...Why would you need to know? [ almost more to himself ] You never were very bright. [ and you know how he hates to explain things, especially to fools. ] I don't expect you to understand why it needs to be this way.
[ but he doesn't quite pause long enough for Peony to object. ] I've been a very patient man, Your Majesty. Very... very patient. I think I really might have waited as long as it took -- even if that meant we were both well into our graves before you realized.
But, you see, this incident with [ smallest, strangest pause ] Luke and the others... The world very nearly ended. I'm afraid it made the prospect of mortality all too vivid. Instead of having, at minimum, another sixty years... it seems I might only have a moment before one or both of us is dead.