Chapter Text
The morning sun washed over Dorothea’s skin and she exhaled in relief at the touch of the cool morning air. Garreg Mach practically glowed in the white light from the clear sky above and Dorothea loved taking in the scenery at this early hour. Without the other students bustling about, she could appreciate the artistry that went into every aspect of the monastery’s appearance. She observed where the groundskeepers had planted flowers and shrubberies that concealed the cracks in the walls. Dorothea imaginined the castle as an aging diva who still possessed all of her power and poise, but needed a bit more makeup than in her younger days before she presented herself to the audience.
The expression on Dorothea’s face turned downwards as she realized that Edelgard would have a different interpretation. The leader of the Black Eagles would see only an ancient structure, crumbling under its own weight and covering up its deficiencies with meaningless gestures. A structure that could collapse at any moment and crush those within its walls. Dorothea let out a mirthless chuckle at how easily she could inhabit Edelgard’s dour perspective, even at this early hour of the morning.
As Dorothea walked past the cracked door of a seemingly unoccupied classroom, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. The classroom did, in fact, contain a single student. Ignatz sat with his back to the door, hunched over a piece of paper, and scribbling away furiously with his quill. At first, Dorothea thought nothing of it. Ignatz always played the dutiful student and he no doubt took advantage of the early morning hours to get in some more study time with the library’s hotly-contested books. But before Dorothea stepped away, she realized something. Ignatz didn’t have a single book in front of him. In fact, the only thing on the table besides the paper occupying Ignatz was a stack of similar pages to his left. Had he written all through the night?
Dorothea’s sheer curiosity possessed her. She quietly opened the door wider and went into the classroom. Making as little noise as possible, she stepped her way over to Ignatz until she stood directly above the young man’s shoulder. She peered over and glanced at his work. Rather than writing some great text, Ignatz had seemingly spent the entire night drawing. Disappointingly, it looked like Ignatz had scarcely begun this latest image. She could tell that a person occupied the majority of the page, but only the outline of the subject appeared finished and the artwork possessed no defining features yet. With the need for stealth gone, Dorothea spoke.
“Good morning Ignatz. What are you drawing?”
Ignatz whipped his head around from its position at a speed that made Dorothea worry about the health of his neck. He wore an expression of complete and utter terror at the older girl’s presence and his complexion went whiter than Edelgard’s hair. Dorothea could even see beads of sweat forming at the temples of poor Ignatz’s head.
“Oh! Miss Dorothea! Nothing! Nothing at all! In fact, I was just-- leaving! For class!”
Dorothea arched an eyebrow at his stammered response and obvious lie. While always shy, this level of evasive behaviour seemed uncharacteristic for Ignatz. At that moment, his skittishness reminded her more of Bernadetta.
“Well, at least let me help you carry all of those. It looks like you’ve done quite a number of sketches this morning!”
Dorothea reached a hand towards Ignatz’s downturned stack of pages so that she might examine a finished drawing. With a speed that Dorothea thought impossible from the young knight-in-training, Ignatz scooped the papers up and cradled them to his chest. Even more impressive, not a single one came loose or fell to the floor. Ignatz gripped the papers as if his very life depended on their safety. Before Dorothea could speak another word, Ignatz bolted upright and began hurrying towards the door of the classroom.
“I’ve got it! Thank you though, thank you-- Woah!”
Ignatz’s own haste undid his efforts at a speedy escape. The young man tripped over his own feet and went down hard. His arms instinctively went out and the pages went flying all across the floor. Dorothea held back a laugh at the sheer totality of the young man’s clumsiness. As Ignatz began slowly pushing himself up off the ground, Dorothea knelt down and picked up one of the pages.
Dorothea didn’t know what she expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t a well-realized sketch of a fully nude woman emerging from a pond. The songstress picked up another and beheld the same naked figure leaping forward towards the viewer, arms outstretched as if prepared to grapple and wearing a wickedly beautiful smile. Every page Dorothea picked up had the same woman drawn on them in various states of undress, though none of them were what Dorothea would deem “crude.”
“My my, you have been productive Iggy. And I can see why! Such lovely studies of such a beautiful muse!”
“Oh no, Miss Dorothea, please don’t look!”
“Why not? These sketches are very tasteful, Iggy. You’ve done an excellent job with the grace of the body and-- Oh. Oh my. These aren’t just studies, are they?”
Dorothea mentally scolded herself for not noticing it earlier. Ignatz hadn’t drawn one of the goddesses or some random imagined woman as the subject of his fantasies. He drew each of the women with the same characteristics: the short hair, the toned muscles, the perky breasts, and the wildfire eyes. This woman wasn’t a concoction of Ignatz’s hormones.
It was Leonie.
“Are these… They’re all of Leonie?”
“Yes. She’s… Yes.”
The tone in Ignatz’s voice told Dorothea that no one else knew of Ignatz’s feelings. He spoke the “yes” in that halting way all those with a secret love do when first admitting it: sheer terror, borne from the knowledge that by admitting his feelings, the young man just now made them real within his own mind. Whatever lies and excuses he told himself about how he felt could no longer survive. Dorothea smiled at the sheer purity of his confession.
“Now now, Iggy. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Have you told her how you feel?”
Ignatz continued gathering his scattered images. His face remained a bright shade of red and his eyes never looked up at Dorothea as he spoke.
“No. I-- I don’t know if I can.”
“Nonsense! Iggy, take it from someone who knows: feelings left unsaid are feelings wasted. If a relationship doesn’t begin in honesty, it can never truly grow.”
The young man suddenly ceased his work and stared straight back at the still-kneeling Dorothea. Such determination burned within his eyes, such focus, such love. Despite her greater experience, Dorothea found herself mesmerized by Ignatz's passion.
“But I don’t want her to think I’m only interested because of her beauty! She’s more than that! She’s strong, and determined, and she’s always so direct in what she wants and who she is. I admire all of that!”
A gentle smile reasserted itself across Dorothea’s face. She knew Ignatz’s pain. He loved someone with a more developed sense of self than he possessed and he knew it.
“Oh Iggy. First off, as long as you say it respectfully and at the proper time, I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t like being told that they’re attractive. I believe Leonie would be especially flattered, since most of the young men at Garrag Mach can’t see past her... Strong features.”
The spark of hope in Dorothea’s words filled the young man. She could imagine his fervor as the centerpiece of an opera. “The Tale of the Painter in Love with the Mercenary.” Dorothea kept the fiction to herself and continued her advice.
“Secondly, I think you should simply tell her what you admire about her. If you tell her exactly what you told me just now, I think your confession might turn out much better than you think!”
Ignatz gathered up the last of the scattered papers and clutched them to his chest again. He looked back at Dorothea with a bit more confidence and slightly less crimson in his face.
“I-- I appreciate your kindness, Miss Dorothea. Still, I think I might wait a bit before telling her all of this. Just being around her makes me nervous. I don’t want to say anything to her... Yet.”
Another smile came back to Dorothea as she slipped the last paper she previously examined into his stack. At this distance, she could smell all the paints and inks that wafted around Ignatz’s slight frame. Despite the bizarre concoction, it didn’t seem unpleasant to her. Like Ignatz himself, only a small number of people would find it charming. But those who grew used to it would forever associate those inks and acrylics with the green-haired young man.
“Well, tell her sooner rather than later, Iggy. Time is the one thing that nobody ever gets more of, be they noble, commoner, or merchant’s son.”
Ignatz nodded vigorously, as if the frequency with which his head bobbed could indicate to Dorothea how much he agreed with her. She brushed off his shoulders and straightened his glasses from their crooked position on his face.
“Thank you Miss Dorothea!”
Before she could say anything, Ignatz darted off again towards the door. He made it almost all the way through the threshold before turning around to say one more thing.
“If you could keep the sketches a secret, I’d be very grateful!”
“Of course! I won’t tell a soul.”
With this assurance, Ignatz bolted off around the corner and back towards his room at Garreg Mach. As his footsteps fell away in the distance, Dorothea took off her hat. She gave a look at the sketch she previously crumpled up and stuffed there while Ignatz scrambled about the room collecting his night’s work. Dorothea allowed herself a thin smile as she beheld a drawing of Leonie hunting in the nude.
A gentle huff of amusement escaped the songstress as she studied the drawing. She would keep her promise to Ignatz. She would certainly not tell Leonie or anyone else about Ignatz’s self-indulgent habit or his romantic feelings. But if one of his drawings went missing at just the right time and in just the right location… Then who knew what might happen?
Certainly not Dorothea. But she could hardly wait to find out.