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Hubert wasn’t prone to sentiment. Neither was he immune. After realizing how horribly he’d blundered into Ferdinand’s tragedy that caused his beastly curse, Hubert went and made a promise. One he felt obligated to at least attempt to keep. Perhaps his magical skills would not be sufficient to break such a potent, furious curse meant for Ferdinand’s father. Hubert sneered to himself at the thought of him—hiding away to leave his son to contend with the consequences of his own actions. Ludwig never had his respect to begin with. Even so, he found new ways to sink to ever deeper lows. If he would not act, Hubert had to try. Those odds were better than Ferdinand finding the mercurial and fickle true love that would break the spell naturally.
The kismet between the two of them was nowhere near clearing the requirements of the enchantress’ hex. Given her power, it would be very specific magic with no room for leniency. Hubert had much more confidence in his own talent than his lovability.
“Hubert…?” A yawn followed, animalistic and low. Hubert smiled and turned to the horned silhouette in the library’s doorway. “I woke up. You were not in bed.”
“Yes, I apologize. I had an idea for our project.”
“Ah.” Striding forward, oddly graceful now that Hubert had taken the time to appreciate his form, Ferdinand looked down at the tome in his hands. “I recognize none of that.”
Hubert laughed, and there must have been an echo in the library. Certainly not Linhardt chuckling at them in the dead of night. That transformed book spent a tremendous amount of time at rest.
“That’s what you have me for.”
“I can think of many reasons to be grateful for you,” Ferdinand leapt on the chance to compliment him, pulling the loose blanket closer around his furry shoulders. “Your dark magic abilities don’t define you. Not to me.”
“Flattering,” Hubert teased. There was no other way to respond that wouldn’t make him too embarrassed to return to the large bed they shared. “But I’ll have you know I’ve descended to monstrous depths to master these skills. I should hope you’d be grateful for what might very well liberate you.”
“Oh, always for that. I only hope we can be monsters together when we’ve put this curse behind us.”
“Intruder!” Lorenz shouted, a repetitive metallic thunk signifying his progress up the staircase. “Aggressor! I—I’m not sure which!”
Ferdinand was out first, naturally, all fur and not a scrap of fabric. Hubert wasn’t altogether too far behind considering his smaller stride. He reached the railing as Lorenz reached the top, and he swept the candelabra up from Ferdinand’s path.
“Both,” came a woman’s voice Hubert recognized. “Or neither soon.”
“Edelgard?”
Ferdinand came up short, scraping his claws on the ornate tiles. It must’ve rattled up through his bones. His tail whipped to curl around his leg while his ears went flat back.
“The Emperor?” Lorenz shouted, his candles flaring. “She could help us! No?”
“I’m… I’m not wearing clothes,” Ferdinand observed, letting out a soft whimper before withdrawing up the stairs and down the hall to their room. Dawn light washed in behind Hubert’s lady, axe in hand. She smiled at him and nodded after the heir of the estate.
“He does realize I couldn’t see anything, doesn’t he?”
“We should fix the door,” Hubert redirected the conversation. The fewer mementos of that unfortunate reunion, the better Ferdinand would feel.
Edelgard sat with freshly brewed tea in hand, entirely baffled as he caught her up on recent affairs. Hubert was simply glad to have her preferred blend on hand for the tale.
“So you figured out who he was after all.” Reaching for the sugar dish, she peered at him all too reproachfully. That would be more tolerable without amusement tugging at her lips. “I tried to tell you, but neither of you cared to let me speak.”
“Forgive me, milady. It’s a dreadful habit.”
“It is,” she agreed. But she surrendered to that cloying smirk next, stirring two spoonfuls of sugar into her tea. He knew far better than to criticize her sweet tooth. Particularly after she’d already gotten the upper hand in their discussion. “Yet you still haven’t realized you could lift this curse anytime?”
“I—I don’t think I have the hex reversal down just yet.” He took a seat across from her, declining a cup for herself. “My first attempt was rather violently unsuccessful.”
“At confessing to Ferdinand?”
“At—” The words caught up to him in a jumble. Having sorted them out, Hubert blinked and recoiled. “No! I investigated the rose, Lady Edelgard. It repelled the effort.”
“Was this before or after you feel the way you do now?”
He could deny it, but he could feel the heat spreading across his face to his ears. She knew him too well. A childhood together before he formed the proper aloof regard gave her quite the advantage. As such, he had no defenses against such an enduring friendship. One might even forgive Hubert for that vulnerability.
“Before. Your Highness.” Regretting his decision to forgo a cup, Hubert repositioned the teapot to have something to preoccupy his hands. Anything for that restless impulse to get up and pace. “If only just.”
“At least there’s that. Now you have the easier solution at hand, your efficient mind can hop right to it.”
“I don’t share your eagerness,” Hubert commented. He frowned at the dusty lace laid over its paired plain red tablecloth. The patriotic traces of the main Imperial color seemed ill-fit for the abandoned estate of Ludwig von Aegir. Yet not even resentment for the absent lord could muster enough displeasure to outweigh his uneasiness. Hubert brushed off some of the dust in an ineffectual gesture that only made the remaining patches more obvious. “Or your confidence.”
“All you have to do is say it, mean it, and see if it works.” Edelgard paused for a sip, letting out a content sigh afterwards. Pauses to relax meant a great deal to her. All the more for having so few opportunities for it. She smiled and his gaze flicked down to the teapot. “If not, you still have him.”
“And you are so certain he is interested?”
“He bounded down the stairs naked to protect you,” Edelgard correctly observed. It evidently meant something grander than the mere statement. “I’m certain.”
“I see this is an awful time for my return,” Ferdinand announced himself, formally clothed. Dorothea’s best efforts were most likely involved. He turned away as Hubert looked up. For a terrible second, he thought maybe Ferdinand misunderstood the sentimental atmosphere as something other than friendship. “I can come back when you’ve forgotten about that completely.”
“You’d be gone quite a while,” Edelgard teased. Another rare opportunity. With so many members of the Adrestian court and adjacent companions at this estate, few friends remained to banter with. “I’d rather talk with you, Ferdinand.”
He sat forward quite before he knew what he planned to say.
“Your Highness—”
“Unless you’d like some privacy. Hubert?”
Uncertainty was similarly foreign to him. Most especially in regards to navigating a conversation with Lady Edelgard, whether she was feeling impish or not. He lifted the teapot and moved it to another place on the table. Staring at it before sliding his gaze up to her, Hubert clasped his hands together. She was giving him an opening. To what, he was sure he knew—and less sure he would have the confidence to go through with it.
“Yes. Privacy.”
She got up from her seat and Ferdinand gave an aborted bow. He was too broad not to block her path if he made the full attempt. In her wake, the improvised tearoom felt oddly larger with just himself and Ferdinand together. Hubert realized he stood to absently pour tea into a bowl for Ferdinand’s sake. The Aegir heir lowered himself to his haunches and let the makeshift cup warm his hands. Those honeyed eyes scanned him and inevitably found the wavering in Hubert.
“Are you well? I thought you would be happy to see her again.”
“I am,” Hubert assured him. He happened to be feeling a lot more than that. Sitting in his seat again, he ran his gloved hands down his knees. The sweat lined his palms regardless for obvious reasons. “Embarrassed to have not lifted your curse, I think.”
“It’s quite alright, Hubert. You will.” Resting a clawed hand over Hubert’s, his host and erstwhile kidnapper smiled. A hint of fangs struck him as bizarrely comforting. “I trust you.”
“Thank you,” Hubert muttered. The noble’s hand dwarfed his own, and a faint radiance of heat burrowed into the very tips of his fingers. He discovered he was transfixed by the sight of their hands as he continued. “Whatever might come of it, you should know…”
“Yes?” Ears perked up and tail swishing, Ferdinand attracted Hubert’s attention as surely as ever. All while he exposed himself as wholly incapable of bluffing. At least where it concerned the implied subject.
Hubert breathed a laugh. “It seems you already know.”
“Tell me anyway,” Ferdinand implored him. He moved the other hand over to join the first. “Please.”
“I’ve found that I love you.” Dallying wouldn’t serve him or save him. If Hubert danced around the confession, he knew Edelgard would playfully nudge him along. The whole house would be in on it before long. “I acknowledge that this may not be reciprocated, given my countenance and disposition, and the nature of the curse itself—”
“I’m not worried about that, darling. Not between us.”
Ferdinand started to shine quite literally, beaming smile aside, starting in the center of his chest and rolling outwards to his hands over Hubert’s.
“Ferdinand?” Hubert saw the effect starting before him, withdrawing his hand and burying the remorse at that small distance. It wouldn’t help matters if they were both caught up in the same mystical effect. He stood, although there was nothing he could do to alter this path. No more than he already had. “Are you out of time? Is the curse…?”
Ferdinand lifted his paw, examining it in curiosity that quickly succumbed to a nervous laugh. “I—I don’t know. This doesn’t seem like before.”
“Whatever happens, whatever comes of it,” Hubert insisted, searching his own magical reserves to see what energy he might have at his disposal. There was no spell to conjure until he knew more. Still, he would be ready when the time came. “I am with you.”
“Yes. Yes, I love you too,” Ferdinand blurted out too impulsively to be faked. A shaky breath took away some of the softness of their exchange, and Hubert was quite unsurprised to feel furious with the enchantress and her intended target. The sensation was suppressed. Ferdinand needed him now, not after he schemed up some proper retribution. “I think I’m scared.”
“Then I will be brave for you.” Laying out his cloak, Hubert gestured for Ferdinand to take advantage of it. As insubstantial as it was in comparison to his bulk. “Lay down. I’ll take care of you, Ferdinand.”
Walking out of the tearoom off the foyer had to happen eventually, and they would fool no one by leaving separately. Neither should they have felt compelled to. Hubert’s penchant for secrecy was a hard habit to break, yet he overcame it for the occasion. Ferdinand needed something to fit his human form besides. Hubert’s cloak was the best candidate. He held it in place around his hips, smiling weakly as they stepped into the grand hall.
“I appear to be—unclothed again.”
“Welcome back, Ferdinand.” Edelgard saw fit to spare the recently transformed man any further embarrassment. Facing her childhood friend, she felt no such mercy. “Hubert. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you.” He cleared his throat, missing his cloak as a manner of shroud. Not nearly enough so to reclaim it. “Your Highness.”
“I missed legs,” Linhardt provided a well-timed distraction, wandering down from the second floor wrapped in a curtain. His sleepy smirk suggested the magical restoration disturbed his nap.
“Oh, I missed walking so much!” Dorothea glided by him in a perfect gown from somewhere in the castle. She wasted no time resembling the opera star she was renowned to be. Sweeping a hand in an upward arc, she poised herself for an explanation. “Bernie is hanging back with Petra, looking for something cute together. I hope you don’t mind waiting!”
“Lorenz?” Always with his best friend in mind, Ferdinand leaned past Hubert to look up the staircase.
“Present, but… Ill-equipped, my dear friend,” Lorenz shouted from around the corner upstairs. “Give me a moment. I shall, I shall think of something!”
“My old wardrobe? Down the hall?”
“Yes! That!” Every bit as coordinated with Ferdinand, Lorenz sounded triumphant at the relatively small epiphany. A bare muscled leg stuck out from the same general direction before abruptly falling back. “Caspar, you will not greet royalty in the buff. This way.”
“But Lin—”
“Has a curtain, and he’s a scholar besides. Some quirkiness is to be expected!”
“What a relief,” Linhardt exhaled. He looked Ferdinand up and down, shifting his attention to land on Hubert. “So, who admitted it first?”
The innate shyness that afflicted Hubert in his youth made itself known again, manifesting in a blazing heat across his face.
“Ah, well.” Ferdinand stepped forward, just ahead of Hubert. He was rather wordless at the entire event. Logically knowing the news would be out at the sight of them was very different from experiencing it firsthand. “That is to say…”
“Hubert? Really?” Linhardt tsked, tucking the curtain in like a misshapen robe. “I owe Dorothea money.”
“Petra too,” Dorothea chimed, bumping her shoulder against his. “Once you find your other jacket.”
“You are insufferable,” Hubert criticized. He fixed his perfectly fine collar and moved to the equally suitable cuffs. “The lot of you.”
Edelgard only laughed, and the others naturally took that as an invitation to do the same. Even Petra took part, although Bernadetta stayed quietly smiling up on the second floor. The now-recognized glowing magic sprawled out from that grand hall, restoring the estate to reformed glory.
It wasn’t the sort of magic Hubert typically had associated with himself. Far too much healing and sparkle. In light of recent events, he felt better giving credit for those elements to one Ferdinand von Aegir.