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Ishgard is cold.
Well, that much is obvious — anyone could tell you that.
But it’s colder now, somehow. It reaches his core and grips his bones, burrowing right into the marrow, settling in the hollow pit of his gut. A deep freeze from the inside out.
The night is quiet, but it doesn’t matter.
Thordan is dead, and it doesn’t matter.
Fortemps Manor is silent, save for the howling wind of a blizzard outside, sweeping through the streets of the city. Everyone has long since fallen asleep, but Altair remains awake. His brain in a fog, senses dulled, not entirely there. Nothing feels real. It’s like he’s being pulled so far away from his own body and all he can do is watch from a distance as he goes through the days with blank eyes, barely hearing when anyone speaks to him, barely speaking. Even though he wants to scream. Even though he wants to cry.
It always dies halfway up his throat when he tries.
Thick locks of hair spill over his face; he’s foregone his ponytail for the night, and his impossibly long hair pools all around him. He’s so tired, but he can’t sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he- he sees—
Blue eyes staring up at him, wet with unshed tears. Pained, but still achingly tender, so full of boundless love. He hears each agonized breath, feels it against him where he holds him in his arms. Haurchefant feels heavy, too heavy. He’s bleeding, it pools in Altair’s lap and on the ground below. It smears over his hands, hot and sticky on his skin. It dribbles from Haurchefant’s mouth, down his chin.
Altair wants to kiss him, but the taste of his blood on his tongue would be too much. So instead he kisses his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, his hair. Haurchefant’s laugh is breathless, pained. Altair, in that moment, wishes he was any sort of healer—but something tells him even if he were, that would not help him here.
His beloved dies in his arms and he holds his body until the moon is high in the sky and the warmth fades from his skin.
There is a monument overlooking the city, but the grave itself resides on Fortemps property. Altair finds himself sitting in front of it most times, when he can afford to, when he doesn’t need to solve someone else’s centuries-long problem.
The only reason he isn’t now is because of the storm. He remains in the warmth of his bed, but he still feels cold.
The memory keeps replaying in his head. And then the memories before then, where they thought they had the future. Where they thought it would last. Smiling, laughing, murmured promises against warm skin. Before he rushed in between Altair and that lance and…
Altair curls into a tight ball, like he’s trying to make his massive self look smaller, like he wants the bed to swallow himself whole. His tail tucks between his legs and his arms cover his face. When his eyes squeeze shut his nails dig into his scalp. The blizzard is, suddenly, much louder to him; the shrieks of wind and rattling of the windows are piercing in his skull.
Then he feels the tears, the burning behind his eyes. He feels them run down his nose, his cheeks, drip from the scales of his jaw and chin. His breathing comes out in shuddering gasps, and for the first time since that day he cries. He cries like he did when his father died, weak little sobs and sniffles, his shoulders shaking, hands pulling at his hair. Alone. Cold.
“Didn’t I tell you not to drink too deep?” A voice in his horn murmurs, and suddenly he isn’t alone anymore. Someone settles against his back, cool armor pressed to his skin. The bed does not sink further beneath Fray’s weight—it’s like they aren’t there at all. But Altair can feel them, hear them, how they rest along his spine and how their arm settles around his middle. They’re much smaller than he is, but they have no trouble spooning him. “Falling victim to your grief. I thought I had taught you better.”
Altair doesn’t respond. He continues to cry. Fray is silent for a few moments longer.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Aye, I know it does. Even if you wanted to hide it from me, you couldn’t. I feel it just as much as you do.”
That voice, low and gravelly, is somehow a comfort.
“I’m here,” Fray says. “I’m here.”
It’s enough. Altair moves one of his hands from his face, finding the one resting over his abdomen. He holds onto it tightly. The tears don’t stop, but he feels a little less alone. This isn’t like when the others have tried to comfort him, with their ‘I’m sorry’s and ‘it will be okay!’s. Infuriating. Uncomfortable. That won’t bring him back. It won’t lessen the pain.
But Fray is here now, and they understand. To feel the pain is okay. One should let themselves feel it. Grow from it. Learn from it. Just don’t get lost in it.
The storm rages on. Fray holds him, Altair doesn’t know how long for.
But when Altair wakes up (he doesn’t remember even falling asleep), they’re gone.
The blizzard has stopped. The world is still gray and muted, but there is a warmth spreading in his chest once more.