“you made too much. that’s it. that’s all,” she’s mumbling under her breath, clad and hunched over in hooded cloak, rifling through the basket slung over the bend of her elbow. “it’s not anything special. bernie, special? ha! as if.”
she should not be here, tucked in one of the monastery’s more dilapidated corners. if she had it her way, then still, there would be a formal writ of house varley’s demise in the royal court’s hands. it is nothing but the few and frayed crimson threads that keep her dangling above ground now. a glimmer of green eyes, a mannequin lost to last year’s rubble. a loud voice, a bid for her health. all she was doing was proving ferdinand von aegir’s point, and yet. “and it’s not like you knew everything would blow up when you planted these tulips… it’s not the poor tulips’ fault. that doesn’t mean they should go to waste. yeah! they were a pain in the butt to cross-breed! yep.”
keeping quiet was the easy part, hushed blathering aside. bernadetta’s speedy hands finish their arrangement of flowers and dessert, left at his doorstep small and unimposing. just like her. nothing like him.and nothing ever like each other.
nothing like the variegated reds and oranges he had set by her door once upon a time. nothing like what her eyes had caught on his plate enough times to call a habit. bernadetta springs back to her feet— “hm-hm-hm… okay, there. one more holiday out of the way. back to hibernation!”—and begins to scamper back off, the flutter of her cloak tailing after her like a another faraway farewell.
he thought he had heard something in the corridor, faint whispers and sweet air. something placed with care just beyond the threshold, quiet as snowfall. Ferdinand paused, wondering if someone could really impart a feeling of fresh snow, no footsteps. with his hand still resting on the handle, he stepped out into the hall.
his gaze dropped, and there— a basket. modesty jeweled by a deliberate hand, recognizable now that Ferdinand was beginning to see her touch in places he was blind to before. flowers, warm in color despite the season. carefully arranged. and beside them, something sweet. “she must have grown these for their color…” he murmured, almost to himself. “and with remarkable success, at that.”
straightening, he turned—not toward the safety of his room, but down the corridor she had fled. who was she, if not a glimpse of violet and faded reflections? a painted figment in a child’s mind, the nebulous branch off a grapevine, the pride of Varley (or his projection of such). an old book, old words, never dog-earred because he believed every whisper that came before hers. even now, he wondered if it was ego that made his footsteps break the snow, thundering out of his mind and into hers. “Bernadetta! wait!”
the moon might split, he thought. there goes the year of trying to posture nonchalant. of pretending his innocence was to protect what little they had of each other to begin with. he was afraid to ask: am I cornering you? even now?
“Bernadetta! you have my thanks!”
uh oh. there it is, on his mind again. where he prayed on grass-stains, he wondered if she was put on bleeding knees. “and my admiration!” a set of lungs go out. uh oh. “I am SORRY!”
what a pretty picture. nobility trampling past flowers to get into the snow. for he was trapped between his father’s teeth (a smile) and his father’s shape (a cut-out). and she was trapped under her father’s ink (predetermined) and her father’s shape (a shadow). he was sure that if they were in the same frame, it was by their hands, too.
“...sorry.” he said, catching up to her at last. awkwardly. “but I heard you were…” well? “well, I just wanted to see you.”
“I am starting to know your touch.” tired buzzer noise. “you know that, do you not? let us not dance around each other like this…”
it is his birthday. “It is my birthday.”