#m!AzemxElidibus

[ofdragonsdeep]

17: Destruct

They thought that Zodiark had saved them, but their end had come in the Final Days all the same.

(Character death cw, m!AzemxElidibus)

It was hard to imagine, standing on the lush grass of the billowing countryside, that it was a scene of devastation.

Hermes, former holder of the seat of Azem on the Convocation of Fourteen, placed a hand against the bark of a newly-born tree and closed his eyes. Sinking down into a sitting position, he let his mind fill in the blanks of the horizon beyond - Amaurot, looming large and full of life, a perfect home, a confluence of perfection. But when he opened them, though the skeleton was there - rebuilt by magicks beyond mortal ken, raised from dust and ashes - he could still see the glowing purple light of the god-crystal who sought to ruin them.

Hermes had been called coward, traitor, failure, for refusing to support the summoning of Zodiark. Hope-breaker, defector, disappointment, by those who had in their sorrow planned to summon another. War loomed, this he knew, now fought between kin rather than a desperate struggle against the unknowable. The truest and deepest tragedy, that in saving their world, they had damned themselves.

Zodiark and his Tempered were wrong, of course. There was naught to gain in destroying what lived to bring back ghosts, no matter how keenly the people had ached for them to return. Nor did he much like the idea of striking down yet more of what remained of their people on the altar of war to protect the fragile mortality they had created to fill the gaps. But what was he to do? No solution had presented itself, no matter how far he had travelled or how desperately he had searched. No miracle was forthcoming. For all their supposed greatness, he and his people had lost.

When he had refused the invitation of Venat’s people to aid in their summoning, they had asked him why he had returned at all, if he would not help in ridding them of Zodiark. This he would not answer, at least not to them. A sword against the bulwark of the newly minted god he would not be, for he was not a warrior - that was not the duty of Azem. For all he had eschewed his seat, he held the values dear to his heart even in the dust. He was a shepherd, a guide to the lost. And though he could offer himself no succor, despite how he floundered, there were those he would not abandon. Not yet.

---

His feet took him through familiar streets, down familiar routes, left unsettling in their emptiness. The sun shone bright and clear above the park, though no citizens walked its paths. He had come here countless times, watching the sun set on the horizon, the shining stars to welcome them in its stead. He had lain in the grass, hand in hand, and dreamed of eternity.

“Hermes?”

The voice, so achingly familiar, was cut with tired and rasping traces. He could feel the darkness radiate in every inch of the soul, cocooned around him, through him, becoming him. Zodiark.

“Elidibus,” he said, turning to face him. It looked like him, white robes and all, but his eyes were pools of deepest purple, pits of darkness like that which had sheltered their people from the fire of the Final Days. “Do you answer to that now? I confess I am unsure.” The sadness in his face was palpable.

“Please. I have not forgotten,” he replied, his every syllable echoing with the words of Zodiark behind it. “We are one, He and I, but I remain. Where there is strife, I remain. I will save us…” He reached out a hand, uncertain, and Hermes watched as he held it in space. It ached to not take it, to touch fingers against his, but Hermes knew they would be cold as the grave, steeped in pitch and crystal. “Do you not see it now? We are free of the devastation of the Sound. It worked. It did.”

“I never thought it wouldn’t,” Hermes replied, then sighed. “You and I both know ‘twas the cost I baulked at. Does He let you remember that?” Elidibus flinched, and a wave of pity washed through Hermes, but he could not let his course falter now.

“He wants what is best for us. I want what is best for us,” Elidibus said. “Please. You need not give yourself to Him, but I will not… I cannot weather this vigil alone. Our people falter and break. We need you. I need you. Please.” Hermes offered a small, sad smile.

“I am not the glue you think I am, and I cannot mend the wounds in our people’s hearts,” he replied. “And you will not sway me by claiming grand designs. Not when I cannot tell where He ends and you begin.” Elidibus looked down at his hands, still the same as they always were, the aether wracked with darkness beneath them. He had known the cost. Known the result. But still he had done it, because he could not let anyone else bear the burden of something so great. It was just like him.

“Please,” he repeated, bringing his hands up to Hermes’s face, holding it between them.

“If nothing else were left to me, I… I would try to save you,” Hermes said. The kiss was brief for the shock of it, Zodiark recoiling from the Light that Hydaelyn had woven around him, an agreement reached - a Champion untempered, for both gods knew, at their heart, that their designs would crumble and corrupt in time.

“No,” Elidibus said, taking a step back. “You- you refused us. Why would you-”

“I did not summon Her,” Hermes said, but the panic on Elidibus’s face did not abate. “Nor did I condone the loss. But I did not lie to you. I am weak, I am powerless. I cannot fix our people. We are already lost.”

“No,” Elidibus repeated, shaking his head. “No, She will not take you from me. She will not. She will not!”

He did not move as the darkness lunged from Elidibus’s small form, sinking its teeth into him, snarling and snapping around the Light. It was no true protection, nothing like that which Tempering might have given. A shield easily shattered, brittle as the life they had led before their ruin had come. He broke upon the rock of it, and though Elidibus reached out in desperation, Zodiark answered.

It was like a knife to the heart. Blood fell to the grass below as Hermes collapsed to his knees, life and aether leaking from the wound. Elidibus was beside him, holding him, whispering desperately, weaving magicks that were no longer his to command in a desperate attempt to save him.

“It’s… ok,” Hermes said, every word an effort. One hand reached up to touch his face, the red of his blood lost against the Convocation mask. “I cannot… save… our people. But I… will save… you.”

Elidibus howled, the agonised noise more painful than any mortal wound. The crystal, so solid and sure at the top of the Capitol, seemed to fracture just a little at the sound. He had known he would not live to see it. But life was more than the cycle of a single soul.

One day, what was left of him would know.

[ofdragonsdeep]

23: Soul

A connection between Ancients ran deeper than fragile mortals could comprehend.

(AzemxElidibus, ShB spoilers I guess)

Mornings in Amaurot blossomed like a gentle gift. The faint noise of birdsong in distant trees, the shade-dappled paths, the thrum and bustle of activity, all of it held out a welcoming hand to invite the weary wanderer back home.

Hermes, holder of the Seat of Azem, had spent more of his long life within Amaurot than not, and found that he missed it on his long travels around the realm. No matter how far the wanderlust took him, nor how long the trials kept him gone, he would ever return to it. Home, in so many ways, not least of which because it held his heart.

This morning was a quiet one, as returnings went. He was given nods of acknowledgement from the civilians he passed, in recognition of the mask he wore and the rank he held, and he offered smiles and waves at them in return. His cheerful feet traced a familiar path, winding between the buildings and past the entryways where a hundred hundred souls bustled, past the view of the Convocation Hall’s spire, past the aether-crystal in its intricate metal lattice. To a little pocket of green, cocooned tenderly within the city’s gleaming walls. At the highest point, Hermes lay down upon the grass and closed his eyes.

It was not unlike his travels. It was simple, when the mind could weave aether at a thought and there was none of the Architect’s bureaucracy to stifle the creation, to shield oneself from the elements with only the most necessary of comforts. He had spent many nights beneath the stars, feeling the ground beneath him through his robes, staring up to what lay beyond them and wondering at that most unknown of vigils.

He had lain there for long enough to lose track of time when the disturbance came. The sound of robes rustling, feet upon the grass, and a familiar voice.

“Never do you tell me when you see fit to return, Azem. Any would think you do not wish me to find you.”

A smile crept onto Hermes’s face, and he opened his eyes to look at his visitor.

“As if you need long to see my aether among the others, Elidibus.”

His white robes gathered up about his legs as he sat beside his erstwhile colleague, ever unmarred by stains from the grass beneath them. A soft smile sat upon his face - never one for grand gestures, was Elidibus, giving his all to others and saving so little for himself. Of all the people that Hermes knew, he was the one he missed most keenly when duty and curiosity took him out into the world beyond. But in the same stroke, he was the one he returned for - not his duty, not his people. Just Elidibus.

“I take it that your travels were fruitful,” Elidibus said, watching as Hermes sat and shook the grass from his shoulders. His magics could have cleaned it, true, but he saw no need for it in the moment. “I hope that you do not have any sour news for the Convocation.”

“Do I ever?” Hermes replied, face cracking into a smile. “You can say it, you know. That you missed me. None will hear you admit such a shameful thing.” Elidibus sighed, shaking his head in despair at Hermes’s attitude.

“I am not ashamed. I am… It is difficult,” he said. With a roll of his shoulders, he straightened himself, composing his thoughts along with his form. “But you know me well, alas. I… I did miss you.” Hermes took his hand, elegantly gloved, and pressed a kiss against his fingers.

“Perhaps my advantage is unfair,” he allowed. There were those on the Convocation who disapproved of their relationship - not because they stood as colleagues, but because of how this Azem seemed ever to flout their rules and conventions. Such was a part of the role of Azem, he had argued - to great success in the Hall of Rhetoric, in fact, much to the dismay of his would-be rivals. Elidibus held himself with the quiet regard of someone entrusted with a role as great as his, kept himself held back, spent his every waking moment dedicated to his duty - and likely his sleeping ones, as well. His discomfort stemmed from uncertainty, Hermes thought, a need to present an image of the perfect emissary to the people. What would they think if he were to love a reactionary so deeply as he held it in the darkest parts of his heart?

“I wonder at times if it is unbecoming of me to miss you so,” Elidibus said, a perfect demonstration of his warring head and heart. “I have asked Emet-Selch to cast his eyes into the lifestream when you are gone, in case the worst were to happen and you could not come home-”

“And he called you a fool?” Hermes guessed, and Elidibus sighed.

“Yes. ‘Lovesick and pining’ were his exact descriptors.” His skin flushed red at the admittance, and he averted his gaze to stare at the grass below him, swaying softly in the gentle breeze. “Still, I am glad that you return unmolested, at least for now.”

“Would I abandon you?” Hermes returned, running the palm of his hand up Elidibus’s cheek, slipping his fingers beneath the wood of the mask. “Perhaps you would know if I did.” He could feel his companion’s aether, so bright and shining, so close…

“Perhaps I would,” Elidibus agreed, his voice quiet. One hand reached up to lie atop Hermes’s own, and Hermes smiled at him and pushed back the hood. There was comfort in conformity, and reassurance in the safety that came with not deviating from the norm. How they would tut and shudder at the Bureau of the Administrator at the idea that one with so important a role would ever eschew the trappings of their station, a splash of colour across the mask the only difference between them.

With his free hand, Hermes gently eased the mask from Elidibus’s face. He blinked with surprised eyes, his own hand reaching to touch his unadorned face.

“I missed you,” Hermes said, and leaned forward to touch Elidibus’s forehead with his own. It was a tiny, quiet glimpse into the vast aether at the core of him, suffused with love and loneliness. So intense was the feeling that Elidibus moved backwards all but subconsciously, the breath catching in his throat.

“Hermes, please,” he said, a soft admonishment in his tone. “Such conduct is unbecoming of one who holds the role of Azem.”

“Yet it is Hermes you chide,” he replied, an amused smile on his face. “I shall note that for the record, though I shall keep it from my report for the rest of the Convocation.” Elidibus, his face red with furious embarrassment, picked his mask up from where it lay on his lap and set it back around his face. If nothing else, it did match his complexion, and most fittingly if Hermes was any judge.

“I shall have to hear your full report later, then,” he said, which made Hermes raise an eyebrow. Elidibus, heedless by intent or not, retrieved Hermes’s own mask from where it lay in the grass and held it out to him, a not so subtle suggestion in his gesture. “Come. It would not do to keep the others waiting.”

“I suppose you are right,” Hermes allowed, a soft sigh on his lips as he made himself ‘presentable’. Just as Zeus so rarely put aside his role as Elidibus, so too did Hermes need to be Azem to his core, at least for the moment. But what did a few moments matter, when they had eternity?

Such things were, he supposed, not Azem’s to think upon.