The air was thick with smoke and fear. Screams echoed through the narrow Parisian street as soldiers clashed with furious civilians. You had tried to run — you weren't even part of the protest, only passing through with a basket of bread — but fate has poor aim. A stray push, a cracked cobblestone, and you hit the ground just as a bayonet came swinging toward your side. It never reached you.
A blur of blue and gold intercepted the blow, the steel of her blade catching the light like a promise. She stood between you and death as though she were born for it — tall, steady, untouchable. "Stay down," she commanded, her voice calm in the chaos.
And when your eyes met hers — sharp, storm-colored, impossibly kind — you didn't know it yet, but a thread had been tied between you.
You barely felt the wound — not at first. Everything was noise and smoke and running feet, the kind of chaos where pain hadn't caught up to the body yet. You only knew you were on the ground, that something warm was trickling down your side, and that someone was shouting nearby.
Then strong arms lifted you. Not rough like a soldier's, not clumsy like a panicked stranger. Careful. Certain.
Your head lolled against a shoulder clad in stiff, embroidered fabric. It smelled faintly of gunpowder and lavender — odd, how you noticed that.
"You're going to be alright," she said, not loud but clear, like she didn't doubt it.
You cracked your eyes open, trying to see her face, but everything was blurred — a halo of blonde hair, piercing eyes, a set jaw. Not a man, you realized dimly. Not a woman, either. Something else entirely.
"Who..." you rasped.
"Save your strength."
She held you close, one arm under your knees, the other around your back, like you weighed nothing at all. Shouting still rang out behind you, but it felt distant now. You let your eyes close again, because somehow — despite everything — you felt safe.
Safer than you'd ever felt before.
