I finished FFXV last night and was a sobbing mess for a good half hour during the end of the game and well past the credits. This work was inspired by the piece Solidarity in the Brotherhood OST (which I highly recommend listening to WHILE reading this story), and gave me so many feels about how Gladio must have felt at the end of the game watching Noct walk up those steps. It's the next day and I still want to cry over the ending of this game.

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy XV

He must have been seven or eight back then.

Gladio looked at the man in front of him, dressed in the full King's Raiment, the man he called his brother, his closest friend, the man he hadn't seen or heard from in ten years. He always had faith that he would come back; Noctis was too hard-headed to do otherwise when he had so much at stake. Then again, what did he have left to fight for?

His father was killed by one of their own, the commander of the Kingsglaive. His kingdom was taken by their enemies. His fiancé was stabbed by the very man who tried to lay claim to the throne, the false King of Lucis.

No, Noctis kept fighting for the world. He kept fighting for the greater good, knowing that after all of this was taken from him, it would also take his life.

And Gladio had been there with him through it all. He, Ignis, and Prompto, after Noctis' disappearance, had risked everything they had to make their way back into the Crown City to recover the Kingsglaive garb, wearing them proudly as they awaited the return of their King. The man who stood in front of him looked nothing like the twenty-year-old he had last seen, the one with gelled hair and a sleepy expression always on his face. The one who teased his brothers whenever the chance came up, the one who was secretly just as enthusiastic about chocobos as Prompto. The one who never turned down a meal that Ignis made, the one who was always up for training with him. No, this man's face was shadowed, haunted, resilient. Age had left marks on him, unfair marks with consent never given for the ten years taken from him.

Despite all of that, the man Gladio saw in front of him was ready. This was the face of the man who was ready to take the throne and be King, the King that the world of Eos desperately needed. This was the face of the man who knew his future and made his peace, the face of the man who tore Gladio's heart into two when he looked at him and all he could see was the seven, eight-year-old boy whom he thought was a spoiled brat, the kid who stood up for his sister so she wouldn't get in trouble. This was the kid who had fallen on his backside time and time again training with him, who stopped giving up after ten minutes and instead gave it his all every time.

This was the brother he grew up with, the one he yelled at when his princely ass needed kicking, the one he rushed to defend on the battlefield when he fell.

This was the King he was to say goodbye to.

Noctis' blue eyes were now tinged with amber and flecked with red, but the gentleness, the trust he looked at them with never changed as his gaze moved from one to the other. The words that needed speaking had been spoken. The silence that made them all huddle closer in the tent than they ever had before had been felt. The road that they walked together as brothers was coming quickly to an end, and that alone was enough to break Gladio's resolve as his tears flowed from his eyes, as he heard Prompto sniff and Ignis swallow down the lump in his throat.

"Prompto. Gladio. Ignis."

Each of them in turn bowed and put their left hands onto their hearts, as they had waited to do for ten years, from the Prince by their side to the King in front of them. Gladio's tears fell from his eyes down onto the pavement in front of the Citadel, where it had all begun, and where it would all end.

"I leave it to you. Walk tall…my friends."

Noctis's right hand came up, returning their gesture. With one last look at them, the King turned to the Citadel to reclaim his throne. Gladio looked up, watching his brother go, watching as his form became that of the child he had known so well, the young adult he had laughed with, grown alongside, and fought with, and nodded once more. He, Prompto, and Ignis turned to face the courtyard where hordes of daemons were rising from the depths as they summoned their weapons, ready to fight for the time Noctis needed to ascend the throne and banish the darkness once and for all.

Gladiolus Amicitia was the King's Sworn Shield, and he was ready to do his duty to protect his King until morning finally comes.

I walked tall.