Chapter Text
In my long, arduous, devoted live as Emet-Selch of the Convocation of Fourteen, forged in love for my brethren (to the point of annihilation of all that is left and, eventually, myself), this unwavering loyalty somehow starts, and then ends, with them.
Azem.
To my surprise (and demise), not one, nor two, but three different iterations of the sun-bearing seat. The Traveler which, despite my constant protests and their title, will not leave me to carry my important work in peace — whatever face be it that is currently bothering me outside of office hours.
First, the dawn.
She is a blur, diving from the sky, a streak of her signature crystal-blue aether exploding as her blade makes contact with one of the more aggressive creatures of Elpis on our quest to evaluate Hermes. A creature that would have caught another source of my migraines — Hythlodaeus — by surprise, were she not to intervene as he lowers his guard to blabber on and on about the details of shark-related creations. The Architect of his own demise, truly.
“Well now, if it isn’t a pair of familiar faces!” She greets, dismissing her weapon with a smile, the beast felled at her feet.
I cross my arms, and I’m polite enough to look away from her to roll my eyes.
Venat is her name, and she is the previous Azem. She looks as spirited as the day she retired with her white robes and wind-swept hair, ready to impart wisdom which she does not follow herself.
“You look well, Hythlodaeus.” She comments first, before turning to me with a decidedly wicked smile. Here we go. “Less so, Emet-Selch. The lines upon your brow have both deepened and doubled in number. A shame for someone so young — you should make an effort to frown less often.”
I can feel my shoulders slumping, but I force myself to return a smile back. She knows well enough why. “Easiest said than done, thanks to your unruly successor.”
The overbearing warmth of midday. A force of chaos somehow more intense the others, our current occupant of the seat of Azem, and more importantly, my biggest obstacle to a good night’s rest — more often as the cause, and then rarely as an escapade worthy of a scandal to shake all of Amaurot. It’s our well kept secret, but I am not inclined to reminisce about our HR-violating shape of a courtship when I am within earshot of those who would love nothing else but meddle and gossip about my personal life.
“How are they, if I may ask?”
“Incorrigible as ever.” Hythlodaeus relays. “Rushed head-long into a volcano in the brink of eruption just the other day. I should be glad to share the tale in its entirety later.”
“Hah! You know I am.”
It is a story I’m already familiar with as with most Azem-induced shenanigans, I — alongside the impressionable Elidibus — have been unwillingly involved to clean up their mess at the Convocation. Something about grapes, Elidibus had told me, but I do not buy it. Whatever it was, it was worthy of an illegal acquiring of an Ifrita creation; aided by my dear friend at the Architect bureau, most certainly.
“Now, then. You are?”
Venat finally acknowledges the creature by my side, the stray Hythlodaeus insisted we pick up by the side of Elpis’s aetheryte. The one with barely a spec of aether to their name, and who I still believed to be just a cruel joke in the form of a familiar sent to me by Azem. Again.
She squints thoughtfully after taking a few steps towards them. “I say, have you perchance come from the future?”
Silence.
…What.
“I do not believe we have ever met, yet I sense my magic upon you. Therefore, if I wove the enchantment, I could only have done so at a later point in time.” Venat points matter-of-factly, as if anything she has just spoken makes a lick of sense.
“What manner of magic is this, if I may ask?” Hythlodaeus interjects.
“A Traveler’s Ward, of course.” Venat answers. “It prevents the corruption of one’s aether.”
Hold on. “From the future!? That’s absurd.”
I look at this frail attempt of a copy of Azem, searching for an answer. The similarities in facial structure and overall appearance are eerily accurate, at least on the surface. The same faint smile lines around their mouth, the stoic nodding in every interaction I have finally learned to tolerate. Were it not for their monumental lack of aether and perhaps a slight difference in gait around their shoulders, I myself might have been fooled before my eyes adjusted.
They do not confirm nor deny it, instead looking anywhere but back at me.
I sigh, because what else am I to do at this moment? “If this is true, then you have been keeping quite a secret to yourself. As a representative of the Convocation, I will hear it all. You identity, purpose, everything.” There is something nefarious at play here, I can feel it, and as Emet-Selch, it is my duty to get to the bottom of it.
They finally look at my direction, and something passes through their eyes, then; too deep to place, too fast to pin, but I notice their hand instinctively moving out of sight behind their armor.
But not before I catch an image of it, and it’s all I need to know that this person in front of me is more important than I could have ever imagined them to be.
There, around their finger, what I can only describe as a wedding ring. A customary gold band, plain, mundane — that is, if it weren’t for a bright orange stone sitting atop, a focal point of energy… A strong, thrumming Ally Summon spell, Azem’s favorite, encased around the shape of their solar rune.
… Made solely of my aether.