Chapter 1
"Chrom." Haura had been calling his name as she sloshed through the mud to his position in the ranks. Even as her voice raised in pitch and irritation, he did not turn around. She could not help her sharp tone, for she could not summon the energy to mask her increasing desperation. Panic was the only thing that kept her on her feet.
Chrom's eyes were unfocused, still searching in the wet air, for that sand filled battlefield all those miles behind them. Haura grabbed his shoulder and she yanked him to her attention.
"What- Haura! What is it?" he said, looking genuinely startled, and Haura scowled. So he had actually just not been paying attention. She let her hand fall to her side.
"What if I had been an enemy arrow? We're still deep in Plegia, Chrom!" Then Haura took a deep breath and settled her nerves. Taking her grief out on the man who could see nothing but his own pain hardly felt right or good. She had to do that thing, what the Shepards did for one another when one of their own had fallen in battle: that lie-through-your-teeth, platitude filled, comforting thing.
Ironically, Chrom had been the one who talked her through her first tragedy in this new life and he was the one who taught her the tricks. Haura remembered trying to hide her crying as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Emmeryn had blessed the ceremony and while her sadness had seemed depressingly radiant, Haura had just felt crushing despondency. Chrom had come to her then, with practice sword in hand, and they spent the afternoon walloping each other's sadness out of the other. They had only stopped when Frederick had intervened with a stern lecture over the number of bruises that peppered both of their skins.
Haura flexed her fist and remembered when Sumia punched Chrom right in the jaw. To have seen her mild mannered friend turn furious, for her to have to take action against her commander, was just enough shock to galvanize them. Something about punching Chrom, although alluring, also did not sit right for this moment. Perhaps violence in general would not be the most effective cure at the moment, Haura reckoned.
"We need to change our marching lines. I fear we'll be walking straight into an ambush and the mess of our lines would mean slaughter. I don't want us to scatter and then picked off one by one." She advised even as she knew she had no actions or words that could change the past, let alone remove the scene that played over and over again in Chrom's eyes. What he saw as he continuously glanced back could only be that moment of Emmeryn falling over and over again.
She knew because she too could not forget. None of them could. But she had kept her eyes forward because she saw the rain that soaked through their cloaks, the twisted hillside with enough shadows to hide armies, and the way their army plodded with their eyes watching the earth. Each step took them closer to Regna Ferox, to a place where she could collapse and sob without fear for the army's morale. Haura clung onto that desperation.
"...Right, tell Khan Basilio and Frederick for me. We can open our scout formation a little larger as well, if you suspect an ambush." Chrom said and Haura looked at him in surprise. Chrom never delegated unless he was truly occupied with something else. Being the hands-on commander, he was always right there by his soldiers side with an rallying word.
It had become obvious to her that Chrom's silence had seeped into all the Shepards like poison in a well, compounded with everyone's individual pains from the day. They had been fleeing the battlefield in a slovenly mess. Haura frequently saw Sully or Frederick pick up their comrades out of the mud by the scruff of their neck to ride behind them. Basilio would clap soldiers dragging their feet upon the back and, having been on the receiving end of such encouragement once, Haura definitely quickened her feet to avoid his concern. Everyone was understandably exhausted, but with the exalt and the pegasus knights' death looming over them, mere weariness turned into hopelessness and weakening resolve. And their leader, whom they loved and looked to beyond all else, had only a blacker mood to offer them. And Haura was hardly unaffected by the feeling of despair that permeated the air.
"...is there something else, Haura?" Chrom asked after he realized she had not said a word in the last couple moments. Took him a while too, as he had turned his head back to the horizon again.
Well, enough was enough. Haura lost her patience all at once. "By gods, if we're going to get out of here alive, we need you to pay attention. Can't you see the army right in front of your eyes? So put some effort into being our leader!" she snapped.
As her words hung in the air, Haura blanched. Chrom stopped moving and stared at her in shock. The Shepards around them parted awkwardly and Haura could see, out of the corner of her eye, that Nowi had been upset and started crying. Some part of her was defensive, because everything she said had been truth. But, the guilt at having yelled at a broken man and her friend quickly overpowered her own pride. She could not meet his eyes anymore. Apparently all she was suited for was to be his tactician, because Haura knew now she was a terrible friend.
"...I'm sorry, Haura. I've been a poor leader. Everyone is still risking their lives and I repaid them with weakness." Chrom said and the words sounded like poison to Haura's ears. He clapped her shoulder and his arm had none of the confident strength Haura realized she had leaned on. "I'll go speak with Basilio. Thank you for your help, my friend."
That felt like a slap to the face and Haura nodded numbly. "I'll talk to Gaius and the rest of the scouts." she muttered.
Chrom thanked her again and then hurried to catch Basilio whose long strides had placed him at the front of his ranks. Haura began to march again, trying to avoid the looks for the Shepards around her.
"You okay, Haura?" Stahl called down from his horse. Lissa rode tandem with him and she had ducked her head low under the hood of her cloak. From the occasional shaking of her hunched shoulders, Haura could tell Lissa had clearly not stopped crying since they left the battlefield.
"Don't worry about me. I need to find Gaius." Haura said as she also pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. Her hood no longer shielded her face from the rain as it had been soaked through a while ago. Haura tugged it even lower to hide her tear-filled eyes. Crying was a luxury she did not deserve and so she hid it in shame with gritted teeth.
She pushed her way through the lines to Gaius' position. The possibility of ambush was a legitimate fear and even now she could feel the sightlines of invisible archers on her back. Her fingers tightened their grip on her coat and she could feel them shake. What she needed to do now was get everyone safely to Regna Ferox as soon as possible.
Right, because the tactician whose plans led to the death of Emmeryn and Phila and so many others should clearly be responsible for all their survivals. She was the one that forced Chrom to abandon his sister's body, so it could be trumped up like a perverse puppet. If she was not completely sure that Chrom had no room in his body for other emotions besides hollowing despair, she would be sure he must hate her.
Where was Emmeryn's peace to be found now? And what if they all died here, in the muck, with her hand trying to reach for him, but with nothing to offer? Haura had thought she had learned her lesson in arrogance in Ylisstol, when she stood over Kellam's grave. The weight of a human life within her care, while heavy when she killed enemy soldiers and robbed Plegian mothers of their children, became nearly unbearable when she watched a comrade die by her side. Haura acknowledged the prejudice, of how human life lost on her side of the war was a tragedy and, on the other side, a victory. It did not lessen the many nights she woke up, slumped over her books, in cold sweat.
Still, as Chrom's praise had flowed too freely and the Shepards gave her warm arms and ruffled hair to return to in victory, perhaps she had not learned her lesson at all. And if she had no tactics that could save Emmeryn, she had become worse than a useless asset. She had been the one to condemn all of them to their deaths.
All these thoughts cycled violently in her head and Haura did not dare voice a single one of them out loud. When Sumia punched Chrom in the sunny Ylissean field, what felt like an eternity ago, she had done exactly what Haura did now. And she had been right- the morale of the army had to be safeguarded even if it was built on a lie. The difference between a soldier with or without hope was their life. Haura was learning the importance of deceit in the name of strategy.
"Gaius!" Haura called and the thief slipped over to her side.
"Hey, Bubbles, you want a sweet?" Gaius said. Haura was thrown for a loop and only gaped at him for a bit. "Seriously. Offer of the lifetime. Going once…"
"You're offering me some of your beloved candy? Is this charity? Was I shot down by an archer and I hadn't realized I entered some higher plane of existence where Gaius gives me candy?" Haura said.
"Hey, I share my candy. Just not my secret stash. But in this rain, all the lollies are gonna melt and I thought putting five in my mouth at once would be a little excessive, even for me. Look, I'll give you a bear shaped one. I know how you like bears." He said and waved the pink lollypop that looked like a teddy bear's head in her face.
"I like bear meat. There's a difference. And not now, Gaius, we're going to march straight into an ambush. I need to strategize and I cannot do that with a lollypop in my- mmph!"
Gaius had shoved the lollypop in her mouth as she was speaking. Even as Haura glared at him, he only gave her a cheeky grin. "Come on, admit you like it."
When she tasted what was in her mouth, Haura conceded sweet was not bad and shifted it into her cheek so she could talk. "Don't ever do that again."
"You're welcome, Bubbles. Listen, I know you can't just lighten up with what happened today, but try to not be so hard on yourself, yeah? You've been glowering at everyone all afternoon. Even Blue was scared silly by you."
Haura exhaled loudly through her nose before pulling off her hood. It had started to feel suffocating. Her red-rimmed eyes met Gaius'. "I'm hardly the one who needs comforting right now- maybe you can kiss Chrom's wounds better instead. Naga knows how I just excel at making everyone feel worse. I'll stick to my maps, thank you very much."
"Eh, kissing nobilities' ass was never my calling, even if it is Blue. And don't sweat it. I...don't feel too great right now either." And Haura remembered that Gaius was part of Emmeryn's assassination team just several battles ago. "But if there is anything I learned as a thief is that it usually gets better after a couple sunrises. Just gotta stay alive until then."
Haura nodded slowly and Gaius ruffled her hair. Matching gingers, they were. Her damp hair did not fluff easily. "Don't mess up my ponytail again." Haura grumbled.
"And when we get back to Ylisstol, you can buy me another lollypop. There's a great place by the fountain square-" There it was again, that implicit trust.
"Why don't I just kill a bear for you instead? A bear for a bear?" Haura said. Her smile felt rusty but she tried to mimic his, right down to the lollypop stick waggling in her mouth.
"Was that a joke? I am a miracle worker...but, er, please don't kill a bear for me."
Haura shoved his shoulder, the grin coming easier to her face now, and he laughed again. "Anyway, serious business." she said, "The Plegians will almost definitely use their border army to stage an ambush- either in the swampmire or between the valleys-"
"Not another word, Bubbles. Reconnaissance is a piece of cake. I'll get the scouts to check the mountain slope from the other side and I'll go down to the mire." Gaius reassured her.
"Stay safe. I'll buy you a whole cake, if you want, if- when we get out of this." Haura said, words garbled with the hard candy clacking against her teeth.
"You're a true friend. Love ya, Bubbles." Gaius gave her a pale-lipped grin, slapped her on the back, and dashed away into the rain-filled darkness. Her fond smile faded once he disappeared out of her sight. As she turned back to the army lines, the mantra thrummed in her heart- she just had to get through this day. She would apologize to Chrom, beg forgiveness from the Shepards, and cry in her room, but only if she got to the next sunrise.
The sucker left the stale tang of sugar in her mouth as she bit down on it and shattered it in her mouth.
A/N: Philia is "wanting for someone what one thinks good, for his sake and not for one's own, and being inclined, so far as one can, to do such things for him".
Necessary and noble, "no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods" (Aristotle).
Part of my series on the Greek four types of love (philia, storge, eros, and agape) to examine a tactician's ties with her army from all angles. Hope you enjoy!