#yknow for fun and also that bit of oof kicking into your chest and all

[crystal-verse]

Wolgraha week day 6: AU

[do you ever think about what would happen if the exarch succeeded in taking WoL's Light, but didn't actually manage to cast himself into the rift? the answer was my lightwarden crystal exarch au -- thus, enjoy]

The Crystal Exarch was a very beautiful man.

The Crystal Exarch was a very beautiful Lightwarden, too.

Pale white skin like porcelain, patterned in gold and dark black-blue like a decorative teacup. Crystal crawling along his right arm and down his hip, swallowing his right leg up to the knee, spreading across his chest and back to circle his neck like a gorget and creep into the feathers of those massive wings he had. Wings tipped in crystal and edged in gold, and there, too, was gold along his shoulders and hips, gold twining into his arms and legs and yet more arms, a Lightwarden so beautiful, so devoted to his cause, that his only altered features were the wings resting upon his back, the porcelain-and-gold colors his flesh wore, and the two sets of arms that floated in the air, that he might give yet more to help people.

Or, that was the assumption, you're sure. They were a very beautiful thing, that Lightwarden. Agape. A deep, selfless love.

Agape had eyes as red as the Crystal Exarch's eyes had been. The eyes on the back of the hands of those four floating arms were the same seaglass blue as G'raha Tia's eye had been.

And oh, what a pretty sight they made, Agape. Crystal Exarch encased in yet more crystal, a beautiful yet deadly creature. Even in this state -- Light torn away from you yourself and from your cousin, Light torn away from the two vaunted Warriors of Light -- the Lightwarden that had been (was still) your husband was calm. Docile. Content to curl up around you and rest his chin on top of your head, purring all the while, eyes closed.

He was only so content when around you, of course. They were still a Lightwarden. They gathered all the Light in the sky and devoured it until his body nigh on shone with Light held internally, the crystalline flesh glowing just as the Crystal Tower did. (Just as your own crystalline claws and fangs and blood did.) It made sense, of course -- G'raha Tia was a man devoted, and the Crystal Exarch even moreso, and it was a testament to that devotion, a sign of how much he was devoted, that even Light-twisted as he was, the Lightwarden Agape brought no harm to you.

They are small, for a Lightwarden. Only the size of a male Au Ra, lacking the horns but oh so much more deadly. You rarely leave the Tower, now. Your place has always been with G'raha, with the Exarch, with Agape, and the Scions may think you lost to madness but you think it is lost to love instead.

What else could be expected, of a god and their most devoted? What else could be expected of the oldest god and the highest angel? What else could be expected of you, Sae'pheli'ehva, who had brought the Tower into being, held your Raha within your crystalline ribcage for centuries? Who would ever think that you would not return that same devotion?

He was a beautiful Lightwarden. He was calm, if only in your presence. (You compare yourself to Vauthry once, in your thoughts. You do not do it a second time.)

The Scions are not allowed into the Tower. None are, save Lyna who enters every second day with a stubborn slant to her mouth, informing you both of the goings-on of the Crystarium, of the First.

Your Lightwarden has far more of his mind than one might think, you're sure. He thanks Lyna in a voice that echoes and sounds like bells and lute strings falling over one another. He holds you close and bids you rest, often. For all that you are god-and-angel, Crystal God and Crystal Exarch, Warrior of Light and Lightwarden, your body is mortal while Agape's is not.

You rest in the Ocular. You hold him close to you, tuck that porcelain-white head into the crook of your neck. Agape's purrs are much stronger than Raha's had been, somehow. Some part of being a Lightwarden seems to have changed the purrs, made them deeper, even more of a bone-rumbling sensation.

"Sleep." You say. "I'll be here to hold you while you rest."

They sleep.

#bound with thread | original posts #ink gone dry | writing #divine being of crystal and star | k'pheli tia (sae'pheli'ehva) #g'raha tia #technically??? close enough #wolgraha week 2023 #wolgraha #lightwarden au #fun fact i intentionally wrote this so that the last two lines would mirror the previous bit of writing #yknow for fun and also that bit of oof kicking into your chest and all