Work Text:
A disgrace, you are. Two disgraces, if it makes you feel better.
(It doesn’t.)
Dramatic, dishonest, rude, arrogant, haughty, pretentious, cynical, egocentric, selfish, manipulative, cruel, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible — oh, open a thesaurus, for Light’s sake!
(Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.)
A disgrace. Two of them. Or, perhaps, one disgrace split in two. You wonder which sounds better; in the silence of the empty hall, the high ceilings crumbling, the plastering on the walls peeling off, the golden statues tarnished and distorted by time, the difference in wording makes no difference at all.
Leave the words to the poets and the lawyers.
(Would the counsel for the defence find a convincing argument in your favour? You don’t think so. But then again, you think little nowadays. Thinking is linked too closely to remembering.)
A disgrace.
A disgrace with a mask, of course — the elegance, the confidence, the skill, the style, the wit, the knowledge, the elusiveness — but a disgrace nonetheless. The tricks of light and the sleight of hand don’t suffice to wash the blood off the gloves you insist on wearing.
Hedonists. Sophists. Liars. Traitors. Abusers. Silver-tongued, cold-blooded murderers... Two compound adjectives next to each other, huh? A clever attention-grabbing trick. Oh, three compound adjectives — you’ve outdone yourselves! What are you going to use this rhetorical device for, hm? Who are you going to use it on?
* * *
The stars in the Sky don’t look at you. Your constellation appears perfectly completed without your presence; the faraway nebulae are a gorgeous backdrop for a play you’ll never get to afford. Tethered to the ground by a chain of your own making, you know you were foolish for ever desiring to reach the heavens.
“You ruined my Alef,” Daleth accuses you, and oh, how hurtful! How inconsiderate of your feelings! Ow!
A dead child is sleeping, capeless, curled up next to the Isle Elder. For someone in whose power it is to summon whoever they want up here, the kid is terribly irresponsible.
The starry water on the ground is boringly tepid — you’d rather freeze to death. Well, not to death. But still.
“Alef wasn’t yours,” you retort. Oh-oh! It looks like all your thoughts got jumbled up! You were supposed to keep this in your heads and say out loud that Daleth’s words were hurtful! You messed this up! A disgrace, truly.
The Isle Elder frowns at you. They’re blind. They weren’t before, but they are now — yet, the way they stare at your faces makes you think, though it’s quite silly, that Daleth can see right through you.
Which they can’t, of course. What a silly thought.
“You mocked a traumatised child and then spoilt them, gave them the wrong ideas... You did ruin them, Samekh. And you still refuse to see.”
You avert your gazes; it’s not like Daleth will notice anyway. But what a stupid, outrageously stupid idea — you ruining your Alef!
“All we did was give them a challenge or two, make sure they didn’t stagnate doing the same thing over and over again until they died, a recluse in that Temple of yours!”
Daleth closes their eyes, and this makes no difference because Daleth is blind, fully blind, completely blind; the two of you are no longer special.
(Couldn’t Daleth have lost their vision a little earlier?)
“Stop implying what you’re implying,” Daleth responds sternly. “Both of the things you’re implying, actually. You know neither was true.”
“And it was them that gave us the wrong ideas!” You continue unprompted. Oh, this is one more thing that should’ve stayed in your thoughts. Have you got rusty? Are you rusty? Oh, this is ridiculous, and embarrassing, and terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible; you should be better than this. “They weren’t much younger than us. All we gave them was understanding, understanding that you never showed!”
“I said stop implying that!”
But Daleth gives up, they always do. They stand up and take their staff in their hands, and they poke the star-covered ground with the tip, sending across the water ripples that die out too soon, and the stars above sing like bells, and Daleth gives up on you and walks away.
You return to the hall with the crumbling ceilings and the tarnished gold.
Children run up and down the corridor and come up to you and ask you to tell them stories, but your heads hurt, and you feel drained of the imagination power required to embellish the truth and to make yourselves more sympathetic than you could ever be.
You tell the kids nothing. They probably know that you’re a disgrace anyway.
* * *
“We tried to stop them,” you say the next time you and Daleth stand face to face in Orbit. Your voices come out frail; you’re weary, worn-out, exhausted.
Sick and tired of it all.
Daleth only smiles. They would smile like that when you wondered out loud if your missing arms would grow eventually. When you asked why mortals die. When you exclaimed that carrots are the worst thing imaginable and shouldn’t have been invented. When you told them Valley was too different from Isle for one to apply the same standards to both realms. When you assured them you knew where to stop. When you lied about Alef being sick though in reality the Prince was only avoiding the unpleasant conversation that was going to happen sooner or later.
The conversation never happened.
Daleth only smiles, and you used to hate that smile. This time, you’re only mildly annoyed.
“It was too late,” the Isle Elder says softly, quietly. You expected anger in their voice, an accusatory tone, spiky and sour, permeated with resentment.
But Daleth’s remark is soft and quiet and nothing more. You almost wish they would yell at you. But you shouldn’t be surprised: you know that no matter what you do, Daleth always gives up on you.
“We still tried.” An excuse. A lame one, at that.
Daleth sighs. From high up in the centre of the night sky, your constellation looks down on you.
“Trying is not a triumph, Samekh. It’s the bare minimum.”
So much for your dreams of perfection.
And just like they always do, Daleth gives up on you. Walks away. Walks away like they did when you said you found Isle boring. Like they did when you complained about your mortal friends growing up and leaving you behind. Like they did when you asked them why people die. Like they did when you decided to pursue a dangerous hobby despite having bodies unfit even for living. Like they did when you said you wished you were whole. Like they did when you accused them of looking at you and seeing a version of you that didn’t exist. Like they did when you asked not to interfere. Like they did when you mumbled to them that you were sorry.
(A disgrace.)
Children run up and down the corridor and come up to you, but they never speak. You’re grateful, you suppose. You really don’t want to talk. Not today. Not ever.
The tarnished gold of these halls, you can no longer stand.
* * *
“We did care about Alef, you know,” you whisper to Daleth months later, when the stars above your heads and beneath your feet stare directly at you, watching your every move. You feel sick. Sick, sick, sick; you have grown to despise limelight.
The Isle Elder looks your way, and you wonder what they see in the darkness before their eyes.
“I know you did.”
Nonsense.
“But you said—”
“I meant what I said. I do, however, recognise that the fake smiles, the obnoxious laughter, and the heartbreak on your faces looked too genuine at times. I, ah, I sometimes wished they didn’t. But they did.”
Sick, sick, sick.
“I don’t forgive you. But things are, for better or for worse, always complicated with this sort of thing, and I… W-well, it would be hypocritical of me to say I don’t understand—” Their voice breaks and dies out.
You’re the ones to walk away this time.
Children run up and down the corridor, and you yell at them. You yell at them so loudly that the echo of your outcry reverberates through the Temple and hides in the corners, creeping in the dark and haunting you as you sit on the windowsill and look around, the only two people left in these quiet, empty halls.
Children come back, eventually. You’re not sure how long passes.
You wish they would give up on you, too.
* * *
“I didn’t give up on you. I wouldn’t. Not ever,” Daleth says. You don’t believe them.
The constellation above your heads is one unknown to you, a jumbled mess of broken stars and unfinished, lopsided shapes. Eden, if you had to guess. Mocking you. Taunting you. Asking you to save them from a person you made. Well, helped make. It doesn’t matter.
“You did,” you insist.
The Isle Elder closes their eyes and grimaces. They look… pained. Broken beyond repair, just like the Eden constellation, by things you did. Well, helped do. It doesn’t matter.
“I… I may have. With the whole Darkstone thing—”
“Many times before.”
Your voices are cold, and so are your hearts. Frozen. Ice-cold. Defensive.
A disgrace.
Daleth opens their eyes.
“Come here.”
You don’t move.
“Samekh, come here.”
You stand up and take a step forward, then sit down next to Daleth. You only obey because the situation is stupid enough already. No other reason. Not because you… It doesn’t matter.
“List the times you believe I gave up on you.”
You don’t respond.
“Samekh.”
“It doesn’t—”
“It does.”
It doesn’t. It really, really doesn’t. This isn’t going to change anything. Daleth already hates your guts for, quote, the whole Darkstone thing. For ruining their Alef. For being a disgrace in general. There is really no point in giving them another reason to judge you behind your backs and to roll their eyes and whatever else they do.
“It—”
“Samekh.” Daleth’s voice is stern, but it almost sounds like a plea. You raise your eyes towards the constellation and the gaping hole in its chest. “I have… I’ve had enough relationship-ending misunderstandings.” Their voice trembles. You know Daleth is thinking about them again.
You can’t quite blame them.
“Fine,” you say, not quite honestly, but that’ll do. The sooner you’re done with this whole thing, the better, you suppose.
Daleth waits patiently for you to speak up. Seated this close to you, they seem… smaller than you remember them being. But then again, it’s been a while since you last found yourselves in such close proximity to each other.
“We know you hate us,” you begin. “For Darkstone. For the Alef thing. For… For having been… wrong. For having disagreed with you, on so many things, back when— It doesn’t matter…” Daleth says nothing. Only frowns a little. “For not being what your idea of an Elder is like.”
This phrase alone seems to affect the Elder more than anything you’ve ever said or done.
“I don’t hate you for that. I never—”
“But you do.” You chuckle quietly. “You hate it that we…” Oh Light, this is terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. “That we, uh, never got over mortals being… mortals.” You clear your throats. “You hated us, back when we were little, for not understanding. For… For being upset. Loud. Whatever.” It’s your turn to close your eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore, at least.”
A sigh. You look at Daleth. Daleth lowers their head.
“See? This— This is exactly what we’re talking about!” You find yourselves on your feet. “We just— We tell you anything, literally anything, and you just, you just refuse to listen! All you do is look away and stand up and leave! No matter what we say, all you ever do is judge!”
Your eyes sting. You haven’t cried in centuries.
Not going to start now.
“Samekh—”
“What?”
They’ve raised their head. They really are smaller, now. Much smaller. You feel old.
“Samekh, I… I apologise if I made you feel that—”
“If you made us feel! Ha!”
“That I made you feel, all right? I… apologise that I made you feel like your opinions — or feelings — didn’t matter to me. I… I must confess I’ve never been good with children, and, you being two, and twice as loud as usual, and, well, terminally ill, I had no idea how to— I-I suppose, I frequently didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so I didn’t say anything at all. I… Oh my Light, this is just Alef all over again…” Their voice breaks. A tear runs down their cheek.
You’d imagine, as young, petulant adolescents, the scene far too often and in far too much detail: Daleth admitting they were wrong, Daleth allowing you to do whatever your hearts desire, Daleth confessing they don’t always know everything. But somehow, having just heard the real thing doesn’t give you the catharsis you expected. All you feel is… hollow. Tired. Reflected, against all odds, in the words of someone you’ve never considered a mirror.
You wish Daleth wouldn’t cry. You never quite figured out what to do with people that are crying. Or rather, you never quite figured out what to do with the reasons why people cry.
You throw a glance at the Sky, looking for help where there is none. The empty space in the constellation is a reminder of what you did. Or, perhaps, of what you didn’t do. Just like Daleth didn’t.
You try to imagine what you would do if you could move the stars above your head ever so slightly, just so that the gaping hole in the middle could no longer be seen, as if the one supposed to occupy it had never existed. But then again, with the brokenness of the other stars and the shape as a whole, this silly manoeuvre, even if feasible, would be far too obvious. Would only highlight the absence.
You asked the children, once, if they can summon them up here. The answer was that there’s nothing left to summon.
Daleth continues weeping. Glad to know you hate us a little less than we thought, you should probably say, jokingly, to make them stop. But the words taste bitter on your tongues even before they tumble out of your mouths; in the silence of Orbit, the only sounds filling your ears are the bell-like singing of the stars and the Isle Elder’s sobs.
You sit back down eventually.