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Tea in the gardens is her idea.
It is something that she insists upon in fact, not that Hubert is ever compelled to disagree. Sometimes they gamble on the future together, marking battle plans on the same round table in starched gloves. Other times, Edelgard sits quietly until minutes turn to hours, digging her heels in the grass beneath them and watching birds skirt amidst the greenery.
And then there are times that Edelgard peels back like a wound, scarred like the ones that mark her body. Times where her face clouds and she is dragged somewhere not even he can reach.
“Hubert,” she starts, voice far despite the proximity, “What if I were to fall in battle?”
“Lady Edelgard, with all due respect, that wouldn’t happen.” Hubert accents his words with a tap of his spoon against his cup. “I wouldn’t allow that to happen.”
“And you alone control the hands of fate and time?”
“No,” he says, “But even the rules of fate and time can be bent to the point of breaking.”
He settles his point by reaching forward, cradling the kettle between his palms and filling her cup with practiced precision. Tendrils of steam cut the air with an all too familiar floral tinge—her favorite, as though there could be any other choice (though she will quietly set aside cinnamon tea to his liking the next day). Those that know her the least would find the darkness under her eyes, and the opt for a simple braid trailing her back as a sign of a ruler unguarded.
But Hubert is not the least. The tension in her jaw and sharp angle of her shoulders says otherwise. “Ferdinand told me you have been doing business without my knowledge.”
Edelgard’s eyes flutters over him, his expression never breaking. She doesn’t expect it to; Hubert is the kind of person that lives in the details. Like the quiver in his wrist. “Don’t worry, he felt terrible about it,” she adds.
“My doing it, or his inability to keep anything to himself?”
“Both,” she says curtly. “What are you doing in the shadows Hubert?”
“Nothing important that is of concern to you, Lady Edelgard.” He tilts his head forward, palm against his chest. “Nothing that puts the greater cause at risk.”
“Does it put you at risk?”
He looks up at her with a steady gaze. While many of the students at the monastery would find the sudden uptick in his lips unsettling, Edelgard only matches his expression with one of her own. “A risk to you and a risk to me are fundamentally different.”
“That is not an answer.” She lets time fall still between sips of tea. “And you’re not usually one to miss the opportunity to give a blunt one.”
“Rest assured I conduct business with the utmost care and concern.” He lifts his own cup, face lingering above the warmth. “Risk and all.”
“And would you betray me, Hubert? Cut me down if I strayed?”
A drastically different question from their usual stock of subjects. “Are you having your dreams again?”
Edelgard sweeps his question away with a gloved hand. “I’ve had the misfortune of gaining a new one. A blood-soaked one.”
“Are you questioning the path forward?”
She shakes her head. “No, I know what must be done. And I know what I must become to achieve it. I won’t allow our relationships here cloud that.”
Her focus shifts beyond the line of hedges where the faint bickering between Claude and Dimitri drifts with a sudden breeze. “Still, I wonder what it would be like to not resort to such violent means.”
Dining hall choices. The clarity in their conversation spurns a smile on her face, one so haunting and detached it makes even him pause. The moment snaps just as quickly and she faces him, drawing the teacup towards her once more so all he can see is a flash of violet eyes.
“And I fear death.” An uneasy confession, muffled by floral porcelain and twined with shame. “Nothing else but an end I cannot see.”
Hubert knows what she will ask before she asks it, lips curving when she says, “Do you? Fear the same thing?”
“No,” he exclaims. “I’m certain it will be in service to you.”