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Lysithea has always considered the monastery library as her safe space.
For obvious reasons, it contains a multitude books about a multitude of subjects, and she's eager to learn about it all. And for less obvious reasons, private ones that only she can know, it provides her a distraction from the fact that she's inevitably going to die at a young age, and that there's no real future for herself.
All of the books she reads here are a part of her cover. I can't hang out because I need to study, she would tell her friends. Or, even better, I have better things to do than go some ball. I'm going to spend the night at the library instead. Paired with a scowl or a frown or a biting tone and her disguise was perfect for people to leave her alone, and in return, Lysithea had no one to get attached to, no one that would make dying more painful for her than the physical affair already is.
Today, however, her plans were being foiled.
When she arrived to the library today, it had practically been invaded by swarms of students, half of which she knew had little to no business being here. At some point of the year, she painfully realized, it had become a sort of… courting grounds, and lately she's been subject to couples or soon-to-be ones flirting right in front of her during her research sessions. Even Linhardt, the only person she ever lets study with her, has become victim to the trend—and she can tell because not only does he keep letting that meathead Caspar join them while they're studying, but he also stops to help him, and usually you could never bother him to explain, much less reexplain himself five times in the way he does for Caspar, with a soft smile on his face the entire time. Imagining it makes her shiver.
She strengthened her resolve to study anyway, if not more than before. She's unfortunately too short and, as much as she hates to admit it, not strong enough to carry books from the library all the way to her room. There's also no point in using a transportation spell, especially not a day to day basis with how frequently the library becomes packed these days; it would only drained her energy unnecessarily, and as a dying girl already, she didn't care to speed up the process over such petty reasons.
Besides, the library also served as the perfect place for her to hide, and that's exactly why she's using it for today, more than studying if she's being honest.
Usually, she would mind the fact that Sylvain is sitting in her favorite studying spot—the small desk right against the wall and beneath a window that allows in just the right amount of brightness for her to turn each page—and leaning his handsome yet annoying face into Ingrid's as she studies in such an irksome way, and she almost wants to throw a book at the back of his head for her—though, Ingrid doesn't seem to mind, her features etched with stress as she pours over what seems to be a book called What To Do When Your Pegasus Won't Fly—but today, she uses it as an excuse to walk deeper into the library, passing each aisle until she finds a perfectly empty one in the Dark Magic Section, which she's surprised is even here with how zealous the Church can be.
Sitting on the ground with her legs crossed is not Lysithea's favorite way to study, perhaps one of her least favorite, but she ignores the discomfort of the hard floor by cracking open a dark magic book she picked out earlier, which details the best methods of poisoning your enemies. Leisurely, she flips through the pages, finally relaxing from the incident in the dining hall only fifteen minutes ago. Like a gift from the Goddess, a ray of sunshine slips through the crack the window, and shines just enough light for her to see the words in front of her. She sighs in content, letting her guard down—
"Lysithea?"
The masculine voice startles her into a yelp, causing her to slam her book closed. When she looks up, Cyril is standing at the end of the aisle, a few feet away. She notices the bow strapped to his back, and the glimmer of training-induced sweat along his forehead, a sight she's definitely no stranger to, but still sends her into a tizzy.
"Cyril," she says, unknowing of what else to say.
He seems to share the same sentiment with his lack of response, but unlike her, he doesn't seem embarrassed to see her at all. In fact, he looks at her in the same manner as he always does, dark brows straight and habitually pointed, his lips set into a perpetual frown—so seeing the corners of them turn is more entertaining than seeing a Crest in action, like discovering something new, while simultaneously having been there all along—and Lysithea hates the way it unravels her anyway, any time, anywhere.
The death of her may come from simply being in Cyril's presence, she briefly wonders, and not from the Crest cancer that looms over her daily, because there must be no explanation for how weak becomes upon seeing him.
Regretfully, Lysithea remembers how she ran into him in the dining hall this morning. She had just gotten breakfast, the steam of hot porridge fogging her vision, and meant to head to one of the tables when Cyril came into view. The sight of him was no surprise, yet it still sent a shockwave through her, as if her body couldn't help itself, remembering what happened between them two days before—
"You always sound sad when we say goodbye," Cyril tells her.
She's backed against her own bedroom door, her fingertips slipping from the knob that would let her escape this, whatever this is, but instead, her heart is a villain of her own making. She thinks about her Crests, and how ill fated they are, and how Cyril could never be with her—no, she could never be with him, and that's why falling in love with him is the worst thing she's ever done and yet.
And yet.
"Don't say goodbye," she hears him saying, his breath inching closer and closer to hers, until their lips are merely an inch apart from each other. She could push him away and he would let her, but she doesn't, fully disarmed by the confidence and sincerity in his golden eyes. "Say goodnight," is all he whispers before he kisses her, running his hands through her silvery, moonlit hair, her hands grasping onto the front of his training uniform—
She shakes her head. She can't be thinking about this again. It had been the whole reason why she ran off to the library without eating breakfast in the first place, after accidentally meeting his eyes from afar. He gave her a wave, a habitual greeting, and that secret smile she could find and set apart within a crowd of countless faces, and that's when she just couldn't take it anymore.
The monastery library was supposed to be her safe space, but here Cyril stands, ruining it for her.
Her faint blush is masked by the dimness of the aisle they're in, and her face otherwise betrays nothing. She returns her attention to her book, peeling another page back. Out of the corner of her eye, she watches him continue to gaze upon her intently, and flatly as possible, she says, "May I help you with something?"
"Nope," he says.
She sighs. "Okay, so what?"
"I'm just thinking."
After a moment of Cyril 'just thinking'—a tortuous act for Lysithea, who sits through it, heart racing—he unlatches the bow from his back, carrying it in hand, as he walks over and plops himself right beside her. Settling into his sitting position, he casually leans his head against the tall bookshelf standing behind them, and she watches his face contort out of brief discomfort, before smoothing out to its normal state.
"What are you doing?" Lysithea says incredulously.
Cyril looks at himself, then at her. He even has the nerve to look confused. "I'm sitting?"
"Well—of course, it doesn't take a Crest Scholar to see that," Lysithea retorts, "I just mean, why are you—don't you have better things to do right now?"
When he shrugs, she feels his shoulder brush up against hers. "Are there better things to do than hang out with you?"
Her face blooms like a rosebush during Blue Sea Moon. She struggles to find words to reply with, all fumbling in her mouth uselessly. "P-plenty!" she says, huffing, "Don't waste your time."
"I'm not," he says, and it almost sounds like a challenge coming from him, testing her on how far she'll let him go, how far she'll let him in. They do this push and pull all the time, and Lysithea allowed it against her better judgment. Now, she's dealing with the consequences, running away from him and trying to return their relationship to how it used to be, instead of this in between she's foolishly set for them.
Lysithea hasn't told Cyril about her Crest cancer, nor does she ever plan to, because there's no point in doing so—no sane person would ever want to be with her if they knew. And even if, Goddess forbid, someone did, somehow, she'd break their heart, as she's broken her parents when they found out at her birth. They hid their feelings from her, but she didn't miss the wistful way they looked at her every time she came back home. That's why she did them a favor and enrolled herself into the academy, giving them an opportunity to live their lives without guilt, to stop subjecting her to the weight of their sadness and pity. And if she died during the war, it would only hasten what was already inevitable, perhaps in a more acceptably gallant way. Oh well.
But in a cruel twist of fate, she met Cyril.
At first, he meant nothing to her, only noticing him in passing on the way to the second floor dormitories. It was only until they met again during the reunion of Golden Deer, five years later, that he started to capture her attention, taller, stronger, and irritatingly handsome. It was merely surface level attraction, one that she could easily ignore as someone passionately devoted to her studies. Learning everything the world had to offer, after all, did not leave much room for anything else, so she was initially peeved by Cyril interrupting her reading session one day. "I need you to teach me how to read," he said then, "So I can be more useful to Lady Rhea." She considered rejecting his request, but the look on his face—so full of vulnerability that Cyril usually never let show—deeply resonated in her heart, agreeing for her. Since then, Lysithea would visit his room every few nights for reading lessons, exchanging not just words, but brief touches, ones that were merely accidental—her knuckles grazing his, as she pointed something in a book he trying to read—or compulsory—his hands lacing with hers, celebrating him writing a full letter of only a few typos instead of several—until they eventually became too frequent to be simply happening by chance.
The same could be said about the time they began to spend together outside of their reading lessons. Training, eating, bantering—lingering around each other, a few minutes longer than necessary. And at some point, for once, Lysithea stopped feeling trapped in time, uncaring. Cyril would never know about her two Crests, but at least she would know what peace felt like whenever he was around her.
That alone used to be enough.
Now, she's become greedy—yearning and wanting more from him than she should, and being alone, becoming close, its too much for her to bare, hungry for whatever taste of affection that Cyril can afford her. And always, in the rare moments where she relents, he obliges, as if he's been waiting for her this entire time. The kiss in the corridor was just the tipping point, blissfully sweet and devastatingly irreversible. A mistake, one she's trying—struggling to undo.
Lysithea snaps out of her thoughts and back to reality at the feeling of Cyril's arm shamelessly looping through hers. As he knots his fingers together on his lap, she shoots him a half hearted glare.
"Its easier for you to read like this, no?" Cyril asks her, in a serious, well meaning tone. "I can't exactly hold your hand while you're reading. I mean, unless you want me to."
He smiles.
She coughs. "Absolutely not," she replies, thinking, It would be easier for me to read if you'd just leave me alone, but its a lie and she knows it, by the taste of it on her tongue. "Ugh. Just—don't move. Or talk."
"Sure," he says.
With a small hmph, she returns her attention to her neglected book. Its contents are interesting, and for a few minutes, Lysithea is actually immersed in her reading. Unfortunately, its not too long until her mind starts to wander, returning to Cyril as though it never fully left him in the first place. In this position, she can feel the roundness of his bicep, even through the scrunched up fabric of his teal sleeves, tensing and relaxing as he breathes, and she can't help but fantasize about touching them again, the same way she did a few days ago. And then, to make matters worse, the words in front of her seem to be slipping from the page and falling onto his hands—they must be, for Lysithea to be glancing at them between every turn of a cream page. She relives their touch in the memories of their reading lessons, or while he taught her how to use a bow and arrow at the training grounds, late at night while no one else was around—his bronze hands felt wide, calloused, and overwhelmingly soft, all at once.
The scene in her mind dissipates at the feeling of Cyril's shoulder leaning against hers. Lysithea turns her head, only to find his own leaning forward, now inches away from her face. Any closer, and their noses would touch. Instinctively, she retreats from him, but not without catching a glimpse of his faintly mauve lips.
"I'm trying to read, Miss von Ordelia," he murmurs, seemingly paying her no mind. His eyes are slowly moving across the page she's on, focused. Her heart swells.
There's nothing she can respond with.
Breathing practically in sync, they continue to read together like this, until the bright afternoon fades into a darker, orange-hued evening. Lysithea is about fifty pages into the book before the weight of Cyril's head completely slides onto her shoulder, nuzzling into her body, and she realizes he's fallen asleep.
A few minutes pass of her simply staring at him, half afraid he's going to wake up. When he doesn't, she finally allows her feelings to take control. Gingerly, she reaches to touch his coarse, dark hair, dares to run it through the pads of her fingertips, which then travel to his short eyelashes, along the curve of his cheek, to the scar on the side of his forehead, tracing each feature like she'll never get the chance to again—because she won't.
At long last, her fingertips touch his lips, still so warm and plush even in Cyril's slumber. Mourning the feeling as she removes them after a second, she lightly presses them against her own lips, like soothing balm to a never ending ache. She lets the kiss she stole from him linger until it hurts, until a single tear drops spills onto her book.
Unable to read a single word more, she allows sleep to take her under, living in this moment and this moment between them only, too tired to think of more schemes to escape him right now. She'd have to return to doing that tomorrow.
When she wakes, he's gone.
There's only a note curled into her hand, a rip of parchment. Lysithea finds his handwriting within it, a messy, wobbly scrawl, and she feels herself smile in spite of it all.
I missed you too.
Love,
Cyril