~.✧ Ethira ✧.~ [COMPLETE]

~.✧ twenty-four ✧.~

Many men would be wearing uniforms with my blood on them because even though I'd discovered long ago that I was horrible with a needle and thread, I'd thought I'd be helpful and join Kes in mending tunics before the first batch of soldiers went to the border tonight. From the amount of times I'd punctured my finger tips, I wondered if my prints would be indistinguishable from scars when the wounds healed up.

"Ow," I muttered for the thousandth time, my finger going to my mouth. At least I didn't taste blood this time.

Kes had stopped asking if I was okay long ago and kept shooting me an amused smile every time I pricked myself. She hadn't harmed her fingerprints once yet and I was getting jealous.

"How do you do this so easily and without hurting yourself?" I asked, investigating her many uniforms she'd already mended with perfectly straight lines. "And so fast?"

She grinned, biting off her remaining piece of thread and adding another to the pile. "Experience and lots of practice. It is my job, you know."

"Yeah, I know, I know." I looked down at the uniform I was currently working on and sighed. "Maybe they shouldn't use the ones I mend. I think this seam will bust again when they simply put it on."

She giggled. "You're getting better. Look, this one is much straighter than your first."

"And by first you mean my last one since I've only done two?"

"Maybe," she replied, her eyes gleaming.

I tried to pretend to be mad at her, but I couldn't, my smile peeking through. But it soon dissolved when I set my needle and thread to the side and ran a hand over the uniform.

Today had come far too fast and the anxiety rioting within my nerves only built with each hour the troops departure time neared. I thought maybe doing something like this would help expel some of that nervous energy, but it seemed to only heighten it.

Kes reached over and took my fidgeting hand. I turned my gaze up to meet hers, which had sombered significantly. Knowing she was feeling the same thing, I squeezed her hand and she squeezed mine back. Anarie was going with the second troop an hour after the first left and I could tell she hated the idea of him being on the battlefield. Becoming a guard was one thing, but a soldier was entirely another.

Though I'd already promised this, I said it again: "I'll watch out for him."

She let out a shaky breath and returned her hand, starting her mending again. "I know. I trust you. I simply do not trust the Brikenfoltians."

No one did.

"And, you know," she added after a second, her tone lowering even more, "he is not the only one I am concerned for." Her dark eyes fluttered up, peering at me through her lashes.

My heart panged and warmed at the same time, touched with her concern for me but also guilty for making her feel that way. "You're not the only one."

"Varien?" she asked.