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dying, they never tell you, but dying is painful. even dying in an instant, even death by a heart attack or a stroke or some other incontrollable act of god, even when you do not bleed out slowly by the hand of an enemy. they never tell you that as you die you think about everything you ever did, and everything you never got the chance to do.
schlatt dies surrounded by people who hate him, people who point weapons and shout at him and he dies in a van built by a man who hates him, by a man who he hates, who he exiled who he -
why, exactly, did he do that, again?
he, up until this moment, he yelled about how they ruined the country, how they, how they weren't building it to its full potential, how they led the darkest era of manberg but. well really was it so bad? and well, how would he even know?
he was never there for their manberg, their l'manberg. he was banished, and well even if he blamed them a little bit it wasn't really their fault. hell, wilbur hadn't even been there and tommy was just going along with his own jokes, he actually - shit had he sided with the man who had banished him?
power, he thinks, was his first mistake. to grab for power.
he hardly remembers why he did it now, and he thinks initially it was a joke, a bit to blow over when he came dead last in results, but then he was approached with an offer. he remembers the day quackity had knocked on his door and blew in and said "schlatt do you want to win this."
he remembers how quackity was full of ideals about the betterment of the country and how schlatt felt himself be convinced, and he remembers quackity shaking his hand as they agreed. and he thinks at some point on one of the late nights as they campaigned, quackity asked him about the issue of transferring power.
"it's never going to be peaceful, you know."
not a question. a statement. a fact.
and schlatt does know, he knows wilbur and the way he teeters on the edge of insanity, remembers from their days of living in the wilderness, just the two of them and the way wilbur came up with plans so spectacular and yet so... mad. and he knows tommy, and how he will follow his brother to his grave and beyond, knows that tommy is angry and that anger will be a weapon wilbur will wield wonderfully.
"why don't we keep it in our own hands. if it won't be peaceful lets at least keep it on our own terms."
schlatt likes to think he has good intentions, when he agrees, when he writes his speech when he takes away the last remaining pieces of sanity wilbur held. he likes to think he has good intentions when he watches a woman shout at him for taking away her tyrants and when he resolves that this won't be allowed. he likes to think he had good intentions when he declared the destruction of the walls, that he dreamed of unity and of expansion of a free nation. he likes to think that when he renamed the country, took away the l's of the country as a symbol of the improvement of the nation under his rule.
he's not sure that any of its true.
but, if he ever had good intentions, if he ever was in the right, he wonders when it changes.
he thinks, perhaps when he found out about tubbo's meetings with tommy. he remembers rage at the betrayal, remembers a cold sort of anger, because he should have expected this, tubbo was tommy's best friend, his right hand man of course he betrayed him. and he craved revenge.
and so the festival comes to be, and he wonders if he ever questioned the morality of having a kid plan his own funeral. but there has to be an example for traitors, and sure, perhaps its a little inhumane but its about the point of the matter the spirit of the thing.
but maybe it was when he made the final decision, fully committed to the villain part, called the pig up to the stage and told him to shoot. could his intentions be good then? could he in good conscience say that he was correct, he was killing a young boy, who had never been anything but kind to him, could he kill him?
he could.
and now as schlatt lies on the stone floor of the van his enemy built, knowing that maybe the nation will finally grow upon his death, as his heart putters to a stop, he wonders if his goods outweigh the bad, if his intention will create a step for heaven or if he has carved his own way to hell. the light fades and schlatt feels it calling to him, drawing him close, and schlatt dies.