Prompt 28: Irenic
A young Esredes didn’t truly comprehend the concept of peace. His nation had only been given to war, long before he was ever born, so what did it truly look like? It was something far off, something that only other nations had, and was out of the question entirely. Once he reached knight status, Esredes understood the concept much better. Peace was a far-reaching ideal that, nonetheless, needed to be strived for. He knew he himself would never live to see it, and he accepted that. His role was to fight with all he had to protect people, to drive Ishgard ever so slightly closer to that notion of peace. “Esredes,” an eventual ally of his who was spying at the time once asked him, "what do you think happens when we win this war?" Having no idea what the true intentions behind her question were, Esredes answered in earnest. "Ideally, we'll have a chance to live again." He then looked all around them both, at the tall pillars in the sky, the meticulous stonework all around them. "To repair all the damage they've done and finally have to worry about common wolves instead of aerial demons. But the reality is more likely that even if we kill off the entirety of dragonkind, it will take much longer to purge the city and its wilderness of our human enemies. Yet I believe in earnest that it can all be done. Not without sacrifice and peril, but Her city is not fated to burn to the ground from their fire. If we survive all of that, and are finally left to be alone... Just think of what we can do in time. Once the city is repaired, we can reclaim our settlements. We can expand beyond them, even. People will be able to live content lives all across Coerthas once more. Sleep more safely in their beds. No one will ever be mauled by dragon claw or fire again." He looked back at her. "Is it all not worth fighting for with everything you have?” It was a miracle she was too weak-hearted to pursue her impossible assassination order in that moment. Even when he had changed sides, he was initially skeptical of their version of peace- simply because there was no way to obtain it. How could the Horde be defeated, much less Nidhogg himself, and how could the See be convinced to realize not all dragons were like them? There was no way. The only thing they could do was survive, and pick up those casted out by Ishgard to give them sanctuary. It was a simple existence, all while Esredes pondered and hoped for any way to see something at the end of his own tunnel but darkness. But as time passed, and Esredes came to comprehend more and more of dragonkind, he realized there was no way to achieve peace from the See’s side. Killing all of the Horde was impossible, but they could work and work to convince those outside it to help them, to prove themselves, and then join with Ishgard itself to be three forces against one— a lofty, far off, likely impossible ideal, but the only solution that had any chance, however small, of occurring, beyond the See falling or burning to the ground and sealing their fate as living in the wilderness forever. So once more, Esredes knew he would never live to see peace. All he could do is save those he could, and try to drive Ishgard further and further into the city itself. It was but a small stepping stone, one all too likely to fail. Until she came along. Distant dreams turned gradually to possible realities, and suddenly, there was a real chance that him and his would be the ones to do it. To conquer Ishgard with Her power, to expose the truth for what it was, to forcibly unite a city against Nidhogg. For peace, was the subconscious thought processed every time he had to kill one of theirs. Every time he put families at risk by converting someone to his side, for every cart and home robbed- It would all be worth it in the end. He had been thinking of peace every time he felt satiated or didn’t hesitate, right? And yet all that planning, all that preparation- gone in an instant as their saint was banished from Ysayle. All that hope… It was nothing now. They had done the hard, and the necessary, for nothing at all. Oh, how he had been nothing but a failure in the end. No matter what Esredes did after peace passed, his being could not ever find true satisfaction in it. It was for her, he told himself, for all those who died before, look at how many people are readily embracing it and changing and accepting yours. You’re a dead man persisting in living, a useless entity, sure, but that means the real people can be happy and live in your place, right? No, apparently not. Those urges did not just disappear, not for every time he encountered the next person who he could tell was figuring out how to plot his downfall, not for all these unworthy, leftover parasites plaguing Ishgard who he could be disposing of if by his own hands if it were possible. Soldiers were made for war, not peace, after all. Maybe at one point, Esredes could see himself simply retiring from combat and helping out in other ways if he somehow did not fulfill his singular purpose, but now that he forcibly lived part of that life, it was clearer than ever he had missed his task by surviving combat. Even still, he had to perform this task thrust upon him now. Yes, he would still seek peace, in another way. He had been chosen to come back, to observe Ishgard in its post-war state, and keep track of where the balance was. Ishgard now existed on a line. This line tipped one way or the other- every sentiment against dragons or his own, every failure to move on and recover, every pushback and resistance, the line sunk downward, risking that red area where him and his would have to flee a landscape crumbling back to dust. Otherwise, the line would rise above, with each project like the Firmament, with every hand extended out in favor of progress, with every drop of forgiveness, or at the least, acceptance. On a day to day, week to week, month to month basis, the line wavered between spots. One day it would snap permanently into one direction or the other, and cease to move ever again. Yes, it fell to Esredes to declare when the line stabilized. Either it would affix itself up, and he could declare that Ishgard would succeed in peace, his people could rejoice, and he could at least continue on being an empty husk knowing he had outlived his purpose in a good way. Or it would snap into critical red, and he would order their retreat from the city that signaled the war must return to form and they must once again take on the offensive. Until he could declare with full confidence the outcome, until that day when his judgement was passed down for good, Esredes watched and waited. For that surefire sign that history was to go down one path or the other. Maybe he was but a broken, worn out tool of war that was no longer being efficiently used, sure, but it was his task alone to judge if peace would reign. And so on he must press, seeking for all the signs that Ishgard was capable of peace. He alone would have the final say in if peace were to stay in these lands or not, before everything could be truly over. And each day, he could only dread the arrival of the Final Hour, and the answer he would have to give.
