#that's not easy to capture but you always execute it in your prose and characterization so phenomenally it makes my brain explode (positive

[hermidetta]

bernadetta can still on command as naturally as breathing. she can freeze with her eyes wide and staring right back at any villain who's raised a knife to her throat, waiting for the blade to sink in, waiting waiting waiting to be given that wretched permission.

when yuri catches her wrist, she halts. she listens. not a hair on your head out of place in exchange for not a hair on your head harmed. because that is what bernadetta's rotten adults have taught her, even though they break this promise as they please, cast the blame for it onto her like they would a mutt its bone and ask her to thank them for it. thank you for the tea. thank you for the seat. thank you for teaching me. thank you, sorry. sorry for kicking. sorry for bruising. sorry for speaking. sorry, sorry, sorry. (sorry, like she's the messed up one.)

but if yuri was a villain she'd have bled out long ago. she wouldn't be sitting here beside them. she wouldn't fold her trust into their palms like the handle of a knife, and neither of them would be reminiscing of dreams from a distant garden. the learned fear that leashes her, that makes her paranoid and nonsensical, it would never win out against what she innately gives yuri each time. bernadetta does not have to trust them on purpose; she does not have to think about it. why would she?

so bernadetta does not protest for yuri's sake, but she tightens her lips with a tiny nod and settles back down, gingerly, until she's got just enough of the blanket for her teeth not to chatter. yuri's hand is warm enough around her wrist, besides. whether they let go or not, their touch lingers on her skin more viscerally than the cold ever could.

"i do,"  bernadetta murmurs back. she does not elaborate which part she means—i do trust you, or i do remember, or i do miss it too—because it is her answer to all three, and those i dos to yuri matter infinitely more than the only one she's been kept alive for. the childhood memory, though, brings a small smile to her lips.

"but i knew you'd hear anybody in time. i could always count on you. and i said i'd protect you even if we got caught."  little bernie, protecting her friend. prepared to take the blame, prepared to keep them safe.

in the end, she had broken that promise. she wonders how they ever forgave her for it.

i miss when life was that simple. i wish we could've been happier. two petals on the same wilting stem.

"yuri..."  she lowers her gaze in half parts contemplation, half parts mourning. but bernadetta had mourned for about half of her life and had only come out of it after entering the monastery. she doesn't want to sink back into it.

"a lot of things aren't anymore,"  she agrees, voice a low murmur. "but maybe some things still can be... right? you're here. i'm here. we're still friends. what's so hard about that? and..."

bernadetta stirs then, only to curl all of her fingers on a hand except for her pinky. small, thin, and probably a little chilly—but it reaches out just enough to hook with one of theirs. her face tilts, cheek squished whimsically against the cushion of her other hand. just like all of the times she had turned under the blanket to blink sleepily at little jules.

"...and i promise to still be your friend, if that's okay. and you can still tell me stories, even if they're different and have things that are a little illegal in them, because bernie won't tell on you."  she doesn't crack the joke that she wouldn't be able to, anyway. not with yuri. she doesn't doubt for a second that they can silence whoever they want, whenever they want.

"i'll tell you lots of stories, too. i still won't get you in trouble with anybody, either. i definitely won't. if i do, i'll still— i-i'll just bite them really hard. and we can run away!"  somehow she really does always makes it sound so simple. but does that make it any less difficult to say? maybe it's just yuri who makes it easier. yuri, who bernadetta's heart could never tire of bleeding out for.

"um, i mean... if i'm allowed to,"  she mumbles, far more quietly and halfway into her hand. still wholly unguarded, and yet still so uncertain of herself, always waiting for the world to strike somehow because she's misspoken somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. probably everywhere.  "...run away with you this time. b-but i know you're probably sick of babysitting me, so never mind about that part."

＊ woven back from violence .

anni '24 | heavy armor +1　 ▪ ▪ ▪ 　yuri & bernadetta