played for nearly 7 hours straight today on the count that i have no lectures on wednesdays and made it maybe (?) halfway through post-heavensward. im not sure but i honestly thought it was over after we killed Big Hogg and got estinien back but its still going.
i really love aymeric and how righteous he is i think i just have a thing for the knightly and just
i've been meaning to draw my wol, elbiene, pre ARR... so here she is!
she was disowned from her clan of duskwight after recklessly going above ground to seek out information on how to fix their failing wards (and inadvertently making matters worse).
her being strictly trained as an arcanist specializing in wards does finally bear fruit, however; she strikes a deal with a traveling hrothgar merchant named svanka. in exchange for being taught archery, elbiene would use her magic to protect svanka's goods while on the road.
in an attempt to distance herself from her past and to pave a new path as an adventurer, elbiene tries to avoid using her magic further, and sets her sights on joining the archery guild in gridania.
ahah noooo elbiene don't become the warrior of light and hop from one cage of responsibility to another haha nooo...
lines are done!
i....feel like the front part of his hair isn't good enough but........i also don't have the energy to redraw it.............but also.........perfection calls T o T/
word count: 4k || POV second person || SB patch 4.5 spoilers || wolmeric
summary: aymeric can try to let his feelings die all he wants. he will fail.
When Estinien had dropped you with Aymeric before hopping back to continue the fight on your behalf, Aymeric forgot how to breathe for a second.
Heās no stranger to deaths on the battlefield ā his comrades he had grown up with and lost in the Dragonsong War, Haurchefant, and nearly Estinien, alongside countless others he had commanded under his hand. Heavy is the title of Lord Commander over his head, and once more is he reminded of how fragile the lives of people are. The Warrior of Light was not exempt from this weakness, even if Hydaelyn herself had smiled on the woman, even if you had once bested Zenos and killed the man before.
Especially with the Scions dropping one after another and losing their souls within their bodies, Aymeric had perhaps been purposely ignoring that sooner or later, You would join the rest of them. It might be why he abandons his duty altogether, yelling over the violence and blood at Kan-E-Senna that he was going to pull the Warrior of Light to safety. The sound of war is enough to drown out the racing heart and palms that threaten to let you slip out of his grasp because of his anxiety. He is worried. As one would be, he tries to tell himself, but heās well aware that his anxiety stems not from the fact that the world is about to lose the Warrior of Light, but that he would be losingĀ you. A selfish worry that he should not be allowed to have, yet one that has been bubbling in his chest since heād grown aware that he held affections for you.
A voice in the back of his head betrays him by calling him selfish.
He is far from it. He knows this because he could have chosen to be selfish at any point in the journey. He could have chosen to abandon his post and follow you when you had offered him a position as your traveling companion. He could have abandoned Ishgard when he had stepped down as temporary head of the city-state. He could have abandoned his people and post at any point of the way, yet he stayed. Even when he had craved for a reprieve to follow the Warrior of Light after he had stepped down, he had honored the mantle and returned to his duties when he had been voted back in. He could not abandon his people no matter how much his heart craved something different.
He isnāt necessarily the first person to love you, and he doubts heād be the last.
It seemed only natural that the Warrior of Light would warrant so much praise and love from everyone. When he had retreated and informed the other leaders that he would bring you to Ishgard ā far, far away from Ala Mhigo, no one had any complaints. He could guarantee that you received the best treatment you could. Not that he doubted the other leaders, but it was more within his grasp and control. He knew the healers in Ishgard, and that was more than enough. You were in critical condition, and his main concern was that you would not die in his arms the same way Haurchefant had. He knows his healers can bring you back and make a full recovery. As much as you could with the kind of wounds you'd bore from the fighting.
Terrifying in retrospect, but you mean so much more to him than anyone else did, so it felt only natural.
He could deny the self all he wanted, but the truth was laid bare.
The word love felt pale in the honesty of his feelings.
But who was he to covet who was meant for everyone? Even ifā
You stir in his arms, most likely from discomfort, and he holds you closer, ignoring that your blood is staining his clothes.
The field behind him has gone silent. Ringing in his ear from the gunfire of the Garleans does little to stop him from running through the soldiers and yelling that he would be saving the Warrior of Light. Estinien could hold the frontline where you had weakened Zenos significantly, and he had to make sure that you would be evacuated to somewhere that the Garleans couldnāt possibly dream of attacking.
He has to bring you home to Ishgard.
He brushes the hair from your face, wincing at the blood pooling around your eye, yelling for a nearby healer to at least stop the bleeding when he manages to return to base.
He brushes his thumb, bloody with your blood, over the cut, and he gasps when the gash continues pouring out blood.
His thumb brushes over the back of your hand when an astrologian finally shows up.
One of the healers hovers over you, concentrated on the wound on your face, and Aymeric watches as the bleeding stills, nodding as he continues pushing towards the airships. He has to get you to safety. You were reaching your limit. The headaches in the middle of meetings, the scions dropping one after the other, and you yourself are a scion, so it only seemed to make sense that you too would be next, but in the middle of a war was terrifying. He couldnāt bear to think that your soul would be ripped from your body the same way as the other scions.
To think Eorzea almost lost the Warrior of Light.
To think he nearly lost you.
You will not remember this, and he will lie to himself to say that this was out of necessity to ensure your survival, but he will know he is lying to himself. The same way he knows that heās lying to himself when he pushes down his feelings for you and reads your letters from your adventures in Doma. The part of him that yearns to be with you will fester under his skin ā ugly like sores on the sick, but he will remind himself again and again that you are not his to love. He will remember again and again that his affections for you meant little in the large picture of Eorzea that you fight so valiantly to protect.
You can do better. You're the Warrior of Light, and heāsā¦ bastard child of the late archbishop, the man who nearly razed Eorzea to the ground when the Eyes of Nidhogg had been failed to be properly disposed of, and nothing more than Lord Speaker. His titles glimmer in the eye of the average man, but he is no Warrior of Light. He is not you, who carries the weight of a world, and he is no primal slayer who has destroyed multiple threats to the peace of Eorzea. He pales in comparison to you, perhaps. No. Not perhaps. 'Tis the truth.
He could never measure up to even a fraction of who you are.
He holds you closer to himself when you stir once more, and the chirurgeons take you off his hands as he watches, mildly paralyzed in the airship, as he shakes.
āTheir eye.ā He rasps. āThere is blood around their eye. An astrologian has stopped the bleeding, but the wound is deep. Make sure it will cause no complications. Please.ā
The chirurgeon nods at Aymeric, and he stands to the side, iron filling his lungs, anxiety rattling in his chest.
āMy lord. There is blood on your armor.ā
āTis the warriorās.ā He shakes his head, and he holds his elbows as he watches the healers work on you.
His hands shake with an uncertainty heās denied himself for a long time. He couldnāt shake. Not when he was the Viscount of the House de Borel, not when he became Lord Commander of the Temple Knights, and most certainly not when he is the Lord Speaker. Yet, he cannot control it this time, he finds. The fear of losing you terrifies him to no end. Never has he been faced with the threat of a shattered heart instead of an overworked mind.
He cannot begin to imagine a world where he would have to live without you after knowing you for however long he has known you ā no. He knows how long heās known you. Counted the days, even, perhaps. Unconsciously, but still counted nonetheless. How powerless he was in the face of affection that he was not allowed to harbor.
āAymericā¦ā
and heās by your side immediately, hand taken in his, your name whispered back so you can relax.
The people would most likely assume that it was out of your bond formed during the Dragonsong War, and he lies to himself to say that it is, but he knows the truth is that he holds affection for you beyond what he should be allowed to hold. He covets someone that is not his to covet. Heās held back for fury knows how long, and itās tearing him from the inside out. Weeds in a path of stone, tearing and tearing at his heart until he acknowledges that he is beyond saving. He loves you, as the average man would say.
Itās impossible to deny, yet he tries anyway.
Bury himself in work, rebuild Ishgard until there was truly nothing to work on, and maybe then, he would be rewarded with a moment of respite with you where he could visit Doma with you. Or somewhere else. Even to have you over for dinner again would be nice. Anything at this point. Heās not picky. He justā¦ you need a break.
Just a moment with you. Once more. Before the world whisks them both away with responsibilities that neither of them can turn down.
A second to be selfish.
But he focuses on the task at hand, squeezing your hand when your brows furrow from the healing, and he lets out a breath in relief when the healers tell him that you will survive.
His shoulders tense less, but he holds onto you anyway, quiet prayers in the back of his mind that he grew up whispering to himself, quiet on his tongue as he holds your hand to his forehead. You will survive, but he is terrified that you would never wake. Thereās no way something like this would kill off the Warrior of Light, but Aymeric finds himself worrying anyway. You're the only one heād ever worry to this extent. Itās almost stupid of him to be worrying over Hydaelynās champion, but he canāt seem to help it.
How horrifically weak of him.
It would take a moment for the airship to arrive in Ishgard, but he keeps you close with him, in his arms, when they finally do land, and Aymeric finds that even after the worst of it, heās still worried. like a looming storm over his head. Heās relieved that you're alright and has made it to Ishgard alive, but surely calling his name while unconscious meant nothing. It couldnāt mean anything. It had to mean nothing. He wouldnāt dare to believe that you perhaps felt even a fragment of what he felt for you.
Itās a punishment for patricide.
A punishment for leaving a trail of blood in order to push Ishgard towards a brighter future.
Itās unbecoming of him.
Itās unbecoming of him to be so shaken up and worried over someone, but he canāt help it. Itās like denying himself of breathing, and heās denied himself again and again when it came to you that he couldnāt do it anymore. He wished not to burden you with his feelings. You already carried the burden of the world. Of Eorzea. Now, even possibly the other place where all the Scions had disappeared to. Your burdens grow heavier and heavier, and he can do naught else but pray for your safety and beg for your survival. That he would see you again once more.
It was just so horrible of him to expect that you would spare time to spend with him when they were both already so busy.
He arranges for a room to be set for the Warrior of Light, and he tucks you in himself. Itās only once the healers change you out of your armor that he notices that somehow heās gotten more of your blood all over him. Itās not unwelcome, but he doubts you'd like to wake to him red with your blood.
Only when you're confirmed to be stabilized does he allow for the healers to usher him into the next room over to change his clothes.
āLord Speaker.ā
āYes.ā
āThey will be alright. They will wake soon.ā
Aymeric exhales, smiling at the worker.
Restrain, restrain, hold back. Aymeric realizes heās been doing an awful job at pretending that heās alright despite it all. Itāsā¦new. Thatās all heād allow himself to say. He finds himself wavering over you regardless of how bad he wishes he could hold back. Heās held you more in the past day than he has during the entirety of the Dragonsong War or anytime before that. Itās painfully new, and the scent of your life lingers on his skin in a way that he dares not get used to.
āI must look worried.ā
āYour brows have been permanently frowned since we found you, my lord.ā
Aymeric shakes his head, trying to loosen his expression a little.
āYou must be worried for the Warrior of Light, ser. We all are.ā The medic smiles, and Aymeric welcomes the change of clothes, staring at your blood that had gotten all over him.
He cannot recall the last time he had so much of someone elseās blood on him.
His fingers linger over the blood, and for a moment, a terrifyingly brief moment, he considers smelling the iron and letting it flood his senses more than it already has. A horrible thought, really. A lingering affection that whispers in his ear to stay as close to you as possible. To admit to you that heād love nothing more than to be yours, but oh, Aymeric is everything but selfish. He cannot covet the world. He is but a piece in your life, and thatās more than enough. It should be more than enough.
He should be satisfied with what little part he plays in your life.
The blood stains his fingers when he removes his hand from the red on his top, and he pinches and then brushes the thumb over his index and pointer fingers, watching the blood dry and rub. It feels strangelyā¦ he cannot say it. It would be a betrayal of something. Instead, he pulls for one of the cloths provided to him to wash off with, and he watches the red rub from his fingers, scent of iron still fluttering in the air.
You almost died.
The knowledge of you healed and alive in the next room over should release the tension in his chest, but itās more than your life at this point. The knot in his chest had been building since heād acknowledged his feelings for you during the war. Since heād decided itād be best to bury his feelings and let them die. But weeds and seeds crack and flourish in the ground, and where Aymeric thought he had left as an abandoned thought now spanned a field of unacknowledged affection begging for attention.
Affection that screamed for him to look at it. Acknowledge it. Beg and cry for his honesty to tend to his affections. To push him into a corner where he could do nothing but be honest. Force him to either tug at the weeds in his heart or give up and accept that his affections and attachment to you. Aymeric has spent so long trying to stop it, begging that his heart would still and let him live without acknowledging how much he craved to stand by you. The field begs for attention.
To force him to look back at the field of affection heās neglected yet somehow still flourishes.
The world could have another Warrior of Light, but oh, Aymeric could never have another you.
You have to wake up.
Prayers in his hand and whisper to the divine on his lips, you have to wake up.
Please.
He rests in the room next to yours ā a wall away and close enough that he can hear when you stir awake, but far enough that he is not overstaying a welcome he is unsure if he has. Itās already bad enough. Had he been even a fraction less disciplined, heād be camped up in your room and working from there, uncaring for what people would say, but his concern is that you would get swept up in rumours about him. So he. He cannot. He is not in a position to do that. To you, or anyone else. His feelings must die with him.
His only wish when he rests is that you be awake when he wakes.
The night is kind to you both.
He wakes to a message from Tataru back in the Rising Stones,
The woman is inconsolable as Aymeric assures you in the letter that the Warrior of Light would recover, and perhaps itās a sense of relief that flushes over him that reminds him that even if the rest of the world would revere you as the Warrior of Light, you had friends who remembered that you were mortal despite it all. He writes back that he would send you back their way to ensure that you didnāt just run headfirst back into battle. You have fought the good fight. 'Tis the rest of Eorzeaās turn now. Eorzea isnāt so weak as to have to have a single person fight a continentās war for them.
He receives updates from the soldiers on the field, working from the spare room in the infirmary, giving orders and counting the names of those who were lost and sent out. Itās not enough to give orders from a room yalms away, but he dares not to leave your side. He would contribute little to the battle if he were so concerned over your health that he couldnāt even focus properly. Estinien was aiding them for now, and despite his bluntness, he trusts that he would be a good replacement on the field, even if temporarily.
Heās relieved to be notified that Zenos has left the battlefield.
The alliance notifies him that the fighting has died down for the most part, and Aymeric is glad that you would not be sent right back to fight after recovering ā not that any of the alliance leaders would allow you to, but sometimes your responsibilities had you rushing to aid others before you could heal. Heās guilty of the same thing, but by the fury, if he isnāt worried that you're going to drop dead from helping others first.
He sets the pen down, pushing his hair back as he hisses in stress, familiar prayers on his tongue as he wonders if you would wake within the day.
Itās quite daunting, and heād never forgive himself if somehow things went awry and you really never did wake up, but he canāt dwell on things that cannot happen. Things that should not happen.
Feelings aside, he would never forgive himself if the Warrior of Light never woke up.
It would neverā
Shhft.
Aymericās running to the next room before he can think, doors thrown open to check on you.
There was sound.
And he exhales when he notices you've sat up, breath freed from the lodging in his throat, sprinting to a screech when he hears the stir, and he allows himself one small slip.
The excitement on his face and relief in his heart could be smothered by nothing.
Nothing except the need to cough and act as though he hadnāt just sprinted to a full stop to your room in excitement like some dog.
āYou're awake.ā The words slip from him before he can hope to compose himself. āThank heavens!ā
You hold your head, turning to look at Aymeric.
āWhat happened?ā
Aymeric pulls a seat next to your bed, taking your hand into his as he sits down.
āIn the midst of your duel, it is said you faltered, and that the crown prince seized the opportunity to deliver a mortal blow.ā Aymeric starts, and the rest of his words feel like a blur. Itās just explanation. Estinienās unceremonious farewell. The damage was near your eye, but narrowly missed it. Your vision will be back in a short period of time, but it is advised you not use it for the time being. He looks into your eyes, shoulders relaxing when he wonders how you're faring bearing the burden of the world on your shoulders.
Your name slips out in a quiet whisper.
You look at him, and he exhales.
āPlease...concentrate on your own recovery for now.ā He hopes, prays, begs, even, that maybe his words would reach you. Your burden was too big to bear alone, and those who shared the burden were now dropping one by one. Leaving you truly alone. But you aren't alone. The entirety of Eorzea stands behind you in this fight. It is a shared burden that you need not carry all on your own. āYou have carried the hopes of some half-dozen nations, and we are all eternally grateful for your efforts, but no one is without their limits. Not even you.ā
Aymeric hopes you'd remember that you are human. Heād watched you run back and forth on the frontlines of war without breath or break, and it was heartbreaking. Heād hope that somehow you would remember that the Warrior of Light was nothing more than a title and not who you are. It was a title. It wasnāt you yourself. You are mortal, and mortals have to rest and breathe and sleep. You are flesh and bone behind the title of Hero of Eorzea. Even if you would not rest for yourself until everything was at peace once more, you should at least remember to breathe in between running around.
And when you look at him with a half smile, he lets his shoulders relax.
Heās long overstayed his welcome in Ishgard. The frontlines were waiting for him. Heād been here for as long as you were out. He hadnāt let you leave his sight, opting to give orders from Ishgard instead. Catch up on paperwork that couldnāt be done on the battlefield. He must return now, but this time, without you. A war could not be fought from the office. Despite Zenosā withdrawal, there was still very much a fight going on. You needed the restā and perhaps to find your friends. The alliance could hold down the fort without you. The world will not end if the Warrior of Light rests for a day.
He resists the urge to brush the bandage covering your eye, fingers instead squeezing yours for the umpteenth time.
āLeave this fight to us, my friend. You have earned your rest.ā He squeezes your hand, and he pauses as he gets ready to leave. āAh, but before I forget... I was asked to deliver a message as soon as you awoke. A reminder that you are not alone, though many of your allies have fallen. When you are well and rested, you are to return home, where friends will be waiting for you.ā
You smile, and Aymeric squeezes your hand one final time before letting go.
You squeeze back.
āNow, if you will excuse me, I must return to the front. May we meet again soon. Under happier circumstances.ā
Aymeric turns to leave, to return to continue the fight in your honor, but misses the way that his words do have the intended effect. You watch him disappear behind the door, heart eerily still in your chest, staring at the hand that Aymeric had held and squeezed. Your gaze lingers, and something flutters in the back of your chest, a feeling that you donāt pinpoint, but becomes aware of.
You're upset he had left so quickly.
And a feeling that Aymeric dares not dream of in you sprouts ā a sign of the beginning of Spring.
posted it on bsky but u know what. it's so beautiful it deserves to go here too. tysm to @seihar for this amazing, stunning commission of siggy and aymeric šš they mean so much to me and you captured them so beautifully i'm genuinely in awe š«¶
i like the part of post shb where wol runs into aymeric and it sounds like he just slammed down five cans of monster energy before getting off that airship and offering up ishgard's entire supply of ceruleum
more characters with psychic powers who get migraines and seizures after they use them. i wanna see someone kill a bunch of ppl with their mind and then lay in a dark room vomiting for two days
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