Chapter Text
Dearest,
It is entirely unfair, I am convinced, that the very coldest nights of the year must find our bed wanting its full complement of occupants. I am myself alone and have no one to blame for it but that same wretched self. In regard to the particulars of that sad circumstance, my beloved, I will commit my attention to the formal dispatches, hoping to spare thee any remembrances of thy battle-torn days when you reach for these lines for comfort in the night...as I reach for yours.
Though, I will admit to some degree of disappointment that my hand, in reaching, clasps noticeably fewer lines. I jest, Estinien. Well do I know you have little time to devote toward correspondence, in bondage as you are to the ever-threatening horizon at the Vigil. Still, I long for thee...especially in the night, Estinien. Most especially in the night.
When I no longer have the distraction of quill and parchment, of barked remonstrances and blood-wearied pleas, I think only of thee, of thy long, pale body spread naked beneath mine own, of thy silver-moon hair sliding ‘cross the silk of our pillows, luminous white against dusky blue, a mirror of the night-sky into which I stare, hoping we gaze at similar stars and are, thus, united in our yearning. And think not, Azure, that your words are the sole thing for which I reach in my loneliness. As testament to such, I submit this “Ode Upon Mine Own Concupiscence.” Of thee, my beloved…ever and only, as I stroke myself to tumescence, I think only of thee.
Ode Upon Mine Own Concupiscence
The same hand that seeks to reach thee in words
Handing thee sentiment seeking to swell
Thy heart, seeks lower appetites to serve
Than spillings on parchment can hope to quell.
Hand bereft of thine seeks a pricking lance,
A lancing to my swollen heart to seek.
My words demand thy seeking lance advance
On parchments other than where this verse leaks.
Hands reach, lance strikes, words fall and fail to find
Their mark. How can mere words do what hands must?
What lance might? Ever I remain confined
In stone, ink and armor, in Sacred Trust.
‘Til night and thee, the moon to my dark sky,
Curling together, as you seek to come
Into my arms, this image to my eye
Recall in reaching to finish what’s done.
In Azure rely for the strokes that release
Another shade Blue unto a small peace.
Yours, Estinien, forever and always,
Blue
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Aymeric,
Your words, if they were intended to grant comfort, reach me at an opportune time, for I have none to give myself. ‘Tis cold at the Vigil, cold and bleak. Dragoon losses have been heavy, as they ever are. Spilled dragoon blood steams, rising from the melting snow to mirror dragoon souls’ flight to the Fury’s sacred halls. I am brought low, I tell thee, to witness the deaths of so many under command of the Azure. Yet still I stand.
Oh speak not to me of our bed, Aymeric. I beg of thee! The warmth of you, the taste of your skin, of your lips...I cannot bear the memory. The sky is empty here, Aymeric -- other stars too far to grant us succor. I try not to look at that blackness bearing down upon me lest it remind me of a similar void that creeps to consume my beating heart from within -- the void you have ever kept at bay. But if your gaze doth stray into that darkness, I will think on it as boring a single point of burning light, a star of your own making, unto the night. That star alone can grant mine own “small peace.” My lines are rough as my tongue, beloved, but all are ever yours:
When I walked these wolds greene, crook clutched in palme
Reeds sounded little, songe timid, unlearnèd
Ne’er learnèd ere mine grasshopper days burnèd
Longe ere I met thee, ere Winter spread balme
On scorchings, ere wind strippèd greene calme
From the hummocks, howling recompense earnèd.
Play mine own pipes, love, teach me mine songe!
Play me my body, I’ll sing for thee longe!
This Shepherd boy longs to leave the flocks to the wolves so he can take comfort in your arms. Yet, he cannot.
Always,
Estinien
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My Beloved,
It wounds me to think of thee bereft and alone, standing on the turrets, thy hair loose in the wind, reflecting moonlight. And that I am the cause of it, that my orders send thee far from my side and into dangers to which so many of your fellows have succumbed...it sends my heart so far into my throat that I nigh choke on it, Estinien, every time a courier places new missives from the front into my hands.
I ache for thee.
Bah! I have not the time necessary to speak my heart. The courier waits upon these words as I write them. Orders, scrawled in this same cursed hand with which I spell out the Fury-blessed letters of thy name, will soon speed toward thee. Estinien, my Estinien, let me write it out a thousand times, the weight of thy name conveying a sense of your presence...the evidence I have of thy existence when we are parted. Return to me, my beloved, to our bed, to my body. The courier grows frantic with impatience, an approaching storm weighed against my selfishness. I must rely on the enclosed verse to convey what hasty prose cannot.
Ode Upon the Wings I Wish to Be
Be it not so that my lips give thee hurt,
my breath, my hands, do naught but shape thy pain.
If it be so, let me ne’er speak a word.
Un-tongue me, crush bones; I’ll not be kept safe
While you sigh in the wind, while you ride it
And spin to slice and stab, ever falling.
That my breath could bear you up astride it
I implore Halone, ever calling,
Let me be his wings! Pray, break me to parts!
Divide hands and lips, my breath and my voice.
Like nymph turned to Laurel, I’ll swap my heart,
To form pinfeathers. Let me live my choice,
Another Daphne, but one who chases
Rather than fleeing, or, e’en worse, sitting.
Pray, let me grant the bliss that erases.
Let me shoot him skyward in the giving.
My love guards lonely turrets in the night.
I long to grant -- to be -- his means of flight.
Forever, Estinien,
Your Aymeric
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Aymeric,
The Vigil is fallen;’tis lost. I send these scant lines back with the courier unknowing whether they will reach you before I myself look upon thy incomparable face again. Most likely they will. I stay at the rear to guard our slow retreat. We have many wounded, and have left bodies enough behind us, freezing in the waste. There can ne’re be a parley with the horde, a temporary hush to gather and bury the fallen.
I mourn them all, and yet, cannot help but count myself a hypocrite, nay, traitor to mine own cause, for in the midst of this defeat, this wretched loss of life and the tumbling down of yet another once-stalwart bastion of our defenses -- all of which mount up Nidhogg’s triumph, whose joy is ever my heart’s bane -- I think only of returning to our bed, to your body, Aymeric. With my silver hair fanned out across your golden skin, together we are most precious.
Thy long-leggèd shepherd, crooke broke, pypes crackèd,
Karakul slaughterèd, bloode on the wolds,
Ranges burnt hillocks, steame through the snowe,
Returns to thy armes, defeat at his backe.
Silencèd nowe, kenst not howe to singe lowe,
Reedes are for the shearing, not for the attacke.
Thy songe must serve to soothe the blowe,
Singe me my name ere I must goe!
Yours,
Estinien