Sorry this took me so damn long y'all. I've been insanely sick and it did not help a roadblock I faced in this story.
Sully's never been one to move too fast. That's just not how she works. She's always needed time to confirm her feelings- that, or any person would need to pass an entrance exam and already be close to her for her to even consider courting them. Besides, it's maybe the fifth or sixth or seventieth most prominent thing on her mind, only popping up when she's trying to be comfortable with going into her forties completely romantically untethered- or, in this case, when it's been maybe two months and people are already getting engaged and she's nothing but stymied.
She probably shouldn't think of girly shit like this. At all. Okay, maybe not girly because that's just not a derogatory term she feels comfortable with, but she's a noble. This is how everyone expects her to think, and she hates that, but they picked up Henry just before they got on the ships to Valm, and now he and Olivia are engaged. Sully's talked to Olivia a time or two, and once you get past her painfully shy demeanor, Sully can confirm that she's always been incredibly expressive, sincere, and romantic.
Looking at them, Sully can't help but think and how!
Since they're approaching the Valm stronghold to personally deliver a boot to Walhart's arse, this should not itself even approach the top ten things on her mind, but, ah hell, they're experiencing downtime. The camp is set up in plains about five miles away, which is as inconspicuous as they get in this landscape. Everyone's a little on edge that they'll be found and smoked out by Walhart's men, even Libra, but maybe he's just allowing himself to be on edge around her.
She likes that idea.
She's just outside of the tent she shares with Libra because sneaky-arse Robin keeps pairing them together, the only reason that the tents are co-ed is that there are already a few gay people in the army so why even bother trying to play it straight? Besides, it's not like Robin's hiding that she wants to play matchmaker. Not very well at least.
She's sitting cross-legged on the ground, listening to Olivia and Henry be the talk of the town. Libra is not showing the slightest bit of interest, lying on his cot while, by the large campfire, Sully sees a luminescently red Olivia shyly cling to Henry as he lazily fields all the questions about the two of them with his signature cackle. Henry's always been a spectacle, but she can't imagine how the hell he deals with the conventions of romance and gossip. Sully sure could never. Sully could never imagine being attracted to such a shamelessly kooky and bloody guy.
Finally, Sully speaks to Libra, with a pre-emptive "okay, I know it's bloody stupid of me to get so worked up over this."
"The two romantics?" he distantly asks from inside the tent.
:"Yeah, like…" Sully stops. "It's just weird. Sorry for bugging you."
Sully hears Libra lean up. "If it's on your mind, it's very valid."
She chuckles. "Yeah, but it's stupid to even be so worried. Cause like…" she scratches her head, wondering if she actually wants to pursue this conversation. It's Libra, but it's also her being embarrassing to Libra. She doesn't like it. Still, it's hard to imagine Libra being embarrassed about her. He's a safe person to talk to, and Sully needs that sometimes.
"I mean, I'm not jealous," she says, and that's the truth. "And I'm not really bitter either, like, I could probably stay single 'til I die and be okay with it." That part could stand to be more truthful. "I just… feel like…" What does she feel like? "I don't know," she answers herself. "I guess that it's too fast, but also that, like, everyone's gonna get hitched before we leave Valm."
Libra chuckles. "I would be lying if I said Robin isn't playing matchmaker."
"Right? Speaking to my soul here. I think she's pairing us up with a shit-eating gr-" Then Sully blushes and stops. She'd be damned if Libra wasn't thinking the same as well. She gulps but tries not to think about it.
"I suppose," he adds, and Sully can tell he's changing the subject. "With the arrival of the kids from the future, the topic of marriage and parentage is on peoples' minds." He stops to think. "Maybe pressure is involved in the equation, which would explain the moving fast about it."
Sully nods, but then her heart skips as she thinks of Kjelle, and hell, that makes her wish she was thinking about sneaky-arse Robin. The idea of Kjelle's all she has. How, when her back was turned, Kjelle turned into the type of complex, interesting woman that the other kids could describe for hours. Truth be told, some of those other kids have arrived, and she's seen the pressure they add to the Shepherds, and… thinking of Kjelle now, she can relate to that.
She wonders if anyone else has found it too painful to address the other kids about their as-of-yet-unfound children like she's found it too painful to address anyone but Lucina about Kjelle. Even though Lucina parrots stories from the other children about her, there's something comforting about the impersonal way she recaps them.
Suddenly, she doesn't want to see Olivia and Henry anymore. She didn't want to in the first place, but now she knows she shouldn't. She crawls into the tent, not looking at Libra. Still, he sits on the side of the cot, patting the space next to him to indicate a space for her. After a second of hesitation, Sully takes it. Libra looks at her like an open book, making Sully look down. She hates how weak and pouty she looks, but around Libra, it feels more okay.
"To be honest," Libra assures her, an apologetic affect in his voice, "I do find it sweet, in an odd way. I have…" He clears his throat. "Like myself, I feel like the Shepherds are a bit…" He hesitates again, and Sully elbows him. She'll be damned if she's the only one embarrassing herself with her vulnerability. He finishes with "aimless."
"Aimless?" she repeats. It makes sense, but she feels read regardless.
"I would confess so," he responds. "So, in a way, I feel like this would be good. It would give people a glimpse of their future. Structure. Something to look forward to. I think, whether out of fear or clarity, that everyone moving so fast… that's a response to what we've learned."
"Huh." It's all she says, but she knows Libra can tell it's content with his answer. Neither of them says anything, but Sully would be lying if she said that it didn't comfort her.
Things feel more certain now.
Libra is good at making things feel more certain.
Libra should be relieved.
Libra should be celebrating the end of the war.
Libra should be doing a lot of things.
Libra should definitely be healing people now that the battle is over.
Instead, Libra is worrying.
Libra's doing his best to heal the injured with Lissa, Maribelle, and their future son Brady, but his focus is not in it. When he should transition from one person to another, he instead paces around the respite tents the injured are resting in. Lissa knows why and glances at him sadly as she goes to the next person, but Brady, a fellow priest unlike the fellow priests Libra knows, keeps giving him a stink-eye- though Maribelle sees Libra's concerned face and informs him that Brady's always like that. "He's a bit of a boor," she explains, clearly blindsided still by the behavior of her own child.
Libra is not dismayed at working with him- he considers Brady a beautiful sign of the union between the two women in the tents with him- but he wishes Brady would not be as openly suspicious of him or demand that he focus. It's not that Brady is wrong to be suspicious, but he would prefer to be left alone.
Libra works on the next patient- Olivia and Henry's son, Inigo. He has a nasty gash in his leg, and his rickety attempts to smile through the pain keep giving way to winces and groans as it heals. Libra absently gives Inigo instructions to stay still when he nears jerking away from the sting of the salve, but in his state, where his mind keeps going to the hall that he could see a few heavily armored knights in and Sully racing to confront them, then a few mages to his back he had to himself confront. When he turned around, Sully was gone and has not yet been seen after the battle. Fearing the worst would immobilize him completely, but trying to stifle it is not going much better.
After Inigo is healed, Libra looks at the next patient- Tharja's child, Noire. Though she's been quietly othered by the first generation due to her lack of a known father and the sordid reputation of her mother, Libra cannot deny that she's generally very sweet; even that her bouts of anger are justified. She also has an arrow sticking out of her stomach. Noire swallows down tears but is unable to hide the sobs. However, as he goes to work on her, Brady cuts him off with a stern grab that belies his own physical weakness.
"You're too damn distracted," the younger priest growls. Libra wants to object to that idea but keeps his weak retort internal. Brady looks at him, and his countenance echoes Libra's own fear so viscerally that Libra has to bite his lip to keep from gasping and letting far too much of his emotion slip. "Just go," he says. "I'll take care of her, okay?"
Libra nods, knowing how important this loner is to him, startlingly able to relate despite being a loner himself.
As the other patients are being taken care of, Libra apologizes to Naga and sneaks outside of the tent. There are a few people resting near a fire unlit during the day hours, ones that watch Libra stumble away without leaving him with any words deeper than customary hellos that Libra is in no mood to return. He stands at the edge of camp, considering walking into the now-vacated castle he can see in the distance. It's a tall task, but it seems less than challenging in his mind. The idea of searching the castle up and down for her seems surprisingly easy. A couple of Shepherds are looking for her; why couldn't he?
So distracted is he that he doesn't see a speck walking uneasily towards the camp until he recognizes that it is her, and at that moment he is Brady, reaction visceral, his head jerking awake as he starts to run towards her, his eyes shamelessly filling with tears. Sully kneels and stops, and Libra recognizes that she is injured. He runs even faster towards her, stopping in front of her as she weakly smiles.
"How bad is it?" he demands.
"You gotta stop thinking that things are gonna start off bad," she scolds, but the way she seethes doesn't aid her statement. Libra looks at her with knowing sympathy, so she says "Probably just a flesh wound. Hurts like the damned, though."
Libra bows his head. "At least there's that."
"You crying?" she asks.
Libra nods. He's okay with that.
"I'm okay," she tells him. "A couple of 'em got me first, but I got 'em harder."
"Thank Naga."
Since desperate times call for desperate measures, he takes Sully's hand and pulls her to her feet. Sully takes it, but tries to stay distant, until Libra asks "do you need to lean on me?"
"You okay with that?" she asks, even though she's unsteady on her feet.
"You're injured," he insists forcefully. "However I feel about is irrelevant."
"I'm fine," she insists back. "I'm more worried about you than anything, you know. I don't want you to think this is anything too dire to do things you don't want."
"Yes, well, I do think that, Sully!"
Libra goes silent. He's alarmed at how forceful he was and apologizes. Sully shamelessly gawks at him, eyes wide when they aren't closing with her winces.
"I'm so sorry," he insists before she can chastise him. "I just… care about you."
Sully looks up at him, knowing the magnitude of that statement. She smiles weakly, but her face is as red as her hair. "Thanks," she mumbles, softly leaning on his shoulder and holding his far hand. "I care about you too."
Libra almost tells her that there's no need to tell him. He already knows. Still, it may mean the same thing to her as his own confession meant to him. The two wander back to camp and the healing tent, and Libra can only hope that them being separated is not a regular occurrence.