Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: Even cold hearts can bleed.

Minuo Amor is Latin for "Bleeding Love".

Minuo Amor

"You know this isn't how it's supposed to be," comes the calm, tactful voice of his closest companion. "You're supposed to be nervous and having second thoughts."

"You could never say my life has been exactly normal," he drawls. "But I do know this is not how I am supposed to be."

"You wouldn't care either way," remarks Ignis with a knowing smirk.

"Because I do not care what they say," he replies with a nod and a skeptical look. "Does that bother you?"

Ignis only gives him an indifferent shrug for a reply.

"They do not know the truth," he says. "They do not want to know the truth."

"And yet, we'll give it to them anyway," Ignis finishes. He shifts uncomfortably and exchanges a knowing look with Gladiolus at his side. Gone are the days where they kept their emotions so carefully hidden. Then again, his friends had never been confined as much as he had.

All his life he had refined the art of closing himself off from any strong emotions. Whether it had been hate, anger or happiness, he had been trained since infancy with the importance of discretion. Discretion to the highest degree. A handful of brief forays into the deception of hope and eagerness had been cut to the wick before they could have taken root. So he had tried to vent his anger with outward aggressive that had just as quickly been snuffed out. That had been enough for his agile mind to realize that he was not meant to feel such frivolous notions as feelings. Though inwardly, he had seethed all these long years of his young life hiding under a cloak of snide indifference. He had passed his life with a cloak of sleepy ignorance and idle daydreams. Not that it was such an ill grievance in itself. It had spared him needless pain and suffering. Nobody bothered someone they figured was too stupid to understand. His nonchalance and compliance was all that they required. The only drawback was that he slowly began to feel as cold as he pretended. So cold that he felt like he had frozen in the numbing chill of his life.

A lonely boy had grown to become an introverted adolescent and then a chilly young man. Black and weary were the colors of his day. Cold and dreary were the colors of his night. Light did not shine and colors were not bright. Not that it was always so. If he allows himself, he can remember the days of lazy summer days. Spring forests with long grass fields. There is the scent of fresh dew and the subtle crunching sounds as he runs through new grass. It was within those days of blooming youth that his life changed from innocent to tainted. The shadowy figure of his father reaching a gloved hand towards him closed the memory, bringing with it the loveless relationship that he abided with. Their relationship would never be warm and affectionate. Before any resolution could be met, his father had gone and died on him. Died in sacrifice to express love that he had never shown his son before that moment. A fresh bubble of resentment threatens to choke him as he feels the sadness at the loss. That he would never know the glow of his father's approval both prickled and stabbed at his heart. He could have very easily become a very bitter man.

Then something happened for the very first time. The ice melted to the ground and he finally found something that was true. Something real and tangible and warm. So warm that the frost of never ending winter began to thaw. Ice turned to water and the world around him seemed refreshed with the first gushes of life. Coldness warmed to heat and before he knew it, he was hot. Against all odds, he had felt the heat of a summer sun for the first time in his life. The hazy bleakness cleared and his vision focused into perfect clarity. What he saw initially terrified him.

Perhaps it was lunacy. Perhaps it was crazy. The truth of the matter was, that nobody would ever really understand. As soon as she had walked into his life, he felt himself bleeding. His heart bled with renewed vigor at being frozen for so long. He could not stop it. At first, he had tried to run from it. He had tried to sway it, but it would not be discouraged. It would not be deterred. It cut through him as deeply as harsh loneliness had ever wounded. No matter how many times he had tried to crimple the vein, his heart was ever crippled. He only continued to bleed. She had cut him wide open.

His friends, the only ones that he had ever felt comfortable with, had thought he had lost his mind. Yet, just as he knew they would, they had stood by him. Madness or no, they would always follow him. It was everyone else that were not so quick to change their minds. He deafened his ears to their disapproval. He shut out their insinuations from his consciousness. They would say what they would. The piercing sounds of their words could continue. He would not care. For once, he would not care. They could try whatever they wanted to try and try to pull him away from her, but it would never be enough. He was in love with her and it did not matter what they said.

"You ready?" Ignis asks quietly beside him.

"More than ready," he replies.

"This isn't a bad decision," Ignis reiterates, as if he had any doubts.

He had no doubts at all.

"There is no need for a pep talk," he chides.

"You went a little stiff there for a sec," Ignis explains. "I just wanted to make sure."

"I am everything sure and ready," he answers confidently.

"Good, because the music's started and you know there's no turning back after this," comments Prompto on the other side of Gladiolus.

The first chords are sounded and the many dignitaries turn with an array of emotions across their faces. Observing their reactions he wonders whether his father would have approved of him now. There is still that little boy within him that yearns for the sturdy affection from his father. Even after everything, he wishes it could have been different. His mother had been long dead when he had reached an age to accumulate memories, so he did not remember her. There was no way for him to know how his father had felt about his mother. What he did know was that his father had never married again. There had never been a gaggle of women to enter his chambers at night to keep him company in his bed. He had used to think it was because his father was too unfeeling to ever embrace a woman in such a manner. Now he is not so sure. If his father had, had half the affection he felt towards Stella, he would never have embraced another woman, even for the sake of a night's comfort.

So maybe, just maybe, his father would not have been entirely disapproving.

There is nothing else to think about as he watches the vision in white glide across the golden carpeted floor to reach him. Doubt had no room in his mind. Fear was absent. Coldness had melted. As Stella makes her way towards him, he feels the first rays of Spring breaking through the blizzard that had been his world. Ice breaks away and a soft warmness pervades, healing the world from the cold harshness of winter's chill. Hope can bloom now because Love has shone.

When she stands in front of him at the precipice, she beams with the aura of her loveliness. Spring is here and her name is Stella.

"Are you sure?" she asks him, giving him that soft searching look as her violet eyes sparkle up at his.

"You cut me open and I can do nothing but bleed this love I feel for you," he answers with blunt honesty. He raises a hand in offering to her. "I have never been more sure about anything else."

The moisture within the depths of her eyes shine as the sunlight creates a halo around her form. A shining beacon of all that he had never had before.

"Me too," she says, taking his hand and squeezing it just as strongly as he squeezes hers.

They turn together to meet the eyes of the one who would join their lives together and he realizes that some wounds are better left unsealed.

The End.

Inspiration taken by Jesse McCartney's version of Bleeding Love. iCloud was on Shuffle mode and this song came up. Inspiration just hit me and I started typing. This fic started and ended this afternoon. Not bad!