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“Stay with me, Linhardt!” Caspar shouted over the noise of the battlefield, dropping down by his partner’s side. The mage was curled up in the dirt, the tips of his flowing green hair stained red from the pool of blood forming at his side.
“Tired…” Linhardt grunted, his eyes drooping.
“No! You can’t sleep now!” Caspar begged, tears welling up in his ice-blue eyes, as if they were melting. “Someone, get a healer! It’s urgent!”
By some miracle of the Goddess, Dorothea heard his cry and rushed over to the both of them. “Oh, this looks bad…” she gasped, and then kneeled over Linhardt and turned him onto his back. The wound was gaping at his abdomen, and the profuse bleeding had soaked his robes. White magic sparked between the gremory’s fingertips as she pressed her hands onto the gash.
“Do you… do you think he’ll be okay?” Caspar managed to choke out in between tears.
“I’ve patched up the wound, but it was very deep, and my healing magic is sloppier than his. I think he’ll be fine, but he needs to get to a medical tent.” Dorothea stood up, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear.
“I’ll get him there. You should check on the others,” Caspar suggested as he gently lifted Linhardt into his arms.
“Good idea. But before I go, you should take this just in case,” Dorothea pulled out an elixir from her pouch and placed it in Caspar’s.
“Thank you, Thea, I owe you one.”
“There’s no time for thanks. Go get Linhardt to the tents!”
With that, the knight tightened his grip on his partner and started running in the direction of the medics.
“Stay with me, Lin,” he whispered to the mage. He didn’t like seeing Linhardt like this; blood soaked and even paler than he usually was. “Stay with me, love.”
The knight stopped in his tracks when an arrow flew just passed his head. Turning his head, he saw a bow knight riding toward them, arrow knocked, followed by a battalion of other archers. Shit! Why in the Goddess’s name did this have to happen now? Caspar tried to find a place to hide, but the field was open, and the woods that could be seen in the distance were too far away to ever hope to make it.
“Fire!” the bow knight shouted, just before a barrage of arrows headed right toward the pair. Was this the end? Suddenly, Caspar felt a glow around them. Was he dying? At least he would die with Linhardt in his arms… everything faded to white as Caspar tried to come to terms with his fate.
Linhardt found himself resting on Caspar’s lap, staring up at his face. A canopy of branches obscured the sky above. Did his warp spell really work?
“Caspar…” the mage tried to smile, but he was far too drained to get past a slight upward quirk of his lips.
“Lin, where are we?”
“I warped us here… I used the rest of my energy…” he felt his voice slur as his vision became fuzzy.
He hadn’t expected to pull off the spell, much less have it carry them so far away. The fuzz had nearly overtaken his vision by now. Was this the end for him? How unfortunate; he had so much unfinished research. At least he managed to protect Caspar. And dying in the arms of the man he loved didn’t sound too bad anyway…
“No, Lin! You can’t sleep now, not yet!” Caspar fumbled for something in his pouch and pulled out a vial. “Here, drink this,” he said, pouring it slowly on Linhardt’s lips. Color gradually returned to his face, and his vision returned.
“Oh, Cas…” he smiled up at him.
“Thank Dorothea,” he said quickly. “How are you feeling?”
Linhardt sat up. “Well, aside from the fact that every muscle in my body is sore and my mouth feels like a desert, I think I’m fine.”
“Here,” Caspar offered his canteen to Linhardt. “Drink as much as you want.”
The mage drank greedily, not caring if the water missed his mouth and ran down his chin as Caspar unstrapped his armor. “Oh man, that feels good. I thought I was going to bake in there,” the knight said, stretching out his arms.
Linhardt had to stop himself from spitting water out of his mouth. Was Caspar always this perfect? He had stripped down to his black undershirt, soaked with sweat and clinging to his chest. His muscular arms were covered in scars, both old and new. He was handsome, even when his blue hair was matted with blood and sweat and his face was streaked with crimson.
“Oh, Linny, I’m so glad you’re okay… for a minute there, I thought you were gone.”
“Please, stop worrying about me. Are you okay?”
“Yes, of course! I have a few scratches, but don’t waste your energy healing them.”
“Where are they?”
Caspar pointed to a scratch on his arm. Linhardt took off the tattered robe over his vest and stripped part of the fabric, wrapping it tightly around his partner’s arm. “There. You need to stop the bleeding, you know, even if it isn’t serious.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, remembering how many times Linhardt had told him the same thing. “But I’m not the one who got stabbed today,” he motioned at the bloom of crimson on Linhardt’s abdomen.
“Oh, I suppose you’re right…” Linhardt looked down and immediately became pale at the sight of the blood soaking through his shirt and vest.
“Don’t look, Linny. I’ll take a look for you, okay?”
Linhardt nodded and laid back on the ground, and Caspar rolled up his shirt as gently as possible. He winced as he felt the fabric being peeled off of his skin, the blood having made it stick.
“I’m almost done. Bare with me, Lin.”
Finally, Caspar rolled up the shirt enough to reveal the wound on his bare skin. The gash was closed, thank the Goddess, but the mage still grit his teeth as Caspar gently placed his fingers over it. “Is it still sensitive?”
“Yes, but I’m more concerned with the bleeding. Is is sealed?”
“Yes.” Caspar rolled Linhardt’s shirt back down, then grabbed the canteen. Though it was almost empty, he poured the rest of the water onto his sleeve and wiped some blood off of Linhardt’s face.
“Cas… come closer.” the mage smiled. Caspar did so eagerly, hovering his head inches over his own.
“We’re in the middle of a battle, Linny!” he giggled, but Linhardt just pulled him down on top of him and placed a kiss on his cheekbone. “Didn’t I tell you that we’re safe here?”
Linhardt felt Caspar’s hand stroke his cheek. “Well, in that case, I’ve got nothing to lose!” the knight cheered.
With that, his mouth crashed into Linhardt’s. The kiss tasted faintly of blood and dirt, but neither of them cared as they melted into the warmth of each other’s lips. Linhardt’s hands were pressed tightly at his partner’s waist, and he felt Caspar’s kisses trail down slowly to his neck. Sighing contentedly, he became lost in the moment as his fingers teased them hem of Caspar’s shirt…
The pair pulled back abruptly. “Sorry,” they both said in unison. Their laughter rang through the woods.
“Oh, Caspar, you make me forget that we’re at war.”
“Linny, you make me forget about more than that...”
Linhardt smiled, but tried to pull off an exasperated sigh. “Must you be so sappy at a time like this?”
“Sappy? Aren’t lovers supposed to be sappy?”
“Oh, well, I guess they are. In that case, I hope for the day that I have all the time in the world to spend in your embrace.” he cooed, grinning smugly.
“Hey, you’re being more sappy than I am!” Caspar huffed.
“Well, didn’t you just save my life?” Linhardt caressed his partner’s face with the back of his hand. “Regardless, I mean what I said, Cas. I love you more than anything else. And I’ve never cared about anything more than making our future together a reality. So let’s keep each other alive until this all passes, and then we’ll make it so.”
Normally, Linhardt wouldn’t be able to trust his own words. But despite all the uncertainty, he let himself believe them when he saw Caspar’s smile.