Chapter Text
The seduction of Emet-Selch would need to be gradual. D’fhiri’s behavior could not change overnight — that would be too conspicuous, too suspicious. But it would be done, sure as the spread of dawn’s light across the forest floor. Their entanglement was inevitable.
Subterfuge and deception was not D’fhiri’s area of expertise. Subtlety was not a skill she had practiced overmuch, and she was not known among her friends for being a particularly good liar. She wore her heart on her sleeve — or she had come to, over the years, as she witnessed horrors beyond imagining and her heart opened to the pain of the souls she championed. Of all people she could be attracted to, an Ascian, one of those who had caused such terrible suffering, should not have been a possibility.
Yet, after returning from Rak’Tika, she had lain awake in her room more than once in the darkness newly blanketing the Crystarium, planning her approach. Each carefully chosen word she would say to him, the small touches and coy looks that could be sprinkled into their interactions. Her mind wandered to his full lips, his intense gaze, the silken, near-black hair that flopped just shy of his eyes. The warmth of his body as he held her against him, a furnace, comforting in the freezing waters of the river. A silk-gloved hand on hers, the thinnest barrier between skin and skin.
If she allowed herself to consider it, there could be pleasure found in the rhythm of his pulse beneath her tongue, his breath on her —
Wait, did Ascians even have heartbeats? She supposed they must, since they had a tendency to possess living bodies. Although she grimaced — were any activities, then, truly consensual when an Ascian was involved? A topic that any of her more philosophically-inclined friends would leap at the chance to discuss, undoubtedly therapizing her in the process. Her desire would be torn to shreds, in all likelihood. Better suited for another time, she thought.
The fantasy in her mind resurfaced with the imaginings of her name on his lips. A whisper, or a plaintive cry in that velveteen voice? When she had him fully undone, when her teasing had become too much to bear, would he beg her to touch him? Would his restraint snap, would he crush her against the wall, voracious in his affections, mouth devouring hers?
Garlean culture had never been an area she cared about one onze, but now she regretted never having found a seedy romance novel focused around the royal family. Certainly they existed, as a few publications centered on fictionalized versions of the Eorzean city-state leaders were circulated. She knew that particular fun fact thanks to a Starlight gift from Thancred the previous year, which had featured none other than Aymeric, sourced from a secondhand shop in the Brume.
Although D’fhiri was a far cry from the waifish Elezen heiress depicted in the pages, she still had very much enjoyed copying her favorite passages into the next letter she wrote to her lover — the sexy, the scarily accurate, and the absurd. He’d even recited a line from it in a whisper when they had their next clandestine tryst during an Alliance meeting, to much giggling.
What sort of lover did the subjects of Solus vos Galvus think he might be? Powerful and domineering? Heroic, chivalrous, gentle? Perhaps affectionate and regal, with a touch of tragedy in him? The more lascivious depictions of him were bound to have a disproportionately large member, full of tasteful metaphor like ‘silken steel rod’ or ‘pulsating magitek staff’ or some nonsense.
If Garleans had enough wiggle room within their faith to have erotic thoughts about their dear Emperor at all, she didn’t think many of them would have strayed close to the truth. Surely they had never imagined him as the brooding, overly pompous mage teeming with power and sarcasm, ready to pluck a soul out of the lifestream as easily as pulling an apple from the bough of a tree, a mind full of ancient history remembered by none but himself.
D’fhiri thought she most preferred the reality. No man was meant to be placed on a pedestal, idolized until they became something beyond humanity. No, she was more interested in the secrets he held close in his heart, rather than any daydream.
Of course, daydreams had their place, too. They were for answering the less important questions. Such as, would he whisper his tells against her cat-like ear, breath tickling the sensitive hair there, voice slow and dark like pine tar? Would he cup her ass with searching hands, grind against her needily, forehead slick with sweat against her face? Would he shudder when he came, his tongue dripping with her name, not a care in the world but what she alone could provide as she clawed his plans, his wants, his darkest deeds from his throat?
She moaned softly in her pillow as waves of pleasure pulsed from the spot her fingertips pressed. Immediately, she fought the rising well of shame in her stomach. Had she really just touched herself to the thought of an Ascian? She brought herself to climax, even, with only a single passing thought of her past lover, all else dedicated to the mere possibility of Emet-Selch.
Not that she planned to, but she could never speak of this. Not to anyone.
Well, she supposed, practice made perfect.
—
By the time she saw him again, it had been so long that she wondered if the spark of desire in his eyes had only been a trick of the aetherlight. While trudging through the gritty sands of Amh Areng, she cursed his existence more than once. Manipulation seemed to be the name of his game, after all. Perhaps he had done this intentionally, to drive her mind into a spinning free fall, to drive her wild with desire.
Absurd. Absolutely absurd. There was no way in any of the seven hells that was true.
She scolded herself internally whenever the thought came up. She was the Warrior of Light — or, Darkness, here — savior of Eorzea, Primal Slayer. She could bed anyone she wanted, probably, with a look and a few choice words. Since when had she ever pined over someone?
So fed up with impatience by the time he arrived, any smarmy quips she had planned were entirely boiled away in favor of: “About time!”
An amused smirk twisted his lips. He trailed behind her as she walked her perimeter around Twine. She’d taken up a restless patrol while they’d been here the last several nights, struggling to put together the Talos. Tonight, the entire family was present. They were so exhausted from their travail into Malikah’s Well that they all preferred finding bath and bed at the nearest inn. Unsurprisingly, the cover of darkness did little to ease D’fhiri’s anxiety, and sharing a room with Ryne, Y’shtola, and Alisaie only compounded her insomnia.
D’fhiri was still restless from the battles of the day anyhow, and could not have slept in the plushest bed. Light was burning her from the inside-out, and only the cool wash of night provided any relief. She paced in the darkness, wondering at the unfamiliar constellations dancing in the sky above.
Emet-Selch leaned forward at the waist as they walked to meet her eye level – a condescending gesture at best. Her blood boiled. “My dear hero, am I hearing correctly? Am I to assume you’ve missed me?”
She scoffed. “You only show up when there’s nothing more to be done.”
“You wound me,” he deadpanned soberly. “I like to think I was exceptionally helpful in Rak’tika, each and every time I appeared at your side.”
“Yet, although you claim our defeat of the Lightwardens is inconsequential, you will not join us in battle.”
“Do I look like the kind of person who enjoys fighting, Warrior?”
She looked his military garb up and down with a withering expression. The endless skirts and regalia did not lend to combat, but it was said Solus vos Galvus earned his crown on the battlefield first. “You look like the kind of person who would say anything to get out of doing extra work, regardless of if you are capable or not.”
Sniffing in offense, he straightened. “I’ll have you know that I have merely perfected the art of expending exactly as much energy as is necessary. Unlike you, bursting at the seams with exhaustion and light. What are you even doing out here?”
When she did not respond, he continued. “Was my kindness in resurrecting your Y’shtola not enough of a show of good faith? Nor rescuing you from a watery tomb? Or sharing the history of my people, my goals?”
“I don’t think any of those things were in good faith, no.” Her glare could melt silver. “Everything you do has ulterior motive, and I have no intentions of trusting you. None.”
He had the audacity to look hurt, pursing his pale lips prettily. “And to think I might have bared my heart to you, had you proven amenable.”
Rage flared up in her throat. Dust kicked up off the ground, so immense was the force of her whirling on him. “You have shown to be exactly the kind of person I thought you were. Single-minded, arrogant, selfish. You are focused only on what you can get from me, and not what we could build together.”
“What we could build together….” He trailed off darkly, tone laced with humor and disbelief. It was difficult to discern if he was perturbed by the suggestion, or something else altogether. “And what might that be?”
Considering her words carefully, D’fhiri came upon the realization that this was an opportunity. It could spell the end of their endless, tiring verbal spars, if she could come up with an agreement that was enticing to them both.
“A partnership. Or a truce.”
“Of what manner?”
“You want my trust and understanding, and to spend alone time with me, to whatever end,” she said, tilting her head to look directly at him. He met her gaze with steely eyes, expression refusing to waver. “But you aren’t willing to fight alongside me, nor divulge your more enlightening secrets. So here is my proposition: you teach me to wield aether, to understand this—,” she thumped her chest softly, “—this burning light inside of me and keep it from overwhelming me. And you might just earn exactly what it is you’re looking for.”
He was silent for a long moment, then he laughed, with no humor in his tone. “That is a surprisingly adept proposition, hero. I think I may be intrigued enough to actually accept your terms.”
—
“Just breathe.”
The sharp diction in his voice heightened the difficulty of relaxation. Even now, as he was trying to soothe her, he sounded a breath away from scolding. For the better part of an hour they’d sat cross-legged under some scraggly, half-dead tree. He had been trying to will her into some kind of meditative trance on hopes alone.
Grumbling, she shifted uncomfortably.
But breathe she did — again, drawing air deep within her belly, picturing it swirling within, then releasing it back into the cooling desert stagnance. Again. She recalled the strike of a dull axe against a wooden dummy, impact vibrating the bones of her forearm, muscles not yet developed. Again. Dragging her feet forward, one step after another, to fight, for the lives of people she’d never meet, for the children yet unborn. Again. Again.
Somehow, this was a thousand times harder than any practical battle technique she’d mastered over the years.
Light burned, relentless, at the back of her throat.
Her frustration must have been evident, because when she opened her eyes just a sliver, she was met once more with Emet-Selch’s disdainful pout. She realized her tail was lashing about in irritation, and she tucked it close to her leg.
“You do know how to breathe normally, don’t you?”
“This is impossible,” she groaned, leaning back on the heel of her hands.
“It isn’t,” he insisted with force. His patience was admirable, but close to gone. “How do you normally relax?”
“I walk, or run. Or hit things until my thoughts stop thinking.”
He snorted, to which she glared.
“It doesn’t help that this light energy wants to claw right out of me,” she complained.
Brow furrowing, Emet-Selch looked at her strangely, as if he were peering straight through her. “I see,” he said.
He shuffled his seat on the sand until he was so close that their knees nearly touched. Then he began to remove his gloves, the stark white silk discarded on the ground. “What are you doing?” she said, the fur on her tail bristling slightly.
“Give me your hands.” He placed his palms face-up in his lap, offering them to her. She hesitated. He rolled his eyes, making a come-hither gesture with his fingers once. “Well? Aren’t we meant to be building trust? This is a simple act.”
She did as she was asked, placing her hands on his, willing the racing beat of her heart to slow. Perhaps she had fantasized about him a few too many times, because she couldn’t help but notice his soft skin in contrast to her calluses, the mark of a mage in this hard world. His warm grip dwarfed hers as he looped his thumbs around her hands, pressing their palms flush. His fingertips rested on the inside of her wrist.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
“Feel what?”
A small, sad smile that caused her pulse to skip. “Close your eyes.”
She did.
“This.”
It started as a trickle, like cool water threading up her veins. Then a gentle wave swelled over her, drenching her in violet, cold relief, the sensation of unfurling, blooming. She was a plant, stretching her leaves toward him, her roots into the loamy earth, greedily drinking in the healing sensation. As it receded, she gasped, the burn of light returning.
“Darkness,” she remarked, recalling Urianger’s lecture on the subject. “Activity and growth.”
“Being Hydaelyn’s chosen as you are,” Emet-Selch said, “I imagine you are familiar with the feeling of light energies. But knowing that a bird has wings does not an ornithologist make.” He gave her a pointed look. “If you wish to control the light within, you must find solace in the dark. Recognize it for the succor it provides.”
“But that’s so… abstract,” she said. What did it mean to identify darkness? Even more experienced conjurers focused on tangible elements, saving the conceptual for their elder peers. And as someone with minimal talent for aether, D’fhiri could no more move the shadows than sprout feathers.
“We must find you an anchor point, something you can focus on that you can use as a starting point to channel the aether,” he said. She swallowed, wondering if that could be the memory of a person. Perishing the thought with a small shake of her head, she re-centered.
“Like a crystal or… wand?”
He sighed sharply, retorting with sarcasm. “Yes, now, what a genius idea! No one has ever thought of that before.”
She bristled. “I wasn’t lying when I said I’ve never learned any magic. At all.”
“You might be so stunted, then, that the typical techniques won’t work on you,” he said. His implication of her ineptitude was not lost on her, but she dared not validate it with a retort. “It must be something that resonates deeply with you. An object of your own discovery or creation.”
She nodded, at the very least understanding a homework assignment when she received one.
A moment of silence stretched between them, and she noticed they were still holding hands, palm-to-palm. It was clear that he had the same realization, as they both glanced between them, then back at each other. Biting back the urge to ask for more of his dark aether — Twelve, that could become an addiction if she were not careful — she went to withdraw. His grip tightened around her hands, and she stopped, gaze flashing with alarm and confusion.
What was that in his eyes? Longing, perhaps? He seemed on the precipice of speaking, of asking a question. A charged moment passed between them, like the shock of lightning on the tongue.
He let her go, snatching his own hands back as if he were burned, jumping to his feet. “That will be all for tonight,” he muttered with a hint of hoarseness.
He did not wait for her response nor her protest, opening a portal and escaping into the swirling rift.
—
Y’shtola sat alone in the dark, her eyes reflecting like small moons as she turned her face towards the light. She had a book open on her lap — was likely reading it with her aethersight, the particulars of which could not be parsed by D’fhiri’s limited understanding.
“Alisaie made up your bedroll,” the sorceress murmured. “She worries about you.”
D’fhiri’s heart gave a pang of affection for the girl. She quietly shut the door behind her, careful not to wake the small slumbering forms on the bed. She stretched out on her bedroll beside Y’shtola’s. Even in the dim light, D’fhiri could tell her friend was looking her over with that gaze that could not quite see.
“The light seems more stable than before, but still present,” she remarked with barely a hint of relief. “Was it a calming walk?”
“I had a visit from Emet-Selch, actually.”
“Oh?” She shut the book and set it aside, diverting her whole attention for this conversation. “And what did our Ascian friend have to offer?”
“I made a deal with him, actually. That he would teach me how to control dark aether to soothe the light.”
Y’shtola tipped her head. “A most untraditional choice in mentor, I must say, when you have a myriad of suitable mages at your disposal. If you are interested in learning from brooding and mysterious men, why not approach the Exarch? Although it does seem he’s the one who got you into this most concerning predicament at present.” She paused, thinking. “What did you offer him in turn?”
“Just alone time. With me.” She fidgeted against her blankets.
“And he agreed to that?” Y’shtola’s eyes widened in surprise, catching the bit of starlight that was leaking into the room. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he must fancy you.”
D’fhiri blushed with not a hint of girlish crush, her stomach flipping in a way that was exciting and pleasant. She was thankful for the darkness. “I suspected as much. This isn’t the first time he’s visited me alone, actually.”
“Surely he doesn’t think he could so easily seduce you to his side.” Y’shtola’s choice of words caused D’fhiri’s blush to deepen further.
For a moment, she considered telling all. Of the Scions, Y’shtola would be most likely to understand — the sacrifice of body for the pursuit of important knowledge.
But there were no secrets between her chosen family. Before long, they all would know of her plan, and would have their own opinions and approaches to contribute. The progression she had so carefully intended, the slow-burning temptation she would levy upon the object of her torment, would be lost. Emet-Selch, she felt, would know if the purity of her approach were tampered with, if it came from anyone other than her. His watchful eyes on her form often made her think that he never went far, never strayed far from the shadows at her back, ever-watching with interest.
No, this was something she could only do on her own, the only person who could do this.
Sure, the logic was a little flawed. In the end, she should simply trust the Scions to allow her to do this at her own pace, in her own way. But it was admittedly nice to have a little something to herself.
“Can we keep this between us?” she breathed.
Y’shtola took a moment to respond. She could just imagine her narrowed brow, the tightening of her lips. “At the moment, his lesson has only seemed to improve your status with the Light. And I will continue to monitor you as such. But if greater danger becomes apparent, I urge you to come to me.”
D’fhiri knew Y’shtola didn’t need to see her nod of assent, just as Y’shtola knew that D’fhiri didn’t need to see her face to know that more than an inkling of suspicion lingered there.
Y’shtola had been the first Scion she had met, the one who introduced her to the organization, back when they had both been so much more youthful and unharried by the hardships of war. There was little that could be kept secret between the two women, even if they were not overly close anymore. They were too attuned to each others’ mannerisms, had shared too many malms of open road with one another, had too many conversations where their pasts and hopes were shared with no holds barred. Perhaps Y’shtola had been D’fhiri’s first friend at all, in a way. It was what gave them such a strong bond now, as chosen sisters above all else.
It was a relief to have unloaded her secret, or at least part of it, to the person she trusted most. Even if that person knew, on instinct alone, that she had not told the whole story.
No animosity lingered between them, though, as Y’shtola settled into her own bedroll. Like they once did in the rolling sea cliff grasslands of Limsa Lominsa, they found each others’ hand and clasped their fingers loosely, taking comfort in their shared presence.
But it was the touch of another that D’fhiri played over and over in her mind as she trailed off to sleep. The warm touch that encircled her own, the gentle lap of dark aether, the counterpoint to the scorching stagnance dragging within her. If she did sleep, it was sparsely. But between each dreamless reprieve, the image of his eyes, golden-yellow and aching with an emotion she could not place, burned deep into the recesses of her mind.