I remembered as I was finishing up this chapter, "You know, this whole story only exists because you got a totally spur of the moment idea for a fic one day. Over ten thousand words later... here you are." It's just kind of funny to me how I ended up with this, but really nice.
Anyway, enjoy this update. It won't be as nasty as previous one, but still... it's not exactly pleasant for the poor lords.
Somehow, Edelgard found strength to walk on shaking legs and help Claude lift Dimitri's semi-conscious, bloodied body. Sweat poured down her neck and arms and staining what remained of the clothes she had, and she clutched her chest and gulped in air as Claude examined Dimitri's condition.
Although he was engulfed in a black swoon of shock, Dimitri's wounds were not as terrible as they appeared to be once Claude examined them. The puncture wounds had missed the vulnerable parts of his head, though they were still deep and bloody. By far the worst damaged had been done to his eye, which Claude felt sick when he tried to look at it. The only form of bandage the trio had was to use more of their unworn clothing to try to stem the flow of blood.
"Why was he… attacked?" Edelgard managed between coughs. Claude looked up as he finished the makeshift bandage that wrapped around half of Dimitri's head, closing off his ruined eye from view.
"Don't know. Might have been the same bear that killed the calf the other day. Sure looked the part."
Seeing Edelgard panting and clutching her chest, Claude added more gently, "it's alright now, El, you can rest. If it comes back, I'll scare it off again. You need to sleep and get better."
Too tired to protest, Edelgard lay down close to the flickering fire. She sighed deeply, almost relaxing in the faint warmth. Dimitri was asleep, or probably closer to deep unconsciousness, his body limp and toneless as Claude used the damp cloth once reserved for Edelgard to wash the blood off his friend's face. He realized the prince had lost a lot of weight- his ribs were visible now underneath pale, sweaty skin, studded with countless small scratches and bruises from everyday slips and stumbles.
If you think I'll let you die, think again, Dimitri,, Claude commanded fiercely in his head as the stars winked outside, I'll drag you back up here by the collar if the devil tries to take you away.
As if he could hear this, Dimitri's lips parted and a guttural moan halfway between pain and sheer exhaustion startled Claude. But he was still again in a moment, his head turned gently to one side.
The moment he was done tending to Dimitri's grave wounds, Claude surrendered to an unmoving slumber. Even worry about what he would do in the morning couldn't keep him awake.
Outside, the beach was abandoned, though Dimitri's blood still stained the sand. The startled bear had fled into the woods, away from the strange creatures that tried to wound it. A few foxes stopped to sniff at the stains, but none were brave enough to ambush the sleeping trio a few hundred feet away.
As the lake turned yellow in the sunrise, Claude sighed as he felt sunlight on the back of his eyelids. Today would be the most trying yet. He would have to closely monitor Dimitri and Edelgard both.
Close by, Dimitri lay still on his back, as Claude has positioned him the night before. Claude's chest ached with pity (or was it hunger?) as he spoke softly, "You're not as hurt as I thought. I don't know about your eye… but I think that bear just wanted to scare you."
But Claude's faint relief vanished when he turned his attention to Edelgard. Her eyes were open, but they looked distant and cloudy. Her head turned slowly from side to side, and she stared blankly as Claude gently said her name a few times.
It's like she doesn't recognize me, Claude felt his heart sink even lower. This isn't good. This isn't good at all.
The only brightness in that dark day was Dimitri waking up, as the sun reached its highest point in the sky. Far from the brilliant blue of their arrival, the heavens were clouded and streaked in varying shades of grey, and the air was cold enough for Claude to shiver if he ventured away from the fire.
Edelgard was a motionless bundle of torn clothing who lay as close to the fire as she could without getting burned. Her pale skin was stained from the smoke and her breathing was so faint that several times during the long day, Claude thought she had died already.
"How're you doing?" Claude asked Dimitri softly, wincing in sympathy as he clutched one side of his head. The wounds had finally stopped oozing, but it was difficult to see Dimitri's damaged eye underneath a mask of scars and torn flesh.
"I can't see anything… on this side."
Claude held up a hand an arm's length away from Dimitri's face, on his right side, holding up three fingers.
"How many?"
Dimitri's undamaged eyebrow lifted slightly in surprise, and he shook his head. Claude sighed, and quickly rubbed his eye in case tears were threatening.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but… you might never get that eye back, Dimitri. I'm sorry."
Claude hadn't felt so lost for words in a long time as he saw genuine sorrow on Dimitri's ruined face. His sore green eyes grew wide as he realized the clear path cutting through the blood and dirt drying under Dimitri's eyes was tears, and his thin shoulders were starting to tremble.
The reality of the situation hit them then, harder even than it had that night that felt like forever ago, when they'd discovered this place and thought it a fine home. Dimitri was badly wounded and would likely lose one of his eyes even if they were rescued in an hour. Edelgard was struggling to breathe as illness ravaged her body.
Knowing this, knowing it well, Claude suddenly felt how exhausted he truly was, mentally and physically. He was significantly leaner than back at the monastery, and he didn't need a mirror or the lake to see that he was covered with dirt and tiny scratches and all other markings of nature's harshness.
Claude knew he had to act now, that he needed to start another signal fire, find food and fetch more clean water, but he didn't want to do any of those things. It would take every ounce of willpower he had to do anything more than cradle Edelgard and let her shallow breathing fade away in the comfort of his arms.
"Do we have any hope left?"
Dimitri's broken whisper roused Claude. He wiped his wet eyes and inhaled deeply a few times, as if the smell of smoke and the forest would energize him.
"We have to act like it. Look, Dimitri, can I get you to stay here and watch El? If she… if you're worried about her, just yell for me. I'll hear you."
Earlier in their predicament, Claude would have been reluctant to leave Dimitri and Edelgard alone for a while. But now Claude gave his injured friend a brief arm around the shoulder, and for good measure a confident whisper of, "we'll get out of here, Dimitri. I know it. We still have each other."
I'm half-blind and El might be dying right next to me, was all Dimitri could think as he watched Claude begin the search for viable wood, but he's right. If we don't have each other, we don't really have anything at all.
From the monastery, the teams of searchers- picked by Seteth and Rhea themselves- had departed the dawn before. At that time, the signal fire was too far away for the air searches to find it, dissipating in the wind long before it could be detected. And as day became night, this team stopped on the ground to rest until the morning.
But in the morning, a few hours after the sun rose, the commanding officer roused her drowsy teammates with a jubilant cry.
"Everyone, look! Up there!"
Her fellows followed her waving arm to see a stout pillar of white smoke barreling into the sky, no more than a few dozen miles away. Instantly, cheers erupted from the dozen pegasus knights as they saddles their steeds and made for the skies, the leader trying to rally her excited platoon.
"Come on now, stay together! In formation! We can get there before the day's out if we do it well and don't run into any trouble! Follow me, everyone!"
Claude had barely set ablaze the small pile of dry pine and wood splinters before he heard Dimitri calling for him. Claude glanced once at the fire and wondered if he might say a prayer, thought better of it, and then joined Dimitri at the shelter.
"She wants to speak to you," Dimitri said softly, and Claude was surprised to realize that he was holding her in his lap, her head and chest elevated from the sand. Claude suppressed a shudder as he took Edelgard's hand. It was whiter than her face and damp with sweat.
"Claude… I have… a request."
It was all Claude could do to not cry at the sight of his comrade. Edelgard's breathing hardly moved her aching chest now. Dried blood dripped from the corners of her lips and her pale eyes were blurred with tears of pain every time she coughed.
"Anything you need, El," Claude answered, "but take a deep breath first. That's right... slowly, now."
"I want you… to leave this place. Take Dimitri… and find help. Leave… me."
The silence was so complete that a wolf howling from the other side of the mountain echoed over the three. Bewildered, Claude choked back a sob as he fought for the right words to say.
"You're delirious," he said in a halting voice that frightened Dimitri, "you need to rest-"
"I'm not. I… I can't survive… much longer-"
"We're not leaving you here! Why would you even suggest-"
Claude trailed off as words failed him. Without a means of treating Edelgard, she would die from the fever. If not tonight, then the next. Dimitri fed Claude's protest with, "No, El, we won't do that. We can't simply-"
He stopped as the most violent tremor of a cough imaginable shook Edelgard's entire frame. Her eyes dropped shut as more black blood hit the sand by her open mouth. Dimitri had to place his cheek next to her mouth to feel her breathing as exhaustion claimed her.
"We can't do that!"
Claude knew he was about to cry again, but he didn't care. He shouted as if Dimitri had agreed to Edelgard's dreadful proposition, "No! We won't leave her here! We have to stay with her, keep her safe-"
"She's not going to survive, Claude."
Claude could only blink away his tears in response.
"But we won't… I refuse to leave her here…" Dimitri could hardly get the words out of his sore throat, "until she… until she's gone."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Claude cried stubbornly, "that's not going to... You can't say things like-!"
But his resolve had finally broken and Claude dissolved into sobs barely in time for Dimitri to catch him. He cried until his throat was sore and his face was a mess of dirt and tears, clutching his friend like he was a rock jutting out of the stormiest ocean imaginable. And Dimitri cried too, although no tears fell on one side of his face. The two of them, for a very long moment, forgot about everything but their despair.
How many times have I wished for her death? The phrase swirled in Dimitri's mind, twisted with sorrow and pain. How many times before? And now here it is. What a monster I am for that wish. What a monster.
How did Dimitri lose his eye? He got attacked by a bear, of course! Also, writing Claude crying was... really hard to picture. I just finished Verdant Wind and it's really difficult to picture that man doing anything close to crying, he shuts away his emotions so well.
But this is getting really dramatic, isn't it? Maybe a bit too dramatic? I don't know. I don't really believe there's such a thing as "too dramatic" in writing, or in art in general.
Anyway, tune in on March 13th (when I can tear myself away from Three Houses long enough to upload a chapter) to see what will become of the three. I plan to do just one more chapter, it'll probably be quite a bit longer than the other ones, but we'll see. I'll do everything I can not to switch the date again.