Chapter Text
“Hachu, it’s no use.” A voice says from behind her but she pays it no mind. Hachu has both her hands pressed against the gaping wound within Haurchefant’s chest. The blood pools between her fingers, a sickening feeling as she pours her aether into his abdomen. His aether is faint, flickering, fading fast beneath his skin. Only holding onto his flesh by threads.
Haurchefant sputters, blood beginning to spill from his mouth. She hears the sound of someone wailing, a primal scream ripping through the cold Ishgardian air, and it does not register to her that it’s her own voice. Her body hurts, pushed to its absolute limits as she pours aether that she simply does not have into Haurchefant, clinging to him like her own life depends on it. His wounds are not mending, the blood is simply continuing to spill past her fingers.
“By Halone, she’s going to hurt herself if she isn’t stopped!” Someone exclaims behind her, she vaguely feels someone try to pull her away from the shoulder, but instead they yelp in pain.
She ignores it. She ignores her own pain, how every part of her body is beginning to scream in resistance. Her skin burns, it feels like she’s on fire. Perhaps she is, with how whoever touched her seemed to react it’s certainly plausible. The muscles in her arms feel like they’re tearing. Is it due to her aether supplies being so depleted the healing magic now eats away at her? She doesn’t dwell on it. It doesn’t matter after all. All that matters is keeping him here.
She doesn’t stop, not when the shouts from her allies try to sway her. Not when her vision blurs to pure white. Not until her body gives out and she crumples into a heap atop Haurchefant’s torso and her consciousness finally slips from her. The last thing she feels is Haurchefant’s heartbeat, faint but beating, against her own chest.
When Hachu awakens, it’s to warm sunlight filtering through a window, the sunbeams dance across her eyelids as her consciousness returns to her. She squints, scrunching her face up and moving to cover her face with her arm. She’s tired still, her entire body feeling like it’s made of lead. She feels bandages on her arm roughly scratch at her eyelids and she groans in discomfort.
“You’re awake.” A gruff familiar voice notes. She doesn’t even need to look up to recognize it. Estinien. She hears the clink of his armor as he steps closer to her.
“Didn’t know you were moonlighting as a bedside nurse now.” Hachu grumbles.
He scoffs. “There were worries you’d immediately try to run and find Lord Haurchefant, your own health be damned.” At that line all the memories from before she awoke her flood back to her at once.
The Vault.
Thordan.
Haurchefant.
She wouldn’t have even realized she had sat bolt upright if Estinien’s gauntleted hand wasn’t there keeping her grounded. The metal of his armor pinches the skin of her shoulder as his firm grip guides her back to lying down. “Don’t go running off. He’s doing okay, he’s alive.”
“If I’m awake then I’m well enough to be at his side, I’m a healer it’s what I do best.”
“You nearly died a few days prior.”
“I wouldn’t change a thing-“
“Even if it means you’re never going to be able to use aether again?” Hachu falls quiet when a voice not belonging to Estinien cuts her off. Alphinaud stands in the doorway to her hospital room. In his arms he’s clutching a bouquet of bright yellow lilies and white daisies, his eyes watery as he seems unable to look her in the eye. “Multiple healers have seen you now, there’s something wrong. Irreversibly so. They think if you attempt to cast spells any longer it would come at the cost of your life.”
She can feel her arms shaking as the news settles on her. “That can’t be true.”
“Whatever you were doing burned Aymeric’s hand! No one could touch you. You were engulfed in white aether unlike any I’ve ever seen. We thought we lost both you and Lord Haurchefant.”
“The little lord speaks the truth.” Estinien says, moving away from the bedside to lean against the wall. “I won’t pretend to understand the technicalities of what those healers blathered on about. But they’re all in unison on your condition. Whatever you did saved Lord Haurchefant, but it came at a cost. You’re lucky to still be alive they say.”
Hachu looks from Estinien to Alphinaud. Alphinaud is quiet as he sets the flowers into a vase at her bedside table. Silence settles over all of them as she finds herself at a loss for words.
She wants them to be lying, or to be wrong at the very least. She attempts to reach out with her aether, to sense that reserve of magical power she’s always been able to tap into, and not only is it not there it hurts to even try. Her vision spins momentarily while her core begins to ache and she immediately relents. This is her reality now.
Spellcasting has been her life’s work, before being the warrior of light she worked as a conjurer in Gridania. Instead of making friends with the other children she took up an apprenticeship in the healing arts. She poured over every tome she could get her hands on. She spent countless sleepless nights studying Astrologian arts, countless candles burned down to the wick in the days she spent in her endless search for improving her magical prowess. And now, that’s gone forever. Did her work amount to nothing?
She remembers Haurchefant’s smile whenever he found her burning the midnight oil deep into the evenings. How he would take her by her hand around Ishgard, to spots that can see the stars the clearest at night. How he would listen to her ramblings about her Astrologian studies without a single complaint while clearly not being a field he had much interest in. How his blue eyes would shine with delight at every new feat of magic she showed to him.
She clenches her fists, a newfound resolve settling upon her. “Like I already said. If he’s alive I wouldn’t change a thing.”