Chapter 2: Embarrassed Half to Death
Brady was known for never having much luck. His search for a good healing staff had failed, which forced him to improvise by delegating to defense duty on the travelling convoy. Clutching his trusted hand-axe, he remained at the back of the convoy with his Frederick, shooting the breeze. Their conversation would be constantly interrupted by Brady's head jolting at the sound of anything loud, be it the wind in the trees or a horse whinnying. Brady didn't have any time for an attack.
But what he didn't see coming on that day of travel was a situation that would literally take him off of his feet.
As he walked, he answered a question posed by his father.
"I ain't scared of bein' attacked or nothin'" he defended, his wary attitude being brought to light by his father. Frederick chuckled in response, sitting upon his armored horse.
"Did you know that they call me Frederick the Wary amongst the Shepherds?" he revealed. "It appears you must have inherited it from me, hah hah!"
Brady chuckled in response as he spied his surroundings. They were in the thick forest, the canopy blocking out the majority of the sunlight. The uneven ground meant that the convoy moved rather slowly through the woods; the pegasus knights of the group were flying above the trees. The sounds of their wings flapping in the sky could be heard down beneath the canopy. The small flecks of sunlight that did successfully pass through the canopy created a curtain of rays that illuminated the dark forest, creating a mystical atmosphere.
Whilst he chuckled, his ears attuned to a different conversation that was occurring at the center of the brigade. The conversation was between Chrom and Nowi, who seemed to be having a brief chat about Nah.
"Nowi, where has Nah gone?"
"She said she could smell some berries around here, so she went to go and find them"
"Are you sure that's a wise thing to do? I'd rather not have to stop the convoy to search for her"
"She'll be fine, Chrom, you don't have to worry! Manaketes have an excellent sense of direction; she'll find her way back in no time! Plus, I can smell her scent from here anyhow, so if I lose that, I'll let you know"
"I thought the taguel would be the ones with the enhanced sense of smell"
"They do, but we've got it too for certain stuff…like berries and other manaketes"
"Strange. Well, you are her mother, so I guess you know best. We'll keep moving, but if she's not here by the time we emerge from the forest, we'll need to stop and go find her"
"H-help! I'm drowning!"
The last voice belonged to neither Chrom nor Nowi. Brady stopped suddeny as he heard the voice. Chrom was the second to hear the voice. Looking up, he started to dart his eyes around, the situation dawning on him.
"Who's screaming?" he called. Nowi recognized the voice at once, gasping.
"It's Nah!" she cried, suddenly starting to panic. A wave of distress shot through the convoy as the situation unfolded.
"Stop the march!" Chrom ordered, halting the entire group with the sound of his voice. Brady quickly looked around, feeling his heart beating faster in fear as another scream emitted from within the woods. The voice definitely belonged to Nah; Brady grunted and ran towards the middle of the convoy where Chrom was standing. Chrom had summoned Frederick to his side.
"Frederick, ride ahead to the clearing and tell the pegasus riders that we've stopped" Chrom explained, trying to remain calm amidst the unrest. Frederick, calm as ever, understood his order and rode with speed through the woods, vanishing from sight within seconds. Chrom then started to talk with Nowi, trying to calm her down as she started to cry. Brady knew that Nowi could smell Nah out, but time was of the essence.
"Help me!" Nah screamed again, her voice echoing through the woods and across the convoy.
"Everyone start looking, now!" Chrom yelled, his order causing everyone to look about in a frenzied manner. Brady ran to the edge of the convoy, concentrating as much as he could. The screaming seemed to be quite clear; she couldn't be far. Scanning intensely into the innards of the woods, he prayed that he'd locate the source of the voice. Just as another cry for help came from the woods, Brady spotted something that nobody else had found. A bank of rippling water.
It had to be, he thought. Without thought, he dropped his hand axe and started to sprint as fast as he could.
"Nah!" he yelled out as he ran, tearing away from the group as he vanished amongst the trees.
"Brady, help me!" a yell responded. Brady confirmed the yell to be Nah's clear as day. He was close; as he maneuvered past numerous trunks and clumsily jumped over the heaving roots of the trees beneath his feet, he noticed that he was approaching what resembled a swamp. The rippling bank soon emerged to be a bigger pool of stagnant, dark water, located in a small clearing. To Brady's fear, Nah was in the middle, thrashing at the surface.
Relieved to have found her, Brady felt the hero emerge in him. Making a final heroic hop over a large tree trunk, he had a clear space to sprint to the bank. He'd be damned is he was going to let a fellow member of the convoy drown today, he thought. He might not have any staves on him, but he knew that wasn't going to stop him from doing his job: saving people.
Clomping through the mud, which stained his robes to no end, he reached the bank. Having gathered momentum, he took a deep breath.
"Brady's comin'!" he shouted, leaping off the bank and positioning himself into a dive position. He didn't think twice about where he was diving; he had to save Nah. Breath held, he entered the freezing cold water.
Suddenly, just as soon as he broke through the face of the water, he felt his face crash into something hard. A jolt ran down his spine and Brady felt his entire body contort within the water. Losing all feeling, his mind blanked out.
He could vaguely remember picking Nah up out of the surprisingly shallow water and taking her to the bank. He could also remember collapsing comically on the bank, dropping Nah in the process. Apart from that, everything else was a blur before the force of the impact caused Brady to fall unconscious.
Disbelief was the first thing that was on his mind when he came to. Just the other day they were having the most awkward conversation, then the next day he found himself knocking himself out on accident, fearing that she was going to die. Brady was known for never having much luck, after all.
He was informed by Chrom that the convoy had set up camp outside of the forest perimeter for the night. Clothed in light cotton garb, Brady was laying in a bed with his torso and head propped up against large pillows, his lower body covered by a quilt. The moment he came to, he grimaced at the fact that he was in the camp infirmary. What was worse was the fact that he was alone; which meant he was the only member of the team to be injured that day. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that he had injured himself.
After Chrom had left the room, he was tended to by Lissa, having his concussion healed ironically by the half used staves he had laid out in the tent the previous day. He didn't say a word, it felt as if he were drowning himself in embarrassment. At least he knew the pool wasn't three foot deep; at the very least his pool of embarrassment wouldn't give him a second concussion. Such thoughts reeled in his head well after Lissa had left him and the sun sunk into the horizon, bringing the night.
As he finished his bear thigh, he watched as Lissa returned to the infirmary tent, taking his plate.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Grand" Brady hummed quietly.
"You're quite lucky" Lissa explained. "Your back's surprisingly resilient. A good night's rest here and you should be back in shape for tomorrow's march" she explained. Cracking that Brady wasn't in the mood to talk, she quietly left, leaving Brady to his own thoughts.
The infirmary tent contained only the one bed, occupied by Brady for the night. Brady was no stranger to the tent, although it would usually be him tending to the wounded, instead of the other way around. He wasn't even wounded as such, the concussion had been fully dealt with by the healing staves. He could have stood up and walked right out of the ten if he had pleased. He could take the lantern by his bedside and go for a walk if it pleased him.
But he didn't. He wasn't in the mood for that.
Quietly reading away at a book, he didn't notice a figure walking into the tent. It wasn't until the figure stood right by his bedside that he noticed someone there. Looking up, he saw it was Nah, dressed in new robes, considering her old ones were soaked in swamp water.
"Nah!" Brady said in surprise, putting the book away. "You all right?" He felt oddly glad to see her, despite the embarrassment she'd caused him.
"B-Brady?" she stuttered, much to Brady's disappointment. Why would she bother talking to him if she was going to be scared? But Nah quickly gathered her composure before Brady had the chance to make a point of her attitude.
"I'm fine" she said calmly. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Brady started to chuckle, raising his eyebrow at her.
"Uh, because you nearly drowned back there?" he pointed out, gesturing his head to the direction of the woods. "You sure you're okay?" Brady couldn't remember much of the incident, but he did catch the sight of sheer panic and fear on Nah's face before he dove in and struck his head against the bottom of the pool.
"Absolutely" Nah replied, a small smile appearing on her face. A look of skepticism appeared on Brady's face. "Really, I'm fine…thanks to you" She then looked down, her expression shy. "At least, I heard it was you who dove in and saved me. My memory is still pretty hazy"
Brady grunted in response, clenching his fist as it rested on his leg.
"Ugh, who told ya?" he asked, looking towards Nah, who met his eyes. "I asked everybody not to make a big thing outta it…" He gestured to the exit, as of everybody else was gathered outside. It was true; he had specifically asked Chrom to keep it under wraps, but it appeared that Brady the Hero was the talk of the camp that night. However, upon saying that, Nah retaliated passionately, clutching her hands together as she lifted them to her heart.
"But it is a big thing, Brady!" she argued, a twinkle in her eye. "Especially to me. So, thank you"
A warm feeling bubbled in Brady's chest. There was something quite sweet about Nah, he thought. She seemed to innocent, he felt almost privileged to have 'saved' her from drowning. He gave her a wink, chuckling a little.
"Aw, it was nothin'" he said, flattered by the thanks we was getting. He almost felt like a hero, lying on the infirmary bed in front of the girl he'd rescued. Now he knew how Frederick must have felt when he dropped him into the ravine, save for the 'thanks' being replaced by 'sorry'.
Nah's brows furrowed slightly as she listened to Brady's humbled response. She wasn't satisfied by his acceptance and leant slightly over the bed.
"Nothing?" she questioned. "I could have died!" Brady raised his eyebrow, feeling confused once again.
"Not sure how" he pointed out. "That water was three feet deep, and that's bein' generous"
Nah's face flushed red as Brady reminded her of the fact that it was nigh on impossible to drown in a pool so shallow. She looked down in shame as her face flushed red.
"Augh…please, don't remind me" she sighed, lowering her hands. "I'm embarrassed half to death as it is" Brady looked at Nah in slight exasperation, lifting his arms to illustrate his feelings.
"What about me?" he moaned, cocking his head a little. "I heard you shout for help, so I dove in thinkin' it was deep! Nearly telescoped my damn spine!" His complaint was met by silence. Nah was still looking down in shame, and before long, Brady couldn't hold his complaint. Sighing, he put his hands down and went to pat Nah gently on the back.
"But, hey, I guess we both pulled through" he noted as he rubbed her back, before leaning back against his pillows. "Just be careful in the future, yeah?"
Nah suddenly looked up, her eyes opening. A smile started to appear on her mouth, revealing her immaculately straight, white teeth.
"…You're worried for me?" she asked quietly, her smile intact. Brady felt slightly intimidated by the sudden happiness Nah was displaying; he sat up straight on the bed and scratched his back.
"What?" he said as he reached for his back. He felt slightly nervous and itchy. "W-well, sure, Nah! We're on the same team, ain't we?"
There was a short silence between the two. Brady distracted himself as much as he could, but he couldn't escape Nah's gaze. Eventually, he had to look at her, and he did. She had kept her eyes on him throughout the silence. He watched as he eyelids seemed to relax.
"…You're actually really sweet, you know that?" she said suddenly, after the long silence had passed. Her compliment was met by a look of confusion of Brady's face.
"What?" he asked. "Where'd that come from?" Nah then leant back, giving Brady a little space.
"I had you wrong" she revealed, her smile receding, but still present. "I thought you were colder…scarier"
Almost in triumph, Brady raised his hand and clicked his fingers.
"So you WERE scared of me!" he spoke victoriously. "I knew it!" Nah took a step back, her brow furrowing with worry again.
"But not any more!" she said, trying to defend Brady. "Now I know you're a really good, kind-hearted person!" Unused to such praise, Brady started to blush a little himself. He now found himself hiding his face a little.
"Gah, stop already" he pleaded quietly, retreating into his pillows slightly. "I ain't used to praise. It feels almost as weird to hear ya say that as it does you calling me scary!"
Nah shook her head in response, straightening her figure and placing her hands behind her back. Her confidence had returned in full now.
"Good people should be recognized as such" she stated clearly, nodding her head in self-agreement. "…Which is why I'm making a point of telling everyone in camp what a sweetie you are" Before Brady could process what he had just heard and protest, Nah turned her back to him and walked out of the infirmary. His thoughts gathering at a fast pace, he started to sputter out his response.
"Hey, hold on!' he called as Nah disappeared from the exit. "You don't gotta be tellin' no one nothin', see?"
His efforts were futile. She didn't return. Slapping a hand to his head, he groaned. This was going to be some trouble, he thought. Still, he found himself liking her a lot more than he did before, which was new. This, he accepted. However, he felt frightened of what Nah was aiming to do. Was his social integrity at stake? For Brady, he could only see how the next few days would go.