@phlcgmentine [ EDELGARD & CLEM ] you’re more than your prison cell. you’re more than you know.
Edelgard harbors affection for all the students in her class---but the more she observes Clem, the more fascinated Edelgard becomes. A strong, vibrantly-casting black mage with... a secondary proficiency in fisticuffs? A surprising talent, and from a young noblewoman already arranged to marry a crest-bearing nobleman, no less.
No doubt, these were the only years of Clem’s life she would be able to take part in any sort of battle or battle training. Still, Edelgard believed that even her husband-to-be would have to be impressed with Clem’s abilities. It made Edelgard wonder about her---and Clem’s actual desires for her own future, and not her family’s or the crest system’s, a better future, in which they both could be free to do as they liked. If Clem possessed a rebel’s spirit, surely, she would prove to be a worthy ally of the New United Empire of Fodlan. Edelgard could imagine no better an example of talent that would otherwise be wasted on childrearing.
Unfortunately, it is not considered polite to ask if one would simply like to join your revolution. Instead, Edelgard tests the waters after class. The sun shines through the stain-glassed window, beams of light tap through it like gentle rain against the skin. War will come, and Edelgard will bring it. But for now it is quiet; peaceful. The stone walls seem to echo around them, whispering each future secret to come. Even these voices, sure and steady though they be, speak low and hushed, so as not to interrupt the world’s turning.
“Lady Clementine. If you have a moment?” Edelgard starts, her words trim and precise and polite in every way she’s ever been taught. Her brow forms a thin white line on her rather large forehead. Her lips are pursed, though she does try to smile, which only makes her look awkward, and bothered, but no matter---such a silly, beleagured face in not out of the ordinary for her. “I have noticed your aptitude for brawling. As I am suited most toward axes and armor, I think your quick style matched against my more labored force could prove to be quite a challenge for me. Would you like to train together some time?”