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“Mmmmmm - fiiive mooore minutesss,” Annette murmured. She was just getting to the good part of her dream, where Felix took the garland she had made for him and placed it on his head, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards slightly. The part where he didn’t look at the garland so blankly (like he had in real life) that she had panicked and thrust it into Ingrid’s hands instead with a nervous laugh. At least she’d had enough presence of mind not to give it to Sylvain.
The hand on her shoulder increased its pressure as the owner tried to shake her awake. “Annette,” a tired, no nonsense, had-it-up-to-here voice said. “You need to wake up. It’s closing time.”
“Huh?” Annette sat up abruptly, looking around wildly. Right, she was in the library. Studying. She looked down in horror at the book she had been sleeping on, the page creased terribly. And was that drool? Oh no! What if Tomas found out? What if he banned her indefinitely from the library for damaging monastery property? What if she couldn’t pass her exams because she had no access to books and was forced to go back to Dominic with her tail between her legs and never convinced Father to return home?
Cyril cleared his throat.
Annette looked up at him. Right, she was being selfish. Flayn was missing, the Death Knight was stalking the grounds, and Cyril had a job to do. He closed up the monastery library every night and more often than not she and Lysithea were the last to leave.
Annette looked across the table at her friend, her head resting on her arms and tiny snores stirring the pages of the open book she was sleeping on. Annette thought the snores were cute, but she knew better than to say so to Lysithea, especially given that Cyril was also witnessing her slumber.
“Are you going to wake Lysithea?” Annette asked, her already wide blue eyes widening further in a way that she hoped appeared innocent.
Cyril’s hand flexed as he moved towards them and pulled the book away from Annette. “Nah, you can do that. I’ll reshelve the books, and you should get back to your rooms. It’s not safe.”
Annette opened her mouth to protest - she and Lysithea were both quite accomplished mages who could look after themselves thank you very much, more so than Annette thought Cyril could - but he was already walking away from their table.
Annette reached over, grabbed Lysithea’s upper arm and winced at how bony it was (Felix would say she needed to eat more meat but Annette made a mental note to tell Mercie to bake Lysithea a cake), and gently shook her. “Lysithea, time to go.”
Lysithea slowly stirred, covering her yawn with her hand as she blinked and sat up. “What time is it?”
“Midnight,” Annette said confidently at the same time that Cyril muttered, “Half past twelve,” from near a bookshelf on the far wall. Oh, he had let them sleep longer than he should have. Annette tried to hide the smile that threatened to break out. There was no way that Cyril had ruined his schedule for her benefit.
Annette gathered all her writing materials into her shoulder bag. “Come on, we should get going.”
Lysithea nodded as she did the same.
“Bye Cyril,” Annette called out cheerfully as she and Lysithea left the library.
“Yes, um, see you tomorrow,” Lysithea said, her eyes darting everywhere except at Cyril.
Annette was a good enough friend not to squeal at the matching blushes decorating their faces. It was a close thing, though.
Cyril coughed. “Don’t fall asleep next time. I have to wait for you to leave before I can finish up,” he said.
He really was awfully grouchy. Sometimes Annette didn’t know what Lysithea saw in him.
They walked arm-in-arm to their rooms, Annette using a lantern to light their way so that Lysithea could be ready to cast a dark magic spell at a moment’s notice. A moon ago, Annette would have been scared of potential ghost encounters. But now she was confident that the threat of the Death Knight was enough to strike fear into the heart of even the evilest spirit. And Lysithea was enough to reduce the Death Knight to a cowering mess.
“Soooo, what was that?” Annette asked.
“What was what?”
Annette groaned. Lysithea could be so stubborn. “He didn’t want to shake you awake, he couldn’t even touch you.”
Lysithea frowned, more so than usual.
“No, it’s a good thing!” Annette insisted.
Oh, Annie, he doesn’t have a problem touching anyone else to correct their stance or their sword grip. What do you think that means?
Annette pushed Mercie’s words to the back of her mind.
“It means he likes you,” Annette continued, a barely visible blush staining her cheeks.
“He likes me so much that he hates touching me?” Lysithea scoffed.
“No, he’s worried that he’ll like it too much if he does,” Annette said, much more confidently than she felt.
“I don’t think so. More like he doesn’t want to sully my princess hands with his own rough ones,” Lysithea mumbled.
Annette almost dropped the lantern. “What? Princess hands?” she hissed.
Lysithea’s eyes widened. “Forget- Oh, who am I kidding? You remember everything. It’s really unfair how easy it is for you to recall the exact wording of texts.”
Annette bloomed under the praise. “Not as unfair as you having such immense natural talent,” she replied.
Lysithea preened.
Annette shook herself. It wouldn’t do to get too distracted by compliments. “So, princess hands?”
Lysithea’s face fell. “I don’t want princess hands! I was trying to help him and he said that my hands were too soft, like a princess’ and incapable of carrying wood back to the monastery without splinters hurting them and that I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“How sweet! You concentrate on your studies and he’ll do all the backbreaking work for you.” Annette swooned. “And he must have been looking at your hands and thinking how soft they’d feel to say that in the first place.”
“I’d rather he compliment me on something that I’ve actually worked hard on.” Lysithea smiled evilly at Annette. “Like my footwork.”
“Ooh, you! I never should have told you that! And he was teasing me! He didn’t really mean it.” Annette could tell she was being too defensive, but she couldn’t stop. Thankfully they had arrived at the door to her room.
“Here, take this.” Annette passed Lysithea the lantern, casting a small fire spell so she could see as Lysithea made her way to her room, two doors down. When Lysithea reached her door the two girls waved goodnight to each other and entered their rooms.
Annette yawned as she quickly got undressed. The tiny nap she had taken hadn’t made her any less sleepy. She fell into bed and lost herself in dreams of Felix asking her to dance at the upcoming ball, murmuring compliments on how graceful she was into her ear as they twirled around the hall.
*****
Annette was bored.
She briefly considered going to the market to look at the new wares, but she didn’t have any spending money and while it was fine when she was with someone else, she had never been able to only browse by herself without feeling shame at not being able to afford to buy anything.
Mercie was her usual go-to, but she was currently occupied - having afternoon tea with Ingrid. Annette had thought she had finally convinced Ingrid to let her do her make-up, but Ingrid had politely declined the very next day. Mercie was trying to cajole Ingrid into agreeing to the makeover by plying her with the most delicious baked goods in Garreg Mach. Annette knew that she couldn’t be present - Ingrid would spot the trap straight away if she was - but it was already the fifth time they had had afternoon tea without her, and Annette couldn’t help but feel left out. Still, as long as her and Mercie’s plan worked before the ball, she would be happy.
Annette ran through all the other possibilities in her head. Lysithea had taken to following Cyril around and trying to prove her worth by helping him with his chores, so that was out of the question. Ashe and Dedue were probably in the garden or the kitchen, but lately Annette had been feeling like a fifth wheel around them. Training grounds - no, Annette was not going to think about that villain, she had better things to do. Like study! She’d go to the library.
Annette was just passing the training grounds (there was no reason why she had taken this route, none at all) when she saw a girl standing outside the door, wringing her hands. Annette only vaguely recognised her - she was in the Golden Deer house, but Annette didn’t know her name. Still, she looked like she needed assistance, and Annette was always more than happy to help out (especially if it would stop her mind from wandering in other, unwanted, directions).
“Hello,” Annette called out as she neared the girl. “Can I help you with anything?” She tried to school her features into something more placid and less curious, like Mercie would.
“Oh, um-” The girl blushed. Annette noticed that she had something in her hands, an envelope, that she was crushing in her tight grip. Annette pulled it out from between the girl’s fingers gently to prevent further damage and only then noticed the love heart drawn on the sealed flap.
"I poured my heart out into this letter,” the girl said. “I'd like you to deliver it for me.”
Annette looked at her quizzically.
“To whom, you ask?”
Annette hadn’t asked yet, but she’d been about to.
“Well, I see you with him often.”
Annette wondered who it could be - one of the other Lions perhaps? At least she knew it was a boy. Hopefully a boy, she amended, and not a teacher. Professor Byleth had enough admirers as it was, he didn’t need any more. Before she could ask for clarification, the girl spoke again.
“He's always working his hardest, and he's not very up-front with his true feelings, but he's got an adorable way about him..."
Annette blinked as the girl trailed off. Was she going to give her anything more to go on? “Uh, do you maybe know his name?”
“No, sorry!” The girl blushed, then ran away, leaving Annette staring at the envelope in her hands.
Annette frowned. That had been strange.
It wasn’t like Annette owed the girl anything, but she had been left with a puzzle. Annette loved puzzles. She could solve the mystery with logic.
She hadn’t known his name.
Not Profesor Byleth then. And not His Highness either, everyone knew the house leaders.
Always working his hardest.
Couldn’t be Sylvain.
Not up-front with his true feelings.
Ashe and Dedue were always honest with Annette.
Adorable.
No.
Oh no.
Images flashed before her eyes.
Felix pouting when the Professor chose someone else to spar with.
Felix smiling when he played with one of the monastery cats in a secluded spot that Annette had stumbled on entirely by accident.
His unguarded, peaceful expression when Sylvain had tricked her into waking Felix up when he fell asleep in class.
Annette took a deep breath. What did it matter? So what if the girl had written a love letter to Felix, the boy that Annette sort of, maybe, had a very annoying crush on? Annette had figured out the puzzle, she would deliver the letter.
It was hopeless anyway. Felix was all blah blah rather hold a sword than a girl’s hand blah blah women don’t belong on wyverns blah blah I only care about getting stronger blah blah blah. What idiot would pour out her feelings into a letter to someone like that? Heartbreak was sure to follow.
She pushed the door to the training grounds open before she could talk herself out of it.
“Yield! Seiros, Felix! I said I yield,” Sylvain shouted.
Felix was standing above a prone Sylvain, his training sword pressed against Sylvain’s throat, Sylvain’s lance lying a few feet away in the sand.
Sylvain must have seen movement out of the corner of his eye, because he turned his gaze to Annette. “Annette! Save me from this madman!” he exclaimed dramatically.
Annette couldn’t help the giggle that escaped from her mouth.
“Tch. You deserve it. If you worked harder, I wouldn’t have to teach you these lessons,” Felix said, tossing his sword onto the ground next to Sylvain’s weapon.
The mention of hard work made the colour rise in Annette’s cheeks. She cleared her throat tentatively and walked towards them, the letter in her outstretched hand. “This is for you,” she said to Felix.
Felix looked at her blankly.
Sylvain got up and dusted himself off. He let out a low whistle as he saw the heart drawn on the envelope. “Finally admitting it, eh?” he said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
“What? No! You think- It’s not from me! One of the Golden Deer students asked me to deliver it to Felix.”
Annette tried not to glance at Felix. She did anyway. He was frowning at the envelope, making no move to open it.
“Aren’t you going to look?” Sylvain’s hand reached out to snatch the envelope away, but Felix’s reflexes were too fast. He tore the envelope open and quickly scanned the letter, pushing Sylvain in the face with one hand so he couldn’t see.
Annette allowed herself to stare at Felix. If Sylvain said something, well, she only wanted to know what was written in the letter, just like he did. Exactly the same interest in knowing. No difference between them. None at all.
Felix was frowning. “This isn’t for me,” he said.
“What?” Annette and Sylvain asked simultaneously.
“Here.” Felix shoved the letter into Annette’s hand. Sylvain moved to stand behind her and read along, but Annette barely noticed, too focused on the letter.
Coffee-coloured skin… Huh? Who even said that? And Felix was quite possibly the palest person Annette knew... I hope you could be as devoted to me as you are to your work and (if it isn’t blasphemous) the Goddess… Wait, Felix didn’t care for the Church... I adore Lady Rhea as well… Oh no…
She’d forgotten one boy who was sometimes in her company. To be fair, she always thought of it as Cyril and her were both in Lysithea’s company, and not each other’s, but she should have been more thorough in her deductions.
Sylvain whistled. “Looks like Cyril has an admirer.”
“Yes.” Annette could barely stand to look at Felix, knowing how she had embarrassed herself by jumping to conclusions. “I need the envelope.” She held out her hand. “I have to deliver the letter to Cyril.”
Felix placed the envelope in her hand without a word, his fingers brushing her skin and sending tingles down her spine. Why did this always have to happen? She didn’t want this, she just wanted the feelings to stop so she could concentrate on things that were actually important - her father, studying, her friends. Felix took up far too much space in her brain.
“Why did you think it was me?” the evilest villain in Fódlan asked when she finally looked up at him.
“Oh, um, the girl- she didn’t know her crush’s name and she didn’t describe him physically. She just said, uh, hard-working, and, um, hides his true feelings, and-”
“Hides his true feelings? I don’t do that. I say exactly what I’m thinking,” Felix said.
Annette didn’t know if he was lying to her or to himself, but she knew him well enough by now to see that he cared for everyone else’s well-being, even when he claimed he didn’t.
“And what? What was the last thing?” asked the second evilest villain in Fódlan.
Annette’s eyes widened as she turned to answer Sylvain. “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!” She shook her head frantically. “I wish she had told me something else. You’d think she would have mentioned Lady Rhea,” Annette said with a nervous laugh.
Sylvain’s eyebrows rose. “No, she definitely said something else. What was it? That he’s handsome?” His smile was infuriating.
“No! Just, ah,” Annette racked her mind and found something to latch onto, “that she’s seen me with him often, so I assumed it was someone from class!”
“You're with Cyril often?” Felix asked.
Sylvain made a choking sound.
“Are you okay?” Annette asked him.
Sylvain coughed a little. “Fine, fine. Don’t worry about me.” His face was doing something funny.
“You spend time with Cyril?” Felix asked, again.
“Not really. More like we both spend time with Lysithea.”
“Oh, is that how it is?” Sylvain asked.
It was one thing to talk to Mercie about Lysithea’s crush, but to talk to Sylvain about it? Annette was not going to risk Lysithea’s wrath for him. She ignored him and turned to Felix. She paused. She squinted at him. Was that a faint smile? Did he know? Had he somehow found out that the girl had called her crush adorable, and by extension, Annette must also think that word applied to Felix? Would he tell everyone? She could already hear the whispers.
Annette did what she always did whenever Felix unnerved her.
She ran away.
*****
Annette carefully folded the letter back into the envelope. It would be clear to anyone that it had been previously opened, but there was nothing much she could do about that now.
She should just go and find Cyril and give him the letter. But somehow, what had been so easy when it might hurt herself was much harder when Lysithea might be affected.
Annette decided to go to the tea gardens to find Mercie. She always gave good advice.
When she arrived, Mercie and Ingrid were nowhere to be found. But Lysithea was there, stuffing her face with cake while Hilda smiled indulgently at her.
Annette looked down at the envelope in her hands. Maybe she should give it to Lysithea and let her decide what to do.
“Annette!” HIlda waved over to her. “Come join us! There’s plenty of cake to go round, as long as Lysithea doesn’t eat it all first.”
Lysithea glared at Hilda so witheringly, unable to speak because of the immense amount of cake in her mouth, that Annette was surprised that Swarm Z didn’t descend upon Hilda there and then.
Annette bit her lip as she sat down. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about this in front of Hilda, but then Sylvain already knew so it wasn’t like Hilda could tell everyone if he already had. HIlda took the choice away from her.
“What’s that?” she asked. “Ooh, did someone give you a love letter? Open it in front of Felix, he’ll be furious! Or is it from him?” Her eyes sparkled with glee.
“What? No!” Annette wondered what a love letter from Felix would even consist of. A treatise on how the person he was writing to reminded him of his favourite sword? “It’s not mine. I was asked to deliver this actually. To Cyril.”
There was a slight wheezing sound from next to her as Lysithea frantically swallowed the rest of her cake and tore the envelope from Annette’s grasp.
“Why is this torn?” Lysithea asked accusingly once she had caught her breath.
“Uh, I might have been slightly mistaken about who she wanted me to deliver the letter to.” Annette smiled nervously. “She didn’t know his name-”
“Obviously,” Lysithea scoffed as she scanned the contents. Her nose wrinkled in distaste.
“So what did she say?” Hilda asked sweetly.
Annette felt the flush creeping up her neck. “Um, that he was hard-working, and hides his true feelings, and, um, he’sadorableIguess.” The last few words ran together not as indecipherably as Annette would have wanted, punctuated by a loud squeak.
“You think Cyril is adorable?” Lysithea demanded.
“No! Um, yes? Maybe?” Annette wasn’t sure what Lysithea wanted her to say. Every option seemed to increase the intensity of her glower.
“No, the girl who asked Annette to deliver the letter thinks Cyril is adorable,” Hilda said. She put her hand on her chin and stared at Annette. “The question is who does Annette think is adorable?”
Annette froze like a deer confronted by a giant wolf.
“No, the question is who this girl is,” Lysithea said, waving the letter in HIlda’s face.
Annette jumped on the lifeline. “She’s in your house. I don’t know her name though.”
“I told you she was following him around!” Hilda crowed to Lysithea. “Annette, does she have a really bad hairstyle? Like two pigtails and this horrifying bob hanging down in front of them?”
Annette thought back and nodded. “That sounds about right.”
“Hmph.” Lysithea looked down at the letter again. “Do you think I should give it to him?”
Annette relaxed as HIlda started to give Lysithea advice. She took a bite of a delicious scone (Mercie must have helped bake today, she’d recognise her handiwork anywhere) and then a small sip of Southern fruit blend tea.
“Who did you give the letter to, Annette?” Hilda asked.
Annette spat out the tea.
“Felix,” Lysithea said, rolling her eyes.
HIlda grinned. “Felix? Adorable? Yeah, right.” She looked at the two girls' expressions - Lysithea confident and Annette embarrassed. “Oh, you’re serious?” Hilda covered her mouth to try and keep from bursting into laughter. “Sorry, I’m just- His face! What did it look like when you called him adorable?” Hilda winked.
“I- I didn’t! He doesn’t know that part,” Annette hissed. Her eyes widened. “Please don’t tell him!” She held out her pinky finger. “Pinky swear?”
HIlda sighed, but hooked her pinky around Annette’s. “I swear I won’t tell Felix.” Annette refused to let go as Hilda tried to pull away. “Fine! I won’t tell anyone that you think Felix is adorable. Although everyone who has an ounce of intuition can guess,” she grumbled.
Annette’s stomach settled as the matter was dealt with. She enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, choosing from various delicious desserts and listening as Lysithea talked through her plan of attack regarding the letter. By the time the girls finished their tea, Lysithea had decided to show Cyril the letter, to Annette’s approval. Annette could already see it - Cyril reading the letter and telling Lysithea he wished it had come from her. Or Lysithea hiding her jealousy so badly that her true feelings came bursting forth. Whatever happened, she was sure it would be the cutest thing ever.
*****
Annette entered the dining hall for lunch the next day. She hadn’t seen any of her classmates that morning except Mercie, given Professor Byleth had asked the two of them to attend Professor Hanneman’s reason seminar. Lysithea had been full of nervous excitement - she had agreed to meet Cyril for lunch to give him the letter. She must have been more embarrassed about it than Annette thought she would be, given she refused to look Annette in the eye all morning.
Annette moved to the back of the lunch line, then looked around the room. Oh! Lysithea and Cyril were seated in the back corner, their heads bent together, pouring over the letter placed on the table between them. Cyril appeared to be displeased by its contents, which Annette took as a good sign. Then again, distinctly unimpressed was practically his default expression.
Someone coughed behind her, then tapped her on the shoulder, electricity buzzing in her veins.
Annette’s eyes flew to the table the Lions normally sat at. Everyone was there, except the person she knew must be standing behind her.
She turned around. “Felix! Hi!”
His eyes darted around her face. He didn’t say anything.
“How was the sword seminar?” she asked, just to make conversation.
“Uh, fine.” He ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t offer anything more.
Annette was getting annoyed now. “Did you have anything to talk to me about? Or did you just want me to turn around for no particular reason?” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.
“I would have thought it was you, too,” he blurted out.
“What?”
He scratched at the back of his neck, a faint colour blooming in his cheeks. “Hard working - that’s definitely you. And hiding your true feelings-”
“I do not!” She didn’t, she was always truthful. Except when she agreed to do Hilda’s chores even if she already had too much on her plate. Or when she pretended that she was fine with falling behind all of her classmates in battle because her short legs just couldn’t keep up with them. Or when she tried to remain relentlessly cheerful when Father continued to ignore her… Okay, so maybe Felix had a point.
“Whatever you say.” Felix looked down at the ground, Annette feeling somehow that it was simply a pause in the conversation and not an abrupt end.
She was still looking at him quizzically when he finally looked up. “And the last thing,” he mumbled.
Annette’s blood ran cold. “What?’ The word came out of her mouth as a hoarse whisper.
Felix’s cheeks were completely red now. “You’re, uh,” he winced, “adorable.”
Annette nearly had a heart attack. Of course she shouldn’t have trusted Hilda! One day later, and Felix had already found out! How many other people knew? How many people had been whispering behind her back, “There goes that girl who thinks Felix Fraldarius is adorable,” without her even noticing? Why hadn’t Mercie warned her?
Wait.
Wait.
Felix thought she was adorable.
Annette’s cheeks were stained with a blush to match Felix’s own for shade and intensity. “Oh, um, thank you,” she managed, her hands fidgeting.
Annette willed herself not to run away, but it was difficult when neither of them were saying anything further and she felt like she was drowning in the silence. She had to stay in line, today was sweet bun trio day - she couldn’t miss out on her favourite dish.
“Do you want mine?” Felix asked. Annette didn’t think she had ever heard Felix sound so unsure.
“Huh?”
“My food. I wouldn’t touch that stuff with a lance.”
“Oh, you’ll give me something you would have thrown out otherwise?” Annette laughed as Felix’s mouth gaped open. “Thank you, I can keep the extras for afternoon tea. Would you-” Annette bit her lip uncertainly, “would you like to join me?”
Felix didn’t reply.
“You don’t have to, forget I ever said anything!”
He was still staring at her. Annette took a chance.
“Or if you’re worried about the food, Mercie’s getting better at savouries, she’d love to try and bake something to your taste. And I- I could drink four-spice blend, or Almyran pine needle tea.” She grimaced. “I’m sure I could!”
Felix chuckled softly. Annette was mesmerised. “We can each have our own tea. And I’d like to do that. Just-” he looked over at the Lions’ table, where Sylvain was unabashedly staring in their direction, “can we not let Sylvain find out?”
“Sure.” Annette smiled brightly at him. It would be fun trying to be sneaky.
And maybe, just maybe, by the time the ball came around Felix would ask her to dance with him.