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The stillness of the cave was interrupted by the entrance of a sylphlike figure, one that had become all too familiar to Viole over the past hundred years. Viole called on the shinsu that was a part of him to form a humanoid shape in his path. Long brown hair cascading down his back, golden eyes reminiscent of the stars of the Outside, a shape that called to him with a sense of comfort that all his omniscience could not help him comprehend.
As he appeared in a swirl of shinsu, the figure stopped, periwinkle blue hair seeming to shine in the illumination from his lighthouses. His lips curled upward in a smile that was far too inviting for the man who was the head of one of the coldest families in the Tower.
"Khun Aguero Agnis," Viole greeted him, "have you come to make your wish?"
"You already know what I want," Khun replied.
"And you already know I cannot grant that wish," Viole said. "What is made cannot be unmade."
When Viole had first denied Khun's wish, a hundred years ago, all the warmth had drained from cobalt eyes. He left, and Viole assumed he would never see him again.
He'd let the incident fade from his mind until, one year later to the day, he sensed a visitor to his cave and turned his perception inward to see Khun Aguero Agnis visiting him again. Viole gave him his answer for the second time, and Khun smiled.
"Are you hungry?" he'd asked. When Viole informed him that he had no need for food, something in his smile shifted, a melancholy that Viole couldn't place. "Well, do you mind if I eat here?"
Viole had seen no point in refusing him then, disappearing back into shinsu as Khun set up a table from his lighthouse with an array of food. There should have been no way that Khun knew Viole was still watching him, his shinsu the same as all the ambient shinsu in the Tower. Yet Khun spent the entire meal speaking to him of the events around the Tower over the past year, as if Viole wasn't aware of every event that happened, past and present.
There was something different, though, about hearing the stories from another person's mouth. Viole found himself fascinated watching each of Khun's gestures, each secretive smile that must have been for the two of them alone. When Khun finally finished his meal and rose to his feet to pack away his belongings, Viole felt something like disappointment. Still, he didn’t stop Khun as he placed something on the floor of the cave and left.
Once Khun was gone, Viole materialized beside what he left behind, picking up the thin stem between his finger and thumb. He examined the small, delicate blue flowers, bringing up his other hand to stroke at the petals.
Forget-me-nots.
The knowledge came to him from nowhere, just as his physical form came to him without thought.
It wouldn't last long before it withered. All life in the Tower could only last so long, regardless of how its residents tried to cheat death, but the thought made some odd wistfulness grow in Viole's chest. He plucked the flowers from their stem and tossed them upward, freezing them in the void of the cave with shinsu. The effect was subtle, a scattering of bright points in the darkness of his lonesome cavern, but Viole couldn't help but feel satisfied as he faded back into shadow. Though he doubted Khun Aguero Agnis would ever return to him, at least he could preserve the memory of the brief, curious encounter.
"Khun!"
At the sound of Bam's voice, climbing in pitch and volume with worry, Aguero winced. He raised his head to watch Bam storm through the door to their shared room, eyes dark. It was moments like these that Aguero knew why so many in the Tower called Bam a god or a monster, watching that smooth, deadly gait, that thinly veiled fury behind his gaze.
But no god would collapse to his knees in front of where Aguero was seated, clutching at his legs like a lifeline. No monster would tremble as Aguero's hand went instinctually to stroke his hair in comfort.
"I'm okay," Aguero promised him.
"You almost weren't," Bam croaked. "Isu told me you almost died."
Aguero's lips tightened into a frown as he continued to comb his fingers through Bam's hair. "I'm fine now," he reassured him, nudging him until he lifted his head to look Aguero in the eye. When Bam's lips twisted, doubt written in every facet of his expression, Aguero let out a good-natured sigh. With his free hand, he unbuttoned the top several buttons of his shirt, pulling the fabric aside to show Bam the new raised scar on his chest, freshly closed and healed by the fire fish. "See?"
Only an hour ago, that scar had been an open wound, the right side of his chest torn through by a massive needle. His attention had been diverted by an unexpected group of reinforcements, making him scramble to adjust the plan to protect his allies. He'd been too confident, not noticing the enemy scout slipping past his defenses. What came afterward was blurry in his memory, flashes of blood and shinsu, but he could recall taking down the scout who'd struck him before he'd passed out entirely and woken on their team's airship.
Bam pulled in a breath, raising to his feet to loom over him. Still, Aguero was unafraid as Bam moved and pressed his palm into Aguero's chest, right over the scar.
"I should have been there," Bam murmured.
"You can't always be there, Bam." Aguero shivered as Bam's fingers traced the shape of the scar. Bam's throat bobbed, his eyes shiny with tears.
"I know," Bam said weakly, his gaze flickering between the scar and Aguero's face. "Can you promise me something?"
Aguero couldn't meet his eyes for long, his own gaze snapping to the ceiling. "Don't ask me to make a promise I can't keep."
"Promise you'll keep coming back to me," Bam asked. "Please, Khun. I can't lose you."
"Bam," Aguero repeated, his throat going tight. "I can't—"
"I don't care if you think it's a lie," Bam insisted. "Promise me."
Aguero hated lying to Bam, even when it was for his own good, but he couldn't say no when Bam used that tone. "Alright," he agreed, shutting his eyes as he leaned forward to bump his forehead against Bam's. "I'll always come back to you."
A hundred denied wishes, yet Khun still smiled at him with a warmth Viole couldn't understand.
"Eat with me," Khun invited him now, pulling the table out from his lighthouse.
"You know I don't need to eat," Viole replied, drifting closer to him.
"But you still can," Khun pointed out as he set out the food he brought. "Might as well enjoy it."
"I really don't think it's necessary," Viole said.
It was truly only a token protest, and both he and Khun knew it; he'd stopped disappearing after rejecting Khun's wish after the twentieth year, when it became clear that Khun would keep coming back. After almost seventy visits, Khun had managed to convince Viole to try a bite of the food he'd brought.
If Viole were a wiser, fairer god, he would have ended this game a long time ago. The god of the Tower was not meant to show favoritism, and the Tower's citizens were only meant to reach the top once. But there was no rule for what should happen when the god of the Tower could not fulfill a Regular's wish, and so Viole had not thought to prevent Khun's recurring visits.
Instead, the ceiling of Viole's cave had become a tapestry of swirling lights, each of Khun's visits providing Viole with another cluster of forget-me-nots to add to his growing map of constellations. Viole didn't know how the stars Outside were meant to look, but he'd followed his instinct in placing each point of light, and the effect of it made the ceiling of his cave seem to stretch for infinity.
As the two of them sat down to eat, Viole caught Khun's gaze drifting upward. Khun's eyes softened, going slightly distant as if recalling a memory. It wasn't the first time Viole had seen him wear that expression during his visits; sometimes it was in response to something Viole said, sometimes it was the turn of Viole's face, sometimes it seemed to come from nowhere at all. Viole knew— the way he knew the passing of the days or the stirring of the most miniscule shinheuh in the Tower— that the memories Khun drifted to were of his former companion, the Irregular that had given himself to the lifeblood of the Tower.
Viole could not return that companion to him, but he would not begrudge Khun his memories. He let the silence settle between them.
"Don't do this."
Despite the way that Aguero felt like he was fraying at the edges as he stared at Bam's back, his voice remained steady. He didn't have the right to ask this of Bam, not when he knew the knowledge of everyone's expectations weighed so heavily on Bam's shoulders. Aguero never wanted to add to that weight.
But he needed Bam to look at him, needed Bam to tell him that he'd misunderstood his intentions and Bam wasn't about to go where Aguero couldn't follow.
"I have to," Bam rasped. "They're gone because of me."
"They made their choices," Aguero insisted, the words cold in his throat. "They chose to follow you, Bam. Not the god of this Tower."
Finally, Bam turned to face him, fury lighting a fire behind golden eyes. "How can you say that? Don't you even care what happened to them?"
Of course Aguero cared. He could see their deaths etched on the inside of his eyelids, a macabre record of each loss they'd suffered as they climbed far beyond where even Jahad dared to go. The burden of their deaths was a burden that he wished Bam didn't have to carry. Aguero was meant to handle those burdens for him, but there was no hiding their fates when Bam had been there to witness each one.
This burden wouldn't kill Bam, but it wouldn't need to.
"When will you stop living for everyone other than yourself?" Aguero demanded. "If you do this—"
"Aguero."
At the pain in Bam's voice, Aguero stilled, his mouth clicking shut. The anger seemed to melt away from Bam, one of his hands coming up to cradle Aguero's face. His thumb ran over the skin under Aguero's eye, tracing the scar there— courtesy of an attack that only barely avoided taking out his eye. He leaned in, lips brushing against Aguero's in a kiss that could only be a goodbye. When he pulled away, he smiled, but the light in those golden eyes was dim.
"Bam—"
"It'll be okay, Aguero." Bam turned away from him, and as he left, all Aguero could do was watch.
He was alone.
The silence lingered as the two of them ate, remaining even after Khun brought himself back from wherever he'd drifted. It wasn't until all of the food was finished that Viole brought himself to speak again.
"Do you have another story for me?" Viole asked, and Khun's brows climbed upward. Accompanied by the devilish curve of Khun's smile, it was a clear sign that he intended to tease. Viole found himself smiling as he felt the shape of the words before they came.
"You once told me you were aware of everything that goes on in the Tower," Khun said, resting his cheek against a hand. "Do you really need stories from me?"
Viole had said it the first time he remained in his humanoid form for Khun's entire visit, an odd urge that wouldn't settle until he'd said it. Yet Khun had not taken it as a rejection then, and despite his words, it was not a rejection now.
"I can understand them better this way," Viole told him, and Khun's smile softened, a warmth in his eyes that brought an unfamiliar heat to Viole's own chest.
"Alright." Khun leaned slightly back on his lighthouse, posture open and perfectly relaxed. Still, his gaze went distant again, and Viole knew that he would be hearing a memory. It did not matter, not to someone like him, but he knew that it brought Khun grief, no matter how he tried to hide it.
Khun spoke, and with his words wove him a memory. By now, Viole was long familiar with the players in Khun's tales, a team of companions with a bond forged early in the Tower, and more forged along the way. Some had come to visit him, faces to the names Khun gave him, but none more than once. He was not the Irregular they called their friend, and once they realized, they made their wishes and were gone.
Perhaps someday, Khun would be able to come to the same conclusion. But for now, Khun was with him, the warmth of his company washing over him, and Viole would not waste that gift looking ahead to the end.