āĀ Ā All the greatest loves end in violence. ā
It had caught his attention on more than one brief occasion as they traveled. While the Warrior of Light often kept it hidden within the collars of her tunics, it came untucked now and again: especially with how frequently she bent to upend her stomach.
Gaius didn't pretend to wholly understand what burdens she had shouldered on her trip. She had fed him bits and pieces, of a land like theirs but skewed, a cracked mirror. That many existed, pieces and particles of a larger whole: and, much like other shards, the Ascians had hoped to bring upon its demise.
Not by dark aether, as they had done before. But with light. With the selfsame element she fought with, existing in the space between nature and holiness, of life and its overabundance. It had skewed her own body's balance, filling her with so much light aether that it was eating her alive.
It was as if even the food she attempted to ingest was poisoned. She ate little and less as they traveled, nearly throwing herself off their feathered mount to rid herself of the sustenance not even a bell later.
It was in the moments after that he caught glimpses. When he held a kerchief and a waterskin out for her to take, when the cracked, dull piety materia glowed with the half-hearted Esuna attempt.
It had not been his place to ask. But he had asked anyway, hoping to remove her mind from her malady.
"I was - ... almost wed. Summers ago."
She picked at what she had foraged. Mushrooms, rolanberries, and a small piece of jerky from his dried rations. Beside her, Gaius sat, a tin mug full of instant coffee he had brewed over the fire. The giant Gridanian chocobo curled up beside their makeshift tent, dozing, face tucked under one wing.
"I met him - ... trying to find Cid's ship. He was good to me. I - ... didn't understand Ishgardian traditions. So we compromised."
She stared into the small fire, as if picking her words as carefully as she did the morsels of her dinner. In the dark, she could almost hear the whisper of the elementals, their words soft and kind.
"I... haven't returned to them as much as I should. His family. When you suggested the astrologians - ... that they could reverse the imbalance ... it felt right. To return. To see them again."
They were not far from Ishgard now, but she had gotten considerably more ill the longer she stayed unbalanced.
Gaius could only hope that Ishgard would recognize the Warrior of Light when he brought her to the Gates... and that they did not bear arms at the state she may be in.
He spoke, breaking the quiet between them, the melancholic lull that took over their camp. He wasn't sure if the words were right, or if any right ones existed at all.
But he tried anyway. His Emperor had lost his wife to her own son's birth; he had to watch as Zenos slit his father's throat. The love was different there: a man to his wife, a man and his need for violence. But it existed, he thought.
Man's love killed no matter what shape it took. His words seemed to solidify in her bones.
What love ended in happiness? When would it ever be peaceful?
She didn't think it could be.
