[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

[aquaveiled]

Himeka nods, feeling a little emboldened by this confusion. While she keeps one hand around one of the bars, she starts to motion animatedly with the other.

"Yes, and that's exactly what I've been wondering!" So he does understand, even if he doesn't realize it. "I don't know if what I became there is what I would have become if I had not known or if this is simply something my head is trying to work around like some sort of weird dream. Or is this who I've always been but would have never realized it if not for the opportunity to face myself?"

Okay, she is decidedly missing several details in there.

"But then Ardbert never looked like that either. What does that mean...? And...furthermore, how come I didn't grow a beard or something when we...?"

[coerthantorment]

Estinien would be tempted to just turn around and walk away at this point from sheer consternation were he not chained to the bars, and also locked in a cell. As it is, all he can do is stare at her helplessly. He feels like she's trying to share something with him here, but he really doesn't understand it at all.

"The part of yourself... that is a male Hyur?"

She definitely seemed female in the Horizon unless there was something he missed.

[aquaveiled]

A captive audience to her crisis is not what she intended, but here they are. A part of her thought about sharing these experiences with Y'shtola or Urianger as they seemed the most likely to have an inkling to the truth of the matter, but telling them would also mean letting it out to all of the Scions, and she isn't ready for that yet. Not with the implications therein.

Himeka nods quickly.

"Yes, he was a Midlander with brown hair and a scruffy chin. A little short." It does settle, then, that it probably seems a little weird she would say that at all, so she finally blesses Estinien with something of an explanation. "On the First--I met my counterpart there. His name was Ardbert...and he was a Warrior of Light before the Flood came."

That, she knows, Estinien has been debriefed on in greater detail than she will be able to weave adequate words for.

"It's strange, isn't it? To think that on the other shards that are left, there is another piece of you still out there. Living their own lives...completely unaware."

She is a little distant for a moment, eyes unfocused. It is as much as they had been to the other worlds if not for a year ago and some ingenuity and determination of old friends. The timeline has been corrected, of course, but their sacrifices are still ones they cannot forget.

"And yet," she says as she finally comes back, refocusing her gaze on Estinien. "Though he's part of me now, I don't look like I've changed, have it? But...what if...what if all parts of us were brought back together? Then what would we become? Would we become our 'true' selves? Who we were before?"

Himeka shakes her head, looking down once again. "You know I'm no scholar nor one for these sorts of existential quandaries, yet I've been plagued by them ever since we left the First...and I'm just a dope who is hardly equipped to tackle them."

[coerthantorment]

Estinien, truthfully, has avoided putting too much thought into any of this, ever since he was informed of the concept of shards. He gathered that, as part of the overall cosmology, that what had been before was split into parts, which was the source of the Ascian's frustration. To him, though, it seems in poor taste to give the Ascian's more credit than they were due in that regard.

Thinking about himself as lesser, as only a fragment of a whole, would be indulging their avarice. Then again, it's been easy for him to do that, when he never had to see or experience the reality of it. Himeka was not so fortunate... and seemingly, there's more to it than had even been penned in the Scion reports he'd flipped through.

He doesn't like thinking about the idea of other versions of himself. What would it even look like, if they could vary as wildly as the difference between a female Au Ra and a male Hyur? There's no visual he can muster, and no context either. His life, his identity, has been so powerfully shaped by events outside of his control, he has no idea who he'd be without them.

Himeka and this Ardbert are both Warriors of Light, apparently. The reflection of her character is included in that. What is he outside of his quest for vengeance, though? What is he without Nidhogg's horde and Azure Dragoons? He has no answers, and the discomfort weighs heavily on him. He can imagine she feels much the same - he also feels very much out of his league.

"Isn't considering that being as your 'true' self what the Ascians would demand of us? At the cost of our peace and our lives?" He glances away from her. "You are what you are, Himeka. If this Ardbert has become a part of you... then that is all you need consider."

After all, Estinien is familiar with the concept of another person becoming inextricably a part of you.

"To think of yourself as less than complete only indulges the whims of tyrants."

[aquaveiled]

Before their travel to the First, before her losing battle to "Zenos", she had begun to question. Bits and pieces and seeing all the wonderful change wrought, seeing all the lives lost in the process, she began to wonder who she was outside of this. She had left her identity back in the Ruby Sea and adopted the life of an adventurer...though that had not been her plan. Had Y'shtola not spotted her, who would she be? What would she be worth?

Could she make this sort of difference? Or was it only that she followed the best of thoughts with more forethought and greater ambitions that her name be known to any?

That she should learn while looking for fulfillment that she has not been whole this entire time--it never bothered her before. In many ways, the people she met made her feel whole and worthwhile. And that should be enough, shouldn't it? That was how she felt until her soul began to literally tear at the seams, knowing that it could have ended all so very differently had her friends not left her to accept that fate and had Ardbert not elected to throw his individually to the wind to join with hers.

Himeka is quiet again, mulling on his words. It's not the sort of companionable silence they normally share--it's heavy and it shows on her brow and the way her tail droops behind her, barely twitching at the end.

"...To be honest, I had been wondering for a while if I really understood who I was outside of this mantle of 'Warrior of Light'," she says quietly.

"But what would you think of me if...part of me was one of them?"

[coerthantorment]

In the end, all he can do is lift his shoulders into a shrug. It's not to show indifference to her struggles or to her fears, but instead to show how little impact he feels that would have to her overall character. In the end, what someone would truly be in a different life is unknowable.

"I understand how it feels to live a life defined by one's circumstances." Despite all his determination, his goals have ever been reactive. He fought against the pain inflicted upon him, first and foremost. Without that pain, his identity is impossible to define. He feels the same may go for her - reacting to one threat after another, with no time to pause and think of what there'd be left beyond that struggle.

"I care not for what you could be, only what you are. Another being, outside of your choices and your circumstances... they are not meaningfully you at all, are they?"

[aquaveiled]

She looks up again at that. Yes, if there is anyone who knows what it is to be a product of circumstance, it is certainly Estinien. She would not have guessed she would become so close to the man dressed in armor walking into the "Falling Snows" on that day, keen to lead the siege on this war with dragons at her side despite her appearance that had caused such distress in many of his brethren.

But here they are now. Realistically everything they have done up until this point had been much more miraculous than escaping prison, even if it feels a little insurmountable now. In time...

"Normally I would say 'no'," she starts, then leaves it at that for a moment.

"You know I tried Astrology during my time in Ishgard, but did you ever know why?" Likely not, as he is not the sort to ask and she is not the sort to randomly share either. They have that understanding. "Even in the Ruby Sea, I'd never been fond of the idea of 'fate'. Yet after all that transpired before we came to Ishgard, I'd been desperate to find meaning or a less nefarious purpose. So when I saw there was an opportunity to potentially learn the 'whims of the stars', whatever they were, I jumped at it."

Himeka huffs and shakes her head. "You know the rest." At least that she had relied on it for a portion of their time together, though she eventually returned to her more reliable cane. She had the aptitude for it as she does with most magics, but-- "I never felt guided by the cards I drew. It was all just random chance and I knew where to apply their meanings as needed, and that was when I realized that's all it was. But it feels better to think that something greater is guiding your hand, doesn't it?"

She grew up believing in the Kami as everyone and she does believe those still exist, but they are not the sorts of omnipresent gods as the Twelve are.

"And yet..."

And yet.

"...What is the likelihood that I would be able to return to the town that I had previous abandoned only to find that the Ruby Princess and I shared the same hopes and ideals? That a friend I had incidentally made years prior would be the one to survive into the future, travel back through time, and summon me across the stars to save another? That I would--out of all of us who were summoned to the First--find another part of my soul and actually be able to speak with him? That our greatest adversaries were once my comrades and peers? Is this Hydaelyn's doing? Is this fate?"

[coerthantorment]

Estinien sighs. He certainly understands what Himeka is talking about, having grown up in an environment where many things were attributed to the work of their goddess, even when it was plainly insane to do so. Even their judicial system relied on the idea that the Fury would guide the outcome of combat. Maybe it's because of his cultural upbringing that these existential questions feel old hat. The sort of thing that he either had to have surrendered to long ago, and if not that, put them resiliently out of mind.

He'd chosen the latter, not having much interest in relying on an unseen force to make things happen. In some ways, he'd like to think that he and Nidhogg were destined to fight, that he, among all others, was destined to kill the wyrm. Yet, he knew it really wasn't that. It was simply that if he failed to accomplish that, he had nothing else. There was no point in contemplating alternatives because they were as good as death for him.

It would seem like fate to the outside observer, though. It would seem like it all happened exactly how it should. He shakes his head to himself, staring out through the bars.

"They'd say things like that about Aymeric and I, you know. I oft find people apply the idea of 'fate' retroactively... to explain what they've seen, rather than to be certain of what will come."

"Tis only natural that joining the Scions would draw you into such matters. If you set your sight on things of import, important things will happen around you." He glances at her. "Though particular skills and circumstances do help."

Obviously, her having Hydaelyn's blessing plays a part in it. She literally couldn't do the things she had without it, in some places. But there were others with that gift.

[aquaveiled]

He's not wrong--joining the Scions had always been what she believed to be what set the wheels in motion. And despite being hailed as the Warrior of Light, she saw them all as equal colleagues with different parts to play. Her job was just to hit things when it was too dangerous for someone without her particular protections to.

Yet over the past year she has begun to wonder about the differences between them. Not in any sense of raising her own importance, but if she were someone outside of the Warrior of Light, if she wasn't a scion? And in that process she'd been supplied a new identify--several, in fact.

The Warrior of Darkness.

Part of Ardbert's soul.

The former Fourteenth Seat.

Maybe this was why people did believe in fate--it made it a hell of a lot easier to explain these things. But...by no direct action on her part had she acquired these new pieces of herself. At least not intentionally. Maybe it did just come with the territory.

Slowly, Himeka nods. It's only natural.

Then why does it bother her so?

"I'd heard you were quite the troublemakers--you and Aymeric."

It's easier to prod at her friend about this anyway.