“People rarely think the right way while grieving. Hard to blame them for it either.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

“Deities damn it Sal… Damn it all to hell… How could you do this to me!?” muttered Grünhildr Sigvaldi inside the dim lighting of her tent. The tent that she usually shared with Salicia… yet now could only share with her late lover’s dead body.

Said body was laid out on the bed – the two were wealthy enough to own a large storage ring to carry amenities with them – in the tent, while the burly woman herself was slouched against the side of the bed in question, with a jug of alcohol in her dispirited hand. The way the tent positively reeked of alcohol and smoke told stories of just how poorly Grünhildr had taken the recent developments.

Salicia’s body looked unmarred, as if she was still alive and merely taking a nap, which was an illusion put to lie by the lack of movements associated with breathing and her paler than usual complexion. Reinhardt had perused the services of one of the preservation mages that followed the army, as there were most definitely some of those anytime armies with noble personages went to war.

The so-called preservation mages were typically of the Mortality affinity – though it was not unheard of for people from other affinities to use their talents in a similar manner – who either did not cut it as healers or found healing too difficult and risky for their liking. Instead they made use of their magic to preserve and “repair” corpses back to their best state and kept them from decaying with an infusion of their mana. Such a treatment had been given to Salicia’s body as well, which was the reason for its pristine state despite a couple days having already passed after her death.

Reinhardt’s intention was to have some of the company’s support staff deliver the body back to Salicia’s family in Levain when they move on from the battlefield. What he worried about was Grünhildr’s state of mind and whether the burly woman would have gone with the body as well or not. He knew from his wife who had been their friend since before Reinhardt even met with them that Salicia and Grünhildr had been together since childhood and were practically inseparable, even if the relation they were in had been more open due to their own preferences.

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The way Grünhildr had practically locked herself in the tent she shared with Salicia’s body was naturally a worrisome situation, especially with how she had turned away every visitor other than Elfriede, who was likely the closest friend the two had in the company as a whole. When Elfriede returned from her visit the night after the fateful battle, she had just shaken her head and told Reinhardt to give the grieving woman some time to herself.

At the same time, Reinhardt also noted some things left unsaid. His keen sense of smell easily detected the strong scent of alcohol that seemed to cling to Elfriede, evident of just how much of it was being consumed in Grünhildr’s place. He also noticed a strong hint of a smoky herbal scent he was familiar with on her, and since Elfriede didn’t smoke – but Grünhildr did – it was obvious where the scent came from.

It was a similar sort of dried herb mixture like what he himself smoked from time to time, though the composition was different as it catered to Grünhildr’s preference instead. He knew that it was a rather addictive thing to consume much like his own, though, and the intensity of the scent that clung to Elfriede just from being in the same tent was telling of the quantities Grünhildr must have smoked recently.

Yet at the same time, he also understood. The burly woman was grieving for the loss of her long-time lover, partner, and friend, and was not in the best state of mind in any way. A bit of overindulgence was something he had seen happen to such people far too many times in his decades-long career as a mercenary, so he took his wife’s word to leave Grünhildr – and Salicia’s body – alone for the time being.

Fortunately, the company – and the grieving Grünhildr by extension – still had time. There were a few more days until the end of the week, when they’re supposed to continue the march to take the fight towards the invaders. With the battle settled, Kolitschei and Lovia-Hosberg were temporarily safe from the invaders, with the remaining enemy presence in the north limited to what used to be Gestis and Wanarua.

Since the Free Lances didn’t have that much to do in the meantime, the mercenaries had taken the chance to rest properly and lick their wounds, knowing that there would be more fighting to come in the near future. Whether it would be enough time for some of the deeper wounds – both physical and mental – to heal or not was something out of their hands.

Over the rest of the week, Elfriede regularly visited Grünhildr, at times to get the burly woman to eat something, as she had been wallowing in grief to the point of forgetting to eat. Elfriede likely sympathized somewhat with her old friend – something she very rarely did at all, to the point that Reinhardt often wondered if sympathy was even a word that existed in her dictionary – as she had gone through the trouble to bring Grünhildr some food twice a day.

There was no need to bring anything to drink, though, given how the tent reeked so strongly of alcohol that anyone passing nearby would have caught a whiff of it in the air. It was so bad that for people with stronger senses of smell like Reinhardt they couldn’t avoid coughing or sneezing from coming too close to the area.

Whether there would be a sober Grünhildr that could go on with the company or not by the end of the week, only time would tell.