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Ashe was the best study buddy Annette could have asked for.

She felt a pang of betrayal to Mercie for thinking this – after all, Mercie was her best friend in the whole world, and had certainly pulled her share of all nighters with Annette at the school of sorcery before coming to Garreg Mach. But their study sessions so often turned away from their books and towards their complex network of inside jokes, leaving Annette with sides that ached from laughter but a barely passing grade. And since coming to Garreg Mach, Mercedes was more interested in spending her time in the chapel and helping out the village visitors than in staying up past midnight studying. Ashe was serious, he was sincere. His laughter was genuine, but more polite, and certainly more easily redirected back to the math problems and battle histories and theoretical approaches to distanced healing. He was the perfect fit for both Annette’s lonely nights in the library and her coveted position as top of the class.

The perfect study buddy – smart, motivated, and focused on their classes. She thought the world of him, and even on her worst days she suspected that he thought the world of her, too.

He was the worst possible person for Felix to spot her with.

They were on hour three of reading through Maxamillious Oglethorpe’s famed treatise, Magical Theorems and Properties, a book so old and so dense Annette was beginning to develop a theory that it was in fact in another language and nobody over the last 300 years had noticed.

“So what I’m getting,” Ashe said slowly, taking the book from her for the twentieth time that hour and scanning over the pages, “Is that the subjective self is contingent on the ontological center of reason, which can only be achieved by a teleological orientation of the self . . .away from the self.”

“Ashe,” Annette said. “Do you know what any of those words mean?”

“I know it’s what the book says.”

“Yes but do you know what it means.”

“Honestly at this point I think I should get points for being able to read any thing at all – oh! Hello, Felix!” Ashe was perhaps a bit too eager to put the book down; Annette had been particularly insistent that they needed to finish through at least chapter 10 (Phenomenologies of Wind and Water) before they took a break. “Are you here to study for Hanneman’s exam, too?” Ashe continued cheerfully, eager to discuss anything with less than five syllable words.

Annette swiveled around in her chair, then instantly regretted it. Obviously it was Felix standing there, caught mid-stride down the center aisle of tables on his way to the back of the library. It wasn’t like Ashe was hallucinating. She didn’t need to flinch like a scared rabbit every time she heard his name.

Annette was not afraid of Felix Fraldarius.

Felix looked over her head entirely to give Ashe a look that was not quite withering enough to be actively insulting. “What? No, those exams are a waste of my time. I’m just going to make my handwriting bad enough that Hanneman gives me a C+ so he doesn’t have to finish reading it.”

Ashe smiled weakly, clearly unable to tell if Felix was making a joke or not. “Well,” he said brightly, “If you change your mind you’re welcome to study with us!”

Annette tried frantically to make eye contact with Ashe. No no no no no she screamed at him mentally. Unfortunately, chapters one through nine of Magical Theorems and Properties did not contain any information on telepathy, and so Ashe did not pick up on this. He kept chatting. “So why are you here, Felix? It’s pretty late.”

Felix looked away towards the back shelves. “I’m getting some books.”

“At a library? No way,” Annette said sarcastically before she could stop herself. Felix’s eyes turned towards her. Ugh. No. Now she’d gone and drawn attention to herself. She always had less filter after the third hour of studying.

“I mean like specific books, Annette,” he said, that almost-withering stare back again. “Seteth chewed me out for skipping class to train again; I have to write an essay on ‘chivalric principles befitting those of the knighthood’ or something like that.”

Annette scrunched up her nose and said “that sounds awful” just Ashe clutched his hands into fists and said “that sounds amazing.” Felix rolled his eyes at both of them.

“Can’t use the handwriting trick on Seteth; he’ll just make me rewrite it. So I’m just going to pick a kind of obscure fable and see if I can stretch it out over three pages.”

Ashe positively beamed at Felix. “Wait, I have the perfect book for this,” he said excitedly. “Do you know the story of Sir Gaileth and the Lady Ophelia?”

Felix’s stare became, if not kind, at last vaguely less withering. “I do not. Does anyone?”

“It’s one of my favorites!”

“Does anyone besides you?”

“Probably not."

“It sounds perfect.”

Ashe jumped up and started to lead Felix away to the back of the library, undoubtedly to his favorite collection of knights and their legends. His voice trailed off as he walked away, beginning an eager summary of the story that Felix did not ask for: “So, Sir Gaileth was known throughout the land as a noble and true knight, and none was more devoted to him than his fair lady, Ophelia. . . . ”

Annette sighed deeply and sank down in her chair, her posture and her nerves both an absolute mess. The library was her sanctuary. She often shared the space with Lindhart or Lysithea, but they were as indifferent to her as the surrounded shelves of books that looked down on her as she worked through another problem, another theory, another strategy. No one bothered you when you were in a library. She couldn’t be clumsy, or loud, or out of place; libraries were so proper and soft and organized that they smoothed over all her flaws. It was just her, and her books, and the dust, and the quiet.

So Felix really had no right to be there, when you thought about it like that.

Annette knew it was paranoia, but she felt like he was inescapable, ever since he’d walked in on her singing in the greenhouse. She wasn’t sure how much of the song Felix had actually heard, but she knew the rendition was enthusiastic and that there had been, probably, accompanying dance moves. Solo greenhouse duty was boring; what was she supposed to do to pass the time? But ever since then, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Felix was always one step behind her wherever she went, smirking at her as he walked by with his gaggle of Blue Lions friends, laughing to himself in the dining hall line as she eagerly took a piece of cake for dinner, just happening to pass by as she did other mundane tasks at the monastery as if he was lying in wait for the moment where she would mess up again. Attempts to confront him just made the situation worse – losing her temper, Annette had let slip an entire new catalogue of anxieties for him to tease her about, and revealed that she was a pretty terrible negotiator, at that. She now felt like Felix smiled at her, that stupid, awful, mocking smile, every class period, and every time they passed in the hallway.

It was an awful turn of events, really. When they’d started the year she’d rather hoped that he would think well of her.

Annette had spent the last few weeks waiting for the other shoe to drop – for Felix to get tired of this being a private mockery. For the smirks to spread to Sylvain, or Ingrid, or even Dimitri. It hadn’t happened yet. But it was just testing fate, sending her most prized study partner to talk with him alone while she looked on. Except, of course, she wasn't looking on – Annette had instead been staring intently at pages 298 and 299 of Magical Theorems and Properties, the words waving slightly in front of her eyes. She jerked her head to back of the library to see if Ashe had fully turned against her yet. But if such a conspiracy had transpired, she had missed it entirely. Felix had settled into a reading chair with a sizeable tome, undoubtedly one that Ashe had given to him while describing it as a “quick read.” He looked surprisingly comfortable, tucked away in an oversized armchair. For once in his life, Felix didn’t look like he might cut you in half at any moment, if only because those chairs were notoriously hard to get out of. As Annette pondered this, Felix looked up, as if he could feel her eyes on him. He looked at her blankly for a moment. And then smiled.

Annette whipped away, refusing to play his stupid game. She came face to face with Ashe, who had returned to the table without her noticing.

“I’ve got a new theory,” he said, settling into his chair across from her and taking up Oglethorpe’s tome once more. “What if the ‘ontological self’ is a fancy way of saying ghosts? That makes sense, right?”

Annette had little time for the ontological self at this moment. “Ashe,” she whispered frantically, “We have to go. We have to leave. Right now."

Ashe looked crestfallen, which Annette frankly considered to be an overreaction. “B-but,” he stammered. “We still have like twelve chapters to go. There’s no way I’m going to pass at this rate, I don’t even have the basic theory down.”

Annette was unswayed. “Take the book with us, we can study in, I don’t know. The dining hall. My room. The greenhouse, you love the greenhouse. Plants are probably great for focus.”

“Seriously, what is wrong with you? Are you feeling okay? I told you we should have taken a break after chapter eight.”

“It’s not the book! I love books, books are great,” Annette whispered furiously.

“Then what is it?”

“I can’t stay in the same room as him, that’s what,” Annette’s voice cracked on the pronoun, and she realized suddenly that her “whispers” may have gotten increasingly louder as her hand gestures got increasingly animated. She froze, her hand still mid-point towards Felix, and nervously looked over her shoulder. He had to have heard. Here’s one more story about Annette Dominic, Garreg Mach’s best singer, dancer, and pointer and worst whisperer, negotiator, and overall human being.

Felix’s nose remained buried in the book. His expression was completely unreadable.

Ashe looked over, too. “Wait, this is about Felix?”

“Shhhhh, he’ll hear you!” Annette waved her hand. “Don’t look at him, you’re being obvious.”

“What’s wrong with Felix?” Ashe asked, taking the high road in matters of hypocrisy. “Felix is great.”

“Felix,” Annette corrected him, “Is the worst.”

“Okay, but like, is there a story behind this? It seems like there’s a story behind this.”

Annette sighed. She was hoping her plan of rushing out of the library and explaining things never would have gone smoother. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

Ashe nodded.

“So, a couple weeks ago, Felix walked on me in the greenhouse. . . doing something really embarrassing.”

Ashe’s eyes widened with more shock than Annette cared for. “Something embarrassing?” he repeated. Annette wasn’t sure what he was imagining but she realized ambiguity was not helping her case.

“No, it wasn’t like - - look, I was singing a song, okay? And maybe dancing.”

Ashe’s face went from shock to bewilderment, which Annette decided was probably an improvement. “That doesn’t seem that embarrassing.”

“Well, it was a really dumb song."

“Still doesn’t seem that bad, I don’t know.”

“A really dumb song.”

“Can I hear it?”

“Absolutely not.”

Ashe’s feelings didn’t seem too hurt by this. Annette wished other Blue Lions could adopt a similar apathy towards her music. “So you had one kind of weird encounter. This still doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.”

“But it isn’t just one weird encounter, that’s the thing! Every time he sees me it’s like he has to bring it up, like he has to lord it over me that he knows this embarrassing secret about me. He’s always, like, bringing it up subtly in conversation, or smirking at me when we’re in class, or trying to get me to teach him the second verse. It’s like. . . like . . . ”

“Like he’s flirting with you?”

“Like he’s my worst enemy,” Annette concluded. “Wait, what?” she added as an afterthought.

“He might just be flirting with you.”

“No way,” Annette rolled her eyes at how little Ashe was understanding the situation. “Guys like Felix don’t flirt with me. That just doesn’t happen.”

“What do you mean, guys like him?” Ashe had put down the book now and was leaning forward eagerly. They were not getting to chapter ten tonight.

Annette scrunched her nose up. “You know, like. . . talented. Cool. Intimidating. Like, guys who are put together and ambitious and have really amazing cheekbones and always kind of smell like peppermint?”

Ashe’s eyes narrowed. “Annette please listen to yourself right now,” he said flatly.

“Oh no,” Annette whispered to herself.

“I think I understand why that greenhouse thing did such a number on you.”

Annette frowned. She was not infatuated with Felix Fraldarius.

Still, this conversation had gone off the rails rather spectacularly. And they were definitely both going to fail Hanneman’s exam at this rate.

“I think,” she said slowly. “That I need to change houses. Or maybe schools altogether.”

Ashe smiled at her. “Don’t worry,” he said amiably. “I won’t tell anyone – about the singing, or about . . . anything else.”

Annette was not placated. Ashe probably meant the smile to be affirming, but it reminded her too much of when Felix grinned at her from across the classroom. Ashe was now a liability. Ashe knew things about her. “This is totally unfair, Ashe,” she said. “You can’t just find out all my worst secrets in one evening; it’s going to throw off our perfect study session dynamic.” She leaned forward over the book, poking her finger towards Ashe’s chest. “You have to tell me something about you; that’ll make things even.”

“What?” Ashe squeaked, leaning back in his chair to get away from Annette’s accusatory pointing. “That doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“Our study group is fundamentally built on trust, Ashe,” Annette hissed at him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Felix wasn’t listening. He appeared lost in whatever book Ashe had given him – maybe it was actually pretty good? “We’ll never get to volume two of Magical Theorems and Properties if I can’t trust you!”

Ashe’s face turned white. “There’s a volume two?”

“Don’t change the subject!”

“Well I haven’t got any secrets!” Ashe snapped, stubbornly crossing his arms. “All the songs I sing while on greenhouse duty are perfectly sensible.”

“You see?” Annette wailed, as softly as possible. “This is already tearing us apart.”

“I don’t think I’m the one tearing us apart here, Annette.”

“You don’t have anything you can tell me?” Annette asked. “No mortal enemies, or secret nemesis, or people that you can’t stand?”

“No! Why would I have that? I didn’t join the Officers Academy to make mortal enemies, Annette. Everyone here is great.”

“Well, okay,” Annette said, switching tactics. “What about someone who just makes you feel really dumb? Someone you’re intimidated by? Who makes you nervous? Work with me here, Ashe.”

“Nervous?” Ashe asked, blushing slightly. “Like, one person? I mean . . . no, I can’t think of anyone. No.”

“That was not a confident ‘no’, Ashe,” Annette challenged.

“It’s nothing.”

“You owe this to me,” Annette pleaded. “I’ve told you everything about myself tonight.”

“You’ve told me like two things, and I’m still not exactly clear on why one of them is even a thing.”

Annette ignored this. “Let’s see, is it Ingrid? Ingrid’s pretty scary. She makes me nervous.”

“I said there wasn’t anyone!” Ashe’s voice rose slightly. If he and Annette had anything in common, it was that they were both terrible at lying.

“Is it Dimitri? Edelgard? Everyone’s nervous around Edelgard, she shouldn’t count. Mercedes? Wait, is it Felix? That would be wild, Ashe, if you also thought that Felix - -”

“Is your plan just to name every person at Garreg Mach?”

“Kind of, yes.”

“If I tell you, will you stop doing that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fine! Look, it’s Dedue.” Ashe immediately retreated behind the spine of their textbook. “Hey, do you think ‘ontological self’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘you’”?

Annette stared at Ashe, surprised. “Dedue makes you nervous? Really?” Dedue was so soft-spoken and calm that Annette sometimes forgot that he was, by all standard definitions of the word, intimidating. She knew that Dimitri’s right hand man could be frightening for members of other houses, who couldn’t see past his imposing frame or their own prejudices about his homeland. But that didn’t track for Ashe, who sincerely found the good in people as awful as Felix.

Peeking out from over the book, Ashe’s face was beet red. “I mean. . . no. But yes. I just get nervous around him sometimes!”

Annette reached to grab the book away, which Ashe easily deflected. Freaking archers’ reflexes. “You don’t act like it,” she said. “Hey! Look at me. Are you just making this up? I feel like you always look super happy when you’re talking to him. Like, didn’t I hear you guys laughing in the greenhouse a couple of days ago? I didn’t know Dedue knew how to laugh.”

“Dedue’s really funny,” Ashe mumbled from behind the book. “A lot of people just kind of miss that, I think.”

“But he makes you nervous?”

“It’s just – no – listen – ” Ashe put the book down and sighed. “It was just the first name that popped into my head. We were on kitchen duty together last night and he’s just so good at it; I kind of panicked that I would mess up and I ended up knocking over a bag of flour and, ugh. He’s just really good at stuff. At everything. I feel so dumb around him sometimes.” Ashe picked the book back up. “This is getting off topic – we still have to get through chapter ten.”

Annette did not take the bait. She had found the one thing she loved more than studying – good, old-fashioned gossip. And best of all, good, old-fashioned gossip that was not about her. “I can’t believe you have a crush on Dedue,” she said, leaning forward eagerly.

“I didn’t say I had a crush on him!” Ashe hissed at her over the spine of the book. “And keep your voice down!”

“Right, right, you just knock things over whenever you’re around him because he’s so perfect,” Annette sighed happily. “This is the cutest story I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“The flour thing was a one time example –”

“You’re going to have to build stilts to kiss him.”

“I just really respect him, Annette.”

“Please invite me to your wedding. Or at least the reception. The food is going to be amazing.”

Mages, it turns out, have worse reflexes than archers, on the whole. The book hit Annette’s shoulder with a soft thunk. Annette gasped in mock horror (truth be told, he hadn’t thrown the book particularly hard) and retaliated by throwing a quill, which hit Ashe with no thunk whatsoever. Ashe responded by grabbing the nearest makeshift projectile, which unfortunately happened to be a pot of ink. Forgetting their studying, her dignity, the fact that they were in a library, Annette let out a small shriek of laughter as she leaned away from him, trying to stay out of his trajectory. Ashe seemed to realize the ill-advised ramifications of throwing ink around a library, but it was too late. Ink splashed over the sides of the inkwell, splattering Ashe with an array of black polka dots. And Annette misjudged the leaning-potential of the library desk chairs as she flailed to get away from possible flying ink. She felt the horrible kick in her stomach as the chair went flying too far backwards to readjust, saw Ashe’s eyes widen in horror, and braced herself to hit the ground – and felt, instead, her chair come to a lurching halt with her still in it.

Felix pushed her chair back upright, having caught it before Annette could crash to the ground in it. “Is this always how you two study? It doesn’t seem very productive.”

“Good reflexes, Felix!” Ashe’s voice was as bright and cheery as ever. Evidently throwing ink on yourself was not as traumatizing as almost giving yourself a concussion only to be rescued by your worst enemy. “I hope we didn’t disturb your reading!”

“Oh, you definitely did,” said Felix, sliding into a chair at the table so he was sitting next to Ashe and across from Annette.

Ashe blushed. “I’m so sorry! We’re not usually like this, we just got into an argument about - -”

“Phenomenology,” Annette burst in. “Chapter 10. On phenomenology. Things got heated.”

“Right,” said Ashe, a bit too eagerly. “Exactly. Who hasn’t thrown a quill in an argument about the ontological self.”

“But I think,” Annette said, fixing her eyes on Ashe and hoping he’d learned more telepathy in the last 30 minutes, “that we’ve reached a stalemate on that, right Ashe? Nothing more to argue about now?”

Ashe blinked at her as she bore holes into him with her gaze. But he blessedly caught on. “Yes! Total truce now!” he smiled at Felix, an easy, open smile between friends.

Felix returned the smile with a frown, which might have been an easy, open frown between friends; Annette wasn’t entirely sure with Felix. “I’m very happy for you both,” he said, his voice conveying neither happiness nor any other emotion.

“Sorry about that, Felix,” Ashe said. He placed the inkwell back in a stable position on the table between them, as if to restore order back to the library as a whole. “We’ll keep it down now if you want to get back to your studying.”

“That’s part of the reason I came over here,” Felix said. “To ask you what you were thinking in choosing this book.”

Ashe’s face fell. This was turning into quite an evening of minor disappointments for him, Annette thought to herself.

“You don’t like it? But Sir Gaileth! He’s the perfect model of a knight for you.”

“No one is a model knight, because knights are terrible,” Felix scoffed. “But also, Ashe, it’s 400 pages long. The entire point of this whole process is I don’t want to spend half the week on it.”

“He did have a lot of adventures,” Ashe offered by way of explanation.

Felix was unconvinced by this. “Were any of them shorter adventures? Or more skimmable adventures?”

Ashe took the book from Felix, flipping through it. “You could just read the parts where he’s here at the monastery,” he mumbled to himself.

Annette was surprised by this. “Wait, like Garreg Mach?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Ashe said absently, still flipping pages. “Sir Gaileth was one of the first teachers at the monastery, back before it became an officer’s academy, even. So if you just focused on these chapters” – he pushed the book back over to Felix, pages open towards the end – “you could just look at his work while he was here.

Felix looked at the book again. “I guess it could work,” he said. “Why’d he end up here, though? When I left off he was in the swamps of doom or something like that.”

“It probably says in the book, you know,” Annette said. “The one you’re supposed to just read yourself."

“That’s a good point, Annette,” Felix said, not looking up. “The thing is, I really don’t want to do that.”

“It’s okay, Annette, I don’t mind filling him in,” said Ashe, his cheerfulness cutting through the sharp glare Annette was sending towards Felix. “That is, if you don’t mind taking a break from studying.”

Annette shrugged, picking up Oglethorpe’s treatise once more. “I’ll just keep reading this,” she said. “This is totally how I wanted my evening to go,” she added in a mutter that both Ashe and Felix chose not to hear.

This was, however, exactly how Ashe wanted the evening to go – exactly how he wanted every evening of his life to go, Annette suspected. With a captive audience to listen to his story, Ashe launched into his explanation of one of his favorite stories of knighthood and chivalry.

“Okay, so, if you’re in the swamp of doom then you’ve probably already gotten to the part where Sir Gaileth has sworn loyalty to Ophelia for love and life eternal, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” said Felix. “He’s in the swamp to prove his love to her or something? Something completely stupid.”

“I knew this book would be perfect for you,” Ashe said excitedly. “Because Sir Gaileth also thought this was completely stupid!”

“Great,” said Felix, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms.

“So basically, Ophelia is living at the monastery as both a Lady who is training to take monastery orders and as a renowned scholar of magic, both of which would be ruined if she were to marry Gaileth. So she tells Gaileth that to win her love, he has to bring herself a sign that this is all worth giving up, a reason that she should leave. So like the next 200 pages are all about Gaileth searching for a sign for Ophelia, all while slaying foes and helping the people and doing all manner of knightly things. And eventually, he figures it out. Any guesses as to what he finds?” Ashe asked the question with a glint in his eye that you only get when you know the answer and the rest of the room doesn’t.

“A sign from the goddess or something? One of the relics we have in the chapel?” Annette guessed. Ashe shook his head.

“Nothing at all, because marrying a knight is a terrible idea and she was right to be hesitant?” Felix offered.

Ashe’s smile doubled. “I knew it!” he exclaimed, slamming the book down on the table. “I knew this was the perfect story for you! Yes, that! Exactly!”

“What.” Annette and Felix said it together. She put down Oglethorpe’s book, he brought his chair to the ground. They both leaned forward.

“So Gaileth goes to Lady Ophelia with nothing at all, three years after his quest starts,” Ashe said excitedly. “He tells her, there is nothing I can find to convince you that you should leave, because I couldn’t find anything to convince myself that you should leave. Instead, I want to stay here, with you, at the monastery. If I have to choose between being a knight and being with you, I choose you.”

“So, what, he never fights again? He becomes a monk? He’s stuck here for the rest of his life?” Felix glared, unblinkingly, at Ashe. “Chivalry is the worst possible thing, what good does that do anyone.”

“I think it’s romantic,” Annette said, feeling suddenly defensive of this knight she’d never heard of before.

“Anyways,” Ashe cut in before Felix could respond, “It did plenty of people plenty of good, Felix. The two of them basically started what we know of Garreg Mach as a place of study, not just a place of worship. He taught battle arts and she taught sorcery, and they started what grew into the school we know today. But the rest,” he added cheerfully, “You have to read yourself. I’m not doing all of your homework for you, you know.” He passed the book back to Felix.

Felix took it begrudgingly. “It was worth a shot,” he said, his voice slightly softened compared to how he usually spoke. “Shall I leave you two to your magical theorems? I’ve probably wasted enough of your time.”

“Honestly, I might just call it a night,” Annette sighed. “I’m not sure we can get back on track after . . . arguing about phenomenology.” She shot a final, angry glare at Magical Theorems and Properties. “You say if I make my handwriting bad enough he’ll just stop reading? Maybe I’ll write with my left hand.”

“Works every time,” Felix promised. “He’ll probably give you an A just on principle, since it’s, you know, you.”

“You’re probably right, Annette,” Ashe said, moving to pack up his things. “Besides, it’s almost midnight. We should probably get a move on.”

Felix looked over to Ashe. “Why, what happens at midnight?”

Annette and Ashe both blushed, casting desperate looks at each other. They’d managed one group lie for the evening; two was wildly optimistic. “Ummm,” Ashe said, which was less of an answer than misdirection, and not terribly effective misdirection. Felix raised an eyebrow, which was more judgmental and intimidating than it had any right to be. He waited. Annette broke first.

“It’s when the ghosts come out,” she blurted out. “We think, at least. All the ghost sightings have been after dark, and most have been after midnight.”

Felix didn’t smile, but she could tell he wanted to. That was worse. “You’re leaving early. . . to avoid ghosts?” he asked.

“No,” said Annette, unconvincingly. “It’s late. I’m tired. I don’t understand anything I’m reading.”

“You’re afraid of ghosts,” Felix added.

“Afraid isn’t really the right word, Felix,” Annette countered.

“Terrified,” Ashe mumbled to himself. Annette made a face at him.

“That’s really adorable,” Felix said. Maybe he meant it as a compliment; Annette did not take it that way.

“Leave me alone, Felix,” she said grumpily. “It’s an act of respect, letting the ghosts have their space. If you actually knew anything about chivalry and knighthood, you would respect that.”

Felix turned to Ashe. “One last question,” he said, his smirk not fading. “Where exactly in this 400-page book does it talk about how Sir Gaileth was properly respectful to imaginary ghosts?”

“You’re evil, Felix,” Annette snapped.

“Anyways,” Ashe broke in, “We figure it’s just safer to leave before midnight. And to leave together. Ghosts probably don’t attack you when you’re in a group. You’re welcome to come with us, if you’d like!” Annette made a mental note to consult with Ashe on establishing group consensus before welcoming anyone, for any reason, at all.

Felix was evidently better at telepathy than Ashe. Or maybe Annette was just better at glaring at him specifically. “I think I’ll pass,” he said, standing up and grabbing the book. “You still left me a hundred pages to read. And also, I don’t believe in ghosts.”

He started to walk away, then turned back. Smiling. “You know,” he said to Annette. “I once heard the Professor tell a student to try singing when they walked through the monastery at night. You could always do that.”

“Shut up, Felix,” Annette said darkly. She was not in the mood for this conversation again.

“You might have to be careful to not make them angry, though. Ghosts are probably pretty bitter that they can’t eat steak and ca –”

“For the love Saint Seiros, just stop talking, Felix.” Annette stood up, grabbing her things and cramming them into her bag blindly. “I don’t see why you’re bothering to stay behind. If I leave, there’ll be no one for you to make fun of.”

Stuffing the last book, which may or may not have belonged to her, into her bag, Annette turned on her heel and stormed out of the library. Ashe and Felix watched her go in a kind of awestruck silence. Ashe turned to Felix.

“So. I’m going to go. Sure you don’t want to come along?”

Felix stared at the ground, absently kicking a chair back into position against the library tables. “I don’t see why I would,” he said, not looking up. “I don’t think she really wants me to talk to her.”

“I mean. She might,” Ashe offered, lamely.

Felix picked up the book on Sir Gaileth and walked away to the back of the library again. Ashe took this as a goodbye. Lighting a candle, he exited the library into the darkened hallways of the monastery at night.

***

Annette regretted things instantly.

This was the case for much of her life (from just this morning, she regretted trying to carry 4 bags of vulneraries in one trip and also trying to fry 14 eggs at the same time “to be more efficient”), but it was particularly true once she was out into the hallway and walking down the darkened corridors outside the library, snapping her fingers to produce enough fire magic to light her way.

She was not hurt by Felix Fraldarius.

But good luck convincing anyone of that now.

It was relief, then, to see Ashe’s candle bobbing after her as he ran to catch up with her. Part of her had worried that he would stay behind with Felix, probably to learn all the verses to her songs and swap notes on everything dumb she’d ever said or done. But that was a small part of her, and when she heard the footsteps behind her at a running clip, she wasn’t surprised to turn and see the archer’s gentle, concerned face following up behind her.

“Hey,” he said, slowing to a walk as he came up beside her.

“Hey,” she said back.

He didn’t ask follow-up questions. Annette appreciated that.

Ashe held a flickering candle as they made their way towards the stairs. The halls of Garreg Mach were always eerie after dark. Their footsteps echoed through the stone hallways; they were the only ones still wandering around the monastery halls at this hour.

Ashe laughed nervously. “Kind of a spooky night, huh?”

“Don't remind me,” said Annette, taking a step closer to him as they walked down a creaking flight of stairs. “I hate the way the shadows look this time of night. I always think it’s going to be a ghost. Please, let’s talk about something else.”

“Um, okay,” Ashe said with a faint hint of apology in his voice. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Welllllll,” Annette drawled out the word. She always had plenty to say, but it was hard to think of a prompt for someone else. “You could tell me more about when you first started falling for Ded - -”

“Hey, wait!” Ashe cried, swinging around to face her. The candle flame wavered ominously with the sudden movement. “I thought we agreed to a ceasefire on that!”

Annette giggled. “I can’t help it; I’m a matchmaker at heart.”

But she relented – she wasn’t sure if she and Ashe were good enough friends for her to tease him too much. And she’d had her fill of teasing for the evening, anyways. “Well, if you’re not going to take my very excellent suggestions, you have to choose the topic,” she said, not unkindly.

“Hm,” Ashe pondered the question. “Do you want to hear the end of the story of Sir Gaileth and Lady Ophelia?”

“There’s more to the story?”

“Yeah; it’s kind of a downer ending, though.”

Annette frowned. “I like happy endings better. But sure, I’ll tell you to stop if it gets to be too much.”

“That works,” Ashe said. He straightened slightly, and Annette could feel him launching back into storytelling mode. His younger siblings must hang on his every word, she thought absently. They stepped out into the courtyards, the wind whipping through the arches and pathways in the cool night air. Ashe’s candle wavered once more, casting wild shadows around him as he began the finale of the story.

“Sir Gaileth and Lady Ophelia were happily married and settled at the monastery, and for many years the people remarked that they were blessed by the goddess herself to have found such a perfect pairing. However, their happiness was not to last. Lady Ophelia fell ill, with a disease so mysterious and sudden that it was as if her life was being unraveled before Gaileth’s very eyes. Gaileth fell into his studies so deeply that they say he did not sleep for days on end, looking for a cure for the impossible. He soon concluded that the monastery libraries – which were not as big then as they are now – did not contain the knowledge he needed. He set off to the capital city to find a cure. Ophelia begged him to stay with her, but he was certain a cure was within his grasp if only he could make the journey.”

“Very noble of him,” Annette said. “This seems like the beginning of the story, not the end.” No wonder the book Felix was reading was so long.

She couldn’t actively see Ashe wince, but she could hear it in his voice. “No . . . no. It’s pretty much the end at this point.”

“What, do we not, like, know a ton about his quest to find the cure?”

“He . . . didn’t find the cure.

The wind howled between them. After a pause, Annette said, “Oh.”

Ashe began once more. “Perhaps a cure was out there to be found. Perhaps it was always a fool’s errand. But if it’s any comfort, the Lady Ophelia did not have long to wait for her beloved return.”

“He came back to her?”

“No. She died. Shortly after he left.”

“That’s not any comfort at all, Ashe!”

“Sorry! Sorry.” Ashe flinched at Annette’s annoyance. “That’s how the book puts it! Poetry is pretty callous sometimes.”

“So wait. She died? That’s how it ends?

“Something like that,” Ashe said sheepishly. “She waited for his return on the balconies of the monastery, but their story doesn’t end happily. They say, you know, that she wanders the halls at night looking for him still. Still waiting for his return.”

A gust of wind howled once more. Annette turned to Ashe, wind whipping through her hair as she faced him.

“Ashe."

“Yes? What.”

“Did you just tell me. A ghost story. To distract me. From the ghosts here at the monastery.”

“Oh.” Ashe paused for way too long for there to be a good excuse readily available to him. “I guess I kind of did.”

“Why would you do this? Is this revenge because I threw a quill at you? Did Mercie put you up to this? Did Felix put you up to this?”

“No! No. Why would they even – ” Ashe stopped midsentence, starting over. “I just kind of don’t think of her as a ghost. She’s more like a friend, you know?”

“A friend who stalks the halls of Garreg Mach at night?” Annette could feel her voice crack as she asked the question.

“It’s not stalking! She’s just kind of looking around.”

“Ashe, that is what ghosts do.”

“I mean. Yeah.”

Annette couldn’t believe that the smartest person in the Blue Lions was actually the dumbest person she knew.

But she had worse things to worry about than that particular epiphany.

“Oh no. Oh no. Ashe, do you think she’s here tonight? Do you think she heard us talking about her?”

The last thing Annette saw was Ashe’s eyes growing bigger with realization. And then a gust of wind blew through the outdoor corridor again, blowing his candle out. The monastery plunged into darkness.

Annette screamed. But in her defense, Ashe screamed, too.

It was just kind of a lot screaming for a bit.

Annette couldn’t track exactly what happened in the chaos. She considered running, but thought better of it. She considered hiding behind Ashe to shield her from ghosts, but as she wasn’t sure what direction the ghost might come from, “behind” was difficult to determine. Ashe was clearly making the same useless calculations. The two flailed in the dark, simultaneously grabbing for each other and flailing at the suspicion of intruding ghouls. The screaming didn’t really help, Annette realized.

“Annette – Annette - Annette!!” she heard through the sound of her own panicked yells. Ashe grabbed on to her arm. “You know magic, cast fire or something.”

Annette grabbed on to his other arm. “That won’t work, Ashe, fire doesn’t work against ghosts, they don’t have corporeal form,” she snapped.

“No, I mean, so we can see?”

“Oh.” Feeling a little foolish, Annette let go of Ashe’s arm and shot a streak of fire into the air, briefly illuminating the corridor.

A tall, shadowy figure stood at the end of the long hallway.

The screaming resumed.

There was no question of escape or fighting back at this point. Annette and Ashe clung to each other; she was never able to figure out how they ended up like that but she also didn’t have any intention of facing shadow ghosts without another person. The fire had flared out, leaving them once again in darkness. Annette wondered what it was going to feel like to be killed by a ghost. She wondered if that would turn her into a ghost. That was the scariest thought of all, she thought, still screaming.

A hand came on her shoulder.

“This is the end. This is the end,” she chanted over and over, to Ashe and to herself and to, she guessed, the goddess if she was listening.

“Please don’t yell anymore, friends,” a soft and calm voice said from above her. (Too deep to be the goddess; who clearly was not listening.) “You’ll wake the other students.”

This didn’t sound like something a ghost would say.

Annette hesitantly opened one eye and looked up. Dedue looked down at her, eyes full of concern and distinctly not ghostlike.

“Dedue!” she gasped, looking up at him. “You’re not a ghost!”

Dedue’s eyebrows raised slightly. “As far as I know, I am not,” he said, looking down at her. His eyes glance behind her, to Ashe, who Annette realized was still clinging to her wrist. If anything, his gripped had tightened with the realization that the so-called ghost was their tall and taciturn classmate. If Annette hadn’t been so traumatized-slash-embarrassed, she might have laughed. So Dedue did make Ashe nervous, it turned out. She shook her hand free, stepping out from between the two of them.

“Do you often encounter ghosts along these pathways?” Dedue asked. “Should I be concerned?”

“You? No! Not at all,” Ashe’s voice squeaked slightly, which could perhaps be written off as a result of the previous yelling. Perhaps. “We just got caught up with some ghost stories to pass the time on the walk back. I guess we got carried away.”

“It wasn’t the best decision, in retrospect,” Annette added helpfully. “But maybe you scared the ghosts away, if there were any.”

If Dedue found this theory ridiculous, he didn’t show it as he nodded slowly. “If that is the case, perhaps I can accompany you back to your rooms, as we are all heading the same direction.” The chorus of affirmative responses, Ashe’s stuttered and Annette’s overeager, settled the plan, and they set down the path leading to the dormitories, Dedue slightly leading the way with his candle providing light.

“Sooooo, what are you doing out this late, Dedue?” asked Annette, trying to hide that she was slightly breathless from the quick steps she had to take to keep up with the group. “Were you out training or something?”

“I often stay up late wandering the monastery after sunset,” Dedue replied. “I find it easier to sleep if I know the grounds are safe and secure.”

“Oh wow,” said Annette, wondering if she should add “patrol grounds” to her list of ways to be helpful and hard-working. Maybe not after dark. Were noon patrols as helpful?

“Also,” Dedue added as they rounded a corner, “I was checking to see if his highness needed anything before our classes began tomorrow. As he was asleep, I concluded it would be best to return to my room for the night.”

“Oh. Wow!” Annette said again. She was having trouble as keeping the conversation going, but Dedue didn’t seem to mind. Neither, she realized, did Ashe, who seemed perfectly happy to walk next to his friend in silence, occasionally sneaking glances upwards with a tentative smile. Dedue didn’t seem to notice, intent on reaching their destination at a pace that Annette was beginning to decide was criminal. She had no trouble keeping up with him in battle, but evidently a hundred pounds of armor will make a difference for walking speed.

Annette wondered briefly what Dedue and Ashe found to talk about when she wasn’t there. Perhaps they didn’t talk at all, and just weeded gardens and made bread together in silence. She was glad Ashe seemed happy with that – she caught him sneaking another sideways glance at Dedue, his uncharacteristic shyness not masking how happy he was with the recent turn of events – but she had trouble imaging herself falling for someone so taciturn, so hard to read, so unable or unwilling to express his feelings.

(Her mind flashed to Felix’s intense concentration as Ashe recounted the legend, the way his eyes seemed to bore into Ashe without giving anything away. In her imagination, Felix’s gaze darted to hers, and he smiled at her, saying nothing. She swatted the vision out of her mind violently.)

Forcing herself back into the present moment, Annette realized Dedue was talking to her. “I'm sorry, what?” she asked, shaking off visions of any and all recently encountered swordsmen.

Dedue was unfazed, as usual. “Would you like me to accompany you further?” he repeated. “It seems traveling in groups is good for avoiding ghosts, and it is only a bit out of my way.”

Annette realized they had come to the fork in the road for the dormitories. Ashe and Dedue would need to head right, up the stairs towards their rooms. She was down the walkway to the left. Admittedly, when she and Ashe had parted in the past, she would often break into a run as soon as he was out of sight to get back to her room as fast as possible. She wasn’t sure the top speed of a ghost, but it usually made her feel better.

Dedue’s offer was kind, then. But still. She was a matchmaker at heart

“No, thank you so much, Dedue, but I should be fine the rest of the way home. You go with Ashe,” she grinned broadly at her study compan – no, at her friend. If they had reached the point where they spent half the night throwing ink at each other and waking half the monastery up as they screamed at invisible ghosts, then she couldn’t really use the excuse that they hung out because he was good at studying anymore. She just kind of really liked him.

Mercie was still number one, of course.

She realized that both Dedue and Ashe had not moved to leave, and were staring at her skeptically.

“I’ll be fine, really!” she said brightly. “It’s such a short walk to my room from here, and if I start screaming again I’m sure Mercie will come and rescue me before the ghosts can get me.”

Dedue nodded. “As you say. Well, then, Annette, good night. Have a good rest.” He looked to Ashe. “Perhaps Ashe can lend you his candle for the walk home.”

“Oh!” Ashe seemed to drag himself to the present from his own imaginings. Annette could relate. “Absolutely, Annette, you don’t have to return it.” He held out his candle, which Dedue carefully lit using his own. The candle sparked back to life and Ashe handed it over to Annette.

Annette took it and looked at Ashe. “We’re going to fail this exam tomorrow, aren’t we?”

“Probably,” said Ashe. “But it was nice to have a chance to talk.”

“It was,” Annette smiled back at him. “There will be other tests. Until volume two?” she raised her candle by way of salute.

Ashe nodded and smiled. “Until volume two. Goodnight Annette.”

“Goodnight Ashe. Dedue.”

Dedue bowed slightly before turning away. He and Ashe walked away into the darkness, a faint halo surrounding the pair and making them look like a hazy, unrestored painting as they moved away from her. Annette took a moment to watch them go, then, sighing happily to herself, turned to walk down the short flight of stairs that led to her own room.

***

Five minutes later, Ashe Ubert realized he was being an awful friend.

The last quarter of an hour had been a whirlwind, between his almost death at the hands of a furious Annette, his almost death at the hands of a presumably equally-furious ghost, and the ensuing intervention by Dedue, whose arrival was so fortuitous that Ashe was still debating whether he had actually been killed by some ghost and was merely hallucinating that his friend was by his side. Still, when his knuckles lightly scraped against Dedue’s as they exchanged light between their candles, it had certainly felt real enough. Real enough that he had lost concentration once more, blathering who-knows-what to Annette as he bid her goodbye before scurrying away to follow after those knuckles in a vague hope they might brush against his again.

Still. None of that was a reason to abandon Annette to be devoured by monastery ghosts.

He should have walked back with her; Dedue would be fine on his own and Ashe would, as well. Or maybe they all could have walked together to her room – why didn’t he just suggest they all walk together?

He turned to Dedue in a panic. “Dedue we have to go back. I have to go back. I’m sorry.”

Dedue stopped walking and looked down at Ashe. His expression remained calm. “You do?” he asked, tilting his head to one side as he often did around Ashe (and never seemed to do around Dimitri, Ashe had once bitterly noted to himself, Dedue always seemed to understand the prince perfectly).

“I can’t just leave her. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m going to go back and make sure she’s okay. You have a good rest of your night. I’m sorry.” Ashe didn’t know why he kept apologizing.

“Annette assured us she would be fine walking the rest of the way on her own.” Dedue frowned slightly. “Do you have reason to not believe her?”

Ashe sighed. “Dedue, you don’t actually believe in ghosts, do you?”

Dedue thought about the question for a moment, then spoke. “No. I do not.”

“That’s fine. I mean, that doesn’t surprise me. But Annette does. I shouldn’t have let her walk off alone; not after freaking her out with ghost stories, it just wasn’t . . . it’s not what a good knight would do.”

Dedue’s head remained tilted. Ashe wondered if he’d explained himself at all. Dedue spoke. “I believe Annette when she said she would be fine. But you are better friends with her than I am. If you feel that way, I am willing to go back with you to find her. I do think,” he added after a slight pause. “That Lord Fraldarius might prefer it if we let him talk to her alone, however.”

Ashe swiveled mid-stride to look back at Dedue. “Felix? What does he have to do with anything?”

“He was following after us for the last few minutes. Did you not notice?”

“No, I didn’t.” Ashe wondered how Dedue had noticed – he didn’t seem to turn or look anywhere other than forward to the walking path. This was not the first time Ashe realized that the silent student was more observant than anyone at the monastery was likely to give him credit for.

“I assume he wanted to talk to one of you, but perhaps he did not want to approach us while I was with you. Did he have business with you?”

“No, I don’t think - - it would be really weird if he wanted to ask me for more book recommendations at this time of night.” Ashe paused. “But he and Annette were in some sort of weird fight in the library tonight. I didn’t really follow it, but she left pretty quickly and he didn’t seem inclined to follow her. I had to chase after her to make sure she didn’t walk all the way home in the dark.”

Dedue nodded. “That explains it, then. He must have something to say to her that he doesn’t want us to hear.”

Ashe took this in, and glanced towards the steps behind them. “But don’t you, you know, kind of want to hear it, now that you put it like that?” he inched towards the steps, shooting a mischievous smile over his shoulder at Dedue. It was hard to make out in the candelight, but it seemed for a moment that Dedue smiled back him. Still, he reached out and grabbed Ashe’s hand before the boy could make too much progress, gently pulling him back towards their own rooms.

“I think not, my friend,” he said softly as they walked away. “Let us give him a chance to speak what he feels, those chances are very rare for so many of us.”

***

Annette sang a song to herself as she walked along the cobblestone path leading back to her room.

Two knights, two knights.

Different weapons; different heights.

(She generally tried to write out her lyrics to make sure they worked the way she wanted them to, but sometimes inspiration just struck.)

Two knights, two knights

Falling in love and getting in fights.

“That’s a kind of a contradiction, isn’t it? Loving someone, but fighting with them?”

To her credit, Annette didn’t scream this time. Because ghosts might be terrifying, or murderous, or vengeful, or creepy. But ghosts, for all their many flaws, were not pedantic. And they were not smug. The night had taken its toll on Annette’s emotions, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew who that voice belonged to even without turning around.

She still did turn around. “Do you always follow people around Garreg Mach to see if they’re doing something embarrassing, Felix? Or am I a special case?”

He was closer than she’d expected, so Annette had to crane her neck to glare at him properly. If she didn’t know better she would have though she could see his cheeks turn slightly red – candlelight plays weird tricks.

If he was blushing, his voice didn’t show it. “I mean, I live in Garreg Mach. And you’re always around, singing,” he said, retreating back into his generally haughty tone. “If that’s what you mean by following you around, I guess we do go to the same school.”

“You don’t live down here, Felix. You’re up on the second floor, this isn’t anywhere near where you’re supposed to be right now.” Annette put one hand on her hip and readjusted her glare. It wasn’t as effective as she wanted with her having to turn her chin so far up to even make eye contact, but she was worried taking a step back would indicate weakness. (Annette was not going to be flustered by Felix Fraldarius.)

Felix opened his mouth to shoot back a reply, but no words came out. He seemed to be struggling with what to say. “Look, I’m here because. . . ” he had to be blushing now, it couldn’t just be a trick of the light. He looked away. “I need to come down this way because . . . because . . .”

“Well?” Annette demanded, unsympathetic to his stuttering.

“Look, okay, I was looking for you, you’re right.”

“That’s so weird, Felix. Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around the monastery?”

“It wasn’t really following you, that makes it sound super creepy – ”

“Well maybe it is, Felix, did you ever think of that?”

“I just wanted to tell you - -”

“What, that my songs are bad? That my lyrics are dumb? The great son of Duke Fraldarius takes one break out of his whole life from swinging swords at unsuspecting squires, and all you can think to do is come tell me how weird I am? I know how weird I am! You think I don’t realize that!

“Would you just let me - - ”

“I know you think I’m just some funny little girl who doesn’t belong here, Felix. You don’t have to remind me every time you see me. You don’t have to seek me out to laugh at me. You don’t have to find me in the library just to see what new disaster I’m going to create today. It’s not fair. It’s not - - ”

“Annette, I just wanted to apologize!” Felix broke in, grabbing her by the wrist and looking down at her with an expression that bordered on earnestness.

Annette stopped talking. She wasn’t sure she’d heard the right thing. Unable to look him in the eye any more (his eyes were so intense, did he ever relax?) she dropped her eyes to his hand, which was still holding on to her wrist. He dropped it like it was on fire and stepped back slightly.

“Sorry,” Annette said, “Can you say that one more time?”

Felix sighed, now equally uninterested in eye contact. He glanced upwards at the sky as if the stars had any insight that evening while Annette continued to count the number of cobblestones at her feet.

“Look,” he began. “Whatever I said in the library, it clearly upset you. I’m sorry I didn’t stop when you asked me to. And I’m sorry I didn’t apologize when you were leaving. And I'm sorry I didn’t come after you, that I didn’t come with Ashe.” He paused. “I think that’s everything? I just feel like I made a real ass of myself tonight. I was going to go back to my room and just catch you in class tomorrow, but . . . I don’t know, I just felt like I should find you and make sure that we’re, like, okay? As friends?”

Annette blinked up at him. This wasn’t really how she expected the conversation to go, but the twist ending was particularly not how she expected the conversation to go. “Are we friends, Felix?”

Felix looked down at her for the first time since beginning his monologue, looking fairly surprised. “I mean, I thought so? I don’t really have a ton of friends so it’s hard to gauge, but that’s what I was . . . kind of hoping.”

“What are you talking about?” Annette asked him. “I knew like two people when I came to the academy and one of them was Lorenz. You know everyone. You could have as many friends as you wanted.” And you could turn them all against me if you wanted, she thought to herself, but she didn’t add this part out loud.

Felix scrunched up his nose; it was hard not to laugh at how much he looked like her for a moment. “I mean, I know people. But knowing people isn’t really the same thing. I mean, I don't have a ton of people that I actually like being around.”

“But you like being around me?”

“Well. Yeah. I guess that’s what I'm saying.” Felix shrugged. “I mean, I don't really understand you most of the time, but I still like you.”

Annette was grateful for the poor lighting at this point; this wasn’t the sort of thing she heard very often and she was certain her face was a flustered mess. “But wait,” she said. “If that’s how you feel, then why are you always so mean to me?”

Felix raised an eyebrow. “I’m . . . mean to you? Always?”

“Yes,” Annette wanted to stick her finger in his face, but realized she was holding a candle. Bad plan. “You’re always laughing at me and making fun of my songs and . . . you just make fun of me all the time, Felix!”

“Well, of course I’m laughing at them! They make me laugh. They’re funny!”

“They’re not funny; they’re art.”

“Art can be funny. You write about swamp beasties.”

“Which are terrifying.”

“Which don’t exist.”

“You haven’t even heard that one.”

“I’m hoping I will someday.”

Stalemate. Annette stared up at him again, trying to keep the glare in her eyes (Annette was not amused by Felix Fraldarius), but she couldn’t keep it up. Slowly, her glare faded into giggles and the ridiculousness of the argument. She should be in bed by now, and instead she was standing here arguing about a song she hadn’t finished about a creature that didn’t exist with a boy who hadn’t heard it. She’d been hoping Felix would laugh with her, to break the tension, but he didn’t. He did, however, smile, which was maybe close enough. It seemed less mocking, at the moment. Candlelight plays weird tricks.

“I accept your apology, Felix. Maybe I overreacted earlier,” she said, shuffling her feet. Admitting you were wrong was hard; she wondered how Felix had managed it at all. “I just . . . I just kind of thought you were there to make me feel bad, you know? That you were waiting to tell Ashe about how awful my singing is.”

“I probably should have just left you two alone altogether,” Felix said sheepishly, clearly not wanting to dwell on the moment. “I just kind of figured he already knew all of your songs, you guys seem so close.”

“Oh! I mean, I don't know about that,” Annette said. “But at any rate, no. He hasn’t heard them. You’re . . . you’re kind of the only person who has.”

The silence hung between them. Then Annette added, “So if you’re apologizing, does that mean you’re going to forget the songs?”

“Absolutely not,” said Felix. “I told you, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. But,” he added, “I’m fine if this is just a thing between you and me. The singing, I mean.”

Annette made a face at him. Still, a compromise was a compromise. “And what do I have to do to win your silence? I’m tired of taking stable duty for you.”

Felix shrugged. “Maybe just let me walk you back to your room?” he blushed and looked away, once again finding interest in constellations.

Feeling suddenly braver than usual –which she attributed to adrenaline from her recent almost ghost encounter – Annette reached up and touched Felix’s cheek, lightly pushing his eyes back down towards her. “It’s a deal,” she told him, giving him a slight smile. Then her nerves failed her and she quickly dropped her hand, turning to walk down the path. Felix hurried after her, tentatively setting a hand across her back as they walked back down the monastery path. It was a rudimentary gesture, one that any nobleman would learn before the age of five when learning basic manners for escorting a lady. Still, rudimentary didn’t mean unpleasant.

Annette was not interested in Felix Fraldarius.

All the same, she was reasonably sure he would keep ghosts away from her. That counted for something.

* * *

Ashe noticed that Dedue didn’t drop his hand as they walked back to the dorm. Of course he noticed, it was basically all he noticed. He always felt so fragile next to Dedue, and looking down at their hands he could see how tiny his hand was compared to his friend’s.

He’d told Annette that Dedue made him nervous, but that wasn’t exactly the right word. No, Dedue made him feel . . . inadequate. Small. Like he could never measure up to the person standing next to him, in battle or in talent or in kindness. But it wasn’t a competition, obviously it wasn’t a competition. He just wished he felt like less of an annoying younger brother whenever he asked Dedue to tell him about his homeland, or volunteered to help him make dinner that evening, or followed after him in battle, shooting down any bandits that Dedue couldn’t fell in one blow. Getting caught screaming about ghosts probably didn’t help this image. Ashe wondered if Dedue just held onto his hand out pity, out of concern he wasn’t even competent enough to find his way home in the dark. Ashe also wondered why he wasn’t able to take a good thing when he got one, why he always had to find the worst possible version of himself.

“Dedue, I was wondering,” Ashe said as they walked. “You said Felix wouldn’t want to approach us while you were here. What did you mean by that?

Dedue dropped his hand and continued to walk in silence. Ashe flexed his fingers, worrying that he had upset his friend. But when Dedue spoke, his voice was as calm as ever. “Felix does not seem to like me. He will avoid me, or he will say unkind things. I imagine this is because I am from Duscur, or because of my proximity to his highness. At any rate, I can understand why he would be hesitant to have a sensitive conversation or to join a group of friends while I was present.”

Ashe gawked up at him. “You can understand that? That’s . . . that's too generous, Dedue. I can’t understand why someone would treat you that way. I think it’s awful.”

Dedue shrugged. “It’s not so bad.”

“No,” Ashe pushed back, refusing to give up on this. “You deserve better than that. If that is how Felix feels about you, he’s wrong. It’s wrong, Dedue. I can’t stand to see people treat you like this, when all you show is kindness and compassion and everything Felix ought to be fighting for.”

“Please,” Dedue cut him off. “Please don’t. For your sake as much as his. You don’t need to dwell on it.”

“And what about your sake, Dedue?”

“It does not bother me. I understand it.” There was a slight pause before Dedue continued. “Not all ghosts are found in hallways after dark.”

Ashe slipped his hand back into Dedue’s, pulling it towards him. Dedue didn’t break away. “I wish I could help. I wish I could make them see.”

Dedue looked down on him. “You owe me nothing, Ashe. You do not need to worry about it.”

“Of course I do!” Ashe held Dedue’s hand tighter for a moment. “I owe you so much. For - - ” for what, though? For patiently teaching him all manner of skills? For protecting him in battle countless times, but also inspiring him to keep fighting at all? For being composed, and quiet, and tranquil in a world that was increasingly violent and senseless? For making Ashe feel like he could possibly belong at a place like the Officer’s Academy, if someone as worthy as Dedue wanted him there?

Ashe didn’t know how to say any of these things. At least how to say them right. So he settled on the first concrete thing he could think of: “I owe you for rescuing me from that ghost tonight, after all.”

Dedue’s lips twitched slightly. “Does it count as saving if I was the reason you thought there was a ghost at all?”

“I would say Annette was more the reason. Or maybe I only have myself to blame.”

“Well, I am glad you were not attacked by a ghost. Even if I do not believe in them, myself.”

Dedue had stopped walking. Ashe’s heart raced at the thought of why he might have wanted to stop to look at Ashe more fully, at what he was going to say to him.

Then Ashe realized they were just standing outside of their respective rooms. The walk took less time than he’d imagined.

Ashe let go of Dedue’s hand, regretfully. “Well. Goodnight, then,” he said, smiling up at Dedue. “I mean. For the record, I’m also glad it was you and not a ghost. I’m always glad when it’s you. And also, always glad when it’s not ghosts. But mostly that first one.”

Dedue did not reply to this, because he was a quiet person and also probably because it didn’t make a ton of sense.

“Anyways I'm going to go!” Ashe said, wondering if he could maybe go find the ghost and ask it to kill him, after all.

Ashe started to turn towards his door, but froze in place as Dedue laid a hand on his shoulder. Leaning down, he brushed Ashe’s hair to the side momentarily and gently kissed him on his forehead.

“For protection against the ghosts,” he said solemnly.

He was gone before Ashe could ask him any questions, leaving Ashe only with the recurring question of whether any part of this evening actually happened. He let himself into his room, locking the door behind him. As he drifted off to sleep, his hand occasionally brushed against his forehead. Maybe, he thought with a sleepy smile, Garreg Mach wasn’t so bad after midnight, after all.

From The Life and Death of Gaileth the Green, legendary knight of Fódlan:

Following the death of his Lady Ophelia, it is said that Sir Gaileth never truly smiled again. She waited for him on the balcony outside her room every night until her last, and was found lying still on the balcony steps three days before Sir Gaileth would return to the monastery. It is said that she still wanders the pathways of her old home, and many claim to have seen a cloaked figure disappearing down those same steps during Harpstring Moon. Some say she waits for Gaileth still. Some say they walk together, though he is never seen. The kindest say that Ophelia walks the pathways looking to bring lovers together, reminding even the young and reckless that time is short and they should not wait to find one another. If she appears as a ghost or a friend, I leave it to the reader to decide.