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Uther carried Ygraine inside the tent. Blood ran from her abdomen, soaking her shirts and turning her chainmail under her armor a deep and alarming red. Her expression was brave, but the hand she used to stabilize herself on his armored shoulder was shaking, and her breath came out in short gasps, causing the blood to leak faster out of her stomach.
He gently laid her down on her back in the grass and she started fumbling with the leather straps on her armor and chainmail.
“Could you . . . help me? Please?” She grunted.
“. . . of course.” He answered, quietly, reaching around her sides and beginning to unbuckle her armor.
She chuckled, anxiously at their close proximity. “You know, if anyone saw this, you undressing me on my back, they might talk.”
Uther kept those pretty Pendragon blue eyes focused on removing her plackart from her breastplate. “How can you make jokes right now?”
“How else are you supposed to know I’m not about to die on you?” She said, about to laugh again but her laugh twisted into a yelp of pain.
Laughing hurt her injured stomach.
Now Uther’s concerned eyes flicked up to her. “Don’t-just, you’ll make it worse, alright?” He told her.
In reality, Uther probably just didn’t wanna hear a joke about Ygraine dying right at this moment.
Ygraine felt like she was dying. An hour into a battle with Camelot, which one could still hear raging outside the tent, and the other side had brought out a fucking wyvern and a dragonlord to control it. They had the dragonlord in custody (because Lord Aurelius wished they’d bring back any hostages alive though Ygraine knew Uther disrespected that wish of his brother’s frequently), but the damage was already done. She’d been slashed deep abdominally by the wyvern’s talons, but she had no idea how bad it was yet. She only knew it hurt like fucking hell.
The open wounds burned against the cloth that covered it and would protest more every time she breathed too far.
After her armor, chainmail and black tunic (which was ruined at this point, which was a bit of a shame as it belonged to her brother) were pulled off her body the only thing covering her from the waist up was a pair of bodies over a white under tunic. Ygraine pulled a knife from her belt and handed it to the man.
“We don’t have time to unlace it, just cut it off.” She insisted.
Ygraine watched Uther hold the knife above her stomach with a shy hesitance. All the knights had seen her shirtless before and they didn’t mind because they generally saw her as one of them, so it was easy for her to lose perspective on how Uther did, in some ways, still look at her as a member of the opposite sex.
And the fact that they, as a relationship, had been on the edge of intimacy before, probably didn’t help. But Ygraine knew Uther was mature enough to platonically view her in a state of indecency given the circumstances, and he was probably more concerned with what she would think.
“I trust you.” She assured him.
Uther grabbed the top of the pair, just in front of her bosom, and plunged the knife through the layers of fabric. It tore loudly as he pulled the knife downward, the blade glinting in the flame of the candles that lit the tent. The two sides opened around her waist. She pulled her arms out of the straps and sighed a gasping breath.
Then she gripped the front of her under tunic, which was positively drenched from a combination of her blood, others’ blood, and sweat from the battle, with both hands, and ripped it open, revealing her bare chest and torso. Now they could both see the extent of the damage. The knife dully clinked as it was dropped on the grass beside her. She sat up a bit and glanced down.
There were three deep gashes in her stomach, the fat lining the gashes exposed and blood seeping out of them, making the unharmed skin around them slick.
“That doesn’t look terribly good . . .” She remarked.
“No, no it doesn’t, and if I don’t close it you might die.” Uther told her.
“Alright- hang on.” Ygraine pulled a short, metal pin from her braid and handed it to him. “You know how to do this, right?”
“. . . I’ve sewed my own wounds before. As well as those of my brothers.”
“How many of your brothers’ wounds did you cause?” She laughed, shakily.
“A good amount of them.” He admitted, going along a little bit.
From the frayed bits of her torn pair of bodies, a thread was pulled and tied around one end of the pin. Ygraine could sense the other warrior’s reluctance. Neither of them wanted this. He didn’t want to stab a pin into her and she didn’t want a pin stabbed into her.
With that, Uther stabbed the pin into her. He pushed it through her skin, causing an uncomfortable, pinching sensation, but the pain from the actual wounds mostly deafened it.
She leaned her head back and grunted, squeezing her eyes shut. Without really thinking, she grabbed Uther’s hand that wasn’t busy sewing her up, tightly, wanting something to hold onto.
She felt him freeze, and hoped he wouldn’t pull away. She knew he didn’t like to engage in physical touch but her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
He didn’t pull away, and carried on with the stitching.
It was cold too, the gooseflesh on her bare skin prickled. Surprisingly, she didn’t even think about the fact her breasts were exposed.
She felt the pin go in and out with surprisingly fast rhythm and she even felt the thread sealing up the gashes.
“Thank you . . . for this.” She breathed.
He kept his focus on the wounds, as he finished up one gash.
“. . . we’re in a war. I can’t afford to lose you.”
“Right,” she said with a click of her tongue. “Your interests are purely utilitarian, that’s why you’re holding my hand right now.”
“And you’re my closest friend and I don’t . . . want to lose you.”
“. . . you’re a good friend, Uther.”
“. . . as are you, Ygraine.”
“And we’re gonna win this war and you’re gonna be a great king. But first . . . promise me something. Promise me you won’t change. When you become king. I don’t . . . I don’t want you to change.”
“I won’t make a promise I don’t know I can keep but I can promise I will always care more about you than anything.”
Ygraine felt her eyes sting at that.
Finally, after the battle outside had significantly calmed down, her wounds were sewed and tied and Uther had given her his tunic to wear and she had wrapped around her brother’s cloak around her shoulders. Tristan was in the habit of giving her his clothes before a battle in case she needed them. He . . . had been assisting her in combat very minimally during the war. He refused to fight alongside a Pendragon.
There was a time Ygraine would agree with that. And now she was wearing the golden dragon right on her chest.
The Pendragon himself was outside, scanning the aftermath of the battle, and she would follow him but he insisted she stay and rest. She sat, holding her knees, looking out through the small gap in the tent’s cloth. She saw the dark, sturdy figure of Uther in the distance, along with Nimueh, and the Duke of Cornwall, the unexpected ally in this war.
Ygraine herself was one too. And they were her friends. War has a way of causing you to make those very quickly. You meet someone and decide soon after that you’re willing to die for them, otherwise, well it just wouldn’t work.