"I hear you were bested by a cleric," Hubert observes. He sits on a cot near Bernadetta's, left arm extended to the side as a medic sets to work on his burns. Disappointment is the set of his lips into a line, and nothing more. Then his brow furrows as he recalls another rumor. "And you tried to fight Linhardt as well?"
The observation is simple, to the point, and factual, like Hubert is in most things. Also like Hubert, it feels like an unexpected knife in the dark of the tent.
Bernadetta sucks in a sharp breath as she flinches in the silence that follows. Her gaze remains downward as she sits on her own cot. She couldn’t raise her head if she wanted to, and instead focuses on her bandaged arms and the peeks of pink skin she can see.
This was the part she’d been dreading, even more than the fighting. The reaction to how she’d done. Because she’d done terribly, and she was supposed to be representing her house, the empire, Lady Edelgard and she’d done horrible and the fear of her father’s hypothetical appearance had been so much of a distraction she’d completely forgotten the fear of her own housemates was so much more dangerous.
Bernadetta struggles to swallow past the familiar rising lump in her throat. Was he mad at her? He was probably mad at her. Useless Bernadetta had made all the Eagles look stupid by not only losing but losing first and they were wasting their time on her and if they didn’t kill her they were definitely going to kick her out of the Eagles for being such a horrible and useless dead weight and no house was going to want Bernadetta von Loser who got knocked out first and they were probably going to tie rocks to her ankles and toss her off the highest point of the monastery to expel her and
“I’m sorry!” Bernadetta sobs, hands flying up to cover her face. She curled inwards on herself. She didn’t want to look she didn’t want to look she didn’t want to look.
“P-please don’t kick me out of the Eagles! I-I’ll do better n-next time I sw-swear!” Her breathing is a rapid, panicked mess as she struggles to talk. “I-I can’t go home to my father, especially not if he hears about wha-at happened with Lin-Linhardt! He’s gunna kill me!”
This was an absolute, colossal, complete and utter mistake and Bernadetta didn’t know why she thought she could ever do this.
It had been a moment of panic that prompted her in asking Hubert to be her panic. She had been (and still was!) incredibly thankful when he said yes and she knew she wouldn’t have to be facing this alone. That didn’t make any of this any easier.
The dance had been incredibly stiff and awkward, even Bernadetta could tell as she did her best to follow along Hubert’s lead. They weren’t horrible at the basics; they both had enough practice between them to be passable at the very least, but that was it. Their entire dance was stiff and basic and Bernadetta wasn’t sure if she felt worse for herself, Hubert for being dragged down with her, or the judges for having to stand there and watch them.
As soon as they finished, Bernadetta wished she could go running off the dance floor and find somewhere to hide before anyone in the school had the misfortune of looking at her again, but they had to wait for their scores.
A ten. Bernadetta groaned. No way they would win...
Waiting for the other team’s results, Bernadetta ducked her way under Hubert’s cape. Too many eyes, too many eyes... “Tell me when it’s over.” She whimpered, covering her face as she waited.
Thank you again for the sleeping brew! It worked really well. What herbs did you use in that? More of those would be useful to have, maybe I can try growing some. You could have some if I did, of course! As a thank you.
I also wanted to say thank you in general. You’re nicer You’re not as mean You’re not as scary as I used to think you were. It’s easier leaving my room when I know you’re around instead of wanting to hide.
Oh Godess was that weird? That was probably weird. It sounded like something a sappy romance novel would include. Should she remove it? She’s already scratched out so much of the letter, and she was running low on ink..
I think I’m glad that my mother sent me to school, even if I’m not looking forward to going back home now. There’s a lot more nice people in the world than I thought...and I’m glad I met you, even if I’m just annoying, useless, stupid, Bernie.
Sincerely, BernadettavonVarley
Her signature is crammed into a limited amount of space as the end of the paper is ripped abruptly. The other piece, (Love, Bernie) had been shredded to the point that it would be a monumental waste of time for anyone to try and decipher just what she’d written on it.
⛄️ - “Bernadetta?” Hubert hadn’t expected to find her all the way out here. The voices of their classmates wandering the grounds around the mansion had faded into silence by now. And yet, he wasn’t entirely surprised by it either. Though each had their own room within the lodge, the place was still busy. His eyes dropped to the pile of snow she was shaping and his brow furrowed. “Building your own companion, hm?” A teasing smile curled his lips. “How very innovative.”
Fleeting Snow
Creating with snow is a lot harder than creating with some of the other materials Bernadetta has used in the past. She’s thankful she thought this through enough to bring a good pair of gloves instead of the cute mittens she’d been eyeing. They were cute, yes, was she proud she made them? Yes. But shoving her hands in the snow like this and working to actually create them, there was no way they wouldn’t have ended up a wet and useless mess by now.
Her snowman isn’t...bad. She’s certainly struggling a bit with the details, and the head is a bit more misshapen than she’d like, but she’s making progress! Progress that required so much focus that she didn’t hear Hubert approaching until he was directly behind her. Bernadetta flinches, and the motion is enough to send the head of her snowman tumbling to the ground. She gapes at it before turning.
“Hubert!” She whines. He’s smiling, and it’s not quite the scary smile, so she feels confident enough to nudge him slightly. She’s upset, but not devastated. She can recover from this. And maybe make the face a little better. “Mr. Bonhomme didn’t deserve that at all...”
She leans down and picks up a portion of what had been the snowman’s head. Giving no time for a funeral or other morbid thoughts, she holds it out to Hubert. “Help me make a new one, since you broke it!”
Bernadetta wakes up with a weight in her chest that leaves her gasping for air in a way that feels like the first time she’s ever breathed.
Her head aches and her body feels drained, like one does after a particularly long run, but Bernadetta has no memories of such an event. No, the last thing she can think of is her mother offering her a concoction of her own making, something she’d told Bernadetta that she had made special for her.
When her body stops fighting for air and the pounding in her head lessens to a slight annoyance, she looks around the room. It is not her room - there isn’t a plant in sight, nor any of her other creations, and the walls are a sickly grey and the bed is unfamiliar.
Panic rises in her throat a moment, but with air back in her lungs (stale as it tastes, she notes absently), it is easier to push the panic back down and focus. It could not be her father - she had always heard tales of her father’s home being a realm of splendor and extravagance and this is anything but. But that in turn leads Bernadetta to the conclusion that she is somewhere unfamiliar entirely, and the panic bubbles once more.
Where is Mother?
Slowly, anticipating either beast or man appearing from where she cannot see, Bernadetta pushes herself up until she can place her bare feet against the cold floor - stone. She swallows the second wave of frustration and panic. She could not grow anything through stone. It was too hard to make anything sustainable.
She would have to wait then. Rising, she looks around the room. There is a window, and a door, but aside from that and the bed, the room is incredibly bare at the moment.
It goes without saying that Bernadetta doesn’t want anything to do with being outside during the holidays when this dreaded tradition was rampant among the students.
It also went without saying that the school didn’t really care about Bernadetta’s desire to stay out of sight and out of the way.
The second she realized she was trapped under another one of these awful traps she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a whine. Okay...okay. This was bad, but this way okay. At least it wasn’t a stranger! It’s just Hubert.
...Oh goddess, it’s Hubert.
Bernie is certain her face is bright red as she stares pointedly at the wall behind Hubert. “Um...” She points upwards at the hanging holly and tries not to fidget to hard in place under Hubert’s gaze.
She has to...Bernie whines a little in distress as she tries to puzzle out how this is going to work. Hubert’s so tall! He’s always looming over her, but that’s been more of a personality thing than anything. Now, in this moment, it’s hitting her just how tall Hubert is even when he’s not trying to be big and scary.
She fumbles awkwardly for a moment, trying to figure out how to tackle this problem, before she settles for taking hold of the front of his uniform with shaking hands and giving a light tug. “Could you...so I can...”
Bernie’s usually so full of words, but now she finds herself struggling to think up any as Hubert’s closer now and she’s sure that’s her heart in her throat and her pulse in her ears and the usual anxiety is running through her veins but it’s that and more and she doesn’t have time to think and puzzle out exactly what that more is.
Bernie lets out a quiet, anxious squeak and squeezes her eyes shut once more and goes up on her toes, pressing her lips to Hubert’s. If he’s disgusted with pathetic, stupid Bernie, she at least doesn’t want to see it.
Finding a recluse isn't difficult, but when Hubert knocks on her door and she doesn't answer right away, she wonders if she will at all. Still, he waits, and when her face finally peeks around, he holds up a simple clay pot. The red-tipped fronds of an exotic plant spill over the edges. "Perhaps this would interest you," Hubert starts as if it's nothing more than a topic for conversation. "A rare plant from Dagda. According to legend, speaking to them influences the color of the leaves." [1/2]
He examines the plant for a moment, lifting it and turning it in the sunlight. "I believe you would be well-suited to test that legend, so... I would like you to have it." He hands it to her. After a short pause, he adds as an afterthought, though a subtle smile has slipped across his lips. "Happy birthday, Bernadetta." [2/2]
Bernadetta absolutely did not, under any circumstances, want to be seen today. Most people would not think that it being their birthday would be a source of stress (except maybe Manuela who always seemed to be lamenting something when age was brought up but Bernadetta really didn’t think that their nerves about birthdays came from the same place) but Bernadetta did.
The...pressure of it being her birthday was just...well...what a solid reminder of the absolute nothing she’d managed to do at all to make herself any less of a disgrace to her family.
So when she’d heard knocking at her door on this fateful day, she really did not want to open it.
She managed to bite down the wail that wanted to slip out in response as she paced her room, fretting and debating over whether or not she should open that door. She was at school. It was unlikely to be her father. But he had people working for him everywhere and what if it was one of them? It probably wasn’t, but what if! Or what if it was worse and it was someone to tell her what a colossal failure she’d been all year and they were here to kill her as punishment for failing to do anything good at all ever! Or what if-
Praying in the back of her mind, Bernadetta finally made her way to the door, hoping that whoever was here to put her out of her misery did it quickly. She opened the door slowly, just enough that she could poke her head out to meet the gaze of her murderer and
Hubert? Oh goddess, they sent Hubert?
Bernadetta let out a confused whine, ignoring the tears that pricked at the corner of her eyes. Well at least she knew he would do a good job...even if it did make her sad to think it would be Hubert who would finish her off. She hoped at the very least that if they did ever make a cautionary tale about the horrible heir of Varley, they made her final swan song suitable dramatic and beautiful and romantic and
“H-huh?”
It takes her a moment to pull herself from her thoughts to actually listen to what Hubert is saying to her. Him lifting up the pot to her eye level is far more effective than anything, honestly, and though it takes a moment, Bernadetta’s gasp is soft and filled with awe as the realization of what he’s holding sparks through her.
“Oh wow! I’ve read about this one!” Her door opens easily now as she emerges to get a closer look at the treasure Hubert brought. She’s delicate as she raises a hand to it, delicately shifting the leaves with her finger tips to inspect them more carefully. “It’s called...oh, what was it again?” The knowledge is lost amidst all the things they’d been learning at the academy that she had desperately tried to shovel into her brain. Disappointing her father was one thing, but the thought of disappointing the professor sent a stone dropping solidly into her stomach and she did not like it.
“B-but I’ve heard they’re so hard to find. And all the way from Dagda! Where did you find it? The greenhouse said they didn’t have any because they’re so rare but you got one...for me?”
The surprise on Bernadetta’s face is clear as she looks up at Hubert again, with the same kind of openness as the lovable protagonists Bernadetta writes up. Hubert. Scary, intimidating, meanie Hubert who doesn’t do anything for anyone except Lady Edelgard...got her a plant?
For once, Bernadetta is quiet as she carefully takes the pot from Hubert’s hand. She’s quiet as she inspects the plant again, and her head is still full of thoughts but they’re different from the usual ones that race around in there. There’s a moment of quiet still and then Bernie giggles.
“I should probably name it, huh?” She asks. Not to Hubert specifically, simply out loud. “If I’m going to be talking to it. It would be rude not to name it...her? Him? I should probably think about that too...”
She looks up at Hubert again and there’s still tears at the corners of her eyes but they’re not threatening to spill over like they had before. Especially not paired with the small smile on her face. “Thank you, Hubert. Um...”
It’s here the nerves return, and though not as panicked or as dark as before, words are still just as hard. “You’re, um, probably busy having to do something for Lady Edelgard, s-so I promise not to get upset if you say no, b-but would you like some tea? A-as a thank you for the plant! Since you, um...”
She can’t think of a follow up to lead that sentence down, so Bernadetta settles for laughing awkwardly and holding the pot to her chest and maybe Hubert really isn’t that scary after all. “Yeah.”
🌧 - He should have noticed the clouds building in the distance. The way the sunlight had grown gradually weaker as they made their trek along the edge of the forest. But he wasn’t used to the volatile nature of coastal weather, and before he had much time to form a plan, a peal of thunder announced the coming rain. Hubert reached for Bernadetta’s arm and pulled her with him to shelter beneath a large palm frond. “So much for our adventure,” he murmurs with a note of disappointment.
The rain is unexpected, but Bernadetta doesn’t entirely hate it.
After the initial squeal of surprise and burst of panic from being suddenly grabbed and pulled into close to Hubert, Bernadetta found that she didn’t particularly mind the rain. “M-maybe...but it might get better! And I think it’s kinda nice.”
There was a strange calm to the world around them as the rain covered their beach resort, bringing the hush that came with everyone scrambling away inside where they would stay dry. Bernie watched with a slight smile as raindrops dripped from the edges of the leaf they were under.
(How wonderful it was itself to get such a close look at the plant too! Their greenhouse was diverse, but it was still so neat to see plants in their natural environments as well.)
“I-I would have never gotten to see something like this back home. A-and I don’t think I ever would’ve been brave enough to go out exploring like this at the beginning of the school year either. I-It’s...really exciting! Even if the rain does kinda stop us from looking around more.”
She hesitated, just a second, before sending Hubert a small, nervous smile. “I’m, uh...really glad I got to join the Eagles, you know? Everyone....I’m really grateful. I-I’m even brave enough to go out adventuring with you! I-I think that’s, uh, improvement, right?”
