A large grin spread across Leon’s face as he stared at his reflection. As a King, he had a certain appearance to maintain in public, meaning that he often wore more elaborate costumes than he was typically comfortable with—and those elaborate outfits were often less ostentatious than Elise or his tailors wanted.
But the man staring back at him was dressed quite simply in a light, highly breathable silkgrass shirt so finely woven that it shimmered in the light of his dressing room. It was perfectly tailored, emphasizing his built shoulders and chest, and clinging aesthetically to his trim waist. The silkgrass was undyed at his request, and so was still its natural vibrant green color. Other than its fine weaving and tailoring, the shirt was completely undecorated.
He'd never had so finely made a shirt as the one he now wore when he was a child, but the tailors in Vale Town were still more than competent enough to make comfortable clothing, and what he now wore strongly reminded him of those days.
Joining the shirt was a simple pair of brown pants and lighter brown boots. He looked far from the King he was—if he had to guess his profession from his reflection, he might’ve guessed some kind of outdoorsman, though he would’ve also acknowledged his own bias as he did so.
From behind, he heard Elise quietly sigh.
“Something wrong?” he asked, looking back at his wife with some concern.
In contrast to him, she took to her Queenly status well, never failing to dress according to her station. Now, she was wearing silkgrass too, though her sleeveless top was dyed a brilliant blue with a scene of a thunderbird fighting against an enormous serpent embroidered in silver upon it. The top was paired with a long skirt weighed down with silver trim, and about her shoulders was a shawl featuring some of the snow lion fur given to them by Torfinn. Silver and sapphires bedecked her neck, wrists, fingers, and ears, while her hair had been loosely tied back with silver chains, from which hung more sapphires.
Neither she nor Leon thought that blue and silver were colors that complimented her that well, Leon still thought she looked incredible—and he certainly loved to see her wearing his colors, to boot.
Under her scrutinizing gaze and waiting for her response, Cassandra caught his eye. Valeria was there, too, but Maia was busy dealing with her lesser nymphs, who were soon to be entering their fertile periods and consequently seeking human mates. Both of them were dressed much more simply than Elise since they’d spent the morning sparring and hadn’t yet changed. Cassandra gave him an appraising look, too, so he struck a strongman pose and flexed.
“Looking good, Leon,” she said appreciatively.
“Strong,” Valeria added, though she only gave him a quick once-over.
“Hot,” Cassandra continued.
“Dignified,” Valeria responded.
“Fuckable,” Cassandra finished.
Valeria snorted.
Before either of them could continue, Elise stated, “It’s too simple!” She gestured at Leon up and down. “Please, husband, just wear something a little… nicer when visiting the Grave Warden?”
“Why should he do that?” Cassandra bluntly asked.
Elise whirled on her, looking aghast. “Of all the people to say that, I would never have thought it would be you, Cassie!”
Cassandra shrugged and smirked. “We must all dress according to our stations… but when we’re visiting someone like Ambrose, does anyone have to dress nicely? He seems more whimsical than Hatrahan the Long-Joweled.”
Elise gave her a blank look. “… Who?”
It was Cassandra’s turn to stare at her in shock. “Haven’t you read anything I discovered when I was unearthing old pre-Thunderbird Conquest ruins? Hatrahan was a famous trickster whose myths spanned most of the cultures on this plane!”
“Oh. I hadn’t heard of him. But—”
“Before you make your argument, love,” Leon interjected, drawing Elise’s attention back to him, “I’ll let you make one alteration to what I’m wearing now. It can be anything at all. But it will only be one thing. Cassie’s right: Ambrose won’t care if I show up in rags or covered in gold. So I’m going in what’s comfortable.”
Elise scowled, but as Leon’s offer percolated through her mind, a sly grin began stretching across her face.
Watching in growing horror, Cassandra said, “I hope you can live with the consequences of this decision, Leon…”
For the next few seconds, Leon dismissed her warning, but when Elise sashayed toward him, his heart skipped a beat, and not at the vision of unparalleled beauty that she struck in that moment—rather, he suddenly felt like he’d made a terrible mistake.
His fears were all but confirmed when Elise’s hands went to his head and began running through his hair—a normally pleasant experience, but Leon felt her moving his already short hair away from his ears.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, reaching up and taking hold of her wrists. He stared at her with deadly seriousness. “No piercings.”
A look of profound scandal blazed across Elise’s face. “Going back on your offer? How dare you! I don’t think I’ve ever met a man so rude as to offer me anything, only to then tell me I can’t do something! Oh! The shamelessness!” A playful grin replaced her sarcastically scandalized expression, and she said more genuinely, “You’d look good with an earring, husband.”
“I beg to differ,” Leon responded.
“You shouldn’t have offered me ‘anything at all’,” Elise impishly riposted.
Leon glowered at her. “At the time, I thought that it was understood that spilling my blood was too far. That it needn’t be said such was off limits. How foolish I was then, how naïve, so long ago, in those before times.”
Another sigh escaped Elise’s lips, this one of disappointment. She looked to Cassandra and said, “Back me up; wouldn’t Leon look incredible with some nice diamonds in his ears? Look at his earlobes, they were practically made for jewelry!”
“I’m not sure about that, ‘Lis,” Cassandra replied. “He’s got this whole ‘barbarian warlord’ look about him that pierced ears might take away from.”
“A barbarian warlord?” Elise exclaimed, starting to now sound genuinely scandalized.
“Yeah,” Cassandra doubled down. “You’ve got a bit of a pretty boy look going on, Leon, but grow that beard and hair out, and you’d look ready to storm a castle and steal me away…”
“Are you planning something for later?” Leon asked with narrowed eyes.
His purple-haired wife responded with a grin and a mad cackle.
“You would look good with a beard,” Valeria offered.
“Ugh,” Elise groaned in disgust. “I don’t see what the fascination is with beards! I don’t want to feel like I’m rubbing my face on sand when kissing you! You should just be hairless! From the eyebrows down!”
“Going a bit far, aren’t you?” Cassandra asked. “I get shaving in some places, but everywhere? A man should have some body hair, don’t you think?” She sent an inquisitive look Valeria’s way, and the silver-haired woman nodded in agreement.
“Better to have a man for a husband than a boy,” Valeria stated.
Elise looked like she’d been stabbed in the back, but before a debate on the merits of body hair arose, Leon announced, “I’ll just go as I am now. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” He reached over to give Elise a one-armed hug. “We can discuss the finer points of my fashion choices when I get back.” He gave her a quick kiss, then did likewise with Cassandra and Valeria.
“You’re not getting out of this, Leon,” Elise sternly said. “Don’t think that you are!”
“Sure, sure,” Leon replied with a wave as he conjured Ambrose’s silver twig in his other hand. “When I get back. Absolutely. Definitely.”
As he snapped the twig, he heard Valeria state, “A full beard on him wou—” before the black and blue sphere surrounded him and whisked him away to the Grave Warden’s tower at the center of Aeterna.
Leon found himself in a well-appointed room; comfortable, but devoid of any personal touches. A few armchairs, rugs, sofas, and a hearth, with drinks on a table in the corner, but all in plain colors. Landscape paintings and tapestries adorned the walls, and what he thought was a projection of the outside covered one wall—if the projection was accurate to his location, he was standing about halfway up the immense stone tower that Ambrose called home.
He'd barely had much of a chance to admire the view when he felt the faintest of magical waves from behind him, and when he turned, he found Ambrose standing there, smiling, his arms outstretched in greeting.
“Leon,” Ambrose drawled. “Welcome back, my friend! Welcome! Come on in, have a seat! Want something to drink?”
“No, thank you,” Leon politely declined as he sat down in the nearest armchair. Ambrose jumped and landed lying down on an adjacent sofa.
“So,” the ancient Grave Warden began, “what brings you to my home this day? As much as I might hope otherwise, I doubt it’s just the simple desire to spend the day with a friend that brings you here…”
Leon smiled awkwardly. “No… it isn’t… I’m sure you know by now that I’m close to leaving Aeterna.”
Ambrose frowned. “I suspected as much. How much longer do you have until you want to leave? How much longer?”
“We’ll be ready in one month. To the day.”
“One month…” Ambrose whispered morosely. “You’ve been such a delight to host on my little plane, Leon. I’ll be greatly saddened in your absence… Greatly saddened.” He swung his feet around and sat up in one smooth motion. Seriously, he asked, “How are you planning on reaching the Nexus? I assume my offer of transporting your entire Kingdom isn’t your intention if you’re only coming to see me now? Not your intention?”
Leon shook his head and grinned. “My Kingdom has built new arks that are not only Void-capable but can traverse long distances with… their new engines.” He had to catch himself from saying the name of the engines aloud. He was still opposed to the name, but it had stuck, unfortunately.
Ambrose, sensing a weakness, leaned in and asked, “These new engines, huh? I’ve seen them in action; they’re pretty good. Not as good as what your Clan used to have, but for a Kingdom’s first try, they’re quite fine. Quite fine. They’ll certainly get you to the Nexus if that’s how you want to travel. Certainly. What do your people call these engines?”
Leon gave him a blank stare. “I’m sure you already know what they’re called, don’t you?”
“Nope!” Ambrose light-heartedly replied. “No clue! That’s why I asked, you see!”
Leon clicked his tongue in displeasure, but simply responded with a sigh and an embarrassed explanation, “They’re called ‘Nestorian drives’.”
Ambrose lost himself in laughter before asking as he recovered, “Did he really… name it after himself?”
“No, it was named in honor of him,” Leon answered with some annoyance. “Getting that engine working without Nestor’s help would’ve been impossible, even for the Raven Tribe. They named the teleportation engine after him to honor his contribution. And, maybe, his lineage, too.”
Ambrose snickered a few more times before his demeanor became much more serious. “That’s funny. But I suppose we should be talking a little more business, shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t we?”
Leon nodded and sat up a little straighter.
“One month isn’t that much time. Are you sure that you’re ready to reach the Nexus? Are you sure?” Ambrose’s question came with a look of such gravity that Leon’s immediate affirmative response died in his throat.
After a moment of thought, he replied, “It’ll likely be hard. And I do worry about what I may face up there. But I can’t stay here forever, can I? My mother is up there, waiting for me. And even outside of the Nexus, the universe is littered with the remains of my Ancestors. How worthy am I as a successor if I make no attempt to rebuild what was lost? To try and take what came before and make something new, something greater?”
Leon paused, then returned Ambrose’s severe look. “We’re starting small. About twenty thousand will join me and establish a beachhead. A colony, a single city. We’ll use that city as a point to jump off from, to enter the wider universe from. And we’ve spent years preparing ourselves to build that first city. We’re trained and prepared to undertake this endeavor. We have plans for if we fail or are thrown back. Any but the worst possible setbacks will only be temporary. We’re ready.”
“I hope so, Leon,” Ambrose replied. “I hope so. The Nexus can be a place of great opportunity… great opportunity but also a place of great danger. Depending on where you land, you may be in for an easy time, or the worst time of your life. Awful locals, ambitious neighbors, dreadful food; horrors beyond imagination await you in the Nexus, but you’re right that you have to leave sometime if you ever want to truly succeed your old Clan. I’d be perfectly happy to host you for as long as you remain as you are, but if you want to grow, it can’t be here, where it’s safe. Can’t be here. Only under heat and pressure will you be shaped into what you seem to believe you must be.”
Leon nodded in agreement.
“Let’s run through this, then,” Ambrose said as he snapped his fingers, conjuring an image of a large glowing sphere to appear hovering beside him. Judging by its color—bright white—Leon guessed the shining orb to be the Nexus.
“Do you even know how to get inside?” Ambrose asked. “Do you know?”
Leon nodded a little hesitantly. “My Ancestor, Nestor, and my contracted demon all described it to me: there are places all over the Nexus where ingress portals can be found, some natural but most created by powerful factions within the Nexus.” Ambrose’s eyes narrowed, and Leon quickly added, “Both of these options are… suboptimal. That’s partially why I’m here.”
Ambrose brightened up a little. “So you are asking for my help in getting there?”
Leon slowly nodded, feeling a little uncertain. “I was hoping you had a solution, here. I still want to use my own arks to get to the Nexus, if only to prove that those arks can do it, and thus can ferry more of my people to and from the Nexus, along with any materials we find there.”
“I hope you’re not saying that you want to blatantly come and go from the Divine Graveyard,” Ambrose warned. “Bad idea. Bad idea.”
“I’ve already been told that’s a bad idea,” Leon replied. “We’re going to be using our… Nestorian drives to make the journey, so it should be impossible to track us.”
“There are always ways…” Ambrose murmured. “Always ways…”
“We’ll take our precautions, then,” Leon said, his mind already thinking about rendezvous points and fallback locations for potential stalkers. “It’s more the bypassing of the outer surface of the Nexus that I’m interested in your help with.”
Ambrose nodded, not quite looking convinced by Leon’s cautious words, but apparently deciding to move on anyway. “I can point you to a portal close to your chosen destination—all were relatively close to small natural portals anyway. Relatively close.”
“I would be grateful for that,” Leon replied.
“As would I be to share. Now, which location did you choose? Which one?”
Leon quickly procured the map of his chosen site and spent a good few minutes gushing over its potential. However, before he could finish, Ambrose interrupted him.
“I understand that you’re excited about building a new city, Leon, but I have yet to hear about defenses. I trust that my apprentice gave you a good location without many dangers around, but he could’ve missed something, or someone else might’ve moved in during that time. I should remind you that when a place has gone without human habitation for too long, there’s usually a reason for that… Usually a reason…”
“Potential threats have been considered,” Leon stated. “We’re going to thoroughly scout the location before making our final commitment. If anyone or anything lives there, or if the location is poorer than we’ve been led to believe, we’ll return to Aeterna to reevaluate our options. I might return leading a smaller, or possibly larger, expedition if that’s the case. I’m not married to this location, so if it proves untenable, we’ll leave it behind.”
Ambrose smiled shallowly and nodded in appreciation. “Good. Good. The Nexus is enormous, and even during its one hundred thousand year cycles, it rarely ever ‘fills up’ completely, so to speak. There will always be good land somewhere else. Always. What’s your biggest worry right now? Your biggest worry?”
Leon frowned and stared back at the map. “Hard to say without knowing more about what surrounds us. You did assure me that your apprentice assured you that this place is fairly deserted, so I’m hoping there won’t be many neighbors around us, ambitious or otherwise. However, the ocean that we’re close to is the Ocean King’s personal domain, isn’t it?”
Ambrose silently nodded.
“My biggest worry,” Leon continued, “is attracting the wrong kind of attention from him.”
“Possible,” Ambrose conceded. “Possible. Under normal circumstances, the Ocean King wouldn’t lightly risk mucking around in the Storm Lands… Under normal circumstances, a Storm King would be there to prevent it. Without a strong leader, the other Elemental Kings may be more brazen about establishing hegemony over what should otherwise fall under the Storm King’s purview. May be more brazen. Internal troubles, external rivalries, sheer lack of interest… there may be many reasons why the Ocean King won’t bother with you. Many reasons… Certainly, you’re not yet strong enough to attract his attention… Not yet…”
Leon grinned, though the expression turned bitter a moment later. “I’m not worried about the Ocean King himself, I suppose I should say. More like one of his subordinates. Some ambitious or otherwise unreasonable Strategos on the border who wants this land to be a buffer zone with potentially wild and chaotic counterparts within the Storm Lands.”
“A good worry to have,” Ambrose conceded. “A good worry to have. However, you’ll have three post-Apotheosis mages with you, will you not? Assuming my tau friend joins you, as I believe he is? He is?”
“Yes, Clear Day will be joining me. Noticed them, did you?” Leon wryly inquired.
“Hard to miss them,” Ambrose replied. “Hard to miss. I should think you won’t have much to worry about unless you gain the attention of a Despot or Basileus.”
“And how am I going to get their attention?” Leon pointedly asked. “I think some Strategos who might notice us will throw a fit.”
“A risk. Are you still going to take it? Are you?”
Leon grinned again. “Of course.”
Ambrose sighed appreciatively. “Good. Good. Well, then, Leon… One month. One month. I will show you where you can enter the Nexus. And in one month, you’ll leave.”
“I’ll be back sometimes,” Leon stated, hearing the dejection in the Grave Warden’s voice.
“I hope so,” Ambrose stated. “I hope so. I live a lonely life—by choice, make no mistake, and I love it… But finding a friend is always a pleasure, and I would hate to never see one again. I would hate it…”
Leon, reminded again of all the people he was leaving behind, and of the conversations he had with Torfinn and King Julius, went quiet. He wondered how many friends Ambrose had ever had, and how many of them still lived. He described his fellow Grave Wardens as his friends, and that meant that he’d had those relationships for longer than Leon could fathom, so they were undoubtedly close on some level… and Qo Weylekh had recently, relatively speaking, died. Leon could hardly imagine knowing someone for millions of years and then having to process their death.
“Anyway!” Ambrose exclaimed, drawing Leon out of his thoughts. “Anyway! I want to hear of your expedition! I want to hear of it! So you make sure to return! Make sure!”
Leon nodded again. “I will,” he promised. “I will return. You have my promise on that.”
With a grin, Ambrose clapped Leon on the shoulder and then began talking about nothing much at all. Despite not much of consequence being brought up, Leon still let himself be drawn into the conversation, only leaving several hours later after Ambrose again promised to show his navigators the ingress point for the Nexus and provided Leon with several more silver twigs to use when he returned to Aeterna.
When he made it back to Kataigida, Leon needed a few seconds to stop and think, to let his magic senses wash over all of Aeterna, taking in all the sights and sounds that he could sense even from his little corner of the plane.
In just one month, he would be leaving.
The Nexus awaited him.
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