[ It is Byleth's turn, to aim words at him that strike so sincerely that he feels the wind knocked out of him. Sometimes, people manage it. They manage to cut through the layers of pain, of wrath he drags around himself like a shield and the bleak line of insanity that echoes like misery in his soul. Happy endings? Happy endings! Byleth wants him to have happy endings? ]

— you think, there is a happy ending for me?

[ The ghost that haunts him looks upon Byleth coldly, and skillfully twists the tender thing that he offers Set into his own weapon: Of course there is a happy ending. I offered it to you, so long ago, with me. No fantasy could ever compete. ( Set does not want him near Byleth, does not want to know what he could do to the fragile thing that co-exists alongside Sothis's heart. Even though Osiris is naught but a memory, he is so tangible and real a fiction that — that maybe, even Byleth's fiction could be true? )

Sleek as a ribbon in the breeze, he closes the gap between the two of them. Claws and curled fingers that bite into Byleth's hand and higher, against his forearm. Inelegant, but still lovely in the way that he is akin to a wild animal, a predator that mildly recognizes something familiar in someone that approaches out, but must still bite that offered hand because that is what it does. ]

He is there, [ he tells Byleth sharply, ] not truly, but he is always there. Show me the happy endings, instead. Make me believe in your fiction.