He is not, actually, expecting her to take this seriously. Oh, she can insist on a debate, certainly, but he really had not expected to hear anything new or worth listening to; he had tried, long, long ago, at the beginning of it all— tried plenty of times to speak sense into the sundered. But none ever listened, none ever cared to try. And their arguments had been petty at best, selfish and ill-thought out, and callous and cruel at the worst.
So he is…pleasantly surprised.
He cannot deny there is some small logic in her mention of Sharlayan— ah, yes, that’s right, the little Archons are from that city of learning. He…appreciated the attempt, that city. But it is still corrupt, no matter how they try to learn— after all, why else would they hoard it all for themselves and share it with none? Selfish and petty, like all the others. But she is making a very good argument, he supposes, in fairness— better than what he had expected. He can do her the honor of taking it seriously, himself. Perhaps there is merit to convincing one of them this close to the final tick of the clock.
“Oh, certainly, I shall concede one point of yours: you do live, and love, and laugh, and do all those things heedless of your tiny little lives, unaware of your fragmented existence. Your sundered kind have created many a wonder in the eons since the worlds were shattered, I have seen it. Some of them even impressed me, I’ll admit! You can be clever little things, at times, even if half of it is rediscovering things we already knew.” If his voice falls easily into the familiar patter and cadence of an Amaurotine in a spirited debate, he does not notice; he is fixed upon his points. “However, I have also seen them all fall. Even in times where our hands were not at play, even when one of us had nothing to do with it; your wonders fall by your own hands. Surely you cannot imagine we are behind every ill your societies have committed? No, no— some, perhaps, and certainly the Calamities, but not all. With or without us, you will all eventually devour one another. I see little worth in people that are so quick to fall upon and tear down every masterpiece they create.”
He is pacing, but not at length; three steps, turn, three again— those who once knew him (all gone now, all but one, and he is devoured by the Darkness) would recognize it as a habit of his from long, long ago. “And I suppose that you have misunderstood me— I must needs correct that, I suppose; give you a fighting chance. It isn’t very fair if I let you build your argument on a misconception.” He smiles faintly, sharp and crooked and with the ghost of real pain, staring at that soul of hers, tiny fragment of light that it is. And above her is the Lifestream, diminished and weak, a too-fast too-thin ribbon of light flowing among all things. “I have described us as eternal, yes, that is true— but that is only true of us Ascians, those of us who survived the Sundering or were raised to join us. But when I spoke of my people, our people, the people you lot were meant to be— I said, and I believe it was ‘nigh for eternity’. We were not immortal, my dear girl. We knew death, just as any other. Oh, we certainly did not know it to the extent your fragile little lives do; a stiff wind could send your souls back into the flow, shatter them like ill-made glass. But we knew it. Did you think the Lifestream, as you call it, came to being after the Sundering? No; it has ever been. All souls flow towards it eventually, and all return from it anew. The only difference here is in how quickly you return to it, and what you fill your fleeting little lives with.”
He gestures briefly, not quite so grand as usual but with a ghost of it in the movement. “So yes, you have done wondrous things, I will concede. Allag, Mhach, Amdapor, Nym, Sil’dih, Belah’dia, Ivalice, Skalla, and so on. I could name more than you could ever recall. And yet— they have all fallen. Some by our hand, yes, but just as many without us. For every single incomplete, fragmented little soul who builds a nation, builds a mountain, builds anything worth keeping, there are a hundred more willing to tear it all down in the span of a blink, to our eye. Things of beauty and wisdom appear and disappear faster enough to make one’s head spin. So perhaps— perhaps I could see the inklings of a point in your words. But for all that you tiny little things bring to these shattered worlds, you destroy it just as fast. Where is the worth in that? It is not your swift and inevitable ends we so despise, dear— it is all that you bring to an end along with them.”
And the floor returns to her, with a flick of his wrist.
theartofmadeline
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
yousharknotpass
