The restaurant they've claimed for lunch is a small one, on the border between two

countries who have lived so long together that their greatest differences lie in
the words they use for bread, brewing, and financial legitimacy. Farmers and
traders trickle by in a ragged flow. Their voices mingle together in communal
disappointment at the poor grain harvests of the year, and the perpetual weakness
of the soil. Food perfumes the air even out on the dining patio: of coffee harsh
and pitiless, stews left to steep and dough rising in the oven. Igeyorhm has
already devoured two cups of the restaurant's brew, along with an extra pat of
butter on her toast.
Later on, she'll go to possess some general in a stronghold south of here; she has
a fresh crystal from Emet-Selch for the purpose, one that's not already being used
to suppress her current host. She'll read through the general's study and private
documents, and order troops about in what will seem like perfectly reasonable
patrols -- at least until the war breaks out. Even then, she'll have a vast amount
of leeway before true suspicion is cast upon the man's role in it. The pull of
Darkness is already strong upon this shard; its inhabitants are accustomed to all
manner of beastkin slinking out from corners unseen, snatching up their kin and
stealing away corpses to be gnawed upon. They warn of shadows early to their
children here. They teach their young to watch for monsters with every step.
Monsters, Igeyorhm supposes, that she now numbers among as well.
It is strange to think of herself as a creature to be feared. Mortal ignorance will
dress her in madness, paint a hunger upon her that is no more refined than a rabid
beastkin frothing at the mouth. She will not allow their opinions to sway her. She
is a member of the Convocation; her goals and peers are both of noble intent. She
has never accepted failure before. She will not be defeated now.
Emet-Selch is beside her, reading some merchant's ledger stolen out of a vault,
looking pensive as he sips from his cup and turns the pages with clawed fingers. He
had made certain to pay the restaurant in full for their meal, counting out a
handful of coins with practiced unconcern. It is an exchange of plain numbers: a
baffling idea at heart for being so restrictive. Its commerce hinges upon the
assumption that the food would not have been given freely, or that assistance in
kind might not be offered from those who had eaten it. That the bakers might be
willing to allow a traveler to perish for lack of resources, unable to shape food
for themselves out of the local aether -- or that someone might take more than they
needed, leaving the cooks stranded in turn.
Payment. Igeyorhm does not find it as strange as she should. Not anymore. That fact
disquiets her immensely. Like a child stolen from its home and raised by its own
rivals, Igeyorhm had thought the practice to be perfectly reasonable when she had
been a mortal; only by having a chance to step outside of it, to remember having
lived another way, had the cold horror finally sunk in.
It had been agonizing to wake up into such realizations. It had been worse to
realize just how much of a mercy such a waking truly was.
It frightens her, how readily Hydaelyn has disintegrated her people through the
acid of forced assimilation, stripping them away from their families and culture
and plunging them into foreign lands. How Hydaelyn has unmade an entire legacy of
Ascians who were singularly devoted to the care and nurturing of their star,
clawing out Her victory with no care for either balance or bloodshed.
The price which Zodiark had demanded was costly, true -- but it was not, at least,
their own self-identities.
Bread crust crackles in Igeyorhm's hands as she tears off a chunk and chews it
thoughtfully, clumsy with the thicker knuckles of her borrowed body. The sooner she
can fix this, the better. Being surrounded by these distorted shards forces
experiences into her that she does not want, thoughts that she does not wish to
retain. Mortal years have seared her memory. Igeyorhm has learned the lessons of
possessions being taken away which could not be replaced by a mere thought, of
going hungry without any sign of relief, of being hurt by both kin and strangers
alike. Of locking doors for fear of what might otherwise come through them in the
night. She wants to forget everything she can about those days, like a muddy robe
remade clean with a shake of its aether, dissolved and recompiled in as much time
as it takes to imagine the act.
She wants, badly, to be clean again.
She had gotten rid of her first body as fast as she could, before she'd even really
found out how to get a new one -- which was a bit of an oversight on her part, in
retrospect. She hadn't been able to overcome the unease of looking at the body's
face, even after reshaping its aether to several different appearances; every time
she had glimpsed herself, she had felt the nauseating sway of two histories
intersecting. It had made her feel trapped and panicky, as if Hydaelyn would reach
out to snatch her memories away again at any moment. She'd ended up flinging the
body off the spires of a mountain range, and had ridden it all the way down. Emet-
Selch had been the one to find her soul floating in the rift a bit guiltily,
sighing before gathering her up in his arms and carrying her back to the Source.
Her current vessel is alive. For now. Igeyorhm still doesn't know what to do about
that. There's still a fractional soul nestled within the crystal of darkness she
used to pave the way for her possession, gone quiet and dorment, and if she breaks
the binding to depart, that soul will eventually wake up again and wonder at its
own gaps. She has taken it places, done things with its hands which others would
call lawless. Her aether has marked it, weakened its boundaries permanently. Yet --
as a vital part of the Underworld -- its soul is precious too, even in a crumpled,
delusional state. Better to return it to the aetherial flow, allow its energies to
rejoin with the current so that it can be reborn, and leave its inherited deeds
behind.
But if this flesh dies with Igeyorhm within it, she'll be tossed back into the rift
again. She's not sure if the most merciful thing to do would be to drop it off the
edge of something steep and leave right before the bottom, so that its owner won't
have much time to react before death takes them. Or drug it perhaps, let it drift
away in a dreamless sleep where the heart beats more and more slowly, until it,
too, finds its final rest. If she asks Emet-Selch to dispose of her body for her,
it's as good as admitting that she's not ready to handle such assignments on her
own yet, and she'd rather learn how to do it properly now.
It is troublesome, finding the right balance for a polite death.
But the body is a nice fit in the meantime, some miqo'te or whatever they call them
on the Thirteenth. It is younger than the specimen that Emet-Selch similarly wears,
but not by much; they could be brothers, cousins, lovers to this world's eyes,
unremarkable for spending their days together. Her one concession so far is to turn
her vessel's fur blue, out of curiosity for how the color would take to the hairs
of his body. She keeps biting her own tongue by accident, running the tip of it
against the tiny fangs. Coffee tastes different in his mouth, and she's interested
in flavors which are stronger to his senses, twitching the body's ears back and
forth for the novelty of it.
It might be entertaining to wear a miqo'te again. She'll certainly have a range of
hosts, by the time all this is done.
She has no idea how they'll kill Hydaelyn. That is a death which will take far more
creativity. She's worried about that, since the same method would surely work upon
Zodiark as well. With the creative concept of gods now established, they'll need to
prevent Hydaelyn from ever being resummoned -- not to mention the issue of how
they'll keep Hydaelyn from simply taking one look at a partially-restored Zodiark,
and smashing Him a second time -- but Igeyorhm suspects that these very questions
have been plaguing the three unsundered of their ranks, and with just as much
frustration.
Her mind won't stop racing. Like wildfire, it devours every idea she feeds towards
it, and greedily demands more. It's exactly what her mothers always warn her about:
a cautionary tale that Igeyorhm has heard since childhood about the dangers of
moving too fast. They always say that she'll run and run until she uses up every
last road, and will have to learn transformation by default while plummeting into
the abyss, growing her own wings to fly.
Said. That was what Igeyorhm's mothers always said.
She distracts herself from a fresh gout of mourning by spooning more sugar into her
cup. Amaurot has been dust for centuries, and Igeyorhm still cannot ingest the
reality of it. It's fine, she tells herself. She can shoulder it -- will shoulder
it -- and stop their people's pain here. She will wipe away all sorrow from the
faces of her fellow Convocation members -- the growing tightness in their eyes that
never goes away, the way that Elidibus never seems rested anymore, how Lahabrea has
begun to wince when he laughs -- and she will try to forget the same violation that
has been done to her, before it melts into her identity forever.
She is restless with the unsolved problem of it, though -- fidgeting with her meal
and smearing tomato paste listlessly across her toast -- until Emet-Selch finally
lifts his head from his book, and asks mildly, "Are you still fretting, Igeyorhm?"
Igeyorhm quiets her hands in an instant, though her tail betrays her, swishing back
and forth like an outraged eel. "Mayhap."
Emet-Selch shrugs, his thumb marking his place in his text. His control over his
borrowed flesh is more practiced; he gives away nothing with the idle flick of his
ears. "The matter is not that complicated, if you introduce the right incentives.
Bribe an adventurer or three if you've need of extra hands. It ever amazes me what
these people will do for a handful of coin that's less than it takes to repair
their armor."
He changes the topic then without warning, nodding towards one of the farmers he's
been watching off and on for the last few minutes, some unremarkable local chewing
their lunch sullenly at one of the distant tables. "While I have your attention,
tell me -- what are your thoughts on that individual over there, with the poorly-
groomed beard?"
Igeyorhm squints gamely at his target, seeing only the blunt features of a male
hyur at first. The wisps of the man's soul are little better. Her vision has never
been as sharp as Emet-Selch's -- few ever came close -- and now, at a fraction of
her capacity, what should have been a vivid rainbow is instead as drained as a
tapestry bleached for centuries beneath the sun.
"His soul is an interesting color, I suppose. Close to mine, isn't it?" she adds,
lifting her hand as she attempts to compare the shades.
Only silence answers her. When she glances over to Emet-Selch for confirmation, she
sees his gaze weighing upon her, as shuttered and private as if he were watching
her from across the distance of a debate hall, waiting for the opening remarks.
She's not stupid, of course; she catches on immediately upon recognizing his
scrutiny. A dismayed, scoffing noise of dismay exits her lips as she considers her
twin blithely chewing on a forkful of vegetables. "What," she begins, utterly
perplexed by the surreality of it all. "What should I do, Emet-Selch? Should I --
talk to him? To me? The aether of their being, should we not be able to do
something --"
Thankfully, Emet-Selch comes to her rescue, even as her imagination threatens to
trap her with too many options. "Rejoining this shard to the Source should be the
most stable route, as planned." Leaning back in his chair, the man rubs hard at the
fox-sharp point of his chin, lost momentarily in the dilemma of it all. "Doing so
should bring your fragments together naturally, as they would lose their incarnate
form and their aether would be drawn towards the Source -- and from there,
automatically to you. It will be a more difficult matter for those who originate
from elsewhere, but we were lucky in how we found you." He makes a deceptively
careless wave of his hand, a gesture which hangs theatrically in the air without
any applause to back it. "Still, it might well be an invitation for disaster if we
awoke two separate manifestations of your soul, who might both serve as lodestones
for your essence. Also," he adds mildly, "Lahabrea would almost certainly explode."
Dismayed, Igeyorhm watches Emet-Selch give her trapped soul only one last, resigned
glance before returning to his work. Should, he said. Should is theoretical, as all
of their plans are until they can bring the first part of their star home. The
aftermath of an apocalypse is a poor time to develop a new school of aetheric
manipulation -- and yet they must, herself included. They experiment with their
very star, and there are only thirteen chances to get it right.
"I've been trained in holding a Prime state," she argues. "Could I not perform the
same feat here?" It sounds ludicrous and dangerous, but also something she could
survive. Mostly. "Should that not work to begin putting us back together? Like
clay, couldn't we just -- start squashing our souls together? What if I tried to
possess their body, how would that turn out?"
Such a possibility must have been discussed already; Igeyorhm can't imagine
Lahabrea skipping that particular debate. Yet by the very fact that such a method
has not been proposed to her, she can already guess at its failure. If all it would
take to heal their sundered brethren would be to sift each world, then that would
be their first priority in restoring their ranks, even before the shards
themselves. Then none of them would risk their entire star on the shoulders of
three weary Convocation members; they might still yet avert Hydaelyn's attempted
genocide.
Disappointingly enough, Emet-Selch confirms her suspicions by merely drumming his
fingers upon the table, a staccato heartbeat that dwindles into lethargy. "The
energy expenditure of maintaining a Prime condition is no small thing. Trying to
recombine the energies of your soul would be fourteen times the effort. Even by
Elidibus's calculations, the energy curve would become exhaustive past a certain
point." Yet his fingers shift to fretting against the edge of his book's cover; her
words have caught his attention after all, coaxing it back into examination of the
theories. "If two shards could reconnect to one another by mere aetheric proximity,
we would simply be able to open sufficient portals and allow them to merge.
Lahabrea can tell you how poorly that approach works," he adds, dryly. "Perhaps one
day, once the Source's Underworld has enough density to exert its own gravity, it
might be possible. Until then, for a permanent fusion, I believe that repairing a
single soul would follow the same requirements as an entire shard -- that we must
overstress one star so that the aether of the second is compelled to connect in
order to heal the other, like scar tissue joining the skin of a cut. It makes sense
for the two to parallel, at least. Aether is aether, in the end."
She listens to him with mounting excitement. "So," she begins briskly, "it seems
clear --"
"No, you are not to assault your soul, Igeyorhm," Emet-Selch announces, already
jumping to the inevitable conclusion before she can properly wheedle him into
submission. "And please, do not invite yourself to be assaulted in your other's
presence." He gives her a concerned frown over his journal, until he finally pins
down the pages of his book and stares at her over the letters. "Nor do I wish to
indoctrinate our people into the habit of stalking and hunting their own selves
down like prey. Promise me you will not do anything rash to yourself, Igeyorhm.
Lahabrea would never let me hear the end of it."
She will not give up so easily; it is the first solid direction she has to pursue.
"And why shouldn't I, Emet-Selch," she challenges, incited by sheer stubbornness.
"After all, you have a spare."
She'd meant it as a rallying cry. A reassurance that even after their star has been
shattered, there is still hope. That, in her current form -- not as gravely
irreplaceable as any of the unsundered -- there is nothing to fear by accident, or
injury.
Emet-Selch's reaction is far worse. His eyes widen for a moment and then he shakes
his head, slowly, emphatically, as if beyond his conscious control -- as if she has
wounded him with a spell formed from pure sound. "No, Igeyorhm. No."
She frowns. Queasiness replaces confusion, as an unpleasant notion takes swift root
in the back of her mind, and hisses to her from the murk. Bracing her arm against
the table, she leans forward across it, ignoring the hazards of their lunch beside
her elbow. "What happened, Emet-Selch?" And then again, with growing urgency:
"Emet-Selch, who among us has already been lost?"
"Don't," he whispers.
She freezes, unsure and sick with it. The implications continue to bubble. If one
of their own has been annihilated -- fourteen times over destroyed -- then the
Convocation would have an empty seat in truth, to be granted to another Ascian out
of desperation rather than as an honor. It could never be an honor again. Not like
that. The inheritor of such a role would know that its previous holder was gone
forever, never to see the lights of home. They would have to carry that living
memorial forward and inform all of Amaurot about the loss one day, their
responsibility to the dead invoked with each utterance of that name upon another's
lips.
Knowledge has never been a thing for her people to fear before. Even when the Final
Days had come, and throughout the devastating grief afterwards, Amaurot had always
said, we will learn from this.
And yet now, they are all learning things which should have never been brought
among their people, perspectives which poison those who harbor them, like willingly
allowing an abscess to fester within their bodies and poison the nearby flesh. From
Emet-Selch's reticence alone, she can guess how they have corroded him in the same
manner: a slow wound leaking fluids into his gut, turning septic under the skin
while he holds his expression like a mask. Even the small amount of what Igeyorhm
has experienced has been enough to make her feel as if she will never be the same
again.
She can only guess how much he -- and the other two survivors -- have already
witnessed.
She swallows down her shame, feeling the knot of regret in her throat. "I accept
responsibility for your distress, and seek to make amends." She says it in Ascian
with a miqo'te's mouth. She says it as best she can in this body of hers, which is
fractional in every way. "How can we make this better?"
Yet, despite her best efforts at solace, the familiar harmonics bring an unfamiliar
pain to Emet-Selch's face; he winces and closes his eyes. The curve of his mouth is
no less sorrowful. "Spare those words this place," he murmurs at last, and if he
has also slipped into Ascian as well, she does not remark on it. "Let us not sully
our people's tongue by laying it in a bed of rot."
The cadence of his words is so despondent that her own chest aches in sympathy.
Watching for any signs of rejection, Igeyorhm rises to her feet, uncaring of the
picture they might present to any curious eyes, and comes across to his side of the
table. Gently, making certain not to muffle the sound of her approach, she lifts
her hands to Emet-Selch's face -- his cheeks broad in this form, his chin narrow
and sharp -- and cups his jaw, feeling out the new shape of his body beneath her
fingertips.
"My soul in this condition is but a feather's weight compared to yours," she
declares, breaking the stillness: a value presented as blunt fact, without the
cushion of self-pity. "And in its lightness, it is of no more value than any other
upon this shard. Given the choice between testing one life or millions, which is
best? Any Ascian knows the answer to that, Emet-Selch. Why risk an entire star of
fragments? If there is any experiment made towards the recombining of souls, it
should be waged upon my essence first."
Emet-Selch's sigh is a tickle against her wrist. Some of the tension drains out of
him at last as he turns into her palm, leaning against her support. "We are both
Ascians, no matter how frail," is his soft counterclaim. His eyes remain closed,
but the exhaustion in his voice bypasses such concealments. "To think of one
another as replaceable is a step down a road I am loathe to find myself upon. Our
souls are equal as kin. Must we quibble over their worth?"
"Our souls are not equal." Her fingers curl against his jaw, meticulously steady
despite the passion shuddering through her voice. She frees her other hand,
reaching up to brush at the heavy strands of his hair. "If I am lost beyond the
void, then your efforts can still bring about my revival. But if you perish, or
Lahabrea, or Elidibus, then none of us can save you. Not as we are now." Before he
can protest a second time, she continues to wage her suit, pressing softly with
each word like trowels sinking into potter's clay. "I am at a mockery of my full
strength like this. Why gamble with so many, when I am far simpler to affect?"
Her unrelenting determination finally makes it through; Emet-Selch opens his eyes
again, as blue as her fur, of borrowed color but with an ancient's awareness
staring out of the depths. "Because the souls here are sleeping, Igeyorhm. They
drift through their unnaturally shortened lives ignorant of what they have lost. No
matter what happens to them here, their memories will amount to nothing once their
spirits are restored to their proper homes. But you will remember, Igeyorhm," he
continues, his expression shifting openly into a frown. His own tail is lashing
now, agitated beyond suppression. "You will carry the burden of your experiences
for all time, even once our star is whole. Should such experiments sour, then they
would amount to little more than an extra torment upon yourself, all for the sake
of untested theories."
They are in public here among mortals; they cannot be themselves. They cannot ever
truly be themselves, not while Hydaelyn's eyes are watching. Even so, Igeyorhm
lifts her fingers to trace the first arc of Emet-Selch's sigil across his brow. She
paints the second in rough, invisible daubs, and then the third, whispering his
name through the means of skin gracing skin: a promise passed between them both of
recognition, as well as duty.
"I have already learned far more than I would ever wish, Emet-Selch." Saying it is
excruciating, like swallowing molten iron, each curl of overheated metal searing
and charring her from within. "Hydaelyn sought to make me one of Her mortals and
succeeded for cycle upon cycle before you freed me. The longer this error
continues, the longer our people will wallow in oblivion, lost among Her lies."
Igeyorhm is no stranger to Convocation debates, even as they are now -- a scattered
handful of their people, when an entire chamber should have been filled. The
crowning point of the debate lies within her grasp. "You say that you fear the time
when we might consider one of our souls as expendable. And yet, Emet-Selch, the
longer we dally, the sooner that day will almost certainly arrive. We cannot afford
to hesitate. What else is there, save to show ourselves as braver than the threats
of our enemies?"
Again, Emet-Selch grimaces. His ears press down, flattening themselves like black
leaves against his skull. He hesitates, and she thinks she has him.
Then he shakes his head, resolute and worn, and she sees once more the grief etched
in the lines of his mouth. "The Thirteenth is yours, Igeyorhm -- yours to determine
the shape of its unmaking. Show us the strategies of your vision through it
instead. Do not martyr yourself on behalf of those who are not even alive enough to
be grateful for it." Reluctantly, he reaches up to pull her hands away, clasping
them instead like an offering, borrowed knuckles tight against her own. "To me --
to all of us -- your soul is worth more than a thousand slumbering embers. No
matter the degradation that awaits us, that will never change."
"That is the very same reason that spurs me on." Even with hobbled vision, Igeyorhm
has no difficulty seeing the power within the man's form; his aether is a sun
against her hands. There is no hiding the man's heart, blazing brighter than any
other creature around them. "For you and Lahabrea, Mitron and Emmerololth and all
the rest of our people -- nothing else is greater to me. I will do anything to see
you all restored. That, too, will never change, Emet-Selch. Never."
She lets him go first, even as the temptation remains to linger -- to hope for a
different verdict if only they wait for long enough here, whittle away enough time
in enough remote villages where no one knows them, until another Ascian might
arrive to announce, Look! We are saved! It does not matter, she decides. If she
must take action with the Thirteenth, then she will simply have to be as swift as
possible about it. Her resolve will allow nothing less.
Once the first reflection returns to the Source, then any new Ascians they recover
from that star will be doubled in strength. With the next, those facilities will
triple. World after world, their people's essence will be restored, the fractions
of their spirits coming together naturally in the Underworld like birds winging
home -- and if Igeyorhm does her job right, does it fast, then the next Ascians
that wake will never know this same frailty that she knows now, so blind that they
are barely be able to recognize their own souls standing right beside them.
If Igeyorhm can do this while at her weakest, show them that even while nearly-
powerless, they are still capable of reclaiming a shard, then she can bring them
hope.
She will bring them all home.