Definitely not Nidhogg that was thinking of Gaius running his hands down his body, bending him back, opening him up with fingers and tongue. Definitely not.
Estinien maintain his stoicism as much as he could during the walk, and if Valdeulin tried to get him alone he skillfully dodged it. The man would have choice words and he wasn't quite sure how he wanted to answer yet.
Having never broke his stoic demeanor till he was fully seated in the dragoon the night previous, Gaius is as he always was, just a fraction less tense looking. If he cares about Valdeaulin's behavior, he says nothing -- there will only be words when Valdeanlin decides to give him at tonguelashing.
He helps set up camp, he eats, he offers to take first watch so others can rest. Also so he can strip to the waist while the rest slumber, and tend to his wounds. Ugly things, cereleum burns. A chemical fire leaves terrible scars, and Gaius is still healing, months later, and will be a long time healing still. There is pain, but he does not acknowledge it or allow it to stop his hunt. He just uses the healing tincture he managed to find when they raided a Garlean base on the fringes. It's helped. So has the rest.
Estinien drifts over to him. It almost feels like a force of nature brings him, a cloud wandering across the sky, rather than the man actively choosing to be in Gaius's presence. The comparisons to a stray coeurl will not go unmissed.
"Your man seems determined to lecture me like I'm a wayward child," he mutters, crouching beside him at the fire. "One starts to wonder if he's jealous."
Gaius' expression crinkles in what may be distaste, or disdain. Valdeaulin is... well. The little their history is spoken, the better: none of it was kind, and the unkindness continues, little cuts coming after the big ones.
"He's ignorant and beneath your notice, dragoon," Gaius says with clear truth. Valdeaulin may be his captor, but he is Estinien's inferior in every way. "Don't let him bother you. Bare your teeth and the coyote will crouch low and stay wary. He will only nip the heels of the weak."
"Aye, but he's persistant. Damn mage accosted me while i was tryingto make water." Trousers open and there the man is lecturing him about how Gaius is nothing but a beast, taking what he needs, but shouldn't the vaunted Azure Dragoon of Ishgard know better?
(Showed how little he know about Azure Dragoons.)
"But I care not what he thinks of me," Estinien insisted. He curled one leg up to his chest, staring into the fire.
"Then why complain? You cannot possibly care what he thinks of me," Gaius says, looking over him as he rubs creamy, red tincture into the ugly burns that track up both arms and onto his chest, appearing in patches over his torso. "He's beneath you, and he knows it. He cannot control you or even hope to influence. It's just noise."
Gaius turned his gaze away, satisfied that both arms were well rubbed, and then works on shoulders and chest. He does not look back when he says, "You should rest."
"How do you reach your back, in such a state?" Estinien asks, in complete defiance of any of the questions he was actually asked. "You'll not be able to reach the bulk of it. Turn around and I'll handle it."
"I used to be far more flexible," Gaius said dryly, something like mirth warming his eyes.
The mirth remains, teasing a half-smile to his lips, as he offers the bottle of tincture, and says, "A little bit goes a ways." Such can be said of many things -- but a little bit of affection has the couerl coming back for another scritching, it seems. "But surely you are familiar with burn care."
"Familiar enough." Estinien strips the gauntlets from his hands and goes to work. To his credit, he does do good work and doesn't try to make it weird - wound care is more important than seduction.
It's nice not to have to crane his neck and pull at his still-healing skin. It is ugly, though -- where cloth burned, metal searing hot over it. But it is no more than the survivors of dragon's breath have, if from a different source. Cereleum clings to the skin, melts it down, burns deep. It's only through magitek an a bit of conjury that Gaius lives, let alone is still capable of lifting his gunblade.
"Then I trust you'll do it right," is all he says, as he lets Estinien do as he should, and unfurling clean bandaging and preparing to wrap his arms.
Estinien knows what skin healed by magic looks like, versus skin which healed on its own. Gaius wasn't healed back to perfect health, as most would, but he was healed back from the point of it.
"He saved you from death," the dragoon mutters as he works the cream lower. "Did he know who you were?"
"Yes," Gaius says, voice level, settling there on his knees, hands finding their rest on his thighs. A prim position, to say the least, but controlled and disciplined. The skin is still tender and healing - it will heal tight, stretch and burn, and need work to regain full mobility -- which will worsen as he heals, not improve. In a kinder place, he would be healed and given over to the chirugeons to regain his full fighting strength.
"My armor was irrepreably damaged," he explains, keeping his eyes dead ahead and his voice soft. "But no man of the Grand Companies of Eorzea did not know the mask of the Legatus of the XIVth. He would have killed me, had I not begged him stay his hand and hear the truth. Whatever madness took him in that moment, he listened and he believed."
Begged. It's hard to imagine the man begging for anything.
"You wished to live that badly?" he asked quietly, hands moving slow and steady. Hard to square with this man, who seems to live only through a sense of duty rather than a lust for life.
"Do not mistake my will to live as craven," Gaius says, muscles slowly tensing under Estinien's hands. "It is not a desire to return home or to return to comfort that drives me. I asked him only time enough to hunt Ascians to extinction to free my people. After that, my life was his. I care not what he does with it."
Will to live? No. Will to hunt the beings that have driven his country for a century, creating a war machine that he found himself a cog in all for an alien's pleasure? That is the thing.
"I will take all of their tools, one by one, and I will see Garlemald freed. My mask hangs among theirs, another tool removed from their use. I will take the rest, by my own hand, should not your Warrior friend catch the rest. Every pawn down brings us closer to -- that thing, that Emet-Selch who puppets them."
Well, this sounds VERY familiar. Estinien chuckles, despite the dark topic,
as his palms press and spread across the small of Gaius's back. "I imagine
you find a strange comfort in that. To know you will not need to live in
the world you will create, but that your work will eventually consume you.
It is easier that way, no?"
"The world I have created is full of grief and strife, and all for naught. Just a petty game by a monster, with man's lives as the chits he bets," Gaius said, voice as soft and steady as it always is. The tightness in his muscles betray him, but he tries to force them relax -- only so successful. "I have furthered their goals, conquered nations, betrayed my country twice over to stop them, if once unknowingly. My life is forfeit; Garlemald will hang me if I am fortunate. Eorzea's claim in my head is known. Ala Mhigo will bury me up to my neck in the sand and leave me to slowly desiccate if they claim their right to justice. At least Valdeaulin gives me the time to see this last thing done before I die."
The flickering of firelight reminds him of the Praetorium, burning bright and fast, scores upon scores of men dead in the ruins. Livia, who he called his own, dead. Rhitatyn, slain at his Castrum. Nero fled, ever self-centered. There is nothing left but the hunt now.
"If I succeed, I will count my debts to the future paid, and die at peace."
The movement of his hands is an excuse now - an excuse to stay close, to
keep talking. To keep Gaius talking. Estinien's guilt is not quite as
Gaius's guilt - no, he is not fool enough to believe that the crimes of the
church are solely his fault. He was lied to, and acted accordingly. That
does not mean he is blameless but Gaius had eyes to see and still took the
wrong path. The weight of his sin is greater, even if Estinien's failings
are more deeply personal. (His family. His sworn brothers. His country's
legacy.)
"And should Valdeaulin refuse to grant you that peace, when your hunt
ends?" he asks, hands sliding back up to Gaius's shoulders.
"I am sure there will be no small number of nations that will take me to my end," Gaius says, unruffled. The hypotheticals are just that. "But Valdeaulin has never showed me kindness, and his grief runs deep. I am not fool enough to think it will assuage his pain, but he is."
Muscles start to relax under Estinien's hands; the tension of it is melting away, and Gaius is losing himself in the touch. He cannot bring himself to feel wretched about his lot; he saw his path, he walked it, and now that he has reached the chasm between him and the future, he will walk it until he falls. There is a certain peace in knowing that there will be an end to it all, and that his death will not be meaningless.
Estinien's barely focusing on the movements of his hands now. They're sliding up and down in a slow rhythm, his mind somewhere far distant. "Perhaps, at the end of all this, he may see your death as a mercy to deny you."
As Nidhogg had denied him death's mercy, choosing to instead turn him into a tool of vengeance - and ironically, of his own children's salvation. Estinien at least takes his joys in how much the great wyrm would hate what has become of both their people now.
"Then someone willing to take it will push him aside," Gaius says, eyes closing now, letting himself be grounded in a body that betrays him at every step. Whether it's pain or pleasure, Gaius is a slave to it. "It doesn't matter. So long as the work is done. That is the thing. My life was forfeit as soon as the Praetorium burned."
There is no joy in what Garlemald has become. A nation raped and ravished by the predatory desires of a ancient inhuman madman; nearly a century of manipulation to come to this war machine. There will be joy when her enemies are dead. Gaius will not be there to drink deep the draught of victory, because he will be counted among her betrayers.
When Estinien's hand slides up, Gaius lifts his to cover it over one shoulder, before he says, "You don't have to do this. I will give you what you wish; you don't need to try to concern yourself with my plight."
Estinien's hands are immediately yanked back, as if the man himself has grown white-hot. "Did you think I came here to seduce you?" he hisses, all the more angry for the fact that it's...not...quite...incorrect. The sympathy wasn't part of it, but.
"I am not some courtly noble trading false platitudes for favors, you absolute ingrate." He finds his hand halfway to his lance just at the thought of it. Damnit, he'd been trying to help.
"Seduce? Not hardly," Gaius huffs a soft laugh, a rare enough sound. "You do not have it in you yet, dragoon. But you do not... you do not need to..."
Care is the word, but the very implication is that Estinien could at all, and that is folly. He cannot. So instead he just begins to re-wrap his arms, starting on the shoulders that Estinien no longer touches.
"Do not think that you need to do anything but ask for what you want. We are comrades in arms, soldiers in the same field. This last as long as it pleases you."
"I asked for it straightforward enough the first time, if I had a mind to I could do it a second time." Thank god the darkness hides the flush of his face. "I merely wished to help tend to what you could not. And to talk, man to man. Is that also forbidden in Garlemald?"
He hates being caught caring. It hurts every time.
Gaius' eyes are pale as sun-yellowed glass, reflecting the warmth of the firelight. He simply watches, for a moment, as Estinien struggles with his feelings. The man's more tender hearted than he realized; the bristling armor protects a kind soul.
"No," he says after the searching look. He returns to his bandaging. "I apologize, I mistook your aid for something else. The fault is mine."
"I should say so!" His skin is sizzling, and the only thing keeping him from stalking back out into the night again is the thought that if he does so he won't get any more of that skin against his skin. "Does every act of comradeship come with a hidden cost, to you? Ishgard was cold but by god we at least had some solidarity!"
He won't call it kindness. He'll call it anything but kindness, because he knows how that word is poison to men like them.
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loligiary2022-08-06 03:27 pm
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Estinien maintain his stoicism as much as he could during the walk, and if Valdeulin tried to get him alone he skillfully dodged it. The man would have choice words and he wasn't quite sure how he wanted to answer yet.
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He helps set up camp, he eats, he offers to take first watch so others can rest. Also so he can strip to the waist while the rest slumber, and tend to his wounds. Ugly things, cereleum burns. A chemical fire leaves terrible scars, and Gaius is still healing, months later, and will be a long time healing still. There is pain, but he does not acknowledge it or allow it to stop his hunt. He just uses the healing tincture he managed to find when they raided a Garlean base on the fringes. It's helped. So has the rest.
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"Your man seems determined to lecture me like I'm a wayward child," he mutters, crouching beside him at the fire. "One starts to wonder if he's jealous."
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"He's ignorant and beneath your notice, dragoon," Gaius says with clear truth. Valdeaulin may be his captor, but he is Estinien's inferior in every way. "Don't let him bother you. Bare your teeth and the coyote will crouch low and stay wary. He will only nip the heels of the weak."
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(Showed how little he know about Azure Dragoons.)
"But I care not what he thinks of me," Estinien insisted. He curled one leg up to his chest, staring into the fire.
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Gaius turned his gaze away, satisfied that both arms were well rubbed, and then works on shoulders and chest. He does not look back when he says, "You should rest."
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The mirth remains, teasing a half-smile to his lips, as he offers the bottle of tincture, and says, "A little bit goes a ways." Such can be said of many things -- but a little bit of affection has the couerl coming back for another scritching, it seems. "But surely you are familiar with burn care."
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"Then I trust you'll do it right," is all he says, as he lets Estinien do as he should, and unfurling clean bandaging and preparing to wrap his arms.
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"He saved you from death," the dragoon mutters as he works the cream lower. "Did he know who you were?"
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"My armor was irrepreably damaged," he explains, keeping his eyes dead ahead and his voice soft. "But no man of the Grand Companies of Eorzea did not know the mask of the Legatus of the XIVth. He would have killed me, had I not begged him stay his hand and hear the truth. Whatever madness took him in that moment, he listened and he believed."
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"You wished to live that badly?" he asked quietly, hands moving slow and steady. Hard to square with this man, who seems to live only through a sense of duty rather than a lust for life.
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Will to live? No. Will to hunt the beings that have driven his country for a century, creating a war machine that he found himself a cog in all for an alien's pleasure? That is the thing.
"I will take all of their tools, one by one, and I will see Garlemald freed. My mask hangs among theirs, another tool removed from their use. I will take the rest, by my own hand, should not your Warrior friend catch the rest. Every pawn down brings us closer to -- that thing, that Emet-Selch who puppets them."
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Well, this sounds VERY familiar. Estinien chuckles, despite the dark topic, as his palms press and spread across the small of Gaius's back. "I imagine you find a strange comfort in that. To know you will not need to live in the world you will create, but that your work will eventually consume you. It is easier that way, no?"
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The flickering of firelight reminds him of the Praetorium, burning bright and fast, scores upon scores of men dead in the ruins. Livia, who he called his own, dead. Rhitatyn, slain at his Castrum. Nero fled, ever self-centered. There is nothing left but the hunt now.
"If I succeed, I will count my debts to the future paid, and die at peace."
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The movement of his hands is an excuse now - an excuse to stay close, to keep talking. To keep Gaius talking. Estinien's guilt is not quite as Gaius's guilt - no, he is not fool enough to believe that the crimes of the church are solely his fault. He was lied to, and acted accordingly. That does not mean he is blameless but Gaius had eyes to see and still took the wrong path. The weight of his sin is greater, even if Estinien's failings are more deeply personal. (His family. His sworn brothers. His country's legacy.)
"And should Valdeaulin refuse to grant you that peace, when your hunt ends?" he asks, hands sliding back up to Gaius's shoulders.
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Muscles start to relax under Estinien's hands; the tension of it is melting away, and Gaius is losing himself in the touch. He cannot bring himself to feel wretched about his lot; he saw his path, he walked it, and now that he has reached the chasm between him and the future, he will walk it until he falls. There is a certain peace in knowing that there will be an end to it all, and that his death will not be meaningless.
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As Nidhogg had denied him death's mercy, choosing to instead turn him into a tool of vengeance - and ironically, of his own children's salvation. Estinien at least takes his joys in how much the great wyrm would hate what has become of both their people now.
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There is no joy in what Garlemald has become. A nation raped and ravished by the predatory desires of a ancient inhuman madman; nearly a century of manipulation to come to this war machine. There will be joy when her enemies are dead. Gaius will not be there to drink deep the draught of victory, because he will be counted among her betrayers.
When Estinien's hand slides up, Gaius lifts his to cover it over one shoulder, before he says, "You don't have to do this. I will give you what you wish; you don't need to try to concern yourself with my plight."
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"I am not some courtly noble trading false platitudes for favors, you absolute ingrate." He finds his hand halfway to his lance just at the thought of it. Damnit, he'd been trying to help.
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Care is the word, but the very implication is that Estinien could at all, and that is folly. He cannot. So instead he just begins to re-wrap his arms, starting on the shoulders that Estinien no longer touches.
"Do not think that you need to do anything but ask for what you want. We are comrades in arms, soldiers in the same field. This last as long as it pleases you."
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He hates being caught caring. It hurts every time.
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"No," he says after the searching look. He returns to his bandaging. "I apologize, I mistook your aid for something else. The fault is mine."
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He won't call it kindness. He'll call it anything but kindness, because he knows how that word is poison to men like them.
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