Chapter 1: The Millenium Festival
Chapter Text
Annette shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot, then grabbed Felix’s arm in a rush. She had to do something before she could head back home, to Dominic territory with the group sent by her uncle to fetch her back from the Fraldarius house. It was where many of the Kingdom students of the Academy had retreated for rest and recuperation after the fall of Garreg Mach, and she’d already lingered probably a little too long.
Leaving felt too final though, just like all the goodbyes and farewells she’d already said.
“Felix,” she managed, fingers tangled in the fabric of his sleeve. He paused in taking his step away, looking down at her. His brow was raised–he wasn’t glaring at her like she might have thought eight months ago, but the playful smile that she’d seen when he’d teased her about her songs wasn’t anywhere to be found. It was the expression he used when he was curious, and she swallowed and scrambled for the words she’d intended to say. “I...I know I may not be able to tell you much, or really anything you don’t already know, probably, but I–would it be okay if I wrote to you? From time to time?”
She felt her face burning– oh, no, Annette, he’s never going to let you live this down, he’s going to see right through you and your little crush–WHAT, no, Annette, don’t think about that, he’ll read your mind –
“Any information is good information,” he said instead, after a pause long enough that Annette nearly lost herself in her internal panic, but his tone was...less edged than she expected. It wasn’t exactly the warmest answer she could’ve received and she tried not to let herself sag at it. It’s Felix , she reminded herself–she hadn’t expected much from the start...right?
After another moment, he raised his other hand, the one she hadn’t halted when she’d grabbed his sleeve, and awkwardly pushed the hair out of his face. It was looser, today, and she blamed his mid-morning spar with Dimitri. “I don’t...I don’t mind. You sending me letters, I mean.”
A sigh of relief, and she dared a glance up at him. He wasn’t looking at her, and...were his cheeks a bit pink? It was cold outside, so Annette realized she’d better not keep him too long. She couldn’t help another dig, though.
“And will you write back ?”
Felix ran a hand through his hair again in full, the same nervous or aggravated tic he had, and ended up knocking more stray strands loose. Annette wondered if she’d crossed the line, and was about to say he didn’t have to when he glanced back at her with one quick, calculating gaze, then looked back at the horizon. She didn’t miss that his eyes followed the direction that Ingrid and Sylvain and Dimitri had left just before the Dominic knights had arrived, just a half hour or so ago. And then, haltingly, he admitted, “I’m not...good at them. Letters, I mean.”
She let a giggle escape, then used the hand on his sleeve to swing his arm a little as she swayed playfully in place, “That’s fine! Just a few words, to let me know you got the letter or something! Maybe how you’re doing, if you get ambitious!”
The pink spread to the rest of his face, so she knew she shouldn’t keep him out. Faerghus was always chilly, and Garreg Mach hadn’t prepared them to really come back in such a rush. And since it was so cold, he’d probably think her blush was from the same thing.
“I’ll try.”
It was as much as she could get out of him, and she decided to tease him just a little more. She was a bit unsure about it, but she carefully released his sleeve then, taking a step back and offering a silly little curtsy, exaggerated for effect.
“Thank you for your courtesy, Sir Fraldarius,” she said, as properly as she knew how, though keeping her laughter out of her tone was hard and she suspected he knew it. Felix turned back to her with an incredulous look on his face, anyway. Probably at the traditional Faerghus words of parting or something, since she knew he didn’t really value traditions as much as Ingrid, or even Lord Rodrigue.
“It’s Felix,” he intoned, a familiar ice back in his voice, but she knew it wasn’t meant to attack. She giggled, and then smiled at him brightly.
“Yeah, okay, Felix. Just remember to smile sometimes, okay? And I’ll write you!”
Annette gave him a smile, her heart beating fast and hoping, hoping this wouldn’t be the last time she ever saw him. She turned and went to the horse awaiting her, accepting a Dominic knight’s assistance to mount, and turned around to wave at him.
She didn’t expect much from Felix, but he raised his hand and her chest squeezed.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she murmured under her breath to him, though he was far from within earshot of it, then finally turned her back as the captain of the small group she was to travel with asked if she was ready. Annette swallowed a little nervousness down at being away from all those she’d come to rely on, and nodded.
She wrote him. Felix wrote back, sometimes, though his answers were sometimes short and awkward, and sometimes only came after she’d sent two or even three of her own. She tried not to write him too often–maybe once a month, twice if she’d already written and heard news she thought he’d need to know. She somehow seemed to still write him more frequently than that, anyway.
But even seeing his writing, much neater than she might have suspected, filled her chest with warmth.
He was taking the time to indulge her, when she somewhat suspected he’d only ever really written to Ingrid and Sylvain, maybe Dimitri, and maybe even his father. She felt like letters to his father may have only ever been for official business and would’ve been a bit more forced. The fact that he would add her to that short list was enough for her.
But a year passed, and then two, and then three, and she still hadn’t seen him again. Or really, anyone aside from Mercie on a short trip to Fhirdiad with her uncle.
Dominic lands were getting closer and closer to the front, and rumors of what lengths the Empire was going to in order to win the Kingdom lords to their side were...unpleasant. Nearby lands had fallen to Adrestia already, and more were rumored to fall each day.
Take care , she always wrote.
I heard that the Fraldarius army met the Imperials in battle. I hope you’re doing well , she remembered writing.
Don’t be reckless , she chastised, when he admitted to getting a wound in a recent skirmish. Trifling at best, if he was to be believed, but his penmanship wasn’t as neat as it had been before, and she suspected that his shoulder injury was partially to blame. Annette hoped that it didn’t hinder his ability to fight later, that it was healed properly when one of their healers returned from helping the Gautiers on the Sreng front.
She tried not to be angry that they’d sent their bishops and priests too far afield to help Felix more. To help him immediately .
Somehow, the time they spent apart didn’t diminish the longing in her chest. Annette wanted to at least see him again, even if it included teasing about her crumbs and yums lyrics, or even a repeated request to hear the full version of the library song. She wanted to make sure that he wasn’t lying when he said his wound was fully healed, that everyone was fine.
And then...there was Cornelia.
The fall of Fhirdiad, and the execution of Dimitri.
It was rumored that the body was so disfigured, they didn’t want to torment the public with it. It was also rumored that they didn’t have a body to show because he wasn’t dead, but that was a feeble hope to cling to, and while Annette wanted to believe that Dimitri had escaped, there was no solid proof.
And, for all his bravado, his harsh words and harsher criticisms against the so-called boar prince , Annette thought there was still some part of Felix that would be wounded at his loss. They’d been friends, once, far longer than Annette had known either of them in person. Inseparable , if all the others could be believed. So if she had heard the news and didn’t come out of her room for three days, hardly eating and unable to sleep because she kept remembering his kind face at the monastery, or when a bit of the beast Felix swore was underneath showed when Edelgard was revealed as the Flame Emperor, she couldn’t help wondering what the news had done to Felix.
He had more memories with Dimitri than she did, after all.
She tried to ask, as delicately as possible in a letter three months later, but didn’t get much of an answer. Not one that satisfied her.
And then the Empire was at the Dominic doorstep, and Annette couldn’t really spare it too much more thought. Skirmishes were happening almost daily, and their small forces were dwindling quickly. The battalion that House Gautier spared them, probably because Annette was keeping contact with Ingrid and she had been flitting between the armies of Gautier and Fraldarius to help after telling her father she wouldn’t accept any suitors, was small but well-trained...but it wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t think that her house would last long if they continued resisting, and she knew that her uncle, the current head of House Dominic, planned to bow to the empire rather than risk his citizens.
It was smart, of course, but Annette knew she could never bow herself.
Until that time, Annette was determined to help slow the advance of the Empire, or rather the Empire-supporting Faerghus Dukedom, as much as she could. Her uncle had refused to allow her, wanting her to stay safe and potentially take an imperial suitor, but she had already made her plans. Annette wasn’t the type to give in easily, after all.
She was never sure, in those rough months as the Faerghus Dukedom expanded ever nearer, how long she’d have left to write to Felix, or Ingrid, or Mercie, or even Ashe, but she kept the tone of her letters as cheerful as she could.
My uncle will probably soon bow to the Empire to save his lands , she wrote to Felix, perhaps the only one she really admitted it to because she didn’t want anyone else to worry about her, but until he does, I won’t give up hope. And even if he does bow to them, I’ll leave–nothing in the world could keep me from our Millenium Festival reunion! Even if it’s just me that ends up making the trip, I’ll go. But please don’t let me be the only one, Felix! I’ll see you there, okay?
She sent it about five weeks before the reunion.
Only days later, the Imperial forces started making what she realized would be their final push.
Annette’s warlock uniform still waited in her wardrobe, behind the dresses her uncle would have preferred seeing her wear, and she frequently made sure it still fit. It had been far too long since she’d been able to don it for a proper battle, but nothing would stop her this time.
Garreg Mach awaited, after all. She would not get stuck behind enemy lines here , in her own home.
“News from the front, Lord Rodrigue,” the messenger stood at the door, breathless, and Rodrigue stood from the breakfast table. It piqued his attention instantly, as preparations for war were rampant in Northern Faerghus, spearheaded by his own house and that of Gautier and supported however possible by Galatea and other minor families among the Kingdom loyalists.
“What news?”
The man motioned behind him, and another three men entered, one of his own helping a man in another house’s livery to support an injured soldier in yet another uniform. Gautier, he recognized nearly instantly, and tried to remember what minor lords that the Margrave had sent troops to support. The other livery would probably answer that, so he glanced over and took the wounded man in for a moment before coming to a conclusion. Dominic, wasn’t it? It was one of the small houses that the Gautiers were supporting. The only other notable yet small house that Gautier was supporting was that of House Galatea, which also had the support of Fraldarius.
The Dominic man was injured, and both of them were dirty and bandaged.
“Baron Dominic, sir,” the Gautier man said softly, as Rodrigue himself pulled out a chair for the injured man. “He’s been forced to surrender to the Imperial forces, two days ago now.”
Rodrigue sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Inconvenient for Faerghus, though not entirely unexpected. The stakes?”
“Burning his land and villages,” Rodrigue’s first man supplied, easily. “Threatening the populace. Just as with the last minor lord, sir.”
“I’m glad he surrendered, rather than risk the innocents.”
The last lord had done the opposite, after all. Perhaps as a show of force, the Adrestian Empire carried out their threats.
He didn’t say that it was probably smart of Dominic, being closer to that accursed Dukedom nonsense and the Imperial front, to surrender. Rodrigue himself, with more lands and a weighter title to uphold, didn’t think he could back down until he absolutely must, even if he were the last man standing for his Kingdom. He wanted to think the man a coward, but he couldn’t.
“It’s just…” the second Fraldarius man started to speak and then paused, returning from a quick dash to get bandages for the wounded Dominic man and kneeling quickly before him to clean his wound. “What of Annette?”
“Who–” Duke Rodrigue started, the name somewhat familiar.
“Miss Annette...ordered our retreat. Told us to scatter, tell the other Kingdom lords that her uncle would be surrendering. She told us it was a direct order, that the Kingdom needed to know and then...she went out then, all alone, to protect our escape. She refused to let us stay, even threatening to blow us all away with her wind magic if we tried to.” The man sounded choked, but then he forced, “We don’t know what became of her.”
“Her uncle?” Rodrigue probed again. His second man startled, then glanced up at him once he’d finished disinfecting a wound on the Dominic soldier’s forearm. It was a nasty gash, likely from an arrow or a hastily dodged cutting gale. Maybe the girl had used her own magic on her men, to hasten their retreat.
“Beg pardon, Lord Rodrigue, I thought you knew,” he said, then swallowed, almost nervously. Rodrigue narrowed his eyes, unsure of what would come next. “Baron Dominic’s niece, Annette Fantine Dominic, the daughter of Sir Gustave. Since the fall of Garreg Mach and the retreat of the students of the Officer’s Academy, she’s been exchanging regular letters with Lord Felix.”
If Rodrigue stiffened, he didn’t let it show in his posture.
Internally, though, his mind raced. He had presumed that all of Felix’s correspondence had been to Gautier and Galatea territories, maybe even a few to Fhirdiad before the rumors of a public execution spread when Cornelia, the snake, seized control of the capitol.He’d entertained the thought that Felix had made other friends at the Officer’s Academy, of course, but when his son’s surly visage came into view he’d always shaken it off.
But this. This could have been more than that, and Rodrigue never knew–might never have known–and the uncertainty of the girl’s fate settled uneasily in his stomach.
Whatever it was, how would his son take it? The news that this girl– Annette –had fought, her uncle had surrendered, and that her whereabouts were unknown?
As if taunting him, footsteps rang out from the hall, and Felix himself entered through a side door.
“What’s all this ruckus?” he asked, rolling his shoulder, tone as harsh as usual. A light sheen of sweat on his brow showed that he had just come from his morning exercises, but his eyes fell on the men at the table.
Had Rodrigue not known about the letters Felix had apparently been exchanging, he wouldn’t have looked for his son’s narrowed eyes to widen in surprise–and maybe something else–at the sight of the man in tattered Dominic livery. But he’d just been informed, and he was observant where his son probably thought he wasn’t, so he watched the expression flicker fleetingly across Felix’s visage before he was able to school his expression.
“What news?” he asked instead, with a steely edge in his tone, and Rodrigue would have laughed at the irony of his own words from his son’s lips, if it were not for the weight nestled in his gut.
If the girl was lost, he wondered how it would change his son. The boy had lost too much, and Rodrigue felt he wasn’t adequate to fill those gaping holes. He’d lost his mother, his brother, his prince–and now, possibly a dear friend. Or perhaps even something more, though he didn’t expect Felix to be forthcoming with any information regarding that.
The men looked nervous, so Rodrigue cleared his throat, drawing Felix’s attention to him.
“Baron Dominic was forced to surrender,” Rodrigue intoned, glancing back at the men before him.
“He was bound to be pressed sooner or later,” Felix answered, stiffly. “I take it there was at least a skirmish, before he surrendered?”
His eyes trailed back over the wounded Dominic man, whose arm had been dealt with and whose injured ankle had been propped up on another chair while it was tended to by a girl from the kitchens with reasonable healing talents. Felix's eyes turned, then, to look at the roughed up but seemingly unharmed Gautier soldier.
“When their forces were overwhelmed, the leader of their battalion demanded that they flee and send the message to the other houses in the Kingdom,” Rodrigue had hesitated on saying her name, but his son would be angrier, later, if he didn’t. “And then she–that is, the Duke’s heir Annette–stayed behind to defend their retreat.”
He watched a muscle twitch in Felix’s jaw– so she is at least important to him , Rodrigue thought, with no real joy under the circumstances–and a leather-clad hand gripped the hilt of the Zoltan blade at his hip, almost involuntarily. Defensive, Felix was, and so he always had been. It was nice to see that it was for another’s sake, this time.
“Annette?”
It was just her name, and Rodrigue wondered if that’s all Felix could manage to say at all.
“We don’t have any further information on her whereabouts thus far, though it is still relatively early, since the battle was but two days ago.” He pulled his gaze from his son and, thinking of the girl he didn’t truly know and a blond prince he once swore to protect, he added somberly, “It may be too early to lose hope, yet.”
Felix was not one for hope . Hopes were feeble, easily dashed, and not always something he could protect with his blade–especially when his hopes were so far out of reach, in a place that his blade or even his blossoming magic were too far away to help.
One of the men in the room, he noticed, was one of his regular couriers. Understanding came then–he must have mentioned the letters, and that was why his father was telling him it was too early to lose hope. The letters Felix and Annette had been exchanging, back and forth, for almost five years, a fragile trail of paper that might be one of his last reminders, now, that she had ever been by his side at all.
Hope wasn’t his style, nor was blind faith, but it was Annette .
She was clever and resourceful, a mage that could well surpass many and a burgeoning healer in her own right, who always kept an axe with her on the off-chance her magic should ever fail her and a small knife she’d been gifted by him, two years past for her birthday in these troubled times, the most he could send, supposedly always in her boot. She was clumsy and a bit reckless, but she could think on her feet.
Faith in her wasn’t blind, but Felix didn’t know the odds she’d been against, so the crushing weight of reality sat heavy in his chest.
“Felix?”
He blinked at the sound of his father’s voice, and felt a brief flare of anger within himself for dropping composure.
“If she still lives,” he felt the weight of her last letter in his breast pocket, burning him as though she’d cast a fire spell on it, “then I know where she’ll be in one month’s time.”
It was hard to say that so callously, when all he wanted to do was grab an extra sword, swipe the Fraldarius Relic, and run as fast as his legs or a horse or a damn wyvern would carry him, all the way to where they last saw her. He’d track her, or he’d find what had become of her, and either take her back with him or take the memory of her with him–but two days for injured men to arrive meant that it would be at least one day for him to get to Dominic territory.
A fool’s errand , he told himself, though it twisted his gut.
“What do you mean?”
Rodrigue didn’t deserve the answers, Felix thought, but he’d give them anyway, because saying them out loud would be a more convincing way to convince himself to go, when he’d been on the fence about the reunion since the reports of the boar prince’s execution. But Ingrid and Sylvain, last they wrote, seemed determined to go, and Annette’s last letter, against his chest, held her resolve to go, too.
“Five years ago, the boar prince and the rest of the Blue Lions house agreed to reunite at the Millenium Festival.” His grip on his sword tightened again, and he released it. “I don’t know how many of the fools will be there, but if she’s still alive, that’s where she’ll go.”
“Respect, Felix,” Rodrigue snapped at first, no doubt to the slight against that beast he called a prince. Before Felix could say anything more, he continued, “So that’s why Ingrid and Sylvain will be here by the end of next week,” the older Fraldarius man crossed his arms, brows furrowed in thought. “Preparations, you’ve said, for reconnaissance. But what you really mean is that you leave in a fortnight for Garreg Mach.”
Felix turned on his heel.
“For what’s left of it.”
His boots echoed as he departed. In the silence he left behind, he finally heard his father start giving orders–probably for a healer, better medical attention, a meal and a bath and a change of clothes for the weary soldiers–but Felix could only trail back out to the training grounds. He ignored the surprise of a man he’d just left there only minutes ago, drew his sword, and began slicing through the air, practicing some of the swordplay techniques that a swordmaster in the service of Margrave Gautier had taught him when last Sylvain came through.
If it weren’t for the fact that his emotions were threatening to escape his control, Felix would have tried practicing the thunder spell that currently only drew feeble sparks from his fingertips with any regularity, but he knew enough from his classes in reason five years past that trying to cast magic when your grasp of it was feeble and your emotions volatile could be dangerous.
It was Annette’s voice in his head from their days at Garreg Mach, lecturing him after he taunted Sylvain into using his own newly acquired knowledge of the fire spell and had, consequently, ignited Felix’s sleeve with the small but still out of control burst of flame– Felix, didn’t you listen to the professors? Using your magic before you have confidence in it is dangerous, and Sylvain told you he wasn’t ready! –even as she had patched him up and used her fledgling skills in healing, only recently approved for practical use after passing the priest certification in addition to the mage certification, to ease the burn on his shoulder.
All these years, and Felix could still hear her voice as if she was right next to him–calling him a villain, singing her silly little songs that had carved a place in Felix’s heart–and he didn’t know if he’d get to hear it again.
He shook his head, and his blade whistled through the air.
In spite of everything, now it seemed that Garreg Mach was his only option.
He wasn’t one for sentiment or nostalgia, but Ingrid clung to her ideals and her dreams and Sylvain needed something like that in order to anchor him, to find or maintain a direction in these tumultuous times. And Felix...Felix used to think that all he needed was his sword to guide him, but now he was starting to wonder if he needed more than that.
Rumors of bandits around Garreg Mach as of late had spread again, so Rodrigue insisted on sending extra escorts with them. Ingrid and Sylvain thanked him enough for the three of them, since they were still on better speaking terms with his father than Felix was.
At one point, his father must have mentioned Felix’s explanation about the promise, and how if Annette had survived, that’s where she’d be. He might have also mentioned that Felix and Annette had been in communication, because while Sylvain knew it wasn’t the time to tease when her fate was a grey area, they were both especially persistent about telling him to keep his hopes up, or assuring him that he was right, and that she’d be there.
Ingrid, in particular.
“She’ll be there,” Ingrid said, three days into their journey, Sylvain hanging behind and chatting with one of only two knights from the Galatea family that were spared for Ingrid’s escorts. She was humoring him, but didn’t seem interested. Sylvain was undeterred.
Felix kept his eyes on the road.
“Just you wait, Felix. She’ll be there just waiting for us.”
“Or we’ll be the only fools on their way to a ruin,” he answered, urging his mount a bit further ahead. “All to keep a promise that should have died with him .”
He heard Ingrid heave a sigh, one thick with words unspoken, but she didn’t speak again for a while and kept pace a few lengths behind him. They’d rehashed the conversation several times in the few days they’d been traveling, and Felix presumed it would be touched upon several more.
And then, a few days later, they arrived to the sounds of battle on the outskirts of the monastery. Felix could never pass up the chance to test his skills, and Sylvain was notorious for looking for trouble. Ingrid wanted to proceed with caution, but had no choice but to follow the others, mounting her pegasus in a rush as they neared the burnt out ruins of one of the small villages around Garreg Mach.
The source of the skirmish became clear, and he nearly hesitated to join in.
“I’ll lend a hand,” he finally said, more to Sylvain and Ingrid than those in the midst of battle. “We’ll catch up later.”
Ghosts , his first thought lingered, even after he stepped forward to slice across the torso of an assassin heading for the green-haired woman he’d thought dead after the battle those five years ago. And then she, in turn, sent the tip of the Sword of the Creator behind him, taking down the thief approaching him. Recognition glinted in her eyes when her gaze lit upon him.
“Well met, Felix,” she said, and he would have considered her tone warm in the past. She didn’t look like she’d changed at all, so perhaps the thought was still the same.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he shot back instead, darting forward to stab his blade into the chest of the new enemy behind his old professor. “A welcome surprise.”
He didn’t say that the sight of the beast tearing through thieves at some distance from them was pleasant, but he was at least somewhat relieved to see her. She directed him, then to help take out the bandits, as if he wasn’t already doing it, and he spun away again, blade dancing in the brisk morning air, as more and more faces he never thought he’d see again started to appear.
An arrow sank into the carotid of a man about to cast a spell at him, and Felix hardly blinked as he gurgled and fell, moving on to the archer instead as Ashe, behind him, quickly nocked and released another arrow, straight into the heart of a second mage.
They made their way up, and up, regaining stolen supplies from the monastery–vulneraries, concoctions, weaponry–until they stood on the raised ruin of the town courthouse and faced the leader of the band of rogues, Dimitri calling for their heads. Their house, the Blue Lions, converged from different directions, and even Sir Gilbert had arrived to assist, chasing rumors of the dead boar prince from Fhirdiad to Garreg Mach.
Some foolish notion of chivalry and knighthood, no doubt, brought him to that boar’s side instead of his daughter’s–but that head of copper hair was yet to be found, and he couldn’t let his thoughts linger.
“I’m not the one you’re after!” the leader tried to shout. He blathered something else after that, but Felix lost it in the screams of the man he cut down to the leader’s left.
“The dead are owed their tribute,” the boar growled, and Felix saw that the beast inside had finally claimed him, even as the man took one broad, powerful sweep with his lance and rent the man’s chest asunder.
“Ugh, bandits! At a time like this!” Annette staggered back, limping on her sore ankle but staying at distance from the man she’d wounded with a weak wind spell. She’d been startled, but now she knew better. “I should have listened to all the rumors! I shouldn’t have tried to make it here alone!”
But she could hear more fighting, somewhere up towards what she assumed was the old courthouse of this little village, so she pressed forward. She’d swiped a set of keys from one of the two bandits that had startled her, and hoping for a vulnerary or a concoction, she opened the chest nearby with one of them.
An axe, and only an axe, glinted at her from the bottom of the chest. Annette stifled her groan but reached for it anyway. If she did happen to run out of magic, at least she’d be armed. Her own steel axe had been lost days ago, when she’d nearly fallen into the river but had dropped it into the water, instead.
She pressed forward, eyeing the big wooden door ahead of her as she climbed–or rather, limped–up the stairs.
“I wonder whose bright idea it was to put so many damn stairs here,” she whined to herself, keeping an eye out for other bandits. So far, there were none, so she assumed that they were focused on the commotion ahead. She thought she might open the wooden door with the other key on the ring in her hand, when she heard a few screams and a brief silence. “Oh, is it over?” she asked herself, shaking the keys in her hand to find a door key.
“Aha! Let’s get out of here!”
Three men appeared in front of her, almost out of nowhere, and she screamed.
“BAH!” she yelped, then she dropped the keys as they leveled swords and an axe at her and threw her hands forward, concentrating as much energy as possible into a single cutting gale.
It hit two of them and the door, blasting it to splinters and sending her tumbling backwards, stepping on a loose stone. She somehow turned it into a roll, scrambling to her feet to ready another wind spell she heard the guttural cry of one of the men she’d blasted being disposed of in the ruins of the courthouse. The other had fallen to the ground and didn’t rise again–whether he was dead or just knocked out, she wasn’t sure.
The last man had turned on her, and by the time she realized it, he was already charging at her with his sword raised. Annette lifted her hands in front of her and tried to attack, but her gale wouldn’t release, and she felt the drain in her reserves.
“Not now!” she said, trying again. A breeze lifted, but it lacked the proper force, and she took a hasty step back, fumbling for the axe she’d just picked up.
Annette knew she wasn’t going to be fast enough.
And then, just as she finally grasped the handle and started to lift it up, the man preparing to strike her down, he gurgled, eyes bulging, then fell. Red stained his back, and she had to pull her gaze away from the way it kept creeping across the back of his leather jerkin to look up at his attacker.
Standing behind him, sword raised from the upwards slash across the man’s back, stood almost the last person Annette would have expected. Almost , because she herself had told him to be there, and part of her thought he’d listen. And, by the way his eyes widened once the adversary between them had fallen, she wondered if she might have been just as unexpected to him , considering the news he must have heard.
“FELIX!” she nearly shouted, then launched herself at his middle, wrapping her arms tightly around him. It may have been more to anchor herself than anything else, honestly, but it felt good to have someone solid to cling to. She felt a soft touch, nervous, and then something more. With the hand not still holding his sword, Felix was holding her back. He felt so warm , so real , so alive , that she wanted to cry. “You’re here, you’re really here, you didn’t let me come alone, I was so scared and there were so many bandits on the way and I avoided most of them but it was still a lot and–”
“Annette?!” several voices rang out, and then–
“Annie!”
She blinked, then realized that Felix was awkwardly patting her back after having jolted his arm away at the sudden convergence of the others and that she was– oh, Goddess, what have I done?! And she reeled back. She stumbled from placing weight on her sore ankle, but Felix stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulder quickly.
“Careful,” was the first word he’d said to her, but it made her want to cry, it was so gentle. And his hand was still so warm– no, Annette, not now .
“Annie, you’re hurt!” Mercie rushed out of the splintered doorway, hands already glowing with a prepared heal.
“Mercie!” Annette flung herself at her friend for a hug before Mercie could even begin the heal, but the warmth, easing the soreness in her muscles from her traveling for the last several weeks, still seeped into her from where Mercedes held her back and she sighed. “Mercie, I missed you!”
“Annette, we’re so glad you made it!” Ingrid said quickly, nearly shoving Felix aside to get to her, and then she seemed to ignore the fact that Annette was already in a hug in order to wrap her arms around both of them. Ingrid released her quickly, and Mercie pulled back to hold her at arms’ length, tears in the corners of her eyes.
“So many of us made the trip, Annie!” she said, and Annette grinned at her.
She tried to ignore how much she missed Felix’s hand on her shoulder after he’d pulled away from her, and then she looked past her small welcoming party to see the group converging in the doorway she’d blasted through.
“See, we were right, Fe!” Sylvain said, glancing at Felix. “She said she’d be here, and she is!”
But beyond Sylvain, other faces came into view–Ashe, for starters, then she nearly couldn’t believe when the professor stepped into view, followed by a tall and imposing man who, after a brief moment of feeling a bit scared of him, she recognized as Dimitri . And then–almost more shocking, stepping up beside Dimitri–her father, whose face was unreadable as ever.
Her chest hurt at the way he just nodded his head at her before turning to Dimitri and immediately starting to inquire after his health and wellbeing and not hers, but at least her ankle didn’t anymore.
“Let’s rest and regroup at the monastery,” the professor said, glancing over everyone. “And then we can figure out what’s next, I suppose.”
Felix itched to reach out and put his and on her shoulder again.
Well, that was kind of an understatement. He wanted to go back to that first moment, when they had stared at each other, astonished, and then Annette had wrapped her arms tightly around him, forehead pressed to his chest and words tumbling from her lips at a mile a minute. And when she stepped back and he caught her, the way her cheeks dusted red...something twisted in the pit of his stomach. Something almost like longing .
He didn’t let her out of his sight on the entire trek back to the monastery proper.
The only good thing about it was that Sylvain was too busy teasing Ashe about how he’d filled out a little, let his hair get more stylish, or alternatively telling Mercedes that she was even more fetching than ever, and did she know that short hair suited her?
Ingrid was a different story. At first, she’d tried to talk to Dimitri, but after the boar–or was he a beast, now?–had snarled at her, proclaimed some bullshit about the dead deserving their tribute and how everyone had to be ghosts, she had turned to speak a few words to the professor, then had slipped back slowly through the line. A few words with Ashe, because they’d always been close because they liked the same foolish novels and ideals about knighthood, then a word with Mercedes and Annette and a scolding to Sylvain–but then she fell in step at the rear, with Felix, and smiled– smirked –knowingly.
“See? We were right. She was here.”
“And we’re all still fools for all coming to a ruin for a festival that will never happen,” he shot back, trying to ignore the fact that he felt embarrassed. Felix didn’t get embarrassed. “I don’t know what anyone’s expecting, but I wouldn’t hope for much.”
The only thing I’ve let myself hope for in years was for Annette to be here today , he didn’t say out loud.
He didn’t need to, though.
“Well, one of our hopes already came true,” she noted, gesturing loosely at the redhead ahead, who had tossed her head back to laugh openly at something Ashe had said. “And the hopes of the Kingdom may have come true, too.”
He knew where her eyes trailed, back to the front where the mad prince led with stoic guidance from their old teacher and Sir Gilbert. His father would share that sentiment, he was sure, but Felix wouldn’t place his hopes on the shoulders of a man who only thought of the dead. His father doing so, placing all his hopes and the future of Faerghus in the beast that walked like a man, wouldn’t surprise him. Rodrigue had always thought only of those who were dead, particularly where his friends–and his sons–were concerned.
Ingrid was probably expecting some sort of response, so he humored her with a scoff.
She sighed, and he knew then that he’d chosen correctly. It was the exact reaction she’d expected from him. Perhaps that would steer her attention away from Annette. Or, rather, away from the Felix who couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.
“I can’t believe the professor’s still alive,” Ingrid forged onward, ever eager to try and pull Felix into conversation. Some things never changed. “I thought–we all thought–that she’d died. When the dragon…”
When the dragon attacked the Empire at Garreg Mach , she might’ve been preparing to say, but the monastery itself loomed before them, like a craggy keep rather than a place of sanctuary and worship.
“No one can,” he murmured, left hand propped on the hilt of his sword as he surveyed their path for more bandits. “But I’m not a fool who believes in ghosts.”
Nevermind the fact that his first thought, upon that first bloody battlefield where they’d all reunited, was that he was surrounded by those who ought to have been dead. He’d definitely thought as much to himself, that he was walking ruins with ghosts, but he wasn’t going to go on a depraved rant about making sure they got their due.
Ingrid had barked a short laugh at his comment. “That’s very like you, Fe.”
“I said it, didn’t I?” he retorted, arching an eyebrow at her before turning forward again. Annette’s wavy hair, longer than he’d ever seen it, bounced with her step as she demonstrated just how ‘fine’ she was to Mercedes. Again.
“Sometimes, I think it wouldn’t be so bad, to be able to think like that,” she sighed, almost wistfully, and Felix tore his eyes away from Annette.
“Don’t,” he said instantly, then realized it might not make sense and scowled. “Don’t try to think like me,” he amended. “If Sylvain can be believed, it just makes you sound like a cynical, stony bastard.”
“Well, you’re our cynical stony bastard,” she tried to make light of it, leaning over and elbowing Felix lightly in the side. “We wouldn’t have you any other way.”
He scoffed again, and the laugh that came from Ingrid was probably the most heartfelt one he’d heard in five years.
He met Annette's eye briefly when she glanced back at Ingrid's laughter, and she smiled at him, wide and earnest as ever. She didn't expect a response from him, turning back to retort at something Sylvain had said, but it was enough that she'd looked back for him.
If being here, all together again, meant that his oldest friends were happy, then he could deal with it all. If this fool’s errand gave the rest of them a light in these times, Felix would try his best not to put a damper on it, especially considering that he felt more at ease seeing all of them–seeing her– proceeding as if this moment was all there was, as if there wasn't a war waging beyond these walls, at least for the moment. Seeing it all gave Felix himself some measure of peace.
He tried not to think about that too much, even as he felt his chest squeeze when she turned again, her smile not directed at him this time but a welcome sight all the same, and said something to Ingrid. Ingrid slipped back up to speak with Annette for a bit longer, and Felix tore his eyes away, back to the familiar land around him. Five years had changed the outskirts of Garreg Mach, of course, but somehow it still felt the same. He had never been one for that sense of nostalgia, but something about it lifted his spirits.
A light, bell-like laugh rang through the hills, and he felt himself yearning for it to turn to song.
Chapter 2: Not Everything has to Change
Summary:
Even though it's war, not everything has to change, she’d said.
Maybe, Felix thought, that was alright, too.
Notes:
So. Here's the second chapter. Starting from here on out, the p l a n is to do only one character's pov per chapter, though I don't have any sort of schedule for who it would be. Most likely alternating between Annette and Felix, y'know, but who knows.
Anyway, please read the end notes for this chap! A sort-of announcement thing will be there. And I hope you enjoy chapter two!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
After they had traversed the crumbling ruin and seen how it had fallen into disrepair in order to reach the internal complex of Garreg Mach, Mercedes and Ashe urged their parties to gather what food supplies they had brought. Unsurprisingly, the trio that had set forth from House Fraldarius had come most prepared for the journey, so much of the food that Ashe and Mercedes prepared had come from their supplies. They took to the kitchen quickly and efficiently, even as they enlisted the help of a few of the soldiers to dust the pantries and store the rest of the rations there.
Felix didn’t care that they were taking from the food that he, Ingrid, and Sylvain had brought with them. It would have lasted the three of them, and their soldiers, two weeks. It might last the entire group one, but they’d figure something out. He couldn’t bring himself to care too much about that kind of thing when he got to see Annette light up at the fact that Sylvain had convinced a pretty kitchen girl to bake and include a couple dozen cookies.
She ate three before the others were done making their small meal, and while Felix was doing his best not to watch as he stood near the archway where a functioning door once resided and keeping one ear out for bandits or anything else, even he couldn’t ignore Ingrid’s indignant screech.
“What do you mean you haven’t eaten in two weeks?! ” Ingrid’s words echoed. “Why didn’t you say something sooner ?!”
Annette ducked her head, her whole face going red at the attention suddenly drawn to the two of them. There was a lurch in his stomach at the thought that she had been traveling, fighting, alone , and hadn’t even had a proper meal for at least half of that time.
And she still managed to take out at least three bandits on her own and blast down a heavy wooden door three times as tall as her , a treacherous, admiring voice said in the back of his head.
“I told you, I had to scavenge some berries and stuff from the woods on the way–”
“That doesn’t count !” Ingrid wailed, the bench screeching against the dusty floor as she turned toward the kitchen. “Mercie! Ashe! How long?!”
Ashe popped his head out, confusion writ across his features. “Ingrid, everyone’s hungry, we’re almost done–”
“ Annette hasn’t eaten in two weeks! ”
A crash came from the kitchen and, in what was possibly the loudest that anyone had ever heard Mercedes speak, was a single word. One lone, admonishing, nearing a screech , “ ANNIE! ”
“I’ve eaten!” she wailed, pressing her hands to her cherry red cheeks and ducked lower, “ Ingrid , stop, you’re making a scene !”
Sylvain was there, placing a hand on Ingrid’s shoulder. “Hey, Ing, back off a bit, you’re embarrassing her,” Felix heard him say.
“But–” Ingrid flailed a hand helplessly, aghast, in Annette’s direction. She hasn’t eaten , she probably wanted to say again. Ingrid grew up with several brothers in a noble family that had fallen on hard times and knew the value of a good meal perhaps more than most.
He didn’t know when or how, but Felix’s own feet had taken him up to Annette, and he found himself taking a seat next to her, placing his hand carefully on her upper back. He had no idea what he was doing, but when Annette gapsed and glanced to him, her eyes starting to water, he figured he must have done something right when she leaned a little in his direction and pressed her back against his hand. He moved his hand a little, in a circle that he hoped was soothing, like something he remembered his mother doing when he was small.
“They’re almost done with the food, Ingrid,” his voice was a little rougher than he’d expected, but it was easier to level a stern gaze at Ingrid than try to figure out what words to say, if any, to comfort Annette. She looked taken aback at Felix’s actions–and so did Sylvain, when he shifted to look at him, but aside from a quick wink at him that Felix ignored, Sylvain coaxed Ingrid to sit back down.
“He’s right, you know,” the redheaded man leveled at Ingrid, without any of his usual flippant tone. She was starting to look a bit ashamed of herself. “You should apologize for yelling at her. Annette, don’t worry about it, Ingrid’s just really strict about the whole three square meals a day thing. We’ll make sure you get right back on track, starting now!”
Annette hiccuped a strained laugh, and Felix moved his hand in another circle.
“S-sorry,” Annete said, moving her hands up to cover her eyes and, Felix suspected, to try and wipe away the tears that had threatened from her embarrassment.
“You haven’t done anything to say sorry for,” Felix said shortly, then realized that his tone was perhaps a bit too cutting.
“He’s right,” Ingrid cleared her throat, and reached across the table to tug one of Annette’s hands away from her face. “I’m the one who should say sorry, Annette. Things have been hard for everyone, but you’re the one that traveled here all alone, and I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“It’s fine, I know you were just worried,” Annette straightened a little, and Felix took that as his cue to pull his hand from her back, but then he wasn’t sure what to do with it. He clasped his hands on the table in front of him and avoided Sylvain’s glances from across the table as Annette squeezed Ingrid’s hand back.
“It’s not fine,” Ingrid shook her head, then frowned. “I’m sorry, Annette.”
In a small voice, as she finally dropped her other hand from her face, Annette said, “Thank you.”
They smiled at each other, a little sheepishly, and then Annette cleared her throat and looked at Felix and Sylvain. “And you guys, too. Thanks for worrying about me!”
She offered them a bright smile, and Felix couldn’t look anymore without his chest burning so strongly he feared it would spread to his face. Instead, he averted his gaze and pushed the small plate of cookies back towards her. He couldn’t see her, but she heard her startled laugh, and then heard the scrape of her picking one up.
“Don’t mind if I do, then,” she said, and Ingrid huffed a half laugh.
Tentatively, the female knight said, “Make sure not to ruin your dinner, though…”
“Ingrid!” Sylvain cried, exasperated but laughing, and Annette’s laughter rang out again, sincere and bright even as she clapped a hand over her mouth because she’d already taken a bite of cookie, and Felix felt himself relax a bit more as Ingrid started laughing too. The rest of the hall stopped paying them any mind, and Ashe and Mercedes announced shortly after that food was ready. Before many had risen to go fetch themselves a plate, Mercedes bustled out and placed one directly in front of Annette and put her hands on her hips as though daring the younger mage to argue.
“Thanks, Mercie,” she said, and Mercie eased her stance a little.
“You’re welcome, Annie,” she answered softly. “Eat up, and I’m sure we can scrounge more up if you want seconds.”
Annette gasped and shook her head fiercely, waving her hands in front of her, “Absolutely not! Mercie, you know this is more than enough for me!”
Felix snorted a little as he stood up, and Annette gasped and turned to him.
“What, you too?! Man, Felix, you big meanie!” she whined, but it lacked the bite from the first several times he heard it. But, before he was fully away, he heard her mutter, “But still...thank you, Felix.”
He paused just a moment, just long enough for her to hopefully understand that he’d heard, then moved on to get his food. When he turned back, his seat had been sniped by Mercedes, and Ashe was on Annette’s other side, with Ingrid across from her. Sylvain took his seat next to Ingrid again, across from Mercedes, and Felix debated before sitting across from Ashe. The sniper offered him a nod, then slowly reached over to drop another roll on Annette’s plate while Mercedes had her distracted.
Mercedes did the same but with a piece of salted meat instead when Annette was focused on Ashe, and Felix understood their game, even if he didn’t contribute.
It paid off, to watch her face when she just couldn’t seem to finish the food on her plate, and then to watch how her nose crinkled when she found out what her friends were doing and started trying to shoo them away.
Cute , he thought.
Wait. What ?
The day seemed to drag on. It was midafternoon by the time the professor sent word that she wanted to see everyone in the council chamber, to discuss their next moves. From what Felix had gathered in conversation, Byleth didn’t know...well, really anything since the fall of Garreg Mach.
She said she just woke up this morning, on a riverbank near a small village in the outskirts , Ingrid had said, sounding just as bewildered as Felix felt.
But...the woman was a mystery, her existence and everything else about her, least of all the fact that her own origins were as much a secret to her as everyone else. Felix almost wouldn’t doubt she’d been asleep for all these years. Hell, she could have told him she was at the bottom of the river that whole time and he might have believed her.
So he made the trek from the training grounds as soon as one of the messengers found him there, looking through the looted armory and only finding a few rusted weapons. A few might be able to be reforged, but they’d have to wait for more supplies or something. That is, if staying at the monastery was what they planned to do now that the Blue Lions house, or most of it, had reunited as promised.
Hearing that Dedue had given his life for the boar prince to escape came as no surprise, but he still hated to hear it.
Especially when, in the council chamber when they were discussing their options, the said prince kept raving like a beast. If this was what a good man like Dedue had given his life for, Felix almost pitied him. But he was sure his old man’s favorite he died like a true knight would have been fitting, here. It’s what Dedue himself would’ve wanted, he was sure.
“We have a chance to fight back, now,” Ingrid said, with conviction, and it was the first that Felix started paying attention, actual attention, to those around the table. Ingrid was to his right, and she was leaning forward, a fist on the table. “We have our king,” she faltered a little, with a glance over to where Dimitri stood against a pillar, refusing to sit. “We have our professor. We have the monastery. We have us . We could turn the tides and fight back .”
“We could retake Faerghus,” Ashe said slowly. “Push back Cornelia and the Dukedom, and retake the lands and lords that the Empire has forced into submission.”
The professor looked deep in thought. “You do have a point. The monastery is a relatively defensible position, the battle five years ago notwithstanding. And the location would make it a good base for the effort.”
“Exactly,” Sylvain agreed, casting a wink at her. Even he couldn’t be wholly serious for what was, effectively, a war council. “And once news gets out that we’re here, and that Dimitri’s alive, then we’ll have the Knights of Seiros heading back, as well as the Kingdom loyalists.”
This started some chatter.
“I do hope the knights are doing well,” he heard Mercedes remark to Annette, diagonal from him across the tables. He tried not to think that she was too far from him, especially considering the distance of the last several years between them.
Murmurs, of spreading news of the boar prince’s survival to help get support. Ashe was full of those knightly ideals of his, talking about taking back Fhirdiad and crowning that beast as king, and using that as proper footing to march on Enbarr. Ingrid was even more enthusiastic than he was, and Felix was unsurprised. The two had the same lofty ideals of knighthood and always had, after all.
“What do you think, Your Highness?”
The voice, a gravelly rumble that had yet to provide any feedback or opinions that he had cared to listen to, sent silence washing through the room. Felix didn’t miss the way Annette jolted, just a little, at her father’s tone. He scowled–he had no doubt the man hadn’t even spoken to Annette since they’d returned to the inner walls of the monastery.
“I will have her head,” the boar’s voice was a low, raspy sound. The voice of a beast. “I will go to Enbarr, and I will take Edelgard’s head. Only then will the dead be appeased.”
“Dimitri–Your Highness,” Sylvain said, backtracking a little at the steely look in the man’s lone eye, “your people will want to know you’re alive. It’ll give them something to fight for. With that, we can take back the capitol, and then we can have a better force to march on Enbarr.”
“That will take too much time. The dead must have their tribute.”
“Don’t be a fool, boar,” Felix heard himself say, tone cold and unforgiving. “Going straight to Enbarr like this will only cost the lives of you and everyone who follows you.”
The beast scowled at him, and his words were spat out like venom. “So be it, then. I will go, even if I must go alone.”
He swept out of the room, a hulking figure in his dark furs and dark, worn armor, his lance glinting in his hand. Scarcely a moment later, before his stomping steps had ceased echoing in the halls, Gilbert’s voice rumbled, “He is to be your King, Sir Fraldarius. You should not speak to him so.”
“He’s a beast and he has been since Duscur,” Felix shot back, undeterred. “If you’re going to follow him straight to Enbarr and play another fool that will throw his life away for him, then be my guest, but I won’t.”
“What Felix means,” Sylvain interjected before Gilbert opened his mouth again, or before the professor could interrupt, “is that we need to be more prepared before we march on Enbarr. Isn’t that right, Fe?”
He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, unwilling to soften his words. Felix had said what he’d meant. A war council wasn’t a place to mince words.
“I think he’s right,” another voice offered, tentatively. A voice that was soft and melodious and oh, so familiar. Annette met his eyes, offered a fleeting ghost of a smile, and turned back to where the others were looking expectantly at her. “We’re not prepared for a march on Enbarr. Felix is basically saying it would be suicide, and I agree. Even if we don’t immediately go retake Fhirdiad, we should at least take time to set Garreg Mach up as a base of operations, and try to call the Knights of Seiros back.”
“When the knights come back, the faithful are sure to come back, as well,” Mercedes added, in her kind voice. “It could bring merchants and supplies, and life back to the villages nearby. It would help make the monastery a sustainable base again, especially with the support of the people.”
Gilbert stood and intoned stiffly, “I still have contact with the Knights of Seiros. I can send word for them to return to the monastery, and of the return of the Professor and His Highness.”
He refused to look at Felix or Annette on his way out, and Felix glared at his back while Mercedes lightly reached out to touch Annette’s arm. The petite mage shook her head at her friend and turned back to the professor, waiting.
Byleth sighed softly, but stood at the head of the table. “We’ll stay here at Garreg Mach for now and start preparations. It seems that we’ve agreed that we will at least fight back, but we’ll work on the details later. First, we should start fortifying this place.”
Her eyes were far away for a minute, as though she was looking beyond this room. She could well be picturing the crumbling parapets, or the mount of rubble in the cathedral that was once a statue for the goddess. He’d never know, with Byleth.
“How likely is it, do you think, that the Empire’s still watching this place?” Ingrid asked, pulling Felix’s attention back to her.
“Well, there were those rumors about a lone man on a killing spree,” Ashe said slowly, glancing at the door through which the prince and his ever faithful knight had disappeared. “They might be monitoring Garreg Mach for that.”
“We should prepare for anything,” Byleth agreed, eyes trailing to the door. Her expression was relatively blank, as ever, but Felix thought her face twisted a little in a pained grimace for at least a split second. She turned her attention back to those at the table. “We should assume that the Empire has eyes everywhere and plan accordingly. We’ll discuss further tomorrow or the day after, and start building a plan to make the monastery fully livable again once everyone’s had a bit of time to rest.”
Murmurs of assent ran through the room, and most of those remaining shifted and began to stand. Felix was the last to do so, and then, before anyone had made it to the door, the professor cleared her throat.
Everyone turned.
“For what it’s worth,” she looked down at her hand, pressed flat against the table in front of her, before she looked up with an actual smile. “It’s good to see all of you again.”
“Professor!” Annette nearly wailed, then Felix watched as she practically dashed over and threw her arms around the other woman. “Don’t ever, ever, ever go missing like that again! We all thought you were dead !”
“You don’t get to say that, Annie, we thought you were too!” Sylvain shot back, and she snorted as she stepped away from Byleth. She seemed to be over whatever state she’d been in when her father ignored her again, beaming at everyone.
“But I’m here! And so are you!” She pointed at the professor. “I’m so glad that so many of us are here.”
Felix wasn’t one for sentimental reunions or anything like that, so while they fell into chatter, he found himself wandering out of the room. He lingered at the door for a few moments, watching Annette excitedly chat with Byleth and a few others until he caught Sylvain’s eye, then just nodded and turned away. For a moment, he wasn’t exactly sure what he planned to do after he left the room. The training grounds again, maybe?
But then again...he wanted to review their position and try to recall what information he had about the state of the war. He could write to his father if he had to in order to complete the picture, of course, but he wanted to postpone that as long as possible, aside from the rough message he’d already sent letting him know what they’d found. He’d only sent it because Ingrid had insisted, but that was also partially because she wanted him to convince his messenger to also travel to Galatea lands and inform her father and brothers, as well.
If they were going to end up retaking Faerghus from Cornelia and her Dukedom nonsense, they’d need a clearer idea of where all her forces lie, though. He had never much liked dealing with tactics or strategy, things that had earned him scoldings from the professors countless times back in the academy days, as well as Ingrid and on occasion, even Annette. Despite that, though, he knew that everyone had to bear with roles that didn’t particularly suit them in troubling times.
What Felix wanted, then, was to be able to review a map. He hadn’t heard anyone mention the library or its state yet, and that would be the best place to start his search, so his feet turned to lead the way and the rest of him followed. He would have put gold on the fact that Annette and Ashe had probably already been to check it out, and he hadn’t heard them lamenting anything yet, so it was probably relatively intact. An atlas or a map or something had to be available, and if nothing else he was sure he could go to the old Captain’s rooms or Seteth’s office for one.
As he walked away, he left the sound of laughter–high and bright and melodious again, just like the trek back from their battle with bandits–echoing through the halls behind him.
The library was where Ingrid and Ashe and Annette found him nearly two hours later, a map stretched out across most of one of the tables and a few chess pieces he’d dredged up from a cabinet scattered around as he made notes on the pages littered around the edges of the map and scowled at it.
“Felix, are you thinking about strategy ?” Ingrid broke the silence first, incredulously. Ashe leaned forward to look at the map and he, thankfully, didn’t say anything. Annette’s eyes widened in surprise for just a moment before something akin to understanding flitted across her face, and stepped up by his elbow and looked over what he’d been doing. Felix felt like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, which was absolutely ridiculous.
After a moment, the petite warlock next to him reached forward and edged one of the knights he’d been using for the Dukedom a bit further into the remaining kingdom territory.
“Cornelia’s pressed this far, now,” she said calmly, and tucked the scrap of paper labeled Dukedom back under the edge of the piece. “Maybe we can get everyone to pitch in with the latest news they have, too?”
“Yes, that’s a great idea!” Ashe piped up, leaning over Gaspard territory. “Rowe’s got the territory that belonged to Lord Lonato, now, and he’s with the Dukedom, too. But, of course, you already have that down,” he laughed a little. “We should see if anyone else has more news...but maybe tomorrow. It’s getting late, and I think the professor might have some plans for getting the monastery back up and running again that she wants to start on.”
He wasn’t wrong, and Felix straightened fully. His back protested, and he scowled even further.
“Whatever,” he said, moodily, and Ingrid laughed and clapped him on the shoulder as Annette giggled on his other side.
“C’mon, Fe. Even the sharpest sword won’t do a sleepy swordsman any good,” the blonde woman said, cheerfully. The grin she wore was genuine, more genuine than any he’d seen in the last several years, and it ached in a way that wasn’t bad. She was one of his oldest friends, and it was good to see her smile again.
“I don’t know if it’s possible to sleep, Ingrid,” Annette fidgeted a little, still grinning but now a little sheepishly. Her eyes twinkled in the lamplight of the library, and Felix caught himself holding her gaze. “After everything that’s happened today, I’m sure I’ll have trouble falling asleep!”
“Well, all this thinking about strategy would put me to sleep,” Ashe quipped, and the three that had intruded upon Felix’s solitude all shared a short laugh. He felt himself grinning a little, but turned his head so they wouldn’t see.
Instead, he said, “One night won’t rust my skills with a blade.”
Annette snorted this time, and patted him on the arm.
“Ugh,” Ingrid rolled her eyes, but there was no real malice. “Just try to go to sleep, Felix.”
“Like you three were going to do, when you all came into the library in the first place?” he raised an eyebrow, and Ashe laughed while Ingrid looked a little sheepish.
The sniper piped up then. “We were just proving to Ingrid that the library was still in good condition! We didn’t expect to find you in there, though. Annette had actually just said we’d probably need to swing by the training grounds on our way back to make sure you knew it was late and to go to bed!”
Ingrid snorted, and Annette yelped. “A-Ashe!”
Felix glanced over at Annette and she averted her gaze. It made his stomach lurch a little, though he had no idea why. Ashe continued speaking shortly thereafter, though, and Felix turned his attention back to the conversation at hand.
“It’s true,” he shrugged. “But we found you here instead, and we’ve reminded you, so let’s head back to the dorms!”
“Are they barracks, now?” Ingrid asked thoughtfully, and Annette shuddered as she stepped back towards the door with the rest of them.
“No, no, no! I don’t want to think of them that way!” her hands were out in front of her, waving the idea off even as she violently shook her head. “They were part of our school once, you know! And I know that times and circumstances have changed, but I’d rather keep calling them the dorms than referring to them as barracks . Even though it’s a war, not everything has to change!”
Ingrid blinked, as did Felix, but he didn’t say anything.
It was a nice thought, though. Not everything has to change.
“I like your way of thinking, Annette,” Ashe piped up, and then Ingrid found her voice to agree, and with one of Ingrid’s hands tightly grasping his sleeve, Felix was forced to follow them out of the library and back through the grounds of Garreg Mach, towards the old dorms. They’d all taken their old rooms from the academy days, for some reason, and though they showed signs of perhaps occasional bandit inhabitants, it was clear that the monastery proper wasn’t so much lived in by thieves as looted by them.
Not everything has to change , she’d said.
Maybe, Felix thought, that was alright, too.
Restoring the monastery, or at the very least the living quarters and where they’d spend most of their day-to-day time, would take a bit of work. It looked like they would be staying here for a while, so attempting to make the place livable again was a necessity. And yet, somehow, it seemed like there were never enough shifts at guard duty to split among them, or at least it seemed like Felix never got them.
Clearing rubble. Cooking duty. Greenhouse duty. Even laundry duty, but it seemed Ashe and Ingrid and even Mercedes were getting the most turns at guard duty. Ingrid because she could fly around on her pegasus like a routine skywatch, Ashe and Mercedes because they both were relatively skilled with bows. Felix was familiar with them, but apparently clearing rubble was what the professor deemed worthy of more of his time. And somehow, it was always near wherever the boar was choosing to mope for the day.
He didn’t miss that Annette was getting greenhouse duty most often. He wondered if she was singing to herself when she was in there, weeding and replanting and trying to figure out how many of the wild plants they should keep and how many they could relocate or pull in order to plant rations.
Did she have a weeding song?
Enough , he scolded himself, heaving another chunk of rubble. Today’s task was clearing some of the broken stones from around the cathedral, and he’d rather be anywhere else. Couldn’t Byleth have waited for the rest of the faithful to start making their way back to Garreg Mach and enlisted their help? This place wasn’t even incredibly important to their day to day activities, but it was one of the beast’s usual haunts.
Felix was starting to suspect that’s why Byleth kept putting him on rubble duty.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, he heard a slight scrape of a steel-tipped boot across the paving stones. Dimitri, a big hulking form, walked past without even sparing Felix or the two other men with him a glance, instead alighting upon the stairs and heading up to the cathedral proper. Probably to stand in front of the pile of stone that was once a statue and pray, or whatever it was he did when he talked to all those ghosts that were apparently haunting him.
Felix would much rather be on the training grounds, blade in hand.
“Looks like we’re done with this part, sir,” the brawler with him dusted his hands off, standing up to look at the neat stack of reusable stone they’d made within the wheelbarrow. “Which part should we work on next?”
Go up to the cathedral entrance after you finish the west side, then go around to the east side , she’d said.
It was almost as if Byleth knew exactly how much time it would take him and his small group to do each task, and as if she knew when the boar prince would be skulking around in the ruins of the cathedral. It just solidified what he thought he already knew–that she really must be using Felix to keep an eye on him.
You have a problem with authority , he remembered Manuela scolding him once, and he couldn’t say she was wrong. Even now, Felix desperately wanted to tell his soldier that they were to go to the east side of the cathedral next, instead of near the entrance. It would brazenly ignore the seemingly inconsequential order that Byleth had put to things, and would seem innocent. He wanted to, but he didn’t.
“The part of the wall near the cathedral’s entrance that’s damaged is next,” he said, grudgingly. “After that’s the east side.”
“Yessir!”
Felix probably would have just gone to the east side to avoid monitoring that beast, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was currently unpredictable at best. If there was anything Felix hated more than the foolish notions of knighthood and how they were romanticized and being too weak or too useless to pull his own weight and more, it was the thought that this liability was among them.
In addition to that, he was pretty certain that the professor knew he’d catch onto his impromptu babysitting job after a while, and that she’d know if he changed up the plan to spite her. He had to admit, albeit begrudgingly, that even after all this time and an apparent five year nap, Byleth Eisner was a force to be reckoned with.
And aside from all of those reasons there was another, though he would never admit it to anyone: Felix was a bit uncomfortable letting that foolish boar of a man roam around unattended. He’d already verbally lashed out at several of them, had given such chilling glares to several more that he’d seen Annette visibly shiver at the receiving end of one, and had brandished his lance without regard to the others around him. Felix didn’t want to think about what would happen if someone actually ticked the man off in this state, enough to make him strike. While all of his old housemates from the Blue Lions were strong in their own rights, there were few who could rival the brute strength of the man who should be their king.
Admitting anything of the sort would sound too much like worrying about that thing or the others, or showing that he cared . Felix didn’t do worry; it just wasn’t in his nature.
He scowled and trudged up the steps to work on the next part of the wall.
“You’d better know what you’re doing, professor,” he muttered darkly to himself, glancing through the open doors to see the few worshippers that had already made it back, having never strayed far in the first place, and the big blue, fur-lined cloak shrouding the man standing at the edge of a mound of crumbled stones. Felix didn’t know whether beasts could pray, or what he would even pray about.
He shook his head and turned to his task.
The quicker he finished here, the quicker he could leave the boar watch to whoever the professor had lined up next, and the training grounds were calling his name.
Notes:
END CHAPTER NOTES HERE WE GO!
First of all: like I said at the end of the first chapter, I can't promise you super consistent updates (DEFINITELY can't promise you updates within 4 days, like the first chapter to this one), but I am going to try to update every other weekend if I can manage. I wanted to get this chapter out on a weekend to start that trend, since chapter one was a Tuesday and...I definitely shouldn't try to post on weeknights like that. It was actually late Monday for me and I had to work early Tuesday morning hahaha.
Sorry if there wasnt...a whoooole bunch of felannie this chapter? i'm still doing establish-y things, after all. And I, uh. I've come to the realization that we are in for the long haul, kiddos. I wrote a scene that i adore and there are 2 very important things it revealed to me: first that this will be slow burn, because secondly, this scene wouldn't fit for at least like. 5 or 6 chapters at my current pace and it's not...super outwardly romantic or anything.
Hope you like pining, and mutual pining, and all that jazz.
Thanks for reading again, and hope y'all are still with me!
Chapter 3: Battle Preparations
Summary:
Annette could see that their forces were growing, and pretty quickly, too, but they still had nowhere near the fighting force they’d had back when Edelgard had first attacked Garreg Mach. If the force on the march was even half that size, Annette didn’t really think they had much chance of a victory.
Of course, that wasn’t exactly something she would dare say out loud.
Notes:
"I'll try to update every other week," she says. "I can't guarantee anything," she says.
The realest thing about this is that I couldn't keep myself from working on it. And I could save it for next week to have biweekly updates start, but I'm the type who finishes a chapter, and then I want to share. So take this other establish-y chapter and go!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It only took a fortnight for their scouts to report that the Empire knew they were there, and that an Imperial force was on its way from Fort Merceus. They were traveling slowly, but they’d arrive by the end of the month. That wasn’t a lot of time to prepare, but thankfully the faithful were slowly returning like Mercie had predicted and the scattered Knights of Seiros had been returning in groups since her father had sent word out.
Her father, who still hadn’t so much as looked at her since merely nodding to acknowledge her existence, her survival , when they routed those bandits at the Blue Lions’ reunion.
Annette continued weeding the plants, shaking her head in an effort to banish the thought from her mind. There were other things to worry about, aside from a father whose most notable trait in recent years had been parental absenteeism. Like her chores! All the tasks that she’d been assigned, she could focus on those! She was on greenhouse duty this week, alternating days with Ashe, and it was finally starting to look like she remembered it. Flowers here and there, some crops along one wall that included fresh fruits and vegetables that were actually in bloom, all finally being tamed after years of growing untended.
Bolstering their supplies with those fruits and vegetables was a big help, as far as rationing went. It didn’t mean the meat lovers were completely satisfied, especially on days when meat wasn’t on the menu because they were trying to make their stores last.
Felix, in particular, was always fun to watch when he learned the menu was going to be onion gratin soup or a veggie stir fry. As a meat lover, she figured he was one of those that’d be satisfied with camping and eating only whatever they’d caught or killed for dinner, without any sort of greens to go with it. And she wasn’t wrong, she knew, but while he scowled and was surly about whatever meals they had that lacked protein, he’d still take his serving with a gruff thanks.
It was kind of adorable.
Not that she’d ever tell Felix himself that she thought it was adorable.
I’m not adorable , he’d say, and he would probably look absolutely appalled. Annette almost thought telling him he was adorable would be worth whatever face he made, but she had so far been able to resist the temptation. Besides, admitting that she thought he was adorable, even just to tease him, was way too close to home and she wasn’t prepared for anyone to find out just how true a statement it would be.
“Annie, stop that,” she scolded herself, standing up and clapping her hands together to dust them off. Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, she thanked the Goddess and thieves that weren’t very thorough for leaving her room almost exactly as she’d left it, minus the heavy layers of dust and debris. Because of that, her gardening gloves had, miraculously, still been in her old room. They were a little stiff and tight on her now, a product of years of disuse and years of Annette continuing to work at bettering herself and arguably growing some, maybe, but they did the job and she didn’t see a reason to bother anyone with helping her find a new pair.
She hummed another unfinished tune to herself, continuing to weed the area around the morfis plums. Annette wondered, idly, if the tune she’d been humming could turn into a song about weeding the garden, to add to her ever-growing list of gardening songs. Pull the stem and pull the roots, rip them from the soil! Pull the weeds from in between, and let the flowers grow!
“Not now,” she chided herself when she realized what she was doing, even as her mind continued the effort to compose new lyrics. She straightened again, hands on her hips, and surveyed her work with a valiant effort to push the niggling idea of new lyrics aside. There’d be time for that later. The weeding was finished after all, for the time being, so that song wasn’t appropriate anymore. She could come back to it later, probably sometime next week, when the greenhouse was due for another round of it.
Instead, Annette had a handful of seeds they’d managed to gather from surrounding villages, so she went to fetch the first handmade paper pouch. She glanced at the roughly drawn produce on the side and beamed. “No time for a weeding song, Annie!” she laughed to herself, allowing herself a quick spin as she moved back over to where the lines of vegetables were planted. “It’s time to plant more carrots!”
Annette started humming her planting song to herself. She hadn’t decided on the lyrics to this one yet either, especially since she couldn’t choose between fruits and vegetables for the first verse, or if it should be flowers to start with instead. Not to mention the fact that Felix always had this habit of sneaking up on her when she was singing, the big meanie, and she wasn’t ready for him to tease her about it and ask for the full song when even she didn’t have it prepared. It would be like the library song debacle all over again.
It’s why she was a little annoyed at herself for already brainstorming lyrics to a weeding song. What if she’d accidentally started singing them, and he’d walked in on her? Or anyone had walked in on her, really.
Humming helped calm her down, though. It helped her wash her worries away, and to push thoughts of her father far to the back of her mind. When she was humming, she didn’t have to think about how her father was acting like more of a parent to the extremely lost crown prince than he was to her, his own daughter. Annette didn’t have to pretend it didn’t hurt. When she was lost in a song, even just humming one, she was able to ignore all the bad things.
She’d said it herself. Not everything has to change . And she’d stick to that. Losing herself in a song was okay every now and then, especially when it helped her work.
She let the melody pull her around the greenhouse, planting and watering and pulling a weed she might have missed here and there and dealing with whatever else needed tended to. Pruning a few plants here, harvesting a few beans over there. The melody she was humming changed a bit with each task–the harvesting tune was one she already had, but the others just felt right. Overall, though, she kept returning to the planting song, since she kept returning to the stash of seeds to plant a few more of each different type of crop.
The planting song was bright, full of hope and life, and it was always one of her favorites to bring cheer back in. It reminded her of the spring verse in her seasons song, which was another favorite.
“That’s a new tune,” a voice sounded at the entrance, startling her.
“BAH!” she whirled around, stepping on the handle of a trowel and only just catching herself on the lip of the flowerbed nearest her as she turned to find him in the doorway. “Felix! How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough,” he shrugged, which wasn’t really enough of an answer to appease her, then stepped forward. She watched his amber eyes search the greenhouse, following the rows of vegetables around to the blossoms along the back wall. She thought, for a moment, that maybe she was safe. He’d remark on the one song, then they’d move on and he’d give her some sort of message and then he’d be on his way again.
She maintained that fragile hope until he turned back to her and, without even a change of expression, asked, “Not singing today?”
“Fe- lix !” she enunciated, frowning–pouting?–at him. “Don’t tease me!”
The corner of his mouth twitched, and he just shook his head. “It was an honest question.”
If he were anyone else, she thought he would’ve said something like but you make it so easy . He’d told her, sometime after she’d tried to bribe him by doing all his chores, that the bullies in her head were ridiculous and she wondered if he’d think the same about that errant thought, too.
“Honest question?” she asked instead, incredulous. “Felix, don’t be mean!”
That was definitely a whine. Annette, I thought you’d grown out of that! she scolded herself internally. She realized that she was still looking at the swordsman in the doorway and she spun back to the careful rows of beans in front of her and tried to focus on packing some soil down around the stems.
“Mean–I’m not trying to be mean, Annette,” he sounded amused, just a little, but also exasperated. “I was just curious.”
She spun and frowned at him again, without any real malice, but then caught herself before she started speaking because Felix looked like he was still trying to say more. His eyes were wandering and he was looking across the greenhouse again, not directly at her. And then he finally glanced back to her, fleetingly, before averting his gaze and saying quickly, “You used to sing a lot, when you were doing your tasks around the monastery.”
Annette, ready to scold him for eavesdropping, felt herself pause again. She was almost flattered that he did still remember that habit of hers, though she had a feeling that meant more teasing was going to be coming her way, despite what Mercie had thought all those years ago, about Felix’s teasing not being mean at all. But that was in the past and Annette had other things to worry about. Like Felix, in the present, looking at her and expecting an answer.
“Well, when a certain someone likes to sneak up and eavesdrop,” she ended up going with her first plan anyway, just with less bite than before. After a moment of thought, she ended up adding, “Well, two someones used to eavesdrop on me.”
He blinked. “Two?”
Oh no, I shouldn't have mentioned that.
“The first one was you ,” she pointed an accusing finger, then dusted her hands off again to place them on her hips. “And then of course Claude had to find out. He’d never let me live it down, either!” She definitely pouted at the memory of his first time hearing her sing. “And it had to be creepity creep that he heard!”
“Creepity..creep?”
“Oh. Oh no ,” the words slipped out instantly. Her eyes widened, and she shook her head viciously. Annette’s imagination took off running– what if he thinks it means something way different than it actually does, like Claude did? All he knows is the title, he could think it’s about something else! A person! People! What if –she cut herself off there and stamped her foot just a little childishly. “You do not get to tease me about a song you haven’t even heard yet, Felix!”
“I wasn’t going to,” he shook his head with a sigh, then paused and said slowly, “but you said yet .”
She blinked, for a moment completely confused. And then she thought back and squeaked, shaking her head again. “Oh no. No, no, no, no. There is no yet . Nope. You won’t hear it, I already had enough teasing from Claude hearing it that one time! Nope .”
“If you say so,” Felix simply shrugged, and Annette started to loosen up. What felt like an interrogation was finally over and she could water the fresh plants–but then he spoke again. “Will you at least tell me what tune you were humming?”
She sat on the lip of the flowerbed with a groan, burying her face in her hands. Belatedly, she remembered that she’d been gardening, but it didn’t matter. The damage had already been done, and she could wash up later, before dinner. But after a moment, she dropped her hands to her lap, examining the smudges of dirt on her lap and the old dress she was wearing, and begrudgingly admitted, “It’s the planting song.”
He made a sound of acknowledgement somewhere deep in his throat, then cleared it and glanced around them again, gesturing loosely. “Makes sense, in a greenhouse.”
“Don’t tease me, Felix,” she whined, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling. She didn’t want to see him grinning at her, at some private little joke about her songs. Or, well, maybe since it was Felix it would be more of a smirk?
“I’m not,” a quick peek at him showed him shaking his head. “I hope I’ll get to hear that one someday, since apparently I won’t get the pleasure of hearing creepity creep .”
“ Felix ,” she whined, and when she finally glanced back down at him, he’d stepped forward and was offering her his hand.
“I actually stopped by to tell you that you’re apparently late for tea with Mercedes, Ingrid, and the professor,” Felix spoke with an air of indifference, but Annette’s stomach dropped at the words. He didn’t seem to notice, as he continued, “They asked if I would send you towards the pavilion if I found you.”
She took his hand with a lot more force than probably necessary, yanking herself to her feet in a way that caused Felix to actually stumble forward a step or two. And then Annette cried, “ Felix ! Why did you spend time teasing me?! You could have told me sooner , I can’t believe I forgot that we’d scheduled tea today–and I’m already late, I don’t have time to change out of this or I’ll be even later –”
Annette nearly tripped over a recently repotted plant on the floor on her way, ignoring Felix’s mumbling as he caught himself.
“Annette–”
“I’m already late and even later because you teased me about my songs so you can water the stuff I just planted, Felix!” she tossed back quickly, then darted from the greenhouse. She didn’t look back to see if he’d actually picked up the watering can, but she trusted him. And she would be back to check and see if the soil had any moisture, later.
When she went back, Felix had watered the plants for her. The soil was still damp when she finally was able to check on the plants sometime after dinner, and she smiled softly. He was grumpy and overbearing, sure, but she could always count on him. At least, so far she’d always been able to, despite his teasing.
That big meanie , her mind supplied. Villain . But she still smiled.
Annette went around tidying the rest of the greenhouse just a little, organizing the gardening tools and making sure nothing was extremely out of place, then dusted her hands off and headed out for the night.
Her time in the greenhouse dwindled over the next couple of weeks, despite the fact that it was the primary task given to her by the professor– Byleth , since she tried to convince them to call her by name. It wasn’t working yet, but Annette was trying , for her sake. The planting phase was mostly over, for now, so she didn’t need to tend to the crops constantly anymore, but she kind of missed the serenity of the place.
Annette was needed elsewhere, though.
Preparations for battle were time-consuming, after all, and considering that they expected the Imperial forces from for Mercurius to arrive within the next week or so now, there wasn’t exactly a lot of time left to prepare. Mercie and Manuela, who’d showed up in the last couple of weeks with Professor Hanneman in tow somehow, had been painstakingly stocking the infirmary and crafting vulneraries or concoctions if they had the means. A handful of monks and priests and bishops had all made it back to the monastery and had been helping with that.
A few of the old Seiros mercenaries were back, warriors and barbarians and a couple of swordmasters, along with a select few mages and warlocks. Some familiar faces among the Knights of Seiros had returned, which included Alois, Shamir, Catherine, and Cyril, who didn’t have the title but might as well have been one. And, perhaps more notably, Seteth and Flayn had both returned with Catherine’s party two weeks ago, with the first news of the suspected imperial force headed their way.
With Archbishop Rhea’s right hand man there, able to confirm something that Byleth had mentioned in passing about Rhea leaving her in charge of the Church of Seiros, Mercedes had suggested using that to draw more people back to the monastery. They were still determined to find the Archbishop, of course, but everyone was willing to work with the woman that Rhea had trusted to lead the church after her.
They spread the word, using some of the tricks and men that Yuri, who’d still been managing Abyss all this time, had supplied.
The faithful and the former forces of the monastery were trickling back, along with some who had been exiled from the Empire for their beliefs. And then, just a few days ago, another group arrived unexpectedly. Jeralt’s mercenaries had returned, Leonie in their midst, when they heard that his daughter, their own Ashen Demon, was alive again, or still alive, or risen from the dead. They had a lot of stories to tell, and it made the dining hall a bit livelier again.
Annette could see that their forces were growing, and pretty quickly, too, but they still had nowhere near the fighting force they’d had back when Edelgard had first attacked Garreg Mach. If the force on the march was even half that size, Annette didn’t really think they had much chance of a victory.
Of course, that wasn’t exactly something she would dare say out loud.
Instead, she did as she was asked. She helped to host a few seminars with Mercie and Hanneman at the professor’s– Byleth’s –request, to teach some of the monks a few more spells in both reason and faith to help with the coming battle. When Hilda arrived, just for a brief few days as a messenger from Claude for the Alliance, Byleth convinced her to hold a practice session with axes, which Annette was practically ordered to attend. So she attended, like she was told, and tried to soak in the information that Hilda provided.
Byleth had always preached the practicality of mages knowing their way around simple weapons, after all, if just to protect themselves in a pinch.
Plus, it seemed that she wanted Annette to be able to use the Axe of Ukonvasara, which happened to be the very one that she had recovered herself at the Millenium Festival reunion. She was definitely not skilled enough yet, but their former professor had faith that she’d be able to use it well soon enough.
“It’s a sacred weapon,” Byleth offered by way of explanation, sliding a book across the library table, after the training session with Hilda. A detailed illustration of the axe they were talking about was in front of her, and Annette did immediately recognize it, so she knew the professor hadn’t been fibbing about the importance of the axe she’d recovered. “I know it’s heavy and it’s a little too much for you now, but you have some skill with axes, and you tend to get caught up with enemies even when you should stay further back,” this time was a pointed look with her eerie eyes, and Annette shivered a little. “It’ll provide a bit of healing, when you’re wielding it. I think it would help you.”
“It might take me awhile to get to that point, though,” Annette offered slowly, trailing a finger down the information on the page in front of her. “I haven’t had as much experience with axes in the last few years, so I think I’m a little rusty. At best, by the battle I might be able to use a silver axe, but I think I’ll still be at steel.”
Byleth nodded. “I don’t mean you have to rush, but working on your axe skills will help in the long run. I’ve got the others brushing up on some of their secondary skills, as well. You never know when you’ll need them.”
Annette wanted to point out that it seemed like Byleth herself was skilled in almost everything , but decided not to. Instead, she tilted her head a little and asked, “What kind of secondary skills?”
“Hm,” the former professor started, tapping her chin in a mannerism that was actually really adorable, but it made Annette think she wasn’t going to get any more information. “I’ve got Mercedes practicing bow again, and Sylvain will be joining some of the magic seminars this weekend. I’m going to ask Felix to attend, as well. His thunder spell is coming along, but it’s still a little weak. I’m still working on some of the others, but Ashe has already started to get a pretty good handle on his lance skills.”
“Oh, I remember he was starting to learn that before we left the academy!”
Byleth hummed in agreement. “He’s improved a lot in the last week or so. Still plenty of room to go, but I think we can say that for all of us.”
When she topped that with a small smile, Annette’s chest squeezed. She’d forgotten how subtle but meaningful Byleth’s expressions were, especially when she hadn’t been able to express herself much at all when she first became their teacher. But outwardly, she let herself giggle. “You’re right! There’s always room for improvement!”
“Just don’t work too hard,” Byleth told her, pushing her chair back. “I have to meet with Hilda again, before they leave later today, but we’ll speak again at council in a few days.”
Annette nodded, and bid her goodbye before returning to her studies. At Mercedes’ request, she was reading up on a bit more faith magic. Her heal was a little weak and she wanted to be able to help out, and Mercie liked to make sure there were plenty of healers available no matter what the situation was.
She knew it was Mercie who had taught Sylvain how to heal, too, though she didn’t know how strong his affinity for faith magic was.
The week wore on, and she started to understand Byleth’s methods. Seminars, by people with high skills in certain areas, and then the push for working on their other skills. Ashe and Cyril and Shamir, with the occasional addition of Leonie, were helping with seminars for bow skills, though they were usually led by Ashe and Shamir. Mercie was often in attendance, at the professor’s behest.
When Hilda’s party left, it was without Ignatz and Raphael, who elected to stay behind as a show of good will between the Alliance and the Kingdom army. Ignatz was definitely an asset as one of their archers, and since the Alliance was notorious for producing highly skilled bowmen, he started stepping in to help in the seminars, too. He was an excellent sniper, now, and there was something else that made him light on his feet that Annette could never place.
She saw Raphael and Felix sparring just once, brawling in the training grounds with Catherine nearby, and recalled that brawling was another old skill that Felix had worked on, back in the day. Before he’d taken the life of a swordsman to heart and she thought he’d never be parted from his blades.
Leonie had always been skilled with a lance in addition to the bow, and Ashe was quickly picking it up. Byleth wanted them to keep it up, and work towards certification as bow knights. Ashe was nervous, since he’d never been good with horses, but Sylvain and Leonie both offered to help him with that. Sylvain was often leading whatever cavalry seminars Byleth wanted held, with occasional input from Ingrid.
Sylvain dragged a grumpy Felix to the next magic seminar. Annette wasn’t teaching this one, but sitting across the aisle from the two while Hanneman lectured. Felix grumbled near the beginning, but was more attentive than she’d expected him to be.
Hanneman had them each cast a spell at the beginning of the lecture, if they could, and after two hours of theory and other stuff that made Annette’s head spin, he announced that they were going to cast the same spell from the beginning of the lecture again, and that they were to try to apply his teachings to it. She kind of wished it wasn’t so sudden, because she kind of wanted to ask Sylvain if he had more ideas on it, like that one time at the academy, but she’d have to try on her own.
“Do we have to go through this farce?” Felix asked, grumpily, as he stood in the center of the training grounds. The dummy they were using was still singed from earlier, when most people used a basic fire spell. It was damp from Ignatz’s weak blizzard, too.
“Just use your thunder spell and get it over with if you’re going to be so grumpy, Felix,” Sylvain called, and Annette snorted next to him.
“Don’t be mean, you know it’s bad to force someone to use magic if they’re unprepared or unfamiliar with it. Remember the time you set him on fire?”
Sylvain laughed. “He deserved it, Annie.”
Before she could respond, her simple even so died in her throat when she felt the crackle of magic in the air and turned her attention back to see the light of the thunder spell sigil flashing at Felix’s fingertips. There was something different about it this time, but she hardly had a moment to think about it before the reason magic activated and lightning crashed down, bright and furious and concentrated in a single column on the practice dummy in the center.
Her hair stood on end, skin prickling from the electricity in the air.
“Now, was it so bad to pay attention to a reason lecture for once, Felix?” Hanneman asked, amused at how the spell had easily gained three times the force and power it had prior to the beginning of the lecture. Annette, stunned, met Sylvain’s wide eyes, and she thought they may have silently agreed to never get on Felix’s bad side again. They both had a bit of magic resistance, but if two hours could do that much, she tried to imagine what would happen if Felix studied it seriously.
Felix just grunted and stepped aside for the next person, standing next to Annette.
“Felix, you didn’t tell me you’d been practicing ,” Annette hissed as Hanneman gave some instruction to one of the monks that was up next. “What was that? Did you hold back at first?”
“I don’t hold back,” he said stiffly, cheeks tinting pink.
Oh, that’s cute , she thought, but dashed those thoughts from her mind. “Then what was that ?”
Sylvain leaned over, arm across Annette’s shoulders, and Felix stiffened. “Yeah, exactly! What the hell was that, Fe? You can’t tell me you were just paying attention , like Hanneman said. There’s gotta be something more! Is there more to your crest than we always thought, or–”
“I just listened, okay?” Felix said, crossing his arms and looking away. He glanced at Sylvain, then to his arm across Annette’s shoulders, and scowled. “Maybe you should do the same, sometimes, instead of flirting with girls.”
Annette snorted, loudly, then covered her mouth and glanced at Hanneman. He was still explaining something to the monk, and she had yet to take her turn. Sylvain gasped and finally stopped leaning his weight on her shoulders, reaching to clutch at his heart.
“What! Felix! I can’t believe you’d wound me so!”
Felix rolled his eyes and glanced back to Annette, who raised her hand to hide her soft giggles.
He shrugged and looked away, clearly done, and Sylvain sputtered indignantly until a sudden chill in the air showed that the monk had finally cast her spell. Blizzard, same as the one Ignatz would cast when he got back up to take his turn.
Annette kind of wished she’d used just a standard wind, but instead she’d used a cutting gale. She didn’t have any idea how she’d be able to step that up.
Sylvain was next, and then it would be her turn, and she kind of really wanted Felix to put his hand on her shoulder, like he’d done weeks ago, or the gentle hand on her back, to comfort her or support her. She felt her face start to burn at the thought and shook her head, quickly, to make it go away.
Her spell was still stronger, with more cutting force than she’d ever managed before, and Felix gave her a smirk and a, “Well done,” that sent Sylvain into complaints that his improvements didn’t get the same treatment from Felix. Felix ignored him, and Annette laughed openly.
Days continued to pass by in a flurry of preparations, of seminars and training and trying to stay sane with the imperial army, or part of it, steadily marching on.
Cavalry units practiced drills and formations, their few flying units–Ingrid, Seteth, and now Cyril were the only fliers Annette was very familiar with–were keeping watch from the skies while occasionally practicing a dodge in midair, or methods of landing safely in a rush. There was only so much that magic units, like herself, could do without risking a lack of spells if they were caught by surprise, so Byleth had them practicing sparingly in the week leading up to the expected siege.
Felix had returned to training alone, since that’s how he fought best.
For the upcoming battle, Byleth didn’t see reason to change that, though she did admit to Annette and Ingrid over a short tea when Mercie was late that she was glad to hear of his marked improvement with at least his thunder spell. It meant he had more in his arsenal, and though Byleth didn’t say it outright, she was more comfortable with him being more well-rounded. As a fighter who often darted in and out of enemy lines because he was light on his feet and deadly with his blade, Felix was vulnerable.
It was something Annette had thought about a lot, both during their time at the academy and in the time since. Or, more accurately, it was something she had worried about. Felix, in general, was something–someone–Annette couldn’t help worrying about.
He wouldn’t worry about himself, after all.
But she didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it. The monastery became a frenzy of motion. There were constantly troops on standby, people ready to take up arms at a moment’s notice if the Adrestian Empire chose to strike unexpectedly. Tension buzzed through Garreg Mach, like a snake coiled and ready to strike. The siege would be soon, and they would have to face it. It all felt so familiar and yet so different, but Annette couldn’t help the slight fear that this battle would end up the same as the one five years previous.
She remembered getting separated from everyone, in the haze of smoke and the screaming of allies and enemies alike; the sound of metal on metal, blades ringing and the crash of shields deflecting them. Fire, lightning, wind, spells lingering in the air and burning at her fingertips even when she didn’t have any more magic left to give–and she shuddered.
It can’t be the same , she told herself firmly, then with more conviction: It won’t be .
Annette threw herself into preparations, the same as everyone else. She still wasn’t able to use a silver axe, but even Byleth had told her not to push herself too hard. To be too worn out from the effort of training for the battle to be useful in the actual battle would defeat the purpose, after all.
She worked with Mercie on her healing, practiced her axe skills with some of the warriors and barbarians, and in the few moments where she wasn’t sucked into the frenzy and flurry of all these preparations, she found herself tending the greenhouse. Annette harvested a few things, took them to whoever was on kitchen duty, and then made sure everything was good and watered. The songs she hummed or mumbled under her breath were varied, as scattered as her thoughts and the people scurrying around the monastery, and she was almost disappointed that Felix didn’t show up to interrupt her and tease her.
And then the news came.
Ashe ran up to her in the the library in the morning, eyes wide, and she put down the book on reason without a moment’s hesitation. Before she could ask him what was going on, he blurted, “The professor–Byleth–has called all officers to the war room.”
Then it’s time , she thought.
Notes:
like i said...this will be slow burn my friends,,, i'm not sure how slow bc i'm trying to throw a few things in to hint but it's. still gonna be a long haul.
sorry if there wasn't a lot of interaction here, but there was more than last chapter? i think? but i wanted to get into preparations and stuff, and here we are.
thanks for reading, and i hope you're still enjoying! <3
Chapter 4: A Change of Plan
Summary:
He wasn't comfortable with it...but it was what the professor had decided, and the woman had an uncanny knack for battle and tactics. He had to trust that Byleth knew what she was doing.
Notes:
A teeny bit late on this one!!! More at the end but. Hope you like the chapter! And hope it was worth the wait.
LIke I said, I'll try to update every other week, on the weekends or thereabouts! but please don't fret if i'm a bit late or something :D
thanks in advance for reading!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Felix was the seventh person in the room, after a raving boar prince, the former professor, Catherine, Seteth, Flayn, Annette, and Ingrid. He internally scowled at being after the beast , and it probably showed on his face if the glance from Ingrid, who was pacing off to the right, had anything to say. The prince was standing near the wall behind the professor, arms crossed and face unreadable, aside from the ever present anger.
He scowled again and took stock of the room, merely nodding to Catherine, who stood vigilant next to the door, as he entered.
Without thinking about it he stepped over to Annette, who was nervously shuffling the sheafs of paper in front of her, and sat down next to her.
“O-oh, Felix! You’re here! You saw Ashe already, then?” she asked, her voice pitched a bit higher than normal. He knew she was always nervous before a battle and he figured they all suspected the summons was to hasten preparations, so it was only natural she’d be on edge. And even though Ashe hadn’t given him any details, damn him, Felix still knew the value of patience despite the fact that he’d rather not have to practice it.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a bit rough. He hadn’t really used it much in the last few days, so wholly focused on training. He glanced up to meet Byleth’s eyes, blank and steely and yet somehow still curious, and she nodded at him. He returned the gesture before sliding his gaze back to Annette beside him. “You got here quick.”
She laughed, though it was strained. Of course it was. And then Annette shuffled those papers again and kind of rambled, “Well, I was doing some studying up on faith magic in the library, since I’ve been working on it. My heal’s a bit too weak to really have a lot of use for the heavier wounds, you know, and we need all the healers we can get, right? So I’ve been studying up on that whenever I’m not helping out around the monastery, so I was already in the building. Just a quick trip through the halls, and here I am!”
He grunted in acknowledgement of that.
“Most of the people already here were in the building already,” Ingrid allowed, taking a seat from her nervous pacing. She gestured loosely to Seteth, sitting next to the professor and conversing with her in low tones that they couldn’t quite make out.
“Yes, my brother and I were in his office!” Flayn chipped in, from Ingrid’s side of the table. There was a chair between the two of them, but they weren’t really trying for silence or anything. “And Catherine was just about to leave to go to the training grounds before we were all summoned!”
“The professor was in the old captain’s quarters,” Ingrid added, then sighed and started to finally, finally , give some of the explanation Felix had been waiting for.
Ingrid had seen their scout approach from the skies in much the same way that Ashe had from his post, as it turned out, and the professor had Ashe gathering the others. He was the reason Felix had already received the summons, after all. The professor had asked Ingrid to stay, just in case there was any further information she could provide while she discussed possible plans with Seteth and some of the other more experienced officers or members of the church. After that, Seteth had apparently sent some of the monks and priests in the building to assist Ashe in gathering the rest of the wayward soldiers–or were they officers , even if they hadn’t graduated?–of their measly army.
“It probably won’t take long for everyone else to show up,” Annette offered, placing her hands atop the table, clasped, probably to keep herself from continuing to fidget. “We’ll learn more when they do, right?”
“Oh, yes, without a doubt!” Flayn nodded, her hair bouncing. In all of her information, Ingrid had been forced to admit that she didn’t have the full information that their scout had brought back, just that she and Ashe had both escorted the man to where Byleth was and waited outside while he gave his report.
Felix huffed and leaned back in his seat, arms crossed. “Of course.”
The women across from and beside him both snorted, but Annette had the grace to reach up to cover her face embarrassedly and stammer an apology. Ingrid just let out a huffed laugh and told her, “Annette, you don’t have to apologize to him. He’s just being grumpy and impatient.”
“Sounds like Fe!”
They turned their attention to the door, where Sylvain strode in with Mercedes. Sylvain went to sit next to Ingrid, in the empty chair between she and Flayn, but when Seteth glanced up, he corrected and sat on Ingrid’s other side. Mercedes went to that seat instead, smiling gently across the table at Annette.
Annette smiled back, and Felix was almost surprised at how relieved he felt, seeing that. A lot was wrong with the world already, especially with this damn war, but if Annette couldn’t even find a reason to smile then he figured it was probably actually hopeless.
“We passed Ignatz and Raphael on the way,” Mercedes said, her voice calm and soothing. “They’re helping Ashe and the monks round up the rest.”
“Yeah, and Manuela said she’d be in as soon as she changed,” Sylvain added, and Felix scoffed.
“Changed? What is this, a dinner party?”
“Well, not everyone is here, so there’s no harm in it,” Ingrid frowned at him, warningly.
A hum sounded next to him, and Felix held his tongue to glance over at Annette once again. She looked as though she was considering a few things, and then after a moment she lifted her head again. “Well...it’s also true that other things could have been prioritized over clothes. So neither of you are really wrong, but I also think it’s a little…”
She trailed off, but glanced sideways at Felix. He leaned back in his seat a little again with a sigh. “Yeah,” he agreed, and Ingrid blinked in surprise across from him, but her brow softened. They’d been friends for long enough that probably expected they’d have an argument or something. Their whole group was somewhat stubborn and Felix was probably the worst, so it was pretty standard between them. But Felix felt a little gratified to know that Annette felt at least similar to how he felt about the whole thing, and it placated him enough that he didn’t feel like he had to rile Ingrid up any further.
Sylvain, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so lucky, when he opened his mouth and made a remark about Manuela changing. Ingrid turned in her seat, her face stony, and slugged him in the arm. He wasn’t wearing any of his armor today–not many of them were as of yet, since it was early–and he yelped.
Byleth hardly spared a glance down the table, but Seteth glowered. Felix snickered a little under his breath and Annette sighed and shook her head.
He’d almost think they were back in class at the academy again, if it weren’t for the years added to everyone’s faces, the change in their voices and sometimes even their demeanor, and the room they were sitting in. It may feel similar, but it was still a far cry from the Blue Lions classroom they’d all become accustomed to. But as the others started filing in, the familiarity, the longing ache to grasp that half-forgotten past, filled him.
Felix wasn’t the overly sentimental type, but he kind of missed those days.
Nearly ten minutes had passed when Ashe finally reentered the room, glanced around, and then closed the door behind him and moved to take a seat next to Cyril. Byleth, ever cognizant of her surroundings, disengaged from her conversation with Seteth and stood from her seat.
It shouldn’t have surprised him, that the first words she spoke were, “The imperial force from Fort Mercurius will be here within 48 hours,” and yet it did. She had never been one to mince words, and this was no different. Byleth forged onward. “They have sent an advance group that will arrive by nightfall, if they continue at their current pace. It could be that they are scouts, sent ahead to see if they can gauge our numbers or preparedness, but we can’t be sure they won’t attack under the cover of darkness.”
Seteth cleared his throat a little and spoke up. “Due to this, we are doubling the night watch tonight. If you are selected, be sure that you are well-rested and alert, and do your best to stick to the shadows at your posts or on your patrols. We want to maintain as much surprise as we can.”
The former professor nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “For that same reason, we’re not doing the three shorter shifts for the night watch as usual, but two longer shifts. It prevents movement, and also helps the illusion that we have fewer soldiers.”
“That won’t really help a lot if they’ve been keeping a closer eye on us, though,” Sylvain pointed out. “Or, since you’re doubling the watch, it won’t help if everyone’s visible from beyond the walls.”
Felix nodded in agreement, and he wasn’t the only one.
“If we could have some people watching from towers, or from places that are in heavy shadow, it would help keep the illusion of smaller numbers,” Ashe mused, then looked a little sheepish. “I’m decent at moving quietly and staying out of sight, if it helps.”
He used to be a bit of a thief, Felix recalled. He couldn’t remember who had told him, whether it had been Sylvain or Ingrid or even Ashe himself, but it was a part of the sniper’s pas that he wanted to leave behind him, those days before Lonato adopted him and after his birth parents had passed, before Felix had ever met him.
“It does,” Byleth nodded, drawing Felix’s attention once more. “Felix, you’re pretty good at sticking to cover, too. I want you to use that on your shift tonight.” He nodded wordlessly, and she seemed satisfied. “I also want some fliers circling for skywatch duties, but only one or two per shift. Our airborne units will come in handy, especially if they’re not aware that we have a battalion’s worth ready to take to the skies. And be wary of hiding places among abandoned buildings and trees. I won’t have you falling to archers here.”
A flutter of understanding ran down the table, and Byleth nodded again, standing straight and looking up and down the table.
“Now. Let’s talk about what the plans are for the battle tomorrow.”
On his watch, Felix stayed in the shadows like he was supposed to atop the walls and only caught a few glimpses of movement the entire time he was there. Ashe and Ignatz both had apparently seen more, but their watches were well away from where Felix was, or at higher vantage in Ignatz’s case, so he wasn't surprised. They saw the approach of the advance team, but the Imperial forces didn’t launch a night attack as Byleth had feared they might, and there were no reports of anyone trying to sneak in, either, which was another relief. The rest of nightwatch went smoothly, aside from the loud noise that he later found out was Annette tripping on a crate in the dark while trying to head to her watch.
Somehow, that didn’t surprise him, either.
The day dawned at the end of his shift on watch, and a scout managed their way back from behind the imperial army’s advance squad without detection, somehow, to report on the approach of the main force. Byleth called a small war council where she made a few minor changes to the plans, and said they would know more when they could see the army themselves.
As it stood, Felix would be going down the west side, with occasional air support from Cyril and some archers led by Ignatz at a distance behind him, with professors Manuela and Hanneman leading battalions of their own alongside them with faith and reason magic at their disposal. As if he'd need that.
Thankfully, although begrudgingly, Byleth had agreed that Felix himself fought best without a battalion, so he wasn't assigned one.
"I need someone quick and deadly to secure that side of the battlefield while some of our others secure the onager down the east," she reiterated. It wasn't the first he'd heard it, and she didn't go into any further details.
Sylvain would lead that charge on horseback, Ashe and Mercedes and even Dorothea ready to support him with Seteth and his wyvern riders in the air above, while some of the church's soldiers followed in their wake to take control of the onager. Annette was tentatively assigned to that group, but Byleth said she may need Annette as support in a charge.
She assumed that the boar prince would head directly for the enemy general, hoping that it was Edelgard. She already had Ingrid supporting them from the skies, and had brought Raphael into their group, but she was concerned about a full frontal assault with just the three of them. For good reason, most likely.
Felix wasn't comfortable with it. He couldn't quite place why, but the thought of Annette forging ahead with them, deep into enemy lines, unsettled him. Her armor was paper-thin and while her reflexes were great, she was still better with some distance between herself and the enemy. He knew that perhaps he was overthinking things. She'd survived weeks on her own in imperial territory prior to the millennium festival reunion, after all. And yet...no, Felix couldn't dwell on it.
It was what the professor had decided, and the woman had an uncanny knack for battle and tactics. He had to trust that Byleth knew what she was doing.
And so they prepared for the rest of the morning, the monastery a hive of activity. Mercedes made sure everyone had at least one vulnerary, though she lamented that there weren’t quite enough concoctions for every soldier to have one, and urged caution. Sylvain and Ingrid were over by the stables, taking care of their respective steeds, and the boar stood near the gates, staring with his one eye out across the empty village and off into the distance, where they’d soon see the enemy approach. At one point, Felix saw Annette nervously talking to Ashe, who seemed to be trying to calm her down.
And then, when the battle itself neared, the officers convened one more time.
It turned out that Shamir had managed to slip in from the back side, returning from a long-range scouting mission into Leicester Alliance territory, with intel that more church soldiers were on the march back, near enough that they may be able to provide support in the battle. It was welcome news, certainly, and he could tell it had their former professor’s mind working.
True to his expectations, Byleth did a bit of shuffling.
Sylvain’s group switched Ashe out for Shamir, and Byleth pulled Annette and Ashe to help Raphael as part of their central forces with their battalions. Their goal wasn’t really to press forward, but to provide defense within the town and secure certain areas. Ingrid was still supporting them from the skies, as had originally been planned. Felix’s group remained unchanged, for which he was mostly grateful. It meant he was still the only one charging forward, the way he worked best.
The professor herself would be supporting the beast that walked like a man, along with Sir Gilbert, wherever that took them. It was probably part of why she had established Annette’s group in their wake, just to make sure that the enemies the boar might charge between wouldn’t just be able to circle around and flank without exposing themselves to Ashe’s deadly fire or Annette’s cutting winds. He’d seen her Excalibur up close before and it wasn’t pretty. And Raphael was nothing if not solid muscle. His punches were sure to pack some power behind them, so he could easily charge forward with a flurry of blows.
She’ll be fine , came the whisper in the back of his head, and then jolted.
When had that become more of a concern than anything else?
Orders rang out across the battlefield, indiscernible to Felix over the din of clashing metal and the shouts and screams ringing out. As he took down a warrior, he saw one of Ignatz’s feathered arrows sink into the throat of a mage halfway through casting a spell. The half-formed sigil in the air flickered and died as the man sank to the ground with a gurgle, and then Felix was moving on, ignoring the way Hanneman’s fire spell soaring past him into a battalion sent heat washing over his right side, or the way he heard him bickering with Manuela. As Felix cut through another imperial soldier, a swordmaster, after a quick exchange of blows, he saw ethereal chains wrap around a bishop about to cast something, but the power in the air faded after the silence spell took hold of him.
Felix ignored him as his eyes widened and he took a step back, focusing instead on the cavalier that had charged, and another arrow sprouted from the mage’s chest before the horse blocked him from Felix’s view. He dodged the lance strike, but was forced back by a quick shove of the haft. He grunted and had to drop low to avoid an arrow, then rolled back as the cavalier wheeled to try and stab his lance down.
The support from the archers led by Ignatz pelted forward then, and Felix stayed low for another beat before rising with a diagonal slash. He only managed a passing blow on the mounted soldier’s leg, but he angled his blade and smirked as the leather saddle strap sliced easily. The cavalier, not noticing, flinched back, leaning away at the bit of Felix’s blade, and sent the entire saddle tipping away as his horse reared.
With a quick step backwards, Felix pivoted and went for another approaching enemy, flinching at the arrow he narrowly avoided as it grazed his bicep. His sword clashed against the fortress knight’s shield and he scowled.
Now would be a good time for one of your fireballs, he thought absently, thinking of the former professor behind him. It sounded like they were in another fight, though, and Felix couldn’t turn around to check. And then it occurred to him, and he nimbly dodged the downward swing of the enemy’s axe and pulled his left hand from his blade. Come on, he willed, quickly!
The air filled with the weight of magic, the familiar tingle in his arm. The fortress knight felt it too, his eyes widening as he scrambled to take a step back. He wasn’t quick enough, and the lightning flashed, arcing across his armor brightly as he screamed and Felix took the moment to step forward and exploit the exposed weakness in his defense.
He fell in a heap of armor and didn’t move again.
And then, Felix heard a shout.
“ BAH !”
There were no immediate enemies now, and when Felix spun around at least to look behind him, his heart squeezed as if an icy claw had tightened its grip on him. There, too far for his blade to reach, and too far for a spell, was Annette. Annette, alone , and her arm was bleeding and she was outnumbered three to one.
When did that assassin slip past me ?! was his first errant thought, then, where are Ashe and Raphael?
Annette yelped and dodged a swipe from the warrior bearing down on her. He had to have been twice her size, and Felix felt himself start to move even as she blasted a cutting gale out, catching the warrior in the chest and grazing the approaching assassin. Beyond them, the dark mage was raising his hands, a glyph forming in the air in front of him that Felix didn’t recognize in its incomplete form and dark magic hanging heavy in the air.
He was far– too far –but he leapt to action regardless, urging his feet to carry him, to move faster than he ever had before. He had to reach the mage before he could cast the spell, before the pegasus knight wheeling in the distance could turn and see Annette as an easy target, before–
The assassin dodged Annette’s next hasty wind spell and turned her dodge into a charge. With more alarm than before, Felix noticed Annette stumble on her landing. She wouldn’t–no, she couldn’t –recover in time. Not to dodge both whatever magic the mage was working on and the attack from the assassin both, but certainly not quickly enough to dodge the assassin.
His reaction was automatic.
He was already sprinting towards her, and the hand without a death grip on his sword flew forward on instinct, a crackle in the air and a rumble in his chest that Felix would only realize later was a wordless shout. The sigil for thunder flashed more quickly than he’d ever been able to conjure it before, alighting at his fingertips in a blinking flash as lightning crashed down at the assassin with more force than even the one in Hanneman’s seminar. Electricity arced from the assassin, whose scream tore violently from her throat as she fell, to the warrior’s axe, causing him to yelp and flinch back, but Felix scarcely paid any attention as he launched forward, blade flashing as he drew it in a one-handed upwards arc at the mage. The mage was half-turned to face him, already trying to redirect his spell in a panic.
Felix’s fingers tingled when he moved them, and his own blade shocked him with a stinging force when he managed to grasp the hilt to support a second strike, a final downwards blow, at the injured mage. Wind raised around him as Annette recovered and cast another spell at the startled warrior.
He gurgled and fell as her magic tore through his unprotected throat, and the dark mage toppled at the mercy of Felix’s blade scarcely a moment later.
As Felix turned, the smell of burned flesh met his senses, and with a quick glance he saw that his single spell had been sufficient. The assassin had not stood from where she had fallen, and she didn’t appear to be moving.
“You move...so fast!” Annette wheezed, taking a few breaths with her hand over her chest. “Did you practice your reason even after Hanneman’s seminar, too? That was incredible –”
“Why are you so far from everyone else?” Felix cut her off, wiggling his fingers to try to bring feeling back to them. “Where’s Ashe? And Raphael?”
She was supposed to be with them. They were supposed to keep her safe .
He shook himself.
“Oh!” she giggled nervously and glanced around. “We got separated and then I heard fighting and saw you between some buildings and I kinda...folowed?”
“Annette–”
“I was scared, okay?! The advance party must have snuck into the town somehow, and they ambushed us, and then I lost track of Ashe and Raphael after that white mage used Abraxas on me–”
“They did what ?!” he asked, sharply. He couldn’t help it. “Where were the others when that happened?”
Abraxas was a dangerous spell, high level faith magic that hurt like a bitch if you didn’t have enough resistance. Felix had a bit of resistance, since he was working on his budding reason, which meant Annette’s weakness to magic would be even less than his since she was skilled in it, but still…
“That’s just it!” she stamped her foot. “I couldn’t see them! I mean, I was a little blinded by the spell and I backed away as quickly as I could, and by the time I could really see again, I was in between those buildings and heard you, and then I came over here, and here we are!”
Felix was torn. On the one hand, he felt inexplicably glad that she had sought him out, but on the other hand, he was appalled that they had been ambushed on what was supposed to be their own ground. But...she was here, and their allies were all some distance away. A glance showed that the battalions behind him and their leaders had finished up the group that had somehow broken through, and they were heading forward at a measured pace, as instructed.
Even from this distance, Felix watched as Ignatz took aim and the pegasus knight he had been mildly concerned about earlier, when he was too far from Annette to help, tumbled from the sky. In the distance, he saw Ingrid leading her own airborne battalion in a charge against one from the empire, and pulled his gaze away.
Aside from that, Felix could hear the sound of the professor’s voice, though he couldn’t make out the words, as she gave orders. The intent was clear in her tone–press forward. Attack. Do as we planned.
He glanced at Annette, who was looking forward at a small battalion approaching, and then back at the others well behind them. Their main focus was defense of that side entrance to the monastery, through which reinforcements would come if they arrived in time, while Felix forged ahead. Annette wasn’t originally in the plan, but she was capable, and he wanted to keep her within his sights now that she was here. She’d been ambushed once within the town walls, and he wouldn’t let her go back towards the town center alone now.
“Well...don’t fall behind, then,” he almost winced at how gruff and cold his tone sounded, but Annette brightened, smiling at him, and nodded. His chest tightened again, and he nodded back almost as soon as her answer had left her mouth.
“I won’t!”
“Then let’s move.”
He turned back around, facing towards the enemy once more, and took off. Annette followed a few paces behind with a yelp and a rushed, “ No fair, Felix!”
He wasn’t sure what he wasn’t being fair about, but he grinned to himself.
Notes:
thanks again for reading!!!
sorry for a slight delay in the update. i said more at the end so - i've been sick-ish since like....Friday? Didn't do much of anything over the weekend, and then since I currently work from home, I worked yesterday and REGRETTED IT. Oof.
I called off today, and then ended up feeling a little better and managed to finish this!!! partially because i REALLY WANTED TO WRITE THE LAST PART OF THIS CHAP. And partially bc I wanted to make sure to stick. kind of close to the schedule I tried to set for this fic haha.
anyway, hope y'all are still enjoying this slow burn that has taken my entire soul! i have some stuff planned that has me excited, so i hope i keep you interested until at least then :D
(if anyone's concerned, i'm self-isolating for now just as an extra precaution. stay safe and wash your hands, kiddos!)
Chapter 5: The Defense of Garreg Mach
Summary:
Her best guess would be that she had one more Excalibur left in her, along with a handful of fire spells, wind spells, and only maybe two or three cutting gales. Ideally, she wouldn’t have to go through all the spells she could cast, but the longer the battle dragged on the more likely it seemed that she would have to do more. Her steel axe was still on her, but she was still clumsy with it and would prefer not to have to resort to using it if she could avoid it.
That meant that she’d have to cast her remaining spells with pinpoint accuracy, then.
Hard, when she was trying to keep an entire battalion from converging on Felix, but she might be able to manage something.
Notes:
hghhghhhghnghfrnhhf. I have so many other ideas that this was so hard to focus on!!! Which SOMEONE who shall not be named would KNOW, as overflowing ideas have also been affecting their work on their OWN fic.
you know who you are, and yes i'm calling you--us--out.
Anyway, more fighting!!! I'm not sure how some ppl are with blood and fighting but as this is a war fic, I'm updating tags to add graphic violence! blood, rent armor, death cries, all that stuff gets mentioned, so I figured it would be for the best.
hope you guys are still reading!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
She might never admit it, but Annette had nearly cried when Felix had come to her rescue.
He'd caught her by surprise, too. One moment, Annette was very certain that she was about to die, or at least be in a lot of pain and certainly at death's door as she landed wrong and started to fall, and the next thing she could comprehend was the scent of thunder magic. The presence of the magic in the air that was distinctly not hers made her hair stand on end. After that, a furious shout made the bottom of her stomach drop, and then a column of lightning even more fierce than Felix's had streaked down, blinding, to take out...the assassin attacking her.
Really, she could have sobbed with relief at the staggering force that threw even the warrior off guard long enough for Annette to prepare and cast a short but deadly cutting gale. And then she saw a dark mage fall with an anguished cry, and Felix, actual Felix, hardly taking the time to acknowledge that his adversary wouldn't stand back up before turning to her.
His expression was first slightly alarmed, maybe, and then he relaxed a little when he had glanced at her.
She barely remembered what she'd said to him, something about how she's been separated after being ambushed and hit by a spell, and then he told her not to fall behind before heading back towards the frontlines.
Typical Felix.
Her whole body still ached from the sheer force of the imperial bishop’s Abraxas, and her arm stung where it had been bleeding. She didn’t remember if it was from the spell or whether there had been someone else in the scramble, but at least it wasn’t actively bleeding anymore.
And that spell. It packed even more of a lunch than she expected, considering how resistant she was to magic. She was already trying to learn it herself, but her faith skill was still lacking. Now that she knew what it felt like to get hit head on by the spell when her enemy wasn’t holding back, Annette just wanted to learn it more.
Did that...make her a bad person?
“Do you need a moment to patch your arm?” Felix’s voice was a little strained from his exertion, and he'd slowed down a bit to ask her. Annette blinked, surprised, then fumbled for the pouch at her belt with a roll of bandages in it. Why didn’t I think of that before?
“N-nope! I can wrap it up real quick while we move!”
A glance had proven that they had some distance between them and the next set of enemies, who consisted of two warriors, a grappler, and a sniper who was already preparing to nock an arrow. She should have time…
“We’ll move a bit slower,” Felix decided, slowing his pace even more and taking a slightly defensive stance in front of her. “I don’t want you to be distracted if the sniper takes a shot at you.”
She stuck her tongue out at his back even as she felt herself flush. That was as close to concern as Felix Hugo Fraldarius probably had ever, or would ever, show. At least out of concern for her, in particular. But she couldn’t focus on that or what it could possibly mean, not right now, nor on how much she'd like to talk to Mercie about it as soon as possible. So instead, Annette moved to tear her sleeve away from the cut on her arm as she slowed to match his new pace.
This would make it easier to deal with her wound, but she didn't want to admit that out loud.
“What happened to Felix ‘I work best alone’ Fraldarius?” she quipped instead, wincing at the initial pressure of the bandage. She had to get it tight enough to stay but not so tight that it made things worse, after all.
She kind of remembered, after the brief moment where she saw the wound more clearly before beginning to cover it, that a barbarian had been standing with the person that had attacked her with Abraxas. Guarding the bishop, or something like that, maybe? Having a healer on the front lines would be helpful, after all. He must have sliced at her when she was blinded by the spell, and she hadn’t noticed it until later. She didn’t really have time to worry about cleaning or disinfecting it just yet, though, so she moved to finish wrapping the bandage quickly.
“War,” was the simple answer that Felix finally gave, and while it wasn’t wholly convincing, Annette didn’t question him. War had changed a lot of things, after all, and Felix might be one of them. Even the thought made her a little sad, but she decided to cling to what she'd said just a few weeks ago. Not everything has to change.
Annette shook her head to banish her unrelated thoughts and finished tying off the bandage just as the sniper lifted her bow and the others shifted their stances to start charging forward at their meager duo.
She shoved the roll of bandages haphazardly back in the pouch at her belt and flexed her fingers, satisfied with the range of motion.
“I’m good to go!”
“Good,” Felix didn’t waste any time in pushing off on his next step, dashing forward quicker than Annette would ever be able to keep up with. She picked up her pace and tried to decide which spell she was going to cast before settling on starting off with just a basic wind spell, and looked forward at the impending fight.
She’d used a fair chunk of magic already and she wanted to be sure to have enough capacity to cast more of her stronger spells later. And Felix was quick and deadly, so provided she gave him ample support, these few enemies wouldn't require a stronger spell from her.
She grit her teeth and held her prepared spell at bay for one second, two seconds–and then she released it, knocking the sniper's arrow off course and out of the air before it battered the grappler backwards. She followed it up with another, before they could recover, and she was confident that the woman with her now would not be standing up again. And by the time Felix stopped to press his boot into the downed grappler's throat, crushing his windpipe, he had already dispatched the two warriors.
As their enemies would learn, as some had learned, Felix was as deadly with his blade as he was with his budding magic, but even just a basic wind spell from Annette could be the last thing they ever felt.
Reinforcements in the form of members of the Church of Seiros arrived at a fantastic time.
That is, they ended up arriving shortly after the second wave of the Empire’s main strike force surged through the gate, and successfully took control of the onager. Felix knew as much when he and Annette were forced to veer inward, through a few streets, when Ingrid had descended, briefly, to give them new orders from Byleth.
In just a few words, Ingrid told them that Dimitri was, indeed, charging straight for the imperial general, fighting like a madman– beast , as Felix so eloquently put it–and hardly even speaking. Byleth was keeping pace with him, as anticipated, and so was Sir Gilbert, while Ingrid supported and occasionally delivered new orders to their soldiers and officers farther afield. Raphael and Ashe were supporting them, preventing a pincer from behind, in the gaps the Church soldiers had yet to fill, and the former professor had sent for Felix, and Annette if Ingrid had found her, to veer that way for further assistance on the flank.
So Annette followed behind Felix again as he dashed farther ahead, light on his feet but heavy with his blade. Few who tasted his silver sword were still standing for Annette to blast with her wind spells at, and all fell in their wake. She tried to ignore the way the dirt tinted red beneath their feet and moved on, casting spells and supporting the swordsman in front of her.
So much blood , the words sprang unbidden to her mind, not for the first time and certainly not the last, and Annette choked back the way she wanted to retch.
Despite everything, that was one thing that still hadn’t changed. Being on the battlefield, taking lives...it was hard. She had never become accustomed to it as a student at the academy in all their skirmishes with bandits, with the Western Church, with Imperial soldiers, and she still wasn’t used to it now. She’d been in numerous life or death situations in the six years since starting at the Officer’s Academy, and taking lives never seemed to get any easier.
That’s a good thing, Annie, she told herself. Don’t let it stop bothering you, but don’t let it distract you!
Maybe part of how it momentarily threw her off was that it had, admittedly, been a long time since she’d fought in such a large battle. Somehow, the skirmishes in the Dominic lands, before her uncle had sided with Cornelia, had never been so large. Now, she realized it was because the empire, and by extension Cornelia, didn’t deem them much of a threat. But the revival of Garreg Mach was something they did see as a threat, and it was obvious with the numbers they’d sent on what should have just been standard reconnaissance.
She swallowed, hard, and pushed herself to move forward. She had to keep moving forward, because that’s what the professor had commanded, and that’s what Felix was expecting of her. And he was expecting her to watch his flank, to support him, and to be able to call out–
“Felix, your right!”
He reacted instantly, pivoting on one heel and turning to face that direction. He dodged the strike aimed at him with ease, bringing his sword around so quickly Annette would have sworn she heard it whistle through the air, and slashed the attacking soldier diagonally, from hip to shoulder.
Annette cast a hasty fire spell at the warrior approaching her as she dashed to Felix’s side in the brief lull she’d been given. A moment later, she cast another swirling ball of fire at the staggered enemy and he dropped. She took that temporary reprieve to finally look over at the swordsman, and frowned a little. It looked like he hadn’t cleanly dodged, and a nasty cut on his jaw oozed blood. She flinched inwardly at the sight, at the way it made her stomach lurch, but raised her hand. “Felix, let me heal that for you–”
“It’s nothing,” he leaned away, out of her reach. “Save it for someone who needs it. We’ve got to keep moving.”
“Don’t blame me if it gets infected later,” she huffed, but allowed the subject to drop and prepared to follow him wherever he went next. He was probably right, and it would probably be wiser for her to save her healing magic for a more severe or life-threatening injury, but she hated seeing him bleed.
She heard a sound, almost like an amused chuckle, over the din of battle. Her heart beat a stutter-step in her chest for a brief moment– Felix , laughing? And not in the cynical way he did sometimes when an enemy was hardly a challenge, or when he was mocking Sylvain?–but despite turning her head as quickly as she could to try and catch it, Felix was already turned away and surveying the path ahead.
“Come on,” he started moving forward again, and Annette took another deep breath to steady herself and followed, mentally tallying spells as they moved. She still had plenty, and she’d saved some stronger magic for moving into enemy lines. At the beginning of the battle, she hadn’t been sure whether or not she’d end up on the front lines, but circumstances being as they were, she figured there was no avoiding it, now.
Especially supporting Felix, who charged headlong into enemies with abandon, blade slashing through the air with lethal intent. Like he was doing now, at a bishop that had appeared from between an old store and the house behind it. She summoned wind to her fingertips for the archer that stood up from the roof, and grit her teeth. “Don’t forget about me!” she shouted at him right as the sigil for her spell flickered and brightened. The archer still took aim downwards, at Felix, but the shot was buffeted by the wind, and he staggered away from the edge of the roof.
Annette wished, darkly, that Ignatz was there to cast his ice spell on the roof beneath the man’s feet. Instead, she tossed a fire spell at him, saying a silent thank you for the fact that the store he was on top of happened to be made of stone so she didn’t have to really worry about lighting a thatched roof, and watched as he stumbled and fell, between the buildings where she couldn’t see him. The bishop hit the ground in a heap, red spreading on his white robes, and Annette turned away as Felix glanced down the alley before turning to head back down the street. He’d deemed, then, that the archer wasn’t going to get back up.
Wordlessly, Annette followed.
There wasn’t really time for words, anyway, above the sounds of battle. They could have been drowned out by the ominous flap of wings overhead, or the sound of one of the fires that were crackling here and there, or lost in the sound of clashing and shouting and so much more noise than she could parse at once. Felix had never really been one for talking, anyway, as a man of action.
So Annette decided to try and match him. A cutting gale to match his windsweep, following up when the enemy swordsman was unable to counter the blow. A fire spell to engulf a fortress knight that appeared around the next corner, distracting him enough for Felix to find the weak spot in his armor. He screamed, a sound that was nearly lost among the clamor that rang out from just up ahead.
And then she heard it.
A loud cry, guttural and angry, rose above the sound of fighting, followed by the sound of armor giving way with a screech that grated on her ears. Annette saw Felix stiffen at the sound from the corner of her eye. She knew exactly why, too–he wasn’t the only one who recognized that particular brand of feral.
“Let’s go,” he bit out, the words short and sharp, and Annette nodded. Belatedly, she realized that he hadn’t turned her direction but kept facing toward where the sound had originated, and she cleared her throat.
“Yeah,” she managed. “Let’s.”
Felix didn’t need to hear anything more. She could practically see the tension in his body, coiled tight and ready to spring, in the brief instant before he was once more dashing away from her and headlong into what Annette was certain would be another skirmish. What was, probably, on the very front line of their efforts to repel the attackers from the Adrestian Empire, in fact. She happened to hear a shout, and spotted a pegasus knight dive into a battalion of mages, wielding a spear. Ingrid, she knew in an instant.
The clash of blade against blade drew her attention, and she spotted Felix locking weapons with another swordsman. He looked like he might have been some kind of officer, and was certainly putting up more of a fight than any of the other soldiers they’d fought along the way. A flash of excitement flickered across Felix’s face, likely at the hint of a challenge, and Annette tried not to feel exasperated. Instead, she conjured another spell at her fingertips, sending the gale spinning violently into the flank of the battalion behind Felix’s opponent.
Felix might work best alone, but that didn’t mean an enemy swordsman would. So while Felix had his little duel, she’d do her best to keep the battalion at bay.
That would get a little harder as time went on. Her best guess would be that she had one more Excalibur left in her, along with a handful of fire spells, wind spells, and only maybe two or three cutting gales. Ideally, she wouldn’t have to go through all the spells she could cast, but the longer the battle dragged on the more likely it seemed that she would have to do more. Her steel axe was still on her, but she was still clumsy with it and would prefer not to have to resort to using it if she could avoid it.
That meant that she’d have to cast her remaining spells with pinpoint accuracy, then.
Hard, when she was trying to keep an entire battalion from converging on Felix, but she might be able to manage something. If she cast another cutting gale through their middle, bisecting them, it might work...but Annette needed to get closer for it to have enough force to drop some of them. It would put her closer to the battle, easy enough for them to charge for her as the weaker target, but she might be able to do it. And she steadied herself for the possibility of needing her axe.
She took five quick strides, then drew the wind up around her and shouted to draw more attention–as if the men she’d been attacking hadn’t already been aware of her and turned towards her–and then the glyph for the spell burned against her palms. Brighter, even, was Annette’s minor crest flashing on the back of her hand, and she felt her tension ease, just a little.
It meant that her magic reserves wouldn’t deplete by using at least this spell. This one free magic could make a difference, and she was determined to put it to good use.
And, moments later, the spell tore through the center of the group she’d taken aim at, dropping the three soldiers directly in its path and buffeting others out of the way. She grit her teeth and hopped back to avoid an arrow she just barely saw, and drew a quick wind spell to her fingertips in an instant, finding the archer and blasting it his direction. His bow crumpled under the force and she saw him go down, though she wasn’t sure if it was fatal or not.
Half of the battalion down, and Felix was neatly dodging each of their leader’s blows while striking glancing blows of his own. They were slowing his adversary down, though, and Annette knew that one of his next strikes would be the last.
“Not so fast!” a booming voice sounded, and then, “HYEAAARGH!” came the following battlecry, as a blur of yellow and gold darted into the midst of the men she’d just scattered.
“Raphael!” Annette couldn’t help it.
“There you are, Annie!” another voice called, and two–no, three–arrows flew in quick succession to strike two targets, downing one and staggering the other. “We couldn’t find you after the ambush!”
“That’s my line!” she retorted, deftly avoiding a hasty fire from a mage that Raphael had just set his sights on. She readied her own fire spell, feeling the pull on her reserves, and took stock of the situation to choose her next target. There, the assassin that looked like he was going to charge at Ashe–
She saw a flash of blue in the corner of her eye as she released the spell, watching flames light up against the cloth and leather armor even as Ashe’s own arrow sank into his throat–and she realized the light was the Fraldarius crest, gleaming from the back of Felix’s hand even through his glove, as he drove his sword deep into his enemy’s chest. A blur of white darted from the sky, and Ingrid’s pegasus kicked at a brawler even as she downed the enemy battalion’s healer with a single thrust downward.
Felix wasted no time in charging forward from there, and the need for words faded against the rising din of battle. It felt like the end of the battle was near, and Annette forced herself to follow the others forward as Ashe fell into step behind her. The swordsman continually pressed forward, leaving the others a step behind, but that’s how he had always fought best. She tried not to be concerned about him in the moments that other fights blocked him from her sight.
Raphael pushed forward as well, drawing fire and attention so that Felix wasn’t the sole target on their front line, and now Annette was able to think more carefully about the spells she threw into the mix. With fewer opportunities for enemies to bypass the frontman and target the back line now that they were with a larger group, she had time to pause and pick specific targets, rather than panic and fling spells out before they were fully prepared.
There was really no time for words.
And, eventually, Annette saw the blue of Dimitri’s cloak flare up ahead, heard his wordless shout and quickly turned her attention back to her own enemies after watching him neatly sever an adversary’s head from her body.
Church soldiers had begun to bolster their ranks, support arriving in the form of those that had been farther afield, and the tide of battle moved more quickly in their favor. They swept through the stragglers, picking off the enemy or routing them, as they pushed.
And then the pincer formed, with Sylvain and his group charging from the east as Felix led their group’s charge from a more northwest direction, and Dimitri and Byleth and her father–no, Sir Gilbert –pressing forward with the most direct route to the enemy, having charged directly south through the town.
The battle moved in a strange haze from there.
Gilbert stepped in front of his lord to take a strong strike on his shield, and a growl ripped from Dimitri’s throat as he himself charged past to take advantage of the momentary opening. In a moment, the warrior in front of the general crumpled, and Dimitri spun past to continue his mindless charge. Raphael barreled into another one of the general’s guard while Felix’s quick blade toppled a third, Sylvain wielding the eerie Lance of Ruin immediately dropping another. After Ingrid injured one of the rear guards, a well-placed arrow from Ignatz finished the job. The man in their center called for a retreat, and the others shifted around to try and cover him.
Byleth used the Sword of the Creator, undulating and unearthly and even more eerie than Sylvain’s relic, to strike at the general himself, but an imperial fortress knight intercepted the blow. He didn’t escape unscathed, and Annette grit her teeth and launched a cutting gale–her last–into the fray. It sheared easily through what was left of the man’s armor, and Dimitri screamed something about tribute as he plunged his brave lance through the chest plate of the war master that had remained to defend his general’s escape.
Ashe’s arrow at the general’s retreating back flew wide and he nocked another, drawing the bowstring taught.
“That’s enough,” the former professor’s voice rang across their battlefield, and Annette only then realized how silent it was. Most of the fighting had died down, and the rest of the enemy had fled or been captured.
“It won’t be enough until I take her head,” Dimitri growled, and looked ready to give chase until Ingrid landed her pegasus in his path. His murderous scowl twisted. “Do not stand in my way.”
“You’re injured,” she said, tone clipped. She was far braver than Annette, for standing up to Dimitri like that. He probably had the most raw strength of anyone, and that was including the absolute mound of muscle mass that was Raphael Kirsten. “Some of them have already escaped, and they probably had already sent news back to the Empire. They know we’re here, so now we have to prepare.”
“I must take her head,” his voice was low.
“Stand down, Dimitri,” Byleth’s tone was sharper than Ingrid’s, and Annette flinched at the sound. She’d never heard the woman sound quite so authoritative, since she was prone to giving level headed guidance in the midst of battle. “There will be other chances. For now, we focus on healing those who’ve been injured, and putting out the fires in the village.”
The man who would be king growled wordlessly, but turned and stalked away, past the corpses of his enemies and back towards the road that would lead him through the village and up to Garreg Mach.
Silence fell, stretching on, until Sir Gilbert bowed his head to Byleth and then followed after the prince.
“And so the beast rears its head,” Felix muttered under his breath, and Annette startled at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t realized that she’d ended up near him again, but she was glad for the chance to observe him. He had taken a few more small cuts, and one rather nasty looking one on his unprotected shoulder, a few scrapes and bruises, but overall he looked as well as could be expected. Covered in dust and dirt and grime and blood and sweat, like the rest of them, but alive.
Warmth flooded through her then, and she glanced around. The magic had a familiar feeling to it, and when she saw Mercie with her eyes closed, standing in the center of the group with her hands clasped as if to pray and the sigil for the faith spell fortify shimmering and fading in the air, she relaxed. The healing magic would at least stop most of the bleeding from major wounds within the area, and could completely heal smaller ones.
She didn’t miss that her friend had cast the spell while Dimitri was still in range of it.
“That should help most of our people,” the bishop breathed, her eyes fluttering open. She sounded a little tired, and Annette frowned. “Please, let’s get the rest who still need attention to the infirmary. Does anyone else need immediate healing?”
A quick assessment showed that none in the area were too injured, but Raphael did sport a nasty gash across his chest that was still oozing a few. It must have been even worse before Mercie’s fortify had swept through their ranks, if it was still bleeding now. But when her friend tried to step up and heal it, Raphael waved her off with a booming laugh. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine! Wrap it up and it’ll be good as new! Check the others out first, and then you can come back to me!”
After a moment, the professor nodded. “Let’s take stock of everyone’s injuries first. Raphael, do you have a vulnerary? If you do, take it now. That should at the very least stop the bleeding, but it might scar.”
“That’s nothin’, Professor!” he laughed again, reaching for his belt. “I know Maya will worry about it if she sees a scar, but we gotta make sure everyone else gets healed if they need it more!”
It took Annette a long moment to recall that Raphael had a sister. That was probably the person he was talking about. Hilda used to joke about how doting of a big brother Raphael would be, and sometimes said he reminded her a little bit of her own big brother, Holst.
“Annette, how are you with faith magic?” the professor’s voice drew her back to the present. “Can you still use some?”
She’d healed Raphael once, just a quick spell before more enemies were upon them, and before he’d acquired the wound that his recently downed vulnerary was already helping to seal. And she’d healed Ingrid once, too. But she could still feel the presence of faith magic, warm and comforting in her chest, and she nodded.
“I’m not sure I can use it many more times, and it’s not as strong as Mercie’s, but I can.”
“It’ll be enough to help close wounds. Mercedes, you and Manuela will head back to the infirmary to wait. Annette, you and I will do quick first aid on any injured out here before we send them back to the monastery. Any of you that are able, fan out and check for survivors, enemy or ally.”
“Of course!” Annette answered quickly, and the others gave some other form of agreement.
Felix turned, next to her, and paused to look down at her. His brow furrowed for a moment and she wondered, briefly, if she’d held him back. But then he sighed, his mouth twisted half into a scowl, and said, “Don’t overdo it, Annette.”
“Right back atcha!” she tossed back, after a startled pause that was long enough for him to drop his hand from her shoulder and step past her, heading towards Sylvain and Ingrid. They had both dismounted and spoke briefly with Byleth before she indicated the west-northwest in a sweeping motion. Felix paused and half turned to look at Annette, then nodded shortly before stepping away again.
When he met with the other two, they headed off in the direction that their former professor had indicated, and Annette remembered that she was, in fact, supposed to probably be at the woman’s side. She took a few steps and had to take a moment to breathe again after wobbling.
Adrenaline had worn off, it seemed, and now the fatigue was sinking into her bones. But she did still have the capacity to cast some healing magic, so she would hold out.
I’ll probably sleep until noon tomorrow, she lamented silently, as a call for healing rang out from the east.
Notes:
THANKS FOR STICKING WITH ME.
I didn't think I'd be able to write a whole damn chapter about fighting and yet somehow, I accidentally did. So here we are. Hope that wasn't too much but I lowkey had a lot of fun when I got really into it so who knows? Other more important battles might also get similar treatment in the future, but we'll have to see. I know there's one in particular that will get addressed, but. That's for me to know and you to find out. :P
Anyway! Hope you guys are still there, and enjoying what's gonna be a slower burn than I feel like I've written in a while. Insert Keysmash: ;alsdjf;asdjfowei;ajf;dlskjhewg
thanks again! happy days! happy belated birthday to YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! even though I told you like 4 times already on your actual birthday!
Chapter 6: Rest
Summary:
There, on a couch, was a lump that Felix recognized. The fire in the room was low but it still glowed bright orange against her hair and lit up her pale face in its warm, yellow light. There were bags under her eyes and a slight furrow in her brow that even her fatigued sleep couldn’t erase, but it was the one person his thoughts had kept trailing back to.
“I knew it,” he snorted softly.
Notes:
Yoooo! So this is about a week later than planned / scheduled but I'm here! I'm still working on it! I'll but a little more as to why in the ending notes, but for now! Hope you enjoy this mostly cute/fluffy and laidback chapter, eh? :D
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Felix,” the voice at the entrance to the training grounds was tired, but unmistakable. He turned to see the professor–Byleth, he reminded himself again–standing there. She shook her head at him, at the sword in his hand and the dummy before him, though he could tell it wasn’t necessarily because she disapproved. Before he could ask what she needed, she gestured. “Come with me. We could use a few more hands moving people to other beds in the infirmary.”
Our healers are weary , she could have easily said. No doubt they were, after the number of people they’d healed or treated over the last several hours. The battle had ended nearly eight hours ago, and it was the dead of night and probably in the early hours of the morning, if he had to hazard a guess. He could still see the light from the infirmary and the extra rooms nearby taken up as a supplement to the infirmary, and could just picture all of the priests and monks and bishops and Annette still at work, ready to drop dead from fatigue. Though maybe his thoughts were focused a bit more on the skilled warlock than on the other healers he knew would be there, knowing she’d overwork herself.
Felix figured that Byleth didn’t outright say any of that because she trusted him to understand her without words, and so he nodded. His arms were burning a little, from the repetitive swinging of his sword, and his left hand still gave him a ghost tingle occasionally as a remnant from that one specific thunder spell he’d cast earlier, but he’d do his part, too. He could help move a couple of soldiers from one cot to another to free up space for someone else who needed it more.
He returned the training sword to its rack and followed her out after one more cursory glance, leaving the training grounds empty behind them.
The former professor had never really been one for a lot of words, and Felix was content to let the walk be silent, aside for the other people roaming around. Manuela passed, muttering something about incompetent fools can’t even properly clean bandages , but did not acknowledge them otherwise. He didn’t think it was just an illusion of the night that painted those dark circles under her eyes, either.
And he was positive that Annette had used even more magic than her for longer that day.
Stop it , he scolded himself silently.
There were still some people bustling around, but not nearly as many as when they had first returned to the monastery after the battle had ended. Most of them were healers, and he noted grimly that their work was always the longest to finish. He wondered how many of the wounded would last the night, and how many priests or monks would blame themself for failure.
“This way,” the former professor’s voice pulled his thoughts back to the task at hand as she motioned for him to follow. The big hall once used primarily for study had been transformed as part of a makeshift infirmary, some tables used as cots while others were pushed against a far wall for supplies with actual rickety cots in their place. It wasn’t pretty, but Felix knew that it would get worse before this war was over.
And, all things considered, the number of wounded seemed far fewer than he’d anticipated. Not all of the cots were full, a few even looking untouched aside from when they were first set up. This wasn’t where the major injuries were, probably. They’d probably managed to get those upstairs, into the infirmary and closer to where Manuela and Mercedes undoubtedly were, as the two most capable healers.
“Byleth!” a voice called, and they turned their gazes to a motioning priest. “Could you–?”
“Coming,” she answered, altering her course easily. Felix hung back while she spoke briefly with the man, then leaned over the soldier in question and murmured something. A soft green sigil glowed only momentarily at her fingertips, and the magic dispersed around the wounded woman on the cot, sinking into her skin and around the wound on her side. Her labored breathing eased, and the priest thanked Byleth.
“Thank you,” he breathed, sagging. He must have used all of his magic before reaching this particular soldier, and subsequently before reaching out for their commander’s assistance.
“Call again if you need something else. We’re going to help move the others.”
Felix fell in step with her again.
“Where exactly are we needed?” he finally asked, glancing over the hall again as they made their way toward the stairs.
“Some of our wounded up here can be relocated downstairs,” she answered, starting upwards. Her tone was a touch more weary now that she wasn’t trying to be strong for the healers in the large room they’d just left behind. “They need more room for those who need to allow time to heal the rest of their injuries. Manuela insists that breathing room is essential, now that the worst is over.”
That sounded like something Manuela would say, when she was actually doing her job as the caretaker of the infirmary instead of out trying to seduce some knight somewhere.
“Oh, Byleth!” a familiar voice exclaimed, and Felix lifted his eyes to find Sylvain grinning from the top of the stairs, a tired-looking warrior on his back. “I see you’ve rounded Felix up from somewhere. Was he at the training grounds?”
Felix scowled in response, feeling his neck warm a little at the correct assumption, and Sylvain laughed when Byleth just sighed.
“Fe, we just fought in a battle . Was that not enough for you?”
“Shut up,” he groused, fighting the urge to shove past. The person Sylvain was carrying was injured , after all.
“Don’t jostle him too much, Sylvain,” Byleth said dryly, nodding toward the person he was carrying. “Take the steps gently. Felix, let’s see where we can help out.”
We ? he thought to himself, watching her walk even as he grunted his agreement, ignoring Sylvain’s last teasing comment about hoping Felix hadn’t worn himself down too much to help. Instead, he scrutinized the former professor’s retreating back and wisely chose not to voice his thoughts.
You look like you can hardly carry yourself right now .
He followed where she directed, and soon found himself busy assisting with relocating the injured, as requested. Drawing a wounded fortress knight’s arm over his shoulders to help the man downstairs, lifting a petite assassin with a leg injury carefully onto his back and ignoring Sylvain when they passed in the hall and offered to take the woman instead, then moving someone with a complication in the healing from the study hall back upstairs for treatment in what had turned into their intensive care.
Ingrid appeared, apparently fresh off her shift on the nightwatch, to help out a little later, and he witnessed her scolding Sylvain severely for flirting with not only an injured soldier but the tired monk treating her.
Felix didn’t know how long he helped with moving the wounded, but his calves burned from the trips up and down the stairs with all the extra weight to manage, and he would have had to stop after a few more if Byleth hadn’t told him that was enough.
“Manuela’s said there’s enough room for now. She wants everyone else to bed, before she has to treat us all for fatigue.”
It didn’t sound in her voice, but Felix thought he saw amusement in her normally unreadable expression.
“Would you like me to walk you back to your quarters, professor?” Sylvain offered, offering his arm with an exaggerated flourish.
“Sylvain–” Ingrid started to growl, though it had a bit less edge than normal. She was definitely tired, and probably hungry too if Felix knew anything about his old friend. She was either going to go straight back to her room and collapse, or she was going to nick something from the kitchens before going to bed, and there was no in between.
“If any of you wanted to walk together, I wouldn’t be opposed,” the calm but tired voice of Byleth interrupted his thoughts which were, admittedly, trailing into other things. Like steaks and cakes, and the lack of a certain skilled magic user he could have sworn he’d see here.
Ingrid and Sylvain both agreed, and Felix grunted and turned to follow. Mercedes appeared from a door along their route, and nodded at the others. She looked even more worn out than some of the others, which made sense in Felix’s muddled thoughts. He was tired, but even he recognized that he hadn’t seen her around much because she’d been constantly holed up in rooms where she had to focus her healing on more severely injured soldiers.
“Oh, before you go,” she said, her voice cracking a little before she paused and she cleared her throat. The others slowed, but she looked at Felix. “Felix, can you help me with one more?”
“I can–” Sylvain started, stepping away, but the swordsman shook his head.
“I’ve got it. Go to sleep, before you make even more of an ass of yourself.”
Ingrid snorted and tossed back, “You’re one to talk.”
He shrugged, but Sylvain nodded. “Alright then, Fe. Don’t overdo it!” and turned to usher both of the ‘ lovely ladies ’ off to bed. Ingrid punched him and Byleth probably sighed. Felix had already turned away to follow where Mercedes beckoned, realizing it was Captain Jeralt’s old room they were entering.
“Someone else needs moved?” he asked, rolling his shoulder a little. He could handle one more, maybe two, but he didn’t trust himself beyond that.
“Well, not someone injured. It’s more of a favor,” Mercedes laughed breathlessly, more tired than anything, and then motioned him through the door. “It’s just...she wore herself out pretty thoroughly and kept working, and she just kind of crashed about an hour ago. I can’t rouse her enough to tell her to go to bed.”
There, on a couch, was a lump that Felix recognized. The fire in the room was low but it still glowed bright orange against her hair and lit up her pale face in its warm, yellow light. There were bags under her eyes and a slight furrow in her brow that even her fatigued sleep couldn’t erase, but it was the one person his thoughts had kept trailing back to.
“I knew it,” he snorted softly.
Her nose scrunched up at the sound of his voice, but other than that she showed no signs that she had heard him. She turned her face deeper against the cushions he knew from experience were stiff and uncomfortable, and eased back into easy slumber. Mercedes sighed softly next to the couch, and shook her head.
“Could you get her back to her room?” the bishop asked, tone fond but weary. “She’ll rest better if she’s in her bed, and I’ve tried waking her up and she’s too exhausted to stay awake long enough to even fully sit up.”
No , Felix wanted to say, or thought he should. Carrying her back to her room was more of a trek than helping the wounded to different areas like he had been the last few hours.
But it was Annette .
She probably weighed half as much as the last man he’d helped move, if that. Her room was on the way to the stairs up to the second floor, where he’d reclaimed his own room out of some strange sense of nostalgia just like everyone else, he reasoned, so it wasn’t even out of the way. And he had to admit that some part of him had wanted to see her ever since the battle had ended however many hours before.
Annette looked the most relaxed he’d seen her in weeks, despite the fact that she was obviously sleeping due to exhaustion and fatigue. Overwork, during the battle and after the battle and in all the time leading up to it, too. Felix wondered if she’d even had time to adequately rest after fleeing from her own home as the Dukedom finally encroached fully upon Dominic lands.
And yet...she herself had said not everything had to change. She kept studying as if they were still students, as if taking the next class exam would just be another stepping stone in her goal of being the top student of the officer’s academy. Or maybe she studied more, now, because taking a step up could be the difference between victory and defeat? To prove to her father that she could fight for her country, too? Felix didn’t know, but he did know that rest was what she needed the most. And, like Mercedes had surmised, this couch probably wasn’t the right place to get it.
“So?” Mercedes prompted, stepping back from where she’d been standing next to the couch, pushing Annette’s hair from her face. “Would you be able to help me?”
Her voice startled him back to the present, and Felix realized that he’d just been caught watching Annette as she slept. It felt shameful, somehow, and he felt his neck start to burn.
More quickly, perhaps, than he should have, he bit out, “I’ve got her.”
A smile fluttered across the healer’s face, grateful and tired in equal measure. “I knew Annie could count on you!”
For some reason, the burning in his neck was spreading, crawling further up and threatening to creep over his face and ears if he didn’t do something soon. And Mercedes’ tired grin was looking a bit less weary and a bit more...devious? Or knowing? Neither of which Felix was entirely sure how to handle.
Instead of trying to puzzle through it, Felix scoffed and stepped forward, kneeling a bit next to her and taking a moment to look her over once more before reaching out, hooking one arm under her legs and one behind her back before rising to his feet.
Felix became acutely aware once more of all the aches and pains the day had left him with, only exacerbated by his extra half-hearted training and then helping with the injured after the battle itself had ended, but it wasn’t so much strain that it would be beyond him. He took a moment to adjust, held his breath when she made a soft sound in her sleep, and let it out when she sank back down. After another moment, Felix forced himself to his feet and lifted her gently from the couch.
Annette was light in his arms but not quite as light as he’d expected, a fact which surprised him only for the briefest of moments. He often forgot that, while Annette was extremely skilled in reason and dabbling in faith, she was also fairly capable with an axe. Any training like that would build some sort of muscle mass, after all.
“Here,” Mercedes startled him again, somehow, by seemingly appearing at his elbow. Felix scolded himself for being so focused on Annette that he forgot his surroundings, and watched as Mercedes gently reached out.
“What are you–”
“Shhh,” her tone was scolding enough that Felix couldn’t help closing his mouth, and could only watch as she turned Annette’s head, which had lolled slightly back, to rest against Felix’s upper arm. “There. Less likely to accidentally bump against anything, now, and less strain on the neck.”
Less likely to bump anything, less strain, and Annette, closer to him than Felix had ever expected her to be, except for when she had thrown her arms around him in relief a long month ago, at their Millenium Festival reunion. Out of surprise, or perhaps on instinct, he held her tighter, and Mercedes smiled.
“She’ll probably get up earlier than she should,” he blurted out without really knowing what he was saying, and the blonde giggled.
“Oh, if the fatigue doesn’t keep her asleep, she most certainly will be up and trying to help out before she’s rested! We might have to count on you again, Felix!” she patted his shoulder and headed for the door while he tried to think of something to say in response to that. “Anyway, you should get some rest too, after you put her to bed. You look tired.”
“I–” he started to protest, then sighed and glanced down as Annette murmured something in her sleep. “You should rest soon, too.”
Mercedes just grinned again. “As soon as I can. Good night, Felix.” She paused before she completely turned, and then said more softly, “Good night, Annie.”
Felix found he had trouble swallowing past the inexplicable lump in his throat, so he only managed a brusque, “Night,” in response. Then he slipped out the door after her. They turned opposite directions, Mercedes back towards the infirmary and Felix towards the stairs.
He didn’t expect to find Sylvain, Ingrid, and Byleth waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. He definitely wasn’t prepared for Sylvain to be the first one to see him, and see the specific person he’d been asked to help, or the way his mouth dropped open in total shock first before stretching into one of his disgusting grins.
“Ohoho, what have we here?” Sylvain chuckled, and Felix knew if he hadn’t been carrying Annette, he’d be getting an elbow in the ribs. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Fe. A true hero, helping a damsel in distress!”
“Shut up ,” Ingrid scowled. Sylvain was the one that got a sharp elbow in the ribs, and he felt a surge of triumph when the redhead yelped, even though he wasn’t the one who’d caused it. “She’s asleep , as are most of the wounded down here!” she gestured to the former study hall next to them.
Annette shifted a little in Felix’s grasp and he glanced down in shock, only to find her turning her head more firmly against him. She mumbled something else that he couldn’t catch, but she relaxed again shortly after and he let out a soft breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. He heard Ingrid hit Sylvain again and a small yelp, and he turned a glare to his old friend. Sylvain put his hands up when he caught the look, still grimacing at the jab from Ingrid.
Byleth stifled a laugh in her hand, and everyone turned to look at her in mild shock.
“Enough of that,” she managed, lowering her hand and motioning for them all to step outside. “Let’s go around, so we don’t interrupt their rest. The night air will do us all a bit of good, I think.”
Felix would much rather take Annette back to her room alone than have the others, particularly Sylvain, along for the trip. He was already itching to curl his hand into a fist and introduce the redhead to his knuckles, but he couldn’t make any rash moves with Annette in his arms. His old friend wasn’t making it easy, though, because they’d hardly stepped outside and he’d glanced over to Felix three times. This time was the worst, because he topped it off with a wink. Ingrid wasn’t there to dole out the punishment Sylvain deserved anymore, instead walking a few paces ahead and talking with Byleth.
“I will end you,” Felix told Sylvain tersely, tone low but sharp. He glanced down at Annette, but she didn’t make a sound.
Rather than take his threat seriously, Sylvain snickered.
“The rest of you get to bed soon,” they had already reached the former professor’s room. She, too, had kept her old room, right at the end of what used to be the student dorms, and she paused with one foot on the first step. “As it stands, we may have a full debriefing around midmorning, so rest up.”
“The same goes for you,” Ingrid spoke up, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to the side. “You’re our commander, after all. It’s important for all of us that you get enough sleep, too, you know.”
Another soft smile. Felix felt like their former professor was somewhat more expressive than he remembered, but he couldn’t say it was time that had done it, if she’d really been sleeping for five years before this like she’d said.
At least her skills hadn’t diminished.
“What Ing said,” Sylvain finally abandoned his temporary position as a thorn in Felix’s side and dropped an arm around Ingrid’s shoulders, giving Byleth a cheeky salute with two fingers. “Not that you need your beauty sleep, By, but get some anyway!”
“You’re impossible ,” Ingrid hissed, elbowing him again.
“Good night,” Byleth offered then, nodding at them. They chorused the same in return, even Felix, though his was just a bit delayed, and much softer. The three childhood friends and the sleeping woman in Felix’s arms continued on their way, though thankfully this time Ingrid kept Sylvain more under control.
In fact, she spent the next few minutes scolding him. She was doing her best to do it quietly, but occasionally her voice pitched high enough that he glanced down at Annette in his arms. Sylvain thought similarly it seemed, because he kept glancing at the rooms they passed and tried to deter her.
“C’mon, Ing, people are sleeping ,” he said, glancing at the nearest set of rooms and then forward, and Felix grimaced at the next set of stairs coming up. He’d nearly forgotten them.
“And you’re still like this!” she tossed her hands up. “Felix, do me a favor and never turn into a philanderer like this one!” Ingrid jabbed at Sylvain again, but he deflected her hand with a startled yelp.
“You don’t have to worry about that ,” Felix huffed, affronted, but cut off further retort when something shifted. He turned his gaze down to Annette again, and saw a couple of her fingers tangled in his shirt as she mumbled something in her sleep again. None of it was loud enough for him to ever catch, so he didn’t worry about it.
Sylvain groaned. “You guys! I’m wounded! Do you really think that little of me?”
With no hesitation, both of them immediately answered, “Yes.”
“Anyway,” Ingrid ignored the redhead’s whining after their replies, stalling to glance back at Felix and Annette. And then, to Felix’s near horror, an amused smirk quirked her lips up for just a split second. If he hadn’t known her for so long, he might not have noticed it. “This is what Mercie was asking you for help with?”
“Y’know, Fe, if you need someone to take over for you– ow !”
Ingrid had socked him again. Felix would’ve done it himself, if he was capable of it.
“Yeah,” he answered the blonde woman, “it is.”
“I’d do whatever she asked me to do, too,” Sylvain murmured, and Ingrid groaned.
“For once, Sylvain, could you not say what comes to mind?”
They reached the set of stairs leading down to the second set of dorm buildings, and Felix carefully shifted his grip on Annette while the other two bickered some more. Sylvain, of course, kept whining that he was being mistreated, and Ingrid threatened in a loud growl to punch him again if he continued. Annette, surprisingly, didn’t wake up as their bickering rose in volume a little, but Felix sighed.
“I’m just saying, Ing, when a pretty girl asks me to do something, I’d do it!”
“Well, not everyone else would do a favor just to try and get in bed with a girl!”
“It’s not trying if it wor–yeowch !”
Felix knew that one was coming before Ingrid had even stopped to turn and swing. Sylvain was still standing on the last couple of steps and it was a small miracle that Ingrid didn’t aim lower. Instead, she just planted a solid punch in his gut and watched him stumble down the rest of the stairs and nearly lose his balance. She then dragged him away from the stairs and told him to get out of Felix’s way.
“You deserved that,” Felix pointed out when he reached the bottom of the stone stairs, tone low but just loud enough for the others to hear. “Now can both of you be quiet?”
He altered his steps, heading for Annette’s room. The others followed after.
“Is she still asleep?” Ingrid did lower her voice, stepping up and looking down at Annette as Felix grunted the affirmative. The pegasus knight’s face softened and she huffed a tired laugh. “Man, she must be exhausted to sleep through all of that. Sorry, Fe.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” he glanced over at the redhead on Ingrid’s other side and Sylvain groaned and put his hands up.
“Geez, I get it, you guys. No more honestly from me tonight, I guess,” he huffed. “I was being genuine when I offered to help you out! You looked tired–”
“Not one more word,” Felix snapped at him, then glanced down at Annette quickly, worried when the hand hooked in his shirt tugged. He could have sighed in relief when she relaxed again, just with a tighter sleeping grip on his shirt than she’d had before. Ingrid snorted at his words and probably also his reaction and reached out to pat the swordsman on the back, grinning at him. “You, either,” he scowled.
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean, Fe,” Ingrid smirked, glancing down at Annette’s hand, which twisted in his shirt as she muttered something that sounded suspiciously like part of an incantation in her sleep. “We’re all beat. Sylvain, let’s leave him be. He’ll get Annie to bed and make it upstairs on his own. He’s a big kid, you know.”
“I’m too tired for your shit right now,” he hissed, and both of his old friends laughed.
“I think we should stay, Ingrid, just to make sure he makes it up the stairs, if he’s so tired,” Sylvain stage-whispered, and Felix definitely was going to punch him just as soon as he got the chance.
Ingrid shoved Sylvain towards the stairs to the second floor of the old dorms. “Absolutely not. You stay up any longer, and you’ll say something that really will make one of us kill you. Don’t you see the look on his face?”
“I’m more scared of you–no, don’t hit me again, Ing!” he ducked her half-hearted swipe. “Ugh, fine! Sorry, Fe, but you’re on your own! Go tuck sleeping beauty in and make sure you get back upstairs! I’ll be listening!”
He yelped when Ingrid reached up to pull, hard, at his ear. “No, he won’t!” she declared, loudly once again. It was a miracle they hadn’t woken every single person who lived down here, at this rate. The only possible reason was that they were just as exhausted as Annette, and could sleep through anything by extension. “Don’t stay up too late, Felix! If we find you passed out in the training grounds or something tomorrow, I’ll kill you!”
He believed it, too.
“Just go to bed!” he shot at them instead, sighing. Then he had to scramble to adjust his grip, because Annette shifted her whole body. He realized he’d been much louder than intended, and was prepared for her to wake up and for him to be caught carrying her. He was about to have to apologize, he knew–
“–lix, duck,” she muttered, turning her face into his chest. Her hand bunched his shirt up even more, and he realized she was having some kind of dream. Probably about the battle from what was now yesterday, since, if he wasn’t mistaken, she’d muttered his name. “I’mma get ‘im with...ting gale…”
He was at the steps leading up to her room, and he took them carefully. He heard Ingrid snap something at Sylvain from further down towards the greenhouse, echoing as they started up the steps to the second floor, and noticed Annette wrinkling her nose. She leaned closer into him even in her sleep, and muttered half of a spell. He couldn’t help the amused chuckle that passed his lips.
“I’m sure you’ll get him,” he said, without even realizing what he was saying until the words had slipped out.
He shook himself even as the sleeping woman’s face smoothed out again, and he managed, somehow, to open her door. He left it open to see better, with the moonlight from both the window and the entrance, as he made his way over to her bed and carefully moved to place her there. For a brief moment, her hand tightened even more on his shirt as her head lolled down, onto her pillow, and her weight transitioned from his arms to the soft plush of her mattress. After a breath or two of slight panic, Felix carefully reached up to pull her hand from his shirt, mentally cursing himself. And then her fingers curled around his instead of in fabric, and for some reason his neck burned again.
Focus , he told himself. He was too tired for this.
Felix lowered his hand down to her pillow, next to her cheek, and lingered a moment. He couldn’t explain why, even to himself, but he allowed himself a moment to watch her sleep again before he carefully pulled his fingers out of her grasp and reached down to tug off her shoes. It was the least he could do to help her be a little more comfortable, right?
She mumbled something else that sounded suspiciously like it was about cakes, and then she eased back into her pillow. He tugged her blankets out from under her legs, finding a moment to be thankful that she actually hadn’t made her bed that morning, and pulled them up over her. And then he turned to head out of the room before he caught himself being a creep and staring at her while she slept again.
“Get some rest, Annette,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the bed once he’d reached the door. She shifted, rolling on her side facing the dim light from the door, and breathed slowly out in sleep.
He closed the door behind him and shook himself, reaching up to rub wearily at his eyes.
“I’m too damn tired for this,” he muttered to himself, grasping the fabric of his own shirt where only minutes ago, Annette’s hand had been. With a groan, he dropped his hand, down to the hilt of the single sword at his waist, and headed away from her room, catching a cat darting from one bush to another from the corner of his eye. He could barely follow its movements in the dark, and it was a little dizzying to try.
Felix trudged towards the stairs to the second floor, stifling a yawn against his fist.
There was little to be learned in the debriefing. Everyone was still tired, the boar prince still hulking about and, if prompted, would declare his intent to head straight for Enbarr and Edelgard’s head. Considering that Gilbert had asked his opinion on regaining strength before the next move, it had little consequence. Byleth had interjected with, “In time,” and moved on to the next part of the discussion. While casualties were low, there had still been a number of injuries, and even with the faithful and former Church of Seiros forces that had returned, it was still taxing on their healers. They needed more, in every sense.
More soldiers, more healers, and more supplies.
As they left the room, Sylvain let out a loud yawn as he stretched. “The work’s never done, is it?” he asked, his fatigue still audible in his voice.
“You’ll be writing to Duke Rodrigue again, Felix?” Ingrid, just like Felix, had ignored Sylvain’s rhetorical question.
Gilbert had put forth the suggestion of reaching out to Fraldarius and Gautier for any possible aid they could spare, though Duke Fraldarius was already stretched thin as it was trying to defend what remained of the Holy Kingdom and Margrave Gautier was forced to defend against renewed attempts at a Sreng invasion. Sylvain and Felix, then, had been tasked with reaching out to their fathers, though neither was too thrilled. Honestly, he didn’t see why Ingrid couldn’t write his father, since Rodrigue still doted on her as if she was, in fact, the daughter she should have been. Even Sir Gilbert could have done it, as the one who concocted the plan, but Byleth had already given them the task.
“If I must,” he answered instead, scowling.
Ingrid snorted. “Oh, come on, Fe. Writing to Rodrigue isn’t that bad, is it?”
He didn’t answer verbally, but Sylvain stepped in to complain about writing to Margrave Gautier, who was more likely to ask that Sylvain return to their lands than to send troops, or so he said. In ordinary circumstances, Felix knew that his redheaded friend was completely right, but with Dimitri still alive–in the traditional sense of the word–he suspected that he would send something, whether it was troops or supplies, just so long as it wouldn’t compromise the defense of the Sreng border.
Gautier territory was generally considered more far-removed, but the Margrave’s loyalty to the crown was hardly less than Felix’s father’s own.
“Mercie, I mean it! Did you hypnotize me or something, to get me back to my room?!” that voice was ahead of them, and Felix allowed himself to outpace the bickering duo behind him and round the corner. Annette was tugging on her friend’s sleeve, preventing her from entering the infirmary. “You didn’t carry me all the way back, right? You hypnotized me or something! But you should have just woke me up so I could help out some more! Oh, I’m so useless!”
“She tried waking you up,” Felix’s voice escaped before he could think better of it, and he mentally cursed himself. It wasn’t hard to remember the weight of carrying her in his arms, after Mercedes had asked for his help.
Annette yelped and spun to face him. “D-don’t sneak up on me, Felix, you meanie! And how would you know–” She stopped herself when Mercedes started laughing behind her, covering it with her hand. “Mercie, what’re you laughing for? We were having a serious conversation!”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Annie,” Mercedes lowered her hand, gave Felix a very deliberate and angelic smile, and glanced back to Annette. “It’s just, you should be nicer to Felix. When I couldn’t get you to wake up, I asked him to take you back to your room so you could rest.”
A startled squeak erupted, and Annette’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She glanced from Felix, who awkwardly looked away, back to the deviously grinning bishop she called a friend. He spared another glance at her as she started stuttering a little, her cheeks flushing, and she tossed another glance his way.
“Oh, you’re both being mean today! You’re evil !”
She stamped her foot once, childishly, and dashed back down the hall past him, probably on the way to the library.
Mercedes giggled softly, and Felix groaned.
“Whoa, Fe, what did you do?” Sylvain and Ingrid had rounded the corner shortly before Annette’s outburst. “I thought she’d stopped calling you evil? And now you, too, Mercie?”
“I’m going to the training grounds,” Felix spat, rushing away.
Behind him, Mercedes laughed again, and he heard her say, “Oh, I just told Annie who helped her get to her room last night,” followed by laughter from the other two. He scowled and tried to ignore the heat creeping up the back of his neck, and resolved to train until he forgot whatever this had been. Annette was confusing, at best, but at least she seemed like she’d had a decent enough rest.
Notes:
Thanks for reading!!! And thanks for being patient with me. Sorry for the slightly extended wait here!
I'm going to try sticking to every other week/weekend for updates as I've been attempting since the start, but I have to warn you it may get a little less regular coming up.
As I'm sure all of you know, things are hectic everywhere right now. My roommate was recently laid off and will be moving in with her boyfriend, and I can't afford our place on my own, so I'm in the middle of making a decision on where I'm going to move, whether trying to find a new studio quickly in the midst of everything, or moving out of the city and back in with my parents for a while until everything blows over. It's a matter of weighing the pros and cons of both, which I won't go into here but let's just say my anxiety is high right now and it was a lot harder to try writing this...so I played FFVII Remake instead. Which reinvigorated my love of WHATEVER the ship name for Cloud x Tifa is, just by seeing their beautiful faces in hi def.
ANYWAY. Thank you guys again for your patience, and as I said - I'll still try the every-other week updates (starting from now, because I doubt I'll be able to get out another chapter for the original schedule for next week)!
Have a good one! Stay safe, wash your hands, and take care of yourselves!
Chapter 7: Oh.
Summary:
“Oh,” Ashe said, as soon as she was done. His eyebrows rose and a strange look of understanding flitted across his face. Annette’s chest tightened. And then Ashe leaned forward and more deliberately, with a light chuckle, repeated, “Oh.”
“‘Oh’, what?” she demanded, warily.
“Felix, huh?” he leaned his head on his hand, looking deep in thought. “I can understand why you like him.”
Notes:
HAHAHAHAHAH SO MUCH FOR EVERY OTHER WEEK MY DUDES.
I'll put explanations/excuses and stuff at the bottom but without further ado - chapter 7 of TSOS is here!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Annette went up to the second level of the library and into a corner where she hoped no one would find her until her mortification wore off.
Mercie’s sly, teasing, knowing smirk just wouldn’t get out of her head. Mercie , her best friend and the only one she had ever told about her academy crush on Felix Hugo Fraldarius, and she’d decided to torture her this way. Annette at first couldn’t believe it, and then she realized that it was a very Mercie thing to do. Mercedes was known for being kind and gentle, but she definitely had that mischievous streak. Annette just hadn’t expected her best friend, ever since their days in Fhirdiad at the School of Sorcery, to turn on her like this.
And Felix didn’t deny that he’d carried her, either, which meant that he probably had.
Her face, her ears, her neck, and everything else that could possibly burn from the force of her embarrassment was doing so, and she slumped against the table in front of her, pressing her cheek against the rough wood. It was cooler than her own face, and that was all she really wanted right now.
Do I talk in my sleep ? She wondered, shifting so that it was her forehead resting on the table instead of her cheek. That would just be the icing on the cake, if she did talk in her sleep..
If so...had she said anything incriminating? She hadn’t dreamed about him last night, had she? She couldn’t remember. Dreams were finicky and wispy and always faded faster when you tried to remember what they were. But...Mercie was probably right about Annette being exhausted after everything yesterday, so she probably didn’t have any dreams like that last night.
Probably .
And even if she had , would they have included Felix? C’mon, Annie, there are plenty of other handsome men around — she tried to tell herself otherwise, but she was having trouble holding the images of any of the other good-looking soldiers in place. The more she tried not to think about Felix, the more he seemed to stay in her thoughts, as it were.
“Mercie,” she groaned against the table. “Why did you do this to me?”
Mercedes, obviously, didn’t answer. Annette would have been more concerned if she had miraculously swooped in to do so, because that would have meant that Annette was either extremely predictable, which was possible at least for those who knew her, or that Mercedes had followed her immediately. Thankfully, no one else answered her, either. Annette wasn’t sure which would have been worse.
Felix, though. Felix had agreed to carry her to her room last night, or maybe this morning, even after a hard-fought battle and more training besides. She wondered what face he might have made, watching her sleep. Or if he’d even looked at her at all while he was carrying her. And then—he had to have gone in her room , too. She tried to remember if it was a mess before, or when she’d climbed out of bed this morning, but she had no luck.
Maybe, even if she had books and clothes and, goddess forbid, her underthings , strewn across the floor, it had been dark enough that he hadn’t noticed. Unless he’d tripped over them or something, and she somehow hadn’t woken up.
“Don’t think about that,” she muttered to herself. But then, instead of thinking about that, she started thinking about what she might have missed, being asleep like that. Back in the days of the Officer’s Academy, she’d devised many mischievous plans to trick Felix into carrying her back and never followed through with any of them, mostly because they were concocted when she was sleep-deprived and when she came to she’d scolded herself back into studying. She’d been there mostly to find and reconnect with her father, after all. And she was on scholarship , despite technically being nobility herself, so she had to make sure to stay on top of her studies.
Speaking of studies. She could be using this time reviewing some more faith magic instead of wallowing in her embarrassment. It would be a perfect solution. Or, even if it wasn’t, it would be something productive and would be fueled by the force of her embarrassment.
Perfect .
She lifted her head, patted herself lightly on the cheeks, and stood abruptly.
Someone else behind her yelped, and Annette followed suit, spinning around with apologies already falling from her lips. “I’m so sorry, I’m so clumsy, are you okay?”
When their eyes met, though, Ashe just started laughing, and Annette sighed in relief. He was a lot sturdier than he used to be and was harder to accidentally bump and knock over or something, especially for someone of her stature. It was better than bumping into one of those young monks that she was sure had been some of the orphaned kids from Remire Village and sending them sprawling.
“Are you okay, Annette?” he asked instead, dodging her question once his mirth had subsided. “I heard you talking to yourself, and you usually only do that when you’ve been up too late or studying too much, or both.”
I’m fine, Mercie just made my Academy-days crush carry me back to my room last night and I’m having an internal crisis about whether I look ugly when I sleep, or if I was drooling, or whether I’m too heavy, or whether my room was a disaster —
“I’m fine! Just overthinking things, like usual!” she managed brightly instead, but Ashe arched a brow at her. Granted, her voice had been pinched and had gone higher than she’d intended, so the lie was obvious to one of her close friends. And Ashe was definitely one of those close friends, so he just looked unamused. Or maybe a little amused.
“Annette…”
We can talk about it if you want , she heard beneath just that single word. And she knew Ashe would listen, but this was something she’d only ever talked to Mercie about. Ever. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to put it out there with another person, even though she was positive he’d do his best to help her and keep it pretty quiet. He’d been a thief in the past, so Ashe was used to being secretive.
And Mercie had just betrayed her! Or maybe she thought it was helping, and it wasn’t as if she’d actually told Felix about Annette’s old feelings for him, but it still made Annette’s ears burn at the thought. As most things one tried to push out of their minds did, however, thoughts of it kept coming back. Foremost among those, even, was the underlying wish that she could at least remember what it felt like to be in his arms. Safe, maybe? She thought he’d feel safe.
“Annette, you’re blushing.”
She yelped at Ashe’s tone, spun around, and dropped back in the chair she’d only just vacated in order to hide her face, and stated with no uncertain amount of defiance and probably denial, “I am not!”
She heard the sound of the chair nearest her being pulled out, and the way it creaked when her friend sat.
“And now you’re lying.”
She caught both the teasing tone of his voice, as well as the slight disapproval, and groaned internally. Annette murmured something completely unintelligible against her hands, but that was fine because she didn’t even know if they were real words, herself.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s fine,” Ashe finally said, carefully. “But if you do want someone to talk to about it, I can go get Mercie—”
“ No !”
Annette yanked her hands down, staring at her friend in horror for a moment before she realized what she’d done.
Normally, if anything was wrong with Annette and she wasn’t open to speaking with anyone else, they could get Mercedes and she would, without fail, speak with them. For her to so blatantly refuse to speak to her, however...she grimaced a little at the shock writ across Ashe’s features and tried to fumble for something else to say. Annette was at a loss for words, though, and finally Ashe broke the almost heavy silence.
“Did you two...have a fight?”
“No, no, no, no, no !” she shook her head quickly.
After that her mind raced and finally, after several seconds of trying to come up with any other reason that could be feasible, Annette sagged and flopped forward on the table. She pillowed her head in her hands and groaned.
At least Ashe was good at keeping secrets, because she certainly wasn’t.
“No, we didn’t have a fight,” she mumbled, but she turned her head to the side so the words weren’t completely muffled. “She just betrayed me, is all.”
“Betrayed you?”
Poor Ashe. He sounded even more confused at that statement than he had at any point before, even the part where he thought she’d had an argument or fight with Mercedes, her best friend, who she rarely fought with.
Annette sighed, and sat up a little. She had to try and get through this as bumble-free as possible, because she didn’t want to leave Ashe confused. But she also didn’t want to say any of it out loud, which made finding words even more difficult than it had already been.
“She. Um. She used an old crush from the Officer’s Academy days against me. Sort of? I don’t know!” Annette ran a hand through her hair, dragging her fingers through a few kinks, undoubtedly caused by the way she’d fled Mercie and the others in the hall and the way she’d been stressing out about it afterwards. “I mean. She was the only person I ever told, and she’s still teasing me about it, and it’s so far in the past! It’s been so long and she still used it against me!”
Ashe blinked, then laughed softly—not in a malicious or rude way, never with him, but just enough so that she knew he understood her dilemma. Then he rested his arms on the table in front of him, tapping his right pointer finger on the weathered wood while he thought about it. “How did she use an old crush against you? Did she just tease you about it, or tell the person you liked that you used to like them?”
No, she asked him to carry me back to my room after I fell asleep helping to heal others last night , she thought crossly, then felt her face start to burn. She could see the moment that her blush surfaced because Ashe arched one eyebrow in question, and she put her face in her hands.
“She...asked him to carry me to my room, after I fell asleep last night.”
Just the admission made her face burn even more, and even though her words were incredibly muffled it seemed that he’d heard her just fine. Ashe leaned forward. “So...he’s here, then? Your crush is in the Kingdom army?”
“It was a crush from the academy ,” Annette corrected weakly, unable to focus enough to refute more than that.
“Sure it was,” he stated simply, leaning casually back. Forced casual, because there was a grin twitching at the corner of his mouth and Annette wondered if he, too, might be a traitor to her woes. “And you’re blushing like crazy because he definitely carried you back at Mercie’s request, right? And I thought you didn’t like him anymore.”
Annette narrowed her eyes at him, her ears burning now but her friend’s implications not lost on her. “I don’t,” she said, her voice not carrying the true weight of her conviction. Annette wondered where her firm insistence had gone.
“So if I asked around to see who carried you back to bed last night, it would be okay? And it would still be okay if I asked him about it?” her heart skipped a beat and her mouth dropped oben, but Ashe continued without a care. “You wouldn’t be interested in knowing how he felt about carrying you back, since you don’t like him like that anymore. Allegedly.”
“Don’t you dare ,” she hissed, then groaned once more and crossed her arms. “Ugh, Ashe, I knew I shouldn't have mentioned it to anyone. You’re acting just like Mercie . I tell her once in the academy that I admired him, and she wouldn’t let it go for days . Then I told her I might like him and she hasn’t let it go for five years . ‘Oh, Annie, you’re still writing him letters, even though you haven’t seen him since the Academy?’” she’d pitched her tone as gentle and sweet as she could, but with just a faint hint of malice, trying to emulate her best friend. “‘Annie, are you sure he doesn’t feel the same?’ ‘Oh, come on, Annie, why don’t you ask to head to his lands for a strategy meeting? It would do you good to see him again.’ And then when we all met up again it was, ‘oh, Annie, couldn’t you tell he was happy to see you, too?’ I really shouldn’t have said anything about it. I can’t have you doing the same thing as Mercie!”
“Oh,” Ashe said, as soon as she was done. His eyebrows rose and a strange look of understanding flitted across his face. Annette’s chest tightened. And then Ashe leaned forward and more deliberately, with a light chuckle, repeated, “ Oh .”
“‘ Oh ’, what?” she demanded, warily.
“Felix, huh?” he leaned his head on his hand, looking deep in thought. “I can understand why you like him.”
Annette choked on nothing, or maybe on the rapid inhale she’d taken when he’d spoken, then spluttered incoherently for several moments and gasped, “How did you—” before she caught herself and stopped. When she finally had enough control of herself, she took a breath and then murmured a soft curse and buried her face in her hands once again. She’d spent too long panicking internally to make it even remotely believable, but she still had to try to deny it. “I don’t like him!”
Her voice was small, and she was starting to realize why Mercie, and now Ashe, didn’t believe her.
“So...you fell asleep while helping in the infirmary,” Ashe changed his tone, this time using the same tone he used to get the main points of a story down, and when she peered up at him she watched him count them on his fingers, “or, knowing you, passed out from exhaustion because you were worn out and didn’t know when to quit,” she winced, and Ashe shook his head when he noticed with a soft sigh, but continued, “and Mercedes asked Felix to carry you back. Am I right so far?”
She didn’t trust herself to speak, so Annette just nodded.
“She probably couldn’t wake you up. I know that he and Sylvain and Ingrid were helping out with carrying the injured and the treated from one room to another, so they might have just finished when she pulled him aside.”
Annette nodded again, her lips turning down a bit. How did he know her so well?
“And Felix carried you back, like Mercedes asked, and you found out this morning. She told you, and since you used to have feelings for him and the only person who knew was Mercedes, who asked Felix to carry you in the first place, she’s betrayed you and you’re hiding in the library.”
“I’m not hiding, I’m studying,” she said, almost on instinct, but Ashe looked pointedly at the table, free of books, and back to her. She averted her gaze for a moment. “Okay, but she told me he’s the one that carried me back in the hall right after the debriefing! And only after he showed up to back her up!” She slumped further against the table, smothering her face in her hands. “Right in front of him . And I made this weird squeak and now he’s going to think I’m the girl who makes weird noises, or something, and what if I talked in my sleep, or if I drooled on him, or if my room looked messy to him?”
“Annie,” Ashe said, tone a lot less teasing than it had been. He reached out to grasp her shoulder lightly and she peered back at him. He blinked, looking thoughtful, and then chose his words carefully. “It sounds to me...like you really care what he thinks.”
“Wouldn’t you be embarrassed for anyone to hear you sleeptalking? Or see your room, if it was a mess?” she demanded.
“Well, probably a little. But Annie...you seem to care a little more than I would.”
She frowned at him, just a moment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ashe chuckled a little and leaned back in his chair, glancing up at the shelf across from him. “Only that, the way you’re talking, it doesn’t really feel like those feelings for him are as in the past as you want everyone to think.”
“I—” she started, but her mouth was agape in shock, and her mind was spinning. The accusation was slowly settling into place, and she squeaked again. She buried her head in her hands yet again and shook it, voice muffled. “No! I know what you’re thinking, and no, Ashe, that’s not it at all!”
“You know,” he said thoughtfully, reaching over to pat her on the shoulder, “you’ve never been really good at lying, Annie.”
Lying .
He hadn’t said it outright, but she did know what he was getting at, and the thought sent fire racing through her veins. She wanted to protest, to tell Ashe that he was absolutely wrong, he was off the mark, there was no way that she actually still had feelings for Felix — but the more she wanted to say it, the harder it was for her to believe it. And, with a jolt, Annette realized that now she really understood now why Mercedes never believed her when she insisted she didn’t like him anymore.
She didn’t believe it herself, now.
“Oh, no ,” she whispered, barely audible beneath her hands, and when Ashe let out a startled chuckle she knew he wasn’t really laughing at her but at the circumstances. “Oh, no. Nonono. Ashe, how am I going to face him now?!” She lifted her head and stared at him, imploringly. “It’s not like this is the time for any of this, considering there’s a whole war and everything going on, and we need to find Lady Rhea, and whatever else, and it’s Felix anyway, so it’s not like there’s even a chance, but what do I do ? I can’t avoid him or he’ll ask about it! Do you think...will it go away if I ignore it?!”
At some point, it had turned more into rambling to herself, but Ashe was still there and patted her shoulder once again for comfort. Or, at least, she was sure he meant to comfort her but she wasn’t exactly sure if it was working.
“I can’t answer that for you, Annie, but you knew you liked him back then and you still managed to talk to him. Maybe you can go back to that?”
“But back then I was a teenager who just wanted to get good grades to keep my scholarship and find my father!” she whined. “I had other things to focus on!”
Her friend shook his head and then gave her a soft grin and said, “Annie...you’re the one that just said that there’s a war going on. If you need something else to share the focus, isn’t that enough?”
“What if he distracts me from the war?” she would have wailed were it not for the awareness of her surroundings, and many memories of being scolded by librarians back during their school days here.
Ashe sighed and sat back, looking thoughtful. “Well...I have faith in you, Annie, and I know you’ll have your mind where it needs to be when it counts,” he said slowly. “And you’ve liked him for years, at this point, so I’m sure you’ll figure out how to talk to him again, too. But…”
Annette waited, but Ashe didn’t continue and she frowned a little. “But…?”
He hummed softly and then said, “I’m not sure that trying to ignore it is the best option, either. He definitely cares about you, too, so if you stop talking to him or avoid him or something, won’t he be worried about you?”
“What? No way!” She shook her head quickly, patting her warm cheeks. “He maybe cares about me as much as the rest of us but not any more than that—I don’t need you saying the same things Mercie does about it!”
A soft giggle sounded behind her, and the voice of the woman she’d just mentioned chimed in, “He only says them because they’re true , Annie.”
Annette yelped, jerking around so suddenly that her chair started to tip. It was through the combined efforts of Mercie, who stepped up to catch the back of her chair even though Annette definitely flailed and smacked her in the stomach, and Ashe, who reached forward to grab Annette’s nearest wrist and gently tug her forward, that Annette managed not to fall. After another soft laugh from the blonde woman and a breathless chuckle from Ashe, Mercie stepped around and took a seat next to her.
“W-What are you doing here?” she asked, glancing around to see one of the recently returned lesser librarians giving her the eye. She turned her attention sheepishly back to the others. “Didn’t you have other things to do than to come and try to tease me?!”
“Tease you? I would never,” Mercie said sagely, placing her hands delicately one on top of the other. Ashe snorted, and Mercie gave him a glance that Annette would classify as a soft warning. “I just thought you might be here to study, and would enjoy a little bit of company before we needed to attend to our other duties.”
“Well, I think to help with her studies today, Annette’s been doing a little soul-searching,” Ashe commented flippantly, resting his elbow atop the table and placing his chin carefully in his hand.
Oh, that grin was evil .
“Ashe, don’t you dare ,” she scowled at him.
“Oh, is that right?” Mercie’s tone was carefully bright. Carefully, because Annette could tell when she was faking it and holding back one of her teasing smiles. The ones that she liked to wear to keep appearing innocent to outsiders, while Annette writhed under her scrutinizing looks and digging comments. “And what have we learned today?”
After a long moment, wherein Annette tried to take subtle steadying breaths, she answered, “I’ve learned that I’m really no good at the whole meditation angle, so I should really grab the books I need to review!”
She gestured down at the floor beneath them, but Mercie reached forward and placed one hand atop Annette’s. A sure sign that Mercie would hold nothing back if she made the break for it here, if there were one.
“Oh, no, I’m sure you’re fine at meditating, Annie! Could it just be that there’s something else on your mind?” Her tone had dropped conspiratorially at the end, and then she glanced to Ashe and grinned. “Perhaps something about how you managed to make it back to your room last night? I did want to tell you sooner, but you barely arrived on time for the debriefing.”
Ashe, hiding what she was sure was a grin behind his hand, chipped in, “Oh, I’m pretty sure it had something to do with that. But with that,” he paused and pushed himself to his feet. It was a grin, and she scowled at him some more as he continued, “I’m afraid I must take my leave. I’m sure you two ladies have a lot to talk about, and I feel like I might just be in the way.”
“Oh, you’d never be in the way,” Mercie actually gave him one of her sweet smiles, the ones without the devious undertones. “But if you’re determined to go, then I hope your day passes smoothly, and that we’ll see you in the cafeteria for meals?”
“Thank you, thank you! I’ll be there unless I’m on watch, for sure,” he smiled and stepped away, but paused after three paces and turned back and Annette felt her stomach sink. Internally she chanted, No, no, no, don’t you dare do it, Ashe , but even he wasn’t psychic, or she wasn’t skilled in telepathy, so he proceeded as she’d feared with a shit-eating grin that could nearly rival Sylvain’s, “I might just go ask Felix about last night, then, since his answer wouldn’t affect you in the slightest.”
“ Ashe !” she hissed, but he laughed, loudly, waved, and took the stairs down more quickly than Annette could stand up. And then, with a single stomp, she called after him, “You’re almost as bad as they are! You-you big meanie !”
Her face was burning once again, and she hesitated calling him evil because that was something reserved for—no, she was not going to think about Felix when he snuck up on her singing, not at all .
Only, on par with everything else, as much as she tried not to think about it, about him , he was the only thing that would pop into her mind. She groaned as she sank back into her seat, and Mercie reached forward to pat her on the back.
“Well, I’m a bit disappointed it wasn’t me, but if Ashe made you at least realize that you still have that cute crush on Felix then I’m satisfied,” she mused, and Annette let out what could nearly be classified as a whimper and pressed her forehead against the weathered table in front of her. “Oh, don’t be dramatic, Annie, it was only a matter of time. Now, getting you to actually pay attention to the fact that he definitely cares abou—”
“Oh, no, Not right now,” Annette raised one hand to halt her friend. “Don’t you even think about it, Mercie.”
“I was just going to say that he cares about you, too, and that you should give it a chance.”
“Ugh,” Annette sank further against the table. The worst part was the obvious smile in her tone, because it meant that Mercedes von Martritz was enjoying this pain she was bringing her supposed best friend. But she chose to ignore Mercie’s comment and instead asked, “Why didn’t you leave me wherever I fell asleep? I’m sure it would’ve been fine.”
Mercie graciously followed Annette’s new inquiry.
“I could have, but then you’d have woken up uncomfortable from sleeping in that position,” the words came out simply enough, but then she added, with an air of practiced nonchalance, “And I wouldn’t have gotten to see the way Felix looked at you when you weren’t paying attention.”
Annette was sure all this pressure was bad for her heart, which had either skipped a beat or picked up the pace at the thought of Felix looking at her some kind of way that was different from the usual expressions he wore. She tried to imagine his face showing something akin to that abject relief when she’d crumpled against him at their reunion, or something softer, and it was hard to put into place but what she did conjure up made her chest squeeze with longing. What kind of expressions could he wear that weren’t all surly and angry?
He had always been maybe a little less rough with her than he was with say, Sylvain or Ingrid, but she thought it was just because she was small and the opposite of intimidating and his face, when pinched with frustration or anger, was kind of scary. Maybe she’d given him the benefit of the doubt or something. She’d gotten past those expressions early on, though—easy enough, when the face that made them was that handsome.
Oh, goddess, Annette, what did you just think?!
She clapped her hands to her cheeks with more force than she’d planned to, and then awareness came back. Mercie was looking at her, amusedly, and Annette realized she still hadn’t said anything in answer.
“N-now you’re just trying to tease me,” she fumbled for words. “There’s no way he’d look at me any differently when I’m asleep than he does when I’m awake.”
With a hum, Mercie said, “That’s what you’d want the people you look at differently to think, now, isn’t it?”
“Maybe, if you’re someone who tries to hide what you think...which is a category of people I don’t think he falls into.”
She could vividly remember the one lecture in faith magic where Felix told Manuela precisely where he thought she could shove her staff, and it took half the class to distract her from her rage while Ingrid had clotheslined Felix and dragged him out half-choking. She could be heard yelling at him until her voice gradually faded into the distance as she continued presumably pulling him and chastising him at the same time. And another time where he had blatantly told Annette, shortly after she’d passed her warlock exam, that her dangling sleeves would only hinder her in battle, with a furrowed brow and a scowl at them. She’d huffed and scolded him in return, but she clearly never changed his mind on it, because she saw him give any sort of billowy or trailing sleeve a death glare.
“It’s true that Felix is usually very straightforward,” Mercie granted, and Annette had to bring herself back from memories of comparatively happier days here at Garreg Mach.
“Exactly!”
“ But …”
“Wait, Mercie, no buts! How is there a but?”
“Well, Annie,” her friend looked thoughtful. “I think maybe it’s one of those situations where he doesn’t realize it yet, himself.”
Annette groaned and wondered if her face would ever stop feeling like it was on fire.
Now that she wasn’t completely in denial, she could admit there had been times in the last six years, since they’d attended the Officer’s Academy together here and beyond, where she had daydreamed what it might be like if he returned her feelings. Granted, they were often after a very satisfying and romantic ending in one of the novels she liked to talk to Ingrid and Ashe about. Those were nights when the hopeless romantic she’d tried to squash out of herself rose to the surface and she would giggle into her pillow and imagine it. But she’d long since come to the conclusion that if Felix were ever going to feel the same way for her, he would have already noticed it, or done something about it. After all that time, she was convinced that he would have realized any feelings, if he had them, and that was that.
And besides that, letters would have been the perfect chance, in those five long years, to come to terms with such feelings...but none of them turned towards longing and love, so she had forced herself to stifle her own.
A friend’s words meant something, though, and even though Annette denied the possibility, she couldn’t help but feel the flickering of longing reigniting somewhere within. And Mercie teased her, yes, in ways that only Mercie could do, but she would never intentionally mislead Annette about something like this. The pious woman perhaps trusted too easily and searched for the good or the positive in most situations, but it was still enough that she saw possibility somewhere.
But...the Empire would know they were here soon, if they didn’t already, and war would be upon them. This wasn’t exactly the time nor the place to pursue matters of love, or infatuation, or whatever it might be, and she should be studying more faith magic and bettering herself to help with the war effort rather than dwell on something of the romantic nature.
Instead of refuting Mercie, Annette sighed and looked at the bookshelf across from her. “Even if it were true, Mercie, it’s not really the time to be getting worked up about it. We have a lot on our plates, to get Garreg Mach back up and running like a proper base of operations and keep Adrestia at bay long enough to get our own army up to snuff. We should be focusing on all of that, instead of something...silly, like these what-ifs.”
“Oh, Annie,” Mercie shook her head, resting a gentle hand on Annette’s shoulder. Her tone went softer, more sagely in a way, and she continued, “War’s uncertain, you know. I think you should take chances in love while you can, even if you think it’s silly to focus on now.”
She didn’t have to say that there were no guarantees they’d all survive, because that was a thought she was sure weighed heavy in everyone’s hearts. And despite the fact that Annette wanted to counter Mercie’s thoughts with other questions— wouldn’t it be almost cruel to start something, then? Especially if only one of us survives? — she held herself back. Thinking about it made a lump rise in her throat, so she couldn’t imagine saying the words out loud, not now. It felt like it might jinx them, and she didn’t want to do it so soon after they’d all reunited again.
And...aside from that, Mercie’s words gave her pause. If there was something there, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to steal a couple of moments together while they had the chance? If something happened to Felix, goddess forbid, would she regret not seizing the opportunity? If Mercie could be believed and there was a chance he felt the same, would he regret not taking a chance on them were something to happen to her ?
Will it hurt worse when it’s all over, if only one of us remains, than it would if we’d never started anything at all?
“I’ll...think about it,” she finally managed to say, pushing her errant thoughts to the back of her mind as well as she could. “But first...I really should review some of those books. Would you be able to stay a while and help me with this one tricky passage about faith magic? I think my heals could be stronger if I had a better understanding.”
Mercie didn’t call her out for her change of subject, for which Annette was thankful.
“Please do. And speaking of magic...there’s something I’ve been struggling with in my reason studies as well. Perhaps you could give me a few pointers there?”
“Of course, Mercie!”
She pushed herself to her feet to go fetch the specific tome she was thinking of and she heard Mercie do the same. They nodded to each other and slipped off to the separate sections of the library for books. Annette, as usual, detoured a little and returned to the table with a few extra texts while her friend only returned with one. From there, they turned to musty pages and old ink, and a discussion that fell much more neatly within Annette’s comfort zone.
Notes:
HELLO AGAIN! THANKS FOR READING! SORRY FOR THE WAIT!
for those of you that have been waiting for a long time: i'm sorry it's taken a while to get this one up. for those of you new: welcome.
to start with - i really didn't mean for it to take this long to update. in fact, i had about 3/4 of this chapter ready to go this whole time, but I'd never gone through to tidy it up and finish writing it just because this sort of fluffy GIRL TALK sorta thing? awkward. was hard for me to write. BUT THEN - there was a series of events that I'll give briefly:
My roomie lost her job bc of COVID, I couldn't afford rent on my own, or at least not comfortably, so I had to make the decision to move either to a studio or back out with my parents (which i mentioned in the last chapter). I was working a call center job that had me just stressed and in tears at least 3 times a week after work, so I ended up moving home for a while and subsequently quitting that job bc I knew it would only be more stressful being too far to drive when they expected me to come BACK to the building for work (and I decided my happiness/mental health was more important at the time since PANDEMIC). AND I had decided to participate in the felannie minibang (which is where my fic Silversong is coming from) before everything happened and I didn't want to renege on that. So I moved, have been job searching, and have spent months working on Silversong instead of TSOS, and here we are!
I can't promise that TSOS 8 will come SOON because I'm focusing my energy on reworking the end of my minibang a little as I'm posting it since it felt rushed, but I will try to work a liiiiittle faster than this last wait. Please bear with me!!!
(RIP to the only semi-regular posting schedule I'd ever managed. you will be missed.)
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