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Blood seeped into Schwann’s side and soaked his orange uniform red and Alexei stared at the man kneeling in front of him.
The assassin had come out of nowhere.
Simply a series of rhythmic steps, a gleaming flash of a blade, then a clamorous crowd of the red tunics of the royal guard shouting for surrender and holding the man down amidst the now scattered and screaming crowd, but all that being drowned out by the assassins yelling. He sat there, plain and shouting profanities, uncaring of the fact he’d struck his very own hero. The silver point of the sword stuck out of Schwann’s back as he sank to his knees, the gash bisecting him open and quivering as he fell.
“Curse you, Alexei, curse you!” The man was still screaming himself hoarse, “All those people died, and for what? For what?? Their blood is on your hands, and here you stand celebrating their deaths! Fuck you!”
“...Take him away, and someone receive a doctor.” Alexei felt the distant mumble work off of his lips as blood dripped from Schwann’s as the man wheezed in a labored breath and collapsed on his side. Alexei lowered himself to his face and watched the man’s dazed eyes.
Had it been his imagination when he saw the slightest shine of protectiveness as Schwann had surged in front of him, sword bared to protect him? Was it his imagination now as he saw that light fade into relief as Schwann felt his life trickle away? It certainly hadn’t been his imagination when, five years ago, he gave that young man the choice to desire his life, only for that young man to attempt to switch it off with the remote he gave him with barely a moment’s hesitation. Perhaps that man hadn’t changed at all.
“Did you think I would be pleased to see you throw yourself on a sword for me?”
Those were Alexei’s greeting words as Schwann awoke to a familiar white room. The man turned his head to look at him, those blue eyes flat and dead as usual, with no sign of the imagined spark from before. He despised it. He despised how he hadn’t been able to quit reviewing that moment time after time in his mind for the past week, only to confirm that Schwann had, indeed, lowered his blade to let the assassin strike. But he despised how Schwann hadn’t responded to him just now even more.
“Because of your incautious actions,” Alexei started, his frustration burning like hot coals as he stepped over his words and controlled the cadence, the tempo, the tone, into something flat and unaffected, “the ball was ruined. I know that you could have parried that attack. I know that you intentionally let the blade strike. A mortal strike at that cleaved your side, severed through your intestines, nearly cut your spine and has been ailing you with sepsis for the past week.”
And yes, he knew just how long every one of those hours this past week have stretched on. For the past week, he had been attempting to calm the public and investigate the assassin, while also attempting to calm the intrusive worries of the Schwann Brigade as they asked for their captain’s condition, all at once. This wasn’t even to get into how his plans had delayed due to Schwann being out of commission; he’d had a series of things he’d required Schwann’s alter ego to investigate, and yet. The opportunity had passed and now he must reorganize his plans.
But most of all, most irritatingly, he hadn’t been able to tear it out of his mind how easily Schwann’s body had been flayed apart.
Five years ago, he had worked painstakingly to sew together that young man’s mangled body and put him back together. The hours he had cleaned the body of organ and cartilage fragments and sawed through bone and severed through ligaments so that the blastia could be inserted clean and Damuron could be revived without complication, he still hadn’t forgotten, and he would never for as long as he saw the failure that was Schwann’s dead stare. But Schwann was who he had, and it was Schwann he rightfully made his First Captain. The man had talent and intelligence. He just never used it as Alexei liked.
Which led to their current conundrum.
“I never wish to see such carelessness again. Do not ever let your life be taken, Schwann, do you understand?”
The man stared at him, dead in the bed, and said nothing.
“I said, do you understand me , Schwann? I have invested far too much time and effort in you to let everything go to waste.”
“...Yes.” The word was little more than a deathly wheeze, and it angered Alexei to see his captain pale and weak. That was not who he needed him to be.
“Yes what, Schwann?” Alexei demanded, his voice growing all the more clipped.
“Yessir…”
Tch. The words slurred together, far different from how a captain needed to be, but it would have to do.
“Very well. I expect you to make a full recovery. You have a week, then be off to your Don Whitehorse.” He spit the name like poison; while he respected the man’s prowess, he was nonetheless an enemy he had no wish to even speak of. Especially when he was aware of how eager Schwann was to return to the enemy, something that never ceased to increase his ire. Ultimately, it was inconsequential, however, and soon…so, so soon, would his plans begin to meet its fruition. The assassin from before knew not of the man he made claims against; Alexei had been intending all along to make the losses of the Great War worth it. He only needed a little bit longer, and then Schwann wouldn’t have any further tests to his loyalties.
No…soon enough, they would have a new and reborn empire, and everything would be fixed.
And Schwann would have no reason to throw himself onto a sword.
Five years after the fact and one dead commandant later, Raven felt he was approaching alive again.
It had been hard, and it had taken a few conversations, but they got there eventually, and now things were kind of at peace. Over time, he’d even started to let his guard down around them. Perhaps a little too much.
When the kids discovered that scar bisecting Raven’s stomach, they stared at him with horror, and poked and prodded and asked him questions, wondering how he got it, how, if it came from a monster or from a man. And he laughed, he joked, he came up with all the silly hypotheticals he could get until he had a circle of pouts around him that finally huffed and gave up, but even if things had started to heal between them, this was one scar he couldn’t reveal. No, even now their eyes darkened at the mention of Alexei. So, he kept his mouth shut because he knew, if he were ever to think of that incident again, he would realize he never did want Alexei to die. And he could never say that to them.
So he never did reveal the things Alexei said to him that day. He never revealed if he'd actually tried to take his own life or if he was genuinely trying to defend Alexei. He never pondered over how exhausted and tired Alexei looked as he commanded him. No, he simply told them it’d been a silly accident and he put that stuff out of sight, and out of mind.
A week after that day five years ago, after his flesh healed, he just went back over to the Don, grinning like the fool he was, and it was never brought up again.