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The sun was beginning to sink behind the horizon in the west
“I’m so tired of watching you die. I've lost count of how many times it's been now."
The mage whispered to the husk.
Not that it could answer him back.
Move its eyes, release its fingers, if he so compelled.
To relinquish the mercury hammer to another to do what it has failed to.
“It's not your fault, don't think of it that way. I know you are. You tried your best. You never fail, Jayce. It's always I who fails you.”
The mage stared down at his hand, the tattooed runes flickering with the Arcane magic he had just used to teleport the other Jayce back to his time.
They fade in and out, like the swirling void of astral space slowly taking him over. He loses a piece of himself a little more each time meddles.
But he is pulled to Jayce like a pair of neodymium magnets. Through time and space it pulls.
No, not just pulls.
It shreds the very fabric around his being, ripping, tugging, gripping, throwing him wherever Jayce was.
Moments when he was too late.
When the boy's shivering stops and the tiny body stills, or when he steps up to the apartment and the broken body twitches on the pavement.
The mage always lifts the body from where it lay and holds it to his heart.
Letting a little more of himself slip away.
“You know if he succeeds, I will cease to be. There will no longer be a purpose for me. Here, you see?"
Lifting his hand, the swirling black, dotted with stars and brush strokes of colorful nebulas.
“I am rather anxious. Not afraid. After all I have seen, and done-- I am relieved. If I am honest. To be done. Loneliness is a prison.”
A chuckle escaped that surprised him.
“Loneliness is my prison."
The mage lowered his trembling claw, balling those jagged, untrimmed nails into the calloused flesh of his palm.
Despite their neglected state, it didn't hurt. His palms too calloused from eons of holding his weight on his staff.
Neglected.
Hmm, yes.
His whole being was neglected, tatters of himself, seams split, corners dusty, other parts water logged and filled with mold spores, slowly poisoning him.
The mage didn't bleed anymore.
Not blood, at least.
It was now a poison that was filling him, manifesting itself.
Were something brave enough to attempt to dig itself into his hexorzied skin what bubbles up is a thick black, putrid substance.
The smell of decay and death.
It engulfs whatever attempted to invade his shell but also his own husk, covering that piece of skin in the cosmic darkness that was slowly taking over from his chest.
From where his heart was.
Time, the fickle thing that she is, has all but shriveled that organ into a hard, dark, rock that sat heavy in the center of his being.
Now and then, it would pulse with an ache so raw it could drop him to his knees.
One would not think that pain would be a welcomed presence.
But it was.
At least, to the mage.
Because it reminded him that he was a living, breathing, feeling, being.
Was he though?
It was hard to decipher what he was now.
A beautiful, terrifying blend of cosmic horror, arcane madness and human melancholy.
The air shifted slightly around the mage and the semi-sentient husk, butterflies fluttered lazily, landing where they pleased before erupting into flight.
The mage scoffed,
“I was the monster long before his Viktor turned into the machine herald. Do not try to persuade me.”
Chromatic eyes lifted to the sky, their colors shifting like those of the sunset in the west.
Thoughts of Jayce always brought more of the pinks, and his natural topaz. They swirled together with the metallic of shame.
“I am a selfish thing, Jayce. As the universe tried to separate us, I always found a way around it. A way to find you. To save you. To--”
He had to clear his throat, a lump of uncomfortable emotion trying to choke him. The mage swallowed it, pushing himself to his feet with the help of his staff.
One, two, three steps, turn, and like Jayce from before, he dropped to his knees.
Not in fear, but reverence, watching it's eyes move towards his, they locked and stared.
A trembling breath escaped the mage's chest.
“I needed you in my life."
Gnarled fingers reached out to gently caress the side of the husk’s face.
“At the epicenter of it all of it all, I am just a man. I am weak, and selfish. I am rage, and love. I am nothing, and I am everything. I am foolish, stupid, and human.”
Wet stung his eyes. Black hexavalent tears trickled downwards, staining his pale skin. He touched the liquid and frowned before scooting closer, pressing his miner’s kiss to the husk.
To his Jayce who he had failed.
“You are a part of me. As I, you. You are all the pieces of me I miss the most when it's quiet, Jayce. Every timeline, every possibility, inexplicably bound, tethered together in a way that even I could never explain. I could not be without you. I was not complete without you."
Rubbing their foreheads together, the mage curled into the husk.
“I can not be without you. There is no me, without you.
The sun had vanished now, darkness was beginning to fall.
“I am tired, Jayce."
"I know you are, Viktor,"
With no weapon left to hold, the husk's arms crackled as they lowered to wrap around his friend.
“You can sleep now, it's alright. I have you."
Twilight covered the land as the sun sank into her resting place. As Viktor sank deeper into his resting place.
"Forgive me?" His voice cracked, unable to move from where he was nestled.
"There is nothing to forgive. Not when it's you. Not when it's us. Rest now. I'll see you again soon. I'll be waiting when infinity ends."
The land and light, mage and husk, flowers and butterflies all sigh, one last time.
And as dusk settles, so does their dust.