Bonding with Bernie

Chapter 1: Just Two Acquaintances Hanging Out

Hello, everyone! It's The Draigg here, with my second Fire Emblem: Three Houses story! You know, I've noticed that there aren't really many Sylvain and Bernie stories around here. Quite frankly, that's a shame and a disgrace. Sylvain x Bernie is a top-tier rare ship. So, I figured that I'd at least try to add to the small pile in this way. So, get ready for hijinks, relationship drama, and other things I may find entertaining/amusing in their relationship! So, let's get on with the story, based on Intelligent System's very own Fire Emblem: Three Houses game!

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Knock knock-knockknock-knock.

Bernadetta lifted her head off of her desk, her eyes barely cracking open. Did she fall asleep here last night? It kinda seemed that way, but given how her doors and blinds were constantly closed, it was always hard to tell when exactly she had fallen asleep.

Knock knock-knockknock-knock.

Goddess, her back was sore. Slumping over a desk wasn't exactly good sleeping posture. Bernie's half-awake brain briefly wondered if she was going to end up like those old ladies who are constantly hunched over in their old age. Well, that was assuming that she would live to be that old. Bernie had no doubts that someone would kill her for something before then. Why wouldn't they? The world had it out for her, she was sure of it.

KNOCK KNOCK-KNOCKKNOCK-KNOCK.

"Bwaaaa!" Bernie shrieked. There was someone at her door! How should she not notice it sooner? Wait, it could've been an assassin sent to kill her!

"Bernie's, uh, not in here!" Bernie then called out, before reflexively wincing. That was a stupid move! Stupid, Bernie, stupid! She had let her murderer know where she was!

A muffled voice came from the other side of the doors. "Uh-huh, sure. I brought cake this time, Bernie."

The reptile brain within Bernie immediately bought into the idea of eating cake in her room. However, the paranoid—rather, rationally skeptical part of her mind called that into question. Maybe it was just a ruse to get her to open her door, letting down her defenses? Or maybe the cake itself was poisoned, and she would die as soon as the sweet frosting touched her lips? Oh, what an irony, to be potentially killed by her favorite food!

Her mind racing, Bernie thought of a sure-fire way to determine if the situation was safe. It was a line of questioning that would satisfy both the reptile and rationally skeptical parts of her brain. "…W-what flavor is it?"

The logic was simple. Only people close to Bernie would know what her favorite kind of cake was, and if the answer was her favorite, then they could be trusted. Well, probably. There was a chance that a potential assassin could've stalked her and learned about her favorite flavor of cake. But that was just a risk she had to accept. Free cake was on the line!

"It's pound cake," said the voice on the other side of the doors.

Bernadetta pressed her lips together in thought. Pound cake was her second-favorite kind of cake, with her absolute favorite being strawberry. So far, the person on the other side of the doors failed her test. However, the reptile part of Bernie's brain was imploring her to give that person a chance. After all, free cake was free cake. And Bernie couldn't deny the logic behind that either. As much as the rationally skeptical part of her was screaming not to do it, the reptile part was already making her body move towards the doors.

"Okay, I'll let you in," Bernie said. At that, she began to clear away the makeshift barricade she built up against her door the previous night. It wasn't much, considering that Bernie wasn't strong enough to move her bed to make a better barricade. As it stood, the best she could construct against the door was a stool and end table, along with a pile of unwashed clothes. At least those might trip any assassins coming through her doors, giving her a precious few seconds to escape.

Once the last few hoodies and uniform jackets had been thrown into the laundry bag and her unmentionables hastily stuffed under her bed, Bernie cracked open a door for her invited, cake-bearing guest. The person waiting outside grinned.

"Bernie! Man, I've got a lot to talk with you about this morning!" grinned Sylvain. In one hand of his was a cloth sack which presumably held the promised pound cakes, and in the other was a leather document case, one which Bernie recognized immediately.

It was the leather case that she had been using to store the latest drafts of her novel. As Bernie blinked the tiredness out of her eyes, she remembered exactly why Sylvain had it. Last afternoon, he had picked it up at her room, promising to read it and provide commentary on it.

In all of her (relatively few) years, Bernadetta would've never imagined that someone like Sylvain would've become her de-facto editor. After all, he was spry, tall, handsome, and had a smile that women had often fallen for. Indeed, Bernie wasn't a stranger to the stories surrounding Sylvain. She had heard rumblings about what he did with his free time, with colorful epithets ranging from "playboy" to "man-whore" used to describe him. Even when she spent most of her days locked inside of her room, the rumors surrounding Sylvain were unavoidable.

And yet, Sylvain was a great editor for her stories. Bernie would've never guessed that someone like Sylvain would be so well-read. He was able to pick apart tropes that she used, wrote plenty of suggestions on how to make certain paragraphs flow better, and even once offered to use his connections to get her novel bound and ready to be distributed. If Bernie had known that all it would take was leaving one of her drafts behind in the library one day, then a part of her wished she had done it sooner. Perhaps the goddess was smiling down on her that day when Sylvain came to her to return her manuscript.

"C-come in…" demurely greeted Bernie, as she stepped aside to let Sylvain inside her room. Once he was past the threshold, she wasted no time slamming the door shut behind him and locking it.

As if he was in his own dorm room, Sylvain plopped down on Bernie's (admittedly messy) bed and began to take off his boots. For someone who had only been talking with Bernie for three months, he certainly was already feeling very comfortable around her. "Okay, first off, let me just say that I loved this chapter. Like seriously, Bernie. You blew my mind last night."

Bernie blushed and shifted around nervously at the praise. "C-come on, it can't be that good…"

Unabated, Sylvain continued to gush. "No, I'm serious! I mean, Lord Null being possessed by a spirit inside the Blue Comet Armor? I wouldn't never guessed it, but it all makes sense when you think about it. Seriously, you've outdone yourself with this chapter!"

Bernie had tuned out Sylvain's unending praise. It was honestly too much to take in. She was an amateur writer, so what she was writing couldn't have been that good, right? Instead, Bernie focused her attention on the cake bag that was resting at Sylvain's side. The more she looked at it, the hungrier she felt.

Sylvain picked up on where Bernie's attention was being drawn towards, once he saw her not really react to his praise of her work. "Oh, right," he said, holding the bag out to Bernie. "I managed to swipe a few extra while Dedue wasn't looking. What do you say, four for you, one for me?"

Eagerly nodding, Bernie grabbed the bag and dug through it. As Sylvain implied, there were indeed five pound cakes in there. At that sight, her heart soared. She was going to eat four pound cakes today! She was truly lucky to have a friend like Sylvain.

A few cogs turned in Bernadetta's sub-consciousness as she pulled out a pound cake and sat down at her desk to eat it. Sylvain was a friend? No, that probably wasn't the case. After all, Bernie didn't have friends. At most, she had people who tolerated her existence, and even then those kinds of people were rare. Lady Edelgard, Dorothea, and Professor Byleth were on that list, but that was about it. But she didn't think they would call themselves her friends. But yet, here Sylvain was, someone who praised her work and fed her cake. By the strictest definition, he would be considered a friend. However, this conflicted with the fact Bernadetta knew in her heart, that she had no friends. Sylvain was indeed a truly mysterious subject of thought. What could he be to her?

On Sylvain's end, he settled in on Bernadetta's bed as the girl author herself happily relaxed in her desk chair. She had even turned her chair around to prop up her feet on a stool as she ate a pound cake. As much as Sylvain did the same in his room before, seeing Bernie do it was a small point of internal struggle for him. It mainly lay with the fact that Bernie didn't seem to notice that she was giving him a good view up her skirt. Sure, she was wearing shorts underneath, and it honestly wouldn't be the first time that Sylvain had looked up a girl's skirt, but this felt… different. Like, he was seeing something he shouldn't. That was a new feeling for him. It just felt… wrong? Yeah, wrong was the best way to put it. Like he was truly taking advantage of Bernie in some way that felt slimy and gross.

The solution to Sylvain's problem came in looking elsewhere in the room and to keep on talking, as if he hadn't seen anything. "So yeah, I think you're pretty much golden to keep the chapter as-is, Bernie. One part I really liked was how Lord Null's sword glowed and moved faster than the eye could see when he was possessed. Like, not really a Hero's Relic, but something kinda… more spiritual, I guess? Almost ethereal in a way."

"Eywf gwad ou wiked et," was what Bernie said in reply, her mouth full.

"Hmm?"

Bernie made sure to swallow before repeating herself. "I said, I-I'm glad you liked it. I mean, I thought it was kind of cheesy, and stupid, and maybe none too good for—"

"Bernie, stop that," Sylvain gently commanded. "If I like it, then you know it's good. Simple as that."

Bernie cringed a little at her own self-defeatism. "R-right…" she mumbled, before taking another bite of pound cake.

The thought occurred to Bernadetta that Sylvain could be lying, just tricking her into leaving a dumb part of her story in so that once it got published, people would laugh at her. But, would he really do that? And why would he do that, anyway? Did he want her to fail, so that in her despair that she would throw herself into his comforting, masculine, strong yet gentle arms? Wait, where did those descriptors come from?

The cogs in Bernie's sub-conscious spun faster and faster, trying to add in this factor into their ongoing calculation. Was this a ploy on Sylvain's part to manipulate their… whatever their relationship was? And seriously, where did those descriptions of Sylvain's toned, lithe, handsomely muscular arms come from? There was no way that he was that naturally well-cut, it had to come from all that lance training he did. Or was his exercise his… relationships with other women? By now, the cogs in the back of Bernie's mind were spinning out of control, enough to make those background thoughts come up to the surface and make her blush.

Sylvain smirked a little. "Hey now, no need to look red in the face. My compliment is totally honest, I swear. It's the plain truth that your writing is good."

Bernie looked up at Sylvain. Oh right, he was here to talk about the chapter manuscript she had given him. Her train of thought took her to some unexpected places rather quickly. But she had to focus on what her editor had to say. After all, his advice was genuinely helpful, and it would be a waste if she paid no heed to his comments, suggestions, and brainstorming. With that in mind, Bernie decided to eat her perplexed thoughts away by finishing off the rest of her pound cake in two big bites.

Bernadetta then turned her chair back around to face her desk, and pulled out a fresh piece of paper and vial of ink. To her, that was her signal to enter her 'author mode', so to speak. "So, any big thoughts about where we can go from here?"

Leaning back on Bernie's bed, Sylvain let his thoughts about the future of the story spill out. "Well, now that Lord Caine knows about Lord Null's special armor, there's a lot of ways that he can respond to it. Like, we know he's already interested in the occult. Do you think he'd bind a spirit to his own armor to match Lord Null?"

"Bernie was thinking about that…" Bernie mused. "But I think jumping to that right away would kind of dull the build-up. Remember, Null doesn't have full control over his spirit armor yet. I think he'd need to be able to fully control it first before we can move onto that."

"Right, right," murmured Sylvain. "Yeah, I suppose it's a bit early to jump to that already. But I think it's a good thought for the future."

"And even then, if we focus on that too much, then we'll just be ignoring the relationship between Null and Anna that's been developing in the background…" thought Bernie aloud.

"And so we've come to a bit of a crossroads," observed Sylvain. "Depending on which audience you're going for, you're gonna need to pick one path to go over the other."

Bernadetta frowned slightly. "What's wrong with appealing to a lot of people?"

Sylvain shrugged. "It's hard to do. I mean, I'm not doubting that you can do it, but it'll definitely be harder than just focusing on one genre."

"Oh…" Bernie said, deflating. There was no way she was good enough to pull something like multi-demographic appeal off.

"But I'm willing to take on that challenge!" Sylvain declared, suddenly sitting up. "With your helpful editor in tow, I'm sure you can pull it off! Besides, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see you do it."

"B-but Sylvain, you already do so much for me! I-I can't ask you to do more!" protested Bernie, shocked by the sudden shouting.

Sylvain waved off what Bernie said. "Nonsense, I'm in this for the long haul! If I wasn't willing to work for your story already, then why have I been here to help you before?"

Bernadetta had already been asking herself that, and she still hadn't come to a conclusion. For some reason, thoughts and feelings about Sylvain were really confusing. They were totally perplexing on every level. And yet, Bernie couldn't exactly deny his argument. Sylvain was a good person, one who had some kind of relationship with her and her writing. There was no doubting those points. Even if they probably weren't friends, there was no way that Bernie could deny that Sylvain had an enthusiasm for her writings, writings she never expected people to like in the first place. To that end, Bernie's sub-conscious could only conclude that she should accept Sylvain's offer to help.

"S-sure! Th-that would be great, Sylvain!" Bernie beamed.

Now it was Sylvain's turn to genuinely smile. "Ha, that's great to hear! Now, let's get cracking at it!"

Hopping off of the bed, Sylvain pulled the stool over to Bernie's writing desk, so that he could work with her much more closely on her next draft. Normally, he would put the charms on a woman he was sitting next to in such a manner, but the only feeling in his heart at the moment was excitement at being able to work on the story more. It was a relatively new, yet somehow refreshing feeling. After all, they weren't lovers, just two acquaintances, friends even, working together on a thing they were both passionate about.

That was right, that's totally what Sylvain and Bernie were. Just two acquaintances hanging out, eating unhealthy food and working on a story together. Nothing more, nothing less.

XXX

And there we have it, the first chapter in this Sylvain x Bernadetta story! I hope you all liked it, since I really do want to have fun with this pairing. There's some real untapped potential between the two of them. Also, you'll get bonus points if you find the reference to an old anime in there. Here's a hint: it's an anime from the 80s. So, if you know the reference or just want to say something about what you just read, feel free to leave a review. I guarantee you that I'll read them all.

With that, this has been The Draigg, and I'm signing off on this chapter!