#npc: alphinaud | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ishgard · 1 month ago

Text

"Surely you must know how I feel for you. How I have always felt for you."

Lost Time -

pairing: wol x alphinaud word count: 3269 summary: Set after the events of 7.0, Kyanite Alphinaud takes Ahru on a small, more personal tour of Solution 9. After showing her around, they end up perched atop the roofs, falling into the comfort of familiar conversation, and trying to bridge the gap in time that was lost. tags/warnings: talky, introspective, wip a/n: it's a scene that kept rattling in my brain and i just had to get it out, but it's a bit rough. I'd write out the whole 'not-date' if I had more time 😩

"What do you think of it?" He asked.

"It's… almost unlike anything I've ever seen. It brings to mind the advancements of Alphatron and Allag, but it's so much…" She squinted at the distant shapes of buildings, colorful lights shining through the windows and the glitter of electrope twinkling everywhere. "Prettier?"

As mixed as her feelings were about the whole of what Alexandria had done, it was much more appealing to her eye than most Allagan architecture. Then again, perhaps she's simply developed a soured, over-exposed perspective.

Alphinaud chuckled. "I had thought you might like it." He said, speaking so softly it was almost a whisper. She couldn't have known but it was a voice he'd used countless times in private, speaking to her in the years of her absence.

"Many a time did I consider what you would make of it all. Sometimes I figured you'd abhor it, yet something about it, and even now I'm not quite sure what, made me think otherwise."

"Heh, you know me so well." She laughed softly, shaking her head. "I'm not exactly sure what I like about it either. But I guess…" Her lips tightened as her gaze narrowed. "That you're here has something to do with it."

Grinning at him, she grasped for some sense of levity, but the ghost of her earlier grief shadowed the look in her eyes. "No matter what else, you're alive and well, so my relief might be coloring at least part of my perception of the place."

Stars knew that if he had truly been dead… No, she couldn't think of that anymore. It was a darkness so wretched it put to shame her role as the so-called hero who had overcome despair itself.

She'd thought herself beyond such self-doubt by now, and yet in that brief window of time thinking him gone, she'd felt as if she was on the verge of proving herself a liar and fraud - of becoming the proof of Fandaniel's and the Endsinger's so-called truth.

Too swiftly to stop herself her hand reached out to grab his, reminding herself he was here. There was no need for any more of those thoughts.

"You know I'm never letting you out of my sight again, right?" She made an effort to joke, but the laughter in her throat was strained beneath the weight of truth in her words.

His brows were subtly raised, eyes lowered to where her hand was clasped over his, and he could not help but to marvel at how much smaller it was now. Those strong, calloused hands that shielded the stars from peril time and time again, seemed somehow… more fragile - even if he knew otherwise.

"It did cross my mind you would think that way." The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly as he looked up at her again, shifting their hands to take hers between both of his.

Yes, how many times had he left her side and been met with blades at his neck, or spirited away to distant worlds. He'd had plenty of time to lament the pains he'd caused her… To imagine how he might one day make amends.

"Don't blame yourself, Ahru. I chose every step I took."

This time her attention fell to their hands, and similarly she made the same observation: how much bigger his were now. Gloved and warm, they easily encompassed hers. It ached to know how much time had been taken from him… Or, rather… From them.

She sighed and squeezed her fingers around his. "You always were stubborn."

"I daresay it's why we've always gotten on so well."

As they continued to speak the heaviness gradually passed. What news she had to offer could be summed up in under half a bell, he had far more to share with her. It would take much longer for him to share all the things he'd seen and experienced, but there was no hurry now.

Still, he spoke of the friends he'd made, and the work he'd done. How he first met Cahciua, and how she drank him under the table as part of his 'initiation' to Oblivion. How he'd volunteered with the hunters and the reforgers, or the years he'd spent struggling with his identity after he'd become 'Kyanite'.

He spoke of the difficulty watching how quickly some could cast aside their past to embrace the life Alexandria offered them. He could scarcely fault them for it, and yet…

"It felt as if any hope of one day reuniting with what we'd lost slipped further and further away, each time someone put on a regulator, or moved from Yyasulani into Everkeep." He sighed and shook his head. "But people cannot be expected to put their lives on hold indefinitely."

"What about you?" She asked rather abruptly. It had been bubbling beneath the surface, and she'd been trying to keep it down until she felt more comfortable broaching it, but it burst out all on it's own along with her nervous energy.

It felt like something he'd have brought up by now, or otherwise broached, yet instead it seemed like something he was avoiding speaking of.

"I mean… Almost thirty years." Oh, stop. Stop. Internally she was kicking and screaming at herself to quit before she embarrassed herself, but each word came tripping out over the one before it in quick succession now. "What I mean to say is, many seem to have found solace in… finding loved ones and starting families. Surely you've-"

"Surely?" The word snapped out with an incredulousness that -thankfully- cut her off from babbling any further, but the look he gave her of confusion and almost indignation all but shamed her.

For a too-long moment they sat staring at one another, grappling with the weight of a million unsaid things, and thirty years of separation. For him. A mere few days for her. How did one navigate that gulf in perception? She was trying, and yet… Perhaps she'd overstepped.

"Ahru." He shifted towards her and started again, speaking soft and slow, the weight of each word drowning out all else. "Surely- Surely you must know how I feel for you." It ought to have been a distant memory for him, yet he didn't speak in the past tense. "How I have always felt about you."

Her stomach knotted. Yes… She wasn't so foolish not to have realized after all the time they'd spent together. But she had only recently begun to really understand and accept it. He had had three decades to do so, and there was something a little overwhelming about that to her…

His shoulders tensed as he drew one of her hands up to his chest, his hand tight around hers.

"Perhaps I am too changed, too unfamiliar to you now, but my feelings have ever remained the same." Then his words slowed, as if he struggled to speak them. "If that's… too difficult for you, I would understand. But please, never doubt the affections my heart harbors have e'er been yours and yours alone." After a breath a dry, incredulous laugh shook him, with just a hint of amused bitterness. "How else could I ever love another, having loved you?"

She'd wanted to stop him part way through, but words had well and truly escaped her, and by the last of what he'd said she wasn't sure she'd find them again. She'd had her spirit flung out of her body on several occasions, but this might have been the first time there was no imminent peril accompanying the sensation.

It had never crossed his mind. Why would it? He loved her, and that pure and simple truth alone was all he needed in the cold span of the intervening years. The full realization shook her down to the core.

The little girl left behind by her parents, friends, lovers, time and time again… The little fool who looked for love and fled at the first sign of it… The insatiable wanderer, the candle burning at both ends. Who would ever, in their right mind, wait for her?

Her awareness slowly drew back to her body when her vision blurred with the warmth and weight of tears threatening to fall. This was the overwhelming feeling that had rendered her speechless, that shifted reality around her. The immensity of his love dwarved her fears and insecurities, and she struggled to put down the final vestiges of resistance in the face of something she could no longer deny - and that she deeply did not want to.

No, he was not the same young man she'd known just a few, simple days ago. Yes, he was the same person she'd fallen in love with over the years, as enchantingly slow as a leaf falling from the branch. Twirling weightless, helpless to the whims of the breeze and the ultimate, inexorable pull of gravity.

"Ahru…?"

"Uh… Huh?"

His form was blurry, but she could see the worry in his face. The same worry she'd seen years ago in the Stone Vigil, which he quickly concealed with snarky remarks. The same she'd seen after she'd defeated Ravana, or at the top of Sohm Al, or after Zenos had struck her down, or - untold countless times. The same gentle concern in those soft blue eyes.

"I apologize, perhaps that was… too much. We've been up here for a while now, and it has been a lot to take in. You needn't-"

"Alphinaud."

It was not lost on her the split-second pause. He still wasn't used to anyone saying his name.

"Yes?"

Taking in a deep breath she exhaled slowly as she turned towards him, placing her hands on either side of his face.

"Just give me a moment."

His expression tensed comically, his lower lip over-compensating in trying to keep a straight face, and instead landing him somewhere in the territory of a 'sheepish, stubborn pout'. Yes, though his features had aged, the much beloved familiarities remained strong.

And when she smiled at that thought, he eased as well.

"Of course. Take as long as you need."

The corners of her eyes crinkled as her smile widened, her heart feeling light and airy. "No, I don't think I'll keep you waiting too much longer."