Letting You Go

An End

...Maybe you forgot about me.

Maybe you found something so mystique, so sinister, so unbelievable that I could barely comprehend it, even if I tried, and that preventing it or stopping it has required the absolute peak of your ability twenty-four-seven. I have been in this house for so long that it honestly wouldn't surprise me that you now know more than I do... Like I said, a perceptive little thing, you are.

Maybe you went and got yourself secretly heavily involved with one of the nations, the Archons, or another Harbinger. Maybe someone or some organization, smaller, more tame, simpler. Or maybe you've gotten involved with the Abyss, somehow. I wouldn't put it past you, at least, I can't. I couldn't.

...Maybe you found our solution, but you're so far gone from this world, so far gone from this plane of existence, this universe, this dimension, this timeline, that you've lost the ability to communicate with me... I think I've held onto that excuse the longest. That you're no longer with us. And perhaps you are, but... Not in the way I hoped.

It's just been so long, my son.

The house has changed quite a bit in your absence, I have elected to allow more freedom for some of the older children outside the house. Your older sibling Freminet, and his brother and sister, for example, have their own objectives I have given them and the like. But a little while after you went missing, I tasked him, secretly, to find you. To connect the dots that he can, and hopefully find a lead on your whereabouts. But the trail went cold seven months ago in Natlan, so for his safety, I have decided to axe that operation. I... Refuse to lose him too. But I'd just like to say one last thing.

...I have one more secret to share with you. I lied that morning when I said I'd let all my demons out of the closet because I kept my greatest sin to myself. I know you said to be truthful to you, to tell you everything, and I'm terribly sorry but... There's no way you would've continued to love me thereafter... How could anyone? It's about the day I murdered my family, the free-for-all all...

Mother told me about it in advance. The whole thing.

She had told me to prepare to kill them all, to fight to be the last one standing, and that she had such high hopes that I would come out on top. I fought her on it, told her it was meaningless, but arguing was futile. And she knew I knew that...

I should've said something. To the other children, or at least to Clervie, but I filled my head with excuses. Told myself the other kids would refuse to be saved for the sake of honor, and they'd just kill me if I refused to participate. Told myself that I could never act out an escape plan with even just Clervie, or that a rebellion of all the children would be suicide. But those were all still just excuses, because in the end, after all this time, some twisted part of me... Wanted to win.

To not just meet Mother's expectations, but to exceed them... I wanted to slaughter my family. A horrid, selfish, wicked truth of mine I refused to acknowledge for the entirety of my life. I pushed it down into the deepest, darkest pits of my psyche in an attempt to deny it ever since the thought manifested in my head, but... It was no use.

I fought and killed my mother under the guise that I was attempting to avenge my fallen family, and receive justice for her forcing us to fight like so, but... I was just looking for a way out of my incredulous guilt. I saw the position of Harbinger and as the new director of the House of the Hearth as an opportunity to redeem myself. To raise orphans far, far better than Mother ever could, and produce better soldiers, better people, in yet another attempt to absolve myself, to atone for the crimes I committed against my siblings... In case it wasn't obvious enough, it didn't work.

The youngest life I took that night wasn't even ten...

Surely you can see why I opted not to share this truth with you, and yet, I feel it's just another one of the crimes I've committed against my loved ones. The one chance I had in my life to confide in someone about this terrible guilt I've felt for so long, and I let it slip right by me. The one time someone genuinely offered to hear my cries of anguish, and to offer me even the slightest bit of peace, and I refused... I am such a coward. And for what?

"...You will make a great king," she said... But I am no king. The Father who feigned madness, and went mad.

The Father who gave up on everything. On you.

There is nothing left in this world for me. I don't deserve anything anyway. I especially don't deserve you. I never did. My single candle in the howling dark. A possibility to have more from this life. To do more with this life. For myself, and for my children. For our family. A real opportunity to find true redemption. True atonement... But I refuse to be a fool any longer.

You are gone, my son. Dead, I presume, or in such a tight spot that your death is all but guaranteed. Inevitable. I had held out such hope for my life, that one day things could be different, and with every day, every hour, every minute, every fleeting second, that hope was slowly but surely diminished. I was almost devoid of all hope, and you took what little was left in me when you ventured off. Now, there is nothing left but a cold shell. A hole in my heart. I so desperately want to believe that you're still out there. Maybe your letters have been sabotaged in some way, that maybe someone is keeping you from saying anything. Maybe the Fatui have caught on, dealt with you, and the Tsaritsa only hasn't punished me because I'm too important, too useful. Or maybe she just wants to see me squirm. To drown in my sorrow and impotence, as retribution for defying her. This is what I get for trying to carve my own destiny. My own fate. For believing in a better tomorrow, where all my agony, all my anguish, may finally end. But it seems as though I may only ever find that peace, that warm light of freedom, in the grave...

...I wish I could be like you.

To do as your brother said and gaze up at the beautiful stars every night and be reinvigorated by that small sliver of undeniable hope. That belief that somewhere, out in this vast, vicious world, you're still out there, my... baby. Searching, fighting, enduring gruesome pain with all your might for the sake of a solution. For a way out to bring back to us. To bring back to me, even if I don't deserve it. But alas, I cannot continue. The stars are so bright in the sky, and how I wish I could accept their light in my heart. How I wish I could just have the smallest, tiniest bit of hope once again... But that's not who I am. I am a monster, who is only capable of taking and deceiving. I am not a knave, I am the Knave. A thief, a killer... A fraud. This is all I will ever be. All I will be remembered for. I don't deserve anything else but to dig my own grave ever deeper, to give in to my heinous mentality, for there's nothing else. I am expedient. Too dark, too cold to allow the warm light in. Too devoid of belief in anything truly kind and lovely. Too afraid. Too miserable.

...I am anything but a stranger to the reality of this world, so just know that I understand. I have shed more tears tonight than any other day in my life, pleaded to any divine force that would hear my cries, and trade my life for yours, but it's useless. Futile. Just as it's always been in my life. There is nothing I can do now, or ever. So I'm saying goodbye, my son.

I'm letting you go.

With eternal love, always and forever,

Your father, Arlecchino