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( When Emet-Selch wakes, it's likely the first thing he'll smell is the appetising aroma of fresh coffee wafting into the bedroom from somewhere further inside the apartment. Hythlodaeus's government-issued housing is relatively humble — it's clean and tidy, with much of the same decor and accents found elsewhere in Sumarlok — but the single bedroom and small lounge suggest it wasn't created with luxury in mind. As such, the sound of an ancient tune lost to time will likely filter through as well: Hythlodaeus is humming as he works, or so it would seem, and something is making him think of home.

Of Amaurot, and the world they once shared.

A few long moments pass before the humming finally stops, followed by the soft pad of footsteps appoaching the bedroom again. Hythlodaeus slips in with a tray held between both hands: coffee, and fresh juice should Emet-Selch find himself in the mood for something sweeter, as well as a plate of what appears to be slice apples and honey for dipping.

A light breakfast, but then he suspects neither of them will be in the mood for anything heavier. Unsure whether he's actually awake, Hythlodaeus moves over to the far side of the bed and sets the tray down atop the bedside table, where he admires his handiwork for a moment before climbing back onto the mattress. He's dressed for the morning in what appears to be a large, loose cardigan made from some kind of fluffy lilac material, and a pair of soft knitted socks that reach up over the knee to his thighs. Setting his back against the headboard, Hythlodaeus folds his legs to the side as he shifts to look down at his bedmate, one finger reaching out to stroke a lock of dark hair back behind the shell of his ear.

If he's still sleeping, Hythlodaeus will let him rest. No need to hurry such a quiet moment — not one he's been aching for for over ten thousand years. )

i have a question about the workings of aether

what would your price be in exchange for answering it for me?

( Too late, Hythlodaeus realises that something is very wrong. There's a burst of Manna - a twitch in the fingertips of the woman who'd fallen - but then his knees give way as his own resereves deplete to near nothing. It's a curious feeling to suddenly know you're likely a few breaths away from your own end: something he's experienced before, of course, but under rather different circumstances.

Best not think about that. In a sluggish daze, Hythlodaeus pushes a hand into his pocket to retrieve the little device tucked within. Time is short, after all, and there is a message he needs to send. )

Emet-Selch

There was much I should have told you

I am sorry

when you became a member of the convocation of fourteen

did you have to give up your name to take on your title instead?

( The Synchrony has helped enormously. While it had left them bboth feeling a little drained of energy for the first day or so, Hythlodaeus has found his road to recovery significantly shortened thanks to Emet-Selch's care and attention. it hasn't been an easy few days; as he's drifted in and out of consciousness there's been a great deal on Hythlodaeus's mind, but now that he's feeling a little more like himself ...

Well. He can begin to process their conversations.

It's difficult to be faced with the truth of Emet-Selch's change. He is himself, yes, and Hythlodaeus wants to argue that he'll always be that brilliant, grumpy genius from their past, but the more time he spends with him the easier it is to see how the years have affected his friend. His body is different. Emet-Selch never used to slouch. There is, perhaps, an occasional lick of cruelty in words that would never have seemed cruel before — never directed at Hythlodaeus, of course, but towards those around them.

He loves him still. In many ways he supposes it makes him the worst kind of hypocrite — but then perhaps there's no comparing Emet-Selch's atrocities to Hermes'. Perhaps they both deserve to have people who'll love them and help them take those first steps out from the dark.

This is what he's considering as he flips through yet another property cataloge, relaxed and reclined on the couch in one of Emet-Selch's robes as he awaits his cup of tea. Hythlodaeus could certainly get it himself, but he's taken quite a liking to Emet-Selch's insistence on fussing over him, and so he's happy to remain comfortably settled against the cushions as he awaits his drink. Perhaps it's something to do with his transformation this month — canines are a man's best friend, or so he's been told — and if that's the case?

Well. There'll be some gentle teasing about it when the transformation leaves them, make no mistake about that. )

[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.]

Come now, don't be such a spoil-spot. It's just a little light tresspassing, after all.

( As usual, there's a gleam of mischied in violet eyes as he unloops his arm from Emet-Selch's and heads towards the low wooden fence. Moving to Primavera has been a breath of fresh air for Hythlodaeus: quite literally, as it happens, what with the clean air and lush scent of nature that permeates every corner of Primavera. He feels a sense of settling here that he never quite experienced in the hustle and bustle of Sumarlok — the similarities to Amaurot became oppressive, they became too much, and Hythlodaeus is pleased to leave it behind.

Emet-Selch visits frequently, of course. Their sleepovers are regular enough that Hythlodaeus has gone so far as to set aisde drawer and wardrobe space for him; has a nightstand on his preferred side of the bed, keeps his slippers on hand for the nights when he shows up in an unannounced swirl of inky shadow. Sometimes these sleepovers lead to next-day activities such as this: Hythlodaeus is still exploring the lands surrounding his new home, and he's always pleased to have the company of his dear friend.

This time, he's on a mission to locate the perfect picnic spot. Important business, or so he'd claimed to Emet-Selch, who is currently being encouraged to join him in the harmless crime of tresspassing across a meadow. The grass is tall, the flowers are beautiful, but the land appears to be private—

And yet Hythlodaeus is certain the small copse of trees beyond will prove the perfect spot to settle with sandwiches in the foreseeable future. Determined, he hikes up the voluminous skirts of his rope to reveal familiar hupodema, but the pants? No-where to be seen; Hythlodaeus's long, bare legs are very much on display as he moves to climb over the fence. )

We'll be on the other side of the meadow before you know it!

[No one knows how this particular box turns up at Hyth's residence, which means it's probably the work of Wind-Up Thancred, small and stealthy ninja that he is. There is no name on the box, and it comes wrapped in plain brown packaging. Really, there's nothing festive about it at all.

The handmade coffee-flavored chocolates found within, indeed, are equally plain and hardly festive. The note that accompanies them, tucked carefully inside the lid of the box, is both handwritten and unsigned: ]

Once upon a time there lived a man named Hades who didn't like sweet things even though his friends did.

No one got him anything for Starlight.

And even if they did, who could prove it?

( Hythlodaeus has grown accustomed to waking slowly when sharing his bed with Emet-Selch. Their lazy ritual is a far cry from the mornings they shared before Zodiark: those were too early, too hurried, one inevitably having to leave without the other on some matter of vague (or indeed, serious) importance. Now, he relishes in being able to simply enjoy the feeling of Emet's body pressed warm against his own — or in this case, encased in the tangle of his limbs. )

Mm.

( A smile curves against Emet-Selch's shoulder as he soaks in his warmth, in the solid feel of him, one palm stroking back and forth across the dusting of hair in the centre of his chest. Hythlodaeus wakes up in increments — little bit by little bit until he's cognizant enough to pull himself into a luxurious stretch, before finally leaning in and pressing a kiss to the lobe of Emet-Selch's ear. )

Are you awake?

( His voice is husky with sleep; he kisses again, then misceviously pinches at one of his nipples to encourage him into the waking world. The thing is, this isn't just any ordinary morning: apparently it's the day of Eorzea's Starlight Festival and Hythlodaeus has gifts for him. Unwrapping his limbs from around him, Hythlodaeus shifts just enough that he can prop himself up on an elbow beside him, his unbound hair a mess around his shoulders as he brushes the flash of white back from Emet's brow. When he speaks again there's a lilt of mischief in his tone: )

... Don't pretend, and make me look at your soul. You know I will.

The morning after the TDM!

text | un: constellations

End-ish of the month!

text | un: constellations

Good boy 8)

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