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starswornoaths · 3 months ago

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In Light of Day

Follow-up for In Shade of Moonlight I had thought lost to the ether years ago (although if you want to read this whole scene from start to finish, Something Like Home is the start of the evening referenced in the fic, followed by First Steps and then In Shade of Moonlight but god. I haven't gone back to edit them please lower your expectations they're old.) Once I found it, I couldn't stop picking at it until I eventually had to just post it already. Hopefully I'll get more of what I've already written posted at some point.

Post 3.3, pre-3.4, it's the morning after the festivities. While there is no hangover to be found in Borel Manor, yearning that spilled over in the moonlight is now examined and re-examined in the light of day. Duty and Devotion are inextricably tied, yet where one can so often subsume the other, other times either may be consumed.

Word count: 4,400

~*~

Serella was relieved to find the sun was rising to greet her the second time she opened her eyes that morning. As mind and body reconnected, she found herself bundled into blankets beside another warm body and comfortably in bed rather than flung to the floor in her sleep. She took in the sight of a barely-familiar room and the faint creak of howling winds pressing an old house, and she knew with immediate and delightful certainty that the previous night hadn’t been a dream.

More pleasant still was the weight of Aymeric’s arm slung over the curve of her hip.

Truly, it was always the small mercies that kept Serella aloft.

With great care so as to avoid waking him, she negotiated the slide of his arm to drape across her back, that she might turn to watch him sleep. There was no force strong enough to stop her from smiling as she took in the sight.

Bereft of the waking world’s worries to weigh on him, his features were slack with rest and smudged into the pillow without care. Once removed from the mantle of his station and free of the pinch in his brow, he almost looked like a different person entirely. In a kinder world, he might know this feeling even when awake—but then, so would she.

Her hand itched with the want to run her fingers through his silken curls, strewn wildly all over and haloed in the morning light. He looked so utterly endearing to her in that moment, with an almost boyish pout pushed into his full lips by the pillow he burrowed into.

Serella felt her heart squeeze. Two things occurred to her in that moment, one right after the next: that she had never seen Aymeric so utterly unburdened and unreachable to the rest of the world, and she wanted to do all in her power to make more moments like these, if only to hoard for herself like a dragon.

Assuming such a thing would even be welcome.

If last night had been a fairy tale, this morning was the stumble out of the fairy’s circle. The moment where everything became real again, and the world was sustainably imperfect.

Still asleep, Aymeric shifted such that his other hand knocked into hers in the scant space between them. Even in dreams, the touch was enough to curl his lips in an unguarded smile he half smothered into his pillow, fingers flexing for a fleeting, blind search of her.

But time was liable to take notice of Serella if she further entangled them. If not time, then certainly duty or any number of things that would rip her from this peace. Rather than risk it, she gathered the pillow beneath her in a white-knuckled fist. As she watched the gilded fingers of dawn blindly fumble for the shape of them through the parted curtain, she prayed the city—the realm—would forget them a little while longer.

In this liminal space between what she had dared to want and what was real, scars from flesh to marrow and deeper still threatened her with their phantom pains. Muscles in need of stretching burned, and the chill in the air threatened to make every joint ache the second she left the blankets. Bones creaked in protest after being still for so long in sleep when she tried to address those aches that howled first. For several long moments, her body was caught in its own space between thrumming soreness from stillness and lancing ache from movement, waiting for the worst of both to ease.

And from below the monotonous agony, a long-standing anxiety welled up from the pit of her rib cage to form a roiling bubble of intrusive thoughts that pressed at her throat. The what-ifs began to whisper in her ears again. Despite her best efforts, what had been muffled to a distant buzz in the previous eve’s heady rush was given crystalline clarity in light of day.

For her heart was but a muscle, and it ached like all the rest.

Such worry always came on the heels of vulnerability. Of course it did; fear was an old and familiar stalagmite that had gradually emerged from the pit in her stomach through years of buried feeling being left to itself. Crystallized and jagged monument of unaddressed pain that it was, its sharpest and highest facets had long since lodged themselves in the spaces between her ribs. To dislodge even a piece of it, something inside of her would surely have to break. The morning light bounced off its raw facets in her mind’s eye, sending her vision swimming with spots until she realized its true source was the thinning of her own breath.

To persevere in silence would be to welcome the press of a blade to her heart, trusting that it would not be run through—and oh, how Serella had bled in the past.

It wasn’t as though the fear was unfounded, even knowing Aymeric to be a good man; blunt though the instrument be, duty could well be what he might wield to beat all they were back to the shadows. Worse—it could well be his expectation that she was of like mind.

Surely not—surely not. And yet…

If Serella had been wrong to let herself be vulnerable, to want—if she had guessed wrong again—

Scratching at the door ripped her from her spiral so suddenly that she nearly jumped. No doubt it was Duchess, whom she heard rumbling from the depths of the manor last night.

A more insistent scratch came as if in answer. Serella strongly suspected such a temperamental old thing would start to yowl if her demands weren’t answered in a timely fashion.

She knew the type.

Peering back at Aymeric, who seemed yet unperturbed by the sound, she found even the thought of waking him to border on criminal—and he doubtless would once Duchess kicked up enough of a fuss.

The lady of the house needed feeding, and Serella was already up. No sense in robbing him of what little extra sleep he could find, after all. Not when her anxieties were so chatty this morn as to already rob her of it.

Decision made, she eased herself from the loose tangle of limbs and tucked the covers around him as he continued to doze. When he pawed at the empty space left by her absence, she compensated him with her pillow. Once freed of darling and duvet both, she slid from the bed entirely with immense care and only minimal popping sounds from her joints as she ambled over toward the door.

Sure enough, Serella was met with the lady of the house peering up at her once she’d eased the door open. More fur than feline, she sat at the doorway like a prim little tumbleweed with indignant green eyes, all dense fur patterned with beautiful mottled browns and brushed to its utmost fluffiness.

“Good morning.” She greeted, slipping out into the hall and twisting the doorknob to soften its closing behind her. “Breakfast?”

Mrr, Duchess rumbled in assent. Serella felt it in the floorboards.

“Well go on, then,” she said with a gesture to the hall, “I know you know where it is.”

With a thump of her tail and a wheezy huff, the acting Viscountess trotted off down the stairs. Her house guest followed gamely, hopeful that she behaved as most cats would and make a dash for her food at the promise of being served.

Blessedly, Duchess was no different: with a startling amount of speed for her apparent age, she made a beeline down the stairs and around the bend to a specific cabinet in the kitchen just beside the pantry. Once sat primly before the little door, she began to paw at a worn patch of scratches at its bottom corner and look up expectantly with the widest, roundest eyes that she could and the softest trill she had managed thus far.

Oh, this was manipulation if ever she’d seen it, doubtless perfected over eight lifetimes’ worth of practice on family and guests. Must have the same teacher as her owner, Serella mused to herself.

After a brief scan to find her feeding bowl—full but for the emptied center of the dish, of course—Serella was soon scooping an appropriate amount of food for the lady.

“Your breakfast, madam!” She said, presenting the bowl in a with a flourish.

Duchess sniffed up at her, nearly thankful, before promptly burying her face in the kibble and paying her guest no further mind.

“You yet possess your hand.” Aymeric’s amused voice drifted in from behind her.

Startled, Serella spun to face him with eyes wide and hands held up to her heart as if she had been caught doing something wrong. It was effortless to find her ease when she saw him leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed and a sleepy smile on his face.

“Of all your accomplishments, that may well be among the most impressive,” he teased with a chuckle, “not even I have managed unscathed every time.”

“I’ll count that as a personal victory, then.” She said, at a loss as to what else to say.

Though she wore a set of his pajamas, she might as well have not changed from her gown last night for how reverently he looked at her. Even at barely seven bells in the morning and doubtless with a bird’s nest in her hair he still looked at her as though she were spun from starlight and woven in his dreams.

Her gaze shied from his, all at once overwrought with raw and tender ache.

“I’d hoped to avoid waking you,” she explained as if she were trying to get out of trouble.

Which was silly, she knew. She’d only fed his cat.

“Seems my stealth could do with a bit of work, though,” she added with a lame gesture between them.

She wasn’t even sure it was meant to be a joke, but he offered her a huff of laughter all the same.

“In truth, your absence woke me more than you leaving,” he admitted, his smile turning bashful when his gaze demurred as he added, “though the decoy was almost as charming as hearing you through the door.”

His ears flushed a faint pink when he glanced back at her and explained, “I reached for you—and when you were not there, it alarmed me.”

Not entirely unreasonable—she had flung herself off the bed in the middle of the night. He’s gracious enough not to mention it.

“I would have otherwise been tempted to lounge with you all day,” she mumbled, and felt near feverish for how hot her face burned at the admittance, “if I thought we could get away with it, at least.”

It seemed to please Aymeric greatly, however; as his smile grew wide enough for his eyes to crinkle at the corners as he looked at her in full again. As if that helped him decide something, he pushed off the doorway and moved closer with steps merry yet unhurried.

Serella still startled when he stopped within arm’s reach. He could have already made contact with her, yet he hesitated, as if wondering what she would do.

Nothing. She did nothing, save for white knuckle the counter behind her with the want to.

She wasn’t surprised at her struggle with letting that last wall between them fall, not after a year or so of skirting around one another. Not with her thoughts swarming her head like an agitated hive. Understanding it did not ease her lamentations. Did not quiet the buzzing.

“That may yet be arranged,” he murmured, unaware of her struggle.

His hand drifted to skim the thin shirt sleeve she wore with his knuckles, his expression almost shy. At no point on its dutiful march down her sleeve did his hand make contact with her. She felt the comet’s trail of his warmth all the same.

It wasn’t until the tip of his finger hooked on the cuff of her sleeve in a vague pantomime of holding her hand that she realized she had let go of the counter behind her. Startled, she looked up at him with a thin gasp to find him already peering at her through his lashes.

Holding her gaze steadily, he asked, “...If it should please you?”

It’s too early to be this sweet, she huffed at him in her mind.

She shivered despite the warmth of his knuckles against hers when his hand drifted those few ilms lower. Under his attention, her heart felt both deeply tender and fit to burst.

“It would.” Serella said softly, though refrained from giving in to the temptation to unmake the scant distance between them entirely.

Last night had been…perfect. Beyond perfect. Sharing their hearts, even an onze, even for a moment, had been more than she had ever dared hope for. In the light of day, where the dream was over and yet they still remained, she could hardly contain the affection she’d withheld for so long. Just the effort of it made her skin burn.

And yet…

That sharp, anticipatory pain in her heart where the blade could well find its purchase seized her bodily in that moment. The fault lines where it would break from such piercing groaned in warning.

Aymeric seemed to sense her hesitation, as he dropped her sleeve and moved a few ilms away. The hollow space where she had meant to lace their fingers together howled yet she could not force herself to move before at least this fear could be exorcised. She had no more room to bury it, and it would not help her exhume the rest.

“I,” she tried to croak though the words tangled in a lump in her throat.

Swallowing it, she tried again, “I don’t…I don’t know what you hope for us to be.”

At that, Aymeric stilled with a short yet shuddered intake of breath. Even his aether seemed to recoil in response but what startled Serella most was that for all the emotions that rippled along the surface of his heart, surprise was not among them.

The tangle of feelings radiating off of him was familiar—too familiar; not for the first time, she had nearly missed it for how similarly his struggle had mirrored her own. That tense anticipation for pain, the pre-emptive flinch before impact, she could feel every twitch that spoke of routine. The morbid vindication of ah, and there it is, to greet disaster after awaiting it for so long.

Expectant rather than dreading. Because this had happened to him before, she remembered.

In the few seconds it had taken her to make the connection, he had thinned his breathing, as if to make himself as scarce and unobtrusive as he could in this moment. Already, his body language began to shape itself in the familiar form of an apology, starting with the inward flinch of his shoulders.

Even blind, she would feel the way his aether roiled and his stomach dropped out from under him. Sensitive to it all as her Blessing had made her, it was impossible not to know the waves of his emotions as they crashed into her.

In a grim way, it was reassuring: he was just as much of a nervous mess as she.

Suddenly desperate to soothe it out of both of them, she took his hand and chose to be brave.

Body and soul, that surprised Aymeric. He could not catch his expression ere it crossed his face.

“I want to be with you.” she said—and though the words felt strange, like tasting an old secret on her tongue, she relished in the relief at saying them.

The breath left him as though he were struck, even as he beamed at her. As if given permission to breathe again, his chest rose with the slow, relieved inhale that left him in a sigh so deep as to sag his posture.

“Serendipity itself,” he said on the tapered end of his exhale, more air than words.

His hand was gentle when it brought hers to his lips. His warmth splashed across her knuckles in soft breaths as he kissed them once, twice, thrice in reverence.

“I want much the same—it feels at least a lifetime that I have yearned,” he admitted against her skin, peering at her through fanned lashes and a deep flush.

Relief and happiness crushed her heart from all sides at his words, enough that for a moment the swarm in her head scattered in dissaray. How could such an otherwise even toned and collected man have such infectious joy? The nerve of him. The unmitigated gall.

Turning her hand within his hold she instead curled it to cup his cheek. When he leaned into the touch and eclipsed her hand with his own, his lips sought her palm as though they were made solely to kiss it.

Her thumb traced the angle of his cheekbone as she struggled to find the words to say to help him understand. His thumb idly mirrored her movements, blindly pacing the length of a scar on her thumb he had come across as if in a trance as his lashes fluttered.

Seconds passed in the sort of sunlit slowness that moved like honey on a spoon, but Aymeric was eventually stirred to shift within her hold and face her fully. All syrup-slowness, his lashes lifted to let him regard her at length.

“You have concerns,” he said at last, his eyes still searching hers.

“Only one.” Serella answered, relieved and horrified all at once for his perceptive nature.

“I imagine you will find more in time, yet if there is only the one for now, then I would hear it.” he said, and let her hand slip from under his when she pulled it away. “I would help you find your ease.”

Words swam in her head, only forming coherent sentences at certain angles through the muck of her fears.

“I don’t…need any grand gestures. Nothing…announced.” Serella fumbled to explain, the words clumsy and anxious. “And I don’t want any of that—gods, it makes me anxious just to think of—“

“You are not one for ceremony.” Aymeric agreed, smiling.

Serella nodded. Wetting her lips, she tried to persevere, saying, “And—and I know there will be times where professionalism is more important. For both of us, really. I would want that distinction regardless, lest we be accused of corrupting one another’s stations.”

It was his turn to nod. “I agree,” he said.

“But that—” she cut herself off with a wince, bracing for the fall with a deep, steady inhale as she said in a rush, “that doesn’t mean I would be content to be hidden.”

“…Hidden?” Aymeric asked, and it was obvious he was taken aback for the way he almost physically jumped at the thought.

“I only mean—“ Realizing she was wording it poorly, she flustered. “I—I’m not really making myself clear, am I?”

“You are—I am merely struggling to see.” He reassured her.

With a tilt of his head, he asked, “Help me understand? How—why in the name of the Fury would I hide you?”

“It’s just…we’ve fought so hard for so long to reveal the Holy See’s secrets—both small and large.” she began slowly.

“A victory that has cost us much.” he agreed in a soft murmur.

“And…I don’t know if your station allows you to have room for me—but—”

Wetting her lips, she finally sighed and said, “for how hard we fought for the truth of the Theocracy, I would not want us to be the Republic’s first secret.”

Realization dawned on his face for the briefest moments before melting away into relief.

“Ah,” he sighed, gently, before asking, “is that what it was?”

When Serella looked at him again, his smile was impossibly soft.

“Aye,” she said, posture slumping over as the last of a sigh left her, “that’s it. My one concern.”

“Certainly a valid one, but permit me put it to rest.” Aymeric said, reaching for her again.

The first brush of his fingers on her face was enough for the tension in her shoulders to snap with such a force she almost felt lightheaded. Her head fell into his palm like the architecture of him was made to hold her.

He waited until she met his gaze before speaking again.

“There is naught preventing me from being with you, so long as we both wish for it.” Aymeric said, his hand soft as it stroked the apple of her cheek. “Nor would I ever wish to hide—I do not even think I could. Not after,” he flushed clear to the tips of his ears as he finished the sentence in an almost mumble, “not after so long pretending. I could not go back.”

She flushed in kind and resisted the urge to hide her face in his hand. Or his chest. Or the countertop. How many times would she be made to damn his earnest nature before noon? Before the sennight was over? Before the world ended?

May it happen enough that I lose count, Serella prayed.

“Well, then,” she said around a hum, “consider my concern addressed.”

“Good.”

He smiled, though the relief that rippled through him felt tentative to Serella.

“Do you have concerns?” she asked with a tilt of her head and an arch of her brow. “Since we’re clearing things up now—which, by the way, an important start to things, I should think.”

“...Only—only one for myself as well,” he said slowly, all the ease that had found him leaving in fits and starts.

As if wandering, his hand drifted to her hair and began to twirl a lock of it loosely around his finger. His gaze focused on his fidgeting.

He only did that when he was uncomfortable with what he was going to say next, she noted to herself; it was the only time he would ever look away from the person he was speaking with.

“I had not thought to address it—I presumed it was taken as given, but—“

“Better to say it,” Serella said. “Whatever it may be.”

“You have the right of it.” Aymeric agreed, even as he seemed almost reluctant. Still, his tone was even, almost detached, as he explained, “I would never want you to enter a courtship with me bearing—“

“Relationship.” she said.

When he looked at her in surprise, she added, “If you feel the need to court me to make up for lost time, I certainly won’t object, but I’d argue the past year or so has been exactly that. More or less.”

“…Relationship, then.” He said, and for all his trepidation, that seemed to please him greatly. “With perhaps some courtly romance for lost time.”

Though the troubled expression hadn’t fully left his face, even the thought of their bond had let joy rally in the corners of his lips. The melancholy almost immediately regained its dominance as he slowly continued, “I would not want you to agree to such a relationship bearing any misconceptions as to my…dedication.”

“...I don’t follow.” Serella admitted with a shake of her head.

“Pray do not misunderstand,” he pleaded, and she felt his anxiety in her throat. “I would never do aught without consent—“

“I know,” she reassured him. “I trust you.”

“That does not mean, however,” he spoke like it tortured him to do so as he said, “that I could always prioritize you over aught else. If at all, really.”

“Hmm?” She arched a brow—not offended, but still not entirely sure what he meant.

He must have taken her confusion as offense, because he spoke with just a tinge of desperation, as if frantic to articulate, “For however deep my feelings for you might run—so long as I hold even one office—” he winced before continuing, “—never mind two, I cannot hold you above my duties to Ishgard.”

As she thought. She resisted the urge to laugh, knowing how upset he was and how that would look. He had little and less to worry about in that regard—or at least, just as much to worry about as she did, which all evened out in the wash so far as she was concerned.

“Even were I not an officer of the Maelstrom,” she began, searching for the words, “as the Warrior of Light, I have to ask you much the same: can you feel comfortable, knowing I must put not only the needs of Limsa Lominsa but also the realm over you? That I most often must answer to a title before I can answer to my name?”

Aymeric blinked owlishly at her, and then she did laugh at his incredulous expression; clearly he had been so caught up in his own fears he had not perceived aught beyond them.

The sweet fool, she thought with infinite fondness.

“I can,” he said, almost excitedly.

“Then promise me,” she said, moving to lay a hand over his heart. “That you’ll never prioritize me over Ishgard and Her interests.”

“I swear it,” he said.

With a huff of relieved laughter he kissed her forehead.

His eyes were alight with relief and crinkled at the corners with his smile when he spoke again, “promise me in kind that you will never place me above the realm.”

“I would never,” she said—and spoke true.

As if her words dispelled his every trepidation, he smiled in that way that felt like the first rays of sunshine after endless rain.

“Any other concerns?” She asked, her grin returning in the wake of her relief. “Any at all?”

“None,” he responded, at last crossing those last few ilms of distance and curling his arms around her. She met him readily, hands smoothing away the singular cowlick in his hair. “None whatsoever.”

“So it’s us, then?” she asked, both for clarity and because she would never tire of hearing it. “For as long as we want?”

“Please,” he breathed, barely getting the word out before Serella discovered her new favorite feeling: his laughter, humming gently against her lips.

#ffxiv #i am as ever your shield #serella arcbane #aymeric de borel #wolmeric #ffxiv aymeric #ser aymeric #my writing #what. do i even do with tags anymore.#when I found this buried in an old email I sent to myself from a debunct work email. from like 2019. it was at like 1.9k #and I was like 'oh wow this'll be a nice little ficlet I'll just edit and clean it up a bit'#I said. like a fool. like a RUBE.#tbh it needed it tho. she had so little internal dialogue initially and it felt wooden to me.#I basically didn't touch the dialogue but it was almost *only* dialogue #it's wordier but I'm happier with it #and there's probably grammar and spelling errors all over but my eyes are blind to them at this point for how much I've reread it #and I have to get it OUT before it gets even bigger

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