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i.
“How is it, Glenn?” She asks.
There’s no one else but them in the middle of the crowded market. He’s looking over the treat he bought from a colorful stall, soft bread dough around a core of creamy cottage cheese. He looks a bit unconvinced, he always does, so that’s a question she ends up asking often. He always laughs, claiming that’s just what his face looks like. He laughs this time, too.
“Delicious!” He replies. “Everything is delicious when you eat in company, isn’t it?”
Ingrid nods, and she smiles, taking another bite of her pastry. It is delicious. All food in the capital has been delicious so far. It was different, back at home; the food was so little, so meager, that even mother and father wouldn’t really enjoy it, despite always eating together. She heard sometimes it happens, even for soulmates, for food to taste like nothing – apparently, it’s usually just a lack of seasoning – or for the taste to bad, even when the food isn’t spoiled – after all, everyone can feel when something is spoiled, while this is something people call “a matter of personal taste”.
She’s never had that problem, since coming to the capital, since meeting her fiancé. The food is always plenty, and it is delicious, and she gets to share it with Glenn.
Such a lucky coincidence, her life has been. She knows there’s people who spend years, or decades, looking for their soulmate, or people who are forced to separate from theirs, and left unable to taste anything, but she can thank the Goddess to not only have found hers, but to be promised to him as well.
Ingrid isn’t even thirteen yet, but she’s a very lucky woman.
ii.
The Ethereal Moon colors the city white. It’s lovely, and just a bit painful, when the snow piles enough to reach their knees. Sylvain won’t have to worry about it anymore, now that he’s inside that warm, cozy carriage that’s taking him back home, but her hands are freezing beneath the thick gloves.
“Let’s go,” Felix tells her, already heading back inside the castle.
They don’t have anything to do outside, and there’s not really much to do at all, anyway, with everyone so busy with the preparations for Saint Cichol Day, so Ingrid follows him, through the crowded halls and into the knights’ quarters. Before she knows, Felix is throwing the door open, revealing Glenn standing by the fireplace, and some friend of his sitting on the couch, both with cups in their hands.
“What are you pipsqueaks doing here?” Glenn asks, without looking up.
For some reason, Ingrid feels like she’s interrupted something. Felix doesn’t let this intimidate him.
“We’re freezing. Make us something.”
Glenn snorts loud, but he still invites them inside, and heads for the samovar on the table. His friend stands up, leaving the couch free for them. Now he’s the one in front of the fireplace, shifting around, while Ingrid and Felix get comfortable.
“Marius, grab me two more cups,” comes Glenn’s voice.
From their spot on the couch, they follow Marius as he takes the porcelain from the cabinet and pours a generous amount of honey in them, before stopping to control his work.
“Do I add the cinnamon, Glenn?”
“I liked it. It was sweet.”
Marius nods, fiddling a bit more, before passing everything to Glenn.
Sweet. Ingrid wonders what he means, exactly. They’re handed two mugs of hot tea, sprinkled with spice and a splash of milk. Felix throws it back, while she takes short sips, searching for something. She should be close enough to Glenn to find it.
“How is it, Inge?” Felix asks, wiping two smudges of cream from his lip.
Ingrid blinks. It’s warm, for sure, it soothes the dull pain in her hands. Marius added the cinnamon, and Glenn said it was sweet. The smell is nice, and she thinks she might like that spice – she remembers having cinnamon cookies with Glenn over tea, she remembers being happy and thinking they were delicious.
“Delicious.” She says, like she’s heard him say many times.
“Boring,” Felix snorts, “I was hoping for more details.”
He goes on to wonder what kind of foods he’ll like best once he meets his soulmate, and to talk about how strange it is that she likes everything his brother likes, what a coincidence it is, but Ingrid isn’t listening. Her eyes are on Glenn, his shadow by the window, slowly sipping his drink as his friend talks about something stupid, or about nothing, and putting down the mug just to laugh, or smile at him.
Sweet. Huh.
She wonders how he can taste that, and she can’t. She wonders why.
iii.
“You need to eat.”
Another knock on her door. She doesn’t open. She has nothing to say. But he won’t leave.
“Ingrid, come on.”
He knocks again. The noise is loud, it startles her every time – why won’t he stop, why won’t he leave?
“It’s been three days, you know.”
Her chest is trembling a bit. Has all morning. Her hands are trembling as well. Sylvain keeps knocking.
“You have to do this, sooner or later, or...” He falls silent for a second, then she hears him sigh. “Come on, Ingrid.”
She wishes she could get out of her room, at least to make him leave. She wishes she wasn’t so terrified of the world behind the door. She wishes it would stop moving so fast. There’s peace in there, and there’s silence and there’s no war and nobody she thought invincible has died – until Sylvain comes to knock, to drag her back into the bleak reality.
Three days, he’s been knocking at her door. Three days since she last saw her soulmate, her future husband. Three days since Glenn left, and he died. Three days since she touched food.
“You have to eat, Ingrid.”
He knocks again. Isn’t he tired? Has he been sleeping?
“You know, your parents will kill me if I let you...” Silence, again. The sound of something hitting the door, and then sliding down. “Please.”
She can’t stop trembling. Even her sight is starting to oscillate. Her head, her body feels so empty. But Sylvain is right behind the door, waiting for her to come out, and he won’t leave, and he’s been waiting for so long... Goddess protect them.
She crawls over to the door, and pulls it open, with the little strength she has. It’s shameful, how weak she’s gotten in so little time, but seeing Sylvain kneeling at her door, his eyes tired, his hair mussed up, she feels more pity for him than she does for herself. He doesn’t deserve to see her like this. Nonetheless he smiles.
“Good to see you.”
She doesn’t reply. Her body hurts. He pushes a tray across the threshold, to her. A rye pie stuffed with mushrooms and turnips and roasted rabbit – her head spins just at the sight, and she digs in.
“The cooks told me you liked this.” Sylvain says. “Hope they’re right.”
She musters something similar to a nod, keeping her head low, biting and biting. She hopes he doesn’t notice she’s crying. It tastes like nothing.
iv.
Moving on feels ever so strange. It feels strange to grow taller, to become a better fighter, to keep her hair long – she’d wanted to change it, to match his, and he’d said he would cut it for her, but then he never came back to do it. It’s strange to see new faces around the castle, and to receive new marriage proposals.
More than everything, it’s strange to eat alone. Of course, the others are still there, and she eats with Felix, sometimes, even if he’s a thousand miles away, or with Sylvain, when he’s not a thousand women away. His Highness and his vassal often sit by her, as well, with the elaborate and elegant dishes that Dedue likes to prepare for everyone, but mostly for the Prince.
She doesn’t know why he wastes so much time in the kitchens, with Dimitri in tow, when His Highness can’t taste it anyway, and he likely never will – the physicians say that ever since he came back from Duscur, something has been wrong with his body, not his soul. It vexes Ingrid, to think about how much was taken that day, to the point that His Highness was left unable to find his soulmate, his destined one.
And still Dedue keeps cooking for him, what everyone who can taste it calls delicious, refined courses fit for a king’s banquet. Ingrid doesn’t understand how he does it so well. Usually, nobody really dares to enter the kitchens, unless they have their soulmate with them. She did it once, with Glenn; they ended up baking a lemon cake with salt instead of sugar, and being horribly told off by the servants.
She never understood what the fuss was all about. It was delicious.
v.
The Officers Academy is unlike any place she’s lived in before, situated in a site as ancient as Garreg Mach, at the center of the continent, housing nobles, as well as a handful of commoners, from every corner of Fodlan. So many people sharing a living space, and little else. For what matters, Ingrid isn’t too interested in that: she isn’t here to do anything but grow stronger. She’s up early, she trains alone at dawn, she does her chores, she trains with Felix, or Sylvain, they eat together, then it’s studying, and more chores, and she’s in bed early to be up early again.
One morning there’s someone else when she enters the training grounds: a Black Eagle, like the colors of her training clothes tell Ingrid, waving a practice sword around, pausing every now and then to grab something to eat from a bag at the corner of the hall, before returning to her drills.
The girl doesn’t exactly look like an expert warrior – Ingrid immediately spots a few flaws in her forms – but she moves with a speed and grace that almost entrances her. That is, of course, without mentioning how beautiful she is, so tall and lean, dark locks flowing down her back.
Ingrid enters the hall on her tiptoes, careful not to make a sound and distract her, but it doesn’t work. As soon as she gets close enough, stopping right in front of the weapon racks, the girl freezes, practice sword still in mid-air. And she thought she’d been so silent. The girl turns around, red in the face, and she takes a second to stare at Ingrid before speaking.
“You.”
She really is beautiful. Ingrid steps back, and takes a respectful bow.
“Good morning. Forgive me for interrupting.”
The girl shakes her head, eyes flying in every direction, and she lowers her weapon, haphazardly throwing it back into the racks.
“Not... not a problem, it’s...” She circles Ingrid, and starts to head for the entrance, stumbling on her own feet, but before leaving, she turns back again.
“Been a pleasure. Could I ask you for your name?”
“Uhm, I’m Ingrid.”
Then she nods, eyes still wide, and runs back out, leaving Ingrid alone in the hall with many questions, as well as her things forgotten in a corner: a pretty brooch, and a little bag full of candies – cinnamon, she guesses from the smell. The girl has already disappeared down the hall.
After training, she leaves the bag and brooch in the Black Eagles’ classroom, but the strange meeting keeps replaying in her mind.
She asks another student about the girl, at dinner. She finds out her name is Dorothea, that she’s a singer – a commoner – and that she’s enrolled purely to find a rich husband to take care of her, now that her career is declining. It sounds like biased information, to think someone would choose such an ugly way to live.
But what does Ingrid know about that, after all? She’s seventeen and a widow.
vi.
“Dear Ingrid?”
The mellow voice stops her in the middle of the entrance hall, and she turns to see Dorothea, this time in her uniform, and with her hair well brushed, and some makeup on her eyes, and the bag in her hands. Her face is almost as red as that morning in the training grounds, though she doesn’t look nearly as distressed, and she’s still as beautiful. Ingrid smiles.
“Dorothea. Can I help you?”
“O-oh, you know my... That’s fine. I wanted to thank you for bringing back my things.”
“Please, think nothing of it. I should apologize for startling you that time.”
She seems to be surprised by her words. It isn’t a lie though, for a couple days now Ingrid has been trying to approach her, only to keep finding her surrounded by other students, or knights, and even monks, all charmed by her... well, everything. The Dorothea in front of her seems like a different person. The Dorothea in front of her gives her an embarrassed little smile, her face still a sweet shade of pink.
“My, I was simply... Perhaps not at my best, the other day. And – oh, would you like some?” She offers her candy, Ingrid refuses. “And yet you’ve been so kind. I’m quite attached to the brooch.”
“If that wasn’t your best, I believe you have quite a few things to teach me.” She replies, and Dorothea laughs.
Then Ingrid asks about the brooch, and her sword technique, and they talk about something stupid like losing things around the monastery, and they talk for so long that Ingrid only notices how late it is when hunger catches up to her, and she bids Dorothea goodnight and runs to the dining hall.
For once, most of the Lions are there to eat together, and Ingrid realizes that talking with Dorothea made her forget that they were supposed to meet to celebrate their victory at the latest mock battle. There’s a cake at their table, missing a single slice, which Sylvain is currently eating, ignoring the scolding coming from His Highness at his side, but when Ingrid arrives it finally stops, and the Prince starts cutting the cake.
The others chat idly as they receive their share, with His Highness thanking everyone for the hard work, Sylvain attacking his second slice, while asking about where Mercedes might be, a pale Annette nervously nodding along to his questions, eyes down to her half empty plate and fork still in her mouth, Ashe and a smiling Dedue discussing something about gardening. Ingrid finds herself remembering Dorothea, as she picks at a little cherry on top of her slice, before taking a large bite.
At her side, Felix coughs. She sees his expression change – first to simple surprise, then... disgust?
“Ingrid,” he grumbles from behind a hand, “spit it out. It’s awful.”
She blinks. It isn’t spoiled, it isn’t burned. It tastes as it should: like nothing. Then could Felix be... Well, that’s not a question for a well-mannered person to bring up like that, in front of everyone. Of course, Sylvain isn’t a well-mannered person.
“Felix,” he begins, pointing with his fork, pieces of cake still all over his face, “did you just taste it?”
Silence falls over the dining hall, and Ingrid sees the color drain from Felix’s face, his eyes dart across the table to the other Lions, probably too fast to even focus on anyone.
Goddess, he did.
“I didn’t. Shut your mouth, Sylvain. Ingrid, stop staring.”
But Ingrid can’t look away – she’d be too curious to see if anyone else at the table is making the same face as him – and Sylvain opens his mouth to speak again – and say only the Goddess knows what – and Felix is already throwing his slice away, muttering about how the eggs must’ve been rotten, before leaving the dining hall, still pale as a ghost. Ingrid looks back down to her plate.
How strange. She hadn’t been like that when she first tasted something, when she ate with Glenn for the first time. She hadn’t been like that at all.
vii.
She sees Dorothea again that week, and the next, all through that month, and the next.
They meet before going to sleep or after lunch, outside of class and at the market and at the greenhouse, and Dorothea is so terribly sweet to her, and she asks about her training, about her hometown, about her family. She offers her candy – cinnamon, Dorothea carries them everywhere – and Ingrid refuses, and she invites her to come to the theater with her, and Ingrid accepts – she’s never gone with her other friends, she’s not fond of the opera, but going with Dorothea ends up being more fun than she’d expected.
They never meet in the dining hall. It isn’t really courteous to invite someone to dinner when they can’t taste it, that’s what she’s been taught, but sometimes she wonders what it would be like to eat together – she’d probably have to ask Annette and Mercedes help with dressing up, but it would be a small price to pay. With Dorothea, Ingrid often feels like she’s at the perfect place, at the perfect time.
Except that one time that she really isn’t. She’s too slow to notice the axe being thrown towards His Highness, and all she can do is try and shield him, but the blade buries itself in her leg, and the horse kicks her off – and she guesses they still won because she wakes up in the infirmary, to the smell of poppy seeds and sage and cinnamon.
“Ingrid, dearest.” She hears, honeyed words so tender against her ears.
Her head won’t stop spinning, the smell of the poppy is so strong – her body feels like a cloud, she’s never been so light. A hand strokes her forehead, and she spots the rich green of Dorothea’s eyes, the gentle curve of her cheeks.
“You’ve been so brave... A real knight.” She says, her voice reaching her from underwater. “Stay awake a bit more, for me?”
Ingrid nods. She’s so tired, she’s so tired, but she keeps her eyes open as someone lifts her torso, and Dorothea brings the medicine to her mouth, and oh, she wishes she was awake enough to refuse it, to spit it out: it’s terribly bitter, the awful taste barely tempered by the sweet tang of cinnamon. Felix’s disgusted expression flashes in her mind. She understands now.
“What a face you made... How is it, Ingrid?”
She’s too tired to reply, she just shakes her head, and Dorothea gives a weak laugh. Then she helps her drink something else – fresh water to wash down the medicine, truly the worst thing she’s ever tasted. It feels like the first one, too. Oh, she feels like a child again, as the waking world starts to blur all around her. She feels like Glenn is there, her fiancé, her soulmate. Her destined one. He might be. He should be. Maybe this time, they’re close enough.
viii.
Ingrid was raised a believer. She considers herself one. As soon as her wound healed, thanks to Professor Manuela’s hard work, she visited the cathedral to give thanks: for having survived, for having been able to protect her loved ones, and for having been able to reunite, for just a moment, with the one soul made for hers. Whether it happened through divine intervention or through medicine-induced hallucination, she didn’t give much thought. It was in the Goddess’s plan.
She doesn’t feel like believing in that plan, the morning the fifth letter in a month arrives. Another proposal. She’s answered the first with a refusal, torn the second and the third, burned the fourth, but when the fifth arrives, just as her skin is starting to scar, the shame is too strong. She hides it under her bed for an entire week, and spends that time trying to keep it off her mind, having tea with Mercedes, or buying clothes with Annette, but the second Dorothea looks at her, she seems to know something is happening. Her eyes have always been much too keen for Ingrid’s liking, and definitely too green for her comfort.
“I’m not handing you over to a man like that.” Dorothea says simply, after reading the letter.
“Hand me... over?”
“My dear Ingrid, with someone like that...” She shivers.
Ingrid stares down at her hands. It’s strange how she talks about her in terms of possession. The only person Ingrid has ever done that with was Glenn, and he’d never done the same with her. It makes her feel... well, definitely different from the way the letter made her feel, when she read the words “take your daughter as my wife”.
Then Dorothea offers her candy, cinnamon as usual, and for once Ingrid accepts, though she forgets to eat it, as Dorothea tells her about that man’s unsavory tendencies, and before she knows the candy is forgotten inside her pocket, and they’re both in Professor Byleth’s office, asking for assistance and an escort to Galatea territory.
The trip is short, they arrive before the sun sets, and the suitor doesn’t wait much before showing his true face, but the Lions make quick work of his mercenaries, and Dorothea makes sure that they don’t lay a hand on Ingrid.
After that, speaking with her father is much easier for her. He rejects the proposal, and praises her wit, and her strength, and... Ingrid doesn’t feel like his words are warranted. She remembers the letters she destroyed, the ones she never opened, because she was afraid, because she was selfish. Because she couldn’t accept things were different now.
But her father pulls her in, and reminds her that her happiness is what he cares about the most, and she finds the strength to tell him about at least one little thing she wants – a prized possession, a blessed ring they’d received for her birth. Just a little something from home, because it feels right. He simply tells her to take whatever she might need, and so she does.
The ride back is silent, alone in her carriage with Dorothea. The other girl looks almost somber, as if she’d just left a funeral. Ingrid can’t quite say she feels different. Talks of marriage remind her of Glenn, of what she’s lost, of what she’ll never have again. Of how restlessly fate moves on.
She remembers praying, and getting unsatisfying answers.
“Do you… do you believe in the Goddess?” She asks.
She notices the way Dorothea looks at her. There’s a shadow over her eyes; it’s the wrong question, but she still needs to hear the answer.
“I… Sometimes I do,” isn’t exactly the one she expected. Dorothea laughs, closing her eyes. “Other times I worry she’s got everything wrong… Either she’s wrong, or I am.”
“I understand.”
It has felt like that for a while, for Ingrid. She looks down to the band on her finger, the white gold shining against the harsh last rays of sunlight. Just at the corner of her eye she sees Dorothea’s folded hand, pale like porcelain. She takes off the ring, and offers it to Dorothea.
“Thank you for your help, and for all the care you have for me. Please accept this.”
Whether the Goddess is guiding her or not, this feels like what she’s supposed to do. Dorothea seems to feel the same, nodding, and putting it on her left hand without saying a word.
Ingrid keeps staring at it for the rest of the ride, a sweet heat blooming at the center of her chest, until Dorothea falls asleep by her side. Her perfume fills Ingrid’s nose, fruity and lovely and delicious – she remembers the candy in her pocket, and fishes it out. She pulls off the wrapping, decorated with little red flowers, the kind of pretty thing Dorothea is so fond of, and closes her lips around the candy, and – and the taste fills her mouth, intense and rich and sweet and –
And there’s nobody, no ghost watching over her, no Goddess playing with her feelings and her memories. There’s nobody but Dorothea at her side.
ix.
“Is that an engagement ring your Dorothea is wearing?”
Ingrid almost chokes on her soup. Luckily, Annette is the only other person in the dining hall. She looks at her suspiciously.
“She had one on at dance practice, yesterday. White, with the two joined wings and the gem in the middle... Didn’t you see it, Ingrid?”
She coughs. “Dorothea has many rings. I don’t keep track.”
Annette shakes her head. “It’s a Rhodos ring she’s wearing. We’re both from the Kingdom, you know what that means.”
Commitment, and eternal love, and... Oh, Dorothea is really wearing it.
“You know,” Annette continues, “I think you’re still in time to make a move.”
Goddess. She would’ve preferred to have just a little more time to keep that secret to herself, to think about what to do with her newfound knowledge, and yet...
She opts for not saying anything, focusing her eyes deep inside the soup, in an attempt to limit the damage. It doesn’t work.
“Ingrid.” From the corner of her eye, she sees Annette clasp her heads over her mouth. “You gave it to her, didn’t you?”
She looks up to her friend, and immediately Annette starts nodding to herself. It’s written all over her face, Ingrid knows, she just has to come to terms with how obvious it is.
It is kind of a problem, when she thinks about how she’s yet to tell Dorothea what she knows. It’s a lot easier to tell Annette about it, have her laugh at how many times she was so close to finding out – only to refuse the candies, and go on about her day. And it’s a lot easier to listen to Annette’s advice of just telling her, when Ingrid remembers her father’s words about her happiness.
And that’s how she ends up in the market stalls of Garreg Mach, searching for the prettiest and most inviting confectionery, one sunny afternoon under the Ethereal Moon. This single day, the Goddess Tower opens its gates to visitors, and she took the opportunity to invite Dorothea, the night before; she looked surprised to receive such a sudden invite, though it might have had to do with how Ingrid hasn’t been able to look at her without flushing, lately.
It’s somewhat embarrassing, to think about how long it took her to realize which was the right way. Ingrid has always thought of herself as a practical person, someone with her feet on the ground, but in all of this, she’s so often forgotten to be a normal girl, someone who laughs about nothing, someone who buys silly gifts. Someone who falls in love.
She remembers many things, as she climbs the tower; she remembers the cinnamon on the day they met, when she couldn’t understand why Dorothea would act so strange around her, and she remembers the cinnamon in that disgusting poppy medicine, that time she was stupid enough to not realize her soulmate was right beside her.
But before she can remember Dorothea’s sweet smile when she fell asleep beside her, finally she appears, at the top of the stairs, the sun behind her. Beautiful, as always.
Ingrid walks the last few steps, and Dorothea welcomes her, taking a hand in both of hers.
“You’ve taken quite a while, dear Ingrid.”
She giggles. “I’ve taken a while to do a lot of things, you know.”
“I know.”
Dorothea’s cheeks are pink again, as she lets her eyes linger on Ingrid’s, before turning back to the balcony, and stretching her arms, spreading them wide like an eagle.
“Well then, what kind of things are we here to discuss today?”
Ingrid’s eye catches on the glimmer in Dorothea’s hand – the sunlight reflected on her ring. Two wings forever entwined, the shining gem held in their embrace.
“I don’t know.” She smiles. She offers Dorothea the little bag, full of candies to the brim. “I guess I’m just feeling like it’s time for some change.”
Dorothea smiles back at her, and she takes two candies, before handing one to Ingrid, and setting the bag on the floor.
“When did you realize?” She asks, before popping the candy into her mouth.
Ingrid does the same, and once more the taste surprises her, so strong and sweet and just so delicious. She thinks over her answer, something about an arduous road to self-reflection, but she ends up shaking her head.
“I’m not sure. But I feel like finally everything is as it should be.”
“Even if your soulmate is just little old me?” Dorothea asks, leaning her head on her shoulder.
Ingrid has to laugh, but hearing that word aloud in Dorothea’s lovely voice makes her feel giddy like a child.
“Especially because it’s you.” She replies.
Dorothea’s head perks up, raising from her shoulder with a beautiful smile on her face, and now she’s so close, that Ingrid can get lost in her eyes, glimmering like precious stones. Dorothea leans down and kisses her, delicate and delicious and just right.
“How is it, love?” She asks when they separate.
“Sweet.” Ingrid answers honestly, before leaning back in.
Dorothea’s smile over hers has a taste of its own.