Feeling human

Byleth Eisner, for his entire life, has had great difficulty understanding what emotions are like, but he knew one thing for sure: he felt like an outcast, a freak. Between his ability to speak to animals like it's the most natural thing in the world, to being known as the Ashen Demon who kills his enemies ruthlessly and efficiently, those around him both hate and fear him. Lonely and not understanding why, he takes it as normal until a fateful encounter with a sky-blue-haired girl named Marianne, who reminds him of a friend he knew from childhood.

Marianne, for her whole life, had felt like a curse and a burden to others. Her greatest fear was her crest and becoming the very thing that she had always feared her ancestor became. Feeling like a curse and a burden, she holds people at arm's length, afraid to befriend anyone, feeling like an outcast and having nowhere to belong. Her only solace is with animals. Not even her childhood friend is able to save her from the loneliness she feels. Things change when she meets the professor of the Black Eagles, who reminds her of her friend Byl from her childhood.