Chapter 7: Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Author's Note: It's been well over a year since I updated. Part of it was due to work, other part was because I quit work to go back to school, and the other part was getting all my transcripts and grades and entrance exams in place to get into nursing school (still working on that). For those who really have anticipated the next parts of this story, I can only say that I'm sorry for taking so long. If you're really interested in me adding more, please comment- it helps me see the level of interest in my completing this story that's been... what, three years in the making? Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
That night was the happiest I'd been in a long time. However, it was perhaps not my most honest moment. To think that we could have a traditional relationship was foolhardy of me.
Our lives are not our own; the the sooner he comes to terms with that, the more gentler will our term of duties be.
It is, indeed, not fair, but it is necessary. Instead of seeing this as a burden, I see it as an honor. Only us, born to this purpose can claim to have such noble cause to life and action.
Still… I would be lying if I said that at some level, deep within me, that I didn't yearn for the simple life.
Altissia has been good to me; her people are kind and smile brilliant smiles, her waters serene and her guardian potent and fearful They remind me of my purpose, but they also make me wishful of a quiet life on the water. I would wake at the dawn, and in the first hour, I would go out under an umbrella.
-an excerpt from the Oracle Lunafreya's journal, dated May 27th, 756
Noctis found himself on the cold, hard ground staring up at the starless sky, his vision foggy and unclear. The sound of rushing water filled the air, his face damp from a fine mist of water. There was the slightest smell of something burning in the air.
He remembered recalling his arms to defend against her magic, but then there was immense disorientation within the light, then he was flipped upside down and pulled and pushed and tossed—
Noctis stood up and vomited the two Lancets he had just drank earlier, still able to smell the strong Imperial Reserve in it as the liquid splashing onto the stone.
Behind him, he heard gagging sounds from his bride-to-be.
"What in the…" she said after wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
"Are you still alive over there?" Noct asked.
"Don't ask stupid questions, Noctis," she said, her voice quivering as she tried to suppress her gagging. She stood up on her own two feet only to lose her balance, with Noctis rushing to her side to support her. It seemed that whatever had whisked them away had hit them both with a solid dose of nausea.
She sniffed twice as he came into proximity. "Is… is that alcohol?" Lunafreya said.
"It's a long story."
"One I've already read. Drunken man physically confronts woman for being slighted, unable to deal with his inadequacies. Now, get off me," she said pushing him away.
"Wait, there's something on your back. It's… it's glowing."
In between Luna's shoulder blades was a burning bluish-white sigil. The marking was obvious in whom it was modeled after: the serpentine figure of Leviathan. It was probably fair to assume that his own back was glowing with the same sigil.
"Gods. Leviathan knew. The blessing—it's a sigil on your back."
"Great. I can't wait to drown," Luna said as she dusted herself off. "Or, maybe you'll strangle me before she gets the chance, hmm?"
Noctis immediately realized that now was as good a time as any to offer an apology. Especially if they were about to buy the farm.
"Alright, alright. I'm sorry."
"Are you, though? I mean, really sorry? I don't think so."
Noctis' anger flared, but this time, he was able to rein it in. Instead of speaking further, he clenched his teeth and tried to take hold of his surroundings.
He held his hand out to summon one of his tools, a lamp, to light the way—only to find that nothing came. He checked his cell phone—no signal, and perhaps just as bad, the battery was at 30%.
"Can you summon your Trident?" Noctis asked.
"Why? Can't get your sword up?" Luna taunted.
There was something so strange and out of character for Luna to say that Noctis simply couldn't process it. It was completely beyond expectation that he didn't have any answer for the behavior he was encountering.
"This is serious," Noctis said, trying to refocus the conversation and himself, "I can't summon any of my weapons or tools, I don't have a signal, and we have been sent to gods know where. This could be Leviathan's idea of a punishment."
Lunafreya held her hand out as if to summon her Trident, but the weapon did not come. "Oh," she said. "That's… impossible. We carry them with us at all times, it's bound to our own blood. How…?" she wondered.
"I'm sure it has something to do with Leviathan."
Luna rolled her eyes. "Of course it does. I'm asking what the mechanisms behind it—" she sighed, exasperated. "Never mind. What else do you see here?"
Noct took that as a sign that they were, for the time being, putting their differences behind them to make it out of this strange place.
"Nothing yet. Gimme a second." Noctis activated his phonelight. Although his initial instinct was to preserve its power, they had to get a clear grasp of their surroundings first—although at the very least, Noctis wanted to just make sure that he wasn't going to inadvertently step off into some abyss.
The room that they were in appeared to be largely obfuscated by mist that was only made worse by the whiteout caused through the phonelight. The sound of distant waterfalls all around them made it clear that they were at the bottom of some some sort of well or valley, and the mist perhaps originated from the water separating towards the bottom. There was light from far above, but against the mist, it was only enough for them to make out each other in the dark. The air was cold, and dry, but not frigid.
"I can't see anything," he said, shaking his head. "It's just so dark in here."
Noctis reached out with his hands and carefully walked forward to find a curved wall, just behind the mist. Walking along it, it didn't take long for him to realize that they were in a circular room with no observable entrance or exit.
"The sigil— I can see it on your back, too," Luna said from behind him. "I can just barely see it through your shirt, but I can see it."
"What? Really?" Noctis said. "What do you think it means?"
Luna appeared to be deep in thought as he turned around to look at her. "Leviathan said: 'Each of you holds half of the key to my benefaction…' Give me your hand," Luna ordered.
Noctis warily extended his right hand, palm facing up, and Luna placed hers right over his. Without her Trident, she would ultimately be hard pressed to actually injure him, but he found himself hesitant nonetheless.
Her hands were small compared to his; they were smooth and cool to the touch. The physical contact sent a spark up his spine, which he suppressed before she could notice. Luna closed her eyes and breathed deep, even breaths.
They stood in the same position for almost a minute before Noctis opened his mouth to speak.
Luna cut him off before a word could come out. "Shh. I'm concentrating, trying to activate the sigils. That's probably the way out of this mess."
"Is…there anything I can do?"
"Be quiet so I can concentrate," she said tersely.
Noctis remained still and quiet, and spent his involuntary capture moving his eyes around the room. The atmosphere was thick, both with tension and humidity. Just by standing there, water was already collecting on his arm. His eyes traced from his own arm over to her hand over his, up her own arm, over to her shoulder, her dress' strap, her defined (and strangely attractive) collarbones, up to her face, noting her closed eyes and unbound hair falling around her shoulders. It was a good look on her.
His gaze slowly dropped to her neck, where his eye caught a slowly descending droplet that glided down the muscles of her neck, and down, down, towards the valley…
Noctis caught himself returned his gaze back to her face. He smiled to himself. Eyes up here, Noctis, he told himself, trying to find some humor in the situation. A short chortle escaped his nose.
"What are you laughing at?" Luna asked, her eyes still closed.
"Your hair looks better when it's down," Noctis said simply.
"It gets in the way when I'm working," Luna said. "Now try to stay quiet, please. I'm trying to get this thing working."
Noctis spent the next few quiet minutes just appreciating her face. When Lunafreya finally opened her eyes, she caught his gaze and frowned before breaking contact and looking away. "I can't get it to work," she said.
"I assume you're trying to get this 'two halves' thing to work?"
Luna sighed. "Yes. Although Leviathan could not be more vague on how to get it to work, I think I've tried everything to get the magic moving, but it's as if there's nothing there."
"If we can't even summon access the Crystal Tools, it would make sense that we can't even summon the magics that Leviathan's given to us." Luna shook her head. "It must be some sort of magical suppression field, but something this strong, we'd see it and we'd feel it, too."
"Okay, so if we can't use our tools or weapons and we can't use magic, then that means we just have to rely on ourselves."
The two of them proceeded to reexamine the entire room again, to make sure that there was nothing missing during Noctis' initial search. To their disappointment, they only further verified that the room was in fact, without any form of obvious exit aside from the open roof, which was still blocked by grating. The floor and walls were featureless and smooth, which gave them no purchase to climb out.
"Okay, let's think about this rationally. What could this room possibly be for? I'm thinking we're still in Altissia, because of all the water, but what else could this place be?"
"A prison would be a good guess," Noctis said. "Maybe some sort of solitary confinement."
"I've seen rooms as spare as these before, although not built in this particular fashion. It reminds me of the meditation chambers of the ascetic monks of Sohmheim. The monks are sealed away and are left to die as they attempt to achieve the Vision."
"I thought that was at the Angelgard Conservatory?"
"Angelgard has been abandoned for centuries, Noctis."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they didn't have meditation chambers."
Luna's brow furrowed and her jaw dropped slightly, astonished. "Are you really being a contrarian right now?"
"I'm just saying—"
"Duly noted," Luna said, turning away from Noctis. "You aren't any help at all."
Noctis opened his mouth to say that he was sorry, but stopped when he realized that it wouldn't help. "Look," he started, "I'm trying to be useful here, just offering different perspectives."
Luna's face softened, perhaps acquiescing to the reason behind his words. If she did recognize his intention, she didn't say anything about it. "Angelgard is the older and mother of the Temples of the Six Astrals, and given the very orthodox nature of the monks, I doubt that there would be much difference in practice."
Noctis had to admit, he didn't know that much about the Hexatheon.
"If," Lunafreya continued, "this is in fact a facsimile of such a meditation chamber, then it is reasonable to think that we might, really, truly, be fucked."
The both of them sat in silence, completely dumbfounded as to their next course of action.
"Well, if we can't get out, then we need to let others know that we're here. What else do you know about these chambers? Could they be close to any public space?"
"Not as far as I'm aware. Noctis, these meditation chambers are meant to be far, far from distraction, to induce boredom and force one to focus internally."
"Maybe… maybe that's the thing? Maybe we're just supposed to do just that?"
"What, meditate until we die from starvation? That's quite the plan. I imagine this as a punishment from Leviathan. A misuse of the powers of our office."
"I guess the optics of the either of us fighting wasn't exactly the best thing."
Luna chuckled. "I suppose that we should thank our lucky stars that we didn't do that in the middle of the day, at least, but the people will know something's up by the scurrying of our security details… oh."
Luna seemed to have come to the same realization as he did.
"What if things go wrong and they think that either side had something to do with our disappearances?" Noctis asked.
With tensions so strong after the daemon attack, their disappearance, would be interpreted as an abduction by either side. Both knew that before long, hostilities would emerge again; a peace to a 150-year war could reignite if they were not there to quell the fires.
"We have to get out of here as soon as possible," Luna said.
"Well, the question then, is how?" Noctis said.
"Less complaints, more solutions. Think, Noctis. You're more trained on these more… physical things. Could we somehow climb up, get through the grate?"
For the next fifteen minutes, they discussed and executed various plans to escape their spontaneous captivity: one option involved hooking their arms in a back-to-back climb, but the diameter of the room was too large and its walls to slick to gain any traction. Another involved Luna trying to see how high the walls went by climbing into Noctis' shoulders, only to find that they seemed to continue beyond the reach of her fingers. Eventually, their efforts devolved into screaming into the dark, or trying to kick down the wall. Noctis ended up trying to parkour up the walls before falling; no matter how many times he tried, he could never go higher than six or seven feet.
"I'm out of ideas," Noctis said, sitting down with his back to the wall, panting. "You?"
Lunafreya sat opposite him at the other side of the chamber. "I'm out of ideas as well."
They sat in silence, tired and weary from their fruitless struggles over the past hour.
"You know," Noctis said, the sound of the waterfalls triggering his memory, "I still can't believe we actually fought Leviathan. Well, I mean, we fought her familiars, but still. I honestly never thought she'd wake to the likes of us, or, perhaps, the likes of me," Noctis said, hoping that a little self deprecation would relieve the tension between them.
Luna's sigh echoed in the cell. "Noctis...I suppose you just don't understand, do you?"
Noctis shrugged. "I guess. Mind helping me out?"
"When we went in front of the Hydrean, I knew that there was a possibility that we would offend her sensibilities. I thought that more than likely she would remain indifferent to us, as she had been to all of the other Oracles and Chosen of Light before us, but…"
"Right. She said something to us before trying to drown us. You said that she was… well, mad, but what did she say, exactly?"
Luna pulled her knees up to her chest. "Mmm. She spoke in the tongue of the Astrals. Something along the lines of disgust about a heresy from ages ago. I didn't understand her either, to be honest, but the fact that she was angry was utterly clear." Luna closed her eyes and shivered. "Gods, it's cold. This mist is not helping."
Noctis was still relatively dry, but that was thanks to the jacket he was wearing. Luna, on the other hand, was just wearing a dress that exposed her shoulders to the water and the cool air; no doubt the chill was sapping her strength.
"Look, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, but I'm going to come over there and put this jacket around the both of us. This cold isn't good for the either of us alone, but together, we'll do better, keep our body heat from being lost, and keep our energy stores up."
Luna glowered at Noctis for a brief moment. "I know," she said, before closing her eyes and resting her head against her knees.
Warily, Noctis rose to his feet, taking off his jacket. Once the sleeves of the warm outerwear left his skin, he found that the cell was even colder than he had thought initially. He went without protest to her side. Her skin was frigid and damp, and she was shivering quite intensively by the time he got over to her. Using the inner lining of the jacket to help dry her off, Noctis then draped his jacket over their shoulders, sitting close enough to be slightly squashed up against her under the jacket.
"Thanks," Lunafreya said simply.
"No problem," Noctis said.
The cold made him drowsy, and he closed his eyes to try to sleep.
"I apologize for shouting at you. It wasn't a fair exchange."
Noctis' eyes jerked open, keeping his gaze straight forward. He'd been thinking about this conversation for some time, but didn't expect her to start it.
"I suppose I was at fault, ultimately. This all boils down to what happened during the daemon attack, right?" Noctis admitted.
Noctis watched her play with a button on his jacket as she answered. "Well, yes, but there were… less antagonistic ways to go about it. I knew that then, and I know it now. I wanted to say I'm sorry for that. It wasn't right of me. Hardly diplomatic."
"And I wanted to say I'm sorry as well. Suggesting, err, saying that you were weaker than me or that we did more or less in the defense of Altissia— well, I've learned that everyone has a role in a fight, and if we all do our jobs, everyone comes home, and that's good enough. No one is better than someone else, we just have different talents and skills, and I know that if you and Gentiana weren't there, we would've had a lot more casualties that night."
Lunafreya stayed quiet. Noctis' eyes wandered from the opposite wall down to her fingers, still twiddling with the button. Although slender, they did seem worn, with several calluses along her palm. There were some mild scars from cuts along her fingers. They were old scars, and Noctis was frankly surprised that he could identify them in the dim lighting.
"And," Noctis continued, "I'm sorry that I jumped into action so quickly, without regard for my station or my greater responsibilities. I was... impatient, and I understand that now. And, to be honest, I did want to…" he trailed off. He had to be honest here. "...impress you."
Luna chuckled. "Impress me? Why? As far as masculinity goes, you're not even close to bad. There's not many people who can say they're the heir to the throne of Lucis and hold in their bloodline the Power of Kings—the ultimate bachelor."
Noctis felt really, really good and fuzzy after she said that.
With a smile, he spoke on. "You know, I...I thought about you a lot. Before Altissia. Before the end of the war. No matter what I did, I couldn't pass a week without your face in my head. I thought a lot about growing up, being a better person; being a better me, so that I could be a better person for you. I mean… I'd crushed on you since we were kids, but you probably knew that. I was hoping against all hope to see you again. Then, all these years pass, and I'm told that the war is coming to an end—and that I'm to be married to the Oracle. I guess...the reason I did what I did was because I was desperate for you to accept me. You were an ideal in my mind that just kinda grew out of control."
Noctis kept his gaze ahead, waiting for Luna to speak.
After a while, Noctis could feel the jacket shift as she pulled it further over herself. "Are you in the habit of saying extraordinarily embarrassing things like that?"
Noctis, tempted to look at the Oracle, resisted, for the sheer sake of getting everything he wanted to say out of his head.
"Well…This situation isn't looking good for us. I haven't the slightest idea of how to get out of here, and… Beyond all of this, I wanted to be honest. I… I don't often have the opportunity to be honest. I mean, I have my friends, I have my father… but they're not you. You know, that evening on the water, that little dinner between the two of us? I had— have, so much to say."
Luna sighed. "You must have water on the brain."
Noctis turned to look at Luna, whose head was still resting on her knees, her face hidden from his scrying eyes. "Are you going to say that what we shared those two days wasn't real?" the Prince asked sincerely.
Listening to him say those words was like a flashback to those super sappy romance movies…that he was forced to watch, yes.
It was Noctis' turn to squirm where he sat. "After Tenebrae fell, I promised myself that I wouldn't ever be so weak again. Of course, saying that and actually carrying it out were different things. I eventually went from full of purpose to just trying to stay as far from the role of Prince as possible I wanted wanton strength, but not the strings that came with it, so I just shut myself off from the role entirely. But, even if I didn't ask for it, I would be ultimately responsible for my actions, or inactions. I learned that when I was playing hooky one day. Even though I was still a boy then, the King thought it necessary that I begin to learn the hardships of duty. Thus, I was tasked with watching a section of the wall around Insomnia, part of my military training. Daemons had been sending raiding parties more frequently, as it was midwinter. I abandoned my post on the wall and headed to a small pond that liked to fish at. The guy watching over me at the time, Max— was stuck watching over two sections of the wall, mine and his, and he was too afraid of what I could do to his pension if I decided that he was too annoying, so he never reported me to the King.
"Two hours into my fishing trip, I hear the alarm get put out. Daemon attack at section-whatever-they-were-hitting-that-night. But, this time, it was inside the city, just past my assigned section. A family; husband, wife, and three kids, all dead. By the time the Night Guard got to them, it was too late. By the time I got there, they had already cordoned off the area and were running the second sweep-and-clear. The bodies were covered up. Everyone knew it was me, but didn't want to make eye contact. That is, until the King arrived. He knew exactly what had happened. He grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the bodies, and tore the sheets off of them. Whatever you're imagining is probably what happened.
"'Look at what you've done!' I remember him telling me. 'This is what your complacency, your sheer aversion to responsibility has cost.' I remember his voice so clearly, it was like thunder. I remember turning my face away. He slapped me and grabbed my head from behind and forced me to look. 'Stand there and realize what you've done,' he said, and walked away."
Noctis' gaze had slowly descended to the space between his feet, the shift in his gaze unbeknownst to him during his recollection.
"From that day on, I really knew what the true price of weakness was. It wasn't just losing someone close to me, but completely innocent people, who, in the process going about their own lives, ending up losing their own due to my failure. Those following years, Gladio was assigned as my trainer, and was given every authority short of death and dismemberment to whip me into shape. Ignis was assigned to help me learn statecraft and sharpen my mind. I had a lot of hatred and resentment, but they helped me focus myself through those emotions, compartmentalize it in order for me to do my job."
Noctis then turned to Luna, her face still buried in her lap.
"So when I saw you out there on the Altar of the Tidemother, all those years of training and learning, and focus went out of the fucking window. I saw you and all I could think about was how much I missed you, and how keeping you close was the most important thing to me. That's why I have to be honest, because I don't know if you'll be taken from me again like then. I don't know if I'll have a second chance, so I'm trying to put it out, all out on the table."
Luna came to her feet and quickly walked across the small room, keeping her back to him, Noctis noting the Tidemother's sigil still glowing gently. When she turned, she turned with eyes closed, and a trembling, yet somewhat calm demeanor.
"I… I am not ready to be honest with you, in the way that you are with me," she said, her eyes still closed, but still looking in his direction. "Yes, what I told you that night in the Seventh Heaven was true, but…I'm not ready to tell you these things yet. I can't."
She grimaced, as if conflicted as to how much she could say and couldn't. "But I also know that I don't want to be alone anymore. I just…I just don't want to be alone anymore, but I don't know how to be with someone like you. I just know how to be with my subjects and the common folk and other members of nobility; I can adapt to anything, be anyone that I need to be. But you—you're completely different, and I don't know what to do with that," she said, her fists shaking in the air in frustration, her eyes squeezed shut.
Noctis had come to his feet by this point, but had nothing to say.
"But… it's good to know that you're a good person," Lunafreya said. "I'm glad to know that you've matured since our last days in Tenebrae."
Luna opened her eyes for a moment, avoiding contact with his own, and instead searching back and forth for something else to say on the ground.
"That night, I was truly, really, happy. It was like all the pieces had fallen into place. You had grown into a wonderful person, and I— I felt like I could start over again, and have the strength to do it."
Her eyes met his, and Noctis' feet moved him forward of their own accord. Luna also did the same, the distance between the both of them slowly closing.
"I think," Noctis began, "that you're a good person. And that no matter what's happened in your past, no matter what you've done… I think you're still a good person. And, I know that being the Oracle and Princess of Tenebrae leaves a great deal on your shoulders, and you'll make mistakes, whatever they may be. Gods know I've made plenty of them, and they've cost me and others a great deal, but…"
They could now feel each other's breath. Now, standing so close together, Noctis saw that without her heels, she was almost a full head shorter than he was. He felt the urge to protect, to wrap his arms around her and keep her close, forever.
The desperate stare in her eyes as she looked up into his was a desire, no, a need to trust, but she was stopping right before the decision.
"I… I do really… like you, Noctis," she said, slowly squeezing the words out of her mouth. "But I can't let you take precedence over my people, and I don't know how I could even reconcile that. I don't know how I could do both. I saw that when you jumped into the fight."
Noctis slowly brought his arms up and wrapped them around her. A risky move, but one that Lunafreya didn't seem to mind.
"I promise—"
Luna shook her head. "Promises are for the commonfolk. We cannot make those kinds of promises to each other, Noctis; not if we're being honest."
She spoke the truth. Promises were made to the people to assuage their fears, to bring hope to the future. For those who made those promises, though, they often knew better; that the world was an uncertain place, that even with all the right moves, they could still break that promise.
Noctis sighed. "You're right. Then, I will do my best to not make you have to choose. I'll… try to keep the stupidity to a minimum."
Luna laughed, that brilliant, scintillating laugh that echoed through their prison, the laugh that he hadn't heard since that night, the laugh that was the voice of the gods in his ears.
"And I will do my best, to one day tell you everything that I can't."
Luna wrapped her arms around his chest and together, they pulled each other closer.
"You know, I never had you pegged for these big gestures," Luna said into his shoulder. "You were always so timid when you were younger; and you also had a difficult time pronouncing things," she said, referring to his childhood difficulty to call her by her full first name.
"Well, would you like me to call you Lunafreya?"
Noctis could feel her lips smile against his chest. He hoped that she couldn't feel or hear his heart threatening to beat out of his chest. "No. Only you can call me Luna. At least, in private company."
"Deal."
"Wait," Luna said. There was a slosh of water as she moved away from him.
Noctis looked down to see that water was now flowing from the top of the walls and falling into the cell.
In a minute, the water had already climbed up to their waists.
Unless they could find a way through the grating that covered the top of the cell, they were about to drown.
