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Despite them all officially dispersing after coming back from the edge of the universe, the scions still kept in contact – Ivaylo especially as he travelled around helping people with tasks or offering counsel to troubled souls.
As he fought his way through the rest of the Pandaemonium circles though, he'd been hit hard by the memories of his unsundered self, triggered by his interactions and proximity to Themis and Hephaistos.
He'd had his suspicions about the exact nature of his – Azem's, he reminded himself with a head shake – relationship with Hades and Hythlodaeus, and the memories he'd been hit with were ones he was struggling to cope with.
Regret at not knowing sooner – before defeating Hades in Norvrandt, stood out to him. The outcome would have – may have – been different if he'd known.
He'd made no mention of it to the other Scions, as they would have given him a very strange look as how they felt about Emet Selch was significantly different than how he felt about Hades, but he had and still wished it hadn't come to a fight he strongly suspected Hades had thrown rather than kill him.
Tilting his head back as he watched the stars from his bath house on his remote island sanctuary (a place he found himself retreating to more and more frequently, wanting the space away from everyone who wanted something from him while he processed these memories).
The endless requests while he was in the midst of sorting out how he felt about all of what was surfacing internally were making him close to exploding at someone out of sheer overwhelm and disappointment that his well-being was continuously ignored by basically everyone.
The three of them had been discussing children and parenthood before things went awry.
Before fire and fear spread unmitigated among the ancients, before too many souls were sacrificed out to summon Zodiark.
Before Hythlodaeus willingly sacrificed themself, before Persephone threw her mask down and abandoned her convocation seat after her vehement disagreement with their plan to summon Zodiark.
Letting out a quiet exhale as he cast his gaze down to the orange crystal sitting on the edge of the pool that Hades had left for him, Ivaylo wasn't sure where he ended and where Azem began internally.
Reflecting back on when Ardbert merged his soul fragment with Ivaylo's, he'd simultaneously felt like more and less of himself since that moment.
The memories that were coming back only increased that feeling, and not fully knowing who he was anymore was unsettling, to say the least, and he'd been trying and failing to quell the rising distress that accompanied not fully knowing who he was anymore.
Perhaps – hopefully - with time, that line between Ivaylo and Persephone would become more clear, he thought to himself before compartmentalizing all of it and rising out of the pleasantly hot water to feed the sheep in the pasture.