#athee

On top of a tall relic from what’s left of Hamel, he watches the rivers overflow and drown everything in their path, like cold beasts hunger for warmth of living corpses. Trees wail their crackling sounds before succumbing to blue, stones roar before collapsing like a child’s building blocks, and humans trample upon one another to board the last remaining steel boat for an unsure evacuation. Everything feels dead, and yet those puny lives still try to pretend there is salvation left in a dying world.

“It’s pitiful,” the words left Arme’s mouth in a hush of breath, its vestige of disgust is now gone, leaving behind a voice devoid of heart. Besides him, Erblu shrinks back a little, curling into himself like he has been struck.

“…Y-yes,” the other celestial says, but his intonation sounds shaky, as if he is being choked. Arme watches on with a steely gaze even when water trails down Erblu’s cheeks. A defect, he thinks and wipes those tears away. It’s a bit annoying to watch himself act this wrong.

“For beings that betrayed the Goddess, such punishment is apt,” a part of Arme’s mind whispers that he should have wallow more in anger or self-hatred because you’ve failed failed failed, and perhaps he should have done so a few months ago. Yet, Arme can now barely summon any consciousness left in himself to even maintain coherent thoughts. When the Goddess is declared as a scrap piece by a world which rejects to install her, he returns to insignificance. The mission can never be fulfilled, but it no longer exists, and he is no long relevant.

“No, Arme…This should not be happening…I-I could have done something! I could have convinced him harder to not trust that man. He would of understand,” Erblu’s eyes are shining so brightly that Arme has to squint- a side-effect of the El essence inside him going haywire, but his tears keep leaving dull drops on the ground. Arme wants to step on them. “I just didn’t want to disappear, because, because….”

“How nice,” why does he have to feel something unpleasant now of all times to expel sharp words, when he is not even a part of this world, “that you get to witness him reaching his destination until the very end.” He can feel the other’s eyes widen for a fraction, but Arme doesn’t stare back to check. It’s…difficult to see himself feeling hurt, feeling regret, feeling weak like a human, but he doesn’t truly understand why. Because a God’s instrument should not develop complexities? But Ishmael has abandoned his dead world to create a new counterpart, and soon, she will forget about this one too. Her will has been prematurely snuffed out inside him, and yet, and yet…

He stretches his ears to hear the water El’s choked murmurs, and whispers his goodbye.

“What do you want to do now?” A question that he has repeated hundreds of times to all the lost reincarnations of himself, until they decided to die with a part of the God, die helping her creations, or drown themselves in a sea of nothingness until faith is completely snuffed out.  Sometimes, he wonders if he’s the true black sheep that acts like he refuses to lose hope, when he cannot even comprehend what it feels like. Just drifting along with the motion, until he fades into the air they breathe.

An act borne out of a servant’s loyalty. Nothing more, nothing less. 

“I don’t know. There’s nowhere else to go. There’s nowhere left to go.” Hamel drowns, Lanox burns, and eventually Elder will perish alongside them. It’s like a slow motion projection Arme has to watch for millennia until his mind goes numb, and soon he will add this world’s fate into the scroll.

But maybe Erblu doesn’t have to be part of it. Not anymore. Arme has always been too self-important for a celestial, and that is his worst falling.

“In this world, perhaps. Just ask Glave.” No more disgust, no more hesitation; those feelings do not matter as much anymore.

Erblu stares at him, doe-eyed, “…Why?”

Because I want to see that boy grow into someone the world will approve of. Because She is everything to me, and her every part compels me, even you. “I want to see the world She wishes for.”

Erblu drops his staring to…laugh. Why? “You’re such a devoted being.” He huffs, his voice sounds small against the roaring current of water, but the tears don’t stop.

“And you aren’t?”

“…No, I am not. I cannot compete with you, since I let my selfishness ruined the world.” Erblu looks at the water like he wants to breathe it all in.

Since there is nothing else to do at this moment but to grab his hand, Arme does so.

“Come with me,” Arme states, “Everything has already ended here. But there is a new start.” Erblu’s palm feels warm with the expiring El energy exuding from his skin, and Arme grips it tighter. Perhaps, loneliness isn’t such a foreign concept as he thought.

Green eyes completely different from his own but are still his stare back at him with something akin to the hope he lost a long, long time ago. “I want to see him again. I want to see them again, before I perish.”

“You have plenty of time until then.” Sometimes, he wonders why his wise Goddess would design them with this error, to let them hang on to life when the apt punishment for failed tools is death. Perhaps, that is a form of retribution on its own.

“…Okay.”

Erblu’s tears stops trailing. Arme leads him away, far from the remnants of a dead world.

The current has quieted now, and the Water El whispers its farewell.

.

.

Clarifying notes:

The Els universe setting for this fic is pretty different from the game’s lore.

-This universe is based on an AU that without the El = everything is dead. Solace is wrong.

-Arme exists in an alternate universe where Elboy and the party died before they could reach the El Lady. Arme’s mission fails, the world falls apart without the El being restored, and Elia+Ishmael abandon their failed world to create and govern new ones. Initially distraught from losing his purpose, Arme wanders his dying world aimlessly until Glave contacts and offers him free trips to alternate worlds where there is a chance Elsword could have succeeded (to give him despair considering almost all of them fail miserably.) Arme cannot do much to interfere with these worlds when his presence could make them greatly unstable. 

I just don't even think we got good closure in either department. I feel like I should rate it even lower, but I feel a bit closeminded. And the worldbuilding was actually good and interesting! I just really didn't get the sexual tension and spice.

It was like we were getting in heat vibes, but also like fated mates or some shit. But it's not, everything is normal. And the FMC is like a sexually closeted virgin who is unexplainably horny. There's an audience for this somewhere, I just don't think it is me!

And like they spend the whole time obviously hiding something from Alma, and we reveal it with like 2 pages left and no actual consequences or deeper dive into the matter. Why was it even secret if we can brush it off so easy?

JFC, I thought a spice scene would happen way earlier - I'd heard some things about the book, so I thought there was dubious consent or something. Nah, just fucking in front of your ex-fiancee while HE IS KNIFED DOWN TO A CHAIR. Yeah, hot for sure. 🥴

I would've loved a full book, though, fr with this world. I was so upset when I realized I was already 80%, and they didn't even do anything yet. Literally was like 92%, and they still hadn't had sex, I was like, WHAT?

The dream sequence was interesting - and again, if only we had more! Like, is future seeing normal? What was that? It almost felt a bit rushed - there was so much politics to cover!