Only Two Minutes [Cyrus, Helle]

As he stood upon the balcony of his grandiose office, all that occupied Cyrus' mind was the thought of how desperately he had tried to make up for his failings. How much he had done in the vain hope that he could, in one way or another, atone for the promises that he had broken. In speaking with Shirohime, he knew that she did not simply consider him a waste of further time. In those little moments with Helle, he knew that his life was not something to be thrown away, to simply be sent back to the sands and never seen again.

Yet that knowledge did not keep the thought of his shattered oaths from weighing upon his shoulders. It did not prevent the gravity of Hayden's death, of Arcadia's defilement, of the atrocities which he could no longer prevent all on account of his own folly--

All of it, and so much more, still weighed deeply on the mind of the Grandmaster. He could not afford to keep feeling such grief. That yawning chasm within him, which had swallowed up all emotion and allowed him to press forward, was no longer present. Cyrus would not deny that it had become a crutch for him, that to send all unwelcome feelings to their annihilation was something which had surely caused only more problems. But now, when he needed to press forward more than ever before, he could hardly even take a step. His body, his mind, his spirit, all were clouded and crippled by the void which had been left by Mazda's separation. He, Kouroush Atar, was nothing more than a smoldering ember which could not have lit even kindling.

Calling for Ninsianna, Cyrus commanded her only to summon Helle. Perhaps she would not agree with this course of action. Perhaps she would deny him outright. But he knew, from the very depths of his soul, that he would achieve nothing like this. He had destroyed his humanity already. To play at it now, as if he had already earned some sort of pleasant respite, was only preventing him from doing what needed to be done.

"No, thank you, my dear."

In truth, Cyrus felt as though he should not have dared to refer to her with such a personal epithet. It was certainly not a secret how gravely he had hurt her. It was not some unknowable mystery to him how severely he had betrayed her trust, and even now, how much his own pain weighed upon her. Perhaps it was because of this that he had even felt compelled to have her summoned in such a roundabout way, or perhaps it was out of sheer defiance to his own former divinity, to refuse something even so simple if it was on account of that power.

But, none of that mattered. None of it mattered half so much as her leaning upon him, as the love for her that made him, for more than a few moments, feel as though everything he had considered was not worthwhile. That, surely, he need not bother her with one more misstep.

"All is not fine, Helle. Not so long as I am in this state, unable to lead as I have sworn to do. I know that I may rely on you, and that the Vandenreich surely does not even need me to carry any power. I wish nothing more than to accept this, to simply follow the natural path. But my mistakes do not weigh only upon myself. That creature born of my arrogance is a threat to all mankind, Helle. I know it."

Had Cyrus still been the man he once was, he surely would have gripped the balcony with such strength as to contort it. But, of course, he was nothing more than an empty shell now.

"All I have ever done is to chase after those things out of my reach. To seize them at any cost. But now, after all of it, I am left to see that the price for my hopes was never one that I myself had to pay. I look at the state of things, at my own actions, and all that I may ask is if I have done much good at all. If I am even capable of undoing what I have done, or if I must simply claw after whatever faint atonement this husk of a body can achieve."

Ah.

How he ached.

How he wished he had not summoned her here.

How he wished he had never dared to curse her with a love that brought only grief.

"I am not Azmi. The name bestowed upon me by my mother and father, the name you have called me in those most intimate of moments, is not a name I would ever think to call myself. 'Cyrus' was nothing more than a name I took for the sake of grandeur. I think it has proven far more fitting."

He could not argue with her, could not deny the truth of what she had said. In the end, he had only betrayed her by his folly. He had spoken before of how much worse he had once been, in those days before he stole godhood, but was he any better now? He, who had given away everything for the sake of mere arrogance? Out of a childish wish for perfection that none but he had longed for?

Cyrus had not changed. He was still arrogant, still a fool who thought himself far more than he was.

"I think, Helle, that I am certainly worse than the average man. What is left? My word, even after having broken so many oaths? My action, even when my every step is clouded by doubt and my body threatens to collapse? All that I can do is to simply be here. As your Grandmaster, as the man who loves you. But I think that you have more right to decide whether I am still fit to fill either of those roles."

Even in spite of that doubt, Cyrus did not step away from her side. He would not dare to do so, not when she was so dear to him. It was something he could not simply leave unacknowledged, that in both of these roles he had grown insufficient. That he had no right to them beyond that which had come before.

"Whether or not I have any right, I still strive to be those things. I still strive to be the man that I am no longer, Helle."

Why did he reach for the heavens even now, knowing that he could never again grasp them? Knowing, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he would never again be the guiding light that he had knowingly given away?

"All that I have ever desired was peace. To create a world where no others but myself need suffer, where all hardship was mine alone. But already I have made such a dream impossible, I know. Had I acted differently, more callously, perhaps things would be different. But there is no suffering now which is only mine."

As he spoke, Cyrus held the hand of the woman beside him all the tighter. It was not much, in this state. But it was all that he could manage.

"My only regret is that I held so fervently to that dream that I could not see the cost of it. That I did not think of those I forced to suffer. So many of those friends, Helle, are already gone. I have lost them and scarcely even realized why, only blamed it upon those evils I believed I could surely stamp out alone. I summoned you here that I might ask you to assist me in restoring some faint glimmer of myself, to return me to even a single of my aspects. But that would solve nothing. I will not throw myself toward the heavens again. I should sooner think of how I might shoot them down."

Cyrus knew that he was not a man who had ever been worth much. In the depths of his being, he wondered if he had always known. But such need to be greater, to exist as something beyond such an empty existence-- that was what had driven him to steal godhood in the first place, was it not? Yet it had done nothing but create someone far worse. Delusions of grandeur suddenly fulfilled, and yet with no responsibility, no merit. For all the good that he had done, Cyrus could not begin to count his evils.

"I may ask forgiveness until the very end of my days. But how am I to live, knowing that those I have left behind will never hear those words even once? That no apology will reach the ears of the dead?"

Had Helle spoken a thousand words, even a million, perhaps Cyrus never would have understood. Perhaps the gulf between the two of them would have been too great, distance between himself and his humanity now uncrossable. Even as he watched her step away from him, as his heart filled with grief at her hand slipping away from his own, Cyrus still would have stood by his words, in his belief. He even opened his mouth to speak, to insist upon some thing or another--

But, whatever he might have said, it disappeared into the skies alongside the sound of Helle's hand upon him.

It had not been an especially strong blow, but Cyrus was not an especially strong man. Even something such as that was enough to rattle him to the very depths of his core, to make every bone ache and to nearly knock him to the ground. But the shock of such a blow was not something one could simply ignore, nor were the words which followed it. Even through the pain which rung through his whole body, Cyrus listened. It was all that he could do.

She was right. Despite all of his effort for the good of others, Cyrus had only ever thought of himself. Of what he could do, what he could change. The dreams of others, their reasons for fighting, had always been simply cast aside as if they were inconsequential. They were misguided. He had aimed only to shoudler their burdens, even if those burdens were ones they wished to carry. Cyrus raised a hand slowly to the cheek Helle had struck, the pain still thoroughly overwhelming. But, despite that pain, he spoke.

"You are right."

A simple admission. But despite its nature, there was no defeat in his voice, no concession or grief. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but even in that quietude it was confident and sure. Cyrus had no faith in himself, in his own ability to be anything for anyone. But he did have faith in her. In those he had chosen to accompany him.

"Every moment of my life has been about myself. My own ambition, my own path for the world. My selflessness has been only for the sake of keeping my own guilt at bay. The dreams of others... I have only trampled upon them."

He had asked for so many things for the sake of the Vandenreich, for the sake of the world, for the people. But now, Cyrus was asking for none of that.

"Help me, Helle, to begin anew. To carry those dreams onward. I cannot do so alone."