sodomhipped | though mixed with ash and shards of destruction [ffxiv; hades/hythlodaeus; gen]

Title: though mixed with ash and shards of destruction [or read on Ao3]

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV

Pairing: Hades/Hythlodaeus, Azem/Hades/Hythlodaeus

Rating: Gen

Warning: None

Tags: This is Emet-Selch apologist meta disguised as a ficlet, Generic Warrior of Light, Patch 6.0: Endwalker, Canon Compliant

Summary:

Even after his death, floating in the Aetherial Sea, Emet-Selch can find no rest.

『Or, Hades watches the Warrior of Light battle Zodiark.』

Even after his death, floating in the Aetherial Sea, Emet-Selch can find no rest.

He had wished often for respite during his too-long life. Yet, always there was someone to tug at his literal or metaphorical sleeve, like a lost child, and urge him to attention: Elidibus, Varis, so forth. The forever looming demands of his duty to Etheirys and his people.

Well, they are no longer his problem.

Now, he cannot rest because he is waiting.

Most would agree, he thinks, that there is no pastime quite as incompatible with rest as waiting. Especially after millennia of working towards a goal only to find that goal usurped by the vision of another.

Legacies, however, pause for no one. Every story is arbitrated by the victor. Accordingly, he provided all but his overt benediction—including his own death—to Hydaelyn’s Chosen.

Which is how the very skill that recommended him to the Convocation’s seat of Emet-Selch renders him a particularly tormented witness now. The soul of any person, the aether that made up every bit of their essence, is as strongly impressed upon his notice as might be the characteristics of their face. When he paraded around the Source as Solus watching those faded, paltry souls, it was a constant reminder of the inferiority of the sundered worlds to his own.

Here, from within the Aetherial Sea, if he had tried to guess before, he might have expected the incredible concentration of souls would create such a confused crowd that he could not pick one apart from the other. But that is not the case.

No, even in the Underworld, two shine brighter to him than all others.

Hythlodaeus and Azem.

While he drifts, farther away from either of them than ever, they move closer and closer together. Hythlodaeus, who resides within Zodiark, a grieved sacrifice; Azem, who lives on as a shard, in a stand-off to preserve Zodiark’s chains.

He can pick out other familiar souls in the skirmish: Fandaniel, the betrayer; Zenos, his body’s great-grandson. He should be annoyed that those two circumvent the carefully laid plans of their forebears, but he cannot generate the feeling.

Despite the fact he has interacted with them recently—relatively anyway, in the great span of time—they are shadows to him. More real is the phantom feeling of Azem striking the final blow to Hades himself, and Emet-Selch’s hope that Azem will go on to forge a world better than the one he still sees in the sundered Etheirys.

More real to him is the memory of Hythlodaeus, who has inhabited only dreams for more years than not.

And so, incapable of action, Emet-Selch waits and watches.

He sees the chains broken, Fandaniel falling, and Zodiark rising. The shard of Azem stands against Him, indomitable.

On one side, he knows he will lose countless years of toil and any hope of his Etheirys ever being rejoined. On the other, if Zodiark falls, the souls within will be freed without his binding purpose. It is a possibility he could never have contemplated.

Zodiark defeated—it is unfathomable, if only for the price they paid to bring Him into existence.

Hythlodaeus.

Emet-Selch dreamt frequently of Hythlodaeus. Even the pleasant dreams, in which he could hear Hythlodaeus tease him again, affection clear to anyone listening, and laugh at his own mischief, were riddled with guilt for having failed to save him. The other dreams, the less pleasant ones, reenacted the day Hythlodaeus told him what he intended.

On that day and in many dreams after, Hythlodaeus said, “Hades, this is what I can do for our star and our people.”

He also said, “You and Azem are still needed here.”

He also said, “Remember me, my love.”

During this unimaginable battle, the heart Emet-Selch no longer possesses sits in his non-existent throat.

Though he does not doubt Azem’s victory, the promise of Hythlodaeus’ soul released pins him in place, observing. At this moment, he can only wait, but he will be ready. Once free, he will catch that beloved soul and, together, perhaps they shall finally find reprieve.