IC journal [Phanrift]

[founderinglight]

 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.

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[early November, after finishing Airlocked]

[founderinglight]

This is a letter that I should perhaps not be writing. But I feel I must, if only to get it out of my head so that it does not consume me, that I can move on.

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