#in which i say if nobody is going to address emet selch's wrongdoings properly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whitherliliesbloom · 2 years

Text

lives apart

[ ffxivwrite2022 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ #14 - attrition ] [ emet-selch, heavy mentions of wol ] ★ [ 902 words ] ★ [ endwalker ]

attrition - sorrow for one's sins that arises from a motive other than that of the love of god

returned to the aetheric sea, hades realizes the height of his ignorance.

He had thought his gaze of contempt was deserving and just once upon a time - back when he’d still donned the title of Solus, of the ascian who opposed the new age of men.

An emperor, the godfather, the eldest of elds, he whose judgement is absolute and infallible. He’d gazed upon the splintered shards of the stars and found the newly born denizens wanting - undeserving of the right to live in their stead.

And it was in that judgement- that anger and envy that he’d blinded himself to his own sins and lost the essence of who he once was, what the man in the seat of Emet-Selch should have represented.

And it isn’t until he’s returned here- drifting lifeless, yearning, regretting through the aetheric sea does he remember that girl... does he realize.

Ah, your gaze of contempt was an exact mirror of mine. Poetic, really.

He thinks back to the expression upon the Warrior of Light and Darkness’ face with a sort of affection Solus would have frowned upon with disgust, one that Hades would’ve denied until the very end... but he as Emet-Selch understood the reason for better than any other.

Whenever he’d pass her and her companions by, whether in the Oculus of the Exarch’s sanctuary of crystals or in the midst of burning stars - a scenic recreation born from the deepest, darkest pits of his memories...he’d watched as she frowned, as she scowled, as she looked upon him with an anger he’d once thought was undeserving.

Who was she to cast judgement upon his actions as if she was worth an ilm of her life? Who was she to thwart his efforts? Who was she to deny them, to deny their hopes and dreams, to deny their right to live - their right at their anguish for the unfairness of their fate.

How unfair, Solus snarks, the man who conquered and crushed and has learned to justify it all, it’s two completely different matters. How ironic, Hades chimes in, the man who has remembered their meeting in elpis from so many ages ago, that you should echo the very same words she has all the right to be saying to you.

Emet-Selch keeps silent, haunted by both and eternally denied of his sound rest as he drifts and drifts with naught but his thoughts.

A voice from the past sounds in his head, one that he knows to be a fragment of his imagination... but one that resonates loud all the same.

And what of you? Running from your mistakes is quite unbecoming of one of the fourteen, don’t you think?

Oh, yes. Ever so self-righteous, you are, Emet-Selch and Hades mutters back with a roll of their metaphoric eyes... You’re just like your mentor.

But they know her words to be true, they know her words to be just.

Azem’s words cut deep, as does her soul-piercing gaze and intuition, her creativity, her insight, her intellectual depth. There were many things about Azem that he’d remembered, none he didn’t look back upon with a longing fondness. But most importantly of her was her morality, her altruism... and her ever so unique stance on the world - that all life is important, all life must be cherished.

Azem’s soul had been so tenacious, so determined in her mission to help those around her that even sundered as she was, she had been reborn fourteenfold, with the exact same selflessness and fire within her.

And the tragedy of it all comes with the part he played in trying to smother her light - to extinguish the love and hope she represented. He hadn’t realized... refused to realize until it was too late.

Was it regret? Was it grief? A part of him believes he has no right of such emotions, and another, more prideful part of him says it is merely indignation at his defeat... that he should be so weak as to lose to just a fraction of Azem’s power. Pathetic.

But what he does know - he as Emet-Selch.. who has regained memories of Hades and Solus both... is that he has made his final judgement, his final decision.

Not on the right of the new age to live, not on the worth of existence. But of himself.

Who is it that he wants to be? What name is it that he wants to be remembered by?

Solus zos Galvus, the man who tore apart countless homes and almost single-handedly destroyed the lives of many, many innocent generations to come? Hades, the man of duty who worked alongside a mysterious starlight from the future.. the man who forgot.

Or Emet-Selch, the man who knows, who remembers, who has carried the weight of a thousand, thousand lives upon his shoulders and who had become blinded on his conquest for a past that was never to be returned. Of the man who has the sole duty of eternal guilt and sorrow for all that he has done.

He has made his decision, and not a moment too soon, as he feels the pull of his soul being summoned by a magic force all too familiar and warm.

Antheia.

No. Illya.

Hers is a call he will never refuse. Her beckoning is one he will always answer.

It’s the very least he could do to atone - the very least he could do to repent.

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2022 #kiwisffxivwrite2022 #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy #emet selch #hades #illya skawi #gpose #endwalker spoilers #endwalker #fanfic #mine #in which i say if nobody is going to address emet selch's wrongdoings properly #then i will

10 notes · View notes