[Fic] [Round 14] Title: Courting Danger, Rating: G
Author: Isha
Title: Courting Danger
Pairings: Gwendal/Anissina
Word Count: 2,265
Rating: G
Any Warnings: None, really.
Prompt being used: Third person POV
Timeline: Set during Season one.
Summary: Now that he was commited to this course of action, how wondered how in Shinou’s name he was to court anyone-least of all Anissina.
Disclaimer: I own none of these very entertaining characters, please don’t sue me. Thank you.
Part of my Gwendal/Anissina series. Follows from ‘Best Served Cold’.
Gah, I feel like I'm spamming this comm! *cringes*
~
Gwendal scowled as he flung open the door to his room. The woman was infuriating, there was no other word for it.
After that moment in his rooms, when she had come to see him in order to play that very unamusing prank on him, and he’d almost confessed all to her-he’d been sure she saw things the same way, that she wanted to take the next step in this thing between them as much as he did…
He gnashed his teeth as he stalked to one end of his room and quickly stripped off his uniform jacket, leaving it on a chair there. This morning, after Gisela had tended to him, he had snatched a free moment from his schedule and had found her in her lab, eager to talk to her, to get everything between them cleared up, and what had she said?
‘Oh, I’m busy now, Gwendal-something I’m working on-can we talk again another time?’
He’d gritted his teeth and nodded as he’d walked away. The whole day he’d been impatient and jittery, wondering how she’d react when he was finally able to tell her…but then when he’d taken a plate of food to her lab at lunch time-she always did forget to eat when she was too caught up in another one of her projects-she’d simply given him a grateful smile for the food and turned away again.
He had cornered her after dinner, having made sure that the maids had sent a tray to her room before he went to see her, so that she couldn’t dismiss him with a smile again. She had looked up, surprised at his knock, but then her eyes had moved to her drawings again, until he had stalked over to the table and pushed them aside. She had glared up at him, rising from her seat, before falling silent at the look on his face, eyes going shuttered and blank as she had waited for him to speak.
‘Anissina,’ he’d said after a moment, unsure how to begin, ‘can we talk about what happened in the morning?’
She had raised an eyebrow at him, and he had gone on: ‘There is something between us, and I-’
‘You left,’ she had interrupted him then, ‘you didn’t want to talk about anything then, when we almost-’ She had trailed off, eyes having gone dark and cold as she had looked at him. ‘You can’t just come here now and assume that I’m ready to talk whenever you see fit.’
He had gaped at her. ‘But I thought you were not-that you did not-’ He had broken off to scowl at her, and she had only raised her other eyebrow haughtily, wearing a flinty expression.
‘I will not take a step forward when I am so unsure of the ground under my feet.’
He had understood what she had meant, and he had nodded once, looking steadily back at her when she had glared at him with a challenging glitter in her eyes. You will run away, her glance had said, you will run from this because it’s what you do, and I expect nothing from you.
It had stung, the fact that she thought so little of him, and he had vowed to himself that he’d prove her wrong. If she wanted to be courted, then by Shinou he’d court her!
With that, he had bowed perfectly respectfully as he had left her to her drawings and retired for the night, hopefully to plan his campaign. Unfortunately, he was currently occupied with how angry he was that for once in her life, Anissina von Khrennikov couldn’t do things normally-
With an oath, he flung back his covers and got into his bed. He could plan tomorrow morning. For now it was best that he have an early night. He had a busy few days ahead of him, after all.
~
The first step to a successful campaign was always the same: observation.
It was essential that he know the enemy-rather, in this case, his quarry-and her habits well.
Well, that was one thing taken care of, he knew what was happening in the castle at all times, and had long known her usual routine of the day.
The next bit was tricky; he knew quite well that Anissina was not like other women, and she would not be swayed by the usual gestures of courtship. Thus his mother was a useless resource-not that he would ever have told her about this, of course, but it narrowed his options considerably. Flowers and wine would have no effect on this woman, but he couldn’t really give her a bouquet of wrenches, spanners and the other instruments she normally used for her inventions, could he?
Now that he was commited to this course of action, how wondered how in Shinou’s name he was to court anyone-least of all Anissina.
He acknowledged to himself, with a huff of frustration, that he was somewhat lacking in this particular area of knowledge.
But then, it had never been an issue before.
He was standing and staring out of the window in thought, chin propped in his hand when there was a knock on the door and it opened. Gunter entered, looking panicky and flustered.
‘Gwendal!’ he called, closing the door quickly behind himself. ‘You have to hide me in here! Lady Anissina-’
‘Another experiment?’
The other man nodded, dropping into a nearby chair and closing his eyes. ‘I didn’t even wait to confirm it myself, I heard from the maids that she was looking for me and decided to take pre-emptive action.’ He shuddered, and looked up at him. ‘I suggest you hide, as well. Though I would advise you to be seen leaving your office. We stand a better chance if she has to search for more than one quarry-if she gets one of us,’ he shrugged, ‘maybe she won’t get both of us.’
‘I have a better idea,’ Gwendal replied, turning away from the window and moving to the door.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘If she has to search the whole castle for us, it will be worse when we are eventually found,’ he replied. Now that he had thought about it, he realised that this was a perfect opportunity. If he were to volunteer for an experiment-when it was clearly the last thing he wanted to do-surely Anissina would realise how much she meant to him? He looked at Gunter. ‘It will be better for the both of us if I go to her now and just get this experiment over with.’
Gunter blinked, then clutched his hand in both of his. ‘Oh, Gwendal, such a noble sacrifice for your friend-’ He choked, and Gwendal hurriedly pulled his hand put of his grasp. ‘Yes, well, it’s nothing,’ he said nervously, patting the other man on the shoulder.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled open his door, just in time to see Anissina come walking down the corridor, frowning in thought as she absently pushed doors open and looked inside before hurrying on her way. Clearly, she was searching for Gunter, because she called his name occasionally. It occurred to him that she must have been avoiding him after their talk of yesterday. This did not sit well with him, and he frowned as he called out to her: ‘Anissina!’
She looked up at him, blinking as he strode to her. ‘I hear you’re looking for a test subject,’ he told her quietly, and her eyes widened. She recovered quickly from her surprise, though, nodding briskly as she turned away.
‘Follow me.’
He would have been heartened by any sign that she acknowledged what he had just done, but she didn’t even smile at getting her way, as he would have expected. He frowned as he walked to her lab with her, and realised that his plan, while it had seemed a good idea, had unfortunately failed.
Time for a change of tactics, then.
~
She was not the kind of woman to generally receive flowers, but perhaps that was precisely the reason why he needed to give her some.
He realised now that his gesture of yesterday, while a sacrifice on his part, had not made a great deal of impact. Anissina had accepted his offer of a test subject for her experiment almost as her due, he was annoyingly certain she had thought he had helped her for ‘science and progress’ and not because he wanted to show her he cared about her and whatever was important to her.
Accordingly, he stood now in the garden before the flowers in the wee hours of the morning with only a single candle to light his way. Dawn would soon break, but that was when the maids and cooks first began to stir, and he did not want anyone to see him here. There was enough to fuel the gossip in the castle with the ‘Maou’s Love Lotto’, as Yozak had laughingly informed him the other day. Besides, this was something private.
He looked down at the flowers before him, and sighed. His mother had cultivated hundreds of varieties of flowers, and this season seemed to have produced a fine number of them for him to choose from.
But of course it was not easy trying to decide which kind to give to Anissina.
It would be the height of narcissism to give her a bouquet of Secret Gwendal, and yet that fast seemed to be becoming his only option. He couldn’t give her the fowers named for his brothers, and none of the others were appropriate. Why hadn’t his mother cultivated something for such a situation, such a woman, he wondered plaintively. Something like a rose, perfect and beautiful, but surrounded by deadly thorns, he mused whimsically.
In the end, he snipped one single, long stemmed white flower from its stalk. He remembered his mother telling him it represented an encounter, and he hoped he had made a good choice. He turned and walked quickly into the castle, making his way to his desk for parchment and quill. He set to work, scribbling a quick note:
Anissina,
You’ve been in my thoughts often, ever since that night when we almost kissed.
He paused a moment before he wrote the next line, steeling himself to be brutally honest about his feelings, something he had never been accustomed to doing. It helped that he was doing it on paper, though, and not face to face.
You were right. I did not seek you out afterward because I was afraid you would tell me that encounter had been caused entirely due to my mother’s potion, when for me, it had been something I had dearly hoped for, for quite some time. Forgive me.
Gwendal
Rising, he walked quickly and quietly down the halls until he was before the door to Anissina’s rooms. He tried the door handle, and it was as he had expected, the outer room was unlocked. He had often warned her of the security threat of leaving it unlocked when she retired for the night, and she had always replied that she locked her bedroom door, instead. He was glad of it now as he slipped inside silently, leaving the note and the flower on a table where she would not miss it, gently closing the door behind him again.
Now, there was nothing to it but to wait.
He passed a few restless hours, tossing and turning in his bed, utterly unable to sleep. Finally fed up, he decided to get a head start on the Maou’s paperwork, and rose to go about his morning routine. Some time later, he walked down the halls to his office in the early morning still, sitting down and going to work perfectly normally, as if he wasn’t being wound tighter and tighter with anxiety every moment.
That was how Conrart found him three hours later, when he knocked on his door and asked him if he would be joining them for breakfast. He nodded as he rose, and made fists so that his brother, who stood waiting at the door for him, would not see their nervous twitching.
He walked with Conrart to the breakfast room, wondering if Anissina would be there. She normally joined them when she was not busy on another project, and while she had not finished her current invention, he was fairly sure she would be here today if she had read his note, as he had assumed she would. On the other hand, she would not be here if that was the message she chose to send instead, and panic gripped him momentarily at the thought of her rejection…
Thus he was nervous when he entered to see that she was seated at her usual place-next to him-despite his outward calm demeanour. She looked up when he sat down, favouring him with a soft smile, and relief washed over him.
The maids served him and he took his spork in hand, nearly dropping it with a clatter when he felt Anissina’s soft hand clasp his under the table. Her eyes shone as she looked at him, and his own grin was edged with triumph as he squeezed her hand in reply, drawing their joined hands to rest on his knee.
‘Gwendal,’ his mother said suddenly, looking at him interestedly, ‘you’re smiling!’
‘I’m happy,’ he replied simply, and was rewarded with a blinding smile from Anissina.
~
A/N: Many thanks for reading, all comments and concrit are welcome. =)
The title comes from the English dub of the anime, the episode where Celi takes the dragon gem (if I remember correctly) from the treasury. Gwendal remarks that questioning Anissina about the theft would be akin to ‘courting danger’.
Sequel 'Evasive Manoeuvres' is here.
Also, also, see the icon? The very appropriate icon? Made for me, me, meeee by the lovely poisonangel7! =)
Title: Courting Danger
Pairings: Gwendal/Anissina
Word Count: 2,265
Rating: G
Any Warnings: None, really.
Prompt being used: Third person POV
Timeline: Set during Season one.
Summary: Now that he was commited to this course of action, how wondered how in Shinou’s name he was to court anyone-least of all Anissina.
Disclaimer: I own none of these very entertaining characters, please don’t sue me. Thank you.
Part of my Gwendal/Anissina series. Follows from ‘Best Served Cold’.
Gah, I feel like I'm spamming this comm! *cringes*
~
Gwendal scowled as he flung open the door to his room. The woman was infuriating, there was no other word for it.
After that moment in his rooms, when she had come to see him in order to play that very unamusing prank on him, and he’d almost confessed all to her-he’d been sure she saw things the same way, that she wanted to take the next step in this thing between them as much as he did…
He gnashed his teeth as he stalked to one end of his room and quickly stripped off his uniform jacket, leaving it on a chair there. This morning, after Gisela had tended to him, he had snatched a free moment from his schedule and had found her in her lab, eager to talk to her, to get everything between them cleared up, and what had she said?
‘Oh, I’m busy now, Gwendal-something I’m working on-can we talk again another time?’
He’d gritted his teeth and nodded as he’d walked away. The whole day he’d been impatient and jittery, wondering how she’d react when he was finally able to tell her…but then when he’d taken a plate of food to her lab at lunch time-she always did forget to eat when she was too caught up in another one of her projects-she’d simply given him a grateful smile for the food and turned away again.
He had cornered her after dinner, having made sure that the maids had sent a tray to her room before he went to see her, so that she couldn’t dismiss him with a smile again. She had looked up, surprised at his knock, but then her eyes had moved to her drawings again, until he had stalked over to the table and pushed them aside. She had glared up at him, rising from her seat, before falling silent at the look on his face, eyes going shuttered and blank as she had waited for him to speak.
‘Anissina,’ he’d said after a moment, unsure how to begin, ‘can we talk about what happened in the morning?’
She had raised an eyebrow at him, and he had gone on: ‘There is something between us, and I-’
‘You left,’ she had interrupted him then, ‘you didn’t want to talk about anything then, when we almost-’ She had trailed off, eyes having gone dark and cold as she had looked at him. ‘You can’t just come here now and assume that I’m ready to talk whenever you see fit.’
He had gaped at her. ‘But I thought you were not-that you did not-’ He had broken off to scowl at her, and she had only raised her other eyebrow haughtily, wearing a flinty expression.
‘I will not take a step forward when I am so unsure of the ground under my feet.’
He had understood what she had meant, and he had nodded once, looking steadily back at her when she had glared at him with a challenging glitter in her eyes. You will run away, her glance had said, you will run from this because it’s what you do, and I expect nothing from you.
It had stung, the fact that she thought so little of him, and he had vowed to himself that he’d prove her wrong. If she wanted to be courted, then by Shinou he’d court her!
With that, he had bowed perfectly respectfully as he had left her to her drawings and retired for the night, hopefully to plan his campaign. Unfortunately, he was currently occupied with how angry he was that for once in her life, Anissina von Khrennikov couldn’t do things normally-
With an oath, he flung back his covers and got into his bed. He could plan tomorrow morning. For now it was best that he have an early night. He had a busy few days ahead of him, after all.
~
The first step to a successful campaign was always the same: observation.
It was essential that he know the enemy-rather, in this case, his quarry-and her habits well.
Well, that was one thing taken care of, he knew what was happening in the castle at all times, and had long known her usual routine of the day.
The next bit was tricky; he knew quite well that Anissina was not like other women, and she would not be swayed by the usual gestures of courtship. Thus his mother was a useless resource-not that he would ever have told her about this, of course, but it narrowed his options considerably. Flowers and wine would have no effect on this woman, but he couldn’t really give her a bouquet of wrenches, spanners and the other instruments she normally used for her inventions, could he?
Now that he was commited to this course of action, how wondered how in Shinou’s name he was to court anyone-least of all Anissina.
He acknowledged to himself, with a huff of frustration, that he was somewhat lacking in this particular area of knowledge.
But then, it had never been an issue before.
He was standing and staring out of the window in thought, chin propped in his hand when there was a knock on the door and it opened. Gunter entered, looking panicky and flustered.
‘Gwendal!’ he called, closing the door quickly behind himself. ‘You have to hide me in here! Lady Anissina-’
‘Another experiment?’
The other man nodded, dropping into a nearby chair and closing his eyes. ‘I didn’t even wait to confirm it myself, I heard from the maids that she was looking for me and decided to take pre-emptive action.’ He shuddered, and looked up at him. ‘I suggest you hide, as well. Though I would advise you to be seen leaving your office. We stand a better chance if she has to search for more than one quarry-if she gets one of us,’ he shrugged, ‘maybe she won’t get both of us.’
‘I have a better idea,’ Gwendal replied, turning away from the window and moving to the door.
‘What’re you doing?’
‘If she has to search the whole castle for us, it will be worse when we are eventually found,’ he replied. Now that he had thought about it, he realised that this was a perfect opportunity. If he were to volunteer for an experiment-when it was clearly the last thing he wanted to do-surely Anissina would realise how much she meant to him? He looked at Gunter. ‘It will be better for the both of us if I go to her now and just get this experiment over with.’
Gunter blinked, then clutched his hand in both of his. ‘Oh, Gwendal, such a noble sacrifice for your friend-’ He choked, and Gwendal hurriedly pulled his hand put of his grasp. ‘Yes, well, it’s nothing,’ he said nervously, patting the other man on the shoulder.
Taking a deep breath, he pulled open his door, just in time to see Anissina come walking down the corridor, frowning in thought as she absently pushed doors open and looked inside before hurrying on her way. Clearly, she was searching for Gunter, because she called his name occasionally. It occurred to him that she must have been avoiding him after their talk of yesterday. This did not sit well with him, and he frowned as he called out to her: ‘Anissina!’
She looked up at him, blinking as he strode to her. ‘I hear you’re looking for a test subject,’ he told her quietly, and her eyes widened. She recovered quickly from her surprise, though, nodding briskly as she turned away.
‘Follow me.’
He would have been heartened by any sign that she acknowledged what he had just done, but she didn’t even smile at getting her way, as he would have expected. He frowned as he walked to her lab with her, and realised that his plan, while it had seemed a good idea, had unfortunately failed.
Time for a change of tactics, then.
~
She was not the kind of woman to generally receive flowers, but perhaps that was precisely the reason why he needed to give her some.
He realised now that his gesture of yesterday, while a sacrifice on his part, had not made a great deal of impact. Anissina had accepted his offer of a test subject for her experiment almost as her due, he was annoyingly certain she had thought he had helped her for ‘science and progress’ and not because he wanted to show her he cared about her and whatever was important to her.
Accordingly, he stood now in the garden before the flowers in the wee hours of the morning with only a single candle to light his way. Dawn would soon break, but that was when the maids and cooks first began to stir, and he did not want anyone to see him here. There was enough to fuel the gossip in the castle with the ‘Maou’s Love Lotto’, as Yozak had laughingly informed him the other day. Besides, this was something private.
He looked down at the flowers before him, and sighed. His mother had cultivated hundreds of varieties of flowers, and this season seemed to have produced a fine number of them for him to choose from.
But of course it was not easy trying to decide which kind to give to Anissina.
It would be the height of narcissism to give her a bouquet of Secret Gwendal, and yet that fast seemed to be becoming his only option. He couldn’t give her the fowers named for his brothers, and none of the others were appropriate. Why hadn’t his mother cultivated something for such a situation, such a woman, he wondered plaintively. Something like a rose, perfect and beautiful, but surrounded by deadly thorns, he mused whimsically.
In the end, he snipped one single, long stemmed white flower from its stalk. He remembered his mother telling him it represented an encounter, and he hoped he had made a good choice. He turned and walked quickly into the castle, making his way to his desk for parchment and quill. He set to work, scribbling a quick note:
Anissina,
You’ve been in my thoughts often, ever since that night when we almost kissed.
He paused a moment before he wrote the next line, steeling himself to be brutally honest about his feelings, something he had never been accustomed to doing. It helped that he was doing it on paper, though, and not face to face.
You were right. I did not seek you out afterward because I was afraid you would tell me that encounter had been caused entirely due to my mother’s potion, when for me, it had been something I had dearly hoped for, for quite some time. Forgive me.
Gwendal
Rising, he walked quickly and quietly down the halls until he was before the door to Anissina’s rooms. He tried the door handle, and it was as he had expected, the outer room was unlocked. He had often warned her of the security threat of leaving it unlocked when she retired for the night, and she had always replied that she locked her bedroom door, instead. He was glad of it now as he slipped inside silently, leaving the note and the flower on a table where she would not miss it, gently closing the door behind him again.
Now, there was nothing to it but to wait.
He passed a few restless hours, tossing and turning in his bed, utterly unable to sleep. Finally fed up, he decided to get a head start on the Maou’s paperwork, and rose to go about his morning routine. Some time later, he walked down the halls to his office in the early morning still, sitting down and going to work perfectly normally, as if he wasn’t being wound tighter and tighter with anxiety every moment.
That was how Conrart found him three hours later, when he knocked on his door and asked him if he would be joining them for breakfast. He nodded as he rose, and made fists so that his brother, who stood waiting at the door for him, would not see their nervous twitching.
He walked with Conrart to the breakfast room, wondering if Anissina would be there. She normally joined them when she was not busy on another project, and while she had not finished her current invention, he was fairly sure she would be here today if she had read his note, as he had assumed she would. On the other hand, she would not be here if that was the message she chose to send instead, and panic gripped him momentarily at the thought of her rejection…
Thus he was nervous when he entered to see that she was seated at her usual place-next to him-despite his outward calm demeanour. She looked up when he sat down, favouring him with a soft smile, and relief washed over him.
The maids served him and he took his spork in hand, nearly dropping it with a clatter when he felt Anissina’s soft hand clasp his under the table. Her eyes shone as she looked at him, and his own grin was edged with triumph as he squeezed her hand in reply, drawing their joined hands to rest on his knee.
‘Gwendal,’ his mother said suddenly, looking at him interestedly, ‘you’re smiling!’
‘I’m happy,’ he replied simply, and was rewarded with a blinding smile from Anissina.
~
A/N: Many thanks for reading, all comments and concrit are welcome. =)
The title comes from the English dub of the anime, the episode where Celi takes the dragon gem (if I remember correctly) from the treasury. Gwendal remarks that questioning Anissina about the theft would be akin to ‘courting danger’.
Sequel 'Evasive Manoeuvres' is here.
Also, also, see the icon? The very appropriate icon? Made for me, me, meeee by the lovely poisonangel7! =)