Persefida REBLOGS

So far as he know, the Vessel is, at worst, a robot made from an animated corpse, or, at best, it's a changeling - a completely alien lifeform made of a substance that kills everything it touches & that he'd probably be instinctively repulsed from on account of it being the 'opposite power'.

He'd likely know that the ancient civilization considered being "cleansed my the void" a state of enlightened Nirvana, but he wouldn't agree, he's generally a big believer in individuality & thought being great, precious things. If he had a scholarly interest in it, it must come secondary to running the kingdom (& it's implied any joy he took in sciencing out the void ended after what he had to do; He closed the door& never came back - ironally, this ensured he never found the other survivors.)

Like - we know WL couldn't handle that & kept her distance (& holds till the present to the belief that he must've mucked it all up by getting all sentimental) - ironically she's the one of the 2 who seems to have desired kids previously & is generally fond of them (as in the cases of Hornet and Marmu), but maybe that's why she couldn't get over the grief of it. (though I think it's also that she thinks that they can't be alive because if they were they'd hate her. Hate is certainly among her first guesses/speculations after the protag gets the voidheart. )

Whereas he was the stoic & responsible one, who's more in touch with machines than people (for all that his creations/inventions are probably also an indirect way to care about the people) & probably thought he could quash his feelings / do the ugly job so others don't have to.

He probably took it upon himself to do the training & the handling because after allhe'd already tormented his wife enough...

But it's because of this that he comes to care about THK exactly as they are, eldritch tentacles & all. Not who they could have been, who WL is grieving, but as they actually exist. Maybe they're a changeling, so far as he knows, but, he still becomes their father by virtue of having raised them.

& he can't back out on the plan, not after what he did to get so far, not when the only alternative is everyone dies, his subjects all have kids too & don't want them to die of plague.

At first, he'd probably comfort himself with the idea that they're not going to suffer. After all, they're supposedly created in such a way that it's impossible for them to suffer. The Radiance shouldn't be able to do anything to them, they probably won't miss whatever life they had in the palace... (He can't stand the thought of them never seeing anything but the walls of their cage, tho, and comes up with a little something - maybe thinking of it as his own sentimentality)

Maybe he tells them that he won't forget them; That while they probably won't miss him, he'll feel it for both of them.

On the one hand, he could find it in him to love them even as this alien entity that wasn't anything like him or like he would've envisioned his children, but on the other hand, he wouldn't be swayed from his duty because of his personal feelings - the needs of the many and so on. (in a way, that too shows him to be surprisingly loving in how own way, even if it's not in a warm, sociable kind of way. His subjects aren't just numbers to him; He doesn't think their blood is less precious than his.

But the calculus of course becomes very different once it turns out that there actually was this whole bunch of innocents who never got a choice. )

The plan goes ahead, life goes on, maybe he starts thinking this will be like another of those challenges they overcame in the history of the kingdom, he & WL focus their energies on looking after Hornet who now presumably spends more time at the palace since her mother is gone, & maybe find some sort of atonement in watching her grow up all badass & competent.

And then, BAM. The plague is back. It was all for nothing.

Turns out there *was* something of their kid left in there. (& in all the others who lay in a sad heap at the bottom of the abyss)

& they don't even know what sort of feeling the Radiance might've used to get her claws into them. It's probably something like love or a sense of duty (cause- that's the catch. The infection works by One Ring/shikon No Tama/Kyubey rules. The Radiance can use anything no matter how innocent, even the desire to resist her), but, they don't know that.

Learning Loss

(script under cut)