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The sickly, seething green light emitted by the chaotic cloud of aether that roiled around Aerie in imitation of its master’s constant rage illuminated the time-worn steps of the surprisingly intact ancient building situated beneath Nidhogg’s floating lair in the Sea of Clouds. While the Warrior of Light had departed back to Ishgard to find a way to give them flight into the dread wyrm’s lair, Estinien remained below standing watch, waiting for this final battle, a battle he had trained for for years. With their pithy and foredoomed attempt at parlance behind them thanks to the unending apathy of Hraesvelgr, the party (minus one) had at last bowed to the more sensible option and committed themselves to seeing the war ended properly, by ending the war-maker.
Estinien couldn’t help but to look back the way they had come, however, even as he waited eagerly for the Warrior to come with the means to deliver him to the fight that he’d been waiting for. Even as anticipation filled him, he couldn’t help but feel a tiny tug of regret pull his attention away. He knew not whether to call her heart weak for its compassion and sympathy for a wronged party or strong in that she did not give up on her convictions even as the world conspired to crush them and her under its weight.
The revelation of the truth about Ysayle’s precious and beloved Saint Shiva (and her own mistaken convictions) had delivered a debilitating blow to her heart, one that they had left Ysayle to sort out for herself in the interests of ending the war as quickly as possible. Still, Estinien was left to wait and to brood, and it made him wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t simply use this extra time on his hands to return to Zenith and try to convince Ysayle to reconcile herself to the necessity of their next step. It was clear that the Heretic still held the dragon’s cause deep in her heart, even if she could no longer claim a part of it for herself. Even knowing this, her seeming censure towards him bothered him more than it should. He wasn’t asking her to cheer him on or anything, but he just wished she would not look at him with such sadness and resentment in her eyes.
They did not get along. This was an obvious truth; and how could they? They were enemies on opposing sides of a war whose battle-lines had been drawn long before they’d been born. Her Echo-sent Visions and her innate compassion had placed her solely in the enemy camp, despite her wishes for peace, just as his determination and sense of grudge made him unable to waver in his goal. Even despite these obstacles there was something more than enmity between them. Underpinning every little tit-for-tat squabble between them was a restless sort of energy, an attraction that pulled them closer even as their individual goals and views drove them apart. As Azure Dragoon, he was like an arrow loosed from a bow; once he made his leap he could not waver nor suffer any distractions from his goals, the truth of his battle-method held true in the rest of his life, and Estinien Wyrmblood was not a man who allowed distractions. But he found her beautiful, distractingly so. Even now on the eve of a battle he’d waited his whole life to fight, he thought of returning to her side, to see her and to share words with her, even though he knew that any attempt to soften her revulsion for his “bloodthirst” as she called it, was likely doomed to failure. Still a small part of him longed to be near her even now, though he knew it was strange and foolish.
He was surprised when his eye saw a tall, slender, distinctly human form emerge from the mists of the Sea of Clouds in the distance, coming from the direction of Zenith. At first, he thought that it was his new comrade in arms, the so-called Warrior of Light, returned empty-handed of a way to get them up to the aery. Moments later as the figure advanced, to his surprise he discovered himself in error. It was Ysayle.
:Likely come to attempt to persuade me to stay my lance and find some other way of ending the war,: he grumbled to himself, already feeling disappointed.
There was a part of him that, against his will and all good sense, wished that she had come here not to attempt to dissuade him from his course (there would be no dissuasion) but because she, too, felt this ephemeral pull between them, and that she wished to be near him as he wished to be near her. Estinien turned his face back up to aery, resuming his watch and ostensibly ignoring his visitor. There was no point in opening himself up for disappointment.
“Do you intend to glare the Aery out of the sky, Dragoon?” the Lady Iceheart said, her tone wry and clearly mocking him.
Nettled, he replied
“If I could, I would have done so by now, Heretic, and ended all of your precious dragon’s dark designs long before now.”
She frowned at him, silver eyes flashing with distemper and Estinien tamped down on an unlooked-for surge of attraction at the life in her eyes. He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, that he had worried the weight of her recent crisis of faith might break her, and cause the fire in her eyes to go out. Contrary to his expectations, instead of turning around and leaving at his rude and abrupt manner, Ysayle ascended the steps and stood next to him in the small space of the tower on top of the ruins and gazed up at Aery.
“He wasn’t always like this,” she whispered softly, her eyes pleading with him to listen and understand her. “Nidhogg was once noble and good, the leader of all of the Dragons of the First Brood and exemplar of all that was best in dragonkind. I… I wanted to find a way to bring him back to what he was before his madness took him. I know it is arrogant of me now, but I wanted to save him.”
“Hmph!” Estinien grunted, suddenly annoyed.
The thought occurred to him that his ire did not just stem merely from her unending stubbornness in making excuses for the dragons, there was a small part of him that disliked her praising Nidhogg and not only just because he was Nidhogg… part of him had not liked to hear her praise another male in his presence regardless of species.
“I suppose it is foolish, no?” she thought wistfully.
“Aye,” he agreed, nodding once.
You could not save someone who was determined not to be saved, one could only let go of the lead rope and let the stubborn mule run off the cliff if that was its aim.
“Ser Estinien, I know that my sense of compassion for the dragons and for Nidhogg makes no sense to you,” Ysayle said. “But think if your positions were reversed. If you were lost in darkness, mired in pain and rage such that you had lost your truest sense of self, would you not wish for someone to offer you a hand, to guide you from the mire of hatred and back to your own real self?”
“He chose that darkness,” Estinien said flatly. “At any time, if he had taken his horde from Coerthas’ borders and disallowed any further attack, Ishgard would have respected any peace he’d offered no matter how fragile. Not even I would have pursued my vengeance against the Horde, even despite the loss of life we’ve suffered from the Wyrm’s centuries of vengeance. We would have celebrated it, and called it a blessing. But every time that Nidhogg had woken, he has only furthered more hatred and bloodshed.”
Ysayle looked reluctant and said
“I cannot deny that this is so, Dragoon, but consider that dragons simply do not experience time the way we short-lived Humans do. They are effectively immortal and thus time flows differently for them. For Nidhogg, the loss of his dear brood-sister is as fresh as though it had happened last week. That we replace one man in robes to further the war with another man in the same robes helps not any either. For them we are as faceless and replaceable a Horde as they are to us.”
Then in the midst of his condemnation, a small miracle (for Estinien, anyway) happened. A new argument occurred to him! He was not silver-tongued, as his friend Aymeric was, he left arguing and persuasion up to those best suited to it, but suddenly he wished that he had his friends great gift for oratory, that he might sway her stubborn heart to relent and ease towards him even just a little.
“If it helps you to reconcile yourself with this fate,” he said, lowering his voice a little and allowing the smallest note of entreaty to enter his voice. “Think of it like this. The dragon truly died when his nobility was lost. When he subsumed himself to rage, and lost himself in his hatred, he killed the good and noble being he once was. All that remains now is a husk that enacts his bloody vengeance, and it is for the good of our people, Ishgardian and Heretic, that I will go and do what must be done.”
Ysayle frowned stubbornly and Estinien added on quickly
“And don’t think only of the Humans, if it helps. Think of the dragons as well.”
Ysayle cocked her head to one side, clearly curious as to what he was going to say next.
“This war affects the dragons subject to Nidhogg's Song every bit as much as it does all of the people of Coerthas,” he said. “Think of all of those dragons, too, ruthlessly conscripted to a cause that may not be their own. You say that lesser dragons cannot resist the call of a powerful dragon when he summons them with his Song, well then, how could they refuse to join Nidhogg’s Horde when the creature demands it? Are they not innocent too? Are they too, not deserving of freedom and rescue?”
He could tell by the way she blinked her silver eyes at him in surprise that his strange new argument had struck a cord with her, for once. She gave his words a fair amount of weight and consideration, quietly pondering them. To give credit where it was due, even if she was stubborn and argumentative, she never failed to genuinely listen to what he had to say, and to truly think over his words when he said them, so Estinien for all of his needling and his quips, had never felt ignored or invalidated when he spoke with her. Her justice and sincerity had won a lot of credit with him, if he were honest. After giving his words careful consideration, Ysayle, to his gratification, nodded (a little begrudgingly) for his argument had made sense and resonated with her innate sense of compassion. Estinien wasn’t certain entirely how he felt about Lady Iceheart being able to essentially ignore the plight of thousands of humans being killed over the course of centuries for a crime that was not their own, but then immediately changing her tune when dragons were the victim. Still, at this point, a win was a win.
“In my heart I cannot wish you luck, Dragoon,” Ysayle said. “But I do not wish you any ill. If I had any wish, it would be that his world were different, but it is a futile wish.”
“The world will be different after this,” he offered.
“I hope so dragoon, I truly do,” she said, sounding sad rather than hopeful, then almost to herself she added. “Something needs to have made all of this worth it.”
There was a long weighted silence as the two of them stood side by side, looking up as the swirling maelstrom in the floating ruins overhead, lost in their own thoughts for the moment.
“Will you go and do battle soon?” Ysayle asked suddenly, despite knowing the answer.
Estinien was not adept at reading social cues by any stretch of the imagination, so he did not wish to give himself the hope that she might be expressing concern for him just in case he might be thinking too much of himself. Still he couldn’t help but feel a small spark of hope that she might feel positively enough towards him to worry about his safety, even a little.
“Aye,” he nodded once, confirming it.
He’d lived a lifetime as a soldier. This was his calling now as much as it was his purpose. He was a warrior and a damn good one. Truth to tell, he was more at home in a fight than he was anywhere else, at least there he knew what to do and say and when he needed to do and say it. Ysayle seemed a little upset by his casual acceptance however and asked
“Will it be terribly dangerous, do you think?”
“No less than any other battle,” he reassured her as best he knew how.
Since he’d first taken up the lance he’d lived nearly every day with the uncertainty, the background knowledge that his next engagement might be the one he didn’t make it back from. It had long before ceased to bother him, what did bother him was the thought of losing those he’d come to care for. Ysayle laid a hand gently on his wrist and looked up at him, something hidden and unknowable shining in her silver eyes and Estinien felt a strange surge of hope and fear in his chest.
“You must take care,” Ysayle said quietly.
Estinien could not promise he would, for he knew that over-caution rather than decisive action on a battlefield was more likely to get you killed rather than less, and he was an honest man so he said
“I will not flinch before danger, and will meet it as I always have.”
“I know you are a brave and excellent knight,” she said, frowning at him as though he were contradicting her. “But the foe you face--”
“I will face Nidhogg, and if the Fury wills it, I will return,” he said firmly, trying to find the words to make her understand what it was he really wanted to say to her.
He would not allow anything to part them. There was much and more he wished to say, and many days in the future he wished to spend in her company. He laid his own gauntleted hand overtop hers where it lay on his arm and squeezed it once, softly. On the eve of a battle, it was considered ill-fortuned to make promises, even to ones closest friends and loved ones, about the outcome of the battle. Their fate would be decided by the Fury and no other, and to suggest otherwise was to mock Halone in Her own hall. Any Ishgardian, any Coerthan, would know this. Ysayle, too, for all that she was apparently raised by dragons, would also know this. He hoped that she would know, then, what that silent gesture on his part meant. He wouldn’t make her any promises, but if the Fury willed it, he would return to her.
“Though I cannot argue any longer against the practical necessity of your chosen course, you know that I cannot agree with it,” she said to his disappointment. “The loss of even the chance of rebuilding the connection between man and dragon once more seems too great a loss to bear. That being said, however…”
Ysayle paused and looked over at him. For a brief moment in time, gone was the mask of Lady Iceheart, the Leader of the Heretics, the persona she took on when she needed to wage a war against impossible odds. In place of her usual cool, aloof manner was something much softer, more open and vulnerable. Her pale cheeks were flushed pink and there was a tenderness about her eyes that he’d only seen once before, while she gazed in open adoration at the Moogle’s they’d encountered.
“I started this journey thinking of you as the representative of all that was wrong with this war; of the resentment and rage that would not turn aside nor be swayed to make room for peace,” she said honestly. “Having traveled with you I’ve come to understand that my previous thoughts were too simple and naive. You’re more than just your vengeance, Estinien. I can feel it in my heart. You have things you want to protect in this life. If you must go, then please, try to wield Gae Bolg for those things; for the things you wish to protect.”
Encouraged by her words, Estinien stepped closer to her in the already confined space of the tower-top ruins, close enough that their chests were nearly touching and Ysayle had to tilt her head back to look up at him. He pressed on a hidden latch in his armor at the side of his neck and his helmet, which had hidden his face away from the world behind the mask of the Azure Dragoon, enfolded backwards into his backplate, revealing his face to her for the first time.
“I also started this journey thinking of you as just some dragon-mad heretic blinded by her own self-righteousness,” he said honestly and Ysayle winced.
“But I, also, have come to see that those thoughts were too simple and didn’t allow for all that you are,” he said. “I took your compassion for weakness but I see now that it also gives you strength. Will you be willing to extend your compassion to me, and give me hope for the future? Will you become one of those things I wield my lance to protect?”
Her breath caught softly in her throat and her wide tender eyes seemed to brim with tears as she looked at him with something akin to wonder.
“You… you want to protect me?” she asked softly, sounding surprised.
The air between them felt somehow charged and heavy, and Estinien found that he couldn’t quite seem to speak. He looked her straightforwardly in the eyes, nodded his head once firmly and said
“Yes.”
A wave of longing and vulnerability seemed to shiver through her and she trembled for a moment, tears spilling over silently, before freezing and dusting away.
“It’s been so long since someone’s said that to me,” she whispered softly.
“Don’t you have an entire tribe of devoted followers?” he pointed out a bit archly.
“That’s different,” she said, shaking her head a bit. “I’m their Lady Iceheart, their leader. If they’re protective of me it’s because I’m on their pedestal, and they ultimately believe that I’ll be the one to save them in the end.”
Estinien thought about it and nodded, accepting the nuanced difference. Their devotion might grant her power, but it was its own chain and weight, dragging her down, and as Lady Iceheart, Ysayle had forced herself to grow strong enough to carry that weight. Even if it was a burden she took up of her own free will it was a burden nonetheless. How much worse must it hurt to have had all of her previous assumptions and beliefs shattered. How strong must she have forced herself to be in order to pick herself up and carry on after? Like many things in the wretched war, it was unfair.
It suddenly occurred to him that he might have a way to lessen her burden. As Azure Dragoon, first among all of the dragoons who fought in the Holy Order of the Knights Dragoon of Ishgard, he knew well the solitude and isolation that surrounded a leader when one was at the pinnacle of an organization. A commander could never get close to anyone for fear of rumors of favoritism, there was never truly an equal to share the burdens of command, and the burdens were many because every decision made as a leader affected all below. It was like living in an empty castle, echoing and sad. All might bow to you with respect, but you were never truly close to anyone. He understood this feeling she had spoken of, for he shared it, and it made him wish to share her burdens, to lessen her loneliness and his own.
There was a way to do this, even though she was a Heretic (Leader of the Heretics) and he was a Knight of Ishgard. There was an ancient custom among the knights, where a knight would choose one special person to become his Lady (or vice versa, a Dame would choose a Lord), and swear his oath of knightly courtesy to her alone. He would defend her honor and hold her highest in his heart, and would return to her after every battle to renew his fealty and gift her name with the fruits of his victories. Perhaps on the surface it seemed little different than the burdensome adulation of her own followers, but there was a key difference; if the Lady chose to do so, she could take the knight into her confidence, and trust that he would guard her secrets and keep her faith, as she would do for his own. It was more of a partnership based on respect and the need for companionship.
Estinien was surprised at himself, for even though he was friends with Aymeric (as well as being a fellow knight, and many viewed Estinien as being “Aymeric’s Sword” to Lucia being “Aymeric’s Shield”), he’d never before wished to take any other as a close confidant just for himself, without considering anyone and anything else. He knew already that even if it were politically convenient in the future, he would not wish to share his deeper connection to Ysayle with anyone else, not even his closest friends. Taking Ysayle as his Lady would be something just between them, and he would not allow anyone else to interfere in it. It felt strange, but it also felt right, that he would forge this connection between them. It was little more than the validation of the strange, ephemeral pull that had existed between them since the moment they’d met. In his heart, she was already his Lady, there was nothing strange about saying so out loud. All that remained was that she would accept his oath.
:Aymeric always says that the best way to gain ground in persuading someone is to root your argument in a cause that your opponent already holds dear to them,: Estinien recalled.
“You often speak of the world before the Dragonsong War,” he said. “And of how there were so many things that were lost from that time, but there are some vestiges that remain from the Era of Lost Kings in the customs and traditions of the knighthood. All knights, by law, swear an oath of fealty and service to the Holy See and to the defense of her people when we are knighted. In addition, a knight may choose to take a second oath of fealty, swearing his honor and his arm in defense of one chosen person, whom he holds above all others. She is his shield and his sanctuary, and until death parts them forever, he will always return to her side, no matter where his battles may take him. In ancient times it was considered a deep responsibility, but in modern times it is considered more as a romantic token, a superstition to guard against misfortune and a way to give a knight courage in battle.”
He wrapped her hand in his and placed it against his chestplate, right above his heart.
“If you will have me, I would make you my Lady, the sanctuary that I will always return to and the one whose name I will hold highest in my heart.”
“Are you certain I’m so worthy? And won’t it be trouble? You are a Knight of Ishgard, and I’m a Heretic…” she pointed out practically.
“It is my hope that after the war is ended, that won’t matter anymore,” he said. “I won’t be Estinien Wyrmblood, Azure Dragoon, and you will not be Lady Iceheart, Leader of the Heretics.”
Ysayle's face flushed, and she looked a bit hesitant.
“A different world in the future,” she murmured, sounding hopeful. “One with room for us in it.”
She leaned against him briefly, entrusting her weight to him and allowing him to hold her up. He innately understood it as a sign of trust between them.
“Then, if you wish it, I will be your Lady,” she said softly, her hand turning slightly in his grip and her fingers interlocking with his own, despite the steel gauntlets he wore. “In the hope for our future, I will accept your oath.”
The ephemeral gravity that had always existed between them shifted at this declaration and acknowledgement, pulling taught and filling the air with hopes left unspoken. Estinien felt for the first time what it was like to drown in her eyes, to hope for a future life and see those same hopes reflected back at him. For a heartbeat, it felt like everything else in the world was small and trivial, and all that existed was only this. Slowly, drifting down like a leaf from a tree, Estinien lowered his head to seal his oath, their promises, with a kiss as Ysayle rose up to meet him.
Like two worlds that had circled the same star out in the vast darkness, they came together and merged, and all was light. The soft feel of her lips against his shouldn’t have been something that Estinien felt with his whole being, but his whole world centered on a pin-point. The kiss felt hot and cold, like ice-burn, but incredibly sweet in its exquisite sharpness. The taste of her lips was like the scent of the first frost that heralded the winter to come. It felt like the first time he’d ever taken flight in an airship, the boundaries of walls and towers that had always surrounded him had fallen away as he rose higher in the air, and a whole new world had spread out around him, boundless, infinite and beautiful beyond compare. He pressed closer, holding her tighter, unwilling and unable to bear the thought of relinquishing such tender sweetness now that he had discovered it. It seemed that she felt the same way for she clung tighter to him, despite that his hard, spiked armor was not comfortable at all. Still she held him and kissed him, silently giving to him the measure of her boundless faith and unwavering hope for their future. Though it was not their time yet, he had accepted her and she had accepted him, and that was enough for this one, sweet moment.
As all good things in this world, it has its time and then it passes. The two of them reluctantly separated, though they remained held close with their arms wrapped around each other. Ysayle rested her head on his chestplate, and he wished he were not wearing armor so that he could truly feel her against him without any barriers. They merely held each other in silence, knowing that when they spoke, they must part, and neither wanted to end the comfort and peace of that fragile moment.
When Ysayle softly tightened her grip on his hands he knew that she would speak.
“I must go back,” she said softly. “If you will go and face your fight for the future, then I can do no less than the same. I will try, once again, to see if I might reason with the other Dragon of the First Brood. Though, it deeply saddens me to admit that Lord Hraesvelgr is… not quite as I had hoped he might be, based upon my Visions of him and Lady Shiva. Perhaps all of my efforts will be in vain, and my words fall again upon deaf ears, but I know that I will regret it forever if I do not try.”
Estinien nodded reluctantly, understanding it. She was his Lady, how could he not understand the compassionate wish in her heart?
“Then if the Fury wills it, should I return, I will seek you in Zenith,” he said, accepting her will on the matter.
She stepped back one small step, reluctance and sorrow at parting written in her manner, and she did not unlock their hands yet.
“I will await you there, if the Fury should be merciful to us both,” she said quietly. “Fare you well, Estinien.”
She steeled herself and took another step, moving her hand to break their grip but Estinien held her fingers tight for one moment more, bringing her hand up as he bowed and kissed her knuckles, in a last kiss, a knightly promise.
“Fare you well, My Lady.”