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And then the battle was over. Hubert understood, or had understood, that this was not the end of the war. The end of the war was there there was would be great showdown, a bowing once more to the yoke or glory glory endless glory to the three nations countries and their boundless borders. And their leaders. Edelgard all draped in red velvet, Hubert perhaps vindicated among their peers.
His true war was just finished. Just then it had ended. It was over now. All that hatred and nowhere to. Put it let him be the. The . let him bear that burden for her let her eyes be . clearer, clearer.
He had not been there when Thales had been struck down but he had seen the body before its incineration, cinders is right, cinders is right. The air so foul down here, so utterly foul, difficult to inhale it was so. thick so stale. So. The depths he kept trying to get up get up get up the fuck get up.
Shambhala had been deeply frightening. Something in him still very cold and wet electric with the fear, he thought he may have been the only person who was adequately afraid down there. The depths, the cavern, the walls now rumbling, the walls then rumbling. Bury him with his greatest accomplishment, the end of this, bury him with it, hah, why not? End of it of him of nothing, nothing now, a great crater, a flat surface, a level field, where once there was the slope of the hill, and death underneath it.
Hubert’s shadow crawled in front in, front, in, keep, he kept, oh goddess, keep. Shadow menacing and ugly curling around corners. Keep going. Keep going. Keep. The flame. The fl-
Eventually the stars. Very isolated the hill had been – and truly had been, no more hill, not after that, that battle or volcano maybe, very isolated hill, stars above him, stars above him.
He fought for breath and felt his muscles weaken, and lay on the grass. All around him no more sound. And just. Above him, untouchable unbreakable the white spill of them. Though no emotion at all through thick fog, stars above him.
It was a better death than he deserved.
-
Dorothea had taken one step into Shambhala and decided she didn’t need to know more than she needed to know. Whatever the fuck that place had been, it wasn’t that anymore – that’s all she cared about. The war was nearly over. She was tired of it. The battle hadn’t actually been that costly to the teams that went in, thank the Goddess – a few wounded, but few dead. Stretcher bearers were saying that there were only a few more runs to go, and Dorothea was in charge of directing them to triage. It was good that this was the last trip, she thought – she didn’t like that ominous rumble at the entrance-place at all. Real life wasn’t opera, there would not be a dramatic cave-in (at least not for brown-haired stretcher-bearers). It didn’t do to take chances, all the same.
She laughed at the thought, a little, because it was a little phrase of Ferdinand’s that he only used when he wanted to gainsay Hubert.
Speaking of – she hadn’t seen either of them yet. Edelgard had not been flanked by Hubert in battle. In fact she hadn’t seen much of the fighting at all, instead working on securing tunnels and planting explosives. She said herself this was due to her small size, and perhaps that was even true. Dorothea didn’t need to know more than she needed to know. Edelgard had worked for two hours and was now in the general’s tent with Claude and Dimitri (and Dedue, who was almost certainly keeping a very close eye on the former two and a very strong grip on the latter) so Hubert was most likely there. Ferdinand was probably roped in to triage, showing off his newly acquired and rather meagre faith repertoire to the walking wounded.
Petra was there, anyway. Ferdinand couldn’t get into too much trouble around her; she knew how to handle his notions.
And all that was in Dorothea’s head, as well as some half-remembered aria and the always-going calculations about money and food, and the frank admission that she was very bored and didn’t need to direct stretcher bearers to triage anymore. The torches could direct the way. She would take the long way round to the tents, and try and ignore punch-drunk soldiers calling for her to sing. See what needed doing at camp.
So she was half in darkness, when she saw Hubert splayed across the grass.
His dark hair had fallen back, swept up as if on the poster for a romantic pirate adventure in one of the young ladies’ periodicals. With his whole face visible it was unnerving how young he looked – and if not conventionally handsome then at least appealingly bohemian, at this angle, how his cheekbones cast light over his face like that – and his eyes were wide open.
That wasn’t right at all, and Dorothea felt the ooze of fear slip down her back.
His body seemed stiff, in a strange position.
Arm over chest, legs folded as if he’d toppled over while sitting. Silent.
He wasn’t dead. Dorothea’d seen enough dead bodies to be sure of that. But he certainly wasn’t well.
“Hubert,” she said, holding his wrist. He let her do that, and even seemed to relax slightly. She could hear him breathing now that she was closer, and she didn’t like the sound. She lifted his limp hand and took off his glove. It burned to the touch; Hubert yowled and pulled back from her grasp. Even in the dark, Dorothea could make out bruising around the palms.
She hated how good she was in a crisis. It made her so boring. It showed how many crises she had seen. It felt matronly.
All magic users were taught the signs of toxicity, but she’d never actually encountered a real case. Mostly people who were desperate enough to get there, use this much magic, were killed some other way in battle. It was a difficult condition and it made it easy to be distracted or immobilised by symptoms.
“Open your mouth, Hubie,” she commanded. “Let me – open your mouth.”
Hubert did, obedient, no counter-offer or stupid threat. She had once offered to marry this man. He had been surprisingly considerate of the idea. He had –
There. Blood in the gums. Colouration of the roof of the mouth. Not good – not even the book illustrations had been this drastic. What if he lost a tooth?
Well. No stretcher bearer in sight. Dorothea was shorter than him, but he was docile, and when she got behind him and lifted him by the armpits he was even able to walk, if she gripped him by the waist.
“Mama,” Hubert said. It was the first time Dorothea had ever heard him acknowledge that such a woman existed. She didn’t need to know more than she needed to know; she didn’t want to hear it.
“Nope,” she said, but Hubert shook his head.
“Mama,” he said again. “Don’t. Ah. Stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Hubie,” she said, and his green eyes, fixed on the same spot they had been for the whole of their exchange, filled with tears.
Magic toxicity could actually kill a person, Dorothea remembered. It was difficult to decide how fast to go, because surely he couldn’t run, but she needed Manuela’s eye on this right now. She could feel him starting to shake, either as a symptom or with the effort of walking, or most likely both, with one exacerbating the other.
In the end, it was the stretcher bearers that saved her. A pair returning from the hole with no charges saw her without her having to shout at them; they deposited the general on it and she ran alongside them all the way to triage, her heart beating too fast in her mouth, Hubert not seeming to have blinked, the tremors increasing, or that was just the bumping of the stretcher, she was sure, she was positive.
And Ferdinand was indeed present, healing people’s grazes with the big stupid smile on his face, genuinely pleased to be there. Hair tied up in a topknot now that the actual fighting was done, he half-rose to his feet to greet her before she could get him to stop. The stretcher bearers moved to take Hubert to the tent with the rest of the seriously injured; Dorothea tried to arrange her face away from panic; Ferdinand’s raised hand stayed comically frozen in the air as he met her eyes, and then looked down, and then she really did feel terrible.
He ran to her, and then realised it was the stretcher he should be following with an anguished “oh” that threatened to break her heart. She grabbed a tight hold of his arms, as they both watched Hubert disappear into the tent.
“Ferdie,” she said, but he was trying to get away from her. “Ferdinand, stop. Stop.”
“Oh please, Dorothea, oh Lady above, oh stars,” Ferdinand was saying, as he stopped struggling. “Is he – not him, oh Dorothea, Dorothea –”
“He’s not dead, Ferdinand,” Dorothea said, and at that he took a deep, involuntary-sounding breath and struggled to let it out. She led him to the bench he had been working at, tending to all the young soldiers with small bruises on their arms and ribs (lucky, lucky soldiers to have the personal care and attention of the beautiful young prime minister, Dorothea thought drily, despite the circumstances). The Lucky Young Soldiers were not fools and cleared off immediately. Ferdinand did not even make a token effort to ask them to stay.
“It’s magic poisoning,” Ferdinand said, and she couldn’t deny it. Looking at her hands in the torchlight she saw thin streaks of blood on her own glove; Hubert's own she still had in her bag. It was fairly oozing with ichor and iron.
“Oh stars,” Ferdinand said again when he saw it, before visibly regaining control over himself. “Someone will have to tell the Emperor.”
She forgot that Ferdinand was also quite good in a crisis, once you gave him three minutes in which to be dramatic.
If she sent Ferdinand to do that, much as he needed to have something to do, Edelgard would take one look and decide that Hubert had died, and that would be as good as the end of the meeting. She didn’t want to go herself, because Manuela might have need of her. Dorothea was as good as Linhardt at mixing concoctions and elixirs, and he could be free then for the non-magical tonics that would need to be administered to Hubert. They couldn’t go without a status update, either, for all that it was necessary that the emperor be made aware.
“We cannot under any circumstances undermine the Emperor at this meeting,” Ferdinand said. They both ignored the quiver in his voice. “From what I can gather, they’re finalising the borders in there.”
Doing the borders, huh.
“So, what, we just let him go without her there?” Dorothea asked. She refused to feel bad about it, and Ferdinand made a face like he was making a conscious effort to swallow what she’d just said.
“If we have to,” Ferdinand said. “She would do the same thing for him.”
The way he said it, like it would be a kind thing to them both. Having nothing but hot water and quality education had really done a number on the three of them, Dorothea thought. They sat in silence, then, wasting time. Pondering what had become of them, that this was the conversation they were having.
Then, deus-ex-machina, a true God-send. Like the Queen of the Saints, Petra MacNeary. At approach she had the air of someone going to get Ferdinand back on-task, but when she saw their expressions she seemed to reconsider. Her lively eyes became grave as she looked between them.
Ferdinand explained the situation in one non-tremulous sentence. Good for him. Petra said, of course, that Dorothea should go and get the necessary information, because she understood it the best and then Petra could easily leverage her royalty to get into the commander’s tent, deliver a quick update (losses minimal, Hubert unwell but likely to pull through); it worked out well for everyone.
Not well for Hubert, as it turned out. Petra could not give her planned update without making herself a liar. He was worse than Dorothea had thought. She stood at the tent flap with some elixirs at her hip, ready to get a few words of detail; she saw that none would be forthcoming.
“Tag in Linhardt!” Manuela shouted from the door. “Get him here right now. Emergency, Dorothea.”
He was splayed out behind Manuela, blood beginning to seep through his shirt in odd, small spots. His legs were restrained against two poles emerging from the cot he lay on. Only one other patient in the tent, a woman out for the count. He was beginning to move again but in jerky, repetitive tremors. She recognized those tremors, the short sharp ones; they usually preceded a big seizure.
She hated medicine. Really hated it.
And called Petra over as she was going to the tent where Linhardt was; telling them both at the same time; telling Petra for the love of all-that-sings do not tell the Emperor that her retainer and closest friend is dying. Not dying. Not currently seizing on a bed in a tent with the barrier between his blood and the world beginning to break down.
She told Ferdinand the truth, and he nodded. Terrible, the composure on his face. The flickering light making him look like a torch himself.
“I’ll be at the stables,” he said, and she didn’t hold him back.
Linhardt washed his hands. They met each other outside the tent that Hubert was in. She could hear him groaning from outside, and then a higher pitched, painful sound, and she did not need to know more than she needed to know.
-
Hubert wakes up to what looks like afternoon light. He is alone and indoors. This surprises him. His last memory is of the battlefield.
It’s a large, well-appointed room in the Dauphinoise style. Ferdinand could tell him if it was really Dauphinoise or revival; all Hubert knows is that this places him not further north than Deirdru. He cannot hear the ocean from his room. There is the Ordelian coat of arms above his head. Ah. Makes sense. Nice sheets. Warm. No letter on the stand beside the bed. Nothing there except a pleasant doily of uncertain craftsmanship. There is a bell chord. Hubert hasn’t made up his mind whether he wants to pull it. This house is very silent.
He feels foreboding and a great weariness. Weariness at the foreboding.
Turning his attention to his physical condition. Clear what has happened. Not since he was a child has he overdone it like this. His hands are almost pulped, when he looks at them, great massive blue-green-brown bruises blooming over swollen fingers. Whole body aching, terrible pain in the joints. Sore throat. He can feel bandages at his torso and around his ankles, and the skin there is raw.
He feels so bad. There will not be room for anything else until this malaise goes away. He wonders where Lady Edelgard is and feels his nausea rise. No letter anywhere in the room. No news.
He supposes he was incapacitated either during or more likely after the fight. That he is in an Ordelian chamber means that they were either successful or his enemies would like to wait him out.
Well, let them wait.
The house is silent for a long time. He falls back to sleep. He misses Ferdinand. He needs to speak to Lady Edelgard. Nobody understood the fight, what it meant for her. He needs to speak to them both. Weakly, foolishly, he needs someone to take his hand. Say, it’s alright, Hubert. This won’t last forever. This will all be over soon.
-
Lysithea actually doesn’t care about this battle between the ten skeleton elites or whatever the fuck. She thought since they were down Hubert, she might be guilted into travelling the length and breadth of the country as their only reliable dark mage, but The Death Knight had it covered and so she got to stay home. She did the rounds of the estate for a while, and had a long conversation about compensation with a farmer whose hill had suddenly collapsed, and then she kind of headed off to the coast for a day or two to check that out, but eventually she got bored of that on her own, and it was time to go back to good old Mama and Papa.
Mama and Papa were as ever very pleased to see her, and didn’t bother trying to put anything else on her plate (unless it was vegetables on her literal plate, no thank you) so she figured there wasn’t much she needed to do except take a nice long rest.
But then the current Lady Ordelia pulled her aside and asked first after that nice young Almyran boy who had been so polite to them when they came to inspect the camp (don’t, Mama, oh you didn’t, Mama) and then secondly if she might keep the Von Vestra boy company.
“He’s dropped the von,” Lysithea says, and then – “Hubert’s here?”
“Yes,” the best ever Lady of Ordelia says, “he’s in one of the guest rooms in the west wing. We put him in the nice one with the bay window, you know, the one your grandmother used to stay in before she stopped visiting.”
The Dowager of Ordelia deciding that the coast suited her nerves much better than the bucolic fields of her son’s estate, and the rest of the family fervently agreeing and providing all sorts of arrangements for a one-way safe passage.
“He’s alive!” says Lysithea. “Oh, well. He must be pretty sick, huh, if he’s here.”
“Well, we still have Lizzie on staff. Such an excellent nurse. And he’s been perfectly grateful, polite, you know” (Lysithea didn’t. He must be really sick) “but very withdrawn. I’m sure he’s quite disoriented, darling. Go on and have a word with him, would you?”
Lysithea is actually a pretty big fan of Hubert’s, for several interlocking reasons, so she has no real objections, but she moans about it anyway. Her parents love when she acts like a proper teenager.
So in the late afternoon she heads up with some tiramisu which she deftly hides from Lizzie, and knocks on the door.
“He-llooo” she says, and doesn’t wait for a response.
Hubert sure is in there. He’s in the bed, lying down even, looking worse than anyone has ever looked. Lysithea was left wet as a drowned rat with no hair and blood coming from all her facial orifices and she’s pretty sure there was more vivacity in her face than his.
“Magic toxicity, huh?” She says, strolling in and depositing the cake on the side table, on top of Grandma Ordelia’s lady’s maid’s doily. “You must have really hated them to blast them that much.”
“I think it was cumulative,” Hubert says, but doesn’t deny it.
“I mean, even I didn’t do that much,” Lysithea says.
“You did plenty,” Hubert mutters. He tries to sit up, and even manages to do it.
“Are you able for solid food yet?” Lysithea asks, and Hubert scowls.
“I’m not an infant,” he says.
“Do you want to try some of this?”
Hibert looks at the fluffy white peaks of the dessert warily.
“My kingdom for some nutrients,” he mutters, but obligingly sits up and takes the spoon she offers him. It looks like she’s surprised him; he blinks and then goes back for another bite.
“You probably shouldn't have too much,” she says, “you’ll be awake all night, with all the coffee in it.”
“Not with the drugs your nurse is giving me,” Hubert mutters. He says nothing about the role-reversal. Maybe Lysithea will tell him to eat his broccoli next. See how he likes it.
She probably wouldn’t have to. She’s seen him eat. He hardly ever takes pleasure in it. This tiramisu must have really lit his world on fire.
They lapse into silence. He’s such a freak, she thinks, looking at him. First time she’s ever seen his whole face, for one – he’s wearing one of Lizzie’s hairbands to keep his face clear. Lizzie’s real big on hygiene.
He’s also really tall. Like obviously he’s tall standing up, but everyone is taller than Lysithea standing up. Now you can see that they’ve had to kind of add on to the end of the bed so he can fully stretch out.
Honestly though liking at him now it’s like going knocking at Hilda’s door after she’s taken her makeup off for the night and put on her fuzzy dressing-gown. He looks young. When Lysithea first saw him in school she was genuinely like, shouldn’t that guy be wearing teacher’s clothes, like why are they making this thirty-five-year-old guy study here, that’s weird. When she found out he was only twenty-one she was gobsmacked. Even Marianne laughed at her reaction.
So what is he now, twenty-five? Twenty-six. At most. But he actually looks it, for once. Restrained and physically incapable of looming over anyone, in one of Lysithea’s dad’s nightshirts (great look) it’s finally like, oh OK, like this guy is basically her age. Or definitely her generation.
“Lysithea, have you heard anything from the battle?” He says. That’s the other thing – he’s always had 100% of all the information he needs just in his head. Now she probably knows more than him.
“Oh boy, I bet that took a lot to ask, huh,” Lysithea says. “No, I haven’t, but you’ve got correspondence under your bed. Maybe that’s got some information.”
“What,” he says, and she laughs and takes a really long time going down to get it for him. That’s where Lizzie always puts people’s stuff, so they don’t get distracted from healing.
Two letters, one with the Imperial seal, and one with the seal of House Aegir, although that one’s kind of wonky.
Hubert reaches for them both, and cracks open Edelgard’s first. He tries – she can see him trying for a while – but he can’t get his horrible hands to stay holding the letter for long. It keeps dropping out of his grip.
“Hey, do you want me to read it?”
“No,” He says again. It’s probably top secret stuff about how much she hates Claude, not that that’s a secret. How is Hubert reading, anyway? He’s probably out of his mind on drugs and pain right now. Been there, done that.
“Well, let me hold it, anyway.” She says. That he does allow, so she ends up in this really awkward semi-bow over the bed, holding up bits of letter paper so he can spend an inhumanely long time trying to read them. When it’s finished she has an actual pain in her back.
“Dude, can I please just read the one from your boyfriend aloud instead?” She asks. He can’t even read anything with his big bruised head anymore, can barely keep his eyes open. Though he did make her tidy away Edelgard’s letter nice and tidily, even so, which is so annoyyyying.
“We’re not together,” is all Hubert has to say to that, which she doesn’t believe and isn’t an answer. Still, figuring he’ll tell her if he doesn't want her to, she starts to open the wonky seal.
She doesn’t mean to skim ahead, but she’s always been a very fast reader. You know. Sometimes it just happens that way, that you read something that makes you embarrassed.
“Uh,” she says. “Are you sure that Ferdinand is aware that you’re not together?”
“Lysithea,” He says, and fair enough, not a very nice thing to do to someone, so she reads out loud:
My Dear Hubert,
I’m sure I’ll regret being so forthright now when I next see you. If you’re dying you won’t get to read this, rendering this whole letter a waste of ink. I shouldn’t even joke. I don’t know what I would do without you, O Stars keep him safe for me… and etc.
Sorry, I’ll write that out in another letter and consign it to the fire, saving us both some face. You do hate a fuss.
First, just to let you know, I’m fighting in her rearguard. Sylvain is more than cavalier for the army.
If you are reading this, then that earlier paragraph has, I suppose, rather given my heart away. We begin the long march tomorrow, my dear, and I am looking for you everywhere. I don’t know what I want to say. I’m glad you’re not here, I’m so glad you’re safe, I never ever want to see you in that much pain again. Dorothea is very discreet but she was shaken.
If I return, the new world will have come. You will have brought it with you. Your blood has watered the meadows – oh, no, that’s absolutely dreadful. No, I’ll leave out the poetry. You did this. You saved my life. When I see you again I won’t be afraid anymore.
All my love,
Ferdinand of Adrestia
“He signs himself Ferdinand of Adrestia in his love letters to you?”
She looks at Hubert, the glazed eyes beginning to water from dryness or from the surprisingly simple letter from Ferdinand, and folds the pages neatly. She puts it down next to him on the bed. He brings up his hand to cover it, and hers, and though it must be painful he doesn’t pull away. She lets him stay like that for only a little while. Neither of them are particularly demonstrative.
“Cyril doesn’t speak to me like that,” She says, as she gets up to go.
“I bet Cyril has gone further than speaking,” Hubert murmurs, and it’s so kind of mean and definitely an absolutely scandalous thing to imply about a noblewoman and also it’s true and the real butt of the joke is actually himself or maybe Ferdinand – she can’t deny! She’s a big Hubert fan!
“Don’t let the bedbugs bite!” She says, leaving him in there with two letters and a half-full thing of tiramisu hidden behind a throw cushion.
-
The war was won very quickly. Rhea has still to be located, but her power base has been totally destroyed in the Empire and the Alliance. It’s still stronger in the Kingdom than Edelgard would like, but reports are promising that change is coming, and she can put her thumb on the scale with the upcoming trade negotiations. Those will take place when Dimitri is in his right mind again. Who knows how long that will take.
Edelgard knows she is unfair to Dimitri. Some people get sick. It has nothing to do with relative hardship. He did, in saying that, also have a very difficult life. Madness runs in families, too, and it didn’t run in Edelgard’s. Edelgard had Hubert to help her find a direction and a cause. Dimitri only had another orphan, without status or language.
Hubert is at the Palace. She received word as they passed through Bergliez that he had been judged well enough to make the journey. There have been a lot of hard days in the past month, but it was sweet to be able to share that news, especially with Dorothea.
Making arrangements for a suitable homecoming without him is difficult. Someone will meet them at the gates of the city. Of that she is sure. She just wishes she had a map for the rest of it.
Victory. Victorious.
She feels so much more detached than she ever has before. Nobody knows her. That’s her own fault. She tells herself that there will be time, now. It’s the longest she’s gone without her Vestra since the first time they were separated. She had allowed him to hold so much for her, not only battle plans and logistical support but almost all the details of her friendships. These were inconsequential in themselves but now when she goes searching for information, she finds she doesn’t have it.
“It’s only been two weeks since we won the war, Edie,” Dorothea says, looking at her thoughtfully as she leans against a fencepost. “Give yourself a break. Don’t make any big decisions until you’ve had a night in your own bed and a long hot bath.”
She wasn’t going to get better advice than that.
“You’re a marvel,” says Edelgard, meaning it, and Dorothea throws her hands up to the sky.
“If you keep saying things like that I’m going to put them in my opera,” she threatens, and Edelgard laughs.
“Have you decided whether I’m a soprano or an alto, yet?”
“I wish you would take a few lessons.” Dorothea says, not answering, which means that “Edelgard” is a soprano for sure. “You say you can’t sing. I bet that’s not true.”
“It really is, Dorothea.”
“Everyone can sing, Edie, you just need to learn how to breath.”
Edelgard doesn’t want to carry on the argument. It will devolve into “uh-huh” “nuh-huh” and that will tire her out. She smiles and looks to the horizon until Dorothea gets the idea.
“Eight more days, at this pace.” Edelgard says.
The sun is setting. Summer’s coming on.
-
She was correct that she would be met at the gate.
Hubert stands, very thin and ill-looking, in his usual well-cut finery.
She isn’t angry that he would do this to his health, though it usually frustrates her. She is very good at compartmentalisation. That Hubert might have died in Shambhala is not something she dwells upon because it didn’t happen. But seeing him, now, drives all those well-built walls down.
“Hubert!” She calls, and dismounts. She can hear the others do the same, and trusts that Ferdinand will look after the horse. Running in her regalia, a little further than she thought, and he knows to let her cross it herself. She keeps her eyes up, on his face, the expression on his face the closest she’s ever seen it to the first time they were reunited. Worried, afraid, but now also with notes of joy, with the success – his eyes reflect everything she feels. She had forgotten that they would. She goes to him and feels his arms come around her – this time he’s the one who will still need a long time to recover, and his sense of propriety will eventually overrule their position, but for now he’s the only one she wants to see.
“Thank you, thank you,” They are saying to each other, and “I’m sorry,” and “are you well?” and “I’m so proud of you,” and again, probably for the rest of their lives, thinking, whatever next? What now?