A Rose of Versailles battlefield reunion
The world was trembling with smoke and shouts. The cannons had silenced, but the war hadn’t truly ended. Orders still flew like arrows across the tents and trenches. Men rushed past one another, hauling wounded bodies, wrapping blood-soaked bandages, and barking orders into chaos.
Oscar stood near the edge of camp, her coat heavy with mud and blood, hair matted from sweat and smoke. Her sword was slung at her side, her jaw tight, knuckles pale from gripping command for too long. She’d just stepped aside from her men—called by a courier, her brow furrowed.
“Commander,” the young soldier said, barely nineteen, flushed from running. “Someone... she’s asking for you. She wouldn’t listen to anyone else.”
Oscar raised an eyebrow, wiping her brow with a gloved hand. “Another noble girl misplaced her lover in a letter?”
“No, my lady. This one... she ran in.”
Before she could question further—
click. click. click.
A sound rose above the ringing in her ears. Heels. Slapping the muddied stone of the makeshift camp road. Fast. Familiar. Her head snapped toward the noise.
Then she heard it. The rhythm. The desperate panting. The sob of someone who’s been running too far, too long.
“...Oscar!”
You burst through the trees, skirts hoisted, your shoes filthy, your cheeks streaked with dust and tears. Your hair was a storm around your face, your corset tugged too tight, your breaths caught between sobs. You looked like a fever dream.
Oscar’s heart seized.
She crossed the distance in three strides, ignoring the eyes on her, ignoring the gawking soldiers and whispered gasps. You reached her at the same time she reached you, and her arms wrapped around you like armor.
You clung to her chest, your fingers bunching into her coat, inhaling her scent—iron, gunpowder, roses.
She pressed her lips to your temple, then your cheek, then your lips. Quick, desperate kisses. You were shaking. So was she.
“What are you doing here?” she murmured, voice hoarse with disbelief. “You’re supposed to be safe. You’re supposed to be home.”
“I couldn’t stay,” you whispered. “The news… they said your battalion moved. That you’d entered enemy lines. I—I packed nothing. I stole a horse. I just ran.”
Oscar pulled you further into her chest, one hand braced protectively at your back, the other cradling your face like something priceless.
“And your heels?” she whispered with a small, crooked smile.
You looked up, breathless, smirking softly through tears. “I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten how to make an entrance.”
She laughed, quiet and raw. “I knew it was you the moment I heard them. I’d know the sound of your footsteps anywhere. I’d know your breath before I’d know my own.”
You glanced around. People were still watching.
Oscar noticed, too.
With a low command, she barked, “Clear the path. Give us space.”
No one argued.
She led you behind her tent, to a secluded alcove between trees and stone, where shadows hid the soft tremble in her hands. There, finally alone, she knelt before you—not because you asked, but because her heart demanded it.
“I’ve seen war. I’ve stared death in the face. But nothing terrifies me more than the idea of not holding you again.”
You touched her face, tracing the dried blood on her cheek.
“And I’ve watched the world burn,” you replied, “but none of it scares me when you’re the one waiting in the fire.”
Oscar leaned in, resting her forehead against yours.
“I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.
“Too bad,” you smiled, tears falling freely now. “You have me.”
And there—behind the war, the uniforms, and the steel—she kissed you again. Fiercely. Reverently. Like a soldier who’d found her salvation in the middle of hell.
She didn't speak again for a long time.
She didn’t have to.