Regardless of how flippant and frenzied he might act, much of the time Fandaniel truly feels nothing. He pushes himself and those around him to ever-further extremes, seeking to feel something, to drink in their emotions vicariously, if he cannot taste them himself. Rage, joy, fear, all of those emotions and more flicker to life in his breast only briefly before being swallowed by the emptiness, the numbness, the weary desolation that sits at the core of his being, like a once-lush woodland after the heat and unyielding destruction of an uncontrolled wildfire has passed. There is naught in him but ash and smoke, a yawning pit of destitution and isolation. Even hatred is too much to ask, for there is no fuel to burn to permit that spark any sort of extended life; like every other emotion, it flares up briefly, then gutters and dies.

He had struggled enough as Hermes, when yet his soul was whole. How much more did he grapple with his own mental demons once that “perfect” and “complete” soul was sundered, torn into pieces and scattered like so many others? And when he had been reborn millennia later, found by the Unsundered and given his memories back…he found them empty. There was no meaning in his past life--rather, his past self had no more idea about what the purpose of it all, all the suffering and pain, could possibly be.

At first, he thinks himself far superior to that shadowed figure in those hollow memories. As Amon, he had a purpose. His scientific research was fascinating, the various experiments he came up with even more so, and they were often quite entertaining besides. He was popular, with a marvelous slew of enemies to keep his wits sharp, and he would bring back the glory days of the Allagan Empire. He would resurrect their greatest emperor, and Xande would answer his most pressing of questions, all about life and the afterlife and what it all meant. Having been dead for so long, surely Xande would have the answers Amon--and Hermes--had sought. He, Amon, would succeed where this previous “perfect” version of himself had failed, a thought that gives him no little satisfaction, that makes his chest swell with pride.

But the answer he receives is not at all the answer he’s looking for, and hearing it shatters him--an uncanny echo of what had also happened to his former, unsundered self, though he’s in no state to really appreciate that little detail.

Very well then, he decides, that terrible knowledge now deeply engraved on his soul, if nothing matters and there is no deeper purpose or meaning for us all, then mine shall be the hand of mercy. I will consign every soul to death, including my own, and spare us all the pain of continued existence.

And so, once he is no longer constrained by the will of the Unsundered, that is the end he works towards. As ever, he puts on a good show, laughter and tricks and entertainment, enthusiastically playing the court jester, the strange and empty-headed motley’d fool--though it’s all an act, a mask that slips away every so often, revealing his true nature if not his true face, the cold, cunning, calculating villain that lies beneath.

He was not always that way, he knows. He has the memories of the man whose heart was too tender to bear up under the weight of his own compassion, but they still mean nothing to him. There is no connection to that past self--perhaps a different shard of Hermes’s sundered soul had received such emotions, but he himself has none of them, feels none of them, wants none of them. For he is so much stronger now than that weak, pathetically sad man; and while he is still in pain, fairly crazed with it and its constancy, he has the power of will to do something about it, to scream and thrash and make himself heard, where Hermes had merely swallowed down his rage and misery, mild and meek.

Fandaniel wants no part of that. He accepts the memories, because he must, but he does not consider them to be his own.

Then the Warrior of Light foils his schemes--only not really, because he’d set the game up perfectly, the result heads I win, tails you lose. If she could not strike him down when he became Zodiark’s heart, then he would use the elder primal’s power to destroy the world; yet if she did destroy Zodiark, the song of oblivion would begin again, dooming the star once more.

Either way, he won. Either way lay death for all.

...And yet, she struggled on. He could not understand why. Why did she fight so hard for a life that held no intrinsic purpose? What could possibly keep her going through all the pain and heartache, the sorrow and rage, the Elpis flowers turning dark with her own mortal dread?

How could anyone find the strength, the courage, to always, always take one more step?

And yet she does. She fights on, determined to reach the ends of the universe, to find his former self’s own erstwhile experiment and quell that song. Now that his soul has returned to the aetherial sea, he remembers her so clearly now: their meeting in Elpis, the way she carried herself with grace and confidence, the overwhelming kindness and consideration she showed him. It still feels halfway as though it was someone else’s life, someone else’s memories, as though he cannot fully grasp it...but only halfway. It no longer feels quite so distant and displaced, and when he looks at her, there is so much regret, so many lingering feelings that tangle and twist through him, a snarled thicket of thorns that squeeze the heart he’d forgotten he had.

And yet, he has made his choices. He cannot go back now and do things differently, even if he wanted to...and regardless of everything he knows now, he is still not certain that he does, that he is not still ultimately in the right. And so he fights her again there in the Aitiascope, seeking to bar her way, to keep her trapped here forever, once again playing the cackling clown, the spectacular and over-the-top masked villain...and unsurprisingly, she is the one who emerges victorious yet again.

But once she does, she pauses, seemingly uncertain about what it is she should do with him...though another roving, resentful soul takes that decision out of her hands, and she does nothing to stop it.

As fragmented and disjointed as Fandaniel’s soul is now, being sucked down through that pool of tarry pitch into whatever greater hell lay below by the vengeful spirit whose body he’d most recently stolen...is really almost a relief. And as he’s pulled down into that roiling, oily purple puddle, the last thing he sees and hears before the darkness closes in over his head is her, and her voice:

“Next time, we will find the answer together.”

It is a promise, a curious one, and certainly not one that he deserves. As he resigns himself to oblivion, he wonders if, despite his own parting words to her...

“Even here. Even now... You have every right to hate me. For the fool I was, for the monster I became. But I will not beg forgiveness. The tale of Hermes--the man who knew so much, but understood so little--ends here.”

...If, even though Hermes’s tale has ended, perhaps he himself, this bitter and broken shard, might indeed be reborn some day. To a fresh start. To another chance. To a life spent alongside her rather than set against her, where they can search for and find that answer together...perhaps even in each other.

But perhaps not. After all, the darkness here is endless, and it is so much easier to finally stop trying so hard to keep his head above the proverbial water, to cease fighting and simply let himself sink.