Children of the Dawn

It was simple maths that such a young phoenix couldn't hope to match a millennia old Basilisk,. Thus, Harry Potter went up in flames, and Lumen Stella Proelia was reborn in them. Fate's plans were saved, but the method in which would be drastically changed. Slash. Prompto/Harry, Luna/Noctis, Cindy/Aranea

WARNING: I played with the Royal Edition, and recently too, I'm told that this means I've been privy to things that other players have not been, so there may be some spoilers or differences in my writing some scenes because of that.

000

Chapter Four

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter will depict non-graphic physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse, as well as minor animal abuse.

Given Lumen's age, realising his ambition to create a Search and Rescue operation was near-enough impossible. Looking at everything written down on paper made it look very difficult indeed.

In practice, it was deceptively easy.

People feared daemons, they feared monsters, many of them feared ever setting foot outside their villages and hometowns no matter what the reason, there were incidents across the entirety of the Lucis continent of citizens whose power had gone out, but instead of fleeing to the nearest town, had hunkered down in their homes, too scared to leave, and ultimately died on the claws of the daemons they thought they could hide from. Deaths on the road were high due to the unfortunate propensity of car failure. The mortality rates of hunters out on jobs was always high, and frighteningly enough: climbing.

Lumen's first hurdle in his endeavours was money. He needed gil to implement his ideas. First to register his business as official, secondly to create the equipment he needed to track the hunters, relay stations to pick up their signals, and staff to communicate that information to him. The infrastructure of the system existed in a crude form in the Hunter's radio outposts, and the infant mobile phone network that had been trickling out from Insomnia. He could build off that, but again, he needed the gil to create it. And that meant sponsors. Which was where that fear came in.

"Your best bet would be talking to old Ezma," Vega explained as the two of them sat at a fold out picnic table in the Prairie outpost in Leide, Lumen wrinkled his nose at her suggestion and the pretty brunette woman mimicked him, "but that's obviously a no go." Everyone knew that Dave's mother had hated Lilium, not for rejecting her son, but for being exactly like she had once been as a young woman: beautiful, headstrong, powerful, and volatile. Ezma saw her as a threat, and her son as little more than a cuckoo in the nest. No one wanted to cross Ezma. Not after she banished her own sister to live in the wilds, and forbade any hunter from coming to her aid.

"I wouldn't do it anyway," the thirteen year old admitted bitterly. After the way she tried to offload him onto his Aunt in Insomnia, knowing the bad-blood between his mother and her, calling him a bad-luck charm as if it were his fault that his mother was killed that night... It had taken a long time, and a lot of talks with Dave, with a few other hunters, with a few mothers, and he had come to understand that he was eight years old, there was nothing different that he could have done. He had done the best thing that he could have in that situation by keeping a cool head and heading for the nearest Haven. If it hadn't been him, then it could have been any other child within the convoy, any other man or woman. His mother would have laid her life down for any of them in a heartbeat.

She would say constantly that she wasn't so altruistic, she would snap and snarl, and declare herself the queen of all ice-bitches, but time and again she would throw herself into danger, into combat, to save others. It was only the fact she returned alive that allowed her to deflect, to brag that she was confident enough in her skills to know that her life had never been in danger. But now that Lumen was older, he could remember how she would hold him tighter on those nights, how she would sometimes whisper apologies into his hair when she thought he was sleeping, and of course, how she jarred awake in her sleep, voice trapped in her lungs, nightmares of what never came to pass fogging her mind. He was not a bad luck charm. Sometimes... sometimes you could do everything right, be the strongest there ever was, and still lose. That night... was just one of those times. And he hated Ezma Auburnbrie for trying to make him believe it was his fault, an eight year old child's, and the feeling was 100% mutual.

Vega nodded, gossip in hunter circles was usually the depressing kind – who died, who got maimed, who dropped out and handed their tags in, etc. Rarely did they have good news, like children being born, or marriages being arranged. And the unreasonable hatred of their headwoman towards the young son of one of her own was not perhaps happy, it was certainly a better conversation topic than the dead towns in Leide where the power was intermittent and unreliable, or the villages with its missing children in southern Duscae, or the Niflheim interests up near the Vesperpool. It was through those gossip sessions that everyone learned of what happened to her sister Kimya, a woman with magical abilities to fight daemons, who used to aid the hunters in their activities by selling them potions and medicines she made. Ezma never referred to her sister by name, pretended she didn't even have one, and when forced to discuss the woman referred to her only as a witch and forbade any from contacting her at her place of banishment – Malmalam Thicket. They had all unanimously agreed not to tell Lumen about Kimya, knowing that the boy would immediately go to her, if only to spite Ezma, which would place Dave into an even more difficult position.

Lumen dragged the sheet of paper that they had been brainstorming on over to himself, "I can get the tech aspect sorted on the cheap, I have an in with the petrol-heads up at Hammerhead. Cid's not got much to do these days with Cindy taking over most of the shop so he ends up rattling around a little, feeling like a third wheel. This'll give him something to sink his teeth into for a while, he'll like that I think. And Cindy's got friends up in the EXINERIS plant, if she can get me into contact with them, we can see about getting access to their relay towers for the tracker signals," he explained, writing a few things down, oblivious to the small handful of hunters that primarily worked out of this outpost earwigging like shameless teenagers.

Vega whistled, "Cid Sophiar? That old grinch? He's famous for being a tightass when it comes to gil, kiddo. You sure you can pull that one off?" she asked sceptically.

He nodded as he continued writing, "Mum was the one that saved Cindy when Keycatrich fell."

Vega closed her mouth with a click of teeth, and several of the hunters around them promptly looked away.

Keycatrich ruins were only three miles away from them, only an hour's walk.

"If I can talk to some of the people in charge at EXINERIS, I can maybe spin some sponsorship out of them too. Provide some courier duties in exchange for use of their towers." He scratched at his ear with a frown, "I'd need someone with some legal know-how to look over any documents to make sure they don't screw me over... big companies do that sort of thing, don't they?" he asked, peering up at her. She shrugged. She was as much of a roadie as he was, born and raised in the back of a truck by her hunter parents, same as him, only she'd gotten radios and wires into her brain instead of chocobos and rescue operations. If it didn't require electricity, she was going to be useless with it.

"You'll wanna talk to Sophiar 'bout that too," one of the earwigging hunters recommended. Balamb was an older guy, a bit more well connected than one would think, he tended to visit the racing circuit more than his missus would have liked given his bad habit of gambling a little bit of gil here and there, now and again. "Heard he used to travel with some fancy folk from the Crown City, he'd have some connections there, I'd think."

Lumen shook his head, "Not anymore. Had a falling out with them over the refugee policy – I think he wanted to get his daughter and her family into the city proper, but couldn't." 'Out of Keycatrich' went unsaid, but certainly implied.

Balamb shook his head, "Naw kid, good thinking but not what I meant. He owns an' runs his own business. That means paperwork, permits, and negotiations. He'd have some connections to get you a lot further than a pile'a dusty weapon heads like the rest of us," he pointed out with a grin, ducking his head when a papercup went soaring in his direction along with a lot of jeering.

Lumen grinned, "I might not be able to get legal advice from you guys, but you can help me in other ways. Like telling me what you need, and how I can help. This whole business is to help you, but I've never gone on an official hunt, I'm too young. So you're going to have to tell me everything."

There were a great deal of scraping chairs, and suddenly Lumen was surrounded by the rest of the hunters that had been listening in.

"That we can do, kiddo," Balamb assured him with a grin as a plate of something hot, and probably greasy was shoved under his nose. "You may need some more paper though."

000

Cid was more than happy to help him with his idea. Lumen had been more right than he realised when he said Cid had been feeling like a third wheel as Cindy took over the shop from him, he was as proud as could be, but he hadn't yet gotten used to being a 'gentleman of leisure' in his retirement. Lumen's little rescue operation was just the kind of project he needed to sink his teeth into.

Cindy was eager to help too, and put him into contact with her friend Holly up in Lestallum. Holly, it seemed, had an absolutely crippling phobia of daemons, and was willing to personally pour half of her paycheque into his endeavours if her efforts to get the bigwigs at EXINERIS to sponsor him fell through.

Luckily for them all they were just as terrified, and saw his efforts as good publicity for relatively little cost.

Cid wasn't too keen to leave Hammerhead, but Cindy was in her twenties and practically running the place herself, leaving him with far too much time on his hands to cook himself in his sunlounger – he found himself moving up to Lestallum briefly to help Holly and Lumen get his tracking systems operational. Utilising the cable car pylons to pick up and transmit the alerts from the hunters, EXINERIS were able to add to their public image as a company that cared about the well being of their people and for small local businesses. Cid and Holly spearheaded the negotiations on that front while Lumen worked to create the software he needed for it, fielding calls and making visits to both Cindy and Vega in Leide.

Now that he was fourteen, Dave had given him his own phone to communicate with others, and, of all things he never expected to see again, his mother's Titan Axe. The huge double-headed battle axe was taller than him, blade and pole included, and twice as wide, it was heavy. Too heavy for Lumen to wield right now, but he vowed to be just as good as his mother with it. Especially when he saw the strip of yellow cloth she had tied to the hilt.

He had forgotten she had it.

He had been perhaps four? Maybe a little older, or a little younger? He had overheard some hunter panicking because he had gone on a job without his Good Luck Charm, a little cactuar charm his sister had made for him. When the hunter's tags returned instead of him, Lumen had become scared. His mother did not have a good luck charm that he knew of back then, so he had asked Dave what they were. Charms could be anything, but the best ones were the ones given by the people that loved you, and wanted you to come home safe. So Lumen had taken his little handful of gil to the market in Lestallum when they passed through, he had handed over every last one to the pretty lady behind the counter and asked her for the yellow ribbon with the red flowers on it. He hadn't been very good at counting, and didn't nearly have enough gil for it, but the woman had given it to him anyway. He then proceeded to ruin the pretty ribbon with a permanent marker – carefully using his best handwriting and writing on the back of it 'Yoo kAn doo it mama I Luv Yoo kik its Bum'.

Untying it from the hilt just beneath the axe head, he stared at the completely illegible handwriting and how the permanent marker had bled across the yellow fabric, staining it grey and green in places where it must have gotten wet, at the way it had ruined the flowers embroidered into the fabric, and at how his mother had tied it to her weapon and never removed it since he gave it to her.

Carefully, he retied it to the shaft and let the massive weapon burst into crystalline light, tucking it away in his magic pocket. He would practice with it later, he would need to. And get hold of a few other weapons as well – perhaps he could beg Dave to pick him up a Radiant Lance the next time he passed through Meldacio, the less he saw Ezma the better.

000

It took two years in total to get everything arranged as well as learning more first-aid, mechanics, electronics, mounted combat, and chocobo care in order to do the best job he could physically do.

His work done, Cid returned to Leide citing that the humidity of Cleigne was hell on his lungs and the winter was colder than Shiva's tit – he wanted back to his machine shop and the desert. Holly was still his primary point of contact within Lestallum, she'd even joked about adopting him like Cindy before ruffling his hair and sending him on his way with a peculiar look on her face. She was definitely planning something, that woman. He and Dave were now largely separated, his father off on hunts and tag retrievals as per usual with his motorbike which he now had a lot more space in without Lumen and his belongings getting in the way – but he confessed to getting lonely, so Lumen got him a dog. She was just a puppy right now, but he had already begun to train her in basic commands, and a few more complex ones like sniffing out daemons and dead bodies. He had been training a few chocobos with Wiz in the same things, and while the pup wasn't as smart as the large birds, it was more obedient. With the dog's help, Dave would be able to avoid troublesome daemons he might not be able to handle while on tag retrieval.

Vega was his primary point of contact up in Leide, manning the switchboards and communications network he had set up in the Prairie outpost alongside her radio operations for the Hunters. Cindy was of course a key point in his efforts, she saw a lot of hunters in and out of Hammerhead and had practically demanded a signal transmitter set up to protect her customers.

Galdin Quay had approached him about perhaps bolstering their own public image by providing signal support, and it was while he was there discussing it with the headchef of the Mother of Pearl restaurant that he encountered Dino again. The aspiring jeweller had taken the writing job that his mother had recommended, he was reporting on the Mother of Pearl for a company called Meteor Publishing – they operated out of Lestallum in Cleigne. He wasn't thrilled, but hey, it sent a little more money back home to ma and the little ones, and gave him some saving for his true passion.

"In fact, while I've got ya here, how 'bout an interview?" Dino asked with a grin nodding to the beach where he could see Lumen's chocobo attracting a few children down to the carpark. "Chocobo Search an' Rescue, huh? Boss has been trying to get the scoop on that fer a while now, just my luck to know the man behind the magic, eh?" he teased with a grin.

Thankfully, this was something Cid and Dave had given him advice about. His idea was just enough out of the left field that it would attract attention, his age would draw attention, and then – much to Cid's disgust as he pointed it out – there was also his looks to take into consideration as well. Attractive people would always draw attention. Someone attractive doing an unusual, somewhat dangerous job that saved lives, and was, in fact, the one to spearhead and create the venture would be cause for sensation. Whether he liked it or not he was going to draw attention.

So he ordered some of Coctura's lovely food, slyly asking her if Nayvth had popped his fishy head up recently, she grinned and told him that the very fish she was cooking up for him had been caught by her uncle. He was always sending her weird and wonderful fish to experiment with. When the food arrived, he and Dino sat down properly and had their interview, then Lumen took him out to introduce him to Nimbus, his chocobo.

Turned out Concita wasn't as old as everyone had first assumed, she'd laid herself an egg about a year after Lumen first hit upon his idea. They had expected a fairly ordinary chocobo to hatch from the egg, so it was to great surprise when a little back head emerged instead of the expected yellow. Concita, the little snob, had hooked up with a wild black male after snubbing every single yellow male on the farm.

That had been Nimbus. Wiz had been so happy at the hatching of one of the endangered blacks he had ended up full on crying into Camille's shoulder for ten minutes straight while Lumen fed the little thing its first greens as Concita warbled happily in her nest. That seemed to cement the little black's opinion of Lumen because where-ever he went, the black tried to follow, and would get awfully noisy and troublesome when denied. When she was a chick it was easy to deal with, as she got bigger, it got harder to restrain her from following him out of the farm as he went around to set his work up.

It got to the point where she showed up unexpectedly during one night outside the Alster Coernix Station when he had been sleeping in the caravan for the night – and woke up to her tapping impatiently on the windows. He then had to deal with the slew of heartbroken texts from Wiz about how she had either spooked or found a male to her liking and run away from the farm, how he wished her the best but still worried, and if he saw her could he please send him an update? Lumen was pretty sure he was crying over the phone when he called to let him know she had come straight to him instead of running off into the wilderness never to be seen again. From that point on he had been forced to give up hitchhiking and start riding, and of course training her.

Nimbus was incredibly intelligent, and even though blacks weren't considered to be better stock than yellows, she definitely had the benefit of her mother's racing genes, and her wild father's hardiness. She was a very fast, and very tough bird. And, in Lumen's humble and completely unbiased opinion, the prettiest bird in all of Lucis as well.

Something he told her often, much to Dino's amusement when Lumen greeted her like usual – lavishing scratches and pets on her.

It was only right, in his opinion, to spoil her a little. During their drills she often sprinted half-way across Duscae with two people on her back, as well as through various monster dens with Lumen on her back wielding his mother's axe in one hand. An axe he had started to walk around with strapped to his back instead of in his crystalline pockets. He couldn't very well summon it out of nowhere during combat around his rescuees, and if people saw him running around without it one moment, and five minutes later he had it in hand, whether they saw him retrieve it or not, they would think it strange. Best not give them anything to get suspicious over. So he wore it brazenly for all to see. Dino asked him to flex a bicep, and, bewildered, he had done so. The reporter shook his head in a mixture of awe and disgust as he tried to wrap a hand around his arm and failed.

"I miss when yous were scrawny. Didn't make me feel quite so pathetic, y'know," he grumped before grinning. "Well, get that monster of an axe out and stand by the bird. I gotta take a picture if I'm gunna publish this."

Given how it was the first official interview piece regarding his efforts, he was very pleased to see the positive slant that Dino had put on the article when he found it emblazoned across a magazine cover in Lestallum. He got multiple texts from Holly and then later Dave when they got hold of their own copies – he could expect a few from Coctura, Cid, Cindy, and Vega once the issues began to circulate in Leide.

It was around then that the software aspect he had linked in with the hunters radios kicked in, and he found himself with more work than he knew what to do with.

After spending so long getting everything arranged, the change from set up to action was jarring.

Welcome, but jarring, and a little overwhelming to be honest.

Thank the Six for Nimbus' hardiness. He didn't think even Concita would have been able to keep up with the sudden jump in activity he suddenly had on his plate.

One moment he was rescuing a hunter from the ruins of Saxholm Outpost, hauling them to the outpost just to the north, the next he was racing for Astor Slough to rescue an idiot who thought he could tangle with a Catoblepas. He had to deal with a few 'test-runs' from several hunters who set their beacons off just to see how long it would take him to get to them. And how determined he was to get to them – one set his off inside Callaten's Plunge, forcing Lumen to sprint past the level sixty-three Jormandir serpent that had claimed the river fork.

He couldn't blame them for the test, but he did tell them that if they did it again they could very well kill someone who legitimately needed his help – if he was sprinting to them, so a non-issue, when someone else was in danger, he would be thoroughly pissed off, and set them to explaining to that person's family why they weren't coming home.

Despite being only fifteen, he apparently cut an intimidating enough figure to get the hunters to agree, that or they couldn't refute the logic in his argument. Though he had known many a stubborn hunter to throw logic out of the window in favour of proving themselves right even when everything around them said otherwise. Hunters were a bullheaded determined lot.

Six months into the change over, he found his popularity soaring entirely without his notice. Whenever he stopped off at an outpost, he had people coming over to thank him for saving their cousins, friends, siblings, partners, whatever. Diners offered him free food, tipsters detailed local hunts and hunters, telling him which ones were in what area – just in case, and motels often were willing to give him a free bed for the night.

Dino called him for another interview, and once that was done, he found himself being contacted by one of the local Duscaean radio stations for an on-air interview, which he was happy to provide in order to explain his efforts and everything that was going on, and advise motorists and others how best to contact him if they were in need, how to take care of themselves out on the road, and some basic survival tips that would increase their chances of staying alive long enough for him to reach him in the dark.

When money got tight, he found himself chocobo racing as he wasn't yet old enough for hunting. That was where he met his first girlfriend, and possibly his biggest mistake.

Invidia Vorax was only four years his senior, nineteen, and the daughter of the Cleigne motorcross race-track owner, a race-track that was also often used in chocobo racing now that the sport was seeing an increase in popularity. The Vorax family were rich, and influential, owning stocks in EXINERIS and Coernix, as well as owning hotels around various areas in Cleigne and Duscae. Lumen hadn't known any of this when the beautiful young woman approached him after a race to compliment him on his riding technique and heap a great deal of praise onto Nimbus – and, well, anyone who thought well of Nimbus was alright by him.

At the time, he'd thought Nimbus's dislike of Invidia touching her had just been because she was sweaty and tired after her race and wanted a bath and some greens. He should have paid more attention.

Looking back, it was probably safe to say it had been something of a whirlwind romance to an outside observer. Invidia had been the picture perfect girlfriend to Lumen who had been both younger, and painfully inexperienced in such matters as well as being semi-feral to boot. Their roles seemed to be completely reversed, the older teenager had done everything by the book but taking the boyfriend's role instead, she lavished him with expensive gifts, told him jokes, took him out to dinner at expensive diners he couldn't hope to pay for himself, declaring herself a strong independent woman and refusing to let him pay for her, listening to him when he spoke – for someone who had never met anyone with such nice manners (or clean hands), it was safe to say that Lumen had been both overwhelmed and easily taken in.

Enough so that the few comments here and there that would have thrown up red flags in his mind were not noticed. It started small, like always. Vidi expressing concern over his lack of sleep, how it must be impacting his health, encouraging him to take a nap here and there whenever he came over, cajoling him into sleeping in every now and again. Suggesting he perhaps take a step back from a situation that had him so hot under the collar and think twice about it, saying she would always support his decisions but that she didn't like how this person, or that person spoke to him, and how he deserved better.

She didn't push him sexually, at least, not for a long time. But whenever they went too far and Lumen pulled back, she would be so put out and upset, even while she said it was okay, that the fifteen year old felt wretched and awful every time. Until such a point that... even though he didn't want to... he didn't try to stop her one night, and Vidi got what she wanted. She wasn't rough or cruel about it. But Lumen gave in once, and – that clearly meant he wasn't opposed anymore, so Vidi started pushing him for more, and more.

What little time he had outside his Search and Rescue was eaten up by his girlfriend who, somehow without his realising, became one of the biggest parts of his life. And one of the most controlling. With his rescue operation taking off, Vidi offered to help him with paperwork and several other aspects, and desperate for the help, Lumen had agreed – and it seemed to work, he had some time freed up, but it was quickly eaten away by other things, like the advertising arrangements that Vidi had made on his behalf to raise funds for his work, slapping his name and image on products across Cleigne and Duscae, sending him off to radio interviews, dressing him up in fancy frog-suits and parading him around like a prized chocobo at black tie dinner events that her father hosted.

It wasn't until Lumen got injured on a job and found himself relegated to bedrest that it hit him.

He hadn't seen Dave in over half a year. Nor heard from Cindy or Cid, Holly, Wiz, Camille, or even Dino. None of them came to visit him either.

When he felt recovered enough to get out and about, though still not enough to take up work again, he tried to get back into contact with them – only to find that the numbers on his phone didn't work... in fact, looking at Dave's contact details, he realised the number was wrong. That meant all the messages he had sent his father that had gone unanswered in the last year were because he simply hadn't received them. He decided to take some time to go and visit his friends and family.

Invidia had not liked that. She had made arrangements for Lumen to do several talk-shows on the radio, join her father and her at the big motorcross event up at the Vesperpool, and the grand opening of their new race-track in Ravatogh. He had apologised, telling her he just didn't feel up to it, right now he only wanted to see his family.

That was when she hit him.

They had both seemed to be shocked by the incident, and, horrified, Vidi apologised profusely and had done everything in her power to try and make it up to him. Gave him gil, personally drove him to Lestallum to meet with Holly who practically squeezed the life out of him when she saw him.

She looked suspicious and doubtful when she heard about his phone troubles, but reprogrammed her number into his device. And then went a step further. With Invidia off dealing with her father, explaining that they would be absent, she bought him a second mobile phone, and told him to keep it secret from everyone.

"I know a thing or three about women. You ever need any advice? You come talk to me, okay sugar?" she whispered as she slid the device into his pocket, and planted a kiss on his forehead. "And tell Dave to grow a pair already and call me. I know I came on a little too strong, but he can't remain a hermit for the rest of his life, and this lady is lonely. Get me?" she added, a little louder, with a toothy grin as Lumen groaned in disgust.

"Holly! That's gross! He's my Dad!"

"What can I say? I'm attracted to responsibility," she teased, guffawing at the look of abject horror on his face.

He ended up calling Holly a lot in the next few months.

At seventeen, his relationship with Invidia had only gotten worse. She rarely ever hit him, but it did happen. Whenever Lumen was injured, or sick, she seemed more liable to physically lash out than before. It was something he admitted confused him when he spoke to Holly about it. He knew he was difficult to live with at times, hell, he knew Dave had wanted to wallop him more than once when he was younger, and his mother hadn't been shy about slapping him upside the head if she thought he needed it, it just confused him that Invidia only ever did it when he was unwell. It wasn't like she could actually hurt Lumen otherwise, he was pretty sturdy. Holly had gone awfully quiet and then suggested that maybe that was the point, and that she might be scared that Lumen would hit back if he were well, and, after all, Lumen was stronger than her despite being younger, and smaller.

"I would never!" he protested, stung at the very idea that he would be the kind of person who hit his partner.

"I know, sugar, you're a good kid. We love you, don't ever forget that," she assured him kindly, which, she had been saying that a lot. It made him happy to hear even if it seemed a little odd. Was she trying to convince herself, or him? He knew they loved him, even if Invidia found the lack of obvious contact between them as something of a snub. He wanted to tell her about the secret phone, but Holly had been pretty firm about keep it secret. Just in case he ran into a fan who got weird and stole his main phone.

In the end, the precaution was necessary.

She tried to cripple Nimbus.

He had woke up in the middle of the night to find the bed empty, and had a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. Holly's words circling in his head about how Vidi must have been scared he might leave her, hence why she was trying so hard to be useful, invaluable to him.

Then he heard Nimbus shrieking.

He was out of bed before his eyes had even fully adjusted to the darkness, barefoot, shirtless, he summoned his daggers from the Crystalline, and burst outside, skidding in the mud from the rain overheard, and straight into the paddock where Nimbus was shrieking.

"Vidi!" he yelled, spotting his girlfriend kneeling down beside his bird, trying to sooth her.

Her hands were covered in blood, and Nimbus' leg was torn open.

At that exact moment, no matter how much his instincts told him otherwise, he believed she was trying to help. That something had attacked his bird, something that could still be there, and attack his girlfriend as well. And then he saw the way she tried to hide something under her shirt, and saw how Nimbus tried to get away from her, but couldn't because of the hand she had clamped on the bird's leg – right at the bottom of the wound, pressing hard, and pushing. Forcing the blood out.

He felt cold, his skin crawled, and his ears began to ring.

"Get away from her."

"Lu-"

He pointed the dagger at her chin, and she snapped her mouth shut, those lovely brown eyes he had convinced himself that he loved these last two years widening. "Get. Away. From my Bird," he hissed through gritted teeth. "How dare you. You – what were you thinking, you disgusting – get out of my sight. Now!" he commanded.

"Lumen -" she tried again, desperate, her voice thick with the promise of tears as she jumped to her feet and reached out for him. The knife she'd used to cut Nimbus slipping out of her nightshirt to hit the ground. It was one of the serrated steak knives they had been eating off of that night, clean of their meal, left to dry in the kitchen. He felt cold. If she had successfully hidden it, he would have been absolutely none the wiser. She'd have just washed it up with their breakfast dishes and he would have carried on with life, worrying over Nimbus but believing her on the side of Angels.

"GET OUT!" he roared.

She jumped violently, and bolted, rushing back to the house, and he dropped the dagger to immediately go to his bird.

Nimbus crooned as he got to her, "Oh, Nim, I'm so sorry. I should have seen it sooner," he whispered as he stroked her head. She had never liked Indivia, tolerated her, but unless Lumen was there she was more liable to ignore or bite his girlfriend than deal with her. Well, ex-girlfriend now.

Careless as to whether or not she could see from the house, or whether or not she was even watching him, Lumen summoned an elixer from the Crystalline and applied it to the jagged tears in Nim's leg, watching in relief as the wounds healed over without a sign they had even been there.

As much damaged as a serrated knife could have done, Lumen made sure all his blades were incredibly sharp – a dull knife was the most dangerous to have in a kitchen. So really, serrated or not, it was an easy wound to fix.

If only the damage to his trust and heart were so easy.

He hadn't even waited for sunrise before he grabbed all of his things from the house, her house technically, and he left, stiffly telling her it was over and if she came near his chocobo again he would do what he had to in order to protect her. Invidia cried, begged him not to go, tried to threaten him with her father, tell him that she would pull her sponsorship, his contracts, when that didn't work she threatened to kill herself because she couldn't live without him. He knew full well she wasn't suicidal, she never had been, she wasn't even depressed.

"I can't raise our child alone! I'll die! I'd rather die than do it alone!" she'd screamed at his departing back. "Lumen! I'm pregnant! It's yours! Your baby! You can't DO this!"

That... had given him pause. But he knew full well she wasn't. It was something Wiz told him when he first started training Nimbus and saw how weird she acted around one of the customers. Chocobos knew when a woman was pregnant, often before she did. And Nim, no matter how much she disliked the human in question, she always displayed those same behaviours – grooming, presenting nesting materials, foraging food stuffs, and pulling her own down-feathers out to help pad the nest out for the egg.

He kept riding. Ignoring his ex screaming at his back about how much she hated him, and cursed him to the Infernal's Realm.

He called her father to tell him what happened, the man didn't believe him, Lumen told him it didn't matter if he believed it or not, he was done with Invidia, and would like his contracts with their family dissolved, he was cutting ties with the lying bitch who would not only attack his chocobo but also fake pregnancy and being suicidal to keep a relationship with him.

Then he called Holly to tell her what happened.

She told him to come to Lestallum immediately, and as soon as he arrived, he found himself whisked into a hug he hadn't realised he'd needed. A hug that... he was ashamed to admit, reminded him so much of his mother that he found himself bursting into tears and clinging to her for all he was worth – ignorant to the EXINERIS workers who had stopped to watch the spectacle, and just as quickly turned away to give them some privacy. She bundled him back into her apartment, called off work citing a family emergency, and called the others.

Dave arrived within the night, and Lumen woke up to find his father stroking his hair, and found himself in another bone-crushing hug, and another bout of tears as he explained everything.

He spoke to both Cid and Cindy on the phone, the young woman spitting mad and commanding her father to hold down the fort while she went to Duscae and beat some manners into the 'little bitch'. Holly told her to get in line in what was possibly the harshest tone of voice Lumen had ever heard out of her yet. Dave said nothing, just held him a little tighter and kissed his forehead.

"I'm sorry y'all had to deal with that, Firefly," his dad apologised softly, voice a comforting rumble in his ear as he curled up into him, head tucked under his chin against his chest.

Lumen leaned into him tiredly, "It – she wasn't – I don't know what happened. She's not... She's not that kind of person." She wasn't, she... couldn't be.

Dave was quiet for a moment before he rubbed the seventeen year old's arms comfortingly, and kissed his hair again, "Did y'all ever hit her?" he asked.

"Astrals, no! No, never! I would never! She's my girlfriend! Was... my girlfriend," he exclaimed, his voice dropping to a depressed murmur as he corrected himself.

"Y'all never hit her. So what makes it alright fer her t'hit you?" he asked flatly, and Lumen felt his breath hitch in his throat as he tried to answer, but...

"That's – that's different. She's a girl, I shouldn't – it – you can't hit girls," he tried to explain.

Dave chuckled, "I think yer momma would'a had something t'say on that. Several sumthin's. Y'all don't hold back against the huntresses y'spar against. What makes them so different?"

"They're trained. Vidi was... she was a lady, she doesn't know how to defend herself," he explained, nodding a little as he concluded this.

"But she's still yer girlfriend. If y'all can't hit her because'a that, what makes it okay fer her t'hit her boyfriend? Especially when he's younger'n her? Especially when he's sick, or injured. Iff'n it were me gettin' hit, or Cid, would that be alright?" Dave asked.

Lumen shook his head, feeling his stomach churn, "No, no, it wouldn't be! Dave, no! It's – not – that's different – you – she didn't –"

Dave shifted, and used a hand to turn his son's head to look him in the eye, "If y'all were a girl, and she were a fella, an' she still did everythin' that she did... would that be okay?"

He felt sick.

"No."

Dave hugged him tightly, pressing another kiss to his forehead as he started to cry again. He wasn't okay, not by a long shot but... he would get there. Eventually.

0000

Abuse isn't always physical violence, and yes, I firmly believe men can be physically, sexually, mentally, AND emotionally abused just as badly as women. Originally Invidia was going to be Angustus, a dude, but Rei pointed out it would be much more... effective to have it as a woman. She's not wrong. But yeah. Lumen's had a bit of a rollercoaster of a relationship with her.

NEXT CHAPTER IS THE CHOCOBROS