He sits down with the paperwork.
He undoes the buckles that hold the knuckle in place and slips off the handheld weapon. Flexing his fingers, he picks up an onyx pen and twists it open. The nib comes out smoothly, ready to be put on paper.
He weighs it on his hand for a while, feeling the cold material become lukewarm in his palm. He curls his calloused fingers around it until he's ready to start writing with it, but something holds him back.
As always, he's reluctant to do the paperwork. He has to write out lengths and lengths of words, all one after another until they fill the rolls and rolls of paper; it's tedious, it's boring, and he'd rather spend his time training with the newbies or strike down wooden dummies on his own, but he couldn't have fun forever.
Neinheart used to bother him about it constantly. He'd tell the Striker off for not doing his job as a Knight Commander, then pull out that notebook of his and bring Hawkeye's salary down until the man finished all his paperwork properly. Hawkeye would whine about paperwork not being his style, but Neinheart would have none of it – it would be on his desk on a certain hour, and if it wasn't, then too bad.
Hawkeye longingly wonders if he slacks off on purpose, Neinheart might wake up and scold him for it.
He flips the pen in his hands a few times casually, until he pulls the bedside table next to him, places the paperwork that was laid on his lap onto the wooden surface, and starts working. There was an entire pile of it, waiting to be finished, but Hawkeye knows that if he works through them one by one without panicking, he'll be able to finish it without a problem.
Words pour out in the form of black ink in the pen onto the paper; they form lines, sentences, paragraphs and an entire report as the Striker continues to work. He finishes one report, and then starts onto another; he fills out one form requesting for more beginners' potions that they hand out to the Noblesse, signs his name with a flourish, and then does the same for the training equipment, and finally puts the two onto a pile where he puts down other request forms.
He's never filled those kinds of request forms out before. Neinheart had always done a proper job of making sure that everything was running smoothly in Ereve so that all the training equipment and potions were in place and were never lacking, that Hawkeye never felt the need to find the proper documents and fill them in. Neinheart was the one who always made sure that the entire island functioned properly as the training grounds of the Noblesse.
Neinheart had always been the one who kept the Cygnus Knights together as a functional group too, thinks Hawkeye as he leans back on his chair and tilts it at an angle. He broke up fights between Mihile and Eckhart, because Rhinne knows that they fought too much. He requested new books for Oz, because handling mana was a difficult process and Oz could always use an extra piece of knowledge or two. He let Irena travel to wherever she preferred to in her free time, because he acknowledged that Irena needed her own space and freedom sometimes, and trained the Noblesse when the commanding Wind Breaker was absent.
And Hawkeye knows that Neinheart tried so hard to keep him under control, too. He was a sailor on his own ship back then and had been the most troublesome of the lot; they were pirates, and they pillaged and fought and just generally caused trouble.
Then Neinheart came, smashed the ship to pieces with the most powerful piece of magic that Hawkeye had ever seen, and asked them what the hell they thought they were doing.
"Get up," Hawkeye recalls Neinheart's words. "You're going to be working for the Empress. Your powers are impressive, I'll give you that. I want you to use your strength for something good. Come with me," Neinheart had offered. "Come to Ereve and fight for this world."
And he came. Honestly, it was fun. Training the new kids was always fun. Fighting for the Empress was also fun. But the paperwork, Hawkeye could do without. He doesn't do paperwork.
He never does paperwork.
But here he was, holding Neinheart's favorite pen in his hand, a pile of finished work to the side. He does his own paperwork now, and then he does Neinheart's too. His hand feels like it's going to break from continuous writing and he wonders how Neinheart does it every day. No human being should be able to go through that much paperwork in one day. It just wasn't natural.
But Neinheart did manage. And because he managed, the Cygnus Knights had been able to come so far.
It was never Hawkeye. Hawkeye just put on the knuckles and smashed things. He wasn't Neinheart. He wasn't supposed to do Neinheart's paperwork. Neinheart wasn't supposed to be lying there.
"Hey," Hawkeye says finally, setting the last piece of paper onto the finished pile. "I finished my work today. Can I go and train with some of the new Strikers?"
He doesn't expect an answer. To be honest, he doesn't know what he's expecting at all.
Silently, he puts the pen down and gathers up the finished reports and filled out forms, redoes the knuckle and sweeps out of the room.
At the doorway, he looks back. Neinheart is lying in bed, looking more like a ghost than anything else in the world. The sunlight streaming through the windows is warm, but at the moment, the angle that it hits the tactician is more like a cold, unforgiving spotlight than anything else. It only seems to make his face look paler, Hawkeye thinks.
"Wake up, Neinheart," he mutters. "This isn't like you."
Neinheart doesn't even stir.
Mihile always shines his armor before going to report to Neinheart. Rhinne knows why he does it; perhaps it was to make himself more suitable to the eye in front of the tactician's sharp eyes, to live up to Neinheart's high standards. He remembers the way that the tactician would scoff at the dirt covering his knees – and all over the rest of himself, really – whenever he returned from training on a particular day.
This time is not an exception.
He takes apart his armor piece by piece. He starts with the hands first, cleans the grime and rust that might be forming on the metal and then opens a bottle of oil. Dampening the cloth with the liquid, Mihile rubs it on the alloy to make the joints move more smoothly. The oil will keep off things from sticking to it and he pays attention to the tiny spots that he might have missed the last time.
Then he takes off his chest piece, and cleans it. The arms and the shoulder parts are next, and then he moves onto the legs and finally the foot piece. He cleans them and oils the joints, just as Neinheart taught him to do so all those years ago.
When he is done and his armor is glaringly reflecting the sunlight in his eyes, he puts it back on, redoes the clasps and buckles until he is ready to go to war. To a fight.
To make a report.
He marches to where Neinheart is. He nods to the Noblesse along the way, acknowledging them for not neglecting their training until they are fit to carry out missions and earn the title of a proper knight. Years ago, he had been the same as them, carrying wooden swords and smashing them onto dummies in order to strengthen himself. Neinheart had been watching him; he had time back then, when things weren't so complicated and he had more leisure time than he does now.
Mihile almost wants to laugh at the irony. Perhaps the situation that the tactician was currently in was to make up for all those hours that he never got to relax.
He opens the door, salutes his superior with his right hand as he had always done. He waits for the tactician to curtly nod and acknowledge his presence, but when he doesn't, Mihile starts with his report anyway.
"The Black Wing in Edelstein has been reported to be focusing on some other type of energy; not those from Rue, but something else. The Resistance is reporting back to the Alliance whenever they can, but the Black Wings have set a tighter watch on our allies…"
He does this for several minutes; listing off what the tactician might find important. The news from the Alliance, reports about the new actions of the Black Mage and his commanders, the new recruits of the Cygnus Knights and how their training is proceeding.
At the end of the report, Mihile stares at Neinheart, hoping to find a response to his monologue.
He finds none. Neinheart is still lying on the bed, dead to the world. The IV machine still has bags hanging all over him, one full of blood and the other full of water, and one that had something else that Claudine said was necessary but Mihile, being the brawn and no brains like he always was, never had the brain capacity to understand.
He wants to help. Mihile doesn't understand a lot of the things in the world, but he is smart enough to know that Neinheart is in between the states of being alive and dead. Dead, but alive, in a magically induced coma that spread out over the tactician's body when Hilla struck her staff through him and forced her own, twisted mana to mingle with Neinheart's own. He understands that Neinheart's soul is trapped within his own body, unable to die but also unable to put itself together enough for him to regain consciousness.
If he could, he'd go straight into Neinheart's head and pull him out of there. If he could use force, his light, in any way that he could to get Neinheart back on his feet, he would.
If he was truly a Soul Master like his title implied, then he'd be able to guide Neinheart back to them, who were all waiting his return.
But he can't.
And it has never made him feel more useless.
So he salutes again, his hand clacking against the head piece that he always wears, trying not to remember how it was Neinheart himself that measured the circumference of his head, tightened the piece of metal, and then fitted it around his bangs and hair.
His heart feels so heavy and even with all his power and strength, he can't help but feel tired as it becomes a dead weight that drags him down. All brawns and no brains, indeed. He didn't even have the brawns to force himself to be steady as he drags his unwilling feet out of the medical bay.
Flowers were beautiful, but they also died out every day.
She and the Empress would walk on the small fields of Ereve amongst the Tinos, gathering small flowers here and there. They never take too many; they only take enough to fill a vase once, then leave the rest for tomorrow, for later days.
Secretly, the Wind Breaker hates these walks. Irena can't help but hope that they wouldn't have to take a walk tomorrow.
But the Empress wants to do something to help him, so picking flowers it was. The Empress isn't allowed to see him; the Alliance is worried that it might deter her from the task of helping them in achieving their goal. Which in this case, is to defeat the Black Mage.
So Irena continues to take the young Empress out on pointless walks to collect flowers. At the end of every walk, Cygnus would ask the Wind Archer several questions about Neinheart.
"Is he alright?"
"Has he woken yet?"
"Please send my regards to him, Irena."
Irena swears that she can feel her heart breaking.
She walks in the medical bay and opens the curtains to reveal the golden sunshine that streamed through the windows. Tiny flecks of dust float through the air that Irena blows away with a wave of her hand. The dust particles evade her hand and set themselves gently back onto the unconscious person on the bed.
She takes the vase full of wilting flowers outside. She dumps those into the trash can next to the door, then pours the water out of the vase and onto the earthen ground where it would water the unkempt patch of dirt. Weeds would grow there and Neinheart would chide them for letting them being careless, but for now, Irena doesn't really care.
Walking back inside, she notices that the IV bag that was previously full of blood is now gone. Perhaps he had finally made up for the blood loss and they decided that it was okay to let his body sustain itself.
She places the fresh flowers in the vase that she filled with new, clean water. Sighing, she sets the vase back onto the bedside table and smoothes out her green, flowing top.
"When will you wake up, Tactician Neinheart?" she asks softly. She doesn't expect an answer. Perhaps she never did.
She had liked him, had an immature crush on him when she first arrived on the Holy Island. Because while he was young as she was, he was commanding, confident, intelligent, and full of justice, a quality that she admired so much.
Because he was a selfless man that gave everything up for the world, and she admired that. Because she too, was willing to throw herself into the fray in order to make up for the world that was full of injustice. Because she was willing to do so. Is willing to do so.
When she dropped hints of her crush around him, he ignored them until he finally told her that he was flattered, but would very much like to keep their relationship as a superior and officer under his command.
They never spoke of the incident since.
But perhaps some of those sentiments were finally starting to leak out again; not as a person who loves another romantically, but as a fellow coworker and friend. And she worries, worries that she might never be able to see those blue eyes open again.
When Claudine comes the next day to check on Neinheart, the doctor straightens her back and faces the Empress.
"I'm afraid that you might have to consider taking him off life support," the Edelstein doctor says.
Irena's heart sinks.
"No," she hisses out, even before the Empress can open – can even consider opening – her mouth. The Wind Breaker can feel the winds of Ereve changing at her fury, the gentle breeze turning into a gale and the force of it is enough to send Claudine's pretty little hat tumbling across the meeting hall.
"You will not," she chokes out, and oh gods, she's crying. Because she might never see those blue eyes open again; because if they take him off life support, she knows she'll never see those blue eyes again. "You won't dare."
Claudine looks exasperated, and she starts to list off how Neinheart may never regain consciousness, but Irena will not listen. While she is well aware that Claudine is suggesting as a doctor what is best for him, a twisted part of her is angry at the Resistance member because she thinks that Claudine is just telling them off for not keeping their promise to assist Edelstein that day. She grabs the Empress's hand, and she takes her to the medical bay where Neinheart is laying stationary, despite all the warnings that the Alliance has given them.
And Cygnus sees; and she weeps.
Irena must stay strong for the Empress; it is not in her job description to break down and cry, but this time, perhaps Neinheart will forgive her for doing so. So she kneels down next to the young girl, puts her arms around the golden curls, and cries with her.
When she first set her foot on Ereve, one of the first places that Neinheart immediately whisked her off to was the great library.
It was a vast place, filled with thousands of volumes of books; encyclopedias of all types were neatly stacked on the shelves of one bookcase; novels filled another, but most of the books in the library were dedicated to the studies of magic and ways to use the mana in a way that they would not hurt the user.
"Proper channeling of the mana," she recalls Neinheart's words clearly as he had just spoken. "is important. You're letting your mana run too freely and too accordingly to your emotional changes. Take a hold of it and do not let it rule over you."
So she spent a lot of time at the library, reading up on how to manage her magic. She had spent so many years as a clumsy magician who never knew how to control her powers, but she now has the resources to find out how to fix her mistakes. She reads up on so many research papers that many of the Noblesse often nickname her as the bookworm of Ereve, but she knows that Neinheart has gone over the entire library at least five times in his first year at the Holy Island. At least, that was what the Empress had said.
So it really doesn't matter what book she picks out, because the chances are, Neinheart would already have read it five or six times before. But nevertheless, she looks over at the titles of the books carefully, then picks a book that she thinks Neinheart might like, and holding it tightly to her chest, she rushes back to Neinheart.
The realization that she doesn't really know what books that Neinheart likes, stings very much. Of course, Neinheart's nose was always in one book or the other, but they were always research papers, encyclopedias or atlases. And Oz knows that Neinheart is not that boring of a person to actually like those things. What kind of stories did he like? Science fiction? Real life stories? Romance? Mystery?
She doesn't know.
She really doesn't know Neinheart enough.
And now she might never know.
Tears prickling at the corner of her eyes, she rushes into the sick bay. He's still laying there, on life support. He is unmoving, still too pale, his silvery blue hair untied and spread on the bed sheet. She is not used to this Neinheart. He is too still, too quiet, too…
Dead.
She may be an expert on mana, but she is clueless on what to do. Hilla's magic is powerful and is blackened; when she forced it into Neinheart, it coursed through his body and tainted the tactician's own mana until it became poison. Neinheart may have created a powerful enough shockwave that forced Hilla flying off the Island of Ereve seconds afterwards, but his healing powers were useless. His own body rejected his magic.
It rejected everyone's magic. Bishops who responded to Ereve's desperate call were useless because their healing magic continued to reopen his wounds. Claudine, who arrived with the Resistance minutes later, managed to save his life by resorting to old school methods; she stitched the gaping wounds back together and managed to save him. But Hilla's magic had done its job and by then, Neinheart was comatose from blood loss and the poisonous mana within him.
He was dead to the world ever since.
Her heart leaps back into her throat as she thinks about what happened that day and she swallows to force the unwelcoming intruder back into deep inside herself. Irena must have come by earlier, as she notes the freshness of the flower petals in the vase.
She pulls over a chair and winces as it screeches against the stone floor. Unconsciously, she looks over at Neinheart, as if he might awaken and berate her for all the noise.
But he doesn't.
He doesn't, so she silently sits down and props open the book on her lap. Sighing, she turns to the first page and starts reading.
Somewhere before her life in Ereve, she heard someone tell her that even comatose patients can hear and be aware of what was going around them. Oz is not sure of what to make of this piece of information. Perhaps it's not even true. She hoped that she would never get the chance to even find out if it was, because that would mean that someone she knew would be in that kind of state.
But here she was, reading a book to the unconscious Neinheart, wishing that those words that she heard long ago was indeed true; she read silently, ignoring the tears dripping down her cheeks and onto the pages, wetting the paper and blurring the ink.
"To die, to sleep - To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come..."
She'd be punished for ruining the book later, she knew that. Neinheart would give her such a scolding while knocking off her salary down a couple notches. For now, she whispers the words to her mentor and superior, hoping that her words would reach him; wherever he currently was.
If any of the Night Walkers see their commanding knight slip into the medical building during their night shift, they dare not comment.
Neinheart's mattress sinks slightly as another, heavier weight settles on the edge of the bed. For a moment, Eckhart wonders if he imagined a finger twitch; but then he blinks and Neinheart's hand is perfectly still as it had been before.
Eckhart's mask slips off in the dark. There's no one to hide from in this room and Neinheart had always been able to see through him anyways, so the black and white mask that he wears to hide his facial expression seems pointless in this situation. He takes the strings that hold the mask in place, and pulls until the knot becomes undone. The porcelain mask clatters noisily to the floor.
For a moment, there is silence.
"Your name came up in the Alliance meeting today," he starts abruptly. All of Ereve knows that Mihile regularly reports back to Neinheart even though the comatose man doesn't respond. Mihile probably told Neinheart everything that happened at the meeting already, but that doesn't stop Eckhart from telling the man himself.
"It came up quite frequently too. The Alliance found out that we let the Empress see you. They weren't too happy, but Irena shot them down. She was quite scary, if I say so myself."
He doesn't mention how Irena burst out into tears during the meeting, the wind gradually becoming sharper and stronger until it brought a storm cloud over their heads. He doesn't mention how Oz wrapped an arm around Cygnus while papers on the stone tabletop burst into fire as she let her emotions loose for the first time in a long while. He doesn't mention how Mihile stood up strong and powerful and unyielding, rare light from the flashing lightning bolts glinting dangerously off his armor with his hand on the hilt of his sword, snarling at the less understanding members of the Alliance and daring them to do anything. He doesn't mention how Hawkeye smashed his fist covered with iron knuckles onto the table, cracking the stone beneath his hand, warning Claudine the doctor – not Claudine the Resistance member who hated the Cygnus Knights – who brought up the subject of taking their tactician off life support again.
He doesn't mention that when Jin of Thieves agreed with Claudine – because Jin has seen many deaths throughout his lifetime as the Master Thief, because Jin has seen too many deaths just like Neinheart's –, he himself had leapt down from the treetop with his hands on his throwing knives. He doesn't mention that at that moment, he wished that he could give everything that he had in order to bring Neinheart back to the living world, anything to have Neinheart who can see through him no matter what lies he spews out about his condition and feelings.
Because that had happened before.
And now Eckhart is faced with an actual situation where he might never be able to be truthful in front of someone again, because Neinheart is dying, life vitals fading away as he continues to sleep on and on. And it makes him so afraid.
It was luck that Neinheart found him again just when he buried his mentor; even Neinheart acknowledges that. But Neinheart didn't have to hold him as the rain poured down on their faces, wetting the newly upturned soil that soaked the ground as maggots would eat away at his mentor's carcass. Neinheart didn't have to.
But he did.
And Eckhart is afraid that he wouldn't be able to do the same for the tactician, because nothing that he can do will be able to bring Neinheart back. It's up to Neinheart and Neinheart himself to wake up, to open those eyes and greet everyone with a cold glare and pay cuts.
He wishes that he could help.
He wishes that he could be a better friend.
But that's not a possibility right now because all he can do is grab hold of Neinheart's hand, feel his pulse on the thin wrist, and hope for some other signs of life or consciousness from it. He listens, he waits, but nothing happens.
"Oh, Neinheart," he whispers, voice cracking, because there are tears that are pouring down his cheeks and wetting the white hand that he clutches, and he is afraid.
He is so very afraid of being alone again.
She didn't argue when they first told her that she couldn't see him. If it was for the Maple World, she was willing to do what was right.
But ever since Irena had gotten hold of her hand and pulled her into the medical bay and she had a good look at her most trusted advisor and right-hand man, she couldn't help but burst into tears and wish that perhaps, if she hadn't known, it would have been better.
Neinheart would tell her off, surely. The more information that they had, the better. It was a matter of finding out what information was relevant and more important than the others. Neinheart was good at doing that; his brain was practically one gigantic information databank, always shoving things in but also managing to find space for new stuff.
Cygnus never had the talent for that.
She visits him regularly now, holds the vase while Irena replaces the flowers, although she leaves the room whenever Mihile comes in though, because she has the feeling that the Soul Master wants to be alone for his reports. But she sits and listens when Oz reads to him.
Oz was right next to her now, actually. Oz would normally stumble over her words but she reads slowly and carefully, trying not to make a mistake as the afternoon sun slowly makes its way to the west. The shadows shifts until half of Neinheart's face is covered by them, and while it was a little early, Cygnus raises her hand and switches on the lamp nearby. Immediately, Neinheart's face is illuminated by the glow of the device.
They can see him breathe in slowly, his chest rising by just a little bit. It's the only sign that tells them that he's still alive, and Cygnus lays her hand softly over his left. Oz shifts slightly in her seat but doesn't stop reading.
When will you wake, Neinheart?
Will you ever come back to us?
Will you ever come back to me?
She remembers the young man that visited her house and bluntly told her that she could change the world; she remembers the man that gave her the chance to come away and save it, if she was willing to do so.
Of course she was. She just wasn't sure if she was cut out for the responsibility that would settle on her shoulders if she accepted.
He understood. So he trained her, taught her and shaped her into the Empress of the Maple World that she was today. He taught her not to be afraid.
But perhaps he didn't do a good job of it, because she is so scared now, that she'll lose one of the closest persons that she dares to call a family. Because she was helpless when her mother died, and she was helpless when her father died, and now she is helpless as Neinheart sleeps on.
The clock continues to tick, and Oz continues to read.
"Please wake up," she whispers, gently cradling his hand in hers, and wills it to move.
A finger twitches.
With a sharp intake of breath, she scrambles up from where she had been lying down at Neinheart's side and lets go of Neinheart's hand. Oz looks up, startled from her sudden movement, but Cygnus shakes her head.
"I felt his finger move," the young Empress says, and Oz's eyes widen. The Flame Wizard closes her books dumbly and kneels down next to Cygnus, and they both fix their eyes onto the tactician's stationary hand, hoping that what Cygnus felt wasn't just her imagination.
The hand twitches.
Oz and Cygnus glance at each other, and Cygnus knows for sure that she wasn't hallucinating this time. And they're definitely not mistaking the changing lines on the monitor, nor the more definite rise and fall of his chest either, and they are most certainly not imagining a groan that they hear from the waking man.
Medical knights swarm him, finally able to take him off life support without killing their tactician, and they push Oz and Cygnus outside; they numbly comply and let the knights do their job, but not before Cygnus turns at the doorway and sees the long eyelashes flutter and the cobalt eyes that had been hidden for a month finally reappear as the lids crack open.
They greet the other knights outside. Mihile pushes his way forward, as does the other commanding knights, and they swarm Oz and Cygnus with questions. Oz's eyes shine brightly with tears and Cygnus imagines that hers must look the same and she can't help but let them fall rolling down her face.
"He's awake," she chokes out, and Hawkeye is the first to respond.
"Hell yeah!" he yells, pumping his fists in the air. Mihile immediately scolds him for his misconduct of language in front of her, but she can see the Soul Master's face radiant with happiness and glee.
Irena scrambles forward and pulls her and Oz into an embrace. Over her shoulders, she can see Eckhart pull away his mask and wipe furiously at his eyes, and not even Hawkeye feels evil enough to tease him for it. With her free hand, she pulls at the Night Walker's black and golden cloak until he too, is being hugged by Irena and Oz and herself. Hawkeye lets out a bark of laughter and throws himself into the fray, and Mihile hesitates slightly but when he joins them afterwards, his armor is securing them in his embrace and nothing feels more safe.
He was awake.
Everything was going to be alright.
They're laughing.
Claudine supposes that she should be happy for them. They've spent a month worrying over a lifeless body and he's back now, so they're definitely in a mood for celebrating.
She supposes that she should be happy, too. After all, he was the first patient of hers that came back from being comatose. All of the other comatose patients that she's treated had to be removed from life support after a week.
She pulled the plugs with her own hands; her own students, her fellow Resistance members, all dead because she, as their doctor, decided that letting them suffer was not worth it.
But he's alive, and he's different. His friends have fought with her to keep him alive, and now they're being awarded. They can see him smile gently, practice holding things in his hands after being unable to do so for a whole month, and help him get back on his feet whenever he stumbles.
She should be happy.
Instead, she feels guilty, because she was the one who tried to take that happiness away from them. It was her job as a doctor, she kept reminding herself, but to see him stand up again, to hear his voice – never mind that it's quiet and hoarse after a month of not being used – and to see him live –
She feels guilty.
When she set her foot back on Ereve for a proper inspection after receiving the news that the tactician had finally awoken at last, she expected the biggest "I told you so!" in her life. Instead, she found people crowding at the edges of his bed, nearly squeezing the barely returned life out of the man.
It was very hard to concentrate when five fully grown adults – and one Empress of the Maple World – were standing behind her back, tears shining in most of their eyes with stupid grins that stretched out from ear to ear.
She feels guilty, because she can't help but remember all those people that she had to take off life support when there weren't enough beds in the medical facility down in the underground headquarters. She feels guilty because of the fact that they were once students that she herself taught in the said headquarters, friends that she joked with, families of people in the town that she lived in. She feels guilty for all the funerals that she attended that maybe she wouldn't have had to if she continued to let them live.
She feels guilty every time a family member shakes his or her head and tells her that it wasn't her fault, – their son, their daughter, their wife, their husband, their cousin, their family, their goddamned family – but they're always crying while their tears splash down their cheeks.
She feels so guilty.
She hears a sudden clacking noise behind her; wheeling around, she finds that the silvery blue haired tactician had walked up to her, supported by a pair of crutches that he uses to find his balance. A little ways behind him, a worried Chief Commander of the Soul Masters hovers by, in order to catch the thin man should his grip on the crutches fail.
His body was still weak. Muscles had deteriorated from a month of disuse and had to be built up again in order for him to continue his life. Claudine herself had assigned him crutches when she gave him his check up; she estimates that he'll be living with them for a while until he gets the hang of walking again.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Tactician Neinheart?"
The words sound so formal falling from her lips. Neinheart smiles softly, unlike the cold smirks that he used to give her during the Alliance meetings.
"I wanted to say thank you," he says, and Claudine feels like her world is falling down, down, into a cold, pitch-black spiral.
She feels so guilty.
"For what, exactly?" she hears herself ask.
"The others told me that you saved my life," Neinheart says, and he shifts his weight onto the other crutch, leaning on it slightly. "They said that you stitched my wounds together and saved me when Hilla attacked, and afterwards you continued to keep me alive."
"If you really listened to the others, you'll know that's not quite true," says Claudine. "I was going to take you off life support. Your other… people in the Cygnus Knights argued against me. They were the ones that kept you alive, not I."
"You listened to them," says Neinheart. "Therefore you let me live."
"Let you live," she repeats, and she shakes her head. She can feel tears welling up behind her eyelids and something hot bubbling in her throat, and she fights hard to keep both under control.
Was it guilt? Or was it gladness?
"You are my first comatose patient that survived," she chokes out finally, and Neinheart shifts again. She waits until he becomes comfortable with his new position, and then she continues. "All the others that I've treated had to die. I carried out the procedures myself. They were all Resistance members who were in dangerous situations, and I couldn't continue to let them live because we couldn't afford to have our medical bay filled with so many unconscious people. We were short on supplies and time; I learned to say goodbye quickly enough."
Neinheart listens quietly.
"I don't know, Tactician Neinheart. I feel guilty for killing them but letting you survive. I should be glad that you lived, but a part of me doesn't and I… I feel like I'm a terrible person who's not fit to be a doctor."
She does. She really does.
"You're not," Neinheart says softly. Claudine looks up. "You decided upon what you thought was the most efficient, due to your knowledge and past experience. Trust me Claudine, when I say that I would have done the same had I been in your position. You did what you thought was right."
"It doesn't make killing people right."
"You're a doctor."
"Who kills people."
"And yet you saved me," he says, a small sigh escaping from his lips. "Therefore, no matter what you say, I will not take back my gratitude. My thanks will still stand."
He bows as low as he can with his crutches, and he looks so ridiculous that even Claudine, wallowing in self guilt and pity, barely manages to hide a hiccup of laughter. She rushes forward to help him straighten himself up when his arm muscles prove to be too weak yet, and then hands him over to Mihile.
"Take good care of him," she whispers to the Soul Master.
"We will," the Knight Commander whispers back, and he and his tactician move back towards where the others are. Claudine sees the red Knight Commander and the young Empress bound forwards and hug Neinheart again and again, while the green Knight Commander laughs her flowery laugh and Claudine thinks that the wind has never felt so sweeter; the orange haired Striker jokes with the Soul Master as he helps the tactician into a chair, and a black Night Walker hovers nearby anxiously, as if he's expecting his friend to collapse any moment.
They look so happy, and Claudine can't help but feel proud, even though it wasn't her that brought Neinheart out of the coma.
But perhaps, if Neinheart has given her his gratitude, maybe she might be able to snatch a little pride away from the guilt and bury the bundle of negative emotions deep inside her. Perhaps she'd let the happiness that enervates from the little group of Cygnus Knights right there, and let it warm her up, even if it was just for a little while.
The wind changes its direction. It is now blowing towards her, and looking back on the odd little group, she sees that they're all looking in her direction. Even from this distance, she can see stupid smiles on their faces, and Neinheart's smile is the brightest that she'd seen from anyone for a long, long time.
They wave towards her, and Claudine thinks that she can hear the wind whisper 'thank you' in her ear. She smiles herself, letting the happy emotion bubble up within her until she feels like she's going to burst, and then raises her arm and waves them back.
"Thank you, Neinheart," she says, perhaps more to herself than to the intended receiver of the message. "Thank you for pulling through."
And all was well.