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Laughter. “There is no such thing as balance, Elidibus.”
The sound is pleasant, though he knows well its playful mockery. “All things are balance. Too much of one thing, too little of another – everything is dangerous in extremes. A universal truth.”
“There is no such thing as too much.” He hears, softer.
No such thing as too much – how very like you, to say such a thing.
“Too much for who? Too much for what? These words are colored with intentions, with motivations – benefit and worth and value. None of these things exist in nature, Elidibus. The concepts of which you speak are purely man-made; they have no bearing on reality. The real world is neither too light nor too dark, no matter how much there is of one compared to the other. It simply is.”
“Venat would beg to differ,” He remarks, descending finally to sit beside you on the stone bench. It is not nearly as cold as he had expected.
“Venat? Beg?” Your smile is wide beneath your mask as he turns to face you, “If they had heard you put their name in the same sentence as that word, there would be begging indeed.”
“Hardly.” Being an emissary, he does not huff, but he permits himself a sharp exhalation that you clearly take to the same effect. “As though I could be reduced to such a thing by a mere scolding.”
You laugh, again. “Envy suits you. I daresay even you would be hard-pressed to give a sterner lecture than that one they gave to Nabriales some weeks ago.”
“One would expect, with a seat on the Convocation, they would afford him some measure of respect.”
Elidibus does not need to see beneath your mask to know your eyes widen in incredulity. “One would expect you to have a smidgen of self-awareness, considering the respect you afford him on a daily basis.”
“I call him by his title, do I not?”
Your shoulder meets his, warm as your chuckles are sweet. His arm raising and resting around your shoulder feels like snowfall without the chill. “Because you’ve forgotten his name.”
“And you remember it?” He is met with predictable silence as you relax against him, uninterested in his point.
A hand comes up to meet his own, idly threading through it, pulling his arm down and further pressing his weight into you. Your aether welcomes him easily, the barriers of soft robes and flesh itself permeated in an instant as the feeling of warmth engulfs him.
Treasure. Love. Companion. The little sighs of your soul brush against him as your aether mingles easily with his, faintly, on a shallow level; invisible to all but those entwined. Cool, subdued delight laps at him, radiating from you in what he knows to be your reaction to contact, the joy of proximity to a partner you held so dear.
Is he as warm to you? Or perhaps a relieving chill, a counter to your perpetual heat. Further resonance would reveal answers, but he had no need of such things that changed by the day. All he requires is you at his side.
“Do you think they would?” Your question breaks the silence, sincere curiosity coloring your every word. “Disagree with me, I mean. Venat.”
He knows of what you speak as soon as your question is finished, clarification unnecessary, but such intimacy is new to you. It is no cause for offense.
And still, his arm curls tighter around you, as though to further understanding and closeness both.
“They would disagree with anyone. You could posit to them that the sky is blue, and they would devise an argument to pick the theory apart.”
“The theory! So harsh. You could scarce find one more soft-spoken and polite – I do not think any among us save Lahabrea is more knowledgeable, nor more skilled in rhetoric.”
Elidibus knows your heart and yet he cannot help the twinge in his chest all the same. To have his opinion so casually rebuffed, even faintly, from one whose judgement was extolled above all others – one whose soul was so near to his own…
“And yet you hold a seat on the Convocation of Fourteen, and they do not.”
He feels you shrug against his arms and finally tires of the distance. In public he cannot remove your mask, but he knows well the skin beneath it. Knows how it feels to stroke over it. He remembers the sensation, lets it permeate his aether, and waits for your resonance to pull the memory forth from within you.
You do so with a gasp, hands darting up to the phantom caress over your covered cheek. Curling as you realize from whence the sensation comes.
“That is no way to win an argument.” Despite your protest, you draw into him, sliding down the bench and leaning down to rest your head on his lap, arms curling over his legs.
“May I take this as concession?”
“If you must ask,” You say, muffled by his robes, “Then the answer is no.”
“How unfortunate. It seems I require a more compelling rebuttal.” Elidibus remembers many other feelings, between him and you. You know he does, and he knows this; how far he will take it remains a mystery to you both.
Your arms tighten over his legs, face turned away from him.
“In either case… I am either wrong or you are, one of those things must be so.” A hand falls soft against the nape of your neck, ornamental claws catching at the fabric to press into you, just barely. “There is always the real truth, past the debate. There are different beliefs, but there can only be one reality, and if those beliefs are mutually exclusive, then reality can prove one and only one of them to be true…”
None but he would accept your rambling so amiably; his hand strokes down between your shoulders, slow and soothing. Where you might stumble over words you find them flowing fluently, the feel of his aether rushing fast and fluid against you, gentle as ever but quick to provide, guiding you efficiently to the words you seek in perfect intuition.
Still you quiet at your words – a hasty, poorly thought out argument, worded eloquently enough but terrifically general and vague, hardly proper form for debate at all.
Elidibus, as always, reassures you with effortless motion, with the tender brush of his hand and the insistent flow of his aether, circulating between you. It carries his feelings within it, absorbing yours and leaving you the impression of his, a response for you to indulge in or ignore. His passivity, his calmness – his affection.
So gentle and caring, diligent even in the nebulous, abstract duties of companionship to his lover. Sharing exactly the emotions which benefit you to feel, restraining all that does not. Kind and compassionate and ever avoiding conflict and distress, even as you court it unintentionally.
One day, you will become an equally worthy partner. Until then – he claims your company is enough.
“Your understanding of the world certainly strikes some chords.” He murmurs, talons scraping very gently into fabric, scratching ever so lightly. “I would not be surprised to see it hold under scrutiny.”
“You don’t think you’re wrong, though.” Notes of amusement trickle through your tone. “Well then, by all means. Cling to your precious balance. When it fails, you will still have me… to remind you why it failed.”
“Such drama,” He muses, “You’ve consorted with Emet-Selch for far too long."
At your laughter he joins you, chuckling lightly, laying a hand over your hood to almost stroke over your hair. The two of you gently fall into an amiable silence, enjoying one another’s company as easily without words as you did while speaking.
Aether trills and melds, twining deeper and deeper still, twisting with every shared heartbeat, savoring every point of contact.
“If the two of you are done publicly fornicating,” A voice interrupts your easy silence, and Elidibus needs not look up to know the aforementioned Convocation member stands before you, “Hythlodaeus is waiting.”
“Publicly fornicating? Well,” Mischief tickles at him in your bond, light and coy. “At least let him finish me. I’ve not yet come.”
Emet-Selch balks at the unexpected admission, and actually takes a step back, tsking.
You know how to handle him well. Elidibus often restrains himself, but in this case, a small smile is appropriate.
“As you wish,” He says in response, leaning in as though to steal a kiss.
Emet-Selch recovers quickly. Unfortunate.
“Oh? Well, then, do not halt on my account. I should like very much to watch.”
A bold hand reaches up to the collar of his robes, tugging just enough to bear a hint of pale, fine skin. His pulse races beneath it.
“You hear that, Elidibus? Let’s give him a show.”
Elidibus stills at your teasing as surely as Emet-Selch does. Tenses as you nuzzle into his neck, the weight of your stare entirely on the interloper, whose cheeks noticeably flush.
“Stop that!” Emet-Selch grouses, crossing his arms in defeat. “Hythlodaeus truly is waiting. Do you want me to explain to him why our dinner was so long delayed?”
In your laughter you rise, stolen away once more. You will of course return to him, but it is impossible not to miss such intimacy as soon as it is absent.
Just before you part from him entirely, your hand snags on something – you look back to see claws grasping still around it. He can feel Emet-Selch’s eyes upon the both of you, but Elidibus knows well where his attention is meant to be spent.
Catching your gaze and never once breaking it despite the mask, your aether tells him well enough how enraptured you are by the sight of him grasping at your hand before you. Holding it up to his lips to place a kiss upon your wrist, a gesture of utmost respect… just brushing his lips against your palm as he releases it, feeling your own ornamental claws flex at the contact.
The redness on your cheeks and the flare of your aether, jumping brightly in a sensation that leaves him almost lightheaded, as thrilling as it is intoxication – it’s enough to leave him smiling even long after you part.
“When it fails…”
Venat has succeeded; Zodiark is defeated. The Will of the Light guides this star, and all others, its inhabitants ignorant. Weak. Less.
They could not have saved the star were the Doom to come once again; they cannot even save themselves from each other. They attack one another, bring great harms and violence unto their fellow man, thoughtless in their cruelty, unrelenting in their rage.
Unworthy entirely of being entrusted with the future of this world. Amaurot’s final act of selfless sacrifice is not yet lost, however; if the proper conditions are met, He can be restored.
Elidibus finds his colleagues. Re-assembles the Convocation. Reminds them of their purpose.
And so the Ardor begins.
“…you will still have me…”
By the Eighth Ardor, he is alone.
Lahabrea is fallen. Emet-Selch is fallen. All that remains of Amaurot is him.
All that remembers Amaurot – those streets you walked in, the buildings and language and people – not an illusion or a fantasy, not a memory but the true living city: naught is left of it but Elidibus, one fourteenth of the Convocation that once wove the world’s salvation.
A broken god and His broken emissary. He had been His heart, His soul and the core of His being, and in the end he had failed at even that much. His title was all but a mockery, diplomacy left to rot in the wake of Emet-Selch’s passing.
Seven Rejoinings, which had been poisoned from the beginning. They had only needed one more and Hydaelyn might have been vanquished, but Venat had planned for even this extremity, blessing one individual so strongly it defied all expectation.
There is no telling how the Bringer of Light might be defeated in combat. He is not so arrogant to think he might succeed where Emet-Selch had failed.
No, he needs must take a different approach. Something radical must be attempted. The time for caution is long past; now, there is nothing left for him to lose. And nothing for Him to gain if Elidibus practices his caution, not with Her servants working as they do to oppose him.
“…to remind you why it failed.”
He must not fail again. All else is irrelevant.
Elidibus will enact the will of the Convocation. They had been appointed as the stewards of the star, and this is what had been decided, for all of them. For all people, all worlds. This was their will.
This is His will.
As ever, he continues. Broken, empty, and longing to be rejoined.