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The first sign was when his heir was just but a concept in his mind. Not even physically manifested into being and merely a promise planted into someone to be birthed as many other sundered beings had.
Realistically, it should be just like an imperfect being, after all he is piloting one of these sundered people, diminished of aether and magic.
Still, there is no telling how it will turn out, especially when he has no accurate frame of reference. Sure there were Ascians who create life with a sundered being, resulting in a watered down soul not unlike the sundered themselves. But an unsundered Ascian? He would have to dip his toes to the lifestream himself, hypothetically speaking, to find what this will result in.
Lahabrea would prefer not to form another bond, or so the man had said upfront when he mentioned even just the barest hint of this ridiculous idea.
Elidibus serves as Zodiark's heart and he prefers the young Ancient to stay that way without any distraction that will come with a bond to someone.
So the honor of their first experiment fell into his lap. A blessing and a curse, he supposes.
One was chosen after much deliberation and he was soon a father to be with a yet-to-be born child on the way.
Which was when the first sign happened.
See, even though his will shares Zodiark's will, he still gave these sundered souls a chance. Perhaps they may prove him wrong, perhaps they would not, it was yet to be determined.
Yet this also meant that he experimented quite a bit for this first attempt since 'joining' according to the Ancients is...different than the joining of flesh according to these sundered beings.
So he did both.
Perhaps too reckless in doing so. It was not a whim, he assured himself, he had picked which memories he can reveal to the other without frightening them. Or how much of himself he can give so as to not overwhelm his partner with what he would put simply as: hundred years of burden.
Both are too delicate to thread and require both participants to, well, contribute. He can guarantee himself performing perfectly, but his mortal partner was...well, a sundered being.
So obviously, he should account for things derailing his carefully prepared plan.
Plan B, then, he growled, aborting the whole plan entirely after it had gone halfway. He had safety measure in place, non-tested - because how can he *test* such a thing - but to the merit of everyone involved, it was there. And he's used to impromptu changes no thanks to Hythlodaeus and Azem's antics.
To his relief though, nothing happened afterward. Sure the partner had aether sickness afterward, vomiting and being nauseous for a while, but for the most part, they showed no sign of perishing.
A month later, they vomited blood.
Alarming, yes, yet they felt strangely refreshed despite the incorrigible taste of said fluid in their mouth. Or so they have said. Maybe it was also because the aether residing in the blood was...not theirs.
This rang all sorts of bells in his head.
A failed first attempt he suspected though decided against abandoning it rightaway. Sundered as it may be, it's still something from him and if dangerous, he should be the first to know and dispose of it properly. Leaving it to its own devices would be troublesome.
Then came the day of the birth.
Now, he had crafted Garleans to be the opposites of Eorzean. A superior being with raw strength yet lacks the control to manipulate aether. It's a deliberate feature, born to invoke conflicts between the two.
This newborn, however, was brimming with aether. Not as much as an Ancient would, but more than most of the sundered. A Garlean born with Eorzean potential and the blood of the Ancient; a conundrum.
Emet-selch rarely keeps an unpredictable factor, but as he watched the new being born, brimming with aether and bathed in blood, he decided - strictly for the sake of research - to keep the child under observation at the very least.
Thus a child was born to the first Garlean emperor. A child of aether and blood itself. One he appropriately named...
"Zagreus, for the fifth time, cease this uncouth behaviour!"
Of all the things the emperor of Garlean should be doing, picking up a toddler out of a ceruleum container was definitely not on the checklists of imperial duty. He eyed the child with as much disappointment as he could convey through a glare and the boy stared at him back with wide mismatched eyes, before proceeding to put in an entire fistful of ceruleum covered hand inside his mouth.
He sighed.
There was an urge to slap the boy in the face for daring to do what he pointedly told him not to. Yet the courage was admirable, if not foolish, considering the helpless nature of a child who has just passed his fifth summer.
The blame perhaps lied with the servant who were supposed to be watching over the little prince. Such incompetency, he should entrust the task to one of his reliable generals...
No, scratch that, even his finest general could barely handle babysitting the child. One moment he is in the couch, playing with his own thumb, the next he's climbing the weapon rack, tiny fingers playing with the tip of a blade
And yes, that did end up with the baby bleeding from a cut wound, his partner passing out and the general entrusted with the baby unsheathing their sword and aiming it at their own neck to pay for being negligent.
Amidst all the chaos, Zagreus stared at the blood as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. He could not even care less about the panicking maid asking him to show where the 'boo boo' is, the child's just made a curious noise before showing him his bleeding arm and asked with the most comprehensible question a baby can voice.
"Da?"
"Yes, that is your blood, child"
Zagreus gave him the bleeding arm, like a young Ancient showing their newest creation.
"No, I do not eat blood"
"Da!"
He made a face when the child wave the bleeding arm around, unconcerned by the increasing hysteria all across the room. Incompetent fools, he thought, grabbing the child, arms and everything before gesturing for the servant to give him a roll of bandages.
Now here he was, with the same child in his arms albeit a little older yet none the wiser.
Apparently the older the child got the more the boy care not of his wellbeings. Just a year ago, Zagreus was found inside the armoire, playing with a gun. How he got there and ahold of said weapon is a mystery to this day. So the child fired his first, second, and third shot at the young age of four summers. No one got hit. Unfortunately.
They did have to fix the various holes in the armoire though and console one general who got grazed by the bullet. He politely refused when next time Zagreus toddled his way, unarmed yet with mischief in his eyes.
And here he is, five summers past since birth and slurping ceruleum like it's honey. Without the consequences that should have come with consuming a ceruleum. He was contemplating whether it's wiser to dispose of this menace of a child -before it disposes itself- when he heard a squeak, followed by a swish of air from quick bows.
"Y-y-your h-highness..."
"You are dismissed," he cut the blabbering servant and shot him a glare when the servant stood there, either dumbfounded or absolutely fearful, "...what part of the order you could not understand, hm? Or do you need my son's current choice of beverages to clear your ear?"
The servant did not even reply him verbally, before letting out a squeal, bowing as deeply as he could and fleeing the premise like a scurrying rat. Zagreus laughed in his arms, clapping those chubby hands, splashing ceruleum here and there in the process. He was about to tell the child off when said child looked up at him, red and green eyes focused solely on his own with a smile as bright as someone he's familiar with.
And proceed to pet his cheeks with the very same hand the little menace had used to scoop up ceruleum.
"You little--"
Zagreus was seven when he deemed it appropriate to provide him with lessons in every aspect necessary for the child to inherit the throne. From politics to warfare, he tried not to leave anything to chance. This will be the heir of Garlean's power after all and he preferred to cover all sorts of bases.
The first day ended with three servants chasing after the little prince waving around a wooden sword, which somehow hurt more than an alloy sword. Do not ask him how he came to know of this knowledge. He picked Zagreus up by the collar and glared at the squirming child with no less than an icy glare. His spawn pouted at him, furrowing his eyebrows and crossing his arms, petulantly refusing to look at him even when snapped at.
"Are you going to behave now?"
A kick to his chest was his answer.
For the rest of the week after, he banned the child from receiving any martial arts lesson until he could memorize the entirety of tactical warfare and understand manners. Which he can tell the boy found no amusement in yet grumpily trudge along, purposefully taking time to drag on names or explanation whenever asked.
By the end of the week, he heard nothing about a runaway prince waving a wooden sword. Not ones that reach his ears, at least.
He considers this a success.
He left the child to his own devices after that. The only news he chanced upon are just clamoring praises or bitter disdain from instructors and fellow students alike. Often he also heard his generals commenting on the young one's martial prowess and cunning, how the child never gave up and kept standing back up on his feet over and over again. Even when his instructor bashed him down with an unknown technique, the boy got back up, weapon at the ready and a curious glint sparkled on his bizarre eyes as he launched into questions and pleas to teach him.
How far those news exaggerates the truth, he knew not yet.
And with the obligations of running a country - not to the ground for once, but up - it took quite a while before he had the time to catch a glimpse of the boy's abilities. It was between meetings so he had a limited amount of time, but it was enough for a proper observation over the training hall where the soldiers had gathered for assembly and joint training.
A perfect opportunity to calculate how far the child had grown.
Zagreus was quick to spot him among the crowds, waving and showing rows of baby teeth at him. A long spear was cradled between the child's hands, made of wood to ensure safety, but makes no promise that it will be harmless in the hands of those who know what they're doing.
By the ease of how Zagreus wielded the lengthy weapon, he could surmise the boy had practiced with it for a while.
After a bell, he summarizes the child's growth as follows:
One, the boy seemed to adjust with all sorts of weapons quite fluidly. Not perfectly, but enough to know how to hold each weapon properly without the risk of accidentally nicking or stabbing himself.
Two, Zagreus is enjoying this more than he suspected. Despite being merely a child not of age, the boy was having more fun than the adults.
And three, this child can use magic.
Not in a convenient way of channeling it through a medium such as a staff, but through another sort of medium. His own blood. Which have to be spilled for the magic to be conveyed. And Zagreus seems keen to do so, ignoring the fact that wounding himself is, in a way, a handicap.
Leave it to his kid to find the most inconvenient way to bypass what his nature dictates him to be.
He scoffed when Zagreus felt the drawback of such an inefficient way to cast magic and he left as servants rose in panic at the sight of the prince toppling over.
Promising, he noted, perhaps he should oversee the boy's magic lesson after this.
Lahabrea gave him a look. Disapproving ones. The ones that he gave when he returned late to the convocation meetings with a drenched, laughing Azem in tow. Which grew even more disdainful the moment his dear friend shook his head not unlike a wet proto-carbuncle after it took a dip in the toxic waste of its cage.
A shrug was his only answer. And perhaps a series of research notes he had taken ever since Zagreus was born. From his abundant aether to his capability of magic through blood.
The older Ascian skimmed through the report, showing not a single discernible reaction until the last word. He supposed Lahabrea needed no word to express the inquiry and unspoken questions that come with the whole report. It was his own unbecoming not to elaborate what the report could not.
"The child was stable," he began, resting his chin over his twined fingers, "...he showed no sign of having my memories imprinted on him though his potential to manipulate aether is both promising and...alarming to our plan"
"Have you thought of disposing it?"
Emet-selch huffed, "As much as I'd love to, his existence alone defied the absolute fact that Garleans would never wield aether - a variable that I would have never expected should he had not been born. Getting rid of him would be...detrimental to observing whether he would produce more anomalies similar to him. I'd rather keep him close and under watch rather than destroying a subject simply because we do not understand him"
It was a reach, he knew. He was grasping for logical reasoning when there was barely any to begin with.
His acquaintances' impulsiveness must have rubbed to him more than he thought they are. The thought pricked his mind, more pain than reassurance of his justification.
The older man returned the paper back to his hand, a knowing look on his eyes and a displeased frown on his mouth.
"Seems like it won you over"
He did not deny that.
Zagreus was twelve when he spotted a wolf cub in the courtyard sitting obediently by his son's side as the young teenager eyed him with what he identified as a pleading look. Not dissimilar to the canine beside, yet both equally had no effect on him.
"No"
The boy gives him a pout, "I have not even say a single peep, father"
"Save your breath, boy, the answer is no" he retorts.
The pup gives a whine. A hand is placed atop the canine's head and he is assaulted by two pair of something that his old comrade would call 'puppy eyes'.
"Pretty please?"
"More so if you say please"
His curt reply does nothing to deter the child, as both puppy and boy scuttle closer to him instead. The emperor of all Garleans being huddled by a child and a puppy.
It is the sight that one of the legatus comes across as they arrive to report their finding. One that makes the strong warrior does a double take and melt at the sight. Even courageously suggests that he can help with caring of the canine and taught it tricks so it may become a soldier alongside the boy.
Now there are a boy, a pup, and a grown adult legatus pleading for his approval.
Headache growing with each plea and reasoning they throw, he made sure to glare at each of them - yes, even the pup - and says,
"If I catch sight of it making a mess in any part of the palace, I will personally throw it to the moat"
A smile blooms at both child and puppy's mouth; obviously oblivious to the task ahead.
Cerberus, that is the name Zagreus gives to the wolf, turns out to be quite a high maintenance pup to take care of. On the first weeks, he can't count with two hands how many times had his progeny tried to cover for the pup's mess. Be it a small ones such as it biting at chairs' feet to the harsher one such as toppling all of the ceruleum barrels in one of the storages (he personally have that one legatus cleaning every inch of it), Zagreus seems keen to keep the pup name clean and cares not if his own is besmirched. To his amusement.
So even when one evening, he can tell that it was the damn dog that had peed all over the carpet on one of the meeting rooms, he said nothing when Zagreus tried to reason about why the reeking puddle is definitely not a product of the pup's excretion.
"It's not mine too!" The boy quickly adds. Too quickly.
Prying for a culprit yields him a tall tale of a stray dog coming into a heavily guarded Garlean palace to urinate specifically in the meeting room out of tens of other rooms, including those without door, before heroically strutting out of the Palace ground without a single soldier witnessing such absurd incident.
He painstakingly recites it back to the boy and ends it by grabbing the pup by the scruff of its neck and repeats the threat he had made on the day Zagreus made the deal with him.
The boy's hand shoots up.
Ignoring the insistent tug at his coat, he glares at the creature in his hand. It will be so easy to take the pup out to one of the balconies facing the moats surrounding their building. If the height does not kill the pup, the freezing water will. The canine is glaring at him in return, adopting a fiercer face that does little to intimidate him.
That kick on the leg, however, is enough to shift his attention back to his progeny with a deathly glare.
Zagreus meets his eyes.
Pouts.
And very deliberately repeats the kick to his other leg.
He has half a mind to throw both the child and pup to the moat. Which, regretfully, he couldn't see to its completion, due to the concern of body disposal and the ripple effect it will cause to the growing Garlean Empire. To have his heir die by 'accident' even if it is his own making would spell weakness and flaw.
So instead of that, he walks back to the meeting room, dog in one hand and a flailing boy in another. He beckons a servant and have them drop a bucket of soapy water and rag by his feet and told the boy to clean.
One hour later, he enters a soapy and slippery room - one legatus would attest to that if he isn't confined to bed from broken leg - with the boy AND the dog covered from head to paw in foamy water.
They both are now grounded in their room.