Work Text:
“Raha? Might I ask why you’re lurking?”
Krile looked up at the miqo’te in the hall. Past him she could see several of the ‘no-longer’ scions chatting over brunch, discussing the visit of Wuk Lamat and the upcoming tournament in Tural. It was nice to see Hawa’s eyes wreathed in gold again, as well as the smile on her face, as she nibbled on fruit. There had been some small food fight between the youngest three, much to the clear displeasure of only one, and Thancred was slipping wine into a knowing Y’shtola’s drink while Urianger feigned dismay. A tiny elezen girl with lilac cowlicks from her midmorning nap was excitedly standing on the table, chubby fingers wrapped tightly around Haurchefant’s own digits while he beamed at her and her other two fathers showered her in love and praise as she wriggled excitedly.
G’raha should have been sat there too, holding toast with a bite taken out of it by Alisaie, rosy-cheeked and doting on his baby girl while she attempted to step toward him, eager to put sticky hands on his ears.
Her fellow student of Baldesion did not respond. His face remained reserved, not quite smiling, head bowed slightly. His ears were somewhat down, Krile noticed, but not drawn back in anxiety or anger, just sideways of being relaxed. His tail was… eerily still.
If it had been one of their dear warriors of light, well, Krile would have understood. Hells, she’d witnessed several of her nearby peers in the grips of the Echo, and she knew how she likely seemed when in one herself. While it sometimes appeared that they were in pain, fighting for consciousness, other times it simply gave one a quality as though they were in another world.
But he had no Echo. Perhaps he had simply been awoken through the night by Elene, then, taking the majority of any fussing.
Well, if he was going to space out, he had earned what was coming to him. With only a bit of mischief, Krile moved her hand as though to give a reassuring stroke to her friend’s tail, instead grabbing onto its end.
Just as expected, G’raha startled, jumping where he stood with a sharp gasp before his crimson gaze locked in on his assailant.
“Ah! Krile-”
One hand lifted, and Krile watched as G’raha made to rub at his wrist, an embarrassed tell, but the hand moved further, gripping his right arm with an intensity that surprised her. No stuttering or flush consumed him, either, as with a wince he looked away.
“My… my apologies. Were you saying something?”
“Are you quite alright?” the lalafell could not help but inquire, suspicion starting to rise in her. A fleeting glance back to the others revealed that their exchange had not gone unnoticed. While it was unlikely that they were heard over the raucous companionship running rampant among them, one set of eyes stared straight into hers after looking away from G’raha himself.
She watched Omoux whisper something in Al’banat’s ear, standing from his seat at the table and prompting attention from the dragoon, as well. Al’banat’s quizzical look toward her was far from Omoux’s piercing gaze, but he returned his attention to the babbling Elene easily enough, still managing to dodge the jam that was flung past his cheek.
G’raha had noticed Omoux’s movement too, it seemed; he stumbled out of the doorway, tripping over his own feet and falling on his ass, just out of sight of the others. Krile expected him to blush or hiss or even pout at his spectacle, but the reactions never came.
Only another wince of pain, ears down further, tail still.
The thought of how Alphinaud had changed since leaving Sharlayan and when they next met in Idyllshire came to mind, but it was just as quickly shoved away by an overwhelming pressure just behind her eye.
An older miqo’te shouting in pain as he stumbled, surrounded by a beautiful backdrop of crystal. Two figures up ahead immediately stopping in their tracks, the smaller of the two running back as the man gasped in pain, clutching his seized up leg, an identically dazzling blue to his surrounds.
Glowing sigils appeared, the still-standing man promptly turning and gripping his spear while the sole woman knelt down at the graying miqo’te’s side, her hands shimmering in aether over his crystalized ankle.
Al’banat. Hawa.
“‘Twas but a matter of time…”
G’raha.
“I cannot keep up with you. Nor will it avail us to make a stand here.”
The aether from Hawa glowed as it sunk into his body, false life being restored to the similarly false flesh.
“You must go on without me. Find Elidibus, and stop him.”
Al’banat hissed in return, ears pinned as he braced for enemies to appear. Though quiet, Hawa’s face showed her displeasure, as well.
There was an unfamiliar look of consignment and exhaustion on G’raha’s face. The smile he gave was too small, a fragile thing.
“Worry not, my friends.” An agitated ear flick from Al’banat. “Though I am no warrior, I have learned to hold my own, over the years.”
Even so, it was obvious that he needed his staff to pull himself up off the ground, Hawa’s hand at his other arm like a worried granddaughter as he spoke reassurances of the path he had taken, guided in their wake.
“Why us?”
Al’banat’s voice came as a rasp, aching, broken. Hawa stared down at the floor under her feet, bangs hiding her eyes.
For the first time, something recognizable. Taken aback, G’raha’s cadence lifted in objection, showing the familiar bullheaded conviction that he had always possessed, the same incredibility at being questioned at his expertise.
“Why you? Why not you? Had I chosen others , we would never have made it this far.” The familiarity faded with his energy. “Or do I mistake your meaning…?”
Omoux swept into the hall, quickly kneeling at G’raha’s side as Krile blinked away the Echo.
“Are you alright, cannelle? I felt a sharp spike of panic. Krile-”
“I am fine,” G’raha held a hand up to the astrologian, tone firm, though faint.
“Physically, perhaps,” Krile frowned, stepping closer. “I… I’m sorry, Raha. Had I known…
“I think he was dissociating,” she turned her attention to her fellow healer, “I grabbed ahold of his tail as sort of a joke to get his attention, and I startled him quite badly.”
“I - ah!”
G’raha flinched violently, eyes squeezing shut as he curled forward haphazardly into Omoux’s waiting arms.
“No, non, it is okay, my love,” seeing the horror in Krile’s eyes, Omoux gave her a gentle smile. “Go, join the others. He is not hurt in a way we can heal - not with our magicks. Could you let Banat know we’re having a quiet day? Maybe send some tea?”
Mulling over the fragmented remains of the Echo in her mind, Krile nodded solemnly.
“Of course.” She considered reaching out, but thought against it. “I…
“...Rest well.”
-
A single room within the Annex was hardly appropriate to fit a family of five, but they made it work. Thankfully Al’fera was happy enough to not stay in their quarters, though Al’banat had offered, as always. Those that did not have homes to return to in Sharlayan were welcome in the Annex, though it appeared that only the five of them properly took up their offer.
Hawa usually spent nights once again in Alphinaud’s bed, the sage continuing to offer comfort now that her lingering hurts had become clear. Al’fera often slept during the day during these times of rest, swapping between the twins’ beds with his mood.
Omoux was pretty sure Estinien slept in a tree somewhere.
“Our dearest warrior and knight have sent some mulled tea and a friend.”
Holding a tray with hot tea and balancing a toddler on one’s hip was not the most easy feat, but Omoux wasn’t bothered. It was easy enough to slide the tray onto the end table and shift the drooling Elene more properly into his arms.
G’raha sat ramrod straight in the bed, pillows propped behind him. Omoux sat atop the blanket at his side, moving Elene into his lap and letting her go to move as she pleased.
“May I?”
Waiting for the barest of nods, Omoux took G’raha’s left arm in his hands, long fingers delicately pressing into the tense muscles.
“You need not bother yourself with these ministrations. You ought be with the others, making merry. I can watch-”
G’raha cut himself off as lips gently pressed against his knuckles. Omoux’s eyes glittered, half-lidded, breath warm on his skin as he smiled.
“Can you feel that?”
“Like a burst of electricity.”
Omoux’s smile grew as he leaned into G’raha, resting his cheek on his head, letting their fingers interlock.
It was best to be quiet like this, sometimes. When different words and thoughts and events triggered G’raha’s mind into another time, another world. G’raha Tia was the Exarch and the Exarch was G’raha Tia, but that did not mean that the two split lives always mixed well within one body.
Omoux knew better than most how it felt to be too old and too young, to be himself and someone else. It made for an easy decision between him, Al’banat, and Haurchefant:
If three hundred years of darkness, light, and waiting were ever too much for G’raha, Omoux would be the one to handle it.
Besides the familiarity of the complexity of a soul and shards that were sometimes unbalanced, Omoux simply knew the Crystal Exarch best. He had never known the bratty, eager young man that had sealed himself away in the tower, like Al’banat. He had not remained distant and overly suspicious of the leader of the Crystarium, like Haurchefant.
He and the Exarch had become fast friends, close companions, and confidants. The Exarch had been patient with him and kind, never letting him alone when the depths of his depression came to claw at him. In turn, Omoux had often butted into the Exarch’s health, enforcing his rest and medications when needed. Omoux had not been oft written about in the histories that G’raha had poured over, leaving a distinct hole in the story that only prompted more and more curiosity. An Ishgardian man blessed with the Echo that was not a warrior of light, or at least, not documented as one? The possible sire of Allain, who had been so important to the preservation of NOAH over the years?
Al’elene drifted sideways, sleepy from her exciting morning. Her fingers that dug into the blanket would never need to become draconic claws in this better future.
Three hundred years did not disappear in the merging of a soul. As wonderful as it was to be here, present, adventuring with his friends, his past could not be erased. He could not always muster the energy of what most remembered G’raha to have, could not embrace childish behaviors without a nagging at the back of his mind.
Omoux never expected him to. In moods such as this, Omoux never jarringly took him out of it. Rarely did he call him by name, something he had once been so unused to hearing, instead falling back to pet names, sweet things, a soft call of Exarch that prickled his real, living flesh. He did not tease or joke too out of hand, he did not run off and expect him to follow at speed.
He was no different than he was when summoned to the First, sitting across a small table, tea in hand, talking lovingly about his companions and offering naught but respect and kindness to him.
Omoux had been the only person on the First to treat him like a peer, despite his mysterious, elevated nature. He could easily transpose the memories of tea in the Crystarium with sitting at a table in Sharlayan, discussing aetheric theory just the same.
“Are you going to ask why this is happening?”
Omoux hummed softly at G’raha’s words, nosing at his hair while he watched Elene crawl over, putting her head on G’raha’s leg.
“Nay, not unless you wish to speak it yourself. For now, I am simply here with you, letting myself transcend.”
Something he would never state to Al’banat, G’raha knew. The subject of the Amaurotines was always sore with him, even in the wake of Hawa’s recent grief. It took immense amount of arguing and upset to get him to acknowledge it, even when those around him needed the words.
Al’banat did not want to relate to Azem. Hawa felt fractured in her identity and purpose. Al’fera hardly knew a thing about who he once was, as did most others with the Echo.
Omoux knew.
“Hythlodaeus will realize the truth.”
G’raha listened to a long, low exhale, could sense Omoux’s eyes fluttering shut. Across the room, his augmented Himeros began to glimmer with deep violet light.
“Do you ever wonder if our roles were not meant to be so fulfilled?”
The cadence of his voice lilted faintly, not quite in line with how Omoux was supposed to sound.
“It appears that you have consigned yourself to play no more than a bit part for our dearest sunlight. Twas the role I thought I had, too, once.”
A sharp inhale through the nose. G’raha glanced at Omoux, seeing him shift slightly, feeling a scowl curve along his lips as his tone shifted to something sharper, brusque.
“I got sick of it, of the sidelines. Of watching the world threaten war without good reason, the follies of man. I wanted more, even if I died for it.”
The glow of the globe lessened, Omoux moving to smooth Elene’s unruly locks with a sigh. Slowly, he pulled back, turning his head to the side to look G’raha better in the eye. He wasn’t sure which of them looked more weary, in the moment.
“Is this about Tural?”
G’raha frowned, glancing away.
“Among… other things, perhaps.”
Hawa, upset, isolating herself. Threatening to poison herself with light for a cause.
Working with the students of Baldesion, more. Spending less time with the scions.
The little girl nearing a nap on his leg, her long ears not covered in fine white, her skin not transformed into scale.
Sidelining himself. Standing back so that another might go forth and shine. Letting an adventure slip through his fingers, sacrificing himself in the process so that he might aid an organization of people who had been through so much in recent years…
It had built up. He hadn’t thought of the triggers until he had awoken to aches and pains throughout his body, especially concentrated where there had long been crystal. Of the piercing headache that exploded like a gunshot through his skull.
He hadn’t noticed his gait change, his stance alter, his very being transitioning from one life to another as easily as Omoux’s own had just slipped through a thousand, thousand years.
And oh, there was no hiding it, not from Omoux. Not from his keen sight, as if it could see his very soul. Not from his mind, his heart, emphatically sifting through echoed emotions without pause.
“The aches will pass,” Omoux hummed, kissing right along his brow. “Physical, mental, emotional. It is okay to be tired, weary, the world heavy on your shoulders. I - We love you, regardless. Twice over, thrice over, always. Years ago you may have eagerly accepted a trip to the new world without a bat of an eye… but that does not mean that there is something wrong in your hesitance, now. The parts of you that you carried as the Crystal Exarch are still you, cannelle. You are allowed to feel your age.”
“You are allowed to embrace each of your shards, broken and whole,” G’raha responded, finally moving from stiffness to grab the tea beside him, handing Omoux his own. “You… are right, as always. There is no need to rush myself in pulling myself together. Even like this, I am… I am G’raha Tia. And you are yet the dazzling constellations of the night sky that reminded me so achingly of home in a world where stars could not shine.”
“Raha,” Omoux’s warmth bled through his voice as he caught a faint wiggle of an ear from the miqo’te, a small smirk upon his face as he sipped his tea. Omoux carefully snuggled closer, letting the playfulness that was nestled deeply inside of him to bloom just for a moment as he looked at where his feet stretched out far beyond his love’s, their daughter between them.
“I think we should go,” he whispered, letting his head lie on his chest even though it made his back and neck bend. “I think that the students will be fine without you or Krile. ‘Tis only my opinion, I know, but I wanted to give it nonetheless. You have done so much for more than one world already, cannelle. You deserve the adventure you made Banat promise.
“Yet,” Omoux continued, feeling the rising nerves in the other, “if you hold your ground, I will not argue. If you believe you must stay behind, my love… know that you will not be alone. I am not well suited to travel, despite the protests I give when left behind. I would… I would be honored to choose to remain at your side, to give Elene some stability. Even then, we may yet catch up with our wayward husbands in short time.”
“You would wait?” The words were soft, uncertain. “You would wait for me? With me?”
Omoux could not help but run a finger along the now sleeping child’s cheek, heart warm at the thumb in her mouth, the scrunch of her nose.
“Oh, dear Raha. I would give you all the time you have waited before for all of us.” Amusement teased lightly along his tongue. “A thousand, thousand years, if you needed.”
“That seems a dreadful amount of time, even to me.”
Augmented Himeros lay quietly on the table, glimmering like the stars.