The battlefield was quiet now, a contrast to the chaos of hours ago. You crouched by the stream, rinsing your hands clean of blood—their blood. Nikolai was leaning against a tree, his breathing labored, a hand pressed to his side where a blade had struck too deeply in the heat of battle. You’d expected defiance, some sneer or bitter remark from the man, but instead, he smiled at you, a strange calmness in his eyes, unexpected of the normally deranged man.

“You didn’t have to do this,” He murmured, his voice hoarse but steady. Nikolai winced as you approached with a strip of cloth, torn from your own tunic. His pearly hair clung to his sweat-slick forehead, and his suit, battered and bloodied, seemed too small for his wounded frame. “I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving me.. I'd be free... like a bird...”