#I never think I'll write about Zerxus but then I catch myself doing it willingly

[beedreamscape]

Zerxus gets caught in morbid conversations.

~ 2.1k words. This takes place pre loquaerryn marriage (yes, they're my measure of time, sue me).

CW for conversation of death and grief.

Zerxus awakes as he feels a stir on the bed. Zerxus calls it instinct, Evandrin calls it a bad habit.

There's an orange glow permeating the darkness and soft grunts from muscles stretching in the air.

He turns to see Evandrin's sitting on the side of the bed with his back to him, still in his sleeping shirt and underwear. Beside where the lampshade sits, on the clock, Zerxus can see it's still a quarter to four.

Zerxus lifts his head from the pillow. "Is there scouting duty today?"

Evandrin turns, face and hair still tousled from sleep. "Morning, darling, go back to sleep, sorry for waking you."

"I would still say good night." Zerxus pulls on the hem of his shirt lazily. "I thought scouting wasn't for another three weeks."

"And you're right, this is something else." Evandrin gets up against his husband's pull and starts putting his trousers on. "One of my soldiers just died, young Hector, and he has no family here in Avalir so I need to sign his death certificate."

"Isn't a cleric that does that?"

He rubs his eye. "Sorry. It's not the certificate, it's a lease for the Conversion."

Zexus sits up. "What conversion?"

Some realization comes Evandrin's eyes before softening. "Oh, I never told you, did I? I don't think you had the chance to see it either... It's how we get rid of bodies in Avalir. Haven't you noticed we have no cemeteries here?"

"Not really. You don't just bury people?"

Evandrin doesn't bother taking his sleeping shirt off, shoving the hem into his pants before taking a dress coat from the rack.

"No, there wouldn't be enough land to bury every dead. And if you consider the funeral rites of the elves who care to perform them, there wouldn't be a need for them anyway. Not to mention they live way too long."

"And what is this conversion?"

"They convert whatever's left of ether inside your body into usable energy. Also from the combustion of it. That's where the name comes from. It feeds the city like a corpse would feed the earth... except way faster and cleaner."

"Sounds very... functional."

"I know." He sits on the bed again and holds Zerxus' hand. "But you can always let someone know if you want it to have it done to your body or not, poor Hector didn't have time or who to tell that so he goes straight into conversion."

With his free hand, Zerxus brushes Evandrin's long hair into better shape. "You can let Tempus eat me before when the time comes."

"Thanks, dear. What if he doesn't find you tasty enough?"

"Tell him to pick me up and drop me in the ocean." He makes the gestures with his hand. "From really high so everyone can see the impact and the sea creatures may eat what's left."

"I'll have it arranged when the time comes. It's more creative than my wish for a pyre on the ocean. It's kinda how my mother chose to go, burnt in a pyre with dragon fire."

"You had a dragon at her funeral?"

He nods. "It was actually a wyvern and it was a trained but it served its purpose. Dad was placed in a burial cave since he had a bit of dwarvish blood, it was what my grandma wanted."

He brings Evandrin's hand to his lips for a kiss. "Thanks for sharing. I wish I could go with you."

"You wouldn't see anything interesting if you did. It all happens in closed chambers bellow city level."

"I don't want to see anything I just didn't want you to go by yourself."

"Don't worry, I've been through my people dying on me before, it's just sad he went so young." He opens a smile and ruffles Zerxus' hair. "Get back to sleep, my lil' paladin."

"I think I'll go check on our tiny little fighter."

"You go do that, just don't scare him this time."

He starts getting up from the bed. "I said it wasn't on purpose."

"I know, but you gotta understand that a six-foot-tall man standing ominously in the dark is terrifying for a little boy."

"I'll turn on the lamp this time."

"Good." He gives Zerxus a little peck. "I won't be long."

"Please don't let them turn you into city juice as well."

He can hear Evandrin's laugh in the corridor. "I won't make any promises."

"Since when has Avalir done this Conversion thing? For the dead?"

He wasn't really interested in getting into this subject, much less with her, he assumes neither is she, but he rarely got the chance to sit down with Laerryn, let alone just the two of them, so he wouldn't get another chance to satiate his curiosity and it's been days since it started plaguing his mind.

A new Marquesian-themed restaurant had opened and they were the only two in their friend group who curiously shared a true appreciation for its foreign cuisine.

She doesn't refrain from shoving a forkful of sillgoat loin chop into her mouth before speaking. "Oh... I guess since the beginning, I'm not sure if we were the ones to come up with it or some other flying city."

"Can't you just disintegrate the body? One spell and poof, it's gone."

"We could but what a waste of precious ether that'd be. You see a single corpse doesn't hold much ether, but when you amount to several deaths a year then it means something. It's not even one and a half percent of the total energy stored in the city but when every drop counts, it's something."

He looks down at his plate, empty with stains of dark red sauce on the perimeter. He always finishes eating first no matter who he's eating with, a mixture of anxiety and hunger only a man his size has. He catches himself staring at her glass of white wine.

"Feels very utilitarian."

"You just haven't been in Avalir long enough. We are a flying city, every handful of resources counts, there are people," she points at herself, "that work to manage that. On top of managing who manages it."

"I know, but it's people we're talking about. Their bodies."

"What do you think I'm talking about? They're just bodies, I've seen them rot before. People are here, living, doing shit. The only person buried in Avalir is our most special boy, Imyr, in his very special mausoleum, which I consider such a waste. Don't tell Patia I said that."

"Why a waste?"

"The older wizards, I'm talking elves, gnomes, dwarves, the big boys, store immense amounts of ether within them. Sorcerers? You could turn the lucky bastards into massive bombs with the right calculations."

"Suddenly I'm more inclined towards it."

She gives him a playful kick under the table.

"But that's necromancers and transmutators playground, minutia and too many physiological factors to take in. I prefer working with big numbers and machines. Despite that, it's a respectable representation of wizards and artificers working together."

"Is that how you want to be taken care of?"

"I think so. However, I would like to be stored into something like a necklace or a sword until someday the yielder has to use me to kill some legendary enemy before floating back into the leylines. But honestly, I'll take what I can get, I'll be dead anyway."

He stares at her chew in amusement, still puzzled at how the woman before him and his husband are the best of friends. "Avalirians have strange death rituals."

"You need to meet the Aeorians then, heard rumors of them preserving the bodies for a really long time."

"For what?"

"How am I supposed to know? Probably something nefarious. As I said, rumours, I'm sure you'll get more from Loquatius or Patia than me."

"I think I've had enough of the subject for now."

She cleans her mouth with a napkin. "I don't personally like talking about death either. Maybe it's an elf thing... but I've had to learn to deal with it since I've befriended so many humans and... other short-living folks."

He never got truly offended by 'human' but something in the way she says it never sat comfortably inside his skull, yet he lets it slip with her. "Who else?"

She thinks for a moment and he can't interpret what passes behind her eyes. "Everyone except Patia."

"Even Van?"

She nods, takes a sip of her wine. "Half-elves don't live a quarter of full elves, some can but most don't. When I think of loss, it's the only time I grow any respect for necromancers, I too have a hard time letting things go."

"I used to think I was very detached from everything, until I got a family. Maybe it'll happen to you as well," he says with a hint of humor.

"I have a family, believe it or not."

"But they're in Cathmoíra. Always seven years away from you."

"Yes... But I do have a version of it here in Avalir, a very busy one that lives in different houses."

He smiles. "We'd kill each otherwise."

She laughs loudly, it always gives him a pang of accomplishment wherever he manages to get it out of her.

"For sure we would. Though I would cut you some slack because of the lil ginger."

"Loquatius would be the first to go."

She takes the last sip with a smile. "Probably, yes."

"First Knight."

The voice is whispery, tiny and soft and as Zerxus turns to its source so is the half-elf woman who owns it. With the cold weather, she's covered by a hooded cape. On her chest, the clasp that closes the cape is a familiar mask.

He had been walking through the city checking for any suspicious behavior and has done it for at least a week since their temporary bridge with Zemnia.

"Hello, miss, how can I help you?"

She keeps her stare fixed on his feet. "Thanks, but I require no assistance. I'm Ivorah Orlan from the Conversion Nucleus."

"Are you a cleric?"

She looks surprised by the question but notices his eyes glancing at her chest. "Yes, cleric of the Matron of Ravens."

He just nods.

"I'm sorry for being forward but there's something I'd like to ask. It's about your late husband."

Zerxus feels a bubbling sickness in his throat, he also feels starved - very few even mention his existence. "Proceed."

"As I said I'm the responsible cleric for the Conversion Nucleus and I was a friend of the First Knight Evandrin. In conversations we had, he had mentioned that when his death came he'd like me to be his sepulchral ritualist, but I never got the chance."

"He didn't want to be Converted."

"I'm aware. He wanted to be burned in a pyre and sent into the Lucidian. But we had that discussion and I never... his body was already dealt with before I had the chance and I feel like I broke a promise," she finishes with a quavering voice.

The memory of the time comes blurry to him, everything around it comes as a big horrifying blur. Loquatius and Patia had dealt with most of the funeral rites, he dealt with Elias, and Nydas dealt with him. Part of the ring had been broken and through fire and violence forced back into shape.

He turns the sickness into a solid mass, a boulder that keeps him from breaking every other hour.

"And you're not the only one." He steels himself. "The nature of his disease, we... we had to let go of many luxuries of honour."

"It still puzzles me what took such a young and strong man..."

"Puzzles me as well."

"Wish I had a chance to..." She closes her eyes, breathes deeply. "At least he was given an honourable funeral march."

"It was the Septarion's making."

She nods with her head down. "I'm sorry bothering you, First Knight."

He places a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you. For caring. Perhaps your Matron has him in her company and I envy her for it."

She lifts her eyes at once, then he sees them for what they are - terrible dark circles, perfect eclipses. "I've sought her insight about it... she doesn't have him in her sights."

"What does that mean?"

Her intensity deflates. "I don't know. I like to believe he went to an even higher place of honour for a soul as pure and valiant as his."

He tries smiling but feels tears sting in his eyes, the boulder starting to melt like a stray iceberg. "So do I."