un: grimm

[hagrides]

My roommate since I arrived in Lunatia one year ago, Lobco, has gone home. The apartment is terribly quiet without her, even though she was never the loud type. Strange how that happens.

Will you remember what has transpired here when you return? Do you wish to remember?

Comments

[hagrides]

I am fated to die within a day or two.

[wearingguess]

You don't say! So am I!!

[hagrides]

Indeed? I am sorry to hear that.

[wearingguess]

I am sorry about yours, too.

Is it something you might be able to change, if you could return with all the knowledge you have from your time here?

[hagrides]

It is not, nor would I wish to. I will die so that my child may live: it is a small price to pay.

[wearingguess]

I would not call it small. Though it is certainly fair.

Did you always know? (Does your child know?)

[hagrides]

I did and they do. It is the fate of all my line, to sacrifice ourselves to keep the Nightmare Heart burning.

[wearingguess]

Then
that fate awaits your child as well, someday?

[hagrides]

Indeed. And their child, and their child, until the end of all things.

[wearingguess]

But that is
grotesque!!
Who decreed this monstrous cycle?? Is there no recourse??

[hagrides]

The alternative would be far worse. Cruel as it may seem, it is simply our fate.

[wearingguess]

"Far worse" according to whom? That Nightmare Heart itself?

[hagrides]

It would be the end of entire worlds.

[wearingguess]

How can you be sure?

[hagrides]

The duty of the Nightmare Heart, and of my line, is to cleanse fallen kingdoms of lingering anger and pain. Without that, the land cannot be reborn, and all would eventually decay into wastelands.

[wearingguess]

So your death is not for your child's sake at all, but for this vision of a greater good. Is it not so?

[hagrides]

We consume that pain to survive. If I do not pass down my power, my child will starve to death.

[wearingguess]

But it's too horrible! Bad enough your child must lose you, but to know they were the reason... and then to be sacrificed themselves, in turn...
And this hideous balancing act! This pain is scarce enough that there is not enough of it to sufficiently nourish you both. And yet if the amount that does exist is allowed to persist in the world, all rebirth will cease utterly?
That is truly a nightmare! The worst villain could not have devised anything crueler.

[hagrides]

Fate is cruel. I have given up on cursing it long ago.

[wearingguess]

Simply cursing it is not exactly what I propose.
This cycle did not come into being spontaneously. Nor is it infinitely sustainable, unless the lives of these fallen kingdoms are being manipulated behind the scenes, too. Think about it... If what you say is accurate, then if ever there comes an era when no worlds are falling into ruin, your line will die out for lack of sustenance. Then, far into the future, if they do start to decay, then no one will be left to consume the pain and all will be wasteland forever.
Or does your Nightmare Heart also have some way to ensure there is always a fallen world somewhere?
The Great Flow of fate is supposed to be about evolution... about cycles that may repeat, but progress a little further every time, so that all life can move together into the future we create. An endless repetition of sacrifice sounds more like stagnation...

[hagrides]

...You sound like a dear friend of mine. 'A song that never ends is no song at all.'

[wearingguess]

I think
A song should last as long as there are those who wish to sing.
But no chorus is worth more than each voice within it.

[hagrides]

I am willing to sing. No matter how the song may have started, I do not regret or fear my duty.

[wearingguess]

But you were not there when the song began, and you never had any influence on its melody. Even if you feel yourself to be truly willing... if your entire life has been lived in the Nightmare Heart's service, was there ever any real possibility you would feel otherwise? Did your ancestors intend for you to have a choice in the matter?

Do you intend for your child to have a choice in the matter?

[hagrides]

I would not think less of them for deciding to end the cycle. Before I am the Nightmare King, I am their father.

Yet it is true what you say, that they and I have lived with the knowledge of what was expected of us our entire lives.