A realization had come to him, in the quiet that came afterwards. His father had known the truth that Nuada had never allowed himself to see. The fate of the world was never their responsibility. He had made himself no better than human with his maddened pursuit of power and control. In fact he had sunk even lower, because he should have felt the wrongness of his actions as he built towards war, should have heeded the sense of discord between what he sought to save and what that seemed to require of him.
He turned towards Nuala, feeling the only connection to this world that outlasted defeat. He had always felt such a confusing pull towards her in her gentleness, contrasting sharply with feelings of disdain for what he had always read as weakness. Her final act had shown how strong she truly was.
It caused such pain when she rejected him, even in her final moments cleaving to someone else, never again to him. They had shared almost everything growing up, and in their innocence shared even more as they both discovered the pleasures of their bodies, as though they were simply one being, and there had been no shame in it until they were discovered. Then of course they had been separated, his father placing a protection on them both. While Nuala had accepted this, as she accepted all her fathers judgements, Nuada had felt as though his own heart had been wrenched from his chest, leaving him feeling violated, shamed and so very alone.
Perhaps that first loss was the origin of the dark violence that dwelled within him, the war that followed only serving to temper him into a bladelike being whose only purpose was destruction. He had believed so completely that it was the only way. He simply didn't have the heart to let his world crumble under the dominion of creatures who used ancient forests merely to wipe away their own filth.
He was grateful though, even as he felt his very consciousness fading with his last breath, that Nuala had been there to balance his hardened rage at humankind, to stop him when he couldn't stop himself. Without her he would have brought so much horror to this world, and yet without her, perhaps he would have been whole…