The Trouble With Azem Within a cozy home somewhere in the residential district of Amaurot, Emet-Selch and Azem sat back-to-back, enjoying each other’s company as they each worked in silence. Emet-Selch reviewed new applications for creative concepts submitted by the city’s denizens, while Azem chronicled her latest journey in a diary that would later be submitted before the Convocation. Absent-mindedly, he gave her hand an affectionate squeeze. The moments passed for a time, quiet scratching of quill against parchment the only sound.
Then silence.
Emet-Selch shivered involuntarily and raised his gaze from the large tome in his hand. Head and shoulders, he turned to gaze wearily at his friend, who now sat very still, eyes focused at some far point on the opposite wall. Suddenly she dropped both the journal and the quill, doubled over with a spontaneous burst of mirth, and was gone in a blink. 'Damnation!' he thought. He retrieved the journal and read the paragraph written just prior to the book’s abandonment:
The curious mortals of Eulmore-by-the-Sea have taken to keeping small aquatic creatures in crystalline bowls for their own amusement. By and large, they ignore the things except to provide them sustenance and clean environs, but on occasion they gaze at them for hours on end for their own amusement. In the margin-to his horror-was scribbled a note: Emet-Selkies!
He placed the journal on the dais and stood. It was already far too late, but he resolved himself to make at least a token gesture toward stopping his mischievous friend. He walked with steely resolve across the city and was little surprised to find young Elidibus seated on the steps of the Bureau of the Architect, shoulders shaking with laughter. The youth glanced up at Emet-Selch from his position on the lower steps, his quiet mirth becoming a bright peel of high-pitched child laugh that echoed off of the surrounding, immensely tall buildings.
Emet-Selch took a steadying breath and closed his eyes. While the sound of innocent laughter was heartening and refreshing, he had no doubt that the joke was on him. “I’m correct in assuming that Azem has passed this way, Elidibus?” he asked.
When at last the boy composed himself enough to respond, he said instead, “You know, she calls me Eli. I like it.”
“Eli isn’t your name.” Emet-Selch responded, matter of factly.
Elidibus looked left, then right, checking his surroundings... “Well, Emet-Selch isn’t your name, either, Hades!” he chided. He popped off his mask and made a grotesque face at his elder, before quickly replacing the mark of his office. “She went to see Hythlodaeus, but she’s gone now!” Eli hopped up and sprinted off down the street, an unmistakable bounce in his steps.
Looking every inch the avenging angel, back straight, shoulders squared, Emet-Selch strode up the stairs of the Bureau of the Architect, through the massive doors, and directly up to the counter. He had an overwhelming urge to give Hythlodeaus a piece of his mind, but his friend was nowhere to be seen. In the several moments before which he finally did appear, Emet-Selch had resigned himself to defeat, opting instead to simply ask, “Why didn’t you stop her?”
'Deaus smiled ruefully and set down the mountain of parchments and crystals he carried. “Why would I? Ever. She’s hilarious. Your discomfiture of course is but a bonus.” He leaned against the counter top with the air of a man who had been on his feet all day and looked directly into Emet-Selch's eyes. There was a twinkle of dark humor behind his mask. “You should pay a visit to the Akadaemia Anyder. I hear they have a fantastic new species in house.”