[OPEN] cold wind blowing beneath my wings

[coerthantorment]

WHO: Estinien Wyrmblood and YOU
WHAT: Estinien is back in the real world and not particularly happy about it, at least until he manages to meditate his way into the Horizon again. Meanwhile, his cellmate Relena goes missing and he gets very angry about it.
WHERE: In prison and also the Horizon.
WHEN: From July 24th to August 12th
NOTES: If you'd like something more specific with Estinien feel free to hit me up on the Discord or at quixocalypse.

I➔ And Back Again

The descent from the Horizon feels akin to being summoned back to a dead body, both in terms of power and relative comfort. The aches and pains of his imprisonment return with merciless acuity. While his energy had been boundless in that higher realm, here it is reduced to scraps as the ravages of hunger and exhaustion weigh down on him. It's the contrast itself that is the most jarring, along with the fact that he wakes up in shackles.

Yes, the fear that had been haunting his subconscious his entire stay in the Horizon has come back into context. This is what he'd been desperate to escape, and now that he's returned to it, he feels no less dread. Even worse is the fact that Ambrose seems perfectly chuffed with himself for what they've experienced.

Upon being returned to prison, he wonders what it was all for. Any connection to the power of the Horizon seems to be gone, and given that somehow accessing the Singularity was his one hope of escape, their return leaves him in a rather dire mood. To make matters worse, it seems that the guards haven't forgotten about his aggression on the way to the portal, and also on the way back. They decide to deny him food entirely on his first day back to his cell. He should be glad he's not been simply put back into solitary, something in his gut says.

The atmosphere around him is one of miserable defeat, during those first few days back in prison. Even during the recreational hours, his accumulated frailty can be seen. As much as he tries to flex his muscles, he soon finds himself slumping against the rec yard wall. He's tired, starving, and clinging more and more tenuously to any sort of hope. Was the Horizon an escape at all, when it was all according to the High Mage's plan?

II➔ To The Horizon

Fortunately for him, his obsession driven life means he is not one accustomed to giving up for good. It takes only a couple of days before he realizes the futility in surrender - especially when he's hardly explored all his options. The Horizon was something experienced outside the body, was it not? So why not see if the connection remains?

He spends the rest of that day attempting to sink back into the Singularity's power, carefully clearing his thoughts. He is used to stilling his mind from years of being connected to Nidhogg's eye, but it has been a while since such intense concentration was required of him. He's not sure when it happens, but finally, something clicks.

Instead of awakening on his prison mattress, he wakes in a field of rolling grass - and not long after, a pile of snuffling karakul. Everything comes rushing back. He'd remembered his time in the Horizon, but something about experiencing it again reforges the connection between those two states of mind: the mind of the dragon, and the mind of his true self. To think, that all of this had been made by his hand.

He frees himself from the overzealous affection of his flock, a lifetime of memories allowing him to better keep his reflexive fear of them at bay. He wanders the valley for a while, his memories casting all he sees in a new light. What did it mean, that his unshackled soul decided to build this? Was this what he wanted, after everything? He comes along the long bit of housing within his domain, a single-family household carefully crafted of timber, but left completely empty inside. For all the time he'd spent in the valley, he spent little time dwelling on this creation. He thinks he can understand, the emptiness of its walls resonating with a similar emptiness in his heart.

He traces his fingers along the windows, across the door, but he doesn't dare open it. Instead, he decides he'd rather go somewhere else.

Without his memories, he hadn't been particularly curious about other people's domains, mostly interested in his own creations and keeping them safe. Now, though, a lifetime of experiences draws him to the outside world. He wonders if anyone else has reawakened to this place. He traverses the Horizon on foot this time, and occasionally in soaring leaps and bounds that are nearly akin to flying. Yet, he summons no wings. He can't imagine he made a particularly good impression on anyone, the way he was before.

III➔ The Weight of Absence (Aug 5+)

And then, some days later, Relena is taken.

He doesn't know the meaning of it, at first. The guards simply come to remove her from the cell, saying it's for some manner of 'trial', and she goes, with nothing he or Himeka could do to stop it. He demands answers at the time, shouting at the guards, but receives none. Initially, he wonders if she'll be freed, much like Kay was. It'd make sense, he thinks. If the trial was just, he could see no reason for her to be put in solitary or anywhere else, and he knows she has at least one friend on the outside.

Yet, when he doesn't hear anything from her in the coming days, he can no longer rely on that hopeful thought. Kay has been allowed to come and go, just like the other guests. Would Relena not have come to speak to them, after being freed? If not for him, for Himeka or the others?

As each day passes, his frustration and worry increases. He'll start attempting to flag down any passing guests, asking if they have seen her amount the others upstairs. On the way to recreation, he will check to be sure she hasn't simply changed cells, and ask around the other prisoners.

"Relena - the girl from my cell, with the long sandy hair - the guards have taken her somewhere. Have you seen her?"

With fewer and fewer kind possibilities in his mind, he'll start turning his aggression to the guards, shouting at them to ask for her location, and trying to grab at them through the bars when they inevitably ignore him. Finally, he manages to catch sight of a guard he thinks he recognizes from the day she disappeared. He manages to catch them by the arm, dragging them back against the bars of the cell.

"Where is the girl?" he snarls.

Comments

[coerthantorment]

"It is."

Estinien would never deny it. He's exceedingly privileged to have had a chance to change course, and to have lived long enough to do so. It's a privilege that haunts him more than any of his woes ever could. Why should he be the one to get a second chance, he's wondered? Why he, and not Ysayle, or his fallen dragoon comrades, or even Nidhogg himself?

It's foolish to think of it that way, he knows. Nobody chose for it to happen like this, they are merely living with what happened. Nidhogg had made his own bed, and Estinien better than anyone knew that there was no going back for him. That many had died at Nidhogg's command and only more would be taken, of man and dragon alike?

But wasn't it be more just to focus on those that had allowed him this second life? The people that had saved him, that had nurtured him even when he made it so difficult, so that he could cling to the vestiges of compassion that Nidhogg had forgotten? He feels that ache especially keenly now.

"Little of what happened is to my own credit," he says. "I would rather think of those that allowed me to have hope long enough to become who I am now."

[gynvael]

It's a bit more philosophizing than Geralt ever intended an old apple to beget. In a way, he doesn't particularly mind. A lot's been swirling in his head; a fog he's struggled to dispel. Somehow this conversation has served as a decent enough distraction from that. From the sinking in his stomach that hasn't stopped since he's returned from the Horizon.

Hell, maybe he's the one who owes Estinien a favour, in the end.

"So you are capable of not being entirely fatalistic." The shift of his gaze suggests he's only poking lightly. Feels like it only makes sense that Estinien's close friend is someone as bright as Himeka.

Not that he's one to talk. (He's aware of exactly what the bard would say to that sentiment.) Though he likes to think he's reason to dwell a bit, even if he knows it's about time he finds his footing again.

[coerthantorment]

Estinien scoffs, furrowing his brow at Geralt in a way that is not entirely without humour. He hasn't completely given up, but he's running out of ideas, and he can't figure out any way to save himself by merit alone.

"I'm only being a realist," he says. "My best efforts were put towards escaping captivity the first time... with that ending in failure, I'm struggling to figure out what else I might offer. You said yourself, it's surprising I'm not dead already."

Though he argues, it's in a tone that matches Geralt's. He fully realizes that he's capable of being fatalistic. He never spent much time considering that he might be alive to see the war end, after all.

"But... if there were another chance, I would take it. Though it might be my last."

[gynvael]

They're all struggling with that, he thinks. If only because whatever magic tracks them throws a heavy noose around what plots and plans anyone here might've come up with. And too many of them are attached. Too many have people they won't leave behind. He counts himself amongst that group—a decision he's well aware is far from practical, but one he also knows he won't budge on.

"Last chances are usually the ones to take."

He gets up; the only sign he still nurses an old injury is that he leans his weight on the tree as he does. It's occurred to him, the entire time they were in the Horizon, that the wound hadn't healed at all. It'd stagnated. As if nothing about their bodies progressed. The concept is...

Not ideal.

"Try not to die either way," he says, already beginning to move off. "I think your friends would prefer your rescue over mine."