I told all of you that...none of that was a lie. Even back then, I wanted to care about all of you. Ardyn Lucis Caelum wanted to care about you, without realizing he was just an echo seeing the light of day again through nothing but forgotten memories. Even if it was nothing but going through the motions with the barest sentiment behind it he didn't know any other way to live other than by helping those who needed it.
...And I didn't lie to you when I said that friends weren't exactly something I had ever had before. No one cared about the Accursed once I started to become something inhuman, and the healer was forgotten so quickly that Izunia could erase my name from history with barely an objection heard. So I didn't understand--perhaps I still fail to understand--why the same didn't happen here. Why so few of you turned on me, when people I'd known--people I'd loved did so without a second thought.
[Ardyn looked briefly to the ring on his hand, silent for a few seconds; he was trying to stay grounded in what he was saying, rather than slipping backwards into the words and curses of people that had been dead for ages.]
This place...all of this resurrected someone that died alone and forgotten. And this time, that deterioration came so much more quickly that I may have ended up even worse than Chancellor Izunia had I been left alone with it.
[Ardyn raised both hands to Church's face once he was sure he was focused on where he was, in some godsforsaken station in the middle of the vast expanse of space. Not Lucis, not Tenebrae, not Niflheim, not Accordo. Here, now, with his Kingsglaive--with his friends. Friends who would help him carry the weight of the horrific things Ardyn Izunia had committed, undeserved as that help would be.]
[He'd done nothing worth any of them, and he knew it. But his voice was determined now, sharp as any sword he had ever held.]
You made every difference that led to this moment. You're right; I needed you, but all of us have, from the very beginning.
Right now, I'm not completely sure what I am. I don't know if I'll completely snap the instant we escape here or if I may hold out longer than that. But I know that right now I am neither the Accursed nor the king of Lucis--'before my coronation, before I was the Chosen'.
['Swear to me that you'll remember that. That I wanted the best for every last one of you, and would sooner die than see a single one of you hurt.']
My first order to you is to burn these next two facts into your memory for however long we may yet live:
Who and whatever stands before you now cares about you.
And no matter who or what I am, whether king or monster or some shades of both...my name is Ardyn.
no subject
...And I didn't lie to you when I said that friends weren't exactly something I had ever had before. No one cared about the Accursed once I started to become something inhuman, and the healer was forgotten so quickly that Izunia could erase my name from history with barely an objection heard. So I didn't understand--perhaps I still fail to understand--why the same didn't happen here. Why so few of you turned on me, when people I'd known--people I'd loved did so without a second thought.
[Ardyn looked briefly to the ring on his hand, silent for a few seconds; he was trying to stay grounded in what he was saying, rather than slipping backwards into the words and curses of people that had been dead for ages.]
This place...all of this resurrected someone that died alone and forgotten. And this time, that deterioration came so much more quickly that I may have ended up even worse than Chancellor Izunia had I been left alone with it.
[Ardyn raised both hands to Church's face once he was sure he was focused on where he was, in some godsforsaken station in the middle of the vast expanse of space. Not Lucis, not Tenebrae, not Niflheim, not Accordo. Here, now, with his Kingsglaive--with his friends. Friends who would help him carry the weight of the horrific things Ardyn Izunia had committed, undeserved as that help would be.]
[He'd done nothing worth any of them, and he knew it. But his voice was determined now, sharp as any sword he had ever held.]
You made every difference that led to this moment. You're right; I needed you, but all of us have, from the very beginning.
Right now, I'm not completely sure what I am. I don't know if I'll completely snap the instant we escape here or if I may hold out longer than that. But I know that right now I am neither the Accursed nor the king of Lucis--'before my coronation, before I was the Chosen'.
['Swear to me that you'll remember that. That I wanted the best for every last one of you, and would sooner die than see a single one of you hurt.']
My first order to you is to burn these next two facts into your memory for however long we may yet live:
Who and whatever stands before you now cares about you.
And no matter who or what I am, whether king or monster or some shades of both...my name is Ardyn.