//. @crystalliccs // plotted starter // crystal exarch (post 5.0; pre 5.3)
Primordial Light’s hold over the First had ceased, and the collective of Norvrandt was more than happy to revel in these most glad of tidings. The return of night was, by no stretch of anyone’s imagination, a welcome change, and for all the good it wrought, the absence of the Warrior of the Darkness from the celebrations was either keenly noted or easily missed. The party’s return to the Crystarium after the defeat of Emet-Selch was bereft of the warrior in question, for he had stayed behind--for his own reasons, of which he refused to divulge even to the closest of them. He remained there in the Tempest, for what likely seemed like forever to the Scions, but to Rham’ir, his eventual departure came much too soon.
Rham’ir wasn’t a man of sunshine and rainbows--an old doctor who’d had enough of the warring conflict between children of Hydaelyn and Zodiark, he was a weapon being used against his will. No matter how hard he fought, how many times he tried to change the course of history, he could feel his agency slip through his fingers. Watching the Ascian dissipate against the backdrop of a ruined Amaurot had brought the realization of his crime to the forefront: he’d snuffed out the hope not at all dissimilar to his own from a man not at all dissimilar to himself--the hope of this man and his entire people. He had pushed an ancient people one step closer to their final oblivion.
One might tell him that it was necessary--if not the life of Emet-Selch, then the life of the shard, and those who would be sacrificed through the Eighth Umbral Calamity. But why either? Why not neither? Had he not been on the cusp of turning into a literal monster, Rham’ir would have begged for parley, and its this noticeable difference in himself that incited a notion of despair--why would he? Why should he? Emet-Selch was a monster. A murderer. He created empires that wrought insurmountable harm to the fragments of those he once cared for and lost. Even should they be but scattered pieces of an ancient whole, that gave none of the Unsundered the divine right to cause this harm, right?
He remembers Amaurot. And he remembers the anguish the very vision of it wrought upon him, his soul awakening to a very real, very distant nightmare. It’s that same part of him that wishes to speak. To speak with Emet-Selch. Yet not so to Elidibus... Why? Were these his true feelings? Or was he remembering things? Things he didn’t live through as he was? All these thoughts wracked him, forced him to isolate himself from the others, whether he realized it or not. Often times, during conversation, his eyes would go blank. And he was no longer there. Trapped in the promise of remembering. Trapped in the agony that he had cleaved something from himself. Trapped in the hatred of his ambivalence.
This happened a lot with the Crystal Exarch. G’raha Tia. He remembered him from those strange and deeply worrying journeys into the Crystal Tower on the Source. But one thing he remembered was the scent. The voice. The Exarch was everything Emet-Selch was not. A comforting presence, at the very least, yet still so foreign. He didn’t know if he deserved the warmth the Exarch exuded, and so he remained at arm’s length. Perhaps he was still mad at the deception. Hells, he probably was. If a little bit. And it was with this trepidation that Rham’ir quietly, whilst in private with the Exarch, voiced his meager protestations to the plan of using his blood for vessels crafted for soul transference. He had no better ideas for it, of course--Soulcraft was so far beyond him that to get his perspective would be a laughable endeavor.
❝ I don’t like this plan, ❞ he said, ❝ Must it really be your blood that’s used? Can’t we... extract something from your skin or your hair or... something? ❞ It’s the most Rham’ir has said to the Exarch in a single sentence for a while since their bout in the Tempest. And the roughness in his voice bore testament to his lack of speaking overall in that time. Rham’ir, however, was a doctor. A surgeon. Everything from his point of view was far more on the scientific level--whatever compounds the Exarch’s blood had, it couldn’t have been much different from a hair sample, or even skin flakes, could it? No matter how dour he was, the health of anyone would always be enough to rouse him from whatever stupor he found himself in.
