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[hellufacade]

You have reached Solus Gavus, Theater Director. Leave a message, unless you're trying to skip out of rehearsal. Save the excuses and just show up, alright?

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[eightfoldlight]

The usual way: I ask questions and I listen. The only difference is, I don't have a network of others helping me do so.

[ She tilts her head at his question, as though it were a strange thing to ask. ]

I grew up around men with ears and tails like yours. There's not much to say.

[hellufacade]

You left the room in shock! [He stands. Seems like he hadn’t gotten any shorter unfortunately. He stalks towards her and tilts his head up, hands on hips. His tail swishes from side to side. ]

Is it that you find me irresistible like this, then?

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh's stare is piercing and direct, but bis words slough off her carefully-orchestrated casual demeanor. What is there underneath is not lust or shame or embarrassment. It is resignation and maybe a little exhaustion. ]

You're even acting like one of them.

[hellufacade]

[He folds his arms. ] What, is it disgust, then? [His eyebrows lift. ]

Was there a particularly despicable man in the tribe from whence you came?

[eightfoldlight]

[ She raises her eyebrows back at him. In part because he's actually asking a question about her, but that's easily mitigated by how he appears to be asking it out of insult. She responds casually.]

No, they were all equally annoying.

[hellufacade]

[He tilts his head and blows a breath of air from his nose. ] I had wondered if I was given these limbs to torment me, but it seems that the true target had been revealed. Well, never you mind. I’m not a tribesman. Same old me. [As if that’s any better.]

So why did you come here? You still haven’t answered...

[eightfoldlight]

[ It really isn't any better, but if she's lucky, maybe he'll stop saying things like that. If she isn't, she'll have to cross that bridge once she gets there. ]

I can't very well leave you be for too long, can I? Every time you're left to your own devices, you're bothering Nonah with giant robots, or getting blackout drunk about teenagers unable to remember their 'thee' from their 'thou'.

... and I wanted to try on the bat costume.

[hellufacade]

The difference between thee and thou isn’t hard! ...Don’t take their side.

[He places his hands on his hips. So he was being monitored, then? ]

Funny, I was once your highest priority. And now I register slightly above the desire to try on a bat costume! [ His voice drops into an angry snarl.] Oh, how things change.

[He sighs, the levity filling back into him. ]

Mark me, I won’t be making the same mistakes twice.

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh sighs as he manages to get to the heart of the matter much more quickly than she had really wanted to. She isn't about to abandon the chance to just come out and say it, but she low-key resents that she couldn't just shitpost on him for a while longer. ]

You are my highest priority. [ She furrows her eyebrows, clearly trying to find something else to say. As much as she and Nashir had discussed showing Hades compassion, it was incredibly difficult in the moment. ]

Simply because I mentioned the bat costume in the same breath...

[hellufacade]

Am I your highest priority? It hardly feels like it.

[...Is... is he cranky about how often she comes to see him?]

Were our roles reversed you would find me acting much differently from how you have chosen to do so! Are you feeling a touch useless with all that isn’t going on?

[eightfoldlight]

[ He hit close to home, and her answer is an annoyed 'tch' before she can find the words. ]

What, do you want me to follow you around? Here I thought I was giving you a chance to branch out on your own.

[hellufacade]

Oh, how magnanimous. What would your fellow Scions think about that? [His ears position just so. Did Hades really need this additional layer of expressiveness? ]

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh's own ears fold back, and her voice drops to a guilty mutter. ]

I'm not certain they'd think my conduct while around you is any better. [ Wait. ] You didn't answer my question.

[hellufacade]

I thought that was rhetorical!

[Still not an answer. ]

But since when did you care about what I wanted?

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh squints at him, feeling desperately uncertain about all of this despite knowing what her mission is. ]

Don't get it twisted, Hades.

[hellufacade]

Oh, I’m not! [He was. ]

You’re the hunter and I’m your unwitting quarry. But you’ve done a piss poor job at keeping up with me. Either you’re losing your touch or you sense, however latently, that there is something wrong here— Something somehow more concerning than the presence of an Ascian!

[eightfoldlight]

[ She frowns. He wasn't entirely right, but right enough that it makes her uncomfortable. This is the kind of discussion she would have preferred to have with someone like Urianger or Y'shtola or Alphinaud. ]

Of course there's something wrong. Why would they continue summoning people like us when they'd already averted the end of the world? If the United States is at war with the Communists of the Kremlin, why are we not fighting? The worst I've seen with my eyes is the poverty and depravity one would find in any Eorzean city.

[hellufacade]

Why indeed? Oh, but you’ve never been used as a tool for a distraction before, have you? Well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As far as you knew. Besiiiides! It’s a Cold War. Not the same sort you dealt with in Ishgard!

[He thinks she doesn’t know the difference between physically cold climates and a stand-off. Is he right? ]

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh rolls her eyes and chooses not to correct him. ]

What do you think is going on, then? A distraction from what?

[hellufacade]

The world was supposed to end. The people here recognize this world by half. Isn’t it obvious?

[He crosses his arms and stares at her expectantly. ] Go on. Say it. I know you have a brain somewhere under those furry ears.

[eightfoldlight]

[ She exhales through her nose, as if it were a pain to even acknowledge that she has her own ideas about what's been happening here. ]

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of reflections of Earth. Those I've spoken with point to different histories, or histories that are near-enough to this one's with slight differences. As far as I can tell, there was no one Sundering or Rejoining event.

[hellufacade]

Yes, yes. No single event. Isn’t that horrifying? These entirely aetherless and weak pawns just scratching together an existence ruled by— whom? Just more power hungry yet short sighted weaklings? Doesn’t it terrify you?

[He steps back and turns away from her as he raises his arms. ]

What foul evil could be at play? Will we ever touch it? See it? Know its name? It has stayed hidden thus far! What terrifying thing could strip me of my powers? Perhaps that is why it took me as I was dying. Opportune.

[He peers over his shoulder. ]

Sooo... I have a plan, Hero. But... do you?

[eightfoldlight]

[ She purses her lips as she listens to him and watches him. Emet-Selch really has a way of making even the most logical proposition sound horrible. It takes her an enormous amount of effort not to just blow him off out of hand. ]

Is this about the Porters, again?

[hellufacade]

Oh keep up, will you? Of course it is. Nothing is done for no reason. Even the most innocent and innocuous choice is colored by the circumstances that surround it.

[He dramatically places a few fingers against his brow as he tilts his head back. ]

Or have you really learned nothing?

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh falls silent, her eye remaining trained on him as she thinks. It isn't as though he's wrong. It would make it all easier if he was. Being an Ascian, and thus prone to making plans that tend to go terribly wrong for everyone except the Ascians themselves, she wants to discard him out of hand. But she can't. ]

[ Regardless of the situation happening on Earth, it is as she told Nashir: if there is any risk Emet-Selch can return home, ready and willing to resume his post without interruption to old plans, then there is only one answer. It feels as though there only ever will be one answer. But she and Nashir decided to try and save him, didn't they? Knowing even just one person has her back, she rallies. ]

[ Her options ever and always grow more convoluted. ]

You aren't wrong.