He’d always told himself that he didn’t have time for love.
And maybe there was truth in that; maybe he didn’t, between the politics and the military matters, and being liaison for Ishgard to the rest of the Eorzean Alliance.
And maybe he should have taken the weather to be a sign from the Fury, that such a path was not his to travel, regardless of whether or not he’d taken a vow of celibacy.
But here, in this place so unlike the cathedral of the Ishgardian Orthodox Church, and even in the gloom and coldness of the rain -- Aymeric could feel, mayhap due to the romantic buried deep within him, the eyes of the Twelve upon him. Watching him, waiting as if awaiting him to reach a conclusion all his own, and accept that which he feared most: not that his assumptions were right, but that they were in fact wrong, and had always been so.
It was not time that prevented him from love throughout these long years, but his own trepidation and reservations. It was not dedication to his cause that had distanced his heart, but his own vain fears of selfishness and desire, of committing himself to another in body and spirit.
For perhaps the first time, he saw marriage as more than an obligation, too. It was a bond of love, the unification of two hearts as one, as blessed by the Twelve and til the end of days -- no matter how long or short they may be.
Fury take him his foolishness. A lump rose in his throat as he realized there was only one person he wanted to stand here with, when the rain eventually halted and the clouds parted.
