Finding Your Balance

The sympathy and kindness in Artorias' eyes began to fade with every word the Warlord spoke. There was so much self-deprecation, so much self-loathing inside the broken man. He wanted to paint himself into the visage of a villain, of someone who had done some terrible things and bore sins and crimes that could not be forgiven. He wanted to disregard the good he had done in favor of being the bad guy of the story. Artorias steeled his gaze, eyes narrowing and jaw locking while he held the Warlord's gaze. Nothing the brute had said had scared him, startled him, disturbed him. Art was acutely aware of the darkness in the world, and if Sirius had been an agent of it, those were his demons to grapple with. But if he truly felt he was beyond redeeming, then there was only one thing he could say to convince him he was wrong.

"Exactly! You chose to become better of your own volition. You chose to become a father and a role model to your children. Nobody forced you or ordered you to do that. You weren't being a good little pawn obeying an order from a pampered, prissy monarch. You were being Sirius Fatalis, deciding who he wanted to be and what he wanted from his life. Whether you did that for yourself or someone else, you did that." Artorias raised his voice to match the level of Sirius, refusing to back down. "You truly think you're irredeemable? That your bad outweighs your good? That your wife is the only thing that defined you as good? That you don't deserve peace?" He pointed with a paw just past Sirius, to the edge of the castle wall, and the sheer drop that lay there. "There's your peace. Go on, go throw away everything you've done to try and make a difference. Throw away the family you created in the Armada. Go make your children orphans because you couldn't stop hating yourself. Show the whole damned world what kind of a man Sirius Fatalis really is."

Artorias huffed, then turned his back on Sirius and began heading for the steps. "You're better than this self-deprecating shit, Sirius. I just wish you'd learn that sooner than later," he muttered as he walked away. He gave a short howl for his mother to come and collect the man-child as he reached the stairs. He didn't want to leave the possibility for Seer to actually kill himself on the table. He had said what he did to prove his point, not to drive the wolf to suicide. There had already been one attempt, best not offer a second, just in case.


"Artorias" | Thoughts | "Corbin"