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She had been looking for a shadow in a maze of stone walls, ran when she saw it go away, and woke up only to realize it had been a dream. That shadow she knew so well, tall and strong, clad in mail, a sword at his belt and a shield at his back. They could now wear the same shield, if he hadn’t died, if she had been quicker or whatever.
All of this belonged to the past and he was dead, a continuous feeling of emptiness at the back of her chest, a daily thought she never dared to push away.
She didn’t knew the time ; the window didn’t gave her much intel -shutters closed. The pale ray of light indicated night, though. A clear gridanian night, fresh. Yet her room felt suffocatingly hot, as she pushed her covers back.
Her breath was ragged and her step unsteady as she got up, the wooden floor creaking under her. She didn’t think twice about the person sleeping beside her ; all of her thoughts were focused on a single thing, since she woke up. But to be frank with herself, she thought, going up the stairs, that vision of dusk and that feeling of cold had never left her for months. Well, since his death, her Commander whose name she did not dare to pronounce, whose face she did not dare to remember in details when at night, shadows crep beside her.
In broad daylight ? She was showing faith and joy, believing in a future of peace. She stood her ground her a winning smile and a sly movement of eyebrows and, if needed, her shield in the teeth of ungentlmanly commoners who dared to say Ishgard was doomed.
Ishgard did not count when the sun did not shine. All that was counting was that that seat at Camp Dragonhead was empty.
She rememered that day where she actually started working, when she was ten. Oh, it wasn’t much work, mainly giving messages back and forth, getting up and down stairs a hundred times a day. Getting empty cups of tea back into the kitchens, helping cutting those lumps of uncooked bread that were steamcooked on special days. And smiling, even when the mood was bleak and the snow was falling for days, for weeks, and her father’s scouting party hadn’t been back yet.
All had started that day, truly, when monsters had gone rogue and the sky had gone red. "What can I do Sir ?" had she asked. There weren't many children at the Camp, and both her parents worked hard, day and night. He had been the first person she ran to for help, for something to do.
The weeks after had been spent in a silence of death. The snow had started to fall early on the trees still covered in leaves. Nobody knew why. People had started to speak about a Calamity ; she did not understand. Looking back, she was thinking that she could’ve been more observant. The news had been running through the camp with no reactions ; Van Darnus’ endeavour on the Mor Dhona, Dalamud. Ishgard hadn’t moved and there it was, now stuck.
Yet she had smiled with a single mindset ; that if she could smile, she would. People needed that. The Dravanian Horde didn’t stop, and so she smiled when she heard word about the Dusk Vigil. She smiled when she heard about the Stone Vigil and saw the hollow-eyed Haillenarte soldiers resting in the courtyard. At night, she huddled with her older sister in their bed, thinking of naught, tired. She woke up before dawn and quickly tied her hair and got back to work. She soon started wearing mail, after having carried a knight’s shield as it was common in what was called ‘Ishgard proper’ ; it was her dad’s expression. It covered everything, 'Ishgard proper’ meant the nobles, the big city and the Archbishop, the huge palaces and the fountains, the Saint Reymanaud Cathedral and the Templars. Everything that made Ishgard what it was. Ishgard wasn’t as good as Camp Dragonhead, she would answer, whenever he had business there -fairly rarely to be frank, he was a much needed, skilled soldier, and so was her mother, who didn’t like the city that much.
She would smile each time she saw her Commander. He always had a word to make people smile, he would always find time for people who needed a talk. She would watch him train with the soldiers and try and remember as much as she could, for she esteemed him to be the best fighter ever. And maybe she was right, maybe he was. Everybody knew how he saved Lord Haillenarte’s son when they were children. He was just too modest to admit, is all. His blade was swift and his shield strong, and she dreamed to become such a knight.
Huddled in a corner, between a winerack and a wall, she started crying.
She didn’t know that place, she didn’t knew anything now. She wanted to come back to those days. The single though of having a normal, tiring workday in the cold made her chest ache. Her breath was a pale and pitiful sob as she was the silent witness of her body’s wretched crying. Every muscle she had was sretched to the point of breaking, she felt. She wanted one thing, just one thing. Oh she would give out so much just to back to that day where she had run in that Vault of theirs. Where she had but seen his body lying on the ground. Myreina had told her what he said. But it didn’t matter, nothing mattered anymore.
« Aubrey ? » she heard.
Her breath stopped slowly, like a ship entering into harbor, ever so slowly. Only to start again moments after. « What’s wrong ? » she heard the voice saying.
She was but a watcher, inside her head, in the void. Feeling her very body shattered on the floor, in a quiet and fresh room.
Yet, the embrace was a relief. A shy, silent embrace after seconds, minutes of worried silence. The smell of grass and fresh linen, the warmth of Myreina Fierarh’s arms.
The miqo'te didn’t say a thing, but didn’t leave Aubrey’s side.
« I wish- I just wish we hadn’t tried, Myr » she said, in-between sobs.
They both knew what it meant, obviously. Tried to do what ? To change Ishgard, to play the heroes of an unfortunate suite of events. Events that had come to an assault on the Vault. « I would’ve happened anyway Aub, but with different people. »
Myreina had a gift, she had that thing they called the Echo. She had to be part in such things.
« I’d give the present and the peace to go back, you know… »
« I know… »
« I’d live a petty life but to see him at a corner of a corridor and smile. »
She gave a hundred of reasons, a hundred of dreams she had. For minutes, hours maybe, until her voice was but a hoarse thing resting in between hushed whispers.
« I know » simply answered the miqo'te.
Because she really knew what it meant, losing loved ones.
She kept her hand in the little midlander’s red hair. It was soft and warm. At times, she would lower it and calmly caress her back when the sobs started anew.
Her ears twitched and she felt a warm, humid feeling on her forehead. A light kiss from Aubrey. Quickly followed by a soft hugs of the likes Aubrey never usually gave – she was much more used to bear hugs. Myreina wasn’t the kind of hug-loving person, but she accepted it anyway.