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Adrestian Empire, 1185
She doesn’t quite know when it started.
Perhaps it was all those years ago, when Dorothea looked her in the eye and dared to her to imagine a life beyond the Empire, beyond being Emperor, beyond the shackles of destiny she dragged along behind her.
Perhaps it was when Dorothea pressed fingers glowing with white magic to her wounds in the throes of war, caring touches placed where scalpels and blades had torn through years before.
She’s not quite sure of when it began, and she frets over it from time to time. She is quite sure that there’s a feeling that blooms in her chest at the smiles that Dorothea gives when the fighting is done. She knows Dorothea’s embrace is warm and her kisses warmer still, despite all the Emperor has done and despite all the Emperor still has left to do.
They share a bed often, these days. Perhaps that’s when it happened, with Dorothea’s head tucked in the crook of her arm and the steady rise and fall of the songstress’s chest against her side.
Edelgard doesn’t know when she started falling in love.
Fódlan, 20XX
Edelgard doesn’t quite know when it started, but she knows she wants it to stop .
She hardly ever makes appearances at parties, and she should’ve said “no” as soon as Hubert asked her to tag along. It was already odd enough to have her fellow graduate student express even the slightest interest in going to see a musical. She should’ve picked up on the fact that he was making eyes at a certain boisterous man at center stage and put two and two together much, much sooner.
Of course she would end up at the cast party of Garreg Mach’s latest production. Of course she would end up listening to Ferdinand, lead actor and chatterbox of the troupe, blab on about a family history of actors and lawyers she cares little for. Of course she would have to do it all standing next to his mystery of a co-star, one of the most beautiful women she’s ever seen.
She makes a mental note to grill Hubert about his infatuation with the ginger later. Right now, she has to deal with the newest distraction in her ever-busy life: Dorothea.
Ferdinand had introduced them at the very start of their conversation: Dorothea is another master’s student in the drama program who knows the world of musicals, operas and plays from the inside out. She proves as much when the conversation turns her way.
“So your research is on the hidden art and literature from the War of Unification?” Hubert muses, though he doesn’t ask so much because he’s interested but because it gives him an excuse to move closer to the pair.
“Exactly!” Dorothea grins back at him nonetheless, unfazed by the way he looms over her. “There’s so much you can find out through fine art. For example: did you all know that the Flame Emperor herself was in love with a woman?”
“There’s no way in hell that’s true,” Edelgard says, with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.
Ferdinand’s mouth drops open right away, but Edelgard cares little for his shock. The research has sounded interesting enough, but to spout outright conjecture about a topic that she’s had to write papers on time and time again is an offense. She crosses her arms over her chest and her brow lowers, challenging the actress to go on.
“To be honest, I’m used to that reaction by now.” Dorothea waves it all off with a smile, but Edelgard’s not dumb enough to be fooled when she’s sure she sees frustration glimmering in those emerald eyes of hers. “It’s always fun to debate.”
“There’s nothing to debate,” Edelgard counters. “The Flame Emperor’s manifestos are a staple of political science curriculums across Fódlan. I’ve done a ridiculous amount of research on her. Even in the few documents I have been able to find about her personal life, there’s been nothing to suggest she ever courted women.”
Edelgard feels herself falter at the grin that widens on Dorothea’s face. She’s been in more than enough arguments to know that she’s about to back herself into a corner, but she stands up straighter anyways when the actress taps a finger chin in thought. “What if I told you I had proof, then?”
“I’d call your bluff,” Edelgard says, but the utter confidence that Dorothea exudes as the brunette leans closer seems to indicate otherwise.
“So you’ve never heard of the ‘Lost Rose Chronicles’?”
When Edelgard’s brow furrows in confusion, Dorothea seems to take it as a victory. Just as she opens her mouth to continue, one of the production’s stagehands calls her name from the other side of the room.
Dorothea grabs a pen from one of her cast mates passing by at just the right moment. She takes Edelgard’s hand in her own (her skin is ridiculously soft) and scribbles down a collection of numbers on it without even thinking to ask permission. For some reason unknown to even herself, Edelgard doesn’t stop her.
“If you really want to ‘call my bluff’, give me a call. I’ll show you what I’m working on.” She winks and Edelgard feels the tips of her ears flush red. Dorothea slinks back into the crowd without another word.
Enbarr, 1189
“It’s time to start searching for my successor,” the Emperor declares one day across the war table.
Of course, no one else is there. No one but her ever-present shadow, that is. Such a phrase would send any normal adviser into a flurry of questions and demands and worries. She also knows that her right hand is far from a normal adviser.
Yet Edelgard swears she sees surprise flash in Hubert’s dark eyes before he steels himself to her words. “Have the symptoms begun?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. Linhardt and Hanneman gave them an entire list of things that could occur due to the stress of the Crests. Lysithea has already begun manifesting some of them. Regardless, now is not the time to dissect whether her hands are shaking from the beast’s blood that courses through her veins, from exhaustion, or from a certain feeling she hasn't had in many, many years.
Now is the time to secure the future of the Fódlan. There can be no time to mourn for a failing body when the new world calls. Edelgard finally meets his eyes, resolute for the time being.
Hubert’s gaze is critical as ever when he stares back at her. She’s known him long enough to see a million different words run through his mind, and he’s known her long enough to know that none of them will help the situation at hand. He nods, gathering the paperwork in front of him and turning to leave. “Very well. I’ll leave you alone for the time being.” He reaches the door and pauses, only for a moment, to call over his shoulder, “If anything comes to mind, I encourage you to write down what you think may be of use to your successor. Perhaps that will help to put you at ease.”
Being “at ease” almost seems like a foreign concept. Hubert doesn’t need to know that she spends the next half hour with her head pressed to the war table, breathing even and slow just to take the time to compose herself. She could very well blame it on the Crests wracking her body, but the feeling is far too nostalgic to pass off as a symptom. Her chest tightens, her heart races, blood pounds in her head. Edelgard von Hresvelg feels fear for the first time in quite a while.
Illness is something she cannot control, and that absolutely terrifies her.
When she returns to her room, Edelgard can’t find it in herself to bring pen to paper for what will essentially be her last will and testament. Somehow, the thought of her inevitable fate still scares her more than any battlefield she’s ever faced. Her hands shake just a little too much. Her throat tightens when she puts pen to paper.
So she writes of something that she loves, instead.
She writes of Dorothea Arnault.
Fódlan, 20XX
It’s a few days later when they find themselves in the library, and Edelgard is quick to tell herself it’s all due to scholarly curiosity. She sits at a table in one of the group study rooms, pen to paper as she passes the time until her acquaintance’s return.
Dorothea looks smug when she arrives, and if Edelgard didn’t find her gaze lingering on the way her lips curl in a smirk she’d almost be irritated about it. The actress sits down and plops a small, leather-bound book on the table before them.
“As you probably already know, esteemed Lady of the Political Sciences,” Dorothea teases, only grinning further at the way Edelgard’s mouth finally presses into a frown, “there aren’t lot of records left of the Flame Emperor, which made it a pain in the ass to track this down.”
“I’m well aware,” Edelgard murmurs, eyes trained on the book as something strange stirs within her.
“This collection right here,”—Dorothea taps the cover’s embossed eagle, gold on a field of blood red, twice for emphasis—”is the truth about the Flame Emperor and her lover.”
“According to whom?”
“According to the Flame Emperor herself. This work contains all of the drawings and poetry she composed during her rule. I had to go through libraries across the country to even get my hands on one of the few copies ever translated.”
Edelgard’s certainly not convinced. Though the book itself seems eerily familiar, she blames it on the fact that she’s seen that double-headed eagle nearly a thousand times in her studies. There’s no way she could’ve missed such a substantial record of the Flame Emperor’s life. Dorothea must be exaggerating, she thinks. “A collection of poetry is hardly evidence of an entire affair,” she says instead.
Though irritation still flashes in those green eyes of hers, Dorothea’s confidence is unflappable. She cracks the book open, flipping through worn pages filled with typed translations and transcriptions of flowery-looking penmanship. When she’s found the right page, Dorothea’s practically beaming with satisfaction. “You want evidence? Listen to this one, then:
O Dearest Rose, descant of my soul’s own song
Nightly I dream, basking in glimmering eyes
Visage shining, piercing dusk, I am awestruck
Your light cleaves my dark.”
“Sound ambiguous,” Edelgard says, doing her best to calm the flutter that’s started in her chest. She makes the excuse that it's due to the situation she’s in, hearing love poems read by a beautiful woman. Nothing more.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Dorothea groans at last, throwing her hands up in the air. She grumbles something under her breath and flips through the pages once more, eyes darting back and forth until she finds what she’s looking for. “Look, this one even has a picture of the woman, and you’re still not convinced?”
Dorothea slides the book towards her, revealing a haphazard sketch of a long-haired woman whose face has long since been rubbed out by eraser. When Edelgard stares blankly, still unconvinced, Dorothea finally scowls at her. “Read one for yourself, then. See if you can say those words without getting all embarrassed.”
Edelgard glances between the text and the actress once, twice, three times. It takes a moment or two, but she caves to the intensity in those emerald eyes with a sigh of defeat, leaning in closer to recite the poem of the faceless woman:
“O Dearest Rose, my light in life and in death
Though my soul may wither, and years take my breath
My love, My rose, flowers bloom anew.”
Dorothea’s wrong about being embarrassed, that much is certain, because the poem instead sends lightning lancing through Edelgard’s chest. She feels like she must’ve heard the words somewhere before, and there’s a nagging feeling that even tells her that there’s some missing. She stares at the page a moment longer, perplexed and doing her best to try and decipher the Flame Emperor’s handwriting on the opposite side.
When she finally looks up, she catches the briefest glimpse of Dorothea wiping tears from her eyes. Their gazes meet, and Edelgard finds herself absolutely trapped.
There’s been something amiss since the moment they sat down together, but it’s something that dances just out of her reach. It’s brushing against her fingertips, at the tip of her tongue, lurking in the back of her mind. She finds herself outright staring at the woman before her, and her heart begins to thud against her chest at the dumbstruck expression Dorothea sends her way in response.
She’s so enamored that Edelgard nearly jumps out of her skin when someone comes banging at the study room’s door. There’s an irate-looking group of students on the other side of the glass pane, and when their leader is sure they’ve caught the duo’s attention she points angrily at the reservation board outside.
“Ah, I probably should’ve booked this room for us, huh?” Dorothea laughs, far more nervous than Edelgard has ever heard her before. She closes the book quickly and pulls it to her chest, moving to make a quick exit.
Edelgard’s not quite sure why she jumps to her feet, chair clattering backwards behind her. Her hand darts out and she catches Dorothea’s arm, fingers clenching in her shirt in desperation. It’s especially careless, she thinks, considering the way the actress jumps in surprise. She lets go at once, feeling her cheeks burn as she makes her next careless move. “Dorothea?”
“Hm?” is all Dorothea manages in response, her voice almost a squeak.
“Would you…” Edelgard thinks for a moment that she’s crazy to even finish what she’s saying. The feeling in her chest spurs her forward, something wildly unfamiliar and yet something she somehow knows all too well. She takes the plunge. “Would you like to go to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
Faerghus, 1190
It’s cold the day her Crests finally take her legs from her.
They’re in Faerghus, visiting in on the Martritz Orphanage for its third anniversary. Dorothea had insisted that Edelgard come along in disguise, and it was well known in the palace that the Emperor could not refuse her Dearest Rose. Edelgard made time in her schedule as soon as she was able.
She hadn’t told Dorothea that such free time had come due to the preparations for a change in command. She hadn't told Dorothea that her role in Fódlan politics was dwindling by the day. That was a conversation for another day, one she thought was a long time ahead of her.
Oh, how wrong she was.
Edelgard feels guilty for the way Mercedes and her mother stare in horror when she collapses to her knees, overcome by wet coughs that make her entire body heave and shake. Dorothea is down at her side at once, hands clutching her shoulders so tightly that Edelgard can feel nails digging in through the fabric of her sleeves.
There’s nothing Edelgard wants more than to be able to reassure her, to straighten right back up and go on strong like she always has in life. But this time, she knows she’s losing to an enemy she can never hope to conquer. She curls further into herself, throat raw and hoarse by the time her coughing spell is done.
Edelgard pulls herself back to her knees as best she can, but the world is beginning to fog around her. The tears in Dorothea’s eyes bring more pain to her chest than any illness ever could, and the broken gasp the songstress gives when she looks down at her hands is sharper than any lance. When Edelgard glances down at her own scarred palm, she’s able to make out the faint lines of red that streak across it just as the world closes in around her.
“Fuck,” the Emperor murmurs past bloodstained lips. Her eyes flutter shut and her body lurches forward. The floorboards rise up to meet her all too eagerly.
Fódlan, 20XX
They go out on a date. Once. Twice. Three times. It’s not until their fourth night together, in a dimly-lit movie theater with some film about women in frilly dresses dragging on in the background, that Edelgard lowers her guard enough for a kiss. She feels like a teenager, craning over the armrest and the popcorn bucket in her lap to meet Dorothea’s lips. It’s silly, really, especially when she’s so awfully out of practice.
And yet, silly as it may be, she feels her heart race at the memory every time she thinks of it thereafter.
On the sixth “date”, when they’re poring over textbooks in Edelgard’s apartment, Edelgard knows exactly what she feels. She doesn’t say it, of course. Perhaps not quite yet. There’s little room for love, she thinks, in a life as busy as hers. She’s hardly had a serious romance since high school, and these days she spends more time curled up next to her thesis in bed than she does next to a woman.
Yet the air between them has changed, even more so since the day they read long lost poetry to each other in the library. Dorothea’s glances travel further, her touches linger longer, her shoulder presses firmer against Edelgard’s when they’re curled up on the couch typing out their respective papers.
Her kisses are warmer than ever, and they make Edelgard melt in response.
The feeling of being with Dorothea is wonderful in every sense in the word. Edelgard’s never known a woman like her, and she’d chalk it up to her dismal lack of experience but that would hardly give the actress the credit she deserves. She’s kind, but sharp as a tack in both intellect and insults. She carries herself with the confidence of a woman who’s lived her entire life on the stage, and yet she melts under Edelgard’s touch every time their lips meet. They clash and they come together, they match each other in passion and their studies and damn near everything they do.
Even now, they grow closer and closer as the night goes on: legs intertwining, careful caresses, whispered compliments that still hold all the intensity of a shout. A kiss behind the ear when Edelgard is sitting in Dorothea’s lap almost makes her cave and tell the actress right then and there.
It’s a damn shame when Edelgard has to see her out.
She knows the air is far from clear between them, and she knows what Dorothea wants from her. Perhaps they’ve never verbalized it, but Edelgard’s smart enough to figure it out by now. In fact, she feels as if she can already read Dorothea all too well, even in the few months they’ve spent together.
Edelgard wishes with all her heart that she could give it to her. She wishes she could let herself say it. There’s so many opportunities: when Dorothea’s packing her bag, when she’s throwing her jacket on, when they’re talking about when their next date could be. Edelgard doesn’t take any of them, and she knows that Dorothea notices.
When they say goodbye, their lips meet in a kiss so charged that Edelgard thinks for a moment it may just kill her. She takes the collar of Dorothea’s jacket in her hands before she can think twice, pulling her closer and closer when she feels the taller woman’s fingers weaving into the fine hair at the back of her neck.
It seems like a thousand years has passed before they finally part. Edelgard takes the opportunity to look up at her, both of them left breathless and half-lidded and on the brink of leaning in for more.
She’s beautiful, really. Edelgard’s known as much since the first time they met at the performance, but seeing it up close is such a thrill. Those emerald eyes bore into her like Dorothea wants every part of her, and Edelgard feels as if she’s known her for a lifetime. She’s never felt something like this. Or perhaps she has. It doesn’t matter, really. There’s just one thing on her mind.
I love you. The words form on her lips, but now’s just not the time. Edelgard bites them back, and the feeling of regret that courses through her seems so eerily familiar. It’s so familiar that it hurts, that it stings and burns in her chest like a disease.
“Goodnight, Dorothea,” she says, instead.
Dorothea visibly flinches at the formality. She’s been let down, again. “I’ll see you around, Edelgard.”
The door closes between them, and Edelgard feels the guilt weigh her down.
Enbarr, 1190
“I wish you would’ve told me.”
Edelgard winces at the words, but she has to believe she’s been right in keeping it all under wraps. She’s grown weaker and weaker in the week they took to return from Faerghus, and she knows it won’t be long before all her strength is gone. Sitting up in bed as she does now takes absolutely all of her energy, and she’s since accepted that she will never walk again. It’s embarrassing, really. A brisk young Emperor who ran free on battlefields only years before has been reduced to a sickly woman who can barely even feed herself.
Actually, it’s a bit more terrifying than embarrassing, she thinks.
Dorothea has been strong through it all, so strong that it hurts Edelgard to watch. The sickly Emperor shakes her head, slipping her hand into Dorothea’s own in hopes of taking the sting out of her bitter words. “There’s nothing you could have done but worry. I couldn’t put that burden on you.”
“So now you decide to be a pessimist?” She can’t decide if Dorothea’s tone is teasing or downright irate, and truthfully it might be because Edelgard hasn’t been to hear well after these past few days. A squeeze of her hand is the only thing that lets her know that the songstress means no malice. “I know we’ll figure this out. Linhardt has to have something up his sleeve. Hanneman, Manuela, somebody must know how to fix this.”
“Dorothea, I’ve tried everything. It’s just a matter of—”
How ironic, that her “time” is up before she can get the very word out.
Edelgard feels her heart like thunder in her chest, pain blooming there and spreading through to the very tips of her fingers and toes. Through vision blurred with tears she watches old scars above her veins inflame once more. She doesn’t know how, but she’s certain she can feel the Crest of Flames searing against her skin, eating away at her as she curls in on herself and clenches her nightshirt underneath her fingers.
Blood gurgles in the back of her throat, and before she can think to hold it back her chest caves in with a violent cough. Dorothea’s hand starts to slide away from her own as the songstress scrambles to her feet, yelling something that she can’t make out over the ringing that’s suddenly begun in her ears. She’s leaving, Edelgard thinks. Dorothea is going to leave her.
Edelgard traps that hand, her last anchor, with a death grip in every sense of the word. She pulls Dorothea back, willing her to stay with every ounce of her being. She has to say something. She can’t let it end like this.
Dorothea’s face is a mess of tears and snot and Edelgard’s own blood smeared across her cheeks as she leans in and presses a glowing hand to the Emperor’s chest. She begs, she pleads, she prays for her to hold on.
“Just a little longer,” Dorothea cries, her lips moving but her words dulled in the wake of her lover’s fading senses. “You don’t get to leave me like this, Edie.”
Edelgard would love nothing more than to stay.
You are loved, Edelgard wants to say. She wants Dorothea to know as much. She wants Dorothea to believe it. It took Edelgard so, so long to convince herself of that fact. For ages she had thought herself a weapon, a tool that the people of Fódlan could use to right themselves in their rotten world. A tool did not need to be loved. Edelgard had long since accepted that she would live, thrive, and die without the need for true love.
The Black Eagles had changed that. Dorothea changed that, most of all. And if she could do that much, along with all the other damn beautiful things that she already does, then Dorothea Arnault deserves all the love in the world.
Edelgard won’t be able to give that to her. Goddess, does she want to, though.
I love you. The words form on her lips, but only crimson spills over. Edelgard feels her muscles give way to the pain that courses through them and she’s only vaguely aware of the “thud” of her skull against the headboard when Dorothea’s wails are so, so, loud.
But even those cries fade, in time. Her vision does, too. Before long, everything she knows of Dorothea is gone.
It’s dark.
There’s nothing.
Emperor Edelgard von Hresvelg does not live to see her thirtieth year.
Fódlan, 20XX
The click of the lock is almost deafening as Edelgard slides it into place, pressing her forehead against the door in frustration. Something burns within her, something that hurts and something that scorns her for letting Dorothea go time and time again without telling her how she really feels.
Edelgard only notices Dorothea’s notebook when she finally flops down on the couch once more, and another wave of guilt washes over her. She’ll have to return it, and the thought of seeing Dorothea and disappointing her yet again is painful when the actress’s expression is still fresh in her mind. She does her best to sigh it off, swiping the notebook from the table so she can stuff it in her own backpack. Stowing it away is meant to distract her from it all, but Dorothea’s messy scribbles on the open page catch her eye.
The poem from the library is there, in Dorothea’s own hasty penmanship. Edelgard purses her lips as she looks on the words once more, and she feels as if everything around her is just yelling, screaming. She feels like she should remember something, but at the same time feels there's an impossible distance to reach it.
“O Dearest Rose, my light in life and in death,” she murmurs, eyes trailing the lines ever so carefully, “Though my soul may wither, and years take my breath / My love, my heart, flowers bloom anew.”
It’s an awkward ending, she thinks, not all compared to the smoothness of the first poem Dorothea had read to her. She knows the translator likely did the best with what he had, but she can’t help but feel a bit of twinge of irritation at the unfinished work. Surely it couldn’t have been so hard to fill in the blanks.
Anyone could tell where the poem was going. In fact, the words are downright obvious to her. The last two lines of the poem appear in her mind, and before she can stop herself they’re rolling off her tongue:
“My love, My Thea, flowers bloom anew / They shan’t forget you.”
There’s a thunderclap of realization that surges through every part of Edelgard’s body, and for a moment it’s all just clear as day. There’s a woman with long, flowing hair gazing down at her with eyes brighter than anything she’s ever seen. There’s the touch of a gentle hand, fingers trailing up her spine and weaving into her hair after a long day. There’s warmth in her chest when she hears a voice that would make an angel cry, raised in song.
There’s the sting of guilt when she doesn’t get to give her what she deserves. Edelgard will never make that mistake again. She flings open the door and takes off into the rain.
Bare feet splash through dirt and trash and murky sidewalk puddles but she can’t find it in herself to care. Her heart is so loud she thinks it might wake everyone single one of her neighbors with the way it pounds in her chest. Edelgard catches sight of her across an intersection a few blocks away, and the authoritative boom of her own voice surprises her as she calls out, “Dorothea!”
The actress freezes at the sound of her name, as if there’s something about it that’s foreign to her, too. Her eyes are wide as she turns, only taking a moment to zero in on the drenched form on the opposite side of the road. Edelgard launches herself into the crosswalk as soon as traffic will allow, barreling towards Dorothea as if she’ll disappear at any given moment. When she reaches the other side, Edelgard grabs at her jacket and pulls her close. She's breathless. She's wanting.
Dorothea hardly needs a second thought to oblige. This time, when their lips crash together, the charge Edelgard had felt in the doorway is now electricity racing through her veins. She’s drinking in Dorothea, pulling her close and cherishing every little bit of her that she’s missed because of her own stubbornness. She can’t get enough. She could never get enough of Dorothea.
She’s irreplaceable.
The words are there as Edelgard pulls away. They form on her lips. She lets them free with a heart that threatens to beat right out of her chest: “I love you, Thea.”
And oh, how Dorothea cries. Edelgard almost thinks she’s done something wrong when she sees the tears that roll down the actress’s cheeks so freely. The smile that breaks through, radiant as she remembers it, tells her otherwise.
Edelgard has seen that smile in the dining hall of an old academy. She has seen it in a medieval tavern filled to the brim with victorious soldiers. She has seen it in a dim and stone-floored bed chamber, illuminated only by the glow of a nearby fireplace. Now, she sees it here, under a dollar store umbrella that barely holds off the rain while thunder rolls softly in the distance, and Edelgard knows it’s finally, finally, hers .
“I love you, Edie.”