#ps Francel is baby and I would die for him

[ofdragonsdeep]

11: Preaching to the Choir

None would have disagreed on the matter of Lord Haurchefant's virtues.

(HW spoilers, character death mention, grief, all that jazz)

The bitter chill of the Coerthas winds did little to salve the ache as Ar’telan walked the familiar path from the Gates of Judgement to Camp Dragonhead. A soft snowfall had set in with the evening, clouds crowding out the stars, and he rubbed his hands together for warmth as he went.

The guard on the gate straightened as Ar’telan approached, then relaxed as recognition set in. He was nodded in, no words spoken between them, but even in the flickering firelight of the meagre torch that marked his station, Ar’telan could see the red around his eyes.

The atmosphere was muted. Despite the ever-present threat, no knights milled about save for the guard up on the ramparts, and the courtyard was entirely free of the adventurers it usually gathered. Up by the aetheryte, there was only the silhouetted form of the foreign-born man who worked on the cannons without cease, and Inquisitor Brigie, leaning against the wall and staring out into the middle distance. She did not see him pass, and he was not keen to alert her, in the circumstances.

The heavy wood and iron doors to the keep opened with a scrape and creak of protest, and the few knights within looked up as he walked inside. Even now, weeks after it had happened, it felt like a twist of the heart to look at the empty chair on the other side of the desk.

“Ar’telan. It’s… it’s good to see you,” Yaelle remarked, offering a weak smile, one of the more genuine ones he had seen of late. Corentiaux rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, gathering himself.

“We wondered when we might see you here. Are… are you staying long?” he asked. Ar’telan sighed.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” he replied, which felt pathetic in the moment. A young astrologian deviated from the stacks of records to pull out a chair for him without a word, and he sat in it haltingly, afraid of appearing rude. “I wouldn’t want to- to impose. After…” Yaelle shook her head.

“You will always be welcome here. It’s what- what he would have wanted,” she remarked, her voice remarkably level across it all. Ar’telan took a deep breath, and held in the sadness. He was here now. He had waited - no, he had come here as soon as the chase against King Thordan had allowed, but he had left soon after, not able to stand it. He had waited until the dust had settled on that part of the war, until he had felt like there had been some kind of recompense, until he could bear to look the people of the camp in the eye and not collapse under the weight of the guilt of it all.

“We won’t turn you out into the snow. Make yourself at home,” Corentiaux agreed. “You have missed mess, I will allow, but there will be something in the pot for you.” Ar’telan swallowed back the grief.

“Thank you. I… I will try not to intrude,” he managed, feeling the weight of his reasons in the pack he carried. If they wanted to see it, he would let them do it on their own terms, not ones that might soothe his wounds.

As if anything could have soothed them.

---

The young roegadyn woman who was a cheerful constant of the mess hall looked up with a spectre of panic on her face as the door opened. She had been reserved when Ar’telan had first spoken to her, but over the moons she had opened up, her heart boundless in its love. She was… not coping well.

“Ar’telan. The knights didn’t… oh, I’m so sorry, I haven’t…” she tried, before choking back a sob and turning to hide it in the pot on the stove. “Y-you must be hungry. I-I’ll make you something.” Ar’telan tried to disagree, pained by her distress, but she had so lost herself in the busywork of it that she saw none of his desperate hand signs. Resigned, he eased himself onto the edge of one of the benches, elbows on the table and head resting on his hands. They had always taken care of him at Camp Dragonhead, the way they took care of anyone in need who passed through their walls. It was a kindness that permeated every brick, every cobblestone, a smile easy on the face when your spirits were buoyed. They did it now in reflex, stumbling in uncertainty through every day that greeted them. Ar’telan couldn’t help but think back to the days before. He had been there for the internment of knights his healing arts had not been able to save, he had been cheered and encouraged and warmed by the fire that lit every soul within, from the boy who swept the stables to the loftiest knight.

It had hurt, to see knights he had broken bread with that morning in a coffin by the dusk. He had watched the lines of stoic soldiers, some weeping into the shoulders of their fellows as the bodies of their friends were borne past, towards Ishgard. None of it could have prepared him for the grip of the all-consuming grief that lay like a pall over Dragonhead’s heart. Glassy eyes that stared at nothingness, a soul walking with the Fury instead of among the living. And for what? A war without end for the dragons that Nidhogg had driven to madness with his incessant Song, the sins of long-forgotten fathers carved out into the hides of the sons. To bear home the news of the great wyrm’s death, a tragedy of man’s design, and be greeted with a refusal… a refusal to yield.

By Ishgardian hands, by Ishgardian blood. What was it worth?

“Here. I h-hope it’s still good,” Medguistl said, startling Ar’telan from his reverie.

“It will be fine. My thanks,” he said, taking the proffered bowl and setting it down on the table before him. She sat down opposite him, seeming to fold into the table under the weight of her own thoughts.

“It’s not fair,” she said, her voice muffled by wood and her arms. “All those h-horrible people and it had, it h-had to be him.” Ar’telan flinched at her words, staring down at the stew in front of him rather than offer an answer she would not be able to see. “After everything that happened, all the kind things he said, I can’t… I can’t imagine that I’ll never see his smile again. Nobody wants to talk about it. We can’t. It just… it hurts.” She sniffled, looking up at him with an apologetic look on her face. “I-I’m sorry. I-I think this is the last thing you need, t-today of all days. B-but…”

“You are allowed to grieve,” Ar’telan disagreed, the words weaving around the spoon he was holding. “Pretending that it doesn’t hurt won’t make it go away.” He bit his lip uncertainly, sharp canines finding the scar that traced down the side of it. “He would be flattered that he had… touched so many so deeply. Though I think he would rather you held a little cheer, when you can.” Medguistl nodded, sniffing back the rest of the tears.

“Th-thank you,” she said. “I know that we’ll… we’ll carry the memory forever. So maybe… maybe in a way he won’t be truly gone.” Ar’telan wished that it was in a way which mattered, but did not voice the sadness aloud.

“I owe my life to him. To all of you here, as well. So if there is anything I can do…” he began, but the chef shook her head, straightening up.

“You can eat, is what you can do, and maybe we’ll think about the rest afterwards,” she said, and Ar’telan wearily complied.

---

The trek up to Providence Point, lit now by the light of the morning, was made no easier despite the absence of the aevises that had once plagued the trail. The ruin of the Steel Vigil stretched up to greet the day, snow and crumbling rock falling from the edifice at the slightest wind, and to the west, the crest of the hill.

He had come up here before, many times. Not all of them with Haurchefant, but many of them. They had stood before the stone that bore the seal of Oschon, the Wanderer, and Ar’telan had wondered at its presence in a land which clung so stubbornly in place. Beyond the piled stones, the crest of the cliff offered a crystal-clear view of Ishgard and the Steps of Faith, the best place to observe her beauty from save for within the walls of the city herself.

The headstone was small, and unobtrusive. Snow had already settled atop it, a faint dusting of white to match that which plagued the entire land since the Calamity had struck. Ar’telan knelt down beside it, brushed his fingers over the name.

Haurchefant Greystone.

Though they had buried his body in the Fortemps family crypt, in his public monument he could not bear the name. It was so like Ishgard, a place so comfortingly familiar that he had almost felt sure in calling it home. As if Hydaelyn would have let him rest, when he still had work to do.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” said a familiar voice. Francel, the first truly kind person he had met in this frozen hellscape of a place after the massacre at the Waking Sands. “Though I suppose it should not be a surprise, should it?” He closed the distance between them, joining Ar’telan in kneeling down in the snow. In his hands, a bouquet of Nymeia lilies, of the kind of freshness only the son of a High House could afford. Ar’telan had laid them upon coffins before, but here Francel simply rested them on top of the snow, tears already beading at the corner of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Ar’telan said, and Francel shook his head, rubbing the treacherous tears away with delicate fingers.

“No, no. You shouldn’t be,” he said. “He… he would be glad that you’d come. He always… always loved the view up here.” Ar’telan held his tongue on the memories, instead pulling the heavy pack from his back, and gently teasing the shield free from the canvas he had wrapped it in.

All the knights at the Camp had one like it. They adorned the walls of the keep, of the manor at House Fortemps, the arms of every person pledged to the house’s service. The gaping hole in this one, rent by a lance of pure aetherial light, was one he hoped the other shields would never see.

“The Count gave you this?” Francel asked, though he didn’t sound surprised. Ar’telan nodded, reaching out to rest it against the stone of the grave. If it could not protect him in life, it would at least watch him in death. “I’m glad. It’s… you should have had it,” Francel said, the words stiff and awkward in his mouth. “It never gets any easier, does it?” he asked, eyes on the city beyond the rise, across the void of wind that made the Sea of Clouds.

“No,” Ar’telan agreed, sitting back in the snow. “Different, maybe. But never easier.” Francel let out a long, low sigh.

“You will come back, won’t you?” he asked, a tremulous note to his voice. “To Ishgard. To us.” Ar’telan looked over in surprise at the question.

“If I am welcome,” he said, and Francel let out a single, disbelieving laugh.

“Welcome? Of course you are welcome. You helped to save us,” he said, shaking his head slightly at the idea. “All of us are hurting now, every one, but we would never turn you away. Not ever.” His eyes went back to the grave, his gaze lingering on the shield’s mortal wound. “I know you would never leave him behind, and he would not want you to. But I dont… I don’t want to bear this alone.” Ar’telan offered a smile.

“You are not alone. There is not a soul in the Highlands who does not know of Haurchefant’s grace,” he said, and Francel flopped backwards into a sitting position, as if actually hearing his name was a little too much.

“Have you spoken with the Count de Fortemps?” he asked. “After… After it all, I mean. When it wasn’t… When it wasn’t all too much.” Ar’telan sighed.

“Yes. I… I know he would not want me to leave,” he said, the first time he had voiced it aloud. “He said as much, but it is hard to believe it. Hard to let go of the feeling that I… That Haurchefant…”

“You will always have a home here,” Francel said, his voice quiet. “I would make sure of it, but I do not need to. Stay strong, my friend. Perhaps the grief will not fade, but the road will feel easier to walk in stride with another.” Ar’telan smiled slightly at the thought, his tail carving a little eddy in the snow as it swept from side to side.

“I would like that,” he agreed. It hurt, more than anything had a right to hurt, still aching as though Ser Zephirin’s lance had pierced his heart instead, but for the future - there was hope.