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Alexander Candleson signs up to be a DAEMON with his young friend, Kevin. “Usually we only allow parties of three or more, for safety reasons,” the woman handing out the riddles says. “That restriction was lifted recently, but I’m still obligated to ask you if you’re sure about this.”
“Of course we are sure, but thank you for the concern,” Alex says with a smile. It feels stiff. Something is wrong.
Something is missing.
But he doesn ’t say that, even though Kevin kind of looks like he’s thinking the same thing. It’s probably just that they’re a party of two; of course they feel strange after being told most parties are of three or more. Alex takes the little paper with the riddle of it from the woman and shoots her another smile before turning and heading towards the library.
“I fear nothing beside water,” says the riddle, and Alex frowns at the grammar. This whole event is led by the Daybreaks, a rather official sort of thing, and yet they can’t find someone to double-check their riddles?
He and Kevin make a mess of the library. Once they ’re in the cafeteria, talking over the riddle and wondering whether they can bring an entire bucket of water into the arena, Alex turns to his right and opens his mouth and says-
Nothing. He says nothing. There ’s no one there to say anything to, after all—why would he say anything?
“Are you okay?” Kevin asks, sounding almost nervous.
“Of course, lad,” Alex replies, but something. is. wrong.
As it turns out, the monster they ’re meant to fight is a troll, and Alex recognizes as soon as he sees it that their preparation is all for naught. Luckily, he has a fire rod stored in his pack, and he and Kevin manage to use it to slice the troll’s head off—though it is a struggle.
The people watching the arena cheer, and they are handed their official DAEMON badges. Alex swallows hard as he takes his, fighting the urge to hold his hand out for another.
☼☼☼
They ’re given a sewer monster in Pharendall to fight. When they arrive at the city, though, a creature of stone swoops down and steals Kevin’s badge—seemingly instinctively, Kevin turns around with his hand out, but no one is there. Empathizing with his friend’s uncertainty, Alex gives up his own badge so Kevin can have one. He’s sure they’ll reclaim the other eventually.
They fight the thing—a gargoyle—in a temple of Lathandar on the top layer. Alex is hesitant to swipe anything from the church to get its attention, but it turns out he doesn ’t have to; the gargoyle is drawn by the shine of the knocker on the doors, and from there it’s just a matter of fighting it.
The church is silent as they fight. Alex wonders briefly if angels exist, and, if so, why they would allow their god ’s temple to be desecrated in such a way.
Kevin gets his badge back. He and Alex are hurt, alarmingly so—they retreat into the infirmary in Alex ’s haven, but it’s a very near thing. They shouldn’t have survived that battle, Alex realizes. Parties of three, indeed.
☼☼☼
Sama—which is as much of her name as she ’s capable of saying, when Alex and Kevin arrive—is in dire straits, and she barely responds to Alex’s attempt at healing. Her manager cares for her little, and makes no effort to console her—only to save their own hide when a higher-up arrives. Alex finds it unprofessional at best and downright cruel at worst, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s not the type to pick fights that aren’t his to begin with.
He and Kevin venture down into the sewers. Kevin worries about the methane, so they do not light a lantern; Alex came prepared for a glow stone, but it ’s lost when he tumbles into fast-moving sewer water. It carries him down, down, down, to a man who he can’t save and, afterward, to a monster he was not prepared to fight. He and Kevin do their best, and it is—barely—enough, but when the monster lands on Alex afterward, Kevin struggles to lift it long enough for Alex to get out. Alex goes on and on at first about how Kevin should just leave him here, old as he is, but Kevin protests and manages to get him out in the end. Still, Alex’s chest feels… empty, and not much helps to fill it even once they are in the haven.
☼☼☼
When they arrive at the Three Story Stay (they walk there, though Alex feels inexplicably that they should have used magic instead), it is painfully easy to get in. Elfo, the bouncer(?) flirts with Kevin, who edges past him uncomfortably before sitting with Alex at the bar.
They meet a man named Caleb. He is afflicted by nightmares and trauma— PTSD, supplies a strange voice in his head—and asks for their help. Alex is happy to help, and Kevin doesn ’t much mind, so they start on the journey towards Yee.
Alex does his best to relieve the man ’s nightmares with magic, but it doesn’t seem to work, and Caleb is up at all hours of the night, sometimes scarfing down the contents of their pantries and sometimes just staring off into the night. It unsettles Alex, and he often wishes, despite his efforts to remain polite, that there were someone around to provide a barrier between him and Caleb’s oddities. Kevin keeps his distance, after all, and neither of them makes a particularly good connection with Caleb.
In Yee, Alex prepares to hold back a band of werewolves, or perhaps gnolls, or perhaps something else entirely—the few people willing to help are really not that helpful at all. It ’s not until Alex and Kevin are actively battling the foe (gnolls, as it turns out) that Caleb transforms in front of them, his body twisting and breaking in monstrous ways before settling him into the form of a gnoll himself.
Alex and Kevin fight and fight and fight, until their muscles ache and their minds tire and their souls sing that something is missing, missing, missing-
And then there is a piercing light from the heavens, shining down and enveloping them—Alex sinks to his knees and can do nothing to help as Kevin wails in pain.
When the light clears, the darkness takes over—Alex can see nothing, not even his own hands in front of his face, and he reaches out blindly for Kevin for several minutes until he finally feels hands on his own. Kevin ’s breaths are heavy and uneven, and Alex’s fear almost stops him from asking, but in the end, his worry overcomes him. “Are you alright, lad?” he asks, and Kevin sobs.
“I can’t transform,” he says, and Alex’s breath hitches. He is no longer a werewolf. He is just a human.
What kind of phenomenon could rob Kevin of his monstrosity and Alex of his sight? He doesn ’t know, except that the gaping pit of something missing in his chest has spread upward to capture his throat, to make his words come out strangled and unsure.
“I cannot see,” Alex says. “And you cannot transform. How-?”
How can they keep going?
“We have to try,” says Kevin, desperation tainting his every word, and all Alex can do is agree.
☼☼☼
They go to Raxip, where Kevin nearly dies to a clay golem and Alex meets a young girl who can animate objects. He also comes across a being, one who strikes all his senses as powerful, and that being offers him sight.
“In exchange for what?” he asks, and the being pauses.
“I don’t know,” they reply. “There should be-”
But they stop.
“Bring the girl to the jungle of Kh’A’Lun,” the being says, more confident now.
Something is missing, sings Alex ’s soul. But if it is missing, then he has nothing holding him back, right?
“Okay,” he says, and when he next wakes, he can see.
☼☼☼
With Debbie in tow, they travel on horseback towards the jungle. They stop for a rest at the town of Mobos, and Alex can see everything in striking clarity … but somehow, he feels he could have seen it better, perhaps through someone else ’s eyes. It’s that same feeling of missing, empty, gone, but this time it is harder to chase away.
He and Kevin fight a snake monster, and then Kevin falls briefly in love with a woman, and then … it feels like there should be something else to fight, but there’s nothing. Kevin promises to visit Darla, and then they leave, and that’s that.
☼☼☼
They pass a pyramid. This time the feeling of something missing is so strong that it knocks Alex off his horse; he falls to the ground and collapses inward, hugging himself tightly, squeezing his eyes shut, yearning for something nonexistent but important enough that its absence steals the world ’s color.
“Alex?” Kevin asks worriedly, jumping off his horse. “What’s wrong?”
“I wish I knew,” Alex replies through gritted teeth.
“Me too,” says Debbie, who has not left Alex’s horse.
Alex sighs, pushing himself to his feet. He sways for a moment before catching his balance, and he spares the pyramid one last glance before hopping back up onto his horse. “It’s nothing,” he says, though it pains him. “We should hurry on.”
Kevin doesn ’t seem convinced, but he gets back on his horse anyway. Alex sees blue and orange every time he closes his eyes.
The pyramid fades into the distance as they carry onward, and Alex tries his best to calm the desperate beating of his heart.
☼☼☼
The feeling gets worse and worse and worse. Some moments are more painful than others; others pass without issue.
They leave Debbie in Kh ’A’Lun. They solve a mystery in a quaint little town called Mallharc. They sneak into a Daybreak event to find information on some of Lathandar’s angels.
They return to Mallharc to find an angel of Sune named Eros. Eros ’ appearance sends Alex reeling simply because of how it calms him and angers him at the same time. They feel so close, and yet so far, from what Alex needs.
Alex and Kevin learn about an angel named Zabrell who seems to be following them. After a series of intelligence missions, they manage to lure Zabrell into Shar ’s void. Instinctively, without entirely knowing why, Alex aims for Zabrell’s halo. It weakens hir considerably, and he and Kevin are able to take hir down.
At the last second, Zabrell calls out, reciting something powerful, and the faces of the gods disappear one by one. Even Shar ’s influence fades from the void.
Back in Mallharc, Kevin tentatively asks, “Are you going to retire?”
“Why would I?” Alex asks.
“I don’t know,” Kevin replies. “I just thought… I don’t know.”
☼☼☼
Alex and Kevin meet Matty and Ekaf.
They ’re nice enough, Alex thinks. Matty sort of reminds him of someone, though the feeling of what—the feeling of something missing— has been slowly but surely fading away. They fight Somnolentia, an angel turned feral by the lack of connection to their god. Somnolentia puts some of them to sleep, Alex included, and Alex dreams of …
Ileao.
The name slips away from him nearly as soon as it appears, but it leaves that feeling of something missing strong enough to take over his lungs again, to steal his breath away and make him wonder why he ’s even on this mission when someone is very clearly waiting for him.
He wakes from the dream with the echoes of an otherworldly appearance shadowed behind his eyes, and he has to take a moment just to recover from the momentary joy it brings him.
With renewed vigor, Alex carries on.
☼☼☼
Alex ’s hope is starting to fade.
They ’ve fought several feral angels since then. Each one is a disappointment in Alex’s eyes, because none of them quell the wanting feeling that surges through his veins at seemingly random moments.
When Alex casts his magic, fiery and upsettingly normal, he thinks it.
When Alex realizes no one is watching his back with beautiful familiarity, he knows it.
But when Alex reaches out his hand to hold someone else ’s, to be held, he feels it in every ounce of his soul.
And then, like a spark in the darkness, there is chaos.
There are gem monsters, talking frogs. Mallharc is a mess. Things keep changing, ever changing, and Alex ’s chest feels full to bursting by the time he and the rest of his party make it up to large castle. They make it inside, into a stunning throne room dotted with crystals, and Alex’s breath hitches when he sees em.
Ileao.
Ileao is cackling manically, chaos magic crackling around em, but Alex doesn ’t care. He runs towards em, ignoring the alarmed cries of his party, and skids to a halt in front of em.
“Ileao,” Alex says breathlessly, and Ileao pauses, eir magic stuttering.
“Alex?” Ileao asks, just as affected, and Alex slumps in relief.
“Yes,” he says, months and months of wrongness melting out of his soul. “Yes, it’s me!” He reaches out to hold em, but ey yank away, eir eyes flashing with uncertainty, and Alex’s heart sinks. “Ileao?”
“I’m different,” Ileao says slowly, eir freckles one by one turning from multicolored to black.
“So am I,” Alex says. “It has been cycles upon cycles of missing something, missing you.”
“I’m six hundred years different,” Ileao clarifies, watching him warily. “I am an angel of chaos, and I always have been, and that makes me different.”
“Oh,” Alex says. He feels like he’s been fucking shot. “So you do not… want me.”
“That’s not what I said,” Ileao says quickly. Ey reach out and take his hand, and Alex’s heart pangs at the rightness of it. “I just- I don’t-” Ey make a strangled sort of noise, and then ey drop Alex’s hand and step back, saying, “I don’t think I can- Alex, it’s really hard to hold on to common sense right now, I can’t, it’s all just- just-”
“Chaos,” Alex finishes for em, taking a step back. Ileao nods, looking pained as eir eyes flash through a billion more colors than Alex even knew existed. “Do not worry. We’ll talk after we save you.”
Ekaf, who has been listening in on this confusing conversation with Matty and Kevin, speaks up. “I think I have an idea to drain some of the chaos out of em,” he says. He doesn’t say more, knowing that Ileao is listening and isn’t fully in control right now, but that doesn’t matter; any idea is enough for Alex, as long as it gets em out of this safe and sound.
“Do it,” Alex calls over his shoulder. Then he steps in closer to Ileao again, ignoring the confused noise ey make, and reaches out to take eir hands.
“What- What are you-” Ileao squeezes eir eyes shut, shaking eir head. “Alex, you need to go.”
“No,” Alex says simply. “You are the missing piece of my heart, and I am not going to leave you.”
“Oh,” Ileao says, leaning forward. “Alex-”
“I’m here,” he assures em, pulling em into a hug. Ileao makes a pained sound as ey hug him tightly back, and Alex glances up to see multichromatic light being pulled out of Ileao’s being and sucked into one of the chaos crystals on the ceiling. Slowly, Mallharc returns to normal around them, and Ileao sighs tiredly, sinking into the hug.
“Damn it!” shouts an unfamiliar voice, and suddenly there is another feral angel in front of them. This one has wings like a butterfly’s and eyes like clocks, and they scowl at Alex and Ileao, who quickly break out of the hug but refuse not to hold each other’s hand. “How did you do that? I changed something that affected everything, and you still managed to get to a point where you could find each other and right the timeline! How-”
“The power of love,” Ileao says, only semi-sarcastically, and Alex grins and squeezes eir hand.
“We’ve got this,” Matty says as she, Ekaf, and Kevin move past Ileao and Alex to confront the new feral angel. The three of them fight as best they can, the angel begins weakening, and Alex feels more and more memories filtering back to him, memories where things were right and nothing was missing and Ileao was there.
“I’m here,” Ileao says quietly, reassuringly, though it sounds like ey can’t quite believe it emself. “I’m here, with you. Oh gods, Alex, you’re here.”
“I’m here,” Alex repeats, and then he pulls em in close and kisses em deeply, hardly caring to breathe as the timeline rearranges itself, changing his magic and Ileao’s past and putting everything back to rights.
Finally, nothing is missing and everything makes sense and Ileao and Alex are here, together.
As they should be.