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Edelgard first meets Hubert when she is four years old.
She hardly remembers it at the time. Nor is she truly old enough to understand what her father and mother mean, when they explain that Hubert is her vassal, there to protect and serve her. She doesn’t know what the word ‘vassal’ means, and at four she has no concept of the dangerous and terrible things that could happen to a young princess.
What she does know is that for as long as she can remember, Hubert has always been around. He’s two whole years older than her, but by a young child’s standards, that makes him infinitely older and wiser. Hubert is a presence she grows accustomed to and expects, like mother and father.
Though at first, Edelgard isn’t really sure what to expect him for. Hubert is a bit like a servant, but he’s different from other servants at the same time. Other servants cooked and cleaned and took care of household affairs that noble people aren’t supposed to deal with. There’s a maid who is Edelgard’s servant too, and Ella is very nice and very good at laying out pretty dresses and putting Edelgard’s hair into interesting braids with ribbons and accessories. But those servants all treat Edelgard and her siblings with deference, call her ‘Your Highness,’ and are always so prim and proper around her.
Hubert calls her Your Highness too, or Lady Edelgard, and he’s proper too. He looks after her a lot, and follows her around a lot. But he doesn’t do the things the other servants do. And father says he’s noble as well—a noble of the Vestra lineage, although Edelgard doesn’t exactly know what that means. Father says the Vestras have served the Hresvelgs for as long as there have been Hresvelgs, which is a very long time. So Edelgard isn’t certain if Hubert is really a servant or not. Nobles aren’t servants, but his noble family serves hers.
It’s all quite confusing to young Edelgard, and in the end it doesn’t seem to matter much. Hubert is there to stay, and she sees him every day.
Hubert is a strange sort of person in addition to being a strange sort of servant, and at first, Edelgard doesn’t like him much. She doesn’t want him to be her noble-servant or vassal or whatever he is. He’s very grim and silent and doesn’t talk much, which is very boring. He almost never smiles, and when he does, it’s a bit scary. When he laughs, it’s even scarier. He acts a lot like a grown-up, even though he’s much younger than all the other grown-ups.
He isn’t very good at playing either. She tries to get him to play all the time, because if he’s going to be following her around a lot, he should keep her company, right?
He indulges her, but he’s pretty terrible at it. He has little interest in playing teatime or dressup, although if she hands him a pretty flower and tells him to wear it, or hands him an imaginary teacake and asks him to eat it, he will. Wearing that scary, tired expression, but he will, even if he’s boring and doesn’t want to. He doesn’t particularly care about her collection of pretty hair ribbons or her toys or the pony father got her or anything that interests her.
He doesn’t care much for her lessons either. He has little interest in things like her dance lessons, although he will help her practice if she tells him to. (Really, if she tells him to do anything, he’ll obey, which is probably the servant part of his noble-servant job).
And if she plays things like knights and bandits with him, or practices at her fighting instruction, he gets...scary. It feels like he’s holding back. Or like he’s too real about it, like he’s not imagining fighting bandits. It’s a bit scary, so she doesn’t ask him to play it with her often, even when he’s her knight on her side of the imaginary battle.
But over time, as Edelgard gets older, she gets used to Hubert. He’s a strange person, and a bit scary. But underneath the frightening expressions and cold speech, he’s actually quite kind to her in his own strange way.
He’s not very good at playing, but he’s a very good listener, and he takes her worries seriously when she shares them with him. Once she told him about one of her bodyguards that scared her, because he was big and his face was particularly mean and she didn’t like the way he talked to the other guards, like a bully. Hubert had nodded solemnly in understanding, and the guard had been gone the very next day. If she asks for advice, he gives it, and it’s often very good advice. Before long, she’s willing to tell Hubert anything and everything, because she trusts him to keep her secrets and knows he won’t make fun of her for even stupid little worries.
He’s very clever, and can be quite sneaky, and he often slips her sweets from the kitchen without anyone catching him at it. He’s good with lessons, explaining tricks with letters and numbers to her better than her tutors. He’s not very good at playing some games, but he’s quite good at others, like Hide-and-Seek, and teaches her tricks for finding good hiding places and staying quiet. He’s quite good at reading out loud, and will often read to her from books at her request. He learns how to help her braid or tie her hair every time it comes loose throughout the day, and becomes so good at it that Edelgard will frequently request he re-does Ella’s braids better once he arrives in the morning.
Eventually, Edelgard simply assumes that ‘vassal’ just means ‘official friend.’ After all, Hubert is a servant, but not a servant. The only thing she can really think of for him to be around her constantly, if he’s not cooking meals or doing laundry, is that his job is to be her friend. She has so few of them, outside of her own siblings, and so his presence—official or not—is welcome.
Edelgard is four when Hubert becomes her vassal.
She’s seven before she realizes what that job truly entails.
The day starts innocently enough. There’s a Festival in Enbarr, for some sort of historical event that she’s already forgotten (her tutors would be furious, but her tutors aren’t here today). People are dancing in the streets outside the palace, and there’s singing and cheering, and strange light-shows with magic and foreign foods and a joust and later that afternoon there’s to be a parade. Edelgard is delighted, because in previous years she’d had to spend the time cooped up in the palace, but this year she is allowed out to see it all.
She isn’t alone, of course. Father and mother have to attend other parts of the festivities, because Father is the Emperor and has to ‘make appearances,’ but Edelgard has several bodyguards. And Hubert, of course, but he’s always around as her official friend. He’s already managed to get her some special treats from a strange stall selling food that was called ‘Almyran.’ She knows from her studies that’s a country far to the East of Fódlan, and now she knows they have excellent sweets.
It’s a wonderful day. She watches several magical light shows from performers, tries delicious foods from many of the strange vendor carts along the streets, and watches a performance by the Mittelfrank Opera Company in an enormous open stage. It’s wonderful. She rambles about it excitedly to Hubert as he trails after her through the crowd, heading for their box for the joust. Hubert’s usual dour expression never changes, but Edelgard knows he’s listening to her intently.
They’re nearly to the Hresvelg’s private seats for the joust when the scream of several horses tears through the air. The scent of smoke gets stronger, and distantly, someone yells, “The stables are on fire! Get the horses out!”
Edelgard’s eyes widen, and the sound of the horses is suddenly a lot more sickening. If they couldn’t get out, they would die, and that would be horrible. It would—
One of her bodyguards, Erit, collapses next to her.
Edelgard jumps in surprise, but before she can ask the man if he’s okay, a wet gurgling sounds from her other side. She whirls around just in time to see a strange man that she doesn’t recognize, standing behind her second bodyguard, slitting his throat.
Aren collapses, still gurgling wetly, blood running from his throat. And Edelgard wants to scream, staring up at the man who did it, still carrying his blood-slick dagger and with red dripping from his fingers. But she can’t. Her voice is stuck in her throat, and her eyes are wide and staring, and all she can do is shake in place.
The man slips the dagger through his belt and reaches for her. Edelgard’s voice finally gets un-stuck, and she tries to scream, but she barely gets any noise out before the man’s hand slaps over her mouth. His other hand wraps around her arms, pinning them to her sides, and he growls, “Don’t struggle and this won’t hurt more than necessary, princess.”
Edelgard does struggle, thrashing wildly, trying to free herself. She doesn’t know this man and she doesn’t want to go with him. He must be trying to kidnap her. He killed Aren, and probably Erit, and there had been so much blood, and she doesn’t want this, she wants to go home, she wants father and mother but she can’t get free and she can’t remember what to do, they’d taught her and she doesn’t remember and—and—and—
And then Hubert is there.
And Hubert is scary. Edelgard had always thought his face looked a bit scary, but that was just how he was. Now he looks really scary, intense in a way she’s never seen in him before. He barely comes up to the kidnapper’s stomach, and yet somehow he seems to loom over the man, radiating danger.
The kidnapper doesn’t seem to notice. He lobs a kick at Hubert, snarling, “Beat it, kid. The money’s good enough on this job I’ll shank you if I gotta. Got no issues killing a kid if I need to.”
Edelgard struggles harder, starting to cry in her panic. No. No! She doesn’t want Hubert to be killed because of her. He’s her only friend and sometimes the only person that’s kind to her and that she trusts. He shouldn’t die because of her!
But the kick misses Hubert, barely. He leaps back and glares at the kidnapper, and his expression is seething and terrifying.
Edelgard is scared. She’s more scared than she’s ever been in her life. She kicks and struggles, but the kidnapper is too strong. She wants father. She wants mother. She wants Hubert to be okay, not like her bodyguards. She wishes she’d never come out to the festival today. She wishes somebody, anybody, would notice what’s happening—but everyone is fleeing the fires or running to the stables to save the horses, and in the chaos, nobody sees them.
She’s going to be kidnapped and Hubert is going to die and nobody is ever going to know what happened.
And then to her shock, Hubert reaches inside his uniform and pulls out a knife. She hadn’t even known he’d had a knife. How had he hidden it so well?
Hubert moves shockingly fast. He darts at the kidnapper with the knife firmly in his right hand. The man hisses in surprise and aims another kick at Hubert, but his aim is off since he’s still struggling to hold Edelgard, and Hubert rolls aside easily. He comes up, and the knife flashes brilliantly, and buries itself in the man’s side.
The kidnapper screeches in pain. He swipes out with one arm at Hubert to try and drive him off, but doing so means releasing Edelgard’s arms. “Move, Lady Edelgard!” Hubert snarls, sharp and insistent. Edelgard manages to wrench the kidnapper’s other hand away from her face and stumble a few feet away, whirling to face the fight.
It isn’t over. Now that Edelgard is free, the kidnapper tries to reach for his own knife again, the same one he’d slit her bodyguards’ throats with.
But Hubert doesn’t let him. He draws the knife out of the man’s side, and stabs him again in the stomach. Tears it out and stabs him a third time, in the groin. Kidneys. Spine. Over and over, each stab wound violently and expertly applied without a shred of hesitation. The kidnapper abandons his attempt at his weapon under the onslaught and doubles forward, screaming. The moment his head is in range, Hubert’s blood-slick knife flashes up and stabs the man sharply in the throat. His screams turn into choked gurgles as blood sprays everywhere.
Edelgard stands and stares, and all she can do is tremble violently. Blood is everywhere—it soaks the ground beneath her feet and pools below the kidnapper. It’s in her hair and on her clothes, and her favorite hair ribbons are dripping with it. The bloodstains are harder to see on Hubert’s dark uniform, but his pristine white gloves are soaked red, and it spatters his face. His yellow eyes gleam like the dagger had, and altogether he’s frightening, like a demonic beast in human form.
He takes a step towards her, outstretching his free hand that isn’t holding the knife towards her. She shrieks in fear, and stumbles back away from him, trembling. She’s never ever been scared of Hubert before, not like this. But that terrifying gleam in his eyes—and the red dripping from his gloves stretched towards her—and the way he’d killed a grown-up so mercilessly in cold blood like that—
She doesn’t want him anywhere near her.
Hubert freezes immediately, and that demonic gleam disappears from his yellow eyes. The knife in his hand vanishes somewhere inside of his clothes, and he deftly strips off his stained gloves, stuffing them into a pocket. “Lady Edelgard,” he says urgently, reaching out towards her again but not stepping forward. His eyes stop glancing every which way around them and focus for a moment on hers. “I will never hurt you. My job is to protect you. That is one of the reasons I am your vassal.”
“It...it is?” she asks hesitantly. His sleeve is still dripping red onto the cobblestones below, and red still flecks his face. But with the gloves gone and that frightening gleam vanished from his eyes, he looks more like her friend again.
“It is,” he says firmly. His eyes glance around them again, at the fleeing, screaming people, before returning to her. “Please, come with me. There will be more. I cannot fight them all.”
She stares at him for a long moment, stunned. Is this what ‘vassal’ truly means? But why would the Vestras—why would father— assign her a bodyguard barely two years older than her? What could a child do against assassins?
Though...her real bodyguards had been killed, while Hubert had been very effective. Very effective. Her gaze turns to the still gurgling, dying man on the ground, and the pools of blood filling the cracks in the cobblestones. She shivers.
“Don’t look,” Hubert advises immediately, taking a step sideways to put himself firmly between her gaze and the dying man. “Please, Lady Edelgard. You must trust me.” He holds out his hand to her again, more insistently.
Edelgard doesn’t know what’s going on anymore. She’s overwhelmed, and scared, and her stomach churns uncomfortably from the blood smell. But Hubert had saved her, and that frightening part of him is gone, and when he speaks to her it’s urgent but surprisingly gentle.
She swallows, and takes his hand.
He moves immediately, tugging her after him and leaving the dying man and her murdered bodyguards behind. It feels wrong to leave Erit and Aren behind like that, dead in the street after their service to her. But if Hubert is right and more kidnappers are coming, then the dead will have to wait. She will have to make sure they get a proper burial after all of this, if she survives…
Hubert moves quickly, winding through the streets of Enbarr and through the throngs of terrified onlookers and fleeing citizens. The smell of smoke is heavier in the air now, and the fire in the stables must have spread to other buildings, causing more people to flee in a panic. The noise of screaming and thundering feet is chaotic and dizzying, and movement is everywhere. Edelgard is too short to see over the heads of any of the people around them, and has no idea where they’re going.
But Hubert seems to know, or at least he has a better idea than she does. His grip on her wrist is almost painfully tight, but she’s grateful for it; despite the pushing, shoving press of people around them, she’s never once separated from him.
He pulls her along until they find an abandoned bakery with the door still wide open. Here, Hubert draws her inside with him and further back, to the back rooms with stored crates of flour and sugar and jars of preserves. He pushes her into a shadowy corner between two stacks of boxes, as far back as she can go, and then deftly wedges in after her. Between his dark clothes, dark hair, and the cast shadows of the boxes, he blends in frighteningly well.
“I think I broke their line of sight and lost them,” he murmurs to her, so soft she can barely hear him. “There’s no blood trail. We should be safe here until my father comes.”
“Marquis Vestra?” Edelgard asks, shocked. “Not the guards?”
“Mm,” Hubert acknowledges. “Please keep your voice down, Lady Edelgard.”
Edelgard swallows, but nods. “Why your father?” she whispers.
“My father gave me my instructions in the event of a situation such as this,” he murmurs back. “He will know how to find me, and so you too.”
“We can’t go out and look for him?”
“No,” Hubert says firmly, if still softly.
“I don’t like it here, Hubert,” Edelgard whispers. “I want to go home to the palace.”
“I know, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert says. His voice is softer now, not just in volume but in tone, like he’s trying to be gentle with her. “But they will assume you will go straight home for safety and are likely waiting to ambush you. This is safer.”
Edelgard shudders. She doesn’t want any more men like that to find her. And her shivering only gets worse when Hubert quietly slips the same still-stained knife from inside his jacket, keeping it at the ready as he faces outward and watches for intruders. Clearly, even if this is safer, it’s not safe.
She sits back against the wall and wraps her arms around her knees miserably. She hates all of this. She wishes she never came out to the festival. She wants to go home and be with mother and father already. It’s dark and cold and the blood-smell from Hubert and the knife is making her sick to her stomach again and she desperately wants to take a bath to get it all out of her hair and clothes.
Hubert must notice. He pauses in his vigil long enough to glance over his shoulder at her, and offer her a smile. It’s a kinder smile than his usual frightening one, as though he’s trying to be reassuring. “Please remain calm, Lady Edelgard. This is just like playing hide-and-seek, and you know how good I am at that.”
She nods. He is very good at it. Even now, he blends into the shadows very well. And he’s pushed her so far back in their little hiding spot that even her bright red festival dress doesn’t stand out in the dark.
For the first time, she wonders how he got so good at hide-and-seek.
Still, the fact that the knife is out means he thinks there’s at least a chance they might be found. “What happens if somebody who isn’t Marquis Vestra comes?” she asks softly.
“I will not allow anyone to hurt you or take you away,” Hubert says, with such confidence that she believes him. His thumb runs over the handle of the knife gently. He holds it with such ease that she knows he’s trained with it, and trained with it often. He’d killed that man so quickly…
She feverently hopes that it is Marquis Vestra that finds them first.
They’re there for a long time, with Edelgard wedged into that tiny shadowy corner, and Hubert planted firmly between her and any threat the outside world might send their way. It’s uncomfortable, and before long Edelgard’s legs are cramped and she’s cold, miserable, sticky from sweat and blood, and nauseated from the iron stink in the air. If Hubert is uncomfortable at all, he doesn’t once complain, and he barely moves a muscle, constantly vigilant as he watches for danger. So Edelgard doesn’t complain either, holding her tongue even though she feels awful and scared. If Hubert can do it, then she can be brave too, especially with him protecting her.
But then there’s a clatter of footsteps from the outside, and the door to the backroom opens. Hubert tenses, silently raising the knife and narrowing his eyes. But there’s a soft, two-toned whistle a moment later, and Hubert’s eyes widen, and the knife slips away. A moment later, Marquis Vestra steps into sight, staring down at the two of them.
He’s a rather intimidating man, not unlike Hubert. Which Edelgard supposes makes sense. He’s dressed all in black, with the same dark wavy hair and the same hard eyes as his son. But he nods when he spots the two of them, and gives a single, sharp clap. “Lady Edelgard,” he says curtly. “Are you injured?”
“No,” Edelgard says, a little shakily. “A man tried to kidnap me, but Hubert—he—”
She swallows, unable to quite say it.
Marquis Vestra regards the growing bruises on her arms, before his attention turns to his son. Hubert is silent. “We will debrief once the princess is safely returned to the palace,” he says shortly. “But I’m disappointed in you, Hubert. You should have spotted the kidnapper before he managed to lay hands on the princess.”
Hubert bows stiffly. “My apologies, father. It was a careless mistake on my part. I will not let it happen again.”
“See that you don’t,” Marquis Vestra says, voice curt.
Edelgard is shocked. Hubert had saved her life, so why was his father yelling at him?
But she doesn’t have the chance to ask. Marquis Vestra gestures to the both of them, and says, “I will return you to the safety of the palace immediately, Lady Edelgard. Your father is worried sick about you.”
Hubert offers her a hand to help her up, and she takes it, wincing at the pins and needles feeling in her legs as she’s finally able to stretch them. She stumbles a little at her first few steps, but Hubert lets her lean on his arm, and she does so wearily.
Outside the bakery a whole division of Imperial palace guards are waiting. Hubert regards them suspiciously, but Marquis Vestra says, “I’ve personally validated the identity of each man present.” Hubert nods, apparently reassured, and turns his attention to assisting Edelgard again.
It’s a long walk back to the palace. Edelgard hadn’t realized how far they’d gotten from it, both for the festival and while fleeing the kidnapping. By the time they reach the palace, her feet hurt and she’s beyond exhausted. But seeing father and mother waiting for her just inside the main foyer reinvigorates her, and she leaps from Hubert’s side to rush into their arms.
Father scoops her up, heedless of the blood sticking to her clothes and hair, and squeezes her tightly. Edelgard throws her arms around her father’s neck and hugs him just as tightly right back, burying her face in his shoulder and trying to fight back her shuddering breaths. Mother murmurs to her soothingly as her arms wrap around the two, and for a while Edelgard is content to sit safely in their embrace. She’s home. She’s home. She’s home.
Eventually, father stops squeezing her quite so tightly, and he and mother pepper her with questions. Is she alright? Is she unharmed? That blood isn’t hers, is it? Does she know she’s safe?
She answers readily, explaining about how Hubert had saved her and hidden her until the Marquis had come. Father murmurs in relief, and mother eventually says, “Come, Edelgard—let’s get you cleaned up. You must want to get out of those clothes.”
She does, badly. She can still smell the iron-stink of blood and her own stale sweat, and she’s sticky and uncomfortable. She goes with mother and a few servants to get a bath and fresh clothes prepared, safe and secure inside the palace.
It’s only hours later, safely snuggled in her nice warm bed, tucked in comfortably by mother and father, that she realizes she hasn’t seen Hubert since he brought her back to the palace.
She doesn’t see him again for two whole days.
It’s the longest she’s ever been separated from Hubert, since he became her vassal. That worries her, but since she’s not allowed to leave the palace right now after the attempted kidnapping, she can’t exactly go find him to see if he’s okay. She asks mother and father about him, but they tell her not to worry—that Marquis Vestra merely has important things to talk about with his son, and he’ll be back soon enough.
Edelgard doesn’t know what to think of that. Marquis Vestra had sounded very angry with Hubert, and he was quite scary. She hopes Hubert isn’t getting into a lot of trouble because of her.
But it does give her time to try and sort out her feelings about Hubert. Because she really doesn’t know what to think about him anymore. He’s always been her official best friend, or so she thought. But Hubert had said his job was to protect her, and she had never known he was able to kill a grown up so quickly and expertly.
If he was supposed to protect her, then perhaps that made him like a bodyguard. He was always around her, like a bodyguard. But if that was the case, then he was just as strange a bodyguard as he was a servant. Her other bodyguards never played tea time, or knights and bandits, or snuck her sweets, or listened to her and gave her advice.
So what is he? A bodyguard? A servant? A friend?
If he is a friend, she isn’t sure if she wants him to be one anymore. He’d killed a person. Killing is wrong, but he’d done it without hesitation. He didn’t even seem sorry about it. He’d almost seemed to enjoy it, with that frightening gleam in his eyes. She doesn’t know if she can be friends with someone like that.
But...at the same time, he’d done it all to protect her. She had been so scared she’d forgotten her own training, and hadn’t known what to do. She’d never encountered any real fights outside of her training with her tutors, and when that man had grabbed her, her instructors’ words had fled from her mind, chased by her own fear. Without Hubert’s quick action, she would be...she would be…
...she doesn’t know, but she’s sure whatever it was, it wouldn’t have been good.
And it had been more than just that, too. Hubert hadn’t just killed that man to protect her. He’d taken her someplace safe. He’d spoken to her more gently than he’d ever talked to her before. He’d promised he would never hurt her, no matter what.
She isn’t sure if she can be friends with someone who killed so easily. But at the same time, she thinks she’d miss having Hubert as a friend, if he ended up going away.
She hasn’t quite figured out how she feels about it all by the third day, when Hubert shows up again in the morning. He’s waiting in his usual post just outside her rooms in the palace, standing stiffly in a fresh uniform and new pristine white gloves. He gives her the usual bow, and a curt, “Good morning, Lady Edelgard,” as though nothing unusual had happened just a few days prior and he hadn’t been missing.
Edelgard immediately throws her arms around his waist in a hug. “Hubert! Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you!”
Hubert looks startled, which is almost funny, as it’s quite difficult to surprise him. He awkwardly puts his arms around her to return the hug, and his muscles are stiff, as though he’s either unused to affection or unclear how to show it. “Ah. I apologize for worrying you, Lady Edelgard. My father required my presence to debrief him on the situation at the festival and identify several men.”
Edelgard steps away from him nervously. “Other men? You mean, the other ones that were trying to kidnap me?”
“Yes,” Hubert says seriously. “But you needn’t worry about them, Lady Edelgard. They are all taken care of and will not come for you again.”
“Oh. Did you help with that?”
“Yes.”
Edelgard frowns. “Why?”
Hubert’s eyebrow raises, but he answers. “That is my job, Lady Edelgard. I am your most loyal servant. That includes doing everything in my power to ensure people like that cannot harm you.”
Her frown deepens. “But are you okay? Those people were dangerous and scary.”
Hubert scoffs. “I am quite fine, I assure you. I should be asking you that question.” His eyes drift down to her arms, which still have dull bruises from where the man had grabbed her, and her face, where he’d covered her mouth to keep her from screaming. “I am very sorry for allowing him to hurt you, Lady Edelgard. I won’t let it happen again. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. A little sore, but it’s a lot better today.” Edelgard regards Hubert curiously. “What about your father?”
“What about him?” Hubert asks, a little stiffly.
“Did...did he yell at you a lot?” Edelgard asks softly. She can’t imagine having parents who would be angry at her like that, but Marquis Vestra had worried her a little that day.
“Only what I deserved,” Hubert says quickly. “It’s not important, Lady Edelgard. He was completely right—I need to be better in the future if I’m to serve you properly.”
Edelgard doesn’t really like the sound of that. But Hubert has that look that says he’s done talking about something unless she really orders him to—princess-level orders. She doesn’t feel like pushing him on it when she still isn’t entirely sure how to feel about Hubert at all, so she lets it slide.
She steps away from him and eyes him nervously. He isn’t being mean or scary—well, anymore than his face always is, anyway—but he’s still a bit unnerving in a whole new way. Does he have that knife again? Is he hiding it somewhere? If somebody burst through the door right now to try and kidnap her, would he stab them too?
“What’s wrong, Lady Edelgard?” Hubert asks.
“What? Nothing.”
He gives her a flat look. “I’ve been your vassal for three years now, Lady Edelgard. I can tell when something is upsetting you.” His expression doesn’t soften, exactly, but his voice is just a little less unnerving as he adds, “You can tell me absolutely anything. Even if it is about me.”
Edelgard swallows. It was almost creepy, how Hubert seemed to just know what she was thinking sometimes. She heads over to her comfiest reading chair, curling up in it between several pillows. Maybe it would make telling Hubert what was on her mind easier.
If Hubert notices her delaying—and he probably does, because he’s Hubert —he doesn’t say anything. He follows her into the room and sits in the chair across from her silently.
“At the festival the other day...you frightened me,” Edelgard says.
Hubert nods. “I thought as much.”
“You...knew I’d be scared?”
“I don’t want you to be scared of me,” Hubert says. “But I’m often told I’m frightening. Father, too. He says Vestras deal in fear so Hresvelgs need not.”
Edelgard frowns. She doesn’t entirely understand that, other than that Hubert and Marquis Vestra think it’s their job to be scary. She thinks, at least.
“It wasn’t just you,” Edelgard says. “It was...you killed that man. And you didn’t seem to feel bad about it at all. You didn’t even hesitate.”
“Of course I didn’t,” Hubert says. “And I don’t regret killing him for a moment. That waste of space would have done terrible things to you, Lady Edelgard. He deserved to die.”
Edelgard swallows again. It’s true that the man had intended to kidnap her. She didn’t know what for—if it was for ransom or murder or something else. Whatever the case, she knows the man would have been cruel. He had tried to murder Hubert, and Hubert wasn’t much older than she was.
But still. It was the first death she had ever seen, and it still makes her stomach squirm uncomfortably to think about the blood and the smell and the screaming.
“So..is that your job?” Edelgard asks slowly. “Killing people who try to hurt me?”
“If necessary, yes.”
“But you’re not that much older than me!” Edelgard insists. Hubert felt so much older than her sometimes, because he talked and acted like a grown-up, but he was only nine. The imperial bodyguards were always so much older than that.
“That hardly matters,” Hubert says. “This is the duty of the Vestra family. I have been raised to serve and protect your own family since the day I was born.”
“Is...is that how you learned to kill that man? Why it didn’t even bother you?”
“Of course. I was trained to. I must be able to act if the need arises, as quickly and efficiently as possible.” He gestures to himself absently. “I am too young to pose much of a threat currently. But by that same token, your assailants will often overlook or underestimate me because of my age and size. This gives me a secret advantage...one I will not hesitate to use, if needed.”
That...that certainly made sense. Hubert had known how to dodge the man trying to kidnap Edelgard, and he’d known exactly where to stab to incapacitate and kill him. It was like he’d been trained to take down people much bigger than him as quickly and as ruthlessly as possible.
For the first time, Edelgard starts to understand Hubert’s intensity when she insists on playing knights and bandits. For her, it was play. For Hubert, it was probably too close to his real Vestra training.
She shivers. Just a little.
“And...and that’s how you knew what to do after you...after you…”
He doesn’t make her acknowledge the kill again. “Yes,” he answers. “Father gave me specific instructions for safehouses and retreat points, in the event of an attempted kidnapping. I am to hide you somewhere safe and ensure no one can take you until my father finds us, or another with the proper Vestra codes does.”
“Even if Imperial soldiers found us?”
“Uniforms can be stolen or manufactured, Lady Edelgard. The people wearing them can easily be more kidnappers in disguise. Only trustworthy individuals, verified by the Vestra family. Others are warned, and if they insist further…”
He doesn’t have to elaborate. His sinister tone is enough to guess what would happen to anyone who kept insisting.
“And if someone else who was definitely bad found us...you would have stabbed him too?”
“If he tried to take you? Absolutely. I would not have hesitated.”
Edelgard bites her lip thoughtfully, and runs her hands through her loose hair. She had washed it many times since the incident a few days ago, but she still half expects it to be gummy and stuck together with congealing blood like before. She hasn’t quite felt clean since that afternoon, no matter how many baths she takes.
“Would it have been quite as...messy as the first time?” she asks, after a long moment.
For the first time, Hubert’s cold expression shifts into something bordering on flustered. “I apologize for that, Lady Edelgard,” he says, standing from his chair and giving her a sharp bow, hand over his heart. “In the future I’m to be trained in the magic arts. They will be more efficient for such assaults in the future, and far less...messy. But I’m not quite old enough yet for magic, thus the knife training.”
“Oh.”
“I will endeavor to keep such messes away from you in the future,” he adds. “Hresvelgs should not have to wear the blood of scum such as that. I will gladly take that bloody burden upon myself.”
She barely notices his willingness to kill for her again, so much as the fact that there will be an ‘again.’ “The future?” she asks softly.
There could be more terrifying moments like that? Times where she’s not even sure if she’ll ever get back to father and mother? Times when she could die? When Hubert could die? All because Vestras are ordered to protect Hresvelgs?
Does that mean he never was her friend to begin with?
Once again, Hubert closes in on her discomfort with uncanny speed. “Did you...wish for me to leave, Lady Edelgard?” he asks, after a moment of hesitation.
She blinks at him. “Go?” Go where? Outside? To fetch something?
He nods seriously. “Father insisted I return, since I’ve been your vassal for three years. But if you are adamant, House Vestra can replace me with another vetted servant.”
She stares at him, shocked. Another servant?
“I can speak to father if you’re uncomfortable with my presence—”
“No, no!” Edelgard says, holding up a hand. “No, it’s not that. I just…” She hesitates. But Hubert had said at the start that she could tell him anything, including anything about him. So she takes a deep breath, and says, “Does...does that mean that you’ve never been my friend? That you can’t be my friend anymore?”
She hasn’t had very many friends in her lifetime. Hubert is a strange friend, to be sure, but he’s always been a good one for as long as she can remember. He’s a bit scary—scarier even now, knowing what he can do, knowing what he’s been trained to do without hesitation. But if he was never her friend again, if he went away forever and was replaced with some unknown, somebody she didn’t know or trust, she wouldn’t know what to do. And if he had never been her friend at all...that would hurt her deeply.
Hubert’s eyes widen in shock. Edelgard is impressed, since it’s very hard to surprise him, and that’s the second time today. But then he smiles—one of his moderately less scary-looking smiles—and says, “I have always been your friend as well, Lady Edelgard. And as long as you wish it, I will continue to be your friend.”
“Really?” Edelgard says, eyes wide. “You’re not doing it just because it’s your job or something?”
“That’s how I met you,” Hubert says. “And it always has been and always will be my duty to protect and serve you. But understand that I want to, too. Because I believe in you, Lady Edelgard. You’re a good person. Wherever your path leads, I will always follow.”
“I wasn’t sure. You always seem to humor me when I want to do certain things, but it doesn’t seem like you like it much,” Edelgard admits. “I always thought…”
“Thought what, Lady Edelgard?”
She hunches forward, a little sheepish. “I always thought ‘vassal’ just meant ‘official friend,’” she admits, a bit embarrassed. “Because I can’t really have a lot of real friends my age, since I’m a princess. I thought father just ordered you to be my friend so I would have one.”
To his credit, Hubert doesn’t laugh at her. “I suppose that isn’t an inaccurate conclusion to come to,” he muses. “And I will admit, I haven’t much... experience... with playing or imaginary games. My training hasn’t permitted me much time for it. But I certainly don’t mind participating in them with you, Lady Edelgard.”
“Oh.” She supposes that makes sense, given what she’s just learned about Hubert. Suddenly the games he’s good at have a much more sinister feeling to them, too.
“Now then,” Hubert says, standing up and adopting that formal servant stance he loves so much. “Are you prepared for the day? Given that the perpetrators are taken care of, your father and mine thought you would like a day of fresh air after spending the past few days cooped up in the palace. A picnic in the courtyard has been planned for lunch. Did you have everything you needed?”
A picnic in the fresh air of the courtyard does sound lovely. “Almost. But one thing, first. Can you fix my hair for me?”
Hubert doesn’t even blink. “Of course. What kind?”
“The little braids. The ones that come together into the bigger one.”
“Hmm. Very well. With which ribbons?”
“The purple ones,” Edelgard says decisively, as she turns in her chair to give Hubert full access to the back of her head.
He obediently removes the pale purple hair ribbons from the little box on her dresser, before circling around behind her and gently beginning to brush her hair back. As he begins on the first braid, he asks, “Doesn’t Ella usually do your hair in the morning? Why is it even loose?”
“She usually does,” Edelgard says. “But the past few days it just hasn’t been as good. It’s never as good as when you do them. So I just had her brush it and leave it down today.”
Hubert tuts idly as he brushes more of her hair back into the braids. Although the plaits are firm and promise to stay in place for hours, he doesn’t pull at her pair painfully, and his fingers are deft and sure as he weaves the strands together. “I’m sure my father would love to hear about my expertise in hair-braiding over other skills,” he observes dourly.
Edelgard sniffs distastefully. “I think it’s good that you can do more than stab people and be sneaky,” she says. “I think this is more useful. You do my hair almost every day. You’ve only had to fight somebody once.”
Hubert says nothing to that. It makes her wonder if Hubert has fought more people than the one time, and just never told her about it. Now that she thinks about it, she really doesn’t know much about Hubert at all.
Other than that he’s her friend, at least. And that he’ll never, ever hurt her.
“I suppose,” he finally concedes, after a long moment of silence. “Though I think it would be best not to bring up the topic with my father, regardless.” He ties off the end of the braids with a neat double-bow made out of the purple ribbons, and adds, “There you are, Lady Edelgard. Will that be all?”
“I think so,” she says. “Will the picnic have sweets?”
“Most assuredly,” Hubert says. “I wouldn’t let anyone prepare a picnic for Lady Edelgard without sweets.”
Edelgard smiles. “You’re a very good friend, Hubert,” she says, as she heads out the door, with Hubert hot on her heels.
“It’s an honor to hear you say so, Lady Edelgard,” Hubert says.
That day is a good day. The picnic is excellent, and Hubert plays with her after. He’s still not very good at it, but he tries, and Edelgard appreciates it. Considering he never had a chance to learn, she thinks he does a pretty good job, and she’s happy to instruct him on how to be better at it.
And she learns something from Hubert that day too. Blood is messy, and taking a life is significant. But there are still times where, awful as it might be, it’s still the better option.
Especially for something you believe in.