Normally, someone wilting like that would please him. He - and nearly everyone - knows it. So, why then does it cause the slightest pinprick again of guilt instead...? Instead of completely withdrawing though, Ravus at least responds to his surprisingly vulnerable proposal. This might be salvageable after all.
(The voice in the back of his head nags at him again to stop thinking of this in such a way, like something to 'win' but- Does Ardyn know how not to? He's not so sure.)
"I was a much younger man," he says, "but somehow managed to have my charm." Granted, his 'charm' these days is mostly performative and manipulative. Back then though, with Aera, his charm points were much different in that he really didn't have any at all beyond his somewhat awkward fumbling. She had seen in him though something worthy and he... took it for granted. Didn't he? He likes to think he won't again.
But he likes to think a lot of things. He doesn't draw his hand back yet as he considers what's unfolding unexpectedly.
"That makes two of us, really," he admits though, to Ravus not knowing how to do anything by half-measures. Ardyn - then and now - feels so strongly, so intensely that he hardly knows what to do with all the emotions most of the time. On that note, what Ravus says does hit him... odd. Not enough, he claims, and Ardyn has to say: "Never let anyone make you feel as though you aren't enough. Least of all me." Anything he's willing to give is more than what Ardyn deserves, he knows, and yet here he is taking anyway. So, he doesn't have the right to ever believe what Ravus can provide is not enough.
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(The voice in the back of his head nags at him again to stop thinking of this in such a way, like something to 'win' but- Does Ardyn know how not to? He's not so sure.)
"I was a much younger man," he says, "but somehow managed to have my charm." Granted, his 'charm' these days is mostly performative and manipulative. Back then though, with Aera, his charm points were much different in that he really didn't have any at all beyond his somewhat awkward fumbling. She had seen in him though something worthy and he... took it for granted. Didn't he? He likes to think he won't again.
But he likes to think a lot of things. He doesn't draw his hand back yet as he considers what's unfolding unexpectedly.
"That makes two of us, really," he admits though, to Ravus not knowing how to do anything by half-measures. Ardyn - then and now - feels so strongly, so intensely that he hardly knows what to do with all the emotions most of the time. On that note, what Ravus says does hit him... odd. Not enough, he claims, and Ardyn has to say: "Never let anyone make you feel as though you aren't enough. Least of all me." Anything he's willing to give is more than what Ardyn deserves, he knows, and yet here he is taking anyway. So, he doesn't have the right to ever believe what Ravus can provide is not enough.