"Strictly speaking, no." Alaric said, shaking his head. He smiled at Lil' Amon, who seemed deep in thought. "You look puzzled, Lil' Amon. What's on your mind?"
It was an obvious rhetorical question. As someone who could easily read hearts, Alaric knew exactly what Lil' Amon was thinking.
"I just don't understand." Lil' Amon said, his face showing genuine confusion as he glanced between Alaric and Klein. "If they're complete strangers, why help them? Why feel sad or happy for them?"
Lil' Amon truly didn't grasp it. No matter how endearing, he was still an Amon at his core... capable of forming bonds with those close to him but sorely lacking in empathy and true humanity, unable to comprehend such actions.
"…That's a great question." Alaric said, chuckling. He snapped his fingers, ensuring passersby wouldn't notice their conversation, then patted Lil' Amon's head, his golden eyes locking onto Amon's. "I used to have the same question. Why help people they don't know? Why let their hearts be swayed? Why grieve for strangers?"
Lil' Amon met his gaze, seeming to sense something. "Do you understand now?" He asked softly.
"Honestly… not entirely." Alaric replied, his answer both surprising and not. "I once thought it was because they were good people. I didn't understand 'good' back then, but I knew good people didn't need reasons to do good. Later, I realized even bad people would, in certain moments, risk everything to save someone."
"Then I thought it was empathy, compassion, a sense of shared suffering…" Alaric's eyes held a trace of reminiscence as he spoke softly. "But the answer isn't just that."
"So what is the answer?" Lil' Amon pressed, his curiosity tinged with stubbornness.
He was desperate for the solution to this question that had plagued him for so long.
"There's no standard answer." Alaric said, shaking his head with a rare, gentle smile. His gaze swept over the bustling crowd, people striving to live, before returning to Lil' Amon. "Humans are complex creatures, especially their emotions. They're so intricate that even now, I haven't fully learned how to be human."
"On this question, different people give different answers... justice, duty, pity, even self-interest or fear. I can't give you a precise answer because it doesn't exist."
Alaric continued, unhurried. "But if you need an answer, it's probably humanity. Humanity is that complex... beautiful at times, but also base."
Lil' Amon seemed to grasp it, yet not quite. Looking at Alaric, he asked, "Then why do you do all this?"
"Me?" Alaric chuckled. "Probably because it's convenient."
"Convenient?" Lil' Amon looked confused.
"Yeah, like feeding a cute cat you see on the street. I do these things because they're convenient." Alaric said candidly. "You might be disappointed, but I'm not some champion of justice. Often, I just act because it's easy."
Alaric had never been driven by a strong sense of justice or morality. As he'd said, his actions were often just convenient.
You couldn't expect a mini-Nyarlathotep to be a saint. Not destroying the world was already him being good.
Lil' Amon seemed to understand this time, staring at Alaric. "So you don't have much humanity either."
"I don't deny that." Alaric said, nodding frankly. "I'm not exactly brimming with humanity."
"But you want me to have humanity. Why?" Lil' Amon asked, puzzled, voicing a question he'd held for a long time. "Someone like you, with so little humanity, shouldn't you understand me? Aren't we the same kind?"
Alaric fell silent, letting out a faint sigh. "It's because we're the same that I know what humanity means to us. Amon, for beings like us, losing humanity is losing our sense of self... and self is the only thing we truly own."
He met Lil' Amon's gaze, his expression unusually serious. "Without humanity, we're just beasts, monsters, or lunatics driven by divinity and madness."
Lil' Amon seemed to understand, asking softly, "But what is humanity?"
"…I don't know." Alaric said, shaking his head with a smile. "That's why I'm learning. Learning humanity. And you should too."
"Lil' Amon, I don't expect you to love everyone or be a good person, but you should have more of yourself." Alaric said earnestly. "A self beyond the influence of your Beyonder characteristics."
Lil' Amon was quiet for a second before asking, "Like Mr. Azik?"
"I'm glad you thought of that." Alaric said, smiling and nodding. "The old Death Consul was the God of Death's puppet. The old Adam was a heartless doll. Neither had humanity or self. And you?"
"How much of you is truly yours, free from the Uniqueness's influence?" Alaric asked, speaking to Lil' Amon but also, perhaps, to the true Amon behind him. "You love stealing, pranks, being a thrill-seeker. You seem so self-driven. But are those desires truly yours, or just traits of your pathway?"
Lil' Amon fell silent.
Alaric continued, unhurried. "I'm not entirely dismissing your sense of self. Those likes are part of your unique humanity. But you can't only have those. If that's all you are, how are you different from the Uniqueness?"
"Even if Amon's consciousness fades one day, leaving just the Error Uniqueness, it'd still love stealing and pranks, right? That's the Error's nature... but not yours."
***
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