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This whole plan was supposed to be a cinch. Serra might have had her doubts at first, but if the situation truly grew dire, she was always ready to sound a strategic retreat. But that probably wouldn’t be necessary. The little warband that she got involved with turned out to be composed of powerful and determined warriors, already seasoned by several trials in the border mountains. If anything, they’d be the ones protecting her, and not the other way around.
It was all very tidily planned and executed until, for some reason that Serra couldn’t in the name of all that is holy understand, she found herself scrambling up and down a hot, still-aired tent, flush with sweat, burning her candles on both ends – providing emergency treatment to the strongest fighter of the whole group, who had been gravely injured in a skirmish with the sloppiest assassins ever hired.
“How has it come to this?!”
Lyn drew in a breath, about to respond, but Serra pressed a stinging salve to one of her deeper wounds, knocking the wind out of her. She would have groaned in pain, if not for her pride.
“If this wound were scarring on its own, and not being magically healed, you might not have been able to lift a sword again!” Serra’s usual unpleasant-pleasant register was gone from her speech, replaced by panicked huffs. “Just… how? Those assassins weren’t even that good. I don’t think they could have hit me if they tried to. So… how?”
“Hey, it’s always risky fighting, even if you’re strong. Plus…” Lyn coughed out an answer, then trailed off.
“Plus what?”
“It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”
Serra glared at Lyn, then pressed the stinging salve into her wound again, although there was no pharmacological need for it. It was too sudden for Lyn to stifle her reaction down to less than a quiet grunt.
“Plus what, Lyndis.”
“… Plus, I let my guard down a few times because I was in a hurry.”
“And there we have it. … Wait, what do you mean, you were in a hurry?”
“I had to hurry. It was because of me that those assassins were causing trouble and starting fires… Dealing with it as quickly as possible was my responsibility.”
Serra shot Lyn a quizzical look.
“I know, I know. Marquess Araphen was still furious in the end. It might not have made a difference if I’d taken my time and fought the enemy off safely. But even then, I don’t really regret doing things the right way, you know?”
“Oh, but you ought to regret it.”
“Huh?”
Serra took a moment to bask in the smugness of her own statement, her upward-tilted smiling face tinted by the light of her healing staff. The image of haughtiness that she hoped to embody was somewhat broken up by her still short-winded breaths.
“You can’t just go around giving it your all for other people without any good reason. You have to know exactly what’s in it for you!”
Lyn was about to argue back, but even as she started to raise a finger, something compelled her to catch herself and think about Serra’s words from a different angle.
“But, Serra… is that really how you think?”
“Naturally! You’d never catch me overexerting myself for other people.” Serra swept a strand of disheveled hair off her brow, flicking droplets of sweat onto Lyn. “If someone expects me to work hard and wear myself out, they’d have to beg me for it!”
Lyn smiled weakly. Ah, Lycians and Etrurians – she still wasn’t entirely used to them, after all. That they’re more willing to lie was a given, but she never did expect to discover that, sometimes, their duplicity could be strangely affectionate.
Serra had barely had the time to hope that emergency treatment would have been a one-time situation. There she was again, a whirlwind of supplies and procedures and prayers. And for this round, the wounds had run deeper, as had Serra’s bafflement.
“Oh, Lyndis…”
“Aw, don’t sound so disappointed...” Lyn’s voice sounded out weakly, although she tried to sound as if she were standing fine. “This time, I can say for sure that it was worth going the distance.”
“This was more than ‘going the distance’! You barely made it out alive!!”
The injuries that Serra had been battling against at that time were a far cry from the lucky hits that afflicted Lyn previously. These ones were carved by the blades of true killers – Black Fang assassins.
“Ugh…” Serra sighed as she wiped some grime off her gloved hands, readying them to be sullied anew. “I hope that ring’s worth top G, at least.”
“I mean, that’s… we’re not selling it, Serra.”
Serra inhaled sharp and deeply, then paced around the tent restlessly, drying her hands.
“Serra? Serra. Helloooo, Serra?” Lyn tried to break her trance by snapping fingers, to no success. “Look, Ninian told me that ring has a great deal of sentimental value to her. I wasn’t about to just let it be stolen away by those villains.”
“Dear me, Lyndis, you’re hopeless…” Serra shook her head as she drew in close to Lyn again. “You’ve got to put things into perspective! If you’re always stopping to do something for everyone else, you’re not going to get any closer to your goal. And if you don’t try to get yourself all the way there, who will?”
Although Lyn still couldn’t move around much, a knowing smirk spread across her face.
“What? Did I say something funny?” Serra looked up from behind the glow of her healing staff, the concern on her face bathed in the light.
“Oh, it’s just… I know that, when you were asking ‘who will’, you probably weren’t expecting me to come out with an answer. But there is one, actually.”
Serra responded only with the puzzled look on her face.
Lyn then pulled her into a hug, nearly making her drop her staff.
“Thank you for looking out for me, Serra.”
Serra hadn’t imagined that her face could have become more flushed than it had turned from the exertion, or that her heart could set to beating faster. Under the sound of her stammering, her half-successful attempts to speak some superior line, she crossed the limits of where her imagination had been willing to go.
At long last, Lundgren was defeated. However, as any would have expected, he didn’t go down easy. Most would find nothing unusual about the fact that Lyn came out of their final duel sporting a number of horrific injuries.
By now, Serra knew better.
“You know what, Lyndis?”
“… You should just call me Lyn.”
“Lyn, clearly there are two sets of wounds here. They came from different weapons, at different times.” There was a vicious tune to the way Serra enunciated the facts. “You went to fight that creep Lundgren even though you were already hurt. Am I right or am I right?”
“Not much of a choice here, huh?” Lyn laughed weakly. “Yes, that’s the truth. The cavalry he fielded was tough to handle…”
The scolding glower on Serra’s face spoke in a more piercing way than if she’d merely said “that’s not what the problem here is” or some similar line.
“I know, I know, maybe I should have pulled back after that. But I just couldn’t stop. Not until Lundgren paid.”
“You could and really, really should have!” Serra did as dramatic and bodily of a pout as she could manage without getting her hands off Lyn’s injuries. “All the others were ready to fight for you! How could you just ignore that and go off to do your own thing?!”
“Ah, but don’t you see, Serra…? I was still counting on my dearest friends, after all.”
“Then why didn’t you--”
“There’s more than one way to do that. I could have let someone else fight in my stead… or I could have gone on fighting, knowing that, even if I got hurt, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?!”
“It wouldn’t be so bad. Because then, I’d get to see you again.”
Serra stiffened, feeling herself go red and light-weighted once again.
“Lyn!! I…” Serra was more frustrated than ever, and somehow, she also felt tears in the corners of her eyes and a soaring sensation. “You… Don’t you know you can just come to see me without being at death’s door?!”
“I had no idea.” Lyn teased with a smarmy smirk, prompting Serra to reach for a rag soaked in stinging salve. “I suppose I’ll have to start doing that, now that Caelin is at peace.”
Serra eyed the rag, her mind split two ways. “… Do you promise?”
“Yes, I do.”
Lyn and Serra naturally fell into an embrace. A few wounds were blissfully ignored for the next several minutes.