'I see… I get it now, why I felt I could trust this man from the start'
As Seth returned Lloyd's stare, he felt everything coming together in his mind.
'I may seem laid back and careless, but I at least know how to judge a person; When I first met him, he put on a façade of a king, he showed off his wealth and used Azula's true form as an act of intimidation, he took control of the conversation whilst telling me some information to keep me going, he didn't want to entrust me everything before I was at his baseline'
He thought back to their first encounter, Lloyd gave him information he needed whilst also outlining what Lloyd wanted him to do, but Lloyd didn't give him the amulet nor anything else, only a ring which seemed valuable but was only a trinket in the end.
'Was he trying to observe my reactions and feel me out?' It seemed that way from what he was recalling.
Then he thought about what he had just experienced, it was entirely different; From the moment he entered the room there was no grand display, the treasury was gone, he was led to the centre tower and met with Lloyd with no trouble, even when he was invited to sit, they were on equal levels, not the difference between a throne and the bottom of the stairs pushing the difference in status.
But most importantly, he was someone who had nothing else to lose; Seth was his only chance, it's more than likely another person wouldn't come to this place if it's already been more than 1000 years, let alone someone trustworthy enough to be trusted with the task.
Seth recalled his memory of the younger Lloyd returning on the first day, the image of the young but proud looking prince and the old but mild king sat in front of him overlapped, in the end he only ever had one thing in mind at both times.
Seth couldn't help but let a small smile creep up on his face, though his lack of control over his expressions made it look slightly creepy it still managed to evoke a reaction from Lloyd sitting opposite.
"What is it?" The sudden change caught Lloyd off guard.
"Nothing much, I think I just realised why I can trust you" Seth said, letting out a small chuckle.
'A man who has lost everything will cling to hope, no matter how dim it seems'
He remembered when he first reincarnated, he didn't take it too well for a while; He may have been a strait-laced person in his past life but that doesn't mean he wouldn't miss what he left behind, he probably cried more than any other child when younger because of this.
"Well, that's good news. I can't blame you for being sceptical even after all this." Lloyd said with a sigh, his face let on his age as his eyes seemed to reflect the passing of all his years, worn yet not defeated.
"Speaking honestly, after all these years I was almost at my wits end, while I spent most of it sleeping, I kept waking up to check the [Bloodline Rose], my greatest fear has always been that the small glimmer left in it would disappear forever." His eyes closed as if recalling something.
"If all those sacrifices went to waste after all this time… I don't know what I could ever say to them."
Silence fell on the room; it wasn't awkward just one of serenity as if any form of conflict had ended.
"I wanted to ask something" Seth said, he felt he could ask it now.
"What is it?" Lloyd replied, having a feeling he knew what was going to be said.
"I came from the edge of this ravine, I saw what was left of the capital, left of Reverie; It's barely in enough pieces to be recognised, I understand what happened mostly but there's one thing I need to check" His memory replayed the one scene he didn't want to, barely outside the castle was one of the most horrific scenes he'd seen so far.
"When the capital was being sieged, why did you not let the civilians take shelter in the castle walls? You left them for dead, struggling to their last break as they walked on their neighbours' corpses to attempt to survive" His voice couldn't help but dip, even he felt disgust thinking about the decision behind such a thing.
Lloyd sighed, cocked his head back and lent back on his chair as he stared at the ceiling of the ever-so-tall central tower.
"That it was a necessary sacrifice… I won't say that, in fact I don't think I should even try to make an excuse; What I was thinking about back then wasn't the welfare of the citizens, it was how this country could survive."
"If those people were stood in front of me today, I'm sure they'd want a piece of my guts, but even then, I don't regret what I did, when the capital was under attack, we got word of the army heading towards the castle; The citizens ran away in fear and hoped that we could defend them, but we already knew the end result." Seth could almost feel the atmosphere surrounding Lloyd darken as he recalled the last moments of the assault.
"We needed all the time we could get, I needed to prepare for the worst, and I wasn't done, I needed to buy as much time as possible for my descendants to run away; We couldn't lower the bridge as that would create a hole in the main castles defence, so I gave the order to ignore the people." He gripped the sides of the chair he was sitting on, the memory clearly pained him.
"They say a country exists because of its people… but if there's no banner or foundation for them to gather around, there's no 'people' in the first place"
"If there was a way to save them while also buying time…" He whispered before he returned his gaze to Seth.
"Tell me, what do you think a king is?" He asked Seth, causing him to become slightly bewildered at the sudden question.
'A King? I don't know honestly…' He had to think for a few tens of seconds before he gave an answer that even he wasn't sure about.
"A figurehead for the people…? No that doesn't sound right…"
Seth then gave it some thought before giving up.
"I don't know" he said, he honestly couldn't give an answer he would be happy with.
Lloyd nodded and spoke "My father asked me the same thing when I was still a young boy, like you I didn't manage to give a clear answer, do you know what he said to me? "A king is a king!" he said!"
The answer definitely made eyebrows rise, Seth almost wanted to mock it, yet he held his 'tongue'.
"Yes, I heard it back then and thought he was insane, what kind of answer was that; But it's rather simple, a 'King' is a position, not a person; The ideal king will differ from person to person, what they seek in one will change throughout their lives and never remain the same, so in the end, a king is merely a 'king', even a tyrant that ran their kingdom to the ground would still be a 'king'"
Although the explanation was convoluted, Seth found himself agreeing; no matter any example in history each king had their own way of ruling whether good or bad, in the end what mattered was not the position of 'king' but the person holding it.
"That's why, when I made that choice, I was not making it as the king of the country, but a man that wanted it to live through that disaster; But that doesn't change what I did, even if there was no other way to survive, I used unwilling sacrifices to give this country a chance to live again."
You could say his logic was twisted, yet even if Seth would call it that he had no explanation or answer as to what he could have done.
"As a ruler, one must never be scared to stain your hands with blood, but at the same time you must never wash it away; Never forget, live and carry that weight until your end" Lloyd stated, whether he was explaining this to Seth or trying to convince himself, he did not know.
Seth was silent, in the end, what could he say? Could he have done any better, could he have given a solution? He doesn't know, he isn't Lloyd nor is he a king; In the end he just nodded, this conversation ended there.