Joy False And True

A hush has fallen over the field of crystal flowers that Menesil's mind has conjured. It is a place of peace, certainly, but for how long? What is certain is that this place holds a secret, and an important one. Seldan sits now, studying the crystal flower between his hands, heedless of the stinging cuts that the crystal leaves across palm and fingers, his blood running down his hands and into the stem of the flower in a golden-silver-cerulean blue trickle.

The light from the crystal in his hands flickers, its brilliance fading from what it had been in his hands at first, what it is in the hands of others, and he has sunk down into the grass to sit cross-legged, staring into its depths as if he could open its mysteries by staring.

Serene has since shaken herself free of the memory she related, her expression vaguely annoyed. She, too, still bears the crystalline flower she broke free from the landscape... it's glow something she hasn't truly grokked the meaning of. "Still unclear," she finally says. "Are our experiences and motivations supposed to serve as an example to stiffen his spine?" She still does not attempt to interact with the shrunken king.

Malik looks down at his palm, and then over to Seldan's flickering flower. The fact that the blood on Seldan's flower looks so much different than the blood on his is not lost on the wizard. His expression reads that much, just turning his face a bit to the side, staring pointedly at just about anything else. He wears an expression that few get to see on the wizard: doubt. And possibly something else. Of the three of them, though, he's maybe notable for not having plucked his flower, leaving it in the ground -- and most certainly not holding it now.

At Serene's question, though, he gives a little shake of his head. "This is ancient magic. I think it more likely that they're offerings. Like logs on a fire."

Seldan, too, has turned away from the shrunken Menesil. "It is in my mind that we must stand where he cannot, succeed where he failed." He looks up for the first time, his eyes drifting almost at once to the oily black in the blood on Malik's hands, then up to the doubt that the wizard wears, a doubt that mirrors his own. "It remains," he murmurs, sadly. "His father crafted mighty weapons from such as these. There can be little doubt that we feed it from ourselves." Guilt floods him, and the flower in his hands dims further. "I - Mal. Will you stand with me?"

Serene hmmphs, nodding her acceptance of both Malik's and Seldan's words. "And a man such as his father, should what I have gathered from what I have heard since arriving here, would have had a strength of will the likes of us could hardly imagine. So it is left to us to do what Menesil cannot?"

Malik looks up at the sound of Seldan's voice, some of whatever was on his mind melting away. He gives the man a warm smile, moving over to stand in front of him, careful not to crush the flower as he leans in, pressing an easy kiss to Seldan's forehead. "Anywhere," he answers the other man. "Always." He reaches up, brushing a lock of Seldan's hair out of his face, pushing it behind his ear.

Still, though, he hears Serene's words, offering her a smile as well, though there's something a bit more bitter in that one. "You begin to see the problem."

The touch of Malik's lips on his forehead seems to have a profound effect on Seldan, if not on the unruly lock of hair that absolutely refuses to stay where either he or Malik put it. It had crept out of the leather thong that held his ginger-blonde mane at the nape of his neck, to hang first by his face, then in his face. It falls right back where it had hung when he lowered his eyes,

When Malik kisses him and offers his reassurance, though, he looks up, and brushes that lock of hair back behind that same ear with a bloodied hand, leaving that gold-silver-blue streak in their wake, clinging to the bright strands. "Do I stand not alone, then I see no problem," he tells the other two. "For are we not together greater than any one of us, do we place our faith in one another? What can we not achieve? We have dismissed whence they belong the mightiest of minions. Freed a fae queen. Denied and then destroyed an Archduke of the Hells. Defied all of Llyranost. I do not fear Vai, Serene. He may think himself wise, but he is not. He is as a selfish child, aye, and his people with him."

Serene hmmphs again, another nod. She does not disagree. "They have lived a culture of isolation for centuries. It is not so easy to change such a habit so quickly. Not so easy to even consider it. Particularly when they are frightened, as they most certainly are now that their protection is gone. And yes... compared to what we have faced together, they are a minor concern. A concern still, but.. well.. there are larger events at play." She holds the crystal flower up, examining it again. "That may be a part of the key. We have all been a part of major events. Fought through them together. Our lives have depended upon one another repeatedly. Our faith in each other will no doubt form the foundation for what we must do here, then."

Malik winces a bit at the mention that they've all been part of major events. A bit of tension at the mention of the fae queen, and then an almost open wince at the mention of the Duke of Hell. Still, though, he gives Seldan an easy nod. "I've never been as fond of rules as you," he laughs. "Breaking theirs just seems like good fun, at this point. At least it'll be more fun than dying in a tent in the swamps, this time." The smile gets a little bit of actual warmth to it there, some of that old mischief creeping back into his expression as he starts to think back on where they've come from.

To Serene, he notes, "I'm not entirely sure that I share your faith. But if you're wrong, then I get to look at you smugly in the afterlife, and that seems well worth it."

Seldan's expression darkens, the light in the flower between his hands steadying and strengthening, even as it continues to draw from the cuts across his hands. He pays it no mind, and seems to be allowing it to draw as it will, watching it intently as if for understanding. In fact, his gaze returns to it, and that lock of hair falls one more time.

He draws a deep breath, though, and releases it. "They held an intelligent being against its will, to serve their ends," he explains. "A selfish, and wholly wrong, move, and one that must be thwarted." Only when Malik mentions the tent in the swamps does the smallest of smiles creep across his features. "Even so. Perhaps you would swim once more with a vampire, do you seek fun?"

Serene may not know what Seldan refers to, but Malik should.

"I can live with that," Serene assures Malik.. and surely there's fuel for a joke in that, though any sort of smile or humour is absent. And no, she is not aware of the campite tent in a swamp episode... but it certainly wouldn't be the only one. She looks over at Seldan, and looks as though she might continue the conversation regarding the elves... but then the moment passes and she looks away again. "I am going to walk the perimeter again." Perhaps she wishes to give the pair what limited privacy she can.

"As it happens," Malik says, still standing close in front of Seldan, "I found a partner I'd much rather swim with. I have much better memories with him." Malik reaches up, placing his hands next to Seldan's on that crystal stem. If it's going to draw from them, it might as well draw from them both. Given the look on Malik's face, maybe he thinks that the shining quality of Seldan's blood might be enough to offset whatever taint he still sees, or feels, in his own.

As Serene moves to walk the perimeter, he presses his forehead to Seldan's. "If this works," he tells the paladin, "it will likely still put us on the run once more." Strangely, the wizard doesn't seem like he would mind that at all, from his tone.

Serene has left.

"We are already on the run, Mal," Seldan reminds the wizard with the smallest of smiles. "It seems that it is Eluna's will that we tweak many a nose and upset many a cart, that things be set right. Why? I cannot say, and yet do I not doubt that it is Her will that it be so. Naught of it do I begrudge, and I am but grateful that you have come with me." His eyes lower, to watch as the red and oily black mingle with the gold-silver-cerulean of his and be so drawn into the fragile and beautiful thing in his hands. "For so long as I stand not alone, I shall face all that come to me, all that oppose Her. Do I stand alone...."

He trails off, the light in his hands dimming at a thought not to be borne. A quickly released breath, though, and he looks back up again. "It is known to me that you struggle to believe, and yet many times over have I been saved, by placing my life, my soul, all that I am, in another's hands, and been rewarded for it. Will you place your faith in me, where you might not in a god, or in aught other?"

"So we are," Malik concedes, eyes looking almost merry at that idea. "Probably best not to question the will of the goddess," Malik muses, not entirely seriously. Which changes when Seldan makes his request, though, the wizard's smile fading into something concerned. "It isn't the first time you've said that," Malik responds, his voice soft. "And yet, I don't know where the belief comes from. You question my faith. Whether I have any. But I wear the marks of my faith the same as you."

He pulls down the collar of his shirt, showing the edge of those tattoos he bears.

"I have faith. Just because mine takes a different shape than yours doesn't make it less real. And my god has answered my prayers as often as yours. He answers them every time you come back safely through the door. Every time you smile in my direction. Every time we make some new discovery together, or share a moment of laughter, or joy. I ask little of him. And what little I ask of him, he provides freely enough."

Still, Seldan asked him for something. And Malik, as always, is willing to give it. "I made my vows to you. I intend to keep them. You'll not walk alone into this. Or anything else. Not so long as I can help it."

Seldan shakes his head in response, a quiet negation. "I speak of faith of a different sort," he answers. "I speak of trust in those with whom I stand. The knowledge that I can walk open-eyed into a demon's trap, and know that my companions will not abandon me." His eyes go again to the flower between his hands, now glowing steadily, then lift to seek Malik's blue ones, the gaze open. "A trust hard-won, that was not always mine. I believe that you will, and thus am I satisfied." A small smile accompanies those words. "I have stood too many times without you, and I feel that keenly."

Those last words hit Malik like a hammer, fists clenching more tightly around that stem, the oily-looking blood darkening as he closes his eyes. There's a look there that Seldan rarely sees. Pain. Shame. The wizard is making an effort to control his breathing, neck muscles convulsing a little over the place where that scar stood, once upon a time. The marked reminder of his failures. "A trust that you may be well within your rights to withhold," Malik answers in turn. "The fact that you've stood without me so often..." There's an apology there, trying to force its way out. But the wizard has no idea where to even begin.

Seldan's eyes lower again to the flower between them, eyes on that red/black flow that feeds it, the pain in that voice drawing out the alabaster pillar from his features and form. "A trust that I must now give, rights or nay," he murmurs. "We will not succeed, do not all of us give freely, and without doubt. The magic that feeds the crystal fades when I doubt, and thus must I cast such aside. You are here now, in my need, and that is all that matters."

Malik nods, pressing the crown of his head to Seldan's, both of them staring downward. "I fear that if you're looking for a hero," he confesses, "you're looking at the wrong man. Eclavdran and the fae queen showed us that." Both situations where he was bound against his will, once to do harm to the person he loves. "The desire was never lacking. But I'm afraid that --" He lets out a slow, deep exhale. So many things he's afraid of, lately. So many times his desire to help has been twisted back onto him with disastrous results. "I'm afraid."

Fear. The enemy of so many endeavors, whether to begin, or to carry on. The alabaster pillar melts away, back into the paladin, and Seldan shifts his hands that hold the flower, to reach for the tips of Malik's fingers. Fresh cuts from the crystal mar his hands, and he glances down, wincing at the sting, but looks back up again. That's not as important as having that touch right now.

"Tell me," he asks, quietly. "Speak to me of your fears."

Malik reaches for those fingers as well, not minding the cuts. Not minding anything, really. Another small moment of peace and truth between the couple. Maybe one of their last, if the day doesn't go for them. "When I wish to help you," he tells Seldan, "it often seems that I end up more of a hindrance and liability than an aid. I lack the strength you have. The protections your faith give you are not the sorts of powers I know to wield. I often think --" He lets out a slow breath. "I think, too often, that I'm a distraction while you're on the field, and thus try to offer support in other ways. Your duty is to your gods first. I wouldn't have you be put in a position to have to choose."

"You are of aid, when you are single of purpose." Seldan's gaze is direct. "Your spells are of great worth, more than you know, and your arrows, the same. It is your will, your purpose, that trips you up at times. Never do I question your loyalty, nor your joy. Indeed do I need your joy at times, for so seldom have I known such. Be single of purpose now, and join with us, without reservation, and I do not doubt you."

Malik doesn't say anything right away, just letting the words wash over him. Considering what Seldan says. There's a little feeling of elation from the wizard as Seldan gives him compliments, butterflies in the stomach. But even he knows that his will isn't as strong as it should be. And that it has been his weakness. Looking down at the blood on the flower, he watches that tainted blood mix with the magic -- and watches the blue in that blood be completely undimmed by the oily blackness. No matter how much taint or corruption the wizard sees, Seldan's light seems undimmed by it -- and that revelation alone is enough to cause that flower to brighten just a bit. "You have me," Malik agrees. "Whenever you need me. For whatever you need me. All of me. No matter what comes."

"No more can I ask." The flower between Seldan's hands brightens, grows, even as he breathes a long, slow sigh. It is an expression of relief, of hope. "I would know that I need not shield you, hide from you."

Malik's turn to feel guilty now. Again. But there's something else there, too. This time, he doesn't even try for words. He isn't sure what words would even do for that. Instead, he just leans in, lips finding Seldan's, the kiss banishing any of Malik's remaining doubts, fears, worries. Confirming as best he can that Seldan need do no such thing. That he's there, and plans on being there, and Seldan need neither shield or hide him. Confirming his committment to the man, once more, in the only way that he knows how.

The gesture catches Seldan by surprise, at first, and his eyes fly open at the touch of Malik's lips on his. A familiar touch, and one warmly welcomed, the meaning behind it making it all the more so. He returns it willingly, warmly, the crystal brightening between then to cast stark shadows across their faces from below.

There's no need for words here, just a reaffirmation, a banishing of worries and fears, a setting aside of what has gone before, a turning to the future in the gesture between them. The paladin lets it linger, but when it is done, he lets out a long sigh. as if blowing away the last of the cobwebs. "No more can I ask, than to have those dearest to me by my side."

Malik seems rather content to just let the kiss linger, something there that he's been badly missing, it seems. Eventually, though, he simply presses his forehead to Seldan's, basking in the other man's presence. His own fears might not be completely banished -- the black in his blood, after all, has come from several sources, between fae plagues and demonic pacts, all of them leaving him feeling just that much more -- tainted, is perhaps the correct word. But those are for another time. Another day. Right now, he has a purpose, and a focus: get his husband through this fight, so that they can spend one more day together. And tomorrow, he'll do the same.

In truth, Seldan's scars are not so obvious, but no less worrisome for that. The problem has been true for too long to be banished with a single promise, and yet Seldan finds himself in the same boat. Now is not the time. For today, those doubts must be laid aside, and a full and complete commitment made, if they are to survive.

He allows the press of the forehead to his own, content to let the contact linger. "We have denied an archduke of the Hells and stood fast against that which corrupts the Sea of Mana. What shall stand against us?"

Malik can't help but chuckle at the idea of something standing against them. "You remember our enemies, and yet forget our friends," he reminds the other man. "There's a certain goblin that I'm fairly sure could cow both of us should she put her mind to it. And we both have fearsome parents. Let's not tempt the weavers of fate any more than we already have. One of these days, they're likely to take us up on our challenges."

"At times do I think that I get less abuse from my enemies, than those who would call me friend." Seldan's gaze lowers to the flower, the crystal dimming and the gold-silver-blue becoming less visible. "I weary of harsh words, Malik."

Malik, for his part, seems to hesitate for a second. "I do my best to avoid harsh words with you," he tells the man. "And to memory I can only remember a few times when I've slipped that promise." Still, he reaches up, putting a hand under Seldan's chin, trying to gently raise the man's eyes back up. "But if harsh words are becoming a burden for you, then I promise that the next person that utters one to you in my presence will come to immediately regret that decision. You, my love, are perfect beyond any words I can choose to assign to you. They're wholly inadequate for that task. But I'll do my best to use them to shield you and lift you up when others are trying to use them as weapons to beat you down."

Seldan looks up when his chin is lifted, but the blue eyes hold seriousness. "I remember a good few," he answers simply, the flower dimming further between his hands to a glimmer. "But," the light is not lost on him, and his eyes flick upwards again. "Your faith, and your mercy, is enough."

Malik winces at that, too, knowing that he's said things -- and Seldan apparently remembers more. There's a flash from the wizard. Anger, frustration, guilt. But just as quickly as it comes, he presses it back down. "Then I've wronged you more than I realized," Malik said. "And I owe you more than I knew. When we leave this place -- I'll work on making it up to you."

Seldan continues to wear the very smallest of smiles, a ghost of a thing, really, that fades on seeing that flash. "I would but have you remind me that I do not stand alone," he murmurs. "For what have we not accomplished, when together we stood? All of my greatest deeds, I accomplished not alone, and in truth have you near always been there in my need. I do not doubt that you shall again be so. There is much to be done, ere we are free to do as we will."

Malik offers up a little smile at that, too, though his seems almost sad. "My love," he tells Seldan, "we'll never be free to do as we will. But this far into the game, all of our chips are in. And so there's nothing to do but play the hands that we're dealt. But there's nobody I would rather play those hands with than you," he chuckles. "You and I do seem to have quite the remarkable winning streak. I think that we can keep it up a little while longer. So if you want someone by your side, I'll be there for it."

"We shall continue for as long as She calls me to," Seldan answers, that smile still not returning. "I can think of no place where I would not wish you by my side, do you think yourself capable, although I would ask of you naught that seems wrong to you."

"Very little seems wrong to me," Malik answers, though some of that old slyness comes into his voice. "So I think you need not worry there. I make no promises about 'foolish' though, given the company that we keep. There's only so much a man can take without making some kind of comment on it. I'm afraid we'll need to negotiate if you want me to refrain from calling fools what they are."

Some of that ghost of a smile is beginning to crepe back towards Seldan's lips, sneaking up on them like a teenager sneaking towards the window after dark. "A good many things I do, you might think of as foolish, and yet am I called to do so. To me, it is not foolish. It is needful."

"Well, then," Malik answers in turn, that impish grin, "I suppose you'll just have to find a way to keep me entertained during those times. That usually takes most of the edge off of it. If memory serves, you've managed that quite well in the past." He reaches out to Seldan, wrapping his arms around the man's waist, careful not to crush the flower between them. For some reason, it glows a little more brightly. "Even during the worst of our times, we've found ways to support each other. I didn't think we'd stopped. But if we have, then. We can find our way back there once more."

The embrace brightens the flower, but Seldan's guilt dims it again. He lets himself be pulled in, reveling in a closeness he'd missed in the months past, but - "I had not wished to burden you," he murmurs. "I know what Eclavdran did to you." Abruptly, he pauses,his expression tightens, and he shakes his head forcefully. "No." No what?

"No?" That seems to get Malik's attention as well. Seldan's sword is, as far as Malik can see, sheathed, and while he's gotten used to the voices from the blasted thing, this seems to be something entirely new. Though he gives a little shake of his head. "What Eclavdran did you couldn't have stopped," Malik sighs. "Both of us together at our best could not have stopped him, then. And the end result is that you destroyed him. So. It was a --" He swallows, the memories coming back, causing him to shudder. "A hard sacrifice. But a worthy one. Don't dwell on it."

Seldan draws a deep breath, then another, releasing them both in turn, and finally nods. "In so doing, he crossed the path of the one who would prove his undoing," he murmurs softly. "For that must I express my gratitude to Her, and to those that have aided me, you among them." A look up, and a very small smile. "I have not spoken to you of this, but - did I wish it, I could have seen that through his eyes. A thing I do not wish to see, and that I risk losing myself in his mind, do I try. I would - rid myself of those memories, and seek a means of doing so, save only that they hold information of his doings, and things that I might thwart."

The light in the flower, that silver-gold-sky blue thread that runs through its center, remains steady, and even grows a little, as he turns the knowledge of his own strength, of how that came to be so, of his will to resist, in his own mind. "Perhaps when this is done, I will turn my attention to such. For now, it is enough that do I not delve into his mind, he holds no power, and none shall he harm further."

Malik's answer is firm. Direct. "Don't." A shake of his head. "You don't -- want to see. I don't want you to see. If we can both forget, it would be a blessing. I bear that burden for both of us. Don't take it on yourself. You have enough burden on your shoulders for ten men already."

There is absolutely no doubt in his tone at that. No fears, no doubts, no longings for different things. Just an acceptance of the fact of the world, and a desire to protect Seldan from unnecessary pain, whatever the cost.

"If that -- thing," he mutters, "is in your head -- Seldan, no good will come of that. None. Whatever you think you can thwart, they'll simply choose another. THe corrupting influence it poses -- it's not worth the risk, my love. We'll fight evil another way. By opposing it. Not by becoming it."

Strange words, for a wizard of questionable moral standards at times.

That small smile touches Seldan's lips again at the conviction. No anger, no disagreement, no preparation to object. "The risk is considerable, and not all possess the strength to resist. Even I cannot be trusted for long with it. His evil-" A shudder ripples through him. "His evil is beyond what mortals should see or understand. A thing I will not sorrow to never touch again, no, nor consider. Setting him aside is not difficult."

Malik's mouth presses into a thin line. It's not even displeasure, so much as -- wariness. A thing that the wizard hasn't often shown. "I trust you," he tells Seldan. "And I trust you to know when you can no longer be trusted. But please put that thing out of your head at the first opportunity. Whatever information he possessed, it's better lost to the world."

That is certainly a different sentiment from the wizard, who has always argued that information should be preserved no matter what its origin. And yet that light of conviction doesn't flicker in the least. Whatever the wizard experienced from the archdemon, it left its mark in more ways than one, it seems. At least about this matter.

"Even so do I mean to do," Seldan agrees, blue eyes lighting with a sparkle of laughter, one side of his lips quirking up into half of a boyish grin. "I have enough company that I relish, within my mind, without entertaining that which I do not. And yet is now not the moment to seek to banish it, I think, merely set it aside, for it will not aid us against that which we now face. For do not we prepare to face a foe against which we can entertain no doubts?"

Malik, in turn, gets his own boyish grin, though his is slightly more cocky than Seldan's. His brows furrow a bit, and he cocks his head to the side in that playful, challenging way he does. Seldan doesn't even need words to understand that one too well. "Harboring doubts?" There's almost a laugh in there, that same delightful amusement that he knew back in the days in the inn in Goblintown, the pair of them drinking in their small room, debating practically everything under the sun -- when they weren't engaged in other more diverting activities later. "Still. Your point is well-made. It's a matter for another time, one which won't avail us any to consider now."

"Even so," Seldan agrees, returning his attention to the flower between his hands, cuts and all, that grows swiftly. "Do you stand with me, then naught shall be beyond us, together. Well do you know this. Divided we may fall, but together we are unstoppable."

Malik just gives his gentle answer in turn. "Then I stand with you, husband. And I dare anything to try and stop me." He wraps his hands over Seldan's, careful not to deepen those cuts if he can help it, the gesture meant to be supportive. That black blood still flows -- but it seems to bother him far less.

Somehow, as Seldan looks down at it, it seems to bother him far less as well. After all, in the end, he knows its source, better than any, and - it says nothing of his husband's intentions. The touch, the words - that is what is important, and the moment of comfort draws a smile on the outside, and the flower brightens between his hands.

All will be well, so long as they stand together.

At length, Seldan stands from where he'd sat in the middle of the field of crystal flowers. Much of his mind is settled in his discussion with Malik, with the rest of it being laid aside. Now is not the time, for well he knows that now is not the place for sadness or doubt, but instead he must call to mind all that he has done, and all that his has achieved with the help of those that now surround him. A fae queen, awoken from destructive dreams. A duke of hell forever destroyed. Countless evils stood against and vanquished. There is nothing he cannot do, with his friends at his side and Eluna at his back.

Speaking of....

The flower in his hand has grown, has strengthened, and now glows softly in his hand. A quiet smile touches his lips, and he casts a swift and simple spell that summons blue-gold-silver light, centered on the flower itself, then lets one hand drop and carries the glowing and growing creation in the direction of the one person he still needs to speak to. "Kin," he calls, ignoring the blue-silver-gold of his blood that now thoroughly coats both hands.

GAME: Seldan casts Light. Caster Level: 16 DC: 18

Zeke has been for his part, carefully avoiding the flowers. Though the others are bleeding from their wounds in strange colors, and in spite of the peaceful expression which has overtaken Seldan's features; he avoids the flowers as carefully as he can. The flowers are beautiful in their way, but he is wary of them in that way that one might be concerned about something that they know far too little about.

How are they to make weapons from flowers and memories after all?

Yet Zeke cannot and does not ignore the call of his kin. He moves through the flowers like a mountain, certain and careful. He internally winces at the wounds that are bleeding out on Seldan, his healers instinct telling him to care for the wounds. "Yessss Ssseldan?" He kneels before the other man, settling himself and his white robes with a few motions of his claws.

Where Zeke is wary, Seldan is fascinated, but his smile fades on observing that Zeke has yet to touch the flowers. "What troubles you, kin?" When Zeke kneels, the paladin drops to a knee himself in the field so that he can look his kin in the eyes, the crystal once more held between his hands.

Zeke looks at the crystal bloom in the paladin's hands and then down at those that grow around. Not avoiding Seldan's gaze but rather searching for an answer. "Thisss one doesss not wisssh to... Taint the flowersss kin." He looks at Seldan seriously. "Thisss isss a memory, a plassce of the mind, and thisss one hasss too many negitive memoriesss to be trusssted here."

The very small smile that Seldan wore fades, but he does not seem worried or troubled. "I have no few, kin, and few are the places in which I find joy. Not all of the memories that have power are joyful ones. Even still - I would have you recall a lake, and the fish within it. The flowers at the edge, the feel of the sand in your toes, the companionship of those who hear you."

Zeke is sad to see the smile fall from Seldan's lips. He knows that smiles rarely come to Seldan, and stay even less often. To see any of them go because of him... Is a sadness which he can ill afford if he is to be of any aid to his kin. He offers the other man a small sith version of a smile, waggling his tail from side to side. "If thisss one could pick any one memory to grow in thisss garden of memory, it would be the day that we became kin. The knowledge that thisss one would never be alone again, remainsss the greatessst gift that thisss one hasss ever received."

"That one such as you would say such is of great worth to me." This time, Seldan's smile returns, warm affection and concern reflected in his eyes. "A gift freely given, and never retracted, and one that brings me naught but joy that it is so. But, you need not choose but one to grow in the garden. You need only choose the memories that bring you power. For I remember rolling out of the fountain, to find you there to aid me. To watch you lend aid to all around you brings me joy, for you do far more than you will ever know."

Embarrassment at so many kind words given to him makes Zeke duck his head. He is unused to such things, and yet... it fills him with pride that he can bring his kin joy. That his hard works have not gone unnoticed. He hesitantly reaches out toward one of the flowers. Just before he touches the flower his hesitation and uncertainty once again firms into the strength that he has shown through-out this mission.

His claw reaches out and touches the flower, cutting his scales there and he bleeds not red, but white, a pure white light that is not the silvery light of Seldan or Serene, but the warm pure whiteness of untouched snow.

Zeke is full of negative memories, full of enough hurt to fill a thousand lifetimes, and yet... He has remained ever and faithfully devoted to his god and his ideals. His faithfulness, his - goodness - is rewarded in the light that is within him. No other color would suffice to describe Zeke.

The white of purity that feeds the flower as Zeke touches, the glow of daylight that touches it, draws a wider smile still from Seldan. "Kin, do you see?" he says, his eyes resting on that purest white flow. "Never doubt your worth, for your soul is pure. No matter your hurt, that is power, power that you shall use to aid those around you. Never doubt that you are capable of greatness."

Blue eyes lift to seek Zeke's, and in them is held newfound understanding. "It is in my mind to cast our hurt aside, for it shall not serve us now," he begins. "No matter the darkness of our road, we walk it not alone, neither of us. Let us be reminded of our joy."

Zeke's tail is shifting behind him, back and forth, back and forth. Softly, but with a soft miraculous joy. "Thisss one isss worthy." He says softly, with wonder and amazement. If sith could cry, he might have shed a tear then. Might have for the sheer joy of knowing that inside _him_ was this light. The light worthy of his devotion. "We are not alone kin, never that." He holds his claw out to Seldan, his light a shining one. "And that _is_ joy."

Seldan's pale blue eyes reflect that joy, that discovery, with a joy of his own that is seldom seen. "You see now, kin, what I have long seen in you. Never forget this. Hold onto it." He releases the flower, shifting it to one hand to reach to take that claw with the other, ignoring for the moment the smear of gold-silver-blue that he leaves across that claw.

The flower in his hand expands, glows brightly. "Joy indeed. Joy that I am surrounded by such as I find now here. Who shall stop us? What shall stop us, now that we stand together?"