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Bernadetta woke up and was worried.
That wasn’t really unusual – Bernadetta was worried a lot – but it was especially true today, because today was gonna be the worst, she just knew it. Worse than the time she got kidnapped to a military academy, worse than the year she spend at said military academy, worse than the five years of war that followed.
No, this day would trump all of that in sheer awfulness, because today Bernie had to leave her room and talk to people. Not her friends or anyone she knew, oh no, that would have been okay; she had to walk up to complete strangers and start a conversation!
Just thinking about it made her absolutely miserable, and the cause for her misery was lying in bed next to her.
All things considered, meeting Leonie Pinelli had been one of the best things that ever happened to Bernie. Sure, she could be a bit intimidating and rough, but once you really got to know her, you realized that she was very kind, and supportive, and strong, and looked good in shorts, and never picked you up and carried you away against your will.
That was the maddening thing about this; that Bernie couldn’t even be mad at Leonie for forcing social interactions on her, because she knew it was ultimately for her own good. When they had started properly dating (after months of pining and the most awkwardly clumsy flirting Garreg Mach had ever seen), Bernadetta had Leonie make a promise; that she would always be there for Bernie whenever she felt anxious or overwhelmed or needed someone to hold her.
Leonie had agreed, but also had a request of her own; that Bernadetta should not spend whole days cooped up in her room anymore. Apparently that only worsened ones anxiety, and Bernie could kind of see it. During the war she had left her room more often than ever, and she remembered being less of an anxious mess in those days; which was wild, considering there was a war going on!
A part of Bernadetta realized how silly this all was; that she had fought in a war, survived countless battles, killed enemy soldiers – but talking to people was what frightened her the most. Unfortunately, being aware of the silliness didn’t make it any less terrifying.
Thus was the dilemma she found herself in. She realized what she had to do today was in her own best interest, and yet she was nearly paralyzed with fear!
And what should she do in a situation like this? Talk to her girlfriend, of course! That was Leonies part of the promise, after all; to always be there for Bernie in moments like this. If ever there was a time to be held close and told that everything will be alright, it was now!
Bernadetta heard Leonie gently snoring next to her. Usually she would be up already and halfway through her morning training, but on days like these she had promised to stay in bed a little longer, in case Bernie needed an emergency cuddle, like she did right now!
Taking a deep breath, Bernadetta turned to her side… and immediately faced her next predicament!
Ever since the two were officially together, they had learned a lot of new things about each other. Leonie found out that Bernie liked to paint, and was now encouraging her to be proud of her paintings; apparently she had done the same for one of her former classmates.
And Bernadetta found out that Leonie liked to sleep in the buff!
Her heart started to beat faster as she looked at her girlfriend lying next to her. Leonie had her back to her, the bed sheets reaching up to her hips, so there wasn’t anything scandalous to see here, but that did nothing to calm down Bernie’s nerves, because she knew that on the other side of that bare back, there were breasts!!
With nipples!!!
Bernadettas attitude to nudity and sexuality was, in a word, complicated, and as with most terrible things in her life, her father was to blame.
When young adrestian nobles reached a certain age, it was customary to hire a specialized lecturer to teach the young aristocrats about certain matters concerning their bodies and the changes they would undergo, and how to handle those changes and the experiences that would inevitably follow.
Bernadetta’s father, being a rather old fashioned man, would rather walk barefoot into the valley of torment than let a stranger talk to his girl about such indecent topics, and decided to instead teach her about the birds and the bees himself.
This was regarded by anyone who knew Count Varley personally as an absolutely terrible idea, and they would be proven right. It was honestly a miracle that Bernadetta never became a nun and renounced sex altogether.
To be fair, she had made attempts to gain a better understanding of her own sexuality lately, and her girlfriend had been a big part of that. Leonie had a carefree, non-judgmental attitude to sex that had helped Bernie a lot in getting over her own hang-ups. She was patient, tender, and encouraged experimentation. When the two of them were together, nudity and sex were actually kind of fun.
But when it was Bernie alone with her stark naked girlfriend in bed, it was a cause for more anxiety!
Gathering all her courage, Bernadetta took another deep breath…
…and whispered, “Leonie. Leonie!” Nothing happened. Unfortunately her girlfriend was a very efficient sleeper; she could wake up when she wanted to, and nothing short of an enemy attack could wake her if she didn’t.
But Bernie couldn’t wait for her to wake up on her own; she needed her anti-anxiety-hugs right now! That meant she had to get a bit more physical!
Slowly and carefully, Bernadetta reached her hand out. She told herself that this would be easy, she just had to grab Leonie’s shoulder – her bare shoulder, because she was naked – and shake her awake. Simple, right?
Five minutes passed where Bernie’s hand hovered close to Leonie’s shoulder, always almost touching it but never actually doing so.
Bernadetta took another deep breath. You can do this, Bernie. You’re not doing anything scandalous, you’re just waking up your girlfriend, that’s all.
With all her willpower, she finally managed to do the insurmountable task – she grabbed Leonie’s shoulder and shook her slightly.
“Leonie!” she whispered as loudly as she dared.
Leonie answered with a short “Hmmnngffl.”
“Leonie, I’m nervous and I need help.”
“Hmmmnggkay,” came her girlfriend’s answer. Before Bernadetta could react, one of Leonie’s hands had grabbed her own and was pulling it closer.
“W-wait, what are you… eeeep!” Bernie’s panic intensified once she realized what had happened. All she wanted was a hug, maybe a bit of hair ruffling and a few It’ll be okay’s. Instead, Leonie had taken her hand and put it right on top of one of her boobs!
There was now a boob in Bernie’s hand!!
Someone else’s boob!!!
Bernadetta send a desperate prayer to the goddess, the saints, the apostles, the professor and any miscellaneous deities who might hear her, to help her out of this situation. She tried to wrestle her hand out of Leonie’s grip, but said grip was strong, so all that did was brush her fingers all over the breast, reminding Bernie how soft and warm her girlfriend’s boobs were. This in turn jacked up her anxiety even more!
What if someone knocked on the door right now? What if there was an emergency and someone broke down her door and entered her room and found her fondling another woman’s breasts?
The thought nearly paralyzed her. She had to get out of this. She tried calling Leonie’s name a couple more times, but that did nothing. Her love just kept sleeping, blissfully unaware that she held Bernie’s hand hostage in her bosom prison.
Finding new resolve in sheer desperation, Bernadetta attempted to free her hand again by trying to spread her fingers, thereby loosening the grip a bit. This took a while, but eventually she felt like Leonie’s hand was no longer holding her own as strongly as before. Seizing the chance, Bernie tried withdrawing her hand once more.
This turned into a new nerve-wrecking endeavor, because Bernadetta feared that a too hasty movement would make Leonie’s hand snap shut, like one of those carnivorous plants that traps insects in its gaping maw. Slowly, carefully, inch by agonizing inch she freed her hand more and more. While this method seemed to work it had one unfortunate side effect; she kept dragging her hand for an eternity over Leonie’s nipple!
The sound of distress Bernadetta made once she realized what that soft thing in the palm of her hand is was so high pitched it probably was only audible to dogs.
After an eternity of struggle the ordeal was finally over. Her hand freed from its soft and warm jail, Bernadetta took a minute to calm down and catch her breath.
She had done it! She had gotten out of a sticky situation all by herself! She was… it was difficult to describe, but maybe it was… proud? Yes, she was feeling proud of herself, and it felt right! That was not a sensation that Bernie felt a lot.
And maybe that feeling would have lasted if she had removed her hand from the danger zone completely. But no, she just had to let her hand rest on Leonie’s shoulder. She thought it was safe there, now that the hard part was over.
She was wrong!
Out of nowhere her girlfriend moved in her sleep, and before she knew what was happening Leonie had grabbed Bernadetta’s hand again and began pulling on it. Bernadetta’s panic turned to outright terror when she realized that this time Leonie didn’t pull her hand boobwards, but instead… lower!
There are likely no words in any of the myriad of languages spoken all across the world that could adequately describe the depths of Bernadetta’s distress when her hand ended up between Leonie’s legs, in a place that was very warm and very moist.
By now Bernie was nearly numb with anxiety. This was bad! This was so much worse than before! She was no longer just fondling her sleeping girlfriend, she was almost groping her! This was a terrible embarrassment just waiting to happen! Any second now her door would burst open and Lady Rhea herself would barge in, shouting in an unearthly voice “What are you doing to that sleeping woman?” and then the knights of Seiros would arrest her for illicit fingering of a defenseless maiden, and she’d be thrown out and forced to go back home, and everyone she knew would watch her as she is lead out of Garreg Mach in chains, and they’d point their fingers at her and shout, “Shame on Bernie, shame on Bernie for a thousand years!”
So bad was her anxiety that it took Bernadetta a whole five minutes of agonizing mental anguish before she realized that her hand was not trapped in place this time, and she could have withdrawn it all along. So she did that.
Relief overcame her as she rolled onto her back; she had successfully mastered a crisis all on her own! That was something to be proud of, wasn’t it? Leonie often told her that she was allowed to feel proud whenever she did something well, that every success, no matter how trivial, was worth being praised. It still felt a bit weird to praise herself; there was always a little voice in the back of Bernadetta’s mind that tried to tell her that she didn’t deserve nice things, that it was wrong to feel good about herself.
But Bernadetta got better at ignoring it. And so she smiled and said, “You did well, Bernie!”
“Yeah, you did!”
Bernadetta screamed loud enough that surely half the monastery must have heard it.
“Le- Leonie! What are… when did…” A terrible thought popped into Bernie’s mind. “Have you been awake this whole time?”
“Yes” Leonie whispered while grinning.
Bernadetta couldn’t believe it. “Why did you pretend to be asleep?”
“I was trying to help you.”
“How would that help me?”
“It took your mind off of your assignment today, didn’t it? You were nervous about talking to unfamiliar people and wanted me to help you calm down, right?”
“H-how did you know…?”
Leonie smiled. “I know because I can read you like a book; a cute, purple-haired book.”
Conflicting emotions quarreled inside of Bernadetta like a pack of angry weasels, and the result was, as is often the case when emotions get involved, tears. This was evidently not what Leonie had expected.
“H-hey, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Bernadetta yelled, “You deceived me! You let me believe that I was… doing naughty things to you without your consent! I was so worried that I would be in trouble!”
“Oh.” Leonie’s expression turned serious. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think…” She stopped halfway through the sentence, clearly unsure of what to say. After a few awkward seconds she tried again. “I messed up, didn’t I? I was trying to help, but never thought about if what I was doing was actually helpful to you. I’m sorry.” She gently took one of Bernadetta’s hands and carefully kissed her knuckles. “Can you forgive me? I’ll never do it again, I swear.”
Bernadetta wrestled with her conflicting emotions for a while; her feelings of utter betrayal putting up a vicious fight against her realization that her girlfriend was just trying to help. Eventually, her negative feelings received a decisive knockout from a simple fact; that while the situation Leonie had put her in was very stressful, it was also kind of… hot?
She looked at Leonie and found that it was very difficult to be mad at your girlfriend when she was laying buck naked next to you! With a heavy sigh, she tried to put her thoughts into words.
“I’m… I’m not upset about the… the whole hand thing, you know. That was… fun,” she said and could feel her face rapidly turning red, “what I don’t like is that you pretended to be asleep! I don’t… I don’t like it when people aren’t honest with me, even if they’re not being mean.”
Leonie leaned over and gave her girlfriend a quick kiss on the nose. “I’m sorry. I will never deceive you again, I promise.”
“Thank you.” Bernadetta felt like a heavy load was lifted from her heart. She sank back into her pillow and finally felt at peace.
“So,” said Leonie after a while, “are you good now or do you still need some distraction?” She lay there, still as naked as the day she was born, and smiled.
It turned out to be quite an eventful morning.