#light stormblood spoilers

[wildstar25]

Which jobs (incl DoH/DoL) are lore-canon for Arsay? Are there any you play a lot that aren't?

Arsay’s canon jobs are the following:

- Ninja (though she calls herself a rogue first and foremost! She is incredibly duty driven as a ninja is described to be within the quest line. Her duty is to her friends and family.)

- Summoner (she loves to baha blast! Her carbuncle is named Couscous)

- Dragoon ( in name only, in my canon she is not given the title of azure dragoon nor did she go through the lv1-60 lancer/dragoon story. She got Estinien to show her pole arm basics and developed her own style from there. Her draconian abilities stem more from her connection to Midgardsormr and her demi-bahamut. She only pulls this job out for hunting or other non wol stuff! Only exception was the steps of faith trail cause it’s more dramatic to be a drg on that fight)

- Astrologian (this was her post ARR patch and heavensward trauma response class. She heard that there were people in ishgard that knew how to predict the future and thought it would be a good skill to pick up for herself. She was really taken by surprised by everything that happened during the bloody banquet! And again with what happened after the vault. She wanted something, anything, in her pocket that could maybe prevent her from putting her friends in bad situations. After going through all the rigmarole of learning the stars and aligning her aether to them she soon found out that the cards aren’t nearly as forthcoming with information as she hoped them to be. She does keep up with the job in her spare time, just in case! Though urianger is much more suited to it than she is. )

- machinist ( Cid showed her this sick looking gun one time and she thought it was really cool so she got a job stone from the skysteel factory and signed herself up for eorzean e-sports (crystalline conflict and front lines) pvp is her main hobby and her primary way of de-stressing. )

- gunbreaker (soft canon atm. Essentially, it would make sense that she could pick this up as it’s quite functionally a combo of knife (ninja) and gun (machinists). It’s also a zippy enough class that it makes sense for need for speed. But I haven’t figured out a lore reason for why she would have picked it up aside from wanting to show thancred up in front of ryne for fun )

- fisher (she’s not patient enough to wait around for fish but she definitely knows how and its a vital survival skill for her to have)

—————-

All the other jobs that I have for her right now are more “jobs that would be canon if xyz were true”

Monk is the only other dps I have at 90, it’s the job she would have instead of ninja if she had decided to head for thanalan in search of her father’s family at the very beginning of her adventures.

I also technically have scholar at 90 but haven’t done a single job quest beyond getting the stone. Scholar would only be canon to arsay if Emrara had decided to pass on their scholar jobstone off to arsay before arsay left for limsa.

Other classes I have are:

Warrior (would be canon if she wanted to be like her mom and also had way more pent up rage about her parent related trauma )

Red mage, black mage ( au where arsay has a larger store of her own aether to pull from and also went to thanalan first)

Bard (au where Arsay could carry a tune and went to gridania in search of her mothers side of the family. Also wasn’t immediately put off by the many micro aggressions and full racism moments she had to deal with in the archers guild)

Samurai( au where she wanted to fight fire with fire against zenos in storm blood. That or during the ralgars reach he broke one of her knives and instead of just buying a new set she was like “I will shrimply adapt” )

[birues]

Stormblood patches be like

[daggerbeanart]

[calico-heart]

I finished the Doman Restoration quests today. I think Nahte would really find comfort in tento-okuri. Loss of loved ones is never easy for him, but this offers the many people he's lost along the way a gentle goodbye. He participates every year after it's brought back, even if he's not always able to be in Doma proper.

[littlelordalphinaud]

Oh, don't say opposites attract I'd rather fight you over things we both like Oh, don't make up for what I lack I don't need a missing piece, just someone at my back

-At My Back (Madds Buckley)

[mythril-tempest]

‘sup?

[ahollowgrave]

Thinking more thoughts about WOL!Odette...

Specifically how she's a young, naïve nun who is crafted into a god killer by a woman who loves her and who she loves in turn. How Odette had been told her whole life in the convent that she was destined to be a saint. Of course she would be 'The' Warrior of Light, of course she's Hydaelyn's chosen, of course she and Minfilia fall in love. How this means she never questions the Scion's motives or care for her. She and Minfilia work so well because they understand their roles perfectly. Not always happily but they are both women of deep faith. Faith in Menphina, faith in Hydaelyn, faith in their comrades, faith in each other. They work so well because neither can place the other and their own happiness in front of their duty, their faith. That total understanding must be so freeing for them, to be able to love as fully as they can and knowing it's enough for their partner. Odette spends most of Heavensward with a knot of grief for a heart. She tries so hard not to borrow grief from the future but it is hard not to when they just don't know about Minfilia for so long. But there is so much going on in Heavensward and without Minfilia to consistently come back to I think she's very adrift. More than ever, this expansion is when she is most like a silent protagonist. I can't even touch that scene at the end of Heavenswards. You know the one. I did already talk about Minfilia in Shadowbringers...

[carnivorous-arboretum]

on the topic of tsuyu [part 2]

cas facts [tw - abuse] under the cut

yotsuyu, near her end, definitely voices a lot of the things cas - or, parts of cas - have been thinking and feeling. mika [one of the child alters] in particular has had the exact same feelings about communities willing to cover up abuse.

i think what happened to tsuyu scares the system in new and fascinating ways. they're all feeling Pretty Bad about yotsuyu's fate, but their feelings bleed into each other and coalesce to form a New, Fucked Up Way to Feel Fear.

knowing that a part of you - functionally, you, but you can't identify with it - is terrified of an outcome that mirrors everything they're in pain about already. trying to comfort but feeling out of your depth because you should be fearing this. and it's also you. you have to be the safe adult for yourself - yet for all your heroism, you can't save yourself

[abyssalmermaiden]

Wounded severely by Zenos during the attack on Rhalgr’s Reach, Ancel and Aryaille have now recovered and are anxious to return to the field.

Joda suggests a sparring match between the two- training and a warm up before the next real battle.

Both knights harbor a burning need to not loose again and the fight escalates from a simple training match to a bloody brawl.

Eventual intervention- in the form of a rescue spell by Yloise- prevents them from putting each other back in the infirmary.

Ancel: @hermits-hovel​ , Joda: @azure-dragonsinger​, Yloise: @yloiseconeillants​

extra:

“Good game.”

[aerial-elf]

WoL savior

[tritoch]

fuck it. have an enormous oc lore dump. this is the "canon" wol oc i conceived as part of my personal preferred approach in some games to take the game's text as presented, not headcanon away any elements, and, as much as possible, adhere to whatever "definitive" canon as best as can be discerned from what's given as an option. as a comedy bit, I also wanted to make a Warrior of Light who does everything you can do in canon, like an omnijob level 90 did all the raids did all the beast tribes caught every fish did all the relics did every hildi questline kind of WoL. Someone who really does mostly communicate through nods and punch gestures and only says the specific lines you can say in game (except for the scenes, increasingly common in later expacs, where they let you imagine a conversation). I just think it's funny to take an approach to the game that is at once fairly restrained (no elements beyond what is already presented in the lore) and extremely maximalist (yes, he one hundred percent did steal those pants). spoilers through stormblood under the break.

Wolund Anadezhda (not his real name) was born in Bozja in the year 1533 of the Sixth Astral Era to a young gunbreaker in Bozja's army and her husband, a foundling adept of the Verdant Path and fellow soldier. Resolving that their son would not grow up in the shadow of war, the Hrothgar couple resolved to have him sent out of the country shortly after his birth. He grew up instead under the care of his father's adoptive sister, a master of the Verdant Path in her own right, who left Bozja some years prior under uncertain circumstances after a serious injury left her unable to return to the front lines.

The sister (a Sea Wolf Roegadyn) had through various adventures found herself running a Dalmascan caravanserai, a walled inn a day's travel west of the city of Rabanastre. There, she raised Wolund both to run an inn and in the forms of the Verdant Path. Though not a warm woman, she did her best to raise Wolund carefully and lovingly, and honoring her brother and sister-in-law's wishes, tried to shelter him from the horrors of the world. He, in return, idolized her. He received sporadic letters from his parents, at least until Bozja fell. Their ultimate fates are unknown, though Wolund believes that even if they didn't die during the course of the war, they likely died as part of the resistance or in the Bozja Incident.

In the year 1547, 6th AE, Dalmasca is invaded by the IVth Legion. The caravanserai is close enough to the border for the Garlean line to advance past it fairly quickly, and Wolund chooses to remain with his aunt in order to protect her from the occupation as best he could. As Wolund has grown, his aunt has told him stories of the devastation war had wreaked in Bozja, and of the losses she still grieved. She explained to him that students of the Verdant Path such as herself had been targeted by the IVth Legion to be brought in dead or alive in a bid to control their knowledge and break Bozja's ability to resist, and that she had fled the country at her brother's behest to preserve the school's knowledge for future generations. Chafing under Imperial rule, Wolund aspired, at the time, to learn as best he could from her, follow in her footsteps, and do his part to maintain the lineage of the Verdant Path school.

In my conception, the Verdant Path, as a multidisciplinary school that teaches (at least) spear, greatsword, katana, and unarmed combat as part of its tradition, encompasses more of a martial philosophy, conceptual approach to space, and footwork system than a specific set of techniques for various weapons. This is a key element of why Wolund, in order to adhere as closely to the maximum extent of the available canon as possible, can pick up like 19 different martial disciplines, sweet Mary Sue that he is.

As he aged into his late teens and early twenties, Wolund was settling into his role as his aunt's chef, handyman, disciple, and likely future replacement innkeeper, as her war injury made physical labor increasingly difficult. Also around this time, Wolund has a brief engagement with a Keeper of the Moon Mi'qote merchant, part of a tribe of several Keeper families who operated a caravan which plied a route between Rabanastre and Martrvje in Bozja. At her behest, largely as a practical matter on her end though not without some romance, they had a child together, with the intent that, as in most Keeper families, she would raise the child herself, though he would, by grace of the caravan's route, have periodic contact with them both.

Before the child's birth, however, an imperial recruiter looking to fill a quota came through town. And so in the year 1556, 6th AE, at the age of 23, Wolund was conscripted and assigned to the VIth Legion, then a corrupt and disorderly force occupying the relatively peaceful southern coast of Ilsabard. A far cry from Emperor Solus's disciplined armies, the VIth Legion then was scarcely indistinguishable from a private mercenary group answering to local colonial governments.

Wolund struggled after his initial conscription, seething at the prospect of two decades under the Garlean Empire's yoke, fell into despair, and tried to emotionally withdraw. Since he was a quiet, disciplined conscript as well as a young and fairly imposing Hrothgar, his Garlean officers read in him the ready Garleanization that they wished to see. His practiced prowess in the training hall further contrasted his "bestial" appearance in the eyes of the bigoted Garlean officers. In Wolund, they saw a useful tool and status symbol for their occupation.

Consequently, while Wolund's time resembled the expected conscript experience in many respects, it was also marked by unexpected success in the unusual, corrupt environment of the VIth Legion. He spent plenty of time in his first couple of years on hard, undesirable labor, as any conscript would: digging ditches, building infrastructure, policing occupied populations, and, in the singular case of open conflict breaking out, serving on the front lines. However, he stood out from his peers, and he found himself frequently serving as a sort of exotic trophy or bodyguard for increasingly senior officers or local bigwigs. Eventually, he found himself attached to the staff of the legion's 10th Cohort as vexillarius, or standard-bearer, for the cohort's pilus prior. This turned out to be, given his centurion's corruption and close links to the local colonial government, merely a slightly more elevated form of his old work serving as muscle and an imposing presence behind preening dignitaries.

At this point, about six years into his two decades, Wolund's conscription seemed on a steady path to eventual citizenship. For his part, he remained as emotionally disengaged as he could manage, materially secure in his position in the 10th Cohort. The insulated world he built came crashing down in his sixteenth year of service, when crown prince Varis yae Galvus sent his close friend and confidant Regula van Hydrus to reform the corrupt VIth Legion. Many senior officers, including Wolund's centurion, were executed by firing squad for their abuses and indiscretions, with still more clapped in irons and hauled before military tribunals. Efforts to reform the legion's reputedly undisciplined soldiers saw Wolund, like many other conscripts, detached from the VIth in the hopes that reassignment to a more disciplined legion could salvage the conscripts that, in Regula's eyes, the VIth had nearly wrecked. Wolund found himself assigned to the VIIth Legion in 1572, on the eve of Carteneau.

In year 4 of the Seventh Umbral Era, Wolund completed his term of conscription. Engraved and sealed legionary diploma in hand, he made his way to Garlemald itself, where his paperwork was verified and his name added to the citizen's registry. He returned to the caravanserai outside Rabanastre as Wolund pyr Anadezhda. There, he found his aunt, now some 20 years older, and her unexpected apprentice as innkeeper: his own daughter, now a 20-year-old woman and soon to be running the place herself.

Of Carteneau itself, there is little to say, and what few coherent memories Wolund may have had were taken by Louisoix's magic, along with Eorzea's Warriors of Light. Wolund crawled out of the catastrophe and butchery of the Seventh Umbral Calamity to find himself one of the VIIth's few survivors. Reassigned to the Vth, he served out the rest of his term quietly, though nightmares of Carteneau continued to plague him. While serving in the Vth Legion, he served as a quartermaster and honed his skill in both literacy and sums.

For about four months, Wolund tenuously reinserted himself into the daily life of the inn while attempting to form a connection to his daughter and reconnect to his aunt and his daughter's mother. His efforts to begin his life again were cut short when soldiers came sniffing around the caravanserai on the order of a local magistrate, a former officer of the VIth Legion who sought to employ him as a trainer to his household guard. Recognizing that he would not be able to live a life free of the Garlean Empire's boot so long as he remained within their lands, and not wishing to endanger his daughter or aunt by enlisting them in his decision, Wolund simply skipped town one night. He left behind all his possessions except for enough money to see him safely overseas, as well as a letter that stated tersely that he did not wish to be followed. From the caravanserai he made his way by horse to Rabanastre and then to Valnain, where he caught a ride on a merchant ship bound for Hingashi, and from thence to Limsa Lominsa, where he arrived in year 5 of the Seventh Umbral Era.

Upon arriving in Eorzea, Wolund, leaning on his most recent skills in math and reading, as well as his admittedly rusty knowledge of trade goods from his time at the caravanserai, applies to work at the Arcanist's Guild. Everything proceeds as it does in the game from there.

All this is in service of a couple things. First of all, honestly, giving him a big backstory where various bad things happen to him over the course of a long time is primarily in service of dealing with what I think is one of the shakiest scenes in the game: the moment where Fordola accidentally uses the Echo on you and is shocked to her core by the scale of the tragedy you've overcome. I just don't think this makes a lot of sense for the WoL based just on what's depicted in-game, as sad as the events of the Banquet and Haurchefant's and Ysayle's deaths and Minfilia's sacrifice are. Giving him a comparable backstory to Fordola as a legion conscript does a lot, in my book, to smooth out that scene and make its emotional weight land better in my head, as do elements like the death and destruction he witnessed at Carteneau and the stuff about his daughter.

Secondly, in addition to that scene, this is just supposed to help set up a lot of stuff about the WoL I find a little clunky, particularly earlier on. Why does everyone in the Scions immediately glom on to you and decide you're their hero? Well, maybe the WoL is a stoic and outwardly emotionally reassuring older man who's conveniently older than the oldest of the Scions by more than a decade, and he can fill the Louisoix-shaped hole in their hearts that each of them except maybe Y'shtola very obviously has. How are you simultaneously everyone's favorite guy and also a story non-entity? Maybe he's nice and kind to people but very bad at handling and leading them initially (as evidenced by letting Alphinaud sleepwalk you all into a trap at the Banquet), in part because he spent the better part of two decades playing the part of mute imposing muscle for aristocratic officers. And maybe the fact he's consciously silenced himself for 20 years plays into the fact that the Warrior of Light becomes chattier throughout the expansions. Maybe he knows how to wear Garlean conscript armor and operate magitek because he was once a conscript himself. And so on and so forth.

Third, playing by my dumb "canon" rules, the WoL has to come from outside Eorzea. You're arriving by ship or cart and you're clearly unfamiliar with the city-states by the text. However, you also can't come from a lot of known places, since then you're bumping up against the issue that those places will also treat you like a stranger when you arrive in-game. There's no Bozja dialogue for being Hrothgar, but 1) to them it's not weird they'd have no reason to mention it and 2) this is why he isn't culturally Bozjan. Linking the WoL to Dalmasca solves this issue because the only Dalmascans you meet would have no reason to know a random Imperial conscript, you have no real time with them to shoot the shit about culture, we will not go to a functioning Rabanastre ever, and there is no reason you would have wanted to share all this with anyone on board the Prima Vista. Fourth, the WoL is a person of many talents and skills. Chalking up his weapon skills to the Verdant Path and his conscription, and linking his DoH/DoL skills to his upbringing, goes a long way towards helping ground some of that (as much as delightful nonsense can be grounded). Fifth, I think it's really funny to make the Warrior of Light a deadbeat dad. Final Fantasy is so full of bad sad dads already, WoL should get to be one. Lastly, I'm jealous that 1.0 players got to be at Carteneau and I want to bite their style but I refuse to break canon to do so, which means conscript it has to be (since being from a Free or Grand Company would contravene the earlier point about having to be new to Eorzea).

(A note on timelines: ARR begins in the year 5 of the Seventh Umbral Era, which would have been Year 1577 of the Sixth Astral Era. Per the wiki, Bozja is noted to have been invaded some fifty years ago, suggesting a war that begins in 1527 or so, but its conquest is described as happening "over thirty" years ago and multiple places note the campaign as grueling, so I think part of the idea (which gels with the trenches we see in the southern front) is supposed to be that the Bozjan campaign was a brutal and grinding one for the IVth Legion, or that after seizing Bozja proper it still took a long time to stamp out all resistance. Dalmasca was invaded 30 years ago in 1547, also by the IVth Legion, presumably fairly soon after stabilizing their grip on Bozja. I don't think there's any time given for when Regula goes to the VIth and reforms it, but since they only clear their tainted reputation in the succession war following Solus's death, I figure he can't have been there that long and he makes a convenient reason to move Wolund around, so five years approximately concurrent with the 1.0 to 2.0 timeskip seems like a decent timeline for his reform.)

[birues]

"You needn't be so concerned. Though his values remain the same, Alphinaud is not the blinkered boy he once was. Slowly but surely, his eyes have been opened– thanks to a certain someone. A certain someone whom he'd be mortified to learn had heard his little speech. Mum's the word, eh?"

[steelhazes]

by the fucking way the lvl 70 drg quest destroyed me

[shutupwyl]

me: Alea hates Zenos, she tries to see the good in everyone but she cannot stand the harm Zenos causes for his own amusement

also me: Alea hasn’t let anyone get too close to her after Haurchefant died and Zenos has forcibly put himself close to her, she is attached to him in ways she doesn’t want to talk, let alone think, about because that would be admitting that she is going against everything she stands for as the Warrior of Light

also also me: Zenos killing himself in front of Alea brings her back to watching Haurchefant bleed out in front of her after shielding her from the spear, Zenos put his own blade to his neck for her as Haurchefant put his shield up for her; and after so much trauma, so much loss, so much blood on her hands she can no longer distinguish between Haurchefants and Zenos’s

also also also me: i want Alea and Zenos to kiss while crying because neither has had someone be soft with them in a very long time if ever

[gabethehermit]

Custom title screens featuring my WoL. Inspired by a WoLQotD by @/nymeial on twitter.

Gonna post this on the alt blog too.

[roguelioness]

(i'll follow-) follow you down

Fandom: FFXIV Pairing: Alyzen Kaide/Estinien Varlineau, Alyzen Kaide/Aymeric de Borel Rating: T (mild violence) Words: 1784

(read on ao3)

The woman in his arms looks so fucking fragile.

She’s so silent, so alarmingly unmoving as he strides rapidly across the battlefield. There’s fighting all around him, soldiers of the Alliance clashing with the Garleans, the loud rotors and motors of their grotesque ceruleum-fuelled warmachina vibrating the air. Smoke and dust and blood is a near-tangible thing on his tongue, sour and acrid and bitter, and there’s a piercingly high scream coming from the right, but all of Estinien’s attention is on the pale-faced, bruised and bleeding Warrior of Light.

Savior of Ishgard.

Eorzea’s Champion.

He's only ever seen her vital and vibrant, whether in joy or grief or rage or sorrow. But now she wears a new look and he finds he does not care much for the sight of it.

In his arms, she looks so… human. So mortal. 

So frangible.

He should have acted sooner. He should have fought by her side, instead of watching as she parried blow after blow, as her skin turned from golden to purple-blue.

He thought she’d had it under control. And Halone’s breath, but she’d been magnificent as she danced around the battlefield, Zenos’ attacks barely touching her.

And she’d killed him. He’d seen it. He’d watched Zenos’ body slump to the ground, little better than a soggy sack of flour. He didn’t have to be a Sharlayan scholar to know that the dead weren’t meant to glow ominous red before climbing back to their feet.

Alyzen always had the worst luck.

Whatever that thing was, whatever manner of creature lived in that body, it had not startled Aly, or surprised her. No, she'd been so fucking resigned, like she'd expected it, a grim sort of desperation on her thinned mouth. Fool woman, he clenches his jaw as he carefully climbs over a twisted chunk of metal that had once been a craft, why would you attempt to fight a creature that could not be killed?

But he knows the answer, even as he rages against it. What other choice did she have? All too often, the fate of half a dozen countries rested on her shoulders, and he cannot even judge them for it, for had he not required her assistance to protect and defend the country he loves?

Why had she been alone on the battlefield? Where were the rest of her Scions, her friends? Why had they abandoned her in her time of need?

The kind of magicks it had employed… to see her in such distress, to know she was in pain and that he could do nothing– He should have intervened the moment he saw the body rise. Perhaps if he had… his gaze drops to her blood-soaked armor.

Mayhap it was his imagination, but had she stopped breathing?

Estinien dips his head closer to her face, his cheek near her nose, and a flood of relief washes over him as the warmth of her exhale fans over his skin. “Do not even think of dying,” he murmurs to her, ducking behind a rockface so that the soldiers passing overhead do not catch a glimpse of their hero so wounded. “I would be most vexed with you should you make the slightest attempt.”

The Alliance camp was easy enough to slip into without being noticed. Estinien cast his glance this way, then that, attempting to gauge the safest place to take her to. Alyzen has dire need of a chirurgeon, but were she to be seen it would cause a massive drop in morale. Search as he might, he cannot find the slightest trace of the Scions. A strange thing indeed, even more so that none of the leaders seemed unaffected by their absence.

In the midst of all this chaos, there’s only one person Estinien trusts.

He knows Aymeric well enough to instantly pick him out of the crowd. Weaving his way through a throng of bodies dashing about, his own hood pulled over his head, he makes his way towards Ishgard’s Lord Commander. Aymeric is ensconced within the tent that serves as his personal accommodations, fully busy giving out orders to Lucia, but Estinien cannot wait for him to finish– he barges into the tent, ignoring Lucia’s outraged exclamation, and pulls down his hood to reveal his face.

“She needs help,” is all he says.

Aymeric draws in a sharp, shocked breath when his gaze lands on Alyzen’s form, his features contorting with heartbreak, before he quickly gathers himself and barks out an order to Lucia to fetch a chirurgeon. Estinien ignores the woman’s departure in favor of settling Aly onto Aymeric’s bed, his fingers suddenly and unexpectedly shaky as he brushes away a blood-crusted strand of hair away from her face.

“What happened?” Aymeric asks, concern making his voice tremble.

“Zenos,” he says, then goes into the details of the fight he’d witnessed.

Aymeric’s breath catches in his throat. “That was not the Crown Prince that raised his blade against her,” he states quietly as he kneels by the bed, carefully undoing the straps and buckles that keep her armor together. “Zenos is dead. It is an Ascian that now wears his body.”

“She fought an ascian? What would possess you to send her out to face him alone?” Estinien’s voice vibrates with his outrage. “If the alliance does not care for her wellbeing, surely the scions would–”

“The Scions are not here, Estinien.”

“So I gather. I overheard a group of men say they were on a secret mission elsewhere. Why would they leave her to fend for herself?”

“They cannot be here,” Estinien’s never seen Aymeric look more troubled. 

A short explanation later, and a fresh horror has embedded itself into his chest; he stares down at Alyzen, quiescent and motionless. “You believe there is a chance the same fate has befallen her? You think her soul has…” he cannot bring himself to say it.

“It has occurred several times,” Aymeric is grim-faced now, “and my understanding is that it affected only the Scions. Each time it has taken place, a Scion has fallen prey. Alisaie fell but a week ago.” He exhales heavily, his shoulders slumping with the motion. “Would that I could have kept her from the same fate. Halone grant me strength, the sight of her like this is once I cannot bear."

Before Estinien can respond, Lucis bursts in, a chirurgeon close at her heels. He watches silently as the medic examines Alyzen, as they tug at her eyelids and measure her pulse and clean and suture her wounds, but even he knows that her injuries, numerous as they are, could not be responsible for her insensate condition.

The chirurgeon completes his examination. “She– she appears to be asleep, my lord,” he says, a frown creasing his brow. “Her breathing is steady, and her pulse is strong. Yet–” he hesitates.

“Yet?” Aymeric crosses his arms.

“I could be mistaken, of course, but her aether– it is considerably thinned.”

Estinien narrows his eyes. “What do you mean? Speak plainly.”

He clears his throat. “It is as though her soul is barely present. It clings to her body in the barest of threads.”

There’s a clog in his throat, a rusted dagger in his chest. Estinien’s fingers twitch, as though they’re seeking out the comfort of hers; he curls them into his palm, hiding his fist behind his back. 

“You are certain of this?” Aymeric asks. 

“Aye.”

“It bodes well that it yet lingers,” Lucia places a hand on Aymeric’s shoulder. “The Warrior of Light is strong. She will return to us; of this I am certain.”

Aymeric exhales. “Aye,” he murmurs. “I must have faith.” His gaze meets Estinien’s, and he can see the fear lurking in those depths – not the fear of a leader on the verge of losing his best soldier, but the fear of a man who cares deeply.

Loves, even.

Estinien clenches his jaw so tight his teeth hurt. He recognizes that fear for it sits within his own ribs. The recognition of that emotion brings with it panic. Surely it cannot be. He cannot possibly– Dimly, he registers Aymeric giving orders for Alyzen to be flown to Ishgard– “immediately. Ensure that none but the Alliance leaders are aware of her condition–” but all his attention is on her.

She does look like she’s merely asleep. If it were not for the bandages and the bruises he could fool himself into believing it. But she’s not asleep. Someone, somewhere, is trying to pull her soul out of her body. Someone, somewhere is trying to turn her body into a husk. Someone, somewhere, is hurting her, and he cannot do anything about it–

“Will you accompany us?” Aymeric’s soft-spoken question rouses him out of his thoughts. 

“What?”

“Will you accompany us?” Lowering his voice further, he adds, “Even if she is unaware of it now, I am certain that when she wakes she would be pleased to know you kept her company.”

Estinien hesitates. He looks at Aly, a belligerent blue bloom on her now-pale cheek, short copper hair – when had she cut it? – matted and plastered to her scalp. Of what help would he be, hovering by her bedside like an overzealous mother hen? Her foes are numerous and linger in the shadows, and his time would be better served in hunting them.

It is not, as that traitorous little voice in the back of his head whispers, because he cannot bear to see her like this.

“Nay,” he shrugs, a pang of guilt pricking him at the split-second expression of disappointment that flickers over Aymeric’s face. “I would be of little help in an infirmary, Aymeric.”

“I suppose I should not be surprised,” Aymeric sighs. “Though you can be assured that she would be most disappointed at your absence.”

“Aymeric.” His tone, subdued as it is, gets the Lord Commander’s attention. Whatever Aymeric sees on his face is enough to have his own expression soften. 

“I will see to her care, Estinien. Have no doubt that she will be tended to by Ishgard’s finest chirurgeons.” He reaches out and grips his shoulder. The weight of his palm is welcome; it steadies that shaky, wobbly part of him that worries and fears for Alyzen. “Do you have any message you wish for me to disclose once she regains consciousness?”

“Tell her–” he pauses. His throat is clogged with an emotion he refuses to acknowledge. “Tell her she is not alone.” With that, he turns on his heel and walks away, forcing himself to ignore the part of him that yearns to return to her side.

He cannot remain, not while there are still those who desire her demise.