Chapter Text
“Ugh, men, am I right?” Hilda sighed dramatically, flipping one of her long pigtails over her shoulder. “They never seem to get the hint.”
“Exactly,” Dorothea said, waving her hands in the air for emphasis, an old opera habit that was hard to break even in the more restrained environment of Garreg Mach Monastery. “I knew you would understand.”
“This knight asked you to the ball not one time, but three?” a bright, heavily Brigid-accented voice chimed in. Dorothea’s best friend Petra looked over from her seat next to Dorothea and shook her head in amazement, her long braid dancing behind her. “And he was still telling you he'd meet you there after you turned him down?” Dorothea nodded with a grimace.
“I wish I could ask my brother to come beat him up for you!” Hilda cried, pressing her hands together delicately. Dorothea raised an eyebrow. Despite her dainty exterior, Dorothea had seen Hilda train with a battleaxe before and knew the girl could hold her own against any knight.
“I don’t think you’d need to call in your brother for that,” Dorothea chuckled, “But let’s leave the petty fights for guys like Caspar —“ Dorothea looked across the dining hall to their classmate in question, who was attacking his meal with enthusiasm unbefitting of his noble status. “I have a better idea.”
“Oh? Tell me more.” Hilda leaned in attentively. Dorothea smiled. Like Caspar, Hilda was one of the few nobles that Dorothea found refreshingly warm and unpretentious, even if Hilda did have more prissy mannerisms than her more rough-and-tumble counterpart. She was glad Petra had convinced her, Caspar, and their other good friend Linhardt, to switch to the Golden Deer house this year. Their original Black Eagle house was too serious and uptight, and not a welcoming place for foreigners like Petra or commoners like Dorothea. Ever since Petra had bonded with the Golden Deer’s charming house leader, Claude — over climbing trees of all things! — Petra felt a kinship with him that was different than the pitying or fearful respect she earned from the rest of the Fódlan nobles. Claude treated Petra like an equal, not just an outsider, and was one of the few people besides Dorothea who seemed genuinely curious about Brigid. Of course, the curiosity was mutual. Neither Petra nor Dorothea knew much about the Leicester Alliance, but even they could see Claude was different than the other Leicester nobles and wondered if he was somewhat of an outsider himself. However, true to his reputation as a schemer, Claude kept his own cards close to his chest despite his outgoing exterior. This, coupled with the fact that he was undeniably handsome — warm brown skin, sleepy green eyes, thick expressive brows, that wavy dark hair with the cheeky little braid on one side — made him the perfect subject for Petra, Dorothea, and Hilda’s many sleepover gossip sessions. It was so easy pining over boys and indulging in lighthearted one-sided crushes. The hard part was when Dorothea ended up pining over girls instead.
Dorothea had always had crushes on women and men, from her days living on the streets of Enbarr, to her years as a diva at the Mittlefrank Opera Company, and now as a student at Garreg Mach. The only problem was that, while relationships of the same gender were accepted among performers and commoners, they were considered rather improper for noble society, especially those who cared about producing crest-bearing offspring for their house. Dorothea knew she was already gambling trying to secure a future with a rich husband as a landless, crestless, nearly penniless commoner. Marrying a noblewoman instead would be completely out of the question. Dorothea knew she had to make the most of her time at the academy. Her looks and vocal talents wouldn’t last forever, and neither would the favor she curried with the sleazy rich men from the opera house who funded her education. She might get somewhere with the magic skills she was learning, but compared to some of her classmates who had the power of crests on their side, she wasn’t sure even those skills were good enough to guarantee success. Marrying well would be the safest option. She just wished that on every date with every insufferable knight her mind wouldn’t wander so often to, well, other thoughts. Petra’s caramel-brown eyes looking up at her through long lashes, her signature violet tattoo curving along her tanned cheekbone. The feeling of Ingrid’s thick blonde hair beneath Dorothea’s fingers. The soft rhythm of Hilda’s hips swaying as she walked. Leonie’s muscular shoulders, bronze and freckled —
Dorothea shook her head, trying to snap herself out of this useless train of thought. She adjusted her black cap over her wavy brown hair, trying to regain composure. What was she talking about? Oh right, the ball.
“I think the best revenge for a jealous knight is, well… jealousy,” Dorothea said to Hilda and Petra. “If I go to the ball with another handsome man, that will put him off my trail for good!”
“I don’t have understanding,” Petra said slowly, “You get rid of one man, but then you have another? It seems like much headache. Why not go with a woman instead?” Dorothea flushed at the suggestion.
“Well…you see…in Fódlan it’s not really proper for women to court each other,” Dorothea stammered, trying to avert her eyes from Petra’s intense gaze. “Among nobles, I mean. And this knight is from the Kingdom too, which means he’s even worse than the rest of them. The only date he’d admit defeat to would have to be a man… and probably a nobleman. But if I find a classmate who would be willing to go as my date, as a friend…”
“Like Caspar?” Hilda suggested. The short, energetic boy was an obvious choice. He and Dorothea were already good friends, and Dorothea had trouble thinking of him as anything other than a little brother. As for Caspar himself, Dorothea had never seen him express any interest in women at all, only food, training, and trying to make friends with the monastery cats if his loud voice didn’t scare them off. Hmm… he is rather loud. As much as Dorothea trusted Caspar not to make things romantic, she wasn’t sure she trusted him to stick to a plan that was more subtle than the brash way he normally charged into mock battles. That left her with—
“Linhardt!” Petra called, “Come sit with us!” The tall, lanky boy snapped his head up suddenly, as if emerging from a daydream, the curtain of dark hair that had escaped the ribbon of his ponytail fanning around his face as he turned towards them.
“Oh hello, Petra,” Linhardt said, his voice low and languid, “I appreciate the offer. However, I have an important lunch date with this exciting new book on Crestology Professor Hanneman lent me…” He gestured with his arms, where his lunch tray was balanced on top of a heavy book.
“Nerd!” Hilda teased. “Aren’t your friends more important than studying?”
“This isn’t studying, this is my personal research,” Linhardt corrected huffily. “I would never put this much effort into a class project.”
“What about a secret mission?” Dorothea suggested. She gave Linhardt her best winning smile, even though she had a feeling the boy was immune to this type of charm. They had never discussed it, but judging by how easily Linhardt was swayed to join Golden Deer once he saw Claude and the handsome young Professor Byleth leading the classes, Dorothea had a suspicion that she wasn’t the only one of her classmates with an inclination for same-gender attraction.
“Secret mission?” Linhardt asked, his interest piqued.
“Yes,” Dorothea said, smiling. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
————
Caspar had ripped his shirt, again. It wasn’t his fault his training made his muscles grow too fast for his clothes! Eating with Raphael probably didn’t help either, although Caspar was disappointed that trying to keep pace with the burly brawler only seemed to make his physique broader instead of taller. Why couldn’t he just grow, already? Caspar was sick of being the short one among his male classmates, especially since he was already at a disadvantage being a second son, born without a crest. Joining the Golden Deer house had helped a little with his imposter syndrome. There, he was classmates with many commoners, including Raphael and Raphael’s childhood friend Ignatz, who was also pretty short and scrawny, though still taller than Caspar. His own childhood friend, Linhardt, had switched houses with him, along with their school friends Dorothea and Petra, and it was nice to keep the companionship of his early days at the academy without the intimidating presence of Edelgard and Hubert breathing down their necks. Yes, Caspar felt good about the change, and about the new friendships they were growing. Speaking of growing…
“Hello Caspar, another shirt met its match?” a friendly voice called out to him. Caspar knew the tailor at the Garreg Mach marketplace on a first-name basis by this point, and he had her to thank for the fact he had any uniforms left at all.
“You know it,” Caspar replied, grinning. “Trained too hard again!”
“You always do,” she laughed, “Looks like you’ve been training hard in the dining hall too.” Caspar flushed. He knew his recent bulkiness was not all muscle, but he kind of liked how solid he felt, like he was a real man, not just a scrawny little boy. Confidently, he unbuttoned his ripped shirt and handed it to the tailor. It was only then that he realized he didn’t bring another shirt to change into. Oh well, there’s no stuffy nobles here to yell at me being improper, he thought, shrugging. The air was chilly, but refreshing after a hard day of sweaty training. Oh no, he had forgotten to wash the shirt as well! The tailor looked amused, but not phased. Clearly this type of behavior was all in a day’s work for her, and she looked up at Caspar expectantly for the advance payment. Caspar deposited the gold in her hand quickly and headed back in the direction of the monastery, only to be stopped by the sound of a very familiar voice.
“Nice shirt, Caspar.” Caspar turned and saw Linhardt standing next to him, an amused smile on his thin lips.
“I…uh… needed to go to the tailor,” Caspar muttered. “What are you doing here?” It was strange to see the far more introverted Linhardt out and about in the daylight at all, much less in a crowded marketplace like this.
“Same reason as you, the tailor,” the taller boy replied, adding with a smirk. “Though I hope to come out of the visit with more clothes than I came with.”
“Why would you need to go to the tailor?” Caspar asked. Linhardt seemed to purposefully commission his uniform to be as baggy as possible to avoid any unnecessary trips to the tailor… or perhaps to be more comfortable for taking naps in, one or the other. “You’ve not gotten even taller, have you?”
“What would you do if I have?” Linhardt laughed, leaning over Caspar to emphasize the height difference. His dark blue eyes stared playfully at Caspar from above, and Caspar felt a strange tight feeling in his chest. Had Linhardt’s eyelashes always been this long? Had his jaw always been so…defined? Just when the feeling in his chest seemed to get worse, Linhardt backed away again. Caspar shook his head. Maybe being shirtless in the cold was causing this strange reaction.
“Anyway,” Linhardt continued, as if nothing had happened, “I believe you’ve forgotten about the most important event of the month?” Caspar stared blankly at him. “The ball? The White Heron Cup?”
“Ohhhh…” Caspar had indeed forgotten about it. What use was a ball? Of course he was going to go — he wouldn’t miss out on a chance for free food, drinks, and entertainment. But it wasn’t exactly his cup of tea…or Linhardt’s, for that matter. “Why are you of all people excited about a ball?”
“Right, it’s out of character, I know,” Linhardt chuckled knowingly in his soft, low voice. Caspar felt the tightness in his chest return. “But I have a date! Our lovely Dorothea has asked me to accompany her…and how could I refuse?”
Caspar’s mouth fell open.
“Of course, well, she insisted that I look my best for the occasion,” Linhardt continued, “So, against my better interests, here I am.” He gestured loosely with his long arms and gave Caspar a tired grin. Caspar’s mouth suddenly felt dry, and there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. What was wrong with him? Dorothea and Linhardt were some of his best friends, why was he not happy they were together?
“Why…why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Caspar finally said, once words came to him.
“It’s because it’s just a…” Linhardt paused, opening his mouth, and then closing it again decisively. His eyebrows arched into a well-practiced sarcastic expression. “Why do you care? Are you jealous?”
Oh. Ohhh. So that was what that feeling was. Jealousy. Caspar was jealous because Linhardt had a date to the ball, and he didn’t. That was the reason, right? It had to be.
“Ah, nice seeing you, Linny! I gotta go back and get changed before I get too cold out here!” Caspar said quickly, waving goodbye to his friend. He took off running through the marketplace, his heart pounding. If he was jealous because he didn’t have a date, the solution would be to get a date, wouldn’t it? That was something he could do.
————
Linhardt watched his shirtless friend run away from the marketplace, a bemused smile on his lips. Then, as he continued watching Caspar run, another feeling took over. His childhood friend was really grown up now, wasn’t he? He hadn’t seen Caspar shirtless since the summer before, when they were fishing at the lake, and the short, scrawny boy of that summer was now barrel-chested and muscular, with scruffy hair and a little extra softness on his tanned stomach, and a round little butt — not that Linhardt was looking at it while he was running away! Linhardt reached down to adjust the book he was carrying in his satchel, hoping his long hair would hide the redness on his face.
Linhardt knew he was attracted to men ever since he stumbled on a book of Almyran erotic poetry hidden away in his father’s library when he was 12 years old. Linhardt had been a frail and sickly kid, ironically attributed to his healing crest of Saint Cethleann, and he spent more time exploring the library or napping than playing with other boys his age. He knew he was different than these boys in other ways besides his crest or his poor health, but he didn’t know how until the day he discovered the secret panel in the bookcase and the scandalous book hidden inside. Looking at the stylized nude illustrations, Linhardt realized that he had no interest in the curvaceous, bare-breasted women that were supposed to be the focal point of the artwork, but instead on the muscular male warriors who were their lovers. He also noticed, with quite some intrigue, that in Almyra things must be different than Fódlan, because in amongst the poems about male and female lovers, there were also nearly an equal amount of poems featuring women loving other women, or men loving men. These last poems, the ones with men, were the reason Linhardt snuck into the library night after night, when he knew his family was asleep, to stare at the pages of the book in utter fascination. That had been the beginning of his life as a night owl, he supposed. In recent years he had mostly replaced the subject of his late-night research with the mysteries of Crestology, but his original passion hadn’t disappeared, even if he would have liked it to.
Linhardt had, very inconveniently, been born as the only child, and therefore sole heir, to House Hevring, one of the most influential noble families in the Adrestian Empire. To make things worse, not only was he the only heir but also one born with a crest, which was, according to his father, his duty to pass on to the next generation. Marriage with a suitable, crest-bearing noblewoman was the only option for him, or else risk permanent shame and dishonor. Linhardt wasn’t sure which was worse. He was more than a little jaded with the system of nobility in Fódlan, especially after becoming friends with Dorothea and seeing how little regard for commoners most nobles actually had. However, his wealth and status allowed him to study crests, and therefore get closer to potentially unravelling the entire system from its core. If he could figure out why crests existed — or better yet, figure out how to remove them or transfer them from person to person — it would undermine the entire flimsy pretext noble families used to justify having power over others. Linhardt wouldn’t have minded seeing all the noble lines and crests die out, like his was undoubtedly going to unless his attempts at meeting crest-bearing noblewomen miraculously ended with him being more fascinated with their beauty instead of just their crests and personalities. If he had his way, he would rather just leave it all behind and travel the world — maybe go around as a traveling healer, or fisherman, anything but an imperial minister. The only thing stopping him was Caspar.
Caspar had been Linhardt’s first real friend. His father, like Linhardt’s father, was a minister for the Adrestian Empire, so the boys had known each other from a young age. Caspar was the very opposite of Linhardt — boisterous and full of energy, always getting into some fight or scrape, hardly ever sitting still. Linhardt fully expected Caspar to lose interest in him the way the other boys his age did when they found out he had little physical stamina and preferred reading to play-fighting. But Caspar always stayed. When Linhardt was tired and needed a nap, Caspar would pretend he was a knight and Linhardt was the sleeping princess he had to protect. When Caspar pulled out his wooden sword and pretended to be the hero Catherine wielding Thunderbrand, Linhardt pretended he was Lady Rhea, giving strategic advice from his perch in a nearby tree. Linhardt remembered his father giving him a short, underhanded lecture about how it was not exactly proper for young noblemen to pretend to be women, even if they were heroes. There was a similar, even sterner lecture, after the time he walked in on the two boys cuddled up in Linhardt’s bed during a lightning storm. Caspar was scared of lightning, and Linhardt was only trying to comfort him, but Linhardt’s father wouldn’t listen. He and Caspar’s father had a falling out shortly after that, and Linhardt saw Caspar less and less frequently as he entered his teen years.
That is, until they entered the academy together. Reuniting with his childhood best friend felt like a missing piece restored, and the two hit it off as if they had never spent any time apart. However, recently, things had shifted. The two boys had grown, and were quickly becoming men. Caspar was becoming the perfect image of a warrior, albeit still a rather short one. And Linhardt, well… Linhardt was discovering that he had quite an interest in short, beefy men. But there was no way the feeling could be mutual. Caspar was a typical manly man, Linhardt was decidedly not. Caspar was probably going to fall in love with some pretty feminine girl like Hilda, and Linhardt would have to settle with being his best friend. That was fine, right?
“Are you going to buy something, or are you going to just stand there staring off in the distance?” the tailor barked suddenly. Linhardt jumped and clutched his hands to his chest.
“Sorry,” Linhardt muttered, collecting himself. “I’d like to be fitted for a new suit, for the White Heron Ball. Black is fine, or something that would match…” Linhardt fished around in his bag and pulled out a wine-colored fabric scrap, taken from the same cloth Dorothea had used to make her dress. “…this.”
“Hey, Linhardt!” a friendly, almost overly-casual voice called out. Linhardt turned and saw his new house leader, Claude, grinning down at him from his perch on one of the low walls of the marketplace. Goddess, why do all the attractive men have to be out here today while I’m running errands! Linhardt thought, annoyed. It’s so distracting! Claude nimbly jumped down from the wall, the small braid on the side of his head bouncing jauntily as he sidled up to Linhardt at the tailor’s booth. Claude’s keen eyes immediately went to the scrap of cloth, and he raised an eyebrow.
“Fabric from a dress?” Claude observed, “Does this mean you have a date to the ball? Oh my, who’s the lucky lady?”
“Dorothea,” Linhardt said casually, hoping his neutral tone would discourage any further questions. He only agreed to Dorothea’s scheme because he knew he would be forced to attend the ball in some way or another, and embarrassing a pompous Kingdom knight would probably be the most fun way to do it. He hadn’t anticipated on the fact that everyone else would naturally react to a bookish, apathetic, effeminate man scoring a date with arguably the most attractive woman at the academy. Of course, there were the matters of social status, and though Linhardt himself didn’t care for such things, he knew other people did, which only made the situation more scandalous and intriguing. The heir of Hevring, going to a ball with a commoner, and an opera singer no less! Well, if there was going to be gossip about him, Linhardt would rather it be this than the truth. Linhardt paid the tailor after she took his measurements and, seeing that Claude had still not left him alone, followed the other boy to the outskirts of the marketplace.
“Dorothea Arnault? Why, I didn’t think you were the type!” Claude replied, a wide smile spreading across his face.
“What type?” Linhardt asked, his eyes narrowing a bit.
“Oh you know who Dorothea tends to date. The kind of guys who are only into women for their beauty. Or, well…the kind of guys who are into women.” Claude looked up at Linhardt with a questioning look in his green eyes. Linhardt swallowed hard but said nothing. “Then again, how would I know what other men like. I mean, there’s Lorenz…”
“I absolutely do not believe Lorenz is actually interested in women,” Linhardt interjected.
“Oh thank goddess, you too? I don’t want to make stereotypes because I know Leicester nobles have a fondness for…ah…intriguing hairstyles? But I swear that man is so repressed, he has more passion for the tea he drinks than these women he’s incessantly trying to court.”
Linhardt and Claude both laughed at this. Claude’s bronze cheeks dimpled when he smiled, and it only made him all the more attractive, but Linhardt found that he wasn’t feeling the same fluttery attraction as before, but rather a sense of camaraderie and trust.
“From what I know of nobles,” Linhardt began cautiously, “Lorenz has been told from an early age that his goal in life is to marry a woman of equally high status and have lots of crest-babies. If he sees this as his duty…well, it could be easy to overlook his own feelings. Marriages of convenience happen all the time in Fódlan, it’s not like, say, Almyra, where it’s encouraged to marry for love above all else.” Linhardt studied Claude’s face and watched his thick eyebrows raise slightly at the mention of the other country’s name. Linhardt had another secret, one he hadn’t told to any of his friends and classmates. He knew Claude’s true identity — not just the son of a Leicester noblewoman from the Reigan line, but also the son of the Almyran king. Linhardt understood why Claude wanted to keep his lineage secret. People of Fódlan were, to put it bluntly, prejudiced against Almyran people, and from what Linhardt had read, people in Almyra also thought poorly of people from Fódlan. Linhardt didn’t know the full extent of Claude’s reasons for attending the academy and claiming his Fódlan heritage as heir to the Alliance, but he had a feeling it involved building a cultural bridge between the two countries and putting an end to some of the corruption and prejudice in both places.
Either way, this knowledge put Linhardt in an interesting position, especially because of how he found it out. All his years of, ah…studying the erotic Almyran poetry in his father’s library had made him more attuned to the intricacies of Almyran culture, as well as proficient at the written language. Linhardt doubted that his father, or whoever had originally hidden the book in the library, paid any attention to anything besides its portrayals of nude women, but Linhardt had. He knew men had one ear pierced with a single gold earring when they came of age, that braided hair was equally common for women and men, that the clothes of Fódlan were considered too tight and restrictive compared to the baggier clothes of Almyra. What Linhardt hypothesized from observation, he confirmed once he discovered the secret underground library that held all the books the Church of Seiros had deemed unfit for public consumption. Of course many Almyran texts were in that number, and it only took cross-checking a few records to confirm his suspicions that an Alliance noblewoman did indeed run off with the king of Almyra and had a son that would currently be one year older than Linhardt.
“So, what you’re saying is that Lorenz is in the same position as you are,” Claude said, thoughtfully, “Except you are…more aware of it.”
“Well, and I care less about a ‘noble’s duty’ or whatever rubbish he goes on about,” Linhardt sighed, doing a rather uncanny impression of Lorenz’s pretentious tone that made them both laugh. “But yes.” He looked at his hands, suddenly shy. He had never admitted the truth about his sexuality to anyone. He had a feeling Dorothea knew — she had just come from the opera, after all. And why else would she have asked him of all people to be her fake date for the ball? But he had never admitted to anyone else, directly, that he liked men — especially not a very attractive man that happened to be his house leader.
“I see,” Claude said. His voice was deep and genuine, no longer the joking tone that he normally used around his fellow classmates. “That would be hard, wouldn’t it. To feel like you either have to live a lie, or give up everything you have to be happy.”
“I feel like you of all people might have some kind of understanding of that,” Linhardt said, giving Claude a soft smile. Claude nodded, his eyes knowing and a little sad. They stood there together for a little while, the cold wind ruffling their clothes and providing welcome noise in the silence.
“Well, there it is. A secret for a secret,” Linhardt said finally. “I know yours, and you know mine.” Claude nodded seriously. The last time he tried to pry a secret from Linhardt, Linhardt had blindsided Claude with his knowledge of Claude’s own secret, and very shortly afterwards Linhardt found himself joining Petra and his friends in the Golden Deer house. Linhardt had sworn to utmost secrecy, of course, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit smug that he had out-sleuthed “the master tactician”.
“Well, I would hope that both of us have more than one secret,” Claude replied, the playful, teasing tone returning to his voice.
“What, are you saying you like men too?” Linhardt asked in a low voice, grinning. Claude’s eyes widened. “I heard it’s common in…some specific other countries to like both men and women. Separately, and together!”
“Shhhh!” Claude pressed a finger to Linhardt’s lips.“Secret time is over! No more!” He reached up and performed an exaggerated stretch with his arms. “Ahhh, what a pleasant chat. Now I have to go to the training grounds to get in a few rounds at the archery range before it gets dark.”
Of course Claude would know the training grounds would be the place Linhardt would be least likely to follow him! Linhardt sighed and waved goodbye as he headed off back to his room to take a nap — this trip to the marketplace had been enlightening, but it had worn him out entirely. Linhardt hoped Dorothea understood just how much he hated physical activity when she signed him up to be her dance partner, otherwise she would be in for a disappointing surprise.