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Jean sighed as she gently replaced the perfumed parchment upon her desk. Its contents disarmingly sincere, the handwriting impeccable, and all of it no doubt the work of several grueling hours of concentration. Anyone else would surely have been delighted to receive such warm, earnest affection.
“You need to let the girl down gently already, Jean,” smiled Lisa across the rim of her teacup, a sternness to her gaze.
The acting grand master pinched the bridge of her nose, easing out the furrow that only seemed to grow deeper day by day.
“I know, Lisa,” she replied, allowing herself another sigh, “But it’ll break her heart.”
“Then break it. Better that you do it now, rather than keep on letting the poor thing make a fool of herself.”
Jean glanced across the parchment again, and the confession within.
“I know.”
Ah, if only everyone could be as happy as they were in the stories.
~~
Eula Lawrence wasn’t particularly fond of festivities. She was fond of the drinking, yes. And the food, as well, to a degree. But any kind of festival meant people filling the streets, the bars and every other quiet corner she usually occupied away from judging, muttering eyes.
Monstadt had a lot of festivals.
“Umm, can I help you?” ventured the diminutive florist, managing the bare minimum of decorum.
Eula was grateful for that, at least. A few more decades and the townsfolk might even dare to hold a conversation with her.
“The cecilias, please.”
“Oh, err, okay… How many?”
“A bouquet, thank you.”
Eula disliked festivals, but that didn’t mean she could afford not to take part.
Besides, she had a considerable amount of vengeance waiting to be made good upon.
~~
“Good afternoon, Grand Master!”
“Nothing to report!”
Jean stepped out into the brisk, winter air, coattails fluttering in the breeze. Mondstadt was quiet, and it was safe. Whatever small difficulties she continued to face, she would always be thankful for that much.
“Thank you Athos, Porthos,” she replied, returning the guard’s salutes with a polite nod.
Her gaze shifted towards the corner of the building, and the distant clattering beyond, “I take it Ellin is…?”
“So it would seem. She’s been making even more of a racket than usual, actually.”
“Something good must have happened, I reckon. Archon knows where she gets the energy.”
Jean wore a strained smile as she thanked the men, heels clacking loudly against the cobbles as she made her way around the knight’s headquarters. She knew it was a kindness, but then, wasn’t it true that the gentlest words cut the deepest?
Ellin was there, as she always was, surrounded by a ramshackle collection of weaponry and strung together mannequins. Her latest foe collapsed onto its back with Ellin stood above it, bent at the waist and panting loudly, exhausted.
Hypocritical as it might have been, Jean couldn’t help but worry the young girl was pushing herself far too hard.
“Training hard, I see.”
“Eh!? J-J-J-Jean!? Ah, I mean-! G-Grand Master! Um, wh-what do you want- No, I mean, what can I do!? For you! What can I do for you!?”
“It’s quite alright, I just wanted to check up on you,” Jean laughed awkwardly, waving away the girl’s overly enthused attempts at chivalry.
The way the girl’s cheeks flushed a bright red tugged at Jean’s heart. It hadn’t been so long ago that she had looked just the same, her own cheeks a shade of valberry as she dreamed all sorts of fanciful, silly things.
“O-oh, then, this is about… the letter…”
Ellin’s gaze dropped quietly, fists balled at her sides.
“I… I’m r-ready, so… It’s okay.”
Jean regarded the girl with a rueful smile, a hand upon her shoulder. The girl was trembling, terrified, no doubt, of having her fantasy come crashing down around her. But she didn’t run away.
The girl never did seem to recognize just how strong she already was.
“I thought it was a very beautiful letter, Ellin. Thank you.”
Glistening eyes peered up at her and Jean smiled sadly in response.
“B-but…?”
“But, I wanted to reply to your feelings in person-”
“My, I do hope I’m not interrupting then.”
The pair turned as one to find Eula standing there, an eyebrow raised inquisitively as she coolly regarded Jean’s hand upon the younger girl and the hanging tension in the air. In her arms, a bouquet of exquisite white flowers and a small, intricately decorated box.
“Eula? I thought we agreed to meet later tonight…”
“Isn’t it customary to surprise one’s partner on a day like this? You’ll be suffering more than just my vengeance if you pretend to have forgotten the date.”
Jean flushed slightly in embarrassment, even the word ‘partner’, dry as it was, was intimate enough to discomfort her in public.
“That… Of course I haven’t. But now isn’t-”
“P-Partner!?”
Jean flinched a little as Ellin suddenly run out in front of her, Eula slowly turning her gaze upon the fledgling knight.
“...Who?”
“My name is Ellin!” she retorted angrily, thrusting her rusty sword at the woman before her, “And I’m the one who is going to be Jean’s partner!”
“Hmm? It seemed as if you were about to be rejected though.”
Ellin gritted her teeth, ponytail waving in the wind as she shook her head furiously, “Th-That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow, or… or even a few years from now! But I will! I’m going to protect Jean no matter what!”
Eula wordlessly raised an eyebrow once more at the exuberant display, catching Jean’s gaze from the corner of her eye. The acting grand master shrugging her shoulders and returning an apologetic smile.
Well, Eula thought, she was experienced enough at playing the villain.
“You’re not even a knight. How exactly are you going to protect her?”
“Th-That’s… I’m going to be a knight soon enough! I’ve been training!”
Eula’s gaze swept across the scattered mannequins and back to the trembling girl before her.
“Aren’t you trying too hard?”
Those plain, scathing words were enough. Ellin wearing a fearsome scowl as she brandished her sword once again, raising herself to her full height as she roared aloud, “Duel me!”
At that, Jean finally intervened. Or at least, she would have if Eula hadn’t spoken before she could even step forward.
“I accept.”
“Eula-!?”
The reconnaissance captain returned the grand master’s gaze with a small smile, before gently placing her carried gifts by the foot of the wall. Her claymore glimmered dangerously as she hefted its fearsome weight with but a single hand.
“She needs to do this. So let her.”
Ellin was trembling still, barely able to hold her own sword straight with both hands. But still, she didn’t take a single step back. She was full of such courage, Jean thought, the equal to any knight. And with her dirty ponytail swaying in the breeze, her small, quivering back refusing to yield an inch, Jean suddenly found herself recalling a similar, distant scene and another, equally foolish, young dreamer.
“...Fine. I trust you.”
“Hmph,” Eula scoffed, a faint blush to her cheeks.
Widening her stance, she readied her blade and fixed the fledgling knight with her gaze, “Feel free to take the first strike.”
A sudden silence fell upon them as Eula simply waited, poised for Ellin’s approach. The girl, suddenly confronted with the consequences of her bravado, seemed to balk, fingers aching as they gripped far too tightly around the hilt of her sword.
Eventually, a trembling step foot forward gave way to another, and another, and then she was running, sword held amateurishly overhead and brought crashing down with a frantic, passionate scream.
Ellin didn’t even see Eula move. One moment she was right there in front of her, and the next the girl was on her back against the cobblestones, staring up the length of Eula’s mighty blade.
“Looks like you died,” she muttered sardonically, replacing her claymore behind her back and reaching out a hand to the stricken Ellin.
“You’d be no good to anyone like that, let alone Jean.”
She easily pulled the young girl to her feet, bending down to retrieve her rusty sword. She offered the hilt back to the girl and Ellin received it gratefully.
“Well, you’re not completely terrible, at least. Feel free to try again in a few years, if nobody else gets me first, that is.”
Ellin was close to tears now, clutching her sword in both hands, glancing between the ground and where Jean still stood a few feet away.
“I will…” she muttered, finally fixing Eula with a determined, boiling stare, “I’m going to train even harder. And I’m going to beat you.”
She spun on the spot and began marching down the alley, stopping only once at its mouth to glance back over her shoulder.
“You better be ready, cause I’m going to be Jean’s number one! You can count on it!”
And with that, the girl beat her retreat, footsteps echoing into the distance and leaving the two knights to themselves within the quiet alcove.
It was Jean who spoke first, “I’m sorry, Eula. I should’ve handled it myself.”
“It’s fine. You’re far too kind for your own good anyway.”
“That’s not…”
Eula smiled knowingly as Jean faltered before the accusation, “Or perhaps you’re a rather wicked woman, after all? Who knows, if I hadn’t appeared maybe you’d have brought that poor girl under your spell as well?”
The spindrift knight had what she wanted when Jean pouted cutely in response to her teasing, brushing her ponytail from her shoulders as she blushed, “You know, sometimes you really are terrible.”
She gasped, lightly, as Eula pressed a hand against her waist and walked her backwards towards the wall. Toned thighs brushed against her own as she made contact with it, the cold of the stone mixing with the warmth of Eula’s body pressed against her.
Her lips tasted of alcohol and mint, refreshing and bitter at the same time. Jean couldn’t help but smile at how fitting a flavor it was for the misunderstood noble.
“I hear that a lot,” Eula countered, a predatory smile upon her own lips.
“But sometimes,” Jean continued, running a glove hand down her lover’s side, “You’re positively wonderful.”
At that they shared another kiss, deeper than before, more passionate. Jean melting happily into Eula’s embrace, her fingers clasped behind her head, holding the captain tight to her, as if afraid she might disappear at any moment.
It was the sort of kiss she had dreamed of for all those years, the kind in the stories she continued to read alone late at night. It was the kind of kiss Eula was only too happy to give her.
“...You’re rather aggressive.”
Jean flushed a darker shade, Eula’s cool gaze mere inches from her own.
“W-Well, today is special, after all.”
“Ah, that’s right…”
Jean followed Eula’s eyes to the ground nearby, towards that beautiful bouquet of cecilias and that pretty, unopened present.
“There are certain rules as to the when and where of giving gifts, but as today is Lover’s Day I suppose exceptions can be made.”
The blush upon Eula’s cheeks was utterly charming, Jean thought as she rested her face against the woman’s collarbone, breathing in her scent. A lovely mixture of cold, sea air and scattered flowers.
“Of course, I’ll be receiving your impressions as to the taste. That, and all the other grievances I shall be having you pay in full.”
Jean felt herself thrill beneath that thin, honest smile. A smile no one else in Mondstadt had ever seen.
“Happy Lover’s Day, Eula.”
“And to you, Jean.”