A prompt if it tickles your fancy: #67 kiss prompt for Dorothea/Bernadetta?
It tickles me indeed! :D Thanks for being the first prompt for the Black Eagles Run!
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[more Beagles stories]
67: When One Stops The Kiss To Whisper “I’m Sorry, Are You Sure You-” And They Answer By Kissing Them More
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The show went off without a hitch as far as Bernadetta could tell. Dorothea had warned her to expect hiccups or missed cues, this being the first night the Mittelfrank Company was showing this particular opera, but Bernadetta hadn't noticed even a slight wrinkle on the costumes. She stood and clapped with the rest of the audience as the actors came out for a final bow, beaming when Dorothea's gaze lingered on her.
The crowd began to file out shortly after. Bernadetta hesitantly made her way towards the backstage door Dorothea had told her to use. She had permission from the star of the show, of course, but what if someone stopped Bernadetta before she could explain that? What if they didn't believe someone like her could be the Dorothea Arnault's girlfriend?
As Bernadetta came upon Dorothea's dressing room door, however, she found the guards otherwise occupied. Several men holding flowers and small gifts were arguing with Dorothea's Imperial guard detail. Bernadetta exhaled, immediately grateful that Edelgard and Ferdinand had insisted Dorothea have her own palace guards when the opera house reopened last year. One guard made eye contact with Bernadetta, knocked on the dressing room door, and gestured for Bernadetta to approach. Ignoring the outraged men, Bernadetta hurried inside.
Straight into Dorothea's waiting arms.
"There you are!" Dorothea squeezed Bernadetta tight. "Is it still bad outside? I was hoping you could get here before them."
"S-Sorry," Bernadetta managed.
"No, no, don't be. They're just that desperate, I suppose." Dorothea stepped back and cupped Bernadetta's face. "So? What did you think?"
Bernadetta shook off her nerves and smiled for Dorothea, who was still wearing her makeup from the final scene. "You were amazing! So was everyone else, b-but you were incredible!"
Dorothea laughed. "What part did you like best? Which song?"
"Oh, um." Put on the spot, Bernadetta was suddenly having trouble recalling any one part of the opera. She knew Dorothea had performed flawlessly and that the story had been absorbing. But in that moment, with her girlfriend glowing in her arms, Bernadetta's mind had gone blank.
After a few seconds-- during which Bernadetta silently screamed at herself to say something-- Dorothea's smile gentled. "Never mind. Here, help me out of this." She took Bernadetta's hand and led her over to the vanity table. Turning, she indicated the zipper on the back of her dress, still smiling at Bernadetta in the mirror.
Bernadetta unclasped the top of the dress and began undoing the zipper. It was hard to keep eye contact with Dorothea, so she watched the zipper unwind instead. "Sorry," she said quietly. "I really did like it. I'm messing things up again. I should've brought you flowers or something like those guys so you knew how much..."
The dress pooled at Dorothea's feet. Her slip was a silky brown that almost matched her skin. Dorothea kicked the dress away and sat at the vanity bench facing Bernadetta, clasping her hands.
"Oh Bern..." Her tone alone was a balm to Bernadetta's nerves. "Anyone can give me flowers. You're the only one who can give me what I really want after a performance."
Bernadetta stared. Her mind, previously filled with a light buzzing as her anxiety cooled down, was suddenly flooded with images, any of which could fit into what she believed Dorothea was implying.
Sliding her hands from Dorothea's, Bernadetta cupped Dorothea by the chin, and kissed her. At first she easily slipped into her girlfriend's mouth-- but pulled back when she felt Dorothea tense. "I-I-I'm sorry!" she squeaked as Dorothea's wide eyes met hers. "I just thought-- Didn't you mean--"
She was cut off by Dorothea pulling her back in for another heated kiss. Bernadetta stumbled forward until she was practically in Dorothea's lap. "That is exactly what I meant," Dorothea said against her lips. "You just took the hint faster than I thought."
"O-Oh."
"Do you want to keep going?"
Bernadetta wanted to say that she would do whatever Dorothea wanted. That she was happy to have an edge over those men outside. That Dorothea deserved only best after carrying the show the way she had.
Instead, she drew Dorothea in with a kiss to the cheek, chin, and finally lips. Dorothea hummed in triumph, and Bernadetta decided that this was her favorite part of the opera.
i’m still doing art for BLM donations! message me a screencap (preferably with a timestamp+my blog or something) and what you’d like drawn! here’s a good resource https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#donate
If you're still taking prompts, perhaps Byleth teaching Edelgard how to wield the Sword of the Creator?
thank you for giving me an excuse to write this dfjksla!! i ended up writing like. the leadup to byleth teaching edelgard how to wield the sword of the creator but i might continue it sometime, it’s a prompt and a concept i really like! i think it’d be neat both aesthetically and as a character beat for both of the girls-
Byleth doesn’t have her crest anymore, that much is clear. After the battle, once she’d regained consciousness, she’d reached for the Sword of the Creator only to have it burn her. She’d drawn her hand back quickly, and Edelgard had carried the sword home instead.
Days later, the Sword of the Creator sits safely in her new room in the Enbarr palace, completely unusable. Byleth stares at it, glowing slightly and providing a dim light. She can hear her heart beating. It’s so loud. How does everyone else think with it constantly beating? It makes sense that she can no longer use it: she’s lost whatever essence of Sothis was in her, and without her she no longer has a crest.
The feeling of loss she feels from Sothis’ absence is difficult to formulate in words. Byleth stills has a hard time untangling her emotions, often ending up unable to parse her feelings as anything other than a vague sense of numbness. But when she thinks about how Sothis and the Sword of the Creator, once so comfortable and familiar, are gone from her forever, she feels the sharp pain of sorrow strong enough that she knows it for what it is.
Enough is enough.
It’s late, but Byleth knows that Edelgard is likely to still be awake. Running a new empire is call for many late nights, and Edelgard does not sleep well even in the best of times. Byleth walks through the halls unbothered, and Edelgard’s personal guard lets her pass without incident. She’ll have to remember to tell Hubert about that - even she shouldn’t be able to get past the Empress’ guards without being questioned. They have to keep El safe, above all else.
She knocks on the door to Edelgard’s quarters, and after a brief pause, the Empress opens the doors. Edelgard’s hair is down, and she looks almost like the girl Byleth once knew back at the academy, although time has hardened them both.
“Byleth?” Edelgard says, standing perfectly straight, even at this hour. Empress is a mantle Edelgard can never put down, even when she is resting. “Is everything alright?”
“You have the Crest of Flames,” Byleth says.
“I- yes.”
“You could wield the Sword of the Creator,” Byleth replies. She feels a tiny coil of what she thinks must be envy, but she turns away from it. Envy is useless. Envy cannot bring back what she’s lost.
“I could,” Edelgard agrees. She’s uncomfortable with this conversation, Byleth thinks, but she needs to do something to alleviate this feeling.
“You should,” Byleth says. “I will teach you in the morning.”
The suggestion of a smile crosses Edelgard’s face, “Very well, my teacher.”
Hey I just finished the Silver Snow route and I came here to say Edelgard Was Right. I thought siding with the church would dampen my love for her, but now I just love her more.
The same thing happened to me when I beat Silver Snow!
ellorgast replied to your post “Ignatz wants to give me a painting and he’s going to put his heart...”
You recruited Caspar! He's a precious bean. Who else did you recruit?
I got all the adults. Caspar, Dorothea, Slyvain, Flayn, Felix, and I’m made because I got Linhardt, but for some reason it didn’t carry over? I picked him up right before the final battle so I think it glitched :(
I was close for a couple more but sadly I didn’t manage it :(
it-- it cried out for fanart. a cover, even. or just fanart!
SURPRIIIIISE!!!
Dreamweave is the first story in the monumental and seminal Monster Socks!, my favorite Mamoru & the Shitennou story literally of all time, this is what I go back and read and reread when I'm feeling sad or discomfited or depressed or anxious. So many of @ellorgast 's stories do this for me-- MOST do-- (The Littlest Things Matter, Fifteen to Midnight, A Yellow Car, Resonating Light-- off the top of my head.) But Monster Socks!, I just keep going back to again and again; I can't think of anything else that makes me so happy so quickly.
I don't care that putting links in posts makes tumblr spit them out. This is the fic rec to rule them all, and in the fandom bind them.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/2310920
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Obviously, if you haven't read yet, do! If it's been a while, do it again!! I hope you are all made as happy by these stories as I am. ❤️
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**
Something Old…
Her dress is spotless white satin glimmering with seed pearls and a flowing overlay of chiffon embroidered with rosebuds. Angela has just finished dressing, and makeup, and had kicked out the well-meaning army of her mother and future mother-in-law and bridesmaids and photographer after the requisite pictures and champagne, just to take a moment for herself. The woman in the mirror glows with excitement and the flush of love, but there’s always a hint of nerves, of the finality of tying oneself to another person for the rest of one’s life. She knows, more than most, anything can happen. Countless tragedies spring from a single blink-of-the-eye catastrophe, or one bad decision.
A knock, a harmonious, familiar voice at the other side of the door. “It’s Jay. Are you decent?”
He looks exceedingly handsome and somehow a bit stately, dressed in pale grey linen with a sprig of sage and ivy— silvery and lush green— pinned to his lapel. It’s not a typical choice for a suit or boutonniere, but it suits more than black-tie would, and he’s holding something in his hands— gleaming silver.
It’s a delicate tiara, wrought branches of metal so intricately worked as to look like the slender stems of living flowers and vines twisted together. Drops of clear crystal like dew glitter against the silver, along with fantastical flowers carved out of jewels— blue irises, pink rosebuds, yellow daisies and red poppies— an effect which should’ve been crass, but when he places it on her head, over the filmy lace veil, she looks like a fairy princess. The metal feels slightly warm and almost alive against her hair, and she smiles up at this surrogate brother, this forever friend. “How did you know I’d looked in every single boutique in this city and couldn’t find anything?”
He grins, and the stately, somewhat remote look vanishes. “Well. For one thing, this is super old. But I am firmly of the belief that it will bring you good luck, you little ball of sunshine. I brought it out of storage.”
She thinks art nouveau, circa 1920’s, perhaps out of a safety deposit box somewhere in a bank. He knows, but doesn’t say, that it had been wrought by the masterful hands of his clan’s greatest artisans, in moonlit smithies high up in mist-shrouded mountains back before the first ships had ever even crossed the ocean, blessed by starshine and magic and centuries’ worth of romantic hopes and dreams. She just knows that it fits perfectly, and her eyes shine a bit brighter in the reflection, and she reaches up, impulsively, to give him a hug. “Something old, right? Thank you.”
“I wish you all the best and brightest of this world’s blessings, my friend.” He presses a brief, grave kiss to her forehead, right under where the metal meets skin, and it feels like the strangest of benedictions, almost solemn and formal. But then he steps back, and he’s Jay again, and he makes a cheeky comment about how beautiful she looks and how Adam is going to swallow his tongue when he sees her, and he leaves as quickly as he’d come on quick and silent feet.
**
Something New…
The blind date with Jareth’s friend had gone surprisingly well. Zhen, with his indolent green eyes and roguish smile, is well-spoken and courteous, with an almost-dangerous way of looking and listening to a woman as though he’d been waiting all his life for what she had to say at any given moment. Raina considers herself immune to such foolishness for the most part, but that Jareth considers him a friend is a point in his favour. It’s unspoken, but not unknown, that she and Jareth are both a bit out of the realm of the ordinary mortals who surround them.
When she’d mentioned the wedding, he’d cheerfully agreed to go as her date. “I love weddings. Such an optimistic sort of atmosphere, no? Whatever storms the happy couple may face in the future, for today they are deeply in love, heads and hearts full of rose-coloured dreams and hopes. And then they almost always have fabulous food and delicious cake. That cannot be overstated.”
She’s not as optimistic, perhaps, about the concept of marriage. But she rather likes Adam King, out of her colleagues at the hospital. He’s intelligent and capable, as is expected for his profession and academic record, but furthermore, there’s a soul-deep, untarnished light of compassion and empathy in the blue of his eyes. He had not become a healer because it was his birthright, like her, but because he genuinely, in his quiet, mortal way, felt and wanted to heal the pain of his fellow humans. It stirs a long-dormant feeling of fond protectiveness in her, and when she and her date go to wish the happy couple well at the start of the reception, she means it genuinely.
Zhen looks keenly interested in the proceedings, and though she’s quite sure that neither the bride nor groom had ever met him before, he greets them both with the cordiality of a socially-adroit man intent on befriending them both. He had not brought a gift-- (she had picked a popular programmable coffee and espresso machine out of the online registry, knowing Adam’s fondness for mochas)-- but he’d brought a card, and tucked in a scratch-off lottery ticket. He hands it to Adam, in person, rather than adding it to a pile left somewhere, and the groom opens it, reads the message aloud.
“Best of luck with your love and your lives together. Blessings upon you both.” It’s a nice enough message, and written in exuberant flourishes of looping script. Good-humouredly, Adam claps Zhen on the shoulder, and scratches off the silver wax on the lottery ticket, then his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline as he scans the ticket again.
“Did you win something?” Zhen inquires pleasantly, his lazy smile playing across his lips.
“Three matched sevens across, and then these two numbers mean…” Adam furrows his brow, and glances around before lowering his voice. “I’m not much for playing the lottery. But if I’m reading this correctly, did I just win $5000?!”
“Well, well.” Zhen’s voice is low and pleased as an animal’s purr. “How lucky for you, my friend. I do think that is a fantastic beginning to your new life together, wouldn’t you say?”
Raina hears pleasure and something close to triumph in her companion’s voice, but not even a little bit of surprise. This man, with his scintillating gaze and effortless charm, is much more than he seemed. She’d have to keep an eye on him.
**
Something Borrowed…
Linden Thorne does not often work in the role of caterer, but on impulse, she had accepted to provide both the cake and food for this wedding, and she had found herself pleasantly surprised at how much she’d enjoyed it.
The bride and groom were perhaps two of the most pure-hearted, genuinely good mortals that she had ever come across. A doctor and a social worker, both working tirelessly to help and heal the physical and emotional damage of any of their fellows that crossed their paths-- and humans are a fragile lot, indeed. They had been pleasant, easygoing, not at all demanding, and so deeply in love that both of them all but glowed with it. The bride especially, with her boundless energy and equally irrepressible sweet tooth, took particularly well to any and every thing that Linden had her sample.
So, she’s not entirely surprised when Angela-- who had been Angela King for all of perhaps an hour-- peeks into the kitchen area where the wedding reception is taking place. Linden has a half-dozen sous chefs and assistants putting together delicate canapés with the efficiency of a battalion following the directives of their commanding officer: a lanky young man is on top of a step-stool putting the finishing touches on the top tier of the wedding cake-- translucently thin slivers of gold leaf, velvety rosebuds in shell pink and scarlet, a woman with a severely pinned bun is garnishing exquisite smoked salmon toast rounds with glossy black caviar and eyelash-thin fronds of fresh dill. The bride, still in her gown though sans veil, grins at her with a good-humoured yet half-embarrassed look that Linden interprets in an instant.
“You’re starving, aren’t you?”
“A bit, yeah. I had a salad last night for dinner. Then it was my fault this morning because I was too excited to eat. But now I’m shamelessly begging in here like I have no sense. You can totally tell me to buzz off.”
Linden finds herself laughing, unoffended. “It’s your wedding, so it would not make much sense for me to tell you to buzz off, wouldn’t you agree?”
“But you’re busy, and this is probably rude of me, so…”
“I will forgive it this time.” Linden steps away from the buzz of activity, digs through the pantry and fridge. The bride is a silly, bright-eyed slip of a girl, sweet and pure as vanilla buttercream, and if the world has yet to break her spirit, who was Linden to take that onerous task into her hands. She cuts two slices of rye bread, then adds Dijon mustard, peppery arugula leaves, generous slices of red tomatoes and sharp cheddar and cold chicken breast. A sandwich is probably the least glamorous meal that she could have put together in that moment, but the girl’s eyes light up like stars nonetheless.
Linden, with an indulgent smile, slips her own chef’s apron off of her neck, and carefully ties it over the bride’s flowing white gown. “Okay. Eat up.”
“Oh, God, this is the best thing I’ve ever had, and I know I’ll be saying that again like twenty times tonight after everything else you’ve made, too,” Angela says in between bites, looking like a mischievous fairy princess who’d snuck down to the palace kitchens in that borrowed apron. She finishes the sandwich with rather unladylike haste, but then gets up, with her usual endless energy, and reaches up to give Linden a hug. It’s such a human gesture-- warm and impulsive and sweet and unexpected, and Linden pauses awkwardly before returning it.
“Feel better now?”
“Oh yes. Thanks for the apron. And the sandwich. And everything.” Angela slips the apron off, mussing her hair just the faintest bit, then beams up at Linden again. “I really hope that you’re as happy as I am today. Forever. Does that sound silly?”
Forever is a long time, far beyond the scope of what this silly mortal bride could fathom, but Linden knows that the bright-eyed, perhaps foolish girl means it with every beat of her kind and affectionate heart. And so she lets the genuine goodwill of the wish warm her spirit, like a borrowed candle shining valiantly on a dark night, far after the party is over and the bride is well on her way to her honeymoon.
**
Something Blue…
The late September breeze filters through the tall, slim boles of a tall aspen decked in autumnal gold outside on the grounds of a Manhattan church, the sound soft and gentle as whispered prayers. Inside, a wedding ceremony is taking place, a young man and woman exchanging their vows to their God and each other to live the rest of their lives together in love and unity and devotion.
Contrary to popular belief, Kafziel does not spend the majority of his time on the premises of churches in the city. But this morning finds him on the rooftop of this particular building, a stalwart sentinel visible only in the fleeting, ever-changing reflections of the panes of the intricate rose window in the facade of the building. Of course, there is no one around to see him-- all the visitors to the church are well enough inside to watch the happy couple getting married.
Kafziel knows, of course, the history of the bride and groom, as he knows the history of every other man, woman and child currently living in that great city, and even by his exacting standards, both of them live decent, upstanding lives above reproach. Neither of them were born here; indeed, the young man in particular had been the product of a most unpromising beginning. And yet, they had found their way here, and to each other, and flourished in love and light and goodness despite everything which might conspire to tarnish the kindness of two such spotless souls.
The pane of leaded glass reflects, at that moment, a face of stark, stern beauty and foreboding. “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” The words are familiar and easy, but Kafziel knows, more than any, of the way great darkness follows great light with dogged, demoniacal tenacity. There is a chill in the air; winter is coming, and with the frost portents sharp strife, perhaps even great trouble. Those who would engender all which he abhors would feed, frenzied, upon the darkest, basest impulses and sins and actions. The happy couple who are even now enjoying their first kiss as man and wife have no idea that their union portends any number of potential catastrophes of a dark and sinful world rebelling against their very radiance. Kafziel’s reflection squares its shoulders, firms its grip on the mighty, fire-tipped sword that throws jewel-like beams of light through the stained glass into the building.
But even as he braces himself for what must inevitably come-- perhaps a day, or a month, or a decade from now-- he feels the presence of others crowding in, like a ragtag bunch of plucky soldiers summoned to a war they might have no call to fight and yet taken on with every bit of courage as such a troop might muster. The chaotic whimsy of a shifter. The primeval fire-and-wildwoods magic of a nature goddess. The calm, steadfast wisdom of a healer and the tireless, graceful agility of a brace of wandering Ælf-kine. Others, too, all gathered here, converging by luck or fate. Kafziel pauses, and allows himself a faint, almost-hopeful smile, and overhead, the sunlight breaks through the clouds as the sky turns a brilliant blue.
