Work Text:
If those remaining had been anyone else, they might have spent the time immediately after the Sundering in shock. Mourning, railing against what had been done, lost to anything but emotion. The work would have begun after a period of recovery. Perhaps they would have turned to one another for support, lacking their usual sources of strength. Perhaps they would have grown closer.
Perhaps, if they had been anyone else. But they were not.
“We must get to work,” Emet-Selch said, as soon as they had truly realized what had happened, as soon as they were able to understand that they were all that was left. He did not yet know what that work would be, but if anyone could apply themselves to it, they could. And Lahabrea and Elidibus had known, and agreed, and they’d gotten to work. They’d created a plan, set it into motion. They had applied themselves.
But grief had followed them nonetheless.
Or so Emet-Selch believed. He was not the weakest among them, was he? If that was so, then the others must be as haunted as he was. Even if none of them shared it with each other. And why would they? As much as he might respect his colleagues, he had never loved them, never held them close as friends the way he had - others. He did not even know for certain what they might have lost. Friends, lovers, family? Lahabrea would never speak of such things. Elidibus, too full of Zodiark’s being to speak of anything so personal, though he might have in the past. When he’d been only himself.
And of course Emet-Selch could not, would not speak to them of his loss. What was there to say? He’d been betrayed, Azem turning away from his outstretched hand to find some other way. Thoughtless, brash, doomed. The memory brought him anger more than sadness, which gave him strength.
The memory of Hythlodaeus was the one that cut to the bone. They’d said their goodbyes, and Emet-Selch had resolved not to grieve. His lover would return, and until then, Hythlodaeus was doing all that he could for their star. As he always had, despite his demurrals and modesty. They would see one another again.
And now, they would not.
Even when a plan had been formed, even when Emet-Selch knew what they would do to return their star to what it had been, the grief did not lift. What sort of timeline was it, after all? Hundreds of years? Thousands? More?
They would succeed. He would succeed. And the more Emet-Selch told himself that, the more he believed it, the more the grief began to recede. He could remember Hythlodaeus’ smile without cursing Venat’s name. He could think of his laughter without feeling repugnant tears prick at his eyes.
It would be all right. He would fix this. All of it.
There was no need to grieve, he told himself.
Their first success should perhaps have been exhilarating, but Emet-Selch felt little besides a distant relief. He had been certain their plan would work, but he had not truly known it. Not until that success. It was only then that he could see the faint certainty of victory. One day, they would have their star back the way it ought to be.
There was little sense in celebrating this small victory, when there was so much left to be done. Emet-Selch did not pause in his work, did not allow himself to become distracted.
He did, very briefly, let himself think of how it might feel to see Hythlodaeus again.
He would be impressed by what they had done, Emet-Selch had no doubt of that. Hythlodaeus had always been famously unstinting with his praise, enough so that he had taken it for teasing more than once. And it had been - but it had been true praise, as well. It had been what he’d really felt.
Emet-Selch had never cared much for praise. Never desired it, never used it as motivation. What had to be done would be done, and if it was by his hand then why should he be praised for it? For simply doing his job? And yet, when Hythlodaeus was the one speaking such words, he had felt somewhat differently.
He’d praised Emet-Selch for ridiculous things as well as great ones - for choosing a wine he ended up particularly liking, for saying something scathing to someone he didn’t like, for doing something especially creative when they were in bed together. Emet-Selch had always scowled, rolled his eyes, ignored it.
He would when they met again, too. He would also appreciate it, silently, just as he always had. He would hold it in his heart, the way he never wished to do for anyone else.
Hythlodaeus was different, after all. When they met again, perhaps Emet-Selch would find a way to express that more clearly. He had always simply assumed Hythlodaeus knew. Perhaps in that way he could repay the praise he was certain to receive.
This time, he knew he had earned it. Pushing a world to it destruction was no simple task. Hythlodaeus, of course, would see that.
There were, over the years - so many years that Emet-Selch preferred not to count - many things that he wished he could show Hythlodaeus. He avoided thinking about it too often, disgusted by his own sentiment, angry once more at a loss that sometimes still felt fresh, annoyed by the mere thought that these pale reflections of perfection could create anything worthwhile.
Not that it was worthwhile, really. They were nothing so creative and remarkable as what his own people could have made, had they been given the time that these creatures had taken from them. Their star would have been even more beautiful, even more flawless than it had been when it was lost. Someday they would have that chance again, and do even better.
But despite that truth - a truth that left Emet-Selch full of venom whenever he thought of it - there were interesting things. Entertaining ones, even, particularly when the creators brought about their own destruction because of it.
So it was with the decline and fall of the Allagan empire.
In their glory days, he had wandered among them. Not his project, not really, but it all blurred together sometimes. He had thought of what Hythlodaeus might think, seeing the strange heights they had risen to, their clumsy blend of magic and technology. He knew already that it would be their downfall, and he and his colleagues could have simply left them to it and let it happen, if they wished.
But oh, how Hythlodaeus would have laughed at their low cleverness. The way they worked so hard to make their own lives easier, more decadent. The odd, busy aesthetic they preferred, so unlike Amaurot’s clean lines and stark beauty.
Emet-Selch didn’t like it. Hythlodaeus would not have liked it either, would have had quite a bit to say about their creations, but he would have found it deeply entertaining. So much so that Emet-Selch felt an echo of it, watching the empire rise, knowing that its fall would be nothing more than it deserved.
How he wished, when he let himself, that he could walk those streets with Hythlodaeus. See through the eyes of his beloved, which always saw more clearly and truly than his own. Ask what he thought, and listen to the opinions that Hythlodaeus had never bothered softening, not when they were together.
When they were together again, Emet-Selch would tell him. He would weave a tale of this place, its follies and its fancies, its rotten end. And Hythlodaeus would smile, and say that he was sorry he’d missed it, but that he was pleased it was gone. Who needed such a disgusting creation, after all?
He always saw so clearly.
No matter how the years stretched, no matter the weariness that he would never speak of aloud, Emet-Selch did not forget. He could not forget. Such a sin would be tantamount to giving up, to failing his people.
The memories were, at times, the only thing that kept him fighting that weariness. He refused to admit it, even to himself, but even so he knew it was true. He would never give up, could never stop fighting for his home - but he was tired.
Thousands of years. The days should have felt like grains of sand, slipping away so easily, and perhaps they had at the beginning. Now they inched along, thorns in his flesh digging and clinging as he forced his way through. Now he played his role, an old and weary ruler of an empire he’d created, and it wasn’t quite an act.
The thing he’d built was nothing like the perfect world he’d lost. They never were, because he never tried to make them be. What point would that be? These creatures, these crawling pathetic insects, could never create such a beautiful thing. They made kingdoms and empires, they fought each other over bits of land or made-up belief systems or their own ideas of superiority. In the days he remembered, none of that would ever have happened. His people were not so weak.
But those memories, as precious as they were, failed to ignite in him the spark he remembered. It had been so bright once, bright and hot and angry. It had driven him, driven all three of them. They’d known what they were doing, their purpose as bright as sunlight.
Had they known it would take this long? Emet-Selch didn’t remember, and couldn’t ask. Lahabrea had never been one for casual conversation, and now he was impossible to talk to, his sanity apparently slipping away. Elidibus was fractured, fading, his original personality overwritten. Emet-Selch could not even bring himself to care, particularly. What were they to him? Colleagues, nothing more.
He remembered that fire that they had shared. That purpose. He remembered the deep and aching loss.
It wasn’t gone. It was a part of him, now and forevermore.
That didn’t make it easier. His memories drove him, always, but they no longer made the days, months, years, any easier. Remembering the smiles of those he’d considered friends, the clean lines of his city, the warmth of Hythlodaeus’ hand in his -
He wanted it back. He would never give up, never stop, no matter how empty those memories were now.
He remembered being in love. He didn’t remember, anymore, what it had felt like.
Emet-Selch had always let his memories drive him. He held Amaurot in his heart, and everything he did was for his people. His loved ones. His home. Recreating those streets twisted whatever was left of his heart. Thinking of that shard of Azem roaming the thing he had built was satisfying and disgusting at the same time.
They had wandered these streets together, once upon a time, the two of them and Hythlodaeus. He had tried not to think of those days over the many thousands of years, had tried not to taint those memories with the recollection of what had followed. He had been so happy then. But those memories had remained vivid, he thought, strong and clear.
Only now, as he built the home he had once loved, did he begin to realize that things were missing.
His mind was intact. He was not like Elidibus, losing himself fully in what he had become. But his memories -
He had always thought they were flawless. He’d never tested them like this.
Had it been a wine shop on this corner, or a place selling flatbread? Had this road curved west or east? Azem’s shard would not know the difference, so the only reason it mattered was the betrayal Emet-Selch felt, betrayal at his own mind. He should have forgotten nothing. It should be impressed on his soul, branded so deeply he could still feel the pain.
It hurt all the more now.
He tried not to be bothered by it. He was tired. It had been so long. He’d never much liked that wine shop (flatbread seller?) anyway, so why should he remember it?
But when he began to populate that false city, the pain cut deeper.
Of course he would remember few faces. Their masks meant that he’d known few, only his close friends, only those he cared for and trusted enough to relax propriety around regularly. It didn’t matter that all he could create were featureless beings - he knew who they were meant to be. He’d never truly known their faces to begin with.
But Hythlodaeus -
He’d spent blissful mornings studying that sleeping face, each fine line, the curve of his nose, his lashes against his cheek. Then Hythlodaeus would wake, and Emet-Selch would scowl, pretending annoyance that his lover had lain abed so long. Never mind that he’d stayed too, a thing which always made Hythlodaeus smile.
His smile. He’d known that too, as deeply as anything, as strongly as the shape of the moon in the sky. Some days, young and stupid and in love, he’d thought that his heart beat to the shape of that smile.
Now he created Hythlodaeus’ shade, and he could not remember the exact tilt of that smile.
Were his eyes the right color, or just a bit off? His hair the correct silky texture? Was any of it right?
The worst part was that he should have been horrified. He should have done it over, again and again, until he knew it was right. But all he could feel was a quiet, weary disgust. To forget this of all things, this shadow that had been haunting his thoughts for so long.
In the end, he made Hythlodaeus as faceless as the others. It felt like a betrayal. It felt like the only thing he could do.
One way or another, in death or in life, he would see it again. That smile, the one his heart once beat for.
Would he recognize it when he did?