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Annette often had business in Fhirdiad. She had parents and a best friend and a magical research area that all drew her to the biggest city in Faerghus every other month or so. She enjoyed the variety, the travel, the ability to see her friends and colleagues.
Her first priority would always be Fraldarius of course, but she was a person underneath the title of Duchess. A person with a life and a heart and passions and relationships. She loved her lovely seaside home, but she would never lose the fondness for the place where she grew up.
So she treasured when commerce and court and obligations dragged Felix to Fhirdiad. He complained about the travel and hassle, though she knew he secretly loved the weeks they spent with old friends.
Annette was also a person with scars that never healed completely. Today they burned.
Today Felix was leaving for Fhirdiad, and Annette would stay home.
“It’s a quick trip, Dimitri has some idea that he wants to run by me before the council or Sylvain hears it.” Felix sat on her side of the bed, the sun wasn’t even up yet. A messenger must have come in the night- it wasn’t like Felix to be up before her.
Annette considered this and grabbed for his hand, running her thumb over his soothingly. This sort of thing always made him worried, “That doesn’t sound great.”
“It probably isn’t. So I have to go talk His Majesty into or out of whatever it is. I’ll be back by Sunday.” He was certainly not packed for any longer, just a rucksack that would wrinkle his clothes far beyond what was acceptable for any formal appearances. Still, the vision of him lugging a bag forced her heart into her throat.
“And I really can’t come?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as pathetic as she felt. This was typical. It happened a few times a year. He always came back.
Felix brushed her hair out of her face, it was still so early. Maybe with more warning she would have felt more prepared for the creeping thoughts that ruined her days even when there was nothing to worry about. “My visit is meant to be discrete, and you know that it’s hard to travel quickly with the girls. If I could stay here and send you in my stead I would. You’d sure as hell be better with dealing with whatever political crap is going on.”
Annette bit her lip to try to keep herself calm, “No, no you’re right. I just… I hate it when you’re gone.”
He wrapped his arms around her giving the kind of physical reassurance at which he excelled. Annette felt even worse, he was so good to her. He was an excellent husband. Felix was in her own biased opinion an ideal partner. Felix loved her, cared for her and their family more than king or country or anything.
Felix would never leave on a mission and never return. She knew that as true as she knew her own name. She knew it as well as she knew that when she called for the wind, it would blow for her. As sure as the sun rose, Felix would return from Fhirdiad.
She knew that. Her head knew that. The scars on her heart? They never truly trusted him or anyone else.
Anxiety mixed with fear would leave her a nervous wreck for days until she held him in her arms again. How pathetic, how silly, how stupid. Guilt at her own feelings would consume her to the point of distraction. It always did.
But Felix had to go. He’d always return to her. He had promised her as much and Felix Fraldarius did not break his promises. But when he was away she forgot.
“Were you going to send any post to your mother or Mercedes? I can bring it along.” Felix hadn’t yet left the embrace, and his voice vibrated around her. He felt so real like this, her skin itched to remember every bit of warmth in his embrace.
Annette nodded and pointed to her little writing desk, “One for Mercedes I was going to send this morning. Are you leaving right away?” She knew the answer from how he was dressed. Still, her heart hoped.
Felix kissed the top of her head and got up to pack the letter away. “I want to travel as quickly as possible.”
“Did you say goodbye to the girls?”
Felix shook his head, and Annette felt her anxiety curdle into anger until he reassured her,
“Not yet. I’ll stop by the nursery before I leave. I’m not going to wake them but I’ll say goodbye.”
She took a deep breath, that was fine, their father would be gone for a few days. Their father would come home. They almost liked it when he was gone, he always brought back gifts. Crocheted animals from Mercedes and Dedue, toys and sweets from the market. Shaky, messy handwritten letters from their friends that their youngest couldn’t even read, begging dramatic readings from their eldest.
Their father leaving for short periods was a fact of life, as it had once been for Annette.
Annette gathered her resolve, forcing herself to put on a happy face. Felix didn’t need to worry about her, he had more important things to do. “I love you. I’ll miss you while you’re away.”
Felix kissed her so sweetly Annette nearly cried, “You’ll be too busy to miss me. You won’t even notice I'm gone. I love you too, I’ll see you in a few days.”
She held back her tears until he left the room.
Annette took Felix’s offhand comment as a prescription for her pain. If she kept busy, incredibly busy, so busy she couldn’t breathe or think or pause perhaps she would turn around and it would be Sunday already.
Annette was raised to manage a household one day. She was the niece of a very minor noble, the daughter of a knight. Nobody had ever even considered she might marry into more than a small territory. No one prepared her for more than that.
Learning how to manage Fraldarius was the work of lifetimes. Yet, as any challenge she’d ever faced in her life, from sorcery to libraries that refused to ever be truly clean, she gave it everything she had. Annette worked until she could do it well, she worked until she was near the best, she worked until she was beyond easy criticism.
Which didn’t mean she never made a mistake. Today’s meeting with the finance advisor was a clear reminder that though Annette was getting good at being a Duchess she would never really be done learning. And she would always be better with Felix by her side.
“I just don’t understand how the battalion needs so many new supplies. Bandit attacks are down, wolf populations are staying clear of our more populous areas, shouldn’t they need less, not more?” Annette read over the budget proposal from the battalion captain as if it were the Physic formula, she objectively knew what it said, but the pieces didn’t actually connect.
He shook his head slowly, “Many of the men and women who were young teens during the Liberation of Fhirdiad are coming of age. Most of them needed to protect their homes from a young age and have practical experience. There’s a few years of second and third sons who don’t have businesses or farms to inherit who grew up idolizing soldiers, and many of them are able to pass the fighting practicals to be taken on as trainees. Hence, the need for more supplies.”
Annette looked back over the frankly absurd budget proposal and asked, exasperated, “Do we need such a large standing military force?”
“I’ve never heard a Fradarius suggest we decrease the size of our fighting forces. With all due respect Your Grace, to suggest such a thing is quite…” he searched for the right word.
“Foolish?” Annette finished, feeling more annoyed than anything. Why had she said anything?
“I was going to suggest it was perhaps unorthodox. I know better than to dismiss any idea of yours out of hand, you’re so often correct.”
So often correct looped through her thoughts. It probably wasn’t meant to feel like an insult. She shouldn’t treat it like an insult. Why was she so sensitive today?
Annette swallowed down her rise to anger and defaulted to one of the classic tools of ruling- Ask the expert. “Can we perhaps consult the captain and ask him to make appropriate cuts down to last year’s spending? Give him the first pass and ask him to evaluate what he feels is necessary?”
The finance advisor looked back at the proposed budget, “You’ll ask him to cut his own budget?”
“I’ll ask him to make proposals of what would be practical. He may decide himself that we have an excess of recruits. Giving him the right to raise the standards for the entrance exam might entice him, he’s been begging to do so for years.”
“And you haven’t?”
“There was a shortage of Fraldarius soldiers until recently. He’s more than capable of training up someone with basic skills. There was a war that cut into our numbers, if you recall.”
He sniffed, “I am well aware.”
“Wonderful. Ask him to cut his own budget, and when it’s unreasonable and too high anyway we’ll intervene. We’ll at least have a sense of what he might be flexible on, and he won’t feel completely powerless in the decision making.”
The finance advisor looked so silly when he frowned, his bushy mustache always made him resemble the sea lions that liked to rest on the shores of Fraldarius. Annette often had to deflect to Felix to hide her laughter when he got really worked up. Felix wasn’t here today, though, so rather than make her laugh it just made her worried. If Felix were there, he might have input, or would at least defend her ideas as brilliant. Or critique them fairly, if they weren’t.
If he were here she wouldn’t be sitting in her own office feeling like a newlywed who hadn’t yet learned to turn her head when she heard Your Grace because she didn’t always remember that meant her.
Deciding that she was not going to give the finance advisor the right to reject her perfectly reasonable plan she noted, “I’ll allow for a small increase to his budget, but do not tell him that when you inform him of his projected funds for the year. He should think it’s the same as last year, so we can find a compromise.”
The finance advisor frowned deeper, and finally sighed, “That would be wise. Shall I tell him that it is the Duchess’ orders that it be such?”
Annette felt a knife point of suspicion at his phrasing, questioning, “Would you normally tell him that?”
His eyes narrowed, “I would never normally tell the battalion captain he was not getting everything he asked for.” This sort of statement once made her feel small, made her back off, made her defer to those who had been doing this work for decades.
She knew better now.
Annette stared at the budget sheet for a moment, keeping her composure, “We didn’t give the fishermen everything they asked for last year. Did you note that the order came from my husband? Or did you just do it?” She knew the answer of course. As did he.
Her word was not to mean less than Felix’s, especially in his absence. She would not let anyone undermine her authority. She had not been born to this level of leadership but by goddess she had proved her worth.
Annette was here because she could be trusted to handle the management of the territory. Because she was smart and deliberate and a better leader of people than Felix most days.
If anything, he struggled more to rule in her absence than the other way around.
She could be miserable that he was gone, but hell if she would be weak for it.
The advisor cowed, saying tightly, “I will tell the Captain that the house Fraldarius has asked him to keep his spending in line with last year.”
“Wonderful!”
On Friday afternoon Annette’s schedule was suddenly bare. In the past five days she had met with officials, practiced magic, reviewed pages of notes, dragged her daughters to the beach in a failed attempt to get them tired enough that they might actually sleep. She’d run out of things to do and each hour Felix was not there was an hour that her brain shouted at her he’s never coming back.
No. No not today. Today she’d treasure her free time and go back to her special project, deciphering Cornelia’s inventions.
She was trying once again to build something Cornelia’s notes called a circuit. Impressively, she only cried once as she realized that during her previous attempts Felix was there to cast the thunder spell that made different components light up and command. She wrote her tears off as frustration that her work would take even longer. She’d had two children since beginning this research and her work crawled at such a pace that she was fairly certain that their children would be crawling by the time she actually mastered it.
No, that was defeatist, she amended her pessimism, declaring confidently, “I will be able to build this by the time Louisa goes to Garreg Mach”
“Before I go where Mama?” Louisa Fraldarius poked her head into her mother’s sitting room looking rather disheveled and about five specks of dirt away from filthy.
Annette jumped at her voice, placing her tools down and turning to face her daughter completely.
“School. Goddess Louisa you need to announce yourself before you come in here.”
Louisa looked profoundly guilty, “I did! I knocked this time, I promise.”
She probably did. Annette tried very hard not to ignore her daughters for her work, especially when there was so much of it. But old habits died hard and when she was manipulating magic and drawing sigils the whole world just faded away. It was almost a power, while others might be stronger or smarter Annette could work harder than just about anyone because she was not so easily distracted.
That wasn’t fair to her children though. Not if they were following the rules and being polite. Not if they needed her. She wanted to be as present with them as she could, even when she was so close to success she could taste it.
If Louisa was being polite Annette needed to reward that, acknowledge it at the very least. Or she’d go three months without trying it again. She’d blame Felix for that tendency.
“I believe you. Thank you for knocking sweetheart. Can I help you with something, or did you just want to sit in here?”
Louisa blushed, and looked shamefaced at the floor. Oh dear.
“I don’t need help Mama. I just… uh…. I broke a training sword today.”
That was clearly not the whole of it from Louisa’s face.
Annette tried not to react. Breaking a sword could mean any number of things and not all of them required punishment. A great deal of them did, but she could remain optimistic for a moment.
“Are you hurt?” Annette worried. There weren’t any clear injuries but Louisa clasped her hands together so tightly she might be hiding something.
“No. I uh… I threw it. I was mad because um… I was mad and I threw it at the dummy and it just… It really hurt? I threw it too hard and it shattered. It was an accident.” The words tumbled out of her mouth.
Annette’s mind spun at the disjointed pieces of her story and tried to focus on the bits that made the least sense. Louisa was a child, she couldn’t break a sword on her own no matter how hard she threw it. Had she rescued damaged equipment again?
“Did it splinter off when you threw it? Was it broken already?”
“No Mama. I hurt. My um… I can't explain… Maybe it didn’t hurt really. It just, um, felt like there was more of me. It felt like my body was bigger but it wasn’t… I don’t know. It was really scary and the sword broke and I don’t know how it happened and I don’t want to hurt anyone but what if it happens again!” Her voice raised with each word, clearly terrified of whatever had transpired.
Annette listened carefully to her daughter’s panicked retelling as Louisa approached her, wrapping her arms around Annette’s torso and finishing off with a great sob.
Annette ran her hand over her daughter’s dark hair, trying to calm her down. “Louisa were you alone when this happened?” Maybe the master of arms would have a better recollection of what kind of freak accident had transpired to rattle her daughter like this.
“I know I’m not supposed to go to the training grounds alone but Papa promised me he’d train with me today and he’s gone so I just wanted to practice, surprise him with how much better I am when he’s back.”
Right. They trained together on Friday. Felix missed it.
Well Annette couldn't truly blame her for that now could she? Maybe knowing she was not in trouble would help her calm down. Maybe if she were calm she could actually make sense of what happened.
Annette ran her fingers through her messy tangled hair, trying to straighten it out, “I’m not mad, but you should be more careful.”
“I will be! I promise. I think, Mama, I think a ghost was in my body and threw the sword.” Louisa’s breaths were disjointed, crying too hard to say much of anything at all.
This analogy clicked for Annette. She didn’t have the exact feeling, magic worked differently. She and Felix had never really compared notes, but she had used a similar explanation once when the feeling was unfamiliar. When her body did something it certainly had never done before and shouldn’t have been capable of doing at all.
“Louisa baby, did it feel like there were more of you while you were throwing it? As if there were two or three of you all there at once?”
Her head nodded, probably rubbing snot on her dress which was an issue for a later time, “Yes! I don’t ever want it to happen again. I don’t want ghosts to throw swords for me! I’ll never go to the training ground without an adult ever again I promise.”
Annette voiced her hypothesis carefully, “Louisa, I think your crest activated.”
Was she calm enough? Was she treating this as normal enough? She would not give her daughter a complex about her crest. She would not have her daughter walking around thinking she was different, or better, just because of a quirk of her birth. Because, apparently, she could shatter a training sword by throwing it hard enough.
Louisa gasped. “Nah uh. It makes me stronger not more. Papa doesn’t break swords when his crest activates! I’ve seen it a million times, he’s never broken a sword. Even a training sword.”
“Papa has had a lot longer to control it. You will too, one day. For now, maybe don’t throw swords.”
Annette tried not to feel a little hollow about the moment. Surely Felix would want to be here for this. A first crest activation was special, he would want to know. He’d be better able to explain it, or maybe he would recognize the sensation as something not to be scared by. Maybe he would even have advice.
Annette was used to a magic-based crest, one that conserved energy. It was a little odd at first but it had absolutely never frightened her like this. It didn’t destroy like Louisa was describing.
Maybe Felix’s did. He was probably the best adjusted major crest holder in history- he utilized it like a tool, nothing more or less. Maybe having been a second son, a spare despite his status, helped. Annette was always grateful that if she was to have a crested child they had two parents who were so matter of fact about their crests to model. Felix could have been calm, explained it, maybe run through drills with her to get it to activate safely.
If he were here. Which, Annette realized miserably, he wasn’t and wouldn’t be for days.
If he were here maybe it would have activated while she practiced with him. That would be special for both of them, something that bonded them together.
Instead Louisa had her mother. Who was crested but the wrong kind, completely wrong in all ways.
“I wish Papa were here,” Louisa’s tiny voice whispered bitterly.
The rejection didn’t hurt the way Annette expected it to. Sitting on the floor Annette longed for Felix to be home, not for her, but for her children. It wasn’t a general feeling, her usual malaise of loneliness, but a direct need.
Annette tried to hold herself together while Louisa cried, tried to be brave and strong. Because the last thing she could do, the last thing she would do, is tell her she understood.
She understood moments where she just wanted her father. The moments where her mother, who she loved and loved her to death couldn’t be enough. The times where her uncle, who took her in, helped raise her, made it quite clear that she was a niece, not a daughter.
Annette spent a great deal of her life learning to be enough. Trying to be enough. And today she just… couldn’t. She couldn’t help Louisa with this, her reassurances were not the same. She knew, Annette knew deeper than Louisa would ever know what it was like to wish her father were there.
She was ashamed at her anger. Not at Felix, never at him. But at this entire week. At the loneliness and anger that still threatened to tear her apart.
What was Annette to do? Yell at Louisa that Felix would return in a few days and she had no right to complain her father was missing?
Goddess, Annette was the mother here. Her daughter’s fear would not be alleviated by knowing Annette’s own pain.
So she took it, took the blow and the insult and swallowed her anger and kept holding her daughter because Louisa was scared and confused and Annette couldn’t help her with anything other than calming down.
“I know sweetheart. I know. I wish he were here too. You can talk when he’s home, okay?”
Annette began to hum the beginning of Steaks and Cakes hoping desperately that Louisa would join in, it was her favorite of her mother’s songs. It failed, but Annette kept humming as if her cheer would suddenly make things better.
Annette’s aunt often joked that “A mother was only as happy as her least happy child.”
She didn’t get what that meant as a teenager. Annette’s mother was plainly miserable most of the time and Annette tried her best to be upbeat to cheer her mother up. If her mother could see how happy she was, maybe she would cheer up, smile, learn to move on. Go back to being the sort of woman others called eccentric but Annette loved.
Louisa’s mood lingered, and Annette couldn’t help but repeat her aunt’s wisdom to herself. Normally she would be glad for the distraction, a true problem to solve would certainly keep her mind off of Felix’s absence. But her child was sullen and scared and Annette would do just about anything to fix it.
She couldn’t help. She was completely out of her depths.
“Louisa you haven’t touched your dinner.” Annette questioned softly, trying to not make it a thing. She’d requested the cook make Louisa’s favorite, pickled rabbit, with a side of stewed vegetables because though Annette knew how to eat something to be polite it didn’t help that she found the dish disgusting.
She could blame her younger daughter for the second dinner. Certainly not her own preferences.
Louisa looked blankly down at the table and crossed her hands in her lap, silently refusing to answer Annette.
Annette peered over to her plate, hoping to see she had eaten enough that Annette could just drop it. Her eyes scanned over some picked over potatoes and landed on Louisa’s knife. Her clean, completely untouched knife.
Oh. Her poor girl.
“Sweetheart, it won’t happen here.” Annette gave her plate a meaningful look, trying to show her that she understood.
Louisa turned a bit red, found out, and bit back, “How do you know?”
Annette felt herself getting frustrated but tried to defer from the challenge. Goddess, she had to have a daughter who was just like her down to the quick temper didn’t she. “It doesn’t work like that Louisa.”
Louisa got louder, “You don’t know that. You’re lying. You don’t know.”
“I do sweetheart. It’s not going to happen here. Your crest doesn’t have side effects like that. You need to be in danger for it to activate.” This Annette knew for sure. Blaiddyd crests activated accidentally, some crests carried side effects like talking to animals or being excessively lucky. Fraldarius came only with a particular bone structure and dark hair as far as Annette could tell. Maybe a propensity for sarcasm.
Louisa’s eyes watered, and she still wouldn’t touch her dinner. “I wasn’t in danger when it happened!”
Annette knew that no matter what she said, Louisa would never believe her. Sunday. You can do this. Felix will be home Sunday. You begged for a distraction, the goddess is laughing at you now.
Annette tried to channel Felix’s directness as she said,“You were angry, you said you threw something. That’s an attack. Don’t throw the knife and you’ll be fine.”
Louisa’s little sister Margot looked around the table confused, totally unaware of what had transpired. Probably unaware of crests even though she was five and by then Annette certainly understood exactly what that meant.
“You’re a crestbearer, act like it.” Was a refrain from her father when she was clumsy or lazy or not exacting enough at whatever task he set her to. Standards were high in the Dominic household, especially for her.
Now she and Felix hadn’t even tested their younger child. Due to Felix’s major crest it was likely she too would have one, but they had deemed it unimportant to know right away. That growing up with those expectations was too much, that it caused problems for everyone. Their whole generation bounded together and tried to solve the issue that ruined half their childhoods.
Goddess, they really were trying to make things easier on their kids. Which they could, they were powerful enough, rich enough, well connected enough. Coming from a family like theirs would always come with a certain amount of trouble and stress, but Annette wouldn’t for one second pretend that having power didn’t make everything easier.
There’d been a moment where her mother feared true poverty. They had nothing when her father left, and her mother had run out of things to sell, staff to lay off. They’d sold the townhome and were rapidly lowering their standards of what was suitable when her uncle stepped up.
Would Annette’s uncle have taken in her and her mother if not for her crest? She shook her head, thinking like that wouldn’t help. What was wrong with her today? It was decades ago.
“Lou Lou if you don’t want rabbit, have mine.” Margot chimed in, pushing over her mostly cleared plate of stew. Her little face so open and determined. Her sister was upset, she would fix it, easy as that.
Louisa was caught off guard at the offer and her eyes darted around the table trying to make sense of the offer. She looked at her little sister, down to her plate, back to Annette, and then burst out laughing. She wheezed as she slid the bowl in front of her and genuinely smiled. She reached out and ruffled her sister's hair, “Okay, thanks. Stew. Sure.”
Annette felt like the floor would drop from under her. Was it as easy as that? Food? No knives?
No, not food. Louisa took big gulps of her sister’s leftovers and showed off the cleared bowl to her sister. Annette’s heart caught in her chest, no, not about food at all. Louisa patted her stomach, “That was perfect. Thank you Margot.”
“Is stew funny Lou Lou?” Margot had laughed with her sister, completely lacking understanding.
Louisa half smiled, “No, well… yes. You’re cute. And very smart. Smartest girl in all of Fodlan.”
Margot shook her head, “Mama is the smartest girl in all of Fodlan.”
Louisa frowned, correcting, “Mama’s not a girl. She’s a lady.”
Her girls didn’t feel lonely because they had each other. From the moment Margot was born Louisa declared herself a protector. Annette hadn’t understood the instinct, shouldn’t she be excited to have a friend? What about having a younger sibling made her want to suddenly redouble her efforts in training?
She’d asked Felix about it once, and he shrugged, “I was always the youngest. Glenn was so much older and he was… Glenn. I don’t know if it’s a sibling thing.”
Still, despite his protests, she occasionally lingered as she the training grounds and heard him teach their children, “Your job is to keep each other safe. You do this to protect each other.”
Her father had said things like that to her once. Praised her magic, told her to keep her mother safe while he was gone.
What was she to do when her father was the one hurting them? Still. Even beyond reconciliation, years past finding something that worked for them, a decade after forgiveness. Why did it still hurt like this when she was alone when she so plainly wasn’t alone anymore?
As she tucked her daughters into bed for the night, Annette’s eye caught on a wooden doll in the corner. Her father had carved one doll and one wooden sword for each child as his first gift to them. Louisa was more interested in the sword, Margot had claimed both dolls as her own. The gifts were like any other toy, but Annette always placed them at the bottom of the pile when she helped the girls tidy their room.
When Dimitri’s son was born her father was enlisted as the prince’s tutor, a fourth generation of Blaiddyd under his protection. Annette tried to convince him that it was a bad idea. He was getting on in years. He’d just reconciled with her mother. Her mother couldn’t live in the palace, too many people made her nervous. Court made her nervous. It would be unfair to ask her to move from Dominic to Fhirdiad permanently after Dominic was her home for so long.
Annette came up with a brilliant plan. She had a daughter who was showing great promise with combat, why didn’t Gustave move to Fraldarius and train Louisa? They would get to be close to their grandchildren, Annette would get to see her mother more often. Fraldarius was more spread out and calmer than Fhirdiad. Her father could feel purpose, could utilize his long history teaching without the extra obligations of being a knight.
He’d said no. He was coming out of retirement for the prince, not because of a desire to teach.
Gustave Dominic would always choose a Bladdiyd over his own family.
When he was given a chance to choose her, to show he had changed, he failed.
No wonder she was so bitter. Her mother was overjoyed to have her husband back so Annette forgave him, let him be part of her life, let him have presence in her daughter’s lives. But she couldn’t trust him. For all he spoke of atonement, of failing his obligations, it was always clear who came first and who was an afterthought.
Even so, she couldn’t stop speaking to him. She wanted her mother to be happy, to have a family again, and that meant forgiving him enough for that to happen.
Even more, it meant never cutting him out no matter how angry she was. Even at the betrayal of her own children for the King’s sake, she would keep speaking to him. She would not use his most hurtful method against him, she knew the pain of being ignored too well.
She should be happy. What they had should have been good enough. She should be good enough.
It wasn’t. It never would be.
Annette was woken once again by a shifting next to her, this time with Felix climbing into bed, the room dimly lit by a single candle.
“Felix?” she murmured, trying not to get excited. She could still be dreaming. He wasn’t due for another day. Her mind had played these tricks on her before.
He leaned over and kissed the top of her head, “It’s late, go back to sleep.”
“You’re home?” She mumbled, throat still thick from sleep and confused. What day was it? How late? How early?
He was still looming over her, tired, the tiniest bit of stubble on his face meaning it had been days since he shaved. If she missed him less she’d probably note a smell but it didn’t matter because he was home. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he admitted, “Couldn’t wait to get back.”
Suddenly awake, so overwhelmed by his words she gasped out, “Really?” Too many things overwhelmed her, the surprise, the relief. He wanted to be home. He couldn’t wait to leave Fhirdiad and be back here with her.
“Oh what…? Hey, don’t do that.” He reached and brushed away a tear that was welling in the corner of her eye. She wasn’t alone anymore.
“You’re home I’ll cry if I want to.” Annette half laughed, realizing she probably looked ridiculous. Why wasn’t she hugging him yet? She rolled over half on top of him, resting her head on his chest while she let herself breathe him in. He rushed home. He wanted to be home.
Felix was used to her outbursts at this point, though no less baffled by them. His tone cautious as he asked, “Is everything okay?”
“It is now.” She decided. She didn’t want to ruin the moment, make this about anything else. They were both plainly exhausted and sleep would make this all so much easier and clearer to explain. They’d had their fair share of midnight arguments before, they rarely ended well. Not that she was going to argue with him.
None of this was about him.
Sunday was such a rush of activity that she hardly had a moment to breathe. Things that were tabled for Felix’s return were suddenly all of the utmost importance. The sun was setting by the time Felix entered their sitting room, clearly fresh off the training grounds.
Annette looked up from her notes, unable to contain the smile that his mere presence coaxed out of her.
“Louisa’s crest then?” Felix commented, unbuckling his sword from his side.
“She’s terrified. I hoped you could help.” He looked unrattled, maybe today went better for them? She was glad Louisa had the opportunity to tell him herself, maybe she was able to be excited about it a few days after the fact.
“It’s going to startle her at first. It always did for me. The only thing that kept me from screaming is that Glenn teased me about it until I learned to stop doing it.” Felix rubbed his temples trying to not sound so annoyed at his past self.
This was new information. “Is that what you told her?” Annette asked, half hoping it was if only to hear what her reaction would be.
“No. I told her that it would make her stronger if she could manage it. And I was impressed she broke the sword into so many pieces.”
Annette snorted, “She must have liked that part.”
“She did. She’ll get used to it. Fraldarius is… it’s jarring. She’ll hate it until it saves her life one day.” Felix collapsed onto a couch next to her, bags under his eyes growing darker by the hour. He’d slept too little, not that he complained.
“I’m sad you couldn’t be there when it happened. She’s been too scared to pick up anything sharp. I couldn’t say anything to help her.” Annette confessed, still feeling lingering frustration that she wasn’t enough.
Felix shot her the same skeptical look he did when she second-guessed herself in front of advisors, “My advice is not that helpful, I’m sure you were fine.”
Even his reassurance didn’t help, “My crest isn’t like yours and she knows that so I couldn’t say anything to get her to calm down. She’s scarred for life and it’s completely my fault.”
“She picked up a sword with me today. You haven’t failed at anything. The finance advisor was tense so clearly you did something right while I was gone.”
He meant it as a joke, she could tell that he was being sarcastic. But she couldn’t help it, a week’s worth of anxiety poured out,
“I can’t do anything while you’re gone. It’s awful and I’m so distracted and sad and I just…”
Felix cut her off with a hand on her shoulder, “So I won’t go anymore.”
“What?”
He gestured casually with half a roll in his eyes, as if his solution was so simple,“If it’s that terrible for you when I’m gone, I won’t go. Not without you at least.”
The worst part was he sounded serious.
Annette backpedaled, waving her hands to stop his thought before made up his mind, “Wait you can’t do that! You have responsibilities.” Not leave again? His role was to help Dimitri, he’d been raised from birth to be his advisor, he couldn’t just give that up.
Felix shook his head, deadly serious, “My responsibility is to you. If you’re like this then I’ve clearly failed at making sure you’re okay.”
“No, no. Not you. You haven’t done anything I just…” And it all hit her over again. The feeling of standing on the steps of her townhome waving to her father, so proud of him for serving the king. The way the memory played over in her mind until it was sour and disgusting. The last time she saw her father.
Felix sighed. She was embarrassed, they’d had this conversation before. He knew about her anxieties, and he tried his best to reassure her. He believed her pain, treated it as real and true, let her have the space to process it. He tried to accommodate her. He knew just as well as she did the pain of coming second to King and Country. She wasn’t alone in those scars. He had his own.
“You came home early.” Annette reminded herself more than him. Felix hadn’t spent one moment longer in the capital than he needed to.
A look of relief broke over his face and he nodded, kissing her forehead, “I did. I’m not leaving. I don’t hold anything higher than you, you know that. The next time Dimitri comes calling with urgent news that he can’t put in writing I’ll tell him to come himself or send a more reliable runner.”
“You wouldn’t do that!” Annette gasped.
He raised his eyebrow, challenging, “Wouldn’t I?”
He would. He absolutely would.
Because Felix was nothing if not honest, and if he said he loved her he did. If he said he’d come home, he would.
Annette almost laughed at his seriousness, “You’re ridiculous. You know that right?”
He paused, “I am not. I love you. More than him. More than Fodlan.”
“I know.” And she did. He proved that every day.
Felix continued, “And the Blaiddyd line is lower than my estimation than ever before. Prince Leo is writing our daughter very familiar letters.”
Well that sounded absurd.
She swatted his arm, “Felix! Are you reading Louisa’s post? And he’s a child, he can barely write. What would he have to say that’s familiar?”
Felix frowned, crossing his arms, “If he writes one letter to both of our daughters and one letter just to our eldest what am I supposed to think?”
Annette thought that maybe Leo had enough awareness to know Margot couldn’t read yet but far be it from her to argue Felix’s insanity with logic. She laid her head on his shoulder, half laughing as she leveled, “You’re going to be this type of father then?”
Felix considered her accusation and she watched the wheels turn in his mind. He nodded, acquiescing, “You’re right,” and, being Felix and absolutely insufferable he added, “She’s got an active crest now. She’ll be fine.”
They’d all be fine.