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Derdriu was awash in darkness and quiet.
Beyond the hills miles outside the gates of Derdriu, a vast line of torches advanced toward the city. At the front of the army, a young girl sat astride an imposing, black destrier. Atop her head, the girl wore a crown of horns and in her hand she held an axe made of dragon bone and dark magic. A billowing red cape fluttered behind her as a golden glow pulsed from her axe and illuminated the night around her. With a few words, she urged her troops on toward the city gates.
Within the safety of Derdriu’s walls, a different girl wandered the quiet streets of the city. Nearly all of its inhabitants had retreated to their homes for warm fires, hearty meals, and tender love—for a final night of peace before the empire arrived.
As she ambled leisurely down the streets, Hilda played a little game. For every house she passed, Hilda made up a name and a history for the family before she tried to guess how they were spending their night.
Ah, that must be Viola and Abigail’s place. They’ve been together for twenty years but only got married within the past year. Time is short, Abigail had suggested and Viola was always unable to say no to her lover. So they got married. It was a small ceremony. Some people are going to bed early tonight. Trying to pretend this is just another night. But not Viola and Abigail. They know time is short, so they’re making the most of it with kisses and laughs and stories.
Oh and that’s where Maurice lives. Some call him the finest baker in all of the Leicester Alliance. He had no family in the area, so the entire city became his family. A few years ago when a fire broke out and irreparably damaged his bakery, hundreds of people had rallied together to raise the necessary copper to help him rebuild and restart. Maurice was a creature of habit. Even now he was probably preparing the dough for the morning orders—empire or not people needed their bread.
On and on Hilda went like this as she navigated the condensed city. Claude had brought her here many times before, so she moved through the complicated streets—full of twists, turns and surprising dead ends—with a practiced ease.
She turned down a one way street and made her way toward her final destination: a small flower garden accessed through the alley at the end of the street. She came upon the wooden trellis that marked the entrance to the garden and stepped quickly through.
The garden was squeezed between the three buildings that marked this street a dead end. Limited sunlight and access to water meant that the caretakers had opted for a rock garden; full of kangaroo paw, blue chalkstick succulents, and vividly orange daisies. The garden made up for the lack of space with an abundance of flowers.
In the center of the garden, a small pit had been dug in the dirt away from the flowers. The pit was surrounded by large stones and in the middle of it a small fire burned. Nader and Claude sat on the ground around the fire, each covered in a thick woolen blanket.
“Nice night for a fire,” Hilda remarked and made her way to join them around the fire.
Claude grunted and nodded silently as she sat on the ground next to him. She splayed her legs to the side and gently tugged at his blanket, silently imploring him to share.
Still without a word, Claude opened his blanket covered arms wide and nodded toward Hilda—inviting her to snuggle closer.
Hilda scooted under his arm and pressed herself against his side, letting her head fall to his shoulder as he brought the blanket around both of them.
With a grunt, Nader pushed himself off from the ground and stood in front of them.
“I need to finalize the wyvern prep for tomorrow. Claude. Lady Hilda,” he nodded his farewell and made to leave the garden.
He held in front of the trellis for a moment, “You should tell her, kid. It might make all the difference.”
Without another word, he exited through the trellis—soft footsteps carried him from the garden into the night.
Hilda and Claude sat in silence for a few moments longer, both their eyes drawn to the flickering flame as it crackled and sparked.
Hilda broke the silence first, “Tell me what?”
She turned her head up to look at him and she thought the light glow of the flame must be playing tricks on her because she could have sworn she saw his cheeks turn slightly red. His eyes stayed resolutely locked on the flame and she watched as he opened his mouth to speak before he seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth.
“Claude…” she tried again.
“It’s—nothing,” he offered weakly. “He just gets crazy ideas in his head sometimes.”
Hilda gently jabbed his side with her elbow, “Sounds like someone else I know.”
Claude looked at her with a smile, “Hey, my crazy always has a purpose. That’s why you keep tagging along.”
“Mmm, I suppose I do,” She knew he was deflecting, but tonight, of all nights, she wouldn’t push.
Instead she snuggled closer into his side and relished the warmth of his body pressed against her and the lightness of his arm draped across her shoulders.
They sat like this for several minutes—Hilda’s thoughts and the silence of the night broken only by the crackling hisses of the fire and the steady rhythm of Claude’s heartbeat.
His gentle voice broke the silence, “You ever think what our lives might have been like if we hadn’t been fighting for the past five years?”
She pulled back from his side and took in his profile; her eyes lingered on his face. He looked tired. So tired. He’d looked tired for the past five years, like he was always trying to keep the Alliance and himself together with little more than his smarts and a can-do attitude.
“I think I’d smell a lot better,” she said after a moment. “You know, more time for baths and all.”
Claude laughed, full-throated and deep, the sort of laugh he reserved only for her and turned his face toward her. She felt his eyes, filled with his trademark playfulness, as they took in the sight of her.
“Can you ever forgive me for the lack of baths?” he implored.
“Not likely.”
He pressed his palms together and flashed her his best attempt at puppy eyes, “Please, Hilds, have mercy. After all… I’m the one who has to smell you.”
“Claude!” Hilda reached out and slapped his arm as they both fell into a fit of giggles.
“Seiros,” Hilda continued after the laughter subsided, “who could have predicted that I would miss the monastery bathrooms?”
“What’s not to miss about a tiny bathroom shared with four others?”
“Cleaning it was the worst.”
“You cleaned it?” Claude asked, voice filled with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Well, technically, I usually had Lorenz do it for me.”
“I knew it,” Claude chuckled.
“Hey, one time Leonie made me do it myself.”
“Perish the thought.”
“Yeah, she kept going on about how we all had to do our part and wouldn’t believe me that making Lorenz do it was my part.”
Claude laughed deeper, “That sounds like her. She really was something else, huh? Wouldn’t take shit from anybody.”
The “was” in Claude’s words hit Hilda like a ton of bricks. She would have cleaned a thousand gross bathrooms if it meant getting to hear Leonie once more.
“You know,” Claude continued, “She’s the only person I ever saw beat Felix in a duel.”
“That sounds like her. I bet Felix was all, ‘I’ve been raised on the blade.’ and then she probably mopped the floor with him.”
He laughed again, “He was surprisingly cool about it—you know, for Felix. But he did demand a rematch.”
“What happened in the rematch?”
“Nothing. Leonie refused. Said she didn’t have anything to prove to him.”
Hilda barked out a laugh, “Oh my Seiros! He must have been furious.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Claude chuckled lightly.
“I miss her,” Hilda sighed wistfully.
“Me too.”
Silence descended on the garden as the two stared back at the fire, Hilda’s thoughts were miles away now, in an abandoned classroom she might never see again with a group of classmates she definitely would never see or talk to again.
Claude leaned forward and added a small log to the fire. Hilda watched as the flames slowly nipped at the edges of the new log before catching hold and spreading with a pop and sizzle. The flame shot up brighter and stronger with the new log and bathed her face in a flood of warmth.
“I think I would have gone home,” Claude interrupted the silence.
“Huh?”
"If we hadn't been at war, I think I would have gone home," his voice ached with wistfulness.
They'd never really talked about it. Never spoken out loud the thing they both knew, the past five years rarely gave them the chance. Hilda wasn't stupid, though. She knew that when he said home, he wasn't talking about Derdriu.
“You miss it,” it was a statement, not a question.
He looked at the sky thoughtfully before he answered, “I’m… not sure. Some days I can barely remember what the city looked like. I remember that it was built atop the plateau of a vast mountain. But I’ve forgotten so much. I’ve forgotten how the snow falls and what the marketplace smells like. I’ve forgotten how the birds sing and the plants grow.”
“Well, what do you remember?”
“I remember my mother,” he smiled.
“What’s her name?”
“Charlotte,” his smile widened around the name. “You would love her.”
He paused for a moment then added, “She would love you too, I think.”
“I am quite loveable,” she teased and then more gently, “Tell me about her.”
His smile continued to grow. “She would wake me up before sunrise for archery lessons. I hated it. I would whine and complain and beg for more sleep. She always said the same thing, ‘Sleep will not protect you azizakam, but a bow will.’
Hilda watched him closely as he spoke and relished in the sight of his face, full of raw, unguarded emotion the likes of which very people had ever seen from Claude. Here, sitting in a small garden and listening to Claude talk about his mom, Hilda could almost forget that in a few short hours Edelgard’s troops would be at the gates of Derdriu.
“She wouldn’t take us to the archery ranges—according to her that was for babies and fools who still used the sights on their bow to aim. We would hike down the mountain, an hour outside of the city, to a small glade unprotected from the wind or the elements. She would set up targets and we would practice for hours.”
“No wonder you’re a good shot.”
“Psshhh,” Claude waved a hand, “You should see her shoot. I’ve still never won a shooting competition against her.”
Hilda watched as his smile faltered and was replaced by a deep frown—one she’d grown too used to over the past five years.
“Huh,” he mused, “I just realized I might never get the chance to try out-shooting her again.”
Hilda shivered as his words seemed to drain all the warmth from the garden. She heard his breath catch and watched him turn his face away from her. She moved carefully from his side, to kneel in front of him. The fire whipped at her back, but failed to lift the cool mood that had descended. She placed a hand on the side of his face and guided his gaze back toward her own. She saw his chin quiver and his lips tremble. Pink eyes locked with green. She saw him blink rapidly and then watched as a single tear rolled down from each of his green eyes. Hilda dabbed at them with her thumbs, then she circled her arms around his waist. She knew he hated crying in front of others, so she rested her brow against his chest and closed her eyes.
For a brief moment, his breath came in rapid inhales and she felt a few droplets splash against her hair. But then, just as quickly as the breaths and tears had come, they ceased and she listened as his breathing returned to normal.
“Sorry,” he offered weakly.
She pulled back from his chest, looked at his face, now mere inches from her own, and pretended to not hear him, “I’m coming with you.”
He looked at her, confused. “What?”
“When the fighting is done, I’m coming home with you.”
His grin returned. “Are you now? You know it’s going to be very different from here.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“You just want to watch my mom kick my ass, don’t you?”
“That’s definitely a reason, you’ll have to wait to find out the rest.” She gave him a small wink, “So can I come or what?”
He looked at her with a warm, soft expression, “I can’t think of anything I’d want more.”
“Me neither,” she admitted and then she scooted herself back into his chest, resting her head below his chin.
They sat like this for a while and let the fire burn itself down to a small flicker. Time seemed to blur and Hilda’s eyelids grew heavy. As sleep beckoned to her, she felt a nagging sensation that she had something more to ask Claude, something about what Nader had mentioned earlier, but she couldn’t clear the drowsy fog from her mind enough to remember what the question was. With a restful sigh, she gave herself over to sleep—there would be time for questions later, after they had won.
The last words Hilda heard before she passed into a dreamless sleep were melodious, somber, and Almyran.
Home is behind a new world ahead
And there is but one path to tread
Not in cherished halls or peaceful days
Time has come and set them all ablaze
Through mist and shadow, cloud and shade
The new will come, the old will fade
The new will come, the old will fade
The new will come
The old will fade
Derdriu was awash in blood and fire.
Hilda stood on the narrow bridge guarding the only passage to the Northeast dock—to Claude—and she took in the horrifying sights, sounds and smells of a city ready to fall. Black smoke rose from the buildings, hiding large swaths of Derdriu behind it. The pungent smell of blood and charred flesh rose with the smoke and brought with it an overwhelming nausea that Hilda fought desperately to resist.
In front of her, a wave of red and black crashed against a rapidly dwindling line of gold. The adrestian forces moved with a sense of inevitability as their axes crashed against alliance shields and their swords slashed alliance armor.
Hilda hated this. She hated the smoke and the smell and she really hated fighting. But as she watched Edelgard’s troops push closer and closer to the bridge, she knew she would continue to fight--because Claude was still alive and he wasn’t done fighting.
As if summoned by her thoughts, a large, white wyvern soared overhead and landed in the midst of a battalion of Adrestian halberdiers thirty yards in front of her. The wyvern landed with the force of a meteor, crushing two soldiers underfoot before forcing the others back with a guttural roar.
Hilda’s eyes wandered toward the wyvern’s rider of their own accord. Claude stood in the stirrups of the wyvern, back straight, head held high as he fired arrow after arrow into the crowd of soldiers. Every one of his movement was precise, without an ounce of wasted effort, every draw of the bowstring meant the end of another Adrestian soldier. He flipped and spun around in the stirrups with a rhythm that was equally graceful and effective.
Hilda couldn’t help but think of how much he looked like a dancer—a dancer performing a ballet of death.
After a moment, a small group of additional wyvern riders landed beside Claude--his Immortal Corps--and joined him in reigning down volleys of arrows upon the Adrestian soldiers.
Claude and his battalion had secured the space around them but the sheer volume of Edelgard’s troops continued to overwhelm the Derdriuian forces.
To her left, Hilda watched as a wave of red and black finally crashed through her Goneril Valkyries and began to advance upon her.
Hilda hoisted Freikugel beside her face and listened as it’s pulsating hums rang in her ear. She was surprised, and mildly disgusted, to recognize how calm she felt about this.
The first wave of soldiers reached her and she brought her axe down in a series of practiced slashes and swings. Each strike left another of the empire’s soldiers dead at her feet. Blood splattered against her armor and she still calmly advanced with Claude’s words and the promises they made to each other last night rang in her mind.
She would see him back to Almyra if it was the last thing she did.
Another three soldiers leaped at Hilda. She sprang forward to meet them, deceived them with a feint, and cut one across the throat. She spun back toward the other two, quickly parrying a blow before two quick slashes left both of them on the ground.
The loud neighing of a horse drew her attention.
She turned to face the rider who sat astride a white destrier. The rider’s long, wavy red hair, hair that Hilda remembered all too well from her monastery days, flowed down his back and was unable to be contained by the light helmet he wore.
“Hello, Hilda,” Ferdinand called out.
Hilda gripped her shield tighter in one hand and her axe tighter in another, “Hello, Ferdinand. You didn’t forget about me did you?”
He gave her a quick grim smile, “I could never forget about you, Hilda.”
Without any more warning he gave a quick snap of the reins and urged his horse forward. When he was a few feet away from Hilda, he raised his lance and in a flash brought it town toward her.
She quickly lifted her shield and blocked his thrust--staggering backward a few steps from the force of the blow. She used her momentum and pivoted back toward him, shield and axe at the ready but he was already out of her reach.
Hilda watched as he quickly turned his horse to face her once more. Hilda knew what was coming. With a resigned sigh she tossed her shield to the side. Freikugel hung at her side—the red gem in the center of it’s blade pulsing.
As Ferdinand made another pass, she saw him raise his spear high and spun gracefully to the side as he brought it down. In a flash, her crest activated—freezing Ferdinand’s horse to the spot—and flames shot forth from Freikugel. The flame covered blade pierced his armor as Hilda tore the axe from his shoulder to his hip. With a sharp cry of pain, Ferdinand fell from the horse and lay still on the ground.
A loud battle cry drew Hilda’s eyes away from the heap of Ferdinand beside his horse and toward the shock of blue hair which charged toward her with reckless abandon.
At the monastery, Caspar’s movements had always been sloppy--every swing overzealous and rushed as if he couldn’t handle the possibility of a fight that took more than one stroke of his axe. It’s why he never won an axe tournament, Hilda thought to herself.
As he charged toward her, closing the distance between them rapidly, Hilda knew without a doubt that five years had changed nothing—his moves would be as sloppy as ever.
Caspar stopped two feet in front of Hilda and lifted his axe above his head with both hands before bringing it down toward her with a reckless fury.
Hilda took two quick steps backward and felt the axe breeze by her. She leapt forward, closing the gap as he brought the axe up for a second strike. She parried his blow with the haft of her axe. As he staggered back, Hilda lifted her axe to deliver the final blow. Her strike was interrupted by the forceful rush of a wind spell crashing against her back. Her axe lowered and she stumbled toward Caspar.
She saw Caspar recover. She saw the flash of his axe. She parried instinctively.
Too slowly.
His axe ripped across her stomach tearing at her flesh.
Time slowed to a crawl. Freikugel clattered against the ground.
She looked down at her stomach and then back up at Caspar—his mouth hung open, eyes wide, as if he couldn’t believe he landed the blow. Blood pooled around her ankles.
“Oh,” Hilda said.
Caspar opened his mouth to speak but his words were silenced by an arrow that zipped past Hilda and lodged itself in his throat. Hilda’s eyes traced the path of the arrow back to its archer.
Pink eyes locked with green.
“Sorry, Claude,” she gasped and collapsed to the ground alongside Caspar and Ferdinand.
They sat on Claude’s bed, wrapped in a thick blanket, with their backs pressed against the wall. The candle on Claude’s desk cast the room in a dim glow and a light breeze pressed in through the open window chilling the room and, they hoped, masking the smell. The last thing they wanted was for Seteth to discover their unwinding method.
Hilda pulled the mahogany pipe from Claude’s hand and brought its mouthpiece to her lips. She took a long pull, sucking the smoke deep into her lungs before exhaling slowly.
“I’m just saying, it’s a persecution complex. Nothing more.”
Claude rubbed his beard in an attempt at seeming thoughtful, “You won’t protect your friends?”
“Of course I’ll try to protect them,” Hilda groaned, “but I’m not going to die for them.”
“No?”
“When you die, you die.” Hilda said.
“That’s deep.” Claude took the pipe back from Hilda and took another drag.
“Shut up! I just mean...” She vaguely gestured with her hands and lost her words to the pleasant fog in her mind.
Claude laughed, “Well, when you put it so elegantly.”
“You ass,” Hilda slapped his arm playfully before, with a surprising amount of lucidity, she added, “I just want to enjoy life for as long as possible.”
Claude blew a small cloud of smoke with a sigh, “I’m relieved to hear you say that, honestly.”
“Huh?”
“Because I know how handsome I am,” Claude continued with a smirk, “And I’d hate for my beauty to make you do something rash.”
“Pshhh. As if, Claude. You’re pretty, but not that pretty.”
“You wound me Hilds.”
Hilda leaned her head and rested it against his shoulder. Her tone turned serious again, “Don’t take it personally. I just… don’t want to disappoint you. So don’t expect me to die for you.”
Claude gave a small grunt and set the pipe down on his night stand. He leaned down to rest his head against hers.
“You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried,” he breathed the words into her hair.
They sat like this for a while, the pipe forgotten on the nightstand, as the warmth of each other’s body lulled them toward a peaceful rest.
The fighting continued around Claude as he guided his wyvern to land beside Hilda, but he couldn’t be bothered to notice. His battalion landed soon after him and they worked with his wyvern to clear the space beside them as Claude hopped off and knelt beside Hilda's body.
He brought one of his hands behind her head and took her lifeless hands--hands he loved so much it hurt--in his other. He pressed his brow against her own as tears streamed freely down his face and onto hers.
“You promised,” he whispered against her skin. “You promised you wouldn’t die for me. You promised we would go home together.”
Tears still trailed down his face as he looked up from her to take in the city around him. It lay burned, broken, and lifeless, like his dreams of a better world—like the girl he held in his arms.
Troops crashed against his battalion, arrows pierced their armor and their wyverns.
A somber calm washed over him. He bent his face down once more and whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry, Hilds. I saved my best scheme for last. Your family’s going to be safe. It’s going to be okay.”
He let go of her hands and moved that arm beneath her waist. He hoisted her off the ground with minimal effort and whistled for his wyvern.
“Come here, Barbie. I’ve got one final task for you,” he called to his wyvern.
The wyvern bent her neck down and Claude hoisted Hilda’s body onto her back. He used the stirrups to secure her on its back. He tied Failnaut next to her. Holst would understand. He would know what it meant. He would know that the worst had come to pass and, hopefully, he would know how sorry Claude was about that.
“You need to go,” he commanded. “Take her back to Goneril.”
Claude rested his hand against Barbie’s warm snout and closed his eyes briefly.
He allowed himself a few seconds before his eyes shot open, “Take her to Goneril. To Holst. Go.”
A firm slap against his wyvern’s flank and she took off into the night sky. Claude knew he would never see her again.
He bent down and picked up Freikugel. How unfair, he thought, that the last thing I have of Hilda is her axe.
Most of his battalion had fallen buying him time. Just another tactical error he wouldn’t have enough time left to regret.
He lifted Hilda’s axe beside his face, it neither glowed nor hummed, and slowly made his way around the lifeless bodies of his battalion and toward Edelgard’s troops.
Toward the fighting.
Toward his inevitable end.