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The first time Edelgard went to the professor’s room, he was tending to flowers.
She had come with the intent of discussing the upcoming mock battle—the professor had only been at the monastery for a couple days after all, and she wanted to make sure he was as well-prepared as she already was.
The speech she had planned died on her lips though, when she saw him putting a box of carnations in the window. His face was as impassive and blank as ever, but the delicacy of his movements as he adjusted the box’s position seemed to speak volumes. Granted, she had only known him for a few short days, but this still seemed...unusual.
He turned briefly and caught sight of her at the door—a slow blink was the only change on his face. “Need something?”
Edelgard realized she’d been staring, and shook her head slightly to shake herself out of her own head. “No...I mean...sorry. I came to talk to you about the mock battle...”
“Ah, yes.” He swiftly rose and approached her, away from the window. The delicate red petals fluttered slightly from the movement. “I intended to speak with you about it as well. Who would you recommend we bring for this?”
She wanted to ask about the flowers, but training and the battle were obviously more important, so she turned her thoughts back to them. What did it matter if the professor liked to keep a few flowers in his quarters, anyway?
One short week later, she came across him in the library, reading a book. She initially assumed it must be something about teaching, or tactics, maybe weapons—but no, there was a detailed drawing of a lily on the page he was on.
“Do you like flowers, professor?” she asked.
He seemed to think about the question for a moment—goddess! his face was impossible to read—and then nodded slightly. “Do you?”
“Not particularly. I don’t dislike them, but...I suppose they’ve never held much appeal to me either. They’re just plants after all, but not even ones you can eat or use, so...”
His face was still impassive, but she thought that if he were more emotional, it would’ve just fallen. “That’s fair logic, I suppose. Anyway, I don’t mean to distract you.”
Part of her wanted to apologize, to ask him to teach her about flowers too...but flowers weren’t important right now.
She never really went to the greenhouse. Time always seemed better placed in training, and while knowing how to grow food was important (of course), she’d never been good at taking care of plants. Bernadetta had offered once to teach her, and while Edelgard appreciated her bravery in offering, there just never seemed to be much point.
One day though, she was looking for the professor again, and Dorothea said she’d seen him in the greenhouse. When she got there though, she was almost overwhelmed by the sight.
Flowers. Everywhere she looked, there seemed to be flowers. Edelgard had almost forgotten that conversation from two months ago, but seeing this absolute wave of colors reminded her instantly.
And in the midst of it all, there was the professor, using those same delicate movements as he watered and plucked weeds away from them. He was so emotionless and cold all the time, so harsh and vicious on the battlefield...she hadn’t really thought of him as capable of being so gentle, too.
“Did you grow all of these…?”
A slight nod again.
“Amazing...” she breathed, hardly aware of what she was saying.
His eyes seemed to light up. It was an almost imperceptible change, but as soon as she’d noticed it she couldn’t look away from him. His eyes met hers, a strand of turquoise hair falling over the sharp blue, and as he brushed it slightly out of his eyes she felt her breath catching in her throat.
Then he moved away slightly from the ones he was tending, and she felt her face start to heat as she realized she’d been staring.
“I—I’ve never been good at growing plants,” she said awkwardly, looking away as he moved to a large box of violets and forget-me-nots.
“I’m still learning myself,” he replied quietly.
“Really? You must have a lot of natural talent despite that, then.”
“You think so?”
The professor’s tone remained its usual flat neutrality, but she couldn’t get over the way his body’s entire demeanor seemed to change every time he looked at the flowers. She moved to join him, and thought she saw a ghost of a smile on his face, if only for a second.
“I suppose I know now where those flowers in the dining hall have been coming from,” she commented, and the smile almost returned.
“Bernadetta?”
“U-uhm, yes? Wh-what is it?”
“Could you...teach me about gardening?”
“I...I could probably do that. B-but weren’t you...before...”
“I...rethought my interest, is all. If you would help me, I would greatly appreciate it.”
“Of..of course!”
By the Verdant Rain Moon, there seemed to be flowers in every student’s room. The professor had started to bring flowers on his weekly walks around the monastery, handing them out to students and faculty without cause or explanation. Most seemed to write it off as yet another of his quirks. Edelgard wasn’t sure what to think of it.
She knew Hubert had noticed how often she slipped away to go to the greenhouse with Bernadetta. He saw the sad attempt at a flowerbox she was keeping in her room. She could feel his judging eyes on her back every time she sneaked away, imagine exactly what he wanted to say to her; Your ambitions are far more important than some plants, you should focus on your studies and training so we will be ready when the time comes.
Still, she continued to go to the greenhouse. Her little sprouts were finally starting to grow.
“Why do you like flowers so much, professor?”
They were out on the cathedral bridge, late one cool Horsebow Moon night. Both had wandered up here after being unable to sleep—it seemed to happen a lot these days. Last time it did, she had told him a lot more secrets about her past than she’d intended to, and his face had remained as impassive and unreadable as ever, but she still felt glad that she’d told him. She wished she could tell him a lot of things…
He looked at her for a moment, thinking. “...It’s hard to explain.”
“It was a silly question anyway, I suppose.” She leaned on the guardrail, looking out at the trees and mountain below. “I’ve just never seen anyone with such a passion for them.”
She didn’t look, but she could feel his presence moving to stand beside her. “You did tell me your own secrets last time, so it’s only fair that I share one of mine.”
“A secret, you say?”
“If I’ve never said it in the past, then it would count as one, no?”
She laughed slightly. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
A light gust of wind came through, blowing her hair into her face. She raised her hand to move it out of the way, but the professor moved faster, his fingers just barely brushing her cheek as he moved the errant strands away.
She was afraid to meet his eyes. If he was looking at her with the same gentleness he looked at flowers, the gentleness of his hands right now…
“I’ve never been good at showing my emotions,” he said quietly, seemingly unaware of what had just happened. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve never known what expression I’m supposed to make...how I’m supposed to react...how I’m supposed to feel. To anything. But with flowers...”
Edelgard did look at him now, and saw he was leaning on the guardrail as well, his eyes downcast to his hands before him. “Flowers...have always made me feel something,” he murmured. “I hardly know what it is they make me feel...but they do. So I learned to grow them, and my feelings for them just seemed to grow stronger as I did.”
“I suppose I can relate to that, in a way,” she replied softly, and he glanced over at her. “Not knowing how to feel...how you’re expected to react.”
“Or even understanding the feelings you are having...” He breathed out a quiet sigh, and looked down again. “I’m not as empty as I look. I… I do care. But I’ve never known how to show it.”
Without thinking, she moved her hand to rest on his. He looked over to her again, those impassive blue eyes meeting soft lilac. “Believe me,” she murmured, “nobody does.”
Her sprouts were turning into tiny blossoms. A vibrant shade of red, like the blood they spilled during the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. There were many scrapes and bruises that day, but they were the price of victory, which the Black Eagles proceeded to celebrate well that night.
In the dining hall, quietly enjoying some Bergamot tea as Ferdinand regaled the table with stories of his accomplishments on the field, the professor offered her a flower. A lily of the valley, soft and white.
She was still looking at it that night, as she lay in bed. Brushing the delicate petals with her fingertips, turning it over and over again in her hands. So pure, so unlike the blood-red petals just beginning to grow in her window, so unlike the bloody path she’d destined herself to walk on.
For months, Edelgard had been preparing herself for the ball. She’d spent a long time trying to think of ways to get out of dancing with certain self-declared rivals (doubtful), refreshing on her dancing skills so as not to embarrass herself (easy enough), trying to figure out how to ask the professor to dance without looking like a fool (she was unsuccessful).
Seeing how easily Claude took the professor’s hand and guided him onto the floor, filled her with strange feelings that she didn’t want to confront. And so, she ended up at the Goddess Tower, wondering if anyone had noticed her sudden exit.
The sound of footsteps echoing below her startled her out of her thoughts, and she briefly considered hiding—but there was nowhere to go, so she resigned herself to her fate. Although when the person came around the corner, and turned out to be that same professor, she almost wished she’d hidden.
They talked for awhile. He even smiled at her once. She never wanted to tell him everything more than she did in that moment. Even though after everything that had happened, she was sure he could never walk the same path as her, let alone feel the same feelings she didn’t want to admit she had…
When they eventually returned to the ball, and Dorothea teased that the two of them should dance together, she knew she should say no. But as she took his hand in hers, felt his hand on her waist with that same gentle touch, she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
He slipped away briefly after that, and when he returned he gave her a forget-me-not. She held it in her hands a long time that night, staring into the blue and thinking of his eyes.
The loss was a shock to everyone.
To her, seeing that glimmer of light that had started to appear in the professor’s eyes, being completely snuffed out, was almost more than she could bear.
He didn’t go to the greenhouse for weeks. His voice, his face, seemed even more empty and dead than they usually were. The flowers in the dining hall and classroom began to dry up.
At their house leader’s suggestion, the Black Eagles began to take over the flower care. Bernadetta was hardly in her room for a week, instead rushing all about the monastery with a watering can at seemingly all hours. Ferdinand gave everybody greenhouse shifts, to make sure the flowers there would stay strong. Even Hubert, disinterested as he was, put in the work he was asked for.
Edelgard brought one of her flowers to the professor’s quarters. His eyes were still red from crying, but he almost smiled when she placed the carnation in his hands.
“You’ve been learning,” he said softly, and she smiled.
“You should come back to the greenhouse soon,” she replied gently. “When you’re ready...we’ve all been waiting for you.”
He nodded slightly, but his eyes stayed locked on the sad little carnation. Such a simple, fragile thing, but he looked at it like it was the most precious thing in the world.
“My father...he told me once how much my mother loved flowers,” he said, his voice shaky. “All I can think about now, is of every flower I ever gave him...but he probably never knew h-how much he meant to me...”
She didn’t realize how tense they both were, until she gently took his hand and he breathed a deep, shuddering sigh. His hand was shaking, ever so slightly, and though the circumstances were terrible, knowing he was full of so much emotion filled her with all kinds of confusing thoughts.
“He knew,” she whispered. “I know he did.”
The next morning, she woke to find a bouquet of flowers outside her door, inside a water-filled vase. She put it in her window next to the flowerbox, and wondered if it was okay for her to be this happy.
When the professor cut a hole in the sky, and stepped through with green hair and eyes, she thought her heart had stopped.
She’d always known, in a way, that the professor couldn’t walk her path with her...but seeing him there, wielding the power of the goddess she stood opposed to, she knew any last hopes were now firmly crushed.
But she couldn’t walk away, even for him. Even though every time she looked at that vase of flowers, still fresh because he gave her a new one for it every day, she felt like her heart was going to break all over again…
“We must set out for Enbarr soon, Lady Edelgard. We don’t have much time left before we lose our chance.”
“I know, Hubert. We’ll leave by the end of the week, as soon as everything here is set in order.”
“...He won’t choose you, you know. Flowers and such sentiments are pretty, but they mean nothing when it comes to war.”
“I know...”
But she still asked him to come to Enbarr with her, and he said yes.
He stood there silently, with his impassive green eyes locked in an emotionless stare, as she was crowned Emperor before him, and her fate was truly locked into place.
She wondered briefly if he was going to give her any flowers, afterward...but he just took her hand in his and smiled.
He wasn’t smiling when they faced each other again...not as professor and student, but as the Church’s Ashen Demon and the Flame Emperor.
As the archbishop screamed for her head, as she prepared to call for Hubert, she found herself thinking of the flowers in her room. The little carnations, and sprouts of forget-me-not and violet that were only just started to come up.
It was a silly thing to worry about, but she hoped somebody would take care of them after she was gone.
Then he walked towards her, and she expected his weapon to raise.
But it didn’t. He didn’t—he turned his back to her, he was standing before her—he was protecting her?
As if through a fog, she heard him speak.
“I won’t kill her.”
Her heart skipped a beat again. She wasn’t sure if she was breathing either.
He chose her.
In the war camp after, preparing for the upcoming battle—the start of the war—she found herself going to him again.
Everything here had been trampled or cut down to set up camp for the army. The weather was dark and dreary, no sun, not even rain to temper the dust and ash. Certainly no flowers to be seen.
“Why did you choose me?” she asked softly, her voice catching in her throat.
He looked at her, and his face was so soft and gentle...she’d never seen that expression from him before.
“You’re...important to me,” he replied.
“Important…?”
“I...” He looked away briefly, and she noticed he was gripping one of his wrists tightly. “I suppose there is something I never mentioned, about flowers.”
She stared at him blankly.
“They make me feel things, and...they’re the only things I understand my feelings for completely. They...make sense. So when I have feelings I’m trying to convey...and I don’t know how...I use flowers.” He looked at her again, his soft green eyes meeting hers once again.
She wasn’t entirely sure if she was still breathing. “What...kind of feelings?”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked away again, and breathed out a ragged sigh. “I wish I knew how to say...but...I can’t right now. I’m...sorry.”
Then he walked away, and she struggled to keep her face composed as she returned to her tent. She had promised herself years ago that the Edelgard that cried was dead, but right now, that Edelgard was fighting hard to return.
Then everything went wrong, and he was gone, and she didn’t know how to feel anymore.
Five years passed. It was hard to describe, that feeling of being surrounded by friends and allies and soldiers, yet also being completely and utterly alone. Even Hubert, whose company used to fill her days, just wasn’t enough anymore.
Wars were a brutal time, especially when it came to supplies, and so the greenhouse and other fertile land were strictly used for growing food. There was always so much to do, and no time to spend on something as useless as flowers.
Yet Edelgard still kept a flowerbox in her room….and even though she knew it was foolish, that he wasn’t coming back, she still clung to the thought that he would return, and she was going to have flowers for him when he did. No matter what.
And then he did, and it felt like the sun was shining for the first time in years.
She brought the flowerbox to his quarters, later that day. His face seemed to light up as soon as he saw it.
“I didn’t think anyone would bother still growing flowers, considering the circumstances...”
“I knew you would come back,” she murmured, and then coughed to cover the catch in her voice. “I wanted to have them ready for you.”
He gently took her hand in his, and all she could think about was how warm he was.
“Thank you.”
His room was soon full of flowers once again. But this time, instead of decorating the halls, the flowers he grew went to rest on graves.
She used to go out to place the flowers alone. Sometimes Hubert would accompany her, but most times it was something she would do alone. Now though, whenever she went out, the professor was always at her side.
He gave her a flower every day. Sometimes he would leave it on the doorstep, other times he would slide it over to her as they drank tea together. Sometimes, he would even press one into her hand, in the aftermath of a battle, and then move away to tend to some wounded without saying a word.
She wondered if he would ever find the words to express how he felt...or if she would. But until then, the flowers would have to do, and every time he gave her one she felt her heart skip a beat.
“The professor sure does like flowers, doesn’t he?”
“Indeed. I suppose it must be a hobby of his.”
“He also likes to give you a lot of flowers.”
Edelgard sipped her tea quietly, fighting to remain expressionless. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Please don’t play coy with me, Edie. It’s not like he goes around giving flowers to just anyone.”
“He probably merely intends for me to place them on graves, as I’ve always done.”
“Edie...”
A sigh. “I don’t know what else I can tell you, Dorothea. If he ever figures out what he wants to say...but then, that’s best saved for after the war anyway.”
“You don’t have to wait on him to make the first move. Maybe what he needs is for you to tell him how you feel first.”
“...You know it’s not that simple.”
“I don’t see why it can’t be.”
It was raining, the night before the battle. The camp was set up not far from the plains, where the Empire and Kingdom would clash for surely the final time.
With a pounding heart, Edelgard approached the professor's tent. She paused at the front, her grip tightening around the precious gift she held behind her back, and took a deep breath before rapping lightly on the side of the tent.
She heard a quiet mumble of assent, and slid open the tent door. As she’d expected, the professor was still awake, dressed lightly and reading a book.
“May I speak with you?” she asked, and he nodded. She ducked into the tent as he set the book aside and roughly ran a hand through his hair, as if to make it more presentable (it wasn’t).
“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked lightly.
“No...but I also had something I wanted to speak with you about,” she replied softly, and withdrew her other hand from behind her back, revealing a single red rose in her hand. “I...wanted to give you this.”
His face softened slightly. “It’s beautiful..”
“My teacher...no...Byleth,” she said gently, offering the rose to him. “You told me five years ago that when you don’t know how to express your feelings, you use flowers. And I...I haven’t been sure how to express my own feelings, myself. But we don’t know what might happen tomorrow, s-so...” She took a deep breath, trying to stop her voice from shaking. “So I wanted to make sure...that you knew how I felt, before then.”
He gently took her hand into his, and she realized neither of them were wearing gloves—this was the first time she’d ever touched his skin. His hands were still so warm…
“I...I feel the same way, El,” he replied softly. “I’m sorry I don’t know how to say it...and that I’ve waited so long to try...but...”
“It’s okay,” she whispered, looking down at the rose in their hands. His skin was a lot rougher than she’d imagined, and she could see the little scars and callouses all over them that explained that...but they still felt so perfect in hers, her equally scarred and damaged self.
He pressed her hand gently to his lips, and a shiver ran down her spine. “You are everything to me,” he whispered.
And she felt like she was flying.
When the war was over, he gave her a ring, and that night they dreamed of the flowers they were going to grow together.