[He was, to some thin extent, a different person. No one here had ever truly known 'Ardyn Izunia', colored and blackened only by hate and all memory of being human lost to him. They'd known a shadow of a shadow, a flickering candle of ages-old hatred on the verge of going out. Had he awoken there as the Chancellor, as the Accursed...well, odds were good that no one would have survived.Still--all that had been done had still been done by his own hand. No one else's. Perhaps he wanted to be held accountable for that, finally having done something worth being ostracized for.]

[But he didn't argue the point--this wasn't the time. He just...laughed, quiet and shaken. Why? Why Lunafreya, why Noctis, why all of them, why did this keep happening-]

...I've a terrible track record with family. Just ask Noctis, I'm sure he'll confirm that.

[What was meant to sound like a joke came out with that same shaky almost-a-laugh.]

I don't...want to be forgiven. Even if I were, I don't need something like that. I don't want to be cast out or left behind again. I-I just--

[Ardyn's voice cracked, and he tried very hard to level it out before speaking again.]

...I just want to keep living a little longer. With you and all of the others.