Glenn are told about this by Sylvian before Chapter 60, the former thinking it was a joke at first.
• Shaming the Mob: In Chapter 85, Bernadetta does so wonderfully in her "The Reason You Suck" Speech as she lists all the good that Claude has done for the army and question why they now turn their backs on him now that it's revealed that he is half Almyran, which is soon to be followed by the rest of the students joining in Bernadetta's support and Claude's defense. It works as Dagdar and Tina, two of the soldiers Bernadetta called out at first, are all choked up and lost for words, and many of the soldiers that initially rallied and supported Count Gloucester when he started to accuse Claude soon kneel and apologize to Claude in shame.
• Shipper on Deck: Sothis is aware of the developing feelings between Dimitri, Claude and Byleth and encourages them to be honest with their feelings for each other.
• Ship Tease: While the main relationship is between Dimitri, Claude and Byleth, there are several that had been hinted throughout the story and eventually gets tagged in the stories. To note several of them: Ingrid with Glenn, Sylvain with Dorothea, Ignatz with Flayn, Lindhart with Hapi, Yuri with Atra, and so on.
• Shoot the Messenger: Subverted; it's noted that when Lord Arundel heard the report that Rhea escaped the Empire's soldiers and is safe with the Kingdom/Alliance forces, Edelgard had to physically restrain him to prevent him from slugging the poor messenger.
• Shout-Out:
  • The origin story given to Nemesis is very reminiscent of that of Guts, being born from a hanged woman.
  • In Chapter 73, when Edelgard finds Thales reading reports and preparing to withdraw from Adrestia, he states "I am altering our deal. Pray that I do not alter it further."
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • After Hubert disparages Bernadetta and Marianne for siding with the goddess and calls them cowards, Marianne tells him how far up his ass he can shove his rhetoric.
  • When Count Varley rants about how it's his right to keep his commoners downtrodden, Rodrigue coldly tells him that any man who cannot respect his inferiors doesn't deserve power over them.
  • Sylvain and Lysithea both do this to Edelgard during the Battle of Enbarr, refuting her propensity for blaming the Church and the existence of Crests for things like the actions of Miklan and the Crest experiments conducted on Edelgard and Lysithea, all the while completely dominating the fight.
• Show, Don't Tell:
  • Dimitri and Byleth insist via narration that Dimitri still cared for Edelgard deeply and was wounded by her betrayal, when the reality is he thinks about her very rarely, even before she shows her true colors.
  • The author tries to portray the war as gruesome, horrific, and soul-crushing, even going as far as to have Byleth give a particularly lurid speech about how exhausted it's made her, but this clashes badly with the fact that Casual Danger Dialogue and World of Snark are in full effect. While in the heat of the moment, combat scenes are focused more on portraying how badass the characters are than it does on showing any psychological harm they might be suffering.
  • Dimitri quickly develops such a reputation for mercy that Imperial soldiers surrendering to him is a frequent sight once the war begins, yet the heroes only once offer surrender to enemy soldiers on their own initiative, and prefer lethal force despite vastly overpowering them.
• Side Bet: Claude muses to himself that he has 15 gold pieces riding on Leonie not confessing to Lorenz before they reach Enbarr.
• Smug Snake: As a result of Adaptational Dumbass, Edelgard is extremely arrogant and overconfident, thinking they're the big scary Starscream when in reality they're just the Agarthans' dupe from start to finish.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Byleth views Rodrigue as the epitome of a lordly, chivalrous knight, and is utterly stunned to hear him refer to Dimitri's uncle Rufus as having "the military sensibilities of a drunk, concussed wyvern."
• Spared by the Adaptation: A few examples.
  • Glenn is alive, albeit scarred and amnesiac, having been rescued by Atra during the Tragedy of Duscur.
  • Sothis makes it through the battle in the Sealed Forest with her individuality intact.
  • Due to the various nails preventing Dimitri from going completely feral and stopping the Battle at Gronder, Rodrigue never has to sacrifice himself to save his prince and lives to reach Enbarr.
  • Because Cornelia was found guilty for her part in the Tragedy of Duscur and avoiding the nail of Dimitri getting framed for murder, Rufus Blaiddyd was spared and is last seen holding the line of defense against the Empire with house Gautier.
  • Due to the battle where he canonically dies being Adapted Out, Randolph makes it all the way to the end of the war.
  • In canon, all of Edelgard's siblings are deceased. Here, one of her younger sisters (here named Justine) survived the Agarthan experiments, but was reduced to a helpless mute cripple.
• Spell My Name With An S: Dimitri's surname is often mispelled as "Blayddid" instead of the proper "Blaiddyd".
• Stress Vomit: When the heroes learn the Heroes' Relics are made out of dragon bones, Dimitri and Felix can only puke in horror, and Hilda comes this close to joining them.
• Stupid Evil: By the invasion of Enbarr, Claude considers the entire war to be an act of completely pointless arrogance and cruelty committed to achieve objectives that could have been solved through far more diplomatic means.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Chapter 41 reveals Marianne's Crest of the Beast allows her to transform into a Demonic Beast during battle. Marianne barely has any control of herself in this state and attacks Ignatz and Lysithea in a blind rage after the latter mistakenly attacks her.
• Super-Strength: Everyone who possesses the Blaiddyd Crest has this; Dimitri can knock people through trees by backhanding them, crush skulls with his fists, and snap weapons like twigs. His ancestor, Michael Blaiddyd, wasn't weakened by centuries of being frozen - he casually stops Edelgard's impulsive attack on Fraldarius by catching her wrist mid-swing and crushing it.
• Surrounded by Idiots:
  • Edelgard's opinion of her war council, remarking in her head that she's close to just firing them all and leaving only Hubert and Hanneman.
  • Felix grumbles that he's surrounded by lunatics when they get distracted by Balthus' love life in Shambhala. Byleth retorts that if he's down there with them, what does that make him?
• Taught to Hate: The Agarthan children are all taught to hate anyone non-Agarthan and weren't given much of a chance to think otherwise until they started to interact with the heroes, starting from Mercedes and Dimitri.
• The Tease: Yuri openly flirts with all three of the protagonists, but besides that is willing to let them be with each other in peace.
• There Was a Door: During the siege of the Imperial palace, Byleth tears a hole in a wall because it's faster, causing Leonie to joke that there was a door.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The heroes all collectively declare how bad it's going to be right before the final battle, which in the best case involves fighting ten of the strongest warriors in the continent's history at once and in the worst case involves fighting Nemesis.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • After the Empire blows up Fort Merceus just to kill the heroes, Atra mutters a disbelieving "...Unverzeihlich...", which is German/Agarthan for "unforgivable".
  • When Claude discovers that Edelgard has let Count Varley loose on Hrym's civilians, he declares that he is tearing them off their throne if it's the last thing he does.
• This Means War!: Once it's revealed that the Flame Emperor is Edelgard, Byleth realizes that her attack on the Holy Tomb is an act of war and that they have to be ready for a full conflict with the Empire. Sure enough, the formal declaration comes the next chapter.
• Token Good Teammate: Myson is described as being the only member of those who slither in the dark who is even remotely polite.
• Token Heroic Orc: Atra is a former Agarthan mook who deserted them after the Tragedy of Duscur.
• Tranquil Fury: Claude reacts to the massacre in Hrym with what is described as "a calm you only felt when you reached the far side of fury".
• Trapped in Villainy: The 10 Elites all deeply regret their villainous actions, but they can't turn back due to the Agarthan geas.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Glenn lost his memories as a result of injuries and trauma sustained in the Tragedy of Duscur.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Dimitri is disturbed to hear Marian, a thirteen-year-old Agarthan soldier, casually recount how she murdered a man for kicking her in frustration. She also expresses amusement at the thought of what will happen to Edelgard once Thales decides she's served her purpose, laughing while telling Dimitri how powerless she is to escape their control - which is especially disturbing when you remember the experiments the Agarthans preformed on her killed her siblings and drastically shortened her life.
• Twice Shy: Ashe and Marianne toward each other until Ashe finally confesses right before the Battle for Garreg Mach.
• Underestimating Badassery: Throughout their school year together, Edelgard expresses bemusement at both Claude and Dimitri's personalities. She's confident she can sweep them aside once she starts the war, believing Dimitri to be too naïve and guileless to make a good king and Claude to be an overconfident schemer who's in way over his head. She also dismisses the idea that they would work together. After they inflict multiple crushing defeats on her without any significant losses, she re-evaluates her opinion on Claude, but persists in dismissing Dimitri as reliant on Claude and Byleth rather than a significant player in his own right - even after her own people start speaking favorably of him right before rioting against her.
• Unfriendly Fire: Dimitri's hallucination of his father notes that they could easily murder Atra and claim it to be an accident, but Dimitri absolutely refuses to go through with it.
• Unholy Matrimony: Myson and Bias are brutal villains who are also in a loving romantic relationship.
• Unwanted Revival: None of the resurrected Ten Elites are happy about their Forced into Evil situation.
  • Michael Blaiddyd not only seems to actively pity Edelgard for her ignorance but shows nothing but dismay when fighting against Dimitri.
  • Renata Fraldarius is both absolutely ashamed and horrified about her actions while serving Nemesis and gives Edelgard an absolutely brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Later Myson outright states that she openly threatened to kill him.
  • Ren von Riegan has absolutely no respect in any way for Thales to the point he openly defies the other man in the most insulting manner possible. Chapter 73 hints that his irreverence towards the Agarthans is actually quite common.
  • Lamine tries to interpret Thales's order From a Certain Point of View in order to Mercy Kill Edelgard and save the younger woman from the Agarthan's machinations and later shows genuine regret when she fails to do so with a muttered: "Damn. Not enough power. Sorry, kid. Failed".
• Unwitting Pawn: Despite fancying themself The Starscream, by chapter 73 it becomes plain that in reality, Edelgard was nothing but a tool that Thales used to destabilize Fódlan and kill as many people as possible to achieve his plan to take the surface for Shambhala. When she attempts to confront him, he merely has Lamine blast her into submission and takes her prisoner again as they retreat, leaving Adrestia to the United Army.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Dimitri's flashbacks in chapter 70 strongly indicates that Edelgard was this. She was fierce but kind, encouraging him to stand up for himself, playing with him and fussing over an injured kitten. Making their current relationship all the more tragic.
• Villain Episode: Edelgard's interludes focus on the story's main villains.
• Villainous Breakdown: Edelgard in chapter 73 gets this as the truth sinks in to her that she is nothing but an Unwitting Pawn and all of her plans have been crushed.
• Villainous BSoD: Edelgard suffers one after their complete and total defeat, forced to realize everything she ever did only either played into her tormenters' hands or caused needless death and suffering among the people she was trying to save.
• Villainous Friendship: For all their absolutely disgusting Fantastic Racism and utterly sociopathic attitude towards everyone who is not Agarthan, Chapter 73 shows that the trio of Thales, Myson and Odesse truly do consider each other close friends and allies, Thales openly admiring Myson's intelligence and resourcefulness and treating Odesse like an Honest Advisor with genuine grievances which he respectfully answers. Myson and Odesse in turn both advise and talk to Thales with open honesty and are perfectly at ease in voicing their opinions, even if it's a dissenting one.
• Villain Respect: By the end of the war, Thales considers Claude to be a Worthy Opponent and laments that his intelligence is, in his mind, being squandered by the Children of the Goddess.
• Voodoo Zombie: The Ten Elites are portrayed as such. They are still sentient and capable of independent thought, but are bound to the Agarthans' will. However, they are only fully subservient to Nemesis, as Myson notes, due to how many of the Ten Elites manage to subvert the orders given to them.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Tying into the game, the fight against Miklan and his second form as the Black Beast is the first time Byleth uses Divine Pulse to save her students after they are killed a few times.
• Would Be Rude to Say "Genocide": In the very distant past, Sothis wiped out the armies of the ancient nations of Laputa and Agartha when they refused to stop warring with one another. When they then joined forces to fight her, she destroyed both nations. This is treated as an unambiguous good act in the present, and the possibility that innocents may have died alongside the guilty is never brought up.
• Would Hurt a Child: Lord Hevring orders a small girl attacked for speaking out of turn.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 24. Byleth reveals to some of her students - including Edelgard - that she's the host of Sothis and the Divine Pulse said goddess gifted her.
  • Chapter 31: Atra's companion loses his hood in the midst of helping Remire civilians flee the massacre, revealing himself to an amnesia-stricken Glenn Fraldarius.
  • Chapter 59: Myson reveals to Edelgard that he's brought a new superweapon to bear - Michael Blaiddyd and Renata Fraldarius.
  • Chapter 73: Thales fully usurps the war from Edelgard, ordering Lamine to subdue her. Then he has Myson transform the preserved corpses of her siblings who died from the experimentations into White Beasts.
• Worth It: Dimitri got two weeks of weeding duty for the aforementioned punching out of the racist soldier. It helped that Seteth was sympathetic towards Dimitri's motivation.
• Writer on Board: The encounter with the Flame Emperor at Remire. In the original game, it's a moment in which the Emperor and Jeralt argue about the former's actions before the Emperor makes a plea to Byleth to join their side. In the fanfic, it becomes a one-sided argument between Claude and Atra against the Flame Emperor, which mostly consists of the first two aggressively espousing the author's opinions of the latter, while the Emperor goes full Straw Character and defends themselves in a poor and out of character way. Byleth and Jeralt go mostly ignored.
• You Are in Command Now: Claude ends up taking command of the armies of the Alliance from his grandfather in Chapter 53 when the latter decides that the war would be too taxing on him, which also handily gives him Failnaught. Claude lampshades this in his own special way.
  Claude: It would take a continent-wide war to make gramps finally decide he was too old for this shit.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: In Chapter 40, Claude drops his typical nickname of "Teach" and refers to Byleth directly by her given name when warning her to be careful when she goes after Kronya.
• You Do Not Want To Know: An Agarthan civilian and former apprentice to Cornelia informs Edelgard that they don't want to know what happened to Anselma. When they persist, it's revealed she was duped into thinking the Tragedy of Duscur would be nothing more than a simple ruckus; when she saw her second husband decapitated, she fled into a nearby forest, tripped, and died of internal bleeding.
• You Have Failed Me: After failing to conquer Fódlan, Edelgard is violently subdued by Thales and taken to Shambhala to be turned into a Hegemon Husk while the Empire is left to burn.
• You're Insane!: Holst affectionately calls Claude "the maddest lord to ever grace Fódlan's landscape" in a letter sent after he calls in his Almyran brethren to save the Alliance from Imperial forces.

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