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Marth was ready to vanish.
He hadn't been ready to die, as that implied he'd ever been alive in the first place. But he was ready to vanish into the nothingness a being like him had come from.
If Elyos was safe… Alear could move on, he was sure. Alear wouldn't end up like Sombron.
Alear wouldn't chase his shadow. Alear would be happy even without him.
As the portal sealed and Elyos was saved, Marth closed his eyes, never expecting to open them ever again.
When he opened his eyes again, it was bright, and it was crowded.
"Another Marth!" someone said.
"Why's he floating?" asked another.
Marth blinked. Something else had changed, besides just his location, yet he had no mind to focus on it. Not when this had to be another world, and he, as an Emblem of Elyos, should not survive for longer than a breath.
He was no Zero Emblem, and yet, Marth did not grow weaker, did not fade, merely remained floating where he was.
"I am Emblem Marth," he finally said, as it was polite to introduce himself. "Excuse my rudeness, but where is this?"
He addressed his question to the person clad in a white hood at the front of the group. They had some sort of strange contraption in their hand, and seemed quite excited. Their hands flew about in a manner Marth could not comprehend.
What he did comprehend, however, was the hooded figure turning around and pointing repeatedly into the crowd. The crowd of all shapes and sizes parted, forming a path for two additional figures to walk closer.
Marth squinted into the distance. Red and blue, he saw, but it surely could not be.
So soon? Here and now?
"Alear?"
His whisper transformed into a shout, "ALEAR!"
Two of them, yet Marth didn't care. Minutes prior, Marth had resigned himself that Alear would live their long life without him. They'd have to be happy without him, but now…
The two Alears ran, and he rushed to meet him halfway. Their breaths heaved in the middle of this strange ritual chamber, as Marth felt no change at all.
Halfway there, still separated, as all Emblems were. Dancing unsure, hands outstretched but empty, when the occasion called for an embrace.
"Marth!" the two called, identical except for their hair and the shape of their bodies.
"Welcome to Askr!" said the one.
"Marth, I… I never thought I'd see you here!" said the other.
His fingers itched with the phantom of a familiar envy. He wanted to hold them both, to cherish them, fully delight that they were with him again.
He wanted to proclaim to the heavens that he lived, he would continue to live! His task was not over! His work was not yet done!
But tears did not come, the same as that day Marth had lost his home and his family.
The Alears told him many things– That he had been summoned, not by them, but by the hooded figure, Kiran. That this kingdom, Askr, waged war against the heavens seeking to bring them to ruin.
It was easy enough to wrap his head around, as he'd experienced similar when he first awoke as an Emblem. What was more concerning was, as evidenced by the two Alears, that multiple of the same person could appear.
People from many different worlds. All together.
Some he recognized as his fellow Emblems, but they weren't. And some, were…
Well, Marth also had other problems to think about. Such as the absence of his ring. Neither Alear had it, nor did Marth himself, nor did Kiran, or anyone at all.
Despite that, Marth felt no tug or restriction. No, he felt quite like on the Somniel, where he was free to wander wherever he pleased. In addition to that, he simply felt strange. Overwhelmed, somehow. Things were too much. The world was… too real.
And Marth discovered the cause for this quite simply.
During his tour of the Order, Marth hit his head on a doorframe.
Marth did not make a habit of floating through objects. It tended to scare others, and awoke something complicated within him, as it was a strange sight to see himself phase through objects while feeling none of it. So Marth, floating as he was, usually ducked under standard doorframes.
Yet many of the gateways were tall, as expected of a castle, and what with the many different folks he'd seen who could meet his gaze even in the air. Additionally, he'd been quite enraptured catching up with Alear.
Things had been going well in Lythos, as Alear told him. Sombron was defeated, all four nations swore peace, everyone got to return home, Alear was preparing to ascend the throne of Lythos. A perfect ending, really, even if Marth, in a hidden corner of his heart, wished he had seen it for himself.
All of which was to say, that for one, Marth had been distracted, and for another, hitting his head on the low doorframe to a storage room had not even crossed his mind as something that could possibly occur at all.
"Ow," Marth said, rubbing his aching forehead.
At that moment, Marth realized several things at once.
One: pain was real, and existed, and he was experiencing it, right now.
Two: this was, technically, the most pain he had ever experienced, and he was struggling to deal with it. Ow.
Three: he had felt that. He was feeling it.
Alear stopped in her tracks. "…Marth?"
It took a moment longer for those same realizations to cross her mind. "Did you… did you just…?"
This headache was going to kill him, permanently. How had Marth ever fought on a battlefield? He pressed his fists to his eyes and groaned.
"Marth! Are you okay? Do you need a healer?" As Marth had blocked off his sight, he felt a shift in the fabric of his cape, implying Alear had reached out to him.
"Please do give me a moment," he replied.
Even curled up, Marth remained hovering above the ground. If he were to fall from his height, he thought he would break all of the bones he now suddenly possessed.
With some hesitation, Alear tugged at him, dragging him into the storeroom like one of those strange balloons Askr used for festivals. Surely, she was just as baffled by the circumstances as he.
She'd just touched Marth. And now, she pressed down on his shoulder so he was sitting on a crate.
Marth's pain begun to fade into a duller, bearable smarting. This left him able to focus on things such as: the wooden crate digging into his thighs. And that the mysterious something he had been feeling this entire time was his clothes brushing against his skin.
It'd been a sense so dearly missed he'd forgotten it altogether.
When he opened his eyes again, the experience was much akin to ending up in a new world for the third time.
Alear was stuck in that same inbetween of outstretched and hesitant, so Marth did the only thing he could think of:
he hugged her.
It's been so long since Marth's felt anything at all that he had no words to describe it. Every sensation was fresh and sharp and new. He was a drowning man breathing air for the first time in his life. He was a worm seeing the sun, utterly incapable of comprehension until the sight had already killed him.
But he wasn't dying. He wasn't disappearing, he corrected himself, because he'd never been alive to begin with.
From the weight– to think he had weight!– of Marth's tackle, Alear stumbled a short distance backwards, landing on her behind as Marth's knees met the floor. Ever so slowly, Alear's left arm wrapped around his waist, and her right hand landed on his head, carding through his hair. Alear hugged him back.
"I've dreamed about this," Alear whispered into his neck. Her breath was warm and wet, equally novel. "You were there for me when I woke up. You were there when I was at my lowest. And I had Veyle, and Vander, and everyone else, but… but I just wished you could hold me. Is that selfish?"
"Oh, Alear," Marth breathed, "as if I had not yearned for the same? That I could have comforted you in your times of turmoil?"
It was the eternal routine of all Emblems. The habits of the living were ingrained in their souls. They all had memories of tears and laughter, hurt and healing, that had been sealed away from them. Whatever force created them, whether it be some divine being or the land of Elyos itself– Marth thought it cruel.
Power and experience was what the world required of them. And in doing so, it gave them love and longing with no place to go.
Some called that grief.
Marth had not allowed himself grief in a very long time.
Perhaps, as many things, not ever.
The two of them were supposed to go somewhere. Look around the Order, introduce Marth to so many who already knew the one whose face he shared, but this moment had to last a little longer.
"M-may I…" the words caught in his throat, as they sounded so improper within the confines of his thoughts. "May I… touch your hair?"
Alear snorted. "Marth. What am I doing right now?"
"…You're hugging me?"
"Yes. Of course you can touch my hair. I'd trust you with anything."
Marth thanked whichever higher power made him that his gloves did not cover his fingers. Untying them now would have made him even sillier than he already was for asking that to begin with. But Marth tentatively raised his hand from where he'd slung it around Alear's shoulder. Just like her hand traced the back of his head in reassuring meandering, he traced Alear, landing on the back of her skull.
Her long hair wrapped around his exposed fingers. Soft, he thought. This had to be what soft was like.
Truly, how hadn't he noticed the reality of his own body the moment he awoke in Askr? It was so much. It was so much. Marth was melting, from nothing more than being held. From nothing but existing in this very moment.
Marth was supposed to be good at words. It was his whole thing. If he had one skill to take pride in, it's figuring out what other people wanted to hear. But when they did not want him to be a prince, an Emblem, their star, a light, then what was he? What did he have to say, then? Why did he struggle for words now?
It didn't matter how he sounded inside his own skull as long as the words came out right.
So, to himself, he could be clumsy and say: Alear was warm. Alear was here, and that's what mattered.
"Marth…?" she said, unsure, "Can I ask another selfish question…?"
"Always."
Marth had to stop the hand in her hair as she dug deeper into the side of his neck, her own hand falling to his shoulder. As if to hide, to muffle her own voice, she asked, "…which of us is your Alear?"
He followed suit after her, moving to dig circles between her shoulder blades. "What do you mean?"
"Him or me?" Not a breath later, she added, "I'm sorry, you don't have to answer, just–"
In lieu of an immediate reply, Marth loosened her grip. Face to face, he tilted her head up, so they'd be eye to eye, too. She avoided his gaze, until Marth said, "neither of you, I suppose."
Her breath hitched.
"Not that it matters to me." Marth stroked Alear's cheek. "Please Alear. Even if you are not mine, and I am not yours, and we cannot cure each other's grief… It still lessens in your presence."
"Thank you, Marth. You've… you've always been too kind. Far too much to someone like me."
Her fist moved from clenched in her lap to wiping at her eyes. She'd shed a tear. Then, Alear lifted her hand to Marth's face. He stilled himself as her thumb brushed over his cheek.
"Thank you, Alear."
Emblem Marth had never felt alive. He was a ring, a tool, to be traded from one to another. Sometimes treated with kindness. Often with apathy. The Emblems had not been revered in the wars between dragons.
Only in those red days did that change. Only then, when an enemy had gotten hold of Marth. Hollowed out, just like himself. But Alear did not just fight with him. Alear had needed him. Had needed him. And he had needed Alear.
Marth had been ready to disappear, but the truth was this:
Marth didn't want to die! He wanted to to be alive! He wanted to live!
It tugged at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were wet and his cheeks hurt, but it forced its way past anyways. "And here I thought I'd forgotten how to cry."
He smiled. He was sure of it. "They're happy tears, I promise."
"Heh," Alear chuckled, "they better be. It's… it's so great to see you like this, Marth."
A moment passed between them, silent but content.
Alear blinked the remnants of tears away, as a far more pleasing smile brightened his view. "I… promised to show you the Order, didn't I?"
"Hey now, I've gotten to know this storage room quite intimately, have I not?"
Using her newfound proximity, Alear playfully hit him in the shoulder. "And to think I ever missed you!"
"Distance makes the heart grow fonder?"
"We're visiting the training grounds next. We have to test how good you're in a fight like this."
"It would be my honor."
And he thought: not as a light, not as a prince or an Emblem—
perhaps Marth could live here.