Byleth returns...?

She was back.

Another pulse had been spent and now Byleth needed to make sure to get out quickly and quietly. There was no time to reminisce about the time she had spent with him, as she may become truly lost if she were caught once again. She grasped the handle but found the door wedged firm. She pulled again, but still it refused to give. There wasn’t even a sound, a jostling of the door, nothing - it was as though it had been frozen. The handle started to chill. Her fingers grasped the handle tighter, **** to undo the lock, but was only met with the ever-increasing bite of the cold metal.

“Remember: until the end of days.”

Byleth released the door and spun around to face the voice. It was Kostas, as bare as she remembered. She tried to open her mouth, tried to speak, but couldn’t find her voice. Byleth backed up as he approached, but felt not the wooden door from earlier, but hard stone. She could feel it against her skin, her clothes now gone from her. Gone too were the windows. The desk, her books, the chest where she kept what few possessions she cared for, gone. The only object that remained in the room was a bed, the sheets a scattered mess.

Kostas reached out for her, placing his hand behind her neck as he towered over her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t refuse. Byleth could only meet his gaze as he claimed her lips with a kiss.

Daylight filled the chamber, Byleth’s eyes wearily adjusting to the dawn. She felt as though it was dark not but a second ago. Dark and cold. But warmth embraced her now… a pressing, enveloping comfort.

Byleth’s eyes went wide as past events came back to her. Clutched around her waist was the arm of that man, Kostas. He held her close and she could feel his form press against her back: his powerful arms, his bristly chest, his-

She must have fallen asleep...! She needed to go back! She could feel that ethereal pull and all she needed to do was reach out for it and she could undo all of this... But she could also feel something else, something coaxing her away from it. She realized there was a certain sense of… belonging here, with him. It was a peacefulness she had never experienced before, her life as a mercenary never really afforded her any stability. Was this really so bad? She could still teach and live her life with him, Who cares what the other students would think? Perhaps she could even smooth some of the rougher parts of his personality…

“I could make this work…” she told herself…