#i was originally going to talk about both the mothercrystal quote and the ultima thule wind quote

[mariyekos]

Souls and Aether: A look at Estinien's sense of self and Nidhogg's place within it

After a throwaway line in Endwalker reignited my love for the topic, here are some thoughts and theories about the mix of Estinien and Nidhogg's souls post-Heavensward (that I'll probably use for fic material someday when I feel like I'll be able to do them justice). Some of this is very much canon, some is headcanon, and I tried to make sure I distinguished between what the game tells us and what I like to imagine from it. This turned into way more of an essay than I meant it to be, but meh. Includes some caps and ideas from Heavensward and Shadowbringers, as well as spoilers for Endwalker under the cut! You've been warned!

"My Eyes": The Mothercrystal Quote

A.K.A. The Whole Reason I Wrote This Ridiculously Long Essay

The first thing I want to talk about is this quote from the optional pre-battle conversation before The Mothercrystal fight. Mostly the last part, but I'll include all three pictures to capture the entire thing.

There's a lot to unpack here, but I want to focus on the quote that I've thought of on a daily basis since beating Endwalker.

"Then you and Alphinaud threw my eyes off a bridge, and I've never known peace since."

My eyes. My eyes. Obviously he's referring to the Eyes of Nidhogg here, which were bound to Estinien's person. That much I would say is not up to debate. In that respect, they could be "his" (i.e. Estinien's) eyes, since they were technically a part of him at the time. So the "I" or "me" or "self" that Estinien is referring to could be himself as the man that has always been Estinien. A less exciting, but sensible reason for that phrasing. Or... the perhaps less likely but much more enticing/interesting option... is that the "I/me/self" that he could be referring to could be the part that was once Nidhogg. My eyes he says, thinking of his true eyes which were once in his own wyrm skull, not the foreign eyes which were embeded in his elezen shoulder and wrist. My eyes, as in the eyes which came from him and were originally his. Him, thus, being Nidhogg.

And thus, I looked at this quote and thought, "ah. Estinien is refering to Nidhogg's eyes as his own, and thus not differentiating between the being he is now and the being that was once Nidhogg. He sees (at least parts of) Nidhogg's past and being as his own."

It's worth noting that this comes right after he talks about "people I cared for," and then refers to people Estinien knew (Alberic, Alphinaud+WoL or Aymeric, and Ysayle). So there are three potential levels of self here - The "I" that was originally Estinien, the "my" that seems to be Nidhogg after taking Estinien as his vessel, and the "I've" that is surely both. The Estinien who is Estinien, who seamlessly carries pieces of Nidhogg, as if a blended version of the two. Three points in time, three kinds of self. Three levels of existing as two beings eventually merged into one.

I want to say that I believe Estinien still sees himself as being different than Nidhogg. He's still Estinien, and he has always been Estinien. Before this quote, I imagined him not thinking of himself as Nidhogg, but instead as the bearer of Nidhogg's legacy. But when I saw this...He's still Estinien, and he has always been Estinien, but I think there are times when the line blurs a little. He's not confused about who he is at all. He knows he was born Estinien, and Nidhogg was something separate. But there are things that seamlessly merge, just the slightest bit, when they get too close. The eyes were Nidhoggs, but they were also Estinien's for those few days (...Lucia says something that implies the whole possession thing only lasted a few days. In my head, it lasted closer to 6 months, or about the patch time, because I don't like the whole "all of FFXIV takes place in about a year" thing. But I acknowledge that canon says that only lasted a few days.). They belonged to both. And so what was more Nidhogg's than Estinien's may now seem wholly Estinien's. Because both were one. There was no difference at the time. And now? Well.

The Heavensward Soul-Merge

Part of this train of thought comes from something I've rambled about in other scattered posts: the idea that a part of Nidhogg's soul has stuck around with Estinien since Heavensward. There are a few components to this. First, in Heavensward when Alphinaud asks Y'shtola and Krile about saving Estinien. Sorry about the lower quality of the following screenshots, as these are phone screengrabs from YouTube rather than my own snaps. I repeat the important parts in the indented sections below.

"We know not if that would serve to separate wyrm's soul from man's."

"[...] we have no way of knowing if your friend's soul would survive so violent a separation."

If we take their word as absolute truth and not exaggeration or some sort of dramatic flourish, then these two quotes tell us that Nidhogg's and Estinien's souls were once connected. Entangled, if you go with an earlier comment from this conversation about Nidhogg's aether and Estinien's form. So their souls were once merged, to an extent. Probably not in a healthy way, especially given Nidhogg's Final Steps of Faith quote about Estinien, but an unhealthy connection doesn't necessarily mean a weak one:

"Witness the darkened wings that beat about his shriveled soul!

Again, this is a case where you can either take Nidhogg for his word or imagine he's being dramatic, but for the purposes of this post I'm going to imagine he's being (mostly) honest.

But let's put that all together: after the eyes were merged to Estinien's form, Nidhogg's aether had all but smothered Estinien's, entangling his form. This led to a definite connection between, partial blending of their souls (whether it's merging is up to interpretation. My HC says yes. Canon simply implies a hard-to-break connection). During this period of connection, Estinien's soul began to shrivel, or was otherwise damaged.

Shadowbringers, and How to Mend a Damaged Soul

We know from Ardbert and Shadowbringers that adding a soul to one's own broken soul can fix that damage. Take the following quote from Ryne about the WoL, after Ardbert rejoins with the WoL for the Hades trial:

"[...] your soul had begun to break apart. Yet now it seems somehow...restored."

Ardbert and the WoL's situation is a lot different than Estinien and Nidhogg's. Ardbert and the WoL were fragments of the same soul. Pieces that were meant to be together. And when Ardbert was rejoined unto the WoL it fixed the cracks that had begun to form under the pressure and corruption of the Light aether. Estinien and Nidhogg most certainly weren't fragments of the same soul. Nidhogg's presence (his aether, I would say) itself was what was damaging Estinien's soul, if said soul was actually damaged. What else would have "shriveled" Estinien's soul during his possession? Nidhogg's aether was far greater than Estinien's, which even if not explicitly stated is just plain canon because dragons have a TON of aether. Estinien's would've been minuscule in comparison, and it's no wonder Nidhogg won out (until the very end when, after expending aether to fight Hraesvelgr-powered WoL, Estinien finally managed to break through). Where the foreign Light Aether fractured the WoL's soul, Nidhogg's foreign natural Aether could have damaged Estinien's soul.

But just as Nidhogg damaged Estinien's soul, I argue that he could've fixed it. Probably not intentionally? But intent is unimportant in this case, and I don't have any evidence to either support or counter any claims of intent..

Now, this is much more Headcanon-territory than a lot of what I've said before, which I would consider pretty much canon. But in this HC territory, I believe that Estinien would not be nearly as functional as he was post-HW if his soul remained damaged as it was. The WoL sure wasn't doing too hot when their soul was fracturing. But Estinien recovered post-possession, and I would like to say that it was because Nidhogg's soul filled the cracks his Aether had created in Estinien's soul. Similar to how Ardbert's soul filled the cracks the Light Aether had created, except Nidhogg was both the problem and the solution instead of one or the other.

At the end of 3.3, we can see Nidhogg's soul, or something that looks like it, rise from Estinien's body and dissolve in the air. Nidhogg as we knew him was then gone. By pure canon, it looks like Nidhogg's soul completely left. But for tge sane of some fun HCs, what if a few tiny pieces of him stayed behind? If, as I proposed, they stayed to fill the cracks and fix the damage that had been done to Estinien's soul and aether? As Y'shtola and Krile discussed earlier, the souls of dragon and man were tangled in a way they worried might not be possible to separate. So what if most of Nidhogg left, but not all? An imperfect separation, if you will. Enough of Nidhogg having left that the elezen who remained would call himself Estinien, as he had always been and still was Estinien, but had a few fragments of Nidhogg so deeply entwined in his being that he didn't regard them as "other"? Not Nidhogg and Estinien as two conscious beings in one body, but the lone being Estinien who has pieces of Nidhogg so well- or near-seamlessly integrated or blended with his own being that even if he recognizes some thoughts or feelings as originating in the part of him that was once Nidhogg, they don't come from some separate consciousness. Just a thought he'd have that he could identify as being more of a Nidhogg thought, but he'd think and feel is all the same, and the voice and feeling would be in essence his own.

The Great Patch 5.5, A.K.A. The Other Quote That Made Me Lose My Mind

"Nidhogg is a part of me. I feel his emotions as my own."

There. There it is. Confirmation from the man himself. I don't even know what to say about that other than look at it. Now, it's important to note phrasing here. He doesn't say "I am Nidhogg." He doesn't say "His emotions are my own." It's that Nidhogg is a part of him, and he feels Nidhogg's emotions as or like his own. He's still Estinien. Not Nidhogg. He still thinks of Nidhogg as someone else, separate from him,, so there's still a distinction...somewhat. But functionally? Considering how deeply they're connected and how much Estinien bows to those feelings? Not really.

Whether or not it's a fragment of Nidhogg's soul that has remained with Estinien, something has stayed behind. Memories, feelings, aether, something. And it isn't just a throwaway line - his conversations with Tiamat and Vrtra just hammer this in. He has specific ideas of how dragons should act that clearly aren't just what some dragonslayer turned dragon-friend would think. Actions befitting a great wyrm are something that only another great wyrm can and should comment on. And his facial expressions (or the zooms that just barely cut off his eyes...) when talking to the First Brood and to the residents of Ultima Thule (the remnants of the Dragonstar) show how deeply he cares and how he's impacted by them. More than just a guy who now cares about dragons would. It's Nidhogg's emotions rising to the top, but so integrated with Estinien's that I don't think he feels that much of a difference. Maybe he can tell which part of him they come from, whether it's the Estinien part or the Nidhogg part who they probably originated in, but does it really matter? They're his feelings now, and it's hard to ignore them. It doesn't matter who is at the core, or what part - Nidhogg or Estinien - they might have come from. They're his. One. Not two shoved in the same body. Nidhogg's emotions are his own. And throughout Endwalker, I really saw it. There was a lot of pain and grief there. More than the other Scions showed. And while Estinien says it himself up above: "I've not a heart of stone," the others don't have stone hearts either. So for him to seem so much more bothered by all the things happening to the dragons...that's definitely Nidhogg showing right there. The Nidhogg that is now a part of Estinien, but will never forget its past or its family or all the love it had for them all.

In Summary

I've done a whole lot of rambling here just to say: I firmly believe that within canon, Estinien and Nidhogg's souls were once at least partially merged, and even though Nidhogg's soul has departed, many of his memories and feelings have remained behind with Estinien. Canon doesn't give any explicit evidence that this soul-merge lasted post-3.3, as shown by Nidhogg's ghostly form dissipating post-FSoF.

Regardless, the parallels are there. Just as the comment about "my eyes" could be seen as referring to Estinien's eyes, as something that was a part of Estinien, or Nidhogg's eyes, as something that was once a part of Nidhogg. They are in effect synonyms, though not quite. Metonyms? Also doesn't quite work. But hopefully you get what I mean - a sort of blended interpretation. He can tell where Nidhogg ends and he begins if he thinks about it. But from time to time that line is blurred subconsciously. Nidhogg is a part of him. And at times, that part doesn't feel so foreign or separate anymore. Because it's him too.

To get into more Headcanon territory, I would like to believe that part of Nidhogg's soul has remained with Estinien. That soul helped fix the damage done by Nidhogg's overpowering Aether. Estinien knows that he is not Nidhogg, in that Estinien does not think that he was once Nidhogg in the past, but instead thinks that he's a man who carries on Nidhogg's legacy and should honor it. There are, however, certain points at which Estinien does not make a distinction between the two of them. This is a subconscious thing. He probably thought nothing of saying "my eyes" instead of "the eyes" or "Nidhogg's eyes" or anything any less possessive. I think of it in the same way he might mourn the loss of a sibling - it would be, in an offhand comment, about both Hamingant and Ratatoskr. He would have specific stories about Hamignant, of course, and might be more likely to talk about his lost younger brother than a dead wyrm that was once a younger sister. Hamignant's would be a potent loss, and he wouldn't confuse or necessarily equate Hamignant's murder with Ratatoskr's murder. (Though I will say another headcanon of mine is that every year on the anniversary of Ratatoskr's death Estinien feels a grief the likes of which he's never felt. Nidhogg felt. And he felt for a thousand years. That grief would be passed on to Estinien more than anything else.) So if you asked him what it felt like to lose a sibling he'd recall both the rage at Ratatoskr's loss and the sorrow at Hamignant's, but then speak of Hamignant, who was his true brother, as opposed to Ratatoskr who...wasn't really his sister. Except...

Final tl;dr, Endwalker I love you. There were some Estinien moments I didn't love that much but then there were ones like this that made me lose my mind so. Yeah. My eyes. My eyes. Ahhhhhh I've wanted to talk about this since like December 5th... it's so good.