Budding Friendship

Shanna bounced on her giddy pegasus, the cheers of the crowd overpowering her laughter. She had never experienced such a wonderous joy, to come out victory in the gauntlet, especially with how much trouble the first two rounds gave her, it made it almost impossible for her to stop smiling.

But she felt her smile lessen when she saw the state of her opponent.

She had stopped focusing on Takumi when she had managed to knock him down, getting too absorbed in the fruits of her victory. The prince managed to sit himself up on his knees, though he made no move to stand. She watched as he started to tremble before collapsing back to the ground, his hands clenched tightly into fist and his hair, that had come loose from his ponytail, pooled around his head.

Calming her steed down, she landed in front of him, "Prince Takumi, are you okay?"

He didn't move, still looking down as he spoke, "... I'm fine..."

"Are you s-"

"I SAID I'M FINE!!!"

His booming voice brought the cheering to a sudden halt, Shanna feeling her pegasus jolt back in shock before she managed to calm it down, "Prince Takumi?"

She heard him take a shaky breath, "If you came to laugh at me, then get on with it already. Well?! Go ahead and laugh!"

She raised an eyebrow, "Why would I laugh at you?"

"Quit playing dumb with me! You won, I lost! You're strong, I'm weak! You're great, I'm... I'm pathetic..." His voice cracked as he continued, "I-I've always been pathetic..."

Hearing this, Shanna immediately dismounted from her pegasus and kneeled in front of the prince, "Prince Takumi, that's not true! You're far from being pathetic! I only won because of sheer luck!"

"Don't try to flatter me... I... I fought so hard, just to prove myself... But now... it's all for nothing... Everything I did was pointless..."

She grabbed him by the arms, lifting him off the ground, though he still kept his head down, "It wasn't pointless! You beat Karel and Soren on your own. You got farther than any of your siblings have. That's something you should be proud of."

He shook his head, "I only fought as hard as I did against Soren for Ryoma. I wanted to make up for his lose, and I wanted to beat you to make up for Hinoka. I didn't care about my victory, I wanted to do it for them. I wanted to be the one to come out on top for them... but I couldn't. I messed up and I failed them... I couldn't even do it for them... They must feel so embarrassed..."

Shanna grabbed his face, feeling his cheeks utterly moist from tears, finally getting him to look at her, "I think you might be wrong on that."

Though he struggled against it, she managed to turn his face enough to look where his family was. His eyes widened when he saw they were all smiling, pure warmth and joy in each of them. His siblings, the Nohrian family, his retainers, even both of the Corrin's were all looking at him without an ounce of disappoint.

"You're family loves you, and they're all happy that you got this far. And I think they're even more happy now that they know you were doing it for them."

Takumi felt new tears begin to spring in his eyes as he looked back to the ground, trying to have his hair shield his sobbing face from the others. Shanna let go of his face and placed her hands on her lap.

"Still, I get it if you still hate me. This gauntlet meant a lot to you, and I did kinda get in the way of that. So I don't blame you if you hate me."

Wiping the tears from his reddened eyes, he looked at the pegasus knight, "No, I don't hate you."

Her eyes beamed in pure delight, "You don't?!"

He shook his head, "I hate myself more than anything, but not you. You won this fair and square, and it would be childish of me to spite you because of my own mistakes. So don't worry, it fi-"

He was cut off as the pegasus knight suddenly tackled him into a hug, her arms wound around him and her face rested on his shoulder, "Oh thank goodness! I was so worried that you hated me! I had so much fun in our battle and I was really looking forward to hanging out with you afterwards because we never really got a chance to talk and I wanted to learn more about you because I think you're really cool, so when I saw you were crying and yelled at me, I thought you were mad at me and didn't want to even see me again and I got really sad, but now that I know you don't hate me I feel better and I'm so excited to spend more time with you!"

She finished her endless stream with a light breath as he stayed there, frozen in shock, not making a move to get her off him, "That's what you were worried about? You were more worried that I wouldn't want to hang out with you rather than if I would try to kill you?"

"Of course! I already know you won't try to kill me. I haven't seen you a lot before, but I could tell you're a nice guy. And now I know that you're nice and you're not mad at me, I can't wait to spend more time with you!" She pulled back to look at him, "You don't mind if we hang out afterwards, right?"

He stared at her, baffled beyond belief, "I... guess not?"

"Yay!" She hugged him again, tighter than before, "Now I'm even more excited! This really is the greatest!"

He still felt his mind swimming with questions, but he brought a hand up, patting her on the back, not wanting to be rude, "You've got some weird priorities."