Estinien, after some time spent in silence, dresesses himself quietly and slips back out of the tent. He is not one to stay even in the best of times and this all feels too awkward in the wake of their...their acts. Unusual though they had been, they were enjoyable. He has a lot to think about it.
But he'd rather be alone to do it, as the darkness will hide where the delicate tears of his orgasm had left marks down the corners of his face.
Satiated in a way he hasn't been in... years, honestly, Gaius has his first deep, restful sleep in the lat year, at least. He sinks back into sleep relaxed, content, and warm. So content, he's late to wake -- usually up at the crack of sunup, he actually sleeps until the skies are warm with a painted sunrise.
He's dressed about as well as he can these days, despite last night's activity, gets the fire a little brighter for making shitty camp coffee out of old grounds and a tin. It is what it is out here.)
Estinien sleeps deeply as well, a pattern that is not missed by Valdeaulin. He keeps a steady eye on Gaius, to the point of waking when he does, and waking so early before Gaius is...noteworthy. Also noteworthy that the dragoon follows suite.
By the Twelve, if they really are fucking he's going to eat his own staff for breakfast. He prowls restlessly at the edges of the camp as Estinien emerges, walking a bit stiffly -- well, shit. They actually did do something. Ugh.
Gaius is as intense as ever; quiet as he goes about the breakfast prep, silent as he offers a cup of coffee to Estinien -- but not in an angry way, brimming with frustration as they marched. No, he was just quiet, without the ever burning emotion seething below the surface. He was calm. At peace; at least for a little bit.
The old feelings will come back. One lay doesn't mean Gaius is floating on cloud nine once they march. But he is having a distressingly well-rested and well-shagged morning, and he'll savor it while he can.
The way Estinien refuses to quite meet his eyes as he takes the coffee, the way he's avoidant even for Estinien...Valdeulin knows what it means. It burns in his stomach to think something he did gave that monster even a moment of pleasure.
But he can't blame Gaius for taking a victory offered so easily. Estinien, though, he should have known better. Sevara notes how he vanishes off into the woods before his emotion can be read on his face, and shrugs. (Like she cares where the Black Wolf sticks his dick.)
Pleasure that lead to peace, peace to a clarity of focus: Gaius is on his mission, driven by something other than shame.
Once the brief break in the fast is finished, Gaius help pack camp, goes briefly over the map, and then sets off hiking under the late morning sun. They won't cover as much ground today, but it will not be as draining a trek. There would be warmer climes soon, after coming down from Garlemald's frozen peaks. There among the wooded stretch, Gaius toils with a less heavy heart and a mind honing to focus on the goals of the future.
As to Estinien's case, he doesn't exactly have peace over him. A lot of questions, a lot to think about - what strange impulses drove him to Gaius, what they may mean, if they are troublesome. He thinks a lot about his impulses these days.
Wonders what parts are him and what parts are from the same source as the endless howling that once threatened to overwhelm him entirely. This one, not so much. It's nice to be able to concretely decide that, at least.
Nidhogg had a mate, yes, a consort-- but that was not about sex. That was about companionship and bonding. They did not couple or breed.
What happened last night? Someone got bred, alright.
They stop short of the borderlands -- just deep enough into the forest that no one should see a fire, but the pinprick glows of warm hearths through village windows down in the valley were visible from where they were.
The village was a way point. A stop-off. Warm beds, before they went a little further. From there it would be short trip to Ala Mhigo by airship, and then... Well, they'd see how they reacted to him. Few knew his face outside his fellow Garleans -- but he was certain some might know him.
Hopefully he wouldn't be walking himself to the chopping block. Hopefully they'd at least let him talk before Valdeaulin arranged his execution. He could hope for that much, at least. A last ditch effort to save his beloved Garelmald from Ascian rulers.
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.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-08-21 09:42 pm (UTC)But he'd rather be alone to do it, as the darkness will hide where the delicate tears of his orgasm had left marks down the corners of his face.
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Date: 2022-08-22 02:28 am (UTC)He's dressed about as well as he can these days, despite last night's activity, gets the fire a little brighter for making shitty camp coffee out of old grounds and a tin. It is what it is out here.)
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Date: 2022-08-27 02:02 am (UTC)By the Twelve, if they really are fucking he's going to eat his own staff for breakfast. He prowls restlessly at the edges of the camp as Estinien emerges, walking a bit stiffly -- well, shit. They actually did do something. Ugh.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-27 02:44 am (UTC)The old feelings will come back. One lay doesn't mean Gaius is floating on cloud nine once they march. But he is having a distressingly well-rested and well-shagged morning, and he'll savor it while he can.
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Date: 2022-08-27 02:48 am (UTC)But he can't blame Gaius for taking a victory offered so easily. Estinien, though, he should have known better. Sevara notes how he vanishes off into the woods before his emotion can be read on his face, and shrugs. (Like she cares where the Black Wolf sticks his dick.)
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Date: 2022-08-27 02:58 am (UTC)Once the brief break in the fast is finished, Gaius help pack camp, goes briefly over the map, and then sets off hiking under the late morning sun. They won't cover as much ground today, but it will not be as draining a trek. There would be warmer climes soon, after coming down from Garlemald's frozen peaks. There among the wooded stretch, Gaius toils with a less heavy heart and a mind honing to focus on the goals of the future.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-27 04:23 am (UTC)Wonders what parts are him and what parts are from the same source as the endless howling that once threatened to overwhelm him entirely. This one, not so much. It's nice to be able to concretely decide that, at least.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-27 04:38 pm (UTC)What happened last night? Someone got bred, alright.
They stop short of the borderlands -- just deep enough into the forest that no one should see a fire, but the pinprick glows of warm hearths through village windows down in the valley were visible from where they were.
The village was a way point. A stop-off. Warm beds, before they went a little further. From there it would be short trip to Ala Mhigo by airship, and then... Well, they'd see how they reacted to him. Few knew his face outside his fellow Garleans -- but he was certain some might know him.
Hopefully he wouldn't be walking himself to the chopping block. Hopefully they'd at least let him talk before Valdeaulin arranged his execution. He could hope for that much, at least. A last ditch effort to save his beloved Garelmald from Ascian rulers.
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Date: 2022-08-27 05:10 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-27 09:30 pm (UTC)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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Date: 2022-09-02 03:51 am (UTC)"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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Date: 2022-09-02 04:06 am (UTC)"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."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-04 03:11 pm (UTC)(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.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 02:14 am (UTC)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."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 03:08 am (UTC)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."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 04:18 am (UTC)"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.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 04:31 am (UTC)"He saved you from death," the dragoon mutters as he works the cream lower. "Did he know who you were?"
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 05:08 am (UTC)"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."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 11:26 am (UTC)"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.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 01:23 pm (UTC)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."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 01:47 pm (UTC)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?"
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 01:58 pm (UTC)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."
no subject
Date: 2022-09-07 02:26 pm (UTC)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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