A piece of myself goes along with every arrow.
He hadn't given much thought to that statement when she'd said it; then, his mind had been too clouded by grief and rage to comprehend his words. But three weeks later, as she sat nursing an arrow wound in his forearm, her words came back to him as vividly as the bright Tenuto flowers surrounding them.
"Sorry about this."
"It's fine." He trained his eyes on her bent figure, wincing inwardly as her nimble fingers drew another sliver of metal from beneath his skin. "I'm not hurt."
She pursed her lips, frowned, and said nothing. By now, Jitterbug knew that this was Viola's way of expressing dissatisfaction... but this wasn't a point that she would argue, not with him. "It's understandable," he continued, and cast a glance towards a figure standing prone in the sea of flowers, "considering who our enemy was."
The battle against Fredrick Chopin had not gone smoothly. Nearly half the party refused to lift their weapons against him; those who had were unsteady and unsure, easily pushed aside by the relentless advances of the pianist. In the end, it had been Jitterbug, Falsetto, and Viola leading the fight - the former two concentrating on close range attacks while the latter fired long-distance arrows at any available moment. Things seemed to be proceeding smoothly, but Jitterbug had slipped and Viola's hand had faltered, and both mistakes had led to a steel-tipped arrowhead plunging deep into the swordsman's arm. At the time he'd barely felt it, simply snapped away the shaft and continued fighting, but the pain had caught up to him. Almost as soon as Polka had returned safe and sound, he'd found Viola by his side, insisting that she be able to look at the wound... and while he'd never expected her to play nurse, here she was.
"It's a bad time to be out of floral powder. Maybe we should have asked Waltz for some of that mineral stuff before he killed himself."
He chuckled weakly at the blonde archer, closing his eyes. "An old-fashioned bandage will suit me just fine, Viola. Don't trouble yourself so much."
She pursed her lips again, her forehead creasing. As she began to withdraw the last piece of metal, Jitterbug looked around the field at his traveling partners - no, his friends, he corrected himself. Princess Serenade had been injured and was being tended to by Falsetto and Crescendo; she'd tried to fight a little too hard against Chopin, perhaps, as her right arm was being carefully positioned in a makeshift splint. Beat was patiently bandaging both of Salsa's knees, ignoring her alternating expressions of triumph and disbelief; March looked on silently, smiling thinly, her face half-hidden by a blood-spotted cloth held firmly to her forehead. Allegretto and Polka were still inseparable, the young girl tending to what were assuredly not-so-minor wounds. Chopin stood still and silent in the midst of them all, almost unnoticed, his eyes cloudy and half-lidded. And it was Viola who sat on the ground beside him, pulling fragments of a shattered and split arrowhead from his arm -
"Ouch," he muttered suddenly, and saw the faintest hint of a smirk flit across her face. "Was that the last of it?"
"Yes." She produced a jagged, bloody shard of steel, waving it once in front of his eyes before depositing it in a small sheepskin pouch. "That's all."
"Good."
"Did that hurt, fearless leader?" He caught another glimpse of a smirk, but it seemed dull and uninspired, as if she was simply going through the motions of teasing him. Whether something was bothering her or she was just tired, he couldn't tell - she was just simply not herself.
He didn't reply to her remark, and so she silently produced a roll of linen bandage from within a larger bag of supplies. As she wrapped his still bleeding arm, he watched her closely, his eyes trained on hers. She avoided his gaze, but she did seem aware of him - of where he was looking -
A piece of myself goes along with every arrow.
- and her remark came flooding back to him, the memory strong and fresh. Claves had just died; the party was ready to split. Viola had stood at the makeshift grave and silently fired an arrow into the sky, and then she'd turned to him and said that phrase -
"I don't miss."
Her voice brought him crashing back down to reality. "What?"
"I don't miss." She still avoided his eyes. "But I hit you - I've never missed a target before this - "
"That's what this is about?" He felt the traces of a smile play on his lips. "You're really that upset about an accident?"
She frowned, tying a tight knot to secure the bandage wrapped around his arm. "Jiruba - "
"If you're that confident in your abilities, Viola, you could very well be better than Cupid." He was definitely smiling now - he could feel it. "Maybe you should have shot the two of them," he joked, nodding his head towards Allegretto and Polka. "Though, surely, an arrow of love would have been wasted - "
Viola had suddenly darkened a few shades, her cheeks stained with an uncharacteristically rosy blush. Jitterbug looked at her closely, and then there was a rumble somewhere deep in the back of his throat; it gained strength and volume rapidly, emitted first as a chuckle, and then resounding as a deep, low laugh. Falsetto glanced sharply in their direction and he couldn't help but laugh at that, then again as Allegretto and Polka both turned to stare at him. Viola's mouth slowly curved into a lopsided smile, and she toyed with the knot on his bandage, avoiding his eyes. "You're mocking me, bastard."
He lifted his arm, flexing it once before resting his hand gently on her shoulder. "If you wanted me to fall in love with you, Viola, you didn't have to shoot me."
Her cheeks flushed again as her countenance changed, and she turned her head sharply away, jerking her shoulder out of his grasp. "M - mou, Jiruba! It was an accident! Don't say stupid things... you..." She was apparently at a loss for words now, and abruptly got to her feet, grabbing her bag of supplies. "I'm done, so I'll be checking on Serenade - "
"What was it you told me?"
She looked down at where he sat in the grass, the frustration and embarrassment clearing slowly from her face. "What... ?"
"You said once that a piece of you goes with every arrow." He stood, unsteady, flexing his arm again. "Is that what happened, this time?"
Viola frowned and looked away again, her lips pressed tightly together. Jitterbug felt another rumble at the back of his throat, and before he could restrain it, a hearty laugh forced itself out of his mouth. He lifted his head and laughed at the sky, and within him he felt something loosen and fly away, as if tied to the tail of an arrow. He'd lost something important - an important piece of himself, and his life - but now it was if he'd found something new to fill the resulting hole. There wasn't really a piece missing, after all.
"Jiruba. Have you lost your mind?"
"No," he said, and placed his uninjured arm around Viola's shoulders. "Now, fearless archer... shall we go check on the princess?"