“My mentor,”

Those words are the most unpleasant ones their mentor could utter. Scythrozn knew the jealousy they originated in his apprentice. He was Noahn’s, and no one else. Not the one who is imprisoned, yet unreachable. Noahn wished pain to he who had grandfathered all the knowledge granted to them, the Kingbreaker’s eyelids emptied of their contents all over again.

They know he sees them through their mentor, as one day their mentor will look at the world through them.

“used to tell me,”

The past looms closer and closer over Noahn and Scythrozn. Recently they’ve told him they could inherit a great power. A writ written by the very God Emperor himself. Corpse Emperor, Noahn corrects but not quick enough for Scythrozn to believe it.

There’s the door that calls to be opened by their hand. Noahn closes their eyes to avoid looking at it and knows that Scythrozn will grab their hand in their blindness, only to shove it over the knob.

“that I,”

The I that is we now. A balance nurtured and groomed, like the most innocent sprout. It took so long to stop being the unreachable you and the minuscule I to become the grand we. Peace between the earth and the stars. The body and the object. The chitinous barrier and the meat.

The I he was trying to break.

He said it would be a test of both their strengths. Resilience. The great tenant of his legion. Noahn thought it was an excuse to return to his ennui and stay there. And who would they become, if they no longer were the one who stopped him from doing what he had been made to do?

“bored him.”

Silence.

It’s never succinct enough to describe their feelings.