#emetweek2026

It is a distant realisation, to understand he has not named him so within their home.

He brings him back to him kiss by kiss, easing him so willingly back onto that paperwork to chant his name and chase away the memory of the other.

iii.

They are at odds, the three of them.

Emet-Selch, Azem and...

(Who is it that he is, again?)

It is not, Hythlodaeus knows, Hades and their beloved wife entrenching themselves ever-deeper in opposing ideals. No, they are as one in heart and longings, and yet—

The masks. The Third. The Fourteenth.

He wonders if they are but making caricatures of themselves, dancing the steps as others expect, and now cannot retreat.

More and more, it is Emet-Selch who gazes upon him. Emet-Selch who coaxes him into bed and falls to uttering promises he cannot keep.

Emet-Selch he must leave behind.

iv.

He drifts.

The screaming of the souls he keeps company with has quieted over the years, as more and more have forgotten themselves and what reasons they have to howl.

Sometimes, he is aware enough to let his attention drift to the star. Sees a man with golden eyes in never quite the right shade from one lifetime to the next. More names; more masks. What began in the dying days of their fading Amaurot, he sees unfold over many thousands of years. A role carefully shaped, crafted, and honed into overt and overplayed delight in cruelty.

Is all lost?

v.

Hythlodaeus does not think to make himself anything – anyone – other than who he is as his soul blessedly slips from one realm to another.

But he wonders, bracing himself for which version of the man he has been pining for since before their final parting he will meet.

There is a fearfulness to the figure before him. A trembling. An unwillingness to impose himself.

Which is why he most determinedly folds him into his arms and holds on tight. Eventually eases back enough to study him and—

Those eyes.

(His eyes, his eyes, his eyes...)

Rich and sun-bright gold.

Hades.