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“Aymeric.”
He was already stopped like he’d been waiting for her. Before she’d even called his name he was standing motionless in the heavy shadows of Ishgard’s spires, head low but shoulders impeccably straight.
Night was falling thickly over Ishgard, and for how deserted the streets were at that quiet hour, they could have been alone in the Pillars, the only people left. For a moment until she reached him, he was the only living thing in the world, his cold-clouded breathing the only miniscule movement left in a city that had manifested itself into a functioning tomb in just a few damning sentences. He was lit aglow by the distant streetlamps, ethereal and distant enough already that she felt that she was heading towards a ghost.
Blue armour, blue light.
It was impossible that she’d caught him; it was impossible that he wouldn’t be waiting. No one else had thought to go after him, and he wouldn’t have waited for another.
Neither fact should have existed, but she went to him anyway.
She caught up with him in the darkness and their fingers braided together without thought, his grip tighter than his stoic countenance would have betrayed. Without speaking but with unspoken agreement, they pulled each other into the shadows of Ishgard’s stone walls, protective and paranoid. In the light, the Heavens’ Ward roamed, limitless potential for power and bottomless potential for cruelty. In the light, the war raged, history waited, and innocents died.
In the darkness, it was only them.
How badly she needed it to only ever be them.
How unbearably impossible it all was.
“You aren’t going to ask me to stay.” His mouth was already too close to hers, head bent low, arms firm and unflinching at her waist like a lifeline. He held her close like he was sheltering her, despite the fact that he was the one walking into flames. His arms were solid and warm around her, his breath ghosting along her cheek where he pressed close.
Her hands, meanwhile, were restless against his chest, seeking out the bare skin at his neck, fingertips insatiable, her body aware of the coming separation long before she let herself believe it. She ignored the frantic beat of her own heart in favour of finding the pulse of his, needing to prove to herself that he was there, he was still alive, she hadn’t missed him.
How had it become so important that she not miss him?
“I’m not,” she agreed, even as she turned her face up to his, even as he kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her, because this was what they did. She left, and she came back. He was leaving, and he was coming back.
He was coming back. She kissed him to devastation, drawing him close and letting herself be consumed in turn, neither willing to be the first to pull away when any kiss suddenly had a very finite number.
“I have to do it.” He wasn’t trying to convince either of them, but it needed to be said regardless. He pressed the words against her mouth and she swallowed them like holy communion, promises made like sacred vows. “I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t.”
“I know,” she whispered, and she kissed him, and she could feel him relax, shoulders heaving low over her like he’d been waiting for her reassurance, and she kissed him, and something close to fear drove a stake through her newly-thawed heart. You shouldn’t rely on me like this.
I shouldn’t rely on you like this.
It was too late long ago, but the consequences had never been so heavy before.
She hadn’t realised her heart was in danger of being broken until she felt the sharp edges of it cracking like glass.
For long minutes, there was silence while they held each other. Winds blew harsh through Ishgard’s spires and stone, but where the Warrior of Light hid in a darkened corner with the Lord Commander, they were cut off from the rest of the city. The only sound she was aware of was her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. The only feeling that mattered was him under her hands, warm and alive and all the more precious now that it was about to be torn away.
“Listen,” she breathed eventually, and he was properly holding her now, head ducked low into her neck as his arms snaked around her waist, pulling her close and keeping her there. She wound her arms around his neck and whispered into his ear like a prayer, absorbing every unspoken fear of his into herself for safekeeping. His arms tightened around her as she spoke, tense and attentive. Quiet and quick, she laid out the plans of Lucia and the Fortemps boys, their dedication to his safe return. Aware they could be caught any moment, that time was of the essence, she spoke reassurances into his ear that he wasn’t forgotten, he wouldn’t be alone, his idealism wouldn’t be wasted.
Wouldn’t die with him, went the unspoken, and she tightened her grip around his neck, possessive and desperate
Aymeric listened intently, still as stone, his strong arms wrapped around her like he, too, sensed that he needed to absorb every sensation of her, breathing her in like he were about to leap into an ocean and she was the last semblance of oxygen he’d ever receive.
“You’ll thank them for me?” He asked softly, sounding younger for just an instant, and she wanted to burn the entire godsdamned city down for ever putting him in a position that he sounded like that. She nodded into his shoulder, and he held her tight.
“Listen,” he said in turn, and she was dry-eyed and attentive despite the cold jolt of fear that splintered ice through her veins at his next words. “My father won’t kill me,” he whispered against her skin, and his breath was soft as though if he said it quietly enough, the terrible reality of the implications of those words wouldn’t be true.
She froze, cold with terrible, knowing fear, because she knew him. She knew him to his core, every piece of him, body and mind, and she understood perfectly what he was telling her without him having to elaborate. It was, after all, only a confirmation of the horrified knowledge that had prompted her to run so desperately away from Fortemps manor, her feet spurred with the awful knowledge that if she didn’t get to him in time, it was likely that she was never going to see him again. The truth of it pounded in her veins, thick and undeniable.
The Archbishop wouldn’t kill his own flesh and blood.
But death was far from the worst fate that could be offered by the Holy See.
They’re going to cut you to pieces.
“It’s alright,” he whispered against her hair, correctly interpreting the way her breath shuddered imperceptibly, the way her arms tightened around his neck to keep him as close as possible, her face hidden somewhere between his neck and shoulder.
Don’t lie to me, she didn’t say, because he hadn’t. He couldn’t see what she could, as clear in her mind as an Echo; blood trickling down his perfect forehead, bruises carving hollows in his eyes and cheeks, limbs and tendons exposed through blade and fire and a thousand other methods used against heretics for millennia.
He didn’t lie to her, because didn’t bring up what was to come. Even if he couldn’t picture it – didn’t want to, maybe, or he’d lose his resolve to face his fate with the serenity of a martyr – he knew just as well as she did what waited for him in the Vault. He didn’t bring it up, because they both knew, and that was for the future. Not now. Now, in that limited moment, they held each other in their arms, a goodbye without a goodbye, where no one looking for them.
Safe, in whatever that word meant anymore in their burning, war-torn reality.
“I’ll hold out,” he told her, muffled against her skin when he spoke. One thumb pressed slow, comforting circles somewhere against her hip, trying to soothe and only reminding her that every touch was now finite in a way they’d never been able to pinpoint before. “As long as I can. I’ll give you as much time as I can.”
“Aymeric–”
He cut her off, whispering his name for her against her hair, and for the first time, his voice sounded just that much rougher, fracturing around a nickname he’d given her in moments of hidden laughter, of private happiness, of breathless passion. To say it now, on the verge of never saying it again, he was just that much closer to breaking, and she could have screamed her throat bloody with the unfairness of it all. He, of all people, should never had reason to be afraid.
What good was she, if she couldn’t protect him? The Warrior of Light, the eikon slayer, the light bearer, the hero and the legend – what was the point of it all, if she couldn’t use any of it to keep the one person safe that she needed to?
Was she only good to strangers?
And if that were true, was it all even worth it?
If she could take all of his fear as he faced down the wrath of the torture and cruelties of the Holy See, and pull it into herself, she would have. Instead, all she could do was hold him, and be held in return, counting out the finite amount of heartbeats left until they would separate.
Possibly to never see each other again.
“Listen to me,” he said softly, and he pulled back just enough that he could rest his forehead against hers, soft as a shadow, their noses brushing and eyes closed. His voice had steadied itself somewhere between their shared breaths, and she desperately tried to draw comfort from it. “Inside the Vault, there are private chambers specifically set aside for use by the clergy, and the Temple Knights. There’s a stairwell there, hidden behind a false wall, that leads beneath the catacombs. That’s where they keep the Halonic relics, and the original books of scripture in their earliest forms. It’s safeguarded there, where even the most significant dragon attack won’t reach, even if the city were to be razed.” He took a slow, careful breath as he relayed his instructions. “If they disappear without retreating outside the city, that will be where they’ve gone. That’s where you’ll need to look for them.”
She nodded, storing the knowledge away, even as she leaned her forehead more heavily against his. “Where are they going to keep you?”
“Presuming my father doesn’t listen,” Aymeric began, and gods, gods, his capacity for hope was so far beyond hers, his ability to see the potential for goodness still so unburnished by the cruel realities of humanity. All of the horror he’d suffered, all the tragedy, the abuse, and the betrayals, and it all only made him kinder. It made her want to rage against the heavens, tear down the sky itself, that someone like this could exist, could be living and breathing in a city like this, and still nothing changed.
The world needed him more than they knew.
Instead, they were going to destroy him.
The unfairness of it all shot through her very blood, hateful and needling sharp in her veins.
“They’ll take me into the catacombs themselves, beneath the city,” he continued, and his hands were at her wrists, now, rubbing circles against her pulse points, feeling the way her heart fluttered anxious in her veins even as she listened intently to his final instructions. “It’s designed as a labyrinth to prevent any accidental escapes, but Lucia knows the way. It’s where they’ve always brought stubborn heretics to ‘confess’, keeping them locked down there for weeks and months at a time if necessary for their process to work. She’ll know where to look.”
Her breath wavered unsteadily at ‘months’, and he pressed his lips to her forehead, waiting there, warm like a sacred brand, until she had herself under control again.
Aymeric pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “It’s alright,” he repeated, steady now in his conviction.
“Don’t,” she replied, and her dark eyes were sharp in return, her own bottomless grief meeting his. What lurked behind them was the same thing that had made him a hero where it had made her a horror, no matter what titles they might try and pile onto her.
She didn’t need to tell him what would happen to the Heavens’ Ward at her hand if – when – they dared to lay a finger on him.
Flesh was surprisingly supple, she’d found, when met with the honed blade of a sword.
His thumbs were at her wrists, rubbing reassuring circles, but if he were gone (he couldn’t be gone, he couldn’t be leaving, they couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t kill him, why was she so fucking useless when it finally mattered) there would be no one left to reassure her.
No one left to stop her.
She’d always held the capacity for rage, for destruction, for vigilante justice against a world that she tried again, and again, and again to help. At every step, she tried to fight against her own innate doubt and potential for horror, only to find the world’s violence turned against her at every turn. She’d held her grief and fury in check regardless, particularly once she’d met him; he was what she wished she could have been, instead of this furious, broken thing that she was instead.
But if they hurt him in the ways they were both already anticipating, she would burn them alive.
He said her name again, softer, and when he put his arms around her again, it held the finality of a goodbye that had her rattled in ways that facing down gods and warlords had never managed to do.
He needed to leave.
She couldn't let him go.
She pressed her face down into his neck, and they stood there, suspended in time, hidden in secret as they breathed each other in. His hands ran up and down the intricate lacings of her armour at her back, and her skin burned with the need to feel his hands on her, just once more. How could they have known that the last time would be their last of all time? She pressed her face down into his neck and didn’t cry, but dry tears caught burning in her throat anyway, pressed as tightly into each other as possible.
Neither wanted to be the first to let go.
“Come back to me,” she said, so quiet he could have easily missed it, but his arms tightened around her waist anyway. They both heard his voice in hers, telling her the same, so many months ago.
How could they have known, then, where a single kiss could have led?
It was always more than just a kiss.
How am I meant to learn how to live without you, now that I know what the difference is?
When he kissed her now, it was sweet and tender, all the goodness that their relationship could have been, if they were different people. She could almost see it then, on the fringes of her consciousness, and it was nearly enough to pinprick tears at the corners of her eyes, even as she kissed him back, soft and devastating. In a world without the Calamity, they might have met in the endless green mountains. In a world without the war, they could have learned to kiss in warm sunlight instead of secret shadows. In a world when she wasn’t marked as lamb for the slaughter, the Warrior of Light, and he wasn’t damned as a bastard son with a born duty to save the very city that condemned him, they could have had a normal life; a wedding, a home, a family, an entire life.
They could have had everything.
Instead, they only had a handful of seconds.
“Be safe,” he whispered against her lips with terrible finality. She was cold, cold, cold when he pulled away, out of her arms. Night had fallen fully over the city, and he held her hand until the last moment, stretching their arms out in the shadows between them until the distance was too great.
They were forced to let go.
She’d never noticed how empty her hands felt, until she’d become aware of the loss of him. She wanted to run after him, pull him back, but her feet were cemented in place, furiously helpless against the crushing wave of how this had to be.
This is how it had to be. They couldn’t be selfish; they couldn’t live with themselves.
Don’t leave me, she didn’t call after him, and committed his face to memory instead, and the way his eyes held so much emotion that neither of them knew how to put into words.
They didn’t need to.
When he walked away, he didn’t look back. She watched him disappear into the darkness, steps sure, head high, a martyr to a cause so much bigger than both of them, and her veins pulsed with rage against the utter unfairness of it all, even as she fought the need to reach for him once more, to keep him safe in her arms for just a few moments longer.
But it was too late, and too little time, and too soon.
He was gone.
For the first time, she was the one left behind, the one waiting. It occurred to her, staring at the empty space where his retreating back had been not a moment before, that she cared very little for the feeling of being left behind, hypocrite that it made her.
Another black mark against her name, surely.
Is that it? Is that why he’s being taken from me? For who I am, for what I am, I don’t deserve him?
She clenched her fists, silent in her fury and grief. She had known that already, all along. He didn’t need to suffer for it.
Come back to me.
Eventually, she moved out of the shadows, tearing herself from the spot she’d last touched him with the same ripping sensation of further opening a wound. With numbed, mechanical movements, she headed towards the walled perimeters of the city, a sort of familiar deadness settling back into place behind her eyes.
Everything that had given her new light had just walked into the lions’ den.
Far beyond the edges of Ishgard’s walls, the shadows deepened in the suggestion of mountains in the distance. Even the starlight had faded by then, hidden behind a thick storm of cloud gloom and cover. It was in that cold darkness that she sat, perched against the barrier wall, icy stone at her back, to wait for the sunrise.
With dawn would come news.
With dawn, they would have a plan.
He’s stronger than me. He’ll survive this.
Alone now, the darkness was hers to hide beneath. With no one to see through the heavy shadows of night, she could focus on each part of her that still felt his phantom touches, warm and careful and so, so certain. She held onto the memory of his lips, his eyes, his hands, everything that reminded her that he was still alive – would stay alive, gods, he had to live – and that she would get him back.
In that endless stretch of night, the hole in her chest stretching further and further with every posing second, she was certain in her own way, despite absent tears that neither threatened nor fell. When the first weak rays of sunlight finally crept over the edge of the mountains, her dry, hardened eyes lifted to the spires of the Vault above, heart thumping determination through her veins, one hand resting threateningly on her sword at her hip.
She would get him back.
Come hell or high water, gods or men or anything between: She was going to get him back.