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Dragon's Prayer	By : WonderMint Category: Final Fantasy XIV > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 1893 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy FFXIV: ARR is owned by Square Enix and based on the creation of Hironobu Sakaguchi. May they ever walk in the light of the crystal. I own no right to the characters and settings herein and seek no profit therefrom.

Chapter List
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A/N: Rest assured that Bellyachin' is still in progress.
I love religion. While particular manifestations can sometimes make some people do some very ugly things, religion and practice thereof is frequently a beautiful work of art. Deeply human, deeply expressive.
One of the criticisms I have of the current Heavensward storyline is that, even though the church of Ishgard is a central figure in the plot and many of the characters therein are possessed of great faith, the actual content of the religion is not expressed save for the outward means of control. When these structures are finally grappled with, we are left with a shell of a church, and characters who hardly seem affected by the loss of the institution. I cannot help but speculate what it would mean for such characters, righteous and good but misled, to navigate that maze.
While I understand that this is a sensitive topic, to believers and nonbelievers (such as myself) alike, I want to treat the topic, and the characters, with respect. While I have merged facets of belief from religions with which you may be familiar or to which you may subscribe, please understand that none of the discussion contained herein should be interpreted as a criticism of any existing faith. As always, your mileage may vary, but I feel that by engaging the religion itself, I am paying more respect to faith than simply declaring the Archbishop evil, the church corrupt, and the teachings ascribed to the Fury as patently false. Please accept my apology in advance if issues cut too close to your own identity. I do not mean to hurt anyone... save possibly poor Aymeric.
Henotheism (Greek henas theos “one god”) is the belief in and worship of a single god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities that may also be served. The term was originally coined by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) to depict early stages of monothism.
-Wikipedia

This time when Aymeric struggled awake, his head was full of cotton and his mouth no longer hurt. There was surprisingly little pain, in fact, though much soreness in his back and... other places, too new to feel properly his. But that seemed to have been all that had changed, because he was still a prisoner.
It was simply that this time, his gaolers called themselves friends.
He tried to move little and speak less, swallowing the disappointment that had tried to leak from his breast like a squeaky hinge. Slowly he opened his eyes a fraction, covertly taking in his surroundings.
He lay on his stomach upon a soft bed, the first comfortable surface with which he'd had contact for at least a week. His arms were stretched over his head as before, though now a cool silk pillow cradled his cheek. He thought he felt soft binding on his wrists, though he dared not lift his head to look, nor pull. If he were bound, there would be noise, and he wished to remain unremarked. Instead he took stock of what was immediately in view, which was a small room of cut stone, warmly lit. The stones were unfamiliar, brownish in color rather than the gray of Ishgard, cut sharply and placed with an eye to appearance rather than structure. Aymeric was no builder, but having grown up among stone it seemed to him like chaos, like the man who had built this room was of an alien mind. Mayhap it was so, because this place did not feel like home at all.
Two people were in the room with him, and once he was certain they hadn't noticed his waking, he opened his eyes further to regard them. One was familiar, and his heart leapt to see him. Alphinaud had elected to remain by his side even after the knight-turned-dragon had betrayed him. Sound asleep, it seemed. He lay in the corner of the room, a small, curled form, seemingly swallowed up by the plush chair into which he was nestled. He was dressed just as Aymeric had seen him last, his strange blue tunic and pale gloves, much of his white hair pulled into a long narrow braid behind him. He held a rich red blanket in his lap with one trailing hand, but like his youth, he did not hold it too close. Most of it had been shoved to the floor and covered only his legs. At rest, his face seemed nearly angelic, no longer the shrewd trader of words but an innocent. Like the fae that had healed his wounds. Small, fine of features, possessed of goodness and care.
He knew, because even in sleep, trouble marred his expression. And it had been Aymeric who had caused that distress, and disturbed even the pure land of his dreams.
The other person was unknown to him, though he should not have thought her a threat. A Miqo'te woman sat in another chair, near Alphinaud but in her own little world. She was reading from a tome that could have made the Steps of Faith look young, her strange cat-like eyes shrewd and hawkish in their intensity. Her hair was a warm white, pulled into two short pigtails and adorned with silver. Two red whisker-like markings adorned each side of her face. A large brass device of some kind rested on her chest, slung around her neck like a pair of bizarre opera glasses. In addition to her blue leggings, she wore a loose-fitting white tunic with long, wide sleeves, giving the odd impression that everything about her was clean and pure.
He did not understand why, but something about the way she moved as she turned the page made her seem different than the few Miqo'te he had thus encountered. There were adventurers, servants, back-alley whores and labor for hire from every corner of the land, but never had he met one that seemed so... still. Like a pond along which no wind blew, and which was so deep that even the fish beneath its depths could not disturb its quiet surface.
After a few moments of indecision, thinking himself safe enough, Aymeric chanced a look up. The worn tatters of his gloves had been cut away, blood and filth washed clean by some kind hand. But as he suspected, he was once again bound firmly. First in soft bandages, and second in chains. Wide iron manacles bound his wrists, to each-other first and then by a second chain to a sturdy ring that had been driven into the wall above the bed. He had traded one captivity for another, and though he should have felt better for it, he did not. He had hoped for rescue, it was true. But he had also hoped for the release of death, and it seemed that his friends wished to deny him his heart's desire.
“Our guest is awake,” said a soft voice. It was clearly a woman's, and lilted with a touch of feminine charm, but Aymeric would not have quite called the speaker a lady. He looked back to see the woman set her book on the low tea table with a respectful touch, then stand to approach him slowly. Not a movement seemed to be wasted, but nor was it rushed.
The knight could have asked a dozen questions, but only one mattered just now. Suddenly he felt his chains keenly, and he pulled on them as if by doing so he could rip them from the wall. He was too weak, the stone too strong, though at least the bandages beneath his shackles protected him from further injury. But he growled nonetheless, snarling like a baited bear. “Who knows?! Whom did you tell?”
The maiden expressed her surprise faster than Aymeric could fully mark, flinching quickly and then turning her head to the side, regarding him with her hand on her cheek. Up close, he could see that her considering eyes were a pale blue, a bit like his own but larger, more feral in form. But though her pupils were sliced thin like a coeurl's claw, there was not a hint of anger there. She merely saw, thought, took it into the sheltered harbor of her mind with no need to react or comment.
In the other chair, Alphinaud stirred, and eyes the color of the calmest sea blinked to regard him with concern.
Finally the maiden spoke, drawing her leafy wand but keeping her stance relaxed, as though she had never once thought of it as a weapon. “You are among friends,” she said. “My name is Y'shtola. We have brought you to a place where your countrymen cannot reach. Few know of your malady. Those that do, you may trust to the end of the age.” And then she sat on his bedside, and Aymeric was convinced not to bite only by the lightness of her touch as she tipped up his chin and looked over his face. Not critically, but professionally, as though nothing she saw could sway her to feeling.
“Forgive me,” spoke the younger man, having approached but standing a respectful distance from the bed. “We feared that you might harm yourself. I hope it is merely a temporary measure.” He leaned against the wall a few fulms away, awkwardly, shielding his body with one arm gripping his other, unable to quite meet Aymeric's eye.
What he felt just then was an entirely different sort of pain. But he could not find words that would make it better, because he still held no help himself. So he relaxed and allowed Y'shtola to prod him with her healer's touch, looking into his eyes and then pulling back his lips with her thumb to peer into his mouth as though she expected therein to find an enormous pearl. She narrowed her eyes critically, and he wondered how she knew that he had bitten his tongue, when the wound had been healed and his face no longer itched from the accumulation of blood.
Then she released him, as if nothing were amiss. “You feel no pain? I am told that our friends worried over you the whole journey long.” Warmth seemed to creep into her voice as she said it. Adventurers were strange company to keep, but it was difficult not to like Hikari and his rude companions, no matter how fanciful and uncouth.
“No,” he replied, the honest truth. He wondered what else he should say. The heretics had fed him but once or twice since he'd been captured, and though they'd given him water, it was hardly enough. But no matter what he said, his friends would not starve him nor let him die of thirst, so it was pointless to speak.
Sure enough, the woman reached toward the bedside table and poured a small cup of water from an earthen pitcher. “We must needs be cautious, but water you must have. Drink, or Alphinaud shall be cross, and it is a sight that neither of us should like to see.”
The only sign that she had been teasing was the tiniest upward curl of the edges of her lips, but Alphinaud payed her no mind either way. He still seemed barricaded in his silence, locked beneath the wild puff of white hair that fell over his eyes, sealed by an unmoving frown.
And he could not contemplate attempting to inhale it and choke, because it simply tasted too wonderful to waste. Like purest silver, or ice crystals turned to wine. Seeing that he accepted it, even through the indignity of letting her tip the cup against his lips as he attempted to hold himself up on his elbows, she repeated the process with a second. “That is all you should have for now. Let us get something else into that stomach, and then you may have more.” She smiled gently, like one might smile at a child who had recently cried. And he forgot that he had wanted to deny himself food, because he was a man who had been starved of kindness.
Alphinaud had been watching the exchange, silent as a mouse, and just as cautious. But when the quiet woman had sheathed her wand and walked out the door, he crept closer, still harboring pain in his deep blue eyes. He knelt on the floor rather than sitting on the bed as Y'shtola had done, and though he might have meant it as a respectful gesture, it seemed far more personal when he rested his chin on his arms, folded quietly on the very edge of the bed. Because now they rested at the same height, and neither could conceal their grief.
He seemed bereft of speech somehow, even after the woman's well-meaning teasing. And Aymeric found that he could not resist lightening his load, if ever-so slightly. He settled himself back down, resting his head on the pillow and twitching his wings until they had spread enough to feel more relaxed. “You did not tell me that you had a sister,” he said, and he even managed a small, hollow smile.
Like a switch had been pulled, Alphinaud was startled into speech. “Then how did you...” but he caught on quickly enough, following the flick of Aymeric's gaze toward the door and the woman who had left them but moments ago. It was not merely their looks that made them seem so alike. It was something in their eyes, the way they looked upon the world and seemed to understand it intimately. Perhaps in a few years, Alphinaud too would seem like a pond undisturbed by wind or fowl, and Aymeric would needs look for a tail to tell them apart.
But the diplomat still shewed his youth, turning back with a faint blush that soon evaporated into the air, leaving him with naught but a light scowl. “She is nothing like my sister,” he said petulantly. “Y'shtola has quite a bit of sense, and much more grace.”
“Ah,” said Aymeric, pleased to see his friend looking a little more like himself, wit sharpened against friend and foe alike. “You are right, the resemblance is not as strong as I had thought.”
Alphinaud took the insult in stride, the sting of it having been dulled by the weighty matters at hand. He frowned only lightly, settling back into his melancholy as if it were the chair in which he'd been sleeping. “You are alive,” he said at last. “We had thought you lost, but you yet live.” His eyes were too pained, too innocent, and Aymeric nearly flinched to see the emotion reflected within them as they searched his face. It was an accusation. A plea for answers.
The ex-knight closed his own eyes if only to be spared the light of their suffering. But, it was he who had caused such pain, and he owed the other man answers to all his questions. It would clearly have been better for Alphinaud if he had never been found at all.
He hadn't the faintest idea where to begin, the weight of his pain seeming to crush him into silence. So instead he asked his own. “Where is this place?”
“Ul'dah,” answered Alphinaud, a touch mechanically. “Or rather Vesper Bay, a small town within the jurisdiction of the Sultanate. This is the Waking Sands, the former headquarters of the Scions. You said you feared the Inquisition. This was the only place I could think to hide you. We did so in secret; few know that it remains occupied, and fewer still walk its halls. Only the Archons, the Anticident, and eight adventurers know that you are here.”
Aymeric released a breath he hadn't known he held, and it was loosed as a reedy sigh of relief. It was indeed far from the eye of the See. He could be satisfied with that, for now. He could not be excommunicated if they still thought him merely dead.
As to the identities of the people he was trusting with his soul, he would reserve judgment. Hikari he knew he could trust. But aside from Alphinaud and his tame warrior, the Scions and the Braves were merely names to him. It was whispered sometimes that three could keep a secret if two of them were dead. Aymeric personally felt the saying to be overly optimistic, especially in this particular case.
Alphinaud watched him for a moment, perhaps expecting some reply or the answers that he so keenly desired. When the knight did not give them, he snaked one hand from the nest of limbs upon which he rested, pinching the dull blue blanket between his fingers. “Why?” he asked at last. And for once, he truly sounded his age, only newly a man and betrayed by the cruelty of the world.
And the knight answered, in a long sigh that carried his pain like the coffin in which he would never rest. Or perhaps he would. In Ul'dah, perhaps, he could be put to rest in an unmarked grave, payed respect but no benedictions. It was the best he could hope for, now.
“Because every moment that I yet draw breath,” he said at last, “I am an abomination in the sight of my Lady.”
Slowly, as if the action was attended by guilt, the other man traced his eyes along the knight's wretched body. He was still half-exposed, no shirt being designed for one of his deformity, unless somewhere a moogle had taken up weaving. It didn't matter as much as he'd have thought, his wings being more than sufficient to hide his back from view, though they still did not move as he expected, like children slow to follow a teacher's command. His trousers had remained, and some thoughtful person had thought to replace his broken belt, meaning he could move without the risk of exposing himself. His tail poured from a large tear, cascading over his legs like a river, wide and strong. With the belt looped over it, he now looked something like a Miqo'te, who merely had an additional hole in every garment.
“I suppose I can see why you might think that,” answered Alphinaud momentarily. “Yet you are still yourself. That is quite clear. Whatever goodness and... holiness you once possessed, you are still that man, within, are you not?”
It was close enough to truth that Aymeric was momentarily diverted, wondering if that truly mattered. But he was forced to conclude that it did not. “I cannot be so in love with life that I would forget my duty. I have been corrupted. I may be damned already, for all I know.” It was a bitter truth, but one he had slowly grown accustomed to. He had never feared death. It was only a momentary pain, a little fear, and then nothing. It was what lay beyond that concerned him. Either everlasting peace or torture unending.
“If I were to truly do the Fury's will, then I would end the life of the miserable creature that stands before her now.” It was a dispassionate appraisal. As if he were speaking of slaying another man, another knight-turned-abomination. Another man under his command—even Lucia, bless her soul—he would have done it without hesitation, merely a quick word of comfort and then the mercy of death. He could do no differently when it was he himself. “The reason I asked you is that suicide is also a grave sin. I did not want to further sully my hands unless necessary. They were planning on... on enslaving me. Even the certainty of damnation was better than that. But I think... I think perhaps in damning myself, I might still be doing her will. And I think I could rest easy, hellfire or no. I think that... I think that my soul is a sacrifice I would willingly make, when the alternative is to live in the displeasure of her gaze.”
And then, just like that, he could no longer hold back his fear, his pain, his disgust. Just like that, he buried his face in his pillow to hide his shame, and he wept.
He thought perhaps that Alphinaud would object, demand a justification or call him a fool. But the weight on the corner of the bed merely shifted, and he felt a strange, warm touch. Light fingers grasped the edge of his wing, gently pushing it aside so that the younger man could sit on the bed beside his shoulder.
Like every feeling gleaned from the great wings and sickly tail, it felt like sensations not his own, touches and feeling masquerading as his, his own body participating in some elaborate lie. But the touch was warm, so warm, as if his wings were an hundred times more sensitive to a caring touch and a warm caress. So when the same hand then touched his hair, hesitantly at first, then combing through with cautious fingers, Aymeric sobbed for a different reason. He cried in anguish for friends that would be helpless to watch him die, heathens without grace but possessed of no less goodness for it, ignorant of the righteousness of the act. He wept for Alphinaud, for Hikari, for the strange adventurers and their odd little fairy, and for Y'shtola and the kindness she dispensed for a benighted stranger. He wept because he loved them, and because he would think of them every day that he suffered in the fires of whatever hell he was consigned to by the Goddess he loved even more.
Alphinaud let him cry, sitting silent for a long space in which the very air seemed to ache with their anguish. Finally, Aymeric lost the strength to continue, and his tears ran silent and dry.
“I doubt I can truly stop you, if that is what you have a mind to do,” said the boy at last. “But please... give it time. Perhaps in a few days you will see another path. We can work to find a cure. If...” and then his voice seemed to fail him, breaking like the supple branch of a young birch, merely bent too far to bear the strain. He emitted a sob of his own, and Aymeric turned his face again to see that he, too, had been weeping. The younger man was gritting his teeth against the impulse and wiping his eyes with the wrist of his glove, but there could be no mistaking the reason. When he spoke at last, he fixed the knight with a look of such injury that he was nearly sick to see it.
“If, in time, you still have no answer, then mayhap I can be convinced to... help.” And he looked away at the last moment, at the word that made his throat bob in helpless anguish, and his eyes thirst suddenly for the touch of his glove.
Aymeric wished that it was not a lie. But Alphinaud had never been very good at deceit.
“Alright,” replied the stricken knight, his own throat constricting over the word. “I will give it some time.” And he meant it just as much.
Perhaps the younger man knew it. Perhaps he did not. They sat in silence all the same, an uneasy companionship, the living able to think only of death. Aymeric submitted once again to the boy's touch, to the half-considered brush of his fingers over his shoulder and the narrow stripe of his own skin that ran the length of his spine. It was a guilty pleasure, not because it was not innocent, but precisely because it was. Aymeric was not fit to receive such comfort, least of all by one so true as the man who gave him succor. But beneath the brush of Alphinaud's fingers, he shivered with a strange sort of joy. He knew that he had caused only pain to the friend at his side. And yet he was grateful for the care he still shewed.
It was rather like the grace of his Goddess. And for a short moment, he let himself feel cared-for by them both. Unworthy of love from either, but given mercy all the same. It was true what they said. Even barbarians could reflect the will of Halone, because all goodness came through Her.
But when, at last, the Miqo'te maiden reappeared, bearing a bowl and the scent of a great feast, she was unable to say a word to the boy at his side. Alphinaud dashed from the room without a shred of dignity, as if he'd been a bird that wandered in through the window and finally, through his panic, saw the clear sky without.
She looked after him for a moment, then turned her curious, appraising eyes on the broken man that was bound, face-down, on the bed. He felt that he should flinch under her gaze, or hide once more in his pillow, but he did not. He let her judge his sins as surely as Halone, though he could not muster the strength to defend his convictions.
“I do not know if you are hungry,” she said softly, her voice supple and cool like a serpent on the ground. “But I will feed you either way. And when you are full of warmth and soup, know that there are many who care for you. And yet more who care for that boy. And should you hurt him, thinking perhaps that your suffering will end along with your life, know that there are those among us who have the wherewithal to see that it does not.”
And then she sat herself upon his bed and held forth a broth so rich and clear that Aymeric did not begrudge her the threat. It was almost a relief, in a way, a little spoonful of penance with his soup.
Her face softened as she lifted the spoon to his lips, watching him again like a sick child, making him feel oddly grateful for her care though it might have been easier to resent her. And she spoke to him tenderly once again, washing away the sting of her anger.
“Now tell me how you came to be thus, knight, and mayhap we may leech the poison from two wounds.”
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Dragon's Prayer