An Est and Abel story that's not romance... Well, this is supposed to be a story of when they first met at the Lefcandith Gauntlet, and I really don't think two people in the middle of a war are going to be flirting within 3 minutes of meeting.

I changed the battle flow of the chapter slightly. Just altered Est's location so that she's not with her sisters.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The Lefcandith Gauntlet, where the last pockets of Dolhr domination in Aurelis was centered. Naturally, they had to be defeated here before they could continue.

Abel breathed in, and then out. It struck him every time before a battle, weather he would admit it to himself or not. It struck every soldier, no matter what they might say, with the exception of the jaded ones, such as Navarre and Wolf.

Fear.

Fear of dying, fear of being captured, tortured, fear of one small miscalculation forcing you to live the rest of your life as an invalid. Even someone with experience, such as Abel, is not a stranger to these possibilities. They always occupied the dark back of his mind, yet came screaming to the forefront when a battle was about to begin.

He was relieved, yet at the same time, slightly disappointed, that he was going to be given a minor duty in this particular conflict. A small town, supposedly sheltering a Manikin that had refused to join Dolhr, he was supposed to reach the town by himself and secure it. It was a simple task, though despite his tings of fear about being a front-line soldier, he couldn't help but feel that an extra cavalier would have been helpful to the march down toward the fort.

That fort was where the enemy was stationed, headed by a man named Harmein. Under him was… the princess of Macedon, Minerva, along with the Whitewings, Minerva's personal band of henchmen.

As his horse trotted off in the general direction of the town he was supposed to defend, Abel closed his eyes and tried to picture what Minerva and the Whitewings would be like in a battle. Brutal, cruel, cunning, underhanded, they had assisted in ripping Aurelis apart, there could be no kind words in the description of such people.

Raising his legs up and dropping them down to strike his horse with his feet, the creature broke into a run toward his destination. One hand on the rein, and his other on the steel sword he favored, he was off.

Why do I have to do this?

Est sighed as she and her Pegasus approached the town she was supposed to attack. Her heart was not into this, it was not her will, not the will of Minerva, to do this. If it weren't for the fact that Minerva's younger sister, Maria, was Grust's captive, she'd never do this.

She felt insecure fighting away from her sisters and Minerva as well. Minerva, along with Palla and Catria, were taking part in one of Harmein's strategies, Est had been requested for a special assignment. A Manikin in a nearby village had evidentially brushed Dolhr's invitations away far too many times, and her orders were to… burn the village. And this was what a Macedonian Pegasus Knight was apparently expected to do, it seems.

If it weren't for what Michalis had done, she'd have sooner sided with the Aurelians and the Alteans, even if it meant turning against Macedon. She had no reason to be at odds with Archanea either, she could never understand why Michalis disliked that nation so much, it had never done anything negative to Macedon. It seemed to do more with Michalis' obsession with making Macedon more prominent.

All the nations in the world were generally content to isolate themselves from each other in most dealings. Altea had a friendship with Gra before this entire mess started, and look what that had amounted to… Altea was a conquered territory, and Gra felt comfortable under Dolhr's rule. It was the nation that had delivered Altea, the nation founded by Anri, into Dolhr's hands, so the nation always had a fair amount of favor from Medeus, Dolhr's emperor.

Though, recently, Medeus has taken notice of how, ever since then, Gra had failed to offer much of anything of use to any of the other nations. The entire nation of Gra had been effectively swept under the rug, the same could not be said for Macedon, which remained a critical part of the military of Dolhr's new empire.

Though the Whitewings, and Michalis' personal army of Dragoons, seemed to have nothing on the Sable Order of Grust. Yet even then, Dolhr was the true power, even if the entire world sided against the empire, those Manikins, not to mention Medeus himself, could and would simply tear them apart.

Even princess Minerva would be cowed by the chance of failure meriting the attention of Medeus himself.

Her musing about politics might have gone on for longer, but a sudden scream shook the air around her. Her grip reflexively tightening on both the rein and her lance, she peered down. She found that she had reached the air above her target, and the people could easily notice a Pegasus Knight hovering through the air.

The streets of the town were in a panic at the sight of her, people of all ages were ducking inside buildings. That was okay, she'd rather avoid hurting them, she was only hear to try and capture that Manikin. Try to spin a lie that she had actually attacked the town…

She was about to land, until she noticed one person who wasn't fleeing. Rather, this man, in the saddle of a horse, was simply staring right at her, no outward sign of fear in him. The armor on him seemed to be the same repetitive style as most horseback mounted units, but the way he carried himself made it clear that he was familiar with combat. It didn't take much to connect the dots and realize he was part of the army that had wrested control of Aurelis from Harmein and the other commanders.

Rather then fight, we should help each other.

Gripping her lance, she made one deep sigh, and dove down. It was fortunate that the man was armed with a sword, it gave her a slight advantage, but her first blow was easily parried, Est, and her Pegasus, were re-directed to the side, and nearly slammed face-first into the side of a building.

Abel couldn't say he was impressed by the first exchange with the Whitewing. He did take extensive notice of how everyone fled to the indoors in fear when they spotted her, simple deduction made it clear that this girl was every bit as heartless as he had presumed. What else would explain the obvious fear that the townsfolk had of her?

Yet, like most of the higher-up enemies they had encountered so far, fighting didn't actually seem to be her strong-suit, if that first strike was any indication.

She immediately charged again, only for her attack to completely miss, her opponent had simply leaned to the left as she had charged, resulting in her lance swishing through the air and striking nothing. As she moved past him, Abel knocked her on the back of her head with the hilt of his sword. He tried to follow it up by spinning around and swinging his blade through the air, in the hope of striking her on the neck, but her Pegasus took flight, pulling its rider away from the fatal danger.

Est spun around, rubbing the bump on the back of her head, she understood that she had nearly lost her life in that encounter. Her opponent was no amateur, that last past made it clear, if she made a mistake, his sword would claim her life. If only her sisters were here…

She moved in again, a bit more slowly and cautiously, she moved past him without their weapons connecting, then turned around and tried to charge at his back. With a lance forward, if his armor wasn't strong enough, this blow would impale him, but he instead snapped around and caught the end of her forked lance on his sword.

Their weapons were locked in a stalemate, but it took only a few moments to see who was dominate here. Est, with gritted teeth, was trying to push forward with all her might, but Abel was keeping her back with only a moderate effort. Abel was… shocked, but it wasn't the difference in physical strength.

It was her eyes.

He'd been close enough to plenty of enemies in this war to get a good look at their eyes, and all of them had that same old expression, cold and murderous. An expression that conveyed a casual attitude toward the killing, but this girl's eyes conveyed an innocence he hadn't expected, even as she was clearly trying to kill him.

Those are… not the eyes of an enemy.

With casual ease, Abel forced her back, then reached an arm out onto her shoulder and yanked her off the saddle of her Pegasus. Managing to tear her out of the harness that was holding her in place on the saddle as well, and tossing her onto the ground behind him.

She got back up and tried to retaliate, yet just one motion made it clear that she knew little about fighting off of her Pegasus. When she tried to attack, Abel's elbow went straight into her face, knocking her down… and out.

Her Pegasus made an unhappy neighing sound and rushed to its master's side; lowering its head, it tried to scoop Est up onto its neck, but failed. It succeeded only in nudging its master forward, the creature raised its head back up as Abel approached.

A few creaks and sliding sounds were heard throughout the town; the people began to poke out as the sound of the short duel ended. One look at the obvious defeat of the Pegasus Knight and they slipped back inside, and emerged just a few seconds later, armed.

The Pegasus flew a few feet forward, trying to place itself between Est and the pitchfork-wielding townsfolk. In its attempt to block passage to its master, it failed to spot Abel pick Est up and place her unconscious form on his lap; her head pressing onto his chest.

Can I… really do this?

Abel reaffirmed his grip on the sword and closed his eyes. The thought of ripping this girl to pieces was not an agreeable proposition. He wouldn't sleep well for a long, long time if he did.

Sheathing his sword, he placed his pointer and index finger on her chin and lifted her head up. He could only sigh, she was clearly young, she could have quite a life ahead of her, but she wouldn't if the residents of this town had any say in the matter.

She's… beautiful…

An impulse thought. The thought came out involuntary of anything he might have wanted to think. Yet no matter what he might have thought, he also knew that she deserved a better end then on the pitchforks and rusty swords of these… people.

"Uh…" Already she was stirring to the waking world, opening her eyes, the first thing she noticed was how someone was holding her, her eyes started to close again until her brain kicked in. The person holding her was the knight she had fought.

"Let me go!" She began to struggle, limbs flailing, attempting to pull herself away, with both her hands on his chest, she made every effort to push back.

"Keep this up, and I will." Abel responded. With a pause, Est looked around her to the armed, and clearly angry, townsfolk. The town had been forced to endure a lot from Macedon, and they were clearly bitter enough to take it out on a Macedonian Pegasus Knight who had the misfortune to be in her position. She recoiled from the sight of the townsfolk and, without realizing it, had all but cuddled onto the knight's chest.

It didn't take much to realize that the only thing that was keeping her alive was this knight. Her Pegasus was there too, but the creatures, while rightfully dangerous by themselves, were not trained to fight independently, and the sheer amount of townsfolk was more then a little disheartening.

The knight's horse began to move out of the town, the citizens faces were marked by rapidly developing disgust at the sight of Abel carrying the girl out of the city. None would dare to attack a member of the liberating army, but they could convey their disappointment in another way.

It started with a rotten apple, thrown anonymously from someone deep in the crowd, but that one item triggered a flood of various food, bottles, baskets, and anything else the people were capable of heaving at Abel. Following shortly thereafter were accusations of treason and sympathy for the enemy, calls for a noose, and various other threats. Yet he continued to simply be on his way, even if protecting her could be interpreted as going against his order to secure the town…

Est felt sorry for the man who had gone so far out of his way to keep her alive. The feeling of pity overwrote her feeling of confusion as to why he was doing this for her. The last thing his army needed was a bad rep, right?

Finally they left the city, Est's Pegasus walking right beside them.

"Um…" Away from the people, Est finally took notice of the close contact she was making with the knight. She pulled herself way, though remained on his horse. "Thank… you, but… why help me?"

"You seemed… different, then other soldiers I've fought." His explanation might not make sense, but still. "Every other soldier I've fought so far has seemed like a straight and true murderer, but there was something… strange about you."

Most other Macedonian soldiers went right along with Michalis, it was true. All of them were ignorant of how Macedon was dying because of the man… or at least, that's what her sisters and Minerva had said. She hadn't actually seen Macedon since the war began, she couldn't say exactly what the situation was like back there.

"I see." Est pulled herself off of his horse, landing evenly on her feet. "I need to go now, before my sisters start worrying."

Then her mind registered one certain possibility.

"Um… you are going to let me go, right?"

"I…" Abel's words suddenly caught themselves. "I… guess." He shook his head as Est climbed back on her Pegasus. "However, if we meet as enemies again, I can't make any promises about what'll happen."

"I understand." Est patted her hand on her Pegasus' neck. "Say, what's your name?"

"Abel." He relaxed a little, to think that he was chatting casually with what was clearly a Whitewing. He knew it was wrong, especially when someone he knew personally could be dying in the main battle that was occurring. Yet at the same time, he had to remember that the soldiers on the other side were people. Real people with real families, no matter how cold or cruel they seemed on the surface.

"I'm Est." She smiled… she had a cute smile. "Oh, hey!" She turned her gaze skyward at a Dracoknight leaving the field of battle, followed by two Pegasus Knights. "Sorry, my sisters and Minerva are leaving, I need to go with them."

At once she was ascending through the air, floating straight up. As she prepared to follow her sisters, now just indistinct dots on the horizon, she looked over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of Abel again. Despite being a knight on the other side, he was rather kind… she wouldn't mention him to her sisters, just say that the League had already fortified the town too much to attack and burn, but there were things she wanted to talk to Abel about.

Hopefully, their next meeting, if they ever had that chance, would be under very different circumstances.

I think some of the diologue ended up coming off as a little flirty, but, eh.

Oh, and Est's somewhat inept attempt at fighting Abel is a reference to the initial weakness of characters belonging to the whole Est "archtype", just so you know.

Please review.