Chapter Text
The end of everything Chirraek has ever cared for is a small thing, really. So small that they cannot pinpoint and touch a claw to where not yet becomes too late, only that by increments and all at once, it is well past time for them to do anything about it.
The end is a shift in the Coven politics, the resounding silence where Savathûn once schemed – and then the clarion call of war thundering to fill it. Fleets cutting through and scouting ships lingering, and behind and beyond them, the tightening noose of another god’s attention. Heresy becomes a fervent shield and weapon, turned against Savathûn herself and all those still claiming loyalty. Long before Xivu Arath’s lieutenants hew their way through the ascendant plane, the High Coven has already turned its many talents to wholly shattering.
As always, Chirraek is left to pick over the pieces; knights and wizards scrambling to assert ambition over fear, advisors squabbling over what little they know and how to best prove their new worth, entire crypts thrown in disarray or left forgotten.
They are not afraid. Fear is rare and valuable, cultivating instincts that would otherwise wither in the long ageless millennia of ascendancy. But their worm gnaws its discomfort beneath their ribcage nonetheless, and Chirraek gnaws also on the realization that they have lost. Not a true defeat, as they still live in both physical and ascendant planes. Not a defeat of stature, for they could easily turn their influence and skills to a role within Xivu Arath’s armies.
But there is no other word for it. Every tenuous rule and game of favours has crumbled away, laying bare what has always been beneath it – the point of the tooth and the flesh it must bury itself in. The strong and the weak alike are gripped by the same ancient hunger. Together they will uphold the bladed path, turning the Coven in on itself until the weak are carved out, the strong whetted and sharpened.
What a frail hope it had been to think it could have ever been different. All shapes, no matter how grand or intricate, collapse into a line once more.
The lieutenants, heralds and proof of this ending, are rude. They make seemingly idle references to ancient, storied conquests, and eat the first eavesdropper they catch as an example. They brought Xivu Arath’s sigil with them, and the emerald fire of it digs at its surroundings, carrying with it blistering air and the stench of gore. She does not care enough to speak through it, but its presence is enough.
Neither weak enough to be threatened nor important enough to have to make the case for their continued survival, Chirraek is left to their work. No one truly cares what they’re doing, as long as they continue doing it. No one, then, is watching when they abandon their many, many duties, the records and lists and spells, the tithe-chains and vows made and brood-promises held or broken.
“I am leaving. Come with me,” they say, over and over – to the least brash knights, younger wizards, the acolytes they can find. It is so simply done that they are giddily incredulous with it. It cannot be this easy. And yet –
The ease of it is the ending itself, jaws snapping shut. If it had been more difficult, it would not have been too late. But in every weary prediction and idly resigned thought, Chirraek had never thought they would still remain afterwards. To still live is to confront the vast, empty horizon of what-could-be. Where will they go? How will they survive? Relevant, pressing concerns – but for now they do what they must, what they always have: they think of the very next step, and get to work.