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It is a shameful (terrifying) thing to admit, even to himself. Try as he might to ignore it, the issue keeps cropping up, forcing him to acknowledge it and dragging him from the state of denial he would love to bury himself in. A foot slipping out from under him, his hands shaking, banging his shoulder into a doorway. (His skin shivering at the slightest touch of his own hand or, infuriatingly, his own clothes. Every reflective surface mocks him, making him think there’s something out of the corner of his eye but when he looks up there is not but his own face… when he recognizes his own face.) What grace he normally has has fled from him. Aymeric, thankfully, says nothing but he can feel the worried looks digging into his back. Lucia simply watches, letting him pick himself up and treating it as normal. It may be his new normal. Halone’s grace he hopes not.
Perhaps these instances are why he finds himself so close to Aymeric so often of late. The healers had set him free a short time ago with strict instructions to rest. Merrill, a beast of a woman in a pixie’s body, threatens to turn him into a proper mummy if she finds out he returned to training before the proper time. Lack of training, however, leaves him idle. And idle is not something he can stand. (It leaves too much time to think, to reflect, to feel something itching under his skin that he hopes is nothing more than a lingering ghost.) Aymeric says nothing about his sudden shadow, simply looking over the taller elezen before requesting that he run some missives across the city. It’s trivial work, something a page could do just as easily but moving throughout the city he knows like the back of his hand, forcing his mind to focus on the stone in front of him instead of (stone under his claws, back straining as his wings flare high, chest aching with the wrathful roar) the lack of coordination he had that morning getting dressed soothes a part of him that screams in protest of standing still.
Gradually, Aymeric gives him more tasks until he’s running hither and yon about the place. The work tires him, far more than it should, but the burn in his legs is welcome as is the returning coordination he only notices when he manages to go a full day without dropping something. A few weeks of this turns into a solid month and, on a whim, he tests how well his coordination is as he spins a quarter staff about in ever more complicated patterns until he’s leaping about the training yard as easily as he had before (that vile slithering rage had sunk into his breast, spreading like a virus through the rest of him until his body jerked away from him to the tune of something else). Dinner that night is a luxurious affair, Aymeric declaring it a night to celebrate, not to be dissuaded by his gruff deflections.
That night is peaceful up until it isn’t. They sit before the fire, Aymeric taking a rare moment to read something other than a report or lordly petition, Estinien simply sipping from his wine glass as he watches the flames lick at the wood. A breath and the wine is copper in his mouth. His throat closes as he chokes, tossing the glass aside to shatter and spill red across the floor. Red that drips from claws rendering a man without his innards. He’s up and stumbling back, away from the flames caused by his own breath, flames that eat hungrily at the stone of Ishgard, at the armor of soldiers, at the blue of a warm robe.
There is shouting around him, blending with the roar of angered, scaled kin. Voices tumbling over each other as they shout orders and warnings and call for aid. The ring of swords and crash (crunch) of armor deafens his ears, his throat raw from a war cry to his kin. A war cry to summon more, to burn more, to run the streets red with the blood of all that would spill theirs. A soldier darts in front of him, blue cloak flashing in the inferno. He rears back to strike.
Hands, soft yet calloused gently cup his cheeks, running across scales (skin) in the faintest caress.
A voice raised in anger and defiance quiets to a plea, a plea to return, to quiet, to breathe.
Blue shifts from cloak to eye, warmth blooming across his forehead as the color invades every ilm of his sight.
A breath and he can feel cloth against his trembling skin, see starlight strands out of the corner of his eye, feel Aymeric’s breath against his face. His back is against something hard and cold, legs splayed out and hands raised in defence, fingers curled as if claws rest upon their ends. Throat and chest are sore (from screaming as though he were the dragon), lips pulled back from his teeth as if fangs protruded from his gums. Breath leaves him in a rush, suddenly falling limp like a puppet with cut strings. Aymeric says nothing more but the soothing nonsense he croons into his hair as he gathers him up, arms and legs wrapping around him to allow him to hide from the world. Would that he could hide this shameful act from Aymeric.
He doesn’t cry, he believes he’s forgotten how, but his chest and throat are tight with the wish to, his eyes burning as he squeezes them shut. Carefully, afraid he’ll tear into his friend if he isn’t delicate, he curls his fingers ( his fingers, not a claw in sight) into the robe he buries his face into, clinging for all he’s worth, not so much allowing this moment of weakness as being unable to force his shoulders to straighten and his usual gruff demeanor to brush away the concern.
Aymeric does not ask if he is alright. (He isn’t)
Aymeric merely holds him, allowing him shelter from the ghosts and the flames and the ache in his back from wings he doesn’t have. He knows not how long they sit there, long enough that he isn’t sure he’s breathing until Aymeric pulls back an ilm to brush the hair from his face, fingers brushing delicately over his ears and down his jaw to draw his head from his chest.
“I would ask if you wished to speak of it,” Aymeric whispers, his gaze kind but sad, aching, “but I suspect the answer would be no.”
He can manage a brief, jerky nod, looking away from those too caring, too knowing (too loving) eyes. Aymeric merely hums, lips brushing delicately across his clammy forehead.
“Then I will suggest we prepare for bed and should you wish to speak in the morning or in the middle of the night or hiding under the blankets like we were boys then I shall listen to every word.”
He draws in a shaky breath, his heart aching.
“I…”
“Shall stay the night. As you have been for the past month.”
Aymeric’s tone brooks no argument and, woefully, he has not the strength to disagree. They rise from the floor, somewhat awkwardly as Estinien’s limbs refuse to cooperate much and he resorts to leaning against Aymeric when he stumbles. Faces are cleaned, water is sipped, another log is added to the fire and they are tucked into bed. Estinien faces the wall, arms drawn tight to his chest as Aymeric draws the heavy blankets over them. He expects a hand on his back, a whispered good night. The body pressing tight against him, arm around his waist and nose pressing to the base of his neck startle him, hands flaring open as one worms its way into their grip.
The warmth and the hold shakes something loose in his chest and he’s spiraling all over again. He turns his face into the pillow but despite his burning eyes (for, disgustingly, the second time that night) no tears fall free. Instead, it is with a rasping voice, as though the words were drawn over sandpaper and tumbled with gravel, that the deluge spills forth.
“My body… is not mine. My skin shivers… my bones ache… there were strings… twice over… and they are gone… and I know not what I’m to do. There is a ghost… a ghost lingering in my mind and I… I…”
His hands tighten around the one they’ve trapped, body shivering against the other from a cold known soul deep. Aymeric presses tighter to him, lips pressed to his spine that he might feel the words as easily as hearing them.
“I suspect that it may remain for some time,” he whispers, arm tightening around a trim waist at the cut off, mournful keen that’s muffled into the pillow.
“But. You have exorcised it before. You have kept it at bay longer than any man ever could have. No one’s path is known but rarely are they given a second chance as we have. There has always been longing in you to see more, to live for more. You hid it well but I know you, Estinien. I know you as I know my own breath, my own heart. Fear shall linger but it fades. It always fades. And you are left with nothing but the strength you have always had. The strength which saw us to the end of a centuries long conflict and the birth of a new nation.”
“I failed,” he rasps, his grip no doubt painful but unrelenting. “I failed and Nidhogg took me,”
“You kept him at bay.”
“I did nothing of the sort!” He’s up and twisted around before he can blink, pinning Aymeric’s shoulders to the bed with an iron grip.
Aymeric simply stares up at him, allowing Estinien to loom over him, to snarl at him, to no doubt bruise him. The longer he snarls, the longer he stares, the more realizes. The more he’s rattled to his very core. There is no fear in those fathomless blue eyes. No scorn, no pity, no anger. There is only care, only concern, only an unwavering loyalty and unshakeable conviction. His heart thumps hard beneath his ribs as those hands, those competent, unrelenting hands, reach up for him. They cup his face, drawing him slowly down so that lips may once again press into his forehead, so that words may once again be whispered against his skin.
“To fall means nothing. To stand in spite of it is strength. And, Estinien, my dearest friend, my unwavering beacon of strength, the only one I would trust so completely with my life. Do you honestly think Harellan could have won if you weren’t doing your damndest to shackle the beast that would gut every soul in Ishgard?”
He has no words for that. Only a closing throat, harsh breaths and a sinking body that falls to rest against Aymeric’s strength. Those hands, those gentle, warm, strong hands, comb through his hair, arms warm around his shoulders as the blankets are again drawn over them. He doesn’t know when he sleeps but he knows that Aymeric’s fingers are still scratching against his scalp when he finally does.
It is when Aymeric is making his speech to the people of Ishgard proclaiming the formation of the House of Lords and the House of Commons and the separation of the church from matters of state that he leaves. He has little doubt in his friend’s ability to lead, little doubt that when he returns, whensoever that may be, that he will return to an Ishgard stronger than when he left it. And. He has little doubt that Aymeric knows there will be no dragoon waiting for him when he gets home.