Author's note: #Mannasfault
Farina knew this day would come. She'd hoped it wouldn't, hoped he'd never find out, but one night as she was keeping watch, resting against a tree and holding her lance, he sought her out and she knew she was in trouble.
"Lord Hector," she greeted innocently as he approached. He ignored her, putting an arm against the tree above her head and leaning in that careless way he had: not close enough to be scandalous, but far closer than Lord Eliwood or Kent or even Sain would stand. It made her fingers shake a little, and she closed them harder around the lance. "What brings you here this late?"
"My sources tell me," he said, as innocently as she had, "that twenty thousand gold is not standard fare for an Ilian mercenary."
"Well," she said, edging a step away, around the trunk, "I'm not your average Ilian mercenary."
"No," he agreed as he followed a step, "you must think yourself to be worth five time that much."
"Well, these battles are rather high-risk." A step away.
"I asked around, a little." A step closer. "Apparently someone of your rank is only worth four thousand."
"Well, one should never put a price on a human being and all that—" She tried to run to the other side of the trunk but he'd gone the opposite way and met her there, catching her arm. "Hey, let go of me!"
"I'm trying to talk to you," he said as he released her. She fought back the panic rising in her throat. "You swindled me!"
"But I'll earn it all eventually, you see!" she insisted. "Now if you'll excuse me, I should be moving on in my patrol."
It took every ounce of control she had not to burst into a run, and she walked from him as fast as she could while keeping her back straight.
"Farina!" he called after her, sounding annoyed.
"I'm a hard worker, Lord Hector!" she said over her shoulder. "Watch me go!"
He did, arms folded. She felt his eyes on her back until she was out of sight.
xxx
She was a hard worker; she hadn't been lying about that. The problem was that she had a propensity to overdo it.
She took all the sentry shifts she could manage, sparred with whoever was in lancing distance, scouted miles ahead and came back almost falling asleep in the saddle, threw herself into battles and got herself torn up pretty badly once or twice. She knew it would all turn out fine: she'd get healed, she'd sleep it off, and she'd start all over again. Farina of Ilia was an asset, yes indeed, and she had to show them how lucky they were to have her. She had to do her very best. Most of all, she had to make sure that Lord Hector felt like he got his money's worth, while she got to keep all that money.
The problem was that Hector caught on, and fast. He started telling her that she was working too hard, putting herself in harm's way too often, and that she should take it easy for a few days. She wasn't stupid enough to fall for that! As soon as she eased up, she knew, he'd accuse her of not working as hard as she could, and he'd ask for his gold back. She'd had other employers do the same even after she'd done the job, because she wasn't fast enough or thorough enough or got hurt and surely must not have been talented enough to begin with. Now she knew better. Now she worked herself into the ground, so that no one would have any excuse to say she wasn't worth the price.
Every time she accused him of it he denied it, but she'd expected that. Who would actually confess to trying to cheat her?
He'd always put his hand on her shoulder while he expressed his fake concern, too, like he knew it'd make her stomach twist. She didn't like that, how strong he felt, even though he never squeezed hard. She did like the shape of his hand, and the colour of his eyes before she made herself avoid them, but that felt even worse.
The day she'd fallen had been worst of all. It had been right in battle, and she'd killed her foe, but when she dismounted Murphy afterward to retrieve the javelin she'd thrown, her legs just buckled underneath her and her white spots spread in her vision until she was blinded. The next thing she knew Lord Hector himself was shaking her awake, and she wished she had just died.
Why him? Why couldn't it have been Fiora, as much as Farina would have hated to look weak in front of her? Why not Kent, even though his seriousness drove her crazy? Why did it have to be the only man with the power to take her money away, and why did she have to be lying on the ground like she was frail and lazy?
She'd tried to crawl away, tried to insist she wasn't done fighting, but he scooped her up in his arms like she weighed nothing at all. He spoke to her surprisingly gently, although she wasn't quite conscious enough to understand or remember what he said, and since she was too weak to struggle she allowed herself to lean her head against the crook of his neck. She liked how he smelled.
When she awoke hours later, in the healer's tent, he was there. She expected him to ask for his gold back right there on the spot, but he just insisted that he wanted to help her. He didn't mention money at all, not a single cent.
It didn't take her more than a moment to realize what he really wanted, after he left. She'd been through all this before, it just hadn't happened in such an embarrassing, roundabout way. If he wasn't going to take the gold back he was going to make her earn the rest of it in his tent. That was the unwritten warning that the older Ilian pegasus knights passed to the younger ones, conveyed through their hardened eyes and sharper reflexes. They could be warriors all they wanted, but at the end of the day they were women—poor women. Some refused their employers and went home with only half or so of what they were promised, some did what they had to, and some weren't even given a choice. Farina, for one, always gave in, always took the money. Always. It would've been too hard to go home and see Florina's thin little arms, otherwise.
And she knew she'd have to give in to Lord Hector eventually, more than she'd had to give in to anyone: why else would he have paid her so much money? Of course he'd demand her sooner or later, that was just life. What surprised her, and ashamed her, was having to admit to herself that she wouldn't deny him just to keep the salary. Sometimes at night during the past few weeks, before she fell asleep, she found herself thinking of the line of his jaw, the unruly strands of hair that refused to be swept back, the depth of his voice. What would he sound like, moaning? If she shut her eyes tightly enough, if she let herself be covered by the weight of him, could she make herself believe that he wasn't longing for a woman's body but for her, Farina, a loud-mouthed Ilian mercenary?
Those thoughts frightened her a little. To make things worse, his questions about her health redoubled; his hand landed on her shoulder more often. Sometimes he'd even wrap his hand around the back of her neck a little, now, which thrilled her just as much as it terrified her. The skin there was so sensitive. The bones beneath could snap so easily. All she could do was keep protesting, loudly: I'm fine, I can show you, I can do it, I can prove it. Just stay away from my gold.
xxx
One night she'd been on watch, and almost screamed when she turned and saw him coming up behind her, but she kept her composure as he stopped in front of her.
He didn't grab her. He didn't plunge his hands into her pockets.
"You already paid me," she insisted anyway, "I'll earn it, you'll see; don't take it away."
"Farina." He looked dead into her eyes and told her, "I am not after your money."
And then he kissed her. She knew what that meant.
She knew that if she resisted he was strong enough to force her, and she knew how that hurt. So she let him kiss. And the next night she appeared at his tent, long after dark, preferring to come to him and give before he came to her and took.
He surprised her because he seemed surprised, and because even after kissing in the darkness of his tent for a long, long time, his hands didn't wander. She allowed hers to, just a little, exploring his chest, enjoying it more than she knew she should. This was simply business. When his breath started to catch in his throat he stopped, and rested his brow against hers, and huskily told her,
"You should go."
What? She studied his face but it was too dark to see his eyes. "What do you want from me?"
"Please don't think me such a villain. I just want what you want."
She wanted her gold, all of it, so she kissed him again. This time he did not restrain himself. His cot was hard but didn't creak, at least, and he did odd things like kiss her during, or ask if it felt good. She couldn't answer, too embarrassed to say that it did, just a little bit: he was rough but not ruthless, eager but not voracious. He didn't hurt her, at least. At the end of it he even said her name, which startled her even as it sent a warm rush through her limbs. No one had ever, ever done that before.
When he'd caught his breath she slid out from under him and onto her knees on the floor, reaching for her dress. She felt his hand land on her shoulder, heard his voice ask in confusion,
"Where are you going?"
"Back to my tent," she said. It was over. She'd done what she needed to do. It was a small price to pay for the security of money.
"You won't stay?"
"Enough is enough for one night," she said, a little offended. Perhaps she should have expected this of an Ostian lord—feeling entitled to everything! "I know my salary's high but I need to sleep so I can fight, too."
"Salary?" She heard him shift as his hand left her shoulder, swinging his legs over the side of the cot, sounding outraged. "You—you can't tell me that. No. You can't."
"I'll earn my gold," she promised him. "I will. Don't take it."
"Bloody hell, Farina! I don't care about the gold! Didn't I just tell you that last night?"
She ducked her head a little, surprised at his anger. "You did, and I know what you meant with the kiss. Haven't I done enough for now? Just let me rest."
He was silent for a long time, long enough for her to slip her dress on, before he finally hissed, "You thought I meant to say you owed me this?"
"That's what most say. I'm not stupid, Lord Hector."
"No! No! That's not what I was telling you at all!"
"You are not taking my gold!"
"Damn the gold! I meant that I care about you!"
He threw it out so bluntly, so loudly, that she froze. "That…that doesn't…no, that's not true. You knew why I came here. You kissed me right away, without a word."
"Of course I did! You're all I've been thinking about! So you just show up at my tent and look me up and down and—of course I didn't ask questions! I thought it was what you wanted, if you were here! And when I thought maybe I should stop, when I tried to send you away, you—"
He cut himself off, abruptly, and she saw his silhouette drop its head into its hands. "It wasn't me you wanted. It was your money this entire time."
She wasn't sure why she felt guilty; he must have been lying. There was no way he'd feel for her, not a rich, important man like him. She had nothing to offer. She had no…no worth.
"This is…what I know," she said haltingly. "How I prove myself, if fighting doesn't work."
"You never had anything to prove to me." His voice trembled. Cautiously, she shifted closer and reached a hand up to his face, prying his own hands away, smoothing a thumb over his skin. She accidentally nudged the corner of his eye, smudging hot liquid out onto the ridge of his cheekbone—his eyes were watering. That didn't make sense. Maybe he was telling the truth, maybe she had hurt him, but that was nothing to cry over. Impossible for Hector, even, she'd thought.
"Is this what you've been through, before I hired you?" he asked her, in a tone she knew required no answer. "Look what's happened."
"I just…I assumed this is what you wanted."
"Because you won't trust me. You can't, can you. How many of your employers have taken advantage of you?"
"That is none of your business," she said sharply, withdrawing her hand. "I handle my own affairs and I do it well."
"You're used to this! I wish I could know their names; I wish I could find them and slay them. All of them."
She realized the tear she'd bumped out of him was from anger. Another did not fall. "There's no need for that, Lord Hector."
"There is. I wanted to care for you and they took that from me."
Again! So blatantly! "I don't understand. You shouldn't care for me, I'm just a mercenary."
"Don't say that," he insisted, grasping her wrist. "You're worth more than any mercenary."
"You know I'm not really worth twenty thousand gold."
"No, you're not—you're priceless. And nobody would let you know it. They've cheated both of us." He was silent for a long moment and so was she, at a complete loss for words. Finally he cursed in a mutter and released her wrist, which she drew to her chest, rubbing where his fingers had been. Priceless?
"I'm sorry," he said finally, "that this was all a…misunderstanding. I really am. It won't happen again, I swear."
We'll see, she thought. He'd already had her once and she was his mercenary for weeks to come still; she wasn't convinced that he wouldn't get any ideas.
He seemed to want to fill the awkward silence, and blurted out, "And I didn't want you to stay for—for anything more. I just thought it would be nice to hold you for a while."
It was hard to pull on her boots because she was shaking, certainly from fear, but there was something else, something she couldn't quite name. He couldn't want a thing like that. He wasn't allowed to, any more than she was. But silently, she agreed. It would be nice.
When she stood he looked so unlike himself, sitting on the edge of his cot with his shoulders tense and his head down. What if he really did care about her, she couldn't help but think. It made her feel sad for him, and upset with herself for assuming he was a rogue like all the rest, even if he absolutely acted like it with his temper, sometimes. Before she could stop herself she stroked his hair back, comfortingly, just once.
"Goodnight, Lord Hector," she said, and left.
xxx
He surprised her again by keeping to his word.
In the following weeks he never brought the night up, never looked at her with longing, and never kissed her again. In fact, although he'd gone right back to his usual troublesome questions, appearing at the most random times to make sure she was resting and hadn't gotten hurt in the last battle and wasn't overdoing it, he never touched her at all. She found herself starting to miss his hand on her shoulder: after everything she'd dealt with from other employers, after how hurt he'd sounded when he found out she only wanted to keep her gold, she was starting to think that maybe he'd always meant the gesture innocently after all.
The longer he went without touching her, the more she found herself watching him. When Lady Lyn admitted to missing her grandfather, Farina saw him put a friendly arm around her and half-hold her for a while. When Florina began to stammer too badly to speak while delivering a scouting report to him, he only smiled and took a step back and told her to take it easy, his voice softer than she'd ever heard it. When he wrestled playfully with a laughing Nils after they made camp one night, she saw a sudden glimpse of him as a father, and thought he might be a good one.
Gradually it became easier to breathe. She cracked a joke one morning at breakfast, he told her another at supper. He told her to keep her "damn horse" away from the food supplies and she had a lot more colourful things to say about his own appetite. She told him Lord Eliwood looked more lordly than he did, all straight-backed on his white horse, and he retorted that Fiora made a better mercenary than she did, because at least Fiora was quiet. They'd looked at each other for a long while, and she privately thought that the way he always had his chin lifted was pretty lordly in its own way, and she knew—she didn't know how, but she knew—that he thought how she spoke her mind was a good thing.
Once, just once, he sought her out when she was alone, on watch yet again.
"I just want you to know," he told her, "that my feelings haven't changed."
He didn't ask for a response and simply left, which she was grateful for, because she didn't know what it would be.
Her salary stayed hers, of course. She planned on hoarding her gold and using it to buy a place for herself and her sisters, somewhere nicer and warmer than Ilia could ever be: maybe by the sea in Badon, maybe out in Caelin's countryside. Sometimes she even considered Ostia, where she could see the castle rise up out of the city and remind herself that she'd once known its lord and he had been kind to her, and be grateful that he was stupid enough to pay her asking price.
But in the end, she couldn't hold on to it. There were always people who needed it more than she did. Dorcas was paid only a tenth of her salary and he his wife was ill. He was risking his neck to pay for her medicine, and since Farina could already pay for it, why shouldn't she? On top of that, Fiora was in debt from her last mission, gone horribly awry. If Farina knew anything it was that her older sister was crushed by guilt already, so why should she be crushed by debt, too?
She got rid of all of it, and when she had nothing that could be taken from her, she realized that—besides a lack of gold—she had nothing to fear anymore. Not Nergal, whom she knew they'd be confronting very soon. Not the deaths of her sisters, whom she'd seen grow so capable. And maybe not even Hector.
xxx
She waited until he was on sentry duty, then, and snuck up behind him as he paced, axe over his shoulder. The moon was almost full and rather bright, glinting off the edge of it. She grabbed his free arm, ducking under the elbow he jabbed behind him reflexively, and came up smiling.
"Lord Hector," she said, "you aren't doing your job very well if you let me sneak up on you like that."
He smiled too, admitting, "You're right. I guess I got distracted. But shouldn't you be asleep?"
She ignored that, hesitating while she rocked back on her heels. "You know…I've been thinking about what you said. The last time I was on watch."
"Oh?" he asked, casually enough, but the eyebrow he raised demanded an answer.
"Yeah. I mean, I think…I finally believe you were telling the truth at least, last time, and…that night."
She immediately regretted being the one to bring it up, because he flinched a little. "Look, I kind of just want to forget it ever happened. It makes me feel like—like I'm on the same level as your former employers. And I can't stand it."
"Don't," she told him, "because you're not." You're kind to my sister. You're there for the people who need you. And you sought me out to tell me, once again, that you cared for me; and you haven't demanded anything in return. There was nothing business-like about this, nothing money- or labour- or favour-related at all. Just weeks ago she would have been sure it was a trap, would have felt the hair raise on her neck just being this close to him. Now it was easy, even pleasant. Maybe she was falling for it. Or maybe he was too idiotic, too impatient, too genuine to set a trap, and she could finally tell.
"I'm still sorry," he said. "You never accepted my apology."
"Like you said, it was a misunderstanding."
"I moved too fast," he insisted, running a hand through his hair. "We should've talked first or something. I've just never really been one for talking—or thinking—before I act."
"Yeah, well, I talk too much and never think at all. So let it be."
"I will," he said, after a brief pause, and held his hand out to her. "If you'll agree that we can at least call each other friends, after all this."
"Well, I'm actually still thinking," she said, taking his hand but not shaking it. He felt warm even through his glove.
A line appeared in his forehead. "Friendship isn't so much to ask, is it? If you say you believe me that means you have to trust me, at least a little."
"No, we're already friends." She squeezed his hand then. "I was thinking about looking at you the way you look at me. Only thinking, mind."
"I'll take it," he said as he squeezed back. She could tell from how he leaned forward, just slightly, eyes on hers, that he wanted to kiss her.
But he didn't, very deliberately, and it made her think a little harder.
xxx
She'd thought that when she had no gold left to worry about, she had nothing to worry about. When Nergal summoned a fire dragon with his dying breath, she realized she was very wrong.
It was so hard to stay away from the front lines as she'd been ordered to, so hard to watch Hector swinging his axe at the monster's flaming neck like he thought he could actually do damage with it, watch his skin blister and blood trickle out from under his gauntlets, where the metal handle of his weapon must've seared his hands. He looked so fearless against it, so strong and so stupidly determined, and she realized she needed to be up there beside him, because she was fearless and strong and stupidly determined, and she wasn't going to lose somebody worth as much as he was, somebody priceless. It took both her sisters and Dorcas to hold her back, although the poor man took a hard elbow to the face.
Fiora looked at her with shock and whispered, "You want to be with him."
"No," said Farina. "I deserve to be with him."
And afterward, after Serra and Priscilla had done their best to heal everyone's wounds, she found him after he'd stumbled out into the sunlight, after he'd finished pulling Lady Lyndis and then Lord Eliwood into his arms. She looked hard at him—his hair matted, his clothes stiff with blood, his face streaked with ash—and grabbed his elbow, pulling him to her.
"Hey, Lord Hector."
"Yeah?"
"Guess I'm not your mercenary anymore, am I."
He paused before he said, "I guess not. You're free now."
Such an innocent thing to say, but she knew there was a lot behind it, and she hooked her arm through his. "It just doesn't seem fair, you know."
"What doesn't?"
"I've been yours for so long, and all. I never had a chance for you to be mine."
"You did," he said, a little quietly, but didn't take his arm back. She smiled wryly and pulled herself away.
"Maybe we could come up with a new arrangement," she told him. He stared at her but she left before he had a chance to speak.
xxx
The army chose not to disband, not yet, not that same night, and they got as far away from the Dragon's Gate as they could before they made camp. Late that night she went to Lord Hector's tent, lit dimly from a single candle within. She was surprised that he was awake so late, after how stressful the day had been, but called softly for him anyway.
He opened the flap, looking surprised to see her, and a little wary. "You need something?"
"You," she said bluntly, and she did: needed to let him know that while his feelings hadn't changed, hers had—a lot.
He wetted his lips and shook his head. "Is this because the war is over now? Look, spending the night with me isn't going to affect your salary at all: you've earned it. Okay? Let it go."
"The gold is gone, Lord Hector. You couldn't have it back even if you wanted it."
He blinked at her. "So then…what are you doing here?"
"Making sure you don't get cheated," she replied.
She saw him relax, just a little, saw him smile with one side of his mouth. "I don't understand."
"Come on, now," she told him, rocking back on her heels, "you aren't going to let something so priceless get away, are you?"
"I suppose not," he said slowly, and after a moment he reached out for her, drew her back into his tent with him and onto his cot. She expected him to have her again and she was just fine with that; excited, even—but he refused.
"You're shaking," was his reason, and he wrapped an arm around her as they laid together, his chest pressed against her back.
"Okay, well, I have all kinds of reasons to be nervous. But Lord Hector, I'm telling you, I want to do this."
"But I don't," he said, tucking her chin under his head. "And drop the 'lord' bit, will you? Far too formal if you'll be staying the night here."
She snorted: pressed this tightly to him it was obvious that he did want her.
"I just think it'd be better if we wait," he amended.
"But how much time do we have?" she asked him. Once again she'd jumped into something without thinking: soon he'd have to go back to Ostia, be the marquess, get married and start pumping out heirs. He'd be busy. He'd be important. An Ilian mercenary couldn't sit beside him on the throne, that was for sure!
"I'll make time," he said. "You're worth it."
"Worth as much as a noblewoman?" she asked sceptically.
"As much as a marchioness, I should think," he answered, and kissed the back of her neck. She shivered from far more than the contact.
He fell asleep quickly and she couldn't blame him. She fought her own sleep as it came, worried that when she woke up it would've just been a long dream. Or maybe she'd died in the final battle after all and somehow she'd made it to paradise.
In the end, however, she had to trust that the moment was real. She had to trust Hector, trust that his feelings would continue to stay the same, trust that she'd be valuable enough for him to fight for her back in Ostia. It was difficult, but what else could she do? Besides, she'd never backed away from anything difficult: she would show him; he'd see. And she'd make herself see, too.
xxx
Two years later she stood on his balcony—their balcony—and contemplated the canton below, and the conspicuous lack of her monthly cycle. She supposed she wouldn't tell Hector just yet; not until she was sure.
He'd told her when they married, rather teasingly, that giving him an heir would be the only thing she was contractually bound to from then on, and she'd thrown herself into that duty the same way she'd always thrown herself into everything else. It was a job with more benefits than actual work, in her opinion: she'd always wanted a daughter (and hoped for one, despite Hector's incessant talk of sons), and she enjoyed having him, and letting him have her. It was an odd thought at first, since years ago she hated the entire act; was convinced the gods must have made it up just to keep Ilian women subjected. He'd convinced her otherwise soon enough.
If she'd had her way he would have convinced her before they'd even gotten married, but he'd refused until their wedding.
"I didn't realize you were so old-fashioned," she'd teased him when the night came.
"I'm not," he'd laughed. "You know I can't wait for anything. But I felt I had something to prove to you."
You never had anything to prove to me, she wanted to say, to give his old line back to him, but she couldn't because that wasn't true. So instead she'd told him, "You succeeded."
It was still hard to believe so much time had passed since then. Sometimes the idea that she'd spent most of her life as a mercenary seemed very far-off, and sometimes it seemed like it had just been yesterday that she became a marchioness instead. That was really the best part of it all, she often told her husband, only half-joking: the gold.
She smiled at the thought, and was so distracted that she didn't realize Hector had come up behind her until he wrapped his arm around her waist.
"Hey," he said, and she felt him look past her toward the streets of the Ostian city. "You know you're worth more to me than all this, right?"
"I guess so, yeah," she said, confused. "Why?"
"I just wanted to make sure. I know some other nobles have been talking, and I thought they'd shut up by now but of course they haven't. Arrogant prats, all of them."
"It doesn't bother me," said Farina, as sweetly as she could manage. "I'm worth more then all this."
"That's right."
"Including you."
"Don't push it," he said, and kissed her. She knew what that meant.