Izunia Lucis Caelum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
founderinglight) wrote2018-04-04 02:34 pm
founderinglight) wrote2018-04-04 02:34 pm
IC journal [Phanrift]
Dated (local calendar); kept in Armiger
Unless otherwise noted, written in Ancient Lucian (that is, Latin); those who read the language will be able to read the entries without any trouble, but anyone else needs to actively concentrate on what they're reading for the translation magic to kick in.
Unless otherwise noted, written in Ancient Lucian (that is, Latin); those who read the language will be able to read the entries without any trouble, but anyone else needs to actively concentrate on what they're reading for the translation magic to kick in.
6th Spring [Mar 28th]
For the first time, I feel like I can stop and take a break from jettisoning other people's memories to paper and put down my own thoughts in turn. It is still, still, overwhelming, but as filling the pages of my sketchbook as helped, perhaps this shall, as well.
(Note for future: Speak to androids about obtaining another sketchbook.)
...It is strange to just be "Izunia" again. Not even "Izunia Lucis Caelum" - at least not to most people. I think Prompto can't forget, and I'm sure that Noctis cannot, but to everyone else, it's a meaningless name, one world out of infinitely many. I cannot even recall who knows of my position, save my tactfully unspoken agreement with Jetshard to not speak of the matter of politics.
So it's just "Izunia," for the first time since... Twenty? Were we even yet twenty, when you gained those damnable healing powers? I look at Noctis and see you in his face and think, surely we couldn't have been that young. And yet at the same time, when I think of those times, I cannot help but see lines already in your face, exhaustion from a task that was the first thing in our lives we did not share.
Call it twenty, then. It seems appropriately poetic, anyway, to have our lives go completely to shit at the same age as Noctis.
And so it has been over a month. I think it safe to say that I'm mostly adjusted to the reality of flesh again - the exhaustion creeps over me at unexpected times, still, but that has ever been the curse of our line since I took up the Ring. Aside from that, I feel quite well. Taking up the blade again has posed some difficulty, but I don't believe that anyone has noticed. I'm fortunate that there's almost always someone about to resharpen my skills with, even with the strange hours I find myself keeping (see previous notes re: exhaustion).
It is the mental and emotional aspects of all of this that are difficult. I find myself unstable in a way that I thought I had conquered after your 'death.' The scattered pieces that I thought I had held together have flown apart and scattered through the gaps between the crystal dream and this sudden harsh physicality -
That is to say, I blame the sudden experience of having proper neurotransmitters for the first time in two thousand years. Especially since Insomnia, and Altissia, and all that you did after that I cannot bear to think of. That can wait, a little longer, before I commit it to the paper.
It has been a month. I circle around to the thought again and again, because it is so foreign. It is a mere month, and yet it feels... Well, not longer than the last two thousand years, but surely at least a century or two. A month since the Dawn and all ended, and yet every morning I can go to see the sun rise (if I so desire), and feel the wind upon my face. And then I go to the kitchens and ensure that none of the children filling the station has yet set fire to the kitchens, and make myself a coffee before I go to study the magic of this world, or any number of other things.
It has been a month without you. And yet, it has been one of the liveliest months of my entire life, because even discounting the new rediscoveries of skin and nerves and blood pushing through my veins, it is never truly quiet here. There is always someone doing something, always something that I can do with my hands, someone to talk to, some chore that needs doing because half the people here seem to have never lived on their own.
This month has been full, in a way that I cannot express.
It is not enough to make me stop missing you. But someday, perhaps it may be.
I do not know yet if I welcome that day or fear it.
13th Spring [Apr 4]
I'm sure Violet didn't intend those words to stick in my mind quite so well, but here we are. I suppose it's been a long time since I considered the question. She's so straightforward, always catching me off guard. That's what the youth is for, isn't it?
I told Jetshard and Astolfo about you. I imagine I'll have plenty more questions in the future, and it's terrifying to have it in the open, even if I've nowhere near told the full story yet. Jetshard asked if we were close. I think it's the most painful question I've ever had to answer.
"Is that the sort of feeling it is?"
A love that burns, like hot metal on skin. Even when the metal is removed, it blisters painfully, and scars. I know burning, with an intimacy few understand, because that is how the ring takes its price and we cannot Judge without experiencing something of it.
That was the first, do you remember? Burning -
[An inkstain, an aborted scribble.]
Prompto interrupted me there, and I think I am glad of it. I'll not return to that thought. He does me good even when he doesn't intend to.
He let me talk, a little. It was more censoring of myself than I do for these pages, but it was... I suppose, draining the fluid from the blister of a burn. It was nice to not have to explain it, the Scourge and the Crystal and all of it. I spend so much time doing that, any time I talk about you to someone, that I barely get to talk about you at all. That you loved chocobos, and machinery, and put ice cream in your coffee on days too hot to withstand a hot drink.
Well, I still can't say the first two to Prompto, considering his own particular hobbies. It's close enough that I know he'd be uncomfortable.
[Scribbled in the margin is "Where the hell did he even GET that egg?"]
I don't want to push him, but... It was a wonderful gesture. I talked about our parents and Juno a bit, too. Prompto only seems to care much for history when it involves people he knows - I suppose there are worse flaws to have.
Where was I? Ah, yes.
"Is that the sort of feeling it is?"
I have felt so many kinds of love in my life, and this is the first time in a long time that it has been without burning. I don't think I realized how much it ached until I felt the warmth of the sun once more.
She asked me if everyone was looking for the meaning of 'I love you.' I told her that it was not quite the same for everyone, and that some people sought the reasons why they love, why they are loved. (I'll not pretend I was thinking of any save Prompto with that last one, not on this page.)
I think, right now, the answer I'm seeking...
Can I love anyone else? After so long, so much wrapped up in our shattered brotherhood, can I love any other way? With the warm light of sun instead of burning?
And last of all - who else could I love but you?
24th Spring [April 15th]
Perhaps I should not address these to you any longer, now that you're flesh and blood and present rather than a fantasy of my heart, so allow me to begin again.
He's here. Real and flesh and warm and I could have stood there for hours without letting go, and yet -
And yet nothing could be more painful. Because he has a new family - and I am certain that they are wonderful, when they aren't justifiably threatening one's life - and I am not a part of it and it hurts. Worse than dying, maybe even worse than...
No, I still can't bear to put it on the page.
If there is anyone who deserves to start afresh, it's him. And I know that, I know that I don't deserve to have a part in that, but. He's still my brother, my twin, the person who was once my other half.
The wound was raw before, tender, but perhaps time would have brought healing. Now I cannot so much as stem the bleeding. This isn't
I hate it. I can't bring my thoughts under control no matter how I try. I know that I have been playing at normal ever since then, but now I don't even know what normal is supposed to be.
The misty visions will stop haunting my steps when we leave this forest, but he will not. He'll still be there. And even knowing that he had a point, I still bent to him so easily, I
What if he had still been of that darkness? Would I still have been ready to give him bended knee? I don't know. I don't like that I have to think about it, and deal with it. I don't like the possibility that I would.
Noctis and especially Prompto are going to hurt, and they too are my family. I can't abandon them. But neither can I help them as I am now. The king must lead, and Noctis was never truly ready for the crown, so all they have is me.
For my family, and for myself, I have chosen to live.
And for the part of me that cannot let go, I have only one chance. And I owe it to you to give it nothing less than my best.
So, please wait for me one more time, that I might meet you as an equal, instead of your unneeded, shredded lesser half.
Spring 37th [April 28]
Today shall be an extremely difficult day. But I have made my resolve and I will not flinch back at the threshold, not even from myself.
For those I love, even if not for myself. I want to stop hurting them. If nothing else at all comes of this venture then I will be satisfied, no matter how difficult the road becomes.
I am tired of being jealous. I am tired of wanting without any idea of how to reach. I am tired of feeling separate from the world. Of being a ghost and a puppet.
For those who look on ahead to the future - I will do right by you.
Now, then...
I am, and remain, angry at that boy. I think in fact that it is the most angry I have been since arriving here. It is clear that he has no experience in dealing with the way a wholly irrational fear justifies itself in the mind, and the fear of this being another... killing game is more than justified in the new arrivals.
It doesn't matter if you think it stupid, you brat, not when there are people who have that experience right in front of you saying that it helps them, that they find it reassuring. It is not for you, no more than are the lights I keep at night in my room.
I did tell Heart that I cannot help but grow angry when my people are threatened. And though I do not have that common experience with them, I cannot but feel that both Ardyn's family and those boys are such. It is such a small accomodation and it does no harm to anyone else, save perhaps raising awkward questions.
Perhaps I do have some fire left after all.
...Ardyn remembers nothing, of Before. Not our childhood, not of me, not of anything. All he remembered, by his own words, was that I was someone he once trusted.
That is painful beyond measure. Not just that those memories I hold most precious are gone from him, but that
If I am to face it in an hour I may as well yet face it now.
That his memory is of me as someone he trusted, yet he did not trust me enough to tell me the true nature of his power. That is nothing but salt in the wound, already painful enough on its own. Much difficulty as I have recalling myself from those times, I must truly be not but a specter of horror to him, with even that removed.
He thinks of me as someone he once trusted. How very much that hurts. Twould be easier to bear if he had claimed no memory of me at all. At least that would be a fresh start.
I am the only person who remembers.
That too is painful, and, I think, the reason I ultimately requested Junpei for this little expedition. I do not want to be the only one who knows. I do not want to be alone with that knowledge.
It destroys me enough as it is. Left alone with it, I fear that it would bite me to death and consume me entirely.
And so, and so, and so
The first time was an accident.
If I should not return and instead this journal be left as my last testament, if things should get out of hand and the worst happen -
I am guilty of 37 fratricides, but only 36 executions. (Six times six, it takes no genius to figure that out.)
The first time was an accident.
I never meant to hurt you.
You were my wonderful elder brother, and I would have done anything for you. Losing you would have destroyed me even if it were not by my hand.
What you did at the Wall was simply full circle. What the fallen king gave was no less than what the healer took away.
Do you remember? The late stage of Scourge infection that brings about fever and delirium? Do you at least remember that, if not me in a sickbed, suddenly restored to health and springing at nightmares I thought were real?
It was an accident. I would never hurt you. Even now, even then -
I couldn't fight against it. Not knowing it was you. Even a hollowed-out creature of the Ring, I would never hurt you. I loved you. Now, and even then.
I never betrayed you; I would have betrayed anything for you.
What is love? The most dangerous force in the world, when it is the only thing you can feel. Even the memory of it can destroy a man, a nation, in an instant, be it twisted black or pure bright blue. And yet, and yet, the only thing worth living for.
I love you, anaia. Even then, always then, and even now.
But if I do not do this, then the wound of you not loving me - of not even a memory of love - will kill me as surely as the Scourge.
Spring 38th (April 29)
What the hell have I been thinking lately?
I'm going to punch Ardyn and then myself.
Spring 40th (May 1st)
And now is the time to put my thoughts here and attempt to make them take some semblance of order again.
Though previous entry stands, I think, aside from the attempt to punch myself. Ah, well, I'm sure Ardyn will handle that part well enough.
Some of what I've had to deal with in the last few days has made me feel quite terminally stupid. I suppose that's only to be expected, given the nature of the task.
But I still feel... lighter, and not simply for having the burden of all of those secrets off my shoulders. They are out in the wild now, to breed as they will; so long as they remain somewhat related to the truth instead of mutating into rumor, I wash my hands of them. Let them judge me according to the truth of the matter.
...I say that, but I doubt it shall be any easier to speak of it than it has been in the past. My impulse to leave some final will wasn't entirely misplaced, however. It is reassuring that someone else knows.
And that none turned away, not even Junpei. I think that was as frightening as facing it myself - the idea that I would lose those things that I hold most precious in this place. I think that fear was controlling me as much as any sense of guilt, considering.
I didn't even realize that the anger was an issue. That I had simply been pushing it all down for so long. Now all the little frustrations feel fit to explode at the slightest push. I intend to speak with Ardyn once I've cleaned up a bit and settled my empty stomach; hopefully that will help.
Even I cannot remember the last time we truly fought, which I imagine means it is very much past due. I'm almost looking forward to it.
As to the rest -
"Giving the future to those who want to see it is everything." Those are the words I wind myself circling back to, now. Because for the first time I feel that there is a future to be seen in the first place.
I want to reach it. I want to see what that future holds, even if it's not what I envision. After so long in the dark, it's quite the new and terrifying prospect.
And I want to do right by all of you. I won't allow myself to be chained down by my own guilt any longer, but that doesn't mean that the people who have come and gone do not matter. Perhaps it is silly when the chances are that we shall never meet again, but -
Even if I am very late in coming to it, I will be the kind of king you can respect, instead of one who merely acts the part while hiding his shame.
Also, a final note to myself: Neurotransmitters are bullshit. Get medication.
May 24th
I continue to feel lighter and steadier than before, though I think it was good to switch away from the first medication. Simply wasn't doing the job, at least not in the right way. This one is still settling in, but I think it much better.
It is almost shocking how reassuring it was to be able to work things out with Prompto, in comparison to my relationship with Ardyn, which remains not much less messy and fraught than it was. It is a thing that interrupts the patterns of thought that swirl in my head so frequently even now, that say that making things right is impossible to achieve. It cuts through the voice that says attempting at all is meaningless.
And so if it is worth it to try, then I keep going.
Ardyn's retainers continue to be a stubborn, troublesome group, on the other hand, though at least Junpei and Arianna are willing to tolerate me without barbs so long as we avoid the delicate subjects. The rest, by and large, are a complicated matter.
... Well, admittedly, there is a simple word apparently for what my relationship with Heart seems to be veering towards, but I'll be damned if I admit it and eat my words about humans and black romance so easily. (Though, if he isn't human, does it even count? It remains embarrassing, at any rate.)
(Return to this tangent later.)
And finally I've met the last, or at least the last Ardyn has admitted to, and he's... very much as described. I admit, I find it hard to see what Ardyn sees in him, though that may just be that he's on his worst behaviour around me.
I can admit now that I'm jealous. Not just of the way they focus in on each other, instantly intent, but just of how they fit together. To the me who wants to be known, that is the most enviable thing.
Even if he is a bit...
Well.
I suppose my little moon is no better. My heart now is wary, knowing not how to judge the feelings of others. It does not wish to give again to no return, so thank you for that, brother.
(Read with bitterness.)
Aside that...
Can we be called human any longer, the two of us, living so long? And what of that soul of mine, still wearing the shape of armor? That is a thought that will not yet leave my mind, in the wake of that transformation and the word of a world where people become monsters. It weighs on me, the difference between body and mind. Or soul, or however you wish to judge.
Ardyn was happy to be human again. I will not weigh on him with this. But he also thought I would care that Heart is not...? Stupid anaia. It doesn't matter one whit to me. A person is a person.
A matter for another time, I suppose. I've gone on long enough already.
Until the next, then.
June 3
Or, perhaps, never knew, with what was once the strongest bond in my life taken for granted, something I thought I could count on from cradle to grave.
(Is it wrong of me to be angry, that he continues to assume worse of me than of a stranger? Bah, it feels as though Kurama is the first thing we've agreed upon in ages. I continue to dislike this immensely, even if I suppose it is only natural for there to be more rough patches than not given everything.)
But so there is something solid of that sort now, in this bond marked upon the hand I use to write these very pages, and in some ways it is the most difficult thing, to not allow it to become my new orbit. But I only become better by pushing, straining, against that gravity.
It is unfairly wonderful to hold him in my arms at the end of the day and relax, though. Six take me, but it's near enough to perfect the way we fit. I fall asleep and wake content for the first time since I was a child.
I am... insecure, knowing as I do that all things end. I do not wish to suffer another loss of the things that make me whole and happy.
I can survive it. At this point I feel that I can say that I can survive anything.
But I do not want to lose again.
And I fear that, when the time comes, that will set me at odds with everyone else here, and that I will still wind up alone in the end as they all return whence they came. To the things they have to go back to, of which I have only a long-waiting grave. It is as though everything between then and awakening here was not at all living, and it is only in this form that the clock has begun to count once again.
After so long embraced by Death as my only comfort, it makes me feel foolish to seek now to avoid her arms. And yet, and yet, and yet -
It is good that I've given up praying, good that I've already had more than my share of miracles. Else I would surely beg another.
Do not let these happy times come too quickly to an end.
AL S3W1 notes
My word is binding and yet I know I shall need to put my thoughts somewhere, so it is here that they belong.
For the time being, I have no intent to watch the rest. There are only people from Ardyn's season here, anyway, I don't suppose that it matters much. They can remain in their sealed box, for the time being.
And so it is that we begin.
...You really do look good in that suit, brother dear. I understand why you don't often wear the full black, but it is your birthright regardless of what a bastard of a god might say on the matter.
And I cannot deny that the profile made me swallow a lump in my throat. To think that I would have such a reaction to hearing my name in that way again...
Oh my god. They weren't kidding about how stupid Junpei is. Oh my god.
And I see some things have positively not changed at all. He's trying so hard to not seem as stupid as he is... Just agree with the man who has some idea what multiberse theory even is, Church, that's the safer option, yes.
"Should I be wrong I've no reason not to trust him with the country until I return. Izunia is my brother, and has ever been my dear friend."
I did my very best, Ardyn. I hope that the you of then would have been pleased with what I managed.
...Well, endless font of anger or not, you handled the loss of the Armiger far better than I would have, I admit. My immediate reaction would probably have been 'so what ELSE can I use here as a weapon.'
Also, admittedly, even being prepared for an incredible amount of nonsense, 'multi-billion person orgy' is not a phrase I expected to ever hear, much less have to apparently take legitimately at face value. Why.
And so ends the ~introductory episode~. Which is in fact two episodes as a double feature special, but it's not actually airing and thus I do not actually care. I admit, I've a bias towards paying attention to those I'm already a bit familiar with, but I am trying to keep an open mind about the lot.
Even knowing that some of this is foregone conclusion - promotional material for later seasons aside, Mai is lacking some scars that are by now quite familiar to me and Junpei is whole of both arms - there is the part of me that wants to see it all play out. As the third season, I imagine it was the same for many of the viewers.
There is entertainment in it. As a politician and, ultimately, an actor of the most painful sort of role, I can admire the polish. If I didn't know it to be real - if I thought it genuinely scripted - I might have been sucked in myself.
(It does no good to not acknowledge the dark things inside oneself.)
And to hear the faith in that voice, yet unshakeable... I do not think I shall sleep terribly well tonight. That must be enough for now, I'm sure Astolfo will return from his usual hippogriff care routine soon.
---
Leonard Lucis Caelum Church you do nothing but fill me with questions and concerns, sometimes. Your entire world fills me with concerns, but largely you, personally, at all times.
- Oh my god you were roommates. Ardyn. Ardyn my darling, delightful brother. Ardyn. Brother. You absolute. You really did go for the low-hanging, pretty fruit this time, didn't you.
I can't even believe this, I can't believe you, I love you entirely but you are just beyond description sometimes.
Ardyn you may have forgotten but it nonetheless stands that you have literally built a magitech arm by this point in the timeline, it's attached to Ravus wherever he is at this very moment.
And meanwhile, Junpei and Yuuri are... Gods, they picked each other from the very beginning, didn't they? I suppose I've no room to talk, but nonetheless.
...Oh, that's right. He wouldn't have slept, either...
'A fleeting relationship or two' a fleeting relationship or two a halfyear, perhaps. Honestly...
... Nari. Angel. Have the two of you looked in mirrors, you clearly look the ages on your profiles.
"The unlikeliest explanation is also the most straightforward one." At least you're as intelligent as ever, Scourge or no Scourge.
ARDYN WOULD IT ABSOLUTELY KILL YOU TO REMEMBER THAT I HAVE A TRANSFORMATION TRAUMA for FUCK'S sake, you're fortunate they talked about it before doing it and that I already knew about Heart's or I would be breaking down your door to yell at you right now, 7 am or no.
That's all I have time for today, I'm amazed I managed to squeeze that much in. Hopefully Ardyn takes me at my word that this is a task that shall take some time.
----
"Someone had to be chosen."
At that point, the conversation was already hard to watch, but there, there I must stop. Stop and try to collect my thoughts.
The Draconian would have chosen someone, no matter what we had done. And should Ardyn have failed - refused to use that power, or died before he had enough Starscourge contained to drag him back to that damnable life - then someone else would have been. While I do not believe for a moment that it was the only way the Scourge could have been eliminated, I do believe that Bahamut's mind would not have been changed.
But, oh, what I would not have given, for it to have been someone else. Anyone other than you.
Even me.
I said as much, when Ardyn told me some handful of the motivations offered in this twisted game, but I do not think he understood how deeply I meant it. The person that I am now, the 'Izunia' who wears Command Seals upon his hand as well as the scarf round his neck, is the only one who would not have immediately burned everything for even the slimmest chance to save 'Ardyn' from that fate.
I think... that even before the truth came out, that I thought that. That in my heart of hearts, I prayed - someone, anyone else, please take this burden from my brother. Please lighten the load of the world he bears upon his shoulders.
You don't remember how it changed you, when that healing power came to be. The brother of mine who was once playful and irreverent became so serious, in many ways, almost overnight. Ever having been the serious one, I told myself that it was just that you had grown up, but it was more than that, wasn't it?
I wish that I could go back to that past self of mine. I wish that I had spoken my true feelings then.
Please, anyone but Ardyn. Anyone but my brother. Do not make this the thing that is the lone thing he lives for, because he deserves so much better than that.
It isn't the darkness that took your life, Ardyn, or at least not the darkness alone. For once you had that power, that mission, what else could you have lived for?
The same as Noctis. You are, you always were.
Anyone but my brother. Any family but mine. It is the same thing anyone would say.
But it had to be someone.
"I'm sure he'd have hated being the Crystal's chosen."
Always, more that it was you.
Even if it's not the full episode, I think that enough for today.
----
My only comment thus far today is "90 pounds of space lube."
The conversation where Ardyn admits that he's not been eating or sleeping... I cannot pick a single specific thing about it that is most painful. He's not the same, not the person he was back then, but it is still so close...
Another episode and that brings this 'week' to a close. So I suppose it is time to gather my thoughts a bit.
I remember, mostly, who survives courtesy of that camera of Ardyn's - the group here (save for Mai), Queenie, Nari, and Choromatsu. Of those, Queenie is notably absent from the season five promotional material, which does me a bit of concern, but that is likely a question for Ardyn later. I am making an effort to withhold my questions until the midpoint, the end of this season but before entering the next. I imagine I shall have to ask him to fill in the gaps anyway, as there's some six months missing in between the end of this season and the beginning of the last.
I haven't yet found any of them truly dislikable, which is perhaps a bit surprising. Though I suppose the truly unlikable sorts wouldn't be well-fit for a season of love.
I shall simply have to wait, and hold my breath...
AL livewatch S3 W2
Tuesday, midmorning.
"Kill another Champion and survive investigation, and you will be allowed to return home."
A desire for which no one can be blamed, so simple and straightforward, and yet...
Well, I can imagine well enough why someone would think that worth killing for. Junpei wanting any way out precisely because of such a rule, my brother and Roland and any of the others with the weight of a world to carry... Rhys, already willing to go so far as to have his arm removed and replaced to give himself a leg up.
The time people had to get to know each other was just enough that some handful started opening up with enough to give the others a reason to be suspicious of them.
----
Please never again let there be a situation in which Ardyn is the lone sober party.
It is a very good thing I chaperoned the adults' party.
"Truly worthy of being called the world's most incompetent Kingsglaive."
Ardyn you will eat those words and I will laugh. I will laugh the entire time.
... Oh my god I need to ask Ardyn if he has any of that pepper vodka lying around, that looks delightful.
----
First death. I admit, the girl hadn't made a strong impression on me. Whatever clawed her is an awful way to go, though.
Kip, you poor damn fool.
Open the doors and start the trial.
Mai... Oh, Mai.
From the beginning, nothing but accidents.
----
Tell me, are there any children in this place who have been truly loved? Not for their power, not for what they can do, but simply because they are children, people, and have done no harm to anyone?
Such a simple thing. And yet there are so many incapable...
'Even if I should fail, I cannot help but try.'
Ardyn is the one who was always capable of holding the bigger picture in his mind, the one who could look at the whole scope of the world. I can't help but see the people in front of my face, first.
I'm so angry that I'm fit to burst. Upon my word, I cannot even recount the reasons, but -
I wish that I could make it better. For every one of them.
It does always circle around back to love, doesn't it?
[early November, after finishing Airlocked]
Nina.
I cannot forgive you.
But neither can I give you enough thanks, for giving my brother a second chance. A family. For giving Noctis and Lunafreya another chance in a world where they can be happy.
I cannot forgive you, for I understand just how rapidly one's own insantiy can spin out of control. Much as I wish that his perception of events had been wholly inaccurate, at times... I cannot take back the lies.
But at least all they were was lies. I cannot forgive you. Cece was your escape, in which you could pretend that you had not sabotaged your chances of finding comradery from the very start. I can understand it, but I cannot forgive it.
(I cannot forgive myself, either. But at least that means that I am not a hypocrite.)
It is, perhaps, for the best that we never meet. I don't know how I would react if faced with you, though I should think myself better at holding my temper than certain others.
But I think that it is not for any of these reasons that even now, days past finishing, that the thought of you haunts my pen. Instead, it is to thank you for one last kindness, one last secret that you kept even in the face of everything.
Because there is no way that you did not know, if you went back far enough to find that image of us, laughing together and teasing each other. There is no way that you could have gone back to that time of light without at least some awareness of the darkness in between.
And perhaps to you it was not as significant. Certainly what transpired between Ardyn and myself had no bearing on your relationship with him, in the many forms that it took.
But to know that someone else knows is of a strange comfort. For I cannot tell him, cannot tell any of them, for I know what would result, and I treasure his happiness beyond anything that I might gain from no longer having to hide. I fear for what will happen, if he should remember, if it should come out anyway, but it is a fear that I am prepared to face.
So thank you, for not telling him. For allowing him the chance to live happily with what his memories have provided him with. I do truly believe that you cared about him, in whatever twisted way that you saw others outside of yourself, in spite of all the lies and secrets you kept beneath your many skins.
It's because I care about him that I cannot tell him.
I wonder, would you forgive me for it?
Eleven for a secret that will never be told.
Yours,
Izunia Lucis Caelum