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Of course, the banquet was Claude’s idea. Of course, a confident, handsome noble would be the first to propose that in order to raise an otherwise flagging army’s morale, a feast would be the cure-all for general war-induced ennui and general gloom. And it seemed like a wonderful solution, other than the fact that Bernadetta von Varley, known wallflower and recluse and the best shot in the Ashen Demon’s army, hated banquets. Especially the socializing kind.
“Bernadetta!”
Scratch that. Especially the socializing kind when one must wear a long-skirted gown that hissed over the floor and ridiculous sleeves that made it hard for her to flutter her fingers in front of her face in dismay whenever someone with too loud of a voice caught her attention and sought to pull her from the comforting anonymity of the shadows.
“Bernadetta!”
Usually, in chivalric novels, the hailed maiden (always the protagonist, always serene in the flaring spotlight, always brave enough to go forth and mingle) would pivot on her perfect foot with a graceful air, eyes comically and sparklingly wide as her hair swished around her flawless face. Her dress would swirl on the marble just so, and everyone in the ballroom would murmur in awe at the handsome beauty standing in the marble archway of the entrance, wondering just who was that beautiful creature? How might one secure a dance with her?
Instead, the hailed maiden in question yelped, promptly turned and crashed into a pillar, and was left floundering before two far more star-like ladies descend upon her, linking their gorgeously plumed sleeves in hers.
“Finally, you are joining the excitement,” Petra exclaimed, guiding a rumpled and now appropriately ruffled maiden into the hall. “We were wondering where you were.”
With both of her elbows linked, Bernadetta couldn’t hide her face behind her fingers, so instead she settled for groaning as Dorothea, already smelling of faint cologne and golden ale, giggled and adjusted an errant lock of lavender hair behind Bernadetta’s ear. “I only came because I heard there was food…”
“A noble motivator, but we dressed you up for a reason.” The songstress slipped neatly out of their entwined loop and scrutinized her trembling friend with a critical eye. “We did wonderful, didn’t we, Petra? Mercedes’ makeup looks so good on you! You look like a completely different person!”
“Eugh,” Bernadetta said eloquently.
“Your hair is shiny, and your eyes are very bright,” Petra agreed, though she had bitten her lips into a frown as she carefully removed an errant piece of lace from Bernadetta’s sleeve and tucked it away. “But why all this…ribbon and frill? It is being too much for a monastery event.”
“Trust me, I know how to accentuate a woman’s most comely features. All that ribbon and frill is needed.” Dorothea preened as she admired her trembling piece of handiwork. “Although, we must work on your posture. One mustn’t slouch at a ball, Bernie.”
“I’m just not a…ball person!” Bernadetta squawked. “I’m shy and terribly pale and I’m going to trip over this stupid hem…and this makeup’s going fall off my face if I keep sweating!”
“You’ll forget all of that once you start dancing,” Petra assured her brightly. “Even some of these Fódlan dances can be filled with vigor and vim.”
“Those sound terrible,” Bernadetta whispered earnestly as some dancers whirled past them at a blistering speed. She was not a vigor and vim-ful person. Whatever that meant!
“Not unless you dance with someone you like,” Dorothea whispered teasingly, and Bernadetta’s ears whistled bright red. The songstress gripped her friend lightly by the shoulders and pivoted her to face the swath of brightly colored faces before them. “Well, do you see anyone you like, Bernadetta dear?”
Her voice swirled across Bernadetta’s cheek and like magic, Bernadetta followed that swirl of luminous teasing towards the crowd, where her eyes immediately fell upon a laughing, broad-shoulder man, toasting Claude at the head of the banqueting tables.
“To our Leader Man!” A very drunk Hilda shrieked at the top of her lungs as she swayed on an equally inebriated Caspar’s shoulders, much to some of the passing monks’ chagrin.
“Yeah, Claude’s the man!” Raphael roared, hoisting a flagon of golden ale into the air, and that was when Bernadetta realized with a jolt that some evil, villainous, terrible person had squeezed Raphael into a tight-fitting, buttoned suit that fell in damask folds to the floor. They had also encased his calves in brightly polished boots. His hair was swept to one side most dashingly, emphasizing his jawline made sharp from smiles. He even had gloves on. With gold buttons.
What was happening. How did that man become so…so elegant?! Raphael! Elegant! And so, so handsome!
“I think she has found him,” Petra says over Bernadetta’s head, with a smirk in her voice like a cat who has gotten the cream. “We must escort her across the room right away.”
Plunged back into reality, Bernadetta went shock white and began flailing even as the two girls began looping their arms back into hers. “No no no no wait—!”
“Petra!” Ashe’s sweet voice cut across her sudden panic and the trio stilled, Petra lighting up with a smile that stretched all the way across her painted features when she turned and saw the archer approaching, cups in hand. Was that what just happened to me when I saw Raphael? Bernadetta wondered.
“Are you free?” Ashe held out a cup of ale to Petra with a shy smile. “I wanted to steal you away for a moment.”
“Of course.” Petra patted Bernadetta briskly as if to say, “I’ve done my part,” and slipped away with Ashe, their laughs twining like cats slinking away to make love and mischief together.
Bernadetta only realized that she had groaned aloud when Dorothea’s chiding fell across her ear. “You mustn’t fault her, dear. They are freshly in love, and it’s rare to find these moments in between battles.”
The songstress sighs, her own bright mood dimming as she looks longingly across the hall. “You and I know that better than anyone.”
Bernadetta, stung on her friend’s behalf, opened her mouth to vehemently protest.
That was then Raphael looked up and saw her. With her mouth open like a gaping fish.
Their gazes locked across the hall, and it was like the horrendous noise and the heated discomfort of pushing and shoving fell away. The screeching violins faded into a murky, fathomless noise as Bernadetta’s breath caught in her chest and her hands rose to unconsciously clasp her chest. Raphael’s face was a little shocked, as if he was surprised to see her, but it quickly smoothed itself into a broad grin, and he waved at her over the crowd, mouthing her name:
Bern-a-dett-a!
How different that name sounded, coming from him! Every hum-drum syllable was made beautiful in his mouth. Bernadetta swallowed past the lump in her throat, mumbled some nonsense for an excuse to an amused Dorothea, carefully picked up her skirts bravely and crossed the room to Raphael, who met her halfway with a cheery grin and a bit of a bashful air.
“I was starting to think we were going to miss ya, Bernadetta! I’m real happy you could make it.” Raphael’s voice boomed through her in the nicest way possible, and Bernadetta beamed up at him.
He guided her excitedly to the impressively huge fare laid out on one of the biggest tables they dragged out from the dining hall. “Look, they have the best feast prepared and everything. I have no idea how Claude managed to find so much victuals during war, but oh, man!
“Look what I got for ya. If Lysithea found up I was hiding this from her—oof, would I catch it.” He held out something he’d been hiding behind his broad back, and Bernadetta’s jaw dropped at the sight of the dainty pastry quivering on the plate he extended to her. “It’s a real—”
“A real fruitcake!” Bernadetta gasped. The unmistakable scent of fruit syrup and vanilla—real vanilla!— rose up to her nostrils, and she took a delighted sniff. She looked up with incredulity at Raphael, who was grinning ear to ear. “How—? How!”
“I have no clue!” Raphael stage-whispered. Seiros, they were cackling like they were students together again, their foreheads knocking together as they carefully split the fruitcake in half with a fork. “You have to ask Ignatz and Ingrid. They rode out all over creation to fetch some of these!”
“You really saved this…for me?” Bernadetta asked reverently, and Raphael’s ramblings tapered off as he rubbed the back of his neck, fumbling with his fancy starched collar and looking at her in a way that made her feel all fluttery and floaty.
“Well, yeah. Of course! You were saying the other day how much you missed fruitcakes, and I…well… ” Raphael tilted his chin towards the plate, and then her. Oh, he was serious. His voice was so deep when he was serious. Oh, Seiros be still!
“Here, you have the first bite,” Raphael coughed, pushing the fork over to her, and Bernadetta shook her head vehemently. “No, no, you first.”
“C’mon, I saved this for you all night. You taste it first,” Raphael urged, and Bernadetta, beet-red but giddy as a schoolgirl, obligingly took up the fork and slipped the cool morsel into her mouth.
Oh, but it was divine! Such light, airy dough! And the acidic burst of strawberries cutting across her tongue in an explosion of tart sweetness! Bernadetta had to swallow the moan of pure pleasure that had threatened to bubble up from her mouth, but the sheer delight must’ve still shone across her face, because Raphael’s anxious air turned into one of relief, then pure joy.
“You like it?”
“Of course I do!” Bernadetta exclaimed. “It’s so fluffy, and so sweet! Even the prewar cakes didn’t taste nearly as good!”
“It’s because we’ve gone so long without them, our stomachs appreciate them better,” Raphael declared, slapping his generous sides joyously. Bernadetta’s heart fluttered at the reminder of just how large he loomed over her, and what a figure he cut in his beautiful coat. Yet she no longer felt that old fear of him doing her harm, because all she could imagine was how his arm would fit around her, and what it would be like to touch him in return…
“Hey, Bernadetta, are you okay?” Raphael leaned down to meet her gaze with concern. “You’re really red!”
“Afffffork!” Bernadetta screeched, breaking away from the spell that had bound her to the floor with her eyes locked into Raphael’s. “Fork! Fork, I’m going to get you a fork so you can have some cake too!”
“Oh, that’s really okay—” Raphael began, but Bernadetta zoomed off towards the front of the tables in a flurry of haste and skirts, nearly tripping over herself several times in the process, but she scarcely noticed as she furious berated herself all the way to the end of the hall.
“Stupid, stupid Bernie! What were you thinking, ogling him like that?! He saved you cake, and you run off with it! You’re no good, no good—just because he’s all dressed up you get into a titzy? Where are your manners? Ugh!”
“Hey, Bernadetta—” Caspar greeted through a mouthful of Hilda as Bernadetta zipped grimly by, ignoring the overly-friendly couple in her mission to secure a fork to redeem her indignity.
“It’s going to be fine,” she reassured herself desperately, quickly sloughing off another portion of cake to even out the layers before presenting it back to Raphael later. “We’ll give him a fork, and we can eat from the same plate, and maybe we can even maybe d—d—dance—!”
She drew in a breath and hunched over her plate of cake. “Yeah! A dance! That would be easy, right? With Raphael…you like Raphael, don’t you, Bernie? All that vigor and vim stuff…we can do that with Raphael!
“Okay! Let’s head back!” Bernadetta flung back her hair in determination, puffed out her chest, and began marching back towards the dessert tables with two forks and cake in hand, eager to see Raphael and hear his smile and ask him maybe to—
“…you won’t begrudge me a dance, handsome sir?”
A sudden shudder shook the strings. The lively jig was suddenly usurped by a slithering waltz, sinuous and sweet. And Bernadetta watched with absolutely horror as a beautiful, wiry woman in a dark and luscious dress, like melted chocolate, placed a coy hand upon Raphael’s bicep. Even at this distance, Bernadetta could hear the purr of the woman’s voice like burrs sticking into her dress collar.
“I’ve always wanted to dance with a war hero like yourself,” the woman crooned.
The words struck a dissonant, horrific chord within Bernadettta. This can’t be happening. Surely he won’t say yes to her. Surely he will say yes to her. That woman was so beautiful, like radiant darkness personified, and oh, noooooo, Raphael was looking down at her with a surprised look, and Bernadetta wanted to run out of the hall back into her room and dig a hole under the flagstones and bury her head in there forever—
Before she would do something like make a scene and embarrass herself in front of the entire monastery, she raced outside, shoving her way past a surprised Dorothea (“Bernie! Where on earth are you rushing off to?!), past Petra and Ashe startled out of an adoring embrace in the shadows of the bowing trees (“Bernadetta? Where are you going? What is wrong?”), before she found herself on the cold-limned bridge overlooking the cliffs that held the monastery on its shoulders.
Hot breath left Bernadetta’s mouth in agonized puffs. She had forgotten that it was nearly winter solstice, and she shuddered and set the sadly neglected cake onto the stone wall, rubbing her arms vigorously to stave off the goosebumps and to keep the tears from pickling her eyelashes.
“Stupid, stupid Bernie,” she muttered to herself, taking her fork and viciously stabbing it into the delicate fluffy cake. “Of course he can’t possibly like you. You’re frightened of everything that moves, and you’ve got on this stupid dress! Why—why would you think that talking to him and, and, and playing the trumpet for him would make him think you’re good enough for him?”
She shoved a forkful of cake into her mouth and despite her sour mood, the sweet airiness of the frosting and fruit seeped into her soul. She chewed despondently, thinking back to how Raphael had held the cake out to her with a wide smile, his hands dwarfing hers as he admitted quietly that he had saved this cake especially for her, when sugar was scarce and fresh fruit was a benediction.
And the cake wasn’t the most of what he had been doing for her lately. Shielding her from the worst of the charges on the front line, carrying her all the way back to the healer’s tent when Nosferatu seized her limbs in a painful contortion of agony…she still remembered when she woke up and found him asleep by her cot, as it rained outside and mud crusted his boots. He looked so tired.
And what did she do for him? Made him a couple packed lunches that contained cooking subpar compared to Ashe’s wizardry or Mercedes’ serenity? Sewed him a capelet that barely fit because she could barely pluck up the courage to ask if she could measure his shoulders?
The woman’s words rang in Bernadetta’s head, like the dolorous tones of a church bell. He was a war hero. And meanwhile, frightened little Bernie…she…she really didn’t deserve him, when it took all of her courage just to show up tonight.
“This is terrible,” Bernadetta muttered. Her stupid dress with its thin gauzy strips of lavender fabric that floated just so in the win did nothing to buoy her spirits or to keep out the chill. She chewed cake, tried not to cry, and thought about nothing but Raphael, Raphael, Raphael, dancing with some black-swathed woman, spinning around on the floor to the rhythm of the strings—
“Bernadetta! Bernadetta?”
Ha. She was hearing things. That sounded just like Raphael.
“Hey, Bernadetta! You look real cold, do you want to go back inside?”
And suddenly, there was inexplicably, miraculously, a Raphael was standing there before her, looking harried and put out to the point where he was tugging at his collar and rolling his sleeves up to his forearms (oh, Seiros).
“R-Raphael?” Bernadetta dashed at her eyes and frantically tried to look like she wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown. “Wha—I thought you were dancing inside?”
“Well, I was, but I wasn’t any good at the fancy waltz she was asking me to do. Plus, it got real hot in there. But it’s chilly out here!” Raphael shucked off his coat in a quick motion, shaking it out and leaning forward to drape it around her shoulders. “You look real cold, here! This’ll keep you warm.”
Bernadetta stared at him in awe, her tongue tasting of fresh fruit and hope. “I—I didn’t—thank you, Raphael. You really don’t have to come out here because you were feeling sorry for me.”
“What? I don’t feel sorry for you.” Raphael looked put out, as if he was surprised that someone would say that about her. “Why, I was looking for you all night because I was hoping to dance with you anyway.”
What.
He rubbed at his neck bashfully. “I mean, if you want to? I know this is kinda out of nowhere but I was really just working up my guts to ask you—”
What?
“Because you’re not just anybody, you know, at least to me? Augh, this is coming out all wrong, but point is!” Raphael cleared his throat, looking at her with what appeared almost to be…dare she call it shyness? Why would burly Raphael, who had once punched an armored knight clear across a hallway, be shy, around her, no less?
“Well, it’s obvious,” Raphael said, and to her dismay Bernadetta realized that she had asked the question aloud. “You’re nice. And I like you lots. I really do.”
“You…” Bernadetta repeated dumbly, “you what?”
“I—” Raphael repeated slowly, patiently, kindly, “like—” he smoothed his hand across his face and glanced at her again, like she was something shiny and precious, “—you.”
In chivalric novels, this was when the maiden would swoon, and the dashing stranger would swoop down and catch her in his arms. Yes, Bernadetta felt a little (a lot!) like fainting, but she was much closer to the edge of the bridge so if she were to faint, she would most likely plunge to her death upon the rocks.
So instead, she elected to take a step closer, and another, and another step, until she was standing close enough to Raphael to feel the heat emanate from his body. He held out a hand, hesitantly, and she reached out, tentatively, her hand shaking ever so slightly, before he took her hand and she took his and his large hand settled on her tiny waist.
Somewhere behind them, a pair of doors whooshed open, and a swell of golden music poured out. The chill of the frosted air all but dissipated in the heat of the sudden wonder that swelled in her chest like ale, like surrealism, like the benediction of hard-won delights. And, like a miracle, they began to dance on the bridge. Not a stuffy waltz that barely allowed for any movement, but a real, jolly dance, involving a lot of steps and twirls and—what was it that Petra called it? Vigor and vim?
“I like you, too,” Bernadetta mumbled, looking anywhere but at him, afraid that her blushing would send up a signal fire to alert Those Who Slither in the Dark to their location. “And you look very nice in your suit. And I wanted to eat the cake with you and make you more lunches when we’re not marching off to war again.”
Raphael swooped her close, his deep chuckle thrumming through her body, every vibration and timbre of his voice seared into her nerves and veins. “I wanted to tell you that you were the prettiest girl here. I clean swallowed my tongue when I first saw you come in. Leonie could back me up on that.”
“You’re teasing me,” Bernadetta gasped, delighted.
“I meant it!” Raphael insisted, and finally, finally the laughter broke free. He spun her under his arm, her squealing all the way, and as Raphael held her close, laughing a real belly laugh and regarding her with a fondness that couldn’t be faked, Bernadetta finally understood what Dorothea had meant, about finding hard-won love in between violence.
.
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fin