A/N: I actually wrote this right before I finished the game. But it worked out pretty well to evil cannon, y/y?
She let me make my own choices. Were they good, she would have been proud. As they were bad, it was just as well. She loved me unconditionally, and that love kept her critical eye averted. It was probably the purest, most honest thing I've ever had, but as I'd learned so long ago with my deceased eldest son, I didn't deserve love. Because the choices were bad, and though the love stayed the same irregardless of it all, they had corrupted my person. So what right had I to wish back what was rightfully taken away? (This ideal– later to become known as karma– would come to rule my way of thinking in later years.) As for the thousands that died, just as many had at my own hands. To let them live would be hypocritical, and I had no qualms against it. So, I chose what I had come to know well, perhaps by my own voalition, or maybe the will of some almighty power; chose what was easiest and most likely expected of me: the needs of the one. Me.
I was deaf to Hannah's protests and Reaver's approval, blind to Garth's quiet discontent. I could have explained to them my reasoning, why it was the only option, how I didn't give a beetle's ass about the gold. I could have. But they wouldn't have understood, and they had come to accept my costumary silence.
Even so, there was something about the scorn in Hannah's eyes that cut me, and the smugness in Reaver's voice that insulted my pride (like he knew I would choose this; like he had any right to assume he knew me at all). And Garth, well... there had been a reason I'd paused so many years ago in Lucien's castle, followed after the mage as he left the plans of a Tattered Spire behind. For some reason, I craved his approval, as a child might an elder (he was my elder, wasn't he?), and his lack of response, his tired eyes– they left me feeling empty.
And then they left. I was alone, again, with nothing but the gold of a selfish act, and the knowledge of inadequecy. Not good enough for love, for acceptance, for friendship or understanding– not good enough for a destiny without blood, not good enough to be good. But this didn't bother me. After all, well, I was evil. These emotions, these trivial things so akin to guilt, were beyond my comprehension. Because though it was a shame, it was a fact of life, and what power did one really have when they had regret?