Early the next morning, the deafening sound of Hector's sneezing roused half the camp. Normally, he gathered with the other lords at dawn, but on this occasion they met without Hector under the assumption that he would be fine under the care of their clerics – as his tent-mate, Eliwood immediately called for Serra and left her with him. But not even a half hour later, it was Priscilla's timid hand that peeled back the flap of Marc's tent and hesitantly interrupted the lords' meeting.
"Um…" She cleared her throat. "Lord Eliwood, Lady Lyndis…"
"Oh, gods… it's Hector, isn't it?" Eliwood sighed. Out of everyone in the army, he never fell ill – at least until that point – and evidently no one was prepared for the mayhem that was a "Hector cold".
Pricilla nodded. "Serra couldn't handle him… so I thought perhaps you might be of some help."
"What's wrong with him? Doesn't he only have a cold?" Lyn asked, looking up from the Elibian map spread out between herself and her comrades to the ginger-haired lord beside her. "…That's what you told me, anyway, Eliwood."
He forced a tight smile as he avoided Lyn's puzzled gaze. "…Hector tends to be quite temperamental…"
"We all knew that," she scoffed. He was always temperamental.
At this, Marc decided to give his input on their dilemma – no matter what the issue was, they could rely on him to always have an answer ready. "I propose that Lyn goes and checks on him, in that case," he quipped.
"…Marc, I respect your solution, but I'm not exactly a cleric…"
"Yes, but our two designated clerics haven't had any luck, so it may be better to have a friend attempt to speak reason to him. That leaves Eliwood and you, but Eliwood is too nice."
Lyn sighed and rose from her seat on the floor. For the most part, she got along with Hector just fine, but sometimes it felt like Marc forced them together - even though Lyn was capable of cooperating just as efficiently (if not better) with plenty of other people in the army as well. "I'll go then," she announced. "Though bear in mind, this is Hector we're speaking of. I can't promise you anything." Turning and leaving the tent, she heard Eliwood's chuckle behind her and rolled her eyes – as if he was uninvolved with their absurd situation of being stalled by Hector's cold! As their commander, perhaps it was better if he cared for his friend, but Lyn respected Marc's decision too much and went on her way without complaint.
She reached Hector's tent in little time and didn't waste any more on formalities, opening the fabric door and walking in without announcing herself first. "I hope you know, you've scared away both Serra and Priscilla," she told him, looking down her nose at the lord who had yet to leave his bedroll.
Hector gave a pained smile. "Good morning to you, too."
For someone who was normally so imposing, he looked rather useless from Lyn's current perspective – the great Lord Hector, bundled up in a blanket in the floor of his tent, with groggy, half-opened eyes and a gross, red, runny nose. He'd seem vulnerable if he wasn't so cranky, but still, a part of Lyn felt sorry for him. "…Are you feeling alright?" she asked.
"I feel fucking terrible, thank you," he spat, though Lyn could barely make out his reply through his hoarse voice.
"Watch it. Nobility shouldn't even know words like that." She stepped closer to Hector and proceeded to sit down cross-legged beside his head, nudging his side once she reached to floor as a sort of reprimand for his language. "Is that why Serra left? Because you couldn't control your foul tongue?"
"She's so annoying…"
"Hector, you can't just swear at our healers! Please, I know you have some sort of self-control."
"It isn't my fault!" he grumbled as he crossed his arms. He was so agitated, it felt as if the room was filled with thick, low-laying storm clouds – no wonder he couldn't get over his sickness. "I mean, I sneezed on her and she freaked out, as if she'd never seen a cold before! Why did you guys even send for her! It's not like magic heals colds – everyone knows that! There's not a damn thing that it can do to make me better!"
"But you can take medicine, and you need to!" Lyn retorted. "You just insist on being difficult!"
"I just hate it, okay! I hate being useless like this, stuck on the ground and barely capable of even breathing right… I feel like I'm dying. But if I'm going to- "
"You're not. Stop it," Lyn interrupted. Without thinking, she placed her hand on his chest, as if it would get him to quit talking like that. "…Where did that even come from? Hector…"
He looked up at her with evening-sky eyes and an expression that softened slightly before it settled into a scowl again. "I just hate it, being useless like this. It's stupid. If I die, I want it to be more memorable than a stuffed nose."
"…You idiot."
"What?"
"'If I die' – Hector, if you die, you'll be dead. It's the same no matter how it happens."
"So? Say I die, then. Then what?"
She didn't understand what he meant, but didn't have to ask, because apparently it was written in her scrunched eyebrows and gentle frown.
"What would you do?"
"Lord Hector!"
Lyn didn't get a chance to respond before a pink-haired cleric barged into the tent. Suddenly, the wild force of Serra's presence blew away the fog that had shrouded Lyn's perception of the situation she'd walked in on – how her hand still rested on Hector's broad chest, how she leaned over him like a concerned parent, her loose hair falling over her shoulders and spilling onto the sick man before her – and yanked herself away from him, pretending that nothing happened.
Serra, unfortunately, appeared to notice, and gave a sly smirk. "Ah, Lyn, you're checking up on the patient too? I'll warn you, he's quite unruly… but I found where Priscilla put the panacea. Here," she said, and came up to Lyn to press a vial of potion into her hands. "He'll listen to you better than me – make sure he drinks the entire bottle."
"I'm right here. You don't have to give me instructions though her, you know."
"Hm? Oh, I'm sorry, is this the great lord Hector? The one who called his courteous cleric Serra such ugly words earlier, just because she tried to help him with his cold?" Turning on her heels, Serra began to walk away, disappearing with the swish of her white skirt through the opening of the tent. "I'll leave you two, then. Thank you, Lyn!"
"That Serra…" Hector mumbled.
Lyn glanced upward, away from him, to compose herself. It wasn't that they weren't open about their friendship, because everyone saw how they bickered back and forth, how they fought alongside each other so efficiently that Marc started using them as the example (even though no one else could quite replicate their "dynamic", as Canas had pinned it). Their conversation had taken an oddly sentimental turn, and to have Serra walk in on that… it was awkward, to say the least.
"Is this why you've been acting so odd lately?" she finally asked.
Hector scoffed in defiance. "I'm still acting how I always act."
"Really? Because I think you've been rather emotional lately. It's not like you. So…" With the movement of her thumb, she took the cork off the panacea bottle. "Drink this."
"Hmph. Thank you," he finally obliged, and took the tonic from her. He drank it in one gulp to get it done with, but grimaced as he forcefully swallowed; clearly he'd made a poor, hasty decision, typical of Hector but amusing nonetheless.
Lyn held back a laugh to not insult him any more than he already felt. "You'd do well to get better soon. We need to start training together again."
"You're right…" Hector replied with a yawn.
"…Did you sleep last night?"
"Not at all…"
A smile, warm and relieved, spread on her lips. "You should sleep now. Stop trying to be so strong for a little while and get some rest… it's for the best. Do you want me to leave you alone?"
Silently, Hector took her hand in both of his, holding it against his chest. "No…"
And so he dozed off, leaving Lyn in a tent that suddenly felt less like a messy storm and more like normal, clear skies and warm afternoons – quiet and serene and comfortable, just what Hector would need to sleep and convalesce. For a time, she simply stayed with him, watching his chest rise and fall under the blanket, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her palm, listening to the sounds of life persisting around them – the voices of friends, the songs of birds, the whistle of wind.
She promised herself to keep the incident, as mundane as it was, as their little secret.