Archive of Our Own

Most people called them peculiar at best and plain confusing at worst. Unlike most children born in Amaurot it seemed as if nothing could stop them from speaking their mind right then and there, too far away from the Hall of Rhetoric to be considered appropriate—which they, perhaps worst of all, cared precious little about in the end. A loud-mouthed future debater of great skill and even greater voice some joked, others called for someone teaching them proper manners before going into how they would make a fantastic speaker one day; if not the Speaker.

“I genuinely do not care,” they growled as they traced an arc through the air which burst into faint gold sparks. “I just wish they would stop talking already. I have no ambition for a seat on the Convocation, least of all becoming a stuffy old professor-guy like Lahabrea, y’know?”

A faint giggle escaped the girl next to them on the bench. “Shush, Sepho; if an adult hears you we’ll be in trouble!”

The child let out a dramatic huff and leaned backwards with their arms crossed. “I mean no offence with that, Ai, genuinely none—the only adult who can make my heart seize with horror is your father and he’s not here. So speak my mind I shall; I would sooner eat all pages out of a book than aim for the Akademia with the intention of scoring a seat on the Convocation. The stuck-up stuffy types like that blonde kid, what’s his name again, the one who called me a dimwitted fool the other day—that’s the type I can see being Lahabrea. But me? Me? Just ‘cause I talk a lot doesn’t mean I’d make a good Speaker. ‘Sides, we’re thirty. Hardly the time to think about becoming a member of the—mph!”

The girl had gently but firmly placed a hand over their mouth to shut them up. “We’re thirty, yes, but having some ambition might make the adults shut up, Persephone.”

They let out a dramatic sigh and leaned against their friend. “Aigle,” they said while keeping their voice comically serious. “I have never had and will never have ambition. But I will find something to focus my mind on. Something productive, I hope.”

The blonde girl merely flicked their forehead with a laugh. “Alright, deal. I will help you wheresoever you may need me.”

“Nah, I’m good, I think. But if you ever need me, you need but call for me and I will return to your side.”

Persephone of Amaurot never quite stopped being an odd person to have around. They continued speaking their mind if given the chance but mellowed down over the years. The once rebellious and almost volatile child turned out to be a rather attentive listener who could dismantle arguments swiftly, brutally almost despite repeatedly claiming that they were not good at conversation. Despite all that, they were polite to everyone they spoke to. Their bristly nature that had turned strangers away from the defiant-looking child soon turned into a boon of unrivalled perseverance even in the face of utter defeat.

Utter defeat in this case was the one person attending the same lectures as them who usually kept to himself in oft gloomy corners. All who had attempted to speak with this student had been turned away by how very cold this one could be. It seemed that where others craved the company of their fellows, this one seemed content enough to watch the world out of his eerie amber eyes.

Persephone had seen Hades in the city just the day before—and the reason they were attempting to get through his thick skin and likely even thicker skull was that they had seen him interact with another person. Likely his foster parents, considering that Hades had been brought to the city thanks to his skills with sorcery. Aigle had said that her father had talked about that Hades once, but even when learning how to control arcane powers he remained a loner.

Hades had not been a loner yesterday. He had seemed rather content with the adults, but….

His rough demeanour had completely changed around the other boy with the bright red eyes. The normally contact-shy Hades had willingly reached for the other boy’s hand and held it until the two had vanished from Persephone’s sight. They had never seen him do anything but stare and take notes—he had laughed and almost animatedly talked about something to those people.

Utter defeat… was Hades staring at them coldly, very likely attempting to size them up and finding that they were not worth the trouble of being treated as much as a ‘good morning’. Then again, he was from the coast. Perhaps things were done differently there and not even however many years in Amaurot had gotten that coastal strangeness out of his system.

Still, they tapped the table they were leaning against with a hopefully welcoming smile, and then came forward with what they wanted. It was an excuse at best, claiming that rather than letting anyone assign him a random partner for the next project they were offering themselves as one. Hades was most definitely not appreciative of the gesture—his lips were a thin line and his amber eyes were narrowed behind his mask.

But as ever, their perseverance got through to the other—he still did not look all that pleased, but he yielded and said that he was not going to stop them as long as they did not get in his way.

“Oh, I promise you I’m the best at staying out of the way!”

Hades let out a breath that might have been an annoyed sigh, but his face remained comically serious as he leaned back in his seat a little and turned his face away from them. “Sounds like something a major roadblock would say. But I shall see.”

They learned rather quickly that Hades was just about as terrifying as his aura led everyone to believe—but not quite in the bringer of death sense that other students believed. No, Hades shone with intelligence on a level that rivalled seemingly the entire Bureau of the Architect and then some. But somehow despite all that latent talent and sharp intelligence, he seemed to lack an eye for finer details. His works were impressive and solid, his theories had grounds and his creations were delicate and stable, but they lacked a finishing touch that made something drab more appealing to the eyes of the spectators.

His apprehension soon turned into appreciation when they finally figured out a way to make themselves useful despite the fact that he enjoyed doing most of the work—they did the finishing touches and merely let him do his thing. But the finishing touches were something they had always been good with and Hades supplied more than a solid base.

And before long, their perseverance got them more than his appreciation; even Aigle crossed her arms and raised her shoulders in surprise when she watched Hades bid them farewell with a slight smile on his face.

“Unbelievable,” she said once Hades was out of earshot. “You managed to befriend a sorcerer no one even gets through to.”

Persephone cracked a wide grin at them. “No ambition in my life, but I did find focusing on trying to befriend the bristly rather entertaining. And he’s honestly not that bad of a guy, he’s just… amazingly socially inept. Sorcerer stuff, I suppose.”

“Or a very sheltered upbringing outside of Amaurot. Since you two are friends you could just ask.”

“Hells, no!”

Aigle shook her head. “That whimsical nature of yours truly is your biggest draw, dear friend, but sometimes you could do with some serious focus. Perhaps some silence and a curt nod every once in a while will suffice and make the less inclined to talk… well, talk. Whether it be your new friend Hades or my father.”

Persephone crossed their arms. “Hades, sure. Maybe. Your father? Aigle, dearest Aigle, best friend in the world—your father’s about ten times scarier than Hades.”

She laughed her usual knowing laugh, her blue eyes shining as she uncrossed her arms and turned her ace towards the sun. “If you say so, Persephone. Come, now, though the passage of years and seasons means little to us, I mean to enjoy the last days of summer to the fullest.”

“With or without me?”

“Depends on how busy you are, Sepho.”

It was their turn to cross their arms with a hum. Persephone was merely messing with her—which she knew, judging from how relaxed she remained. “Hades might gut me, but we have more than ample time for the next project. Mind sharing what you had in mind for the last days of summer, Ai?”

Damn that Hades, and damn his social ineptitude. He had not even as much batted an eyelash at them in the morning, then vanished entirely as per the usual. Normally they did not mind the slightest; he did most of the work anyway and left the little flourishes and finishing touches to them. They worked rather well together, perhaps not like a well-oiled machine as they should have but they got along just fine and recently the extraordinarily stubborn Hades had even accepted criticism.

Quite a few things had changed lately in and around Amaurot; the main topic of gossip for quite a while had been Mnemosyne’s new shadow. It had taken them until they had seen the man and his shadow once before several morsels of information Hades had dropped about his life made sense. Mnemosyne’s shadow was Hades’ friend with the bright red eyes—Persephone knew by now that his name was Hythlodaeus and Hades seemed at least somewhat pleased that despite his issues, whatever they were, he seemed to have found something to keep him occupied.

Persephone stomped around the district for a while, still uncertain where to even start looking for Hades. Normally at this time of day he was asleep on a grassy patch somewhere but all his usual spots had been mockingly empty.

In the last one in this district, they found Hythlodaeus. He was taller than Hades and them both, his mask askew as he laid there blissfully asleep. Hells, now that they saw him up close, they realised that his hair was also shockingly red.

“Hrm….” It was a long shot, considering that Hythlodaeus likely had spent the better part of his day with Mnemosyne as per usual—and the fact that they did not know one another. Still, it would likely be a better thought than stomping around other districts disturbing other people just to find one elusive sorcerer.“Excuse me?”

Hades usually woke slowly, agonisingly slowly, even when they started stomping on his robe and even started yanking his legs to get him up and going again. Perhaps they had expected someone Hades knew to be the exact same—but Hythlodaeus merely snapped his eyes open with a small startled sound and froze nigh immediately. The starkly crimson eyes of his had the same unfocused glaze that Aigle’s father sometimes had in his when he looked at something with that gift of vision that most sorcerers had. Persephone knew that he was currently staring at their soul and judging from the extremely dumb expression on his face he was not quite sure what to make of it.

Aigle’s father had said it in one of the rare conversations they had ever had—their soul was a canvas of so many colours that people with keener sight would likely be blinded by the sheer array of colours in front of them, whereas he could barely make out the blue base of their soul.

A few heartbeats passed like that, and a slight embarrassed blush crept onto his fairly handsome face when he raised a hand and faked a small cough. “Y-Yes? How can I help you?”

“Hythlodaeus, right?” They kept a casual, friendly tone that usually got all sorts of nervousness out of conversational partners. Hythlodaeus remained rigid and startled—intriguing. Persephone knew that in order to have him not flee now they would have to tell him what they wanted straight out. “I’ve seen you out and about with Hades—I’m looking for him. Would you mind telling me where he is?”

A long, confused moment of silence spread between the two of them while Hythlodaeus narrowed his eyes behind his mask in thought. Once that moment passed, he continued, his tone lighter and less terrified than before. “Truth be told, I have not seen him all day."

“Brilliant,” Persephone sighed and let their shoulders slump a little. “The very moment I need him and he vanishes.”

There was an odd amused and unusually fond smile on his lips when Hythlodaeus dryly said “If there is one thing he is reliable at, then it is how reliably he stages a vanishing act when you truly need him”.

“True, true.” They were trying to stifle more laughter—few people would quite dare talking about the quiet and terrifying sorcerer-in-training Hades who also just so happened to be a star student in everything he as much as put a finger on. “Would you mind helping me find him? I really need to talk to him about our latest project. Not because it is bad or anything—his contributions were so brilliant in fact that I feel like I barely contributed to its construction, and the last thing I wish to appear as is a slacker next to the guy who sleeps through lectures.”

There was clear amusement on his face when Hythlodaeus stretched and murmured out a small agreement. For as intense as his red eyes remained, he seemed surprisingly welcoming compared to his fellow shore-born. They offered him a hand to pull himself up, and he nodded gratefully and did so. Hells, compared to Hades Hythlodaeus was a lightweight despite the fact that he towered over Hades and Persephone both.

“Oh! I’m sure you gathered, but I am currently Hades’ course partner in architectural creation theory.” Hythlodaeus did not stop dusting off his robes; a small tense grind of his teeth gave away his confusion. Damned Hades likely had not talked about Persephone at all, and they let out a dramatic sigh before continuing. “I doubt he ever mentioned me, so let me introduce myself now that I am demanding your time for school-related nonsense—Persephone of Amaurot, at your service.”

A polite nod. Finally the intensity faded a little from his eyes when he shot them a smile and took the hand they offered him once again to shake it. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Persephone.”

Truth be told, they had not considered that Hades might be friends with someone as quiet and observant as Hythlodaeus. Hades appeared to be a perpetual loner, was brooding most of the time but when he wanted someone’s attention he became an overbearing presence. All of that made him the centre of attention more often than not, but Hades never seemed to mind. Hythlodaeus may as well not have existed as far as his presence went, he seemed content to sink into the shadows and remain there unnoticed. Any unnecessary attention to his person he gently rebuffed and shrunk away. Not in the sense of being scared, no—he did not seem particularly introverted either, judging from the conversation he eventually struck up with them as their search continued without as much as a lead to where Hades was.

A definite lack of confidence, then. Persephone reckoned that it were the crassly red eyes that turned people away; they looked almost a little unreal underneath that white mask.

Well, they were not going to forcefully pull him out of his shell, seeing as he was doing it by himself slowly but steadily as Hades remained gone for the rest of the bloody day.

“He seems… skittish.”

No matter how much time they spent with Hades and Hythlodaeus from now on, their best friend remained Aigle. It was one of these friendships that seemed to never waver off no matter how little time they spent apart—Aigle and Persephone merely seemed happier to see one another after a while. They still trusted Aigle more than anyone else in Amaurot, and her observations never quite missed their mark.

“Hythlodaeus?”

Aigle had her head tilted and watched as Hades said something and Hythlodaeus swayed from side to side deliberately, tip-toeing just out of the reach when the sorcerer had enough and tried to grab him.

“That is a very learned movement. As if he has experience trying to dodge someone attempting to grab him. Far enough to stay out of reach, but not far enough to incite the grabber to try again more aggressively—that’s behaviour observed in prey animals, not a person.”

They had noticed it as well, but hearing it out of Aigle’s mouth was relieving to say the least. A confirmation that they were not imagining Hythlodaeus’ sudden shift from quiet but observant to chatty but nervous.

“I did try talking to him about it last year, but… nothing really changed. For you to notice that on the first meeting, something must be going—“

“Sepho. I’ve seen a lot of creations with unusual behaviour thanks to my father’s field of expertise. He acts as if he’s scared of someone hurting him, no, he’s used to some measure of physical abuse. You do not suppose Hades—“

“No! Never. Hades is many things, a jerk first and foremost, but not an abuser—he would never hurt Hythlodaeus. Not intentionally. Never with his own hands.”

Aigle let the topic drop after that, but Persephone could not help but wonder what precisely was going on. They resolved to speak with Hythlodaeus the next time they got him on his own.

Before they got the chance, however, a change occurred.

For quite a while Hythlodaeus had spent a good measure of his time at the Bureau of the Architect, mostly going through the specifics of creations and whether they were to be accessible to the public or not. He had stopped those visits abruptly right around the time he started becoming more skittish, something that even Hades had noticed with a concerned scoff. But no matter how many times the two of them asked him, Hythlodaeus had always rebuffed them with a wave of the hand and a rather unhappy laugh saying that he had better things to do than that.

Amaurot was in an unusual rush that morning, and Persephone heard the mutters on the street as Bureau officials shooed the general public into buildings or told them to stay away from the streets for a while until the escaped creation was caught. They had been shoved into a building they soon recognised as the Hall of Sorcery—and indeed, it seemed as if they had just come across one of their meetings ending. They caught a glimpse of Aigle’s father standing in the back, his posture as neutral as ever and his face blank. For a moment they considered waving to him, but he had likely not seen them yet; and any chance at catching Osiris’ eyes was rudely interrupted by Hades suddenly standing in front of them.

“What are you doing here?”

They explained quickly, wringing their hands. Only now they realised there was a woman with a red mask in here, trying to make their way to the front door while the crowd started murmuring.

“—trying, Nabriales, believe it or not,” she hissed to herself. “What? Mnemosyne? That boy, injured? Where?”

The blood ran cold in Persephone’s veins when they heard that, and Hades’ annoyed expression derailed entirely in but a split second.

“Yes, yes, still at the Hall—beg pardon, who? Hamfest? Hardass? Oh, Hades. Bureau of the Architect, Emet-Selch?” By now Persephone had recognised the mask; the poor scatterbrain was Fandaniel, whose eternal fate seemed to be being left out of anything that required coordination despite the fact she was an excellent sorceress. “Oh dear. Heavy, you say? Apprehended and returned to matrix, but blood all over it still? Huh. Yes, yes, stop nagging, heavy blood loss you say? Face mangled?”

Hades had gone even paler than usual, his amber eyes shining wildly from underneath his white bangs. Then his entire face suddenly turned sickly green and his entire body seized up with horror—before Fandaniel even turned to look into their general direction, Hades whispered something incomprehensible that Persephone knew had to be Hythlodaeus’ name and then almost brutally pushed himself to the door. They hopped from one foot to another, waved to Fandaniel, said that Hades had unfortunately heard that conversation and that they would ensure he did not get into trouble.

With that, they bounced forwards and started running after Hades, who was marching at a brisk pace. Brisk enough that he might as well have been running himself, and Persephone fell in beside him.

“Hades.”

No answer. Not even an acknowledgement.

They could feel the worry radiating off him, his eyes that were normally kept in a mostly sleepy half-lidded glare were open wide as he stormed down the streets to cut the shortest path to the Bureau of the Architect.

“Hades, you know first reports are likely made under the influence of adrenaline and therefore overly exaggerated, yes?”

He finally reacted by turning his head slightly and shooting them a glare that might as well have murdered them on the spot. As far as they knew, Hades and Hythlodaeus were closer than even they and Aigle—they had come here together and despite all the teasing between them, it was a mutually reciprocated bond. Hades had more than enough reason to look as if his whole world was breaking apart, and just seeing him like that made them anxious. What if in this one case it had been a correct first report? There was little margin of error between the words ‘Mnemosyne’ and ‘that boy’—all of Amaurot knew that Mnemosyne’s shadow was a young man called Hythlodaeus who was friendly and calm even in the most ridiculous discussions that he very systematically could pluck apart if he deigned to do so.

Hades’ worry turned into anger when they reached the Bureau of the Architect and he all but slammed the doors open. He looked just about ready to cry from what they saw, but to everyone else it must have looked as if he were ready to tear something apart with his bare hands. His voice was unusually shaky when he spoke, louder than usual—and his anxiety soon turned into proper rage when the poor employee he tried to harass some information out of started stuttering and called for the Chief of the Bureau Himeros instead.

Chief Himeros very calmly told the poor stuttering person to go speak to the Architect.

Hades stomped his foot down like an impertinent child with a hiss loud enough that most people around flinched away. His shadow was starting to move on its own, echoes of a fury that was reflected in his eyes. Persephone carefully brushed a hand against his arm with a low, hopefully comforting mumble.

“Hades, control yourself,” they said, and the shadow stopped quivering at the very least. The atmosphere in the main hall remained charged, and quite frankly they understood why others called Hades terrifying now. This wasn’t the man they had befriended through persistence in the past—this was a sorcerer ready to tear Chief Himeros apart if he did not get what he wanted right in that moment. What must this spectacle have looked like for a man like Himeros who possessed the gift of sight? There was no way of knowing, though Hythlodaeus on occasion described Hades when angry like a venomous spike ready to lash out. He painted a very specific picture with his words, something that Persephone themself could not begin to accurately reconstruct in their mind.

They could imagine it now, somehow, and it scared them. Hades was all but screaming at Chief Himeros by this point, like an indignant child wanting its will done rather than the usually calm and snide adult that he was.

Terrifying minutes trickled by like that until finally, finally, the stuttering person returned and said that Emet-Selch was keeping an eye on Hythlodaeus but Hades and Persephone were more than welcome to drop by. Hades near immediately bolted off once more and Persephone all but galloped after him with a huff.

They half expected Hythlodaeus to lie half dead in Emet-Selch’s arms when they finally arrived and Hades slammed the door open without knocking. All things considered, Hythlodaeus merely looked ghastly pale and green around the gills, as he himself often said whenever someone looked nauseous. Hells, the bloody fool even tried to raise a hand in his usual greeting, a genuine smile on his face for a split moment. That moment passed and Hades all but threw his entire weight against the much taller Hythlodaeus and all but buried his face in Hythlodaeus’ chest with what may have been a half-choked sob and snarl at the same time. Poor Hythlodaeus went paler and greener, his red eyes glazing over for a heartbeat before he managed to force his body back into compliance.

“Hades,” he croaked, “bad idea.”

“Shut up,” Hades growled in reply, voice heavy with an emotion that Persephone had never heard coming from him.

“Hades, I will absolutely empty my already empty stomach on your back if you do not—“

“Don’t care. You reek of blood, Hyth—if you are to throw up, then so shall I.”

Despite that, Hades did lighten his clutch around Hythlodaeus, and Persephone nodded to Emet-Selch. The woman remained almost stoically silent, her expression hard to read thank to the red mask on her face. Persephone settled for sitting down next to Hades and Hythlodaeus on the ground and patting them both on the back.

“There, there,” they cooed at some point when it sounded a suspicious lot as if the two of them were sniffling in relief. Something seemed to have lifted off Hythlodaeus’ shoulders, even if that wound would likely remain as a thin scar across his upper face for the rest of his life no matter the treatment.

As far as petty spats went, Persephone counted themself amongst the truly enlightened ones. They had had countless ones, with friends and family and complete strangers, for fun, out of a sheer defiant will to be as annoying as possible, on accident. All of these had been resolved somehow, most of them amenably—or as amenably as they could, given that one lasting grudge came from Loki’s side rather than theirs.

Petty as it was, it had been born of an earnest misunderstanding and two incredibly stubborn sea mules bonking their heads against each other. Why on good earth Hades had thought that attempting to keep Hythlodaeus, ever the free spirit who did as he pleased and did it well, on a short leash, was going to achieve anything but invoking the ire of the carefree yet thoughtful. The tension between the two of them over the last four year had been so heavy that they had thought someone with Sight would see it, or that perhaps another sorcerer would could though it with an aetherial blade.

Nothing of the sort happened; the stubborn ever remained stubborn and neither of them gave even a little bit of ground.

Hades had stopped them from talking about the mishap at the Bureau the other day which Hythlodaeus had solved with both wit and utter spite—he had a hand for avian creations, it seemed, though why on earth someone would demand to see this concept signed off was beyond them.

“If you love him that much, then please, serenade him rather than verbally swoon all over him with me about, Persephone.” They gave into the temptation to bite Hades’ hand, and the sorcerer jumped backwards with a hiss. “I’m serious!”

“Well, nice to meet you, serious, I’m Persephone and I can swear upon all you hold holy that I am most certainly not in love with Hythlodaeus. As gentle and fun as he can be, I do assume we would kill each other within a fortnight.”

It was the truth. Hythlodaeus was someone who needed a certain amount of order around everything he did, and Hades had a controlled chaos. Persephone on the other hand was wildly chaotic without rhyme or reason by comparison, and the overly orderly types drove them insane.

Hades hissed something or other again and rubbed his bitten hand with a scowl on his face—and suddenly it dawned upon them. The smartest people they knew, and both of them acted like that.

“Oh. Ooh. Oh my.”

“What.”

“Say, Hades, entertain me for a second. I never quite dared asking, but how was it that you and Hythlodaeus met again? And how come you both wound up in Amaurot together? Look, I know you’re mad at him and all that, but that’s a story I’ve wanted to hear since the dawn of time.”

He could be so delightfully stubborn and childish that they did quite enjoy heckling him, but they patiently waited as Hades seemingly went through all stages of grief.

“We were born in the same village. It was bound to happen sooner or later,” he growled eventually—and Persephone crossed their arms with a frown. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Sure, I assume that happened.” Hades paled slightly when they said that, and a devious smile unfurled on their lips. “And as graceful as you ever are, you politely introduced yourself and offered Hythlodaeus your hand. Which he took with a polite smile, offered his name, and that was that. Just as you did with Kelesis at Anamnesis… oh wait, no. You all but barrelled Kelesis over, and when he asked your name, you instead claimed that you were called ‘important research’ and ran off after staring at his hand for a minute straight.”

“I-I did no such thing!”

“Thumosis from Aetherial Application during Advanced Creation. She asked what precisely you had done, and you gawked at her because she startled you out of your focus. She left nearly in tears thinking that you were plotting her death.”

“I apologised to her!”

“Master Oknos—“

“Stop.”

“You demanded an answer before even saying what this was about. Twins Ekplexis and Zelutopia, and you saying that you never had any idea which one you were talking to. While they were behind you.”

“Persephone.”

“Sorceress Aischune and her student Eleos. What was that again?”

“….” They knew that Hades was reaching a breaking point when he fell silent—but rather than stop, they instead smiled at him sweetly and tilted their head.

“Oh, right. Once more, people you all but barrelled over. This time, however, with that form you take when you drink too deep of the Underworld. Scared them half to death. Didn’t as much as apologise to them and instead claimed that they had been in your way. Deima, Phthonos, Misos, Eulabeia, oh and of course from Northern Amaurot, the high lady Freyja and her brother Freyjr, the Chief of the Bureau of the Administrator Hel, hells, Elidibus when he was not on duty and in plain civilian clothes and going by his civilian name Baldr—“

“Enough, enough! I will bloody tell you what you desire, you wretched traitorous snake whose presence brings a blight down upon the spires of Amaurot and the soil of the entire continent as it is!” Hades had turned bright red in the meanwhile, lips turned down in his usual scowl but with a hint of sheer glacial rage and scathing hot embarrassment glittering in his amber eyes. Once more they were wide open rather than the usual tired half-opened state; a sign that he was dead serious this time around.

Persephone crossed their arms and put one leg over the other with a satisfied grin on their face. “Do enlighten me then, sorcerer. How did you and the peddler of false truths and right falsehoods meet?”

He sighed. Loudly. Deeply. Whatever little war they had been fighting, Persephone had won this round and retribution would be brutal, swift, and would come for them when they last expected it to come. That had ever been their friendship—where Aigle and they shared a profound bond that nothing could break other than the very earth itself breaking, Hades and Hythlodaeus were the friends they fell to when they wanted something a little less intense. Something with a bit more pettiness. They always made up—and that was why they wanted those two stubborn seaborn mules to talk.

But truth be told, they still knew little to nothing about what those two had been like before coming to Amaurot.

“As you know, both Hythlodaeus and I were born with Sight. He with eyes unclouded, and I with a profound link to the Underworld that few can claim. Children untaught in the arts of sorcery yet born with the ability to ensnare souls to do their bidding do so from the moment they are somewhat aware of it. I had… perhaps looked a bit too deep into that abyss, and started doing it on my own rather quickly. The village as it is was not large by any means, but there were plenty of people to talk to—or to avoid, in both our cases. In any case, one particular evening as I did as I pleased, a soul under my snare whispered that someone was watching me. I broke the spell, a haphazardly woven thing that could have killed me had it continued for much longer without me noticing. Hythlodaeus had noticed something amiss in the village and decided to investigate, and came out from behind a tree with his arms up and a calm smile on his face to hide how terrified he was. That’s it. That’s how we met.”

There was something else, something that he hid now that his hot embarrassment was fading. They knew it because Hades cringed slightly when he looked at them, and they merely crossed their arms.

For a long moment Hades writhed, then finally sighed in resignation.

“From there on out we ran into one another more than either of us would have liked, but given that his soul is so garishly bright red it was hard to look away from him whenever he was nearby. So somehow we struck up a friendship over trying to work out our powers together because none else in the village had anything comparable. There, satisfied?”

Persephone was not quite sure how to break the news to Hades. Hells, they were fighting back tears of laughter and the laughter in itself, leading to them rocking back and forth awkwardly where they sat. Indeed, the more intelligent a person was, the less they seemed to understand themselves, and they for one were glad that they were an idiot. Hades’ scowl deepened the longer they fought back laughter, his embarrassment fading away and giving way to his usual irritation whenever he did not understand what exactly was going on.

After a few minutes the laughter won their little war. Persephone howled and clutched themselves, banging their forehead against the table with a wheezing laugh.

“You moron! You utter, absolute moron—were you born with your head in the swamp? Did that swamp stick to your pretty empty head full of concepts, or are you deliberately sticking it back in there? It’d ruin your nice white hair, you know!” They turned their head slightly, one cheek pressed against the table and both eyes fixed on the once more slightly turning red sorcerer. Laughter bubbled up and they made some croaking half-laugh half-choking sound as they tried to catch their breath. “Okay, okay, let me start from the top. You meet your best friend on the whole continent precisely how most lovers in sappy romance novels meet. Fair. Then the both of you get picked up by Mnemosyne and brought to Amaurot thanks to your incredible powers. Also fair! Time passes, absolute bullshit, pardon my language, happens. So you’re suddenly very aware of the fact that while time barely interests us, we can still die early due to injuries. Also very fair. So you work yourself into some sort of overthought scenario with that pretty empty head of yours, and you try to prevent that by putting a leash on Hythlodaeus and keeping it short. But as most stubborn mules do, Hythlodaeus is less than pleased about it, and you call him suicidal and he calls you a controlling asshole. Nicer from his side, of course; you have no tact whatsoever Hades, sorry to announce.”

They were all but wheezing at this point, the whole situation so surreal that all they could do was laugh.

“Get to the point, Persephone.”

“So here we are, you two have the first real fight in your friendship and it confuses and upsets the two of you to the point you can’t even look each other in the eye. I, being an excellent friend if I dare say so myself, balance both of you idiots. And then you accuse me of being in love with him. Scathingly. So scathingly, in fact, that someone would have missed the utter seething jealousy in your voice and would have mistaken it for plain anger.”

Hades said nothing.

“Hades, Hades, Hades. My friend. My immortal foil. Voted worst in social situations. Have you ever wrecked that pretty empty head of yours a little further? Sure, you’re worried after he nearly died once. But have you ever considered that perhaps the Bureau of the Architect is the safest place to be when it comes to rampant creations?”

He still said nothing, but he had started averting their gaze. Which meant that he knew they had a point.

Persephone sat up straight once again and folded their hands on the table. “Glad to see that you do understand my point. Look, listen. You’re my friend. One of my best friends. Considering you’re both stubborn seaside mules, I will lay some work into Hythlodaeus so he’s open for a conversation. But please, for the love of all that is holy and unholy even; talk to each other. You two make for a very non-entertaining romcom.”

The look Hades shot them was utterly seething and full of disgust.

“Pray, do not look at me so. I am right, as you know I always am. O Sorcerer, at least talk to your friend, you emotionally constipated mess.”

At some point, they started changing their appearance for fun. Most people were delighted once they realised who the new person with garish green hair in a braid was. Or the short one with brilliant violet eyes. Or the sudden, inexplicable appearance of a twin to Sorcerer Hades from the Bureau of the Architect, as if one of them was not already bad enough as it were.

The most fun they had with that was when they ran into Loki who had left his offices at the Akademia for once. The blue hair and green eyes seemed to confuse the living daylights out of the normally so sharp man, doubly so when a woman with the same hair colour and similar green eyes rounded around a corner and raised a hand in greeting with a smile so bright and dazzling that even Persephone found themself blinded for a moment.

For someone who had been quite a jerk when he had been younger, there was something inexplicably soft in his expression as he greeted that woman. Unbelievable—even that idiot had a softer side to him, a side that had him brush his hair behind his ear when he apologised to her for being late.

How strange.

Some would call their apartment overly filled with useless trinkets. Gaudy, unnecessary, an unabashed display of arrogance, perhaps. Only the most arrogant did clad themselves in things that stood out, after all—Persephone never quite listened to these voices and did as they pleased. As gaudy as some of these were, with each brush past another fragile-looking arrangement of silvers and golds and metals shining in every colour imaginable they remembered how hard Aigle had worked to make these.

Now as they lay there on their bed with their head in Aigle’s lap as she sat there, once more idly messing around with metals she was letting float about, they wondered why on earth she had not accepted the position as goldsmith. Aloud, this time.

“As much as I do enjoy working these metals, I would rather see how they are made. Every precious stone, every small piece of metal, it all starts somewhere. Mining—if I truly desired to work with these for more than entertainment, I would seek to be a miner, Sepho.”

Behind a glittering collection of metal figures and creations, there were some simpler trinkets. A vase from the other end of Amaurot with flowers they had bought the other day. A glass that was worked in a way that it looked as if it were made of solid crystal. A chip of a rock from an expedition out into the wilds, a hastily scribbled doodle from a lost child they had collected and spent all afternoon finding their parents with. Persephone was a great listener but never quite without their own opinion; now that Hades and Hythlodaeus had settled their little argument and appeared closer than ever they found themself pacing through the city restlessly and working with the people once again.

A far, far cry from the defiant child they had once been, though Aigle often said that it was a journey she would love to see repeated for every person in Amaurot with affection in her voice.

Amaurot was prone to gossip, and unfortunately for the time being, Aigle was the centre of it. Or close to the centre at the very least.

Persephone poked her in the side, and she gently set the metal she was working with aside.

“I know you of all people are used to it more than anyone else, but how are you feeling? All alone for an indeterminable amount of time….”

Aigle shot them a soft smile. “What, worried about me not getting the correct amount of sleep?”

“No! Well, yes. You were prone to nightmares whenever duty took your father out of the city, and now that he’s been made Elidibus….”

“I will be fine. Truly, the waking world is much worse right now than any sort of nightmare I could have.” She said that with an awkward smile, and Persephone sat up at long last. “I just wish the people stopped talking.”

Once the topic of the mysterious choice for Elidibus had been somewhat exhausted, they started digging into his family matters. An orphan adopting another orphan was a common tale, but with a member of the Convocation of course his family was soon involved. And the topic when it came to Aigle was what the status of her relationship with Persephone was. While Persephone themself was guilty of wondering what precisely was going on between Hades and Hythlodaeus that they fought so brutally and now were both miserable, individually, they did not understand the appeal of wondering the same about them and Aigle.

Best friends, come what may.

But the rest of Amaurot wondered if that was not some sort of secret marriage arrangement, a love they played off as anything else in public—when both Persephone and Aigle had already discussed this at length and mutually agreed that while they did love one another, it was not in the romantic sense.

“They’ll stop. Sooner or later. The moment some other topic arises; remember how they tore their mouths apart in lengthy discussions about Hythlodaeus suddenly being back at the Bureau of the Architect? A year later they were most furiously disagreeing over whether Nabriales was going senile or not after their latest outburst. And the moment they stop, we’ll both be able to breathe properly again.”

Aigle sighed slightly and crossed her arms. “I cannot wait for that day to come, mark my words.”

“It’ll come, and then we can continue as we always did,” Persephone said almost overly dramatically—it was worth getting that small giggle out of Aigle, at the very least.

“As always—you have my back, and I have yours?”

“As always.”

For as terrifying as he was on a good day, something about Elidibus had changed ever so slightly since he had accepted the honour. Persephone still shrunk away from the man—sorcerers were terrifying one and all—but he seemed… less rough around the edges. Perhaps it was because he no longer spent an outrageous amount of time almost carelessly bouncing between members of the Convocation whenever they needed someone to quickly and discreetly take care of something that had gone haywire. All of a sudden the man who had all but been an assassin hired to take out creations gone rampant had become a politician.

One who most definitely paid attention and brought some new wind into Amaurot.

Hythlodaeus had clinked his spoon against the cup of tea as he leaned against Hades that evening and then said that the man had said that perhaps it was high time that something about Amaurot was to be done just in case someone else with eyes unclouded was born. “He may very well have been the first person to ever see it as a condition that is both boon and bane other than you two,” Hythlodaeus said cheerfully. “It is good that the new Elidibus is someone observant.”

Time passed slowly ad peacefully. Aigle seemed to have suddenly gotten a new surge of energy which Persephone knew was linked to nightmare-induced sleeplessness but no matter how much they offered staying with her whenever Elidibus was out of the city she always rebuffed them. “I’m a big girl, Sepho,” she always said and continued.

Persephone all but danced through the streets and started talking to people on their own accord. Time passed, and all of a sudden people wondered if they were working with Mnemosyne. They of course weren’t, but their curiosity drove them through every district and had them learn many names. Every so often they chatted with Hythlodaeus who still retained many connections from his time as Mnemosyne’s right hand, dragged Aigle along—if only things had stayed that way.

There were rumours. The rumours always came first. They were nowhere near as out of the loop as people believed from their flighty nature, but part of them still felt rather betrayed when the news reached them.

Hythlodaeus had been rather forthcoming with what concerned him. From a nobody with unsettling red eyes he had made it as far as Chief of the Bureau of the Architect, a voice of reason that oversaw one of the busiest places in Amaurot with a calm smile. He seemed content, then unsettled for about three days—and then normal again. The rumour was that Emet-Selch would be vacating her seat, and countless voices said that the best choice for the next Emet-Selch was Chief Hythlodaeus.

Then the rumours started that he had declined the position.

It was an employee of the Bureau of Immigration under Igeyorhm who they heard it from. A friend of theirs, a young man from the Upper District.

“Well, the new Emet-Selch is that young sorcerer from the coast. I saw him today, coming in with Igeyorhm and talking about a project from his predecessor. Something or other about him being in the loop about that apartment complex and Chief Hythlodaeus—Persephone, are you quite alright?”

Hades would know what vengeance from the very heavens themselves would be once they were through with him.

It was Hythlodaeus who prevented a catastrophe that evening by letting out a highly amused laugh.

“I told you so,” he chirped as Hades shrunk further and further below the table while Persephone lowered the knife they had been pointing at him. “Let that be your first lesson in perhaps listening to your Chief at times with your new position.”

Change was sweeping through Amaurot.

They weren’t quite sure they liked the way this was going.

Hythlodaeus regressed back into quieter and looking scared at times whenever he thought that Hades was not watching. Persephone saw him cringe away from Mnemosyne one day, and decided that there was no time like the present.

Hythlodaeus had talked precious little about his time with that man, and Persephone was nothing if not a persistent pest. Thus they started following him around for his duties, started listening in on what the Auditor did. What they heard was a man very feverishly trying to learn something or other about a project that Hades had started. The people seemed ambivalent to it, but as they listened in on the Auditor, they started to realise that something about the man was off. He was asking wrong questions, seemed to dig into places that were completely inappropriate and irrelevant to the project at large. It sounded like a madman the more they listened to him, and slowly but steadily a realisation dawned upon them. Aigle had said that Hythlodaeus had acted like someone used to and scared of being shoved around.

Amaurot was far from perfect, but they were an optimist and tried to see it as such. But the more time they spent following the Auditor around discreetly the more they wished ill upon that man. People started noticing them, and Persephone decided to pick up the slack for Mnemosyne. They started asking the right questions, listened to any concerns about whatever project the Architect brought forward, assuaged some of these fears right out the gate and wrote the rest down. Unfortunately as it were, there was no way for them to hand this to Hades or Hythlodaeus without telling them what it was about, and thus they started instead giving it to other people across the Bureaus that they knew, asking them to keep the author of these letters anonymous.

Nothing ever stayed anonymous for long. As Hythlodaeus suddenly lost that terrified part of him once again and Hades settled into his role with a surprising amount of scary coldness, as Mnemosyne became sloppier and sloppier with what he did and looked around the shadows as if he expected getting jumped, Persephone all but became the new public darling.

Aigle joked about them being the centre of attention and the inevitable questions of what their relationship status was cropping up again, but Persephone brushed it off. People seldom asked the same questions twice.

Perhaps they should have seen it coming. For all their attempts at making certain the man did not see them, there were rumours floating about that Mnemosyne was suddenly and inexplicably seeking to vacate his title. For all the secrecy and promises, they were bound to be broken at some point—such was ever the day of Amaurot. Someone answered the question as to who precisely was doing Mnemosyne’s job better than Mnemosyne himself, and not even a week later Persephone found themself invited to the Capitol.

For a long moment they were writing their will in their head—most of everything would go to Aigle, their concepts to Hythlodaeus and a particularly strong-worded letter to Hades—but as they stared at the masks of the Convocation, they slowly but steadily realised they were not here because they were in trouble.

The Convocation mask made Hades’ expression extraordinarily hard to read, and Elidibus was a mystery to them even on a good day; the rest of the Convocation were mostly strangers to begin with. But as they counted, they realised that two members were missing.

Lahabrea and Mnemosyne.

“Oh,” they mouthed once the realisation set in, and Altima’s previously passive expression turned into a small smile.

It may very well have been an interrogation by the Convocation once they proclaimed an interest in seeing if they were the correct choice for Mnemosyne, seeing as that role in particular needed… certain skills. Just as an Emissary had to be learned in the ways of keeping their soul under wraps for perfect neutrality, an Auditor needed booth a good ear and some drive to seek other people out. Most people had one or the other, but as the interrogation went on, Persephone realised with no small amount of dread that they had the perfect markings for an Auditor.

Part of them wanted to rebel against any and all expectations. Part of them wanted to be the child throwing an undignified temper tantrum proclaiming that they had no drive whatsoever.

But the other, more rational part whispered that nothing would change for them. They would still spend most of their time in the streets, chatting up random people, they would still waltz into the Bureau of the Architect seeking to harass their friends Emet-Selch and Chief Hythlodaeus with relevant information that they had picked up out in the streets. The only thing that would change would be their free time, and the fact that they would not no longer have to seek out other members of the bureaus that they knew to forward something or other to the Architect.

They had half expected Aigle’s father to speak to them the next time they saw him, but Elidibus barely even acknowledged the two of them. He was bound for the City of Sand to handle a trade deal together with Fandaniel and the Bureau of Commerce, hopefully with the soon to be vacant seats dealt with.

Hells, not even the normally cheerful Hythlodaeus who often pushed them into directions where he thought their skills put to good use said anything. He merely shooed them out of the bureau that evening, saying that while he had the closing shift on this fine evening he did have plans and those plans did not involve Persephone. He did not answer when they asked if they involved Emet-Selch.

No, not even Aigle was the one to finally give them a last bit of encouragement to accept the position.

It was Hades, in all his socially inept glory, who forwarded a rather good point.

“It seems so very unlike you to pass up a chance to harass me like a harpy. Fury. Whatever. I am almost offended.”

And while they wound up in the same elevator as Loki of Akademia Anyder, the very same man who had called them out for having no ambition and a loose tongue, somehow despite all that, it felt correct.

Perhaps Mnemosyne was who they had always been meant to be, just as Hades and Aigle’s father fit Emet-Selch and Elidibus perfectly, while Loki made for a rather convincing Lahabrea right out the gate.

At first, precious little changed.

Other than Hythlodaeus and Aigle both seemingly conspiring together to call them Esteemed Mnemosyne as much as they could, both of them with a smile that spelled mischief on their faces and a vehement insistence that they did not plot together, the only thing that changed was how people addressed them in the streets. Behind closed doors most people immediately dropped the honorific title and went back to merely calling them Persephone. The red mask was a shield, a spell that changed their appearance in public from Persephone of Amaurot to Auditor Mnemosyne. The only person to persist in calling them Mnemosyne no matter where they were was Elidibus on the rare occasion that he was in the city and they were sitting in his apartment together with Aigle.

They continued doing what they did before except now they had no reason to stay in the shadows and work behind their predecessor’s back. Whatever nervousness had risen up with Hythlodaeus soon vanished—the slight fear in his voice whenever he called them by their title faded within a decade and suddenly his smiles seemed a little more genuine. Whatever had truly happened between that man and him would remain a mystery but truth be told, they neither had the business nor the desire to know. As long as Hythlodaeus was better it was all fine.

Instead they hooked their claws into new issues that they spotted and cursed themself for never noticing before. As Elidibus said once or twice before he had been given the title, the winds of change were starting to blow through Amaurot as they did every other turn of countless millennia.

Energy distribution from the central city to the outer parts of the continent. A spotty transportation line here and there. Buildings that went mostly unused. Infrastructure in general seemed wildly out of balance at parts, which all but glued them to Hades for a long time immediately after receiving the honour of being given their title.

“It feels as if something went wrong unchecked for quite a while,” Hades chimed one evening that he spent bent over blueprints together with them and Hythlodaeus. “You took your position earlier than either of us—do you know something about this, Hyth?”

Hythlodaeus tensed for a split second before he closed his red eyes with a small exhale. “No, nothing. Emet-Selch—that is, his predecessor—was always thorough in her work and my predecessor was just as dedicated to his craft and the city. I know not how precisely any of these missing details sneaked their way into the finished works.”

Then, sudden as a storm, things changed.

It started with another change of person with the title and corresponding mask.

All of a sudden the older, wiser souls were being replaced one by one, one little Amaurotine issue after another. One summer they spent working with Mitron, the next summer saw them agree that the almost defiantly feisty marine biologist Pythias who had just the other week both helped them solve an issue while also mortally wounding their pride was perhaps the best choice for the seat. Following Pythias like a revolving door was a man named Damon whose extraordinary dedication saw him the first choice for Loghrif—Persephone and Hythlodaeus both laughed into their fists at that, seeing as the entire Convocation missed the fact that Mitron and Loghrif were married to one another. Next was the absolutely mysterious Het-Heru accepting the title Emmerololth; Persephone had to admit they quite enjoyed having someone who played with their appearance as much as they did around, and Emmerololth seemed eager to share whatever nonsensical look she came up with. The Convocation seemed more displeased with the shenanigans than the fact that Emmerololth changed his mind on what he wanted to be called every other week. Persephone meanwhile would very much call her their friend.

They thought they saw Elidibus break his neutral demeanour the moment they all agreed that a man named Icarus was best-suited for the soon to be vacant title of Nabriales—it was a barely audible groan but Elidibus very neutrally objected by bringing up that man’s… lively private life. In the end, the pros outweighed the cons with him—the relatively recently named Altima, a woman called Verdandi, grinned and tapped her pen against the table only to say that perhaps that sort of liveliness was precisely what they needed.

Equally lively was the choice of Songstress Circe for Deudalaphon, but Hythlodaeus near choked on his tea when Hades said that she was the first choice. “That little bird is a vixen wearing colourful feathers, Esteemed Emet-Selch,” was all he said when asked what his issue with her was. And indeed, she turned out to be shrewd and unabashedly loud and challenging. Exactly the sort of lively that Amaurot needed, even if it lost a singer of great renown in the process.

Between all those new faces, they were almost shocked to see one familiar face at the end of the line. Igeyorhm, claiming that he was getting way too old for all these sprightly young ones, insisted that a woman called Sabik was the best choice for the title. Perhaps they should have noticed it when Lahabrea started vehemently disagreeing, listing rather good reasons to not choose someone like that woman. But the moment they saw her, they understood what was going on here.

Sabik was the blue-haired beauty that they had seen Lahabrea wait for long before either of them had received their titles. They held back an amused chortle of some sort, covering their mouth with one of their hands and shooting Hades an offended roll of their eyes when he shushed them quietly but urgently. Against all the reasons that Lahabrea listed they all agreed that this woman was a good choice for Igeyorhm—doubly so when she bowed into Lahabrea’s direction and thanked him for being so brutally honest why she might struggle with this position and that she would dedicate her energy to being an Igeyorhm that Amaurot deserved.

The winds of change, often feared as something that might blow the city away, turned out to not be an omen this time around, it seemed.

They were… surprisingly content for once.

One of many people they came across during their little excursions at the behest of the Architect was Aigle. She always seemed to be on one case or another, offered herself up to to the Bureau of Immigration whenever Igeyorhm’s own people were busy with other projects. It was amazing, Persephone had to admit even as they wore their proper mask and had to fight back a devious grin, simply amazing that they could do good for the people and the city together with their best friend. Whenever Aigle joined for any of these sessions, Hythlodaeus soon commented on them being unusually chipper and then, like the sourpuss he could be, immediately shooed them off when they used their good mood to poke into his personal life.

It was almost hilarious how he and Hades continued denying any sort of involvement other than being eternally stuck as each other’s foil. No matter how much they poked and prodded, in public the two of them were Chief Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch to an almost ridiculous degree, and even with only them around they somehow played the perfectly content housemates.

On this fine day they were in the city with Chief Hythlodaeus as random tag-along and Aigle on official business at the behest of the Speaker, of all people. The new debate hall at the Northern End was all but ready to be built, but Lahabrea being Lahabrea he wanted some last minute opinions. The Hall of Rhetoric had more than welcomed the addition, seeing as their rooms were booked for the better part of seven centuries and no spontaneous rooms were free unless they were to offer up the one room they kept for Convocation business that involved heavy debate outside of the usual discussion times.

“How come you aren’t in the office today?”

“That, O Esteemed Mnemosyne, is what we common folk call ‘none of your business’,” Hythlodaeus said cheerfully—Aigle narrowed her eyes a little, which meant that she knew why precisely they had run into him in this exact spot. There wasn’t much in the Northern End save for one bureau—technically the one Elidibus oversaw. They decided to not pay it too much mind; they were here to ask the population about the debate hall and not to poke holes into Hythlodaeus’ mysterious appearance far from his usual prowling grounds.

Rather than pay attention to whatever discussion Aigle and Hythlodaeus got into but a few moments later, they approached a bunch of children without supervisors. Might as well ask the younger folk what the older said first; the rather quickly learned that sometimes when they wanted an honest opinion it was best to ask children.

“Pardon the interruption, but might I have a moment of your time at the behest of the Convocation of Fourteen?”

The four children, one a little older than the other three, all froze once they spoke. The older one hurriedly bowed, a motion that the other three copied quickly. Somewhere in the back of their mind they wondered if the three younger ones were the selfsame children that Hythlodaeus had so cheerfully talked about the other day—at Hades’ expense, of course.

Judging from the fear that seemed to emanate of the triplets they may as well have been, but Persephone was not here to dig into that.

Instead they asked about the debate hall and what their thoughts on it were.

The older one shuffled their feet a little, their light green eyes twinkling behind their mask when they looked up at Persephone. “Well, it’ll most certainly make these streets livelier.”

“And, pray tell, is that a positive or a negative?”

“A negative,” one of the three chimed up, her arms crossed and an expression on her face that gave her away as copying either her parents or her caretaker when they talked about something important. “More people means the nice hiding places will all be gone.”

Persephone let out a snort and threw a look over their shoulder. Hythlodaeus and Aigle were very animatedly talking to one another; likely he had accidentally set her off on something or other and now Aigle was determined to beat one of the smoothest debaters in Amaurot in a verbal match. Then they leaned in to the children and put a finger on their lips for a moment before speaking again. “Between you and me, more people and a new building will very likely make the games all the more fun. Plenty of adults to weave around and get under their feet. And not everyone is quite as short-tempered as Emet-Selch.”

“… W-Well, then… maybe. Maybe it’s not a negative,” all three muttered before nodding at Persephone. “Yes, maybe not a negative.” “Probably not a negative.” “Slightly more positive than negative!”

When the four of them scampered off, Persephone turned around to see Hythlodaeus leaning back with his arm crossed and a smug grin on his face that he normally reserved for when he threw a wench in Hades’ designs for fun. Aigle meanwhile also had her arms crossed but the fact that her hood was off told them that she had lost the debate because she had gotten too emotionally involved and therefore failed to counter Hythlodaeus properly.

“Every so often I do wonder why you of all people are unmarried and childless, and every time without fail you show that perhaps it is best that way,” Hythlodaeus said with a sing-song tone in his voice. “Esteemed Mnemosyne, inciting mutiny in the hearts of children on streets soon to be filled with eager debaters. Truly, were I a better Chief of the Bureau of the Architect I would report this to Emet-Selch posthaste.”

Aigle let out an almost offended huff as she threw the hood back over her head and adjusted her white mask again. While brushing a blonde lock behind her ears, she threw a rather devious glare at the still-grinning man. “Says the mysteriously eternally doomed to bachelorhood Chief Hythlodaeus who, as far as rumours go, drowns in suitors and blows them all off with a cheerful smile and no explanation as to why, yet somehow manages to be just about any child’s favourite person in Amaurot. Why, pray tell, are you allegedly single and childless, then?”

“Touché, touché, but once more as we common folk call it, O daughter of Elidibus—none of your business.”

“One would think that Esteemed Emet-Selch was a better… what are you two, again?” Hythlodaeus rolled his eyes at Persephone.

“And here I thought you would get bored of this topic after a millennium. Part of me thinks I should be angry, but truth be told, I am merely disappointed,” he sighed in an overly dramatic tone, complete with a shrug that he very much copied off Hades. “In both of you. I had a much higher opinion of the Emissary’s beloved daughter, but one never stops learning it seems.”

All three of them laughed and Persephone continued doing their duty in higher spirits. The general opinion was almost perfectly aligned with what the children had said; the Northern End was one of the lesser populated areas due to its lack of anything of interest other than the Bureau of the Emissary. Most people said that breathing some life into this district was long overdue yet at the same time they would miss the quieter afternoons on these streets.

Aigle left at one point to march into the bureau, claiming that her father was due for another trip soon and he usually forgot to eat whenever those happened. She was going to act like the adult in his stead and hurried off with a wave and a vague threat that she was going to out-debate the Chief at some point.

It was towards the late afternoon that Hythlodaeus tapped a finger against his lips and let out a hum—a clear sign he was hatching an idea of some sort. Since general mischief was out of the question, he was very likely in the mode of actually acting like the enigmatic Chief of the Bureau that most people in Amaurot saw rather than their friend who tried to get under everyone’s skin for fun. They mentally started counting down from ten—while they knew just exactly how Aigle ticked, Hythlodaeus was surprisingly easy to read at times.

Just as they hit ten, Hythlodaeus dropped his hand. “Auditor, if I may be so prudent, I do have a suggestion we could draft to appease the Speaker and the Architect both.”

“I’m all ears, Chief.”

He technically was the second-in-command when it came to architecture, after all. By now that had heard that Hythlodaeus had been the first choice for the title Emet-Selch and the seat of the Architect, something that he had declined with simple but rather severe words. They wondered what precisely he had said, but all former members of the Convocation said that the previous Emet-Selch had never told them his exact words.

His red eyes darted back and forth as he turned a little, likely measuring the district in his almost infallible ways. Then he raised a hand with a click of his tongue to likely shoo a floating soul out of his vision. “The general consensus from what I heard is that people will miss the quiet of this district. It does look rather drab and bland at points—my suggestion is, in order to ensure that this quiet is not lost, we simply turn this street with nary a soul into a park boulevard. That would not only give debaters and visitors alike a retreat, we could also bring in the newest approved wonders from the Words of Halmarult. Hells, perhaps the latest songbirds from the Words of Loghrif as well.”

Persephone nodded. This street connected to apartment complexes rather than bureaus or any other working spaces. In fact, most of the buildings here housed Akademia students—suddenly they understood why Lahabrea of all people had suddenly objected to the plans and insisted on more opinions. He had lived here for a good measure of his life, only vacating the apartment he had inhabited after the current Igeyorhm had been given her title.

“We would of course have to draft it first, seek approval from the tenants of these buildings, and present the draft to Halmarult and Loghrif before we can go about adding anything like this. But you do have a point, Chief.”

Hythlodaeus nodded, a small smile on his lips. “We would of course have to draft it ‘ere we present it to the Architect—you know how Esteemed Emet-Selch can be when it comes to substantial changes to his predecessors’ structures. Are you free tomorrow evening, Auditor? I have the closing shift at the bureau; that way we can discuss it in my office without the threat of interruption barring any emergencies.”

They nodded, a mischievous smile spreading on their face as they leaned away from Hythlodaeus a little. “You know my schedule better than most people in Amaurot barring one exception, Chief. I am free, and you will be prepared for more questions concerning your bachelorhood on top of business, won’t you?”

“Unless your intention is to court me, I shall refrain from acknowledging that last part, Auditor. You know my answer.”

“Ah-ha! So you are involved with someone.”

“I never said so.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“Even if there were one, I would very much not invite any nosy Auditors.”

They both laughed and parted ways when Persephone said they wanted some more opinions from the students now on their way home—they were going to ask about the park boulevard right away so they could present a draft to Emet-Selch complete with some first opinions and suggestions.

The silence had been staggering, upsetting. Not even the Emissary reported right away, his silence even more choking than anything else.

The man who returned from the other continent looked like he had barely slept; what was visible of his face paler than usual and his jaw tense. He called for a meeting in the next bell, shooing off Mitron to go and collect Lahabrea, Loghrif, Halmarult, Deudalaphon and Emet-Selch from Akademia Anyder. The remaining seven that were already at the Capitol stuck their heads together and started urgently chattering.

“He looks worse than Lahabrea after he forgoes sleeping for a week in favour of a new concept,” hissed Igeyorhm with clear worry in her voice.

“His aether… it seems drained. The walls he keeps around his soul are down,” whispered Fandaniel with their eyes wide behind their mask.

“I have known him since he was a boy, but I have not once heard his voice so flat,” said Altima calmly, her voice surprisingly steady for someone who was shifting their weight from one foot to the other.

“Yeah, no, whatever happened over on the other continent has him rattled, and we all know an Emissary is not easy to rattle,” Nabriales spat and crossed his arms.

“His robes were covered in dust. He truly must have returned and gone straight to the Capitol,” Pashtarot added quietly and threw a nervous glance at the door that Elidibus had vanished behind.

“How horrible will this meeting be if even our Emissary looks like he is one strong word away from either keeling over or bursting into tears?” Emmerololth nervously tapped a foot against the floor.

“Whatever it is, it will not be pleasant. Likely horrifying. I am… worried about what it means for Amaurot,” Persephone muttered and adjusted their mask.

Half a bell passed with them hissing observations and worries to one another—they may have been the Convocation of Fourteen but even underneath all that they were people first and foremost. Just when they all agreed that perhaps rather than speculate they ought to wait for the meeting to begin, the doors opened and their missing seven fellows walked in.

They had another ten minutes before the meeting started, but rather than give in to the urge to chatter once again, Lahabrea of all people called for quiet. He looked ruffled—Persephone dimly remembered that he was supposed to give a speech on phantom creation in front of a massive audience. Mitron had likely had to burst into that and now a good chunk of creators and students alike knew that there was an important confidential emergency meeting going on at the Capitol.

Hades on the other hand seemed wide awake for a man who normally napped at around this time, invited by Loghrif to discuss a new project or not. He shot them a questioning glance at one point, but all the could do was shrug at him. They did not know more than the arrivals from the Akademia.

The meeting room was tense and an expectant silence hung in the air as they all took their seats. Elidibus had already been sitting when they filed into the room quietly and orderly, his face buried in his hands as he said there.

For a long moment they all seemed to have the question if he was truly well enough for a meeting like this burning on their minds, but he cleared his throat before any of them could ask. He dropped his hands and folded them, taking his usual position. Calm. Unbothered. His voice was just as dead and flat as Altima had said when he started speaking.

“As you know, my most recent absence from Amaurot was prompted by a sudden, inexplicable silence from the City of Stones on the other continent. Since a long friendship connects our fair cities, we agreed that I ought to investigate.”

The other thirteen were silent and watched as Elidibus’ shoulders slumped a little.

“I never made it to the City of Stones. In the City of Stars, my supposed last stop before I would reach the City of Stones, I came face to face with the Emissary of Stone. According to her, the entire city has been levelled and the few survivors were all in the City of Stars. An unknown attacking force, be it person or aetherial apparition, has all but wiped them all out. After mutually agreeing that we needed to notify the other cities on the other continent as well as Amaurot, the Stargazer of the Celestial Wheel and I parted ways. I did extend a hand to offer the survivors refuge in Amaurot, but they refused and remained in the City of Stars.”

Silence remained, and Elidibus finally opened his eyes again. Even someone without Sight could see that his currently unveiled soul flared up judging from the way Emet-Selch, Fandaniel, Lahabrea and several others flinched. For all his supposed calmness, Elidibus was a man very passionate about his duties and Amaurot in general. They all had to be passionate about the city and its people, but Elidibus was not only the most senior holder of a title in this room, he also was rivalled by none in sheer passion.

“Lahabrea, Halmarult, Mitron. I know you are currently involved with creating a concept as a joined effort, but I must ask you to put it on ice for the good of Amaurot.”

Lahabrea grumbled, Mitron crossed his arms and Halmarult sighed loudly and adjusted her mask. None of them sounded all too pleased when they agreed—but their bureaus were necessary for what Elidibus suggested.

Countless droves of researchers and creators were put on the case of that mysterious power that had wiped out the City of Stones, from any and all bureaus across Amaurot. Even other volunteers were welcomed with open arms—Persephone watched the number of people accepting new concept submissions at the Bureau of the Architect first halve then quarter, forcing Emet-Selch to take the floor for mundane office work he had not done since his days as Hades, right-hand man of Chief Hythlodaeus.

He seemed rather unbothered by it; the person most bothered by that appeared to be Hythlodaeus who watched with both an envious and worried glare whenever Hades was busy. Persephone thought to butt into that matter a little but decided against it; the last thing they needed now was both the Architect and his right-hand man mad at them.

Instead they took to the streets and listened to the woes of the city, brought forth suggestions and solutions, drafts and what-not. Children that had once always spoken the truth now looked nervous as the mood in the city shifted when the City of Stars was also reported lost. Children grew into young adults as time passed—Persephone found themself in a rather agitated discussion between a young person they recognised as the older child from back when they had investigated what the opinion on the debate hall was and of all people the previous Nabriales.

As it turned out the young one had lost a parent when the City of Stars had gone down, their heritage a union of two continents and now part of it irrevocably wiped out. The previous Nabriales bristled and countered any plea for compassion and that it was their duty as people of Amaurot to ensure that none suffered with the cold, hard fact that mere compassion alone would do nothing good other than either making survivors depend on it or the compassion expected. There had to be something that Amaurot could do without pushing themselves on top of these other cities, yet at the same time the young one called Mira made a rather good point in saying that withholding compassion when there might be something they could do in exchange for something first was cruel and unjust.

It wasn’t until the City of Flame fell some time later and Elidibus once more departed nigh immediately for the other continent that they realised just how exhausted they were from all the tension.

They groaned and barely managed to roll out of bed when they heard a knock on their apartment door in the middle of the night—the streets below were uncharacteristically empty for this season. They almost wanted to tell the person on the other side of the door to bugger off, but they bit their tongue, half-heartedly slammed the nearest mask into their face, and opened the door.

“I am so sorry, Sepho,” Aigle whispered. “I know you are beyond tired like most others of the Convocation, but I… I….”

Persephone stifled a sigh—of all lousy times for Aigle’s nightmares to return.

“I gotchu, ‘s okay. C’min,” they slurred, and Aigle’s terrified expression lit up a little.

Having each other’s backs was important to the two of them. And even though they were groggy and exhausted, they still made certain that Aigle got a warm drink and half-listened to her rambling her fears out. Hells, in the end they both wound up side by side in Persephone’s bed, with them admittedly not even remembering what exactly they had said and awaking the next morning rather confused when they found themself in Aigle’s almost iron grip.

The world they knew was changing, irreversibly. So were the people they knew.

With the end of the City of Shells, something inside Elidibus broke. His passion for finding a solution had all but been wiped out as he erratically jumped between Amaurot and the remaining settlements on the other continent. One by one they managed, and the first survivors of these catastrophes requested asylum in Amaurot. Persephone found themself mediating when the Emissary was unavailable, listening to one horrifying story after the other when they escorted these people. A pair of siblings from the City of Shells had barely avoided drowning miserably because they had spent the day climbing up to the landlocked part of the city and been almost out of the amphoras when calamity struck. They all but clung to one another and Persephone soothed them, saying that they would not be separated in Amaurot and would be sharing their living space with a familiar pair of triplets. Those three were barely even adults at this point, not people someone would take serious—but Persephone saw the compassion glittering in their eyes when the welcomed the siblings.

They went back and forth between the coast and the city, even visiting the very village that Hades and Hythlodaeus had been born in. They only knew it was because one rather subdued-looking woman approached them and asked them to forward a letter to one Hythlodaeus in Amaurot who hailed from this village and had most unsettlingly red eyes.

Not long after that they overheard a term that they had only ever heard Elidibus use—ironically when talking about Hythlodaeus.

Eyes unclouded.

Hythlodaeus always seemed to have an explanation for any aetherial fluctuation, usually linked to unusual soul movement. The Underworld may have adored Hades, but it seemed the very breath of the planet itself was visible to Hythlodaeus. It was a rare condition that could occur when a sorcerer was born, Aigle had said after going through massive amounts of books once. It was more common on the other continent since their settlements were not so intent on aetherial limits and what-not, and the few cases here on their continent were always born in the outer settlements like Hythlodaeus had been. Still, they were exceedingly rare and all of them terrifying in their own regards; nothing stayed hidden for long when someone with sight that sharp turned their gaze to it. Hythlodaeus often cheerfully remarked that Elidibus was good at cloaking his soul but not perfect, there was no way to keep something like a soul hidden for long after all.

Hades had almost violently shot down any plans to take Hythlodaeus to the other continent to see what the deadlands there offered up.

They approached the woman and asked what she had seen.

Her explanation made little sense to them—something about all aether and the very Underworld withdrawing all at once and then coming back wrong before once again falling into deathly stasis. It likely made more sense to sorcerers and people who saw what was going on with the aether, but they memorised her words and made a mental note to visit Hythlodaeus upon their return to the city.

They were exhausted when they finally arrived in Amaurot again, all but stumbling into Hythlodaeus when he opened the door to his apartment.

He very quietly listened to their report, his face calm as he gripped his cup of tea like a weapon. Whatever went on in that handsome head of his, he never shared it. Such was the way of Amaurot; what did not need to be shared was not, but the necessity differed between people. Hythlodaeus who had grown up thinking of himself as a burden to society shared little; Persephone who had been given the world and everything they would ever want shared everything.

Suddenly they were aware of the horrid rift between the people in the city that those from the other continent called the City of Scholars. Amaurot was supposed to be a city of dialogue, but as they left his apartment and watched the people return to their homes, they started to realise that while they had always listened to all sides of the argument, there were sides that merely did not speak up.

Now that the world was in disarray, the people changed.

Emet-Selch had never been stressed enough that he started hissing and lashing out. He glared them down with a stare so cold that they thought he would kill them in that elevator in the Capitol when he snarled that Hythlodaeus had apparently been reported absent from his post.

Igeyorhm went from cheerful to seethingly quiet as she tore through hundreds upon thousands of reports, offered hands she did not have free to people in need. Lahabrea had always been the first to turn into a harrowed ghoul haunting halls from exhaustion when something required a solution, but the man they ran into every so often was a far cry from the man they had worked with for an eternity and a half. He looked unkempt, disoriented—angry.

Even the optimist Hythlodaeus mellowed down, turned to melancholy that was unbearable to be around for longer than necessary.

Aigle, too, changed. But the change that occurred with her was within expected parameters. She was the adoptive daughter of perhaps the most passionate man in Amaurot; a man who lost the passion as tragedy struck again and again and again. Aigle picked it up again, all but ran through the streets with Persephone and even without them. She assuaged fears, she made certain people did not lose heart. Believe in the Convocation, she said, they were the heart of the City of Scholars and if anyone could find a solution then it would be them.

Then the village on the coast fell to the selfsame calamity that had wiped out the other continent.

It was as if a fire had been ignited in Amaurot. A fire that spread to and consumed the Convocation whole and all they could do was watch.

Altima turned to hysteria, running about her office with her hood down and her silver hair in her hands as she laughed and laughed and laughed. She had always worked with unorthodox tinctures and remedies, things that no one right in their mind would use. But as she mixed things together time and time again, near burnt herself with alchemical concoctions and even turned to manipulating aether into blinding light to figure something out, nothing came to her mind.

Mitron near drowned in one his aquariums one day, pulled out of it by a panicked Loghrif who had but recently closed his own halls at the Akademia. There had to be something, anything, Mitron coughed and sputtered and wiped his light blue hair out of his face to glare at his fellow members of the Convocation with furious tears streaming down his face.

Even the normally easily riled Nabriales changed in ways that were despicable. Suddenly he found an eerie calm as he tried to ignite the spark of passion in Elidibus again, trying to bring up some friendly rivalry the two of them had had in their younger years or something.

It was Lahabrea, ever the brightest mind in their midst, who took that wildfire that burnt in all their fearful hearts, and said that perhaps there was a way.

The concept was disgusting.

It had been shelved for a reason, Persephone coldly pointed out—they earned agreeing mutters from what sounded like half the Convocation.

Lahabrea countered that all the research they had done was amounting to nothing and that it was a small blessing that no corpses were left by those that died in these calamitous events that they had started to call the End Days—otherwise those corpses would be stacked right outside the Capitol, crying out for a solution to be found while they idled their days away.

“We but need to… adjust it for the scale of a planet rather than a small-scale aetherial pool.”

“Are you out of your mind!?” The words burst out of them before they could stop themself from saying it out loud. “Lahabrea, as your colleague and fellow member of the Convocation, I cannot allow you to act… to speak… to claim any of this nonsense like a deranged monster! Consider what you are suggesting! It is outrageous!”

Others agreed—but other did not.

For the first time in the countless years all fourteen of them had worked together, they wound up disagreeing without a solution being offered or Elidibus deciding to mediate until they agreed on something. Lahabrea remained insistent that they were running out of time, Mitron countered that life, any life, was precious in these times. Altima hissed something about her role being to heal and not to slaughter, Deudalaphon croaked that if this went unchecked there would remain nothing to heal.

Aigle’s passion turned to righteous fury after that when they told her about it.

“I cannot believe that my father would not immediately stamp this nonsense out—hells, were I in his position, I would have immediately made Lahabrea give up his seat and title. The utter gall of that man to suggest something like that!”

They agreed with that—and the next day Elidibus opened discussion grounds for whether they ought to let Lahabrea proceed with that madness. Any sort of fear they may have ever had melted under the white-hot fury they felt and they openly glared at Elidibus. The father of her best friend and the longest-standing member of the Convocation or not, just the fact that he was asking whether Lahabrea ought to be allowed to continue research that involved human sacrifice was appalling enough that their respect faded.

They spoke with a passion that they had never quite had their entire life—but Amaurot meant the world to them. Amaurot was nothing without its people, from the smallest child asking innocently indecent questions to the oldest chattering horrible woman with a temper that was fouler than the foulest sludge. They were the Convocation, they were supposed to protect, not sacrifice.

The sheer indignation they felt when Lahabrea was permitted to continue his research into the matter was beyond words. Persephone was an adult grown, yes, but for the first time in an eternity and a half they felt like the child furiously sulking with Aigle on the bench beside them.

But no.

They needed to not sulk. Amaurot needed them to act like a voice of reason in these mad times, it seemed.

Aigle was in their apartment already when they returned, her normally pretty face contorted into a mask of anger and disgust.

“Please. For the love of everything you hold dear. Tell me you opposed this, or thrust the knife into my heart here and now.”

Persephone all but lunged for her, grabbed her hands and squeezed them perhaps a tad too hard, judging from the small yelp of pain that escaped Aigle.

“Not only have I opposed this, I will continue opposing it. Mark my words—no. No. Aigle. Aigle, I vow to ensure that Amaurot survives this, but not with human sacrifice as our solution. There has to be something, anything—and I may not have had much ambition in my life before, but once again I vow this not as the Auditor Mnemosyne but as Persephone, but I… I will make it my life’s duty to find a solution to this without further bloodshed. Heavens strike me down, monsters make me their weapon, I will find a way to have Amaurot stand still and the planet to not tear itself apart in agony.”

They were called to Akademia Anyder for emergency first-aid. They all but hoped that Lahabrea was either dead or would finally be open to the suggestion that this was folly inviting punishment for their hubris.

The halls themselves were perversely quiet and Persephone marched past corpses that showed no injuries other than the faint smell of ozone and death.

The roof had been reported apparently suddenly awash in lightning, with screams that were audible even in the streets below and one person even barely avoiding smashing into the streets below by quickly creating a soft landing spot for themself. When they pushed the door leading to the roof open, the first thing they noticed was the heavy smell of blood continuing and Persephone choked back bile when a body rolled past them when the opened that door. Igeyorhm stormed up despite Deudalaphon’s cried reminder to stay together with them and the healer, but Persephone marched after Igeyorhm with a grim expression.

The aether up here was in utter turbulence, all of it aligned to lighting despite the fact that a flame had consumed whatever creature had been up here not too long ago. Igeyorhm had collapsed to her knees and gathered up a familiar figure in her arms—the healer immediately made a beeline for the Speaker who convulsed in Igeyorhm’s arms with a wretched, pained sound.

The rest of the people up on this roof were dead, Persephone soon learned as they and Deudalaphon went to check. Lahabrea was bleeding but conscious, a feverish look that Persephone did not like the slightest in his mad eyes. He, of all people Lahabrea himself, insisted that they needed to gather the rest of the Convocation. And as much as they hated him for his research right now, as much as they were back to hating his guts just as they had when they were children, they exchanged a look with Igeyorhm who looked utterly heartbroken through the heavy veil of mental and physical exhaustion.

“Not while you are injured, Speaker,” they hissed through clenched teeth.

He refused to listen to reason, and thus under the public eye, they all but dragged Lahabrea to the Capitol. An immediate emergency meeting was called together and one by one the others filed into the room. All expressions went from tired to horrified when they saw Igeyorhm patting Lahabrea’s arm as he coughed and spat blood on the table. For once they very desperately wished they could see souls so they knew what was going on in all their minds as they said nothing.

The Convocation of Fourteen was supposed to protect the city. The people made the city, this was a simple fact that all of them knew. But as Lahabrea started speaking, his voice chillingly calm, that the concept had merit and nothing else they had ever done had showed even a smidgen of promise and now he had proof that it could work if they expanded it to a much larger scale, they noticed with a jolt of horror that everyone had reached their limit. Passion had turned to depression, to agony, to straight fury. As Lahabrea countered their appeal to common sense, their anger turned into an agonising void of despair.

These people had sworn an oath. They had all sworn an oath to protect this city—but they were twisting it to permit this senseless slaughter in the name of salvation.

They weren’t entirely wrong, even Persephone had to admit. They were running out of time, whatever that time limit was. But they were not going to be complicit in the murder of people while claiming that these deaths could save the rest.

Hades—no, Emet-Selch, attempted to calm down down by putting a hand on their shoulder, but they withdrew from this stranger in their friends’ skin immediately.

They spat it into their faces when the vote wound up thirteen to one. In the midst of them claiming that they were playing gods with who lived and who died, Lahabrea’s entire body went limp as he passed out. That wasn’t Loki. That was a madman.

Just as Elidibus was not Aigle’s father Osiris. Just a wretched, exhausted, scared old man.

Finally, finally they saw what the others saw in Hades. A sorcerer aligned with death. A reaper of sorts even as his expression cracked a little and he tried to once more reach out for them when they slammed their mask down with the rhetorical question of who these people were tossed into the room.

When the very earth turned against them too early, Persephone stopped for a moment while shooing several sobbing survivors out of the city to turn around and look at the destruction behind them. Emet-Selch was with the rest of the Convocation somewhere, sacrificing lives while more were lost in the streets here. They had not seen Hythlodaeus at all this morning, meaning that he was likely caught up somewhere—or worse, had volunteered as a sacrifice.

Or was dead.

There was… there was no point in crying over spilled blood. Not when there were still people they could conceivably save. Those that had been lost demanded that work.

In the quiet darkness that came after the skies ablaze, Aigle sat down next to them and silently pulled them into a gentle hug. They had survived, they had survived somehow and there was nothing that could be changed now. Their vow to find a way to save Amaurot came around to have been naught but empty words, but despite the anger that burnt in Aigle’s heart at that, she did not seem to be mad at them.

They were alive. They were all alive, barely so. They were all covered in soot and blood, there were injuries that needed mending. But they were alive.

What had once been the last city standing with countless survivors and a large population had been reduced to half its people. Of that half, a good chunk had died or were on death’s door now that the calamity had settled. Perhaps they could bring the Convocation to justice later on, when all had returned to normal.

The Convocation wasted no time at all—though Emet-Selch looked about ready to keel over dead where he stood, he immediately began drafting repairs and repaired parts of the city with what remained of his own aether. A sorcerer who drew everything in and formed it into something else; but Persephone watched a reaper play with the energies of the dead and a deity of his own making. It disgusted them, it made them wish they did not have to rely on the Convocation in these times. But they had been returned to their state as but another citizen, a citizen who swept the reconstructed streets of ash and blood and looked around to see who of the people they knew were still alive.

Mira and the triplet friends of theirs had, a small miracle. Persephone’s neighbour, a woman several millennia older than them, had as well—though she did not look happy at all, having lost most of her family. There were no words that would mend a broken heart like that.

On the fourth day of them grieving for all the people they once knew, they heard a member of the Bureau of the Architect say that the Chief’s condition was unchanged, although the healers had confirmed that he would never see again.

Hythlodaeus was alive.

But before any sort of joy could form in their mind, it was snuffed out and crushed by the fact that immediately afterwards they heard someone else say that the injured were only getting weaker because there were no resources left and whatever food they managed to scratch together was running out.

The planet had a will, but as it was it might as well have been dead. Zodiark, grand Zodiark, their saviour who had fed upon myriad souls, could do nothing against the corrupt soil. He balanced the aether to straighten the violently revolting and corrupting planet out, but there was nothing He could do against the fact that everything was dead or dying still.

Not even three bells later, the survivors and the Convocation had come up with a solution that most agreed to.

Persephone all but ran away, into the ruins that they would likely never rebuild. The Northern End, devastated and in utter ruins, the walkways broken and collapsed, the debate hall caved in and still crumbling. They dropped in what may have once been the middle of the park boulevard that they had created in better times, with Hythlodaeus laughing while Emet-Selch complained about something or other while they, Auditor Mnemosyne, went on a tangent about what the people wanted and what Loghrif and Halmarult agreed to. Most of the people they had talked to in these times were dead, with more to die for the sake of the survivors, of those too injured to consent to being made part of Zodiark.

Hours passed like that, and they did not realise that someone had approached them until they felt a familiar hand on their shoulder. Crouching beside them was Aigle, her face pale and a neutral expression on her face—most people had lost their masks or opted out of using them in the immediate aftermath, desperate to see if there were faces they remembered amongst the survivors.

“Aigle,” they whispered, and she closed her bright blue eyes that were rivalled only by theirs.

“Persephone.”

“Aigle—Ai. Ai, I’ve failed—“

Aigle shook her head. “You haven’t failed, Sepho. You haven’t. But this is a discussion for another time. With the Convocation busy… I inquired after Chief Hythlodaeus’ state. Apparently he drifts in and out of consciousness, but… well. I thought you would at least like to see him no matter his state of consciousness. So I bargained with the healer—they will let us see him for a while… while… while my f….” She took a deep breath, and the next words broke Persephone’s heart. “The healer will let us into his room while Elidibus and the rest of the Convocation prepare their offering.”

The roads were silent when Aigle pulled them back to their feet and led them to the place where those in less than desirable states were being held. The healer Aigle had spoken about led them, though eventually that man started fretting.

“He is… he is conscious. Please, I beg of you, tell him naught that may aggravate his state. He is… he is not in good condition despite likely making a full… err… mostly full recovery.”

Whatever that meant, they did not want to know. Hythlodaeus had his secrets and the End Days had been so tumultuous that those secrets had likely been dragged to the surface and left him drained, empty.

Indeed, when they closed the door and his head shot around into their general direction, they saw just how drained and empty Hythlodaeus was. His once stark red eyes had clouded over completely. Even in the past whenever rare sickness had knocked him out there had been this strangely energetic aura about him, something that others called an almost defiant enjoyment of living as it was. He lacked that energy now and slumped back into his bed when they greeted him quietly.

“Se… Persephone.”

They closed their eyes with a pained sigh. “Sepho. I beg you, call me Sepho. Don’t hit me with that distance now.”

Hythlodaeus closed his eyes. “I would say good to see you alive and in one piece, but, alas….” He gestured vaguely, shrugged his shoulders with a defeated sigh and then shook his head. “You two were about the… last people I would have… expected.”

Even his voice sounded like any and all life had truly left him, and Persephone swallowed hard as they sat down next to his bed. Aigle followed suit, her face neutral and her shoulders tense. She technically was a stranger in this room, and Hythlodaeus very obviously not in good condition. For a while they sat like that in silence, with Persephone describing the state Amaurot was in and how they were getting by.

Eventually however Hythlodaeus tensed ever so slightly and bit his lower lip. “Lahabrea and Elidibus came in earlier to… collect… Hades. They said something about the… population and Zodiark. What is… happening to our people?”

Say nothing to aggravate his already fragile state.

Persephone sat there for what felt like an eternity, eyes downcast despite the fact that Hythlodaeus could not see them in the literal sense. Whatever else his sight told him right now, he did not say—he merely tensed a little at the silence. There was nothing they could say to lessen the blow of what truly was going on. Hythlodaeus was not suddenly made of eggshells, but they certainly felt as if he were while looking at him for too long.

Aigle broke the silence after a while, and Persephone was unsure whether they hated her for that in this very moment or not. Hythlodaeus deflated where he sat, shrunk back into the bed and let out a sound that sounded tortured. But he said nothing. They said nothing. Aigle stewed in silence, her agitation suddenly very obvious to them. They did not have words for either of their friends. There was nothing they could say to ease the pain of losing people they loved or something vital. No matter how much the burns would fade, they knew without a doubt that Hythlodaeus would spend the rest of his life reliving whatever had happened to him that had burned his sight away. Aigle would likely walk out of the apartment she had grown up in for the rest of her life, whatever she had said to Elidibus on her mind.

It was depressing, but such was the way of their world under Zodiark now, they supposed.

People returned to the status quo surprisingly quickly—most of them, at least. Once the survivals were all catalogued correctly and living space re-allocated while the remnants of the Bureau of the Architect set about to rework the city in its entirety, people slipped back into their usual habits. White masks, black hoods—and occasionally, red masks.

The Convocation started walking the streets less; where before the End Days people had muttered about and wondered whether there would be another Mnemosyne, most people seemed content with the elusive Thirteen now. Once upon a time it would have been easy to find Lahabrea caught up in a discussion when he was not holed up in his offices—the only time they saw him after the End Days he all but ignored the conversations nearby and vanished in a plume of darkness before anyone could approach him. After that no one reportedly saw the Speaker any more; not even the researchers at Akademia Anyder. In the final throes of the old order, Emet-Selch had taken over some duties at his department, seeing as he and his Chief had both agreed that people ought to spend more time with their loved ones. Now the Bureau’s public floors were silent, empty; rather than the excited chatter of creators there was only the ticking of a clock and one employee waiting for people who never came.

The Administrator’s offices were silent where once Nabriales had all but dictated them around with an iron fist. The Bureau of Immigration had been levelled and not been rebuilt—Igeyorhm had seemingly vanished entirely, though whispers claimed that she was at Akademia Anyder together with Lahabrea nowadays. Flora and fauna were returned quietly and suddenly, any new concepts released without explanation from Halmarult, Loghrif or Mitron.

Some few people could not take this sudden return to the old ways with the Convocation acting ever so strangely. Aigle, of course, was at the centre of that—the voice of the downtrodden that Mnemosyne had always been supposed to be. Except that they were not downtrodden. They merely disagreed; and that disagreement was boiling under the surface of their fragile restored world.

They were supposed to raise the world to overabundance and offer that overabundance to Zodiark—the City of Scholars became the City of Self-Proclaimed Stewards, as a survivor from the other continent hissed.

Persephone themself disagreed with the Convocation. Disagreed with Zodiark at large. But at the same time they found themself not agreeing entirely with Aigle and the others either. Hythlodaeus seemed to go through the same agony of clearly struggling with his morals—but Persephone made one choice that he did not make.

When Aigle and her people decided to leave, claiming that the were going to explore the other continent, Persephone said they were going with those.

Thus they found themself amidst the dissenters on a continent they had barely ever visited. They knew the most about it other than the three survivors from different cities here who had made it to Amaurot despite catastrophe at their heels—Persephone had to admit, with no small amount of fear, that they had been part of the Convocation of Fourteen before. The group understood, surprisingly enough; there was no anger at them. It were the Thirteen they agreed with, and soon instead of their name the people started calling them the Fourteenth.

The other continent was supposed to be mostly empty. Mostly flora, barely any fauna.

Persephone’s heart sank to utter rock bottom the moment they came across people. The group was greeted warmly, excitedly—those people said that they had had no idea that the City of Scholars had survived. When asked how they were still alive, the people exchanged a worried glance.

All of them were mages, as sorcerers were called on the other continent. Anyone could use aether, but only mages and sorcerer could bend it to their will in ways that belied all rules. As the leader of the settlement said, they had marched into the deadlands to find answers before the planet tore itself apart. When the Final Days came and the entire planet violently churned as the Convocation enacted their insane plan, they had been in the deadlands watching stars rain from the skies and awaited death.

Death never came.

Their numbers were heavily reduced—but they were still mages. So they scrambled for purchase on the dead soil and realised with no small amount of horror that life had been breathed back into it. Too feeble to break past the corruption, but something had re-ignited the spark of life on the planet. A spark of life that all but burst forth suddenly just as they agreed on nourishing that spark for as much time as remained to them, to entrust a better place to their children.

Zodiark had been a necessity, but as they listened to these people, the second wave had been a desperate solution to something that might have been solved differently.

“We are not Creators like the Scholars, but even so; aether remains aether, corrupted or not. Yes, we were just as desperate for sustenance as you over in the City of Scholars, but you tale is… unbelievable,” the leader said when Aigle and the others started telling their side of the story.

For the time being, they agreed to stay and to investigate what the other continent had that Amaurot’s did not. They would not be telling the Convocation about them, they promised, and soon Persephone found themself enjoying the mages’ settlement in ways that Amaurot had started feeling oppressive. People were chattering excitedly, the few children were messing with things, got between the adults’ legs, and the breath of life in this place felt warm and welcoming instead of the dark embrace that Amaurot was in right now.

Someone did not seem to enjoy their time here, however, and despite everything, Persephone still cared. Cared perhaps a little too much.

Aigle had her eyes narrowed and her arms crossed when Persephone found her sitting on a hill overlooking a chasm. They wordlessly sat down next to her; Aigle was usually the one to initiate conversation whenever she was ready for it.

And indeed, after a few minutes in silence, Aigle let out a heavy sigh and leaned her head against their shoulder.

“I believe we are close to where the City of Flame once stood. This chasm looks… it looks like something father….” She closed her eyes. “If I remember someone’s descriptions correctly, this might be the Flametrail Gorge. It used to be bright even in the darkest nights thanks to the eternal stream of magma roiling at its bottom.”

Persephone said nothing; it was rather obvious that those fires had died out and would never ignite once again.

“Every turn of a century, the people of the City of Flame would gather on a hill overlooking it to celebrate the coming years. From dusk until dawn, they celebrated. Mages and storytellers spun tales into the dark skies with torches and fireballs alike. Drinks were warmed closer to the Flametrail Gorge and given out to each and every person attending the celebrations. And then, finally, when the sun started to rise and the skies also slowly were set ablaze, they fired off fireworks. And then, finally, once the sun had fully risen they returned to the city with the sun in front of them and the Flametrail Gorge behind their backs. It sounded like such a fun event, just as the turn of the millennium celebrations in Amaurot were. Even if… ours were so much more subdued comparatively. But now… now the Flametrail Gorge has stopped burning, and there will be no people celebrating the turn of a century on a hill like this.”

They remained silent while Aigle clearly fought with either sad or frustrated tears. They had not spoken much since they had given up the title of Auditor, but much as they had felt back when they had accepted the title and mask, it felt… right to remain rather silent now. There were no words to properly describe what went on in their head. Aigle meanwhile had the words.

“Sepho, if we let the Convocation know about these people, who knows what they might do. They… they seek a way to appease their creation, and so far only the souls of people have appeased it. I fear for these people. What if they march here and seek to obliterate these… no. What if they march here they moment they learn of our fellow man from the other continent and attempt to feed them to Zodiark so that He returns our brethren? I cannot allow them to do that. Zodiark must not be allowed to demand and demand and demand while we have nothing to give. Sepho. Sepho, I beg of you—you swore to protect the people; so help me protect them from Zodiark now.”

“Ai….”

“I beg you, we but need to forge the weapon to strike back without jeopardising everything that survived and everything that is starting to flourish. I want us to return to our homes at dawn, together, as the people of Amaurot, the City of Scholars, not as Scions of Darkness serving Zodiark. Saviour or no, something must needs control Him.”

Aigle grabbed their hands, her bright blue eyes fairly ablaze. Something told them that not even the Flametrail Gorge had ever looked as intense as those sapphire blue eyes framed by hair so blonde that it may as well have been spun gold.

Aigle had always had their back.

It was their turn to have hers.

“To defeat Scions of Darkness you will need Warriors of Light. To bind the Keeper of Precepts you will need a Giver of Answers. Let me be one of the blades you bring to bear.”

Their research was soon supported by more than merely the first initial group—they acted in silence as to not attract any sort of hostility from the ones who allied themselves with Zodiark. Sooner rather than later the population was more or less split; their supporters numbering much less than the ones who would rather see the old world return and likely going towards the same end. They raised their voices in soft verbal opposition on occasion, showing the clear rift that the Convocation refused to see for the longest times as many times as they could without angering them too much.

There had to be a way to shackle Zodiark without throwing the entire planet off balance. Something needed to be done to lift this cloak of darkness—but as Persephone had said early on, it soon became apparent that they would need a rather potent source of light to pierce the veil. The darkness was prevalent and almost comforting, but the light was buried somewhere. As an aetherologist on their side called Diogenes soon started to speculate, it seemed very likely that light itself had been re-routed into the Underworld, effectively swapping the elements of the living world and the world of the dead. It would explain why seemingly no souls were left if those with sight were to be believed—they had clung to the light of the living world, while those that were content with leaving had all dissipated into the darkness of the Underworld and become a stream with no individual colours.

At first they merely tried to tap into the Underworld to drag the light back out—but it slipped through their hands like sand in a desert. As their research soon turned frustrated and worried now that the Convocation was sending more people to the other continent, it was surprisingly enough young Mira who eventually voiced what they were all thinking by that point.

“In order to defeat a summoned deity… would we not need to summon one of our own making?”

The uproar in their meeting place was deafening, but Persephone knew that everyone had thought the same thing.

“Absolutely out of the question!”

“We will not repeat the Convocation’s folly!”

But about half the people did not chastise Mira for their suggestion. Worried, thoughtful glances were exchanged between those that did not immediately start yelling, and Persephone watched Aigle narrow her eyes in thought and then leaning over to Diogenes to to whisper something. They knew in that exact moment that a sacrifice of any sort was inevitable—but they put their trust into this group.

They almost wished they hadn’t when the first questions about the summoning process arose.

As formerly Auditor Mnemosyne they had been privy to information that the general public had not had access to under any circumstances. They knew the general idea behind a summoning, they eventually relented when asked time and time again, but during the years leading up to the End Days they had been busy with finding a solution that did not require a sacrifice to save the people of Amaurot. Whatever the finer details were, they had missed that part because they were not going to lend their fellows at the Convocation their energy for so foolish an endeavour.

They despised being the only person with true links to the Convocation through other means—it felt like one last betrayal to a friend who had already lost so much when they asked Hythlodaeus if he had the time to meet with them.

The former Auditor and the former Chief made for a strange pair as they took him into a part of the city that remained in a constant state of disrepair. After having seen him being led around by Emet-Selch so gently that they almost believed that Hades was still in there somewhere countless times they hesitated even asking if Hythlodaeus needed any help. He kept his eyes closed and he tensed up visibly when they stepped over something, but despite all of that he remained rather quiet and accepted their help when they asked that one time until finally they reached a part they knew no one would ever come to.

He remained tense when they opened their mouth and asked about Zodiark. Silently they cursed the very Underworld itself for forcing them into this situation, but a small voice in the back of their head told them that they could still walk away.

They were not going to break their vow. They could still protect the living, as long as they became a weapon to bind Zodiark.

It hurt, hearing Hythlodaeus of all people call his childhood friend by his title rather than his name. When they normally would have poked fun at their relationship that remained strangely ambiguous despite the fact that ever since the End Days Emet-Selch had been anything but shy about the affection he held for his former Chief, they instead pointed out that Hythlodaeus used the title rather than the name.

It seemed to break a small part of the wall that Hythlodaeus so carefully constructed around himself time and time again. They had pitied him, but that pity turned into agony at seeing their friend start sobbing as the details of summoning that they had wilfully ignored spilled out of him.

In those half-collapsed ruins where a table and chairs still stood, Persephone could not bear it a moment longer. They had gotten the information they needed, and Hythlodaeus was a grossly sobbing mess. They jumped to their feet and pulled him into an almost crushing embrace when he stopped crying—and immediately felt even worse when another tortured sound escaped him when they pulled him into their chest. It was an awful reminder that there were people who had not allied themselves with either side of the conflict, and Hythlodaeus was one of these people. They knew better than anyone else in Amaurot that he absolutely did not agree with what the Convocation did, but at the same time there was no way for him to leave Emet-Selch without breaking what little of himself that remained. Just as they had made a vow to protect the people, he had made a vow of his own that made choosing a side impossible for him.

There would be people caught in the crossfire, they said.

But the entire group and they agreed that it was a risk they had to take. Something needed to be done.

A summoning needed a truly obscene amount of aether. The fastest way to obtain such an obscene amount of aether was to sup upon that of living beings—that was the way the Convocation had done it. It was living aether that fuelled Zodiark.

It was Aigle, ever determined Aigle, who found a solution for their hunger for aether.

“Living aether is not just fauna. It is also flora. The Convocation of Thirteen is trying to raise the planet to bursting at the seams with vitality—I say we snipe a landmass to sate our hunger for aether. An uninhabited one. Whatever few survivors or new creatures live there, we bring them to the other continent.”

“… That might work. With the corruption at bay, using a landmass as fuel for a counter to Zodiark might as well let us tap into the aetherial streams of the Underworld.”

There would be no lives lost. They worked in silence, in the darkness that had blanketed the entire planet. The landmass they chose was a massive but empty island up in the cold north; once home to the City of Frost.

Aigle muttered repeats of what Elidibus had told her about the eternal ice that shone crystalline blue in the light of day, of how the mages of this city were versed in intensifying the frost into a coldness so overwhelming that all came to a peacefully quiet standstill. In Persephone’s ears it sounded horrifying; eternally cast in ice may as well have been a fate worse than death to them.

But as Aigle talked about it, they realised what power they needed to imbue their counter with.

Zodiark was a beating heart. They did not need to stop that heart entirely—they but needed to conserve it. What they needed was a quiet veil of ice; thick enough that the Convocation could not break it, not fragile enough that Zodiark could free Himself, not overwhelming enough that the world died in icy silence. A blade of light to strike clean, to shatter and scatter the body but also shackles of light to encase the heart of darkness.

“Diluting His powers would mean we dilute the rest if the planet as is,” Diogenes pointed out one icy evening in what Aigle had determined to have been the city centre of the City of Frost. “That level of dilution will not permit any of us to continue existing as we are. We will have to break the very laws of existence down and distribute those diluted existences across the shards of this planet equally. We would not be able to support our creation should anything re-ignite the heart of Zodiark to beat more forcefully.”

“… We would have to do as Zodiark did with the Convocation,” Persephone said quietly. All eyes turned onto them and they let out a heavy sigh. “We all know that Chief Hythlodaeus is blessed with eyes unclouded. Despite losing his physical sight, he can still see the very aether around him, even if it drains him now that the laws of existence have changed. When I spoke with him recently to ask what else he knew about summoning, he mentioned that something about the souls of the Convocation and those that allied themselves with Zodiark had changed. It is as if darkness had been threaded through their souls; if we dilute their souls down, those threads of darkness will not fade. They will remain Scions of Darkness—to counter that, we would have to embrace the light of our creation to the very base of our souls. We would have to literally become Warriors of Light to counter Scions of Darkness; no matter how diluted our existences are, we will answer the cry of the planet should the need arise.”

Aigle crossed her arms. “If we do that, we could of course ensure that in the event that the Convocation rises up again we can protect the people. But that leaves another question. Elidibus acts as the Emissary still, but rather than talk politics it seems as if he forwards the will of the planet to the people nowadays. We need… we need an emissary of our own. Perhaps not aware, but most definitely someone who, in the event that it is necessary, can act as a mouthpiece for our creation.”

The eternal ice was gone, but the snow still glittered in the morning sun. It sparkled all around them, this island that they made certain was uninhabited. Amidst the silver snow, Aigle and her gold hair seemed like an unreal apparition, like a spectre of the first rays of sunlight. No matter how many times they changed their appearance, they could not hope to look as ethereal and grimly determined as Aigle did that morning they approached her.

They knew what was on her mind. They had grown up together, had spent most of their long lives together. Their feelings remained the same—the loved one another, but not in the way that lovers did. Many people in old Amaurot would have laughed at this, but Persephone and Aigle had ever been content. But understanding one person that well meant that it made the next part worse.

No words would have sufficed; a simple determined nod might have done the trick. But Persephone let out a long sigh that turned into a soft laugh at the end.

“Were I a better friend, I would advise against this. We are not as few people as we think we are—I could ask someone else to do this and ask you to fight against any rise of Zodiark by my side. But I know you will not.”

“It does not mean that we cannot fight together—“

“Ai… no. You will not be a fighter if you become someone to speak for a deity in its hour of need.” They shook their head slightly. “But let me once more make a vow. I will be your blade of light, no matter how we are reborn or when, or why. Let me fight your battles—you make a better Emissary or Auditor than me. Let me be your Warrior.”

Sapphire blue eyes and hair spun of gold. If the Convocation looked like Servants of Darkness now in the eyes of those with sight, then surely she looked like an Oracle of Light. Their leader who would ideally never have to become a speaker for their deity, their leader who orchestrated the following events very deliberately.

Their creation, the Mother Hydaelyn rose from frost-kissed light won from the land—in direct opposition to the Convocation’s creation, the Saviour Zodiark who rose from fire-singed darkness that came from the souls of the people.

Persephone felt the light entwine itself with their soul, a soul that Hythlodaeus had often described as so multifaceted it blinded him a little, a soul that allegedly had a blue base barely visible through the secondary colour that was all yet none.

Amaurot fell a second time, and despite the fact that they were on opposing sides, despite the fact that it were their deities that clashed in the skies above, for a moment their group and the Convocation worked together to evacuate the city. For a moment they remembered their oath as Mnemosyne—to protect the people, to listen to them and be the voice the people did not have in the Convocation meetings. With a heavy pang of guilt they realised that they had acted against that oath; they had acted for a minority. Hythlodaeus’ voice cracked, a sound so strange coming from him as he looked around and he all but cried that something was breaking.

It tore at them as much as it tore into the others around them—they had all stood shoulder by shoulder, all those chosen to help raise the deity that now bore down upon the other. For a split moment they saw the fury blaze across the faces of the Convocation. For a moment it all stood still as they stared at one another; Scions of Darkness and Warriors of Light.

Then the Underworld poured forth from within the earth; the light that Zodiark had buried bursting out and shattering everything around them. It was a sharp, distinct pain as the blade of light pierced the laws of the star that Zodiark had rewritten at the behest of the Convocation. It cleaved through them and their souls, through the planet itself as Hydaelyn shackled Him as they had asked Her to.

A clean divide.

Perhaps the Convocation would remember their own oaths once the darkness was diluted alongside their souls.

They did not know why, but something about this Headmistress of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn immediately felt familiar.

Perhaps it was because they both had the Echo, but they felt connected to her. Like an old friend, suddenly back in their life. At this very moment they were but an adventurer with an unusual power and the headmistress of a small organisation that opposed forces of darkness that worked behind the scenes. They accepted her invitation with a quiet nod; they were not a person of many words. But something about this Minfilia was… so familiar that it filled them with a strange yearning for days that seemed so utterly distant that they had no idea what they even were about.

“You certainly seem to lack ambition,” Minfilia laughed over a glass of wine after they had slain Ifrit; most of the others had long gone to bed and Thancred had busied himself with hitting on some unsuspecting equally drunk soul. “Most people in situations like yours wind up consumed by ambition or the desire to prove themselves the strongest. So why not you?”

They shrugged, twanging the string of their bow beside them. “Dunno,” they said after a moment. “Never really occurred to me to have any sorta ambition.”

“Oh no, no, this was not meant to be a reprimand, my friend. It is merely… unusual? You do have to tell me more about yourself once we have a moment.”

They rolled their eyes with a smile. “Only if you tell me more about yourself.”

The chance for that conversation did not come. They started hunting down even the smallest hint of these Ascians, then were roped into facing the Lord of the Crags. By the time they hoped they would have a moment to breathe, Minfilia and the rest of the Scions were gone. Most lay slaughtered in their headquarters, but as the Echo soon revealed the conspicuously missing ones were still alive and held captive somewhere.

They swore vengeance upon the empire, a surprisingly selfish and ambitious claim, one that many would rightfully call insane. But nothing would stop them—not the silver snow of Coerthas after the Calamity, not a dragon, not the entire bloody horde, not the Lady of Vortex. Not even a fledgling settlement in the shade of the Crystal Tower. A flash of red caught their eye as they prepared an assault on Castrum Centri to free the Scions, but the flash of red was gone before they had a chance to investigate.

Somehow their selfish ambition turned out to be the right thing, seeing as the Mothercrystal supported them even when their arrow was nocked to pierce Thancred’s heart. Was the life of a comrade worth the defeat of this Lahabrea? It had to be.

But the Mothercrystal that had guided their steps according to Minfilia whispered that they should not heed the dark minion’s subtle words. There was a way to save Thancred, there was a way to banish the dark back to where it belonged.

But where did the dark belong?

Minfilia, too, wondered that in the days following the defeat of Gaius van Baelsar and the Ultima Weapon. Light without dark may as well have been a glare to end all life, she mused as the two of them nursed more drinks. They said nothing, the newly named Warrior of Light a person of few words and many actions. Silently traded bow and arrow for an axe at around the same time they found the flash of red again.

The Crystal Tower beckoned, and with that expedition came G’raha Tia who, much like Minfilia, seemed to see them as more than a blade of light that could be used time and time again without dulling. Minfilia oft bade them rest in the few moments of quiet in Eorzea—G’raha Tia roped them from one research project into another, a cheerful and cheeky laugh often escaping him when asked about it.

“I know, I know—you’re the Warrior of Light, there are Scions of Darkness out and about, and here I am, asking you to roll through dusty tomes with me. The sheer audacity! But you’re a person, not a bloody weapon. People need to do something else every so often. Sure, it’s nothing exciting and it is related to this upcoming excursion, but c’mon. It’s not like I’m forcing you to read with me, but here you are. Which can only mean I’m not godawful company, and this is not a chore.”

They rolled their eyes and shoved the book away. “G’raha Tia, how on earth is a guy as infuriatingly friendly as you still single?”

“Are you coming onto me, O Warrior of Light?”

“Hells, no. Just wondering.”

“Trade secret!” He laughed and snapped his book closed. “And even if it weren’t, Warrior of Light or not, it would be none of your business.”

Perhaps they should have left before they grew attached to anyone. But as the doors of the Crystal Tower fell shut with G’raha Tia still inside, a part of their heart twisted in agony over losing him. They barely knew him—yet it felt as if they had lost someone they had known for a better part of their life.

It felt as if someone gutted them when Minfilia turned around with a surprised cry. Hydaelyn beckoned her, and though every cell in their body rebelled against letting her go, they let her go. It was as if deep, deep down they knew that this was her destiny. They would never know why Minfilia felt like a childhood friend they had never had. They would never hear an explanation for why she and the Ascians were so familiar that it hurt them so strangely despite no memory of any of them existing prior to meeting them.

There was no reason for them to think of Nabriales as anything but a murderer who had gotten his right due at too high a price; yet something deep down muttered that he had not always been like that.

There was no reason for them to stare at the Ascian Igeyorhm beside the Archbishop and wonder when she had become like this.

There was no reason for them to grieve for Lahabrea for a split moment.

There was no reason for them to be the one breaking down sobbing after Minfilia was confirmed lost to them. Thancred had lost someone he had known much longer, F’lhammin had lost her adoptive daughter—yet here they were, feeling as if someone had ripped part of their soul out. And underneath that sheer, raw agony, there was this infuriating feeling of everything being as it should it; Minfilia as the Word of the Mother was correct. It was correct, it was what was necessary for… for… for what?

They did not know.

No answers presented themselves as they freed two nations from the empire. No answers as one by one the Scions were whisked away. No answers as they came face to face with the Ascian Elidibus who had sworn neutrality and now broke that oath.

No answers, more questions, as the Crystal Exarch showed them around the Crystarium in a world so similar yet different.

The first answer in a sense they ever received came from the Ascian Emet-Selch, an answer they did not expect from him in that very moment.

“Not that you would remember any of this.”

A voice that sounded like G’raha Tia’s and the Crystal Exarch’s—yet not at all—echoed in their dream that night under skies ablaze with light, whispering that something was breaking. It broke, it shattered, and they awoke with a wildly beating heart. They did not remember. But as the Ascian had said, they had once known.

They lagged behind a little, the greatsword suddenly heavy in their hands as the Scions went on ahead. Not much of Mt Gulg remained, and Ryne was the sole Scion to notice them. She fell in beside them, her daggers resting against her hips rather than drawn and ready to fend off any Sin Eaters they came across.

Warrior of Light and Oracle of Light, even if the people of Norvrandt would have called them the Warrior of Darkness if they knew.

“Not much longer,” she said, all cheer from her voice gone in that moment. She sounded sombre. “What will you do when this is over?”

The Exarch had asked them the same thing. The Exarch, who said things that only G’raha Tia should have known. They had said that perhaps they would take the fight to the Garlean Empire on the Source, but now as they stared at the light-covered skies for a moment all they could do was shake their head.

“Rest a while, I suppose.”

They were exhausted. They were scared.

At their heart of hearts they had always known that Hydaelyn was a Primal. The nonchalant way that Emet-Selch had said that he, too, was tempered, had been familiar. The Ascian was familiar in ways that they did not like—it was similar to how Minfilia and G’raha Tia had been.

If Emet-Selch, a Scion of Darkness, was tempered—what did that make them and Ryne, Ardbert and his companions, anyone else with the Echo? All those Warriors of Light that opposed the Ascians on the shards?

They did not have an answer.

They did not emerge with one when they slew Emet-Selch—Hades. There was no answer. It did not feel like a triumph for a moment.

All they could do was continue the fight. They had vowed as much time and time again. They had long since accepted that.

Perhaps even in Amaurot.

But the only person to likely ever answer that unasked question of whether they had or not was dead now. They would have to accept that as well.