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When Annie had, reluctantly, agreed to meet with Claude at the library, she had already braced herself for the possibility that he'd come late or not even come at all. In the more than five years that she has known him, he hasn't been someone who cared for schedules or manners at all, so now she's sitting on a table by herself, and, besides thinking if she should practice her aim throwing tomahawks at her class leader, she's revisiting some of the notes she's taken from Byleth over tactics and footwork using axes.
She has been staring at the same page now for some time, and with no signs of his classmate coming to their study session and being already late in the evening, she is about to leave, when halfway upon standing, she stops dead on her tracks, as she thinks she heard a tune that she hadn't heard on years. It is a low hum from where she is now, but still, is unmistakable. The hum reminds her of her past, of a simpler time before everything went wrong and disaster struck on them.
Rapidly, Annie decides to investigate the source, moving with ease between the tables, since it's now late in the evening, and there are only a few students left, to where the sound was coming. With each step she took, the hum was becoming clearer, and she was recognizing some notes of the voice singing it, allowing herself to harbor some hope. Finally, she located the origin of the sound, and when she did, it felt like the time stopped for her.
"Lucas?" Just in front of her is her twin brother, Lucas, who was taken away from her so long ago. Her twin brother that, just because they had a crest, their grandmother decided to kidnap them after killing their parents and leaving her to die in the middle of nowhere.
After hearing their name, the boy snapped their head in her direction, suddenly aware of her presence. Even if they stared at each other for mere seconds, to Annie it felt like the world stopped during that time, until their brother spoke. "A-Annie, is that you? Are you real?" The tone of their voice was of utter disbelief, as if they couldn't believe she was there and they were seeing hallucinations.
With tears starting to form in her eyes, she took a step closer to them, as if, when she moved, they'd disappear again. "Yes, Lucas, it's me. I'm here." She reassured them.
In that moment, Lucas, jumped from their seat, and they hugged her that she felt that they could have snapped her in half. "It's you. You're real, you're here." They managed to speak while crying.
"Yes, Lucas, I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere now." She said while rubbing her hands through her hair, as if to symbolize that she wouldn't go.
They stood like that, embraced in each other, until they hear some noises approaching them. The library was almost empty when Annie came, so she's wondering who can it be, until Tomas enters in their view politely asking them to leave the library since it's about to close.
"We really should get our things, shouldn't we?" Asked Annie, small smile on her face. "They have my favorites tonight for dinner, and I don't want to miss them. Need any help packing?"
"Nah, I'm fine, but, are you meeting anyone for dinner? I wouldn't like to interrupt anyth-." Before they could finish, their sister interrupted them.
"Lucas," She inhaled before continuing, "do you think I'd turn you down, just right after finding you again, to have dinner with my classmates? I want you to tell me everything that has happened to you, and I won't move unless Seteth himself tell me to or until you're finished."
After she finished, both busted out in laughs after her comment. When Lucas recovered, they managed to respond. "Okay, I get it, but please, I don't want to risk having to endure one of Setheth's lectures, can we continue tomorrow over tea if you want?"
Annie gave them an enthusiastic nod for answer and they finished packing up their possessions, finally leaving the library.
When they stepped outside, the night was clear, with the last rays of sun still tinting the sky with orange hues, and the autumn breeze cooling the air.
They finally arrived at the dining hall after the brief walk, already engaged over an anecdote Annie was telling to her sibling about her time in Almyra, probably about the mischief she caused with her now class leader Claude over the Royal Palace.
Dinner passed far quicker than the both of them would have liked, with still many stories left to share, but, when they separated their way to make it to their respective dorms, Annie couldn't think anything besides the chance that fate had given her to reunite with her sibling, and she went to bed with the hope of making new memories with them, a brilliant future now ahead of them.