#emet selch.// visage

[tenuuchlegch]

Oh, my gosh. I thought this capture of that wip I was working on was lost forever, but my one drive managed to save it after I got a new computer. Couldn’t save the actual wip though unfortunately.

But yeah this is... what I imagine the dynamic between Emet Selch and Odtsetseg was like in ShB. 

[tenebriism]

@sunderedoldfriends ;;

Emet-Selch will say he wants to be alone and then bring Hythlodaeus along with him

[cthonichymn]

emet-selch tag dump !!

[mixingmuses]

// what my muses are up too when I'm progging ex's

[reapcrbunny]

THEY BE JUDGIN’    (    CREDIT    )

[tenebriism]

@sunderedoldfriends ;;

tsundere ancient & his trophy wife

[akirakirxaa]

FFXIVWrite Prompt 9: Lend an Ear

Rating: T

Word Count: 431

Summary: Persephone suffers her grief alone. [Takes place in Unsundered Azem AU, during Endwalker.]

[Master Post]

Persephone bid the Scions, her friends, goodnight before retiring to her room at the Annex.

As the door closed, the signature smile she wore always as Azem slipped from her face, leaving behind a visage of grief that she could not fully destroy, no matter how much she wanted to. That she could not share with anyone else. For who else would understand her grief and feel her pain the same way? Who among them was not happy that the threat to the star she had loved so dearly was dead?

She pulled her crystal from her pocket, the lovely orange that reminded her of sunsets, that he had said so long ago matched her eyes, seeming to sparkle less now. Persephone dragged herself to the nearby bed, still fully clothed and thoroughly incapable of even taking off the long robe-like coat she wore, and curled loosely on her side, hauling the blankets over her as if to hide from the rest of the world. She touched the crystal, and it spoke once more, the only words she had left.

“Herein I commit the chronicle of the traveler.”

A voice that would never speak new words to her, preserved in its original perfection in cold crystal, speaking words she had long since memorized. Some days she was tempted to stay in bed and only listen to them, again and again. His voice was the only thing she lived for now.

“Shepherd to the stars in the dark.“

That, and the reminder that she still had a job to do. A people to save. And once she did…when her purpose was complete…

She would have earned her rest, would she not? And then, then, she would deserve to see them again.

“Though the world be sundered and our souls set adrift,—“

Persephone slipped the purple crystal, with the constellation of the seat of Emet-Selch, from her pocket, placing it with hers, as if she believed that if she just put them close enough together, it would ease the loneliness in her heart.

But they were just stones. Beautiful and sparkling, but they did not ease the ache that had become her constant companion.

“—where you walk, my beloved, fate shall surely follow.”

Persephone did not recall when the tears started falling, but she made no move to stop them as she touched the crystal again, closing her eyes as if to imagine the voice was murmuring her to sleep rather than intoning an age old recording that was now all she had left.

“Herein I commit the chronicle of the traveler…”

[elliewiltarwyn]

FFXIV Write 2024 | #3: Tempest

Word Count: 488

Sixth Umbral Moon, 21st Sun

I went back there today. Why?

I mean, practically, it’s just so out of the way, for one; none of my usual rounds in the First take me anywhere near there - the closest I get is Eulmore, both high above and on land. It’s a terrifying monument that gives me the creeps, for another, and I hate thinking about everything that happened there, like Emet-Selch’s refusal to acknowledge our worth, or the crushing weight of responsibility left by that orange crystal - let alone everything that nearly happened, like Persephone’s visage consuming Mia’s, or the Light pulsing within my body… It’s fair to say I have no good memories there. Which isn’t to say I lack for good memories in the First at all - the whole reason we were here this week was to check in with Ryne and Gaia, see if there’s anything the Crystarium needs, check in on the Empty to ensure there’s no more Ascians running rampant or whatever the fuck.

…Maybe that’s why. Our last Empty check-in was much more eventful than we had hoped and involved the remaining vestiges of Ascian presence in the First… so it was easy to be reminded of the most prominent marker of the Ascian presence in the First.

So prominent, it’s still there, still a grim monument to everything Emet-Selch and his fellows dreamed of, even after he’s dead and gone. Didn’t fade away like the rest of him. Was that why I went, to hope for otherwise? Was I hoping to see naught but a gaping ocean void instead of the towering reminders of what he fought for?

No. These buildings won’t crumble till long after I’ve returned to the aetherial sea myself, and I knew that. Even the shades still wander those streets, heedless of the present-day world that exists beyond their reach.

…It’s fucked up how this project, so ephemeral, a testament to his forever-lost dreams, will remain here, ghosts wandering forevermore as long as our mortal existences are concerned. Even with the last of the Ascians gone, the marks they left on the star, across all the shards, are indelible and permanent. Why wasn’t that legacy something he could have been satisfied with? Just because we present-day caretakers aren’t the people—the friends—he loved…

…gods, why do I even care that he wouldn’t have been satisfied with aught less than those who he loved? We—fuck it, who am I kidding at this point—I nearly lost Mia forever because he was so desperate to reclaim those he loved. Why should I give a chocobo’s arse what he wanted? He implored that we remember, but he needn’t have been concerned; there’s no way I’ll ever forget him, or his loved ones, or the impact they had on each and every one of us…

…Maybe there’s a few reasons why these seas are named the Tempest.

[sunderedazem]

WIP Whenever

Tagged by @calico-heart! Tyyyyy for the tag- this means I get to show off a snippet of a Shadowbringers piece of the Ascian Azem AU that @azems-familiar and I share, featuring their sleepy ancient Azem and my sleepy WoL. Tagging six!: @azems-familiar, @taledotpng, @thelittlestancient, @ectojyunk, @darthsassacre, @bloodbywinter if you have any WIPs you want to tease, hehe. no pressure at all, ofc!

Corrain's POV

After a near-lifetime of napping in the shade of the sprawling trees of the Twelveswood and sleeping under the stars, one would think that a person should be immune to the awful, persistent ache that is having a crick in your neck or back. And yet when the light - not glaring, but even and mild, sunlight amidst a blue sky - falls warm onto the deep blue tattoos on his cheeks and shines through closed eyelids, that taut ache is what he wakes to. In three separate places, no less, though his neck is the worst offender. Seleukos’s knee is bony and sharp in the small of his back when Corrain blinks sleepily awake, still sprawled loosely atop them, his head half-pillowed on their stomach, his legs and tail hooked over Emet-selch still. There’s the heavy, lazy quiet of early morning lingering brightly in the air and in the deep center of his chest, and for a moment he simply lies there, awake and regretting it. And then he shifts just slightly, turning- ow- his head to glance up the bed at where the two Ascians had been last night following the vicious argument they’d had.  He softens. The sight above him is familiar, like the scent of a long-lost baby’s blanket, forever recognizable but never truly remembered, and this makes his heart warm and quicken against the lassitude in each of his breaths. Seleukos and Emet-Selch are both asleep still, lying half-back together against the pillows on his bed. Azem’s mask is still hanging around their neck, their head pillowed softly on Emet-selch’s shoulder, and his face is partially obscured by the curls of their dark hair, the Garlean third eye hidden entirely. Corrain still lies mostly across their laps where he’d flopped down the night previously, trapping them beneath him to force them to talk, purring constantly for Azem’s comfort.  He wonders if Seleukos has realized yet that they calm when they feel that low rumble in his breast. Wonders if they know he does it to bring them the softness they so desperately deserve. That- that he’s starting to believe that Emet-selch deserves as well.

It’s unnerving, empathizing so deeply with someone who doesn’t see him as a being worthy of life or the world. A part of him wishes he didn’t, wishes that he could simply take that ancient soul in Emperor Solus’s visage and snap it like a twig over his knee. But the greater, growing part of him understands. Understands the loss, the pain they’ve suffered. How scarring it is, how deep the wounds cut, how painfully they bleed. Understands how these two people before him have yet to heal from having their entire lives ripped away.  Understands how Azem chose to try, for him, and in the process has taught him to let go of the grief he’s been carrying too.

Thanks for the tag!!!! Sharing this bit is Fun hehe

[gentlekami]

The creeping silhouette trailed behind them, slithering down the stairways and clinging to the stone under their feet to the sound of silks rustling with each graceful, descending step, her suffocating presence was unmistakable. Every hair on my skin stood on end and the familiarity of it all to the point that I was forced to stop my ascend and witness their passing.

No reaction rose to her features, no sign of recognition as she saw through me with a passing glance. But I saw through her, I saw what laid in waiting.. and dormant.

“Darkness enters the face of the lily”

[memoriesofgelmorra]

Prompt 3:Tempest/ FFXIVWrite

Not even a bad migraine yesterday could stop me from writing it yesterday and typing it out now! Here's September 3rd's prompt!

Just to be safe, if you haven't defeated the Lightwarden of Kholusia, don't read!

“And then there was Amaurot… Never was a city more magnificent. From the humblest streets to the highest spires, she fairly gleamed… Not that you would remember any of this.”

To Chantelle Shirerort, Warrior of Light and Darkness, it was if the final clue of the long-standing mystery had revealed itself to her. Ever since Emet-Selch had reached out in cooperation to the Scions, that day in the Crystarium on the First, the question of why he had singled her out for discussion and exchange had vexed her.

There had always been a story behind his history lessons and his conversations with her. And as a storyteller herself, she had been silently collecting the pieces until she could figure out the words unsaid. And now she had.

“Ah, not that I would remember any of this,” she said, almost to herself, as her eyes closed in realization with a hand on her heart. “I think I understand now, Emet-Selch.”

Her eyes opened to his cautious expression, but there was an underlying tempest of nostalgia, and wanting and other emotions swirling from within him.

“Pardon, what exactly do you understand?” he bit out.

She could have gone straight to the point, but Emet-Selch had often led the Scions and her on grand soliloquies. He could do with a little bit of the same medicine. “Since you introduced yourself, you’ve been open enough with knowledge of the ancient past and glimpses of the Ascians’ goals. But Bards know there are tales told in what’s not said, as much as what is. Of course, the benefactor of The Majestic Theater Company would know that.” The consternated look on his face was just enough of a treat to warrant the mention.

“I noticed no matter how much you conversed with the others, you always had primary attention on me. You rarely debate the others like you do with me. Longs conversations, unraveling my feelings, my intentions. I could never fully figure it out, until The Qitana Revel. And this last clue.”

She dropped all pretension and fixed him with a serious expression. “You lost someone dear to you when your world was sundered to fourteen. Much of that soul now resides in me, doesn’t it?”

It was if she could feel the burst of dark emotion spilling from th Ascian. A further tempest of clashing emotions swelling and ebbing and almost spilling over. Anger. Sadness. Bitter joy. Resignation. Small, tiny fragments of hope, then buried.

“How- how dare you presume, he started, but it was not hard for her to cut him off.

“I know the pained look of loss well. I don’t talk of it often, but my family perished in the Seventh Calamity. That visage of pain is one companion never likely to leave me. So I can gods-damn well recognize it on your face!”

He seemed to collect himself in that moment, his gaze turned once again theatrical and calculating. “Well, you can certainly chastise me the same as her. Perhaps there is potential for you yet, hero.” He snapped his fingers and thus was gone in a burst of darkness.

High above the other people working along the Ladder, she growled out, “That was a half-answer, you arsehole!” Only the rumbling laugh of her ghostly companion answered.

[tenuuchlegch]

The once-in-a-lifetime Kholusia dance. Odtsetseg decided to add a little more flair to her performance. She is a dancer after all.

Bonus:

[chthonicsouls]

𝐀 𝐁𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐀𝐒 𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍. Nabriales smiled though upon seeing the visage of Emet - Selch.

❝ 𝐇𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬~! ❞ He floated over and reclined in the air, his hands resting behind his head.

❝ 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠? ❞

@agelastvs liked for a 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫.

[pr1ncesspopstar]

Shade - FFXIV Write 2024 - Day 15: Free Day

I cannot wave bigger "ENDWALKER SPOILERS AHEAD" flags if I tried

Ao3

-

‘This is a sick joke.’ Hades couldn’t help but think as he observed the body, the shade he held in his arms.

He should have known better, truly. It was impossible not to feel that battle as it began within the depths. Waves of aether crashing up between each clash of a blade and summoning of magic. Despite the severance of his old seat of Emet-Selch, there was little he could do to break the tie between his soul and the waves of the aetherial sea. He could feel Elea- no, Halditar (he had to give respect to her name now, seeing all that she had surpassed) was trading blows with Hydaelyn at this very moment. That shard and the one he had once called friend could not exist together.

“Did that eikon make you?” He snarled, pushing away the shade he had raced to embrace in a moment of weakness. His betrayal was so great he couldn’t help but use the word he had created to insult the various false gods created by this shattered star.

“No,” its voice was not what he expected. Have Elea’s voice it did, but more than that. Layered upon it, in languages aplenty, were the voices of others. Men, women, children and elderly. They created a strange melody of a voice. Some were oddly familiar. “I am a gift. I was made for Venat just before the sundering.”

“By who?” He demanded, as if the answer wasn’t obvious. Hate as he did to compare himself to her. Hades and Venat were very similar in one aspect. Their respect and knowledge for the wishes of one lost friend was too great to dare make some false idol in their likeness. The only one who would dare to would have been-

“I did,” Elea’s shade nodded. His skin crawled. It was one for shallow imitations like the ones he had made to fill his phantom city to believe themselves sentient. It was another to see one made by a friend in the image of herself, believing that. Then she nodded and displayed another uncanny ability that made Hades despise this creation. “I know I reflect the ancient you once knew, if that will help you feel at ease.”

“Oh, good! She filled you with as much aether as she could so you can read my feelings, too. How wonderful.” The sarcasm and venom was such a dead mix on his tongue, especially as he could hear the words echo around them in the sea of souls.

“How very hypocritical of you, ‘emperor of the phantom city.’” He held back a flinch, both from the sharp words and the shock of its knowledge. The shade had her unrestrained tongue. That was clear enough.

“How do you know about that? And more pressingly, why on this star were you made? Elea despised using creation magic without a good reason.” He demanded to know. She walked across the platform they found themselves on, meandering mid-conversation.

(A habit that hurt his heart to see recreated so accurately. Seemed she was more aware of herself than she let him know.)

“I was worried Venat would be lonely, and without support to the very end. So I made my shade to keep her company through it all.”

“That’s it? Your only reason for pouring so much aether into one shade?” Even from beyond existence, his mind still struggled to wrap around Elea’s thought process.

“Did I need a better one?” She countered. She had climbed onto the railing, balancing upon it like a child might, wandering away. Without realizing it, he followed, chasing after the pale visage of a friend he once knew. “As for why I know about the Tempest, Venat loved my gift so much she gave me the gift to see the lives of my shards. That’s why I talk like this. Whether I meant to, I’ve picked up some of my other part’s traits as my own.”

That explained the familiarness of some of those voices lost within the symphony. They were the other shards of Elea, some he had met and known. A knight that gave himself to darkness to save a princess he loved, dying at a disguised Elidibus’ hand. The whisperings of that piece of her existing in the third, clad in red and ever-humming. An abandoned child of the forest that died when they dropped that shard’s moon into the earth. Some he had made offers to, with one commonality. All refused any offer he or other Ascians made.

“Where are Hythlodaeus and Themis? They are normally with you, are they not?” Elea’s shade asked, looking around as if at any moment they may pop-up.

“They went to go watch your shards fight with Venat. Wanted to bear witness to ‘the battle legends will be made from,’ in their own words.” He truly tried not to sound so bitter over it. He was also championing the red-head, after all.

Upon her soul, he bore her his legacy, more than once now that his memory of Elpis had returned to him once his soul sunk into the aetherial sea. He had watched as she and her fellows raced down to the heart of the world, but could not bring himself to chase them further. Seeing Venat infuriated him too much, he claimed.

(“Of course that’s the only reason,” he claimed when Hythlodaeus asked if that was the only reason he didn’t wish to follow Themis down to the battlefield. The violet-haired man only smiled.

Those purple eyes looked over his knuckles, still white from how tight his fist clenched, hearing a bard’s aria echo through the sea in a voice as haunting as it had been millennia ago. He still furrowed his brow in confusion, wondering how the spells she weaved could still be so potent with only a fraction of aether. He knew Hyth would likely feel the pain still lingering on his inner-cheek from biting back a shout of worry when she had nearly been flung off a ledge by Amon’s assault.

He tried to insist once more, but when it was clear Hades would not, could not, bear to watch that soul so familiar fight, he went on ahead. Loneliness a cold comfort he had been content to swath himself in until they returned.

The phantom in front of him made him wonder if this was his curse. The existence of this phantom made him wonder if it was his curse.)

“You never listened to the words of others well enough.” Those words broke him free of his thoughts. The black mask the shade wore, Azem’s mask, was featureless, a canvas for the golden pain that decorated it so. “I can still feel you, as deeply as I did in the past, even. A skill you have still lacked to learn, to my former self’s worried expectations.”

Even then, the shade should have had no face for him to see. Yet Hades swore he knew beneath that mask Elea’s phantom was smiling at him, tight and sad. Eyes that did not exist boring into him with pity that made his pride flare on his face.

“Enough! Have I not suffered enough indignity and insults from you when you lived? Even beyond the grave, must you insist on haunting me?!”

“I haunt you only as much as you let me, sweet boy.” she tried to reach out to him, with a hand with painted nails and so painfully, endearingly small. He could remember when that hand would graze his jaw line so gently, when he would feel jealousy flicker seeing it tangle with Hythlodeaus’s hands, or Themis’ hair to straighten it. A depth of affection never afforded him, it seemed.

He slapped it way. It was warm and soft in such a fleetingly familiar way. His stomach turned in disgust. Seemed Venat’s affection for the fake gave it some extra power, the ability to feel as Elea once did. It was practically a parasite, existing still only thanks to the aether sustaining it.

“You do not have the right to call me as she once did, shade!” he shouted. Elea’s shade paused, tilting her head like an animal as she processed his action. The seconds of silence were heavy until she dropped her hand back to her side.

“Alright,” it was as if his outburst hadn’t even fazed her. Continuing on as such. “But don’t you remember? You never figured out what I was trying to say that day.”

“How could you? You were ever obtuse. Never saying things as they were.”

“I tried, I promise. To say things so others could understand. But no one ever seemed to change how they would listen. Only Hyth understood, and Themis tried. He truly did, but he was so… Young and none of us had the time. Little did we know.” Her words were heavy, yet fragile. That soft voice quaking at memories of feeling misunderstood, a sadness that washed over him from how deeply such feelings tied to this shade’s composition.

He could feel it in her heart, a tumultuous heat and coldness at odds, humiliation and embarrassment hand in hand with anxiety. The sense of walking on eggshells stressed over the wrong thing slipping out. He felt his eyes go heavy with tears, Elea’s empathy so great it moved his body, whether it moved him him. Hades could only feel conflicted. He never felt such sadness from Elea before, but feelings of this strength could only be true. How did he miss-

“You missed it for the same reason I was the only one to vote against you becoming the seat of Emet-Selch.” Oh, how he could feel his brow twitching in anger now. This shade just couldn’t couldn’t leave his thoughts well enough alone, and he doubted she would if he asked.

“And why was that, Elea? I’d love to know why one of my own closest friends thought me unfit for a position I was more than qualified for?!” He asked.

“Can you finally take my words at face value, as I have always meant them?”

“If it means you will finally be truthful.”

“Swee- Hades, I have always been truthful, especially to you. You just never liked or understood what I had to say. Ever pragmatic to a fault. Unable to understand the ways of others, why they did and think as they might.”

“Is that why you voted against me?”

“No,” she jumped down from the railing she balanced upon. He could not remember her being so… small, having to tilt his neck down quite far to look at her. He recalled someone larger, whose presence could encompass him, and words were much the same for how silently she could move.

“You have always been terribly callous and unfeeling towards others. Even those you never meant to hurt weren’t immune to that ugly part of your soul and were content to leave it unchanged. Now, I have seen through the eyes of my other lives how cruel you can truly be to both enemies and those you care for. My only regret is I did not fight harder to have Hythlodaeus take that seat instead of you.”

Each word is a dagger straight into his chest. Sharp, vicious, and making him remember the feeling of his body being ripped to shreds by her shard not too long ago. He is sure his face is red now. He can feel it burn as he towered over the shade. His robes and flesh melt as his true form tasks shape, wrapping around him in swathes of darkness as he slammed his fists down on either side of Elea’s shade. She can’t keep her balance from the force of the blow, falling, but unflinching as she stared up at him.

“You dare call me cruel?! You would think me callous after all I have done, all that we have given to save our ways?! Call me the hypocrite while you let our friends and family suffer the humiliation of being ripped apart! All they experience is being lost, aimless, and not knowing rest in this imperfect world! You terrible fake-” He hated how loud he screamed at her. Pushed to the brink by this false idol, knowing what a fool he looked like now. 

Worse as a part of him, felt a twinge of fear. A moment of realization.

Was he not acting as the shade told him Elea saw him?

Something warm touched the metal of his face. Very gentle, very familiar, nails making a gentle clack he hadn’t heard him in an amount of time that had no number. His multiple eyes focused on the figure. Hades did not know sympathy could make a stare burn as bright as anger until this moment.

“Have you finally heard me?” She asked.

His form faded back to the man with white hair that she was familiar with. His towering over her reduced him to kneeling on the ground, hands supporting his torso as he stared down. Those faintly glowing robes of the shade entered his vision. He wanted to speak, spit back words, but he knew they would only be in service to licking his wounds. No, it was his turn to do as she so often did for others. To be quiet and listen.

“It is, as you say, I was cruel, and my reasons were selfish. I will not deny the truth,” she agreed with his words. Another dagger of pain to the heart, cursing his own tongue for being so calloused and loose. Her hand grabbed under his chin, and gently brought his face up to look at that mask he only remembered, not the face beneath. “But I will not regret my actions. We both just did what we thought was right, with no way of knowing what ‘right’ really was.”

“Please, spare yourself. I always hated when you spoke so poorly about your nature.” He begged. Even after all this time, having to see her as an enemy, Hades found himself soft for Elea yet.

“But it’s true.” She said it as if that simple made it okay to say words most would crumple against. How she did not was a mystery, even now.

“... What was it, then? The real reason you didn’t join us in the summoning of Zodiark? Why were you selfish?” he asked. He could feel a weakness through her fingers, something long left behind unearthed.

“I was tired of hating myself, Hades.” There was a harshness in her voice that Hades had never hurt before.

“You said you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.” There was a harshness in her voice that Hades had never hurt before. “I tried, I truly did try to be happy despite it all, Hades. But our culture did not love me, who I really was. And you didn’t either. You love the idea of Elea, the adventurer with a quick tongue and wild tendencies. I don’t blame you. She was so fun to play that I loved her too.”

“I desired the ability to change without worrying about the world, as the world deserved to be allowed to exist. Among our kin, I couldn’t accomplish that.” You know I couldn’t do that amongst our kin. Our kin’s perception of us as ‘prosperous’ and their belief that nothing could be better bound us in stagnation, burdening me with expectations, even if it wouldn’t have been better for me.

A blackness filled his chest, tightening in her throat, choking him up. He wanted to insist she was lying, but this despair in his gut and how his thoughts raced. He felt her aether course through where her hand met his skin. It was hauntingly cold now, dragging his brain into a mire of anxiety. He could feel his muscles tense, freezing in place while he heaved for breath to fill his lungs. Even a moment of this self-loathing was more than he had ever done across all his lifetimes. One could not lie about a pain so deep.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” A foolish question the moment it fell from his lips. He knew the answer. She did. She tried so many times to get him to see the real her, and he never did. He swallowed harshly, feeling tears make his eyes dewy. In a moment of weakness, he asked a question he had long wished he did, knowing full well he would dread any answer the shade told him. “Is that why you didn’t love me? That for all that you loved our Hyth and Themis, you couldn’t love me the same?”

“Oh, my poor, sweet Hades,” her words dripped with pity and sympathy. Her other hand came up gently to pet his hair. Those long nails scratched his scalp, how he had once hoped they might should Elea and he ever became more. “How could I have brought myself to love a man that could not love even a shard of my soul?”

The answer was so much worse than he imagined. It was more than a dagger through his heart. A wave of guilt he had long assumed he had stopped feeling wash over his soul. It made too much sense. He refused to take the small, shattered splinters of her, and treat them as dearly as he would hold them full. Especially when she was so happy they were here instead of her, and even if she returned someday, it would not be as the Elea he had known. Perhaps deep down he knew that none of the people he loved, who had been sundered, would not return as they once were. They had changed too much, for better or worse.

“I wish I could steal away all the moments you hated yourself,” he said. His voice was low now, softened by shock and truth and a realization. Elea, this may not have been, but it would be his only moment to speak with this version of her ever again. “If I could do one truly, genuinely kind thing to make up for all that I have done wrong in your eyes, it would be that. To feel and live every moment you’ve felt you hated yourself. So I could finally know the real you I lost.”

Elea’s shade moved her hands, cupping his face. He let his eyes flutter shut and nuzzled into the small palm. Such weakness he thought he would only ever enjoy with Hyth. “And I would want to do the same with you, retrace all the miles that you have, know all that you have learned, and come to do.”

“That‘s a terrible thing to want. You already know all there is about me it feels like, and the things I have done since your sundering are nothing good. Why would you want to know my place in this storied star?” He couldn’t help but scoff. Her laugh was surprisingly loud, and so warm even when weakened by sorrows of the past.

“Because you are still so dear to me! And how could I not want to know all about my friend? And from what I’ve seen, it’s a burden you’ve shouldered alone for some time. To understand it means I could better help you bear it.”

“Helpful to the last, truly. Even your shade can’t rest if she senses someone in need!” he spoke it as if exasperated, when he was anything but. Her laugh, her touch. For a moment, it slipped away that he was in the sea of souls, and this was only a phantom. It felt like home, if only for the smallest moment.

But his home was long gone, and fate saw to remind him the last hour was approaching.

Before their very eyes, the form of the shade shifted. A faint wave of aether wracking her form and then fading. She pulled her hands from his face and looked down. The faint glow was dimming, and they appeared translucent. Small motes of aether drifted off her hood, fading into the surrounding air.

“I won.” Elea whispered. Hades felt it only moments later. A massive wave, practically a tsunami of energy exploding from the center of the aetherial sea. No more could he feel the mass of aether that made up the form of Venat’s primal. This meant that anything that was not crystallized would fade.

Including that which sustained this shade for so long.

Yet, she seemed none the sadder for it. Quite the opposite, jumping up with glee and racing around, laughing and twirling at the victory far below them. “I won! Hades, I won! Halditar, and the Scions won! We’re strong enough, we’ve proved we had the strength to stop Meteion! I… I can save our stars.”

“That’s… wonderful, Elea. Your soul, she sure is something.” However hard he tried not to sound sad about it, about what he was about to lose again, it seemed it wasn’t enough. She stopped her gleeful spinning.

Before he knew it, he was nearly tackled off the edge in a hug. So rough was the embrace. A mask of black and gold sailed over the edge and into the sea, gone forever. Elea was weak, so it was easy to pry himself from her squeezing, but he certainly wasn’t happy about being nearly tumbled over the railing. Just as he was about to voice his discontent, a familiar sight stopped him.

Long, curly hair glowed the faintest ruby, as if no composition of creation magic to make the shade could hide how vibrant the inspirations’ locks had been. Her face was more gaunt than he remembered, as if she didn’t eat as much as she should. And perhaps most to his shock were her eyes. Down-turned and framed with full, soft lashes, there was no light in her gaze. Hollow, dead, and far too familiar. The way the gaze of every body he stole would inevitably look, burdened by the years of his duty as an Ascian. Whether this was how she truly looked beneath the mask, or how her self-loathing made her see herself, he wanted nothing more than to hold her.

Something he would never get to do again after this moment.

“Be good.” The many-voiced shade told him.

And she was gone. Disappearing into several balls of light that drifted around him. All the memories she had been made of and collected, gone. The duty she had given herself, complete.

Hades felt so much at once. Anger, despair, loss, thankfulness. Too much to sort, as his eyes welled. He refused to cry yet and wiped the tears away, especially knowing now that Hyth and Themis would return to rave about Halditar’s success. He refused to let them see him crying.

He had all the time he needed to mourn and recall the version of his past friend. For now, he was to look ahead, and hope that the one he had championed�� his friend, could succeed where they had failed.

-

Hello! I normally don't do this but I am putting word vomit here because Cheese and Crackers, I wrote so much of it and I am not just going to leave it on Ao3!

Through much analysis I feel it it safe to say hades was not a good person. While he could be pushed to do kind things, it did not take much to push him to act unkind in turn. Many of nastiest and cruelest acts the ascians can be traced back to that we know of for now are his work or work he was involved it. Pairing this with how he remembers Amarout it's safe to say everyone's favorite grandpa has the biggest rose-tinted glasses of anyone we've interacted with so far in regards to anything, expect maybe Sphene (but that's a different and much more existential can of worms we aren't talking about rn.)

I couldn't help but want to play with that in the way I paint his dynamic with Elea. They love each other, they really do and they want to love each other more. But Hades has his head shoved so far up his own ass he cannot see any of his flaws that are very apparent to Elea, and I think she had the foresight to know interacting with him in any romantic way would have only hurt her more than he already had in different ways in the past. They genuinely believe being apart is the best option, and for then it was. Elea had hoped with time, Hades but sadly he just could never live up to her most simple, human expectations of him. He had to die to finally grow, after proving Elea's point of his cruelty by torturing Halditar and giving her expectations he would have never allowed her to meet, never intending to judge her fairly.

Also how I interpret the shard's of Elea soul, I wanna talk about it. Basically it is a 'both are true at once' deal. Halditar both is an is not Elea. Elea both is and is not Halditar. The Ascian's SAY Halditar is lesser than Elea for being a fraction of her soul, but they are wrong. The only thing that is different between them are their circumstances and their power, and this goes for ALL of Elea's shards, Ardbert, the voidsent for the reaper class, whatever the fuck happened to the one in the Nineth. All these souls carry sort of core 'tenets' they tend to abide by. Curious, explorative, empathetic, a touch stupid in weird ways, so on. All these things are what the soul that happens to be called Elea by the Ancient possessed. Removing bits of that soul maybe creates a small imbalance towards one aspect or another, but nothing drastic enough that renders the soul unrecognizable to the eyes of an Ancient. It is circumstances around those factors that shape how the personality manifests.

It's why Halditar would be both Venat and Elea's favorite shard and the one that is most worthy of carrying Azem's Crystal, because Halditar is everything Elea wanted to be and more. She's worked for and found happiness and freedom to change herself and even her fate. She's free to love, free to roam a wonderful world, she can be light-hearted and serious. She is the proof Elea would have wanted and needed to see to know it would all be okay. She would love herself someday, she'd find the 'her' she always wanted to be and would prove she had a right to exist and live. One comparison I can give is imagine you have a beautiful, huge raw diamond. The only way to cut the most perfect diamond is to slowly but surely work through it to reach the center, and at the end cutting the most beautiful, stone you've ever seen from it. Something that could have only come from refinement upon refinement. That was the process that made Halditar.

Also slightly more derailing I did not realize until writing this how much Elea and Hermes would have gotten along in their ideologies and philosophy of what made Ancient society pretty shit. Shame it manifested in entirely different ways!

Also random list of songs I associate with Halditar/Elea and Emet-Selch: Change Your Mind and Love Like You from Steven Universe. Running Up that Hill by Kate Bush. Through Patches of Violets by mili.

Thank you for reading the word vomit.

[voidsentprinces]

Urianger: Were one to study the annals of Garlean history, one would find yonder visage on many a page. Though by rights its youth should long since have faded... Emet-Selch: Bitch, my youth will never fade. Unlike your fashion sense, but I wouldn't expect a penniless hermit to under stand such things. Urianger: Mine apologises, dear Emperor, but I wouldst correct thine assertions. Your robes would not be fit to hang off the shoulders of a malboro to speaketh naught of a penniless hermit. Emet-Selch: Bring it, bitch!

[graha-stan-account]

Fair: Day 9

Fair: n. just or appropriate in the circumstances. 

Present. 5.0; After retreating to the shadows, having been sufficiently bored by the Scions, Emet-Selch has himself a bit of a nap. His subconscious is feeling very active. 

FFXIVWrite 2023 Masterlist

--- 

The figure's face was obscured, but it didn't matter. A soul of such a color, Emet-Selch could distinguish it anywhere. 

"How are you here?" His voice betrayed wonder. Or was it consternation? 

"Hm? Perhaps I am not. Perhaps I am just a shade. Another bit of ephemera you cling to." The tall, black blot stilled and tilted what might have been its head to the side. "What's the matter, Hades? Has it been so long that you can no longer recall my face? Am I but a black stain on your memories?" 

Emet-Selch looked about the space of endless, hazy white. The only thing to focus on was her. 

"You should not be here." 

"For you fear my judgement." 

"You never did know how or when to still your tongue." 

In the harsh backlight, still Emet-Selch thought he could discern a ghost of a smile beneath the cowl and black mask. 

She chuckled. "And yet you have given me voice even here, in the halls of your soul. Truly my visage was more abhorrent to you than my opinions, being that only which you sought to rewrite." 

"Go now," he said, turning away into the great white nothing. "Let me sleep." 

But she was suddenly upon him, his sight blotted out by the darkness of her robes. 

"Why did you not come when I called you?" 

"You would have pulled me to my death!" 

"Then why did you not draw me to yourself instead? You could have." 

"I...." A shade. Just an apparition. A trick of his mind, that's all. Not her. Not her. He shuffled backward, all the better to cast his look of disdain. 

"It would be a small thing for one such as you, would it not?" Her voice was earnest – or was it? So gentle, yet its edge could cut the tongue. "So, why didn't you? Instead you let everything be taken from you in the end." 

"Stop!" 

"A man of such great conviction." She was advancing. 

"I will not endure this!" 

"A man so fixated on defending."  Another step closer. 

"I will right that wrong, mark me! Astrea, I will see our brethren home! I will restore our paradise!" 

"Your world was not mine. Still, what good is a world restored when you are now but a corpse shuffling among the living?" She laid a hand upon him, pushing him with ease to what seemed to be the floor. 

"This existence is not living!" She balked at his words. "Miserable creatures, every last one of them. 'Tis a kindness to put them down, before their own malformed bodies can fail them." His voice was trembling. "A gentler fate than my love who still sleeps. Whose face I should see here – not yours!" 

"Your love?" The voice was as fragile as glass, sunlight twinkling on the edge of fine crystal. "So then it is fair to watch your colleagues, you friends, around you slowly go mad?" Her voice grew more stern, as harsh and black as her figure before him. "Is it fair to raise and cull nations to feed your ailing ego? Peoples whose sacrifice will never be enough to sate your bloodlust. 'Tis fair to drive a thriving world to extinction as retribution for offending your eyes? Because it exists and is not yours? Is any of it fair, knowing the closer you get to your goal, the more your own sanity slips from your grasp? Should you return him, you shall leave him alone." 

"I shall see my duty done, now begone!" He waved a trembling hand before him, trying to clear the figure away like smoke. "You who abandoned us in our hour of need, shall not deride my methods!" 

"It is you who have summoned me Hades!" The sound surrounded him, an echoing which set the very whiteness of the space a-quiver. "If you would speak with Hythlodaeus, such is within your power here." The space stilled. Silence hung. None moved, until her voice - now tender – spoke again. "But how would you even greet him? Isn't that the problem? And should you succeed in the waking world, how will you explain my absence?" 

Emet-Selch took a breath to reply, but found no answer. 

"You'd rather subject this girl to such undue torture. A life you as arbiter judge unsuitable to exist." 

"Speak plain, foul shade!" 

"Do you really think there is another way, Hades? Through her?" 

"I do not know..." 

"She is but a child, Hades."  

"But she shares your soul." 

"Does she?"