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“Oh, is that...is that all of them?” Annette asked no one in particular. She could only just make out a long, blurry, busy mishmash of figures - the enemy’s broken, retreating back line. With how her head spun her eyes couldn’t focus on any individuals, and even the bodies - oh, she’d never get used to seeing those - littering the battlefield were little more than colored splotches.
Few of those closest to her died bleeding, the rest killed with her own concussive blasts of wind or the lightning strikes of the mages in her battalion. The scorched scent of lightning still permeated the air, overpowering the metallic hint of blood, and her ears still rang with thunder so loud it drowned out the anguished cries of dying men and women.
Or maybe that was just her own heartbeat.
Annette shivered and clutched her shawl closer. Her knees shook as she turned her back on the enemy’s retreat and set her sights on their own encampment.
Her head pounded with an awful ache, every quiet word between the mages serving under her only making it worse. Goddess, how weak she felt, with her body trembling and her skin clammy under her robes. Maybe she finally found her limit not by burying her nose in books of theory but through casting spell after spell after spell, finishing enemy soldiers in Dimitri’s name.
Well, she could rest once she returned to camp.
Annette’s legs buckled on the first step.
She fell with a gasp, fluttering heart jumping into her throat when the ground collided with her shoulder. The ringing in her ears only intensified, and as she struggled to keep her eyes open she could only barely hear the alarmed shouts of her battalion.
“Miss Dominic?”
“Commander!”
Her eyes slipped shut, the world fading away, but not before she heard one last, familiar voice laced with panic.
“Annette!”
He’d combed the edge of the battlefield searching for injured despite the oozing cut on his cheek when a sudden motion caught his eye. Voices raised with alarm on an eerily quiet plain and a blur of white and red forced him to turn in time to find Annette collapsing.
Felix changed direction to sprint towards her, finding some leftover reservoir of energy within him and fueled by the sudden fear that made his heart race like it only ever did in battle.
“Annette!” Her name tore from his lungs when he was only halfway to her. He urged his feet faster, weaving through the fallen and the wounded and pushing past their own army’s stragglers.
Even in the midst of battle he’d made sure to keep her in sight, but every time he spotted her amid her battalion of mages, with an unnatural wind whipping at her hair before it broke against an unsuspecting enemy soldier she’d seemed just fine.
Or as fine as any of them could be in the middle of this chaos.
Fear gripped Felix, made him both swifter and his chest seize. He pushed through the mages clustered around Annette - was not one of them also a healer? - with little care, ignoring their indignant gasps as he knelt beside her. His lungs burned with their need for air, but he didn’t care.
Damn her, she and her mages better served from the back, so what was she doing at the front?
Annette lay in a crumpled pile on the ground, her face that reddened so easily too pale, loose hair fanned out around her face, and her eyes shut. Someone had the insight to slip a bundle of cloth - a cape, probably - under her head to cushion it, but otherwise she looked untouched.
Felix sought an injury with his eyes, but aside from a few dark scorch marks and dirt stains, her robes looked almost pristine.
(Really, it stunned him how cleanly and unassumingly a mage could kill, how distinctly odd, how easy, it seemed.)
His hand hovered over her shoulder, suddenly unsure if he ought to touch her, but then another motion caught his attention.
Anger like fire filled his blood when Felix spotted a mage he didn’t know hovering nearby. He snapped, “What are you doing just standing around? Call Mercedes or another healer!”
“We have, Sir,” the one he pinned with his gaze replied mildly. “We sent for a healer, but she’s probably just exhausted herself.”
Felix bit back any number of impatient responses (starting with “Why would you let her do that?” and ending with “I’m not a damn knight!”) when weak, cold fingers found his wrist.
“F-Felix?” Annette said, her voice tremulous and so soft he would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been kneeling at her side. “What are you doing...here?”
A violent shiver wracked her body as her eyes fluttered open, her grip on his wrist loosening as she pinched her eyes shut. “Why is it so cold?” she grumbled. “It’s spring, and we’re not even...home…”
Felix quickly shrugged out of his own dirt and blood stained coat (the blood - or most of it - wasn’t his) and draped it over her. “We need to get you back to camp so you can rest,” he said. Oh, he hoped that mage was right and that Annette simply “exhausted herself”.
Annette nodded and said, “Fine...just don’t expect me to sing to you in this state.”
A slight smile pushed at his lips despite the severity of the situation; she drew it out of him so easily, and now that he knew she was mostly all right it eased some of the tight coil of fear in his chest.
Annette blinked blearily up at him. “You’re smiling.”
...and there was that mistimed and infernal heat on his face. “I’m not,” he denied. “You’re delirious.”
“I know what I saw…” Annette teased, her tone almost singsong.
Felix chose to ignore that. Instead he slipped one arm under her back and the other under the crook of her knees before standing, careful not to jostle her too much or displace his coat as he settled her against his chest.
He narrowed his eyes at the mage that had reassured him before, daring him to protest, but he inclined his head and said, “Thank you for seeing to Miss Dominic’s safety.”
Felix nodded in acknowledgement - he would for as long as he could - and set off for camp, trying to keep a quick pace but wary of Annette’s comfort.
So intent on their path was he that he didn’t hear her speaking until her fingers gently tugged at his collar. “...you’ve smelled better,” she complained.
“So have you,” he told her...although somehow, from the hair tickling his nose, she’d retained a trace of her usual scent under the smell of lightning and smoke, of the flowers in the greenhouse and old parchment.
She didn’t reply to that except to hum and sigh.
Annette wasn’t a burden in his arms, but the silence on their walk as they passed through the rest of the nearly deserted battlefield weighed heavy.
Not to mention Annette usually preferred to fill silences, whether through humming or even mumbling to herself while studying, but with her so quiet Felix’s chest once more tightened with worry.
He couldn’t bring himself to peer down at her too-pale, drawn face. “Annette, are—“
“I’ve made a mess of things again, haven’t I?” she said in an unusually somber tone that made his breath catch.
What was Felix meant to say to that?
“It’s lucky no one from my battalion was seriously hurt, but my mages had to see me like this.” She sighed and added, “And you had to see me like this…” Her hand drifted from where it rested tucked against her chest to hover over his cheek while she frowned. “You got hurt too?”
“It’s just a cut,” he reassured her; her sobriety chilled him, and he didn’t need to add to her concerns. “Mercedes can look at it once she finishes with you.”
“I can heal too,” Annette told him with a slight but tired smile. Her cold - still too cold - fingertips brushed his skin under the cut. “It’s simple enough for me to take care of, and it’ll be sealed before you know it. It might itch a little but—“
Felix turned his head and protested, “Don’t you dare. You’ve already pushed yourself too hard, like always.”
“And you don’t?” Annette retorted.
He ignored her, too caught up in his own concern. “What were you doing on the frontlines anyway? Didn’t the professor tell you and your battalion to stay back?”
“She also said to take advantage of a break in the enemy’s lines if we found one,” she huffed with more ferocity than he expected from someone in her state.
Felix opened his mouth to tell her exactly what he thought of that, but her body suddenly slumping and her head tilting back put a stop to that.
“Annette?” He shook her slightly.
“I’ll be fine,” she mumbled, “but…”
“What?”
“I’m—“
“Felix, h—wait, is that Annette? What happened?”
He hadn’t realized how close they’d traveled to camp until he walked right past the lookout at the outskirts. Sylvain and Ashe stood there, visibly exhausted and disheveled but no less vigilant than they would’ve been before the battle.
It was still a relief to see them upright and relatively unscathed, but it did nothing to diminish the urgency in Felix.
“I’m taking her to the medic tent,” he announced, barely pausing even as Sylvain and Ashe approached. “She just...did too much.”
“So she’s not injured?” Sylvain said. He grinned and rested a hand on Ashe’s shoulder. “Looks like you and Mercedes were worried for nothing.”
Ashe shot him an oddly stern look. “She’s unconscious and Felix had to carry her back! What’s there not to worry about?”
“It looks like she just needs some rest,” Sylvain said. “She’ll be setting fire to the cook tent again before you know it!”
Felix rolled her eyes, unable to relax despite the logic in Sylvain’s words. “Where’s Mercedes? Or Flayn or any one of the healers?”
“Mercedes went with Gustave to look for her since a mage sent word she wasn’t going to make it back to camp on her own power,” Ashe explained, “but Flayn and Professor Manuela are in the medic tent.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before Felix set off again, his feet directing him to the medic tent without him so much as bidding Sylvain and Ashe goodbye. Later he could be glad they survived another battle - and search out Ingrid, the professor, and the boar as well - but Annette still needed attention.
And she hadn’t so much as greeted Sylvain or Ashe…
Was it possible for a mage to expend so much energy they—
“I still haven’t heard that swamp beasties song,” Felix chided her, some part of him hoping she wasn’t too far under not to hear, “and I expect a masterpiece, all right? So you have to take your time with it and…”
He wasn’t fully aware what nonsense poured from his lips, but it seemed like the right thing to keep his own resurging panic at bay. And why was the medic tent so far from this side?
“Oh, Felix!” Flayn’s bright voice greeted him when he at last pushed his way through the opening.
Every cot was occupied, pained moans and tired mumbles filling the small, stifling place. He should’ve expected no less, and yet disappointment tugged at his heart.
“Flayn,” he said, rounding on the small healer, “Annette collapsed after the battle and—“
“I can see her in her own tent,” Flayn told him. She smiled - she seemed awfully calm, as if this was far from the first battle she’d witnessed - and nudged him out. “It is a bit stifling in there, and it seems that breathing is especially important in her condition.”
Felix only barely kept himself from snapping something sarcastic in response, instead allowing her to steer him from the tent and away towards Annette’s.
He was conscious of every passing moment, of her breathing too shallowly and silently, of his own heartbeat that only grew more rapid, of the somber sounds of an army encampment that won its battle but still tasted the bitterness of defeat.
The interior of Annette’s tent was neat, with a few odd spellbooks tucked into a bag on the floor beside another bag of clothes and other supplies. Her cot was neatly arranged, and a candle burned down to a nub sat at the ready perched on a stool.
He carefully set her down on her cot, reluctantly letting her go before taking his coat...only for her fingers to weakly grasp at a sleeve and tug it back.
Something about that warmed him from the inside, but he dismissed the feeling. He let her keep it for now - though it would surely make a mess of her clean blankets and she would regret it come morning (if she woke by then) - and knelt beside her again while Flayn worked her magic.
“It looks as though she overexerted herself,” Flayn told him with a slight frown. She rested a hand against Annette’s forehead and said, “Don’t worry, Felix; she’s hardly the first mage to suffer magic exhaustion in battle.” Her brow furrowed, nose wrinkling slightly. “Really, it’s truly some marvelous luck she didn’t collapse until after the enemy retreated.”
Felix’s gaze snapped away from Annette’s face to Flayn’s. “How did you know that?”
Flayn smiled sadly. “Like many injured soldiers, she probably wouldn’t have made it back to camp if she’d fallen during the fighting.”
His blood ran cold at her words, at how almost normal and expected she made it sound - as bad as falling at the hands of an enemy was, somehow falling after driving oneself to the point of exhaustion seemed worse.
And knowing Annette, if it could happen once, it could very well happen again.
“...food and sleep,” Flayn explained, though Felix barely heard her for the fear and irritation surging in him. “She should drink a vulnerary once she wakes too so she’ll be well enough to walk on her own when we return to the Monastery.”
Dimitri’s fragile sanity, his father, countless others, maybe Annette if she insisted on being careless with her own strength...hadn’t this war taken enough?
“She should’ve stayed at the back,” Felix insisted before bolting to his feet and escaping.
When Annette woke to the muted cacophony of a war camp, everything hurt. Her head, her ears, her dry throat, her muscles, her shoulder right where it hit the ground, and—
She opened her eyes, heart jumping until she realized she was in her tent, a warm weight - heavier than her own blankets - covering her. Poorly lit with sunrise still a way off judging from the firelight spilling under the flap in her tent, but the shadows themselves were familiar.
As was the presence beside her. “Mercie?” she mumbled, turning to see her oldest friend perched on her stool, head bowed in prayer (probably).
Mercedes jumped - too late, Annette worried she’d fallen asleep upright - with her eyes snapping to her. “Oh, Annie, you’re awake!” She knelt beside her and said, “I’m sorry your father couldn’t be here.”
Disappointment filled her gut - she hadn’t even thought to expect her father to visit after her collapse, and yet… - but she said, “It’s all right. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
(Sometimes her own bitterness surprised her.)
“He wanted to be!” Mercedes quickly reassured her. “But Dimitri and the professor had a late war meeting last night, and I insisted he rest himself and that you would be awake to see him in the morning.”
“Oh.” Annette smiled, relieved, and slowly sat up. Her head spun all over again, but she supposed it must be the dizziness that came with too much rest rather than exhaustion.
But the disappointment didn’t quite abate, and Annette couldn’t help thinking that she’d almost hoped someone else would be there to greet her when she woke.
It was a coat - his coat - that covered her, stinking of sweat and dirt and faint traces of blood, but she still clutched it a little closer. Maybe she ought to sing, since that seemed to summon him (even when him listening and wanting to listen to her tended to be more mortifying than flattering), but she could barely even muster the courage to ask after him.
Felix had been the one to bring her back to camp, right? She hadn’t just imagined that in her exhausted delirium?
And if she had… “Where’s—“
“Asleep, I hope,” Mercedes said, smiling almost knowingly. “He was quite worried about you, and it took a bit of persuading to get him to sit long enough for me to patch up his cut. I think Ingrid and the professor both had to lecture him about health and hygiene first.”
Annette touched her own face. “Oh, so his cheek…”
“It won’t even scar,” she promised. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” She sagged a little and added, “I’m sorry I couldn’t see to you, but I suppose Flayn did well enough.”
Her chest warmed, grateful for Mercedes...but it didn’t last. “Felix…”
“I’m sure he’ll come see you himself,” she reassured her with a grin that bordered on teasing. “He’ll at least want his coat back.”
Annette clutched at the fur, her face hot as she looked away. “How long are we staying here?”
“I expect the boar will want us to break camp by tomorrow.” Felix shoved his way into the tent with a tray laden with a steaming bowl and mug in his hands, his sudden appearance making her heart skip a beat. “No rest for the wounded, I guess, but it’ll be more comfortable at the Monastery.”
Annette glared at him. “Why did you just barge in like that?” she demanded. “This is my tent!”
Felix had the audacity to look confused, a slight pout on his face. “I heard you two talking and brought you breakfast?”
“You’re—“
“Evil, I know.” His lips pressed together - unless Annette read him all wrong, he was trying not to laugh, which was so strange - as he stepped closer. “Do you want breakfast or not? Dedue made it just for you.”
“Oh.” Her mouth watered at the spiced scent rising from the bowl of steaming eggs, potatoes, and tomatoes, but she couldn’t help frowning. They went to all this trouble, and it had been her mistake that led to it.
“I’ll go check on Dedue in case he needs more help,” Mercedes announced.
Annette flinched, eyes wide when Mercedes smiled at her before grinning at Felix and leaving. She’d almost forgotten she was there.
Felix’s eyes never left her face, pinning her to the spot even before he set the tray on her lap and sat on the floor beside her.
Annette pushed off his coat. “You wanted this back?”
“After you eat,” he said. He rested his chin on his hand, still intent and giving her the distinct impression that he was supervising her to make sure she ate.
It was sweet, his concern, and pushed a smile onto her lips, but… “I wasn’t going to say that you’re evil,” she muttered as she poked at a potato with her fork. “You’re weird, and you’re rude, and you’re even a little sweet, but I guess you’re not evil.”
Somehow, some way, Felix broke eye contact, his gaze darting past her face as he awkwardly scratched at his neck. “Uh...thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” She took a bite - it tasted better than a meal cooked at a war encampment ought to - and another and the next, the food awakening her appetite. She only paused to sip at the still-hot tea - drinkable but not as sweet as she’d like - perched on the tray.
Eventually the silence stretched out for too long, so she sighed and said, “You don’t have to sit there and watch me eat. I’m sure you have something better to do.”
“Maybe,” Felix said, shrugging, his eyes slowly swiveling back to her.
Annette stared back. As far as she could tell, he rarely sought anyone’s company (except maybe to spar) and she still wasn’t accustomed to his attention, yet he’d done something as mundane for her as bring her breakfast and sit with her.
It was stirring a not unpleasant feeling in her chest.
“Thank you, too,” she told him, looking into her mug. “You must’ve had better things to do than look after me, but—“
“Stop that, Annette,” Felix snapped. He glared at her when she dared to glance up and said, “Maybe you did make a mess of things, passing out because you exerted yourself too much when you shouldn’t have been that far out in the first place.”
Her eyes narrowed, though guilt and a little hurt bit at her when he agreed. “Felix—“
“What’s the point of you apologizing if you’re just going to do it again?” he wondered. “What if next time you do it’ll be in the middle of a battle rather than at the end and either someone else gets hurt or no one gets to you in time before—“ He cut himself off, arms crossed, with an emotion in his eyes Annette had never seen before.
Or at least, never directed at her.
She was utterly at a loss for words, but somehow she found the wherewithal to rest her hand on his arm. “I’m fine,” she told him, “thanks to you, Felix.”
His gaze drifted down to her hand. “I know, but...please don’t push yourself like that again,” he insisted.
“If I do, can I count on you to carry me back again?” she wondered.
He actually glared at her.
Annette raised her hands in defense. “No more passing out,” she said, but a sly smile curled her lips as she added, “especially not when I owe you the swamp beastie song.”
With his ears a vicious red, Felix buried his face in his hands and groaned.