He supposes there is a narrative satisfaction he can appreciate in The Waking Sands being the gathering point for the remnants of this part of Thanalan. Elidibus and Lahabrea had more to do with the events that unfolded here than he did, but he has a passing familiarity with many locations even if he has not been there within a few thousand years. The picture built up in his mind from countless briefings on Garlemald's enemy movements differs greatly from the reality of the Silent King at night.
Once, he imagines it was rather picturesque. Bits of an old world jutting up into the new, massive tented rock held up by the most unlikely of stone pillars, carved by calamity and weather alike. The moon shining through the cracks in the rock, illuminating the water.
Now, the rock formations and ruins are so much rubble. Setting the massive Ragnarok down into the massive crater left by whatever abomination tore its way through here takes as little effort as setting it down into the desert. Like many of the locations they have visited, the aether here is wrong; the ground shifts and groans beneath their feet intermittently. Most of the abominations have moved onward, along with any wildlife, but there are a few spots nearby where he can feel the presence of twisted aether. He might not be able to see the creature itself, but that is in and of itself telltale: the odd blankness like there is naught but a void in that spot.
He engages with little to no conversation until they get onto the airship to the Waking Sands, intended to ferry any of those who cannot make the journey from the Sands by walking or carriage. The airship lifts from the Ragnarok's bay with a shudder and whine of her motor as she has every time before, protesting but bearing them with minimal fuss afterward.
The most fuss comes, as ever, from her driver himself.
"Not so much as a midge swarm upon the windshield," Nero mutters, dipping them down through the remnants of the tunnel leading toward the Waking Sands, rather than flying above. Emet-Selch grips the back of his own chair and refuses to sit even as the ship's nose tilts further to accommodate the incline, the walls incredibly tight around them. While he would rather there not be anything on the windshield, especially if he's going to take to showing off how the damned ship can maneuver around tight radiuses after Emet-Selch had voiced doubt upon their earlier trip. He understands the point being made, though. There was naught but rubble left in the Silent King where there had been life. Now, like so many areas, not even the insects remain, let alone anything else. He would almost prefer to have to snap away the beastkin blood instead, just for the sign of life.
"I shudder to think what route you would have taken if you could not see," Emet-Selch says mildly. "Given you decided to take the scenic route rather than the most efficient. I was certain they covered that in not one but several military classes."
They have not had the specific, outright conversation about who, in fact, he is. Most of Emet-Selch's biting observations and knowledge can be simply chalked up to being a friend of the Warrior, who travels everywhere and knows everything. The grace he is given by virtue of being around the Warrior, the Traveler, is the same as it ever is. He takes it for granted less now, even if the trust is not quite the same. Nothing is.
Nero sneers at him with no hint of deference or respect. Emet-Selch appreciates the derision all the more if Nero does suspect his identity; it is so much less tedious than Varis' stone-walling and sulking. "You may consider complaining about my flying when I do something other than navigate us perfectly through any nightmare the two of you point her at."
The statue in the center square of Vesper Bay lists dangerously to the side but has not toppled; it would have been easier to simply knock it over and park the airship there, but Nero settles her delicately on the docks instead, loath to do any destruction when so much has already been wrought. Foosteps clack against the metal floor of the airship from behind; Emet-Selch glances backward to find Viktor approaching and then turns back to watching what little of their murky surroundings he can see through the windshield while he pats his trouser pockets for the damned aetheric compass. At least the robes had massive pockets tailored to be unobtrusive. No one would trust or appreciate their old robes, or his Garlean ones, though, and so he wrests the plum-sized object free from his trouser pocket and concentrates.
However wretched he found using his sight during his period as Emperor, it is infinitely worse now. Not as miserable as those first few days on the shattered world Hydaelyn had birthed, nothing could compare to that horror and to compare aught to it would be an insult. But this is a different sort of awful. The Source is one of the least horrific to perceive; each of the individual shards' weaves of souls are like a piece of cloth with so much friction applied it becomes threadbare. The Source's are not quite so thin, but it makes the glaring pockets and holes formed by the massive amount of those dead all the more stark, a blanket with countless, massive holes punched into it.
With a snap, he manifests Viktor's map rather than holding his hand out for it, thumbing smudges of ink and spellwork across various points on the map until the smudges rearrange themselves into the number of survivors left over and their approximate locations. The majority inside the Waking Sands as agreed. Those with the most tenuous threads - injured, sick, unlikely to be able to make the arduous travel from their location, he marks with a noticeable shimmer of aether so Viktor's eye will be drawn to the rough approximate location. Areas in which it is likely he will encounter abominations are tinged with inky darkness until it seems as if smoke rises from the map itself.
The process is habit at this point. Emet-Selch passes the map back to Viktor and does not wait for him or Nero before making his way down the gangplank, smacking his knuckles against the dock button so it extends with a scream of rusted metal that Emet-Selch wrinkles his nose at and snaps those rusted nuts and bolts away too, because he will not hear that every time someone walks up and down the bridge. The furrow of his brow anticipating Nero's complaints about touching Cid's airship and changing any aspect of it seems to ward off most of the complaint; Nero keeps his complaining to muttering under his breath, which is fine.
Stepping out onto the dock, Emet-Selch tips his head upward, unable to see the moon or the stars. Nothing but the fat swells of clouds hanging thick above them, which is about when the raindrop hits him squarely in the eye.
"I thought Thanalan was supposed to be a desert," Emet-Selch complains just as the sky opens up over them. He would have complained even if it had not started raining, and Viktor probably knows that. The timing feels particularly irritating, though. The rubble will mitigate some of the mud, but the carriages' wheels will get sucked into the worst of it, and get stuck which will delay them further. This day is simply designed to frustrate him. A flick of his fingers places a handful of umbrellas by the dock, and a thoughtless shield above him mitigates the worst of the rain, sending it sloughing off around him in a circle. The same will form above Viktor once he steps outward. "I should have adequate time to create a road for the carriages before the airship fills, but do stress to whomever drives the carriages that if there is not a road I will be much less annoyed with them if they simply wait for me to finish rather than attempting to show off their driving prowess."
Nero, off to scavenge parts for the airship, sneers, makes a rude hand gesture at him and yanks an umbrella out into the storm.
Edited (srry 2 ur inbox lmao :() 2024-05-01 05:04 (UTC)
slapping the top of the door frame as i sprint into this thread
Each little trick plucks at something inside of Viktor, draws a bit of him away from himself. If he concentrates as it's wicked away, he can feel it, stretched and spun and passed through Emet-Selch's will, wool to fine thread, thread to a beautiful weave, where he loses track. Cause becomes effect, and the aether is no longer his.
Were circumstances different, were it someone else making little works of art from his essence, he thinks he may've liked the sensation -- the intimacy of it, being made into music by someone else. But Emet-Selch is not making music. He pulls from Viktor's aether for every little thing, as though he is an ocean of it, and while he is certainly more than he ever has been, with what little remained of the Mother Crystal left to him, Viktor is not endless.
And perhaps worse than merely being used up on such frivolous things, he cannot tell the intent behind all that plucking. Is Emet-Selch pointedly needling or is Hades merely being careless? He's given the man the benefit of the doubt from where they'd begun in Sharlayan, to Limsa Lominsa, Ishgard, and beyond, but...
Since Gridania, well, there is little grace left in him. Little of anything, if he's honest. Except for all the Light. He shouldn't've asked them to leave Thanalan for last. He should've been smarter, and he can't even curse the gods for his own foolishness anymore.
He cannot bear to watch as the Ragnarok swings through what is left of Horizon and into the ruins of Vesper Bay, of home. Keeps his back turned to it all, and lets himself get lost in the barbs that Emet-Selch and Nero trade until he simply must turn to join them. There is comfort, at least, in scraping up enough humor to at least toss insults. Better that than giving their present situation any more gravity.
Each of Emet-Selch's little spells is another notch in his nerves, though. He can't manage to salvage anything good in his mood, so he stays silent and avoids looking out the windshield until Emet-Selch is on the move, again. He follows, silent, right up to the bay door, and he freezes there at the top.
It is entirely too much like the aftermath of the Seventh Calamity, like the slaughter of the Waking Sands, and more than half again worse than both. Somewhere between his aether being made into bolts and umbrellas and a dozen horrid memories crashing over him, Viktor feels his throat start to squeeze shut. He touches his fingers to his lips, then the fabric of his robes, then speaks the first word he's said in hours, "Stop."
He'd meant it for himself, for his body, for the lightning coursing through his nerves, but--it doesn't quite come off that way. Viktor blinks the tears from his eyes, foregoes an umbrella, and forces himself to take three steps forward, down the gangplank, to the docks.
"If you now intend to remake whole r-roads as well--" he starts sharply, anger searing the edges of his words. But then, he's out in the rain, expecting to be soaked right away, and instead all that water domes away. The surprise shows too plainly on his face, eyes widening and words catching in his throat when he turns to stare at Emet-Selch. Viktor swallows before starting up again, a little softer, more even, "--Remember that you draw your aether from an ink-w-well, now. You must learn to do some th-things the hard way, I'm afraid, Emet-Selch. We cannot squander the aether we have on every little thing." After another steadying breath, he even manages a joke, "And if learning how to tie your own sh-shoes feels too daunting, you need but ask, and I will assist."
Water clings to his lashes until he blinks once, twice. With the steady patter of rain falling overhead, no dust rises up from beneath his footsteps to cover the edges of his trousers which means the enchantments to keep his clothes neat and tidy settle about his boots instead, preventing mud from sucking up against them. All of it is thoughtless, a repurpose of aether from one area to the next, the sort of easy magicks a child would learn to do, once.
On some level, he is grateful they are not stepping into another slaughter. Not because of any attachment he feels to these people - the Gridanians were not so different from Garlemald in some aspects and he did not even have to lift a finger to incite that reaction - but because he does not know how Viktor would have handled yet another catastrophe and has little to no desire to find out. Bad enough he had fumbled their arrival so drastically; foolishly, after so many successful endeavors with people surviving their destruction like insects, he had assumed. There are not enough people left for him to make that mistake again, but the fact it was made in the first place chafes.
In truth, the vitriol lingering in Viktor's tone is surprising. But then, perhaps this, too, should not be. Viktor is not Azem, even if he is the closest to Azem he has ever been. Constantly, Emet-Selch finds himself on the wrong foot with the other man, knowing he has over-stepped in some capacity or another but not understanding until after he has tripped the wire and set the bomb off. It is incredibly tiresome, but like all skills, it can be learned, and he has little choice but to learn them.
So, he stops. Tilts his head and looks over the damp fur and watery eyes and tries not to appreciate the faint glow radiating from the Warrior when he knows its cause.
"A road will take naught but a sliver of our combined energy, and will be significantly less tiresome than attempting to create new wheels for every unruly beast startled by a clap of thunder - or worse, any abominations which may cross our path." The decks go slick with rain so quickly, no one left to treat the wood. In moons he anticipates the decks will begin to rot, in less than three turns there will be little left but rotted, water-logged sticks jutting up.
What a waste.
"Rest assured, I am reminded every time I attempt to use any ability that my strength is no longer wholly my own." No longer is creation the simple, joyous art of twining aether with another and manifesting countless wonders. It is almost painfully boring, functional, none of the satisfaction of creation lingering in anything he makes. Not so different from Garlemald, he supposes. "Which did you find most objectionable? The umbrellas for the grieving masses to board Scaeva's ship? Ensuring the amount of time spent searching through rubble to find the dead instead of the living is minimal? Or do you take offense to the idea of simply reassembling the rubble where the Ragnarok sits? As entertaining as it might be to see carriages list to and fro, it is in our best interests to maintain as much of what we can and ensure it arrives in one piece to the First."
Barely, he resists making his point by removing the magicked umbrella above Viktor's head. Satisfying as making his point would be, he would look dreadfully pathetic waterlogged.
"I meant taking the m-mm--" Viktor starts, but doesn't quite get to the end of his thought. Somewhere between his brain and his tongue, things go wrong. His mouth simply refuses to shape sound properly, a problem he hasn't had to this excess since...well, since a moon crashed into the land. Since a sickness he now knows as a rejoining made a new hell of his Echo. After a sharply exhaled breath, he tries again, "Map. I meant my map. I would've handed it to you. And the ship's fasteners--I'm not sure that was necessary?"
There, he hangs, and for a few seconds the only sound between them is the near waterfall rush of rain patting against dirt and wood and stone. He loved that sound once, loved how standing beneath the karst pillars or at the city gates would change how densely it'd vibrate through you. How the cave and ocean would mingle their cool air and make the humidity more bearable in the midst of the occasional downpour. Now, it feels a little like Thanalan itself is lamenting the return of its failed hero.
But, no. No. He hasn't failed, yet. They are still alive, and they are making time, and it is...almost entirely possible because of Emet-Selch. The world yet needs the both of them, and it needs them working together.
Viktor sighs, slides both his hands over the back of his neck and pulls them up, dragging his fingers through his messy waves, then his long ears down into his face, over his eyes. He holds them there a beat before letting them spring back up again. "I'm...sorry. It's--this is my home. The apartment my mother and I lived in is...is one of the many piles of rubble we passed on the way in. And I--"
He halts again. It feels a little silly, explaining the unfathomably nauseating terror of watching the annihilation of your world to a man who has already watched the annihilation of his world. A man who, Viktor is nearly sure, sees him as little more than the painful fever dream remnant of something that was lost the first time this happened.
"The umbrellas were very thoughtful," he says instead, reminding himself to find the good. "Thank you. That...is what our aether should be used for. To comfort... to build roads."
.01 Nebulously SHB era | tfln | (LINK) .05 a few weeks before 01 | tfln | (LINK) 01, last ship out | Post SHB and Endwalker Elpis | (LINK) 02, bad dreams | a few weeks after 01 | (LINK) 03, blasphemy & binding | a few weeks (?) after 02 | LINK 03.5, day to day | a few days/weeks after 03 | LINK 03.75, late night calls | the evening at the end of 2.0 | LINK 04, til death do us part (temporarily) | LINK
[ Most adventurers do not sleep like the dead. Certainly not when they are also refugees of war and Calamity, and perhaps especially not when they are the sort of man who has built his entire life around being the first, last, and only line of defense against any possible threat.
Viktor sleeps light, ever moments from waking, and always a little tired the next morning. Which is perhaps why things start to blur...
Tonight, he dreams in the abstract, the images almost feverish. Light and dark and color all feeling. Red and red and red. Faceless people, familiar despite their lack, fill every scene, speak nonsense that he can nevertheless understand as fear he cannot assuage. Rough shapes give the vague impression of collapsing surroundings. And everywhere, flowers, and flowers, and flowers... or something like them.
Though it's barely coherent, the impression is certainly clear. Friends and loved ones, family and fellows, rent and turned monstrous. Shredded or melted, crushed or killed, the scene climbing brighter and brighter and brighter until Viktor's violet eyes flutter open...
He wakes in the dark with a start, silent, scared. Doesn't make a sound until he spies the form standing in the corner of the room, still as death and staring him down. Alphinaud, his brother, his boy, bent and broken and wrong, face blotted with so much red as to be featureless.
The sound that rushes from Viktor's lungs is as much wail as scream. But even that is cut short when his throat starts to close. He can't breathe. He can't breathe. Is he dreaming still? Drowning? He wheezes, gasps, fumbles with the sheets of his meager bed, grasping for purchase on something, anything, that might keep him safe, might save him.
What he finds is not within arm's reach. A familiar form a few scant rooms away, an old memory, deeper than marrow, of calling him in times of need.
Viktor needn't even handle Azem's crystal for this bit of magic. Calling Emet-Selch to his side comes as naturally as drawing his cane. He tangles his fingers in that familiar, steady, dark aether and gives a gentle, needful tug, pulling Hades from thither to hither with almost no effort at all. It's a split second of peace, of rightness, before his own mind, too, is brought back to the present, to his darkened bedroom, to his body rejecting all the things it needs to do to live, to the Alphinaud-but-not staring at him from the corner of the room. Viktor gasps in desperation, unable to speak. ]
[ the silence and time with his own thoughts in the aetherial sea was, initially, a relief. he could no longer fulfill his duty; that duty had passed onto different shoulders and now he could well and truly sleep. that they had to wait for viktor, for azem's soul to be returned to them even longer by virtue of his being a viera was annoying, but ultimately acceptable; being an adventurer threatened to split the difference anyway. at least viktor was working with more time than most, and emet-selch and hythlodaeus had all the time in the world until they did not.
now, he finds the silence unbearable all over again. bad enough it is a reminder of how poorly the last few moons have gone, but to be trapped with nothing but his own thoughts is borderline unbearable, especially when he lacks any meaningful ability to actually act on them. he can work his mind around the countless problems they are due to face, but for one reason or another it is not as if he can simply take the most obvious, easiest action available to him. no, there is a committee they must run it past, or it is too much energy to waste on such trivialities.
he builds his own space the old-fashioned way, trading and bartering and talking his way into what he wants, especially when the warrior is too conciliatory to ask for it himself. his extravagant bed, purchased with supplies to make fresh whipped cream brought from the source. the high thread count sheets traded for a handful of potions he'd found in the bottoms of someone's storerooms, the alchemist who brewed them long since gone, fading into whorls of smoke in the wake of emet-selch's greatsword.
the exception, as always, comes with viktor, who seems to deem garbing emet-selch his own personal task. this is not as frustrating as it perhaps should be; they are finely crafted and tailored with an unerring eye and detail to attention to fit his wants, specifically. his ties to the warrior grant him no small amount of grace, and he leverages every ilm, even more so when the warrior demurs any chance to do the same. consequently, he finds retiring to his quarters not wholly objectionable at the end of every night. a long soak in the bath, whatever books or plays he's managed to scrounge up from the latest jaunt into the pit of despair that is the Source.
that evening finds him nodding off earlier than usual, yawning his way through dinner, falling asleep in the bathtub and falling asleep a final time while reading the book, his tea long since gone cold by the bedside. one moment, he's burrowed under a weighted comforter (which cost a truly ungodly quantity of cobalt nails) dozing; the next, the spell that hooks its claws into him is so familiar he can almost forget it has been ages since its creator in whole used it on him.
he is in a bed- not his bed, but a bed nonetheless. sleep-stupid, emet-selch summons a mote of light to his fingertips thoughtlessly and pushes himself up to examine the other occupant. he wishes he hadn't so quickly. those aren't hythlodaeus' eyes, but it doesn't matter. for a moment - for a horrible moment, half-asleep the sight had been enough to make him think -]
Someone had better be dying. [ from the awful, choked gasp viktor (not azem, not hythlodaeus, viktor) lets out emet-selch wonders if they might be dying, and flattens his hand against viktor's chest, pushing him back into the pillows and blankets. underneath, his heart beats rabbit-fast. emet-selch smirks lopsidedly at the thought, giving the room a slow sweep to figure out why the energy in it feels so off. the smirk vanishes just as quickly, replaced with thin lips and a clenched jaw. ] I see. You'll forgive me for demanding forgiveness instead of permission.
[emet-selch digs into their shared magicks, finding the thread connecting viktor to the abomination standing in the corner and snips it, threading the loosened thread unto himself instead, finding it far easier to unmake the creature without fighting Viktor for the trouble. if he dares to squirrel away the aether from the nightmare given form, rather than letting it dissipate into viktor, well. ideally, he's not in any state to notice or mind.
his hand hasn't left its spot atop viktor's chest. ] Look at me.
[ In shallow, raking gasps Viktor's lungs struggle noisily, fruitlessly to pull in air. Emet-Selch is pressing him down and that, too, is a new terror. Touch hurting, burning, searing when it shouldn't, when it should be the only salve. He struggles at first, both hands grasping at Emet-Selch's wrist, trying to shove him away, but between his empty lungs and the screaming midge storm of his mind, it's too panicked, too aimless to free himself.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the shade of the boy he'd thought a son disappear. Somehow, seeing him blink away, losing him again, is even worse. A strangled sob works its way past Viktor's lips between still struggling breaths. He shuts his eyes tight against it all and thinks in one terrified moment, Emet-Selch is doing this. And if he does not escape, if he does not flee his grasp, leave this bed, and go, he will die.
Desire to struggle renewed, he closes both palms around Emet-Selch's wrist, much of his considerable strength as he can muster-- and then Hades's voice penetrates the storm: Look at me.
Viktor opens his eyes, wild and still frightened for the lack of air in his lungs, but pale violet finds gold, and that is something to focus on. He wrenches just enough stillness to take stock of his surroundings. Stiff and starchy cotton sheets, the First's cool, floral night air filling the room from an open window, the feel of Emet-Selch's palm against his bare chest. His wheezing slows. His lungs accept air. Viktor's grip relaxes. ]
I c-c-c- [ His mind and mouth rebel, refusing to shape words. His eyes, already glazed with panicked tears, well heavily with them now. He pulls in a still shuddering, but much steadier breath. ] Wh-what's happened?
[ He needs something, anything stilling, if even just to be pressed flat. Viktor still holds fast Emet-Selch's wrist with one hand, but frees the other to reach up, slender fingers grasping the fine charcoal fabric of his pajamas. There, he amends the thought -- not something, not anything, just... the one steady presence in his life, the one person who knows this horror -- and pulls. ]
Edited (wait i'm gonna make this gayer) 2024-05-07 16:47 (UTC)
[ he is not, strictly speaking, the best possible option for any sort of comfort, let alone that from night terrors. the easiest option is to destroy the creature or creatures created, cast an intensely heavy sleep spell on viktor, return to his room and then commandeer the next week of viktor's life for the most basic possible creation magic lessons.
emet-selch stares at viktor squirming like an animal with its leg caught in a trap, fighting fruitlessly against the steady weight of his hand despite the considerable strength behind his fighting, and doesn't do any of that. he waits the interminably long moments for viktor's breathing to go from tight and panicked to something more intentional. ]
I fear you would have to tell me, I was sleeping quite well until this. [ no, he knows. it is all too easy to put together a timeline in his mind of what happened, how. the most surprising portion of this is how long it took for such a thing to happen. he was a fool, letting the swell of viktor's power sit for too long untamed, assuming that because nothing had happened, viktor would simply have a command over powers far greater than him.
this territory is not unfamiliar, at least; both from garlemald - dealing with soldiers experiencing trauma, and from thousands and thousands of years ago, children creating manifestations of their night terrors. dealing with both, with either, is not something he is inexperienced with. that knowledge does not make this process easier. not when viktor looks up at him wet-eyed and grasping at him like he is here intentionally, not pulled here as a factor of those magicks going awry.
sleep charm, and return to your own room. the two easiest possible actions to take and yet he doesn't. the spell doesn't even have the good graces to manifest at his fingertips when he tries. it is, of course, because he is distracted- viktor tugs him down a moment later and unlike his futile attempts to lift the oppressive weight of emet-selch's hand, this is far more successful, his position precarious to begin with. emet-selch folds a little clumsily, sleep-tired and maybe hungrier for what viktor offers than he would ever acknowledge.
he can allow a moment. payment for services rendered. transactional. emet-selch braces one arm in the pillows and tries to ignore the scent of crushed flowers, the warmth of the form against him. thank the stars he's clad ankles to wrist in cloth. ] Will you - are you the Warrior of Light, or a bear trap. Move your arm. Describe the room for me.
There are times when Viktor wonders whether Emet-Selch's promised, "until I find myself satisfied with the results" will arrive. Usually, the thought comes on a rush of antsy exasperation, when whatever he's been set to making refuses to Be in the way that it should. Sometimes, though, it looms over his head, a foreboding loneliness; someday, this little scrap of busy joy you've lucked into will end. It is a shadow cast over those rare and brilliant moments when Emet-Selch's expression hints at something almost pleased.
Most of the time, though, Viktor barely thinks of that end point at all. Too easily is he lost in the rhythm of the routine, the way the act of Creation, when it works right, turns the ratking of his mind into carefully separated, pretty threads. Clarity, quiet. There are also more lessons to learn than he has lifetime, he reckons, which for any normal person might not be quite so comforting a thought, and yet.
He sits in Emet-Selch's open window, cross-legged and framed by flowers, cool lake air balanced by the morning sun's heat on his back. Today is one of those days where things are working right, where he thinks not at all about end points, enjoys the work, the smell of tea, the sound of Emet-Selch puttering about his room. Hades has him learning to leash his Echo into some semblance of order. Far and away, this is one of his least favorite tasks, even moreso than making water, but this morning, it is playing nicely.
Given the broken hilt of an epee to delve into with the assignment of wresting the details of the forge in which it was made, Viktor turns the thing round and round in his hands, focusing on its shape 'til he can make it in his mind. And once it's in his mind, it, like so much else, becomes but thread.
This is the hard part. Working up the courage to pick at individual strings, to look and learn and not get lost in the ride as he is so apt to do. Sometimes, if he is not careful, what he makes bursts open like a flower unfolding, and suddenly there are ten thousand more threads. And something more. Presences. Voices. Fourteen pieces, some still so far away, making up one whole. It is not a comfort.
Thankfully, though, today the epee does not bloom. Viktor grasps a gold thread on instinct, and finds the moment the blade was gifted to its original owner. With a push of his will, the story winds back, back, and back, to a shop lit orange-red, to pliers carefully bending the ornate basket into beautiful shape. He is about to step back, take in the smithy where the blade had been forged, when something goes wrong.
Like a sliver through the skin, something worries into the memory. It halts and Viktor's attention is wrenched away, through a terrible, blurred vision of violence, back to reality with jarring force. He inhales sharply, lets the broken hilt roll onto the window sil.
"Something is wrong," he says, before he is even sure that it is, already on his feet. Unthinking, he grasps the air, and where there had been nothing a moment before, suddenly his cane is in hand. Viktor does not seem to notice - he rarely does. These strange, involuntary places where he and Azem blur. "In the market."
The act of creation, the act of using any of his abilities, has not necessarily waned in the years, but he has had to mitigate its use to an extent, and the necessity has chafed, like ill-fitting robes. To limit himself in order to fit in those who do not know, do not understand he is their better, to be forced to pretend at being less than he really is. Death by a thousand papercuts.
The Crystarium, much as he hates to admit it, is different. One would not be able to wrest this information from him even under the worst sort of torture, but he knows it, and has a lingering worry that Viktor has picked up that it is, perhaps, not as terrible here as Emet-Selch might make it out to seem.
There are incredibly tedious points. There are people he does not like, and rather than simply arranging for them to be disposed of in due course he must, regrettably, deal with them on a semi-consistent basis. There is no easy avoidance when some of the most irritating people are established in points of bureaucracy, but even then - even then he finds it not nearly as miserable as countless other places he has been, that he has crafted. He has enough presence of mind to understand that it is because of the Warrior because they were not attempting to craft a nightmare country that would crumble under its own weight, its own greed, and its own societal issues Emet-Selch has spent a century curating.
But. But, there are snippets in the day where he almost forgets his loathing. Where the longing for what once was quiets momentarily, forgotten in the face of quiet pleasures like breakfast on the patio downstairs, where the chef remembers Emet-Selch's food preferences despite having no reason to. Little bits of kindness he repays, reciprocal because he will not owe any of them anything, but it results in more little bits of kindness he must reciprocate to stay even.
When he tires of the awareness of being out among the people, he retires to his room but even that has changed. What once was a quiet refuge with the certainty he would never see another soul within has become a space shared, as well. He does not find the change as distasteful as he perhaps wishes he did. It would be easier if he had shut this down at the pass- told Viktor he would stay in Viktor's room until he fell asleep and leave a familiar there to monitor. He did not, though, always finding it too difficult to say no to Viktor, and so now, like a particularly hardy weed, Viktor keeps popping up in the mornings and evenings.
It is...not wholly undesirable. His presence and Emet-Selch's larger room do not often conflict and it is not necessarily bad to have someone who he can speak to plainly, nearly the same way he did with Elidibus and Lahabrea at the end of their world and start of this one.
While Viktor works, Emet-Selch occasionally glances over with soul sight, tracing the same threads Viktor works his fingers over, like strumming an instrument or winding a spindle. He might not see the same thing at the end of those threads, but every so often, there is a bit of thread that has a familiar sheen, a weapon, or a trinket whose owner Emet-Selch distantly recalls, and he wonders what it is Viktor sees there. Partway through misting some of the more persnickety plants who will not be happy with a normal watering, Emet-Selch feels the air shiver, as if all of the oxygen has been stolen and time stands still. He knows this feeling. He's felt it too many times before and fears he will feel it too many times in the future if they live to see that long.
"Here," he grits out, not in disbelief, but raw, furious resignation. Here, even here. The bit of survival at the end of the world they have managed to carve out is not enough, and they are on borrowed time. He is not, strictly speaking, in gear fit for battle but that is easy enough to change with a thoughtless snap, greatsword hung heavy upon his back. "We shouldn't walk."
A portal yawns open in the center of Emet-Selch's room, and he doesn't wait for Viktor to rise up before he steps through.
Beneath the dome of Musica Universalis, the air turns rancid, chokingly still. Seconds stretch in excruciating stillness, 'til a half-human moan, agonized, rises up to join the burning oil smell of shredded aether. Crystal rattles as the massive, tormented creature takes its first tumbling, baleful step.
The first scream comes after that, then another, then the shattering of ceramic as a shelf topples over and people scatter.
A moment later, space bends, and Emet-Selch's portal opens. He is through first, but Viktor is right behind, sprinting up and past, light on his feet, toward the horrid thing bent into monstrous shape just past the marketboards.
The monstrous thing, the blasphemy, turns its mournful gaze and many-toothed maw toward a young dark haired man toppled onto his back beside it, and-
"Emmanellain!" Viktor reaches out, one gentle tug, and aether tethers 'round the fallen Elezen. Pulls. Emmanelaine de Fortemps skids abruptly across the market floor, arriving into Viktor's waiting arms a second later. Just in time for his own aether to start to broil. "Emmanellain. Focus. Look at me. Who—who was it?"
Emmanellain whimpers back helplessly, half-crazed, half-agonized himself.
His aether burns. And Viktor, unsure of what else to do, near smashes their heads together, forehead to forehead, holding him close. His eyes glaze as he realizes what Emmanellain is trying to say.
Fury, rage unlike he's felt since first being pulled to Norvorant years ago bubbles up inside of him, soft kindness swallowed up in swelling anger. "You cannot fall, too. You will not. Do you hear me?" Viktor shakes him, hard, and, somehow, the smoking aether stops. "Go. Hold yourself together at least 'til you've gotten others to safety. Hide. We will mourn him after."
Viktor releases Emmanellain and stands, and the capricious Elezen, having been given an order he simply cannot refuse, he grabs the nearest merchant and joins the effort in getting away.
But not everyone flees. From the tavern, armed adventurers arrive, weapons drawn, ready to engage. And from the west, Lyna and her guard.
"Oi, big ears!" the dwarf, Giott, a little drunk already at this early hour, is the first of these newcomers at Viktor's side. "What's the damage?"
Viktor looks to Emet-Selch, tears welling in his eyes. The two of them could handle this alone, but—
But Edmont de Fortemps deserves an honorable death. But the people need to know that they can fight this horror.
"Think of it a Sin Eater, but red. Give it a proper send-off." He scrapes into the ocean of their aether, turns energy to Light and Transcends. Lily white wings, as much flower petal as feather, unfold brilliantly at his back. The stagnant air swirls with the scent of tall grass and honeysuckle, nature reclaiming death. White Magic turns from comfort to command: Be not afraid.
"Join us if you can fight. Stand behind us if you cannot."
Edited (phone tagging dangereux. apparently it hates the name Fortemps ) 2024-05-21 02:47 (UTC)
black mages get buffs/shields now bc he's also tank. it's fine. dw about it.
The question is not will they win, the question is how many will they lose to death and despair before they successfully kill whoever has lost the most recent battle. There are far too many seasoned adventurers at this point for there to be any real risk of battle being what slaughters everyone.
As Viktor wrests Emmanellain to safety and the fool staggers off, safe to mourn and grief and be obnoxious another day. Would that he had been the one lost instead of the Count. Emet-Selch held no affection for the man - by all rights, it was Edmont's fault they were in this mess. If he hadn't written that damned book- but he did. And they are. And Emet-Selch knows that's not truly where the fault lies no matter how eager he is to lie blame anywhere else.
Viktor does not send away the other adventurers, and the crowd is at least somewhat fleetfooted when it comes to getting out of the immediate danger zone; they could handle it, but what better way to try and combat the despair than letting them fight it. Catharsis and solution all at once. They will have to manage the rumors afterward - religious fervor in particular, but Viktor's made the best choice available, and Emet-Selch turns to work.
The wards, which were supposed to prevent anything unwanted from getting in but did little good when that something came from within, he repurposes around where they are right now. He drags a corner of the spellcraft down like a sheet, tucking it in where adventurers end and bystanders begin, a shimmering line dividing this portion of the Crystarium off. He cannot do much about those who might be stuck on various floors, though. Surveying the group remaining, Emet-Selch grabs a bard by the arm, gesturing to the line. "Follow this with your hand, and send anyone you meet along its line to the other end of the Crystarium. This floor and any others, mind."
He feels the peloton go off an instant later, already turning toward a wet-eyed Viktor. He has spent no small amount of time envisioning rubbing Azem's nose in the mess he'd been left with, in the horrors that came one after another while the three of them barely had time to catch their breath. Look what your Mother spared you from but left us to suffer. Hydaelyn had sundered Aepymetes, but that meant sparing him the reality of this world, and the envy sitting in Emet-Selch's chest had turned all too easily toward anger.
Now, Viktor has seen no small amount of what Emet-Selch has once before, and he finds no pleasure in it. No desire to grab Viktor by the nape of his neck and make him look at the mess made like an ill-trained housepet. They can easily put on a show to prove the beasts can be slain together, to discourage any others from turning, to beat back a little of the despair that has already started to take root. Next to him, Cylva cuts him a little look, decidedly human save for the flash of sharp teeth he sees for an instant.
"I trust you've kept your claws sharp too," Emet-Selch murmurs, deserving the shoulder check he gets from her as she stalks past and proves she has, in fact, kept her claws quite sharp even in this lesser form.
Underfoot a circle forms, staff fitting itself to his hand with barely a thought. Rather than attempting to end this in a handful of shots he reaches for the aether Viktor has already changed, laced throughout the air and steals a little for each of the adventurers here, a thick shield of aether layered across each of them.
Only once he's certain a blow from the wailing beast won't take one of the adventurers out instantly does he dare join the fray properly. He tugs free a fistful of magic from their well just as Viktor blooms. When Emet-Selch slings the fireball he can feel how different it is; it cracks open wetly against the leg it had impacted and then splits like a crushed seed, dribbling fire that spreads down the leg like roots until they tether against the ground, burning even as they hold.
"That hold will not last long," Emet-Selch calls to Viktor, undeniably pleased the little bit of spellwork had worked that well. Flowers bloom on the beast's leg and pulse new waves of fire in time with each of Viktor's strongest pulses of white magic.
When Emet-Selch exhales, fog rises from his lips despite the moderate temperature indoors. The staff angled as a guide, one adventurer pulling another from its path when they're too slow to notice, Emet-Selch summons frost in the form of a blanket of icy moss crawling across the ground underneath the Blasphemy's foot. "And mind where you step hero- ah, pardon. Heroes."
[ it feels good to be some sort of whole again, not that he expected anything different. he hadn't realized just how parchment-thin he felt until regaining full access to the Underworld, soaking up the residual aether which had gathered there, nowhere else for it to go, no one else having ventured in to thieve it. small blessings; emet-selch didn't relish the idea of some foolish Sharlayan scholar deciding to test their spellwork and attempt to get down there, siphon a little bit of it off.
the aetherial realm is his once more, with it comes a duty he has not partaken in, in thousands of years. when hydaelyn took her place as arbiter of the aetherial sea, emet-selch had not fought her. his duty, the shape of it and his execution of it, had changed. one day, he would take his rightful place once again, but until then he was content enough to allow her to maintain his domain. for all the issues and lack of trust he had with venat in the wake of her choice, she did not do it to spite their people, she did it because for some starforsaken reason, she believed it best. the souls in her care - save for the warriors of light - were well cared for. the sea was maintained if shaped in her image.
emet-selch spends the first three days tearing everything she has built. gone are the crystal walkways tinged blue, little faux-amaurot flourishes like a mockery of what once was, twisted like they were viewed through a cracked mirror. he builds a dock for the boat viktor has crafted, rather than risk viktor coming down here and simply swimming across. most tedious, is the fact that hydaelyn splitting the shards meant splitting the aetherial realms, too. it is barely a trifle to duplicate his work across those that are left, but it is irritating to suffer the reminder all the same.
he still attends meetings he is required to, still teaches viktor in the mornings, but no longer is he consistently within the crystarium. when the underworld is arranged back to his liking - not finished, but at least not infuriating to look at - emet-selch seeks out his friends.
he ushers the remnants of their souls into the inky darkness of tartarus to recover, and feels a little of the weight slough off bit by bit as he repeats with those of them who have passed on, who hydaelyn kept separate from aught else after their passing. were he to read Her actions charitibly, he would say She left them for him, because they were always more his than they were Hers. uncharitably, She had removed inconvenient pieces from their chessboard, knowing emet-selch would not venture down here so long as She owned it.
he seeds asphodel meadows with the countless flowers he has gathered along the journey he and viktor took to rescue those who could be rescued, bits of countless pieces of architecture he pulls from memory. the meager quantity of souls he had managed to rescue makes it feel emptier than he necessarily likes, but it is a comfort of a sort as well - there are enough alive up above, those they have managed to save, that to find below lacking is not wholly objectionable.
the scions, viktor's friends and allies, those souls he cares most for, or who emet-selch remembers being particularly irritating and incorruptible over the years, he places in Elysium. here, he plants the flowers he remembers, lacking seeds for most of them, relying on raw creation magicks, which he can do now with barely the faintest thought. there are even fewer souls here, especially when scattered across the shards, far too many sacrifices borne over the last few months. before any of them can too clearly look at him, emet-selch builds a handful of cities familiar to them with the same amount of effort as it takes to make a cup of tea, and then pauses, partway through adjusting the tiling on this area of Radz-at-Han's replication. he cannot recall if the tiling was blue, purple, or red in this specific area, and the fuzziness in his memory is terrifically annoying.
just because he does not need viktor's approval, so to speak, on the use of magicks, does not mean he does not feel it when viktor starts weaving, countless little tugs like someone inching a blanket onto their side of the bed. down here, he has little to no concept of time - he's forced to set a chronometer to ensure he does not lose track too easily. tugging it out, he scowls at the bell reflected. the middle of the night, then. a nightmare. and he will not be in his rooms, in case viktor goes hunting for him.
nipping in to see if he requires assistance and leaving the moment it is resolved is not a wholly awful plan and so emet-selch steps through one rip, and within viktor's room, suddenly the air rips open with a wet gasp and emet-selch steps through, thoughtless, scanning the room for -
the portal slips shut and stupidly, emet-selch wishes he had held it open, had waited before stepping through because he knows that shadow, that shade. it is not him, not truly, but for a wretched, horrible moment emet-selch wonders. creation from memory was easiest; creation without was not wholly impossible, but significantly more difficult even for skilled manipulators of aether. the question of which applies here sticks like a thorn in his boot. thus far, viktor has summoned and tended to whatever creatures he has made at night and emet-selch has not investigated, but the length of time this one has lingered gave him pause. now he has something of an answer, and even more questions.
the air tastes sour. emet-selch breathes a fortifying breath in through his nose, and focuses on viktor, decidedly, not the thing wearing aepymetes' form. ]
[ Managing an ocean of aether had been strange enough. Now, Viktor feels as though he's been set into something fathomless, almost cosmic. There seems to be no end to it, neither in space nor time. It is ancient and new, everything and nothing, terribly final and full of promise. Right away, he finds himself adrift, ill-prepared to navigate it all, and unwilling to reach out to the one man who might be a lifeline.
Which is the other problem. In a move he still hasn't decided wasn't foolish, he has found himself wholly and willingly knit up in another soul. Their weave had been strong before, but now...
Now, when he is quiet, when he focuses, he thinks he can feel the steady patter of Emet-Selch's heart set against his own. It is not just the thrum of pulled threads he feels when spellwork is done, but the way Emet-Selch's mind moves to hook strings into knots, turning stitches into braids, making his lovely weaves in that vast underworld he now commands. Gods, Viktor hopes it is a figment of his imagination. He hopes he is just going mad from lack of sleep. He hopes Emet-Selch does not feel the same things.
Though, even if he does, Viktor doubts he cares much.
Maybe it is the aforementioned lack of sleep, but Viktor cannot help but find it darkly funny. The whole of his adult life he's been afraid only of being discarded and abandoned. Spent his time leaving before being left, made himself available, but impermanent. And all the while, he's dreamed of a soul who might plunge into him and knit him in place, adore him the way summer flowers do the sun. One who would love him into loving himself.
So, what does he do? Wraps his very being up with a man who only tolerates him. Who uses him, openly. Is repulsed by his touch. One who's left the land of the living to spend his days building a kingdom for the dead.
Some honeymoon. Darkly funny.
Viktor manages, though. Finds wider distances lessen that probably-very-illusory feeling of Emet-Selch's lungs echoing against his own. And so, he too keeps himself away, returning in the morning for lessons, and then finding a day's worth of tasks in the field. Getting the work is not difficult, at least.
Feo Ul and the Pixies take up much of his time at first. It is a multi-day process, getting them all to listen to begin with, and then negotiating the expansion of their dream patrols. An extra bastion against the sort of creeping despair that comes at night. All the while, Titania is relentless in their invitations to shake off the most boring man on the star and become the Pixie King's consort instead. Somehow, Viktor is not tempted, though it does not stop him from flirting with the possibility at least a little.
After that, it's meeting with the nu mou to discuss the storage of aether with beings who won't ask too many questions, then a trip to the Empty, to see how un-empty it has become. Ryne and Gaia still work tirelessly to restore their world, unbothered by the knowledge that it might all be undone. Their ambition steels his own resolve, but his body wavers. Across three days, Viktor sleeps just a hair over nine bells.
Each time he dozes, something stirs and takes form. Wakes him. Sometimes monsters, sometimes people, all of them easily undone after weeks of practice. It is when he slips into deeper sleep and dreams that things become difficult. The dreams are never good, first of all, but, night after night, he makes the same strange shade. And night after night, he unmakes it, fast as he can - because each time it reappears, it stands a bit closer, manifests a bit more clearly, whispers a bit louder.
None of the others spoke, before.
It is at the foot of his bed tonight, long slender fingers wrapped around the baseboard as it leans over, closer, as if trying to get a better look. Viktor's breath catches in his throat as he stares at the thing he's made. A man, terrifyingly, willowy tall, wild mane of dark corkscrew curls hiding his features, save a pretty mouth that moves and makes barely a sound, forming words Viktor cannot understand.
Viktor finds himself at once drawn to the thing and filled with an impossible sense of dread. Both knowing, somehow, that coming too close means he will be swallowed whole, and needing to be nearer. He sits up, climbs onto his knees, and shuffles closer.
The thing with the dark curls and pretty mouth goes right on whispering.
Viktor does not know if it will respond to his will, but he still commands it. ] Speak Common. [ It does not listen.
So, Viktor crawls a little closer. He can almost make out a few words, spun in the tongue of the Ancients, translated by his Echo. "Copse", "conjury", "heart", "fungus".
He is so close, now. Close enough to see that the thing does not breathe, that its eyes shine like dim moonlight in the dark, the color of tarnished silver. ]
What...are you t-trying to tell me?
[ Viktor angles an ear toward the thing he's made, tips his head closer and holds his breath to better hear the mumbled sound. In the next moment, the thing lifts a hand. Plucks a flower from Viktor's head.
All the air rushes from Viktor's lungs. On instinct, he shoves it away, both hands to the thing's chest, hard as he can. It stumbles back hard, shoulders to the wall. Goes limp for a moment, a marionette with tangled strings, then snaps upright again. The thing laughs, and somehow the sound isn't horrible. No, it is low and warm, a crackling fire chuckle that hums in Viktor's chest. ]
"We are a garden, Hythlodaeus. Look to the roots."
[ Viktor skitters to the opposite side of the bed, digs deep into the well of their aether, prepared to defend himself. A second later, there is someone else in the room. His head swivels, arm raised to fling Light, and-
He hates the relief that washes over him, the way his terror rushes out in an exhausted sob right away. Viktor shuts his eyes, loathing his own weakness. ]
[ Emet-Selch is precise in using Viktor's name. Not his title, not a joking, mockery of a title either. His name, the name he uses here, in this time, now. An anchor. A clear dividing line between the thing standing next to Viktor and the truth of what Azem is now. The little sob that escapes Viktor is positively wretched, but unlike all of the times before, Emet-Selch cannot summon up the nonchalance, the irritation at the malformed creations he has every time previous.
Venat had been unsettling in the same way that seeing a creature from a fairy tale was unsettling. Impossible, but not insurmountable.
A few thousand years after the Final Days that weren't, those Amaurotines they raised up to their former stations asked about the missing member and, when answers were not sufficient, about who came before him. Trying to solve a problem long past the point of solving was tiresome to watch these fledgling attempts at Amaurotines do, and so Emet-Selch had largely avoided the conversations altogether - what a lovely opportunity for Elidibus.
He had imagined killing Venat, Hydaelyn, both, countless times over the years. A necessity he would not inflict upon Elidibus and did not trust Lahabrea to be able to manage successfully. Killing the shade was nowhere near the same as driving his blade into Hydaelyn Herself, and while the action was unsettling, he had slept perfectly well afterward.
The thing standing before him wearing a face that does not belong to it should be just as easy. Logically, he knows, Emet-Selch understands it is not him. How many times did he make and remake the shades in Amaurot when they were, irritatingly, just the faintest bit off? Those stage pieces conflicted with the greater display, so they were disposed of. Their aether repurposed until he got the manifestation right.
He should not struggle with the action when he has so much practice, and yet, like always when it comes to Aepymetes in whatever form - Emet-Selch falters. He has an impossible ocean's worth of power to bring to bear against it, so quick and so harsh the swell would tear the shade to shreds without even a second thought.
It was a creation, a manifestation Emet-Selch could dig his hands into and rip, like tearing a piece of parchment.
Emet-Selch does none of that, and his punishment for his inaction is that the thing starts to take a step closer to Viktor, casting an unnatural shadow across the wall. Emet-Selch's hands reach outward, tangling into the bundle of knotted threads making up the shade, and rips.
If he thought the sound of the air being rent open for a portal had a hint of violence, that was nothing compared to this. Threads snap and pop because he is inefficient, sloppy in his destruction. The top half of him - the top half of it. The top half of it. The top half of it stays in place even after Emet-Selch withdraws the grip that had been holding it upright. Ichor sticks to his gloves like tar, taking two flicks of his wrist to rid himself of most of the sludge.
What is he to do if the thing opens its mouth and speaks with Aepymetes' voice? The thought is unbearable. Nauseating. But what if it recalls- anything. What if this is the only chance he has to get any answers to the awful list of questions he has had for so long?
The creature does worse than talk to him. It laughs, with half its chest rent open, and instead of sounding pained or wrong (which would be their own kinds of horrible) the laughter just sounds like -
With his hands, then. The first attempt to tear the gnarled knot of threads was middlingly effective. Emet-Selch grasps the thing more firmly, shadow giving in under the furious grip of his fingers. It takes four sloppy tears to make it stop laughing nd even in pieces it still lingers, partially upright. The threads connecting the limbs start to shorten, a puppet slowly reassembling itself by its strings. If Emet-Selch trusted he had sufficient control over his magicks, he would simply erase it. He does not trust that he has sufficient control, and knows for a fact he lacks the emotional regulation for undoing to be effective. Power swells at his fingertips all the same and he flexes his hands until the desire goes away.
Gloves he hasn't worn in years are summoned to serve as thread rippers, snipping the bits of gold tying it to Viktor, and finally, finally, the thing tumbles to the ground and when it attempts to rise it does not make it more than a few ilms upward before collapsing.
Emet-Selch unmakes it, only when he's certain that is all he will do. The creature reduces to component parts the same as any other creation, but rather than trying to take the aether and replenish his own, Emet-Selch summons a bottle, and snaps the residue into the bottle, corking, sealing it with so many enchantments he might have trouble getting it off easily later. The bottle is chucked into a portal he summons an instant later. Out of sight, out of mind.
Would that emotions were half as easy. He can feel Viktor, and Viktor seems to feel everything, all the time. A barrier - the same way one prevented putting too much of themselves into the spellwork and being eaten up by your own spellwork - was only a temporary solution. He has built a wall between them as effective as the pillows Viktor used to stack between their bodies in Emet-Selch's bed at night. Privacy, of a type, but worthless if one of them attempted to clamber over to the other side. He has found a limb or two on the metaphorical other side of the bed more than once, withdrawing the moment he notices.
It's not particularly effective, but it's better than nothing. ]
I've removed it. [ Rather than look at Viktor huddled, Emet-Selch finds his eyes caught on the bit of shadow that lingers where that thing had fallen and snaps it away with an ease he wished had for the actual creature. Embarrassing.
He could bring up countless safer subjects to change the subject to. Practicing stepping through the Echoes to hone his abilities to work with Emmanellain more easily. The way Viktor had walked on the air itself to defeat the thing the Count became. How thoughtlessly he melded a glass' shape to adjust to his movements, rather than attempting to walk carefully. How he can feel Viktor's use of their shared pool shifting and changing, knitting together all the more neatly, the more used he gets to it.
He has no shortage of options and finds he can bring none of them to his tongue. Gingerly, he sits down on the nearest flat surface and dismisses the pointed gloves for the far more familiar leather Viktor crafted for him at the start of all of this. Now, the calf hide has broken in perfectly, and it is the taloned gloves that fit ill.
Emet-Selch inhales. Holds the breath until he's certain the flesh he inhabits will not rebel against him, and then slowly opens his eyes to focus on Viktor once he has mastered himself again. He'll let Viktor fill the silence. Maybe he knows what to say. ]
[ It takes no small number of requests over the next few weeks for Emet-Selch to acquiesce, but he does, in fact acquiesce. There is no other choice. Aepymetes was part of the reason they had managed to make it this far; to continually deny his very existence was both laughably juvenile at this point, and potentially dangerous to their work.
So one morning, instead of their normal lessons, Emet-Selch has them finish breakfast and sets Viktor on an aimless task that needs done, certainly, but mostly exists so Emet-Selch can go upstairs and take the universe's longest bath while trying to will himself to get out and just do this.
He has been in the building before. Mammets and manifested help take care of the building now, though he had visited - but visiting with Viktor was something else entirely. Offering up all of the little odds and ends that only existed as keepsakes out of some foolish desire to save the only bits he could for inspection from anyone else was nauseating, and with Viktor it was -
Well. It doesn't matter. After countless false starts the previous few mornings where he had managed a sufficiently decent avoidance of the subject, eventually he does wrest himself from lukewarm water, dress, and somewhat successfully avoid acting like they're going to carve his insides out and splatter them on the floor for Viktor to ask questions over.
To revisit the Source at all is risky, but their star is vast and Meteion can only work so quickly. Viktor can likely feel the pressure the moment they step through the portal to whatever unnamed location Emet-Selch has been evasive about taking them to - they go through the portal to the Source, and at the same time, like picking up a block and moving it, Emet-Selch simply takes them and the whole building and places it in the void between, safe from inky hands wishing to poke and prod.
There's no way to see the outside of the door from the foyer - Emet-Selch carefully ensures the doors do not open outward into nothing, but inside, the decor is a copy of Amaurot architecture, design. Sleek marble inset with gold and dark wood, stark lines and the intermittent delicate curve of metal craftsmen would struggle to replicate with such precision but creation magic could manage thoughtlessly. With a snap, he dismisses the ghosts wandering, but the mammets toddle along, ignoring the both of them as they work.
Everything he managed to salvage that was theirs - or their friends' or colleagues' belongings, lies in here. Each delicately arranged like a museum, careful lighting angled just so, placed upon pedestals, with enchantments layered so thick for their protection one can practically taste them walking past.
The western wall is nothing but tiny shelves, each lettered in Emet-Selch's exactingly neat print with name, position, item. At the corner of each lies a dot of color, his marker for the type of care each item needed, if any, a little smudge of aether that glows when a shelf needs attention. For larger items, massive tables span the front section of the room, each laid out in lines like a cafeteria, with individual pedestals for the larger items at varying heights, some covered in glass, some not. The tables themselves each have shelves built in that roll outward to hold more items.
Emet-Selch does not go past the foyer, but waves an arm out to the room, flicking his wrist. Perhaps eating before this little endeavor was not the best idea. ]
You will forgive me if my mood is not particularly cheery. You have until I tire of explaining to ask questions.
[ assorted imagery that's not like 1:1 accurate lmao but vibes (tw: dead animals on display): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]
[ Over days, over weeks, Viktor measures out his questions, tackles the subject of that past iteration, of Aepymetes, with a master tactician's care but only varying success. Well practiced in finding the limits of others' patience, he does his level best to toe the line between persistent and insistent. And, in the process, finds that the twining of their souls is no small aid; Emet-Selch needn't say anything at all half the time, for all of it thrums where they intersect, anyway. Grief, regret, and anxiety hang over nearly every memory, gauzy slip covers that can't be safely ripped away, and Viktor can admit to himself (if no one else) that learning of Aepymetes is as much about digging his too curious fingers into Emet-Selch as unlocking truths about himself and his legacy. It will hurt them both to learn more of Aepymetes, but learn he must.
So, however clumsily and ever diligently, Viktor weaves his inquiries into their lessons, their shared meals, their rare leisure time (goodness, they do while away hours together when duty does not pull them apart), but only when it feels right. When it is relevant, or when their moods are light, but not so light that the wrong question could sour something good. Viktor finds himself far too selfish to put those brief flickers of Emet-Selch's incandescent moonlight at risk.
It is, admittedly, a surprise when Emet-Selch finally relents. A long, long bath. Longer than usual, and long enough, certainly, to convince Viktor he has misstepped and made a mess of things again. Distracted, he writes his feelings plainly in the work Emet-Selch had set him to: rows upon rows of sleek apothecary's bottles, the first dozen or so perfectly rendered 'til doubt starts to set in. Then, by little measures, each glass tints darker, a gradual tip toward hazy sea glass gray-blue, never quite reaching entirely opaque. As with all things, Viktor hauls himself out of his doldrums just as soon as he's noticed, and the last few rows are all touched with unique flourishes, flower and ivy motifs, filigree around the neck, stains of rainbow color at the base - whimsical touches of creativity done to coax his mood back to rights.
He feels quite silly about the bottles when Emet-Selch emerges from his bath prepared for a field trip.
In a whirlwind of magic they are moved, one place to another, then to nowhere at all. Aether swirls, and Viktor, still acclimating to just how much more of it he feels now, has to spend a few seconds breathing through something like motion sickness when they finally land. But then he looks up and-
It is a treasure trove. There was a time when Viktor would've wrinkled his nose at Emet-Selch's obsession with mausoleums, his inability to look anywhere but behind, but taking it all in now, the meticulous care paid to every ilm, the spellwork, the intricate organization, he sees love. Sees the order for what it is, for how it makes sense of so much sudden and horrid chaos, and feels only fondness for the mind that maintains it. Fondness and perhaps a faint desire to fill Emet-Selch's still, silent spaces with sunshine or a breeze or fragrant flowers. Flowers, because this space smells strangely like nothing. Viktor's nose and ears twitch at the realization, unused to so much absence.
Before his own thoughts can grow too loud to fill the space, Emet-Selch snaps away the ghosts Viktor had only just begun to process. He cannot hide his disappointment, gaze lingering in a now blank space between pillars where a lifelike form had been the second before. Are merely constructs or echoes of the people Hades and Aepymetes used to know? Might one of them hum in the hollow of Viktor's chest the way the shade of Hythlodaeus had in Amaurot? Did shades of Aepymetes' parents linger here? Did he have siblings? How many did Aepymetes love with the ease of breathing?
Alisaie and Alphinaud spring to Viktor's mind, and his lungs squeeze tight.
He is here for a reason. Not satisfying idle curiosity, but trying to tap into what his soul had been. Something, anything, to make him more useful in their struggle against Meteion's song, to make temporary their losses. He is not sure Emet-Selch will allow him to touch anything here, but his Echo has never needed touch to get caught up in something's strings. And Aepymetes...
We are a garden. Look to the roots.
Viktor takes two intent steps toward the first displays, then stops as though tethered to Emet-Selch still lingering behind. Without a second thought Viktor returns to his side. Crucial as it will be to examine all he can find here, he will not stomp through it carelessly. ]
This is incredible. Thank you. [ Tentative, he curls his fingers around Emet-Selch's elbow. ] W-will you... show me your favorite thing here? Something that- something that is tied to a happy memory of him.
[ Aepymetes would not consider any of this a betrayal, but that knowledge does little to assuage the oily guilt that seems unwilling to do anything but sit in a pit in his stomach, no amount of cleansing sunshine from Viktor enough to rid him of it. Taking Viktor here feels like Emet-Selch has found Aepymetes' grave and is dutifully shoveling one bit of dirt after another on a corpse long since dust. Perhaps he had not accepted Azem's death as fully as he would have liked to believe.
Too late to muse on that now, though, now he finds himself looking anywhere but at the vestiges of what once was, now salvaged to lie here for no reason at all, because none of the people these items belonged to will ever come back. This building may as well be another graveyard, with him as its keeper, as above, so below.
Even the twitch of Viktor's nose and ears is not enough to jar the melancholy that has settled over him, no disgust to be found at the non-hyur features, nothing but a dull sense of exhaustion and prickling awareness he needs to do this and desperately wishes he could be anywhere else while Viktor peruses.
Of course Viktor would not let him stay on the margins, either. The warmth of Viktor's fingers creeps over his arm and barely, he resists the instinctive urge to pull away from any hint of comfort offered. ]
No.
[ Clipped, sharper than he means it to be but he cannot bring himself to apologize, either. His feet stay rooted to the floor, and there's nothing but the quiet tap-tap of the mammets' feet across the marble. ]
I know the contents within, I need not walk through for the reminders. [ This is not Amaurot, a piece of memory made real, repeating. This building has little to no reason to exist, after Viktor picks through it. Maybe Emet-Selch simply does away with the contents when Viktor finishes. Spring cleaning. ] I did not create this display for myself; its use is, frankly, only for this moment. There is no other reason for this to exist after you have finished.
[ How could he have a favorite when ever piece was a piece of a person who no longer existed, who would never exist again, unless in a wholly different form with little to no memory. Viktor is, as ever, the exception, but any of the belongings here do not have people who would have any attachment to the miscellany he has salvaged. ]
[ viktor has never been shy about his affections. rather, it is the depths they run that he has always had trouble articulating. still, there are inevitably signs. like pointless tomestone messages sent far too late in the evening, when the smallness and emptiness of the bed he's settled into while away in Amh Araeng feels far too pronounced. this is all Emet-Selch's fault. it wouldn't have bothered him before. ]
i've two questions for you. do you want the bad one first, or the worse one?
[ His bed has been empty more nights than it was full, and yet Emet-Selch feels the absence of Victor in his room, in his bed, like a rock caught in his boot, unable to be jostled loose.
The alert should wake him up, because he should be asleep. Instead, he’s sat in the center of the bed with a book he’s attempting for a third time to get through, and finds himself ridiculously relieved at the notification. Pathetic. ]
Have you any idea of the hour? Why are you even awake? [ probably because of the questions. There’s no good answer to this that he can imagine. ] The worst first.
Are you injured? If you’ve lost a limb, I will be extremely cross with you.
it's too lumpy. not a quality i was in the habit of noticing until recently, you know.
save my ego, which was grievously wounded in a card game with the boys at Journey's End, i am whole.
WORST FIRST! your bravery, Emet-Selch! i am awed. i wish to know, how did you lot reproduce, in your Paradise? i've convinced myself it was not unlike making bread.
At some point in this process, he assumes the guilt will swell over him, over them, swallowing them in their ridiculous little boat. Thus far, he has not felt even the faintest whiff, which brings its own form of guilt. Shouldn't he feel guilty about this? Is this not a desecration of what was, a mockery? Perhaps, but is it not also necessary? Feeling guilty for the lack of guilt is not a surprise, but it is irritating.
There is no Charon to guide, sundered or felled like the rest of them and so Emet-Selch takes his position at the head of the boat, familiar perched atop the orb set into his staff. Every so often, the shoebill spreads its wings, taking off slowly and circling wide and low above them, choosing a direction only when the boat seems to go a little off course. The coins Viktor created are fished out of a robe pocket, one plucked by the shoebill swinging low as Emet-Selch lifts it for him to snap in his beak, vanishing into the darkness shortly after. The other he thumbs into the water where it sinks silently, a low, gold glow at the bottom of murky teal water. Water ends suddenly, the ground spreading forth nearly indistinguishable from the water itself; there is no dock to bring themselves onto and so Emet-Selch hitches his robes up and take the first step out to the ground and once steady, reaches an arm out to help Viktor exit as well, releasing only when certain Viktor is steady. Emet-Selch pulls the bident from nothing moments later, handing it to Viktor and only releasing once he's sure Viktor has hold of it.
They walk, and the ground seems to build a road beneath them, through the water, providing a path until the inky darkness they work through resolves itself into a solid shape, a massive gate so tall it is impossible to see over manifesting before them. The key Viktor created is pressed into the lock and vanishes, and with a groan of infrequently used metal, slowly, the gates start to grind their way open with the shoebill dipping into the shallow opening first, landing partway through on much more visible, already existing marble floor pathing through sparsely grown long grass, glowing an unearthly, dim green.
After a non-specific number of steps, Emet-Selch pauses, figuring this as good as any. "I thought it best to start with the lowest first, as we have the least work necessary here. In the past, many more creatures resided here; through our work in Allag, some creatures or being were...we shall call it relocated. I believe you met some of them: Cerberus and Typhon were two."
One hand is held out and if Viktor is too slow, Emet-Selch grasps for his wrist instead, pulling his hand out, palm up. In it, he places three of the crystals, one sourced from Syrcus Tower, others from the Crystarium itself. A snap, and the rams appear, bleating unhappily at finding themselves in a different location with grass they cannot feed on. Emet-Selch releases Viktor's hand and presses a finger to the forehead of each beast between its horns, and one by one they exhale, falling into a limp pile and the crystals within Viktor's hand begin to glow. Distantly, three faintly glowing figures appear; the rams wander off, chewing at the sparse grasses they can now interact with.
"This is, strictly speaking, not a necessary part of the ritual itself. It is...preventative. The lowest circle of the Underworld, generally reserved for beasts, beings too unsafe for even Pandaemonium. Enemies of varying types. If we are unsuccessful but yet live, we may be able to use your ties, or mine, to this area and bring the Crystarium or Amaurot here, too deep for even Meteion's song to reach." A pause, Emet-Selch's lips pressing thin. "It is a guess. A shot in the dark. But I would rather have tried than not. Imbue each of the crystals with your own aether and then plant them as we go; they ought to act as anchors. I will tell you when and where to dig, but we start here, first. The other two crystals will be buried on our way to Asphodel Meadows."
Not even the all consuming pitch can blot out Viktor's light completely. Set against so much shadow, he is little more than a blur of silver moonlight splashed across a still water surface. Dim, but not snuffed out. He cuts a dramatic form with his arms crossed over his chest, spending much of the journey staring with grim seriousness at whatever happens to be visible around them. First, into the blue-green murk beneath them as they drift down river, then at the path as it forms under their feet.
It would be reasonable to mistake that look for sober uncertainty. This task they have set for themselves is complicated, and not just because of its many exacting steps. To bind oneself to so ancient a place, to something meant for the dead, to someone who has strangled your soul from countless bodies over the course of innumerable centuries is a daunting prospect, of course. But, Viktor had left doubt behind in the Crystarium, embraced this path with all of himself, the safest route to the star's salvation.
So, that look - not dour, but focused, making note of each little glimpse of something more than nothing, colors, shapes, the way the sound of their footfalls changes. It also takes no small amount of concentration to keep his hands from wandering, wanting to touch every strange new thing that appears.
It's also... not cold, but chilly. The way an old house, sat unoccupied for years, is never warm, even on the hottest days. It serves, he supposes, as he obliges Emet-Selch steering him this way or that, grasping a wrist, directing him to move faster. Where would ghosts live save somewhere suited to haunting? It's a melancholy thought, made grayer knowing how much time Emet-Selch will be spending here once the ritual is done.
Viktor nods along with Emet-Selch's explanation, clutching the three crystals in one hand, and reaching out with the other thoughtlessly to hook fingers into the edge of his coat, righting a fold in the fabric, as though leaving fingerprints upon the leather might be enough to keep him stitched into the world of the living just a little bit longer.
Planting the Crystarium in a metaphorical grave to keep it safe is a dreadful prospect, but it is a necessary plan to make, he supposes. Emet-Selch will ever account for the worst, one foot in the dark. It is Viktor's job, then, as ever, to let in the light.
"Sh-should we need to do such a thing, I am glad to have had the chance to prepare," he says with a faint smile. "She will need be quite tenacious to get to that point, though."
Channeling aether into crystals is thoughtless work for a healer. Viktor juggles them in his palm as they fill with pale white-blue light, putting the majority of his attention on taking in their surroundings, watching the ghostly rams plod off. "'Tis not entirely empty, then? Other things linger?" He wrinkles his nose. Both Cereberus and Typhon were a little too mouthy for his liking. At least 'Asphodel Meadows' sounds nice. "Should I be on guard for a fight?"
sorry this took so long i keep rewriting and it's sjgrlrkrgkl
He thinks she must have tenacity in spades to wait so long for this inevitability. To linger so long on the outskirts, stewing in despair for centuries; it is not, he thinks, so different than what he had done but with anger instead of despair. How many civilizations had he crumbled in the name of his own retribution?
The thought lingers, discomforting, and Emet-Selch leads them onward through the ghostly grass. When he'd been chosen for the role of Emet-Selch he'd tread a similar path, following behind the current Emet-Selch with grim determination, trying to keep with her longer stride while infusing the crystals with his own essence. She told him he would one day do this for the next Emet-Selch, impressed upon him the importance of ritual, of everything being in its rightful position at a precise time. She'd held onto and maintained this iteration of the Underworld for countless centuries, stressing consistency.
Now, he thinks it is not so bad to deviate. The power Azem has is inherently far more chaotic than that of an Emet-Selch and to bind the two together without taking that into account does a disservice to both.
"Here," Emet-Selch says after they have long since lost sight of the rams, and the next region is distantly in sight. A barren patch of ground where not even the ghostly plants have broken through. With both Hydaelyn and Emet-Selch gone the Underworld had not quite fallen into disrepair, exactly, but it was not attended as often as it ought to have been and the little grassless patches are evidence. "There are creatures that wander about but most keep their distance more often than not."
An unnecessarily decorative shovel appears in his hand thoughtlessly and he hands it over to Viktor, nodding at the bare patch. "Doubtful. So long as you are at my side, none would attempt to challenge us but were you to wander off on your own without being fully tethered and without an Emet-Selch, I cannot promise you would not encounter a beast or two with very little sense of self-preservation."
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01: last ship out
Once, he imagines it was rather picturesque. Bits of an old world jutting up into the new, massive tented rock held up by the most unlikely of stone pillars, carved by calamity and weather alike. The moon shining through the cracks in the rock, illuminating the water.
Now, the rock formations and ruins are so much rubble. Setting the massive Ragnarok down into the massive crater left by whatever abomination tore its way through here takes as little effort as setting it down into the desert. Like many of the locations they have visited, the aether here is wrong; the ground shifts and groans beneath their feet intermittently. Most of the abominations have moved onward, along with any wildlife, but there are a few spots nearby where he can feel the presence of twisted aether. He might not be able to see the creature itself, but that is in and of itself telltale: the odd blankness like there is naught but a void in that spot.
He engages with little to no conversation until they get onto the airship to the Waking Sands, intended to ferry any of those who cannot make the journey from the Sands by walking or carriage. The airship lifts from the Ragnarok's bay with a shudder and whine of her motor as she has every time before, protesting but bearing them with minimal fuss afterward.
The most fuss comes, as ever, from her driver himself.
"Not so much as a midge swarm upon the windshield," Nero mutters, dipping them down through the remnants of the tunnel leading toward the Waking Sands, rather than flying above. Emet-Selch grips the back of his own chair and refuses to sit even as the ship's nose tilts further to accommodate the incline, the walls incredibly tight around them. While he would rather there not be anything on the windshield, especially if he's going to take to showing off how the damned ship can maneuver around tight radiuses after Emet-Selch had voiced doubt upon their earlier trip. He understands the point being made, though. There was naught but rubble left in the Silent King where there had been life. Now, like so many areas, not even the insects remain, let alone anything else. He would almost prefer to have to snap away the beastkin blood instead, just for the sign of life.
"I shudder to think what route you would have taken if you could not see," Emet-Selch says mildly. "Given you decided to take the scenic route rather than the most efficient. I was certain they covered that in not one but several military classes."
They have not had the specific, outright conversation about who, in fact, he is. Most of Emet-Selch's biting observations and knowledge can be simply chalked up to being a friend of the Warrior, who travels everywhere and knows everything. The grace he is given by virtue of being around the Warrior, the Traveler, is the same as it ever is. He takes it for granted less now, even if the trust is not quite the same. Nothing is.
Nero sneers at him with no hint of deference or respect. Emet-Selch appreciates the derision all the more if Nero does suspect his identity; it is so much less tedious than Varis' stone-walling and sulking. "You may consider complaining about my flying when I do something other than navigate us perfectly through any nightmare the two of you point her at."
The statue in the center square of Vesper Bay lists dangerously to the side but has not toppled; it would have been easier to simply knock it over and park the airship there, but Nero settles her delicately on the docks instead, loath to do any destruction when so much has already been wrought. Foosteps clack against the metal floor of the airship from behind; Emet-Selch glances backward to find Viktor approaching and then turns back to watching what little of their murky surroundings he can see through the windshield while he pats his trouser pockets for the damned aetheric compass. At least the robes had massive pockets tailored to be unobtrusive. No one would trust or appreciate their old robes, or his Garlean ones, though, and so he wrests the plum-sized object free from his trouser pocket and concentrates.
However wretched he found using his sight during his period as Emperor, it is infinitely worse now. Not as miserable as those first few days on the shattered world Hydaelyn had birthed, nothing could compare to that horror and to compare aught to it would be an insult. But this is a different sort of awful. The Source is one of the least horrific to perceive; each of the individual shards' weaves of souls are like a piece of cloth with so much friction applied it becomes threadbare. The Source's are not quite so thin, but it makes the glaring pockets and holes formed by the massive amount of those dead all the more stark, a blanket with countless, massive holes punched into it.
With a snap, he manifests Viktor's map rather than holding his hand out for it, thumbing smudges of ink and spellwork across various points on the map until the smudges rearrange themselves into the number of survivors left over and their approximate locations. The majority inside the Waking Sands as agreed. Those with the most tenuous threads - injured, sick, unlikely to be able to make the arduous travel from their location, he marks with a noticeable shimmer of aether so Viktor's eye will be drawn to the rough approximate location. Areas in which it is likely he will encounter abominations are tinged with inky darkness until it seems as if smoke rises from the map itself.
The process is habit at this point. Emet-Selch passes the map back to Viktor and does not wait for him or Nero before making his way down the gangplank, smacking his knuckles against the dock button so it extends with a scream of rusted metal that Emet-Selch wrinkles his nose at and snaps those rusted nuts and bolts away too, because he will not hear that every time someone walks up and down the bridge. The furrow of his brow anticipating Nero's complaints about touching Cid's airship and changing any aspect of it seems to ward off most of the complaint; Nero keeps his complaining to muttering under his breath, which is fine.
Stepping out onto the dock, Emet-Selch tips his head upward, unable to see the moon or the stars. Nothing but the fat swells of clouds hanging thick above them, which is about when the raindrop hits him squarely in the eye.
"I thought Thanalan was supposed to be a desert," Emet-Selch complains just as the sky opens up over them. He would have complained even if it had not started raining, and Viktor probably knows that. The timing feels particularly irritating, though. The rubble will mitigate some of the mud, but the carriages' wheels will get sucked into the worst of it, and get stuck which will delay them further. This day is simply designed to frustrate him. A flick of his fingers places a handful of umbrellas by the dock, and a thoughtless shield above him mitigates the worst of the rain, sending it sloughing off around him in a circle. The same will form above Viktor once he steps outward. "I should have adequate time to create a road for the carriages before the airship fills, but do stress to whomever drives the carriages that if there is not a road I will be much less annoyed with them if they simply wait for me to finish rather than attempting to show off their driving prowess."
Nero, off to scavenge parts for the airship, sneers, makes a rude hand gesture at him and yanks an umbrella out into the storm.
slapping the top of the door frame as i sprint into this thread
Were circumstances different, were it someone else making little works of art from his essence, he thinks he may've liked the sensation -- the intimacy of it, being made into music by someone else. But Emet-Selch is not making music. He pulls from Viktor's aether for every little thing, as though he is an ocean of it, and while he is certainly more than he ever has been, with what little remained of the Mother Crystal left to him, Viktor is not endless.
And perhaps worse than merely being used up on such frivolous things, he cannot tell the intent behind all that plucking. Is Emet-Selch pointedly needling or is Hades merely being careless? He's given the man the benefit of the doubt from where they'd begun in Sharlayan, to Limsa Lominsa, Ishgard, and beyond, but...
Since Gridania, well, there is little grace left in him. Little of anything, if he's honest. Except for all the Light. He shouldn't've asked them to leave Thanalan for last. He should've been smarter, and he can't even curse the gods for his own foolishness anymore.
He cannot bear to watch as the Ragnarok swings through what is left of Horizon and into the ruins of Vesper Bay, of home. Keeps his back turned to it all, and lets himself get lost in the barbs that Emet-Selch and Nero trade until he simply must turn to join them. There is comfort, at least, in scraping up enough humor to at least toss insults. Better that than giving their present situation any more gravity.
Each of Emet-Selch's little spells is another notch in his nerves, though. He can't manage to salvage anything good in his mood, so he stays silent and avoids looking out the windshield until Emet-Selch is on the move, again. He follows, silent, right up to the bay door, and he freezes there at the top.
It is entirely too much like the aftermath of the Seventh Calamity, like the slaughter of the Waking Sands, and more than half again worse than both. Somewhere between his aether being made into bolts and umbrellas and a dozen horrid memories crashing over him, Viktor feels his throat start to squeeze shut. He touches his fingers to his lips, then the fabric of his robes, then speaks the first word he's said in hours, "Stop."
He'd meant it for himself, for his body, for the lightning coursing through his nerves, but--it doesn't quite come off that way. Viktor blinks the tears from his eyes, foregoes an umbrella, and forces himself to take three steps forward, down the gangplank, to the docks.
"If you now intend to remake whole r-roads as well--" he starts sharply, anger searing the edges of his words. But then, he's out in the rain, expecting to be soaked right away, and instead all that water domes away. The surprise shows too plainly on his face, eyes widening and words catching in his throat when he turns to stare at Emet-Selch. Viktor swallows before starting up again, a little softer, more even, "--Remember that you draw your aether from an ink-w-well, now. You must learn to do some th-things the hard way, I'm afraid, Emet-Selch. We cannot squander the aether we have on every little thing." After another steadying breath, he even manages a joke, "And if learning how to tie your own sh-shoes feels too daunting, you need but ask, and I will assist."
my longest yeah boy everrr
On some level, he is grateful they are not stepping into another slaughter. Not because of any attachment he feels to these people - the Gridanians were not so different from Garlemald in some aspects and he did not even have to lift a finger to incite that reaction - but because he does not know how Viktor would have handled yet another catastrophe and has little to no desire to find out. Bad enough he had fumbled their arrival so drastically; foolishly, after so many successful endeavors with people surviving their destruction like insects, he had assumed. There are not enough people left for him to make that mistake again, but the fact it was made in the first place chafes.
In truth, the vitriol lingering in Viktor's tone is surprising. But then, perhaps this, too, should not be. Viktor is not Azem, even if he is the closest to Azem he has ever been. Constantly, Emet-Selch finds himself on the wrong foot with the other man, knowing he has over-stepped in some capacity or another but not understanding until after he has tripped the wire and set the bomb off. It is incredibly tiresome, but like all skills, it can be learned, and he has little choice but to learn them.
So, he stops. Tilts his head and looks over the damp fur and watery eyes and tries not to appreciate the faint glow radiating from the Warrior when he knows its cause.
"A road will take naught but a sliver of our combined energy, and will be significantly less tiresome than attempting to create new wheels for every unruly beast startled by a clap of thunder - or worse, any abominations which may cross our path." The decks go slick with rain so quickly, no one left to treat the wood. In moons he anticipates the decks will begin to rot, in less than three turns there will be little left but rotted, water-logged sticks jutting up.
What a waste.
"Rest assured, I am reminded every time I attempt to use any ability that my strength is no longer wholly my own." No longer is creation the simple, joyous art of twining aether with another and manifesting countless wonders. It is almost painfully boring, functional, none of the satisfaction of creation lingering in anything he makes. Not so different from Garlemald, he supposes. "Which did you find most objectionable? The umbrellas for the grieving masses to board Scaeva's ship? Ensuring the amount of time spent searching through rubble to find the dead instead of the living is minimal? Or do you take offense to the idea of simply reassembling the rubble where the Ragnarok sits? As entertaining as it might be to see carriages list to and fro, it is in our best interests to maintain as much of what we can and ensure it arrives in one piece to the First."
Barely, he resists making his point by removing the magicked umbrella above Viktor's head. Satisfying as making his point would be, he would look dreadfully pathetic waterlogged.
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There, he hangs, and for a few seconds the only sound between them is the near waterfall rush of rain patting against dirt and wood and stone. He loved that sound once, loved how standing beneath the karst pillars or at the city gates would change how densely it'd vibrate through you. How the cave and ocean would mingle their cool air and make the humidity more bearable in the midst of the occasional downpour. Now, it feels a little like Thanalan itself is lamenting the return of its failed hero.
But, no. No. He hasn't failed, yet. They are still alive, and they are making time, and it is...almost entirely possible because of Emet-Selch. The world yet needs the both of them, and it needs them working together.
Viktor sighs, slides both his hands over the back of his neck and pulls them up, dragging his fingers through his messy waves, then his long ears down into his face, over his eyes. He holds them there a beat before letting them spring back up again. "I'm...sorry. It's--this is my home. The apartment my mother and I lived in is...is one of the many piles of rubble we passed on the way in. And I--"
He halts again. It feels a little silly, explaining the unfathomably nauseating terror of watching the annihilation of your world to a man who has already watched the annihilation of his world. A man who, Viktor is nearly sure, sees him as little more than the painful fever dream remnant of something that was lost the first time this happened.
"The umbrellas were very thoughtful," he says instead, reminding himself to find the good. "Thank you. That...is what our aether should be used for. To comfort... to build roads."
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my tags are so long sorry dfjkhaddf
lmao pls never apologize.
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tracker
.05 a few weeks before 01 | tfln | (LINK)
01, last ship out | Post SHB and Endwalker Elpis | (LINK)
02, bad dreams | a few weeks after 01 | (LINK)
03, blasphemy & binding | a few weeks (?) after 02 | LINK
03.5, day to day | a few days/weeks after 03 | LINK
03.75, late night calls | the evening at the end of 2.0 | LINK
04, til death do us part (temporarily) | LINK
??: nightmare
Viktor sleeps light, ever moments from waking, and always a little tired the next morning. Which is perhaps why things start to blur...
Tonight, he dreams in the abstract, the images almost feverish. Light and dark and color all feeling. Red and red and red. Faceless people, familiar despite their lack, fill every scene, speak nonsense that he can nevertheless understand as fear he cannot assuage. Rough shapes give the vague impression of collapsing surroundings. And everywhere, flowers, and flowers, and flowers... or something like them.
Though it's barely coherent, the impression is certainly clear. Friends and loved ones, family and fellows, rent and turned monstrous. Shredded or melted, crushed or killed, the scene climbing brighter and brighter and brighter until Viktor's violet eyes flutter open...
He wakes in the dark with a start, silent, scared. Doesn't make a sound until he spies the form standing in the corner of the room, still as death and staring him down. Alphinaud, his brother, his boy, bent and broken and wrong, face blotted with so much red as to be featureless.
The sound that rushes from Viktor's lungs is as much wail as scream. But even that is cut short when his throat starts to close. He can't breathe. He can't breathe. Is he dreaming still? Drowning? He wheezes, gasps, fumbles with the sheets of his meager bed, grasping for purchase on something, anything, that might keep him safe, might save him.
What he finds is not within arm's reach. A familiar form a few scant rooms away, an old memory, deeper than marrow, of calling him in times of need.
Viktor needn't even handle Azem's crystal for this bit of magic. Calling Emet-Selch to his side comes as naturally as drawing his cane. He tangles his fingers in that familiar, steady, dark aether and gives a gentle, needful tug, pulling Hades from thither to hither with almost no effort at all. It's a split second of peace, of rightness, before his own mind, too, is brought back to the present, to his darkened bedroom, to his body rejecting all the things it needs to do to live, to the Alphinaud-but-not staring at him from the corner of the room. Viktor gasps in desperation, unable to speak. ]
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now, he finds the silence unbearable all over again. bad enough it is a reminder of how poorly the last few moons have gone, but to be trapped with nothing but his own thoughts is borderline unbearable, especially when he lacks any meaningful ability to actually act on them. he can work his mind around the countless problems they are due to face, but for one reason or another it is not as if he can simply take the most obvious, easiest action available to him. no, there is a committee they must run it past, or it is too much energy to waste on such trivialities.
he builds his own space the old-fashioned way, trading and bartering and talking his way into what he wants, especially when the warrior is too conciliatory to ask for it himself. his extravagant bed, purchased with supplies to make fresh whipped cream brought from the source. the high thread count sheets traded for a handful of potions he'd found in the bottoms of someone's storerooms, the alchemist who brewed them long since gone, fading into whorls of smoke in the wake of emet-selch's greatsword.
the exception, as always, comes with viktor, who seems to deem garbing emet-selch his own personal task. this is not as frustrating as it perhaps should be; they are finely crafted and tailored with an unerring eye and detail to attention to fit his wants, specifically. his ties to the warrior grant him no small amount of grace, and he leverages every ilm, even more so when the warrior demurs any chance to do the same. consequently, he finds retiring to his quarters not wholly objectionable at the end of every night. a long soak in the bath, whatever books or plays he's managed to scrounge up from the latest jaunt into the pit of despair that is the Source.
that evening finds him nodding off earlier than usual, yawning his way through dinner, falling asleep in the bathtub and falling asleep a final time while reading the book, his tea long since gone cold by the bedside. one moment, he's burrowed under a weighted comforter (which cost a truly ungodly quantity of cobalt nails) dozing; the next, the spell that hooks its claws into him is so familiar he can almost forget it has been ages since its creator in whole used it on him.
he is in a bed- not his bed, but a bed nonetheless. sleep-stupid, emet-selch summons a mote of light to his fingertips thoughtlessly and pushes himself up to examine the other occupant. he wishes he hadn't so quickly. those aren't hythlodaeus' eyes, but it doesn't matter. for a moment - for a horrible moment, half-asleep the sight had been enough to make him think -]
Someone had better be dying. [ from the awful, choked gasp viktor (not azem, not hythlodaeus, viktor) lets out emet-selch wonders if they might be dying, and flattens his hand against viktor's chest, pushing him back into the pillows and blankets. underneath, his heart beats rabbit-fast. emet-selch smirks lopsidedly at the thought, giving the room a slow sweep to figure out why the energy in it feels so off. the smirk vanishes just as quickly, replaced with thin lips and a clenched jaw. ] I see. You'll forgive me for demanding forgiveness instead of permission.
[emet-selch digs into their shared magicks, finding the thread connecting viktor to the abomination standing in the corner and snips it, threading the loosened thread unto himself instead, finding it far easier to unmake the creature without fighting Viktor for the trouble. if he dares to squirrel away the aether from the nightmare given form, rather than letting it dissipate into viktor, well. ideally, he's not in any state to notice or mind.
his hand hasn't left its spot atop viktor's chest. ] Look at me.
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Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the shade of the boy he'd thought a son disappear. Somehow, seeing him blink away, losing him again, is even worse. A strangled sob works its way past Viktor's lips between still struggling breaths. He shuts his eyes tight against it all and thinks in one terrified moment, Emet-Selch is doing this. And if he does not escape, if he does not flee his grasp, leave this bed, and go, he will die.
Desire to struggle renewed, he closes both palms around Emet-Selch's wrist, much of his considerable strength as he can muster-- and then Hades's voice penetrates the storm: Look at me.
Viktor opens his eyes, wild and still frightened for the lack of air in his lungs, but pale violet finds gold, and that is something to focus on. He wrenches just enough stillness to take stock of his surroundings. Stiff and starchy cotton sheets, the First's cool, floral night air filling the room from an open window, the feel of Emet-Selch's palm against his bare chest. His wheezing slows. His lungs accept air. Viktor's grip relaxes. ]
I c-c-c- [ His mind and mouth rebel, refusing to shape words. His eyes, already glazed with panicked tears, well heavily with them now. He pulls in a still shuddering, but much steadier breath. ] Wh-what's happened?
[ He needs something, anything stilling, if even just to be pressed flat. Viktor still holds fast Emet-Selch's wrist with one hand, but frees the other to reach up, slender fingers grasping the fine charcoal fabric of his pajamas. There, he amends the thought -- not something, not anything, just... the one steady presence in his life, the one person who knows this horror -- and pulls. ]
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emet-selch stares at viktor squirming like an animal with its leg caught in a trap, fighting fruitlessly against the steady weight of his hand despite the considerable strength behind his fighting, and doesn't do any of that. he waits the interminably long moments for viktor's breathing to go from tight and panicked to something more intentional. ]
I fear you would have to tell me, I was sleeping quite well until this. [ no, he knows. it is all too easy to put together a timeline in his mind of what happened, how. the most surprising portion of this is how long it took for such a thing to happen. he was a fool, letting the swell of viktor's power sit for too long untamed, assuming that because nothing had happened, viktor would simply have a command over powers far greater than him.
this territory is not unfamiliar, at least; both from garlemald - dealing with soldiers experiencing trauma, and from thousands and thousands of years ago, children creating manifestations of their night terrors. dealing with both, with either, is not something he is inexperienced with. that knowledge does not make this process easier. not when viktor looks up at him wet-eyed and grasping at him like he is here intentionally, not pulled here as a factor of those magicks going awry.
sleep charm, and return to your own room. the two easiest possible actions to take and yet he doesn't. the spell doesn't even have the good graces to manifest at his fingertips when he tries. it is, of course, because he is distracted- viktor tugs him down a moment later and unlike his futile attempts to lift the oppressive weight of emet-selch's hand, this is far more successful, his position precarious to begin with. emet-selch folds a little clumsily, sleep-tired and maybe hungrier for what viktor offers than he would ever acknowledge.
he can allow a moment. payment for services rendered. transactional. emet-selch braces one arm in the pillows and tries to ignore the scent of crushed flowers, the warmth of the form against him. thank the stars he's clad ankles to wrist in cloth. ] Will you - are you the Warrior of Light, or a bear trap. Move your arm. Describe the room for me.
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i think these are fun to meeee but lmk if not. pick a or b.
going with A for this very silly tag
hehehehehe
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"action threads are faster" putting on and honking my clown nose
REALLLL LMAO
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03: blasphemy & binding
Most of the time, though, Viktor barely thinks of that end point at all. Too easily is he lost in the rhythm of the routine, the way the act of Creation, when it works right, turns the ratking of his mind into carefully separated, pretty threads. Clarity, quiet. There are also more lessons to learn than he has lifetime, he reckons, which for any normal person might not be quite so comforting a thought, and yet.
He sits in Emet-Selch's open window, cross-legged and framed by flowers, cool lake air balanced by the morning sun's heat on his back. Today is one of those days where things are working right, where he thinks not at all about end points, enjoys the work, the smell of tea, the sound of Emet-Selch puttering about his room. Hades has him learning to leash his Echo into some semblance of order. Far and away, this is one of his least favorite tasks, even moreso than making water, but this morning, it is playing nicely.
Given the broken hilt of an epee to delve into with the assignment of wresting the details of the forge in which it was made, Viktor turns the thing round and round in his hands, focusing on its shape 'til he can make it in his mind. And once it's in his mind, it, like so much else, becomes but thread.
This is the hard part. Working up the courage to pick at individual strings, to look and learn and not get lost in the ride as he is so apt to do. Sometimes, if he is not careful, what he makes bursts open like a flower unfolding, and suddenly there are ten thousand more threads. And something more. Presences. Voices. Fourteen pieces, some still so far away, making up one whole. It is not a comfort.
Thankfully, though, today the epee does not bloom. Viktor grasps a gold thread on instinct, and finds the moment the blade was gifted to its original owner. With a push of his will, the story winds back, back, and back, to a shop lit orange-red, to pliers carefully bending the ornate basket into beautiful shape. He is about to step back, take in the smithy where the blade had been forged, when something goes wrong.
Like a sliver through the skin, something worries into the memory. It halts and Viktor's attention is wrenched away, through a terrible, blurred vision of violence, back to reality with jarring force. He inhales sharply, lets the broken hilt roll onto the window sil.
"Something is wrong," he says, before he is even sure that it is, already on his feet. Unthinking, he grasps the air, and where there had been nothing a moment before, suddenly his cane is in hand. Viktor does not seem to notice - he rarely does. These strange, involuntary places where he and Azem blur. "In the market."
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The Crystarium, much as he hates to admit it, is different. One would not be able to wrest this information from him even under the worst sort of torture, but he knows it, and has a lingering worry that Viktor has picked up that it is, perhaps, not as terrible here as Emet-Selch might make it out to seem.
There are incredibly tedious points. There are people he does not like, and rather than simply arranging for them to be disposed of in due course he must, regrettably, deal with them on a semi-consistent basis. There is no easy avoidance when some of the most irritating people are established in points of bureaucracy, but even then - even then he finds it not nearly as miserable as countless other places he has been, that he has crafted. He has enough presence of mind to understand that it is because of the Warrior because they were not attempting to craft a nightmare country that would crumble under its own weight, its own greed, and its own societal issues Emet-Selch has spent a century curating.
But. But, there are snippets in the day where he almost forgets his loathing. Where the longing for what once was quiets momentarily, forgotten in the face of quiet pleasures like breakfast on the patio downstairs, where the chef remembers Emet-Selch's food preferences despite having no reason to. Little bits of kindness he repays, reciprocal because he will not owe any of them anything, but it results in more little bits of kindness he must reciprocate to stay even.
When he tires of the awareness of being out among the people, he retires to his room but even that has changed. What once was a quiet refuge with the certainty he would never see another soul within has become a space shared, as well. He does not find the change as distasteful as he perhaps wishes he did. It would be easier if he had shut this down at the pass- told Viktor he would stay in Viktor's room until he fell asleep and leave a familiar there to monitor. He did not, though, always finding it too difficult to say no to Viktor, and so now, like a particularly hardy weed, Viktor keeps popping up in the mornings and evenings.
It is...not wholly undesirable. His presence and Emet-Selch's larger room do not often conflict and it is not necessarily bad to have someone who he can speak to plainly, nearly the same way he did with Elidibus and Lahabrea at the end of their world and start of this one.
While Viktor works, Emet-Selch occasionally glances over with soul sight, tracing the same threads Viktor works his fingers over, like strumming an instrument or winding a spindle. He might not see the same thing at the end of those threads, but every so often, there is a bit of thread that has a familiar sheen, a weapon, or a trinket whose owner Emet-Selch distantly recalls, and he wonders what it is Viktor sees there. Partway through misting some of the more persnickety plants who will not be happy with a normal watering, Emet-Selch feels the air shiver, as if all of the oxygen has been stolen and time stands still. He knows this feeling. He's felt it too many times before and fears he will feel it too many times in the future if they live to see that long.
"Here," he grits out, not in disbelief, but raw, furious resignation. Here, even here. The bit of survival at the end of the world they have managed to carve out is not enough, and they are on borrowed time. He is not, strictly speaking, in gear fit for battle but that is easy enough to change with a thoughtless snap, greatsword hung heavy upon his back. "We shouldn't walk."
A portal yawns open in the center of Emet-Selch's room, and he doesn't wait for Viktor to rise up before he steps through.
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The first scream comes after that, then another, then the shattering of ceramic as a shelf topples over and people scatter.
A moment later, space bends, and Emet-Selch's portal opens. He is through first, but Viktor is right behind, sprinting up and past, light on his feet, toward the horrid thing bent into monstrous shape just past the marketboards.
The monstrous thing, the blasphemy, turns its mournful gaze and many-toothed maw toward a young dark haired man toppled onto his back beside it, and-
"Emmanellain!" Viktor reaches out, one gentle tug, and aether tethers 'round the fallen Elezen. Pulls. Emmanelaine de Fortemps skids abruptly across the market floor, arriving into Viktor's waiting arms a second later. Just in time for his own aether to start to broil. "Emmanellain. Focus. Look at me. Who—who was it?"
Emmanellain whimpers back helplessly, half-crazed, half-agonized himself.
"Honoroit? Sidurgu?"
"N-n-n-n—" stutters Emmanellain, "M-m-m-my f-fa-fa—"
His aether burns. And Viktor, unsure of what else to do, near smashes their heads together, forehead to forehead, holding him close. His eyes glaze as he realizes what Emmanellain is trying to say.
Fury, rage unlike he's felt since first being pulled to Norvorant years ago bubbles up inside of him, soft kindness swallowed up in swelling anger. "You cannot fall, too. You will not. Do you hear me?" Viktor shakes him, hard, and, somehow, the smoking aether stops. "Go. Hold yourself together at least 'til you've gotten others to safety. Hide. We will mourn him after."
Viktor releases Emmanellain and stands, and the capricious Elezen, having been given an order he simply cannot refuse, he grabs the nearest merchant and joins the effort in getting away.
But not everyone flees. From the tavern, armed adventurers arrive, weapons drawn, ready to engage. And from the west, Lyna and her guard.
"Oi, big ears!" the dwarf, Giott, a little drunk already at this early hour, is the first of these newcomers at Viktor's side. "What's the damage?"
Viktor looks to Emet-Selch, tears welling in his eyes. The two of them could handle this alone, but—
But Edmont de Fortemps deserves an honorable death. But the people need to know that they can fight this horror.
"Think of it a Sin Eater, but red. Give it a proper send-off." He scrapes into the ocean of their aether, turns energy to Light and Transcends. Lily white wings, as much flower petal as feather, unfold brilliantly at his back. The stagnant air swirls with the scent of tall grass and honeysuckle, nature reclaiming death. White Magic turns from comfort to command: Be not afraid.
"Join us if you can fight. Stand behind us if you cannot."
black mages get buffs/shields now bc he's also tank. it's fine. dw about it.
As Viktor wrests Emmanellain to safety and the fool staggers off, safe to mourn and grief and be obnoxious another day. Would that he had been the one lost instead of the Count. Emet-Selch held no affection for the man - by all rights, it was Edmont's fault they were in this mess. If he hadn't written that damned book- but he did. And they are. And Emet-Selch knows that's not truly where the fault lies no matter how eager he is to lie blame anywhere else.
Viktor does not send away the other adventurers, and the crowd is at least somewhat fleetfooted when it comes to getting out of the immediate danger zone; they could handle it, but what better way to try and combat the despair than letting them fight it. Catharsis and solution all at once. They will have to manage the rumors afterward - religious fervor in particular, but Viktor's made the best choice available, and Emet-Selch turns to work.
The wards, which were supposed to prevent anything unwanted from getting in but did little good when that something came from within, he repurposes around where they are right now. He drags a corner of the spellcraft down like a sheet, tucking it in where adventurers end and bystanders begin, a shimmering line dividing this portion of the Crystarium off. He cannot do much about those who might be stuck on various floors, though. Surveying the group remaining, Emet-Selch grabs a bard by the arm, gesturing to the line. "Follow this with your hand, and send anyone you meet along its line to the other end of the Crystarium. This floor and any others, mind."
He feels the peloton go off an instant later, already turning toward a wet-eyed Viktor. He has spent no small amount of time envisioning rubbing Azem's nose in the mess he'd been left with, in the horrors that came one after another while the three of them barely had time to catch their breath. Look what your Mother spared you from but left us to suffer. Hydaelyn had sundered Aepymetes, but that meant sparing him the reality of this world, and the envy sitting in Emet-Selch's chest had turned all too easily toward anger.
Now, Viktor has seen no small amount of what Emet-Selch has once before, and he finds no pleasure in it. No desire to grab Viktor by the nape of his neck and make him look at the mess made like an ill-trained housepet. They can easily put on a show to prove the beasts can be slain together, to discourage any others from turning, to beat back a little of the despair that has already started to take root. Next to him, Cylva cuts him a little look, decidedly human save for the flash of sharp teeth he sees for an instant.
"I trust you've kept your claws sharp too," Emet-Selch murmurs, deserving the shoulder check he gets from her as she stalks past and proves she has, in fact, kept her claws quite sharp even in this lesser form.
Underfoot a circle forms, staff fitting itself to his hand with barely a thought. Rather than attempting to end this in a handful of shots he reaches for the aether Viktor has already changed, laced throughout the air and steals a little for each of the adventurers here, a thick shield of aether layered across each of them.
Only once he's certain a blow from the wailing beast won't take one of the adventurers out instantly does he dare join the fray properly. He tugs free a fistful of magic from their well just as Viktor blooms. When Emet-Selch slings the fireball he can feel how different it is; it cracks open wetly against the leg it had impacted and then splits like a crushed seed, dribbling fire that spreads down the leg like roots until they tether against the ground, burning even as they hold.
"That hold will not last long," Emet-Selch calls to Viktor, undeniably pleased the little bit of spellwork had worked that well. Flowers bloom on the beast's leg and pulse new waves of fire in time with each of Viktor's strongest pulses of white magic.
When Emet-Selch exhales, fog rises from his lips despite the moderate temperature indoors. The staff angled as a guide, one adventurer pulling another from its path when they're too slow to notice, Emet-Selch summons frost in the form of a blanket of icy moss crawling across the ground underneath the Blasphemy's foot. "And mind where you step hero- ah, pardon. Heroes."
here for it, stanning it, going massively ott myself
gods favorite little princesses
it's written on his business cards
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04, til death do us part, temporarily
the aetherial realm is his once more, with it comes a duty he has not partaken in, in thousands of years. when hydaelyn took her place as arbiter of the aetherial sea, emet-selch had not fought her. his duty, the shape of it and his execution of it, had changed. one day, he would take his rightful place once again, but until then he was content enough to allow her to maintain his domain. for all the issues and lack of trust he had with venat in the wake of her choice, she did not do it to spite their people, she did it because for some starforsaken reason, she believed it best. the souls in her care - save for the warriors of light - were well cared for. the sea was maintained if shaped in her image.
emet-selch spends the first three days tearing everything she has built. gone are the crystal walkways tinged blue, little faux-amaurot flourishes like a mockery of what once was, twisted like they were viewed through a cracked mirror. he builds a dock for the boat viktor has crafted, rather than risk viktor coming down here and simply swimming across. most tedious, is the fact that hydaelyn splitting the shards meant splitting the aetherial realms, too. it is barely a trifle to duplicate his work across those that are left, but it is irritating to suffer the reminder all the same.
he still attends meetings he is required to, still teaches viktor in the mornings, but no longer is he consistently within the crystarium. when the underworld is arranged back to his liking - not finished, but at least not infuriating to look at - emet-selch seeks out his friends.
he ushers the remnants of their souls into the inky darkness of tartarus to recover, and feels a little of the weight slough off bit by bit as he repeats with those of them who have passed on, who hydaelyn kept separate from aught else after their passing. were he to read Her actions charitibly, he would say She left them for him, because they were always more his than they were Hers. uncharitably, She had removed inconvenient pieces from their chessboard, knowing emet-selch would not venture down here so long as She owned it.
he seeds asphodel meadows with the countless flowers he has gathered along the journey he and viktor took to rescue those who could be rescued, bits of countless pieces of architecture he pulls from memory. the meager quantity of souls he had managed to rescue makes it feel emptier than he necessarily likes, but it is a comfort of a sort as well - there are enough alive up above, those they have managed to save, that to find below lacking is not wholly objectionable.
the scions, viktor's friends and allies, those souls he cares most for, or who emet-selch remembers being particularly irritating and incorruptible over the years, he places in Elysium. here, he plants the flowers he remembers, lacking seeds for most of them, relying on raw creation magicks, which he can do now with barely the faintest thought. there are even fewer souls here, especially when scattered across the shards, far too many sacrifices borne over the last few months. before any of them can too clearly look at him, emet-selch builds a handful of cities familiar to them with the same amount of effort as it takes to make a cup of tea, and then pauses, partway through adjusting the tiling on this area of Radz-at-Han's replication. he cannot recall if the tiling was blue, purple, or red in this specific area, and the fuzziness in his memory is terrifically annoying.
just because he does not need viktor's approval, so to speak, on the use of magicks, does not mean he does not feel it when viktor starts weaving, countless little tugs like someone inching a blanket onto their side of the bed. down here, he has little to no concept of time - he's forced to set a chronometer to ensure he does not lose track too easily. tugging it out, he scowls at the bell reflected. the middle of the night, then. a nightmare. and he will not be in his rooms, in case viktor goes hunting for him.
nipping in to see if he requires assistance and leaving the moment it is resolved is not a wholly awful plan and so emet-selch steps through one rip, and within viktor's room, suddenly the air rips open with a wet gasp and emet-selch steps through, thoughtless, scanning the room for -
the portal slips shut and stupidly, emet-selch wishes he had held it open, had waited before stepping through because he knows that shadow, that shade. it is not him, not truly, but for a wretched, horrible moment emet-selch wonders. creation from memory was easiest; creation without was not wholly impossible, but significantly more difficult even for skilled manipulators of aether. the question of which applies here sticks like a thorn in his boot. thus far, viktor has summoned and tended to whatever creatures he has made at night and emet-selch has not investigated, but the length of time this one has lingered gave him pause. now he has something of an answer, and even more questions.
the air tastes sour. emet-selch breathes a fortifying breath in through his nose, and focuses on viktor, decidedly, not the thing wearing aepymetes' form. ]
Viktor. Do you require assistance?
me to me: jesus christ dude
Which is the other problem. In a move he still hasn't decided wasn't foolish, he has found himself wholly and willingly knit up in another soul. Their weave had been strong before, but now...
Now, when he is quiet, when he focuses, he thinks he can feel the steady patter of Emet-Selch's heart set against his own. It is not just the thrum of pulled threads he feels when spellwork is done, but the way Emet-Selch's mind moves to hook strings into knots, turning stitches into braids, making his lovely weaves in that vast underworld he now commands. Gods, Viktor hopes it is a figment of his imagination. He hopes he is just going mad from lack of sleep. He hopes Emet-Selch does not feel the same things.
Though, even if he does, Viktor doubts he cares much.
Maybe it is the aforementioned lack of sleep, but Viktor cannot help but find it darkly funny. The whole of his adult life he's been afraid only of being discarded and abandoned. Spent his time leaving before being left, made himself available, but impermanent. And all the while, he's dreamed of a soul who might plunge into him and knit him in place, adore him the way summer flowers do the sun. One who would love him into loving himself.
So, what does he do? Wraps his very being up with a man who only tolerates him. Who uses him, openly. Is repulsed by his touch. One who's left the land of the living to spend his days building a kingdom for the dead.
Some honeymoon. Darkly funny.
Viktor manages, though. Finds wider distances lessen that probably-very-illusory feeling of Emet-Selch's lungs echoing against his own. And so, he too keeps himself away, returning in the morning for lessons, and then finding a day's worth of tasks in the field. Getting the work is not difficult, at least.
Feo Ul and the Pixies take up much of his time at first. It is a multi-day process, getting them all to listen to begin with, and then negotiating the expansion of their dream patrols. An extra bastion against the sort of creeping despair that comes at night. All the while, Titania is relentless in their invitations to shake off the most boring man on the star and become the Pixie King's consort instead. Somehow, Viktor is not tempted, though it does not stop him from flirting with the possibility at least a little.
After that, it's meeting with the nu mou to discuss the storage of aether with beings who won't ask too many questions, then a trip to the Empty, to see how un-empty it has become. Ryne and Gaia still work tirelessly to restore their world, unbothered by the knowledge that it might all be undone. Their ambition steels his own resolve, but his body wavers. Across three days, Viktor sleeps just a hair over nine bells.
Each time he dozes, something stirs and takes form. Wakes him. Sometimes monsters, sometimes people, all of them easily undone after weeks of practice. It is when he slips into deeper sleep and dreams that things become difficult. The dreams are never good, first of all, but, night after night, he makes the same strange shade. And night after night, he unmakes it, fast as he can - because each time it reappears, it stands a bit closer, manifests a bit more clearly, whispers a bit louder.
None of the others spoke, before.
It is at the foot of his bed tonight, long slender fingers wrapped around the baseboard as it leans over, closer, as if trying to get a better look. Viktor's breath catches in his throat as he stares at the thing he's made. A man, terrifyingly, willowy tall, wild mane of dark corkscrew curls hiding his features, save a pretty mouth that moves and makes barely a sound, forming words Viktor cannot understand.
Viktor finds himself at once drawn to the thing and filled with an impossible sense of dread. Both knowing, somehow, that coming too close means he will be swallowed whole, and needing to be nearer. He sits up, climbs onto his knees, and shuffles closer.
The thing with the dark curls and pretty mouth goes right on whispering.
Viktor does not know if it will respond to his will, but he still commands it. ] Speak Common. [ It does not listen.
So, Viktor crawls a little closer. He can almost make out a few words, spun in the tongue of the Ancients, translated by his Echo. "Copse", "conjury", "heart", "fungus".
He is so close, now. Close enough to see that the thing does not breathe, that its eyes shine like dim moonlight in the dark, the color of tarnished silver. ]
What...are you t-trying to tell me?
[ Viktor angles an ear toward the thing he's made, tips his head closer and holds his breath to better hear the mumbled sound. In the next moment, the thing lifts a hand. Plucks a flower from Viktor's head.
All the air rushes from Viktor's lungs. On instinct, he shoves it away, both hands to the thing's chest, hard as he can. It stumbles back hard, shoulders to the wall. Goes limp for a moment, a marionette with tangled strings, then snaps upright again. The thing laughs, and somehow the sound isn't horrible. No, it is low and warm, a crackling fire chuckle that hums in Viktor's chest. ]
"We are a garden, Hythlodaeus. Look to the roots."
[ Viktor skitters to the opposite side of the bed, digs deep into the well of their aether, prepared to defend himself. A second later, there is someone else in the room. His head swivels, arm raised to fling Light, and-
He hates the relief that washes over him, the way his terror rushes out in an exhausted sob right away. Viktor shuts his eyes, loathing his own weakness. ]
I-it s-s-s-- Unmake it. P-please.
EATING IT
Venat had been unsettling in the same way that seeing a creature from a fairy tale was unsettling. Impossible, but not insurmountable.
A few thousand years after the Final Days that weren't, those Amaurotines they raised up to their former stations asked about the missing member and, when answers were not sufficient, about who came before him. Trying to solve a problem long past the point of solving was tiresome to watch these fledgling attempts at Amaurotines do, and so Emet-Selch had largely avoided the conversations altogether - what a lovely opportunity for Elidibus.
He had imagined killing Venat, Hydaelyn, both, countless times over the years. A necessity he would not inflict upon Elidibus and did not trust Lahabrea to be able to manage successfully. Killing the shade was nowhere near the same as driving his blade into Hydaelyn Herself, and while the action was unsettling, he had slept perfectly well afterward.
The thing standing before him wearing a face that does not belong to it should be just as easy. Logically, he knows, Emet-Selch understands it is not him. How many times did he make and remake the shades in Amaurot when they were, irritatingly, just the faintest bit off? Those stage pieces conflicted with the greater display, so they were disposed of. Their aether repurposed until he got the manifestation right.
He should not struggle with the action when he has so much practice, and yet, like always when it comes to Aepymetes in whatever form - Emet-Selch falters. He has an impossible ocean's worth of power to bring to bear against it, so quick and so harsh the swell would tear the shade to shreds without even a second thought.
It was a creation, a manifestation Emet-Selch could dig his hands into and rip, like tearing a piece of parchment.
Emet-Selch does none of that, and his punishment for his inaction is that the thing starts to take a step closer to Viktor, casting an unnatural shadow across the wall. Emet-Selch's hands reach outward, tangling into the bundle of knotted threads making up the shade, and rips.
If he thought the sound of the air being rent open for a portal had a hint of violence, that was nothing compared to this. Threads snap and pop because he is inefficient, sloppy in his destruction. The top half of him - the top half of it. The top half of it. The top half of it stays in place even after Emet-Selch withdraws the grip that had been holding it upright. Ichor sticks to his gloves like tar, taking two flicks of his wrist to rid himself of most of the sludge.
What is he to do if the thing opens its mouth and speaks with Aepymetes' voice? The thought is unbearable. Nauseating. But what if it recalls- anything. What if this is the only chance he has to get any answers to the awful list of questions he has had for so long?
The creature does worse than talk to him. It laughs, with half its chest rent open, and instead of sounding pained or wrong (which would be their own kinds of horrible) the laughter just sounds like -
With his hands, then. The first attempt to tear the gnarled knot of threads was middlingly effective. Emet-Selch grasps the thing more firmly, shadow giving in under the furious grip of his fingers. It takes four sloppy tears to make it stop laughing nd even in pieces it still lingers, partially upright. The threads connecting the limbs start to shorten, a puppet slowly reassembling itself by its strings. If Emet-Selch trusted he had sufficient control over his magicks, he would simply erase it. He does not trust that he has sufficient control, and knows for a fact he lacks the emotional regulation for undoing to be effective. Power swells at his fingertips all the same and he flexes his hands until the desire goes away.
Gloves he hasn't worn in years are summoned to serve as thread rippers, snipping the bits of gold tying it to Viktor, and finally, finally, the thing tumbles to the ground and when it attempts to rise it does not make it more than a few ilms upward before collapsing.
Emet-Selch unmakes it, only when he's certain that is all he will do. The creature reduces to component parts the same as any other creation, but rather than trying to take the aether and replenish his own, Emet-Selch summons a bottle, and snaps the residue into the bottle, corking, sealing it with so many enchantments he might have trouble getting it off easily later. The bottle is chucked into a portal he summons an instant later. Out of sight, out of mind.
Would that emotions were half as easy. He can feel Viktor, and Viktor seems to feel everything, all the time. A barrier - the same way one prevented putting too much of themselves into the spellwork and being eaten up by your own spellwork - was only a temporary solution. He has built a wall between them as effective as the pillows Viktor used to stack between their bodies in Emet-Selch's bed at night. Privacy, of a type, but worthless if one of them attempted to clamber over to the other side. He has found a limb or two on the metaphorical other side of the bed more than once, withdrawing the moment he notices.
It's not particularly effective, but it's better than nothing. ]
I've removed it. [ Rather than look at Viktor huddled, Emet-Selch finds his eyes caught on the bit of shadow that lingers where that thing had fallen and snaps it away with an ease he wished had for the actual creature. Embarrassing.
He could bring up countless safer subjects to change the subject to. Practicing stepping through the Echoes to hone his abilities to work with Emmanellain more easily. The way Viktor had walked on the air itself to defeat the thing the Count became. How thoughtlessly he melded a glass' shape to adjust to his movements, rather than attempting to walk carefully. How he can feel Viktor's use of their shared pool shifting and changing, knitting together all the more neatly, the more used he gets to it.
He has no shortage of options and finds he can bring none of them to his tongue. Gingerly, he sits down on the nearest flat surface and dismisses the pointed gloves for the far more familiar leather Viktor crafted for him at the start of all of this. Now, the calf hide has broken in perfectly, and it is the taloned gloves that fit ill.
Emet-Selch inhales. Holds the breath until he's certain the flesh he inhabits will not rebel against him, and then slowly opens his eyes to focus on Viktor once he has mastered himself again. He'll let Viktor fill the silence. Maybe he knows what to say. ]
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not me spending the day getting excited that emet-selch was Thinking About The Fututre
8)
adfahlkjfddf i'm so sorry this is so lognggghg
NEVER APOLOGIZE
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or lahabrea's hot wife kidnapped him. who can say.
athena up to some REAL shenanigans
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coming back to this one now lmao
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jfc sorry sfjadlfadfjf tag so long
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05, the museum of a really normal, well adjusted guy who handles tragedy in a healthy wa
So one morning, instead of their normal lessons, Emet-Selch has them finish breakfast and sets Viktor on an aimless task that needs done, certainly, but mostly exists so Emet-Selch can go upstairs and take the universe's longest bath while trying to will himself to get out and just do this.
He has been in the building before. Mammets and manifested help take care of the building now, though he had visited - but visiting with Viktor was something else entirely. Offering up all of the little odds and ends that only existed as keepsakes out of some foolish desire to save the only bits he could for inspection from anyone else was nauseating, and with Viktor it was -
Well. It doesn't matter. After countless false starts the previous few mornings where he had managed a sufficiently decent avoidance of the subject, eventually he does wrest himself from lukewarm water, dress, and somewhat successfully avoid acting like they're going to carve his insides out and splatter them on the floor for Viktor to ask questions over.
To revisit the Source at all is risky, but their star is vast and Meteion can only work so quickly. Viktor can likely feel the pressure the moment they step through the portal to whatever unnamed location Emet-Selch has been evasive about taking them to - they go through the portal to the Source, and at the same time, like picking up a block and moving it, Emet-Selch simply takes them and the whole building and places it in the void between, safe from inky hands wishing to poke and prod.
There's no way to see the outside of the door from the foyer - Emet-Selch carefully ensures the doors do not open outward into nothing, but inside, the decor is a copy of Amaurot architecture, design. Sleek marble inset with gold and dark wood, stark lines and the intermittent delicate curve of metal craftsmen would struggle to replicate with such precision but creation magic could manage thoughtlessly. With a snap, he dismisses the ghosts wandering, but the mammets toddle along, ignoring the both of them as they work.
Everything he managed to salvage that was theirs - or their friends' or colleagues' belongings, lies in here. Each delicately arranged like a museum, careful lighting angled just so, placed upon pedestals, with enchantments layered so thick for their protection one can practically taste them walking past.
The western wall is nothing but tiny shelves, each lettered in Emet-Selch's exactingly neat print with name, position, item. At the corner of each lies a dot of color, his marker for the type of care each item needed, if any, a little smudge of aether that glows when a shelf needs attention. For larger items, massive tables span the front section of the room, each laid out in lines like a cafeteria, with individual pedestals for the larger items at varying heights, some covered in glass, some not. The tables themselves each have shelves built in that roll outward to hold more items.
Emet-Selch does not go past the foyer, but waves an arm out to the room, flicking his wrist. Perhaps eating before this little endeavor was not the best idea. ]
You will forgive me if my mood is not particularly cheery. You have until I tire of explaining to ask questions.
[ assorted imagery that's not like 1:1 accurate lmao but vibes (tw: dead animals on display): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]
why am i like this
So, however clumsily and ever diligently, Viktor weaves his inquiries into their lessons, their shared meals, their rare leisure time (goodness, they do while away hours together when duty does not pull them apart), but only when it feels right. When it is relevant, or when their moods are light, but not so light that the wrong question could sour something good. Viktor finds himself far too selfish to put those brief flickers of Emet-Selch's incandescent moonlight at risk.
It is, admittedly, a surprise when Emet-Selch finally relents. A long, long bath. Longer than usual, and long enough, certainly, to convince Viktor he has misstepped and made a mess of things again. Distracted, he writes his feelings plainly in the work Emet-Selch had set him to: rows upon rows of sleek apothecary's bottles, the first dozen or so perfectly rendered 'til doubt starts to set in. Then, by little measures, each glass tints darker, a gradual tip toward hazy sea glass gray-blue, never quite reaching entirely opaque. As with all things, Viktor hauls himself out of his doldrums just as soon as he's noticed, and the last few rows are all touched with unique flourishes, flower and ivy motifs, filigree around the neck, stains of rainbow color at the base - whimsical touches of creativity done to coax his mood back to rights.
He feels quite silly about the bottles when Emet-Selch emerges from his bath prepared for a field trip.
In a whirlwind of magic they are moved, one place to another, then to nowhere at all. Aether swirls, and Viktor, still acclimating to just how much more of it he feels now, has to spend a few seconds breathing through something like motion sickness when they finally land. But then he looks up and-
It is a treasure trove. There was a time when Viktor would've wrinkled his nose at Emet-Selch's obsession with mausoleums, his inability to look anywhere but behind, but taking it all in now, the meticulous care paid to every ilm, the spellwork, the intricate organization, he sees love. Sees the order for what it is, for how it makes sense of so much sudden and horrid chaos, and feels only fondness for the mind that maintains it. Fondness and perhaps a faint desire to fill Emet-Selch's still, silent spaces with sunshine or a breeze or fragrant flowers. Flowers, because this space smells strangely like nothing. Viktor's nose and ears twitch at the realization, unused to so much absence.
Before his own thoughts can grow too loud to fill the space, Emet-Selch snaps away the ghosts Viktor had only just begun to process. He cannot hide his disappointment, gaze lingering in a now blank space between pillars where a lifelike form had been the second before. Are merely constructs or echoes of the people Hades and Aepymetes used to know? Might one of them hum in the hollow of Viktor's chest the way the shade of Hythlodaeus had in Amaurot? Did shades of Aepymetes' parents linger here? Did he have siblings? How many did Aepymetes love with the ease of breathing?
Alisaie and Alphinaud spring to Viktor's mind, and his lungs squeeze tight.
He is here for a reason. Not satisfying idle curiosity, but trying to tap into what his soul had been. Something, anything, to make him more useful in their struggle against Meteion's song, to make temporary their losses. He is not sure Emet-Selch will allow him to touch anything here, but his Echo has never needed touch to get caught up in something's strings. And Aepymetes...
We are a garden. Look to the roots.
Viktor takes two intent steps toward the first displays, then stops as though tethered to Emet-Selch still lingering behind. Without a second thought Viktor returns to his side. Crucial as it will be to examine all he can find here, he will not stomp through it carelessly. ]
This is incredible. Thank you. [ Tentative, he curls his fingers around Emet-Selch's elbow. ] W-will you... show me your favorite thing here? Something that- something that is tied to a happy memory of him.
LMAOOO
Too late to muse on that now, though, now he finds himself looking anywhere but at the vestiges of what once was, now salvaged to lie here for no reason at all, because none of the people these items belonged to will ever come back. This building may as well be another graveyard, with him as its keeper, as above, so below.
Even the twitch of Viktor's nose and ears is not enough to jar the melancholy that has settled over him, no disgust to be found at the non-hyur features, nothing but a dull sense of exhaustion and prickling awareness he needs to do this and desperately wishes he could be anywhere else while Viktor peruses.
Of course Viktor would not let him stay on the margins, either. The warmth of Viktor's fingers creeps over his arm and barely, he resists the instinctive urge to pull away from any hint of comfort offered. ]
No.
[ Clipped, sharper than he means it to be but he cannot bring himself to apologize, either. His feet stay rooted to the floor, and there's nothing but the quiet tap-tap of the mammets' feet across the marble. ]
I know the contents within, I need not walk through for the reminders. [ This is not Amaurot, a piece of memory made real, repeating. This building has little to no reason to exist, after Viktor picks through it. Maybe Emet-Selch simply does away with the contents when Viktor finishes. Spring cleaning. ] I did not create this display for myself; its use is, frankly, only for this moment. There is no other reason for this to exist after you have finished.
[ How could he have a favorite when ever piece was a piece of a person who no longer existed, who would never exist again, unless in a wholly different form with little to no memory. Viktor is, as ever, the exception, but any of the belongings here do not have people who would have any attachment to the miscellany he has salvaged. ]
Peruse. Ask your questions. Then we may leave.
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gghgghghghghhghg sorry i went overboard again
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forcibly stopping myself from making this tag 20 miles long. the next one though?
HAHA
u ever write 3000 words for an rp tag?
:))))) FOOD FOR ME
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even the shade of aepymetes is an asshole
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Texting Nonsense: Sometime Post-Azem Museum Visit
i've two questions for you.
do you want the bad one first, or the worse one?
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The alert should wake him up, because he should be asleep. Instead, he’s sat in the center of the bed with a book he’s attempting for a third time to get through, and finds himself ridiculously relieved at the notification. Pathetic. ]
Have you any idea of the hour? Why are you even awake? [ probably because of the questions. There’s no good answer to this that he can imagine. ] The worst first.
Are you injured? If you’ve lost a limb, I will be extremely cross with you.
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[ ........wait. ]
it's too lumpy. not a quality i was in the habit of noticing until recently, you know.
save my ego, which was grievously wounded in a card game with the boys at Journey's End, i am whole.
WORST FIRST! your bravery, Emet-Selch! i am awed.
i wish to know, how did you lot reproduce, in your Paradise?
i've convinced myself it was not unlike making bread.
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1/2
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1/2
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1/2
2/2 this arrives whatever like...5 minutes before viktor would send a follow up text would be LOL
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06: mawwige
There is no Charon to guide, sundered or felled like the rest of them and so Emet-Selch takes his position at the head of the boat, familiar perched atop the orb set into his staff. Every so often, the shoebill spreads its wings, taking off slowly and circling wide and low above them, choosing a direction only when the boat seems to go a little off course. The coins Viktor created are fished out of a robe pocket, one plucked by the shoebill swinging low as Emet-Selch lifts it for him to snap in his beak, vanishing into the darkness shortly after. The other he thumbs into the water where it sinks silently, a low, gold glow at the bottom of murky teal water. Water ends suddenly, the ground spreading forth nearly indistinguishable from the water itself; there is no dock to bring themselves onto and so Emet-Selch hitches his robes up and take the first step out to the ground and once steady, reaches an arm out to help Viktor exit as well, releasing only when certain Viktor is steady. Emet-Selch pulls the bident from nothing moments later, handing it to Viktor and only releasing once he's sure Viktor has hold of it.
They walk, and the ground seems to build a road beneath them, through the water, providing a path until the inky darkness they work through resolves itself into a solid shape, a massive gate so tall it is impossible to see over manifesting before them. The key Viktor created is pressed into the lock and vanishes, and with a groan of infrequently used metal, slowly, the gates start to grind their way open with the shoebill dipping into the shallow opening first, landing partway through on much more visible, already existing marble floor pathing through sparsely grown long grass, glowing an unearthly, dim green.
After a non-specific number of steps, Emet-Selch pauses, figuring this as good as any. "I thought it best to start with the lowest first, as we have the least work necessary here. In the past, many more creatures resided here; through our work in Allag, some creatures or being were...we shall call it relocated. I believe you met some of them: Cerberus and Typhon were two."
One hand is held out and if Viktor is too slow, Emet-Selch grasps for his wrist instead, pulling his hand out, palm up. In it, he places three of the crystals, one sourced from Syrcus Tower, others from the Crystarium itself. A snap, and the rams appear, bleating unhappily at finding themselves in a different location with grass they cannot feed on. Emet-Selch releases Viktor's hand and presses a finger to the forehead of each beast between its horns, and one by one they exhale, falling into a limp pile and the crystals within Viktor's hand begin to glow. Distantly, three faintly glowing figures appear; the rams wander off, chewing at the sparse grasses they can now interact with.
"This is, strictly speaking, not a necessary part of the ritual itself. It is...preventative. The lowest circle of the Underworld, generally reserved for beasts, beings too unsafe for even Pandaemonium. Enemies of varying types. If we are unsuccessful but yet live, we may be able to use your ties, or mine, to this area and bring the Crystarium or Amaurot here, too deep for even Meteion's song to reach." A pause, Emet-Selch's lips pressing thin. "It is a guess. A shot in the dark. But I would rather have tried than not. Imbue each of the crystals with your own aether and then plant them as we go; they ought to act as anchors. I will tell you when and where to dig, but we start here, first. The other two crystals will be buried on our way to Asphodel Meadows."
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It would be reasonable to mistake that look for sober uncertainty. This task they have set for themselves is complicated, and not just because of its many exacting steps. To bind oneself to so ancient a place, to something meant for the dead, to someone who has strangled your soul from countless bodies over the course of innumerable centuries is a daunting prospect, of course. But, Viktor had left doubt behind in the Crystarium, embraced this path with all of himself, the safest route to the star's salvation.
So, that look - not dour, but focused, making note of each little glimpse of something more than nothing, colors, shapes, the way the sound of their footfalls changes. It also takes no small amount of concentration to keep his hands from wandering, wanting to touch every strange new thing that appears.
It's also... not cold, but chilly. The way an old house, sat unoccupied for years, is never warm, even on the hottest days. It serves, he supposes, as he obliges Emet-Selch steering him this way or that, grasping a wrist, directing him to move faster. Where would ghosts live save somewhere suited to haunting? It's a melancholy thought, made grayer knowing how much time Emet-Selch will be spending here once the ritual is done.
Viktor nods along with Emet-Selch's explanation, clutching the three crystals in one hand, and reaching out with the other thoughtlessly to hook fingers into the edge of his coat, righting a fold in the fabric, as though leaving fingerprints upon the leather might be enough to keep him stitched into the world of the living just a little bit longer.
Planting the Crystarium in a metaphorical grave to keep it safe is a dreadful prospect, but it is a necessary plan to make, he supposes. Emet-Selch will ever account for the worst, one foot in the dark. It is Viktor's job, then, as ever, to let in the light.
"Sh-should we need to do such a thing, I am glad to have had the chance to prepare," he says with a faint smile. "She will need be quite tenacious to get to that point, though."
Channeling aether into crystals is thoughtless work for a healer. Viktor juggles them in his palm as they fill with pale white-blue light, putting the majority of his attention on taking in their surroundings, watching the ghostly rams plod off. "'Tis not entirely empty, then? Other things linger?" He wrinkles his nose. Both Cereberus and Typhon were a little too mouthy for his liking. At least 'Asphodel Meadows' sounds nice. "Should I be on guard for a fight?"
sorry this took so long i keep rewriting and it's sjgrlrkrgkl
The thought lingers, discomforting, and Emet-Selch leads them onward through the ghostly grass. When he'd been chosen for the role of Emet-Selch he'd tread a similar path, following behind the current Emet-Selch with grim determination, trying to keep with her longer stride while infusing the crystals with his own essence. She told him he would one day do this for the next Emet-Selch, impressed upon him the importance of ritual, of everything being in its rightful position at a precise time. She'd held onto and maintained this iteration of the Underworld for countless centuries, stressing consistency.
Now, he thinks it is not so bad to deviate. The power Azem has is inherently far more chaotic than that of an Emet-Selch and to bind the two together without taking that into account does a disservice to both.
"Here," Emet-Selch says after they have long since lost sight of the rams, and the next region is distantly in sight. A barren patch of ground where not even the ghostly plants have broken through. With both Hydaelyn and Emet-Selch gone the Underworld had not quite fallen into disrepair, exactly, but it was not attended as often as it ought to have been and the little grassless patches are evidence. "There are creatures that wander about but most keep their distance more often than not."
An unnecessarily decorative shovel appears in his hand thoughtlessly and he hands it over to Viktor, nodding at the bare patch. "Doubtful. So long as you are at my side, none would attempt to challenge us but were you to wander off on your own without being fully tethered and without an Emet-Selch, I cannot promise you would not encounter a beast or two with very little sense of self-preservation."
i didn't forget abt this, old man yaoi just took over my brain
real
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i need to be stopped mblease
(no subject)
(no subject)