Work Text:
They were safely ensconced in the intercessory at Camp Dragonhead. Haurchefant had assured them they were safe from their hunters for the moment, and the fire crackled warm and happy in its grate, slowly removing the bitter chill of the long walk from Ul’dah. Snow piled in the small windows, blown in on squalling winds and promising a long night.
The storm had not stayed outside, however.
Archon had been uncharacteristically quiet for bells, murmuring his thanks for Dragonhead’s shelter and promises of blank noncompliance should anyone come knocking, but nothing more. Even Tataru’s teary joy at their reunion had brought nothing more than the twitch of a smile to his lips. His eyes looked sunken, haunted, but surely that was understandable, his companions believed. They had all witnessed too much in the past day, experienced too much.
Archon did not want to be here. He did not want to be in this snow-encrusted cell of an outpost, too cold, too damp, too dark. He did not want the thoughts spinning in his head, circling like vultures, waiting for him to collapse so they could descend and swarm. He especially did not want to be here with the most irritating, stuck-up, primmest little brat of a child he had ever had the misfortune of meeting. Of all the people who made it out, I had to be stuck with him.
They’d been given their space by the rest of the camp, and Tataru chattered away, offering suggestions for places the other members of the Scions might be, that Yugiri and her people were looking for them, but Archon was barely listening. He paced the back wall, eyes sliding sightlessly over bookshelves and desks and bottles. He wished he could as easily ignore Alphinaud’s self-pity-party as he did Tataru’s worried fussing.
“'Tis all my doing–”
Shut up, shut up, shut up–
“I treated the Crystal Braves, and even the Scions themselves, as pawns in my great scheme to save the realm!”
Archon clenched his jaw, fists shaking with the effort of keeping them clasped behind his back. And even now, you have yet to so much as apologize before you whinge that–
“‘Twas all but a means to feed my own vanity. Only when all is lost do I finally realize the truth.”
“All is lost?” Archon couldn’t hold back any longer, stopping dead to spit the words out. He barked a humorless laugh. “Surely you jest. Yes, you’ve finally realized you were a self-absorbed, egotistical child playing games with people’s real, actual lives. I’m glad for you.” The words dripped with venom. He should stop. He should stop; Alphinaud was a child–he put himself in this situation, he deserved it–he didn’t need Archon to rip him a new wound on top of the others–if he would just stop fucking talking–
Alphinaud looked like he’d been punched in the gut, staring at Archon with huge, wide eyes. Tataru was frozen where she sat at the table.
“You haven’t lost everything. You’ve just lost your own pride. You can skip back home and pretend nothing ever happened, if you like. Meanwhile, I have to sit here, wondering if I can ever go home, wondering if those bastards will come for my family–” Archon’s heart lurched, thinking of his fathers’ house in Ul’dah’s residential area, imagining Mayko opening the door and–
“Archon,” Tataru pled. “I know we’re all concerned, but I’m sure Yugiri would be willing to keep an eye out for them. Please, please don’t fight!”
“That’s all the Scions have wanted from me! That’s all he’s wanted from me!” Archon bared pointed canines, venting his spleen in full. “Run along and fight primals, pet Warrior of Light! Kill our gods, don’t worry about the details! And what I get in return is to be thrown out of my home and my family threatened, with the rest of the Scions lost and possibly dead!”
The door opened, blowing in a change in temperature. Haurchefant entered bearing three cups of cocoa, eyes roaming over the boy trembling at the table, the Lallafellin lass sniffling by the fire, and the large Auri man snarling at the other end of the room.
“I see I’ve interrupted something.” Haurchefant offered a calm smile. “Please, be at ease. It would not help to do your enemies’ work for them.” He placed one mug in Alphinaud’s hands. “Despair, I think, is sometimes a greater force of danger than any from outside.”
He moved around the table, setting the next mug in front of Tataru. “If we are to make any headway on your predicament, we must needs focus on the present, hm?”
Haurchefant carried the last mug to its recipient, putting out his free hand to take one of Archon’s. He ran his thumb over tight knuckles, offering the mug to coerce fists to open up and receive the drink. “Whatever frustrations we may have, surely it is more important to hold tight to what is dear to us, to reforge ourselves stronger than before, rather than to shatter ourselves apart.”
Archon accepted the drink mutely, unable to meet Haurchefant’s eyes. Hot shame and anger warred in his mind and he sank to the flagstones, curling in on himself, holding the warmth of the cocoa close.
“You all yet have fine companions who stand at your side, and more still simply waiting to be reunited,” Haurchefant continued to the room at large. “With your combined determination, I have little doubt your issues will be solved.”
Tataru raised her cocoa, rubbing teary eyes. “Here, here. So long as we stand fast against despair the beacon of hope will never be lost to sight.”
“Y-yes,” Alphinaud agreed, voice small and lacking its usual pomp. “Of course. Thank you for your hospitality and your kind words, Sir Haurchefant.”