“Starting a battle is easy. Stopping one is much harder.” - Saying attributed to Gregorian Aurelius Secundus, famed general and later Second Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

“Got to admit that we didn’t expect you to cooperate this well with us, General Durant,” said Reinhardt with some curiosity as the Free Lances went around the battlefield, parading the captured Marquis of Podovniy – now set on a horse with his broken leg set with a splint, one of the mercenaries controlling the horse and keeping him steady on the saddle from behind – around and calling for the surrender of the Podovnian soldiers.

Simeon Durant, General to the Marquis, who Elfriede had captured previously, had helped quite a bit with that he called for the Podovnian soldiers to lay down their arms. Even the stubborn ones obeyed his command, which definitely saved Reinhardt’s men a scuffle or several in the process. It was rather rare to see such cooperative behavior from a captured enemy officer, which prompted Reinhardt’s query.

“We already lost this battle the moment you captured the Marquis,” admitted Simeon with a wistful sigh as he shook his head. The Podovnian general looked as if he had aged a good decade or so after the defeat, or rather, it was just that he didn’t let his age show as much previously. “With that established, it is now my responsibility to try to save as many of my people’s lives as I can, so if cooperating with you is the best way to do so, that is what I shall do.”

“An admirable choice to take,” noted Elfriede from Reinhardt’s side. “Far too many shitbags in your position would rather scream and yell and do anything but help take care of the aftermath of a battle they lost, assuming they weren’t too busy running to save their own hide, that is,” she noted. “Don’t see too many who own up to their responsibility even if they know they’re likely getting punished for the loss one way or another.”

“Sadly too often the case, Ma’am,” noted Simeon with a shake of his head. Then he glanced at Elfriede once more and looked as if he was not certain if he should say what he wanted to say, before he finally made the decision and said it anyway. “By the way, Ma’am, pardon the request, but I do not believe there is a need to keep the look to intimidate us anymore. I am pretty certain even the stubborn ones will lay down their arms at my command.”

“Hm? What do you mean by the look?” asked Elfriede back, clearly rather confused by Simeon’s request.

“Umm… It is this… manner in which you just look past us as if we are nothing, Ma’am,” replied Simeon after he tried to find the words that escaped him for a moment. “It is a rather… unnerving way to be looked at. I completely understand why you would do that in a battle, definitely rather intimidating to be on the receiving end of such a look, I can say, but the battle has finished, has it not?”

To Simeon’s complete bafflement, Reinhardt, Elfriede, and many of the mercenaries close enough to have overheard his words broke into laughter just as he said his piece. Some of them even stopped on their tracks as they bent over themselves laughing too hard, and had to be nudged to keep going by those behind them.

“Ah, that was a good one,” said Reinhardt as he wiped some tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Friede isn’t giving you that look you mentioned on purpose or even to intimidate you, General. It’s just how it is for her. You see, she was never blessed with sight to begin with, so when you say that it feels like she’s looking through you, it’s because she’s looking at nothing to begin with.”

“What he said,” Elfriede chimed in. “I primarily sense things through other means, no big secret, that. In the end it works out well enough for my needs. Like, I might not be able to tell which of your group was who, but I could tell from the way your armor feels that they’re decorated and engraved. You also smell cleaner than the typical stink of soldiers, and even had the time to trim your hair and beard neatly. Easy enough to guess that you must be someone important or filthy rich just from those facts alone.”

“I… see,” noted Simeon before he turned quiet and contemplative for the next while other than commanding stubborn soldiers and officers to stand down and disarm themselves. Reinhardt could see that the man looked conflicted about something, probably related to how Elfriede cut down two mages and a bunch of his elite guards in the process of capturing him.

It was often hard for people to even consider that a blind person could fight at all, much less fight as well as Elfriede did.

“Anyway, I don’t think I saw any Anduilleans at all today. Did they choose to cut their losses and leave you to deal with this mess on your own?” quipped Reinhardt as he filled his smoking pipe with some dried herbs and lit them with a firestarter. “Ooh, from the look on your face it looks like what I said plucked a chord, huh?”

Simeon sighed audibly from atop his horse, as did the Marquis who overheard what Reinhardt said. In the end it was the captive Marquis who spoke out to answer his question. “We invited them into this campaign by promising them easy benefits for minimal risks, only to find that they balked at taking further risks when it turns out that things aren’t as easy as we expected. That young whelp of a regent likely cut us loose and went back to his camp already to reduce his losses by now.”

“Sounds like he’s more clever than you are, then,” replied Reinhardt with a smoky chuckle. “I guess that’s a piece of news my employer’s going to enjoy hearing.”