theairlock | Week 4

[ Thank god. Noctis breathes out a sigh as he nudges the cup closer to Ardyn. He takes a sip of his own tea, partly to give himself time to think. ]

... Finishing what you started, huh. [ His voice is quiet, and he's looking at Ardyn as he says it. ] For someone who's been alive for so long and probably knows a lot of stuff, you're an idiot.

You've proven yourself quite skilled at finishing what I inevitably screw up.

[Too flat to sound like the joke he'd wanted it to, Ardyn picked up the cup of tea with a very slightly unsteady hand.]

...I know. Touko and Varric alike already lectured me for it, I just...reacted. I wasn't thinking past 'give everyone time to escape' and 'hurt it before it kills you'.

Doesn't mean I wanted to finish that.

[ He crosses his arms. ]

Good that they let you have it. [ He thinks about what he knows of Ardyn's past. It doesn't surprise him. ] I would've come back, you know. Once I'd gotten everyone to safety. Pretty sure those who knew how to fight would've had your back.

...Why? I don't--why would anyone risk themselves for my sake, especially you?

Because we're in this together.

[His only reply at first was a short sound that might have been a half-formed bitter laugh. What was friendship and trust really worth, in a place like this? They had all gotten along and coexisted in that mansion, and twice it had failed them. Why should that change now, why should anything change? Friendship and betrayal were just two sides of a single coin, and that was the nature of things.]

...I'm not worth that and you know it.

[ If Noctis were younger, if Noctis were still consumed by anger and pain and hatred for the man sitting across from him... he'd have agreed. Ardyn is the reason Luna's dead, after all. Ardyn's the reason Noctis watched, helpless, as he drove that knife deep into Luna. He'd watched as Insomnia fell, and he'd turned Ravus into something consumed by rage and wanting to die, but which had fought Noctis nonetheless. He's why Ignis put on the ring in order to protect Noctis. He's the reason Noctis pushed Prompto off the train, the reason Prompto felt worthless because of it...

But Noctis is not younger. He'd like to think he understands Ardyn, at least on some level. He understands why Ardyn chose to waste himself away to heal those touched by the scourge. He understands why Ardyn chose vengeance, chose to wait two thousand damn years until Noctis was ready to kill him.

He doesn't agree, but he understands. And maybe Noctis's feelings seem irrational, and maybe sometimes he's still angry about what Ardyn has done to the people he loves, but. ]

I think anyone willing to risk their life to give others at least a fighting chance is worth more than just a senseless death.

Edited 2018-02-25 21:56 (UTC)

[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.

[ He doesn't argue. Nor does he really say anything at first. He just... watches. Watches as Ardyn tries to hold himself together. He's not sure what exactly is going through his head right now, and he won't pry. But Noctis can try and talk some sense into him. ]

Who you are is... Ardyn. [ He shrugs. ] If anyone expects you to be anything or anyone, that's kind of screwed up. [ He pauses. ] Good thing about a place like this is that you've got a lot of time to figure that out. And people who want to help you.

[ He sips at his tea. Noctis knows who he is, and he's comfortable with that, but he remembers a time when he was less sure. When he was younger, when he first started out... he wasn't quite sure who he was.

He does not envy Ardyn for what he's going through. ]

So. Are you going to take this time to figure out who you've become? Or who you want to become?

...I don't have a choice. Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

['Fates lead the willing and drag the unwilling'.]

I'm still alive, so it falls to a matter of either allowing myself to give out and fall apart, or trying to salvage whatever might remain before I shatter entirely.

Edited 2018-02-25 22:47 (UTC)

On the plus side, at least you've got people who'll help pick up the pieces if that happens.

That's one of the good things about having people who care about you.

Why would they? A broken glass is a pile of useless shards and nothing more.

[...Which spoke volumes about whoever Ardyn was in two short sentences. 'Anyone would get rid of something useless', where the 'useless' thing was 'an Ardyn Lucis Caelum who served no purpose for anyone'.]

There's no reason for anyone to go to the effort of repairing something like that.

Maybe you can't see it, but people who care about you? They'll stand by you, even when you feel like you're falling apart.

[ Gladio and Ignis and Prompto had for Noctis, even if Gladio had been... Gladio about it. But in the end, they'd been there for him right until the very end. ]

Or especially when you feel like you're falling apart.

...

[He glanced off to the side, an obvious argument dying in his throat as he fidgeted mindlessly with the orange scarf around his collar. There had been people who stood with him as his body began to deteriorate and warp into something terrible, and what had happened when he gave out and broke?]

[What had trust gotten him, two thousand years ago? What did it mean when he couldn't trust the gods he'd sworn his service to, or the twin brother he must have cared for once, or even the Shield who guarded his life right up until he didn't?]

I'm...trying, I think. Whether it's an attempt I'm consciously aware of or not, but it-... [Another deep breath, another hand pushing violet hair from his face.]

...This is all wrong. In these memories we all relied on each other, kept barely any secrets and were able to keep ourselves together even when one of us turned on the rest. But it's all a jumbled mess made so difficult now--Church and I can barely hold a conversation without having a nervous breakdown, and without-....without Yuuri we're all an unmitigated disaster.

Edited 2018-02-25 23:10 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's because your memories were so messed up, back then.

[ He frowns. He remembers what it was like at the beginning of his program. He didn't have it nearly as bad as Ardyn, but that's not particularly surprising. Noctis sighs and sips at his tea. ]

Yuuri was the glue that kept you together, huh? I didn't realize she was that important to you.

She was-...I'm sure if I say 'rational' it likely won't match up with what you've seen of her, but it's true all the same. We had a garden--she used to plant memorials after we left the courtroom.

Church was the person I trusted to know I wasn't human, but it was Yuuri I would talk out the rest of the situation with, because she was the one checking in with us and trying to keep us relatively sane.

... Honestly? I kind of got that idea.

[ She reminded him of... well. Of a mini-Ignis, but he's not gonna mention that. ]

I'm guessing she was pretty much a different person during your first program, since we had memory crap going on then, too.

...I suspect that we all were.

... Yeah. So was I.

When I got there, I didn't even know Insomnia had fallen.

The first thing I remembered was...negotiating after that little incident with Diamond Weapon. I didn't even recognize myself, much less the Citadel.

[what a headache.]

I've no idea how I got out of that mess without turning to something even more insane than I already was. Presuming that I'm not, which I can't quite tell anymore.

Week 4

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cw suicide juuust in case

cw: even more suicidal ideation

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