should i be sung and unbroken by not saying—

[subsidence]

evening already

have you begun to drink?

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[subsidence]

[No upside. Aymeric knows that, as an old friend of Estinien's--there is no upside to him. And Estinien knows it just as well if not better, of himself, for himself. Estinien knows just as well what his proffered night would hold were they to spend it in each other's company. They would spend it shoulder to shoulder. They would spend it man to man. Being familiar with Aymeric's habits, Estinien knows what to anticipate, what to dread...

Being familiar with his own foibles, Estinien knows what to expect. To spend the night with Aymeric is to be a young man with his feet on the ground. It's the gap between two cliffs. Once, Alberic stood yalms away, across the divide. He said that Estinien must be able to go that far or he couldn't go any further. Estinien jumped a greater length than he had ever jumped, and he landed safely, but just before he did it, his heart was in that gap. Right then, he really was afraid of falling. He was afraid of what it would mean if he fell.

To spend the night with Aymeric is to be right there again.

Estinien gulps at the swill he bought from the haggard old man he came upon while roaming. The old man was tending his cook fire so he could boil a soup of stringy weeds. Estinien had looked toward the sun, which had trounced him in their race, and he told himself a drink at nightfall would just have to do this time. He gestured at the old man's flask and offered him the last of his salted hare for it. "I'm the winner here," the old man said when they made the trade. Were it any other night, Estinien would agree with him; that was good meat, and this drink is a sin and a crime. But it is a drink, nonetheless.

He bares his teeth through the taste. It fairly burns him going down, like bile. Aymeric, with his pricey wine and practiced laughter--now his is a sweet mouth. Well, good. Estinien has plied him with so many bitter bites as to feed all of the Brume, knowing full well of his desire for some sugar.

To my night and my pursuits, and to talk of jealous women. Estinien bares his teeth through the taste. Aymeric, now--his is a sweet mouth.]

your toast offers me overmuch, lord commander
all this for a man who has failed to appear before you

tis the one success i would have asked of myself this night

[His shoulders must be squared. Aymeric is free to imagine that. Estinien is always broad in the shoulders when he shuts his eyes and inclines his head. He keeps his apologies out of his mouth and upon the sturdy structure of himself.]

the fury, she may have cause for jealousy if i had said it all to you with my own voice

[And let Her be jealous. Estinien waits for Her to strike him. As ever, She does not. He drinks again; it burns again.]

i have no excuse
but at the least i'll not give you a chapped dry lip as you sit waiting for a promised drink

how is it?
if it's no better than mine i'll go and take back my mint

[He wants to know it for himself--the sweetness.]

[embankment]

[The wine is sweet. Not so sweet that it would be distasteful to most men, but this is a wine chosen with Aymeric's personal preferences in mind. In the midst of his desperate gulping, Aymeric has to remind himself to slow down--to appreciate the gift for what it is, rather than what it represents. He allows the wine to pool on his tongue, to spread against his cheeks, to sink around and in between his teeth. He allows it to seep down the back of his throat. It's the smoothest of descents from there on out, no burning, no backwash, nothing that would have him coughing or baring his teeth. It's sweet, and it's warm. It's keeping him warm. He reads Estinien's messages to him, and he drinks. He reads them again; he drinks. With my own voice... Estinen must be feeling the distance if he's willing to admit that much. If Estinien had said those vows with his own voice, Aymeric would already be undoing the fancy brass buttons that stretch from his throat to his navel. He would want more than his ears to know the contours of promises to the night's sundry doings.

Oh, to be a young man again.

In more successful climes, they would have begun the night with two glasses between them, and they would have taken turns topping off each other's mouthfuls. They would have kept their good friend warm and sweet. When Aymeric closes his eyes, he can just about envision--yes, there is Estinien, as proud as ever, his hair as wild as ever, draining his cup and then holding it out for a refill. And Aymeric, always the consummate host, the apotheosis of practice-makes-perfect... Effortlessly, he would be offering his own cup, his own refill, for Estinien to drink from. And it would be in this way that they'd trade cups with one another, and drink deeply of one another, until there was no longer a need for polished family heirlooms to come in between them. By the end of the night, they wouldn't even have need of the wine to know that warmth and sweetness.]

I knew you would not allow yourself to forget about today,

[But for as much as he's drinking now, Aymeric doesn't feel like there is anything left inside of him. It's that gap in between two cliffs. The empty Abyss that lurks beneath Ishgard. Estinien has cleared the deep hazard of him, and he has moved on, onward and upward, to ever greater heights.]

but what I did not know is if you would observe the olden principles and priorities of your station. [His former station, of course. Estinien has been most particular about how he is no longer the Azure Dragoon of Ishgard.] Even the common man's common man could tell you that ours is an era of change, of compromise, within and most importantly without our own selves. If this distance of yours is the compromise being asked of me, to make this progress of yours a possibility, then it is one I am full ready to accept.

Compromise! Now there is a word that for so long took a leave of absence from the vernacular. Have no fear, my friend: [Estinien is welcome to imagine him writing this impishly, if not with relish:] I shall go on ahead and help myself to your share of the drink, as it is rather delicious and deserving of the mint you put down for it. [He is certainly not welcome to imagine Aymeric drinking it because he has no desire to do anything else with his evening. The sooner Aymeric finishes off this bottle, the sooner he can bury himself in bed, and the sooner he can be insensate to the world.

He's biting at his lower lip, now, in hopes of holding it still. Please don't imagine its quivers.]

Be that as it may, I would not have minded the opportunity to get to know this sweetness with you.

[subsidence]

[It stings. Just so. A burr in the boot. Estinien has long prized the company of thick thorns to burrs; he has, many times, chosen impalement over a prickle. When Aymeric confirms Estinien's own sentiment--he knew Estinien would not forget--well, it's just the sort of sting Estinien has been so determined to escape. He has fled from it. In full understanding of his own cowardice, he has fled from being known; he has fled from his propensity for remembering.

Of course he would not allow himself to forget.

He has not had enough to drink for all the pain of this to leave, but he will not flee it even so. Not on this day of days. Not on this promised night. He needs to be running toward, not away.

Oh, withdrawal. He must be missing it. He must be feeling the distance. The ability to lie on his back as if in a pasture, with, yes, the burrs--the thistles, too--and the flowers that grow among them. The sweet grass. The allowance of lying down and feeling it. Aymeric grants him that. The weight off his feet, and a shedding of thick skin for the tender stuff that he was born with. A chance to succumb to comfort and discomfort all at once. If it were in a cup, Estinien would drink more deeply than even of the finest and most precious wine. He would drink until it drowned him. When he doesn't have it, all he wants is to drink it again, and if he is too close to it, to it is where he'll run. That he leaves it does not mean he doesn't want it. That he leaves it means he is aware of how surpassingly he would want it if it were on offer all the time. He would never be sober. He would never taste anything else, and Aymeric would grant him that. Even now, Aymeric punctures him with all these little burrs. Just deep enough to stick to and sting his skin. Ah, gods, it's delicious. Estinien should be there. He should have left for Ishgard sooner and his feet should have been swifter. He should be lying in the pasture. He should be drinking with his friend.]

i should be drinking with you.

[It's naked regret. It can't be anything but that. Rare, for Estinien, and potent because of it.]

i cannot observe the principles and priorities of the station i once held...
as we know i never did so to satisfaction in the first place

but of the principles to which i did remain true, among the highest is paying tribute to what has made me the man i am

[His loss. His anger. The raising of a pedestal, and the anguish of tearing it down. The violent and vengeful pieces of him he didn't know were there until all else was burned away and they were the only things left. Then, the need for comfort is not what's made him who he is; it was the rejection of that need that acted as the architect.

And then there was...]

you built me up
propped me up at least, load bearing posts
to the point that i could become the man who said the vows i did
even as they were left unfulfilled, i said them

and it has been some years hasn't it
since you agreed to help me become what i needed to become
even so

[The flask is going quicker than he thought it would. He's stopped grimacing at its taste. His own tongue doesn't seem to matter anymore. Well, he'd best get finished with his drink so that he can rise and get home. There are malms yet before him. He is feeling the distance.

Even so,]

my efforts amount only to the wine in your mouth

good at least that you like the taste

it was what i thought would suit you

[embankment]

[Before Aymeric even dares to think this one thing, he knows it isn't the most charitable thing to think. He knows it like he knows the blackest dread that once churned in his gut. Like the smell of smoke, and the twisting plumes of it, and the scout racing back over the hill, nearly tripping over themselves in a panic. This thing he's about to think is incredibly unfair of him, offering nothing of value, nothing worthwhile... To think this one thing in particular is to indulge in violence with the most deplorable parts of himself. It's as futile as the Dragonsong War had been from the very beginning.

He thinks, of all things to think, If you wanted to be here, then you would already be here.

Estinien's so-called regret always feels like more of a mockery than anything else. It feels as though he's only ever willing to give into regret when he is in the precise position to do nothing to amend it. Whenever he chooses to say on this night will not change how he behaves on the morrow, or the day after, or the day after that. He will continue to--gods, if the rumors hold even a scintilla of the truth--if the Scion's chatty receptionist should possess the barest understanding--Aymeric feels the room tilt and then sway and then whirl all around when he shakes his own head. He has never done well when subjected to a ship and the briny sickness that comes with it. Mountains are what he knows best, and what he has always preferred; there's very little that can take his footing away from him when he's on a damn mountain. Unfortunately, it's Estinien that acts as the avalanche, and it's Aymeric that remains buried down deep, with no one to hear his cries and his pleading, no matter how uncharitable.

Estinien won't be coming home for their anniversary this year. The sooner Aymeric accepts that, the sooner he can finish off this bottle, the sooner he can bury himself in bed, and the sooner he can be insensate to the world.]

'As we know'?

I must say I don't appreciate your eagerness to speak for me when I have no opportunity with which to speak for myself.

[For all of Aymeric's frustrations with the Azure Dragoon's eccentricities, Aymeric never once raised his voice against him. He never once presented Estinien with an ultimatum regarding his conduct and character among the members of the high houses. His duty, his sole and solitary obligation, so passed down through the years, was to defend Ishgard from the Dravanian Horde. Aymeric was willing to see him shirk the more frivolous trappings of his post as long as he saw that duty through to the bitter end. And see it through to the bitter end he did.]

I have been, and I will continue to be, your fiercest defender and advocate. I will not have it said much less committed to writing that the final Azure Dragoon of Ishgard was aught less than the man who duly served her people with distinction, courage, and unassailable honor. I will not have it said your dedication to the cause was less than a boon of the Fury's for how selfless and inspirational it had to have been. If you're to be remembered in the very least, it will be for the countless times you risked both life and limb for the sake of Ishgard's children and her children's children and the better tomorrow you promised them in so doing. Your reward for all that you did to deliver us from annihilation begins with our eternal awe and gratitude, and it sees soul-nourishing renewal with a national holiday to mark the day the Dragonsong War came to an end.

[...If Estinien had bothered to attend Aymeric's bespangled jubilees, he would have been regaled with this much praise and more in the speeches Aymeric always gives. And, yes, that which is written here is completely at odds with the uncharitable things Aymeric is still thinking, but it's impossible to be anything but grateful for Ser Estinien at the end of the day. If Estinien believes it worthwhile to be anywhere but Ishgard, to be thousands of malms away, then he is well within his rights to believe such a thing. He earned this leave of absence a long time ago, in the trenches filled with corpses, drowning in dragon's blood, and Aymeric's bruised little heart isn't going to change the reality of that.

The room is really starting to swim. Only the text on the screen in his hand offers any sort of steadiness, and that is by no means guaranteed. His throat is getting dry in spite of his drinking and his eyes feel like they're coated in the strangest kind of filaments.

Confound it all.]

But it would suit me best if you were to find your way back here as intention and desire might permit