You understand more than you give yourself credit for, I'm sure.
[The boy is sharp - or quick, perhaps, as his name would suggest.]
I assume I can summarize the broad strokes - twin brothers born at the end of the Astral War, one given the power to heal, which was actually part of a long gameplan to turn him into the vessel of the Scourge, whilst the other took the throne, founded a country, and started the line that would eventually stop him.
[He stops to sigh.]
The details... Probably, I am the last person Ardyn ever healed. Certainly the last he healed as 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum.' He came back to our home town in a panic when I fell ill, and even so, I was on my last legs by the time he got there. Feverish, delirious, spending most of my time unconscious - black marks everywhere.
[He reaches up and traces the veins running along his neck, visible over the top of his scarf, and then lets his hand fall.]
And then, suddenly, it was gone. I was healthy, whole - I woke up rather suddenly.
The first thing I saw was - well, if you've seen it, you know. My brother's face, with the gleaming eyes of a daemon, scourge pouring down his cheeks. A sight fit for nightmares.
[He flips his hand, and a dagger appears in a flash of light. If it were Noctis before him, he'd recognize it - a small blade, wielded by a very similar hand in Altissia.]
I didn't think. I just reacted.
[A sharp upward jerk, as though catching an attacker in the gut or under the ribs, and then the dagger vanishes.]
And that was the moment that he truly became the Accursed, refused by death itself.
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You understand more than you give yourself credit for, I'm sure.
[The boy is sharp - or quick, perhaps, as his name would suggest.]
I assume I can summarize the broad strokes - twin brothers born at the end of the Astral War, one given the power to heal, which was actually part of a long gameplan to turn him into the vessel of the Scourge, whilst the other took the throne, founded a country, and started the line that would eventually stop him.
[He stops to sigh.]
The details... Probably, I am the last person Ardyn ever healed. Certainly the last he healed as 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum.' He came back to our home town in a panic when I fell ill, and even so, I was on my last legs by the time he got there. Feverish, delirious, spending most of my time unconscious - black marks everywhere.
[He reaches up and traces the veins running along his neck, visible over the top of his scarf, and then lets his hand fall.]
And then, suddenly, it was gone. I was healthy, whole - I woke up rather suddenly.
The first thing I saw was - well, if you've seen it, you know. My brother's face, with the gleaming eyes of a daemon, scourge pouring down his cheeks. A sight fit for nightmares.
[He flips his hand, and a dagger appears in a flash of light. If it were Noctis before him, he'd recognize it - a small blade, wielded by a very similar hand in Altissia.]
I didn't think. I just reacted.
[A sharp upward jerk, as though catching an attacker in the gut or under the ribs, and then the dagger vanishes.]
And that was the moment that he truly became the Accursed, refused by death itself.