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yukiwrites · 5 years ago

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Felicia, Sharing Experiences

Thanks for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! It’s so good to be able to delve deep into some characters >v<)!

Summary: While trying her best to work as a maid in Askr, Felicia stumbled on a far-off kitchen she had never used, only to find that an excellent cook -- no, a Master Chef! -- called Dedue had been using it for the past few weeks, so she promptly asked him to help her cook something edible...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

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The sun was barely up in the sky when a young woman left the woods behind the askrian royal castle with a chipper hum in her throat and a spring in her step.

She carried three hares and a large pheasant, all masterfully tied on her belt and cleanly killed -- the hunt had been bountiful so early in the morning, if Petra could say so herself. She skipped towards the eastern kitchen, where she would meet her fellow student and cook enthusiast, Dedue, as they had been doing for the past few weeks after being summoned to Askr.

However, the moment she stepped into the corridor that led to the kitchen, a loud explosion came just a bit ahead, followed by a thick black smoke.

Petra sweared in her native language, took up her bow and sprinted towards the kitchen. "Dedue?! What has been happening?!" She jumped in, ready to shoot any magic user that dared attack this early in the morning!

... Yet, what she found was a black-faced Dedue with his hairs standing on end, equally as black as his charred face. Beside him, an apologetic young woman dressed as a maid bowed repeatedly.

"I-I'm so very sorry! I did it just as you told me, Master! I-I swear!" The pink haired woman sobbed softly, bowing so deeply the tip of her high ponytail brushed on the ground.

Dedue closed his eyes and calmly took a handkerchief out of his pocket, promptly rubbing the ashes out of his face. "... I stood there watching and I can barely tell what happened." He said with his usual low voice, then turned towards Petra. "Thank you for your swift action, Petra. As you can see, we are both unharmed."

"H-hah..." The hunter's shoulders sagged, her bow falling limp beside her body. She stepped inside tentatively, glancing at the oven's general direction -- it was even worse than Dedue's and the maid's face, all charred in black with a lump of coal proudly(?) standing atop a pan, at the center of it all. Frowning in confusion, Petra rolled her braid into a bun and proceeded to hide it all under a kerchief so no hair would fall on the prey she was about to skin.

The sobbing maid finally raised her face, her eyes meeting Petra's. "O-oh no! I got in the way of your work, too, right?! I'm so sorry! Uwahhh, why am I so useless?!" She cried.

Dedue took a step towards the woman, then crossed his arms, wondering if he should pat her shoulder or simply wait it out. "... Felicia," he said softly, wanting to explain the root of her mistakes.

However, Felicia straightened her back immediately with his sudden approach, her nose running and her eyes gleaming. "Y-yes, Master?!"

Sighing, the young man gestured for her to turn around and face the oven. "Please, just call me Dedue," he asked for the nth time that week, then pointed to the charcoal that was supposed to be the stir-fried vegetables they had chopped just minutes ago. "Your mistakes resemble someone else's I've taught before coming here." He stated as she looked ready to reach for her small notebook to jolt down everything he said. "You focus too much on what you will do next instead of paying attention to what you are currently doing at the moment."

"B-but I stare at it very hard! I hold my breath and devote my entire being to what I'm doing!!" She huffed earnestly, "is my attention span really that bad? I just wanna do things effectively..."

Dedue picked the kerchief he had been using before the explosion blew it away and patted the ashes out of it before once again putting it on. "Remember the steps -- you must first master each step before going to the next one. What have I asked you to do?"

"U-um," Felicia looked down, suddenly even more apologetic than before, "t-to place all of the tools and ingredients I would need in the order I would use them."

"Yes. What did you do?"

"I... I picked the frying oil and poured into the pan... Y-you said that was the next step, so while you were getting the other vegetables, I just w-wanted to start heating the pan!"

Petra curiously glanced at the duo over her own skinning work, after observing that there were still quite a few vegetables left to chop. "It is only guessing, but did- ah, were you tasking her on washing the vegetables?" She pointed with her chin towards the sink, whence more than half of the vegetables still lay.

"... Yes." Dedue replied curtly, looking from the sink to the oven, resting his gaze on Felicia, making her flinch. "Your mistakes are easy to fix, Felicia, you should simply focus on doing one step at a time."

"E-eh? It was still washing time? I thought- I figured we were- waaah!" She wailed in her own self-pity, curling into a ball of misery under the table.

Petra chuckled, peeking under the table and smiling. "It is being okay, Felicia- ah, may I be calling you that? Dedue is not being mad at you."

The young man tilted his head to the side, uncrossing his arms so he could start cleaning the oven. "Of course. There is no reason to be mad at someone who is earnestly trying their best to succeed. Come, Felicia, we've many a vegetable to wash yet."

Sniffling, the maid raised her head like a puppy that had just been praised. "R-really? Can I still keep going? Won't you say I'm useless and better off just fighting?"

"While we are here to fight to help the askrian people, only you can say what you wish to do. As for us," Dedue bobbed his head in Petra's general direction, "we are simply doing all that we can to help. I wish to ease His Highness' burdens as much as I can, and if that means selecting the nutrients he needs to consume to be fit for battle, then that is what I will do."

Petra nodded after skinning the third hare. "If I can be using my bow to be helping more than just fighting, I am glad! This is a very different and far land, plus- ah, yet? Yet I must use all that I can to grow stronger while we are being here."

Felicia got up from the floor, her clear eyes big with curiosity. "Hunting and cooking can make you grow stronger? I-is that why I'm a better soldier than a maid...?"

Dedue smile while Petra let out a chuckle. "I must be sharpening- ah, honing my skills, no matter what- ah, which they are! I will grow stronger and stronger so I can help my landhome when we return."

"Ohhh, I can get that! Is your country at war?" Felicia sat on a nearby stool, resting her face on one hand as she watched Petra skillfuly deplume the pheasant. She didn't wait for the reply and kept on babbling. "I wonder if every world the heroes around here came from are beset by war? Ours is already finished, so I feel even more useless now since I can't even be a soldier back home!"

Still smiling, Dedue patted Felicia's back so she would get up and guided her hand towards the basin full of water where they had been washing the vegetables previously, noticing that she didn't stop running her mouth for a second while still doing everything he instructed.

"My sister, you see-- she's my twin! But we couldn't be more different -- well, apart from our faces. We really look alike! Though she has blue hair," she waved her hands towards her hair, splashing water about, "and I guess that's where our differences start! She's such a good maid. Such a good maid... But, for some reason, she didn't want to be loyal to our Lord?" She tilted her head to the side in confusion, blurred memories of fire and weak ice magic darkening her past.

Dedue simply nodded, remembering how she had blabbered about her being from the Ice Tribe, a vassal tribe from the Kingdom whose lord, or lady (?), she seemed unsure for a moment, she served.

Petra patted the dirt out of her apron, saving the hare skin for later and throwing the plucked feathers into a bag so she could make more arrows later. "You are strong, Felicia. To be so loyal to someone who's, ah, whose loyalty was paid with your own sacrifice. I cannot do that."

"Sacrifice? But Lord Corrin is so good to me! Really! I'm so incompetent and yet he always worries about me and keeps me by his side... He's the reason I try my best! I want to be useful to him, even if it means... if it means fighting..." Felicia's vision darkened for a second, suppressed memories almost flowing through her lips, blocked by her brain before they could. "Geez, I wonder why I keep thinking about Flora! She's right here in Askr with me, but I keep remembering our quarrels about where our loyalty lies..."

Dedue accepted the skinned prey from Petra, promptly taking them to the corner so as to bleed them, wordlessly asking her to stay by Felicia and aid her in the washing. "Your circumstances are alike in many ways," he commented with a nod. "Yet there is no correct answer apart from what you truly think is right."

"Truth." Petra bobbed her head to the sides, taking the washed vegetables to the chopping table. "You are being alike to Felicia, Dedue. Loyal to your Lord in spite, ah, despite your circumstances."

"Yet it is different -- His Highness saved me when all others would shun me instead. I stay by him because his rule is the only one that can correct the wrongs." He quietly took the chopping knife Felicia had taken after she followed Petra and forgot the rest of the vegetables, pointing her to the wash basin once again, casually talking at the same time. "Your anger and resolve are as justified as Felicia's subordination and loyalty, Petra."

The hunter smiled brightly, nodding as she finely cut a lettuce with the dexterity of a master. "Truth. It is wondering, ah, wonderful? Amazing! ...It is amazing how many different right answers there are to the same question."

Felicia looked from the young man to the young woman, frowning slightly. "Are you also a maid in your world, Petra? It’s, um, Petra, right? If your lady is anything like my Lord Corrin, I'm sure everything's gonna be alright!"

Dedue let out the closest thing to a snort as he directed Felicia to the chopping table. "Petra is a princess."

"A PRINCESS?!" Felicia gasped so loudly she took a step back right onto Dedue's foot, bumped into him and was about to fall head first into the sink when he caught her. "W-whoa, thanks, Master! If you keep being here with me, I might be able to be as good as you or Princess Petra!!" She puffed her chest proudly. “B-but wait, why is a princess so good at chopping vegetables?” She frowned, a slight pout rising on her lips.

Dedue and Petra exchanged glances and smiled, overcome with a need to pat Felicia's head for some reason, as though she were a very eager puppy.

"We can be talking about it as we work, Felicia!” Petra giggled happily. “I’ve been having no doubts you can learn how to be good at your work. Dedue and me, and I? Dedue and I will be helping you.”

“O-oh, thank you so much, my lady! Um, and Master!” She bowed deeply, whipping her hair on the vegetables she had just washed, quickly turning pale as a sheet. “O-oh, nooo! I did it again!!”

Dedue chuckled and Petra giggled, both of them patting Felicia’s back at the same time.

#dedue fire emblem #petra fire emblem #felicia fire emblem #fire emblem fates #fe3h #feh #my writings #yuki's commissions #dedue #petra #felicia

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