Sylvain had just gotten out of a spear training session, along with both a number of Rising Sun members and several Zora trainees. Now that he was done, he had decided to chat up a pretty Zora lady.

"I think I just felt a connection, you know?" Sylvain said. She seemed to be buying what he was selling.

Suddenly, Felix grabbed his arm. "I need to borrow this."

"Felix, wha—" Felix dragged him away to a corner.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded.

"...Flirting?" Sylvain said.

"I can see that," Felix said. "Let me rephrase, Mister Romantic. Are you seriously going to keep up your philandering here in Hyrule?"

"Is there a particular reason why I wouldn't?" Sylvain asked.

"Maybe because you don't have money here. You don't have status. You have a Crest, but nobody here knows or cares about that," Felix snapped. "Your justification for being a philanderer in Fódlan was because women only wanted those things from you, wasn't it? Here in Hyrule, though, the only reason a woman would be interested in you is because she's interested in you."

Sylvain struggled to come up with a rebuttal, but couldn't think of one.

"I didn't think you cared," he finally said.

"I don't," Felix said. "But if you get beaten senseless by the trail of heartbroken women you leave in your wake, the company will have to pay for a healer."

"Sure," Sylvain said sarcastically. "I'm sure your sudden concern for others has nothing to do with what a certain Sheikah girl might think."

"You leave Paya out of this," Felix growled.

"Okay, okay," Sylvain conceded.

Well, this would put a damper on Operation: Turn Felix into a Romantic.

On the other hand, Felix did seem to think that little romantic trysts were supposed to mean something. Maybe he didn't have the romantic sense of a slug after all.

Later that night, Sylvain was about to go to bed, when he spied Dorothea in his room. She looked as if she had been crying. "Dorothea? What are you doing here?"

"Fuck me," Dorothea said. Sylvain suddenly noticed that she was only wearing her underwear.

Under ordinary circumstances, he would have granted her request. But her eyes, red with tears, gave him pause. "What brought this on?"

"Does it matter?" Dorothea asked.

"I think it does," Sylvain said. "Why don't you tell me why you were crying?"

That set Dorothea sobbing again, but she tried to tell her story. It seemed that ever since Ingrid had saved her from the Gohma on the Great Plateau, Dorothea had been carrying a torch for the Galatea girl.

"I wrote her a song," Dorothea sobbed. "I thought the Zora city looked romantic in the moonlight...I played it for her...but she got mad at me. She said she would never want me." She looked at her hands. "Why? Is there something wrong with me? Am I that unlovable?"

"There's nothing wrong with you," Sylvain assured her. "Ingrid just isn't interested in women. You could be the perfect partner in every other way, but Ingrid still wouldn't be interested in you, because you aren't a man. You aren't unlovable."

Dorothea sniffled. "I didn't expect this from you."

Sylvain shrugged. "I can be a real bastard to women, but I can tell you aren't just after money. You sincerely want to find love."

"Love and money. The two measures of success in life," Dorothea sighed. "And I have neither." Suddenly, she had a flash of inspiration. "Love...or money." She fished her notebook out of the clothes she had left on the ground. "Everything we do...love or money. It all comes down to love or money."

"Here," Sylvain helped her up. "Why don't you go back to your room, take a nice, hot bath, then get a good night's sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

Dorothea began putting her clothes back on. "Yes. Yes, I'll do that."

As she went to leave his room, she turned back. "Sylvain?" She smiled. "Thank you."