[ we roasting uncle Arvis? Good. Let this one take a shot at him too. ] "I don't know if I'll ever have it in my heart to truly forgive you. I don't care what your reasoning was, peace built on treachery can not be the foundation for a proper world!"
roast me, broil me alive | ACCEPTING
⊰ ♖ ⊱
"That’s fine. There isn’t any expectation for you to go out of your way to forgive me. You can hate me until the day you die — it isn’t like it’s unjustified.”
How tremendously odd, that he felt so overwhelmingly comfortable only after he’d died. Arvis’ ghost arched his back forward to rest his weight on his elbows, propping himself up against the stone of what had once probably been a terrifically sturdy stone wall. It wasn’t like he ever expected Celice to understand the machinations and inner workings of his mind or how he justified his actions to himself, but the fallen emperor could, at least, recognise that things didn’t look particularly good for him. He locked, released, and then returned to interlocking his fingers together, fiddling with his hands in an idle moment of quiet contemplation before suddenly tucking his hair behind one of his ears and glancing back upwards toward his nephew.
"The world is unfair. You realise that much, don’t you?? Even before Julius’ rise to power, before my own rise to power, before the old Loptyrian Empire— discrimination has always existed. Power begets corruption. The strong subjugate the weak, then proceed to subject anyone in the same category to the same sort of subjugation, and that births widespread inequality. Women, the poor, those of alternative religions, the descendants of people who haven’t left particularly pleasant marks on history — can you honestly expect me to believe that sacrificing a handful of lives over the span of a single generation can really justify allowing it to continue when it could be stopped?? Are you so naïve that you can honestly look me in the eye and tell me that none of the people I stabbed in the back didn’t benefit from past transgressions?? They’re nobility. That socioeconomic gap separating them and their people is enough on its own. If there is a single impoverished person on their land while they live like kings, it’s on them.
There is no such thing as true innocence. I fought for equality. I got blood on my hands — some less deserving of it than others. You can hate me, but I fought for the people. I only got things wrong because I lost. What is indisputable treachery to you means nothing to the masses if it betters the lives of hundreds of thousands at the expense of, what, thirty??”
