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i.
Of her skills, Dorothea likes to think that tuning out distractions is among the most polished of her skills. She had grown up on the bustling streets of Enbarr, after all, and she conducts most of her day-to-day business in a loud, hectic opera house. Noise, movement, soaring emotion—all of these are easy enough to ignore if she has something more important to focus on. She doesn’t always choose to filter those things out, but having the ability to has been quite useful.
But some environments, she’s coming to accept now, are just plain impossible to concentrate in, and a five-foot vicinity of an exercising Caspar is one of them. No, maybe extend that out to twenty.
She’s lost track of the number of shouts he’s let loose into the open air, but another resounds around them more fiercely than a landed strike would have. Dorothea’s finger slips from the page of the book she’s long since stopped comprehending. It’s nothing too important—a potential source of inspiration for a future opera—but she had still intended to occupy herself with it, and yet she’s taken none of it in whatsoever since Caspar started. At this point, she thinks the fault is more with her for still trying to; it isn’t like he’s toning it down with time.
Although… there had been a faint scratchiness under his latest battle cry. Dorothea worries at the corner of the page in fleeting contemplation.
It vanishes for a split second, then solidifies, when he yells again. Once Caspar breaks for water, Dorothea sits back and finally abandons any pretense of reading.
“If you keep yelling like that,” she says, glancing over, “you’re going to have no voice at all in another few years.”
“Hey, I’ve gotta yell. It gives me extra power,” says Caspar with complete confidence. It might be true on some level, even if only as a placebo effect. “Besides, Hubert says my yelling helps ‘raise morale.’”
“It does,” permits Dorothea—it’s hard not to feel as enthusiastic as Caspar when he’s at his loudest, although that applies far more on a battlefield than here. “Which is why it’s important to be able to do it as long as possible. You don’t want to have an old-man rasp at your age, do you?”
“Ugh, I guess not.” Caspar, frowning, wipes away the sweat on his forehead. “But what can I even do about that?”
That, at least, Dorothea can answer: “Exercise.”
He blinks. His eyes dart to the gloves he’s still wearing.
“No, not like that.” Dorothea bites down on her smile. “There are muscles involved in talking and yelling, right? And just like every other muscle, they need to be built up and kept in shape. I’d know—I have to exercise plenty to keep my voice sounding the way it does.”
“Huh. I guess that makes sense.” Caspar tilts his head to the side. “What kind of exercises do you even do for that?”
As a student (and soldier), Caspar had always seemed to learn best by doing, and he was usually willing to try doing something even if he didn’t fully understand what it even was. So Dorothea closes her book, slides to her feet, and says, “I was about to run through some myself, so why don’t we go through my pre-performance routine together?”
“Okay!” Caspar tosses the towel he’d slung around his neck aside and trots over to her. “What are we starting with? Those little, like, ah ah ah ah ahs you do sometimes?” With each singsonged ah, he rises in pitch and then falls again, actually a decent arpeggio.
Dorothea’s eyebrows twitch up before settling again. “No, but we’ll get to something like that.” He drops one shoulder but keeps bouncing on his feet, almost like they’re really going to spar. “First, we’re stretching the rest of our bodies. Well, actually, first, we relax as much as possible.”
She demonstrates by letting her shoulders fall back, readjusting the angle of her chin, and spreading her feet that precise distance. Caspar mirrors her.
“Perfect! Okay, now—” she plants her thumbs on the top of her nose, traces them up across her brows, and stops at her temples “—massage the top of your face like this.”
Again, he copies her movements with quick clarity; the faint hesitant frown is already gone. Dorothea walks him through the rest of her first few face and jaw warm-ups, which he takes to just as fast. The neck and shoulder exercises are even smoother, since he’s probably had to do some of them for his training in brawling and axe combat.
“Okay,” says Dorothea at last, “now we can start on the actual vocal exercises.”
Caspar, panting a little, is looking at her with something approaching awe. “You really do all of this before every single show?”
“Usually a couple times a day, if I can, even if I’m not singing.” Caspar’s eyebrows shoot almost all the way to his hairline, and he whistles. “I’m used to it by now. And you should repeat these in the future too,” Dorothea adds through a laugh. “Not as often as I do, but at least every now and then.”
“Well, if it really helps that much…”
“It does, believe me.”
“I could probably work it into my regular workouts, then.” Caspar tilts his head back in thought, then flashes her a more sheepish glance. “But I might need to go through it with you a few more times before I get it memorized.”
“Sure thing! I don’t mind helping my little bro out at all.” The nickname had been a bit of a joke when Dorothea had first used it; as Caspar flushes, both embarrassed and pleased, and she gives him a half-teasing and half-genuinely fond smile, though, it rings undeniably true. If Dorothea did have any biological siblings, she thinks she’d feel much the same about them she’s come to about Caspar. She clears her throat and continues, “So let’s start with some lip trills. Keep your lips closed like this—” she presses hers together, then keeps talking “—and blow air through them until it buzzes.”
It takes Caspar a few tries to produce the trilling effect instead of just exhaling normally—once he pulls it off, he gives her an excited look. Dorothea’s smile breaks off the different-pitched trills she’d been doing, but she doesn’t mind.
When they’re done with those, Dorothea claps her hands together. “And now finally we’ll do some arpeggios. The ah ah ah ah ah s,” she adds to his blank expression, and realization hits. “Except they’re eees this time.”
“Eee eee eee eee eee?” Caspar attempts, awkwardly adjusting the same progression to the different syllable.
“Hold each one out a little longer. Like this: Eeeeeeeeee.” Dorothea starts at her lowest note, then moves up.
Caspar listens to a couple more before joining in. His range proves impressive—his voice only starts cracking once he’s already higher than some of the sopranos she’s worked with can reach. He clears his throat awkwardly, but Dorothea smiles and starts over from the beginning.
After they’ve reached Caspar’s pitch limit a couple more times, Dorothea clasps her hands again and backs up. “I do have a few more,” she says, “but you probably want to finish actually working out now.”
“Oh.” Caspar blinks and turns to take back in their surroundings. “Right, yeah, that.”
Dorothea’s smile stretches up at one corner. “Did you forget?”
“Kinda,” he admits, rubbing the back of his head. “It was a lot of fun.”
“It was.” Dorothea has never really shared these kinds of exercises with anyone besides her Mittelfrank castmates before, but she might have to consider changing that. “I’ll teach the rest to you later, how about that?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” Caspar nods, looking eager already. “Thanks for all your help, Dorothea.”
“Any time,” she says honestly.
He grins and, before she can reach out for a sisterly ruffle of his hair, darts back over to resume his previous dismay. Including, to Dorothea’s dismay, an immediate shout just as loud as those of earlier.
Well, she supposes she hadn’t warned him against that. She shakes her head to herself, sits back down, and continues to fail to concentrate on her book.
ii.
Dorothea rises with the dawn.
That’s the first hint to her half-conscious mind that something is out of the ordinary; she usually wakes early, but not quite that early. The crisp, almost salty air she breathes in, too, is much different from that she’s used to, as is the distant audible birdsong. She knows, above all else, one thing: This is not her room in Enbarr.
And yet a smile is resting on her face, perhaps instinctive or perhaps there when she’d fallen asleep and lingering all through the night. Not improbable—it clings on now, even as Dorothea squints against the bright light and blinks away further haziness. She tries to prop herself up, but one arm is trapped under a warm weight beside her.
She turns in that direction, and when a sprawl of hair that isn’t her own comes into view, full alertness kicks in. Dorothea’s absent smile widens with true conscious will. With her non-numb hand, she reaches over and brushes Petra’s bangs from her face.
Petra’s eyes are still closed, eyelids fluttering gently in sleep, and her breath leaves her in a slow, almost silent rhythm. The sunlight, softer and less hostile now that Dorothea has adjusted to it, glows along her skin.
Dorothea draws away, stretches as much as she can, and… sinks right back against the pillows behind her.
It’s not like she has anything pressing to attend to today, and though she doesn’t expect to be able to fall back asleep now, she doesn’t mind. Even a few years ago, the prospect of so much as entertaining the opportunity to relax like this, let alone indulge in it, would have astounded her. Now, she can’t think of a better way to spend such a nice morning than to just lie back and wait. Maybe Linhardt has worn off on her; at the very least, she agrees with his retrospective philosophy that they’ve all more than earned their rest.
Dorothea starts to hum under her breath. At first, it’s so gentle that it blends in with those singing birds. The ones in Brigid carry such lovely tunes—stronger and sweeter than the pigeons and crows, fine vocalists themselves, in Enbarr—that Dorothea doesn’t want to overpower them. She tries to harmonize with them, even, though she’s sure neither they nor anyone else will hear or care.
As the minutes pass and the ambient noises fade, Dorothea’s voice rises in cautious increments. She keeps it too low to disturb Petra or extend beyond these walls, but it carries clearly in the quiet of their room, soon the only immediate sound.
It also solidifies and becomes more recognizable. Before she knows it, Dorothea is softly singing a traditional Brigid song she’d picked up on a previous visit. She doesn’t know the words by heart—singing in a learned language takes far more getting used to than reading or speaking it, even for her—but she does know the lyrics are more somber than the upbeat underlying tune would seem to imply, as is also true of a fair number of opera songs. The basic story, as far as she recalls, tells of the singer’s affection for their absent lover.
She supposes both the melody and message are appropriate enough for now. Instead of switching to something else or the absent jumble of before, she continues on, warbling the entirety of what she can remember and filling in what she can’t with generic syllables.
She might get a little too into it, because after a moment, Petra stirs, hair and body rustling against Dorothea’s. Dorothea cuts herself off at once and meets her bleary look with a smile and a gentle-voiced “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” Petra returns the same kind of automatic smile Dorothea had awoken with—but it turns to confusion in little more than a beat. “That song…” Petra’s brow smooths back out, and she shoots upright, finally freeing Dorothea’s other arm. Dorothea is too busy blinking to move it back to her side. “Is—is it what I am thinking it is?”
“Probably.” Petra’s expression, a hesitant mix of emotions, makes Dorothea wince. “Is it all right that I’m singing it?”
“Yes!” Hurriedly, Petra nods. “I was not meaning—I am still waking up. You have my apologies.” She rubs at the corners of her eyes. Once they reopen, she casts Dorothea an imploring look. “Please. Continue. I would be liking it greatly if you did.”
Dorothea’s smile returns. “I don’t take many requests, you know.” She rubs at the pressure point partway down her numb forearm, and as the pins and needles start to dissipate, she sets both hands in her lap. “But for you, well, I’m sure I can make an exception.”
At her teasing wink, Petra huffs out a faint laugh. Dorothea breathes in and picks right back up from the exact note she’s almost certain she’d stopped at. She sings the song straight through to its end—doing the same improvisations she had before with an audience makes it feel far sillier, but she still can’t summon all of the lyrics to mind, and Petra doesn’t giggle or even blink.
She lets the resulting silence play out for a moment before looking to Petra, whose expression has taken on a certain glaze. “How was that?” Dorothea prompts, nudging her side.
Petra jolts as if awakened out of the blue again, though she clearly hadn’t fallen back asleep. She refocuses on Dorothea with a smile. “Excellent. As all of your singing is being.”
“Are you sure? You seem a little…” Dorothea trails off, unsure how to finish that.
She doesn’t need to, at any rate—Petra seems to know what she means. “It has only been a very long time since I was last hearing that song. Where were you—where did you learn it from?” she corrects.
“I’ve heard it around a little before, but I only really learned it the other day—some people were playing it in the square.” Dorothea lets her memory of that cheerful impromptu performance play out at the back of her mind. “They told me a little about it too. It’s a love song, right?”
“Of a sort.” Petra sits up straighter. She considers her words more carefully, pausing longer between them. “It is… from many years ago. Before many of Fódlan were even knowing about Brigid. It still has great popularity.”
“For good reason, it seems like,” says Dorothea, and Petra nods. “It’s amazing that it’s been around that long. Has it changed much over that time?”
Petra nods again. “As it is, it is only about a young couple who have been separated and the great love and longing they are feeling for each other,” she says, confirming what Dorothea had gleaned. “But sometimes the lyrics are being changed, to be about the war or other events.” Her gaze drifts like it had while Dorothea was singing. “The last time I was hearing it, my father was singing it to my mother.”
“Oh,” says Dorothea, barely even audible. She clears her throat to get something firmer out. “Oh, wow.”
“He was not having a good voice,” says Petra, chuckling to herself. “Not like you, Dorothea. But he was liking to sing, and my mother was always smiling and laughing when he did.” Her eyes take on a brief glassy quality; she blinks it away and sets her shoulders back. “I was almost forgetting that until now. Thank you.”
“Thank you” is all Dorothea can bring herself to say in reply. She has to dab at the corners of her own eyes. “I can stop singing it, if it brings up bad memories.”
Petra rushes again to shake her head. “No, please. It was a good memory. And even if it were not, I would like to be making new memories with it. They would have been wanting that too.”
For a second, Dorothea recalls the way her mother, too, used to sing and hum to herself, out of tune and sometimes wholly nonsensical but filled with love and affection—for Dorothea, yes, but for the act in and of itself as well. “Well, I can understand that. Then… how about an encore?”
“Please.” Petra leans closer.
Now that they’re both awake, Dorothea thinks as she opens her mouth, they’ll have to get moving soon; Dorothea may not have any important tasks to attend to, but she’s sure Petra does. And sooner rather than later, Dorothea will have to leave Brigid for distant Enbarr once more.
But like the lovers in the song, they’ll always have this between them, connecting their hearts across any distance.
iii.
“How the crimson rain of pain it came, falling hard upon a land aflame…”
Dorothea halts in her tracks, feet stuttering to a stop one after the other, when the voice hits her ears. She’s surrounded by people singing on a day-to-day basis, but catching a string of music here in the palace is far different from hearing it in the opera house. These halls have the right acoustics for it—as evidenced by the pleasant echo the song carries—but their stark atmosphere would seem to dissuade any such entertainment. With, it seems, this one exception.
Even more startling, the lilting tenor voice is familiar. Dorothea hadn’t anticipated hearing it here today, but she would be hard-pressed not to recognize it. She mouths Ferdie? to herself and edges closer. From the sound of it, he isn’t far—a short walk and turn away, maybe even close enough to hear her approaching footsteps.
It takes a second longer for her to place the tune, but then it clicks: One of Manuela’s musical and visual showstoppers from a very loose retelling of the War of Heroes and that fateful battle at Tailtean Plains. Dorothea had practiced it on occasion herself, trying to get the exact vocal and emotional range down with and then without Manuela’s coaching. Hearing it at all now is almost more shocking than hearing Ferdinand sing it.
“When the sacred blade it split the sky, until the heavens heard our cry!”
His voice even pitches up at the end like Manuela’s always had. If Dorothea closes her eyes, she can almost hear the orchestra swelling underneath, see the sword in Manuela’s hand.
She opens them and peers around the nearest corner. Ferdinand stands alone ahead, his back to her and his hands folded behind him. With his head tipped slightly back, his hair—longer than hers now, and left loose today—cascades down his shoulders. Even though she can’t see what expression he’s wearing, she can make a few guesses.
Part of Dorothea wants to continue watching and listening in silence, but a larger part of her wins out: She steps into the hallway proper and calls out, making no effort to swallow down her smile, “Ferdie?”
Instantly, he whirls on his heel. On his face is the most flagrant shock Dorothea has ever seen from him—which is saying something. Red blossoms across his cheeks.
“Dorothea!” he stutters out, plastering on a bright, if shaky, smile. “Forgive me, I did not realize you were—I mean, that is to say, I—” He stops. His arms sag. “Just how long have you been standing there?”
“Oh, long enough.” Dorothea leans to the side, trying to convey cool neutrality but unable to hide some fond amusement. “I have heard you sing before, you know—” she can’t escape his singing, as a matter of fact, especially in the couple of weeks after he’s seen her perform “—and it’s lovely. There’s no need to be quite that embarrassed.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so.” Ferdinand glances around. “My apologies. I was, ah… merely startled.”
“Given our history together, I think I’ve earned a couple of chances to startle you.”
Ferdinand, face beginning to return to a normal shade, forces out a chuckle. “Yes, I suppose that is also true.”
“It’s been forever since I’ve heard that song, though,” Dorothea adds, a touch wistful. “Since Manuela left the opera for Garreg Mach, I’d say.”
“She sang it for me once during the war, after coming upon me much as you just did.” Dorothea doesn’t miss but also doesn’t react to the pointed tone Ferdinand takes at the end. He’s too busy sighing, anyway, to really hammer it in like she might once have. “We even reenacted the accompanying sword dance.”
Dorothea can picture that all too well—both of them bearing their usual grace, maintained even in the darkest of times. “How lucky.”
“I felt so, yes.” Ferdinand’s gaze drops. “Although… as greatly as I still admire and respect Manuela, hearing an opera star perform at such close range and in such a personal manner no longer seems so out of the ordinary.”
“Ferdie!” Dorothea’s exclamation turns into a laugh partway, the hint of feigned scandal dissolving too fast for her to sell it. Ferdinand grins wide enough to display the small gap between his front teeth. “You’re one to talk, anyway—I get to hear your performances pretty frequently too. And I meant Manuela was lucky, too.”
His flush, though much fainter now, reappears. “I was undoubtedly the most fortunate one in that encounter—as I remain now.”
“Well, of course.” Dorothea winks, getting another laugh out of him, then lowers her eyes to her nails. “You know, I’ve never played that particular part,” she says almost offhandedly. “I played a couple of supporting roles in that opera, but Manuela was still the leading songstress then, and by the time she left we had stopped running it.”
“Truly?” Dorothea nods, and Ferdinand taps his chin in thought. “I saw that show quite a few times as a boy, and I do recall you in those early days, I believe. Just as radiant as you are today, even if you had not yet bloomed in your entirety.”
Dorothea rolls her eyes, as she often does when his flattery slips into purple prose. “You weren’t the only one who saw it that often, I’m sure. Maybe we should stage a revival someday,” she says, thinking aloud. “I’d have to rework the libretto, of course, maybe make it entirely fictional—it wasn’t too far off already, if I remember correctly—but…”
Ferdinand has been slowly lighting up as she speaks, and when she glances back to him he offers an eager nod. “I am sure it would make for just as fine a production as the original, particularly with you at the helm.”
“Thank you.” Dorothea lets out a soft laugh. “At least I know for sure I’ll have one fan there on opening night.”
“Seven fans, ideally, if we all have the time.” That is indeed the ideal, but it’s only happened a couple of times thus far, including Dorothea’s very first night back on stage. Ferdinand smiles in a thin way that makes it clear he knows just as well as she does how narrow a dream it is—and, like her, is hoping for it nonetheless. “And in the meantime, I would be more than willing to practice the choreography with you.”
“I appreciate that too.” Dorothea thinks back to both the White Heron Cup and her imagined version of him and Manuela acting it out, and her smile stretches a little too wide. “That would probably change too, to match the new script, but I think I’d want to keep the sword in no matter what.”
Ferdinand’s hand jumps to his waist, where a fine rapier happens to be sheathed. He broadens his own smile and arches an eyebrow in an unspoken challenge.
“Well, would you look at that.” Dorothea spreads her hands at her sides. “No time like the present, then, right, Ferdie?”
“A near and dear philosophy indeed,” he says, nodding heartily.
They both take a breath, then open their mouths in near unison and begin in perfect harmony:
“How the crimson rain of pain it came, falling hard upon a land aflame…”
iv.
Dorothea inhales deeply, drawing in the aromas of dozens of plants and the soil beneath them. The scents mingle in an interesting way—some earthy, some sweet, some too unique to compare to anything else at all—and she can’t say that the result is altogether pleasant. Still, the sensory experience is a much lusher one than when she’d last stood in this greenhouse.
“This place is really coming along, Bern,” she says.
Across the room, Bernadetta straightens from inspecting a droopy flytrap to toy with the ends of her hair. “You really think so?”
“Absolutely! You have more kinds of carnivorous plants in here than I even knew existed.” Dorothea’s eyes run over sticky traps, colorful flowers more or less identical to any others, and shaded pitchers, finally settling on the clusters of roses and sunflowers. “I like the little non-carnivorous corner you have going over there, too.”
“Heh, thanks.” Bernadetta tucks a stray lock behind her ear and scratches at the skin below it. “I don’t not like those—the carnivorous ones are just so much cuter—” she teases a finger along the edge of a flytrap but withdraws her hand before it snaps shut “—but they’re, um, more for you guys. As gifts, or just to look at, or something like that. I wouldn’t have any of this without you, after all.”
“Aw, Bern!” Dorothea crosses the distance between them and pulls Bernadetta into a side hug.
Bernadetta squeaks in surprise, arms snapping up against her chest in a way that reminds Dorothea of some of the comparisons Petra has made to prey animals. She settles after a moment but doesn’t return the embrace, though Dorothea hardly minds.
She releases Bernadetta after a beat—Bernadetta stays in the exact same position. Even her expression doesn’t change, aside from a few subconscious blinks. Dorothea turns her smile away and averts her gaze to the pots around them.
Only more carnivorous plants of all kind surround them, but it’s an empty pot in between two full ones that draws Dorothea’s eye. Or, she finds as she looks closer, an almost empty pot: Some shoots, however short, are emerging from the dirt. An identical one sits on the opposite row.
“Hey,” says Dorothea, tapping Bernadetta’s shoulder, “what’s over there?”
“Wh… uh… huh?” It takes a second for Bernadetta’s flush to fade and her eyes to focus back in enough to see what Dorothea is looking at. “Oh! Um, right, that’s a hybrid between two of my pitcher plant species. The big red ones over there, and the smaller yellow and green ones over there.” She points to each in turn. “Apparently some other pitcher plants can naturally hybridize in the wild, so I tried cross-pollinating those two, but the seeds haven’t been growing much. Maybe it’s just a bad combination after all, or the soil isn’t quite right, or the light, or…” She shrugs.
Dorothea frowns. “That’s a shame.”
Bernadetta nods, chewing her lip. “Right? I’m sure they’d be beautiful fully grown, too. Coming from those two, they couldn’t not be.” She sighs. “But that’s just how it goes sometimes, I guess, especially with hybrids. You never know what’s going to happen.”
“Still, it’s a shame to put so much work and care in and get so little for it.” Dorothea would know. Their somber gazes linger on the pot for a moment, until a thought strikes Dorothea. “I wonder… have you ever heard that singing to plants helps them grow faster?”
“A couple of times, maybe.” Bernadetta’s face scrunches dubiously. “I’ve also heard just talking can help. I don’t know how true either of those is, though.”
“Hm.” Dorothea taps her finger against her chin. “Well, there’s only one way to find out for sure.”
“What?” Bernadetta’s eyes blow wide. “Y-You think I should—?”
“I meant that I was going to try—although,” adds Dorothea, “if you ever did want to sing, I’m sure both the plants and I would be happy to hear it.”
Bernadetta waves her hand. “Nope! No thank you. I—I’ll leave that to you for now. Actually, not just for now, forever. Since, you know, singing is literally your job and all.”
Dorothea pouts, resting her chin on her interlocked fingers. “Fine, fine. But I’ll get a song out of you one of these days, Bern.”
“Is that—are you—” Eyes almost bugging out again, Bernadetta sputters. “That sounded like a threat!”
“Not a threat. Just a promise.” Dorothea winks. “Your voice is nice as is, you know,” she adds, more seriously and almost seeming to bother Bernadetta more. “And you have an impressive range. Training a good singing voice out of that wouldn’t be too hard.”
“R-Really?” Bernadetta blinks. Then her head shakes so rapidly she turns into a purple blur for a few seconds. “Wait, no, this isn’t about me! You said you’d sing! So—so do it already, or, or—just do something else, okay!”
A giggle escapes Dorothea, though at Bernadetta’s askance look she tries to belatedly cover it with her hand. “All right. So how about I sing to this pot here—” she taps the edge of the one within immediate reach “—and not the other—” she nods toward it “—and we’ll see how each of them end up growing?”
Now that she isn’t being persuaded to sing, Bernadetta’s shoulders have lowered a little, and intrigue flashes through her eyes. “Sure. And I—I could try covering the, um, ‘control’ pot with a tarp or a blanket or something while you’re singing, so the sound doesn’t carry as much? Maybe? If that sounds like an okay idea?” Her voice wavers.
“It sounds more than okay,” Dorothea assures her. “Pretty smart, Bern. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
“Aw, I’m sure that’s not true.” Bernadetta rubs at her arm. “And I’m sure there’s a lot of other stuff we could do that I can’t think of.”
“We probably won’t be able to rig up any solid empirical study like Lin or Hubie could,” agrees Dorothea. “But it still might be interesting, right? And hopefully your pitcher plants will grow no matter what.”
“Yeah.” Though Bernadetta still looks hesitant, she offers up a smile, growing more confident by the second. “Yeah! This could be fun. Thank you, Dorothea.”
Dorothea waves her off. “What for? I’d like to see them in full bloom, too. Especially if I can spend that much more time with you.”
Bernadetta manages a weak reciprocation before darting for the door. “So I’ll, um—I’ll go get that blanket now,” she calls over her shoulder.
It takes her considerably longer than it really ought to, but Dorothea is in fine company while she’s waiting. They move the two pots so they’re even farther apart, at complete opposite ends of the greenhouse, and Bernadetta marks down the starting height of each sprout. She then tosses a ratty blanket, on which are embroidered designs of animals and pants, over their control pot, and nods Dorothea on.
For the following week and a half, they repeat this routine every afternoon, and in the morning Bernadetta records the new height of the burgeoning plants. Dorothea alternates songs to keep it interesting—a folk ballad one day, a drinking jig the next, followed then by the final aria from her last opera—and she overhears Bernadetta humming a few to herself come evening.
At the end of their impromptu trial, neither of the pots has reached its full potential, but both have seen a decent amount of growth. Albeit none, as Bernadetta says while reviewing the evidence, that would be out of the realm of normal probability.
“Well, it was fun,” replies Dorothea with a shrug. “And if they’re that much closer to blooming, that’s what really matters. I hope we get to see them get there soon.”
“Me too.” Bernadetta runs her finger along one stem, the pitcher starting to form at its end. “Hey, um… could you sing that one song again? The one from, uh, I think the third day?”
Dorothea tries to recall which that had been. “The one about the two sisters?”
“Yeah, that one! I liked it a lot. Kind of morbid, but it sounded nice.”
“The most tragic ones always seem to,” says Dorothea wryly, before leaning back and starting in.
She keeps an eye on the plants as she sings but sees no change. That’s all right—she and Bernadetta are doing enough growing themselves.
v.
Hubert’s eyes flick silently up and down the sheet of paper in his hand. In an impressive few seconds, he flips to the next page and scans through it, then repeats the process with the one after it. Once he reaches the final page, he starts to reach for the corner before realizing and lowering his hand. His stare rises, but nothing else in his impassive expression has changed.
“It is a fine script,” he tells Dorothea in an even voice, passing it back over. “Characteristic of your usual skill. However, I fail to see why my input on it was necessary, considering my lack of expertise in this particular area.”
Dorothea, instinctively and unnecessarily tidying the stack, blinks—and then laughs. Hubert’s brow creases, confused.
“Oh, Hubie,” she says, “I didn’t want you to critique it. I’ll definitely be able to get more and better feedback on the writing.” She smiles. “I wanted you to sing it.”
For almost a full half-minute, Hubert is again dead quiet and blank-faced. At last, he scoffs and crosses his arms. “I’m even less certain of why you would need my assistance with that.” A muscle to the side of his eye twitches. “Surely you have any number of colleagues ready, willing, and able to fulfill any such purpose.”
“Well, sure.” Dorothea shrugs. “But you’re the one I’m asking.”
Hubert holds her gaze. “And just why is that?”
Though she considers flattering him, just to see what his reaction would be, Dorothea suspects he would see through that no problem—and, more importantly, it might prompt him to just walk away. “I need a baritone,” she admits instead. “For the Baron’s part, see?”
Even if it’s only out of the very corners of his eyes and for the briefest of instants, Hubert does glance back at the paper. “Have you none available within your company’s ranks?”
“Quite a few,” confirms Dorothea. “But I’m still working out the finer points of the script, and I’d rather give them something a little more polished to work with.” At Hubert’s continued attention, she exhales. “And anyway, when it’s at this stage, I’d rather practice with someone I trust as much as you.”
She doesn’t intend that as the same idle flattery as she’d had half-in mind before, but a far more genuine explanation. The opera company means a great deal to her, yes, but its members aren’t as close to her as the former Black Eagles. She doesn’t think they could ever reach that point, either. There’s just too much they’ve all been through together, too much they all share.
From the slow slackening of Hubert’s features, she can tell he understands that, even if she leaves the depth of it unspoken. “Even still,” he says, jaw working, “I’m certain my voice wouldn’t fit under any particular designation, given that I am not a singer at all.”
“That’s a rather defeatist way of looking at it, Hubie.”
“It is true,” insists Hubert. “I have never possessed anything approximating what most would deem a good singing voice. Especially in comparison to one such as yourself.”
Dorothea sighs. “Everyone thinks of singing as something you’re either blessed with from birth or not, but it’s really not like that.” His mouth opens, and she holds up a hand. “And yes, talent can get you far, but even it has its limits. You think I didn’t have to go through countless hours of training before they let me on that stage?” At least in part dedicated to making her seem less like the common girl scraped up off the streets she was, granted, but many had also focused on singing and acting. “It’s just like any other skill. Like, say, magic—” she calls some fleeting sparks to her fingertips and watches the reflected light flicker in Hubert’s eye “—or wielding a certain weapon. Some people are more naturally gifted than others, but anyone can excel if they put the time and effort in.”
Hubert doesn’t respond at once. From his expression, he truly is mulling it over, trying to figure out whether to agree or disagree—or concede her point, but still take issue with the overall sentiment.
“Besides,” she adds before he can decide, “I don’t need you to be good for this, I just need you to be able to read it.” She waves the pages at him. “So?”
Hubert’s jaw continues to work in silence. She can see the conflict in both its furious shifting and the rest of his face, all the way down to his squared shoulders, and she doesn’t try to goad him one way or another. She just waits, maintaining eye contact with a small, polite smile.
Finally, he heaves out a great sigh. “Oh, very well.” He extends a hand, and Dorothea gladly returns the script.
“Thank you, Hubie.” She leans forward and up to kiss his cheek—she likes doing that better when she can leave a smudge of lipstick behind, but it’s just as much a show of trust that she’s comfortable being bare of any cosmetics before him. “I’ll make this worth your time, okay? I’ll treat you to something nice afterward. Lunch, maybe, or a tome you’ve been wanting. Think about it while we’re practicing.”
Hubert’s eyes stay on the pages he’s flipping back through and not her. “A better reward would be never discussing this again,” he says dryly. “From where should I begin?”
Dorothea shifts to stand by his side rather than opposite him so they both have access to the script. “Right here.” She points out the first line she wants to run through; as her hand drops back, she prods his ribs with her elbow. “And don’t forget to breathe from your diaphragm.”
“I’m quite aware,” says Hubert, but his next inhale is more measured. He closes his eyes, lets plain discomfort ripple through his face and clear out again, and parts his lips again.
Dorothea watches the script instead of him, scanning the lines for her own cue, but as she listens to his soft, low song, she smiles.
vi.
The sound of the ticking clock in the corner and the occasional rustling of parchment have been the only noises in the room for upwards of an hour when, out of nowhere, a floorboard creaks.
Dorothea’s head snaps straight up. Misshapen shadows and sudden appearances no longer really frighten her, with how long she’s known Hubert, but she can’t fight an automatic defensive response. Black magic crackles in her bloodstream, and one hand readies itself for one of the daggers on her or in the couch cushions around her—and then she sees who it is standing before her, and all of that tension vanishes.
“Lin?” She blinks a few times. “I thought you’d fallen asleep already.”
“I’d hoped to.” His resting frown stretches farther down. “Unfortunately, it seems to be beyond my grasp tonight, at least so far.”
“You can’t sleep?” Hearing her own muted surprise, Dorothea pauses. She frowns at the initial restraint of the reaction. “You can’t sleep?” she repeats with firmer emphasis.
Linhardt cracks a smirk. “It does happen on occasion. Albeit very, very rare occasion.”
Dorothea only wishes she could say the same—although her insomnia is far less severe and frequent than it had been during the war and the couple of fraught years following it. She gives Linhardt a more scrutinizing look. “Is anything in particular causing it, do you think?”
“No bad dreams or unpleasant thoughts or anything of that ilk, if that’s what you mean,” says Linhardt, which… well, yes, she had been trying to hint at that much. She settles back. “It really just happens for no reason sometimes. It’s a great pain, but nothing too serious.”
“Maybe not for a lot of people, but for you, it is,” Dorothea points out. Linhardt’s head tips agreeingly to the side. “What do you usually do for it? Drink some warm milk? Count sheep?”
“Lie still and wait. It’s bound to happen eventually, that way.” Linhardt frowns in thought again while Dorothea keeps eyeing him. “Oh, but I have sometimes tried going down the alphabet and naming a fish for every letter: Albacore, bullhead, cichlid, dogfish—” he counts them off on his fingers “—you get the gist. I suppose that’s a little like counting sheep.”
“A little,” says Dorothea, though she can’t see any direct connection besides animals being somehow involved. “And has that worked?”
“I haven’t had to try it enough times to say for certain. Once it did, and another night I spent ten horrible minutes wide awake, trying to recall any fish whose name began with U. Only the next morning did I finally think of unicornfish.”
“I… see.” She’s still not sure she does. She taps her cheek and tries to remember any other insomnia cures she’s heard about or attempted herself. “What if I tried singing to you?” she says on a whim.
Linhardt blinks. “What,” he says with some interest, “like a lullaby?”
“Something like that, sure.” He drifts back into contemplative chin-stroking silence. Dorothea shifts in her seat. “I know it’s about the opposite of what I usually sing, but—”
“Oh, no, opera puts plenty of people to sleep.” From Linhardt’s tone, she thinks he’s trying to sound reassuring—to whom and how, she can’t tell. “Not me, of course; I just have no particular interest in it either way.”
“Thank you, Lin.”
He shrugs. “Only being honest.”
Dorothea sighs and opts to take the positive spin on things. “I guess I already have some practice in it, then. Want to give it a try?”
Linhardt considers for a moment longer. “Well, I suppose there’s no harm in it. If it doesn’t work, I’ll just do something else with my night. And if it does…”
“You can sleep like you want,” fills in Dorothea. Linhardt nods, starting to look pleased in the same way he gets when an interesting paper is published or a potential test subject walks right into his office. She shoots a warier look around. “Should we head to bed, or…?”
“I’ve slept in far worse places,” says Linhardt brightly.
This is very true—Dorothea has observed some of them, and she can only imagine the ones she hasn’t been around for. “Then get comfortable, I guess.”
He casts the room a cursory glance before walking straight toward Dorothea, taking a seat on the sofa beside her, and stretching himself across her lap. It’s not anything new for either of them, so Dorothea takes it in stride. She stays still while Linhardt wiggles into an ideal position. Once he settles on his side, facing away from her, she rests a hand on his head.
“Do you know any lullabies?” it seems to occur to him to ask, however belated.
Dorothea snorts. “Of course I do. If you’re ready, I’ll start with one.” He hesitates, then nods. Her eyes close, and she draws in a breath. “Rock a bye, baby—”
“I veto this one.”
Dorothea’s eyes snap back open and drop to the portion of his face she can see. “What do you mean, you ‘veto’ it?”
“I thought it was perfectly clear.” When Dorothea only continues to stare in silence, Linhardt huffs. “I could fall asleep to it, just as I technically could using a subpar pillow, but the quality of my sleep would suffer for it. Are there any other options?”
“Fine, fine.” Dorothea rolls her eyes, and from his puff of breath she thinks it might somehow be audible. She runs through her mind, finds a melody she hasn’t heard in years herself, and lets out the first line.
“I don’t recognize this one,” comments Linhardt.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she stops to say. “My mother used to sing it to me when I was young.” And often ill, as Dorothea remembers—her voice, or at least the tender love in it, had quite nearly made up for the medicine and meals they couldn’t afford. “I don’t know where she learned it from, though. Maybe another woman she worked with, or her own mother. Or maybe she just made it up.”
Linhardt is quiet for long enough that Dorothea thinks he’s perhaps managed to fall asleep all on his own. If she listens close, though, she can still hear his too-quick breathing, and when she leans forward she sees his eyes are still open.
“Lin?”
A jolt runs through his shoulders. “Oh, sorry. I was just… marveling at the prospect of having a mother who sang to you.” What else she had done, in contrast to Linhardt’s and many others’ mothers, remains unacknowledged. “Please, go on. I like this one better.”
“All right,” Dorothea murmurs, and does as requested. After she finishes, she waits, but he doesn’t ask her to change songs or stop altogether; she takes a moment to regain her breath, then takes it from the top.
With each repetition, he relaxes more and more, weight shifting across her legs like water spreading from a tipped basin. By the fourth go, he’s completely slack against her. This time, when she leans forward, she sees his eyes shut and his chest rising and falling in even beats.
“Sweet dreams, Lin,” says Dorothea with a smile, before sinking back and closing her own eyes.
vii.
“Practicing again, Dorothea?”
As Dorothea spins in her chair, voice cutting itself off mid-song, her split-second surprise turns into a laugh. “Oh, Edie,” she says. Her eyes dart between her and the libretto before her. “Yes. I’m just trying to get this one part down.”
Edelgard, standing beside her desk with her arms folded behind her, frowns. “I don’t see what you still have left to get down, honestly. You must know it by heart by now.”
“The lyrics and the key, sure.” For her last few run-throughs, Dorothea hasn’t even been looking at the script, only glancing down on occasion to double-check. “But I can’t seem to quite land the emotion behind them how I’d like to.”
“What I heard sounded fine in that regard as well.”
“Fine, yes. If I was only aiming for fine.” Dorothea notices but doesn’t comment on Edelgard’s empathetic expression—perfectionists to the core, the lot of them. She drags an agitated hand through her hair. “For any other opera, I would probably settle with how it sounds now. Or at least not be so intent on getting it just right. But…”
“This one is different?” guesses Edelgard, and Dorothea nods. “And why is that?”
The casually curious tone and neutral set of her mouth only make Dorothea scoff. “You know why, Edie.” Edelgard’s eyebrows only arch higher. “It’s about you,” says Dorothea, pointedly drawn out.
“It isn’t only about me.” Edelgard’s voice and posture remain prim, despite the faint flush touching the edges of her cheeks. “You and the others are in it as well.”
“Right. But the parts I’m struggling the most with are the ones about you.” Dorothea pauses. “Well, you and me.”
Edelgard only seems to grow more bemused. “Hmm. I would have expected playing yourself to come fairly easily—it is you, after all—but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“Just the opposite, really.” Dorothea looks down at her hands, which have fallen to fold in her lap instead of resting at the edge of the table. “I’ve… never really liked myself all that much, you know.” She can tell Edelgard would like to interrupt, but she manages to stay quiet for now. “Playing all the different parts I have—the diva, the ingenue, the villainess, the heroine, another ordinary face in the crowd, everything and anything in between—it’s a chance to… escape, I suppose. To step out of the role I’ve been playing all my life and try something new. Something that isn’t the me I’ve only recently come to truly accept.”
Understanding dawns in Edelgard’s expression. “But when the part you’re playing is none other than you…”
“Exactly.” Dorothea smiles, no mirth in it. “No matter how much I cut her up to make her a more straightforward, palatable character, she’s still me. I’ve got nowhere to escape to.” She lets that hang there for a beat before shaking herself off. “I’ve mostly gotten used to it, but I’m still hitting some snags.”
“Including ones regarding me. Or the character that represents me, as it were.” Dorothea nods, and Edelgard nods back, more in thought than anything. “Is there any way I can help?”
Dorothea picks at the skin beside one nail, then stills her hands. “Aside from listening like this, no, I don’t think so. Sorry.”
“If listening is helpful, then I may as well continue to.” Edelgard glances around; upon spotting a footstool, she drags it over beside Dorothea and perches on its edge. “Do you feel there’s any more specific cause behind your, ah, snags?”
Dorothea hesitates. “You… really don’t mind?”
“Dorothea.” Edelgard’s hand reaches out and closes over hers. “Of course I don’t mind. This is clearly weighing on you a great deal, and your happiness is among my greatest wishes. Please, speak all you’d like.”
“Well—” Now that she’s been given a direct opportunity, it bursts out of Dorothea almost unbidden. “I think it’s more on the writing end than the singing. I just can’t quite seem to connect to the lyrics like I should, so I can’t bring them as much to life as I want to.” Despite herself, she snorts. “Can’t connect to them, can you believe that? I wrote them, and they’re about us, so it should be easy, but…”
Edelgard takes that in with her head thoughtfully quirked. “Do you think the entire script might need overhauling?”
“Maybe,” admits Dorothea. “And it’s not like I don’t have time to—we haven’t even started on casting it yet, let alone actually rehearsing or advertising. And even when we do, I’ll probably have to make some more edits.” She twists her head to look at the rumpled pages spread across her desk. “But on paper, I was so happy with it.”
“It can be very difficult to let go of things you cherish and have accomplished.” Edelgard’s gaze clouds over, then focuses back in. When her eyes return to Dorothea’s, they flicker with the very flame from her secondary title. “But sometimes it must be done.”
“‘Kill your darlings,’ like Bern says.” Edelgard nods. Dorothea shuffles her stiffened shoulders. “I suppose I’m… always a bit conflicted on how to portray you. I don’t want to turn it into a propaganda piece by glossing over your flaws—sorry, Edie darling,” she adds, “but you definitely do have them—”
Edelgard laughs, almost startled out of her. “And I’ll be the first to admit as much, so no need to apologize.”
“—but I don’t want to overemphasize them and make it a different kind of propaganda, either.”
“So speak from the heart,” suggests Edelgard. “You see me in my entirety, Dorothea. You always have. Surely you can put that to words somehow, even if you must sand it down for the audience and story’s sake.”
“In your… entirety…” That simple phrase catches against something in the back of Dorothea’s mind, and soon small sparks are swelling into a roaring fire. She shoots upright in her seat and claps. “Oh! That’s it! Thank you, Edie.”
Edelgard blinks. “You’re very welcome,” she says, lilting it into a question, “though I’m not certain what for.”
“For being here for me.” Dorothea takes Edelgard’s hand, inadvertently knocked aside by her clap, between her own. “You’ve always seen me, too. Even the parts I never thought anyone would want to.” She squeezes hard once, then lowers their still-clasped hands. “And I hope you’ll see me on stage when we put on the final perfected version of this show.”
“Well, I can’t say it won’t be with a good deal of embarrassment, but…” Edelgard graces her with a rare cheek-to-cheek smile. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
viii.
It would be inaccurate to say that Dorothea, in her heart, directs her songs toward any specific person. She doesn’t, not even her partners. First and foremost, she sings for herself; her castmates and the crowd paying for her attention come soon after.
But it would also be inaccurate to say she never has certain people in mind. Her love filters into every aspect of her life, including the ones that aren’t hers, and she could never escape that even if she wanted to.
And when she plays herself in the semi-autobiographical opera about the Flame Emperor’s fight for and against Fódlan, that devotion almost overwhelms her. The story involves no explicit romance (though people will debate the author’s intentions for centuries to come), but she still sings of love in the time of war, blooming roses among the fire, unparalleled loyalty and companionship.
She sings of a woman who leads her friends to victory and forges a bloodstained path for the entire world to follow. She sings of her dutiful shadow and how he’s fallen into the orbit of every surrounding sun. She sings of a confident noble whose ardency and compassion could illuminate the sky brightly enough to shame the stars. She sings of a prideful, courageous princess with her hands extended to spread justice and independence. She sings of a wallflower so resourceful she blooms even in complete darkness. She sings of a drowsy scholar who manages to find motivation to support those closest to him. She sings of a spirited soldier, a true friend and brother, whose energy provides more than a little of that motivation to his companions.
She sings, rawest of all, of herself: A crimson rose whose petals have fallen away to reveal only lethal thorns. A songstress turned warrior turned songstress again. A woman standing alone and dreaming of better times behind and ahead.
And, as she sings, her eyes wander sometimes toward the emperor’s reserved box. Between the lights in her eyes and the distance, she can’t make out any specific figures inside—though she supposes being able to imagine them only adds to each performance.
Dorothea has never had much wealth to speak of, and someday her looks and voice will be gone. But she’ll always have people there to support and love her, and that’s worth more than anything else.