That's something they share. The willingness to light the match, the resolve to always carry the tinderbox with them, in every choice. Love like theirs is an undoing thing, isn't it?
Ravus understands. He doesn't say it, but doesn't think he needs to either. Instead, he is left breathing out a soft sound that is a bit self-conscious, but the warmth blooming in his chest like a rosy dawn finds itself in his voice too.
"Me? Sweet?" Oh, why does his heart act out like this? Jumping into his throat like it has something to say about those gentle words. That tender look and sweet relief of the burden of bloodied hands has it in such a tizzy. Ravus has to swallow it back down, and pretend his cheeks don't color with heat. "I think you mistake me for a better man. But, just know that I do not mind the tack of blood and grit under my nails if it is for you."
Still, it reminds him there is a task at hand. Ravus only looks away from Ignis when he must, and lets odd eyes drift to the corpse beside him. There is that measure of sadness again. Lost potential and a familiar connection severed. At least he is also familiar with loss. Knows the weight of its hand on his shoulder like an old friend's touch.
Ravus lays a palm over Ardyn's still heart, then traces his fingers to the center of his torso, to the highest arch of his sternum, and begins to murmur an old graveside prayer in Tenebraen. One he'd heard his mother recite at dozens of funerals for the sick that could not always be saved, too late to receive the oracle's blessing. The wish that to golden fields one's soul may go in the Beyond. A quiet rest from the cacophony of life. Deserved or undeserved, Ravus had never heard judgement in the way Queen Sylva had said her prayers, so he places only a simple kindness in his own words. Find peace in death.
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Ravus understands. He doesn't say it, but doesn't think he needs to either. Instead, he is left breathing out a soft sound that is a bit self-conscious, but the warmth blooming in his chest like a rosy dawn finds itself in his voice too.
"Me? Sweet?" Oh, why does his heart act out like this? Jumping into his throat like it has something to say about those gentle words. That tender look and sweet relief of the burden of bloodied hands has it in such a tizzy. Ravus has to swallow it back down, and pretend his cheeks don't color with heat. "I think you mistake me for a better man. But, just know that I do not mind the tack of blood and grit under my nails if it is for you."
Still, it reminds him there is a task at hand. Ravus only looks away from Ignis when he must, and lets odd eyes drift to the corpse beside him. There is that measure of sadness again. Lost potential and a familiar connection severed. At least he is also familiar with loss. Knows the weight of its hand on his shoulder like an old friend's touch.
Ravus lays a palm over Ardyn's still heart, then traces his fingers to the center of his torso, to the highest arch of his sternum, and begins to murmur an old graveside prayer in Tenebraen. One he'd heard his mother recite at dozens of funerals for the sick that could not always be saved, too late to receive the oracle's blessing. The wish that to golden fields one's soul may go in the Beyond. A quiet rest from the cacophony of life. Deserved or undeserved, Ravus had never heard judgement in the way Queen Sylva had said her prayers, so he places only a simple kindness in his own words. Find peace in death.