You're exhausted, but try not to think on it as you walk through the Pillars – it's not really hard, as it is so pretty, despite all the political and social muck concealed behind the elegant façades. As you anticipated, there's a warm welcome for you at House Fortemps: they don't mind that you make a beeline for your little bedroom, and flop down on your neatly appointed, but very empty, double bed in an undignified manner. Well, it would be undignified were you in public. But you're not; the secret that the champion of Eorzea sometimes drools on their pillow is safe with Count Edmont and his remaining sons and the guards. They keep your secrets, big and small alike. You can't shake the feeling they know everything about you, even the things you haven't quite admitted to yourself.
When you wake up, it's still light out; you realize suddenly that it must finally be the season of long days in Ishgard - when the evening light goes on and on and on, an endless summer. The light is beautiful – pearly, creamy, luminous – and you prop yourself up on your elbows to take it all in for a few minutes, 'til you get down the business of living. Pale indigos and violets and peaches wash over you, and you are grateful for it.
You woke up thinking of him, thus your early evening movement gestures towards him: wondering where he is, first of all, because you have a sudden, desperate need – no, no, you correct yourself there, want, not need – to see him. You make your way first to the Congregation; the guards there tell you he's not in. This surprises you, and it takes you a few beats to ponder: where, then? Surely not his official Lord Speaker's chambers, he dislikes them so. Home, likely: his home. The one you studiously avoid unless expressly invited, or unless it's a crisis. Tonight, neither is the case. But maybe it's something else.
So, you set off for the Borel mansion – past the high houses, avoiding the Jeweled Croizier, stepping measuredly down a long curving staircase, past the airship landing – it's rather unassuming, though large and pretty nonetheless. You contemplate the well-worn stones of the entrance while one of the guards goes to inquire about whether or not you are allowed in – who lived here before? And for how long? you wonder. His mother's family? Or some other, before that? Who knows. Other than the four high houses, whose pedigree and responsibility is clear enough, the rest of Ishgardian nobility baffles you a bit.
The guard returns shortly; salutes you (of course he does, the sweet young thing: you are the dragon-riding god-slayer in his mind, not the heartsick average person that you actually are in this moment), tells you the Lord Commander awaits you.
His manservant looks practically relieved to see you to your great surprise, and says nothing other than he praises the Fury to see you looking well and that the Lord Commander is upstairs with his dinner. And so you bound up the mostly unfamiliar stairs – only having been here once or twice before – and eagerly pounce upon the door to his study. You are hungry just to see him, and let that hunger overcome you.
When you finally burst into the room, he is clearly awaiting you – standing up, dinner half eaten on the modest table in front of him, minus the clanging trappings you despise so, clad in just a plain robe of royal blue - ever-so-slight smile on his lips. You tell him you have come to report on the outer lands. He smiles a little more broadly.
You're suddenly shy like a fawn and stammer a greeting at him – you didn't quite realize you'd be let through when the Lord Commander was simply trying to eat: he really was in the middle of dinner. Patient Aymeric - patient, beautiful Aymeric – doesn't seem to mind.
"Come, friend – sit, have a drink, tell me of it all."
The company will do me well he replies calmly to your stammering idiocy, and sitting down again, gestures to the place opposite from him. You take it, from lack of knowing what else to do.
He pours you a goblet of wine, still looking at you with those famously pale blue eyes, faint smile on his lips – asks again what you saw in your weeks away, bids you to just talk. No demands except when expressly necessary; he's quite good about that, always has been, and you appreciate it. Still: you're glad you're sitting down, and reach hastily for the cup as soon as you can, so you can simply look into the goblet of wine and not at him. And so you talk, as he asked you to: you ponder on the fact that he demands nothing of you for the most part, except when he asks for the most extraordinary things.
But he never seems to take you for granted, and this is more than you can say for most people. You lean on your elbows, examining the fine workmanship of your goblet: pretty smithing and gemwork, an attractive goblet all told. You run your fingers up and down the contours somewhat frantically, feeling every dip and ridge and fitting.
After your talk – your hastily assembled talk on what you saw (nothing important, the usual, you wind up saying in a more round-about way) – you can finally bring yourself to look at him fully, say that you probably owe him an explanation.
He stands up slowly, stretches to his full height (not that tall for an Elezen, but still quite tall enough), and holds a hand out in silent invitation for you to reach for him and rise, too – and so you do, despite yourself, although you keep a hand on your goblet just in case (in case of what, you're not sure, but it's something solid and anchoring, and that is enough in this moment). You are suddenly quite close, and feel yourself begin to falter – but he puts an arm around your waist, affectionate and friendly, not demanding anything more. You lean into him, let yourself take in the scent and feel of him.
You wonder how to tell him everything: you can't imagine how, there is no way, really, so you start from the beginning. That first miserable night out of Ishgard, when you sobbed into the soft feathers of your chocobo and asked for some sign from the Twelve, some indication of what was right, what you should do. None was forthcoming, of course, but the weeks spent wandering from here to there, fishing and hunting and riding – ignoring the ways the days and weeks clicked by and passed from one to another to another – had at least settled your soul for the most part.
You sigh after saying all this – after speaking of shifting shadows and wind, things too fleeting to grasp – thinking you have not expressed yourself at all the way you had hoped. But he has cocked an eyebrow and looks at you with an expression best termed knowing. You gaze back at him, searching. He is asking for something more, and you wish you knew how to give the right answer to him.
I was looking for an answer, you finally say after clearing your throat.
He queries what the answer was, reasonably enough, though he doesn't ask the question – although he probably already knows, you note to yourself. You know the answer. You've known it since you fled hastily from this place, and before that, and long before that. Even if you couldn't articulate the question at that precise moment.