Chapter Text
"Please, wait for me," Hodrick whispered softly, holding Renault's limp hand, "I'll come back as soon as I can." They still had to rescue Scarlett, though Hodrick badly wanted to stay here. His last memory of Renault, the real Renault, he had been bruised and battered, struggling to rise again, desperate to defend the queen. Hodrick had tried to reach him, but passed out before he made it. And now ten years had passed, ten years of their own consciousness repressed by some dark magic.
Hodrick had felt a strange mixture of anger and relief when he saw Renault again. Relief that Renault was alive, but bitter anger that the man he saw was clearly not Renault. The malicious eyes that stared at him were not Renault's thoughtful, shy eyes.
Those same evil eyes had glowered at him as he restrained the creature inhabiting Renault, as Alain used his ring to free his body from its possession. But there was no comforting Renault, he'd fallen unconscious there in Hodrick's arms. Hodrick carried him desperately to the healers tent, watched as they stripped his armor to check him for injuries. There were none, yet he did not wake.
Renault and Hodrick hadn't always gotten along. When they were young, newly enlisted as royal knights, Hodrick had been the class clown and Renault his clear opposite - serious to a fault. Hodrick thought Renault was a stuck up asshole.
It had all changed that day when Hodrick made the serious miscalculation of tangling with some bandits in the woods. Renault had followed him, hoping to admonish him for setting off alone, and had found Hodrick nearly bleeding to death, an axe having nearly split his face in two. It was Renault who staunched the bleeding, allowing him to survive long enough for the healers to rescue him from death. But he still had the scar from it. The care that Renault showed him that day made Hodrick see him in a new light. Perhaps he was overserious, but he was also caring and loyal.
After that they were inseparable. Renault managed to dissuade Hodrick from many bad decisions, but Hodrick also managed to drag Renault into various misadventures. The one thing that Hodrick kept thinking of was that day Renault saved him. How he refused to leave him alone. How he had stayed with him, holding the cloth to his face, telling him he wouldn't let him die, his voice full of anguish and determination. Hodrick's heart broke at the thought of Renault waking alone.