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Hythlodaeus has a problem. Well, several problems really, because that's just how things start. One thing goes wrong and then another ad infinitum all piled up into messy chaotic windfall. Delightfully whimsical for no one involved but himself, usually, as these things fall out.
This occasion, however, Hythlodaeus can claim absolute innocence. Sincerely. Honest. Whatever Emet-Selch should wish to accuse him in the next, oh, quarter-bell or so when they meet up at the agreed upon destination. And Azem, dear Azem, who cheerfully agreed to the same terms without half the grouching.
It's not like Hythlodaeus wanted both of his dearest friends, quite independently of each other, to invite him as their (required) plus one to this most honorable convocation sponsored event. Celebrating the refurbishment of the Akadaemia Andyer, that most prominent, venerable institution of knowledge.
From what concepts passed across his desk, there were to be the usual infrastructural upgrades, inspections for quality assurance and regards to further waterproofing throughout the Word of Mitron. How their current resident ichthyology expert routinely defies generational standing warding remains a mystery.
But the event itself, as Hythlodaeus understands it, showcasing the knowledge accrued and nurtured within those hallowed halls. Demonstrations, proofs of concepts, presented by senior students to a crowd of their peers.
Accompanied by musical stylings provided from the emissary himself. Piano, if Hythlodaeus remembers correctly from Azem's excitement on the subject. So very proud.
Ah, and therein the rub. The second problem: the intended venue itself. Or, was the intended venue until quite recently. Hythlodaeus stands in front of the building now, observing honorable Halmarut, one hand on hip, the other tapping against their mouth, deep in thought.
"How fascinating," they remark, wheeling around to face him, "ordinary rose bushes you say?"
Hythlodaeus looks over their shoulder. Winding, dark green vines spiked in thorns the size of his hands. Beautiful roses really. Wide range of colors, blooms brilliant and vibrant. If they weren't choking passage through the doorway. Climbing the walls. Having broken through several windows and already started weaseling in under stone and magic.
"As your students tell me," he says.
Consults given concept for said rose bushes, the bluish crystal itself wrapped in a lattice of vines proving most difficult to detangle. Nothing untoward about the creation process. Thought clarity maintained.
And yet.
Halmarut turns back to the writhing mess of vines and flowering greenery.
"Well! I shall fetch my pruning shears. Oh, hello Azem! Emet-Selch! Mind the pointy bits!"
Oh dear, here already? No matter. Hythlodaeus makes flying by the seat of his robes the sport of champions. His friends come up along his side, two very different reactions regarding the roses.
Azem laughs, utterly delighted. Would find such unrestrained, chaotic growth refreshing in a public normally bound so tightly up in rules and regulations.
Emet-Selch, on the other hand, crosses his arms and frowns at the mess.
"What is this?" He demands. "What have you done this time, Hythlodaeus?"
So suspicious. Hythlodaeus might just begin to think they hadn't been friends almost before they could reasonably create if he didn't know any better. Still turns the usual sunny smile on his dour companion.
"Looking after a spot of gardening, old friend! Some gentle, scholarly overenthusiasm, I think."
They watch another thick vine push its way through a shattered window, extending up the second floor wall much faster than it really has any right to climb. Extra standard growth rate increments. Hythlodaeus makes note of this observation in the crystal's concept matrix for future revisions.
"Overenthusiasm," Emet-Selch questions, mouth pressed in a thin line. "Gentle. Do you understand the words exiting your mouth or do you create them on the spot?"
Azem playfully nudges his shoulders, nearly shoving him off balance. Always underestimating their own strength. And while Emet-Selch's consternation redirects momentarily, Hythlodaeus takes the moment to intercede before they get into a spot of wrestling.
Both prominent members of the convocation and partners for years besides, might think they'd show a sense of decorum. At least in public. But then again, it is Azem. Rules tend to go out the window when it comes to the fourteenth.
"Peace! Peace, my rambunctious friends!"
Really, truly hard not to laugh at them, but then they might catch on to Hythlodaeus' plan rather than assume mere coincidence. Think it'd be easier to get a couple to spend time together, honestly. Perhaps he ought to become friends with Mitron and Loghrif instead. Easier third wheeling.
Azem's arms wrap around Emet-Selch's neck, tugging him in towards them, cheerfully grinning for all his ineffectual shoves against their shoulders. Distance refused. He eventually gives up, huffing exasperated sigh, allowing Azem the physical contact they crave.
Hythlodaeus fakes a surprised gasp, glancing up at the position of the sun. He ignores one very unimpressed snort. "Why, look at the time! You both best be on your way, or you'll be late."
Azem tilts their head. For the first time, something other than genial amusement tints their expression.
"Aren't you coming, Hythlo? Elidibus is set to play the whole night. Finding concert tickets otherwise might take months, how quickly booked they tend to run."
This, at least, he doesn't need to pretend mild disappointment. Ah, the things he does for friendship. Hythlodaeus casts an arm at the vine choked building in front of him.
"Alas, I'm afraid this demands my immediate attention first and foremost. Do send young Elidibus my regards, however. Surely his performance shall be one to remember."
It seems to occur to Emet-Selch, finally muscling out of Azem's distracted hold, that his partner must have asked their friend to attend as well. As expected, he sulks. Not that he would admit to such. Images to maintain and all, but Hythlodaeus didn't become one of his closest friends without recognizing tells.
He casts Azem a meaningful glance, making shooing motions with his hands.
"Better be off! Wouldn't want to miss the opening performance, hmm?"
A quarter-bell of wandering aimlessly later through streets remarkably cleared of people, despite only a mid-late afternoon hour, Emet-Selch stops walking entirely. It takes Azem a few moments to notice his absence.
But when they turn around, he's tapping his foot, arms crossed.
"We're hopelessly turned around aren't we? Congratulations, shepherd. Lost in your own city."
Azem sighs, but doesn't rise to his bait. They can't help Amaurot's buildings look rather similar after being abroad so long. All tall, obsidian metal, white marble and gold filigree. Beautiful. But really hard to differentiate!
"If you had let Hythlodaeus speak instead of getting so petulant he rushed us along lest we be late, perhaps he might have informed us the location of the new venue."
Azem can't tell under Emet-Selch's mask, of course, but the slant of his shoulders, tightening arms across his chest all indicate a good brood. He may even be pouting. How dear.
"I was not petulant."
"Irritable. Impatient. Just plain old grouchy. How does Hythlo put up with you?"
"Clearly," Emet-Selch snarks back, picking a direction at random and walking on, "he abandons me to you."
"Oi! What's wrong with your partner?"
"Give me but a moment, dearest, and I'll prepare a list."
Azem grumbles under their breath, following his lead.
"How do you know where you're going? You don't, do you?"
"I'm looking. Shh."
Looking for what? Azem sees nothing. And it's not like there's anyone around they can ask for directions either. The city really has cleared out tonight, either most in attendance due to Elidibus making an appearance or otherwise occupied.
"Fair easier under Hythlodaeus' sight," Emet-Selch grumbles, turning another corner. "Of course, were he here, we also wouldn't be late. There."
There? It doesn't look different from any other building, honestly. Large enough to host a sizable crowd, no doubt, but other than that, whatever Emet-Selch sees reveals itself naught. On approach, however, Azem begins to hear faint strains of piano echoing from somewhere inside.
Finally!
As in all things, Azem moves without thinking, toward the opened doorway. Escapes Emet-Selch's hand grasping for their sleeve.
"I don't know how you found it," they exclaim, taking the steps two at a time, "but I'm glad you did! Think of poor Eli's dispirited face were we to - "
Bounce right off thin air on the threshold of the entrance, squawking and windmilling arms to maintain balance. Thankfully, Emet-Selch's there to catch them pitching backwards. Though he sighs as he helps right them upward again.
"One day," he says, giving a sheepish Azem a meaningful look, "your lack of looking whence you step shall see you maimed."
Azem only laughs, tilting up to kiss his cheek. "Not if you're always there to catch me."
Definite flush spreads down his cheeks, Emet-Selch ducking his head from view until the color fades. He clears his throat, eyeing the entrance.
"Bespelled. Like the whole building, on such short notice to keep out ambient noise. Though," glancing around the empty plaza, "seems unneeded. Suppose we find some means of contacting Lahabrea?"
Azem shakes their head, impatient. "And get chewed out by the old man for being late? I've got a better idea."
Now he eyes them, cautiously. Well known fact the only thing more dangerous than Azem and an "idea" is Azem presenting said idea in tandem with Hythlodaeus.
"Don't you trust me? You wound me. Come on!"
Azem leads him behind the building, into a little alley off the street. Also lacking people. Nothing adorns this side of the building, facing another structure.
Emet-Selch frowns, glancing down the mouth of the alley. By the time he looks back, Azem has plastered themselves to the wall and is looking at him expectantly.
"What are you doing?!"
Azem nods him over hurriedly, raising one arm off the wall. It comes off slowly, as if bound to the surface with some sort of sticky substance. Definitely magic, though Emet-Selch's aetheric sense can barely make sense of the patterns surging and whirring sluggishly underneath Azem's arm.
"The roof," Azem says, slapping a hand back on the wall over their head and beginning to climb, "why would they have spelled the sunroof? We'll sneak in through there."
What. He really can't have heard them right. And yet, off they scamper, spider crawling away.
"Azem! We'll be seen!"
"By who? Come on, pick up my trail and climb faster then. We came up with this magic for...other reasons. I don't know how long it'll hold!"
We? Who is we? Why does Emet-Selch feel like he has an idea exactly who they mean? And that those "other reasons" are only going to bite him in the ass later on?
"With friends like these," he mutters to himself.
Seeks out Azem's residual aether and begins to climb himself. Such an odd feeling, firmly stuck to the side of the wall several fulmes off the ground but if he should look down. Nothing but air.
Emet-Selch is not a man especially prone to acrophobia. But pulling himself over the lip of the building's roof, he pauses to let a surge of vertigo settle. Azem's ahead, unlatching the sunroof and popping it open. Looking none the worse for wear. Figures.
"Come, come," they call over their shoulder, music notes stronger now through the opening. "There's a balcony a little ways down."
Emet-Selch grumbles but heaves himself up again. "More climbing?"
"It's a small drop. You'll live."
"I hope not."
Azem tosses him a dirty look, halfway through the opening. Obscured by their mask, but Emet-Selch fills in the details.
"After you, dear."
Oh, they're definitely glaring now. Emet-Selch offers only his most pleasant smile in return, gesturing. Time's wasting away and such, it seems to imply.
Azem turns away, muttering under their breath, disappearing through and into the building. Emet-Selch follows suit.
The sun roof indeed opens out through a small drop on a square balcony ringing around the entirety of the inside of the building. Extremely high up indeed. Oh, joy.
Azem distracts Emet-Selch from his newfound (not fear) concern, with heights, interlacing their hands together and leaning into his side.
"Look," they point out at the stage, "he's really enjoying himself."
People mill about the floor below, gathering around demonstrations set up at designated stations throughout the area. Thankfully nothing quite growing out of control like the rose bushes. But much of the crowd centers on the stage where a white robed individual sits behind a piano. Fingers gliding smoothly, lightly across keys under smile of serenity.
"Hmm." A smile to match tugs at Emet-Selch's own lips.
Applause breaks out upon the music trailing off. A moment of chance, perhaps, summons Elidibus' attention skyward, toward their balcony. Azem waves vigorously, rewarded in the smile spreading more widely across his face before he turns away to take a break.
Somewhere from the depths of their robes Azem summons a rose. Full and red, as is traditional, viney tendrils yet growing, wrapping around their wrist.
Oh, for the love of -
Emet-Selch resists the urge to rub at his temple.
"You didn't."
"Didn't what, dear?" Their voice too syrupy-sweet to be anything but deceptive. The grin doesn't help.
"Why can't you summon a normal rose to give him?"
Azem shrugs. "This one was there. Oh look, Hythlo got to come after all. Isn't that splendid?"
Ah. He was beginning to wonder when Halmarut would turn up to an event dedicated to one-third of their life's work. Dragging along a somewhat bewildered Hythlodaeus while chattering his ear off not exactly the method Emet-Selch expected.
Hmm. They didn't even bother changing, it seems, dirt tracks and leaves poking out of their collar even visible from a distance. Typical Halmarut.
Presents a decent opportunity however. Though he's like to slink off to some dark corner and wait out the rest of the party after they see Elidibus, Azem the ever more sociable partner, Emet-Selch has a mind to drag Hythlodaeus off into that corner with him.
If only to share in the gleeful deconstruction of some of the more ridiculous concepts he can see at a glance from a distance.
Now, to find the stairs down...