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So much had happened in the two year recess since the war ended.
Most notably for Annette, a short courtship followed by a serious engagement, a wedding date that was pushed back time and time again due to her betrothed’s endearing but reckless behavior, and ultimately her Uncle stepping in to call the whole thing off.
It was a wild ride for Annette, and after her time as a General in the Kingdom Army, being not entirely in control of her own path was a shock. But she quickly adjusted to the daily dress-fittings, the task of charming Adrestian officials, the idea that she would have to marry Caspar von Bergliez.
Annette liked Caspar. He was sweet and loving and he tried hard to be what she needed. What their separate but newly founded territories needed. But he couldn’t put aside his aggressive nature, and it had been the end of them.
He was working as a mercenary now, traveling the continent with Ashe, if she’d heard correctly. He and Ashe had only met because she’d introduced them during their engagement, anyway.
The wheels of her carriage squeaked as the horses came to a stop. She nudged her Uncle, who’d fallen asleep in the seat across from her. He stretched exaggeratedly and his brown eyes landed on Annette. “Ah! We’re here!”
She smiled at him. Her dear Uncle had been by her side throughout the entire ordeal of being engaged to Caspar, through his many fist-fights, his shouting matches with other officials, and his unveiled disinterest in anything governmental.
And the Baron Dominic never blamed her for any of it.
She had to carefully arrange her skirts as she emerged from the carriage, dark green with a diaphanous layer of light green over it, pooling at the back in a miniature train. The cut hung off her shoulders and the delicate fabric gathered into a fitted bodice that pooled out into a full skirt.
A servant was at the door of the carriage even as Annette swung it open. "Welcome, Baron and the Honorable Miss Dominic. His Majesty is pleased you could attend."
"As are we!" Annette answered. She stepped delicately onto the ground, then flattened some of her skirts so the fabric could drape appropriately. Her uncle followed suit, then he bent his arm at the elbow so Annette could hook her arm around his so he could escort her into the ballroom. Their horses and carriage were whisked off to the stables to join scores of other horse-drawn carriages.
“Are you excited to see your friends, Annette?” her uncle asked. The ballroom was lit by probably hundreds of candles, many set into the walls in intricate sconces, a pretty crystal chandelier with flickering flames hanging from the vaulted ceiling. The dance was polished and reflected the twinkling lights like stars over an ocean.
“Oh, well… So much has changed in two years, uncle. I am excited to see them, but there’s some… trepidation?”
Baron Dominic bowed to his niece as he released her arm. “Have fun, Annette. Goddess knows you deserve it.” He was looking off over Annette’s shoulder, and she glanced that way to find Mercedes waving at her from a round table draped with fine linen tablecloths.
“Oh! Uncle, would it be alright if I…?” It wasn’t polite to leave her uncle so soon after arriving, but Annette was positively trembling with the need to run over to Mercedes and capture her in a tight embrace.
“Go on, Annie.”
She beamed at him, then set off toward Mercedes. The blonde stood up and when Annette reached her she crashed into her, throwing her arms around her neck and laughing happily.
Annette had seen Mercedes a handful of times since the war, on excursions to Fhirdiad mainly for business. To be honest, most of Annette’s affairs were dealing with Adrestia, nowadays, which was a territory of the Kingdom but still managed out of Enbarr. She and Caspar had taken many more trips south than north.
“Mercie, you look absolutely stunning!” Annette breathed, and Mercedes shifted her skirt around. “Stay here with us, won’t you? Sylvain and I only just arrived, Lysithea and Linhardt are speaking with Dimitri but they’re here too. Would the Baron mind if I steal you away?”
“Not at all Mercie. I shall sit right here, with you, all night. That’s a promise.”
"I won’t be sitting most of the night, Annie. I want to do some dancing! You’ll just have to share me with my fiance."
"Well, yes, but he gets to see you all the time. Surely he can relinquish you for one night. I’ll take you for a dance, Mercie." Mercedes laughed good naturedly, covering her mouth with her hand delicately. Annette smiled at her, feeling a wave of nostalgia for her best friend even as she sat right in front of her. It had been months, but they came together as easily as though they’d just been to class together at the School of Sorcery or gone window shopping in Garreg Mach. "Where is Sylvain, anyway?”
“Um....” Mercedes’s indigo eyes searched through the crowds as she craned her neck, and she shifted in her seat to get a better view. “Ah. Over there, up front by His Majesty. He’s talking with Felix.”
“Felix?” Annette repeated, and it felt like being dunked into cold water. She desperately tried to search for him through the crowds, and when she finally did spot him, her heart did a funny kick-flutter that sent fluttery waves through her veins.
“Of course,” Mercedes said, sounding a little confused by Annette’s reaction. “He’s always at these.”
“No I know, I just…” she let her voice trail off.
The last time she’d seen Felix alone, in person, he’d made an absolutely heartfelt confession to her about hearing her music in his dreams and feeling like he was her captive… and then the war efforts finished and she’d gone and gotten engaged to Caspar. Not that this was really her choice, but she didn’t put up a huge fight.
In the two years since she’d seen him, Felix had let his hair grow longer. It was gathered in a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck, falling in a straight line down his back between shoulders, and his bangs swept across his brow in thin strands that accentuated his sharp chin. His posture was the same as always, arms crossed over his chest, mouth set in a firm line even as he spoke to Sylvain.
They were standing so that their profiles were exposed to the girls, and Sylvain must have glanced over to check up on Mercedes when his eyes landed on Annette. He broke into a huge, older-brotherly grin and waved at her, then he nudged Felix with his elbow and gestured over to her.
Felix's eyes, ambery-brown and currently wide, reflecting the candles flickering from every direction, landed on Annette. She looked at him looking at her, her mind absolutely blank for a moment.
I want you to sing for me. I hear your voice when I’m asleep, or in battle...
Sylvain tipped his head over to the girls and he started walking over, intending for Felix to follow him.
“Oh, Mercie,” Annette said, her voice panicky, and suddenly her face was very hot. She leaped up from the chair she had occupied, almost knocking it over in her haste. “I think I hear my uncle calling me.”
Mercedes blinked at her. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Well, you know, I’d better check anyway.” She shoved the chair back in place and hurried off to where her uncle was talking to Lord Kleiman.
Perhaps it was a bad idea to join her uncle once again, because, now that she was a newly single woman again, many of the lords were inquiring about her status, what sort of arrangement she would be open to.
It had only been two weeks since her relationship with Caspar had died. It was really a bit much.
All she wanted to sit with Mercedes, to chat about what she’d been up to, her impending wedding plans. Instead she either had to face Felix, after two years of no contact and with an engagement between them, or politely laugh as Lords from across Fodlan haggled for her newly ringless hand.
She should’ve stayed home with her mother.
Courses were served, and Annette did return to the table where her friends were seated then. Felix sat in the front, at a long table that stretched along the length of the room, at His Majesty’s right. She tried to be sneaky about looking over to him. Although she and Felix had not spoken to each other in years, Annette was mostly up-to-date on affairs in Fhirdiad, and that included Felix taking up the title of Duke officially--there must have been a ceremony, but Annette didn’t get an invitation and she was in the middle of establishing her engagement to Caspar at this time.
She was fairly certain she’d sent an invitation to him for an engagement celebration, but she never received an answer. Perhaps it was a busy time for both of them.
Annette didn’t realize she was staring until Felix’s sharp eyes flicked over to her, and this time his expression was set in its usual soft frown.
She quickly shoved the bite of food that had been hovering in the air on her fork into her mouth and looked down at her plate, going red again.
The dinner plates were whisked away and Dimitri made a speech that Annette found it hard to listen to without her eyes drifting over to Felix, and arm’s length away, and she spent most of the time looking down at her hands in a way that she hoped looked thoughtful.
After that, an orchestra began playing and couples drifted out onto the shining dance floor. She didn’t mean to, but she looked up toward Felix, who was already looking in her direction, and she turned around and bolted.
Or, at least, she tried to, but a tug at her skirts made her stop. Someone had stepped on her train.
“Oh, Hilda!” Annette breathed, her heart beating too fast. She tried to calm herself so she could have a normal conversation like a normal person.
“Hey, Annie,” Hilda said. She lifted a delicate pink shoe from the train of Annette’s dress. “I haven’t seen you in, like, forever!”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry about that! Things were really busy for me for a while there.”
“It’s totally understandable! Right after the war there was so much stuff to be done.”
The violins were plucking out a chipper tune, light and quick, and Hilda was bouncing in her heels to it. “Dance with me?”
Annette blinked at her, her eyelashes heavy from layers of makeup and make her feel sluggish and stupid. “What?”
Hilda beamed at her. “This is a great song! It’ll be fun!”
“Oh, I--Hilda!” Annette squeaked as she pulled her onto the dance floor, then linked their hands together and pulled Annette along clumsily in quick steps.
It was pretty evident that Annette was not going to be escaping from Hilda’s grip so she tried to shake off her nerves and relax a little.
“So, it seems to me like Felix has been trying to talk to you,” Hilda said in between humming the melody of the song.
Annette almost tripped over her skirts. “Does it?”
“Yeah! And it seems like you keep running away. Why’s that, Annette? Don’t like Dukes?” Hilda tilted her head and her pink hair spilled over her shoulder.
“Uh,” Annette stammered. “It’s not… Things are… weird?”
“It seems like you’re the one making them weird,” Hilda said, and once again Annette almost tripped.
This didn’t seem to be the best time to discuss this, but Hilda didn’t seem inclined to let go of Annette’s fingers.
“It’s just, you know, I was… engaged… and he was… I think he was…” As Annette spoke she vividly remembered their conversation in the greenhouse, only weeks before their attack on Enbarr, and her heart picked up pace to match the tempo set by the violins.
“It’s not going to get less weird unless you face it,” Hilda said with a shrug.
The greenhouse conversation was still playing in Annette’s head, like a scene from her favorite story. What if he was angry at her, or he did something that would shatter the memory forever. “I didn’t want to,” Annette said, and she’d stopped dancing, and Hilda frowned at her as her own feet stilled. “Things have changed so much, I’m… scared.”
Hilda frowned at her sympathetically.
“A lot of things have changed,” Hilda said, and she gave Annette an encouraging smile. “But you know what they say. The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Annette didn’t understand, but there was a pause, and it took her a moment to realize that the orchestra was switching to a much slower song.
There was a low sound, a quiet cough, and Hilda’s lips curled upward into a mischievous smile and Annette felt all the air leave her lungs until she felt that her chest might collapse inward.
“Duke Fraldarius,” Hilda said with a bow, and she pulled Annette down with her by their still linked hands.
“Miss Goneril,” Felix said, and he swept his golden-brown eyes over Annette, and added, “Miss Dominic.”
Annette was nervous, and she felt her heart skipping irregularly in her chest. He seemed entirely comfortable using the formal greeting, still more evidence of all the change that separated them along with the years that passed.
Someone bumped into Annette as they danced, and she stumbled forward with a muttered apology.
Hilda passed her pink eyes over the two of them, and she smiled. “I think I’d better go check on my darling brother,” Hilda said cheerily. “Some girls just don’t know how to control themselves when all these eligible bachelors gather together. Not that I have to tell you, Felix!”
Felix frowned at her, and Hilda responded with a wink and then, with a flounce of her pink hair, she disappeared into the crowds of people mingling off the dance floor.
Someone bumped into Annette again, and to avoid them she shuffled closer to Felix.
Wordlessly, he held out his hand to her, a silky gentleman’s white glove effervescent under the candlelight.
“Oh, you… Do you want to…?” Annette asked, worried that he misunderstood her awkward shuffling closer to him.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice soft, his eyes sharp, his hand waiting. “I do.”
She felt her cheeks turn pink, but she slid her fingers into his palm as she stepped into him, and he placed his other gloved hand on her waist, just above the part of her corseted bodice that gave rise to her flouncy skirts.
It was nice, and his hands were warm against her, and once she forced herself to calm down enough that her heart wasn’t pounding quite so hard against her corseted ribs, she found that she was enjoying herself. Being the current Shield of Faerghus must have tempered some of Felix’s ill manners, because he seemed practiced. She quickly forced herself not to think about who else he took up as a dance partner since they last met.
“I wanted to tell you,” Felix said as he led her carefully, his fingers closed around hers. “I’m sorry to hear about you and Caspar.”
“Oh,” Annette said, and she frowned. “Well, thank you. It’s… things weren’t working out. I’m not sure Caspar is the marrying type.”
“He’s an idiot,” Felix said, and Annette couldn’t help but tilt her head at him, trying to decipher what he actually meant by that. “Always has been,” he added, but she thought his cheeks were dusted with a charming red tint that hadn’t been there before.
“Hey, I almost married him,” she said gently.
He clenched his jaw at that. “Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. For the best, probably. I’m still studying magic, and I’ve been invited to come teach at the School of Sorcery.”
Felix blinked at her, his long eyelashes casting shadows over his cheeks as he did. “Here in Fhirdiad?”
She nodded at him. “I was going to meet with the headmaster on Monday.”
“You’ll be staying in Fhirdiad, then?”
She nodded again.
The violins swelled and held out a particularly long note, and Felix glanced over his shoulder at the orchestra as the song faded, almost as if to chastise them. “Um, Annette…” Felix murmured, and she stepped into him. “I’m… I have to…” he gestured vaguely in the direction of the long white table, where Dimitri and Dedue were standing and speaking with guests. “I want to see you again.”
She bit her lip to keep from smiling too broadly. “I’d like that.”
He blinked at her, his face definitely red now. “I had the impression that you were avoiding me. Before.”
Another song had started, and people were bumping into them. Annette pulled Felix off the dance floor, onto the plush carpet, trying to think of an answer that wouldn’t make her seem foolish.
“Oh, um,” she said, and Felix was looking down at her expectantly, his eyes liquid in the candlelight. “I suppose I was. It’s… a lot has changed. I wasn’t sure…”
He took her fingers in his hand and raised them to his lips. It was a soft brushing of her knuckles against his lips, and Annette was still getting used to her fourth finger without a ring on it, but in that moment she didn’t miss it.
“Not everything has changed, Annette.”
She couldn’t speak, her mind was numb and her heart was pushing her blood sluggishly through her body. Felix didn’t release her hand when he lowered it, which was a good thing because his fingers on hers were the only thing keep her from reeling.
“Can we do dinner on Monday? After you head to the School?”
She nodded dumbly, breathing too quickly, her heart hammering uselessly against her chest.
For the first time that evening, Felix’s mouth curled at the ends, ever so slightly into a small smile. “I’ll see you then.”