#otherwise known as ‘aymeric’s horrible terrible no good very bad day’

[potassium-pilot]

FFXIVWrite2022 Day 6: Onerous

Though he wasn’t sure who allowed it, it was morning in Ishgard, and Aymeric would simply have to deal with it. Halone preserve him, he didn’t want to get up, not when his bed was warm and soft and had the love of his life sleeping in it soundly. He could even hear the forceful winds of a blizzard rushing through the streets, and he would have to leave his own home to deal with that? Sometimes, it was easier when he just slept in his office when Dia would be on a sojourn to save the world, and it seemed especially so this morning. Alas, time and weather were sadly out of his control, and so Aymeric rose to face the day.

One session of quietly fighting his armor later to avoid waking Dia, he was dressed and on his way downstairs where his steward greeted him with some breakfast he knew he would have to grab and eat on the way to the Congregation and, with a quick thank-you, did just that. Upon nearing the door, he pulled up the hood on his cloak, and took a deep breath in and out to ready himself to brave the cold.

Upon arrival to the Congregation, he was immediately greeted by Handeloup. “Good morning, Lord Aymeric.”

“Good morning, Ser Handeloup. Pray, tell me of our morning.”

“You have three guests awaiting you claiming they all have appointments with you.”

“Mognifeau, Lariaie, and Chifunaud, I presume?”

“Most likely, my lord. I can’t say I know the faces of any of those characters. Afterwards, your assistant in the House of Lords sent by a stack of paperwork to file before your next meeting, where she also mentioned your presence being required for more appointments, though I suspect she would know better than I.”

“Thank you, Handeloup.”

“Oh, and the quarterly budget has been drafted for your review and approval, and you and I are due to talk promotions for the year.”

“Of course. Come by once you have a moment and we can discuss these matters.”

Handeloup saluted and stepped away while Aymeric continued onto his office. Mognifeau, Lariaie, and Chifunaud were absolutely the last trio of people he wished to discuss anything with, but he had little choice. Not when he relies so heavily on them for training strategies. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad, but they all love the sounds of their voice so, especially when they decide to bicker in the middle of an official meeting, forcing him to play mediator in whatever silly dispute they come up with during a meeting with the highest of command.

“Good morning, Lord Commander!” The trio greeted.

Just get through this one meeting, and you’ll be fine, he thought.

What could have been contained within a half-bell became an hour and a half long, which is why he always blocked out two hours for that particular group and rushed them out of the office as politely as he could. From there, he started in on the pile given by his assistant Blisaie, including budget reviews for the whole of the city-state, farm reports for food supply, and far more exciting material that continued until his next appointment, barely having made any headway in the work he started.

He used the aetheryte from the Forgotten Knight to The Last Vigil and ran up the stairs to his office where three people waited outside with his assistant.

“Good morning, my lord”, Blisaie greeted, “You have 3 appointments, one with the leader of the Ishgardian botanists, one with the leader of House Manseauguel, and one with Lord Francel.”

“Good morning, everyone”, Aymeric greeted, “I believe my first appointment was with you, Lord Francel. Please, follow me.” Aymeric opened his door and allowed him passage and Francel took a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. In his arms were papers with all sorts of information not only on the Firmament Restoration efforts itself, but with the popularity of Empyreum with the adventurers, many of whom helped rebuild the Firmament in the first place.

Ranging from the pleasant meeting kept nice and tidy with Lord Francel to being yelled at by an angry farmer from the Sea of Clouds settlement for lacking tools, all in all, he used his time accordingly, with just enough to make it the House of Lords session comfortably when Lord Charlemend entered. “Good day, Lord Speaker.”

“Good day. I’m afraid I haven’t long to chat before session.”

“Not to worry, this won’t take long at all. In short, Ser Vaindreau’s Grace is in critically short supply, and I would like your support to ensure a prompt and plentiful shipment of supplies. While Mistress Sito has been quite helpful in procuring smaller supplies, much more vital equipment is wearing and needs to be replenished.”

“Dia has been helping you procure supplies?”

“Not just procure, my lord. She creates them seemingly out of thin air. She’s been a boon to Ser Vaindreau’s Grace, but even Dia cannot provide what we need here.”

It did, in fact, take long. So long that Aymeric had to sprint to make it on time, doing everything in his power to keep everything organized on his person while Charlemend simply waltzed in casually to take his seat about five minutes late to session. After debating a measure to increase airship routes to Radz-at-Han, agreeing that it would be up to Vrtra in the end to review their proposal, and introducing a sudden and Durendaire-backed measure to fund increased medical supplies, the measures was tabled until the next scheduled session. Aymeric dismissed the meeting, releasing all the lords to go back to their business while Aymeric had a meeting he had long waited for in the Congregation.

“Oh, Lord Speaker!” One of the lords representing the Jeweled Crozier appeared and asked, “Might I have a moment of your time?”

“Oh, well…”

“Ah, I’m glad we found you, Lord Speaker!” Another lord walked towards him with his son, who worked in the House of Commons as an assistant to the Commons Speaker.

“Lord Speaker!”

“Lord Speaker!”

“Ser Aym- Lord Speaker!”

Thus did crowds of expectant people come up to him who all desperately needed his attention for some matter or another, and who was he to refuse? He created this system in the first place, he thought, so he should take care of what would be needed of his fellows in the House of Lords and Commons. After herding all of them to his office and tending to each one individually, the swarm seemed to slowly fade and eventually, he had a moment for himself.

Lunch time.

There was an extra spring in his step as he walked back to the Congregation for the far more pleasant part of his day. Just as he entered, however, he noticed that the one he would be dining with was nowhere to be found in the lobby. She did have a tendency to let herself into his office every now and again, so he walked towards it and opened his door.

He showed himself his own empty office.

Aymeric walked back out to the lobby and approached Handeloup. “Ser Handeloup”, he called.

“Lord Aymeric”, he saluted.

“Pray, did Dia come by at all?”

“Yes, my lord. She arrived when you were scheduled to have lunch three hours ago.”

“Three hours?!” Aymeric gasped as he fumbled for his pocket chronometer to confirm what his commander just told him, and to his credit, he was correct. He read 3:00 PM.

Halone save me, I stood her up, he thought.

“She would have waited for longer, I bet, but Mistress Hilda requested her aid for something related to the Skysteel Manufactory, and believing you had more important things to take care of, went off to do just that”, Handeloup explained.

The way he phrased that last bit made Aymeric raise an eyebrow in suspicion. “Is that supposition or did she say that?”

“That you had more important things to worry about? Yes, that is what she said.”

Aymeric, doing his best to keep his self-hatred contained, asked firmly, “What were her exact words?”

Handeloup took a moment to think and remember exactly what was said, then answered, “Mistress Hilda approached her and asked for her aid. After that, Dia contemplated, then told her, ‘I may as well. I’m sure Aymeric has more important things to worry about than me.’”

His heart sank. Not only did he stand her up, he hurt her too. After thanking Handeloup, Aymeric slunk back into his office and fell back into his chair as though he weighed a tonze. After a deep and centering breath, he did what he could to place that aside and focus on some work when a knock came at the door.

“Enter.”

It creaked open and Handeloup entered. “Forgive me, my lord. I know that I just broke some sad news to you, but…we still need to review the budget. ‘Tis still a necessary duty to perform.”

After a breath in and out of his nose, Aymeric replied calmly, “Agreed. Present it to me, if you would.”

Handeloup pulled out the stacks of paper and placed them on his desk, then sat across from him to begin the review. Before the Ilsabard Contingent was formed, this was performed by Lucia and not Handeloup, but shortages where they are, Handeloup graciously agreed to take on her role while she’s away. They spent the hour buried deep in numbers and debates over where certain things could be cut or expanded, only to spend another hour debating performance reviews and who deserves what position if there should even be a vacancy. Once it was done, Handeloup stood up and saluted to leave.

There, Aymeric sat back and pondered for a moment. Albeit, a short moment, because what he pondered was, “Should he take his work home?” and what he answered rather quickly was “Yes.” He gathered what he needed, and made the trek back home. It was still a blizzard outside, which made him glad he decided on the manor, because of all the places he would rather be snowed into, the last place was the Congregation. Hood up, he huddled into himself as he rushed home to escape the cold.

He approached the manor and opened the door to enter as quickly as possible. Once the door was closed, his steward Angelbert came by to greet him before moving out of his way so he could change. Up the stairs, he removed his pauldrons and everything down to his smallclothes and put on a blue sweater and some black slacks with slippers. If we was going to keep working in his home, he would do so in comfort.

It hit him once he finished, however. Dia was nowhere to be seen, neither in his room, nor in the parlor on his way upstairs. He climbed back down and approached Angelbert, who was placing a cup of tea and a plate of food down on his table, and asked him, “Angelbert, has Dia come home?”

“Yes, my lord, but I’m afraid I’m not able to tell you where in the manor she’s gone. My most sincere apologies.”

“Naught to forgive, Angelbert. Thank you.” The elderly steward bowed and left the room, leaving Aymeric to sit alone. Yes, the work needed to be done. Yes, the people needed him. Yes, he knew all this. But he sat back, and told himself, “If I should seek re-election, I can only hope someone will be kind enough as to toss me into a sanitarium.”

It was then that he felt two gentle hands lay on his shoulders and start rubbing them with a green magical healing glow. “I’ll make sure the Conjurers take great care of you”, Dia said softly into his ear.

Doing the exact opposite of what she expected him to do, he stood up and stared back at her in shock. “Dia!”

“Hi”, she greeted with a smile, leaning into the back of the settee.

“Please, forgive this fool for skipping our lunch time. I was careless in the Vault and completely lost track of time, and-and… ‘Tis easy for me to get carried away in my work, but—“

“Relax, my darling, relax”, she approached him and placed her hands once again with a green healing glow. “For whatever reason, I fell in love with one of the busiest people I know, and with that, I accepted that there would be times where work needs to come first. I helped dismantle the old, so I let you focus on the new. For the good of all of Ishgard.”

Aymeric bowed his head. “I don’t want you to ever believe that I think you beneath my work. You’re just as important to me as anything I do in that office, in the Vault, anywhere. Mayhap more.”

“Mayhap?”

“Every now and again, I wonder why I go to such lengths, and how I could possibly go on. Then I think of you. The sacrifices you’ve made, the time we spend together. It reminds me that if you can boldly face the end of creation, even at the cost of your life, I can- and must- continue to put forth my best effort. As you said, we dismantled the old. As I once told you, I owe it to my people to see this change to its very end. I can only hope that when my time is through, you will still be there, and I will find my rest with you. Though I sought change with no thought of reward to myself initially, when I ultimately give up the seat of Lord Speaker, I would take great pleasure in sharing a changed Ishgard with the most important person in my life. I cannot do that if I continue to shirk my responsibility to you. You’re not deserving of that.”

Dia pounced him. Holding her close, he sunk into the settee while she continued to kiss him. Soon, she pulled away and reassured him, “You’ve shirked nothing. Not yet. Here, I had thought that I had been shirking my own responsibility to you. I’ve been going off on adventure after adventure, sometimes having left for days at a time with no contact, and here I thought you deserved better.”

Aymeric laughed. “I never thought that for a second.”

“So we’re in agreement. We’re worrywarts.”

“We’re worrywarts.”

She gave him a quick kiss and said, “And I would be happy to share this improved Ishgard with you, and so many other days.” Dia stood up and went behind the settee again, preparing the same healing rub on his shoulders. “Now, if I should catch you worrying further, I shall simply have to massage you deeper until I completely incapacitate you.”

“Mmm, how cruel of you”, Aymeric remarked facetiously.

“There is one thing for which I won’t forgive you, though.”

That made him tense up. “What would that be?”

“Did you not eat lunch at all then? Just because you missed our weekly lunch?”

Suddenly, his hunger hit him hard. “Ah…well…”

“Eat, damn you. I even made sure Angelbert brought you dinner here in case you would be working yourself to death.” She stopped massaging to let him grab his plate. “Let me grab my dinner from the kitchen, and I’ll join you.”

Aymeric watched her scamper to the kitchen with a smile on his face. He considered himself lucky that even when difficult days should rise that someone like her would be there with him, then and even after.