CW: Major Character Death.
Lysithea knows that it's an adjustment for Felix, laying down his sword and retiring into a mundane sort of life. It shows in the awkward way that he mills about his days, puttering around as he tries to find new hobbies.
Felix isn't very good at it— finding new things that grab his interest. He'd always lived by his sword and expected to die by it too. Falling in love was an unexpected complication in his carefully thought-through plan for life.
Lysithea isn't complaining, of course; she knew exactly what she was getting into when she decided to pick him. And honestly, she's made worse choices. Felix is the kind of man, though, who has no plan, and when he chose to stay with her and settle down, he'd all but lost it.
As she does with everything, Lysithea goes about thinking of a solution. Thinks of it as a problem and sorts out the pros and cons. And then it comes to her— the perfect retirement plan.
There's only one problem— Felix will absolutely hate it.
"Better than dying by a sword, though," she muses, tapping a finger against her chin in thought. She can convince him somehow— after all, she'd convinced him to get his head out of his ass and love her instead.
In the grand scheme of things, opening a bakery isn't such a half-baked idea.
#
"It's a terrible idea," says Felix when she proposes it.
Lysithea looks at him, a not-so-sweet smile curving her mouth as she snorts in response. "Tell me how you really feel, why don't you?"
"Lysithea, I hate sweets—"
"There are plenty of baked goods that aren't sweet."
"That isn't the point—"
"Then what is?" Lysithea crosses her arms over her chest and levels him with a look that's a challenge.
"We can't just…"
Lysithea huffs. "And why not? I can bake and you're decent at math. Our books won't be entirely cooked."
Felix drags a hand down his face, groaning. "That isn't—"
"The point," finishes Lysithea. She rolls her eyes childishly. "So you've already said."
"We don't need a retirement plan," says Felix quietly. Tiredly. Entirely done with the conversation.
"Not we," says Lysithea, "You need one. You have no idea what to do with yourself now that you've laid down your sword."
Felix sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's a terrible idea," he repeats, "And this is me telling you so." Then he stands and leaves her in the kitchen of their tiny cottage.
When he's gone, Lysithea can't even be mad. In fact, it went better than expected. She smiles widely and laughs. "Well, he didn't say no."
#
Lysithea sets about taking matters into her own hands because that's what always happens. It was like that before and during the war, and it's like that now. Felix is satisfied with their mundane little life well enough, but it's Lysithea who slowly tugs at the reins from behind the scenes.
She looks at properties for sale and runs their meager finances. She talks to her parents about investing what's left of the estate. She crunches numbers and ideas and even dates, of all things— because sad as it is to think, she doesn't have a lot of time to figure it out.
But she will. She always does.
One wet and dreary morning, she drags Felix from their bed at an ungodly hour.
"Wife," he murmurs testily, eyes crusted with sleep and yawning as Lysithea tugs a clean shirt over his head.
"Shush," she says to him, "I have a surprise for you."
Which is a small storefront in the middle of their village, an old bakery that shut down a year prior after the owner passed away. Been empty ever since. It's in decent shape, not quite tipping over. The windows are in one piece and the roof isn't caved in. Felix gives it a sour look before turning to her.
"Lysithea," he starts, his tone calmer than she expects, "You haven't been spending your late nights planning recipes, have you?"
"Nope!" Lysithea gives him a toothy grin as she nudges him to look back at the building. "She's all ours."
Lysithea expects a fight because that's how Felix argues. He's never been good with words, only swords and fists, and the best thing of all is that he knows that she can take him. He doesn't though, strangely; he just sighs something soft and tired as his eyes slip closed and his head hangs low.
"Lysithea, I can't," he murmurs quietly, "I can't entertain this."
She frowns. "Can't or won't?"
Felix looks at her, a foreign expression stretched across his face, something entirely unrecognizable. For the first time, Lysithea wonders if she's made a mistake, if this is something that she truly can't figure out a solution to. Maybe this isn't like a difficult math puzzle, and Felix isn't a variable that can be given a number and solved for X.
"Is there a difference?" he asks her.
Lysithea doesn't have an answer. Felix sighs again, his expression crinkling slightly, and then he offers her a soft little smile. Compliant at best, but it's because she knows that he loves her, even when he's annoyed. And that's what he whispers against her forehead as he presses a kiss to it before he leaves.
Instead of feeling forlorn, it only inspires her further.
#
Lysithea's cheek itches with the flour it's dusted in, but—
"Perfect," she murmurs, jotting down one last adjustment on the thick parchment card. "But… just to make sure."
She pulls out a fresh set of bowls and cleans her measuring cups. Sets out all of her ingredients in a neat little line. Baking might be a messy endeavor, but she at least tries to remain neat.
Felix steps into the kitchen right as she's adding milk to the flour. He surprises Lysithea by rolling up the sleeves of his linen sleep shirt and washing his hands in the sink. And then, he sidles up next to her and nudges her shoulder with his own.
"Tell me what to do," he says quietly.
Lysithea smiles softly; she knows a peace offering when she hears it. And so she does. Lysithea directs him through the steps of her new creation and Felix listens without complaint. His hands are calloused from his years as a swordsman, a little clumsy when it comes to working with dough.
"It isn't the bakery," he finally says as he dutifully rolls out carefully weighed clumps. "That isn't why I'm so… Goddess knows it'd make you happy."
Lysithea pauses in her work and looks at him, but Felix doesn't meet her gaze. He just rolls out a sheet of dough with a pin a little bit thicker than she'd like.
"There's so little time." His voice is more frail than she's ever heard it and it immediately annoys her. Felix isn't so childlike, letting his fears get to him. He's entirely the opposite— "You have so little time and all that I can think about is how I don't want to waste it working."
Oh.She hadn't realized.
His words tug at her and Lysithea finds that she doesn't have a response. Her fingers twitch nervously as she tries to distract herself by cutting out decorative rounds and laying them flat on a baking sheet.
They don't talk about this, they rarely have— her inevitable, young end that hangs over them like a ticking clock. Lysithea ignores it, so she'd assumed that Felix does too. But once in a while, even she is wrong.
Once the cookies are in the oven, she figures that the truth is the best way to navigate these murky waters. Silence stretches awkwardly in the kitchen for an insufferably long time.
"Felix," she finally says, unable to stand the strangeness between them. "The entire point is that I want to run the bakery with you. So much has been taken away from me, and there are so few choices that I get to make. But, I chose you, and I choose this. If you're truly so against—"
The timer goes off and she pauses, pulls out the cookies, and lays them out to cool.
Lysithea pops one off of the sheet. "If you're truly so against it, then we can just move into the bakery as a house. But, at least try this first."
Felix takes the cookie and looks at it dubiously, turning it about. "A cookie," he says.
"Yes, one that I've poured every ounce of love that I have into."
He snorts at that, no doubt thinking that she's teasing, and takes a bite. And chews. And chews and chews and chews. His brow furrows as he swallows, and then— "This is good."
Lysithea smiles smugly. "Well, of course."
Felix finally looks at her. "No, I mean— I like it. It's not too sweet. It's more earthy and—"
"It was made for you." Felix stops, his head cocked to the side. "This cookie; it's always been meant for you. Something that isn't so sweet. Something that's a little bit different. I've been working on it since before we got married."
Something unreadable falls over Felix's face as he takes another bite. He finishes the entire thing and then brushes his fingers against his trousers. Then, he pulls her to him, pressing his forehead into the crook of her shoulder.
"Shh," says Lysithea, immediately soothing him as she reaches up and threads her fingers through his hair. She strokes through the strands of it gently. "I love you," she says against his ear, and she can feel the way that he shakes as he laughs against her.
Or maybe he's sobbing.
Lysithea finds that she doesn't really care.
#
Felix rises before the sun as he does every morning. He rubs the sleep from his eyes tiredly as he yawns. Getting dressed is a slow-going thing because his bones ache— both with the predawn chill and his age. But he manages.
He combs out his hair and washes his face, then eats a meager breakfast and ensures that he's decently presentable. The last time he saw Sylvain, Felix was told that he looked like a curmudgeon. It's a title that he happily wears if it means he still gets out of bed.
He pulls on a coat and buttons it up, and makes sure that his boots are tied properly before stepping out.
It's still dark and the village is quiet. Winter still bites and the air is cold, his breath puffing before his face in a cloud.
The walk to the bakery is short as Felix picks his way across snow and ice. He warms his hands before slotting the key into the lock and turning it. The bakery is as cold inside as out, but that'll change soon enough.
Felix lights lantern after lantern and the place warms with a glow. Swapping his jacket for an apron, his gaze pauses on another one that's hung on the wall for a decade, mostly untouched.
Once in a while, he washes it because Lysithea would wring his hide otherwise.
Hands that once sharpened blades, sharpen kitchen knives instead. He mixes dough and makes frosting. He sets the oven alight with kindling and what little magic he remembers. Times of war seem like such a fleeting memory nowadays, as he rolls out pastry instead and slathers it with an egg wash.
A simple day, he thinks. Less fancy offerings for such a cold morning. There will be fewer people out and about.
By the time the sky has lightened and the sun peeks over the horizon, he's already tired. His face is spattered with flour and his apron is a mess. He drags a hand through his short-cropped and thinning hair, then washes right up.
One batch in, two batches in— a dozen batches in as he pulls others out. The bakery smells of pleasant spices and fruits because, over the years, Felix has learned a trick or two. Each and every treat is arranged neatly into a tray and set into a glass case with care.
"Presentation is ninety-five percent of selling it, you know," said Lysithea once.
The bakery is unbearably quiet without her around, but Felix manages, just like he does each and every day.
The door is unlocked at five in the morning. Felix sells morning buns and breakfast breads. He doesn't slather them in extra honey like his wife used to— he's far too stingy to waste such precious ingredients.
Still, the bakery is full of her, everywhere that he looks. In the decorations, too sweet and too tacky. In the menu, carefully penned in her hand and covered with resin to keep it there. In the absurd paintings she'd commissioned from Ignatz, depicting all sorts of strange and baking-related things.
Felix sighs as his gaze falls on her old apron again.
The menu has changed. A few new things he's managed to make decent enough, but there's always a constant offering. Those cookies, the ones she'd made for him— every day it's a bittersweet routine as he weighs out the ingredients and sets about mixing them.
'Felix's Treat', says the recipe card that he doesn't need anymore. But he always pulls it out anyway, thumbing at the crumpled corners affectionately. Felix hums softly as he pulls them from the oven, a wistful smile spreading across his face at the familiar smell.
What a legacy Lysithea has left behind— this homey bakery and an ornery widower that barely tolerates people. Still, he's carried it on. It hasn't been so bad.
He treats these cookies always with care, nestling them softly into their tray.
Half-past noon a young couple steps into the bakery with the ting of the doorbell. They hold hands, the young man looking at his girl with a dopey smile. The girl beams widely at Felix, her cheeks ruddy with the cold and love.
"A Lover's Treat," she tells him, "Just one to share."
"A Lover's Treat," said Lysithea to him once, "I made these with my love for you, so it's only natural for others to feel it as well."
Felix's heart warms at the familiar memory, one that he thinks of with every one of these cookies that he sells. The bakery was smart; they did well and made a name for themselves, and this cookie is the hallmark of everything that Lysithea ever worked for.
He wraps it up with care and holds it over the counter. The girl giggles as she takes it from his hand.
"Today it's on the house," says Felix with a rare and genuine smile.
Lysithea would have smacked him.