Ah...forgive me. Please do not misunderstand--I do not wish to help due to a matter of mere obligation. That is a line I am still learning to discern, so allow me to try again.
[Ardyn shook his head, thinking his words over for a moment.]
It is true, such a thing is very, very deeply engraved in my nature and purpose. To help others at risk to myself was once the entire reason I was alive, and such a thing is...difficult to separate from something like this.
But you have entrusted me with something we both know to be painfully difficult to acknowledge, much less share. It would be an insult to answer that with 'I want to help because it is my purpose'. Not only that, but it would be inaccurate. I offer you my help however I am capable of giving it because you reached out for it. I want to help you, because I-
[...Oh.]
[Oh.]
[It wasn't as if Ardyn was utterly clueless to his own feelings on the matter; he'd cautiously discussed the idea with Lup once before, after all. But it wasn't ever put into clear and straightforward terms, even in the tangle of Ardyn's own thoughts. And yet how else was he going to end that sentence? What other conclusion could he possibly have drawn?]
[He wanted to help because she needed it of him. Because Honerva needed it of him, and reached out in acknowledgement of that fact.]
[He wanted to help because what else could one do if someone they loved were in pain?]
Honerva, I-...
[And yet he couldn't say it. Hypocrite that he knew it made him, he couldn't ask it of her to love a monster on borrowed time. Least of all one who in doing so would turn away from the woman whose memory had kept him relatively sane for two thousand years. If he could do that, surely she had no reason to believe the same would not happen twice.]
[Around her hands, his had started to tremble faintly.]
I-...I only ask that you trust when I say that this is my choice. This is...the most valuable way I can think of to use the time given to us.
no subject
[Ardyn shook his head, thinking his words over for a moment.]
It is true, such a thing is very, very deeply engraved in my nature and purpose. To help others at risk to myself was once the entire reason I was alive, and such a thing is...difficult to separate from something like this.
But you have entrusted me with something we both know to be painfully difficult to acknowledge, much less share. It would be an insult to answer that with 'I want to help because it is my purpose'. Not only that, but it would be inaccurate. I offer you my help however I am capable of giving it because you reached out for it. I want to help you, because I-
[...Oh.]
[Oh.]
[It wasn't as if Ardyn was utterly clueless to his own feelings on the matter; he'd cautiously discussed the idea with Lup once before, after all. But it wasn't ever put into clear and straightforward terms, even in the tangle of Ardyn's own thoughts. And yet how else was he going to end that sentence? What other conclusion could he possibly have drawn?]
[He wanted to help because she needed it of him. Because Honerva needed it of him, and reached out in acknowledgement of that fact.]
[He wanted to help because what else could one do if someone they loved were in pain?]
Honerva, I-...
[And yet he couldn't say it. Hypocrite that he knew it made him, he couldn't ask it of her to love a monster on borrowed time. Least of all one who in doing so would turn away from the woman whose memory had kept him relatively sane for two thousand years. If he could do that, surely she had no reason to believe the same would not happen twice.]
[Around her hands, his had started to tremble faintly.]
I-...I only ask that you trust when I say that this is my choice. This is...the most valuable way I can think of to use the time given to us.
[Hypocrite, and a coward.]