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Dress Rehersal

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Ship: Lorenz / Dorothea, Dorothea / Ferdinand Summary: Lorenz watches Dorothea on stage, captivated.

Did she ever really come down from it?

The music swells, the war ends.

And somewhere, it's raining. AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22723957

OVERTURE

Her voice carried up through the rafters as a bird finally released from its cage, wingbeats reverberating through these shattered, destitute halls. War had come to claim everything; the beauties of old ravaged with as much savagery as had the people of Fódlan. And yet, to see her still standing here - with lungs that channelled air into art, singing the story of a defiant girl rising from nothing… she made this opera house feel fuller than it ever had been.

After all, he thought, even in its glory it could not have let the moonlight shine through to catch on her delicate skin, to roll in waves through her thick hair, to reflect itself so eagerly in her tear-stained, gemstone eyes. And even in their days of peace, she could not have sung with such verbosity, could not have acted on that stage with such sincerity, could not have wept the true tears she was spilling now.

War had taught him many things. More things that it had stolen from him.

So why was it that, as her voice reached its very climax, the jade in her eyes turned liquid and spilling as her spurned lover let go of the knife he had struck between her ribs… why was it that, as she collapsed to the floor, the last echoes of her voice dimming out, why was it that he rose to his feet, panic in his face, a scream of ‘stop’ drowned out by the audience’s thickening applause?

He’d seen her nearly die on that battlefield countless times.

Hundreds of others joined him to stand, his breath so tight and uncontrolled, so unlike hers that even when she died she had kept so loose and free.

He covered his face in shame and remembered that this was all just an act.

ACT I - RECITATIVE I That night, he asked her to marry him.

“You have become a symbol of hope for all the people of Fódlan, and I can think of none so fitting that could be my bride. Just as you have restored music to this ruined opera house, so too will you restore honour to my house.”

She tilted her head, the moon still trapped in her eyes, her smile curling. “So, you made up your mind.”

“Am I too late? I see no ring to bind your finger.” “I’m still in costume, Lorenz,” she laughed. “And you’ve seen what happens to a woman who remains unmarried.”

“Then all the more reason for you to accept my proposal. If she had had the protection of marriage, no man would have harmed her.”

Dorothea laughed again, turned his back to him, her eyes hidden from view. “Is that right? I’m not sure you understood the story at all.” Her words caught in his throat, his face souring. “You are straying from the topic. I have not come to swap narrative interpretations, Dorothea.” She lifted her head higher, the waves of her lovely hair brushing her back. “The tragedy is not that she dies, Lorenz.” He scoffed, the sweat pitying his brow. This was not how he imagined this proposal going at all. This was supposed to be his moment - the time he had dreamed of, over and over again, where his goals would finally be fulfilled! And here she was, blathering on about something else entirely. “I have always admired your intelligence, your wit. You outclass even I in charm, that much was apparent tonight. Even now, you return a proposal with a gift of philosophical moralising,” he hummed, attempting to look satisfied. “If I answer you correctly… if I satisfy you with my interpretation of this opera, will you marry me then?”

“I’m not so sure… Maybe I’ll consider it.” He latched onto any shred of hope still nestled here, his eyes widening. Of all the women he could have chosen, why had he been attracted to the most difficult?

“Very well. I think that it was an allegorical examination - an exploration of proletarian life, immorality and lawlessness. We are meant to expect it from the commoners, but be shocked when that same spark of madness afflicts the nobleman who kills her in a jealous rage. The tragedy is that he will likely go unpunished, our society so unfairly favouring his prestige over an orphan’s life.”

She glanced over her shoulder, eyes narrowing expertly. “It’s that she died pursuing freedom, the one thing a woman cannot have in this world. Wartime, peacetime, it does not matter. Every man will try to snuff it out.”

He paused, red returning to his cheeks like she had slapped him. His mouth meandered for a while, twisting itself in shapes until he finally found the question he was looking for. “Then, are you saying you will choose freedom over me?” She turned to look at him now, her gaze somehow haunting, her wings now at rest. “No, silly.” His heart trembled, the colour in his face deepening. “You always look so cute when you’re embarrassed. Red is a colour that really flatters you. You wore such a brilliant shade of it when you rudely yelled at me from the audience. That wasn’t very noble of you, was it?”

He floundered, ‘well I’s’ mumbled in his mouth.

Her laughter filled it instead.

“Yes. I will marry you, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester.”

--

ACT II - DUET I

He had never… copulated before, it was true. Though such things were always on offer for one his stature, it was also his role to reject such pleasures in pursuit of something far more noble. In fact, some would suggest that this performance must always be… purposeful, focused on siring an heir, and to stray from that was indeed ignoble.

Yet, with Dorothea, he could not imagine this act being one born only of purpose. Besides, building a family was not yet in either of their interests. She had glorious heights still to rise to, and he refused to be the one who placed such a yoke upon her shoulders. Somehow, seeing her fulfilled was… well, satisfying in a way that, for now, burned far brighter than his desire for children.

So when she kissed him, delicately and then with opened mouths, when she gasped and giggled at his every reaction, guided his hands across her body in ways that demanded so little work from himself… he felt embarrassed. Ashamed of how little he knew, despite his long evenings fantasising. Yet he could not help but be in awe of her, how, when she moved his hands to her waist and then up and - yes, he squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing - over her breasts, he forgot who he even was. She was like liquid pleasure, paralysing him in all ways but his breath. “I had no idea that the great head of House Gloucester had such a problem with his lungs,” she’d lilted in his ear, her perfect nails scratching gently at his chest.

“And I had no idea that you would dare use magic outside of battle,” he’d scowled, sparks of fire glowing in his belly, intensifying as she placed his hand over his and gently coaxed it to roll in circles.

“If this is all it takes to overwhelm you,” she whispered, pressing his awkwardly raised fingers against her nipple, “then I don’t think you’re quite ready for that.”

He groaned, forgetting his duties to be the one to please her, to follow the rules of all the men in all those operas she starred in. “How do you…” he gasped as another ripple of pleasure blossomed in him, her body pressing up against him. “Ahh, how, is it you maintain, such… such focus?” She was more experienced than he, he knew, but did not want to know. Such things he could barely condone in his fellow noblemen, but for a woman of any standing? He wanted to believe that this was as much her first experience as his, he wanted it so very much, and yet….

She slid her fingers down his chest, rushing over the outline of his arousal pushing against his white trousers. He almost went mad, then, a feeling as ecstatic as watching her voice climb to impossible heights, the swell of it pulling every soul to the edges of the body.

“It’s easy,” she said, her other hand losing itself in his long hair. She pulled herself into the nook of his neck, drowning herself in it. He didn’t much mind, the feel of her body perfectly aligned with his own, harmonising. “It’s all in the breath.”

He watched her through narrowed eyes, hardly aware of whatever earthly thing his lungs were doing. “What?” Oh. He should have been embarrassed at how inarticulate that was, but… “Just like in singing, you have to breathe from your diaphragm.”

She moved, fingers spreading, his breathing turning ragged. “Your chest shouldn’t be moving and,” she mumbled. “You want to tighten,” her fingers curled and gripped him through the fabric, “your stomach muscles.” From her instruction, he failed miserably. Whining helplessly into her hair, he forgot how to breathe at all.

When he felt himself returning into his body, he realised that she was laughing, warmth flooding into himself.

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed to stop?” She squeezed her lips together, brows raised in faux-judgement. “Well, I, was… focussing on my breathing. Next time, it should be I who leads. This… this is exactly why a woman should not.”

His embarrassment sizzled, but not as brightly as the sudden look of anger that flashed hotly in her eyes, those green pools hardening.

“And what should a woman do, Lorenz? Lie flat on her back for you, wait while you do nothing? Can’t you enjoy a little bit of teasing? You certainly seemed to only moments ago.”

“No, Dorothea, that’s -“ She decoupled himself from him, disappointment ghosting over his body as she left the room. — In Opera, all stories were ones of grand themes. War, love, death. And in every one she stared in, nearly always was she bathed in her own blood. Mezzo-Soprano, that was the colour of her voice, and the one that destined her to the role of villainess, of the rival, of tragedy.

Was that what they had seen in her when they plucked her from the streets? Heard the way she so perfectly embodied sorrow, as though her story and her style of singing were destinies perfectly entwined. If she had been born a noble girl, would her role be something entirely different? Would she had ever even been noticed? He thought such things as he watched her die countless deaths in the arms of countless lovers, torn between them and then torn apart. It was only an act, after all.

— Some nights, she would brush his hair. He was not entirely sure why, but she insisted on it. He rather enjoyed the attention, to be under her gaze in a way that was rather less dramatic than usual. “Do you remember that awful bowlcut you used to have?” She giggled, boar bristles sweeping gently through his hair. “What made you decide to grow it out?” “Awful?”

He narrowed his eyes, bending his head so he might catch a glimpse of her smirk. “Didn’t you think it cute?” “… As hard as I tried to see through your foul attitude to find something endearing in your personality, Lorenz, I really could not say the same about your hair.”

He guffawed to himself, frowning ever so slightly. “Well, I suppose I appreciate your honesty, but it is only a matter of taste. It makes sense that you prefer a more showy haircut, so normalised that has become to you with all your days spent in the opera. It is hardly a house for those with more… subtle tastes.” She gently and repeatedly went over the ends of his hair, pushing herself momentarily against his back. “That haircut,” she laughed, placing her head on his shoulder, “was anything but subtle.”

Before he could find some way to retort, she pulled her head away and began humming lightly to herself.

“It was such a shock, seeing how much you two had changed.”

He paused, turning to her. “Two?”

“You and Ferdie.”

Just as he saw the ghosts of all of her past lovers when she touched him, now he saw another figment rise up in her, clouding her eyes. “… Yes. Ferdinand and I were always similar in our tastes, from tea to mannerisms to… presentation. Long, supple hair is an apt symbol of nobility, is it not? To keep it so well maintained takes dedication and time.” She lowered her head, clamping her hands round that brush. “That wasn’t why he grew his out.”

The atmosphere in the room felt as though it darkened, somehow, her body crumpling like a snow edged leaf.

“Did he tell yo-“ “He asked me to brush it, once. Well, no. That’s not true. His hair looked like a bird’s nest, and I insisted on fixing it. Then Ferdie kept coming back, asking me for style tips.”

She covered her face, eyes turned away from him, “He did everything with his all, didn’t he? I don’t think I ever fully understood why he was like that.”

He had to admit, he had never given much thought as to whether he ‘understood’ Ferdinand or not. He was simply not that sort of character. He had been a man who eschewed mystery, his heart as plainly visible as his sleeve. Right now, he was contemplating how well he understood his wife, never mind the machinations of a dead man. “Dorothea,” he said her name and enjoyed the way it played across his tongue, how it first wavered then arched, like a bird on the wind. “Please, what is the meaning of all this?”

The snow round her edges hardened. He reached to touch her face, fingers soft along her cheek in the hopes of thawing her. “Nothing, it’s… nothing,” her eyes crinkled, and he feared that he had accidentally crushed some piece of her into dust. Yet as her fingers played along his own, he realised that she was the one thawing him, the one crushing herself.

Her body uncurled and their gazes met, but she was looking without really looking, the remnants of a smile touching just the tips.

“Just memories, Lorenz, that’s all.”

— He found her singing, one day, by the lake… if memory served. It had been a foggy day, with beads of rain caught in the air. The water almost lapped up her voice, clouding it - but muffled though it was, he remembered it quite vividly. It had been nearing summer’s end, the weather unsettled and quite unusual. There are some memories that the body somehow knows to keep. Imprinted in finer inks, it felt like, as sharp and as ever-present as the crest that flowed through his family. Could they cut to his blood and find fragments of it, oozing there? Some days, he wished that they could, if only so he might experience that moment once more.

Her voice had flowed more smoothly than wine, its quality just as potent and intoxicating. At first, he had assumed it to be the haunting calls of a Loon - and, well, it was embarrassing to admit, but he had acquired a proclivity for studying nature. All the great artists… and poets, had. Those where the days where he yearned to emulate such things, as though one could simply mould oneself into a poet by adopting his personality and mannerisms.

So he had followed that calling, entranced. Yet it was only when he had begun to make out the outlines of words that pinpricked and then sizzled in his ears that he felt like he was going truly mad. This was not a voice that could belong to a human being. It had a way of… sinking into the body, of clutching the organs, of soaring; as though he too was flying with that conjured music that seemed to go only impossibly high and then higher still.

He could not stop himself following that voice, even if every part of him screamed out in fear. He supposed this was something akin to awe, though he could only have supposed such things in the retrospective - in the moment, there was no room left for words.

So when he finally saw her, her black school uniform the only thing that looked solid against the cold misted backdrop… he had gasped, giving up the last of his breath so that she might take it.

And just like that, the singing ended, and she’d whipped round to face him. Embarrassment was what first crossed her face, as though she had been caught disrobed and her magic discovered. Yet as soon as she registered who it was that caught her, that expression morphed into disgust.

He supposed, if he could have extracted that memory from his blood, he would prefer that it be snipped off here.

Yet, then he would have lost the passionate fire that still burned coal-hot in those verdant eyes. Those eyes that had not yet become haunted, eyes that could look at him with emotion in full bloom. Still, at the time, such a gaze had only evoked simple fear in him. She had not even said a word, and already he had been running. Ashamed of himself, afraid of what she might do, confused as to what exactly it had been that he was now feeling.

He had ran and ran and ran all the way back to his quarters, never telling another soul and recording only the silvers of it in the most abstract of writing.

He supposed it had to be found, one way or another. Magic like that can never be contained, no matter how desperately he tried to in the strained confines of words. Though, he had to admit, hearing Manuela sing her interpretation of a poem written about his youthful yearning for his now wife… It was a strange twist for the Goddess to ordain. She had almost brought Dorothea’s innocence back into being, as though pulled straight from his memory. And to hear Dorothea herself remark upon it even though she herself would no longer be suitable to sing it, her fingers clutched within his hand, that disgust no longer present in her eyes… … It made him want to run, run and run all the way back to those old quarters.

-- ACT III - DUET II They tried that game with many euphemisms again, and by his insistence, he did indeed take the lead.

Needless to say, it was… not the most impressive of his accomplishments. In his defence, they had spent the last half-hour discussing the benefits of pomegranates and such-and-such herbs and their commitment to this decision… whatever the outcome. Why must all pleasure be tempered by duty? It was a question that Dorothea invoked in him more than any other woman, and he could not imagine taking such precautions if it were not for her.

Soon, someday, she would have to bear their heir. That, too, could be a pleasurable advent… but one that would bring an end to her life on the stage and usher in a new era for both of them. It was not one he wanted to charge into so recklessly, even if… even if he was aware of the rumours that would soon start to rise from forked tongues, and, worse still, the chastening within his own mind that would no doubt be roused to life. As delectable as she looked even as her soft lips sucked on the flesh of a pomegranate, he also knew such acts were deemed sinful and demanding of penance.

So, with those thoughts swirling in the back of his mind - he asked her to lie down.

“I trust you will tell me if I act improperly.” “You have behaved just as properly as I would have expected, Lorenz,” she said with a tinge of unkindness, but there was a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes, well. Just as this is an experience of firsts for both of us, I do not wish to cause you any undue harm,” he stated, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Psychologically or otherwise. I refuse to handle a rose as rare and stunning as yourself without the utmost delicacy.” “And if I were not a rose? You seem intimidated by my thorns. Is the truth that you are afraid of handling me in case it will cause your hands to bleed?” “No, no - that is not what I… Even if you were a common daffodil, I would still -”

She rolled at her eyes at his expression, her laughter cutting his mumbling thankfully short. “What I meant to say is… come here. You look petrified.”

Her fingers found their way to his cheek, her soft chest pressing against his arm, her wonderful mouth whispering something about him being ‘adorable’ as he finally willed his hands to her waist and requested, once again, that she lie down. In all honesty, just kissing her mouth felt overwhelming. She was demanding, and eager, and she had a way of hanging onto his lip for just a moment after the kiss had ended, drawing him back in again and again. He did not know how she knew to do such things, and did not dare to ask, even as her hands smoothed out and over the back of his nightrobe, loosening it without even touching the belt. Her fingers made gentle scratches down his back, across his scalp, losing themselves in his hair all while he was too focussed to do anything but kiss her.

Even as her bosom rose up against his chest (that she had, with some expertise and trick of the hand, already exposed) and that pleasant warmth began to sink through his skin and across his entire body… he could not help but notice how fixated she was on his hair. Tugging at it, letting it play over her fingers, and when she finally broke kiss, nestling her face within it, her teeth scraping the edges of his ear.

It wasn’t… it wasn’t that it was unpleasant - in fact, he welcomed the distraction. Having Dorothea, having all of her at once, this charming, incredible woman who had shaped her entire body into an instrument capable of producing music most holy (and, those soft sighing sounds that she now breathed into his ear - holy, holy too)… just the thought of caused an ache to erupt through him.

And he ached, and ached again, as he traced his hands down her skin, over the mole under her breast, the scars by her ribs that magic had not been able to heal. That this was her, that this was really, truly her, the woman whom he had denied himself for all those years and whom could so easily have denied him. “Dorothea,” he whispered, marvelling at how even saying her name left a man open-mouthed. “May I…?” His hand came to rest on her leg, toying with the edge of her robe. “I fear I may not be able to, ah. Concentrate much longer.” She laughed at that, the rumble causing her breasts to brush against him yet again, his face hot. Yet she did not pull her face away from the crook in his neck, her eyes hidden.

“Is that right? My. I thought the show might go on all night. It is a man who is leading, after all,” she dug her fingers into his scalp, pinching him. Even his yelp could not dim the sparks of euphoria that followed as her voice cooled, her laughter dying as her voice thickened dangerously, “But yes, you may.”

He’d dared not look at her. Did not think that he could look, as he pulled away that thin barrier between them. In his restless pursuits of a wife… of course he had considered what this might feel like, this ultimate act of consummation, of pleasure and love and union. But now that it was here, he ran at it like he was a young boy handling a spear for the first time, excitement coursing through him.

Finally undoing the knot in his robe, his soft cursing fading away, he held himself a chastely as he could. Her chest still pressed against him, their trim waists perfectly pressed together, her legs lifting and enfolding him like vines, her fingers twirling and pulling while she gently encouraged him…

“Ah, Dorothea, we truly are a natural fit, aren’t we?”

He was glad she had not answered.

For when he slid his hips forwards, imagining with his eyes half-shut and his breathing erratic what it might feel like to finally have an answer to all that aching, to quench this undying thirst that bled so many memories, to finally feel what it was to be one with her…

He found that he did not slip inside her at all, no smooth passageway, no yawning hole as eager and compliant as her mouth had been. No, he had to admit, when he brought himself forwards and felt only soft skin, he felt totally and utterly lost.

A coldness overcame him, and he tried to thrust in her direction once again, finding embarrassment as his only answer.

She uncoiled from his neck, finally deigning to fix him with a look, her expression making it clear that this had, well. This had been expected. That, he had to admit, embarrassed him far worse than the event itself. Not only was he a disappointment, but it had not even been surprising.

“Well, Lorenz. Would you like me to take the lead?”

He was the one to decouple from her this time, cold washing over him as though a bucket had been spilled atop his head.

“This is not your first time, is it?”

He could hardly believe the venom that entered his voice, the heat on his face quite suddenly flaring on his tongue. “I do not believe you would have the capacity to mock me so, so… so ruthlessly if it was!”

He had never hated himself quite so much as he did in those handful of seconds, for just as he thought his fist tightening round a fistful of thorns, she crumbled.Her expression seemed to die. No fire, no anger. Just… an emptiness wider than the whites of her eyes. Somehow, her lovely nakedness pushing through her disheveled nighty made her look more ghastly, as though somehow close to death, her exposure quite suddenly invoking nothing in him. “Dorothea, please, forgive me - I spoke out of tur-” “How do you think I got into the academy?” His mouth slackened, and he pulled his robe back up his back, too aware of his own nakedness as she seemed to care nothing for her own. “You heard the rumours, did you not? Of course you did. They were on every tongue, everywhere I turned. Like no one would let me forget. I suppose it was the penance I was due for cheating my way through life.” “You are wrong, Dorothea. You must be incorrect. You are a sublime talent, a beauty beyond the reach of any other…” “Oh, save it.” She drew her legs up to her chest, her head resting there. “After all this time, you don’t understand it at all, do you? The things we common girls had to do to have our talents recognised, to even be seen as something worthy of time, of care. Even then. I’m just a fleeting fancy, Lorenz. A pretty object to be remarked about, to entertain noble minds, to put the guilty at ease. To be used up and disposed of. It happened countless times.” “I spoke… I spoke thoughtlessly, yet, I… I had no idea you had experienced such pain…” “I did not enjoy it, if that makes you feel better,” she hissed, cutting him off. “I did not enjoy a single second of it. With any of them. Old and young, cruel and kind. The best I could hope for was… well, commiserating with the girls, afterwards. You begin to realise how common your experiences are, and that makes it a different pain, doesn’t it? Realising how much suffering there is. Realising that you aren’t anything special, no matter how much you have achieved.” “No, it does not make me 'feel better'… Was this really… Forgive me, please, forgive me for speaking of myself,” his face cracked, his eyes glittering as he began to take in the full weight of what she had been through, the burden of her secrecy, that bitterness that must have ate at every second of her day.

“But did you… When you agreed to marry me, had you thought me just another who would… use you, for the price of security?”

“Do you really wish to know the truth, Lorenz?” She peered at him through her own cracking eyes, the rest of her expression solemn. “It is not too late, you know. We have not consummated this marriage, after all. You could still find the virgin noble girl of your dreams.”

He looked away from her, watching his hands. “That is unfair, Dorothea. I did not marry you for mere fornication, nor to sire countless children, nor to fulfil some puritanical fancy. I am… I am helplessly smitten with you, that is all. With you, all of you, even when you humiliate me with your outstanding wit.” He dared not look to see if her expression changed, instead lowering his head and hiding behind a mess of hair. “But, yes, Please. Speak the truth, if you are ready.”

“I think…” he heard her voice crack, then come closer. Until she was right by his ear again, her breath controlled and slow. “I think you are a gentle man.”

He finally looked at her, at her sad expression, her soft little mouth lilting like it had so often during the war. “Gentle?” “And I am lucky for it,” she said, the edges of her eyes brightening. He could not say how happy hearing such a thing made him feel, for though the tension seemed to have evaporated and her pain pushed away… she had hardly given him the answer he was desperate to hear. That he was exceptional, that he had worked hard and overcome all those terrible beliefs that once mired his countenance, that he was one she was equally smitten by and that, with time, all sins would be forgiven.

Yet, as she took his hand in her own, and squeezed it ever so delicately… squeezed it as though it were both a chick fallen from the nest and a lifeline on which everything depended… He met her smile, and sat in easy silence with her, melting into her presence.

--

ACT IV - RECITATIVE II On stage, she could transform into anything asked of her. A witch, a nurse, a seductress - even a man, on command, for Opera so loved to play with themes that inspired shock in the masses. Yet she topped controversies with aplomb. How could she not? She was a heroine in her own right, and though he tried not to think often of that time, she had once worn the cowl of war as effortlessly as any of them.

Yet it seemed… when not on stage, it seemed that cowl was still wrapped tightly round her. In the years betwixt their school-days and their return to the monastery… he could have hardly believed the transformation in her. It was not that she had simply matured. It was that she had been worn down. She had never meant to be a solider.

Yet a solider she had been. Wild and brave, cutting through enemies with magic more effervescent and powerful than even he could hope to conjure. He should have been frustrated by this, infuriated, even. Yet he did not recall ever feeling that way when she summoned red earth from the sky that fell like a phoenix in its death spiral, slaughtering whatever helpless knave stood in their way. He distinctly remembered riding through flames she had conjured from miles away, wondering what part of the soul had to be pulled on to conjure something so raw. He supposed it must be the same part that she still pulled on now, wandering the halls of their manor late at night. She thought that he did not know - he was a lark, after all, to compliment her owl. He’d caught sight of her more than once, slipping from his embrace and into the black. And he had let her go, each time assuming this was just some part of her artistic heritage, that those long nights at the opera still rung their clangour in her mind.

Yet after their second… attempt at love making, her words were what rang true in him all through the night. He was haunted by the thought of what she had endured, and by what she was casting herself into when she took those midnight strolls. Was she simmering in her misery? Alone, once again?

So he slipped from his bedchamber too, and followed after her.

Eventually, he caught sight of her in the gardens - down by the river. A score of red lit by the moon, back to the balcony from which he watched her. It was like his first memory of her singing, on that foggy day. Or perhaps it was more the memory of her in that destitute opera house, the moon curling in silky waves through her tresses. He took to the stairs, eventually finding himself by her side. She must have heard his footsteps, yet she did not turn to greet him with disgust. She did not turn to greet him at all, in fact. “… There’s no need for you to patrol the grounds, Dorothea. There is hardly going to be a raid anytime soon,” he laughed softly, but felt no levity. She sighed.

“I just can’t help but feel like… it isn’t over.”

“The war?”

“Yes. That war. I don’t know. It’s like… all I wanted was for it to be over, desperately believing that it would end this year or the next, that all this fighting would just. Stop someday. And now that it has?” She tilted her head up towards the sky, the river burbling and filling the silence. “I just… can’t believe it. Like the feeling hasn’t left me. Like there’s still so much to do.” “Ah, but, of course. That’s true. There is very much to be rebuilt, wounds that need salving, broken bonds that must be tied together again. You and I are in a key position to do just that,” he watched her, the night air somehow losing its chill.

“Doesn’t that all just feel… fake, somehow?” Moths fluttered by, a frog croaked somewhere in the distance. It was a peaceful scene, he thought.

“Whatever do you mean? Dorothea, is fighting injustice not the exact path you have always been following? Was it not you who challenged my every belief, changed me at my core? Think of the thousands you can inspire…!”

“It reminds me of when I first entered the opera troupe,” she said, finally lowering her head, playing with her hair. “When men began to shower me in compliments, gifts and advances. When all the bile they once spat at me turned to promises, and even then, false ones at that. It’s… Like I see through it all.” She turned to face him, then, and he could see that she had been crying. “How many people did we kill, Lorenz?”He took a step back, surprised as her voice lifted in such sudden rage, silencing the frogs. “I … I would not know the exact numbers, but Dor-” “Don’t tell me that it was fair just because we were at war! Don’t tell me that!” She pulled at her hair, eyes whirling. “How can we be such different people, wear such different skins?! We’re the same as those men, except… even worse. No doubt they were too busy cowering behind their knights, free from the blood that drips from our hands.”

She covered her face, her chest heaving.

“Come now, had we not fought, we would not be able to enjoy the freedoms we do now. The war was a tragedy, yes, but -” “How many, how many did we kill who were just like Ferdie?” In just one sentence, she opened up that man’s grave yet again, his red red hair spilling out. The smell of it, those rotting fields, the flashes of lightning and miasma and air turned to wailing. “And we took pleasure in it, I know we did. All that… drinking, and laughing, and dining. The thrill of still being alive… I saw that in you, and Claude, and all the rest.

Worst of all, Lorenz, I saw it in myself.” Touching her shoulder, he swallowed, guilt sizzling his gut as she effortless conjured those memories. How even Seteth would join them in toasts to one victory or another, that knot of hard-fought joy binding them all tightly together, their chanting and hymns and limericks brighter than the candles they lit around themselves. How she would dance with Hilda, barefoot and bellies full, their laughter lifting them all out of their shells. He still had a painting that Ignatz had somehow conjured of that scene, all of them just blurs of colours in the dining hall.

Was that before or after Ferdinand died?

“This is what has made this war so particularly tragic. People like myself, like Ferdinand… we were trained for this, Dorothea. We were trained to know the weight of what we were doing, sparring against men who shared in this equal philosophy. This was not a burden that should ever have been placed upon your shoulders.”

“How can you say something so horrible so easily?” She asked, both hands clasping the one upon her shoulder. “Is that all it takes? What I lack? Training?”

“He would have told you the same if it were he standing here and I lost in his stead,” he said, attempting to navigate his words carefully. “And he would have not wanted you to be standing outside in the dark, trying to catch pneumonia in his honour.” He began to walk her back to their home, hoping the darkness would not follow them inside. She seemed to be mulling over what he said, her steps uncertain.

“And… you know, I will not ask you to suppress your feelings. In fact, I think it an asset in ensuring that this war never occurs again.”

She looked at him then, in surprise.

“An asset? That is how you try to make light of this?” “Yes, please, hear me out,” he said as they reached the stairs. With one, wavering step after another, they made their way back up.

“The way you … you move, dance, sing, on stage… you bring the war to life. More so than any writing could ever hope to capture. In you, the raw despair of it all is captured so brightly. None can help but be moved, no matter the strength of their learned barriers. To see you die up there, a hundred times, a thousand… each time I picture it so vividly, and each time it shatters my heart.”

“Great, so that’s what I have to give to the world. Shattered hearts and endless grief,” she rolled her eyes, but he could sense that some part of her had been fished back out of the black.

“Yet I would never ask you to stop.” She glanced up at him as they reached the top of the stairs, the hallway beckoning them back inside. She stood there a while, as if unsure of something. “You could shatter the world’s heart, Dorothea. You teach us to remember our humanity. The true cost of these games we play as nobles in our selfish pursuits. There is value untold in that, a value only you possess. When you die, when you grieve, when you take character - none of it is false, to me. That is you at your most real.

So, that being the case, how can any of this be fake? I know none more sincere than you.”

As he watched her, she slowly found her smile, the mask that she’d been wearing so expertly weaving itself back into her skin.

It wasn’t a falsehood when she nodded, lifting herself onto her tip toes and brushing her lips to his own. Nor was it when she began to whisper how sweet he was, how kind, how gentle, how right. Not even when she said that she loved him, that she was glad that it was not him who had went in Ferdinand’s stead.

She was simply living, as all of them did, laughing barefooted on that stage.

--

ACT V - ARIA I

It was… strange, standing here in this beautiful garden in the middle of the countryside. She was used to being surrounded by people, either to hide from or from those who celebrated the joy of her existence, given glares or gifts, but… Now she was alone. Truly alone.

At the monastery, she had occasionally found some quiet space to haunt - by the pier, the bridge, the rooftops. It was something she had noticed in Lorenz, in her… husband, too. She’d slip by him, discarding her yearning to gaze through stained glass or at what remained of the cathedral.

She supposed he craved these silent spaces for the same reasons that she did, for a chance to think. Still, she doubted their thoughts had ever crossed paths as much as their bodies had. That was alright. She was used to her own flow of narration having been shaped into something quite unique. Lorenz, on the other hand…. As a noble, as a man, as a nobleman, the trench had already been dug. All he had to do was allow himself to flow into it.

So why had he changed course so dramatically? Even now, when their thoughts flowed aloud together, it was clear their courses still clashed, no clear direction to this sea.

Maybe she enjoyed that, the drama of it.

Or maybe she simply enjoyed this estate, of its stillness, of its silence. When the hum and throb of the servants had ebbed away as they retired he basement kitchens, when their master had taken leave to go riding or entertaining or politicking in some other beautiful still green place, when she was the only one out on the grounds and all things settled into a chipping, wind whispered harmony…

It seemed… magic, somehow.

Today, in her wandering, she had ventured towards the stables. It hurt, in its own way, to stand here. Like ghosts could chase you from another time, another place, settle in the edges of your memory just because of a vague reminder of their imprint. Yes. Lorenz and she used to spend much time in the quiet, undisturbed spaces in the academy. Beautiful spaces. But Ferdie, this was where… he used to go, so very often. She never really understood it. It never suited his status. Knee deep in muck, our future prime minister? Wasting hours away in the hay, with the horses, smelling of… well, sweat and dirty work and a long, difficult day. It was one of things that had charmed her, back before she could accept being charmed by him. He treated those animals well. Weller than most treated people.

So being around the horses always brought out those memories, like taking a bath in them. It made her feel… sad, yes, but good, too. She supposed she would rather remember him like this than…

Well.

She reached a hand onto the stable door, clucking her tongue towards a dark shape that turned and, ever so slowly, made its way towards her. When finally he arrived, his snout touching air and the light catching on the edges of his glossy fur and great round glass eyes, she smiled at him. Patting his long, firm snout, she pulled a sugar cube from her pocket.

This had been Lorenz’s horse, during the war. Somehow, he had survived when so many of them had not. A huge beast for a tall master, she had been terrified of him on the battlefield, decorated in black plate and huffing steam, white teeth flashing whenever it had galloped past her. Despite the burden of all that armour, Lorenz had commanded it to move like black lightning, arching and curving impossibly as he slit the enemy straight through, thunderous hooves clacking down. How much blood had soiled this creature’s legs, deep black on deeper black? “Here you go, Holst. I have a little something for you.”

Bringing the sugar cube to his lips, he seemed confused awhile, searching her arm before finally finding it. The poor thing was nearing the end of its days, just as tired as she from all that fighting. War carried on in its bones that now rubbed angrily together, carried on in its dimming eyes that had once seen flames lick forth from its masters hands. Never could it have understood the horrors of what had gone on around it, and yet, it had obeyed. No matter how afraid, it had obeyed.

Embodied its masters calmness - Lorenz, a whirring flash of purple black and red, magnificent and awful, a slash of death blotting out the canvas.

Lorenz, whose only concern he spoke of regarding death centred around how well he would be remembered, honoured, exalted by it. Smiling down at her, saving her from some warring lance, tossing his hair as he leapt - wild and controlled all at once - over the corpse that moments ago and a twist in fate would have been herself.

Lorenz, who had told her that his father was a coward for not laying down his life in some barren field and spilling his guts out in agony for something more noble, more aspirational than a quiet, easy death in his bedchamber.

And now, its reward, for all that energy spent, for saving her life, for saving his?

A quiet life in the countryside, feeding from her hand.

--

ACT VI - DUET III

There were no pomegranates involved in their third attempt, nor herbs, nor discussions prior. It was an act of raw passion, in part (but only part) lubricated by the joys of wine. He professed his enjoyment of Sagrantino and waxed lyrical about the fullness of its body, dark and dry and robust in its alcoholic strength. She hadn’t said much about it at all. Perhaps all wines tasted similar to her. Never mind, a palate could soon be developed, and he was more than happy to assist. Such was what he had been rambling about until she took both sides of his face and drew him into a deep kiss. It was full bodied. Dark. Dry. Utterly intoxicating. So much so that he’d gasped in surprise and almost spilled his drink onto her dress.

“Perhaps it is my palate that will need expanding,” he’d muttered, and she’d laughed (in a way that he knew was mocking, but he took pride in it anyway). “Then, you’ll let me lead?” She’d tilted her head, the room spinning with her.

“Lead me anywhere,” he’d said, following her mouth. She’d obliged with the softest little bites along his bottom lip, each time evoking a gasp deeper than before.

“You’ll do whatever I ask?” She’d asked, songstress, seductress. “Anything, anything,” he’d mumbled as he let his hands wander across her waist, the fabric of her dress smooth and obedient to his touch.

Sherry, that which he had labelled so unfavourably as a ‘beginners wine’, filmed the edges of her tongue - it drove him insane, that was the only word he could use to describe it, this madness that only Dorothea had the power bring out. In that moment, he loved that tongue, worshiped it, could hardly believe that it was her mouth, her taste, so sweet, and he chased after it again and then again.

He felt like he might wish to kiss that mouth forever, every time she indicated that she might break from it bringing forth a mewling out of him that surprised himself most of all. It was embarrassing, it should have been, but every time she rewarded him with an answer of that sweet, warm mouth he lost all sense of himself within it.

All his life, he had been taught to exercise restraint. To take the only the smallest bites, to appreciate each moment in turn as though each second were like the beats in a play worthwhile of literary analysis. Yet with her, with Dorothea… Daring to slide his eyes open, he caught sight of her mid-kiss, the finery of her lashes of the waves in her gorgeous hair of her cheeks set alight with passion… he felt as though there could be no such a word, no such a thing as restraint, of enjoying her in just the smallest of ways.

When finally she insisted on their parting, kissing the edge of his nose in an attempt to sate his soft groaning, she laughed at him as his breathing slowed, ruffling his hair.

“Are my charms really so deadly, Lorenz?” She smoothed a thumb over his cheek, squeezing along the red. “Look at you. Red as a rose,” she giggled again, touching her face to his, lashes smiling against his cheek.

“Yes,” he hissed.“Yes, yes. It’s you, all you,” he mumbled into her mouth, stealing one kiss from her before she clamped her fingers over his jaw, still laughing. “There’s no one-” he failed to squeeze out any more words, her nails digging into his lip and she brought her mouth against her hand, eyes locking with his as she imitated kissing him through it.

“Then… why don’t we try something a little different,” she whispered, before kissing the back of her hand again, brows raised. He could not answer, so he arched his brows in response, nodding. “Something I’ve done with… no other man.”

His eyes flared open at that, though, still unable to speak, he squeezed the side of her impeccable waist as answer.

Her chest rose up against his, the shape of her body searing through him as he tried to memorise the feel of those curves, pushing his hips forwards, chasing that pleasure. Her mouth came to brush against his shoulder, turned to whisper in his ear as she described in no uncertain terms what she wanted from him.

It was a sinful thing to ask, a truly embarrassing thing to be told, an act he had not ever even contemplated - even as she spoke it, he sputtered against her hand, eyes widening.

Yet. She moved his hand from her waist to her hips to her thigh, her breathing shuddering just ever so slightly in his ear.

“It’s just a kiss, Lorenz.”

A kiss where no one else had ventured, that, that singular thought blossomed in his mind over and over. An experience as new as all those she had given to him - this thought that, even if it were a lie, made him tremble.

Letting her hand pull free from his mouth, she looked up at him through those long lashes, those eyes endless rings of green. “The brave Lorenz Hellman Gloucester isn’t afraid of something like that, is he?” She said, her hands tickling down his rib cage, each movement of her delicate fingers like tongues of fire. “Of course not,” he croaked out before clearing his throat. Holding his head high, he slipped himself above the well of pleasure, trying his damnedest to ignore the fact that she was making the slowest, subtlest, most maddening rolls of her hips against his clear arousal.

“Well, shall we retire to the bedroom?”

She hummed at that, shook her head. “Ah, but! Dorothea, the servants -“ “They’re all in bed,” she mused, almost certainly a lie but, “Besides, can you really wait that long? All those stairs… Why, they might just tire me out.”

The room felt like it spiralled, the walls beating in his ears as he realised exactly what she was saying. The thought of being embarrassed sizzled away into the realisation that what she said was clad in white hot wanting, wanting for him. She parted from him and lay back on the méridienne, her hands gripping the edge of its curved back as she leaned into it, legs still clasped together. Standing there quite uselessly, he gazed at the way she was spread across the chaise lounge, eyes sliding thin. She was… unbelievable, truly. Unconsciously, he brought his hand to his mouth, breath growing hot as he lapped up the mere sight of her. She’d adjusted before his gaze, growing lovelier by the second, slipping off her tights with ease. “Kneel, Sir Lorenz.”

He did so without thought, his head swimming with the motion. Not even for Lord Holst would he have lowered himself so quickly for, so lowly. Yet, Dorothea’s legs spread out before him, her lithe body waved like the curls in her hair, like a bird’s wingbeats. She gazed down at him from above, her lips slightly parted, her eyes slipping shut. He crawled towards her, her leg coupling with his back, drawing him to the edge of the lounge.

The flare of her red, red dress framing the scene so nearly, but with one fluid motion, she pulled her underskirt above her hips, folding it into a neat line. And, just like that, she was exposed to him.

It was an overwhelming sight. Curved and curled, that unbroken line slowly opening itself up to him, (to him and to only him, him, him.) The leg dropped across his back had been making circular motions, but now, she pulled on it, daring him to go forwards.

Finally, he jolted from his paralysis. Slipping his head towards her, he did as she asked. He kissed her. Soft, close lipped kisses across that line, pausing only as she felt her entire body shudder, then relax. Tentatively, he continued, each kiss wholly its own drawn out motion. Her leg continued to guide him, its motions bringing his long, thin back into consciousness, as though nothing existed unless she was touching it.

He could not help but lose himself in this, relaxing as he threw his hair over his shoulder, tilting his head into her bare thigh. He sighed to himself, reminded himself that it would be best if it took this slowly, if he tried to better appreciate this, like any act of training required. Yet as his kisses began to blur together, each more rapid than the last, he felt her body jerk and the most wonderful noise escape her mouth.

That noise alone was enough to make him feel as though he were on the edge, his eyes flickering open and darting towards her expression. She had her head tilted back, her eyes totally shut, her mouth frozen in the hungriest of circles.

That look, combined with those soft little noises he had never heard her make, drove him onwards. He tilted his mouth, opening it and nestling his tongue into that line. He could not stop watching her, the theatre of her face as he explored what he could, each slip of his tongue making her body sing. Yes, she was singing now, that’s all he could see in this, in her melodic little sighs, in the way her body shuddered like the strings on a violin. And he was the one playing, now, playing her, playing with her - oh, that thought forced his eyes to shut, his mouth frozen over her as he gasped.

She muttered something, but he could not hear it, his world slowly spinning back into view. Sliding his eyes back open, he gazed at what he had done, at her obvious arousal, her want for him. Her thighs, shaped so lovingly and so unlike his own, her entire body soft circles upon soft circles where he was only sharp, cutting lines… his gaze returned to meet her face, her eyes still shut, her mouth now curled into a cheeky smile.

“You haven’t… already, have you?” She laughed as he spat out an urgent ‘no’, swiftly resuming his work.

“It’s alright if you do, I can only imagine how hard it is to stay composed around me.” Her teasing, her arrogance, only made him want to perform that much better for her. The fact that she could speak without stuttering, where as if he tried to now he felt as though he would only break into a cold sweat. Still. He appreciated what she was saying, appreciated the sound of her voice as it vibrated through her body… he followed after it, those deep vibrations, each sweep of his tongue inching in deeper and deeper… ah.

He could not stop thinking about the fact that this was the place where he was supposed to have taken her, far wetter and far warmer than he could ever had imagined, her sweet noises resuming. In a sense, he was inside of her now, truly one with her —

Suddenly, he felt her rising up against him, bumping against his teeth as he realised her tiny moans were now rippling together into a laugh. Sensing some inadequacy, he pulled his mouth away, brows knitting together in worry. “Did I … tickle you?”

She shook her head, catching her breath a moment.

“No, I could just feel your nose.” Frowning, he dipped his head back between her legs, gently nipping at one of her folds. Her sharp gasp brought him only the tiniest bit of vindication. “Now is not the time for such frivolity, Dorothea.”

Her laughter began to subside, her mouth tightening as her fingers came to sweep across his scalp, scratching it lightly.

“You’re right, Lorenz. I shouldn’t tease when you are in the middle of such… delicate work.”

He hummed an agreement, enjoying the little ripples her fingers induced through his scalp and down his back. As she began to play with his hair, mindlessly pulling it this way and that, he returned to her sex, biting along its ridges as enjoying every single desperate gasp she made.

It soon became unbearable. As much as he wanted to slide himself forward and take her like this, he… truthfully, he did not want to starve her of those noises. He was afraid of a repeat performance of last time that would sag into disappointment and anger, and, well. Tasting her like this, Goddess be damned, was rather more an enjoyable experience than he could ever have hoped for.

Sliding his hand down his chest, he wriggled in place - desperately trying to concentrate on keeping her satisfied while also moving himself out of his trousers. The angle failed him, so he made do through the fabric, his hand eventually finding a rhythm with his mouth, her own hand keeping time with each stroke through his hair.

Then, rather suddenly, he felt her fingers on his chin. Widening his eyes, he wondered if he’d hurt her in some way until she drew it forcibly upwards, her throat sounding like it might crack as she hissed, “there, right there.”

He embarrassed himself with the noises he began to make on her command, the thought of herself as his mentor somehow impossibly arousing. He leaned into his hand, his mouth following where she had led him, tongue sloppy but eventually finding what she had been searching for - her voice heightening immediately.

That noise, mixed with murmurs of ‘yes’ on repeat, rippled throughout her whole body and into his, making both feel whole. He began to moan in tandem with her, shedding any sense of self-consciousness as he gave into pleasure’s brilliant, hot glow. This was Dorothea he was making sing like this, his wife, the woman who had said yes, the woman who had overcome hardship after hardship, hatred after hatred, scorn after scorn and still - in the end - walked down that aisle in a white petal dress that turned had turned red before their very eyes. Even in ceremony, she would not leave the audience wanting.

For how many had she performed for? For how many had she brought pleasure to, spread her legs for, laid down in the hopes that their enjoyment might be a salve for her suffering? No, he soothed himself, listening to the wavering in her breath, feeling the desperate curving of her stomach, tasting her unconscious rolling of her hips as she completely and utterly lost control of herself… No, tonight, she was the centre of enjoyment, he the performer, and for once, he was determined, she would not be the one left wanting. And as soon as that thought entered his mind, she tugged on his hair, her face an utter, crazed mess. Her eyes still shut, but her neck craned back, her chest fluttering wildly. It was too much, it was simply too much - choking out a garbled whine, he pressed down hard with his fingers and rolled his hips against the lounge, frustration ebbing out into bliss as he turned his head and buried it into her thigh to suppress a cry.

Slowly blinking back into reality, he could still feel her body lifting up towards him, her thighs trembling against his cheek. She was… plainly requesting that he continue, and though by all accounts he should have been finished, he could not deny her.

Following her command, her fingers had spread herself apart, one nail pointing to where he now brought his mouth, her back arching delightfully as he followed through. “Dorothea,” he ached out, once, then twice, then again and again. Until he lost himself again in the edges of her name, in and out up and down and then ending, every single time, with an open mouth. He had hoped she would say his name in return, scream it, even - but she seemed incapable of saying anything, her cries first deepening, then lightening, then lifting to unbearable heights.

He did not stop, but he felt her tighten underneath him, pulsing in a steady rhythm as she undid herself with one singular, arching cry.

After a while, her breathing returned to normal, her body spent. Simply looking up at her for the longest time, he felt… utterly relaxed, despite the uncomfortable warmth in his trousers, the unnatural positioning, the fact that her eyes had not opened once during their entire encounter… but

“So, I trust that I impressed?”

She laughed, and he blushed, pulling himself up from the floor as she finally opened her eyes, staring blearily at the ceiling.

“You certainly left an impression.” Smiling to himself, he took her hand, bowing his head onto her chest. She played idly with his hair, and both listened to their steading breaths. She thanked him, then. A soft, breathy little thing.

And that blossomed in him a feeling so much deeper, so much more intense than orgasm, all in that one lilting, gentle little thank you.

--

ACT VII - CADENZA

Dorothea had been thanked many, many times before. Cordial thank yous, applause for a wonderful performance, a swell of glee because she brought treats backstage for a hoard of hungry singers. It hadn’t always been that way. Even now… it surprised her, that gratitude. How could anyone be truly grateful for what she brought into their lives?

She was a spectacle, a moment in time, a sparkling dress for a special night out, she wasn’t… she wasn’t the one who changed lives, who completed all the domestic chores every day, the silent figure who moulded students on their path to greatness. When she thought about the people she was truly thankful for… they all fit into those brackets. Mentors. Stage-crew. Saviours.

It was terrible of her, wasn’t it? To not believe those people when they thanked her.

Yet…

She remembered the glow of his brown eyes, so bright that they were almost amber, his tentative, nervous little smile.

She remembered…

The White Heron cup, only… not. They didn’t have a name for it the second time they hosted it. Winter had come in full force, that bleak feeling that sank into everything since the war began only thickening as the daylight trickled down to just a handful of hours. This time of year… Enbarr used to be covered in lights, as though the city itself could become the sun. The opera house had always been so busy. What else was there to do in the chill and the rain, when travels were so often cut short?

Yet, since the war began… Well. The sparkle had left. People became colder. More distant. More keenly aware that time was running out, for them or for… something else, society as they knew it. Maybe there wasn’t any time left for frivolities like going to watch people pretend to die on stage, maybe it felt just a little too real while the world was falling in around them.

Yet… Garreg Mach kept that sparkle. No. Reignited it.

She felt ashamed of some of those memories now. Ashamed but… happy, too. Those were probably some of the most joyful times of her life, as terrible as it seemed. Back together again with Manuela, relived that they had made it through one battle and into the next, singing and eating and praying even when it made no sense at all. She’d grown closer to those people in that ruined monastery than she ever would with anyone ever again. To imagine marrying anyone, anyone, who had not experienced that total heartache, that surreal joy, would have been impossible.

Who else would understand why they’d chosen to host the White Heron Cup when there was no one but themselves to judge it? No prizes, no music, no atmosphere at all, really… Yet Claude had let them dig into the rations, pull out the wine, and lose themselves in the illusion that maybe there really was somewhere in this world that hadn’t been ruined forever.

Manuela had long passed out and Seteth had taken her to her room. Leonie and Raphael had lost interest and kept themselves to the dining hall, chattering about the fresh taste of wild game. Marianne wasn't saying much at all. Ignatz was busying himself away in his corner, colours bleeding from his brush as Lysithea and Claude argued about how well she was handling her drink.

So, the White Heron Cup was largely forgotten about, just an excuse, really. Yet she remembered leaning into Hilda’s shoulder, their shoes kicked off while they cheered the boys on. Lorenz and Ferdie, their peacock tails in full display, a whole night of one attempting to out-noble the other.

It should have been annoying. Infuriating, even. Spending time with three of the most privileged people in the world, listening to Hilda whine about how she couldn’t be bothered dancing right now despite her years of training, the static that droned everything else out as Lorenz and Ferdie seemed to act on script with one another. Honestly, though? It was … just. Fun. “Come now, Hilda, it is unbecoming that a noblewoman of your stature would decline such a prestigious invitation. Why, it was your very brother who, while he was a student at the academy, swept himself to victory at every Cup, was it not?” Lorenz had been staring at them both, though… Even then, Dorothea noticed how his gaze would linger.

“Well yeah, and that’s exactly why I’m not doing it this year,” she’d wriggled her legs, turning her toes inward. “It’s just not fair! Let someone else have a turn. Besides. I don’t see why you even need a woman part. Just, I don’t know, dance with the chairs or something.”

“Well,” Dorothea interrupted, half tempted to go up to Manuela’s room and drag down that awful mannequin - though, she supposed she didn’t exactly trust herself with the knife firmly lodged in its head while she was this inebriated. “I have an idea…” Lorenz shifted on the spot, “Ah, of course. Lovely Dorothea, your talents were not all spent on singing, were they not? Why, the opera has some of the most complex choreography of all… Will you be volunteering tonight?” “No,” she smirked, tilting her head. “I’ve never been a fan of these noble dances. They’re too prescriptive for my style. I’d worry about… stepping on your toes.”

Before Lorenz could protest any further, she raised her voice, “I think… Ferdie should play the woman’s role.” Lorenz’s eyes snapped open, his hand waving, “That’s absurd -!” “I don’t see why not. It happens all the time at the opera house, which you are a fan of, after all.” “Yes, well, this is not theatre! Ferdinand is a man of grand stature, stripped though he may be of his titles, and he would not… debase himself so egregiously, particularly not at such an important event!” “Um,” Hilda laughed, eyes only half-opened. “We’re in the reception hall. And we’re the only one’s here. Who cares!”

“Even so -” “Enough!” Ferdie finally spoke, stepping forwards decisively. Well… alright. There had been a little waver in his step, but he saved himself from stumbling, his confidence far more effective than his drunkenness. “I will not allow this debacle in my name to go on any longer. If there are but two to compete in this year’s cup, and if none will bend, then I will be the one to volunteer.”

Turning to Lorenz, he offered his hand towards him and bowed in a curtsey that was more than half elegant. “… Come now, Ferdinand. This is simply unfair. You cannot possibly know the correct movements. You are an able dancer, I admit, perhaps my most admirable competitor - yet that is precisely why I will not allow you to forfeit to me on purpose.” “Oh? Where did you hear it said that I would forfeit? You underestimate me, Lorenz. A true dancer learns not only the role of his own, but his partner’s also. Through this experience, and this alone, I have learned to anticipate my partner’s every move, timing my own movements precisely. This, my friend, is the spirit of the dance. If you can not understand this, then you have no hope of besting me!”

And so, it was this way, that Lorenz and Ferdie swept each other off their feet. Well. More accurately - locked into one another hands with awkwardly tangled limbs, their stiffness not faded on their first nor second dance, but yielding in the third. Those sweeps of long hair, one so straight and to the point, the other glorious but wavering. Their steps in time to music that Hilda and she drummed out with their hands and with their heels, laughter rising as their drunken faces contorted with such intense concentration.

They were beautiful.

They were all so… so beautiful.

She could not remember who they declared the victor that night - if any. That wasn’t in the spirit of the dance, after all. Not in the spirit of the night. Not in the spirit of this monastery, still surviving despite the gaping hole that pierced its heart.

What she did remember was walking with all three of them back to their rooms, up those endless, winding stairs, the gulf that separated them all. She recalled Lorenz drunkenly offering to guide her back down the stairs, lest she get lost, lest she miss his company, lest she wished to speak more words into that pitch black night. She refused, that night, though she found his persistent desire to impress her rather… endearing. He truly had changed, in those five years.

Yet it was Ferdie whose drunken offer she agreed to. Who invited her back to his room. Who had looked so dashing being bent over Lorenz’s arms, whose hair she fantasised about holding onto almost touching the ground as they’d leaned into one another. Ferdie who, that night, she knew might ask her for something that they could not take back, something she was… ready enough to follow him into his bed.

Yet that question never came.

Instead… He asked her to brush his hair. To do his makeup.

To borrow one of her dresses.

He told her… he always liked when she called him ‘Ferdie’.

He asked her… exhausted and trembling, his amber eyes fixing her with a look so vulnerable she felt that her heart might break that night, he asked her if he looked good. If she still liked him this way.

If she…

If she thought, after the war… That, maybe… He could be called Ferdie forever.

He’d seen her at her most vulnerable, nakedness so tantalising and so awe inspiring that he had run away. He knew the Dorothea before the stage, the Dorothea after it was crumbled and gone. He’d seen her anger, her spite, her ugliness that now, to this day, stung her with regret.

Yet, here he was. Naked in his own way, in… in her own way. Asking her for her approval.

“Thank you, Dorothea, for everything you have shown me.”

That gorgeous smile. Those insatiable eyes.

“Thank you for showing me myself.”

She remembered…

The tangle of vines that erupted from Ferdie’s stomach, sharp and thorned, laying still across her belly.

She remembered…

Every petal being shorn from her at once, red red red streaking across her vision as, in that moment, all she was left with were thorns.

She remembered…

Lorenz dragging her by the hand, her screaming still echoing across the battlefield, every needle point of hers driving into him as she scratched his arm to ribbons. His face still in full bloom, his stalk artificially trimmed.

There had been no rain that day, just like there was no rain this day. The day they buried Lorenz’s horse in the rose garden, its body sitting wet beneath the vines. The clatter of war still echoed out in this quiet place, even if you had to strain your ears to hear it, even if they were putting yet another piece of it to rest.

The sun had been so bright, that day. Golden. Almost amber. “We say rest in peace. As though to live is to struggle, A war beneath the Eternal Moon. As though when is all said and done, All we can hope for, Is to rest.” Lorenz’s eulogy to his horse was… touching, in his own way. Yet. It was seeing the tremble begin in his arms, up through his shoulders, a trembling that opened up as wide as the wound in Ferdie’s stomach, a trench from which those thorn covered vines had never stopped spilling.

It was then, she realised, watching him weep for the first time that she had ever witnessed, that that trench lived on in him. She wondered if those scratches on his arms had scarred. She wondered if they veined out and came alive some nights, strangling him.

He choked out a wretched sob, covering his eyes.

He’d used to think that… anything truly beautiful could never be destroyed, that people would fight to preserve such beauty - even at the cost of themselves. He’d styled herself under that same rule. Something magnificent was almost something immortal.

A ravaged opera house. A dead war steed. A dear… dear friend. “I… I miss…” She reached for him, tangled him into her embrace, felt out whatever piece of softness she still had left in her, the petals that he had so diligently helped regrow.

“I know, Lorenz. I know.” So quietly she barely heard it, the wind picking up and rushing through the endless green around them, he thanked her. A soft, breathy little thing.

She pulled him tighter into her embrace, the world melting through. “I know.”

--

ACT VIII - COLORATURA - CURTAIN CALL The opera house was in full bloom, bright lights and gilded smiles all around. Freshly painted decor was made all the more decadent by the hundreds of donations that had been poured into this place, rich azures and splendid reds that were as much a spectacle as those on stage. Ah, it was as though the war had never taken place at all. That was the point, was it not?

Still, he could not help but feel… for its artisanal beauty, like a fetching young lady newly jewelled and furred, he could not help but miss those impassioned days. Where Dorothea was the only focal point in a sea of dusty browns and greys, where the chill of the outside world was quelled by the warmth of her rich voice. It was unlike him to appreciate such aesthetics, never mind pine for them. Yet, regardless, just like that night, she stepped onto that stage and into a halo of light.

The music dimming, the calm tension as the sound began to swell within her throat, but not quite set free.

He leaned forwards in his seat, her eyes cast above him, her face a picture of mourning.

—

The roar of the rain outside, drops long and thin sticking to the window panes, the smell of wet earth and bodies spent. Her rolling curls of hair, her beautiful smile, her insatiable eyes.

Her hands cutting through the black, cupping his face, the sound of rain growing ever louder.

—

The feel of her body pressed underneath him and into the grass, her nightgown soaked through, her mouth an elegant little bud that burst into the widest grin he had ever witnessed. “Now, Lorenz, do it now.”

—

After all that waiting, heaven finally spilled from her mouth. One endless, echoing note that ran on and on before it wavered, trembled, shuddered in time to the orchestra that could only hope to follow her lead.

— Daylight, mid-summer, the rose garden. She’s laughing, he’s trying to catch her. He can’t remember why, all he can remember is when she peels a rose from its stalk and hurls its petals at him. How he does the same. His precious, prized roses - and they’re throwing them over one another. She’s laughing, he remembers, she’s laughing because the petal’s stuck to his eyelashes. He looks an impossible spectacle, like a bird, like a butterfly.

—

She shudders underneath him, his fingers brushing over her and then inside her, and he’s gasping some mangled cry - her name, the goddess, it did not matter because all he can think about is the sound of her voice as it lifts and lifts and lifts the deeper his fingers go.

—

The rain grows heavier, and she nestles herself in the crook of his neck, her voice so soft and so tired as she says,“I was thirteen when I first had sex.”

—

The petals all come falling down. She’s ripped another rose’s head off, but she doesn’t tear its petals free, not this time. She stands by that horse’s grave, glancing up at him through her lashes, her smile melting the world away.

Between her fingers, she presents the rose to him. Nails brush along its edges, gently feeling their way across the inner petals before turning hard and stiff, crushing into the rose’s centre.

She looks up at him, and laughs.

— “He was… kind to me, even if I didn’t think so at the time.”

He stares out into the blearing rain, wondering if that whole garden might drown, wondering if there’s any roses left. — He forgot himself in that garden, her thighs squeezing against his waist, her mouth open and singing. There’s no such thing as anything else as he pushes his hips forwards and touches her - hungry, alive, wet enough to take him in one long, soft, wavering moan.

She wraps her entire being around him, the rain ravaging both their bodies, his hair bleeding into hers as it waves itself into violent, violet curls. He presses his forehead to hers, and lays still awhile, a protracted gasp as he fully takes in that he is tasting her without tasting.

He gently, so so gently, drifts his hips forwards.

—

She plays a Countess in an opera that would prove to be her most controversial yet. All her sparkling wears and finery mask the wild thing that rests beneath. A woman in love, a woman mad with it, a woman set to destroy the world without it.

Her lover dies. Torn apart by a crazed murderer. She knows that he will soon take her too.

She sings, she sings, she sings.

—

She sings, she sings, she sings.

He clutches her hand, clutches her hair, clutches anything as he desperately tries to find air. He can feel her breathing beneath him, he can feel her every motion, he can be inside of her without really knowing her at all

Yet it’s an illusion, is it not? The grandest illusion of them all.

—

“I thought that he loved me,” she said, her chest so still. “On some level… it’s silly, isn’t it, but on some level, I still believe that he did.”

“It hurt, a lot. Physically, emotionally, all of it. I thought he… was going to save me. Take me away from all this - even though he was married, even though his daughter sang up on that stage right beside me, just a few years older.”

The pages spiralling open, her fingers in the rose, his body lost in hers, the lights on the stage dimming.

“He was the one… actually, who let me sing centre stage. Picked me over his daughter, just like I thought he would keep on picking me over his wife.”

She’s laughing at him, drunk and full of life, Sherry toed as she dances in their living room - crawling over the méridienne, kissing him on the nose, on the mouth, on the chest, on and on until he’s losing herself into her bliss again, his eyes never shutting, never once leaving her.

She’s glorious on that stage, wailing, howling in a rage that seemed beyond human. This opera… it should have been like any other opera, but there was but one fundamental difference.

The murderer comes for her, her voice growing higher and higher, defiant on defiant, as though challenging him to kill her, as though she is ready for anything. After all, this one link to earth has been severed.

Her lover, a woman.

They were going to cross the ocean, disappear somewhere, no church, no Crests, no memories.

The rain begins to fade away, and he strokes his hands through her hair, he holds her while she tells him, “I thought my only worth was in what could be done to me, not by what I could do, I… really, really did believe that, for the longest time. I’m not good for much. Half-decent in a war, I suppose.”

She’s wrong.

Of course she’s wrong.

Yet the knife goes in all the same, her voice lilting and howling, impossibly powerful. How could she not even be aware of that power? How can she simply stand there as he stabs her, again and then again, her body crumbling, her voice still ringing out across the stage. He asks her, over and over, if this is alright, if she is alright, if he is alright. He trembles with pleasure so intense he is brought to the point of weeping, made worse by the opening of her eyes, her gaze so wonderful and sweeping. She tells him,

“You have a petal on your lash, Sir Lorenz.”

And he laughs.

She never stops being able to make him laugh.

She disappears into the earth, the stage lights go out, yer her voice keeps going.

On and on and on into that night. As though that pulsing, ethereal cry could pierce the veil.

As though it were searching for her lover, still. She holds his face, looks him in the eyes while their bodies meet, infinite pools of emerald green, holds his gaze until he cannot hold on any longer, he

If there’s anything he’s learned it’s that…

He can’t hold onto this moment forever.

Pockets of bliss so bright it blinds him. Sadness so cruel and all consuming it swallows him.

Anger at this cruel and unjust world, at spectres that no longer exist, so potent it feels poisonous.

There’s nothing that he can hold onto. Nothing. He lets go while scrambling to hold onto the image of those green green eyes, and the world curls out with it.

—

The performance ends and he is the first to his feet. He’s the only one there, after all. It’s only a practice, just a trial run.

The curtains raise, and Dorothea’s chatting among the girls, Manuela’s fingers ruffle her hair, their faces lit up red with the effort and the fading adrenaline.

Lorenz waits until she turns to him, until the corners of her smile shallowed, until her sparkle faded.

The stage falls away. Silence echoes. She meets his gaze, the warmth in her eyes that had been there just moments ago now dried and cold.

The rain’s still falling, somewhere.

Rose petals drifting in the wind.

Her voice reverberating, on and on, forever.

Which mirror was the truth?

He decided, then, that it did not matter.

He raises his hands and Applauds.