takestime | TLV IC Inbox

You could have asked for someone else to do that. [ Chiding, but gently; he understands Kahl wanting to do it himself, despite the consequences. ] How do you feel now?

He asked me to.

[So Kahl chose to do it anyway.]

I can't...let myself make it a habit, though.

[How DOES he feel?]

I don't know...unsettled, maybe.

No. But it sounds like a worthy exception. [ He has is own biases on that score, but Kahl knows that. ]

I think...it must be very difficult, to be the god someone needs when there's always - so much more than you can be by yourself.

[ He remembers what being a force of redemption was, and what it wasn't. He remembers how lonely it became, caring as much as he did when that was far from the default. ]

Have you thought about -

I know what your experiences are. But not every pantheon is like that.

What about it?

You don't need to be alone in this.

They weren't even like that. Not with each other, in their thousands.

[They had plenty of other problems, certainly. But the isolation is his, is how he was made.]

No, and you shouldn't have had to be either, but even if you could go back and build the relationships you should have been able to have - you've chosen to be a very different kind of god than they are.

But there are a lot of worlds out there.

And you imagine I'll be welcome in any of them?

I'm Elontid.

[Destabilizer, unbalancer. Promise to the aggrieved, open threat to those powers who have always been beyond the reach of reckoning.]

Anyway, what does that have to do with anything?

Every now and then, you find a god wise enough to see the value in that.

[ Still, the way he sighs is weary, strained, almost bereft.

Whatever Kahl chooses, in the end, he won't be there to support him. ]

You've come so far, and once you leave here -

[ I don't want you to be alone. I don't want you to be in pain. ]

I'll have my priest, and my people.

I'm not even friends with the gods that are here.

Friends and - colleagues - are two very different things.

[ It's not exactly the right word, but it's the closest he's got! ]

I'm not saying that you do need it, just that it's...a possibility. There are gods with the right priorities, even Exandria has a few of them.

I'm not one of them.

[He is not excluded from "fuck'em" when applicable. He's a bastard.]

Why are we even talking about this? What does it have to do with Billy?

Not yet.

[ He can be a bastard with the right priorities, Zerxus is fairly certain that's exactly where they're headed! ]

You aren't going to see him again, when you leave. You aren't going to see most of the people you've found here.

They're my people.

[A low inhuman growl. He isn't trying to intimidate; it's just reflexive.]

I go where they go. I'll need a deal for it.

[This is, after all, how Vengeance works: the goal comes first. Figuring out the plan, even if it takes years or decades or centuries, comes second.]

Edited 2025-09-01 17:54 (UTC)

[ Huh. That hadn't even occurred to him, but as he absorbs the idea it makes sense. Gods can split their focus in ways mortals can't, and if the Admiral just boosts that further - ]

You'd make a good Warden, for the right people.

[ He's already been part of the healing process for Inmates and Wardens alike. ]

How many worlds is that, so far?

[He's worried about it, but also he's not letting himself worry about it. That's not the step of the plan he's on right now.]

Three. Four if I count looking after you.

[ Wait what - ]

...That's not -

You don't have to look after me. [ That's not how this works!! ]

[Kahl just gives him a look that he hopes very much communicates don't say such stupid things to me. Of course he does.]

...Kahl -

That is not your job.

[ Yes, these are words that he has spoken before. ]

You were given to me. You promised to help me. I marked you.

I know you're his first. But the you that found me as a child wasn't his yet. I had every right to put my claim on you.

Do you deny me now?

[His voice is level, but Kahl is suddenly very, very angry, not bothering to hide either the rumble of earthquakes in his voice or the hurt in his eyes.]

[ It's the hurt that thunders through him, of course, and for a moment he's a picture of sheer, insurmountable anguish.

But when he speaks, it's steady and firm. ]

That is not what I'm doing. I - what I want is to have everyone I love, everyone I belong to, and know that they're happy and safe.

But that is not what my life is, and you know that. [ He thinks, for a moment, of the impossible visions within the Dawnlight; he thinks of a family that isn't shattered across vows and realms and time; he thinks of a future where he loses no one else, betrays no one else.

That is not his life. ]

I left Elias when he still needed me. You won't, when you leave here, and that's -

[ His voice catches on that's good; he hasn't really faced the prospect, not truly, not emotionally. He doesn't try again, just takes a steadying breath. ]

Carry me with you, but don't make my burdens your own.

No. You're one of mine or you're not. I get to carry you, and all that comes with you, or I don't. There is no carving your heart in half as though half is enough.

And I will not be made negligent for your love of martyrdom.

Choose.

Edited 2025-09-05 16:28 (UTC)

[ Every protest dies on its lips, because he can taste how hollow they are. He knows how long he's lived with his soul torn asunder, how much he's accepted - no, decided - that he isn't allowed to have.

Finally his shoulders slump in a gentle, silent clash of resignation and relief. ]

Then I choose you.

[ Not over Asmodeus, or so he believes; he still feels a crushingly profound shift, one that's hard to breathe around for a long few moments. ]

[He hovers on the precipice of rage. He was ready, as perhaps none of Zerxus's other loved ones ever had been, to walk away, to revoke his mark and power, to abjure Zerxus completely if his own care were abjured first. He had, at a certain point, expected it. Zerxus was given to him, but he has never held a love of vengeance in his heart. Kahl is meant to be abandoned. He knows how to survive it, knows the shape of it. He was prepared to flay his love from Zerxus's shoulders and depart.

The fury of a spurned god-child is not an easy thing to quell back down, like a volcano faltering on the verge of pouring fire. He chokes and gurgles on his own smoke as the pressure starts to subside, as he very tentatively allows himself to believe what he has heard. His trust - perhaps, one might say, miraculously - is not broken, but at this moment it feels shaken.]

Four, then.

[And that's that.]

Edited 2025-09-05 17:00 (UTC)

[ That's that, and Zerxus makes sure to sever the feed before he rocks back into his chair like he's been kicked in the chest and dread curdles in his throat.

He hasn't been this viscerally afraid since Elias was thirteen years old; he hasn't been this profoundly shaken since he grasped the Mace of the Black Crown.

Somehow, he'd managed to wring comfort out of being damned, of being wretched and helpless with so little left to lose. It's kind of pitiful, now that he really looks at it. ]

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