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The arrow flies true. It whistles towards Edelgard's right flank, lodging with a thunk between her two lower ribs.
She creaks out a breath and staggers backwards. Curls her fingers around the shaft of the arrow, applies firm pressure. The serrated teeth of the arrowhead push against her insides until the wood crunches, suddenly, in half.
With her off hand, Edelgard grasps blindly for the haft of her hand axe, somewhere at her hip—there—and hurls it savagely at her attacker. Her Crest, flaring suddenly in her blood, propels it forward. The crunch of the blade against his ribs brings her some relief; a warm itch she has come to recognize as her flesh knitting itself together.
Blood and water drip down her wrist, sticky and wet. Edelgard discards the splintered dowel and, with both hands free, returns Aymr to its place over her shoulder. Forward.
—
Edelgard lies bare-chested on the infirmary cot. Hubert had it delivered to her quarters—any operation on the Emperor required utmost privacy, after all. Mercedes acquiesced: "I'll just have to avoid staining any of this lovely drapery," she smiled, forceps in hand.
Now, Mercedes holds a thin blade in one hand; the other rests on Edelgard's ribcage, pumping numbing white magic into her skin.
"This should be perfectly comfortable for you," she says. "Although you might feel a pinch here and there."
A thin towel covers Edelgard's nipples, for modesty. Still, she feels very naked. Mercedes' arm brushes against the thick rope of a scar that travels down Edelgard's sternum. She tries not to hyperventilate. "I suppose this is terribly awkward for you," Edelgard says, instead, staring at Mercedes' hairline.
"Oh, not especially," Mercedes says, airy, as she pinches Edelgard's flank. "Can you feel that?"
The sensation is a strange one. Pressure, certainly, but made fuzzy and thick against her skin. "Not clearly, no."
"Good," Mercedes says. Her tone is light; it's as if they're making small talk over tea. "It's already terribly inflamed. Trying anything without anesthetic would be so very painful."
Edelgard keeps herself carefully still.
"Are you certain you'd like to be awake for this?" Mercedes' expression settles into something a bit more serious. "I can't imagine you'll enjoy yourself."
"Yes," Edelgard says, closing her eyes. "I'm certain." She doesn't elaborate.
Edelgard never learned to swim, and she's still afraid of deep water, of being pulled beneath the tide. Better to avoid going under. She used to wake from those irregular sleeps in a new chamber, strapped to an unfamiliar board, needles in her arms, with no memory of how or when she got there. Even now, she sometimes wakes in a cold sweat and checks herself for scars on the spot: sternum, rib, forearm, thigh…there never are any new additions, of course, but the dark of a moonless night makes her loath to trust her own memory.
"Very well," Mercedes says, in the silence. "You can always let me know if you change your mind—" and mortifyingly, she takes Edelgard's hand in her own, the handle of the scalpel tucked between their palms "—Your Majesty."
Edelgard pushes a dry swallow down her throat and nods.
And then Mercedes makes her first incision. One moment, Edelgard's skin is closed; the next, her blood cools against the open air.
"I—" Edelgard stops herself. The childish urge to fill the silence presses against her ribcage like a stone slab. But Mercedes just smiles.
"We can talk about whatever you'd like, if it would make you more comfortable. I can concentrate," she says.
"I've been curious—you are of Adrestian blood, are you not?" Mercedes hums, affirmative. "Have you been glad to see your home once more?"
Mercedes frowns. "I'm not sure. I don't feel especially loyal to a nation or bloodline. I suppose I did grow up in the Empire, but…not much good happened to me here."
And that's that. Edelgard flexes the fingers of her right hand, then left, in alternation.
A bit belatedly, Mercedes looks up, apologetic. "I'm sorry. I spoke carelessly, there."
Edelgard wants to shake her head, but it's difficult where she lies on the table. "No, I—I feel similarly, actually." Perhaps an imprudent admission, but she's finding it difficult to maintain her typical guards. Mercedes might be the only person to see the body Edelgard so carefully hides.
Mercedes nods, though, and the gesture brings Edelgard some small measure of calm. There's no need to elaborate. "If anything, I chose to fight in this war because the people I love led me here. Such as my brother, of course. And the goddess—I'd like to think she approves of my decisions. And…" Mercedes trails off as she digs a bit deeper with her tongs.
A long silence.
"Well, perhaps you're right," she continues. "If anything, I've been glad to return here, if only to rewrite my memories of this place with people I care about."
"I find that quite noble," Edelgard says.
"I don't know about that," Mercedes demurs. Then: "Would you be interested in me explaining what I'm doing? Perhaps that would be less boring than just lying here."
"Oh—there's no need to cater to my whims," Edelgard says. "Though I have to admit I'm curious."
"Well, right now I'm wishing you hadn't broken off the shaft of that arrow. It looks like I'm going to have to cut quite a lot more than I'd like just to find the arrowhead."
"I couldn't swing around it," Edelgard mutters.
Mercedes sighs. "You can be rather troublesome, you know. It wouldn't be a problem if not for your Crest."
"How so?"
"Magic is such a funny thing," Mercedes says. "All we really do is accelerate the natural processes of the human body. It all comes from you." She runs a finger over Edelgard's collarbone. "Any healer would know not to just close up skin over a foreign object. But I suppose our blood isn't capable of the same kind of thought."
"I'm sorry to be such an inconvenience," Edelgard says.
"No, no, I have a habit of saying more than I should when I work," Mercedes says, a bit abashed. Edelgard knows the feeling well: busy hands leave the mind idle. "If anything, I'm glad people like you are always biting off more than you can chew! I feel perfectly useless when there's no one to help." Then Mercedes smiles, and makes a moment of long eye contact. "You can keep fighting as best you know how, then, and I'll be here to patch you up after. I always will."
Then, easy as anything, Mercedes pulls out the arrowhead, still in one piece.
"It's done already," Edelgard says.
"You saw every step of the process," Mercedes answers. She dips her hands in the bucket of cold water at her feet and wipes them on her lap. "Though don't try to move yet. The slower we can let the wound close, the better off you'll be tomorrow. Here, while you wait," she says, digging into a fold in her skirts, and Edelgard flushes. A chocolate truffle. As though she must be plied with sweets for obedience.
"Will it please you if I take this?" Edelgard says, with heavy reluctance.
"Oh, most certainly," Mercedes says, coyly. "Here, don't trouble yourself." She presses a thumb at the corner of Edelgard's mouth and slips it into the inside of her cheek, swiping there affectionately. "Open up."
And then Mercedes removes her hand, popping the sweet in. It melts beneath Edelgard's tongue. Mercedes watches all the while, some kind of hunger in her expression.
It's delicious, of course.
Edelgard swallows. "Thank you, Mercedes."
Mercedes traces a warm finger down Edelgard's chest, from the dip between her breasts down to her navel. "Always, darling."