[He doesn't stop walking. He doesn't turn around. His shoulders draw together, his chest tightens under the vice grip of her words, his stomach knots in fresh revulsion--but there's nothing he can do about it. About any of it. Edelgard and the Empire are triumphant, Rhea is dead, he and Flayn are maimed and left alive out of pity or sheer spite, Byleth has been corrupted, the Goddess' grace has faded from her..... and Dimitri and Claude? Who knows. Probably also slaughtered at her hands. It isn't as though he can exactly go and check now, is it? Let alone attempt to make things right.
She sounds so proud of herself. She probably took joy in the slaughter, didn't she? Of course she did. The Empire kills everything it touches now, she had to have learned a taste for bloodshed. Or maybe she had never needed to learn it, and his queen had simply willingly surrendered such cruelty--Hanneman had spoken once of the "Ashen Demon" moniker, back when he had first attempted to research the pair. What in the Goddess' name had driven Hanneman back into the Empire's arms, when he had sworn never to return? This degenerate butcher has no charisma to speak of, after all.]
Yes, well done. You've won.Congratulations. Is that what you wanted to hear?
[She won't listen to his answers, so it only stands to reason she won't answer his questions. Why in the world would Rhea want to burn Fhirdiad to the ground? Whose lives did he supposedly destroy, when, and why? Who knows? There's no point in trying to make sense of it anymore. All he needs to know is that Nemesis seems to have found himself a truly worthy heir at long last.]
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She sounds so proud of herself. She probably took joy in the slaughter, didn't she? Of course she did. The Empire kills everything it touches now, she had to have learned a taste for bloodshed. Or maybe she had never needed to learn it, and his queen had simply willingly surrendered such cruelty--Hanneman had spoken once of the "Ashen Demon" moniker, back when he had first attempted to research the pair. What in the Goddess' name had driven Hanneman back into the Empire's arms, when he had sworn never to return? This degenerate butcher has no charisma to speak of, after all.]
Yes, well done. You've won. Congratulations. Is that what you wanted to hear?
[She won't listen to his answers, so it only stands to reason she won't answer his questions. Why in the world would Rhea want to burn Fhirdiad to the ground? Whose lives did he supposedly destroy, when, and why? Who knows? There's no point in trying to make sense of it anymore. All he needs to know is that Nemesis seems to have found himself a truly worthy heir at long last.]