thefeywood | why don't you figure my heart out?

It was early spring when Syojatar returned, as if in contempt for the return of life to Coerthas. One of the more fearsome daughters of Nidhogg's horde, Alberic had told Estinien tales of her cruelty when he was still a boy. Known for her caustic venom and her killing touch, she had ravaged the mountains decades previous.

Though she had been forced to retreat all those years ago, like so many of her accursed brethren, it had only been a matter of time before her return. She slept away her wounds while her challengers grew old, biding her time until she would begin a reign of terror anew.

Her assault began against the Coerthan farmland first, and a fool might have considered that a mercy. Yet, historical writing of her previous attacks would suggest otherwise. Even beyond the lives lost, her poison would seep into the soil it touched, destroying crops and salting the earth. It would promise starvation for those that were left behind, and a painful constriction of Ishgard's resources for years to come.

Estinien had been on a number of critical missions during his year and a half with the Knights Dragoon, but this was the first with which he'd seen his fellows operate with such desperation. With success on a ticking clock, they had wasted no time. Syojatar could be faced with nothing less than a full assault, forbidding her the time needed to inflict permanent damage to the landside.

It was the first mission in which it seemed like an inevitability that some of them would be lost - and in the end, they had been. Estinien, as was his wont, had been left as a survivor.

More than that, he had been the one to strike the killing blow against their terrible foe, even as he was left nearly insensate with the effects of her poisoning. Though Drachen Armor could defend them against much, it was not immune to her toxins. Though two dragoons had been lost, even more were left suffering from the illness she inflicted, and Estinien was among them.

After their victory, the lot of them had been brought back to the Knights Hospitalier for treatment. Though there was ostensibly much celebration for their success, and additionally so for his own contribution to it, Estinien was barely aware of it in the aftermath. Even beyond the weakening effects on his body, his thoughts lingered on the battlefield, leaving him even more quiet and unresponsive than he had developed a reputation for.

Their treatments were successful enough that the survivors were out of critical condition, but there was little any of them could do but rest in the coming weeks. As soon as Estinien had been allowed to see Aymeric, he had been quick to express his discomfort with being under Hospitalier watch. Unsurprisingly, this had resulted in an invitation to recover in the manor, and one that he could in no good sense refuse.

After finally receiving clearance to leave the chirurgeon's care, Estinien had eagerly parted from the Congregation to stay with his friend - though to say it was with any clear joy would be inaccurate. Even beyond his illness, Estinien seemed particularly distant and restless, preferring seclusion - furtive and secretive, as if he had something to hide.

Largely bed-ridden after arriving, it isn't surprising that he spends most of his time sleeping, at first. He seems moderately more comfortable in the guest room with which he's become accustomed than in the hospital. Yet, that relative comfort does little to stop other miseries.

Not all that long after Estinien's visit has begun, Aymeric will hear strange sounds coming from his room - truncated cries and groans that go beyond just the effects of his illness.

At this point, anyone who knows them would not be surprised that Aymeric readily offered his house as a place of refuge (and healing). It is an offer he would have likely made in passing regardless of the circumstances, but Estinien's eagerness to get out of the infirmary was surprising even to Aymeric. A little amusing, too, though he managed to keep that mostly in check.

So the guest room was duly prepared for a longer stay. It has been open to Estinien any time he has stayed at the manor. After his mother's passing and Aymeric moved to the master suite proper, he considered fashioning is old room into yet another guest room but has since repurposed it into an office of sorts, now mostly used for reading when he finds the time. That it is situated right by the guest room Estinien uses means that he is spending more time in his office than usual, if at least to be nearby in case he's needed.

He normally is not. Occasionally he will step in to see if Estinien needs something or to offer him something to eat, but for the most Aymeric allows his friend the time and space he desperately lacked while in the Congregation. It took some effort on Aymeric's part, what with wanting to just be there to attend to his every need. Yet when said needs are...respite in silence, the answer is clear.

Such thoughts bring Aymeric from the book he has on his lap as he realizes he has bene staring at the page for several minutes. He sighs, looking up from the novel to the clock on the wall. It is getting late. Mayhaps he should turn in? Another early day on the morrow and, unlike Estinien, he has only had sparing opportunities to be out on the field. At least the work he has been given of late has had a greater purpose than testing his patience.

Sliding a ribbon down from the spine of the book to mark the page, Aymeric sets his reading aside for the night and stretches.

"Let us turn in for the night, B--"

Except his cat is not where he normally is when Aymeric is up late reading. If not on Aymeric's lap itself, Ser Croquembouche is usually at his feet. Aymeric frowns, looking about the room when he hears something unsettling.

--Coming from the guest room.

He gives it a moment's pause, listening intently. He has grown used to some of the sounds that Estinien makes during his recovering--grunts of discomfort when he shifts, but nothing that betrays outright unimaginable pain that Aymeric would need to immediately attend to. This is different, it's almost...

"...Crying?"

He does not sound in pain--he sounds--scared?

Aymeric is up from his chair in a flash, the door to his study still propped open. He finds Ser Croquembouche in front of Estinien's door, ears folded back and tail twitching as he stares intently at it.

I should have guessed something was amiss...

Putting his hand on the handle, Aymeric knocks with the opposite on the door proper.

"Estinien?"

When all he can do is sleep, Estinien had found that it's the last thing he wants. It isn't warm or refreshing as a much-needed nap would be, but instead heavy and clinging, like hot tar in his eyes and in his head, dragging him into the dark even when he so desperately wants to wake.

He'd tried so hard to hold it inside of himself while he was Congregation, with so many eyes watching and judging his fitness. He'd tried to keep conscious even when it was difficult, skirting away from sleep even as the only other option was staring and the ceiling and trying to hold onto himself. He often preferred to be alone even at the best of times, but in his condition, it had increasingly become a full out dread of being seen.

And now, within the safety of Aymeric's hospitality, he's let his guard down. He's certain that he must have given himself away to the healers of the Hospitalier, but with this relative safety, he's succumbed entirely, with no strength left to fight. Its encroach was inexorable. It was only a matter of time.

Even as some part of him registers Aymeric's knock, he can't seem to wake up. He's drowning in mutated visions of the past and present, helpless to act. The poison touches everything, infecting it without cure - dripping like venom, and burning like a fire that won't be extinguished. It kills and kills until he can't... there's nothing left to...

He makes a helpless sound, struggling desperately to wake up, to be free of this. Free from the visions of things he could not save, and the death that lives inside of him.

In the waking world, he lies tangled in his sheets, his white hair a mess around him. He's peeled off his shirt at some point while sleeping, sweating as if with terrible exertion, his scarred back and shoulders exposed to the air as he curls into himself.

Edited 2020-11-12 21:55 (UTC)

Aymeric wants to barge in, but he does not--at least not at first. Giving Estinien the privacy and respect that he needs and deserves has been important and Aymeric is, perhaps, a little overly aware of how he could so easily step over that line with well-meaning concern. But when the only response that he gets is another series of disconcerting sounds, he makes the call.

The door swings open, though he is careful not to let it slam against the wall lest he cause Alfred to come running and quickly close it behind him. In that same moment Ser Croquembouche dashes inside, but keeps his distance as he patrols the corners of the room.

"Estinien?" Aymeric calls out, now unsurprised to see the man still in bed. He turns on a lamp by the door and closes the distance between himself and the bed with wide steps, still careful to be as quiet as possible.

What he sees makes his stomach drop. Estinien looks ill--but not because of the poison that Aymeric had come to understand he had taken in due to his face off with the terrible wyrm. His face is contorted in pain, his hair sticking at odd angles with sweat as his brow knits tightly together. The scars are visible too--some he had seen before, but many too new to have been from anything but his last mission. He's not just uncomfortable--he looks in pain. Aymeric wishes he could pull it out of him in that moment.

"Estinien...my friend."

Being a knight himself, Aymeric knows that instincts can easily take over when startled awake, but Estinien is without a ready weapon so Aymeric takes his chances. He kneels on the floor beside the bed, reaching out to place his hands on one of Estinien's, firmly but carefully prying his fingers free of the sheets. All the while he speaks--earnest but calm, as if to try to break through the storm by will alone.

"It is but a dream, Estinien. You are not where you believe yourself to be."

Would that he even knew where he was. As in many dreams, the scenery is reminiscent of reality, but not completely connected - a fusion of multiple separate instances that now come to him as one. Fire and ash, poison and smog, he sees the smoldering buildings of Ferndale and the contaminated village he'd just visited as the same.

The fire sticks like a molten thing, like staining liquid, unable to be pulled away from the things he would protect, burning them away. Fixtures of Ishgard find their way into it as well, the city's walls penetrated, the last reserves of safety infected by the illness he desperately tries to survive.

For a moment the notions of the dream and Aymeric's presence mingle and he wonders if the manor has been consumed by it as well. As Aymeric touches him, his hand twitches and grasps, making it clear now that he's shivering all over, cold while also hot with fever.

Estinien's eyes finally crack open, though heavy and not fully alert. He feels paralyzed, like he can't fully respond to Aymeric's assurances nor glean their context. He makes another pitiful sound, like a whine of mourning. Were he more alert he would be ashamed of how weak he is in this moment, but as it is, all he can think about is loss.

"Where..." he murmurs, nearly unintelligible. "It's killing... I can't..."

How deep in this hellish dream world Estinien is in, Aymeric cannot discern from his point of view. But that he responds at all to Aymeric's touch has to be a good sign, mustn't it? That he takes Aymeric's hand, clutching it as tightly as he needs to. It's clammy and shakes--he feels his heart clench down on itself. Aymeric squeezes back firmly, albeit with less intensity, hoping it will help ground him in the here and now.

"It will be all right, my friend...I promise." A promise he intends to fulfill whether Estinien can actually hear him or not.

When those eyes open, Aymeric's heart leaps with hope. His whole body opens up as he lifts higher on his knees as he tries to put himself within his friend's range of view. Aymeric's opposite hand rests on top of Estinien's, warm on his knuckles in a reassuring hold.

"You are in Ishgard," he says with a voice that both commands attention yet comes off as surprisingly gentle. A tone he is coming to wield more often these days. "You are in the Pillars, in the Manor de Borel. On the second floor in the guest room, where you have spent many nights prior. There is nothing in here but you and I, Estinien. You are safe."

If his words do not reach his friend, maybe his tone will be enough.

As Estinien slowly awakens, he expects it to be in the context of how they'd first met - with bodies strewn about, and them the only survivors through some bizarre twist of fate. He feels like the world must be in wreckage, that he must be dying and surrounded by the dead. What does that mean for Aymeric? Is he dying, too?

Slowly, he manages to focus on Aymeric's face, hearing his words even as they struggle to catch in his thoughts. Is this... a bed? Was he sleeping? He feels like he must be covered in the hideous wounds he'd dreamed of, infectious to everything he touched, but as his gaze dips down to his and Aymeric's hand entwined, he sees only pale, scarred skin. He's clutching to Aymeric like it's the only thing holding him aloft.

A jolt goes through his body as he realizes he's being observed, reality and dream mingling uncertainly. His heart pounds with feelings of lingering mortal peril and failure, and tiny bodies, unwakeable in his arms.

His whole body shifts, contracting in fear and shame. The hand not held by Aymeric moves to hide his face, a miserable sound escaping him regardless.

"Oh gods, kill me," he pleads, his shaking only growing worse as unfettered grief seizes him. He doesn't have the strength to force it down.

He can take as long as he needs, though Aymeric starts to see the shifts, the budding awareness as reality filters in. Aymeric can make a few guesses to what he witnessed--speaking of 'the killing', distraught as he is. And the fact that he cannot point down one specific source of inspiration says all too much.

Doubtlessly his last mission has done as much on his mind as it has been on Estinien's body. He looks like he wants to pull in on himself, to hide from Aymeric or maybe the world as a whole.

"I'm afraid I will not be able to honor that request, my friend." Yet Aymeric keeps ahold of his hand, and shakes his head, even if Estinien isn't watching. "I can only hope the gods agree with me."

The hand on his face moves to drag through his hair instead, wrenching it away from his face. His eyes are misting, but he can't bear to let it go further than that. He falls silent, taking shaky breaths, as his thoughts slowly ground themselves.

He was in the manor, he reminds himself. He'd finally allowed himself to sleep after trying so hard to escape it, and then... the things he had feared all along asserted themselves. The sounds and sights had been too familiar, too visceral. Yet, he had prayed that he would be strong enough to push it all behind him.

"I cannot escape it," he finally manages to say, still tugging at his hair. "The visions... they pursue me. They will not let me rest."

dragon 2: return of dragon

2 dragon, 2 furious

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STICKY INFO DUMP

DRAGOON HELL

Other Ishgard BS

THE PLOT THICKENS

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