[Byleth was used to existing beneath a constant level of pressure - it was the norm when you were a mercenary, even as infamous as he and Jeralt had been. The pressure to succeed, the pressure to keep winning, the pressure to remain employed so you could supply your men, maintain your weapons, feed your mounts, the pressure to fight and win and win and win or, on some days, just survive. True, Jeralt visited taverns often, and they skipped the tab and had a few nights where the company got wasted and rowdy... but no one had ever truly relaxed. You couldn't. Mercenaries weren't afforded the luxury.
It was different here, though. Though the pressure remained, it was far more thinly spread yet precisely crushing in different ways. Byleth was given a stipend to feed himself, he didn't have to worry about the elements, and neither did he have to worry about the camp being overrun by wild beasts, bandits or rival mercenaries. He just had to be on guard for when the next Oracle came, or if a new threat emerged from the fog of war. He could now, in the vast amounts of free time given to him, relax.
Problem was, he was bad at it. Inexperienced. It made him feel unproductive or agitated - sometimes surly, thought he was only beginning to realise this. That's how he'd been when he had first arrived here: snappish, uncooperative, and judgemental. When they'd lost the Oracle, and Byleth had been quick to dismiss the others' lamenting - viewing their griping as unproductive. Claude had tried to tell him it served a purpose, an emotional one, but Byleth hadn't really taken it to heart... until much later, when he'd processed that he had been much the same. He'd been hurting and angry, but utterly incapable of recognising it in himself. He felt embarrassed about himself, looking back.]
But, I'm beginning to understand how vital morale is to maintaining a fighting spirit within our faction. I didn't understand before, I was quick to judge and dismiss, but... after some self-reflection, I realised that I was suffering from a lack of morale, and it made me... aimless and dispirited. A dangerous state to be in for a mercenary.
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[Byleth was used to existing beneath a constant level of pressure - it was the norm when you were a mercenary, even as infamous as he and Jeralt had been. The pressure to succeed, the pressure to keep winning, the pressure to remain employed so you could supply your men, maintain your weapons, feed your mounts, the pressure to fight and win and win and win or, on some days, just survive. True, Jeralt visited taverns often, and they skipped the tab and had a few nights where the company got wasted and rowdy... but no one had ever truly relaxed. You couldn't. Mercenaries weren't afforded the luxury.
It was different here, though. Though the pressure remained, it was far more thinly spread yet precisely crushing in different ways. Byleth was given a stipend to feed himself, he didn't have to worry about the elements, and neither did he have to worry about the camp being overrun by wild beasts, bandits or rival mercenaries. He just had to be on guard for when the next Oracle came, or if a new threat emerged from the fog of war. He could now, in the vast amounts of free time given to him, relax.
Problem was, he was bad at it. Inexperienced. It made him feel unproductive or agitated - sometimes surly, thought he was only beginning to realise this. That's how he'd been when he had first arrived here: snappish, uncooperative, and judgemental. When they'd lost the Oracle, and Byleth had been quick to dismiss the others' lamenting - viewing their griping as unproductive. Claude had tried to tell him it served a purpose, an emotional one, but Byleth hadn't really taken it to heart... until much later, when he'd processed that he had been much the same. He'd been hurting and angry, but utterly incapable of recognising it in himself. He felt embarrassed about himself, looking back.]
But, I'm beginning to understand how vital morale is to maintaining a fighting spirit within our faction. I didn't understand before, I was quick to judge and dismiss, but... after some self-reflection, I realised that I was suffering from a lack of morale, and it made me... aimless and dispirited. A dangerous state to be in for a mercenary.