[Ardyn's gaze dropped to the table, the dreamlike miasma clouding behind him before dissipating like the smoky substance it was. He laughed hollowly, raking a hand through his hair only for it to fall right back in his face.]
I suppose...with him around here as well as Noctis and his entourage, there's no need to keep it a secret.
[A deep breath, slow sigh. There was a strange exhaustion on Ardyn's face, worn into the lines beneath his eyes the way stone was eroded by the steady and persistent years of ocean tides.]
There was a time not very long ago when I...wasn't human. It's a long and complex story, but I was more the vessel of a sentient plague. It drove me utterly insane, and turned me into a monster fueled only by hate and malice. When Intergal took me from my homeworld, they--correctly--deemed me a 'contagion risk' and implanted my consciousness in a replicated human body with some imitation of the scourge running through it. All the twisted emotional state, with none of the risk of an outbreak...I'm sure someone thought they were quite clever to think of that.
[He shook his head, looking off to the side and starting to restlessly twist a ring on his left hand.]
But it's gone now, even the replica was removed nearly a year ago. All I am now is merely human, for the first in a very long time.
no subject
[Ardyn's gaze dropped to the table, the dreamlike miasma clouding behind him before dissipating like the smoky substance it was. He laughed hollowly, raking a hand through his hair only for it to fall right back in his face.]
I suppose...with him around here as well as Noctis and his entourage, there's no need to keep it a secret.
[A deep breath, slow sigh. There was a strange exhaustion on Ardyn's face, worn into the lines beneath his eyes the way stone was eroded by the steady and persistent years of ocean tides.]
There was a time not very long ago when I...wasn't human. It's a long and complex story, but I was more the vessel of a sentient plague. It drove me utterly insane, and turned me into a monster fueled only by hate and malice. When Intergal took me from my homeworld, they--correctly--deemed me a 'contagion risk' and implanted my consciousness in a replicated human body with some imitation of the scourge running through it. All the twisted emotional state, with none of the risk of an outbreak...I'm sure someone thought they were quite clever to think of that.
[He shook his head, looking off to the side and starting to restlessly twist a ring on his left hand.]
But it's gone now, even the replica was removed nearly a year ago. All I am now is merely human, for the first in a very long time.