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It’s the wet season when Linhardt arrives at the Edmund estate. The guards take one look at his soaked, disheveled appearance and refuse him entry, but Linhardt holds his ground and declares that he’s not leaving until he sees her ladyship the margravine this instant. Finally, one of the guards huffs and stomps inside while the remaining woman, unimpressed, watches his meager efforts to dry himself. When the doors open, she stands at attention and salutes.
“My lady, our apologies, but this tramp simply demanded a personal audience with—”
“Linhardt,” Marianne breathes, and the past two years of aimless wandering evaporate in the shine of her eyes.
“Hello, Marianne.” He smiles back at her as if he had just returned home from a leisurely stroll. “It’s good to see you again.”
Becoming the margrave’s successor has put a little steel in Marianne’s bones, Linhardt thinks. She carries herself more confidently, walks with a surer step, and speaks with a firmer voice. But her inherent gentleness still shines through as she throws a heavy quilted blanket over his shivering shoulders and guides him to the guest wing.
“You’re shaking,” Marianne says with a frown. “If you catch a cold—”
“You forget the immunizing qualities of my Crest, Marianne,” Linhardt reminds her to disguise the sweet shock of her hands on his body after two years. “Try as I might, I can’t fall ill.”
“You’ll be miserable, regardless,” Marianne reproves. She ushers him into a well-appointed chamber that’s a far cry from the utilitarian inns and academic dormitories that were his most recent haunts; the sight of an enormous, well-pillowed bed flanked by twin cabinets is almost enough to make him weep with joy. By the brick fireplace is a little maid who's lighting the stack of wood inside, and she curtsies as Marianne sits Linhardt down on the bed. Oh, divine blankets, softly fluffed pillows! His fingers spread across the silky bedspread and Linhardt sighs; he’s in heaven.
Marianne straightens and begins to turn towards the door. “Let me fetch you some dry things—”
“Don’t go yet,” Linhardt blurts, and then immediately bites his tongue when her eyes widen. “Ah. I meant—go ahead. Do as you like.”
Marianne stands there a moment longer, her eyebrows knitted together, before she seems to come to a decision. She sits down beside him, her shoulder pressing into his, and then raises her voice lightly. “Ella?”
The maidservant springs to attention. “Yes, my lady?”
“Would you please bring a change of dry clothes for our guest? Something loose-fitting would be good, I think.”
“Yes, my lady.” The girl bobs her head and, with a curious glance towards both figures sitting together on the bed, shuts the door behind her with a click. Linhardt chooses this appropriate moment to sneeze.
“Immunized,” Marianne murmurs, and he affects a glare at her but it quickly dissipates in the wake of her knowing smile.
Something of the margravine falls away and the healer returns as Marianne begins divesting Linhardt of his traveling clothes. Exhausted as he is, Linhardt doesn’t put up a fight as she strips him of his weatherbeaten cloak and dust-clodded clothes as he resists the urge to nod off. Ella returns with blankets to find their recipient sitting half-naked on the bed with the margravine incumbent briskly stripping her guest as if this were a perfectly normal pastime. Mildly, Linhardt watches the beet-red girl flee the room and lolls his head to glance at Marianne, whose lips have thinned with concentration as she works to undo the buttons of his undershirt.
“Is your household aware of your role as a healer during the war?” he asks curiously. “They act as if they’ve never seen you undress somebody before.”
Marianne huffs warm laughter against his skin. “Some of them exaggerate stories to each other about what I did then…but my father’s a little to blame for that, I think.”
“They’re not wrong to praise you.” Linhardt shivers as a cool draft brushes past his still damp skin. “You saved countless lives during the war…my own numbering among them. You deserve every bit of their exuberance.”
Marianne blushes. The sight is a familiar one and sends an unexpected spark of delight through him even as she avoids his gaze. “Where in the world is this coming from, Linhardt?”
“I’ll shower Fódlan’s finest bards with gold to sing your praises across the land,” he continues, buoyed by the pink on her cheeks. “I’ll make you a folk hero by proxy, my Marianne.”
She’s laughing now, an unexpectedly loud burst of clear joy so unlike the rare glimmering giggles that their House treasured like gold. “Linhardt! You’re teasing me.”
“Sorry.” Linhardt feels a little foolish grinning like this. Has he been wandering the world so long that he’s become as unrestrained as Caspar? “It’s been a while.”
Marianne quiets, her smile gentling. Her shoulder brushes against his. “It has.”
A content silence grows between them until he yawns luxuriantly. At this point, he can’t really prevent Marianne from leaving a second time without drawing undue attention to them both, so he watches with sleepy regret as she briskly collects his wet things and stands, urging him to take a bath and promising him a hearty late repast should he rouse himself enough for a meal.
“If you’d like, I’ll have Ella knock on your door in case you sleep through breakfast,” Marianne says with a smile.
“I’ll take that offer gladly,” Linhardt says through another yawn. “I feel as if I might sleep through the winter.”
“Please don’t,” Marianne begs. “I have so much to ask you. So much to tell you.”
“And I have much to ask you in return. I’ll make an effort to rise for breakfast.” Linhardt impulsively stretches out his hand to her. Trepidation has barely enough time to build within him before Marianne takes it eagerly and bends over it with far more tenderness than he deserves.
“Answer me one question before I go,” she murmurs. “Do you still feel the same for me as when you left two years ago?”
His heart clenches.
“My feelings for you are the same as they’ve always been,” Linhardt returns softly. “It’s been so long that I don’t think it’s possible for me to feel any other way.”
Marianne chokes a wet laugh against his hand. He cups her face with his free hand and she leans into him for a heartbeat before she stands with a look of regret at the timepiece on the mantle.
“Go to sleep,” Marianne murmurs. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Of course,” Linhardt says, fighting back yet another yawn. For the first time in his life he tries not to fall asleep before Marianne leaves, but his head is already collapsing onto the pillow when the door shuts behind Marianne’s exit and he’s asleep before he knows it. His dreams are all tinted blue.
Marianne has an early audience scheduled for the ninth bell, but she is gracious enough to break her fast with Linhardt in the estate’s morning room. Pale dawn light streams through the floor to ceiling windows, which are polished to a near immaculate shine, and illuminates the fine china that contains the piping-hot breakfast tea that Marianne pours into his cup. It’s a fine set—Linhardt admires the delicate gold scrolling on the round-bellied teapot Marianne sets back onto the table. He sips the fragrant brew and sighs in bliss as the familiar tang of Angelica hits his tongue. “You’re spoiling me rotten.”
Marianne hides her smile behind the teapot. “I’m glad you like it.”
They trade pleasantries for a few minutes as they both reacquaint themselves to each other in the light of day. Linhardt had always dreaded hearing morning bells when he was still a student at Garreg Mach; it always heralded the end of silence and study. But now, as the sun climbs higher into the sky, he eagerly drinks in every plane of Marianne’s face that its rays illuminate with the same bliss he satiates himself on his Angelica.
Feeling self-conscious for the first time in a long while, Linhardt clears his throat and reaches into his book bag. “May I show you something, Marianne?”
She swallows a mouthful of tea. “Oh? What is it?” Her eyes widen comically as he slides a thinly-bound manuscript across the table. Across the cover spirals his name in elegant font, and just below it, a small colophon of a renowned Imperial publishing house.
Linhardt has the pleasure of watching sheer wonder cross Marianne’s face in a wash of joy as her teacup clatters onto her saucer. “Linhardt! You wrote a book!”
“Almost,” he says. “I’m fighting my editor on a few final details, but the bones of it are here.”
“Oh, wow…” Marianne abandons her rolls and scoops up the script with a delightful eagerness. He sips his tea and watches her face with some anxiousness as she mouths the title to herself. “A Modern Treatise on the Principles of Crest Incitement…”
“Awful title, isn’t it?” Linhardt comments wryly. “Lysithea hates it. I sent her a first draft a few moons ago only to find it returned with enough scathing annotations to warrant its own appendix.”
“That sounds like Lysithea," Marianne laughs. Her eyes are still fixated on the script in her hands. “But still, Linhardt! A real book! This is such an accomplishment…you must be very proud.”
Linhardt allows himself to preen a little. “Well, I suppose it was a result of many sleepless nights….”
“You have to let me buy some copies from you when this is officially published.” Marianne marvels as she flips the book open, turning leaves as gingerly as one would a testament. “Our library is smaller than my father would like to admit….”
“You’ll be the first to hold the final edition.” Linhardt watches her eyes flit distractedly through several passages. “Truth be told, I’m eager to be done with it. The meticulousness of proofreading grates after a certain point. I would like to focus on the nature of the research itself rather than banter pedantics with editors.”
Marianne nods thoughtfully. “Application rather than theory.”
“Nothing like direct results to prove a theory, yes?” Linhardt says lightly.
She smiles as she returns the manuscript to him. “This is thrilling, Linhardt. I can’t wait to read it.”
“If all goes well, you’ll be holding the finished product by Red Wolf Moon,” Linhardt replies jauntily. His fingers brush against hers as the manuscript exchanges hands and he has to force himself to withdraw casually to hide the sudden acceleration of his heartbeat. “Now, I’ve shared with you my paltry accomplishment. Marianne, tell me what you’ve been up to these past two years.”
The margravine incumbent blushes fiercely and demurs any great deeds of political triumph, but as the rosewood clock on the mantlepiece behind them ticks away, Linhardt manages to wheedle a few personal triumphs out of a red-faced Marianne. Her adoptive father, Margrave Edmund, had begun the transfer of power from himself to her before the Leicester Alliance had even begun licking its wounds, which allowed her to be both respected and beloved thanks to her efforts in stabilizing the war-torn region. Building hospitals, rehabilitating former soldiers, and making trade and border deals to return noncombatants to the public roads are only a few of what Marianne has managed to accomplish in the two short years since they had defeated Nemesis. Small wonder her household adores her so fiercely.
“Some of my battalion have decided to remain here as part of my staff,” Marianne shares a little shyly. “You’ll see them around if you wander the grounds.”
“Your battalion houses some of the kindest and most terrifying individuals in the professor’s army,” Linhardt marvels. “I’ll be happy to see them again.”
Marianne peers at him as she pours him some more fragrant Angelica. “You’ve grown social, Linhardt!”
“With months on the road, one can’t exactly hide behind stacks of books,” Linhardt yawns. “A shame, but I like to think that I’ve bettered myself in that regard.”
“Indeed.” Marianne’s smile looks somewhat wistful. “Everyone is maturing so quickly. It’s like our pasts are truly behind us now.”
A vivid, aquatic-colored memory chooses this inopportune time to reassert itself in Linhardt’s mind: Marianne’s head against his chest, her hair dirtied by blood and soot, her breathing shallow but soft as her hand winds tightly around his, the scent of death all around them.
“Not all of it, I hope.” Linhardt’s voice comes out soft.
Her eyes glisten in the morning light and for a while there’s nothing but the sound of rain, the coos of the doves, and the brightness of her eyes.
It’s Marianne who finally speaks up again. “I kept your letters, every one of them.” She gestures distractedly to the great, oaken desk behind her. “I tie them together with twine and I read them when I’m tired or lonely.”
“Do you?” Linhardt feels a succession of strong emotions flood his chest too quickly for thought, leaving him both flustered and pleased. “I—why, I’m glad those kept you better company than I did.”
“You needed your space,” Marianne says, shaking her head. “I needed mine. And I think that if we had clung to each other when the both of us were still tender from fighting a war, then we would've opened up new, invisible wounds.”
“Or we would have been able to offer each other reprieve when the nightmares came.” Linhardt doesn’t mean for his voice to turn self-deprecating, but Marianne surprises him by reaching her hand across the table to clasp his hand in hers.
“What might’ve happened isn’t important,” she says softly. “Looking towards the future matters more than that now.”
Linhardt squeezes her hand tight. Her hand in his, the familiar and yet alien weight, reminds him of a hundred nights where they anchored each other while dying soldiers fought to live scarce lengths away from them. He could almost hear their moans now, even in this serene paradise of books, birds, and Marianne.
“You’ve grown as well,” Linhardt comments. “A few years ago I doubt you would have said something to me so confidently. But now look; I’m speaking to a proper margravine.”
“Oh, don’t start that,” Marianne says with a hearty blush, looking more her age. “I’ve a long way to reach my father.”
“Who said you had to be your father?” Linhardt corrects her. “You just have to be Marianne.”
“You’re right,” she says with a tiny sigh. “Still, I can’t help but compare myself to him.”
“Small wonder you do,” Linhardt says wryly, “what with the shortage of living margraves around that you can study to the full extent of their aptitude.”
Marianne snorts, a short, mirthful sound that he feels in every jolt of her fingers in his. “Linhardt, you forget. Sylvain is a margrave now.”
“Ugh.” Linhardt winces automatically. “I do hope you’re not comparing yourself to him, of all people.”
“Be kind,” Marianne reproves him with a giggle. “From what Hilda has written to me, Sylvain’s improved dramatically. He’s smoothed out relations with Sreng and is happily married. I think he’s doing quite well for himself.”
“Love can blind even the most clear-sighted of us all, unfortunately,” Linhardt says primly, and when Marianne laughs, he can’t help but see the wry truth in his own foreboding words.
Despite Marianne’s modesty, Linhardt is charmed by the estate’s library. A library says much about its household, and he can recognize which of its many volumes have been purchased by the margrave and which had been added by his daughter. Others still hint at the histories and interests of previous Edmund leaders; Linhardt flips through a few out of curiosity and learns quickly that the margrave’s stolid nature is evidently not unique to his line, if the sheer number of dry or tragic biographies have anything to say about it.
Linhardt loses track of time as he gets particularly deep into The Historie of Leland von Edmund, an autobiography written by a distant Edmund forefather who’s somehow more self-deprecating than Marianne was during her academy days, and he’s startled when Ella gingerly raps her knuckles on the doorframe of the library to inform him that it’s time for supper.
If the margrave were home, the household and its guests would have to eat in the dining hall, but in his absence dinner is a more relaxed affair. The house chef, apparently anxious to please, whips up a menu featuring a bounty of Imperial staples, as well as some specially prepared favorites of Marianne’s. Propriety cast aside for an evening, they eat in the quiet side room by the kitchen, happily glutting themselves and laughing in between bites. Good food loosens smiles easily.
Linhardt’s in the middle of draining a tureen of Daphnel stew to its very dregs when he feels something nudge against his foot. He pauses, spoon still in his mouth, and looks down to see a very familiar face.
“Fortune?” he exclaims. “Is that you?”
The Aegir hound from Garreg Mach eagerly nudges her snout against his leg again, her thin tail whipping about in a fury of doggish delight. Out of habit more than anything, Linhardt digs his fingers into her collar and scratches, smiling when her eyes close with bliss.
“Wily thing,” he murmurs. “You followed her home when I couldn’t.”
Fortune’s jaw parts as she pants. If a dog could look smug…
“I was quite selfish,” Marianne admits with a flush of color. “She did so well surviving the five years of Garreg Mach in ruins, but I didn’t want to leave her behind again. I hope she doesn't mind being uprooted from where she was born…”
“This hardy creature survived five years’ worth of war and famine by herself,” Linhardt recalls as he gives Fortune one last firm pat. “I think she can appreciate a change in scenery after so long. Besides,” he adds, “she looks quite satisfied to be here. Aren’t you, Fortune?”
Alas, hounds can’t speak. But Fortune’s eyes are dark and full of canine wisdom, and she gives his fingers one last lick before she trots back to Marianne’s side and sinks into a heap at her feet, content.
“She’s like you,” Marianne laughs as she strokes Fortune’s head absently. Her hand traces over the same ruff where Linhardt had dug his fingers in the dog’s ruff. Something about watching her hand replace where he had been makes his head spin. “Always napping.”
Watching the dog nestle her head against the hem of Marianne’s gown, Linhardt doesn’t think that’s where the similarities end. He’s not going to say the quiet part out loud so soon though, so Linhardt just hums as he returns to his supper, content as the hound sleeping between them to bask in the warmth of her presence.
Edmund Estate feels like coming home.
It’s nothing so saccharine as all the reunions or homecomings outlined in the dramatic finales of Bernadetta’s novels, or something so complete and fulfilled as the endings of Imperial operas. But little by little, Linhardt carves out a small corner for himself in Marianne’s realm and settles inside out of it like a cat makes a simple box its own.
Befriending the residents of the Edmund estate is another story. For the first few weeks of his stay, Marianne’s household treats him a little frostily. Showing up at the estate’s doorstep soaking wet in the middle of the night and getting stripped half-naked by the unmarried mistress of the house probably isn’t the best first impression for her fiercely loyal people, but members of Marianne’s old battalion help thaw the transition when they see him for the first time and greet him with genuine delight and enthusiasm. Linhardt recognizes some, remembers others from snapshots of nightmarish memories, and greets them all with his usual languid frankness.
He makes a few friends. Little Ella is inexplicably in awe of him, though for the life of him Linhardt can’t figure out why. She hangs upon his every word, blushing whenever he so much as looks at her, and when he expresses this confounding development to Marianne, she just giggles and chides him to be nice to the girl.
Regardless, he’s grateful to be in the good graces of at least one person on Marianne’s staff and takes the time to thank Ella whenever he can. For his troubles, his messy piles of books are neatly arranged whenever he returns to the library, his quarters are always clean and smelling of fresh linen, and he’s regularly notified for mealtimes whenever he’s too engrossed in his books to notice the passage of time.
Still, Linhardt notices the guards watching him warily whenever he walks through the halls. He wonders if Marianne is wise to keep him so close, to invite him to her quarters as easily as she does. She’s not just another fellow student or soldier now. She will be Margravine Edmund, a noble leader of her people, and without his own claim to nobility, Linhardt is just a strange man in her home.
Small wonder her household is watching him so intently.
“If any of my staff treat you badly, I’ll speak with them,” Marianne says to him firmly one night.
Linhardt looks up from his manuscript. He hasn’t breathed a whiff of complaint about anything other than his own scholarly frustrations; maybe Ella had spoken of the guards’ behavior to Marianne at some point. “They’re not. In fact, it’s refreshing to be treated honestly.”
Marianne looks down at her own ledgers with a furrow of frustration between her brows. “I want them to like you.”
Despite himself, he puffs out a laugh. “You can’t force them to do that anymore than making me go to bed at a reasonable hour. Let them be. They’re leaving me to my studies and protecting you. I see no problem with that.”
Marianne glances at him through the fringe of her bangs. Her hair has started to tumble down from the artful curls of the day to this midnight mess, and Linhardt gives into temptation and strokes back one of those maddening curls behind her ear in a quick, smooth gesture.
“I can handle myself,” he reassures her.
Marianne blushes. As he moves to pull away, she winds a hand through his and holds it against her neck, where he can feel the flicker of her heartbeat. “I know. But I still…I still want to…”
She never finishes her sentence, but Linhardt grasps her point anyway.
A few days after that quiet moment in Marianne’s study, Margrave Edmund returns to his estate.
Linhardt had met the margrave only a handful of times previously, but it was always brief hello’s and how-do-you-do’s at larger social events that allowed very little time for conversing. From afar, he seemed strict and tough as granite, a stark contrast with his foster daughter. But when he’s in the privacy of his home and dining at his table, the margrave seems to be more inclined to display the firm tenderness that Marianne possesses in spades. While there are very little physical resemblances to speak of, the two conduct themselves with a similar mien that confirms their familial relation.
“Do you ride, Count Hevring?” The margrave asks over dinner that evening.
Linhardt smiles around the rim of his goblet filled with Adrestian wine. “Please, just Linhardt is fine. Only my father went by that name, and I ceded my noble claim to avoid such confusion. But to answer your question, I do ride so long as it’s at a leisurely pace and not at breakneck speed.”
“I see. Linhardt. Well, in that, we are in agreement.” The margrave saws noiselessly into his pheasant roast and lifts it to his mouth with a faint smile. “We should take a turn around the estate tomorrow sometime, unless Marianne has already shown you around.”
Linhardt glances across the grand table to where Marianne is sipping her own wine. She shakes her head in response to her father. “I haven’t yet. I think it’ll be a good excursion.”
“Then it’s settled.” Margrave Edmund nods with satisfaction and resumes eating.
“I think he’ll like you,” Marianne had reassured Linhardt before they had descended the grand stairs to the dining hall together. “I wrote about you in my letters back home.”
“Did you now,” he murmured, and Marianne had resolutely held his gaze even as her blush traveled intriguingly down her neck. He must stop behaving like some besotted teen lest her adoptive father think him some boor, Linhardt had thought in some despair.
Nevertheless, Marianne was proven right, and the following days pass with marked enjoyment. Linhardt learns that the margrave is, by nature, a solitary man, and prefers the company of a roaring fireplace and his hounds rather than the chattering conversation of socialites. The steed that Margrave Edmund procures for him is a good-natured roan who reminds Linhardt of the gentle mare who had carried him into battle countless times before she saved his life at the cost of her own a month before the war was won.
Thankfully, no such horrors exists on the well-protected grounds of the Edmund estate, and the worst that Linhardt and his new roan, hailed by the stablehands as Agate, has to fear is the knotty undergrowth of the nearby woods that might cause a sprained ankle if a rider were to handle his steed clumsily. Despite his aversion to any sort of physical activity, Linhardt recalls his old riding lessons with the professor and is able to avoid embarrassing himself too thoroughly as Agate navigates the underbrush with ease.
“A man’s character can be easily judged by his horsemanship,” Margrave Edmund declares as they return to the estate. The older man seems cheered by the light exercise. “A man who mistreats a beast is no better than one himself.”
“Marianne said such a thing, once,” Linhardt recalls. He thinks back to their Academy days, during the first time he had ever heard her raise her voice in anger. Another student in their class had been whipping his poor horse despite her lame leg, and Marianne had laid into the idiot with such vigor that he avoided the stables for weeks. “By your measure, then, she is the kindest of all creatures.”
“Quite,” the margrave replies simply. He carefully guides his heavy gray stallion over a knotted root in their path. “I had worried that her kindness, which many mistake for weakness, would be easily exploited at the Officer’s Academy, where many political aspirants have ripe opportunities to use her for their own cruel means. Yet, where many would’ve faltered, Marianne rose above it all. I had heard such tales of her exploits that I couldn’t believe that the same timid girl that I took into my home was the same person as the warrior who helped save Fódlan from an ancient evil.”
Linhardt gives Agate her head, letting the mare pick her own path back through the grounds of the estate. “War is an ugly metamorphosis. Marianne emerged from it better than others.”
Margrave Edmund casts him a quick, penetrative glance. “Others like yourself?”
The question is short but biting. Linhardt knows that the margrave is close enough with Marianne that he must be privy to the reasons why Linhardt had not followed her home after the end of the war, but the man doesn’t sound penetratingly judgemental. It’s a glove thrown at him, challenging him to explain himself or forever remain in the margrave’s poor graces.
It’s a pity that Linhardt doesn’t care much for social niceties.
“To be frank, I don’t like to recount the minutiae of war,” he says outright. “It’s ugly and nothing at all like the books claim it to be. But I think that securing peace is worth all that ugliness and exertion.”
The margrave is silent as they ride back to the estate ground. After a beat of silence, though, he speaks up. “And if peace is still a far cry from the idyllicism you once envisioned?"
“Then I suppose we’d have no choice but to keep on fighting,” Linhardt sighs. “Battles can take on many forms as I’m sure you well know.”
Margrave Edmund makes a sound like a territorial bear charging. Linhardt will later learn from Marianne that this is just how the man laughs. “I do. And what veterans it makes of us all.”
“I like this one, Marianne,” the margrave later says to his daughter at the stables. “You should keep him.”
Marianne stammers and blushes while Linhardt subtly casts Restore on his sore thighs.
Linhardt starts sitting in on Marianne’s audiences when the weather turns. The hearth in the reception hall is hotter than the one in his, and with little Ella running around with the other maids keeping the estate heated and clean, he’d rather not be another item on her checklist. Both the margrave and Marianne don’t mind his presence; in fact, the margrave in particular seems interested in having another experienced noble ear out for potential policy issues and the like.
Because he’s trying to be a good guest, Linhardt feigns great interest in listening to the various callers who come with their issues and complaints to Marianne, but more often than not he’s either making edits on his manuscript, reading a text on Crestology, or dozing into the crook of his elbow by the time the sun starts to set and the last straggler exiting the hall.
Marianne, on the other hand, is a good listener. She’s done so much of it in her life that tending to her people, whose mouths are full of troubles, is as simple as a sponge soaking up water. Linhardt thinks, watching her nodding at an old merchant complaining about a tax law, that if she had been treated more kindly in her childhood, then she would be a cunning politician to rival even silver-tongued Claude.
One day, Linhardt blinks awake to the sound of Marianne comforting a sobbing monk of Seiros.
“It happened so quickly, my lady,” the woman weeps into her handkerchief as Marianne rests a soothing hand between her shoulderblades. “The mayor—he’s a useless man, good-for-nothing besides drink and dice—he doesn’t think it’s an issue at all. But the children, it goes beyond illness that we can Heal—”
“An epidemic in Morwen Village,” the margrave says in a low voice as Linhardt stirs to attention beside him. “A serious one, from the sounds of it. We’ve had reports of this for two moons now, but they’ve always been contradictory and nonsensical.”
Straightening, Linhardt frowns. “What manner of illness?” It’s like muscle memory, the way his mind settles back into the grim efficiency of a healer at war. “And how many?”
The margrave rifles through the scattered documents on his desk before he finds a thin pamphlet of notes. “Some sort of magically induced diseases…at least several dozen afflicted, mostly children. Fevers and the like. These scripts aren’t very clear with the specifics, it seems…”
“Please, I beg of you,” the weeping monk continues, “we’ll accept anything you could give us gratefully. Gold, tinctures, food—”
Linhardt rises to his feet, reaching for the papers that the margrave hands him. “Would a healer be of service?”
The monk turns in surprise at the sound of Linhardt’s interruption. Marianne looks surprised as well for all of a heartbeat before she gives him a secret, grateful smile and turns to reassure the older woman. “This is Linhardt. He’s one of the best healers I know, and he’s especially proficient in magic-borne illnesses. I trust him whole–heartedly.”
Linhardt inclines his head to the woman. He thinks back to all the times when he’s been flatteringly introduced as “the scholar warrior who fought under Queen Byleth’s banner by wielding the light of Cethleanne,” and decides that he likes Marianne’s moniker of him far better.
“May I borrow some of your old battalion, Marianne?” he speaks up. “Two or three healers will do the trick, I think. If I recall, Eunice and Alder are proficient in treating magically-transmitted diseases as well…”
Marianne nods at a nearby tow-headed page idling in a nearby niche, who bobs his head and quickly scurries off to find the named healers.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says in an aside as Linhardt dusts off his robes. “I myself can—”
“To be frank, I don’t think you can be spared,” he replies just as softly as behind them, the margrave begins taking charge of the audience chamber and the remaining servants. “You’re still bound here, at least until you’ve fulfilled your duties for today. Let me do this; I’ve been taking advantage of your hospitality for too long.”
Marianne flushes at that last statement. She ducks her head, and for a flash Linhardt is reminded of the gloomy girl who prayed as a pastime, but then her hands find his. She mumbles something like “don’t mind,” and then lets go. Her back has straightened and some of her recent confidence returns.
“It’s an edict, then,” the margravine incumbent says with some playfulness. “Please help the people of Morwen Village, Linhardt.”
The monk bursts into tears of gratitude, and Linhardt has to raise his voice above her sobs to accept Marianne’s charge.
At dawn the next morning, a little entourage of monks and mages equipped with concoctions, antitoxins, and other tinctures that might prove to be helpful in easing the worst of the symptoms have been rounded up under both Linhardt and Marianne’s guidance. The monk keeps blubbering gratitude, and Linhardt repeatedly reminds her that actions instead of tears would be far more helpful in healing the afflicted.
Marianne sees them off. She gives a pithy little speech about protecting the weak and the blessing of the Goddess and all that, but to Linhardt she gives a personal, shy smile, a bow of thanks that lingers in his heart for the journey south.
Travel doesn’t take more than two days. When they arrive, Linhardt is glad to be met with a situation not quite so dire as Remire’s years ago, but the situation is still somber. The villagers are suffering more from a lack of resources than an uncontrollable, unidentifiable illness. The mayor, however, does turn out to be a selfish, useless man who protests Linhardt’s authority as a representative of the margravine and whines about nobles’ lack of respect for hardworking Alliance citizens just trying to get by. Linhardt tunes him out and puts the monk, Ivelyn, in charge of securing supplies for a makeshift hospital while he and the other members of Marianne’s former battalion check on the patients.
It’s not as bad as he had feared. What afflicts the majority of the victims is a nasty, magical variation of the red wolf fever, and while multiple Restores take the edge off, the weakened patients, especially the children and the elderly, can barely fight off the worst of the physical symptoms.
“Faith can only do so much,” Eunice, an older woman who already had graying temples when serving Marianne as her primary battalion leader, states as she carries out a heap of stinking laundry to be burned. The rag covering her nose and mouth does not hide the frown lines on her face as she heaves contagion onto the pile. “What these people need are good, hearty food, supplies, fresh air…”
“Did you notice how sour the water here tastes, Master Linhardt?” Alder, a soft-spoken bishop with a background in herbology, says as he kneels by the stream running through the village. “It’s not a constructed spell though…it could just be a result of magical waste from the city upstream…”
Linhardt has his work cut out for him. But strenuous activity aside, he thinks he likes it, the practicality of solving a peacetime epidemic without bloodshed, and he sets about rearranging the entire medical and living infrastructure of the village while the mayor complains and then drinks himself into a sulky stupor.
The children hurt. Linhardt has to close the eyes of a little boy who reminds him too much of Caspar, full of bravado and silly promises for the future, and he understands more why Marianne throws herself into her work with such determination, why she’s always staying up late to pore through ledgers, and why the reception hall’s plinth has been torn down so she can sit eye-level with her people. Her goodness, so entwined with her determination, shines through her eyes. Her very gaze—anyone looking at her feels seen.
Does his own convey the same?
In the spare few moments he has between shifts, Linhardt pays his respects at the grave they’ve dug for the little Caspar-boy. He folds his hands together and—for the first time in seven years—prays.
As if in answer to his prayers, Marianne arrives two weeks after Linhardt first stepped foot in Morwen. Instead of taking the elegant brougham that Linhardt knows is kept especially for Edmund nobility, she pulls up to the village on the back of faithful old Dorte accompanied by two soldiers Linhardt recognizes, her traveling cloak muddied by the road and her face flushed from the brisk day’s ride.
She has never looked more beautiful.
“My father allowed me to check on your progress,” Marianne says breathlessly as she dismounts from Dorte’s back. “I also heard that the source of infection was from the river…?”
“A result of unlawful magic disposal in the stream, yes,” Linhardt replies, stepping forward to catch her hands in his. Her riding gloves are a rough leather whisper against his bare fingers. “You didn’t have to come all this way.”
“I wanted to,” Marianne demurs, and she squeezes his hands tight, peering into his eyes. “I’ve heard about the children.”
Linhardt breaks his gaze away from her penetrating eyes. “Their bodies were weak from lack of food. Thankfully, some of the hardier ones made a swift recovery once we put something in their bellies, but the others…”
He shakes his head roughly. “Sorry. I just find it almost amusing how we’re still fighting battles after we’ve won the war. It’s a little grueling.”
Marianne looks at him sadly. “Linhardt…”
“I’m not faltering, Marianne,” he reassures her. “In fact, during my time here, I’ve discovered that this entire unpleasant affair can be quite easily resolved by a few simple steps.”
Linhardt nods towards the village square, where Ivelyn is holding her own magnificently against the verbal onslaught of the mayor and his cronies in a ring of captivated onlookers. “First, we dismiss that good-for-nothing man and install someone with a dollop more sense in his place. Next, we provide this village with a more accessible source of food; I propose building a road through the western woods to more easily access the merchant’s highway. Finally, we must have a stern talk with the Elite Magic Institution upstream; I have a feeling their delinquents treat this river as their disposal grounds with little care for consequences.
“There is my report, my lady,” Linhardt concludes with a mock bow. “I await your further instruction.”
Marianne looks at the bustle of the village square with a furrow in her brow. “And who do you have in mind to replace the mayor?”
“I asked Ivelyn, but alas, she claims that leadership is not her forte.” Linhardt scratches his head absently. “Perhaps Eulalia might suit the position better…she’s the woodswoman who takes charge when the mayor is too deep in his cups…”
He explains the entanglement of local politics to Marianne as best as he can. Alder, a man from whom compassion oozes from like sap from a tree, would be a far better candidate to parse through such affairs with the margravine, but Marianne is nodding after Linhardt winds down his spiel and she looks again to the village square, where Ivelyn is looking triumphant as the mayor and his cronies slink away. Some of the crowd are applauding.
“Perhaps we consider handing this decision to the village folk instead,” Marianne comments thoughtfully.
Linhardt inclines his head. “A much better solution than mine.” He yawns spectacularly.
“Still,” Marianne says, turning back to him, “you’ve handled things wonderfully here. I’ll go speak with Ivelyn; she seems much more at ease since the last time I saw her.”
“Putting a good-for-nothing in his place does wonders for one’s emotions,” Linhardt replies wryly, smiling when he catches Marianne hiding a white-toothed flash of mirth behind her hand.
Through his life, Linhardt recalls sleeping through most of the celebrations held in his honor or on the behalf of a force and family that had welcomed him into its ranks. How many times has he used the thundering table of some great hall or another as a pillow while dozens of drunken, deliriously joyful celebrants toasted ale and wine to each other, crying “huzzah”? It was either the table or Caspar’s hardy shoulder, which became Marianne’s when the professor wedded.
Alas, he’s blearily awake for this one, but surprisingly, Linhardt finds that he’s not quite as chagrined as he would’ve been some seven years ago as Eulalia, the new mayor of Morwen Village, lifts her cup in a toast.
“I hardly need to say this to a high-born,” the woman trills in the voice born of having been raised by trees and creek-water, “but to her Ladyship Marianne: may your home be warm when it is cold, your gardens green when it is dry, and your animals stout when it is bare. Hail!”
“Hail!” The rest of the house cries, and a beat of silence passes as everyone drinks their ale. Marianne looks vaguely embarrassed by the theatrics, but she smiles and drinks from her own cup in solidarity with the rest of the village.
“It feels a little crass to be drinking and celebrating when the graves of children are still so fresh outside the hall,” she confesses to Linhardt on their journey home, on horseback following the winding path back to Edmund territory.
The village did hold a vigil for those lost in the sickness last night, when they assembled makeshift memorials made of fruited branches and childhood toys to leave at those still-dark graves, but Marianne’s words resonate with Linhardt; after all, the memory of the Caspar-boy still lingers within him like the remains of a rainfall. “I think they needed the respite. The pluck to keep living when so many of them didn’t. But…you were only here for a couple of days. It could’ve seemed jarring, but they were hungry for joy.”
“I wish I could’ve come earlier,” Marianne sighs. “To think that we could’ve done more…”
“What might’ve happened isn’t important,” Linhardt repeats her own words back to her gently. “It’s what we do going forward that matters.”
Marianne doesn’t respond, but he thinks the pitch of her shoulders slackens and the furrow between her brows grows a little lighter. They then wind home in the comfortable silence of those who understand each other.
“Welcome home,” the margrave says when they return. It’s acceptance and approval, but most of all it’s a genuine welcome, a berth after being adrift at sea.
When a nightmare comes for Linhardt one night, he’s unprepared.
The bad dreams used to be most frequent during wartime, when gruesome reality and imaginative horrors blended together to create the most awful, bloodied dreams that tainted even the sweet oblivion of sleep. For a long time, especially near the end of the war when supplies were stretched thin and everyone just as so, Linhardt slept poorly, and when he did, the dreams came.
In peacetime, the dreams come less, but they still arrive with the poorest timing. How many times has Linhardt bolted upright in the bed of some innhouse, panting hard and shuddering under the half-present memory of blood and screams? Only recently have they subsided, kept at bay by a peaceable environ and the smile of a loved one.
But still, they linger.
One particularly awful nightmare comes for Linhardt not long after his return from Morwen Village. In this dream, the Caspar-boy who died in Morwen Village and Linhardt’s best friend Caspar have combined into a vague, formless figure who’s being repeatedly impaled by spears. It’s not an unfamiliar nightmare—Linhardt had once seen one of his battalion soldiers suffer this gruesome fate up close, a preventable death that has haunted him ever since—but when the Caspar thing opens its mouth to scream all that comes out is the sob of the suffering child, and Linhardt wrenches awake stiff with horror.
His whole body thrums with magic. He draws a shaky hand down his face and tries to steady his breathing. It takes him a while to come down from his panicked state, and by the time he’s able to slow the pounding of his heart, a faint touch of blue is lighting up the horizon. Linhardt considers sleeping in, but realizes with a touch of despair that his tightly-strung body will not allow that of him now.
He resignedly dons his dressing robe—a luxury he had missed during his days on the road—with the intention to spend what remains of the night in the library. Maybe a close study of a particularly dry “historie” is just the thing he needs to fall back asleep.
A tiny rap at his door stops Linhardt before he’s even finished smoothing his hair. He moves to the door and opens in, blinking as he sees Marianne looking in at him with concern.
“It’s alright,” she says hastily before he says anything, “I get them too.”
“I didn’t intend to wake you,” Linhardt begins, but Marianne just shakes her head.
“I was just taking a walk nearby. No one else heard.”
He lets her inside and she sets her candle on the table. The tiny flame flickers as they sit down in weary unison at the receiving table near the door. Dark circles halo Marianne’s eyes; Linhardt feels thrust into the past as she holds herself with tight, white hands.
“I dreamt of my mother and father again,” she confesses in a hushed voice. “I pierced them with Blutgang. The goddess condemned me to become a Demonic Beast with nothing in my mind but the hunger to kill.”
The candle flame shivers as Linhardt exhales hard. It’s a familiar nightmare, one that she had shared with him when they were both still soldiers fighting under the professor’s banner. Even the upright exterior of the confident margravine fails to completely exorcize Marianne’s bloodiest fear from within her.
Linhardt stretches his hand across the table. She takes it without hesitation.
In halting tones, he shares with her the Caspar dream. The blood, sobs, spears. Whenever he falters, Marianne squeezes his hand until he finds his footing again. When he’s reeled to a bewildered, blank stop, she stands from her chair to bring her arms around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as he leans his head against the crook of her neck. “I’m sorry I was never there for you. I’m sorry, I—”
Why is she apologizing? He should be the one spilling out his fruitless apologies. He was the one who had left, had abandoned her before the blood from their wounds even dried on their armor. He was the one who had mindlessly trawled through Fódlan in search of peace only to realize that he had left it behind him long ago.
All Linhardt manages to say is some garbled approximation of “sorry too,” and for a moment they just…are, in the depths of each other, lit by dying candlelight.
“Master Linhardt, did you know that we have a big fishing pond in the woods?”
Linhardt glances up from the scattered pages of his book. The manuscript has been all but finalized, but the last few scathing notes from his editor apparently take umbrage with how he’s structured his appendixes, which frustrate him to no end, but Little Ella’s interruption is a welcome one as she hovers before him, her hands knitted together eagerly in the lacy apron of her uniform.
“It’s true!” the maid chirrups in response to whatever expression he’s making. “With huge, fat fish. That’s what Samuel (he’s our gamemaster, you know) told me. He heard that you liked fishing and thought you might give them a scare. He says they’ve grown lazy and could use the exercise.”
“I see,” Linhardt responds with a yawn. “I could use the fresh air. Thank you, Ella.”
The maid beams at him as she curtseys and trips happily out of the library. Watching her braids flounce in time to her steps, Linhardt is briefly reminded of Annette during their academy days.
The fishing pond is indeed enormous. It’s more so like a lake, and it’s a far distance out from the main house. Linhardt makes an adventure out of it. He takes Agate from the stables, who’s been promised to him for as long as he’s staying, and guides her through the woods until the shining, blue expanse of the lake in its entirety is revealed to him. Linhardt sucks in a sharp inhale of joy at the sight of the light-studded water, the flashes of fins upon close inspection, and the pebbled banks upon which rested rocks of many colors and shapes. On the near shore shone a tiny marble pavilion, its white walls slightly greened by time and damp, and in its northern recesses stands an elegant figure of one of the Four Saints, who extends a hand out in either supplication or blessing.
Oh, but Linhardt could spend a lifetime here.
After spending so long on the road, becoming enmeshed in scholarly chaos, and healing the afflicted in Morwen, Linhardt takes to the lake splendidly. He fishes for hours, paying homage to a stoic-faced professor, and sleeps in the grass on days when the weather is fine. When rain falls, he takes shelter in the marble pavilion, reading texts on Crestology he filches shamelessly from Marianne’s library.
On the few days she can spare, Marianne joins him, accompanied by friendly Fortune, the hound from Garreg Mach. Neither doesn’t fish, mostly because Marianne still doesn’t like to see the poor creatures suffer and Fortune is too slow to chase the darting silver in the lake, but the lolling in the grass, the splendor of indolence, and the sanctuary of nature around them erases the care from the margravine’s face and brightens her smile until Linhardt can pretend that they’re young and guileless again. But then again, Marianne never was unburdened, was she?
“I want to make you happy,” he says to her on a particularly lazy day. It’s a storm-hot day, one of the hottest of the season, and both of them have long since divested their restrictive outer garments for their loose, billowing tunics. Marianne’s hair frizzes slightly, and Linhardt’s clings to his neck, but they’re worn and lazy in the grass and the confession springs from his lips as easily as anything.
“You already do,” Marianne replies with some confusion, but Linhardt shakes his head.
“I want to keep making you happy for as long as I can live like this, beside you,” he continues.
He feels a little drunk, perhaps driven careless by lying supine and unstrung in the grass for so long, but he barrels on in the wake of Marianne’s silence, almost afraid to hear her response. “I still adore you, you know. All this time, even when I was parted from you on the roads, even when we’re as close as we are now. I strongly suspect that your Crest has nothing to do about it either. All that I’ve managed to prove after all these years of research is that I’ve not deviated from my dedication to you long ago.” His voice softens. “Do you remember, Marianne?”
“I remember,” Marianne responds just as softly. She pushes herself up on her elbow to smile at him, a little tearfully, very brightly. “Linhardt. I told you after we won the war that I loved you. I still do. I don’t think time or distance will ever change that.”
Linhardt closes his eyes and breathes in. The smell of ozone and wildflowers is very strong. “I want to stay here forever.”
A clap of thunder interrupts whatever Marianne’s about to say. Fortune, who’s splashing around on the blanks of the lake, barks in surprise. Marianne springs up lightly and grasps Linhardt’s hand to pull him up just in time as the rain begins to fall. It’s a sudden downpour, a drenching fall of sheets, and it’s startling and abrupt and Linhardt is hopelessly in love with Margravine Marianne von Edmund.
Whistling to the dog, she pulls him to the marble pavilion. Her hair has fallen down, its blue mess of frizz and curls slick against her pale shoulders made visible through her sheer tunic thanks to the damp, and he unthinkingly reaches out to push his fingers against the flutter of her pulse in her marble neck as if to reassure himself that this is reality and not a woe-begotten dream.
Linhardt feels Marianne inhale sharply underneath his hand. She’s beating beneath him like a bird in flight. A bright bluebird, winging in a sky without horizons. His own breath comes fast and hard.
“Linhardt…” Marianne breathes, and she grasps his arms to kiss him.
Two years. Two years! Two years to whet his hunger for her to a sharp point, and he gluts himself on her now as she winds her hands up into his hair, caresses the back of his head, and cradles him as he kisses her, kisses her, kisses her. The dull roar of thunder fades into the blur of his heart and the blood rushing in his ears as he backs her against one of the marble pillars to taste her. It’s an indulgence so unlike those tentative, tender exchanges born during the shaky uncertainty of wartime that his heart races to feel her warm and strong beside him, alive, alive, alive.
How simple paradise can be!
They part for want of breath, and Linhardt leans his head on her shoulder as she winds her arms around him tight, holding him to her with disbelief.
“You would accept me even with all of my flaws?” Marianne murmurs. “As I was, as I am, as I will be?”
“I’ll dedicate my life to it,” Linhardt responds in all sincerity, echoing what he had said to her long ago. “It wouldn’t be difficult in the slightest.” He presses his forehead against hers. “Ah, Marianne…”
A furry, wriggling body inserts itself between their entwined legs, destabilizing them both. Marianne squeaks with laughter as a very put-out Fortune stands on her hind legs to join her two masters in the strange game they seem to be playing without her. Linhardt scratches the dog behind the ears, fond despite his exasperation.
“I could marry you right here, you know,” he says to Marianne confidently. “We have a witness and an arbiter too, if we count this statue of St. Cethleanne.”
Her answering blush is lovely. “And not invite our friends?”
“Well, we’re not marrying them, are we?”
“Linhardt,” Marianne laughs. “Don’t you want to celebrate with them?”
Linhardt sighs, but he sees the truth in her words. Joy should be shared, perhaps not the table-thumping of Morwen Village, but in the company of friends and those who would wish them well. And he does want to see Caspar again: not the bloodied specter of his dreams, but the proud warrior who remains still to this day his best friend. Even the professor would be a welcome guest…
“We can work out the details later,” Marianne soothes him. Her hands draw him close to her again. “I just want to be here with you right now.”
“You have me,” Linhardt promises, happy to rid his mind of everything but what’s in front of him. He leans forward to kiss his fiancée again—fiancée!—and everything falls silent again but for the roar of rain on the pavilion roof.
The silence will not last forever. The dreams will continue to dog him for as long as his memory remains. But, Linhardt thinks as Marianne’s slim warmth steadies him beside her—as the rain roars on the pavilion roof and a happy dog frolics endlessly around them—perhaps they will become a little more bearable.
.
.
.
It’s the wet season when they wed, and, a happy coincidence, when Linhardt’s book is finally published. He gives Marianne the brand-new, published copy on their honeymoon and flips past the delicately illustrated frontispiece, a commission from their friend Ignatz, to show her the dedication. She cries when she reads it, and he embraces her as the summer rain continues to batter against the study’s floor-length windows: steady, warm, lasting.
.
.
.
fin