[For a too-long moment, Ardyn didn't answer. Calm even with unsteady hands, he took a drink from the cup of tea in front of him before setting it down.]
[Once there had been someone who stood tall and said 'better me than anyone else.' Who ignored all warnings because there was simply no other course of action. Stop his work as healer, let the plague's grip on the world tighten, save one life at the cost of countless more? Unthinkable, cowardly, unfitting of he who would be king.]
[Once there was a monster, unable to know anything but his own hatred. Incapable of love and attachment, forsaken by even the light of day, something that manipulated and killed as he saw fit because mortal lives were made to end by design, and death was what the planet and its people deserved for throwing away their savior. Someone condemned to the dark, screaming and raging at a world that left him behind, lashing out at everyone and everything that so much as tried to approach with a hand extended in aid. Why should he trust something like that? No one would understand. No one would want to. No one ever could.]
['Curse you kings and your iniquitous Crystal-]
[Once there was a person who had forgotten who and what he was. Styled himself a healer-king, yet with blackened blood and deadened emotions struggling to function like he thought humans did. Like the savior he thought he was, the one a group of lost and frightened captives needed to support them.]
['...You were right. I'm not human anymore, am I?']
[And now here he was, some crossroads between them all. Human and yet inhuman, the tangled threads of two thousand years' memories all but strangling him. Trapped between wanting to die and needing to live, self-sacrifice and bitter cruelty.]
[Ardyn could only call up a bitter, pained laugh in response, head dropping into shaking hands. The scarf around his neck felt like a terrible weight now that he knew why he'd kept it, why it was something he felt so out of sorts to have been missing. It was the trademark of someone long dead, worn by the shambling corpse of a healer animated by ageless hate.]
...I don't know if I'm that person. Don't--don't argue, not this time, I-...
[A deep breath. Focus, concentrate, turn uncertainty into some semblance of the eloquence he'd maintained throughout countless centuries.]
I'm not 'myself'. I don't know who this person is that you're speaking to; I'm not the savior, I'm not the Chancellor, I'm-... I need this to end, and yet I know I can't allow it to until I understand who it is that's awaiting his death this time.
cw: even more suicidal ideation
[Once there had been someone who stood tall and said 'better me than anyone else.' Who ignored all warnings because there was simply no other course of action. Stop his work as healer, let the plague's grip on the world tighten, save one life at the cost of countless more? Unthinkable, cowardly, unfitting of he who would be king.]
[Once there was a monster, unable to know anything but his own hatred. Incapable of love and attachment, forsaken by even the light of day, something that manipulated and killed as he saw fit because mortal lives were made to end by design, and death was what the planet and its people deserved for throwing away their savior. Someone condemned to the dark, screaming and raging at a world that left him behind, lashing out at everyone and everything that so much as tried to approach with a hand extended in aid. Why should he trust something like that? No one would understand. No one would want to. No one ever could.]
['Curse you kings and your iniquitous Crystal-]
[Once there was a person who had forgotten who and what he was. Styled himself a healer-king, yet with blackened blood and deadened emotions struggling to function like he thought humans did. Like the savior he thought he was, the one a group of lost and frightened captives needed to support them.]
['...You were right. I'm not human anymore, am I?']
[And now here he was, some crossroads between them all. Human and yet inhuman, the tangled threads of two thousand years' memories all but strangling him. Trapped between wanting to die and needing to live, self-sacrifice and bitter cruelty.]
[Ardyn could only call up a bitter, pained laugh in response, head dropping into shaking hands. The scarf around his neck felt like a terrible weight now that he knew why he'd kept it, why it was something he felt so out of sorts to have been missing. It was the trademark of someone long dead, worn by the shambling corpse of a healer animated by ageless hate.]
...I don't know if I'm that person. Don't--don't argue, not this time, I-...
[A deep breath. Focus, concentrate, turn uncertainty into some semblance of the eloquence he'd maintained throughout countless centuries.]
I'm not 'myself'. I don't know who this person is that you're speaking to; I'm not the savior, I'm not the Chancellor, I'm-... I need this to end, and yet I know I can't allow it to until I understand who it is that's awaiting his death this time.