Archive of Our Own

In a forgotten age, when fields of green yet flourished o'er the Coerthan highlands, man ruled the lands and dragon ruled the skies. Though his kingdom was vast and splendid, the King of man envied the beauty and freedom of the heavens' stewards and so he sought to capture them, that he might harness their wings to reach the stars himself.

The King charged his knights with bringing him the wyrm said to be most gentle. They climbed to the highest peak of Abalathia's Spine where earth and the heavens did meet and called out for Ratatoskr, dragon of poetry and song.

The beloved greatwyrm, gracious and kind, came to greet them, as she had heard the music of the lands below and wished to learn the songs from its people. They promised a festival would be held in her honor were she to visit the King, and so she agreed to accompany them. But upon their return to the King's palace, the dragon was set upon by men with ropes to bind her and blades to take her wings. Weeping, Ratatoskr tried to flee but could no longer reach the skies.

Hearing his beloved's cries, the great and terrible Nidhogg set upon the earth with a wicked fury to find and aid her. Leaving paths of flame and ash from mountain peak to lowest valley, no home of man was safe from the dreadwyrm's search til at last he came upon the lifeless, sundered remains of his love.

NO PEACE SHALL THEE KNOW, WICKED MAN, swore the dragon, with a rage that shook the earth ere he disappeared into the heavens to rally his kin.

But the King feared not this retribution. With scales of the wyrm, man was able to fashion armor invincible. The King hoarded her wings for himself, yet even a single feather allowed man to soar to heights unimaginable. And Nidhogg's wrath had brought about an endless font of soldiers, each filled with a hatred for dragons unyielding.

The King charged his son with leading the army in his stead so that he might enjoy his stolen wings and explore the heavens at his leisure. Unlike his father, the Prince held no envy for the skies and remained on land to protect his people, earning himself the loyalty of many. Among his knights, none fought with more ferocity than the unrelenting Azure Dragoon—so named for the sky through which he soared as agile as any dragon despite the blood-soaked color his armor came to possess.

An age passed as man and dragon clashed, until at last he brought Nidhogg low. Yet it felt a hollow victory, mocking laughter echoing across the firmament even as the Dragoon's spear pierced the dreadwyrm's heart and took the life from him.

For all the death the Dragoon had wrought, his vengeance brought him no peace. The land below, once verdant and vibrant, was strewn with naught but ash and blood. What's more, with every battle his armor of scales had come to bury itself further into his flesh; the feathers that gave him flight grown entrenched within his back, ever multiplying. And his lifelong, burning rancor found no relief in Nidhogg's death, hatred's flames stoked now by the King who had beget this war yet flew in freedom and ignorance of his kingdom's suffering.

He entrusted these secrets with none save the Prince, whose kindness and love for his people had moved even the Dragoon's hardened heart.

With our war at an end, ere my body turns more beast than man, I would ask thee for a merciful death, the Dragoon beseeched his Prince, throwing wide his arms to invite an arrow to strike true.

Prithee grant me one last indulgence, the Prince pleaded in turn, for my wish hath ever been to be at your side. I would join thee in death, but first I would visit the skies and share in their hard won beauty afore we part this world together. Wouldst thou journey with me?

Awed by the Prince's request, the Dragoon acquiesced. The Prince bade him wait three days time, that he could deliver news of Nidhogg's death, say his farewells, and prepare for their travels. The first and second nights, the Prince stole away from the city whither the Dragoon yet hid, keen to affirm their shared promise would be kept.

But as the third day drew close to its end, a chilling dread crawled along what remained of the Dragoon's skin.

The Prince was not a man to break his word, and not for a moment did the Dragoon's faith in his lord and love waver even as he failed to arrive. Yet the moon and stars remained ignorant and uncaring of the fear blooming within his breast; steadily they moved across the now lifeless heavens until at last the sun returned to claim the sky for a new day and he could no longer wait in idle hope. Care to hide his new form was forgotten as monstrous wings bore him with monstrous speed towards the King's palace.

In mere moments, he came upon the answer behind the Prince's absence—and what would prove to be his last sight through mortal eyes.

Before the magnificent gates of the capital stood the King: stolen wings of Ratatoskr spread wide behind his back with pride; heretofore untested blade at his side, adorned by jewels that pulsed a sickly red.

And the bloodied, lifeless body of his own kin at his feet.

The Dragoon's fraying tether to mankind at last came undone, his heart and mind subsumed by mournful, endless hatred that naught save man's annihilation could abate. And as the malice consumed him, so too did his armor. What flesh yet remained gave way to scales; gauntlets and greeves sharpened to bestial claws; face beneath visor became sealed, robbed of all senses as his helm malformed unto a facsimile of a dragon's head; and wings born of Ratatoskr's feathers stretched taut into leathery, darkened plate.

With no eyes to see nor ears to hear, he could not find the King to direct his Fury. And so he took to the skies and brought the very heavens down upon the land, where next he wrested the ground from its foundation. Again and again he rained destruction upon man's kingdom til sky and earth were all but the same, the aether of the firmament lifting broken mountains unto a sea of clouds.

And thus did Nidhogg's laughter began anew. For his trickery and sacrifice had brought his vengeance to fruition.

After a time, the Dragoon's wild rage reached such a vastness that even Ratatoskr's mighty wings could not escape it. Unable to flee and untried in true battle, against claws that would rent flesh from bone the King fell in one blow. His mighty sword shattered as if forged of glass and with it, the rancor devouring the Dragoon's very soul abruptly began to cool, reason and clarity seeping back like unto the sun through a waning tempest.

Alongside dawning horror, Nidhogg's spiteful, mocking words pierced the Dragoon's mind.

RECEIVE OF ME MINE EYES, VERMIN; SEE WHAT THOU HAST WROUGHT AND KNOW DESPAIR.

Freed from the broken blade, its pieces yet stained in royal blood, the dreadwyrm's eyes found purchase atop the Dragoon's transformed flesh to grant him sight anew. The deeper they grew entrenched within his scales, the wider his view became, til the understanding of what he'd done swallowed whole his heart with a great and terrible shame.

For with this final wretched gift, the dreadwyrm's spirit scattered to join with that of his beloved. But the Dragoon would not know death.

He would remain, eternal; entombed in a world destroyed by his own hand as Nidhogg's twisted legacy. Never to know where the Prince's body lay to give his love a proper burial or last goodbye, lost amongst the sundered land and scattered peoples that had once been his to protect.

With eyes that lacked lids to blink, it was damned difficult to shut out the world. But Estinien had ever been resourceful—and devastatingly bullheaded—so eventually found a way.

The ever-raging tempest of magicks that pooled beneath the broken lands had begun as a weak stream in the wake of his fury, the trapped aether of wind and ice mixing and battling over centuries until the storm grew so dense and violent as to become impenetrable by man. It served as a perfect hideaway. The magicks could cause him no harm, but the blinding white and tremendous roars of the perpetual winds overwhelmed even the mighty dragon eyes he bore upon his arms, dulling the senses they granted him to the world above. Nor were his scales immune to the terrible cold that served as punishment and restraint both.

Sequestering himself in the deepest reaches of the ravine, at first it had been difficult to stop his mind from turning. To ponder how long it would take until he went mad this way. But perhaps because he had gone mad once already, he had no vigor left within him, and gradually his thoughts faded til his mind was as empty as the broken heart inside his chest.

A feigned slumber from which he hoped to never wake again. That it worked for any time at all was the only proof he could believe that Nidhogg's spirit was truly gone, Estinien's cursed form and grief enough to punish him that the dreadwyrm left in satisfied peace. For one unable to die, it served as close to death as he could manage.

As was Estinien's fate, it was not to last. But never could he have imagined the voice to awaken him would be one so familiar.

"Please! I am no heretic!"

Unmistakeable, he heard his prince's plea, and centuries of deadened senses snapped to alert in a moment.

Yet his body struggled to move against the storming aether. Cumbersome in size, stiff from ages without a mote of motion, unfamiliar despite the eternity he had been trapped within it.

"I do not betray Her teachings, I swear it! I only wish to—"

The words again pierced the howling winds, only to cut off with a pained gasp. Against the endless white of the magicked icy gales came the sight of his prince, lying dead where Estinien had been too late to reach him. Estinien's wings beat once, then twice. The tempest around him ceased, an eye in the storm opened to the daytime sky above, and he was airborne.

With speed, he escaped the abyss and reached the domain of man, and immediately the eyes began to scour his surroundings to find the voice's source. Below him, a bridge stretched across the ravine between snow-capped cliff and solitary peak, atop which sat a many-storied city, its spires reaching up towards the heavens just as stairways and arches laddered down the stone. Neither of which had existed last he graced the world above.

But in that moment he gave no thought to the works of man. He grew frantic, for the voice had quieted and still he could find no people.

Where art thou? Where art thou!

"By the Fury..."

A different voice, not the one he sought. But the pupils of the eyes turned downward at the sound, back to the bridge. Dark spots that he had taken for patterned stonework began to move, sunlight glinting off what must have been armor. Confused, but desperate, he dove towards the sound and landed upon the stone with a shuddering boom as the force of it knocked most men off their feet, save one who had already been on his knees.

The face lifted towards him to reveal blood, dripping from a cut brow, and eyes grown wide in the great shadow of Estinien's form. A piercing blue he had never once forgotten.

He was so much smaller—though Estinien was coming to understand it was he who had grown larger, while uncertain how—but unmistakable. Immediately, Estinien reached forward. Many voices began to sound then, and absently his body felt the sensation of arrows and magicks against his scales, ineffective as ever. Yet there was no fleeing, no resistance, no terror from the man as he was lifted in Estinien's great claw, his body barely stretching the length from monstrous palm to fingertip.

The movement and cacophony around him had grown to quite a volume, but his very being was focused on the face of a man he knew to be dead. It was an impossibility. The memory of his failure to keep the prince safe rang through his mind clear as a bell, as if the eyes were seeing past and present all at once. Even so, he could do naught to deny the strident hope sparking within his frozen body, spreading warmth like a starved flame burning through kindling.

He only came to remember the world around them had not ceased to be when an arrow flew between his fingers and cut across the man's right sleeve, tearing a gash in the flesh below. Gaze broken as he gasped and clutched at his wound, Estinien's hand closed protectively around him and with a roar he stood up at full height to become a towering, frightening beast, with none of the majesty the greatwyrms had once possessed.

Around his feet, men fled in a panic. Easily, he knew, he could crush them, and with their deaths leave no room for his own error to allow harm to befall his charge again.

But there was an everlasting ache in his hands, still raw from destroying the world.

Instead, the heavy beat of his wings again knocked the scrambling men to their feet as he soared heavensward but otherwise left them unharmed. He would fly far from the reach of other men, to the skies he had robbed of life and destroyed with the mountains. However, he was as unfamiliar with the skies as he was the earth in all his centuries of hiding, so he would need time to get his bearings, and his patience was at an end.

His great speed came to a stop but his wings kept them aloft amidst the thick clouds. He spread his fingers and the eyes fixed on the man sitting atop his opened palm.

'Aymeric... Aymeric.'

How many years of longing? Of mourning? He had no way to measure. Over hundreds, certainly, maybe thousands. All his grief, his regret, his aching; feelings too overwhelming to describe, yet found their way into the shaky, pleading prayer of his lost beloved's name.

It struck him, belatedly, that he had no mouth to speak. Yet much like the magic that gave him sight and hearing to take in the world around him, so too did it appear to give him a way to be heard.

For the sound of Estinien's voice, or at the very least the name he called, made the man react, eyes peeling even wider than before.

'Aymeric,' he 'spoke' again, 'My prince... Tell me it is thee.'

The stunned, frozen expression upon the man's face broke into a defeated, clouded misery. Then just as quickly, he came to look resolved, solemn but steady.

The man was staring upwards at the dragon-like helm that was now Estinien's head, and the out-of-body sensation washed over him uncomfortably. It was hardly a new experience, but unpleasant all the same. The eyes—one buried upon a shoulder, the other in his forearm—allowed him an ever-present, inhuman view of his own twisted form.

"My name..."

Impossibly—

"You know my name, but I-I am no prince. I am but a servant of the Fury... Are you not Her will, come to bring me judgment? Who... who are you?"

Impossible. As he knew it to be. The prince—his Aymeric—lay long dead. What ghost this was and why he had come to haunt, Estinien could not guess.

'I am fate's eternal fool,' he answered.

The Aymeric sitting upon his palm did not look satisfied with Estinien's reply, but he stayed silent a moment in careful thought.

"Then... if you have not spirited me away to judge my soul for Halone, and I am not the man you have mistaken me for, what will you do with me? Return me to the Heavens' Ward?"

Estinien took in the fresh blood still dripping down the man's cheek and darkening his black robed sleeve where the arrow had nicked him.

'I will take thee whither thou wish, save for that bridge.'

"... Why? Because they mean to kill me? Yet if I am not your prince, should that matter?"

Of course it mattered. Whatever cruel trick this world had played upon him, it was too much to ask that he forsake Aymeric a second time. Even should he be a different man, one who did not remember...

Estinien's body sagged with a great weariness despite the lightness and ease with which his wings held them aloft.

'I have had my fill of death. I would not shepherd another to their end, be they lord or lamb.'

Surprise flashed across the man's features. Of course, it would be hard to believe a beast so monstrous in form and deeds would be averse to more bloodshed.

Yet it was not doubt that brightened in Aymeric's eyes as he recited beneath his breath, "... 'and Her flock will know their shepherd's voice, for She makes known Her will to the Fury's faithful.'"

After a moment, he moved as if to stand, but winced and gasped in surprise when the motion jostled the arrow-torn flesh of his arm, having seemingly forgotten the pain and the blood darkening his sleeve in the face of his bizarre predicament and Estinien's monstrous countenance.

"Well," he began, frowning downwards as he gingerly plucked at the fabric to give the gash a proper look, "I know where I wish to be taken. But 'twould be best to wait til nightfall, I think. I was spirited away in the midst of a banishment, after all." He turned his gaze back upwards at Estinien's head, his face open, warm and hopeful. "However... I fear I presume overmuch, that you would ferry me about waiting for moonrise when I have not thanked you for saving my life, nor even properly asked your name."

So peculiar. To offer gratitude to a monster—one he was at full mercy of—struck Estinien as a sign of either a boundless sincerity, or terrifying naivete.

'Neither is necessary. Bid me keep thee to the skies or send thee back below, now or some hours hence, I shall do it.'

If there was one thing he had in abundance, it was time. To spend it with this man who bore his lord's reflection as long as he wished, rather than surrender back to its flow amidst the white abyss, was a choice easily made.

But Aymeric's expression cooled, brows furrowing beneath his bangs. Again, Estinien's answer had displeased him. Perhaps to try and disguise it, he shifted his eyes out towards the clouds, only for them to catch on the eye staring back at him embedded atop Estinien's flesh. The tightness in his face vanished and he blinked at it in confusion, then up at Estinien's faceless head, then back again. Slowly, he rose to his feet atop Estinien's palm—taking care not to aggravate the wound still bleeding on his arm—and watched as the pupil followed him.

The warmth returned to Aymeric's face, but there was a new sharpness to his eyes, like that of a foxhound struck by the scent of its hunt. Estinien had seen it countless times before a lifetime ago, though never turned towards him. Aymeric kept his gaze locked on the red, draconic eyeball fixed right back on him.

"Twice I have asked to know who you are, and twice you have failed to answer." His eyebrows lifted in question. The foxhound stood before its prey, and pounced. "Is it perhaps something you can no longer remember?"

Had he the breath, Estinien would have laughed. His head dropped back as if he had anyway, the reaction ingrained in his body no matter how changed.

'I have not the luck nor earned the mercy to forget who I am and what I have done.'

Estinien's gaze peered into blue—insistent, determined, harrowingly familiar—as Aymeric looked back into the eye and pressed once more, "Then I would know my savior's name."

For the briefest of moments, Estinien thought to give one aside his own. Cursed and transformed and fooled into carrying out the dreadwyrm's great vengeance, he was as much Nidhogg's bastard remnants as he was his own. It could hardly be called a lie to claim the name now. And the world had at last forgotten him, no longer recognized on sight as the beast who broke the earth and heavens both, though it brought no freedom, no salvation, no forgiveness—not that he wished for such things. It served another fitting punishment, outliving his own name.

To know he was dead to history, left alone with the burden of the weight of what he had done, felt like another twisted layer to the unending curse, even if Nidhogg had not anticipated it. It was far from the death he sought.

But his guilt and great shame, thick as the scales he now bore as flesh, would not allow him to cover and hide from his sin. Especially not before Aymeric.

'I am Estinien Wyrmblood,' he answered at last, 'scourge to man and dragon both, and certainly no savior to any. I have given my name, so spare me the mockery of calling me such.'

"... Estinien," Aymeric breathed, the name light upon his lips and the relief in his face almost triumphant.

A kindness Estinien did not deserve, to be called and looked upon with such joy. But he was powerless to resist the immediate, unstoppable surge of happiness to hear the voice of his lost beloved call his name. The magic he carried though knew little of how to wield burst forth with the next beat of his wings, whipping winds and clouds around them with such force it threw Aymeric off-balance, though Estinien was quick to close his fingers and catch him before he could slip through.

'I— Apologies, I—' he stammered. Surprised, overwhelmed, still reeling from the shock of remembering what it was like to feel delight.

But Aymeric was already shaking his head, pushing off the claws he had caught himself against and standing again in Estinien's palm. He had noticed the other eye where it sat atop Estinien's shoulder, looking briefly between both as if unsure which one to address, but returned to the one he had focused on before.

"To you, Estinien, I give my deepest thanks. And pray believe me, it is with no mockery I call you thus. If you truly come from the days of dragons, you could be the answer to my— to our prayers, come to save all of Coerthas."

His words were true and genuine. Yet still, Estinien could not tell whether it was frustrating sincerity or blundering naivete that carried them, the sad irony of being considered any kind of hope for Coerthas chasing away the brief sensation of joy.

"But, ah... for the moment, could we head towards Cloudtop?" Aymeric winced, his free hand lifting over his sleeve almost entirely darkened by blood. "Erm. Of course, you likely don't know it by that name, but it is—or rather, was—the lowest of the isles in the sea of clouds above Abalathia's Spine, the mountains that lie east of here."

Estinien nodded—an eerily human motion he had not made in some time, as if he were unchanged beneath his armor-turned-flesh. Rather than dwell on it, he fled from the thought.

He bid Aymeric hold tight and flew upwards to break free of the clouds and find the floating crags from above.

Just as a once trickling stream of aether had become a now permanent storm in the canyons below, Estinien expected the aether-lifted mountain remnants to have changed since last he hid amongst them. Yet the most he imagined was a shift in where they came to rest, pushed by magicked winds over centuries. What he came to find was a different expanse entirely.

The myriad isles he remembered were now half missing, as if during his slumber another beast had descended upon the firmament over Coerthas and swallowed them whole. Most of those that remained hung far lower than he'd ever known, some of the peaks he recognized from the highest points in the sky now barely poking out of the clouds below. And even stranger, atop the few bits of land yet soaring to the heights Estinien was used to, he could see signs of man's presence; stretches of tilled soil, buildings and stone-laid paths, and even a constructed aetheryte, though all appeared to have long fallen out of use and slipped into disrepair.

'How... What hath become of this place...? '

In his palm, Aymeric stared out at the half-empty sky with a look of great sorrow. He did not turn back towards the eyes when next he spoke.

"The church has kept records since the end of the line of kings. These isles have ever been unmoored amongst the clouds, but in my study with the Scholasticate, I found what magicks have kept them here began to weaken nearly four centuries ago. Ever since, their steady decline and what risk it posed to our people has been thoroughly documented."

His head lowered, his next words defeated and somber.

"I cannot say for certain if the knowledge was purposefully ignored, or if it was put to proof and simply made no difference. But ten years ago we watched the sky at last fall upon our lands, and now we are left to wait for the rest to crumble down upon our heads."

A thousand years was not enough to dull Estinien's memory of his vision brightening from an endless, dark nothingness to the stark colors of a world torn asunder. The horrific agony of knowing he had done this was as fresh, calamitous, all-consuming, as if only a blink had passed between then and now. Even trying to remove himself as best he could was not enough to spare the world his destruction. He had been cursed to live, and forever bear witness to the doom he wrought by doing so.

"Estinien?"

The eyes shifted instantly to focus on Aymeric, looking back with frank concern where he was gripping tight to Estinien's fingers.

"Your hands are shaking... quite hard enough I fear I could slip from them. Are you alright?"

He tried to steady himself, bringing his splayed open palms and the man atop them closer to his chest, but the shaking only seemed to worsen. The closest isle directly below had the most signs of man's touch and he began to descend, desperate to put Aymeric on solid ground.

"Ah— Wait! You musn't—" Aymeric gasped as they dropped down at nearly the speed of freefall, true fear in his eyes that had been plainly absent back on the bridge when he had first looked up at Estinien's great form.

But Estinien understood. He would not risk the weight of him upsetting the nebulous balance of magic keeping the crag afloat and he came to a halt with a hard flurry of wingbeats, his feet kept in the air a few ilms above the surface. Leaning down, he allowed Aymeric to climb out of his grasp and onto the surface, his face a mix of panicked green and sheepish pink, his steps a touch unsteady.

"Ahem. F-Forgive me my outburst... and thank you. I will try not to leave you waiting overlong."

Unable to turn his eyes back to the broken skies behind him, Estinien watched Aymeric walk off along the paved path and flit between buildings until he found what he needed to tend to his bleeding injuries, all while dread gnawed up his very spine.

The only mercy granted in the wake of his curse had been the twisted relief that with the prince's death, he would not see what came after. Yet what did that matter, if the people who had survived thus far, long enough that he might be reborn, were made to live through the decaying remains of Estinien's own handiwork? And what a joke of fate, that Estinien would now have to confess all of it to the one face he had thought never to see again.

Where—how to even begin?

Long before he could imagine it, a quiet, gentle melody cut through the mire of his brooding thoughts.

Though the eyes had not once looked away from Aymeric, his vision had grown distant, his mind drifting far from the present to sink deep into painful memories. In an instant, the soft, half-murmured hymn Estinien did not recognize brought the world back into stark relief. It was sung under his breath, clearly not meant to be heard, and often cut into a hiss of pain as Aymeric tended to his bloodied arm, but always picked back up again until Estinien had heard the full melody through to its end a few times over.

'That song—' Estinien began to ask when Aymeric at last did not continue.

He had not moved from where he hovered for quite some time while Aymeric was now yalms away, yet it was clear the words easily reached him when they came as such a surprise that Aymeric bolted upright with a gasp, nearly slipping from the step he sat upon.

"You— You heard me?" Aymeric called out across the distance when he had regained his balance. His voice was a touch winded from the heavy beat of a startled heart.

'Aye. Though I would beg thy pardon, if 'twere not meant for another's ears.'

Not that he had them, in this form. Nor would they have been able to catch such a quiet tune from so great a distance besides. But even knowing it to be the work of the eyes' magicks, it struck Estinien as passing strange that he could hearken to Aymeric's voice from seemingly any distance, or through impenetrable noise as thick as the roaring tempest's. Estinien could not reconcile the powers granted by Nidhogg's curse with any blessing, yet what else could it be to have heard him, reached him, saved him—this time, at least.

Aymeric's bashful laughter crashed over him then, the warmth of it banishing his misgivings for the moment, leaving instead only the wish to hear that rich, delightful timbre again and again.

Finished with cleaning the blood from his face and tidying the wound of his arm, Aymeric stood and made to close the distance. Estinien's wings beat gently and he drifted forward, meeting Aymeric before he could finish taking a second step. Without thinking, he lowered his hand and spread his palm, though he caught himself before he could scoop the man off his feet like he had on that bridge. There was no pressing danger now, and it was still quite far from moonrise. It was far more likely Aymeric wished to stay on solid ground with his own two feet.

But Aymeric looked at the proffered claw in surprise a moment, then in contemplation another before he climbed atop it and allowed himself to be lifted, much to Estinien's relief.

"I take no offense to you listening," Aymeric said, continuing their exchange, "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. 'Tis my favorite of the hymns and one I sing quite oft amidst the bookshelves of the Scholasticate, or when I need distracting from things... unpleasant. But I'm used to singing quietly to spare others the burden of hearing me butcher the psalms during service."

'Thy modesty doth bleed into disservice. I found it rapturous.'

Aymeric looked stricken by his words, and Estinien feared he had overstepped—until he took note of the deepening blush of Aymeric's skin, from cheek to pointed eartip. Aymeric licked at his lips, as if suddenly parched.

"I... I am not—"

But before he could expel the thought struggling against his tongue, Aymeric's breath caught and smothered it within his throat. His expression abruptly fell and his face turned downwards to the scaled palm he stood atop.

"As I bear his likeness, I must have his voice as well, I expect," he said instead. "That of your prince."

'... Aye,' Estinien answered, somewhat reluctantly.

It was clear, from the sagging of his shoulders and acerbic smile kept pointed at his feet, Aymeric was loathe to be another man's phantom.

He gave a low, bitter laugh, then finally looked back to the eye on Estinien's shoulder. "Would that I could exchange my place for his. I do not mean to deceive your senses or debase the memory of someone so cherished. Forgive me my thoughtlessness."

Estinien's faceless head tilted quizzically. 'Thou wouldst beg me so ardently for mine absolution, yet thou hast committed no trespass against me or my prince's memory.'

In spite of Estinien's dismissal of the thought, Aymeric shook his head, convinced of his own iniquity for the simple act of being.

It sat ill with Estinien. This man was not the prince he had fought, fallen, and mourned for. But even setting aside the name and appearance they shared, in this blink of time spent together, Estinien had heard Aymeric's care for the people of this land, his grief for the tragedy of the fallen skies, and his repentance for what could only be the work of the fates, no fault of his own.

The same selfless virtuousness—alongside unrivaled stubbornness—of the man Estinien had loved was clear to see in the man he now held aloft.

Estinien wondered then, had he been granted death in ages past, would his soul too have received another turn upon the star; parts of him unchanging, others formed anew in a different age? Would his next life have brought as much shame and harm to the world as he had done? Or would he have been able to walk alongside his lord once more, down a path of peace and comfort?

He would never know. But at the least, to see Aymeric granted the chance to live again—despite the betrayal of his kin and failure of his knight—was naught save a miracle.

'Hear me, Ser Aymeric: thy countenance serveth as a kindness. I cannot speak to certainty whether your spirits are one and the same, but the fates appear content to convince me so, and in truth, 'twould hearten me to believe it. 'Tis a blessing and a comfort, to imagine his soul hath been granted more time upon this star when he was bereaved so unfairly of it, and as a man so virtuous besides.'

Aymeric stared up at Estinien's transformed face in stunned, disbelieving silence for quite some time. Until at last, he very meekly countered, "I am... undeserving of such grace. Surely, you have confused me for the prince and his valor—"

Estinien's tone was sharp as he interrupted, 'Mistake not my judgment for blindness. Thou art not my Lord, and save for a moment of centuries' sleep clouding my senses, I have not confused thee for another.'

Aymeric's mouth snapped closed, and he appeared sufficiently cowed.

'In truth, you are as much alike as you are starkly different,' Estinien observed with amusement.

"How... how do you mean?"

'Whilst you share the same bullheadedness, never could I persuade him to changeth his course nor his mind. Thou art refreshingly acquiescent in comparison.'

The blush returned to Aymeric's cheeks, accompanied by a reserved but growing smile.

Satisfied, Estinien lifted his clawed hand to bring Aymeric closer to his helm. It made no difference to his view—the eyes tracking the man standing in his palm from their entrenched perches upon his limbs—but the desire to bring Aymeric near felt all too natural, nigh irresistible.

'Thine injury, then. 'Tis sorted?'

"Ah, I am no chirurgeon but the bandaging should serve for now. And... what of you?"

'What of me?' Estinien echoed, the eyes scanning his own form though he knew he would find no wound across his scaled skin.

"When first we reached these isles, you were quite shaken." Aymeric stepped forward, face full of concern. "Is aught yet amiss?"

Slitted pupils rolled away from Aymeric to gaze behind him, peering across the sinking, half-emptied sea of clouds. Slowly, his body moved in turn to face the vista, floating towards the edge of the isle while Aymeric looked at him in curiosity.

The panic of before did not return. As if the hymn Aymeric had sung to himself for comfort had soothed Estinien's very soul as well, he knew how to begin his tale.

'I must needs tell thee the truth of this place. The truth of why I can bring no salvation to these lands, when 'tis mine existence what damned them.'

Estinien was not wont to speak overlong. While he left none of his terrible deeds untold, his recounting of them took hardly a bell.

The long wait to moonrise was instead passed at first with Aymeric's stunned silence and quiet reconsideration of all he knew, and then an endless stream of questions. And to Estinien's bewilderment, the more he answered and explained, the more insistent Aymeric became that Estinien—cursed wretch who broke the world—was the key to saving it.

'Thou art a fool in want of good sense,' Estinien said at last, grown thin of patience.

But unlike before, Aymeric refused to be dissuaded. "What is done does not stand in the way of what you can do now, Estinien. The dragons are gone, but they were the skies' stewards, and you hold what remains of them on this star. I have known it since my eyes first beheld you! You are the answer I have prayed for, and if we are to keep the rest of the heavens from falling, we need your aid."

'And as I have made clear, I am bound of their magicks, not master to them. This form is the remnant of Nidhogg's rancor and Ratatoskr's corpse, naught else.'

"But we could find a way, we will—"

'Enough.'

Estinien had taken flight and carried Aymeric sitting upon his hand as they continued their exchange, and now he came to a halt where he drifted above even the tallest isle, only the moon hanging higher in the sky.

'Thou didst bid me wait for sun's set and so it hath done. Whither shall I bear thee?'

At Estinien's curt declaration, Aymeric's face was stone. Were Estinien's skin not transformed to thickened scales, it would have broken out in gooseflesh from seeing Aymeric regard him so coldly. Regret quickly snared itself within Estinien's gut and his frustration blew away with the nighttime winds.

"... To Camp Dragonhead, then. It sits just southeast of the bridge you swept me from."

Estinien nodded but made no move to keep his word, hanging still in the air with the weight of his many regrets bearing down upon his wings.

Aymeric regarded him coolly a moment more, then shook his head with a sigh as he pushed to his feet. "I cannot well imagine the burden you bear... Yet you speak of yourself—and of this world—as if Nidhogg's terrible curse is all that remains."

'Because that is the way of it.' Estinien's reply was matter-of-fact but no less saddened for it.

"It is not," Aymeric countered, punctuated with desperation and conviction in equal measure. "You may look the beast but by your own testimony, no dreadwyrm with such a vicious hate for man would have seen me spared, yet here I stand alive but by your mercy. And however much you shaped the land and skies in ages past, they are not destroyed."

'Be there aught else thou wouldst name these shattered remnants of a world once whole?'

"Home! I would call it Coerthas, the only land known to me and all the people who live in spite of Nidhogg's damnation!" Aymeric exclaimed, hands thrown up in exasperation. "I know you mourn for those who were lost—dragon and man both. I have felt it in the quaking of your hands and the sorrow of your words. But I cannot understand why, for all your grief, you insist on treating those left living as though we are all but dead already."

Aymeric's piercing blue gaze was trained on the eye sitting atop Estinien's shoulder. Searching for an answer as if its magicks could share why, though it had cursed its senses upon Estinien, he simply could not see.

Shame coursed through Estinien then, bone-deep and ancient.

Of course the world yet lived. The ache for death that the curse denied him would not sting so torturously without the persistence of life around him. Yet in Estinien's centuries spent willfully hiding above the clouds and then within the depths of the ravine, wishing for an end that would not come in hopes the world would break no further for his absence, he knew little of what man had made of the surface, or how they had come to reach the skies without stolen wyrm wings. So entrenched in his despair, he had yet to reconcile that for all his destruction, much and more had survived him.

How arrogant, to still think of this star and the life upon it as merely his and Nidhogg's wrathful wreckage.

"Please..." Aymeric's voice had quieted to a whisper. His arms hung limply at his sides and his eyes dropped downward. From his lips fell trembling words, easily lost to the winds were it not for the magicks Estinien carried. "Do not forsake me, too."

In that moment, Estinien did not recall the city men who had taken Aymeric outside its walls and left him begging for his life, nor the goddess the people of this age revered and Aymeric spoke in service of who had left his prayers unanswered.

He heard only his prince, fallen to his father's blade and Nidhogg's treachery, pleading for his fate not to be repeated.

Estinien bowed his helm-turned-malformed head. He was no longer man nor knight and Aymeric was a newly-spun life all together. He could not offer an oath from soldier to lord, but he would make one just as true.

'... Thou hast the right of it. So long have I hidden myself away in isolation, in grief... In cowardice. I fear I have mistaken mine own humanity's end with the end of all.'

Aymeric startled, as if he had expected no further words from Estinien at all. Already accepting he would be abandoned by yet another.

'But prithee believe me, I do not deny thy pleas for want of a willingness. Little though it be in worth, I swear to thee mine aid, whatever thou mayest ask of me.'

The eyes watched surprise spread on Aymeric's upturned face before he stepped closer and lifted his arms to touch the monstrous mimicry of a wyrm's snout. Aymeric's hands were hesitant at first—were it truly a dragon's mouth, he could be swallowed whole—but when he felt Estinien lift his palm to bring him closer, he pressed flush his forehead to the scaled skin. Against him, Estinien could feel warmth, and a faint but rapid pulse.

'I shall not see thee forsaken, Ser Aymeric, so long as I remain upon this star.'

An eternal oath, as Nidhogg did make certain he would remain forever.

Aymeric inhaled sharp, fingers balling into fists against cold, rough scale, then released a shaky sob.

Keeping Aymeric held close, Estinien began to slowly descend into the clouds. One eye turned downward to watch for the approaching earth below, but the other observed Aymeric; hair fluttering around his ears in the air rushing past, his face kept pressed to Estinien's snout while his stuttery breaths began to even out. He looked worn through. Well expected for a day that began with his would-be execution, but the exhaustion in the way his body sagged seemed long-lived, layered over years or mayhaps a lifetime.

It was not the first time he'd looked upon a man so true bear the burdens of his people, but he'd been able to share the weight of them before. Now what could he offer? Magicks he had no means to wield and a might he refused to put to use lest he leave more scars upon the world.

Despite what Aymeric seemed convinced of, Estinien felt all but powerless.

The clouds at last began to thin and give way until snow-covered ground entered his view. Lights of a city off in the distance illuminated the sky in lieu of the moon blocked by snow and fog, but it still looked quite dark enough even a beast his size would be hard to see.

'The day hath stretched full long for winter...' Estinien noted curiously.

He had no sense of time when he'd first awoken to this era, but the wait for sun's set had been long like the summers of his youth, the few he'd spent living in peace amidst green hills ere his king engendered damnation from the heavens.

"'Tis the summer season," Aymeric explained, smiling sadly. His eyes were red rimmed and his voice rough where he now stood, pulled away from Estinien's transformed face to peer over his fingers at the land below. "With the heavensfall came a storm that has left much of Coerthas in a ceaseless winter despite the star's turn around the sun."

Guilt anew coursed through Estinien's body. Aymeric glanced back at the eye still trained upon him as if he could feel the heat of shame through the scales under his feet.

"The outpost there," Aymeric pointed out, moving away from the subject, "That is Camp Dragonhead. They may catch sight of you flying near, but do you see the gorge just there? I think... you should be able to fit, even at your great size, and I can climb the passage out."

Estinien tucked Aymeric in his palms against his chest before he descended at speed. The earth came up to meet them rapidly, but easily he pulled his wings in to slip between the jagged edges of the canyon's mouth, spreading them just above the canyon floor to quiet his landing, further softened by the snow beneath his feet. Though it ran deep, he took up much of the ravine with his size and had to duck his head to keep hidden from the surface. Beasts that lived within the gorge either scattered at his arrival, or were dispersed by a final warning beat of wing and magicked wind, strong enough to whip marks into the stone.

When he was certain all was safe, Estinien lowered his hands to the sloping path along the canyon wall and allowed Aymeric to step out of his hold.

'What dost thou seek from this camp?'

"There is a man I can trust. He is no friend to the Heavens' Ward and he can get word to... to the so-called heretics," Aymeric explained as he started up the path that lead to the land above.

Heretic. So Aymeric had been accused when his words pulled Estinien from sleep. But he knew naught of Aymeric's world or what these heretics were, and could only hope Aymeric would not put himself in danger when he had only just been spared of it.

'Keep thyself in safety, Ser Aymeric,' Estinien said. A plea and a farewell.

But Aymeric stopped in his tracks to look at him in confusion, and then in fright.

"You mean to leave?" Aymeric's voice thrummed with panic. Before Estinien could answer, he was already rushing back down the slope. "You musn't. I thought— you swore your aid!"

'I have returned you to the land, and thou sayest there be aid for thee what knoweth thy circumstance and needs, better than I, Estinien pointed out, though he opened up his hands once more for Aymeric. In truth, he no longer intended on returning to the white abyss to try and resume his slumber. He had not considered where he would go instead, but the thought of dwelling on land alone left him ill at ease. 'And as I did pledge, I shall come shouldst thou call for me. But be there aught reason I must needs remain here? With dawnbreak I will not stay so easily hidden, and any discovery of me would thus endanger thee.'

Aymeric had reached Estinien's upturned palms, though he did not step into them. He stared up at Estinien, wide-eyed with fear, chest heaving though he had not dashed far enough to be so out of breath.

"I..."

As Aymeric failed to formulate an answer, a fleeting thought passed through Estinien's mind. Just as he would give anything for more time in Aymeric's presence, mayhap that was all Aymeric desired, too. But it was dismissed quickly. Though Estinien could not share it, he had brought some form of hope to Aymeric that he had long been searching for, and it was understandable to fear the loss of it.

By the time he had pushed the thought away, Aymeric's demeanor had shifted. The panicked, exhausted fright was all but gone, and now he stood firm, deliberate.

"I ask that you grant me three nights," he said at last.

Estinien froze. The memory of his prince's last request drove a sickening shock of dread up and down his spine.

For in his recounting of the history of the world, he had not told Aymeric of the three days and that final night he had sat in waiting. The promise struck and subsequently broken had not been necessary to the tale—the last moments spent with his love alive, his own private memory to keep—yet strikingly similar words echoed now through the canyon in eerie mimicry.

'... What didst thou ask of me?'

"Three nights," Aymeric repeated.

Estinien flinched, his wings flapping in unease and smacking into rock wall. The cascading debris and sudden gusts barely phased Aymeric, who narrowed his eyes as the wind sent his robes and hair into a flurry but did not move his feet.

"I had been named for banishment, and failing that, remain a likely target for the Ward's punishment. Under cover of night, I can arrange word through Ser Haurchefant and the men at Camp Dragonhead, but Iceheart's faithful will need time to respond and I cannot linger where I may implicate those I can trust and bring greater danger to the few who dare work without the See's blessing. Allow me these three nights at camp. But I beg you, stay here so that I may be brought back in safety with you—back to the sea of clouds, or wherever else—to pass the days, and I swear by the last we will have found a way to save our heavens."

A bold bluff. Or a blinding, baffling conviction. Whichever it was that Aymeric offered, Estinien could no more deny him than he could deny the curse that had turned his skin to scale.

'... Very well. See thyself to thine allies, and I shall meet thee here again ere sun's rise upon the morrow.'

The calculated mask appeared to crumble. Fright flashed bright through tired eyes as Aymeric stared up at him, like he believed upon their parting Estinien would break his word and never return.

A feeling Estinien knew all too well.

'Peace, Ser Aymeric,' Estinien said, with what little calm he could command, 'There is naught left upon the earth or amidst the heavens what could keep me from thee.'

But the tight walls of the gorge were too much to bear any longer; the clarity of his memories and Aymeric's request that mirrored them, painfully, impossibly, filled the air and bore down like dragoon spears against dragon scale, pricking his every nerve.

For perhaps the first time, Estinien was grateful for his wings, and with a nimble leap he fled into the night sky.

Alone again, the overwhelmingness of his first day returned to the world of man was suddenly quite easy for Estinien to shake off. Without Aymeric sat upon his palm he could half believe it all merely a dream. The thought made the wait for dawnbreak pass quick and with little stress as he flew about the sky, staying above the clouds save for a chance to peek down at where his home had once been, an eternity ago.

Whatever change had come to the once verdant farmlands he'd tended since last he'd looked upon them, little was left of it. All was ice and snow, though some stone buildings of man that poked out from beneath snowdrift had been made home to beasts or aetherial sprites.

Estinien's chest grew tight, though he had no breath to hold.

He wondered what life had been lost here this time. If another boy, lifetimes after, had stumbled upon the remains of his family, too. What misery had he caused, Estinien thought to himself, to hide away and rob a child left with naught of a purpose to continue. At the least Nidhogg had granted him a villain to blame and hunt—wrong though he had been to pursue, in hindsight.

The rest of the wait through the star's turn was spent back amongst the sea of clouds, circling the air in an aimless, mindless fog.

When pitch dark sky began to brighten, Estinien dove fast back to the earth and the canyon where he'd left his charge. The walls felt far more spacious as he landed at the bottom, the stifling tightness of his unease blown clear after his flight.

Except, he also seemed to reach only half as high as he remembered. He no longer had to duck to keep his transformed helm from breaching the surface. Had he entered the gorge from another opening in its mouth? But the sloped wall path looked much the same save for its height...

He was stopped from puzzling it too soon to realize the answer. Still half-certain he had dreamt their meeting, Estinien's wait for sound or sight of Aymeric lasted barely a moment before the crunch of snow began to echo around him and the eyes upon his armor-turned-skin strained upwards.

"Oh, thank the Fury." Aymeric beamed at the sight of Estinien, his brisk pace turned to a near run as he made way down the path. "I did not dream you."

Estinien splayed out his hands atop the sloping walk, ready to take Aymeric into his grasp at once.

Only, when Aymeric came to reach him, he stood too tall to fit in Estinien's palm as he had done just the day before.

"Did... Did I dream that you were larger?" Aymeric asked in bewilderment.

Estinien stared at his hands, then slowly lifted one, claw encircling Aymeric who watched in stunned yet calm confusion. He could still grip the man in one fist as one would a spear, but where before Aymeric had been small enough to be held in one palm whether he sat or stood tall, now he had only space for one foot's hold or a precarious seat with his legs left to dangle. Though Estinien had grown smaller, the distance from his reach to the ground was yet a decent fall, which would only widen the higher they flew.

''Tis fading,' Estinien said with sudden understanding, 'Whatever magicks transformed my size hath begun to vanish. I had thought it strange upon mine arrival on that bridge, but that it would revert so quickly...'

Aymeric's expression was still plainly confused, but Estinien could also see the same tiredness from last he'd left him. The night had been spent with little rest, it seemed.

"So... this is your proper size, then?"

'Nay. Though I did stand fair twice the size of normal men thereafter Nidhogg's curse took hold, 'twas still not to this extremity.'

As Estinien flexed his claw around him, Aymeric hummed in thought. He reached out and touched the scaled skin, splaying his own fingers as if in comparison.

'I can yet carry thee,' Estinien noted when he stayed quiet for a while, wondering if perhaps Aymeric worried he could not be ferried back to the skies like this. Aymeric jumped, almost like he'd forgotten the hand he touched belonged to someone, and tore his own away. 'If thou wilt allow it.'

Aymeric's skin flushed red, but he nodded easily. "Of course. Of course, I do not doubt you. I trust you."

Estinien's wings beat out unbidden a sudden rush of wind as he preened at Aymeric's words. In his tired state, Aymeric likely would've been blown off his feet, but Estinien's hand caught him steady.

Estinien was careful with his claws as he closed them around Aymeric's torso. At his new size, he could engulf the man from neck to hip with one closed fist, but he waited for Aymeric to lift his arms to keep from trapping them against his trunk. Making sure he did not squeeze his grip too tight, he slid his other hand behind Aymeric's legs to offer him a seat and lifted him gently from below.

''Tis to thy comfort?' Estinien asked, pulling Aymeric to his chest.

"I feel... I feel much like my cat," Aymeric mumbled. "But, ah— yes, I don't fear slipping from your grasp. We should take wing."

As he was bade, Estinien took flight.

With no other destination in mind, he made for the isle Aymeric had wandered the day before. Though he was no longer the giant beast of yesterday, he would make certain to keep to a hover. But when he reached the dawning skies above the sea of clouds, he felt Aymeric go limp within his grasp.

'Ser Aymeric?'

The eyes spun feverishly towards his hands where he lifted them. Aymeric's head lolled backwards with the motion, eyes closed and face slack, but within Estinien's hand his chest moved with slow breaths and his heart beat steadily onward.

He had... fallen asleep.

Estinien had no mouth to smile, but his gentle dive towards the familiar landing had a lightened spin or two in his amusement.

Much of the day passed before Aymeric awoke, apologetic and embarrassed. Estinien hardly minded. It was a pleasure to see him get proper rest—well, proper enough with a bed made of Estinien's pickings from the abandoned buildings he could fit a hand into without breaking any walls or roofs. Aymeric made no complaints of body aches or discomfort to Estinien's relief, and when inquired about his wounds, he reported the chirurgeons of Camp Dragonhead had seen to tending them properly, leaving not so much as a mark. His robes had been replaced with a cleaner set too, no longer torn and stained with blood.

But even with the summer sun past the height of the sky by the time Aymeric arose, it took little time to explain all that had transpired at the camp.

With Estinien's smaller stature, they forwent another day of gliding about the clouds and instead kept to the surface of the floating isle while Aymeric spoke, walking along the paths with Estinien hovering after. He gave Estinien word of what he had learned from his ally, the man called Ser Haurchefant, of the city's tightening of curfew and restriction of leave for any inside its walls in response to the rumors of a heavenly beast. Aymeric also learned his name had been given to the commanders of all outposts by the Heavens' Ward, but reasons for the orders of his retrieval had not been provided.

'Why do these men hunt thee?' Estinien asked once all had been recounted. 'Thou didst deny the charge of heretic, yet seekest their aid, dost thou not? What maketh a so-called heretic?'

Aymeric's expression clouded and he came to a stop.

"It is... to deny the truth of the Fury, Our Lady of War Halone: that She alone is our protector and salvation. To believe aught else may serve to save us is to doubt Her Word and the guidance She sends through His Eminence, and thus heretical to the Halonic faith."

When answering questions about his own history, Estinien had heard Aymeric ask about this Fury. In his own age, there had been no dominant faith outside a common belief in the fates—though he had admitted part of what drove the King to envy the skies was a growing sentiment amongst his people that the dragons were divine. Aymeric himself wore the robes of a priest as he served the Holy See and seemed devout, his shock and struggle to reconcile with Estinien's ignorance of this goddess a sign of deep, lifelong faith in a world soaked through with the same.

There had been an inkling of a sense that the goddess had been so named after him and his great Fury what reshaped the world, though Estinien left such a thought unsaid. How the tale had twisted from a man stained red with dragon's blood to a woman dressed in the blue of winter's ice he found curious, but did not care to dwell upon.

"I am steadfast. I trust in the Fury. I believe She sent me you," Aymeric insisted, looking up at Estinien. But contrary to his words, his eyes were dulled by doubt. "But the See... Even before they turned their inquisitors on me, I have watched them cast out better men, more devoted faithful than even I. For the accused 'crime' of daring to seek an answer to the falling skies outside of scripture. Yet how can it be heresy to wish to save our people? To seek out every avenue, trusting in the wisdom She has left for us to wield? What does His Eminence fear in those who serve Her through more than simple prayer?"

His voice grew strained. The questions seemed less for Estinien and more for his goddess, seeking her answers that had not, would not come.

Aymeric looked away after another moment and resumed his aimless steps, though at a slower pace.

"The 'true heretics,'" he continued, distaste clear on his tongue at using the term, "do reject Halone outright and live far outside the See. They are few, but they are well known for protecting the remains of dragons we Scholasticate scholars have searched out for study. It is... how I came to trust and aid them, as they might now aid me."

It was by Estinien's own hand that the dragons had either perished or fled beyond the stars to worlds afar and left this world emptier for their loss. But he could not shake the oddity of hearing Aymeric speak of dragonkind as merely fossils and vague notes in histories, half turned into myth with a role to play in the Halonic scriptures. And the so-called heretics sounded like worshipers of a different sort, keeping to the bones of long dead dragons like custodians of royal treasures.

Estinien focused on Aymeric's voice to keep the shame from burning his scales again.

As the topic spun more into dragons and all he'd discovered about them before yesterday provided him a first-hand account of their era, Aymeric grew more and more animated with hope and excitement. He truly believed they were the answer to the skies' imbalance, and with Estinien's appearance, that answer seemed ever closer.

'Be this why thou didst offer no resistance when first I plucked thee from the land and flew us heavensward?' Estinien asked. 'Thou thought me a dragon?'

Aymeric's steps once more came to a halt. His eyes kept straight into the distance and left Estinien with no view of his face from where he hung in the air behind him.

"No. I did not think you were a dragon."

When he said no more, Estinien felt an itch in his hand-turned-claw. He wished to reach down and pluck Aymeric from the ground once more, to turn his face to where the eyes could see what thoughts were writ across his features.

But as he fought the desire, Aymeric finally turned back and peered up at him, revealing a teasing smile.

"You are, for all your protests, quite obviously a man."

'A cursed one.'

"Yes, a cursed one," Aymeric agreed, his expression turning to something soft yet... envious. Of what or whom, Estinien could not figure. "But still kind. Still generous enough to answer the pleas of a man of little worth like me. Still full of such... love."

Estinien struggled a moment for what to say, baffled by such an assertion.

'Thou standest upon the remains of mine own handiwork and knowest my role in the hunting of all dragonkind. Thou wouldst call these acts of a man what knoweth love?'

"What circumstance and madness your king and the dreadwyrm forced upon you was not a choice you made."

Aymeric dismissed the thought with such ease, as if it were a simple thing. A truth, fixed and undeniable.

"Fair though it is to hold regrets for what your hand took part in, a man who knows nothing of love would neither know grief nor mourning, yet you carry both so heavily. And what Nidhogg twisted and made manifest was his own grief mirrored in you, too, was it not? 'Tis as Iceheart's followers have told me oft. Man and dragon were not so different, it seems."

Estinien was in disbelief. Aymeric managed to be so charitable in thought towards the man who had brought down the skies—towards even the very dreadwyrm himself—yet called himself worthless in the same breath. Estinien told him as much, knowing he would make no headway trying to deny Aymeric's assertions and change his mind anyway.

It was Aymeric's turn to be confused, looking up at Estinien with a surprised expression.

"I... I'm not sure what you mean."

'Thou hast listened well to my history to speakest with such confidence on my character. I would like to hear thine own in turn to reason why thou wouldst denigrate thyself with such insistence.'

"It's not so interesting. I haven't much to tell," Aymeric said quickly, his hands folding together in front of him to hide a sudden tremor. He turned his head away as if to dismiss the conversation all together.

'Yet I would hear it and be judge myself.'

Estinien was surprised at the sudden unease in the air around them. He hadn't thought Aymeric to be hiding anything or meant to accuse him of such, but it was clear he had touched upon a wound kept raw, not yet fully scarred. He folded his body forward—easier done now with his smaller frame, yet still an effort—to bring himself close enough to Aymeric's eye level. Though he kept to a hover, his claw-like feet hanging some ilms above the ground, he kneeled in the air as if to bow.

Stretching out his hand, the eye atop his forearm took a close view of Aymeric's closed off face. Estinien watched it soften just so when Aymeric glanced back in his direction.

'All I wish is to know more of thee.'

And then he watched it melt, Aymeric's eyes widening and eartips burning brightest red.

"Well, I suppose... 'tis only fair. You have given me much and more in exchange for nothing thus far." Aymeric reached one of his hands forward, no longer shaking, and touched it to Estinien's outstretched palm. Estinien closed his much larger fingers around it in a gentle squeeze. "But I must ask that you forgive me, as I fear it truly will be boring."

'I doubt that, very much,' Estinien replied in earnest.

Whatever secret Aymeric meant to kept hidden, he did so diligently and Estinien made no effort to find it out.

He learned instead of a family name—de Borel—and a household once warm and loving before illness took Aymeric's adopted parents and left him orphan yet again. But that name and a modest inheritance opened a path into the Scholasticate and his faithful study. For hours, til sun sank and waning moon arose, Aymeric described his home of Ishgard, his journey to the priesthood, and even his various tastes and hobbies, along with the occasional mention of a pet cat. Hardly boring, Estinien found himself rapt with attention, occasionally asking in curiosity about this age and Aymeric's relation to it, especially its change after calamity struck with the falling skies.

But there was a recurring pattern within each tale of childhood and recounting of his day-to-day.

Estinien noted, with a growing ache inside his chest, that Aymeric's life had been spent largely alone. He had made allies in recent years, but few aside the likes of Ser Haurchefant, and he never once named anyone as friend, let alone a love.

A lifetime ago, the prince too had felt isolated by his duty, yet found himself surrounded by close friends who carried the weight of it with him, all easily drawn to a man of such noble and earnest valor. Estinien had been proud to call himself one amongst that number, long before those feelings turned towards something deeper.

The way Aymeric spoke now reminded Estinien not of his prince but of himself. Orphaned, one-minded towards the one path he saw open for him, taking on the burden of his people with no thought towards the cost for himself. But Estinien had been granted mercy by the fates and led to his lord's side, and soon after his heart. Though he spoke around it, it was clear from his tales that Aymeric believed he had no one.

Was his kindness so deep entrenched within his soul that no matter what life he lived it would manifest? Even should his people give no thought to him, or worse, scorn and curse him?

Was it this secret he bore that forced upon him such a lonely existence?

"Ah, the moon has reached such a height already. I have prattled overlong, I should see if there is word back at Camp Dragonhead," Aymeric said sheepishly.

Over the course of hours they had walked the length and back of the settlement called Cloudtop but now he sat on one of the outpost's hanging ropeway bridges while Estinien floated beside it. He stood and lifted his arms to allow for Estinien's hand to pluck him up, ready to be carried back down to land.

Wordlessly, Estinien took Aymeric gently into his hold, then spread his wings and flew them into the clouds.

"'Twould be remiss of me not to thank you," Aymeric said as they descended.

'Thank me?'

"For listening. I haven't..."

Estinien kept his pace slow, both to prevent Aymeric from feeling jostled by the wind in his smaller claws that served as lesser shields against it, and to make sure no words of his were lost to the roar of the rushing air. He waited for Aymeric to continue, though he could already guess what would come next. It took until the clouds grew thin and the lights of Camp Dragonhead came into view that he spoke next.

"I haven't much reason to share anything about myself," Aymeric said, fingers squeezing where they held onto Estinien's scales for purchase. "I didn't think I had so much to say, and still you listened to it all. So, thank you."

As he had the night before, Estinien stole into the open canyon and let Aymeric down onto the slope.

''Twas mine honor,' Estinien replied, 'though it yet leaveth me with questions unanswered.'

Aymeric tensed, but did not try to hide his eyes. He stared up at Estinien with not quite fright but an open dread.

'Little reason did I hear for thy lack of faith in thine own worth.'

Surprise wiped clear his tense expression, followed after by a wry smile. "That would make you the first, then."

And with that he turned and made his way up the path, leaving Estinien to stare after him in saddened dissatisfaction.

The night passed quickly, much like the first. Estinien took to the skies once Aymeric had vanished and spent the time soaring through the clouds to the west of Ishgard, seeing how far the magicked winter reached. He did what he could not to dwell on Aymeric's secret. If it troubled him so deeply, Estinien knew he ought to leave the matter be. Yet it seemed full strange with how open and honest Aymeric was otherwise—and how plainly unlikely Estinien would ever speak with another in this age—that he felt it could be shared to no one.

Whatever the burden Aymeric kept to himself, Estinien wished he could share it in time.

Even should that not be with him.

At first sign of dawn's light he made way back to their meeting place. Once more he found himself smaller upon his return, the change never noticeable with how high he kept to the sky until he reached the small ravine and found his height kept him closer to its snow-coated floor. He flexed his hands before him, wondering what Aymeric's own would look like against them. He clenched them shut at the sound of rushing footsteps.

"You've changed again," Aymeric noted, a bit out of breath. He'd had to run much further down the sloping path to reach Estinien this time.

'Aye. I wonder...'

When Estinien did not continue, Aymeric stepped closer. "Do you think mayhap we should not take to the skies?"

'If thou wouldst rather not,' Estinien offered. But unable to resist, he reached forward and Aymeric lifted up his arms wordlessly. Compared to the day before, now Estinien's clawed hand could only encircle Aymeric about the waist, though he was still able to lift him with ease. Aymeric wobbled with little to keep his balance until Estinien pulled him to his chest and cradled his legs like one would a child's doll. 'But I can yet ferry thee.'

With the shrinking of his body came the shrinking distance between what he held and the eyes upon his arms. He could see with ease the quickening blush across Aymeric's face and wide eyes where his cheek touched to Estinien's breast.

"I-I think—" He pushed at Estinien's chest and Estinien obediently lowered him back to the canyon's floor. When stood upon his own two feet again, Aymeric took a breath. "Thank you. I think 'tis better to remain close by for tonight after all, and you are quite easier to keep hidden now besides. There was word from Iceheart."

'And?'

Aymeric looked up at him, still flushed but more steady.

"She means to come see you for herself."

The gorge had many caves and tunnels Estinien discovered, now that he could stand low enough to see them. Some were filled with the beasts who took to hiding whenever he appeared, but others were empty. He and Aymeric took to sitting in one, deep enough to not chance being seen from patrols above but with clear enough view of the canyon floor and the path that led to it. Estinien still stood at least thrice the height of Aymeric, who was no small man himself, but he had room enough when sat upon the ground for his wings to beat around or fold against his back in comfort.

At first, Aymeric had sat a distance from him, looking small and cold against the dark stone wall. Cumbersome though his body still was, Estinien closed the distance and left wide his lap in open invitation, which made Aymeric chuckle.

"Now I well and truly do feel like my cat," he commented as he climbed atop Estinien's thigh and leaned back against his belly. Estinien curled his arm around Aymeric's side, both to spare him from slipping off and to give the eye its closest view.

'Last thou said such, soon after didst thee fall to slumber in my grasp. Art thou better rested?'

Aymeric laughed again, hand touching to his bangs as if to hide behind them.

"Yes, much better rested, and fed at least to keep from fainting. I had been so insistent on making my case for aid I'd pushed off their warnings that first night. But I did not want to waste another half day to sleep when it could be spent with you, and Ser Haurchefant damn near forced me to a bed."

Estinien's wings flapped once in sudden displeasure. He knew it to be absurd; Aymeric getting rest was a relief, no matter if that meant he felt safe enough for it in another man's bed. If Aymeric thought it strange, he made no comment.

And for a while, neither did Estinien. They sat in a silence that grew steadily heavier, weighted with many things that seemed suddenly too hard to broach.

A long-kept memory pricked at Estinien's mind and a growing unease seated itself within his belly. Much too similar, this place, this company... Centuries ago, he had spent nights with his prince in a hidden hollow at the base of the mountains, wishing to sweep him away but forced to wait—until his discovery of Nidhogg's treachery came far too late. What would be waiting for him upon this morrow?

"If Iceheart proves you really are the answer to what ails the skies," Aymeric began, breaking the quiet and startling Estinien back to the present, "what will you do... after?"

The eye stared intently at Aymeric's face as he peered back at it. The cool, concentrated mask he'd worn while pushing Estinien to give his name and prove his suspicions upon their meeting was absent. This wasn't a calculating question, meant to probe for an opening to best strike next. Aymeric looked to the eye with open worry, hints of dread and hope both. He merely wished to know.

'I have not thought of it,' Estinien admitted. 'I meant to see myself back to the abyss at once ere thou pleaded mine aid. And in truth... I cannot think of a place for me save for one what keeps me from this world. 'Tis not mine to share.'

Where Aymeric's back pressed up against his scales, Estinien could feel the hammering heartbeat within his chest.

"Even if you are its savior? Even... were I to ask you to stay?"

Naught but joy flashed through him then, a flurry of his wings and a gentle aetherial wind sweeping through the canyon with it.

'Aymeric...'

But the sound of his name made Aymeric's face fall, and Estinien recalled the first moment he'd called for him; a look of awe and disbelief that soon crumbled into misery when he realized what mistake Estinien had made. Estinien feared what misstep he'd made now.

"I know, I am not him. Nor could I ever hope to be. Yet I..."

The words were spoken so quietly they failed to echo in the dark alcove or the spacious canyon beyond. The only sounds to be heard were the distant movement of beasts beyond their private hollow, and the frantic rhythm of Aymeric's pounding heart.

'Prithee, tell me thy wish,' Estinien pleaded when the silence stretched far too long. 'I would hear it. I would hear thee.'

Aymeric's eyes turned down and his fingers squeezed where they gripped into his robes. After a moment more, he slipped from his seat on Estinien's scales and stepped far away enough to turn and stare up at the helm that once was Estinien's face. Though Aymeric no longer needed to crane his neck to peer up at Estinien's countenance, Estinien found himself leaning forward all the same. It brought the eyes closer for his view, but more importantly kept himself closer, bothered by the sudden space put between them.

"I am a servant of the Fury," Aymeric said, the tremble of his voice betraying the steeled steadiness in his face, "and I have never given in to the temptations of envy, deep though I have felt them. Of other children, whose families stayed hearty and whole. Of other students, who studied in peace whilst I bore only the clergy's suspicion and contempt. Of the men who stand at my father's side, who serve in honor and renown; whom His Eminence sent to banish and rid the church of me for begging he hear reason."

A wave of confessions, one after another. Estinien understood at once the secret Aymeric had kept, and what forced him into solitude.

"But now I am burdened with envy of a ghost so fierce I fear what will become of me."

Aymeric's hands—and much the rest of him—were shaking now, too. He stepped forward as Estinien lowered his dragon-faced helm as far as he could bend until his fanged snout bumped gently against Aymeric's forehead.

"When first you rescued me, I thought you were the hand of the Fury, sent to damn me for the same sins I cursed myself for. But when you called for your prince..."

His body shivered and his eyes squeezed shut.

"Never in my life has anyone said my name with such reverence. Such unabashed care. Such... love. Until you. What I wouldn't give to hear you say my name like that once more, knowing you spoke of me."

Whatever wish Aymeric made, Estinien would strive to grant it. But to hear Aymeric hope so desperately for something so simple as if it were a great and terrible burden...

'Aymeric,' Estinien called at once, easily done, 'Oh Aymeric. Thou dost deserve much and more than a damnable wretch the likes of me. But my love is for thee. The prince is gone and it is thou who hast given me a blessing twofold: knowledge that his soul liveth free, and the privilege to know another man so good and true.'

The eyes watched Aymeric pull back, turning his blue gaze to the red wyrm's eye that peered down from Estinien's shoulder. There was doubt in them still, but a hopefulness, too. Bright and boundless.

'And if I am cursed to live til this star no longer turneth, I will still find it a blessing to greet thy soul anew every chance I am granted. Even should it take centuries and more betwixt each lifetime.'

A smile began to spread across Aymeric's face—though it did not reach his eyes; still reserved, not quite believing. Estinien had learned enough to know it was not Estinien's words he doubted, but instead his worth itself. Something Estinien swore then he would strive to change.

Yet he could not shake the foreignness of the thought. Not three full days ago Estinien had been shocked from a slumber he'd meant to last eternal, and now he was considering a future he meant to take part in, even should he not know how to picture it aside from hoping to spend it with Aymeric.

The fates were a curious lot, Estinien decided.

"And... what of this lifetime, then? In this world you say has no place for you?" Aymeric asked, voice yet small and tentative.

'If there is any place at thy side, then I might yet find a place for me.'

At Estinien's answer, Aymeric's cheeks burned bright with joy and relief both before he pressed his lips to Estinien's snout in a spontaneous kiss.

Taking in the bashful surprise on Aymeric's face, as if caught off guard by his own impulse, Estinien's wings rustled wildly and caused a great rush of wind through the alcove that pushed Aymeric against his helm. With an apology, Estinien brought close his claw and held it open. Aymeric placed his hand atop it—the length of his from wrist to fingertip still too small to cover more than half of Estinien's much larger one—and inhaled sharp when scaled fingers squeezed closed around it.

With no face of his own, it was all Estinien could offer in lieu of a kiss in return.

"I will hold you to your word," Aymeric said, still blushing to his ears, "For the present, I must keep you to your other promise. Once we find a way to stop the skies from sinking, then we can consider... what else comes next."

But there was much of the day left and no clear sign of when this Iceheart would arrive.

Emboldened—or else pushed too far past embarrassment to feel the same reserve—by the act of confessing, Aymeric decided he would pass the time peppering Estinien with questions about himself much like he had their first day together. He took a seat back upon Estinien's leg, allowing Estinien's arm to drape across him and rest the eye right atop his lap. But when Estinien pointed out he had already told all there was of worth to say about his life in an era long past, Aymeric made clear this was about learning of Estinien's present and future.

To his chagrin, topics such as hobbies—'I had none.'—or tastes for food—'Whatever they served and filled my belly.'—or favorite haunts—'The barracks or the battlefield; I went only whence I was ordered.'—all proved one-note and quickly settled. Estinien didn't mean for it on purpose, but he simply hadn't led much of a life outside of his hunt for Nidhogg.

Except, of course, for his time spent with the prince.

Aymeric broached the subject gently. "What memories do you hold of him?"

But Estinien was not so quick to answer. 'Art thou certain...?' he asked instead. No matter his assurances, Estinien still feared Aymeric's tendency to compare and find himself wanting against the memory of a man he would never know.

But Aymeric's smile was soft and understanding.

"There is naught I would regret to learn of you."

And so Estinien began to share. From simple beginnings of brothers in arms as fledgling knights, to a deeper, trusting bond as fellow commanders of war. And from stolen, quiet moments when he'd yet believed his feelings unrequited, to deep regrets of wasting so much time, never getting to know what it felt like to touch his love without cursed armor in place of skin.

"I should see to Camp Dragonhead, if Iceheart has arrived. Or at the least take my rest until she does to make certain I am of a sharper mind for the morrow."

The gorge was dark but for the moonlight that shone down through its mouth, slipping past unusually thin clouds. Estinien's recounting of memories had passed the day quickly, but once dusk had come and gone, he grew quiet in tense anticipation of their nightly parting.

When finally Aymeric made to walk out from the alcove he reached no more than two steps before Estinien wrapped a hand around his waist and halted him.

"Estinien?" he asked, turning around in Estinien's hold.

'I—'

But Estinien could not put to words the sudden, desperate fear that gripped him. Too fresh were his memories of the prince and his death, and the eerie mirror of their current circumstance to that fateful night opened up within him a vast, unyielding horror.

The world may as well have ended once more for how paralyzed it left him.

"Estinien," Aymeric called again.

Still Estinien failed to speak, and Aymeric lifted up his hand for Estinien to lean his snout against his touch.

"I will return. With or without the Lady Iceheart, I will come back to you, you have my word."

Estinien ached with want for the faith to trust and know Aymeric's promise would be kept. He could not muster it to his own shame, but he released his clawed grip around Aymeric's waist and sat back to let him go.

Aymeric walked back to him and touched his forehead to Estinien's scaled helm. "And I know you will come for me if aught goes awry. We each have our promises to keep."

'... Aye,' Estinien said at last, bolstered by Aymeric's command and confidence. 'Naught shall keep me from you.'

And with that oath, Aymeric's hand fell away and he returned to the surface, leaving Estinien to wait for either his return or the deadly certainty of morning's light.

He knew—had insisted himself, quite often—that the world of man was not his to enter now. It had been the reason Aymeric yet refused to bring Ser Haurchefant to meet Estinien, and why Estinien kept to the skies or these dark caverns, so as not to risk sowing the seeds of hostility and fright within the people he might soon serve and aid. But his body burned with worry to think he could not stay by Aymeric's side for this last, wretched night, dread itching at his scales like a plague come to choke all but the very last of life from him.

And time showed him no mercy.

Too clear was his memory of the moon and stars' gleeful turn across the sky despite the hour growing late past sunset and the prince's expected arrival. This night, instead, they moved as if caught in wax. Shadows cast by the pale moonlight barely shifted under the eyes' pinning stares and even keeping count of the moments passing seemed too fast for the reality of the world around him; the air, the light, even the beating pulse of nature's heartbeat slowed to a crawl to torture him.

What's worse, he could not hear Aymeric's voice despite being so near the surface instead of the skies beyond.

Had the magicks that transformed his size also been the cause of his amplified hearing? He cursed their loss, and then his own ignorance too. If he knew aught of magicks or how to wield them, Aymeric wouldn't have needed this Iceheart. They could have solved this alone—together.

Regrets and grief and dread, relived and new, endless and constant. Even focusing on his memories of the first few decades trapped within the white abyss of raging aether waiting for his mind to slowly cease, welcoming pseudo-death in the form of forced slumber, felt now like an easy, restful dream in comparison. Naught could free him from this crawling night of agony.

But he would not have to wait til daybreak.

After what felt like near an eternity, even for one eternal like him, he heard Aymeric's voice ring out loud and clear.

"No. No! I asked for your aid, not for this! You cannot mean to—"

Estinien was airborne before the last words finished. The horizon yet remained in darkness when he flew into the sky, dawn's rise still some ways off, but he no longer knew nor cared what time had passed. He dove at speed to the walls of Camp Dragonhead and landed with a thundering boom against the parapet, claws digging through brick and stone that broke and scattered beneath his might.

Shouts and screams rang out as he crawled along the battlements like drakes once slithered along their bellies and the eyes spun rapidly within their entrenched perches, looking everywhere for his charge. His wings beat frantically even as he clung to the walls, furious gales following in his wake.

Estinien neared one green-tiled keep and reached out his claws, ready to pull open its roof and search for Aymeric within, when one of the eyes at last caught sight of white and red-trimmed priest robes amid a group of bodies come to a halt out in the open.

He saw Aymeric, stood between armored knights with swords and staves drawn, and roared.

In an instant Estinien pushed off the fortress' walls and landed square before the knights, the force of his feet slamming against the dirt and the intense burst of air from his wings sending every single one of them flying. As Aymeric was knocked airborne with them, Estinien caught him with ease and care—one hand beneath his back and the other beneath his legs—and then soared upwards with no thoughts of stopping.

"Estinien— Estinien!"

He did not know how many times Aymeric called his name before he heard it. Immediately he began to slow, his claws gripping tight where they wrapped around Aymeric's side and pulled him closer to his chest.

"Estinien?"

'I heard thy voice. I heard thee—' Estinien tried to explain. His mind was yet too fogged with panic and instinct to say much else, though the seeping relief of Aymeric in his grasp was at last pushing away the torment of his night-long—centuries-long wait.

"I'm in no danger. I am unharmed. Oh, Estinien..." Aymeric soothed, wrapping his arms around Estinien's neck and burying his face against the scales of his shoulder. "Forgive me. Forgive me."

There they stayed, adrift amidst the clouds until morning's light began to streak out across the sky.

'I have... made a mess, I suspect.'

Sense had at last returned and made clear the likely chaos he had wrought. There was not an onze of shame nor regret to be found within him for it though, this time.

The dawn had broken and Aymeric was alive; alive and safe and in his arms, and Estinien was loathe to ever let him go.

"A mess of sorts," Aymeric said with a sigh, lifting his head. His gaze locked on the eye embedded atop Estinien's shoulder a moment, then broke away with a strange shadow falling across his features. He turned instead downwards back towards the earth and Camp Dragonhead far below. "You'll have proven Iceheart's suspicions true."

'And would that be for the better?' Estinien asked.

But Aymeric wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't answer.

"We should return..."

Estinien's fingers tightened. After his furious arrival he did not expect a kind welcome, but unlike that first day upon the bridge, his hands were no longer large enough to close around and shield Aymeric from any fired arrows or casted spells. And despite the relief and comfort of Aymeric safe and in his arms now, it did not stop the gnawing worry that he might yet come to harm were they to leave the haven of the skies.

'Dost thou think it wise?'

Aymeric hesitated, but nodded after a moment.

"Aye. We're this close to an answer that will save our skies and spare all the people of Coerthas. I'll not see it lost so easily." His face turned back to look up at Estinien's transformed helm. "You gave them a... surprise, for a certainty. But Ser Haurchefant knew enough from what I shared with him and would not call for the Ward, and the See is too concerned with controlling those within its gates to send any to investigate outside without word sent."

Estinien's wings pushed them higher in wordless discontent. But what Aymeric wished, he would see done. He took a moment more to cradle Aymeric in safety against his scales, then slowly sank towards the earth below.

They were awaited by many an armored figure standing amidst the open yard of Camp Dragonhead, though a woman in robes of blue and hair of starlight stood apart from them, a peculiar spear carried along her back.

"Brother Aymeric? Are you alright?" someone called out; a tall man who kept his sword sheathed but hand at the ready as Estinien came to a halt, keeping to a hover a few yalms above the ground. He would not so easily allow Aymeric back within their reach.

"Aye, there is no danger here. Forgive us the commotion."

The rattling of armor sounded out, doubtful knights turning towards each other and murmuring in disbelief, but Aymeric paid them no mind.

"But I would ask the Lady Iceheart meet us north of here, in the remains of the Steel Vigil. We have not yet finished what must needs be discussed, and I would have Ser Estinien take part."

The crowd stilled, then turned as one towards the woman leaned against the wall of the staircase some paces away.

"Very well," she said, and turned to walk the path to the north without another word.

"Ser Haurchefant," Aymeric continued, addressing the tall man who had spoken, "I cannot thank you enough for your aid and trust in me. I will repay it once we see the skies restored."

The man put his hands to his hips and nodded. "Go with the Fury, Brother Aymeric."

Estinien offered nothing—apology nor greeting—and took to higher air when Aymeric turned to him, his business done. But he realized with a sense of solace and confusion both that this Ser Haurchefant was truly a good man for Aymeric to trust him so and offer it equally in turn. He wondered then, what could have spurned Aymeric's panicked words that summoned him in a flurry? Likely, this Iceheart. As he flew overhead, the eyes caught sight of her walking the path, unbothered by the beasts and sprites that littered the landscape.

Tension thrummed through his body the nearer they came to the broken remains of a once-great fortress. Soaring down from above its opened walls, he came to land upon a circular, snow-covered bailey. But unease pooled itself within his belly as the eyes set upon the entrance in wait for Iceheart to appear.

"Estinien," Aymeric whispered, touching a hand to Estinien's snout.

The eye upon his shoulder quickly spun its narrow pupil to Aymeric and saw the sudden paleness of his cheeks, eyes wide with fright.

'Aymeric? Art thou hurt?'

"No, no. I merely... I just wish to..."

The words would not come, his eyes squeezing tight before he buried his face again against Estinien's neck.

'Whatever be thy wish, I will see it granted,' Estinien promised, holding him tight.

But Aymeric simply shook his head as he confessed, "What I wish I do not deserve, nor will the Fury grant."

Estinien was not allowed the chance to dissuade Aymeric of such a foolish thought. The eye yet trained upon the open entrance into the inner walls of the Steel Vigil saw the face of the Lady Iceheart drawing near and all his focus swarmed in on her, ready to crush any danger she presented.

"It is you, Nidhogg slayer," she called in accusation.

Despite his wariness, a person of this age calling Nidhogg's name immediately left him stunned. Had Aymeric already explained the truth to her? Or was this the knowledge kept by Ishgard's heretics, a truer history than its own church had written in record?

She scoffed when he did not meet her words with more than silence, stepping down the path to the rounded stone floor where Estinien stood center.

"Have heart, Ser Aymeric. As you'd hoped, he brings the salvation you seek. His plundered wyrm eyes hold all the aether one could dream of and more, plenty to set the skies to rights."

Where she came to a stop, with space yet kept between them, she held her hands up in an open show of deference before slowly pulling the spear off her back and putting it gently to the ground. She kicked it towards Estinien's clawed feet with much less civility.

"Recognize thy weapon, wyrm killer?"

He did. Warped blade and bloodstained steel shaft, so made by death and battle, just like his armor-made-skin. Cold shame licked down his spine like a rushing icy river after snow's first melt, harsh enough to make even his chest grow numb despite the warmth of Aymeric held tight against it. The spear she had brought was the very same he had used to pierce Nidhogg's heart and kill his body, before he learned a greatwyrm could outlive their very flesh.

Iceheart looked upon him with disgust and pity both.

"Put your eyes to the spear," she sighed when he did not move to take it. "We have kept it for the day you descended upon us again to put an end to the sad shade of a once great wyrm. But instead, as you hid in cowardice, they drank deep the magicks of the earth until that gave them strength enough to pull even the very skies towards your depths. They must needs be destroyed. Until this world is rid of you, the balance will never be restored."

"That can't be true," Aymeric protested with a shout, surprising Iceheart and Estinien both.

He pushed at Estinien's chest who numbly lowered his hands to allow Aymeric to stand on his own two feet. He took the spear from the snow and held it gingerly, unused to the weight of it, as if to guard Estinien from Iceheart.

"It can't be true," he insisted again, but his voice had grown uncertain.

"Oh, you poor fool," Iceheart said sadly, her expression grown soft and knowing but still full of pity. "My foremother loved a dragon, long ago. Her ache at their parting has carried through my family for generations in songs of grief and longing, but he is not a dragon. He is a monster of his own making, and the world is better off without him in it. The size at which he stands now is not what you claimed when sending word for me, nor what the songs recall of him, and that is proof enough his body feeds on aether and will never stop. Surely, for all you have worked to save it, you would not choose him over the star now."

Aymeric was silent, unable to deny it.

And despite the cold frankness of them, her words made clear what Estinien had not yet understood. Unlike mountains eroded by winds or canyons carved out by rivers, his body had served instead as a dam for the aether of the raging tempest, trapping it against his scales until he towered to the heights of the long lost greatwyrms. Magicks, great and abundant that he knew little of besides their certainty, would ever be pulled to his cursed shape like the ceaseless moontide so long as he bore the eyes.

'Aymeric. She hath the right of it,' Estinien spoke at last.

All that she accused was the same reality that he had always known and told Aymeric just days before, and his growing wish to remain within the world at Aymeric's side could not change the truth of it.

Aymeric's shoulders tensed and his head lowered, unwilling to turn back and meet the eyes. Estinien felt a guilty relief not having to see the look upon his face at that moment.

'But thou art mistaken still,' he added to Iceheart, 'These are not mine eyes, to control nor destroy. 'Tis Nidhogg's will and curse that keepeth me this shape without end. Had I been able, I would have ripped them from me and ended this wretched life long ago.

Her eyes narrowed up at him, as if searching for a sign that he was lying. Though he had no face for her to read, she slowly came to accept he spoke the truth—or at least what he believed.

A look of genuine sadness gradually spread across her features. Stepping forward, she walked to Aymeric and held out her hand but Estinien immediately bowed low to drop his arm between them, making sure to keep Aymeric out of her reach.

"Peace," she called, still holding out her hand. When he felt Aymeric gently touch his wrist, Estinien did not move to stop his steps again.

Aymeric, spear still in his grasp, walked around Estinien's great claw and willingly stretched out his empty palm to allow Iceheart to take him by the wrist and guide it. The eye upon Estinien's forearm watched as those hands drew nearer until almost too late he realized what she meant to do, and with a flurry of his wings he took flight, far beyond them.

'Do not touch the eyes, foolish witch. Dost thou mean to curse him, too?!' he boomed.

"The only spirit still cursing thy soul is thine own, Wyrmblood," she shouted up towards him, "Were Nidhogg's soul not at rest, the world would know it. You would know it. Does he whisper to you now?"

The answer, they both knew, was no.

"The eyes are yours. And as I saw this early morn, you would spare this man from any danger—whether it be imagined or not." She flicked a glance in Aymeric's direction who looked away in shame. "So let me prove it to you: that you hold the answer Aymeric seeks and you can offer it freely."

Slow and reluctant, he glided back down to the earth. He kneeled forward, his right hand splayed out atop the snow, and stared with wide pupils at the two standing eye-to-eye with the orb entrenched within his arm. Again Iceheart lifted Aymeric's wrist. He tossed aside the spear, realizing as his open palm drew near that he would not be able to take it with just one hand, then with one last look of hesitation, wrapped his gloved fingers around magicked eye.

Iceheart stepped back and whispered, "Take it. He will let you."

There was no resistance. Not even a flare of wind or aether, Estinien's wings folded flat against his back. With ease, Aymeric pulled the bloodred eye from Estinien's forearm and held it in his hands, as awe-struck and protective of it as Estinien had been of him each time they flew. True to Iceheart's word, no wrathful shade or spitting curse from Nidhogg made itself known. Estinien could still see through the eye—a new, curious angle, strange after so many centuries fixed—and the rest of his senses seemed unchanged too as he easily heard Iceheart's steps and then her parting warning.

"Salvation sits now within your hands, Ser Aymeric. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to see things done. And the last remnants of the greatwyrms reside in you, Wyrmblood, and as I wish for their souls' peace, they bid me wish for yours as well. May Ratatoskr's song guide you to your rest."

And with that, she disappeared into the falling snow.

Aymeric did not seem to have heard her. He was too lost in shock, blue eyes never leaving Nidhogg's—Estinien's own red one.

'Wilt thou take the other?' Estinien asked at length.

His eye fell from Aymeric's startled hands and landed softly within the snow. Aymeric stared down at it in horror.

"She asks me to kill you. She said you must needs die."

Estinien would have scoffed had he the tongue for it. 'She is wrong. 'Twould be a mercy I doubt the fates nor Nidhogg would permit. I do not expect to die.'

But he cursed himself, seeing the bald relief spread its way across Aymeric's face at his quick dismissal.

What awaited him was not death in truth, but a prison much worse.

As Aymeric bent to pick up his eye, Estinien continued, 'But to lose the eyes... Their magicks be what grant me my senses. I will no longer see, nor hear; I'm unsure I will even be able to speak. In a way, it will be much like my time within the ravine. Trapped with naught save mine own mind, unless that, too, eventually fadeth into silence.'

"What... what of your body?"

'While it may yet be able to move, as Nidhogg's did, I would leave these wretched remains of mine where none can reach them. An effigy of a pathetic man the world ought to leave forgotten.'

Estinien's eye held tight in Aymeric's grasp had full view of the rapidly dawning understanding across his face; that all was as he'd feared. Iceheart's revelation that he had so vehemently refuted, desperately enough it carried on the magicks to Estinien's mind and called him forth, was now undeniable. There was a choice to be made. Though, in truth, they both knew it was no choice at all, as Aymeric was not a selfish man and Estinien loved him deeply for it.

Aymeric would have to forsake Estinien—and his own desires with him—or forsake the world.

At the least, Estinien thought, he was damned already anyway. He could only wish that after he was dead to the world for good, Aymeric would find a love he deserved in this lifetime and the rest, and the wretched, haunting spectre of Estinien's malice turned manifest would no longer plague the earth and heavens.

Though Iceheart's words of warning hung heavy around Aymeric's head, they did not make haste to do as she bid.

Aymeric held tight to Estinien's eye and let Estinien carry him once more back to the deserted isles of Camp Cloudtop. He said nothing and sat still where Estinien let him down onto the soft grass, simply staring at the magicked wyrm eye that stared unblinking back, til the sun had made its arc across the heavens and sank low to the horizon. But Estinien took to the air and soared as the hours passed. First to retrieve Iceheart's gifted spear from where Aymeric had tossed it aside and then simply for the joy of it, ready for it to be his last taste of flight and sight of the world.

There was no fear in him in the face of what drew near. No dread or worry. Regrets and guilt still aplenty, too many too deeply carved into his heart to ever be cleared away, but balanced yet by an insistent, boundless conviction. He was finally going to pay back to the world what was owed for what he'd done, even if just the smallest part. It was not enough for everything and he would bear his imprisonment as payment for the rest, but it was a warming solace all the same.

For once in his long, long life, Estinien felt at peace. And he had Aymeric to thank for it all.

But with his freed eye, he watched Aymeric in quiet contemplation throughout the hours of the sun's course across the sky. He waited, hoped, wished for Aymeric to call his name and allow them their goodbyes. Yet he could not deny the relief of every moment that passed in quiet but for the howling winds around him.

Their farewells would be the end of his time with Aymeric, again and forever. Though it was a mercy at least to know it was coming this time around.

At last, with moon's rise came Aymeric's first words since morning.

"Estinien... May I ask you for one last wish?" he asked into the eye.

'Aye. I will see it done,' Estinien answered, immediate.

Aymeric stood to meet Estinien as he landed, smiling when Estinien knelt to bring himself close. He placed Estinien's eye carefully beside his feet and stepped forward into Estinien's open arms, Aymeric straining to reach up around his neck even though he was bent to one knee. Estinien's hands wrapped over his back and pulled him tightly close. Within the strange new view of his detached eye, he saw how very small Aymeric appeared inside his embrace.

"You told me, in those nights before his death when he stole away to see you, you laid with the prince, even though your body had all but been transformed."

Estinien began to pull away, knowing what Aymeric meant to ask.

'Aymeric—'

"Please. Lay with me now," Aymeric whispered, his arms tightening where they held him firm. Estinien could not bring himself to tear away.

'I haven't— I cannot give thee anything like unto pleasure. Thou deservest—'

"What I deserve, much less what I desire, has ever been far beyond my grasp," Aymeric interrupted, still clinging to him. "You said you would grant my wish. If I am meant to lose you, let me at least know you, even if just for one final night."

Estinien's fingers flexed and loosened, an unrealized fear suddenly blossoming inside his chest.

'I am... like to hurt thee. My hands, my very skin, all of it bladed and—'

"It has not hurt me. Not once, in all these days together spent carried by your touch. I am not afraid. I trust you. I crave you."

Aymeric finally slackened his hold and unburied his face from Estinien's neck, giving view to his shoulder's eye of skin burning red in the moonlight, blue gaze imploring.

Estinien was hesitant to say the much more obvious fear taking root. Very carefully, with his great claw he plucked Aymeric's hand from where it still hung onto his shoulder. He held it between them and watched as Aymeric splayed his fingers out, barely able to cover part of Estinien's palm.

'The aether of the abyss hath faded in part, but I am still quite a size. Thou art fragile, and I cannot be delicate.'

The reaction to his worry was not what Estinien expected. Aymeric's eyes went wide and mouth went slack, a very noticeable shudder passing through him that left him standing a bit straighter. The blush already spread across his face threatened almost to cover the whole of him, neck and ears turned bright red and even his hand, still held gently atop Estinien's own, beginning to burn hot through his glove.

"That is... well," Aymeric said after long moments, licking his lips as if his mouth had run dry, "There is more than one way to know another."

What had overwhelmed him just as quickly receded, his words bringing a sad and mournful smile to his face.

"Though 'tis to my great regret we will not have the chance beyond this night to try."

'One of many regrets. For all mine effort, the fates seem intent on granting me more even at the last,' Estinien agreed.

Aymeric's hands shifted to take hold of Estinien's fingers, tugging gently as means to lead him.

"Then allow me this wish, to make one less regret for the both of us."

And how could he deny such a simple, generous request? He let Aymeric guide him over to the large trees that had been made into supports for the fort buildings scattered along the isle, picking his eye off the ground as he followed. Aymeric bid him sit against the roots of the largest tree while he pulled off his gloves.

Estinien watched with a fascination and a long forgotten hunger as Aymeric undid his boots, and then his breeches, slipping them out from beneath his robes. One eye from his still-embedded shoulder and the other from the ground where it was placed near Aymeric's discarded clothes gave him a view of all sides as Aymeric took his time to undo his intricate cassock. The slow disrobing—whether out of habit or out of nerves, Estinien couldn't tell—lit a fire within his belly he hadn't felt in hundreds, perhaps even a thousand years.

He wanted.

When last he'd felt such a thing, there were still parts of his flesh yet left unchanged, clothes and armor and skin still separate. The prince had been eager to explore it all. The armor above his breeches, and his cock within, had been one of those spared parts of him, allowing them an awkward but pleasurable first night—one that had meant to be a prelude to many more.

After Nidhogg's curse and the complete transformation, there'd been no cause to wonder about what remained of his form. Magic forced him to live, his body prevented of all natural functions and needs, from hunger to breathing and more. In his state of deep, deep sorrow and body transformed, lust and all need for it never entered his thoughts again.

So Estinien found himself stunned and confused when the scales above his groin, patterned like the belt he once wore as armor, began to bulge.

The sensation brought the attention of his eyes to it, though Aymeric remained within his purview. He brought a tentative hand to his lap, lightly grinding the heel of it against the scales there, and slammed his back against the tree roots at the shock it sent through him.

"Estinien?" Aymeric called up at him in surprise.

He had stripped down to naught but his undertunic, the soft skin of his thighs tantalizingly visible beneath it.

'I have not thought— have not felt—' Estinien tried to explain, his body still electric with a feeling so long forgotten as to be completely new. 'Prithee, hurry and come hither.'

Aymeric stepped closer at once, his face at level with Estinien's dragon-shaped helm now that Estinien sat flat on the ground. His skin was dappled with moonlight and glowing with a blush still burning bright. Shyly, he brought his hand over Estinien's, the realization dawning of what had happened. Aymeric pressed down with gentle force, an instruction, and Estinien obediently rubbed over the bulging scales once more, his other hand lashing out and clawing into the shack beside him to hold steady against the pulsing pleasure, breaking boards with a loud crack.

His chest could not expand with no mouth to take in air, but his body drooped forward as if he had to heave breaths while his limbs shuddered.

From beneath his palm, the large red scales suddenly retracted in part, and from beneath pushed forward a draconic cockhead with scales the color of midnight. There was more, trapped and hidden inside his transfigured groin, he could feel the nerves along its length deep beneath his armor-made-skin. But even just the section that broke the surface of his scales was large as one of Aymeric's limbs.

"Fury... Estinien, let me ride you," Aymeric hissed.

Whether it was a request or a command mattered little. Estinien would have demanded it himself in short moments. He reached forward a shaking claw and tried his best to help Aymeric climb up along his belly, and with surprising ease, Aymeric turned and stretched his back against Estinien's trunk, his legs stretching out on either side of Estinien's groin. Slowly, Aymeric slid down against Estinien's torso—the sensation of bare skin dragging against ridged scales making him moan as he moved—until he was sat flush atop Estinien's cock.

"Oh, hells," Aymeric swore when the naked, most sensitive parts of him pressed hard against Estinien's raw sex.

In reflex, Estinien rolled his hips upwards, wanting to push tighter into that soft heat, and Aymeric gasped and jerked, hands suddenly scrambling for purchase to keep from falling. Estinien's right hand closed over his waist, keeping him pinned to Estinien's belly as he was rocked again and again.

Aymeric moaned, louder and louder, as he let himself be held and frot against. He slid a hand beneath the thin fabric hiding his modesty and worked himself with a frenzy. In little time, he called out, "Estinien!" in a sharp, desperate plea, then shuddered with such a fervor, by the time his climax was done he could do naught but loll in Estinien's tight grip.

But Estinien was no closer to his own. And with frustrating, painful clarity, he realized why.

With each powerful thrust of his hips against Aymeric's flesh, feeling the trickling wetness of his release, he knew there was no such thing inside his cursed body and nowhere for the brutally insistent pleasure to go. It would wind tighter and tighter, a spring with no ability to snap; a torturous, eternal denial. The agonizing knowledge that in this form he could never kiss, never touch skin to skin, never share in the full joy and satisfaction of bringing their bodies together carved another deep, painful regret straight into his chest. But for a while, he still could not stop. He stroked himself, then let Aymeric stroke him when recovered from his bonelessness in the wake of his orgasm, and again rocked against Aymeric as he rode down atop him, chasing another release.

Estinien made sure Aymeric knew him in a way that was satisfying, until Aymeric's voice was gone and his consciousness faded, worn out from so much bliss.

Then he waited out the moonlight, body aching after hours of torment from pleasure too much to bear.

Come morning, Aymeric said little and would not meet either of Estinien's eyes.

Distant, stone-faced and cold. If that was how he wished to steel himself for the duty he must do, Estinien would bear it without complaint. They had not yet said their goodbyes, but he knew he was no good at them. He'd had no practice with them in person, after all; each of his farewells given to graves of those he had not known he would be losing, if he'd been able to offer one at all.

When Aymeric had finished washing, redressed, and taken hold of the spear and loose eye both, he came to where Estinien floated by the edge of the isle, taking in the expansive sea of clouds to press upon his memory.

"Where should it be done?"

'Whither maketh no difference. I will bear thee whither thou wish, then fly me somewhere else.'

Though he knew his body would lose its senses with little fanfare, thinking of the simple, mindless way Nidhogg's eye-less body had flown into his spear, he did not think it something Aymeric should see.

"Please," Aymeric said, voice unyielding and steady. But as Estinien's eyes observed, his face betrayed his desperation. "I would be with you. I would know where you rest, even should it be hard to bear."

'Aymeric...'

Blue eyes finally lifted upwards, and Estinien knew he would not be persuaded against it.

'To the mountains, then. So long as there is a path for thy return, 'tis likely easiest for the aether to findeth its place from whither earth and heavens meet.'

Aymeric took a deep, shuddery breath, then echoed in a mumble, "To the mountains."

Estinien reached down and Aymeric let himself be lifted, carried through the skies one final time.

Among the broken earth and sinking skies, there was yet one peak that towered above the rest. Though seldom climbed since the calamity brought ice and winter, there were clear paths for Aymeric to make his way back down to safety, and so Estinien descended there and landed upon its highest ledge. He let Aymeric down gently, though he could not resist one last squeeze of assurance where his hands held him tight, then stepped to the cliff's edge.

For Estinien, it was a simple thing to welcome his not-quite-death. It was not so simple to bid Aymeric bear the burden of bringing it about. He could but wait in understanding, patient silence as Aymeric's hands squeezed around the spear he carried, the rising sunlight glaring off its blade and into the eye that rested on the earth between them. It mattered little what time passed; he knew Aymeric would see his duty through.

The sun was still yet hanging in the morning sky when a snow squall suddenly took the mountain peak, dulling the summer sunlight and blowing icy winds around them. A reminder of what Estinien's handiwork had caused, and would worsen yet until his eyes were extinguished.

"Fury... O Fury, guide my hand, as I do this work in thy service," Aymeric began to mutter suddenly, a desperate prayer turned mantra.

His hands shook, not from the cold, as he lifted the spear high—

"O Fury, guide my hand and see that I strike true!"

—and brought it down with a great and mighty swing.

The eye and all the aether within it exploded outward from where Aymeric split it clean. A furious, howling wind burst forth and whipped around them, strong enough to nearly throw Aymeric off his feet and from the ledge. Estinien caught his wrist and pulled him to his chest, holding him tight to the ground even as his body quickly shrank, the vortex of violent aether stripping what remained of the excess from his body as it stormed past. They held on tight to each other until all of the magicks had been unleashed and made their way into the skies, leaving naught of the eye and the surrounding mountain peak blown clean of snowdrift.

When they pulled apart, Aymeric stared at Estinien standing now just his size, Estinien's remaining eye having to look up from its place on his shoulder to see Aymeric's face.

"Estinien—"

''Tis almost done,' Estinien encouraged, seeing the reluctance in Aymeric's expression, 'Thou hast found the way to save the skies, and I, damned fool what wrecked them, can at last make mine amends.'

"Forgive me, Estinien. Oh Fury, forgive me," Aymeric pleaded, hands dropping the spear he'd clung to through the storm. He would have to pull the remaining eye from Estinien's body, but his hands trembled too fiercely even as he clasped them together like one would in prayer. "I love you. I wish there were any other way, but I love you, forgive me."

Estinien lifted his hand—now barely bigger than Aymeric's own—and touched it to Aymeric's neck, pulling him close to tap their heads together, forehead to scaled snout.

Aymeric's eyes pinched shut and he tried to calm his breathing, the adrenaline still making him quake even under Estinien's caress. But he would not waver, regrets and wishes be damned. Estinien released him, then reached for the eye. He knew it no longer belonged to Nidhogg, and now had full accepted it belonged to Aymeric, his to destroy and set free the remaining aether within, so with ease he plucked it from his shoulder and gently pushed it against Aymeric's tightly squeezed hands.

'Aymeric—'

...

...

...

The world had blinked into darkness.

Estinien could not move. Could not see, could not hear, could not feel, could not speak. All was dark and nothing, and his body dead to his will.

He had ended the spell early, he realized with a growing horror. In gifting the eye to Aymeric, its magicks no longer served him, leaving him dead to the world at last.

This had been what he wanted. What he had waited for. This was his new eternity, penance for all he had wrought.

But as time unknowable stretched on, all he could think was he had not been able to tell Aymeric goodbye, or that he loved him in return. He had not been as ready for the end as he'd thought, and now it was too late. To be burdened with a fresh, grueling regret even now was like unto one final twist of Nidhogg's claws where they remained buried within his soul; inextricably bound and spiteful to the last.

And then, he heard a song.

It was in a language old and lost; the wyrm's tongue. He recalled Iceheart's wish and wondered if this was Ratatoskr, come to grant him death. But the words grew strange, distorted and distant, and then... steadily clearer, and closer, in a voice he knew.

A crack split through the darkness, light and sounds and scents leaking in at a pace like a trickling stream, growing stronger and more wild until they rushed in like a flood. The sound of his name in Aymeric's voice at last made his eyelids snap open and the darkness break away, cracked and broken pieces of transformed helm crumbling from his face to reveal the bright and present world around him.

He heaved in his first breath in centuries, nearly choking on it.

"Aymeric," he gasped, desperate to be heard, to know this was no dream.

Aymeric stared back at him in shock. His face was so close, like he'd been clinging to Estinien just moments before his helm had broken, and he hesitantly touched a hand to Estinien's clean, human, scaleless cheek.

"...E-Estinien?"

Estinien looked at him through eyes that sat square in his face, no longer forced to feel always the trapped observer to his own body, then grinned wide, making Aymeric's cheeks promptly turn pink.

The armor that had bonded to his skin now easily fell apart. Estinien shook his body til it fell loose off his arms, and then with his hands free, tore off what was left, leaving him fully naked and almost completely clear of scales save for angry, blackened scars where the eyes had sat. He stared down at himself, then back up when the breeze blew long silver hair into his face. He was... as he once had been. He didn't understand the why of it—the whim of the fates? a last mercy from Ratatoskr? or the answer to one desperate prayer of a man who would beg for nothing else?—and in that moment, he didn't think to puzzle over it.

All he could think to do was step forward, take Aymeric's face gently in hand, and kiss him deep.

He knew he was a damned fool. A cursed wretch who broke the world. But he had been given this mercy, and he would not see it wasted, no more regrets, so long as he stood by Aymeric's side. And to his great pleasure, Aymeric was just as keen, arms wrapping tight around Estinien's shoulders and humming with relief into his kiss, both of them reveling in the ease of holding each other close and the soft touch of skin against skin.

It was Aymeric who at last broke away with a sudden jerk, his lips red and bruised where Estinien stared at them, yet hungry for more.

"Th-the eye. The other eye, I dropped it when the magicks took you," he gasped in realization.

They each stepped back, looking to the wind-blown dirt that covered the ledge and saw with relief it had not fallen far from their feet.

"Hold on," Estinien warned, grabbing the spear with one hand and keeping a hold of Aymeric's waist with the other. He slammed the blade into the eye and the stone beneath with ease, using it to keep hold against the second vicious flurry that ravaged the air until it, too, had extinguished all aether and released it to the skies. Aymeric lifted his head again from Estinien's neck, staring at his face in dull disbelief.

It was over, and all his wishes and more had suddenly come true.

"Thy duty is done," Estinien said, kissing him softly at the temple, "and mine aid fully given. I swore to thee many an oath when I had the might of a beast, but I am naught save a man now."

He watched Aymeric's face and marveled at the closeness of it. He couldn't see his own expression—his first time having an expression in ages—but he knew it showed only love, sure as his heart now thrummed within his chest.

"Wilt thou yet have me?"

"Yes," Aymeric said without hesitation. "I would have you always. Oh, Estinien, my love. My miracle."

To the people of Ishgard, the recovery of the sunken skies and weakening of the land's everwinter was a miracle granted by Halone in answer to their fervent prayer. But the heavy hand of the See's controlling grip had been seen through.

The scriptures spoke clear of what the Goddess would bring to even her most devout should they abuse her favor. In the Enchiridion's tale of the last King of Coerthas, he had beget Halone's aid to protect his people from raging dragons, but when she granted his wish and cast them out, he stole from her trophies their scales and wings. In his greed and betrayal, he brought about her Fury, bringing down the heavens and wresting the earth from its foundations in the creation of the sea of clouds and end of the line of kings.

Ishgard's people declared the Archbishop and his Heavens' Ward guilty of greed and bringing down the skyfall, a warning from Halone they had heeded at last. The many years of casting out Her faithful who dared challenge their lies were soon made public, and the tides of change swept through the city.

Or so that was the story of it.

Years on, Estinien still paid little attention to the news around the great capital.

As they had promised a lifetime ago, they made to journey around Coerthas and the lands and skies beyond, Aymeric discovering the changes of a world restored to balance he had played part in, and Estinien learning of how the world had evolved during his slumber through newly mortal eyes. With each place they visited, Aymeric always gave a prayer in thanks for safe passage to Halone, and Estinien always learned a new song to save for Ratatoskr whenever next he heard her beckon.

Whoever had granted them their miracle, no matter where they journeyed together they would always carry their gratefulness in tow.

And when they returned after each round of travel to the quiet de Borel manor and its loud, cranky house cat, Estinien made sure his second chance at life did not go wasted. Every doubt Aymeric yet carried, he was sure to assuage. Every kiss he asked for, Estinien eagerly gave. Every regret they once had, they strove to make right.

And every wish Aymeric made, Estinien swore to grant—either in this lifetime or when he found him in the next.