#post 5.3

Tataru: He admires her creativity. Their friendship was strengthened by their time in Ishgard. He sometimes helps her with her work, just not the paperwork. She's the one who taught him to make drinkable tea.

Y'shtola: Oscar thinks highly of her though she confuses him at times. She sometimes gives him pointers on his magic.

Lyse: Fast friends. Like brother and sister, or so the two will claim. They get along well due to their similar energy levels and optimism.

Estinien: His first thought of Estinien was that he seemed nice. Rude, yes but he was very kind to Alphinaud so he couldn't be that bad. He wants to be good friends with Estinien but he has as much luck as Urianger does.

Thancred: Oscar had a brief crush on him, to be honest. It faded away as quickly as it formed. What was left was a solid friendship. They look out for each other.

Ryne: He is always kind to her. Tries to support her in her growth, even if he's not entirely sure of how to do so.

Minfilia: She was a dear friend and kind of a mentor to him. He does his best to honor her memory.

G'raha: Possible romantic relationship. They definitely have a strong bond. He wasn't sure of his feelings for G'raha when he sealed himself in the tower. This may change in Endwalker.

Alphinaud: Oscar saw the good in him even before a certain chain of events humbled Alphinaud's ego. At times he reminds Oscar of his younger stepbrother. He thinks they would be friends. Alphinaud sometimes helps Oscar understand the more academic topics discussed by the Archons.

Alisaie: They can get along pretty well though he sometimes frustrates her with his absentmindedness. Neither find politics to be all that interesting. Though she doesn't believe it, he thinks she's better at Red Magic than him.

Urianger: So cool! He's looked up to Urianger since he met him in the Waking Sands. Which if Urianger does know, likely baffles him.

Ascending the stairs, a particularly fearful thought crossed his mind: what if she was gone again? His steps faltered a moment at the halfway point up the staircase, but he rallied his composure and took the remaining steps two at a time. She would not leave without telling him, at the very least, not anymore—

— Before she left for the First, she wouldn’t, that same afeared voice noted. Do you truly even know her anymore?

The door to their chambers was ever so slightly ajar, enough that flickering lamplight carved a slice of light through the dim, shadowy hallway. When a quiet call of her name garnered no response, he took a moment to force himself to breathe again, and opened the door.

The sight crushed him.

Serella stood at the foot of their bed in her underclothes and stockings, just as he’d left her, staring down at the outfits she’d laid out on the duvet. Her hair was delicately piled, pinned atop her head, and adorned with her own crafted pieces: little constellations of the Twelve scattered in gold and kyanite across an artfully twisted bun. Her eyeshadow had already been artfully brushed on, deep sapphire and gold glimmering like stardust against her dark skin. Gorgeous as ever, she would have taken his breath away but for the way she stared down at the dress clothes as though they were an active threat to her.

“Love?” Aymeric called, a little louder than before, stepping cautiously further into the room to avoid startling her.

She jumped at the sound of his voice. He tried not to let it hurt.

“O-oh, I didn’t realize—” Serella stammered, hand crossing over her torso and tapping at her collarbone. “—I let time get away from me, I’m sorry—”

Her eyes danced away, and her fingers tapped once more at her collarbone. On the third pass of it, Aymeric recognized her finger was drumming out a specific pattern. Three rapid taps, three spaced out, three more rapid taps.

Help me.

Did she know she was calling out for it, quite literally, in all but words? Was it Esteem guiding her hand, sending the only distress call they could? The movement of her finger had drawn his eye, but then his gaze drifted to the necklace clasped just above it on her neck. It clashed with the gold of her hairpins and her ring, silver and flush against her skin as it was. The narrow bands of glowing blue light hemmed on both sides by precious metal— he recognized it as a dampener meant to dull her aether sensitivity. A necessity more oft than not for her, where crowds or aetherically charged areas were concerned, to keep her from being overwhelmed with sensory input.

In particular, worn when she was already well beyond capacity for processing too much around her; Aymeric had seen it more often on her when helping her out of her armor when afield, or before they had to navigate in crowded places they couldn’t avoid for trying. Some days, she just needed to wear it even at home, if she had only just returned from somewhere dense with aether, or was otherwise overstimulated. Little wonder she had been so startled by him.

Regardless of what state he would have found her in, that necklace told him everything he needed to know: she was not in a good place as it was. Going to this formal would only harm her. 

So they wouldn’t. But that did not mean her effort must needs be wasted.

His mind made up, Aymeric spared a passing glance at the outfits laid out on the bed: two dresses, two suits, all of different origin, inspiration, and make, and each in a different but no less alluring gemstone and charcoal dyed fabrics and muted detailing to balance elegance with practicality. 

“You’ve naught to be sorry for; I can see why you struggled so.” He noted conversationally. When she made a questioning noise in the back of her throat and turned to look at him, he met her gaze from the corner of his eye and smiled. “You look radiant in anything. But perhaps this one, my dear?”

Before she could answer— though he noted her pleased flush, and the slight smile on her face— he crossed over to the bed and picked up the outermost jacket of the Lominsan suit. Where his own suit coat was primarily black, with hints of blue and gold, hers was almost wholly blue, speckled with gold buttons and detailing. He rather liked the thought of balancing one another out. She even favored the same high collars he did, though hers left a graceful swoop in the neckline to show her Paladin’s soul crystal gleaming on her necklace.

Sparing Serella another glance, he saw she had already hopped into her pants, unremarkable but tastefully embellished charcoal pair as they were, and was now shrugging on a crisp undershirt. He set the coat down and swiftly covered her hands with his.

“Allow me?” He asked, fingers wrapping around the buttoned edges of her shirt, peering up at her imploringly through his lashes.

Serella swallowed thickly, and he wished he could put it down to being affected by some more carnal instinct. He knew her better than that; she was struggling to not withdraw from him. If he focused hard enough, he could see her almost imperceptibly quaking with the effort.

Let me care for you. Let me love you, Aymeric silently prayed.

Her hands slipped from underneath his, conceding. With a beaming smile and a kiss to her forehead, he made steady but unrushed progress looping the buttons through their corresponding fastenings. It was endearing and heartbreaking both, the way she fidgeted in the scant space between them. It was almost as though she couldn’t recall how to carry herself with him.

Or at all, outside of combat.

Aymeric had fallen into that trap more than once himself— and remembered how hard it was to claw his own way out of it, even with support. He would not falter in being her shield as she found her peace. Not now, not ever. 

Before she could move past him, he fetched her coat from where he’d laid it back down on the bed and attempted to step behind her. When a glance at his face told her he would not be swayed, she sighed and turned her back to him, and slipped her arms through the coat.

“We’ll be late.” Serella spoke up quietly, though the faint quirk of her lips in a facsimile of a smile was obvious in her tone. 

“I assure you, we have all the time in the world,” he dismissed, using the moment she took to adjust the coat around her shoulders to step back in front of her and begin to fasten it closed.

Though she huffed a laugh, she didn’t even bother to try and bat his hands away, instead straightening the cuffs on her wrists. Pleased that he had won this bout, Aymeric continued to fasten the last of the well tailored coat across her chest, up to the last, just below her collarbone. 

Pleased with the way the coat draped over her as he was, he didn’t notice she’d moved her hands until he felt her fingers lightly adjusting his cravat— he’d tied it just left of center, toward his dominant hand. The amount of effort it took for her to widen her smile was apparent, tentative and trembling as it was, but so, too, was it just as obviously genuine. 

Before her hands could retreat, Aymeric caught them in his own and offered her another soft smile. With reverence otherwise reserved for the Fury Herself, he bent his head to press lingering kisses to her knuckles. Scant though the weeks had been since they were at last reunited, he had taken every opportunity he could to again familiarize himself with every ilm of her, to relearn all of her with the certainty of his devotion.

“I should get my boots.” She spoke up, finally inspiring him to straighten and let go of one of her hands.

“We’ve no need for them,” He reassured her, lightly squeezing the hand he yet held onto.

Her evident confusion was given only a reassuring smile in response before he was adjusting his grip on her hand to lead her out of the room. Aymeric guided her only far enough down the hall to lead to the Solar, rather than down the stairs to leave, and turned to step inside.

Serella’s grip tightened as she planted her feet just outside the doorway. Aymeric stopped and heelturned to face her expectantly. His hold was still gentle, unassuming, affection obvious in the faint stroking of his thumb over the fingers it was laced between. He watched her intently, but her eyes could not be pulled from their joined hands.

“Aymeric, we’re going to be late.” She said again, and this time, he could see the ponderous frown on her face, even as she continued to look at their hands. 

Even as she said that, she made no effort to take her hand back, no effort to step away. They both knew that she was the more powerful of the two; if she truly wanted to go, he could not stop her. And yet, there she stood, not understanding why he was not in a hurry. 

“Ella.”

Her name came as a sigh on his lips, formed of affection made habit, but it was enough to tear her gaze away from their hands to look up at him. The hand not holding hers stretched across the divide between Solar and hallway, bridged the gap to lightly brush his thumb over the Ironworks dampener at her neck, disrupting the glow of hearthlight dancing off the metal. Though his focus did not stray from the necklace, he felt more than saw her swallow thickly in response.

“Dearest,” Aymeric tried again, voice faltering. “I will not presume, and if you truly wish to go, we will, but,” his tongue darted out to wet his suddenly dry lips. “You do not wear this necklace lightly. If you are not well, then we’ll stay home.”

“I can’t do that to you.” Serella said almost immediately, frown deepening. “We’re expected—”

“And you are not well. I can’t do that to you.” He countered gently, held her face in his hands to keep her from looking away again. “I can think of no reason more noble to be absent than taking care of my family.”

“Oh?” Any fumbling attempt she made at dry wit melted from her countenance when he bent just enough to rub their noses together and kiss her forehead.

“Mm. Provided she let me do so, of course.” He said, playfully pointed.

“Of course.” She replied, and finally, her tone matched his.

Taking her banter as permission, Aymeric pulled away enough to tug her deeper into the room, fully in the Solar proper rather than lingering outside in the hallway. His smile widened when she nudged the door closed with her heel on her way in. 

“Thank you.” He whispered earnestly with another kiss to her forehead.

A laugh bubbled up from her throat at the contact, and it warmed him to his marrow, faint as it was. He made no effort to hide his smile when he stepped back from her, toward the other end of the room, and held her hand as he walked until he could no longer, and offered her a wink with a twist of his torso when he turned away from her, toward the old orchestrion tucked away behind the desk. With a flick of the switch, its speakers crackled to life, the well cared for but weathered machine giving off that faint white noise that came when nothing had been chosen to play.

But it did not take long for music to drift gently in from the speakers: Aymeric knew which song to put on. A personal favorite, one they had not danced to in some time.

Once the piano music began to float gently in through the speakers like a gentle snowdrift, he was swift in moving back to gather Serella in his arms again. All the more because he saw the recognition flash in her eyes, her expression shifting to pleasant surprise. 

With a sigh that seemed to take her whole body, she melted, just a little, just enough to turn her head and kiss his palm when he reached up to cradle her face in his hands.

Tinkling piano music moved on with out them, and measured how long it took for her to right herself. Not very— just enough that the first verse had just begun by the time he was satisfied she was well and truly alright, he shifted his hands to hold her at the small of her back, to take her hand in his.

“Dance with me?” Aymeric asked softly.

With a feigned sigh of resignation, the tension bled from her shoulders. Not all of it, mind, but enough that she could smile just a little wider.

“You’re going to insist, aren’t you,” She noted more than asked.

“On dancing? Never. Taking care of you? Always.”

The nearly inaudible giggle that escaped her throat seemed to shake away the last of her threadbare resolve to play at normalcy, as she took a moment to press her forehead to his shoulder and just laugh it out, just a little. When she righted herself, the remnants of that chuckle had softened her smile.

Even as they began to sway together, even as she fell into step with him, as if they had never stopped dancing at all, Serella couldn’t help but tweak his nose— proverbially, and rather literally, when she leaned up to bump the tip of his nose with hers.

“Look at you, batting your eyelashes at me so.” She teased, an old and affectionate turn of phrase. He hadn’t realized how he missed it so until he saw how her ears perked up with the width of her smile.

“You wound me.” Aymeric teased.

Something nearly guttered the light out of her eyes when she fiercely whispered, “Never.”

“I know, love.” Another kiss to her forehead, to will away those dark thoughts she could not yet give voice to, was blessedly enough to keep that playful spark alight. “Apart from my knuckles when I take bits from the mixing bowl.”

Even weak as it was, her laugh was enough to lighten his heart considerably when he gathered her back up to him and started to waltz in an intimately small circle, small enough that they did little more than turn about in place. 

At the second turn of the song, Serella became very still. Much as Aymeric had been leading them, he stopped the moment he felt her plant herself as a tree and refuse to move with him. He cupped her face in his hands as he waited.

Her smile wilted, ever so slightly, and her gaze turned uncertain again as she spoke up, “I won’t be okay just because we stay home and slow dance to sentimental songs tonight.”

Though she didn’t move his hands away, she bent to press her forehead against his shoulder. He kept his hands on her face, gently sweeping his thumps from her cheekbones up to the base of her pointed ears, and back in soothing strokes.

“You needn’t be. I am going nowhere.” Undeterred, Aymeric kissed the crown of her hair. “What was it you said before? Something about loving someone like a blanket?”

“Oh, so you do listen to my impassioned bumbling.” Serella murmured into his collar, more playful, more like herself.

His heart flipped in his chest when he felt her smile against his neck. Just enough time had passed since she’d done so with ease that he had yet to reacclimate his body to hers, to recognize the press of her grin, the tremble of her rage, the stutter of her grief. He would learn again, in time. They had that, now. And what time they did not have, they would make.

“‘Twas far from bumbling— and I always listen to you,” he countered earnestly, brushing his lips in the softest of kisses along the length of her ear. Her delighted peal of laughter and wriggling deeper into his arms inspired his own beaming smile. “I always seek you out. Any part of you I can.”

Serella knew this— he’d certainly never hidden the fact. The moment of hesitation before she spoke up again gnawed at some raw and aching part of him all the same.

“...Even when I feel like I don’t know myself anymore?”

“Especially then, so you are not left to sort it out alone.” When Serella lifted her head out of the crook of his neck to look at him again, he squeezed her closer and pledged, “I meant it when I vowed you have every moment of my forever, always— but especially when you are at your lowest. I have not the power to mend anyone— not even you, much as it pains me to admit it. But I can walk that path of recovery with you, and so I will, and do so with gladness. You need only let me.”

Serella snorted, face warmly flushed darker umber at her cheeks and her ears for her flustering. But she was smiling again, and that was enough for the moment.

“You drive a hard bargain.” Came an overwhelmed mumble, pressed into his collar.

“I learned from the best— for you have ever been with me on mine own journey, have you not?” Aymeric countered again, and knew he’d won the bout when she slumped in his arms entirely, relaxed in his hold. 

“You have me at a disadvantage, my lord.” Serella admitted, rocking back on her heels. “I’ve no choice but to accept.”

Aymeric wanted to counter that, too, but then she’d pulled on his cravat to guide him into a kiss. 

She began to sway again. Slowly, tentatively. By the refrain of the chorus, they were taking turns around the Solar again. By the time the tinkling notes of the piano faded quietly, they found themselves standing in the middle of the Solar again, not entirely still, grinning and healing and raw.

“It would seem our song ended.” She quoted herself from another lifetime ago, in Fortemps Manor, when the only certainty seemed to be in how uncertain everything in the world was— and they, the most uncertain of them all.

“So it has.” He agreed, playing along. 

“Though…” A spark— playfulness— glittered in her eyes when she flicked her gaze up at him through her fanned eyelashes. “We’ve barely started dancing again. Could use a touch more practice, just to be sure I’ve got it. Provided you have nowhere else to be.”

The minx. How he loved her so.