Work Text:
Panting, exhausted, Fern felt the last of her mana coil in anticipation beneath her fingertips. Though she was nearly depleted, her mind knew exactly what to do.
"Zoltraak."
The battle was over in seconds.
Tension flooding from her shoulders, she loosened the death-grip she had on her staff, feeling for the first time in minutes like she could actually breathe. That fight had taken everything she had, and she knew if it weren't for Methode's expert timing, she might very well be dead. They had won, thank the Goddess, but it had been far, far too close.
As usual, with the battle over, her master quickly materialised beside her. "A super-long-range attack from outside their detection radius, whose trajectory can't be predicted. Not bad, Fern. I'm impressed."
Frieren's words were kind, and pride swelled in Fern's gut, but still, she let out a heavy sigh. It's not as if she enjoyed fighting— on the contrary, it was her least favourite way to practice magic. Alas, sometimes, it was unavoidable.
"I'd rather not fight a battle this difficult again."
"No, I'd imagine not," Frieren replied, a smile on her face. Her ever-perceptive eyes traced the distant figure of Methode as she rose into the sky, flying up to meet them. "You did remarkably well, even so. Shall we go check on the boys?"
Stark. Fern's stomach did a small flip as it often did at the mention of him, and yet, this time, the flip was accompanied but an uncomfortable turn of worry. A startling thought struck her, and she sucked in a quiet gasp, turning to her master just as Methode caught up to them.
"Frieren-sama, we only faced two out of the four demons. Where is the strongest, the four-bladed demon?"
The elf's smile fell a little at the question, and almost immediately, Fern knew the answer. Instinctively, her hand came up to grip the silver bracelet at her wrist. No.
"Demons are experts at reading human behaviour. If they aren't here, which they aren't, then I expect they must have returned to the village."
Methode, catching the end of their conversation, frowned. "But, that means—"
"—Stark and Genau are skilled fighters, I would not have left them if I didn't believe they could handle themselves," Frieren added, but Fern felt as if she could no longer breathe. The two demons they had just killed had almost beaten them, and she and Methode were both first-class mages. Stark was a master warrior, and stronger than he gave himself credit for, but he had an idiotic tendancy for tanking hits he really shouldn't. If Genau got himself into a sticky spot, and Stark tried to protect him…
"Frieren-sama," Fern begged, feeling as helpless as in that cave with all the magic-nulling crystals. Her master understood straight away, giving Fern a reassuring nod.
"Let's go."
The moon seemed especially bright that night, lighting their way as they raced back through the sky. It gave them the ability to fly faster than they would in the dark, fast enough for the exertion to begin to burn within Fern's chest, and she was grateful for it, though part of her still itched with worry. She knew such emotions were likely unwarranted— Stark was an incredible warrior, and Genau a skilled, first-class mage. Even alone, they could take on formidable enemies. Together, they really should have no issues.
And yet.
Fern knew her warrior well. For all his many positive attributes, he was rather hot-headed, and throughout their time together she had noticed a reoccuring pattern of him growing reckless in battle when another person's life was on the line. It was as if the act of protecting someone flipped a switch in his brain, turning up the heat on his already blazing spirit. He'd throw himself in front of a blade with no regard for his own safety, thinking only for the life of the person he had sworn to protect. It wasn't rational.
And that was where he tended to get hurt.
Fern hoped desperately that Genau would be strong enough not to get himself in such a situation to require Stark's protection, but she didn't hold much faith. From the looks of it, that four-bladed demon was excessively strong. And had Frieren not said herself that the human warrior laying dead in the church had likely been even stronger than Stark?
A flash behind her eyelids suddenly swapped the image of that man's corpse with a much more familiar, scarlet-haired figure, and a bolt of fear shot Fern straight through the heart.
Gripping her bracelet tight enough to engrave the lotus pattern into her own palm, she pushed herself to fly faster. Frieren matched her change in speed without comment.
Cold wind whipping at them relentlessly, all three mages' eyes were burning by the time the wrecked village came into view. Fern had to squint to attempt to make anything out at the distance, but as always, her master's eagle eyes had already picked out every detail from a mile away. Immediately, the elf froze.
Hearts in their throats, Methode and Fern jolted to a stop beside her. "Frieren-sama, what—"
"No…" Frieren's eyes narrowed to a squint. It took every ounce of self-restraint Fern had not to go shooting off without her. "Surely not…"
And without a second thought, she sped into the night, leaving Fern and Methode to pick up whatever was left of their resolve and follow after her.
The closer they got, the more Fern felt that resolve chip away. Yes, the village had been a wreck when they'd left, but now… it would barely be fitting to call the watchtower a tower anymore. Rubble was strewn about, smoking faintly, and atop each pile of destruction glistened splatters of crimson, almost silver in the moonlight.
Demons didn't bleed. And for a human to bleed that much—
Her thoughts were abruptly cut off by the sight of Frieren kneeling beside a corpse on the ground, one they must have missed earlier. The angle which she knelt at blocked Fern's view of the person's face, but her eyes immediately caught on the unfathomably large pool of blood that surrounded them, dyeing her master's white skirt a grotesque colour. That was strange— Frieren tended to try to keep her distance to blood, where possible. She wasn't squeamish, but her cleanliness was important to her. For her to get down on her knees in a pool of someone else's gore was quite the gesture, unless that person was someone she cared for.
That thought had barely even entered Fern's mind before her eyes finally caught on the figure's wrist. It took her a moment for her brain to compute, for her mind to adjust to a fact it desperately wished not to be true, but the facts were evident. The glint of a plain, thick silver band upon the body's wrist was undeniable.
It was as if the entire world shrank to that one, singular body.
Fern couldn't remember cancelling her flight spell. She decended to the ground regardless, dropping hard, falling fast enough to cause her legs to buckle on impact and all but stumbling the rest of the way to where her master knelt. For the first time in her life, her mind was empty of all thoughts or plans, save for one singular line looping over, and over, and over again.
No. Please, no. Please, oh Goddess, please—
She was almost to the body, sick to her stomach with dread, when Frieren finally turned. The elf surely meant for her expression to calm her student, but with her torso moved, Stark's face was now fully on display, and it was worse than anything Fern might have imagined. The very sight of it nearly broke her, freezing her where she stood.
"Fern, he's still alive," Frieren promised gently, her hand never leaving Stark's shoulder. But, Goddess, he was so pale.
Involuntarily, Fern's arms shot towards him, reaching for him. As if there was something she could do to help. She pulled them back as quickly as they had shot out— there wasn't anything, nothing to be done but tremble and pray. The young mage was hardly a priest, she possessed no healing spells. She was, for once, completely and utterly useless.
"Stark-sama," Fern managed to choke out, frozen in place. She turned her desperate gaze to Frieren, still sat by his side. "Frie— Frieren-sama, what do we do? How do we wake him up?"
Her master never removed her eyes from the bloodsoaked jacket tied around what was presumably the young warrior's wound. She opened her mouth to respond, but just as she did, another voice broke through Fern's haze of panic.
Already pulling the holy scripture from her possessions, Methode's appearance was quite possibly the most beautiful thing Fern had ever seen.
"Step aside, please! I can help. Frieren-san, could you attend to Genau-san's wound whilst I help the young warrior? He wished for me to heal the boy first, however it wouldn't do to have him die before I can get to healing him as well."
At last, Fern's legs seemed to work again. As the green light of Methode's healing spells lit up the gloom, she rushed to take Frieren's place at Stark's head, immediately anchoring her hand on his shoulder. He was warm, at very least, and it sparked a small flame of hope in her chest. The warrior she knew was strong, unbreakable, no matter his insecurities. If anyone were to pull through this sort of injury, it would be her Stark, the idiotic, wonderful freak-of-nature that he was.
For the second time that night, she found her eyes drawn to the glinting silver bracelet on his wrist. He hadn't taken it off since she'd bought it for him. Barely thinking her actions through, so overwhelmed with emotions, Fern swiftly grabbed that hand in both of her own and kissed it, gently. Felt the metal of her own bracelet clink against his.
'But… I'm glad I did, since she liked it.'
No longer caring what Methode or anyone else thought, Fern gripped his hand tighter, tucking it close to her chest.
He was such an idiot, and she really didn't know what she'd do without him anymore.
Slowly regaining consciousness in an unfamiliar bed wasn't a new experience for Stark.
That didn't make it any more of an enjoyable one.
From the moment he first gained awareness, the only thing he could feel was the horrible persistent ache in his stomach. It felt like all his organs had been taken out of his body, swapped places, and shoved back in haphazardly. He was pretty sure it was the worst wound he had ever recieved, and his memories of the fight backed that up, when they came back to him.
Getting turned into a human donut was going straight to the top of his list of things to never do again, that was for sure.
Once the initial shock of the pain had subsided, Stark decided to attempt opening his eyes. It took surprisingly less effort that he'd thought it might, given how close he'd come to making it to Aureole ten years early this time, but there were still the same weird spots in his eyes as always, and he blinked to get them to fade. Light was streaming through the curtains, but not an excessive amount, not enough to burn his vision. It must still be fairly early.
Sitting up definitely not an option, he began attempting to figure out what room he was in from the ceiling alone. Particularly, the lack of one, as Stark noticed he was staring up at the underside of another bed. That meant he was in some sort of bunk.
Huh. That was weird. He didn't usually sleep in a bunk bed.
Not only that, but a second weird thing to occur to him was that there was a sort of strange weight pressing into his left hip. It wasn't painful, and it wasn't a bad weight at all— on the contrary, he actually found it quite soothing. It was warm, and inexplicably familiar, and come to think of it, it also seemed to be encasing his left wrist, pressing into his bracelet.
Letting out a huff of relief at the fact that he'd managed once again not to lose his bracelet in battle, Stark came to the uncomfortable realisation that it hurt to breathe. Ugh. That always sucked.
Back to the weight, though. What on earth could it be?
Battered brain coming up empty, he decided there was only one thing for it: he was going to have to raise his aching head. However, before he could even start to set about how to do so, the weight made a small, ridiculously cute noise and shifted, ever so slightly. Out of shock, more than anything, Stark's head had jolted up before he had even had the chance to think.
The sight alone made him question whether he really had died and gone to heaven after all.
There, sprawled out across his left hip, lay the sleeping form of Fern, her shining hair strewn about her in restless tangles. Her breaths came in small, slow huffs, her eyes tightly drawn, as if she were tense, even in her sleep. Most unbelievably of all, both her arms were curled tightly around his left wrist, as if she had fallen asleep clinging to him.
Stark was sure he must have seen much cuter sights in his nineteen years of life, but at that moment in time, he really couldn't recall a single one. Seeing Fern so unguarded, without all her usual walls and barriers… it made his chest feel tight with emotion. He'd recently begun to figure out that he was pretty sure he was in love with her, but this? This was a whole new level. Could love really be this overwhelming?
Noting the frankly excessive number of bandages swaddling his middle, Stark raised his right arm, reaching for her with gentle fingers. The movement hurt to perform, but it was worth it to feel the softness of her hair when he brushed it from her face, to see the adorable curves of her features clearer. How on earth had a coward like Stark been gifted with affections from a person like her? What had he ever done to deserve her clinging to him so?
His self-depricating train of thoughts were swiftly interrupted when his sleeping companion suddenly began to stir, making a thousand more heart-melting mumbles as she did. First, she shifted, then she sniffed, and, at last, with a great inhale, she jolted awake, eyes flying open. Stark froze in place, unsure of what to do, although in the end it didn't seem to matter— the moment she saw his eyes open, Fern's face crumpled, and in an uncharacteristic display of emotion she flew to embrace him, burying her head in the crook of his neck.
Ignoring the pain, Stark gently rested his arms around her. He didn't speak, too scared to ruin the moment.
It was only when she didn't pull away for an abnormal amount of time that he finally noticed the dampening of the skin near his shoulder.
"Hey…" he started, tentative, as if speaking to a spooked horse. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen Fern cry, not once. "Fern, hey… it-it's okay. Are you okay?"
"Am I okay?" Came the muffled response, clearly thick with tears but trying very hard not to be. She sniffed, once. "What a stupid question. You are such an idiot, Stark-sama. An absolute idiot."
Stark chuckled lightly. Now that was more like the Fern he knew. "Oi, I'm only being nice. How am I supposed to know you didn't get hurt too, huh? Do first-class mages never get injured?"
At that thought, a sudden realisation came to him, and he felt his back straighten. "Wait, Fern, how's Genau? Is he—"
"—he's alive," Fern replied tersely, sitting up a little so that her face was no longer completely buried in his shoulder. She quickly swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "But his wounds are severe. Just like yours. Do you realise how incredibly stupid it was of you to get yourself hurt like that, Stark-sama?"
Scowling, Stark wished to remind her that it wasn't exactly a choice, although he kept his mouth shut. He knew that scolding him was her way of expressing her concern, showing him that she cared.
Instead, he merely smiled, fingers itching to brush her bangs out of her eyes once more. "We killed it though, didn't we?"
And there it was, that adorable pout of hers. The one she always put on when she knew he was right, but didn't like it. Over the two years they had spent travelling together, Stark had become accustomed to her little expressions and manerisms, how they betrayed the emotions she swore she didn't feel. Nowadays, he liked to consider himself a leading expert in Fern-ese. Second only to Frieren, of course.
He matched the pout with a smile, and eventually, her expression softened. Still perched on the edge of his bed, she ran careful fingers along the edges of his duvet, making sure he was thoroughly tucked in from the waist down. Fussing, yet another of the ways she expressed care.
"I rescued your axe, though it seems to be very blunt. Almost as if you were using it as a boomerang again."
Whoops. Busted.
"It was a tough fight, okay?" Stark protested, with equal parts exasperation and fondness. "I was just trying to stay alive, and you can't tell me the boomerang method doesn't work sometimes!"
"And sometimes it ends up with your axe in a lake," she responded, just as quick, though there was a smile on her face. She was clearly reminicing the (ONE) time they'd spent an entire day scanning a small lake just to try to rescue Stark's axe, only to end up fishing out about fifty other pieces of weaponry in the process. With Frieren's rust-removing spells, they'd earned a lot of money that day.
All of a sudden, Stark felt small, cold fingers slot between his own, breaking him from his memories. His first instinct was to freeze, but one look at the shy smile upon Fern's face, and he immediately melted, squeezing back gently, cautious not to crush her hand.
"I'll ask Frieren-sama to sharpen your axe," she said, at last. Somehow, Stark could sense a lot more meaning behind those words than the words themselves implied. "Just… please try to keep out of trouble for a bit."
Her eyes were focused on his bandages again. He ducked his head to catch her gaze, meeting it with focused sincerity.
"Alright, I will," he said, and meant it.