It's not- it's not just you. [Mostly, in this moment, but hell if he can't go deeper.] It's for any person who can't save everyone but still does more than nothing. The world's full of people like that- who tried, and did less than perfect. Even me. What if I'd gone into the Crystal ten years ago? How many more could live to see the sunrise if there wasn't ten years of darkness to suffer through, if I'd been doing my job instead of screwing around? Won't the survivors resent all the deaths that happen while I'm gone? I think about that too- I'm scared like hell that the only thing people will say after I'm dead is that I finally got around to fixing my own mess.

[And it doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't change his decision. But it hurts, thinking about how many people will suffer and die in the dark waiting on him to do his one job, who'll remember not the Chosen or the King of Light but the King of Taking His Damn Time as they bury their comrades during his absence. How many lives will that be?

He shakes his head, shoving those thoughts aside and rushing onward- because he knows, he knows if he gives her an inch she'll just shift the topic away from herself again. Because the same logic isn't allowed to apply to her specifically, somehow.]

Look... I have to believe that saving some, even if not all, is worth the suffering and fighting that people like us have to go through. That it's worth the sacrifice. Otherwise- what's the point? Why not let your brother destroy everything, if it's all or nothing?