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Zebulon merrily chimed in, "Highly recommend having multiple partners, honestly. For one," he snickered, "helps with dividing chores."

The look he gave Elliot Teegan as Tobias was looking at him and Diryas was somewhere between teasing and pointed.

Diryas and Tobias were acting like the cats they both loved with that staredown they were doing. Also: they were as married as they declared they are.

Diryas was the one to look away first, and Zebulon glanced down at him to evaluate his expression. There was a bit of a downward twitch to his lips which told Zebulon all he needed to know, and he offered Diryas a supportive squeeze before looking back over to Tobias and ... Ransomite, that was his name, right. Ransom. Either the Negaverse was holding his husband hostage or he was about to try to hold all of them hostage.

Considering he had seen Princess Cybele in action, he doubted that one would ever work. So he supposed it also came down to the question of what the Negaverse would really release. Did settling on Teeg matter? "You're not wrong," snickered Zebulon, as he watched Tobias move to start playing with Ransomite's outfit, "but I'm glad you like Teeg. Better than the bullshit your mother gave you anyway."

Zebulon rubbed his thumb over the back of Diryas' hand as he watched Ransomite summon his ... Christmas ornament stabbing elements. While he would have much liked to have something more threatening than a test tube, he had to admit, the Christmas ornaments were just what Tobias named, combined with the trees on his outfit and everything else about his getup...

At Tobias' title of him, Zebulon nearly choked on his spit.

"Toby's right," announced Zeb, his gaze sliding over to Diryas in hopes of lifting his mood as much as his was still in the mire. "He does look like a dweeb." A beat. "Spirit Halloween's Evil Christmas Soldier dweeb."

He took a deep breath.

... Well. Time to see where this was all going to land, he supposed.

"I wrote down everything I could think of, so if anything maybe I can read you stories out of it." Ransomite spared a wink her way, enjoying the brief moment of levity as she came to his defense over being called a dweeb. "As far as relationship advice, I can try, but I tripped and fell into everything." And, hopefully, he would get to keep it after everything-- "You could try asking Toby here. He's the one wrangling us."

Tobias rolled his eyes, but there was no bite to it.

Ransomite was, however, indeed ready. So he'd taken a deep breath and faced Cybele fully, Tobias letting go of his hand and standing further off to the side, staying out of the way. So that it was just him and Cybele. Him, Cybele, his conscience, and whatever magic she was about to use on him.

He had the fleeting thought that it would be very easy to have tricked him, to instead kill him instead of purify him, but there was literally no reason for that to happen. Even as something in him, something that tied him to Chaos, recoiled back from the light

Oh, oh that was bright--

At first, it was just bright, but so bright that he had to shade his eyes. So bright that his eyes stung and watered when he tried to look at it. It didn't escape his peripheral notice that he didn't see Diryas or Tobias shading their eyes. Was it just him? Was it just him staring into a small sun?

That's when the heat started. It was just warm, at first. A little uncomfortably so, but nothing he hadn't experienced before on a particularly sunny summer day. But then it got hotter. He thought, for a moment, about seeing if his neck straps did indeed unbuckle. It would probably help the heat some. But he didn't seem to actually be sweating, so maybe it wouldn't actually.

But then it got hotter.

He could feel the Chaos in him shrinking back, like a hissing, angry thing. All claws and teeth and bristling fur. At the same time, the parts of him it drew back from breathed easier, lighter. The shadows where it tried to hide shrank down, turned from ink to shade, from murky dark to cool breezes. Where it tried to hide in the open, the light repudiated it, taking the deathly sterility it tried to leave behind, where nothing lived, had lived, could live.

Would live.

But things would live there. Where Chaos left death, there would be life. Where Chaos left bodies twisting and warping, there would be healing. Instead of trepidation, there would be laughter.

Instead of echoes and whispers, birdsong.

Instead of sunbaked dirt, cracked and wanting and dying, water and soft grass.

He could feel the Chaos in him trying its best to hold on, to keep its grasp on him. It dug in its claws, and for a moment the light and heat hurt, before he realised that the pain wasn't his. The creeping darkness wasn't his, and the bright lifelessness wasn't his. The thoughts, the whispers, the urging to reach out, to tear and pull a glittering soul from someone's limp body--none of it was his.

He reached out, grabbed instead for the cool shade, for the gentleness in the light that Cybele was giving off. Even as his arms didn't actually move, he took the shade, the cool breezes, the water, the sunlight, the gentle nighttime, the quiet dusk. He took them, and he pushed.

And shoved.

Chaos released him, then, leaving what felt like furrows in his skin as it went, though he was uninjured.

All at once, he was back to standing where he had before, the light fading away, an errant breeze teasing some of his hair as he looked up. There was weight on his arm, and he looked down to see the round wooden shield attached there. He lifted his arm up and down a bit, experimentally, testing the balance of it and gratified to find it manageable.

Curiosity got the better of him, and he looked down at himself, skin still stinging from claws that hadn't truly existed.

"Ah, Earth."

It was different to watch a purification, or even to experience one, as intense as that could be, than it was to be the one channeling the energy that burned the Chaos away.

It was different from casting magic. When Cybele wanted that, she just said the word. She focused, perhaps, but only for a moment, and then the spell was cast. Now, her eyes narrowed with concentration as she could feel the Chaos that was left in Ransomite like a solid presence, pushing back against the light. Beads of sweat formed on her brow. This was like a battle in its own right, one that she'd never fought before, even though to the others, Cybele likely appeared serene, simply locked in concentration.

Little by little, the black faded from his outfit, and the darkness faded from his aura. Then, there was no Chaos left in him at all.

The Captain before her was gone, and yet the man was alive. He stood before her as a Squire of Earth,.

As the light faded, Cybele looked briefly at her hands, at her crystal. She'd done that. She'd done that. Exhaustion crept from her arms into her chest, but it was done. It had happened, and she'd been the one pulling someone from the clutches of Chaos.

Even as her shoulders slumped slightly, she was smiling.

"You're Earth," she replied, going for the obvious comment while her head spun slightly. "A true protector, now."


Nectaris on the other hand was just barely holding back all kinds of high pitched squeaking noises. She bounced instead, the grin just about splitting her face.

"You did it you did it you did it!" she was saying. "And you're outfit's so cool now, you, like, literally look like a knight, that's the cool thing about Earth."

She wanted to play with his sleeves.

Nectaris wasn't wrong in him looking like a proper knight. Zebulon might have even bought the squire title from ... whoever Teegan was on the other side. Probably a question worth asking, probably a question worth addressing once Elliot Teegan finished addressing Cybele and Nectaris and kissing Tobias.

Perhaps that should have been a good sign if anything. They could figure it out, if they stood, battered but through it, on the other side. They were snuggling standing up. Surely that meant some part of the unfairly ******** actually remembered them, and he can hash out the fact that Teegan had ******** betrayed them all ********> he was a mess of emotions right now. Tired. Exhausted. Sad. Betrayed. Relieved. Joyful. And somehow, the only expression that made it to his face was a grin as Tobias spun Teegan in their direction.

It was hard to do anything but even as he attempted to sort through the mire in his brain. Were his eyes still glistening? They felt heavy in a way he didn't like.

To Diryas, he murmured, "Well, at least he purified." Diryas' expression was relatively unreadable, but Zebulon had a sense that Diryas was just as mixed up as he was.

Could Teegan even tell that, now?

Zebulon listened to what Tobias explained, wondering if that would key him into what Teegan actually remembered. Probably more useful implied that he didn't remember what his Negaverse weaponry was--Zebulon would have still rathered that s**t over the test tube, thanks--but how much did that actually tell them? The kiss hinted something was familiar with his exchange with Tobias, so maybe they had stuck. He found himself taking in the Earth Squire in front of them up and down in a way that probably looked more salacious than it actually was.

Zebulon pulled at that space university again, replacing himself with Promethei as he said, "Promethei like this. Who are you like that? Just knew that I was Promethei the moment I held onto that test tube."

His brows knit.

He should stop pressing. He should-- "And what do you remember?" And there it was.

Amasis

stari_maga

How much did he remember?

Did he need a place to stay?

Who were all of them?

'A true protector'?

Who was he?

That last one, he could answer. He looked down at himself, then back up to the others, glancing back toward Cybele to make sure he pitched his voice so she could hear him. "I'm Emain Ablach." When he said his name, something felt like it slid into place in the back of his mind, like a tension in his posture released. When had that gotten there?

...All things considered, it had probably been there a very long time.

"I know who you are." He accompanied it with a chuckle. That wasn't a complete lie; he knew their names and looking at them gave him a sense of aching familiarity. There was a reason he hadn't pulled away from Tobias' kissing him. It felt right. "Zebulon Raymond Castaneda, Diryas ibn Hanan ibn Fakhir Castaneda al-Baksh, Tobias Ezra Kasabian, Nectaris a-k-a Livie, Cybele." Teegan gestured to each of them in turn. The names rolled easily-enough off of his tongue.

Maybe that would disguise the fact that trying to remember anything about them gave him a headache. It was like the memories were right there, right at the fringes of recollection, right where he could almost grab them. When Teegan looked at Livie, something about her reminded him of tea and of crickets at nighttime. When he looked at Tobias, Diryas, and Zebulon, he could catch vague recollections of mischievous whispers, of sleeping bodies curled and sprawled around and over each other, of laughing around a table. Looking at Cybele gave him nothing even that concrete, and he wondered if he'd known her as well as the others.

But that was it, and nothing was solid enough to picture in his mind. He knew these people had been important--were still important--but could not pin down why, and trying wasn't helping his headache. "We can probably go to a ren faire eventually. Let me adjust first, though, yeah?" His response to Livie was accompanied with a gentle wink. Speaking of adjustment... "I don't know if I need a place to stay or not?" He reflexively glanced over to the other three men standing there, then away from them.

"He can stay with us, obviously." Tobias looked to Diryas and Zebulon as he said this, tone bright, but the brightness faltered a bit when he saw Diryas' expression.

"I'd rather he didn't for now, if he has somewhere else to go."

Ah. There it was.

All through Emain introducing himself, and listing off the names, and saying that maybe someday he and Livie could go off to the fair, Livie was as grinning and bouncy as she’d been when the purification light hit Ransomite and left him someone new.

Then Diryas was talking, and her expression flipped like a switch.

Her eyes narrowed. “You-“ she sputtered, and it looked like maybe she was trying to breathe or something and not say anything stupid, but in the end her paper thin filter couldn’t catch the “You don’t want him?”

It was a good fifty percent shock in her voice, because she didn’t even know how to process that, but as her gaze snapped over to Zebulon she was figuring it out, and looked considerably more disgruntled. “You don’t want your husband?”

She opened her mouth to say more, but then she felt the heaviness of a hand on her shoulder, and she looked over to see Cybele’s piercing eyes staring down at her. No words came out, not even a that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in my entire life.

She had thoughts, though. She sure had thoughts.

Whatever he’d done before, which, like, honestly didn’t even sound like it had been all that bad compared to what a lot of agents had been doing, he’d stopped. He’d repented. He’d gone through the literal pain of Cybele’s burning light, and also, like, paid the bigger prices of memory stuff and having to step away from big parts of his own life.

He’d done a lot.

And then one of his husbands was gonna say not to come back to his house, and the other was gonna not even argue against that?

With Cybele holding onto her, she didn’t say anything more about it, but she huffed. Then she stepped out of her grip and towards the new Knight. “Okay, you’re coming home with me, then.”

She exchanged a glance with Cybele, who of course nodded obediently.

“It’ll be all cute, it’s where I adjusted after I purified. You can meet my family. And like, he can come visit.”

She nodded at Tobias, who she had already decided she liked.

Livie's sudden expression flip caused Promethei to jump minutely in a way that might have been more obvious than Diryas' reaction--until his eyes narrowed, anyway, and it didn't take Promethei's experience with Diryas' flat affect to figure out that he was boiling. He was sure that Cybele had managed to stop a fight from breaking out because he was even chomping at the bit to say something, anything, about the meaning of giving emotional distance for the sake of their quartet remaining that way. Diryas needed time to process. Tobias needed time to process.

And so did he.

Promethei was never particularly good at shutting up, and so what made it out of his lips was, "Better to take some distance for now before saying something rash turns that into forever."

He didn't want it to turn into forever. He hardly wanted it to turn into a for now, still feeling that sense of responsibility. But this would be better for Diryas. For him, probably, until he felt ready to formulate his arguments in a cohesive way that wouldn't result in a fight about something he wasn't even sure if Teegan even ******** remembered. (That wording had been specific, hadn't it.) For Tobias, even if he didn't know it.

He grunted under his breath.

"Thank you again, Cybele," he turned to her first, nodding. "Need something from me, just ask. I can do what needs to be done."

And then, to Livie, "Let me know what his new phone number is."

At least Zebulon could talk to Teegan independently and vet just how much of Elliot was remaining under the brightness he seemed to be projecting. They were all too ******** emotional for that to be the reality.

Himself included. He needed a g-ddamn nap.