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

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."

Full sentences--that is a good sign, is it not? And yet what Estinien says only gives further credence to the fears that Aymeric had been harboring about this.

He does not pull away, does not want Estinien to feel shame for experiencing what he has. No judgment will be coming from Aymeric, only a soft gaze and a small nod. As a knight, he believes he understands to some degree, but only just that--Estinien is part of an elite and brutal force. He sees the worst of it all.

After a quiet moment, he asks,

"Is it Syojatar?"

He flinches slightly as he tries to think of it deeply enough to give Aymeric an answer. There is so much noise in his head - and this shortly after waking, some of the travesties of his dreams still feel as if they actually happened. It's unfairly difficult to draw the line between truth and fiction. Finally, he nods his head.

"Since that day, something lingers in me..." he says miserably. "As if her poison has stolen into my thoughts. There is a fear from which I can find no release."

Some desperate part of him does wonder if it is a result of the poison itself, some damage to his mind, but the rest of him knows well enough that much of it comes from within.

"We knew what the cost would be... and yet..." His gaze stares past Aymeric and into nothing. "I... was meant to be stronger than this."

Truthfully Aymeric knows that there can be no good answer to this, yet it still pains him to hear it. That doubt has seeped under Estinien's skin, that he still be fighting even though he left the battlefield sometime ago. Aymeric knows what it is to be on the wrong end of a dragon, yet this goes far beyond it. The battle Estinien was part of was not a mere sweep of the horde nearby--it was against a true monster.

A monster who does not see it fit to allow him rest.

Though Estinien looks beyond him, Aymeric keeps his own gaze leveled on the hallowed face of his friend.

"A price we agree to pay does not beget the weight of the cost." That they go into the field knowing that they lay down their lives, as to their comrades is a grim reality they accept. But that does not make the loss less keen. "You are, Estinien. You are stronger than Syojatar--the fact that you are here is the proof of it. That she haunts your thoughts is not a sign of weakness...it is the sign of a warrior who has seen much. The mind too needs time to heal."

While it's true that no simple words could free him of this, he does find some comfort in Aymeric's assurances. Some irrational part of himself was capable of thinking that his friend would see him as a coward for this weakness, or unfit for the role he's so desperately pursued. Now that it's been said, though, it's hard to rationalize how he'd ever thought that would be the case in the first place.

That doesn't necessarily go for the other Knights Dragoon, though, or the Holy See. He knows what traits they looked for in their elite knights, how they'd dragged them through hell to ensure they were too strong to break. He'd thought he was. He'd been sure of it. And yet...

It says a lot for his trust of Aymeric that he's willing to discuss this at all. He would not dare to show weakness to the other dragoons, nor the men that would decide his future. Yet, with Aymeric, part of him believes that speaking this truth to his friend may be his only chance at release.

"And yet... for some wounds no amount of time seems enough," he says softly. His recent losses aren't the only things they haunt his thoughts, and perhaps even secondary in the grand scheme of things. "The... village. We did not arrive in time."

It's entirely possible that Aymeric has already heard of Sweetbrier's destruction, the village struck the worst by Syojatar's attacks. Some had been evacuated, but not all. The lost dragoons were not the only to fall.

He does not want to belittle what Estinien is going through by any stretch of the imagination. To dismiss that the pain is still real would be a folly--the true pangs of war are oft felt when the fighting itself has ended. With Ishgard embroiled in an endless war, when do they truly have time to nurse those wounds?

It is no surprise that Estinien has been avoiding them as much as possible and really, Aymeric cannot blame him for it. He bows his head slightly and gives a nod in agreement.

"Aye. 'Tis the truth of it."

Some wounds simply do not heal. A simple, but harsh honesty.

The mention of the village itself brings Aymeric's eyes back to Estinien's and the weight of some of his friend's guilt dawns on him--guilt at having not saved them all, guilt at having survived. Telling him 'you did your best' does not assuage either, even if it is true. Estinien always puts forth his all when it comes to fighting dragons, to becoming the dragoon he wants to be.

Towards vengeance.

Yet that was not enough that day--not enough to do all Estinien set to do. But it was just enough that he may go on to continue his quest. And to save other lives in the future.

Aymeric says none of this, only watching his friend as his thumb starts to idly rub slowly along Estinien's worn knuckles.

"...I read the report," he says simply in acknowledgment. As soon as it became available and he had been assured of Estinien's safety, Aymeric learned all that he could. It must have eaten Estinien up inside to arrive at the scene all ready in chaos.

"Is this what you saw in your sleep?"

This village...does he see it as a mirror of Ferndale?

The Knights Dragoon had set out after Syojatar as soon as they'd received enough information to act. Yet, the intel was, as ever, imperfect - they'd ended up having to track the destruction once already on the field, finding the town already overwhelmed. A few Fortemps knights that had been deployed closer to the area had made it there before them by chance, enabling a small number of residents to escape. In the end, it was not nearly enough.

Though the dragoons' arrival saved the lives of the knights and bought the residents time, it was not within any of their capabilities to save all of the villagers from the insidious nature of Syojatar's poison, nor from her minions. The infectious air had withered the once vibrant plant life of the region, and done much worse to still living men. To children.

The pools of caustic acid and wounded earth was not identical to the flames that had consumed Ferndale, but at heart, they were all but the same. Despite how much time he'd spent cultivating his own stoicism on the battlefield, he hadn't been able to keep it from cracking his defenses.

Now that the dream is over, the nuances of the flawed dream logic is passing, leaving him only with the most vivid images and concepts.

"I... saw what I had prayed to never lay eyes on again," he says. "Yet all my training, all the power I have gained... it was for naught. My fate is the same." His words leave him sounding broken in a way he never has before. "My dreams will not let me forget. They... mock me. They will remind me of this pain until the day I die."

There is a part of Aymeric that questions whether or not it is too soon to try to walk through these thoughts with Estinien, yet they are here, aren't they? He does not want to force him to relieve the trauma of his experiences, but he also cannot deny the fact that there is something to be said of putting them to words rather than to let them run rampant through the mind.

And it is increasingly clear that it is not just the most recent battle that plagues him. Aymeric is a quiet and thoughtful listener as always, accepting each word and holding it close until he can appreciate the full weight and gravity that comes with it.

"You hold close the losses, both yours and that of others," he says on an exhale. "'Tis too much for a mortal man to bear alone."

Though incredibly weary, both of mind and of body, Estinien is at least more lucid now - capable of making decisions about what he does and doesn't want to talk about. If this had been two years ago, or even only one, the answer would have been clear. Yet, with all he knows of Aymeric, and with how far they've come...

He shifts in bed so that he is resting on his back more than his shoulder. His hair is still plastered across his face and forehead with sweat, and overall, he imagines he must look like death. He feels like it as well.

"Tis not the first I've had of these dreams," he says. "They have haunted me since I was young... since the day I lost everything I had been. Each new horror... only adds details to the canvas it paints."

He stares upwards at the ceiling.

"And yet, this experience has cut more deeply than any since. I... I could see it, even as I was awake. Even as I fought." He shakes his head. "I felt as if I'd been driven mad."

He waits for the moment that Estinien pulls back into himself, but it does not come. Aymeric would not blame him for it if he did, of course, no matter how much he wants to share this burden. They are both private people in different respects, though Aymeric has been known to being much more open between the two of them, he knows that his patience is rewarded when it comes to his friend's trust.

And he is rewarded once again. As Estinien shifts it is not to pull away, but instead to find something a little more comfortable as she shares some of his deepest hurts. Aymeric knows this is a precious, if painful moment.

He watches Estinien's face as he recounts, eyes cast upwards as they are. Aymeric settles in a little more himself, propping his arm on the edge of the bed so that he can more easily rest his weight against it.

"'See it'...do you mean...?" He has his theories, but Estinien's thoughts on the matter are more important.

He furrows his brow, not immediately sure how to describe it. It's not something he's ever discussed before - not with Alberic, and not with anybody else. Any hints of his experiences were only through small comments that he had made by mistake, or from simply observing his reactions. To try to clearly articulate it to someone is an entirely new sensation.

"In my mind's eye, yet... more visceral still," he explains, feeling tenser even as he tries to envision it. Another shudder goes through his body. While he had been perspiring while asleep, he now feels so cold. "On... the bodies... I saw their... their faces." It sounds increasingly hard for him to even speak the words, like the sorrow steals his very breath. "His face..."

He trails off there, going silent for a few moments.

"I felt as if I was small again, without mine armor or my lance."

Their faces. He means faces not of the actual bodies he was viewing, doesn't he? His face strikes harder than most. Aymeric keeps moving his thumb slowly back and forth across those knuckles, now familiar--rough, and a few with broken skin still healing over.

"...You see your home in these villages--in Sweetbrier." His grip tightens a little. "Your family."

Oh, Estinien...

For not the first time in their relationship, Estinien is relieved to find that Aymeric understands him without having to spell it out explicitly. It's easier than having to find the words himself, even as the feeling of being known sends a shiver through him. He's never told anyone. Not even Halone.

"Aye," he chokes, clearly putting great effort into holding himself together. "I see them in many things... they follow me everywhere I go... but in Sweetbrier... it was if they had risen, only to be slain before me again. The wyrm perished by my hand... but I am not sated." An agony rarely spoken is clear in his voice. "I cannot be my family's saviour... and so I will become the Dravanian's own nightmare."

"I swear it..." His voice is shaking. "I will kill them all."

Edited 2020-11-14 02:17 (UTC)

He sees that shiver and assumes it's the fever--or the fever dream that still hangs over him. Aymeric can feel his own hand becoming too warm and clammy, but he refuses to let go. As long as Estinien allows this closeness, Aymeric is determined to provide all the physical comfort he can through it.

But what can he really say? No words can undo what has been done--to all innocents involved, Estinien being the paramount for the moment. The faces that haunt him are everywhere, as he says, and Aymeric fears that no matter how much of the horde falls to his lance, it will never be enough because he cannot bring back what he hast yet lost.

He can see the cycle more clearly now. What began as a quest for vengeance--understandably so--may never truly end. Because he cannot be his family's savior.

Aymeric's throat feels tight, his brows turning slightly upward as they pinch in sympathy.

"...My heart aches for you, my friend. You of all people deserve some peace."

He shakes his head, giving Estinien's hand another squeeze as he tries to gently encourage his friend down from that ledge.

"I know it may not feel like enough, that it cannot undo all the wrongs that have been wrought, but do not forget that on that day you were someone's savior."

Aymeric's assertion actually gives him pause - yes, he supposes he must have been. There were survivors, after all, and there wouldn't have been without the Dragoon's intervention. He hadn't seen much of the aftermath, given that he has collapsed not long after dealing the killing blow to Syojatar. One of the other dragoons that had still been conscious at that point informed him that they had seen him stumble off the dragon's corpse, his lance still embedded deep in her head.

With the deed done, there had been nothing left but to succumb. For all he knew at the time, that would be the end of him.

Yet, it is hard to think of the survivors without a flicker of sorrow, because they would never be the ones that laid at the center of his heart. Aymeric is correct - no amount of success, no number of dragons falling beneath his lance, will ever change the past. He chases a freedom from pain that may never come. That he would feel some pang of satisfaction, some ounce of peace at the death of Nidhogg is all that has kept him going some days.

He finally tilts his head to look at Aymeric more directly, though his gaze is still distant and lost. His fingers tighten around Aymeric's.

"I have spoken of this to no one," he says. "I had thought... I never would."

When Estinien finally catches his gaze, he will find it saddened, but accepting, lighting a little at the edges when he meets those stormy blues.

"Your secrets are safe with me, Estinien. They always shall be."

He places his second hand back on top his, joining both together with Estinien's caught in between.

"As are all your troubles and woes. I would not offer to fight your battles for you even if I could as I know it is your desire--nay, your need to fight them. But the burden you carry need not be yours alone."

Whatever he can do--offer a place to sleep, to lend an ear, a moment's distraction--he will do it. Estinien likely knows he would readily pick up his blade and follow Estinien into battle just as readily.

"You say that you should be stronger, yet a moment of weakness does not beget your strength. If anything, how you come back from it is a true testament to one's strength. And you, my friend...are the strongest person I know. Not because of your skills with a lance, but because of how wholly you pursue your justice. You will achieve all that you set out to do, of that I have little doubt..."

For once, Estinien's eyes linger on Aymeric's as he speaks, not turning away despite the intensity of it all. In the past he might have argued or withdrawn in response to such a sentimental promise, but now...

He believes it. He believes it, and more importantly, he can feel some measure of comfort, however slight. The insatiable void in his heart can quiet for just a moment, the feel of Aymeric's hands around his. The shaking in him gradually begins to quell, even as the chill remains and the heat of a fever lights his forehead.

"I trust in your words, Aymeric," he says softly. "But... I fear that the Holy See may not be so gentle. The Azure Dragoon must be unbreakable - steady enough to weather the storm of Nidhogg's rage. I fear... that were they to know, I would never be allowed the power I need. No matter how many wyrms I slay, nor battles I survive."

Ishgard as a culture is not all that patient with those that are feeble of mind. For Estinien to admit to seeing visions of the past, caught in surreal realities when confronted with a dragon's carnage... it would doom him.

No, Ishgard is oft unkind to those it deems weak or unworthy. Though a different battlefield all together, Aymeric too must not show weakness to those who are so eager to find it in anything that he does, that small opening to prove him unfit as a person, let alone as a knight. Yet Estinien is not just trying to prove his worth to the Holy See, he is trying to prove it to himself.

A much more trying judge, to be sure.

Aymeric exhales through his nose, gaze dropping to their hands for a moment. As much as he would like otherwise, Estinien does have a point. They must both play to standards and politics in their own ways. Estinien's lot seems so much more unfair.

"The Holy See will ever glean what it wants," he says, making no attempts to hide the its of ire that slip in. "Then I suppose it is a good thing that you are not the sort to rise to meet the expectations of others, but to shatter them entirely and make of them your own."

He smiles then, lightly, but genuine as he raises his eyes back to Estinien's face.

"But...mayhaps the Holy See can wait for one evening. You need not overburden yourself with seeking their approval right now. Is there something that I can get for you?"

Water? A towel for his forehead?

He supposes it's true that what he does this instant matters little to the Holy See, with them hidden from its judgment as they are. He escaped the Knights Hospitalier early enough to mostly keep this issue under wraps, and he isn't expected back onto the battlefield for some time.

He has time to rest while he learns to breathe again, and Aymeric is here with him. How strange, that his friend has become such a constant, for all that he did to avoid him at the start. Little could he have known.

Often, it feels like Aymeric is the one thing that holds him tethered to the earth.

He considers Aymeric's offer more earnestly than he often would. He's here, isn't he? He came here to heal. As prickly as he often has been about receiving care or help, this was the premise with which he arrived in the first place. It would be foolish to trouble Aymeric with excessive pride.

"Water," he says, nodding his head. He uses his other hand to push back damp bangs. "I feel I've lost all I had of it in my sleep." As for the towel, so poor is he at self care, he hasn't even thought of it.

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