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Camp is quiet, this late at night. Lissa knows that she should be asleep - there is a busy day tomorrow - and yet she is not. Even Chrom has been convinced to rest, and yet Lissa cannot.
Stress? Nerves? Something else? She has not slept enough to blame nightmares, despite her weary state. Pain, perhaps, but that is not new - especially not since picking up a battleaxe.
Despite being a war camp, it is still where royalty make their home; Lissa took a little tea from the pouch that Maribelle had labelled 'Lissa's Favourite' in her looping hand, and prepared herself a pot. Dragging a chair and little folding table out had been awkward after dark, but now she sits, with her tea pot and table, and a merrily glowing lantern attracting all the bugs. Sometimes a guard passes, but they just salute the princess, and then continue on their way.
Lissa, almost out of spite for her title, pulls her feet up to the chair, and jams her knees between the table and her chest. It makes drinking her tea very much more awkward, but keeps her a little warmer despite the nighttime air.
For a while she drinks her tea unaccounted, but eventually light footsteps approach. A blanket is tucked over her shoulders, and a familiar voice scolds "now, darling, it would not be doing for you to catch a chill."
"Maribelle," Lissa answers, lips failing to twitch into a smile as she seeks out the other woman.
"Just a moment," she replies.
It takes only a few seconds for Maribelle to drag a chair over to Lissa's table, and summon a cup to pour herself tea from Lissa's pot. They are both wearing boots with their nightdresses, but it is only Maribelle that thought to also pull on a coat.
It is a short coat, yes, and obnoxiously pink and frilly, but it is more than Lissa managed, and the thought of it curls in her gut.
With one hand she clutches Maribelle's blanket, and with the other she drinks more tea.
"I thought you would be asleep," Lissa tells her. "It is late, no?"
Maribelle scoffs a little, "darling, you are the one haunting the outside of my tent. Now then, tell your dear friend Maribelle what is bothering you, and I'll fix it. Is it a boy? How dare he refuse my Lissa."
A boy? As if.
Lissa does her best to laugh, dismissing Maribelle's suggestion with a small gesture. "The only boy I have the capacity to worry about is my brother; no, the night is just young, and I am not yet ready to sleep."
The glare she receives is disapproving, but Maribelle does not contradict her. Instead she asks, with just as much judgement in her tone, "you have the morning shift, yes?"
"And you the afternoon," Lissa agrees. "Emm would always have us up early, so might as well put the habit to good use, right?"
It hurts still, to think of her sister. Lissa crushes the pain with a smile, and pours herself another cup of tea.
"Oh, Lissa..." Maribelle's tone is heartbroken. Not pitying, heartbroken; everyone had loved Emmeryn. "Your sister-"
"Don't." Lissa's fingers shake on the teapot. She takes a deep breath, and steadies herself. "Don't, Maribelle, just leave it."
As the youngest royal, as the cheerful one, it is Lissa's duty to maintain morale. She knows her place. She is not dignified nor fit to rule, she is barely seen as an adult. She can cry for her sister, unlike Chrom, but only if it is quiet and pretty and motivating. She cannot scream her anguish, cannot charge into the heart of Plegia and rip put Gangrel's heart. What good is the fact she finally convinced Chrom that a princess can carry an axe - let her defend herself, she had pleaded, let her have a means of protection when the enemy comes close - if she cannot use it in anger?
It is no use, of course. Lissa must perfectly embody her station, else Ylisse will crumble to naught but ash and dust.
Maribelle's hand cups her beloved friend's cheek, a thumb brushing tears from her cheek. She does not tell her that it is unbecoming, she does not tell her than a princess must not be seen to cry. Instead Maribelle uses a thumb to wipe some tears, then stops, and pulls a neatly embroidered handkerchief from one of her coat pockets instead. With a delicate yet ungloved hand she offers it, Lissa's own fingers shuddering as they take the fabric.
"Dry your eyes," Maribelle's voice is low, almost like she is trying to hide it beneath the lantern light. "Come now, darling, I'm here, everything will be alright."
"They took my sister, Mari," Lissa whispers to her, dabbing at her eyes as she tries to hide the glistening in the dark. "They tried to kill my brother, too. Who will they go after next? Me? ... You?"
The second is the idea that sends the most ice through Lissa's heart. She cannot imagine Maribelle going like Emmeryn did - no, Maribelle would kick and fight and scream, and perhaps it is a little funny to imagine her taking Gangrel's eye out with the heel of her riding boots. Funny, yes, but not enough to calm the fear of imagining her best friend being hurt by those ruffians again.
And it would be again! Maribelle might say that she was unphased and uninjured when the Plegians came for her - most people would only remember her laugh, and so believe her - but Lissa is the one who bandaged the wounds as she cried in fear that night.
What a pair they make; a princess and a duke's daughter, two pillars in a war who must not crack, lest the morale of the army shatter. They must be one another's only confident, as they have ever been, lest they worry and distract the rest.
"I will not let them take you," Maribelle promises, as though there is anything that her staff, horse, and wit could do. "They do not respect our status as healers? We will make them do so. You just call for me, and I'll be there; my horse is not the brightest, but she is fast."
"And if they take you?" Lissa asks of Maribelle. "I do not fear death or capture, not truly, but if I were to loose you..."
"You're sweet," Maribelle tells her, then silences her with a finger to her lip. "But determined. I've seen how you swing that axe, and how you planted your feet even before your brother permitted it. I may be the quick winds dashing to your side, but you are the slow boiling storm, unstoppable and ruinous as you track your quarry down. You would find me, of that I am sure."
"Last time..."
"You found me," Maribelle cuts over her, smiling a smile only for them even as her words cut. "And it was not so bad, was it?"
To Lissa's memory, it was very bad. But then, Lissa's memory is always biased, and the wounds barely even scared.
"And next time," Maribelle continues on. "Darling, if there is a next time, you will notice the instant I am gone. We are together, now, and I know you will not leave me. You would know as soon as those brutes took me, and you would not give them a chance to harm me. Just as I will not give them a chance to lay a single finger on even one strand of your pretty hair."
Lissa should read into that more, or perhaps she should fear the intense trust and devotion presented to her. Instead she dabs away the last tears from her eyes, then reaches out, and takes Maribelle's hands in her own.
"I will not survive loosing you," Lissa says, and prays that Maribelle understands just what she means.
"Darling..." Maribelle's smile is pained, as she pulls Lissa's hands to her breast. "Darling, neither would I survive loosing you. So be careful? For me?"
"I will," Lissa replies. "Promise me the same, and I will."
The promise comes not in words, but in the brush of lips over Lissa's fingers, and a quiet whisper of "come. If you cannot sleep, at least spend the night with me."