Edelgard's discipline is tested.

With the night getting later and with various students getting into unknown tangles inside the student dormitory, Edelgard von Hresvelg crouched alone in the still darkness outside, watching the stars, breathing in the night air. As usual, the future monarch of the Adrestian Empire had slept restlessly in her bed, weighted with the burdens of her past, her current responsibilities, and the road ahead of her.

On top of all that, in the neighboring apartment, Hilda's regular night meeting seemed to be unusually spirited. Sleep was impossible.

Edelgard's long silver hair and the thin, dark ribbons decorating it framed a furrowed brow. The silence of a small dorm room was ordinarily stifling to the woman, but truth be told (and she doubted she'd ever have someone she was close enough to tell this truth), the silence wasn't what bothered her today, but the noise. She was jealous. In the room next to her, Hilda and Marianne were obviously having a great time. She hadn't been able make out the words, but she could hear the cheery tones of both of their voices. She wondered what it would be like to be so carefree: Hilda and Marianne were nobles, but Hilda's famous brother, the Alliance General Holst, would succeed her house's leadership, and Marianne's ascension to assume the headship of her adoptive father's calm economic region was a distant concern.

... As the House Leader of the Black Eagles with a sort of spy network of her own, Edelgard knew more about most students than they knew about her, but nonetheless, she realized she was being presumptuous to assume she understood their worries. Her lips twisted in a wry smile as her lilac-colored eyes shifted from the stars to the second floor window of the dorm, looking in at the hallway near her room.

That was lucky timing, as she could see Marianne on the move. That probably meant Hilda's party had come to an end. Edelgard couldn't decide if she was happy about that or not. In order to maximize her rest, she now had a responsibility to return to that cramped room and try to put herself to sleep again. "Even my rest must be optimized..." She sighed at her own thought. Soon, she'd have to make her way back to her own room... There was a guard that ought to be watching for students, but the system was so easy to bypass, she wondered why the position was even paid.

The noble began moving swiftly but quietly towards her second floor room. Before she reached the stairs, however, she noticed one of the first floor doors beginning to open. Realizing this, she moved to place her back to the wall alongside the door, hoping the occupant would move past without noticing her... Not that it really mattered if another student noticed her. She just didn't feel like making conversation.

She was sure the door had opened, but as she remained pressed against the wall, nobody emerged from the doorway. It was at that point that Edelgard remembered that the room belonged to Bernadetta, one of her House members. With that in mind, it was easy to imagine the fearful young woman had heard a disturbance outside and opened her door to check. "I guess I ought to make myself known... No sense in terrifying her further." Edelgard worked to put a friendly, non-threatening smile on her face, then raised her hands, slowly turning the corner. "Bernadetta...? Bernadetta...?!"

Edelgard's eyes opened wide in indignant shock. It was a moment before she could say anything else.

Bernadetta was clad in a tight-fitting pair of underwear, decorated in small black ribbons that were on complete display as she held onto the doorframe and shook her panty-clad ass out of the door. As far as Edelgard could tell, the ordinarily shy noble wasn't dressed in any garment besides the underwear she was displaying so feverishly and a hairtie keeping her bangs up out of her eyes. She was looking over her shoulder and even making eye contact with Edelgard, but she wasn't showing any signs of stopping. Instead, her unexpectedly plush bottom continued to wave rhythmically in its unexpectedly racy underwear at the leader of her House. "L-L-Lady Edelgard...!" she eventually squeaked in a tiny voice. "Please don't come any closer!"

"Bernadetta!" Edelgard shouted, before remembering where she was and adjusting her volume. "Have you succumb to lunacy?! Are you... mooning me?! Is that what this is?" she hissed at her classmate.

"Gaaah! I promise it's not! P-Please don't **** me!" Bernadetta pleaded, shaking her head as wildly as her ass. "In fact, um, you have to stay away! Go get a teacher and- I mean, p-please go get a teacher, Lady Edelgard!"

"Bernadetta, you do realize you are engaging in public exhibitionism at a monastery governed by a moralistic body that could send you back to your father, Count Varley, for such an offense? That's not even speaking of my own feelings about being openly taunted."

"Oh no no no no, please! Y-you can't kick me out of the Academy, Lady Edelgard! I promise this isn't what it looks like!!"

"You're right. I literally cannot. I'm not the one who would be responsible for kicking you out... As usual, you aren't listening," Edelgard sighed. Before today, she'd thought she'd started to learn how to deal with her classmate's unreasonable behavior. The fact that she was getting another crash course in the girl's strange tendencies at a late hour of the night, on top of the other stresses she faced, stretched her patience thin. "Look, it will cause problems for me as the House leader if you're seen engaging in such antics in your unmentionables. Whatever your explanation is, I look forward to hearing it in the morning. For now, I want you back in your room. Immediately."

"It's not my fault! N-not this time!" Bernadetta protested desperately, as if there could be anyone else responsible for the way she was slamming her hips into the sides of her doorframe. "The music is making me do it!"

"I hear no music at all," Edelgard noted honestly. "What devilry has gotten into you?"

"Good! Stay right there and don't listen to it!" Bernadetta cried. "Oh, Lady Edelgard, please help me. I really need your help. My sanctuary's been invaded and I... I don't think I'm gonna last another night like this..."

"You certainly aren't, at this rate. This explanation is taking far longer than I expected, and I won't be party to this nonsense. I assume I don't need to tell you a fair night's sleep isn't a luxury for me, but one of my many responsibilities. Please get yourself to bed before I have to carry you there like a child."

"I just wanna go back to bed and tuck my pillow over my head... b-but it's really hard," Bernadetta added, gulping nervously. "When I know the music's gonna play, my brain won't let it go... I can't resist it. I think if you weren't here watching me, I'd already be outside in the hall... S-so, it's hard for me to ask, but Lady Edelgard! Please do me a favor! The ones responsible for this, it's..."

Edelgard's eyebrows peaked with interest. She didn't understand what was happening, but she had special interest in any shady organization at the Academy. She couldn't imagine this was related, but... "It's who?"

"... Those Blue Lion Girls. They're the ones playing music! I don't know how, but it's true! Just next door!"

Edelgard's eyebrows lowered, then tilted, unamused. "So, rather than some nefarious magic... You're saying your neighbor throws a party late at night, and it gets so exciting you can't help but be curious? Bernadetta, I'm not a hall monitor, and I have no authority over the Blue Lions. While I sympathize with wanting a good night's sleep, there are certainly more reasonable ways to handle it than this. You're better off taking this to an Academy officer, or to their professor. I advise you to get your story straight, before you do."

"It's not like that! Bernie isn't lying!" the purple-haired young lady complained.

... Edelgard, looked left and right quickly. Their ruckus hadn't drawn any onlookers yet. At this point, the young woman was less concerned about anyone seeing her classmate's bouncing bottom than what she was about to do next. Feeling like she was going insane from Bernadetta's provocation, and feeling a rare vein pulsing on her forehead, Edelgard snapped. "I don't have time for this!" she shouted putting her hands on Bernadetta's shoulder blades and shoving her forcefully back into the room.

"Noooo!! L-Lady Edelgard, please don't come in! O-or if you're going to, at least close the door first!"

The Adrestian royalty ignored the pleas of her classmate and pushed her all the way to the bed, then down onto it. She clicked her teeth, seeing that, even face down on the bed, the brat of a classmate was still waving rapidly bouncing her bottom, matching the beat she now faintly heard through the wall. "I pity you trying to sleep next to this, but I ask you not to make your problem into my own. I also certainly don't think there's any call for this taunting!"

"Ah, you've done it now," Bernadetta groaned with a miserable frown that didn't match her energetic movements.

"What is it you claim I've done?" Edelgard asked impatiently, tapping her toe along with the pulses next door. "And can you stop your childish behavior for just one moment?!" Edelgard finished removing the clasp for her shoulder cape, holding it pinched in two fingers before letting it fall to the floor. She turned her back to Bernadetta as her own body finally caught pace and began wiggling her hips at full speed, only slowing down briefly to allow her to hula-hoop her newly-unfastened skirt down to the floor.

Bernadetta raised an eyebrow. "Lady Edelgard? U-um..." She couldn't decide how to respectfully frame the question on her mind, but came to a choice with a sheepish smile. "Do you... like dancing? Even if you do... I bet it's weird to do it in your underwear, right?"

"... As a matter of fact, I do enjoy dancing, although I've rarely had the occasion, recently." Edelgard replied, finishing pulling down her red tights, stepping out of her boots, and turning to strut towards Bernadetta's spot on the bed. "In any case, I'm not here to judge the way you dance or how you dress when you do it in private. I'm simply here to..." The young woman trailed off, her eyes slowly widening as she considered just what she was doing. Realizations started hitting her one after another, as though she had forgotten multiple parts of a morning routine and ended up in class in her pajamas...

... Only in this case, she had somehow ended up on her knees behind Bernadetta on the bed, one hand on the other girl's ass as though trying to stop its quaking. Her teeth locked around the tip of one of her white gloves to pull it off. All the while, she was still shaking her own ass at the doorway. When she finished with one glove, she firmly clapped that hand to Bernadetta's other cheek and worked on her remaining glove in turn. When the stretched and released article fell from her teeth, her jaw set in a bared-teeth grimace of effort. Even as the Adrestian empress-to-be brought her incredible will and strength to bear, all she managed to do was hold her body in place for a brief moment.

If anyone had been watching, they would have witnessed a bizarre scene. Bernadetta was begging for her life as she witnessed a terrifying expression that would have made soldiers scatter on the battlefield. Her pleas, of course, seemed to be taking the form of offering her butt up in offering to her captor. Edelgard, on the other hand, was frozen in place, every muscle still except for the ones she was trying and failing to control. Clad in a stunningly feminine and elegantly decorated pair of white panties, her fit ass continued to defiantly wiggle, flex, and jerk.

Finally, Edelgard let out a ragged sigh. As the tension in her body mostly released, her free arm began playfully swinging the glove she'd taken off to repeatedly strike Bernadetta's offered bottom. In spite of that, her words were heavy. "My body, I... can't control it...!"

Bernadetta had been wincing and crying out at the way Edelgard had chosen to perform with her, but when she looked back and saw terror in the wide, lilac-colored eyes of the ordinarily unflappable Adrestian heiress, she tried to put on a smile. "Um...! Y'know, I was scared at first! I was still scared that it would make me do something crazy and get me kicked out of the Academy. But just dancing isn't that bad, once you get used to it-"

"Get used to it?" Edelgard's voice was a hoarse whisper. She shook her head, sending her silver hair flying alongside her. "No, no, I have to find some way to do something..."

"B-but it feels a lot better if you don't!" Bernadetta assured her. She couldn't comprehend exactly what Edelgard was thinking, but she could tell she was panicking. She found herself in the rare position of trying to calm Edelgard down, instead of vice versa. "In fact, you really helped me out, Lady Edelgard! It seems like... with you here, it's okay to perform just for you. That's much better than if I end up shaking my booty for some scary stranger. And it'll stop, eventually! It did last night, anyway..." She gave her friend a smile... She could tell it wasn't working. "Eeeh? I'm not used to being the one calming somebody down! I'm sorry I'm not very good at it..."

Even falling into their usual pattern of apology and reassurance didn't seem to work. Edelgard's eyes still darted wildly around the room, searching for some way out. "What if I bang on the wall?"

"... If you do that, it'll definitely make those girls come over here," Bernadetta warned her, sheepishly. That was an excuse: more than anything, her mind was telling her it was conflict she needed to try to avoid.

"Well I have to do something!" Edelgard shouted at Bernadetta's ass, striking it a bit more harshly. "If I don't... if someone sees me through that door, my path... will close in front of me... Everything I've worked for will be for nothing! I can't fall here! I can't let that happen!"

Bernadetta realized there were tears in Edelgard's eyes and awkwardly looked away. "Oh, gosh... Um, think Bernie, think! How can I help Edelgard... geh! L-Lady Edelgard!" she corrected herself hastily. "Oh, oh oh! I think I got it! I got it, so just stop spanking me for one second, pleeease!"

Edelgard finally relented on that part of the act, only to find Bernadetta slipping from under her, bolting with the speed of a cornered animal. Before she knew it, Edelgard was on the bottom, with Bernadetta's legs on either side of her shoulders. She quickly realized this meant that Bernadetta had access to her own butt. In spite of her reservations, it continued to move on its own, wiggling tauntingly at her captor. "Hold on, Bernadetta... If you're thinking what I think you are, that is completely unacceptable! As your leader... a-as your Empress, I command you not to- kyah!"

Bernadetta giggled at the surprisingly cute cry from her leader and (future) Empress as she gave her cheek a swat. "This is much better, isn't it?! Now if anyone sees, it'll be easy to explain that I caught you and did this to you! It doesn't have anything to do with what you want, eheh!" As she enjoyed her position, she added insult to insulting injury by bouncing her own hips up and down on the back of the other student's head.

"This is even worse!" Edelgard's composure had well broken now, and she glared back at Bernadetta with a face as red as her royal colors. "I'm ordering you as your leader... ack! I'm b-begging you as your friend! Please stop before-!"

"Stop before what? Ehehehe, could it be the mighty Edelgard might be getting a little worked up getting spanked by weak, scaredy Bernie?" Her tormentor couldn't help but revel in the strange sort of role reversal. She smiled as she continued waiting on a response, still going to town on Edelgard's bouncing bottom with weak but enthusiastic slaps. When Edelgard didn't speak up again, she finally got the hint and raised her eyes from the white panties and lightly reddening flesh in front of her...

Her own pale purple eyes met the sharp blue eyes of the woman outside the doorway. The mysterious professor, Byleth was watching them with her usual silence, joined by a rare expression of disbelief.

Edelgard, who'd recognized Byleth there earlier, buried her face in the pillow of Bernadetta's bed. "I can't believe this... It's all over..."