#nk

transcript:

nom: and what i can't help but keep thinking, is if i didn't do what i did to save you, maybe those fifteen knights would have changed how that battle ended.

(4c looks away)

nom: i regret nothing about that day. let me be clear about that. i regret nothing about that day. what happened, happened. but that last war was bad. and we lost a lot of people, they lost a lot of people, maybe that makes the difference-

4c: well, what makes you think that-

nom: maybe i'm the reason that this war is still going. maybe i'm the re- maybe i took enough away from blue kingdom-

4c: (sighs in frustration) you can't-

nom: -that we weren't able to just wipe them off. katie was a knight-in-training! she was a knight-in-training, she wasn't… she would've been safe-

4c: you can't put that-

nom: they would've been [kept] and she could've been brought back to blue kingdom and it all could've been fine! it could've been fine.

4c: you can't put that pressure on yourself, because as much as you believe that, look at how much they've rebuilt the red kingdom in the span of a week. i feel like if you were to- if we were to have won that fight and decimated them, katie might not even have been alive.

nom: she would've been alive.

4c: …how do you know?

nom: because i wouldn't have let anyone hurt her.

nom: what, like- i mean, i was there in that fight, do you think i wasn't- every… every red knight, or every mage or rogue that i cut down, i wasn't looking over their shoulders to try to find her on that battlefield? i mean, she- the- she would've been fine, i could've brought her back to blue kingdom, i could've…(sighs)

4c: do you really think she would've followed you back to blue kingdom? she would've just found something else. and maybe further away than this. maybe the having the red kingdom there is what's keeping you guys still able to communicate in the first place. and if you take that away, will she even still stay?

nom: i'd like to- think she would. i would've stayed for her.

(silence)

4c: i don't know what she would do.

nom: i never know what she would do. (laughs) but i don't think that's ever gonna change, i don't think i'm ever going to know what she's thinking.

4c: i mean you could ask, but i fear that's- we're talking hypotheticals here. (laughing) if the kingdoms were to be gone, i fear if you were to walk up to katie and say, "oh, if the red kingdom were to be decimated, would you come back to blue?" i don't think she would- she would answer that question.

nom: (quietly) i could do it.

4c: (exhales) i wouldn't ask that question.

nom: …yeah.

4c: that sounds like a threat more than uh, a question.