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[It's late one night, a few days after her retrieval from the Crater and return to the city proper, when Summer finds herself lying awake wondering whether knowledge of the future is a kindness.

It's something she's had experience with, now, in a variety of ways. G'raha had kept the future from her, back when she'd first arrived in Sumarlok moons ago, and they'd discovered that he remembered much and more of the goings-on of their star than she did because he'd already lived through something she hadn't. He'd told her, then, that he would leave her the joy of experiencing it firsthand. And she'd wondered, yes, but she'd never really wondered — even when the other shards similar to her remembered things she didn't, even when they pressed her about facts and people and locales she couldn't recall because she'd not even met them yet — because she'd had faith in the only thing that really mattered: that it would turn out all right, because G'raha had given no indication that it wouldn't.

There's an irony to all that, now. A deep melancholy, too — to suddenly be cognizant of everything he must've known and had to keep from her, the things he'd known were in her future that he'd hidden in order to leave her a measure of bliss in ignorance. He must have looked at her and known that she would have her soul ripped from her own body in Garlemald. That she would be unwittingly and unwillingly pitted against Zodiark. That the skies over Thavnair would turn red. That he would leave her, again, and make her most horrible nightmares a reality by his own willing choice, for the sake of the star they were both fighting to save.

Tis not so very hard to stomach, all told, for all that she might not like it. Raha has always known more of her future than he rightly ought to, even from the very moment he'd first reached out to her from the First under the guise of the Crystal Exarch. It's something she's used to trusting him with. She's used to trusting him with the whole of herself.

But she lies there in bed and finds herself turning Azem's crystal over and over again in her fingers, the weight and balance of it making it roll smoothly over each in its turn while her Elpis blossom turns faintly violet at her bedside. For the second time, now, she's come to hold the knowledge of someone else's future in her own hands, and — and she's not the Crystal Exarch, for all that they both love their secrets. He kept his counsel for the sake of ensuring the success of his aims. She keeps hers because secrets are precious things, in and of themselves.

The secret she's harboring isn't hers to keep. But she's not sure it's hers to give, either.

Would it be cruel to tell him? Would it be crueler not to? Would he even listen, even believe her if she tried? Does he already know, thanks to whatever intervention Hythlodaeus surely must've made himself long before? Does he know and wish he didn't? Would telling him only make things worse?

I wonder — is Emet-Selch adrift somewhere in this aetherial sea, in defeat finally remembering your time together in Elpis? How it must gall him — to be entrusted with knowledge of the Final Days, only to be rendered powerless to act upon it! So many lifetimes dedicated to restoring his beloved Amaurot in blissful ignorance. Oh, folly.

Not just his beloved Amaurot, she thinks bitterly. Theirs. Their Amaurot, their world unsundered. She's seen it, now — not just a ghost of a memory beneath the waves but true, whole, alive. Stolen away, and for what? The ephemeral answer to a question posed desperate and flawed in its very design.

Fuck you, Fandaniel, she thinks at no one in particular, and lands the smooth orange stone in her palm, gripping it until the carving of the sun presses a soft indentation of its shape into the flesh beneath it.]

You'd come running for a friend. I wonder if you'll do it for a familiar old familiar.

[She's always exhausted, lately, and making use of Azem's invocation in a place like this is always particularly taxing. But there's only one person she's seeking to call to, this time, instead of seven — and if the golden glow that encircles her bed is dimmer and paler than usual, it's at least none the less complete for it.]

Please, Emet-Selch.

[She squeezes the crystal tight, and calls, and wonders what answer — if any at all — that she'll earn when she eventually reopens her eyes.]

[It's not like he missed her being here, or anything.

They aren't friends. He insists upon it. Her disappearance was an annoyance more than anything, an unwelcome reminder such things could happen here, and he most certainly didn't find himself lacking for her conversational company. She's tolerable at best, which is more than he'd say for most--

Which, of course, is all there is to it. She is the most tolerable of the shards, and it is an annoyance that this place seemingly decided to spirit her elsewhere, of all possible souls.

When he feels the tug of a familiar summoning, though, he traces the magic back to its source; he fixes his soulsight upon the aether he finds there, and nearly drops the book he's reading in surprise. He should have noticed this already. (But if he had, then he would have been looking more than once every couple of days, and that simply couldn't stand.)

The rush of aether is unmistakable, given how much of it composes him. For another mage, his appearance couldn't possibly be missed-- he's standing there in a comfortable black velvet houserobe when she opens her eyes, arms folded as he glowers down at her.]

So you've seen fit to return after all. Just what did you think you were doing?

[The terrible thing is, she almost laughs. Strange how the same carping annoyance can take on such a different character, once she's had more insight into what's behind it. He really has been like this his entire long, long life, hasn't he? Mayhap it's good to know that this is one thing about him that's gone unravaged by the centuries of time. One more thing that remained of the man who was Emet-Selch even before his descent into megalomaniacal madness.]

Causing trouble for you, what else?

[Twelve above, how many times had he told her to behave herself while in Elpis? If she'd taken even a half-drink for every one, she'd be deeper in her cups than Thancred on one of his most profound nights of reveling.

She wonders what it is she'd just dragged him from. Some sort of leisure, if his attire is any indication. Well, so much the better. It's good to know he does, in fact, spare a moment for himself every once in a while, these days.]

How did you know I was gone? The fact that you were finally afforded some peace and quiet?

Precisely so.

[He grumbles that out as he snaps his fingers and creates himself a chair, which he promptly slumps into, leaning back with one leg crossed over the other. The robe evidently comes with slippers.]

Honestly, of all the nerve-- you wish to observe creation, then disappear just before I have cause to use it on a larger scale.

I would've offered you a seat if you'd —

[U G H. It's not as though she makes a particularly huffy or intimidating sight, propped up on pillows and bundled up beneath blankets, but she folds her arms across her waist and sulks at him anyway, mostly just for the sake of form before going on.

She actually had a point to this, of course. But then he goes and baits her with the tantalizing prospect of creation magic, and, well.]

You didn't. Without me?! That's not fair!

[What would she have done, gotten up and pulled a chair out? He rolls his eyes at that first comment, waving a hand dismissively-- because she truly doesn't look intimidating at all, in her current state.]

Of course I did-- what, was I meant to let it sit for an indefinite amount of time? There was no telling whether you would return at all.

...So I've heard. It's been almost a moon now, hasn't it?

[Nearly a moon for the ones who stayed here, at least. Much longer for her. Thinking back on it all saps some of her natural desire to bicker with him, though, for all that it's tempting to accuse him of specifically waiting for her to be gone, just to spite her with his creation work in her absence.

Reflexively, her gaze drifts to the Elpis bloom at the bedside, still glowing, before returning back down to where her arms are crossed atop the comforter. He's had his chance to bait her; now it's her turn.]

It wasn't Grani, was it?

[Likely it wasn't, but it's not as though the point of the question is really to find out what he did create, after all.]

I'd be sad to have missed him.

What-- no, but how do you know of it?

[He'd never, to his recollection, summoned up Grani around Azem's shard. There had been no reason to-- and perhaps there was, for the version of himself that she knows, but he doubts his other self would have called upon that particular creation either.

It's been a long time, since he has.]

Do you really think I called for you just to amuse myself with wasting your time and annoying you?

[...]

Well, all right, no, I suppose it's full fair to think I might've, but — I didn't, not this time. I wanted the chance to talk to you. Some of the things I saw while I was gone...concern you. And I brought a message back with me that I feel bound to deliver.

I might have believed it.

[He says, dry, but it's just to avoid responding to the rest for a moment.

After a brief silence, though, he exhales a tired sigh.]

They concern me despite my death, you say? Hythlodaeus has informed me that I am... lacking in memories which involve the shard of Azem we both know, but I am only aware of the broader strokes.

[-and surely that's all that it could be. He's a dead man, after all, and that crystal was meant as a failsafe, not for extended use; if he were to be pulled back, he expects it to be to help handle Elidibus and little more.]

...I know. Something about...ink and parchment and souls, a Sharlayan scholar explained it to me and I only mostly grasped it.

[Her fingers twist in the bedding.]

Would you want to know your own future, if a condition of knowing it was that you wouldn't be able to change anything about it?

[Would you drag it out of the person who knew, she thinks idly, like you always seem to when there's a secret at hand and you don't yet know what it is?]

You would ask this of someone who no longer has a future?

[He delivers it evenly, level, with only a slightly arched brow, but-- a measure of the impact is meant to be in the lack of emotion and volume. A straighter shot, perhaps, than he usually makes, but he feels it's merited; he lets it sit, a moment, before continuing.]

But you told us of it once regardless, did you not.

[And the thing about it is — is that she has to let it bite. Has to let the barb hurt the way he designs it to. Because this isn't about winning, or about getting the better of him, and the truth comes with barbs of its own in return, so tis only fair.]

I did. I gather that's the part that Hythlodaeus told you.

[She draws a slow breath.]

But that's not what I meant. Because it wasn't you I told, was it? It was the Emet-Selch of my own star. And I'm not the Azem shard that Hythlodaeus remembers.

[She glances up, then, and meets his eyes with a gaze as steady as his tone.]

I'm asking you. Would you want to know. Would you want me to tell you a story about the Emet-Selch I remember, for whatever that might or might not mean for you?

I suppose I would.

[He'll allow that much. It isn't him, but in a way it is-- they didn't know each other before this place, but she knows Emet-Selch, and what she knows of him still informs the way she sees this iteration.]

I thought you might.

[But it still comes as a sudden relief — a rush of breath that leaves her so fast she almost didn't realize she was holding it, shoulders falling and tension dissipating as she nods slowly in approval.]

It wasn't for nothing. Everything he did. Everything he endured. The legacy he left. It wasn't all for nothing.

Well, it had better not have been. I'd be exceedingly cross, otherwise.

[He folds his arms, there, watching her expectantly.]

Go on, then. Clearly you've more to say than that.

I thought you might find it reassuring to know. I wasn't sure if...if any of the others would think to tell you.

[Would anyone, she wonders? Tis an easy enough mistake, after all, to forget that the slightly different circumstances they all hail from mean slightly different stars and shards, and the man who sits at her bedside in his velvet robe isn't from any of the ones that any of them know. Easy enough to forget and assume that he's any of theirs. But his Azem is nowhere to be found, and may never have the chance to deliver a message like this themselves.]

The Hythlodaeus of my star told me that before the world was sundered, you sometimes used to travel with Azem. That at times they would call for you, and you would answer and help. I think they must have done it when they didn't know what else to do, but they knew that you would.

[Her fingers twist again in the blankets.]

The Emet-Selch of my star didn't take his rest with his death. He waited awhile — or was kept back, mayhap. Because when a little shard of Azem found herself confronted with the very cause of the Final Days, alone and helpless with no path left to tread, she called for his aid. And he answered, one last time.

So I've no rest even in the Underworld, have I?

[He heaves out a sigh, at that, but-- well, all right. Emet-Selch knows well enough that, given the way things ended... there's a good chance he would watch. Observe, especially after regaining his lost memories.]

...Hythlodaeus would be the most likely one to say so, but I've never asked him for more details past what he told me of Hermes. We've had more to discuss than my posthumous actions.

[Which is fine, they're fine, everything is normal. Anyway.]

But it is curious to me, regardless, that you should attempt to call me to your aid when you ought to have others to whom you could reach.

You will have it. Just not as soon as you might've thought.

[Truthfully, she'd half-thought he might just up and portal out after being made the recipient of a remark like that, so it's — optimistic, really, that for all his huffing, he seems to be tolerating the thread of conversation well.]

I wish I could say it was all part of some terribly cunning plan of mine, getting you and Hythlodaeus involved, but I'm afraid I'm just not that clever. I didn't know what else to do, and I thought —

[She stops short, glancing away. Even has the decency to look embarrassed — or possibly a touch mortified — before clearing her throat and moving right along.]

You might be glad to know you were rather spectacular about it. A performance to the last.

One could easily be offended at the implication that calling upon them was 'not that clever'.

[Clearly, getting his help is the smart option?

But he waves it off, returning to the topic at hand.]

What else could I have been? If it was to be my final appearance, then it ought to at least be memorable.

Well, which is it, then? Clever or curious? Either it's an odd thing for me to do or a smart one — and if it's odd for me to be smart, then mayhap I'm the one who ought to be offended.

[TWO CAN PLAY AT THAT GAME, EMET-SELCH.]

...It was, though. Memorable. And in more ways than one.

[And now she ducks her head, hiding the faintest of smiles.]

You had aether enough to recreate the whole of Amaurot on the First, and have it last even beyond when you were gone. You — he — did something like that again. Built a landscape out of aether for me.

Mayhap you are.

[He says, dry. Go ahead, be offended, no skin off his nose.]

But if you were faced with the very cause of the Final Days, then you shall have to explain just what manner of landscape this was, not to mention what purpose it served.

[Surely it would have been simple enough to call upon his magical might in a more-- direct way.]

It was the very end of the universe. The cause of the Final Days had hidden herself there, collecting the despair of countless stars and civilizations that had all fallen to extinction.

[She hums under her breath, glad for the time spent with Nidhana — an education in aetherology that makes offering this explanation that much easier in retrospect.]

The purpose of summoning Zodiark was to shield the star in a massive surfeit of aether — creation magic at its height. You and the Convocation arrived at that conclusion because you were able to work out that the seeds of the Final Days seemed to be planted in places where the aether surrounding the star was thinnest. And you were right. Far at the end of the universe, a monster was singing a song of ruin and despair across the sea of stars, and it was only that shield of aether that was keeping it out.

[She closes her eyes.]

You asked why I didn't have anyone else to call on. The answer is...because when we went to confront her at the edge of the universe, the only way to advance toward where she was hiding was through sacrifice. One by one, they all...my friends, they all...

[Even now, it aches to think of. And she remembers, idly, something he'd said in the capitol building at Amaurot — would half of the Sundered willingly give their lives to save the other half, the way the Unsundered did without hesitation?

One after another after another. They both know what it's like to be the last one standing, now, don't they.]

With each one in turn, they were able to change the landscape. Add to it. Build something out of it. And I had to let them, because to call them back to my side would mean to undo everything they'd built, and we would all perish anyway.

You, on your own, surpassed all of them. You used your aether to sustain all the changes yourself, so that they weren't relying on my friends anymore. You made it so that I could call them back.

...we were correct, then. Summoning Him, shielding our star-- it was the only way, without knowing that monster existed. We could not have produced such a shield otherwise.

An answer built upon sacrifice, as was yours.

[It may not have happened over millenia, but... now, he supposes, she has some idea of what it would be like to lose everyone, one by one. To not only lose them in an instant to sacrifice but to watch it happen progressively, much as he watched the other Unsundered lose themselves.]

And in what manner were they anchored?

You were right.

[How strange an admission that is. Once she never could've imagined herself making such a concession, but she'd be lying to the both of them if she tried to deny it.]

Even bound on the moon, it was Zodiark's presence that continued to shield the star. Fandaniel's plan was to eliminate him, by some means or another, so that the last barrier would be removed, and the Final Days could be ushered in again.

[And she wonders, for a fleeting moment, about Hythlodaeus — clever, manipulative Hythlodaeus, confident in his ability to make his old friend do anything with just the right combination of words and gestures — and whether, before he went to offer himself for the summoning, he'd said something to ensure he'd get his way even in the face of Emet-Selch's potential reluctance.

She wonders if it was something like I want you to make me a promise.

Funny, how that thought leads so naturally to the answer to his question.]

With hope — creation magicks shaped by hope. My design, your power...and Hythlodaeus's approval, I suppose.

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look i know i wrote a novel but also i just have a lot of feelings

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