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"Are you aware that you're being followed by a ghost?"
Ardbert feels the hair on the back of his neck immediately stand on end at Emet-Selch's words. He's been following the Warrior of Light through the First for some time now, and they're currently back in his room in the Crystarium, resting before they head once more into the deserts of Amh Areang. Emet-Selch, too, has been something of a constant fixture in the Warrior's life--coming and going like he is the phantom, appearing whenever he seemingly pleased--but this is the first time he's shown signs that he can perceive Ardbert's presence as well.
Meteor looks up from the basket of sandwiches he'd been eating, tilting his head toward Emet-Selch in what Ardbert knows is feigned confusion. He's holding back their hand, waiting to see if Emet-Selch is talking about what they both know he's talking about or if he's simply being cryptic, as usual.
Emet-Selch rolls his eyes. "Oh please, do not feign ignorance with me," he says, gesturing a hand lazily in the direction of Ardbert. "I have seen you converse with it more than once. I was simply uncertain whether or not you understood that it is dead and does not belong here."
Ardbert bares his teeth in a grimace, half anger, half something like embarrassment. Emet-Selch has, knowingly or otherwise, hit on a nerve. Ardbert knows full well that he doesn't belong here, but here he is anyway. That has to mean something.
Or, at least, that's what he keeps telling himself. Hydaelyn wouldn't have seen fit to deny him rest if there wasn't some reason for his still being here, right?
Meteor sits down his half finished sandwich, turning to face Emet-Selch in full, his gray eyes narrowing in warning. This is a topic he's not keen on continuing, that much is clear in every bit of his posture, although Ardbert highly doubts Emet-Selch will heed the signs.
If anything, he seems even more delighted that Meteor's actually paying him mind, like he's finally managed to find a wound to dig into.
"So you do understand that it's dead," Emet-Selch says, although Meteor's said nothing of the sort. "Well, in that case, you'll surely have no qualms to my sending it along?"
Ardbert bristles at once. He steps forward, hands flexing at his sides as if he means to strike Emet-Selch then and there. Meteor's eyes flick up to Ardbert for a moment, gauging his reaction, before they settle once more on Emet-Selch.
"Leave him be," he says, calmly.
Emet-Selch sniffs. He gets up from where he'd been lounging on the wooden bench to pace through the room and precisely to where Ardbert is standing, stopping mere inches from his face. Ardbert thinks for a moment that Emet-Selch must not truly be able to see him, for him to walk so close; but then the Ascian lifts a hand and brings it to Ardbert's shoulder, a faint, small smile curling at the corner of his lips as he passes through.
"Ah, but it should be up to the ghost, shouldn't it?" Emet-Selch says, his golden eyes locked on Ardbert's in clear indication that he is addressing him, now. "Would you like to rest, oh Warrior of Light? Return to the Sea that your goddess has seen fit to deny you?"
Ardbert hesitates. Emet-Selch sees it, and the smile turns softer, sadder, somehow. A farce, no doubt. Ardbert clenches his fists once more, steeling his resolve against the Ascians' honeyed words and promises of rest. He can't trust him, even if he wanted to. He's made that mistake once before and look where it got him.
"No," Ardbert says. His voice cracks at first, and he clears his throat, repeating the word more firmly a second time. "Leave me be."
Emet-Selch seems unsurprised by his response; but there's a flicker of something in his eyes, something Ardbert almost thinks he recognizes, before the Ascian's expression steels itself once more and he instead offers only a lazy shrug.
"It was my duty to the Star, once, to usher along souls like yours, dear Warrior," he says. Ardbert stiffens, but he does not back down. "Were I of that station still, I would be remiss to not send you to the Sea where you belong."
Here Emet-Selch pauses, watching Ardbert like he's looking for something, like he wants a particular reaction. Ardbert gives him nothing.
Emet-Selch shrugs once more. "But no longer," he says, and then he turns and waves a hand dismissively. "Fine, then. But should you change your mind, I will be here to offer you the reprieve I know you crave."
And then he's gone, the air snapping around him in a fit of darkness, and Ardbert is left staring at the blank space where the Ascian had once been.
They stand in silence, Meteor watching him from his station at the dinner table, Ardbert standing stock still in the middle of the room. The Warrior is waiting for him to speak, probably, but Ardbert has nothing to say, for once.
Because he'd been tempted. Gods, he'd been tempted. He's still tempted, even though he knows better, even though he knows Emet-Selch is an Ascian and a liar and has no reason to offer him anything good.
But he's so tired.
He leaves without saying goodbye. That's the benefit to being a ghost, he's found. You can come and go as you please and little things like social graces really don't matter when there's only one (two) people in the whole damned world who can see you.
He leaves the Crystarium entirely, heads out of Lakeland, no real destination in mind until he finds himself on the shores of Khoulsia, looking out over an ocean that ends only in a wall of white where an archipelago of islands once stood.
He always ends up back here.
He drops onto his knees in the sand, clenches his fists in the grains as if he can feel them (even though he can't, of course he can't), and he screams.