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Naturally, this is Sylvain’s fault.
He was supposed to be Felix’s sparring partner today, but they’d run into Mercedes, Lysithea, and Annette outside the Training Grounds and the three explained that they were going to train so Annette could practice casting in her new uniform. She just passed her Warlock certification, something they were celebrating with a cake meant for after but that they were eating beforehand.
Mercedes complains about a stomach ache that Felix thinks she could have avoided by eating the cake later. “Perhaps Sylvain or Felix could help out instead,” she suggests.
Lysithea nods as she frowns at them for existing. “I suppose it would make more sense for Annette to cast against non-magic users.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Sylvain says. He pats Annette’s head in the way that makes the miniature mages scream at him. “Felix would love to spar with you.”
She glances his way and Felix shrugs.
“If you’re sure…”
Annette stands, brushing any crumbs off her lap and smoothing out her new dress. Felix considers the more fitted swath of blue, the long, draping sleeves, and the expanse of freckled skin below her neck. He blinks a few times before it occurs to him that he’s openly staring at her chest. None of the girls seem to notice, but the poorly concealed smile on Sylvain’s stupid face says he does.
Felix jerks his head towards the training grounds. “Come on.”
“Okay!”
Felix knows that Annette is, objectively speaking, attractive. When she isn’t yelling at him, he even thinks that she’s cute. But now Felix realizes she’s pretty. Really pretty.
Perhaps too pretty.
Dangerously pretty.
This is terrible.
They head inside and Felix realizes that her friends are as useless and traitorous as his. But Annette doesn’t seem to mind. She’s too focused on playing with the long sleeves of her dress, fumbling with the staff in her hands.
Felix, meanwhile, finds himself focused on the set of flowers sewn into the back of her dress. Why are they there? What’s the point of them? Are they meant to distract opponents? If so, they’re clearly doing their job.
He tears his stare away, suddenly grateful that they left behind their friends.
“What do you want to do?” he asks.
Annette grins. “You come at me and I shoot spells at you while wondering who designed these sleeves?”
“The usual then.”
Felix tries not to dwell on the fact that at some point, he developed a “usual” with Annette.
He crosses the length of the training grounds to put enough distance between the two of them for him to charge at her. The first time they did this, Felix might have made some comment about how this was for her more than him, claiming there wasn’t much for him to gain out of this beyond agility training. Since then, Annette’s made it her mission to set him on fire or blow him across the room.
He doesn’t bother announcing his start, instead dashing towards her and watching the movement of her fingers to see what she’s drawing against him. She raises her hands to her chest, framing the expanse of skin her dress leaves uncovered, and Felix immediately forgets what the sigils mean.
He’s being ridiculous .
Felix has trained with girls before. Girls that are objectively pretty as well. There is absolutely no reason for him to be acting like this.
But then Annette smirks because her fireball knocks him back. She looks unfairly gorgeous with her windswept hair and brand new dress that he can’t even look at.
“Felix, you’re not even trying!” she complains.
He rolls his eyes and draws the training bow off his back, deciding he might need to delve into long-range attacks to get through this.
He’s trying, he grumbles to himself, pointedly not looking past her neck.
He really is trying.
-
Five years later, Annette’s warlock uniform is still just as disarming. He’d gotten used to it back when they were younger, he thought. Or, perhaps, everything going wrong around them made him care less about how pretty Annette looked and more about how to make sure they got out of things alive. It was easy to not be distracted by something as silly as a gorgeous girl when the Empire was waging war.
But, apparently, Felix has regressed, while Annette, on the other hand, has…grown.
It was bad enough that her day-to-day dress practically forced him to become aware of her figure and distracted him with an inconveniently placed bow, but now this? Felix swallows thickly and maintains eye contact with the pillar behind Annette’s head.
“Ready or not!” she shouts. She’s giddy and excited to be wielding magic after being caged for so many years.
Felix feels the wind picking up and maybe if he’d looked at her instead of anywhere else, he would have had a better idea of what she was casting and just how to avoid it. Instead, he goes in blind. The gust rips his sword out of his hand and he falls on his back. He groans, utterly winded, and barely hears Annette’s frantic yell.
“Felix!” She kneels by his side, hovering over him as one hand touches his head. “Are you okay?!”
She leans in so closely that he can make out the constellations along her collarbone. Felix turns away from her. “I’m fine,” he mutters.
“That was a bad fall—”
“I’m fine .”
Annette makes a noise of annoyance that says she doesn’t believe him.
Really, he is fine. He’s humiliated and doesn’t know where to look, but he isn’t all that hurt. Still, Annette has her hands on his jaw, moving his head around to check for injury, creating a deeper line along her chest that he’d love to run his tongue through.
Felix’s eyes widen at his own thoughts. Admittedly, this isn’t the first time he might have entertained such an idea about Annette. Although very few of his fantasies took place on the training grounds. In his mind, they preferred misusing the greenhouse. Or the library. Or her room—
This is a terrible line of thought, he tells himself. And he simply shouldn’t think of a dear friend like this.
His cheeks must be red because Annette’s brow furrows from concern.
“Are you sick? You seem so out of it.”
“I’m fine,” he grunts once more, pushing her hands away. He catches the flicker of hurt on her face as he stands. He retrieves his sword, turning his back on her because he doesn’t trust his eyes not to wander.
“Sorry,” Annette mumbles, making him feel horrible.
He chances a glance over his shoulder and finds her looking at the ground with her hands clasped together in front of her. Naturally, this does wonders for her which does wonders for him and Felix just wants to die.
“You must think less of me for not fighting my uncle or running away from Dominic sooner. I really am sorry...”
The more she talks, the worse Felix feels.
“Annette.” Felix runs a hand through his bangs. “I could never think less of you.”
“You can’t even look at me.”
“That’s—” He squeezes his eyes shut as he struggles to find the right words. “You’re…” When he opens his eyes, she looks so sad and nervous that Felix places one hand on her shoulder to steady her. “You’re…very pretty.”
She blinks. “Thank you?” Her cheeks redden. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s distracting.”
“What?”
“You’re very pretty and it’s distracting!” he finally snaps.
“O—oh.”
Felix chances a peek at her and finds her biting her lip invitingly.
“Maybe if you just, um, look at me, it’ll stop being a distraction?” She meets his gaze and smiles. “If you see me more, I just become commonplace, right?”
That sounds like a terrible idea.
“Look at you,” he echoes.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” he admits.
“Well you never know until you try!”
“And what? Am I supposed to just look at you all day long?”
“Until I become insignificant enough, yes!” Annette nods, pleased with her ridiculous idea. “You can help me with my chores until then.”
Felix shakes his head. “This is dumb.”
“Nonsense. You just have to spend more time with me.”
Her idea is absurd and makes no sense. He tells her as such, but Annette just lists the tasks she needs to finish that day and that he simply must accompany her for. She tries explaining her logic again, but it falls on deaf ears. Felix highly doubts he’ll ever stop thinking she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever watched sing to a bunch of plants. Annette could never lose her significance to him.