"Estinien Wyrmblood. Is that what you go calling yourself?" The voice is his as much as it isn't, but the words are coming from somewhere, something else altogether. It is familiar, yet alien. Wonderful to hear his voice again, yet terrible. "Your resentment simmers underneath everything. I can feel it. So can he. Did he tell you he was never afraid of you? He was lying. Just like you are. You can lie all you like, but underneath, you've changed nothing. Estinien Wyrmblood. Estinien de Bale."
ah— there it is once more, the ire he believed was lost in the receding tides of the war betwixt man and dragon. the consuming ire that awakened from its slumber, surging and roaring in the still waters of his emotions and rousing all the memories the great wyrm left in its wake. gruesome memories. memories he had chained along with the hatred that once flowed in his veins. and one among the many of said memories was that of a father, warm in his acceptance and even warmer in his embrace, awkward yet sincere in his attempts to bridge the gap between two lonesome people related only by chance.
and that father with his reluctant affection bestowed to him a gift far greater than what an orphan would expect: a surname, flimsy and fragile yet no less welcome than the one he had lost.
how he loathes that name, years after it was given, long after he had replaced it. how could he not, when the one thing that kept him from sinking deeper into despair was built on deception and cowardice? alberic left his family, his village, to burn. he remembers his father shielding his mother from the dragon’s wrath. he remembers his brother — his younger brother who had so much hope for the future — crushed under the masonry, a death unbefitting for a child so bright and optimistic. all those people, those lives alberic could have saved! and he saw fit to save only one child as if that could balance the weight of his sins!
alberic was a coward and a liar.
estinien would not bear using that man’s name any longer.
yet this man — weyland, not weyland, someone — saw fit to call him as such, mocking, sneering, a malicious grin beneath weyland’s face. estinien grits his teeth hard enough to make his jaw hurt.
“ you have no right to call me by that name. ” he hisses, hands balled into a fist until his nails draw blood. his fury burns so hot he could feel the scars on his shoulder and arm itch, the remnants of one who carried such sorrow and anger like his. “ lies my name may be, lies my freedom may stay, lies may remain his words and mine, but i will not have you mock us for the way we are trying to survive and grow. ”
estinien steps forward until he is mere inches from weyland, the blues of his eyes swirling with anger. not of the one soiled by the past, but for the future this being is attempting to tear down.. “we will cling onto these lies long enough for it to become the truth and you would do well to remember as much. ”
