[ He avoids immediately following Strohl to the crumbling wall, instead opting to remain at a distance. From here, he can observe the entirety of his friend's body language, all while listening with a pensive expression as he considers each and every one of Strohl's words. Strohl at the very least deserves that much, deserves even more if one were to ask Will.
"You were so young. It couldn’t be helped." Will thinks, but those are unnecessary words to breathe into existence. It's something that Strohl already knows. Bringing it up again is a pointless endeavor, and the fact that nothing could be done back then does not make it any better. One might even argue the helplessness is precisely what makes it worse. ]
It sticks with you, and it might never go away.
[ It's a different set of ruins and wreckage, but his own hometown — no, the forest sanctum that had been once been the prince’s home — had burned to the ground. There’d been nothing the prince could have done, nothing he could have salvaged with his small palms.
It's times like this when he must remind himself that those memories are not his own, and if he were ever to forget, the sudden sharp pangs of phantom pain radiating from his chest and down his arms from time to time are enough of a reminder that even this very body hadn’t belonged to him. Even if he'd initially lived as a vessel of the prince's soul, that life, those memories, they did not belong to him.
Yet those thoughts, those memories, did they not exist within him as well? They are his own too. They can be his own, or at the very least he can pretend they are his own, if it creates the channel and foundation to comfort his closest friend. ]
It used to scare me too, that I might see the massacre "he" witnessed at the Eldan Sanctum repeated elsewhere.
[ Will draws nearer now, footfalls muffled by the overgrown grass. He reaches out to rest a gentle hand atop Strohl's clenched fist, not to persuade Strohl into letting go of the fears that grip his heart, but to coax him into sharing them with him. There'd been plenty of lessons to learn during their journey, but perhaps one of the most important ones was that anxiety and negative emotion was not to be feared. After all, as goes light, so goes darkness; as goes darkness, so goes light.
He runs the pad of his thumb over each of Strohl's knuckles before coming to rest it against the back of Strohl's hand. ]
...I'm still scared sometimes, but it's a little less knowing that I have you and the others at my side.
[ He'd like to say he understands, that he knows what it feels like to be afraid of witnessing what someone loved and cherished crumbling to the ground. How terribly it must weigh upon one's soul to know that one's life had been traded for several others. And yet, he cannot say that he does not know, not when so many of his memories cross over the line of where the Prince ended and where Will began.
Will turns his face upwards, an encouraging smile resting upon his lips. ]
I'd like if I could do the same for you.
[ Strohl may rue his weakness, but Will finds it is a welcome opportunity for him to offer his cherished person a shoulder to lean on. There are plenty of objections he could raise. Strohl has observed him in battle several times, clawing his way to victory alone if necessary. He has watched him weather several impossibly challenging fights, and they'd been at each other's sides during the ultimate standoff against Louis' twisted form.
But this — what Strohl fears must be more complex. A spotlight shines upon the new king. There will be politically charged character assassinations leveled towards him, let alone plenty of actual future assassination attempts. There's already plenty of precedent, given the fates of the prior king and his heir. The people will scorn him, their tongues and words coated in poisons as soon as the country’s and their own fortunes take a turn for the worse. His inevitable future shortcomings will be aired in the sunlight, exaggerated and spread across the land through attention-grabbing headlines.
His fingers curl around Strohl's hand now, offering it a reassuring squeeze. ]
Maybe those feelings will never go away, because fear and grief — that's the price of cherishing something, isn't it? You... wouldn't fear losing something you didn't care about. So it's all right.
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Date: 2024-12-02 03:33 am (UTC)"You were so young. It couldn’t be helped." Will thinks, but those are unnecessary words to breathe into existence. It's something that Strohl already knows. Bringing it up again is a pointless endeavor, and the fact that nothing could be done back then does not make it any better. One might even argue the helplessness is precisely what makes it worse. ]
It sticks with you, and it might never go away.
[ It's a different set of ruins and wreckage, but his own hometown — no, the forest sanctum that had been once been the prince’s home — had burned to the ground. There’d been nothing the prince could have done, nothing he could have salvaged with his small palms.
It's times like this when he must remind himself that those memories are not his own, and if he were ever to forget, the sudden sharp pangs of phantom pain radiating from his chest and down his arms from time to time are enough of a reminder that even this very body hadn’t belonged to him. Even if he'd initially lived as a vessel of the prince's soul, that life, those memories, they did not belong to him.
Yet those thoughts, those memories, did they not exist within him as well? They are his own too. They can be his own, or at the very least he can pretend they are his own, if it creates the channel and foundation to comfort his closest friend. ]
It used to scare me too, that I might see the massacre "he" witnessed at the Eldan Sanctum repeated elsewhere.
[ Will draws nearer now, footfalls muffled by the overgrown grass. He reaches out to rest a gentle hand atop Strohl's clenched fist, not to persuade Strohl into letting go of the fears that grip his heart, but to coax him into sharing them with him. There'd been plenty of lessons to learn during their journey, but perhaps one of the most important ones was that anxiety and negative emotion was not to be feared. After all, as goes light, so goes darkness; as goes darkness, so goes light.
He runs the pad of his thumb over each of Strohl's knuckles before coming to rest it against the back of Strohl's hand. ]
...I'm still scared sometimes, but it's a little less knowing that I have you and the others at my side.
[ He'd like to say he understands, that he knows what it feels like to be afraid of witnessing what someone loved and cherished crumbling to the ground. How terribly it must weigh upon one's soul to know that one's life had been traded for several others. And yet, he cannot say that he does not know, not when so many of his memories cross over the line of where the Prince ended and where Will began.
Will turns his face upwards, an encouraging smile resting upon his lips. ]
I'd like if I could do the same for you.
[ Strohl may rue his weakness, but Will finds it is a welcome opportunity for him to offer his cherished person a shoulder to lean on. There are plenty of objections he could raise. Strohl has observed him in battle several times, clawing his way to victory alone if necessary. He has watched him weather several impossibly challenging fights, and they'd been at each other's sides during the ultimate standoff against Louis' twisted form.
But this — what Strohl fears must be more complex. A spotlight shines upon the new king. There will be politically charged character assassinations leveled towards him, let alone plenty of actual future assassination attempts. There's already plenty of precedent, given the fates of the prior king and his heir. The people will scorn him, their tongues and words coated in poisons as soon as the country’s and their own fortunes take a turn for the worse. His inevitable future shortcomings will be aired in the sunlight, exaggerated and spread across the land through attention-grabbing headlines.
His fingers curl around Strohl's hand now, offering it a reassuring squeeze. ]
Maybe those feelings will never go away, because fear and grief — that's the price of cherishing something, isn't it? You... wouldn't fear losing something you didn't care about. So it's all right.