#ishagrd

He sat up and turned to see a little green dragon sitting on his hip, pushing on his arm with a very serious expression on his face.

He yawned, “Midgardsormr..? My apologies, I did not realize-”

“Please, son of Thordan, there is a more pressing matter,” The little dragon moved and gestured to the slightly open door to the bedroom. Now that he listened, he could hear a very faint, quiet voice coming from down the hall, “Please, Katsum has need of you.”

Aymeric was up in an instant, his tiredness gone in an instant as he threw on a robe and followed the sound of the voice with Midgardsormr clinging to his shoulder. He walked slow, finding the door to the study was cracked and that he could hear the faint sounds of Katsum’s crying coming from inside. He wasted no time to push open the door and enter. When he saw her, his heart broke.

She sat with her back turned to him, sitting on the floor in front of the windows that overlooked the garden, her coronet and her sword clutched tightly in her hands. She was almost curled in on herself, hunched over with her tail tucked tightly against her legs and her ears laid back against her head as she wept.  She had a blanket around her shoulders, but by the way Draco was sitting beside her looking at her like a sad dog trying to help his master, he guessed that it had been his and Midgardsomr’s doing and not Katsum’s herself.

In the dim light, she had the kind of radiance of a broken angel, the blanket creating her wings, the starlight lighting a pale halo in her blonde hair, and the crown and sword in her hands becoming her holy weapons of truth and justice. Of course she was always radiant in everything she did yet even here in a moment of sadness and despair, she still looked beautiful to him. He was entranced for a moment by such radiance until her cries broke him from his thoughts.

The Father of Dragons leap from his shoulder and floated over to her, landing on the floor beside her and looking up at her face from under her hair. He spoke in Dravanian which Aymeric could not understand, yet she did not respond. The Elezen man moved into the door and slowly stepped up to the small Miqo’te woman, “Kat?”

He noticed that she tensed and quieted, trying to calm herself and speak, “A-Aymeric...w-what are you doing u-up so late?”

He sighed and knelt down beside her, moving in close, “I was going to ask you the same thing. Though my first question is are you alright?”

She didn’t respond right away, and just looked down. He reached out to her and brushed the hair away from her face to see her eyes, but she turned her head away from him again.

“Katsum, look at me,” She slowly obeyed, looking over at him with tear-stained cheeks and red eyes. She looked as if she’d been crying for hours, which concerned him deeply as he cupped her face gently, “My sweetheart, please tell me what is wrong?”

Her face contorted again as fresh tears spilled over. She crawled into his arms, dropping her crown and sword as she buried her face in his shirt. Aymeric sat back and wrapped her in his arms as he set her on his lap. He draped the blanket over her shoulders and around to his own, leaning his head against hers as he whispered softly to her as she cried.

“It’s all my fault, Aymeric...it’s always been my fault...”

“What has, my love?”

“I couldn’t protect them when the kingdom was attacked...I didn’t stay to fight off the invaders...I left my people behind as I escaped...it’s all my fault that they’re gone…!” Katsum’s voice became a torrent of sobs and hiccups at that and Aymeric held her tightly, trying to help hold her together.

“My sweet, you know that is not true. And whatever voice that tells you any different is lying,” She buried her face in his neck and he rubbed her back to soothe her, “You did nothing wrong that night, my love. There is not a doubt in my mind about that.”

Draco moved and coiled himself around them, the sundrake laying his head on Katsum’s lap and looking up at her sadly. Midgardsormr sat on Draco’s head, watching her with as much concern as Aymeric felt. They stayed like this as she cried, shaking in Aymeric’s arms as he rocked them back and forth some as she struggled to breathe amidst the sobs. He whispered softly to her to help fight her raging emotions and give her comfort knowing that she was safe in his arms. After a little while, Katsum’s cries began to quiet and she clung to his night shirt as she lay against his chest.

Aymeric looked own at her and whispered, “You know...I know one thing that would not have happened if you had stayed that night,” She sniffled and looked up through her messy her to see he was smiling at her, “We may have never met if you had not come to Eorzea. And where would we be without our radiant knightess?”

She swallowed her tears and shook her head, “I don’t know...”

“Oh, I do. I may not know what the fate of the rest of Eorzea and Doma would be right now, but Ishgard would still be at war, if not half destroyed by Nidhogg’s wrath. We would still be under the tyranny of the church, distrust and hate running rampant in the streets, and I...I would still be the blind fool I was when we first met, thinking I had everything thought out and planned for a better future which was othing but a cruel lie…” He pressed a kiss to her hair, “And I wouldn’t be happily married either, and would not know the sweetness of your love and the warmth that you radiate.”

She didn’t respond, so he knew he hadn’t broken through just yet, but he was on the right track.

He cupped her face again, “You saved us, Kat. You saved us from sending our brothers and sisters to their graves in a senseless war, and from my tyrannical father who only dreamt of power. You saved me from my own naivety and my own doom, and I can never repay you enough for that. So anything wrong you may think you have done has no weight against the countless selfless acts of kindness and love for others that you have performed. It holds no weight at all.”

Her ears flattened and she nuzzled under his chin, a few stray tears falling.

Aymeric took a deep sigh, planting a kiss on her forehead lovingly, “You will never know just how much I love you, my sweet angel. My darling knightess who puts far too much pressure on herself.”

“You are one to talk...” She mumbled, and he chuckles, “I love you too...my charming prince...I don’t know what I would do without you…”

“Not get a very good night’s sleep I would think tonight, so how about we get back to bed and we can cuddle together and fight off this chill, hm?”

She nodded, pushing Draco’s head off of her legs and moving to stand, but he stopped her and lifted his bride into his arms and carried her out of the study with the two dragons following. Katsum laid her head against him, her arms encircled around his neck as she closed her eyes. Her ears twitched in tiredness, making Aymeric smile as he noticed it.

“Tired now?”

She nodded again, “Thank you for saving me tonight, Aymeric…”

“You are most welcome, my love. Even the Warrior of Light needs saving sometimes.”

He felt her almost doze off as they entered the bedroom and he carried her to her side of the bed and laid her down gently, watching her curl into the blankets as she shivered.

He discarded his robe and quickly moved over to his side and climbed in next to her, gathering her in his arms and holding her against him. Katsum snuggled in with her head under his chin, her arms folded against his chest as she intertwined their legs and wrapped her tail around them. The instant she settled, she was fast asleep, and Aymeric sighed, brushing a hand through her hair. Draco climbed up onto the bed and curled up at the foot of it, breathing in a deep breath to heat up his belly to bring them more warmth as Midgardsormr closed the bedroom and returned to his basket to watch from afar for the night.

He spoke quietly in Dravanian and Aymeric looked over, “If you don’t mind my asking, what did you say?”

“I said, ‘Sleep well, Lady of Dravania’.” He mused, moving to curled in on himself and sleep.