lifenet | istones: 8.26

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istones: 8.26

Hey guys, 's Gladio. Got some new gear that'll make construction easier. And a rain barrel so we can haul a much larger quantity of river water over from Enso. Planning to set up another shower and water filter on the little islands, votes on which one?

And while I've got your attention I wanted to see who'd be up for helping me fix up the temple some. Tory -erm I mean The Storyteller's- been busting their butt looking after us, only feels right we should do something for them. Maybe... trying to make friends with them too, guys. They kinda think we all hate them.

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[There's a long silence after that, maybe long enough that Ardyn thinks Gladio isn't going to answer.

But, what he does differently than Iggy in these kinds of situations is... he takes people's words at face value. Ignis has told him over and over that there's more to him there's a good man deep down that just needs to be led out, Ardyn himself had said the same on Monsun but it hadn't been meant as a challenge or to give hope.

He's miserable and he's tired... Gladio can get that.]

Okay.

No valiant rescue attempts. Promise.

...What, that’s it? No stubborn idiocy or foolish platitudes about life being worth living or anything like that?

You said yourself, you've had centuries to come to that decision. I'm not going to try to force things on you. If you don't think there's anything in this world worth fighting for then...

Then helping you rest seems like the best thing I can do.

[It's not in him to stop fighting, to give up on the things he loves. But he can't fault others for not being as suicidally dedicated to a cause. Especially someone who's been through as much shit as Ardyn has.]

...

I never said there was nothing worth it. Just that I don't care to be seen as someone in need of salvation, and that I won't change my mind.

Even if you were I'm no savior. That's Noct's job. All I can do is protect people... Even if that just means protecting their right to make their own decisions about the future. I could never do it, myself. Trained too well I guess.

But I'm not going to lecture you about how life and love is worth it. That's for you to decide, not me.

[There was a long silence, this time Ardyn not sounding as though he would answer.]

['You know those kings will not protect you.'
'I know--I am the protector.']

[But finally, after a couple of minutes that stretched far longer than they should have:]

...Perhaps there are things worth living for. Perhaps not. I wouldn't know, and I've long since lost the ability to care for the world or anything within it.

But this isn't living. This body itself is naught but a corpse made of shadow and animated by hatred given parasitic form, with neither breath in its throat or a heart in its chest. A wraith with no ability to sleep or even taste, so far as ordinary circumstances go. At least Gilgamesh in whatever undead form he held still retained his sanity, yet I'm denied even that and left well aware of it. And all of it nothing more than my thanks for acting as protector to a world ungrateful, who saw a better option in their precious Founder King and cast aside their sage as though any of them would have been alive without me.

...All I have left is my name and my resentment, and that is why I will neither answer to that epithet of the Draconian's making nor will I ever forgive anything and anyone who dares exist in the world that left me behind, the line descended from my ever-so-perfect blessed little brother who discarded me, or the traitorous lying Astrals which govern it.

I don't care whether the world deserved what I did to it or not. I don't regret it, and the blighted star got precisely as was written and precisely as it deserved.

Edited 2018-08-28 21:51 (UTC)

[Another silence, this one heavier as if Ardyn was only just catching up with the gravity of the entirely honest and increasingly bitter words that had left him.]

[That...was true, all of it. Never forgive, never forget, and destroy everything he had essentially built. But...but was it right? Was it what he wanted? Was it what Ardyn, spurned and furious, had wanted? Or was it what the Accursed wanted?]

[For not the first time, he was startlingly aware of some imperceptible and unclear line between his own anger and that which was fueled by daemonic fury, and Ardyn couldn't tell which side was which.]

[Then, at length came a voice that was still Ardyn's--yet all the mounting bitterness and mocking enjoyment of the planet's suffering and death had drained away like the black stain from a shattered inkwell. He just sounded...exhausted, quiet and worn out body and soul.]

...I don't want this anymore.

Edited (SORRY missed a line) 2018-08-28 21:50 (UTC)

Ardyn...

[He's quiet for a long moment, trying to decide what pieces of that diatribe are worth answering, how much of it is just the constant need to remind others of how he was wronged and what he's become is not his fault. And what parts of it are things that actually need answering, acknowledgment.

As much as he immediately wants to insist that it's not all he has left he's pretty sure that's also exactly what Ignis would do and trying to prove to him that he has so much more is doing nothing to convince him. Maybe nothing will convince him but shoving what should be obvious truths in his face is certainly not going to accomplish anything.

It's uncommon for Ardyn to let himself be anything close to vulnerable around others so hearing him sound just as tired and despairing as Gladio knows he is settles like a weight in his chest. And he answers just as softly, wishing there were something he could do.]

I know...

Nothing can fix the past so I won't pretend to be able to help there. And I can't blame you for not giving a shit about Lucis or Eos or anyone, really.

[A brief hesitation, a soft sigh.]

I just wish there was something I could do to help.

...you can't. There's no one who can--I'm simply stuck like this, a puppet of one divine force or another yet again, and there's no way out of it.

It's not fair.

[Half snarled under his breath and there's a dull thud as he slams a fist onto the workbench he's leaning against.]

I'm sorry. [Guess he'll just never be able to do right by any Lucis Caelum.]

Life is unfair.

[On Ardyn's side was the faint rustle of feathers and affectionate click of a chocobo's beak as Hresvelgr settled in next to him.]

The world is an indiscriminately cruel place, and it is ever the selfless who learn that lesson the hardest.

Isn't it just?

[Soft and bitter, something that he'd never have agreed with ten years ago. But the Night changed a lot of things.]

[Ardyn sighed, the sound halfway to a short and bitter laugh.]

...What are you even apologizing for? None of you make any sense.

[There's been so much truth telling and soul searching lately he just sighs and shrugs, even if Ardyn can't see it. What is the point in lying about any of it?]

For... not being able to live up to the legacy, I guess?

You want to be dead and I have no right to keep on living. [Not when his King is dead. Which hasn't technically happened yet for him but it had happened for Noct which came out to the same thing, in the end. A matter of hours between them at best.

Some part of him knows that it doesn't really make sense but... at the same time it makes so much sense.]

. . .

[Dead silence.]

Are all Shields traditionally dense idiots?

[hey, at least he sounds a little less despondent]

I dunno my dad practically did my job and Iggy's.

[A pause.

Wait...]

What did I do this time?

I thought it quite obvious. You should know better to talk like that where the advisor can hear you. He'd be quite distressed to know you thought such a thing of yourself. And if that happened then, well, I'd just have to kill you. Can't be helped.

[...Ardyn was perhaps at his most pleasant when mocking other people, and yet this strangely walked the line between mockery and a legitimate joke.]

And I'm quite sure I could take you even if Gil couldn't get the job done. But then it would be a whole production, I'd have to wash blood out of my coat and everyone would start overreacting as though the genocidal murderer had done something out of the ordinary. So perhaps you should spare us all the dramatics, reconsider, and leave the resignation to the immortals.

[For a moment Gladio has absolutely no idea what to do with this abrupt change of pace. If he didn't know better he'd almost suspect that Ardyn was trying to cheer him up.

But surely that's not the case.

Still, he'll let the shift in tone stay, just smirking slightly, just enough to hear it in his voice.]

Well then lucky for both of us he's back home and I'm up at the shop.

But don't worry, I know I'm no match for either of you when it comes to dramatics~

Correct, you haven't an elegant bone in your body. If you even tried as much you'd likely trip and break your neck.

Nope, Iris got all the elegance. I'm just... a behemoth.

[As the guys so frequently remind him.]

Oh, that's practically charitable. I'd say you've all the grace and tact of the adamantoise, and you're just as much a widespread menace.

[Okay Ardyn he's not only graceless but he's also not nearly up to maintaining this level of banter with you.]

Wow that's cold, man.

[But he's laughing as he says it.]

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istones: 8.26

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2/3 i lied

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