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“You will be whole again. What little struggle they might muster, they are only mortal; sooner or later they will fall to the Light, and this world with it.”
A breeze sweeps by, stirring his coat and filling his being with a sense of revulsion. This wretched imbalance, necessary though it may be for the rejoining of the star, a horrifying act for the ultimate goal. The Light, so thoroughly pervasive that it would poison his soul if not for the Darkness that lies there to eat away it, despoiling the air as if a fine cloud of dust to choke the lungs.
“They’ve made wonderful things you know. Such beauty, even in ephemeral, fleeting structures. Even in Eulmore, ruled over by a bloated puppet of Light, the will yet remains to see beauty in the world’s treasures, and create things ever-new in their own absurd fashions. Should our newest hero fail, it will all have been for naught – not that you would understand. It has ever been your wont to forsake the inevitable in pursuit of others.”
The crystal doesn’t respond, of course. It couldn’t, not even with the fragmented soul it belonged to and the requisite aether to elevate it beyond the pathetic limitations of these pale reflections. Simple memories could never capture the seat of Azem, or so he had said, and what remains is his own pathetic grasping at an impossible dream.
Could the hero have taken up the mantle, he wonders. Even past a rough resemblance, a fierce determination has burned beneath the surface from the moment they first met, tempered by a desperation that would have never need existed in those bygone days of eld. He won’t last though; from the first Lightwarden he had vanquished, the Light encroaches upon his soul, ever gnawing away at Venat’s protections and gaining ground with each new victory
Drawing upon his vision, sequestered away for fear of seeing too much, the colour of his soul, even diminished to half its splendour, was marred, warped and sickly by the Light’s presence in the Crystarium’s new-found darkness. It could never have been a fair comparison in the end – no man, mortal or immortal, could ever have surpassed the greatest Azem.
“What would you say to him, were you to be here? ‘Never give up!’? ‘The villainous Emet-Selch has not the right to render your worlds unto oblivion, and for such cruelty must be slain!’? You always did have the talent for rousing speeches, though I don’t recall even half of them leading to a simple outcome. Ah, but what magnificent effects they had wrought… The Words of Lahabrea, ever eager for the wisdom of the Convocation, turned to Azem’s star pupil, and in their fervent labours created a blaze even the mighty Lahabrea himself could not quench. Certainly the least composed I have seen him, though the same could rightly have been said of you once he realised his colleague had fanned the flames of his pupils’ ambition.”
Stony silence is his sole answer yet again. Is it wrong, to take such comfort in futile delusions? Elidibus presents no such companionship, unfocused as he so often can be, and Lahabrea himself was never one to converse idly – perhaps the shreds of aether he has now been reduced to could offer more willing participants? With two remaining members of the Unsundered, their world’s legacy has dwindled; despite the spotty recollection of their ‘promoted’ peers, they may yet make for stimulating conversationalist. Anything to keep his mind off the endless drudgery and drama of the Source’s politics. Not that he minds the drama, but it’s so much more effort when his puppet emperor needs to be directed and nudged for every little decision. Truly, he’s embarrassed to think of the boy as his own kin, but such is the way with mortal stock. They always manage to find a way to disappoint you, even when you think they might be different, might give you a reason to think better of them.
A stray sin eater wanders past, wingbeats a minor irritation as it yanks him from his thoughts. A rough wave allows him to neatly sidestep the crumbling white dust as it falls – an effective measure to sow Light amongst the shard, perhaps, formed as a happy accident in spite of Venat’s pet ‘Oracle of Light’, but it is truly annoying to have to clean his clothes every time one makes an ill-conceived attempt to attack.
“Ah, but it is simple… You would have found a way to do both, wouldn’t you? Save the star from the rejoinings, and return our brethren to us in one fell swoop? Ever the optimist, the indomitable seat of Azem who can do no wrong and permit no failure. Not that your ideals saved you in the end. Had you just thought, taken even a moment to consider our proposal, Venat might have been swayed from her course and the fracture of everything we held dear averted. But no, you had to take the contrarian’s route, as if you decided to be Elidibus, and now you are but shards in the wind!”
He’s breathing heavily now, not through the exertion of candour but in the weight of his own emotion. He cannot even call it rage, not any more, after year upon year of eternal regret. What good were words spoken to an uncaring memory. Though, perhaps it could be called a prayer. Their lord had no mind to comprehend their troubles after all, and there is ever an ideal to cast one’s mind towards in hope – suited more to mortal men, perhaps, but a comforting option nonetheless.
“Lo, their final attempts are underway. How shall the heroes rouse the indolent, how shall they bring their might to bear against that last bastion of doom, held aloft in the sky? They may yet succeed in their travails, and bring a new dusk for us all. The impossible made manifest by a hero of the people. Sound familiar?”
These words, delivered with grand, sweeping aplomb, are his last offered to the empty air. Hades takes one last look at the sweeping landscape, before making to leave. Without further delay, Emet-Selch makes his slow, winding trek to meet the heroes.