Cause I'm just getting started, let me offend.

“I’m not one to shy from risks, I suppose you would know, but I can’t possibly follow through with this.” He replies, taking a quick step back now that she’s no longer behind the shelves. Even with the combat eased, he’s still wary of any possibility of attack.

“What you wish to do is noble, but I can promise you it won’t work. This Darkness, this affliction, was bestowed upon me by Oryx himself. It’s no being of sentience, it won’t make a decision to chase your Light. It’s had countless opportunities to ditch my slowly-deteriorating body, and taken none of them. I was in direct contact with a shard of your Traveler, even, and nothing changed.”

He notes then that she’s put her weapon away altogether, and with reluctance, he does the same. “If I were desperate, I just might accept your plan, but I’m not ready to put my life at risk for a plan that might not even work. I know you want to help, but I don’t think this is something your Light can fix. I’d be a fool to join a fireteam’s company and put my life and my wellbeing in their hands. Maybe you don’t want to bring me to ‘justice,’ but that’s no guarantee of my own safety.”

“A better question would be what haven’t I tried. I’d thought the lock to release the Voice of Riven had taken it, I was wrong. It returned. After that I sought any resource available to me. Exposure to high levels of Light to try and burn it away, spells left behind by the Techeuns, even Hive rituals, and so much more, none of it successful.” He pauses to take a rattling breath, stifling a cough. He almost sounds half-drowned.

“There’s a difference between acceptance, and giving up. I’ve not given up, only accepted that this is how my life is to be from now until the end. I will do everything in my power to make the most of my life before I am either dead or no longer myself, make no mistake. I’ve already arranged for what’s to happen, when the Darkness inevitably takes full hold.” His free hand is lifted to be placed upon his hip, hand cannon still aimed towards the ceiling. “I have the respect of my Scorn to be lost, my hold on the Shore, my freedom... All meaningful to me, if not to anyone else.”

“If you’re not here to kill me, what do you want from me?” He snarls, baring fangs he hadn’t had before the infection of Darkness that now plagues him. “To throw me back in the Prison of Elders? To bring me to the Vanguard so that I might face ‘justice’? I’d rather see you here to kill me.” He still holds so much contempt for Guardians, only strengthened by his plight. The Light, the Traveler and it’s shambling dead, he hates them all.

She mentions the Darkness is killing him, and despite everything, he gives a low laugh. “I know it is, I’ve always known. There’s no escaping it.” He breaks off there when she does make her attempt to knock him onto his back. Knowing he can’t let this happen, he fumbles for some way to catch himself, grabbing onto the desk on which the lighting controls sit. However, he finds hold just a little too late, and falls onto his rear. Ever-defiant and ever-furious, he starts to scrabble to his feet and back towards the door, keeping a firm hold on his weapon.  As firm as he can manage in his sickly state, anyways. He can’t afford to lose it. Here in the theatre, his Scorn might not hear it if he calls upon them. He would tire quickly if forced to fight tooth and claw, he’s certain, to lose his hand cannon would mean to lose this fight.