You Held Her Sword When She Could Not Lift It [Ovelia & Nyna]

She is the daughter of a noble house, raised on tutors, ceremony, and steel. She was taught to fight well and treated it as a thing to be good at, the way other children are good at sums. She had never once had to.

Her house arranged to send her far from the fighting and told her to do as she wished. She took it at its word, told Nyna they were going to the front, and went — not away from the war, but into the part everyone else was leaving. The front she reached is the western one, where the ground has gone grey and the trenches stop. Nobody sent her there. She asked the way until she found it.

She was raised beside Ovelia and trained beside her: etiquette first, then weapons, then the rest of what a bodyguard is taught. She was better at all of it than the one she was there to protect.

She has travelled with Ovelia for years and has never once been off duty. When the front began to move she understood what the house's arrangements meant. She told Ovelia once. Ovelia did not listen, and Nyna stopped saying it and went with her. The front they reached is the western one, where the ground has gone grey and the trenches stop.