Chapter 0 - extra motivation

Bernadetta whines, pulling the blanket up over her head again after Byleth pulls it down. “I’m not going tomorrow, I just want to stay back here! Why can’t you just let me hold down the fort for once?! I’m great at that!”

“You’re not holding anything down, you’re just hiding in your room,” Byleth points out.

“Exactly! And that’s what I’m best at! So, anyway, I’m not going tomorrow, and that’s that,” she says, and Byleth sighs.

“You’ve been doing so much better about battles, so what’s gotten into you?” she asks. It’s true that, since reuniting after Byleth’s five year disappearance, her reclusive student has gotten a lot bolder and a lot better about leaving her room and joining them on the battlefield. She understands the importance of the war, understands her role in it, and is usually able to put her fears and insecurities to the side.

Even more surprising is the temporary boldness that allowed her to finally address the developing feelings between the two of them, thus beginning their discreet relationship. It’s not exactly a secret, but it isn’t something they’ve announced either, waiting for a more appropriate time. This doesn’t stop them from getting very close behind closed doors, and Byleth has a feeling that that might be the only course of action to get Bernadetta to calm down tonight.

“It’s just hard,” she says, in a very small voice. “I don’t want to go, and I really don’t want you to go either. I...being with you makes me more brave, but it also scares me more. I haven’t ever been this happy before, and I’m so afraid...what if I don’t deserve this much happiness? Then I’ll have to pay the price! So maybe if I just stay behind, then nothing will happen to either of us…”

It surprises Byleth that it has so much to do with her, but now that Bernadetta has said it, the change in her attitude makes a lot more sense. Which means that there really is only one way to reassure her, and so, she pulls the blanket back again, and strokes Bernadetta’s hair with the other woman cowers. “I’ve already promised to protect you out there. Nothing is going to happen to me, and nothing is going to happen to you,” she says. “And, either way, you should know that you do deserve to be this happy. You don’t have anything to worry about there, Bernie.”

Finally she looks back up at Byleth and says, “I just don’t know about that. I don’t think I deserve any of this.”

“Well, why don’t you let me show you that I disagree?” Byleth murmurs, and Bernadetta knows what the shift in her voice means. And, despite wanting to refuse to budge on the matter, she can’t resist, and is soon sitting up, mumbling that that sounds nice.
Byleth pulls her in for a soft kiss, but has already started to pull at her clothes, ready to begin undressing her so that she can do what Bernadetta really wants. Soon enough, they’ve broken the kiss so that Byleth can fully strip her, and then she sits back against the wall while Byleth kneels between her legs.

She reaches up to grope at Bernadetta’s breasts with both hands, giving them light squeezes that cause her lover to squeak from the attention. Meanwhile, she begins kissing along the inside of her thighs, alternating between the two and leaving small nibbles in between kisses, until Bernadetta is squirming, desperate for more. By now, she’s probably not thinking about tomorrow’s battle anymore, which is what Byleth has been after.

Bernadetta will go tomorrow, even after insisting that she won’t have any part of it, because she won’t abandon her army at this stage in the war, but Byleth will do everything she can to reassure her and help calm her down either way. And so she nuzzles between her legs before pressing her tongue inside of her, and Bernadetta cries out for her.

While she begins to eat Bernadetta out, her hands begin working again, and this time, rather than simply squeezing her breasts, she begins pinching each of her already erect nipples. She’s very sensitive here, something that Byleth has had the pleasure of exploiting again and again, and tonight is no different. Bernadetta gasps and calls out, Byleth’s name on her lips as she does.

Rolling her nipples between her fingers, Byleth is able to reduce her to an incoherent mess of moans and whimpers, and that alone would be enough to overwhelm the poor thing, but that is not where she’s stopping. Working her tongue deeper into her, she buries it inside of her, tracing shapes to earn even more pathetic and needy noises from her lover. It won’t be long now, because it never is like this, and then perhaps she might feel more relaxed and more at ease, and she will definitely know that, no matter what she may have to face, she won’t have to face it alone.

That is what Byleth is after as she does everything in her power to pleasure Bernadetta, and it’s fortunate that she gives herself over to that pleasure so easily. She can feel Bernadetta’s climax building, the tension growing and growing until it has nowhere else to go, until she is throwing back her head and crying out, her voice so loud that Byleth sincerely hopes whoever is next door is out right now. Bernadetta always struggles to keep quiet, but no one has commented on that yet. She’s sure that the poor woman would die of shame if anyone ever did.

“Do you feel a little better?” she asks, as Bernadetta pants to catch her breath.

“I do,” she replies, before sighing and hanging her head. “Sometimes I swear you’re just exploiting my weaknesses to get your way…”

“Maybe so,” Byleth says casually, “but when I get my way, doesn’t it usually turn out better for you?”

Bernadetta says nothing and simply pouts, because she knows that Byleth is exactly right. 

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