𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐲𝐫𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subsidence) wrote2020-05-28 01:59 am
subsidence) wrote2020-05-28 01:59 am
if i was a bell, which i'm surely not--what a ridiculous thought--
they don't say much to me here as they seem afraid to do so
but they do say that you're not often home these days
a very busy man, they tell me
always hard at work
but they tell me little else
hard at work as you are, have you any time?
but they do say that you're not often home these days
a very busy man, they tell me
always hard at work
but they tell me little else
hard at work as you are, have you any time?
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i won't let porcelain outpace me.
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If a written message can be tentative, then this one will be:]
You were being serious, then.
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this i can accept
time is a material as i've said
whether the choice to use it was noble or foul, i did use it
but now i am also held to wrestle with the knowledge that it has been granted unto someone else
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There is no other word for it. For this blatant display of...
It's insanity.]
You are indeed envious toward the porcelain statuette of Saint Estinien of Ferndale that I keep on my bedside table. Do I have the right of it?
[So why, pray tell, is Aymeric smiling about it?]
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for someone rubbed so raw by perceived mockery you indulge in plenty of it yourself.
yet it's entirely your own concoction.
my envy of that thing is only as great as your favoritism toward it.
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Estinien, I missed you so dearly.
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Have I made myself clear?
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i've asked your gods-fearing men and women when to expect you these days and they all counsel me not to. apparently tis just hard to know for this reason or that reason. so i will ask you directly
when am i to expect you home, aymeric?
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if you think i've not been patient as a saint already why don't you give it another thought.
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[But that doesn't answer the question posed. Am I stalling? he has to ask himself, and then he realizes just how fretfully his toes are curling up inside his boots. Unbelievable...]
Oh, by the tenth bell. No later than that.
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Better to give himself fully to the heat of this, then.]
this is hardly what i would call running it. you've grown unaccustomed to such remarks. that's a shame as you warrant much more from a scoundrel's mouth.
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[Estinien on eggshells--it was strange, and uncomfortable, and Aymeric didn't enjoy a whit of it. Better the devil you know, he supposes...]
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i can tell
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there is much and more that i have missed giving you.
and the pauses between them
well they have always been broad.
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By the eighth bell, I should think. Provided of course that I wholly devote myself to my work from this moment forward.
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The seventh bell would require a true coup of efficiency on my part. I would have to know if someone is going to make it worth my while, or not.
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On the first step of the grand staircase, Aymeric's courage finally gives out from under him. The Lord Commander is nothing if not a man with nerves of black steel, yet here he is, his hand upon the banister, frozen solid, unable to take another step. He looks down at his hand and he can see just how it trembles. (Far, far too much.) He closes his eyes, then, and he exhales, and he slowly withdraws from the stairs. This isn't what he would call a retreat. A detour, more like. The halls of the manor are rather quiet, with Estinien somewhere up above, with his servants already sent home... Never before has the quiet unnerved him so. All the more reason for this detour, this anything-but-a-retreat, which takes him from the foyer to the drawing room at the rear of the manor. He's surprised, but still thankful, to find the fireplace alight and the atmosphere one of warmth and persistent good cheer. He must remember to thank his faithful manservant for keeping the lord's evening routines in mind. In here stands a tall cabinet of the finest mahogany, with the finest bottles of liquor, each and every one a perfectly good reason to have taken this detour. A glass or two of the good stuff should liven and lighten his steps, he thinks.
He is halfway across the room when he notices his guest.
Three years ago, on one fateful day, the great wyrm Hraesvelgr descended upon Ishgard with grim tidings clutched betwixt his claws. To Aymeric de Borel, the child of man, he presented the helmet of a dragoon: its faceplate was cracked, the back of it torn out and open, blood since dried but still gathered throughout every crevice of it. Aymeric may have been unfamiliar with this helmet, but he knew in an instant to whom it belonged, and Hraesvelgr explained its origins to him regardless. This helmet, once bequeathed to the Azure Dragoon, as a gift, a message of hope, now sat in a broken heap in Aymeric's hands. He could no longer pretend that Estinien's extended absence from the city was little more than the vagaries of an irresponsible vagrant. In between the numb shock and the unrelenting grief, Aymeric felt a certain something that he would later abhor for its foolishness:
The regret, and the sorrow, for how he would never have a chance to see Estinien adorned in this gorgeous regalia.
Until now, it seems.]
...Estinien?
[Aymeric is convinced that he's irredeemable as soon as the man's name leaves his mouth. No one else would be sitting there on the heirloom settee in a resplendent suit of plate armor. The heavensward hues of it, too, shining in the firelight, could only belong to this man. As might be expected of ancient forges, the armor has a completely different look to it than the drachen armor of the present day--but there's no mistaking the panache of a dragoon. Only the helmet doesn't quite couple with the rest of the armor, being a replacement, obviously. Even so, it's no less beautiful for its craftsmanship with slender horns and a crenulated beak down along the sides.
Once again, Aymeric finds himself unable to take another step forward.]
I... [His voice doesn't wish to cooperate with him, either.] You are... [What in the world? He laughs out loud, and it's a fluttery thing, small, uncertain, utterly unpracticed. This is a man who doesn't know what in the hells is going on.] You are a sight, [he says, before covering his mouth with his hand.] Gods, Estinien...
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Saint Estinien wears the drachen helm--of course he does. The lance in his hand is the appropriate size. He's a son of Ferndale. And that's that. The similarities end there. At first, Estinien told himself he'd no right to be offended by it. He'd no right to take offense to anything that Aymeric might say or do--or that he might not say, or that he might not do--for it was Estinien who had committed the greatest offense of all: coming back alive. He understood this. He had transgressed against Aymeric by being a man, a thing of the world, all that hot flesh and blood, rather than that pristine idea who had heeled to Halone and faithfully dwelt within the heavens. Faithfully. Faithfully! Estinien had no right to be offended by how faithful Aymeric had come to pledge himself in love and service to featureless porcelain and its impractical mantle...
Idiot.
Estinien had not understood at all. He does now. His slight against Aymeric was not to be comprised of flesh, but to be comprised of it and then to withhold it. They should have lain with each other already. Right away. Estinien thought he had become a better man for how he restrained himself from lifting Aymeric off his perch and taking him to bed. To wait for him. Instead they're both worse for it. Well, he can rectify that now. But even before that, he must allow himself to take the first offense he did deny himself: that pristine Estinien, brought to heel, is not him. More of a cloak than a man. A name in a shroud, with a pointy stick. It offends him. He looked upon its figure and then dressed himself. He wore what he has not felt fit to wear in some years.
(As a boy, he found Alberic's cast-off drachen armor. It wasn't free of dust. It had not been maintained. But it was kept, and Estinien asked Alberic why. If he had set it aside, if he had left it to the mold of a crawl space in their cabin, why bother keeping it at all?
Alberic set his hand upon Estinien's head for a moment so long that his palm was heavier than Estinien had ever felt it. Then he pushed Estinien along to go fetch the hatchet for cutting wood. "Some things a man hangs onto!" he said, and sent Estinien off into the woodlot.)
He wears it now.
Little is bare but Estinien's mouth. Aymeric will regardless know that Estinien's eyes lie upon him. Estinien says, "Here I am." He says it not with his tongue, but with only the view of his bare mouth.
The fire eats at the wood in the hearth. Estinien himself is quiet enough that the leather at his waist whispers for him when he stands. He's taller than he has been since he was young. He's taller than the Saint from Ferndale that looms over the Last Vigil. And he is every splendid edge that a dragoon should be, from his head to his very heel. He takes a first step, and he is quiet, but the spur at his heel sounds like a call from a cathedral for how clearly it rings. His boots call out again and then again, before he's come to the narrow table at the side of the study. The table has already been set: two wide, deep wine glasses, and a short, stout bottle of darkest glass. Black glass, truly, with a label that was surely white when it was younger. Estinien lifts it by its neck, then braces the bottom of the bottle against the palm of his other hand.]
Welcome home, [he says. He's looking over the label. Surely he must have done so when selecting it from the cabinet when he did, but even so, he reads it now.] 1547. I hear it's a source of great envy to see a man with a bottle from this year. [This is from Wineport itself, no doubt, and there is little finer in Aymeric's cabinet. Little more costly, as well. It must be a wealth in several swallows. Estinien considers the bottle for a moment longer, then dashes his forefinger against the cork without preamble. The claw of his gauntlet sticks fast.
At last Estinien looks upon Aymeric again. It's still only his mouth that's bare, but his eyes must be a wealthy swallow too, hidden though they are. He's guiding his wrist back and forth, loosening the cork with his claw plunged into it.] You've come just in time. Faithful as ever...
[The lip of the bottle sings one glassy note when the cork pops free. Estinien brings his finger to his mouth, to take the cork from his claw with his teeth. With both hands free, he can turn back to the table and pour the wine. It's old, and strong, and fragrant. He pours for the both of them.
The glasses are fuller than they would otherwise be if Aymeric were to sit in polite company this evening.
Every movement of Estinien's has a curious weight behind it--the steps he took, his cradling of the bottle, the pouring of the wine, and now the way he sets the bottle back onto the table. It's more than confidence, more even than deliberation. He carries himself like a man conscious of his own great strength. There is the ability to wreak havoc and the ability to refrain from it.
He takes the cork away from his mouth with his forefinger and his thumb, and sets it upright upon the table. One edge of it does gleam.] It's been a long day, [he says. He holds one arm away from his side, just enough that he might display his open palm and all the space before him. All the space between him and Aymeric.]
I want to share a drink with you.
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