[Aymeric's sword - which has been whispering such a depth of loathing and fury and isolated loneliness to him this entire time - can't seem to contain itself. It was barely holding back before, but as Aymeric reaches out to it and embraces its goals, it reaches back in return, grasping for him and holding on tightly.
"There is no one to accept my extended hand..."
It wails, hanging on jealously to what it has finally found. It's afraid, it's hateful, it will stop at nothing to seize this chance - and so shall Aymeric follow, because they're the same, aren't they? His loss is its loss, its pain is his. It finds this all so awful. Why not save that one precious life? Why not change a painful, rotten history? Would he leave Lucia dead on the battlefield? Would he leave Estinien to be decapitated by Imperialists? Would he leave Ishgard to ruin? This sword feels to Aymeric like one constant, endless howl of anguish that he can understand intrinsically.
Beneath the clothing he had picked out earlier, traces of black begin to etch across the small patches of skin that can be seen, like a tattoo. His eyes shine an unnatural shade of blue, burning fever-bright. The air around him crackles as though charged with electricity, the faint flicker of blue spirit-flame shimmering.
Prompto and Meteion will feel this burst of curdling, negative energy, and instinctively know what is happening, because their swords - they? - know what this is. The feeling of a sword, corrupted. The feeling of a corrupted sword, corrupting its wielder in turn. That cyclical feedback loop of misery and hope, escalating to the point that neither can be saved.
As if threatened by the very possibility of history changing in this pivotal moment, the world outside of the fortress begins to fold strangely at its edges. You can see it through the doors, through the cracks in the wall: this world, this timeline, is already beginning to die. Far out on the horizon, the sky greys and darkens. Tendrils of miasma begin to snake through, grass withering and browning below it as it goes.
Though their movements are slowed to a near-stop, Estinien and Hermes suddenly look stricken, pained, as though something poisonous is coursing through their veins. Prompto will also notice that one of the soldiers near Hijikata is the friend he had come all this way to find. Noctis, too, looks like he's suffering - though unlike the other two, it seems he was already in quite a state even before all of this. A haphazard wrap of bandage and gauze covers part of his head and an eye, and he looks pallid even in this desaturated state.
Prompto and Meteion's swords recoil at the encroaching destruction. If things keep going like this, the world will die, and these people will lose themselves along with it. Isn't that a fate worse than being stuck on the losing side of a war? Worse than death itself...?
In the end, it boils down to this: if they abandon their duty and attempt to save Aymeric - or lose to him, or lose to their own desire to save their loved ones - then this timeline will suffer the same fate as the dead world beyond the window. If they follow through and stop Aymeric, they will save this timeline and its inhabitants, at the cost of Aymeric and those they hold dear, losing the chance to turn back time and save anyone they've lost.
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"There is no one to accept my extended hand..."
It wails, hanging on jealously to what it has finally found. It's afraid, it's hateful, it will stop at nothing to seize this chance - and so shall Aymeric follow, because they're the same, aren't they? His loss is its loss, its pain is his. It finds this all so awful. Why not save that one precious life? Why not change a painful, rotten history? Would he leave Lucia dead on the battlefield? Would he leave Estinien to be decapitated by Imperialists? Would he leave Ishgard to ruin? This sword feels to Aymeric like one constant, endless howl of anguish that he can understand intrinsically.
Beneath the clothing he had picked out earlier, traces of black begin to etch across the small patches of skin that can be seen, like a tattoo. His eyes shine an unnatural shade of blue, burning fever-bright. The air around him crackles as though charged with electricity, the faint flicker of blue spirit-flame shimmering.
Prompto and Meteion will feel this burst of curdling, negative energy, and instinctively know what is happening, because their swords - they? - know what this is. The feeling of a sword, corrupted. The feeling of a corrupted sword, corrupting its wielder in turn. That cyclical feedback loop of misery and hope, escalating to the point that neither can be saved.
As if threatened by the very possibility of history changing in this pivotal moment, the world outside of the fortress begins to fold strangely at its edges. You can see it through the doors, through the cracks in the wall: this world, this timeline, is already beginning to die. Far out on the horizon, the sky greys and darkens. Tendrils of miasma begin to snake through, grass withering and browning below it as it goes.
Though their movements are slowed to a near-stop, Estinien and Hermes suddenly look stricken, pained, as though something poisonous is coursing through their veins. Prompto will also notice that one of the soldiers near Hijikata is the friend he had come all this way to find. Noctis, too, looks like he's suffering - though unlike the other two, it seems he was already in quite a state even before all of this. A haphazard wrap of bandage and gauze covers part of his head and an eye, and he looks pallid even in this desaturated state.
Prompto and Meteion's swords recoil at the encroaching destruction. If things keep going like this, the world will die, and these people will lose themselves along with it. Isn't that a fate worse than being stuck on the losing side of a war? Worse than death itself...?
In the end, it boils down to this: if they abandon their duty and attempt to save Aymeric - or lose to him, or lose to their own desire to save their loved ones - then this timeline will suffer the same fate as the dead world beyond the window. If they follow through and stop Aymeric, they will save this timeline and its inhabitants, at the cost of Aymeric and those they hold dear, losing the chance to turn back time and save anyone they've lost.
The choice is theirs.]