Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Zerxus is not a man of faith in the sense that he will ever believe in a god (and as the last twenty four hours have taught him, he was fucking right for that one and he shouldn’t have doubted himself in the first place), but he does put his faith in his husband and the promise he has made to him. Whatever becomes of him next, Zerxus will hold onto at least some things: he loves his husband and son. They do love him in return. One day, they will be reunited again.

Even as the dawn approaches, Zerxus resists the final call of death and descends into hell, hope never wavering.

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There's much she should feel pride for—in her position, in her status, in the depths of her knowledge, and, if she were in a sentimental mood, even in the collection of friends she's managed to accrue. She'd worked hard for those things and for her prestige. Even her own friends would often remark that she should take pride in her many accomplishments.

But there was, ever so briefly, a moment when she wondered if she'd made a mistake.

During that time that Laerryn had been round with child, carrying Evandrin's child as his surrogate, when she watched her one friend be excited for his child to come and the other be both amused and grateful to share this opportunity for her friend, Patia had wondered if—just maybe—it might have been nice to feel something grow within her, to feel a spark of something that would one day grab her heart as it leapt from her body and then toddle off with it so that all she could do was follow and protect it.

It was, of course, just a passing thought.

But the doubt was there.

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Laerryn doesn't need to sleep as a rule of her own biology, but sometimes she watches her husband and wonders if she's missing out. When Loquatius sleeps, his magic will subtly shift his face and that's led her to stop her own meditation to see what he'll produce for her to find that night. He has certain faces he seems to turn to for different reasons—she's seen various celebrities and politicians ghost across his face before big interviews, coworkers during those mundane early days of their marriage, but those are the more boring ones.

She knows to wake him if she ever starts to see Cerrit's feathers sprout or Zerxus's beard or Patia's long locks or Nydas's tattoos—those are signs he's fighting nightmares, as if calling out to their friends without words. When those appear, she quickly reaches out to soothe his brow and then, if she is lucky, something very interesting will happen. His ears will lengthen, his hair and skin will darken, and she'll see her own smile on his lips before he finally sighs and drifts peacefully into other dreams.

After the transformation is done, she pats his cheek and whispers, like a prayer, "Sweet dreams, Quay."

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The divorce is settled in the height of summer; irreconcilable differences, the papers say, because for all their sniping back and forth of emotional neglect or infidelity, when it comes time to officially assign blame, they both suddenly clam up. There isn’t any talk in the news about it because Loquatius has a strangle hold on what topics get reported and he’s not interested in seeing their business plastered everywhere anymore than she is.

Besides, neither will say, this is only a temporary formality—Laerryn looks at it as a neat, tidy way to let Loquatius run around for a decade or two while she finishes her work. Loquatius, on the other hand, has oceans of time to worry about Laerryn getting her priorities in order, or at least putting him a little higher in them.

Yes, they took the time out of their lives and the money out of their bank accounts, but the bottom line is this—a marriage is just promise written down on paper. That paper might be torn and fraying, but with a little mending, they'll be back to normal in no time. After all, they have all the time in the world.

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It is a long flight to Gwessar and even then, it takes a long time to figure out where exactly his family is before they can reunite. He is nearly falling out of the sky from exhaustion when he at least sees Maya soaring up to catch him as he nearly tumbles to the ground.

Life is not simple afterwards and everything is so complicated that he’s genuinely afraid that he might fall back into bad habits and ignore his family. But with everything so uncertain, it’s all he can do to keep his family close as they fly into the unknown future, together.

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Nydas didn’t get to where he was by being a little goody goody—sometimes, when stomachs are lean and life is hard, you need to be a little nasty to get where you need to be. He and his brother had nothing besides a little magic that earned them the respect of a pirate crew that didn’t tolerate nonsense.

Nydas was a nobody who became a somebody, became the Dragon of Avalir, and he earned that right with blood, sweat, and tears, not all of which were his own. Nydas earned his prestige with the curve of his blade, his effortless charisma, and having wits and power to outsmart his foes.

And nobody, no one, wore power like Nydas Okiro.

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It’s one thing to know about a prophecy and quite another thing to see the damn thing start to play out in front of you. There’s a level of detachment you can achieve when a prophecy is just vague enough that you can pretend that you have nothing to do with it that’s comforting; it can lull you easily into a false sense of security. When Laerryn lifts her hand and begins to cast Blight, however, suddenly the prophecy is all he can think about before he reaches out to grab her hand. Things go sideways real fast after that, but a tiny sliver of his conscience can toss up its arms and say “hey, at least I tried to do something about stopping this.”

It's a cold comfort, but it’s something.

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This is bad; Loquatius knows that straight down to his core that if this news gets out, Laerryn’s not coming back from this. They’re going to strip her of her position, that damn job she might love more than him, and her chance to fix... fix whatever it was she and Evandrin did (he doesn’t quite understand the details of the report, but he knows enough to read the writing on the wall) that made him vanish.

When he took his job as the Herald, he’d done it in the hope that he’d be able to do something important—to reveal the truth and expose the corruption that ate at the heart of Avalir despite his love for it and all its wonderfully weird inhabitants.

But, he did take a vow—to protect, to defend, to love his wife until the last moment he drew breath. He stands at a crossroads; one path will lead to integrity and despair, the other to the sort of shallow bullshit he despises and also the protection of the woman he loves more than his own self.

The path is obvious, but damn this is going to hurt.

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It's probably a red flag that Laerryn has a favorite sin of her own, but she knows herself well enough to recognize Pride has turned into vanity when she’s signing the divorce papers. Her husband—her ex-husband—isn’t here as she was too busy to attend the divorce proceedings with their lawyers, but she catches herself thinking hey, this is only temporary. I can fix this; I just need to finish up some of my projects, successfully complete my end of the Replenishment, and then I’ll have enough time to really focus on this. It’ll be fine.

It’s only as the thought finishes and she sets the pen down from the newly completed papers that she thinks that maybe Quay had a point when he claimed she took him and a lot of other things for granted.

She then dismisses the thought—she has work to do. Then she can see about salvaging this marriage. She just needs time, after all.

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The problem with being a Champion of the King of Lies is that it doesn’t mean Zerxus is going to be exempt from any tricks or traps. Most sinister of all were the times when Zerxus would turn a corner in his own abode only to find himself in another time and place entirely; he might find Evandrin cooking in their kitchen or find Nydas and Eaedalus in the middle of battle on the deck of a ship, shouting at him to hurry up and help, or find Patia coming to rescue him from a gaggle of gossipmongers at a party, tucking his arm into her own to steer him clear of danger, or find Cerrit elbow deep in paperwork, asking him something for a case he was working on. In those moments, he just finds himself drawing his weapon or hurrying to hold those people dear to him close for one more time.

Honestly, he isn’t sure if Asmodeus is trying to torment him or just keep him on the hook a bit longer, just keep him in line for now.

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Patia meets Laerryn when Laerryn was very young—Patia had comes as a representative to observe one of Avalir’s top academies, to look at what was essentially an over glorified science fair. Mostly her presence as the Keeper of Scrolls and Archmage of the Librarium Incantatum is there to give the kids’ parents a thrill, but when she pauses before the project of one young, dark skinned elf, she pays close attention.

There’s been some hubbub over other projects that are better presented, those children’s parents must have paid out the nose to try and catch her attention, but Patia is intrigued not just by the complexity of the project before her, but the ramifications this could have for optimizing Avalir’s engines and, more importantly, the steadfast, direct, and hungry gaze of the young elf who made it.

They are eyes that scream notice me because I’m going to change the world and you’ll regret if you don’t do it now. Ambition. Drive.

Patia smiles, half to herself, and politely tells the young Laerryn that her presentation will be interesting to the current Architect Arcane, although she should distill the information into simpler terms to make easier for less—and she pauses here, to find a polite word—informed members of a prospective audience.

The younger elf scrunches her nose in disgust at the idea of having to dumb down her presentation—why did she need to kowtow to idiots who couldn’t keep up with the bare basics of her work anyway?—but looked excited when Patia told her to expect a meeting in the near future from the Architect Arcane.

Patia walked away, curious to know if the girl would be able to utilize the opportunity she was giving her. Years later, as Vespin Chloras and his stolen automatons batter down the door to where she and the rest of the Ring of Brass are preparing to make their last stand and to try and avert the worst of this catastrophe, Patia looks over at Laerryn, furiously working with the same drive and power she saw in her eyes years ago, and smiles to herself knowing that she was right to put her faith in that girl.

Even if they fail here, she knows that Laerryn will still, somehow, find a way to save the future.

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Patia always considers her every action before committing to them, even if it’s only to acknowledge that this is the only choice or the obvious best possibility. She’s heard many a hurtful word accusing her of being cold and aloof, that she was friendless and would always be so, that no one would ever want to hold such a cold, cruel woman with any sort of warmth.

In this moment, she concedes that they might have had a point, but turning to look back at Laerryn, while their boys all fight to protect them as they hurry to save Avalir, she knows in her heart that all of them are wrong. She has a best friend, has a whole Ring onto herself with people she will die to save and would die for her, and she has this city, no, world that she will die for.

Patia Por’co won’t die alone because she was never alone to begin with.