Chapter Text
‘Twas passing strange, the way the sky had turned a dull, burnt orange. There was not a cloud in sight, from what he could see from the view his window provided him. He sat at his foster father’s desk, sipping tea from his foster mother’s favorite cup as he looked out over Ishgard from the office of the Lord Commander, watching as ancient stonework crumbled into nothingness. What had destroyed the buildings and their denizens was… unclear, as was the complete absence of sound, be it from concerned citizens or otherwise.
Frankly, he was rather confused as to why he was not more concerned himself. Yet as every stone, every beast, every person he had vowed to protect turned to nothingness before him, he found that all he was compelled to do was remain where he was and sip his tea.
“Aymeric,” a voice reached his ears. It sounded familiar—very familiar—and yet he could not place it, nor gather from it any great significance.
“Aymeric!” it rang out again, with no small amount of annoyance, and suddenly Aymeric was opening bleary eyes, a firm arm shaking his shoulder with rather more force than was necessary. He awoke to find that he was not in some strange mixture of his childhood home and the Lord Commander’s office—nay, he was not even in Ishgard, for his unit had departed on an excursion into the highlands nearly a week ago, now. His bedroll rested uncomfortably upon the lumpy ground, spared the worst of the elements by the small, grey tent above his head.
The tent that housed not only himself, but his—
“Fury forfend,” Estinien gasped, exasperated. The elezen’s hand left his shoulder, and Aymeric blinked as the profile of his companion came into clearer view. Estinien stood above him, the snowy white hair that framed his grumpy countenance already tied back, his friend seemingly prepared for the day before dawn had even broken.
“I would have had an easier time rousing the dead,” Estinien declared, glowering at him, metallic steel eyes meeting wintry blue—his bark, in this instance, far worse than his bite.
Aymeric opened his mouth to mumble something snide in reply, only to lose it in a yawn. While the Coerthan spring had as-yet been mild, Aymeric found himself positively freezing. He absently reached for the thin, scratchy, standard-issue blanket given to all Temple Knight recruits and tugged it up over his shoulder, turning to press his face back into his pillow.
“Oh no you don’t,” Estinien hissed. “Not again.”
The aspiring dragoon reached forward and, in a striking display of audacity, pulled the blanket all the way back before dropping it unceremoniously to the ground.
Aymeric groaned, perfectly unhappy as he glared daggers at his friend and fellow Temple Knight.
“‘Tis still early,” he whined, burying his face in the crook of his elbow.
“We have a long march ahead of us,” Estinien said plainly, as though Aymeric did not know, before his tone darkened, “... and the chance of Dravanian attack besides. Get up, so we can eat something and you can wake up properly before we set out.”
Aymeric frowned. Estinien had a point, as usual—his complaints, as they so often were, ultimately founded in concern.
“It is unnatural, your affinity for mornings,” Aymeric said, in lieu of something far more sentimental. For the many moons Aymeric had known Estinien Varlineau, he had never known him to sleep in. In fact, excepting the occasions where his nightmares forced him to forgo sleep entirely, Estinien seemed to wake at the same time, without fail, every single morning, irregardless of how late he may have stayed up the night before. He never groused, nor even moped, perpetually unbothered to be up before sunrise. He was, however, apparently determined to drag Aymeric from slumber along with him, allegedly for his own good.
Estinien raised a singular snowy eyebrow, expression wry.
“Spoken like a true nobleman,” he remarked, ignoring the way Aymeric rolled his eyes. “Now, would you dress already? If we are quick, mayhap there will be time enough to prepare some eggs.”
Shaking off the last dregs of sleep and the remnants of rather odd dreams, Aymeric finally sat up, running his hands through unruly raven hair and stretching his limbs until they cracked.
“Aye, Ser Estinien,” he announced after a moment, standing and flashing his omelette-craving companion a grin. “Let us see what the day brings, then.”