Ambulate Mecum [Hilana]

[Raithen]

Though he was listening, for a good, long minute, Raithen had no idea what was going on. What had happened to Khyan? How was he involved in any of this? Was the Aeros fellow present but... invisible, or, no. He was dead? Did Hilana need whip lessons? Had she whipped the man to death? What was a Void-Demon?

Blinking he tried to slow his many questions and catch up. Hilana had taken Aeros to investigate and it seemed they had run into some trouble, which had caused the stranger to sacrifice himself to the Founders? Well, there were far worse ways to die. But then he and someone dear to him had appeared before the Founders and he'd been given a choice between his own life and his loved one's.

The information slowly processed as Hilana, and then Finn spoke to people who were not there. Eventually, it clicked. Oh.

As quickly as that the open, friendly smile on his amiable face curled into a dark expression, not quite a frown, and worse for it. Suddenly it was easy to see how this man had been a mercenary, death dealt guiltlessly by his hand.

"Vinicius Nykara Khyan?" He asked, not expecting an answer but seeing it on the faces of the other two.

He knew Finn was Chosen of Aværys, so he wasn't wholly surprised to see the crown of Dominion flare to life around the human's brow. Even as used to Aværys' presence as he now was, Raithen was still awed by His power. If there had not been anger filling him already he might have gone to his knees before the avatar. So entranced was he by the invocation that, again, he was slow to realize the implications. When he did, a spike of pain slid between his ribs, cutting at heart and lungs together so it became difficult to breath.

Raithen knew a great many people, was affable and polite with almost all of them, but of those he considered friends there were only three, and all three now stood before him. He could not say the name again, not in greeting nor in horror, it stuck in his throat and there it burned. As Khyan seemed to burn.

[Hilana Chenzira]

While her left hand was fairly adept, and Hilana worked at making herself ambidextrous, she had used both to secure the ribbon of the citrine into her hair. Her right arm left the sling in order to reach into her hair to find the other ends, too. Thick as her curls were, Hilana had secured it well for a reason, and she hadn’t planned on taking it out until the end of the day, but as it was, things changed.

“Yes, he’s here, he’s in the citrine. He’s possessed it. Or, well, haunting it... both, really.” Hilana could feel the chill on the stone, and while it was a nice feeling in the omnipresent heat. Short of shattering the stone, she didn’t really have a way to boot him out of it. She didn’t know what she expected - that Æros would speak up in front of people with more rank and status than he had, and people who very much cared for Khyan’s health and safety and had entrusted the half-Fae with him.

“Vincinius Nykara Khyan, yes... Æros was able to buy him from Cetus Argenti.” Hilana didn’t know how much Raithen knew, but she supplied the information all the same. When she felt Avaerys’ light from Finn’s emblem, it was pure instinct to bow her head respectfully, her hands lowered to cross her wrists before her respectfully. She wasn’t sure how the Vastian was going to get from the city to the Citadel so far away, but she felt that presence within the shadows, and the shadows let her know the same. This was Khyan, and it wasn’t Khyan, and her eyes went wide as she turned to regard him, biting her lip to see her friend in such a state. “I am so sorry, Khyan,” Hilana’s voice was raw, and her eyes were far too bright, even in the morning sun.

Hilana was not a cryer, certainly not around others, but seeing Khyan like this through no fault of his own... The Vastiana wasn’t about to let the tears come out, but her skin was paler than it had ever been. Raithen’s expression was nothing short of unnerving. Even in battle on the Mount, he hadn’t had an expression like that. “He hasn’t said, Khyan. He told me if I wanted to know more, then Semble him, but my skills won't show me that much yet. He told the Sentinels that he was given the option of sacrificing another and returning as him, and was offered vengeance against the one who tricked him and the Founders for choosing... it was you, wasn’t it? He chose to let you go to the Void to save himself?”

[Finn]

"Khyan."

Wearing the crown Deus Aværys had placed upon his brow, Finn was transformed. Without changing his features, the light of his holy crown seemed to add gravitas to him, a power that either enchanted his audience or frightened it. He looked sad, and it was terrible to behold.

"Then Hilana is correct. Æros slew you to survive? Please, enlighten us."

Guilt curdled in his gut. While the oath Khyan had sworn to him before Aværys Himself had been problematic, at odds with the ownership of another, there hadn't been time to sort that out. If it had been unexpected, accidental on some accounts, he felt quite responsible for how things had played out. His beautiful friend would not be returned to his former status; he was dead and transformed into this apparition. Whatever the case, the Grimlord had taken neither Khyan nor Æros unto His bosom, then placed them back into the wheel of reincarnation. The scheme of things was wrong, and Finn had botched his part in it.

For now, all he could do was listen. His hand rested itself upon Raithen's shoulder. Arvælyn's jealousy might prevent them from exploring a closer friendship, but he could sense his reaction to Khyan's death, at least as strong as his own and Hilana's. He hadn't expected this day to be a vigil for the dead. Then his other hand rested upon Hilana's shoulder—the good shoulder as he knew all too well that injuries needed to be left alone to heal.

This was Khyan's funeral. Aside from his family, these were the people who cared about him, who would grieve his passing even if there was proof burning before them that death was not the end.

[Aeros]

TIMESTAMP: -
NOTES: -

- - -

- - -

Weakened as he was, he felt his consciousness drift and fade when he lingered within objects and held no proper focus on his surroundings. Hilana continued to explain and then another, a winged man he’d only seen in passing and never properly been introduced to, approached both Hilana and Finn. Given that the man was, ostensibly, a stranger to him, Æros held his figurative tongue, waiting to see in what direction the newcomer’s presence would push the conversation.

Much to both his surprise and chagrin, it wasn’t Raithen that did so– nay, it was Finn, invoking the name of the fallen, and in doing so, summoning his presence. Further, it would appear from his voice and expressions that Raithen held more than passing familiarity to Khyan whose spectral presence hung heavy in the air before them. The apparition spoke in vagaries and nobody else had been there first hand, so their assumptions were…off.

Æros’ voice made manifest in that moment, his essence seeping from the pin Hilana wore, slowly beginning to take shape. “It wasn't my hand that took Khyan,” he began. "I didn't even see what happened to him; my judgment went first. So this...this is as surprising to me as it is to the rest of you.

“I was strung up atop that mountain and was given an initial offer– him or me. It was an offer that I rejected, and in my attempts to bargain, this is the result; neither of us live, but neither of us are damned to toil away in the void.

“I could’ve thrown Khyan to the void and taken over his corpus to live on that way, but I refused– the idea was…” He paused, hesitant or sickened, “...frankly, to live in his flesh horrified me. So I asked for alternate paths and was thus presented with another: Shæoth offered that I betray the Founders and thus He would empower my soul, but in so doing, I’d be marking myself an enemy of both Them and my home.

If ghosts could sigh, he would. “I couldn’t do that, either…so I begged for another alternative, begged to have Khyan’s soul at least entrusted to the Founders Themselves should he die, and by whim of Shæoth, here we are.”

And so was his perspective– he was sure that Khyan saw it another way, but this was his story, too, and he wanted to tell it.

- - -

"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"

"Vastien Tongue/Speech"

"Valasren Tongue/Speech"

"Common Tongue/Speech"

[Pharaoh]

“Spare me your tears. It is your vitriol I covet. I come not to stir pity, but wrath!” Khyan declared, the red of his eyes surging with the rage of his incorporeal heart. It was not the sort of blithe dismissal the former aristocrat could render in the past. This was a new Khyan- impassioned and perforce singularly focused. He was not the same sort of being Æros was. He was a focused agent of a prevailing, potent concept that fueled the glow that outlined his form.

“Dissembler…” His outcries gave way to a hushed hiss as Khyan glared at the ghost of his betrayer. “Your choice was a simple one: Your life or mine. And, because you sniveled and sought to bargain with powers beyond any of our ken, we are both dead. Whether or not your hand held a blade to my throat is immaterial. In life you were my master. My life was yours to sustain or discard. That you chose to liberate me of my body rather than my shackles was your legal right, aye, but Solunarian laws do not protect dead things, Æros. And we had an understanding prior to any of this…” He trailed off and looked to the others.

“I have no desire to rehash the gritty details of my betrayal. Sire…” He looked to Finn, “If your lofty powers allow it, pray plumb my soul for the fell memory of my betrayal and observe the deed as it happened. I have no need to play biased witness to my own doom, when I have faith that my gripes are just even to an objective eye. A dissembler will obfuscate and attempt to make a simple, bilateral choice into a nebulous moral quandary. It was not. It was my life or his. I leave it to all of you to weigh the worth of our souls and decide whose fate is deserved, now that both to us are doomed.”

[Raithen]

The voice, floating from somewhere near, but not from Hilana's head left Raithen, again, in a state of not understanding what was happening for the first moments of the creature's speech. Being as he had been raised in the heart of Solunarium, undead were not something he was used to encountering. It did come to him, as he listened to the disjointed attempt of the disembodied voice to defend itself. The story, even as explained by the lingering remains of what had once been a Len’Sælyan, did not sound convincing, or even make complete sense.

The Avialae had heard that ghosts were often confused, not recalling or misremembering important aspects of even their own lives. The the malady was supposed to increase over time it was not unheard of that death, particularly traumatic death, could cause the fractures of recall immediately. None of that mattered, however, even by the tale that was being recounted in an attempt to persuade that he had not been at fault he admitted that Khyan's death had been his choice. A difficult choice, perhaps, and in a situation that was not ideal, but circumstance made no difference to Raithen.

He had been willing to accept that the laws of the land might condemn his friend to a fiery end in payment for the sins of his family, accepted that the laws were those laid down (or a continuation of those laid down) by the Divine Twins, and those were not for him to question. He had lain with Khyan the last night he had been free and given him what he was able in the way of comfort and companionship but had not tried, or even considered trying, to thwart the will of the gods.

But this, the actual cause of his friend's death, had been the choice of a mortal and Raithen owed nothing to ideas of what was fair, held not a shred of loyalty to the notion of circumstance. As he listened to the vengeful apparition that remained of Khyan speak the burning in his heart caught in his mind and he took a step forward. Eyes reflecting the flames that wrapped his friend his whole stance changed for anyone who knew to look, to that of one with the intention of doing violence.

Except, there was no one to perform violence upon. Turning to face Hilana he asked,

"Where is the creature Aeros contained?" His voice was quiet and calm, and, for a moment it was easy to see what was so often impossible; that he was Phocion's brother.

[Hilana Chenzira]

Hilana listened to Æros' words, feeling his presence stronger than when he had been tucked away in the citrine. She doubted a rest was beneficial to ghosts, but it was easier for him to be anchored into some sort of vessel when she was on the move, and in the morning she certainly had been. He more or less confirmed her guess, though he denied any blame or any knowledge of it. His voice made it harder for her to tell if he was being honest, or attempting to allay any anger or tempers that were like as not to flare.

She leaned into Finn's touch as Khyan's denouncement and the way he had said it made her swallow. She looked over her shoulder at where Æros was in the process of manifesting. She knew he was leaving the stone as she activated her Semblance, focusing her aether to her eyes and finding the cloud that was the former half-Fae. Hilana was not one to sacrifice her friends to save her own skin; she would sooner risk herself. And for her, that choice was untenable and unforgivable.

She saw Raithen move, and turned her gaze away from the ghost in order to regard her mate. Her eyes were kaleidoscopic with the colours of the elements that she was so comfortable with, swirling patterns that constantly changed and indicated that the Sembling Rune, which had come from Æros himself, was active. His Aura was blank, as she knew it would be: the light of her life was the son of the Princeps Sybilla, and cup-bearer to Avaerys. She knew without really needing to look that her own fledgling skills would give her nothing. "He's left the citrine that he was resting in in my hair in order to manifest," her good hand went to her hair, where she had been intending to untie it from her ebon tresses earlier. But she lifted the larger stone from where it was tucked within her curls to show him. "He's manifesting. If you focus on the aether flux, you should be able to feel him now." She lowered her hand, looking back in Æros' direction and indicated with a hand where the spirit was forming.

She stepped to the side, away from Finn as much as she might have liked to stay there, but it allowed her friends, living and dead, to see the forming spectre. She could sense him much easier now that she had had a day to rest and he was making himself visible, but when she looked at him to try to gauge the truth of his words from his aura... There was nothing. There was, at best, a black pit, but she could see the tether between Æros and herself, as strange as it was. She'd missed it yesterday, but considering all that had happened... that was, perhaps, understandable.

[Finn]

For a moment, there was some small comfort in Hilana, but then she pulled away, making room for the ghostly manifestation of the deceased Fae'ethalan. Finn shivered despite the desert heat, despite the divine energy channeled through him. In the golden light of his crown, he bore a troubled visage, though he seemed more a statue in the sand than the warm, flesh-and-blood man all here present knew.

Khyan had every right to be wrathful, and he responded to Aeros' prevarication with Solunarian code and custom. Hilana seemed unhappy, and she had every right to be: injured, shackled with a godling, a voidborn sibling, and the dead. Raithen's gaze narrowed like a bird of prey about to stoop upon whatever morsel had caught his eye. And Finn...

Khyan had been a bit of a wastrel, though his hard times had come through not fault of his own. Aeros had been a wastrel, too, at least when Finn met him. His meteoric rise from cabaret dancer to senator had surprised him, but then he was still relatively new to these desert people.

A part of him wanted to throw that citrine into the volcano, to urge the tenacious soul to follow the natural order of things. Khyan had found purpose in death, at least, though he wished he could offer him some comfort. It seemed his sole desire was vengeance, however.

"As a Sentinel," he said quietly, "I am bound to the will of Phocion Princeps in this, and he will brook no interference. But I will speak to our golden god and seek His wisdom in this." For now, at least, this matter was the purview of the Custodes Deorum, and he supposed that was for the best. Everything he had learned was at second- or third-hand. It would be better to go to a higher source - the highest source in Solunarium.

That Shaeoth had a hand in this gave him pause. Arcas was somewhat redeemed in Atraxia, but his dark brother was nothing but perilous.

[Aeros]

TIMESTAMP: -
NOTES: -

- - -

- - -

While what Khyan had said was true, it was, in Æros’ eyes, painfully reductive. In every twist of fate, all variables played their part- a single change, and their fates could easily look quite different. It was also clear that Khyan had been fundamentally altered in his new form– he doubted that he’d be able to sway the other soul from his course.

Raithen’s input confused him at first, though he soon realized the question was asked because he’d not fully materialized himself yet– or, perhaps, a fair misunderstanding of how ghosts work. As his miasma continued to condense, a facsimile of his old visage would slowly take shape, features continuing to define as moments passed. “I am contained in nothing– the gods tethered my existence to Hilana herself.”

Though Æros would sound and appear steady, cold, even, in the glimmering, ætherial form he’d manifested, it was a carefully crafted facade. His emotions were tumultuous, roiling within, but he was too drained to push them through. His present form was, ultimately, nothing more than a miasmatic projection. It was something he puppeteered, an illusion of his old appearance– much of what was involuntary in flesh could no longer ‘slip’ through. Without deliberation, the manifestation would be still as a stone. Oddly, manipulating and manifesting his miasma in this way felt similar, yet all the same unique to weaving Masquerade; it felt akin to a painter learning a new medium.

“...Nothing is ever so simple,” Æros began, his voice drained of emotion. “Seek out the wisdom of His Divine Radiance if that is your wont, but know this, Finn: without His tacit approval, I’d be dead in the Void, and Khyan would be alive and well. Our beloved Founders heard my prayer and did deign to save me; They were the ones to treat with Shæoth ostensibly on my behalf– They then presented me with my choice, and I chose to continue forth with my existence, one way or another."

He continued, lips barely moving, "further, it was also my choice that saved Khyan from an eternity in the Void; the original offer crafted between our Founders and Shaeoth would've resulted in his true damnation, should I have agreed to it.”

And then, shifting his gaze to Khyan alone, “while it was writ in mortal law that you were my ‘property,’ you looked at what I’d given you and then stepped beyond your bounds to give yourself away to another.” Æros laughed, but it was tired, joyless, almost uncanny.

They’d not really discussed this prior, despite the patrician being truly hurt by Khyan’s choice. He hadn’t known how to express how he felt. It was complicated; had Khyan come to him with the intent of asking for his agreement to forge such a divine tether, Æros would’ve assented– ‘twould be an honor for Khyan to bind himself to Aværys through one of His chosen. It was the lack of communication that felt like both a betrayal of his trust and a validation of the lingering paranoia that Khyan’s affections only existed because Æros was useful to him.

“My fealty is to Aværys as well, so do I begrudge you your selection? Næ. Part of me even respects Finn for it, for leaning into the Hunger that must’ve driven such a choice; tantamount to thievery, ‘twas a selfish decision that struck against the honorable person I thought him to be and the friend I’d hoped he’d become. It was an insult. To do so without a word to me prior was pure disrespect…and yet, I do admire it– I admire the temerity all the same–” and shifting his gaze briefly to Finn, “...when you do choose to don it, you wear Ambition well.” Despite the complexity of his emotions, the compliment was a genuine one.

Æros looked back to Khyan. “He had the divine right to take you, but you, Khyan? Giving yourself away like that broke my trust in you, and I’ll not believe he’d claim you without your explicit enthusiasm. I wanted to give you everything I myself had access to– the world, if I could, and all I had asked from you was your loyalty. You couldn’t do that, and now you act as if I were still obligated to show you the same care I had prior, as if it was I who betrayed you?”

He shook his head. “It was no betrayal of mine to walk my own promises back when you scampered off and did deign tie yourself to another. Without your loyalty, I owed you nothing.

“But still, I thought, what is mortal law in the face of divinity? I argued to spare you from the Void, to give your fate to whom it had been divinely bound– Aværys. Perhaps that was my folly; I was too soft– after all, it was by His radiant will and the Midnight Mother both that I was even graced with such a choice. They answered my dying prayer. They chose you when they could have chosen anyone; They honored my claim over you when you yourself did not, and you’ve the gall to call what I did a betrayal?

“Whyever did I put so much value on one whom, to Them, was little more than a sacrificial token to be traded away? Who was I to question Their judgment of your worth? Such a sentimental fool I’ve always been…” Æros mused, at this point mocking himself. Perhaps sentimentality, too, was a fault he’d have to iron out in time.

"If any of you are to harbor anger, I know that I deserve much of it, but if nothing else, understand this: I am not so powerful as to have done any of this acting alone." He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Nevertheless, I’ve said my piece now and what’s done is done.”

Though Æros kept his gaze steady on Khyan this whole time, most of these words were for the benefit Hilana and Finn to hear, for they were the living, they were the ones with whom he actually cared about getting his point across to. Would they listen? He had his doubts, but he’d regret saying nothing even if saying something was an exercise in futility. Khyan was lost– a shade warped by Shaeoth. If anything could be done about that, time would have to tell.

- - -

"Vallenor Tongue/Speech"

"Vastien Tongue/Speech"

"Valasren Tongue/Speech"

"Common Tongue/Speech"

[Pharaoh]

Khyan’s focus was fixed upon Æros. Nebulous as his semblance of a form may have been to the others, it was crystal clear to the other incorporeal being haunting the chamber. When his oratory concluded, Khyan’s fair face smiled grimly.

“Words, words, words…” Quoth the spirit, dismissively. While he may have been inclined to pose some manner of defence in the face of such accusations before a hostile or even an impartial magister, Æros was unlikely to find favour with Finn by gainsaying him with such artless fervour. Finn and Khyan alone knew the nature of their bond. If the Fæ could claim the Founders’ favour for having been saved by Them, then Khyan could take solace in serving Aværys more directly by pledging himself to one of His favourites. It was hardly a choice for a Varværyn devout. It was a foregone conclusion as soon as the option was broached.

He shifted his harsh gaze away from Æros, where instantly it softened. The crimson glow dimming as he regarded another, and a kinder lover.

“Your Resplendence…” He bowed his suggestion of a head to Raithen. “We dead things hold no power here. Yours is the opinion that matters most in all of this. Yours is the voice that might be raised to summarily dismiss the ambitions of this vile dissembler…” He looked to Finn,

“If your superiors in the Vigilia wish to preserve him for study or some other esoteric reason, so be it. But when their interest wanes, as perforce it must, I simply ask that you remember me…” He looked next to Hilana, then back to Raithen.

“…that all of you remember me, and judge this malignant spectre as your hearts command you. And if it be in your power to see your judgement realised, then call upon me to witness his comeuppance.”