A/N: This is the fifth in a series of stories designed to fill in the holes of the XV plot. As such, and as far as I could make it, this series is canon-compliant. Footnotes are available on the AO3 version explaining certain plot decisions and references. Enjoy!
Chapter One: One More Day
Darkness rained from the sky in the form of photophilic particles, clogging the air with its sacrilegious filth until it was amazing that anyone dared to breathe. If Noctis closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that it was snow drifting down from the heavens to bless them with its rejuvenating chill. The flakes were cold to the touch and seemed to dissolve upon contact with his skin; it sent a shiver up his spine every time, only unlike snow, it wasn't in the good way. Instead, it filled him with a sense of dread, for the same particles that imitated nature's gift in winter were nothing more than death on the breeze. The more the particles gathered, the more they filtered through the air and people's lungs, the higher the likelihood that all who hadn't yet succumbed would soon fall to darkness. Their world already had: the light of the moon was hidden beyond the murky clouds, the vaguest outline just barely visible.
Were the Astrals looking down on them from way up there? Were they watching the scenes of suffering and turmoil, or had the darkness blinded them to what was happening in the world they'd long since abandoned?
Noctis had no answers, but there was one thing he knew without a shadow of a doubt: time was waning fast. After listening to Talcott's account of what had befallen not only Lucis but apparently the rest of the world as well in the last ten years, it was obvious that mankind couldn't hold out against the daemons much longer. Too many had already been turned just like the people of Niflheim he'd read about in Zegnautus Keep, and the rest couldn't sequester themselves in Lestallum forever. Eventually, something would go wrong—the lights would go out, whether from some sort of malfunction at the power plant or sabotage by any number of daemons that frequently found their way inside it. If that happened, all those people—refugees, hunters, everyone—would perish. There would be no recourse, no respite. It was only a matter of time.
That was why Noctis persuaded the others to prepare for their final departure not long after he arrived in Hammerhead. They had been reluctant at first, and he would be lying if he said he didn't feel the same. Ten years had passed in the blink of an eye for him, but Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto had been forced to live through every dark second of them. Unlike him, they didn't get to remove themselves from the equation and let the world fall to pieces without their presence. They'd gone through the wringer, and now, after hardly any time at all, he was asking them to leave? It felt wrong the moment the words escaped his lips.
Ignis, at least, didn't appear to mind. It was utterly unsurprising, really: he was, after all, the brains of the operation. With or without his eyesight, he knew the lay of the land and just how badly off they would be if they delayed the inevitable. Ardyn was waiting, and the longer they hesitated, the more likely it was that the unthinkable would come to pass for the people who had been awaiting Noctis's arrival all these years with no return on their faith. It was clear that he wasn't enthusiastic about the idea, of course, but this was Ignis—his advisor and perhaps the most brilliant, realistic person he knew. Like it or not, he would do what was necessary.
Prompto and Gladio, however, were slightly more difficult to convince. He couldn't blame them, not when his own heart raced faster at the thought of leaving Hammerhead and entering Insomnia for the final time. They didn't even know about that part—he was putting off telling them for as long as humanly possible—but it was enough for them that he wanted to get on the road without really taking the opportunity to catch up at all.
That was a slight exaggeration: they had put together the pieces of their personal puzzles in a few brief minutes after Noctis arrived. It was difficult to remain in Hammerhead, however, when Noctis felt so out of place there. The post had been altered in so many ways to accommodate for the hunters that now used it as a completely different kind of station: the diner was packed with weapons and supplies, fences had been erected that had no place there, and armed guards lined the walls to make sure that no errant daemons happened to wander too close. The only thing that he considered at all familiar now was the garage, and even that was shut up tight since Prompto explained that Cindy had gone to visit Cid in Lestallum.
Well, the Cup Noodles billboard was pretty familiar too, still alight even when everything else had gone dark. The sight made him smile, and he thought it wouldn't be too far off base to take it as a sign that they could put things back the way they were. He could put things back.
But he was running out of time in more ways than one.
So he persisted. He insisted that they leave first thing in the morning, a slight compromise since Ignis pointed out that he should get some rest before it was time to face Ardyn. At first, he'd tried to argue—he'd been sleeping long enough, or at least it felt like he had. Time hadn't meant anything inside the Crystal, so he couldn't be sure if he was asleep or unconscious or if he'd faded out of existence entirely only to reappear when the Draconian finally deemed him ready. However, Noctis was surprised to find that he was far more tired than he would have thought after fighting his way through what remained of Galdin Quay and weathering the storm of emotions that had struck him when Talcott explained what had been happening. The thought of what would befall everyone if he failed to defeat Ardyn had him agreeing, albeit grudgingly, with Ignis's suggestion, and the four of them retired to the caravan for the evening.
Noctis would never tell the others, but he was glad for the reprieve. To see Gladio lounging in a chair with a book in hand, Prompto across the table furtively snapping pictures of him like he might once again disappear in a flash, Ignis preparing a meal at the stove as if he could see what he was doing—it left a warm feeling in the depths of his chest that had been absent even as he relived all the memories of their journey inside the Crystal. Everything had changed so much, and yet some things seemed like they would always be the same.
He contemplated telling them the truth as they filled each other in on what had happened over the past decade. He knew they had a right to know, that they would need to know so that they were prepared when the time came. Whenever he opened his mouth to tell them, though, he found a lump in his throat refusing to let him get a word out. Prompto fortunately kept up a steady stream of chatter about becoming a legendary hunter, working with Aranea, and the amazing feats Cindy seemed capable of achieving even in the darkest of times; Gladio interjected here and there to poke fun at him, just like the old days, but was fairly tightlipped about what he'd been doing all this time, with the exception of a hint towards a potential flame here and there.
"So…when do we get to meet her?" inquired Prompto with a devilish leer. Usually it was Gladio's job to antagonize him, so Noctis always got a kick out of it when the tables were turned. Gladio was a pretty good sport about it and only rolled his eyes a little.
"Eventually. Maybe."
"Aw, dude, come on! Why you gotta be like that?"
Ignis hummed thoughtfully. "Perhaps he knows you intend to impart every humiliating anecdote you possibly can the moment you meet her?"
"Would I do that?" demanded Prompto, feigning indignation that grew a bit more genuine at the trifecta of yeses that answered him. "Hey!"
"It's not like you'd have a whole lot to tell anyway," Gladio interrupted him with an arrogant smirk he had to know would send Prompto over the deep end.
Snorting, Prompto pointed out, "Seriously? You haven't slept in the same tent with you."
Noctis couldn't help laughing at that. He'd always slept like a log whether they were in a tent, caravan, or hotel room, but the way Prompto would tell it, Gladio snored like a broken motorboat. Ignis never dignified him with a response when he asked for confirmation, which was basically the same thing anyway.
"Let's not start with that again."
"Just stating a fact, big guy."
"I thought facts were supposed to be true."
"Not liking 'em doesn't make them any less true."
"For the last time, Prompto, I don't s—"
"That being said," interrupted Ignis pointedly, his tone brooking no room for their sniping to continue, "there isn't much left to discuss of goings on in your absence, Highness."
Noctis heard the question even if Ignis didn't bother to put it in words: what happened to you?
This was the part he'd been dreading. How much was he supposed to tell them? Eventually, they would need to know it all, but they weren't ready to bear that burden just yet. He wasn't ready to unload it onto their shoulders. It was already heavy enough, knowing what he did and understanding that time was ticking away to the end of his life. To put that on them… It could wait a bit longer. There were plenty of other things to tell them in the meantime.
"Well…" Noctis began warily, parsing through the memories silently before he slipped and blew the whole thing. "I'm…not really sure where to start."
"The beginning is usually the best place," suggested Gladio, only half joking. Noctis exhaled sharply in what would have been a laugh if it were at all amusing.
Ignis tried to be a bit more helpful, prompting, "What happened when you found the Crystal?"
Frowning at the sensation Ignis's words conjured in the pit of his stomach, Noctis swallowed down the wave of residual guilt for leaving them behind in the hangar so that he could explain, "I touched it. I thought… We thought it would get rid of the daemons, but instead it sucked me in. Ardyn knew it was going to happen. That's what he was waiting for—it's why he let us make it that far."
"Let us?" snorted Gladio derisively. "Sure did put us through a lot of trouble for someone who wanted us to get there anyway."
There was no denying that, so Noctis simply nodded. Prompto was the one who observed, "Since when does anything he did ever make sense?"
"Ardyn's means may have been unclear, but there is undoubtedly a motive behind them," argued Ignis.
"Yeah, he finally said right before…" I left. Noctis didn't need to say it out loud—he knew they were thinking the same thing. So, shaking his head in disgust, he continued, "We had it all wrong. Niflheim was never the real enemy. Ardyn was using the empire so he could attack Insomnia and take the Crystal. Once he had that, he didn't need Aldercapt anymore."
"Do you think…Ardyn's the one who turned him into a daemon?" Prompto asked tremulously. Ignis nodded, frowning in thought.
"That certainly would be the most reasonable assumption. He does have a frightening amount of control over Magitek and daemons."
"Because he is one himself," Noctis spat bitterly. Based on the stunned expressions he received in exchange for his outburst, the others must not have figured that part out yet.
"Uh…come again?"
"You're saying what now?"
Ignis was silent, his eyebrows furrowed. Behind the dark glasses, Noctis could tell that his right eye was narrowed in thought. For some reason, he seemed like he was mulling something over—but he definitely didn't appear as surprised as Prompto and Gladio. As Noctis relayed the story Ardyn had told him moments before he vanished into the Crystal, Ignis's expression grew increasingly grim while the others simply didn't seem to know what to think. Silence gripped them as soon as he was finished, although for Prompto and Gladio it was more out of sheer horror than anything else. Ignis, however, suffered no such verbal blockage.
"I suppose that does make sense," he mused quietly, leaning back in his seat and propping his chin on his fist. "When we attempted to attack him, Gladio mentioned seeing darkness seeping from his wounds of the same sort as the daemons radiate."
Noctis's eyebrows flew up until they had to be touching his hairline. "You attacked him?"
Chuckling humorlessly, Gladio shrugged, "The hell else were we supposed to do? You were gone; he was there. Seemed pretty obvious what'd happened."
"Yeah, but—"
"We weren't just gonna let him go after everything he did," muttered Prompto. He didn't lift his eyes from where they were trained on his hands, but Noctis read his guilt in the way his shoulders slumped defeatedly. "Didn't make a difference, though. We couldn't take him down."
"You wouldn't—he's immortal," Noctis consoled in an attempt to lift his spirits. It didn't seem to work.
Ignis didn't let them dwell on their failures for long, though, and instead brought them right back around to actual topic of their conversation before it was derailed slightly.
"Regardless of our success in engaging him, the fact remains that he was impervious to defeat for the same reason that daemons respawn no matter how many times we vanquish them," he asserted straightforwardly. "Now that we have Noct's account of events, everything is clear."
Gladio, raising an eyebrow, leveled him with a skeptical sidelong glance. "'Fraid you're gonna have to explain that to the class there, Iggy."
The exasperated sigh Ignis heaved made Noctis smile despite the heaviness of their conversation. This was just like the old days, when Ignis would try to teach him something he thought was simple only for Noctis to stare at him like he was nuts. If this were chess, Ignis would be the king rather than him. He was constantly surveying their options, thinking five moves ahead of everyone else, and giving the orders as the master strategist he'd trained so hard to be. The rest of them were a bumbling mess by comparison, and not for the first time, Noctis was unspeakably grateful that the distant events in Altissia hadn't stolen Ignis away from them for good.
Somehow managing to contain his disappointment in their lack of comprehension, Ignis patiently elucidated, "The photophilic particles that are released when daemons are defeated enter the atmosphere, hence our current predicament. As they rain back down, they create yet more of the same. Therefore, the daemons, in a sense, are immortal. Now, if you take Ardyn…"
"He's absorbed so many of them over the years that he's practically made of photophilic particles," finished Noctis, unabashedly proud of himself when Ignis nodded in agreement. "The deeper the darkness, the more powerful he becomes."
"Yeah, but…I'm still not getting how he absorbed daemons," frowned Prompto uneasily.
"Based on what Noctis has told us and the documents I located with Talcott, it would appear that Ardyn is much older than any of us would have believed possible. He must have been king of Lucis following the ancient war, when the Starscourge ravaged the planet and people transformed into daemons for the first time." He paused, seeming to be looking for the right words, and pursed his lips in frustration. "I admit that much of this is conjecture on my part—"
"Which is basically the same thing as fact to the rest of the world," grinned Gladio. Ignis waved him off.
"It is my belief that, if what he told Noct is true, Ardyn had powers similar to those of the Oracle. He would have been able to heal his people, but rather than purifying the disease the way Lady Lunafreya and the House of Fleuret was wont to do, he took the plague into himself instead."
Gladio grunted, shaking his head. "Bet the Astrals loved that."
"That would explain why he was meant to be the Chosen King only to have another topple him from his throne."
"He lost the favor of the gods," confirmed Noctis. "The Draconian called him the Accursed."
Humming in acknowledgement, Ignis murmured, "They must want him vanquished as badly as we do."
"Ugh, then why don't they do it themselves!" exclaimed Prompto, collapsing back against his chair with his arms dangling over the edge as he stared up at the abyss above them. He couldn't maintain that position for long when the photophilic particles began to coat his face, and when he turned back to them, it was with all the sullen indignation Noctis recognized from school when he would get a bad grade he didn't think was deserved. (It happened more often than he would admit aloud.)
"For the selfsame reason they do not cure the affliction or clear the air," replied Ignis fairly. "They cannot. It is the duty of the monarch chosen by the ancient kings of Lucis to bring light back to the world."
"Sounds like they're just lazy to me."
Noctis smirked at that, but something struck him for the first time in that moment that he hadn't had a chance to consider up until now.
"I… I think they did try." Ignis turned towards him in silent question, and he continued, "Angelgard is a prison. Or it was, anyway. That's where I woke up before I made it to Galdin. There's only one cell, and it's surrounded by these huge pillars—I didn't recognize the runes on them, but they reminded me of symbols from the legends."
That appeared to pique Ignis's interest, and he nodded slowly as he processed the information. "If that theory holds water, the pillars may have been infused with magic to ensure that he did not escape."
"Yeah," snorted Gladio, rolling his eyes. "Whole lot of good that did."
"Ardyn may have been too strong to be contained by the time they thought to imprison him," suggested Ignis.
Noctis thought back to his point about photophilic particles and added, "Or he got stronger over time. If they were only trying to keep him in, maybe they didn't bother keeping the daemons out."
"In which case, he would have been able to absorb larger amounts of particles until he could break through any barriers and return to the mainland."
"Exactly."
"And he'd probably be pretty ticked after being stranded on some island for who knows how long," interjected Prompto with an ill-concealed shudder. Given that he was the only one of them who had been alone with Ardyn for any real length of time, Noctis couldn't say he blamed him.
"All this is nothing more than speculation at this point," qualified Ignis with a nod in Prompto's direction. "However, it does seem to make sense. Whatever the Six may have done in the past, it is up to us to see to it that Ardyn meets his end now. Only the Chosen King has the power to do so."
And didn't that just make him feel great. He'd heard things to that effect almost his entire life, whether from his father or his friends or any number of the king's inner circle who happened to know he'd been chosen. Never in his life had he thought the crown would weigh so heavy—and he wasn't technically wearing it yet.
Prompto seemed to speak his thoughts for him, murmuring, "So much for the all-powerful Six."
"Tell me about it," agreed Gladio with a weariness that was new to Noctis. Perhaps more had changed than his Shield decided to let on.
It would have been nice if the conversation ended there or turned to happier thoughts. He felt like there was still so much to discuss—how Ignis was faring without his sight, what Gladio had really been up to besides courting some hopefully real girl, where Prompto had gotten the bravery to become a legendary hunter—but Ignis seemed determined not to let him off easy.
"Aside from meeting with the Draconian, you never mentioned what else happened in the Crystal, Noct," he observed casually, as though his question wasn't the equivalent of a knife through the heart.
It wasn't his fault, of course, but Noctis couldn't help the twinge of discomfort that had him shifting his weight awkwardly in his seat. Ignis may not have been able to tell, and Prompto was generally clueless when it came to subtle physical cues (yet another constant after all this time), but Gladio stared at him with an unreadable expression as he tried to come up with a response to Ignis's question. It was unnerving, and Noctis couldn't hold his gaze for long.
"I don't really remember much besides what I already told you," he ended up saying, struggling to hide a wince at the lie.
Admittedly, he wasn't offering them a complete falsehood: he truly didn't remember a great deal of his time inside the Crystal. He knew he'd spoken to the Draconian about what must be done next—which he refused to discuss right now—and felt the light, warm sensation of floating through oblivion. Other than that, though, there wasn't much.
A slight pause followed his statement, and he felt sure that if Ignis could still see, he and Gladio would be exchanging a far too knowing glance right now. As it were, Ignis still tilted his head minutely in Gladio's direction while the latter narrowed his eyes. If they had any reason to believe he was lying to them, however, they didn't get a chance to say anything to him about it.
"Maaaaaaaaan," whined Prompto, completely unaware of the tension that had been gathering between them. "I thought maybe it would be something cool."
Noctis knew it would only be a matter of time before he would have to answer to Ignis and Gladio's obvious distrust, but he would go with the distraction for as long as he could.
"You mean getting sucked into the Crystal and meeting an Astral wasn't enough for you?"
Scoffing, Prompto argued, "Dude, we all got to see Astrals—didn't need to be inside the Crystal for that. You got to meet, like, the one god that didn't want to kill us and you don't even remember!"
"As I recall, Ramuh was rather agreeable," countered Ignis reasonably. His tone was light, but his expression as he kept his head turned toward Noctis told him there would be more of that conversation to come.
Prompto scrunched up his face, clearly wanting to argue, but slumped when he realized that Ignis had him on that one. "Yeah, okay, point."
From there, the tone of the discussion lightened considerably, and Noctis felt the weight of his burden lifting off his chest. There was still a shadow dogging his every step, but when he was with the others, he could set it aside for a minute and pretend that they were back on their journey to Altissia: sitting around the table by the caravan, swapping stories and barbs, young and eager and so very, very naïve. If he didn't look too closely at the way the others had changed over the years, he could almost imagine that they were still those boys—and they had been boys back then, as much as they may have thought themselves to be adults.
There had been so much in those days, days that seemed both far off and very near, that he hadn't understood the importance of. He'd known he was the King of Kings, chosen to free Eos of the darkness that had plagued their star for centuries, but it hadn't meant anything. He'd been very well aware of the fact that he was destined to become king, yet he frequently avoided the subject because of the inevitable connection it had to the end of his father's life.
He'd walked down the Citadel steps and ignored the warning signs as his father said his final goodbye, gave his final bit of advice, offered his final comforting touch. He'd walked away, never so much as guessing that it would be the end of the world as he'd known it and the start of a much more frightening existence.
He'd walked away without telling his father the two things he would always regret keeping to himself: thank you and I love you.
Now, it was too late to fix his mistakes. All he could do was move forward, as Ignis had told him long ago in the middle of a swamp of all places, and never look back. That was what a monarch had to do. When he came to that realization, his childhood had officially reached an end. He'd left his friends behind and taken his first steps as an active participant in his own destiny. He'd gone to a place they couldn't follow, and he hadn't hesitated a moment. The last of his innocence had been stripped from him in his discovery of what Ardyn's existence meant for his own and the sacrifice he must make to fulfill his duty; the man who had woken up on Angelgard was nothing like the boy who'd sat around a table playing King's Knight with his friends.
Oh, what he wouldn't give to be able to go back—to have more time.
The eternal clock of the universe wound ever onwards, though, and the moments before doomsday ticked by more rapidly than he ever could have imagined until Ignis reluctantly pointed out that they should get some sleep before setting out in the morning. No one was pleased to be reminded of their looming departure, but they couldn't argue with his logic. So, with a few meaningful smiles and significant nods, they divvied up the bunks inside the caravan and went about settling in for the night. Noctis supposed that the others had spent enough time in ubiquitous darkness to know when it was time to sleep, but the long hours without sunlight still threw him off and he resigned himself to trusting their judgment.
Whether from the disorienting solar absence or simply because he had gotten ten years' worth of rest, sleep didn't come easy. It was all Noctis could do not to toss and turn, trying to avoid alerting his friends to his discomfort. He had a feeling they were all in the same boat: Prompto was far too still, Gladio's breathing was irregular, and Ignis had abandoned all pretext to sit upright on his bunk with a pensive expression Noctis could see without needing the light. A pang of guilt and remorse added to his unease at the thought that his return had prompted their own restlessness; they'd presumably been doing just fine up until now since none of them were showing signs of a decade of sleeplessness. They knew what was coming, or at least part of it, and they were suffering for it already.
Noctis had no right to show them his weakness, not when they had gone through so much for him and in his name. None of them had asked for this—Ignis didn't ask to lose his sight, or Prompto to be tortured, or Gladio to be Shield to a doomed king. Without him, they would be safe. Maybe they would even be happy. His very presence in their lives brought them nothing but turmoil and despair. He couldn't very well pile his reservations on them as well.
Eventually, when he thought he might burst under the pressure of remaining still, Noctis gave up and rolled off his bunk onto silent feet. Sometime in the middle of his musings, it appeared that Prompto had finally fallen into a fitful doze, but he could hear the way Gladio's breathing suddenly disappeared as soon as he'd gotten up. Ignis's head was turned towards him, his unseeing eyes burning holes into Noctis's until he couldn't stand to be inside the caravan another moment. Without saying a word, he slipped out the door and closed it softly behind him. If one of them was getting any sleep, he wasn't about to disturb it.
Outside, Hammerhead was quiet, just as it had been when he'd arrived. There were more guards on duty and fewer bystanders, which was one of the few ways he could tell it was the middle of the night. Given that the fences would buckle under the weight of a large enough (or enthusiastic enough) daemon, the lights in every building were still on to provide all the illumination they could get. As he strode past the diner, Noctis could see hunters sleeping on the floor with their jackets pulled over their heads to dim the overhead fluorescents as much as possible.
The guards paid Noctis little mind as he walked along the familiar path to the garage, only the occasional eye glancing in his direction before turning back out towards the darkness. When Talcott had driven them inside the fence, Noctis had been quick to tell him not to spread his return around right away. It wasn't like there was any reason for his homecoming to remain a secret—if anything, it would probably have bolstered people a bit more, and there was no doubt in his mind that they could use it right about now. Regardless, Noctis wasn't ready yet. There was already so much pressure on him not to mess this up that he didn't think he could bear having every eye in Hammerhead watching him, waiting to see the great king they had been promised in all the legends. He hadn't yet proven himself to be that person, and the last thing he wanted was to disappoint them. They'd already gotten enough of that in his absence.
So, he basked in the anonymity for a while longer. He ignored the guards the same way they ignored him, finding an empty spot along the fence behind Cindy's garage to ascend the steps to the watch post. Only a few moments passed before he regretted coming out here, but he couldn't go back to the caravan and inflict his presence on the others.
It was the quiet that unnerved him more than the darkness, if he was being honest. When he'd gotten to Galdin, there hadn't been time to notice it with all the daemons around. The growls and groans had played an eerie melody, joined with the harmonious engine in Talcott's truck. Then they'd made it to Hammerhead, where there were conversations to be had and people moving about. Now, however, with most of the station asleep or on silent watch, the abyss pressed in on them to the point that Noctis felt suffocated by the void. It had been silent inside the Crystal, too, but not like this. There, it had been peaceful; here, it was an omen of the end.
Footsteps on the metal stairs behind him snapped his mind back to reality, reeling him away from the dark sense of foreboding he hadn't realized he'd been drowning in as he stared out into the night. Not for a second did he believe his new companion was a guard, and a wry smirk twitched at the side of his mouth when a huge shadow fell over him in the spotlight.
How poetic.
Gladio didn't say anything at first, and they stood together in companionable yet expectant silence, as if each was waiting for the other to speak first. Noctis was determined not to let it be him, though, so he waited until Gladio was tired of beating around the proverbial bush. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long.
"You never were a good liar, you know."
Noctis blinked. That wasn't what he'd been expecting at all. The statement startled him into turning to look at his Shield, but Gladio didn't return his gaze, staring out towards where a haven used to light up the distant wilderness instead. A lifetime ago, Noctis would have evaded his accusation or jumped to defend himself. Not anymore.
"I didn't lie," he asserted carefully. Gladio let out a huff of mingled amusement and exasperation.
"Sure didn't tell the truth either."
He's got me there.
When Noctis didn't immediately reply, Gladio finally shot him a knowing look. There was no condemnation in his gaze, though.
"We've been through this before," he grunted once it became apparent that Noctis wasn't going to address his original statement.
Frowning, he took the bait and asked, "Been through what?"
"You not telling us stuff."
An image of Cartanica flashed through his mind's eye, and Noctis inwardly grimaced at the memory. It wasn't that he had been trying to hide anything from them then as he was now, though. Back then, he hadn't known how to tell them what he was thinking. Admittedly, not a lot of his thoughts were very kingly. If Gladio had known then that Luna's death and Ignis's handicap just made him want to give up, to lie down and let Ardyn do what he would because Noctis clearly wasn't the king they all expected him to be… If he'd had the courage back then to tell Gladio he was nothing but an impostor pretending to be the King of Kings when he was nothing but a scared kid… Well, maybe they wouldn't even be here right now. Whatever the year, wherever they were, there were some things that were simply better left unsaid.
After a minute, Noctis remembered that Gladio was waiting for a response and sighed, pushing his hair out of his face and wishing he could hide behind it the way he used to. "I told you, there isn't much to tell."
Gladio scoffed skeptically. "We both know that ain't true."
"What do you want me to say?" inquired Noctis. Impatience leaked into his tone as he fought hard not to sound like he was losing his temper. That, however, appeared to be Gladio's aim.
"I want you to tell us what's really going on."
"I did."
"Part of it."
Narrowing his eyes, Noctis turned away and rejoined, "I told you guys everything worth saying."
"So there is more."
Noctis growled low in his throat, pacing down the scaffolding as though he could leave his problems behind with Gladio. As it turned out, neither was willing to let him run away so easily.
"What is it?" Gladio demanded, just barely managing to keep his voice down. "What's got you so wound up that you won't even tell us?"
"It doesn't concern you right now," Noctis shot back without turning. His footsteps faltered when Gladio let out a bark of laughter.
"In case you haven't figured it out, anything concerning you concerns the rest of us."
A weight settled on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. This time, it wasn't the metaphorical weight of his destiny pressing down on him like it might smother him on its own. Rather, Gladio's hand warmed Noctis's shoulder where he'd been growing cold in the chill breeze, a comforting and welcome heaviness by comparison. There was a slight pause, and then Gladio moved to stand in front of him. Noctis found he couldn't meet his eyes and focused on his sizable chest instead.
"You're the king now. You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to. But…we're here for you. Always have been, always will be. Just let us, would ya?"
His words weren't harsh or angry; instead he spoke with a softness he hadn't used with Noctis since he was a kid. That more than anything else was what began to melt his resolve, but he caught himself at the last moment before he took that final step he would never be able to rescind. Pulling in a tremulous breath, he finally raised his eyes to Gladio's and struggled to summon whatever excuse for a smile he could. It must have been pretty pathetic if the sadness in his Shield's eyes was any indication.
"I know, and I want to, but…" He hesitated, closing his eyes and clearing the emotion from his throat.
Gladio let him have a minute, then two. When enough time had passed that it began to lose all meaning, Noctis finally found the strength within him—the strength his father must have had the day he sent away his only son, knowing they would never again meet—to continue.
"Just…one more day. Please, Gladio," he pleaded with the ground at their feet since he couldn't beg the Astrals. "One more day."
Noctis wasn't really sure what he was asking for—one more day to live, one more day with them, one more day before he had to tell them the rest of his tale? All he knew was that one more day wasn't nearly enough for everything he so desperately wanted, but it was all they had time for, so it was all he would ask.
The hand on his shoulder tightened until it was almost painful, and as much as he hadn't wanted to say anything, he knew Gladio understood the gravity of his words. If it were Ignis here with him, he probably would have figured out what Noctis was hiding from them by now; when Gladio inevitably told him about this exchange the second Noctis's back was turned, he undoubtedly would. If his Shield suspected anything about what remained unsaid in the air between them, he mercifully didn't bring it up, and Noctis lifted his head again to see him nodding slowly. It wasn't in comprehension, at least not completely, but in sympathy—in camaraderie. Even if he didn't understand, he understood.
"One more day," confirmed Gladio quietly.
