trebuchials

It’s not a difficult spell to conjure, but a complicated and boundary-less one that results in snatching snippets of someone’s train of thought. It’s a parlor trick, Asra had told her the first time he’d shown her, one for half-baked illusionists and the fortune-tellers at the markets, because it required the barest physical contact. The stronger the connection, the more a person could get.

“It’s not cheating if you taught it to me,” she says, “Master.” They had left the titles behind, especially since Asra insists that she is just as capable—if not more—of a magician than he is. But Lystra enjoys throwing it in now and then, probably too much, only to watch his nose scrunch up, or a heated blush crawl up the length of his face. “I’m glad you’re home,” she says in more ways than one, her voice dropping to a serious pitch. Asra allows his touch to speak, knuckles grazing her cheek before cradling her face.

“What is it you want to ask me?”

The corners of his mouth flare up into a smile when she pulls back in slight surprise. Asra gestures to where he once held her chin and Lystra all but bites her tongue to keep her from rolling her eyes at him.

The spell works both ways.

Words are easy with Asra, they’ve always been, but she struggles to ask, “Why did you make the deal with the Devil?”

The very mention of it resurrects a memory: Lystra and Nadia in her balcony for tea after the public announcement of Nadia’s engagement to Portia.

Love can cause people to go to great lengths, Nadia had told her, inhaling the scent of oolong over her cradled mug, but grief will take them one step further.

Lystra is familiar with the way grief surfaces in Asra like a wave crashing against the shore. Every about him goes taut, eyes darkening. Asra shakes his head once, reigning himself into the present; when he speaks, there’s a deep splinter in his voice. 

“I did it because it was unfair,” he starts, looking at Lystra through a curtain of curls. “It was unfair to leave you on your own when you were right to stay. I should have stayed. There’s no use in dwelling on what we could’ve done together. What we could’ve prevented—“

But Asra finds himself thinking those things all the same. Lystra has caught glimpses of it, as though he’s trapped in the space between a dream and a nightmare.

“I missed you,” he says, quieter this time. “Your half-filled teacups weren’t lying around the shop anymore and you won’t believe how big this bed is without you.”

Asra pauses, peering down at her. “I had already lost a part of my heart, so giving a piece of it up felt no different.”

She could have him in this very moment, sink her lips into the crook of his neck and show him the things words fail to express. Instead, Lystra steadies herself above him, caging Asra’s hips between her thighs. He leans back with a breath of comfort, trailing his hands from her knees to the curve of her back.

“Am I still the same person you fell in love with?” she asks, ignoring the distracting patterns Asra marks underneath her tunic.

“No,” he says almost immediately, tilting his head with amends. “But I don’t expect you to be.”

Asra’s hands wander higher, fingertips outlining the shape of her ribs. “I didn’t bring you back to be the same person. To be here for me and only me—“

Lystra will lose her breath if he moves any higher. He smiles as if the thought is loud and clear in his own head.

“I brought you back to give you a second chance. You get to decide what to do with it.”

Ferdinand laughs, taking a delicate sip of whatever is in his glass, and shifting, so that he’s close enough to smell the rosemary essence Bernadetta insisted Hubert to use before their entrance. “And you are going to scare the rest of the children with that terrifying mask of yours,” he quips in return. Ferdinand points his finger at the mask in question, outlining the black, beak-like design. “Couldn’t you find something more appropriate? Or, dare I say, appealing?”

“I suppose you mean to your liking?”

“You say it as if I have bad taste.”

Hubert’s laugh is barely a laugh at all, but a sharp exhale caught in his throat. “Clearly, you have not seen the state of your overcoat.”

“It’s formal wear characteristic to our house.”

“I’m well aware. I’ve seen it before.”

Again, a persistent quiet. There is always a tension with Ferdinand that Hubert never can quite describe. It exists, wound tight, between them with every sharp word and look exchanged. Hubert simply attributes it to their slight differences in politics, their loyalties, and saints, even their physical palettes, with Ferdinand always walking around as if the sun was trapped in his hair.

Lately, that very tension was beginning to change. Hubert couldn’t tell why or how, but could feel something noticeably shift, occupying whatever space exists between them. They start to speak to each other differently, with Ferdinand revising Hubert’s battle plans and peering at his spells. Hubert, in return, began showing the slightest interest in Ferdinand’s goals as prime minister and allowed Ferdinand to give him advanced riding lessons on their rest days. In that way, Ferdinand’s existence becomes thwarting and yet familiar. Present and unrelenting.

Ferdinand follows Hubert’s gaze across the room, where Edelgard leads their professor in the current waltz. The two are always inexplicably attached, more so than any other ruling pairing he has ever seen, save for Dimitri and Dedue. In fact, Ferdinand thought, he is always most surprised that Hubert does not drop dead if he isn’t at least ten feet within the Imperial Princess’s radius. Regret, though, floods his body just as soon as the thought materializes; Ferdinand knows better than to characterize their relationship as something along the lines of holy devotion. He learns that at one of their forced lunches with their professor: Hubert is certain that Edelgard will change the world the same way Ferdinand is certain he will change it just the same.

“You are not going to—“ Ferdinand pauses just as soon as he begins, as though evaluating the risk of every word. “Win her. If that is your intention.”

Ferdinand knows that it isn’t. He just needs to hear it.

The tension between them strengthens once again with the sharp glare Hubert shoots him. It’s all the more menacing with that ridiculous mask of his, making him look too similar to the mages Ferdinand has cut down in battle. When Hubert speaks, Ferdinand can’t tell if there is restraint or hurt in his voice. “Lady Edelgard is not a possession meant to be owned. The mere suggestion of it is egregious enough, so I’ll ask that you rescind your words before I make you.”

“What I meant to say is that you’re not going to win her favor. I don’t see why you work so hard to have something that already belongs to you.” Ferdinand accents his words with a snort. “Also, make me? What are we, five?”

The room, alit with a terrifying amount of candles, quickly becomes unbearably hot. Hubert grabs Ferdinand by the wrist, threading through crowds of people until Ferdinand is stumbling behind him out into the night.

“You don’t scare me,” Ferdinand says, loudly this time as Hubert stops in a small alcove. “I saw you helping Bernadetta bury the mice she trains and keeps the other day. Odd thing to do considering the existence of your heart for you is still up for debate.”

Hubert’s frown is a stark contrast against his pale face, alarming in comparison to his usual neutral expression.

“Rest assured,” he replies with practiced patience, “mine is beating well enough. Yours, on the other hand, may not be after this conversation.”

Hubert takes a step forward, leading Ferdinand in a defensive kind of dance as the latter’s back hits the stone wall.

“I do not find you scary or intimidating,” Ferdinand exclaims, peering up at Hubert through his mask. “I find you frustrating and irritating.”

What a peculiar silence that follows. Ferdinand blushes. “This is where you say something like ‘Pray tell’.”

“Ferdinand, I doubt you need my permission to talk well beyond your means.”

“I find you frustrating and irritating because you outwardly lack pleasure in life,” Ferdinand continues. “You seemingly have one singular goal and you will cut down and cut out everything in the name of it. That goal, of course, being whatever Edelgard’s goal is at the moment. You are her shadow and it’s hardly her fault—she, to my knowledge, has never asked you to build your entire existence around her. I catch the slightest instances of delight at times, but you suppress it, as though you have to for some greater good.”

“You of all people should know better than accuse me of something like that. Our duty to our families and the Empire are one and the same."

“And yet I am here, attempting to make the best out of this life. I hardly see you laugh or do much of anything outside of design training drills and battle tactics. And—“

“You’re watching me?”

The question lands as heavy as a stone. Confidence tilts Ferdinand's chin towards the air, but his flushed cheeks betray him. “Spare me. You’re always watching. As though you don’t attempt to strike everyone that comes within a foot of Edelgard with your stare. Thank the Goddess for the professor; she is stronger than all of us combined.”

“And what about you? Ferdinand von Aegir?” The corner of Hubert’s lip turns up in a sneer. “You have made it such a point to stray from your father’s actions that one can’t help but question the intent and motivation of your own. Instead of carving your own path, simply because you should and you can, you carry the misgivings of your family and think that your ascent to prime minister will dissipate your father’s shadow. That you will be different.”

“Yes, you often talk too much, and jut into conversations unannounced or invited. Your ego is constantly under threat by anyone more skilled. Despite your conflict, you care for those that matter to you. You would lay down your life without question. You are noble in a way that does not come with nobility. It is simply you.”

Hubert did expect that when the tension did break, it would be here, with him struggling to breathe and think and with Ferdinand ever so close.

Ferdinand's movements are slow and languid; Hubert decides to count them in his head. First, Ferdinand sets his flute on the ground beside them with a gentle clink. Next, he approaches Hubert with caution in the few steps it takes to close the distance between them.

Lastly, Ferdinand slants his lips against his own.

Almost immediately, Hubert can taste the floral undertones of Ferdinand’s drink bursting across his tongue. Ferdinand is equally insistent and persistent, hands fisted around Hubert’s waistcoat, tugging him closer and closer, until they’re both stumbling further into the cool embrace of the archway outside. Hubert finds purchase on one of the pillars, steadying himself with both hands, while Ferdinand all but arches into him so that his lips are at Hubert’s jaw, with their hips pressed together.

Hubert’s body is relaxed and yet at attention, begging to find balance. He frames Ferdinand’s face with one hand and says, “Wait. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“I kissed you first, so I would say I’m in the wrong.”

Hubert tilts his head down so his lips are all but grazing against Ferdinand’s. Huber is so close, he can feel the small intake of air when he slides his hand down to the base of Ferdinand’s throat.

“I have never done this before,” he confesses, the uneasiness in his voice threatening. “Since you’ve watched me so closely, you must know that.”

Ferdinand says and does nothing save for closing his eyes. A low lining breeze teases his hair and his mouth is slightly ajar, almost expectant, with his cheeks aflame. Hubert discards his mask first, letting it flutter to the floor, before gently tugging Ferndinand’s above his eyes where it rests atop his head. His hands are weary, shaking even, as they brush around the tops of Ferdinand’s flaming brows, down the sharp lines his cheekbones, to his mouth where his touch remains. What little air between them trembles.

The second time they kiss is filled with such intentional gentleness, Ferdinand's knees falter for a moment. Hubert's thumb draws half circles across Ferdinand’s cheek. Their teeth click once, twice, three times; Ferdinand doesn’t complain but simply guides Hubert with the careful motion of his tongue. The two part only sigh and inhale, slowly pressing together again, with Hubert’s weight leaning against him, and a knee tactfully positioned between Ferdinand’s legs.

If living feels like this, he could do it forever.

_______________________________________

Edelgard's feet hurt, but she can hardly mind when she has danced with the professor at least three times and counting. Spinning, under normal circumstances, would make her nauseous, but there is something about the yellow hue of the candles, the familiar tune of the orchestra’s waltz, and Byleth’s steady lead and embrace that make it okay. She counts each trio of steps, managing to catch a glimpse of Hubert in the far corner of the room at exactly the third move each time. He is pretending not to look at her, but he is, back pressed against the walls with his arms folded across his chest. It isn’t until the second to last dance that Edelgard realizes, at the top of the third, that Hubert is no longer plastered to the wall, but following Ferdinand out of the doors.

But Felix is not a tree—there will be blood and bones if she is not careful. Byleth grabs a training lance on the way into the training grounds. Jeralt had insisted she learn how to wield all three weapons that mattered, always knowing that Byleth much preferred a sword. Byleth, on the other hand, only tolerated a lance because she could always see spots on her father’s face light up when she did practice with one, as if he was witnessing a legacy in the making.

Felix stands several yards away, turning the leather sword in his grip. His voice sours when he says, “You know, we can use something that actually cuts.”

“No.” Her voice is firm, as if it’s the first time she sounds more like a professor and less like a friend. Byleth steps towards him, shifting into an offensive stance. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me,” he replies, like a question and statement in one. “I’d be surprised if you could land a hit on me, let alone hurt me.”

And she does. Time and time again, Byleth has told him to execute in silence, allowing his speed and expertise to catch his enemies off-guard, but he continues to speak before acting. Her lance catches Felix between the ribs with a firm thud, causing him to taking a retreating step back. It doesn’t take him long to react; Felix’s arm snaps, sword grazing over Byleth’s head as if he aimed to wipe it of clean.

He’s good, she thinks, as she always does during their instruction, weapons cutting through the air. He knows he’s good.

Byleth learned very quickly that the nobles operate by some creed of war she was only moderately aware of. Their classes conduct themselves in an area guided by rules, while she was always taught to go for the kill. It’s a very distinct kill shot in it of itself when Byleth sweeps her foot at Felix’s ankle, causing him to crash towards the floor. She’s on top of him in an instant, pinning him with the handle of her lance.

First, there is the anger. Then comes the scream. 

Not high-pitched like a kettle aflame, but blood-curdling and feral. She screams and screams until tears drip from her face once more, because time means nothing if there isn’t enough to save the people that matter.

Byleth regains composure almost as quickly as she loses it, scrambling off of Felix in a tangle of limbs. If he’s frightened by her, he doesn’t show it, simply taking his time to rise and adjust his collar. Byleth waits for the formalities to drop so that he can call her a boar, or some other condescending pet name he can think of on the spot. A boar professor fit to lead the boar prince’s class, or something of the likes.

Instead, Felix takes three careful and calculated strides across the training grounds, approaching Byleth the same way she would approach a wounded animal—always waiting for the next protective strike. When he’s close enough that she can see the faintest wrinkle between his brow, Felix stops, crossing his arms and tilting head.

“I once asked you what motivates you,” he says, voice cool and leveled. “I haven’t forgotten what you said. You said it was the need for survival that kept you going.”

The pause between them only leaves room for their breathing.

“At first I admired you for saying that,” he continues, words adrift as if the memory was slipping from him. “It explained a lot. Why every strike of yours seemed to be your last.”

Byleth opens her mouth to apologize, to explain; Felix raises his palm. 

He had prepared for the silence, given that it wasn’t this long. The kettle bubbles between them, and the apples she brought threaten to turn brown. Jean watches the way Mikasa watches him, the two of them blinking, waiting to see who will drop first from the anticipation, and surely it’s going to be him. Jean’s throat works, and it takes actual effort to pull his gaze from hers, as his fingers play with the castaway apple peelings. His lips tug into that nervous smile of his, and his ribs start to fold, because he can handle a simple decline, but being left hanging is proving to be more difficult.

He barely hears her when she finally stirs.

Mikasa shuffles closer to him, inching forward, until she’s climbing into his lap with a little less grace than she had hoped for. Her weight settles against his lap, fingers against his jaw, down the slope of his face, until her thumb rests on his lower lip. Mikasa leans in, foreheads grazing, eyes fluttering shut before she whispers, “Ask me again.”

His throat dries. “What?”

“Ask me again, Jean.” Mikasa’s hand falls away from his face and lands against his chest, his heartbeat tapping against her fingers. “Without the speech. Just…be honest with me, like you always are. What’s going through your head right now?”

“I—”

Words. He’s sinking in them, drowning in them, trying to grasp onto the right thing to say. “Do you remember Trost? The very first time. Armin had just told you about Eren, and you made that speech to us. On the roof.”

Mikasa’s hand curls into a fist against his chest.

“I–we. We were all scared shitless. And then you came and you just–” Jean pauses, turning his head to smile, to laugh under his breath, because she’s bound to call him a sap, “–you inspired us. I didn’t want to come anywhere close to a Titan, and somehow, all I remember is following you. Taking your words to heart.”

Jean trails off, reaching for her wrist and tracing the symbol against her skin, before he thumbs her fist open and presses her palm against his cheek.

“Where you go, I follow.”

The words shake him; Mikasa feels it in the way he trembles, feels it against her face, and across her skin, and deeper, stirring something in her chest. She has things to say, plenty of things to say–a speech of her own–and yet she looks at him with such a clarity in his eyes, that she lost it all. The fear bubbles up to her throat, leaving her lips pursed with no answer, and she has half a mind to brush it off, to contain and compartmentalize it, when she feels Jean wilt against her.

Just his shoulders. They curl forward, his mouth flickering between a smile and a frown, and Mikasa knows what he would say. That it was okay, that she didn’t have to, that they could continue their partnership in peace. So Mikasa says her piece first:

“I’m scared.”

A quiet confession. She searches his face for any sort of reaction, eyes darting back and forth before she says it again, voice cracking even more.

“Of me?” he whispers, pressing his cheek further into her hand as she takes a shuddering breath.

“Of losing you.” Somehow, being honest felt like picking at a scab, and watching it bleed, as Mikasa stills her breathing. “Of being left behind.”

“People like me, people like us,” she mimics. Dorothea’s finger settles on his Cupid’s bow and slopes down again. “Sylvain why are you here? Did you break some unfortunate girl’s heart again?”

Sylvain’s entire face twists, his frown a faint impression against her touch. The sudden shift in his expression makes her stomach flip; Dorothea begins to move her hand away when his fingers catch her wrist, firm at first, then loosening as a light and delicate touch. She looks up at him, then back at his hand, noting how easily she could break away when she wanted to. If she wanted to.

“I was only joking, Sylvie.” Any attempts at sounding breezy break with the crack in her voice. “I know you’re trying to change your wayward ways.”

Sylvain is now cradling her hand in his. The pads of Dorothea’s fingers are surprising rough, a byproduct, she once said, of being able to shoot fire and thunder and gusts of wind out of them. “I’m not here because I broke some unfortunate girl’s heart,” he says, parsing each word. “I’m here looking for mine.”

“Your...?”

“Heart.”

“Oh.” How unexpected in the way Dorothea had distantly hoped for it to happen without fully knowing that she wanted it to happen.

Maybe not like this, with the top three buttons of his shirt undone, resting on her unmade bed the night before their monthly assignment. Maybe not like this, where she had opened the door to her dorm without question when he knocked outside, flushed and asking to come in.

Maybe like the way he dances around her with flirty and challenging words. Maybe like the way he laughs, ticklish under her spell, when she takes to healing him first after battle. Or the way she stuffs her pillow between her thighs and rides and rides, watching him train atop his favorite horse, lance in hand, behind her eyelids. Funny the way things happen in the least humorous of ways. Funny the way she finds herself caring too much, too late. Funny the way she thinks that’s what it means to—

“Dorothea, I—“

“Don’t say anything.” She tucks a stray hair behind her ear with her free hand. “Please, just don’t say anything, yet.”

He doesn’t. Sylvain looks at her, confused and a little pained with his mouth flattened into a singular line. Dorothea can smell the fine oils on his skin at this distance, something high quality like frankincense. The material of his jacket shimmers in the yellow candlelight, each ripple saying real and expensive and the two put together at once. Suddenly, he’s Sylvain and Sylvain Gautier at once, the latter making her throat squeeze.

“I have no Crest.” Dorothea inches closer despite her voice being far, angling her face to one side. “No family lineage.”

“You of all people know that I think all of that causes more trouble than it’s worth.” 

“Then, you only care about looks.”

“Don’t you?” It’s a poor tease, Sylvain knows it as he says it, but he makes the smallest attempt to pinch the fear in her tone. “We talked about this already, remember? Loving someone til they’re old and wrinkly?”

“But you say things as though they mean nothing at all.” She closes her eyes this time, purposely summoning the nameless faces of all the girls she has caught, and on occasion comforted, after crossing paths with him. “Like words don’t matter, like they can’t be special—“

“I love you,” Sylvain exclaims. “I’ll keep saying it until it matters to you.”

Dorothea stares. “Again.”

“I love you.”

Sylvain doesn’t know if he kisses her first, or if it’s Dorothea that comes crashing into him. He does, however, lose his footing, flailing backwards, as the springs in her mattress squeak far too loudly. Her hair curtains around his cheeks, fingers laying claim under his chin, and she’s kissing him. Despite the sudden force, Dorothea kisses him gently, marking the corner of his mouth, his lower lip, drawing away slowly, only to pull him back in.

Someone had screamed her name from a distance just before the thief was about to cut her down. A noble of course, with ramrod posture and boots that gleam in the sunlight. Byleth knows the kind; they are always willing to pay a pretty penny to erase those who threaten their plans.

Edelgard’s lips purse, her own expression under revision. “I am grateful that you saved my life,” she finally amends, once all that passes between them is the wind. “As is Hubert, which I’m sure he will mention if he hasn’t already. Still, I can’t shake this feeling.” She pauses, lips pursed. “It’s as though something entirely different was supposed to happen back there.”

Byleth stops and looks over, her own head feeling cloudy. “People see lots of things before they face death.” 

The response is curt. Enigmatic. The way it’s supposed to be, never divulging too many details. Byleth resumes her stride. 

“True, but this is—was—entirely different.” Edelgard adjusts the ax in her grip. “If you haven’t noticed by now, the other two will be asking you to join them given your clear display of skill—”

The two she speaks of, donning bright blue and gold, lead the rest of the group. 

Allura traces the outline of each of his fingers with her own, pulse beating on and on. All five fingers, the heel of his palm, the peak of his wrist, where the outline of his vein is a faint impression. She follows it back to the center of his hand where her touch ghosts across a line cutting from one end to the other.

“This one means you will have a great love and another,” she explains, tapping her finger against a separation point. “That’s what the break in the line means. Two people that will shift your world.”

“You will live a long life.” Allura pretends not to hear Shiro when he whispers, thanks to you, but it squeezes her heart all the same. Instead, she continues with, “There are three bends in it that will be difficult, but the ending is peaceful.”

Allura ends at the top of Shiro’s hand, where the skin twists like silvery rope. “And this is just a scar.“

“Cadet training,” Shiro says. “First year. An embarrassing story to tell later.”

When she looks up, Shiro’s eyes are trained dead-set on the center of her forehead with such an intensity, Allura tilts her head away. Their conversation slows to a hum all too similar to the one emanating from his arm. Allura digs her heels into the stool, shifting her weight from one side to another. Shiro’s hand closes around her own in a brief but firm squeezes. It’s larger, warm, and more weathered than her own; the comfort that comes from it drapes over her. 

“You shouldn’t have had to give that up,” he finally says the same way one would say thank you. “It was the last piece of Altea you had left.”

“Shiro.” Allura looks up at him with a half-turned smile. “Yes I did.”

“No, Sam would have found another way—“

“And you would have coded on that table well before that.” Allura exhales with Shiro’s hand still twined around her own. “It’s what you would’ve done.”

“That still doesn’t make it right.”

“It makes it necessary.”

He looks up at her with a steady gaze. While many of the students at the monastery would find the sudden uptick in his lips unsettling, Edelgard only matches his expression with one of her own. “A risk to you and a risk to me are fundamentally different.”

“That is not an answer.” She lets time fall still between sips of tea. “And you’re not usually one to miss the opportunity to give a blunt one.”

“Rest assured I conduct business with the utmost care and concern.” He lifts his own cup, face lingering above the warmth. “Risk and all.”

“And would you betray me, Hubert? Cut me down if I strayed?”

A drastically different question from their usual stock of subjects. “Are you having your dreams again?”

Edelgard sweeps his question away with a gloved hand. “I’ve had the misfortune of gaining a new one. A blood-soaked one.”

“Are you questioning the path forward?”

She shakes her head. “No, I know what must be done. And I know what I must become to achieve it. I won’t allow our relationships here cloud that.”

Her focus shifts beyond the line of hedges where the faint bickering between Claude and Dimitri drifts with a sudden breeze. “Still, I wonder what it would be like to not resort to such violent means.”

Dining hall choices. The clarity in their conversation spurns a smile on her face, one so haunting and detached it makes even him pause. The moment snaps just as quickly and she faces him, drawing the teacup towards her once more so all he can see is a flash of violet eyes.

“And I fear death.” An uneasy confession, muffled by floral porcelain and twined with shame. “Nothing else but an end I cannot see.”

Hubert knows what she will ask before she asks it, lips curving when she says, “Do you? Fear the same thing?”