Chapter Text
“Uh, Coco, I think we should probably leave,” Hapi whispered to Constance. “Just got real awkward here.”
Hapi felt bad. It was an unpleasant ending to Hilda’s party, but she could see that everyone else seemed to be making the same move to leave as well.
“Thanks for coming, everyone!” Hilda said, making a show of cheeriness as people began to file out of the two rooms and head away.
Hapi and Constance started to leave, but Constance stopped in front of Hilda and leaned in to speak quietly. “Hilda, dear, what happened just now?”
“I think I might know…” Hilda said, her cheerful smile being replaced by a frown. “I heard a silly rumor recently, but I didn’t think it was anything serious…”
Hilda shook her head. “I’ll go talk to Annette and Lysithea,” she sighed.
“Leave it to me, dear!” Constance said, patting Hilda’s shoulder. “You must not vex yourself with such concerns on your day of celebration!”
Hilda shook her head. “No. I won’t be able to relax until I talk to them. It’s fine.”
…
As soon as Hapi and Constance were down the stairs, Constance turned to Hapi and spoke.
“We must make haste and look in on our dear Lysithea!”
Hapi frowned. “I dunno, Coco. Don’t you think Lys wants to be left alone after that?”
“Left alone!?” Constance gasped. “Surely not!”
“Lys is kind of a private person. I’m not sure about chasing after her right away…”
“Well I will not feel well until I have seen her and consoled her in whatever way is in my power!” Constance declared. “She has suffered a most grave humiliation!”
“That’s why she probably would want to be left alone for a bit,” Hapi argued back. She held back a sigh. “But fine, I won’t stop you. It’s not like I really know what to do either. I’m not even sure what happened. I thought she and Nettles were friends!”
“As did I,” Constance nodded. “Evidently, something has occurred which has shaken the foundation of their amiable kinship!”
Hapi still wasn’t sure that bothering Lysithea was the right idea. She couldn’t prove it, but in her experience, she felt like Lysithea preferred being left alone when she was upset. She would probably ask to talk when she was ready.
“But I guess Coco knows these kinds of things better than I do…” Hapi thought to herself.
After all, Constance was a noble, just like Lysithea. And Hapi was realizing more and more how different the world they grew up in was from the ones that she and other commoners knew.
Plus, Constance had grown up with siblings until her teen years, and had been in school before coming to Garreg Mach. Hapi had left her family behind at 10, and had not had many opportunities to spend time with people her own age until this past year.
“Yeah, Coco’s smarter about stuff like this than I am,” Hapi told herself.
Hapi followed Constance to the bottom level of the dorms, and they stopped outside Lysithea’s door.
Constance knocked on it. “Lysithea! My dear!” Constance said gently through the closed door.
They waited for a moment, then the door cracked open. Lysithea peeked out.
Hapi suddenly started doubting Constance’s instincts. Lysithea’s eyes looked slightly red, and she didn’t appear very happy to see them.
“Hello.”
“My deepest apologies for intruding, my dear,” Constance said, “but I felt compelled to come and inquire as to your well-being…”
“I’m fine.” Lysithea spoke curtly, and in monotone. She made no effort to open the door further.
“I see…” Constance said unsurely with a forced smile on her face. “If you would desire to speak with us, and to ease your…”
Lysithea cut her off. “No. Really. I’m fine. Thank you. I need to get back to my research. Sorry.”
“Well, if that is the case…” Constance started to say, but already Lysithea had closed the door.
Constance and Hapi left, and as soon as they had moved a little ways away from the door, Constance spoke.
“I am forced to admit that your were correct in your estimation of her nature.”
Hapi didn’t say anything. She could tell Lysithea was upset, and it upset her. If it had been something more frivolous, Hapi might have jokingly bragged about having gotten one over Constance, but she wasn’t in the mood for that now.
But then, Hapi had an idea.
“Coco, let’s go get dinner.”
“A meal?” Constance said surprised. “I confess, I feel no hunger at all. The combination of the rather filling snacks at the party, and the events at its conclusion have left me devoid of any desire for food!”
“Yeah, but it’s still important to eat right,” Hapi said. “And I bet Lys isn’t going to want to go to the Dining Hall, so we can bring her something afterwards.”
Constance raised an eyebrow. “Hapi, you always seek to repair every ill through food!” Then she smiled. “But I suspect that your methods may be correct in this particular instance!”
…
“I just think it will be less pressure if it’s only one of us,” Hapi explained as she and Constance returned to the dorms. “And I’ve known Lys longer than you. I’m sure she’ll be glad to talk to you, but maybe give her a little space for now.”
It felt strange to Hapi to be advising Constance in, well, just about anything. But Hapi felt newly assured of her judgment after their early visit.
“Besides,” Hapi continued, “I’m not gonna make her talk. I’m just bringing her food. If she wants to talk, she can talk. If she doesn’t, I’ll leave. It’s totally possible I’ll just stop by for a minute and then be gone.”
Constance frowned, but then she relented. “Very well. I shall trust your judgment on the matter. But please do make sure to inform her that I desire to speak with her when she will! It pains me greatly to see her in such ill spirits!”
“She knows, Coco,” Hapi said, “Even if I don’t say it.”
Constance frowned slightly.
“But I’ll say it anyway, ok?” Hapi added.
Constance headed to Abyss, and Hapi approached Lysithea’s dorm room again.
She knocked, and then spoke.
“Hey, Lys? It’s me again. Sorry, I don’t mean to bug you, but I brought you dinner.”
Hapi waited in the cold for a bit, and then there was the sound of the door unlocking.
“Thank you,” Lysithea said as she opened the door.
Hapi thought that she looked less upset than earlier, but her uneasy expression had been replaced by a stone-faced coldness that Hapi recognized was Lysithea’s way of hiding frustration.
“I figured you were busy with the research stuff and wouldn’t have time to go eat a proper meal,” Hapi explained. She handed over the cloth, in which some bread, cheese, and vegetables were wrapped.
Lysithea took it. “That’s not the reason I won’t be going to the Dining Hall, but you know that already. You don’t need to dance around the topic with me.”
“Ok, yeah,” Hapi said with a shrug. “You’re right.”
Lysithea stood still for a moment. Then she pulled the door open a little more.
“It’s cold out. Come in.”
Hapi walked into the room and Lysithea closed the door behind her. Hapi made her way over to the bed and was about to sit on the edge of it when she remembered Lysithea’s fussiness about “outdoor clothes” on the bed.
Instead, Hapi turned and faced Lysithea while still standing.
Lysithea put the cloth of food down on her desk and looked at Hapi.
“You can sit on the bed. The outer covers are spread out.”
Hapi smiled and sat down. Lysithea pulled out the chair and turned it to face Hapi.
“Um, I’m kinda shit at stuff like this, so I’ll just get to the point,” Hapi said. “What happened? Why was Nettles so pissed at you?”
Lysithea huffed. “I don’t even know! She came out of the room and started yelling at me! I have no idea what happened.”
“Huh,” Hapi said, unsure how to continue. “But you see her in Hanny’s seminar all the time, right? Was she upset before?”
“If she was, I didn’t know about it,” Lysithea replied. “We haven’t talked much recently though. All three of us in the seminar are busy with the final project, so we’ve mostly been doing independent work for a couple of weeks now.”
Hapi thought for a moment. She tried to imagine what she would want someone to say to her in the same situation.
She came up blank. Her lack of experience in friendships post-childhood made it feel like she wasn’t sure what the right thing to do was.
“Well, it sucks,” Hapi finally said. “I mean, to have someone angry at you all of a sudden and you don’t even know why.”
As soon as she’d said it, Hapi had to suppress a sigh. Her words felt hopelessly inadequate and clumsy.
So Hapi was glad when Lysithea nodded and responded. “It does suck. It shouldn’t upset me so much, but it does.”
Hapi frowned at her. “Why shouldn’t it upset you? That seems pretty normal.”
“I should be able to ignore something like this,” Lysithea answered. “I have too much to do with my time. I can’t waste it on thinking about frivolous things like this.”
“I dunno Lys,” Hapi said, “I don’t think it’s frivolous. Friends are important, right? You can’t just pretend like you don’t care about people. You do care.”
Hapi braced herself slightly. She didn’t usually like arguing against anything Lysithea said. Lysithea had a way of finding the holes in any argument Hapi could make, and Hapi usually found it easier to just agree with her.
But she felt in her gut that she was right about this.
To her surprise, Lysithea didn’t argue back. She just sighed.
“I guess so…”
Lysithea gestured at her desk. “How much work do you think I’ve gotten done since I got back to my room?”
“Um, none?” Hapi guessed.
“Yes. Exactly. I tried to focus and get back to my research, but I couldn’t!” Lysithea furrowed her brow. “So my time is just being wasted even more!”
“That’s ‘cause you need to eat something proper,” Hapi asserted. “Put some food in your stomach and then you’ll be able to focus.”
Lysithea’s mouth twitched up into a slight smile. It was the first one since Hapi had come into the room.
“You always think food will solve everything,” she said.
Hapi chuckled. “Coco said the same thing.” Hapi leaned forward and looked at Lysithea with a serious expression. “…but this time, she also said I was right!”
Then Hapi remembered Constance’s request and added, “Oh yeah, and she really wanted to come and see you too, but I told her to give you some space. She’s also really upset about what happened.”
“I know,” Lysithea said with a nod. She turned and looked at the wrapped up food.
Hapi stood. “Well, I guess I’ll go so you can eat and do your research stuff.”
“Um,” Lysithea suddenly spoke up. She hesitated.
“Would you like to help me take notes on some of the texts I still need to summarize?”
“Ha!” Hapi laughed. “No. But I would like to hang out with you more, so if that’s what it takes, then fine, point me at ‘em!”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to!” Lysithea insisted anxiously. “I’m asking you to do extra work that isn’t your responsibility to do.”
“I’m just kidding, Lys,” Hapi said, walking over to the desk. “I mean, I’d be perfectly happy if you said I could just lie on your bed while you read a silly novel out loud to me, but I guess you don’t have time for that now.”
“I don’t,” Lysithea said seriously. “But are you sure…”
Hapi shook her head and interrupted. “Nah, it’s fine, Lys. Taking notes on texts is fine. Just be warned, I might doodle stuff in the margins.”
“Well, they’re just notes,” Lysithea said. “No one else will ever see them. I don’t care.”
…
Lysithea initially sat at her chair and continued writing notes while Hapi lay on her stomach on a rug on the floor and started on the books Lysithea had handed over to her.
But after five minutes of uneasily looking down at Hapi and feeling bad for having taken the only chair in the room, Lysithea finally spoke up.
“Are you sure you don’t want the chair?”
“Hm?” Hapi said, looking up. “Nah. I’m good. I’m comfortable like this.”
Lysithea looked at Hapi, whose upper torso was propped up by her elbows on the floor, with one leg stretched back, and the other bent at the knee and up in the air, gently kicking back and forth.
“That’s comfortable?” Lysithea asked in disbelief.
“Sure. Why not?”
Lysithea paused.
“I’ll join you then.”
She gathered up her materials and placed them on the floor next to the ones Hapi was using. Then she stretched out on the rug next to Hapi.
“See?” Hapi said, before looking back down at the text in front of her and continuing to write.
Lysithea realized that she hadn’t stretched out on the floor like this since she was very young. While her parents were not overly proscriptive about her behavior, she was still expected to display the manners appropriate to a noble lady. Lying around belly-down on the floor definitely did not qualify as ‘proper behavior’.
…
They worked side-by-side, mostly in silence, aside from the occasional inquiry from Hapi as to whether or not something was relevant to include in her summaries.
Mid-way through, Lysithea realized that she actually was hungry. She got the food Hapi had brought and spread it out on the cloth it had been wrapped in off to the side of her books and snacked on the cheese and bread as she worked.
“Eat the vegetables too,” Hapi warned her at one point.
“Ugh, fine…” Lysithea grumbled. She took one of the raw carrots, which seemed like the least offensive of the options available, and bit at it.
…
Lysithea and Hapi were interrupted by the sound of a knock on the door. They looked up, and then they heard the sound of the knob turning, and Hilda’s voice calling out, “I’m coming in! Is that ok?”
Lysithea realized that she hadn’t locked the door, and she looked up nervously to see it open and Hilda pop in.
“Hey! Sorry! It was unlocked.” She glanced down at Lysithea and Hapi spread out on the floor. “Oh! Look at you two being diligent students! You’re going to make me look even worse than I already am!”
Anxiously, Lysithea quickly spoke up. “I don’t usually lie on the floor like this! It’s just, there’s only one chair…”
Hilda shrugged. “So? I don’t care. I lie around on the floor like that all the time!”
Lysithea was shocked to hear this.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Ha!” Hilda laughed. “You should hear my mother complain when I’m back home!” Hilda put her hands on her hips and adopted a mocking tone. “Hilda! Quit lounging about on the floor like a dog! How do you expect to ever find a young gentleman suitor if you behave like that!?”
Hilda chuckled again and crouched down in front of Hapi and Lysithea. “As if some ‘young gentleman suitor’ is going to just walk into my bedroom and see me reading romance novels and scratching my butt!”
Hapi laughed at Hilda’s description. Lysithea felt some relief at the fact that she wasn’t being judged for her unladylike posture.
Hilda’s expression immediately shifted from friendly to serious.
“So, I was just talking with Annette…”
Lysithea tensed up.
“I know it’s not my business,” Hilda apologized, “but I wanted to make sure both of you were ok. Sorry.”
Hilda broke her crouch and sat cross legged on the floor in front of Hapi and Lysithea.
“Do you mind that I did?” Hilda asked. “I probably should have asked first…”
Lysithea sighed and shook her head. “No. It’s fine. What’d she say?”
“Well,” Hilda said cautiously. “I was a little surprised. Um…”
Hilda paused and thought.
“There’s no way you like Felix, right? I mean, like…you’re not attracted to him, are you?”
“Felix?” Lysithea said surprised. “No. Goddess, no! I didn’t even like talking to him until recently when I found out he likes cats!”
Hilda nodded. “Ok, good. That’s what I thought. I think I would have noticed if you did. So I told Annette that what she thought couldn’t possibly be true.”
“Wait, what did she think?” Lysithea asked.
“She thought that you’d been flirting with Felix recently,” Hilda answered. “She thought you were trying to steal him away from her. I think they’re actually pretty seriously into each other. Or at least Annette is pretty serious about Felix. I can never figure out what Felix is thinking.”
“What!?” Lysithea said. “Why would…why would she think that!? That’s ridiculous!”
“I told her that!” Hilda said sympathetically. “I told her there was no way it was true! But, I guess she’s seen you talking with Felix a lot recently, and I think she was upset that you ignored her at Hapi’s birthday party last month…”
“Ignored her?” Lysithea said incredulously. “I didn’t ignore her!”
Lysithea pushed herself up into a sitting position.
“Well, she said that you walked right by her without saying hi and went to talk to Felix, and that the two of you were carrying on for a while after that.” Hilda explained with a reassuring smile. The she quickly added, “I’m not saying that’s what happened! But that’s what she thought happened!”
Lysithea felt herself getting fired up. She’d been wrongly accused! It wasn’t fair!
She remembered back to the times when she’d seen Annette looking upset in the past month, and she realized that the outbursts she had thought were directed at Felix had probably actually been directed at her.
“Furthermore,” Lysithea said, “At least one of those times when she saw me with Felix, I was helping him with a test! Because the professor asked me to!”
“Hey, I get it!” Hilda said with a smile. “I know you didn’t do anything! It was just a misunderstanding!”
“Yeah, on her part!” Lysithea snapped. “And then she yelled at me out in the dorm hallway!”
Hilda sighed. “Yeah, she shouldn’t have done that. Honestly, it’s all a big mess. And apparently pretty much the whole Blue Lions class has heard about this, so a bunch of them think that you’re chasing after Felix…”
“What!?” Lysithea interrupted. “So she’s been spreading rumors about me too?”
Then Lysithea remembered Sylvain’s words from earlier in the evening, at the party.
“Oh my Goddess! That’s why Sylvain said that!” Lysithea spat out angrily.
Hilda frowned. “Sylvain? He said something? Blood of fucking Sothis!”
“He said something about rumors about me!” Lysithea pouted. “I didn’t know what he meant at the time.”
“That guy?” Lysithea heard Hapi say from beside her. “The tall, red-haired guy, right? Ugh, he’s a pain!”
“He is.” Hilda agreed and nodded. “Don’t pay any attention to anything he says.”
Lysithea still felt agitated. “But this is all so unfair! I didn’t do anything, and Annette spread rumors about me and yelled at me all based on a false premise she’d made with no evidence!”
“Look, I know it’s not great, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think she spread rumors, exactly.” Hilda spoke gently and smiled, seemingly trying to calm the situation down. “She probably was upset and talked to her friends, and…sometimes these things just get out.”
“Well maybe she should have confirmed her facts before talking to people!” Lysithea said angrily.
“I’m not saying what she did was ok,” Hilda said patiently, “but I understand how she’d panic.” Hilda gestured towards Hapi. “Like, you better believe I’d have some words for Hapi if she started flirting with Caspar!” Hilda rolled her eyes and muttered, “I still wouldn’t shout at her in the dorms after a birthday party of course…”
“Gonny,” Hapi spoke up, “you couldn’t pay me enough to listen to Chuckles go on about weightlifting for even five minutes. You don’t have to worry about me stealing him away from you.”
“Your loss!” Hilda sniffed and smirked at Hapi.
Then, Hilda looked pleadingly at Lysithea. “You should go talk to Annette. I already told her that she was all wrong about you, and I’m sure she believed me, but I think it would be helpful if you talked to her yourself.”
“I don’t need to go talk to her!” Lysithea declared stubbornly. “She wronged me! She should come apologize to me!”
Hilda grimaced. “That’s true, but…”
“When one party wrongs another,” Lysithea cut her off, “it’s the party who was in the wrong that needs to take the first action to apologize! This is just basic ethics!”
Hilda sighed. “I’m not going to push it. Maybe she’ll come talk to you. But maybe she’s too embarrassed right now. Do you want it to be awkward every time you see her in class?”
“It won’t be awkward for me,” Lysithea said stubbornly. “I go to class to learn. It doesn’t matter who else is there!”
“Alright, fine.” Hilda said with a smile and a shrug. “I came here to make sure you were ok, and to tell you what happened. I didn’t come to lecture you.”
Hilda’s defusing words made Lysithea suddenly feel guilty. She realized she had spoken harshly and vented some of her frustrations at Hilda.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry if I seemed upset. I was just shocked by it all.”
“I get it!” Hilda said brightly. “I’m just relieved you’re studying like normal. I was worried I’d find you moping around when I got here.”
“I don’t have time to mope,” Lysithea sniffed.
“Of course not,” Hilda said as she stood. “I’ll see you both tomorrow!” Then she frowned. “I think I might need to go have a talk with Sylvain too…”
Hilda left, and Hapi murmured, “I wonder if she’s gonna kill him, or just maim him?”
…
Hapi returned to Abyss late in the evening.
Not surprisingly, Constance was still awake when Hapi walked into their room.
“How was our dear Lysithea?” Constance asked, looking up from a book she was reading as Hapi walked in.
“Eh, she was still kinda upset, I think,” Hapi said. “I hung out with her for a while. Hopefully it helped.”
“Of course it did!” Constance said brightly as she closed her book. “Your presence would invigorate even the most melancholy situation!”
Hapi snorted a laugh. “Sure, whatever. You give me too much credit.”
Hapi flopped down onto their bed. “It’s funny though,” she said. “Typical Lys. I think she wanted me to be around, but instead of saying so, she asked if I could help with her note taking for her research.”
Constance nodded. “It strikes me that she is not the type to readily ask for assistance.”
“And then we basically didn’t talk about how she was feeling or what had happened until Gonny showed up!” Hapi said. “I know Lys was upset about being yelled at in front of everyone like that, but she barely talked about it at all!”
“She is reserved. Some would say that it is the manner of a proper gentlelady,” Constance asserted.
Hapi wasn’t so sure whether being reserved was “admirable” or not. But what did she know about noble manners?
“I have spoken with Mercedes,” Constance said suddenly. “I turned back from Abyss and decided to visit her before returning home. I know that she is good friends with Annette, and I thought that she might have some perspective on the affair.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess she would,” Hapi said as she slumped onto her side and propped her head on her hand. “What’d she say? I mean, it’s probably the same story I heard from Gonny already, but…”
Constance sighed. “Annette seems to have been under the misapprehension that Lysithea slighted her at your party and then became overly familiar with Felix.”
“Yup, that’s what Gonny told us.”
“And she later encountered Lysithea speaking with Felix alone on numerous other occasions, which only further fueled her jealous passions!”
Hapi frowned. “It’s still weird though. I mean, it’s Lys. Nettles knows her. How could she possibly think Lys was interested in Smiley of all people?”
Hapi chuckled. “I don’t think she ever really forgave him for the beating he gave Leopi when they dueled that one time, even if Leopi won in the end.”
“Oh!” Constance spoke breathily and dramatically, “Affairs of the heart stir the strangest delusions in those so afflicted! While I agree with your assessment of Lysithea’s character—and the unlikeliness of any possibility that she would harbor designs on Felix—I nevertheless can sympathize with the panic and anguish Annette must have felt! Mercedes says that she is quite smitten with our grumpy swordsman!”
“Unfortunately,” Constance continued, “Annette, in her panic, did not pay due diligence to her choice of forum in which to share her worries with Mercedes.”
“Um,” Hapi smirked, “could you say that again with actual words real people use?”
“She confessed her worries to Mercedes in the Blue Lions classroom during a break between classes,” Constance explained. “And, as Mercedes so charitably put it, Annette is not always judicious in the volume of her delivery when she becomes excited. Hence, her worries became something of a topic of conversation amongst the entire class.”
“Ugh, yeah, that’s not great,” Hapi said. “I think that part might piss Lys off even more than Annette yelling at her.”
“Yes, a lady’s reputation is easily damaged, and not as easily repaired!” Constance declared. “And, if my understanding is correct, Mercedes tells me that a woman who actively pursues a man is particularly looked down upon in Faerghus, even more so when the man in question is already spoken for!”
“Oh?” Hapi asked with a frown. “More rules?”
“Faerghus’s customs are strict,” Constance explained. “Although they lack the finesse and refined manner of the nobles of Adrestia, the nobles of Faerghus are known to be quite rigid in their views of people’s proper roles in society. I have heard that the expectations for ladies are particularly regimented.”
Hapi said nothing for a moment. She found herself thinking of Ingrid for the first time in a while. She remembered Ingrid’s words at the Ball.
“I wish I’d been born a boy!”
“So does that mean that all of the Blue Lions think Lys is some sorta whore now?” Hapi asked.
“Hapi!” Constance gasped.
Hapi looked blankly at Constance. She was well aware that there were more ‘polite’ words to use, but she just wanted to get straight to the point without euphemisms.
Constance seemed to pick up on Hapi’s feelings. “I’m not sure that that is quite the word that they would use, but yes, she has been judged harshly in the eyes of most of the students in that class.”
“That’s not fair though,” Hapi said. “Lys didn’t do anything.”
“And it will all blow over eventually,” Constance reassured her. “Once the truth of the matter is known.”
“It’s still some dumb shit!” Hapi groused. “And I feel bad for Gonny, too. What a way for her party to end! And then she was running around and talking to Nettles and Lys afterwards. I swear, sometimes it seems like she thinks it’s her job to make sure everyone is ok.”
“Our dear Hilda is a proper noble lady in her own way,” Constance said. “And with a father and brother to look after, I am not surprised that she has learned to be mindful of the well-being of others.”
“Why’s Gonny have to look after them? Isn’t her brother older?”
“It is not an uncommon situation in a noble house when a son is in line to inherit the title. His sisters are expected to support him until he finds a wife to take on the task.”
“Really? Huh. I didn’t know that. Is that why Gonny’s always whining about her brother not getting married?”
“Undoubtedly,” Constance said, standing and walking over to the bed to join Hapi. “I am sure it would be a great relief to her to be able to leave his care in someone else’s hands.” Constance giggled. “She has told me that he has an unfortunate habit of foraging for food in the wild, and that she has had to tend to his resulting illnesses more times than she can count!”
“Why would he get sick from that?” Hapi crinkled her nose and asked. “There’s lotsa good stuff to eat in nature.”
“He is apparently not very discerning when it comes to identifying which plants are edible and which are not,” Constance said.
“Ah, so he’s an idiot. Got it.” Hapi smirked. “I guess that’s why B is friends with him.”
“You would have the temerity to refer to Leicester’s greatest warrior as an idiot?” Constance laughed. “But though the majority of people would disagree with you, I think dear Hilda might be sympathetic to your view!”