Is that why I’m overrun with darkness? [He finishes the thought for Prompto, without any hesitation. He leans in a little — already such a looming figure — and it’s difficult to tell what he intends to do. That Ardyn is always a hair’s breadth away from harming someone on a whim is not inaccurate, and yet-]
I can show you. All the mistakes I once made. The slow death of what I once was.
[The world around them begins to drip down, like washed-out pigment on a canvas. It leaves nothing but blank spaces in its wake, falling through the floor into oblivion, into a darkness that lasts forever, until the warp and weft of this most recent memory makes way for something far, far more ancient. Colors filter in, shadows and light, the ground beneath their feet shifts until they are once more “standing” on something solid.
When this memory snaps into existence, it feels old. There’s a haziness to everything, as if details have been lost to time, forever marching onward. And the two of them, they stand indoors, in a very small bedroom, moonlight filtering in through an open window. A thin curtain, tattered at the edges, sways lazily in the breeze.
A man lays in a bed with twisted-up sheets. He is sick, pale, his breathing labored. Dark, thin veins have begun to crawl across his body, just visible beneath the surface of skin. Both Prompto and Ardyn are afforded a clear view of this sight, for they stand right next to the bedside of this ailing stranger. His eyes are glassy, but he is still cognizant; his attentions turned to another, who sits on the opposite side of the bed from where they are.
It should be no surprise who it is, given whose memory this clearly belongs to. But perhaps to Prompto, it is surprising; none other than Ardyn himself, this Ardyn from the past, his eyes less weighted with tiredness, his smile not edged in that sharp patronization. Sincerity, instead, in all that he says and does. He looks younger — is younger, by thousands of years — but not due to appearance alone. By way of the clarity of his voice, the careful consideration of his movements, and the thread of concern that flashes through keen eyes. He wears black, much like he does now, and the bed frame creaks slightly as he shifts his weight to reach out for the ailing man’s hand.
Close your eyes and relax, he says, and the voice has the timbre of belonging to Ardyn, but not its usual flippant delivery.
The real Ardyn, the present Ardyn, stands but two steps behind Prompto. He has nothing to say quite yet; perhaps he will regret this later, but all that cuts through now him is the need to prove his point. To show that he was once overflowing with humanity, and what it cost him, in the end. That it is better left dead and gone, a memory swept up by the ages.]
somehow this turned into ardyn actually wanting to show his past oops
I can show you. All the mistakes I once made. The slow death of what I once was.
[The world around them begins to drip down, like washed-out pigment on a canvas. It leaves nothing but blank spaces in its wake, falling through the floor into oblivion, into a darkness that lasts forever, until the warp and weft of this most recent memory makes way for something far, far more ancient. Colors filter in, shadows and light, the ground beneath their feet shifts until they are once more “standing” on something solid.
When this memory snaps into existence, it feels old. There’s a haziness to everything, as if details have been lost to time, forever marching onward. And the two of them, they stand indoors, in a very small bedroom, moonlight filtering in through an open window. A thin curtain, tattered at the edges, sways lazily in the breeze.
A man lays in a bed with twisted-up sheets. He is sick, pale, his breathing labored. Dark, thin veins have begun to crawl across his body, just visible beneath the surface of skin. Both Prompto and Ardyn are afforded a clear view of this sight, for they stand right next to the bedside of this ailing stranger. His eyes are glassy, but he is still cognizant; his attentions turned to another, who sits on the opposite side of the bed from where they are.
It should be no surprise who it is, given whose memory this clearly belongs to. But perhaps to Prompto, it is surprising; none other than Ardyn himself, this Ardyn from the past, his eyes less weighted with tiredness, his smile not edged in that sharp patronization. Sincerity, instead, in all that he says and does. He looks younger — is younger, by thousands of years — but not due to appearance alone. By way of the clarity of his voice, the careful consideration of his movements, and the thread of concern that flashes through keen eyes. He wears black, much like he does now, and the bed frame creaks slightly as he shifts his weight to reach out for the ailing man’s hand.
Close your eyes and relax, he says, and the voice has the timbre of belonging to Ardyn, but not its usual flippant delivery.
The real Ardyn, the present Ardyn, stands but two steps behind Prompto. He has nothing to say quite yet; perhaps he will regret this later, but all that cuts through now him is the need to prove his point. To show that he was once overflowing with humanity, and what it cost him, in the end. That it is better left dead and gone, a memory swept up by the ages.]