"I don't know; I've never fallen in love before. But that's not—"

He breaks off, looking distant.

"...toying with Lord Death can kill you. I assume you wouldn't mind if that happened but—it wouldn't just be me, it would be—the other wizards would tear apart everything I've built, my land, my tower, my people, just because they could. Because that's what wizards do. And I have no idea where to start and it might very well be impossible and—"

"—I want you to know that because if you ask me to I'll do it anyway."

He draws up his knees again and buries his face in them.

"...can't kill everyone else to get one person back."

Saying it is like coughing up hot coals.

Watching him be that upset is... bad.

"I'll try to think of something clever. I'm not good at clever. I'll try anyway."

“I don’t want to more people to die because of me.”

"—I don't... understand that."

This is normally the part where he'd read someone's mind, but.

“...what?”

"...I understand not wanting a person to die, I've seen that. I don't understand when it's people—when it's anyone, everyone."

"...you've never seen that?"

"Never watched someone think it, anyway, I don't know if they've been thinking it while I wasn't looking."

“...and obviously you don’t get it yourself.”

He sighs.

“Fine. Look.”

"—okay."

He doesn't move closer, but he looks into Seva's eyes.

(Revulsion. Fear. Longing.)

He tries to break it down.

First the feeling, raw and terrible agony, of losing his friend — and a lovingly rendered image of his own body, broken and mangled and dead-eyed, just in case Aryu’s death isn’t enough to really understand.

Then the awareness of that feeling multiplied by thousands — he can’t even imagine millions. Millions of people losing their oldest friend or the one they cherished the most or the person they took care of or their new love, just like him, opening that terrible void in someone a million times over, the knowledge that each one of them feels it as acutely as he does, that his pain is no more important than theirs in the end no matter what he feels. 

He imagines watching them mourn, one at a time, the icy sinking in his gut from the shame and the guilt and the anguish of knowing that he failed everyone he ever could have known as deeply as you can, the desperate sorrow just from seeing it happen even to a stranger. He imagines having to explain it to them, one by one — I’m sorry they died, all the people you love the most, but I thought that my loss was so much more important than yours. I thought that a chance for my happiness was worth killing your child.

He imagines Aryu’s face, if he learned.

He blinks, releasing him.

"Oh."

“...yeah?”

He’s hugging his knees very tightly.

He's hurt people before, made people grieve before—he's liked it, before—

But it's different, seen through Seva's eyes.

Maybe... maybe he can't fix this. Maybe they will just both be hurting forever. Until Seva dies and Ziraga is hurting by himself.

"I don't... know what to do," he whispers.

“...welcome to being human.”

He glances up at Ziraga’s face, once, just for a second.

He looks... lost and hopeless and sad. He doesn't catch his eyes.

...well, he’s hurting him. He got something he wanted.

Somehow it’s not as satisfying as he expected.

“...you really just didn’t...know.”

"I... I never felt it like that. I've hurt people but... it wasn't... it felt wrong not to? But—that's—I don't care how wrong I have to feel, for that. I don't know that there's anything I wouldn't do to—to make the world okay for you. But I don't know that there's anything I can." He sniffles slightly, rubbing his face.

"...c'mere."

—he blinks, confused.

"Come here, asshole, I need a hug."

Well now he is even more confused but also definitely (tentatively, hesitantly) hugging him.

...okay. Time to cry again. On his best friend's murderer.

This has been a fucking terrible day.

His best friend's murderer is maybe kind of crying on him right back.