Dead Weight
Nimue shivered as the chilly aetheryte plaza of Foundation snapped into reality around her. Thankfully there was still some time before dawn, and anyone with a lick of sense was still huddling within the warmth of their homes. Very few were present to see her foolishness. Swallowing the dissipating tang in her mouth from the teleportation magic, she briskly left the plaza and headed towards the front gates of the overbearing city, silently cursing her impulsiveness with each step.
She had decided to teleport here within moments of the thought, before she could lose her nerve. There were things she needed to do, to say, and she had already been running from them for too long. However, it meant she had 'ported to one of the coldest regions in Eorzea while wearing a shoulderless leather number she had enjoyed the night before. Now it was unforgiving and the fish net stockings she wore with it were a pale imitation of what she should have worn.
I made my bed, she thought to herself as she desperately rubbed her hands together. She tried so hard to shut out the biting weather and, focus damn it!
.
There it was. A small ball of ethereal flame cupped within her palms. She clutched it to her breast, sighing in relief as warmth began to envelope her form. It meant she was able to approach the gate guard with some sort of respectability.
~*~*~
It felt like it took forever to get there. One of the longest walks of her life - second only to her lonely walk at the edge of the universe. The climb to face that broken creation had promised a resolution, an ending. She hadn't cared if she died.
That was less frightening than living.
After a few pauses to rekindle her cloaking spell, she had finally reached his Last Vigil. The ice crusted grave of Haurchefant Greystone stood watch over the city that had despised him - that he had loved in spite of it all. It had learned to embrace him only after it was too late.
Nimue closed her eyes against the wind, more so at the flood of memories from that day. The false faces, the cards of mourning society required of them, and the broken face of a father; of Count Fortemps as he passed her the shield of a son she had failed to save.
She soon found herself crossing the distance that remained. She lowered herself on shaky legs and delicately, as if it would bite her, placed a hand on his humble monument. She felt the cascade of warmth as she willed her cloak to flow over his tombstone, melting away ice and fresh snow both. The lettering is so sharp and harsh, unbefitting of his gentle demeanor. The snow drift selfishly hording his broken shield sank away revealing a scratched and tarnished surface to the star.
After righting the ornament and seeing this duty done, she quickly recoiled and withdrew a few steps back from the grave - until her shadow cast by the rising sun no longer shrouded the stone. The tears she had been shoving back since she left the city resurged, threatening to blind her pale lavender eyes.
"I know you're not here," Nimue finally managed to choke out, standing on that frozen cliff. She lowered her head slightly, biting back a sob before once more speaking to the wind that clawed at her magic. "I know that was you when I was traveling through the great sea. Bombarded by specters, and once again you came." Her voice steadily rose and rose. All of the grief, and pain, and anger coming to bear on that stoic piece of rock. "That's three times now, twice in death you have protected me! As if mocking my failure."
Her hands balled into fists, nails stabbing into her palms. The tears had won the war and streamed down her face with impunity.
"HOW COULD YOU?!"
Nimue's roar echoed around her.
Even as that surge of vitriol had poured out of her, she knew better. She knew deep down that the manifestations and phenomenon - following her all the way to that stage at the edge of nothing - were nothing less than proof of how deeply he had cared for her in life.
It made it so much worse.
The dam broke. Her leather clad knees dropped like sandbags into the snow as she wrapped her arms around herself, wailing in her sorrow. Hunched over that white blanket, tears and spit drizzled from her face but she didn't care. There was no one to impress and perform for here. No one to wear a mask for.
On and on she cried, ignorant to the passing of time, until her voice was broken and hoarse from the strain. The pain finally outweighs the catharsis of her weeping. Her cloak spell was forgotten, her lips and cheeks quickly became chapped. Frost clung to her eyelashes.
She knelt in silence for an age, eyes boring into the offending rock before her. It wasn't until she had to physically peel the ice from her cheek that she became keenly aware of her error, and willed her cloak into place to thaw herself out.
Nimue slowly rose to stand once more on her wobbly stems. A shattering sound filled her ears as she broke a glamour at her neck and ripped away the piece of jewelry it had concealed. A long leather cord dangled freely from her grasp, and in her palm sat his mother's ring.
"I can't stay here," she quietly croaked to herself. "I cannot continue to live here." She sounded a little sterner this time, as if berating herself with what little bit of a voice she had left. Nimue took a shaky step forward towards the tombstone. Two. Three. It was like trudging through molasses.
"I have to close this door. Find some way to suture this wound," she rasped as she knelt before the grave one last time. Tears blurred her vision as she barely managed a whisper, "As much as I wish it had been with you, I deserve to find happiness. "
Nimue lowered the ring reverently to rest at a place of honor beside the shield, kissed her frost bitten fingertips, and pressed them to the stone as she stood with new found resolve. She said nothing else as she turned and started down the path, leaving behind his shield, his ring, and her chains.
