Welcome to Gaia! ::

That sounded like as close enough of a connection as any.

If this Nectaris was his former superior officer, and she had already taken the steps to leave, he didn’t see why she wouldn’t want her former subordinates to follow. He could work with that, and if she refused, it might say more about Elliot if someone he knew was unwilling to sponsor his purification than anything else really could.

Every thing he was doing, every little thing, was an attempt to prove to himself that Elliot was truly not going to kill them, and that he shouldn’t finish what he was trying to do earlier.

Tobias would never speak to him again.

Elliot’s snort of laughter had been good to hear.

“Be right back.”

Zebulon hated that they couldn’t just do something a bit more … modern as knights. But no, he was stuck rooting around in their papers for something he could reasonably use to write on. Bills. Sure. Which one of these had already been paid, so it didn’t ******** matter what he used it for?

Promethei was the one who returned, but this time he held a pen and their electric bill instead of the knife that still sat on the dining room table. In front of the slightly more open door, he sat.

“Nectaris, you said?” What the ******** was he going to ask her for? He didn’t know a lot about purification, but he was pretty sure those fancy people with the wings were needed. Promethei had just seen one sprout wings at that bank fiasco. Maybe Nectaris knew her.

“And you’re Ransomite? Them Negaversers really gotta name you on the nose, don’t they?”

Promethei started out with one of the classic notes that had always signified him as a doctor to his unfortunate students.

As he wrote, he added, “It’s Promethei like this. Diryas is Imhotep.”

“Hey, this is my note–”

Elliot was raising Cain for some reason and before Promethei could stamp his symbol on the note, Elliot had snatched it into the bathroom. He rolled his eyes but let Elliot have it, whatever he thought he was doing by getting control of the paper back. Wasn’t like he could change the message; Zebulon just wouldn’t send it out if he did.

Thankfully, the only thing Elliot thought it wise to touch on his own writing was correcting subordinate to friend. He also opted to reveal himself as Fr. Isaac to this Nectaris person, which … well, he didn’t need to waste his time crossing out Elliot’s name, he supposed.

The context otherwise remained the same.

“Whatever,” responded Promethei, before taking his symbol, stamping it onto the document, and letting it disappear, just like that.

“She’ll get it next time she powers up. Part of your penance is your follow through.” Promethei’s lips lifted in a smirk. “Sure I can think of other useful things for you to do for forgiveness as time goes on.”

Once he was actually purified, perhaps.

“Fantastically, thanks. I’m the one who shared the knowledge of fire with everyone on Earth.” Promethei snorted. “Gotta share my godly knowledge to my willing pupils somehow, no matter the consequence.”

He paused.

“Well. That should be what I’d say as a professor. But not like I had some evil agent handpick my name for me. Born with it. The Promethei University of Mercury is what I belong to, somehow.”

His lips lifted.

“Thanks for the idea, by the way. Laundry is a good place to start. You haven’t done any house chores in over a ******** year.”

For a few moments, this almost felt astoundingly normal.

… Almost.

He was curious and primarily wanted to look up Ransomite for its chemical properties, he admitted, but it might be a bit before he would do so happily. If it was in the aftermath of his purification, perhaps it might be good for a shared laugh while Zebulon figured out what the mineral was actually made out of and used for. If it was after Ransomite had been killed for refusing to purify, really, well–

“Imhotep,” corrected Promethei, with a snort. “He shares his name with an Egyptian architect of pyramids and a priest of the sun god in Egyptian mythology. Ra? Yeah.”

Promethei couldn’t help the smug, “Sounds like we’re cosmically appointed the smartest in the universe.”