In which Nadia discovers something new about her handsome, werewolf of a wife.
A little scene that came to me as I was walking my dog this morning after seeing @vesuviaweekly's prompt! Vaguely suggestive, like super vaguely. Either way, enjoy some silly Naditrix.
Nadia liked to think she knew pretty much everything about her wife. Hells, how long had they known each other at this point. The Countess purses her lips slightly as she lowers her reading glasses to the tea table, staring across the way as Beatrix lounged nearby. The missives before her all but forgotten as she speaks, voice calm yet curious.
“So. Where exactly did you learn to do that? Certainly not from me.” Nadia’s eyebrows lift slightly as she glanced idly down towards the small pile of twisted cherry stems. She knew her wife was skilled with their mouth and silver tongue, but even this was a tad surprising.
The ex-diplomat turned royal guard glances over at that. Green eyes looking thoughtful as a cherry pit is plucked from the werewolf's tongue. Beatrix plops the pit into the slowly growing pile in the bowl that sat beside the slowly depleting bowl of cherries. They twist the present stem between their thumb and forefinger before shrugging. “Honestly? A wandering courtesan out in the Scourgelands. I had no interest in, well, her services so in exchange for some coin she showed me how to do it. Said it often amused her more high-end clients, but only when they were truly drunk.”
Silence follows Beatrix's words as the werewolf begins to gnaw and chew on another cherry, the juices dripping down their tanned skin.
Nadia refrained from leaning over and cleaning her mess of a wife's face off. Her fingers flexed in her lap as she just watches them for a moment before leaning back in her chair a little. There's a faint shake of her head as she smiles to her wife.
“You continue to amaze me, Partho, even after all these years.”
“Gotta keep you on your toes somehow, Starlight. Otherwise I think you'd start to suspect something.” Beatrix would grin widely, offering the Countess a wink as they swiped their chin and lips clean with a napkin. Again, another pit is added to the bowl, but the stem, this one Beatrix twists about on their fingers.
“She was right though, the courtesan. It does amuse the nobility when they're drunk. Just have to be careful to not let any of them do it. Otherwise there'd be a lot of choking.” There's a look of mild disinterest on their features when Beatrix mentions such a thing as nearly choking to death so casually.
Nadia has to stop herself from spilling her tea as a laugh escapes her. She was only mildly caught off guard. Shaking her head, she clears her throat and takes a sip of tea, watching her wife intently once more.
The stem has been slipped into Beatrix’s mouth, their expression now concentrated and eyes slightly closed.
Had it been anyone but Nadia, one would find the slight staring uncomfortable and yet Nadia was all too privy to her wife's many quirks.
“Tada.” Beatrix's little noise is a bit disjointed as their tongue was presently sticking out, the now tied cherry stem on the tip of their tongue. It was precariously balanced there, now tied into a small little heart. Plucking it from their tongue, they offered it over to Nadia.
“You're ridiculous.” The Countess plucks the now tied cherry stem from her wife's hand. Examining it, she leans over and kisses Beatrix's cheek. “But I love you, even if you're ridiculous.”
The werewolf would beam. “Would hope so, you're stuck with me. Forever.”
A picnic date turned a little introspective. Nadia and Beatrix talk the past, about their feelings, and how lucky they are.
Title inspired by the song Love Run (Intro) by The Amazing Devil; Give it and that group a listen. Also, I meant to clarify this in the previous one, but the nickname Partho that Nadia uses for Beatrix is the name of a hero of Indian epic Mahabharat. Parth means one who doesn't miss their mark.
One would expect that after defeating a primordial entity and ensuring that the realms stayed where they were, that you'd be happy. And yet all Beatrix feels in this moment as they lay sprawled in a grassy meadow alongside the seated form of Nadia who is quietly reading a book, is exhaustion. The sort of exhaustion that goes right down to the bone, to the very soul. Closing their eyes, they exhale.
“What's troubling you?” Nadia's voice, calm and warm pull Beatrix immediately back from the precipice of falling into any unkind and dark thoughts.
Green eyes open and stare up into the bright blue, fluffy cloud dotted Vesuvian sky.
“...Can I ask you something?”
A question for a question.
There's the sound of the book closing and the rustling of skirts. Nadia's face soon comes into Beatrix's view, her body leaning against their side as she rests against their chest. Her arms folded and chin resting on her folded arms.
“Have I ever given you a reason to think you were unable to do so, pup?” Her eyebrows quirked slightly. There's amusement in her gaze, but her tone is concerned, just a dash.
But Beatrix can hear it anyway. They know Nadia's tells well enough at this point, no matter the mask she wears. No matter where they were.
Exhaling again, they shift a hand, gently tucking a strand of Nadia's hair behind her ear. The hand is settled at the base of their fiancée's neck, fingers gently playing at the hem of the loose summer dress that Nadia wears.
“...Nevermind.”
“Beatrix. Ask.” It wasn't a question.
“...Are you happy?”
Nadia's eyebrows tilt upwards at that, clearly not expecting that to be the question the werewolf asked. Sitting up, she shifts a little, staring forward and out across the meadow. “In what sense?”
Quietly the werewolf curses themself as they sit up beside the Countess. Leaning their head onto her shoulder, Beatrix follows Nadia's gaze, watching as, surprisingly enough, a group of deer rush past. There's an instinctual want to give chase, to rush away. Away from this conversation that they had started. To be free. To just be an animal. But Beatrix wasn't a pup just finding their pelt or a whelp figuring out how to control their shift.
Sighing, they refocus on Nadia whose still staring out at the meadow they sit within.
“...With me.”
“With you?”
Beatrix nearly gets whiplash from how quickly Nadia's head has turned to face them. They nearly whack heads. But instead of pulling back, Beatrix leans in closer.
A faint smile appears on Nadia's features as she raises a hand, so usually covered in various rings, was bare save for a simple gold band, touching it to Beatrix's cheek. “It's funny that you ask me that… Nahara, before she departed back to Prakra with Mother and Baba… She said something similar. Or rather she made one of her observations. I suppose I'm still pondering it.”
“...Come on now, Nadi, don't leave me wondering.” Beatrix chuckles a little, leaning their head more properly into the Countess’ shoulder.
An amused little noise escapes Nadia as she runs her hand through Beatrix's hair. She gently pushes the bangs back, gazing down to her fiancée, a faint shake of her head coming. “She just said I was more relaxed now more than she'd ever seen me… That I was… More myself than last we saw each other I suppose is what she meant.”
“Well you've grown. You've changed.” They were all too quick to point out, all too quick to jump to their lover’s defense.
But instead of rolling her eyes, Nadia just laughs and cups Beatrix's face properly. Leaning over, she kisses the werewolf she loves so very much. It's a slow yet passionate kiss. “I know, my love, you don't need to go… defending my honor to me. Though it's quite cute when you get all huffy.”
A pout crosses Beatrix's features and they frown a little. “I'm not huffy.”
Nadia’s eyes crinkle at the corners, a simpering and knowing smirk on her features now. She doesn't say a word, though, too amused by her fiancee’s objections. Turning her gaze forward, she merely laughs a little.
“But to answer your question, yes, I am. Immensely so. I know I was happy previously, to live a life without happiness would be a life I wouldn't be content to live in, but… It's a different sort of happiness now.” She muses gently, shifting to lay flat on her back now on the blanket beneath them.
Beatrix moves to do the same, or well. They lay on their side, head balanced on their palm as they gaze down at her.
“But?”
“But it was a hard won thing this love, this happiness of ours. And I wouldn't regret it for a minute. Life is filled with trials and tribulations, but I don't think either of us ever imagined that we'd have to go… realm hopping, bringing down daemonic beings and having to deal with the metaphysical representation of the Devil.” Nadia rubs her eyes a little, a rueful laugh escaping her as she tipped her head to regard Beatrix. “And yet, I think it makes for an excellent love story. Our love story. Such stories are far more interesting with a bit of drama, don't you think?”
This earns a proper laugh from Beatrix who shakes their head. “Heavens woman… You're lucky I love you.”
Nadia’s expression softens as she leans over, stealing a kiss from Beatrix. One of her hands slides through their hair as she murmurs against the werewolf’s lips, “I would say I'm immensely lucky that you love me and that you're still here.”
There's a beat where Beatrix just looks at Nadia quizzically.
“...I suppose your thoughtfulness has me thinking, reminiscing.”
“On?”
“That you stuck with me through all of this. Your dedication speaks volumes, Partho.”
“Hm. You deserve it.”
“I deserve it?” That earns a quirk of an eyebrow from Nadia.
Beatrix frowns a little, staring at their fiancée's vermillion eyes. For a moment, they aren't sprawled out on a blanket in the middle of a field outside of Vesuvia. No. Beatrix is transported to the past. A past long ago when Nadia had only recently awoken from her comatose state. They recall, so vividly the tears of happiness that marked every cheek of the servants in the palace. But too, they remembered the anger, the infighting, the angry snarled words from the now ex-Quaestor.
Their hands flex, briefly feeling flesh that wasn't their own. A windpipe-
“Partho.” Nadia’s voice, once more as it often did, cut through Beatrix's thoughts, preventing them from becoming too macabre, too violent.
“...You do. My dedication, my love, my loyalty. My very life, it is yours.” The words come tumbling from their mouth unbidden. And surely those are thoughts they often kept to themself, it felt almost right to voice them now, in this moment.
Nadia's eyebrows raise fully now. Such a declaration has caught her off guard and while surely such words are said so truly heartfelt and with such… reverence, her tongue feels heavy in her mouth. So she says nothing, frown creasing her features.
“Have I… Spoken out of- Mmph.” Beatrix is silenced with a kiss and Nadia's arms tight around their shoulders. A quiet squeak escapes the werewolf as they are forced onto their back, the Countess leaning over them.
“I love you. I love you even if I think your dedication to me borderlInes on religious worship. And though I do not see myself as you do, as some sort of… woman or being that deserves such things, I will accept such things. Because they are part of you, and you, my handsome, beautiful Beatrix, are my happiness.”
Green stares into vermillion.
“...I love you. I have loved you for a lot longer than I'd like to admit would be proper-”
“Oh to the hells with proper, Beatrix!” Nadia laughs, loud and high. But there's an exhaustion to it. A sprig of it. Blink and you'd miss it, but Beatrix, the ever perceptive hunter, knows it. They know her tells.
“We're out in the middle of nowhere, having enjoyed a picnic that you so lovingly prepared and you bring up what's proper? Goodness, I think you're spending far too much time in your own head. My, we've become quite similar, haven't we?” A chuckle, a more proper chuckle escapes Nadia now. It's light and airy. “Again, I say, I'm lucky to love you and I suppose to, you are lucky to love me. We are lucky.”
Beatrix wants to say more, to press the topic further. But they decide that that was enough for today. Nadia loved them, she was happy with them.
And she was right, a love story with some drama was a lot more interesting. Even if said drama was a mess of supernatural forces and plain old human drama.
Shaking their head, Beatrix properly puts those feelings, thoughts and memories aside. They were okay. It was all over, or so they hoped. And well, just as Nadia had said, they loved each other.
Maybe they wouldn't live happily ever after as many often did in such grand love stories that Nadia commented on, but… They'd be happy and they'd have each other.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 4/4
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, SCP Foundation
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Characters: Edelgard von Hresvelg, My Unit | Byleth, Hubert von Vestra, Dorothea Arnault, Petra Macneary, Bernadetta von Varley, Caspar von Bergliez, Linhardt von Hevring, Ferdinand von Aegir, Rhea (Fire Emblem), Catherine (Fire Emblem), Shamir Nevrand, Alois Rangeld, Sothis (Fire Emblem), Nemesis (Fire Emblem), The Hegemon Husk
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - SCP Foundation, Horror, Body Horror, Blood and Gore, Angst with a Happy Ending, Romance, Plot with Porn (the porn isn't that important but it sure is there), Monsters, monster women, Spiders, Dragon My Unit | Byleth, The Hegemon Husk - Freeform, The SCP stuff is just background truthfully so keep that in mind, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Blood Drinking, The porn tags will be within the chapter it appears, Author takes liberties with the Hegemon Husk and makes it more bird-like
Summary:
Working for the Company, had its quirks, and considering one had to keep the things that go bump in the night and the most courageous of individual's nightmares contained and catalogued, one would see a great many thing. Recently prompted to Director, Edelgard Hresvelg is a woman filled with multitudes: a human heart and a fractured being that dictated to her that she must eat, consume, otherwise she would be its meal next. With such a being within her and her missing fiancee suddenly reappearing, but in the clutches of the Council known as 'the Bishop', Edelgard must bring her old Mobile Task Force back together to stop whatever nefarious plans 'the Bishop' has planned, not only for Byleth, but their very world.
