Work Text:
The Fraldarius estate is a cold, cliffside mansion built of steeled timber from Eastern Faerghus. It stands tall above the territory’s main port, overlooking a gray sea. The wind gusts harsh against Ingrid’s face as she lands in an empty courtyard. Her skin is bitten raw. Though she is flanked by only a light drizzle, the raindrops strike like arrowtips on her descent.
Felix had requested her presence as immediate as was convenient. She dismounts at his home a mere two weeks after receiving his letter.
House Fraldarius is desolate. Ingrid has known the house in every stage of glory and dismay, but she’s never seen it empty. No servants greet her upon arrival. The garden is overgrown. Felix has been doing an admirable job maintaining order in Fhirdiad. It is clear, however, that he has not been keeping house at home.
Ingrid walks her pegasus to the front doors of the manor. She knocks upon it, and waits.
The month prior Fraldarius offered Galatea a loan with such generous terms it was nothing short of a gift. It arrived unprompted and on stationery so plain that, had it not carried the Fraldarius seal, Ingrid would’ve mistaken it for a greeting card.
Felix had promised her assistance one day. Felix had promised her assistance when they were bitter and thirteen and neither of them knew how to comfort the other, or how to speak aloud the great emptiness rotting both of them from the inside out. Felix had followed through.
“Ingrid,” Felix greets. The great entry door creaks open by his own hand. “It’s good to see you.”
“Felix,” Ingrid returns, “it’s been too long.” There’s a warmth, and then an impasse. Felix moves aside for her to enter. Ingrid glances at her pegasus.
“...Right,” Felix says. He offers a stiff nod to the horse. “Here. I’ll walk you to the stables.”
There is one stablehand in the stables, and one maid in the manor’s entryway. Felix rebuffs the woman’s insistence to assist and carries Ingrid’s belongings to her room himself.
They head deeper into the home. The halls are vacant, and Ingrid hears only the sound of her own footsteps echoing back at her. It’s apparent House Fraldarius is running on a skeleton staff. Ingrid passes portraits of former Fraldariuses, each one dusty in its frame. Their expressions are grave but their features still reverberate in Felix’s own.
“It’s not yours,” Felix states when they arrive at an unfamiliar guest room, and not the specific quarters reserved for Ingrid when she was younger. He sets her saddlebag on the bed. “The west hall is sectioned off for the season. I got tired of paying to heat it.”
“That’s fine, Felix,” Ingrid replies. A slight smile settles across her face. Felix notices, and furrows his brow in response.
“What.”
“I missed you,” she says, adding, “I did not know you were so lonesome when I received your invitation. I would’ve come sooner.”
Felix huffs. “I assure you the isolation is intentional.”
“I am assured,” Ingrid says, still smiling. “Come here, won’t you?” She steps forward and embraces him.
He pats at her back in minimum acknowledgment. She does not release him. He says, “dinner,” and, “it should be ready now,” and then, weakly, “yes. I missed you too.” He grants her a single, light squeeze and confesses, “...I’ve missed you quite a lot.”
Dinner is heavy. It is all red meat and muted conversations: of Felix’s loan, of Fhirdiad, and of their shared king. The food is presented by the same maid that nearly scuffled with Felix over the saddlebag, and though Ingrid cannot see the kitchen staff who prepared the meal she can imagine they are not numerous. Felix seems content, but thoughtful. He does not voice whatever haunts his mind.
They take after-dinner drinks in an entertainment parlor. Felix invites Ingrid and her goblet of wine inside first, and only once he follows after does he notice every couch in the room is draped in sheets.
“Ah,” he says.
Ingrid laughs. “Was this room too much to heat as well?”
He tugs a sheet off a chair and a cloud of dust puffs in his face. He coughs. Ingrid laughs again, and he turns to her with a sour expression.
“I don’t take guests often,” he says.
Ingrid waves him off. She seats herself on a deep, fur rug before the unlit hearth, stifling any need for a chair. “I’m pleased to be your exception.”
“You’re just pleased to watch me struggle playing host,” he mutters.
“Oh, no. I genuinely believe this is your best effort,” she replies. It’s more than a bit teasing.
Felix shows more precision in lighting the fire than he did in removing the dust covers. Ingrid stays seated before its warmth. It’s the coziest she’s felt since arriving in House Fraldarius. It would be cozier with Felix sitting beside her. Felix does not move to sit beside her.
Instead he stands before the hearth, broad but tense. The backlight chisels out the sharp lines of his silhouette.
“I have a gift for you,” he says.
“Hm?”
“A gift.”
Ingrid’s playful attitude diminishes somewhat, her smile shortening. “You’ve done right by Galatea,” she says. “I can’t accept anything more.”
“It’s not for Galatea,” Felix states.
“I didn’t bring you anything,” Ingrid replies.
“That’s fine. That’s ideal,” Felix says. It’s all Felix says before he exits the room. Ingrid is left to listen to the fire crackle in its grate. She sips her wine, then sets it aside, her interest in the drink fading with her patience. A storm has rolled in from the sea, and the pitter-patter of rain tapping against the windows is easier to hear here than at dinner. The house creaks.
When Felix returns, it is to station himself beside her. His gift carries no packaging, no ribbons or cards. He simply sits on the floor and hands her a circlet of silver.
Ingrid recognizes it as the ancestral Fraldarius crown, passed down from woman to woman through the generations of Felix’s family. It is unpolished but otherwise well-preserved. It’s odd in design. It circles around the back of the head and hooks behind the wearer’s ears — each earcuff splaying out in a bright, metallic wing. Ingrid traces the gilded feathers with a tinge of horror.
“This isn’t a gift,” Ingrid says.
“It is,” Felix replies. “I don’t want it.”
“This isn’t mine to take,” Ingrid says, “your daughter, or grandaughter—”
“I’m not having children.”
It’s quiet between them. Ingrid holds the crown with ginger fingertips.
“My father set it aside for you when my mother died,” Felix says. He nods to her, firm. “It’s yours.”
Ingrid holds the crown in her hands. It is not delicate. It’s forged and weighted, built for the battlefield. She thinks of her time fighting beside Felix. She thinks of the generous loan Galatea received from Fraldarius the month prior. She thinks of an unwed Fraldarius heir, urgently asking to see her. She thinks of her father, applying soft pressure to marry in the growing post-war quiet. His ever-present urgings cement the situation together in her head. The pieces are obvious, in the objective view outside a warm fire and oldest friend. It is so very obvious.
Fraldarius, offered to her in a crown.
She swallows. “Felix,” she says, “I’m not sure I... can accept this.”
“Well, I’m not keeping it,” Felix says.
“Even so,” she replies, choosing careful words, “...there are better wives than me.”
Felix’s reaction is of surprise instead of rejection. “Oh, this isn’t,” he says, too quickly. His expression shifts to gentle mortification. “Ingrid, I don’t—” He bites back his words. “This isn’t a marriage proposal.”
“Your assistance to Galatea does not go unappreciated,” Ingrid says, “but I understand if it is under the condition of—”
Felix looks frustrated with himself. “The loan has nothing to do with this. Don’t overthink it.”
“Don’t overthink it,” Ingrid parrots back. Ingrid’s cheeks puff, reddening. “You just offered me the Fraldarius crown!”
Felix is pressed. “It’s just something I dug up in my mother’s room. I’ve been clearing the place out. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Ingrid sets the circlet on her lap. “Why, then, have you invited me here?”
Felix’s words fail him as he searches for the proper sentiment. “I just wanted to see you,” he admits.
“See me?” Ingrid says, “See me, after offering your support to Galatea, after gifting me your mother’s crown.”
“I have been...” he starts, “lonely.”
“Lonely,” Ingrid repeats.
“Yes.”
The room falls silent. Felix wilts beneath Ingrid’s gaze.
“I want to apologize,” he says. “I know you don’t want to marry any more than I do.”
“I don’t want to get married off,” Ingrid says. “There’s a difference.”
“It’s all really none of my business.”
They both go quiet again. The fire crackles and pops in the hearth, and the storm rages outside.
Ingrid stares at the crown. She brushes another finger across its fine metalwork. “I’m sorry for assuming.” She sighs, slow and even. “My father has been... It’s been on my mind. I didn’t mean to project.”
“No,” Felix says. “No, this was tactless. I saw that and thought of you and — I think I was looking for an excuse. To see you. We’ve been busy.” Ingrid’s eyes do not lift from the crown. “It is yours,” he reiterates. “It’s always been yours.”
Ingrid lifts the crown. Her hair is still cropped short, and the silver band slips around the back of her head without protest. Each winged cuff settles over the hinge of her ear. She pulls back her fingertips — ready to catch if the circlet slips. It does not. It settles, heavy but pleasant. It holds firm. She cannot see the wings but she can feel their weight sprouting from either side of her head.
“Fraldarius was a pegasus knight, wasn’t she?” she notes.
Felix does not immediately respond. Felix stares at her, his eyes distant. He says, finally, “You would have been a worthy member of our family.”
Ingrid shrugs down at the compliment. It’s foreign in its candor, in its acknowledgement there was ever more than a single, lonesome Fraldarius living in this old house. “That would have been ideal,” she says. “I’m sorry it was undermined.”
Felix nods in agreement. “Don’t let your father give you trouble after the loan is finalized. I’ll write it into the terms if I have to.”
Ingrid purses her lips. “My father is looking out for me, Felix,” she says.
“Don’t let him,” Felix replies. “You didn’t win a war at Enbarr to be pushed around at home.”
“I think you once told me to find a husband,” Ingrid chides, “something about shielding me from a violent death, if I remember correctly? My father doesn’t feel much different.”
Felix scowls. “I’ll write it in. ‘Every time Ingrid is hassled about marriage I’ll subtract 100 bags of grain.’”
“That, like every one of my own pushbacks, only serves to sabotage Galatea.”
Felix closes his eyes and huffs. Not at her. At her situation, maybe. He says, almost offhand, “Fine. Then marry me.”
Ingrid snorts. “So now you do want to get married?”
“Sure,” he says, distracted, “if you’re tired of being confronted about it, sure.”
Felix’s mind is far away. Ingrid can see him rather deliberately avoid her stare. She can see the traces of authenticity in his composition. She realizes he is riddled with embarrassment, and flushed where his collar covers his neck. Ingrid states, “Felix.”
“—I just think it would solve a lot of problems,” he says, doubling down. “You’re strong and you’re steady and there’s not a man in Fódlan worth you. Fraldarius is yours should you want it.” He sucks in a thin breath through his teeth. “It’s always been yours.”
Ingrid stares ahead at a man so out of his depth it is comical. Her objective on the situation lifts outwards. Her view is no longer that of a flat, checkered plane with two duty-bound knights but a cube, still checkered, each angle and side pulsing with Felix’s conflicting energies. She declares, her voice edging on impatient, “This is your second proposal of the night.”
Felix falters. “That first one was — that wasn’t a proposal.”
Ingrid leans forward and into his space. His eyes go wide, their gaze that of a man anticipating a blade strike. His body falls perfectly still. She dips her head to the side, her lips nearing his and she sees it: the subtle, longing tilt towards her. It’s the barest hint but it’s everything he isn't saying, that he refuses to say. It’s everything she needs to confirm her suspicions.
Ingrid kisses him on the cheek.
Felix shudders out a breath that Ingrid thinks might be a masked, sheepish laugh. His head ducks back to scrutinize the fireplace. Ingrid lets him pull away.
She says, “If you feel that way, you’re allowed.”
“I have no interest in courting you,” he says. She knows he's lying.
“Felix,” Ingrid says. “It’s fair if you do.”
“It’s getting late. You should go to bed.”
“I’m not Glenn’s.”
When he looks back at her it is with rigid shoulders and a pinched brow. “Goddess, Ingrid,” he mutters.
“I’m not,” she states, in the casual, no-nonsense voice she would use to defend her preferences in food.
“Of course you aren’t,” he says, “I would never think that.”
“Good.” Ingrid nods at him. “Here.”
She extends a hand. He... hesitates, his own hand flexing with uncertainty before taking hers in its grasp. His face is perplexed, but determined. His shake is firm. He has no idea what he’s agreeing to, but he does so without question.
“If you’re going to do it—” She tugs his arm. He’s pulled, abrupt and jarring, near her. They settle their eyes upon one another, only a few inches apart.
She says, certain: “Court me proper.”