meridio | (Awash & Hugtopia) IC contact

[ ...Is there no safe topic, between the two of them?

Pyra slides the glass over to him. Delicately, she guides: ] ...Then what about this member's life, as it is? [ Not about his supposed future, his death, how his line ends. ] Is it what you could have hoped for them?

Edited 2019-09-07 03:37 (UTC)

[ Peeling away from the wall, Somnus comes around to scoop the glass up in one fluid motion. He studies its contents, not yet partaking of the drink.

Good and bad both permeate the Chosen King's life. Perhaps the suffering was greater than it needed to be, but such is to be expected in an unfair world. If only his brother had returned to the darkness and let sleeping dogs lie . . .

He brings the glass up to just below his lips. Still, he doesn't drink. ]

I couldn't have hoped differently. [ A few beats pass. ] He has done well.

[ She doesn't know what she had been expecting. Maybe the look of a proud parent? More gushing over his descendants, perhaps? His reaction seems so muted and removed.

But his words carry some ring of pride to them, she thinks: he has done well.

At the same time, I couldn't have hoped differently.. Couldn't-- because he literally can't. It's all determined by the gods to him. She's surprised that he doesn't say something along the lines of "there is no need to hope." ] Doing well... [ She inquires further, lifting her own cup. ] to fulfill the gods' prophecy? Or doing well with his own friends and family?

[ He stands there, the glass held in front of him as he stares at an indiscernible spot on the wall. Somnus knows the answer already, but a great deal has happened between then and now for the Chosen King. ]

To walk tall.

[ From a sheltered boy to a king with confident strides, accompanied by his trusted comrades who help him to shoulder the world's weight. ]

Just as his father had hoped.

[ Somnus brings the rim of the glass to his lips and drinks. Just a sip, but the moment calls for it. ]

[ She smiles at that. It seems that his descendant is doing fairly well. ]

He must have gotten that from you, too. [ She lifts her glass as if toasting him, and then takes a sip herself. Once her stock of this rice wine is done, no one will be able to taste what Torna could have produced, destroyed as it is. ] "Walking tall", I mean. Kings carry themselves with pride, and you're no exception.

[ The wine is different from the kind he partook of in his prime. He savors the taste while Pyra speaks.

The Chosen King got more than that from him. ]

He and I share the same likeness. You'll find no resemblance elsewhere.

[ Except for the napping. ]

[ Wow. Just. Wow. ]

No...? [ She tests, lightly. ] Is he not protecting his kingdom just as diligently as you had?

I sought to protect the future of the kingdom and my people. He will restore the world to what it once was.

[ Somnus lowers the glass. ]

He shoulders both the past and the future.

....Goodness, that's... a lot for one person to bear. [ She replies, worriedly.

It must be frightening, that Somnus might only watch him struggle. ]

I am a part of that past. Though I may be dead, my soul must be present until the darkness is dispelled. The restoration of this world will allow that of mine to pass.

[ He shoulders both the past...

I am a part of that past...

Does that mean this descendant of his carries him around with him?

She brings her glass up in her hand, but does not take another drink. ~~She carries Addam with her ha haaa~~ ] ...Surely, you don't only see him as a means to an end.

[ She doesn't drink. But he does, perhaps to fill in the silence as he delays answering.

Every single one of them is a means to an end; however, Noctis is also the son of the young king. They and the kings who came before are all his children. Regardless of what they mean to him, nothing changes in the end. This is bigger than him and his family. ]

Our world has awaited this moment for millennia. It matters not what I see him as.

[ --There he goes again. There is no need, it matters not, and so on and so forth. ]

...Why... do you keep on saying those things?

[ There's something wrong here, but she can't quite put her finger on it. It's not him being self-deprecating, and it's not even that he feels sorry for himself. It's something worse than that.

Drink still in hand, she steps up to him, as if coming closer to better observe him, his expression, and search his face might clue her in further as to what she's trying to decipher about him. ]

[ He glances at her before taking another sip of the rice wine. His countenance, as usual, is impassive regarding this matter. ]

The dead have no voice. You ask questions that should be impossible.

[ The fact that the old kings are able to whisper into the ears of the living is unusual. Things like whether an ancestor is proud of his descendant are not meant to have definite answers. ]

No... It's not that.

[ She shakes her head once, just enough that her earrings sway with the motion. ] Every time you say that it doesn't matter..

[ Pyra sets her glass down, reaching up to him. Like with her hand upon his shoulder before, this isn't the first time her fingers have dusted upon his cheek. Her gaze roams the hard lines of his face: a king, a warrior, a servant to the gods. It's all there, but there is something beyond it.

Something...what is it... it's... ] It's as if you're really saying that... you don't matter.

[ Is that what it sounds like?

He, too, sets the glass down. In doing so, he moves away from Pyra and her inquisitive stare. ]

I've been dead for some time. There are more important matters than my self-esteem.

[ That he moves away from her so quickly makes her wonder if she's hit the nail right on the head. She can hardly believe it-- a king who doesn't (perhaps, no longer?) believes that what he says matters, what he thinks and feels matters, that he matters.

She recalls their first meeting, that he went as so far to say that whether others think of him as some sort of hero or not, is not his concern. Has no one told him that--

Pyra whispers, ] ...Somnus.

[ Before she knows it, she's reaching out to take his wrist to get him to stop moving away from him. To stop, to stay, to look at her. ] ....You matter. What you feel... how you feel... it matters.

[ And then, she releases his wrist. ]

[ Sentimental as always. To herself, she is the Architect's daughter; but to others, she's as human as they come. Subconsciously, he looks down at his freed wrist.

The desire to be valued is a mortal wish. He'd craved the acknowledgment in his prime, only to realize after the fact that it had been unchecked pride on his part. No matter how much it may matter, it doesn't matter nearly enough. ]

It will not protect the world.

[ He's so-- stubborn! But of course he is, he's been living like this ]

You can have both.

[ She insists. ] You... can protect the world, and you can have those feelings. [ He is human after all, he had been born with them. Those emotion, maybe, might even better motivate him. They have value in that way, at least in practicality. ]

I have carried them for as long as I can remember.

[ This, he won't deny. All mortals bear emotions. It's only a question of how much the individual demonstrates them, and he has always performed poorly on that front. ]

I only choose not to give them voice.

[ So he has them, but chooses not to voice them-- because to him, they ultimately do not matter. ]

...When has anyone heard them last?

[ He folds his arms across his chest.

22 years ago, he confessed his motives to his brother. Somnus asked not for forgiveness—just understanding—and this served only to enrage Ardyn in the end. That had been the first and the last time.

His arms loosen. No. There was another moment, however brief, where he bared his heart. ]

Before I was summoned to this world, I confronted my descendant. To him, I entrusted the future . . . and my hope.

[ She listens patiently, expecting him to say more. When he doesn't, she glances away.

One; it sounds like he's only talked to one person about his feelings. ]

What... is your hope?

[ He would have ended this conversation from the start if it were anyone else. But Pyra is presumably immortal, and the daughter of a god besides. Idle curiosity befitting a mortal isn't what drives her. He casts his gaze down, staring into his glass of rice wine. ]

That my brother be freed from his curse.

[ A curse that... was not inflicted by Somnus, but by the very gods that he worships and serves.

He is far too accomplished and strong for her to pity him, yet... she wishes his fate-- and that of his brother and all of his family-- were different.

That he keeps everything to himself, refusing to talk about his feelings and what he thinks, saying that it doesn't matter in the end, she realizes now that... ]

You love him.

....That's... [ A pause. ] That's why you suffer in silence. [ Not out of pride, not just out of serving a god's greater plan. But because of that love. She wishes she could convince him that he doesn't need to be silent (not here, of all places).

She smiles at him, sympathetic, lifting her cup. ] I wish... the gods had been kinder to the both of you. [ She recalls when he had said to her before: ] May... both of your souls be granted repose.

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