Chapter Text
She is assigned the task of guarding Princess Lissa, that spring before riders and pegasi fully fledge.
Cordelia doesn't understand, at first, the purpose of her presence in the princess' wake as she gathers herbs outside of town. It is silent, there, the meadows vast, and Cordelia feels foolish standing in full armor, bearing a lance amidst such serenity.
"You don't have to stand there all serious, you know," Lissa laughs, muffling her snorts in her palm. "You can braid flowers, or something!"
"With all due respect, milady, I must follow my captain's orders," Cordelia replies, though she is painfully bored-- capable of neither relaxing completely nor throwing herself into practice.
"It's okay, you know," Lissa shakes her head, plucking hyssop and thistle. "There's nothing really dangerous here... it's too close to town for wild animals, and too far from the market for thieves. It's all right if you want to relax a li-- owww! I think I pricked myself!"
"I brought bandages!" Cordelia hastens to open her kit, but knows too the truth of those words. There are no threats, out here, save for insects and thorns, and o, what a waste of her warfaring talents!
But weeks later, the knowledge ebbs on her-- as she watches the young princess twist vines into clumsy braids, impatiently humming a commoner's tune to pass the tedious work. The sun, her hair, glistening both the same color, and she hastens back the beginnings of a stave to heal a villager's malaise, her hands rubbed raw by the bark.
But it works, and though her fingers ache, Lissa smiles and says, "I'm just happy to help."
(Her heart, thinks Cordelia, seems truly joyous.)
Lissa has never been the luster of metal, thinks Cordelia, she has never been her brother Chrom with his holy blade nor the Exalt Emmeryn, garbed in her halo-coronet, gold. But the smear of mud upon her face as she frolics in the marsh, the flowers gathered to her breast, these suit her as if she had been born for them.
The meadows out here are her kingdom, where she hitches up her skirts to clamber past knots of felled trees and briars that she may hone her clerical craft, that it may someday be useful to her people. A noble cause borne by a nobler heart, thinks Cordelia, and grips her javelin tightly, for there she learns how desperately noble hearts must be protected.
And Lissa, with her headdress askew and petticoats dragged wet, is perhaps the noblest of them all.
Cordelia, with untrained hands, braids the flowers that day-- though she still stands, lance resting in the crook of her elbow. It seems a crime to her that such a head should go without a crown; she offers one up without a word.
"For me?" Lissa asks, surprised, but wears them all day, until Cordelia's amateur craftsmanship falls from her ears.
But Cordelia learns, later, on the borrowed remnants of Sumia's fortunes, and then her crowns hold as true as Lissa's royal blood. And one day, gathering twists of balmwood in her hands, she begs-- "Please, Lady Lissa... teach me to wield the stave."
The princess turns, then-- braided daisies in her hair, violets at her feet-- and replies, smiling:
"Okay."
(Cordelia falls a little bit in love.)