Chapter Text
Of course he first hears about her from Aymeric. The champion of Eorzea, rallying the disparate city-states into driving back the Garlean Empire in what had to have been the most decisive win since the calamity. The way the Lord Commander goes on about her - what he himself has only heard about her - the woman sounds more mythological than mortal, a figure given the reverence the heretics give their Saint Shiva, so Estinien doesn’t feel his initial skepticism is unwarranted.
Aymeric claims to be skeptical as well, but he can tell his friend is ruled largely by curiosity.
When they have time to speak again, it is not only after Aymeric has formally made her acquaintance but after said adventurer has defeated a primal of Shiva herself, ironically enough. While a summoning performed by those in league with Dravania is cause for reasonable alarm, Aymeric is focusing on the positives; dealing a - if not telling, at least substantial - blow to the heretics and their Lady Iceheart.
“I could not, of course, witness the battle myself, but it was most assurring that it could be single-handedly dealt with,” Aymeric concludes.
Estinien does not share his friend’s optimism. After all, if it spread that Ishgard could only hold her ground when a foreign power deigned to lend her their champion, the Dravanians were like to grow more bold, not less. Rather than say so and be deemed too discouraging, he keeps his tone bland and says, “So, this adventurer is everything she is said to be, then.”
“So it would seem,” his friend agrees absently. His eyes are on the window in his office, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “‘Tis a shame she has already given her loyalty to the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and thus, the alliance. Though I suppose even had we been in a position to proposition her first, the congregation would surely not have been eager to welcome an au ra into their ranks, no matter her talents.”
“She’s au ri?” That had not been mentioned before. “I was to believe they did not stray from the eastern continents.”
“As was I, but I know not from where she hails nor how long she has been in Eorzea.” Aymeric still gazes out the window, looking positively wistful. “I have not had as much time to speak with her as I admit I would like.”
Estinien snorts. “Careful. The congregation wouldn’t be pleased to know their Lord Commander has been seduced by some foreign adventurer, either.”
Predictably, Aymeric is startled into giving Estinien his full attention again, his face a bright red. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m- I mean, she’s lovely, objectively speaking.” Estinien properly laughs at that ridiculous statement. Aymeric waves a hand impatiently. “The point is if, as we’ve seen, the horde is gearing up for something bigger, we have an ally able to deal with a number of threats that we cannot - or cannot alone.”
How quickly the mood sobers again - but the focus is rightfully turned back to matters of real import. Still, his friend’s sentiment lingers in his thoughts, and would for some time to follow. He won’t make plans without seeing her skill firsthand but if she turns out to be everything Aymeric claims… perhaps, with her aid, the hour of his vengeance will soon be at hand.
“So, you are the adventurer of whom they spoke… I see now why my blood fair sang in anticipation of our meeting.”
Cimorene raises an eyebrow. Of all the opening lines she had expected this was not among them. The dragoon, clad in sleek black armor unlike any knights she’s seen, meets her gaze steadily. At least, she feels that he does - she cannot see his eyes underneath his helm, but the focus is still noticeable. At this point she is all too familiar with the sensation of being sized up, so she does little more than lift her chin slightly, and lets him draw what conclusions he may.
He lets Aymeric do the majority of the talking, just as she does with Alphinaud. Throughout their usual political song and dance, her eye is drawn back to him repeatedly, trying to take his measure in turn. The way he is spoken of, as though he is not standing in the room presently, is uncomfortably reminiscent of early conversations she has been a part of among the Scions and - more recently - the Crystal Braves. She wonders if this Azure Dragoon feels her same conflict; that lending his skills is never questioned by those he is in service to, but knowing that, even if it were, he couldn’t very well say no, knowing that those skills are singularly what is keeping the causes he believes in alive.
Then he speaks of Nidhogg, and she quickly realizes their differences.
His voice is low, rough and intense - and the anger that simmers barely beneath its surface is audible even to her, a complete stranger. In it Cimorene hears not only his righteous fury toward his homeland’s scourge, but the fierce protectiveness he has for that home.
Eorzea is her home, in the sense that she lives there, in the sense that she has gotten to know the people who call it home and she wishes to protect them. Her loyalty is to them, to the promise she made to herself after her father’s pointless death; she would protect those who could not protect themselves, people guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, while her reasons for becoming an adventurer - and through it, apparently, the Warrior of Light - were personal, it was a wide net she cast. The boundaries of city states and nations mattered not at all and her enemy was not some single entity or organization, but anyone who cared not for the suffering of others.
Alphinaud is, of course, glad of any opportunity to rally the alliance another time and Cimorene doesn’t have the words to reign him in. For her part, although no one has asked, she is certainly not opposed to assisting Ishgard again. Whatever their reputation may be, she’s found them to be no more proud than the average resident of Ul’dah or insular than any Gridanian and she is regularly called to their aid. Regardless of this Nidhogg and his army’s reasoning, she does not believe an entire city needs suffer for it.
While Alphinaud and Aymeric finish their discussion, she meets the dragoon’s eye - or near enough - once more. It feels important somehow, that he knows she wants to help, not that she is merely being conscripted into doing so. But she doesn’t have the words for that, either. So she simply gives the smallest of nods.
“Come, Cimorene, we must make haste to the Rising Stones,” Alphinaud is saying. Not long ago she would have been annoyed at her young companion’s constant need to keep moving - and even now she still intends to make him linger long enough for her to give a more… personal farewell to Lord Haurchefant before they leave - but she is beginning to understand it. Her recent days have gotten steadily more hectic and she feels pulled in a hundred directions at once. It is as though something is mounting, something more than just whatever escalation these dragons have in mind. She only wishes she knew what it was.
When her eyes flick to Ser Estinien a final time, he returns her nod. That’s enough for now.
In spite of what Aymeric might say, Estinien is perfectly capable of admitting when he is wrong.
Eorzea’s Warrior of Light is far tinier than he’d expected from the way Aymeric and others spoke of her and in their introductory meeting she had spoken not a word, but there had been a fierce determination in her vibrant yellow eyes that had spoken of confidence, not arrogance. She knew what she was capable of, and didn’t need to prove herself to anyone. It had served, far beyond any words of praise she had been granted, as the most assuring thing about her yet.
And she lived up to it. He did not spend much time in close quarters with her at the Steps of Faith but he still bore witness to her prowess. She is every bit the capable fighter she had been made out to be, and beyond that she is versatile. One second she’d been alternating hurling blasts of aether at the advancing horde and using it to heal the knights around her - himself included - and the next, she’d taken out a bow he hadn’t seen she had; taking down beasts nearly three times her size with a single arrow each.
A thought had itched at his brain then, barely noticeable with everything else going on at the time but with every day following victory - a victory he can admit Ishgard would not have claimed without the aid of her and hers - it has grown louder and louder.
How would she fare with a lance?
The Eye has never claimed more than one Azure Dragoon in a generation, but even so he can imagine she would be formidable indeed. And, were he to seek her aid in slaying Nidhogg- not that he’s decided on that yet. It is merely a thought.
Not that he can act on any of those thoughts following the horde’s defeat; he doesn’t know where she is. Eorzea, of course, and with her Scions but he knows little of their regular goings on and had previously had no interest. Still, when Aymeric is invited to a banquet celebrating Ishgard and the Alliance's growing communication, he almost asks if his friend will talk to the young woman for him, before he realizes he doesn’t even know what he means to say. Let me train you as a dragoon so you can help me kill the dread wyrm Nidhogg is perhaps not the best sentiment to give someone he has never really spoken to.
The night of the banquet comes and with it another assault on the capital. It is handled to the best of the knights’ abilities without their Lord Commander, but it is a sobering reminder of what is to come since Nidhogg’s awakening. When Aymeric calls him the following morning, Estinien is prepared to speak on that - perhaps even convince him to call on the Warrior of Light to aid in slaying the creature outright - only to find his friend standing before his desk, several torn open missives in front of him and his hair and attire thoroughly disheveled. He is still formally dressed, likely what he had worn to the banquet. He must not have slept.
“What is that?”
Aymeric doesn’t look up from the papers. “These are missives from Ul’Dah and Mor Dhona, demanding we turn over the Scions of the Seventh Dawn for their crimes of treason against Eorzea.”
Estinien blinks, feeling as though his friend just spoke a foreign language to him. “What?”
Aymeric slams a hand down on the table. “I knew I shouldn’t have left that banquet; I knew something wasn’t right, but I could not risk being wrong. Something happened, and I’m certain it is not what’s being reported here.”
He doesn’t know the rest of the Scions but the thought of that young lordling, the one present when he had first met with the Warrior of Light - talkative and the very picture of principled - even being an accomplice in treason is laughable. The Warrior of Light herself might be, essentially, a sword for hire but even then he cannot imagine any amount of offered coin being enough to become the enemy of several world powers. But whether she and hers had been played or framed mattered not now.
“So, what is the plan, then? The Vault and the congregation have enough on their plates right now without inviting trouble from the alliance, but it would behoove us to keep on their erstwhile champion’s good side rather than turn her over on false accusations.” Aymeric says nothing and Estinien’s eyes narrow. “You aren’t planning to turn her over, are you?”
“That’s just it; she’s not here.” Aymeric paces behind his desk, still agitated. “At least not that any knights posted throughout the city can attest. If she- if the Scions are in Coerthas, it’s somewhere where they’ve escaped our notice.”
So that’s why he was called. “You want me to look for them.”
Aymeric sighs. “Your moves are under far less scrutiny than mine, or any of the temple knights for that matter. I have a… hunch of where she and her companions may be sheltering, but I dare not write and risk compromising what safety they’ve found.”
“Very well. Do you want them brought to Ishgard?”
“No,” he says immediately. Then after a pause, “Not yet, anyway. It is as you say, now is not the time. I- I wish to know she is safe. That is all.”
Another time Estinien might have again teased his friend for his clear infatuation, but not now. Besides, he had his own reasons to want her safe.
“Very well,” he repeats. “Where should I begin?”
Not a full bell later, he is in Camp Dragonhead, a short missive from Aymeric in his possession.
“Ser Estinien! Now this is quite the surprise!” Lord Haurchefant’s tone is bright and airy, as it always seems to be, but Estinien can hear the slightest edge to it. He knows why he is here, and in that alone, Estinien knows Aymeric was correct in guessing the Warrior of Light’s place of shelter. “Is there aught I can do for you?”
“Ser Aymeric knew I would be in the area and bid me leave a message with you,” he says. A simple enough statement, not entirely a lie. He finds the envelope Aymeric gave him and hands it over.
Haurchefant reads it quickly, and does a masterful job of not reacting. “Of course,” he says promptly. “There is much I would like to share with the Lord Commander in return, but perhaps it would be better discussed in the intercessory. If you would…”
The second they are alone, the knight’s smile is gone. “Cimorene is here, yes, along with Master Alphinaud Levillieur and Mistress Tataru Taru of the Scions. The rest, I regret to say, are still unaccounted for.”
He recognizes Alphinaud as the little lord he had met before and Cimorene… he must admit he cannot remember if he had known the Warrior of Light’s given name before this moment. “That is well,” he says simply. “Are you capable of keeping them here indefinitely? Aymeric does not believe now is the right time to seek the Holy See’s protection.”
“‘Twas my feelings on the matter as well; I already have told them as such rather than instill any false hope,” Haurchefant says. He sighs. “Tell Ser Aymeric not to concern himself overmuch with dealing with the Vault. When the time comes, I will beseech my father to offer them the shelter of our House.”
From behind his helm, Estinien raises his eyebrows. Lord Haurchefant’s parentage is not a secret, and Count Fortemps did openly claim him, but nonetheless since being given his post at Camp Dragonhead, the young man had never once returned to the capital. It is abundantly clear to the entirety of Ishgard that he is not on the best of terms with his family - and yet he would return for the sake of the Scions. No, for the sake of the Warrior of Light. Perhaps Aymeric is not the only one bewitched.
“I shall inform the Lord Commander,” is all he says.
A smile returns to Haurchefant’s face. “Thank you.”
That taken care of, Estinien exits to a near whiteout as is typical of a Coerthan day. He can navigate to Ishgard easily enough but it is perhaps one of the rare occurrences he is willing to take an Aetheryte, and Camp Dragonhead has one easily accessible.
He’s halfway across the courtyard, following the dim blue light that is still visible through the snowstorm, when he walks directly into someone. Looking down - quite a long way down - he is met with the glowing eyes he has only seen on one person.
Cimorene, the Warrior of Light, looks up at him from under a hooded robe. A bow is strapped to her back, as are several carcasses - apparently earning her keep through hunting. Her face is in shadow but in better visibility than they currently have one could still see the scales that adorn her face and the fan-like horns that protrude on either side. He knows no one that looks like her, and he expects anyone from Eorzea who came looking would easily be able to put two and two together.
He shakes himself; she is Lord Haurchefant’s charge, not his. Still, he can see the initial surprise on her face turn to wariness. She does not know him, doesn’t even know Aymeric for that matter, and after what she has just been through is understandably unsure of her safety. He doesn’t have time or words to explain what brought him here.
“I was never here,” he says flatly.
Those eyes, bright as two spots of sunlight in the frozen tempest surrounding them, widen briefly then soften with a small, gentle smile. She gives him the barest hint of a nod then moves past him to enter the main hall. As she brushes past he thinks he might have heard the quietest, “Thank you.”
The doors close behind her, and Estinien is alone in the cold. He shakes himself again, and takes the Aetheryte home.