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Oooookay, Bernie. Breathe in, breathe out.
The hustle and bustle of the campus dining hall lunch rush was once a place of great anguish for Bernadetta, but like many things, she’d slowly gotten used to it with time.
It’s just like we practiced.
She’d figured out its patterns and its etiquette, she’d worked out a system for navigating its surprisingly labyrinthine tables, she’d found friends with matching schedules to fall back on. Safe ports, lit beacons in the storm.
It’s one simple question.
Today, however, she’s made a small addition to her usual agenda. Sitting on the other side of the dining hall, at the third table from the right, next to the window with the painting of an eggplant above it, was Petra Macneary. Just as she was yesterday, and just as she would be tomorrow.
The worst she can do is say no.
Petra is not the addition. Petra has been her lunch buddy for the whole semester. Petra is part of her system. She’s in Bernadetta’s 1:30 plant biology class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she’s one of the smartest, kindest people Bernadetta has ever met, and she is very, very pretty.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Therein lies Bernie’s problem. Petra Macneary’s beautiful face has been haunting her dreams for weeks. It’s terrible. Insufferable. She can’t get the girl out of her head or her sketchbooks.
Bernadetta von Varley has a crush.
Alright. Let’s do this.
Eyes fixed on Petra, she marches headlong across the dining hall, practicing the question under her breath. She weaves between the crowds, doing her best to ignore the nervous pounding of her heart, arrives at her port of call, and slams her food down onto the table without a word of hello.
“Um... Bernie? Are you okay?”
Petra looks up, concerned. Bernadetta nods and sits down, lips pressed together like they’re holding back a flood.
“Oh... well, okay. How was your morning?”
“G-good,” she ekes out, heart still thumping.
“Good!” Petra smiles, but as Bernie stays stiff and silent, she picks up that something’s off. “Bernie, there is something on your mi-”
“Hey Peeeeeeeeetradoyoulikegirls.”
The words tumble out of Bernadetta’s mouth before she can even finish thinking them. Petra gives her a confused look. It is not just like she practiced.
“You are asking me if I am... gay?”
She says the last word like it’s in a foreign language. It is, technically, but Bernadetta inconveniently forgets this fact.
“Um. I... uh... yes?” She winces as if bracing herself for an attack.
“No, but... ah, I can’t remember the...”
Oh, no. Bernadetta tunes out the rest of the sentence. Goddess, no, she’s gonna hate me, this is the end of our friendship, I’m never gonna see her again-
“...think that it is called ‘bisexual’?”
“You wh- oh.” Bernie loosens up. “Oh? Wait, what?”
“In Fódlandic,” Petra continues, “when you love both, it is called ‘bisexual’, yes?”
“When you... Oh! Yes! Um... why, what’s it called in Brigid?”
Petra laughs. “Why, is because that is what I do. But in Brigid we do not have a separate word for it.”
Having completely and entirely forgotten the implications at hand, Bernadetta leans forward. “Wait, why not?”
She shrugs. “No need, I think. Instead you only say you love both. Sami tano.”
“Huh.”
“But if you love men only, instead you can say niu tano. Or women, you say lea tano.”
“What does niu mean?”
“Man.”
“Oh. Makes sense.” Bernadetta thinks for a second. “So, does that mean you don’t have different words for straight and gay?”
Petra shakes her head. “There are some words, but you will never use them on yourself. It really doesn’t matter what gender you have. Only who you love.”
“Must be nice,” Bernie grumbles.
“It is! I was very confused by these words when I came to Fódlan. When you say ‘I am gay’” - she says these words almost robotically - “it sounds very... ah... you know the big books that describe many other topics?”
“Um... oh! Encyclopedias?”
“Yes! It sounds like an encyclopedia. ‘My name is Petra, I am from Brigid, I am bisexual.’ Very unnatural.”
Bernadetta cocks her head sideways. “Really? Makes perfect sense to me.”
“But love is a thing that you do, not a thing that you are. It is a verb.”
“Wow, that’s deep.”
Petra looks surprised. “Thank you?”
“But also, um, I dunno, I think it’s... different for some people.”
“Maybe.” Petra takes a sip of her tea.
Bernie sits up. “Like, for me, I think being a lesbian is a really important part of who I am. You couldn’t have me without me... being gay. And it’s something that I’m... I guess proud of?”
“That’s why you have the big flag, yes? For your pride?” She draws a little rectangle in the air with her finger, as if it needs more specification.
“Yeah. Yeah!” Bernie giggles. “It’s... a pride flag.”
“But what if someday you fall in love with a man?”
She recoils back, repulsed by the very thought. “I, um... really don’t think that’ll ever happen.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
Petra shrugs. “Maybe it is just a Fódlan thing. I do not like saying that I am bisexual. It is not really a part of me, I just, ah... happen to. And many people from Brigid are the same way.”
“That’s really interesting.”
She nods sagely. “I have learned much since coming to Fódlan. Mostly that Fódlanders are weird.” She takes another sip of tea. “Anyway, why do you ask?”
Caught up in the twists and turns of their dialogue on language and sexuality, Bernie had completely forgotten why she asked. Until now. “uuUuuUUUM.... no reason... just... curious...” She shrinks back into her chair and hides herself in her food.
“Oh.” Petra shrugs, and gets back to her own lunch. “Well, now you know.”
“Yeah... th-thanks.”
“Anyway,” she continues, mouth half full, “how was your class?”
“It was... um... good, actually.”
“Any cool new herbs?”
“Actually, yeah.” She relaxes a little. “We started learning about coneflowers today.”
Petra’s eyes light up. “Oh, yes! The ones with the big, round heads?”
“Yeah! Turns out, they had tons of medicinal uses back in the olden days.”
“Really? Tell more.”
“Well, some people used them as painkillers, and others used them to treat colds, and sometimes they’d be used... for...”
Suddenly, in the middle of her sentence, Bernadetta remembers exactly why she has such an awful, inescapable crush on Petra Macneary. Sure, she’s smart, and she’s definitely very pretty, and she makes all those silly little puns, and she probably could bench press a Bernie and a half, but Petra... cares, more than anything. Petra listens, and understands. Petra knows what she likes and what she doesn’t. Petra watches out for her when she needs it. Petra has seen her at her worst, and stuck with her through it anyway. Petra... um...
“Hey, Bernie?”
She jumps, snapping back to reality fast enough to get whiplash. “Wh- aah! Ummmm... uh... yes...?” She does her best to smile.
Petra is unconvinced. “Your cheeks are red. Are you not feeling okay?"
Bernie is only blushing harder. She buries her face in her hands and looks away. ”Ah... no, I’m fine...”
“Well, okay.” Petra frowns. “Just tell me if you are not.”
“Um... yeah, I will...”
Bernadetta quietly turns back to her food, trying not to think about anything, lest it make matters worse. Petra seems to take the hint, dropping the subject and giving her time to collect herself.
But as she sits in silence across the table from this girl who dug her roots so deeply into the folds of her brain, the question starts to gnaw at her.
It’s nerve-racking, to say the least. It’s a terrifying question, and Bernie doesn’t want to ask it herself. If she could get some hypothetical neutral third party to hypothetically proposition the idea to Petra as a pure hypothetical, with no direct Bernie involvement whatsoever, then everything would be fine. Mostly. Probably. Maybe. But unfortunately, even though this hypothetical outside observer could possibly, potentially, make things a tiny little bit easier on her, Bernadetta lives in the evil nasty un-hypothetical real world, which gives her no such luxury. If she wants something done right - which she does, desperately - she’s going to have to do it herself.
It’s a question she's asked in a thousand unsent text messages. It’s a question she’s written into the pages of her journal, and one she’s torn out and crumpled up and thrown into the trash can in the corner. It’s a question she’s dreamt up all possible outcomes to. It's a question whose answer she fears more than anything, but one she can put off no longer.
“Petra,” she mutters, quieter with every word, “would you like... to go out...... with me.”
“Hm?” Petra raises an eyebrow. “On a date?”
Bernie can’t keep eye contact. Her whole face is bright red. “Um......... yes.”
Petra perks up. “Oh! Of course!” She’s blushing, too. “I... I did not know you were feeling that way! Where?”
She freezes. Her eyes dart back and forth a moment, and as the realization finally hits her, they go wide. In all her worrying, in all her practicing, in all her fantasizing, she had never actually planned this far ahead. “Uh. You- um. I, uh...” She’s looking anywhere but Petra. “fffff...... the, ah....... um..............” Her poor brain is scattered across the far ends of the earth.
This is everything she's ever wanted, and also the single most embarrassing moment of her entire life.
“I d- um... I..... don’t know.”
No, no, nonono, she thinks. You’ve gone and done it. You’ve screwed everything up. It was all going so well, and you- you forgot the most basic part, and that was the whole entire point, and now she’s not gonna wanna do it anymore, and she’s gonna think you’re the worst, and she’s never gonna talk to you again, and she’ll-
Petra’s hand is on her arm.
“Hey, Bernie.”
She looks up.
“It’s okay.”
Petra gives her a soft smile. She nearly melts.
“We can plan it together!”
“A- are you sure?” Bernadetta mumbles. “I don’t wanna... make you...”
“Hey.” Petra adjusts in her seat, and trails her hand a little further up Bernie’s arm. She finally drops it from guarding her face, letting it go limp in Petra’s gentle grasp. “You are not making me do anything.”
Petra hovers her hand over Bernie’s wrist briefly, then takes the girl’s hand in her own. “If we both want to do this, then we should do it together.” She squeezes, and Bernie squeezes back.
A smile creeps its way across Bernadetta’s face. “Petra... are you sure?”
“Yes,” she asserts. “I think that is the best way.”
“No, I mean... are you, um, sure that... you want to do this?”
“Very.”
She smirks.
It kills Bernadetta von Varley on the spot.
“Um... then, uh, I would... also love. That. I would love, to do that. Yes. Haha.” Nailed it, Bernie.
“Good!”
“Good.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, I... didn’t think I would get this far.”
“No, it is okay, I have... thought about this as well.”
Petra is cute when she blushes.
“R- um, really?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t... knowing if you will, ah... accept.” Really cute. “I did not want you thinking I was... too forward.” Really, very, horribly cute. “And I was being afraid you will not feel the same.”
“Well, um...” Bernie finally manages eye contact with her again. “I would’ve.”
“I guess so.”
“Petra, are we both stupid?”
She laughs. “Maybe a little bit.”
Bernie sighs, and drops her other hand from her face. “I can’t believe this.”
“But guess what?” Petra takes it in her own free hand, and looks Bernie in the eye. “We can be a little bit stupid... together.”
“I... that would be nice.”
“Yes.”
“Mmmmhm.”
“Ah, so...” Petra takes her hands back suddenly. “How are you feeling about museums?”
“Museums! Museums are good.” Bernie nods vigorously. “They’re cool. I like them.”
“Me too!” She grins again, brighter than the sunbeams pouring through the window, dancing across her face. “Will you like to go to one tonight? With me?”
“Um... sure. Yeah. I would love to. A lot. Yes.”
Petra giggles. “Then I can pick you up at 5? We can also get dinner.”
Bernadetta couldn’t get redder if she tried. “That... sounds great.”
“Then I will see you then!”
She smiles. “Yeah, I... yeah.”
They spend a moment looking back and forth between each other, and the floor. Or the table. Or their food, or the window, or Bernie’s shaky, ecstatic hands. They’re standing at the precipice, overlooking a vast uncharted sea, waves beating at the rocky shore below. The great expanse of the unknown stretches out before them; a lighthouse stands at their back. And in spite of everything - the fog shrouding the horizon, the warmth and comfort of the light - Petra and Bernadetta are choosing to take the plunge. Hand-in-hand. Together.
“So,” Petra asks as they fall towards the sea, “you were saying about coneflowers?”