Of all the things he likes the least about having had to step in personally to shepherd the Empire he has so carefully constructed to its true glory, it's that he hasn't been able to stop. There is a unceasing amount of paperwork. Troops to command (and not in person, not any more), infrastructure to build, fledging rebellions to quell, and any of a number of things besides. Enough that he has had no choice but to let himself grow old. To maintain this one, single, form (though that in itself is no trouble) and constrain himself to the tedium of it all.
He doesn't know what the papers arranged before him are. He doesn't care, and perhaps it doesn't matter, though given that it's one of the tribunii who's brought them (he has allowed himself to forget the man's name) it's probably news of unrest in one of the lands they've subjugated. Nothing new, then, and he lets the man drone on for a moment longer before raising a hand.
"Enough."
His voice is unbent by the years that have weighed so heavily on his mortal frame; his one small concession to himself, for having to tolerate all the rest and it cuts through the air almost like a knife.
"Your Radiance?" the tribunus asks, uncertainty apparent in his voice even through the helmet.
"I grow weary. You may leave."
It's a dismissal, for all that it's not stated in so many words, and to his credit, the tribunus picks up on it immediately.
"A-at once."
The man sketches out a properly respectful salute, and then is gone, vanishing out of the room with a haste that might almost seem supernatural, doors swinging shut behind him as he goes. It's only then that Solus permits himself a sigh, shoulders bowing, even as he longs for the days when he'd been young enough that he might have been able to simply plant his head into his hands or against the table without his borrowed frame taking complaint with it.
Hemera echoes the words from where she stands behind him, intonation part confused, part teasing. Her dreams (or what she can only assume are dreams, if the dead can dream) have been odd as of late, much like her visions often were, so she doesn't truly expect a response. She speaks aloud all the same, seeing no harm in it as she wanders about the room, inspecting architecture that is as foreign as it is familiar.
"What a strange place..." she comments, picking up an odd bauble to peer at curiously. Something about it rings strangely to her ears. Unable to place it by sight or sound alone she chooses to give it a quick lick and immediately pulls a face, all but recoiling at the flavour upon her tongue.
He hears her voice as soon as she speaks though he doesn't immediately turn - he's an old man now, in more ways than one. Instead, he spare a moment for an entirely uncharitable thought of what now? before he straightens, not all at once but by degrees. First his shoulders straighten as he reclaims the posture befitting his status (what his subjects think befits his status) and then his head; the gesture more practiced then it might seem, given the heavy crown on his head moves not one ilm despite either motion.
It's only then that he turns, too late to keep her from picking up the prototype magitek core he'd been using as a makeshift paperweight; the words that had already been halfway to his mouth dying unspoken when she puts the thing to her mouth.
Instead, there's a sigh, this one more of fond exasperation, the sharper edges of imperial necessity fading away just enough to suggest that he's not forgotten her, for all that this is nowhere that he would expect to find her.
"A prototype magitek core," he explains. "Ultimately flawed, unfortunately - it was meant for a new design of magitek reaper, but proved unable to draw power consistently."
The words likely mean very little to her, but it's clear that this is a topic that means something to him. Something that he has spent no small amount of his time on, even if he might be bound about the endless tedium of paperwork.
There is no denying her friend has grown old, and the twinge of pain in her heart at the realization doesn't come as a surprise to her—it had always been something she assumed they would do together. All three of them, growing old as a family. But here he is now, where this may be, old and alone.
"If it cannot draw power consistently, adjust it so it maintains its own power. An array to absorb solar aether should suffice," she offers. "You even could melt down that ridiculous thing on your head to make it."
He is not, perhaps, entirely alone. Elidibus and Lahabrea still exist, for all that he's barely spoken to them in centuries. But in all other ways he is, indeed, alone. And more than that, he is lonely. Here in the heart of an empire that he built; an empire where not one of his subjects so much as understands magic, save as a tool of the enemy. Or the conscripted. And never mind them understanding what he truly is.
"The design is not my own."
If it were, it wouldn't be lying half-abandoned on his desk.
"And it might work, had these people any concept of how to harness aether. To say nothing of the fact that there's scarcely room enough in a reaper to begin with."
And holding that perspective—that this is not real, but a flight of fancy of her dying mind—the thought that anyone would have no concept of harnessing aether is simple enough to brush off in favour of other things.
"Then make room enough. And make enough room for me while you're at it, would you?" Hemera gestures to his lap, entirely uncaring of how it may look to anyone that may walk in. This is Hades and he is old and she would like to sit on his lap and spend time with him. "Your beard is remarkable and I would like to touch it, 'Your Radiance.'"
Perhaps it is a vision. Or at least, the idea that it might be so doesn't strike him as odd - though the dream makes her presence here not stand out, there is a part of him that knows it's not where she should be. It's not something active, and not something he cares to look at, but he is aware of it, to some extent.
"There is precious little room for the components as is. Convincing the technicians that drawing on the sun's aether will not just work but is worth the expenditure of space would be very nearly futile."
Not to mention it would involve needing to explain how he knows. A difficult task, when he's spent as long as he has pretending to be little more than any other Garlean.
Her request, on the other hand, is easier to grant.
"A moment."
Old though he may be, it's not much trouble to move his chair such that there's sufficient room. He might take more care with it than she expects, but the most of that is due to the weight of the crown he wears as opposed to anything else and true to his word it's the work of mere moments to have arranged enough space for her to sit in his lap.
"Then scale the components down, or increase the overall scale." There's a roll of her eyes, though she seems amused by it all. "Are your technicians newborns? Because that is the only possible reason I could imagine anyone not understanding the concept of drawing upon the sun's aether."
Patches of sun-warmed ground are the best places to curl up for a nap, after all.
"...Oh for Star's sake, Hades. Is there a reason you're still wearing that horrendous waste of conductive metals?"
She takes care when seating herself on his lap, reflexively shapechanging her musculature to be lighter, minimizing the strain on his elderly body as best she can. Once seated she swings her dangling feet absently and sets to work combing her fingers through his beard with utmost fascination.
"It's very coarse, like the guard hairs of a direwolf's back... And so voluminous I'd wager you could hide a few good snacks in it."
"Very nearly. They understand the concept of drawing on various sources of aether, but have no innate ability to do so themselves."
Hence the need to turn to other answers, when it had come time to build an empire out of what Garlemald had to offer. And for all that he had very much enjoyed the challenge of it, after decades of pretending to be so much less than he is, it's begun to grow wearying. (Which may also simply be the way the years hang heavy on him, though he does his best to not think on that.)
The question about the imperial crown, on the other hand, has him blinking, as if he's only now stopping to think about it.
"It is typically expected."
By whom and for what reason he doesn't clarify. But he does reach up and gently lift it off his head - and far easier than might be expected. A fact that is easily explained given that rather than shift to put it down on the desk he simply channels more power to the float spells he's carefully worked into the crown and lets them bear it across the intervening space and settle down on the desk.
"It would need to be carefully done. But no doubt I could, yes."
"Sometimes it seems like I may as well be. A fool, trying to herd those no better than children."
Which is not to say that it hasn't been something he'd wanted to do. A challenge he'd willingly set himself. But it has rather grown tiresome over the years.
"But no, it's an insignia of rank. Similar to the masks you or I might have had, once."
Half-remembered conversations flit through her mind, interrupted by sharp spikes of panic as disorienting reality sinks in.
She is lost and confused, laying in a bed she does not know and too exhausted (physically. mentally. emotionally. aetherially) to do a single thing about it.
She is angry. Anguished. They are all dead. Lost. Torn apart and ripped to pieces.
She could not save them. She should be with them now.
Why is she here? She should not be here. She wants to be with them.
She deserves to be with them, doesn't she?
( She deserves to suffer )
She could find new purpose...
( She doesn't want to )
She's tired
tired of the fighting
the screams
the death
the deities.
she could let it all go. she could make it all just...
He wakes out of his dreams more slowly than he might have otherwise, the oddity of them lingering more than they might have otherwise - it's rare enough that he dreams of any of his fallen friends, much less more than once in short order. But odd though they are, they're naught more than that: dreams. Fleeting drifts of memory and thought that he can no more stop than he can set aside his eternal duty.
Instead, he yawns, stretches, opens his aetherial sight to the world... and freezes, mid-stretch.
A soul is screaming in pain.
A familiar soul is screaming in pain.
He doesn't stop to think. There's no time to. Nor any time for his usual dramatics. He simply reaches out along the trails of aether, following the path of that soul he knows so well until he knows where she is... and between one moment and the next he goes from his cabin to standing at her side.
"Is it truly that unbearable, here?"
For all that he was - and still is - standing very nearly on the edge of panic, his voice is light. Or as much as he can make it, anyway. At this distance, the great cracks running through her soul are all the easier to spot, and he has no idea what she might be feeling, besides.
The sudden, unexpected interruption shatters Hemera's focus long before her soul has the chance, leaving her to collapse in a heap on the bed she awoke in like a puppet whose strings have been cut, shivering uncontrollably from the lingering pain; faint, dizzy, and barely conscious. There is a keening, barely audible whine emanating from her throat as she struggles to locate him with how her head swims.
"Oh..." An exhausted, shaky breath that quickly grows wet with emotion. Relief. "It worked...?"
There's a brief moment of silence, at both the way she all but collapses in a heap on the bed and the comment she offers, and then he gently settles down next to her. He knows only one thing that would be capable of causing cracks in her soul like he sees before him, and even as far removed from that singular moment of catastrophe as he is, it's still not a comforting memory.
"Would it be easier that way?"
Even he can't fix the cracks in her soul. Can't put return her to the way she had been. But he can do something to make it easier to bear, and almost without thinking about it, he lets his aether gently wash over her, soothing away as much of her pain as he can manage.
She hums a soft note in answer, allowing her eyes to drift shut as she feels the bed dip beneath his weight. He seems so small compared to her, and in reflex she shrinks herself to a comparable size. In the end she becomes smaller than she originally intended, as the more she shrunk the more her pain would fade, though there is only so far she can comfortably compress herself.
"...You are all dead. What point would there have been?"
The gentle touch of her dearest friend's aether eases her pain further, and for the first time in far too long Hemera finds herself feeling soothed. She exhales, letting out a long, deep sigh.
"It's so quiet... No more screams... Is this what peace is, Hades?"
He is smaller than she no doubt remembers him being, it's true. A side effect of having to take mortal vessels - and of the nature of the inhabitants of the shards, in the wake of the Sundering. Not that he couldn't claim his full height. Stand tall as a very literal giant among men. But it benefits his various schemes far better to be taken as little more than simply another mortal. Another person, in whom one might take counsel.
(And if said counsel should, from time to time, lead to ruin, it has always been his intent for it to do so. The seeds of chaos do rather need a helping hand now and again.)
"Close enough, perhaps."
Not the peace she might have been trying to find - the same peace that he can't deny having occasionally longed for himself - but peace nonetheless. A quietness, free from the screaming of a world being all but torn into pieces and her people along with it.
"Here more so than most places."
There is, after all, not even the faint murmurings of the lifestream, here among the stars. (As for the comment about them being dead, he chooses not to address it, for the time being. Though not all of them perished in the Sundering that is likely to be a conversation best had when she's a little more awake.)
"But you must be tired. Rest awhile; I shall remain here till you wake again."
It isn't until her friend suggests she rest that Hemera realizes she really is tired. Exhausted right down to her core, mind drifting in a haze of it. The thought of sleeping is not appealing to her, largely because she isn't entirely certain she isn't already asleep and experiencing a pleasant dream.
There's a brief moment's silence at that, and then a soft sigh. He can't blame her, not when there's no denying that the sight - and sound - of the world being rent asunder had been something that he dearly wished he could forget. But even so, it's clear that she does need the rest and while he's not about to force the point (she'd never forgive him, he thinks, were he to simply cast a sleep spell on her) he doubts her exhaustion is helping much.
"Would it make a difference to know that I have survived?"
And indeed, should she be aware enough to note it, his soul bears the truth of his words - it is whole (and also notably not screaming in pain).
"I..." The question should be simple to answer, but it isn't. "If you live outside of dreams, it would."
Because it would mean he had to live with the same agonizing failure as she does. That he was isolated and alone, no longer surrounded by a city filled with his people.
That his survival was her fault.
"Even if you loathe me I could not leave you to suffer such loneliness."
He can't, even after their falling out. She was not the one to cause the Sundering. Not the one to have caused the Sound that had been the source of their woes and though she had abandoned her seat and the Convocation - had abandoned him - he's had centuries and more to come to terms with the fact that she'd been almost certainly doing what she'd thought best.
(Though neither can he deny that it had hurt, either.)
"The role of Azem has always been to represent the desires of our people as a whole... What point was there in keeping a seat that meant nothing in the end?"
Her breath catches; sharp and sudden as the flash of pain that lances through her. She shudders, curling herself up even smaller, as though it will keep her soul from falling apart entirely.
Just as he does not blame her for leaving, she cannot blame him for loathing her.
"I had no choice, Hades. I could not fulfill my duty to my people."
He had. He does. But that hadn't stopped him from resenting her. From resenting being left alone, bereft of anyone he might have called a friend. Still, he notices the way the she shudders, pulling in on herself - an action that could easily be an aftereffect of her injuries, though he has a suspicion it's more than simply that.
"And yet you still let it happen," she says quietly; accusing. "Our people were divided long before we were Sundered... Tell me, was He worth it? That twisted creation that has gorged itself upon the souls of our brethren?"
It's evident enough that she doubts his claims of this being no dream. She's had dreams of reuniting with him countless times before—this is nothing new. To dream of companionship, and then wake up all alone.
There's little he can do prove the truth of his words; that this is no dream. Not beyond simply remaining. Beyond making that when she does wake (whenever sleep should claim her) that she does not do so alone. Still, there's a moment's silence before he answers, and that alone might nearly be damning enough.
"I cannot answer that without bias. We are-- ah, no, that terminology came later, I believe."
There's a brief pause then, as he regathers his thoughts and tries again.
"Do you recall how our aether - our souls - became ... marked, after we summoned Zodiark? We were all of us bound to His will, in that moment. To His desires, and those that brought Him forth. And not even the ultimate fate of our world could undo that mark."
It does not surprise her—not after what Hyth had told her—but it does disappoint her. She curls in upon herself more securely, shying away from her companion's touch.
"The sound of half the souls of our star being consumed by that thing took years to drown from my mind. Then you did it again." She shivers. "Licking at the heels of a monster, it is no wonder you didn't answer when—"
When I needed you most.
"...At least you had your fellow thralls until the end."
"If that should be what you choose to think of me..."
There's a shrug with the words, and he cannot deny it hurts, to know that she thinks so little of him. To imagine that she might believe bias alone - even that granted by his tempering - would make him incapable of caring. But he knows too that words alone will not be enough to prove otherwise. That her belief in who he is - who he has always been - will need to be something he earns. Something born of action, and not mere words.
(Still, it will give him something to do, he supposes. Something to work on, though it might take time.)
"But we are tempered, not so altered as be unrecognizable. Halmarut's speeches - while well-meaning - still tend to run overlong. And I would rather suffer the unending droning of insects than spend another moment of eternity forced to endure Fandaniel's utterly inane prattle."
She flares with anger brought upon by grief and betrayal, and it hurts enough to steal her breath. One fisted hand unfurls itself, sliding down to press firmly against her abdomen while the other remains steadfast against her sternum. There is the hiss of air between her clenched teeth, and no doubting the resentment in her tone.
He knows he shouldn't ask. That the answer will likely be no more comfortable than the ones she has already given. But the question is already past his lips before he can stop it. And perhaps it's just as well. If she would blame him no matter what he should choose to call himself, surely it's better to know sooner rather than later?
"Or would you blame me for what I have not done - could not do - regardless?"
"If Hades cares, it is not for me." A quiet sound rises in her throat, angry and anguished in equal measure. Slowly, it rises in volume until she's all but yelling:
"What you did was ensure I was forever alone! Has your precious master been worth all the sacrifices?!"
She takes a gasping breath, fingers digging into the flesh of her chest until the flare of pain eases.
"Tell me, Hades," Hemera demands in a dangerous whisper. "If He had demanded it, would you have sacrificed my child to sate His monstrous hunger?"
He flinches, just a little, at her first comment. He'd known it would hurt, had known that there had been all but no chance it wouldn't - had been expecting it to hurt - and it still does. It's harder, too, to think of setting it aside, when it is something that has been so directly pointed, from one of the people he'd cared for most. But he has lived with sorrow for thousands upon thousands of years. He can manage a little longer, or so he imagines.
...And then she mentions a child, and any thoughts but that promptly flee his mind, leaving him blinking as he processes the news. Enough so that he does - for a moment - wonder if there is still a child. (Now that he's actually looking he can see the physical signs pregnancy has left on her body; small changes that he had all but written off as his memory being faulty after so long.) Logic kicks back in then - if there had been he would have seen it from the first. Thus, it is a matter of there having been a child. A potential that was never realized, and there's some part of him that might almost mourn that, deep under the tempering.
"Have I fallen so far in your graces that you assume I would even want to?"
There's hurt in his voice - how can there not be, at such an accusation - but there's echoes of loss, too. Of sorrow, both for what could have been and what was. He might not have had the chance to know Hemera's child - neither of them have - but he knows all too well the pain of losing a child. Even if his had managed to exist, for a time.
The hurt she can hear-sense-taste in his voice catches her by surprise, as does the fact she spoke of a child at all. To her it had never been more than a possibility. A promise made to her by the star only to be broken. Her breath catches, damp with emotion she hasn't confronted in decades.
"...I suppose it doesn't matter," she says, ignoring the wetness in her eyes. "Zodiark or no, I could never have done it all my own. There was never going to be a child."
It might have been no more than a possibility, perhaps. But that it had - for that one brief moment - been a possibility is enough to dig at wounds he had thought very nearly closed. Memories that he would have been otherwise perfectly content to let lie, to remain as simply that. Memories, of something that might have been. Fragments, echoes of what she has, with that single suggestion, spoken into the world. There may not have been a child. But there could have been. Without Zodiark. Without the Final Days. Without the decisions that had been made and not made.
It takes a moment, before he finds the right words. Before he finds it in himself to speak at all, when he knows that there are too many 'what if's to speak of the possibility of there having been one, had they not had cause to summon Zodiark.
"Emotions rarely care for if a thing should matter, I've found. The hurt is real. The possibility was real, if but for that brief moment."
The hope was real, though he can't say for certain if she'd allowed herself to do so the way he had, when she'd realized what could have been. Nor does he mean to ask. Some things are better left unsaid, and this, he suspects, is one of them.
"I was too ill." For a time she had thought it from grief, but then it worsened. "It was killing me."
There was so much pain. So much blood—
Hemera curls into herself further with a quiet, agonized gasp. Her soul shudders along with her, guttering like a candle flame before eventually steadying again. (She wishes it didn't.)
Her voice falters, turning into no more than a broken whisper.
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Dream event; as discussed on Discord!
Date: 2020-11-24 09:51 pm (UTC)He doesn't know what the papers arranged before him are. He doesn't care, and perhaps it doesn't matter, though given that it's one of the tribunii who's brought them (he has allowed himself to forget the man's name) it's probably news of unrest in one of the lands they've subjugated. Nothing new, then, and he lets the man drone on for a moment longer before raising a hand.
"Enough."
His voice is unbent by the years that have weighed so heavily on his mortal frame; his one small concession to himself, for having to tolerate all the rest and it cuts through the air almost like a knife.
"Your Radiance?" the tribunus asks, uncertainty apparent in his voice even through the helmet.
"I grow weary. You may leave."
It's a dismissal, for all that it's not stated in so many words, and to his credit, the tribunus picks up on it immediately.
"A-at once."
The man sketches out a properly respectful salute, and then is gone, vanishing out of the room with a haste that might almost seem supernatural, doors swinging shut behind him as he goes. It's only then that Solus permits himself a sigh, shoulders bowing, even as he longs for the days when he'd been young enough that he might have been able to simply plant his head into his hands or against the table without his borrowed frame taking complaint with it.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-24 11:25 pm (UTC)Hemera echoes the words from where she stands behind him, intonation part confused, part teasing. Her dreams (or what she can only assume are dreams, if the dead can dream) have been odd as of late, much like her visions often were, so she doesn't truly expect a response. She speaks aloud all the same, seeing no harm in it as she wanders about the room, inspecting architecture that is as foreign as it is familiar.
"What a strange place..." she comments, picking up an odd bauble to peer at curiously. Something about it rings strangely to her ears. Unable to place it by sight or sound alone she chooses to give it a quick lick and immediately pulls a face, all but recoiling at the flavour upon her tongue.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-25 05:46 am (UTC)It's only then that he turns, too late to keep her from picking up the prototype magitek core he'd been using as a makeshift paperweight; the words that had already been halfway to his mouth dying unspoken when she puts the thing to her mouth.
Instead, there's a sigh, this one more of fond exasperation, the sharper edges of imperial necessity fading away just enough to suggest that he's not forgotten her, for all that this is nowhere that he would expect to find her.
"A prototype magitek core," he explains. "Ultimately flawed, unfortunately - it was meant for a new design of magitek reaper, but proved unable to draw power consistently."
The words likely mean very little to her, but it's clear that this is a topic that means something to him. Something that he has spent no small amount of his time on, even if he might be bound about the endless tedium of paperwork.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-25 04:33 pm (UTC)"If it cannot draw power consistently, adjust it so it maintains its own power. An array to absorb solar aether should suffice," she offers. "You even could melt down that ridiculous thing on your head to make it."
no subject
Date: 2020-11-26 03:47 am (UTC)"The design is not my own."
If it were, it wouldn't be lying half-abandoned on his desk.
"And it might work, had these people any concept of how to harness aether. To say nothing of the fact that there's scarcely room enough in a reaper to begin with."
no subject
Date: 2020-11-26 04:15 am (UTC)And holding that perspective—that this is not real, but a flight of fancy of her dying mind—the thought that anyone would have no concept of harnessing aether is simple enough to brush off in favour of other things.
"Then make room enough. And make enough room for me while you're at it, would you?" Hemera gestures to his lap, entirely uncaring of how it may look to anyone that may walk in. This is Hades and he is old and she would like to sit on his lap and spend time with him. "Your beard is remarkable and I would like to touch it, 'Your Radiance.'"
no subject
Date: 2020-12-07 01:21 am (UTC)"There is precious little room for the components as is. Convincing the technicians that drawing on the sun's aether will not just work but is worth the expenditure of space would be very nearly futile."
Not to mention it would involve needing to explain how he knows. A difficult task, when he's spent as long as he has pretending to be little more than any other Garlean.
Her request, on the other hand, is easier to grant.
"A moment."
Old though he may be, it's not much trouble to move his chair such that there's sufficient room. He might take more care with it than she expects, but the most of that is due to the weight of the crown he wears as opposed to anything else and true to his word it's the work of mere moments to have arranged enough space for her to sit in his lap.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-07 01:40 am (UTC)Patches of sun-warmed ground are the best places to curl up for a nap, after all.
"...Oh for Star's sake, Hades. Is there a reason you're still wearing that horrendous waste of conductive metals?"
She takes care when seating herself on his lap, reflexively shapechanging her musculature to be lighter, minimizing the strain on his elderly body as best she can. Once seated she swings her dangling feet absently and sets to work combing her fingers through his beard with utmost fascination.
"It's very coarse, like the guard hairs of a direwolf's back... And so voluminous I'd wager you could hide a few good snacks in it."
no subject
Date: 2020-12-08 05:38 am (UTC)Hence the need to turn to other answers, when it had come time to build an empire out of what Garlemald had to offer. And for all that he had very much enjoyed the challenge of it, after decades of pretending to be so much less than he is, it's begun to grow wearying. (Which may also simply be the way the years hang heavy on him, though he does his best to not think on that.)
The question about the imperial crown, on the other hand, has him blinking, as if he's only now stopping to think about it.
"It is typically expected."
By whom and for what reason he doesn't clarify. But he does reach up and gently lift it off his head - and far easier than might be expected. A fact that is easily explained given that rather than shift to put it down on the desk he simply channels more power to the float spells he's carefully worked into the crown and lets them bear it across the intervening space and settle down on the desk.
"It would need to be carefully done. But no doubt I could, yes."
no subject
Date: 2020-12-14 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-16 05:48 am (UTC)Which is not to say that it hasn't been something he'd wanted to do. A challenge he'd willingly set himself. But it has rather grown tiresome over the years.
"But no, it's an insignia of rank. Similar to the masks you or I might have had, once."
in-person reunion (CW: trauma; suicidal behaviour)
Date: 2020-11-29 01:16 am (UTC)Half-remembered conversations flit through her mind, interrupted by sharp spikes of panic as disorienting reality sinks in.
She is lost and confused, laying in a bed she does not know and too exhausted (physically. mentally. emotionally. aetherially) to do a single thing about it.
She is angry. Anguished. They are all dead. Lost. Torn apart and ripped to pieces.
She could not save them. She should be with them now.
Why is she here? She should not be here. She wants to be with them.
She deserves to be with them, doesn't she?
( She deserves to suffer )
She could find new purpose...
( She doesn't want to )
She's tired
tired of the fighting
the screams
the death
the deities.
she could let it all go. she could make it all just...
s t o p .
.
.
.
it would be so easy.
( the cracks are so deep )
it would not take much at all...
just a little
( dig her fingers in and )
p u l l
.
.
.
her soul screams
( she screams )
no subject
Date: 2020-11-29 05:53 am (UTC)Instead, he yawns, stretches, opens his aetherial sight to the world... and freezes, mid-stretch.
A soul is screaming in pain.
A familiar soul is screaming in pain.
He doesn't stop to think. There's no time to. Nor any time for his usual dramatics. He simply reaches out along the trails of aether, following the path of that soul he knows so well until he knows where she is... and between one moment and the next he goes from his cabin to standing at her side.
"Is it truly that unbearable, here?"
For all that he was - and still is - standing very nearly on the edge of panic, his voice is light. Or as much as he can make it, anyway. At this distance, the great cracks running through her soul are all the easier to spot, and he has no idea what she might be feeling, besides.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-29 06:11 am (UTC)"Oh..." An exhausted, shaky breath that quickly grows wet with emotion. Relief. "It worked...?"
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Date: 2020-11-29 06:32 am (UTC)"Would it be easier that way?"
Even he can't fix the cracks in her soul. Can't put return her to the way she had been. But he can do something to make it easier to bear, and almost without thinking about it, he lets his aether gently wash over her, soothing away as much of her pain as he can manage.
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Date: 2020-11-29 07:01 am (UTC)"...You are all dead. What point would there have been?"
The gentle touch of her dearest friend's aether eases her pain further, and for the first time in far too long Hemera finds herself feeling soothed. She exhales, letting out a long, deep sigh.
"It's so quiet... No more screams... Is this what peace is, Hades?"
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Date: 2020-12-06 06:30 am (UTC)(And if said counsel should, from time to time, lead to ruin, it has always been his intent for it to do so. The seeds of chaos do rather need a helping hand now and again.)
"Close enough, perhaps."
Not the peace she might have been trying to find - the same peace that he can't deny having occasionally longed for himself - but peace nonetheless. A quietness, free from the screaming of a world being all but torn into pieces and her people along with it.
"Here more so than most places."
There is, after all, not even the faint murmurings of the lifestream, here among the stars. (As for the comment about them being dead, he chooses not to address it, for the time being. Though not all of them perished in the Sundering that is likely to be a conversation best had when she's a little more awake.)
"But you must be tired. Rest awhile; I shall remain here till you wake again."
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Date: 2020-12-06 06:43 am (UTC)"...But I've no wish to wake again."
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Date: 2020-12-07 05:15 am (UTC)"Would it make a difference to know that I have survived?"
And indeed, should she be aware enough to note it, his soul bears the truth of his words - it is whole (and also notably not screaming in pain).
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Date: 2020-12-07 05:24 am (UTC)Because it would mean he had to live with the same agonizing failure as she does. That he was isolated and alone, no longer surrounded by a city filled with his people.
That his survival was her fault.
"Even if you loathe me I could not leave you to suffer such loneliness."
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Date: 2020-12-07 06:13 am (UTC)He can't, even after their falling out. She was not the one to cause the Sundering. Not the one to have caused the Sound that had been the source of their woes and though she had abandoned her seat and the Convocation - had abandoned him - he's had centuries and more to come to terms with the fact that she'd been almost certainly doing what she'd thought best.
(Though neither can he deny that it had hurt, either.)
"But I do, yes."
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Date: 2020-12-07 09:13 pm (UTC)Her breath catches; sharp and sudden as the flash of pain that lances through her. She shudders, curling herself up even smaller, as though it will keep her soul from falling apart entirely.
Just as he does not blame her for leaving, she cannot blame him for loathing her.
"I had no choice, Hades. I could not fulfill my duty to my people."
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Date: 2020-12-08 04:44 am (UTC)He had. He does. But that hadn't stopped him from resenting her. From resenting being left alone, bereft of anyone he might have called a friend. Still, he notices the way the she shudders, pulling in on herself - an action that could easily be an aftereffect of her injuries, though he has a suspicion it's more than simply that.
"And I meant only that I live. This is no dream."
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Date: 2020-12-08 05:01 am (UTC)It's evident enough that she doubts his claims of this being no dream. She's had dreams of reuniting with him countless times before—this is nothing new. To dream of companionship, and then wake up all alone.
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Date: 2020-12-08 06:03 am (UTC)"I cannot answer that without bias. We are-- ah, no, that terminology came later, I believe."
There's a brief pause then, as he regathers his thoughts and tries again.
"Do you recall how our aether - our souls - became ... marked, after we summoned Zodiark? We were all of us bound to His will, in that moment. To His desires, and those that brought Him forth. And not even the ultimate fate of our world could undo that mark."
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Date: 2020-12-08 06:18 am (UTC)It does not surprise her—not after what Hyth had told her—but it does disappoint her. She curls in upon herself more securely, shying away from her companion's touch.
"The sound of half the souls of our star being consumed by that thing took years to drown from my mind. Then you did it again." She shivers. "Licking at the heels of a monster, it is no wonder you didn't answer when—"
When I needed you most.
"...At least you had your fellow thralls until the end."
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Date: 2020-12-08 09:05 pm (UTC)There's a shrug with the words, and he cannot deny it hurts, to know that she thinks so little of him. To imagine that she might believe bias alone - even that granted by his tempering - would make him incapable of caring. But he knows too that words alone will not be enough to prove otherwise. That her belief in who he is - who he has always been - will need to be something he earns. Something born of action, and not mere words.
(Still, it will give him something to do, he supposes. Something to work on, though it might take time.)
"But we are tempered, not so altered as be unrecognizable. Halmarut's speeches - while well-meaning - still tend to run overlong. And I would rather suffer the unending droning of insects than spend another moment of eternity forced to endure Fandaniel's utterly inane prattle."
He means that too, by the annoyance in his voice.
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Date: 2020-12-08 11:19 pm (UTC)She flares with anger brought upon by grief and betrayal, and it hurts enough to steal her breath. One fisted hand unfurls itself, sliding down to press firmly against her abdomen while the other remains steadfast against her sternum. There is the hiss of air between her clenched teeth, and no doubting the resentment in her tone.
"It should have been you."
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Date: 2020-12-16 05:55 am (UTC)He knows he shouldn't ask. That the answer will likely be no more comfortable than the ones she has already given. But the question is already past his lips before he can stop it. And perhaps it's just as well. If she would blame him no matter what he should choose to call himself, surely it's better to know sooner rather than later?
"Or would you blame me for what I have not done - could not do - regardless?"
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Date: 2020-12-16 06:24 am (UTC)"What you did was ensure I was forever alone! Has your precious master been worth all the sacrifices?!"
She takes a gasping breath, fingers digging into the flesh of her chest until the flare of pain eases.
"Tell me, Hades," Hemera demands in a dangerous whisper. "If He had demanded it, would you have sacrificed my child to sate His monstrous hunger?"
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Date: 2020-12-29 06:00 am (UTC)...And then she mentions a child, and any thoughts but that promptly flee his mind, leaving him blinking as he processes the news. Enough so that he does - for a moment - wonder if there is still a child. (Now that he's actually looking he can see the physical signs pregnancy has left on her body; small changes that he had all but written off as his memory being faulty after so long.) Logic kicks back in then - if there had been he would have seen it from the first. Thus, it is a matter of there having been a child. A potential that was never realized, and there's some part of him that might almost mourn that, deep under the tempering.
"Have I fallen so far in your graces that you assume I would even want to?"
There's hurt in his voice - how can there not be, at such an accusation - but there's echoes of loss, too. Of sorrow, both for what could have been and what was. He might not have had the chance to know Hemera's child - neither of them have - but he knows all too well the pain of losing a child. Even if his had managed to exist, for a time.
"Of course I wouldn’t have.”
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Date: 2020-12-29 06:24 am (UTC)"...I suppose it doesn't matter," she says, ignoring the wetness in her eyes. "Zodiark or no, I could never have done it all my own. There was never going to be a child."
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Date: 2021-01-12 06:19 am (UTC)It takes a moment, before he finds the right words. Before he finds it in himself to speak at all, when he knows that there are too many 'what if's to speak of the possibility of there having been one, had they not had cause to summon Zodiark.
"Emotions rarely care for if a thing should matter, I've found. The hurt is real. The possibility was real, if but for that brief moment."
The hope was real, though he can't say for certain if she'd allowed herself to do so the way he had, when she'd realized what could have been. Nor does he mean to ask. Some things are better left unsaid, and this, he suspects, is one of them.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-13 03:55 am (UTC)There was so much pain. So much blood—
Hemera curls into herself further with a quiet, agonized gasp. Her soul shudders along with her, guttering like a candle flame before eventually steadying again. (She wishes it didn't.)
Her voice falters, turning into no more than a broken whisper.
"...It would have been our masterwork. A family."
for Gaius
Date: 2021-02-11 03:32 am (UTC)