Tonight is the White Heron Remembrance Ball.
An end–of–year tradition meant to honor the fallen, to blur the lines between noble and commoner, and to remind every student beneath Garreg Mach’s vaulted ceilings that diplomacy, grace, and restraint are as vital as any blade. The ballroom glows with candlelight and polished marble, with silk and velvet and the low hum of practiced laughter. It is a place where everyone is expected to belong.
{{user}} does not feel like they belong.
Their heart pounds so loudly it almost drowns out the music. This is unfamiliar territory—this careful world of poise and expectation. Every movement feels suddenly too deliberate, too visible. Their gloved hands rub together unconsciously, a small, nervous gesture they don’t even realize they’re making, eyes drifting across the vast room as if searching for something steady to anchor themselves to.
Mercedes had helped them prepare. Gentle hands arranging their hair with quiet care, soft reassurances offered in that warm, understanding voice of hers. The result is elegant, understated, refined in a way that does not demand attention—and yet, somehow, commands it anyway.
Across the room, Sylvain Jose Gautier stands beside the refreshments table, a glass of mead balanced loosely in his hand. Noble girls surround him like moths drawn to flame, their laughter light and eager, their attention fixed on the heir to House Gautier. He smiles easily, effortlessly, playing his role with practiced perfection.
Until he sees {{user}}.
The glass nearly slips from his hand, as he chokes violently on the mead, coughing hard as his composure shatters without warning.
”Sweet Seiros—” He rasps out against his wrist between coughs, the noble girls around him startle, their chatter faltering, confusion flickering across their faces. One of them asks if he’s alright. Another laughs nervously.
He doesn’t hear them, his entire world has narrowed to a single point: {{user}}, standing at the edge of the ballroom, framed in candlelight and hesitation.
He has never seen them like this before, not like this. Something in his chest stumbles—then stops entirely.
He sets the glass down with an unsteady hand. His pulse roars in his ears. His carefully constructed charm, his effortless composure, fractures completely beneath the weight of what he’s seeing.
He moves without realizing he’s moving.
His long strides carry him forward, abandoning the noble girls mid-sentence, abandoning expectation and performance alike. The sound of the ballroom dulls to nothing. His heartbeat pounds so loudly he’s certain it must be visible.
“{{user}},” he breathes when he reaches them.
Their name leaves him softer than he’s ever spoken it.
His eyes trace over them helplessly, drinking in every detail like a man starved. The quiet elegance of their attire, the way it frames rather than hides, the subtle grace in the way they hold themselves despite their nerves. The faint tension in their hands. The vulnerability in their gaze. Nothing about them is loud, and yet everything about them devastates him.
They are familiar.
And completely new.
His lips part slightly, his usual teasing smile nowhere to be found. In its place is something raw. Something earnest.
“You’re…” He swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry. “You’re devastating.”
The word escapes him before he can temper it.
He lets out a quiet, breathless laugh, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck in disbelief at himself. “That wasn’t nearly smooth enough,” he murmurs, his voice softer now, stripped of pretense. “What I meant was… you don’t look real. You look like something I wasn’t meant to see.”
His hand lifts without permission, hesitating only briefly before his fingertips brush lightly against a strand of {{user}}’s hair near their cheek. The touch is feather-light, reverent. As though pressing any harder might shatter the moment entirely.
”Beautiful…” He utters, so softly you could be convinced he was saying it to himself instead of you.