Chapter Text
All ideas came from seeds, and this seed was especially terrible.
It started out innocuously enough, as all bad ideas do: as a simple sentence from Sylvain's mouth. (This was generally where the worst ideas came from.) The motley gang had congregated in the training grounds—Felix and Sylvain duking it out on the dusty flooring, weapons ringing and boots scraping, while Ingrid was perched in the stands, sorting through an array of wax-sealed letters. She leafed through one of the epistles, then crumpled it in her hand with a rough sigh.
The noise interrupted the heated duel; Felix and Sylvain turned to her, weapons slowly lowering.
Ingrid only waved a hand. "A proposal again. For the count of House Wallace."
Felix scowled. "House Wallace? The old man who's been married four times?"
"Five." She tore up the letter. "Financially steady, but at the cost of cheating every local merchant. Apparently, they think that we're low enough to sink to such a proposition just to keep our noble status." She ran a hand through her hair, pulling strands out of her tidy braid. "He's clearly not taking us seriously because we're only Galatea."
She stooped down and kicked at another handful of letters on the floor. Her face darkened and her hand tightened on her quill.
"All of these. Onesided trade offers, biased territorial disputes, worthless marriage proposals. Relic, crest, even skill—none of it matters. I guess Galatea just seems that desperate. No one respects us anymore."
Sylvain rested the butt of his training lance on the ground and leaned against it. "You should just start slapping down the Gautier name with all your letters," he said offhandedly. "Ingrid Galatea Gautier. We all might as well belong to the same house, anyway."
Ingrid's quill dropped to the dusty floor at her feet.
"Or marry Felix," Sylvain continued, waving a hand. "He'll be a duke of the right-hand house. Pretty much second in line to the throne."
"Piss off," said Felix.
"See that? Marriage material." Sylvain paused, noticing Ingrid's blank stare. "Ing? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Ingrid said hastily. She stooped over and retrieved the quill, crouching back among the stands. "Nothing's wrong."
That was a lie. Everything was horribly, awfully, dreadfully wrong. Everything was wrong because for one second in her life, Ingrid had seriously considered marrying Sylvain Jose Gautier.
.
.
.
The seed took root one week later.
Sylvain was exiting the dining hall when he found Ingrid settled on the staircase by the pond. A leather journal was opened in her lap, filled with lines of tidy writing. In her hand was a quill, which she tapped absently against the corner of the page until a blot of ink gathered beneath the tip. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, where the pond glittered blue and gold, and her mouth was set in a concentrated frown.
Sylvain crouched next to her. "Whatcha doing?" he asked easily.
Ingrid sighed, rubbing at her bangs irritatedly. "Making an important decision," she said, nodding to the tiny penmanship in her journal.
Sylvain raised his brows. Yup, that was Ingrid. When faced with crisis, she always took the most sensible route and wrote her pros and cons in a list, mulling them over before making her decision. Not like him or Felix, who liked to charge in headlong and suffer the consequences afterwards.
He craned his neck to peer at her journal, but she tilted the page away from him so he couldn't see.
"C'mon," he said, a little pleadingly.
Ingrid resolutely shook her head. "No."
"Why not?"
She paused. A light flush scattered over her cheeks—no, it had to be a trick of the light. "It's an important decision."
"So?"
"So, I don't want your advice."
Sylvain coughed, hitting his chest with all the drama of a dying seagull. "Ing, I'm wounded. Mortally. You've destroyed me."
She flicked him on the shoulder. "Might I remind you that the last time you gave me advice, we both ended up hounded across the entire monastery by furious kitchen hands, holding rancid spleens and reeking of pegasus blessings."
"That was one time."
She rolled her eyes and didn't deign him with a response, which was pretty fair. That had been spectacularly bad advice. It had also been spectacularly hilarious.
"Alright, then," said Sylvain. "You're about to make a very important decision regarding a supremely secretive matter that you don't want your exceedingly handsome childhood friend to know about. Might I venture a guess? It's another marriage prospect."
He expected Ingrid to roll her eyes or slap his back, but she only side-eyed him warily, a slight flush dusting her cheeks. He felt his brows shoot to his hairline.
"Oh," he said, rubbing his chin. "I see. You're into this prospect."
"Not likely," Ingrid barked, and shut her notebook with a definitive thud.
"Smells like denial."
"Smells like delusion," she returned.
Sylvain laughed, feeling a surprising tinge of bitterness. "I'll remind you, Ing, that pretty much all nobles are scum. How did this guy appeal to you? Money? Influence? A Crest? It can't be good looks. You've grown up with Felix and me, you've been desensitized."
He caught a slight upward twinge on the corner of her mouth. "Sylvain, I swear."
"Look, just do me a solid?" He turned to face her, making sure she was looking him in the eye. "If this guy wants to meet you in person, let Felix and me come along this time. Don't not tell us because you don't want to bother us. Sound good?"
Her wry gaze softened into a little smile. "Is this about that time with Dorothea?"
"I still can't believe you were planning on going alone." He shook his head. "I'm thankful that the professor didn't let you."
Ingrid looked away, a slight shadow touching her eyes. "I just didn't want to cause any fuss."
"I know." He leaned in, clapping her lightly on the shoulder. "But we all care for you, Ing. Really, if you need anything, and I mean anything at all, you know where I am. Got it?"
He waited for the inevitable Okay, I need you to stop flirting, but it never came. Ingrid's gaze cast to the horizon where the pond met the sky, and her teeth tugged on her lower lip.
"You know what, Sylvain," she said distantly, "I just might take you up on that."
.
.
.
The seed flourished with an invitation to afternoon tea, sent by Ingrid on a free day.
Sylvain dressed his best. He pulled on a blouse, tied on a cravat, and shrugged on his suit jacket. He tidied his hair and dabbed a hint of cologne on his wrists and neck.
And then he walked into the lion's den.
Ingrid was seated beneath a garden pavilion, a generous selection of tea and light snacks arranged before her. Unlike him, she was comfortably dressed in her standard-issue uniform—but even at this distance, he could tell that she was nervous. She was sitting too straight, even beyond her ordinarily perfect posture, and her hands kept arranging and rearranging the wayward strands of her braid.
Sylvain stepped into the pavilion and cleared his throat. Ingrid looked up, and she blinked.
"What in Seiros's name are you wearing?" she said incredulously.
Sylvain reached up and straightened his cravat. "They say that you need to dress your best when you're going to your trial, so the court has a good opinion of you."
Ingrid snorted, but her eyes twinkled with mirth, which Sylvain considered a win. "Saints, Sylvain. Just sit down."
He sat down.
She poured him a cup of tea, which was unusual. He smelled it as he brought it up for a sip. Bergamot, a favorite. Doubly unusual; Ingrid never found the need to win his good graces.
"I wanted to talk about something with you," said Ingrid, and then she added: "Seriously."
"Ingrid, my flower, I'm always serious," said Sylvain.
Her lips flattened. Sylvain laughed.
"Easy there," he said. "I'm just kidding."
Ingrid pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, but she relaxed, hands cradling her teacup. She stared into the dark liquid, oddly hesitant. Sylvain munched on a biscuit as he waited, but she said nothing.
"Ingrid?" he prompted.
Her eyes lifted, piercing, and she spoke firmly, every syllable perfectly enunciated:
"What do you think about us getting married?"
Sylvain blinked.
Ingrid's hands tightened on the teacup.
"What?" said Sylvain.
"Marriage," Ingrid said. "You. Me. Us. Husband and wife. What do you think?"
"I think," said Sylvain, "it's a godawful idea. The worst ever invented."
"Exactly," said Ingrid, and she looked relieved. "It's the worst idea ever, but what makes it even worse is that it solves both of our problems."
Sylvain stared at her, tea and pastries forgotten. She might as well have sprouted antennae and started speaking gibberish.
"Think about it," Ingrid said. "I need to marry into more prominence in order to keep my house afloat. And all the pressure, manipulation, and drama surrounding your house is due to not only your eligibility, but your Crest status. You'd have a Crest wife. And better yet, you could raise a giant middle finger to the world, because it's not like we're going to sleep together, so you'll be a Crest man with a Crest wife and yet not have children—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down." Sylvain raised his hand, and Ingrid cut off quickly. "I can tell you've been thinking about this for a while, Ing, but for me, this idea is completely new. I need to process it."
She nodded nervously and sipped at her tea. Sylvain stared at the table for a moment.
Then: "Okay, so first. You'd never sleep with me?"
To her credit, Ingrid only snorted. "How did I know. How did I know that would be the first thing—"
"I mean, given that we'd be married, it'd just be strange—"
"Sylvain, I know you, I know you'd do anything to avoid having Crest babies because that's what the entire damn world wants from you, and that's why I know we'd never sleep together. Next." She sipped her tea.
Sylvain wanted to refute her, but he couldn't. Sometimes, he hated that she knew him so well.
"Then second," he said. "I thought you didn't want to just be some trophy wife. What are you going to do about being a knight?"
Ingrid's gaze calmed, and she smiled a little. "I thought you might be open to letting me pursue that dream."
"I am, of course." These past few months at the academy had been genuinely fun, because they could pursue it together—taking classes, sparring, skirmishing and practicing. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but Ingrid and Felix had made him actually enjoy school. Most of it.
"Then," said Ingrid, "if you, the husband and head of the house, are alright with it, I don't see why it matters."
He nodded. His father could still be a problem, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. "People will still talk."
"They do little else."
"Point taken."
She waited patiently as he mulled over the idea, debating further points.
"Okay, third," he said. "I don't think the solution to my problems is to add a Crest wife. Change my mind."
She nodded. "You're right, to an extent. The Crest has nothing to do with it, I guess, but the wife does."
"What?"
She stirred her tea and selected a cookie. "You say that women keep hounding you because they want to marry you and have Crest babies. Getting married takes you off the market, which will stop them from trying to use you." When he moved to speak, she lifted a finger. "And, of course, you'd still have chances for your own fun—if you wanted them."
"I don't get your meaning."
The stirring stopped. Her eyes met his. "I'm saying we should make a contract. With stipulations. And one of them should be... well, chances for you to flirt, or have hidden trysts, or whatnot. It's common among married nobles anyway."
"What?!"
"Look," she said sharply, "I might not approve of your... habits, but I'm not going to force you to change your entire life, just like you're not going to force me to change mine. If we do this, we both win, we both get what we want. I save my house but keep being a knight, and you lift the pressure and the annoying noblewomen but keep your fun. This is actually the ideal solution because we're not in love."
Sylvain slumped in his chair, flabbergasted. If someone had told him yesterday that Ingrid would be propositioning marriage to him, he would have dismissed the fellow as incurably insane. And then watched as Ingrid beat said fellow into next week. But instead, here he was, and here she was: in reality, genuinely considering marriage.
Well, a fake marriage. One from convenience and advantage.
And if he was honest with himself, that was the best kind of marriage—for him, at least. Despite his proclamations of romance and spontaneity, in the end, he liked predictability in the things that mattered. He liked knowing what grades he would get—barely passing, much to Byleth's exasperation—and where his cards would fall. He liked knowing who would be by his side, and that was why he had gone out of his way to enter the academy at the same time as Felix and Ingrid. He needed stability so that he could be spontaneous; an odd combination for most, but perfectly sensible to him.
And Ingrid knew that. Ingrid knew him.
Ingrid seemed nervous at his silence. She sipped her tea again, then cleared her throat. "Of course, I know that this is pretty rude. You're tired of people trying to marry you for their advantage, and here I am. I just thought I'd mention it as an idea. If you want, you can walk away, we can call this quits, we can forget this ever happened."
Sylvain stared into his teacup, like it would magically provide a perfect answer. He saw, coincidentally, only tea.
"Uh," said Ingrid, biting her lip, "if you're mad, go ahead and just say something—"
"I'm not mad," Sylvain said. His eyes drew up and met hers. "I'm just thinking. It's quite a bomb you dropped."
Ingrid settled back, munching nervously on a macaron. Sylvain mused for a stretch of time, then settled his thoughts.
"I assume we'd have to talk details," he said.
Ingrid nodded sharply. "Of course."
"And figure out how exactly this deal will work, and if it's really a good idea at all."
"No obligations for now," Ingrid agreed. "Just looking for ideas."
Marriage. With Ingrid. He'd joked about it before, many times—but now that it was staring him straight in the face as an actual possibility, he couldn't even process it.
Sylvain swallowed and asked his final question. "Fourth. Nothing will change between us?"
Ingrid didn't hesitate. "Of course not. Nothing at all."
Something in him eased. She conveyed so much in those few words: that when it cane down to it, their friendship mattered, and she'd never let it go, just like he'd never let it go. They would fight for each other until the very end, come hell or high water. A fake marriage, if they decided to pursue one, would never break the bond between them.
So Sylvain extended his hand with an easy smile. "I'm open to the idea. Deal?"
Ingrid smiled back, relaxing. She seized his hand with a firm grip. "Deal."
He shook it.