His kiss is reciprocated, though there is no desperation from her in return. Era leans into him, letting his lips warm hers as she breathes in his scent, committing it all to memory. While it's clear she loves him dearly and so enjoys being this close with him... It's also clear in the subtle ways she holds herself back that she doesn't believe she deserves him at all.
He can sense her hesitation. Ardbert knows why. It's the same feeling that he felt for over a hundred years, feeling he had failed his entire world.
To see her grapple with it now, over deserving him, is heartbreaking. It's just something more he can't fix. He can only stay by her and hope it helps, if only a little.
But that doesn't feel like enough.
Ardbert lets go of her and brings up a hand to stroke her cheek, breaking off the kiss so he can rest their foreheads together. He keeps his eyes closed and just lays there with her. There's only so much he can do to hide the dip in his mood.
It's easier to hide it in the dark, or so he hopes.
She isn't blind to the shift in his mood, and is well aware that she is the cause. It seems like no matter what she does it always upsets the ones she loves most. Her fingers card gently through Ardbert's hair, trailing along his scalp with the amount of pressure she knows he likes best.
"You don't have to, Era. You're doing the best you can."
Oh, it hurts.
"It's all right to be sad," Ardbert adds quietly. "For our hearts to ache for each other. Real love isn't about making your partner happy all the time—it's about sharing happiness and sadness."
He chuckles sadly, making himself relax into her touch. "Over a hundred years of watching people taught me that, at least. I am sad... but I am happy to be sad at your side. So let's be sad together, aye?"
Her breath catches and her hand falters, though she resumes stroking his hair a moment later. Era says nothing yet, focusing on simply having him there by her side, whole and hale; a soul in the flesh. Her breathing is even and purposeful, accented with a dampness she can't quite manage to repress.
"My best is not good enough, so I need to do better." Ardbert has spent over a century in sadness and self-loathing. He deserves a wife who isn't so selfish. Someone who isn't so crippled by her own mind. "Against all odds you are here by my side. What reason do I have to be sad? I should be grateful for this blessing."
"Your best is more than enough for me." Ardbert means it; he's also clearly had time to think about this, having had plenty of time to himself throughout this entire thing.
"You're still grateful that my presence brings you a measure of comfort in this very moment, even as the guilt about having emotions and feelings eats at you, aren't you?" He moves his arm back around her waist to let her have more room to touch him. "... But—and let me explain it to the end—I suppose some of this is my fault."
He pushes a breath out and takes one in gently before continuing. "Although 'fault' implies I could've done better. I couldn't. I did my best, back when I was... made anew. You saw some of the times I was upset, but there were many—many—times where I hid away, when I should have sought you out. Times where I felt guilty for being full of grief, pain, anguish, anxiety... worthlessness."
The last word seizes in his throat, cracking his words. "But, I—" A catch of breath. "But I didn't, and that means you didn't learn from me how to let yourself be upset, and that it's okay to be upset. I suffered alone sometimes when I didn't need to."
His arm tightens around her to punctuate his next thought. "So you don't need to, either. You don't need to be perfect. I'm not perfect. Perfect is godsdamned boring, and if you were perfect, you wouldn't be human, and you wouldn't be you. I'm in love with you, Era. Your imperfections and anguish and anything else you go through—it's all a part of the woman I love. And as terrible as it feels to not be perfect, as bad as you might feel in this very moment, I wouldn't trade you for anything."
"You are my wife, and I am your husband, and that is good enough for me," Ardbert tilts his head up and shifts back just enough to kiss the tip of her nose. "And some day, it'll be good enough for you."
Ardbert asks her to listen and so she does, opening her eyes to look at him while he speaks. When he struggles to push the words out through his emotions she slides her hand down from his scalp to rest against the side of his face, stroking her thumb along his cheekbone. She hums a quiet, soothing note— shhh, shhh—as she continues the motion, encouraging him the best she can.
As he reaches the end of his speech he surprises her with a kiss to her nose, so gentle and sweet. Combined with his words Era is caught off guard. Her eyes grow bright with tears and her throat grows sore as she chokes up.
Despite all that Ardbert has said, her first instinct is still to remove her hand from his face to cover her own—to hide her emotions until she can gather the strength to shove them away.
The touch is reassuring, and it does help him get through his words. She does it so automatically, now. Ardbert's heart swells through his pain. Era is beautiful.
His words hit home. Ardbert kisses the back of Era's hand with the same gentleness as her nose. Era isn't the only one with bright eyes.
"You don't need to hide your emotions. Not from me. And I won't hide mine from you anymore. Emotions aren't always logical and don't always make sense. But it's always okay to feel them. Sometimes I felt worthless or lost in grief here, even though I should have been happy to be alive, to be with you, right? But I hid those moments from you. I-I already relied on you so much that I was scared to lean on you even more, to take even more advantage of your kindness."
He strokes his hand up and down her back; there's tears down his face now. "But I should have. You would've seen it's normal."
Ardbert's voice catches in his throat. "I'm sorry I didn't let you see me during my weakest moments. I'm so sorry. But I won't purposefully hide from you ever again. So please..." A crack, a sharp shuddering intake of breath. "try not to hide yours from me. Just try. That's all I ask."
See, Era? He's crying, even as he smiles so softly. It's okay to cry.
"Because I love you, Era, and I want to be there for you, through thick and thin."
It isn't hard to tell that Ardbert is crying, and she hates that she's made him feel such sadness. Era knows he's trying to help her. After all, she had said similar things to Noct not so very long ago. That it's okay to cry.
Tears don't wash away one's strength, they just make it shine brighter.
She'd said that, and she meant it. Just... not for herself. To Era her own unfavourable emotions are akin to a cancer festering in her flesh, eating it away until there's nothing left. With the heavy burdens she bears—the hopes of so many—she cannot risk falling apart.
Era shivers at the warmth of her husband's hand stroking her back so lovingly, but doesn't remove her hand from her face.
She takes a deep, steadying breath. Holds it for ten seconds, then exhales it at a slow and even pace. Once she feels more grounded she returns her hand to Ardbert's face, wiping his tears away with gentle fingers. Her eyes are damp, but no longer shine with unshed tears, nor is there any sign on her face that she came so close to tears at all.
"No matter how tumultuous your emotions, they have never hurt me." Her voice is quiet; gentle, warm, and loving as she speaks of him. The undertone shifts subtly as she continues, the warmth turning cold and the love suddenly absent. "My emotions have only wrought pain upon myself and others. I won't let them free to cause more harm than they already have."
Her expression is one all but pleading with him to understand.
His gaze is already hurt by the time she removes her hand from her face. Ardbert knows what she's doing. Shoving her emotions away, burying them once more.
It would be best for him to shove his down, too. Except he had just told her that he wouldn't hide from her again. He lets her brush his tears away, focusing on the tenderness in her voice.
Then suddenly, it's gone, as Era speaks about herself. Ardbert sucks in a breath. He's trying so hard to be patient, to be supportive, and still, it isn't enough for her to open up. There was a moment in which he had reached her, but only a moment. It's too much to bear, seeing her beg him to let her be an unfeeling thing.
For the first time ever, Ardbert pulls away from her touch and rolls onto his other side, away from her, and wraps his arms around himself. "It isn't. Not for me. You won't let me be there for you, and it makes me feel worthless."
His last word drips with transient but powerful emotion.
"It makes me fear I'll lose you." The kind of lose, he doesn't know, but it terrifies him all the same. "That some day, you'll break, and I'll be left with the forever shattered remnants of the woman I love."
He pulls away from her and it is so unexpected that she freezes for a moment, trying to process the sight of his back to her in such a pointed gesture. It... hurts. It hurts, but she deserves it. Era rolls onto her other side as well, back facing his, hugging her knees to her chest and curling her tail around her ankle in a futile attempt to make up for the sudden loss of warmth.
"...You weren't allowed to break," Era begins, after a long stretch of silence. "You weren't allowed to until you were dead, Ardbert. Why would it be any different for me?"
Ardbert feels Era turn in bed and shift. He waits for her to speak, knowing she has to process him turning away from her. (Something he already regrets, dearly.)
Then she does speak, and it hurts. It's the first time Era has mentioned his death in as long as he can remember. But it's not that which hurts, so much as the misconceptions.
"I didn't break while I was alive or while I was dead on the Source because I didn't have to. 'Allowed' has nothing to do with it. I had friends with whom I could share my burdens. We leaned on each other in our times of need and put each other back together before we broke."
He wraps his arms tighter around himself, memories flashing in his mind.
"But after they were gone, and I was nothing more than a shade... That was when I broke. I broke, and I broke, and I broke until I thought there was nothing left that could break, only to break again until my very soul began to unravel."
He breathes out with a shuddering sigh, and unable to keep himself from Era for a moment longer, he rolls over to wrap an arm around her from behind, if she'll allow it. "... But I can't make you open up to me if you don't want to. All I can do is let you know that you're not alone. I can see and hear and touch you, and I love you almost more than my heart can bear."
Once they save Hades, Ardbert has a plan: ask how to learn about mental health on the network, then start charting his own path forward that Era, and everyone else who needs it, can use to chart their own paths forward.
Edited (Ardbert keeps other plans secret :)) 2021-05-28 00:23 (UTC)
Era curls herself up more tightly as he speaks, drawing her legs up further into her chest and making herself smaller; secure. She had assumed her and Ardbert's experiences were similar, but apparently they weren't.
For all that her senses alert her to his movement, Era still startles when he wraps his arm around her. While she doesn't pull away from him, neither does she relax into his touch, and when he says 'I love you' she can't hide her small, reflexive flinch.
"...I had someone, once," she tells him, so soft and quiet she doesn't know if he can even hear her. "For just a little while... I had a friend like that."
Pulling away only ruined the mood further rather than get his point across. Godsdamnit. Era was entirely too stubborn.
She startles when he touches her but doesn't pull away, and Ardbert reads that as permission to continue to gently hold her. Her flinch is outside his view, but the fact she doesn't relax tells him more than enough. Ardbert will keep the middle ground, not pushing forward and waiting to see if she wants him to pull back.
"... and then you lost them." He guesses correctly. "Like I did, without warning, and it left a gaping hole where your heart once was."
"The attack was meant for me." It was Haurchefant's choice to intercept it and protect her, but it was her fault he made that choice. "I was not paying attention and he died. After that... I was just the Warrior of Light again."
Ardbert knows who Era's friend was. He had even seen the man die through the Echo. The guilt Era feels at Haurchefant's death is similar to the guilt Ardbert feels towards his friends.
It had been their choice to go with him, but he still felt just as responsible.
Then, they gave up everything they had left to stop the Flood, and he had been entirely alone. All he was to the world at that point was one of the cursed Warriors of Light. Those few that spoke out in their favor eventually died, and then people only said his name to curse it.
"I know the feeling all too well." Ardbert murmurs to her, his heart resonating with the anguish she feels to this very day.
"You had a papa who raised you, and friends who adventured with you," Era tells him. "From the beginning you have always been Ardbert... And I have always been mother's Crystal Bearer."
"I wasn't always Ardbert. In the last years before you showed up, I was almost nothing." He sighs tiredly. "But I understand what you mean. Aye, I had a life before we became Warriors of Light, while all you've ever had is the life you know now."
Era echoes his sigh with one of her own, and while she has yet to relax into his touch she does move her tail to curl over his arm.
"The Scions, while kind and accepting, saw me first as an asset," she admits. It changed over time, as Ardbert is well aware, but they would never have given her a thought had she not been blessed with the Echo. "Haurchefant... To him I was always Era, his dear friend who happened to be the Warrior of Light."
And for all that Haurchefant was glad to sing her praises to everyone who knew him, he never made her feel pressured to live up to his expectations. To him, she was already more than enough just as she was.
"...At first I wondered if She took him from me on purpose, but... I think She gave me as much time with him as She could. She's always been good to me, and kept me safe even at Her own expense." Era hesitates, then whispers: "...She was the only mother who ever wanted me."
Era's opening up to him in her own way. Perhaps it's only a peek over the walls she's built around her heart, but Ardbert's grateful for it all the same. She's trying.
Ardbert listens to every word until the very end. His muscles jerk with an aborted hug, wanting to pull Era tightly to him. While his mother had died when he was young, she had at least loved him, and he had his father until he left home.
She had no one, her memories wiped clean, and those few she had were mostly neutral at best, terrible at worst. Haurchefant was the first person to care about her as a person. To lose the only person who cared like that....
Nothing he says can make that go away. Ardbert slowly and gently pulls her closer to him. He can't get both arms around her without it being uncomfortable, but gods, he just wants to hug her tight.
"She would have saved him if she could have." Ardbert whispers gently, blinking back tears. "And my parents, they—they would have loved you."
Ardbert pulls her closer to him and she allows it. While she doesn't actively lean into his touch she does go more pliant, making it easier for him to move her.
"...Nobuyuki loved his daughter," she offers, tentative and uncertain. "Born too early and abandoned by her mother, she was small and sickly, but he and his parents loved her enough to keep her alive."
Era pauses, hesitating once more.
"...I think her grandfather would have adored you. He was a large Xaelan warrior with an axe larger than yours. His name was Ganbold."
A small improvement. Enough of one that he knows his body heat will seep into her as she likes.
It's the first time she's really talked about her other self's family so unprompted, or that he's heard she was a sickly baby. He smiles through his tears. These memories are good, even if the events before and after are sad.
"An axe bigger than mine? Ganbold's an apt name. Big axe with a bigger heart?"
Well enough at masking it for someone who doesn't know her. Ardbert knows her. He gives a supportive light squeeze.
"Seven fulms? He could have held me like he held her!" Ardbert lets go of Era in the briefest way possible to wipe at his eyes without dislodging her tail, their bodies still pressed close. "We'll have to remember that tip about teething on a tail...."
For their own daughter, someday. "... and the adventures, beside."
"He died shortly after her first birthday," she tells him.
"He gave her a Xaelan name as a gift, and his wife found them shortly after. She was angry with him for stealing the baby away, so he scooped her up into his arms, too, and ran home to their son."
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To see her grapple with it now, over deserving him, is heartbreaking. It's just something more he can't fix. He can only stay by her and hope it helps, if only a little.
But that doesn't feel like enough.
Ardbert lets go of her and brings up a hand to stroke her cheek, breaking off the kiss so he can rest their foreheads together. He keeps his eyes closed and just lays there with her. There's only so much he can do to hide the dip in his mood.
It's easier to hide it in the dark, or so he hopes.
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"I'm sorry," Era whispers. "I'll do better."
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Oh, it hurts.
"It's all right to be sad," Ardbert adds quietly. "For our hearts to ache for each other. Real love isn't about making your partner happy all the time—it's about sharing happiness and sadness."
He chuckles sadly, making himself relax into her touch. "Over a hundred years of watching people taught me that, at least. I am sad... but I am happy to be sad at your side. So let's be sad together, aye?"
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"My best is not good enough, so I need to do better." Ardbert has spent over a century in sadness and self-loathing. He deserves a wife who isn't so selfish. Someone who isn't so crippled by her own mind. "Against all odds you are here by my side. What reason do I have to be sad? I should be grateful for this blessing."
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"You're still grateful that my presence brings you a measure of comfort in this very moment, even as the guilt about having emotions and feelings eats at you, aren't you?" He moves his arm back around her waist to let her have more room to touch him. "... But—and let me explain it to the end—I suppose some of this is my fault."
He pushes a breath out and takes one in gently before continuing. "Although 'fault' implies I could've done better. I couldn't. I did my best, back when I was... made anew. You saw some of the times I was upset, but there were many—many—times where I hid away, when I should have sought you out. Times where I felt guilty for being full of grief, pain, anguish, anxiety... worthlessness."
The last word seizes in his throat, cracking his words. "But, I—" A catch of breath. "But I didn't, and that means you didn't learn from me how to let yourself be upset, and that it's okay to be upset. I suffered alone sometimes when I didn't need to."
His arm tightens around her to punctuate his next thought. "So you don't need to, either. You don't need to be perfect. I'm not perfect. Perfect is godsdamned boring, and if you were perfect, you wouldn't be human, and you wouldn't be you. I'm in love with you, Era. Your imperfections and anguish and anything else you go through—it's all a part of the woman I love. And as terrible as it feels to not be perfect, as bad as you might feel in this very moment, I wouldn't trade you for anything."
"You are my wife, and I am your husband, and that is good enough for me," Ardbert tilts his head up and shifts back just enough to kiss the tip of her nose. "And some day, it'll be good enough for you."
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As he reaches the end of his speech he surprises her with a kiss to her nose, so gentle and sweet. Combined with his words Era is caught off guard. Her eyes grow bright with tears and her throat grows sore as she chokes up.
Despite all that Ardbert has said, her first instinct is still to remove her hand from his face to cover her own—to hide her emotions until she can gather the strength to shove them away.
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His words hit home. Ardbert kisses the back of Era's hand with the same gentleness as her nose. Era isn't the only one with bright eyes.
"You don't need to hide your emotions. Not from me. And I won't hide mine from you anymore. Emotions aren't always logical and don't always make sense. But it's always okay to feel them. Sometimes I felt worthless or lost in grief here, even though I should have been happy to be alive, to be with you, right? But I hid those moments from you. I-I already relied on you so much that I was scared to lean on you even more, to take even more advantage of your kindness."
He strokes his hand up and down her back; there's tears down his face now. "But I should have. You would've seen it's normal."
Ardbert's voice catches in his throat. "I'm sorry I didn't let you see me during my weakest moments. I'm so sorry. But I won't purposefully hide from you ever again. So please..." A crack, a sharp shuddering intake of breath. "try not to hide yours from me. Just try. That's all I ask."
See, Era? He's crying, even as he smiles so softly. It's okay to cry.
"Because I love you, Era, and I want to be there for you, through thick and thin."
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Tears don't wash away one's strength, they just make it shine brighter.
She'd said that, and she meant it. Just... not for herself. To Era her own unfavourable emotions are akin to a cancer festering in her flesh, eating it away until there's nothing left. With the heavy burdens she bears—the hopes of so many—she cannot risk falling apart.
Era shivers at the warmth of her husband's hand stroking her back so lovingly, but doesn't remove her hand from her face.
She takes a deep, steadying breath. Holds it for ten seconds, then exhales it at a slow and even pace. Once she feels more grounded she returns her hand to Ardbert's face, wiping his tears away with gentle fingers. Her eyes are damp, but no longer shine with unshed tears, nor is there any sign on her face that she came so close to tears at all.
"No matter how tumultuous your emotions, they have never hurt me." Her voice is quiet; gentle, warm, and loving as she speaks of him. The undertone shifts subtly as she continues, the warmth turning cold and the love suddenly absent. "My emotions have only wrought pain upon myself and others. I won't let them free to cause more harm than they already have."
Her expression is one all but pleading with him to understand.
"It's better this way, Ardbert."
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It would be best for him to shove his down, too. Except he had just told her that he wouldn't hide from her again. He lets her brush his tears away, focusing on the tenderness in her voice.
Then suddenly, it's gone, as Era speaks about herself. Ardbert sucks in a breath. He's trying so hard to be patient, to be supportive, and still, it isn't enough for her to open up. There was a moment in which he had reached her, but only a moment. It's too much to bear, seeing her beg him to let her be an unfeeling thing.
For the first time ever, Ardbert pulls away from her touch and rolls onto his other side, away from her, and wraps his arms around himself. "It isn't. Not for me. You won't let me be there for you, and it makes me feel worthless."
His last word drips with transient but powerful emotion.
"It makes me fear I'll lose you." The kind of lose, he doesn't know, but it terrifies him all the same. "That some day, you'll break, and I'll be left with the forever shattered remnants of the woman I love."
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"...You weren't allowed to break," Era begins, after a long stretch of silence. "You weren't allowed to until you were dead, Ardbert. Why would it be any different for me?"
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Then she does speak, and it hurts. It's the first time Era has mentioned his death in as long as he can remember. But it's not that which hurts, so much as the misconceptions.
"I didn't break while I was alive or while I was dead on the Source because I didn't have to. 'Allowed' has nothing to do with it. I had friends with whom I could share my burdens. We leaned on each other in our times of need and put each other back together before we broke."
He wraps his arms tighter around himself, memories flashing in his mind.
"But after they were gone, and I was nothing more than a shade... That was when I broke. I broke, and I broke, and I broke until I thought there was nothing left that could break, only to break again until my very soul began to unravel."
He breathes out with a shuddering sigh, and unable to keep himself from Era for a moment longer, he rolls over to wrap an arm around her from behind, if she'll allow it. "... But I can't make you open up to me if you don't want to. All I can do is let you know that you're not alone. I can see and hear and touch you, and I love you almost more than my heart can bear."
Once they save Hades, Ardbert has a plan: ask how to learn about mental health on the network, then start charting his own path forward that Era, and everyone else who needs it, can use to chart their own paths forward.
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For all that her senses alert her to his movement, Era still startles when he wraps his arm around her. While she doesn't pull away from him, neither does she relax into his touch, and when he says 'I love you' she can't hide her small, reflexive flinch.
"...I had someone, once," she tells him, so soft and quiet she doesn't know if he can even hear her. "For just a little while... I had a friend like that."
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She startles when he touches her but doesn't pull away, and Ardbert reads that as permission to continue to gently hold her. Her flinch is outside his view, but the fact she doesn't relax tells him more than enough. Ardbert will keep the middle ground, not pushing forward and waiting to see if she wants him to pull back.
"... and then you lost them." He guesses correctly. "Like I did, without warning, and it left a gaping hole where your heart once was."
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It had been their choice to go with him, but he still felt just as responsible.
Then, they gave up everything they had left to stop the Flood, and he had been entirely alone. All he was to the world at that point was one of the cursed Warriors of Light. Those few that spoke out in their favor eventually died, and then people only said his name to curse it.
"I know the feeling all too well." Ardbert murmurs to her, his heart resonating with the anguish she feels to this very day.
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"You had a papa who raised you, and friends who adventured with you," Era tells him. "From the beginning you have always been Ardbert... And I have always been mother's Crystal Bearer."
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"The Scions, while kind and accepting, saw me first as an asset," she admits. It changed over time, as Ardbert is well aware, but they would never have given her a thought had she not been blessed with the Echo. "Haurchefant... To him I was always Era, his dear friend who happened to be the Warrior of Light."
And for all that Haurchefant was glad to sing her praises to everyone who knew him, he never made her feel pressured to live up to his expectations. To him, she was already more than enough just as she was.
"...At first I wondered if She took him from me on purpose, but... I think She gave me as much time with him as She could. She's always been good to me, and kept me safe even at Her own expense." Era hesitates, then whispers: "...She was the only mother who ever wanted me."
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Ardbert listens to every word until the very end. His muscles jerk with an aborted hug, wanting to pull Era tightly to him. While his mother had died when he was young, she had at least loved him, and he had his father until he left home.
She had no one, her memories wiped clean, and those few she had were mostly neutral at best, terrible at worst. Haurchefant was the first person to care about her as a person. To lose the only person who cared like that....
Nothing he says can make that go away. Ardbert slowly and gently pulls her closer to him. He can't get both arms around her without it being uncomfortable, but gods, he just wants to hug her tight.
"She would have saved him if she could have." Ardbert whispers gently, blinking back tears. "And my parents, they—they would have loved you."
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"...Nobuyuki loved his daughter," she offers, tentative and uncertain. "Born too early and abandoned by her mother, she was small and sickly, but he and his parents loved her enough to keep her alive."
Era pauses, hesitating once more.
"...I think her grandfather would have adored you. He was a large Xaelan warrior with an axe larger than yours. His name was Ganbold."
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It's the first time she's really talked about her other self's family so unprompted, or that he's heard she was a sickly baby. He smiles through his tears. These memories are good, even if the events before and after are sad.
"An axe bigger than mine? Ganbold's an apt name. Big axe with a bigger heart?"
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Her tone is filled with myriad emotions and no small amount of internal conflict, though Era does well enough at masking it.
"He let her teethe on his tail, and liked to steal her away for adventures once she was strong enough. He was so proud of his little family."
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"Seven fulms? He could have held me like he held her!" Ardbert lets go of Era in the briefest way possible to wipe at his eyes without dislodging her tail, their bodies still pressed close. "We'll have to remember that tip about teething on a tail...."
For their own daughter, someday. "... and the adventures, beside."
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"He gave her a Xaelan name as a gift, and his wife found them shortly after. She was angry with him for stealing the baby away, so he scooped her up into his arms, too, and ran home to their son."
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