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Even with Limsa Lominsa and the western half of Vylbrand a mere bell behind Ishgard, dusk had already fully fallen by the time Aymeric teleported in front of the La Noscea house’s garden gate. He paused as he landed, legs unsteady not so much from aetherial travel as it was from sheer exhaustion. Up since before dawn after a restless night, to try and at least fit in some exercise before meetings had controlled the rest of his day, and not more to eat than a pastry with his breakfast tea and a single sandwich for lunch. He counted himself lucky, at least, that his last meeting of the day had only gone two bells beyond the usual Ishgardian dinner hour; a record, truly, especially for Count Dzemael on a tear.
Hells take that man.
Aymeric closed the gate behind him as he entered the yard, and trudged through the garden and around the house for the kitchen door. The lights on the ground floor were on, a cheery yellow in the darkening gloom, which meant Synnove was still awake, and hopefully nearly done with preparing dinner after her own long day at the Gate. Today was supposed to have been his turn to cook, and thankfully Synnove had merely chuckled at him and told him not to worry when he had claimed a ten-minute break and called her on the linkpearl.
The windows in the kitchen were thrown open, despite the bite of chill beginning to linger in the air; winter came late to Vylbrand. It also let the smell of dinner spill into the yard: buffalo stew, gently spiced for flavor rather than heat, and fresh baked bread. His stomach growled and the reminder of how long ago lunch had been had him picking up his pace until he could press down on the handle of the door, swing it open, and step inside.
The kitchen was pleasantly warm, the smell of bubbling stew even stronger, and Aymeric took a deep, appreciative breath as he shut the door and shrugged off his coat. Norlaise must have said something to Synnove long before he had been able to call her; a stew like this normally took hours of slow cooking to reach such perfection. A niggle of guilt hissed at the back of his mind, but he acknowledged and dismissed it; he would be able to return the favor for Synnove soon enough, after all.
The lady of the house was currently bent over, fetching the bread from the oven, and even as sluggish as he felt, he still shamelessly indulged in the sight of her canvas shorts pulled taut over the luscious curve of her buttocks before she stood back up. The tray with two beautifully crusty loaves was set aside, and Synnove turned on her heel with a grin as she pulled off her oven mitts. “Welcome home, Aymeric!” she said. “A little birdie told me it’s been a long day for you.”
“I believe I know the birdie’s name,” Aymeric laughed. “And it’s good to be home. The stew smells wonderful.”
“Just needs a few more minutes for the last of the vegetables to finish cooking,” his lady said, turning back to the stove and reaching for a wooden spoon to give the contents of her giant pot a careful stir.
Aymeric frowned slightly as she did so, tilting his head in puzzlement and setting his hands on his hips. There was…something different about her. Something he knew he should have caught whatever it was as soon as he had seen her, but Fury take him, his mind was refusing to work.
Synnove turned around once more and frowned herself as she took in his expression. “What’s wrong, love?”
There was no use lying. “Is something different with you?”
The frown turned into a playful smirk, amusement sparking in her eyes. “Darling, do I need to be a hypocrite?” she said, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms, one eyebrow ticking upward.
“Considering how often I’m one regarding your own sleep and work habits, ‘tis only fair.”
Synnove laughed, his favorite sound in all the world, and said, “You work too long and too hard sometimes, my Aymeric. But, yes, I’ll grant you this: there is something different. Can you tell me what it is?” Her tone was light and lilting and dripping with mischief.
Aymeric was running off too much coffee and tea and not enough sleep; he knew his cognitive functioning was next to gone, it being why Norlaise had dragged him out of the office by his ear like he was one of her recalcitrant grandchildren as soon as Count Dzemael had finished darkening the halls of Parliament. He was at least forgiven for not immediately catching on to what was off about Synnove, at least, with a cheery dare like that.
She grinned a little wider at his continued confusion.
Her eyes were still as green as fine emeralds. Her skin was still healthy-golden bronze as it should always be, and not like the wan brown from stress and exhaustion when she had first returned from the First. Her favorite gloss stained her lips a blushing pink, slightly faded from day-long wear.
He dropped his gaze, still puzzled. Her shirt—his, once upon a time—was solid blue flannel, the color faded from true to powder over the years from repeated washings, the fabric sinfully soft, and the sleeves rolled to her elbows and top few buttons undone. Her simple sapphire pendant necklace, one of his gifts to her their first Starlight, glinted in the lamplight, the pendant hanging just below the hollow of her collarbones, and the bracelet upon which each of the carbuncles’ summoning foci was threaded still hung from her left wrist.
His gaze dropped further, his brow furrowing, and he heard his lady giggle as he took in the rest of her appearance. No obvious new additions to the arcanima tattoos, at least the ones visible on her forearms and the backs of her hands. Her nail lacquer was still green from the last time she had applied it, though it was beginning to chip in various spots from work and chores and hand-washing. She had on a pair of those awful, wonderful canvas shorts that were barely decent even by Lominsan standards, and showed off almost every mouthwatering ilm of her long, gorgeous legs. Her house shoes were the old, worn pair with embroidered carbuncles, one of Rereha’s—and Angharad’s, the needlework being hers—numerous joke gifts to Synnove over the years.
Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
Aymeric raised his gaze back to her face, framed by her favorite style of Gyr Abanian braids. She giggled again and reached up to brush a loose strand of hair from her eyes, the mahogany and gree—
His mind skittered to a halt and his eyes went wide as realization finally hit him like a sledgehammer.
No. Not green, not the same color as lush grass in high summer. At least, not anymore.
The dyed ends of her hair were now blue.
“Sweetheart, your hair,” he sputtered intelligently.
Synnove laughed at him outright now, low and husky and brushing across his ears like crushed velvet, and pushed off from the kitchen counter to stride the handful of paces forward and cup his face in her hands. As she brushed his cheeks with her thumbs, her eyes sparkling with delighted mischief, Aymeric reached up to gently grasp the end of the braid resting on her shoulder between his fingers, examining the new color of it with shocked wonder.
The green had been one of the first things he had noticed about her as he entered the Camp Dragonhead Intercessory all those years ago. Synnove had been turned away upon his arrival, talking in low tones with Heron, and the brilliant green among her dark brown tresses had been especially eye-catching against the formal grey of her assessor’s robe. Only her eyes had been greener, finer than any Ul’dahn emerald, alight with curiosity and interest as they had been introduced.
Now, the color that had reminded him of fresh spring grass had been replaced by a lovely hue similar to the cornflowers that had once carpeted Coerthan meadows in spring. Unlike the green that had been a uniform shade from both afar and up close, however, this blue seemed to shift beneath his scrutiny: the light caught on periwinkle, sapphire, ice. Familiar colors, that made her emerald gaze all the brighter and more piercing.
“Not that you aren’t as beautiful as ever, Synnove,” he said at last, “but…why?”
His lady laughed at him again, softer than before, and stroked his cheeks one last time before settling her hands on his shoulders. “Two reasons,” she said, wry. “First: I’d been using that shade of green for sixteen years; it was high time for a change of pace.”
Aymeric chuckled and inclined his head in concession. “A fair point,” he said, and brought the end of the braid to his lips to kiss. As he did so, Synnove’s eyes crinkled while a pleased smile pulled at her lips, a light flush dusting her cheeks; the sight caused him to grin in return, pride swelling in his chest. It was always a delight seeing how much joy she took from even the smallest of affectionate gestures.
“As for the second…” Synnove’s expression fell into pensiveness as she sighed quietly and glanced away, brow furrowing while gathering her thoughts. Aymeric frowned slightly, letting go of her braid to wrap an arm around her waist, loosely, but his lady nearly immediately took the invitation, leaning forward to bury her face in his chest with another sigh. Permission thus granted, he tightened his grip on her, and brought his other arm around her to hug her close, propping his chin atop her head, and waited.
Finally:
“I’d been thinking about it for a while,” Synnove said, her voice muffled. “Since we first returned from the First.”
Aymeric’s grip on his lady involuntarily tightened as he went rigid, before he forced himself to relax, drawing a hand up and down her spine in firm, comforting strokes—more for himself than her, for all that she melted into the touch. A lick of fiery rage coiled around his heart, hissing and spitting, not at Synnove but for her, as it had when she had slowly, hesitantly, spoke of what she and her sisters had experienced on the First. Of what she had endured. Of why she had appeared as if she was in the depths of aethershock even a sennight after returning, why she had startled so badly at the sound of cracking ice as they had taken a walk in the Pillars her third day home, why she had steadfastly refused to let salt anywhere near her food. But then, as now, the instinctive, protective anger wasn’t of use.
Synnove’s right hand slid off his shoulder and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her bending her arm in the way he knew she was about to slide that hand between them to rub at her sternum, right above her heart, the surest tell she had that she was remembering the weight of the Lightwardens’ aether. Ceasing his petting of her back, he gently caught her hand in his, and drew back enough to lift it and press his lips against her knuckles, then turning her hand over to kiss her palm.
His lady smiled at him, faint but genuine, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his chin in turn. “It didn’t feel right to make the change until we brought the rest of the Scions home,” she continued in a soft murmur, “not with so much at stake and so many unknowns. Better to wait, when that chapter was definitively closed.
“But on the First, there were times when I…I just missed the familiar. Everything was so different, in a way that wasn’t even when we traveled to Othard. Not just the sights and sounds and smells, but the very aether of that world, unsettlingly so. As if it should be familiar, but was just subtly…wrong. And I just wanted a little bit of home, even after I adapted to it.”
Synnove leaned into him again, and they resettled their limbs so that they were comfortably wrapped around one another. As Aymeric resumed rubbing her back, she rested her cheek on his heart and gave his torso a light squeeze, a comforting half-moment of pressure and warmth. “I thought about a few different options for a reminder of home when I’m far from Eorzea, even if just on the same star,” she said. “Mementos like a pressed flower from the garden, or a bag of spice from the markets, or a miniature portrait of you or Auntie. But physical items can be lost, or stolen, or destroyed.”
“Thus, the dye,” Aymeric said.
“Thus, the dye.” Synnove turned her head to prop her chin on his sternum, forcing him to pull back once more to meet her glittering eyes, and her slow smile was as radiant as any sunrise. “So that every time I looked in a mirror or a stray strand hung just in the corner of my eye, there would be a little bit of home with me.”
He had a niggling thought about why she had chosen the color—colors?—that she had…but he would rather like to hear the confirmation from her own lovely lips. “And the blue?” he said, voice light, though he wasn’t able to entirely hide his eager curiosity.
Her smile widened, affectionate and knowing, but she humored him nonetheless. “Well, I flatly refused to do anything multicolor,” she said, sly. “That would just be gauche.”
“You’re a hyur, not a bird of paradise,” Aymeric quipped.
“Precisely.” Synnove gave him a broad wink. “So, I picked blue, and with a bit of assistance from Rerenasu, managed to blend a dye that could accurately capture a few different hues. Periwinkle, for Ishgard. Sapphire, for House Borel. And a pale, icy blue,” here she paused to tap his nose with a forefinger, “for your eyes.”
Warmth suffused his chest, soft and happy and more than a little bit smug, and Aymeric found himself grinning down at his lady, charmed by her words, charmed by her, as he ever was. “I admit,” he said, quiet but pleased, “I quite like the idea of a little bit of myself traveling with you on your adventures, even if it’s merely as innocuous as a color.”
“I thought you might,” she murmured, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, her lips sweet and velvety. He tugged her closer and returned her kiss with the barest hint of teeth to nip at her, teasing until Synnove’s shoulders shook with laughter. They broke apart only long enough to rest their foreheads together and Aymeric let himself drown in the green of her eyes as she drank in the sight of him in turn, contentment settling over them like a comfortable blanket.
A flash of color came at the corner of his eye, followed by the chorus warbles of five carbuncles. Can we eat yet?
Synnove snorted, and Aymeric snickered, but they finally let go of another, and set to the task of finishing dinner preparations. And if he paused while setting the table, and filling plates, and tucking into his own meal to admire how mahogany now shaded into blue rather than green, well. Synnove, at least, did not hold it against him.