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One hand clutched at his aching, bleeding shoulder while his other held tight to his horse’s reins. His stomach lurched with the motion, the mare’s gallops jolting over uneven ground as she wove around trees with all the grace of a lumbering beast. Her sides rose and fell with effort, and something like guilt - something other than fear and pain - stabbed at Ferdinand for making the poor mare work so hard.
All he knew was that he had to get away, away, away.
Ferdinand von Aegir does not run, he had told Marcellus when the elderly retainer warned him that the Emperor’s soldiers would come for him if he tried to venture home. I will stand and fight; this is my land to protect with my father under arrest.
You’d be a fool to stand against her, my lord, Marcellus protested. Save your people by first saving yourself.
And so Ferdinand fled away from the ambush that had lain in wait for them, but not without an arrow getting lodged into his arm.
He gritted his teeth against a fresh wave of nausea; he was beginning to suspect the archer had laced the arrowhead with poison. If the loss of blood already drying in his torn sleeve and crusting on his skin did not kill him, then poison surely would.
If the soldiers pursuing him did not find him first.
Ferdinand leaned forward over the horse’s neck, his knees digging into her sides and spurring her on. But she faltered as she leapt, her hooves clipping an arching tree root, and stumbled on her way back down.
His grip on the reins loosened, and that was all it took for them to slip from his hand and for him to fall from the saddle the instant the mare’s hooves touched the ground.
A gasp tore from his throat on his way down, his heart leaping and the ground rushing up to meet him. He collided with an awful thud, agony lancing up his injured arm that took the brunt of the fall.
And still the mare thundered away, heedless to her rider’s plight.
Ferdinand lay there for a moment, stunned and staring up at the blurring tree branches overhead while they spun and spun and spun until his stomach roiled and—
He rolled onto his side right as bile burned his throat and he lost his breakfast.
He stared blankly at the red-flecked puddle of vomit beside him. Absurdly, the thought that drifted through his head at the sight was, That was not very noble of me.
He had to move, he knew, if only to find a creek from which he could drink, parch the burn from his throat and wash away the awful, sour taste of vomit lingering in his mouth. He stumbled a few feverish paces on hands and knees. Dirt and leaves clung to his clothes, his body trembling with the effort of merely crawling while his hair stuck to his face and neck, his skin all sticky with sweat. At least his shoulder no longer hurt so, the pain numbing to a dull ache, but he could barely support his weight with his arm.
Ferdinand no longer thought of potential pursuit, barely even considered Marcellus and the other faithful soldiers that served House Aegir he was forced to leave behind. The only thing lingering on his mind was his desperation for water and for rest. Nothing else mattered now, not with night falling so quickly and shadows engulfing the forest…except the odd, almost hypnotic flickering of light ahead.
I must survive, Ferdinand insisted. I must…be a better scion of House Aegir than my father was.
As he shoved his way through the trees, thirsty and half-delirious and in pain, he made a promise to the goddess: If he lived, he would never seek praise and recognition for his deeds again. He would…
Black crowded his vision, and Ferdinand knew no more, not even pain.
“Lady ‘Thea!”
At the sound of her name - she’d told the camp children time and again to drop the title - she glanced up from the cook pot she supervised. Young Lacy darted towards her, her twin brother a pace behind. “What is it, Lacy?” she wondered, tilting her head to the side.
“We found a man!”
“…um.” Dorothea raised an eyebrow but offered them a slight smile. “It’s not your dad again, is it?”
“No, no!” Lacy shook her head with the sort of vehemence only a child her age could muster. “He’s outside, in the trees!” She pointed beyond the line of tents, past where the lanterns drove back the night. “He’s asleep and he has a-a-a—”
“An arrow,” her shyer brother supplied.
“An arrow!” she said, nodding. “He has an arrow stuck in his arm!”
Dorothea’s eyes widened as her chest tightened with foreboding. A strange man with an arrow lodged in his arm? This was nothing to the children sneaking beyond camp after dark when an encounter with a stranger had been imminent. But—
“Wait”—she jumped to her feet—”you found him asleep?”
“Yes, yes!” Lacy nodded and gestured towards the line of trees. “We can show you him, Lady ‘Thea!”
“Uh, no, that’s all right,” Dorothea assured her with a smile. “You two stay here, all right? You’ve been such a great help already, but I need you to watch over the stew instead.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Lacy said, seeming to deflate, but her brother was eager enough at the prospect.
Dorothea patted their heads on her way past them before retrieving her sword from where it leaned against a nearby tent. She strapped on the belt and stepped between uneven lines of tents, past mothers sitting in their entrances with their whining, chattering, exhausted children, past men - farmers and poor craftsmen rather than soldiers - sharpening weapons and tools, all the way out of the busy camp towards the line of trees indicated by Lacy.
Common sense warned Dorothea that she should’ve alerted one of the women in camp to where she went - or even asked one of them to accompany her - but everyone had their burdens, and she needed to make sure this unconscious and injured man, whoever he was, wouldn’t add to them. She picked her way over fallen branches that clung to the hem of her skirt, one hand lifting it and the other clutching the hilt of her sword.
She wasn’t sure what she would do to the stranger, but she didn’t want anyone there when she decided.
When the light of the camp faded too much for her to see the path ahead of her, Dorothea dropped her skirt and raised her hand. She drew a small summoning circle in the air, feeling magic swell in her chest and pour from her arm to pool in her hand. A flickering flame hovered over her palm, just enough by which to see where she set her feet.
The further Dorothea ventured from camp, the more labored her breathing grew. With no sparring partner save the young boys and girls who liked hitting each other with broomsticks, and with the camp’s almost languid progress towards the Airmid River, she didn’t get nearly enough exercise. How far had those children ventured to find the injured stranger anyway?
But there…a shadow lighter than the rest, a silhouette leaning against a tree.
Dorothea paused, her breath catching as she raised her hand.
Her flame illuminated a fair, fine-boned face she never suspected she’d lay eyes on again.
“Ferdie?” she breathed into the night.
Her chest ached with a strange sort of recognition, sword slipping from her fingers. She fell to her knees beside him.
“Oh, Ferdie, what happened?” she wondered, as if he could reply in his state. By the light of the fire, she could just barely make out the shaft of an arrow sticking out of his shoulder and the sheen of sweat on his face. His hair was far longer than she remembered it too as if he - carefully groomed Ferdie - never once bothered to cut it since.
With her heart pounding an anxious beat in her throat, she cupped the side of his neck, searching for a pulse. She sighed in relief once she felt the faint thrumming of his lifeblood beneath her fingertips, but…what to do, especially with his skin so hot with fever?
He obviously needed proper medical care, something far more thorough than anything the limited healing magic she knew could provide, but even now she had to do something before she returned to camp and begged assistance from some of the men.
Dorothea sniffed, trying to dismiss that awful lump building in her throat. This damn war - she knew noblemen like Ferdie trained for this, might even be expected to die for it, but the reality of seeing someone she’d seen at both his best and his worst threatened to undo her.
It was nothing like the operas, nothing clean like stories.
She inhaled shakily and raised her palm to hover over where the arrow protruded from his flesh. This was beyond her ken, she fretted, and she doubted even the so-called goddess knew how much blood he’d lost, so much of it soaked his coat, so much, so—
His breath rattled in his chest, so abruptly Dorothea flinched. She held her own breath, wary and watchful, and the fire she cupped in her hand gleamed against a sliver of his eyes.
They flickered open, a feverish, exhausted haze clouding them. He lifted his hand and mumbled, “…gone to paradise?”
“Ferdie…” Dorothea whispered.
A faint smile drifted over his lips. “Am I dead or am I dreaming the goddess smiling at me?”
She blinked…and frowned. “Even when you’re delirious with injury and fever,” she grumbled. Of course he would manage to irritate her the instant he opened his mouth!
“Oh, Dorothea,” he said almost cheerfully, “it really is you…”
Why did this damn noble make her want to cry? She rubbed at her face and muttered, “Yes, it’s me, Ferdie. I-I’m going to heal you as much as I can, then I’ll get you help, all right?”
“Yes…” he said so lowly she almost missed it.
She sighed, screwing her face up against her traitorous tears, hating how her ability to act, to hide her emotions, would fail her now. She grasped the shaft of the arrow at its base, right where it rose from the chink in Ferdie’s armor. “This is going to h-hurt, Ferdie,” she warned him.
“D-do what you must, Dorothea,” he said. Even injured and lying bleeding, he spoke her name so carefully, so deliberately…
His pained scream shattered the fragile silence of the forest. Her chest tightened in response, no small amount of remorse filling her, and she couldn’t help pinching her eyes shut, unable to witness his anguish. “I’m sorry, Ferdie,” she said. “I can’t treat it without taking the arrow out.”
“I-I know, D-Dorothea…” His voice came fainter this time, quiet enough her heart skipped an anxious beat.
She hovered her open palm over the wound, hesitating…what if her paltry healing made his injury worse? What if it was already infected - where else would his burning fever have come? - and she couldn’t sufficiently treat it? Oh, she should’ve paid better attention to Professor Manuela’s lectures on Faith; why did it matter if she didn’t believe in the goddess when she could’ve help Ferdie better now?
She might’ve disliked him (once), but that never meant she wanted him to die!
But the longer she delayed, the more likely he would.
Dorothea inhaled deeply - the metallic tang of blood no longer filled her throat with bile - and, as she exhaled in one long slow breath, white magic trickled from her hand into his wound. The healing rune glowed dimly and cast their surroundings into deeper shadows, and for a heartbeat their devastated, war-torn world quieted.
Ferdie sighed, something lengthy and drawn out, almost heart-wrenching. Her rune flickered and died, and Dorothea, knowing with a painful certainty she’d expended the limits of her abilities, pulled her hand back.
She brushed Ferdie’s sweaty hair away from his face. “I’ll be back before you can say ‘I am Ferdinand von Aegir’,” she promised. She stood, clutching her sword, and said, “I’m sorry I can’t carry you back myself, but I swear I’ll be with you when you wake up.”
She wasn’t sure where in herself she found the will to make a promise like that; but war changed people, including her.
Ferdinand woke with an awful stiffness in his shoulder and an ache in his spine. Over the last couple years he grew accustomed to sleeping in bedrolls on the cold, hard ground after a lifetime of feather beds, but this feeling was something entirely different.
At least he was warmer than he had been in a long while.
He forced his eyes open, blinking a few times to clear them of the stickiness of sleep, and raised a hand to rub at them. When they focused, his gaze at last caught on the unfamiliar canvas of a tent.
He bolted upright, heart racing, but the motion sent a spike of pain up his arm. A gasp escaped him, and he clutched at his bandaged shoulder with a groan.
Ferdinand’s memories of the night - day? Week? - before trickled in: Imperial soldiers pursuing him and his men, Marcellus urging him to flee, the arrow in his arm, the tumble from his faithful mare, and, most miraculously of all, Dorothea, appearing in his delirium to heal him with a touch…
Perhaps that last part was little more than a fancy. Surely only his most feverish imagination could conjure up a Dorothea so kind to him.
But if not her, who found him?
His fingers tightened into fists in the absence of lance or sword; perhaps the Empire’s soldiers caught up to him after all, despite Marcellus’ sacrifice. His jaw set, a wave of grief - of guilt - nearly cowing him, until he realized that Edelgard would not bother to take him prisoner just to heal him.
Unless she thought she could gain something from holding him hostage…but what did he have to offer her? His father disgraced their family name by rebelling against the late Emperor and robbing their people, and Edelgard had no use of his heir when she held the power to strip them of their titles and seize their lands for her own use.
Ferdinand shook his head to clear it; dark thoughts were most unbecoming of him, and more urgent matters than his noble status (or lack thereof) required his attention. Such as…where in the goddess’ domain was he?
The tent flap fluttered as if stirred by a breeze, and a child poked their head inside.
Their eyes, big and innocent, widened when they landed on him. “Oh!” they said, lips parted to reveal a gap in their teeth. “Lady ‘Thea, he’s awake!” The child retreated, tent flap drifting shut behind them, flitting away to leave Ferdinand as confused as he was when he woke.
An older, indulgent female voice from without answered the child, “Lacy, honey, what have we said about knocking before entering tents?”
Familiarity sent a trickle of ice down Ferdinand’s spine. His jaw dropped, a wild hope seizing him; could it be…?
“To not to,” the child - Lacy - mumbled abashedly. He could almost imagine her hunching her shoulders and sulking. “But how can I knock when there isn’t a door?”
“Then call in for permission,” the woman - Lady ‘Thea, Dorothea - said with an exasperated sigh. “I told you his name, didn’t I? Since he’s awake, he would’ve answered.”
“Yes, Lady ‘Thea,” Lacy said. “Sorry…”
“That’s all right,” Dorothea said, “but it’s not really to me you need to apologize. Now go get him some food please.” A smile colored her voice; Ferdinand never realized she held a fondness for children. “I bet he’s hungry.”
“Yes!” Lacy exclaimed, any trace of guilt in her tone gone. Her slight footsteps thundered away with all the enthusiasm of a galloping warhorse, leaving nothing but the sounds of a busy encampment and his own breathing in their wake.
And his heart pounding an unsteady tempo in his ear.
He held his breath while he waited for…well, he was not quite sure. Did he wish for Dorothea herself to enter and speak with him? Certainly. A part of him longed to lay eyes on her familiar face, to account for one more friend living that he had heard little of in the two years since the Battle of Garreg Mach, to wonder about how she came to be with this camp and what she had done since. But the rest of him dreaded she might again spit venom at him.
Though she had been more civil with him since they took tea together after the ball.
His cheeks warmed at the memory, of the smile lighting up her face and of her gentle teasing when she asked if he took honey with his tea. She graced him with a kiss on the cheek before she left, even promised she might reconsider her estimation of him, but after everything that happened before war broke out…
And who was to say she had not changed?
“Ferdie?”
He jumped, wincing at a twinge of pain in his shoulder, at the sound of her voice calling his name. “Y-yes?” he replied, disliking the tremor in that single, simple word.
“May I…come in?” Dorothea wondered with more hesitation than he expected.
“Oh, y-yes,” he said, doubtless sounding too eager, “of course you may, Dorothea.”
The tent flap lifted, and in slipped Dorothea.
Ferdinand’s breath caught at the sight of her, some part of him startled by her appearance. At the Academy he never saw her wearing anything but her uniform or a combat mage’s robes, but now she wore a floor-length maroon dress that hugged her figure in a…becoming way. Her dark hair, like his, had grown longer, falling in rippling waves down her back and over her shoulders, and she had discarded her hat.
But her green eyes…though just as sharp and judgmental as he remembered, something about their luster was different.
She clasped her hands together, shoulders lifting with a breath until her gaze snapped to his. “Good morning, Ferdie,” she said. “Or, well, good afternoon.” She smiled very slightly then gestured at the floor beside him.
Ferdinand, not quite able to take his eyes off her - he would not say it was an action so uncouth as drinking her in, oh no - could only nod dumbly. When she did sit, near enough he could reach out and touch her, he finally found the wherewithal to say, “You have my thanks, Dorothea. I suspect it is to you I owe my life.” It was hardly the least of what he wanted to say, not when a thousand and one questions for her threatened to fall from his lips, but it was the easiest and most important.
To his surprise, she waved a dismissive hand and scoffed, “Oh please, Ferdie. You should thank Lacy and her family; she found you in the forest, her mother treated your shoulder - did you know that arrow was poisoned? - and her father gave you their tent.”
“But you—” His eyes widened, shame tightening his stomach into knots. “Their tent?” He made to stand, heedless of the wrenching in his arm and the sudden wave of dizziness washing over him, but Dorothea grabbed him and tugged him back down. “Wait, no, I cannot impose on them and their kindness! It is not—”
“—very noble of you, I know.” She rolled her eyes and insisted, “Relax, Ferdie. Don’t insult their kindness by rejecting it.”
Her words gave him pause, and for a heartbeat two desires battled within him: his longing to flee the tent and return it to its owners - who, unless he was mistaken about the nature of this camp, had little else - and his need to linger, to heal, to allow someone else to care for him after his years as little more than a vagrant.
Dorothea still held tight to his arm, something expectant in her grip.
Ferdie sat back on the bedroll with a sigh. “You…make a good argument, Dorothea,” he conceded.
She grinned, a teasing edge to it that made his heart skip a beat, and clapped her hands. “Good! But you know, Ferdie…” Her gaze drifted past him, a hint of sobriety in it. “You really did scare me.”
He glanced up at her, his mouth drying. “I apologize,” he said.
“There’s really no need!” She smiled again, though not so brightly this time; a pity, for he liked it when she smiled properly for so rarely did she direct it at him. “I just, well, I haven’t seen you or any of our old classmates in so long I’d hate to find one of you dead.”
Something in her voice made his chest tighten with something like disappointment; had he wanted to be special in her estimation for once? Did she still think him a bee? “O-of course,” he agreed hastily. “As would I.”
“But really, Ferdie…” She sighed, her hand resting on his knee and burning a hole through the borrowed, threadbare blanket and into his skin. “When it comes time for you to leave again, please be careful. I…well, the world’s already a pretty bleak place, so your bright smile would be sorely missed.”
Ferdinand couldn’t help a smile pushing at his lips or the heat rising to his face. “You as well, Dorothea.” From somewhere within himself, he found the courage to place his hand on hers. “Take care of yourself as well. The world would be lesser without you.”