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The sky is overcast with thick clouds akin to a smoke blotting out the setting sun. The air holds a chill to it that feels even more icy in the dusk, piercing into Estinien’s bones through the layers of armour, his padded clothes, and long cotton smalls. Either that or it’s the ice of nervousness that rimes his veins.
‘Tis their most important mission yet as knights; tracking down a group of small but dangerous dragons that had been edging too close to a settlement in the Coerthan Highlands. Estinien and Aymeric had been training hard, honing their prowess with lance for Estinien, and with sword and bow for Aymeric. Their efforts weren’t for naught, as their superiors deemed the two of them more than worthy to lead the charge.
That’s how Estinien has found himself creeping ahead, crouched low to the ground with his lance at the ready, more than a few dozen yalms away from the rest of the battalion. Aymeric is within twenty yalms of him, providing cover and watching the treetops for movement whilst Estinien keeps his eyes on the snow-covered forest floor.
While he’s been training his whole life to hunt down creatures like the ones that took away his home, his family, his younger brother– he’s wet behind the ears when it comes to being in the field. Ser Alberic had done his absolute best to prepare him for his future, but no amount of training can replace the actual experience.
The sparse forest they’ve found themselves tracking the dragons through is deathly silent, something that Estinien is not familiar with. Even the ambient noise of birds cooing or insects chirping isn’t present. The crunch of Estinien’s boots through the fresh snow is nigh deafening, as is his own breathing, reverberating off the steel walls of his helm. Focus , he tells himself, eyes darting amidst the tree trunks in search of a flash of reptilian hide, a bright eye, a leathery wing, or sharp teeth and talons–
“ AAAAGH!! ”
Estinien’s blood runs cold.
That’s Aymeric’s voice .
Estinien whips himself around, lance at the ready, and catches sight of a dragon the size of a small horse encroaching on Aymeric. Aymeric, with naught but his bow at the ready and a dagger on his hip. Aymeric, whose face is contorted in fear, whose eyes are wide, who’s fumbling with his arrows in an attempt to knock and loose one ere the beast strike first.
Time slows to a crawl as it rears back.
Its razor sharp claws glint.
It slashes downwards.
The scream that Aymeric lets out… it is animalistic in how raw it is, how pained, how downright terrified . The last time he heard screams like this– it was then .
The night he lost his family– his mother, his father, his younger brother– and his home. When the cloying smoke of homes on fire filled his nostrils, when his world came crashing down around him, when everything changed and he lost all he had ever known, all that he loved, in what felt like a mere instant.
Not again . I can’t lose someone I love again.
Crimson bursts from Aymeric’s thigh where the wyrm’s claws rend through chainmail, armour, and flesh as if it were parchment. ‘Tis a sight that sears itself onto Estinien’s mind, one that will keep him up at night, one that has his already icy blood running even colder, freezing him in place.
Blood splatters across the pure white snow as Aymeric struggles to remain upright. Even from here, his terror is clear in his face. He’s never liked how displeasure looks on Aymeric’s face, but Estinien decidedly despises how fear contorts and twists the lips he’s used to seeing smile, how it widens the eyes he’s used to seeing crinkle and glimmer with mirth. Estinien swears he can smell Aymeric’s fear from where he stands, a bit over a dozen yalms away, watching in abject horror as the wyrm rears back on its haunches.
Before he can even think, he’s crouching even lower to the ground, the muscles in his calves tensing as he does, then he’s launching himself up into the air, faster and higher than he’s ever jumped before, just above the treetops. Naught a moment later, after sailing through the biting cold wind that whipped about him angrily, Estinien crashes back to the earth, right between the encroaching wyrm and his injured friend. For a brief moment wherein Estinien stumbles, he fears he’ll lose his footing, but he manages to right himself. With a stab towards the dragon, he drives it back a few paces, although the tip of his lance fails to find purchase in the belly of the beast.
“I’m here, Aymeric!” Estinien yells loudly, desperate, whilst keeping his eyes focused intently on the dragon in front of him. It falls forward onto its front legs and extends its neck to bare its fangs at Estinien, nostrils flaring and pupils retracting to slits. Instinct has Estinien flashing his teeth back at it, crouching low as instinct tells his limbs to move before he can even think.
Ser Alberic’s voice whispers in his ear, then.
Underside of the jaw– ‘tis easier to pierce than the top of the head.
‘Tis not instinct that guides him this time, but years of practice, and his mentor’s steady hands and helpful words– Estinien drives his lance upwards and the sharpened edge plunges through the dragon’s soft cleft.
It lets loose a deafening, wet roar as blood, dark as ink, floods its mouth. The point of Estinien’s lance is speared through the soft scales under its jaw, and its soft palate and tongue. With a roar of Estinien’s own, he puts his strength into shoving the point of the lance completely upwards. He watches through laser-focused eyes, with adrenaline making his heart race in his eardrums, as the point cleaves through the inside of the dragon’s upper jaw, and even further upwards, past where Estinien can see– into its skull.
By the way the beast’s roar putters off into a wet gurgle and it twitches, then slackens, Estinien can easily guess what he’d just pierced.
It’s not the first time that he’s killed something– plenty of animals found the sharp end of his dagger whensoever he needed to go hunting. Deer, sheep, hare, pheasants– anything that he could find that was suitable to be cooked as meat.
‘Twas, however, the first time Estinien had ever felled a dragon .
There will be time to revel in this later , he reminds himself with a curt nod. Before the stiffness of death can even think about settling into the creature’s corpse, Estinien wrenches his bloodied lance back. A spurt of the Dravanian’s blood comes with the movement, spattering inky blood across the snow that was already soaked with Aymeric’s.
Aymeric.
With the beast felled, Estinien whips around. There, in a heap on the ground, is Aymeric de Borel. The outside of his left thigh is ripped open, gashes carved deep into the flesh by the dragon’s claws. Clergy will want to cleanse him with holy water before letting the chirurgeons patch Aymeric up, a practice that Estinien has heard no small number of senior knights complain about.
Baring one’s self, still bloody from battle, and being forced to stand stock still whilst priests used their aspergillum to soak one’s body in holy water, stinging the open woods and chilling one to the bone. Estinien grimaces at the mere thought, though he knows he’ll be subjected to such things one day.
Although Aymeric’s face is pale and his leg somewhat mangled, he still manages to put on a smile when his glassy, crystal-colored eyes meet with Estinien’s. Thank Halone , he thinks to himself, relief flooding his body and leaving him nigh boneless, he’s alright. He’s alive. I made it in time.
Aymeric’s expression suddenly changes from open-relief to focused fear.
Dragons always travel in packs, Ser Alberic’s voice reminds him.
Shit.
Estinien has naught but a moment to tighten his grip on the shaft of his lance and twist around before the jaws of a dragon that almost slipped his notice snaps shut around the length of metal between his hands. The sudden bite sends shockwaves through the length of his lance, which travels up his arms and shoulders in kind. Estinien grits his teeth against the unpleasant sensation.
Bracing his feet, Estinien shoves forward, knocking the wyrm backwards with the movement and wrenching his lance free at the same time. The beast wails forlornly and snaps its jaws at Estinien again and again, refusing to let up for the instant that he needed to strike back. The blood-soaked snow beneath his boots does naught to keep his footing even– and he slips backwards after a particularly ferocious lunge of the dragon’s head.
“Seven bloody Hells,” Estinien screams as he loses his footing completely and lands on his arse. The snow might be soft enough to keep him from bruising his arse, but it can’t prevent the jab this tumble does to his ego. With a snarl, he sets his eyes on the wyrm, facing his impending death head on– but he doesn’t need to, as an arrow whistles through the air and pierces the beast through one of its eyes, sending it shrieking backwards.
“My arms still work, you know,” Aymeric says, surprisingly calm given their current situation. With a grunt, Estinien jumps to his feet and uses his newfound advantage to strike the smaller wyvern through the underside of the jaw again, granting it a swift return to the aetherial sea.
He wishes that had been it, that it would only have been two, but packs were packs – and the group of wyverns that burst through the canopy of trees above them only go to show how big those packs can be.
“Better keep those arms working, Borel,” Estinien calls over his shoulder. He hadn’t been ready to fight like this but, right now, it’s him and Aymeric alone until the rest of their battalion makes it to them. Estinien grips his lance even tighter and shifts down low again, gaze focused solely on the encroaching horde.
One to his right is struck through the wing by an arrow, and Estinien takes his chance to strike at that one. He cleaves it through the soft underbelly, spearing it and killing it nigh instantly, before Estinien yanks his lance back. The corpse of the dragon comes with it, throwing his glaive off balance as he tries to bring it back.
Time crawls again. Estinien spies a dragon swooping in on his left hand side. His lance–
It’s too heavy for him to right it in time–
The dragon carves into the flesh of his bicep with ease– for all the armour they’re wearing, they may as well been fighting in their smalls for all the good that it does against a wyvern’s sharpened claws. As it swerves past Estinien, it rends through fabric and armour alike to cut deep furrows into his outer bicep, and sends a flood of pain crashing through Estinien, as time rushes to catch up with him.
“ FUCK!”
“Estinien?!” Aymeric– he’s panicked. No– a tear in his arm isn’t like the deep furrows that were carved into Aymeric’s thigh. Estinien grits his teeth against the pain, sucks in a bracing breath of ice cold air through his nostrils, and tightens his grip on his lance. The one on his left will circle back any second now.
Estinien jerks his lance sharply, tossing the corpse on the point of it to the side, then, with a twist of his torso, he manages to slice at the offending wyvern, cutting through the thin leathery skin of its wing. Aymeric follows up with an expertly aimed arrow that lodges itself in its skull, dispatching of the beast this time.
“Are you okay?” Aymeric asks, as if Estinien could spare a second to answer when another wyvern is surging towards him, angling towards his uninjured arm. He isn’t fast enough, and the dragon carves into the skin of his shoulder this time.
Bloody swiving hell –
Estinien bites back any curses that beg to be shouted. It’s not as much as a surprise as it was the first time, and the pain that follows is easier to brace against. What isn’t easy to fight is this unpleasant cold feeling that is spreading through his body. Where the cold goes, a heaviness follows. It’s unfamiliar and alarming.
How much blood can one lose ere they faint?
Estinien is knocked to the ground by yet another dragon– only this time, he is pinned beneath it, the shaft of his lance shoved between its jaws preventing them from snapping shut around him. It takes everything in Estinien to keep the wyrm at bay, every ounce of effort and modicum of strength in a body that is losing blood fast.
The pain is excruciating . That heavy cold is crawling its way towards his hammering heart.
Is this how his parents felt?
Is this it?
“No!” Estinien shouts. He cannot– he will not die here. A surge of adrenaline spikes through Estinien, and he shoves the wyrm back with the newfound burst of strength and energy. It’s a miracle he manages to shove the wyvern off at all, what with both arms injured, and a considerable amount of blood loss. With every flex of his arm muscles, he can feel blood gush from his wounds at a worrying pace.
Still, he’ll fight. To the very end. For himself, for his family, for Ishgard, for Aymeric.
Gritting his teeth, he shifts, crimson snow crunching ‘neath his boots, and his limbs screaming in protest as he tightens his grip on his lance. The dragon in front of him stalks ever closer–
A sword suddenly tears through one of its wings.
An arrow pierces its hide.
An axe cleaves into its back.
And a lance pierces through the top of its head.
Within seconds, his assailant is dead, and their battalion is surrounding Aymeric and him, and the corpses of dragons littered about the blood-soaked forest floor. ‘Tis a miracle, it feels, to be so suddenly saved. It could not have been but ten minutes since Aymeric was first attacked. It had all happened so fast.
A flood of relief crashes through Estinien as he falls to the ground in a heap. Feels as if his body is growing cold as the heat of battle leaves him, the adrenaline pumping through his veins seeping from him in gentle waves. Damn it all, since when did fighting leave him so tired?
Haurchefant’s worried expression enters Estinien’s hazy field of vision. Even blinking feels like it takes all his effort.
“Estinien! Stay with me, you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Haurchefant says. It feels like he’s speaking to him whilst Estinien is underneath water– faraway and muffled is he. Estinien gives him an affirmative nod, though it's more sluggish than he’d intended to be.
“Aymeric,” Estinien says. Is that his voice? The weak, hoarse one? Damn it. Clearing his throat, he speaks again, still weak but no longer hoarse, “he was hurt ere I was. Tend to him.”
Haurchefant sighs loudly. It looks like annoyance on his muddled features. “Who do you take us for? We’re already on it. And you aren’t one to talk. Fighting with both arms injured– do you have a death wish?”
Estinien barks out a laugh. Perhaps one day, long ago, he did. But now… no, now he had a reason to jump in, to protect Aymeric. The relief in knowing that the two of them will be alright is enough to have him nigh melting into the ground beneath him. Surely a few winks wouldn’t hurt.
“Oi! Estinien! No, don’t fall asleep– don’t–!”
Haurchefant’s voice fades away as Estinien slips into the dark pitch of slumber.
–
It’s been a full sun since Aymeric and Estinien were attacked in the forest whilst scouting ahead.
Or, it’s more apt to say that Aymeric was the one attacked, and Estinien rushed to his rescue.
That fear that gripped Aymeric, that made him go stock still in the face of a dragon, was unlike anything that Aymeric had ever felt before. For a breath, he truly feared that it was the end of it. A prayer to Halone sprang to mind but, before he could say a thing, his prayer was answered in the form of Estinien Varlinaeu suddenly crashing to the ground in front of him, as if sent by Halone herself.
The same Estinien who passed out after losing a considerable amount of blood after being injured whilst protecting him.
The Estinien who Aymeric watched growl and snarl and strike at the dragon that had injured Aymeric to begin with, who he covered as best he could with his bow whilst Estinien fought off the Dravanian horde that followed, is the complete opposite of the one in front of him now– sleeping peacefully with arms and torso wrapped in bandages.
Aymeric has not left Estinien’s bedside since he’d been given leave after being patched up by the chirurgeons himself. Where else would he go at that moment? There was no way he would be able to train right now with the mess that the dragon’s claws made of his leg. And, besides that…
Aymeric doesn’t want to leave Estinien.
The fear that he’d felt staring into the opening jaws of a draconic beast could not hold a candle to the fear that had struck him upon seeing Estinien faint.
Haurchefant’s panicked voice. Roughly shaking Estinien’s shoulder. The pool of dark blood around Estinien. A nightmare come true. A possibility that Aymeric now had to consider. A possibility that he could not bear to think of.
That he could lose Estinien.
Aymeric threads his fingers together, props his elbows on his thighs, and leans forward, head hanging over Estinien’s prone body. He still breathes, this much Aymeric has checked at least a half dozen times in the past few bells. The chirurgeons have assured him that Estinien will make a full recovery, only that it may take a week or two, or up to a moon if Estinien does what he usually does and insists on training in spite of his injuries.
He won’t lose him, no, not this time. But what of next? What if they are not so lucky? Never before has he had to consider a life without Estinien.
And the thought of it brings tears to his eyes, threatens to sunder his heart with the pure sadness of it.
When… When had Estinien made a home in his heart? When had Aymeric stopped seeing Estinien as merely a comrade and dear friend? This was more than that, more than what he felt for their fellow soldiers, even more than the brotherly connection that he felt with Haurchefant. This… this was something strange and new, something that Aymeric is not sure he wants to fully face. It seems scarier than the dragons that they had faced, in some ways.
The fact that he doesn’t want to face it, to put a name to it…
“Ngh…”
“Estinien?!” Aymeric whips his head up at the pained grunt that the body near him let out. His heart swells at the sight of his friend moving again. Thank Halone , he thinks to himself with a sigh as he goes to grab Estinien’s hand– only barely managing to stop himself from the gesture when an icy lance of fear spikes through him at what such a thing might convey.
Ne’er had he worried about touching Estinien before.
Guilt flooding his heart, he turns to face his friend, and catches sight of those eyelids fluttering open so Estinien can peer down at Aymeric through pinched eyes and light lashes.
The smile that pulls at Estinien’s lips has Aymeric’s heart skipping several beats. ‘Tis an expression that Aymeric has never seen on Estinien before– one of open joy, so honest and pure, a stark contrast to his commonly-known stoicism.
“Aymeric,” Estinien mumbles, voice hoarse from sleep and dehydration, Aymeric is sure. “You are alright. Good… good.”
Estinien reaches a shaky hand out and grabs hold of Aymeric’s, the one that he had originally used to reach out to Estinien himself. Satisfied with the knowledge that Aymeric is alright, he watches as Estinien relaxes back into the mattress and falls asleep once more, only this time with that smile tugging up the corners of his lips, and an expression of peaceful happiness on his face now.
His fingers curled loosely around Aymeric’s hand. Warm. Calloused. Rough. If he focuses, he swears he can feel Estinien’s heartbeat through his fingertips where they are pressed against the back of Aymeric’s hand.
Aymeric threads their fingers together carefully, bows his head over Estinien’s sleeping form, and quietly weeps. This strange, beautifully terrifying, horribly lonely, and precious feeling called love. He cannot deny it– will not deny it any longer.
How could this be anything but the love that Aymeric has seen many a poet and minstrel wax about? So strong and sorrowful and sweet, this song that his heart sings, and Estinien is both maestro and muse. If it was not, then this will be the love that Aymeric will pen sonnets and ballads for.