Chapter Text
“What do you mean she’s missing?”
Aymeric’s lips thin. He sighs and slumps his shoulders. “You saw it, Estinien. That light.”
Estinien scowls. Of course he had seen it—it was hard not to with how close to the battle he had been. He had been crouched behind some debris, prepared to leap to the Warrior of Light’s aid should the moment arise for it. And certainly, it nearly had. Zenos had matched her every swing of her greatsword with a block of his katana, and likewise she blocked his every slice. But the Warrior was mortal despite her godlike strength, and Zenos was possessed by something more. Something sinister.
“Ascians,” she had called them. “Servants of Zodiark.” It hadn’t meant anything to him except for disturbing strength and a penchant for sowing chaos.
Of course, he hadn’t been prepared for that otherworldly, blinding light. He’d wager Cirina hadn’t either. One moment she is standing there, chest heaving, few fulms between her and the Garlean-cum-Ascian. The next, a searing light engulfs the two, and when it recedes Zenos collapsed on the ground, alone and unconscious.
Estinien hadn’t thought anything of it, frankly. He had thought, perhaps, she had gone to aid the Domans, or returned to the Alliance camp to send for aid for the Domans. It hadn’t been important at the time.
It was now.
Then
The Warrior of Light, quite frankly, felt like shit.
Her limbs ached. Her head ached. Her hair ached even—she hadn’t bothered to take it out of its careful braids when she had been given notice that the thrice-damned prince of Garlemald was on his way, had barely even had time to fling on a few bits of armor before she was rushing to save her friends and hopefully put him down—for good this time.
The first—well, not the first, but the most recent fight had been a challenge. The first had been a complete, shameful wash, embarrassing in retrospect but even that had been difficult. Her Echo simply didn’t work against him, and she found herself flung back or electrocuted no few amount of times before she learned to read him with her eyes and not with her Echo. But she had won, and he had summoned a dragon, and then he had slit his own throat.
Disappointing, but it was over at least.
So of course, finding out his corpse was up and walking around with an Ascian walking around it—either the mysterious Emet-Selch or enigmatic Elidibus—was not fantastic news. But she had a job to do.
All of which was to say, fighting Zenos sucked, fighting Shinryu sucked, and fighting a surprisingly emotive Elidibus-as-Zenos had really sucked.
And then she was Called.
That’s what Krile had called it. That’s what it felt like. Someone calling to her.
Throw wide the gates, the voice had said, helpfully vague. Embrace eternity, whatever the fuck that meant (didn’t Sophia say something similar too?). All bullshit meant to divide—perhaps literally—her from the Scions. Her from her friends.
Gods, the fear that Alisaie had shown…hopefully she and Alphinaud were reunited somewhere, somehow.
“Oh dear.”
Ah, a voice. She’d been sitting here—well, curled up in a tiny ball really, it was cold here and she didn’t exactly have any clothes on—for some time now and was wondering, well, when something would happen.
“Warrior…of light?” The voice asked awkwardly. She heard the shifting of cloth, an uncomfortable clearing of throat. “Are you perhaps awake?”
“Yes,” she says curtly. She knows that the person speaking is the one who called her. Who’s made an absolute fucking mess of things. She knows that where she was, she no longer is, and that she will be royally pissed when she discovers why.
She opens her eyes.
Now
“Estinien. Sit.” Aymeric pushes a chair towards him across the dirt floor. Estinien squints at it, still tense with unreleased energy and anxiety, but sits down roughly into it. His leg bounces with tension. Aymeric sighs, and collapses across from him.
“The last we spoke with the Warrior of Light—with Cirina,” he says, and Estinien knows he is no longer simply addressing him as the Lord Commander, but instead as a fellow friend of Cirina’s, “was when she was leaving for the Ghimlyt Dark again.”
“To combat Zenos.”
Aymeric nods. “Aye. To be frank, I half-wondered…if she wouldn’t make it back.” Aymeric pauses. The words clearly pain him to admit. Estinien can understand, of course. He had been there not a malm behind her, watching her for any break in her strength or her stance, any indication that she would--that she would lose.
Against an Ascian, the Warrior of Light may very well struggle. But combined with his power of Nidhogg, they would surely succeed.
Of course, it had all come to naught.
Aymeric runs a hand down his face, looking haggard and stressed. He sighs once more and glances over to him. Estinien hadn’t told a soul that he had been following Cirina but somehow, Aymeric knows. He can see it in his eyes.
“Tell me what you saw.”