Chapter Text
17th of the Wyvern Moon, Imperial Year 1253
The creeping tillers of wheat are just falling dormant for the winter when their guest arrives.
In Almyra, the late days of the Light God’s Sun are cool and breezy. The wind ripples down through the mountains and breathes across the plateaus, whistling through the canyons and gullies of the arid landscape. Summer’s grip falters, the sun’s brutal beams obscured by much-appreciated storm clouds harkening the coming of the rainy season.
This time of year is when the aches start to set in, swelling knees and pressuring heads and aggravating every old wound Khalid forgot he’d ever earned. But he loves this season nonetheless. The summer sunflowers bring a smile to his face, as do the little beaded stalks of millet, but it is the winter wheat that pleases him most. Something about it always strikes him as special, seeing the green shoots pushing up through the soil at a time of year when so many other things are dying.
In Fódlan, the summer harvest would be ending now, the leaves changing color and falling to their deaths ahead of another long, cold winter. Khalid doesn’t miss those winters, though he thinks back on those beautiful autumn colors from time to time. It’s been well over half a century since he last saw them—not that he can see all that well these days, anyway. He feels a kinship with those Fódlani trees: his own beauty and vigor have long fallen away, and while he’s still fairly spry for someone his age, his body seems intent on reminding him just how old he is in new and surprising ways each day. He can still make out some things at a distance, but anything close up is a blurry haze of color.
He feels a gentle touch on his shoulder before he comprehends the low rumble of words by his ear, and he turns to the source of the sound with a creaky grunt.
“Speak up, Fatemah,” he chides, “don’t you know that’s my bad ear?”
The poor girl blanches. Most of his staff have worked for him for years—decades, even—but she’s new here, having only started a few months ago. It means she doesn’t know all of Khalid’s games and jokes yet, which makes her so very fun.
“I am sorry, King Father,” she says too formally, tripping over herself to move to his other side while attempting to apologetically bow, but he stops her with a hoarse laugh and a pat on her upper arm, shaking his head and offering her a grin. He still has most of his teeth—he’s proud of that, and might as well show them off while he can.
“Don’t bother, dear girl,” he tells her, “they’re both the bad one. What was it you said?”
The girl blushes. Gods, she’s young. As young as his little granddaughter, and skinny, too. He thinks to scold his housemaster for not feeding his workers enough, but he’s distracting himself. The girl was saying something, and it would be rude to ask her to repeat herself a third time.
“There is a stranger coming up the road,” she tells him. Loud, but slow, the way everyone talks to him these days, as if he can’t hear or understand. “The guards don’t recognize her, and she is not a merchant.”
Khalid strokes his white-streaked beard and hums. It’s more of a rasp or a croak, he supposes, but it ought to have been a hum, anyway. “Then she is a guest,” he says decidedly.
“King Father,” Fatemah says, giving Khalid an almost furtive look, “she does not appear to be from Almyra.”
Khalid hums again, louder this time; the noise would be better described as a scratchy squawk. Once, he was so charming, but something happened.
“Then she is a special guest,” he declares, and claps his hands to his knees as he makes to rise from his chair on the porch. It’s a bit of an ordeal, and Fatemah doesn’t know what to do with herself—she reaches her empty hands toward him, then retracts them, then extends them again in a near embrace as she sees him wobble while finding his footing. All her awkwardness makes Khalid laugh, and he almost feels bad when her blurry features become flushed with pink. “Have her welcomed,” he tells Fatemah. “Ask Iraj for food and drink, for Zeinab to draw a bath, and for Ramin to prepare a room.”
He begins to shuffle his way down the lane and hears Fatemah scrambling behind him.
“K-King Father!” she stammers. “You would bid me leave you?”
He waves her away without turning back to look at her. “You heard me, little one. I can walk a few steps without needing my hand held.”
But she scrambles her way in front of him—annoyingly fast, these youths—and bows her head respectfully as she presents him with something. He frowns, but takes the cane from her as an act of compromise. Let it never be said that Khalid is not a diplomat.
“I thank you,” he says, ensuring his tone is gentle as he offers her a warm look. “Go now. I’ll greet our guest.”
He can make out the relief on her features even through the blur, and as Fatemah bows again and departs, he watches her go with a chuckle. She still respects him for now, but she’ll learn.
Turning his attention back to the road, he squints, shielding his watering eyes against the bright mid-afternoon sun. He can make out the figure now as she approaches, and as he studies her, something in his chest grows warm, an indescribable feeling settling low in his stomach. The figure is still too far away to fully make out, but he can’t shake the strange sensations that are overtaking his body and making his blood thrum hot in his veins for the first time in so very long.
She nears, accompanied by two of his guards on horseback, who fortunately have elected to be polite in escorting her to the house. Her head is covered with a deep blue cowl, made almost brown with dust and dirt and sand, but as she approaches, that hot feeling thrums harder and a smile breaks out over Khalid’s face. How she still has that damn gray cloak after all these years, he’ll never know.
“Heya, Teach,” he calls out in Fódlani, and despite the distance, he feels those green eyes snap to his, recognition causing their travel-weary haze to brighten in an instant. “Long time no see.”
While she’s just as stoic as he remembers, her blank face and easy posture giving so little away, he can tell she’s as surprised as he is at the chance encounter. Those eyes of hers are so bright, and even with his poor vision, he can see her mouth fall somewhat slack when she finally reaches him. She seems to fumble for words; he waits for her to come to them, but she says nothing in the end, simply extending a hand to him.
She’s definitely surprised when he ignores it in favor of pulling her into a tight hug. It’s strange for him, too; he remembered her being much shorter, but he scarcely has an inch or so on her now. Her body is stiff at first, but she eventually returns his embrace, all her rigidity falling away. She wraps her arms around him and breathes out a long, low breath, hot against his shoulder.
“It’s good to see you, Claude,” she says, earnest as ever. Her words buzz in his ear, and he can’t tell if her voice is wavering or not.
“You, too,” he tells her, and for once, he’s just as earnest.
It takes longer than he thought it would for her to begin to pull away. He lets her go when she does, and she moves back just enough to get a look at him, their respective pairs of green eyes roving each other’s forms. Even though it’s difficult for him to make her out through the milky fog of cataracts marring his vision, she looks exactly how he remembers her, as if she’s walked directly out of a seventy-year-old memory. She’s pale as porcelain, her body a lithe bundle of muscle and power. Beneath her dusty cowl, her hair and eyes gleam with holy light.
And while time has had its way with Khalid, weathering his features as the sea erodes the shore, she doesn’t appear to have aged a single day. His youthful beauty has long since been worn into an assortment of crags and wrinkles. She, on the other hand, could easily be mistaken for one of his granddaughters’ friends rather than as his former teacher.
She is different, though, he acknowledges. She’s thinner, for one, if no less muscular; her cheekbones are pronounced, and there are dark, heavy circles under her eyes. He wonders if she’s been eating. Her clothes are baggy, nondescript, and practical for traveling across the Almyran steppes under the unforgiving sun.
And she doesn’t seem to be carrying a weapon.
She’s the same. She’s different. And gods, he hadn’t known it until now, but he’s missed her. A lifetime has passed since they last met, but seeing her again is like coming home.
His white-streaked beard scratches her smooth, unblemished skin as he presses a kiss to each of her cheeks—a proper greeting for an old and beloved friend. He can’t stop smiling. He pats her arm, overwhelmed with emotion, tongue-tied for one of the first times in his long, long life.
Then they’re beset by his stewards and retainers, and the moment is over. They take her bag and cloak and cowl, escorting her into the house, and the sudden flurry of attention nearly makes her balk. But she recovers well, falling into a gracious and respectful mien, and the slight wrinkle in her brow is all that betrays her to Khalid. As she’s whisked away to bathe and be shown to her room, he sees her off with a wink and a two-finger salute.
“What are the odds,” he mumbles to himself once she’s gone. He gazes up at the sky for a moment, shaking his head. Readying his cane, he releases a rasping sigh and begins his own trek into the house.
With each step he takes, he has to suppress a laugh. He still can’t stop smiling.
It takes little convincing for her to accept his hospitality, though Khalid is charmed to learn that she’s knowledgeable enough in Almyran etiquette to refuse at first. While she bathes, he settles into his favorite chair in the courtyard, and even with his fading hearing, he can make out the hum of her brief, stilted conversations with Zeinab and Ramin, conducted in a mix of broken High Almyran and Fódlani. Then the afternoon sun hits his face just right, and its warmth feels wonderful on his skin, and he doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until he feels Iraj’s hand on his shoulder and her voice in his ear. He’s a bit groggy as he makes his way to the dining room, but he begins to come around when Iraj presses a cup of wine into his hand, and by the time his unexpected guest comes to join him, he’s awake and alert again.
With the dust and grime of travel washed away and her worn clothes exchanged for clean, loose-fitting robes, his former professor looks more youthful than before. As Fatemah escorts their guest into the dining room, it takes Khalid a moment to recall that the woman is his contemporary and not his young steward’s. Her long, damp hair is the color of jasmine leaves, and its ethereal glow so captivates Fatemah that the hapless girl nearly blunders into the doorframe. She recovers only to trip over her own foot as she goes to pull out a chair; Khalid laughs, making the girl’s flushed face all the redder, though their guest pretends not to notice. Once his teacher is seated and settled, poor Fatemah can’t seem to flee the room fast enough, bowing and bleating out an awkward goodbye before speeding to the exit.
Iraj enters just as she’s leaving, and a near-disaster is miraculously averted when the cook maneuvers out of the way before Fatemah can stumble into her, scarcely managing to keep the contents of the steaming-hot bowls in each of her hands from sloshing onto the floor. They can hear Fatemah’s gasp of shock clear as day from her place of exile in the hall, but Iraj is ever professional and gives no indication that anything is amiss. She sets the bowls before Khalid and his guest, topping off their drinks before bowing and taking her leave. The young one doesn’t escape unscathed, however—as soon as Iraj disappears around the corner, Khalid recognizes the all-too-familiar drone of her scolding hiss, accompanied by Fatemah’s continued apologies as the two retreat down the hall. Only once they fully fade does Khalid break into a laughing fit.
“Useless bunch,” he says, rubbing his brow with the edge of his thumb. “It’s like they’ve never had a guest before.”
“They’re very sweet,” the professor says, deflecting graciously. There’s a tightness to her tone that betrays her true impressions, and the sound warms Khalid’s heart.
“They are,” he acknowledges. “And I’m grateful for ‘em. They take good care of me.”
He takes his cup of wine in hand and raises it.
“There’s much to be grateful for today. It’s an honor to have you at my table.”
His teacher raises her cup in response. “The honor’s all mine.”
They tap their cups together. Khalid takes a sip of his; his guest lightly thumps her cup against the table and waves a hand over it before following suit. When she lowers it again, she stares into the dark liquid, pensive.
A silent moment passes before a dry, crackling sound emits from her throat. It takes another moment for Khalid to recognize it as a laugh—it sounds unpracticed and borderline uncomfortable.
“It’s really you,” she murmurs. Her tone is flat, but something about it makes Khalid’s chest ache.
“It’s me, Teach,” he assures her, making his voice slow and steady. “It’s really me.”
She lifts her intense, piercing green eyes to Khalid. Then she sets her cup down to reach across the table and take his hand. His skin is a mosaic of scars, wrinkles, veins, and age spots, speckled with patches of leather from years of being kissed by the hot Almyran sun. Hers is smooth and pale, the contrast stark against his rich, golden complexion. But faded pink scars marble her exterior, and he can feel the layers of calluses on those slender palms, and there’s a weight to her grasp that he doesn’t recall from all those years ago. Maybe it’s new; maybe he’s simply forgotten.
The look in her eyes, though... he remembers that. Her eyes had been blue when they’d first met, but in their green hue over half a century on, they look just as they did way back then. Blank. Empty. Betraying nothing, as though there’s nothing to betray.
That vacancy is both old and new, and it pains him to see it. There used to be something there. He’d been sure of that once.
He claps his other hand over hers and gives it a gentle pat.
“Food will get cold at this rate,” he says softly. His mouth pulls into a crooked grin. “Not that I mind having my hand held by a beautiful woman.”
That crackling sound echoes from her throat again, and her gaze softens as they separate.
“You’re still you, Claude.”
He laughs, raising his cup in another toast and taking a sip. “Yep,” he drawls. “A little older, and a lot uglier, but still me.”
And you’re still you, Teach. You’re still you.
She’s hungry, Khalid is happy to discover. That hasn’t changed either, then—back in the day, she could put Raphael and Ingrid to shame in the dining hall, and their combined appetites would run the risk of eating through all the monastery’s stores in the span of one meal. Oh, Raphael... It’s been too long since he thought about the man, and far longer still since he said his last goodbye. He thinks about having Ramin write to check up on the brawler’s daughters, but forgets about the idea almost immediately.
“You look good for your age,” he tells his guest, sipping mindlessly at his wine while watching her demolish her bowl of khoresh. He picks at his own every so often. All compliments to Iraj—the stew is delicious, but he doesn’t have much of an appetite these days, so he mostly just observes his guest. “You’ll have to tell me your secret.”
“I’m blessed,” she says with that too-familiar deadpan, and Khalid looses a rusty-sounding laugh.
“How about that? You’ve still got jokes, Teach.”
She pauses her assault on her stew to stare at him, but the corners of her mouth briefly twitch upward, and the sight fills Khalid with warmth.
“You look well,” she says after a few more bites.
He snorts another laugh. “Oh, sure. I’m breathing, so I must be doing well enough. I didn’t think to send you an invitation to my ninetieth last year. I guess that was rude of me; it was quite the affair.”
He chuckles, beset by memories of a late night of drunken antics. Farid fell in the lake. Zeinab awoke the next day on the far edge of the millet fields. His grandkids learned that Baba could be fun. And, to top it all off, he made a killing playing cards with Yousef. Let the record show that the Master Tactician’s mind is still sharp, after all.
Ah... he digressed, if only to himself.
“Quite the affair,” he repeats with a click of his tongue. He sniffs, shooting her a pointed look paired with a toothy smile. “Though, in my defense, I didn’t know you were still alive.”
She pauses again, her fork partway to her mouth. A hunk of mutton slips free and falls back into the bowl; she doesn’t seem to notice, even when it splatters a bit of broth onto the hem of her robe.
“Am I supposed to be dead?” she asks.
Khalid shrugs. “You tell me. I hardly even keep up with Almyran gossip these days. But anytime a queen disappears, it’s cause for talk. And for questions.”
The once-professor, once-queen lowers her fork. Her lips curl upward again, though her eyes don’t respond. They’re fixed hard on his own, so glazed with cataracts and watery with age.
“You want answers,” she says, flat and direct.
“Eh.” Khalid scratches the loose skin at his neck, tugging at a white lock of his beard with a noncommittal tilt of his head. “Who doesn’t.”
She stares at him for a few silent moments. Then her posture relaxes as something within her releases, and finally—finally—the softness in her lips is reflected in the set of her eyes.
Khalid smiles back at her, and although he hadn’t recognized the tension until it was gone, something tight in his own chest falls slack.
“Eat up, Teach,” he urges. “And have as much as you like. I get so few visitors these days; Iraj barely earns her keep running my kitchens. I’d appreciate it if you kept her busy.”
Two more bowls of khoresh and scarcely a handful of words later, the woman across from him is finally sated. Claude’s on his third glass of wine; Iraj, that old nanny-goat, only ever lets him have two, but whenever she’s out of the room, Teach kindly refills his glass with some of her own. He sips happily at it now, content to appreciate the warmth of the alcohol as it ambles through his veins and brings a flush to his cheeks—and, of course, to study his guest.
She studies him too, on occasion, though she spends much of her time taking in the room as though finally seeing it. It’s a cozy, intimate space, despite its ornate decoration. Shirin was fond of traditional Apaman architecture and interior design; he’s not as familiar with southeastern Almyran culture, having grown up in the northwestern part of the country, but he’d become partial to it himself through her influence. The intricate patterns painted on the walls, the mosaics of tiles on the floor, and the masterfully-woven tapestries scattered around the room have all faded over the years, especially after his wife was no longer around to ensure their upkeep. He’s sure they’ve only gotten worse since his eyes started to go. Still, they’re objectively beautiful, and they must fascinate the professor, who scans each texture and surface as though committing the place to memory.
“Can I ask you some questions?” she says after some time, having apparently found his dining area satisfactory.
Khalid hums, scratching his beard. “I don’t know,” he responds, as if giving ample consideration to the request. Then he arches an eyebrow. “Can you?”
She opens her mouth, but when she catches the grin slowly growing on his face, her eyes glint and she releases a sharp breath through her nose.
“A joke,” she observes. She can’t laugh, or won’t, so he does for both of them.
“Couldn’t resist,” he says, apologetic. “It doesn’t work in Almyran. Ask away.”
She nods and takes a drink of her remaining wine, falling silent as she formulates her words.
“How long have you lived here?”
“In Almyra?”
She shakes her head. “This house.”
Khalid thinks. “About twenty years now. It’s my son’s estate, technically.”
Her face softens. “You have a son?”
“Two,” he tells her, beaming. “And two daughters, nine grandkids, and three great-grandkids. We welcomed my second great-granddaughter last winter.”
She nods, then raises her cup. “Congratulations.”
He raises his in thanks, and they drink to his happiness.
“You ever wind up getting hitched?” he asks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“No.” She tilts her chin to the side. “Considered it a few times, politically. Didn’t ever become necessary, so I didn’t bother.”
Khalid sighs, inflecting the sound with a hint of melodrama. “What a shame. Nobody stole ol’ Teach’s heart in the end.”
He’s needling her on purpose, but she doesn’t play into it as he hopes she will. There’s just that crackling noise again—it’s closer to a laugh this time, if still far from sounding pleasant, and there’s a distinct edge to it that her tightly-clenched jaw does nothing to help.
“I was married fifty years,” he says as a peace offering. “Lovely woman, my Shirin. You would’ve liked her.”
The tension in her jaw slacks, and her tight mouth relaxes. “I’m sure.”
“You would’ve,” he says again, his tone growing fond as he briefly indulges himself with the comforts of memory. “Beautiful little thing with a mean streak—and much, much smarter than me. I was lucky she thought my accent was cute; she didn’t care for my jokes. Been gone twelve years this spring.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Her tone is soft and honest, which he appreciates.
“I’m sorry everybody’s stuck with me and not my better half.” He laughs at himself. The glare she would’ve given him for a comment like that would cripple a man lacking Khalid’s tolerance for her debilitating looks.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Teach murmurs, pulling him back to the present. She’s always so earnest; he doesn’t know how he forgot. It sobers him.
“Kind of you to say,” Khalid says with a small, sad smile. “I’m glad you are, too, Teach. Don’t think there are very many left from our day. Class reunions must look pretty sorry.”
“The last one for our year was in ‘46. It got down to just me, Bernadetta, and a handful of others. Sixty-five years seemed as good a time as any to stop.”
“That’s a shame,” he muses. “Maybe ’51 would have been the year I bothered to come.”
There’s no bitterness in the words. There could be. But it’s too soon to start with that kind of talk, and he is legitimately happy she’s here, and besides, it would be rude. She seems to realize that he’s considering being rude, anyway, as she changes the subject.
“Your stewards call you ‘King Father’. Why is that?”
His shoulders relax, and he leans back in his chair as a proud smile overtakes his face. “It’s what I am. King Yousef Iskandar is my son.”
“He’s your son,” she repeats, her green eyes flaring wide.
“Ever since he was born. Have you met him?”
“No. I did meet King Shahid once.”
Khalid scowls. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was an interesting encounter,” she states—grossly understates, by Khalid’s guess. When did she become such a politician? “Though I’m sure I would have much preferred your son.”
Khalid huffs his agreement. “You would’ve recognized him, for sure. Looks just like me, but with his mother’s eyes and, thankfully, her good sense. Terrible shot, but you can’t win ‘em all.” He resists the urge to grumble further on the matter. All those archery lessons...
Teach’s mouth starts to curl at the corners, and her eyes are soft. “I’ve only heard good things. I wish I’d gotten to meet him.”
“Wish he’d ever listened to me when it came to foreign policy. You might’ve had the chance. Any little domestic problem, it’s ‘Father, Father, what do I do?’, but as soon as a border’s involved, he suddenly knows everything.”
It’s a sore point. He’s close with his son, and “the Fódlan issue” is the only topic that’s nearly caused them to come to blows. But Yousef has always been angrier about Khalid’s short tenure as Leicester’s leader than Khalid himself ever was, and the boy has yet to trust in the possibility of lasting peace with Fódlan. It saddens Khalid to think he never will.
“He’s fortunate to have you to advise him,” the professor says. Her placid look has changed into something contemplative. “I hope he knows that.”
“He does,” he admits. “He’s a good boy.” A boy in his sixties, sure, and a king at that, but always his boy. “I left court when my wife and I moved out here. Haven’t done much politicking at all since his mother passed. Of course, whenever he comes to visit, there’s always something he wants my ear for, but he doesn’t really need it. I just tell him what he already thinks, in different words.”
She sips her wine, nodding. “Sometimes, that voice of confidence makes all the difference.”
Khalid covers his mouth with his hand as he stifles a yawn, then tilts his head from side to side. “I certainly can’t complain. It’s an easy job, and he shows his appreciation—puts me up here, keeps me fed and entertained, and all he asks is that I write to tell him how the crops are doing, and that I play nice with the stewards.” He grins wickedly to display his remaining teeth. “The latter, I won’t do. He might be the king, but my son’s not the boss of me.”
“I get the impression that you keep them on their toes,” the professor says, a brow arching and one side of her mouth drawing back.
He shrugs. “Can you blame me? Can’t ride, can’t walk too far, can’t hear well, and can’t read anymore, either. Outlived all my friends. Family visits every couple months, if that—not that I blame ‘em. They’ve got their own lives. Just means I haven’t got much left, besides bothering Zeinab, Iraj, and Fatemah with my bad jokes. Ramin’s going deaf now, so he gets off easy.”
He’s chuckling to himself, but Teach is quiet. She won’t meet his eye.
“Stop that,” Khalid scolds, which startles the professor into looking up. “I’ve had, and have, a good life. My stewards are kind to me. My family thrives. I’ve had many wonderful friends, and built things I’m proud of, and never saw another battlefield after I left Fódlan.” He fixes his cloudy gaze on her, his chin angled down. “My years have been filled with love. That I’ve lived long enough to have boring days is a blessing.”
She breathes out slowly through her nose, and he sees her throat twitch as she swallows hard. She raises her cup again.
“To life’s blessings,” she says simply. Some part of him expected more poetry from a toast delivered by the woman who was once Fódlan’s holy leader, but despite everything, she’s still herself. The realization makes him smile.
“I’ll drink to that,” he nods, and quaffs his wine as she takes a slow drink of her own. He smacks his lips and glares sourly at his now-empty cup. “Do us a favor, Teach, and fetch us some more wine. Should be another jug or two in the cabinet by the window there. Pick whichever you like—just don’t tell Iraj about the stash. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
His guest’s mouth quirks at its edges, and she rises from the table. “Got something to open it with?” she asks as she approaches the cabinet and retrieves one of the jugs.
“Should be a knife in the drawer above it.” He’s a little surprised she doesn’t have a knife of her own on her person, even in her borrowed robes. He hears her shuffling through the drawer, then the distinctive sound of steel leaving a sheath.
“This is quite a dagger.”
He chuckles. “It was a wedding present from Nader.”
“It’s beautiful.” There’s a muted pop as she breaks the wax seal on the jug. He gives her a grateful smile when she comes over and refills his cup, then watches as she fills her own and retakes her seat. He goes to take a drink, but stops before the liquid touches his lips.
“If Iraj comes back, this is still my second glass.”
“Of course it is,” she says, deadly serious. “I’m very thirsty.”
He cackles at that, raising the cup to her before knocking it back. “Don’t think you ever met Nader,” he comments, frowning at the realization. “He was my first instructor when I was learning to fight. Took good care of me when I got back from Fódlan.”
“‘Nader the Undefeated’?” the professor asks. The name makes him chuckle.
“A nicer title than he deserved, the coward. But yes, that was him.”
His teacher nods. “I didn’t meet him, but I came close once. In ’93.”
“Ah, yes, I remember.” Khalid leans back in his chair again, rubbing the scraggly white hairs on his chin. Damn beard never did fill out properly. “Would have gotten to see Holst again if that had escalated, although I can’t say I would’ve been happy to be killed by him.” He thinks a moment, then shrugs. “Might have been worth it if he’d taken out Shahid, too.”
“Holst was something special,” the professor remarks, an amused tone humming in her throat. She looks at him over the rim of her cup as she sips her wine. “I always wondered if Hilda followed you here.”
He shakes his head. “Hilda fell at Gronder, Teach,” he says gently.
Something flashes in the professor’s eyes. She blinks it away, then stares down into her cup again. She’s silent for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs eventually. “I didn’t know.”
Khalid sighs. He’s used to talking about his wife’s death, to a degree. It still feels fresh, but it’s been over a decade, and he’s had room to grieve with others who knew her and loved her, too. Talking about Hilda, though... it’s like re-injuring an old wound that had never properly healed.
“For all her laziness, she was brave that day. I took a bad hit from an Imperial general, then got cornered by two Demonic Beasts. Thought I was a goner. Hilda put me on her wyvern and held ‘em off long enough for me to get away.”
He still has the scars and the aches and the lingering weight of guilt in his chest to prove his story. In the early months of healing—and in his weaker moments in the years thereafter—he’d begged any god he could name and hundreds he couldn’t to inflict those pains on him a thousand times over, if only for one chance at doing things differently. But those kinds of bargains and prayers never got him anywhere other than deeper in the quagmire of regret and misery and endless “what-ifs.”
Realizing he’s been too quiet, too long, he looks back to the professor, only to find that she’s also quiet, processing.
“She was always brave,” she says in the end, briefly meeting his eye.
“Always,” Khalid agrees. “To her last.”
Silence overtakes them again, and while there’s a gloomy weight to it, there’s such fondness there that it never becomes uncomfortable. They lose themselves in shared memory until Teach’s gentle voice eases through the hush.
“I tried to find out what happened to everyone that day.”
“Oh?” Khalid sits up a little at that, arching a brow. He’d never bothered to find out for himself; despite the spark of curiosity struggling to catch in his mind, he’s not sure he wants to know. He’d been someone else then, and it wouldn’t make a difference now. It would just chafe at wounds that had scarred and faded and been scarred over anew many, many times throughout his too-long life.
But it might make a difference for her to tell him, so he waits for her to go on.
“I knew about Dimitri, of course,” she starts, and Khalid nods. There was no denying the Faerghan king’s fate. The Adrestian Empire had ensured that particular victory was known far beyond Fódlan’s borders. “And most of the other Blue Lions. Sylvain, Ingrid, Felix...” A bitter breath scrapes its way through her lips. “Easier to say who survived, I guess. Annette, for a few more days. Dedue.”
Although it’s a sad topic, he can’t help finding it a little bit endearing that she still thinks of them all in terms of their old house names from the academy days. The name ‘Annette’ doesn’t register in Khalid’s memory—he’s sure he knew her once—but the mention of the late King Dimitri’s loyal retainer surprises him. His reaction must have been audible, as those celestial green eyes flick up to meet his own pale, foggy ones.
“He was presumed dead, but went into hiding and sought us out when we made our final assault on Enbarr. He—”
Her hand suddenly closes around her cup, tight enough for her knuckles to turn white. A slight cracking sound brings her back to herself, and there’s a flash of something akin to embarrassment on her features as she eases her grip, returning the cup to its place on the table. She breathes out. Her momentarily slanted brows fall back to their neutral state.
“His body was returned to Duscur,” she finishes.
He nods again in acknowledgement. That’s all he’ll get to know of that.
It takes her a bit to continue. She lays her hands on the table, her fingers occasionally touching the cup, rotating it back and forth.
“As for the Golden Deer... I couldn’t confirm what happened to most of them. Apart from Lorenz.” She takes a sip of wine, wiping a drop of red liquid from her mouth with the edge of her thumb.
Khalid nods again. In his eyes, Lorenz was dead long before the battle at the Great Bridge of Myrddin, but it makes sense that Teach wouldn’t feel the same.
“I heard about Judith, too,” she says softly.
Khalid grunts. Turns out that one still stings. The sound attracts her gaze, and she swallows hard.
“I’m—”
“Don’t.” His voice is harder than he intends it to be. He wills the tension in his body to ease, and it leaves his chest with a grainy rattle. “Once we start with that kind of talk, we’ll run ourselves in circles and get nowhere, other than a whole lot sadder.”
Her jaw shuts. She nods. Her face is as impassive as it ever was, but there’s something like gratitude in the set of her mouth. It’s a strange and bittersweet complement to the tired, age-old melancholy in every other part of her body. Her nails drum an arrhythmic tattoo on the table as she pushes her next words across her lips.
“Do you know what happened to the rest of the Deer?”
Khalid frowns. He’d known this question was coming, yet he’s astonished by how much it hurts to answer it. Maybe it’s because she looks exactly the way she did then—as if she’s walked directly out of his memory, or like he’s been transported back in time.
That perfectly preserved hand is suddenly resting on his. His eyes are blurrier than usual, and he has to blink hard to bring the world back into any kind of focus. He must have taken too long to respond. He hasn’t struggled like this since he was a young man.
“You don’t have to tell me, Claude,” she says. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore.”
Her voice is so gentle, and her touch is so warm. He feels like that young man again—the one who’d grabbed that hand the night of the annual academy ball, stealing her first dance before anyone from her own house could even catch a glimpse of her. Before that night, he’d thought her an unshakeable enigma: more machine than human; powerful and precise and perfect. But she’d changed his mind, and what’s more, she’d made him laugh—she was a terrible dancer. In his arms, she was awkward and uncertain, stepping on his feet and struggling to keep up with the rhythm. To her credit, she’d stuck it out, and even got a feel for it as the song went on—although she’d fled as soon as there was a break in the music, proceeding to prowl the perimeter of the ballroom for a socially acceptable length of time before disappearing into the night.
Watching her retreat to the sanctuary of the wall, he’d felt a twinge of guilt. He’d been wrong about her: she was human, after all.
At least, she had been then. He’s not sure she still is now. Her touch is the same, her benevolence unchanged, but she is different, and he has yet to identify how much of her has been altered throughout their years apart.
“Raphael made it,” he answers, not acknowledging the out she’s given him. “Honestly, I’d thought he was already dead by the time I got off the battlefield, but Lysithea found him a few years later, and we kept in touch. He said Ignatz saved his life; never did explain how.” He strokes his beard, trying to determine how best to sum up a lifetime. “He was a knight for a bit, but his injuries from Gronder were so bad that he couldn’t serve for long. Went and worked at his family’s inn, got a little family of his own, and from what I know, the rest of his days were happy ones. A fever took him, oh... seventeen years ago now, I think.”
His teacher nods. She draws her hand back, her fingers fiddling with the hem of her robe. “That was all?” she asks. “You, and Raphael, and Lysithea?”
He raps his knuckles on the table, his mouth in a grim line. “That was all.”
She sits with his words, and for a moment, she goes somewhere else, far away and long ago. “After the war, I asked Seteth to have the Knights investigate what happened to all the students. He told me about the deaths of the Lions, but said the Deer got away and went into hiding.”
Ah, Seteth. Khalid can’t help bristling at the mention of the man. He arches a brow while trying to decide whether to be nice. “I’m sure Seteth said a lot of things,” is what he goes with. “I’m guessing he’s alive, too?”
Her own brows rise at his question. She gives him a long look with those eyes like dry wells. “Yes,” she confirms. “And Flayn.”
He grunts. He’d bet money that, like the professor, they still look exactly as they did all those years ago.
“But not Rhea,” he guesses, fishing.
She finally averts that intense gaze. Several seconds go by without remark.
“No,” comes her eventual response. “Not Rhea.”
That’s interesting. He’d heard, of course—he figured half the known world was aware of the Archbishop’s passing, and the other half had been at the funeral—but some part of him had thought it was a ruse, suspecting the Archbishop was living out an undeservedly happy retirement somewhere. It’s cruel of him, sure, but he’s a little bit satisfied to learn that’s not the case. He hopes that satisfaction isn’t outwardly apparent.
“You surprised me, you know,” he tells her. “I didn’t think you would take up her mantle.”
And he’s surprised again: at his words, her face goes briefly and utterly blank, as though she’s stepped out of her body, leaving only a husk behind.
“It was my duty,” she says, her weary timbre betraying her age. “I did what I had to do.”
It’s a rehearsed response, and not far off from one he used to use himself, back when he had to justify such things. At least his dreams and ambitions had the courtesy to die young, leaving him ample time to find other, humbler duties to fill his days. There’s so much he wants to ask her. So much he wants to understand.
“I know,” he says, instead of all his questions.
Her jaw clenches—he’s surprised her this time. He can tell she’s suspicious, but when he doesn’t go on, or let any of those questions escape, something within her gradually flickers back to life. She exhales like a sluice gate opening, and on her soft inhale, she flows back into herself.
“Do you know how Lysithea survived?”
That’s the end of that—they’re back on Gronder again. Khalid makes an affirmative noise, unable to keep a sad smile from overtaking his face. “By my order. I wouldn’t let her go past the forest at the eastern edge of the field.” He chuckles. “She hated me for it. It was sentimental, sure, but also practical; she was already so sick, and wasn’t much use on the front lines.”
“She was sick?”
The professor’s question pulls him out of his reverie. “You didn’t know?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
She shakes her head, and Khalid sighs. It’s not his story to tell, but there’s no one left to be upset with him for sharing it, anyway.
“When she was young, she and the other children of House Ordelia were victims of Crest experiments. She was the sole survivor. The experiments gave her a second Crest—it’s what made her such an incredible mage, for someone so young—but it destroyed her body. She left us just before her twenty-fifth birthday.”
He falls silent. It’s hard to talk about. Part of him still feels responsible. What keeps him silent is the arrival of the sudden storm that overtakes the professor’s face, clouding her blank features with a profound darkness. Her knuckles blanch again as she digs her nails deep into her palms, her posture so stiff that it borders on being brittle. She mutters something that’s not for his ears; he assumes he wouldn’t be able to make it out even if his hearing was as good as it had been in his younger days. He lets her think. He could use the time for himself, anyway.
“I tried to do something,” he continues once the worst of the storm has passed. “Do anything. Read whatever texts I could get my hands on... got in touch with physicians, healers, Crest scholars... anything or anybody that could cure her, or at least ease her pain. I had some pull here in Almyra, but not enough to get anywhere at the time.” He laughs bitterly. “Not enough for me, and definitely not enough for some girl back in Fódlan.”
His teacher is unresponsive, but he can tell she’s listening. Whenever he’s silent for too long, her eyes flit up to his, roving away again before he can attempt to parse what might be going through her head.
“I actually came back to see her just before she died.” He’s not sure why it feels like a confession; to diffuse his own discomfort, he lifts the edge of his mouth up into a lopsided smirk. “Hope you can understand why I didn’t stop in to visit.”
It’s a joke, sort of. Not really. She knows. He continues.
“I stayed with her through her last weeks. We talked a lot. She’d been living in hiding since Gronder, but she was able to help her family get things in Ordelia territory thriving again before they dissolved their house. She was proud of that. Didn’t seem to have many regrets.”
Of course, that was a lie. Lysithea was an ambitious girl. She had lists and lists of things she’d wanted to do. She’d cried a lot at the end. It was a long end. Every precious second of her short, sad existence had to be wrenched from her grasp.
... Oh, gods. Was that a sniffle? It was, and worse yet, it came from him. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at his watery eyes and running nose. Begrudgingly, Khalid admits to himself that he must be a little drunk. He hasn’t shed tears over any of these people in so long.
But it’s not just the wine—it’s all of it. It’s everything. It’s Hilda. It’s Lysithea. It’s the professor, fresh from the depths of his memory, a ghost given flesh. It’s the things he’s forgotten he’s lost, and the friends and dreams he buried so long ago.
It’s being with the one who’s at the heart of all his pain, but who’s also the last living person that could help him shoulder its weight, here in the sunset of a long, long life.
His next exhalation leaves his lungs with a loud, husky sound. His lower lip trembles as he flashes the professor his widest smile.
“Sorry, Teach,” he says, his laugh catching and breaking. “Knew we’d talk about this at some point, but thought we’d get through dessert first. Or at least a little more wine.”
She frees a jagged breath of her own through her tight-pressed lips, and she shakes her head, a frantic edge to the motion. “No, Claude, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
They reach for each other across the table, their fingers interlacing. With age comes loss, and at some point, he’d lost much of his grace. Fortunately, he’d also lost his self-consciousness around the same time, although he now finds himself feeling shy. He doesn’t want her to see or hear him. He hates his horrid, honking sobs and the gurgling sounds in his throat. He hates how awful he must look with his rheumy red eyes and his quivering lips and his terrible, terrible tears. They streak through the crags of his face, a flash flood rushing through dry canyons.
She doesn’t cry, even though she should, and she looks like she might. He wonders if she can. He’s embarrassed, and he’s so very sad, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. He keeps holding on, and they sit together in their ancient grief until Khalid’s breathing settles and his disgusting, sputtering noises abate.
She courteously warns him of her intent to speak by giving his palm a gentle squeeze, but he beats her to it by snorting a loud honk into his handkerchief.
“Oh,” he groans, sighing heavily. “I’m beat, Teach. I turn in early these days, and don’t ever get this kind of excitement. Forgive me for being rude, but I won’t be good company if I doze off at the table.”
“It’s all right,” she assures him. She rubs her thumb on the back of his hand, then lets go, sitting up in her chair. “We can—we can talk tomorrow. I’m tired, too.”
He can tell. The more they’ve talked, the older she’s sounded. There’s a lot on her mind, and plenty on his, too, even through the growing haze of drowsiness settling deep into his bones. She doesn’t move to get up yet; her brows contract, and her teeth worry the edge of her lip.
“Can I make another request of you?”
He smiles at her and nods as he finishes off the last of his wine, blotting at his eyes and mouth with his handkerchief. Thank the gods his sniffling has finally stopped. “Sure,” he tells her. “Go ahead.”
Whatever it is, it’s a challenge for her to get out. She starts and stops a few times, then shakes her head, biting her lip again as she orders her words.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I-I’m afraid this is going to sound insensitive.”
Khalid laughs. “That’s promising,” he says with a smirk, and she winces. “Go ahead and shoot. I won’t kill you for asking.”
The lightest flash of color dots her cheeks as she breathes out a puff of air. Then there’s another round of stops and starts before her words can finally escape her lips.
“I’m not from Almyra,” is the end result of all her labors, and Khalid laughs hard.
“Are you asking me to confirm that for you?”
“No,” she retorts, her brows pulled tightly together, “I know that. I know that. But I want to ask something significant of you, a-and I’m trying to be... I don’t want to impose.”
If this is how she handled cultural sensitivity in the days of her rule, he’s amazed any of her attempts at foreign policy ever got off the ground. Then again, for all her awkwardness, her efforts are kind of endearing; maybe that same clumsy charm is what secured her that truce with Dagda back in the ‘20s. He snorts another laugh and kicks her foot under the table. “Ask. I’ll answer honestly.”
Some of the stiffness leaves her posture. She takes another moment to pose her request.
“Is it all right if I stay here for a while?”
Khalid nods. “Of course.”
“I don’t mean just for tonight,” she clarifies, still looking stiff. “I really, really don’t want to impose, though. You’ve already shown me so much hospitality.”
“Stay as long as you want,” he tells her, offering her his warmest smile. “That room’s all yours. Promise I’m not just being polite.”
She remains uncertain, but her gratitude is evident as she returns his nod. He’s remembering how to read the little traces of expressions that flit across her features.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you, Claude.”
Khalid chuckles. “Don’t thank me yet. I might well drive you crazy sooner than you expect. Besides, I don’t get many visitors. If anything, you’re doing me a favor by keeping me entertained and giving my stewards something to do.”
She bows her head in appreciation. “I don’t have any money, but I can—”
“Nope,” he rebuffs, waving dismissively. “None of that.” He slides the jug of wine across the table toward her. “If you really want to repay me, you can take this with you to your room and finish it off so Iraj doesn’t have my head.”
He might be imagining it, but he thinks something almost like a smile plays at the professor’s lips. “I can do that.”
Regardless of whether or not it is a smile, he returns it with a proper one, then pushes his chair back from the table. “Help me up, would you, Teach?” he grunts. “Don’t want Fatemah thinking I actually need the damn cane, or she’ll make me use it all the time.”
She gets up and rounds the table to his side, taking both of his hands in hers. Her arms are strong as they ever were; she pulls him to his feet smoothly and effortlessly, as if he weighed nothing. There’s less of him these days, but he’s still not a small man. She ensures he’s righted and steady on his feet, then grabs the jug of wine from the table and passes him his cane from where he’d leaned it against the wall.
“Thank you,” he says, clapping a hand to her shoulder and giving it two quick pats. “Now, if you hold my arm like this, and take my hand with the other, you can hide that jug between us and give the impression that you’re being a good friend and keeping me from falling over. Which you’ll also be doing.” Iraj might have been right about that two-cup limit on wine, but he’ll never tell her that.
The professor takes his arm as instructed, though she raises her eyebrows as she shoots him a sidelong glance. “It’s not also an excuse to have your hand held?”
He crows a laugh and grins at her. “Of course it is, but you don’t need to say that part out loud.”
He hangs the crook of his cane on his arm and they begin the slow trek out of the dining room and down the hall, meandering through the house toward his bedroom. He could go faster, but he takes his time. He wants to savor this connection as long as he can.
“You remember where your room is?”
“I do.”
“Yell for Fatemah if you get lost. She’s sweet on one of my stablehands, so she might be out at the barn instead of doing her job, but if you yell loud enough, she’ll come.”
An amused sniff escapes the professor’s nose. “I think I can figure it out. But if I wind up needing the help, I’ll call for her.”
They’re at his door much too soon. He doesn’t want to let go, but he does, letting his cane slip down his arm and into his hand.
“I know it’s early in the night yet; feel free to roam the grounds, or ask Ramin or Iraj if you need anything. Ramin speaks better Fódlani, but Iraj’s ears are better. Between the two of them, they’ll get you sorted. Nothing’s off-limits to you here, and my guards already know to leave you be.”
“Thank you,” she says, touching a hand to his arm. “I’ll be fine. To be honest, I’ll probably sleep soon, too. It’s... been a long day.”
He returns her touch, letting his gaze linger on the empty pools of those intense green eyes. He wants to remember them, just in case. “Rest up. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll give you a proper tour then, too. I’ve been a poor host, not doing that already.”
“If anything, you’ve been too kind.” She takes his hand once more to give it a last gentle squeeze, and her eyes narrow even as they grow soft. “Good night, Claude.”
“‘Night, Teach.”
With near silent footsteps, she disappears down the hall, and he’s pleased to note that he can’t even tell she’s holding the wine jug. He knows he’s not much of a judge, with how poor his vision is, but he’s sufficiently confident that Iraj won’t be able to tell, either.
As the professor turns the corner and disappears, it feels like she takes some of the warmth from his bones with her, and he breathes out a soft sigh. He really has missed that woman. He wonders how long she’ll stay. He wonders if she’ll be here when he wakes.
That night, Khalid dreams of walking amidst tall, bare trees, their boughs adorned with white drifts of snow that obscure every inch of the forest floor beneath them. He dreams of fallen leaves of red and gold, set adrift on a little blue stream that fights to keep from being seized and sealed over by winter’s unforgiving clutches. He dreams of following the stream to where it meets a frozen lake, its expanses stretching on and on until its edges blur with the feet of the distant mountains. He dreams of kneeling to press his palm to the ice, and the swirling faces beneath the surface speak to him in the language of his old life, and what they ask of him, he’s not sure he can provide. When he wakes, he doesn’t remember what they said.