#{and yes leon does feel insanely guilty about loving a married man at numerous points lmao IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY}

[nightslain]

Leon's initial feelings for Mathias when they first met, and times where he realized he may feel more. 👀

send me a topic to write a meta about my muse on || @empyream

I suppose we should start this off with some context before anything else! Though the canon says these two have been old friends since before they joined a company of knights together, that timeline doesn’t really check out as far as myself and @notte-la-lagna are concerned, so our timeline is slightly different! Mathias is already an established knight before Leon is brought into the fold, though he has certainly heard of this budding prodigy as Leon distinguished himself as a brilliant soldier. Things only really kick off our continuity when Leon first receives his accolade and becomes a knight. Traditionally, the accolade, or the knighting ceremony, was performed on a day of religious importance like Easter or Christmas, or in the case of mine and Nyx’s canon, at an important social event such as the wedding of a nobleman. 

Leon was, in our continuity, knighted at the wedding of Mathias and Elisabetha, and this is when the two were really first introduced beyond hearsay and passing glances. Leon from day one had deeply admired and respected Mathias for his experience and his worldly intelligence, and earning his companionship was a desire established quite early into their introduction (this feeling was fortunately echoed in Mathias’ interest in Leon, due to his insightful, curious demeanour and a hunger for knowledge, compelling Mathias to take Leon under his wing as a ‘student’ as well as a newfound comrade.) In Leon’s eyes, Mathias has always been fascinatingly unique; unpredictable and well ahead of his time, as well as being an endless fount of valuable knowledge; though he was very much an enigma to Leon for a long time and rather austere in his own right despite his willingness to share his wisdoms. Much of this impression stayed true throughout the first year or two of their friendship, though the walls around Mathias slowly came down as the two cemented their tremendous chemistry and synergy with one another, and they grew to cherish one another’s companionship as the hardships of their battles drew them ever closer.

Inklings of romantic infatuation didn’t start colouring Leon’s view of him till about three years into their friendship, where the two began to express much more physical and verbal affection between themselves. There’s a particularly heart-warming occasion in which Leon falls ill after the two return to France and Mathias happily shoulders the responsibility of nursing him back to health; one particular moment in their history during which Leon felt his affection for the man truly begin to bleed well outside the realms of the platonic. Another big moment for them both is after a particularly turbulent falling out between the two (one I can go into detail about some other time) but tl;dr, Mathias did something unpredictably foolish that almost got him killed, and Leon was absolutely furious with him (again, for more reasons than I’m going to elaborate here and now.)  However, that devastating fear of losing him that Leon was faced with more than affirmed for him that his feelings ran far deeper than the those one has for a comrade,however valued–and after their reconciliation, their relationship grew infinitely and deeply more intimate and personal, which only spearheaded them towards that first real and long awaited kiss you see them sharing in this thread here. 

It goes without saying there were always symptoms of romantic affection that sporadically presented themselves at times before and between these two events, often in Mathias’ rare moments of weakness and sorrow when it fell to Leon to comfort him, when tending to one another’s wounds post-battle, or else during moments the two of them enjoy their sparring sessions together just a little bit too much; and of course, the times the two relished in late night talks spent side by side, in each other’s arms, laid in a bed they shared on their excursions as they tried to fend off the cold. Speaking of which, their time away from France on excursions truly was a big catalyst for their romantic leanings, we both agree, since they spend so much time alienated from the rest of their families and friends and have only one another to truly depend upon and connect with in all that time. They understand one another in ways nobody else really can because of their mutual hardships, which fostered a very deep bond between them once they formed a platoon and began fighting together. Leon was always vaguely aware of his affections springing from this soon growing into what was ultimately love, and there wasn’t really a single moment of epiphany where that was concerned so much as just a constant building of his fondness for Mathias as the days went by. It was just never spoken of or expressed beyond their rather admittedly suggestive exchanges, at least up until that aforementioned breaking point (and an even more passionate one that happens later as well.)