It wasn't unusual for Hilda to be the last to slip into class just before the Professor closed the door. It was unusual that she would do so silently, that she would have missed dinner the night before, that she would not meet any of their eyes as they glanced back at her.
They glanced back often. Thankfully the Professor began reviewing for the certification exams that were coming up –bows and magic – so the majority of the class were required to pay attention. Still, the looks continued and increased in frequency as they approached the lunch break.
It arrived, as things tend to do when you're not looking forward to them, but she was unexpectedly saved;
"Hilda, it has been some time since we took tea together, would you do me the honour?"
Lorenz. Lorenz who had been raised on the rolling fields of Gloucester, so unlike the hills and valleys of Goneril; who had been brought up to know how badly a tumble from a horse's back could go. Lorenz who had recognised the box. Lorenz who would not need to ask.
"Aw, Lorenz that's so sweet of you, I'd be delighted." She answered and took his arm, closing them off to any of the classmates who may yet approach.
Lorenz poured and Hilda was grateful for his taste; Lorenz could probably even make the bitter Seiros tea palatable, but thankfully he'd chosen something lighter, more comforting.
He spoke lightly about the upcoming certifications. Carefully keeping the conversation going without actually saying anything. It was a talent she had mastered as well, but today he was supplying all of the effort and they both knew it.
He didn't ask.
But she did.
"Have you ever…?"
Lorenz paused what he was saying, hand lowering from whatever empty point he'd been making to rest gracefully in his lap. "Horses" he admitted "Never people, and yet… it was difficult enough."
A stupider person than Hilda might have attempted to skip out on her meeting with the Professor. Hilda knew that if the Professor wanted to see her it'd happen regardless of whether she turned up when requested or not, and it would only be more work to keep avoiding it. At least if they met when Byleth had asked, she might be willing to listen to the reasons why Hilda was the last person she should take on an auxiliary mission.
The Professor listened. And then slowly and calmly refuted each point, until it would have been open insubordination for Hilda to push back any further. To Ordelia they were to go, and no, Lysithea was not to be told of it by request of her parents and yes, they would be leaving before dawn.
Yes, Hilda was to bring the knife.
The Gatekeeper saw them off to the rookery with his typical cheer. A swift flight later they arrived at the outpost near the Seven Bridges.
The Seven were nothing compared to the Great Bridge of Myrddin, but equally the tributary that shared it's name was nothing to the Arimid at this point either. Hrym and Ordelia had historically been allied as well, so there was little need for such guarded structures. The Seven, spaced half a mile apart along a sweeping meander and each barely wide enough for two horses to pass by each other, were overlooked by outposts on the hills on each side of the border, and that was enough.
Except that Hrym as a whole was unhappy with Duke Aegir, and several factions of insurrectionists blamed Ordelia for not providing more aid. Some skirmishes were inevitable.
Hilda stood to one side as the Professor spoke with the commander of the outpost, then followed behind as they made their way out to a courtyard where a flat-bedded wagon was awaiting them. She scrambled up into the seat when the Professor bid her and they were soon rumbling off towards the bridges and the fields beyond.
Hilda looked back at the empty wagon, a pile of sheets was wedged in one corner but it was otherwise swept clean, and back to the Professor "Don't we need to get supplies first, if we're going to be supporting a battle?"
The Professor glanced at her, and the look wasn't blank, it was sad.
"The battle is already done, Hilda. We're bringing the soldiers home."
When you weren't swept up in a tide of adrenaline and exhilaration, grateful for each breath you and your friends took, the remains of a battlefield were a grim and dreary place to be.
Even the battle standards littering the area seemed washed out and grey. As if Hilda herself was the only splash of colour for miles around, though she knew most of them blazoned the colours of the Alliance.
When they'd arrived the Professor had stood on the bench for a long moment, eyes roving over the field as though her tactical mind could deduce the plays that had been made, the gambits that had succeeded and failed, from what was left behind. Perhaps she could, her hands had fisted as she looked at one particular hillock at the far edge of the field where the Leicester banner was flying over a pile of… corpses.
Now, Hilda had made her way there. So far there were thankfully few Ordelian soldiers who hadn't returned home, but Hilda's fingers and her mind were numb from lifting even those few into the wagon, folding their hands carefully across their breasts and tucking a sheet gently round them.
She didn't complain. This was not the sort of thing she could complain about, even though they'd been picking their way across for hours. She could only continue.
Then she turned a soldier over and almost dropped him when he coughed. She fell to her knees immediately, keeping him propped up as he wheezed. Alive! More than half a day had passed since she'd come here, longer still since the battle and he-
A hand cupped her cheek and pulled her forward where he could see her. She followed it, not because he had some last reserve of strength but because she suddenly had none. Eyes some indiscriminate shade of dark (Like the Professor, like Claude, like Lorenz, like Marianne) fixed on hers and he choked, pale and grimacing
"Are you here to take me, pretty Valkyrie?" he gasped, blood flecking his lips. Hilda couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. She nodded. A hum that might in a thousand years have become an affirmative strangled in her throat as it closed around it, invisible hands choking her "Ah…" he managed "That's good, then… I was… waiting…" she fumbled for the misericorde but couldn't grasp it. He smiled, just a little, after the next wet gasp of air and there was something about that smile that reminded her of Holst, and oh, her brother was the kind to lead from the front, wasn't he? This could be his fate, couldn't it?
His eyes (The Professor's eyes, Claude's eyes, Lorenz's eyes, Marianne's eyes) glazed over and his last breath rattled out into the gloaming.
Hilda held the hand he'd pressed against her cheek in place and sobbed.