Chapter Text
It’s the same nightmare as usual.
She’s sitting on the cold stone floor, wearing rags that barely cover anything. She shivers; it’s cold, so cold. But she’s not alone; someone else is laying on their side at the other end of the cell. Their identity varies, but it’s always one of her siblings; tonight, it’s Bridget. The sweet, kind girl Edelgard used to make daisy chains with is wearing rags too, and scars cover her bone-thin body. She reaches out and moans, “El…help me…”
Edelgard tries to close the gap between them, but she’s frozen in place, and all she can do is watch helplessly as rats begin pouring out from every corner of the room and swarming her sister. Within seconds, the rats are everywhere; she can’t see Bridget anymore. She can’t even see the floor. She tries and tries to scream, but no sound comes out. Rats begin to climb on her, and her anxiety spikes.
No matter how many times she has this nightmare, it never fails to terrify her. Her fear is raw and deep and seemingly endless, and there’s no escape. She’s at the mercy of her mind, trapped in this horrible, horrible scenario.
Then from somewhere beyond her subconscious, she hears her name being called, and for a second she’s distracted from the horror in front of her. Something touches her hair, and she flinches violently, but it’s not malicious…it’s pleasant. Her hair is being gently stroked. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to focus on that instead of the rats squirming around her.
This isn’t the first time. She often finds herself in this position; when she’s frozen, terrified out of her mind, she hears her name and feels a hand running through her hair. It’s how her parents used to calm her down from a bad dream. She’s still intensely afraid, but it does make the nightmare a little bit more bearable.
She awakens with a start, breathing heavily, sweat beading on her forehead. She thinks she sees a flash of black disappear out her bedroom door, and she reflexively tenses, but the moment passes quickly and she convinces herself she imagined it.
She forces herself to take deep breaths, and she stares unseeing into the darkness that envelops her like a blanket. It was just a dream. She’s safe; nothing’s out to get her anymore.
Completely safe.
There’s an old folktale, common throughout Fodlan. Its origins have been lost to time. Over the centuries, numerous variations have developed; parents use the basic details to spin a cautionary tale, hoping to keep their children from leaving their rooms during the night. Teenagers share a more animated version in hushed whispers, as they would a ghost story, in an attempt to spook their friends. But no matter the version, the basis is the same:
In addition to humans, another intelligent race occupies the continent. Whereas humans are creatures of the light, ruling the land during the day, this race hides in the dark. Its members are but shadows of creatures that roam the continent under the cover of night. They are viciously malevolent and hold a deep-seated disgust for their daytime counterparts. They are bound to the darkness, for if they touch even a ray of sunlight they burn out of existence. But an elite few circumvent this weakness by disguising themselves amongst humans.
Some alterations of this tale say these creatures devour souls and possess the bodies that once housed them. Others say they eat humans and wear their skin as a costume. Either way, the versions agree that many of the most influential figures in human history have been replaced, and in this way these dark imposters have been secretly controlling Fodlan from the beginning. For most people, the story ends here. But there’s another ending, shared rarely and told by only the most daring storytellers: the creatures’ goal is to purge the continent of all humanity, and they will not rest until they’ve replaced every human with one of their own.
Edelgard heard the story for the first time from her mother’s lips. The night before, she’d been caught sneaking out of her room again. As the woman wove 4-year-old Edelgard’s long brown hair into a braid, she murmured,
“You shouldn’t leave your room at night. If you open the door, the monsters might slither into your room when you aren’t looking and take your soul!” She said it in a teasing voice, and Edelgard giggled, but something about her words struck a chord in the young girl, and she never snuck out at night again.
The next time she heard the story was from her older brother, who spun a much more graphic tale about demons who entered homes at night to eat unsuspecting children and steal their bodies. It scared Edelgard so much she ran to her father crying. Later, she overheard him scolding her brother:
“You’re a teenager now, and you should know better. She’s only 8, you can’t tell her such violent things. In fact, you shouldn’t be telling that story at all. I do not want to hear of it again.”
“Yes, Papa,” her brother had murmured apologetically. But later he had whispered to her that every word was true, making her cry again. She had nightmares for weeks afterward.
She was only a child then; it was natural for those stories to spike fear in her. But she’s 19 now, and far past the age of believing in them. Her mother was tired of having to correct her behavior every night, so she used an old folktale to do the work for her. As for Edelgard’s brother, she knows now he didn’t believe the story either; he knew she would, though, so he told it merely to get a reaction out of her.
She’s much too old now for fairy tales, pleasant or not. She hasn’t believed in such childish fictions since she was 9, when her world turned upside-down and she was forced through the eternal flames and back. Since then, she’s approached the world with a pragmatic lens. All she concerns herself with is what she can see in front of her. There’s no fairies or unicorns. There’s no Goddess. And there’s no such thing as evil creatures that slither in the dark.
Right?