A/N: This is my first fanfiction, and while I can honestly say it's not the most exciting story I've ever written, I can say that I want to put out here so y'all can tell me what you think of it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I can improve my writing. And please, if you will, let your criticism be constructive so that I don't cry when I read it. Mean reviews make me sad.
That being said, enjoy! :)
Walk Tall
The wheels of the Regalia ground over the road with unusual silence as the prince and his entourage drove with grim stillness back to Insomnia. Noctis watched the rolling scenery with dream-like detachment, the greens and browns of the passing forest mixing into a roil of color in his unfocused eyes. The whole situation still felt unreal, like some kind of nightmare that he would wake up from any moment now. It had only been a mere handful of hours since the four of them had been sitting in their room at Galdin Quay, laughing and playing King's Knight as Ignis half-heartedly told them off for staying up so late, though everyone knew he said it merely for the pretense.
How could they have known that in the morning, their whole world would come crashing down, burned like the ruins of the Crown City? Noctis had suspected that something was wrong even before Ignis had returned to the suite earlier that day, his movements slow, his face a mask of shock and remorse, the paper that shattered Noctis' heart held in his hand.
"How could we have known?" Ignis' words echoed with hollow clarity through the prince's skull.
How could anyone have known, indeed? But somewhere in the back of his mind, Noctis had a nagging suspicion that someone had. There had been someone who had known about Niflheim's lies, about all the impending death, and that was why he had sent his son away from the capital. King Regis—no, his father—had known. The king wasn't a stupid man, he wasn't naive as Noctis had been. Surely, he'd suspected, seen the signs of the rising tide of danger and intrigue when no one else had. Looking back now, the prince was sure of it. He had thought his father's parting words a bit strange at the time, he had been confused by that sad, proud gaze that had locked with his a moment before he said goodbye.
"Walk tall, my son."
A strangled noise, dry and choked, ripped from Noctis' throat, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to mute it. What was the last thing he had said to Regis? The talk had seemed almost insignificant at the time, a brief farewell soon to be remedied by their reunion after the wedding. Why hadn't he noticed? Why did he have to be so selfish, so bitter? The truth was, Noctis had wanted to leave, to depart the shadow of Insomnia and his father's often-cold behavior. He'd wanted freedom, space to be something other than the Crown Prince, caught forever under the impending inevitability of having to sit on the throne himself one day, a task he had always dreaded with a kind of sick disgust.
How terrifically stupid he had been.
He recalled with a sense of total self-loathing the way he had departed two days ago, so ready to be gone, thinking only of the journey ahead as his father spoke the last words he might ever hear. He wished he has shown more respect, more love, but all he could think, the only thing he had said as Regis limped his difficult way down the palace steps was "what now?"
He'd only thought of what a pain his father was, how he wouldn't just let him go.
He hated himself for it, and he could only hope with every ounce of his being that the news had been wrong.
...
The way into the Crown City was blocked, row upon row of MTs and other, wickeder instruments of warfare crowding the gates, forcing the four men in the Regalia to find another way around.
Ignis drove to the city's outlook, a cliff that afforded a perfect view of sprawling Insomnia, its beauty smashed to rubble as Magitek ships crawled toward it in the sky overhead, drawn like an infection to an untreated wound.
The prince listened with ever-growing horror as Prompto tuned into a radio broadcast covering the fall of the once-glorious city, the news that the treaty had gone awry and that he and Luna were assumed dead to the world.
Prompto turned the sound off, muting it until only the sound of misting rain remained.
"Keep it on," Gladio ordered, his deep rumbling voice startling Prompto into action, but he fumbled with his phone in a rush to turn it back on, losing his grip and dropping it into the mud. He began to dive after it, but Noctis, with a deepening twist of nausea turning his stomach, found himself barking, "don't bother!"
He hadn't meant to snap at his friend, but he found he couldn't waste any thoughts on common courtesy at the moment with every neuron focused on praying for the safety of the ones he loved.
A silence followed as the hum of a massive Magitek transport whirred above them, spattering mud and rain onto their backs.
The ship was dark and oppressive, like an omen of dread, and Noctis, desperate, began punching a number into his phone with increasingly frantic movements, having to retype it twice in his haste before he pressed "call" and brought the device to his ear.
It only rung once before the prince heard the distinctive click of the receiver.
"H-Hello?" he quavered, not even waiting for the person on the other end to speak first, "Cor?"
He heard a breath being drawn on the other end of the line, a heartbeat of stillness as the marshal steeled himself for the conversation, trying and failing to hide the moment of insecurity from Noctis.
The dread in the prince's stomach thickened and tightened until it sat like a leaden ball in his gut.
"So," Cor droned impassively, his voice bearing its usual hardened timbre, "you made it."
It wasn't what Noctis had wanted to hear. Yeah, he'd made it. Was that all the marshal could say? He'd made it? What about everyone else? What of Luna, of his whole city? The people of Insomnia?
"The hell's going on?" he questioned, his tone somewhere between a growl and a whimper.
Cor didn't answer, he only asked, "where are you?" He sounded almost concerned.
"Outside the city," Noctis replied, beginning to pace the cliff edge, "with no way back in." He was clinging to Cor's voice like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood, knowing that the man could give him all the answers, supply him with the truth. For that reason, he was determined to stay on Cor's good side.
That conviction faded like a shadow at midnight with the marshal's next words.
"Makes sense."
Rage flared up, sudden and red, in the prince's chest, and his voice became rough with the heat of it.
"'Makes sense?'" he echoed with a passionate snarl, "Are you serious? What about any of this makes sense!?"
His pacing grew heavier, and he walked the overlook like a caged beast, feeling for all the world like he was trapped, locked in a nightmare that he now knew he wouldn't be waking from.
"The news just told me I'm dead—along with my father and Luna," he explained, trying desperately to keep a cap on his emotions, to stay in control.
A heavy sigh from the other end of the line, then Cor's voice again, sounding tired and resigned.
"Listen," he intoned, "I'm heading out to Hammerhead."
A pause, then: "about the king… It's true."
Noctis froze, the phone to his ear, his hand growing stiff around it as if it were his last lifeline.
He'd known that, or course he had. The paper and the newscast had told him so, but inside he'd hoped beyond reason that it was a mistake. He'd just assumed, as every child did, that his dad, his protector, his parent, would always be there. Even when he knew that he was being a pain, or when they argued, or wouldn't speak to one another, he'd just sort of thought that it was okay, because there would always be time to make up in the end.
But now… there wasn't. Regis' time had run out, and Noctis would never get to tell him how much he'd actually cared, that he was sorry for the way he had acted so snarky before he left, for the way he'd always been so cold toward him, putting off day after day his attempts to get closer to his dad, thinking every passing hour, I'll spend more time with him tomorrow.
That "tomorrow" would never come.
...
Noctis only heard the rest of Cor's instructions with a vacant ear, answering with a resignation born of sorrow and a spreading numbness that traversed his veins like a shot of morphine, then hung up, letting the phone drop to his side.
He heard a movement behind him, then Ignis' soft, cultured voice question softly, "what did the marshal… have to say?"
"Said he'd be in Hammerhead," Noctis mumbled dumbly, staring blankly at the charred husk of Insomnia.
The plodding footsteps of Gladio reached his ears next before the large bodyguard rumbled, "and the king?"
Noctis didn't—couldn't—reply. The loss was so soon, so sudden, for that. It was as though, if he were to answer, to confirm with his own lips what his aching heart was telling him, he would break, and so he remained silent, a reticence that told his friends all they needed to know.
The rain, soft and misty, continued to fall, cool as a summertime sprinkler, soaking the four down to their bones with gentle pervasiveness.
He remembered now: the last thing he'd said to King Regis, when his father had worried over him, asking if he was truly ready to leave home.
"I don't know about you, but I'm ready as I'll ever be."
He'd been rude, sarcastic, putting on his usual air of carelessness.
Dad, he thought, his hand, now gone limp, dropping his phone to the sodden ground, I lied. I'm sorry. I'm not ready, not without you.
He hated it. Hated his father for leaving, hated Niflheim for the lies, the murders they'd committed, hated the wedding that had sent him away from the kingdom in its darkest hour.
And most of all, he hated himself.
"Walk tall, my son."
Noctis sank low to his knees, buried his deadened fingers in the cold mud, and wept.
A/N: That's all for now, folks. I hope you liked reading about broody, sad Noctis. My intention was to explore a little bit on Noctis' thoughts about King Regis, so hopefully I covered that. I'm not super satisfied with it, but seeing as I'm in a bit of a writing funk currently, I hope you'll be forgiving. Then maybe I can escape the writer's block! Agh!