Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene

October 475 I.C., Odin

Life at the IOA settled into a rhythm easily. The week seemed to orbit around the Wednesday practicum, where all of the top students jostled to earn or keep their places in the ranking. Reuenthal was, generally speaking, untouchable in the practicum, as the only person who had come even close to beating him was Leigh, during that first week. Reuenthal had been a little surprised to find that he had been given the “win” for that match, since he had considered himself the loser.

Over the next few weeks, Reuenthal watched as Leigh remained undefeated after their first match. It wasn’t for lack of trying on the other students’ part, either. More than once, he had heard people speaking loudly about Leigh, his tactics, and how to beat him. Out of curiosity, Reuenthal also looked over the transcripts of Leigh’s matches, trying to see what made him such a frustration for the other members of the class.

There didn’t seem to be much of a pattern in Leigh’s matches. In the nine weeks of classes, Leigh had gone up against a different opponent every time, and had used a completely different strategy in each one. Reuenthal didn’t realize what Leigh was doing, until one week he spent a very easy two hours running circles around someone in the practicum, who he thought was Leigh. After all, one of Leigh’s previous matches that Reuenthal had looked over had involved him charging headlong into a massed enemy, catching them off guard, and using superior mid-battle positioning to crush the opposing side. That had been a difficult battle, and had cost a good chunk of Leigh’s forces, but he had won. When Reuenthal then faced an enemy who charged directly at him without even the barest preparation or hesitancy, he had thought that he was facing Leigh trying the same thing twice. But, when he emerged victorious from the practicum, he had found a red-faced Bittenfeld waiting for him.

Both he and Bittenfeld were disappointed for their own reasons.

“Damn, Reuenthal, you couldn’t have flinched a little, could you?” Bittenfeld asked as they walked to lunch.

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. “Is that what usually happens?”

“Yes.” Bittenfeld picked up a stick from the ground and whacked at the bushes as they walked past them, causing their crisp autumn leaves to shiver. “You’re ruining my win:loss ratio, you know.”

“What is it?”

“Four:two,” Bittenfeld said. “But I guess it’s four:three, now.”

“Who’d you lose to before?”

“Gautier. And Leigh. Obviously.” Bittenfeld whacked the bush. “Mostly I’ve been against people lower than me, though.”

“If it’s any consolation, I thought you were Leigh,” Reuenthal said.

Bittenfeld snorted derisively. “Now you’re just lying. My game against Leigh lasted longer than this.”

Reuenthal shrugged as Bittenfeld attacked another bush. “He’s taking your tactics, then. Look at his old matches.”

“If you say so.” Bittenfeld said. “Whatever. He’s welcome to use my tactics, as long as he doesn’t try ‘em against you or Gautier.” He laughed a little bit. “Or me. I’d beat him at my own game.”

“Would you?”

“Well, he did something different against me, last time. But if we went head to head—“ A particularly vicious slashing of bushes ensued— “I’d come out on top.”

“I hope your confidence is well-founded,” Reunthal said dryly.

Bittenfeld snorted. “Are you not going to wish me luck in beating your nemesis?”

“I wasn’t aware that I had one.”

“Well, if he beats you, the reputation of the freshman class is ruined.”

“It’s unclear to me how my personal standing has somehow come to define the reputation of the entire freshman class,” Reuenthal said. “If you think we’re on the same team, you’re wrong.”

Bittenfeld continued as though Reuenthal’s objections had meant nothing. “All I’m saying is that the man is an embarrassment. I’m not even talking about him being from Phezzan, or wherever the hell he’s from. He’s just— you’ve seen him in physicals, right?”

It was true that Leigh was consistently at the bottom of the rankings in terms of the mandatory weekend physical classes. He could barely run in a straight line. “I could hardly avoid seeing him.”

“Yeah. Can you just imagine that guy being number one? And he’s not even in our department. I don’t get it.”

“Perhaps you should ask him what his secret is, rather than me.”

“I did already,” Bittenfeld whined.

“And what answer did you get?”

“He told me that he prefers to GM rather than actually play.”

“That’s not an answer to the question.”

“I know! And you know what the worst part is?”

“What, Bittenfeld?”

“He sounded like he was telling the truth.”

“And why is that the worst part?”

“You might not know this, Reuenthal, but the worst feeling in the world is losing to a guy who doesn’t even enjoy beating you.”

“Just for you, Bittenfeld, I’ll take enough joy in beating you for the both of us.”

Bittenfeld snorted with laughter. “I’m sure Leigh will be happy to learn you’re picking up that burden for him.”

“You’re going to tell him I said that?”

“Nah,” Bittenfeld said. “No point. He’d probably just say something weird at me.”

Overall, Reuenthal was acceptably social with his classmates, but not close with any of them. This suited him fine. As Bittenfeld had pointed out, many of them considered him their only hope of stopping Leigh from taking the number one spot in the class. Reuenthal didn’t care about the rest of the class’s obsession with keeping the number one spot out of the hands of a foreigner, but he did care about his “undefeated” game record. He wanted to have a rematch against Leigh, to see if he could win in a more conclusive way, but between August and October, no such match was forthcoming.

There was little, then, that broke up the monotony of the school year until one week in October, when Reuenthal sat at dinner with Wahlen, whom he found tolerable, and Ansbach, whom he distrusted.

“You both got invited to this...thing, right?” Wahlen asked. “At Neue Sanssouci?”

“It said it was for the top ten students, so yes,” Ansbach said. “Did your mentors tell you anything about it?”

“You talk to your mentor?” Wahlen asked. “Mine basically said, ‘Don’t bother me,’ at the beginning of the year, and I haven’t talked to him since.”

“Not sure what you think he’d tell me,” Reuenthal said. “Neue Sanssouci. Catered breakfast. Horseback hunt. Wear your dress uniform. It’s all very simple.”

“You seem nonchalant about it. Go to Neue Sanssouci often, von Reuenthal?” Ansbach asked. Of the three sitting at the dinner table, Reuenthal was the only one who had a noble name.

“My father is just reichsritter, so no,” Reuenthal said.

“Who else is noble?” Wahlen asked. “Just Strum and Deitch, right? Oh, and Stuben— he’s still tenth.”

“And Leigh,” Reuenthal said.

“Please,” Ansbach said. “He wouldn’t know noble if it bit him.”

“Hank von Leigh,” Reuenthal said. “It’s in the name, like it or not.”

Ansbach scowled. “You seem eager to invite him into the ranks of the nobility.”

“Ansbach, if I had the right or the ability to give or rescind noble lineage, the world would be a different place.”

Wahlen chuckled. “Sieg Kaiser Oskar.”

Reuenthal took a sip of coffee, then said, very deliberately, “Let’s simply say that I’m content with being first in our class, so that none of us are accused of seeking things above our station.”

“I was joking,” Wahlen said.

“You should be warning Leigh about looking for things above his station,” Ansbach said.

“I don’t know why you’re under the impression that I speak with him,” Reuenthal said. “And, besides, I just said that he has his station, and there’s nothing that you, or I, or anybody besides Kaiser Friedrich himself can do about it.”

“Ansbach, would you even be happier if he didn’t have that von in his name?” Wahlen asked. “It seems like you’d hate him even more if he was a complete nobody like me.”

“All I’m saying is that he has a position he doesn’t deserve—“

“Deserve?” Reuenthal asked. “If you’re talking about a noble name, the only thing that any nobles have done to ‘deserve’ that is be born, in which case you’ll have to take the issue up with Leigh’s parents. And if you’re talking about his second place rank—“ Reuenthal shrugged. “He beat you, anyway.”

“I don’t know why you’re so eager to defend him,” Ansbach said.

“A series of patently obvious facts is not a defense,” Reuenthal said. “You can think you’re better than him if you want; I don’t really care. But I’m not going to pretend that the class ranks don’t exist, or that they’re meaningless.”

“That’s easy for the number one to say.”

“Is it?” Reuenthal asked. “I suppose you should hope that I, too, lose my position to Leigh, so that I can curse him like the rest of you do.”

“You think you’re in danger of being beaten by him?” Wahlen asked, curious.

“I think that I would like to see him try,” Reuenthal said.

“There’s more than one way that a person could lose their position,” Ansbach said.

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked. “Am I going to fall prey to some sort of scandal?”

“No,” Ansbach said after half a second. “You are the only thing standing in the way of embarrassment for the entire freshman class. But perhaps Kaiser Friedrich will take one look at Leigh and get rid of him.”

Wahlen laughed. “I doubt we’re going to meet the kaiser.”

“We’ll see,” Reuenthal said.

“You know how to ride, right?” Wahlen asked.

“Of course,” Ansbach said.

The day of the horseback hunt at the kaiser’s palace arrived. It was a blustery Saturday, and between the earliness of the hour and the grey clouds thick in the sky, the students waiting for the bus were almost standing in darkness. The upperclassmen were excited and chatty amongst themselves, but the freshmen were, for the most part, tense. Reuenthal leaned against the low brick wall at the IOA entrance and watched his classmates mill around.

He picked out Bittenfeld and Wahlen, watching as Wahlen handed Bittenfeld a paper cup filled with some liquid that steamed the air, and then as Bittenfeld drank it so fast that he must have burned himself pretty badly. He crumpled the cup, then kicked it over the wall back onto campus, causing Wahlen to punch him in the arm.

Gautier, Deitch, and Ansbach were standing together, their heads bent low, speaking quietly enough that no one else could hear them over the wind.

Leigh, as usual, was standing by himself, looking at his phone. Reuenthal wondered if he was texting his family, since he obviously had no friends at school.

The bus eventually pulled up in front of them with a wheezing and grinding of brakes, and everyone piled on. Reuenthal ended up seated next to Strum, who promptly fell asleep for the duration of the drive, leaving Reuenthal free to silently work on some homework on his phone.

Students were chatty on the bus ride, but when they arrived at the grounds of Neue Sanssouci and transferred into a fleet of horse drawn carriages (since motor vehicles weren’t allowed on the palace grounds), the atmosphere grew tense and quiet.

Bittenfeld pointed out the window of the carriage at a statue as they drove past. “There’s the goddess of victory,” he said. “I’ll have to dedicate my catch to her.”

“Don’t make promises to the gods you can’t keep,” Wahlen muttered.

Bittenfeld scowled. “What’s the point of going on a hunt if you’re not going to catch anything?”

“The hunt isn’t the point of the visit,” Reuenthal said after a second.

“Then what is?”

“All the former class ranks are public, you know,” Reuenthal said. “If you look at who’s high in fleet command right now, Muckenburger, Ovelesser, all those people— almost no one who’s currently an important flag officer who doesn’t already have family connections was below top ten in their year.”

Wahlen raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Reuenthal shrugged. “It’s easy to fall off the leadership track, but hard to get on it in the first place. I expect that this tradition is a way of trying to instill some… expectation of future mutual respect between the crown and the kaiser’s potential high officers.”

“Hunh,” Wahlen said. “I guess.”

The carriages rolled up to the front of the palace, and all the students were ushered through the long and opulent hallways until they arrived in some kind of reception hall. They were ordered to array themselves by year and class rank, which meant that Reuenthal ended up right next to Leigh, who seemed miserable and tense. Reuenthal had a second to glance at him, but then the doors at the front of the room opened, and in walked Kaiser Friedrich IV. All of the students snapped to attention and saluted.

He was an older man, with a pale, wrinkled face and grey hair. This clearly wasn’t much of a formal reception, as the kaiser was dressed only in day wear, a plush red velvet jacket and black pants. He looked sharply at the gathered students in silence for a second.

“You’re all seniors this year?” he asked the front row.

The top senior student responded. “Yes, Mein Kaiser.”

“Good. Good. I hope to see you all doing great things within the next few years.” The kaiser walked a little ways down the front row, stopping in front of the sixth student. “Arleheim, please give your father my condolences on the passing of your mother.”

“I will, Mein Kaiser,” that student said. “Thank you.”

Friedrich then exchanged perfunctory greetings with the junior and sophomore leading students, before he came to Reuenthal. Reuenthal kept his back straight, his voice even, and he did not look directly in the kaiser’s eye.

“So, you’re the new students,” the kaiser said.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Reuenthal replied.

“I hope to see you all return next year.”

“We will,” Reuenthal said. “Sir.”

“Excellent.” The kaiser seemed about to go, but then he hesitated and looked at Reuenthal more closely. “What’s your name?"

“Oskar von Reuenthal, sir.”

“Oh, you’re from Count Marbach’s family. He didn’t tell me you were in the Academy. I will have to congratulate him on having a successful grandson.”

This was the last thing that Reuenthal wanted the kaiser to do, but he couldn’t do anything except grit his teeth and say, “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

This conversation with Reuenthal had apparently also given the kaiser time to notice Leigh and his obviously foreign face. Friedrich addressed him next. “What is your name, cadet?”

“Hank von Leigh, sir.” Leigh seemed viscerally uncomfortable, and Reuenthal couldn’t blame him. Out of the corner of his eye, though he was still looking straight ahead, Reuenthal could see Ansbach twitch a little, perhaps feeling vindicated.

“Von Leigh…” the kaiser said, sounding like he was giving the name real thought. “And where are you from, von Leigh?”

“Phezzan-land, sir.”

The kaiser nodded. “Hm. I’m glad to hear that Phezzan is still producing people of worth to the fatherland.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Leigh said.

The kaiser nodded thoughtfully again, then turned and left, letting all of the students relax in a visible release of tension from the room.

“Too bad about your predictions,” Wahlen said to Ansbach as they walked out. “Looks like you won’t be rid of him that easily!”

Wahlen was clearly joking, but Ansbach’s face was pinched and pensive, and he didn’t say anything in response, merely brushing past Wahlen to join Gautier and Deitch further up.

The students were all led to a dining hall, where one very long table had been set up for them, with a sumptuous meal laid out. They jostled for position and there was a general clattering of dishware as the boys rowdily passed one another the bread and platters of sausages.

Reuenthal, for his part, was mostly silent, eating his breakfast and drinking his coffee steadily. He couldn’t help but hope that the kaiser would forget that he had said he would speak to his grandfather about him. It probably wouldn’t matter, either way, but Reuenthal had no desire to associate with Count Marbach, and Count Marbach had no desire to associate with him.

Unfortunately, Bittenfeld had to go and bring up the subject, in between bites of pancake. “Hey, Reuenthal, what are you doing here if you’re a count’s grandson?”

“Maternal grandfather,” Reuenthal said shortly. “I don’t inherit anything.” He took a sip of his coffee and looked directly at Bittenfeld. “It would suit you better to stay out of other people’s family matters.”

“I was just curious,” Bittenfeld said. He crossed his arms, scowling. “No need to be tetchy about it.” Reuenthal smiled, but it was a warning expression. Bittenfeld shook his head and looked away, muttering under his breath, “This guy…”

After the breakfast, the students were led to the huge stables, where each was given a bow and quiver full of arrows and allowed to pick a horse. Reuenthal chose a tall black stallion, narrowly edging out Dietch, who had been aiming for the same animal.

The weather had improved slightly since the morning, though the wind still whipped through the trees, sending their few remaining leaves rattling and shivering in the cold fall light. The students broke off into individuals or smaller packs, heading out with bows in hand to try to find deer in the well stocked hunting grounds of Neue Sanssouci.

Reuenthal rode by himself for a while. He doubted he would actually catch a deer, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with it even if he did, so he was mostly enjoying the horseback ride as an exercise, occasionally pulling an arrow from his quiver and aiming at knots in distant trees and the like.

It was peaceful, there in the forest, or at least it was until he heard hoofbeats, more than one horse, moving quickly through the woods.

“I saw him go that way,” Dietch said, his voice distant and low.

“He rides so badly, it’s not like he could have gotten very far.” That was Gautier.

“Will you shut up?” Ansbach. “Listen. You can probably hear him.”

Reuenthal obeyed Ansbach’s advice, and stayed very still so that the other three students wouldn’t hear or see him distantly through the trees. He couldn’t quite see them either, aside from vague blurred outlines through the brambly undergrowth. One of them pointed, and the three moved quietly away, their hoses’ footsteps soft on the fallen leaves.

There was no point in chasing after the trio. He suspected that they wouldn’t actually find Leigh, and Reuenthal had no desire to get on their bad side by defending him. The worst they would do would be to probably steal his horse and leave him in the woods. If they tied him up or something, Reuenthal should probably stay around to let him loose.

Reuenthal waited, his hands loosely on the reins of his own horse. Far off in the woods, he heard a commotion: hoofbeats, the sudden whinny of a horse, more thrumming of hooves, and then almost nothing. Slowly, Reuenthal spurred his horse forward, suddenly anxious to find Leigh.

Leigh was a decent distance away, and Reuenthal almost missed him. Except for the fresh-dug hoofprints in the loose wet dirt, there was little trace of where anyone had been. Reuenthal traced them until he found Leigh in a clearing, propped up against a tree, at the end of a short path smudged through the brown leaf litter. Leigh must have dragged himself from where he had fallen off his horse. He wasn’t looking at Reuenthal, and Reuenthal wasn’t even sure if he knew that he was there. Leigh’s eyes were closed, his face was scrunched up in pain, and his hands were on the shaft of the arrow that protruded from his thigh, staining his leg, hands, and the ground all around him with blood.

“If you want to bleed to death, you’ll pull that out,” Reuenthal said.

Leigh opened his eyes. His voice was strained when he said, “I see you’ve come to gloat, too.”

There was something about the light, crashing down through the nearly-bare tree branches, the way it caught on Leigh’s black hair and the blood on his hands. It made the scene move slowly, made Reuenthal just look at Leigh on the ground for a moment. There was something almost beautiful about him, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that he was bleeding out on the forest floor. His wide, dark eyes reminded Reuenthal too much of the deer they had been sent to hunt.

Reuenthal dismounted, asking, “Who shot you?”

“Didn’t see,” Leigh said. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the tree, baring his throat. Reuenthal crouched down next to him, filled with a sudden desire to touch his neck. Leigh’s breath hitched as Reuenthal came close to him, body tensing a little, but he didn’t move from the weirdly vulnerable position he was sitting in.

Reuenthal picked up one of Leigh’s hands, pulling it gently away from the shaft of the arrow protruding from his left thigh. Leigh’s blood was on his hands as he investigated the wound, seeing how the arrow went all the way through his leg.

It reminded him of the worst injury he had ever had. When Reuenthal was nine, he had climbed a tree behind his father’s house, intent on gathering up the abandoned bird’s nest in the crook of a branch. He had slipped and fallen, and had broken his arm so badly that the bone had come out from the skin. Neither the injury nor the cast that he had been in all winter stuck out in his mind, though. When he thought about the incident, there were two things that he remembered. The first was the sensation of his foot slipping off the tree branch, the moment he began to fall. It was like crossing a threshold, that feeling that whatever happened was now unstoppable, and everything would be different afterwards, but that he could do nothing to prevent it. The second thing he remembered was that, the day after his arm had been put in a cast, his father had made him stand outside and watch as he took a chainsaw and cut the tree down. Reuenthal had never understood why he had done that, and he had never asked.

As Reuenthal gently pried the fabric of Leigh’s pants away from the wound, seeing the arrow embedded deep in the flesh, he felt like he was on that threshold now.

“You’re a regular Saint Sebastian,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Reuenthal said. Leigh’s eyes were open now, watching him. Reuenthal fished in his pocket for his knife, which he flipped open. “I’m going to cut this off. Hold still.”

Leigh was tense as Reuenthal cracked his knife through the arrow shaft, the feathered end breaking away in his hand, leaving just a splintered stub sticking out of Leigh’s leg.

Leigh’s breath was coming shallowly. “Do I need a tourniquet?”

Reuenthal decided that probably wouldn’t hurt, so he pulled off his jacket, leaving himself in just his white dress shirt, and gently lifted Leigh’s leg so that he could slip the jacket like a rope around his leg, cinching it as tight as he could make it. Leigh hissed in a breath.

“Ow,” he said, his voice almost humorously flat. Reuenthal could appreciate that Leigh was keeping himself calm and under control, despite the fact that if Reuenthal hadn’t been here, this might have been a deadly wound.

“The medicine is not worse than the malady,” Reuenthal said. “Can you stand?” He offered Leigh his hand, and helped pull him to his feet, Leigh struggling to get his uninjured leg underneath himself. As he stood, his face grew pale and slack for a moment as the blood rushed out of his head, and Reuenthal had to catch him to keep him from falling, wrapping his arms around Leigh’s chest.

He was warm, Reuenthal found. Heavy, when his legs weren’t supporting him, but soft. Leigh came back to consciousness with a twitch, barely half a second later, not even seeming to notice that he had been out. He took a hobbling step forward, Reuenthal supporting him under his arm.

“Where’d your horse go?” Reuenthal asked.

“Do I look like I know the answer to that question?” Leigh’s sudden snippiness was funny more than it was annoying.

Reuenthal’s horse was a patient beast, and he stayed still as Reuenthal said, “Up,” and got himself underneath Leigh to force him into the saddle. Leigh’s fingers gripping the pommel were white, and he started to slip sideways once again, nearly falling off the horse. Reuenthal held him up with both hands on his chest. “Do I need to tie you to the horse?” Reuenthal asked.

Leigh’s response came with a gasping breath. “I’m fine.”

Reuenthal let out a half-chuckle. “Scoot forward.” Leigh couldn’t do that, so Reuenthal resigned himself to sitting very uncomfortably on the saddle, and he mounted the horse behind Leigh. Reuenthal slipped one arm around Leigh’s stomach while he held the reins with his other hand. Leigh’s back was pressed against his chest, and Reuenthal had to lean sideways to see past Leigh’s head, his hair tickling his cheek. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you like this, but I think it’s better than having you walk out.”

“It’s fine,” Leigh said. His voice was weak. “I’ll try not to fall off on you.”

“I’ll ride gently, then,” Reuenthal said. He spurred the horse forward, trying to strike a balance between moving quickly and not jostling Leigh too much.

Leigh was leaning back against him, and with his hand splayed out across his stomach, Reuenthal could feel his shallow breaths. His hair was silky on Reuenthal’s face, and it smelled like soap and sweat. Reuenthal savored the moment, committing the sensations to memory.

They emerged from the forest near the stables. Wahlen and Bittenfeld were standing around, petting their horses and drinking from their canteens. When Bittenfeld saw Reuenthal and Leigh, he whistled, long and loud, and yelled, “Lose your horse, von Leigh?”

Reuenthal was not in the mood for Bittenfeld’s antics. He turned, and when he did, Bittenfeld caught sight of all of Leigh’s blood smeared across Reuenthal’s dress shirt. “Bittenfeld,” Reuenthal said, “I would appreciate it if you could find a doctor, or summon an ambulance to the entrance.”

Bittenfeld didn’t have to be told twice. He leapt onto his horse, and, with a bit of a yell, galloped off down the path towards the main part of the palace.

Wahlen walked over. “What happened?”

“I fell off my horse onto my quiver,” Leigh said, the words apparently taking great effort. Reuenthal could understand the impulse to lie. After all, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t explained away plenty of bruises as his own clumsiness in the past.

“Is that the story we’re sticking with?” Wahlen asked, deferring to Reuenthal as the leader. Reuenthal nodded, even though Wahlen’s eyes were narrowed.

Wahlen passed Leigh his canteen, and Leigh drank, the water spilling out of his mouth and down his front. Wahlen was asking some question about going to the entrance or waiting where they were, but Reuenthal was paying more attention to the way the canteen was slipping out of Leigh’s fingers, and the way he suddenly slumped completely back against Reuenthal’s chest, unconscious again. Reuenthal had the feeling that he wouldn’t be waking up, this time.

“Let’s go to the entrance,” Reuenthal said, holding Leigh tightly. Wahlen was on the phone with Bittenfeld, directing the doctor, scrambling with one hand to climb onto his own horse. Reuenthal nudged his forward, moving even more slowly now that Leigh was totally unconscious, supporting his whole weight with his arm.

They were met at the road by a doctor with a Goldenbaum crest on his jacket, who introduced himself as the kaiser’s personal physician, along with Bittenfeld, who was allowing his horse to prance back and forth with him on it. Wahlen and Bittenfeld helped Reuenthal get Leigh off his horse and onto the ground, his head lolling slightly to the side, Reuenthal supporting underneath his arms, feeling rather like he had stepped out of some ancient religious painting.

The doctor was examining Leigh’s leg, cutting off his pants with scissors, when the ambulance pulled up, wailing.

There was some excitement as Leigh was loaded onto a stretcher.

“I’ll go with him to the hospital,” Reuenthal told Bittenfeld and Wahlen. “If anybody asks, that’s where we are.”

“Do you want us to… do anything about this?” Wahlen asked. “Do you know what happened?”

“Not now,” Reuenthal said. The stretcher was being loaded into the ambulance. “Maybe later.” The expression on Reuenthal’s face made Wahlen nod, sharply. “Keep an eye out for who’s talking, though. I know the generalities, but I want the specifics.”

“I will.”

“Good.” Reuenthal hopped into the ambulance before anybody could protest, and then the paramedics were slamming the doors shut.

He answered all their questions on Leigh’s behalf, giving them the same lie that Leigh had told. He doubted they believed the story, but since Leigh wasn’t awake to offer an alternative explanation, they couldn’t do anything except write it down.

Leigh only woke up once during the ride, his whole body jerking as he regained consciousness. He looked around, dazed for a second, taking in the IV in his arm and the fact that his pants had been cut off before his eyes settled on Reuenthal, leaning with his arms crossed on the bench in the ambulance. Leigh’s expression, which had been confused, mellowed out into… something else as he looked at Reuenthal. He made a soft, almost pathetic noise.

“Eloquent as ever, von Leigh,” Reuenthal said. “We’re on the way to the hospital.”

“How long?” Leigh managed.

“You’re not going to have a better time when we get there, so you might as well go back to sleep.” Reuenthal wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but it looked like Leigh smiled at that, before throwing his free arm over his face.

“Fine,” he mumbled, and then passed out again.

When they arrived at the hospital, there was another long process where Leigh was ushered away to be prepped for surgery to remove the arrow, while Reuenthal was asked all his personal details. Given that the sum total of things that Reuenthal knew about Leigh were his name, the fact that he was an IOA student, and that he was from Phezzan, this didn’t help much, and the situation became even stupider when he put the doctors on the phone with the IOA student affairs center, and it turns out that Leigh’s personal file was basically empty, not even having an emergency contact listed.

“Just put me down as his emergency contact,” Reuenthal said. “It’s fine.”

In any event, Leigh was lucid enough to sign off on this, so no one argued with it, and so Reuenthal was left to sit alone in the waiting room for Leigh to get out of surgery.

After everyone stopped needing him, Reuenthal stepped into the too-bright single occupancy waiting room bathroom, and stared at his own reflection in the streaky mirror. Leigh’s blood was still all over his shirt, and when he looked at his hands, it was still on them, too. He wouldn’t have been able to explain the impulse to anyone, but Reuenthal raised his hand to his mouth and licked the dried blood trapped in the cracks of his knuckles and in between his fingers, tasting the metallic remnants of it, looking at himself in the mirror as he did.

Someone knocked on the door. Reuenthal jumped. “One moment,” Reuenthal called.

He ran the water as hot as it went and scrubbed his arms to the elbows, watching the water run pink, then clear. He splashed some water on his face, too, then dried with the scratchy paper towels.

The man who needed the bathroom looked at his blood-covered shirt with a horrified expression when Reuenthal left, and Reuenthal just stared back at him coldly.

It was several hours of boredom later that Leigh was finally cleared to go. He seemed a little disoriented, coming into the waiting room on crutches. Someone had taken all his clothes and given him clean hospital sweats. Reuenthal stood and offered to take the bag he was holding.

“Are you free?” Reuenthal asked.

“If you’re asking if I’ve been discharged, yes,” Leigh said.

“I’ll call us a car.”

It was pitch black outside, a contrast to the too-harsh industrial lights of the waiting room, and Reuenthal flagged down a taxi, the wind whipping violently around his arm as he held it out into the street. Leigh’s hair fluttered around his face, and he shivered. If Reuenthal still had his jacket, he would have offered it to him.

The taxi’s headlights swam across their knees, and Reuenthal helped Leigh into the back seat. They rode in silence for a little while.

Almost hesitantly, Leigh said, “I’m sorry for making you waste your Saturday.”

Reuenthal glanced over at him. The streetlights and headlights from passing cars were dancing across his face, and he was looking out the window, or perhaps at his own reflection in the dark glass. “On the contrary,” Reuenthal said, “I’m grateful that your little accident allowed me to leave the party early. Sitting in a waiting room for a few hours is a small price to pay.”

“You weren’t enjoying it?”

Reuenthal didn’t want to answer that question, so he just said, “Mm,” and left it at that. Leigh didn’t press.

“Regardless, I’m grateful for your help.” He seemed genuine.

Reuenthal could be genuine as well, if he wanted to be. “You’re welcome.”

When they arrived back at the IOA, Reuenthal walked Leigh up to his dorm room. The chance that Leigh would be ambushed on the walk between the entrance and his bed was small, but Reuenthal didn’t want to risk it.

Leigh fumbled with his keys when he tried to open his door, making a frustrated noise under his breath. The painkillers he had been given were probably still heavy in his system, and the dorm room locks were well known for being sticky. Reuenthal waited patiently, just leaning on the doorframe until Leigh got it open. When he finally did, Reuenthal got a glimpse inside his room. The place was filthy, with belongings scattered everywhere, clothes on the ground, bed completely unmade, and all the drawers of his desk flying open. “Did someone break in?”

“What?” Leigh asked.

“I see. You just live like this.”

Leigh shook his head slightly, then leaned on one crutch as he took his belongings from Reuenthal. “I guess I need to buy a new dress uniform,” he said. “Sorry that yours got ruined, too.”

“It’s fine.” Reuenthal didn’t move, still leaning on the doorframe. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine,” Leigh said. He gave a wry smile. “You probably don’t want to be seen with me any more than you already have been. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a bit of a pariah.”

“A wolf should not be so concerned with the opinions of sheep.” Reuenthal had spent the boring hours in the waiting room thinking, and the behavior of his classmates had featured prominently. It disgusted him that they were unwilling to recognize Leigh as their better, which he clearly was.

Leigh continued to smile, and there was a funny note in his voice. “I think it’s less the sheep, and more the hunters with bows and arrows that we need to be concerned with, in this particular situation.” Reuenthal liked the use of 'we'.

He wasn’t wrong. “You should make more of an effort in the weekend physicals. And maybe take a night physical class, too. Then things like this would be less likely to happen.” If Leigh hadn’t been such a soft target, Ansbach and his crew would not have gone after him, at least not in this direct of a way, Reuenthal thought.

Leigh’s tone was exasperated. “Reuenthal, I don’t know if you know this, but I have a thirty class-hour schedule. I barely have time to sleep, let alone go take an archery class.”

“Archery wasn’t exactly what I was suggesting. Come to hand-to-hand with me. Tuesdays and Thursdays at six. I’m sure you can spare four hours a week.”

“What good would it do me?”

“It might save your life, getting more coordinated.”

Leigh was clearly inimical to the idea. “We’re studying to be officers, right?”

“Yes.”

“The minute an officer needs to engage in hand-to-hand combat, the battle is already lost.”

Reuenthal frowned. “Not everything that happens in life can be accurately simulated in the practicums, von Leigh.”

That, apparently, had been the right approach to take, because Leigh sighed. “Maybe when my leg heals.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Reuenthal said, feeling warm and victorious.

Leigh looked at him, not quite meeting his eyes, but considering him nonetheless. Reuenthal let himself be observed, not minding the sensation.

“Why do you have such an interest in me? You’ve been staring at me since the day we arrived," Leigh said.

He was surprised by the question, and his surprise showed on his face. “So has everybody else,” he said, trying to deflect.

“You know what I mean,” Leigh said, frowning a little.

Reuenthal was afraid that he did. Or, not afraid precisely, but surprised to acknowledge that his thoughts about Leigh stretched back, in some form, to long before he had found him bleeding on the forest floor. Before, even, than the brief moment they had spoken in the hallway outside the practicum where they had faced each other. Reuenthal had seen Leigh at the convocation dinner, seen his head tilted back to the ceiling, seen his throat bared— vulnerable— and thought, “So, this is the number two.”

Reuenthal smiled. “I’m sure I do not. But isn’t it only natural for me to have an interest in my direct competition?”

Leigh’s voice was unexpectedly sharp. “I don’t care about rank.”

“You say that, and yet you stay number two.”

“Rank doesn’t mean anything,” Leigh said. The way he was looking at Reuenthal made it seem like he was asking Reuenthal to understand something important, and he wasn’t sure if Reuenthal would. If he didn’t, he would be disappointed. “Not everything worthwhile about a person as a leader can be summed up in a number. Bittenfeld will be a better commander than I will. He has the right kind of charisma.”

A sudden spike of annoyance flashed in Reuenthal’s mind, Bittenfeld’s face and mess of red hair suddenly taking on a grating quality in his memory. “Oh? Are you saying I should be jealous of Bittenfeld?”

Leigh shifted at Reuenthal’s sudden change in tone. He shook his head. “No. I’m talking about my own personal failings.”

Reuenthal relaxed a fraction. “I don’t think the way you are is a failing.”

There was a moment of silence, and they looked at each other. “Do you want to come in?” Leigh asked, voice half hesitant.

Reuental considered it for a moment, and then decided that whatever was happening here, it was best not to push. “Maybe some other time, von Leigh,” he said. “You should get some rest.” His tone was warm, as warm as he could make it, when he said, “I’ll see you around.”

Leigh sounded more confused than disappointed. “Sure. See you,” he said. Reuenthal nodded curtly, the strode off down the hallway, feeling Leigh’s eyes on his back as he went.