Work Text:
Hilda Goneril was lazy, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that.
However. Hilda also had a middle name: Valentine.
And Hilda was also a mischievous teenager. Her being a teenager was a significant reason behind her laziness - it usually prevented her from having to do any actual work, after all - but there was also more to her being a teenager than that. Sure, Claude the Obviously-Almyran (well, obviously so to a Goneril, anyway, but Hilda was a Goneril so it counted) and Hubert the Obviously-Vampiric were obviously better schemers than she was, and that fancy 4th-house boy(?) by the name of Yuri (of all things) was also definitely a better schemer than her, but the schemes of Hilda's teenage mind - when not being about how to avoid doing chores, at least - were very different to those of the boys.
Take, for example, exhibit A: Marianne von Edmund, Hilda's best friend.
Hilda wasn't an idiot. She knew that, even with her own optimistic friendship added in, Marianne was depressed. Something or other that Hilda didn't know of weighed on her far more than a simple friendship could lift. Short of actually dealing with the source of Marianne's woes - if that was even possible - the next best thing would be multiple friendships. And one of the best kinds of friendships was one with benefits. Wink wink nudge nudge.
By virtue of not being an idiot, Hilda had also figured out that Marianne had a crush on a certain Faerghan Prince. And then she had started scheming.
Hilda had quickly landed on another student in the academy for use as an accomplice in her little scheme. Annette Fantaine Dominc, another Blue Lion like the Prince, had something of a reputation of being a klutz. And that, Hilda had explained to her, gave her some very plausible deniability for what was now about to happen.
It had been trivially cheap for Hilda to obtain (from Claude) a time in the near future when Dimitri would be mostly alone in a specific area. Unfortunately, said area was the training grounds, so the presence of one Felix Fraldarius was also unavoidable, but that was an acceptable enough deviation from what was absolutely ideal to still fit within the overall plan. Hilda had then proceeded to modify said schedule to insert both herself and Marianne into the given area at the given time, and had then proceeded to go for several rounds with Felix. Being a Goneril, she had no problem keeping up with him, but nobody needed to know that. Her being all tired and worn out by virtue of having to put effort into fighting Felix (which counted as part of "literally anything) would give her plausible deniability, too.
The next step of her plan involved the walk back to the dorms. Hilda had made sure to position herself so that Dimitri was in the middle of the group of three, in-between herself and Marianne. This had, fortunately, been easy, because, by some miracle, the two had managed to strike up a fairly deep and fruitful conversation about... something or other. Flowers, Hilda reckoned, but she couldn't be sure. It all went a bit over her head. And she also wasn't paying as much attention to their ongoing conversation as she was to Annette's hiding place.
After all, Annette, the busy little bee that she was, was bound to be due to carry something somewhere, wasn't she? Therefore, if it just so happened that she was in fact carrying something or other on a route that brought her directly into the route of the trio Hilda had ensured were in her path right now, that wouldn't be suspicious at all, would it? And, well, Annette did have a reputation for tripping over her own feet, did she not?
This time, with an 'eep' so well-faked it might as well have been legitimate, she fell over right into Hilda.
Normally, in this situation, Hilda would have had the strength to stay standing. Of course, in reality, she still did have the strength to stay standing. But Hilda didn't act like she did - why would she? After all, she was all tuckered out from fighting Felix, so she couldn't resist being pushed over - right into Dimitri. And of course she didn't accidentally-on-purpose give her fall some extra weight. Now why would she ever do that?
Similarly, Dimitri would normally have had the strength to stay standing from the weight of even someone Hilda's size falling on top of him. But, being distracted by a conversation, without any time to react, and with the weight of two teenage girls pushing into him, he stumbled, and nearly fell over.
Only nearly, though - fortunately for both himself and Marianne, he managed to not fall over onto her, entirely thanks to the convenient wall against which he was able to steady himself through both of his arms.
Hilda realised, in hindsight, that the fancy floors of the Monastery were maybe not the best thing to throw oneself down onto. The sound that escaped her mouth as she realised that particular fact was genuine. Her leg would be sore for the night and for tomorrow, and her shoulder would probably be sore for a few days after that, at least. Her annoyance at that particular fact was also genuine.
But, as hard for her to see as it was behind the Prince's arm, the highly-intriguing shade of red that Marianne had gone was also genuine. Hilda smiled as she took in the moment.
Everyone was silent for a few seconds.
The moment abruptly passed as both of the Blue Lions started issuing rapid-fire apologies at the same time. By the time Hilda was able to process what was actually being said, there were only three people left. Hilda did not know that Dimitri was capable of moving that fast, nor did she have him pegged the type of person to run away like that. Maybe that would complicate things in unforseen ways in the days ahead.
It didn't take long for Hilda to help gather up Annette's cargo, and once Annette had been sent back on her way with a mutual smile and imaginary fist-bump, Hilda was the left alone with Marianne. Who hadn't really moved at all, and had, in fact, been staring off into space for the last minute or so. She was still extremely red.
"Come on," said Hilda, putting a hand on Marianne's shoulder. "Let's get back to our dorms for the night."
"e," responded Marianne, intelligently.
Hilda smiled, and shook her head. Mission accomplished.