Summary: Seeing Marianne interact with her peers leaves Byleth disillusioned with their relationship.

"...Um, I beg your pardon?"

Since beginning her enrollment at the Officer's Academy, Marianne had ran into a variety of characters, ranging from interesting to purely bizarre: a physician, formerly an opera star that she had watched perform in a show while accompanying her father in her youth, a member of the Black Eagles constantly attempting to one-up any and everyone, a man from the Blue Lions that held an analytic eye for his next duel, and a redheaded shopkeeper who seems to have everything for sale. The Golden Deer weren't exempt, having its fair share of varying personalities.

She had simply arrived to class a bit early, laying out her books and supplies at the table when suddenly the heir to House Gloucester had popped in front of her, spouting off excessively extravagant encomiums, seemingly in an attempt to woo her. To top it off, they were accompanied by flashy hand gestures, arched backs, and, strangest of all, leg stances, only serving to confuse her further. At the other side of the room was Leonie Pinelli, visibly struggling to hold in her laughter, fist practically pushed into her mouth, while Hilda gave the blue-haired girl a look of pity.

"Ah, to hear such a wondrous voice, one that can challenge the choirs of the gods! My lady, to have tea with you would be a godsend!"

"Y-yeah, oh, tea would be wonderful, alright!" Leonie barked in a mocking tone, finally bursting out in laughter; Lorenz was too caught up in his act to even notice.

Marianne, however, remained in her seat, baffled after being bombarded by the ostentatious display. "I-I'm sorry, I… I can't—"

"Oh, it doesn't have to be today! We can simply schedule it for another day…" The violethead brought a hand to his chin. "Let's see… I'm doing choir practice tomorrow… Ah! Perhaps we can—"

A metal clang resounded throughout the room, causing everyone to flinch and turn towards the source of the sound: their professor with his gauntlet against the stone wall. The door had been closed already. Under the mercenary's arm was a stack of written documents and illustrated plans. The last student to arrive, Raphael, had stopped dead in his tracks next to Byleth as all eyes were on the two of them. Softly sighing, Byleth began slowly walking around the desks, eyes following him.

"Lorenz, I'm an advocate for interacting with your peers," he said in a stern tone, laying the pile onto the desk by the large windows. "While I've told you to keep your philandering to your free hours, sometimes your classmates are trying to brush up on the material before class starts."

The young man simply nodded, clearly embarrassed by being called out first thing in the morning. Leonie let out a snort as she mouthed "idiot" in his direction, only to stiffen up as Byleth's eyes moved to stare at her. Raphael, meanwhile, slowly prepared his supplies, awkwardly fitting himself into his seat.

While Byleth often maintained a stern, almost ambivalent attitude during his lectures, Marianne noticed the subtle changes to his usual demeanor: the slightly-knitted eyebrows, the pursed lips threatening to deepen into a frown, the faint squint to his eyes, the awkward curl to his fingers, and, most telling, the way he was almost stomping with each step as he walked around the room. Every scribing with chalk was now quick, almost violent, despite the unchanging of his handwriting. When he told questions to be answered, the squint would deepen ever so slightly, like a hawk seeing prey. Towards the end of the lecture, he had snapped the piece of chalk he was using, and she watched him mouth some curses before finishing what he was writing with the half still between his fingers.

"Any questions?" he asked with finality, scrutinizing the classroom. Claude raised his hand. "Yes, von Riegan?"

"So, assuming this 'weapon triangle' theory works as it does, then where do bows and staves fall into it?" he asked, as he slowly lowered his hand.

Byleth silently cursed himself again, the toe of his boot softly stomping barely visible behind the other. "I'll have to apologize, it seems I've forgotten to cover it today. It's a short section in your books, your assignment tonight will be to read that over, and I'll answer questions about it first thing in the morning." He looked up to see the house leader nod.

Dinner hadn't been any better. From the other side of the mess hall, Lorenz was audibly lamenting his failures from that morning to a mostly apathetic Claude, who was trying to get some reading done ahead of time as he ate. Marianne looked down at her plate and away from the rambling flirt, an assembled meal of lightly seasoned trout and a side of sliced tomatoes with a dash of salt. She would usually eat with Byleth, the two often sitting in silence as they appreciated both the meal and one another's presence, and so she waited.

"Hey, hey, if it isn't the latest target of the purple creep!" Leonie shouted from behind her. Marianne turned her head to see the mercenary followed by Raphael and Hilda, the three each carrying a plate. "Oh, whoops, was that too blunt? I'm sorry."

"Do you mind if we sit here? We were supposed to talk with Claude about the lesson, but, you know," Hilda trailed off, unsubtly eyeing said man trying his best to ignore the casanova.

"I don't think I've spoken with you before, I'm Raphael! I'm in your class! What's your name?" As he sat down, the silverware shook slightly, and his voice reverberated throughout the hall.

"You big oaf, you don't actually know her name? She's been in our class the whole time!" Leonie tried to elbow the larger man, but a combination of his sheer volume and the dish in her hands meant it didn't amount to much.

Marianne leaned her head forward slightly to swallow the knot in her throat, to steel her nerves. "I… I'm Marianne. Marianne von Edmund."

"Oh, von Edmund? The house in charge of that one small territory?" Answered by a small nod, Hilda pushed on. "I've heard it's a beautiful place during the summer! Tell me, is it true?"

"Um, well, it's… It's home," she lamely answered, being caught off-guard by the suddenness of the topic.

"Ah, so you keep your secrets," Hilda returned, a wistful expression gracing her features. "I'd love to visit it someday to confirm those rumors."

"I've heard word the food there is wonderful!"

As they continued to talk amongst themselves, she looked past the three to see Byleth walk into the hall with his dinner in-hand, only for him to look in her direction, his face then appearing abashed. As he turned away to leave for his office, he was stopped by Professor Cazagranda, who Marianne saw speaking to Byleth, only for him to excuse himself, waving a hand briefly in front of him, and moving past the stunned instructor.

"I must… I must apologize," she said, as she stood up from her seat, taking her meal from the table. "I'll be taking my meal in my quarters, but thank you for your companionship."

"Oh, well, take care of yourself, then," Hilda said with an apologetic tone.

It wasn't often she found herself lying—instead of going to her room like she said, she had instead bee-lined it for Byleth's office. As she approached, she saw the frosted glass on the door catching light from the inside. Knocking thrice, and then once after a pause, she stood calmly, plate in-hand. A couple of heavy footsteps and the click of the lock later, she was inside his office, having arrived as he was half-finished with dinner. Seating herself at the leather sofa by the bookshelves and placing her food down, she watched him make his way towards her.

The two sat in silence, anticipating what the other had to say, when Byleth turned towards her. "I'm sorry," he started with, as he straightened his body and let out a clearly-restrained sigh.

"What for?"

"I don't know, I guess about everything," he continued with, scratching the back of his head.

"Byleth, I don't understand."

He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. "I guess… It's with how I'm your teacher." She motioned for him to continue. "I can't do the things like those stories say romance should be, like flirting, or kissing you, or even touching you, and even in private like this, there's always a chance that someone could intrude on us. Even talking to you, there's only so much we can say to each other before it becomes obvious who we are together."

"You know I don't care about those things, Byleth," she returned, leaning slightly towards him.

"I know, but just knowing that there's limitations, it frustrates me. There's not a lot of difference in our ages, but our positions—"

Laying a hand on his arm, Marianne tried to look at his eyes. "I suppose today didn't help, right?" He nodded an affirmative. "Well, to tell you the truth, I noticed you were a bit frustrated during the lecture."

"I was not frustrated," he tried to deflect, but she wouldn't have it.

"You were practically fuming, Byleth. Tell me, was it because of Lorenz?" When he didn't answer, she continued. "It was, wasn't it? You didn't like the sight of someone flirting with your girlfriend."

She watched his cheeks become flushed, looking away abashedly. "I wasn't jealous. I'm your boyfriend, you're my girlfriend. That's it. So what if someone else flirted with you?"

Slowly inching closer, he could feel her breath faintly press against his neck. "Well, I'm sure you wanted to let everyone know so they could back off," she said, her face centimeters away from his, the two now staring each other down, her eyes gaining the same chill as when she was surveying the battlefield on her steed, despite the tinge of embarrassment he felt from the sudden intimacy.

"I did," he admitted, softly pinching Marianne's chin. "And it would've gone something like this." Pulling her towards him, his lips softly pressed against hers, the slightest deepening of the kiss causing her to fall against his body. The initial long press turned into a shifting of their lips, the noise filling their ears as she hooked her arms around his neck, with his hands moving to her jawline to pull her closer. Their teeth threatened to grind together from their inexperience in the act, but neither party cared. When her weight yanking at his body became too much, he pushed her onto her back on the couch before pressing one more time then sitting back up, clearly out of breath. Despite the redness of his face, he finally made his first smile that day, his deep breathing unable to break it.

Marianne didn't fare much better, exhausted and her cheeks like tomatoes, the creeping thoughts pertaining to the scandalous act she had participated in clashing with thoughts of just loving. Her braiding had loosened slightly, not that she cared much.

"I suppose that would be enough," she remarked, her breathing still heavy. "I… I liked that."

"Really? It seemed like you were the expert there," he snided, despite the sappy smile on his face.

"What? I-I have never—" She simply fumed as she scrambled upright, her hands pulled close to her diaphragm as she looked away.

"Hey, wait," he said reaching towards her, only for her to suddenly turn her shoulders. "I was—I was joking."

She responded with a pout, only looking at him from the corner of her eye. "Let's… Let's just eat."

The door to Byleth's office closed again, not making a noise, as Lysithea turned away from it, her face a bright red. Having intended to clear up any questions about the assigned reading before grabbing dinner, she had instead opened the door to her instructor and classmate sucking face, the mess of sky-blue and sea-green heads of hair mashing against one another as she slowly backed away, her young heart and mind unable to comprehend the almost-violent act of affection she walked in on. Pressing her back against the wall and sliding down until she was sitting, she let her arm cross under her ribs and under the opposite elbow, a closed hand pressed against her mouth, her eyes still wide, as she attempted to rationalize exactly what she saw.

'Perhaps that's just how they greet people in certain places,' one thought amongst many ridiculous ones she could imagine. Each one she simply shook her head at.

"Excuse me, Lysithea?"

"Huh?" Broken out of her stupor, she saw Claude von Riegan before her, a book tucked under his arm. "Oh, house leader, what's going on?"

"Well, I finished the assigned reading ahead of time, so I came to ask questions now before heading to bed," he answered, reaching for the door knob when Lysithea shot her hand in front of it.

"Oh, the professor is… He's going to retire for the night himself. Soon," she said in a hurried tone. "I came to do the same as you, actually."

"Perhaps we can share our thoughts together, then? I would have done it with the others during dinner, but I was preoccupied."

"Uh, yeah, we should do that." She stood up, dusting off her skirt. "Let's discuss. Discuss the reading. Yeah."

Claude's eyebrows knitted in concern, but he otherwise paid it no mind and started walking away from the door, the magical prodigy following suit. "Alright, well, regarding staves…"

Author's Notes: Once again, my mind wanders towards ideas away from the ideas I originally wanted to write. Definitely a more romantic one after the previous lore-heavy one, though!

I'm chalking up any aggressive behavior on Marianne's part to Berkut blood.