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Sylvain has lipstick on his shirt collar when he walks into the dining hall for breakfast, the very picture of dishevelment with his hair stuck up in every direction as if he just rolled out of bed. Ingrid tries not to let her gaze linger on that incriminating trace of orange, tries not to let her irritation take root and bloom into anger.
She’s tired of chiding him, of pretending like she can whip him into shape when almost every morning he has the audacity to flash a smile at her from across the table after another woman left her mark on him.
Her grip tightens around her spoon, and she stares out the window. Flayn stands beside the fishing pond, and while Ingrid watches she reaches into a pocket and tugs out a tangled mess of fishing line.
“Want to go fishing after breakfast?”
Ingrid jumps, head swiveling around till her eyes land on Sylvain. His chin sits in his hand, and the smile he offers her this time is a little smaller, a little softer, a little more sincere with the corners of his eyes crinkling.
She likes this smile better than the earlier one, and when they were children it never failed to lift her spirits.
“Fishing?” she echoes. She stirs honey into her oatmeal and scoops up a spoonful to frown at the cinnamon powder flecking it. “Sure, why not? But…” A sigh escapes her, and she admits, “I don’t have any bait.”
“We can always dig for worms,” Sylvain suggests with a laugh. “You used to love digging for worms and terrorizing Felix with them, remember?”
Ingrid’s ears burn at the reminder, but the nostalgia doesn’t sting as sharply as usual. But she still retorts, “Oh, shut up, Sylvain.”
“I’m just teasing you,” he says. “We can head into town for a bit and buy some.”
Ingrid’s omnipresent appetite shrivels. The porridge she’s eaten already sits like a lump of lead in her belly, anchoring her to a reality where she can’t spare the coin for fishing bait.
When the silence has lingered too long, Sylvain coughs and adds, “I’ll buy bait.”
She bites her lip when frustration burns within her. Her spoon falls into her oatmeal with a low splash, and to Sylvain she says, “No, it’s fine. I was planning on training a little extra today anyway.”
“Come on, Ingrid,” he cajoles her. His foot brushes hers under the table, and it takes all her strength not to flinch. “Don’t let your pride get in the way of a little harmless fun.”
“My pride?” Ingrid rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are warm with humiliation.
“Then let’s call it an early birthday present!” he insists.
“My birthday’s in Guardian Moon,” she points out.
“A very early birthday present!” Sylvain’s smile falls, but he nods out the window towards the fishing pond. “The weather will probably be too bad to fish then anyway. Look at it now, not a single cloud in sight!”
Ingrid snorts but, despite herself, despite the awful tears pricking at her eyes, she laughs. “I commend your rescue, Sylvain.”
“See?” He picks up her spoon and all but shoves it into her hand. “Now finish your breakfast, because I want to go fishing.”
Later, when they stand at the banks of the fishing pond with an easy breeze lifting her hair and an easier smile lifting her lips, the ends of their lines swallowed by the water’s mirror-like surface, Ingrid’s heart thumps painfully as she realizes she’s in as much danger from Sylvain’s charms as any other woman that catches his eye.