Ignis is, in no particular order: most likely ten; blinded and scarred by an injury he has no knowledge of; a gift.
That's what they tell him when he takes his first breath on a marble floor in a huge echoing place, the three men who kneel around him with their worried voices and their kind, unsteady hands: you're a miracle, you're a gift, you're a thing of magic and destiny and mercy. You're fine. Don't be afraid. We'll take care of you. Everything is going to be alright.
For the most part, it's even true.
Ignis lives in the Citadel, a reclaimed castle in the ruins of a city being rebuilt. He's the ward to the King, and to the King's Shield, and to the King's best friend. The King rules a nation that's slowly resurrecting itself from its ashes, and he insists on not being King to Ignis. "Call me Noct."
The three of them all say he has a place with them, and always will have, although he's not sure what this place is. He has a valet to take care of him, a motley collection of books written in a script of raised dots and dashes that he somehow knows. He has a room of his own, and an uncertain future.
He doesn't think he's unloved, precisely. Gladio drops a kind hand on his head from time to time, fluff his hair, call him 'kid' with heavy, heartfelt kindness. Prompto will drag him all over the Citadel and down to the chocobo pens, describes the colors and shapes and the grand ballrooms, and he tries his best to answer any question Ignis has, most of the time. And Noct is… complicated, in a way that Ignis can't quite explain to himself.
A data point: once, when the four of them are on the walk through the Insomnia, something huge and snarling rises from the ruins and leaps at them. Gladio deals with it before Ignis has the time to be scared, and Noct drags Ignis down, folds around him, shielding him with his body from the menace, holds him so tight that Ignis' ribs feel bruised for days afterward. Ignis freezes, uncertain, feels Noct's heart hammering against his back, stuttery and terrified. It takes Noct a while to let him go after the beast is killed ("A voretooth," Prompto says cheerfully afterward, "can you believe this one made it to the city and didn't get eaten by the daemons?", and then doesn't explain what the daemons are); he runs his trembling hands all over Ignis, checking him for injuries, even though the monster never even touched him. And then snatches them back as if burned.
Ignis isn't allowed outside of the Citadel again after that, alone or with an entourage.
So he's protected, maybe even cherished; definitely safe, in many different meanings of the word. But he's somewhere in-between, wandering without a purpose through a fortress where everybody is busy and full of intent all the time. He asks for a something to do, from time to time, and Gladio says "Relax, kid," and distracts him into discussing the books they've been reading, and Prompto laughs, just a bit too high, and tells him that a new chick had just hatched in the stables and they should go visit it, and Noct - Ignis doesn't ask Noct.
He's not, precisely, unloved - he likes it, being precise - but his is the world of sounds and voices and touches, and he can't help stumbling into the lacunae between them, feeling them keenly.
Gladio swallows and changes the topic when Ignis asks when he'll be allowed to train with him and his guards. He asks the palace cook to teach him how to make Prompto's favorite dish and presents it proudly, and Prompto thanks him with such patently false cheer Ignis is left unsure whether the cook played a trick on him. His questions about history make Mr. Talcott, the royal historian who sometimes gives him infrequent and informal tutoring sessions, stammer and turn away and drop his books. Lady Amicitia, who can normally be relied upon for cookies, gossip, and impulsive hugs, tries to teach him to waltz once, and dashes out of the room mid-lesson. Ignis is pretty sure she's crying.
One day he finds a grand piano in the unused ballroom and sits in front of it, curious if the ability to play it will be one of those things that he's mysteriously retained from his Before, like his ability to navigate the Citadel corridors without his sight or read the dotted script.
It's not; the old ivory keys are pleasantly cool under his fingers, but they don't divulge any secrets to him. He sits there for a long time anyway, enjoying the solitude and the dusty peace of the room, pressing the keys at random, startling himself with little snatches of sound.
There's a presence in the room when he comes to himself; he knows it's Noct standing in the doorway, the way he somehow always knows when it's Noct. He's scared, suddenly; not of Noct, who had never hurt him, who Ignis can't imagine ever hurting him, but of something - of something -
He hunches over the piano, paralyzed, trying to make himself to just turn around and greet Noct, to smile at him, to ask if Noct can play, if he can teach him how - and before he can, there's a strangled, pained noise from behind him, a dying animal noise coming from Noct's throat, and then Noct's gone.
He doesn't ask.
Ignis overhears things; he's quiet and unobtrusive, used to slipping through adult's lives unnoticed, and the Citadel staff is polite and solicitous to him and used to him being underfoot.
That's how he comes to eavesdrop on a Council meeting, because those interest him, in a vague sense he can't pinpoint. It's all logistics and resource reassignment at first, matters of rather soothing mathematical complexity. Ignis sometimes hopes Noct will allow him to sit on such meetings officially when he's older.
And then one of the older members says: "Your Majesty, it's been some time since your safe return, and re-establishing the lines of succession would've gone a long way towards reassuring the population. It's been understood you're reluctant to marry - Gods rest Lady Lunafreya's soul - but have you considered other options? If you have plans to appoint your ward the heir, we should…"
"No," Noct says, and in the hallway, Ignis startles, frightened. Noct never shouts, except apparently now he does.
"Ignis," Noct says, quieter but still in an obvious rage, "is not my heir and never going to be. And the first person to fill his head with this nonsense is going to find himself managing potato fields in Leide, is it understood? Am I making myself clear?"
There are confused noises of assent from the Council. Ignis leans against the wall, glad he can't see the guards' faces, doesn't know if they're gleeful about the new gossip or sympathetic to his embarrassment. He slinks away.
That night he lies in his bed, very still, slowly tracing the sunburst of scars on his face. Sometimes, he thinks, a gift can get lost or damaged in transit, can't it? Sometimes what ends up delivered is not what was expected.
He does his research, or at least tries to. Nobody at the Citadel wants to tell him anything useful about Before, and Ignis can't tell if this is their own judgment or a royal order; no matter how carefully he asks, people will hum or laugh awkwardly, and tell him not to worry.
He does manage to cobble together a story of why the city beyond the Citadel is in ruins, at least; a renegade, immortal king, and the daemons, and a prophecy that was narrowly averted without an explanation. Dark magic, poisoning the world.
One of the books in his collection is a treatise on fairy tales; he rereads it several times, reconstructing the shape of the stories themselves from its dry, academic language, skimming his fingers down the pages. It talks about themes and recurring motifs, offers explanations and historical reasons, but Ignis keeps going back to the simple math of magic, over and over.
When there's magic, there's a price; when there's a victory, there's a sacrifice to be made. And Ardyn, whose name is said in Citadel only in furtive whispers, could have stepped out of the a pages of a fairytale. He had, Ignis is pretty sure, actively starred in some of them.
He got called a gift when he came into being on the stone floor, a joy, a wonder - but Ignis collects his guardians' pauses, their silences, their stifled sobs, their swallowed words, and wonders just whose gift he was, and for whom he was intended.
The chapters he rereads most are on changelings, on stolen children replaced with their crude replicas, devastated parents, and dreams about being born into darkness, stone, and silence, into some sinister purpose.
Noct and the others, he thinks, will never hurt him; he knows them ultimately, intimately, and thinks they wouldn't hurt him even if he was in truth a monster, something black and twisted and devious. But what if he - he can't bear the idea of it, the idea of his purpose being to hurt them.
He can't, but he can't stop thinking about it either.
In the end, he chooses Gladio, reasoning that Prompto is too sentimental and Noct is too complicated. He finds him at the training grounds, fresh off bossing the Crownsguard about, smelling comfortingly of sweat and effort.
Ignis has to steel himself before he calls out to him; for all that he's decided, and there's a certain relief to have in that, his heart is still hammering unpleasantly high in his throat. But he owes it to their kindness, to their protection and care. He needs to take care of them in return. Surely Gladio will see that, and surely Gladio will help him.
He says Gladio's name, feels the shift of displaced air as Gladio turns to him, can almost imagine the smile on his face.
"Hey, kid," Gladio says, and his cheer immediately morphs into worry. "Is everything fine? You look kinda pale."
"I'm fine. Can we talk?"
"Sure. Here?"
Ignis shrugs; he can hear the Crownsguard trainees milling around at the other side of the grounds, calling out to each other, but he doesn't think anybody will overhear them, and he can't bear the idea of a silent trek down to Gladio's rooms for more privacy.
"Here is fine. I - I wanted to ask - "
He can hear his voice, and it disgusts him: it's wavering, uncertain, childish, when he has to sound strong, certain. He has to be certain, from nowon. He coughs, begins again.
"I wanted to talk to you first, so you could help me with getting the permission from Noct."
"Permission to do what?"
"To leave the Citadel."
"What?"
"I know," Ignis says, gathering speed, "that I can't just be on my own until I grow up, but you could, you could find a family to have them take me in, right? If you pay them a stipend, to compensate for their troubles, and it doesn't need to be for too long, either, I'll be able to begin helping them soon, or working for them, and it - "
He's startled when Gladio drops to his knees in front of him, grabs his shoulders with the force just shy of bruising.
"Ignis," Gladio says, low, intent, "what the hell are you talking about? Has anybody been giving you trouble? Because you need to tell me, so I could go and mur - so I could go and kick their asses, okay? What's that nonsense about leaving?"
He sounds so upset that Ignis is tempted - so sorely tempted - to believe that he's been imagining things, making things up. But he remembers Noct's heavy, miserable silence in the piano room, that silence and the myriad of similar ones, day in and day out, and he knows he has to be firm.
"Nobody's said anything to me, Gladio," he says. "Nobody ever tells me anything at all. But I'm not stupid, and I know something about me is - I know it hurts you, and your sister, and Ms. Highwind, and other people, and Prompto, and No - " and that's where his throat closes up, and he had to pause to breathe, in and out, gather himself. "And Noct. Something went wrong with the magic, and that's how you've got - me. But you don't have to keep me around, right?"
"Gods," Gladio says, and laughs; it's such an un-Gladio-like laugh, low and mirthless, that Ignis shivers. "Well, it was Noct's dumbass idea in the first place, and I'm not taking the fall for it."
Before Ignis can ask, Gladio sweeps him up. Ignis' head spins with the sudden change of height.
"Gladio!"
Gladio ignores him. He kicks the doors open and settles Ignis in the crook of his elbow, holding his thighs so tightly they are beginning to tingle.
Ignis squirms in mortification, glad that he can't see the faces of people Gladio's scattering in his wake. He holds onto Gladio's shoulders for dear life and tries again.
"Gladio, put me down!"
"Shush, kid," Gladio says darkly. "You're not in trouble, but somebody's going to be soon."
He kicks another door open, heavier and taller by the sound of it. Before Ignis can figure out where they were, he hears the familiar noises of Council in session and freezes in abject horror.
"Gladio," Noct says over rising murmur of his advisors, "what the hell? Ignis?"
"Iggy," Prompto says from somewhere to the side, quieter, "you okay?"
"The kid," Gladio says, "thinks we should send him away because he's making us sad. Want to do something about that?"
Ignis regrets ever thinking Gladio was the most reasonable of the bunch; he twists in Gladio's grip, panicked and thinking that if he could just get out - give everybody some time to calm down before he tries again -
"Everybody. Out."
Noct's voice is tight and kind of scary, and the councilors pour out of the room, parting around Gladio's immovable bulk like an angry, confused wave.
The heavy doors to the throne room slam closed, and the four of them are alone. In the resulting silence, Ignis can hear his own breathing, too high and too fast.
He can hear Noct step off the throne, his heavy, uneven steps ringing off the marble. Gladio grunts and goes down to his knees, carefully settling Ignis down. He keeps his hands on Ignis' shoulders, and Ignis isn't sure if it's to keep him up or keep him from bolting.
Prompto drifts closer to them too. Ignis hears him stop just to the left of them, rock on the toes of his boots. He keeps gathering breath as if to say something and then exhaling it noisily. Ignis can see him in his mind easily, with his bright hair and worried eyes, and for the first time ever he wonders just how it's possible that he knows their faces given that he's never knew anything but quiet black nothingness beyond his eyelids.
Noct stops in front of Ignis and lowers himself to one knee, with a quiet, bitten-off sound of pain. The ornate brace on his leg clinks against the stone.
It takes an effort not to flinch from his outstretched arm, and while Ignis makes that effort, Noct seems to feel it anyway; his hand pauses, falters, falls safely down before it can touch Ignis' cheek.
"Ignis," Noct says quietly, "what happened?"
He doesn't want to say it again. He hoped, quietly, that Gladio would accept his arguments and present them to Noct in a way that - in a way that will allow Ignis not to hear Noct confirming his reasoning. But it can't be helped. So he talks, pressing his fingernails into his palms when his voice begins to falter, and finishes with asking a permission to leave.
There's a brief silence in his wake, and he can't gauge the tone of it. The Prompto says, brightly and with a hint of hysteria and his voice: "It's not like we didn't know he'd be as smart as -"
"I'm just grateful," Gladio grumbles, covering the end of Prompto's sentence, "he decided to ask instead of sneaking out by himself," joke or not, his hands tighten on Ignis' shoulder.
"I'm pretty sure that was the backup plan," Prompto says, and likely doesn't miss Ignis' guilty flinch. Ignis hears the whisper of leather against marble as he drops on the floor and crosses his legs. "Noct, we can't just - it was bound to happen. He deserves to know."
Noct is silent. Ignis is surrounded by them, hemmed in, and he can feel the freezing cold of the throne room just beyond the circle of their bodies, aching to push in - push in and claim him, who's surrounded so unfairly, stealing somebody's place.
He shakes Gladio's hands off, steps forward, puts his hand on Noct's face in a way he's never tried before. The sharp planes of it are infinitely familiar to his fingers and they're tense like a stone.
"Please tell me," he says quietly. "It's okay."
Noct is silent, silent, silent. The cold of the throne room seeps in past the circle of Ignis' guardians, nips at Ignis' toes. He waits, in patience and terror, suspended between them, and when Noct finally speaks, his words fall like heavy stones, full of the grief Ignis had only ever glimpsed before.
"When I was a child," Noct says, "younger than you, when I didn't know anything yet, my father the King brought me - brought me a friend. A companion. An advisor. He was by my side from there on, every day, until the very end. His name was Ignis."
The cold reaches Ignis' feet and freezes them in place, crawls up his ankles, shins, knees, thighs. Noct's story pours into him, filling him with understanding instead of memory: all those little pauses, those grieving stumbles. The childhood spent together: the piano lessons, the pastries, the magical training, the forbidden stargazing adventures. Books read together, scraped knees and stolen candy. Growing up into arguments, tension, reconciliation; a whole lifetime leading to - leading to -
Noct falters when he tells him about being sent out of the city for his wedding, falls silent; Prompto picks up the story, and even though his voice is as subdued as Ignis ever heard it, Ignis can still hear the smile creeping into it when he talks about their first weeks outside of the city, about how unprepared and ridiculous they were, what adventures they were having. How young they were - Noct and Prompto and Gladio and. And Ignis, their best friend.
Ignis can feel the cold creeping up higher, higher; he wonders about what will happen when it reaches his heart.
Gladio picks up when Prompto's laughter catches and fails; Noct begins again when Gladio's voice gives out. Insomnia falls, the King dies; Altissia dies, the Oracle dies; Gralea falls, and the Crystal swallows Noct for ten long, dark years, and when he returns -
"You see," Noct says, quiet and exhausted, "Ardyn had nothing to do with your existence. There were no deals. He - I killed him in the Reflection. And it was going to be the end of it; just like the prophecy said."
"Except," Prompto says, "that it turned out you - that Iggy knew, and he wasn't going to let it happen."
"Always been too damn stubborn," Gladio says and tries to reel Ignis in, hold him closer.
Ignis resists the embrace, stands rigid and still. If he moves, he's going to burst into a million of ice crystals, frozen fragments.
He makes his lips move. "And?"
"I died," Noct says, quiet and low, and he sounds like he's half-asleep, like he's reciting a well-worn fairytale. "I sat on my throne, and called the Royal Arms to me, and when they pierced me, I fought with Ardyn for the last time and granted him peace. And I was ready to - shatter - "
"The sun came up," Prompto says, strained, "and all the daemons disappeared, and we knew what it meant. We went to the throne room - here - we walked up the stairs, and we saw Noct, pinned to it, and it's like he was, he was."
"Unraveling," Gladio says gravely behind Ignis' back, and Ignis shivers.
"Unraveling," Prompto agrees, "disappearing. And I thought I'm glad Iggy can't see that, only I don't think he needed to. I think he knew anyway."
"And he said," Gladio says, and Ignis wants to make them stop, to shout that he doesn't want, doesn't want to hear any more. Something is scratching at his mind, something much more complicated than a memory; he knows what he would say if he knew Noct was dead.
"He said," and Ignis mouths the word along with Gladio, his lips numb, "no."
Ignis' ears are ringing, and the voices run together in one stream. "He went up the throne," and "he leaned over," and "we didn't know," and "all those trips all over creation, with Talcott and then alone, we didn't know," and "a bargain," and "somehow."
And then, finally, Noct, clear and full of grief, and Ignis knows that if he touches his face again, his fingers will come away wet and cold. "I opened my eyes and I saw him - on his knees before the throne - and he smiled at me, like he was happy, and then - "
"And then," Ignis says, caught in the spiderweb of the story, "he was me."
He stumbles back, finally released from the spell, bumps against Gladio's steadying hands. His throat spasms once, twice, the words inside frozen into sharp, ugly crystals. He coughs them up, lets them tear up his throat. "But, but, isn't it. Isn't that awful, isn't. Like I'm his tombstone. Like every time you look at me, you…"
Prompto makes a small, wounded noise to his left; and Noct - Ignis feels the shift in the air when Noct folds over, on his knees before Ignis with his head hanging low, like those penitent knights in the fairytales, those grieving supplicants.
"I miss him so much," Noct says, and it comes out low and wretched, a moan of pain. "Every day."
Ignis can't think, can't move; he wants his worst fears back, his theories; he wants to be a changeling, a child made to replace the one stolen, a potential that could still unfold to exist, to be loved by somebody on his own. Not - not this.
"Six above, Noct, get it together!"
Gladio's arms are around him; Ignis twists and buckles, but that time Gladio doesn't relent, folding him back into his embrace. He's scorchingly warm, and Ignis gasps, and gasps again, and again, he can't seem to catch his breath, and Gladio holds him tightly, possessively, like he's something worth holding.
"Give him a minute, kid," he says into Ignis' ear with startling gentleness. "I swear everything is okay."
It's not, of course. It's not, but for a dizzy, endless minute Ignis allows himself to believe it. Behind them, Prompto is saying something to Noct, too low to make out the words. Ignis hides his face into Gladio's lapels, and hates himself for it - an impostor, an abomination, taking up space where Gladio's friend should be - but he does it anyway, mashing his nose into the leather until it aches. Maybe Gladio will carry him out. Maybe he'll never have to talk to anybody ever again. Maybe…
"Ignis," Noct says behind him, and Ignis shakes his head and burrows tighter.
"Ignis. Forgive me. You're - it's not your fault. You're not - you're not my - you're not his tombstone. You're your own person, you are - "
If he says "a gift," Ignis is going to run, and he doesn't care what it takes. What kind of gift could he be? Worse than useless, malicious, filled with poison.
"Buddy," Prompto says quietly, carefully, unfamiliar without his cheer. "Breathe, okay? Breathe. I'm sorry we suck at this whole thing so badly, but - you have to breathe."
"You're your own Ignis," Noct says again. "You're smart, and you're kind, and you figure things out in your head faster than everybody else, and you care about people, and you're so young, and I - I'm so sorry. I should've done better by you, for - for your own sake."
There's something coalescing in the middle of Ignis' chest, a small, bitter ember, a tiny space of compressed heat. He's - he understands, suddenly, that he's angry. He pushes himself off Gladio, away from his soothing, traitorous warmth, whirls away to face Noct.
"You should have - you should have - what did you want? I didn't know what you wanted!"
"I - we - "
"If you," Ignis says, words bumping one into another, "if you wanted, if you wanted him back, why didn't you let me - you could've taught me - I just wanted to, to be something useful - "
"No," Noct says, and there's real horror in his voice. "Six, no, I never - Ignis, you, the other you, he, he spent your entire life for the Crown, for me, we took him young and he just never quit, he gave and gave and gave and gave, until the very end."
He reaches out again, and this time Ignis doesn't move back from the shift in the air, he lets Noct touch his knee. "It'd be so easy, and I - sometimes I imagine - you'd learn to fight, and you'd read all those law books for the second time, and you'd ask to sit on the Council, and you'd grow up so fast, you'd want to help, you'd be so good at it, and it would be so easy to - let you - and then one day you, again, you would…"
He chokes, pauses, gulping for air; Ignis' hands hover in front of him, uncertain, empty. He's so angry; and he wants to reach out and make Noct stop, tell him that it's okay, that he'd (be so useful, be so good, grow up so quick, he'd learn) - that he wouldn't die again.
"What," he says instead, and it comes out high and childish and small, "do I do then? What can I be?"
"We kind of hoped," Prompto says sheepishly, "that you'll figure that one out if we won't pressure you. "
"And then we freaked out every time you wanted something you - Iggy - would have wanted, because we've thought this through really well," Gladio says, sarcasm and apology at once, and it's so hard not to lean on him, not to dive back into the protective circle of his arms.
"We should have," Noct says, "maybe we should have found you a family at once, somebody who didn't know you before and who could have," and Ignis can't help cringing at could have loved you he hears in his head, but Noct continues, "who could have given you the care you deserved, without our - without our mistakes - but Ignis -"
He grips Ignis' shoulders, leans his forehead against Ignis', and it's feverishly hot against Ignis' skin, and the desperation in his voice rolls over Ignis' like a tidal wave.
"Maybe if it could have been done right away, but everything was in shambles, and we didn't know whom to trust, and after that, after that I was selfish. I couldn't bear losing you again, giving you away, not knowing what will happen to you."
"We should have told you," Gladio says, "and we should have noticed how we began freaking you out, but this is - this wasn't just Noct's decision."
"Yeah," Prompto says with conviction. "We all wanted - all of us, we wanted you to stay. You're ours."
"But I," Ignis says, almost soundlessly; he feels like his skin is coming awake, cell by cell, goosebump by goosebump. "I'm not him."
"No," Noct says, gently; he straightens up, settles back on his heels. "You're not, and you're not going to grow up to be him, either. You're somebody completely new."
"A miracle," Prompto says. "Like, not for us, not made for us, but just, believe me, dude, it doesn't matter how you were made, just that you are here now."
"Kid," Gladio says, "the thing that matters is, what do you want?"
"I don't know," Ignis says, quietly, the truth. "I'm afraid."
Noct swallows. "I swear," he says, choked up and thick, "all I want is to keep you safe. Safe and sound. Anything else, you just have to ask."
"Yeah," Gladio says, and Prompto echoes him.
It's so hard to think; exhaustion is settling in, blanketing in, dulling the sounds - but the cold is gone. In the circle of their arms, it's finally warm.
"I want," Ignis says, slowly, "I want you to tell me. When you're - when I make you sad. So I could understand. I just want to understand."
"You don't really make us sad, Ignis," Prompto says immediately. "You're pretty much perfect, as kids go, you could maybe stand to make more trouble. It's when we - "
"Remember," Noct says. "And it's not your fault. That's why we… do you want us to tell us about him? When we remember him?"
Ignis nods. "I - he was good, wasn't he? A good person."
"The best," Noct whispers.
It's quiet, and it feels like a different kind of quiet, hushed and reverent, but not so frozen, not so dead. Ignis leans back into Gladio, slightly, and Gladio shifts and sits back on his heels, tugs Ignis to perch on his lap, lean against his chest. Ignis plucks a thread on his sleeve, hesitating, but makes himself ask anyway.
"Maybe... If it hurts so badly, remembering him when you look at me, maybe you still - maybe you should send me away anyway."
"No," Gladio says sharply, and Prompto says, 'no way," but there's a slow, heavy silence from Noct, and Ignis tenses all over again.
"Ignis," Noct says, finally, "that's a lot you've learned today; and we've failed you pretty badly, and I don't think I can promise we won't screw it up again. If you want to - if it will be easier for you - we could find people we actually trust to look after you, and we'd check frequently, and make sure you're cared for properly. But - this is your home. You have a right to it. Do you want to leave?"
It sounds tempting, laid out like that. To leave somewhere without the shadow of his adult self looming over him; to grow up without that weight. But when he tries imagining leaving the Citadel - leaving the only life he knows - his room, and his books, and his lessons, and the cooks in the kitchen who leave small treats for him in the morning, and the chocobo stables, and the empty upper levels he walks through sometimes, unseeing and unseen, and the way the air on top of the Citadel feels, sharp and cold and new - and Gladio, and Prompto, and Noct -
Maybe, he thinks, it was selfish of Noct to not give him away somewhere he wouldn't have to learn all of this. But maybe it was brave of him to hold onto Ignis, to not let him go. To keep him even though it hurt.
Maybe, he thinks, he's - allowed - to be selfish, and to be brave, too.
He shakes his head, mutely, and Noct breathes out in stark relief.
"Thank you," Noct says. "It's your home. It's always going to be your home. Thank you for staying with us."
"I'm tired," he whispers.
"You've had a rough day, buddy, " Prompto says. "Want to go back to bed?"
He nods.
"I'll take him," Gladio says, and Ignis doesn't even want to protest the indignity of being carried again; he doesn't think he can walk.
He hears the scrape of Noct's brace as he gets up instead.
"Let me," Noct says, and Gladio snorts over Ignis' head. "Are you sure, old man? You'll drop him."
"Can it, Gladio. Ignis, may I?"
Ignis nods again; his throat and eyes feel tight and hot, clogged. He reaches out in Noct's direction and lets Noct pick him up.
Noct's arms are smaller than Gladio's, not as sturdy, but they hold Ignis tightly, surely. He straightens up, settles Ignis against his chest, and Ignis feels heavy and substantial and - important, he thinks. Important.
"Thank you," Noct whispers into his hair. "Go to sleep." The chain of his office digs its cold links into the scars on Ignis' cheek.
Ignis can hear his heartbeat, slowing down; he tries to imagine knowing it for thirty years, remembering it. But it's only Noct; Noct who held him tightly, protecting him from an attacking beast, and whose heart beat wildly in terror over the thought of losing him.
"Noct," he whispers into his chest, muzzily, already dissolving. "I promise I won't die again."
If Noct answers him, he doesn't hear.
Ignis is, in no particular order: most likely eleven; blinded and scarred by an injury that didn't happen to him; a miracle.
He lives in a castle in the middle of the city that's stopped rebuilding itself and began to grow in new ways. He's the King's ward but not his heir. His family is inherited, but his alone.
He has his room, and his tutors, and his books, and his piano lessons, and a ficus plant in a pot on his windowsill; he's learning how to take care of it, how to check the soil with careful fingers.
There's a chocobo chick in the stables that will grow up to be his. One day, when he's big enough, he's going to take it and travel all around the world, collecting stories; he studies to prepare for this journey, and trains to protect himself during it.
There's a kid in the kitchen, a daughter of one of the cooks, who promises to smuggle him out of the Citadel one day to go swimming in a public pool without the adults breathing down their necks, and he can't wait.
He has no destiny of his own.
It's okay.