Chapter Text
“Lin...” said Dorothea one day, as they sat in the grassy area outside of the classrooms. They were playing a board game meant to simulate tactical warfare in practice for an exam. So far, Linhardt was winning, despite barely seeming awake. “Do you remember when we had that talk about pride? Your move, by the way.”
“Hmm?” said Linhardt, lifting his head. He blinked sleepily, then yawned, surveying the board. “Oh, yes. Do you mean the time we decided it was a pointless endeavor?”
“You decided it was a pointless endeavor,” said Dorothea. “I’m not sold on that idea yet.”
Linhardt picked up a piece and moved it. “You should reconsider. Really, things are much less complicated my way.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Dorothea. “But maybe I want things to be complicated. Did you think of that, Lin?” She studied the board carefully.
“I can’t even begin to imagine why,” said Linhardt. “Well, I suppose that’s why you’re you, and I’m me. How tedious life would be if everybody thought alike. Particularly if everybody thought like me; nothing would get done.”
Dorothea picked up a piece, changed her mind, put it back. She resumed studying the board. “I won’t argue with that,” she said. “Though it does really make me wonder what it’s like inside that head of yours.”
“Quite lovely, I assure you,” he said.
Finally, Dorothea just gave up and moved one of her pieces. Surely she was overthinking things. “Actually, I—“ she started, and then heard laughter from somewhere nearby. Mocking laughter. She knew the sound well.
“Don’t bother looking,” said Linhardt, but Dorothea’s head was turning, automatically, to the source of the sound. Sure enough, a pair of highborn-looking boys were looking over this way. She locked eyes with one briefly, saw the contempt in his gaze, and had to look away again, cheeks burning.
“I can’t help it, Lin,” she said quietly. “I just...”
“HEY! YEAH, YOU! I SEE YOU!” roared another, familiar voice from somewhere nearby.
“Ah, here he comes...” said Linhardt.
Sure enough, it was Caspar. The two boys who’d been laughing turned to see him storming towards them, clearly spoiling for a fight. One of the boys seemed primed to fight back, but the other looked a good deal more nervous. “What do you want?” said the defiant one.
“Oh, I think you know,” said Caspar, cracking his knuckles. “Pretty rude to go around pointing and laughing at people, don’t you think? I’m gonna teach you a lesson!”
“Let’s go,” the nervous-looking boy said, tugging on his friend’s sleeve, and the defiant one must have finally seen the savage glimmer in Caspar’s eye because he suddenly took off running along with his friend.
Caspar lunged after them. “GET BACK HERE!”
“Oh, my,” said Dorothea, watching them go. “He certainly is spirited, isn’t he.”
“I imagine he just got bored of studying,” said Linhardt. “I know for a fact he’s playing catchup on five whole chapters of the textbook we’re to be tested on.”
“Well, nevertheless,” said Dorothea. “I’m thankful for it.”
“Are you?” said Linhardt, frowning slightly. He moved one of his game pieces—capturing one of Dorothea’s. Drat.
“Aren’t you?” countered Dorothea. She examined the board, determined not to make another careless mistake.
“...We were talking about pride,” said Linhardt. “Or my lack thereof. Do you mind if I tell you how I came to my conclusion?”
“About not caring about it? I have to admit, I’m curious,” said Dorothea.
“All right then,” said Linhardt, in a curiously detached tone. Dorothea glanced up to find him staring off into nothing, that small frown still creasing his face. “It was when I was...oh, it must have been four or five years ago, now. My father had taken me along on some political dealings or other—he was always trying to get me interested in such things. It never worked, of course, but often his dealings involved the Minister of Military Affairs...Caspar’s father. And sometimes he would bring Caspar along as well.”
“You two have been friends for a long time, haven’t you?” said Dorothea.
“Ten years,” said Linhardt.
Dorothea shook her head. “I don’t think I’ve even known anybody for that long.”
“Yes,” said Linhardt. “Well. As it happened, at the conference my father was at, Count Bergliez was attending. I was wandering the grounds of the estate...I don’t remember which noble house it belonged to now, but it’s hardly important. I came across two other noble children, older than I, and happened to overhear them speaking ill of me. It was some foolish nonsense, of course. Some half-cooked jibes about how I looked like I could hardly lift a sword, and how my hair made me look like a girl. All true, admittedly, but at the time, it bothered me.”
All thoughts of the game had fled from her mind as Dorothea listened, and now she wasn’t even looking at the board. “Children can be terribly cruel,” said Dorothea, hands tightening over her knees. She knew this well, from experience. “Noble children, particularly.”
Linhardt nodded sombrely, still gazing off into the distance. “I devised a trick to get back at those boys,” he said. “Not a very clever one, mind you. I rigged the door to the room they were in with a pail of water over the door, and then knocked.”
Dorothea giggled. “Let me guess. They weren’t too thrilled about that,” she said.
“Correct,” said Linhardt. “They were not. Rather short-sighted of me, wasn’t it? I suppose I had just gotten tired of my father’s talks of me learning to stand up for myself.”
“So that’s your story?” said Dorothea. “You tried it once, and it didn’t work out? I knew you gave up easily, Lin, but honestly—“
“That’s not the end of the story,” said Linhardt, and something in his voice gave Dorothea pause. He looked at her then, and there was a coldness in his eyes that made her stomach drop. “The boys chased after me. I ran, but they caught up to me easily enough, outside. I don’t expect they would have done anything much to me, seeing as they knew who I was, but...” his jaw tightened. “Caspar happened across us then.”
Dorothea could picture it easily enough, a younger Linhardt sorely out of breath and cornered by two noble bullies, one of them soaking wet. And Caspar seeing this, fierce, fearless young Caspar, ready to fight the world over any injustice he saw. “He tried to fight them?” she said.
“They were much bigger than him,” said Linhardt. “But it didn’t stop him, of course. He couldn’t hope to win. And his attackers, they didn’t...Caspar never dressed the part of a noble’s son, and he was a second son at that. They didn’t recognize him; they must have thought he was a commoner. And they beat him terribly, Dorothea.”
“Oh...” said Dorothea faintly, feeling ill. “Oh, Lin. That’s so awful. I had no idea.” No...that wasn’t right. She had every idea. She remembered with painful clarity a nobleman’s boot connecting with her ribs, when she was just a child, starving, on the streets of Enbarr. And he’d laughed, that nobleman, when he’d seen her lying in the dirty street, tears staining the cobblestones.
“I thought they were going to kill him,” said Linhardt, hands curling in his lap. “I ran for the guards...by the time they came and pulled the brutes off him, Caspar was a bloody mess. Barely even conscious.”
Dorothea was shaking slightly now, a mixture of anger and revulsion churning in her gut. “Monsters,” she said coldly. “They’re all monsters.”
“Maybe so,” said Linhardt. “But that was when I decided pride was worthless. So many nobles would stake their lives on it, even other people’s lives. But for what? A hollow victory? It’s foolishness. Nothing but.”
Dorothea shook her head slightly, still trying to process the story she’d just heard. “I...I can see why you think that, Lin,” she said. “I understand now. And I agree, too much pride can lead to terrible things. But...I still don’t think it’s all bad. It can be good to have pride, sometimes. Pride in who you are, or what you believe in. If you discount it all as worthless, that’s just...well, it’s running away.”
“Fair point,” said Linhardt. “But as I’ve told you before, that is exactly how I prefer to deal with things that trouble me. Your move, by the way.”
Startled, Dorothea glanced down at the game before looking back to Linhardt. “Lin, you should at least try to face some of these things. You’re going to back yourself into a corner someday.”
“Well, I haven’t yet,” said Linhardt. “And I haven’t heard any ringing endorsements for the way of living you suggest. It sounds rather painful, and that is something I would like to avoid.”
“Yes, it’s painful,” argued Dorothea, “But sometimes pain is necessary to grow as a person.”
“No thank you,” said Linhardt, bluntly.
Dorothea sighed. “I’ll never understand you, Lin...” She looked back down at the game board. Her focus from beforehand was completely gone; she couldn’t remember what move she had been planning next. But then, she saw a different move. A perfect move, that she definitely knew she hadn’t seen before. “How’s this?” she said, flashing a grin at Linhardt as she moved her piece.
“Ah,” he said. “Hmm. Well. I certainly overlooked that. Let me think for a moment...”
While he was pondering, Dorothea glanced out over the lawn. “Look at that,” she said, spotting Caspar coming back from the direction he’d run off, looking all scuffed up and walking with a slight limp. Edelgard was with him, and it looked as though they were arguing. “I don’t suppose he learned anything from that story you were telling me, did he?”
Linhardt looked up as well. “Oh, Caspar never learns anything,” he said, watching Caspar and Edelgard pass by. “I had hoped he would stop attacking my detractors when I stopped caring about what they had to say, but that boy is relentless. Now that’s foolishness.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” said Dorothea. “He’s doing it because he cares about you, Lin. He cares about you a lot.”
Linhardt looked back to the game, one side of his mouth quirking down. “It would save us all a considerable amount of trouble if he didn’t,” he said.
“That’s...” Dorothea didn’t have a response for that.
“By the way, I believe you’ve bested me,” said Linhardt, making a sweeping gesture over the board. “I can’t see a way forward that doesn’t end with me losing. How careless of me.”
“You know, it wouldn't hurt to tell me I won fair and square, even if you don’t mean it,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Very well. Dorothea, under the power of your devious wiles and tactical prowess, you have seized victory and would doubtless fail to relinquish your grasp were we to match wits again, no matter how many times I challenged you.”
She laughed. “Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t we? You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
“Thank you,” he said, mimicking a bow.
She shook her head, smiling. “You know...I don’t understand you, but...I’m glad we’re friends.”
“As am I,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I ought to go and make sure Caspar doesn’t start any more fights on the way to the infirmary.”
Dorothea watched him go until he was out of sight, then sighed as she began to gather up the game pieces. “Maybe we’re all fools, Lin,” she murmured to herself. “Even you.”