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[scourgingstars]

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[astralera]

But you aren't yet.

[scourgingstars]

i have not been in a very long while, my friend.

[astralera]

Then saying you will be fine is cheating.

[scourgingstars]

i am better than i was.

[astralera]

You don't need to use my name if it hurts

[scourgingstars]

it's always hurt. not just that, but everything. it is as i said to noctis--this loss has been a scar upon my heart for ages unending. i mourned her without cessation for every instant of that time, holding to her memory until dream and reality became indistinguishable.

to have her back and the idea of reconciliation with my brother as well was more than i could ever have imagined or hoped for. and to lose both is

it hurts, i will not lie and say otherwise. but that loss, that loneliness of being without those i considered the link to a time when i was yet mortal and happy is a feeling with which i am familiar and have lived with for time beyond description. if anything, that feeling is what i am accustomed to more than any other--no, perhaps it is even changed by a lessening of the hatred i held for my brother, however slight that change may be.

this ache is not your fault, neither would i put any burden of such on you.

[astralera]

Being accustomed to pain does not make it hurt any less. You just become numb to it.

I was born to bear the burdens of others, Ardyn. I do not mind it. They are preferable to my own.

[scourgingstars]

to bear others' burdens and feel their pain as my own is my entire purpose and calling, era.

you of all people can thus understand my refusal.

[astralera]

Then you of all people can understand how little I wish to cause you further pain.

[scourgingstars]

a name is a mere drop in the ocean, era. please do not worry yourself over such a thing.

[astralera]

Names are important, Ardyn

[scourgingstars]

i assure you i know this.

your name is your own, and no one else's.

[astralera]

It was hers first.

He disliked calling me by a dead woman's name.

[scourgingstars]

do you like your name, era? is it meaningful or important to you?

[astralera]

[ Do you like your name?

She had thought she did, once. That it had a meaning that suited her. That it was the first thing that was ever hers. ]

I don't know.

Was it ever really mine? Not even my soul is truly my own.

[scourgingstars]

may i ask you something

do you believe that who and what we are is set in stone from--nay, perhaps even before our creation?

[astralera]

It is dependent on one's circumstances.

You've met Ardbert. Would you honestly say that who we were and are was not determined long ago by our progenitor?

[scourgingstars]

i do not know, and do not understand enough of your world's measure of souls to speak upon them, era. that is why i am asking you. you and ardbert are cut from the same cloth, there is no doubt, but you are not one and the same to my own perspective.

my true name no longer exists on my world. all records of it and of my existence, destroyed. i am known by either an alias or as a word denoting a legend of a formless monster. in my future and the others' past and present, 'ardyn izunia' is some manner of chessmaster orchestrating the world's very end. 'adagium' is a monster released from angelgard who destroyed insomnia and attempted to murder its king.

'ardyn lucis caelum' isn't even a memory, for naught yet live who knew him. here, without aera or somnus, my name and a sword are the only things which tie me to that which i once was, the only thing which grounds me as the person you know.

was it predetermined that name, that person, should be discarded and lost?

[astralera]

The souls of your world were never sundered. You are all whole. There are no 'soulmates' in the same sense. No reincarnation to shape your path.

Rewrite your future, Ardyn Lucis Caelum.

[scourgingstars]

and what, then, of yourself?

i speak not of your soul, but your will and desires. knowing little of the former, i see the latter as being what comprises one's identity and self. possessed of those as you are, there seems no difference between us.

so i see no reason you can not take what you can into your own hands, and do with it as you wish.

[astralera]

My will has never been my own, and I cannot say what desires I may feel were, either.

He made it clear that I am not Hemera. But Era has ever been a mimicry of her, even from the very beginning, and I know next to nothing of Kiyomi.

[scourgingstars]

perhaps, then, this is as good a time as any to learn a bit about yourself. i think i may need to do the same.

[astralera]

No
The only thing I need to learn is to be a better weapon

[scourgingstars]

do you feel that I need to be a better healer, era? that my own calling is all that i was or am?

[astralera]

What I feel doesn't matter