Did it get any easier? He didn't think so, even if he had accepted it as an inevitability that couldn't be changed.
After all, he had tried, each time with different methods and each time trying to learn from the last and each time failing all the same. But some people were never satisfied.
Whether through pride or ignorance or selfishness, some people always had to choose the path of ruin, no matter the olive branch extended nor how succulent the fruits that were offered nor the chances and guidance given to correct course.
Some were just determined to bash themselves on the rocks, out of nothing more than spite and defiance.
Did he hate the names engraved on these stones? The names of betrayers whose praises he had once sung? No.
But he was disappointed all the same. Disappointed more than anything, because in an ideal world, it would never had had to come to that, if simply they had made different choices.
Standing here now, no one who looked would be able to accurately call what he thought or felt grief, save for perhaps his clever wife, and equally clever second-in-command Reno.
After all, he was the man who never laughed, nor cried. Never smiled, nor frowned. Only sometimes did he show anger, when he needed to bare his talons to defend what was important to protect, even if he had to protect against others he had once considered part of his flock.
People he would have fought for to the last breath, before, if needed.
He was as unfathomable as the patron Great Spirit he chose to follow and who had named him her Champion, the Prince who held his unwavering loyalty. The mistress of murk ; Lady Luck ; the queen of the Evergloam. The one who saw and heard all who did their work in the lonely night, even if they never saw her, and offered the cowl of her darkness in comfort, asking only for fair trade of mutually beneficial service.
If there were ever a Prince he could name that truly showed some care for her devoted followers, it would be Nocturnal, in her own way.
Ur-dra. The original shadow. The welcoming dark.
To understand Nocturnal was to undo all that she was, to know her machinations an impossibility, but perhaps in his own way he understood just a little bit, for he was much the same.
Likely none would ever be able to see it with how impossible he was to read, but grief wasn't beyond him, however much smaller it dug its claws into him. A single small thorn, too benign to ever draw a tear from him, but impossible to completely ignore.
Even he could experience fondness. Even could fall victim to the trappings of trust and faith and the want to believe. Even he could feel the bite that traitors inflicted, especially those who held his highest hopes.
And most often, it was those who held his highest hopes. Kurgan. Dar'ri. Clarkhovus. Jaedrick. Whisk. And many, many others.
Each one, another chip out of his faith, whittling down his ability to still believe in what he was out to accomplish.
Each with their own excuses for betrayal.
He could recall every name without coming here, to read each headstone. An honor Reno would probably argue was undeserved, but if nothing else, it was a tangible reminder of the weight of his mistakes. Something to put in front of his own face so that he couldn't ignore it or wave it off as though it had never been.
Of the people who had failed him and that he, in turn, had failed in his own way. Of people who perhaps they had all been better off never crossing paths to begin with.
But then, hindsight was always clearer, wasn't it?
His brother could tell the future, but he could not, and he had never tried to rely on that gift. There were too many important lessons in life that he would never know if he did, as much as many of those lessons hurt.
But they most certainly did hurt.
Because he had wanted to believe in a better future than this for all of them.
Because even now, he could see what a daring and fruitful and wondrous future it could have been, if they had only rewarded his faith in kind.
It hardly mattered now, save for that it had confirmed what his clan knew and taught all along, and that he had set out to disprove. That outsiders could be trusted. That others outside of their own could be relied upon if only given the right amount of time and faith to prove it.
It was difficult to admit, contrary to his own pride and conviction, but his father and his clan had been right.
At the very least, he could say that he did his duty all the same. He tried.
His mother would tell him gently that that was all he could really do, but everyone had choices to make, and history told over and over again how choice was the root essence of conflict.
He would hold that lesson in his heart, but those conflicts were no longer his burden.
As before, he would fade back into the dark, where there was a simple peace he could rely on. Where the shadows served as a nest and cradle whose comfort was guaranteed and where he'd never have to stain his hands with the blood of those who didn't deserve his benefit of doubt again.
Somewhere he could rest quietly.
He was very tired with it all.
