[He seems to suddenly remember that X’rhun is here. His presence is a knife cutting through the haze, and Ardyn turns his head to look at him, eyes keen and searching and surprised, for a rare moment. It fades and withdraws into something more neutral, forcefully making his lips press into a vague, thin line, instead of a frown.]
…From one memory to another. Welcome to Eos, my friend, in all its natural beauty.
[He forces a smile, and a wide sweeping gesture of his arm. The breeze plays at his already mussed hair, and his eyes track across the distance set before them. They land upon the homestead in the distance, a small, ramshackle-looking thing. Quaint, with a small stable that could house no more than maybe two chocobos at any given time. The figures there, they are hard to make out at this distance…
But this is a memory. Ardyn does not remember what it is like to stand this far from what is unfolding; soon, he will realize that instead, he plays a more prominent part in all of this than just an observer who remembers what Duscae looked like. This becomes obvious soon enough.
Something about the atmosphere lurches forward, momentum dragging them forth while somehow standing still. The setting shifting past them, green and trees and a line of birds that fly in the sky, and suddenly they stand near that little home, and the people surrounding it. Disorientation floods his senses, before he forces his mind back into focus. The people — a woman and her three young children, speaking to a man dressed in black, standing beside a black chocobo with glossy feathers. The bird has the look of the traveling sort, with large saddlebags strapped to it, holding all manner of who-knows-what. The man himself has hair the color of wine, and he laughs at something the mother had said. It’s a light and airy sound, well-meaning, and his eyes glint with amusement. She speaks again.
Thank you for what you’ve done for us. All of us — we owe you a debt. It’s true what they say about you, about your magic. You’re the light that fights against the dark—
Something coils in Ardyn’s chest, for he knows this scene. He has lived through many of them, hundreds of them, the same reflections of gratitude given to him so many times. The fool who stood there, taking in darkness and pain for the sake of a nation that would make him suffer for it.
It’s hard to quantify exactly what he feels. There’s too much of everything swirling in him, but he turns to X’rhun almost immediately. As if having a stranger here is a vulnerability that he must patch up.]
Well. What you see here is nothing that I haven’t already told you about.
[Except that’s not true. X’rhun has not seen this other Ardyn. The expression that he wears, the sincerity of that smile. He looks younger, less weighted with a tiredness around his eyes. The black chocobo next to him kwehs softly.]
no subject
…From one memory to another. Welcome to Eos, my friend, in all its natural beauty.
[He forces a smile, and a wide sweeping gesture of his arm. The breeze plays at his already mussed hair, and his eyes track across the distance set before them. They land upon the homestead in the distance, a small, ramshackle-looking thing. Quaint, with a small stable that could house no more than maybe two chocobos at any given time. The figures there, they are hard to make out at this distance…
But this is a memory. Ardyn does not remember what it is like to stand this far from what is unfolding; soon, he will realize that instead, he plays a more prominent part in all of this than just an observer who remembers what Duscae looked like. This becomes obvious soon enough.
Something about the atmosphere lurches forward, momentum dragging them forth while somehow standing still. The setting shifting past them, green and trees and a line of birds that fly in the sky, and suddenly they stand near that little home, and the people surrounding it. Disorientation floods his senses, before he forces his mind back into focus. The people — a woman and her three young children, speaking to a man dressed in black, standing beside a black chocobo with glossy feathers. The bird has the look of the traveling sort, with large saddlebags strapped to it, holding all manner of who-knows-what. The man himself has hair the color of wine, and he laughs at something the mother had said. It’s a light and airy sound, well-meaning, and his eyes glint with amusement. She speaks again.
Thank you for what you’ve done for us. All of us — we owe you a debt. It’s true what they say about you, about your magic. You’re the light that fights against the dark—
Something coils in Ardyn’s chest, for he knows this scene. He has lived through many of them, hundreds of them, the same reflections of gratitude given to him so many times. The fool who stood there, taking in darkness and pain for the sake of a nation that would make him suffer for it.
It’s hard to quantify exactly what he feels. There’s too much of everything swirling in him, but he turns to X’rhun almost immediately. As if having a stranger here is a vulnerability that he must patch up.]
Well. What you see here is nothing that I haven’t already told you about.
[Except that’s not true. X’rhun has not seen this other Ardyn. The expression that he wears, the sincerity of that smile. He looks younger, less weighted with a tiredness around his eyes. The black chocobo next to him kwehs softly.]