#syldetta

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.