#meanwhile kaladin was having a corruption arc based on the yellow eyes line

[moash]

a few years ago i actually wrote the beginning of a fic where taravodium drops moash like a potato if anyone wants to see it 🥺👉👈

tw for suicide baiting and self harm

It took a while for Odium to finally speak with him. Moash expected it to come soon after the failure at Urithiru, but it did not. A day passed with no word. He wondered if Odium waited because he was so displeased with Moash’s failures, but he was not capable of feeling anxious about it. He just waited patiently for Odium to come to him.

When the Everstorm came, Moash stepped out into the storm. The wind and rain whipped at his face and clothes, but he was not afraid. He was not capable of being afraid. Thunder sounded in the distance, but he could no longer see the flashes of red lightning that came before them.

The loss of his sight did not bother him—as nothing was capable of bothering him, of course—but he did consider it to be a tactical disadvantage. He did not know why neither stormlight nor voidlight had cured him. His eyes had regrown from the charred hollows they’d been, but his new eyes did not work. He figured the affliction was special in some way due to the Kholin woman’s bond to the tower spren. The root of the injury did not concern him. Odium would fix it when they spoke again.

Even if he was angry with Moash, he would not leave him this way.

Suddenly the rain and wind disappeared. The air was dry and warm around him.

Vyre, Odium addressed him, and Moash turned to the direction of his voice and bowed. Tell me of what happened at the tower.

Something was off about his voice, but Moash could not place it. It was not his place to question Odium. He started his account of what had transpired at Urithiru. The fault for the failure laid with the Pursuer and the Lady of Wishes.

Lezian had ignored his order not to touch Kaladin and had thus been killed once again, ruining the trap Odium and Moash had laid for Kaladin in the process.

Raboniel had betrayed them, delaying her research of the crystal pillar to scheme with the human queen. She chose in her last moments to defend Navani Kholin from him, and he would have hated her for denying him justice, if he could.

Moash had nothing to fear from telling the truth. The fault was not his, and he could not feel afraid regardless.

You lay the blame at the feet of my Fused?

“I tell the events as they happened,” Moash said. “It is not my fault.”

Odium hummed in consideration, and then Moash realized what was wrong with his voice.

Yet you were tasked with this job, Odium said, and Moash listened carefully. Does not part of the responsibility for its failure rest with you?

He had not spoken to the rhythms.

Though Moash could not see the god who sat before him, as Odium spoke Moash could tell the figure that sat on the throne before him was human, not singer. He was not Odium.

How was that possible?

Though your account of the betrayals of my Fused are not without merit. Both Lezian the Pursuer and Raboniel Lady of Wishes are dead now and beyond my questioning. I must rely on—

“Who are you?” Moash said suddenly, interrupting Odium mid-sentence. He stood from his position on his knees to face the false Odium standing tall.

Odium did not answer for a moment, but Moash did not doubt himself in the absence of an answer. He was beyond doubts.

I am your master, Odium said. I am the one who takes your pain, who feels your passions. You serve me.

“I do not serve you,” Moash said.

Instantly the air shifted. Moash fell to his knees gasping as his pain returned to him. Teft…

“Take it back!” he yelled. “I— I do serve you! I’m—” He gasped for air.

Odium merely hummed again, a flat disappointed human tone. I still have much to learn. What was it that gave me away?

Moash could not answer. “Please,” he begged through tears. Everything hurt. “Take it back. I was wrong. You are my master. I serve you.”

No.

“No?”

No. I have no use for you, Odium continued. I cannot comprehend what Rayse saw in you, but to me, you are utterly useless.

What was it that you told Kaladin Stormblessed? There was one path to freedom for him. You had found the better path.

“No,” Moash whimpered. “Please…”

Now you have walked that path to its end. You gave your pain to me. You were almost perfect. Unchained. Only one thing held you back.

Moash shook his head. “I am… I could be unchained.”

But I have no need of you, and so that path is closed to you now. Tell me, will you seek freedom still? How long will it take you to find the other path?

Then the rain began again. Moash was on his knees, cold to his core. Fear lanced through him with each thunder crack.

He was alone with himself.

“Wretched, wretched, wretched…” he muttered under his breath, raking his nails hard against the skin on the back of his neck.

He waited for lightning to strike him. He screamed himself hoarse, begging Odium for it. No salvation came. When the storm began to lessen, he knew what Odium said was true. There was one path to freedom left for him. He had to choose to take it.

But he couldn’t. He summoned the honorblade to his hand, but he could not make himself do it.

When the storm had fully passed, there was nothing left to do. He started walking.

literally how can anyone see moash’s pov and not understand why it’s a better story on every level if he lives and redeems? remember when he grabbed the slave driver’s whip and pulled him down and said “you’re supposed to be better than this”? remember when odium said he wanted moash to recruit kaladin and moash said he would rather kaladin die than be like him and that would be a mercy? remember when he was bleeding out in the snow, struck with all his emotions at once—guilt, shame, fear and anger at himself—unable to cry from his burned out eye sockets? like what about all this makes people say “yea he should just die.” ok what happened to the most important step a man can take is the next one, journey before destination? are you not all buying into odium’s ultimate lie that there’s no more journey worth taking?