echoes of truths that one rang clear
May. 5th, 2025 03:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
requiemsHe shall not shake her resolve. How dare he even try.
"Hear me, then. It is not for you to like. We all have our paths, Artoirel. Mine, one taken before by my brothers, now in Halone's halls. 'Tis all I can do for our people. I swear to you I shall charter my own fate. Pray do not worry for me."
"You misunderstand." She shrugs at him. She was honest and he still is not. He pauses in his muddled thinking, stepping closer: she can count every pore this near, his hands flexed against the plush fabric of the chaise's backing, knuckles tensing in the wool that isn't on her shoulders and she feels it. His long hair hides his expression as he leans forward to one side, exhaling by her ear. "Nothing— naught I have to say shall ere convince you?"
No. She has made her decision. She is not so lucky to have options. This is what she is good at, skewering things with a lance. Not weaving. Not prayer. Not good, beautiful things. The most she ever shall see of Coerthas will be red and splintered scale, tracking the Horde across the wilderness, and...
He moves. His stoicism fades. The gossipers are right on one account: Artoirel has always been handsome. But they have never seen him weak. She kissed him once, years ago. They were hardly grown then, and it seemed that one day they might... it had never happened, always something else to do, worlds and deeds apart, and now her eyes absorb him; features and well kept muscles in that undershirt of his.
"Might you permit me to tell you of it in another way?"
For NaNoWriMo last year, I wrote about Estelline, and a retelling of Heavensward from her perspective. Estelline was a member of The Order of the Knight's Dragoon who, whilst engaging the Horde alongside the Azure Dragoon and their fellows, on the return home via Falcon's Nest discovers her father has been accused of heresy. With her father fled and her mother taking her own life, it falls on Estelline, the sole surviving member of House Maylis, to answer for his crimes; and knowing she would win a trial by combat at the Tribunal, the overseeing inquisitor espies an opportunity, and suggests she might not have survived the engagement with the Horde after all. Estelline is cast out into the wastes, where she finds her way to the Convictory.
I've written about significant moments in several of my wol's lives prior to this for Ai and Khlip, but Estelline's was by far the longest and most extensive. First and foremost it is a love story, about falling apart and falling back together and falling, falling, falling, in love with other things and ideals and that love itself endures in unpredictable, unexpected ways. I should free more of it, eventually. It's got good vibes and good Artoirel character study moments and Prih is having a whole time missing Minfilia and Rehn is there and I love Estelline dearly.
This is not the entirety of my 2024 Nano (far from it!) but as I reached this particular quest, of Artoirel and the WoL travelling to Riversmeet in the pursuit of heretics, in my playthrough of MSQ with her, I've been thinking about it. And seeing as what I'd written required little to no edits or changes at all, here it is.
The heretics are dead. Two people stand. One as a knight and the other a mystery. Her eyes narrow. She – is miqo'te. The bowed ears and the swishing tail give it away. She has blood on her cheek. Whether hers or the heretics or some other beast she does know. Her eyes are dull yet resolute as she listens to her companion, nodding in agreement to whatever is said and desired of her, and off she walks further north, following the tracks in the snow, with a weary, lonesome stride, a state she is used to. A difficult being to conquer, and none ever have.
Bah. She has spent too much time in the sunsoaked ice to be cataloguing her thusly. But the knight – a man – does not follow. He fusses over the corpses and the camp, yet like a coward, wheresoever their prey may have hidden themselves he does not join her. She feels herself bristle. The annoyance from her missing patrol partner rearing into anger and the injustice of it all.
"You would have a foreigner fight our war?"
She has a mask to cover her mouth but her green eyes are vivid and accusatory. Of course. Isghard is built upon pillars of bone. Dragon as well as theirs, the downtrodden whilst his holiness reigns as false king. This she knows.
The knight draws his sword. He slowly turns about the camp, finding the direction of her voice being cast from higher up a cliff, looming over him at distance – and then her.
It cannot be.
It is.
Artoirel. Here in Coerthas: not for her. Her eyes grow wide. There is no returning recognition, though his brow crumples – no need to strike her as she is clearly a Convictor, but why she has chosen him to yell at is a mystery. Galled, perhaps.
"And who are you are to say so, dragon slayer?"
Eugh. She hasn't missed this about the High Houses. She heaves a long sigh. She drops down from her vantage point: graceful and lithe, knees bent and then straightening as she stalks openly toward him and still he has no clue…
She is within kissing distance when he perhaps suspects or sees something familiar about her. Or perhaps it is because she has lowered the mask past her chin and Estelline he can finally see.
Estelline, good and just and bright.
Estelline, indistinguishable as the encroaching dark of an unpatterned night sky.
Estelline, accused and hope thrown out.
"Estelline."
He says it strangely. In surprise, yes. Like it strangles him and it hurts. His frown settles. Ah. The answer she didn't ever want to know: that he believed every word the Church uttered about her family, poisoned him against her as it had almost all the rest, where he has assigned that blame to the only one left alive to receive it. A most unhappy reunion, and she looks down at the snow.
"My question stands, Artoirel."
A stranger he would involve in Ishgard's affairs. In his affairs. She feels she has a right to know why, at least.
She can imagine his furrowing brow. The strain for having to speak to her thus after last time. The last time he said her name was—
Flush against her and impaled and for once that mask of his had broken, and she had never felt the same—
The snow in its emptiness as a canvas for her to paint the mental mural is not helping. She looks back up at the real thing, so many stupid layers of tiny little metal chains and plate armour when she knows intimately well what lies beneath, where his arms are folded, pondering his delicately put together words.
"Have you heard the tales of the Warrior of Light?" A title. Earned, perhaps, the way one gains the mantle of Azure Dragoon, or inherited. He pauses, long enough for her to shake her head. What happens south of Ishgard and its troubles does not affect life overmuch, here. "Nay. I imagined you would have not. Neither had I, in truth. Haurchefant was the one to regale us with her exploits, as a saviour to her fellow Eorzeans against the might of Garlemald. She helped on occasion in Dragonshead, against the heretics and their leader Iceheart… and an earlier case of deceit where she first won over my brother's trust." He seems bemused. Whatever this incident was, he does not elaborate. Like as not he does not know nor care for the trifling details, and it is so firstborn son, using others as tools of him, it makes her want to scream. Stop proving it right. It was supposed to be different. She has been writing to a ghost. He looks away to the path the miqo'te has taken, her footsteps taken steadily being buried in the frigid clime. "The Warrior of Light offered her assistance, if you must know. She is here as a ward of my house. Her order, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, were party to recent events that happened in the sultanate – and Haurchefant, soft fool that he is, insisted they were falsely framed and spoke of the woman's character and pleaded their case to our father, and he—what?"
She is looking at him unflinching and her eyes so narrowed.
"Since when were you so distrusting and discourteous of others?"
Either one of those observations would be a blow to his pride. Both together, true, wounds it. It shows on his face with a covering of red – embarrassed fluster, mayhap, for being so wholly caught out and seen. Because he does not believe what his brother says about the Warrior of Light's innocence; that is plain. No benefits to the doubt, judgemental of his father's decisions… a complication that puts them at odds and the source of so much unwanted gossip, forced to work beside her though he does not want… and, as she is here and so willing, would allow her to see to danger in his stead. For the good of Ishgard.
She has worn it proudly. Every day around her neck like a chain of iron, a gaol of her own making, overlaid to the one already given to her. She shall not tolerate further disrespect, least of all not from him.
The fury simmers beneath the surface, though his words stay clipped. "You would speak your mind thus?"
"Being a Convictor is rather freeing. Here, we are all dregs."
He scoffs. She does not care. She has better things to do, and she turns to walk away in the direction this Warrior of Light took, and she hears his armour clink as he turns to watch her go.
"And what do you plan to do?"
"I will do what you refuse to," she says. "Did you not see the weight on her shoulders? She carries it, Artoirel. Just because she can walk it alone doesn't mean that she should." Not alone, never alone. It was – for a very brief moment – like a disembodied experience from a memory, watching herself walk from Falcon's Nest after her exile. He has given her the details and now she understands why it was so familiar. Why she has to follow these fast vanishing footsteps.
It is another laceration to his pride but she has no words to spare for kissing it better. This is his own doing. He had his chance. She walks through the snow, keenly aware of his presence several respectful steps behind her, pausing when she does, to inspect recently disturbed foliage and things lain dead.
Together they walk. In silence. The ice bombs dance undisturbed amongst the birds, the windmill forever frozen in time ominously waiting over the rise.
"I thought you were dead," he says, quite a great deal more softly than perhaps he even intends.
"I might as well be."
No emotion. None. All of those she has dispensed in her letters – and though addressed to him, never to be delivered. She is still Estelline de Maylis. But she is not the woman he loved and sought after, now ruined and in rags, not a penny to her name, no future determinant beyond what she will hunt for her next meal, on repairs to her gear, or which dragon is next to add to the overwhelming pile of bone.
His eyes— she should not have looked. Concern, caring. The silence has given him plenty of time to think and conclude, as always. However far apart they walk, that at least, has not changed in the slightest.
"You say those words as though it is painful."
She blinks, somewhat rapidly. "Let's not do this."
There are heretics to slay. Another to save, though if she is as strong and storied as he says, the Warrior of Light shall be fine. And though there is time for that, and for Ishgard, there is none left for them; never again shall there be.
They find the Warrior of Light exiting the basement with blood still staining her broadsword, hitched high to her back, tangled and woven between a well-worn bow and its quiver in comparison to the relative shiny newness of the blade.
She tells them what she found, soft and well-spoken and direct. Iceheart was here and now she is gone. She wishes for her to… understand her perspective. It makes her own nose wrinkle, open-minded as she has recently become, as perspective is a noble thing to claim for a woman who has laid regular siege to Ishgard and her walls, countless deaths of innocents and ruined lives on her conscience. Were it not for her regular enticements, The Holy See may not have been spooked enough to point the finger at her father, but she will not throw her own fingers, yet. In all the tales they had been told of late of Ishgard, the battle along the Steps of Faith lays heavy on her mind, for she ought to have been there. It was what she trained for, her duty…
The Warrior of Light's duty, it seems, is personally decided. With Iceheart fled and the heretics' presence retreated there is not much left for her to do, other than accompany Emmanelain on some business to The Sea of Clouds, and that she does not envy. What a mess to have landed herself in, with an entire nation's problems whilst she is relentlessly pursued by rumour and death…
And doing something about it. Much as it exhausts her.
She knows not what to say when the miqo'te looks at her and belatedly smiles her own platitudes and assurances, and offers her gratitude for assistance she never really successfully rendered, asking for her name.
Estelline, she offers. Merely Estelline. She has proven time and again she does not need it, but the Warrior of Light invites both her and Artoirel, the same man who left her to the heretic's mercy, to walk with her back to Falcon's Nest, and she finds she cannot refuse.
She asks her a little about the Convictory. Artoirel would chime in with his own knowledge but it significantly pales in comparison to hers that is lived. He still has business to attend to, and when they reach the plaza the Warrior of Light bids them farewell and walks away to find the chocobo porter for her swift return to Ishgard and others in need of her timely aid.
Too good of a person, she thinks. She is humbled by it. She was named for a star but in her presence, so wholly was she eclipsed. She finds she— admires that. What must it be like, to be able to wander, and help whom you will; to receive song and coin for your deeds, and the satisfaction of having made the people's lives there a little easier? It is the thing of folk songs and romanticised tales, the sort of thing those bound to Ishgard and her war could ne'er hope to achieve in their lifetimes.
Peace, and the truth…
Things lost. Not to be regained.
Artoirel does not rejoin her for the city: still Foretemps matters to attend to at Falcon's Nest, first. It times well with her own forthcoming departure. The hour is difficult to differentiate other than between the obvious markers of with sun or without sun but she knows it has been far too long for her patrol to not have gone awry and if she does not return by sunset there will surely be a clamour, and the youth that had not joined her will surely receive a verbal berating, which would perhaps do wonders for his chivalry so she should not return with haste… but she does not move. Now the Warrior of Light is gone and there is nothing left to do or say, Estelline and Artoirel merely look at each other, stood in the snow in an unearthed town rebuilt into a fortress, seeing for themselves how far their paths have divulged.
He really is much the same. She is used to having to look up at him. His eyes are guarded as they always were, when they so briefly weren't; she can't decide what he thinks of her, so different. No armour, only cloth. It's funny, really. He had been so insufferably concerned that it was not enough to keep her safe and now she does it every day in less. Perhaps he thinks about the new scars he does not know, the new burns, the victories that had no fanfare and the nights she laid in her tent alone. Or perhaps he thinks nothing of her at all, that it is easier to divorce her from the pedestal he once kept her on when she is so visibly new.
Much like if he believed in the accusations laid at house Maylis' feet, she finds she does not want to know. She will not suffer him in silence.
"Well, there is no ceremony left for us to stand upon. No pleasantries needed." Not with the Warrior of Light gone, believing there is still good in the world. She smiles at him, somewhat wry, not forced. "You need not suffer my presence any longer, my lord."
He doesn't blink. It doesn't wound him. But it quite clearly hurts, seen in his unflinching eyes.
"Do you really think so lowly of me?"
No, she thought the world. That is why…
She told him not to do this. But if he is going to, so be it.
"I ought disgust you. It would be best for both of us if you did. So you can find some other highborn girl, and, give yourself to her, ensure the future of your house, wed her, make love to her…"
Her words are whispers, not that they would carry far in the biting wind, or that there is anyone unoccupied here to hear them near the storehouses, where she was first banished from home for good. It is almost like she is repeating it, and this time she will be the one to send what is left of herself on her way. There should have been no reunion. Only his inconsideration has caused it, and—
His brow creases. Arms once again folded. She is finding she does not like that any more.
"Is that what you want?"
"Of course it is!" she snaps, eyes meeting his and he sees her green anger and does not shy away and that only makes it broil. "There was never anything else for us, Artoirel! Do you not understand? You foolish, stoic ass! You gave me reason to believe and then it—"
Everything crumbled— she lost it all.
Not his fault. But he is the closest thing to blame, the only one that will listen to the hurts within her heart.
She glares at him. Sharper than any dagger for making her so unwantedly weak, stepping close to jut her forefinger against his chestplate.
"I really do hate you sometimes."
He is silent for a good while, only the falling snow.
"You are right, you know. About thinking, and believing the worst of your family." Gods. It really is like falling; plummeting to your death through endless sky, only she will not land safe. Her finger trembles, turns to a fist against his armour, but she refuses for her hand to shake. "I had to."
Does it comfort her to know that the sanctity of the system gave him solace?
No.
Yes.
Damn it all.
She looks back up at him through tears, so angry, every unspent emotion from that day and every one since finally working its way out. And there is only one thing for him to do.
His gauntlets are no colder than the snow on her neck but it's electric as he brings her up to kiss him in the silence and the white and there are no houses, no ceremony, no stars: only her, and him.
"Hear me, then. It is not for you to like. We all have our paths, Artoirel. Mine, one taken before by my brothers, now in Halone's halls. 'Tis all I can do for our people. I swear to you I shall charter my own fate. Pray do not worry for me."
"You misunderstand." She shrugs at him. She was honest and he still is not. He pauses in his muddled thinking, stepping closer: she can count every pore this near, his hands flexed against the plush fabric of the chaise's backing, knuckles tensing in the wool that isn't on her shoulders and she feels it. His long hair hides his expression as he leans forward to one side, exhaling by her ear. "Nothing— naught I have to say shall ere convince you?"
No. She has made her decision. She is not so lucky to have options. This is what she is good at, skewering things with a lance. Not weaving. Not prayer. Not good, beautiful things. The most she ever shall see of Coerthas will be red and splintered scale, tracking the Horde across the wilderness, and...
He moves. His stoicism fades. The gossipers are right on one account: Artoirel has always been handsome. But they have never seen him weak. She kissed him once, years ago. They were hardly grown then, and it seemed that one day they might... it had never happened, always something else to do, worlds and deeds apart, and now her eyes absorb him; features and well kept muscles in that undershirt of his.
"Might you permit me to tell you of it in another way?"
Accused. Accused and just this morning he had gazed upon his mother's engagement ring in his father's study and thought that, in a few days, he might be returning to ask for it.
Imagine if she had returned a few days hence—
It sickens him. How he has to feel about it. Disdain. Disgust. That he feels that way about her at all. Her father never showed a single sign. It cannot be true, but if the Heavens Ward has pursued it and he has fled is it not admission? It means the system fails them if it is wrong and it cannot, it shall not, they will outlast. It would have been a blight upon the Foretemps name, and he—
He is trying, shrewdlessly, to make it better. Systematically unmaking himself and his preferences until he is moulded into the perfect son of Ishgard, who will sacrifice to uphold her eternally as She is.
For NaNoWriMo last year, I wrote about Estelline, and a retelling of Heavensward from her perspective. Estelline was a member of The Order of the Knight's Dragoon who, whilst engaging the Horde alongside the Azure Dragoon and their fellows, on the return home via Falcon's Nest discovers her father has been accused of heresy. With her father fled and her mother taking her own life, it falls on Estelline, the sole surviving member of House Maylis, to answer for his crimes; and knowing she would win a trial by combat at the Tribunal, the overseeing inquisitor espies an opportunity, and suggests she might not have survived the engagement with the Horde after all. Estelline is cast out into the wastes, where she finds her way to the Convictory.
I've written about significant moments in several of my wol's lives prior to this for Ai and Khlip, but Estelline's was by far the longest and most extensive. First and foremost it is a love story, about falling apart and falling back together and falling, falling, falling, in love with other things and ideals and that love itself endures in unpredictable, unexpected ways. I should free more of it, eventually. It's got good vibes and good Artoirel character study moments and Prih is having a whole time missing Minfilia and Rehn is there and I love Estelline dearly.
This is not the entirety of my 2024 Nano (far from it!) but as I reached this particular quest, of Artoirel and the WoL travelling to Riversmeet in the pursuit of heretics, in my playthrough of MSQ with her, I've been thinking about it. And seeing as what I'd written required little to no edits or changes at all, here it is.
The heretics are dead. Two people stand. One as a knight and the other a mystery. Her eyes narrow. She – is miqo'te. The bowed ears and the swishing tail give it away. She has blood on her cheek. Whether hers or the heretics or some other beast she does know. Her eyes are dull yet resolute as she listens to her companion, nodding in agreement to whatever is said and desired of her, and off she walks further north, following the tracks in the snow, with a weary, lonesome stride, a state she is used to. A difficult being to conquer, and none ever have.
Bah. She has spent too much time in the sunsoaked ice to be cataloguing her thusly. But the knight – a man – does not follow. He fusses over the corpses and the camp, yet like a coward, wheresoever their prey may have hidden themselves he does not join her. She feels herself bristle. The annoyance from her missing patrol partner rearing into anger and the injustice of it all.
"You would have a foreigner fight our war?"
She has a mask to cover her mouth but her green eyes are vivid and accusatory. Of course. Isghard is built upon pillars of bone. Dragon as well as theirs, the downtrodden whilst his holiness reigns as false king. This she knows.
The knight draws his sword. He slowly turns about the camp, finding the direction of her voice being cast from higher up a cliff, looming over him at distance – and then her.
It cannot be.
It is.
Artoirel. Here in Coerthas: not for her. Her eyes grow wide. There is no returning recognition, though his brow crumples – no need to strike her as she is clearly a Convictor, but why she has chosen him to yell at is a mystery. Galled, perhaps.
"And who are you are to say so, dragon slayer?"
Eugh. She hasn't missed this about the High Houses. She heaves a long sigh. She drops down from her vantage point: graceful and lithe, knees bent and then straightening as she stalks openly toward him and still he has no clue…
She is within kissing distance when he perhaps suspects or sees something familiar about her. Or perhaps it is because she has lowered the mask past her chin and Estelline he can finally see.
Estelline, good and just and bright.
Estelline, indistinguishable as the encroaching dark of an unpatterned night sky.
Estelline, accused and hope thrown out.
"Estelline."
He says it strangely. In surprise, yes. Like it strangles him and it hurts. His frown settles. Ah. The answer she didn't ever want to know: that he believed every word the Church uttered about her family, poisoned him against her as it had almost all the rest, where he has assigned that blame to the only one left alive to receive it. A most unhappy reunion, and she looks down at the snow.
"My question stands, Artoirel."
A stranger he would involve in Ishgard's affairs. In his affairs. She feels she has a right to know why, at least.
She can imagine his furrowing brow. The strain for having to speak to her thus after last time. The last time he said her name was—
Flush against her and impaled and for once that mask of his had broken, and she had never felt the same—
The snow in its emptiness as a canvas for her to paint the mental mural is not helping. She looks back up at the real thing, so many stupid layers of tiny little metal chains and plate armour when she knows intimately well what lies beneath, where his arms are folded, pondering his delicately put together words.
"Have you heard the tales of the Warrior of Light?" A title. Earned, perhaps, the way one gains the mantle of Azure Dragoon, or inherited. He pauses, long enough for her to shake her head. What happens south of Ishgard and its troubles does not affect life overmuch, here. "Nay. I imagined you would have not. Neither had I, in truth. Haurchefant was the one to regale us with her exploits, as a saviour to her fellow Eorzeans against the might of Garlemald. She helped on occasion in Dragonshead, against the heretics and their leader Iceheart… and an earlier case of deceit where she first won over my brother's trust." He seems bemused. Whatever this incident was, he does not elaborate. Like as not he does not know nor care for the trifling details, and it is so firstborn son, using others as tools of him, it makes her want to scream. Stop proving it right. It was supposed to be different. She has been writing to a ghost. He looks away to the path the miqo'te has taken, her footsteps taken steadily being buried in the frigid clime. "The Warrior of Light offered her assistance, if you must know. She is here as a ward of my house. Her order, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, were party to recent events that happened in the sultanate – and Haurchefant, soft fool that he is, insisted they were falsely framed and spoke of the woman's character and pleaded their case to our father, and he—what?"
She is looking at him unflinching and her eyes so narrowed.
"Since when were you so distrusting and discourteous of others?"
Either one of those observations would be a blow to his pride. Both together, true, wounds it. It shows on his face with a covering of red – embarrassed fluster, mayhap, for being so wholly caught out and seen. Because he does not believe what his brother says about the Warrior of Light's innocence; that is plain. No benefits to the doubt, judgemental of his father's decisions… a complication that puts them at odds and the source of so much unwanted gossip, forced to work beside her though he does not want… and, as she is here and so willing, would allow her to see to danger in his stead. For the good of Ishgard.
She has worn it proudly. Every day around her neck like a chain of iron, a gaol of her own making, overlaid to the one already given to her. She shall not tolerate further disrespect, least of all not from him.
The fury simmers beneath the surface, though his words stay clipped. "You would speak your mind thus?"
"Being a Convictor is rather freeing. Here, we are all dregs."
He scoffs. She does not care. She has better things to do, and she turns to walk away in the direction this Warrior of Light took, and she hears his armour clink as he turns to watch her go.
"And what do you plan to do?"
"I will do what you refuse to," she says. "Did you not see the weight on her shoulders? She carries it, Artoirel. Just because she can walk it alone doesn't mean that she should." Not alone, never alone. It was – for a very brief moment – like a disembodied experience from a memory, watching herself walk from Falcon's Nest after her exile. He has given her the details and now she understands why it was so familiar. Why she has to follow these fast vanishing footsteps.
It is another laceration to his pride but she has no words to spare for kissing it better. This is his own doing. He had his chance. She walks through the snow, keenly aware of his presence several respectful steps behind her, pausing when she does, to inspect recently disturbed foliage and things lain dead.
Together they walk. In silence. The ice bombs dance undisturbed amongst the birds, the windmill forever frozen in time ominously waiting over the rise.
"I thought you were dead," he says, quite a great deal more softly than perhaps he even intends.
"I might as well be."
No emotion. None. All of those she has dispensed in her letters – and though addressed to him, never to be delivered. She is still Estelline de Maylis. But she is not the woman he loved and sought after, now ruined and in rags, not a penny to her name, no future determinant beyond what she will hunt for her next meal, on repairs to her gear, or which dragon is next to add to the overwhelming pile of bone.
His eyes— she should not have looked. Concern, caring. The silence has given him plenty of time to think and conclude, as always. However far apart they walk, that at least, has not changed in the slightest.
"You say those words as though it is painful."
She blinks, somewhat rapidly. "Let's not do this."
There are heretics to slay. Another to save, though if she is as strong and storied as he says, the Warrior of Light shall be fine. And though there is time for that, and for Ishgard, there is none left for them; never again shall there be.
They find the Warrior of Light exiting the basement with blood still staining her broadsword, hitched high to her back, tangled and woven between a well-worn bow and its quiver in comparison to the relative shiny newness of the blade.
She tells them what she found, soft and well-spoken and direct. Iceheart was here and now she is gone. She wishes for her to… understand her perspective. It makes her own nose wrinkle, open-minded as she has recently become, as perspective is a noble thing to claim for a woman who has laid regular siege to Ishgard and her walls, countless deaths of innocents and ruined lives on her conscience. Were it not for her regular enticements, The Holy See may not have been spooked enough to point the finger at her father, but she will not throw her own fingers, yet. In all the tales they had been told of late of Ishgard, the battle along the Steps of Faith lays heavy on her mind, for she ought to have been there. It was what she trained for, her duty…
The Warrior of Light's duty, it seems, is personally decided. With Iceheart fled and the heretics' presence retreated there is not much left for her to do, other than accompany Emmanelain on some business to The Sea of Clouds, and that she does not envy. What a mess to have landed herself in, with an entire nation's problems whilst she is relentlessly pursued by rumour and death…
And doing something about it. Much as it exhausts her.
She knows not what to say when the miqo'te looks at her and belatedly smiles her own platitudes and assurances, and offers her gratitude for assistance she never really successfully rendered, asking for her name.
Estelline, she offers. Merely Estelline. She has proven time and again she does not need it, but the Warrior of Light invites both her and Artoirel, the same man who left her to the heretic's mercy, to walk with her back to Falcon's Nest, and she finds she cannot refuse.
She asks her a little about the Convictory. Artoirel would chime in with his own knowledge but it significantly pales in comparison to hers that is lived. He still has business to attend to, and when they reach the plaza the Warrior of Light bids them farewell and walks away to find the chocobo porter for her swift return to Ishgard and others in need of her timely aid.
Too good of a person, she thinks. She is humbled by it. She was named for a star but in her presence, so wholly was she eclipsed. She finds she— admires that. What must it be like, to be able to wander, and help whom you will; to receive song and coin for your deeds, and the satisfaction of having made the people's lives there a little easier? It is the thing of folk songs and romanticised tales, the sort of thing those bound to Ishgard and her war could ne'er hope to achieve in their lifetimes.
Peace, and the truth…
Things lost. Not to be regained.
Artoirel does not rejoin her for the city: still Foretemps matters to attend to at Falcon's Nest, first. It times well with her own forthcoming departure. The hour is difficult to differentiate other than between the obvious markers of with sun or without sun but she knows it has been far too long for her patrol to not have gone awry and if she does not return by sunset there will surely be a clamour, and the youth that had not joined her will surely receive a verbal berating, which would perhaps do wonders for his chivalry so she should not return with haste… but she does not move. Now the Warrior of Light is gone and there is nothing left to do or say, Estelline and Artoirel merely look at each other, stood in the snow in an unearthed town rebuilt into a fortress, seeing for themselves how far their paths have divulged.
He really is much the same. She is used to having to look up at him. His eyes are guarded as they always were, when they so briefly weren't; she can't decide what he thinks of her, so different. No armour, only cloth. It's funny, really. He had been so insufferably concerned that it was not enough to keep her safe and now she does it every day in less. Perhaps he thinks about the new scars he does not know, the new burns, the victories that had no fanfare and the nights she laid in her tent alone. Or perhaps he thinks nothing of her at all, that it is easier to divorce her from the pedestal he once kept her on when she is so visibly new.
Much like if he believed in the accusations laid at house Maylis' feet, she finds she does not want to know. She will not suffer him in silence.
"Well, there is no ceremony left for us to stand upon. No pleasantries needed." Not with the Warrior of Light gone, believing there is still good in the world. She smiles at him, somewhat wry, not forced. "You need not suffer my presence any longer, my lord."
He doesn't blink. It doesn't wound him. But it quite clearly hurts, seen in his unflinching eyes.
"Do you really think so lowly of me?"
No, she thought the world. That is why…
She told him not to do this. But if he is going to, so be it.
"I ought disgust you. It would be best for both of us if you did. So you can find some other highborn girl, and, give yourself to her, ensure the future of your house, wed her, make love to her…"
Her words are whispers, not that they would carry far in the biting wind, or that there is anyone unoccupied here to hear them near the storehouses, where she was first banished from home for good. It is almost like she is repeating it, and this time she will be the one to send what is left of herself on her way. There should have been no reunion. Only his inconsideration has caused it, and—
His brow creases. Arms once again folded. She is finding she does not like that any more.
"Is that what you want?"
"Of course it is!" she snaps, eyes meeting his and he sees her green anger and does not shy away and that only makes it broil. "There was never anything else for us, Artoirel! Do you not understand? You foolish, stoic ass! You gave me reason to believe and then it—"
Everything crumbled— she lost it all.
Not his fault. But he is the closest thing to blame, the only one that will listen to the hurts within her heart.
She glares at him. Sharper than any dagger for making her so unwantedly weak, stepping close to jut her forefinger against his chestplate.
"I really do hate you sometimes."
He is silent for a good while, only the falling snow.
"You are right, you know. About thinking, and believing the worst of your family." Gods. It really is like falling; plummeting to your death through endless sky, only she will not land safe. Her finger trembles, turns to a fist against his armour, but she refuses for her hand to shake. "I had to."
Does it comfort her to know that the sanctity of the system gave him solace?
No.
Yes.
Damn it all.
She looks back up at him through tears, so angry, every unspent emotion from that day and every one since finally working its way out. And there is only one thing for him to do.
His gauntlets are no colder than the snow on her neck but it's electric as he brings her up to kiss him in the silence and the white and there are no houses, no ceremony, no stars: only her, and him.
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Date: 2025-05-05 07:16 am (UTC)I read this on my phone and had to get up and get my keyboard because I have THINGS TO SAY.
aaaaaaAAAAA I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. This is everything I love about Heavensward-era fic and Ishgard fic in general. You can feel the cold and the dreariness of it, cloaking every word. Your prose is always lovely but I'm especially struck by the merging of Estelline's matter-of-fact narration and the longing she still holds, for Ishgard and Artoriel alike.
I love the inclusion of the Warrior of Light, of Prih, as both enigma and familiar soul, because truly what a great parallel for Estelline's own struggles. I love how Prih seems both larger than life and so terribly small even in these brief glimpses.
AND AAAAAAA I LOVE ALL THESE GPOSES, the new depth of field options STAY WINNING. The pain and hurt in her eyes is so obvious.
i'm truly in love with your prose though, it's so luscious. i want to eat it all up.
Thank you so much for sharing!!
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Date: 2025-05-08 02:29 am (UTC)I love love thinking about Ishgard and just, the difficulty they have for loving something that actively hurts them; they have been embroiled in this war against the dragons they don't have any other way to be and everything is always justified, and that would seep down into every single value. Heavensward has such good worldbuilding in that regard (I've been reading through and doing the sidequests on Estelline and it's so fulfilling to revisit, it's the same undertone of brooding melancholy in many of them that got me the first time).
Prih is barely holding it together but is doing her best anyway, what Estelline does not know at this point is how much on the edge of feeling like giving up she is... she learns later, though :) she is a small supernova fr. I also love thinking of the WoL inspiring others and Prih fulfils that role for her soooo so so much.
Thank you so much for your compliments though, I am glad you liked it/enjoyed it 💜