Chapter 1 – Fides
Sometimes it hurt to remember he was only a face she came to know over night. She'd realize too she didn't know a lot about him. He was always introduced as the spoiled, naughty prince of Lucis. He had attitudes and flaws frowned upon by the virtuous kingdom of Tenebrae. (Virtuous, however, was too big of a word to describe her home. What they really were, only their fellow Tenebraeans knew).
It bothered her that she could only come to know the prince through reports given by Tenebrae spies. The daily newspaper didn't help much either. As much as the editorial team tried to neutralize things, there was always that underlying conclusion that Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum and his band were fugitives. Evil to the rotten core. Greedy beyond reasonable doubt. Heartless at the slightest provocation. The Lucians were the ones who broke the treaty with Niflheim. The Lucians initiated the rebellion against the rest of the five kingdoms. The Lucians were this, that, blah, blah, blah. . .
But Noctis—Noct, rather, as the prince insisted—was also a man first before he was Lucian. No matter how much truth there was in facts and rumors, one could not simply conclude that he was already a bad man.
Or maybe because she simply chose not to believe in secondhand stories without first confirming everything herself.
He would come for her that much she knew. No matter how worse the situation could be, she believed that their first meeting wouldn't be their last. She left him wanting more of course. She managed to shake him up, and she saw confusion and curiosity in his midnight-blue eyes the moment she looked into them as she told him, "I know what you're really capable of."
If all else failed though, she hoped she flirted enough with him during party night to make him want to see her again. She smiled and did silly-girl poses and gestures. She even told him he was funny when he actually wasn't. Oh Etro, help her. Perhaps a virtue called, faith, still existed in this world.
Author's Notes: I posted this story at Archive Of Our Own under the pseud, "HeyLadyByron." Any possible mature content for future chapters will be cut out from this FanFictionNet version, but uploaded in its entirety at AO3. Thank you! Please let me know what you think of this story! :)
