Chapter Text
It’s Friday, 3rd of February, 1988, and Edelgard is wagging school not even a week into the term.
The Monastery Cinemas are deserted in the middle of the day. The sun beats down on the road, heat rising from the tarmac in simmering waves. There is not a single sign of a cloud in the sky. Just endless, infinite blue. As for the land below? It is one of dust and bleached buildings, and the specks between.
Edelgard peels her blazer off one arm at a time, wincing at the sensation of sweat adhering the itchy fabric to her arms. Even with the horrible thing off, the heat isn’t anymore bearable. The sun scorches her arms as she strives to walk faster.
When she finally ducks into the cool dark under the awning of the cinemas, she’s drenched in sweat. Glowering, Edelgard turns to the ticket booth. The young woman sitting inside grins at her. “Hey, you. What’s the lucky class today?” She offers an eye-crinkling smile, warm and conspiratorial.
“Hi, Mercedes,” Edelgard manages, forcing a smile. “Biology.” She sighs. “I never should have signed up for a science.”
She laughs, though not unkindly. “It’ll get better, I promise.” She’s lying, obviously. Why else would she still be working the cashier job at a shitty, small-town cinema if things got better? “So, which movie will be taking your mind off those woeful sciences?”
Edelgard is still staring at the printed list of the day’s films when she hears a voice from behind her.
“Hey, Edelgard, isn’t it?”
She whirls and comes face-to-face with Hilda Valentine Goneril, who flashes a white, straight-toothed smile. “If you’re still deciding, can we go first?” she asks sweetly, pushing a pigtail off her shoulder.
The gesture annoys Edelgard more than she’d care to admit. So, she glances at the sheet again, chooses the first thing she sees, and says coolly, “Actually, I’ve already decided.”
Mercedes’ smile has morphed into a quiet smirk. When Edelgard says, “A ticket to Heathers, please,” she looks to be swallowing a laugh.
Hilda pipes up from behind her again. “Oh, perfect! We’re watching that too. Do you wanna join?”
Edelgard blinks slowly at Mercedes, who just shrugs. Then she turns, sees Hilda watching her with wide eyes. She’s tempted to say no, but she supposes it would be rude to just refuse.
After all, it’s not like she has to talk to her in the cinema.
*
By the time the four of them leave during the credits scrawl, the sun has melted a considerable amount towards the horizon. In the pre-dusk gold, Hilda’s pink hair shines.
“D’you wanna go to Raph’s with us?”
Edelgard takes her eyes off the gilded treetops to look at her again. Hilda is grinning, eyelashes dark as she watches and waits for Edelgard’s response.
When she asks why, Hilda beams like she’d been waiting all her life to answer that question. “Because it’s my birthday, duh. I’m eighteen today!” She fixes her wide eyes on Edelgard again.
So really, Edelgard doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
Hilda claps her hands together and leads Edelgard back to the other two. They don’t need introduction. Marianne von Edmund, whose father owned some kind of tech repairs company. Lysithea von Ordelia, who’d enrolled at Garreg Mach Academy on a one-hundred-percent scholarship.
Hilda herself comes from a line of renowned military officers. In the five years they had gone to school together, though, Edelgard had never heard her mention a thing about the army. Not that she has ever been in close enough proximity to Hilda to be able to discern what she does and doesn’t mention.
Even compared to those three, Edelgard thinks she may be the worst offender for being filthy-rich. Not many people got the inheritance before their eighteenth birthday.
She puts those thoughts out of mind as they start making their way down the road.
Raph’s is the town’s best burger place—and one of its only. It has great fries, great milkshakes, and a student discount. Hilda enthusiastically tells Edelgard all of this as they walk, interjected by complaints about said walk.
Halfway through a very delicious chicken burger, Edelgard has to wonder what she’s doing here. In a booth at Raph’s, tucked between the wall and their school’s golden girl.
She tells Hilda she’s going to the bathroom and squeezes past her. In the shitty bathrooms at the back, accompanied by the sizzle of greasy meat and shouting from the kitchens, Edelgard stares herself down in the mirror.
The light flickers above her. She looks wan, brown hair frizzing from the day’s sweat. Her uniform hangs limp from her figure. The ribbons she tied in her hair that morning wilt, the red dull. Why is she at a birthday dinner with Hilda Valentine Goneril?
When Edelgard returns to the table, she finds a strawberry milkshake standing where her empty plate had been. Hilda is beaming. “You weren’t here when they asked about flavours, so I got you my favourite!” Edelgard looks at Hilda’s half-finished strawberry milkshake instead of her face. “It’s on me. Thanks for coming today!”
Edelgard doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s lactose intolerant.
*
The next time Edelgard sees Hilda is during lunch the next week. She’s reading and enjoying a plate of scones doused in a healthy dose of cream and jam, when she hears Hilda shout from across the room.
“Edelgard! Hi!”
Her plate clatters onto the table. It’s, surprisingly, just sautéed salmon and greens. Edelgard would have expected her to be eating cotton candy and bubblegum, but that may have just been some unfair preconceptions.
Hilda slides into the seat beside her. “You looked lonely, so I thought I’d sit with you! Marianne and Lysithea are studying”—she makes a face—“and Claude is doing his silly little thing in the library.”
Edelgard is unsurprised to hear that she has friends in the boy’s college; Hilda seems to talk to everyone.
“So, what are you up to?” Hilda peers over her shoulder at the book, which Edelgard has chosen not to close while she talks.
“Reading,” she says.
Hilda nods eagerly, bangs falling into her eyes. She tucks her hands under her extremely short skirt that Edelgard has just noticed, and leans closer. Edelgard has to wonder how she hasn’t been uniform-coded for that one yet. Rhea had gotten onto her case about her tights the first day she’d worn them.
“You’re so smart, you know that, Edelgard.” She furrows her eyebrows. “Ed…ie? El? Can I call you that?”
Edelgard swallows, sugar tasting like sawdust. “Absolutely not,” she snaps reflexively. Then, at the hurt-puppy-dog expression on Hilda’s face, she says, gentler this time, “Call me whatever.”
The hurt is instantly replaced by a grin. “Great! El it is.”
Edelgard struggles not to flinch every time she says it. It’s been a long time since anyone has called her that. It dredges up memories she would rather not dwell on—people long lost to places faraway. She tries not remember the feel of his hands growing colder in hers over the hours.
Hilda is chattering on about something else when Edelgard stands up suddenly. “I have to go study.” Then, to soften the blow a little bit, she mimics the face Hilda had made before at the mention of that dreaded subject.
Hilda laughs, more freely than Edelgard has ever seen anyone laugh. “Okay, see you, El!” she says, beaming, as she fixes her bangs using the back of a spoon as a mirror.
The nickname sounds less and less unpleasant with each time Hilda uses it.
*
Edelgard is browsing the local bookstore when she once again hears the distinctive voice of Hilda preceding its person. This time, though, it's not directed at her.
“Come onnn, Claude,” she whines. “Let's go to the milk bar, I want a drink.”
He laughs despite the nagging. “Alright, okay, let me just have a look at some of the books.”
Claude von Riegan. Edelgard doesn’t know much about this guy, frustratingly. He is apparently related to Oswald von Riegan, founder of the Leicester Round-Table Society. They’re some kind of business think-tank, last Edelgard has checked. Hilda mentioned Claude the other day, hadn't she?
Edelgard shuffles closer to the bookshelf, abandoning the book about native plants she'd been flicking through. She peers through the volumes to watch Claude drag Hilda further into the store. She has an arm looped through his, and a smile in her eyes.
Squinting, Edelgard tries to deduce whether they're dating or not.
When the two of them leave the store soon after—Hilda seems to have won out—Edelgard still hadn’t been able to tell. They certainly seemed close, but that was no conclusive evidence. She’d have to ask Hubert.
The boy in question is sitting outside the convenience store down the road, smoking. Edelgard had tried to get him to quit many times, to no avail. Still, when he sees her, he takes one last drag and then throws the thing onto the pavement, stamping it out.
“My lady,” he says, with a smirk.
Edelgard brushes off the prod and sits beside him. He smells infuriatingly of smoke. “What are your thoughts on the relationship status of Hilda and Claude?”
“Goneril and von Riegan? Hm.” Hubert’s long fingers tap along his thigh. He’s dressed all in black, which Edelgard would have considered silly if she wasn’t habitually dressed in black too. “There’s definitely something there, though I’d have to do some more investigating. Why, has one of them caught your eye?”
Edelgard bats his shoulder as he chuckles.
From across the road, she watches Hilda and Claude emerge from the milk bar. She says something which prompts Claude to laugh with his entire body, head thrown back.
As Edelgard eyes them, Hilda’s gaze suddenly flicks to hers. She waves, grinning. Edelgard blinks. Looks away. When she looks back, Hilda is still staring at her, head tilted.
Heat rising to her cheeks, Edelgard stands up, throwing a look towards Hubert. “I have to finish some English homework. Would you like to come?”
He smiles. “Of course, my lady.”
“Oh, would you stop calling me that? People may get the wrong idea.”
“Alright, Lady Edelgard.”
She scoffs as she walks off without him, though she slows to let him catch up. Glancing over her shoulder, Edelgard sees Hilda still watching her. Her expression is unreadable.
“This is a town of dead ends,” Edelgard wants to scream at her. “Don’t let it turn you into one too.”
Claude says something to her, making her laugh. The spell is broken. Edelgard looks away and continues striding away, kicking up red dust.
*
The bush is hot and dry and painted in shades of brown. Above, the sky is a blue so bright it burns retinas. Wind rips gusts of dust into the air, only to leave in a sweltering stillness. The trees grow tough, the grass tougher. Grassy hills roll into distant, bruised mountains. The land projects an image of stillness, but there are those that know better. The bush is beautiful. The bush is unforgiving.
Edelgard doesn’t particularly like being out here, but she respects it. In Enbarr, she had been surrounded by brick and mortar. Out here, there is nothing to separate her and the world.
Well, nothing but this ridiculous boarding school.
She can feel her eye twitching with each screech of the chalk on the blackboard. Professor Hanneman is droning on about the anatomy of a human heart. The make-up of blood. Some other things she already knows.
Someone hisses, “Psst,” in her direction.
Edelgard tilts her head to see Hilda one seat across from her and two seats back. She’s gesturing frantically, a neatly-folded note in her hand. Edelgard sighs through her nose, but reaches over to take it.
The stationery is a subtle pink, and smells of artificial flowers and bubblegum. When Edelgard unfolds it, she reads, in an uncharacteristic scrawl, the message: ‘Why did you ignore me on Wednesday?’ Beside the writing is a small heart.
Edelgard snorts, a smile tugging at her lips. Lowering her pen to the paper, Edelgard hesitates. Finally, she just writes, ‘I was busy.’ She adds, ‘Sorry,’ after a thud of her heart. Then draws a heart after another. It’s not as cute as Hilda’s, but it’s there. A blue ballpoint-pen olive branch.
She leans back to find Hilda’s eyes still on her. She perks up when she sees Edelgard and reaches eagerly for the note.
Under the not-very-watchful eye of Hanneman, Hilda and Edelgard continue exchanging their notes. It goes something like this.
Hilda writes, in pink, ‘That's okay! Just don't ignore me next time, please. It hurt my feelings.’ She draws a frowny face next to that one.
Writing deliberately, Edelgard says, ‘Will do.’ And then, ‘Why are you trying so hard to be friends with me?’
She gnaws at her lip and wishes she could take it back, but passes it to Hilda anyway. Olive branch, she reminds herself.
It's a little while before the guy sitting behind Edelgard, with a flick of his orange hair and a smug smirk, taps her on the shoulder and hands her the note. Hilda has written, ‘Because sometimes you look lonely. I didn't think it would be this much work!’ There's a smiley and a heart.
She can't help the smile that cracks her cheeks. Refolding it carefully, Edelgard tucks the note into the breast pocket of her blazer.
Ripping another piece from her book, Edelgard writes her room number. She folds the paper carefully, and hands it back to Hilda.
Hands shaking, she tries not to consider the implications of the heart she had added at the end.
*
It's 8:07pm when Hilda finally turns up. She barely even knocks, just bursts in like a pink-haired storm. Unsurprisingly, she is still wearing the day’s jewellery and make-up.
Edelgard looks up from the book she's reading, arching a brow. She holds up the book to display its cover to Hilda, preempting her question. It's a French fairytale anthology, and she’s trying to force herself past the misogyny, not to mention the casual racism.
When Edelgard finally puts it down with a frown, Hilda is beaming at her from where she’s sprawled on the bed. “I brought a gift,” she says, drawing a bottle from her bag. Depositing the spirits on the ground between them, Hilda smiles up at Edelgard.
She clasps her hands in her lap. “I don't drink.”
“That's okay, because I do!” Hilda unscrews the bottle with an expert twist of her fingers, and takes a generous swig. Wiping her mouth, she says, “So, what did you want to do?”
Talk. Not talk. Be together. Sit on opposite ends of the room. Edelgard squeezes her hands into fists in her lap and says none of those things. “Do you know how to play Speed?”
Hilda ends up convincing her that whoever wins each round gets to ask the other a question that they must, under any circumstances, answer truthfully.
Sitting gingerly on the bed as far from Hilda as possible for the game to still function, Edelgard watches as she takes another drink from the bottle. “Will you be able to play like that?” she asks.
Hilda shoots her a lopsided smile. “I guess you’re just getting to know me tonight.” She winks, and Edelgard has to snap her face away to hide the heat rising to her cheeks.
She wordlessly hands Hilda her half of the cards. The brush of her fingers against Edelgard’s own is light, but the touch makes her heart squeeze.
Edelgard falls into the familiar rhythm, laying out cards with quick flourishes of her fingers. A stack of one, then a stack of two, until she has five stacks. Then she flips the top card of each, scanning their numbers. A three, a jack, a queen, a four, and a five. Not bad.
She spares Hilda a glance, and stifles a laugh. Hilda notices regardless. Pouting, she says, “How come you’re so fast?”
“How come you’re so slow?” Edelgard retorts.
Hilda’s exaggerated pout grows. “Rude.”
Shrugging, Edelgard just says, “You aren’t going to be asking me anything at this rate.”
“Sure.” Hilda’s smile has vanished, replaced by a smirk. “Too bad you underestimate your opponent.” Her hands are already flying. Alarmed, Edelgard realises too late that she’d successfully distracted her.
Edelgard loses that round. Though she tells herself that it’s only because Hilda cheated. When she tells Hilda this, she grins. “You’re allowed to do that, how I play. Not my fault you’re so slow.”
Edelgard rolls her eyes, smiling all the while. “Fine. Ask your silly question, Goneril.”
“Oh, so we’re doing the last names thing now? Huh, von Hresvelg?”
“Yes, we are.” Edelgard tilts her head slightly, smirking. “Prepare yourself for Round Two.”
Hilda’s mouth drops open. “Okay, wait. That wasn’t my question!”
Edelgard laughs, low and long. She thinks, briefly, Hubert would be pleased. “Too bad. You’ll have to win another to try again. If you can.”
Hilda returns her smug grin. “You’re on.”
The next round, as predicted, does go to Edelgard. Hilda, who had begun lying on her stomach across the length of Edelgard’s bed, rests her chin on her hands. “Ask away, El.”
“What’s your favourite film?” The question is carefully casual.
Edelgard watches the lampshade instead of Hilda, who laughs. “Easy. The Princess Bride.”
Edelgard can’t help beaming. “Oh, I love the satire of that movie.”
“Yeah…” Hilda says uncertainly. “I mean, I just think that Buttercup is stunning. And her romance with Westley, ugh. Like, can you imagine—”
Edelgard stops listening at the Buttercup comment. She meant it in an observational way, right? Unless she didn’t? But if she found her attractive-attractive, then she probably would have used a different word. That wasn’t necessarily true though, meaning that Edelgard couldn’t overrule the fact that Hilda might be—That she could be—
“El?” Hilda is watching her with a bemused kind of smile. “Did you hear me? I asked what your favourite movie is.”
“Oh, uh, it’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It’s a Japanese film.” She’s aware of how pretentious she sounds, casually referencing a foreign film. But there was something so magical about that movie when she’d seen it years ago. Everyday she wishes they showed foreign films here, in the middle of nowhere.
“I’ve never seen it. We should watch it together!” Hilda says brightly. “And The Princess Bride too!”
Edelgard nods. “Before we can get to that, though, I have to beat you at this game.” At this point, they’re even. But Edelgard knows she can win.
She, unfortunately, does not win the next round. A lost battle, however, doesn’t necessarily mean a lost war. It’s something she tells herself in her chess games with Hubert, after a particularly dismal loss of a piece. He usually wins those, though.
Hilda, still whooping with triumph, quiets down as she thinks of a question. In the dim lamplight, she glows like the sun—Edelgard can’t think of any other way to describe Hilda’s brilliant, gravitational aura. “Do you believe in fate?” Hilda asks, finally.
Edelgard nods, which seems to take Hilda aback. “In a way, yes. Every choice you’ve made before today has led you to this moment. All of those choices are preconceived by some aspect of your identity.”
“But you choose those things regardless. Isn’t it cold to say that you never really choose to—to follow your heart, or move to another country, or to love someone?” Edelgard swallows and looks away. She feels too vulnerable under Hilda’s heavy gaze. She begins to shuffle her deck.
“Next question is mine,” she announces softly.
Hilda snorts, reverting back to her normal self. “Good luck.”
Luck is on Edelgard’s side, because she wins the next round. Staring at the mere handful of cards in Edelgard’s pile, Hilda sags further onto the bed. “I give up. You’ve already won.”
Edelgard shoots her a grin. “How the mighty fall.”
“Just ask your question,” Hilda says, voice muffled by the quilt.
It would be a lie to say that Edelgard’s question isn’t somewhat a test. “What do you want to do when we graduate?” she asks deliberately.
Hilda rolls over, limbs splayed all over the cards. She sips from the now half-empty bottle. Edelgard wonders how she doesn’t choke, while trying very hard not to stare all over her body.
“I guess I’ll just join the military,” she admits with a sigh. “It’s where my brother went, and where my father went. I’ll go there too.” Her tone is even. So even that Edelgard doesn't quite believe her resignation.
“But is that what you want to do?” she blurts before she can think better of it.
Hilda tilts her head back to fix Edelgard with an empty smile. “Maybe you’re right about that fate thing after all.”
And Edelgard doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t say anything at all. By the time Edelgard can look at her once more, she’s smiling. The expression is stretched at the edges, pulled too tight over her lips. Still, Edelgard doesn’t say a thing.
They play the next round in silence. Edelgard wins. She manages a half-hearted cheer.
Hilda reaches across the cards to push her. She misses the first time, and has to do it again. “You’re a bully,” she whines. “I want a rematch.”
“Said like a true loser,” Edelgard says, raising her eyebrows.
“Well, would this absolute genius of a true winner like a prize?” Hilda stacks her chin on her palms, face tilted up towards Edelgard. “Any prize you desire will be yours.”
Edelgard exhales tremulously, trying to keep her gaze from darting all over the place. Hilda is smiling but her eyes are dark. They threaten to pull Edelgard into their gravity and keep her there forever, swimming in the depths of Hilda’s soul.
She should say something, instead of roving her eyes over Hilda. She should say something, so that she can interrupt whatever is happening here.
“What will it be?” Hilda prompts, and Edelgard can’t not look at her lips, or the quick dart of her tongue. She finds herself leaning forward, lips parting. They both know what she wants her answer to be, but she won’t say it. She can’t.
“Watch a movie with me,” Edelgard says, suddenly. “Tomorrow.”
Edelgard can feel her heartbeat still drumming away in her chest. Hilda sits up, slowly arching her back. Smiling, she says, “It’s a date then.”
*
The theatre is completely empty at midday, Edelgard has found. It’s the absolute worst time to be outside in this town, but she makes the sacrifice for the tranquility of an empty session. Or, an almost-empty session.
It’s quite different, she has also found, being seated beside a pretty girl with bubblegum-pink hair brushing Edelgard’s shoulders. She resists the urge to reach over to stroke it. Actually, she resists the urge to touch Hilda at all.
Sitting stiffly, Edelgard can’t even focus on the movie; and why should she watch some stupid horror flick when she's sitting next to Hilda Valentine Goneril?
In her periphery, Edelgard sees Hilda tilt her head towards her. “I'm bored,” she says with a sigh. “This isn't even scary.”
Edelgard nods. Her head feels like a bag of straw on a stick. Say something. “Yeah.”
Hilda smirks. “Nothing clever to add?”
Edelgard turns her head properly to level a stare at Hilda. “Well, if you must know. Their attempts to mix horror and comedy are lacklustre at best, resulting in a conspicuous absence of tension, suspense, and audience investment.”
That only seems to prompt a laugh from Hilda. “There we go,” she says with a grin. “The El we all know and love.”
“Oh, be quiet,” she mutters, turning away in mock hurt.
The truth is, she can't look at Hilda any longer. She can't look at Hilda when she’s smiling at her like that—with something akin to tenderness softening the corners of her eyes.
Edelgard doesn't wish to admit to herself that it scares her, somehow.
“You know…” Hilda remarks. “We could do something else. Since the movie is so boring.” Edelgard freezes as she feels Hilda’s hand on hers, on top of the armrest between them.
When she whirls, it's to Hilda’s steady gaze on hers. Her eyes flick to their hands, and then back up to Hilda’s face.
Hilda lifts a brow. Slowly, ever so slowly, Edelgard flips her hand. Intertwines her fingers with Hilda’s. Heart thudding painful against her ribs, she forces her attention back to the movie.
A flare of blood throws the cinema into red. The empty room feels too warm; Edelgard wants to strip off her blazer, and then maybe some more. She erases the thought as soon as it appears.
It’s only a few minutes later that Edelgard feels Hilda’s eyes on her once again. In the darkness, lit only by the thunder of gunfire on the big-screen, Hilda smiles sweetly, and then rests her head on Edelgard’s shoulder.
She stiffens, then immediately forces her muscles to loosen. If Hilda noticed, she doesn’t say.
They watch a little more. Edelgard’s chest feels tight. She can feel Hilda’s breath tickling her neck; the feeling ignites something in her. Something she doesn’t want to identify. “I, um…” She trails off, not sure what she had been wanting to say in the first place. “…are you cold?” she asks hurriedly.
Hilda snorts, and says, “I’ll take your blazer.” Then her hands are there at her collar, unbuttoning the jacket. Edelgard gulps, and goes stock-still.
“I’ve—I’ve got it,” she stammers, hands flying to meet Hilda’s. Goddess, when had she last stammered something?
Hilda brushers her away. Her hands are barely touching her, but their echoes bring goosebumps to Edelgard’s skin beneath her blouse. She exhales shakily as Hilda’s fingers trail down her bare arms. “Your skin is so soft,” she murmurs.
Edelgard chases her hands and seizes them. She starts to say, “Hilda, I…” but can’t make herself finish the sentence when Hilda turns large eyes onto her. “I…” Her words dry up on her tongue. Hilda, smirking, leans even closer. Edelgard’s mind goes blank.
“Kiss me,” Hilda breathes into the space between them. Edelgard sees her lips form the words, and she hears them too, a second later. In that moment’s delay, her heart has crept up, up, up to sit at the base of her throat. She sighs, soft, before leaning in.
Then their lips have found each other and Edelgard is kissing Hilda, and she’s kissing her back. Edelgard tangles her hands in Hilda’s hair, drawing her closer. She sighs, softening against Edelgard. They draw back a moment as they bump teeth, laughing into their shared breaths.
Edelgard catches Hilda’s lips with hers again.
Hilda clambers over the armrest, her lips never leaving Edelgard’s. She kneels over her lap, skirt bunching up around her thighs. The kisses grow deeper. Hilda’s hands begin to roam, creeping between blouse buttons.
Her lips are warm against Edelgard’s jaw, tracing a line down the curve of her neck. Edelgard stifles a sound, hands fisting, as Hilda’s tongue trails over her skin. “Hil,” she murmurs, the word tumbling from her lips.
That makes her stop. Edelgard’s eyes flutter open. She shares a soft smile with Hilda. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that,” she says, voice a little husky. “Don’t let it be the last.”
Edelgard’s smile widens. “Come here.” Her hands find their way into Hilda’s hair again, and she’s pulling her back in. The space between them shrinks again, until there’s only skin and heat and sighs.
Behind them, the movie continues playing. Dialogue goes unheard. Scenes unseen. In an empty cinema in a town in the middle of nowhere, Edelgard von Hresvelg forgets about dead-ends.
*
The winter night is cool and windy as they lay on the roof of the dorms. Edelgard follows the line of Hilda's face, from her brow to her chin. In the white light of the full-moon, Hilda seems to glow. Though, Edelgard supposes she always seems to glow.
Clearing her throat, Edelgard asks, “Are you cold?”
The question is funny, apparently, because Hilda laughs into the sky. She snuggles closer to her, nestling her face against Edelgard’s neck. “No,” she says, smiling, and Edelgard can feel her lips moving against her skin in a way that is thoroughly distracting. “And we can’t do anything on the roof anyway.”
“I, um—” Edelgard can feel her face heating as she searches for something to say. Hilda shifts against her, which only makes it worse.
She giggles. “You’re only ever speechless around me, you know. It’s cute, El.”
Edelgard swallows, face flushing. She goes to say something in response, and closes her mouth again. “Shut up,” she manages, finally. Hilda laughs again.
They lay there in silence, listening to the rustle of the wind through the leaves. Above them, the stars shimmer in and out of existence. “Do you think there’s something else out there?” Edelgard says.
Hilda shrugs. “Who cares? We’re here right now.” She strokes Edelgard’s cheek with featherlight fingers. “And I wouldn’t trade all those places out there for this time with you.”
She leans in and plants a kiss on Edelgard’s lips. Edelgard squeezes her hand. “I—” The words get caught in her throat. She tries again, and when those words get unstuck, they rush out of her in a stream. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Even if you leave.
Edelgard kisses her now, as soft as a murmured lie. When they pull away, she rests her forehead against Hilda’s. Staring into each other’s eyes, Hilda breathes, “Do you promise?”
She never lies to Hilda. No, Edelgard never lies. She whispers, “Yes,” as the tiles of the roof dig into her back. As her heart turns to stone inside of her.
And then Hilda has drawn one of her handmade rings off her fingers. Edelgard doesn’t resist as she slides it onto her ring finger. “I love you,” Hilda breathes.
Edelgard draws her into a kiss, and kisses her until she forgets that she hadn’t said it back.
*
Tugging at the grass and uprooting dust, Edelgard listens to Hilda chatter to Marianne and Lysithea. Beside her, Hubert flicks his lighter on and off and on again. “I’ve applied for uni,” Hubert says. “Philosophy and History.”
Edelgard stares across the field to the figures running around with a footy. “Mm-hm.”
Nudging her with a boot, Hubert says, “Has your father said anything?”
The sun is so hot, so bright. Blinking back tears, Edelgard shakes her head. “I haven’t heard from him,” she says evenly. It isn’t a lie.
She doesn’t say anything for the rest of lunch. When Hilda asks her if she’s okay, she just nods curtly. That doesn’t seem to be a suitable response, because Hilda is dragging her away before she knows it. “Eisner won’t mind,” she calls back to the others. “Just say that I’ve had explosive diarrhoea or something!” She glances at Edelgard, who doesn't even react.
She doesn’t say anything when they reach the gazebo. “Come on, El, what’s wrong?” Hilda asks.
Edelgard shakes her head, swiping roughly at her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Talk to me.” Hilda takes her hands into her own. “Please.”
“I’m just…I’m scared.” The confession is like a blow to her chest. In a few months, she’ll be the dead end.
Hilda nods, and pulls her into a tight hug. It’s suffocating, but Edelgard won’t tell her that. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
Edelgard can’t help the red hot sear of anger. “No, it won’t.” She pushes her away. “You’re leaving. Hubert’s leaving. And I—I—I don’t know where I’m going.”
Hilda stands, steps back and away from Edelgard. “I’ve put my name down for the Defence Force,” she says simply. “I’m already on the shortlist.”
And perhaps what Edelgard wanted to say was, “I’ll miss you if you leave,” but instead she says, “Really?”
Because her Hil is so much more than a dusty uniform and a new, natural dye-job. She’s more than that. She’s more than all of them. But maybe Edelgard is just rationalising. Maybe she’s just being selfish—a dead end will turn everything else into one too.
Hilda crosses her arms. “Okay, and you want to do what, stay in a stupid little bush town?”
And maybe Hilda is right, maybe she will stay in this washed-up town in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want anything to do with her father’s company. She never had, but now? She’s absolutely certain. “Yes.”
Hilda exhales through her nose. She even rolls her eyes. “But why, El?”
She stands, points a finger at Hilda in another flare of frustration. “I’m not the one doing exactly what her parents want her to do.” And it’s a low blow, she knows it.
“Don’t speak of them!” Hilda’s voice quivers. “And you’re not? Edelgard von Hrsevelg is going to carve her own way in the world, by what, sitting on her inheritance and pretending to have a real job?”
“No, that’s not tr—”
“How isn’t it true, El? Enlighten me with your big, big brain.”
“He’s…he’s dead.” She can feel herself shaking, can feel her lungs constricting. “I sold everything to my uncle. It’s gone.”
Hilda doesn’t budge from her spot a metre away, even as shock cracks her face in half. Even as Edelgard breaks down crying—Hilda doesn’t move. Sobbing, Edelgard gasps, “Don’t go.” Tears leaking down her cheeks, she begs, “Don’t leave me.”
It’s the truest she’s ever been with Hilda. Maybe it’s the truest she ever will be.
Hilda steps forward, takes her hand gently. Uncertainly. “Do you want to see a movie?”
*
The milkbar is bursting with people on a Friday afternoon. It seems half of the movie’s audience has migrated here with Edelgard and Hilda. As the chatter washes over them, they sit in silence on opposite sides of the table.
The cinematic quality of the keening wind tearing at the leaves is enough to have Edelgard’s complete attention. Opposite her, Hilda slurps loudly from her milkshake. “El?”
Her gaze flicks to Hilda, shielded by a coat, scarf, and mittens that she had refused to take off. “Did you like it?” Hilda asks again. She’s looking at her expectantly, another question unsaid on her lips.
“Yeah, I guess,” Edelgard hedges, still staring out the window.
The glass clinks against the table as Hilda puts it down. “You can choose next time.”
“No.” Edelgard’s fingers flex against her leg. She doesn’t want to talk—about this, about the future, about anything. “You do it.”
“What, so you can complain about what I choose again?”
Edelgard fixes her with a stare. “Am I complaining now?”
“Ugh—I can’t deal with you sometimes, El. Just talk to me! I’ve tried so hard, but I feel as if I still don’t know you at all! Why do you have to be detached all the time? Why?”
Edelgard ignores the people staring in their direction. “And why do you have to bait me like I’m a dog? I’m not going to do things just to make you feel better about yourself.”
“What is this, then? If we don’t ever feel things. Do you feel things when you kiss me? When you touch me? I—I thought I loved you, El.”
She knows that Hilda wants her to say she loves—loved—her too. She doesn’t. Hilda sighs one last time.
“I wish you would—I just…You’re so cold.” She stands. Adjusts her coat, buttoning it back up again. She levels Edelgard with a frigid stare. “I’m surprised you don’t melt under the sun.”
“Hilda—” Edelgard starts, standing as well. She shuffles out of the booth, catching the door before Hilda can slam it shut.
“What?” she snarls. “Do you finally have something to say to me?”
I’m sorry. I love you. I want to leave you. I hate you for making me feel this way again. Edelgard swallows the lump forming in her throat, the lump sticking the words in her mouth and jumbling them all up. “Are you really leaving for the military?” she asks, like a fool, her voice barely above a whisper.
Hilda scoffs. “No matter what I say, you’ll still judge me. Tell me, Edelgard—what are you going to do with your life? Watch movies and read niche books and rot in your room until you die? You talk about carving your own path, but I don’t see you doing shit. All you do is mope about your dead dad. At least I’ll be going somewhere in two months. You? All you’ll do is dry yourself into a husk.”
When Hilda turns away and walks off, Edelgard does not follow.
In the blue of the dusk, she stands and stares. Crying feels like choking on the dust that's been stirred up by the wind.
The sun has vanished. She knows the night will be cold and empty without it.