Looking Glass
oneshot by Dawn. Fire. Angel

This story is in Noctis's POV (first person), something I've been itching to do since I found out about this, because I've never done it male-wise before. Only females, and they're always my OCs...

By the way, in this story I changed the Kingdom's name to Crystallis...

Read and review!!!!!

On with the show!

Silence was everywhere. Around me, in me, filling me quietly with gentle peace that was hard to come by nowadays, since the day I watched my life crumble slowly, one by one, taking even my most loved ones with it.

Outside this weak bubble of peace, my troops were fighting against the resistance group. I could sense each and every one of their lives, and felt every one that was cut down, cut short. Those who died, enemy or not, I sent their souls into Valhalla with a quick prayer to the Goddess, begging for their eternal peace with her.

My eyes drifted shut.

I, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Prince of Crystallis, have much of my short life to get through before peace can truly be mine.

With a soft sigh, my parent's happy picture appeared behind closed lids. I gasped, and my eyes flew open.

My parents. My loving parents.

Only now did it hit me hard that they were truly gone, forever. My hands clenched so hard that my knuckles turned white, paler than my skin, even.

My parents... Mother... Father...

When I was only eleven, a resistance group had broke into the palace in the dead of the night, wrecking havoc and confusion around us. My mother, who had been but a village girl raised in status as the King's lover, but not his Queen (for his Queen had died along with her firstborn many years before I was born), had made me escape without her down the servant's passageway.

My father had died in battle – he had fought valiantly, but failed to save his life and his mistress's. I held nothing against them, although I do wish they were still alive. Then, I wouldn't need to kill in the upcoming war. I wouldn't need to see and feel the fear and terror around me as I cut down all their lives with my power.

I had, of course, escaped with mine and my handmaid's lives.

I shuddered, and let my eyes close again.

Three more dead.

I said a quick prayer in their name, and felt their peace as they left. I gave them a bit of mine, and watched them disappear into the Goddess's embrace.

Then, I thought of one of my cousins, who was now the enemy. Stella's father wanted to take over my Kingdom, but I stood firm and refused to let his evil take over the land my father – and now I – cared for and loved so much, for so long. Her mother, a weak woman, was the daughter of Cocoon, and their marriage had allied their countries.

When Stella and I were younger, we used to be friends, and were meant to be engaged to secure peace when my parents died and I rose to the throne. Of course, I found myself too young to be married then, and refused her father's offer time and time again, which eventually turned the events I thought to be easy and everlasting.

I've never heard from Stella since.

There was a scream of pain outside the doors, and I felt the death of yet another man.

Soon, it would be time for me to intervene.

My thoughts turned to my country.

A long time ago, when the Goddess was young and the earth was new, a teenage runaway from the country of Tenebrae had been swept to an unmarked island on the mercy of the Goddess. He had been spoken to by the Great Lady Herself, and he knew what he was supposed to do when he woke up.

He set out to search for nine large stones hidden in every corner of the land, and brought them to the centre of the island, marked by a waterfall (which was now the main source of water for Crystallis). He worked alone, slowly chipping off the outer layer that had hardened into pure stone to reveal the prisms underneath.

His blood, sweat and tears made it through – when the last speck of dirt had been brushed away, eight Crystals disappeared and returned to the eight other countries from which they came. The last Crystal returned to its place in a mountain that the Goddess formed to be the young man's palace.

He married the girl he had loved from his homeland and brought her back with hundreds of other men and women and children to inhabit the place, to live and reproduce and conquer the land.

A hundred years later, long after the young man grew old and went to dwell in Valhalla with the others who belonged in the arms of the Goddess, his descendants committed an act so evil that it broke the heart of the Goddess, and Her tears churned up the sea and flooded the land the First King had so lovingly called 'Crystallis' for this was where the lost Crystals had been found.

Only two children survived – they grew up and married, and had many children to inhabit the lands once more.

There was a final, tortured scream as my last trooper passed on. My eyes turned to the darker shade, the shade that came when I was feeling slightly angry. I rose from my throne slowly, knowing they'll be probably congratulating themselves under their breath now.

The looking glass is the one place one can truly know the past... for me, I have to rely on what I have been taught.

But I have time.

-fin-

Haha, it's a bit crappy and short, but I honestly was like... errr... how to write the history??? I'm NOT a historian, that's for sure! And I've got a damned writer's block coming soon... Ack, it's starting to leech from my writing-ness!!!

Please review everyone! You know I'm lovable.... Kidding.