and suddenly my heart is wrung by his distracted air, and i remember wildness lost

[subsidence]

[First he sat on the windowsill. Well, first, he made locksport of Aymeric's window, as ever. Then he sat upon the sill. He held the bouquet of flowers--hydrangeas, blue and white--in the crook of his arm, then reconsidered and set them on his lap. No, no. He held them at his arm again. No, no...

That's what he keeps thinking: no, no. None of it is right, not this nor that. He wasn't far into Ishgard when he thought it the first time, and thus he stopped to drop some gil into a girl's hand for the hydrangeas. He is still thinking it now (no, no) as he leaves the windowsill to pace about Aymeric's room. Here his boots are on the hardwood floor; here they're on the carpet. He mutters as he goes.]

I trust you saw me, as I did you--and I reckon you did not expect to see me again so soon-- [No, no. He shakes his head, paces in the other direction. Here his boots are on the carpet; here they're on the hardwood floor.] Weren't we a little busy earlier, the two of us, and I gather you have been busy for some time yourself, and I-- [No, no.

He passes Aymeric's wardrobe. He remembers the weight of their doors and he wants to open it now: he wants to press his face into the sleeves, to turn his face against an empty breast and feel brass buttons at his cheek. But, no. No, no. He's got to get this right.

He resumes his pacing.]

Evening, Aymeric. 'Tis a late bell you're coming home, but I've not been waiting long-- [No, no.] Thought I'd stop by with a gift--I recall your fondness for... Ahem. Thought I'd stop by with... [No, no.] Evening, Aymeric. Good evening, Aymeric. Oh, these? They're just-- [No, no. He shakes his head sharply, just frustrated with himself by now. None of this is coming out the way it needs to. Estinien breathes, and all the air is filled with the smell of Aymeric plus something fresh and crisp coming through the open window.]

Aymeric. I had meant--I had meant--I had wanted...

[His steps have stalled again, while a painting on the wall catches his sight. It has been there for years. Estinien noticed it during one of the first nights he spent in this room. Aymeric was asleep beside him, nightshirt unbuttoned, hand close to Estinien's but with no brushing of their fingers. Estinien would leave soon. But he stayed a bit longer to look at the painting. Aymeric slept, and Estinien looked at the little white stars that had been dotted into being by somebody's brush. It was Coerthas in Autumn--Estinien could tell what moon, even, just by the shade of the heather on the hills--and the sky was a washed-out lavender-grey. It was dusk, and there were just a few of those little white stars. He stayed long enough to count them, and then he left Aymeric's bed.

And, as much a fool as ever, Estinien has once more gotten caught up in that painting. It is only now that he notices the boots here on the carpet, now here on the hardwood floor--they aren't his boots. His shoulders go taut. He turns around.

Aymeric has come into his bedroom.

Estinien stands before him with the loose shirt of a traveler, with stained breeches and always, always with the greaves of a dragoon--and with an open mouth and an armful of fresh flowers.]

Comments

[embankment]

[Aymeric is smiling. Of course he is. Anyone who's even the least bit familiar with him would say he has a natural tendency to smile when there is the slightest reason to do so. As smiles go, this one isn't the species most brilliant, the most stark and see-through, but he's smiling and he is smiling for Estinien's own sake. He may have lingered outside the door, having detected an intruder inside his bedroom, a potential threat, a snake--up until he heard the familiar creak of greaves crossing over carpet and hardwood. A hundred times, a thousand times over, he has heard the sound of those steps when Estinien would elect to take his leave of this place. And he may have lingered for some time after that, listening, just listening...

So here he is, and he's smilng. He says, gently,] Good evening, Estinien. [It's after that that his carefully constructed answer seems to fall apart. Only someone who is very familiar with him would understand that his plans have gone awry, with the twitching of his brow, the pinching at the corner of his lips--

Congratulations, he means to say. Mistress Tataru has long since relayed the good news to him.

Trying to buy himself time, he looks away, away, over to his bed, and he sends himself over to it in three long strides. He finishes unbuttoning his shirt--of course he isn't uncomfortable around Estinien, and he really must do something about the painful twinge between his shoulder blades. His bruises are fantastically fresh, earned in the chaos of Carteneau, which he does recall seeing Estinien in the thick of, yes, but... He drops his shirt down his arms and lays it out on the bed.

Until now, he hasn't once found it difficult to have something to say to Estinien. Until now.

Congratulations, he means to say.

It's the only thing he ought to be saying. Being inducted into the ranks of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn is a great honor, a greater privilege, and it's a well-deserved distinction at that. There is no place else that Estinien could make such a difference with his particular skill set. Once more, the world is faced with unknown peril, of unknown proportions, and the Scions are naught if not known for their willingness to stand in the way of...

He looks back up at Estinien. He's looking at his armful of flowers. Aymeric's favorites.]

Oh. There's...

[On his bedside table, as luck would have it. There's an empty vase, crystalline, that he hasn't bothered to fill with fresh flowers for months and months now. Aymeric picks it up, gives it a quiet once-over, and then he brings it over to Estinien to accept the gift.]

Thank you. They are looking more than a little lovely. Time must have gotten away from me, because I didn't expect them to be in bloom for a good while yet.

[subsidence]

[It was ever a thing to be wary of, this gentleness of Aymeric's--Estinien knew it from the start. It would fast become a craving, be recognized. It did. It does so now. Some men drink to excess though it harms them. Estinien's vice, his poison, is that he desires. But he thought he had grown sober...

His sobriety lasts until the instant he sees that Aymeric's plans are dashed, with the pinching of his dashing mouth--oh, look at that, already. Here is desire. That same pinch settles at Estinien's own ribs, made sharper by the shadow that skirts Aymeric's brow when it twitches just so. Estinien has set enough of Aymeric's plans askew to know what it does to his features. 'How could you greet me so tenderly,' Estinien thinks, 'when I have done this to your face again?']

Yes, [he says,] the time... [The words feel strange coming from his mouth. He didn't expect to speak yet. He didn't expect to say this. It was supposed to be something grander--it was supposed to be the right thing. Now he can hear Alberic's voice, too tired to be stern, as if Estinien has made a great mess of things with his small body: You fool boy. Estinien ought to have known better. He was never going to say the right thing. You fool boy, says Alberic, not for the first time in recent memory. The right thing? The bruises between Aymeric's shoulders, and the bruises Estinien has between his own--getting hurt in battle never felt better than when he was doing so with Aymeric. It felt right.

...By now, Estinien ought to have spoken more. He hasn't. He's stood there looking--well, just shy of Aymeric's face, yet again--and here is Aymeric's mottled bicep; here is the bruising at his forearm from when he put up his guard. Here is an empty vessel in his hands. Estinien has seen it filled with each and every color over the years. That he fills it now feels paltry when accounting for its crystal having gone dry. He fills it with Aymeric's favorites, and it is a drop in the bucket. It's a single arrow in an empty quiver. And, between the both of them, Aymeric was ever the man with the talent to make the most out of just one arrow. Estinien is a man who needs more than that.

He looks at the flowers, then at Aymeric's flesh. Not his eyes. Still not there.] Ser Lucia. I noticed her at Carteneau. She fought nobly. [His mouth has gone dry. That doesn't usually bother him, but he can hardly notice anything else right now.] A capable woman, that one. Lucia, Handeloup... You have capable hands to your left and your right. I knew you would. [His face is feeling cold. Well, no, that's not quite right. It's feeling hot. Well, no, that's not quite...

All he can smell is Aymeric's favorite flowers. He looks to the side very suddenly, putting his eyes sternly to nothing in particular, because if he doesn't do that, he's going to look into Aymeric's face.]

A gift, is all, I thought I'd-- [Estinien blanches, realizing his own tongue, and his eyebrows jump sharply toward each other. It's a furious sort of shock across his face, even as he still stares toward the floor.] Thought I might bring... a gift. Bring it by to you.

[Fury take him, won't she please be kind and take him.]

[embankment]

[Probably, Aymeric thinks, it's for the best that Estinien is refusing to him in the eye. Probably. Perhaps. If Estinien were to look at him, he would see... bewilderment, and confusion. Some measure of hurt. An inkling of bitterness--still rich, still flavorful, but nonetheless bitter, pure cocoa powder without any sugar. Aymeric wants to ask what in the seven hells is wrong with him right now. He noticed, back in the Waking Sands--of course he noticed that Estinien was refusing to look him in the eye. It was so unusual, so out of character... Estinien never once hesitated to look him straight in the eye, even during their most contentious disagreements on matters of security and defense. The man he thought he knew wouldn't have let his head hang down like that. Like it's hanging now. Aymeric can't help but be reminded of a sick animal that's just looking for a quiet place to die. What in the seven hells is wrong with you? That's what he wants to know more than anything, and he knows if he were to ask that, it would spell the end of everything that might exist between them.

So he doesn't ask after that. None of that ugliness. Instead, he says,] Aye. [He says it plainly, not flinching away from the truth of it. Estinien is doing enough of that for the both of them: lying low, running scared. He has to wonder if traveling the world did something to his friend's constitution. If the freedom from hunting his once-hated enemy has softened up his liver and thinned out his bile. Aymeric doesn't know what happened to him, and he doesn't know how to ask if Estinien is happier when he's anywhere but here.] Aye, [he says, again, lifting his chin by degrees.] That they are. They are exceptional for their service and their sacrifice, in the untold amounts of both. Ishgard is no doubt fortunate to count them among her many sons and daughters. And yet... [If he looks away himself, it's only to look at the flowers, now nestled neatly in the vase. If he looks away, it's only to smile at unexpected Estinien's offering.] I've never known them to bring me so fine a gift as this one here before me. [And he takes a moment to smell the flowers for himself--their heady scent, their apology. The years go by, the seasons change, and still these flowers smell as they did the first time Estinien gave them to him.

He decides to turn away, then, if only to give Estinien a reprieve in turn from his searching eyes and his face. He has to go and get water for the flowers as well. Without it, they'll brown, and they'll blacken. They'll wither and die. They'll crumble at the lightest of touches. He wants these flowers to last, ideally, for more than a day. Tomorrow, he wants to awaken and see them sitting on his bedside table, awash in dawn's light. He turns away as an act of compromise, for Estinien's sake, the flowers' sake, even his own sake, heading for the master bathroom to fetch them their water. Compromise. He's looking for a half-decent compromise right now.

The faucet supplies him with plenty of fresh cold water. It feels good to splash some onto his face before he tends to the flowers.

Compromise.]

If you haven't anyplace else to be-- [He's raising his voice, but only because he has his doubts about Estinien bothering to follow him--] I do have something to ask of you. There are certain things I wouldn't call upon Lucia, nor Handeloup, to assist me in, and it wouldn't do to worry them with what amounts to an inconvenience. That being said, I would greatly appreciate it if you were to do this one thing for me...

[It's not the fate of the star. It's not the fate of the nation. It's not more important than getting new houses built or seeing to the equitable distribution of rations and equipment. With this, Aymeric hopes that there's a compromise in the making: something he can ask Estinien to do for him, and it's only Estinien that can do this for him, without it being a matter of grave import. They shouldn't need constant danger--pain, adrenaline, riding hard on the edge of death and defeat--to be able to matter to one another.]

'Tis an old hurt. Easily aggravated. You may remember it, or you may not. It was an Iceday, if you happen to recall, and we were returning from morning services together... It's laughable now to think of it. Ludicrous, even. A patch of ice on the lane, my ill-timed distraction-- [Estinien was laughing freely at something he said. Aymeric was looking over at him, enchanted by the sound. For better or worse, Aymeric remembers this like it was yesterday.] I failed to notice it. For all my prowess in battle, against the most fearsome devils, it was a simple patch of ice that laid me low. You fairly had to carry me to the nearest chirurgeon, as much pain as I was in, and I never quite healed from the ignominy as well as I would have liked. You may remember...

[Aymeric reappears at the doorway with the vase of flowers in one hand and a brass canister--shiny, with a handwritten label--in the other. It's the very same brand of healing salve he has used for all these years, sparing no expense. The smell of it--probably, Estinien is more familiar with the smell of this medicine than he is with Aymeric's favorite flowers. Aymeric had no qualms about sharing it with him after their many battles together.

He can only hope that Estinien hasn't forgotten this much.]

My friend, I have need of your most capable hands.

[It has to serve as a compromise. Estinien won't even be required to look at him in the midst of this sort of thing.]