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The Black Eagles had a tactics exam this morning, and had been staggering out of the classroom slowly through the day. Caspar was the first, making it as far as the nearest set of steps to thump down and contemplate his future life as a weapons-bearer. Maybe if he did really well, they'd let him test for drummer boy when he was forty.
He barely noticed the others shuffling past at intervals, or the sharp purposeful steps going the other way. A nearly visible shroud of gloom hung over him, keeping away casual questions as the minutes trickled past.
He wasn't paying attention to notice that Petra was the last to leave—struggling to remember key vocabulary, and puzzling over long sentences to guess words from context before she could answer the crucial questions.
All that was lost on Caspar, and he didn't even notice the very quiet footfalls approaching, until a light impact on his head marked the bop of a gentle fist. He jerked upright, whipping around, and Petra was there with a weary expression and a pair of meat buns in her other hand.
They'd both missed lunch, him too sunk in despair and her not getting out until after the second bell.
She offered him a bun, and after a second, he took it. Their knuckles tapped in the exchange, and then he lapsed back into melancholy, munching on the steps while Petra went off to work out her frustrations elsewhere.
— § —
The White Heron Cup was coming soon, and that meant that everyone who didn't move fast enough was being scouted as a contestant. Caspar failed to dodge the sweep, caught when Manuela charged through the classrooms and the main hall to conscript students for a lesson. There was a shortage of men volunteering, so she'd roped him in as a partner despite his increasingly desperate attempts to explain that dancing wasn't really the Bergliez thing.
"Nonsense!" she'd declared. "If you can learn tactics, you can learn a few steps," which just went to show that she hadn't checked his last exam.
Most of the other victims were no more skilled, and Manuela mostly concentrated on the far end of the line where actual prospects like Flayn and Ferdinand and Dorothea were busy preening for her attention. While everyone stumbled through the steps to the latest repeat of the music, a few other people were enjoying the show in the big hall.
Petra walked by, her eyes wide as she took in this strange cultural ritual. Manuela was occupied, nearby but her back turned.
Petra paused a few seconds, eyes narrowing as she studied the line of students in their awkward pairs. Caspar stepped on the foot of his partner, who pinched his arm to warn him.
Petra tilted her head as if hearing a different lilt of music—then she lifted her arm in a ghost of the pose they struck, and turned twice in her own dance, adding little kicks and flourishes to the dull circle of steps.
She paused after the second turn, looking thoughtful but catching Caspar's eyes. He stuck his tongue out at her.
Petra's giggle pealed off the ceiling, and Manuela came back with a vengeance, determined to see what was so funny at this end of the sad parade. Petra vanished, while Caspar was stuck there for another hour.
— § —
Petra and Caspar hadn't spoken much since he learned—and immediately spilled to her—that his father had been the one to kill hers. It was the kind of thing that ended budding friendships, and they both had plenty of training to keep them busy.
Petra, in particular, had more than enough work to do. When she wasn't finding answers for the endless needs of the academy classes, she was dodging the snares of the Fódlan students who thought it was funny to trip the foreigner with double-meaning phrases or rude words.
She was sitting in the shade of a tree, forcing herself to reread her notes and find all the little corrections, when rising voices from across the courtyard lifted her eyes. A group of older students were bullying a younger one, from one of the minor noble families with a lineage but no lands left to speak of. They were mocking his rural accent, three of them tossing a stolen notebook back and forth over his grasping hands. As the boy lunged more desperately, one of them pushed him back over another's extended foot, and they all laughed as he went sprawling. Dropping the battered notebook in the mud, they strolled off toward the dormitories.
As Petra's eyes followed them, her stare caught on Caspar, who was standing in the classroom doorway and scowling.
Petra jerked her chin in the direction of the departing older students. His eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed. He nodded.
Petra closed her book neatly and left it on the table as she and Caspar trotted after the group, both of them flexing their hands.
— § —
Years later, the war had engulfed them all. They were endlessly on the march, the small rooms of Garreg Mach now a luxurious memory to be dreamed of from camp.
Petra suffered in the cold, but her hands were the worst. They cracked and bled in the Faerghus winters, and no amount of huddling near the fires seemed to thaw the frozen core. Every task took longer with fingers that moved so clumsily.
Caspar tsked one night, walking by as she held her hands dangerously close to the flames. She shot him a betrayed look, but he just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Grudgingly, she retracted her hands. A few minutes later, she retired to her tent to think dark thoughts about Fódlan in privacy.
In the morning, she almost tripped over a small bundle outside. Unrolling it, she found a pair of half-finger mitts made of stretchy fabric, a little unevenness in the many loops of yarn.
Caspar had spent countless evenings swearing softly by the fire, working a needle. He'd never said what it was for, and nobody asked.
Petra pulled the mitts on and cradled her hands to her chest, lips moving in a silent murmur.
— § —
They were part of a small scouting force returning from a mission when the ambush found them. It was early morning, cold fog hanging over everything in a deceptive softness. Petra was stretching stiff limbs, Caspar making the best of a meager breakfast, the other scouts stumbling through their own routines of waking. The soft crack of a breaking branch barely rippled the air.
Both of them lifted their heads sharply. A few weapons leaned against the log Caspar was sitting on, and he grabbed a sword, tossing it to Petra. She caught it, turning and drawing as a shout rose up and troops attacked from the trees.
The fight was short but brutal, as their little band dispersed into the woods for close-quarters combat. Caspar was stuck in the clearing, keeping the heaviest-armored of the attackers busy and away from a couple of wounded scouts. He was doing well until an arrow from the treeline caught him in the back of his thigh, then he went down with a swallowed howl.
The big one turned for new prey, spotting Petra dueling at the clearing's far edge. He hefted an axe, but was pulled off-balance just as he threw. The throw struck Petra's shoulder instead of her spine, knocking a grunt from her. Outraged, the armored fighter looked down to find Caspar grimly clinging to his ankle. He kicked Caspar savagely in the chest, rolling him onto his back with a crunch. The burly man lifted another axe high, readying a chop that would mean the end.
Caspar spat blood and grinned. "You fucked up."
The fighter looked around just in time to catch Petra's meteoric leap on the shoulders and chest, staggering him back. Her arm was wounded, sword lost, but she tangled that hand in the plume of his helmet to anchor her in place. With her other hand, she drove her dagger into the eyeslit of the helm over and over, pulling out fountains of red as he screamed and staggered.
The crushing weight of him tumbled down on both of them, dousing the light.
— § —
Caspar and Petra convalesced in the infirmary tent after the main force caught up with them. Manuela had stern words for the amount of rest that was needed to ensure proper healing, and both of them were sluggish enough at the moment that she could easily enforce her will.
Caspar woke from a long sleep one afternoon to find Petra sitting by his bed, her shoulder thick with bandages and her arm in a sling. Though she looked tired, she leaned over him when she saw him stir.
Her hair fell around his face in a curtain. Her eyes were larger and deeper than he remembered noticing, before. For some reason, he held his breath.
"You are to take care of yourself," she said. "Are you understanding?"
Caspar blinked. "'Kay," he said, after a moment.
Petra nodded. Her posture loosened, like it had taken something out of her to say. She looked across the room to her bed, and her mouth pulled in a tiny grimace. He reached out an arm and snagged the small pillow from the unoccupied neighboring cot, slapping it against the supply crates next to her stool.
Petra's face cleared, and she nodded again, turning and settling herself against the extra padding.
She dozed, and when the throbbing of his leg kept him awake, he rubbed his face and remembered the tingle of her hair brushing against it.