Chapter Text
C
The clang of blades is as hypnotic as ever, and Ingrid loses herself in the motions, feels her muscles bunch and shift under her skin and revels in the feeling of getting stronger, better, even if the progress isn’t as fast as she would like.
“Why do you train so hard?” The voice comes from somewhere behind Ingrid’s left shoulder, and it is luck that means her blade stops just short of Edelgard’s chin.
“To get stronger.” The answer is simple, and while Ingrid would happily have left it at that, rolls her shoulders to loosen the muscles so that she can improve her swing, Edelgard seems to have other ideas.
“Yes, but why?” Edelgard’s question seems academic, head cocked and pale, almost luminescent hair falling over one shoulder. “You have a Crest, you shouldn’t need to—”
“Strength doesn’t mean anything if you don’t use it.” Ingrid doesn’t mean to sound as sharp as she does, but she is tired of talk of Crests and blood and duty.
If she didn’t know better (and, in all honesty, she’s not sure she does), Ingrid might think that Edelgard is pleased with her answer.
“And how would you use your strength?”
Ingrid barely thinks before answering, “To help people. To defend them.”
Edelgard’s expression is inscrutable, fine-carved marble barely twitching as lavender eyes study Ingrid unblinking.
“How honourable.”
Ingrid isn’t sure whether that is a compliment or not. Opens her mouth to ask what Edelgard means, but Edelgard is already asking another question.
“Would you still think so if you didn’t have your Crest?”
(It feels like an interview – like a test.)
Ingrid pauses a moment, eyes tracing the smooth, clean lines of her lance and wishing everything was as simple and defined.
“I think so. Whether or not I would have the power…”
Edelgard does not speak for a moment, and when Ingrid looks up she sees that Edelgard is angry, eyes hardening to amethyst and brow furrowed.
“Crests do not give us power.” She is so certain, so sure of herself that Ingrid envies her for a moment.
“That is why I train.” Ingrid manages to mumble, averting her gaze while Edelgard regains her hold on herself. She smiles tightly – though Ingrid fancies that lavender eyes soften slightly before she turns away, leaving Ingrid alone.
B1
Dearest Ingrid,
Viscount Kleiman has presented his second son, and offers a suitable bride price. I will meet with him on your behalf on the morrow, and you will meet the young knight in the spring.
Our fortunes rest on you, Ingrid.
Ingrid barely registers the rest, feeling her throat tighten and her nostrils flare. She is in public, doesn’t have the luxury of tears.
Turns to return to her quarters, only to find Edelgard studying her again.
(Ingrid has barely recovered from Edelgard’s scrutiny the last time they spoke.)
“Your Highness, I—” Bows to hide red eyes, and instead is interrupted by the question she dreads.
“What troubles you?” Her voice is gentle, kind almost, and that somehow makes it worse. Ingrid barely knows where to start.
“My father—it doesn’t matter.” Even as the words begin to leave her, leeched like poison, she feels herself deflate. “I’ll have to do my duty”
“But…” Edelgard looks puzzled, and that alone is strange for one so self-assured. “But you already have a purpose.”
What good is a purpose if it is hopeless? “I—”
Edelgard steps closer then, and Ingrid cannot help but stare, and the breath stutters in her throat.
“I have always admired that about you.” Voice gentle as a psalm, Edelgard makes as if to reach out to Ingrid, then lets her hand still in mid-air and fall. All Ingrid can do is open her mouth, snap it shut, open it again, flounder in the strange tension thick as fog between them.
“I have one of my own.”
And like that, the moment is broken, lavender eyes widening as Edelgard backs away and leaves without another word.
It is only once Edelgard is gone that Ingrid realises she has been holding her breath.
B2
So that was Edelgard’s purpose.
If Ingrid had not been so—If she had—
All the carnage would have been avoidable, if Ingrid had been able to see what was in front of her own eyes.
Ingrid’s sword is heavy in her hand as she sinks against one of the ruined columns, surveys the damage around her. Broken buildings and broken bodies, the healers doing what they can but it isn’t enough. May never be enough.
The central towers of Garreg Mach lie in ruins, felled by—
(Ingrid thought she saw—was sure she saw—
It matters not. None would believe her if she tried to bite the words out.)
The professor had been felled, too – and Ingrid wonders what use a powerful Crest was, when their teacher had hurtled over the side of a cliff to her death.
The only thing to do had been retreat. She knows that, yet still it stings. Lingers in the woods instead and tries to lick her wounds.
Ingrid feels herself sink against a nearby trunk, into the exhaustion that has dogged her since Edelgard’s declaration of war, since she has been training to dull the edge of—
Something. Something which lingers just out of reach.
And Ingrid knows that she is finally and utterly exhausted when she sees Edelgard before her, a mirage in blood red, silhouetted against the gloom of the woods.
Ingrid is abruptly aware that she is alone, that her desire for solitude may have cost her—
Cost her what? A life of submission to ideals she does not want, with people who do not value her—
Her strength.
Edelgard steps in front of her, battle-axe in one hand while the other—
The other reaches out. Reaches out to her, palm raised to the sky, and there is something almost vulnerable about Edelgard in that moment.
“Come with me.” Edelgard sounds the same, still sounds assured and confident and right, convinced of her righteousness in the face of a world that does not (cannot) understand.
“Why?” Ingrid is so very tired, so—so—
“I can give you—” At that, Edelgard’s composure cracks a little, and Ingrid has to wonder what Edelgard could possibly want to give her, why an Empress (an Empress, by all the Saints) would ever even think about a third child from a County in the Kingdom.
“I can make you a knight.”
And when Ingrid takes Edelgard’s hand, soft and warm in her own, Ingrid knows that she will follow Edelgard, that she will have a new purpose.
A
The Empire marches on Fhirdiad, and Ingrid is reminded of her old debates with Felix back at the monastery.
(She can face him. She fought him often enough at the monastery, learned his quirks and his foibles.
Sylvain, though—)
And as always, Edelgard is summoned by the spectre of her indecision.
“Anything to report, General?” Edelgard’s voice is calm, clear as crystal waters, and Ingrid resists the urge to sneak a glance at her, instead keeping her eyes fixed to the horizon.
“No movement yet, your Imperial Majesty. I—”
“Edelgard. Please.” If it were anyone else who had asked, Ingrid would have protested, insisted on propriety, but—
But she cannot refuse Edelgard anything. Not now, not after all of this.
“Edelgard.” The moment lingers between them, fragile as Mercedes’ spun sugar treats (sweet Mercedes, who Ingrid has scarce thought about these five years, with her gentle nature and her generosity), until another guard crunches by, loud enough to wake the dead, and half a dozen other men hush him, loud enough to wake the living.
For a moment, the northern encampment stills as one, observes and waits with baited breath until Edelgard signals that they are safe, that no Kingdom soldiers would swoop in from the hills.
When the bustle starts again, a little quieter now, Edelgard speaks again, and Ingrid has to strain to hear her.
“Do you regret your choice?”
Now Ingrid does look at Edelgard, takes in the bags under her eyes and the way her head bows slightly under the weight of everything that the crown entails. Takes in the set of her jaw, still stubborn and sure after five years of hard work, even when her strength seems to fail her and she must rest.
Ingrid lends her her own strength, and will continue to until they have achieved their goal, until the weak can be protected against injustice. Turns to face Edelgard then and lets her lips curve into a small smile.
“No, I do not.”
Feels the breath stutter in her chest at Edelgard’s smile, relieved and open and bright, bright as the moon lighting their path to Fhirdiad and beyond.