Arranged

Eight: Missing

Over the next several weeks Kiera integrated into the Blue Lion's class through she often skipped one on one combat classes. She was a bit of a menace with Expeliarmus. Though everyone seemed to notice that she was perpetually exhausted.

The days melded into one another, a continuous cycle of classes and training that left little time for rest, let alone introspection. Meals were taken in hurried silence, study sessions stretched late into the night, and sleep became a luxury she could seldom afford. Days off she was nowhere to be found. She kept to herself which was odd and concerning behavior.

One night, A piercing scream roused most of the student barracks. Dimitri recognized it as Kiera screaming and he was up and out of his bed darting to her room in just his trousers. Dedue was out of his own room shortly after with a loose shirt and trousers on, his hair down and unkempt.

The two entered her dorm room and found her thrashing, tangled up in the blankets.

"Kiera!" Dedue exclaimed trying to get her to calm down.

An arm flailed and knocked into the dresser and she instinctively grabbed her wand, before Dimitri or Dedue could get ahold of the situation, Kiera teleported away with a startling fizz pop.

"No!" Dimitri cried

Dedue grabbed the blankets and pulled them off the bed and she hadn't shrunk down. She had disappeared.

"What happened?!" Annette cried as other students quickly gathered outside of the room

"Kiera disappeared. She was having a nightmare and she teleported in her sleep before we could wake her up." Dedue replied.

"We'll help you two look for her." Sylvain stated.

Ashe urged everyone else to go back to sleep.

The blue lion class searched the entire monastery for Kiera, not finding her anywhere. They reconvened outside the dormitories.

"This is incredibly frustrating." Dimitri ran a hand through his hair.

"Where did she go?" Annette asked worriedly.

"She was so distressed." Mercedes wrung her hands anxiously. She just wanted to help.

"Maybe she left." Felix crossed his arms over his chest.

"Where would she go? She can't go back to that fancy school. Her parents don't want her, one wants her dead. her sister lives here, Dedue goes wherever Dimitri goes. She has no home." Sylvain stated.

The Duscurn man clenched his fists. The words were true but they still stung.  He couldn't provide a safe space for his wife to escape to.

"Is there anywhere else we can look?" Byleth asked.

The other blue lions tried to think of where she had possibly gone when Dedue remembered something that Kiera tried to show him earlier that day but he'd been too busy with chores and school work and had promised to see it the next day on their free day.

He followed what he remembered her doing and walked over to a specific tree and then turned towards an adjacent alleyway.

"Where is Dedue going?" Ashe asked.

"What?" Dimitri asked, turning around and noticing the large man walking off with purpose.

Dedue reached the spot she had mentioned and there was a set of barrels that hadn't been there before. Strange. He then recalled one of her letters and attempted something. The barrel two from the bottom, middle of the second row, he rapped out a specific knock pattern.

Behind him a door bled into existence in the stone and once it had finished forming he pushed it open into a very unexpected short hallway. Dorms were on the other side of that wall so not seeing someone's bedroom on the other side was quite jarring.