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Speaking frankly, Claudius first saw Haurchefant as a strategic ally — a tool, which he could use for his own ends as surely as he could bend back a bow and unleash an arrow. Yes, they grew up in the same quarter of Ishgard, walked the same austere lanes, but that didn’t mean they were friends. And yes, as a young man, he scheduled his constitutionals whenever Haurchefant trained shirtless in the gazebo behind House Fortemps — who could blame him? Claudius already knew he would never be a knight, but he admired the physique. Haurchefant was well on his way.
But Haurchefant’s life sounded like some impossible fairytale, something Claudius would read in an adventure story and doubt. A bastard son raised alongside his brothers like a trueborn heir — Claudius may’ve been trueborn, but he knew he was unwanted. If he didn’t share his mother’s blood, she would beat him worse than she beat the servants — not that he didn’t get that from his brother.
It took him too long to wonder whether the servants deserved their treatment, either. He’d drawn in so much on himself, trying to keep still, stay safe, never say a word out of line. He didn’t have room to take on other people’s pain. But it found him, when his head ached and his vision blurred from the Echo. Once his mother hired a new cook, and the cook’s life flowed into him — the children at home, struggling over their letters before dinner, the husband dead to dragons and his pension gone with him, the desperate choice to watch the last of her family wither away or to work for a house of tyrants. Claudius could do precious little to make the house less tyrannical, but sometimes he’d spend his pocket money on books and toys and pretend he found them in his room, offering them to the cook to take home with her.
Perhaps the grass simply looked green across the lane. He got one hazy glimpse of Haurchefant’s childhood, watching him practice his swordplay in the nipping winter air — the back of Count Fortemps, always turning away to attend to some scrape of Emmanelain’s, some proud project of Artoirel’s. The voice of the countess, harsh and unyielding, when she forbade Haurchefant from showing his face in high society or going to parties with the Haillenarte.
And he snuck out regardless. Claudius admired that. It’s what made Haurchrfant so useful: he befriended highborn and lowborn alike, without compunctions about who he was allowed to befriend, without the cover of poor excuses to give the cook’s children gifts. Even if the headache cut his constitutional short, it was worth learning about Haurchefant — that must have been when Claudius resolved to sneak around the rules more often himself.
If anyone would welcome the last of the broken Scions with open arms, it would be Haurchefant and House Fortemps. A strategic alliance, a useful tool. What Claudius didn’t expect was to fall for his host, right when all strategy had failed him.
“Haurchefant,” said Claudius with a forced calm. In truth, he felt as though he were losing his mind — he nearly lost his temper, with the Count de Fortemps, with his genteel excuses for why he couldn’t intervene when the temple knights took Alphinaud and Tataru away. Then what good are you? he wanted to snarl. Aymeric had a plan, trial by combat, but Claudius’s nerves still sang in him like a frayed violin string about to snap. “Haurchefant, please, listen to me. Do you truly believe the Fury intercedes in our petty political squabbles? If that were the case, why hasn’t Ishgard won the Dragonsong War already, by Halone’s grace? Trial by combat doesn’t prove innocence — it only proves whose side is the strongest. What if this doesn’t work?”
Haurchefant cocked his head. “I like to believe Halone is on our side, of course! But Claudius, what does that matter? I believe in you.” You shouldn’t, thought Claudius, but Haurchefant went on before he could interject. “You’re a hero, Claudius! Bards sing tales of your victories! Let’s say trial by combat only proves who’s the strongest. You are as strong as any knight of the Heavens' Ward. Strong enough for two, I wager.”
A harsh, bitter laugh ripped itself from Claudius’s throat. He had no control over it. His hands shook — how could he steady a carbine? “I doubt that very much.”
“I don’t only mean strength of arms.” With surprising gentleness, he laid his hands on Claudius’s shoulders. Claudius found himself standing taller, to meet the touch. “You’ve strength of heart. You’re fighting for the sake of your beloved friends.”
“Beloved?” It was on the tip of his tongue to protest, his affections did not that way tend — but he thought of Alphinaud’s innocent wonder at the spires of Ishgard, the statues of ancient heroes, the history in its stones. It made Ishgard almost bearable, seeing the sights as Alphinaud saw them, for the first time. Claudius never had a child, most likely never would … but he remembered Gertrude saying how she saw the world half through little Hamlet, watching over him as he grew, learning as he learned. She taught him the words for what he saw, but only he could teach her how he saw them. It was the love of a parent, Claudius thought, that made the effort worthwhile.
And Tataru — Tataru didn’t deserve this. She took the risk herself, when she took a job in the Brume, far from the protection of House Fortemps. But she had no fear. Claudius could still envision the anticipatory gleam in her eye for all the rumors she could glean from her patrons, sifting through the dross for any word of the Scions. Perhaps Tataru understood better than Claudius what it was like to fight for one’s friends.
The least he could was fight for her.
“You won’t believe the reserves of strength a man will find when his friends are in danger,” Haurchefant said. “Listen to me, now, Claudius. You are going to win. Don’t think about what we’ll do if you lose. Think about how you will celebrate your victory! Fury’s grace or no, you’re the one I’d want fighting for me. Look for me, and you’ll see me cheering your every move.”
Claudius released a breath. He looked down at his hands, which ceased their shaking, then up at Haurchefant. Smiling, sure Haurchefant, still clasping Claudius’s shoulders … Saints help him, but Claudius wanted nothing more to kiss this man.
“Very well,” he said instead. “Then that’s precisely what I’ll do.” Fight, win, or look for Haurchefant — he didn’t say. But Haurchefant steadied him like a carbine, and he was ready to fire.
And so he did. Not before Haurchefant brushed back a strand of Claudius’s then-long hair, and brushed his lips to Claudius’s forehead. “For luck,” he said.
He’d take it —take Haurchefant’s luck over the Fury’s blessing, and take Haurchefant’s simple faith in him over all the saintly prestige of the Heaven’s Ward. He’d face the fear of his childhood, the fear that the temple knights would come and take away someone he loved, so he best not love anyone.
Because Haurchefant was right. Claudius found a well of strength inside of him, and more than strength, unwavering purpose. Now that he knew who and what he was fighting for, all other thoughts and fears fell away from him. No sooner than a knight raised arms against Alphinaud did Claudius fire, and fire again, disassembling and reassembling his weapon within seconds to power the second shot. Sight clear, aim true, hands steadier than ever, he defended the friend he loved like a son.
And he won. That was the wonder of it. They’d say the Fury smiled on him, but it was Haurchefant cheering him to victory.
“So?” asked Haurchefant with a proud, besotted look, hanging on to the reins of the black chocobo he’d presented but moments before. The guards rushed the bird and Haurchefant both out the doors to Tribune’s hallowed halls, and Claudius still laughed at the sheer audacity. “Have you given it any thought? How shall we celebrate your victory?”
They scarcely had time for celebrating — some duty would arise and pull one of them away, Claudius knew it. But he was still flush from the fight, from the fearful thrill of staring down a Heaven’s Ward knight and pulling the trigger. The energy alit all his nerves, like aether building, begging to be unleashed. He would dance, if he had a partner.
Even so, he said, “I think I’ll be retiring to my room. But, if you want to make it a celebration …” Leaning in, looking up with eyes keen and hungry, he snuck a few fingers up Haurchefant’s collar and along his throat, to the little hint of bare skin beneath his armor. “Come join me?”