Chapter Text
It’s hotter than Ingrid thought it would be.
The sun beats down on the black fabric of her crisp, newly-washed uniform, glinting like molten gold on the tassels and buttons. She sweats under it, dampening her white undershirt. She had bought it new to go under the uniform. Sixteen gold at a seamstress’ shop north of the monastery. She skipped lunch that day.
She tightens her grip on her lance. It’s just a practice lance, weak and wooden, wrapped in leather for her fingers to dig into.
She hasn’t fought before. Very few of them have. But this isn’t a fight, not really. It’s sparring on a bigger scale.
There’s a whistle and she turns, her golden hair following the swoop of her head to look back towards their commander - no, she corrects herself. Professor.
The new instructor is an odd sort, quiet and watchful, and her hair pillows around her shoulder in the breeze. Behind her, the sky darkens past the horizon. A spring thunderstorm is approaching, threatening to crash across the mountains of the monastery and water the newly sprouted grass and trees. But for now it’s hot, it’s humid, and Ingrid furrows her brow and narrows her eyes to watch the professor issue commands.
She moves quickly through the tall grass, heading for the shade of a grove of trees that lies between the prince’s forces and the other two classes. She can see a few other figures moving around, issuing orders to students in black uniforms with silver helmets on their heads. One day, Dimitri assured her, she’d be commanding her own battalion. They would all be commanders. The thought makes her shiver despite the heat.
“Ingrid!” a voice cries out, and she looks up to see a wooden sword crashing down at her. She steps back, whirling in the dirt, and lunges - her wooden spear connects with the weapon and knocks the fighter’s arm aside. She follows up with another blow, one that glances off the opposing students’ leather buckler. She knees him in the stomach and he buckles.
“H-hey!” he protests, but Ingrid strikes again, swinging her spear and bringing it against his shoulder. He cries out and drops his training sword into the dirt.
“Ow,” he mutters from the dirt as Ingrid steps over him.
The mock battle instructions mandate that downed students stay down, and Ingrid leaves him reclining in the dirt in a grove of newly greening trees.
“Nice,” comes a voice that she can hear the grin through. “You really know how to treat a guy rough, huh?”
“Sylvain,” she nods, wiping sweat from her brow. Her matted blonde bangs already stick to to her forehead, wet and itchy.
Sylvain grins broadly and runs a hand through his hair. “I-” a blunted arrow thuds into his chest and he drops his sword.
“HA!” Ingrid snorts, tightening her drip on her lance. “Pay attention next time.”
“Avenge...me….” Sylvain says dramatically, sinking to the ground, one grasping hand raised to the sky.
“No thanks,” Ingrid picks up his sword and slings it through her belt. She crouches lower, over his prone form, scanning the treeline. It’s harder to hit her here, in the tree cover, especially if she isn’t standing tall, with broad shoulders and red hair painting a target on her head. “Where’s Dimitri?”
“He was heading west, with Felix.”
“Thanks,” Ingrid grins, slapping a hand against Sylvain’s shoulder. He grunts and winces as she heads past.
The wind shifts, rustling the leaves as Ingrid heads west. She sees other students here and there, some resting against trees, others laying in the long grass. Casualties, felled by some wooden blade.
She can feel her undershirt sticking to her skin. Out of the shade of the trees, it’s hotter. She watches the movement of students - troops, rather - in the field. Maneuvers, moves. There’s a makeshift fort to one side, behind which stands archers. She recognizes the banner of the Golden Deer. She’d be downed before she even got close.
A blade clips her shoulder and she almost topples, then steadies herself.
She chokes up on her spear and turns to face her new opponent. She almost falls over.
The heir to the throne herself. The daughter of the Adrestian Emperor, in her bright red and black and gold, her white hair gleaming like silver in the springtime air. Behind her, far on the horizon, the clouds are darkening, white turned grey, wind kicking up and cutting a path through the grass, rustling the trees, drawing a chill to Ingrid’s sweat-slick skin. She swallows.
Edelgard smiles and pulls back her training axe.
She says nothing as she attacks again, swinging with practiced, controlled motions. She’s someone who has impeccable command of her weapon - her strokes are strong, heavy, focused, crashing against Ingrid’s lance with a deftness that contains a power that surprises Ingrid. She backs up, and backs up again. It’s all she can do to deflect, to block, to keep stepping back. The emperor-in-training doesn’t let up.
There’s something in her eyes that frightens Ingrid. Her detachment from her motions. There’s none of Felix’s determined anger, none of Sylvain’s smug enjoyment of the motions. There’s nothing there, and that makes it all the worse as her axe crashes against her again and again and again.
Ingrid gulps and steels herself. She could run, maybe, but Byleth had given orders to charge. If she runs, Edelgard has open access to their back line - poor, sweet little Annette wouldn’t stand a chance.
Ingrid would need to be smart. She would need to be fast. She blocks an axe swing and shifts, hooking the lance against the hilt of Edelgard’s axe, and she lunges forward. She drops her lance and drives a fist into Edelgard’s chest. Rather, she tries, but Edelgard anticipates the move, grasping her fist with one hand and swinging her axe with the other.
Ingrid drops to her back in the grass and she can practically smell the sawdust on Edelgard’s wooden blade. She hits the ground with a thud, expelling the air from her lungs and sparking light across her vision.
Were her partner Sylvain, she could expect a hand offering to help her up. Felix, a boot to her chest. Dimitri, ever the noble, would back off and let her collect herself before resuming the fight. How would the Adrestian heir react, Ingrid wonders, in the brief seconds than darkness and stars dance across her eyes.
Edelgard stands over her, axe in hand, cape and hair fluttering in the breeze, a tint to her pale cheeks. There must not be much sunlight in Adrestian territory, Ingrid idly thinks. The axe comes crashing down.
She rolls and the blade drives into the dirt at her side. She lashes out her legs and leaps to her feet as Edelgard pulls her axe up again. Ingrid picks up her spear and swings it, sending the butt of it crashing into the princeling’s back. Edelgard sprawls to the ground with a grunt.
She spins to pick up her axe, kneeling in the grass and scrambling for the hilt. Ingrid bites back a smug grin as she steps forward and thrusts the point of her training lance against Edelgard’s chest.
Edelgard freezes, her eyes locked on her training axe resting in the grass.
“Surrender.” Ingrid’s ultimatum is quiet. She wonders if she should add a title, a sign of difference. Who was she to command the emperor so? “Milady.”
Edelgard smiles and tilts her head up, and Ingrid catches her chin with the blunt wooden point of her spear.
“Well fought, Lady Galatea.”
Ingrid swallows. “You know me.”
“Of course,” Edelgard lifts her hands slowly, a surrender. “It pays to know your foes. Pity we don’t have your strength for the Black Eagles.”
“Thank you, milady,” Ingrid says, uncertain. Her undershirt is soaked with sweat and she refuses to take her shaking hands from her lance. She’s hot. Is it hot? Where are the damn clouds?
Edelgard’s hair, streaked in silver, rests like gilding on her shoulders.
“The battle awaits,” she says.
“O-of course,” Ingrid stammers, withdrawing her lance.
She watches Edelgard adjust herself, pulling up her legs and sitting more comfortably in the grass, axe over her knees, waiting for the battle to conclude. In the distance, the clouds rumble. Wind cuts through the air, through Ingrid’s golden braid, drying her skin. Somewhere behind her, on the back lines, the professor issues orders.