You still remember clearly the best day of your life. In all this time, still untainted by all that came after it. As if the sun never shined brighter again, And everything came together as light filled the air. Why are you so convinced you'll never see anything like it again? You're not the ghost you think you are. You can still see light just fine.

@serdoctor Baptiste

Content Warning: Mentions of Torture School sucked. That was the conclusion Esredes came to for most of his childhood. He was never the biggest fan of many aspects of it, of sitting indoors and listening to lectures when he could be out in the world. Writing in particular was never fun. So many rules had to be drilled into him, on how sentences and grammar worked and what the proper words to use were. So many hours collectively he must have spent, pouring over dictionaries and definitions, scolded and given a bad grade if his writing did not match the expected standards. He never did quite get the hang of it. Even as an adult, he found himself back in the same loop of dictionaries always being out on his desk when he had the brilliant idea to accept a House of Lords members’ offer of being an assistant and look over and write letters and speeches and proposals for the man. Some nobles he knew could write flourishing and beautiful things with ease, but he always had to stop and get fixated on words, if this or that was spelled right or flowed correctly, only for the end result to be something he always felt resembled a noble’s writing, but if one were to observe it more carefully and pick it apart, it would come undone at the seams. At least all those failed drafts were simply put in the trash. His war journal stayed locked away in his home nowadays, not only for the particular out of the ordinary pages like the time he wrote a full page of I’m sorry, but the few times in his life he tried to write poetry lines in it on a whim. It was awful, and he regretted it the moment after he finished trying. The page was almost intelligible with crossed out words, but it read like a madman’s disjointed ramblings trying to sound pretty. How the hell did poetry work? He had no idea, and it was an embarrassment to take to his grave, or else truly no worse fate would await him. He was mediocre at mathematics. No excuse of simply being a child of less artistic disciplines- he found nothing significant for himself in pretty much any part of schooling except history. He liked reading about the past, and it took to his memory much better than equations or the different forms of the same word. Seraphiaux always did better, even when he neglected studies. There he was, the little child prodigy learning alchemy and healing at age seven with all his books, and Esredes was trying to understand semicolons at fifteen. He was going to be a healer, Esredes would be a Temple Knight- and only one of them had any progress towards it at all. His parents did not allow him to play or practice with swords or weapons of any kind. “Not until you enter training,” they said. “It’s too dangerous.”Most noble children would probably be far better off coming from two parents who did not fight in the war, who did not try to push and train them to be soldiers from an early age. Esredes was an exception to that, as he thought. Instead, he was stuck in the increasing realization that he had little talent for anything. It only made sense to him later why- a soldier could not have other talents, or else they would be distracted from their purpose and not want to fight. But he did not know yet he was one, for sure, and all he could do to escape was funnel into his little wish. It wasn’t the easiest journey to finish schooling, but he managed it. Right into training he went… and there came a breakdown soon enough. The shield. That stupid goddamn shield. He hated carrying it and no matter what he did, he could not get the hang of using it. I’m going to fail, he thought for sure. He would have to go back to his parents and accept he had no passion to pursue, and then work extremely hard every day to be good enough to be head of house, when he knew in his heart he was not enough for it. Yet it all passed as he funneled himself solely into the sword at the instruction of a superior, and once more he had something. Combat. He was right all along. Combat was his answer to everything, his shining star of purpose and ability. Day after day after day, he threw his entire body and soul into training. Nothing could match that ecstasy of true purpose and being. The day he was knighted was the best of his life. Superiors took notice of him, sometimes for the bad but more often for the good, especially as time went on. The ecstasy eventually faded as the harsher realities of battle came to be, but still in those moments of promotion and praise from the higher ups, when people spoke of his accomplishments and even, increasingly as time went on, his bouts of strategy in battle, it surged back up in a lesser form. When he was twenty two, an opportunity came to him like no other. A captured heretic who had the blood of dragons in him which his squadron had apprehended. “Let me interrogate him alone before the Inquisitors come,” Esredes asked his superior. He had done just enough questioning people in the past that he was confident an answer for his curse could be found. Alas, as he carved into the captive repeatedly and shouted at him about his affliction, he ended up empty handed. His one shot at answers had been blown in a bout of overconfidence, and questions raged on in his head. It got easier when he returned to the art of interrogation after the law no longer held him down. As he realized how important it was to get into their heads, slithering up through their ear canals with a tongue increasingly coated in silver, and pull it apart from inside. Then came civilization again, and Esredes was left constantly wondering why people kept spilling their lives’ stories and turmoils to him when they barely knew each other. Why did people constantly look at him like he had just trudged up and told them something they never realized about themselves, when he had just stated the obvious anyone could figure out from dealing with people for thirty three years? Why did he seem to calm some people down so easily just by opening his mouth- that half when he wasn’t inciting them to anger as he always did? Well, being the Keeper of Secrets was not easy, but as he left for Dravania to maintain a fragile peace as a diplomat some days, and looked over his list of clients and his near perfect record others, he smiled about it to himself in the comfort of the blue walls. Yet it was never enough. He had climbed to a Temple Commander before he fell, climbed in much less time to the top of the Disciples and then their leader, managed to pull himself out of being a wanted criminal to multiple people offering him jobs in areas he never expected to take, and yet the same internal monologue repeated. I can’t do this, he said as he tried each new job far outside of his perceived, singular combat ability. So many others could do this better than me. There would be a shining and perfectly talented Ishgardian, one who hadn’t fought in the heretic’s side of the war, who was merely open minded and far more likable, and he would finally be fired from his diplomacy job and replaced by them. Ferrant would never replace him, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t still constantly stressing that he was not meant for the work and couldn’t be enough help. And while he was no longer at a risk of firing since going independent on his side job, and he did not expect all his clients to stop showing up, it never eased that anxiety every time that he could mess it up and do everything wrong in a heartbeat, and ruin everything. But if another counselor like him ever showed up in the same circles, and just proved to be so much better than him At least he still had combat, he told himself. As stupid incompetent children fought primals, ended the war, and got all the peoples’ admiration and praise, he still had combat. As he continued to make critical errors here and there in his ventures, and get in trouble with the Inquisition for vigilantism, forced only to stick to the law enforcement of the wilderness and the expeditions his friends would not take to the system, he still had combat. Not every day anymore as he stuck to his civilian tasks, but he had it. What would a talentless soldier be without the purpose of combat? Of dying, of sacrifice, or usefulness? The disgraced Temple Knight who would never officially and legally fight for anything ever again, only forced to emulate ability in areas he was never built for? The answer found itself in bars. Former Dragoons, it was almost always Dragoons. The ones who started fights just to feel anything, screamed at and insulted people because they truly felt they had no purpose in life anymore, and refused to move on to do anything productive. Esredes sighed to himself every time when he saw them. Perhaps he was not a man of talents, but he would continue to blend in and pretend. If not only for being above making an even bigger disgrace of himself. He always hated too much attention. ----- @heartofthefury​ Seraphiaux/Ferrant

If only you hadn't had such bad luck in all the games of life to come, maybe we would've stayed together.

Mentions this time around: @clover-hawthorne @herocatte @bookbornexiv @houserosaire @mazinkhin @thecalmnessandthestorms @heartofthefury @dragons-ire, thank y’all for having existed in his path to be material for me to call him out on his bullshit <3

Esredes had been no exception to the rule that all children are idealistic. Reality didn’t touch a child at the early ages. And neither had his noble studies become too much that he couldn’t have too much free time for himself. Sure, he laughed and played with other children and the like. But when left to himself, he was the type to read exactly what little boys were expected to read. Ishgard had no shortage of grand epics and tales about its own military. The noble deeds of knights and dragoons covered in enough accentuated detail to keep a child’s innate sense of wonder and imagination going. Gods know how many of the same repetitive heroic epics Esredes had ended up reading as a child- maybe he had gotten through a quarter of Ishgard’s entire stock. They filled his mind with dreams- simple, all-consuming dreams of being like these amazing people. But of course, he was a child. He would have to wait until his studies finished and he came of age to even have a shot at this dream. Until then, all he could do was fantasize. Years passed and reality did begin to sink its teeth in. Yelling matches and scoldings became more frequent, he no longer valued his daily routine in the same way. But he hadn’t abandoned his dream for a moment, merely begun to understand a bit more of what it would take to achieve. Then once his fifteenth year rolled around, his seven year old brother had one day suddenly had potion bottles and conjury wands and books in his room, and was telling Esredes all about how he secretly had been studying and was trying to perfect this or that. Esredes was flabbergasted by all of it- he was seven. How was he doing this with such ease? Did he have some hidden, innate grand talent? Was he a child prodigy? Or was Esredes himself just too unnoteworthy? After all, he had lived more than twice Sera’s entire life, and he had never had anything special really manifest, nothing that couldn’t just be chocked up to putting in effort. So maybe Esredes wasn’t a gifted child like his brother. Fair enough, but he still had a dream. Maybe I’ll be good when I become a knight, he told himself. Maybe it’s a sign that’s where my talents lie. Maybe just wait until then, he told himself over and over every time he was stuck in his room as punishment, or did something unimpressive and average compared to what other noble children around him could do, or was called a good for nothing by other adults. Even that one time his own father had told him in a fit of rage he’d never amount to anything. He just held on closer, grasping desperately to that little dream. He’d be the best knight. He had to be. Eventually, his turn would come...

“Esredes.” His mother said. “What do you have to gain by staying with them?” It was a question she had asked a lot since his life had completely melted down and reformed. Every time he made a visit here to the Silver Bazaar to go see his family, it had to be brought up at least a few times. And he always gave similar answers. “I can’t leave,” he started with this time. “If I leave, we all have to find yet another hiding place to hide from them too. What other place is going to be a more suitable hiding location than near Ul’dah? I have to do this for the three of you. I’m sorry, but it’s not turning out to be as bad as I dreaded.” “Ishgard is going to find and kill you, Esredes.” She continued on. “You do not want to be in an Inquisitor’s chamber. Your brother still hasn’t recovered his full speaking ability, and he did nothing. They’d do even worse to you. They still think you’re a traitor, Esredes.” “I can’t risk them coming for you if I desert.” Esredes said. “I’ll still continue to find ways to drop off money, all right? I’ll still be supporting the family.” “Money that you’re taking from other places,” she retorted. “You know I don’t feel good accepting that money, Esredes. It feels as if it is cursed. You haven’t been taking it off the corpses of your former soldiers, have you?” “No!” He said back, a bit too loudly. “No, why would you think that?? We barely even carried it on us while on duty!” Esredes let out a long sigh, then continued on. “It’s not cursed, mother. It won’t be missed too badly by its original owners.” “Even if that is the case, it does not change my point.” She said. “You have to find a way to come stay with us, Esredes. Your father and brother and I all miss you. I know I’ve never particularly approved of your occupation, but I can concede you made an excellent knight, Esredes. You can start over on it in Ul’dah. Their grand company is always looking for people just like you, and Ishgard isn’t rejoining what remains of the alliance anytime soon.” “That’s not how it would happen. You all couldn’t stay here. Look, I still need to talk to Sera before I go. Is he in the house or is he out looking at plants?” “He’s in, for the moment. But I don’t know how up he is to talking.” “I’ll have to try.” And with that, Esredes quickly went to the room his brother was staying in. She was right. He wasn’t up to talking, but Esredes had been prepared for that. He merely ended up sitting with Sera for a while before leaving the home and making his way back to Coerthas. I’m afraid they’ll kill you if I leave. I’m paying off my debt for getting help to break you out. I want to keep fighting to try and bring us home, somehow, someday. I honestly do not care about Ul’dah. The variety of excuses he gave his family varied each time, but the truth Esredes couldn’t deny remained inside him. Guilt and shame. To stay with them was to be plagued by those feelings without end, even more than he already was each day. Because they would never stop reminding him of what he did, how he destroyed everything their family line ever worked for. And he would rather bear the guilt, shame, and fear of living with his former enemies at this point than that. He would rather cling to that vague, shapeless hope that someday he would do more than just survive and save stragglers from Ishgard. Maybe his life was practically over, with nothing more to it than to live the life of a being that had ceased to exist. Maybe it would be better to start over in a civilized society, even one as hot and unbearable as Ul’dah, than to try to do so in the wilderness. But none of it was truly his choice anymore, was it? The agreement had been made. His body and blade- his soul, practically- for their safety. There was nothing more to do but see how much further life took him before he saw its end. I’m sorry, he thought to himself as he left the sand and heat of Thanalan behind to return to the camp once more. I’m sorry, but things can’t be different...