always beside me

Chapter 1

This story was written for commission. It updates monthly once I'm caught up on posting it here, because it was a reward for a specific tier on patreon. It will contain eventual smut, including some dom/sub stuff, mild bondage, and role reversal.

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Now that their war with the church has come to an end, now that Edelgard has succeeded in reuniting Fodlan under the banner of the empire and can begin working towards her loftier ambitions, Hubert has his own concerns to worry about.

For far too long, those who slither in the dark have kept their sights on Edelgard, using her as a puppet for their own ambitions, and he has only been able to stand at her side, watching her helplessly as she had no choice other than to bend to their whims, forming her own ideals and her own plans despite that pressure, until she was able to use them to achieve her own goals, just as they used her. It would not stay this way forever, she promised Hubert, and he always made the same promise in return.

When she had the power she needed, when she was done using them and needed nothing more from them, when she no longer had reason to do their horrible bidding and when the pain they inflicted was no longer a necessary sacrifice, then, she could work on eliminating them entirely, until her ambitions were all that remained.

However, ruling the continent is not something she can afford to slack off on. She has an entirely new system of government to establish as she works on ridding the world of nobility and eliminating the importance of Crests, and building everything up so that, eventually, she can step down and someone more capable can take her place. With all of that to worry about, there is no time for her to worry about the devils at her back, much less to hunt them out and make sure that they can never do her, or anyone else, any more harm. But that is what Hubert is there for; after dedicating his life to serving her, not due to the traditions of his family but due to his respect for her as a friend and a ruler, he knows that there is no job he is better suited for.

Politics, he can leave to his former classmates, who made the decision to remain loyal to her even when it meant forsaking their families and renouncing their titles. He has never had the charisma necessary to handle politics, but then, House Vestra was never intended to serve on the political side of things. Even with the system of nobility steadily becoming a thing of the past, he knows what his house is good for, and he knows how to use them to achieve his goals. Even in his school days, even younger than that, he was orchestrating assassinations and executions, sniffing out threats to Edelgard, and ensuring that everything went according to her plans.

Now, he is ready to use those connections to search for those who have done her the most harm, hiding in the shadows and only emerging when they needed something from her. They are an elusive enemy, but not impossible to find, because, during the war, they had to show themselves too much. And by showing their hand too much, Hubert knows exactly what he has to do, and where his battle will begin.

The surprising part of all of this is that he will not be doing this alone.

The assistance from his house and his connections are one thing, but he never intended to bring any outsiders into this. Then again, can he really call their former professor an outsider, when she has had more insight than any of their classmates? Edelgard took a shine to Byleth before they knew they could trust her, drawn to her because she understood similarities that went beyond what the eye could see, and no matter how Hubert tried to persuade her from trusting the professor, she did not listen.

In the end, Byleth became one of their most valuable allies, exposed to secrets that no one else had the privilege of learning, and the three of them became inseparable as even Hubert learned to trust her. Despite her oddities and distant nature, despite all the things about her that initially left him certain that she would betray him, Byleth proved herself again and again, until he found himself opening up to her like it was nothing, in ways that he never thought he could open up to another.