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Haurchefant loved the Warrior of Light from the moment he first saw her.
Haurchefant will tell anyone this without hesitation. He loved her first. He has made a home for her out of the Camp that has been his harbor. It is cold, the way everything is in Coerthas, but he is not. And she will not be cold when she is with him. They are something written into the future fabric of Ishgard. An aspiration made flesh. He has felt so for a while now, confidence building, the way he has felt with bone-deep certainty that she has brought the future with her. The Warrior of Light is every hope made possible to him. Of course he loved her.
And they had the chance to be perfect.
But Haurchefant feels an ache in his chest when he sees her eyes follow the Lord Commander.
There is of course nothing, and no one, to blame. He knew she would, because he is following Aymeric too. Ever marching ahead of them, gaze fixed somewhere on the horizon, giving them something to reach for. If the Warrior of Light is hope made possible, their Lord Commander is faith sustained. So, it’s only natural. And she doesn’t seem to realize it anyway. It’s still Haurchefant that she searches for when she looks back. He wants to tell her that he has seen the way Aymeric looks at her too. Sometimes, he even wants to tell her it’s alright.
But he can’t. Because there’s still an ache in his chest and it doesn’t really matter if it’s not the same one he watches flee from Ser Aymeric’s expression before it can be acknowledged.
The Warrior of Light looks for Haurchefant’s hand in the dark. She holds fast to him in the cold. Her mouth is warm and hopeful and he loves her so fiercely it hurts. The Warrior of Light is the future of Ishgard. She’s all his aspirations made flesh. He knows she kind of hates that. Haurchefant wants to tell her he’s sorry, but he can’t do that either. He doesn’t want to lie to her any more than he’s willing to lie to himself.
Instead, he smiles so wide it hurts. He tells her to smile too.
Haurchefant bites his tongue when she goes to Aymeric and everything about her says he could be her home without trying. He doesn’t think she realizes the way she blooms when she’s near him, how lovely he makes her. But there is the possibility she might, and that does gnaw away quietly at the little safety he’s been nursing for them both. It’s just that she’s carrying every wish of his countrymen. It’s just that she’s walked right up to the altar he showed her, content and capable. There is no reason to have expected any less familiarity with the Lord Commander.
Haurchefant thinks this is natural, but so is the way Lady Fortemps could not love him.
He reminds himself that his Warrior of Light always comes back to him. He reminds himself that he is trying. Insecurity is so many insects burrowing into the parts of him he can’t defend. Sometimes, when the Lord Commander meets his stare across the yard, he has the miserable satisfaction of knowing that Aymeric knows too. He think that Ser Aymeric has told himself that he should not try, and Haurchefant has so rarely gotten to be first. He and Aymeric have always understood each other better than most.
Haurchefant doesn’t want to be selfish, but it’s hard not to be. This is the first time that he’s been allowed, after all. So he thinks it’s best not to mention the unspoken things that have begun to pile up in the spaces they share. His Warrior of Light has enough to think about. She doesn’t know. She makes it seem like loving him is simple and he has so much devotion to give. He figures this is like keeping a bird in a cage. Maybe it’s not fair, but it’s for her own good too. And she’s still singing, singing for him.
He runs his thumb over the soft bow of her lips and thinks there’s no one else that can understand this tenderness in him but her. His Warrior of Light looks at him like he’s her whole world and he really, really wants to believe it.
Since he brought the Warrior of Light to Ishgard, there is something new that has begun to form between Haurchefant and the Lord Commander, both bitter and sweet. They are comrades, after all. They have always seen themselves in each other, and this makes them fellows. Knights. Bastards. Boys that dared to demand to be seen. Men that have only recently found that the places they’ve made for themselves are still lonely. So Haurchefant says things he means but wishes he didn’t, blames it on the shitty ale and too much time in the City. And Aymeric dances away from all his half-drunk bait, carefully out of reach.
When Haurchefant goes home, sometimes his Warrior of Light is waiting and he wishes he would’ve had one less drink (said one less thing and been back a bell sooner). The way she materializes in his room is his favorite secret. Increasingly, he feels there are parts of her that he won’t be able to keep for himself. She can’t be the future if he doesn’t let her, after all. But the way the Gates can’t keep her in either, the way she comes looking for him despite it all, gives Haurchefant the courage to keep trying.
It’s what she wants, after all.
Haurchefant tells himself he’d have let her go if Aymeric found the stones to be a little more selfish. It’s an easy game to play when she keeps choosing him. Haurchefant never thought he’d be a gambling man, but she is his first for many things. His Warrior of Light listens to his heartbeat like it’s a lifeline and he knows she’s not sleeping even when she pretends that she is. Haurchefant knows her heart better than anybody else. He will tell anyone this without hesitation.
When Aymeric walks alone into the Vault, Haurchefant thinks he was right not to say anything to the either of them. He thinks there is nothing he can do that will be more cruel than what Aymeric is about to. And the Warrior of Light follows Haurchefant home. She is patient when they wait for the Lord Commander to give them a sign of success. She is patient when they begin to plan to get him back. She paces Haurchefant’s room, but she doesn’t move too fast. Her hands are colder than usual when she curls against his chest at night.
When Lucia calls for them, she leaves their bed without looking back.
That’s okay. Haurchefant does too.
Haurchefant thinks it’s a strange habit of men to be most honest on the edge of sleep or death. He doesn’t know what to do when he sees the way Aymeric reaches for her. Haurchefant is glad they came, when Lucia told them to press ahead and the Warrior of Light said — asked — if they could go together instead, Haurchefant readied his shield and walked with her into the dark. He thinks that if he were the one in the deepest gaol of the City, he would want her to come for him too. It felt like she had, in a way, when she stumbled back into the Camp all those moons ago. He knows what it feels like to be the one she’s looking for and the way that can be salvation.
She’s the only one that could’ve been there, the only one that can be there for the Lord Commander. The only one that can reach him on that strangling precipice and find him earnestly reaching back. But Haurchefant still doesn’t know what to do when Aymeric is reaching for her and she is reaching back (of course she is reaching back). He wonders if he still has it in him to love her the way he believes he can. Haurchefant has always been the one trying and his Warrior of Light will always choose him.
It’s not the right time to be thinking about it at all, but he wonders how there can be so little distance between savior and sacrifice.
In the end, his only real regret is that he pulled her away. But this is the nature of his adoration. She is the hero and the maiden for his shield. She is his matched heartbeat as they cut toward his ideals. She is the woman that could’ve been proud of him the way he’s so deeply proud of her. Maybe she’d be better off without all that, but he’s never gotten to have this before. His Warrior of Light is the love that mattered, even if he doesn’t know how to do it quite right. Bird in a pretty cage, but he has kept them safe, hasn’t he? His heart, her heart, and all the careful ways they have fit into each other’s missing pieces.
Haurchefant isn’t sure exactly what happens between the look they share and far too much blood in his mouth. He just knows he’s staring up at a wide blue sky and she’s the only one that he cares breaks into his view. That she’s the one that grabs on to his outstretched hand. He reaches for her and she reaches back (of course she is reaching back).
He’s been wrong before, he thinks. That expression she’s wearing isn’t one he’s ever wanted to see and he supposes that means he’s the cruel one, actually.
Haurchefant hopes that if he’s going to be wrong, maybe Aymeric will find the stones to be a little more selfish. He wants to tell her this too, but he can’t. Because there’s an ache in his chest that makes it hard to hope for anything — he’s so rarely gotten to be first. He’s so rarely had something so precious for himself. He smiles, apologetic. Everything hurts. “Don’t look at me so,” he says.
He tells her to smile too. It’s better that way, his beloved hero. Haurchefant has always liked to think that she smiles most for him. He knows he has always smiled most for her. We try for each other.
She says something that he doesn’t quite hear but the sentiment settles on him like comfort he thinks he’s probably always been looking for. His vision is growing unfocused when he feels the first slam of her magic into every nerve of his body and Aymeric swims blearily into view. This feels unfair, Haurchefant thinks, as her aether crawls down his veins and every moment of her bleeds into every part of him. His own heartbeat in her ears, affection that could suffocate him.
He blinks at Aymeric. Registers the recognition there, and a quiet horror that he wishes didn’t satisfy him just a little, but it does. The Lord Commander will have to bear it. His Warrior of Light deserves that much. In the end, Haurchefant really doesn’t want to share this.
“I’m with you,” she is saying. “I’ll be with you.” All the way to the other side. Her magic is crushing him, driving itself along his bones, moving his heart and his lungs. He thinks that Aymeric will not let her do what she will have to for any of this to work. He won’t either (they have always understood one another), and he supposes she must be able to feel it like a tidal pull through all that enchanting magic of hers. He hates to think he might be a disappointment at the end, but she’s still holding his hands.
“You have such a beautiful smile,” he says, so quiet she must press herself closer to him to hear. “Try not to forget mine.”
“Never, you’re the only one — ” he presses a finger to her lips, knows her heart better than anyone else. Haurchefant loved the Warrior of Light from the moment he first saw her. He will tell anyone this without hesitation: he loved her first.