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22nd of Blue Sea Moon
Imperial Year 1183
Garreg Mach Monastery, Adrestia
Night

(After the defense of Garreg Mach)

Monica

Monica found Shez precisely where she expected to. Over the course of the twenty-five days they had shared at the Academy, Shez had come here a full dozen times to sulk.

She looked up at the sound of her bootsteps on the pier, but stayed seated, kicking her feet above the murky surface of the long-neglected fishing pond.

“Her Majesty worries for you.”

Shez didn’t look nearly as pleased by the news as she should have—which was nothing surprising, of course. Not once had she done more than smile that worried smile of hers, the one that usually preceded: “Yeah, I know.”

Once, that would have—and so often had—incensed Monica to her core. To take that worry for granted—! To fail to rush and soothe it at once, or vow to do better—! But now, she could see the pain behind it. “She doesn’t blame you for what happened. I think only Hubert does.”

Shez sighed, seven seconds after the worry on her face had reached its peak: marked by the corners of her eyes narrowing just slightly. This was severe— Of course it was. “Do you?”

Monica blinked. “Didn’t I say that only Hubert…?” Her face fell. It seemed that was a misstep.

But, Shez was gracious enough to spare her. “Just wanted to hear you say it.”

“I don’t blame you even slightly,” she said—and her heart rallied as Shez met her eyes. “If anything, I admire you even more for your—tenacity.” Finding the right word was difficult, but Shez was patient with her. “Your devotion, perhaps?”

That was another misstep. “I know I made the right choice,” she said, her voice so quiet that it barely rose above the song wafting out from the dining hall—a mercenary tune, one Shez had led herself after the capture of Brennius. “I told them—him—that even if he was Arval, I’d have fought him all the same. Still not sure if he was, if it was all a lie.”

Monica sat and offered her shoulder, and Shez took it.

“Still feels like a betrayal.”

“If it was, it wasn’t yours,” Monica said. “Even if—”

Even if the very worst had happened, it wouldn’t be her fault. Even if she had succumbed— Those Who Slither in the Dark were— Lady Edelgard had survived where so many had not. Shez had as well, although the circumstances were impossible to compare. Lady Edelgard, even before, had been an unstoppable force. Armed with her dream, she was even more.

“Monica?”

She let her voice do what it would. “Why did you fight so hard? How did you?”

Shez didn’t argue that she hadn’t, to her faint surprise. That was what one did when one’s struggle had gone unseen, unmeasured, uncompared because comparing—

“Why else? Edelgard.”

Monica smiled. “You truly do believe in her dream.”

Shez laughed, so gently that she hardly even moved. “I do.” No qualifications, for the first time. “In her world, I’d never have…” She sighed, deeply. “Well, no. Or, yes, her dream now would’ve saved me from everything, but Hubert never really hid what he wanted to do to me. Still not sure what she’d have done if that had happened a year ago.”

A particular moment came to Monica, one she recalled perfectly. She had been paying perfect attention because Lady Edelgard had sought her counsel, but now that memory was a point of pride for another reason besides. “She asked me if we should bring you along to the coup,” she said. “Although the way she framed it…” It was difficult to put into words, as so much of it depended on a deep, bone-deep familiarity with Her Majesty’s face.

With Lady Edelgard’s.

But Shez never minded a good ramble. “Her eyes were pleading,” she said. “Not that anyone else could mark it, mind. There’s a— The inner corner of her eye rises just a little, since she’s making sure her brow doesn’t.” She giggled—she’d first noticed it when Lady Edelgard had pointedly not begged her to nab sweets from the kitchen for her. “She told me that

“Hubert advises against it,” said Lady Edelgard, her eyes piercing right through her. “I can’t argue with him: the element of surprise is essential, and even if we carefully control the plan… If she is one of their agents, everything about her, especially her earnestness, would be a bluff. Moreover— You saw for yourself how strong of a fighter she is. To face her there would be catastrophic.”

She very nearly assured Lady Edelgard that she would gladly give her life in her defense, but Lady Edelgard had only permitted that comfort seven times before commanding her to swear off of it for a moon. “Hasn’t she proven herself already?”

Lady Edelgard nodded. “To me? Yes. Hubert sees ruses within ruses, however, and so he argued that Shez was a plant, meant to ensure Kronya’s escape.”

That was absurd on its face. Shez had been terrifying in that moment, having joined Lady Edelgard in finishing off that monstrosity before speeding off after Kronya faster than she could follow—but not fast enough. And if she was a spy, then Arundel would know already.

But.

“Did Hubert advise against you saving me?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

And there it was: that slight tug at the corner of her lips and the crinkle along the bottom of her eyes. This was her conspiratorial smile, the one she wore when her favored catspaw scurried off to do her unstated bidding and fetch her as many sweets as could be carried.

“It’s wonderful to have you back, Monica,” murmured Lady Edelgard. “Please—continue being so unmistakably you.”

by which she meant that she knew it was me, and that…” She finally noticed the look Shez was giving her, that fond one, the one that said that she didn’t need to refrain from singing Lady Edelgard’s praises even though they were, more or less, on a— With just the two of them, and with her unable to hold it in, she’d known she must have been boring Shez to tears, but

“Don’t you think Her Majesty is at her most beautiful in profile?” she asked, aware of Shez’s eyes lingering on her face.

She felt so boorish. Shez looked away, a new type of frown on her face, her sharp profile exaggerating the expression until it hurt to look at. Shez had so few opportunities to relax, she spent so many of them smoothing things over with the woman she’d sworn to kill, and yet she had chosen to spend this one here, with—

“Not sure,” Shez said. “It’s a good one, though.” She turned back, her cheeks just slightly pink. “You’re shorter, so you don’t get to see it, but when she lets her guard down and lowers her chin, it’s…”

“I do see it, in fact!” Monica chirped out, overjoyed to continue this discussion—to begin it for the first time, with another. “Sixty times, as I served her tea. Ten of them in the last moon. She says—”

“—nothing,” Shez finished. “Just watches for a minute, looking for something, not sure what.”

If Lady Shez saw that as well, it meant

she was glad it was you, Lady Shez,” she said. This next question could do much to hurt her, if the answer was anything but what she expected, but she knew Lady Edelgard like no other. “Tell me: did she wear it once you had—recovered?”

Shez broke into that sheepish smile she’d worn just after so unconvincingly denying her desire to declare her adoration for Lady Edelgard. “Right away,” she said. “She asked if it was me, if it was just me, and I said I didn’t know. She said she understood how I felt, and that she wanted to trust me. She was frowning—but there was hope in her eyes.”

Hope.

That was just it, wasn’t it? “Lady Edelgard may be strong,” she said, “but perhaps…”

Shez huffed. “Still can’t say it? She’s made mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with that.” She leaned a little more against her. “Or, okay, there is, but she’s just human. One of my favorites”—Monica bit her tongue, but not hard—“but… I get what you’re saying. I know she hoped I could be trusted. I know she believed in me, but she definitely had doubts. So I can’t be sure Hubert wouldn’t have gotten his way.” She was quiet for a moment, and continued in a whisper that, even so close, wouldn’t have risen above the song if it had still been ongoing. After all, Ferdinand’s exuberance was— “Trust that now, though.”

Monica might once have been bothered that Shez couldn’t say such a thing with her whole heart and a full voice, but she knew her now. “What are you going to do after the war?” she asked, hoping she knew the answer.

“Gonna take that offer,” she said. “Keep being her— Keep looking after her.”

Her bodyguard. Good. “I lied to you, once,” she said.

“You?”

“I told you that you were a mere mercenary. Even then, I knew it wasn’t true.”

“You were right, though,” she said. “Mercs don’t get to be loyal to anything but the coin.” She understood that, now: it wasn’t greed, but desperation. “We’re in the thick of it, always.” She was so used to sudden partings. “Gotta show off even when we know we’re getting cut loose once we win. Just in case this time, we’re wrong.” Lady Shez had come back twice with grievous wounds from the Ashen Demon, and then simply—buried it. “Hope for an easy winter, you know?”

“I do,” she said, even as she wondered if it was really the same. Lady Shez was gracious. “Ochs is a humble territory. At times, when the harvest is poor for years on end, we have needed to rely on our neighbors.” Arundel, chiefly—and she knew now in full why they had been so reluctant to help. “No more.” Even now, the bulk of their army was securing Galatea—laden with provisions and having established a supply line that led all the way back to Aegir, the breadbasket of Adrestia. “No more, Lady Shez.”

“Yeah,” she said, so softly—and she sat up straight, her gentle weight now gone from her side. “Even if I walked. Even though Hubert said— No, doesn’t matter what he said.” She turned to her and smiled an awfully conspiratorial smile. “He can’t see past the end of his own nose. Maybe he’ll grow out of it once that new dawn gets here, maybe not. But she’ll have us, Monica.”

Monica returned that smile. “Indeed. I am—glad that you have accepted her offer.”

“Hers?”

Monica ran through the conversation in her mind—

“Yours, Monica.” She grinned. “‘United in our quest to bestow love upon Her Majesty,’ right?”

“And affection,” Monica corrected her, as her mind caught up. “Really?”

“Mmhmm,” said Lady Shez, her comrade. “Got plenty of it, and she definitely needs it.” A warm, calloused hand found hers. “So do you, though.”

Her heart leapt. Was this…?

Her mouth moved on its own, without permission. “I won’t let you go without, either, Lady Shez!” Her tangle of feelings stole her better sense. “You—you already mean a full half of what Her Majesty does to me!” That wasn’t an insult, it was the second-highest compliment she could give, it was a matter of familiarity, of time—

But Lady Shez was gracious. “Keep being you, Monica,” she said. “Really. I know what you mean.” That hand squeezed hers, just a little. “I’ll catch up, though.”

She couldn’t lie. “I’m afraid that after today, Her Majesty may well— That she didn’t come out here, to you, herself was a shock—”

“Didn’t mean with you,” she said. “Meant with her.” She smiled a new smile. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her just like you do. But it’s you, so there’s no harm in saying it: I love you, Monica.”

“Lady— Lady Shez?”

“You’re so reliable. You work so hard. Made me wonder why Lady Edelgard meant so much to you. And so I—learned.” She laughed. “When we got back to Rowe, she found me going through old reports to try and figure out what all those western Faerghus lords were thinking. She got why I was bitter about them—and Gloucester—getting a second or third chance, and I could kinda tell she hated it too.” She smiled. “It wasn’t until Brennius that I got what we were up against: the whole world. Not the people, the—thing. What made so many ‘nobles’ throw their lives away. And why that’s different from you giving yours.

“Then we gave up certain victory and marched all the way to Hrym and—and to my old home, to Ordelia, to save ‘em. No hesitation, no arguments, no hand-wringing. That’s who she is: wading into the thick of it, alongside a scruffy merc. And that’s who you are, too.”

Her heart was in her throat, and her face was on fire. In mere moments, those words would escape— Half of her devotion to Her Majesty was still a lifetime’s worth of love, and it was growing—

“You don’t have to feel the same way,” she said. “I mean, obviously. It just means the world that you—see me, just like she does.”

“I do,” Monica said, unable to stop. “I see you more and more every day, more of you, and I am— I really want that.” She awkwardly turned her hand to lace their fingers together. “I’m glad you’re you.”

“Mm.”

That was enough, it was obvious that it was enough for Lady Shez, even though she didn’t really understand why—

“Together,” she said, to her own shock. “Lady Shez, neither of us will win. We both will.”

“You mean her, um. Her love?” For one who had just expressed her own for the woman by her side, Lady Shez was awfully embarrassed.

And that would not do. “Yes. It may be that you already have it—”

“I’d bet it’s you,” Shez interjected—then laughed. “Listen to us. Doesn’t matter where we stand now. We’ll get there, together. All three of us, whatever that means.”

It sounded—

“I love you as well,” said her voice, without her permission—but it was the truth, and there was nothing wrong with that. Then— “A promise, then: sealed with…”

Her lips found Lady Shez’s for just a moment.

There weren’t any more words for a time, just the muted sounds of celebration. She knew Lady Edelgard would worry until she retrieved her Swifting Shadow—

“Go to her, Monica,” said Her Majesty, with that conspiratorial smile. “Remind her that she is wanted.”

Did Lady Edelgard know…? That smile of hers had meant that Monica was to assist her in retrieving a treat, or justifying an indulgence, or fetching her favored mercenary, but

“These are lovely,” Lady Edelgard said as she held out a stick of peppermint. “I insist.”

she had always

“You don’t have to ask before joining me for tea, Monica,” Lady Edelgard said for the seventh time that moon. “I insist, actually.”

shared.

“I know it’s only natural that the two of you get along,” said Lady Edelgard as they shared a fish sandwich, one of the dishes that both of them delighted in, one carefully prepared by Shez—whose own preferences seemed unbounded and went unspoken. “But it still seems so strange.”

She had been smiling, then.

So, perhaps…

Delightfully strange?

Lady Shez, her comrade in the lifetime that stretched ahead of them, one to be spent as she had always dreamed, turned just as she did. There were still no more words, but she didn’t need any, not here, not now.

Each movement of her partner’s lips etched itself into her memory. Each small gasp, each soft sound, the feeling of warm breath on her face, of so much more—

She was wanted. Needed, yes, but—

Lady Shez held her close. And so—she did the same.