Archive of Our Own

The soft air of the moon barely stirred, an absence of movement that stood out starkly against the vast currents of aether that flowed from its nexus point. Upon the pale white rock, close enough to touch but forever removed from the heart of the river, stood the one known as Elidibus.

It was cold. Always it was cold, the warmth of familiarity shuttered from his senses by Hydaelyn’s magic. A pale facsimile of their salvation flickered and mocked him from its place above the cradle. It was home - it was not home - it was where he was supposed to be. And yet…

Cold. Ice spoke of cessation, though Hydaelyn had turned their own elements against them as well when her ward had been weaved around their hope. And the pale blue lines, carved into the moon’s very firmament, he could not touch. 

His magic could have been enough, especially now She weakened. Given time, and effort, and planning, they could have shattered those bonds. But in His incomplete state, it would mean so little. Elidibus found he could not recall why it hurt.

He did not remember when he had first begun to visit this place. The Ascians made their home in the Rift, away from the insistent pull of the aetherial sea’s oblivion and away from Hydaelyn’s pestilent Light. But there was comfort here, in this place that She had made Her own, even though it was as far from Her as any place could be.

Perhaps that was why.

He could feel, through the currents of aether that wove their way towards Etheirys, his companions at their work. Lahabrea was busy, ever busy, and never deigned to visit the ‘barren rock’ that Eldiibus gravitated to. Emet-Selch worked, too, though his activity was far less frenzied. A dozen lives, all his to watch and ward and balance. Twelve of them was right, and yet it was not. One of many inconsistencies which dwelled in the spaces between where his memories had been.

“You seem sad, little one.”

The voice spoke in the language of his people, but its origin was a pale imitation of them. They sat in the bright blue palace that Hydaelyn had built for Her servants, no purpose to their existence but to watch and to wait. If Hydaelyn had named them, they did not use it. In a way, they were quite like him.

“Does She permit you to speak with me?” he said in return. There was a moment of pause, lost to the emptiness of their surrounds.

“I am merely watching, as is my task. It is not Her will that you suffer needlessly.”

Elidibus restrained a bitter laugh, instead simply shaking his head.

“She has a poor way of showing it. You cannot change anything, You are powerless to do it.” The Watcher mused upon this, one ill-defined hand raised to the ghost where a face should have been in thought. Who had She envisioned, to entrust this thankless task to? Who was their mirror, whose memory was etched so poorly in this foggy glass?

“Perhaps so. But in that, you have the truth of me, Elidibus. I pose no threat to you, nor can I alter your course. Will you not humour me, just for a moment?”

A moment. One more instance lost in the sand tumbling through the hourglass, falling through his fingers like everything he was. The balance, it mattered, more than his compatriots could often make themselves acknowledge. A second of peace against the backdrop of change.

“I have no reason not to. But why does my sadness concern you?”

The Watcher offered no verbal response, instead placing a smokey finger to where lips would have been.

“Come with me.”

Hydaelyn’s library, cold and uninviting as it was, did not repel him like the sigils around Zodiark. Elidibus knew what the Watcher kept here - records, unceasing in their vigil, of the numbing emptiness which spanned this living tomb. The crystals conjured half-formed memories, ones without any tangible form, and the one time he had stepped through the doors had left him frustrated and burdened with the surety of all his missing pieces.

The Watcher did not think to take him inside, however. Instead, a slow and steady climb to the platform which overlooked what remained of Zodiark was his reward, and the Watcher sat to the side.

“Look,” they said, reaching out a hand into the white expanse and making a beckoning motion. It was not for Elidibus, though he followed it regardless, sitting beside the Watcher and awaiting what would come. There was a familiarity of sorts in their larger frame next to his own, and he recalled that he had once looked up to all he spoke to, the red masks he knew so well on faces he could not quite see. They had called him young, he knew, though he was more than grown when he had assumed his seat. He had taken the vows, he had sat at their head, guided and loved them, all of them in their beautiful disparity. For Etheirys. For them. For a mask whose lines he could no longer plot against a face, a name lost to the void, for all of them and more had he done what he did.

For love, Zodiark had been torn apart.

“Do you remember?” The Watcher asked, their hand gesturing to the expanse beyond. There were plants there - yes, he had stepped onto the moon and seen them, little blue creations which wandered the expanse as if to care for it. But they had been smaller, he thought. Now, as a throng of them approached, he could see that they had been stretched into delicate stems, the bright flowers atop their heads now glimmering with aether-light. He had thought… He remembered that it had been strange to him, that they should barely reach his waist, when he should be the smallest there. And now they were not.

“Hydaelyn did not do this,” he said, and the Watcher made a gentle noise of pleased acknowledgement.

“Watch,” they instructed, and he held back his words and did as they suggested. 

The creatures walked, an almost aimless motion between the empty rocks. Then, one by one, each straightened, their stem-limbs reaching out as if to pirouette. Where two met, they moved around each other, a polite little dance of greeting. The flowers on their heads bloomed bright as they did so, a soft little sparkle, a chime of greeting. He could feel the aether that flowed around them, a gentle current of support, and he let out a long breath at the sight of it.

“It can change,” he said, his voice quiet and full of wonder. “Even this place, this bastion of Her Light…” He glanced to the Watcher, seeing that their gaze was on the wandering plants, and not on he himself. “But does this not concern you?”

“Not at all,” they replied. “The Wards hold yet, and His protection persists over Etheirys. You are here, and you do not seek to undo Her work so directly.” They turned their face towards him, a hand covering his own as if to comfort. “Our every moment need not be suffering. Our every action need not be at odds. After all, do you not seek balance in all things?” There was a kind note to their voice, though they had no mouth to smile with. “Whether you or He, something remembers, does it not, Emissary?” Elidibus watched as the flowers sparkled with the bright, white light, a tiny piece of happiness against the grey which sunk around him.

“Yes. Something does,” he agreed, and - if only for a moment - the ache in his heart seemed to ease.