Archive of Our Own ^beta

Or perhaps she'd become adept at convincing herself that's what she was doing. The war had changed a great many things for all of them, though she feels like it had a profoundly personal impact on her. Mercedes would never downplay the toll it had taken on every person affected by it, whether they were in battle or tucked away in their homes, facing down an uncertain future for more than half a decade, but her world had been changed in scope both large and small. As awful as it had been, it had also been a pivotal turning point for her.

For the first time, Mercedes had made a decision about her own destiny; for the first time, when she'd been told no in no uncertain terms, she pushed back until she was allowed to follow her conscience and her heart and be the one to say yes. It gave her no pleasure in the sense that she'd wanted to take up arms in a war, but knowing that she would be one of many standing on the front lines, protecting the people she held dear and taking a stand for what she believed in, had been revolutionary for her.

Freeing, though she's had a difficult time coming to terms with finding personal liberation in committing herself to violence, even with the noblest of intentions, and it's been the topic of her prayers more than once. It's something that she knows she'll pray about again, perhaps for the rest of her days, seeking guidance as well as making peace with herself. Prayer won't accomplish all of that, she knows. Perhaps once she would have relied only on her own voice speaking to the Goddess, and she might have resigned herself to having no more power than that, but she's learned better now.

The war taught her that she has always been strong, she just hasn't always allowed herself to embrace the breadth of that strength. It had also taught her that no one held immunity from doing the very worst, even in the name of goodness, and that the only way to move forward is to acknowledge that and never stop trying to put good back out into the world. In a way, she seeks to make reparations for the things she'd done out of necessity, as well as for the things that she couldn't do that had been needed.

There is a long road ahead of her, but she's not intimidated by it. She's hopeful for the future, excited for the path she's chosen for herself - and how could she be anything but, as she sits surrounded by her friends and immersed in their joy?

It's been a long time since Mercedes attended a ball, and this one is easily ten times as grand as the Founder's Ball from her childhood. The ball is not so far behind her, she supposes, and she'd been a young adult even then, true, but it still feels very much like the Mercedes of then was still a bud waiting to bloom. She'd still been bound by the idea that the things she'd been told had to be truths, and though she'd felt the embers of change and the desire for more welling up inside of her, she hadn't been brave enough yet to let those feelings flourish. She can remember thinking that she enjoyed the dance for what it was: something fleeting and teasing at more, something to be treasured, but ultimately, a fairy tale's departure from her real life. She'd begun to want things then that she'd told herself she wouldn't be allowed to have, and the young woman she had been had accepted that.

She is not that same young woman. The bones of her are there, of course, but she's open to so much more possibility now. 

She thinks of possibility as she watches King Dimitri smile in the circle of his childhood friends, and her heart warms to see the way they all angle inward toward one another, irrevocably pulled together with the sort of gravity that speaks to a love that will survive lifetimes. She thinks of bright futures as the professor and Dorothea twirl together on the dance floor, folded into each other's arms and blind to the world around them save for one another. She thinks of peace as Bernadetta giggles around the edges of a spray of colorful flowers and her laughter finds an answer in Ashe's head thrown back and his shoulders shaking with mirth. 

She thinks of love as Annette slides into a chair across from her, a plate piled high with sweets of every imaginable variety and a cheeky smile on her face. 

"Look at all of this, Mercie! They really went all out for tonight. I mean, of course they did, but I've never seen so many different treats in my life." Annette's cheeks are rosy and her eyes are bright, and Mercedes thinks she's never looked lovelier. "I tried a few on my way over, but I made sure I saved you one of each."

"That's so sweet," she says, shifting in her chair so that her knees point toward Annette's. They knock together briefly, but instead of drawing back, Annette stretches her legs out underneath the table. Mercedes can feel her rolling her ankles out, and it makes her laugh. It's no wonder; they've both been dancing the night away, with each other and with others, and Mercedes had done much the same when she first sat down.

Annette's eyes drop to the plate, her lashes sweeping dark over a constellation of freckles, and Mercedes yearns to reach over and use her thumb to draw lines between the stars. 

"They're all good, but I think these fancy little ones with the roses on top are the best. Nothing holds a candle to your treats, of course," she adds, pinching a cookie between two fingers and holding it up in offer. "But it's unfair to expect them to! After all, you're a master in the kitchen. Oh, you should open a bakery now, Mercie."

Mercedes accepts the cookie and chews on it thoughtfully, her gaze warm on Annette's face, watching the way ease and pleasure move over it now that the weight of the war has been lifted from her. She knows Annie well enough to know that it isn't gone entirely, just like it isn't for Mercedes - nor any of them, she imagines, because they all have good hearts and their share of regrets, no matter how necessary it had all been - but for right now, they can enjoy a simple moment together without worrying about all of that. Mercedes shrugs off her own deeper thoughts from earlier, and to keep her hands from reaching before she's ready, she props one elbow up on the table and pillows her chin in her open palm.

"A bakery, huh? That could be nice, but I like to bake little treats for fun. I'm not sure I'd like it as much as a job." She's mused on it while turning over the ideas of who she wants to be and what she wants to do moving forward, now that the world has opened up enough to her that she has the freedom to choose. "The thing that makes me happiest is making my friends happy with them."

Annette's smile grows softer, and Mercedes' heart turns over in her chest at the simple, steady affection on her face. "I knew you'd say that. But we have a whole wide world ahead of us, Mercie! You could travel it, picking up new recipes... the wandering baker!"

She lifts a hand and gestures grandly, the sleeve of her dress shimmering in the candlelight illuminating the ballroom.

"Oh, that'd be lonely after a while." Mercedes reaches for a little cupcake, pulling it free from beneath a precarious tower of cookies, and watches them tumble into the hole she's left behind with a grin. "I think settling down in one place is it for me, for sure. What about you, though? You've got an idea, I bet. You're always so full of them."

Annette places her hands atop her knees, leaning closer in her excitement. Her hair is up tonight, in pretty braids that pull it back away from her face and accentuate its lovely shape, but Mercedes misses the way that it swings and sways with her excitement when it's down. "I've made up my mind. I want to teach. I think the most fun I had was at the School of Sorcery, and I probably won't be able to get hired on there for a long time, but that doesn't mean I can't start somewhere else in the meantime. I want to give other people the kind of excitement I had, to show them how much fun and how good magic can be."

Mercedes can see it perfectly. Annette is so bright, so smart, so generous - with her time, with her heart, with her skills - she'll make a perfect professor one day. When Fhirdiad is looking for new instructors, they'd be fools to pass her up, and even if Annette doesn't have that sort of confidence in herself right now, Mercedes knows it to be an absolute truth. She reaches for one of her hands, lifting from where it's settled against the skirt of her dress and curling both of her own around it, and she smiles at the way color crawls up into her dearest friend's cheeks at the gesture.

"You'll make a wonderful teacher. As good as the professor, or better," Mercedes says, quiet surety in her tone. "You're inspiring, you know, Annie? You know just what you want and you work so hard to get there. I've always admired that about you. Seeing you reach for your dreams made me feel brave enough to believe I can have some of my own."

Annette's eyes go wide, and her other hand comes up to clutch tightly at Mercedes'. Hand over hand, they both lean in, each equally earnest. "You can. I don't know anyone who deserves to have all their dreams come true more than you, Mercie. You can have anything, you know, and if you think you can't, I'll find a way to help to make sure you do. I promise."

There's a determined, familiar glint to her eyes that Mercedes knows well. Annette has never decided to do something and not followed through on it, and she looks as determined as she had been when they'd last held hands like this, sitting on the edge of her bed in Fhirdiad. This is one of those moments; they're standing on a precipice, and Annette is taking that last deep breath before she jumps.

We're going to be friends forever, Mercie. I can just tell. Oh, I'm so glad I met you.

The memory swims close to the surface, and she feels a familiar tickle at the back of her throat as emotion swells. Annette has always been so earnest, so lovely, so loving - and so brave, she's always thought. She can feel her heartbeat in the palms of her hands, warm and safe between Annette's, and she knows - she knows in her heart where this conversation is going next.

Annette will forge forward just like she always has, a bright star for Mercedes to set her ship's course to, the surest guide anyone could ask for. But this time, Mercedes wants to be the one to be brave. This time, she wants to decide for herself, and she doesn't want Annette to have to be the one to take the first giant steps for both of them.

She takes a deep breath, and then everything inside of her steadies all at once. This is right. This is what she needs to do.

"I want to open an orphanage. I've thought a lot about it, and I think that would make me happiest. This war taught me a lot of things about myself, and I know more than ever that I want to do something good and useful. There are going to be so many children who need care, and I think I'm meant to be the person to care for as many as I can. They deserve to have the bright, happy future that we fought for just as much as we do."

She brings their joined hands to her chest, pressing them down over her fast-beating heart.

"I'll make a home for them, but that's not enough. They'll need to learn, too. I want to give them every advantage that I possibly can. And I can't think of anyone in the world who would be better to teach them than you, Annie. If you want to - if you think you could be happy - it would make me the happiest person in the world if you would come with me."

Annette's mouth drops open, and her hands spasm beneath Mercedes', as though she wants to both reach for her and draw them back and she can't decide which to do. When she speaks, she's breathless. "Mercie, are you - do you mean-"

Mercedes' smile is brilliant, her eyes shining. "Do you think your dream could exist with my dream? Do you think you could be happy... with me, Annie?"

Annette takes a deep, shaky breath. Her eyes are wide, and her voice wobbles as she asks, "If you mean what I think you mean, and I hope you mean what I think you mean, then there's nobody else - nobody else, Mercie - I would be happier with!"

Tears slip free down Mercedes' cheeks, and she laughs, bewildered to realize that she's crying, and in the next breath, somehow not surprised at all. She pulls her hands free from Annette's to open her arms, and only gets halfway out of her chair before Annette rockets up to meet her, slamming hard into her and winding her arms tightly around her. 

Muffled against her chest, Annette promises fiercely, "I'll go anywhere with you, Mercie. We'll make something beautiful, and we'll always be together. Yes. Yes."

Mercedes' hands pass over her hair, drawing softly over the coils of her braids and down her back, gentle and slow. She presses a kiss to the top of Annette's head and breathes in, wondering if her heart will ever stop racing now that it's begun, and hoping that it doesn't. When she starts to pull back, Annette burrows closer, and Mercedes laughs again, light and free.

"Annie, look up. Please, I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

Annette does look up, and there are tears budding at the corners of her eyes, but there's no mistaking the joy in them. "I was going to tell you too, Mercie. A hundred times. I kept waiting for the right time. I love you so much."

Mercedes' hand cups her face, thumb swiping gently through the tears and rubbing them away from the curve of her cheek. "I love you too, Annie. This is the right time. We have our whole lives ahead of us now. When could be better than now, to start making plans together?"

Bringing her other hand to cup Annette's dear face between them, she draws her up and inward, pressing her smile into a soft, gentle kiss. It lights up inside of her like magic, rolling through her like waves. There is nothing more natural in the world than the way that Annette sighs into her mouth and her arms wind tight around Mercedes' shoulders, nothing more honest than the perfect way their bodies fit together as they linger over their last first kiss.

Annette's fingers twirl in her hair, and Mercedes' heart leaps. 

"I love you," she whispers again, but this time, the edges of her tone are shaking with exhilaration. "More than anything, Mercie."

They draw apart, but only long enough to join hands together, palm-to-palm, fingers laced. The music plays on around them, a beautiful backdrop that barely registers over the sound of their voices, hushed and private.

"Annie," she begins, mischief brightening her tone. "Do you want to get out of here?"

Annette blinks once, and then she nods fervently, rising up to press their foreheads together. "With you? One hundred percent."

Hand-in-hand, they leave together, stepping into the first night of the rest of their lives.