Oh but it grates against him to hear Noctis talking about Ardyn like this. Like he's just some normal guy, or at least has the capacity to be. It's one thing to know, distantly, intellectually, that he was a victim once too, that all of this is fucked up destiny decided by one twisted deity. But to talk about him like he's less than the face of everything that has weighed on them all over the years... Is it fair? probably not. But it doesn't make it any easier to let go of how much hatred he has.
As much as so many of the others had laid everything at Regis' feet, Drautos especially, Nyx has spent his life getting by doing the opposite. The Empire was responsible for all of it and in the end, though the orders had certainly come from the Emperor himself the man was old and frail and weak. It was his highest commanders that carried out those orders and enforced them. Chancellor Izunia had so often been seen as his right hand, long before he'd come to deliver the demands of the peace treaty even if he hadn't had a face to put to the name.
He didn't want to feel any sympathy for him, to see him as human as others. As the Captain. It was hard enough knowing so many people that had done horrific things so well... and that's without realizing what they were capable of. To offer that kind of understanding and sympathy knowing full well what the man is? What he's done? Laying themselves out on a silver platter to be stabbed in the back again?
Noctis keeps talking and it all sounds so normal. Fucking reasonable, even, given the shit that happens here and he can't stand it. He wants to argue that Ardyn was just manipulating him into letting his guard down but Nyx felt how that field impacted him with only half a step into it. Amani doesn't let people have that sort of autonomy when it starts pulling its tricks.
He's honestly not sure exactly how much of Noctis' recounting he really parses right now, much of it simply filed away to think about later when he doesn't have a delicate young man in his arms. By the time he's finished Nyx is hunched over, his forehead resting on Noctis' shoulder, his mind reeling with more information than he wants, too many uncomfortable things to think about. Noctis genuinely thinking the bastard is attractive foremost among them.
He lets out a slow, shuddering breath, sifting through all of it to find something he can latch onto that isn't.... more humanizing when it's so much easier to just hate.
"What do you mean take him over? It's... a disease." Gods he's seen so many people suffer it, seen more than a few Glaives fall to it even. "He's just... a carrier for it instead of dying to it. Isn't that what you said?"
A practical concern. Information he can justify as safety precautions. Something separate from the more pressing and horrible personal implications of it all.
no subject
As much as so many of the others had laid everything at Regis' feet, Drautos especially, Nyx has spent his life getting by doing the opposite. The Empire was responsible for all of it and in the end, though the orders had certainly come from the Emperor himself the man was old and frail and weak. It was his highest commanders that carried out those orders and enforced them. Chancellor Izunia had so often been seen as his right hand, long before he'd come to deliver the demands of the peace treaty even if he hadn't had a face to put to the name.
He didn't want to feel any sympathy for him, to see him as human as others. As the Captain. It was hard enough knowing so many people that had done horrific things so well... and that's without realizing what they were capable of. To offer that kind of understanding and sympathy knowing full well what the man is? What he's done? Laying themselves out on a silver platter to be stabbed in the back again?
Noctis keeps talking and it all sounds so normal. Fucking reasonable, even, given the shit that happens here and he can't stand it. He wants to argue that Ardyn was just manipulating him into letting his guard down but Nyx felt how that field impacted him with only half a step into it. Amani doesn't let people have that sort of autonomy when it starts pulling its tricks.
He's honestly not sure exactly how much of Noctis' recounting he really parses right now, much of it simply filed away to think about later when he doesn't have a delicate young man in his arms. By the time he's finished Nyx is hunched over, his forehead resting on Noctis' shoulder, his mind reeling with more information than he wants, too many uncomfortable things to think about. Noctis genuinely thinking the bastard is attractive foremost among them.
He lets out a slow, shuddering breath, sifting through all of it to find something he can latch onto that isn't.... more humanizing when it's so much easier to just hate.
"What do you mean take him over? It's... a disease." Gods he's seen so many people suffer it, seen more than a few Glaives fall to it even. "He's just... a carrier for it instead of dying to it. Isn't that what you said?"
A practical concern. Information he can justify as safety precautions. Something separate from the more pressing and horrible personal implications of it all.