Chapter Text
Polite, impersonal greetings. Polite, cold exchanges of information. And silence so overwhelming as they departed for where Azem had retreated from that Meteion all but clung to him and buried her face in his robes.
He had to confess to his own silent self that he had long since grown used to if not outright fond of how Azem treated their travels. On the roads with not a soul that could judge them for it nearby, they removed their mask. Azem was a noisy, obnoxious, reckless and extremely friendly travelling partner. It had been jarring after how long he had spent with the researchers of Elpis, and he reckoned that was why the Convocation had unanimously agreed that Azem would be a fantastic person to give perspective that others would lack.
Lahabrea and Erichthonios were a dreary reminder of Elpis, with the added tense silence of family members who did not get along. It was hard to ignore the similarities between them now, though Meteion quietly confessed she thought it amusing that Erichthonios was taller than his father on the first night when Warder and Speaker both had retired to sleep while Hermes offered taking over the first shift of watch. Both of them kept something to take notes on their person.
The sole stark differences were the way they spoke and the ways they dealt with creatures that had not quite gained the natural aversion to getting too close to creators. Erichthonios’ voice was incredibly soft and he deliberately kept himself quiet as if he expected his voice to echo through the vast, empty halls of Pandæmonium at any given time. Lahabrea’s tone was, for lack of better word, flat and emotionless and every word flawlessly chained onto the next often without as much as him taking a breath for a while, giving away the fact that the Speaker was not called such for no reason. Erichthonios used his chains as makeshift weapons to drive the smaller fry off and tried to intimidate the bigger ones away rather than leaving them bound. Lahabrea meanwhile seemingly acted entirely passively, chaining things, all but letting his familiar do all the work, or simply ensuring whatever it was could not follow them and then simply walking away.
It was… bizarre.
Meteion echoed that thought on another night.
“We used to get that a lot,” came the quiet confession from the dark that made Hermes and Meteion jump. “Worry not, esteemed Lahabrea is neither a heavy nor a light sleeper but unlikely to wake at this hour in either case.”
With seemingly not a care in the world, Erichthonios sat down by the fire.
“You may as well sit down again,” he said without raising an eyebrow or even his gaze to meet theirs, “there is no need whatsoever to stay standing in embarrassed surprise on my behalf.” Then, when they both reluctantly settled back down, Erichthonios finally cracked a barely noticeable, small, distant smile before fading back into a neutral expression while staring into the flames. “… Keyward Athena liked to point it out every so often. How similar yet completely opposite we were. Two halves of the same concept matrix, she liked to call it; touching in places yet never meeting in the altogether. It makes sense that you would notice it just as she had—you observe things surprisingly similarly.”
All three of them made some sort of hum at the same time, which in turn made Meteion laugh into her hands quietly.
“I do have to ask,” Hermes broke the comfortable silence after a while with a small frown, “what made you break the routine you treasure so?”
Erichthonios, who had always been polite if not meek before, now simply waved his hand in a way that the Keyward Hesperos had back in Asphodelos whenever he was dismissing a claim of some sort. “I was asked to by the others. They of course gave me more than ample time to decline and foist that duty onto the second-best option, but I would rather suffer this indignity than betray their unanimous trust in me.”
“In… indign… indignity?” Meteion tilted her head.
“Meteion—”
“I suppose that is a much too strong word to use here.” A shrug. Not much of a change in disposition. He was both close and yet seemed extremely far away as he continued staring into the flames. “He never did anything—which is both good and bad. He never did anything to me. He never did anything about the constant comparisons they made whenever they saw me and him. He simply… he simply continued with his routine. And through routine you learn a great many things while many others remain unanswered for eternity. One such thing you can learn about the Speaker is that his bark is worse than his bite, mostly because by the time he is driven to bite he destroys with utter contempt and then carries on as if nothing happened in the first place. Remember how he threatened to leave you two and Azem behind in chains when you left? He would never have done so. Pandæmonium is much too precious to him to leave Azem confined within.”
Another sigh, another shrug. Erichthonios seemed a little more animated than before all of a sudden, as if the confines of Pandæmonium also dampened his character down into that of a proper Warden and now Hermes was seeing beyond the Warden and was witness to the actual youth cracking through.
Still, it was hard to tell what was going on in his mind when Azem wore their heart on their sleeve—and the masks made it nigh impossible to see anything but how bright his bloody-red eyes were.
“Esteemed Lahabrea is not without reason one of our lifetimes’ greatest creators. Focused on the task, cold and calculated, powerful enough to simply leave in chains that which goes wrong, and if the failure is worth studying he keeps it contained until its time runs out. And yet he pushes himself further.” Erichthonios narrowed his eyes. “Further still. To the point of a complete lack of emotion. Perfection, encased in the very chains he uses to bind. Perfection—and it comes with blindness to the smaller things. It is admirable and pathetic both. And I suppose that is what makes him so successful—his calculated lack of emotion, the coldness, the sheer will to see it through. He burns like fire, yet there is no warmth to be found there. And that paradox continues into how many people see him. They admire the creator, yet would likely hate him if they knew the person beyond—or at least that is what Keyward Hesperos tends to say when the topic comes down to Lahabrea.”
Meteion tilted her head into the other direction. “A-And what about you? What do you think?”
Hermes knew that she was at this point saying what she believed Azem would have been saying. In fact, he could hear it in their exact tone of voice. The constant questions of what Hermes and Meteion were thinking. The way they involved him before and after a major or minor task. What were his thoughts on this request? What was it that he thought about the situation on hand? Did he feel bad? Did he consider this necessity or simply selfishness from the creators who asked them for help?
Judging from the way Erichthonios looked into the flames for a good moment with wide eyes, he likely was thinking of Keyward Hesperos—or someone else entirely—who also involved him in whatever it was that was happening.
“He makes for a pathetic father. Distant and cold, and admittedly I do not remember whether this was different at any point. As Warder of Pandæmonium I seldom hear of him outside of the occasional mention from the Keywards regarding upcoming reports and the like.” A deep breath. “I admire him as a creator. Mind, I loathe the comparisons that people try to draw between me and him. Yet at the same time I cannot say that I am not as impressed as everyone else. Further still, he personally sees the wards reinforced despite his clearly packed schedule. Yes, Lahabrea is a foul excuse for a father, but the creator who earned the title is someone I would aspire to be like if I had the capabilities to cast. Ideally it will not get in the way of my… our duty. Realistically it might. Overall, I suppose my opinion on the matter, little one, would be a neutral one. Neutral by paradoxical circumstances.”
Until his watch shift was over, Hermes and Erichthonios sat there by the fire in silence. Erichthonios even said that he was free to get Meteion to her proper resting spot when she nodded off.
It sounded more like the researcher by the remnants of the arcane entity’s holding cell than the Warder Erichthonios with the strangely forlorn and melancholic voice again, but Hermes thought it most prudent to get Meteion to rest at the time. Therefore he simply thanked the Warder quietly and carefully picked the familiar up to carry her away from the ever swaying flames of their campfire.
As far as the rest of the way went, Lahabrea spoke surprisingly little unless addressed directly. Even then, despite the masterful linking of all words, he remained short and to the point whenever any of the other three addressed him.
Azem had said that in the past Lahabrea had been a very reliable person to call upon, though he was not usually their first thought whenever it came to most things. When they needed help with a situation requiring a skill with conversation they needed someone who spoke softer and friendlier than Lahabrea, something that Hythlodaeus for most of the cases or Loghrif in the rare cases of Hythlodaeus being too overbearingly friendly were just perfect for.
Combat-wise, as Azem pointed out, chains alone did precious little other than seeing something or someone rooted to the spot. Great for an interrogation and for intimidation, but useless for just about anything else. What Lahabrea of all people excelled in was his expert use of his many familiars, phantoms, or otherwise arcane entities that listened to his every command—whether that command was given verbally or via a deliberately and delicately crafted telepathic bond. Even so, it sounded more like they were more fond of his familiars than the Speaker himself, yet they never mentioned the familiars first. It was always Lahabrea, meaning they considered him an excellent asset on the field. What exactly made him so reliable they never quite elaborated on.
It merely turned into them commenting on the fact that he was a generally unpleasant person and not exactly someone they wanted to tick off more than necessary, usually ending on a wink and saying that the Ifrita incident had been a surprisingly mild punishment.
As far as Pandæmonium had gone, few people quite enjoyed dealing with one particular inmate—as Erichthonios had said in the past, this particular incarnation of the bird was a failure on the path to perfection. And there were hardly any faults whatsoever with the brilliant creation that listened to every muttered or mumbled command, no matter how far away Lahabrea was from it. It burned bright in the dark when they traversed the cliffs to avoid the diurnal predators there. Its flames fizzled out when the Speaker told it to carry them across a gap that Azem had simply jumped with Hermes under one arm and Meteion clinging to them sitting on their shoulder.
“Is there aught you can tell us of the Khalkotaurus concept, Master Lahabrea?” was the question that broke the almost tense silence as they were less than a day’s worth of travel away from where Azem had nearly lost their life.
At first Lahabrea did not react to being addressed like this by Erichthonios, instead electing to dismiss the handful of flame-aspected phantoms he had sent up ahead to scout whether or not the familiars had left their prowling grounds after the recent upset.
Then, when the last of them wove around his outstretched hand before vanishing in a puff of smoke, he dropped his arm and exhaled slowly. “Khalkotauroi concept. They are a concept to be meant as twin familiars, specifically of the guarding familiar subcategory—though of the ones presently in use in Amaurot I believe most are more meant as companions to older children. As such, their temperament is supposedly on the calmer side.”
With that, Lahabrea finally turned to face the rest of the group—his eyes as red as blood, set behind that red mask of his.
“Whatever modifications were made to the concept to result in what happened, I can only speculate. While guarding familiars can get violent they are not supposed to when people are involved. From what your report said, none of the words were misplaced or impolite; it was an earnest inquiry without malicious intent. My current running theory is distracted creation, or deliberate underlining of the violence aspect that led to faulty judgement—but if there is aught you two have in the way of theories, by all means, I invite you to share your thoughts.”
Meteion very quietly slipped one of her hands into his when she noticed that he tensed.
It would not have been the first time and it certainly would not be the last that some idiot creator would make a monster of an otherwise perfectly fine creature. As if it was their fault somehow that they had been created near someone who would use them for evil.
But before he could sort his thoughts and toss an accusation at Lahabrea that the Speaker’s horrendous claims made monsters of the creations when even Azem had yet to find a fault with them, Erichthonios tilted his head and shrugged.
“Judging from what Hermes reported, I do not quite believe the violence to be deliberate. The Khalkotauroi are not meant for aggression, they are meant to be defenders—and from what the report said, they simply drove off whoever came too close. And the locals, few they may be, all aborted any attempt to retrieve what they needed at the first signs of aggression. Which might as well have been taken directly from any sort of explanation on what a defender-class familiar should do. The Traveller and Hermes were the first people to not heed the initial warnings, and most importantly, Azem single-handedly took what was an attack meant for three.”
Hermes opened his mouth, but Lahabrea did not even remotely glance in his direction.
Instead, the Speaker crossed his arms. “That does sound plausible, yes. And is an expert deduction to boot.”
“You flatter me, Master Lahabrea, but I would not quite call it an expert deduction. Merely an observation.” Perhaps in an attempt not to mirror Lahabrea’s movement, Erichthonios instead scratched his face with one hand and rested the other on his hip for a moment. “It is possible there was malicious intent behind their creation as well, but from the way it sounds it is merely showing the flaws only when the initial warnings are not heeded. But you speak from experience based on your recent works related to reports from Abyssos and below. I am and will always be a Warder of Asphodelos where we deal with lesser cases, and in theory the Khalkotauroi sound like a lesser case like the ones in our—my—care.”
“You sell yourself short overmuch,” was the flat reply that was met with surprisingly icy silence. Rather than dwell on the sudden stop of the conversation for longer than strictly necessary Lahabrea instead elected to lead the last charge forward. Immediately on his heels was Erichthonios, the somewhat annoyed air around him lingering enough that even Hermes felt the spike of irritation and confusion as he followed his father in silence.
Meteion simply looked from those two back to Hermes, her puzzled expression reminding him of the one she bore every time they had recently come across one of her many sisters who had scattered all across Etheirys. The clear lack of understanding what it was that was going on with people whose emotions were complex and confusing and so much harder to see through than a simple creation’s.
He shook his head slightly, slowly—somewhat terrified, even. “I know what it is that you wish to ask. But I cannot give you a satisfactory answer, Meteion—for I do not entirely understand this either. And… I do not believe that we are meant to understand.”
“… But… but was that not why… they sent us out? To under… understand? Is that not why Azem asks… without doubt, without fail… every morning, the same words?”
Hermes could only give her a confused sigh before Lahabrea further up ahead gave an impatient-sounding remark about not even having to shackle slackers at this rate.
“You have dodged the topic long enough now.” The chair creaked across the marble floor and they dropped themself down on it rather unceremoniously
“And a good morning to you too, Azem. I see your wounds have healed for the most part.” He raised an eyebrow beneath his mask; he had not been made aware that Altima had given them clearance quite yet. Perhaps it had been a spur of the moment decision this morning.
Rather than return the greeting, they met him with a deep scowl, most unbefitting of someone usually so full of boundless, careless cheer. This was clearly bothering them—and they were correct. He had been dodging the topic, mostly out of genuine concern for their recovery. While he appreciated the fresh perspective Azem brought to any and all conversation and issue, sometimes their bullheaded stubbornness to see things solved in a way that was for the benefit of not simply Etheirys but all the people and beings in the immediate area proved… troublesome.
It was what he had voiced during the discussion that had been raised prior to Fandaniel’s departure for Elpis. While most people agreed it had surprisingly enough been Mitron and unsurprisingly enough Emet-Selch who had raised the same concern that Elidibus would have had to voice for the sake of giving just enough opposition to the Convocation to cause earnest discussion back at the time. What Mitron and Emet-Selch rose was the question of whether Azem would prove to be too much for someone who Fandaniel clearly cared for, cared for enough even to reconsider his path after fulfilling his lifelong desire as a creator.
“Stop avoiding answering my question from yesterday. And the day before yesterday. And the day before that.”
The unspoken threat in their voice made him sigh ever so softly. If Azem wanted to be difficult, Elidibus would have to meet them with the same amount of difficulty. “Or what? I am not obligated to answer you, Azem. And a thinly veiled threat besides is both ill-advised and quite illegal, you know.”
“Yes, yes.” Their annoyed huff rivalled that of Emet-Selch. “Impartiality requires secrecy at times, to give all a level speaking ground. Cut the nonsense, Elidibus—what was your ulterior move?”
He laced his fingers together, a smile that most people called sheepish enough to give away his lack of years compared to everyone else on the Convocation on his face. And while Azem doubtlessly could not see it at that moment, Elidibus had closed his eyes. “So accusatory, Traveller. Why, uninvolved ears might think that this is related to your recent injury—a most horrendous accusation to misinterpret, and a rather annoying rumour to stop from spreading if it were to leave these halls.”
Azem simply put both their hands on the table separating them. Their frustration was heavy like the aether in a research facility, just about thick enough for Elidibus to cut it into ribbons.
“Very well—though you seem rather convinced judging from yesterday’s conversation that this involves your birdkeeper and his starseeker. Rest assured they are simply… witnesses, so to speak, rather than the subject of my ulterior move.”
That threw their frustration off a little. Their eyes went wide behind their simple mask just in time for Elidibus to open his and raise one hand to said mask.
With one swift movement he swiped the hand across his mask to cast its usual glamour on it. The red melted away and gave way to white just as pristine as his robes.
“Believe it or not, Azem, but I do leave my office more often than most would think. A thin disguise anyone would see through—one that has been seen through before and will be seen through again.”
They removed their hands and instead let out a long sigh. “You stuck your nose somewhere it does not belong, did you not.”
“Once again, so accusatory! But you are correct; I indeed did.” He let out a faint laugh. “Lahabrea’s business, believe it or not. And I confess, I did take advantage of the situation on hand. Your injury is not quite what I had in mind, but it seems as if the fair maiden fortune smiled upon me and you played right into it completely on accident. It was not my intention to use you like that, and for that I do apologise.”
They rolled their eyes and shook their head. “Someone has been a terrible influence on you.”
“My impartiality is not influenced in the slightest.”
“Well, let us hope that this works out. If even a hair or feather on ‘my birdkeeper and his starseeker’ is askew, I am not merely turning Lahabrea into paste but I am adding you as ingredient.”
Elidibus narrowed his eyes. “My good nature will be meeting its end soon if you do not quit threatening me. I have given you the answer you desire—I will be closing my eyes on this transgression if you drop the subject now.”
“You drive a hard bargain. Deal.” With that, Azem got up. “Well, I am supposed to still be resting. In bed. Lest my drained aether reserves drain themselves further down.” A careless wave of the hand while all colour drained from Elidibus’ face. “I will be seeing you when I am in fact permitted to leave the bed again.”
One was shackled.
But much like before, the other one turned out to be more trouble.
It had been easy enough to spot the one that had gored Azem before; the dry blood on its horns a dead giveaway. The fact that the familiar had not even gone through the trouble of cleaning its horns was something that Lahabrea noted as odd and concerning, and thus Erichthonios had immediately focused his efforts on that one. Lahabrea and Hermes played the distracting party, Meteion fluttering above their heads called out strange movements, and Erichthonios wove a veritable net of chains extremely quickly and extremely flawlessly.
So flawless in fact that Hermes noticed the faintest hint of what must have been a proud smile on Lahabrea’s face mere moments before he ducked and sent forth a whole cluster of little fire sprites of some sort to distract the Khalkotauroi.
Once the first one was shackled, things went bad.
“That aetherial signature—” was all Lahabrea managed to mutter, a moment of recognition flashing in his red eyes before that recognition was replaced with plain horror.
Perfect stasis was something reserved for interment—something that Erichthonios was strictly incapable of doing due to his lack of magical prowess. But not even a magos of Lahabrea’s calibre could have reacted quickly enough in this situation; even Azem had barely managed to protect Hermes at the time and they had been closer together from the moment they had approached these familiars.
Erichthonios pulled the chains taut and almost as effortlessly as drawing a breath wove more chains ready to strike.
The already chained familiar let out an earth-rending shriek that made Lahabrea wince since he was the one closest to the chained one. And in that split moment where even Hermes was distracted by how awful that sound was, the second one simply stormed past them and effortlessly lifted Erichthonios up by piercing a sharp horn through his shoulder. Before any of that properly registered, it yanked its head sideways and sent him flying straight into a nearby tree.
The familiar turned around.
The air hissed nearby, sparks flying as a shower of flame, feathers, and chains both new and previously created by Erichthonios rushed past Hermes and straight into that familiar.
Azem had made a game of it. They transformed with what most of Amaurot would call reckless abandon, for the sheer joy of it, as long as they were in the wilds where none else could see them. They rarely engaged in actual combat in that transformed state, citing that they simply had no need for it as long as they saw the battlefield properly. Even Hermes found himself agreeing with them after a while on the road; it was easier to gauge a potential battlefield when in a normal state. Even so, Azem eventually said one day, there were some stark contrasts between people’s transformations. Most chose their to underline their given strengths. Making a physically strong fighter stronger, or allowing a magos of any sort to draw aether in easier. Emet-Selch in those rare cases Azem called for him tended to fall into the latter category much as Hermes himself did. But not even a transformation could necessarily help someone incapable of much in the way of aetherial manipulation to suddenly become a master at it. The very, very few exceptions were when someone transformed to cover a weakness and succeeded with it—so rare in fact that most people would consider one such person a master creator just from the sheer skill needed to do so.
Erichthonios as someone without much capacity in the way of magicks other than shackles was rather strong physically for someone his age. Were it not for the similarities between them otherwise, Lahabrea looked almost comically fragile next to his son. Lahabrea was a creator and someone who used familiars to take care of what he could not do.
Yet what unfurled as it yanked the non-shackled Khalkotauros around by the horns was a transformation Hermes had never quite seen before. Sparks of fire shook out of several scarlet pairs of wings, yet there was barely anything avian about this transformation. Not a phoenix in the strictest sense but more a creature that should have belonged into the depths of Pandæmonium. What had been the always so cold and collected Lahabrea mere moments before now was a bulky creature that Hermes had no words of, and the raw strength Lahabrea displayed in that form was clearly not something that he normally had. Rather than giving the second Khalkotauros a chance to gather its bearings, Lahabrea stretched out a horrendous clawed hand and yanked the shackles scattered by Erichthonios up and wove them around both familiars. Flames hissed and crackled with every movement Lahabrea made, and Meteion let out a startled cry and fled higher into the trees around them. Yet as hot as these flames burned, they did not seem to scorch anything the chains touched.
The raw control at display here was mind-boggling.
Not a moment later when the second familiar was chained up, Lahabrea closed his outstretched hand.
He did not wait for his interment spell that would see these things whisked away to the precise place in Pandæmonium he had in mind to finish. Just as swiftly as before, the Convocation’s Speaker turned around and bounced forwards, his suddenly gargantuan form melting down into more sparks and motes of aether that danced on the still air before reforming into a familiar that Hermes had seen before just the other day. What had been some sort of man mixed with a monster and a bird before returned back to being simply the Speaker, and the Speaker skidded to a halt and dropped to his knees to immediately get to work.
Suddenly Azem’s claim of him being reliable made sense. Lahabrea was absurdly strong and in seemingly perfect control of that strength. But even so, the sheer amount of aether necessary for such a transformation made it unwieldy and imperfect in its own sense—which brought him back to the way that Erichthonios had described him. Paradoxical. And this transformation underlined the paradox of the person Speaker Lahabrea was.
But Hermes shook himself out of the shocked stillness and hurried on over where Lahabrea was whispering directions to his familiar while surprisingly gently checking for further injury. For what felt like an eternity, Lahabrea went through all procedures and protocols to check for field injuries, something that Hermes as Chief Overseer had seen countless times and done just as many before.
Only when birdsong picked up again and Lahabrea had found a cracked rib that required less focus than torn tissue, did the Speaker speak.
“We cannot rule out malicious intent any longer. While plenty of familiars can and will happily regurgitate combat strategies, going for the weakest link that does not present the greatest threat is a vile tactic that has to be taught.” His voice cracked ever so slightly. “Would you mind collecting the reports that the locals requested from Azem? I still have to check for any further internal damage.”
“Yes, of course,” Hermes bowed quickly and hurried away.
When he returned, Lahabrea had moved the still unconscious Erichthonios out of the bushes and onto proper ground. From the way Lahabrea moved however it seemed as if the Speaker had been brushing the hair out of the Warder’s face—which was odd, but Hermes decided not to comment on it.
“Have you found them?”
“Yes, I have.”
Lahabrea nodded when Hermes sat down beside him. “Much obliged. Was there aught else in there?”
Hermes shook his head. “Naught of interest. We came to retrieve these reports, and retrieve them I did. What Azem and I promised these familiars I intend to keep no matter what—that we would not be disturbing anything within and would not be taking anything other than the reports.”
Judging from the long silence, Lahabrea thought about his next words carefully. He had no idea what the Speaker looked like without his mask but he could very well imagine him furrowing his eyebrows and scowling at him with the same contempt that Lahabrea seemed to reserve exclusively for Azem. Yet there was nothing that he said. No words of contempt as so many creators fell back to when something did not go the way they thought. There was no comment on how they needed to retrieve any and all research done by these people to clue them in on what had made these technically kind familiars such menacing fighters.
Nothing.
Lahabrea was not even looking at Hermes any longer—his gaze had instead turned upwards to the skies.
Hermes had not even noticed that the sun had started to set. Out here the stars far beyond Etheirys already started glimmering in the sky above them. That reminded him of Meteion, who in that selfsame moment finally descended from her perch atop a tree to instead flutter down. Looking back at her, Lahabrea once again stretched out his hand.
It was no longer the clawed hand of a beast but that of a much older person. Shaking ever so slightly, perhaps from overstraining his reserves by transforming, age, or something else entirely. While hesitant about it, Meteion eventually landed on the offered hand. So brilliantly blue was she compared to the deep red from earlier.
“… Pray excuse the… nosiness, so to speak, but the—”
“The transformation,” Lahabrea immediately and very coldly interjected, “is not to be mentioned. It is of no import. There is nothing to be said of it other than it is the pinnacle of several research theories first posited when I was much, much younger, a lot more foolish in my approach, and very much is something that is shared between me and my research partner, though I would argue that his transformation is a touch more sensible with less wings and more control over magicks of any sort.”
He very swiftly yet gently moved his hand to the side so that Meteion could easily hop from his hand onto Hermes’ shoulder.
“Besides, even had I not transformed it would not have… changed much of the outcome. Perhaps it would have been prettier had I not done what I did. I do confess that I did see… red. In more ways than one.”
Hermes and Meteion both tilted their heads—Lahabrea meanwhile dropped his hand onto the ground and curled it into a fist.
“Had these familiars not chosen to play a foul trick like that, he would have simply left them chained and walked away the victor without ever having to have dipped all too far into his near endless repertoire of combat applications of shackles. Erichthonios makes for a fine fighter—finer than the vast majority of people, except for select cases such as the Traveller and their predecessor. Not that he would believe such if one were to tell him; he would brush it off as useless flattery or worse, an attempt to get close to someone related to a member of the Convocation.”
It had come up a few times as they travelled. Azem had spontaneously asked whether or not anyone had ever approached him and feigned interest in him to get a chance to get closer to Fandaniel. Most people did know that Hermes had been one of the students of Fandaniel, yet no one ever had. Elpis was simply too far removed from Amaurot to make such an attempt worthy of the far travels. An added layer of difficulty was that it was often rather easy to read intent on someone’s face when there was no mask to obscure their features—one of the main reasons why they wore masks in public in the first place. To give all voices equal standing. To ensure that no emotion swayed them.
Their main comment on that had been that Hermes could very much consider himself lucky. Others were not so lucky, especially closer people or family.
“Erichthonios does sell himself short… and while I wish he would not, I am aware that I am the key reason behind it. After all, no one would wish to approach an abject failure to use it as a stepping stone to get at something grander yet behind it, no?”
Hermes simply shrugged, unsure whether or not Lahabrea was asking a rhetoric question here.
“A child of creators surely has to be a creator as well, at least as long as public figures are concerned. And what a disappointment they turn out to be if they are not. How disappointing for the parents! So the gossip goes, endlessly, relentlessly. His mother tried to fight against it, which was about as useless as trying to fight the tide. I did not, perhaps simply because it would be unbecoming of my seat, or out of cowardice. Eventually we focused our efforts on his education, to ensure that he knew that there was no worth gained or lost with the ability or inability to cast needlessly flashy spells. And it worked! It… worked.” Lahabrea tightened his fist enough for Hermes to hear his joints crunch under the pressure. A tremor also went through the Speaker. “Truth be told, he has long since surpassed me as long as aetherial shackles are concerned. It is more than any parent could ever hope for—and it meant she had succeeded at her duty to Etheirys. She had helped perfect the theory on shackles she and I set out to create together. So she returned.”
Suddenly, all tension dropped from Lahabrea, who unfurled his hand and raised it ever so slightly. The torn fabric on Erichthonios’ robes glowed faintly, stretched out, wove itself back together as if nothing had ever happened to it. The dried blood on it, too, simply rose up as motes of aether the colour of bruised fruit and dissipated moments later.
“She returned, and left me her duties within Pandæmonium. Not taking over her role as Chief Keyward would have been an insult to her memory no matter how much it stung. But the moment she was gone, people tried to use him to get closer to me. He resents me for that, he resents me for simply taking over her duties. Erichthonios is in the right in this situation. His mother did succeed at her dream of creating aetheric shackles that anyone can use them with enough training—and I failed at the task of ensuring that her… our son was not used as tool.”
He brushed some earth off of Erichthonios’ face.
“… He would think this insincere. Perhaps it is insincere.” Pausing for a while to get back up with Erichthonios cradled in his arms, Lahabrea simply started walking as he had so many times before.
Meteion fluttered after them, transforming even to keep up with the Speaker. Hermes remained for a moment longer to try and think, but knew that if he stayed much longer he would either be left behind or be yelled at. Since he did not particularly enjoy the prospect of either he jumped back to his feet and hurried after them.
“Not a word of this to him. I do not think that he would quite enjoy the thought of me carrying him around as if he were a child asleep in my office again.”
Erichthonios had claimed that he did not remember whether or not Lahabrea had ever been a better father. Perhaps he had been. Perhaps he had not been. Meteion fell back a few steps to hold onto Hermes’ sleeve as she always did when she shared a thought with her sisters over their shared consciousness.
Some things were not meant to be understood by bystanders. And Hermes had a feeling that he and Meteion very much were bystanders in this particular case.
Azem stared after the Emissary and the Warder as they left.
Then they simply sighed loudly. “Thank you again, old man.”
“You test your luck, Traveller.”
“Yes, yes, you vile antique fossil. That better? Why on Etheirys was that Warder grinning like that? I thought he hated your guts.”
Lahabrea clicked his tongue and folded his hands behind his back.
“… Alright, my apologies. You are neither an antique nor old, but you are vile.”
“… Close enough, I suppose. I extended an invitation for him to rejoin the Words of Lahabrea as an instructor for aetherial shackles.”
“Uh-huh. And why is that, if I may ask?”
“He comes at the recommendation of the Keyward of Asphodelos, and the fact that he was the first one to be recommended like this might have been the reason for his lifted spirits. He performed beyond admirably in the field as well, and hearing that despite all the familiars made it to Abyssos unharmed must have been the last balm to the sustained wounds.”
Azem narrowed their eyes.
“Now then, Traveller, is it not high time you went and checked on your birdkeeper and the starseeker?”