Happy pride!!! It's time for the @fe3hgenderfuckery zine to release and I was so stoked to contribute!!! I really wanted to draw a piece inspired by "I Saw the TV Glow" and trans sylvain/bernadetta is really important to me so it had to feature them <3
[ID: Digital art of Sylvain and Bernadetta sitting on the floor of the library. Bernadetta pulls her legs into herself while Sylvain gently leans in next to her. Both their faces are semi-obscured by a book Sylvain holds in between them. End ID]
My piece for the Fire Emblem Three Houses gift exchange hosted over on Ao3 and Twitter! Gift for @/crowcinthus ^^ I also busted out my very rusty writing abilities and wrote a short fic for some context.
Word Count: 1332
Characters: Bernadetta, Sylvain (brief mentions of other students, Byleth and Cyril)
Ships: Sylvain/Bernadetta
Other Notes: Post-timeskip, ambiguous route
Ao3 Link
~~~
Bernadetta staggers through the library doors after a mad dash, barely stopping even when she almost crashes into Hilda and then a stray boulder not there five years ago. The floorboards creak their discontent. Finding her way along the wall, she takes a shaky, gulping breath, and collapses.
She really thought she was doing better.
Two weeks ago, when everyone materialized in the Garreg Mach ruins, there was a sweeping sense of relief. As if things had finally slid into place with the sight of each others’ faces. Bernie herself had been drawn into the reunion in those first hours, even daring to step away from the exits.
And then the adrenaline wore away, and with that the appeal. A look around the monastery revealed broken buildings, stripped stables. Too much work for so little a group. The faces she stole glances at were so much more hardened than she remembered. Maybe they’d found time in between escapades to take some tea? That was how they could stand to see each other? In any case, Ferdinand and Lorenz stood with their too-long hair, laughing amongst themselves with a tone just too subdued, and the grass under Bernadetta’s feet felt as foreign as on her first day.
She eases off her gloves by the ring finger. Her hands still wear the same ink stains from that calligraphy session the other night… or the ones from two, three years ago, or a decade, she can’t remember. It’s all the same.
The ink covers her fingers, her forearms, and nowhere else; the world has moved on without her.
“They all must be sick of you, that’s it!” She can feel her mouth fluttering on, just as well, without her. “Now Bernie’s done it! The jig is up, they’ve figured out you’re a fraud, they’ll kick you out and send you right back home!” It doesn’t take long for her to slip back into the “useless, worthless, stupid” mantra she knows so well.
So when Sylvain sharps the corner of the library stairs, she doesn’t even notice.
His footsteps fall harder at the first sight of another, then soften, then pause entirely. Then he rushes down, dropping all the swagger. “Bern, Bernadetta, hey!” Tossing his books to the side, he unhesitatingly slides in. “What’s going on? Can you hear me?”
Her kneejerk reaction is to push him away. Skin-to-armor contact is the chilling result, so she pulls back in. Now there’s nowhere to go. She’s gotten herself cornered. All she can do is stare.
Yet Sylvain doesn’t make a move, except to raise his hands in surrender. The ruffles of his hair fall in a different cadence, she observes, but no more than the wind can tussle them. He still has the same smooth lips, that after a long moment of silence finally open to ask: “...Do you want to talk about it?”
With the clench of her throat holding her back, she can only shake her head.
“I got it. Totally fine.” He carefully takes a seat next to her, beckoning to their surroundings. “Let’s take a minute, alright? What do you see?”
“Uh… books,” she tries, “lots and lots of books. I mean, duh, it’s a library, the dominion of knowledge, that’s never going to change...” Sylvain nods for her to go on. “…It’s quiet for early evening, though. Like the kind of quiet you get when you sneak in after hours - which I totally never did to avoid everybody - but I mean not evening-study-group quiet, not people quiet, not that kind. And there’s rubble over there. And everywhere. That’s unfortunate…” Is she shivering again? “And that sh-shelf’s caved in… my favorite one actually, and now it’s broken, split right in half, and- Oh, I can’t do it!”
“Yeah, okay, breathe… it’s a lot to take in at once, I understand. Why don’t we try something a bit more manageable?”
With that, he scoops the top book off his pile and flips to a page in one swift motion. “‘The white-haired young man, still groggy, reached out for the hand of the figure in blue. He almost didn’t notice the strange mark on his own hand, a pattern of eyes snaking steadily upward.’ Do you want to continue from here?”
Bernadetta gingerly grazes the edges, then skips a little further in. “Let’s see… ‘Narrowly dodging a swing from the masked swordsman, Chrom growled, Tell me. Who taught you to fight like that? He received another swing in response.’”
“That’s a pretty interesting one. I haven’t gotten far, but I heard it saved the series.”
“Uh-huh.” She picks up another and reads out a line. “This is one of the old magic textbooks, isn’t it? And so complicated too… What do you need this for?”
“Just, uh, getting a refresher. I overheard the Professor drafting up their Dark Knight plans for me anyway. Gotta be prepared.” He closes that one a little quicker. “Shall we move on?”
They sift through each title, switching back and forth between pages and lines. The minutes, maybe hours, bleed into each other until the duo comes to a purplish book near the center of the stack.
“‘With a huff-’” Bernie huffs to make a point- “‘Laverne released the arrow into the air and watched it weave through the gathering flock above. She narrowed her eyes to… to its target up a-...’ Hang on.”
She recognizes that scratchy handwriting. And the page numbers line up, albeit on yellowing paper, and the characters and their thoughts and their comforting, familiar world.
This one is hers.
Right on time with her thoughts, Sylvain raises an eyebrow and a smirk. “Seem familiar?”
She brings her eyes up to meet his. “Y-you had it bound?”
“Well, ‘chyeah, I figured why not? Warfare back home can get pretty messy; things disappear all the time. The pages probably would’ve gotten lost too. I know how important this story is to you, so I could at least show it some respect by keeping it together.”
At that, she scoffs. “Hah! Important to Bernie? If it wasn’t for you loving it so much, I would have burned this garbage already.” She’d lost count of how many times Sylvain used to swing by to ask for a chapter update or offer a flowery review. By the end of the school year, she was hiding pages in different places for him to pick up. “I’m surprised you kept it at all, not to mention fancied it up so much.”
“All I did was the casing, I swear. You did all the hard work. It looks different, but the heart of it’s the same.”
She turns it around in her hands, idly running her knuckles along the spine. The heart of it’s the same.
“...It’s nice. Pretty, even! Thank you, Sylvain.”
His smile looks a little more genuine and a little less saucy than usual. “No big deal, just something for a fellow patron of the arts. Are you feeling okay enough to get out of here now? I’d invite you to the dining hall to grab some dinner, but I figure that’s the last place we should go.”
“Yep, not really up for a death wish tonight, sorry! I’m more than ready to head back to my personal haven.” She pauses. “Though, i-if you wanted, you could… walk with me there?”
“I hear you. To your room we go, milady-”
“Hey, anyone in here,” calls a voice sharp as a knock, and suddenly Cyril’s passing by. Sylvain waves a casual greeting, to which he curtly nods back. “Figured as such. Wouldja mind stepping out for the night? I’m closing up early to get some cleaning done.”
She stiffens at the figure who used to be so short now looming above her, but Sylvain rests a steadying hand on her back and helps her up. Hey, on her feet the height difference isn’t actually so large. Maybe she got taller too.
“Come on. Let’s go face the world, together this time.”
so heres idea for post-war sylvadetta. what do they do?
sylvain goes back to gautier. takes care of things. is responsible, but still messy. bernie renounces varley, and travels the continent. she writes and researches and draws, creating stories and botanical books
eventually, bernadetta appears in gautier. she's welcomed with open arms; sylvain's happy to see a familiar face like hers. she leaves within a week or so, but eventually she starts to find herself taking "breaks" there more and more. it's become her home base, more or less
he asks her to write to him, and after a while, she does, adding where she plans to go next so he can send her a letter back. they exchange letters back and forth for a long while, bernie occasionally coming back to resupply and give sylvain her work (which he helps her with)
one day, though, the anticipated letter from bernadetta comes a few days late. that was not entirely abnormal, but what was worrying was the fact that the letter was much more rushed--worse script and shorter paragraphs. far more simple and to the point than typical.
instead of bernie's usual anecdotes and drawings of flora, she tells him she's coming back to gautier soon. it's her next stop. she found a child. please don't be angry.
she found a child?!
when the woman enters the manor, she and the little boy are almost swarmed by the staff, but bernie's squeak of alarm reminds them to... not do that. sylvain quickly comes in to greet the pair, and brings them to his study.
bernadetta dumps her bags into his arms, then explains that the child--who's been silent all this time, clinging to bernadetta's clothes with his gaze downcast--was alone in the woods, wild and scared and cold. bernie couldnt stop herself from reaching out.
fed, cleaned, and clothed, the boy slowly starts to warm up to bernie. he does not speak, but he writes awkward words into empty notebooks. "nice lady. please stay." bernie never wants to stay in one place again, but she does want to stay with this child.
but the boy, so young and weak, likely could not keep up with her travels. so bernadetta takes him to sylvain, where she knows he will be taken care of. there, he will surely be loved. bernie knows sylvain's always had a soft spot for vulnerable youngsters.
bernadetta ends up staying at gautier longer than anticipated, but she doesn't regret it whatsoever. the boy never does speak out loud, but he writes and draws and eventually they all come up with a sign language. sylvain is gentle with the boy. bernadetta feels happy.
the nobles and staff and people of gautier are also quite happy with this. the margrave has a very lovely wife and son now, you know! obviously there's rumors, especially since the two came out of essentially nowhere, but theyre both so sweet holy cow
bernadetta returns to and leaves from gautier two more times. the third sylvain catches her arm, gazes into her eyes, and asks her to stay with them. she looks away. "i'll--i'll think about it." but then their boy asks her to stay, then, and she just cannot say no.
it took a lot longer than anyone thought for the two to actually get married (man they both have a lot of trauma related to that) but it's obvious for years that they've fallen in love.
including the boy, they have six children, some adopted, some by blood, five crestless, but all loved equally.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Galanthus
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Rating: Gen
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sylvain/Bernadetta
Additional Tags: Fluff, light angst, because Sylvain
Summary: Sylvain and Bernadetta talk about flowers; Bernie is Bernie, Sylvain is Sylvain, and someone gets a present.