It's not unlike the other hardships he's experienced.
A woman he and other orphans revered as a mother figure is killed, he killed the killer and ran away from Ala Mhigo and began "adventuring". He's finally free as he always wanted to be. Tender age of twelve.
He gets in a terrible accident which severely burns his scalp, he recovers and shrugs that off. It's just hair.
He loses his eye. He shrugged that off too. Kept moving forward. It's just an eye. He still got one good one.
He's accepted and welcomes that he's going to burn for all the lives he took, innocent or otherwise.. out there on the killing floor.
He's forcibly moved from his friends by his wife due to the nature of his Pandorican curse. That wasn't so bad. He had his wife and children all in good health.
The Garleans swept through Gyr Abania, killing the majority of people he revered as family. His wife, his step brother, his father in law, a number of monks... that took awhile to get back on his feet. But he did anyways. And he hit the road like he was jackknifed and was never going to go back no more... Nevermore.
Facing the end of the Sixth Astral Era which by all accounts should have been the end of it all. The Seventh Verse. Bahamut. An entire army to fight. Perhaps this would be where his luck ran out. Think again. His darksteel breastplate and helm were blown off during his blood curdling charges as he tore through groups of Garleans and magitek alike. A white light threw him five years into the future like so many others.
As long as he found his son and daughter all would be alright. He thought. He traveled the three nations of the Grand Company with plans of heading north if he didn't find her. He found her but.. her spirit was broken. This wasn't unfamiliar either, all of their hearts ached after Ala Mhigo was seiged. This was different. She finally let her raging heart calm after fifteen years of her family's loss only to have it ripped from her chest in the most horrible of fashions.
His son, though they were five cycles scarred over, lost his fire as well. His meek demeanor doesn't let it seem as such though. But the son is resolved in helping his sister through this.
The pains his children felt a second time are things no parent wants their child to experence a first time. There's no bad guy to kill to make it better. No way of saying it will be better tomorrow... possibly. There's just time. Time he's well off to waiting through but seeing his son and daughter slither through this is anything but pleasant. Every time his daughter cries, every time his son puts on a strong face.. it's twisting a knife.
It's something he can't grab onto and squeeze the pain out of, and believe me, he's tried. A lot.
