WHO Essek Thelyss (+ cameos of Hotel versions of the Bright Queen, his mother, Verin, and the M9) WHERE Overlook Hotel WHEN Mid-Morning of October 8 WHAT Being haunted by one's former self. STATUS Complete ART CREDITHere WARNINGS References to war, death as a result of it, and familial death. Self-loathing, wizard angst, y'know. Spoilers through C2, at the very least up to E97.
When Essek had stepped out of the Xhorhaus, he had only meant to walk the short path that took him to the towers that had been his home in Rosohna. The thought had been to do some research, not that he actually thought he had any books that would help with a building that seemed to be feeding on fear, but he needed to at least try.
The building in question seemed to have different plans for Essek. Though he swore that he had only walked as long as it took to get to his towers, he stood not in front of those familiar structures, but a new one entirely. Whether it was the hotel's attempt at keeping him from discovering something that might hurt its intent or if it was simply that Essek had stepped into its influence at just the wrong time, he did not know. What he did know, however, was that he needed to go inside. The logical side of him that usually ruled was cast aside as he instead stepped forward.
Essek moved through an instinct that he didn't understand or even knew he had. He walked through the hotel with purpose, finally reaching a door. It was no different on the outside than any of the other doors in the hallway, but he stopped. He reached out. He opened it.
Once inside, Essek blinked. One second it was just an ordinary room, the next he was standing in the Cathedral of the Bright Queen. He had been there so many times before, sitting amongst the rest of the court as he watched various meetings and proceedings brought before the Bright Queen herself. Tall ceilings, angled architecture, gleaming surfaces that were all designed to bring one's eye to the throne. Essek's eyes went there now and he saw Leylas Kryn looking down at him, unmasked fury on her face. Next to her was her partner, Dusk Captain Quana Kryn. Instead of fury, she looked at him in a mix of disappointment and hurt.
And then, so close to Quana that Essek barely had to move his eyes, was his Denmother -- his actual mother. And while one might have been able to tell the relation from the bone structure and eyes that Essek had inherited from her, there was no motherly love or concern being cast his way. No, Deirta Thelyss looked at her son with an indifference that felt all too familiar.
Suddenly, Essek realized that a warm hand was on his shoulder. It shoved him down forcefully, making his knees buckle until they came to meet the floor with a painful crack. Looking up once, he saw a familiar face. Verin was dressed in full armor, his status as Taskhand evident based on the decorations that donned that armor. Essek could tell that his brother was struggling to maintain the composure of their mother, but the pain that Quana wore was easy to spot in his eyes.
"Essek Thelyss."
The Bright Queen's voice was firm, ringing out through the room. Essek turned and realized that his hands were shackled tightly together, preventing him from being able to perform any necessary somatic parts of spells. Not that it would do him any good; he could feel the lack of magic around him, likely done by one of the other wizards at court. It was then that he not only noticed the shackles, but that he wasn't wearing his Shadowhand mantle, which he normally wouldn't be caught without while in such an official capacity.
Then again -- the Bright Queen hadn't called him Shadowhand, had she?
The Bright Queen continued. "You have been brought before my court -- " And in that moment, Essek realized that the seats surrounding her were suddenly full of important Den members. They hadn't been there before, had they? " -- to answer for your crimes against the Dynasty."
Finally, despite all of the evidence that he should have felt it sooner, fear flooded Essek's system. This was it. His treason had been discovered. Swallowing hard, but largely failing as his mouth and throat went dry, he rasped out, "Your Majesty -- "
"Silence." Essek's mouth closed immediately as he flinched, the venom in that one word alone leaving him feel as though he was slapped. "The accusations against you are simple, yet great. You knowingly conspired with the enemy, willingly turning over two of our most sacred and holiest of relics, willingly turning over the very souls of your people, potentially of your father himself. You aided in sparking a war that killed thousands of innocent lives, of children. You framed an innocent man for your crimes. How do you plea?"
Somewhere in the back of Essek's mind, he knew that something wasn't right. Yes, he had done everything that the Bright Queen had just accused him of, but the phrasing wasn't her. Though she had become a bit more erratic in recent years, Essek had enough experience to know how she presented herself, what concerned her most. Before he could understand what any of it meant, he heard a voice speak up behind him. He recognized the voice, of course. How could he not? He was intimately familiar with the lilt of his Zemnian accent.
"May we approach, Your Majesty?"
A brief flash of hope went through Essek. He didn't know what good it would do, but if his friends were there, surely they meant to speak on his behalf?
Essek could not turn, his brother's firm grip preventing it, but he still saw as friends stepped forward at the Bright Queen's assent. They wore not the clothes that Essek was most familiar with, but instead the fine outfits that they had donned for the party in Nicodranas. He had seen some of these outfits since, Caleb's in particular at a recent party that was much less stressful and far more enjoyable, but now they only filled Essek with unexplainable dread.
It was then that Essek noticed a figure amongst the rest of the court. He held himself with perfectly straight posture, the sort of posture that could only be attained after it being drilled into someone in youth. His cool blue gaze stared in Essek's direction, as aloof and unaffected as he ever was when he watched such proceedings play out in front of him. Those seated around him gave a wide berth, not only because of the wide shoulders of his mantle, but because everyone treated the Shadowhand as such. Untouchable, he was. A solitary figure. Someone to be feared, but appeased. Essek met the gaze of himself, a cool shiver dripping down his spine.
"What have you to say in defense of this man?" Essek's eyes tore away from his own, looking instead at the condemning face of the Bright Queen.
"Oh, we're so not here to defend him." Beauregard's voice.
"Nope!" Jester, somehow as bubbly as ever despite the circumstances. "He did all that stuff." A pause. "And, you know? I'll bet he did more. Did you do more, Essek?"
"Of course he did." Veth, this time. Essek felt the usual pang of guilt pierce his heart as it always did when the halfing, who was no longer a goblin, was on his mind. "He separated my husband and son and then locked up and starved Yeza. He probably did all sorts of other sketchy shit, didn't you, Essek?"
"But surely the sketchy things we know of already are enough?" Caduceus's voice, slow and calm and damning.
"He made someone believe they did something awful that they didn't do." Yasha. Quiet, but simmering with a restrained anger under the surface.
"He lied to us." Fjord, now. "He's lied to you, Your Majesty. He's lied to you, Umavi. He's lied to everyone in this room in one way or another. He's a liar."
"And," Beauregard spoke up again, "he's part of why the war started in the first place."
"Ja, he is." Essek's eyes closed as Caleb spoke, his tone quiet but so clear that he could have been speaking right into Essek's ear. "Our countries have fought battles. Soldiers and innocents alike have died, because of him. Children have been separated from parents. Parents have been separated from children."
"Because he was selfish."
"And cruel."
"And he never cared who might be hurt by his desires."
The accusations continued, so quickly that Essek could hardly attribute the words to a name. It wasn't until he heard someone not of the Nein speak that his eyes opened once more. When they did, all he could look at was the other him. The Shadowhand sat as serene as before, with the hint of a smirk on his face that spoke of pure amusement.
"He ignored me," Verin said, his hand still gripping Essek's shoulder almost painfully tight. "I spent a century loving him and he cast me aside time and again. He cast me aside for a spellbook, then he cast me aside for a title. And now he did it again, this time for a bunch of mercenaries he barely knows."
His mother stood. "He is the reason my husband is dead. The Light may yet return him to my side, but he may not -- and that is this boy's fault." She finally looked at Essek, the same expression of indifference on her face. "He is no Thelyss. He is no son of mine."
The Shadowhand grinned, wide and cruel. He stood, seemingly unnoticed by those around him as he started to approach. His movements were smooth, gliding as he was across the floor.
"Such a waste of breath," the Shadowhand said, stopping just shy of where Essek kneeled on the ground, his head bowed forward. "What do they expect? Remorse? Guilt? From the great Shadowhand Essek Thelyss? They clearly do not know you, not as I do."
Essek's head tipped up, meeting those cold blue eyes as tears started to fill his own. Gravity, a force that he had been able to control with ease since he was only a child, seemed to press in around him, stealing his breath from his lungs.
"You don't care about the Den," the Shadowhand continued, gaze staying locked on Essek's even as he began to make slow circles around the room. "All you cared about were the doors that opened at being a Thelyss, at being the son of the Umavi. They were what saved you, did it not? When it came out that you were just an ordinary new soul, the only thing that kept you from being cast aside was your name. Your name is the reason you got to study as you did. Your name is the reason you were given such a prestigious title at such a young age in the first place. None of it was earned."
Suddenly, the Shadowhand was right in front of Essek, crouching down to look right into his face. Essek closed his eyes, but it didn't matter. He knew he was there as the Shadowhand's voice dropped to just above a whisper. "That's why they kept the beacons from you in the first place. So ambitious. Such lofty goals. But so young. It's the one part of yourself that you cannot lie about, that you cannot fake."
The Shadowhand straightened, stepping back and peering down at Essek's now wet face with disdain. "It's why you pushed so hard from him." He waved one hand at Verin. "He was just a reminder of your faults, of your youth. Besides, he was such a waste of potential, was he not? Content to swing a sword, rather than strive to become something more. A lost cause, just like your father."
That point made, the Shadowhand turned, looking at the group of mercenaries -- heroes of the Dynasty, the Mighty Nein. "They are just a means to an end, are they not? A tool, something to help aid in crafting your story of innocence. You claim to have become a new person, but how can you be? You're only doing it to appease them. You don't actually care."
"No."
It was the first word that Essek had uttered, his somehow voice so different than that of the sure and ruthless Shadowhand. That had been his voice, not very long ago. But now it was quiet, restrained -- filled with a sorrow that the Shadowhand could not know.
Essek looked at the Shadowhand, eyes narrowing. "I am not you," he said. "Not anymore."
Because he did care. For as fraught as his relationship with his mother may have been, he cared about her in his own way. For as complicated as his relationship with Verin still was, he wanted desperately to repair it. He had been trying -- perhaps not always in the best of ways, but he was trying.
And while he had admitted his treason to the Mighty Nein in the belly of their ship and had meant it that his only concern was that his actions had hurt them, it wasn't necessarily the case anymore. As he had met new people, people that weren't even from his own world, his eyes had opened to the array of people that existed outside of his towers, outside of Rosohna itself. They were not pawns or cannon fodder. They were mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, brothers and sisters. They were farmers and shop owners and soldiers and clerics.
He may never understand the scope of what his actions had wrought in the lives of so many, but he was starting to. He was, as he'd said before, a work in progress -- but he was in progress and willing to be. Essek Thelyss wanted to change. He wanted to do better, to be better.
As quick as the Shadowhand had been in front of Essek before, now Caleb Widogast kneeled before him. His hands reached up, holding Essek's face gingerly. This time, instead of shying away or reacting as though he'd been burned, he leaned into the touch. Quietly, Essek murmured the words that had echoed around in his head since the other wizard had first said them so many months ago.
"We can choose to do something and leave it better than it was before."
With one more look into Caleb's eyes, Essek straightened and stood. He heard his brother take a step back behind him, rather than pushing him back to his knees. "Maybe I am you," he said, speaking directly to the Shadowhand now. "Maybe I am as cruel and callous as you say I am. Maybe I am a selfish creature, one built on ego and hubris. I may claim my decisions have been made for the betterment of others, but maybe I know that my altruism can only stretch but so far."
He paused, looking down at his shackled hands -- and feet, he realizes now -- and then up at the Bright Queen, his mother, then over to the Mighty Nein and his brother. "But I do not want to be you. Perhaps I started wanting to change out of a desire to be worthy of the care of these people -- " He waved his joined hands toward the Mighty Nein, then also Verin, "but it is more than that. I want to change, because I am tired of being alone. I want to change, because it is the right thing to do. I want to change, because -- because I look at you and all I see is loneliness shrouded in a feeble attempt at aloofness that led to decisions that hurt an untold number and -- and I don't want to be that person anymore."
Essek looked to the Bright Queen once more. "I am guilty, Your Majesty, and I have no defense to give. I will accept whatever punishment you deem fitting, with the knowledge that I am not the man I once was."
At that, the shackles fell to the ground with a clang. Essek could barely feel relief, though, as the Shadowhand rushed forward, hands outstretched with a look of pure rage and madness on his face. With a reaction time he wish he'd have had when dinosaurs were involved, his hands moved on instinct and voice said the words he'd long since memorized to create a line of gravity that sucked the Shadowhand inside.
He screamed -- or was it Essek himself that screamed? -- and suddenly the Cathedral of the Bright Queen faded around him. The tall walls were replaced with bright wallpaper and the marble floors were just carpet. He was alone, rather than surrounded by Kryn nobility and his friends. There was only one of him, wearing not a Shadowhand mantle, but comfortable trousers and, of all things, a sweater of Caleb's that he had surreptitiously stolen that morning when he'd woken from his trance.
Essek wiped the tears that were still falling from his eyes with one hand, drew in a deep breath, and then walked out of the hotel.