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“They say there’s a star out there that holds its heart in its hands.”
Emet-Selch scoffed. “And how would anyone know, Azem?”
His friend laughed, her starlight hair spread out over the grass in a most unseemly fashion. “Well, how would anyone see a spear in the sky? Constellations never look right.”
Hythlodaeus chuckled next to her. “She’s saying ‘have a little imagination,’ Emet-Selch.”
“I figured that out for myself.” Normally, he’d have said it bitingly, but with friends, his sarcasm didn’t have its usual sharpness. “What do you mean by that anyway, Azem?”
“I mean , that its natural formation makes it look like there’s a heart on its surface, and hands holding it. I think that’s the most romantic thing I’ve heard in a while.”
“It’s always about romance with you.” But that was something that Emet-Selch loved about her, even if he’d never admit it. Feelings? Psssh. He barely admitted the three of them were friends.
“ Obviously ! Come on, Hythlodaeus, isn’t that romantic?”
He rolled onto his stomach, squished right up against her, which made her giggle. “I’d say so,” he agreed. “I wonder how real that is.”
Azem shrugged. “Real or not, it’s nice to think about, isn’t it? It’s as if the universe is telling us to hold love in our hands.”
Emet-Selch couldn’t hide an amused grin. “You keep telling yourself that.”
“There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” she replied, and stuck out her tongue.
It was true, of course. Azem went on to help everyone she met, getting caught up in reckless adventures that were outside her purview. She loved freely, but none more so than her beloved, a man named Endymion. The two were sickeningly sweet together. It was almost a relief when they were apart, as she acted more like how Emet-Selch had always known her—wild, emotional, cheerful, and loving (just without the extreme silliness when Endymion was involved). Her heart was in her hands, on her sleeves, in her eyes, and everyone knew it.
The bits and pieces of Azem were like her, too. Emet-Selch could always tell it was her when he saw her green eyes peering out into the world. They rarely looked like her—some were even male—but the eyes… they were unmistakable. From there, it was easy to tell that she had never stopped holding her heart in her hands like that distant star.
Every iteration of her that he found had a habit of going out of its way to helping others. Sometimes, that desire to help grew into becoming a Warrior of Light (or whatever the title was of the era), while other times, the helping hand stayed local. No matter how they ended up, they were always passionate creatures. It made him hate them all the more, and wish they were closer to him at the same time.
After a while, he wondered if her soul was trying its best to keep away from him, because every time he found her again, she was never among the people he belonged to. She was always from a neighboring civilization or a distant one. Was it a mere coincidence? He honestly wondered if her soul had some sort of lingering resentment for his actions prior to the Sundering.
Azem had been furious. He’d never seen her that angry in his life, and he had known her for a long, long time. “And you call yourself a steward of this star!” she accused, striking him in the heart.
“I’m doing this for them! It’s not my fault that you are unable to accept it!”
Azem ripped off her mask and suddenly he was not looking at one of the Convocation, but his friend, Selene. Hair, wild and bright as starlight, and eyes, greener than life. A smiling mouth that wasn’t smiling anymore. “No! Killing our people will never save them, you have to see that!”
They had already argued about this earlier, and it was likely that the next day would see her stepping down or being ousted from her seat. Emet-Selch did not like arguing with his friend, not when it was a dire situation like this. “You know we have no choice. The people are willing to sacrifice themselves to save their brethren, and we will bring them back!” His temper got the better of him in the end.
Selene glared at him, and he thought those eyes would kill him on the spot. “Murder is not the answer, and you are just inviting an endless cycle of it. I never want to see you again, you monster .”
He called after her, and went to chase her, but she disappeared and left no trace behind. She didn’t even appear at the Convocation the next day, leaving her seat pointedly empty. Perhaps her anger pervaded throughout the millennia that followed the Sundering.
He didn’t like being subject to her anger. Just as she loved deeply, when she was angry, it was a raging torrent. This was a torrent that had lasted thousands of years—assuming that was what kept her soul shards away from him. It was possible it was merely a coincidence.
Deep down, he hoped it was a coincidence.
There was one. Just one. A single shard of her soul, nearly whole again, which let him near. She looked the most like Selene, her green eyes fiercer than ever, although she kept her wrongly-colored hair braided, which Selene had never done. This one’s name was Moonflower, and she was a tall miqo’te, which meant she had to lean back to glare at him, much the same way Selene had.
“Why are you following me?” she asked, a hard edge in her tone.
“I’m bored.”
“I thought that our crime was boring you, and that’s why you left.”
“Well, here I am again,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly.
She muttered insults under her breath, and kept walking through the woods. The Light made it easy to traverse, even in the deepest part of the Rak’tika Greatwood, where the trees grew densely. The girl moved gracefully, as if she were at home, and he briefly wondered where she had grown up on the Source.
“Are you looking for something?” he asked eventually. Normally, this one wasn’t quiet, but she avoided talking whenever he was around. At least she hadn’t tried hitting him yet, he had to give her that.
“Not that it matters, but I was looking for flowers. There are several patches that grow along the paths, but I was curious to see what else grew in these woods.” Moonflower kept moving, her eyes flickering between the ground and straight ahead.
“I love every new flower concept!”
“You certainly do, since you come asking at the Bureau every week.”
“Oh, hush, Hythlodaeus!”
“I doubt they have many flowers that grow around here,” Emet-Selch commented stiffly.
“Oh, ye of little faith.” She dropped into a crouch at some tree roots and to his surprise, produced a few flowers. They were pink, unlike the blue ones that grew along the paths. “See? Pretty, aren’t they?”
Emet-Selch stared at the flowers in her hand and remembered a fistful of similar-looking ones millenia ago. The ones in the present paled by comparison. “Pretty, in a child’s attempt sort of way,” he scoffed, which made her scowl again.
“Have you always been this nasty? How on earth did you convince anyone to marry you?!” She looked like she was going to storm off, but instead she glared up at him.
“That’s what political alliances are for, dear Warrior,” he retorted, not really answering her questions.
“You weren’t always an emperor, you don’t fool me,” she snapped. “There must have been times that you were merely a peasant.”
This actually made him laugh. He could hear Selene’s fire in her voice, and oh, how his chest ached. “I can be charming when I want to be. Aren’t I charming now?”
Little Miss Moonflower rolled her eyes and walked back to Fanow. “About as charming as a dead fish, maybe!” Her footsteps weren’t quite as soft as before, but she wasn’t trying to go unnoticed through the woods this time. Perhaps she even welcomed any possibility that a creature would try attacking.
Later, ages later, at the end of the world and her own spirit cracking under the Light, he saw Selene again. She stood there, arms pressed against her chest, almost as though—
“They say there’s a star out there that holds its heart in its hands.”
Brilliant, beautiful, luminescent—she stood there, not far from him, her heart in her hands.
The moment was fleeting, however, and in her place was a creature who could never be his friend… or so he believed, until she, too, pressed her hands to her chest as his life was fading away.
“Remember us… remember that we once lived.”
“I will.”
And he believed her.