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Most arrows bounce off her armour like so much water. With all her weighted armour and her gigantic shield by her side it is easy to pretend that nothing can hurt her. You shouldn’t be spun over by such foolishness, but it is easy to buy into the illusion. Easy when she marches off the battlefield like she always does, strong and proud. Easy when she willingly lets you drag her aside to plan the next battle. It’s an easy habit to sink into, this. Forgetting whatever battlefield you have dragged yourself off of by planning the next.
It is only when she reaches for your notes and flinches that you realise just how blind you have been.
“Are you injured?” you ask. She settles back into place, holds her head high like she always does. But she doesn’t meet your eyes.
“I’ll have any issues checked over later.” She says. “Let’s finish this first.”
You frown. She lies well, you think. Hides in it, like it is another armour, one she can put on when she wants, remove when she wants. As if such a thing is easy, as if such a thing is simple. As if lies do not burrow far deeper, until they cannot be torn out without taking something else with them.
She’s still in her armour. You notice that now. Its colour makes it difficult to know just what is hidden beneath. Are the imperfect shades you see in it madness, or real? Her blood, or another’s? Who can tell, other than her?
You stand, move closer to her. She looks up at you. Your notes are still held in her hand, but they are held loose, a thin play at reading them. It would be easy to believe each deflection if you did not know her, if she were a stranger. But whatever the two of you are to each other these days, stranger is hardly the word.
You wish it were recklessness. Such a thing can be cured. Such a thing is easy to solve. Such a thing you can drill out of her head, given enough time. This calculated sacrifice is something worse. Not careless, not foolhardy, not ill-conceived. How much harder is it to drag her away from something she has planned out so carefully, where each option has been weighed up carefully until this is the logical choice. The smart choice, the cautious one. The one that matters. Recklessness is a poison that can be cured. This is something else entirely.
“I won’t discuss this further if you are injured.” You say.
“The healers are all busy.” She argues.
“Then show me.” You insist. You cross your arms. “I know enough of faith magic to help.”
She sighs, but she obeys. Slowly, but she obeys. She needs your help to remove much of her armour, when she can only lift her arms so high before the pain makes her stop. This you are not skilled at. You would like to pretend you are, that this is as easy a puzzle as learning magic was, but the sea of buckles and fastenings that keep steel strapped to her goes straight over your head, and you must wait patiently while she tells you exactly you to remove it. To strip down each segmented piece until it is just her again.
You carefully strip her padded jerkin off her, find the half-crushed arrow wound she has hidden from you. It’s not deep. Her armour stopped every arrow that hit her straight on, the ones that may have sunk deep enough to still her forever. This one hit at a strange angle, edged in gaps and crushed itself deeper when she moved, leaving only an arrowhead buried crookedly into her skin.
You brush your hands across it gently, trying to estimate the extent of the wound, to know just what you should do to fix it. She flinches as you do, at the first brush of your fingers against her skin. You draw back.
“I should have asked.” You say, softly. “Can I touch you?”
“Of course you can.” She says, without meeting your eyes.
You reach out again, carefully this time. You touch a distance away from her wound, on her stomach. Just in case. She lets you. You move your hand, inch closer and closer to the wound. As you brush the edge, she scrunches her eyes closed, and you stop still.
“Edelgard.” You call, waiting until she forces her eyes open and looks at you again. “Can I heal you?”
She doesn’t speak straight away. Your hands are still on her bare skin. You wait for an answer. You are not a monster, not some woman made of iron, who will shatter everyone around her into pieces to get her way. You hope she knows that. That your concern is as complex as it appears at first glance, and nothing deeper, nothing complex.
You don’t know if she does.
“You can.” She says. But she is still spun up, tense like coiled wire.
You move again, wait to see if she will stop you. She lets you. You don’t push her further than she allows. There are questions you could ask. But you let her have the quiet, as small a concession it is.
You inspect her wound, as gentle as you can. But she reacts still, drawing in breath as your hands move across her skin. You know you are not as skilled at this as you would like, that no matter how many hours you may spend studying the theory behind the magic, nothing quite compares to the calm bedside manner of the other healers. So, you poke and prod instead, crossing the boundaries Edelgard is so fond of, hoping only that she did not lie once more when she said you could touch her.
“Did you finish reading over the paperwork I left for you yesterday?” you ask her, hoping for a distraction, however small.
“I did.” She says. Slowly, you feel her begin to relax. “You have a terrible bedside manner.”
You send a pulse of magic into her, just to numb the pain.
“Do you talk about paperwork with everyone you heal?” she continues. You touch the edge of where the arrowhead breaks skin, and she flinches again. You don’t comment on it.
“You can multitask.” You tell her. She hums in agreement. And she talks. Lets you wheedle her into a conversation you know she is only half focused on. It’s nothing that matters, nothing that can’t be delayed. But talking about something else, anything else, putting that hawklike focus on anything other than focusing on her injury, has her relax more and more.
“I’m removing it.” You tell her, and you slide the arrowhead out of her side before she can register your words and tense again. She hisses in pain, and one of her hands wraps around yours and squeezes so tight that you feel your bones creak.
“Sorry,” she starts, but you wave her off. Indulge her more, and finish healing her with only one hand to work with. You are more than skilled enough to handle that. You finish the last burst of magic, watching her skin knit back together neatly, until you cannot tell where her wound even was. You touch where it was, just to check, and she tenses again.
If only she were easy to deal with. If only she were honest, as easy to read as a book. If only you knew each one of her signs, could know when to let her slide away and when you should press in further. She is so difficult to be around, in that way no one else is. More familiar than your own family, a shade of yourself made manifest, but so strange to you still. It is impossible to put into words, let alone in a coherent way, what the two of you are. To be close enough to know so much about her without it ever needing to be said aloud, all while you hesitate to so much as touch her.
You take your hand away from her stomach. You look up at her from where you kneel, and you waste another precious minute there.
Her hand still holds yours. Tightly, no less. But she still won’t meet your eyes.
“I’ve finished.” You say.
“I see.”
“Did you get injured anywhere else?”
You doubt she would tell you even if she was. She seems the type. Pain is a small sacrifice to give, after all. The two of you have given much more.
“No.” She says.
You stand, finally. Her grip loosens as you do, until you are free once more.
She clears her throat, picks up the long-forgotten notes from where they lay discarded. She rubs a thumb along the edge, reads it intently. But her focus switches back up to you when you stand.
“You’re leaving?” Edelgard asks.
You raise an eyebrow. “I have your blood all over my hands.”
“I see.” Edelgard says neutrally. She looks back down at the notes in her hands, holds them tight enough to bend the page.
“I won’t be long.” You say.