hugtopia_logs | who falls

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who falls

♥ Who: Crystal Exarch and WHOEVS!
♥ Where: In the botanical garden
♥ When: Fourth week of September
♥ What: Someone's drowsy and doesn't yet know how to stop it.
♥ Rating: PG?

Given his limitations, it was only a matter of time. All too familiar with his own body and how it now worked, the absence of the Crystal Tower within the city was going to show itself on him eventually, and the Exarch was well aware of it. When the first signs appeared and hunger began to gnaw at his stomach, he did what he could to stave it off, eating full meals for the first time in years, but even that could only get him so far.

Well and truly, he belonged to the Tower now in exchange for his immortality. Without its strength, his own would begin to wane, and wane it did. Food kept his eyes open longer and longer for a time, but as the days passed and his movement became more and more sluggish, sustenance failed him little by little. It would come to a head, he knew, and sooner than he would have liked.

In the botanical gardens, it caught up with him. To anyone who happened to observe him, it would appear as though the Exarch was simply taking a very leisurely walk among the flora, enjoying the flowers. But then he stopped, pressed a hand to his forehead, caught in a sudden spell of dizziness. It passed in short time, as they had done before, but it was warning enough that he heeded well. A bench in a secluded area of the park, thankfully not far from where he was, served as a pleasant enough spot for him to lower his weary form down upon and sit, watching leaves sway in a breeze without seeing them at all.

Beneath the hood, eyes fluttered and breathing began to even out. Leaves scuttled along the path, playing a soft lullaby he couldn't quite ignore. Shortly after, fight it though he tried, the sounds of the wind, the calls of strange birds, and everything around soothed him to sleep.

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"Well, someone seems to be having a bit of trouble."

Emet-Selch is not loud enough to wake the Exarch should the man be truly, deeply asleep - his words are a quiet musing, mostly to himself.

He'd wound up in the gardens trying to find what living aether he could, and discovered this in the meantime. After a moment of watching, he sighs, and settles to a seat on the other half of the bench himself, leaning back to watch the sky.

"And what will you do with the 'after' the hero's victory bought you, I wonder?" he asks, still in that quiet tone, before sighing in a combination of disdain and nostalgia. His next words are addressed to another party, long gone, but still remembered.

"I see now why you were so wont to complain of boredom watching me sleep."

Well. It is a good place for a nap.

To say he is truly, deeply asleep might be understating the truth by a small enough stride that it wouldn't matter one way or another. The Exarch is exhausted. That he had been able to reach his seat with both eyes open had been a feat in itself, but he knows his limits within the relatively small world of Norvrandt where he has the Tower to return to whenever he should need its strength.

Here, his limits have not changed, but he does not have that sustenance and from the look of things, he may not for a very long time, if ever. The natives require their cooperation and positive physical contact, not what amounts to a power source that they may well already have duplicated in their own way or even made obsolete. For all appearances, he is not dying, but staying awake now may prove tricky all the same.

Yet manage it, he does. Left undisturbed, he sleeps soundly for a few hours resting back against the bench, warm under the breeze and the robes draped about him. The bed of his small apartment would have done him better, but he hasn't been here for comfort, only necessity. Gradually, he does start to come around, eyes fluttering open beneath the shade of his hood, chest heaving gently with a soft, drowsy sigh. There is a light ache in his muscles as he glances around, surprised to find the sun dipping in the sky much lower than he had last seen it. How long had he been asleep anyway?

The surprise in that pales in comparison to what - or rather who - greets him upon a glance toward the once-empty end of the bench. Suddenly, he is not quite as weary as he was before.

Conversely, Emet-Selch naps the nap of one who has absolutely no fear of anything. He is, however, a shallower sleeper, and so the sound of movement on the other end of the bench is enough to draw an extended hum and a blink from him. It's another moment before his eyes open completely and actually focus, however.

It's easy enough to see then the way he makes an act out of rubbing his eyes, dramatized for his single viewer. The stretch that follows, a careful roll of his shoulders, seems genuine enough, however.

"Something the matter, Exarch? You looked so very comfortable in the sun that I thought I might join you, for a time."

Past the almost rude awakening, he realizes he isn't sure what surprised him more: to find Emet there, closer than they would willingly approach the other in any other situation, or that Emet had actually fallen asleep beside him. The man had confessed a love of slumber, and much as the Exarch had been focused on other things at the time and not truly interested in idle rambling, he was listening.

There is no love for the man in him, but he leans back against the bench again after a moment and lifts his gaze to the trees across the way. As shock swept away and he resigned himself to continued unexpected visits from the Ascian, the pull of sleep crept warily back, keeping its distance in the presence of one of the greatest threats to life and limb his people had ever known. For the present, there may be no danger, but he held little faith that it would remain that way always.

"I see our impromptu meetings are likely to continue, then. Now that you know I do sleep longer than forty winks, I hope I will be given some manner of warning before our next conversation."

When all you can do is wait, you may as well sleep. And there is not much else yet to do in this place, frustratingly, but wait until something else changes enough that further observation is meaningful.

Emet-Selch frowns at the sickly sight that only he can see, for just long enough, before turning his attention to the Exarch in full.

"I can hardly be expected to help myself when you remain one of the most interesting people in this place," he says. "Even if you no longer present quite as much of a puzzle as you did on the First."

Had he the strength to keep his eyes open longer than a few hours at a time now, he would rather use that time to read what he can. He didn't stick with Students of Baldesion only because he wanted to know about his eye, and the Tower's energies had given him an unexpected benefit to his unusually long life.

Too bad the Tower isn't here, and now he's suffering for it before one of the greatest threats to his people. Though he wonders just how much of his power Emet-Selch retains in this world, he won't ask after it and make himself even more transparent than his current condition has made him.

It isn't enough that he can't read between those lines, however, and what he hears in that is "a means to further my goals."

"So it would seem. Even when the location is not quite the most comfortable, to that." And it wasn't. The muscles down his neck and shoulders would complain for some time after, he knew, but a beggar he had been to find where he could rest at all.

Such suspicion, Exarch, when he meant those words precisely at face value.

"It could be a far measure worse," the Ascian says. "After all, the weather is pleasant, there's no aggressive beasts about... The aether may be as dead, but that at least means that it hasn't chosen to fluctuate wildly for the time being."

So many things that can disrupt his rest! And the smile he throws the Exarch is downright conspiratorial.

"And it's a malm more comfortable than the imperial throne, but of course you heard nothing of the sort from me."

Still and ever uncomfortable for being as close as he is to the Ascian, the Exarch gives no outward indication of it, staring up at the leaves of trees reaching far over his head. The lightly weighted decoration of his hood keeps the cover in place as it always has, though not enough to limit his vision.

"For the time being. And here I thought the throne must be something grand. A pity it cannot match in comfort what it does in scale."

There is a peace in this place, artificial as it is, enough to ease him into a nap. Weariness has already started a gentle tug on his limbs, but he won't give into it yet. Not with so much still to do, and a little more energy in him. This world has seen better, but if it's anything like the First, he thinks he might have an idea of how long they will be here trying to save it.

That in mind, the Exarch rises slowly from his seat without a word and straightens his robes. It is growing late and he has a want to head back to his apartment.

"Oh, it is grand to look at," he says, waving a hand a little dismissively. "Not so grand to sit upon. Imposing thrones must by their nature prevent the occupant from slumping, and sitting straight-backed for so many hours a day is not the most pleasant of activities."

Meaningless gossip, in comparison, but he rises to follow the conversation anyway, far more laid-back about such things than the Exarch. It helps that his robes require not great straightening, the fabric much heavier for Garlemald's climate than his counterpart's.

In that light, he can't help a bit of curiosity on the side as to why Emet slumps as he does. Having lived more than one or a dozen lifetimes, the Ascian must know, just have seen how that will deteriorate a body's structure. Then again, it was not his own body to worry after.

His footsteps, leisurely though they seem, are sure and steady with his body's renewed energy, little though it is, turning him down paths he knows will lead to the exit and, gradually, to the residential homes. One among those is his, temporarily; here is where he is headed. That Emet seems content to follow along has not yet seemed to bother him.

"For a wonder, but I should imagine you did not take to it without the arm and armor of your command."

Or did the Garleans remove such things in the public eye? It would have fallen to necessity at some point, but what Garleans did in their private time was not high on his list of things to research in his leisure.

"The one good thing about looking old, which I suppose you never shall enjoy, in the state you're in," he says, "is that no one gets to tell you what to wear. If the aged Emperor wished to hold court in his nightwear, who was going to argue with him?"

He trails along behind the Exarch, for the most part, lazily speaking to the back of the hood, but for a moment as they turn a corner, he dances around, to be sure that the smaller man can see the smirk he wears.

"Especially when even in his sleepwear, said Emperor was sound enough of body to make those who thought his body failing in the twilight of his years regret voicing such a thought."

No, he thought, of course they wouldn't. And no, he thought behind it, he would never know the wear of time as he might have otherwise in a different life. For all it hadn't bothered him when he thought his days numbered either way, it did now, in some way that he couldn't explain.

"One in such a position for so long might also command a generous level of respect among his peers and followers, enough even to silence any question regarding his choice of clothing."

For all of his slouching posture and languid, almost sluggish movements, Emet had power enough to put stop to any question to his strength, from wherever it may come. A more logical, more mouthy part of his mind noted that as another point they had in common. For as much as the Exarch liked to insist on his age in factor, he still retained the body of his youth accented with the crystal hold of the Tower. The battle at Holminster Switch said as much whether or not he wanted it to.

All of this, he shut aside, continuing onward toward his apartment. The wanderings of a weary mind were truly far and wide.

"In Garlemald's court, respect and fear were often the same thing; where they were not, respect was always the more tenuous position."

It's a statement of pure fact. Irritating or even distressing as others might find it, that is precisely the way he built Garlemald to be. That empire is a war machine, designed to reward the bloodthirsty and inventive over the compassionate. There was a reason they had military rank where other nations might have had nobility.

The Exarch is indeed correct to view Emet-Selch's apparent laziness as disinclination, rather than any lack of ability. As languid as his movements might be, they have the intention behind them of someone who knows their body very well, and the disguised strength that that sort of bonelessness requires.

Indeed, it takes only a bit of logic to see it - Solus Galvus, the legatus as he was before he was Emperor, could hardly have used the Ascian's more than adequate magical ability on the battlefield.

"Unfortunately," he continues, "it takes many days of a stiff seat and a sore arse before one can develop such a reputation."

There is no passion in him for the Garleans, not those who stood in command or who were partial to their role with the lot, only because he himself had no heart for the mentality. But what he couldn't deny was that fear was, indeed, a powerful motivator on any side of the coin. Good men had done far worse under the wrong (or right, in another perspective) influences, and a good scare or the right threat might mean the difference between sensibility and insanity.

He'd seen it happen more often than he cared to recall. In his youth, before his slumber, after he awoke, in another world.

"Such is the rather unfortunate way of things." He walked on, tone having softened, and gave little further indicator of the shifts within his own heart. He may have been talking of the throne for all he would confess. "'Tis rather difficult to grow trees for their lumber upon rock and metal, or any crop, for that matter."

"I knew one who created such a plant, once," the Ascian observes idly. "Not a tree, but a vine, which sought out precious ores with its roots to grow its flowers. A passing whimsy, but it was beautiful as only impossible things can be."

His tone too, is soft, as though the fragment of an anecdote from Amaurot were not something he has spent centuries upon centuries guarding jealously as any hopeful for the Syndicate hoards their coin. Another forgotten thing that someone else now knows.

Is that the point of this, what he should be doing in this place? Putting every fragment of his knowledge into other people's heads, in the hope that some scrap of it might survive?

"When it exhausted all the ore to be found in the stone," he continues, "it withered and died. And so too do I expect that my last work shall be but a violent footnote on the pages of history, in the end."

That such a thing should exist touches him in a way both wonderful and horrible in the same light. He marveled - quietly, in his own mind, under the cowl where little gave him away - at the ability of something to survive so harsh a condition, to find a way to live no matter what. The parallels it struck plucked a gentle chord within him in that, one that turned to the darker in the same motion. In that same desperation, something precious had to be sacrificed, never to be seen again, if it had been at all.

How like the people he had once known, fighting each other tooth and nail to eek out a miserable life, that mythical plant. And yet something good had come of those efforts, hadn't it?

A few steps further found him at a junction in the roads, one he turned down on a route leading him to the apartments. A few blocks more and he would be at the start of them. To any who had transversed the likes of Eorzea and Yanxia or even the leavings of the First after the Flood on food, it would seem so short a distance. But to the Exarch, weary and doggedly carrying on with as much dignity as he could muster in his exhaustion, it seemed a small eternity.

"You are here, are you not? You yet exist in this world when your story in mine has all but ended." Here, yes. In his own memories. Perhaps not in Era's, as much as his world and hers had separated. "Our conflict does not exist here. You yourself have agreed to as much."

"It does not," he says, with a shrug. "But I am yet a casualty of it. Unless Elidibus should snatch victory from the jaws of defeat - which I might hope for but in practical terms, very much doubt - I've nowhere to return to. This existence is for me but a coda, an epilogue, and one that I have no doubt will be short by my reckoning."

In some things they have separated, but in others they remain much the same. And in that similarity is the end of Amaurot's keeper.

Perhaps that explains, then, why he is so very eager to talk, eager enough that he keeps pace even as the Exarch increasingly flags, offering neither help nor hindrance, only company.

If nothing, the talking is helping him to maintain awareness, not only to listen and to respond rather than merely putting one foot in front of the other and listening to his tired mind's scattered wanderings, but their source is a concern in and of itself. Even now, past knowing the Ascian will not take advantage of his sorry state, he cannot help a wariness, and alertness as to the man's place around him, the line of their conversation.

He could and would still turn his back on the man if circumstances were right, but he did just wake up to find Emet sitting - sleeping - right beside him on a bench, closer than was in his comfort.

"I have no doubt that it may, should we find a way to save this world. How many lifetimes, how many generations have you seen rise and fall before your ageless eyes?"

Just as well, the Exarch continued on under his own steam. He had suffered worse and would continue to suffer again in the days to come. Of that much, he was certain, but it was hardly the least of his concerns. Once he had bundled down on his bed properly and taken a good, long rest, he would be at his research again as if nothing of the sort had happened.

As long as he's willing to keep responding and being interested, Emet-Selch will keep talking. He has had so very few people to talk to over the centuries, after all.

"I stopped attempting to number the lifetimes after Allag, perhaps even before," he says. "It became as meaningless as counting fish in the oceans. Even were I to count in kingdoms, the numbers would be higher than most are capable of understanding."

He has noticed the effort, the way the other man's pace slows, but does not comment on it, merely adjusting his own. He can well imagine the droop of ears beneath the hood, now that he's seen the face beneath once.

"You may find yourself thinking the same, given time," he says. "After all, with your plot to sacrifice yourself foiled, you've nothing but time, now."

He had been well aware of the consequences of joining himself with the Tower, though he had not expected to survive the full extent of the plot he and the Ironworks had set into motion. A century of awareness longer than his mere twenty-four years of age, barring the two hundred he slept away, had been a daunting task to himself, though he was not alone.

In truth, he could not blame Emet for recreating a city that he had once known, people he had once loved. To be left alone for so long would have driven anyone mad. Despite having lived through the horrors that were the Seventh and then the Eighth Umbral Calamities and what it did to him and his worlds, he felt for the man. It was strange, that empathy. Not enough to sway him, but strange all the same.

"Time is all we ever truly have. I do not expect I should see the number of years, of generations, of civilizations that you have, but we do not know. None can predict a future, only hope to shape it."

"True enough," he agrees. "Even memories fade - if not in the weakening of the flesh, then in the immaterial recycling of the soul. Even time can strip them away, as it wears away all things."

And surely that too is experience, from a man who has forgotten more than even the most vaulted of scholars might ever know.

"One learns to see patterns, over time," he says, this time in disagreement. "Nothing can be predicted with certainty, save that time takes all in the end. But the general shape of history is not unlike the weather - it will not rain without clouds except in the most exceptional circumstances, nor will it snow in summer. In a similar way, one can be confident that a headless empire will collapse and an oppressed people someday throw off their yoke, but not when that might happen, or what will remain among the ruins."

They are getting closer, surely, step by step, bit by agonizing bit, and the corner that will lead them to the residences is within sight. How tempting it is just to stop by one of the benches along the side of the road and take another brief rest, but if he stops now, it might be another hour or three before he can make himself wake and stand again to continue on to his soft bed and softer sheets.

It's a point he focuses on, almost as much as the man traveling with him. At the same time, he can't help but wonder why Emet follows him so. Surely there must be other people in the city and other vices the Ascian might find than a tired miqo'te trudging with as much grace as he can back home.

"I suppose. History tends to repeat itself, however vaguely, should one not learn from mistakes. The same is also true of such events, great and small. But the turn of the seasons and what determines how one war will end are not quite the same. Best not to press too much influence, perhaps."

Jinghuan is taking a walk, simply to explore. This area seems pleasant enough, and perhaps a slight bit more familiar as terrain goes. Gardens were something that existed in the capital, even if the precise plants were different. He finds himself feeling a pang of homesickness, a memory of walking the palace grounds with his wife. He hadn't appreciated such simple moments enough in his life. Perhaps if things had gone differently, he might still be there to someday walk through the garden along with his child.

His thoughts are interrupted as he notices a cloaked figure asleep on a bench. He frowns slightly. Is the man ill? Even in a place as peaceful as this seems to be, he doubts that sleeping in such a public place is wise. Under other circumstances, he likely would choose to ignore such a sight... but this society is one where it pays to be friendly with strangers. He walks over beside the bench and gently touches the man's shoulder.

"I am certain there are better places to sleep."

So far as unexpected awakenings go, this has been one of the better he has experienced by far, and he has not had many of those in the past several decades of his life. The hand on his shoulder gets a soft sound from him as a sense of duty kicks in out of long lived habit and his eyes open quicker than his body means. It takes a moment more, crystalline hand rubbing at lids that struggle to stay open, but he finally looks up and through the hood at the man who awoke him.

"Mm, yes. There will be some stiffness to work out in the coming hours, but..." He turns his gaze around, taking in the plants and trees and flowers set up in just such an appealing way, glad for his surroundings and a convenient excuse. "It is such a lovely place, this garden. I could not help myself."

He draws his hand back once it's seemed to have its intended effect. Casual touch may be more acceptable here, but he has no inclination to overstay his welcome with it. He raises an eyebrow at that answer, lips quirking up in mild amusement.

"Is it typical where you come from to react to beauty with sleepiness?" For all he knows, it might be. It probably wouldn't be the strangest thing he's heard from someone he met here.

His wake up call thusly acknowledged, he reaches up a flesh and blood hand to rub the sleep from his eyes. All the better to see his companion while he chases the last of the worst of the weariness from his form. It will return later, he knows, to draw him back down into another nap, but he has every intention of being back in his apartment by then. Perhaps he'll curl himself around one of the few actual tomes left in this world and lose himself to its words.

"I do not think it common, though serenity does carry half a chance to set me at rest if it had the power." There's an amusement there. "Apparently, it had. It is a peaceful place, this garden."

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