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The stars were slowly coming into focus as the sun sunk below the mountains. A purple haze was all that was left of the fading light, and as day faded his sister night lethargically made her venture across the sky.
Ego tilted his head up from where he sat on the edge of a palisade, taking his gaze off of the sunset and towards the firsts of a quickly burgeoning sea of stars. Beside him, a small telescope stood, its lens pointed down at the ground. He inhaled deeply, taking in the cool scents of night and the sounds of distant waves crashing onto the island’s shore, then let out a slow exhale. A smile of content crept onto his face.
“You seem happy.”
He may or may not have jumped when he heard the voice.
The man turned towards the opening of his small sanctuary to find a blue-haired head poking out from the top of the ladder. The corner of his mouth was twitching in barely suppressed amusement.
“Sorry! Sorry,” Ritchie called, pulling himself fully onto the palisade, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Ego waved him off with a nervous smile, “It’s alright sir. I was just lost in thought– I didn’t hear you come up.”
Ritchie tilted his head up in the general direction Ego had been looking towards and nodded with scholarly intelligence. A silence fell between them– Ego tweaking his telescope, Ritchie rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet. “The sky,” He supplied eloquently, “is very pretty.”
An amused breath came from Ego then, “It is– I was trying to see if I could find the Andromeda constellation from here.” He gestured vaguely upward, where the purple was fading quickly in hot pursuit of the sun. A deepening blue was rushing to claim the sky in the light’s absence.
“You like stars and stuff?”
Ritchie was fiddling with the telescope beside him, pointing it up at the sky and pressing his eye into the mechanism. He swiveled the telescope on its stand a few times, frowning slightly as he did.
“Oh, sure. I was a bit of an astrology buff when I was younger. It's kind of a common Grimshade phase– a lot of kids did it. I wasn’t very serious about it though.” He paused, a quiet chuckle leaving his mouth unbidden, “The sky looks pretty through that, yeah?”
“Not really.” Ritchie said. Then, after a pause, he stood up from the telescope with some level of indignance, “What's so funny?”
Ego’s eyes sparkled with mirth, “I haven’t taken the cap off of it yet.”
The Guildmaster’s eyes narrowed before peeking towards the telescope, and sure enough, a black plastic cap sat firmly on the lens. He sighed defeatedly. Ego laughed again, smothering his giggles with a hand to his face; Ritchie dropped his feigned annoyance at that point, grinning and unabashed.
“It's not that funny,” He mused.
Ego quieted, his giggles fading away but a smile still remaining. “It's not the right time yet. Give it a few more minutes, then we’ll really be able to see the sky.”
Ritchie nodded before sitting down beside Ego to watch where the sun had dipped below the sea. “For someone who doesn’t know a lot about astrology, you sure do–” he paused, “ …know a lot about astrology?”
A small laugh followed the statement, but the sound had a strangely hollow ring. Ego’s smile faltered for a moment as he looked away from the sky. “It was– ahh, it was a hobby of Eden’s”
Silence fell across the palisade. The darkness crept over their tower to the choir of crickets below. Ritchie turned away, smile faltering, “I’m sorry. Just forget I said anything–”
“It’s fine–”
“Jesus, I’m so sorry–”
“It's fine,” Ego insisted, “It's been a year. I’ve– I can talk about it now.”
There was another, longer silence. Ritchie was about to intrude on the quiet before Ego took a quick breath.
“It was– um, he did it often. Some of that stuff carried over when we split, I guess. Isn’t that kind of dumb? I can’t remember any important Tonic Triad secrets, but I remember hi– no, my. My fingers…I remember my fingers drawing out star maps and taking notes on my observations.” He paused, “Which, maybe people should’ve known I was possessed just by that, right? I’d sooner eat my own socks then draw all that technical stuff like maps or architecture– I don’t think I’ve ever used a ruler for my art in my entire life– but Eden likes that sort of thing. He’s not into abstract stuff. His sketchbook was all straight lines and serious math. Most of it was just ideas he had for creating stuff, so he would get so precise with what he drew. It was kind of impressive.
“That sort of thing is like torture to me. I like to have fun when I draw– but I guess Eden is that part of me that cares a lot about results. I used to throw out art pieces that looked ugly, and sometimes I’d obsess over something I was trying to draw until I was miserable. I think Eden took that with him, or something, because he never invested time into anything if he wasn’t sure he’d like the result.”
He stopped. “Sorry, I’m rambling. None of that's really important.”
“No, no,” Ritchie murmured, and Ego noticed that he’d stopped looking at the sky to look at him, “You wouldn’t have said it if you didn’t think it was important. It must have meant something to you.”
Ego nodded quietly, his gaze detaching from Ritchie to look at the floor.
“What was it like?”
Despite himself, a laugh escaped Ego’s lips. Ritchie opened his mouth to apologize, but Ego waved him off as he desperately tried to repair the serious air from a few moments ago. He wasn’t sure if anyone had asked him so bluntly about the subject before (nevermind the fact he’d been in hiding the past year) barring Michael, but even then his brother tended to poke around the bush rather than be so direct. He’d been grateful for that at the time– the wound was so fresh, he didn’t want to pick at it quite yet– but now that a scab had settled over it all, he was kind of relieved there was someone willing to ask about it instead of treating his trauma like a live grenade.
“Bad,” he said bluntly, eyebrows furrowing as he thought. “Torture,” he amended, “But…in a strange way? It's hard to explain. The whole thing is so confusing, to be honest.”
Ritchie nodded, “Was it boring?”
Ego fought demons not to laugh again. The corner of his mouth quirked up, “Pardon?” He said, hoping he didn’t sound too much like he was holding back a smile.
The Guildmaster fiddled with his thumbs, suddenly embarrassed by what he’d blurted out, “I just– when I was in prison, all I was thinking was how boring it was.” A pause “Um, well, if I went to prison again, I wouldn’t be bored though. I’d feel guilty…? Sorry. I don’t have any plans to go back to prison.”
A small huff of amusement. “That'd be for the best,” Ego said dryly, “But…I see what you mean”
“I don’t know. He…” There was a pause, “Eden gave me everything I ever wanted. He’s good at that– I guess he didn’t see any point in changing up the formula when it came to me.”
“Everything you ever wanted?”
“A…family.” Ego murmured, eyes drifting from the horizon and towards the castle below. In the silence the pair could hear the howls of a guild with far too much available to drink. “Not like this one.”
“My family,” Ego said, “loved me very dearly, but I don’t know if I ever loved them. I liked the idea of them– they relied on me, I was their source of pride, and I felt content– but I didn’t love them. I just…thought I did.” He tore his gaze away from the guild hall with something akin to shame, “Sometimes, I wake up and i think ‘today I’ve got to get my little sister ready for dance class,’ but then I remember everything, and instead I make myself a cup of coffee, sit at the kitchen table, and try not to think about how the whole world's seven years ahead of me.”
“What I’m trying to say is that I’ve always wanted the family I never got, but I never knew what they were supposed to look like. I guess…I guess Eden never knew what they were supposed to look like, either,” Ego mumbled with waning confidence.
“That's…” Ritchie took a deep, hesitant breath, “Can I say something?” Not one to wait for permission or for inhibition to catch up with his tongue, the guildmaster barrelled forward,
“When Brandon and I fell into this world, we argued constantly. It was my fault really. I had,” A pause, “have” Ritchie amended, “A bad temper. I was so angry with him, but I couldn’t really put it into words. For jumping into the portal after me? For not warning me? I think I might have just been scared, and he was the nearest one I could take everything out on. He blamed me too, of course, but he had his own way of showing it. He got quiet, which I think just made me even more upset.”
“There was…” He trailed off, then cleared his throat, “This town. They found out we were devil slayers. They got rocks, pitchforks, fires. One of the stones they– they got me in the head and I fell over. Brandon was just screaming for me to just run,” He warbled with his next statement then; shame had caught up with him, but Ritchie willed himself to push through.
“I don’t really remember how he did any of it–” That was a lie. Ego was trained in lies. Ritchie was not. “–he killed all of them. There were at least twenty of them, and we were nine years old, but he did it. Battered, beaten, he did it. he saved me.”
“He must have been relieved.”
Ritchie barked out a laugh, “Are you kidding? He was nine. And he killed all of them. He vomited. Twice.”
The sun fell beneath the sea at last, drawing away the final vestiges of light and allowing deep blue to fade into black.
“You’re not horrible. You saw your family as a pleasant little experience. I think that's what everyone thinks a family is like. Something pure– untouched by reality– to take care of or shelter. Or atleast, we’d all like it to be like that sometimes.”
The first stars were glittering into view above the pair; the gaze of Celestia that twinkled in and out as if being woken up. Ritchie lifted his head to watch absently, and Ego found himself following the guildmaster’s gaze. The Andromeda winked back at the pair as it woke, stars coming to light like eyes slowly lifting open. Ego’s breath hitched and something in his belly stirred as purples and violets bruised across the sky. The night was beautiful, but he could not find any peace in it, cold and unfeeling as it was. A breeze found him and he pulled his cloak tighter around him.
“The truth is that family is never like that. It sucks. You find yourself doing terrible things for them– to them. And sometimes you’re convinced you’re living in a house of strangers,” Eyes drifted back down to his guildhall, where light poured from windows in steady beams now made visible in the dark. A shadow crossed a hallway, stopping in the center of one such window, “But family is all you have, at the end of the day. They aren’t…trophies or, or dogs in need of leading. You can lean on them.”
“It isn’t,” Ritchie murmured, “a weakness to love someone.”
Ego frowned, “I don’t–”
“WHOOOSSS UUUPP THHHEEEREEEE?” An unmistakably drunk voice hollered from below. Ego’s eyes snapped back down to the shadow, who was now leaning out the window to get a better look.
“It’s–” Ritchie started
“HHHEEEEEEYYYYYYY”
“IT’S ME AND DE–”
“HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY,” the figure shouted, “ISN’T THAT RITCHIE’S OFFICE?”
“I AM RITCHIE”
“RITCHIE’S GONNA BE SO MAD”
“I. AM. RITCHIE.”
The figure waved their hand excitedly, “HHHHHHEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY,” came the shout again, and Ego vaguely registered that this might have been David. For some reason, he’d suspected Kit, but she didn’t drink like this.“YOU SHOULD COME DOWN. DAVID IS GONNA CHUG AN ENTIRE BARREL!!”
Oh. Ok. Was it Lucas? The water mage was usually more reserved, but maybe he got more rowdy with a few drinks in his system.
The figure ran away from the window as soon as they had said their piece, dashing back towards the meeting hall where David was, presumably, chugging an entire barrel. Ritchie sighed into his hand; “Celestia help me, I’ll have to go make sure nothing goes wrong. If Mario is that drunk, it has to be bad.”
Ego snorted. “You? The sober one at the party? Yeah, right, how long is that gonna last?”
Ritchie threw his hands up over his head in exasperation, “You don’t even know how much I drink!” But, as if sensing he was starting an unwinnable fight, he turned away and towards the ladder he’d emerged from. “And this isn’t even my office…” he murmured with slight annoyance.
Halfway down the ladder, Ritchie’s head snapped up, “Hey.”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t stay up too late.”
“...What?”
“I’ve noticed you haven’t been sleeping,” The guildmaster grinned, “unless, you like sleeping with every single light in your house on?”
Ego blushed, clearly embarrassed, “I’ve just been busy…”
“Ye-ah. Right. Well, Eden-napping is pretty hard to do when you’re barely awake. Don’t stay up late.”
And with that, the guildmaster ducked his head back below. Presumably, he’d set off towards the main hall with the sternest don’t-do-anything-stupid face he could muster. The edges of Ego’s mouth quirked up at the thought; he wouldn’t be able to keep up that demeanor for more than a minute. He didn’t know Ritchie that well, but he could tell that much already.
He took one last look up at the sky. The stars met his gaze with their own; a steady, unblinking presence that filled his eyes with light. Had they always been looking? Watching, even then, as ambition pushed him to sprout wings and meet them up there? Listening to his declarations to one day surpass them? Did they enjoy watching his wings catch flame before he’d even grazed their domain and the world brought him plummeting back? Maybe they enjoyed the show– another reckless mortal dreaming of greatness. Or maybe beings of Celestia were above mirth and hate. Maybe they’d obliterated their egos when they’d ascended.
Is that how you ascend, then? By ridding yourself of the earth and floating away into the night? Ego stood, quietly, gathering his telescope back into his case. Was that why Eden was so eager to be rid of him? Perhaps, then, he sheltered the fatal flaw that had caused his wings to fail him all those years ago, while Eden had run off with a mind cleansed of error. He could finally join– no, surpass the stars and outshine the sun itself.
Laughter rose from the castle beneath him. Heavy and laden with a drunken drawl. He envisioned the guild hall, then; the members of Divinus Magia gathered around in joy. A family made of the awkward puzzle pieces you find at the bottom of the box that don’t even fit into the final product. He would have discarded those pieces then, just as Eden would have now; he would have deemed them of no value and left them behind. What didn’t fit into his vision was invariably cut out.
And yet… he’d never realized they could come together to form something beautiful. More beautiful than Celestia in its cold, unfeeling glory or the sun in blazing brilliance.
It isn’t a weakness to love someone.
He thought of Eden. His counterpart sat hunched over the throne of the sun, the great hands of light reaching out in a laurel that encircled his crown. Beneath him mortals would worship and tremble– they would recognize the greatness in him, just as Grimshade’s guildmaster had failed to. They’d declare him special, and raise him above in a tower made of gold.
It was a very lonely image. It was a very lonely thing, to be special. He wondered if Eden had ever realized that.
He pulled the case under his arm and set about climbing down the ladder to meet his family. He didn’t need an answer to that question.
Eden knew there was not a soul in this world who ever loved him.