Chapter 29: A Past, Not Yet Come to Pass
"Welcome to my temporary abode. Please, make yourself at home while I put on some tea."
Out of all the people he should have avoided in the past, Venat should have been at the top of the list. He watched her disappear into another room to make tea and could not help the bitter resentment he felt for her at that moment. Out of everything she could have said, out of every way to bring it up, why had it been upon their first meeting with Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus present? Of all the things to comment on, why did it have to be the one thing he had been trying not to tell anyone about?
"Come, Echo'a," Hythlodaeus gently coaxed. "Let us have a seat while we wait."
The lack of touch to his shoulder or arm that would have normally accompanied such words only solidified his resolve to maintain his composure. He kept his ears still and his tail relaxed. The latter would be easier to hide once seated but for now he wasn't having to think about anything else.
Echo'a sat down on the far side of the table while Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus lingered next to the chairs on the other side. They were discussing something they were trying to keep him from overhearing so he made an effort to pay them no mind.
He couldn't help wondering, though. They had spent the last few days so close to him that the sudden distance was jarring. Their whispering left him feeling as if he was 10 years old again waiting for his grandmother and aunts to finish talking so that they would finally get about to reprimanding him for something he had thought he had done right. Except, this was somehow worse, more final. He couldn't help but find his thoughts tumbling around the idea that their short time together had been insignificant to them to the point that his refusal to tell them the truth until now was enough to make them turn their backs on him. Memories from the last few days of the two men caring for him in much the same manner as his aunts and grandmother had tried to negate the negative thoughts to no avail. He knew finally telling them was going to change things.
Gods, he was going to tell them, wasn't he? He was going to just tell it all without a single lie because, what, he'd been backed into a corner? He could lie, he fathomed, but what good would that do? He was there for answers, to save the future from a fate the past had already suffered. What did it matter that they would turn away from him? They both die in the end anyway.
Grief tore at his chest.
He shoved the abhorrent thought away. No, it would be fine. They would struggle with it but they would come to terms with it enough to help him. Even if their relationship was strained, it would be fine.
It had to be fine.
A tea cup was placed before him, causing him to tense in surprise. He offered Venat a quick, strained smile in thanks and she returned it with far more ease, placing the final cup in front of an empty chair. It was only then that Echo'a realized Emet-Selch was sitting across from him, those vibrant yellow eyes studying him in a similar manner as when they had first met.
Before they had seen him as more than just some creation.
"A wonderful aroma," Hythlodaeus commented, settling in his own seat opposite Venat. "I feel more relaxed already."
Venat chuckled. "Would that I had sweetmeats to offer, but I travel light out of habit. There's plenty of hot water, though, so please have as much tea as you like." She turned her focus onto him. "Now then…will you tell us your tale?
"Where do you want me to start?" he asked.
To his surprise, it was Emet-Selch who answered, the words level and calm, "Why don't you start from the beginning?"
"That's a long tale to tell," he warned, not that he wasn't willing to tell it all if asked.
Emet-Selch waved his warning off. "We have time for it and I would rather not be lost due to a lack of context."
Echo'a flexed his jaw before nodding. "The beginning then."
He started where it all began for him, of the dream or vision that had happened while en route for Limsa Lominsa, summarizing how he was swept up into the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and the slow realization that there was more to it all than what they had initially known. He left out a lot of the finer details but made sure to at least touch the main points - Lahabrea's defeat, the Warriors of the First being brought to the Source and then their return, Ascian influence during the war for Gyr Abania and the Far East - in order to make the story as succinct and easy to follow as possible. But when he got to talking about the First, he had to explain the state of the world, of what little he knew about its sundering and the overall state of the thirteen reflections as they became aware of the plans for Rejoinings.
It took hours to tell it all, especially when he reached the points he knew he could not understate - of the Emet-Selch he had known and the man's recreation of Amaurot, of Ardbert and the Light during that final confrontation, of Elidibus's actions that then led to Fandaniel's - until he found himself recounting his trip to the moon, of the souls he had met there and the final encounter with Fandaniel who ultimately merged with an incomplete Zodiark forcing Echo'a's hand. He explained how doing so had caused a vision of the future and the effects that had followed after that had driven him to find answers that ended with him in the past to find them.
Through it all, he minimized his experiences. He avoided mentioning the deaths he had witnessed or caused if it wasn't relevant, avoided most of the confrontations that still left him with nightmares, even going so far as to completely skip any mention of the body swap incident in Garlemald. It would skew their perspective but not enough. They didn't need all the details to help.
He could at least save face there and that way they could hate him without feeling guilty about it. A win-win.
Silence met his words once he finished. It was clear from their expressions alone that they were struggling to believe any of it. Even after having lived through all of it, it sounded ridiculous to his own ears.
"Preposterous," Emet-Selch spat into the silence. "Utterly preposterous."
That seemed to be enough to get the other two talking. Hythlodaeus and Venat fell into a discussion of hypotheticals and reasonings that Echo'a only half listened to. It was becoming a conscious effort to keep his ears in a neutral position as he sat there, waiting. His tail was twitching something fierce tucked under his thigh in his growing agitation. It sent pinpricks of pain up his spine but only he could notice its movement and that was the important part.
It would be fine.
"Listen to yourself." Echo'a's breath stuttered at Emet-Selch's sharp interjection and he sat as still as he could. "Are you seriously entertaining the notion that you are a messianic figure in some far-fetched tale? Well, I will not. I refuse to accept that our world could be undone by some unforeseen calamity." If he looked up, there was a chance he would see more than the outrage and disbelief he was hearing but he couldn't bring himself to look away from his still full cup of now cold tea. The liquid inside was still enough to be a mirror and he could barely make out the top most part of Emet-Selch's hair on its surface. "I also take offense to my portrayal as a megalomaniacal madman." That- surely he knew that Echo'a didn't see him as that Emet-Selch, right? "To sacrifice oneself for the star is a noble act, and I would hold those who gave themselves to this Zodiark in the highest esteem. Yet you claim I recreated Amaurot and populated it with phantoms of our people. A bizarre indulgence that would be insulting to their memory." Or maybe he didn't and was now seeing Echo'a in a whole new light. As much as that thought hurt, he could accept that. He had to. "Worse still, I even invited you there - literally invited my own downfall. Why would I do something so idiotic and inexplicable?" He was not looking forward to facing the coming night alone. "Now, I will allow that the hypothetical task of restoring our world would be daunting in the extreme. The thought of having to bear such a burden for a thousand thousand lives horrifies me." Emotions started to tangle themselves in Emet-Selch's words. Echo'a didn't dare try and guess at what they were. "But I would never forsake my duty; I would never forsake my brethren." A breath. "You do not know me."
No. No he did not.
"I've had my fill of your fiction," Emet-Selch drawled, his voice once more controlled. Echo'a jumped as the man slapped his hands against the table as he stood, and for the first time since the other had started talking, Echo'a's gaze snapped to Emet-Selch's face; Emet-Selch's eyes were hard and his words final. "I will return to my duty and you will not bother me again."
He wanted to say something, to assure the man he would do as he wished, but all he could do was silently watch as Emet-Selch stormed out. Hythlodaeus scrambled after him, shouting, "Emet-Selch! Wait!"
His chest hurt. It hurt so much.
He shoved the emotions aside, settling into whatever neutrality he could find as Venat turned to him. "You've seen much of Elpis already. If you have any observations to share, I should like to hear them."
Was she trying to distract him or was she just oblivious to what had just happened? Or maybe she just lacked the necessary context. He offered her a soft smile as he met her gaze. "Perhaps tomorrow would be best." His gaze drifted back to the door. "That took a lot more out of me than I had thought and I would like to sleep before we start trying to piece together what is going on."
A lie; always a lie.
How he didn't jump at her hand touching his arm he would never know. "Of course. Suffice it to say I will aid you in your quest." She offered him an encouraging smile. "Have faith. If Emet-Selch is the man Azem described to me, we've not seen the last of him."
He nodded before standing. "I have no doubt." More lies. "Now, if you will excuse me."
She let him walk out the door without another word.
He wanted nothing more than to find a place to curl up and feign sleep but the place he desperately wanted to go back to he feared Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus had already returned to. To have their gift for seeing aether… Instead, he found a spot on some roof and laid there watching the leaves dance in the gentle breeze until he passed out some time before dawn. Day had barely broken when he jolted awake, breathing heavy and skittish until he was able to figure out where he was, the nightmare bleeding from him in the morning light though he knew its echo would linger for the rest of the day. He rubbed at his face as if it would be enough to hide the exhaustion.
It was going to be a long day.