#ascian hyth au

[suwisuwii]

𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦, 𝘮𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨.

[azems-familiar]

also i am inventing ocs that can literally only exist in specific aus that i have zero intent of actually writing or doing anything about. why am i doing this to myself

[meullie]

im rly insane about AUs where hyth is an Ascian yet in my headcanon he would probably try to appear as non-threating as possible at least at first

[puddraws]

Ascian Hyth AU hurts sooooo good. he should've been Solus' chief magitek engineer

[yamisnuffles]

nothing i can come up with right now has the subtle touch that makes all your aus so good, so you're gonna get what you're gonna get, and maybe i'll send another later lmao. so same question i just answered: what would an ascian or unsundered azem au look like?

Okay, so, for Ascian Azem to make sense for me, she would have to have in this universe gone along with the Zodiark plan because I still hold that they were to some extent tempered. Also, she would need to be Sundered still, to keep that time loop.

So, starting with that base:

She would be a bit broken before the Sundering even happened. It would break something in her to give up on finding another way. Doubly so when Hyth sacrifices himself. That said, I think Hyth telling her and Emet his plan is what would have swayed her in the first place. With Emet so adamant about the Zodiark plan and Hyth literally offering up his life to see it through, she could have in some universe decided she couldn't turn on both of them. It would very much destroy some part of her to do so, though.

When the Sundering happens, what bright, flaming light was left in her would be snuffed out. When she had her memories restored, she'd have instant, crushing regret that she hadn't tried to find another way. She'd be certain that things would have ended differently if she had (even though she'd be wrong there). This would result in her becoming withdrawn. Depressed. I think it would take a long time for her to snap out of that. Perhaps that's what leads to her death a few times with different shards.

Eventually it would be too much. To still have Emet but see him changed every time she's restored would crush her and she would see it as another failure on her part. It was already too late for Elidibus and she'd never been on the best terms with Lahabrea but if she'd pulled herself together sooner, maybe she could have at least kept Hades. So she would leave. Go her own way and hop from body to body as needed when one passed awa. Belatedly try to find a different plan.

She would spend a long time on her own. From time to time, Emet would try to get her back for personal reasons and Elidibus for the good of the plan, but she would rebuff both. That said, she wouldn't do anything to interfere with their plans for the Rejoining. She would still long for Zodiark's return and, with him, hopefully Hyth. Also, like Emet, I think she would be determined to hold onto her original, unsundered appearance.

Eventually, after thousands of lifetime's of failures, I think she'd go back to Emet's side. By this point, they'd have sort of swapped places in the relationship, with him the bringer of chaos and her the weary, hard working one. What finally snaps her out of all of this would be the modern day warrior of light. In Aubrey, she would see a mirror of much of who she had once been. Still so alive and full of so much fire and love despite everything, it would be enough for her to see hope. They would fight so that Azem could see if she actually had what it would take to overcome the Final Days when they returned. Upon defeat, with classic chaotic style, she would offer her soul up so that Aubrey could be empowered.

So there you have it. It would be complete with lots of tragic attempts by Emet for them to have what they once did (and for her to sometimes try as well). Lots of them regretting what the other had become and Emet convinced any shard he'd restored had just come back wrong. In the end, things would be about like canon, except that Emet would have an extra streak of "Why YOU" with Aubrey (as would Elidibus, but in a different flavor).

[rynloveshats]

i am a big fan of ascian hyth au

[feralkwe]

au ask thing. ascian azem. or ascian hyth even. bats eyelashes

hahaha oh wow so you're just gonna set the bar here. OKAY.

five facts ascian azem au:

1. she would 100% try to manipulate elidibus to get her own way (whatever that is idk... but now you have me wondering) and would be sorely disappointed that it just will not work. she would absolutely assume he was easy to take advantage of in his mental state based on their friendship in the unsundered world. she would be wrong.

2. in fact, for all the funny ascian-on-ascian violence we see, she would make it so much worse. if we are dealing with a four unsundered sitch here, her propensity to be a pain in the ass would only get worse, even for emet-selch. yes, she loves him, but i can see my azem assuming she knows better than him about everything. even if she wasn't unsundered and merely restored like some of the others, i don't think this would change much. in fact, being subordinate to him could make that worse.

3. while yes, she loves the world and wants her people restored as much as the others, i established in "to the edge (and back again)" that she can be selfish in her grief. this would be 9000% about hythlodaeus. the rest is just icing. she will see the world restored so she can have him back.

4. hydaelyn would be not only her enemy but public enemy #1. it's not enough to undo what she did or see her power wane. she would want revenge. in fact, it's very likely that the others would have to reel her in from it. idk what that looks like yet, but i am getting a streak of cruelty from her, and depending on what a wol situation looks like in this little thought experiment, it would be ugly. in her mind, her mentor betrayed her personally, and no one would convince her otherwise.

5. while she's not stupid by any means, all this anger makes her reckless. she would lack the patience to see elidibus put anything into motion or allow emet-selch his whims. i daresay she would rival lahabrea in the "go big or go home" department. her saving grace is she didn't have a sick ass queen of a wife to steal crib notes from, and probably would not get herself forever murdered. at least not as quickly or in so spectacularly stupid a fashion.

bonus: she would fuck fandaniel up for his shenanigans. he better make sure she is good and dead before he pulls any of his stunts because hythlodaeus is still inside that god, and by zodiark, she will have him back.

i don't think any of this is particularly creative lol, but there it is. thanks so much for the ask! i had a good laugh thinking about it.

[fheythfully]

past the edge of my beliefs (FFXIV)

Wordcount: 3,855 Summary: She looks up at Hyth and braces herself for the question she's wanted to ask and has been too scared to for months. “Whose bones is this city built on?” Brilliant, shining Amaurot, City of Miracles--floating high on its throne in the clouds, looking down on all lesser existence below. She has never left its massive gates; has never met anyone who has. What's down there, other than what she reads about in history books? Oceans, cities, town squares--who else occupies this world besides them? Kind, patient Hythlodaeus carefully removes his spoon and settles it against the rim of his cup. His gentle smile is full of dark things she cannot name.

[an AU where the Ascians win.]

Originally written in 2020/2021. Click the read more or visit AO3 (login required).

The woman in her bedroom mirror has a tail.

A rather spectacular oddity, as Astra herself does not have one. Last she checked she owned all the standard sets of limbs for a human, ten toes and fingers included. A tail had not been part of the package when she'd retired for bed the night prior, or even at the unholy mid-night hour she'd gotten up to shut her window against the blare of car sirens. But there in the mirror, before she'd even had her morning coffee, swayed a tail delicately behind her as if it was nothing but an innocent dandelion attached to her posterior.

For the sixth time, she peers behind her.

The mirror tail did not exist.

Yet in the mirror it twitches, pale hair silvery in the early morning light.

Astra sighs and continues with her morning routine.

She watches it sway nonchalantly behind her as she walks the length of her apartment, reflected in the many mirrors lining her walls (house of mirrors, her friends jokingly call her seventh floor condo). It lingers through the fabric of her pantsuit as if it is the most natural thing to exist, moving about her as she goes through her morning. In the kitchen she settles on one of her well worn leather stools and takes a deep pull of coffee, angling the pot to watch the tail dance around her legs in the reflective surface.

Really, she shouldn't be as surprised as she is. Strange things happen in Amaurot, the City of Miracles. She had just not pegged one of them happening to her. Out of all the possibilities--mirages of alien cities in the city Center; phantom creatures walking amongst everyday citizens; fantastical monsters towering into the sky before flickering out of existence--she had to get a tail? She lived over the nexus of the planet's leylines, attracting all sorts of other existences, and all she personally got was a tail? 

Grimacing, she pulls a dark strand of her hair out of where it had caught on the rim of her mug.

Well, at least it wasn't physically there for others to gawk at.

.

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Nothing nearly as exciting occurs for the rest of her day. Despite passing by plenty of reflective surfaces, no one makes a remark on the appendage trailing behind her like some strange flag. Paranoia makes her wonder if everyone sees it and is just too polite to say anything, or perhaps so used to the ongoings of the city that seeing a ghost tail barely makes it on to their radar and she is the only one finding it strange.

She mulls these thoughts over her third coffee of the day on her lunch break. A cooling breeze brings with it the scent of brine (the one below the city is too far to carry; some other world’s ocean makes itself known) and she unwinds her hair and tips her head to the back of the bench to enjoy the late spring sunshine. Peacefully, she closes her eyes.

“Ah, you must be the owner of this illustrious gallery. I've been keen to meet with you.”

She opens her eyes. A man of middle age and non descriptive features stands before her, hands behind his back. A smile pulls at his lips as he watches her gather her wits.

She's always been quick on the draw. “A pleasure.” Standing, she offers her hand for a shake. The stranger’s grip is strong as he takes her hand in his and, unexpectedly, brings her knuckles to his lips.

She should pull away but doesn't. The motion is neither charming nor creepy; his mouth brushes over her skin and it somehow just is. An old greeting seen only in films between strangers and secret lovers, and he most certainly would not fall into the latter category.

His smile deepens, not unkindly. “The pleasure is all mine. You must indeed be Astraea, then?”

She nods. The skin where his lips touched tingles strangely. Her other hand is still gripping her coffee, and she waves it vaguely in the direction of the gallery behind her. Her pride and joy: owner at the tender age of 27, beautifully curated and lauded in the pages of the city’s papers. She could have done worse for her career. “Yes. Are you interested in displaying?”

The man shakes his head. His long, braided lavender hair is reminiscent of the tail she knows sways behind her and she wonders if he too can see it in the paneling bouncing off sunlight of the gallery. “No, I'm not an artist myself, although I am a great admirer. I'm more of an archivist, you could say.” He cuts himself off and laughs. “Well, I am an archivist. For the government archives. I am currently gathering the history of Amaurot’s public entertainment venues. Would you be interested in an interview?”

And so begins her professional friendship with the man named Hythlodaeus.

.

.

A week later they sit together in her office, her sipping a coffee (of course) and him enjoying a cup of white tea. The recorder at his side has been paused as they break for a light lunch. Hythlodaeus stirs in two cubes of sugar with an unhurried hand, the other cradling his chin as he stares into the far distance behind the room’s large windows.

“You bear her name,” he says suddenly. His words break the polite silence between them and she pulls away from the email she had just been finishing.

 “Excuse me?”

“You bear her name,” he repeats as if she hadn't heard him the first time. “But you are overwhelmingly much like the Other. She would have razed this city to the ground, had she known what bones it was built on.”

Astra fixes him with an unimpressed stare. It does nothing to help quell the sense of unease that rises, inexplicably, in the pit of her stomach. “I don't know which “Astraea” you speak of, but there is only me in this city.” She knows. She'd checked on a strange whim some time back. A city of thousands and only her alone. “Your friend sounds rather violent.”

Her guest’s eyes turn towards her. The smile he seems to constantly wear on his face widens, teasing. Foreboding? Her mind supplies. Astra pushes it away.

“Are you so sure?” He asks. One pale eyebrow had risen to express his doubt at her assertion. “That you are not only a woman named such, but also the only one? All the ghosts wandering our city streets, carried from unknown shores… the world outside is so very big, and we are so very small.” He brings the tea to his lips and sips. Astra remains silent, unnerved by the turn of conversation. It was a truth universally acknowledged that Amaurot sat at the Center for something greater in creation--but it was another entirely to discuss it.

The Convocation’s laws strictly ensured that no idealistic dreamer, philosopher or curious child wandered too far down that particular rabbit hole. Punishment in Amaurot was far and between, but a visit from the Thirteen’s office was never a pleasant one nevertheless.

“Is this part of the interview?” She asks after a time.

Hythlodaeus, as if caught daydreaming, blinks. “No, just the wonderings of the city’s archivist. Forgive me for the strange turn in conversation.”

Cautiously, she nods. The interview goes on. After he leaves and she is cleaning up where he'd sat, she spots some loose sheafs of paper fallen out of his briefcase.

One of them reads, in an elegant hand:

If you listen closely, do you hear her scream?

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.

Surprisingly, the man’s oddities for rambling is not a hurdle she cannot clear and they soon transition from the professional environment to what she has tentatively begun to call friendship. There is something appealing about Hythlodaeus, from his pleasant demeanour to unexpectedly quick wit and humour. Spring’s passed and the heat of summer’s set in and she has managed to all but forget that strange afternoon in her office, sitting outside an ice cream parlour with Hythlodaeus across from her. 

She's chosen a raspberry concoction that melts in her mouth while Hyth’s poking at a coffee and vanilla dish before him. Flowers in bloom line the streets, bees dancing in and out of blossoms. Amaurot is beautiful in its lazy, buttery sunshine; a mother and child laugh across the street. A couple giggles closely together as they pass by. An elegant, towering woman with leporine ears wanders past close enough to touch and the street flickering through where her body should be.

Hyth is humming some song off key beneath his breath. Astra strains her ears to hear him.

“Honeybee, I  can't imagine how my life would be, if all your gravity did not hit me…”

The child across the street, in a fit of emotions specific to children, has begun crying. Out of the corner of her eyes Astra sees the mother lean down to comfort the hurt--a finger held out.

A bee sting. The child had stuck its hands somewhere they did not belong.

“Oh, don't you see, darling, my honeybee…” 

Her mouth tastes like honey and lavender. She takes another bite of raspberry ice cream and watches the tail behind her dance in the windows of passing cars.

.

.

She hums the words to herself before bed, brushing her hair and readying her bed. They follow her into sleep where she dreams of a quaint two bedroom home by the sea and a garden bursting with lavender. A mother with a tail like hers and cat’s ears where human ones should be sings the song to her daughter, picking vegetables and dropping them in the basket the girl dutifully carries.

Look around, we made a garden of the love we found…

The girl joins in, reedy voice carrying in the wind and ocean breeze. 

And if our world comes tumbling down, I never could forgive myself, I'll say it now…

Her dress sways around her as she swings her basket, careless of the vegetables falling out. A great red moon begins its descent in the blue skies behind her.

You're the one, you are the only one.

.

.

Hyth introduces her to a secret one August night: a rooftop garden in Convocation Square, accessible if you know the right people. Thankfully, he brags to her, you do.

She's not fond of the Square in her everyday life. The towering buildings feel too much like ugly teeth sprung from the ground and the carved Lord Zodiark idols built into the pillars bring a sour taste to her mouth, though the rest of the city's architecture is aesthetically pleasing to her eye. She finds herself thinking, as Hyth leads them confidently through the plaza, that the architects responsible for this part of the city and everywhere else probably didn't bother to check in with each other that often.

The view from the top makes it all worthwhile, though: this high up the cloud cover sweeps the city below them away, leaving only a soft, grey ocean coloured blue and silver by the light of the moon above. Amaurot’s eco-friendly city lights do not pierce it and the sky above is hers for the viewing, brilliant and all encompassing.

Would you describe it for me? Paint for me a picture with your words, a voice murmurs in her head.

A sea of shimmering stars. Diamonds strewn across a raven gown, boundless and beautiful, another replies.

“It's beautiful,” she breathes out. She spins slowly, arms out as she takes it all in. “I've never seen the sky like this before.”

“Shepherd to the stars,” Hyth quotes some unknown thing behind her, chuckling. “A pity. Now you have.”

They stay up there for well over an hour, just watching the sky and occasionally exchanging words. Hyth draws constellations in the sky for her, ones she had never heard of before: the Bole, the Arrow. Belias and Chaos, entwined by one single star; Hashmal, far off on its own. Zalera, shining bright right above them.

The sound of the roof door stuttering open breaks their quiet reverie. Astra turns, then quickly scrambles into a polite bow. A masked man with greying temples watches them and frowns, the lines of his mouth stark and disapproving beneath the curve of his mask.

“Hythlodaeus,” he speaks. “What do you think you're doing?”

Her friend grins. “I didn't expect you to join us. I'm just showing the sky to my friend here. It's such a lovely sight, how could I not?” He turns to her and motions for the man to join them. His eyes, as pale as the moon hanging in the sky, are kind. “Astra, may I introduce Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Thirteen? He is the city’s architect, although I saw that grimace you were pulling at the Square.”

Embarrassment burns her cheeks and ears at being called out so before one of the Convocation members. She inclines her head demurely before him, hoping the fall of her hair hides her shame. “Astraea, my lord.”

There is a heavy, expectant silence. She keeps her eyes on the ground. At last, Emet-Selch speaks. “Astraea.” He says her name as if it is a foreigner’s, voice tumbling awkwardly over the syllables. “What do you do, here in Amaurot?”

She dares to look at him and takes in the heavy line of his shoulders, the signs of aging in the way he carries himself. The Amaurotine lifespan is a long one and crassly she wonders how old he is, to show his age so clearly. “I am an artist, my lord. I manage a gallery in the western side of the city.”

He takes his time examining her. “I see. What is the name of your establishment? Perhaps I've heard of it.”

“Azem’s Steps, my lord.”

Hyth speaks up before Emet-Selch can. “You've definitely heard of it, my friend. Probably a hundred times alone from me. I've been trying to convince you to go with me for months!”

The tension in the other man’s shoulders drains. “Of course,” he mutters. “It's fitting, isn't it.” When he looks at her again, there is the barest hint of a smile on his face. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Artist Astraea. If you would, I would enjoy hearing of your gallery… This Azem.”

.

.

All her life, she's dreamt of fanciful things. As a child she began drawing them and never stopped, culminating in Azem’s Steps being opened on the eve of her 25th birthday. When a guest asked--and they always did, eventually--the inspiration for the name, Astra would laugh.

“I dreamt I was a great somebody all my life. I'd sleep and she would be great, this woman, this Azem living in my dreams. She so clearly wanted her stories to be told, and as an artist, who am I to tell her no?”

.

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She dreams of Azem burning in a great city that night, of Azem floating in the dark matter of space, of Azem sleeping in the center of a star. She wakes up and knows, inexplicably, that Azem's story is about to end.

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On a grey October morning she visits Hyth for brunch. He swirls two sugar cubes in his tea and she stares at the pristine untouched surface of her coffee. She hasn't slept well--hasn't dreamt at all--coming up on two weeks now, and it shows. There are dark bags under her eyes. The tail she's seen in reflective surfaces flickers in the corners of her eyes now, dropping in exhaustion.

She looks up at Hyth and braces herself for the question she's wanted to ask and has been too scared to for months. 

“Whose bones is this city built on?”

Brilliant, shining Amaurot, City of Miracles--floating high on its throne in the clouds, looking down on all lesser existence below. She has never left its massive gates; has never met anyone who has. What's down there, other than what she reads about in history books? Oceans, cities, town squares--who else occupies this world besides them?

Kind, patient Hythlodaeus carefully removes his spoon and settles it against the rim of his cup. His gentle smile is full of dark things she cannot name.

“Yours, my dear.”

.

.

Emet-Selch has somehow obtained her number--she suspects Hyth--and will occasionally message her. The first few times come as a surprise; she opens the notifications to find articles on the art scene, announcements about the city funneling funding into public projects. Things he would assume she’d be interested in, based on their short conversation that August night. 

His texts are few and far between but they stopped being a surprise by sometime mid September. They carry short conversations, all professional, about this and that--but she never messages him first.

She doesn't know what to say to a Convocation member. How do you befriend someone who wears a mask amongst all the maskless, who makes it their life’s duty to serve the greater good? Do people like that have hobbies--have friends? What do they do in their spare time? What do they like to discuss?

She burns to ask him, curiosity a flame deep inside of her. She smothers it with images of the teeth-like buildings he and his kin surround themselves with, of the great Lord Zodiark idols featured prominently in the buildings’ exteriors. She's been to church, attends all the required sermons and the sessions around holidays, but--

But Lord Zodiark looms above her in her mind’s eye, and she is unsettled.

.

.

The woman in her bedroom mirror has a tail. Astra peers at her posterior over her shoulder and confirms that yes, she can see it outside of the mirror, too. She cannot touch it, her fingers phasing right through its existence, but she now doesn't need to track her passing in every reflective surface to see whether or not her own miracle is still with her.

The woman in her bedroom mirror is now blonde and grey eyed too, but Astra can see her own dark hair and doesn't need to confirm this follow up miracle. She examines the woman in the mirror and she, in turn, examines her.

Are you so sure? Hyth had asked her once. That you are the only Astraea? 

Yes, she decides, watching the woman smile at her from the mirror. I am. I know I am. Because her name is something else entirely.

The woman, grey eyes shining, beams.

.

.

Her name is Satella, she decides. She has replaced Azem as the star of Astra’s dreams and in cold, snowy December as she lies bundled warmly in her goose down blanket, she dreams of Satella’s life. Of a two bedroom cottage by the ocean; of a metal beast of a building crumbling in flames; of long treks across barbaric lands and across oceans and dying. So much dying, only to be brought back with miraculous magic again and again and be made to fight.

Why do you keep going? She wonders one night, watching her bleed out into the earth.

The woman stares back at her through the veil of the sky. Why do you? 

She paints faces and places and beasts and cities until her fingers are permanently stained with paint and her studio is bursting with canvases. Her new collection attracts crowd after crowd, a fervour overtaking the populace as they come to see her art. Conversation buzzes in its usually politely quiet halls--so familiar, I feel like I've seen it in a dream once, or maybe a book, the name is on the tip of my tongue.

Astra attends every night and shakes hands and laughs politely and consoles emotional outbursts a few come to experience. It's a dream I had, she demures more often than not and, more often than not, her fellow Amaurotine will gaze at her in wonder and say--

I think I had a dream of it, too.

.

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Emet-Selch invites her for coffee the first week of January. She has her agreement ready to hit send on but the statues of Zodiark he commissioned into the city Center--city heart--tower over her like a nightmare.

She erases her reply and stops responding. 

.

.

In February she wakes up and marvels at her own body. Why is she so--big? Where are her ears? Why can’t she feel her tail?

In March she wakes up, and marvels at her own life. How long has she had this apartment? Why have her parents not come to see her for her new art launch? Where are her friends?

In April she wakes up, and marvels at the screaming that comes from beneath the city. Why does no one else hear it?

Why does no one else hurt?

.

.

Summertime in Amaurot is lazy, warm sunshine and bees on the city streets. A child cries when they are stung. She hums to herself as she walks--

“Oh, don't you see, darling, my honeybee…”

Her gallery is closed for the month, website noting vacation hours. She wanders Amaurot until her feet hurt, until night falls and she meets Hyth at Convocation Square in the blue light of the moon. He makes pleasant conversation with her as they take the elevator to the very top of a toothy building, where a secret garden awaits her. She stretches out her arms and breathes in the fresh air, watches the clouds roll slowly and silently beneath them.

An ocean of nothing. Grey mist hiding the world below--all her life, watching the world from her place in the City of Miracles, except now she is almost like a Convocation member herself staring down at those beneath her. Watching, waiting, observing the slow motions of life year after year.

She has not met the others--only Emet-Selch--but she has seen them on her TV screen: aging beings, devoted and feared. Respected? It is the same thing, after all.

She wonders once more: how old must they be, to show their age as such in their near-immortal Amaurotine life.

She turns to Hyth, who watches the stars above them. “Did you know,” he begins, “that we once were friends? In the before.” A conversation thread picked up she wasn’t quite aware they were having, as casual as a comment on the weather. (It’s always perfectly seasonal in Amaurot: warm summers but not too warm; mild autumns with just enough rain; perfectly white winters and blooming, scented springs.)

 “But then we forgot. Or rather, you forgot and I remembered. And then we both forgot again. And on it goes.” He turns to her and holds out his hand. She reaches over and grasps it in hers, squeezing it tightly.

“It’s funny how time works, isn’t it.”

They both turn to watch the stars above them. Constellations make themselves known before her: Loghrif, Mitron. Fandanial and Nabriales.

Lahabrea.

Emet-Selch, right above them.

From her place over Amaurot, they look close enough to grasp.

She reaches up and plucks them as stones into the palm of her hand.

[sparklytimebun]

Slice of Life AU

Hyth is the cottagecore bestie to Hades. Hades is a trad goth with mall influences. Hermes works on a farm. Meteion is his autistic bird obsessed little sister. Themis is a narc and younger brother to Venat, who is the tomboy of the group. Masc leaning, solves a lot with violence. Lahabrea is a professor, his son is obsessed with the occult and besties with Themis. Athena supports him, but in secret. Hyth does egirl shit at night, a full degen.

Igayolrn(???) the girl ascian who merges with lahabrea is down bad for lahabrea and hates athena. Anyway ask me stuff about this AU because im obsessed.

[pippuns]

hello. i am thinking about ascian hythlodaeus. it is 2am.

[charlottedabookworm]

#26 - Break A Leg

feat Ascian!Hythlodaeus

despite how much i love this au, i still can't write unhinged. i spent like an hour and a half on this and got less than four hundred words but oh well.

Shadow floods the room as the door clicks shut behind them, candleflames flickering in their jars as his smile falls. “Why are you here?”

“There have been rumours,” Lahabrea says, a smirk on his lips. “You’re attached, Emet-Selch.”

He growls. His claws, suddenly curled around his old teachers throat, tighten. “You doubt my conviction?”

Lahabrea laughs. “No, Emet-Selch,” he hisses back, blood trailing down his neck, a hand on his arm as he dangles in the air. “Simply your methods. You walk amongst these creatures as if you are one of them, you play their mortal games, you act as if we are not gods- perfectly content to play with these imperfect beings instead of working towards our goal-”

Aether floods the room, wrapping itself around his old friend, and curling deep into his being. Forcing him still and silent and present. 

Binding him to his fragile, mortal body.

“I would never forsake our brethren,” Hythlodaeus snarls and his sigil casts the air around him red. “Our world will be whole again, Lahabrea. This I swear to you.” It will be whole and these shattered, imperfect beings will help him make it so; their life energy returning to the Star will bring the people of Eitherys back.

They will be whole.

“But, of course,” Lahabrea spits, his eyes sparkling with rage. “How could I forget; you need to revive your dearest Azem-”

He screams.

His grip tighens as shadows rush over his companions mouth; smothering his screams and choking him silent at once.

“Have care, Hephaistos.” Hythlodaeus smiles, gentle and slow. His free hand presses further down on fragile bone, crushing it to near-dust beneath shadow-tipped claws. “These mortals are so fragile, old friend,” he says, loosening his grip.

Blood drips onto the stone floor.

“Anything could happen.” Hythlodaeus murmurs as he tightens his grip in silent warning and then, he lets go.

Lahabrea falls to the floor, a mess of blood and bone, pale and panting with pain he hasn’t experienced in millennia. He glares up at him.

Hythlodaeus laughs. “Do be careful,” he says, his voice full of worry as he flicks blood from his fingers. It lands on Lahabrea’s face. His smile widens. “You wouldn’t wish to perish before our world is made whole, would you?”

[flowerwept]

@soulprofitis said:  i’m worried about you. you should have told me sooner. (if you'd like either one!! c:)

Fandaniel freezes where he stands in shadow, gloved hand resting against a pillar of marble when Hythlodaeus’s voice rings out behind him. So his escape plans hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed like he was hoping they would be. That obnoxious pride ‘His Radiance’ sported meant Emet-Selch vastly overestimated the bug-like souls of the sundered / and Fandaniel had found much solace in it, his plans of suicide and planet extinction going unnoticed purely because he was a shattered creature. All he had to do was smile and nod and Emet-Selch would complain about shard number seven and Elidibus would stand like a ghost in the back of the room and grumble something about duty and everyone would go back to their fabled duty, stewards of the planet, always and forever.

Hythlodaeus was always the more observant one in their duo. A fact Fandaniel should have kept in mind, but Hermes’s memories still flit unresolved in the space of Fandaniel’s grey matter. They disgust him. Smiling and nodding had never been enough around Hythlodaeus--not even on Elpis. The hand leaves marble. Fandaniel turns around to face his fellow harbinger of chaos.  “You’re not going to rat me out, are you?”  He smiles a sickle-shaped thing clearly visible from underneath his hood.  “We both know that those three take less than kindly to their sundered brethren. And even after I sat on the Convocation with them! Fate is cruel, is it not, Hythlodaeus?”

The smile disintegrates like ash ( like Fandaniel wishes this world would ).  “I do not intend on participating in their farce anymore. I have dreams of my own, you understand, and I should like to bring them to fruition just as much as you yearn for the Rejoining. It is a matter of...ah...shall we say -- a conflict of interests?”  A hand reaches beneath one of the sleeves of his robe where a concealed dagger lies, fingers playing at the hilt -- just in case.  “Your worry is misplaced.”  A lie: Fandaniel is planning for them all to die, and he knows Hythlodaeus has him figured out...but why not see the play through to the fall of the curtain?

[azems-familiar]

....perhaps i shall post part of the hythlodaeus angst

There’s a faint ripple in the aether, a whisper of a breeze, and a terrifyingly-familiar voice murmurs, “...am I dreaming, seeing you here like this, Seleukos?”

The sound of their name - the name they have hardly heard in lifetimes, the name they’d all-but left behind in the aftermath of the Sundering - pierces through them with just as much if not more sharpness than the Light itself, and they stiffen, breath catching in their throat. They don’t dare to move, don’t dare to open their eyes, caught in place as surely as if they themself have been shackled by Hydaelyn’s spell. This- this has to be a trap, a lure to draw them in, because he- he’s gone, he went to Zodiark, there’s no restoring him until they restore the star itself-

They open their eyes anyway.

A shade flickers in and out of view in front of them, drifting black robes, the suggestion of an ivory mask and a pale purple braid. The clearest thing about it is its eyes, vivid amethyst and staring at them with some soft mix of sorrow and pain and confusion. It can’t be real. They refuse to search the aether to look.

“Ah,” they say instead, quietly, the familiar old ice creeping over them as the shock starts to fade, the dullness of it slipping into their voice. They cannot- this cannot be real. He cannot be. They don’t want him to see. He’s gone, he left them and broke his vow for some abstract sense of a duty he has never had to carry. “I’ve lost touch with reality again. How reassuring.”

There’s almost a clarity to the way the world looks, when they retreat from it. Everything is hazy, but in stepping away from themself they can see their own actions with an awareness they wouldn’t usually have, an awareness detached from the endless swelling ache in their chest that never goes away. Emet-Selch doesn’t speak to them, when he recognizes the distance in their eyes, not unless he’s worried they’ve gone too far to come back; instead he likes to sit with them, if he can, a quiet presence to tether them to something, a line they can grasp onto when they need to be real again. (It’s different if they’ve gone away so much they no longer quite remember when they are, past and present mixing together. But they don’t like to think about those times.)

“Oh, love,” Hythlodaeus says too-softly, the grief in his eyes more pronounced, and they wonder absently what he sees with his ever-sharp gaze. Not that- this is real, not that he’s really seeing anything, not that he’s there - but of course any image of him they would conjure would have his sight. “What has been done to you?”

They swallow hard and look away from his face - maybe his features are so vague because their memories are too, time and exhaustion marring the lines of his face in their memory until he and Helios are nothing but purple and black, silver and white, seen and heard clearly only in dreams and the crystal they have not been able to bring themself to use in a very long time. How exactly did their laughter sound? How did Hythlodaeus’s face change when he smiled? They only remember that it was warm and bright and loving and that it filled them brim-full with a joy that was stripped from the star with its Sundering.

“I came to see Him,” they say instead of answering, gaze landing on Zodiark’s prison again, tracing the barrier of Light and blades that spins eternally through the air around Him. “I don’t quite know why. Duty, perhaps…I should have told Emet-Selch. He’ll worry.”

If they’re imagining Hythlodaeus, he would be right to worry, they know. Their clarity might fade, and this close to Hydaelyn’s magic, they cannot afford to be anything less than fully aware. They are of the Unsundered. Sane or not, their loss would be a great setback to the Convocation’s plans, to the Ascians’ plans, and they are unsure how Emet-Selch would take it.

They ought to leave now, before this spirals further. They can’t quite make themself.

For a moment Hythlodaeus is quiet, and they begin to wonder if he’s proven his non-existence by disappearing, but then they hear his voice again. “I will have faith that you will heal from this,” he breathes out, and it sounds almost like he’s trying to convince himself of something. “I must. You must.”

“Heal,” Azem echoes, slowly lifting their gloved hands to look down at them. All other details have faded over time, but they still remember what their skin looked like when it was covered in Helios’s blood. What healing could there be from that loss? From Amaurot’s loss? They can only hope they will still recognize their best friend when he finally returns to them. “...I don’t know. But we will fix what She did to the star, Hythlodaeus, no matter how many thousands of years it takes. Four shards Rejoined, nine left - and then…then we will free Zodiark and restore Amaurot. I will- I will not abandon them again.” They let out a shaky breath, close their eyes again, and - and he isn’t real, so they can whisper this into the wind: “And maybe I’ll get to see you again.”

They hope they will recognize Helios, when Etheirys is whole and he can come back. They hope Hythlodaeus will recognize them, when they bring him back to life.

Something, a twist of the wind maybe, a gentle breeze, brushes over their bare cheek and vanishes again, leaving behind a trace of aether too faint to identify. Hydaelyn’s Watcher, perhaps, sensing their presence and marking them, or just the currents from the distant prison - there’s something almost familiar about it. Perhaps it came from Zodiark; perhaps He senses one of His servants.

“I know you’ll find the best way, dearest Azem,” Hythlodaeus says, his voice warm and heavy with his sincerity, the same as it always was, because he has always, always- “I have faith.”

He has always had faith.

“Faith didn’t save us,” they whisper, but there’s no response, no sound besides their own breath and their own stolen heartbeat, a silence that weighs down on them with all the heaviness of absence. “...Hythlodaeus?”

They open their eyes to the craggy, pocked surface of the moon, the distant thrum of Hydaelyn’s magic, Zodiark’s chained form, and emptiness. The barely-there shade they’d seen before is gone, not a wisp of essence remaining for them to trace if it was ever even there, and despite the way they’ve withdrawn some cold horror grips their chest. He wasn’t real, they remind themself, he wasn’t real, Emet-Selch would say the same, he wasn’t real-

“Come back,” they say anyway, plaintive and small, and wrap their arms around themself, huddling into their robes. They should never have left the rift, should never have come here. “Please,” they whisper. “You promised.”

Hythlodaeus doesn’t answer, because he was never there to begin with.

For too long they just- stand there in the emptiness, shuddering and trying not to crumple, hands gripping their sleeves as though they could hold themself together - as if they’ve ever been capable of that. The ice is cracking, cracking, and it hurts-

They want to go home. 

(Home does not exist. Home is dead and gone and buried beneath the rock and the ocean. Home is an Unsundered star and the people they love unburdened by loss and a sky on fire. Home is Helios’s laughter, and Hythlodaeus’s arms around them, and Hades scoffing and rolling his eyes like it could hide his smile. Home is warmth and love and a brilliance that does not hurt when it shines over them.

Home is untouchable, only in their memories, that faded perfection they cannot return to. They do not know if it will fit them anymore, when they finally bring it back.)

[chaoticshepherd]

attention

idea:

Hyth's eyes are the colour of Hades' soul, Hades' eyes are the colour of Azem's soul, and Azem's eyes are the colour of Hyth's soul

thank you for your attention

[prismbearer]

Braindead at the sudden thought of Ascian!Venat.

Uncertain if this would be a straightforward roleswap AU where say... Elidibus and Venat switch places somehow or if it would be better to form it like an alternate reality created by WoL's actions in Elpis etc.

Maybe Venat simply being more susceptible to the light? SHB had themes for light corruption and despite Ancients being able to hold mass quantities of aether maybe Venat having to weaken herself prior? Or simply a take where Hydaelyn weakening overtime leaves what remains of Venat at the core damaged, corrupted by light? A Venat without memory emerging from Hydaelyn similar to the concept of Elidibus as the Heart of Zodiark, quasi corrupted by the intentions during the final days? That would sort of run more like a thematic reversal though for the Source.

I suppose the Elidibus Swap has more ground to be less altering. Eli being young and close to the current Azem, maybe being inspired by them leaving the Convocation or the like? Influenced by their refusal to sacrifice their people etc? Harder part is Venat supporting the convocation. Maybe due to a setting altered by WoL where they befriend Themis a little too well and it leaves Venat having to do damage control since Elidibus rebels from the predetermined path of their fate? Perhaps she steps in to fill the seat Azem vacates?

Ooh. Venat who tries to stand by her intentions and principles, putting her faith in her protege and Themis to still light the way. Still becoming tempered despite her best wishes, knowing it is inevitable despite the knowledge that she could theoretically save the others with the travellers blessing etc. Being unwilling to risk the future that WoL comes from too much, knowing that it is the path of salvation for the Universe against Despair. Venat still being affected by the tempering, surviving with ES and Laha. Forced to experience the state of the star from the other side. Pushed by the tempering and knowledge of being WoL's enemy but still believing in them deep down.

Only bc frankly the idea of ES as Hydaelyn is horrific, would have to be Elidibus.

Maybe Azem finds out about the future and since they're apparently the "there has to be another way" type decides to attempt to alter that fate even at the risk of their own future self etc? Venat having to accelerate the summoning of Zodiark?

[rynloveshats]

Thinking about ascian hyth aus :D or rlly any au where he’s not dead, I love him so much