#thordan

It occurs to me that probably not everyone has spent so much time in Thordan that they've memorized all the Knight's speech bubbles, so I feel compelled to share Zephirin's dialogue while during phase 5

I don't really do the variant dungeons. I tried the one where you're down below Ul'dah with Nanamo but I quit before I made it all the way through one path. I got tired man. But you know what would make me do one? That's right you guessed it. Exploring the lower levels of Ishgard with Aymeric. We could be tracking down some secret left by Thordan. Archbishop Thordan or King Thordan? Either one. I don't really care.

Gaius: "I was doing my duty to my country."

Thordan: "I was hoping to end our eternal war."

Emet-Selch: "They stood in the way of saving my people."

Zenos: "It's the only thing that gets me hard."

Thordan: 74

Thordan had Aymeric when he was 42. When he was damn old enough to know better. Out of wedlock child when you're 20, barely of Elezen age? You're a young idiot but you can be forgiven and expected to do better. Out of wedlock child at age 42? This fucker wasn't making one "oopsy" after 20ish years of pious celibacy. This was a pattern.

How many half-siblings do y'all think Aymeric has?

. . . A few members of the Heavens' Ward kinda resemble him or Thordan.

“A moment, Lord Commander.”

The Archbishop sat in his imposing seat, features cut sharp in unflinching light. His hands were gnarled where they gripped his staff, and his back was gracelessly curled forwards and away from the rigid straight back of his intricately carved chair. Still, his eyes were bright, and alive, and studying the young knight in front of him with a sharpness that defied his age and spoke only to his experience. His time as Archbishop, a knight; all that came before, and all that would come after.

Before him, Aymeric stood straight shouldered and wary. It was a familiar stance to him, one that never failed to make him feel small and insignificant, regardless of what accomplishments he could now put to his name. In an instant, standing alone before the holy seat of the Archbishop, he was a schoolboy again, ready for his reprimand after stealing strawberries and cream from the summer kitchens.

Summer was a distant memory. Guilt, meanwhile, lingered.

“I want to speak to you,” the Archbishop continued, his worn hands tightening thoughtfully on the decorative staff he held. “Alone.”

Behind where Aymeric stood, the Heavens’ Ward had already left the cavernous room, shoulders and faces set hard with the heavy mantles bestowed upon them by their Archbishop. They had gleamed, bright and clean in the shining winter light, assembled around the table with strong, well-worn purpose. It took a not insignificant amount of Aymeric’s resolve to hold onto that same feeling, to remind himself that he had every right to be there that they did. Remembering, like a mantra, the blood and toil it had taken to claw his way into his current position, regardless of his birth, or the rumours there within. He had never been able to stand together with his fellow knights – not really – and so he stopped trying. He stood apart, untouchable and climbing, setting himself intentionally separate so that no one could again claim that he didn’t fit. Pulling the title of Lord Commander around him like a mantle, his solitude was intentional, and purposeful.

Yet under the Archbishop’s ice blue eyes, a needling discomfort worried somewhere behind his ribs, insistent and sharp for its unfamiliar newness. 

How quickly would you find me wanting, if you knew how small I become in his gaze?

Would it change anything?

Will it change everything?

Her eyes – sharp, and calculating, and endless, and sad, and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful – haunted him, even as he stood still and silent, hand on his blade, waiting for instruction.

The Archbishop waited, examining him in silence before letting out a long, heavy sigh. 

Below, Aymeric’s spine snapped that much more into place, every vertebrae aching under the weight. Found wanting once more.

“You hold a unique position within Ishgard’s walls, my son,” the elderly patriarch began, his expression unreadable in its calm conviction. “As Lord Commander, you are tasked with steering her people and her military might forwards towards victory and prosperity. The Dravarian conflict grows bloodier by the day, and you have been elevated to your place in order to protect the peace and continued future of our holy order, and our gods-ordained purpose.”

With one hand, the Archbishop tilted his heavy staff lightly in Aymeric’s direction. “That ring you wear is not a mere ceremony, nor symbol. It is a reminder of your duty to your people, and your country.”

When Aymeric looked up, the Archbishop’s mouth was pressed into a firm, knowing line. “Do not,” the elderly leader said, his voice low and final in the echoing chamber, “let your head be turned away from that duty. Regardless of the form that distraction may take.”