Chapter Text
Herein I commit the chronicle of the traveler
Shepherd to the stars in the dark
Though the world be sundered and our souls set adrift, where you walk, my dearest, fate shall surely follow
For yours is the Fourteenth seat—the seat of Azem
These are the words Emet-Selch utters with the newly sundered world around him.
A shimmering of colors similar to the sunrise itself bursts from his hands as his magick forms a crystal anew. It fits carefully into his palm with an imbuement of his memories revolving around her—around his Persephone—that needed to be made in secret.
The Convocation had refused to create one for the dissenter. A slew of other titles had been thrown her way, despite her soul also being broken into pieces and never to hear of their disgust again.
No longer Traveler, or Wanderer, or Shepherd, or even simply Azem.
Instead, they chose Deserter. Traitor. Betrayer.
Tears continue to streak down his face as he clutches her crystal to his chest, doing all he can to not look at the hollow souls meandering around him on the remains of the Source. Their forms are malformed and haunting, newly created from the catastrophic event of this sundering, and it makes him sick glancing upon their ghastly remains.
The sight is even worse when he peers upon the fragments of their souls.
This pain matters not, a voice echoes inside him. The rage hidden underneath his insurmountable grief makes itself known, kindling the flames to take action. Not when she may yet be fixed. Not only her, but all whose lives have been shattered by this monstrous act.
He is right. He will stop at nothing to fix what has been broken. So long as he does whatever is possible to bring the other half of his soul back, he is renewed of this oath he declares. No matter the cost.
Now stand up.
He rises from the ashes of his brethren, determination etched upon his stricken expression.
Find her.
Days, weeks, moons. They all pass in a blur since the sundering. Elidibus and Lahabrea have tried to reach him in his wandering with calls to the void, but Emet-Selch will not return from the remnants of the Source until she is found.
Some may find him foolish for his actions. There is only a piece of her soul left on the Source, the others scattered upon these new shards they must traverse the rift to. Their bond nonexistent. All of this is what they would tell him.
Logic matters little to Emet-Selch now.
This search is a persistence he has grown into, unable to look away. It is his vow to her. He refuses to accept that their connection is now severed, despite the feeling of his heart and soul being torn in two when she was sundered in his arms.
But our bond must remain. The voice convinces him to keep going. It is eternal. It is beyond understanding itself. It must still exist.
A sudden pull of recollection—a familiarity he’d thought lost for good—urges him forward as he sludges through the sundered Source.
He has found her.
The adrenaline is overwhelming when it courses through him, his mind becoming maniacal as he rushes through the ashes with his head now up. His gaze is set upon dozens of wandering souls who are similarly moving like ghosts through the broken landscape. The disgust and horror of the sight of his brethren is only momentary in the wake of his fixation.
The color of Persephone’s soul is all he looks for.
What will we do once we find it? What then?
A new voice laced with pity whispers to him.
He shakes it away, not knowing these answers. He never considered them.
Why would they matter when all I must do is find her?
That moment is when his gaze finds the familiar hue of azure in the distance, and suddenly time stops when he fully comprehends the repulsive sight.
Not of beauty. Certainly not of relief.
It is the definition of horror when he finally witnesses what has become of her reverent, enigmatic soul and realizes that their bond has become well and truly severed.
How very pitiful.
He falls to his knees and retches.