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Aymeric doesn’t consider himself a particularly sentimental man. He likes to think of himself as practical, given the choice. Focused on what’s in front of him, and what he’s sure is real. Aymeric has told himself, for a very long time, that it’s easy to get distracted if you let too many things matter too much. He simply has too much to do. Too much to be. And it’s not that he doesn’t feel. Rather, Aymeric prefers to accept he might feel more than he ought to. Feeling is not his choice, but it can be his decision to let it slip off of him like so much snow on the wind.
Which is all to say that he doesn’t consider himself a sentimental man, but he is keenly acquainted with the nature of longing.
He has known the persistent ache of longing for as long as he’s been telling himself not to get distracted. And he likes to think this is just the way of things. There is, after all, a type of child Ishgard has perfected the creation of: Guard up. Begging for the right to a name. Guard up. There is nowhere to go but forward (there is nothing to prove but yourself). And that’s alright. He’s at peace with himself and all the petulance he’s reformed into something worth a place. He tells himself that, for all the fortune of his upbringing, the little, ugly part of him that denied him his father’s name and took away his mother is what lets him understand Ishgard’s heart.
Aymeric has gotten where he’s gotten, because he is always longing for something just out of reach.
So, maybe it has always just been a matter of time.
The Warrior of Light does not look at him the way he wants her to. Worse, really, is that she will not look at him now the way she does when they are alone. Which is not often. In fact, it is so rare that Aymeric has caught himself wondering if he’s made up the softness in her expressions when the fleeting moments pass. He’s wondered if he’s drawn something of personal motivation onto a form that is so often impassive.
The Warrior of Light manufactures a polite distance around herself so carefully, which is a practice he understands intimately. But he’s also seen her open, bloom like a flower, when Ser Haurchefant comes by. Blossom to the sun.
Aymeric is not, cannot be, the sun.
Aymeric is the sky. The horizon beyond reach, the space for everything else to grow higher.
He is no stranger to longing, but if he’s honest, never like this. There is simply nothing like this. Or so, he supposes, every lovesick fool has told themself through every page of history. Aymeric doesn’t like the person this makes him reckon with. The war is closing in, in a way that he recognizes is different from the slow breathing of conflict that has sustained them over generations. This is not an inhalation, drawing fresh tension. This is a death rattle. He can feel it in his marrow, and he thinks this feeling — along with all the rest — has come to Ishgard with the Warrior of Light too.
And that’s the problem. She’s on the periphery of his thoughts with a persistence that should trouble him; it’s too easy to catalog these things neatly: her value as an asset, her forward place in the next push on the front line, her comfort as a guest of Ishgard. But, he doesn’t want to watch her go to church with the Fortemps. He doesn’t want to hear about the room that’s been prepared for her at Camp Dragonhead. Aymeric likes to think a lot of things, but he doesn’t like to fool himself. And the longing (what else is there to do but face this) will not slip away like snow on the wind.
There is something about the way she says his name for the first time, stripping him of his titles, that shouldn’t matter, but does. He feels it lodge in his throat, and he knows the Warrior of Light can see the way he’s been struck written clear on his face. He’s never tried to hide himself so much as he’s chosen what’s worth showing. This doesn’t feel like a choice any more than the half step toward him she takes before she takes two back and offers a half-mumbled apology. Aymeric has to catch himself from reaching after her and he’s sure she’s seen that too.
He thinks he might have caught a little color on the slender column of her throat but it’s better not to start guessing.
The Warrior of Light’s eyes meet his, dark and curious from across the chapel. She stands between Knight Commander Haurchefant and the Count, and he doesn’t miss that Haurchefant has hooked his finger in hers. A little comfort, well deserved, and Aymeric tries to listen to the scriptures instead of wondering what the fine bones of her hands must feel like.
Aymeric’s father won’t claim him, but he’s still been given a place near the altar. He can practically feel the question in her stare. What a thing to work for. And he might’ve been a bit proud of himself for reaching the foot of this impassible mountain if it hadn’t meant that he’d be standing so far away from her.
Then again, Fortemps is a High House and Aymeric never had a chance. He flips through his prayer book and files all the feeling away between the pages.
When he finds her, not that he was looking, he doesn’t leave the room between them that the sunlight carves. The night is cloudy and he’s just a man at the edge of the torchlight from the bridge far above. Aymeric asks her something that feels like an excuse and she doesn’t turn him away. She never does, when they’re alone. Their breath curls on the air, mingling above their heads as he bows closer. She always speaks quietly, but its easier to miss when the dark swallows everything up so readily.
Her eyes are brighter at night, reflecting the little light caught from all around, like her pull isn’t just for him. Aymeric supposes that it’d be foolhardy to presume otherwise — he knows better than to stroke his own ego over incidental collisions meetings. This is inconsequential to everyone else but him.
Aymeric does not like the way Haurchefant stares straight through him, but he shouldn’t be surprised. They have always had something of an understanding. Sometimes, it makes him want to apologize, but the best he can do is keep his hands at his sides. It’s not like he wants anything for himself. Not really.
He finds reasons to call her to his office; the war does not require excuses. The things he asks are the things he later brings to confession (halting midnights before the deaf visage of Halone). He doesn’t admit to anyone but his bedsheets that he sometimes wonders what would happen if he didn’t always walk her back to Edmont’s manor after he reviews their wounded and dead. Aymeric fastens Naegling at his hip and tells himself that he’s gone too many years hungry to let it distract him now.
He hasn’t said a single meaningful thing to a priest since he and Estinien were the only two of their contingent of boys to walk back through the Gates of bloody Judgment. This isn’t a reason to start. When they all file out from the chapel, shoulder to shoulder and equal in the sight of the goddess at their back, he doesn’t touch her and the Warrior of Light doesn’t look his way.
Aymeric thinks she smells like ginger and violets and he wants to know what he’s supposed to do to be close enough to see the scarlet freckle in her left eye. It’s not the kind of thing he’ll wonder about too much, but he wants to know when their fingertips nearly bridge some corner of the map on his desk and her hair is falling free of the braids pinned at the nape of her neck. He doesn’t know if she realizes she’d be easy to reach, her cheek in his palm, her lips too red and willing to say yes to every prayer cleaving their future from their history.
She moves away when Lucia knocks on the door, and all he can figure is that she feels something too. This isn’t the hope she wants to bring him, but she won’t meet his eyes.
Haurchefant likes to ask him questions that he can’t answer. Aymeric reminds him that they must all do their part, and when Haurchefant smiles, Aymeric reminds himself that he never had a chance. He thinks Haurchefant and the Warrior of Light have the chance to be perfect. The Lord Commander asks if he will see them at services.
Lately, he follows the words in the hymnal like he’s never seen them before. It’s better than wondering why their seats are empty.