Work Text:
Addressed to: Count Edmont de Fortemps
My Lord,
Father.
I thought it best - or, perhaps, easiest - to set these thoughts down in writing ere I speak of them; I hope that this will help us to better understand each other when next we meet.
Though there is some chance, as always, that the opportunity to speak never comes. Having only just buried so many good men and women in the wake of our hard-won victory on the Steps of Faith, and knowing that it has earned us but a momentary pause in this endless war, you will - I hope - forgive me this maudlin train of thought.
As ever, my life is as a coin that House Fortemps may spend to buy a brighter future for Ishgard, and if this comes to pass, know that I have been full glad to pay this price. But whether I pay it today, or on the morrow, or in the next era, I must make my feelings and intentions known now, ere they become overwritten in the annals of history by hearsay and speculation.
Being mine alone to give, I have pledged my heart to a man worthy of my regard, my devotion, my love; a man most worthy of your respect. And though he is not of Ishgard, he has made of Coerthas a home, and sees to the protection of her people with no less fervor than I.
I do not regret or apologise for my recent actions, which have no doubt come under the scrutiny of many, and on this point I will expand anon; but I do regret that it was in this manner that you came to learn of my growing companionship with him, and the depth of my affection. In truth, though I spoke of him oft as a close friend in your company, I did not yet know the paths of my heart, or whence they might lead. And when, at last, I had mapped out their winding ways and knew that they would endure, it seemed a trifling thing to speak on as the heretic threats mounted and the great wyrm roared.
Perhaps I have grown overly reticent of sharing with you trifling things; and so I slowly laid the stones of the wall that has arisen between us these past years, each stone a thought not shared, a fear not voiced, a question not asked. And so, with this barrier hiding my life from your view, I suppose I must appear to be making ill-conceived choices in more than trifling matters; for how are you to see the sense in them through stone and snow?
I wish to open a door in this wall I have made. I wish to throw open the shutters and the windows. For this is a matter not trifling in the least, and I wish not to hide it from your view. I cannot hide it, for it is not only mine to hide; and I will not hide it, because it is so wholly a part of me, as true as the oaths I have gladly sworn to our House.
You are familiar with his many great deeds these past moons, and so I will not recount here his acts of heroism. Already I see his story passing into myth, even amongst the garrison at Camp Dragonhead, where he has made his home in the scant moments afforded to him between his works for the Scions and the Grand Companies. But they have also come to know him as a man, as I have, and I would share with you a glimpse of this man, that you might better understand why I look upon him as I do.
The first words he ever spoke to me were an offer of help, in whatever manner he might lend himself; this before receiving any aid in his own quest, nor even a hint of a promise of such. His companions - particularly the young scholar, grandson of the much-lauded Louisoix - were more savvy, and couched their offers within the guise of mutual assistance. But not this man, this Miqo’te, this gladiator who seemed so strangely out of place here, like he had been plucked from another world. He offered his aid because he cannot be still. Because helping others is in his every breath, his every thought.
I did not know then why; I only saw a man who gave, and gave, and gave, and thought never to receive. Who saw to the every need and want of others, but could not see to his own. He nearly froze to death, the night he sought out my dear Francel in the yards of the Steel Vigil, for he set off in search of him the very moment he learned of the danger, with not even a thought to his own protection from the elements. A suspected heretic in need, and still. He did not hesitate.
Now I come to a shame of mine: for I did hesitate. I did not go with him this night, to save my truest friend, who I knew to be innocent of all charges. So tangled in my mind were the webs of propriety, of duty, of faith, that I found myself caught up within them, unable to move, unable to think. But he did not think. He saw a man in need - of succor, of justice - and he moved to make it so.
This clarity of vision comes at a high price, for unlike we men of Ishgard, whose lineage is traced back a thousand years at least - bringing with it those myriad webs of stifling decorum, yes, but also support, and fealty, and love - he has none. His memories, his past self, all that he was as a child; all of his family, friends, lovers; all of his wants and dreams… they are all gone. He knows only that he was found after the Calamity, in a field of Thanalan, of wheat and barley.
You must not imagine him to be whatsoever childlike, for that is not the way of it for him. He has a quiet way, a slow and thoughtfulness of speech, an easy smile, and a sharp gaze that sees through feigned pleasantries and false promises. And beneath it all, buried with scant a trace, a keen loneliness. For he has no-one, save the friends he has made in his work. No half-brothers squabbling, no childhood friends with whom to look back on life and laugh or weep. No father to make a place for him to build a life of honour.
This, I think, is why he chases every need with such intensity. For if a man has no family, then in a sense, all of Eorzea is as a friend, worthy of protection, with needs that he might see met. And yet none that are close to him, to support him, when most he needs it. And so he chases the needs of others, fills up his life with them, always moving from one to the next. For if he were to pause, even for a moment, he might succumb to the emptiness within himself.
I knew this not when first I reached out to him; it began as it does, for me, with all those who pass through Camp Dragonhead. To see that they are warm, and well-fed, and in good spirits, my hall a respite for all who journey through the great crossing. I am aware that my easiness in these things gives the other High Houses pause, but I will never regret my role in making this one crossing in our frigid land a place of merriment and warmth.
And he needed warmth. He needed support, and companionship, and comfort. Indeed, he needed someone as persistent as I, to push past his reticence to accept such things, even after he had given so much. And nourished with these simple acts of care, he began to open his heart to me. In time, he shared with me his pain, and his desires; and the light within him, which had seemed so bright, now shone with a warmth to match it.
It was this joining of light and warmth which forged the bond between us. For while he needed warmth and care, I needed his light, his clarity of vision: to see the true direction of my oaths, and to see justice done outside of the lens of faith alone. Still I think on this, every day; for in the wake of the deception he unveiled, the heretic Inquisitor who used the guise of faith to carry out so many heinous deeds… I must ever strive to better serve our people.
In truth, we are well matched, he and I: for our callings, our oaths, must come first in every thought, our own comforts and desires taken only in the spaces between. For men such as we, a union with any other would feel as half a lie, a struggle to balance love and duty. But it is in this balance that we have built the foundation of our love, and so it endures, across time and distance. And while I would be happiest to see him full oft, my life is made all the richer through simply knowing him, and being as a home to him, in the moments he can spare. To know that he thinks on me, and asks after me, and - when he can - sees to my comfort; because he wants my happiness. Of all the needs he sees to, this one thing he might allow himself to want.
This is why I do not regret kissing him, that day, on the Steps of Faith, after the battle was won, with no regard for those who watched. I kissed him, because he wanted this.
I must speak on what came before, in order to make the circumstances plain, though he would not want it celebrated. In brief: he saved my life. With Halone’s name on his lips, he conjured a great wall of stones of aether and held back the great wyrm’s fire, which bore down upon us but scorched us not. He reached out and grabbed the coin that is my life, and snatched it back from the great ledger of Death. And if the Azure Dragoon had not ended the beast’s life then and there, he would have paid for my life with his own, for he was so weakened by this act that he could not stand.
In the wake of this, only barely recovered, he looked to me, and asked for one small act of comfort from me, knowing that my duties would be many and long ere we would have even one private moment together. A request so simple and pure, and yet for him to even voice this want touched me, deeply.
And still, to my shame, I hesitated. For that web of decorum, of propriety, pulled at me, and made again to stifle me. I have tried to cast off this web, time and again; but I have been born into it, swaddled in the discomfort many feel at my very existence, reared with my hands bound by its many strands even as I might be mocked and goaded into fighting. And even so, I think with gladness on so many things that I would not dare to lose: my House, my duty, my beautiful city. These, too, are caught up within it. And so I serve Ishgard, always, but cannot find my comfort within its great walls and pillars; I look on it from Providence Point and feel both love at its sight and relief at its distance.
On the Steps of Faith, with my city so close and yet so far, I looked to this man, whose light might guide me when I find myself caught up in this web, unable to move, unable to think. My dearest companion, who wanted a small act of love after giving so much. And I knew, then and ever after: there is no world in which decorum is more dear to me than love.
I care naught for what the other High Houses would say on this. But knowing that it would be through rumours and snide remarks that you would hear of this moment between us, and that you might think it a careless act, a trifling thing, a wanton disregard for my duty or my position - in this, I have failed you. I have left you with naught but the myriad webs of decorum through which to judge my actions, and in this respect I can only imagine how strange I must seem, in your eyes. How disappointing. In labouring upon this wall between us, I have hidden from you my true self, my whole self; I can only hope that my words today will clear your view of me, if only a little.
I cannot abide this wall of silence, and I cannot go on living as half a man, in duty or in love. I must be whole if I am to serve our House and our great nation. I have pledged my life, and my heart, and these things cannot be sundered. And so I do not apologise for my love, and I will not hide it, from you or any other; but for my part in building this wall between us, for my fear in bringing to you these more than trifling matters, for all the things I have left unsaid these past years, I can only ask for your forgiveness.
As I send this missive, he is gone to Ul’dah, where his and the Scions’ deeds and our great victory are to be celebrated by all the city states. What a day to be alive, to see the first burgeoning friendships between our peoples in so many years. Would that he could remember the days before from his childhood, as I do; would that he had family to ask for tales of the time before the era’s end.
I suppose he may, for to me, he is family. And I hope - I pray - that you may also accept him as such, in time. Let this most earnest desire of mine, which I share with you today, be the first stone to fall from the wall between us.
I would beg of you one favour, though I am loath to ask for anything ere we speak again in person. Please, think on this at least: meet him. Be it with a visit to Camp Dragonhead upon his return here, or a rare invitation for him to cross the Steps and be received as a guest of our House, I would have you take your measure of him. For I think you will find him less a myth, and more a man, and that he will be all the more remarkable for it.
I swear, by Halone’s name, that whatsoever you may think of me after all that I have laid out for you this day, you shall not find him wanting.
Ever most humbly in your service,
Haurchefant