It was a question she'd long since asked: “Do Ascians sleep?” 

The answer apparently being “yes”... if they are bored enough.

And sleep he did, looking strangely vulnerable in the soft, crystalline light of the Crystarium’s appointed rooms. Though the curtains had been drawn, a small shaft of the evening’s fading light filtered through the middle part and fell across cheekbones as pale and harsh as white auracite. 

It was a casual morsel of information dropped by the Crystal Exarch to the Warrior of Darkness shortly after reporting her findings on the latest Warden of Light. It was posed almost like an afterthought, a funny little “did you know” or “fun fact”, which was not at all like him now that she thought about it. The Crystal Exarch offered information as freely as blood from a stone most of the time. This was especially true with Emet-Selch, whom the Exarch stubbornly pretended did not exist when he came poking about their business. Did you know, he'd said mildly, when not nosing about our business the Ascian actually sleeps?

And stranger still… Miso hadn’t asked. Not out loud anyways. She had certainly asked herself that question, upon learning all too recently that said infuriating Ascian was skulking about as she slept. But how would the Exarch know that?

Perhaps Emet was not the only one who liked watching.

But that was a thought for another time. The current thought tip-toeing its way through Miso’s brain, as if afraid the Ascian might hear her think, was: “Do Ascians dream?”

The Champion of Eorzea, now the Villain of Norvrandt, sat perched on the edge of the a table adjacent to the bed, arms crossed, brows furrowed and eyes narrowed at the elusive Emet-Selch as he slept, as if trying to decipher the puzzle of some ancient Ronka ruins. 

Small and silent though she was, Miso’no could not help but wonder if she had truly gotten the drop on Zodiark’s thrall, or if he simply did not consider her a threat. Afterall, every other Ascian they had managed to truly “kill” had been… very niche situations. She could slip up close and sink a blade into his heart, sure… but she’d only be killing the body, not the being.

Worse than that, Miso could not be sure killing another Ascian in this realm wouldn’t result in another, much more final flood of light. The Calamity that would, allegedly, result in her death back home, not to mention countless others.

But though the thoughts and speculations crossed her mind, she was surprised to find that murder was the furthest thing from her intentions.

“Is this not somewhat hypocritical behaviour… hero?” said Emet-Selch very suddenly.

Deep in her own musings as she was, Miso near stumbled in shock… flinging one arm back to stabilize herself and knocking a basket of fruit askew. An errant apple flung itself off the table, but Miso caught it with deft reflexes (though it was not in a manner one would call graceful given the circumstances). The Ascian hadn’t stirred, nor moved, nor flinched. He had been asleep until he, well… wasn’t.

Eyes of melted gold stared at her in amusement as she looked up from the apple cupped gently in her hands like a baby chocobo; again she hadn’t seen him move, but there he sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers intertwined, elbows resting on his knees. He slept in his full Empirical robes (who does that?) and not a hair was out of place.

The faintest of smirks graced Emet-Selch’s lips and Miso’no wanted to slap it off his stupid borrowed Garlean face.

At the sight of him awake and alert, this strange frustration bubbled up inside her that she did not know what to do with, so she turned the apple over in her hands a few times trying to decide how to answer.

“Well, given you seem not at all upset by the notion, I do not think the two situations are exactly equitable…” she muttered, though her face couldn’t hide the sheepish expression of being caught. Especially since she couldn’t quite answer the question of what exactly her intentions were in coming here -- if not to end his smarmy existence --  and she was desperately afraid he would ask. 

She was, for some reason, even more afraid he wouldn’t.

Miso watched Emet through a curtain of snowy white bangs, gauging his expression carefully.  He lifted one exquisitely sharp brow in a questioning look and drawled in that faux-bored voice, “Oh… my apologies, were you hoping to upset me?”

“No…” Miso blurted out, before she could think, her mouth pressed in a thin line. She let her bangs fall over her eyes and stared intently down at the red apple in her hands. What are you doing here, Miso’no? Can you even answer that? 

She dared not look up at Emet when she sensed movement from the bed; the Ascian had simply raised his intwined hands to his chin and rested it there in thought, thinking out loud; he rambled his thought process aloud, as was his wont.

“Well… you aren’t stupid enough to think to kill me. Especially since you would only destroy this body and I have plenty of others, I assure you. Though it would be a momentary annoyance, it would not bode well for the progress we’ve made towards becoming allies… nay, dare I say even friends?” During his little pontification, Miso was still thoroughly not looking, but she could hear the smirk in his voice. “And yet, you look…” he paused then, she imagined he was tilting his head this way and that, apprising her. She could feel the weight of his gaze settling over her like a dark cloud, like a storm threatening to strike her down where she stood.

Miso yearned to run to some kind of shelter but dared not give him the satisfaction, so she braced herself when he finally said: “...You look embarrassed, hero.”

Emet-Selch’s voice was suddenly close; too close. In a wink, he now towered over her; the physical embodiment of those dark clouds of doubt within Miso’no’s own mind. If all he did was watch, then of course he knew; he’d seen those moments of vulnerability. There was nowhere for her to hide from the eye of this storm.

Drawing breath to answer, Miso forgot what she was about to say when the Ascian plucked the apple from her hands and swept away from her, swaying this way and that in that strange manner of his as he walked. Her eyes snapped up in surprise, watching Emet as he held the apple aloft on graceful, gloved fingertips… the shaft of light from the window falling over the shiny surface of it. A glint of ruby so similar to his hair. She silently scolded herself for even noticing.

“Ah… so is it curiosity then?” he chuckled softly, sweeping along the floor, turning thoughtfully with each step and seeming to pay Miso very little mind; his focus fully on the apple perched on gentle fingertips, considering it in all its apparent hidden meaning. He rolled it about on his fingers with the dexterity of one skilled at slight of hand, a magician who might make it vanish at any moment. “What is it to watch the watcher, I wonder? Hoping to find the answers writ on my face as I dream, warrior of light?” 

So Ascians do dream…

Opening her mouth to speak at last, Miso found herself interrupted mid-breath. Again. “Or perhaps you hope,” he drawled on with that infuriating mock-pout seeping into his voice. The Ascian finally deigned to give her the slightest of glances over his shoulder, golden eyes blazing beneath dark lashes as if in some kind of challenge, “your dear, sweet mother Hydaelyn will show you a glimpse of some… deep, dark but vulnerable history of mine with the Echo?”

The fact that he did not, in fact, see the reasons she was there (at least not the way she thought he might) caused that frustration to boil up inside her once more; a angry bubble fit to burst. And since it was more comfortable to lash out than to be afraid, Miso decided instead to ride the wave of her annoyance.

“Maybe,” she said, her small booted feet stomping across the floor, closing the distance. Like a whip her hand struck (ignoring that she had to rise on tip-toe to do so), she snatched the apple from the tips of his fingers with very little grace at all, “if you didn’t love the sound of your own voice so much you’d simply ask like a normal… being.” 

Miso stood before the poorly postered Primal pundit, apple in one hand, arm across her body post-snatch, the other poised on her hip defiantly and tail flicking in an annoyed fashion. The Warrior of Light glared up at a rather taken aback Emet. Miso drank in his mildly astonished expression feeling grim satisfaction at drawing out some measure of surprise from the allegedly ancient Ascian.

Clearing his throat, he smoothed the front of his Garlean garb as if dusting away any trace of her accusation and simply said, “Point taken.” With a theatric flourish of his hand, he bade her to speak.

For some reason, this caused something inside Miso to relax somewhat. 

Then, as if she could flee from whatever that reason was, she turned away. “You said something… before.” she murmured. It was her turn to consider the apple in her hands as if it held some the answers she sought, but really it was to keep her voice from shaking. “Back in Qitana Ravel…” 

Though she could not see it, Emet-Selch smiled quietly; a knowing smile of triumph at how he'd so masterfully sowed the seeds of doubt; seeds he was sure were now bearing tiny buds, flowering promises of the fruit yet to be born. Surely, he thought, she means to speak to him of the truth he told her of the Sundering. He folded his hands behind his back and waited patiently to hear what caused her voice to tremble so, what caused her to turn away so he wouldn’t see it written on her pale blue features. He longed to see her finally accept the truth.

“You said,” Miso swallowed thickly around the words before continuing, “something about… seeing things, fragments, bits of these worlds that were so… familiar only…”

Emet quirked a brow, a wrinkle of uncertainty writ on his features. This was unexpected.

“People… look at me that way, you know…” she continued, staring into the shiny surface of the apple and seeing her distorted features somewhat in the reflection. Familiar, but not quite right. “Like they know me. Like I remind them of someone or something… but… it fades.”