Ambulate Mecum [Hilana]

[Finn]

Arx Petra Rubra
61st of Glade, Year 123 of Steel

Despite his bulk, Finn could move like a shadow, especially in his Sentinel blacks. He retreated from the room where the man called Lykos was sleeping, and returned to Hilana. He gestured politely to indicate they should stroll along the arcade where the courtyard breezes would be cool from the plashing fountains. It was pleasant out here where Phocion held sway. He removed his veil so they could speak face to face—or, rather, she could see his face as they walked side by side.

He shook his head regretfully.

"I felt a tug of something," he admitted, brow furrowed, "but while I feel like I should know the man, I can't say that I do. There was a House Leukos back in Kalzasi, but that is the closest to Lykos that I can think of. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

This had been her first question for him after their first greeting and careful, three-armed embrace. His sling had been replaced by a clever contraption—a pauldron, a couter, and a vambrace connected magically with kinetics to allow him his former strength while also stimulating nerves and muscles constantly to encourage growth and strength. It felt like his entire arm had fallen asleep and was just waking up—unpleasant, but a small price to pay to have his music back. At least, he hoped the his fingertips would be as sensitive to the strings as they had been, his fingering as sure. Otherwise, he was going to have to learn how to accompany his voice with something he could play one-handed, such as the cowbell.

But at least the armored artefacts looked impressive.

"But, please... tell me everything! Chronologically, if possible." He offered her an apologetic grin. "Bards need to hear the whole story if they're to make an epic song about it."

[Hilana Chenzira]

When Phocion realized Hilana was very serious about Myshala’s warning and intended to see it through, she had gotten a room at the Citadel to sleep in. She didn’t, at least, have to move her snakes and cats, which meant her apartment remained a veritable den of spicy danger noodles and Hilana would just go back and forth and use it as a launching pad when she returned to a more regular schedule in a few days. But seeing Finn and as a welcome and pleasant surprise, and she was grateful that he came. She was no Vigila that would receive information back from them unless it was strictly need-to-know… but where there was a will there was a way. Finn was a northerner, Sentinel, and one of her best friends. She trusted him… he wouldn’t steer her wrong.

With Lia and Lykos still sleeping, Hilana came along with him. She’d changed her clothes from the debacle that had been the Crystal Tree the day before, back in her long tiered skirts, a swirling, colourful blend of greens and blues, and one of her short, sleeveless shirts that only just covered her chest. She had barely slept, having had a brief nap, but it would do. She was, oddly enough, without her snakes today, and her right arm was resting in a sling that matched her skirts. Finn could see the discolouration there at elbow, shoulder, and wrist. But he could also smell the salves and ointments she had applied to it to help reduce the pain and swelling. He’d gotten them from her too before, but wherever she’d been and whatever she’d come into contact with had gotten her arm good. All the same, all she could do was just push through it.

“Something, and you should know him, but you don’t,” Hilana repeated. “I’m starting to think I’m right about what the Stitchmother took from him. I gave him that name, Lykos, because he doesn’t have one. It’s from the Sands, Nomad dialects,” she smiled up at him at that as they walked. “It means wolf and light… it seemed to fit. How is your arm doing? How are you doing?” She’d noted the contraption, and that was certainly smart. Her own injury didn’t require that, thank the Gods. Just some patience and not overdoing it. It was going to be some time before she tried that whip again, that was for sure. She did laugh, though, when he spoke of making it an epic song. All the same, she’d indulge her disciple.

“From the beginning?” She let out a chuckle, as if to say he knew what he was asking for. “Æros and I set out from Tertium after the derby. He wanted to see the great darkness of the Eclipse for himself, and so we took a boat and went north in the Crystal Sea. We found the darkness once we went beyond the borders of the realm, and once we got there… there was a Crystal Tree, shimmering and jewelled, dead ahead due North, on an island. The island was about the size of the oasis we camped at when we were investigating the village in Ash, if you remember, and the tree was considerable in size… like the one Atraxian Oak I’ve taken you to see that was to the northeast of the capital. It was resplendent, hues of blues and silvers and purples, shimmering crystal, every branch, bough, twig, and leaf… So of course… rather than turn back and go home… we decided to go and look. Once we landed, our boat cracked and splintered as shards of ice and frost froze everything around us. The cold was such that my eyes almost sealed shut, but I used a bit of Elementalism to take the edge off so that I could at least see. A voice said. ‘Welcome back, Winter’… That was when we noticed an opening in the trunk of the tree, and we went inside. I am certain that Lykos was there when we got to the island, because I swear there was a third person aside from Æros and I… but I can’t remember for sure… that being said, I believe he was.”

She took a breath as they walked, looking on at the endless sands and the crystal clear skies of her homeland. “Inside was like a cave. Perhaps the size of my living room, mostly dark with little light. Above us was something… I wonder if it was some sort of aether... It shone like fire on water… gaseous but frozen, every colour you could imagine… I’ve never seen anything like that. In the middle was a large obsidian monolith, maybe 10 meters high… and on it… words began to write themselves… writing in surely hundreds of languages. I saw those I recognized - Vallenor, Vastian, and Common - but there were so many.” She paused again, her eyes far away. Finn had seen that look before: she was recalling something and organizing it in her head.

When she spoke again, her barely-accented Common was slow, but steady as she brought forth her memory of the verses.

“Upon my stone, a hand be placed
To the Void, intent given free
A realm of the lost and erased,
A gate opened for three.

But Void is for forgotten and lost
Discarded, hidden and scrapped
Entry comes with a severe cost
Beware, ahead lies an eternity trapped.

To enter, give as the gods have given,
Pay not in blood, not in tears, or empty hope,
Turn back now, so as not to be riven,
Give that which without one cannot cope.

For as those that came before,
Gave everything they had
And so much terribly more
With a heart ironclad.

Or turn back now, no blood spilled
Go home to your those you love
A destiny left unfulfilled
Or transcend the mortal and stand above.”

Hilana finished. The recitation was a bit slow, but she was calm and ready to continue now that she had recalled that to the best of her ability. Memory was necessary in the sands, and he knew some of her early childhood lessons had been about sharpening that skill to a razor’s edge and making sure it stayed sharp. “And so I… foolish, foolish Hilana… put my hand on it and committed. I should have let Æros Semble it, because Founders know I didn’t get anything out of it when I looked at it, but he’s the one who trains in the Arcane arts so quickly… but since it said ‘a gate opened for three’… I thought all of us would be taken to the same place. But we weren’t. We all put our hands on it, and then the next thing I know… my Rune of Elementalism was ripped right out of me… out of my soul,” she looked at her right palm, turning it up where it rested in the sling, that was there now. It shone, shimmering and soft and looking like it had never vanished. Ornate molten gold that formed a floral sun. “I saw a vision of myself in the monolith, and it felt like it had hooked my Rune from me and subsequently ripped it from me. My hand was scarred the next time I looked at it, but the Void-shade of myself… swallowed my Rune. Everything went black, and when I woke up… I felt like I had overstepped. I was exhausted. I had a migraine. I felt hollow.”

She clenched her hand slowly, closing her fingers. “I was in an area that was very much like the Sands. But it was dark and desolate, destroyed towns and villages, but there was a city of spires and buildings. Everything felt unbalanced and there was nothing at all. No life. No people, no animals, not even wind. That was when my Void-shade appeared in a Traversion portal atop the highway spire… and thunder and lightning flashed and all of a sudden, everything started to change. People appeared from buildings as they burnt and crumbled, and it was no longer sands but destroyed grasslands. Charred skeletons, animals and people alike, and many more burning, falling, begging for my help…” her voice was tightening with the memory.

“I couldn’t help them. There were so many of them, my supplies were limited, and I couldn’t do anything with what I had. None of it would be enough, and if I stopped to help, she could just keep going,” Hilana sounded a little bitter, which was not a normal tone for her. Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps it was regret, perhaps it was guilt. The pendant she wore from Cithaera kept her Aura and Symphony muted, but he was a Master, and he knew his paedagoga well. “Except, stupid me, my biggest weapon was my Elementalism and I had it ripped out. I didn’t have a plan; I just figured I’d come up with something when I caught up to her or she got sick of toying with me… and as I made my way towards the spire she was sitting on, I found someone else. A version of my sister, Athalia.” The third Chenzira daughter; the one with whom Hilana had the most contentious relationship. Athalia had had the sharpest temper and the least patience for her sister, and while the family presented as united for appearances, that was the furthest from the truth… and those from within knew it.

“As I best understand it… she’s the version of Athalia that might have existed here in this world had we got along. But after we had that screaming fight over mother’s veil over twelve years ago… she found herself in the Void,” Hilana knew that this probably made very little sense, because there was an Athalia in Tertium, who was happily married and a mother of multitudes. “‘But Void is for forgotten and lost, Discarded, hidden and scrapped’,” she quoted the monolith. “She came to my aid, and she could commune with the spirits. I couldn’t anymore, not without my Rune… and it turned out my Void-shade was unbalanced. The fire was afraid of her, and she enslaved it to force it to obey. That never ends well. It can’t. The spirits will rebel eventually, when you cannot hold it together anymore.”

“I don’t know what she... the Void-shade... did. I assume it was some way of toying with me, to have me watch things die again, because those that had died and been burnt and injured no longer had those wounds and came back to life. They came running to us to ask for help… and all I could do was tell them to run and scatter. A portal opened again, not far from us… and out stepped some sort of demon. It was thickly built like an Orcanus, maybe two heads taller than I, with fiery and glowing cracks over its body and many thorn-like spikes and protrusions. It carried a chain whip and it used it to blast fire from it, so I thought if I could get that whip… maybe we could use it against the Void-shade,” Hilana continued her tale, fashioning a smaller version of the monster that they had faced out of sand off to the side so that Finn could have some idea of what such a spiked creature looked like. “One of the things that she had taunted me with was a version of the Great Tortoise of Gel’Grandal… so Athalia and I used her Elementalism to, well, tip it downhill and guide it along a course to build momentum… and crushed the demon with it.” As she had shaped the demon, so she did the tortoise shell, working with the elements to form a miniature tableau of sorts, depicting the hellish landscape and the overturned tortoise shell’s progression downhill until it smashed into the demon and carried off on its way before it all dissolved. “I did get the whip, but when I tried to test it… I managed to dislocate my elbow and shoulder.” She rolled the right arm that rested in the sling.

[Finn]

Finn didn't endart himself into her symphony; it felt rude, and they were good enough friends, he could intuit a great deal about her emotional state just from being with her. She could do the same with him. They walked, she spoke, and he tried not to lose the metronomic tempo of their gait when she surprised him with details that seemed impossible. He was silent even as she chanted and his musical training had him committing it to memory as a matter of course.

His nose wrinkled. Clearly, there were no bards in the Void.

But he kept that to himself; she kept him on tenterhooks with her story. When she was done, he had to process it all quietly. Eventually, he gently nudged her injured elbow with his injured elbow.

"We are going to be such trend-setters this season," he jibed. "All the fashionable humans are wearing injured arms. Sorry—terrible joke." He stopped, turned to face her, and embraced her carefully with his good arm. "I am glad you are back. Safe and sound." They both sort of needed it. When it felt like she had enough affection, he pulled back and they began to walk again.

"So... doggerel and Voidborn mirrors of people. Demons." He would have to read the Sentinels' file on all this to see what insights they might have on what had happened. "And the senator...? Did he return as well? The 'three' were you two and this Lykos? I wonder if I can find some sort of artefact to give you that you can... I don't know, activate to let me know you are in peril and help me find you in the slipstream. The next time you panic, I could have a portal open in no time at all." He halted his questioning, as well as his tangents. Making her monologue wasn't his intention, but his time had been spent much more calmly.

He worked around his disability, he accompanied Arvælyn when required, and he wrote music that he might never be able to play himself. Finn didn't press her for answers; it had clearly been a harrowing experience, especially given it had only been a season since they had been fucked up by trumped up shadows.

[Hilana Chenzira]

Hilana leaned into his hug, grateful as anything for it. She was a boisterous, affectionate girl, and when he was physically up to it she always had pounced on him as much as she could get away with without attracting Arvaelyn’s ire. With his injury, more care had had to be taken, but there was no less care in it when passion was restrained for the sake of mending. Careful touches with massages and salves and stretching to help with the muscles had happened after impromptu secret visits with meals and tea, either hot or iced, sweet or spiced, accompanied by plenty of desserts with extras to take back. She only smiled a bit grimly when he asked about Æros’ fate, but she considered his query about an artifact. That would be incredibly useful, and good to have, but she could only imagine Arry’s reaction to it, and that was perhaps even more worrisome than all that she had seen the day prior.

“Aren’t we? But mine will be fine in a few more days... yours is still healing. Your Amatus let me off lightly with the silent treatment the first time, and he’s still not… particularly pleased with me, over what happened a season ago. If you found such a thing, and came to my aid and returned with so much as a hair missing off your head… Arvaelyn would see me in the volcano assuming he didn’t draw and quarter me with Kinetics then and there. The Founders require no formal altar, after all, just intent,” she found his uninjured hand with her own and squeezed gently, smiling up at him. “But I am touched and grateful, Finn.”

She was also not done with the tale that he had wanted to put to song some day. “The Void-shade left her spire to confront us, and she said someone was looking through me, and asked ‘if that’s where he had been all this time’… so that does suggest the third… there’s no magic that Æros had that would have allowed such a feat. I wonder if Lykos had defeated his own Void-shade, and was using the Monolith to see me and check in on me,” Hilana knew that she was moving into the realm of personal observation rather than facts, and steered herself back in line. “She offered us a deal. If I let her look through me as the other did, she would let us leave. Both of us. And she would give me these orbs that she said were Runes. But giving up such a thing… seemed like a bad idea,” the girl admitted. “I was buying time to get her close and see if we could have ended her there... even if I had to stab her with the blade end of the whip and use it on her to choke her to death… and that was when she told me that Æros’ throat had been cut.” That explained her grim smile at his question as to the Senator’s fate.

“I questioned her about who she had been referring to, and she said that he ‘didn't manage to do that much in the end. He took our beautiful ending and made it take a little bit longer’… she was incredibly smug about that…. And that was when she became unhinged. She started ranting, that ‘here he comes again, doing my job for me’, and ‘yet again, he just comes along and ruins everything.’ That ‘It matters not, he cannot he stopped, not again. Never again’.” Hilana looked on in the distance, remembering. “She tried to attack me, but she smashed into the strongest wards I’d ever seen and felt. She lost her control over the fire, and it turned on her… until there was nothing left. She dropped four Runes, one of which was my Elementalism, the others being Semblance, Traversion, and Masquerade. I…made the decision to try to put it back on me, and that... was possibly a mistake. Or would have been, had Lia not been there. My aether was in complete flux, and I... the elements were completely unbalanced because of the way it had been ripped from me, and the way I was trying to put it back on, what had happened, and where we were. I felt like I might have became an elemental spirit had she not been there, because as the personification of fire itself... she was able to balance and harmonize everything, and let it settle,” she smiled a little at that. One could only imagine the threshold sickness, and the fact that Hilana was at least up and moving suggested she was using some very powerful brews indeed.

“And that was when Æros joined us. But not as he was. Can you smell him?” Hilana smiled faintly. “There’s death around. He’s a ghost now, and he is tethered to me, courtesy of the Gods, apparently.” As exhausted as she was, in terms of aether, trying to read far more was not helping her today. The less she used it, the faster she could recover. She had done more than enough yesterday, and while she had just used Elementalism moments ago, she shouldn’t have. But it was easier to help him understand what had happened. “All of a sudden, something seemed to slice the void that we were in... and we could see Ransera again... but monsters swarmed, monsters with tentacles, eyes, and mouths... and they devoured all in their path. People, rock, the Void... I was able to use the Mask to get the three of us out, and back to the Monolith. As we got there... I heard a warning: ‘All will be consumed by the Void in the end’.” The Vastiana shook her head, thinking about those creatures, using her hands to indicate the shape and size of them for Finn to imagine. Another time, she would draw it, as much as she could, or once Lia had rested... have her sculpt them.. But the horrors may as well be mentioned in the story.

“And when we got there.. We faced Myshala. Beautiful, deadly, elegant... and completely terrifying,” the girl admitted. That was the first time she’d said so, aloud or silently, because admitting it was part of accepting just how dangerous of a game this was. “She had mandibles and more spider legs than I could ever hope to count, even if I’d spent a year doing nothing but. Lykos was there, but unconscious on the ground by the monolith, and covered with webbing. She said that I was ‘resourceful, yet rash, full of caring, yet careless, ever changing, but stubbornly resolute’,” her tone seemed to suggest that she had been thinking about those words since they had been uttered. “Then she said, ‘Always reaching for... for that which is the responsibility of gods, wishing for more, and losing more and more mortality along the way... She laid a hand on each half of the monolith, and it shifted and melted away... revealing two elves, one male, one female, that were heavily tattooed. She said that they ‘went so far for him, accomplished the impossible to fulfill his wishes, and yet, mortals always succumb to their own overreach in the end’. Her spiders ate the corpses, and the Stitchmother told us that we are responsible for him. That he gave up everything that was important to him to save us, and countless others... that all mortals owe him a debt for what he did and sacrificed on his part. But we can repay that debt by growing anew what he gave up.” Her fingers tightened on Finn’s, and she looked on over the sands before back up at her friend. “Further... he will be needed in what comes next. This isn’t over, not by any stretch. She left us, then, and the cave became an island, with a great many wolves howling...like they were mourning him. That is a packsong that I will never forget.” Her thumb stroked the back of Finn’s.

“He’s the Lord of Frost, Myshala said... so that ties back to the voice that said ‘Welcome back, Winter’... so that’s why I believe we met him there, I may well have known him before, and maybe he was able to get from the Monolith as well and get back... I had to wake him up. He remembered nothing. I think he spoke in Synskrit when he did... some of his words sounded a bit like what I heard from Daemon. Anatahadare?” She tried, knowing her pronunciation was likely completely off. Even when she heard words in that tongue, she usually had to take quite a few tries to get the accents just so. She tried the rest of them, knowing she was butchering it. “Anata... wa rikai shite... faex... imasen.” Her attempt at Synskrit needed an awful lot of work, and Hilana knew it. “But he’s strong in Common, so far, and eats well, at least,” she smiled at that. Of course that was something that pleased the Vastiana, having more people to feed. “He doesn't know anything. His own name, what happened, what he was doing there, where he was from, none of it... so I gave him the name Lykos until I can find a way to understand his past and his connections. To find his people. He’s got a lot of markings on him that I think are Runes... so we’ll figure that out over the next few days. I can’t Semble him, I get a vicious headache if I so much as catch him in the periphery.. Perhaps Princess Cithaera or Princess Valaera can, but I can’t. So we’ll do it the trial-and-error way to see what there is to see. In any event... I’ll look after him. Find a way to restore what was lost. Figure out whose plans we interrupted, and see what can be done about the rest of this. Daemon said that something is prolonging this eclipse, and I think that ‘something’ is ‘someone’. There was a tower to the West, too... so I’ll have to talk to the Sentinels about it. And see what there is to see.”

Her long skirts ruffled in the breeze, fluttering against his Sentinel blacks. Shadows gathered behind them, and under and around those skirts, pooling as Hilana could hear them once again. It felt good to have her ability to hear the Elements again, to feel them, to commune with them. “I was able to get us back to Tertium until I could talk to the Sentinels... Daemon gave me a Ring that uses Traversion, and the Sentinels came to my father’s house to get us, and here we are,” she smiled a bit faintly. “So I’ll be going back and forth from here and there, when I return to work... so it’s just portal in, portal out.” But if Daemon gave her a Ring that allowed her to Portal them out... that begged the question as to why she’d not used it at the start to get them out of there. To retreat, regroup, and come back with assistance that was likely far better prepared than the desert nomad, a sheltered Senator, and a sturdy demigod from the Northern part of the world.

There was more to tell him, but now that she had gotten her part out... well, she could start on what Æros had told her once she let Finn digest all of this first.

[Aeros]

TIMESTAMP: -
NOTES: -

- - -

- - -

Æros had been present from the start– tethered to Hilana as he was and significantly weakened since his soul had been sundered from his corpus, he'd fallen into a sort of half conscious, meditative state after the previous day finally unwound and met its end. He was aware of his surroundings, aware of the conversation between Hilana and Finn, but for the start of it, that awareness was tertiary and a lot of the words barely perceived.

The deceased patrician's presence, however, would give the room an unnatural chill. For the moment, it would be easy for one to mistake the source of this otherworldly iciness as Hilana herself. Easy, indeed, because Æros had condensed himself into possessing one of the pieces of jewelry she wore. Even in death, he was a sucker for fine metalwork and minerals– his predilections not unlike a crow's, but a heavily spoiled one, certainly. If one were to look closely enough, the citrine centerstone in her hairpin would emit a pale, misty glow– easy to mistake as a trick of the light.

By the time Hilana had started to speak of the events after touching the Monolith, Æros' consciousness had been roused enough to be paying full attention to the conversation as it would play out. For now, however, he didn't have anything to add. Everything the Vastiana had said was accurate and, given how fresh this sorry fate was, he didn't really want to partake in playing storyteller– especially regarding that which he wrought upon himself.

The shade had not even begun to properly process what he'd done to himself, to others, nor could he even fathom, for the moment, the rippling effects of his choices. And because of that, he wasn't quite sure how he'd respond to whatever judgment Finn would make upon learning what happened– that is, if Æros did deign to elucidate that which Hilana was not party to. He was conflicted, unable to resolve his feelings, because, in a way, he'd gotten the audience with the Founders that he'd so desperately craved– only under circumstances far more dire than he'd ever even dreamt of.

- - -

"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"

"Vastien Tongue/Speech"

"Valasren Tongue/Speech"

"Common Tongue/Speech"

[Finn]

There was really too much to process in too short of a time; he would certainly be reading the reports of his fellow Sentinels. They had trained him to be succinct and to the point in his own reports, a literary exercise for a bard to be sure. His eyebrows rose at the death of Khyan's master, though if Hilana hadn't seen a body, it could have been a lie, a gambit. Void-mirrors and Myshala Herself—he didn't know what the Lord of Flesh might truly desire in all this. Though the Divine Twins ruled supreme here, they were a lesser order of deity insofar as he understood such things. Perhaps Aværys wouldn't appreciate his chosen noting that, but it seemed to Finn that his patron deity would bend the knee to Eikæn and those more powerful. Ambition needed heights to reach, after all.

"Anatahadare," he corrected absently, his mind choosing that for whatever reason to latch on to. "'Who are you?' And 'you don't understand.'" He didn't bother correcting the pronunciation on the words she didn't quite have. Finn had spent enough time in Kalzasi to be fluent in the language of its overlords. There was a music peculiar to it, but that was true of every language he had encountered.

Perhaps he would be able to speak to 'Dæmon' as they continued to call the Shinsei of Kalzasi. The Eclipse had nearly taken his life. Arvælyn had made it his crusade, but Finn wanted to help.

"Tertium is nice," he said, just as absently. She could vault between cities, but so could he. Perhaps he would ask Phocion if he could keep an eye on her. This certainly fell under the purview of his new office and Finn was well-placed to stay involved.

Finn decided. He nodded.

"I'm going to ask Phocion if I can be assigned to this case. At the very least, I can be in Tertium at the drop of a hat if necessary. Perhaps he can provide you with a... I don't know what you would call it... a panic button? If a senator has been killed, you've been touched by Myshala, and the man in the other room is... the new god of winter...?" Welcome back, Myshala had apparently said, but Finn didn't recall a god of winter in any pantheon he had read or heard about.

[Raithen]

Raithen hadn't understood, not really, when Hilana had told him, via their mirror conversations, of her intentions to go investigate the Eclipse with some nobleman. He had understood that much, but he hadn't really grasped either the 'why' or what it would entail. Never one for trying to control a loved one or friend, or even to consider that he might do, he'd wished her a pleasant journey and thought little else of it. Only later had his mind put together the name of the nobleman with the name he'd learned when he'd made quiet inquiry as to who had purchased the friend of his adolescence when the man had been sold, along with his family, into slavery.

That Khyan had not been sentenced to sacrifice had been a welcome surprise, but it had felt cruel to try and contact him after his fall from on high to so low. Anyone from his past life butting in to his new one could only serve to remind him of all he'd lost, so Raithen had stayed away after his initial wondering. He hadn't know anything about the obscure member of a family who was already considered uncouth, and hadn't made any effort to learn more. That had seemed to be the end of it, until Hilana had said his name in reference to her travel.

He might ask about his old friend, when she returned, in passing. Perhaps he would have accompanied his master and it would be nice to know if he was well, if he was adjusting. When he had learned of her return, she had said that she was safe but there was a tone that worried him. Not to mention that she had not returned to Tertium but was instead holed up in one of the most secure locations in the nation.

Being the impulsive sort that he was he decided that he would drop by, just to check, and to say hello, of course. This impulse had proven to be more of an issue than he'd at first hoped. He had the rank and credentials to gain entrance into the Citadel, but he couldn't simply vault in as he'd originally thought to do. He would have to speak to his brother concerning that, at least, if Hilana would have to stay. It had taken a little while, and before he'd been allowed he'd been informed that another friend (though the guard informing him had not known that Finn was a friend) was already visiting.

Poking his head into the indicated rooms did not find him the people he was looking for, but it did not take long for him to spot the pair walking together. Without a thought to listening to their conversation he simply strode over, drinking them both with his eyes. When he was close his instinct was to hug the Vastiana, saying her name, but then he saw that her arm was injured he hesitated, offering only a brief and gentle embrace before turning to Finn. Almost the same little dance of intention, hesitation, and then gentle, brief touch ensued.

The smile that had covered his whole form when he had seen them had settled into something closer to concern by the time he had finished his greetings.

"Hello. I was coming by to check on you," This to Hilana, "You said you were well but you sounded..." He made a face that implied 'less than okay'.

"I didn't know you'd be here," This to Finn, "But I'm very glad to see you. You two weren't practicing some sort of dangerous aethric arm wrestling, were you?"

[Hilana Chenzira]

When Finn translated the Kalzasern words for her, Hilana nodded. Those did make sense. Because once Lykos had realized that none of them spoke that tongue, he had managed to switch to Common, and they had been able to converse from there. She could feel the chill radiating out of the rounded citrine that was in her hair, a reminder that the ghost had decided to hide in it. It was one of the larger stones she ever wore on a daily basis, and it was of no surprise to her that Æros chose to occupy it. The bigger and shinier the better, after all, and considering the half-Fae’s tastes, it tracked.

“Tertium is Tertium,” Hilana shook her head. She didn’t necessarily think it was nice, but from Finn’s tone, she was wondering if she had overloaded her friend with the sheer amount of detail that she had been playing in her head, over and over and over and over, all night long. “I’ll have to go back later to get our things and some camels and something that Lia can wear that’s nicer than what I’ve got here... Plus I have cats, camels, and snakes to bring back. I’ll make it work. Would you like to come for a trip and see the family estate there? Nothing as nice as a Palace, but my father has been constantly improving it.” That much, Hilana could admit.

“I’d like that, though, if you could,” she was always glad of Finn’s company, and she knew he was more than capable, even if he had one arm still recovering. Beyond that, he was also from Kalzasi, and Lykos would be thrilled about having another Northerner around. Though Finn didn’t know of a God of Winter, and Hilana knew even less, really, considering she had grown up with Varvaerynism... “He’s friendly, and I’m quite certain he saved Lia and I. We’ll get some of the books on magic and work through them with him and see what all he has. I can’t Semble him, it’s an instant headache and I remember Princess Cithaera said not to delve into such things when we were at the Mount, so I’m disinclined to try... We’ll find it by trial and error.” Of that, Hilana was at least confident.

And that was when Raithen joined them, and Hilana was both glad and relieved to see him. When he hugged her, she burrowed into him, her good arm going around him, the bruised and battered limb in the sling tucked between them. “It’s good to see you,” she had seen him in person only a few days ago, and really, before the Derby, but she was thankful that her winged mate had made the trip to check in on her. “I wish that that was what we’d done, though if we had, I’m quite certain Arvaelyn would feed me to his aunts and uncles for doing anything to disrupt Finn’s healing.” She could at least joke a bit about it, but the three of them knew full well that that was playing with fire. “We found more than we thought we would beyond the Kingdom’s borders, and I got this from trying to crack a whip I took off of some Void-demon,” she lifted her arm in the sling. “I dislocated it at the elbow and shoulder, so just letting it rest for a few days and then it will be fine. The bruising and swelling have already gone down somewhat from yesterday. Æros wasn’t so lucky. He’s dead, he was tricked and sacrificed himself. The Void-shade said his throat was cut, and he said that he did it himself and dedicated his life to the Founders.”

Now, she knew that Finn had been gifted Avaerys’ Emblem, and Raithen worked diligently for His Divine Radiance, but how much they might be able to shed on this, the Vastiana did not know. “He said that he found himself atop Sorokyn with the Founders, and Shaeoth was there as well... along with another mortal that was to be a sacrifice. He said that he was given the option of sacrificing the other one to the Void in his place, and returning in his skin... but ‘he’ was someone he cared about, so I don’t... Æros, was it Khyan?” she demanded of the spirit in the gem. “You said that Shaeoth offered you untold power if you swore vengeance against the one who fooled you, and the Founders for selecting the sacrifice who was so close to you. Was it Khyan?” She didn’t expect an answer from the spectre in the citrine in her hair. “But he chose vengeance against the one who tricked him, and so now he is a ghost. He said that if he gets vengeance, he will be reborn.” If this was some sort of a trick, then it had gotten past the Sembling Sentinels, too. “Prince Phocion said that you,” she looked to Finn, “wouldn’t be happy about what he had done to save his neck.” Khyan and Finn were friends, Khyan was someone that Æros had cared deeply about, and knowing him as she did, ‘he’ didn’t include any family members that Æros wouldn’t have sent to the Void in exchange. She didn't know if Raithen knew him, but perhaps...

Realization was showing in her dark brown eyes, and she reached her left hand into her hair to start untying the citrine from her bun.

[Finn]

Finn actually enjoyed Tertium, but it had been the shining vista of a new adventure approaching as their ship carried them over the Crystal Sea. And, of course, the Crownwyrm had made an appearance for reasons which were now known, but at the time had seemed magical.

He nodded. Whether he went in an official capacity or merely a friend with quite the talent for portal travel, he would see Tertium again. It was within the realm of Avaerys' Scepter, so Arvaelyn couldn't be too upset.

"The Assessors have already plumbed his aura and reported on their findings," he assured her. They had trained their Sembling to shield their minds from divine auras and nimbi, much as he was learning to do with his own Mesmerism.

Finn smiled at Raithen, glad to see him. If his blacks masked his aura and his symphony, they might still note a hint of melancholy upon his face. There was a boundary between them now, required by Arvaelyn, and it chafed. Brows furrowed as Hilana described how she incurred her injury, and then he was confused. Aeros' death had been hearsay before, and now she was... speaking to him as if he were there. Apparently, she was a necromancer now.

Aeros dead and Khyan too! Perhaps the Assessors and other Sentinels hadn't completed their reports, or perhaps some of them were redacted before he could peruse them.

"...what? Phocion knows something? Is Aeros here now? Has...?"

But words failed him. He didn't understand how Aeros had gone from bargaining to having his throat slit, but it seemed unlikely given they had become Reavers on the same day. Khyan's involvement was new, and he felt Avaerys' mark tighten around his skull. Without quite knowing what he was doing, he called. A crown of light burst forth from his brow, and one could almost hear his patron's voice echoing over his own.

"Khyan, come to me."

[Pharaoh]

Finn's crown blazed with a radiant glow that all present would instantly recognise, for all had stood before the empyreal presence of Aværys. His light shone blindingly, and as their eyes readjusted it would be Hilana who would first note that something was answering Finn's summons. It came not from the blazing light of his empyreal crown, but from the shadow cast by Hilana herself. There was a disruption to the shadow, and a faint red glow began to emanate from the blackness.

By and by this crimson light shifted and took a translucent shape. It was familiar, after a fashion... the slender build and general shape of Vinicius Nykara Khyan, though the features lacked detail they'd borne in life. This entity extended its spectral hands and inspected them, as if bemusedly with ireful eyes. This state was almost as new to the being as it was to those witnessing the result of Finn's invocation.

A glowing red gaze regarded those before the figure, resting finally upon the one who had invoked him.

"Dominus." He bowed before the Crowned acolyte of Aværys. Finn could still sense the mark of Fealty upon the soul of the spirit. He spoke not to Finn as a Magnatus of Solunarium, but as the sworn subject of an Empyreal Lord. Even with the weight of those obeisances, his scarlet gaze trailed toward the citrine in Hilana's hair and a snarl curled the approximation of Khyan's full lips that painted the crimson countenance of this entity.

"I will infer from the timing of this call and the particular congregation assembled here, that word of my betrayal has reached all of you. I sense the presence of the traitor, though I am unsurprised to note he dares not show his face in front of people who cared for me in life. Do you know the full breadth of my fate, or have I been beckoned to enlighten you all as to the gravity of Æros' treachery?"