Jill extended her legs along the boulder that she had claimed as her perch somewhat distanced from the Laguz Alliance’s camp, just far enough to let others know that she needed solitude at that moment. She breathed in the ironically fresh air and sighed it out with a shudder.

“It’s killing you, isn’t it?”

Jumping slightly with a start, Jill turned to the source of the voice to find Haar standing close by with his gaze focused on her from the corner of his eye. “Haar!” she exclaimed, somewhat out of sheer surprise from his presence, and also as a greeting of sorts, “W—What are you talking about?”

The veteran dracoknight turned his head away and said in his regular tone, always sounding either half-asleep or unnaturally relaxed, “Come off it, Jill. You know that I know you better than that.”

“Yes, of course...” Jill admitted while looking away from him, aware of exactly what his words meant; she knew what he had originally been talking about just as much as he knew that she was avoiding the topic of her desertion of Daein’s army. “I feel terrible for leaving them like that, you know? It doesn’t matter that I don’t agree with siding with Begnion. I agree with siding with my friends...” her voice trailed off as her mind drifted to the thoughts that had been nagging her the entire evening: was she really betraying her friends by switching sides? Would it have been equally right or wrong if she had chosen to stay?

“That’s hard to do when you have friends on opposite sides of the battlefield,” Haar remarked as though he understood the moral debate that she was contemplating. Jill responded to him with silence, prompting Haar to raise another thought-provoking question, “Do you think that you made the right choice, coming along with little old me?” She wondered instead of answering; neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’ rushed to her lips. Still, Haar persisted, “Well, Jill?”

Jill looked to Haar, finding that his stare was locked on her once more. “I do,” she said decisively, “You said that we always follow our hearts, and that’s certainly what I did in that last battle, so how could I possibly regret my choice? I’m not going to hurt my friends on the opposing side, yet I’m not going to fight for a cause that I don’t believe in, either.”

A lopsided grin made its presence known on Haar’s face as he tentatively spoke, “...General Shiharam would be very proud of you right now.”

“I’m sure he would,” Jill agreed as she felt her face grow warm, Haar’s eye ever locked on her, “but...” Her former captain stepped closer to her with as inquisitive an expression as his drowsy face could hold. “I wasn’t even thinking of making him proud when I said what I just did, or even when I chose to side with Commander Ike. I was... ah...” His intent look was growing more and more intimidating with each word that she spoke, so Jill finally caved and turned away instead of finishing her statement.

“You don’t have to say anything else,” she heard Haar’s voice along with the sound of his footsteps coming even closer. Jill soon felt Haar’s presence as he settled down beside her on the rock, and was forced to acknowledge him as he circled his arms around her and pulled her close, the side of her face pressed against his chest, free of armour for once. “I understand.”

Jill let her arms linger awkwardly in the air out of astonishment. “H—Haar,” she stammered, wanting to say something to express her appreciation for his actions since she could not seem to bring herself to turn the one-sided embrace into a two-sided one, “Thank you... thank you so much. You’ve been keeping a close eye on me this entire time, but you’ve still always left it up to me to make my own decisions when it came down to it.” She felt Haar’s hand rove over her hair, so reassuringly... What was the touch like, she contemplated: the protective touch of a brother, the consoling touch of a father, the soothing touch of a lover?

“Ah, Jill,” there was a tinge of joking in his voice, “If I could, I would keep both eyes on you to make sure that you remained safe, but, well...”

“Ha!” Jill pressed her lips together, but she could not fight their corners turning up and the longing of her teeth to smile for once, “H-hahahaha!”

That was it. Haar was not like a brother to her, nor a father, nor a lover; he was simply all that she had, her everything.