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Cormag isn’t stupid enough to think Tana might be a victim for more than a moment. She flies directly at him, out of the sun like a Valkyrie, and he’s understandably rising to meet the challenge of some Frelian enemy soldier when she talks. And she talks, and she talks and her dress is so very, very pink. And so his first impression of an enemy knight is quickly erased by that of someone very soft and easily killed.
Which is then dashed by Tana’s skill with a lance. Nowhere near his brother’s or General Duessel’s skill, but it is not the skill of a victim with just enough rank to get herself killed in her first fight. And then- a princess…
Cormag, at the end of that first day, has had enough surprises that General Duessel’s “betrayal” followed by his...betrayal, isn’t quite as much of a shock as it probably should’ve been. Glen has his own orders, to see and fight Princess Eirika, and Cormag is certain they’ll meet up on the same side of the war.
Glen, Cormag knows, has a sense for people. And the Emperor’s orders have sat ill with him of late, and with the Obsidian’s defection...the man has been a father figure to all the younger generals, Glen will see it as a chance to help talk sense into their monarch. As Cormag knows Duessel must see it.
So Cormag follows in the wake of Princess Tana like a leaf swept along by a constant wind, and finds himself neck deep in an encampment of people who hours earlier had been his enemies. Princess Tana doesn’t seem to notice his sudden stiffness, and casually pulls him this way and that, introducing him to people she thinks he might like.
The cavalier she introduces him to (“This is Kyle, he’s one of Ephraim’s personal knights, he’s kind of serious, like you!”), Kyle, stares at him with intensity before his gaze switches to the distant Prince Ephraim. The gaze softens so much that Cormag excuses himself quickish and hovers awkwardly behind Tana’s right shoulder as she talks animatedly with the other pegasus knight. The green one with a similar hardness to her stare as Kyle, though at least this one doesn’t stare at Tana with such blatant affection.
(Later, much later, after meeting up with Eirika and seeing no Glen, after hearing- he sees Vanessa look at Innes and he wonders what the hell is in the water these knights are drinking.)
Tana drags him out on morning flights, when they’re sure that the area is secure. “Please,” she asks, and it’s with a softness he finds he can’t deny, not when Genarog has quickly learned that Tana’s distinctive footsteps at predawn mean flight without fear of arrows. (Not when the result is spending time in the air with someone who looks at him and doesn’t see some untrustworthy traitor.)
(General Duessel doesn’t have this problem, Cormag notices jealously, but that’s probably more to do with the prince so very aggressively vocal about his opinion of Duessel’s loyalty.)
It’s also just, pretty, to see the sun. He’s glad of it, to see the sun rising every morning. One day closer to seeing Glen at Princess Eirika’s side and being able to say, “I think I chose the right path.” One day closer to talking sense into the king he and Glen both love. Mornings are good.
And the battles aren’t too bad either, not when Tana and he come up with an alert system for archers, possibly the biggest threat towards them on the field. And Vanessa helps tweak it, later, so that different sounds mean different things. Three screeches/whinnies for advancing reinforcements, one long one and one short for spotted flanking maneuvers...It’s easy for the flyers to transition into pseudo scouts, their position above makes it an incredibly useful ability.
And it helps keep them all safe too, which is nice. He’s glad of it.
It’s probably not a week after Tana gets in his face about all lives mattering, “And don’t you dare act recklessly, you- you- Your life is just as important as mine, Cormag! Okay?” when they reunite on Jehanna’s desert sands with Princess Eirika and her group. There is no dragon amongst her ranks, and Cormag’s smile dims.
He hadn’t thought it possible for Glen to be anywhere but at Eirika’s side...
Valter boasts, later, right before Eirika’s rapier finds his heart. Locks eyes with Cormag, who’d found himself nearby almost completely by accident, and grinds out a mocking line against the steel in his sternum. (Totally by accident, he’d seen the Moonstone’s wyvern and he’d flinched away. Seeing a loyal general, even one as twisted as the Moonstone, when so many of his allies whispered...well. He’d not wanted to fight the Moonstone.)
He stares at the corpse for a long moment, and turns to the princess. “What did he mean.” Cormag asks, and the words fall out of his mouth like river stones into a pile of dust. His mouth is dry, but surely that’s just the heat. Surely.
“My brother, you spoke with him, right? He just went home to Grado, didn’t he.” Please, he thinks, against the sudden bubble of silence around them. Please.
Eirika’s eyes are narrowed against the glare of the sun against the sand, and she looks so much like Ephraim. People used to tease Glen, when Cormag had finally grown to be of an equal height to his older brother, about having a twin instead of a younger brother. He doesn’t know why he’s remembering that right now, but there’s dread in his stomach and Eirika’s next words don’t make him feel better.
“Oh, oh no. We, we found him, in the mountains…”
Cormag’s vision blurs. “What?” That’s not. What? “No.”
“He, Valter,” and the name is poison leaving her mouth, and Cormag blinks and the tears on his face evaporate in the sun. He pulls himself together enough that his eyes only sting when he blinks, but the tears don’t fall. “He must have, he must have left him for us to find...oh, I’m so sorry-”
He flees, spinning on his heel and with one fluid motion mounting Genarog and tearing off into the skies. One, two wingbeats unsettle a cloud of sand and then he’s gone, lost to the wind in his ears and the keening noise coming from his mouth, the denial in his heart. He doesn’t return until the sun has set and the desert chill has chased him back to camp. No one greets him and he doesn’t even know why, but it stings harshly enough that Cormag gasps to catch his breath.
He doesn’t sleep so much as he and Genarog just sit very, very close to the watch fire. No one bothers him, and he nods off against Genarog’s warm flank and wakes with a sob caught in the back of his throat. No, he doesn’t sleep much.
He nods off again just before dawn, and wakes to Tana’s arms around his waist and her head resting on his shoulder. “Cormag?” she asks, blinking at him when he shifts enough to wake her. For a moment her face is completely open, and he’s briefly shocked by the warmth of her expression, but then she looks so terribly sad. “Eirika told me, I’m so sorry, Cormag…”
Traitorously, his body shakes and his eyes water. Even as he struggles to get himself under control, Tana hugs him harder, and it relieves the ache in his heart far more than anything he’d done all night. “It’s not fair,” he croaks out despite the tremors and suppressed sobs. It’s not, it’s not!
He was here, with Tana and the others, even while his brother was- the blood drains from his face so fast that he feels woozy. He’d left Glen behind, and was with...had been with the enemy, even as Valter killed Glen. He stares at his shaking hands, the rest of him still underneath Tana’s soothing hand, and realizes. He can never go home. Cormag cannot face his mother again, not knowing that...that he’d left his brother to the wolves.
“I’m alone,” he says, but it’s a whisper and it rips his heart from him even as it leaves his mouth. He can never go home again. The sun is breaking across the horizon, and the orange light blinds him. Never again...he can’t - he won’t be-
Tana’s hands tighten on his arms, and he looks to her with static in his soul and a howling in his heart. “No,” she says firmly, looking for once entirely like a princess and not the girl he’d come to know. “You’ll never be alone, Cormag, not so long as you have me.” And she looks so serious that the shakes start up again, even though the tears never come.
She tightens her hug, which had never really stopped happening, and glares outwards. “You’ll come home with me, to Frelia.” She insists against Cormag’s ragged breathing. From inside the cage of her arms, Cormag can almost believe things will be alright. Eventually, maybe.
And eventually, his shoulder stop shaking, and Tana lets him go, though she’s close all day. It’s a familiar feeling, he realizes. Not quite the same, there’s a difference in it he can’t put his finger on, but...knowing Tana has his back? It feels safe, it makes him feel...safe. So he lets her grab his hand and pull him off to go eat breakfast.