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“Tell me this is all a dream.” Her voice is as dead as she wishes she was. As dead as her companions may be, and she has not the energy to believe otherwise.
Haurchefant pauses cleaning one of her gauntlets. After showing Alphinaud and Tataru to their rooms, he had led her to his quarters, ever-so-gently removed her armor smeared with blood and grime, and sat her down, swathed in a fine quilt, on the couch in front of the hearth. Pressed a warm mug into her hands and took a seat beside her, a position he has not left.
He sets her gauntlet aside, drops the rag in the bucket of now-muddied water. Brushes his thumb across her cheek before taking her hand and lacing their fingers together.
He’s quiet when he speaks. Somber. “You know I would never lie to you.”
She does know. She always has. And even if it hurts now, a shuddering sob that’s building and building, her body too numb to force it out, it’s a relief, too. After all the deceit, the betrayal, the plots and ploys lurking under the floors and inside the cracks in the walls, his unfailing honesty is a candlelight in the dark.
“Tell me a truth, then.” She can barely hear herself over the low hiss of the dying fire.
He rubs slow circles on the back of her hand. “If they find you here, they will not take you. We— I —won’t allow them so much as past the gates.”
She nods, once, a slight tilt of her head more than anything else. But he is not done.
“I will do all in my power to grant you safe passage to Ishgard. Should they refuse you, then you may stay here for however long it takes to clear your name of falsehoods.” He meets her gaze, resolve glimmering in the depths of his stone-blue eyes. Bringing their joined hands to his mouth, he kisses each of her knuckles. “And I will be by your side every step of the way. This I swear.”
He says it like an oath. Like she is something more than the Warrior of Light, somehow; a princess ascending her throne as queen, and he is vowing his undying loyalty. Leaning forward, he kisses her forehead, right on her crown of scales. As if to bind it.
It fills the air in the room, the wounds on and under her skin, the gaps between heartbeats. The whole star seems to pause, acknowledging the weight of his promise.
She breathes. Draws it in, lets it sink into her bones and entwine within her aether, her very being.
It’s more than she would ever ask of him, yet he pledges it so freely anyway. “Thank you,” she says, soft, wet. It’s not enough. Nothing she can say in return will ever be enough.
But he understands. Pulls her close, wraps his arms around her. Shields her from the world, if only just for one night.
🛡
Before he lets her rest, he coaxes her into a bath.
“Are you saying I smell?” she had tried to joke, but it fell flat as soon as the words left her lips.
He had cupped her jaw, and she became all too aware of what laid there, what undoubtedly marred the rest of her body: splatters of dried blood, crusted over. Remnants of her struggle, her loss. She almost didn’t want to wash them off. What if they were the last traces she’d ever have of her companions?
“Let me take care of you,” had been his response, achingly tender.
And try as she might, she could not refuse him. So she let him carry her to his bathing room, undress her, set her down in the tub of warm water smelling of roses.
He sits on a stool behind her as he combs his fingers through her hair. It’s soothing enough she could fall asleep.
A golden cup clatters to the ground, wine spilling on opulent tile.
Blue uniforms. Blood and a severed arm arc through the air.
Yda, Papalymo. Y’shtola, Thancred. Minfilia. Voices telling her to go, to run, they’ve got this—
Her eyes fly open, a scream clawing itself from her throat. She jerks upright, water sloshing over the sides of the tub. There is something lodged in her ribs and she can’t breathe. Damp air in an ancient tunnel. She can’t breathe. Their hopes are all she has left.
She can’t breathe.
Warm hands grip her shoulders. Firm, but not enough to hurt. “Vale,” someone says, then, “I’m here.”
He rubs her arms, her back. “You’re in Camp Dragonhead,” he reminds her. “You’re safe. I have you.”
Bits and pieces return to her, jumbled sensations. The scent of soap, roses. The cooling bathwater. The candles in the corner of the room. Haurchefant’s touch as he turns her head to look at him.
She gasps, chest heaving, lungs filling.
“I have you,” he repeats.
He thumbs away a tear, and she realizes she’s crying.
The dam breaks. All the sorrow bursts forth, a tidal wave she can no longer contain, and she drowns. She weeps, shaking, salt on her tongue. Weeps as he enfolds her in his arms, presses his forehead to hers. Weeps for those she has lost, those she could not save. Weeps until she can’t anymore and the water is cold.
He does not let go, not until her trembling subsides and her sobs quiet. When he picks her up, she clings to him like he is a lifeline and she is being swept out to sea. Her fingers clench in his shirt even as he dries her off, murmuring quietly, a steady presence at her side. Grounding her. He dresses her in soft smallclothes that smell like him and tucks her into his bed, piles blankets on top of her.
“Haurchefant.” Her voice is hoarse, tired. Her eyelids are so heavy. “Stay. Please.”
He slides beside her under the covers. Pulls her to him, tangles their legs together, cradles her head to his chest so she can feel the beating of his heart. “Always.”