[closed]

[youngprodigy]

WHO: Cid, Himeka, Alphinaud, and Estinien
WHAT: Cid has some explaining about the past moon, and Garlean culture, to do
WHERE: A settlement outside of Greentruth
WHEN: The beginning of June
WARNINGS: Discussion of body horror, violent evil empires. Will update if anything else comes up

His encounter with Emet-Selch has been an ever-present thought on Cid’s mind. The guilt he has from his role in the annihilation of Bozja, his role in the massacre at Carteneau, has been present for a long time, but for the Ascian to be able to pull that out of him without even intending– well. It’s not good, is what it is. He’s aware of the general goal of the Ascians, that they’ve been present for thousands of years and have brought about untold misery in an attempt to revive their god, but it’s a frankly moot point thinking about now.

Even if Emet-Selch is somehow alive.

At least it was a painless endeavor to gather everyone together for this. He hopes it’s his own anxiety gnawing at him; that he won’t be stating things people don’t already know.

He folds his arms across his chest, looking serious but not like he’s about to tell world-shattering news. After all, the fact that Cid Garlond had been a high-profile defector is common knowledge, even if the ins and outs of what a nan’s job is might not be so clear to the average Eorzean.

The only thing really notable about Cid is the fact that his arms— and only his arms— have been bandaged in a way not unlike Gaius’ bandages to cover up the burn scars he has. Though unlike Gaius, Cid’s bandages don’t extend to his fingers. “I had a run-in with Emet-Selch in Venera.” It’s obvious that there’s plenty for him to say on the subject, but he seems to refrain from launching into it all immediately. “He and I— Emperor Solus and I, I should say— we have a history. I was the second highest-ranking nan in the country; I knew him quite well. Or I thought I did.” Solus had never been real, after all. A bit part for a megalomaniac to play and nothing more.

In other words, it’s a complete mess. “I decided to say something, because chances are good he’ll use his newfound knowledge of my most miserable experiences against me. Potentially against all of us, as it does involve Dalamud.”

He’s not sure how the Ascian could pull something like that off, but at this point Cid isn’t going to underestimate him.

Comments

EW spoilers

[aquaveiled]

Emet-Selch certainly has a way with people, doesn't he? Cid's own perspective is unique, of course, knowing him as a Garlean and not just as an Ascian and adversary. While she has something of a unique peak into Cid's own past thanks to experimentations with the Echo, she knows that's it's a little different to have the people you thought you knew presented to you in an entirely new light.

(Having to compare this man as the Emet-Selch she defeated with the one that came to her aid in Elpis and Ultima Thule once again has been something of a challenge, if a necessary one.)

But there is clearly something weighing on Cid's mind, so they will gladly hear it.

"He's got irons in every fire, doesn't he?" She shakes her head before moving forward. "Dalamud was his idea, wasn't it? To usher in the next Calamity."

[youngprodigy]

"I don't know if he intended for it to go the way it did," Cid admits. "But it was my research that allowed van Darnus to weaponize the transmitter." It's not really a confession, because it is common knowledge what lead Cid to defect from the Empire. Still, it's important to get it out there. "When I saw him in Venera, I was... badly infected. It triggered some sort of reaction. For a moment, I thought I was in the past, addressed him because of that. When I snapped out of it, things kept happening. Like the memories we saw with the auracite. Played out without a way for me to stop them, but he could affect them."

Cid's worst fears played out for Emet-Selch to see, in other words. The past, as it concerned Dalamud and everything leading up to that day in Carteneau. "He now knows about my... thoughts on what transpired." It's about the only way he can even begin to describe just how traumatic Bozja, and the subsequent Calamity, had been on him. "Given what the Kenoma are after, I found myself concerned he'd found himself inspiration."

He wants to believe the Kenoma have nowhere near as much power as Bahamut, but he’s not taking any chances. "There’s also the fact that he called me 'viator'. I was never declared a traitor, mayhap because of my reputation. I don't know what to make of it– why he’d care."

[coerthantorment]

"I would suspect he wants the response that you're presently having," Estinien says, from his place leaning against a nearby tree, arms crossed. "To be unsettled." He frankly doesn't feel like he has much constructive to say about any of this, but that much he thinks is true. "He's a sullen man and cares for naught but the wounds of his own heart. I expect he'd say anything for what flicker of satisfaction he may glean from it."

[youngprodigy]

Cid glances over in Estinien's direction for a long moment. "You're right, of course. I only know aught of the real man because of what Himeka has said in the past, so it's difficult for me to reconcile." So it's difficult, if not completely impossible, for Cid to have much luck in distinguishing between the real Emet-Selch, and Solus zos Galvus.

"I worked under him, so of course the relationship was... different, but I knew Solus better than most. I was like to be one of the only people who noticed how he changed after his son died. He was never a warm man, but he became... colder."

Though Gaius almost certainly noticed the change too, Cid never once brought it up with his adoptive father. "It would be easier for me to say he'd long stopped seeing people as people, but I... even now I can't say that was the impression I had before I knew what he truly is."

[aquaveiled]

A part of her had hoped that they were long past dealing with Emet-Selch like this, but that was before they awoke on Horos. The Emet-Selch that is here, now, is the same one wrought in grief and willing to go to whatever end to accomplish what he sees as his goal. He doesn't have the clarity of the past--ironically, much as he believes she is missing in turn.

Himeka shakes her head.

"You couldn't have known. He's had millennia of practice playing his part."

[coerthantorment]

Estinien nods, agreeing with Himeka. She really is the expert on this, having seen all sides of the man... except perhaps the one Cid speaks of. How much of it was an act? It'd be simple to say all of it, but...

"However infuriating he may be, he is far from simple-minded," Estinien adds. "There are complexities and contradictions to be found in the way a man like that views the world. Sometimes, the most convenient belief is the one we cling to most tightly... whatever justifies the work we see as necessary."

To Emet-Selch, denying the people of the shards their personhood would just be easier, wouldn't it? No matter what doubt he may feel, he would gain little from indulging them long-term, unless he was prepared to forsake what he had lost.

[youngprodigy]

"You're right, of course."

He's aware of too little, just the stories Himeka tells him here and there. And there's plenty he's deliberately avoided, because frankly the idea absolutely terrifies him. The notion that he's a fragment of somebody else entirely?

That's something he refuses to dwell on.

"But I..." he trails off, brows furrowed. How does he explain this? "I don't believe it was all an act. He changed, after his son died." Admittedly, it could still be projection on Cid's part; his ties to Garlemald have never vanished, of course. They can't, not entirely. "It was my belief at the time that he was planning on naming him as successor shortly before his son succumbed to his illness."

That's another one of those things he refuses to dwell on. There's no point, especially with the entire city in ruins. "He never much cared for Varis, but things got worse after that."

[aquaveiled]

Just another tragedy in the life of Emet-Selch, it seems. Truthfully Himeka's knowledge of him as Solus zos Galvus has been entirely supplied by Cid and the Scions. She isn't much for reading up on history and assumes whatever is pertinent would be given to her, but...well.

It would be easy to write off that the loss of a child in 'this form' would mean nothing to him, given how he had proclaimed he had fallen so low as to break bread and sire children with the sundered in an effort to understand their own existence. But despite his best efforts, she sees that he is still prone to hope. A powerful feeling, freeing in many ways, but it always comes with the threat of seeing that same hope crash and crumble.

Himeka frowns. Had this child been something of hope for him?

"What was he like before then? We only know him as the man who led to the Empire." Which doesn't usually carry positive connotations to those who live in the conquered and threatened lands.

[coerthantorment]

Estinien glances at Himeka as she processes that, and then back to Cid, curious about his answer. He knows this is much more personal for the two of them than it is for him, so he simply listens, for now. He has a low opinion of the man, whatever his emotional journey might have been, but him having a true investment in his child is at least an interesting quirk in a history of cruelty.

[youngprodigy]

Cid takes a moment to consider Himeka's question. "He was never a warm person." More than like, it's not a surprising response. Solus was, without question, a dictator. "But he was interested in keeping the country running. Though as nan, my primary job was to design weaponry, I was an advisor for the more practical purposes as well."

It seems like so long ago now— back before he'd defected, before Garlemald had been destroyed and an enormous tower had been built in place of the castle.

"Magitek, even in Garlemald, has always existed to make peoples' lives more comfortable as much as it's existed for weaponry. If conquest and instability were truly all he was after, why bother making the Garlean people love him? He was never feared; our national dish is named after a time he visited training soldiers and ate with them as though he considered them equals."

It made perfect sense for the conquered to fear the Empire, of course. In a horrific way Cid couldn't continue to ignore. But had Solus truly been ruthless beyond measure, the Populares would have been stamped out completely. "I have to believe there was a time he saw something in the Republic."

[aquaveiled]

Why indeed? Himeka doesn't have answers to any of those questions, of course. She can only postulate that a part of him still wanted to feel connected to a people...even if they weren't the people he would have preferred.

"He's not incapable of hope," she says finally. "Though I'm sure he'd rather it be otherwise..."

Himeka shakes her head and gives a small shrug. He had held hope up until the very end, really. Small pieces of it, but it was there.

"I imagine it's the same here too."

[youngprodigy]

He's silent for a long time, obviously mulling over what to say. For all he'll never return to Garlemald, it will forever be his homeland. "You're certainly the one who had more glimpses of the real him."

Though, despite his wording, it's obvious Cid wants to believe that Emet-Selch also saw something he cared about in Garlemald. "In the cave... he indicated he took my defection quite personally." It's entirely true that Cid hadn't thought through how it would affect people he knew— Himeka had an unfortunate front-row seat to his reunion with Nero to attest to that fact.

"I thought at first he was merely taunting me, but do you believe it possible Emet-Selch was truly wounded by my actions?"

[aquaveiled]

Himeka doesn't hesitate to nod. One of his flaws, one might say, is that Emet-Selch has a habit of getting attached and then "allowing" himself to be disappointed in the end. Whether or not that's the case in every situation he dramatically recounts is one thing, but is is possible? Absolutely.

"I can't say how deep it would go, but I do think he likes more people than he wants to let on."

[youngprodigy]

It's... certainly something.

Not that Cid thinks it does any good whatsoever, because at the end of the day, he doesn't know if hope will ever be enough for Emet-Selch, especially if despite his of restoring the world to how it was once upon a time, he immediately accepting the Kenoma. "I'm sure there's naught I could do, personally."

He didn't have the sort of relationship with Solus that would lend itself to conversations of hope and how precious life is. "Still, we must do something for him. Somehow."

[aquaveiled]

Do something for him...yes, she does feel the same way though she knows their comrades may not all think so. Estinien doesn't have the history that she and Cid do, to their varying degrees. And while she's been disappointed in Emet-Selch's chosen path in Horos, she doesn't believe it's the end.

Not quite yet.

"Convincing him that there's something to value in this world would be difficult...but not impossible."

[youngprodigy]

From the point of view of the average Garlean, Emperor Solus had saved their floundering little nation. Cid isn't entirely immune to the propaganda himself, and that isn't including how he'd been a high-ranking engineer for years.

"I want to give him a chance," he says quietly. Maybe that's admitting too much for Estinien, but Cid knows that Himeka will understand.