Marianne and the Forbidden Codex: A Fire Emblem Three Houses story

Distance

A while later, Leonard woke up. He saw himself inside a wooden cart with straw cushions: it was a kind of makeshift bedroom for that tired warrior. Next to him lay Marianne, who was sleeping peacefully. "She must be exhausted. For a woman as sensitive as her, all the emotions she has experienced these couple of days must overwhelm her", Leonard thought as he saw the beautiful face of his partner.

"You have been courageous, Marianne," Leonard murmured, admiring Marianne. "Now I understand why I'm still in love with you."

Leonard and Marianne managed to become friends after that encounter in the paddock. They used to play together, or at least the boy followed his friend while watching and talking to the birds or other animals. He also pretended to pray next to her, imagining a Goddess asking him to continue seeing Marianne every day and asking her if only it weren't a sin to open animals to investigate.

Sometimes Leonard would take Marianne into the woods to explore. Together they watched the deer, the fish in the stream, and some birds that she could not find in her home. On one occasion, Marianne fell and hurt her knee. Leonard tried to bandage her with a piece of his shirt unsuccessfully. Upon returning home, Master Edmund realized what had happened and punished Leonard. He was locked up in his room for almost a week.

By the time he was able to come out again, Marianne was no longer to be seen in the courtyard. This is how several days passed when the boy tried to sneak into that large house without much success. He tried to climb up to find Marianne's room, but he only saw some maids changing their clothes. Now that he was a voyeur, hopefully, they would let him through the courtyard. He spent the whole day counting coins, filling books with household expenses, and being watched over by the maids he had observed by accident.

One night, Leonard took advantage of an oversight on the part of the servants' house workers and went looking for Marianne. To his surprise, the girl had escaped and was standing by the tree where he used to find her under the light of a kindly full moon.

"How lucky to find you here, Marianne," Leonard whispered, smiling.

"It's true... Leonard," she answered calmly.

"I think the Goddess you pray to heard me," he said, placing his arms behind her neck as usual. "Now I understand why you pray to her."

"I prayed for you to be okay," she answered, avoiding seeing Leonard. "I have been a nuisance to you and caused you a lot of trouble."

Don't say that," he replied, raising his voice a little. "It's been great meeting you. You're calm; some would even say you're weird and boring, but I liked being with you this time."

Marianne was stunned, looking at Leonard. After that, she gave a slight laugh.

"You're crazy, Leonard, she said, holding back from laughing. "I don't think you care that I told you about my secret."

"Not at all, and if someone says you're a bad thing, I'll punch them; you'll see,"  Leonard said, showing his skinny arm. "Let's not have secrets from each other from now on, okay?"

"Haha, I don't think you can defend yourself much more than me," she replied, smiling. "It's okay; we won't have secrets... Between us."

"Seeing you laugh is magical, did you know?" Leonard said, touching the pit of his stomach. "Whenever I'm with you, I feel a tickle here. I believe that, as I believe, my vitality increases since, for me, the energy of people and animals is in the stomach."

"The truth is that it should be in the heart... What you're feeling must be something else," Marianne said, self-conscious since she knew what her friend wanted to tell her about.