“Oh… goodness.”

Neuvillette’s steps pressed hurriedly through the snow, crisp and rapid against the frozen silence. He reached you, arms encircling your limp form, lifting you with a careful strength that belied urgency. His heartbeat thrummed against your temple, fast and steady, warm enough to thaw the edge of cold that had seeped into your bones.

He had left his place at the court of Fontaine years ago. An undisclosed reason, he had said, but it had always felt… wrong. Unbecoming. And yet now—no—it still made no sense.

You had wandered among the white blocks, snow compressing beneath your steps with a hollow crunch that slowed with every faltering footfall. Until it ended. Your knees gave way, and the world softened at the edges.

Before darkness claimed you entirely, there was a smell. Sweet, familiar. Comforting. A light, warm and inviting, flashed at the edges of your vision. Or perhaps it was a man, only a man—steady, unwavering, and entirely the same, yet somehow changed.

The cold receded in patches where he held you. The snow hissed beneath the press of his boots, muffled by the weight of his care, as the wind carried your fleeting consciousness into the warmth of what might still be called home.