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They had survived; another battle, another day. Others had not, Empire and Kingdom both, and their coloured corpses blurred together into a meaningless smear of death across the plain and Hubert’s mind. But his Eagles had. His Eagles had survived, and that’s all that mattered, in the end.
“I’m surprised the healers let you walk here,” Hubert muttered as he lifted the flap to General Aegir’s personal tent and looked inside.
“They didn’t,” Ferdinand admitted from his cot without pause, half-submerged in the many pillows. He threw Hubert a weak, strained smile, and likely unconsciously, his fingers fluttered over the litany of bandages wrapped around his stomach that peeked out from the wrinkled bottom of his shirt. “But their hands were more useful elsewhere than helping me walk to my tent. And it was not like Linhardt would argue.”
“You could have asked me,” Hubert said as he approached, a tender ache in each and every muscle. Still, there were many things to be done before he could find his own rest.
Then why wasn’t he doing them?
Instead, why had he come to Ferdinand? Why, upon hearing that the Empire’s general had returned to his tent after being declared alive and no longer in need of immediate care, had Hubert literally dropped his report into the less-capable hands of his underlings and made his way through the dead and dying – to Ferdinand?
“So the grim Lord Hubert could help me to bed?” Ferdinand chuckled, shaking his head. “That would tarnish both our reputations – more than they already are. I, seen as useless, and you, seen as… caring.”
Hubert felt himself frown as he wrapped his fingers around the cool glass handle of the water jug on the bedside table. “Water?” he offered instead of commenting.
Ferdinand sighed pleasantly, and Hubert tried desperately to not scan his eyes over the cavalier’s pleasing, lightly-clothed form too noticeably. “If you would, Hubert.”
Water – yes. That was something Hubert could manage.
Ferdinand did not speak as Hubert filled a wooden mug with lukewarm water. Neither did Hubert, and he set it into Ferdinand’s open, awaiting hand with little more than a nod.
“Anything else can I help with?” he asked as Ferdinand drank.
Once Ferdinand finished draining the mug, he replied “If you could help me change into more comfortable clothes, I would appreciate it.”
Hubert flicked his eyes over his white shirt stained an awful red-brown, and his pants, ripped up the side to reveal most of a bruised calf and perhaps a third of an outer thigh. Both were likely unsalvageable. His boots, though matted with blood and who knew what else, likely were, however.
“Your blue shirt?”
Ferdinand smiled tiredly and added softly, “And the billowy pants, please.”
Hubert nodded and left his bedside to collect his sleepwear from the chest at the end of his cot.
When he returned to his side barely a few moments later, Ferdinand had sunk even further into his cot and closed his eyes, breathing softly. Hubert couldn’t consider himself surprised; the Adrestia’s General Aegir was almost solely responsible for their historical taking of Arianrhod, an event that would be retold throughout the ages. Clearly, such an effort had worn him out.
And nearly killed you, Hubert thought with a frown as he slid Ferdinand’s pants off his hips with careful attention.
He remembered it quite vividly, as though burnt into his mind; the way Ingrid’s Frozen Lance attack had sliced Ferdinand through, swifter than lighting and redder than sunrise; how Ferdinand had fallen from his horse and smacked against the brick beneath him, silver lance left to rattle across the stone; the way Bernadetta’s arrow had felled Ingrid and her Pegasus not a moment later, before Hubert had even managed to think to raise his hand and cast a spell through his sudden panic. Perhaps he always would remember it. It was a rare day indeed Hubert von Vestra felt fear, let alone such a substantial, debilitating amount.
No, Hubert thought as he discarded the ruined pants to the floor and in easy reach of Ferdinand’s personal valet, and tied the laces of his sleeping pair. I do not think I will forget today.
“I can hear you thinking,” Ferdinand mumbled, and Hubert did not jump. Gently, freckled hands brushed over Hubert’s still gloved ones, shocked into stillness by his pelvis. “Anything you’d like to share?”
“Nothing of importance,” Hubert replied, keeping his eyes downcast, and begun the quick task of unbuttoning Ferdinand’s shirt. Ripping it off would have been more efficient, but then they might have lost the buttons in the aftermath, and the war effort had a surprising demand for buttons.
Ferdinand only hummed and let Hubert finish his task without further interruption. He did push himself into a half-sitting position to make it easier for Hubert to slip the sleeves off, but wisely attempted nothing more strenuous. It would not do for the Empire’s foremost frontline unit to be kept off the battlefield for more than necessary because he aggravated a wound like the oblivious fool some believed him to be.
Yes, that was why Hubert was here. For the Empire.
As Hubert helped Ferdinand slip his arms into the sleeves of his sleeping shirt, this time he did not attempt to hide his wandering eyes. He had seen it all, of course, and much more besides, but Ferdinand’s many scars were always something to behold, no matter whether he saw them as he did now, neutrally, or while he ran his blackened hands over Ferdinand’s golden skin in an act as close to worship as he would ever get, his bed the altar and each pleased gasp a prayer. Each were a physical manifestation of Ferdinand’s loyalty, his dedication, the sheer power of his will. His survival.
Hubert was privileged to know the origin of every one, laughed or whispered or winced from Ferdinand’s mouth one way or another, if Hubert had not observed the event in person.
All except one, of course. And it was to that scar, that triangular-shaped patch of pink, freckleless, that Hubert kept flicking his eyes to, unapologetic. If Ferdinand refused to tell him its source, what was he supposed to do if not wonder? If not investigate?
If not ask.
“The scar,” Hubert began quietly, and instead of proceeding to button up Ferdinand’s shirt sat beside him on the cot instead. Despite this change in height, he still loomed over Ferdinand, who still lay in the pillows.
Ferdinand’s eyes, previously bleary and unfocused with sleep, exhaustion, and perhaps a dash of pain, blinked into sudden sharpness. It would not have been unexpected of him to have refused a vulnerary or equivalent painkiller if he thought someone else would find equal or better use of it. “Now? Hubert- it is unimportant.”
Though he refused to give Ferdinand an out and glance to the fingers of his left hand, Hubert remembered exactly what they looked like. “More unimportant that the one you got from dropping a plate?”
“Yes.”
Ferdinand was a good liar, and a well-accomplished one as well. But he wasn’t a great one. And he wasn’t better than Hubert.
“When did you get it?” he pushed.
Ferdinand huffed and waved his hand dismissively, gaining a wince for his troubles as the flesh of his side twisted. “Hubert,” he scolded tiredly.
Hubert felt his heart twinge unpleasantly. But- no. They had lived. They might not again next time, especially considering the increasing desperation of the Kingdom, like boars hunted into a frozen, miserable corner. Hubert had waited, and waited, patient, believing Ferdinand would tell him when he was ready. But clearly he would not. Ferdinand did not have many secrets, but those he did were important. Seeing as nothing short of a death-bed confession would reveal this particular secret, and perhaps not even that-
“An innocent question, Ferdinand. What could I learn from when you received it?”
Ferdinand sighed deeply and rubbed his temple. He was tired – sore – and obviously so, with how his limbs moved with little coordination and were dead-still otherwise. Hubert almost felt guilty for making his situation worse. But he needed to know.
“I got it at Garreg Mach,” Ferdinand admitted.
That was more progress than the last six years combined. But still merely a spec, a droplet to an ocean, an empty quiver to an archer.
Hubert, hand sunk into the fur blankets, leaned in closer. “While we were at the Academy? Or while you were on the grounds-”
“You cannot be serious! Hubert-” Ferdinand rubbed at his face, dragging strands of unbrushed, red hair across his cheek. “Why do you care?”
“You have told me the source of every other scar, but not that one. Why.”
“Because I do not want to.”
“Why.”
“Hubert,” Ferdinand spat, and his eyes no longer shone with exhaustion, but anger. But not rage, not wrath, as Hubert had rarely observed before. It was an anger Ferdinand turned to in desperation – the type he only used with Hubert, because it worked. But not today. “I could have died today. I still might, in fact. Why must you-”
“Because you could have died, Ferdinand. Then I would have never found out.”
Ferdinand glared, teeth bared. “I am not a mystery for you to solve!”
Hubert scoffed. “I’m not asking about your thoughts on treason, Ferdinand, I am asking about a scar!”
A scar terribly, horrifically close to his heart.
“It is unimportant!”
“Then tell me!”
Ferdinand threw up his hands and shifted away. It might have been comical, in better circumstances, but Hubert felt only the stifling heat of anger and fear and the midday sun.
Ferdinand grumbled under his breath, hot against his teeth, and he waved a hand to the bedside table. Hubert refilled the discarded cup set upon it without question.
Hubert, quite a few times throughout his life, had been urged to talk more – about himself, that was. In the very few times he ever attempted to follow such advice he had found the results… unpleasant, at best. How Ferdinand ever managed it, and managed it well, was a mystery. Though, Ferdinand’s natural charisma was likely why Hubert’s attempts with him had given much better results in the past.
“I like to know things,” he said softly and with much effort as Ferdinand drank. “I don’t like not knowing. It disturbs me. I know that scar is important… because you refuse to speak about it.”
Ferdinand breathed heavily into the chamber of his cup before he set it away. He wiped his mouth against the back of his sleeve.
“For good reason,” he muttered.
Hubert hummed, encouraging.
“You will not like it.”
Now, Hubert frowned. “I don’t like a fair many things I learn,” he argued without heat.
Ferdinand only sighed and closed his eyes, the corners of his mouth twitching as he thought. Then, finally, he murmured, “Come here then. I do not have the energy to speak louder than I must.”
In an instant Hubert had chucked off his boots and climbed into the cot beside Ferdinand, his ear pressed against his heart and their limbs tangled together, one arm thrown over each other’s sides and the other wrapped behind their back. It was a position they had found themselves in very often, and one they had discovered was most comfortable for them, when everything and nothing became too much. Entangled tightly around one another, skin against skin but in a touch nothing like those in their sacrilegious rituals under combined moonlight and lamplight, the world didn’t seem so important and, even just momentarily, faded away.
Many had died today. But not them. Not today.
Ferdinand’s fingers ran through the hair at the back of Hubert’s scalp, nails blunt and grounding where they parted his dark strands. In turn, Hubert’s hand, now ungloved, rubbed its thumb along Ferdinand’s lower rib, careful not to brush the section of freckled, sensitive skin that would send a foot jerking into his stomach.
“I did not mean to upset you,” Hubert admitted quietly – it was always easier to do so when he was like this. When they were like this. Beneath his cheek, Ferdinand’s chest rose and fell in steady, healthy sets.
“I know,” he exhaled into Hubert’s hair. Could he hear a smile? “If you did, you would be much meaner.”
Hubert could not argue with that, so instead he lifted his hand and pressed the pad of his thumb against the mysterious scar by Ferdinand’s heart, warped slightly by the curve of his pectoral. Its point peeked out from above his nail.
“So,” he murmured. “At our time at the Academy, or while you were on the grounds?”
“Academy,” Ferdinand explained. His hand – the one not drawing circles by Hubert’s nape – lightly touched Hubert’s on his chest. “In the training grounds.”
Hubert traced the shape of the scar. He had put much thought into it over the years, in his investigating. “From a spear?” Yes, that would be reasonable. Ferdinand, during their Academy days, had been exposed to them the most, and the triangle looked vaguely spear-shaped. “Did you fail to dodge it in time?”
Ferdinand paused, and did not chuckle. “In a way. I wasn’t one of the students fighting.”
Hubert frowned, confused. “Whose spear was it then?”
Ferdinand’s chest did not lower in exhale under Hubert’s cheek.
“Are you unsatisfied with my answers, Hubert?” he asked quietly.
Hubert’s blood chilled with dread. Pushing onto his elbows, he looked Ferdinand in the eye. “Whose spear, Ferdinand.”
Ferdinand frowned sadly and flicked his eyes away as he dropped his arm. It fell heavy into the blankets. “Yours.”
Hubert didn’t understand the word for a moment. When had he-? “… if this is a joke-”
“It is not,” Ferdinand interrupted softly, and continued with his gaze pinned elsewhere. “Do you remember when the professor forced you into a lance tournament, and when you fought Lorenz your spear shattered when you attacked with Frozen Lance?”
Hubert did – he remembered it very well. He remembered the surge of humiliation as he was pronounced the loser; Lorenz’s smug grin; his rage-induced wrecking of the training hall after everyone had left with surges of Mire, because even if his lance-work was inadequate, his magic was not. Hubert remembered that day – that event, the very moment his training lance had given up and surrendered to the too-powerful force of his magic – very well, and had used it to fuel his self-improvement like his own personal blackmail.
Look how you had failed, he had thought to himself so many times the words had morphed into silence. Do not let such a thing happen again.
But he did not remember the shattered remnants of his spear flying into the crowd. He did not remember a sliver of its point piercing Ferdinand dangerously close to his heart.
Ferdinand’s exhausted sigh fluttered Hubert’s bangs. “Hubert, it’s fine-”
“I could have killed you,” Hubert whispered, horrified.
“No- No. Do not think like that. I lived, Manuela healed me perfectly, it doesn’t hurt-”
But Hubert couldn’t listen, could not pluck the words from his mouth and piece them together into something that wasn’t bone-chillingly horrific. “One half an inch to the left-”
A hand cupped his cheek, and the pad of the thumb pressed against the peak of his cheekbone as the tips of the fingers pressed points in a line under his ear, grounding. “I’ve had far more dangerous interactions with a spear, Hubert. It was a tiny piece of shrapnel. I lived. It is fine.”
Hubert scowled, wobbly. “I could have-”
“And so could have Ingrid today. But she did not. It is in the past, okay? It is a scar. Nothing more.”
But this scar, Hubert’s scar, was not proof of Ferdinand’s dedication to the Empire, to his bodily sacrifice to their Emperor and the world she was creating. It was evidence that he had survived, yes. But that he had survived Hubert, intentional or not. Because Hubert had almost killed him; the Empire’s foremost frontline solider, their best general, their Prime Minister. His Ferdinand.
“It is only a scar, Hubert. Say it back to me.”
“It’s not.” It was so much more. So much worse.
“That is not for you to decide. It is my scar. It means nothing.”
“Ferdinand,” Hubert begged, because by the Goddess why couldn’t he understand-
“Please,” Ferdinand whispered, and Hubert fell silent. “I will not have you ruin yourself over something that barely hurt me. It is nothing, and I want you to acknowledge it as such.”
Hubert’s words came out in a barely-audible murmur. “I have hurt you.”
“And you have made up for it many times over. You have protected me in these last few years more than hurt me in all our time together. It means nothing.”
Hubert dropped his head from Ferdinand’s grip and pressed a kiss to the scar by his heart, a wound Hubert had caused, yes unintentionally, but had caused all the same. One half an inch to the left… if Hubert at twenty had stepped slightly differently, surged more magic into a spear that it never could have managed to contain…
What could have been.
But was not.
Ferdinand was alive and scarred, but alive most of all.
“I am sorry,” Hubert whispered, and he pressed another kiss to the patch of pink. Beneath it, he felt the steady beat of Ferdinand’s heart.
“You are more than forgiven. On my life, in fact.”
Hubert smacked Ferdinand’s bare side with his open palm. “That was not funny,” he growled.
Ferdinand chuckled through his wince. “Perhaps only a little?”
“No, not at all.” Hubert shifted his weight onto one elbow and began buttoning Ferdinand’s shirt, hiding the scar and its many brethren from sight. “Don’t you dare make a joke like that again.”
“Only when you are out of earshot then?” Ferdinand teased, smiling.
Hubert, with a great sigh, once more fell limp against Ferdinand’s broad chest. “If you will accept no other terms.”
“I must admit, I think the whole ordeal is… ironic? No, that’s not the word. Humorous certainly, but there is a certain something about it, do you not think?” Ferdinand said as he wrapped his arms around Hubert and cradled him close.
“Almost being killed by me is not humorous.”
“But we are so close now. It… it is like my scar is a manifestation of how far we have come! How close you are to my heart.”
Hubert blanched and slotted his head under Ferdinand’s chin. “Never say that again. I will make sure to kill you next time.”
Ferdinand chuckled, and it reverberated through Hubert’s body. “If you wish.”