The Weaver

You didn't have a problem before. The devil on your shoulder is merely temptation; I'm salvation. You can't run away from me now.

I let you talk me into it, Az. A choice I made as our salvation, but your words all the same. Just don't hurt him.

You're the devil whispering in my ear. Now, go do as you're promised and leave.

Our people would have to go through me if they wish to cause harm to you, unbefitting of the crime, Emilia.

"Well, our people may not stop at just one coven leader until I'm dead and gone."

That she did, was probably about two seconds from jumping my bones had I not stopped her. You are being manipulated, Lia. I may not have met this other version of Azriel, but I can imagine who he is if he is so different than ours and harboring a darkness that calls to yours. You are a conquest, and you're falling into his hands. You say that you weren't alone with the other Azriel, but you were never truly alone with ours either. Our Azriel cares for very small number of people, and while his road may have taken him from the coven, he never strayed far from you. He went to you when he left his demon Prince. He trusted you with the people he cares most for in the world. You are unable to look or run from the other Azriel because he designed it that way. He is with the alternate version of you; he knows exactly how to be who you think you need.

Emilia arose from her chair and walked around it, unable to sit any longer and creating distance between her and what Valentin was saying. Is this not what every person she expressed these feelings with implied? Pure manipulation, her mind screamed from an echo chamber and sent shockwaves through the glass window of her naive oblivion once protecting a different version of Azriel so hellbent on molding her. Making and breaking until she did not understand what is real and what is not. He was not her Azriel, no, Emilia's Azriel would never forgive betrayal. The one good relationship, the one that's always been real, will never recover. "No." Mil's head shook from side-to-side furiously, the nauseous bile burning within her throat as it rose and threatened upheaval. "No, no, no, no. Valentin," The woman finally turned around and pressed a hand to her stomach as she addressed the wolf, "What have I done? What did I do?" A panicking spiral washed over the Weaver's being, the rare few times she let anything of this nature take a grip of her. "He lied to me. I knew he was lying and, yet, I was too starved for attention, that I let him have exactly what he wanted." Emilia hissed in agitation. She was better than this, but he played her for the fool. "You don't do this to someone you love. I have to fix it, god, I have to. Gianna...she declared me an enemy, there is no way she would ever let me go near him again. They're planning to kill me, Val, I know them." The realization pierced through like an arrow, deep and white-hot, "She and Kai will kill me."

"That we do, but it's how we go about dealing with them that sets us all apart." Ezekiel took a sip from his cup before placing it on the saucer, then took the teapot and warmed it in his hand. With a small gesture, he filled the cup that appeared before the woman as he listened. He placed the pot to the side with a small sigh. "There is a darkness within all of us, Emilia. I witnessed my wife and son spiral down the road of revenge and cause centuries of pain. My darkness had called for me to leave them, abandoning the family that gifted me my title." He leaned back in his chair, resting his hands over his crossed knee. It wasn't a good time for anyone in the family, having lost the glue that had kept them all together. They faced a similar situation, with Celeste choosing to stay with Wrath rather than return home. Some of them have adapted, while others have a harder time doing so. "Balance calls for light within dark, dark within light. No one, and I believe this to the very essence of my soul, is without light or dark in them. It all relies on the person, and if they want that balance, for the scale can be tipped either way if they wish." The First Father leaned forward, gazing at the woman he'd watched from afar while he stayed out of coven business. He didn't agree with how the coven had treated her, and now she was spiraling out of control. He couldn't help but feel some responsibility– his absence, his family's absence, had allowed such an ugly head to rear itself from within the coven. "Which road do you wish to travel, Emilia. You are at a crossroads that only you can make that choice– let the darkness consume you or control it?"

"It's what sets you apart from good and evil." Evil and good, a mystery escaping the common humanity desperate to uncover the root cause. What makes a person evil and makes them good? Principles? Honor and justified duty? Emilia spent her centuries encapsulated by witches who thought themselves moral just because they thought their way of ruling was the only right way. A council instilling fear, trained enforcers, the females married off to the highest bidder and birth more children who repeat the cycle. And where does that leave the Weaver? Wiping memories where the leaders saw fit and hiding her identity from those thirsting for using her abilities as a seat of power. Mil tentatively nudged the warm cup Ezekiel magically poured closer, looping a few fingers through the handle and taking a small sip. "Yet, as the darkness hung over your wife and child, you ran instead. Kept your distance while they enacted a revenge punishing the Princes. Pandora has come back from that terrible grip, but your abandonment of Rhys caused irreparable damage on his psyche." Emilia's gaze peered down in her cup as she continued listening, the opaque amber liquid steaming from the pleasant heat warming her insides. It's always darkest before the dawn, a statement balancing the scales of the First Father's logic. "I know there is light in me, Ezekiel. Helping a boy dealing with immeasurable loss of the one person he cared about understand his abilities proved I could do good. No person leaning toward the light would ever choose what I did when I used Gianna's son to punish the same demons who've taken from the Foxwoods." A plan with the right amount of conniving and misguided righteousness that it caught even Death's attention. Mil's gaze found the man after a beat of silence, shaking her head, "A part of me feels the guilt manipulating Ulric, but another can't shake wanting to see it through for those three siblings. To unravel the cosmos if that is what it takes saving the world. And granting an unhinged dream witch permission is no different." The young woman deeply pondered Zeke's question a long moment, two sides of her battling the fork in this road. The twisted Azriel's voice whispered how the collar to her chains rested in the First Father's hand. It's the old coven all over again. Your powers do not belong to them, Emilia, they belong to me. Emilia shut her eyes tight and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyelids, pushing him out. This is what he wants. "What if I can't control it?" She dropped her hands with a furious shake of her head, attention landing on the other. "What if this keeps happening? Another war, another extreme choice I make that will not turn out well, and I eventually turn out like her? Turning the mortals into mindless slaves and stealing children from their parents?"

Yet, if you came back to the coven, he wouldn't have the last say in what happens to you if you fear he would wish death onto you.

It's true, he will eventually grow bored the moment I break how he designed. Maybe he won't be the one killing me first but your own people.

Unfortunately, I need to see the true outcome of your decision to judge how I need to handle you from here on out.

There's only two ways this is going to end and I know which one Azriel will choose.

I had really hoped I wouldn't hear any iteration of that sentence, Emilia.

Which you'd reserve the right handling what my punishment would be in accordance of your leadership.

There is a difference, but I don't need to physically hand over my soul to feel as if I've still lost it. Joy? I-...I don't feel happy about it. Underappreciated maybe, confused and crazed definitely, my predicament is not like yours. You sought revenge on your brothers for abandoning you and yet, you failed, didn't you, Hope? Your mother is no longer vying for the crown and she's even gotten married while leaving you behind. Brushed aside and forgotten. We're both alone as we should be.

Oh... someone has been stirring the pot. Fun.

You have no option stirring the pot to get things done even when it costs my soul.

"You may not retaliate in that way, but you wouldn't hesitate to hurt my family for your twisted gain." It was a glaring signal beneath all the emotions that hummed through her psyche. There was obvious love that the Weaver held for Azriel, but there was something snared and tangled around it– an offshoot that linked Emilia to the Azriel that she all but threw their Az to like a piece of meat to wolves. "Keep telling yourself that, Emilia. You don't need to tell me what she's done. I'm well aware of the strings Bellora is holding over Ainsley and my brothers, but they are also playing their larger parts with plans that you had no part in but somehow saw it as your right to interfere with just because you have the power to do so." It was mind-boggling; the logic of the other woman would be sound, but only if she had no consciousness or heart. "He's an unpredictable monster, yet you invited him into my brother's body to wreak havoc on a realm that has not tasted his powers? If this Azriel leaves or not, it leaves our Azriel to clean up the mess, to take the fall. The worst part is, you're not insane. You're just a woman who got too wrapped up in the other Azriel that you only know his right from wrong. Now I know why the coven kept you on a leash." Gianna stepped closer this time, her voice dangerously low. "You didn't have to do shit, but you did, and now you can take a backseat and watch your plans hurt everyone around so long as he looks at you, right?" Another step, until she was almost nose to nose with the other witch. "You are no longer a friend to me or mine; you are now an enemy of my house, and when your plan comes to fruition, and it inevitably hurts my brother, it won't be a metaphorical dagger running through you, but mine." Gianna let her threat linger before pointing to the door. "You're lucky I don't get rid of you now. Get out of my face, Weaver."

It may be surprising, but I tend not to want to think of anyone as an enemy. You can sit down and tell me all about it, then, Emilia.

"Yet, one of your caliber tends to collect enemies at some point." With a fraction of hesitation, Emilia slid into the chair across from the First Father, hands dropping to her lap. "I'm about to unleash something in this realm that should never be free for the sake of trying to save everyone from Bellora. Another Azriel. He is darkness incarnate, evil, manipulating, and intoxication personified. It's a choice that will hurt my version and turn my friends against me, but I can't unring this bell." Her voice held a note of sadness, but mixed with it, came the slight monotone. She was just...tired. "You have witnessed the same darkness affecting your son and wife, First Father. They've mostly come back from it, but I don't think I can."

Are you certain you wish to fraternize with a now deemed enemy of the Firsts?

Gianna stared at the woman incredulously. She used to know Emilia and felt that, even though her methods were sometimes unorthodox, Emilia cared for her brother. But this? "No. I'm not going to yell yet. I'm not going to hit you yet, because then you'll use that as an excuse to justify ignoring my words." The witch didn't move an inch, but she could feel the boiling rage under her skin with a shake of her head. "You're too far under his influence that you don't even know what you're truly risking. You're hurting my brother. This psycho version of him won't care about his body. He definitely won't care about the people in this timeline, and yet all you see is the endgame that you had no part in orchestrating. What if he decides to stay despite your deal?" Gianna let out a humorless laugh. "Funny thing is, Azriel would have done the same thing as the psycho one if someone asked him, yet you're single-handedly taking away his autonomy and making it seem like a good thing. This psychotic version is corrupting you, and you're feeding into the delirium."

One moment, Emilia thought she had the control over herself and her ability remaining on the straight, well-intentioned path before something within her took a sharp left turn. She didn't lie to Azriel, she was a good person at one point in her life, willing to help where needed. "I wouldn't retaliate in that way." Not when the Weaver already made up her mind on this particularly world-ending decision. It's understandable if Gianna would not trust her again after almost using Ulric's love of his mother for a petty revenge scheme making the princes pay, but it was a question whether it's better the First Mother heard the information straight from the source or the psychotic Azriel himself. In the end, neither ended well. "Anything Bellora will do to every realm is far worse than what Az will do to your brother's body. I do not want to see such happen, to see him hurt would be as if a dagger has run through me, but she can't continue. She has one of your children, Gianna. She's forced Ainsley to be her minion and she is keeping your brothers captive despite their choice joining her. I have seen into her memories, the way she unravels others without lifting a finger. I need to save our Azriel from that even if it means inviting in a monster." Mil's gaze fell on her hands briefly, the term 'monster' almost feeling like an apt description for herself. "I can't predict if he will stay or not, Gi, he's unpredictable." A man lining the drive of his house with royal heads. Her eyes found Gianna again. "Had someone asked him, there is no telling how catastrophic letting loose his powers could be when Az always held back. This Az knows how to control it." An excuse maybe, but the real truth. "Call it corruption, but it's already too late. I have to do this."

Excuse me? What did you do?

I'm doing what the gods are not, Gianna.

The timeline where the psycho version of you came through? She was... something. You... invited this other version of Azriel into our Azriel? Sure, he's going to be doing us all a huge fucking favor by getting rid of that goddess, but this could be dangerous for our Azriel. How much of your feelings for this other Azriel is because he actually makes you feel like he's yours, and is not actually jealousy, because our Azriel doesn't operate the same way? Don't mistake this as me judging you for your choices; I just want to understand what's going through your head.

I read, Lia, I just prefer to do other things when I had the capability of doing them.

Like running a bar and encouraging Robin's antics? I know.