#Emet-Selch/Hades | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

afangirlsmuse · 2 years ago

Text

Her Words

Inspired by the lovely @winternightjewels ficlet in response to the prompt I left her, “Don’t be what they made(make) you”. This is a follow up story with my own Azem, Calliope.

Written entirely on my phone. Please forgive any mistakes.

-----------------------------------------------------------

She had always wanted to introduce her “Words” as they had taken to calling themselves, (for they were,in no way, being paid in any official means by the Convocation nor did they have any official tie to Amaurot) to her husbands. So despite the hurt from her latest censure, she accepted it with all the grace she could muster, deciding that she would use this as an excuse to do just that.

Her “Words” (really just her friends) knew much and more about her husbands, for she always filled their time traveling together with talk of them. It was purely by accident that her husbands knew nearly nothing of them. Every time she had thought to speak of them, Hythlodaeus or Hades distracted (was distracted truly the right word for being so delightfully enraptured between them she could hardly form coherent words let alone sentences?) her.

She sat her husbands down insisting they speak. Hades wore his usual stoic expression, though his brow furrowed a bit more than usual, with what she could only hear in his aether as worry. Hythlodaeus sounded much the same though his expression gave little away. Their thoughts and expressions clued her in to the fact that she may have been *too* insistent. She gave a small smile to attempt to ease their worries. Her husbands found themselves subjected to a crash course in her friends for the rest of their evening.

They left the city the next week after her friends called on her for help. There were strange magical phenomena on a remote tropical island, the leylines and flow of aether becoming visible. It would be the perfect occasion for her husbands to accompany her, without her feeling like she was being chaperoned.

———-

Her friends were certainly a…colorful group. Emet-Selch soon realized that there really wasn’t an exaggeration in his wife’s depictions of the eccentricities of her companions. They gave him appraising looks and for the first time in years Hades felt the need to hide himself behind his wife and husband.

“Oh my goodness Calli! I honestly can’t believe you’re letting us meet them!” A younger women nearly screeched. She had short blue black hair blue tinted skin, and horns that grew from her forehead. A historic concept that had developed souls and been allowed to roam the star freely just as Amaurot constructed. A Tiefling, he believed they were called.

“I’m Phoebe!” She said brightly. “And you must be Hythlodaeus and Had- oh, er, sorry! Emet-Selch right??” She turned to Azem for assurances that she didn’t offend. He would let that go since she did correct herself but chose not to spare her a correcting glance.

Then there was the rather tall voluptuous woman beside her. She was very clearly a Satyress,a concept that developed souls. A familiar clung to her shoulder in the form of a small ape. She smiled, her expression hinting at a mischievousness that only his wife could have influenced.

“Oh it’s so nice to meet you *Hades*. Oops.” The nonchalance with which she used his true name irked him, to which she apparently delighted in.

“And you Hythlodaeus. Calliope has told us so much about you. I’m Anemone. And this is Mister” she gestured to the familiar on her shoulder, scratching at its belly. The tiny creature was packed with fire aspected aether, it made Hades wonder how they were not feeling the warmth the small creature should have been giving off.

“Oh I think you have picked on them enough.” Came the low drawl of the lanky young man beside Anemone. He possessed the subtle bovine features of a Firbolg, another ancient concept that developed souls. Grinning, he leaned on the crude staff he possessed. “Dimitris” he introduced himself, tipping the brim of his hat to Hades and Hythlodaeus.

The last of the bunch was not a historic concept but a young man with an instrument strapped to his back. He bore a haughty smirk as he nodded to the two Amaurotines. “Orpheus.”

“Well!” Their wife clapped her hands once and turned on her heels to face them. “Now that introductions are out of the way, we have gifts for you!” She all but chirped.

Hythlodaeus was intrigued, “oh?”

“Yep!” Phoebe chimed, as Anemone dug into an enchanted bag that could hold more than its small size let on. The satyress produced two sets on finely crafted light adventuring gear.

With a snap, Azem was no longer in her robe and mask, but in gear that appeared to be of similar make to that she was presenting them with. Hades couldn’t help the roll of his eyes. He was about to protest until he saw the aether woven in the gear.

“You made these without magic.” He said matter of factly, with almost the hint of a smile.

She nodded, “Yes, well I didn’t want the potency of the aether in some of the material to be lost in the manipulation, so it just takes better to hand crafted enchantments as opposed to the innate enchantments of creation magic- I’m rambling.” She pressed a set into Hades arms. “Yours will bolster your defensive magic and can store aether to be channeled in a way however you choose.” She released the set of armor with the plant of an innocent kiss on his cheek.

Taking the other set from Anemone, she took it to Hythlodaeus. “And yours allows is designed to amplify and focus your control over ambient aether.” She smiled proudly, leaning in to kiss her other husbands cheek and whispering in his ear so as to not embarrass him, “it will also make manipulating aether easier.” He smiled warmly at her and gave a kiss to her cheek of his own.

———-

They were all seated around a table on the ship, (which her husbands were quite surprised to find out she and her friends owned) sharing a meal.

As the current conversation lulled to a close, Hythlodaeus spoke up. “If I may inquire. How did you all meet our lovely wife?” He asked with a smile.

Phoebe smiled, “she’s my best friend! Has been since I was a little kid!” She looked toward Calliope as she spoke. “My mom was hardly ever around and I don’t know who my dad is, so Calli would play with me when no one else did. Which was a lot of the time honestly. But she taught some magic and we would play pranks on the hoity-toity people who thought they could push me around”

Azem smiled, “we certainly made all kinds of mischief” she said letting her leg brush affectionately against Hades’.

“Azem saved the orchard where my family lives” Drawled Dimitris. “The plants caught a bad blight one year, nearly starved us and the villages that depended on our crops out. She helped get the the aether flowing right and drove the fungus that blighted our plants out so we could survived. I knew there wouldn’t be a way to repay her, even though she insisted we didn’t need to. Instead I just came with her on her travels to help her out.” The firbolg shrugged.

“My story isn’t nearly as exciting.” Orpheus spoke up, “I woke up a few years ago without any memory of who I was or where I came from. Azem found me and I thought traveling with her would be better than trying to survive alone in the woods so I just stuck around”

Hythlodaeus quirked a brow and was about to pry for more information, when his wife spoke, “you won’t get much more from him. He’s still trying to figure everything including himself out.” To which Orpheus nodded in agreement, before he resumed his mindless melodic strumming. Hades eyed the young man warily not completely trusting of him, as he let Hythlodaeus carry the conversation.

“And you Anemone?”

“Oh I’ve known Calliope since we were just girls. My Nana and her Mama were friends”

“Venat.” Was his wife’s answer to the unspoken question of both husbands.

“Yes. Well they were friends, are still friends I suppose. And I just remember Venat and Calliope always comin’ to visit us. I think Nana was trying to teach Venat the magic that we use in the forest. Mainly how we can transform into animals.”

“It’s different from the methods we use.” Calliope clarified. “Uses less aether and is more about studying fauna than manifesting the true shape of your soul. We called it Wild Shape.”

Hades seemed to relax at her clarification and the hint of a smile tugged at his lips. Looking between Anemone and Calliope, he started to realize it was less that his wife influenced the mischief in Anemone, and more the other way around. This was perhaps the only other person in the room that knew his wife as well as he and his husband did. It was nice to know she wasn’t alone when she traveled so frequently.

They spent the rest of their evening speaking on embarrassing and amusing stories of their journeys together and apart. The grin on Hades face grew by the end of the night to an actually recognizable smile.

While Emet-Selch may have took no joy in doing his duty contributing to this censure of Azem, seeing the impact she had on the star through the people truly effected by her choices was powerful testimony to bring back to the Convocation. Hades, delighted in how her face lit up with her stories, in how her laugh rang out as her friends reminded her of missing details, in the warmth of the color of her soul knowing she was surrounded by those she loved and who love her best.

Perhaps he would find more occasions to accompany her on journeys from start to finish instead of coming only when she called. Clearly, the consequence of this censorship was beneficial for all of them.

#ffxiv fic #ffxiv #ffxiv azem #azem/hades/hythlodaeus #azem x emet selch x hythlodaeus #hythazemet #hythlodaeus #Emet-Selch/Hades #Emet-Selch #emet selch #Azem #Final Fantasy XIV

10 notes · View notes