Work Text:
Seign
How could he?
Nowa gasped in pain, his knees weak and his ribs pressing in upon him. He was heaving with labored breaths, his muscles aching but he COULDN'T give up.
He also couldn't keep hitting Seign.
Seign, why?
He was a soldier. Nowa KNEW that. Seign told him as much in lowered voices in the forest before they split up. Soldiers followed orders. His family, his House, obviously meant something to him.
Nowa's morals had to trump Seign's ambitions though. Besides, didn't he promise?
He lifted his body up, struggling but glaring at his once friend(?).
"I made a promise. And I won't stand down."
If Seign was going to be ambitious, to throw his morals out for his country, then it was up to Nowa to be his conscience. This may be a losing battle but he had promised and only his body falling in battle would permit him to break his promise.
If, perhaps, later at night in their refugee camp, Nowa remembered the strained pain upon Seign's own face. If he allowed himself to linger over the anguish on the Lieutenant's face as each battle clang reverberated through the late afternoon air underneath that bridge, then nobody would have to know their promise. Nobody else had to know a promise made in ruins.
It's okay, Seign, I'll remember to keep meddling for the both of us.