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It’s Petra who finds him, after.
It doesn’t take long to notice Ferdinand is missing; he didn’t show up for tea and sweets with Lysithea, something she purposely planned to keep his mind busy, and she wastes no time in going right to Byleth about it. The monastery wide search is quiet and efficient, and only slightly worried. Ferdinand had seemed to take his father’s death in stride, so there’s no concern regarding self-harm or suicide, but the concern remains.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Petra knows where he is, and of course, she finds him first. His wyvern’s head is nestled atop her stall door, and she rumbles a greeting as the princess of Brigid approaches; she pauses long enough to scratch the base of her horns, murmuring to her softly in her mother tongue, before peering around her into the stall.
Ferdinand is in the corner of her stall, leaning back into the wood with his hand pressed to his eyes, his arm wrapped tightly around his stomach. He’s drawn tighter than her bowstring in battle, and Petra takes a quiet breath before letting herself into the stall.
The wyvern rumbles again and huffs, letting her pass. Ferdinand doesn’t acknowledge her presence, even though she’s made enough noise to signal her entry.
“Five years,” he says, and his voice shakes on the words. “I thought he was dead.”
She pauses in front of him, keeping her distance—giving him space. “I am knowing this.”
“If—if I’d known—“ He cuts off abruptly, his whole body shuddering on the exhale. His hand drops from his eyes and he looks at her, and her heart breaks at the sight of tears he’s fighting to hold back. “He wasn’t a great leader, Petra.”
“This is truth.” She remembers Duke Aegir, vaguely; he’d been her host for a brief time in the Empire. He’d taken her to see a play.
“I thought he was dead,” Ferdinand repeats, and his grip on his stomach tightens. “I grieved him years ago.”
Petra approaches, now. She reaches out, gently; one hand guides his arm down, off his stomach, letting him breathe. The other finds his free hand, holds on. Squeezes, quietly.
“You were having hope,” she says at last, and she’s never hated her inability to fully grasp her second language more than in this moment. “You were thinking he would be back, with you. And then he was not. I have understanding.” She inhales in time with him, meeting his gaze. “My father was promising me when he left that he would return. I cried many days, when he did not.”
Ferdinand has been shaking since she touched him, but he doesn’t pull away. When she starts speaking, he chokes; when she finishes, the sound that tears itself from his throat is so raw she’s stunned he doesn’t cough up blood. She isn’t sure which one of them moves first but then they’re pressed together, so tightly to be mistaken for one person, and his tears scorch her shoulder as he weeps, great, heaving sobs that shake him so badly it feels the only reason he doesn’t fall to pieces is because he’s in her arms.
It feels like it’s been that way now for years, since they found each other wandering Empire territory. Petra’s never really thought about it until this moment.
But now isn’t the time for that revelation to click, she decides. For now, she holds Ferdinand steady, tangles her fingers in his hair, and wonders why everything she loves is everything Edelgard has vowed to destroy.