Velvet opened her eyes. Her breath came slowly, softly, chest aching as if she had not drawn any in ages. She did not heave, but felt numb. Faint blue light shone above, crystal structures lying silently, almost like stardust in the faint glimmers of sunlight; the stars shone down from above.
She blinked, then again. After the third time, her nose detected a faint scent of mint in the air, then something else she could not yet place. Another few blinks passed until she could hear faint breathing over her own heartbeat; the sound made Velvet turn her head, which sent jolts of pain through her entire neck and left shoulder. She flinched weakly, but did not abort the motion; her reward was the sight of her brother, silently bleeding golden blood from the wound on his back.
Another blink and Velvet felt the stickiness on her own neck as well; right, she remembered. That was where they had bitten each other. Consumed each other, a cycle that was meant to be forever. Both siblings sat where they were for a while as they got used to their actual bodies again, just breathing. Only when the silence became overbearing did a single word roll out of her throat: "Laphi?"
Her voice sounded a little odd to her own ears, not weak or hoarse, but odd. Her brother paused once the wordless question was spoken. "I'm here, Velvet," he whispered with a budding smile.
Then a third voice interrupted their tranquility, female and audibly relieved: "That is quite fortunate. How are you feeling?" Both siblings turned their heads to find the speaker, only to be confronted with the odd sight of a rapig, its long ears standing at attention. The bulbous body was normally of pink skin, Velvet knew, but this specimen was coloured in a pure white with some silvery streaks, its beady eyes staring at the siblings intently. Moreover, the creature had wings.
They both stared for long moments, neither sibling sure what to say. In the end, Laphicet was the first to speak up: "Aside from that gaping wound on my back, I am well. And confused. Who are you?"
"We met before," Velvet chimed in before the creature could answer; she frowned, trying to recall. "You're a malak, I remember that. But I forgot your name." She slowly pushed herself into a sitting position while trying to put her thoughts in order. Her brother followed the motion; the cloth of his pristine suit rustled lightly in contact with the ground.
The rapig nodded its, her head. "Indeed," she confirmed. "I am Zui Fuu, guardian of the Heavenly Steppes. We met the day before Shepherd Artorius died."
Memories fitted themselves together and Velvet nodded as she remembered. A glance around told her that they were still on Innominat's body, in the same elevated chamber where she and her friends fought Arthur and Laphi. The stars twinkled above and from where she sat, she could see the edge of their world, Desolation, far in the distance. The god's physical body remained up high in the sky even after she sent him into eternal slumber.
As her mind cleared and Velvet began to wonder, her brother spoke up first with a small tilt of his head. "While it is a pleasure to meet you, why did you wake us? Actually," he noted thoughtfully and glanced at his sister, "did you ask her to do such a thing?"
Velvet's flat "No" made the boy nod as if he already suspected that. They both turned their eyes back to Zui Fuu, who held her head lowered. "I was acting on my own initiative," the ancient malak admitted softly. "You are needed. The world is in danger and there is no one else left to turn to."
Hearing this, Velvet expelled her breath in the first sigh she heaved in centuries. She felt she should have expected it. "Okay," she began and then stopped, unsure how one should address this kind of thing. She was annoyed about being woken but still too busy adjusting to get mad. After a moment of thought, she motioned for the rapig. "What do you need?" Perhaps, she reasoned, she could just take care of it right quick and drag Laphi back into the seal.
Laphi, however, was already floating around and peering out to the planet below. Velvet sighed again and got to her feet as well while he took up the conversation: "Does it have to do with those clouds of Malevolence?" His words roused Velvet to dart over to his side, calf-length hair swishing around her as she moved. She stumbled twice before her body remembered how to move.
"Yes," Zui Fuu confirmed. "I refuse to see all creation extinguished." She joined them solemnly while Velvet gazed onto the distant planet below, some parts almost covered by this darkness born of the human heart. The rapig continued unbidden: "Thus I committed the ultimate sin and broke your seal, to free Innominat." Both siblings listened closely as she addressed the younger one directly now: "The Empyrean who took your place as the fifth of the gods, the one to maintain balance between the four elemental Empyreans, is on the brink of total corruption. For almost two decades, a Lord of Calamity has been running rampant without being stopped. No shepherd has risen to oppose him yet and I fear none will come in time. I saw no other choice."
Her annoyance was rising, now that she got used to being awake again, but Velvet kept it under wraps. She could see why Zui Fuu had done what she did, even if she did not like it. "So you're saying that if this Empyrean falls, you want Innominat to be there and suppress mankind's emotions to stop the spread of Malevolence."
The rapig nodded once again, though her head hung low and her wings drooped. "Correct. I wish this was not necessary, but I prefer a return of the endless cycle to a definite end."
The worst part about this, Velvet realised, was that she could understand the malak's reasoning. In the same position, she might have done the same thing; a single glance at her brother's set expression made it clear he thought similarly. He spoke up this time, putting a hand on Zui Fuu's shoulder in an attempt to console her. "Very well, we can try to help. Maybe that Empyrean can still be saved, even. Else I can reclaim my place and perform the suppression... unless someone disagrees?"
He gave Velvet a telling look with the last few words, one which she answered with a roll of her eyes. "How about you ask nicely instead of being a brat about it?" Despite her response however, despite knowing she should be against it firmly, Velvet also knew it had happened many times over the millennia; the only reason their world had not been suffused by Malevolence in its entirety was Innominat, so she could not just deny him this without a good reason. So she turned back to Zui Fuu: "Anyway, can you explain what happened since we went to sleep up here?"
"Of course."
And so Zui Fuu spoke, of a thousand years having passed since Velvet sealed Innominat; how her awakening the elemental Empyreans back then led to great continental drift, turning the archipelago into a supercontinent now called Glenwood. She spoke of the current naming conventions, of Shepherd and Lord of Calamity having become recurring titles of the champions of good and bad respectively, much to Velvet's annoyance. How the malakhim were now called seraphim and daemons, born from creatures and objects corrupted by Malevolence, had been redubbed as hellions; these were changes which Zui could not understand but suspected were caused by one of Velvet's old companions.
Once she got to the new fifth Empyrean however, to Maotelus who gave the silver flame of purification to the world, her brother locked up and snarled before he got a hold of himself. Velvet blinked at him while he muttered the name. "What's with you?" she could not help but ask.
Zui looked between them cautiously and explained in Laphi's stead: "The term 'Maotelus' is a quite literal translation of 'Laphicet' into a more ancient tongue. He ascended on the day you two were sealed, from the young malak boy you held so dear." Velvet stilled as that sank in, felt herself grow colder than the endless void above. It took seconds to truly comprehend what she had just been told. Her saviour, the young boy that kept her heart from tearing itself apart entirely, whose words reached her when she had already given up. Her Phi, who had punched a god in the face for her sake, whom she loved dearly like her very own brother. Like she loved Arthur, and Celica.
She was halfway to the dim staircase before the thought even registered; she had to act immediately.
"Velvet, wait!" And then there was a small hand on her arm that stopped her, not allowing to shake it off. Velvet rounded on her brother with a snarl, but he covered her mouth and completely ignored when she bit him. "You can't just rush out there! Calm down!" They struggled for a moment until the immediate flare of emotion subsided; Velvet did calm herself somewhat and pulled her teeth out of Laphicet's hand. He healed the damage away without a second thought or a single word and kept meeting her gaze, serious.
"This is no longer a matter of you against the world," he began gently, hands grasping Velvet's shoulders. She wanted to shout back at him that he never liked Phi, but he carried on. And she listened. "We are different now, both of us. We need to see and understand what has changed and what remained the same, identify who is involved and who we may gain as allies, which areas we need to sustain and which we can accept as collateral damage. We can no longer pretend we don't care about what happens to the world."
His words touched something within her, but Velvet needed concious effort to calm her raging emotions. At the same time however, she wondered and asked: "What has changed?"
Laphi frowned at that and reached up to cup her cheeks, but the expression fell away and turned into a serene smile quite soon. "After consuming you for so long, I am now whole. But I am also weaker, I can feel it. All the strength I lost, I can sense in you now." Velvet's eyes widened at that; as if his words were a trigger, she began to feel new sensations; feelings that drew her gaze to something pitch black, pulsating almost right above the spot where their seal was. A cocoon, thrumming with power. She felt herself connected to it, felt might beyond any she had ever felt even at her apex before. At the same time she felt constricted, trapped, despite her body remaining completely unbound.
Her brother was watching as well, now taking her hand. Squeezed tenderly as he spoke what she already knew: "You have ascended, sister. You are daemon no longer, Lord of Calamity no more."
It was true, despite of how unbelievable it sounded to her in that moment. Velvet's own voice came only weakly: "I'm an... Empyrean." They both beheld her greater, yet incubating form for long, awestruck moments.
Then Laphi grinned up at her. "Besides, you might want to get dressed before rushing out." His comment gave Velvet pause and made her look down, for the first time realising she was, in fact, stark naked.