Chapter Text
Top-level officer rooms on First Wing SkyFortresses were similar to the Fafnir quarters aboard the Aegis; they were apartments unto themselves, fully furnished and equipped. This one, however, was closer to a Captain’s room than Seth expected, and he looked around warily. There wasn’t any sound in the unit, and he started to wonder if Ren would be brought there the same way he’d been, so he turned around to look back at the entry-hall he’d come through.
His heart pounded in his ears, and he swallowed a nervous breath. Hands mindlessly rubbed over one another.
“You look good in uniform.”
He twitched slightly, and glanced back the opposite way again, “…Miss Ren?”
She was just beyond the door, no longer in the patients’ garb she’d left the Compound of the Fifth in, but not in the vestments of a Knight either. Her long white hair had been pulled up into a messy ponytail, and she wore the dark grey and blue colors of the Sixth, but it was a simple cloak over a standard-issue base-uniform. She had always preferred full forearm-gloves, and when one hand came out from under the cloak to give a little wave, the truth of her ‘condition’ was kept momentarily hidden, “Hey.”
The last time Seth had seen her, she was still Scyren, and the only time he’d ever seen her up close was when it had him pinned to the floor of the Aegis. He pulled a hand up to his eyes to hide them for a moment, and sucked in a pained breath, but quickly tried to clear his throat instead and looked up again, “You made it… Miss Ren…” He cried anyway, and took a step closer, only to hesitate, look her up and down again, and then finally finish his approach.
The thin and lanky frame that Ren had once known was near as broad as Furion’s, and it was strange how much taller he was now. Seth practically loomed over her, and he had to lean down just to hug her. She barely saw over the edge of his shoulder, but she returned the hug as well as she could, “You’re the spitting-image of your dad when he was younger.”
Seth couldn’t find the words. A thousand things went through his mind, but not a single one of them came forward as a coherent thought. Instead, he just cried into her shoulder, and felt that small hand stroking against his side.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” Ren suggested, and pulled a little bit to guide him over to a nearby chair, “You’ve been through so much…”
Seth took the seat, but as he lowered down, his hands came up over Ren’s arms, and trailed down them until he could feel her hands. He couldn’t help but bow his head and look at them – feeling them through the gloves, “…I thought you would be in such dire condition, after everything…I don’t understand how you’re up and talking and…working…? Not just because of the condition you were in when you…when you died…but, after you fought my brother…?”
She pulled one hand back and cupped it over one of his, “If Scyrexian had just abandoned me, I probably wouldn’t have survived, even with everything Gabe did to set me up for the best chance… But, there were a few seconds where it was connected to both me and Gabe at the same time, and it borrowed his affliction to fix some of the damage. As a thank you, strange as that sounds, for being a good host.”
“A good host…!?” Seth was baffled.
“It got what it wanted because of me.” She explained, and rubbed a thumb against his skin, “And I’m…sorry for what it did to you, too.”
He could only reach up with his free hand to rub his eyes, “You didn’t have a choice…”
“No, but I saw everything that happened in real-time. …I know about everything it did, everywhere it went, who it hurt…” She noted, and those teal eyes lifted in horror. Ren just raised her hand and set it on his cheek, “I wish there was something I could’ve done to stop what it did to you.” Her thumb gently passed under his eye, “I know it wasn’t a gentle process.”
Every hazy memory and sleep-addled recollection suddenly flashed in his mind’s eye, and Seth quickly jumped back to his feet, “Miss Ren…I… I really need to talk to Mr. Gabriel…something’s happened…”
Ren pushed up as well and gave a serious look, “You have to swear you won’t try to do to him what you did to Tallus.”
The teen balked slightly, “You know about that…?” He snuffled nervously.
“When Lord Rylen asked us if we’d be okay seeing you, and then left to bring you up, Gabe filled me in on a few details that I wouldn’t have known about from my time as Scyren.” She explained, feeling that tension rising in the air around him, “I know you’re upset at him for how he made you help find Lord Xanarken, but-”
Seth set his hands on the woman’s shoulders again, and looked at her squarely, “I won’t hear his excuses through you, Miss Ren… He can defend his stupid ideas himself. Is he here? Lord Rylen said you were helping him…”
Ren gave a nervous nod, but then gestured into the room she’d come from, “Yeah…” She affirmed, and lead the way through.
The next space was the main living-area, and someone had made the conscious decision to change the window-wall to a calm mountainous display with distant auroras, rather than the disaster outside. Gabriel wasn’t hard to spot once they’d entered, and looked to the left. Half a day of work and practice made it so he could hold his wings up without help, even if not all the way.
Seth paused where he stood when he’d spotted the man, and a confusing pain filled his chest. Eyes scanned the entire breadth and width of that six-winged figure on the other side of the room, and as he spotted the array of golden orbs embedded within that dark chitin, he remembered what he was there for. Seth pointed at the man, “You have so much explaining to do…”
“If it has anything to do with the moment I swapped and the night before last, I probably can’t help you.” Gabriel started, taking a nervous step back as Seth strode adamantly closer.
“Seth, behave yourself!” Ren called.
The teen stopped only when he was within arm’s reach, and planted an angry finger against Gabriel’s chest, “Switch the window over. You know what it should be showing!”
Gabriel stared, feeling a bead of sweat go down the side of his jaw. He glanced past the angry Rydell towards Ren, and she did as Seth asked; the window-wall phased out of its current display, and in its place was the Armada’s view of Trazad.
Seth pointed at it without looking, “Millions of people live in that city. Those who aren’t dead or damaged are going to be living with the reality of this event for the rest of their lives. This monumental catastrophe will scar Sargon for generations. Not to mention…the people who were aboard the Bastion itself, and the Fulcrum before that… Not even counting the city, that’s ten thousand people who died because of you!”
Gabriel had no smartass answer to that; he just turned his eyes away.
The teen gestured back at Ren behind him, “All of this…to save one life?” He said stiffly, “I love her like family… I’ve known her most of my life… But by the Eidolon, you can’t possibly justify what you did to save her.”
“Gabriel tried to stop it, Seth.” Ren attempted, coming closer again, but Seth whipped around and stared daggers.
“Don’t defend him!” He barked, “I don’t care what he tried to do! None of this would have ever happened if he’d just destroyed Caeros the first time he laid eyes on him!”
Gabriel reached around and grabbed Seth by the front of his uniform, and yanked him back to face him directly, “Do not take your anger out on her. If anyone here is guiltless, it’s Ren. You have a problem with me, so keep it between us.”
Seth swatted the arm away, and pointed at the window-wall again, “I had nothing to do with that. In fact, the only reason I can sleep at night is because I know that the role I played could have been omitted entirely and nothing would have changed. My guilt lies in the fact that I probably could have done more to try and stop you, but I didn’t.”
“Oh? And what do you think you could have done?” Gabriel countered, wings rising up a little higher without him realizing, “Scyrexian said it was going to kill Ren if I didn’t do what they wanted. It was supposed to send the Wanderer away when Caeros woke up. I had no way of knowing there was more to it than that.”
“You’re supposed to be the Fourth!” Seth argued bitterly, “You’re the one who’s supposed to think of all the possibilities! How could you not have thought of ulterior motives!?”
“You didn’t, and you’re supposedly the genius between us all.”
“I’m an academic, not a speculator!” The teen snapped, “I deal in the facts that are, not in postulating the untestable! But you! You were right there in the thick of it! You knew what a shit-ass Tallus was! You should have let me end him when I tried…”
Gabriel felt his shoulders sag, “…Maybe.” He admitted sullenly, and shook his head, “But I wasn’t raised to be a killer. I couldn’t just kill Caeros, or let you kill Tallus…and I couldn’t just let Ren die… All of this?” He gestured behind himself at the imagery of Trazad, “None of this could have been predicted either, because of all the things we knew and know about Caeros, being genocidal was never one of them. Even he didn’t realize what he’d done until later. Scyrexian didn’t know what had happened, either. This move was a complete wildcard to everyone involved.”
“He tried to assassinate the Eidolon!”
“And that was personal.” Gabriel reminded, “Caeros’ problem was directly with Rylen, and that continues to be his primary motivation. The others were collateral and unintended.”
“How can you be so sure? Did he tell you?” Seth wondered irritably.
“It’s obvious.” Gabriel said simply, “…Look… I’ll admit; this outcome is a really bad one. The possibility of Caeros dropping a SkyFortress on top of a city was never a consideration…but even now, I’m completely certain that it wasn’t intentional. Even Scyrexian was pretty tilted about it when it realized what was coming.”
“Scyrexian is influenced by its hosts… If it reacted badly, it was probably because you knew you’d be in deep shit over it.” Seth countered, and turned away, crossing his arms tightly across his chest.
“No, that’s not it at all.” Gabriel disputed, and his wings lowered again, “The longer I go from the moment I regained control, the clearer the memory of my time possessed becomes. When it used me to wake Caeros up, it donated a chunk of my power to Caeros to give him a boost… It was supposed to put him on an equal level to me, so it could start us on this ridiculous contest on even footing. But Caeros wasted it all on a kneejerk reaction. He spazzed in a fitful and incoherent daze as he came to, and all that power ejected out of him all at once. Every molecule he’d been given was spent on self-preservation, sending away those two SkyFortresses to even-he-didn’t-know-where because he – rightly – believed his father was after him.”
Seth was obstinate and kept his gaze away.
“…Caeros has been in stasis since the day he fled from what he’d done. The wound Rylen gave him is still bleeding and fresh, only hours old.” Gabriel continued, moving slowly around to put himself in front of the teen again; Ren was on Seth’s other side, watching quietly, “I don’t know where Caeros sent those two ships. I do know that the Fulcrum came down overtop of us not long after, and wasn’t being deliberately aimed at anything. It landed in the middle of the Exclusion Zone, and no one else got hurt. The Bastion…just like the Fulcrum, came down on top of us. I don’t believe for one second that Caeros aimed it at Trazad; I don’t think he was capable of that…not yet, anyway. Whatever pocket-dimension Caeros was storing it in probably just vomited it out at that moment because Caeros tried linking to me at the same time. We ended up in Trazad somehow…and the Bastion came with us. I watched it emerge from the storm-front like a meteor. It was coming straight towards us…and the only thing that stopped it was the city-center being in the way. Scyrexian was still pissed about the fact that Caeros wasted his moment on sending the Bastion off in the first place…and tried to push it off-trajectory. And, you’re probably right…maybe Scyrexian wouldn’t have lifted a finger if its host was anyone else, but I think it was trying to lift the ship somehow, so it would skip over downtown and crash into the lake instead. But Caeros got in the way…”
Seth glanced over slightly, moving only his eyes though.
“…He’s regained a scary amount of his own power since waking up. …We cancel each other out somehow though, and for every push I made to move the Bastion up, Caeros whiffed it. He wanted the chaos at that point.” Gabriel continued, sounding just as frustrated a Seth was, “But I swear, none of this was supposed to happen.”
“Lord Rylen told us he gave you everything the Council knows.” Ren finally added, and stepped over to join her partner, “So you know that this contest Scyrexian set-up is intended to culminate in either Gabe or Caeros gaining their Prime Sight. If Caeros does it first, we can be sure that Hadira will pay dearly… He’ll take out his vengeance against Rylen on everything and everyone, just to see the look in his father’s eyes to watch his legacy burn to the ground. We have to make sure Gabe succeeds.”
“And what then?” Seth wondered irritably, looking away again, “Mr. Gabriel is obviously so-against killing that he won’t do a damn thing to stop Caeros… What’s the point of winning if it doesn’t stop Caeros from coming in second? He’s already had Sight before…”
Ren looked up at Gabriel, then approached Seth carefully, “Caeros’ power was stripped from him once before. Some other Prime was involved, way back in the day…and it blinded him.”
“And you think that’ll be enough?” Seth wondered dryly, facing the two of them again, “Kourin and I were trying to figure out this other Prime problem, too…but even she has no idea who or what it could have been. The best we figured was that Primes come in different flavors. That Mr. Gabriel and Caeros get the label of Prime Mover because they have ultimate command over physical space. Prime Psyches were what we hypothesized.” He pointed sternly at Gabriel, “You can move shit, but maybe Psyches can move minds.”
Ren rubbed her chin, “That sounds plausible… Does that tickle anything in you?” She asked her partner.
Gabriel crossed his arms, and looked up in thought, eyes closed briefly, “Nothing… I think Scyrexian went completely dormant after it booted you out. It’s just biding its time now, waiting for some sign that someone triggered the Sight.”
“A Prime Psyche sounds terrifying, honestly…” Ren noted, and turned to Seth again, “Someone like that might be able to hide in plain sight. Knowing what Caeros was capable of in his prime, applying that to someone with psychic abilities…well, they could control whole populations, rewrite memories, change minds and motivations…”
“…The ultimate manifestation of what Tallus could do.” Gabriel added, “And we might have no way of ever knowing. Clearly, being a Prime himself, Caeros couldn’t stop whatever was being done to him…not like how I could stop Tallus from trying to use his mind-tricks on me.”
“Scyren said that a Prime was above a normal Limitless user…and you said that you and Caeros are cancelling each other out; presumably you were both at about the same level when that happened. Maybe this other Prime was more experienced than him at the time?” Ren suggested, “So, someone older. If you get your Sight before he does, maybe you can still strip him down.”
Seth was just exasperated, “You’re still trying to think of how to fix this without killing him?”
Gabriel lifted his shoulders up, “Can’t get answers from a dead man.”
“I don’t want answers.” Seth argued in frustration, and gestured both hands at the older blonde, “You’re a Mover. The only thing you can do is move Caeros’ ribcage out of his body. Or did you forget that?”
Gabriel looked aside slightly and shrugged again, “Your brother is lucky that I don’t see killing as anything more than a toothless threat.”
Ren gave him a look, “Unless the person in question is Duchess Far’nah. It’s not beyond you, hun.”
His cheeks got a bit pink to hear the pet-name again.
Seth looked at her incredulously, “…Then it’s true. You really did leave him.”
Ren lifted her hands a little, “Your brother and I were over before you knew we were together.” She attempted, “It was my fault that charade continued beyond its expiration-date, and I told him as much when I ran into him yesterday.”
“…You talked to him already…?”
“Unfortunately.” Ren grumbled, still bitter about it, “He happened to be in the yard when Lady Etienne helped me go outside. Then he said every wrong thing and pissed me off all over again.”
“…Oh…” Seth lowered his face.
“It’s not your fault we didn’t work out, Seth.” Ren reassured, and reached forward to set a palm on his arm, “I was already getting frustrated with things even before the incident that sent me away from the Fafnir. That day just…gave me the opportunity to move on from a failing situation.”
“The opportunity?” Seth echoed, “My brother’s been devastated. He lost his rank, his ship, his spirit… I can only imagine how badly he’s taking it now, if you woke up and the first thing you told him was that there was no hope of reconciliation.”
Gabriel quirked a brow, “I specifically remember telling you that Ren and I were together. What part of that was unclear?”
Ren held her other hand up at the man to keep out of it, and looked back to Seth, “There’s a good reason why co-workers – and, even more so, commanders and subordinates – shouldn’t engage romantically. I cared about your brother, and I think I loved him…but there was always a disparity between us, because he was always my Captain.”
“And how was this any different, then!?” Seth argued, gesturing at Gabriel like he was just a lamp in the room, “He was your superior, too!”
“Formally, yeah…but he never let me play into it.” She explained, “One of the rules he made me agree to at the onset of our mission together was that I was to call him by his name, not ‘sir’ or anything like it. I never fully bought into it, but…that’s just because he was a jerk at the start. After the debacle in Kitez, though…things softened between us, and I got to know him as a person; as Gabriel. Even Lord Xanarken’s image changed for me, because I saw how he and Gabe interacted.”
“It’s not fair…” Seth grumbled, halfway to the edge of tears all over again, “Furion was good to you…”
Ren looked a little sad to hear it, “I know. He was…the best person he could’ve been. But a relationship that was kept in the shadows for so long was probably never going to succeed anyway. …And it’s not your responsibility to feel angry on his behalf. Furion knew what was expected of him to make it work with me, and he chose to cling to his pauldrons instead. He loved being Captain more than he loved me. It’s…as simple as that.”
Seth’s feet started to wander, and he moved slowly across the room as the weight of that reality settled on him, “…Our parents…thought of you like family, too…”
“And I’ll talk to them, too, if I ever get a chance.” Ren reassured, “We can debate ‘til we’re blue in the face about whether what Gabe did was the right choice, but…he put me first, which is something Furion could never do. You have to understand how important that is to me…”
Seth settled on one of the room’s many chairs, and buried his face in his hands over his knees, “…It’s just not fair… You’re holding Furion to a standard he could never meet…”
Gabriel could only roll his eyes. Ren looked worried, but moved over to crouch beside the teen, and settled her hands over the arm-rest, “Seth…it truly wasn’t a high bar to ask Furion to be satisfied with ten years as Captain, and set it aside so we could have an honest go at things. But even after I came back, he wouldn’t let it go. Now, there’s nothing to be done about it. There’s no Aegis anymore, there’s practically no Fafnir, and even if both of those things weren’t true, do you think Lord Rylen will ever let me be an active Knight again when I look like this?” She wondered, and pulled her gloves off to reveal the dark purple chitinous limbs, “I’m damaged goods now. These hands brought the Fafnir Era to an end…and with it, any chance I ever had of achieving my dream of being Captain myself. I’m begging you…please, just…let me pick up the pieces of this second chance, and live my life the way I want to for once…”
Seth was equal-parts astonished at Ren’s words as he was at the sight of her hands, and slowly turned in his seat. He reached for those dainty digits, and felt the strange material against his skin, “…This…these are Scyren’s hands…”
Ren nodded, looking at the teen’s hesitant exploration for a moment before turning her gaze up again, “Look in my eyes, Seth…”
He nervously did so, and at that short distance, he could tell that those green orbits were synthetic. His head lifted back in surprise, “…You… Scyrexian didn’t restore them…? Those are Council-make…”
“Scyrexian said it couldn’t give them back.” Gabriel answered from his distant spot in the room, staring at Trazad, “But I told Nie all about Ren’s previous injuries, and she was prepared to give Ren a chance at sight again. It was purely our good fortune that Scyrexian was generous about the arms. Every other wound, though…”
“…Other wound…?”
Ren lifted up to stand again, and moved her cloak aside. She undid the front of her uniform-shirt, and pulled up the silken slip she wore underneath, revealing the mangled still-healing flesh on her side, “…It’s the wound your brother gave me, when we fought aboard the Bulwark. Something about your dad showing up made it possible for me to regain control, and…stop the brawl. But Furion still swung at me, having no way of knowing it was actually me at the helm.”
Seth’s eyes widened, and he tepidly reached forward, fingers trembling where he stopped them a few inches away from the wound, “…He mentioned that it seemed like Scyren had given up, after dad went down… He realized afterwards why that was… I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t be.” Ren answered, and put her clothes back together again, “Scyrexian and Tallus had already come to an understanding about Furion’s fate, and killing him at the time wasn’t the plan…it’s the only reason he survived.”
The teen lowered his hands and head again, “…I see…”
“Anyway, I don’t want to linger on something that can’t be helped…” Ren diverted, and gestured over to her distant partner, “You said something had happened, and that you needed to talk to Gabe about it. I very seriously doubt Trazad is that thing.”
“No…” Seth affirmed, and though he was still bitter about things, he rose back to his feet, “…Late last night, I went to meet with Iresha. He said he wanted my input about something, and when I got there, he showed me that he had one of those.” He pointed at Gabriel’s golden bolides, “He said you had taken one of them out of your own flesh and handed it to him. That it would somehow give him what he wanted, but at the cost of owing you one somehow. We spent hours trying to figure it out, to get it to react in anyway, but it didn’t do anything until we…started arguing…”
“…Arguing?” Gabriel echoed, “Why?”
Seth looked aside, “…Kourin.”
“What about her?”
The teen flinched slightly, like he was offended at the question, “After you sent us away on the Dream, we sought help at the royal residence in Oceanside. Someone there recognized her as her former Kitezan persona, and had her arrested under suspicion of being involved with the destruction of Magistrate Laurier’s facilities in Stoneface Bluffs.”
“…I mean, she was…but, continue.”
“That’s not the point. She was made to do all that.” Seth defended, “But Iresha wouldn’t extradite her to the Council until she accepted fault for it…as a terrorist. Case-closed for Sargon, I guess, but it…put me in a bind. I was Iresha’s friend, but I’m…in love with Kourin, and I…can’t just completely disassociate from her to preserve the friendship. We ended up getting into a bit of a fight about it, and only then did that stupid little bauble finally do something…”
“What did it do?” Ren wondered.
Seth hesitated for a few seconds, but then looked at her out the peripheries of his vision, “…Scyren forced an affliction into me, and the whole time I’ve had it, anytime I activated it, my eyes exuded that same dark miasma that yours did. I don’t know what changed, but…” He started, and drew in a quick breath before letting his eyes come alight, drawing a surprised gasp from both Ren and Gabriel, “It’s gold now, like a normal afflicted…”
“What in the world?” Gabriel said aloud, coming closer rather quickly. He took Seth’s face in his hands and rotated the teen’s head around to get a better look, “Does it feel any different?”
“No…nothing changed about it…” He answered, “Miss Ren’s aura is different from what I expected to see, but it’s…probably because she’s got traces of Scyrexian’s essence on her soul now. It’s still the ghostly-white aura of someone who isn’t afflicted, but it’s got specs of black and red at the edges. Yours still looks like a bloody black-hole, twisting and swirling all around you like it might swallow-up everything around you at any moment.”
“What else?” Gabriel asked, though he finally let the teen go.
“…I don’t know…I just saw my reflection in a metal food-cover and realized the glow was gold. I thought I was hallucinating from sleep-deprivation though, and shut it off as I demanded to be allowed to deboard.” Seth explained, turning the effect off as he rubbed his eyes, “I didn’t have time to think about it again until after I woke up sometime this afternoon…but even then, it felt like a fever-dream. I only activated it once briefly before I left my room, just to be sure…and I’ve been desperate to ask you about it ever since. Did the orb answer my needs instead of his…?”
“He has always wished he was afflicted…” Ren agreed, nudging her head towards the Rydell.
Gabriel turned slightly and put a hand on his chin, “…I don’t even remember giving Iresha anything.”
Seth slouched with a loud, annoyed sigh, “Of course, you wouldn’t know anything helpful when I need you to…”
“Hey, I said I was remembering things from my time possessed, not that I had remembered all of it.” Gabriel argued defiantly, “Maybe it’ll come to me later, now that it’s on my mind. Most of what I’ve been thinking about has been related to Caeros and Tallus. I don’t sleep anymore, so I’ll have plenty of time to consider it when Ren does.”
“…What did you do to Tallus?” Seth wondered carefully, “…Him and Caeros – I assume it was Caeros, anyway – came up on the Dream right as you sent us all away. Kourin thinks you killed him.”
“Scyrexian did, yeah.” Gabriel confirmed, “Brutally, and over the course of several hours.”
Seth was surprised, “…How many hours…?”
Gabriel’s brow wrinkled, and he tried to shake the unbidden imagery from his mind, “It was a while after daylight, after Scyrexian had spent all night disassembling and reassembling him. It was furious with Tallus after it saw you in the brig. You were definitely not supposed to be there.”
“…Just me…?” Seth pointed at himself.
Ren’s face lit up in realization, “The deal Tallus made with Scyren!” She said quickly, “He never said anything about dragging Seth into this mess! It was just supposed to be Furion! Even when Scyren helped subdue Ravan, Tallus never mentioned Seth! He must’ve been able to convey certain instructions without saying them out loud…”
Gabriel nodded emphatically, “Yeah…yeah, that sounds exactly right… Scyrexian wanted Seth to be available to Kourin. I can’t really explain it, but it seems to view her like an offspring… Gods, the rage that it had at Tallus was rivaled only by mine against Furion…”
“Don’t you start about him, too.” Ren scolded.
“What?” Gabriel huffed, “I don’t care if what he did was the right thing in the moment, it was still a shit-ass thing to do, to borrow the expression.”
“We can’t both hold it against him that he did Captaining better than he did being a good person.” Ren noted, “Hell, half of why I made it long enough to become Scyren is probably – in large part – because he was badly attempting to be a partner for once. He should’ve just had me put on ice as soon as he found out.”
Seth crossed his arms, “You have a way of redefining good traits as bad ones.”
“Sorry, kid.” Ren glanced back at him with half a shrug, “I can understand and accept the reality of a situation even if I prefer the alternative.”
“That’s hypocritical.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” She wondered, “If I want a Captain, I’ll go to your brother, but if I want a lover, I’ll stick with Gabe. I don’t need or want a Captain anymore, though.”
“He’s going to be reinstated as a bloody Eidolon eventually!” Seth pointed out, gesturing at the older man, “Lord Rylen said as much when he brought me up here!”
Gabriel was surprised, “…Oh. Okay.”
Seth deflated slightly, “You…didn’t know that…?”
Ren swatted the man’s core with the back of her hand, “I literally told you that last night.”
“Sure, but I mean…I thought he was still going to try and find a way to keep me out of the seat. Considering, well, all this.” Gabriel gestured at himself, “At the end of the day, he still has that power. I won’t stop officially being the Fourth unless he declares me dead or deactivates the position, like he did with Xanarken and the Second.”
“…He said the other two Eidolon would have to agree, though.” Seth noted.
“Oh. …Okay.” Gabriel made a face, like he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the information, “…Rylen really needs to get his shit together about all this. If I’m still actually the Fourth then I need to get on that.”
“You have other things to worry about right now.” Ren reminded, “Not the least of which being saving the world first? You don’t have time to be an Eidolon on top of that.”
“Yeah, you’re right… But how am I supposed to work on getting my Sight while stuck in here?”
“I asked Lord Rylen to restore your access to the Cloud.” Ren explained, “You used Seth’s affliction and Lord Xanarken’s mantle to find your way directly to the Eidolon System. It stands to reason that, with this new understanding of your power, you’d be able to use it through your own mantle. The only problem is that Lord Rylen is scared legitimately-shitless over the idea of giving Scyrexian direct access to the Cloud, given how it hurt him as far away as the Sterling Rose last year.”
Gabriel felt tense to remember it, “…Yeah, that’s entirely valid… What do we do, then?”
“I asked him to think it over. We should both ask him to make a decision about it the next time we see him. I’m getting you out of this room, one way or another.” Ren suggested, and slid a hand under his wings to rest against his lower back, “Scyrexian wants you to figure out your Sight. It’ll stay uninvolved as long as we play by its rules. Letting you have access to the Cloud again might just have to be a risk we accept. Your implants still work; they’re just turned off.”
Gabriel slid his arm over Ren’s shoulders, “Playing by its rules… This is all so messed…up…?”
“…What was with the verbal drift?” Ren wondered; she was heedless to the dirty look she and Gabriel were getting from their third-wheel.
“…I just got the ‘welcome, Gabriel Lugios’ message on my overlay.” He answered, and glanced over towards the door to the coat-room, “Seems we’ve had an eavesdropper.”
All eyes went over to the same door, and spotted a grey cat sitting at the base of the opening. Those bright orange eyes narrowed at them slightly, and its tail swished behind itself.
“How long have you been listening?” Gabriel wondered.
“I never completely left, after arriving with Setharion.” Rylen answered, “I left a copy of my mantle behind.”