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Amaurot. The city’s spires slithered skyward in their metallic unfurl like fingers reaching fervently for air promised by the surface, only to succumb to the peace of a watery grave; pirouetting gracefully into the abyss that was its reality. The irony was cruel comparative to its fate: a metropolis clawing at displaced shards of light that pierced its core, mirroring the licking flames that had first consumed it.
Set against an aquatic backdrop, the paved streets stretched beyond perception. Near empty walkways were lit with the glow of stained glass panes, bathing patterned stone with familial warmth and an otherworldly chill in tandem. Manifest not from bored apathy, but an untapped passion that bordered on mania, seemingly perfect in transference from the mind of the Architect whom had worked tirelessly to make it so, its majesty was unlike anything the sundered world might know. And yet, for all it's accuracy, it was but an echo; trapped in time and lost to the ages.
On high, Emet-Selch looked down on all he had painstakingly recreated; gloved fingers curled inward on ivory-clad palms that pressed, in rest, against the chilled marble of the rooftop ledge. Hunched with the burden that had taken toll 'pon humanoid husk, his hair had become disheveled in travel; two-tone locks falling uneven on pale cheeks to obscure expression ‘neath incidental veil. Only ragged breaths bespoke his disposition, cutting through the transcendental silence with an ache that bordered on the feral. For several beats, the Ascian stood motionless, the rage and disgust broiling within his very core stifled by the slow close of dark lashes, and quelled, eventually, with the approximation of a secondary presence.
The sound of footsteps were familiar to him, for he had conjured them in his loneliness. Knowing, as he did, the figure's approach was but a manifestation of memories held dear, it did little to stymie breath’s hitch, nor the sliver of physical ease attributed; fleeting though it may have been. Beside, amidst the flow of dark robes and the stray of white hair from an oversized hood, the ghostly apparition leaned forward over that selfsame ledge to perceive the city below. Azem's smile had always been infectious. Even glanced sidelong it coaxed longing sigh from bitter snarl and persisted long after the figment had dissipated into the nether whence it came.
Stirred from memory's indulge, the emanation of an aura in approach of the city's outer limits roused the Architect from his whimsied reflection. In sequential vanish from the dais, a gloved thumb, subconsciously fondling an anchor-shaped crystal, ceased its ministration and the amber stone, aforementioned, was returned to its place of safekeeping nearest Hades’ heart.
So came the newly named Warrior of Darkness: inundated, by design, with primordial light, to confront the ancient heart; spires funneling downward into the city’s center akin aorta, pulsing with aether for its sustain. In witness, breathless, a scintillant speck of the subliminally familiar flared abreast, and with it, for reason unbeknownst, a singular tear shone bright in jawline trajectory; wherein a void, known not to exist, was discovered in momentary wholeness.