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“What are you smiling about?” Lysithea snapped.
Annette slid into the seat opposite her, the two glasses of peach sorbet on the tray she was carrying wobbling precariously. “It’s sweet-tooth week! And Felix gave me his sorbet.” She smiled dreamily.
Lysithea suspected Annette’s good mood had less to do with her extra dessert, and more to do with her boyfriend. She frowned as she dragged her spoon through her own portion, watching as the sorbet melted, the reminder of impermanence pushing itself, unwanted, to the forefront of her mind.
“Lysithea? Is something wrong?”
Lysithea looked up at Annette’s concerned expression and forced herself not to say something biting in response. Annette was a good person, Annette was a kind person. Annette wasn’t the type of person to think Lysithea’s current dilemma was childish. She could confide in Annette safely, as long as she allowed herself to.
“Cyril,” Lysithea said softly.
“What?” Annette’s eyes widened. “I thought that was going well. He wrote you a letter expressing his feelings, and then you told him he made you happy too, and you’ve been inseparable ever since. Or at least when he’s not busy helping out around the monastery and you’re not busy studying or training. Did something happen?”
Lysithea winced internally. She was glad that she hadn’t mentioned that the feelings that Cyril had written about weren’t half as clear as she had made them out to be. She was very glad that she hadn’t mentioned she’d actually uttered the word bappy - how juvenile!
Lysithea had always been grateful that Annette was at the academy with her - someone else who was as tiny as she was, who had a baby face too, who was as obsessive about studying magic as she was. But now, five years later, Annette was pulling ahead by leaps and bounds in an area where Lysithea couldn’t follow no matter how much she wished to.
All because Cyril just would not cooperate! It was infuriating.
Sure, Lysithea knew what a long and winding road Annette and Felix had been on to get to this point. But that didn’t make it any easier when she met her own bumps in the road to happiness.
How Felix Fraldarius hadn’t realised that dancing every dance at the ball with Annette meant that they were dating was beyond Lysithea, but she had to admit that he made her friend happy. And as long as that continued, Lysithea was prepared to look past his flaws - personality and otherwise. The second it didn’t however, Felix wouldn’t know what hit him.
“Um, when Felix finally realised you were dating, things changed, right?”
Annette giggled. “Well, there wasn’t really much to change to. He figured it out - and said as much, quite rudely - when I impulsively kissed him goodbye and then we didn’t see each other for five years, and at the start I was so angry that I didn’t send him a letter for moons once I’d reached Dominic, and he didn’t send me one because, you know, he’s Felix, and-”
“But when we got back here, it changed,” Lysithea interrupted. She needed specific information, not Annette going off on a tangent about letters that was making Lysithea think far too much about Cyril in a way that wasn’t particularly helpful at the moment.
“Mmhmm.” Annette smiled, lost in memories. “You arrived a day or two after the millennium festival, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Lysithea’s mouth was tight. She’d misjudged how long it would take to reach the monastery - several roads she’d travelled by five years ago were no longer passable due to bandits and Empire battalions. Luckily the other recruited students had also suffered a similar fate. She couldn’t have borne it if she were the only one not there, to feel as left out as she had when everyone else had felt so much older than her while they were studying together at the academy.
“Well, we obviously had to deal with all the bandits using the monastery as their hideout first, but after - when I went up to Felix - he grabbed me by the waist and pulled me towards him and said that if he’d known that I’d thought we were going out he’d have kissed me first, and then he did! He kissed me! In front of everyone!” Annette smiled dreamily. “And it was a real kiss.”
Lysithea frowned a little. She wasn’t sure she’d want Cyril to kiss her in front of everyone with no warning, but she would like him to kiss her when they were alone.
“A real kiss?” Lysithea asked, trying not to appear too interested. “Like…” She trailed off, hoping Annette would take the bait.
She did.
“His lips were soft but firm on mine, and his hand that wasn’t around my waist made its way into my hair, and then his tongue slipped into my mouth…” Annette sighed.
Annette made someone’s tongue in your mouth sound pleasurable, but it wasn’t exactly what Lysithea had in mind. It sounded a bit weird to be honest. But maybe she and Cyril could work their way up to that. As long as they started - Lysithea had always been impatient, and with good reason.
“So, um, Cyril - I don’t know if he knows that I like him. As more than friends. We’re together all the time, but we don’t really do romantic things.” Lysithea pushed her spoon through the sorbet again, staring at it because she didn’t want to see Annette’s reaction. She looked up when she was met with silence and was unsurprised to see the pity she hadn’t wanted written all over Annette’s face.
“Maybe he’s just dense, and doesn’t realise that you want that type of stuff. Guys can be,” Annette said, her eyes twinkling while obviously thinking of Felix.
Lysithea smiled wanly. “Yeah, probably. I just- Every time I try to say something about it to him, there’s people around or the words get stuck in my throat or he needs to go help with some chore. And I’m afraid I’ll end up blurting it out as unromantically as possible, and I don’t want that!” Her hands flexed as they curled into fists.
Annette nodded understandingly. “What about a picnic, just outside of the monastery grounds?” she said brightly, pleased with herself for coming up with the idea. “You can say it’s one of the group ones we sometimes go on, and then pretend to be surprised that no one else showed up, but because you don’t want all the food you brought to go to waste… And then you can sit and talk and have your first real date, no pressure, and tell him what you want from your relationship.”
Lysithea relaxed a little as she thought it over.
“Mercie will definitely bake you a cake to take with you, and Cyril likes savouries more, right? So I’ll ask Ashe to help with those.” Annette took Lysithea’s hands in hers, and squeezed gently. “We all see how he looks at you, the same way he’s looked at you since you met. He likes you, and if you’re brave enough to put yourself out there, it’ll work out.”
Sitting on a blanket with Cyril, enjoying delicious food and a beautiful view, the two of them, alone, together. Lysithea blushed a little.
Annette was right. It would work out.
Lysithea was brave on the battlefield all the time. She could be brave here, too.
*****
Lysithea spread the blanket on the damp grass at the top of the hill, frowning at how one corner kept rolling up. She flattened it out and placed the heavy picnic basket on top of it to hold it in place, smiling in satisfaction at a job well done.
She sat down, smoothing the skirt of her dress, and decided to start on Mercedes’ mouthwateringly delicious sponge cake topped with strawberries. Cyril would be happy with only a small piece, so she could eat to her heart’s content.
Cyril was a little late, but he usually was, having decided his worth was determined by how much work he did repairing the monastery despite Professor Byleth’s attempts at reassuring him that it didn’t matter. Lysithea didn’t bother trying to talk him out of it because she understood his point of view. After all, she had placed her own self-worth firmly onto how adept she was at spellcasting, and she refused to be a hypocrite.
“Lysithea?”
She looked up, her mouth dry both due to the sheer amount of cake in it, and how tall (and handsome) Cyril appeared from her sitting position. Why had he decided to grow so much in the time they were apart? It was supremely unfair.
“Hi!” Lysithea squeaked out, coughing a little as the cake stuck in her throat.
Cyril looked around. “Where’s everyone?”
“Annette said that she had to help Ashe with a gardening emergency, so that’s why they’re not here. I don’t know about the others. Maybe they’re just late?” She shrugged, hoping - for once - to appear ignorant.
“You came here by yourself?”
Lysithea sat up straighter, pushing her shoulders back. “I can handle myself.”
“I wasn’t saying that. Why didn’t any of your friends come with you? They don’t seem like good friends to me.”
Lysithea fought to control her temper. It usually wasn’t difficult to do so around Cyril, but she’d been so on edge lately… Her friends were good friends. They were such good friends that they had cooked all this food, and told everyone not to ask Cyril for help today, and guaranteed that no one would come to the most popular picnic spot this afternoon.
The only problem was that she couldn’t defend them by saying any of that.
“It doesn’t matter. Here, have some food - Ashe made it.” Lysithea smiled at Cyril encouragingly. He’d take something to eat and sit down next to her and she’d have time to make sure their conversation went how she wanted it to.
Cyril picked up two of the meat sandwiches, and then two more, and it was then that Lysithea realised he’d remained standing and was making no move to sit down.
“Thanks,” Cyril said. “I was getting hungry. I gotta go move some rubble in the cathedral, so I can’t stay. I only came here ’cause I wanted to let ya know.”
Lysithea made a plaintive noise that could barely be heard over the breeze whipping through the trees nearby.
“You okay?” Cyril asked.
Lysithea smiled painfully and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“I think they’re all too scared of the big guy to go in there, and it’s sad to see it so run down, ya know?”
Lysithea did not know, having no particular ties to the Goddess. But Cyril was upset about Lady Rhea’s captivity in Enbarr, and she knew that he must want to clean up the cathedral so that it would look perfect for her when they brought her home.
“That’s nice of you to help out,” Lysithea managed to say.
“You wanna walk back with me? It looks like none of your friends are coming.”
“Sure.” Lysithea sighed as she packed up all the supplies and handed Cyril the basket. She dared to loop her arm through his as they walked, her heart beating too fast in her chest, waiting for a semi-polite rejection. But there was none, Cyril allowing, but not commenting on, the closeness.
It was enough to give Lysithea hope.
She had to come up with a better plan for next time.
*****
“A letter!” Annette said triumphantly.
“What? That’s how I got into this mess in the first place,” Lysithea said.
“No, it’s perfect. You grew closer when that girl wrote her love letter to Cyril, and closer still when you read Cyril’s letter to you, and now you can complete the circle by writing your own love confession to Cyril. If you’re having trouble saying it to him, writing it instead should help!” Lysithea didn’t bother to point out that completing the circle would technically be if she wrote a love letter to the girl who had had a crush on Cyril at school and focused on another issue. “I wouldn’t know what to write.”
“That’s not a problem,” Annette said, smiling so brightly that Lysithea believed her for a second before all of her reasonable anti-letter arguments flooded her brain again.
“Yes. It is.”
Annette rolled her eyes fondly. “No, it’s not, because it doesn’t matter as long as it’s from the heart. Felix sent me some lovely letters when we were separated, that’s how I knew he was truly sorry even before we reunited.”
Lysithea raised an eyebrow. She doubted that Annette’s definition of lovely matched hers. “Can I see them?” she asked, only partly mischievously.
She regretted it as soon as Annette’s happy expression clouded. “No. My uncle found where I kept them and burned them all.” A light came into her eyes. “But Felix should have some of my letters to him, so you can use those as a guide. Let’s go!”
Lysithea found herself being tugged along by Annette towards Felix’s room, snatching a piece of cake from their afternoon tea to take with her, but gazing wistfully at the sweet buns that she had to leave behind.
“Felix!” Annette called out cheerfully as they barged into his room.
Lysithea was immensely grateful that he was only sitting on his bed and polishing his (literal) sword.
“What.”
Lysithea had to commend him for not being visibly annoyed, but she supposed Annette often entered his room uninvited and he was used to it.
“Do you have my letters, the ones I sent to you when we were separated?” The sudden clamminess of Annette’s hand in hers made Lysithea realise just how unsure Annette was of the answer. Lysithea huffed out a breath in annoyance. Why was Annette worried? Of course Felix would have kept her letters, he was obsessed with her.
Felix nodded, placing his sword carefully on the bed and went over to his desk. He opened a wooden box and took out a large stack of letters, tied together with a piece of ribbon the same colour as Annette’s hair.
“You kept them?” Annette asked, her eyes shining.
Clearly, Lysithea thought.
Felix nodded. “Which ones do you want, the ones you sent to me, or the ones I sent to you?”
“What?” Annette asked, the sound barely audible.
“I, uh-” Felix blushed, running a hand through his hair. “I made a copy of each letter I sent to you, just in case they didn’t reach Dominic, so I could give them to you later. I mean, if you wanted them.”
Lysithea thought it would be much more romantic if Felix didn’t look like he was on the verge of passing out as he spoke.
“I do! I do want them!” Annette threw her arms around Felix, kissing him frantically wherever she could reach. Mainly around Felix’s chin and throat from what Lysithea could see.
Lysithea wasn’t sure she wanted to know what those letters said anymore, if she ever had. Plus - given how things were rapidly progressing - she needed to leave them alone as soon as possible.
It wasn’t like they would notice her absence anyway.
*****
My dearest Cyril
Dearest Cyril
Dear Cyril
To Cyril
Cyril
I like you
I love you
I want to be happy with you for
I want to be bappy with you for as long as we both shall
I’m dying. Not in the way that everyone will die - eventually - but slowly. Not slowly enough for my liking though. I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, as long as that is. Probably five years, not more than ten. It’s an awful thing to ask, to say that the only way I can imagine being bappy before I die is by spending whatever time I have left with you, knowing you’ll have to watch me die and be left with only grief to keep you company. But I’m selfish. Always have been, always will be. Please, say you’ll be mine.
Lysithea let out a small, frustrated growl and obliterated the words she had written so thoroughly that no trace of them remained, only dark splotches of ink present on the parchment where her hopes and dreams had been moments before.
“Whoa there. You okay?”
Lysithea’s eyes narrowed as she looked up to see Sylvain standing at the foot of her table, absolutely no sign of him being in the monastery library for any other reason than bothering her.
“Does it look like I’m okay?”
“Uhh, not sure if that’s a trick question. You know, like does my butt look big in this?”
“What?” Lysithea glared at him.
“So. You obviously don’t want to talk to me and, hey, I respect that. But Annette told me about your little predicament…”
The blood drained from Lysithea’s face. “She what?” she shouted hoarsely.
Sylvain’s eyes widened. “Yeah. And if you need to write a letter, I-”
“I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help,” Lysithea interjected before Sylvain could offer.
“Not me,” he said quickly, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “The preeminent writer in Fódlan. I’ll leave you to it.”
Lysithea was thankful when Sylvain disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, leaving the
person standing behind him in his place.
“Bernadetta?”
“Um, yeah, that’s me. Oh, of course you know my name, silly Bernie.”
“You write?” Lysithea asked incredulously.
Bernadetta took a deep breath as she sat down. “Yes,” she said. “Mostly stories, but I can write letters too. A good wife should have laudable correspondence skills.” She smiled wanly.
“Oookay,” Lysithea said, making a face. “But I don’t know how you can help. I don’t even know what I want to say.”
“You don’t? You seem like you had plenty to say there. May I see?”
“Sure.” Lysithea handed over the parchment, crossing her arms over her chest as she waited for Bernadetta to admit defeat and ask what she had written.
Instead Bernadetta held the parchment up to the flickering candlelight. “Oh!” she gasped. “You’re dying?” She clamped a hand over her mouth in shame at her bluntness.
“Yes,” Lysithea said firmly. It felt good to acknowledge it, like she had been waiting for someone to finally put two and two together and make four instead of staring blankly at the equation like an imbecile.
“I’m so sorry,” Bernadetta said, her eyes filling with tears.
“Stop it. That doesn’t do me any good,” Lysithea said. “On the other hand, helping me write a letter explaining it would though. So let’s focus on that shall we?”
They spent the afternoon carefully crafting a letter that was just the right mix of informative, romantic, and persuasive.
“Hm,” Lysithea said as she read over their final draft. “Your writing is much better than I expected.”
Bernadetta blushed and looked down at the quill she was rolling back and forth between her fingers. “Oh, um, …thank you?”
Lysithea exhaled forcefully. “You need to learn to take a compliment. I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Bernadetta said softly. She cleared her throat. “Thank you, I’ve worked hard on my craft,” she said, her voice stronger.
“I can tell.” Lysithea looked up from the letter. “Don’t you have anything better to do than sit here and watch me read?”
“Oh! We’re finished? Um, good luck!” Bernadetta squeaked, before she left the library, presumably running back to her room as quickly as she could.
Lysithea frowned as she read through the letter again.
The letter was beautiful. It was perfect, the exact blend of sincerity and romance that she wanted.
It didn’t sound like her.
She sighed and copied out the letter in her own handwriting as neatly as she could despite that fact. It was good enough for her purposes.
She’d give it to Cyril.
She would.
Definitely.
Whenever she saw him next.
But it was already so late.
She’d find him tomorrow.
Definitely.
Maybe.
*****
The letter was burning a hole in her pocket.
Every time she thought that today might be the day when she finally gave Cyril the letter, something would happen to make her rethink, to decide that there would be another time which would be better even as day after day passed - one day after another less that she had left to live.
Lysithea was half-tempted to tear the letter to pieces, just so it would be over and done with rather than existing in this uncertainty. But the possibility that she would somehow know when it was the perfect moment to give it to Cyril gnawed at her and so she kept the letter constantly on her person in case that opportunity arose.
The guilt was an additional reason she did so. She knew she should give Cyril all the information - about her feelings for him, about her health, about how short a time they had left together - and she wanted to punish herself for chickening out every time.
She deserved it for not being honest with the person she cared for most in the world.
She deserved what happened at Gronder for the same reason.
Cyril, though - Cyril didn’t deserve it in the slightest.
The Imperial army took control of the hill from the start, which spelled trouble for all of their army’s fliers. Ingrid was experienced, Ingrid dodged the ballista volley that came her way with ease. Cyril wasn’t. Cyril, who had been so proud when he had been promoted to Wyvern Lord two weeks ago - yet another day when Lysithea hadn’t given him the letter because she hadn’t wanted to burst his bubble with her problems - had been hit.
Lysithea felt faint as she watched from the other side of the battlefield as his wyvern fell in slow-motion, but never slow enough for her to get there in time. Why had she always seen her worth solely in her ability to attack? Why had she never learned how to heal, from a distance?
Why had she always focused on keeping herself alive as long as she could, and not the people she loved?
Lysithea could have cried from relief when she saw Mercedes’ bright healing light surround Cyril. She forced herself not to, so she could focus on getting to him, to tell him how she felt, to give him the stupid letter before it was too late.
She ran.
She ran, deep, gulping breaths rattling her chest, as she saw Mercedes reach Cyril’s position and start dragging him towards their backlines.
She shouldn’t be doing that! Professor Byleth had taught them to leave the injured where they were for grievous injuries. Did she- Was Cyril- Lysithea forced her swirling thoughts to the back of her mind. Mercedes was their best healer. She was naturally gifted. She knew what she was doing.
Mercedes would save Cyril. She had to.
Lysithea stumbled, the edges of her vision blurring. Cyril looked so unlike himself, his skin so ashen, his body limp as Mercedes dragged it him.
She was not going to break down. She was tougher than that.
Lysithea flung out deadly spells at all of the enemies in her path, barely sparing them a second glance. She had to get to Cyril.
She was breathing heavily by the time she reached the infirmary tent seconds after Mercedes and Cyril entered it, and flung the flap open.
“Leave.”
Lysithea didn’t think she’d ever heard Mercedes speak so coldly.
“What?” Lysithea whispered shakily.
“I can’t do my job if you’re going to be second guessing my every move. If you want Cyril to have the best chance of survival, stay outside the tent.” Mercedes refused to look up at her, too focused on pouring all of her energy into healing Cyril.
“I-” She couldn’t do that. “I won’t say anything. I’ll sit next to him and hold his hand and I won’t distract you, I promise! I- I can’t- If he-” Lysithea forced back a sob, choking on it. “I need to be here if the worst happens. I want to be here for him, even if he doesn’t know I am. Even if he never knows it.”
“You need to for yourself,” Mercedes said softly. “That’s understandable. Sit down, but if you say a single word, you’re leaving.”
Lysithea nodded mutely.
The tears started falling as soon as she took Cyril’s hand in hers. How many times had she dreamed of this, of intertwining their fingers just as she was doing now? But Cyril’s hand had never been this cold.
Lysithea didn’t know how long she sat there, staring unseeingly at Cyril’s almost peaceful face, her heart stuttering to life every time his chest moved up and down, knowing that if he was still breathing, he was still alive.
“Lysithea?” Mercedes gently shook her shoulder when she finished. “He’ll be fine. He just needs rest.”
“Huh?” Lysithea came back to reality, to the sheer noise of the infirmary tent from all of their wounded being treated. There were so many, and yet Mercedes had spent all of her time helping Cyril. “Thank you. I don’t- Thank you.”
“Of course.” Mercedes smiled briefly before moving on to find the next person to heal.
Lysithea felt a twinge in her back and another in her neck, the aftereffects of her contorting herself to sit on the side of Cyril’s bed, while still having him in her sight.
She bit her lip, contemplative. Mercedes had said he was alright, that he just needed rest.
They could rest together.
Lysithea climbed into his bed, wrapping her arms around him loosely and leaning her head against his shoulder, and drifted off to sleep.
*****
“Lysithea?” Cyril mumbled.
Lysithea sat up, suddenly wide awake. “Cyril?” She cradled his face in her hands, looking deeply into his eyes. Her heart lifted. His eyes were clear and alert and there was no sign of repercussions from the injury that had left him unconscious just hours before.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Oh!” Lysithea pulled her hands away as if she’d been burned. “I just- Someone needs to make sure you’re okay! I don’t know if you remember but you got badly hurt and Mercedes healed you.”
“Did she? She’s a real nice lady,” Cyril mumbled.
“Yes. She is.” Lysithea took a deep breath. She could do this. She’d almost lost him today, and she couldn’t live without letting him know, without giving him a choice instead of choosing for the both of them. She reached into her pocket for the letter.
It wasn’t there.
She’d lost it somewhere - in the heat of battle, maybe when she had stumbled, maybe when she’d hadn't been able to notice anything except Cyril’s almost lifeless body and the enemies standing between them.
She had read the letter at least a hundred times and now she couldn’t remember a single word of what it had said.
“Lysithea?” Cyril asked, frowning slightly.
Annette had said it didn’t matter what she said, as long as it was from the heart. So what if it wasn’t perfect? She’d push forward and not worry about the consequences, like she always did, like she had done with everything in her life before Cyril.
“I was so worried. I don’t want another day to go by without telling you. I… I lo- I want to be with you, like, um, girlfriend and boyfriend. If you’d want that too.” Lysithea forced herself to meet Cyril’s eyes, even as her blush threatened to overtake her entire face.
Cyril furrowed his brow. “Aren’t we?”
“What.”
“When ya read my letter and told me you’re happy too and ya want to spend time with me? I thought that meant that you’re my girlfriend.”
Lystihea stared at him in shock. “You never even tried to kiss me!”
“Was I supposed to? I thought you’d ask, you always like telling people what to do.” He shrugged. “I was tryna do what you wanted.”
“Seems like we were both being stupid,” Lysithea said, chuckling a little.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Cyril’s lips before he could argue with her about who was the dense one.
What did it matter anyway?
All that mattered was this feeling overtaking her as Cyril responded to her kiss.
Annette was definitely right.
Kissing was amazing.
*****
Lysithea stirred from her second nap of the day, Cyril having fallen asleep not long after their first kiss. She tried not to take it to heart, he was exhausted, that was all it was. And to be honest she hadn’t exactly minded as it gave her the opportunity to snuggle up to him some more. It also gave her the opportunity to think about how she was going to tell him about how short a time she had left.
She frowned a little.
“Awwww, look at them. They’re so cute!”
Lysithea would recognise Annette’s giggly voice anywhere.
“Shhh, let them sleep, Annie,” Mercedes said. “They can hear about the battle in the morning. Let’s go back out there and see if there’s anyone else that needs our help.”
Lysithea sighed softly as she moved closer to Cyril when Mercedes and Annette left the tent. Yeah, they should leave them alone, she thought before she returned to peaceful dreams of a bappy future - for however long it lasted.