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Entry tags:
- * intro,
- * overflow,
- dragon age: solas,
- dresden files: justine,
- ensemble girls: suzu kuromori,
- ensemble stars: koga oogami,
- ensemble stars: rei sakuma,
- ensemble stars: ritsu sakuma,
- ffvii: cloud strife,
- ffvii: zack fair,
- ffxiv: aymeric de borel,
- ffxiv: francel de haillenarte,
- fgo: antonio salieri,
- fgo: cu chulainn,
- fgo: nobunaga oda,
- fgo: wolfgang amadeus mozart,
- fz: waver velvet,
- granblue fantasy: belial,
- harry potter: newt scamander,
- loz oot: zelda,
- original: iramaat,
- original: pearson langford,
- original: petrana de lamorraine,
- p4: souji seta,
- p5: akira kurusu,
- rwby: blake belladonna,
- star ocean: nel zelpher,
- star wars: kylo ren,
- steven universe: peridot,
- steven universe: steven universe,
- super danganronpa 2: gundam tanaka,
- tales of zestiria: mikleo
no subject
...I think... I have been... unfair to you. But there are so many things that I feel... and all of them are too difficult to explain.
[he knows aymeric might not understand; he takes a breath and continues before the man can ask any questions.]
Before the archbishop was slain, I was not the man that I am now. I could wake up and expect to see Haurchefant... plot the reclamation of the Steel Vigil... drive off the fire and fangs of the Horde. I believed in the Fury. I dreamt of salvation. But now...
I wake... in the mornings... and expect nothing. I think nothing, I dream of nothing... because there is nothing left to long for. And I know that the people are happy... but I no longer feel joy.
[his eyes sting; he is crying into the pillow. it doesn't matter. he brings an arm up, wipes his tears.]
...I wish you could have met me when I was a better man.
no subject
He's spoken to widows and widowers, betrothed women, children, parents of slain knights; it was necessary for families of good houses, whose coin kept the Temple Knights in arms, and their hearth-fires burning, and their inkwells filled — but until Haurchefant, he had never witnessed a death so selfless.
Francel is a grown man, and they barely know each other. No comforting gesture would be appropriate.
Aymeric reaches out anyway, in a whisper of sheets, to wrap a warm hand around Francel's own. ]
Lord Haurchefant was a good man, a man whose character was writ in deeds, who could not be doubted — the sort of knight others should aspire to be. The day...he was slain, I never meant to risk any life but mine own.
[ Francel's skin is strangely cold. Aymeric moves his thumb in slow arcs across it, as the viscountess de Borel did for him when he was young, and came in from winter sword lessons with frostnipped red fingers. ]
I...believed my father would acknowledge that there were truths the people deserved to know. I believed...if I, his son, laid the argument before him, he would be forced to make some concession to avoid accusing me of heresy.
[ He pauses without meaning to. ]
He chose not to hear me.
I expected no one to come for me, and I had made my peace with it. I thought it would be...not Witchdrop, but perhaps an execution by ordeal. If I were truly innocent, surely Halone would give me the strength to retake Hemlock from the Dravanians, or something of that nature. The moment my father handed me to the Heavens' Ward, I expected to die.
When Lucia and Lord Haurchefant came through the door of my cell, and lifted me up, I was...grateful, and filled with conviction. If they believed in me, if enough good people believed that I had the right of it, we might correct the course the archbishop had set for Ishgard.
And so we did, of course, with Lord Haurchefant with us in spirit, which I...know must be cold comfort. And I knew, when I began, that the vigils were a matter of pride — that loss, and the need for retribution, is not easily quieted. It is my hope that we shall retake the vigils, someday, if it brings you any peace at all. The dead deserve better than Ishgard gave them; I thought it even when the Calamity was freshly upon us. I knew it was...practical, after a fashion, to retreat behind our gates, but I thought it...cowardly, at the time. What might we have accomplished had we instead forged alliances?
[ Now he pauses deliberately, and the gentle motion of his hand stops. ]
All of this is to acknowledge that I owe you an apology. More than an apology, perhaps. If I offered my life to everyone I owed it to, I should be carved to pieces, and you have not asked for it, and I shall understand if it means little to you — but I will give you what I can, nonetheless. I swear it.
no subject
the young lord's hand is cold and still. he seems less a man and more an object, inanimate, bereft of warmth.
they have lain beneath the sheets together for far too many minutes for him to be this cold.
what is he to say to any of this? he cannot give the lord commander his forgiveness; he did not mean to make aymeric feel any guilt. he wanted to give an explanation for himself. he knows that his behavior is incomprehensible, that he is mad, that he is better off dead, that his despair has no place in the midst of ishgard's rejoicing.
tell me how to live, he thinks about saying. tell me how i am to draw breath without the world that you destroyed.
but he says nothing of the sort. he is quiet for a long time, and when he speaks, it is in the same cracking voice as before.]
...I'd forgotten that another hand could feel so warm.
no subject
He's carried bodies, before. If Francel were sound asleep, and Aymeric couldn't feel him breathing, he might wonder if he were lying beside a corpse. ]
Are you feeling well? You're as cold as a Coerthan frost.
[ He raises one hand, brushes Francel's hair aside to press it experimentally against his brow. ]
no subject
[francel does not offer a definitive answer. his eyelashes flutter in the darkness, heavy with moisture; the touch to his forehead is soothing, and coaxes his eyelids shut. it's a warm spring night in geargadas, and as ishgardians, neither of them must be accustomed to the sudden change in temperature — but francel finds, to his surprise, that he misses the feeling of being warm beneath his sheets. why doesn't it feel as though he's getting any warmer?
unthinking, francel rolls closer to aymeric for no better reason than that he would siphon the lord commander's heat.
pressed close, at least, it is clear that the young lord is breathing, and if nothing else, his breaths are warm — it's just that his skin is cold.
there were rumors about francel in ishgard, following his trial. some people claimed that there had to be some mistake, that the renegade lord haurchefant had come up with some convenient lie to save the foppish young lord who had always followed his every move like a chocobo hatchling. others believed that he really was a heretic after all, that his piety had to be all an act, that no one could truly be so boring, so dull. still others, more prone to believing in grand conspiracies, claimed that the young lord truly had been pushed off the edge of witchdrop, that the being in his form was some sort of voidsent creature from the depths of that accursed gorge.
but such a thing would be preposterous. most reasonable, educated ishgardians believed the official camp dragonhead report on the matter, and all of it was settled after officials at whitebrim front confirmed that inquisitor guillaime had truly been replaced by an imposter.
all of it was settled.]
no subject
They were only rumors. But he remembers the dream: Francel's clawed fingers peeling the skin from his neck, the hard scales under it.
It makes no difference, Aymeric decides firmly, shifting his arm to fold around Francel's middle. Whatever Francel did, or did not do, the war is over, and if Francel is a heretic, he is at least in sympathetic company.
He closes his eyes, breath stirring Francel's hair, and tries to sleep. ]