Work Text:
Petra turns the comb over in her hand, pressing the bridge of it into her palm. She’d first found it in the greenhouse, glistening in the corner behind a pot that reflected the silver light filtering through the glass. Now, it returns after much travel as Petra sits under a tree as the sun begins to set on Garreg Mach.
The day is cool, a gentle breeze brushing against her back. She looks over the monastery from a hill beyond, its image so vastly changed from how it was before the war. It’s peaceful. Those who wouldn’t know where to look might be able to forget that blood was spilled here.
The scent of fragrant flowers from the greenhouse is brought to her over the wind. Dorothea’s chestnut hair, full and soft, smelled like lavender.
“I was finding your comb in the greenhouse,” Petra said, and took it out from her waistband.
Dorothea’s face showed brief surprise before it smoothed back out into a smile. “How’d you know it was mine?”
Saw you one morning combing your hair when your door was open. You were humming a song, and the comb was gliding through your hair like riding on waves. Thought it was beautiful. Thought you were beautiful. But Petra simply said, “I am paying attention.”
That answer seemed to please Dorothea, and she blushed a pretty pink. “You can’t just go around saying those things, Petra.”
“But what am I saying?” She’d left out so much, she thought.
Dorothea giggled into the back of her hand. “Never mind. You can keep it, if you want.”
Tucking the comb back into her waistband in smooth motion, Petra ignored her heart’s betrayal as it thumped away. “I am having gratitude for this gift. I will be keeping it safe.”
It was a year later that she first used the comb to brush Dorothea’s hair.
Petra wasn’t sure how she found herself in Dorothea’s room. One moment, they were in the library as Dorothea gesticulated at the swimming words in their Reason textbook, and the next she was sitting on Dorothea’s bed, more lost than before.
It all started when Dorothea offered to help with her Reason homework. The texts were hard for her to understand, no matter how patiently the Professor explained things in class.
Dorothea, unfortunately, was not a very good teacher. “Does this make sense?”
Petra ran her finger idly over the bump in her waistband where she tucked the comb. She had stopped paying attention about two minutes prior. “No, but it is okay.”
“What’s confusing?”
“I am unsure where to be beginning with that answer.”
Dorothea opened her mouth as if to say something else, but closed it again. “Okay. It’s getting late, anyway.”
The words hung in the air. Petra wondered if Dorothea was asking her to leave. “Do you need to go to sleep?”
“No, I think I’m going to stay up a while longer.”
The comb dug into Petra’s stomach as she leaned forward, so she took it out, fidgeting with it and enjoying the warmth of the metal.
“Oh, you kept it?” Dorothea asked.
“Was I supposed to be throwing it away?”
“No, not at all.” Dorothea laughed. “Did I ever tell you how I got that?”
Petra shook her head, waiting.
“A rich nobleman took me to a nice dinner and wouldn’t stop talking about the number of horses he had, so I took the comb and pretended I was sick the next time he called.” Her eyes shone with laughter, and Petra felt herself smile too.
She fingered the gems on the comb again, turning it like a weight. “This was a courting gift?"
"Want to try braiding my hair?" Dorothea cocked her head. "That's something friends do at sleepovers, right?"
"I did not have knowledge that this was a sleepover."
"No," Dorothea said, flushing. "It just felt like one with how late it is."
Petra saw Dorothea get embarrassed for reasons she didn't understand, and she reached out a hand to comb through Dorothea's hair to change the subject. “Your hair is very pretty,” she murmured, and she heard Dorothea’s breath catch. “It smells nice.”
“I got this perfume from a different suitor. Lavender.”
“Did you like him?”
“I think I like you better.”
Petra is now playing with the comb now just like she had that night. The comb is not much different, but it looks so changed in the different light.
Today, it glints with harsh sunlight. That night, five years ago, it had glowed a candle-light orange, and Petra saw shadows in it changing every time she ran it through Dorothea’s hair.
The five years without the Professor were strange. Edelgard tried to fill the shoes of The Leader, but everybody could plainly see that she missed the Professor. Hubert glowered in the corners more than usual, constantly hovering over the Emperor.
Every time Edelgard thought nobody was looking, Petra could see weariness carve lines into her face, and Petra, selfishly, was grateful that at least she hadn’t lost Dorothea. At least she still had that.
Petra was in the greenhouse, which now mostly grew vegetables for rations instead of the beautiful and exotic plants of their Academy days, when she spotted a small purple flower. Just one plant in the corner, untouched, sprouted from some forgotten seed. Lavender.
“Dorothea,” she said, pointing.
The two of them were on duty to weed the beds, and somehow had missed the plant as it was coming up. It felt like some sort of magic. Some sort of goodwill from the universe, a sign that things would be okay and that precious things still existed in this time of disaster.
Dorothea hummed. “It’s kind of like us.”
“What are you meaning?”
“Nothing.” Dorothea smiled. “Let’s keep it planted, okay? It makes me happy to see it.”
Petra watered that plant with care and checked on it almost daily, until everybody knew that it was hers and not to touch it. Petra wonders if it’s still there.
Petra was not someone who shied away from telling the truth. There was strength in her straightforwardness that disarmed many of the people of Fodlan she talked to. But even Dorothea’s effusive affection threw her off guard sometimes, but in a way that she grew to crave.
“I thought you were being overfamiliar,” Petra said, a little shyly, “but now I understand that this is your way of showing your kindness. I am wanting to be showing you kindness too.”
Dorothea smiled, that special bright smile that Petra liked to think was only for her, and Petra couldn't help but feel a fire catch light in her chest.
When Dorothea asked to match hair, Petra could've said that learning another family's braids was part of the marriage ceremony in Brigid. She could’ve said it was a deeply personal design, like a family house crest. She also could've said that Dorothea felt like family in a place she was being held prisoner. But where were the words?
Dorothea threw back her head, her tousled hair bouncing to rest on her pale shoulders. Petra wondered what that patch of skin would look like burnt under a Brigid sun. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Petra is looking at this comb now with a mixed sense of revulsion and love. She used that comb to braid Dorothea’s hair up, and she had imagined then what it might look like with herself as queen and Dorothea as the woman by her side. What would Dorothea look like in regal Brigid wear? Would she be happy there?
Dorothea looked happy. She was beaming at herself in the mirror, admiring their matching hair. “I think I’ll go into our next battle like this,” she said proudly. “It keeps my hair out of my face.”
Petra is remembering...everything. The way Dorothea laughed. The way she cared through giving frantically, as if her worth was determined by how much she gave. The way she combed her hair nervously. The way she scrunched up her face every time she had to kill someone.
The way she croaked, “I love you,” voice hoarse.
Petra couldn’t bear to look, but at the same time she could not bear to look away. The entire left half of Dorothea’s face was burnt a crisp black, her eye a white star in a lonely sky. Her useless red gremory dress was singed, too, patches of purple skin stuck to the places where the dress had disintegrated. “Dorothea, you are-”
“I’m okay.”
“But you are hurting.”
Dorothea didn’t say anything, but Petra could see the fear glistening bright in her eyes. “It’s okay.”
“Linhardt will help,” Petra said, and tried desperately to hoist Dorothea onto her wyvern. “He will fix you.”
Dorothea just hushed her with a gentle shushing noise. “Petra, stop. It’ll be okay, I promise.”
A sob choked free from Petra’s throat before she could hold it back. She hated that Dorothea was seeing her like this. “I wanted to take you to Brigid. I am wanting you to see things with me.”
“Petra, listen to me.” Dorothea’s voice suddenly sounded at peace, her eyes glassy and far-away. “Just survive this. You can survive this.”
The words from twenty seconds ago suddenly struck Petra with ferocious strength. Dorothea loved her. “I--”
She hesitated. It hurt too much to say it. It hurt too much to let the love grab full hold of her tongue, and her heart, and her whole body, and then have no person to fly to. It would hurt too much to let that love wander in her with nobody to share it with, until it festered like a sore and turned her insides rotten.
So, she hesitated. It was only half a second, for Petra never hesitated long. “I love you,” she said, weakly at first, then stronger. “I love you.”
The hollowness of the words hung in the air. There was so much she could not say, so much those three words could not hold.
Behind her, a dragon roared.
Healing comes slow, in waves of hurt. Perhaps it never ends, but the stretches between the waves get longer.
Petra looks out at the greenhouse, then the grounds where she and Dorothea had tea, then the tower of dormitories where they’d spent nights talking and learning about each other. Time passed without care for Dorothea. If she could, Petra would reach out and grab time, tell it to stop, tell it to listen. Tell it that Dorothea was important.
A leaf falls quietly from the tree she is sitting under, and comes to a rest on her knee. It is a small gesture, as if someone had placed a comforting hand on her.
“Petra?” Manuela’s voice rings out as footsteps approach.
“Professor Manuela,” Petra says stiffly and stands.
Manuela’s face crests the hill, full of concern. “What are you doing up here? The reunion dinner is beginning soon and I was wondering where you were.”
“I am just thinking.”
Manuela turns and sighs as she takes in the view. “I know.”
“I said ‘I love you’ too late,” she murmurs, half unaware.
Manuela looks back at Petra with pity. “Oh, darling, don’t you think she already knew?”
Petra thinks back. I cannot imagine life without you . This is the life without her, and it is unimaginably empty. You are precious to me .
This language, when she gets it around her tongue, is heavy, is confusing, is a labor. But she tried to say it. And how she tried to show it.
Dorothea knew.
Petra breathes in, the way she was taught to bear pain as a child as her wounds were stitched closed. Breathe in, her mother said as the needle went in and out, hold, breathe out, hold again. Let the pain wash over you like waves; take breaths when your head breaches the surface. Know that you will breach the surface.
She lets her exhale go. It hangs there in the air, a moment suspended. Then, she stands, tucking the leaf into her waistband with the comb, and turns back.