#apologies truly I don't have much so I share in big chunks when possible

[hythlodaeus-mynewoldfriend]

WIP Monday

Tagged by @new-old-friend and saw @sasslett post originally for just the last line but the last line I wrote is for something so very self indulgent currently. But it overall has been awhile since I posted any kind of wip. So have this little long bit of Demos and Sib in Endwalker. So spoilers for that since this is in the game events after the lvl 85 dungeon. Tagging in turn: @the-unending-journey @mimble-sparklepudding @bnuuywol @umbralaetherand I don't know too many others but please tag and share! I like seeing them!

Demos shifts, letting his shoulder touch Siberite’s back to let her lean against him while he quietly sketches out Anthea and Hythlodaeus, both looking up towards the creature high in the sky. He glances out of the corner of his eye when her shoulders move to sigh though none could be heard. Her eyes haven’t strayed from the happy couple and the smile she wears is overshadowed by something deeper she’s trying so hard to hide. “What’s got your mind far away,” he asks softly, hands moving over the page with a practiced grace.

“What makes you think I have something on my mind?”

He gives a quick chuckle, “You have that pensive look on your face. Same one you claim I get when I’m thinking too hard.”

Siberite can’t help but smile as she leans her head back, “You do think way too hard Demos. Too much for such a young man.”

“So what’s got your mind going this time?” Her head rolls to once again take in Hythlodaeus and Anthea laughing at some inside joke, their arms wrapping around him as he laces their fingers together. Watches as Anthea places a kiss on his cheek, any conversation they’re having growing silent despite how close they sit to the warriors. Watches as the two wave upwards, their talks more animated, and all the while Siberite’s eyes glass over with unshed tears. “Are you trying to compare your relationship with theirs?”

“No,” she sighs, sitting up right, bringing her knees to her chest, “I just-. I just wonder if we have any right to leave everything as is, we could change things so easily.”

“Sib-.”

“Just look at them, Demos, look how happy they are. They’re so happy and we both know how its going to end….and I don’t think I can live with leaving everything as it should be when they look so happy and so in love. What right do we have allowing something so beautiful and pure and warm to eventually die and be forgotten. What if Emet-Selch had a point?”

“That bringing this world back was the only option?” She looks down, shoulders giving a quick shrug. Demos sighs looking between the couple and the drawing, “Who says that they will be forgotten?” He nudges the sketch book towards her, “You and I are here aren’t we? When we go back our memory will still be there and down the line someone’s gonna find this and maybe they don’t know the full story but they’ll remember the love stored within it. Maybe they replicate it for a legend because no other couple can encompass what they’re conveying, so on and on it goes with their faces, this moment, their love is remembered.”

“Pretty confident people will like your art that much in the future,” she says with a small smile, Demos responding with a light shove, “But what about them now? They are living this now and don’t they deserve to stay happy?”

He hums, letting silence fall as she looks at him expectantly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Did you ever watch how your grandparents acted with one another?” 

Her brow furrows, “No. I think they died or stopped speaking to us by the time I was born.”

“Oh, well okay doesn't change my point,” he clears his throat, “When I was growing up I knew my paternal grandparents, got to see them everyday, saw how they both loved the other, and once I was able to understand that there was a concept of love I recognized how pure and warm it felt. It reminds me a lot like them.” He smiles as the two move to sit side by side, “One of my first memories was watching them sit exactly like that on the porch as everyone danced after setting up a new house and they would many times after that until she couldn’t walk much and there was never a chair big enough and comfortable enough to fit them both. She used to say it was fine because it wasn’t like sitting on the stairs, it wasn’t to me and I said as much. Thought it unfair that their time on the stairs was coming to an end, think I was havin’ a hard time with learning and accepting that one day they both would be gone. That their world and way of life would no longer exist, didn’t know when but it was going to happen.”

“But you couldn’t change something like us dying. We can though.”

“And still their lives would end. We don’t know when, but whether the Final Days happened or not, those two will one day no longer exist.”

“They could have a happier ending to their lives though.”

“And how can you know that for sure? Hythlodaeus said he sacrificed himself, for all we know Anthea went with him. Couples like them, the happiest ending they could ever ask for is for their story to end on the same page.”

“And what does that mean?”

Demos laughs with a shrug, “Don’t know entirely.”

She rolls her eyes, “Well did your grandparents end up dying at the same time?”

“No,” he exhales, “Gramps went first and then she did, but not before Grandma saw me finish repairing the obnoxious chicken clock. Said she wanted it over their graves and to not ever repair it again.” Demos shakes his head, “And no, I don’t know why she had that stipulation because they both hated the damned thing with a passion. The whole town did too, being a quarter malm away and still hearing it. If I ever come across them on our trips in the sea I’ll ask in your stead.”

Siberite laughs, “Good, because I want to know the reason also.” Her eyes glance over the various researchers working, laughing, laying out in the grass, reading, or watching as Emet-Selch assists in making the creature fly. “You know how he used to tell us stories about this time? Talk about all they accomplished, the work they did, and mostly gloss over the people he once knew, tales that I could never believe. I knew he was telling the truth but it didn’t feel like the truth to me.”

“Did finally coming here make it true?”

“No. It felt more like a dream, like the tales he’d told, but seeing them,” she pauses nodding towards the happy couple, “hearing the joke I have no context for and the subsequent laughter from the group of women that passed by here earlier, the one guy taking lunch on that rock, and seeing how at ease the old man is even when taking the little jabs Hythlodaeus makes….it feels….real. They all were once real and so much like us.”