Licanius Trilogy Brainrot

what if you were promised you could unshackle the chains of fate, that you could fix things, and that every terrible means you need to use for your ends would - eventually, once and for all, when it's done and over with - be erased, and the only thing that would be left would be the victory. that everything could be fixed in the end, no matter how badly you have to break it now. if you could come home, not just victor, but hero and savior and with every cruelty and sacrifice repaired so that no one knows you've even done them, because in this world you haven't

what if it was you and yours, together, people you've known for longer than anone else who understand and who want what you want - people who get it, when no one else can, after how long it's been and how much you've done and how much you've traded and sacrificed and become for the one goal, when no one else could possibly understand. And then one of your number lost their mind and gave up on the perfect shining goal, and in only a hundred years or so - the blink of an eye, to you, immortals, around for thousands of years at the minimum - kills several of your number before you finally band together and put an end to it. When before, you were somewhere between friends and family. When, in spite of everything, you still are.

and with roadblocks in the way and stresses and hardships for a thousand years, you work at it, you try to get the things moving again. it takes a thousand years. and at the very end you find out you've been betrayed from the inside again, that your most dedicated member has changed his mind, or lost it, or both. frankly, definitely both. tal does not have his fucking mind together, half the series he's amnesiac and the other half he's a zealot unwilling to even consider peace with the people who have known him longer than half these societies have existed.

And then one by one, within less than a decade, the rest of your number are dead, and so is he. When the only constant in your lives across the millenia has been that you cannot die. And the world will never be fixed, if it ever even could have been.

Essence.

this is probably an incomplete collection of quotes. he's so messed up. i love him.

“And my name is Caeden now. I’ve changed. The man I was before is gone.” Meldier shook his head. “No. Here, your name will always be Devaed,” he said quietly, bitterness in his tone. Caeden grimaced at that, glancing away.

(An Echo of Things to Come, chapter 15)

“Why do you never refer to me as Devaed?” he asked quietly. Garadis cocked his head to the side. “Because that is not who you are—and it never was. It is the name you chose in order to instill fear in us, the name you chose because you wanted to pretend that your sins were not yours to own. But when we speak of you, Tal’kamar, we speak of you—for better or worse. Whether destroyer or savior, we will never let you hide behind another name.”

(An Echo of Things to Come, chapter 40)

“You need…” Asha trailed off with a humorless laugh. “Of course you do.” She looked him in the eye. “The thing is, Tal’kamar, I’m not sure that I want anything to do with you.” Caeden flinched. “Tal’kamar,” he repeated, shaking his head. “That’s not my name now.” Asha’s lip curled. “How about Aarkein Devaed?”

(The Light of All That Falls, chapter 15)

Davian shook his head bemusedly and focused back on the man, who had paused a few steps away and was examining him dazedly. “You’re Aarkein Devaed.” The man blanched. “Tal. Just… Tal, please,” he said with a wave of his hand.

(The Light of All That Falls, chapter 26)

“Your choices, Tal. Always your choices. Influences don’t get blame or credit.” Caeden grinned suddenly, the conversation evidently straying into territory familiar to both men. Then he stopped, putting a hand on Davian’s shoulder to halt him as well. “Caeden,” he said firmly, taking a deep breath. “Caeden has always been the best version of me. Tal… Tal died in there.” Davian gave him a lopsided smile, clapping him gently on the back. “Caeden.”