The towel was drenched in a queer mix of briny sweat and cold, unforgiving water. Ridley picked it up from the basin, then wringed and tucked it against her back. The soft texture of her shirt—meant so that she could lose heat faster—wasn't very good at absorbing the perspiration. Her hair was a tangled mess, tied up in a ponytail for convenience sake. Her breath was hot. Supposedly not as scorching as the past few days, but her fever still lingered in her sloppy motions. She could feel the decline in her skills: how much sloppier her motion was, how much weaker she was getting, and these were precisely the reasons why she had to get up before the sun every morning to train. She turned around, grabbing her axe that was laid next to a creaking table. For a moment, she just paused and watched the glaring white dawn over Fort Helencia. Ridley was almost like a bird. A silent bird, waiting for something that she couldn't quite put her beak on.
When the noise of pots and pans rattled her ears, she was kicked out of her blank state. She heaved a long sigh. Jack. Who else in the world would make such destructive noises, and so early in the morning? It was almost an award that he woke up this early, though she suspected that a bug probably crawled into his noise. Nevertheless, she had this room all to herself. A dusty, standalone room sitting away from the main quarters of the fort, away from Jack's room. The roof was crumbled and the room itself-much smaller than the other rooms in the fort—had clearly been forgotten. Which made the perfect place to mediate herself. Air nipped Ridley's skin as she swiped her axe across the room, determined to finish her main moves as best as she could.
"RIDLEY!"
She almost slammed into a wooden chair.
For the love of…Ridley stretched her warm red cheeks. There was no point trying to escape- she knew that much. But that was quick of him.
"Hey Ridley—" The poor derelict door slammed open, and from it emerged a chaotically dressed brunette—much like an employee late for his first day at work. His vision had landed right on the sun's eye, and immediately Jack shrieked. Ridley decided that there was meaning behind why he slept in that muddled room, stowed away in the darkness. She lowered her axe and faced him impatiently.
"Do you need something, Jack?" Her tone of voice was quick, edgy, sharp…it was Ridley's tone of voice. Jack knew that better than anyone. At other times he would think of something to make fun of her, and she would retaliate back, but not this time. Instead he raced towards her, so urgently that Ridley staggered back somewhat.
"Ridley, you haven't recovered yet—you shouldn't be overworking yourself."
"I'm fine. Really."
"Please. Don't make me worry so much."
It was then that Ridley realized why he had made all that commotion earlier. Jack stepped forward, enveloping her hand that was propped on the handle of her axe. He brushed her bangs away as he put his palm on her forehead. His expression twisted, and for a second it reminded her of the towel that was worn from her repeated washing. She bit her lip and pushed him away slightly. "Look, Jack. I'm capable of this much. I can handle things too, you know."
Jack caught how her voice softened, even though Ridley herself was completely oblivious of it. At times like these, he knew that something was going on in her head. Something enigmatic, something that he—with his dense, pea-sized brain—couldn't comprehend. Yet he strived to comprehend. These days he had been yearning to know what went on in the mind of the woman, whom he had once taken for a typical, pompous blue-blood. But that was long, long ago. Before the transpiration. Before Ridley's walls completely broke apart, before she unintentionally revealed the extremity of her vulnerable sides..before Jack realized that there was so much goddamned pain going on inside her.
Ridley, too, once took him as nothing but a simple, dim-witted farm boy.
But there was something inside him. His will—something special that she had never seen before.
"I'm sorry." Jack backed away. Moments of the last time he had held her, the last time she showed so much weakness to him, flashed in his head. He didn't know much. But if there was one thing he knew, he knew how much she abhorred revealing even a single flaw of herself.
"Don't be," She clutched her axe harder before she heaved it up and placed it next to the wall. Ridley took those few seconds, those few seconds of not looking at his face, to calm herself. She knew he didn't mean malice. Jack would never mean malice, not even if he tried. He was so purely innocent that it was hard for her to believe that she had chosen him to confide to. It was ironic how she was the complete opposite of him. High expectations. Hard work. Dedication. All despite her smaller physique. But perhaps the stark contrast was the exact reason why she trusted him; Jack could see significance in insignificance.
Jack wanted to bring her in and make her rest, but he feared that it would only depress her. He decided to fall back to his original plan.
"Could you take a break?" Jack held his elbow sheepishly, and luckily for him it wasn't something that Ridley caught in particular. "I know it's selfish, but the weather's nice today. I want to show you something."
Ridley didn't want to decline. Back at home, her immediate reaction would be: "I'm busy," or "I have to practice," or most often, "no." But those were all, as she knew, people who would come to pass; brush them off once and they would never return again. And she never did have any fun with them—all that talk about the latest political gossip, all the pedestrian, fake complementing, all the luxurious treatment…Jasne had either horrible luck or bad taste in future grooms. On the other hand, if Ridley recalled correctly, Jack had once asked her for a hasty picnic with Ganz and him. She disagreed, and he asked roughly ten times before she finally gave in. She laughed so hard that she couldn't sleep that night.
"Alright."
A bright grin shined across Jack's face. He made a wild fling of his arm, all the way behind his head. "Okay then, let's go!"
Ridley couldn't help but smile.
She did a quick change of clothes before they set off. On the way to the entrance of the fort, where Jack was waiting, she clipped up her bangs up with a simple white pin. Jack was whistling, his hands in his pockets, his sleeves rolled up, and his pants straightened to look less ragged. The two met at the entrance of the fort. Ridley saw that his light khaki clothes remained lazily un-tucked, but unadmittedly, Ridley couldn't see him in anything more formal. She liked this. She liked the free-spirited aura he always exuded.
Jack stared absent-mindedly at her. She couldn't have done much during that short period of time, but the way she drew up her hair made her look almost like another person. Her old look, her pigtails and straight bangs, was something that made her seem highly unlike herself. Made her look young and immature, and perhaps it was because of that look that Jack underestimated her during their skirmish. Now her simplistic look only reflected her level-headedness—so responsible, so mature, so sophisticated, so…so burdened.
"You're not wearing the ribbons anymore?" The words blurted out of his lips rather rashly. It usually did, but to Ridley, he was conscious enough to realize it a second later. "I mean, it's not that I was expecting you to wear it for long. Um, it's just…what I was saying was—"
"I didn't want to ruin it. They got a bit battered, in the last fight."
The last fight. With humans. By humans.
Jack took the faery side just to protect her.
Ridley's heart clenched at the thought. Jack caught the instant.
Instantly he let out an extravagant, light-hearted laughter. "Well, whatever. Come on, no time to waste!"
He took her hand and pulled her softly ahead. Ridley felt disturbed by his actions and she gritted her teeth. Jack was doing so much for her. He had been doing so much for her ever since the blood orc incident, and she never knew why. He got kicked out of the knights, left the city in pursuit of her, betrayed humanity…and for what? Ridley was sure he had a family back at home. She could imagine a basic farmland where he lived, with parents, with siblings, with family—she was tearing down his life. She knew he had the potential to become a great fighter—having advanced and become so strong so quickly, she knew he had admirers who enjoyed his company, she knew he carried a high rank in the warrior's guild—she knew that if he went back, and gave them even the most ridiculous of excuses, they would probably welcome him back to their side. He would be happy.
Ridley slipped out of his hand.
Jack turned back, and finally Ridley couldn't take it anymore. He was always so nice to her. Too nice to her. So defensive, so worried that even a single touch might break her, so much that Ridley resented it. She resented feeling incapable of bearing her own problems, even though it was mad of her to expect so much of herself.
"Jack, stop it." Her voice wavered. She clenched tightly to her wrist, where he had gently held her. "Stop caring about me. Stop pretending that everything is fine and you're fine with leaving Radiata behind. This is enough."
Tears snaked down Ridley's cheeks. Jack was conscious of the situation, this time. He had been paying so much attention that it was impossible not to be. But what he was lost for was a way so that the situation wouldn't become worse. Anyone else would've thought that Ridley was constantly having mood swings, that she was simply throwing small, bothersome fits. But she wasn't simply temperamental. She was in pain. She was in a whole mess of pain, and her condition only got worse and worse with each passing second.
"I will if you stop, too," He whispered, in a voice so soft that it was completely unlike his usual, rowdy attitude. The birds cawed in a passing moment of silence, then the grass under Jack's feet rustled. He cupped her face and wiped her tears away. Jack couldn't help but feel kind of relieved when he saw her tears; it hurt him to see her like this, but at the same time, it hurt him more when she was holding everything in.
"Stop pretending that you're not suffering. That you're not torturing yourself all alone. Let me help, Ridley. It's okay to accept help. It really is."
Suddenly she stopped fighting and fell on her knees. Her tears cascaded in a downpour. She choked, she gasped, she hunched over helplessly and she just let everything burn out. Jack was there. Jack was there when no one else was, kneeling on the meadow, with his arms wrapped firmly around her neck. He let her lean on his chest, he let her sob and tremble until her head was throbbing and her limbs grew numb. Jack stayed silent for the most part. He just gazed at the white sun disappearing behind a haze. The roaring storm drowned out Ridley's crying, as if shielding her from the complete destruction of her pride. Jack's nose was just over the locks of her long, sodden blonde hair, and though he was unsettled by the heat of her temple, he resolved to keep quiet. He nuzzled her once in a while, to promise her that he would be there for her. More importantly, that he was still there for her.
But Ridley was pained. She didn't want him to be there for her. She didn't want him to put up with her, and she wanted him to know that. Go away. Go home. Yet she couldn't bring herself to say those words. With Jack, she had never felt safer. She had never felt like she could trust another person more than him. Thunder boomed in the horizon, and, in a quivering voice, Ridley lips murmured. I'm sorry.