[He thinks back carefully, rolling through the memories of when it might have come up. It's difficult to categorize them, in truth- he doesn't exactly track when he's thinking about that sort of thing. A few stand out, rare enough to not be automatically considered a pattern but still kind of... suspicious.]

I don't... know if it means anything. Might just be coincidence. But I talked to Ardyn about this weird kinda pressure in my head, at some point when we got into the prophecy stuff, when I got a memory from the ring. And there've been other times when it's come up, and... not too long after, another memory. As far as I could tell they don't even mean anything, and there's nothing connecting the memories, but what if they are? What if that's how Bahamut's doing it?

[He used to maintain his own thoughts, his worth, his future, his happiness. He wasn't always happy but he was at least content with the life he'd lead back home. There'd even been plenty of moments where he was fine with just getting by, where he didn't get what he wanted but he got enough, there'd been countless incidents that got him to smile and enjoy the world and the company he kept. He hadn't thought about being happy to be alive because his life was in his own hands, for the most part. He followed the whims of the gods, but the choices were his own enough that he was satisfied.

And then came the Crystal... Bahamut's revelation... and suddenly the choice to live is significant, not just a foregone conclusion. And suddenly those memories were invading his thoughts to remind him who he was.]