Thanks once again for the kind reviews and the new faves and follows! I'm glad to know people are enjoying this as much as they are; I was really expecting it to tank since it's not a possible pairing in the game!

This one takes place during Chapter 12 and acts as the A support in this story with some moments of affection, particularly towards the end, to try and bridge the often huge gap (in my opinion) between A and S supports.

As always, I hope you enjoy and let me know what you think by reviewing!

A Swordsman and a Klutz

3. Affection

The lantern set inside the mess tent had been knocked over in the crash, extinguishing it's light and plunging the tent into darkness. Rushing in moments later with the candle that had been sat next to him outside, Lon'qu gasped audibly as he illuminated the scene of the klutz's latest fall.

Boxes had been upturned all the way to the tent doors as though they had been knocked over like dominoes; a box of expensive looking bottles lay open in the middle of the floor, it's content cracked and broken into fragments carpeting the grass beneath his feet. And Sumia lay in the middle of it all, on her stomach, after tripping over a stray pebble and then her box. Small amounts of blood were pooling slowly at her sides, showing the swordsman that she had fallen onto the broken glass.

Panicking, he shouted for help and rushed carefully in, trying not to stand on too many shards as he made his way to the unconscious woman in the centre of it all. Falling to his knees by her side, Lon'qu pushed the glass away as he gently turned her over to inspect the damage, grimacing less as he touched her for the second time that day. Several large shards were embedded in her torso and thighs but the rest of her seemed unharmed, sans a few scrapes from the smaller pieces. But, as his panic began to decrease, he noticed something that set it back off again in full force.

Sumia wasn't breathing.

Shaking and barely hearing the calls of people outside who had been attracted to the scene after hearing his pleas for help, the swordsman whispered the klutz's name, reaching out a hand to check for the pulse at the base of her neck. A choked sob of relief rattled through his being as he felt a small flicker of life, a blush rising immediately after as he realised he had touched the woman before him yet again, this time without flinching at all.

Then Frederick, Lissa and the group on guard for the hour were there, taking in the situation at a glance. Just as Lissa was about to break down into her intense caterwauling that had only recently let up, Lon'qu reassured her that Sumia was still alive, just unconscious. The knight made his way into the tent, berating himself for failing to remove the pebbles from this area, and picked up the unconscious woman, telling the other man that he would take her straight to the med tent where Lissa had already run off to.

Lon'qu sat on his knees as he heard the commotion of other Shepards waking and running to see just what had happened while they slumbered. However, the myrmidon stayed put, shaking silently in his spot as he realised that he had almost lost yet another woman in his life. With a shuddering sigh, he rose slowly, noticing a small tag under the muslin cloth that had been used to cover the fermenting champagne. Picking up both the cloth and the tag, his knees almost buckled again as he read the note's short prose:

"Dearest Sumia,

"Keep fighting the good fight (and come home safe!) and use these to bottle some champagne when the elderflowers come into season again. Maybe you could use it to celebrate when you win!

"Always thinking of you,

"Mother."

Robin made the brilliant tactical decision to exclude Sumia from their fight against the mad king later that day since she was still undergoing treatment and in no shape to battle. The young woman finally woke up a few hours after falling and had been informed by Chrom that most of them would be leaving shortly, and that she wouldn't be coming with them. When she asked if anyone else would be staying behind with her (pushing away his attempts to hug and console her), he told her only Lon'qu. And when she asked where he was, the young prince shuffled his feet awkwardly and told her that no one had seen him since they'd found her.

This was because Lon'qu had taken her pegasus from it's makeshift stable and flown off in the direction of the Ylisse, hoping to make it to Sumia's mother's and back before nightfall. Not even he knew why he was doing something of this magnitude for a woman who had meant literally nothing to him a few weeks earlier. But when Maribelle saw him as he emerged from the mess tent and told him that he couldn't come with them to take on Gangrel because he wouldn't have a partner, the swordsman shook off her attempts to touch his arm to console him and instead walked about aimlessly for all of a minute until he found the stable, saddled up and took off without a second thought.

A few weeks ago, they would have let themselves be consoled by the prince and healer, he probably would have even let her touch him without flinching or sweating, but now they felt nothing-for the pair or anyone else-as they left their former (possible) flames behind.

Upon arrival in Ylisse, Lon'qu had been immediately directed to Sumia's mother's without any hesitation. He really hadn't expected the sweet elderly woman who was the knight's mother to have laughed at her daughter's clumsiness and offer him a preprepared replacement stash and new note without so much as a question to his identity.

Sumia really hadn't expected to see him sat by her bedside when she woke from her nap late that afternoon after everyone else had gone.

"Oh!" Her exclamation made him start slightly, as though he had yet to notice that she'd woken up. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she stared in awe at the myrmidon sat by her side, shocked to find him there with her. "Hel-Hello."

"Sumia." He inclined his head as a form of hello. "How are you?"

"Um, okay! I think..." said she nervously, twisting a bandaged away from view. "Most of the cuts were small and Lissa's staff healed most of them. I did open my arrow wound again though..."

"My apologies."

"Why? You didn't do anything, it was all my own clumsy fault." Although I did take that arrow for you.

"I..." started Lon'qu slowly, getting up to pace the room. "I thought that you were angry with my accusation and that had made you lose focus and fall."

"I fall all the time, Lon'qu. It's really not your fault." She reassured him, but when he gave her a confused look from opposite her bed, she felt she'd failed.

"True, I have seen you fall often before, but since Robin partnered us together, I haven't seen you once do anything more than trip and regain your balance a few seconds later. I can't even recall a time when you fell like that in my presence."

"What do you mean? I fell like that... It was when..." Sumia racked her brains for a few moments as she thought over what the myrmidon had said. It turned out she really couldn't remember the last time she fell over in his presence either. "Huh."

"Hence, my apologies." Said he formally as she looked up at him in shock.

"I guess, I must have been thinking about Lady Emmeryn," her fingers tapped out an even beat on her chin as she thought. "Her sacrifice was a great tragedy after all, something that really shouldn't have happened." Tears threatened to fall, but the knight exercised heroic self-control to hold them back.

"Indeed." Lon'qu muttered quietly as he inspected several vulnaries by the wall.

"Why are you speaking so formally today? It's making me worry." Sumia looked over at him curiously.

"This was under the box of bottles." The swordsman held her tag by the tips of his fingers for her to take, not wanting contact with her again, not knowing how to answer her question. The knight took it with that sly smile she'd had on her lips yesterday plastered on her face again.

"Horse plop," she mumbled as the short note was read again. "Mother's going to be so angry that I broke her bottles."

"Can you walk?" His sudden question came out of nowhere and made her blink in surprise.

"I think so," Sumia swung her legs around the end of the cot and attempted to stand slowly, clicking her sore joints as she went. Across the room, Lon'qu watched carefully, his attention fully on her for the first time since she'd woken up. After several slow moments, the knight stood on her feet solidly and took a slow step, hands out in front of her in case she fell over again. The myrmidon extended his own arms involuntarily, moving his position to the end of her cot, ready to sprint to her aid should she need it. A smile lit up her face as she turned to triumphantly face the man behind her; the happy and optimistic pegasus knight was back. "Where are we going?" Asked she, still beaming.

"Follow me." Said the ever blunt swordsman simply-an almost smile in his voice as he walked out the tent quickly, stopping to be chivalrous by holding hold the flap open for her. Together, the pair walked across the abandoned camp, straining their ears to hear any sound of the fight taking place in the distance. The only sounds that reached them were the calls of birds as they flew back to their nests as the evening set in, calling at the sun one last time as it made its final journey of the day across the sky. The atmosphere over the camp was strangely tranquil, the kind of natural quiet that wasn't generally associated with a camp of soldiers, and it almost made what Sumia saw behind the cleared mess tent surprise her even more.

In the cleared space where her bowl of elderflowers had been fermenting stood a large box filled with bottles of her champagne, the bowl having been cleaned up and put away. A small slip of paper and a large daisy were slotted in between two of the bottles and it only took a glance for the knight to recognise her mother's flowery script on the outside of the paper.

"I read the note left in the tent and borrowed your pegasus, I hope you don't mind too much." Lon'qu said quietly behind her, the normal edge in his voice lost a little as he watched her walk slowly over to the box.

With the new note open in one hand and the other hiding a gasp at her mouth, the knight shook gently as her self-control was lost and the tears that had been threatening to fall since the sacrifice yesterday finally flowed down her cheeks.

"Sumia?!" The swordsman called her name in shock as he saw the tears on her smiling face when she turned to look at him.

"Lon'qu..." The klutz said his name in barely a whisper, putting the note back in the box behind her but keeping the daisy behind her ear. Wiping her tears away quickly, the woman laughed and held out a hand to the man before her who looked at it-and her-in confusion. "Thank you."

"Er," declining to shake her hand by shaking his head instead, a blush started rising slowly on his cheeks; he never had dealt well with compliments or expressions of gratitude. "It was nothing..."

Chuckling gently, Sumia started to say how it was clearly not 'nothing' and that he had flown all that way and back in a few hours just to replace a box of bottles, when a large beetle crawled out from under said box, scaring her into screaming and almost falling over backwards. Watching her reaction and recovery with a small smile, it was then Lon'qu's turn to chuckle as he reached down to pick up the bug.

"Afraid of beetles?" He held the significantly-smaller-than-she-originally-thought beetle up for her to see. Without thinking, she turned away, holding her arms protectively at her chest. "He's cute, like a miniature swordsman with twin blades. Look." Slowly and reluctantly, she turned to look at the bug in his hand. It had two long, pointed horns on it's head and a black body that looked like a metallic rainbow as it caught the fading evening light. It was not as terrifying as she had originally thought, though she wouldn't have gone as far as to call it 'cute'.

"You... You like bugs?" The myrmidon confirmed this as he started stroking the beetle's body with his thumb. "What's your opinion on ladybugs?"

"Very funny." He half smiled as he set the beetle back down and watched it scuttle back off, watching as Sumia flinched slightly when it turned to come back in their direction. "Do you not like any insects?"

"Well... Butterflies and dragonflies are quite cute, and I don't mind moths or fireflies, but no, I wouldn't say I like many bugs."

"What a sad thing." Lon'qu muttered, turning away to watch as the sun made it's final descent for the day. Out the corner of her eye, the knight watched as his well-sculpted face softened as the last rays of light hit it, making him look like a totally new person who looked easily approachable. Words formed on the tip of her tongue as she stared; words that she knew she'd regret, but couldn't hold back. Thankfully, those words were saved from seeing the last light of day as the sound of the Shepards returning crushed the tranquil atmosphere.

Both of them sighed audibly as they made their way out of their moment to meet the group by the camp's entrance.

The pair were bombarded with stories of how the battle ended and of how Emmeryn had been avenged as soon as they were within shouting distance. As soon as they were in talking distance, they were told a much less violent story: the story of how Chrom and Maribelle became engaged after the battle ended.

Lon'qu zoned out as soon as the announcement had been made, half shocked at the fact that the woman who had almost broken him of his fear was now engaged to another man-half vexed at having been forced out of a quiet moment with his new partner for the sake of hearing such an unromantic love story. Looking up briefly as the story continued to be embellished, he saw the smug look Robin directed at Sumia, who was refusing to look at anything but her hands and the daisy that was getting plucked within.

Something welled up inside the swordsman as he looked at the young woman he was beginning to see as a partner; it's opposite also took up root in his being, but was felt for the tactician who had carefully manipulated the affections of his soldiers to create better relationships between people he liked as couples. The young man wondered if Robin had been trying to do the same with him and his partner, wondered if that something he felt was what he thought it was...

Petals fell slowly from Sumia's shaking hands as her mother's daisy was plucked clean. In her note, her mother had told her to perform a fortune with the flower when she found herself wondering about her affections. Like a coin toss, flower fortunes had a tendency to tell you what you were really feeling if the out come was not what you subconsciously wanted. As the petals fell from her hands, she meet the eyes of her raven-haired partner and wondered if her mother had been right about his affections in her letter:

"Dearest Sumia,

"A young man came to ask for more bottles for your champagne whilst riding your pegasus this morning. He claimed that you made too much for the bottles that I already sent. It was nice of him to lie on your clumsy behalf. Are you unharmed? Is this nice man my future son? He seems to care an awful lot for you to make up such an obvious lie.

"If you're unsure of how you feel towards him, use this daisy to do one of your fortunes. They always help tell you the truth when your heart won't.

"With love, as always,

"Mother."