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On Arrogance and Gratitude

WildStar fic?? In 2025??? It's more likely than you think!

Anyway, hi, this is a belated followup to an RP that happened almost a year ago, and I finally got it out of my system. While Seeker lives on in other games, I have missed writing his OG self, and this was really cathartic (for both of us).

Seeker was still towelling at his hair as he left the bathroom and headed across the landing into the bedroom. Plunking himself down on the edge of the bed, he focused on squeezing the remaining water from his bangs. They were getting long again, as was the narrow section of hair at the nape of his neck, now plastered wetly over one shoulder. He’d never let his hair grow this much before. But Q liked it, and Seeker had to admit that his boyfriend had good taste, even if a glance in the mirror still occasionally threw him. He wrung out the rest of his hair and exchanged the towel for a worn grey sweatshirt that he unhurriedly pulled over his head. As he shimmied it down his torso, he found his gaze drifting to the unassuming green curtain drawn across a corner of the bedroom, by the door. His eyes remained oddly fixed on it as he absently tied the longest sections of his hair back into their proper tail; and eventually, he let out an exasperated sigh. Seeker pushed himself to his feet. “What’d you do to me, Jeremy?” he muttered, with a rough shake of his head, and he padded across the room to gingerly pull the curtain aside.

A large part of him rebelled at the notion of calling it a shrine, but he supposed that’s what it was. Nothing grand or elaborate, like the bright yet brooding alcoves in the Vigilant chapels of his childhood, where one felt unworthy for simply breathing there, let alone offering a petition. A carved wooden cabinet, waist-high, was backed against the wall, empty save for the few personal mementos of his old life that had managed to make it through his ordeals on Nexus. On the wall above, a pair of metal sconces held two patterned ivory candles (which he had pilfered from a church in Ilium without the slightest twinge of guilt). And between them, wrought in stained glass, a depiction of Galen the Adept - the traditional Scion of the Serapis family. Laid on top of the cabinet was a book - not a datapad, an actual book. While normally this tome would hold the collected teachings of the Vigilant Church, Seeker had brazenly torn out the majority of the pages, leaving only the short segment pertaining specifically to Galen and his pursuit of knowledge. Propped next to the book was a small, circular frame containing a painted cameo in the High Cassian style. It depicted a young woman in profile, her hair the same silver as Seeker’s but her skin a few shades lighter. Despite the typical solemnity of such portraits, her aquamarine eye seemed to smile at the viewer, and a hint of mischief curved her full mouth.

Reaching up, Seeker lit the candles with tongues of esper-flame. The usual silvery sheen of his espernetics took on a more golden hue as it met the warmth of the candle wax, draping this corner of the room in a soft, contained glow.

Silently, Seeker splayed his hands on top of the cabinet, as he looked up at Galen’s stern yet encouraging visage. A long breath wafted from his nose. At last, he spoke.

“I don’t pretend to have any credit with you anymore,” he said - quiet, and even-toned. “Frankly, I don’t think you’re even there.”

Another pause, followed by another sigh. He pinched at the bridge of his nose with one hand before setting it down again.

“I hated you for a long time, you know,” he went on, and he wasn’t talking to Galen anymore. Just… through him, if such a thing were possible.

“For your audacity. For your fucking arrogance.” Seeker looked down, watching as his fingers curled a little upon the cabinet top. “For thinking you had the right to survey the universe, and choose a planet full of independent people, and turn them into your own personal pawns so that you could play at being gods. And like so many other Cassians - I believed it.” He felt his jaw clench a little at the thought. The memories.

“It’s such a comforting thing, isn’t it?” he mused aloud, tautly. “Destiny.” He couldn’t help the scorn that hung on every syllable of the word. “Why consider another path, why even think for yourself, when some so-called gods have handed you all the right answers?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as years of sullen, simmering resentment rose inside him. It didn’t take much to get him riled. It never had.

“But then, I woke up,” he continued. Biting out his bitterness to the gods he didn’t believe in. “And I started seeing what a sham it all was. All the tarnish in the shadows of your golden legacy. And fuck, it hurt. All the more because I’d been gullible enough - and yes, arrogant enough - to believe it. So… I came here.”

Seeker straightened up, spreading his hands, as though Nexus’ creators were standing right there in front of him to witness this gesture of defiance. Part of him wished they could be.

“I took my anger to your world, so I could find out your secrets, and expose you, and force my people to confront the lies you left them. Somehow, I thought that would fix things. That if I just found the truth, that would… make it all better.”

A low exhale deflated his lungs, and his hands fell again, going limp and still at his sides. His eyes lowered as well, staring for a long moment at the top of the cabinet without really seeing it.

“It’s never that easy, though, is it?” he murmured. The words were weary now, and weighted with hard-won acceptance. “If it were… it probably wouldn’t be worth anything, to try.”

He was quiet for another short spell, standing there with his cynicism and his rancour, feeling like he could almost watch them as they paced and prowled. They were never going to leave, he knew that. But gradually, he’d realised, they had become… less important to him than they once were. And maybe… maybe that was a good thing.

Seeker rubbed at his face, trying to focus on his original intentions.

“The thing is,” he started again, with the air of someone attempting to explain a very reluctant decision, “for better or worse - and worse, mind - you made me who I am. I’m alive - because you created me. And I’m here because you killed me, and I needed to find out how, and why, and maybe then… nobody else would have to go through what I did.

“I don’t think I’ll ever escape the nightmares of what I’ve experienced here." For a fleeting moment, his voice wavered. "But… it’s not just horrors."

He raised his left hand deliberately in front of him, watching the candlelight reflecting off the golden contours embedded in his skin, the pulsing lines of vivid green etched between the metal curves.

"It’s… brilliance." There was something nearing reverence in his tone - always denied to the gods themselves, yet granted to their works. "Your creations, your technology… I’ve been fascinated by it my entire life. And here I’ve learned more about it than I ever thought possible, and there’s still so much left to try to understand. It’s what drives me. It’s… it’s what I live for." He paused, then tacked on pointedly, "Among other things."

He threaded his augmented fingers through his bangs, drawing them back from his face, and looked up at Galen again.

“Jeremy said I should be… well, grateful, for what I’ve got, and where I am, because of you." He pressed his lips together, canted his head, and admitted, "I don’t… I don’t know if I can. I don’t think you deserve my gratitude, honestly." He curled a few strands of hair around his finger as he continued slowly, "But I guess, indirectly, without actually giving it to you… I am grateful. I’m… not where I expected to be, which is only an improvement, considering I was supposed to be dead by this point." A rueful huff fell from his lips, and he shook his head once. "But here, in these… these ruins of your undoing, I’ve made a life for myself. One where I don’t have to run or hide anymore, where I can do what I want. Be who I want. Love who I want. I… I never thought I’d actually have that.”

Dropping his eyes, Seeker exhaled loudly. It had been a long, long time since he'd offered out anything resembling a prayer, and he knew that if he thought about it too much, he'd realise how stupid it all sounded. So he simply wet his lips, and pushed his brain aside, and went on evenly:

"I'm never going to believe in you. And I'm never going to forgive you, or make peace with you, or whatever other form of reconciliation would probably be considered healthy. But… you gave me questions to ask. You gave me a purpose. And without that… I don't think I'd be here."

He stopped, wondering what to say next. His mouth opened, but nothing emerged; and after several awkward seconds he only huffed and closed it again.

An airborne pinch of his fingers snuffed out the candle flames. He made to step back, but hesitated, as his eyes caught again on the painted cameo. Slowly, he reached out and picked it up. For moment after weighted moment he stared at it - at her - and then at length he drew in a deep, steadying breath.

"Alright," he muttered resignedly, as he set the cameo down again. "Alright. You win. Like always."

It only took him an hour to finish tweaking the comm setup in the lab downstairs. The latest Dominion satellite had been pathetically easy to hack, and he'd tapped into it weeks ago. All he had to do was finish calibrating the Eldan side of things - allowing him to thread the encrypted signal through the transmat, out of this little pocket dimension, and then bounce it off the Dominion's primary communications array. Two-way contact with distant points of the galaxy could still be a bit hit-or-miss - stellar phenomena tended to degrade the signals - but the Eldan amplifier Seeker had carefully installed meant that his transmissions, at least, were quicker and clearer than most.

His heart was beating too fast for his liking as he slid himself onto the stool in front of the monitor, and waited. He wasn't a naturally anxious person, but the current prospect had him feeling distinctly nervous and dry-mouthed.

At last, after an interval of perhaps twenty seconds that felt like an absolute eternity, his call was answered. Both he and the person on the other side gave nearly identical starts of astonishment.

"Caspian??"

"Isidore?"

The man on the viewscreen looked to be about forty, golden-skinned and hollow-faced, with short white-blond hair and a neatly cropped goatee that accentuated the chiselled lines of his cheeks. While Seeker remembered him as a generally solemn-looking individual, the way Isidore's mouth was currently hanging open made him appear rather comical.

"You - you were reported as dead," Isidore gaped out. He slumped back into his seat, rubbing weakly at his chest, where the emblem of the Vigilant Church was embroidered in gold on his white shirt. "Scions, Cas - did you call across half the galaxy just to give me a heart attack? And what's with the accent?"

An unexpected laugh bubbled from Seeker's lips at the indignation in his friend's voice. "I, ah, I actually told them to report that. Official death certificate and everything. It seemed… easier." His smile went lopsided. "For reasons that are too complicated to get into right now. That goes for the accent too, honestly."

Isidore pulled in several deliberate breaths, trying to recover his composure before fixing Seeker with a knowing look. "I get the feeling it's actually very simple," he said. His lips thinned in exasperation. "You fucked around and found out, didn't you? Again?"

Seeker coughed another laugh. "Something like that," he admitted, brushing his bangs from his face. He huffed, then sobered a little. "But I didn't even call you, I was trying to -" He paused abruptly, frowned, and then asked, "Hang on - what are you doing there?"

Isidore blinked once. "Ah," he said. "Yes. About that -"

The other's hesitant tone caused a renewed surge of anxiety in Seeker - until he noticed the faint flush now colouring Isidore's cheeks.

"Wait, wait, wait." Seeker leaned forward a little as a grin crept across his face. "Did you move in with her? Are you living there now?"

"Only sometimes," defended Isidore, looking positively flustered now. "It's not - nothing's settled, really, and after all, I still have the rectory -"

"Uh huh," said Seeker, his grin shifting into a clear smirk. "Well, all I can say is - bloody finally."

Isidore harrumphed. "Yes, yes, yes." He gave a good-natured roll of his eyes, then sighed. "I'll go and get her, then, so the two of you can have a go at me at the same time." He set his hands on the desk, making to stand up; but then he hesitated, glancing at Seeker with a more serious expression.

"Caspian, listen. I know things were… difficult, between you, when you left. But please… don't be angry with her. She was young, and naive, and didn't understand what she was delving into. I believe it hurt her far more than it did you."

Seeker stilled at this. He swallowed, his amusement fading, his eyes falling.

"I - I know," he muttered. "I'm not angry. Not… not like that. I just -" He paused, biting his lip. It was so hard to dredge this up again, when all he wanted was to move on.

"I hated that I just - I couldn't get through to her, Isidore. And then she left, and came back - hurt, and so quiet, and - and somehow I believed it was my fault, because I couldn't stop her from going." He leaned his head forward into his hands, fingertips kneading anxiously at his temples. "And I didn't know how to make it better, except maybe, if I found the truth, if I could just show her -"

He sucked in a shuddery breath, cutting himself off. Isidore nodded slowly.

"I know. She told me, later. She was listening to you - even if she didn't agree with some of it. But Cas -"

The prompt in his voice coaxed Seeker to gingerly lower his hands and look up again, and he saw that his friend was smiling.

"She's alright now. It took a while, but she's fine. And I know she'll be so glad to see you."

Unsure of what might come out now if he spoke, Seeker just nodded tersely. Isidore got to his feet and stepped out of sight, leaving Seeker to thumb at the damp corners of his eyes and stare anxiously at the backdrop of a fashionably furnished Cassian apartment.

He thought he could hear voices emanating from the unseen next room. A few moments later there came a loud clang, sounding oddly like a pot or pan being dropped, and then the distinctive noise of frantic footsteps.

"Cas?? Cas!!"

The same young woman depicted in the cameo came skidding into view of the screen. Her hair was tied messily back, and an apron had been thrown over her well-tailored clothes. The apron was stained with some sort of colourful food residue, the nature of which Seeker could only guess at.

Seeker's hands were twisted tightly on the table before him, but somehow, he managed to push past the knot in his throat enough to speak.

"Hey, Alena," he warbled out, with a very watery smile.

Alena plunked herself into Isidore's vacated seat and beamed through the screen at her brother. "Cas! Oh, I was hoping you'd figure out a way to call!" She tilted her head in an exaggerated motion, and then quipped, "Wow, what've you done to your hair?"

For a moment, Seeker could only mouth soundlessly. "What - seriously, that's the first thing you say to me??" he managed, and let out a weak laugh. "After all this - wait." He blinked in confusion. "You - hoped I would call? But Isidore, he knew - I mean, he thought I was -" The words fumbled awkwardly to a halt.

"Darius told me," Alena said matter-of-factly. "The gist of it, anyway." The joviality of her entrance had faded. "He seemed to think I deserved to know the truth."

Seeker wasn't sure if the rebuke he heard in her voice was really there; but combined with such casual mention of his brother, it was enough to finally push him over the edge of his barely-maintained composure. He slumped forward.

"Alena… fuck." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I - I am so, so sorry." Suddenly dry sobs were stuttering through his breathing, as years of tamped-down guilt finally found their outlet.

"For leaving you. For not calling you even when I could. For thinking I knew so much better than you, and trying to control your life -" He pressed his face into his hands for a moment, then forced himself to slide them down again so that he could look at her.

"I'm sorry," he croaked again. "I mean it. I - I was wrong."

Alena's brows lifted fractionally. "Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd hear from you," she said mildly. "Can I get that notarised?"

Astonishment scrunched Seeker's already contorted face, but Alena only quirked her lips playfully at him.

"I don't even get to tease you anymore, huh? Heyyyy, Cas, c'mon." She reached out and flicked at the screen, as though trying to dot him on the chin. "No blubbering at the reunion. It's all okay now, I promise. It wasn't your fault."

"Are you sure?" asked Seeker wretchedly. "I mean, I know now it wasn't, really, but - are you sure you aren't pissed at me or anything? You've got every right to be, after I just fucked off like that."

"Of course not," Alena replied, somewhere between gentle and exasperated. "I've missed you, Cas. I was worried for you."

Seeker nodded, letting out a wavery breath. "I've missed you too," he said thickly. "I'm - I'm really glad you're okay now."

She smiled wryly at him. "And I'm just glad you're alive," she returned. "I hear that can be something of a challenge on Nexus."

"I - yeah." Still a bit thrown, Seeker scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of one hand. "It's been… rough, sometimes." He swallowed again, trying to get a hold of himself.

"You should tell me all about it," said Alena, encouraging as ever, but not impatient. Her gaze followed the motions of his augmented hand across the screen. "Like that, for instance."

Seeker glanced at the hand in question, then huffed faintly. "It's a lot to tell," he warned.

His sister smiled easily at him. "I've got all the time in the galaxy, Cas. Besides, you owe me. Oh, except -" She leaned back in her seat, craning her head to call into the next room.

"Isidore - could you mix up another batch of the berry filling? To replace the one I dropped? Thanks!"

Returning her attention to the screen, she smiled again. "Isidore's been trying to teach me how to bake," she explained. "I think he's regretting it. Now -"

She propped her elbows on the desk in front of her, and set her chin expectantly in her hands.

"Tell me everything, Cas. The good things, and the bad things. And maybe even a few of the boring things. And then I'll tell you what's been going on here - because I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised."

Her buoyant attitude was just as infectious as Seeker remembered, and in spite of everything, he found himself smiling back. "Yeah, alright," he agreed. "It's a deal." His voice was still a little hoarse, but he could feel the knot inside him unravelling in relief. She was fine. They were fine.

Reaching for a bottle and a glass nearby, he poured a small measure of very expensive brandy and settled himself more comfortably on his stool.

"Right, so. Once upon a time," he began drily, "an arrogant young prick who wanted to know everything decided to defy the gods…."