"It had not occurred to me that they might wish to force you, merely that we can't escape our past, can we? I fled my homeland, as you say. I wanted nothing to do with Ishgard, or the Dragonsong War or any of it, ever again. And here I am. Where will you go, when fate calls you home?" he shakes his head, tucks his head down, "I'm not asking you to say anything, I suppose," he says, after a moment, "It's not as though it's a decision you even could make now." He falls silent after that a moment, listening, absorbing.

"No, I'm not going to kill you. I wouldn't have killed any of them if I could have helped it, if they gave me any other choice. But no one ever does. There are never any choices, or the choices are so horrible as to be no choice at all. Kill or be killed. Succeed or hundreds, thousands of people die." He shakes his head, shifts so he's looking back up at Phillip,

"No. It is not," he says, about the burden. And once again, there's that finality in simplicity. He says nothing else. It is too much for one person, but it is his.