History Fanfic / AnEagleAmongLions

* GoodCounterpart: In Chapters 71-73, [[spoiler:Edelgard and Dimitri travel back in time to 1401 years before the foundation of the Adrestian Empire and meet ancient versions of Thales and his commanders. They turn out to be good people (with the exception of Myson), and Thales in particular is horrified that his distant descendant will become the petty tyrant of one old military bunker. Edelgard compares their relationship to that of her own Black Eagle Strike Force.]]

* YouCantFightFate: Once {{Stable Time Loop}}s start coming into play, Edelgard is horrified to realize that some of their actions are set in stone and averting them will cause a destructive paradox. This ranges from [[spoiler:Edelgard being forced to allow past Thales to escape to 1172 so he can cause the Tragedy of Duscur, murder Felix's family, and ruin Dimitri's life]] to [[spoiler:ancient Thales' efforts to stop New Babel and the destruction of old humanity being doomed to failure]].

* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: In Chapter 73, [[spoiler:past Pittacus ''throws a loaded pistol at Edelgard, a medieval-era princess who has never even seen a firearm before in her life''. The fact nobody gets their head blown off is a miracle and a half.]]

** Chapter 11 has two, first with Edelgard confronting Claude on [[spoiler:being the other time traveler]], she decides to see if he is as he claims to be.
---> '''Claude:''' This whole world’s been hard to adjust to.\\

---> '''Claude:''' [[spoiler:''First'' note? What do you mean, ''first'' note?]]

---> '''Claude:''' I’ve been receiving more of those letters. The first letter I got said that nobody can know their own future.\\

---> '''Alois:''' [[spoiler:Seteth and Flayn just showed up at the front gates. They're both hurt. Badly.]]

---> [[spoiler:''I tried the neck trick on Constance before dinner. It didn’t work. IT ISN’T HER.'']]

---> '''Seteth:''' Professor Byleth, Lady Edelgard… [[spoiler:Pan the Tactician sends his regards. [[labelnote:note]]Due to time shenanigans, Ashe is Pan the Tactician in this timeline.[[/labelnote]]]]

* {{Irony}}: By the time of the main story, Count Varley has basically dismissed Bernadetta as a lost cause for marriage prospects. [[spoiler:When Adrestia falls into a SuccessionCrisis, both claimants to the throne offer proposals to Bernadetta to get Count Varley's support, which would put him a hair's breath from the throne itself.]]

* RunningGag: Edelgard's siblings Joachim and Justine have a tendency to be chided for foul language.

---> [[spoiler:'''Ingrid''']]''':''' Is that supposed to put me at ease?\\

[[spoiler:'''Ingrid''']]''':''' You think we have ''anything'' in common?\\

* RunningGag: Edelgard's siblings (especially Joachim and Justine) have a tendency to be chided for foul language.

* StressVomit: Dimitri's reaction to [[spoiler:learning the truth about the Nabateans]] is to declare he's going to be sick, and then promptly do so.

** Unlike in Edelgard's world, where Seteth and Flayn remain in the monastery after the latter was rescued from her kidnapping, both decide to leave Garreg Mach as Seteth initially planned. Likely because the Hurricane King made it clear that [[spoiler:he knows that Seteth and Flayn are Nabateans]] and he nearly choked Seteth to death.

* AlasPoorScrappy: An InUniverse example of sorts. [[spoiler:Despite her long-standing hatred of the Church and atheist[=/=]{{Naytheist}} attitude towards it and Sothis, Edelgard realizes, after Byleth tells her and Hilda about the MergerOfSouls performed to empower Byleth in Chapter 23 at the cost of Sothis's life/consciousness, that she really does miss her. Later on, she even takes time to "pray" with Marianne in remembrance of her.]]
-->[[spoiler:Edelgard felt as though the ground had dropped out from under her feet, and found herself shocked not only by what Byleth had said but that it had struck her with such force in the first place. Surely she couldn’t ''miss'' that little gremlin of a so-called deity.]]
* AlternateTimeline: The world Edelgard ends up in is one where she and her siblings were never subjected to the Agarthans’ Crest experiments and they are all alive and well as a result. Lysithea and her siblings were similarly spared from the experiments; consequently, she didn’t feel pressured by [[YourDaysAreNumbered a shortened lifespan]] to enroll at the Officers Academy at such a young age, while her older brother (who is still alive) attends instead. Hanneman from Edelgard’s world theorizes that the differences between the two timelines might have been artificially engineered, [[spoiler:and is proven correct when Edelgard discovers that the engineer is none other than her world’s Thales, who arrived in the other timeline several years before Edelgard to [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight turn Dimitri into a tool much more obedient than she was]]]].
** [[spoiler: Additionally, there is the mysterious third timeline from which [[HiddenVillain Desdinova]], a.k.a. [[MentalTimeTravel Future]] [[{{Doppelmerger}} Claude]], hails]].
* AndIMustScream: When the Black Eagle Strike Force confronts Thales in the present timeline, they ultimately defeat him by [[CementShoes anchoring him to the bottom of the ocean]], but not killing him right away to avoid triggering a DeadMansSwitch that would launch a barrage of javelins of light wherever he is killed.
** The ultimate fate of [[spoiler: the iteration of Thales from Future Claude's timeline]] is to [[MentalTimeTravel mentally time travel]] into a past version of himself, his very soul [[YouCantFightFate forever compelled by temporal casualty]] [[TimeLoopTrap to re-enact the thoughts and actions which lead to his own travel through time]].
--->[[spoiler: '''Edelgard:''' At the height of his conquest, he becomes his own past self, doomed to have his machinations and his impeccable manipulations play out in an endless loop — doomed to play the exact same performance, never faltering, never erring, never deviating by even a single line, for all eternity, trapped in the hell of his greatest triumph — just as a book never changes, no matter how many times one reads it. And just as one would grow sick of reading their favorite story every day and nothing else, just as one would grow sick of having their favorite sweets for every meal and nothing else, Thales is going to be gorged on his one and only victory for all eternity, forever and ever. Never advancing, never growing. His ending… is never-ending.”]]
*** See also: the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle Novikov self-consistency principle]]''.

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: Chapter 38 is written from Dimitri's perspective, and Chapter 59 is written from Ingrid's perspective. Chapter 74 is told through the eyes of [[spoiler:Kronya]], while the interlude in Chapter 76 places readers within the headspace of [[spoiler:Seiros]].

* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Near the end of Chapter 26, Seteth and Flayn have returned to Garreg Mach, albeit badly injured. Subverted with Seteth, as the Seteth who came back isn't truly Seteth.]]

* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Even in the alternte timeline, a number of people can plainly see that Edelgard's head over heels with Byleth, [[ObliviousToLove except for Byleth herself]]. Though it is complicated as Edelgard is already married to the Byleth in her world.

-->'''Nader:''' "So long as I die after our victory, my record stands. Tell them all, Prince Khalid, of Nader the Undefeated and the Prince Astride Two Worlds, and their duel with the No-Eyed King. And how the Emperor of Adrestia helped."
* HopeSpot:
** In Chapter 1, after Edelgard learns of the circumstances of her alternate self, she briefly wonders if it means that Those Who Slither don't exist in this timeline as well. Then near the end of the chapter, when Byleth and the Blue Lions return from their latest mission, Edelgard finds out that Mercedes and Dimitri's hair are both white, she realized to her horror that Those Who Slither do exist and that Dimitri's this timeline's version of the Flame Emperor.

* SuccessionCrisis: In Chapter 20, it's revealed that [[spoiler:Anselm has made a bid to claim the throne of Adrestia in the wake of the emperor's passing, claiming that Ionious IX willed him to be his successor due to his Crest of Seiros in defiance of Adrestia's tradition of primogeniture stipulating the eldest brother Burkhart should be emperor. Within the next few chapters, Burkhart claims to have the support of Count Bergliez, Anselm claims Count Hevring and definitely has Duke Gerth and Count Varley, and Duke Aegir and Marquise Vestra remain neutral for the time being. Edelgard also deduces that those who slither in the dark are likely taking advantage of the crisis to cause civil disarray in Adrestia and soften it up for an eventual invasion.]]