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If there is one word that Annette hates to hear used to describe her, it is competent. There is nothing wrong with being competent. She would say that she is competent at knitting, embroidery, playing the piano. But she is good, if not excellent or outstanding at many things that proper society glosses over in young women. These things do not count to anyone but Annette, and perhaps Professor Byleth.
Though she is an excellent mage, excellent at wielding an axe, excellent at tactics, Annette is often relegated to the backlines. Her short stature makes it difficult to stand out, even when she is by far the best mage in the Fhirdiad army. She notes, more than once, that the backline is made up mostly of women, and though she loves them all dearly, she wonders what on earth she has to do to get on the front lines, where she feels she can really make a difference.
Aside from the Professor, Ingrid is the only woman that Annette has ever seen on the front lines for more than a few minutes. Perhaps it is the Pegasus, and the increased mobility that comes with it. Ingrid is a terrifying warrior, and Annette will not pretend that her wind spells have the same impact on a battle that Ingrid soaring in from the sky to impale enemies with her lance does. But it is miserable to be stuck where you are of very little help, just because you are short and a girl and deemed merely as competent by those making the plans.
Fort Merceus looms large over them, and as usual, Annette makes up the backlines. Mercedes makes a comment beside her, hoping for a quick battle. The Death Knight will be here, so they have heard, and Annette knows that she has to avoid the man at all costs if she wants to live. Mercedes gets funny before any battle where they know the Death Knight will be there – Annette has always assumed that her friend must be scared of him, but the look on her face now shows pure terror. It isn’t fear for herself, and Annette swallows any questions she might have.
She pushes through the crowd as the army breaks the door down, away from the comfort that Mercedes always brings her. Annette knows her battle formations like the back of her hand. She is assigned to take the eastern flank with Felix and Sylvain and their battalions. She knows why she is there, and she will not pretend otherwise – she is to be their healer, even though her faith magic wavers at the best of times. Her connection to the Goddess is nowhere near as strong as it needs to be in order to complete this job.
Neither of them say anything to her as they push forward, weapons poised. The first enemies begin to round the corner, the siege well and truly under way. Felix takes out the first one, and Sylvain canters ahead to take out the next one. From her position a little further back, Annette can cast wind spells, but in making sure they don’t hit her allies, she can’t actually release any of them.
“Keep up,” Felix mutters to her as they turn another corner. She nods earnestly. This is his way of checking up on her, that much she is aware. He is not good with words, even worse with actions, and a large amount of the time they spend together they share in companionable silence. Sylvain turns his head back to her, eyebrows raised, but doesn’t say anything.
He only just turns back in time to spear an enemy archer through the chest, Felix pivoting around him to hold off an armoured enemy. Their swords clash, and before either of her friends have a chance to tell her what to do, Annette sprints the few steps forward, casting Excalibur before her mind even has a chance to catch up. The enemy goes flying back, and Felix rights himself as they continue forward. Neither Felix nor Sylvain comment on her attack, and somehow, that is better than if they had congratulated her. They know what she is capable of.
“Just ahead,” Felix says to Sylvain, and he rides ahead, taking out two more archers. He shakes his lance, blood splattering the walls of Fort Merceus. Annette wrinkles her nose, not at the blood, but at the action.
“Above you,” Sylvain tells Felix, and he turns just in time to block an incoming spell from an enemy mage with a well-timed swing of his sword.
“Annette!” Felix calls out, and she jumps into action, knocking the mage off balance with a basic wind spell, then finishing them off with Crusher. Felix nods once, and the three move forward once more.
From the other side of the fort, where they have no chance of seeing, they can hear clashes of weapons, far more brutal than they have experienced. The Death Knight is over there, presumably, and Annette knows that is where Mercedes is too. It is selfish, perhaps, but though she loves her best friend, Annette cannot bring herself to join that side of the battle. She wants to prove herself, yes, but not against him. She can prove herself right here.
At the top of the corridor, the three come into contact with Catherine, Ashe, and Flayn. A rather odd combination, Annette thinks to herself. Without speaking, Felix and Sylvain let the other three proceed down the corridor, while they turn back to go the way they came. Things have been far too quiet down this side of the fort, and Annette has a horrible feeling in her stomach.
Her intuition proves to be correct, as a whole swathe of reinforcements come barrelling through the door. She looks around her, hoping for further back up from their forces. But it is just them, and three battalions of well trained soldiers. The space is tight, and Annette knows that she may not be of much use in such an enclosed area. But Felix and Sylvain make room for her, attacking in circular motions to round up their enemies.
She fires off spell after spell, each one hitting their mark just as she intends. Sylvain cuts down enemies that she holds in place in mid-air, digging her soles into the ground to stop herself from wavering. Her eyes flicker over to Felix to check that he is okay just in time to see the ambush as it happens.
An enemy soldier appears from behind the heavy doors, clearly waiting for an opportunity to strike. One comes for Sylvain too, but he is better prepared, and spears the soldier through the chest. But Felix already has his hands full with two soldiers in front of him, and even Annette’s slightly off centre wind spell can’t save him from the third soldier slicing into his side. His eyes go wide, and he flails, taking down one of the enemies as he collapses to the floor.
Before Sylvain and Annette even have time to process what they have seen, both of them move forward, taking out one remaining soldier each. Annette drops Crusher and falls to her knees beside Felix, hands glowing green with healing magic before she’s even had a chance to examine the wound. Sylvain checks that the area is clear before sliding off his horse, standing over Annette, lance tightly within his grip.
“Do not let him die!” He says to Annette, teeth gritted tight.
“I won’t,” Annette says, though she makes no promises. She can hardly bear to look at the wound, but the amount of blood that is spilling over the ground makes her think that this cannot possibly be good for Felix.
He is still conscious, somehow, his hands coming up to cover hers, gloves over gloves. She looks over to his face – a mistake, when she sees the look there. His expression, one she’s never seen before, nothing even remotely similar. It makes her stomach flip, and then flip again when she realises that if she doesn’t save him she will never see that look again. He is clammy and grey, and still the most attractive man that Annette has ever set her eyes on.
“Hold on,” she murmurs, loud enough for only him to hear. “Please, Felix. Please.”
“Do you hear that?” Sylvain asks, and Annette almost jumps out of her skin, almost having forgotten that he was there.
“What?”
“Exactly. The fighting has stopped.”
“We won?”
“Sounds like it.”
“Felix needs a proper healer,” Annette says, lifting her hands away for a moment to wipe her own brow. Her white gloves are stained red, and she has to use the back of her hand. “Or at least lifted out to the caravans. We’re close enough – if I keep up the healing, do you think you can carry him there?” Before she’s even finished her sentence, Sylvain has knelt down beside his friend, and with Annette’s instruction, he carefully scoops Felix up. The injured man groans, and Annette shushes him, praying to the Goddess that if there was ever one time in her life that she needed help, it was now.
This was not what she meant by proving herself. She wanted a flashy victory, taking out dozens of enemy units in one fell swoop. She did not want to run across the field, taking two steps for every one of Sylvain’s, tottering about like a mad woman while keeping her hands within the correct radius to heal Felix.
About halfway towards the caravan, she notices that the wound is no longer dripping. This can only mean one of two things – she has succeeded, or she has failed. Hoping, praying that it is the former, Annette removes one hand from the wound, pressing two blood-soaked fingers to Felix’s neck. His pulse beats on, barely noticeable but still definitely there. He squeaks out something unintelligible as the three near the caravan, and this time Sylvain shushes him.
The medical team take Felix off their hands immediately, not giving Sylvain or Annette time to explain anything or say goodbye before they begin the real work. Felix will not be the only person that they treat today. When Annette looks back over her shoulder, she sees a few more people beginning to stream out of Fort Merceus, heading towards the medical tents. She and Sylvain move out of the way, bruised and exhausted, but otherwise fine.
“You did an amazing job,” Sylvain says, breathing a sigh of relief as Annette strips off her ruined gloves.
“So did you,” she returns with a shaky smile, basking in the glory of that one word. Amazing.
Mercedes and Manuela take on the brunt of the healing in the monastery, flitting between patients who all need urgent care. The battle at Fort Merceus had many casualties, and many more returned with various states of injury. Annette makes herself useful where she can, mostly tending to those with minor injuries – ointment for bruises, salve for cuts. She supplies slings for those who have already been treated by the others, and replaces bandages when needed.
One patient floats at the forefront of her mind. Felix was discharged back to his room yesterday, with strict instructions to rest. Not trusting him to do as he was told, Mercedes enlisted the help of Sylvain, who was to check on him a few times a day to make sure he was resting. Every time Annette looks at her hands, she can see his blood covering them, red and thick, the very essence of his life. Though her hands have been scrubbed clean several dozen times since then, the memory will stay with her far longer still.
Annette returns from her rounds, ready for another cup of tea, always in supply in the medical ward. Her brow furrows when she sees Sylvain, talking in hushed tones to Mercedes as she works with another patient. He follows her around the bed, explaining something that Annette can’t quite hear. Mercedes nods along, summoning Manuela, giving her the condensed version of what Sylvain has said. Annette chooses this moment to make herself known, feeling a little rude for all the eavesdropping.
“Let Annette go!” Manuela says, gesturing as her as she crosses the threshold. She stops in her tracks, eyes wide. Go where? She has a feeling she knows, but she doesn’t like the idea.
“Annette…” Mercedes says, trailing off as she spots her friend. “Manuela, I understand that you are the lead here, but I do not think Annette has the experience for this job. Not like you or I.”
“Annette is a perfectly competent healer,” Manuela says. Annette flinches. Perfect and competent should not be used in the same sentence, let along beside each other. Manuela takes a step towards Annette, shutting Mercedes out of the conversation. “You’re free, right? Sylvain here has told us that Felix’s wound doesn’t look quite right. Take a basket, and have a look at it for us. If Felix is alive enough to communicate that he needs help, he is your responsibility, not ours.”
“Of course,” Annette says. She can feel her face flushing at the prospect of any part of Felix being hers, even if it is just his need for healing. Manuela thrusts the basket into her arms, and Annette is off before she has a chance to protest.
She is familiar with Felix’s room. She has been in it a number of times, primarily to help him with homework, a few times to complain about her father. Back in the academy, a few of the homework sessions morphed into something more, kisses that Annette will never forget. She wondered if things would proceed like that when they returned to Garreg Mach, but Felix never made mention of it, and Annette wasn’t sure if she should bring it up or not. Still, they hung out regularly. Mostly, Felix sought her out in the library or the greenhouse and just sat with her until it was time to go.
She takes a deep breath as she stands outside the door to Felix’s room, and steps forward to knock. From inside, she hears a feeble ‘come in’, and does as instructed. Feeble is not a word that Annette has ever used to describe Felix – he is strong of both mind and body, always sure of himself and his actions, even if he is unable to describe his intentions to others. But when she sees him now, clammy with sweat, dark hair splayed around him, he looks as weak as she has ever seen him.
“Annette?” He mumbles.
“Manuela sent me to help you,” she explains. “I’ll be back in just a moment. You need water to drink, and I need to cool you down.”
He nods in understanding. She sets the basket down at the end of the bed, lifting the glass from his bedside table and the wash basin from the desk. Annette scampers along the corridor, attempting to control her breathing. Her hands shake, adrenaline seeping through her. She is not used to this kind of pressure. Felix’s life has been in her hands once before, and here it is again.
She retrieves the water. She walks up the stairs. She places the bowl on the desk. She hands Felix the glass, and lets him sip. She wonders if she should close the door, and decides that she should, to give him some privacy. Annette pulls the chair beside his bed, and places a damp cloth on his forehead.
“I need to see the wound,” she tells him, speaking slowly to make sure that her voice isn’t shaking.
“Go ahead,” Felix says, giving her permission to do whatever she needs.
She folds the covers back to his waist, and unbuttons his shirt. He snorts at her trembling fingers – he can’t be that ill, she thinks to herself. She doesn’t dare look at him, only asking if he is able to lift his body off the bed long enough for her to remove the shirt. He does, and she works quickly to take his arms out of the sleeves.
“That will help you cool down too.”
“It’s nearly summer,” he excuses.
“It’s not summer, though.”
“Are you here to fix me, or to berate me?”
“It’s still quite cool outside. You are burning up with fever, Felix!” She says, finally looking up at him. Their eyes meet for a second before he looks away, obstinate as ever. She takes the opportunity to look at the wound. It does look infected, but nothing that Annette can’t handle. She removes the old bandages that Sylvain had presumably started to cut away, and applies one of Manuela’s more expensive medicines in a thin layer across the wound. Within a few minutes, the surface has turned green, infection bubbling to the top. Annette wipes it away, and applies another layer of the cream.
“Thank you,” Felix says as they wait.
“Manuela sent me. Really, you should be thanking her. This cream is her invention, and-“
“She’s not the one that saved me back at Fort Merceus, though. Is she?”
“No,” Annette says quietly, the look on Felix’s face as he began to slip away from her still fresh in her mind. “But I did such a bad job, I couldn’t get anything right, and now all this has happened, and you’re still so ill!”
“But you’re here to fix it,” Felix points out. “And you didn’t have all this stuff with you then. Just your hands.”
He takes one of her hands within his own. It’s gross, Annette thinks briefly, but then she acquiesces, a small smile finally making its way to her face. Felix doesn’t say anything, tearing his gaze away from hers once again. After a few moments, she pulls her hand from his grasp. She scrapes away another layer of the medicine, washing the wound with the clean water and drying it before adding a final layer of cream.
“Nearly there. Once the infection is all gone, I can heal you with magic. I-if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. Do what you need to do.”
They sit in a companionable silence for a few more minutes. The cream barely changes colour this time, but Annette wipes it away anyway. She dresses the wound and wraps a bandage around Felix’s abdomen, fingers skirting against the taught muscle that lies there. Once, she pauses for a second too long, and he huffs a self-satisfied sound that infuriates Annette. It reminds her of before, when they spent time in this room, when he would lean over the top of her book and kiss her, and she would shove him away to put her bookmark in before kissing him properly.
She wonders if he thinks about those times. They were never really anything, nothing with a name, nothing formal, nothing consistent. Just a few stolen kisses as teenagers when neither of them really knew better, when neither of them really had anything better to be doing. Now there is a war, and Annette is certain that both of them have much better things to be doing than trying to pursue a relationship. Felix nearly died a few weeks ago, and with more battles ahead, she will not pretend that death doesn’t loom over both of them.
“I really did do a bad job of healing you,” Annette says quietly, tearing her mind away from the other thoughts that plague her.
“Are you always so hard on yourself?” He asks. “I know the answer is yes. I’m fine, Annette.”
“You would have been better if Mercedes was with you, and not me!”
“And if you weren’t there at all? I would have died.”
“But-“
“I didn’t risk my life that whole battle trying to protect you just for you to say you did a bad job of healing me. I succeeded in protecting you, and you succeeded in healing me. And okay, it wasn’t perfect, but you have bruises and scrapes to show for my work too.”
“Felix…”
Annette drops her gaze back to the wound, not wanting to fight with him. He has a point of course. She did the best she could. Even if Mercedes had been there, she may not have done a perfect job either. She cannot be perfect all of the time. Sometimes, being competent is enough. She lets her magic flow through her, into Felix, the pale green glow of her hands illuminating how much better he looks.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for all you’ve done for me,” Felix says, his tone oddly melancholy. For a moment, Annette wonders if he’s on the brink of death again, but when she braves a glance up at him he looks almost back to normal. Felix continues. “You’re always there. I can’t imagine you not being there. I want you there forever.”
“You’re delusional. You lost a lot of blood, and-“
“I’m fine. Look, what I’m trying to say is that I think after this is all over, you should come back to Fraldarius with me. We should get married.” It takes Annette a moment to process what he has said, before her head snaps up to meet his gaze, all the grace and decorum expected of a lady of her standing gone in an instant.
“What?!”
He stares back at her, eyes wide, as if he’s only just processed what he has said. His cheeks tinge pink with embarrassment, and he looks away.
“I didn’t think it was like you to make plans for the future,” she says, contenting herself with a small smile. She gestures for him to sit upright, and helps him back into his shirt. This time her fingers glide over the buttons. He takes his newfound energy in his stride, rotating his shoulders, twisting his wrists and elbows.
“It’s not,” he grumbles. “Maybe it was the blood loss after all.”
“Did you really mean it, though? I mean, we’ve barely spoken these last six months, and then all of a sudden you… you’re proposing to me?”
“We hang out all the time,” Felix points out.
“In complete silence! You usually just find me wherever I am and sit near me until I go to bed and then you walk me back to my room and maybe make a comment about the weather!”
“I don’t talk a lot,” Felix says with a shrug.
“Well, I do.”
“I know. I like that.”
“Felix!”
He reaches out to cup her face. Surprised, Annette doesn’t make a move to pull away. When Felix is focussed on something, his eyes are always so intense, and that is how he looks now. Annette swallows hard. His hand is soft, surprisingly, and no longer clammy. She covers his hand with her own, leaning into his touch.
“You don’t need to decide now,” he murmurs. “You can… forget I said anything, and I can ask again later, or you can tell me that you never want to speak to me, or you can just… think about it.”
“I have thought about it,” Annette says. “I think that I would like that. B-but if you change your mind when you’re back on your feet I won’t mind!”
“I won’t,” Felix tells her, so confidently. “I’ve thought about this before, you know.”
“You…”
“All the time, in fact. I’ve just been waiting for the right time.”
“And you decided now was the right time?” Annette asks, a laugh escaping her.
“Well, no, not really. It just came out.”
“Well, I am glad it did. Though it has been rather awkward… I do accept your proposal.”
Before she can say anything else, Felix leans forward and kisses her, and all of sudden Annette is transported back five years to all the kisses they shared in here. She leans in to him, ignoring the fact that he is still ill, glad to finally know where she stands with him. Clearly she has been on his mind as much as he has been on hers, and unlike her, he has spent time coming up with a plan, not just wondering if anything will happen between them.
He pulls away, collapsing back on his pillow, and for a moment thinks that she’s somehow knocked him unconscious. When she peers over at him, he’s smiling, but exhausted, and she breathes a sigh of relief.
“I think I love you,” Felix says.
“You better be sure of that before you marry me,” Annette warns. She drops a kiss to his forehead. “I love you.” She packs her things up, knowing that if she takes too long Manuela and Mercedes will be suspicious. Oh, Mercedes! She cannot wait to tell her friend all of what has transpired today. She fixes Felix’s blankets and recommends he gets some rest, before making a move to leave.
“Am I a good kisser?” Annette asks suddenly. “I mean, I don’t know, because it’s not me doing the kissing, and, well – um, you are!”
“If you want me to base it on other people, no idea. You’re the only girl I’ve ever kissed. But I do like kissing you. A little perfect moment of Annette.”
“Okay!” She squeaks. “Nice talking to you Felix.”
A competent healer she may be, but it is nice to know that she is perfect at one thing, even if that is just in Felix’s estimation.