Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III | Chapter IV
SUMMARY
The key to strategy is not to choose a path that leads to victory, but to choose so that all paths converge there.
Emet-Selch has been alive for a very long time, for some rather indeterminate values of very long and alive. Perhaps aware is the better term for he has certainly slept through more than a few useless centuries, letting the victory conditions ferment like liquor. He goes to his latest death with every expectation of waking to success, the waves of his nurtured war rippling out like tsunami.
Yet somehow: The First still stands, inevitability wrenched aside at the last gasping moment. It should not have been possible and yet here he is; tasked once more to swallow a world that should not have survived.
The irony is not lost on him.
Yet his is the Third Seat of the Convocation of Fourteen. To know how to build is to know precisely how to break.
And he has had, after all, millennia to perfect every path to both.
It’s the little things, really.
The heat of the stone through the folds of his robe in this case, just this side of too warm so he doesn’t have to shift around to find a comfortable spot. He’s in the mood to be grateful for it when so little else has gone to expectation this day. The mortal discomforts that always irritate him so have finally had the time to fade into the background of his existence, but nothing reminds him of his temporary flesh more than scorching something delicate because he’s once again forgotten to check before touching.
Omnipresent light has its downsides after all.
Emet-Selch dangles his feet over the ragged drop of the cracked wall, an easy hundred fulms to the ground if it’s an ilm and watches his current problem get farther and farther away. Sighing is fairly superfluous at this point but he does it anyway because lack of audience doesn’t mean he can’t indulge himself. After all, who will appreciate his sense of the ironic if he himself doesn’t bother to take the time? His booted heels tap against the stone, a rhythmic pattern.
The view is not improving no matter how long he stares at it so eventually he leans back on his hands and stares at the sky instead. Light, light and yet more light. A constant susurrus of it over everything like a particularly bad glazing. The hardest part, he’s long ago decided, is the unending, incessant ringing as the aether talks to itself over and over again, winding around itself in agitated helixes because it can do nothing else; unable to disperse, unable to dissipate, completely unable to find a way to escape.
It’ll only get worse, of course, as this world edges closer and closer to its inevitable fall. The omnipresent, crying reminder of how close they came, now just the persistent backdrop of a chorus to their failure.
When he bothers to look again at the dusty road, all that’s left of his erstwhile quarry is tiny specks of disappearing shadow just now working their way up into the treeline. He leans forward, lightly gripping the edge of the crumbling stonework as the remnants of the so-called Scions of the Seventh Dawn are reduced to waver and smudge at the limits of sight. If they keep going in that direction they’re going to tip over into the bedlam of the ever so quaintly named Il Mheg and who knows when they’ll wander their way back out again. Or in what condition, for that matter.
It’s probably a deliberate plan. He can’t imagine anyone, even this particular set of bullheaded heroes, stumbling into dreamland by mistake. He’d wonder what they expect to find in there but he has more urgent things to consider. If he’s lucky the flowers will eat them and he’ll be saved from needing to do anything at all.
Tedious, boring annoyances mucking around out of nowhere, churning the tangle he’s dealing with into even more froth and foam. The surprise addition of Vauthry’s favorite attack dog into this latest contretemps between the rising forces of Pesky Interference and the dogged armies of the Status Quo had been both unexpected and unwelcome, even if it had provided entertainment of whatever dubious value. He’d watched from his vantage point and had been remarkably underwhelmed by the whole bumbling mess.
Some fighting, some posturing, a few heroic words shouted in the breeze, yes, yes, would it have been so much to ask that something get resolved? Perhaps a death or two to clear some of the playing field? It’s not like he’s being unduly picky here, but the sheer number of possibilities is unwieldy and if the chaff would care to blow off already, it would make so many things easier going forward.
He would have thought this little clash a calculated move if he didn’t depressingly know better. Chivvying your enemy into running from you was a lovely way to have them drop right into the pit you’d just dug for them, a tactic that Emet-Selch himself had used before to great effect and would no doubt use again. Sadly, it’s much more likely the Eulmorian general had simply slipped his leash on his own to hare off into the light blasted countryside, chasing his wayward little Oracle like a particularly rabid bloodhound.
Vauthry is, of course, not one who’s ever been encouraged to think beyond the doors of his receiving room and problems out of direct sight were most assuredly out of his tiny little mind and while the little General himself hadn’t seemed particularly burdened by idiocy, everyone has a blind spot or twelve. But truly, the man was starting to show signs that he might be more trouble than bargain, showing up when he hadn’t been explicitly invited to do so and in the process frightening off the quarry before he’d had a chance to do much of anything at all with them.
He truly hoped this wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. Insubordination as a concept was near and dear to his heart but with all else in flux he had rather hoped to find a place to observe a little closer and discover more about this ambulatory new plan of the Exarch’s. Only to find said plan already scampering off into the countryside without so much as a by-your-leave.
Still, Emet-Selch couldn’t bring himself to care overmuch. The motivations of those around him were to be known only insomuch as they could be understood and manipulated and it’s not as if this also couldn’t be made to serve, with or without his direct involvement at this stage. With all his delicate adjustments to this teetering world, yet more chaos could only work in his favor.
He’d at least been able to take some measure of Lahabrea’s last vessel during the little scuffle which was a small consolation. Certainly a pretty enough puppet if you liked them fair and decently skilled as well with that blade of his, as much good as it had done them. No doubt Lahabrea had enjoyed that part, what with his usual penchant for unthinking, frustrated violence. An unaltered body already attuned to it would have been soothing.
As if the memory alone was all that was required, the aether around him twists. Vertigo tries to settle like an ill-fitting cloak as the star itself shrieks in protest, two sensations he brushes off without effort. It takes but a moment for pale Convocation robes to coalesce into existence, close enough to brush his cheek with the press of bone chilling metal against his shoulder. The grit of reality remains unmoved beneath a booted heel that hadn’t been there bare moments before and is not really here even now.
It appears his brother has left his borrowed flesh behind for this excursion. A possibly foolish choice, but who is he to offer advice in this matter? One more dead body laying on a bed somewhere will frighten only a passing chambermaid and spread yet more delicious rumors. It’s not as if he hasn’t done as much himself from time to time.
Together they stare down the road.
“They appear to be getting away,” Elidibus says after a time.
“It does appear that way, doesn’t it?” Emet-Selch narrows his eyes against the glare and once more sighs, this time for his audience of one who, of course, isn’t going to be the least impressed but truly, it is and always will be the spirit of the thing. “Alas. Whatever shall I do.”
“As you always do I should think.”
“And you would be so, so right.”
“May I assume this to be a part of some as yet unrevealed plan?”
His lips quirk in amusement at the not-quite note of dry exasperation. “Would it please you to hear me say not particularly?”
“You know it would not.”
Emet-Selch rolls his eyes. “All this time and you still have nothing in the way of a sense of humor. I despair of you, I truly do.”
“I wasn’t aware that humor was a requirement.” Silky soft, his brother’s deep voice falls like ash. He’s heard it before pronouncing judgment at the end of entire worlds. He is the only one left who can hear the fondness threaded through it like ribbon.
He taps a forefinger against his lips, the supple stretch of leather protesting gently. “Well, it certainly helps pass the time, don’t you think?” This form has had this pair of gloves for over a decade by any reckoning and still, not a crack in them. Say what you will about Garlean savagery, their artisans knew their worth. And charged their weight in gold for it but what was an imperial treasury for if not to spend as one wished? “Still, as much as it displeases me to say and you to have to hear, let us not fall prey to the terrible habit of making more of what is and less of what isn’t. Although I admit I have yet to see anything that is immediately helpful in the disruptions scampering after the Exarch’s latest pets, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And it’s not as if the old plan is suddenly and irredeemably broken. Bent, perhaps, I will concede. No more than that.”
“And you are Emet-Selch.”
“And I am Emet-Selch. And what am I, after all, if not the corrector of patterns?”
The heated breeze picks that moment to skirl up, bringing the taste of dust and stone. The metal filigree in the Emissary’s robes chimes to itself, an old brush of wayward music that recalls days forgotten. On a whim he presses his temple against his brother’s hip through the lingering chill of the fabric that is the gift of the void they move through and breathes out a sound to harmonize, making the air dance in reluctant delight.
Elidibus rumbles his answer with the faintest exhale and that, too, is music. For that aching heartbeat it overwhelms the constant crying of the light and he closes his eyes against the ephemeral pain of it. So little remains now that all of it slices to the heart.
“Ah, well,” he says as the echoes fall and die. He shifts away, slouching forward on his perch to break the contact that has in the last instant become unbearable, hunching as if mere ilms will help. “Our Exarch has finally deigned to move beyond his crystal walls with these bright new pieces he has found, so eager it seems to play them upon this board. Which begs the question of why now in particular. If I have been caught sleeping the sleep of the righteous who do, I remind you, need to rest every now and again, then it is upon me to fix the lack of oversight. Even if I am not yet sure which thread will untangle this mess.”
“Why do you not slay the man outright? He is not beyond us.”
“Do not tempt me,” he grouses, brushing a hand through the air as if to flick the problem away. “I have thought it, more so than ever as of late, but you must agree that his absence would be a hole not easily patched. The Tower alone, the blasted thing, would cry out for him and with all things in this new and annoying flux I would not risk losing more of what ground we already have. Unless you tell me to, of course.”
Elidibus is silent and Emet-Selch takes it for the acknowledgement that it is; that for all his sensitivity to the warp and weft of the turning worlds, he has no advice to give in this matter.
It is true that he is often in disagreement with his brother, both of their individual charges still occasionally at odds but ever towards the same goal. It is also true that should the Emissary tell him that the crystal irritation is to be shattered, he would do it without hesitation. But the resonating instability it would leave behind here in the First as the Tower lost its anchor might be irrecoverable. And if Lahabrea’s loss has reminded him of anything, it is not to trust that he sees all consequences to all actions.
He is Emet-Selch but he is certainly not infallible. Witness the Thirteenth.
He looks again, only to discover his quarry is truly gone now beyond the line of trees leading into the rising hills, not even a drifting dust of leaves to show where they had been. “Yet,” he says, picking up the thread again, “fear not. I will find our new way as I always do and I do have some thoughts on the matter. I may very well decide to go with all of them if only for the sheer confusion of the thing.”
Between the singing light of the sky and the mask hiding within the shifting darkness of the hood it’s not as if he could see Elidibus’ face if he looked up, so he doesn’t lift his gaze. This is not a moment for reaching for anything more than he has already been granted, especially something as fraught as eye contact. Even should such a breach of manners be permitted while his brother’s soul is bare.
“Do as you do, then,” the Emissary answers finally. “The Source proceeds apace. Your Empire continues to crack along its fault lines and there is yet time to correct any imbalance there that arises. Yours is the timing now.”
Emet-Selch waves a dismissive hand in the air. “Yes, yes. Do take care of my little war in my absence, there’s a good Paragon. You may leave the First to me once more. That is why you woke me up, is it not?”
An unexpected weight falls upon his head then, feather soft, the surprising cup of his brother’s hand. Claw tips made of nothing more than memory and will rest for a moment against his hair, long enough for his stupidly mortal heart to stutter with surprise as they slip through the sleek strands, scratching the lightest of lines across his scalp. He finds himself leaning once more against his brother’s side in unthinking response.
He closes his long eyes at the unexpected, piercing pleasure of it. Trust the fulcrum to know how to weight itself and others for balance.
“All paths.”
Emet-Selch sighs for the heartbreaking knowledge of it. “All paths, as always,” he murmurs. “Do go away now. You’re infecting me with your worry.”
A flicker of air is his answer as Elidibus withdraws the comfort of his hand, stepping back off the broken wall into nothingness and Emet-Selch is left to brood at the heat and the empty road.
He’s not normally prey to doubts. Mistakes and errors are part and parcel of this and if he second guessed any of his actions before, during or after, he’d never get anything done.
But this? This feels oddly like a misstep for all that the sound of his boots rings solid and true against the wooden slats of the bridge, eating up the distance with his long stride. The worked iron arcs in thin curves over his head, filigreed unto absurdity with overly complicated arabesques, no doubt some statement or other of indomitable beauty defiantly thrown into the face of inevitable dissolution. An elegant treatise to be written some time before the final end by some lackluster scholar with too little ambition and too much self preservation.
Ahead and above, rising to pierce the very sky itself the Tower dominates all, humming in his ears as if actually pleased at the little cluster of domed crystal children it’s managed to birth at its feet.
Perhaps it is that reconnaissance is something he’s always left for others; the minutiae of intelligence and information best left to those who care to ferret the secrets out, the sordid details that add nuance here and there to what he would exploit. The hows and the whys are always trivial, their individual meanings irrelevant - worlds fall because men desire what they cannot hold and will tear apart before they will share. One whisper in the right ear at the right time and the whole corrupt façade fractures into a hundred landslides, burying all in its path.
A double handful of decades ago that had been here. Then Hydaelyn had thrown Her benighted avatar at it, somehow holding back the deluge that should have swept away all before it and now he has to somehow chivvy this runaway trolley back onto its tracks and towards its required dissolution with no easy handle to grip. Vauthry’s carefully nurtured influence should have been enough, infecting this last clutch at resistance with the smothering beliefs that would lay the last of them down in the dirt to asphyxiate.
And yet, here he is. Assailing the den of his current adversary incognito as it were, clad in conjured road dust to his booted knees, hood raised in a subterfuge he rarely bothers with, unassuming cloak thrown back over the slide of linen-clad shoulder to leave only the height of his favorite form to pronounce him any different from all the rest.
Looking for the fracture point of this world that somehow he has missed.
Emet-Selch steps off the bridge and onto the oddly glazed stone, the thud of wood replaced by a muted chime which is as pleasing as it is incongruous.
It’s called the Crystarium for blindingly obvious reasons and its inhabitants are the poor, huddled descendants of those who didn’t have the grace to die when given ample incentive to do so. All this clinging life; fingertips and toenails digging into the cracked soil and refusing to let go, currently scurrying like plague rats around him even as he slows his pace in an odd sort of indecision.
To the left, a carefully tended sward of actual green surrounds a tiny grove of blighted trees swaying in the barely felt breeze. To the right his choice of open crystal bubbles and the less regimented hubbub of voices, some of which manifest into bodies that dash from one side to the other. Behind is what passes for the pitiful remnants of this world where obstentionaly he’s come from if anyone cares to make notice of him in particular, and ahead and up is a wide set of stairs balancing the necessary aetheryte to summon home those who can still make use of it; power made manifest enough to chip into a bracelet if he felt the urge to correct the ornamentation he’s currently lacking. Beyond that a peek into an indistinct open space where no doubt where the spirit lifting sing-alongs happen.
Does the Exarch feel him here, in all his currently bridled glory? Can the Exarch feel anything at all is probably a more interesting question. This close to the Tower, near enough that he could almost lick it if he wanted to, he cannot tell if he’s hidden under all these endless refractions of Light or if he’s an ambulatory puddle of Void to be tripped into at the worst possible moment.
There will be no answers, or better questions for that matter, to be found in trees that he could find anywhere at all if he cared to look so it’s to the right he saunters, heading for the most noise.
———-
The drink is barely adequate but it’s likely the best that’s going to be on offer for the rest of the time that this world has. That anyone anywhere is able to even continue to distill alcohol out of whatever passes for fruit in these trying times should no doubt be applauded instead of disparaged, even if it is just in his own mind.
At least, he hopes it's fruit. For all he knows they’ve figured out how to do something with the Light-blasted bone fragments scattering the Empty and it would not surprise him in the least to find out they had. His tongue certainly feels like it’s been licking sand. The taste is enough that he wonders if stepping back to the Source for something potable is perhaps a forgivable offense if he does it quietly enough.
The swirl of noise is oddly dulled considering the wide open area and the amount of people congregating here. Without night, without any real day of which to speak really, this is apparently where one goes if one is not sleeping, eating, or actively engaged in whatever passes for surviving. It’s not all that different from Eulmore really in its trappings, if less heavy on the gold facings and extravagant displays of food aching to be wasted. It appears to make up for it in the sheer amount of people wearing stained leather aprons and delicately vaulted ceilings seemingly held up by glasswork alone. If he feels like being generous - and for the moment, he is, the quality of his drink notwithstanding - there’s some talent inherent in the construction.
It does make one wonder where they got the beams for it though. The spindly trees that are all that can grow now in this benighted place couldn’t possibly arch these spans. He tilts his head back as the idea occurs. The chair tilts with him on two legs so he plants one foot on the ground as a brace, leaving the other outstretched across the low table he’s commandeered for himself.
Yes, there’s aether in it but still, much less than he would have thought necessary. Perhaps while he’s here he should check into whatever passes for archives. There must be some record of when precisely this was built and whether the Tower’s enigmatic enigma was involved and if not, how much was repurposed from elsewhere. Which elsewhere being the idle musing of the hour. There is no Allag here in the First, after all, to scavenge from save for the Tower itself so it is certainly a question.
A distraction from more pressing matters in any case, if an old, time honored one. He takes another long swallow of his drink as he contemplates both inner and outer Light and suppresses the shudder that both wish to give him.
When he drops the chair down with a meaty thud the wood groans in warning. Almost nothing here is built for this vessel’s frame, for all that the First boasts the so-called Galdjent. It’s enough to make a man long for the old days when everything everywhere accommodated itself as needed, usually before being asked to do so. He slouches farther, perversely daring the furniture to fail in its singular purpose for existence.
The scatter of beings at the next table over slam their own drinks back in a flurry of noise, jostling each other and starting to push their way towards the nearest set of stairs heading away. That leaves him with a more straightforward line to continue watching his object of interest and her partner without particularly appearing to do so. For all his irritation with the chair and the drink and the gravity defying spans, sometimes the world really does just align to his wishes without any particular effort on his part.
She’s of reasonable height for her race, dressed for the moment in some sort of dark red cloth bound tight with strapped black leathers, suitable enough for a place where one might be reasonably assured of safety. Flashes of skin peek out everywhere between the tight lacing and while he knows it’s more for ease of movement than titillation, the effect is rather lovely nonetheless. He’s wearing something similar himself actually under his intentionally battered cloak, if not quite so elaborately tied or with as many little golden embellishments. There’s a time and a place to impress and sadly that time is not now.
Her companion however is still wearing knee high armored jackboots and the ubiquitous duster coat that he’d been wearing the last time Emet-Selch had seen the back of him, although he knows for a certainty that they’ve been in the Crystarium for some days now. The faintly glowing and therefore charged ammunition tied to the various loops is a clear warning that while the hyur.. oh, excuse him, the hume, may not be expecting attack in the middle of this fine drinking establishment, he’s certainly ready, willing and advertising for it.
Perhaps he’s heading out. Or just that paranoid. Or that spoiling for a fight. Or all of the above.
The details are likely less than riveting so he switches his attention back to the other and once again is struck by how little she matches what he might have expected. After all this time he should really be used to the various packaging that so-called heroes arrive in and be less surprised, but even in this there’s nothing in her face or frame that would lead one to believe she’s capable of anything more helpful than yelling downslope to someone more heavily armored. Someone like her white haired companion who’s currently waving both hands around trying to explain some definite point that Emet-Selch has no hope of hearing over the background clink and clatter.
This is what the pinnacle of hero-ing has come to? Little miqo’te women who look barely out of girlhood with delicate hands and slight frames? Unless she’s using a flute to fight with, her weapon alone must weigh more than she does.
Then again, it’s not really the weapon that’s the important part, is it? Hydaelyn’s heavy hand obscures nearly everything else he might have wanted to see, corrupting any desire to look with anything other than his eyes.
Whatever her friend is so incensed about, it makes her laugh and in the moment of tipping her head back to release it, something catches her eye and she half tilts her head to look at him.
He stills at his table for a heartbeat. He hadn’t intended any sort of confrontation, even as gentle as this. The catalog is swift and thorough - his body is still in its near sprawl with one foot on the ground and the other propped up, drink in his hand half cradled against his ribs as if forgotten. The cowl is still shading his face from view as intended so all she’s really going to be seeing is a stranger; larger than most certainly but not awkwardly so, who does not wish to be bothered or known.
Her dark eyes seem to make the same assessment and flick away.
Then they flick back and she stares more boldly. This time her body shifts as well, the ever so slight twist of shoulder and waist that angles her more to him than to the one keeping her company. It doesn’t seem particularly deliberate but well he knows this unthinking language, these words without words that play out across meeting halls and bedrooms and battlefields. Whatever she sees or thinks she sees, somewhere she’s posed the question without asking that’s now his turn to answer without saying.
What’s a man to do, especially when he is no man at all? With so much locked in useless eddies, moving too late is as much of a danger as too soon and he’s been at this much too long to make those easy kinds of mistakes. He lifts his glass in acknowledgement and against his better judgment, finishes the drink without appearing to look away. The shudder is as tiny as he can make it and he licks his teeth in resignation. Truly, a terrible extraction. The distiller should really be taken out back and shot as a lesson to the rest.
He leans forward to put the empty glass on the table then and touches the edge of it with a forefinger, rocking it to the side. See that I am empty, it says. See that I am alone.
See that you may fix both of these problems.
The corner of her mouth moves and it seems there is an understanding there as she turns back to her friend, no doubt to conclude whatever the story was in order to move onto the next, more interesting one that will be held at his table, not theirs. He leans back, causing the wooden joints to once more creak ominously.
Ah, well. All paths, indeed. Perhaps conversation with this enemy isn’t such a terrible idea after all.
Assuming, of course, that he gets to have it.
The erstwhile vessel appears to have picked up on the exchange, brief as it was. Either the man is more perceptive than Emet-Selch had granted or he’s losing his touch for subtlety, although it’s not as if he was actually trying to hide anywhere other than in very plain sight. Truth be told, his banished brother was the one more for the shadows than himself and even the Emissary chooses his moments rather carefully but he prefers, as he always has, to walk as free as he may.
He’d like to think that something in that has caught her attention. Or perhaps it’s just that she can’t see his face and the mystery is enough.
Her companion is leaning hard across the table now and fingers brush her wrist as if in caution or warning or perhaps even simply to remind her of a prior claim. It’s not as if he knows who is coupling with who in their little conglomerate, after all. If he’d had to guess he would have thought the man bedding the little Light pest, if anyone at all, with the way she trails around after him but who’s to say? Perhaps he’s having them both, in series or in tandem.
The man doesn’t look in his direction, his focus on the Chosen of Hydaelyn, but it’s not as if it's not obvious. She shakes her head once and then again, harder. Her tone rises sharply at the end, cutting through the ebb and tide of the background.
If he had to guess, it’s something along the lines of taking care of herself, possibly with a side note that she is a grown woman free to make her own choices. Something probably about what could possibly happen to a seasoned fighter such as herself in the heart of this near fortress and that should something happen that she truly didn’t want, a half hearted scream would surely bring down the wrath of all the nearby kith and kin that her voice could reach. Assuming, she’ll point out, if she hadn’t already stabbed her assailant.
Although he can’t see it from where he is, there has to be a sharp knife hidden somewhere. That’s just how these things are.
The sour look on the companion’s face pretty much says that even if he’s not precisely right, he can’t possibly be that far wrong. And it's not as if any of that imagined conversation is untrue. After all, how is she to know how quickly he can step between worlds? It is not as if he’s any kind of common abductor at all, should abducting suddenly become something he’s interested in. If he was a common ruffian, well, he certainly could be easily put in his place by such a one as the vaunted Warrior.
She says something yet again, her fingers spread open on the table, and it appears to be the final word as she tosses her hair and stands, chair scraping soundless across the intervening distance. Her fingers close around her own glass which, he notes, still has at least half the swill in it. If only he could be so lucky; the taste continues to linger like a preemptive hangover. The companion leans back and makes a fairly obvious production out of folding his arms as if to make sure that everyone around them realizes he, at least, isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
And then he has the pleasure of watching her walk towards him.
He revises his estimate of her age downward and then downward again as she skirts the tables and space between them and he is able to see more closely. Are the heroes of the Source learning their skills in the cradle these days? Her skin is remarkably smooth and unblemished, lacking even the distinction of a tragic scar or three which most of them usually have by now. Too many bruises taken too fast, a backhand to the face with the resulting wreckage of eyes and cheek and chin, an overhand blade, an underhanded fist.
Are the monsters that careful with her? Does she dodge just that fast? Or does Hydaelyn extend her hand even more strongly over this one than most? She must be to the point of desperation to prevent the next pas a deux in their little dance if she’s taking them as babes in arms now and protecting them so tightly.
Each Calamity yet another nail in Her fist. Each loss of Her champion a bleeding cut that cannot close. It is only a matter of time until he can sweep Her away entire; time which he has so much of.
He is grateful for the enveloping hood that still obscures his features. It is a simple matter to tilt his head downwards to hide even more in the recess provided by the cloth and revise his own age down to be closer, a decade and change eased away in a heartbeat, the length of his hair permitted to fall across his forehand and to his shoulders under the shielding weight. He does nothing with the body save drop his raised foot to the floor so that he appears as open and as unguarded as the current non-existent breeze.
Her fine eyebrows are raised slightly in what he expects is either anticipation or nervousness or more probably both as she comes to a stop some few paces away, a polite, social distance. The fingers of her free hand touch the back of an empty chair.
“May I join you?” she asks and if her voice is steady and her lips are half smiling, her dark eyes aren’t. Perhaps this isn’t something she does all that often, then? Once more the world refuses to conform to expectation and there the latest hero of the hour stands, dressed for the tiniest of scuffles and looking sweet enough to be kissed for her efforts.
He waves his hand at the seat. She takes the invitation and sits, placing her glass on the table companionably next to his with a sort of emphaticness that he is certain is not in the least aimed at him.
He's spared the need to come up with anything useful to the moment as she immediately leans forward. “Thank you. For this. I was rather looking for a reason and you seemed kind of… available.” Her mouth opens as if to ameliorate the word but then closes, lips pressing together.
“A reason, is it? Well, I’ve always had the potential for it,” he has to agree. “And available I certainly am, even by the most repressive standards.” His last consort was long dead after all, as he had been himself before being prodded back into existence. No law in any land anywhere would consider him as still owing anyone even paper obligations. Assuming he still subscribed to any laws at all.
“I think this is where I’m supposed to admit up front that I’m just using you to make a point to my friend. If that’s okay, of course.”
“Friend, is it?” he drawls. “You do realize he’s trying to assassinate me with his eyes.”
She presses a hand to her face but doesn’t look back at the other table. “Yes. Thancred’s very, very protective. Of everybody. Always. That’s kind of the current problem.”
Emet-Selch tilts his head more obviously to make sure the other man notices that he’s noticing.
“I don’t remember asking for his name.” He tilts his head the other way as if to see her face beyond the hiding fingers. “I certainly wasn’t thinking of him at all when you walked over here and now you’ve given the man an identity that I truly have no idea what to do with.”
She drops her hand under the subtle pressure of the gaze, choosing to rub the palm on her thigh. "Well, I don’t think I’ll be introducing you to him anytime soon. If that helps. I'm…”
“Ah, ah,” he says, lifting a finger to cut her off. “Do let me stop you there. Is this truly the moment for the exchanging of something so trite as names? I would prefer to be somewhat less than formal. You can be… oh, let me think.” He considers her face, her form, the glint of embellishment at her wrists, shoulders, arms. The urge strikes him to play with this one, so young and no doubt brave and so impossibly overmatched. “Sweetness, perhaps. Darling? My dearest.”
Her eyes round with astonishment and she blinks and he does so love that look on most everyone, but it’s a particular joy on her, especially as it's swiftly followed up by narrowed eyes and a thunderous frown. “Perhaps Thancred was right.”
“Was he, then?” He runs an idle finger around the edge of his empty glass. “Are you then not used to general compliments? Or is it more that you’d prefer to hear his?”
She looks nonplussed and then her head starts to shake in emphatic, probably unconscious negation. “No. Oh no, no, not ever, not at all. He’s.. well, he’s definitely himself, let’s put it that way. And old habits die hard I suppose, and he’s uh, very well liked but no. He’d be best pleased if I always have a dagger in my boot and that’s as far as that goes?”
Emet-Selch quirks his lips. “Is that where you keep it,” he purrs.
“Yes,” she says after a confused moment and her chin firms, tilting up. “If we’re not... If we’re not doing names then for some reason, what should I call you? Informally, that is.”
“You don't have to call me anything at all, it's completely unnecessary. But you’ve never given anyone a pet name?”
“I don’t know that many people. Informally, that is. I’m always being introduced everywhere and its full names and a thousand titles and I never manage to keep any of it straight.” Her lips purse in a most delightful way. "Anyone that seems to know me and I don't recognize I call ser just in case."
“A shame,” he replies, a little distracted. “Your mouth is definitely made for less formality all ‘round. Let’s see.” He taps his finger against his lips, considering. The half blush seems rather permanent at the moment but she hasn’t gotten up and stomped off. She may even be enjoying herself. “I’ve gone by many names, of course, known here and there by ones I’ve long since forgotten."
"Merchant?"
He affects a shudder. "Of a sort, one could say. A peddler of ill repute let us say, selling wares no one should buy if they have any thought to the cost. It does, however, keep me very occupied.” He stretches against the poor, abused furniture, spreading his legs and sweeping a casual hand down the line of his body. “A game then. What do I seem most like to you?”
“Something with a clever bite,” she breathes and then blinks again. “Or claws. Coeurl?” Once more that high color touches her cheeks and he has to smile. She is something of a sweetness, not in the least because who she is does not in the least seem to match what he has known her to do. Then again, what are heroes for but to rise above expectation?
“Not tonight,” he confirms. “Tonight, my intentions are merely to drink and to watch and to observe, erstwhile danger left at the door to sleep like the dog I most assuredly am not. But I will not disagree with the commentary about claws.”
“You are very sure of yourself, aren’t you.”
“Of course I am. Would you prefer that I wasn’t?”
She shakes her head again and this time her expression settles on bemusement, as if the continued conversation has lightened something somewhere. “I’m used to it. My friends are sometimes very certain they are right. Even when they are not certain, they have a way of making me feel that it’s only a matter of time before they are.”
“And you, I take it, are not.”
“I am not certain of anything,” she says after a nearly imperceptible pause. “At least not anymore. But confidence is always attractive.”
“What? And the rest of me isn’t?”
Her mobile lips twitch to the side in a small, secret curl for just a heartbeat then something stricken dulls her eyes. She looks away and then seems to find her hands fascinating. “How would I know? But I’ve always liked tall men. I suppose that’s why I walked over here when I had to get away or throttle Than… my friend where he sits.”
“So it's that I remind you of someone."
“No. I don’t even know what you look like, so no. Just.. obvious height, I suppose, even sitting down. Large hands. Is that what I should call you then?” Her lips tilt again and this time there is a brightness in it that trembles but stays. “Tower? Fingers?”
He exaggerates the shudder. “Oh, please do not. You truly are terrible at this.”
“Well, it’s not as if I’ve had any chance to practice! I don’t walk up to people I don’t know and invite myself to sit with them as a rule, and then make up names for them since they won’t share theirs.”
On a whim he reaches up and slides his hood back. It has been decades since he had long hair quite like this on a youthful body and it pulls against the fabric. He reaches back to untrap it, brushing through the mass to fall over his shoulders more easily.
“There. Does that help?”
She blinks, slow and sweet and that’s a lovely thing to watch as well. He’s always liked this form, possibly his favorite out of all the ones he’s taken over time, molded and shaped to resemble the distant memory of his own as far as the flesh is able to stretch without a complete Remaking. There’s a cruel beauty to it that he’s always enjoyed and used to his advantage. Something between the juxtaposition of the fine features and the width of the mouth, he likes to think.
“That… doesn’t help at all. Your eyes are. Startling.”
He reaches out and picks up her glass, toasting her with it. “So I’ve been told.” He brushes his mouth over the rim, doing nothing more than wetting his tongue. Hers is no different nor better than his had been unfortunately. He grimaces and then stretches forward and she perforce must take the glass offered from his fingers, hand curling around the smooth cut sides as she pulls back. Pulls away really, body suddenly prim and closing off in the most obvious way he’s seen in ages. There is a frown creasing between her eyebrows that hadn’t been there a moment before.
Are his eyes really that unnerving? Then again, it’s been nearly an age since anyone cared to look at his physicality in preference over his ability to order continent spanning carnage. It’s almost novel.
“Drink,” he encourages. “Names are the least of things, I’ve found. Helpful in some cases, utterly useless in others. Do not worry yourself overmuch for mine.”
“You do have a name though.” She obligingly puts her lips to the glass though and manages to sip more than he did. Her nose wrinkles and a part of him commiserates.
“Certainly I do. I am waiting for someone to call me by it, I suppose.” He stops for a moment, startled at the little truth he hadn’t meant to specifically share. He feels his lips moving into something that might be a smile and lets them. Why not? It's not as if the joke isn’t good, if one sided.
“Right. And that’s not in the least ominous.”
“Dearling, you’re the one that came over and sat down,” he points out. “The least I can do is be entertaining while you’re willing to stay. So tell me,” he adds, “what point are we trying to prove again? To your assassin friend,” he says, in case his meaning wasn’t clear.
“I would have thought it to be obvious. Painfully so.”
“Something about not being a child, possibly something about your own choices, a further something about being as careful as you feel like?” She raises the glass to him and he leans back in satisfaction. “A conversation as old as time itself. So which of these things in particular did you want to rub his face in?”
“Why not all of them?” she quips. “I am just… I am just so tired of it. He means well, I know he does, but Thancred could lecture Tataru into the ground when he gets into one of his moods and he’s been in a mood for days what with Minfi… I mean, with everything going on. There’s usually somebody else around like Y’shtola or Urianger to distract him but not tonight.”
He flicks his fingers in the air to brush the useless away. “And there you go again. Did we not already discuss this?”
“It is his name, you know. It’s all of their names. I’m not going to say that guy over there just because you want to be nobody in particular.” She waves her arm out to the side as if to indicate that entire section of things behind her and over her shoulder.
“Oh, my dear, do not do that. He’s going to think himself summoned and walk over,” he murmurs.
“Twelve forfend.” She drops her arm and drums her fingertips against the side of her glass, producing a tiny ringing noise. “Please let me know if he gets up and starts heading this way.”
“He’s getting up and heading this way.”
“What?” She spins in the chair to look before turning back to glare. “You ass. You did that on purpose.”
“Of course I did. And may I say that was a truly delightful look of panic.”
He doesn’t know why he’s playing this game, exactly, and it occurs to him finally to consider it. The banter is reflexive, casual. He’s been at this a very long time and cajoling an opponent into ill considered aggression and flattering a would-be ally into equally ill-considered complacency is as second nature as breathing. But she is neither of those things - at least not quite yet - and yet here he is, wasting time and oddly enough? Rather enjoying himself.
Perhaps it is the unlooked for, precious naiveté. He has yet to see a reason to declare himself and she has a simple problem, one he can easily solve simply by being who he outwardly appears to be. He doesn't even need to dissemble, the epitome of every bad choice possible if she but knew it. And it seems he is in the mood to indulge himself with smaller chaos not meant to topple nations.
Because that is the crux of it, is it not? Empires can topple from any direction at all. One single word into one hesitating ear is all it takes. Who is to say where this might lead, the most influential of all? She is, after all, Hydaelyn’s desperate hope, perhaps even Her last if he can be so bold as to think it. Perhaps, if just for the moment, he can persuade this hero onto a different path, even to step off the road entirely, if only for a moment. It’s certainly a route he’s never had reason to try before.
The thoughts flash through his mind and he leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He lowers his voice into a basement crawl.
“So, let us play along then, you and I. I am at somewhat of a loose end as it were, and you want to make a statement to your Thancred. Why I have to know his name still annoys me but the damage is done so we shall move on. You walked all the way over here to prove both to him and to yourself that you could.” Her lips twitch in what is probably amusement. “I think you should do more. Dare more. So far you have proven nothing but a certain amount of courage which I am sure you have in abundance and is completely unremarkable. Let us go farther with it.”
Her brow furrows and her eyes skip over his face. It is not quite yet suspicion. “What are you suggesting?”
He reaches out a hand and it's easy enough to touch her fingers, to tug one hand a little forward. He keeps it light, merely fingertip to fingertip, his thumb smoothing over the stretch of skin closest.
“Go farther, dear heart. I promise you, although you cannot see it, that your friend is a veritable thundercloud and may yet shatter his glass if he grips it any harder. Is it that you belong to him, then? Do you belong to anyone? Beck and call, hither and yon, yoked to whatever name they summon you by.” He turns her hand over and presses his lips to her palm, a brush of something not precisely a kiss. He cannot see her face for a moment as his hair slides forward but the sudden quiver, quickly stilled, is hard to miss. When he raises his gaze, her eyebrows are nearly into her hairline. He cups her hand in his encouragingly.
“And what, exactly, do you mean by farther?” She is already leaning in though, gaze fixed to his. Her voice has also lowered, not nearly to a whisper but as if she also wishes to keep this between them. So lovely. Reciprocation has always been his favorite confirmation and the picture they present is already so many words for those watching.
“Why, as far as this chair, and no farther than that. Let me pull you into me, let me hold you as any man might a woman he finds pleasing. Make a choice that flaunts all choices.” He dares to bring her hand up to his face and delicately, carefully turns it to rest his teeth against the meat so near to her wrist. “Would you go so far as that?”
Her eyes scan his face, startled and oh, he can see the temptation echoed in the small spasm of her fingertips against his jaw. Not so worldly as all that, it appears. Emet-Selch smiles and her breath ghosts out as if the two actions are tied together.
“It is not so terrible a thing, you know,” he encourages. “Come here. I won’t harm you, I do promise.”
Gently he leans back, keeping her fingers entwined with his as he tugs her forward.
And she does, after a brief hesitation that is more a shiver in the air than actual negation. His arm knows what to do before he does, curling around her waist to bring her closer, settling the line of her body into his as close as she will allow. She sits sideways on his thigh, a distracting solidity. She has only to lean in to be engulfed.
He had known she was small of frame but the shift of her seems but naught of a whisper. This close he can see the pulse of blood in her throat and the swallow she takes as she wavers finally with a decision already made. Her fingers pull from his to spread against his chest. Her gaze fixates on them.
He splays his fingers along her waist, smooths a circle there with his thumb.
“There, sweetling. Relax, naught that is terrible is going to happen. Do you suddenly lack for courage?”
Her gaze swings up and her expression moves from a half caught blindness to the ghost of something that might be surprise, might be anger. At him? At herself?
“And I suppose you do this all the time,” she replies. Her fingertips dig into his chest through the muffling fabric, a little prick of sudden discomfort.
“Well, not so often as all that, I assure you, but it is not as if I am unaccustomed to holding beautiful things. As I believe I mentioned, I do travel and I am certainly not blind to the inherent possibilities.”
He brings his other hand up easily enough, slowly enough that she can shift away if she wants but she does not. He settles it on her hip, caging her lightly enough in his arms.
“There. That is all. Now be gentle. I should not like to lose the eyes that you are so enamored of to a sudden fit of scratching fear.”
A puff of laughter graces his face as her breath sings out. The moments tick over and he does nothing but hold her, tilting his face away so that to their singular observer it would appear that he is nuzzling her neck.
“Tell me,” he says after a moment, “what your friend is doing.”
Her fingers dig in again on his chest, more pad than prick this time. “He is. Glaring. I am trying very hard not to look though.” There is a hesitation there and then she shifts on her perch, too stiff still by half. Her head dips down though, bobbing as if unsure and her lips all but grace his temple. He can feel her breath disturbing the hair there.
“Lovely. Now just relax a little more, as if this is something you chose.”
“I did choose it. You ass.”
“That you did,” he smiles into her skin. “Now stop second guessing it. You are yourself, are you not? Is this not a thing you could want? To hold, to be held in return. There is naught wrong with this, when it is a choice freely given.”
The tension he is holding starts to unlock itself, second by second.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. His fingers spread on her hip without conscious direction from him, borne of so many other bodies he’s held just like this, shifting the fabric up and down as his grip starts to flex.
“I really should have given you a name. It doesn’t seem right to be this close and not know what to call you.”
“Unhelpful and trite. I am the man you wish to be seen to desire, in the eyes of those that watch. Is that not enough?”
“And how do you know I don’t desire you?”
It is instinct to push his face into the sweet hollow of neck and shoulder for real this time, to nuzzle his nose behind her ear. “Because we are still clothed. And you? You are not crying out in satisfaction beneath me.”
This time when her fingers spasm, they lock into a fist over his breastbone. “You promised to behave,” she hisses.
“I promised you no harm,” he purrs. “And have I done aught otherwise, save words? You are not a child, do not behave as one. If I tell you that your desire could easily drive mine, that is a simple truth and one that your thundercloud of a friend would certainly understand.” Reluctantly he pulls his face from the sweetness of her skin. “I have no intentions upon you, but you are lovely and you are here. It is no more complicated than that.”
“And if I should ask you to let me go, what then?”
“Then we part ways, perhaps to meet again as my interest here is as yet unconcluded.” He deliberately runs his hand down her hip to her knee and back up again. His other arm, gripped around her back, pulls her relentlessly until she can do nothing but sprawl against his side. Her eyes widen in outrage and her mouth opens as if to scold again, arm stiffening as if to push off, push away.
“Tell me,” he interrupts, “what your friend, for whom you have gone to all this trouble to spite, looks like now. Stare at him and tell me if this is a battle you have won.”
“If I look at him now he will march right over here and there will be a fight.”
“That I will win, if I choose to have it, which I do not. Why do you hold yourself back? All plans are to be formed, executed and the results assessed for value. Do not stop halfway and then cry foul when they fail to yield the results you wish for. Look. ”
He does so love a good entrance.
It takes a few moments for his approach to be noticed, even direct as it is. They’re all clustered around their hero, no doubt prettily anxious about the influx of Light she’s just absorbed and having much less of a thought to the surrounding area, believing themselves safe for the nonce. After all, they’ve slain the biggest thing for miles, have they not?
Well, except for him of course. Garlean stock always did tend towards the lengthy and while he hadn’t specifically slipped into this body with an eye towards its adult height, it certainly hasn’t let him down in the intervening years. Still, it's not as if he’s currently towering over the smaller trees in this form, unlike the poor dead Lightwarden he’s skirting around so perhaps they can be forgiven for not seeing him beyond the fragmenting husk.
It’s the gunbreaker that spots him first, of course. The man’s startlingly perceptive for a person of his limitations and there’s a hand to weapon before the rest have even looked up. What was his name again? The second is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the blind one who’s soft frown aimed in his casually sauntering direction could probably be considered a vague compliment of sorts.
He does wonder how much she sees with her broken vision. Nowhere near enough, he’s sure.
“You,” the white haired one grits out as Emet-Selch’s boots ring onto the cracked stone of what was probably the town’s central square, back when there was a town to be had. Now the forest has reclaimed nearly all of it, buildings all but consumed and once white pavement swallowed remorselessly into the green. A lovely place for a monster to nest.
The hostility is harsh and immediate and completely unnecessary, aimed like an opening salvo of cover fire. The others swivel their heads to stare; the little simulacras that he has yet to bother to differentiate from each other in astonishment toward their friend and the rest more properly towards him.
Thancred, that was the name. Doesn’t look very happy to see him at all, but after their last encounter who could blame him?
“Me,” he agrees pleasantly as he drifts to a halt some few lengths away. Close enough to talk without having to be crass about it and far enough away that they’d have to telegraph any move to reach him. Emet-Selch peruses them all slowly, tapping a finger against his chin as if in thought. “Well, well, well. And here I thought I’d have to step in and help, but look at you all. Still upright and righteous and in perfect fighting form. Feeling like we’ve accomplished something?” He looks to Hydaelyn’s chosen, and takes a moment to enjoy the startled look that can’t seem to decide between a half dozen options. It’s his favorite thing, if he can be said to have a favorite anything.
The putrid slickness of the Light they’ve just swallowed bleeds invisibly at the corners of their eyes. Naseauting, even at a distance.
“And just who are you?”
He’s going to have to get their names at some point. It’s one of the littler ones, blue eyes sharp.
“Why, I am myself, of course. An interested party to your journey.” He puts a hand to his chest.
“You’re… you’re Garlean!” It’s the other doppelganger in tandem, gaze fixated on his forehead. The first looks swiftly to the second and then back to him and now he’s being glared at by both of them. “What are you… no, how did a Garlean get here?”
“Well, I promise you I did not walk.”
The one with the red hair tie is now inching a hand towards one of the slim blades at their side. As if Thancred’s grip on his much more formidable weapon isn’t to be trusted. Truly delightful.
“I know thee.” This from the elezen who at least can look him in the eye.
“Oh, I do doubt that,” he replies automatically.
“Thine visage is known to me then, if not the full shape or meaning of it in this place.”
“You know this man, Urianger?” The little sorceress does not so much as flick her eyes sideways, clouded vision trained on him.
“I know of that face and thou woulds’t as well, could thou but see it as I.”
“Shall I wait while you consult amongst yourselves?”
The man ignores the interruption. “Thou art dead, as I was told, and I do not believe I was informed in error. ‘Twould not be a secret easily kept, that the former emperor of Garlemald still walks the lands with his country bloodied upon the stone of succession.”
“Emperor of Garle - what?” The little red-tied one does seem somewhat prone to outbursts. “That’s Solus? Are you sure? I thought he had a beard.”
“His very likeness indeed, I promise you. As the young man he once was.”
“Are you sure, Urianger?” asks the sorceress. “Tis quite the thing to say, and yet more to believe.”
Emet-Selch bows, a gloved hand to his heart. “Ah, allow me to put this question to rest. You have me. I was indeed known as Solus zos Galvus, he of imperial fame and fortune. I suppose I had hoped to drag it out a little longer, but we can’t always have what we want now, can we?” He can’t help himself. He straightens to look at her just in time to see her mouth finally snap shut and sudden fire to flare in her eyes.
“I wouldst know how a dead man walks a world not his own.”
“I know how.” Thancred hasn’t moved, but the air is near distorted around him with the loathing in his voice. “Ascian.”
“So much for the social niceties, I suppose. Still, I did drag myself all the way out here.”
He steps out again in a swirl of dark and void. “Well, you can’t blame me for being cautious,” he says. At the sound of his voice they all spin to face him with more than one unsettled expression at the instant translocation. “After all, you did somehow manage to banish my brother.”
“Then join him, Ascian.”
He doesn’t even hear the sound of the bullet that rips through his heart. There’s just the flash of the muzzle and a startling feeling of falling. A sudden, twisting pain. And then nothing. Nothing at all.
He tears his way back into physicality with a snarl. The blade hasn’t even had a chance to lower, the barrel lazily curling with the guilty smoke as he steps out behind his would-be murderer, long fingers wrapping around the man’s throat to yank back. He locks his other hand around the wrist holding the weapon, grinding bone over bone.
He puts his lips to the other man’s ear.
“Exactly which part of immortal did your small mind fail to grasp?"
He lifts up hard and fast and the man has to go to tiptoe, needing to drop his head back or find himself impaled on the suddenly manifested claws. A hand slaps down to clutch at his forearm. A futile defense, considering no hyur strength is going to move him now.
One of the little white haired witches has their rapier drawn, about to charge and he pins them with his eyes. The elezen has his fingers back and spread, the panoply of fortune lifting fast into the deadly ring that is the hallmark of the stars.
“Oh, do test me, please,” he breathes. “If you move, if any of you take one single, solitary step or wiggle your fingers to shape whatever passes for your pitiful grasp on the aether, I will tear his arm off. If you move,” he hisses downwards, “I will tear your throat out. It might not even necessarily be fatal but I am certainly not the one to judge your risk. Someone here must know how to mend broken things considering how often things break around heroes, but the driving question will certainly be how fast.”
“Let. Go. You Ascian bastard.” The fingers on his forearm dig in, felt even through the heavy brocade cloth. Emet-Selch sighs.
“My corpse hasn’t even stopped twitching yet and still you demand.” He digs his fingers in yet again and the man starts to choke. “I should let you join it.”
The blind one leans forward, her staff in her grip but not yet completely raised. Smarter than the others, or more cautious. “I apologize. For our hasty friend. He has not had the easiest of times with your kind.”
Emet-Selch leans down again. The smell is acrid smoke and pine, the sharp points of hair a tickle along his cheek. “Lahabrea rode you hard and put you away wet then, I take it? Do tell me you enjoyed it,” he murmurs. “I guarantee he most certainly did. He always did love the angry ones.”
He waits there is no forthcoming rejoinder although he can hear teeth grinding. A pity. A lovely vessel, if not quite as pleasing as Emet-Selch’s own. His brother had not been particularly choosy, preferring closer and useful over more general aesthetic considerations but the shifting of tight muscle over bone under the press of his arm speaks to a certain fitness that costs nothing to appreciate.
”Let us ask again then, in the interests of communication,” the woman continues. “What is it that you want?”
“I told you. And no one believed me and this is ever my reward.” He lifts again, tightening his grip and this time blood trickles as the vessel chokes, his feet off the ground now and kicking involuntarily. The gunblade drops finally, metal clanging unregarded on the stone as both hands scrabble at his wrist and forearm, trying to relieve the pressure. “If we are to work together, I suppose it behooves me to make a few things clear.”
“You’re killing him!”
“Alisaie, don’t provoke him!” The one not-Alisaie reaches out and grabs the upper arm of their twin, as if that might help. Alisaie does not appear to be particularly willing to be held back.
“If I was killing him, he’d be bleeding so much more than this, I assure you.” He lowers his grip though and feels the shudder of breath as Thancred’s feet touch the ground again. He presses his mouth to the space behind the man’s ear, his voice pitched low. “Presume to point a weapon at me again and I promise to leave you alive to regret it. Look. Do you see her? Your ever so pretty little light bearer.”
The body in his arms stiffens even more, if that’s even possible, as the words penetrate. The head tilts to look as if unable to stop itself.
“She quivers where she stands, do you see? Her little blades shivering in the light. Her bright eyes so frightened. So very, very brave.”
There is no answer save a regimented inhale of breath and the hard flutter of pulse under his palm. He flexes his fingers in warning and the man grits his teeth, he can feel the muscle moving but finally there’s a nod, cautious and tight. He’ll allow it.
“You can see it unfolding, can you not? All you have to do? Iis try. Any attempt to escape me and she is poised for the attack. She is all but aching to impale herself on my hands, if needed. To take your place.”
“Yes. Yes, damn you.”
“Shoot my body down, burn it on a pyre, dance on the ashes if you like,” he croons into the man’s ear. “Flesh is ephemeral, my existence forever. But threaten me again and I will ride yours next time, little shell.” He tightens his grip once more, claws digging in. “I will find you and I will take you and I will ride you, just as my brother did. And while you drown in the screaming dark, I will use your flesh to ride hers. I promise to make sure she enjoys it.”
He’s ready for the break even as it happens, his grip already locking down. It is but the flicker of a moment to step backward into void, dragging his unwilling captive with him.
Black rock coalesces beneath his heels and spreads outwards in a wave as he anchors himself unthinkingly against the limitless fall above and below. He inhales the familiar cold and ice and all things unbound here the place between what is and what will be. His is the only point of cohesion in all of this singing emptiness, the alignment of memory and will arrowing towards him as it always has and always will.
“You whoreson bastard.
Emet-Selch shoves the man away and a section of ground splinters for his moment’s inattention, reassembling closer as a hound might nose its master’s heel. Thancred whirls out of reach, as if that could mean the slightest thing here, in this place. There’s a pair of daggers in his hands as if conjured which is somewhat impressive, considering. Crimson rivulets snake down the man’s throat from his ill conceived struggle, smearing hot and wet over his heart. He has one booted foot mere ilms from the edge where reality is defined.
“Careful,” Emet-Selch warns, “unless you truly wish to die here. I will lift not one finger to save you if you fall.”
“If you touch her, you even look at her…”
“You will what, exactly? Kill me? Again?” He crosses his arms. “That has served you so very well so far.”
“She will let me,” he drawls then, aiming the words to resonate with the truth that he sees in the little Oracle’s panicked gaze. “When I come to her wearing your flesh, she will permit anything she is asked to give. Tell me,” he purrs, “should I leave her there broken in the morning as I walk away, as she watches you leave? Or should I leave you both stranded in that bed, guilt on your hands like spoiled wine? Will you tell her you didn't mean it?”
As it turns out, dark is somewhat subjective.
And I have learned so much in the way of cruelty over the years.
When he steps through reality and into the corner of her room, it’s find it dark and empty. It’s not as if he’d though to check again
The lazy swirls of aether that permeates through everything quicken for his sudden presence but his is the only force acting on them and that too is disappointing. Well, it’s not as if he can’t simply wait for the warrior to return.
There is a shuttered light vaguely illuminating the rough details but there’s almost more light coming in from the open doors that lead onto the tiny balcony that overlooks one of the inner rotundas. Everything starts to attain that hazy starlight edging
The remains of a meal is still scattered across the table as somebody is apparently a very messy eater. A fur lined short coat haphazardly draped over the corner of a pulled out chair, boots kicked into a corner, the bed covers twisted and piled into the center.
Perhaps she’s given notice to the lovely man standing downstairs at the front desk that she prefers to live in squalor. Or perhaps the rank and file are too afeared to walk into the proverbial smilodon’s den, thinking that the Warrior of Darkness would await them behind the door, ready to pounce.