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[howtheyshine]

There's a break in the howling darkness. It's all he knows or needs to know. There's a break in his endless, roiling, bleak existence, a crack of light under a door that shouldn't exist, only exists because it's been forced.

There's a break in the darkness, and He leaps for it with abandon. Even oblivion would be better than the harrowing monotony of nightmares. He leaps, and plunges into cold and silence.

For a moment He doesn't know where he is, or maybe more accurately he is nowhere that should be. It's paralyzing, skewering, a death-beyond-death nothingness pain that lasts only for a breath--

--and then his consciousness careens into a field of firefly minds, bodies and beings, places to hide from what follows.

What follows?

He doesn't remember.

All he knows is that one of the fireflies is laced with starlight, and he streaks toward the beautiful shimmer of it without a second thought.

Comments

[howtheyshine]

He touches Zerxus's hand with one long tendril, fascinated by the sense of foreign magic. It doesn't do much, beyond give him a sense of reassurance, but it also... is comforting, in a strange way. A strange way that he isn't going to think about.

"...All right. I'll come with you."

[withintenfeet]

Smiles don't come easily to him, anymore, but reassurance does; his expression is warm and certain with it, as he squeezes that tendril of cloth, or of magic, or of divinity.

"Here we go, then."

In one sense, Zerxus closes his eyes; in another, he opens them.

[howtheyshine]

He's not sure what he expects, and wonders if the pull he feels toward a different plane is what it feels like to fall asleep.

But then Zerxus opens his eyes. They look different, slightly wrong, a tint of yellow gold in the iris, but that's the only visible sign that there's a deity crouched in the back of his mind, peering out through his eyes in fascination at--

Well, the ceiling of his room, but it's a real material ceiling.

[withintenfeet]

At first, he thinks he hasn't quite woken up yet.

Then he keeps staring and nothing brightens, nothing sharpens; he is staring up into shadow, dark and featureless, and blinking rapidly does not dispel it.

It's the first time panic surges through him. "What - "

[howtheyshine]

His panic gets an immediate panicked response.

[What is it? What's wrong? What happened?]

[withintenfeet]

On the bright side, someone else panicking means Zerxus can smother his own; it's a bone deep instinct at this point, being calm and steady for other people.

On the downside he does not have an answer to that.

"I can't - " He blinks again, slow and deliberate, just to make sure. Right, okay. "I can't see. Can you?"

[howtheyshine]

[Yes. I'm anchored to this place through your senses. Through your vision.]

Technically it doesn't have to be Zerxus's eyes, but he doesn't know how to change his anchor now that he has it. And he's not sure he wants to either.

A thought occurs to him and his bemusement turns into an aggressive growl.

[You can't change your mind. You can't. I'll destroy your fucking eyes before I go back.]

[withintenfeet]

Anger and fear would both be a reasonable response to that; instead there's a flare of ferocious indignance and wry aggravation. This time, when he closes his eyes, it's extremely pointed.

"If I really wanted to do it, threats like that wouldn't stop me." He pushes himself upright slowly, focusing on his other senses to ground him - the scent of of wood and ink and steel, the crackling of the fireplace, the cool breeze from the balcony.

"I made a promise, and I don't intend to break it. This is just..." He's been blinded in battle before, but never for more than a few minutes at a time. "I don't know how I'm going to explain this."

Keeping it a secret from the general populace is, theoretically, doable. Keeping it a secret from the Ring of Brass, that is absolutely not happening.

[howtheyshine]

[N-no, hey! Open your-- our eyes. My eyes! I want to see.]

He is whining, yes. Angrily. He is also, on a level he doesn't want to share or admit to, scared of the dark.

This dark is different, it has glimmers and shades of gray, the sounds and smells of a world all around it--faint and fainter, but he can still hear and smell the strongest scents in the room. In this case, woodsmoke and little else. But it's still the dark. It's still an echo of the place he was before and he doesn't want to deal with it.

[Why are you closing them?!]

[withintenfeet]

Zerxus wasn't expecting fear, and that's not what he wanted; even as he murmurs a firm "Our eyes," he opens them again.

Sitting up, he can see the balcony. Tempus isn't here, which Zerxus already knows - he's at least a mile out, probably soaring over the city - but it's still quite a sight, early dawn light making the polished stone and stained glass shine.

[howtheyshine]

[...Oh...]

The awe is unexpected. Tangible, true light would be wondrous on its own, but the morning hues off stone and through stained glass--

[This is where you live?]

What must the view be like from that balcony? He has no idea, no notion what could even be out there except for the glimpse of sky and something that might be a building, impossibly tall. It's hard to tell from this angle.

[Go out there! I want to go out there.]

[withintenfeet]

His lips twitch, the ghost of an indulgent smile that used to grace his features every day. There's a painful twist of regret and yearning to the warmth in his chest, but it's still enough to soothe away more of the anxiety. He doesn't need to figure this out quite yet.

It's not like he needs to see to know it's a beautiful morning; the city wouldn't settle for anything less.

"When you want people to do things for you, it's nice to say 'please'."

[howtheyshine]

There's the distinct foot-stomp sense of surliness, while a god who doesn't know he's a god decides whether or not saying please is an acceptable demand when he doesn't remember ever having to say it before.

[Fine! Please go out there.]

[withintenfeet]

"Thank you. ...Try to be patient, please."

Zerxus pushes himself up gingerly, taking a few small steps to test his balance. He keeps his bedroom neat and simple (or, one could say, cold and barren); there's nothing to trip over, and nothing to impede the warmth of the sun. It's hesitant, and a bit wobbly, but he makes his way in the right direction.

He can feel it beneath his feet when the sturdier stone of the main tower transitions to smoother marble, and it gives him the confidence to quicken his stride until his hands rest on the rail.

[howtheyshine]

The second-hand wonder Zerxus can feel intensifies as they step into the sun. No, he can't feel the warmth of that light, but he knows that it is warm.

And the city... The city.

[I-It's... so... It's so alive.]

[withintenfeet]

He remembers, vaguely, beholding the city of Avalir with the awe of a child. More clearly, he remembers a more tempered intrigue warmed with hope and passion and love.

All of that is tarnished now with bitterness and resentment, which of course doesn't touch the god looking through him. For the first time in years, Zerxus feels something like pride.

"There are thousands of people here."

[howtheyshine]

[Thousands...]

Living, breathing souls, walking in the light, free of and blind to the chaos that waits on the other side of existence. It's a marvel. An impossible beauty.

[Is that a plant? What's that-- oh.]

Right.

[Uh, down on the street below, there's a... a... a multi-legged creature of some kind, made of metal, with people wearing so many colors they look like a box full of gemstones riding on top.]

[withintenfeet]

'Oh'. He does bristle at that, right up until he hears the description and it thrusts him back fourteen years. Wide-eyed and fascinated despite himself, pelting Nydas with questions and delighting in small wonders that Evandrin took for granted.

"That's an automaton - they aren't exactly alive, the way mortals are. Mages enchant them to do certain things; carrowhulks carry people to different places around the city."

Carefully, gripping that rail a little more tightly, he leans forward to offer a better look.

[howtheyshine]

[They're not alive?]

He is himself absolutely fascinated, enough so that he almost misses Zerxus's small flare of temper. Almost.

[What are you mad ab-- What's that human doing?

Uh, they're standing at the front of the metal bug, the carrowhulk, raising their hands and talking to the air, I think--ah! It disappeared! It vanished, the whole thing!]

[withintenfeet]

It's pure instinct that has Zerxus leaning further, as if that will help him even slightly. He's fairly sure he knows what just happened, but observing the aftermath would be nice.

"I'm guessing that someone important was in a hurry." The words are heavy with disdain, and it almost distracts him from crucial details. "That was magic - arcane, not divine. Most spells need - "

He stops abruptly as yet another realisation socks him directly in the face.

Oh, fuck.

[howtheyshine]

Well that's an odd an unfamiliar combination of emotions.

[What? What is it?]

[withintenfeet]

He takes a second to refocus, because he was about to give important information and he still needs to do that so -

"Spells need components. Verbal for almost all of them, and most also need certain gestures." He's performed them enough that he probably doesn't need to see what he's doing - but that only goes for magic he already knows. And finally, most worryingly...

"And a lot of them rely on sight. What that human just did, for example."

[howtheyshine]

[Oh.]

There's a sense of him hunkering down somewhere in Zerxus's senses, not digging in so much as making a smaller target.

[Well. Do you need spells like that? Can I do them for you?]

[withintenfeet]

It's the same swell of helpless panic, then the same dam of stubborn duty and pride.

"I do, and I...don't know." He swallows, fingers flexing around the dawn-warmed stone. "But I'm not angry at you, I'm just worried. I have a job to do, we don't have much time - "

He's so distracted that he doesn't hear Tempus coming.

[howtheyshine]

That's okay, his passenger has definitely noticed.

He's paralyzed somewhere between awe and terror.

[Oh-- W... There's a creature approaching from the sky, made from indigo and starlight, with... with massive wings, and four-legged body, and the head of a bird of some kind. It's coming straight-- straight toward us.]