#unfortunately the nurse has yet to arrive with my sedative (airplane flight) so i am mobile posting more birthdaydetta and feeling rabid

[hermidetta]

linhardt had put a considerable amount of work in for bernadetta's birthday gift. it had been rather exhausting, so he hoped at least she would reciprocate well enough. see, there exists a strange looking plant in a remote place of the monastery, only accessible by some of the tunnels connecting to abyss. the first thing linhardt had thought of was bernadetta's favorite plant, even though it isn't quite that, and so he'd added a few sketches of it to his notes to refer to later.

but then they'd forgotten, and as they realized bernadetta's birthday was approaching, they'd pulled out an entirely new and fresh notebook just for this purpose. they made the journey again to where the strange-looking plant resided, and made about five pages of scientific sketches of it.

linhardt doesn't really know botany very well. he knows bernadetta does, though, and that if he were to cut the plant or uproot it or otherwise treat it poorly, it would make only for a bittersweet present, so the thought was that the book would be half of bernadetta's present, and if she felt especially amenable to leaving her room one day, he would take her to the plant in question for her to do, well, whatever she liked with it.

they knock on her door, and immediately speak, because sometimes bernadetta might not pretend to be inside to get whoever to go away.

"happy birthday, bernadetta. it's linhardt. i've got a present for you, but it's a little too big to just slide under the door, if you don't mind opening it."

and, when the door opens, he presents her with the notebook. his sketches detail the strange, crimson leaves of what seems like a weeping flower. really, linhardt would struggle to describe it; that's why he took so many sketches to compensate.

"i don't know much about how to move plants around, other than enough to know not to try, but i tried drawing it for you." they offer her a small smile as they continue. "i can show you where i found it if you'd like to see it in person, but at the very least having an extra notebook is always useful, eh?"

⠀ ⚘ birthdaydetta 2k24 ♡ ⠀

it's linhardt.

bernadetta's eyes snap open from where she had been dipping in and out the realm of sleep. suddenly, all over again, the back of her hand is on fire because her skin there remembers the press of linhardt's lips like a brand. (how many people have ever bent their knee to kiss her like that before? was it a gesture she could ever recover from?)

she knows better than to think it could have meant anything. not with her. never with her. nobody would ever with her. but the matter lies in that bernadetta cannot not think about it, and thinking too much is a dangerous thing. she buries her face in sleeved palms and muffles the tiniest scream. just a brief one. just a little one that she abruptly punctuates all by herself in an upright jerk of her head. and the face that emerges is stone cold sober. the face of a jaded warrior long retired from the battlefield of love. (bernadetta has never been in a relationship, but nobody needs to know that. it doesn't take an A rank in authority to guess as much, either.) nobody will be hooking their hooks into her stone cold heart, no. never. not on her watch.

bernadetta opens the door for linhardt and grips the frame until a splitting crack hits the air so that she doesn't get blasted backward by the curve of their smile. they're sick. this is sick. they are so sick because this is sweet. why are they so sweet to her? are they all right in the head? that fluffy, green head that reminds her of a cute little sprout, they are so...

"huh?! th-this—?!"  every thought and reservation drops alongside her jaw. her eyes bulge at the notebook's pages; elaborate entries, illustrations and all.  "this plant!"

she has never seen one of these pitchers in person. and he had thought of her? enough to write and draw this much about it. linhardt's is a brilliant mind; anybody with a neural pulse could figure as much, and any notes of his are worth the entire monastery's weight in gold.

bernadetta gawks down at the work, and for a moment it allows her to let go of some of those silly things she overthinks about. it allows her to blink back up at linhardt and meet their eyes in the briefest flicker. it allows her to hug the notebook to her chest as she blurts—

"i do! i want to see it! because... i really like this! thank you for bringing it to me. and—um, remember what you said before bernie fainted again? a-about us spending more time together?"  her voice tapers tapers to a squeak by the end of that sentence, but she squeezes her eyes shut and persists.  "i... don't think i'd mind. but, on one condition. if you ever find any more of these cute carnivorous plants, you have to tell bernie!"