Work Text:
1. Hemholz von Hresvelg, despite all assumptions, was born strong and healthy on his expected date. It was a childhood case of Scarlet Fever that caused the poor health and weak constitution he was known for during the rest of his short life.
2. Of all the siblings, Laure is the one who longed to marry and start a family most of all. Despite being the third child of Emperor Ionius IX, she was the most maternal and domestic of the siblings, even the older ones. She had names for her first child picked out long before she was thinking about her future spouse.
3. Of all of her siblings, Edelgard was closest to Clara and Franz. She was almost five years old when the latter was born, and she was so excited at having a new sibling that Anselma and Clara had to keep her from asking to go in and see him the moment his mother's nurse came out.
4. Despite their closeness, or maybe because of it, Edelgard tended to squabble with Clara more than she did with her other older siblings. This usually ended with Edelgard running away in tears and Clara being the one to apologize until Anselma gently but firmly told Edelgard that sometimes she was the unreasonable one, and that maybe she should apologize to Clara for making her feel bad.
5. Franz's favorite book was Goodnight Fox, Meet the Moon. Edelgard would read it to him twice a week at least, and while they were underground she would tell the story from memory to soothe his fits of insanity and tears. When she left for the Officers Academy, she brought the book with her not to read, but to keep in her desk as a reminder of why she was aiming to build a new future.
6. Ernst is a whole ten minutes older than Therion. Their mother, a twin herself, expected this to be a point of conflict the way it was with her three-minutes-older sister, but surprisingly it never came up even when the boys argued.
7. Rosalind was the artist of the family, and many times she tried to teach Edelgard how to draw or paint. It never took, and Rosalind let her give up after realizing it was stressful for her. Only after her death would Edelgard try again, not to improve but to keep her sister's gift alive in some way.
8. Clara was the accidental first kiss for Hubert, Edelgard's personal guard and childhood friend. She would apologize to Edelgard for this during their time underground, though neither one knew why. Edelgard eventually figured it out.
9. While there was some jealousy and friction among Ionius IX's legal wife and concubines, the children were encouraged to get along and see each other as family, not rivals, and this eventually helped their mothers become like sisters to each other.
10. The Emperor had a total of six concubines, Anselma included; two of them died, while Martha's mother was taken back by her family after the Insurrection of the Seven. Only Rosalind's mother would remain with Ionius until her own death shortly before Edelgard left for the Officers Academy.
11. Franz's mother has a difficult pregnancy and a dangerous childbirth that left her weakened for months after, and she eventually died before Franz was even a year old. Anselma, who'd been close to the woman, raised Franz as her own alongside Edelgard.
12. Edelgard and Clara always liked cats, but Ernst's allergies meant they could never keep one in the palace. Instead, they would take care of a cat in the gardens. Edelgard named him Sir Kitty before she and Clara discovered he was going to have kittens.
13. Jules absolutely doted on Martha, and she in turn worshipped him to the point where she wanted her future husband to be just like him otherwise she'd never get married. They were so close that until the end, Jules protected her by insisting the mysterious mages experiment on him first; he died with Martha holding his hand and begging him not to leave her.
14. Edelgard, Laure, and Alain were the only Imperial children not to have siblings from the same mothers. Alain's mother died when he was still young, Laure's mother was unable to have any more due to a carriage accident when Laure was five, and the Empire was thrown into chaos before Anselma could discuss having another child with Ionius IX.
15. Rosalind and Hemholz often took it upon themselves to act as parental figures whenever the children were alone, to little avail: Hemholz's poor health led to everyone else fussing over him (to his chagrin) while Rosalind's mature poise fell apart at the prospect of sweets.
16. Hemholz was, surprisingly, not the first to succumb to the experiments' toll on the siblings' bodies. Ernst was, and this drove Therion to such madness that he at first denied his twin was dead and later genuinely believed he was still alive. Even when he died, he apologized to Ernst for abandoning him.
17. Alain was the only sibling who continued to pray to the Goddess for help until the end, due to his mother being the most religious of the Emperor's ladies; even when help never arrived, he refused to stop, and when his end came he asked the Goddess to take him straight to his mother.
18. Franz was one of the last to die, babbling nonsense up until the end. Rather than lie and tell him everything would be okay, Edelgard read his favorite story to him one last time. He was dead before she was halfway through, but she finished it anyway.
19. Clara was the only other survivor of the experiments, but not for long. Shortly after she and Edelgard returned to the palace, she grew weaker and started coughing up blood. When the healer said it was only a matter of time, Edelgard refused to leave her side and remained with her until the end, holding her hand as she slowly slipped away.
20. Years after the war and shortly after their marriage, Edelgard and Hubert named their children not after her siblings, but the names Laure always wanted for her future child: Miera for their daughter, and Bernard for their son.