Written for day 2 of Yuridetta Week, 2021. Prompt: Childhood! Can be read as a standalone or as a spoiler-free prequel to my main Yuridetta fic: 'The Bear and the Bird'.
This is set during Yuri and Bernadetta's time at the Varley estate when they were kids and Yuri still had the mission to kill her, so Yuri's name isn't 'Yuri LeClerc' yet. The game states that Yuri doesn't adopt that alias until he gets adopted by House Rowe, which I believe doesn't happen until after the attempted assassination, so that's why he simply refers to himself as 'the boy' for most of the fic (since we don't know his real name).
Hope that clears everything up. And without further ado, onto the fic!
His target had made him wait. It had been more than a week since the boy had begun working at the Varley estate, and the target had still not shown up. He'd thought it was perfect. An assistant gig was the best way for a boy like him to enter the House, and the boy knew that if his home had a garden like this one, he would've spent hours running through the winding flowers and hedges.
But the girl refused to show up. At least for a little while.
"Evening, Lady Bernadetta," he greeted her from the other side of a dark green shrub. He'd been put in charge of shearing the leaves of a secluded corner of the garden that mostly grew the flowers requested by the count's wife. The head gardener was off in some other area, no doubt tending to the count's roses. "It's weird that you're out of your room."
It was faint, but the girl mumbled something.
"Hm? She speaks!"
"I'm sorry," the girl squeaked. Her voice was high-pitched, even for an eight-year-old girl. She was still hiding behind the bushes, so the boy couldn't see her too well, but tufts of tangled purple hair peeked their way through the freshly pruned leaves.
"Why do you have to be sorry?" The boy stood up from the spot where he had been kneeling and dusted the dirt off of his gardening trousers, trousers which were ugly brown that was the unfortunate standard uniform for Varley gardeners. "I'm the commoner who's trying to talk to a noble lady."
"You don't have to call me that." Her voice had gained some confidence to it, but it was still too low for the boy to hear without pressing his ear to the shrub.
Great, he realized. Now it looks like I'm listening to a plant. If he were talking to anyone else, he probably would've left already. But he had to get close to his target, so he decided to play along.
"Call you what?" He asked. "'Noble lady'?"
"Lady Bernadetta." She said. "Only the grown-ups call me that."
"What am I supposed to call you then? Lady Varley?"
"No!" The girl gasped as she realized how loud she'd been, and the boy winced as he rubbed his now-sore eardrum. "My mom calls me Bernie. Sometimes."
"Ha! If I called you that, the count would cut off my head."
No answer came in return.
The boy sighed. I can't believe I have to baby this girl so much. What, is she such a loner she doesn't have any friends? She can't be like this with everyone. "How about I just call you Bernadetta? That way we avoid the 'Lady' thing and I keep my neck."
"Deal!"
The girl jumped out from behind the bush and stuck her hand out towards the boy. She had her head down and obscured by her hair, and her hand was small and shaking. It was smooth, like those of most noble children, but was covered in blank ink stains. Reluctantly, the boy slipped off his gardening glove and shook her hand.
Bernadetta raised her head. Her eyes were a shade of light grey, and the boy was pretty sure he could see faint freckles on her cheeks. She had small lips too, and parts of them were red like they'd been bitten a lot. "What's your name?" She asked.
"Germain." The alias slipped off his tongue easily now. The boy had tripped over the syllables the first few days, but his time with the head gardener had made the name fit like a glove.
"Father doesn't like bringing other children here." Bernadetta hunched inward as she said it, like she was trying to hide in the long purple jacket she was wearing. It was barely autumn, but Varley territory got cold easily, and they were in an open-air garden. "Sometimes his friends come over, but he doesn't let me out of my room when they're here."
"I'm sure those kids are idiots." The boy looked up at the sky and saw how the pinks had merged into darker shades of orange and red. Sunset was coming soon. "I should get going."
"Wanna play?" Bernadetta asked at the same time. When she realized what the boy had said, her face turned bright red. Her hands grabbed onto chunks of her hair and yanked. Hard. "Ack! I'm sorry! You need to go. And Father won't like it if you stay. I shouldn't have asked! Stupid Bernie! I'm sorry!" And as she screamed, she turned away and started to run.
No, no, no, the boy thought. She can't run away—not when I've finally made progress!
"Hey, wait!" He called out to her.
Bernadetta stopped mid-run. She turned to face him, but the boy could see how she was shaking despite her jacket.
"Wanna play hide-and-seek?" He blurted out. It was the first thing he could think of, and he immediately wondered if that was the best or stupidest thing to say.
"R-really?" Bernadetta's fingers slid away from her hair.
The boy shrugged. She hadn't taken off again, so he assumed he was on the right path. "Why not?"
"Ok." Bernadetta's face scrunched up like a kitten's, but the corners of her mouth gave away her smile. "I hide first!"
Before the boy could say another word, Bernadetta had already sprinted behind one of the tall bushes. "I did say hide-and-seek," he groaned. "Ok. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…"
The boy had to give Bernadetta some credit. The girl was very good at hiding in the garden. It took longer than the boy liked to admit to find her the first time, and that's only because part of her jacket had gotten caught on a branch. She'd been running between two bushes the entire time. And the boy hadn't heard her once!
"I'm lithe!" Bernadetta boasted, grinning even after the boy had found her. "I learned that word in a book Mother gave me. Do you like to read?"
The boy shrugged. "Sometimes. But I don't have a lot of books."
"You can borrow mine." Bernadetta gave him a quick push. "After I find you!"
And that's how the rest of the day went. The boy would hide in a spot he was sure no adult would look in, but then got reminded that Bernadetta was not an adult. She was willing to crawl under the bushes and through the mud just to make sure that the boy wasn't hiding there, and it was the main reason why the boy kept getting found. Bernadetta would also hide, and each time the hiding spot got more creative. First she hid under the empty sacks of dirt that had been cast aside at the edge of the garden. Then she hid among the purple roses, using her matching-colored jacket to blend in. Even though this was the first time the boy had seen her in the garden, it was clear that Bernadetta knew every nook and cranny of the place.
I didn't expect to have fun on a job like this, the boy thought as he wormed his way behind the base of a statue of Saint Indech. This was his best hiding spot yet, and it took Bernadetta nearly twice as long to sneak her way next to him and poke his arm.
"Found you!" She giggled. "Now it's my turn. You count to—"
A loud bell rang out through the garden courtyard. It chimed another eight times, and that was not good news for the boy. Was it really that late?
"I'm not supposed to be here this late," he whispered to himself. "I don't know how I'm gonna get out now."
"Father can't find you here." Bernadetta bit her lip. Her eyes darted back and forth until she suddenly gasped and gripped the boy's hand in hers. "Follow me," she said, and pulled him out into the open air.
With lithe steps, the two of them ran through the quiet garden. Their feet padded the stone paths, and the boy let himself be led through the vast garden he'd only barely begin to learn. Eventually, they finally reached a low fountain near the very back of the garden. But it was a dead end. The only thing that surrounded it was the exit, a bunch of shrubs, and a tall wall covered in ivy.
"I can't hide he—"
Before he could say anything else, Bernadetta tugged his hand until they reached the ivy-covered wall. The young girl turned left, and that's when the boy noticed that they weren't heading straight into a bush.
A long wooden trellis that was completely hidden by mounds of ivy hid a small pathway. Bernadetta led him through, and the boy found himself in a part of the garden that he didn't even know existed. Large shrubs that were at least three times his height surrounded a square of the garden, with violets and belladonnas growing around them. A white iron table sat in a corner with matching iron chairs, and there was even a white bench at the far end of the square.
Bernadetta let go of the boy's hand to show off the space. "No one comes here. The servants can't see someone unless they come through this bit, and no one but me comes except the gardener. You can come to work early!"
That actually worked perfectly for him. "Thanks," he said.
"Does this mean we're friends now?"
The boy paused. "Friends?"
"You're fun to play with." Bernadetta's fingers rubbed the cuff of her jacket. "And I like you. That means we're friends, right?"
The boy smiled. "Looks like. You're the only other kid here, and you know where the best hiding spots are. Playing with anyone else would be boring."
Bernadetta grinned wide and jumped high in the air, and the boy could already see her already messy hair tangle itself even more. "Yay! I'll come back tomorrow! I have a bunch of other games we can play, and I can bring you my books! Or maybe we can go on adventures. The garden is so big! Or maybe I can show you the house! Or—"
"Bernadetta." The boy grabbed her by the arms to get her to stop jumping. Once he made sure that he could hear no footsteps heading their way, he pressed a finger to his lips.
"Oh." Bernadetta giggled and mimicked the boy. "Shhhhh."
But the boy's mind was still thinking. I have to make sure she keeps liking me, he thought. Looking around, he spotted a particularly large belladonna that stood out in the dark shrub. He walked over and quickly cut the stem with his bare fingers. It made bits of his skin go red, but that was ok.
He went back to Bernadetta, bowed just a little bit, and held out the flower. "Good night, Bernadetta."
Bernadetta pressed both of her hands to her mouth and giggled. She picked up the flower with a single hand, revealing enough of her mouth to see that she was biting her smiling lip. "Good night, Germain. See you tomorrow!"
Bernadetta skipped away, leaving the boy alone in the little corner of the garden. He walked over to the lonely bench and lay down on it. It wasn't comfy, but it was better than other places he'd slept, and at least this one had a view of the stars. And very conveniently, it was also a good place to hide before going to kill the naive girl who'd shown it to him.
The boy put his arms behind his head and smirked. This job was going to be easier than he thought.
Yuri wasn't entirely sure what brought him back to the old garden. Maybe it was to see how the flowers he'd spent hours pruning were faring, maybe it was for nostalgia's sake. Whatever the reason, he found himself wandering through the familiar flora he had come to know over the course of many moons.
There had been changes made to it, of course. There were more bluebells, a favorite of the count's wife, planted around the garden, but there were also more… unconventional plants growing. As Yuri ventured deeper into the greenery, he spotted a large section filled with carnivorous plants of varying sizes. Most of the gardeners tended to the other, more tame, parts of the garden, but one gardener, in particular, worked around the hungry plants with a smile in her eyes.
Looks like Bernadetta isn't alone in her taste of flora, Yuri thought. He walked past the woman and ventured even further down the paths. He followed the winding stones until he reached a familiar juncture with a low, white fountain surrounded by ivy-covered walls. He walked past it, turning behind the fake wall he remembered was to the left.
The hidden corner was almost exactly as he remembered it. A mixture of violets and belladonnas grew amid large bushes that hid the area from view, and a large curtain of ivy still blanketed the only solid wall, creating a sanctuary of green and purple. The lonely bench was still there, and it had been well-taken care of. It had been painted grey, though the iron showed no signs of rust. The same had been done with the iron table and its chairs.
Yuri spotted a familiar thick sketchbook laying closed on the table, its bright blue cover standing out amid the otherwise consistent color palette. Next to it was a pencil case that had been decorated to look like a hedgehog.
"Yuri? What are you doing here?"
Yuri turned around to face Bernadetta as she walked into the hidden corner, and it wasn't his fault that doing so made his cape conveniently hide the sketchbook from her view. "I could ask you the same thing."
Bernadetta pouted at him. "I'm looking for my sketchbook! I know I left it somewhere. I wanted to draw the violets while they were in full bloom."
Yuri raised an eyebrow. "You still come here?"
"Of course!" Bernadetta closed her eyes as she took in the smell of the garden. "It's nice here. It's quiet, no servants, and no one comes here except—"
"You and the gardener?" Yuri smirked. He deftly snatched the sketchbook and pencil case in a single hand, bowed ever so slightly, and presented them to Bernadetta.
There was a brief pause, and then Bernadetta's eyes lit up like the sun itself. She giggled into her gloved hand as she accepted her belongings. "You still remember that day!"
Yuri straightened himself up and smiled. "Yeah," he said. "I do."