Chapter Text
“My Lady.”
There are two figures bowing low in front of the Blaze Empress’ towering throne. One of them she recognises. One of them she doesn’t.
Gary’s mane is long, shot with grey where it tumbles over his shoulders, only half of it tied back. She remembers when he was barely more than a shoat, tusks only just pushing past his lips, a wicked grin on his snout and power in the very way he stood. He’s been at her side his whole life, but only for a fraction of hers.
Blaze doesn’t know the figure beside him. She’s smaller, much smaller, the tips of her ears only barely reaching the hoglin’s shoulders.
She’s softer than he is, not only because of youth. Piglin, not hoglin, and even so… she holds herself differently. Her fur isn’t quite as red as Blaze has come to expect of both species, instead she seems to glow, a soft blonde that almost shimmers gold in the firelight.
“Gary,” Blaze acknowledges, and the pair rise from their positions. Gary adjusts his glasses, and the unknown piglin takes just half a step back, her hands clenched tightly in front of her, and eyes fixed on the floor.
“Always lovely to see you, your Radiance. I’m only sorry that I cannot stay,” Gary says, shaking his head. “Alas, not all of us are blessed as you are.”
“You’re quite alright,” Blaze assures. She knows this. She is the goddess of the Nether, it is her nature to outlive her citizens. Gary is not the first advisor she’s had, and he certainly won’t be the last.
“Thank you, your Radiance.” He clears his throat, and turns a little, beckoning the little gold piglin forwards. Blaze watches her eyes flick all the way up to hers, and all of a sudden, time seems to stop.
By all means, they should just be eyes. Deep brown, long lashes, nervous, even. They are just eyes, and she is just a piglin, and Blaze doesn’t even know her name, yet. But time has stopped, and in just a single glance, Blaze feels… oddly vulnerable. It’s not something she feels often, nor is it something she particularly likes. Her vulnerability is only for her family to see, her brother, when they share their stories about being alone in their realms. Her vulnerability is not for her subjects. She is their Empress and she is their goddess, and that is a part of herself she must keep carefully guarded.
She doesn’t know how this piglin found the key so quickly.
“Now, this is Sandy,” Gary continues, oblivious to the hours that just occurred in the space between moments. Sandy’s eyes are back on the floor, and her tail is tightly coiled behind her.
“My Lady, I can think of no one better to take my place. Sandy can out-think anyone, why, even in my prime, I don’t think I would have been anything more than a second thought to her!”
“Sir, you-” Sandy says, soft and cautious. She’s quickly shushed.
“Ah ah ah, I’ve seen your work, don’t sell yourself short!”
Blaze leans to the side, resting her chin in her palm. Her throne really isn’t the most comfortable of places to sit for extended periods of time, but she has an image to maintain. There is a necessary pomp and circumstance that comes with these sorts of affairs. Again, she is the Empress, and they are her citizens, and she cannot become attached to any of them past what is professional. It simply isn’t right, and it simply will not work.
“Sandy,” Blaze repeats, and those eyes—those eyes, still so disarming, making gooseflesh rise along Blaze’s arms—dart once again to hers. “Tell me about yourself.”
“Well, your Radiance, she’s-”
“Gary,” Blaze interrupts, giving him a stern look. “I asked her, not you.”
“Of course.” Gary bows his head, stepping back. “I apologise, my Lady.”
Sandy looks to him as he moves, and he gives her a nod.
“Your Radiance,” Sandy begins, voice level and strong, even if her breathing is shaky. “My name is Sandy, and Sir Gary has approached me to ask to fill his position as your primary advisor. I have studied Nether history extensively, with a particular interest in Bastion histories. I have also worked as an assistant and secretary to Lady Necra, ambassador for the Waste-Upon-Gravel Bastion. This was how I met Sir Gary, and after completing my tenure with Lady Necra, began working under him, with the department of Policies.”
Well, she certainly has the experience. Blaze raises her eyebrows as she talks, impressed. Sandy doesn’t look that old, how quickly must she have risen to hold these positions?
“Sir Gary… thinks I would be a good replacement for his role. I would- I would be honoured to serve you, your Radiance, and you have my word that I have the Nether’s best interests at heart.”
Sandy’s looking at her again, holding her gaze. There’s fire in those eyes of hers, a fire that meets Blaze’s own. Does she not understand how brazen it is to point such a fire at the Empress, or does she simply not care? Blaze would call her out for it, if it weren’t… if it weren’t… well, she doesn’t really know why she doesn’t.
“Sandy here knows more about inter-bastion relations than anyone I’ve ever met, my Lady, and I’ve met a lot of people.” Gary adds. “I’m confident she can handle anything the flames throw your way, and, well. The policy department isn’t going to know what they’ve lost until it’s gone.”
Blaze shifts her chin to her other hand, and studies the pair. Gary has been a familiar figure in her peripheral, reliable and respectful. Her last advisor was the same, a wither skeleton named Ouros, who prized productivity and efficiency.
Sandy is different to them both. Sandy is different to them all, a long line of advisors stretching back further than any memory but Blaze’s. Her fire. Her eyes. The way all the fire in the room seems to reach for her, to dim in her presence. Blaze likes tradition, but Sandy feels like a shock to her system, electric, unfamiliar, and terrifying.
“If you wish, my Lady, Sandy can shadow me in my last tides of service. I will ensure she’s familiar with our systems, and you can decide if she is adequate,” Gary suggests.
It’s a good suggestion. An excellent one.
“That sounds satisfactory,” Blaze replies, jumping on the notion before it can be rescinded. It is never good to avoid fear, Blaze knows this, she’s been alive too long to know anything but. And yet she’s not entirely sure she would call this ‘fear’ in its entirety. The flames reach for this piglin, and what is Blaze if not a flame herself, the hearth-fire of the Nether? There is something inexplicable about this piglin, and Blaze intends to know it.
They start simple. Blaze authorises a tour of the Fortress, allowing Gary to familiarise Sandy with the places she’ll need to know if she is to take the role.
Blaze doesn’t join them. It wouldn’t be proper. Instead, she watches them leave, Sandy hooking her arm through Gary’s to help him along, her tail swishing softly behind her. They round a corner, and Blaze is left staring at an empty doorway, something strangely tight in her chest. A laugh echoes down the hall, and she doesn’t recognise it.
That tightness is still there.
It remains as Blaze leaves the throne room, shrinking her height to match those of her subjects. There’s no need to remain in her Colossus now that the official business is over.
Her hands wring as she walks the halls. There are eyes burned into her mind, and she does not understand why they won’t go away. She has looked into the eyes of so many before, all species from all realms. But for the first time, these eyes have looked back into hers.
It feels wrong to return to her quarters, not when there is someone new and cause for wariness in her home. Not when her thoughts are so tangled she cannot make mane or tail of them, each one a different shade of pale yellow.
There are rules. Unspoken ones, ones upheld by her and her whole family. They must care for the world, for their parts of it. They will shepherd their realms, act as guiding lights, sculpting hands. They are above their peoples, separate from them. They are servants to them. But they are separate.
Getting attached is dangerous. Mortals are mortal, and gods are not. It is unfair to hold a mortal to the expectations and standards of something they are not, and it is impossible to change what they are.
So why, then, is Blaze unable to banish those eyes from her thoughts?
Why, then, is she still wandering her own halls, aimless in principle, searching for that laugh?
She doesn’t know her. Her name, her history, that is it, and that is more than what Blaze knows of most of her subjects. But the way she looked at her, the way she looked at her. No one looks at her. They look at her power, her status, her mantle.
Somehow, Blaze ends up in the council room, sat in one of the plush red window seats, staring out across the Nether. Maybe she’s here because it’s one of the nuclei of what she is, the place she directs those who work for her. It’s safe, it’s familiar, the walls are already sturdy here, ready for her to hide behind.
And by the void, she hides.
She tucks her self behind red bricks, gilds the mortar with gold. Those parts of her are not to be known, not to be shown. It is for her own safety. It is for the safety of her people, her realm. She is all they have, she must do this for them. If she fails, she is abandoning them, and she cannot think of anything that would break her more.
Stone by stone, Blaze reconstructs a barrier once so imperviable she never knew there was anything behind it, but one that had been toppled in mere moments by a stranger.
And stone by stone, the ache dulls. It’s no longer quite so sharp, even if it still remains.
Except she is interrupted.
Movement reflects in the quartz glass, pale in the corner of Blaze’s eyes, and she spins, burning bright with shock.
And she’s there.
She’s there.
And her eyes meet hers, and in another single moment, so unimportant yet so bracing, the bricks are cracked and the mortar crumbles.
Sandy sucks in a breath, one hand going to her chest. And for too many seconds, they are both silent.
“My Lady…” Sandy breathes, and it- it means something more, when she says it. “I- I mean, your Radiance,” she corrects, dropping suddenly into a low bow. “I didn’t know you were- you were in here, I’m so sorry.”
She’s still looking. Why is she still looking? How is she still looking, bearing the brightness of Blaze’s true self, the faults, the flaws, the things a goddess should never be? If she sees, why does she still bow?
“No, it’s okay,” Blaze replies, and it is her who breaks their gaze. It is her who cowers, who flinches, who succumbs. “I was simply…” The words die on her tongue. Simply what? Hiding? No, that’s not the truth. Waiting for her? The truth won’t help in this situation, and lies seem so difficult to find.
“I was just admiring the view.”
Sandy smiles, and when Blaze dares look to her eyes again, they are knowing. Who is she to hold this power over a deity? Who is she to be trusted? Who is she to ensnare her so wholly?
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Sandy agrees, scooping papers into her arms. She isn’t looking at the view. “I’ve never understood the people who call the Nether hostile. It’s doing all it can to give us our lives, our worth in this world. Sure, sometimes it falters, its lakes are ill-suited for many of us, and there are some barren lands that are hard to settle, but… nothing can be faultless all the time. Imperfection is what makes it—makes all of us—perfect, if you ask me. It’s what makes us beautiful, and worth caring about. And… if you’ll have me, that’s all I want to do. Care for the Nether, and all of us here.”
Us. She says us. She says us and she stares through Blaze’s toppled walls and when she speaks of the Nether, they both know she is not talking about the land.
Blaze is stunned into silence, and Sandy shifts her weight where she stands, still smiling, something small and soft and honest and Blaze is coming to realise, has she ever seen this honesty before? Has she ever heard such words, spoken from the heart?
She loves her subjects, she gives her everything for them. She would give her life, if she had one, and she expects nothing in return. It wouldn’t be right. There is supposed to be distance. There is supposed to be separation. Hearts are for mortals, hands are for goddesses. Feelings versus doings, each with their place in this realm and this cycle.
So why is there a heart being extended to her? An honesty, a truth she does not deserve? She is a goddess, and Sandy is a mortal, and yet there are lines blurring beyond recognition, being blurred not by Blaze, but by the woman standing, haloed in soft firelight, smiling down at her.
“Yes,” Blaze ends up saying. It’s hard to get her thoughts in order, hard to be who she’s supposed to be, right now. “Yes, that would be… that would be good.”
“Thank you, your Radiance,” Sandy says, bowing her head once again. “Shall I leave you to your view?” She still isn’t looking out the window.
“Please,” Blaze says. She feels exposed. Confronted with things she cannot name. Flailing, and she cannot do with her subjects seeing her in such a state. She cannot do with her knowing this was her doing, with her knowing just how deep she has pierced into Blaze’s deepest vulnerabilities.
Just how much Blaze yearns for it.
“Have a good tide, your Radiance,” Sandy says, turning to leave. “I suppose I’ll see you later.”
Once more, Blaze watches her back as she approaches the door, except this time, she cannot stop herself.
“Sandy,” she says, the name escaping before she can stop it.
“Yes?” Those eyes.
“I-” Blaze wets her lips, unsure of what to say. She didn’t think this far ahead. “I look forward to working with you.”
“And I with you, your Radiance. Farewell.”
And then she is gone, leaving Blaze a flickering mess on the seat, hand outstretched towards the door without her realising. She pulls it in, cradling it close to her chest. Already the space at her side feels too empty. Already, there is something cooling on her cheeks, leaking from her eyes.
Carefully, she brushes her tears away, and takes a shaking breath. She is the Blaze Empress, caretaker of the Nether. She must be strong.
But maybe, just maybe, there could be times where she doesn’t have to be.