Chapter Text
- 1.4 billion years ago -
The whole of Mezchinhar was pulsing. From within, the iumzache was wincing in pain; like an upset heartbeat, it was stumbling irregularly, panicking. A pulse that would span ten thousand years was now reduced to a flutter of seconds, droning in their minds; it was burning and hurting, and every wizard within could feel it radiating from their heart through their black blood like a terminal sickness that had infected all of them. Yet the fight continued. Because even if continuing would kill them, stopping would mean assured annihilation.
Another explosion.
It tore through the remains of six circles, and the wizard at the blast's centre was lost between the twists of deadly sheets of metal and razor-sharp shards of glass. All of it now hurled through the weightlessness. Gravity was long gone. Everything flammable was long reduced to nothing but toxic ashes that filled the air in a hazy gloom.
The damage to Mezchinhar was extensive.
And in that chaos, Iosurt lost sight of Heshiva, who was now hidden somewhere in the debris.
Iosurt's heart pounded in his chest as he gasped for air— just a reflex. The air was pure poison, tasting of acid, soot, and metal. Noble gases and chemical reactions fused together, no longer visibly burning in the absence of oxygen but still reacting. But it didn't matter, no matter how much it stung in his lungs.
Exhaustion screamed in every atom of his body. His left arm was all but completely destroyed.
Grasping the staff in his right hand even tighter, he pushed against the traces of the lord’s light in the air around him, forward. To find Heshiva. And end this.
His heart ached more and more with every metre he closed in on the rubble. And yet his eyes kept sharp watch of every movement. Thousands upon thousands of pieces of debris were floating around him; each and every one of them could be hiding Heshiva. Unconscious — or ready to attack him.
The fight had been inevitable. So was its conclusion. Because Heshiva could no longer win. That was a fact now, Iosurt knew. But the truth of this fact put a terrible burden on him.
Magic pulsed through his unharmed arm into the staff, and at once, the debris around him reacted. The dead magic lit up, suddenly reassembling itself, fusing together in long tendrils that swarmed around him.
Heshiva used to be stronger than him. Technically, he might still be. But he was also a stubborn fool who relied too much on his own ingrained magic to consider the tools around him and how effectively their natural power could be channelled into magnificent space-bending magic that could control the material space down to the lords’ light that filled every space within everything and being. And that was why he would die.
Iosurt saw the gleam just a fraction of a second before it could have taken his life. The magical tendril reacted on his instinct, shielding him, but the blast of ancient magic was strong enough to vaporise half of them. But not all.
Iosurt saw him.
Heshiva's face was also marked by clear exhaustion. His hair was a cloud of fiery red around his head, anger distorting that beautiful, flawless face.
Then shock — as three of the tendrils rammed through his body before he could have found the strength for another attack.
The massive force slammed him against the ground - ceiling - or wall; it was hard to tell anymore. He coughed black blood from his mouth.
But he was not dead. And so he would not die yet.
Iosurt stared at the wizard that had made him whole. And shuddered at the thought.
Whole. Heshiva had called it that. And now he had twisted what had felt like a perfect truth into a horrific idea of lost grace and utopia Iosurt could only imagine in horror.
But whether or not he made him whole…
He was the wizard he loved.
Why must it hurt this much?
He had to end this now. Because Heshiva wouldn't see reason. Because he wanted to take this freedom, they had been granted to shackle them all once more. A desire born within the bottom of his heart — no argument would sway him. Iosurt knew that better than anyone ever would because he had tried them all. Heshiva would kill them all. He would do so with righteousness in his heart. To take away every name, every thought, every word that had been spoken since to make them all whole again.
And Iosurt couldn't allow him to do that.
“Iosurt…”
And yet.
The trembling voice of a wizard in agonising pain, drowning in his own blood, but unable to die on his own.
“My beloved.”
He couldn't listen to it. He needed to kill him. There was no other way. There couldn't be a compromise. Not when their desires were diametrically opposed to each other. He. Knew that.
“Why must we fight?” Heshiva asked weakly. A gasp in his lungs, maybe a sob, as he raised his head. And Iosurt saw the pain in them. He didn't want to fight him either. Of course not. As much as Iosurt, he wanted to hold him, kiss him, laugh with him, lay in his arms, read in his light, and comfort his worries. Just to hold his hands one more time. Feel him.
Iosurt's throat was tight. He felt unable to breathe as he raised his hand, which was trembling badly. The ancient markings on his arms were now burned into his skin, glowing faintly even still.
“I don't want this,” Heshiva said desperately. “None of this! There has to be another way. Iosurt?!”
His hand trembled stronger. Just one spell.
“You won't stop. You can’t. Not until you’ve taken all this away from us again,” Iosurt said.
“No. Not for this price.” Heshiva shook his head. “I don’t want any of this if it parts us forever.”
Iosurt’s thoughts were dizzy by exhaustion and grief. He heard Heshiva’s words, and he wanted them to be true. He had never wanted anything else as much as it to be just the truth.
“Let us stop. Right here. Right now. We made our point. We drew those lines. Let us not cross them.” Heshiva begged. “Violence is only ever an option. But it can’t be the only one. There has to be another way, and we will find it. Together.”
His own breath shuddered. And then, like the weight had gotten too strong, Iosurt's hand just dropped.
“I want to believe you. I really do,” Iosurt said, swallowing hard.
“Then do. Like you always have. Like I do trust you.”
A pulse went through the staff, and the tendrils dissipated into a dust of innate magic, leaving nothing but bloody gaping holes in Heshiva’s body. No longer held by the tendrils, his rampaged body started to drift. He didn't seem to have any strength anymore to even keep himself stable.
With a push, Iosurt reached him, took his hand, and pulled him up. He felt Heshiva's hands on his arms, keeping himself supported in the weightlessness. He looked broken and dead tired.
“I’m so sorry,” Heshiva said quietly.
“Me too…” Iosurt could suppress the sob wailing up from his throat. He couldn't believe he had come this close to almost actually killing Heshiva. How could he have…
He felt Heshiva pulling him closer. His body pressed against his now. Felt his lips on his. A gentle promise that all would work out in the end. Somehow, they would find a way. Because they had to. They were one.
Heshiva's hand was at the back of his neck, the other grasping his hand when he pulled back. “I’m sorry.” For a moment, their eyes met.
And Iosurt knew.
In that moment. Just a fraction of a second. He knew.
And the certainty of it tore his heart apart.
Then everything turned to blinding pain as, through Heshiva's hands, a massive amount of pure energy was blasted directly into his central nervous system.
But for a brief moment, before his consciousness faded away, he felt a different kind of pain radiating through their hands.
*
Pain. It was like a thundering river snap-freezing at once, stopping any motion from top to bottom and killing all that was alive.
With a breathless outcry, Heshiva tore his hand away from Iosurt's head; the magic burned still in his veins as he stared at the violated wizard before him, still grasping his other hand.
For a moment there, his heart and mind had threatened to implode under the grief of losing Iosurt. For a moment, he felt what it would mean to do so. For a moment, he had truly understood that he was about to kill a part of himself.
“Iosurt?” Hectically, he grasped the lifeless body and pressed it against his, taking his hand. “Iosurt!?” Panic flooded his mind. His hands were sore, and every touch radiated pain up his arms. The runes on his fingers shone bright, flickering erratically as his mind desperately tried to find Iosurt. Again and again, the pulse reached out, finding nothing.
Heshiva’s mind ached as he tried to reach for the lord’s light around them, but just wasn't enough. Because the lord’s light was a power not native to Mezchinhar's atmosphere.
In his desperate panic, he didn't think. He just acted as he pressed Iosurt's lifeless body against his, and in a swirl of light and dark, he reappeared deep within Mezchinhar's heart. The iumzache was still trembling before them. The massive entity of light and energy was in turmoil, scared and upset. Heshiva didn't stop, dragging Iosurt with him. The wall of light filled everything he could see. With Iosurt’s hand in his, he reached out. And they were engulfed in the glow.
The pure and absolute power of the lord’s light shot through them, paralysing Heshiva for a moment, but there was no pain. As the life force that coursed through their hearts so naturally filled their bodies and minds, he, for a fleeting moment, felt Iosurt with him. He might have yelped in relief and madness alike. He wouldn't remember. As his mind bloomed in a thousand thoughts, he lost himself in the embrace of comfort, feeling Iosurt again within himself. His mind brushed past the whisper of the whole that was lost, the immeasurable thoughts of entities lost in the void, and he was filled with an all-consuming and incapacitating fear. He felt like losing Iosurt to it.
It took all the strength he still could muster to push back. Iosurt pressed tightly against himself, both arms around the mutilated body. He wouldn't allow him to vanish like that. He belonged to him. He was part of himself. Of the new whole.
Heshiva fell back, Iosurt still in his arms. They drifted for a moment. The sudden freezing cold took him by surprise, like he hadn't realised the burning heat before. His mind was dazed, and his vision blurred. His hand still grasped tightly around Iosurt's.
So faint now. But there. Alive.
He buried his head into the wild mess of black waves of hair, reeking of chemical fires and death. And he wept helplessly. Unable to shed a tear, his whole body was shaking, and he was unable to control the burst of emotion. To hide the relief. Or the shame.
“Heshiva!”
His heart sank. He twitched out of the embrace, taking a deep breath.
The two wizards flew over to him. Worry and genuine concern on their faces. They looked as exhausted and battle-marked as himself. Their names were Faragaol and Krapax. Two of the wizards that had always stood by his side.
“Is he dead?” Krapax asked, his voice filled with equal amounts of disdain and sympathy alike. They knew of their closeness.
“He’s not - is he?” Faragaol said sharply, maybe able to read Heshiva's face. His Teshvo was still rough, but maybe he spoke it now to soothe him. “He needs to die, Heshiva. Look at all the suffering he causes; for as long as he lives, he will curse us all. Now, don't waver!”
Heshiva stared at them. He felt his own injuries clearly as he stared at the two wizards before him who bluntly repeated his own words back to him like he could ever forget them. Like he could even forget them.
“Let me do it for you. You shouldn't be the one. I'll take that burden,” Faragaol said, his voice growing softer, offering his own hand. Offering to kill Iosurt.
Heshiva's heart stopped beating. His lungs stopped breathing. As time slowed down to a crawl before his eyes. Faragaols hand before him, reaching for Iosurt. The sad frown on Krapax's face. His own hand was still tightly intertwined with Iosurt’s.
Then he let go of him.
Raising both his hands.
And with all the power the Iumzache had filled him with, two erratically sparking tears in space ripped through the two wizards like claws of pure void that tore those beings of time and space apart at the molecular level before they could have even reacted.
His vision bloomed before his eyes—the skipping images regained motion in disorienting bursts. He was surrounded by the fine mist of magical matter and izthra that was left of the two wizards.
Heshiva gasped. He felt sick. He needed to rest. And heal. There were holes in his body.
But more importantly, he needed to handle this.
His heartbeat caught up with him as he grabbed Iosurt again before a portal snapped open around him, glistening in all colours of the rainbow but paling against the blinding light of the iumzache.
Before both vanished into thin air.